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Waves in Saturn's rings give precise measurement of planet's rotation rate - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-saturn-precise-planet-rotation.html
======
pmalynin
Question for the astrophysicists: is Jupiter’s high mass and rotation rate
sizable enough to detect and measure frame drag on the rings?
~~~
matteocantiello
The Schwarzschild radius of Saturn is 3 *(Msat/MSun) km ~ 0.85 m, so it's much
smaller than Saturn Radius ~ 6x10^7 m. As such, I believe any GR effect is
probably absolutely negligible at the location of Saturn's rings.
~~~
pmalynin
Well even in earths orbit GR is not negligible, say even for the purposes of
GPS
------
lapitopi
Amazing that the idea was first suggested in a PhD thesis, even before we
could observe the rings directly!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Australia to seal off 6.6M people in virus-hit state as outbreak worsens - finphil
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/asia/australia-victoria-coronavirus-intl-hnk/
======
codezero
For larger nations I think we’ll be seeing more regional lockdowns in the
coming months.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Should You Do A Startup? I Have No Idea - diego
http://diegobasch.com/should-you-do-a-startup-i-have-no-idea
======
tferris
The reasons doing a startup are totally irrelevant. For some it's money, for
other power, status, passion or whatever. It's not important _why_ you do a
startup. These are just drivers and they are good because they push you to
start—push you beyond your boundaries. Are these the right reasons? Nobody
cares.
_It's important just to do something, to start and to carry on._
Even if it will get very hard it's the most satisfying experience you'll never
regret—you learn, you do, you make decisions. Looking back every single day I
spent as an employee was a waste of time.
~~~
sparknlaunch12
Slightly disagree.
Yes, doing a startup for the wrong reasons is totally reckless and will end in
tears. Chasing money and fame its a recipe for failure.
However taking the risk on startup without a reason or purpose will equally
end badly.
Starting a startup is hard therefore you need to accept reality and pursue a
purposeful reason.
~~~
tferris
Even if you do a startup for 'wrong' reasons like chasing money and fame at
least _you did something_ , hell you learned something and made mistakes.
That's what's all about! What's the alternative? Staying employed and missing
all your life?
It's the experience, it's the way and not the goal.
Discussions around doing or not doing a startup are just excuses for oneself
to not start something because it's not the right idea, not the right time,
not the right co-founders, not the right setup and suddenly these people are
50, missed everything and are full of fear loosing their crappy job.
~~~
sparknlaunch12
Why cannot one gain the experience by pursuing something for purposeful
reasons rather than 'just for the hell of it'?
Lessons learned and battle scars are important but why not make it meaningful?
~~~
DavidAbrams
Like what?
~~~
sparknlaunch12
Definitely not against building a startup. However instead of building another
photo sharing social media site why not build a better way to raise money for
charity, or solve a difficult problem in your field of expertise.
Why kill yourself for five years on a problem or pursuit you are not 100%
passionate about?
~~~
paulhauggis
"Why kill yourself for five years on a problem or pursuit you are not 100%
passionate about?"
I will kill myself for 5 years on those ideas once I've made money with a
photo sharing type idea.
------
jandrewrogers
People who genuinely have the psychological characteristics that would make
them ideally suited for a startup are unlikely to care if other people think
they should do a startup.
People that would not do a startup because they are told "don't do a startup"
are precisely the people that should not be doing a startup. The details of
the argument against doing a startup almost do not matter.
~~~
larrys
I agree with you but it also depends on the particular person and their
background also. For example I did a "startup" and succeeded right out of
college. But I had always done business things on the side. And I came from a
business family. So it was second nature to me when it came time to start
something and I had plenty of confidence and it was encouraged by my family
(not directly "go do it" but by the lack of negativity.) Had I come from a
family of, say, educators or scientists, I don't think it would be the same.
Unless of course there was some external reason they were supportive (reading
about it or knowing another child of a friend that succeeded or other
evidence). Only one example of course but I remember at the time my gf's
mother cringing at what I told her I was going to do (after graduating from
Wharton no less).
If you've traveled the world (I haven't) you are definitely going to feel more
comfortable picking up and just going to another foreign city. You feel
confident about that even if you, in general, lack confidence. I'm sure I
would have more anxiety than you would even with my confidence that might
cause me not to take that journey.
I do agree with the "told don't do a startup" and listening most likely don't
have the personality to overcome many of the obstacles that are involved.
------
mryan
"As for the ones that have gotten to that sort of scale, it is open for debate
whether they've changed the world at all, and, if they have, whether they've
done so in a way that is meaningful or has improved the circumstances of
mankind."
This sums up my problem with the whole 'change the world with your startup'
philosophy. What does 'change the world' even mean? It is a fluffy, nebulous
term - the startup thinker's equivalent of 'increasing synergy by leveraging
strategic partnerships'. If you like that flavour of Kool Aid, great, drink
up!
Github has changed the world by making it easier to find and share interesting
code. Balsamiq has changed the world by making it easier to create mockups. I
want to change the world by making it easier to run your own game server [0].
None of these things will go down in history as revolutionary, life-changing
ideas at a global scale. But they can improve the lives of a subset of
humanity, while letting their owners solve interesting problems and
(hopefully) earn a living at the same time. That, to me, is a good enough
reason to do a startup.
0 - shameless plug: <http://www.cloudfrag.com>
------
stephengillie
If you have to ask, then the answer is no. If you _know_ the answer is yes,
then the answer _is_ yes.
~~~
diego
That's one of those phrases that somehow rings true. However, you may be
surprised by the number of "accidental" startup founders who turned out to be
successful.
------
tdr
I think the idea behind "don't do a startup" is to warn and discourage people
that want to do it because it's cool.
The fundamentals behind starting a startup should be orders of magnitude
stronger than that. You'll know if you got them.
While I think the startup experience should be tried by anyone (and by the
way, I don't think startup life sucks, but it is hard), I hope it won't turn
into an international trend where every "social" site equals a multi-million $
business.
~~~
diego
By the same token, why bother discouraging people? It's the same as saying
"stay in school, don't do drugs. Don't try to be a rockstar like me." There's
only so much need for startups and so much money to go around. To me, the
original article was just an excuse for this guy to "humblebrag."
~~~
tdr
That's why I said it should be tried by everybody: you learn a lot. Most
likely "the hard way".
But nothing good can come out when people jump into it without a proper
preparation & plan.
------
sundeep_b
I too got the same feeling that who is this guy to tell me not to do a
startup? Worse, he also says what I should do(go to banking/finance where I
can make money or keep collecting paychecks). Hell, I love writing code and
building stuff compared to doing banking. So, if I ever earn something, I will
try to get it by building something.
Thinking again - he's had a successful startup and no doubt a hell lot of
people ask him advice and all these points he gave are for those kind of
people. Though he didn't highlight it, he said not to do it for the wrong
reasons. Right and wrong are sometimes relative, right? Anyways, apart from
this advice and he calling the Evernote a second brain, the other info about
how he saw confidence in his business and how important it is for customers to
stay than pay were really useful. Unfortunately people are talking more about
the beginnings than endings. May be he's fed up with a lot of people asking
for advice and this is how he publicly declared his answers for such people.
------
lazerwalker
When I was considering a career as a musician and actor in middle school and
high school, there's a piece of advice I was given many, many times by my
mentors and teachers: "Only pursue a career in the performing arts if you
can't see yourself being happy doing anything else. It's hard. You will face
countless rejections, and even after that you'll most likely never make it
big. But if you can't see yourself being happy do anything else, go for it."
If you think you could be just as happy working for a large company, you
should probably go do so. Entrepreneurship is tough, and if you can find
satisfaction from a job that doesn't have the monumental downsides that doing
a startup does, you're probably better off steering clear. If that's not the
case, and if for whatever reason you can't imagine yourself working anywhere
other than a startup, do it. Don't feel like you need to tell people that
they're doing it for the wrong reasons, or that you need to justify your own
reasoning to those sorts of people.
------
sherwin
I think the original article (the talk by Phil Libin) was targeted for a more
general audience, which qualifies his suggestion not to do a statup. Libin
writes:
"I’ve narrowed it down, really boiled it down, to one core piece of advice. If
I can only say one thing, and I don’t know you any better, it’s: don’t. Don’t
do it. Seriously."
The key part here is "If I can only say one thing, and I don't know you any
better" -- for MOST people, starting your own company is not a good idea!
Especially if you'd be doing it for any of the misconceptions that Libin
outlines.
However, it is odd that Libin chose such an approach given that he was
speaking at a conference with a big emphasis on web start ups.
~~~
tferris
Libin chose this topic in order to provoke, to get press and attention for
Evernote.
~~~
Aftershock21
May be he meant as a sarcasm given the success of Evernote!
~~~
sundeep_b
Sarcasm? Only from that talk, I don't think he has it that much. It felt like
he was talking expecting laughs from the audience, but, he was able to get
quite a few towards the end.
------
DodgyEggplant
One thing I'll tell you: the decision will not be easier next year.
~~~
Estragon
That's interesting. What are you expecting to change?
~~~
wsc981
I guess what he means is every year you'll be more settled in your current
situation. And if things change (getting a steady relation, kids, buying a
house, earning more money), the choice is harder to do a start-up.
------
tehayj
I do startups because I like the challenge and like to show others that I can
dominate the system and run things with little effort involved.
I dropped out of a regular job in a design company after half a year and will
never return to something like that.
For me a startup is a challenge to do things better, smarter than established
companies.
------
flavien_bessede
"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"
~~~
diego
About it tell me. Unless rugby you're playing.
------
Schwolop
Phil says the only valid reason to do a startup is to "change the world."
Phew. I'm doing it for the right reasons after all.
~~~
DavidAbrams
Same. The world's population of rich fuckers will be +1.
------
kamweti
it takes two years to start a company
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3110632>
you can do it too <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBCz9XE57LY>
------
fara
Should you? Indextank was a great product, but the exit was to work for the
big boss again.
~~~
diego
It's significantly different though. I can't go into much detail, but being an
acquired founder is not the same a being a hired employee.
------
maz29
Hey, i'm really interested in reading this but the site is down. Thanks!
------
DavidAbrams
Yeah, I like taking this advice from a company that had no business model, no
revenue, and nothing to do with "changing the world."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the most challenging pages to scrape? - gbajson
======
randomerr
Try PWA based one. Since they load in segments and cache a lot you'll have
fun:
[https://pwa.rocks/](https://pwa.rocks/) \- Look at the business and news
webpages
Also look for the website that use AMP. They're even more fragmented then PWA
pages. Below is article about AirBNB using AMP and iFrames:
[https://medium.com/swlh/how-airbnb-is-putting-amp-at-the-
cor...](https://medium.com/swlh/how-airbnb-is-putting-amp-at-the-core-of-its-
digital-strategy-d6b9cf1fc0ad)
[https://www.ampproject.org/](https://www.ampproject.org/)
------
gbajson
I am looking for pages which are difficult to scrape, to see the applied
techniques, and to learn how to bypass them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
DC Police Department monitors gunshots with acoustic rooftop sensors - _pius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/shotspotter-detection-system-documents-39000-shooting-incidents-in-the-district/2013/11/02/055f8e9c-2ab1-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html
======
tokenadult
This system has been used in Minneapolis for a while already, and you can view
the maps of local gunshots detected by the system.[1] Once in a while, the
police have to test the system with police gunshots to calibrate the
microphone network.[2] ShotSpotter appears, based on the experience of
Minneapolis, to have rather limited usefulness for deterring or prosecuting
gunshot crimes. But maybe it aids prevention of crime if police respond to
where the gunshots are usually fired with preventive patrols.
[1] [http://www.minneapolismn.gov/police/statistics/crime-
statist...](http://www.minneapolismn.gov/police/statistics/crime-
statistics_codefor_shotsfired)
[2]
[http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/224931852.html](http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/224931852.html)
~~~
viraptor
Looking at the ShotSpotter reports... this is crazy. I was aware that some
shootings happen, but it seems like Minneapolis has 4-5 shootings per week on
average. Really depressing idea. 4-5 in a year would probably be a high number
for my area (in the UK though).
~~~
ledge
I came here to post the same links to the Minneapolis PD ShotSpotter page.
What's more depressing is that nearly all the shootings are concentrated in a
few North Minneapolis neighborhoods. I've hung out in those neighborhoods a
lot and I would hear gunshots, see shot-out street lights, etc. especially at
night.
Crime is way down in Minneapolis since the mid-1990s though, apparently in
1995 North Minneapolis blocks had the highest rate of violent crime per capita
in the nation.
Looking at this table of murders by city internationally, it should be pretty
obvious what all these locations have in common...
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate)
------
bluedino
Saginaw, Michigan has been using the shotspotter for years. It's a huge joke
in the community. It doesn't even work most of the time.
Allegedly there are plenty of ex-police chiefs and such involved with this
company, and government grants pay for the installation of the product. It
lets authorities know, i n theory, when and where gunshots occur. That's it.
It's not tied into some Hollywood satellite video system where two seconds
after a gun is fired, the aftermath and fleeing suspects are caught on tape.
It doesn't even produce any evidence that can be used in court.
~~~
corresation
It is disturbing that a city of 50,000 would need something like this.
In any case, all the advocates of the system claim is that it "lets you know
when and where a gunshot occurs". That's it. I see no one claiming more, yet
can appreciate how knowledge when and where a gunshot occurs can be useful to
law enforcement.
~~~
Wingman4l7
> It is disturbing that a city of 50,000 would need something like this.
It's sad that a police department of a city of 50,000 is using the purchase of
such a system to justify their budget.
------
sillysaurus2
Do you think ShotSpotter paid a PR agency to get this article published?
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
(Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm just curious.)
~~~
eli
It's certainly possible -- I guess you could email the author and ask whether
he was pitched the idea or not -- but the article says the data came from a
public records request and the analysis was done by the Post. I don't think
you can jump to conclusions any way.
------
Anechoic
Previous discussion about acoustic gun detection systems:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4034528](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4034528)
------
rickybobby1321
I have never seen these on the roof, however, I have seen them posted on
telephone poles and light posts all throughout Chinatown
[http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2009/0213/1.jpg](http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2009/0213/1.jpg)
~~~
brk
That just looks like a "standard" camera box. Probably some kind of little NVR
in it, along with a wireless network node of some sort (mesh, 4G, etc.).
There isn't any single company that supplies those, but there are a handful of
security dealers that essentially assemble them.
That one looks like it might be old, the PTZ on the bottom looks like a really
old Pelco unit.
~~~
jevinskie
I was told that many of the boxes in Chicago just have fake cameras and a blue
flashing light to let you know you're being "watched". Not sure if it is true
or not but you can buy fake security cameras.
~~~
brk
You can certainly buy fake cameras. You can also buy real cameras for under
$40 and just not hook them up.
Many cities are starting to deploy these municipal surveillance boxes, many
with grant funding. So, it's hard to say which are real and which are not
anymore.
------
zhte415
A very related link to a project I'm unaffiliated with, but which I've been
aware of for some time: Homicide Watch. It follows homicides in DC (largely
shooting related) from incident through trial and the wider ramifications.
Politico-journo-techno-mashup.
[http://homicidewatch.org/](http://homicidewatch.org/)
------
throwaway0094
These systems are pretty good at detecting fire crackers and backfiring cars.
E.g., check out this recent map of results:
[http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@mpd/document...](http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@mpd/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-116173.pdf)
Only a few of those points are actually shootings.
------
mhb
Wired article about Shot Spotter:
[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/shotspotter.html](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/shotspotter.html)
------
aaroneous
The Oakland police dept have been using ShotSpotter for 5+ years.
~~~
eli
They've actually been in DC for 8 years. The article is about crunching the
data they've collected so far.
------
krallja
I remember this level in Deus Ex. Luckily I hadn't really developed my
firearms tree; more hacking and lock picking.
------
doughj3
Troy, NY tried this for a few years. They got rid of it because it's expensive
and ineffective.
[http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Troy-will-turn-
off-S...](http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Troy-will-turn-off-
ShotSpotter-3994808.php)
------
PhasmaFelis
> _The network covers only a third of the city, focusing on the police
> districts with the most violent crime._
That's refreshingly novel. Usually police coverage is concentrated in the less
violent but wealthier districts.
------
smokey_the_bear
I heard rumors this year that these are installed in my neighborhood in
Berkeley, but that they don't work at all on July 4th due to all the fireworks
false positives.
~~~
Zancarius
Gosh, where I live, it'd be useless during much of the year, what, with the
rednecks and the backfiring vehicles and such. ;)
------
gojomo
Is there an app for that?
(I suspect there will be, soon. It's a simple matter of software – and battery
life – once everyone is carrying a networked microphone.)
------
tocomment
Would this be good for listening for breaking glass?
That would be great for detecting breakins and car theft, no?
~~~
tocomment
Actually they could develop a new model you install inside a house and listens
for windows breaking.
That would be better than the expensive of putting a sensor on every window of
a house for an ADP type system.
~~~
drivingmissm
This already exists.
[http://www.benchmarkmagazine.com/intruder_tests_detail.php?t...](http://www.benchmarkmagazine.com/intruder_tests_detail.php?testsID=33)
------
NN88
Who said the military industrial complex doesn't create anything of benefit?
LOL
------
pekk
The gall of this surveillance state. What about the Constitution? How dare
they monitor gun-owning Patriots like this!
------
coldcode
What a terrible idea. If you know it exists and want to shoot someone, just
get a bunch of random people to shoot in the air all over town. Or even better
get a few speakers and some youtube videos of people shooting. Audio is so
easy to fake.
~~~
ceejayoz
> If you know it exists and want to shoot someone, just get a bunch of random
> people to shoot in the air all over town.
The cops catch a few and likely trace the requests back to you via use of plea
bargains.
> Or even better get a few speakers and some youtube videos of people
> shooting.
Oh yes, even better. Traceable evidence, with fingerprints and maybe purchase
records! Not to mention the system to set them all off at the right time.
By the way, use of these tactics escalate the murder charge to first degree
when they catch you, as it's pretty clearly premeditated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quirky Birds and Meta-Syntactic Programming - raganwald
http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/tree/master/2008-11-04
======
mechanical_fish
_As explained in Kestrels, the practice of nicknaming combinators after birds
was established in Raymond Smullyan's amazing book To Mock a Mockingbird. In
this book, Smullyan explains combinatory logic and derives a number of
important results by presenting the various combinators as songbirds in a
forest. Since the publication of the book more than twenty years ago, the
names he gave the birds have become standard nicknames for the various
combinators._
Holy crap. I own two of Smullyan's books, which I read as a kid, but I never
knew this. News.yc pays off again!
------
raganwald
My bad, the link really should be:
[http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/tree/master/2008-11-0...](http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/tree/master/2008-11-04/quirky_birds_and_meta_syntactic_programming.markdown)
------
tel
Reg, as usual, is making Ruby do some pretty exotic gymnastics, but more than
the language extensions themselves, I just really want to read To Mock a
Mockingbird now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Compiling JSX with Sweet.js using Readtables - danabramov
http://jlongster.com/Compiling-JSX-with-Sweet.js-using-Readtables
======
jannes
Isn't Facebook's own jstransform library (which is used by their JSX compiler)
supposed to be composable already? They have various ES6 transforms in their
repository. Plus, there are JSX transforms in the React repository. There are
also some third-party transforms on Github – for example es6-destructuring-
jstransform.
Could anyone highlight what the differences between jstransform and sweet.js
are?
jstransform:
[https://github.com/facebook/jstransform/](https://github.com/facebook/jstransform/)
es6-visitors:
[https://github.com/facebook/jstransform/tree/master/visitors](https://github.com/facebook/jstransform/tree/master/visitors)
jsx-visitors:
[https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/master/vendor/fbtrans...](https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/master/vendor/fbtransform/transforms)
es6-destructuring-jstransform:
[https://github.com/andreypopp/es6-destructuring-
jstransform](https://github.com/andreypopp/es6-destructuring-jstransform)
~~~
jlongster
There's a big difference: that's basically just a pipeline for AST tranforms.
That's not very hard. Basically just a bunch of different JS libraries that
you hand an AST through.
That's not actually that useful. In my post, I mentioned adding syntax for
literal persistent objects, using something like Mori data structures. The
syntax could look like this:
* #[1, 2, 3] <\- persistent vector
* #{x: 1, y: 2} <\- persistent map
An AST pipeline makes the "analyze" phase extensible, but it doesn't do
anything to the parser. You can't actually add syntax, ever. So it's just not
that useful for extending the language. It's good for something like
implementing various parts of ES6.
Actually, it's even better for something like types or modules, which really
need the whole AST. But in my opinion, everything else is better as macros.
sweet.js works on a tree of tokens, and it allows extending actual syntax.
It's also way easier to transform code because it has a pattern matching
language and you don't have to manually wrangle AST nodes.
Lastly, sweet.js keeps track of scoping, and in the future it will have
modules, so you will be able to do something like:
``` import JSX from "jsx-reader";
import # from "mori";
// code ... ```
And those language extensions are only available inside the module. Everything
is scoped.
~~~
davedx
"Reliable source maps" \- going to give this a try. If it works I'll buy you a
beer.
------
royjacobs
I would love all of this to work cleanly when debugging. A lot of these things
currently work very well, until you need to de bug them. Even with tools that
don't do THAT much rewriting (i.e. Traceur or something, to convert arrow-
functions into regular ones) source maps work pretty unreliably, where I
usually have to refresh a few times before they work (and remember my
breakpoints).
Is there any traction on this front, something like a system where the source
map actually embeds the AST or the like?
------
skrebbel
Wow! I cannot wait to convert my React code to this. Awesome!
As a complete macro noob, I'm starting to wonder whether readtables would also
allow all of TypeScript to be compiled with sweetjs. Or at least transformed,
without type checking.
~~~
dustingetz
I don't think you have to convert anything, it should just work by replacing
the react build step with sweetjs's build step, though he does say that it
isn't heavily tested yet
~~~
skrebbel
yeah, that's really all i mean. but our frontend build setup looks like it was
made by people who have no clue what they're doing (me, at the time), which
might make it slightly more involved than you might expect :-)
~~~
jlongster
Thanks! I personally prefer gulp, and you can use
[https://github.com/jlongster/gulp-sweetjs](https://github.com/jlongster/gulp-
sweetjs). It makes it really easy to integrate (that isn't the one published
in npm, I'm working on that). There's also a grunt loader:
[https://github.com/natefaubion/grunt-
sweet.js](https://github.com/natefaubion/grunt-sweet.js), although that hasn't
been updated to support readtables yet.
------
lhorie
We can do that now w/ Sweet.js? That's really awesome.
I'm gonna port this to work with Mithril (
[http://lhorie.github.io/mithril](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril) ) when I
get a chance.
------
kasperset
Although not exactly related to this topic but I keep getting confused React
JSX with this JSX with [http://jsx.github.io/](http://jsx.github.io/).
~~~
moreati
Ditto, but with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript_for_XML](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript_for_XML)
------
samstokes
Slightly off-topic, but the OP's closing thoughts make great advice to anyone
commenting on / reacting to some new technology:
_I ask that you think hard about sweet.js. Give it 5 minutes. Maybe give it a
couple of hours. Play around with it: set up a gulp watcher, install some
macros from npm, and use it. Don 't push back against it unless you actually
understand the problem we are trying to solve. Many arguments that people give
don't make sense (but some of them do!).
Regardless, even if you think this isn't the right approach, it's certainly a
valid one. One of the most troubling things about the software industry to me
is how vicious we can be to one another, so please be constructive._
So often commenters seem to be people who've never tried the technology in
question reacting to imagined abuses ("Monkeypatching? I'd never allow that in
production!").
~~~
spion
The problem with jsx and sweet.js is the lack of tooling. For example, TernJS
(a static analysis engine I use in emacs) will never understand either, so no
auto-complete or hints.
Is such tooling even possible for something like sweet.js?
~~~
jlongster
Tern works perfectly well with sweet.js. It uses loose parsing so it basically
just ignores the areas that it can't understand.
For the most part, you still get all the info you used to have. Generally you
don't use macros that are overly aggressive in modifying scope, or changing
the basic rules of JS that tern looks for.
You will not get autocompleting on expressions that expand with macros, no.
But you could easily add a plugin to tern that tells it the rules for that
syntax if you really wanted to.
------
Kiro
A bit OT but without knowing much about React it looks like you need to put
your markup in your logic. What happened to the separation where the markup
lives in its own template files? Seems like a big issue to me.
~~~
baddox
Pete Hunt addresses this specifically in this React talk starting at 3
minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgVS-
zXgMTk#t=182](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgVS-zXgMTk#t=182)
Basically, the idea is that most JS templating solutions separate technologies
(HTML , JS, templating languages), but don't actually separate concerns,
because the concern is simply generating and updating DOM regardless of how
many technologies you use.
Most JavaScript frameworks or libraries that handling generating and updating
DOM, like Ember's two-way binding with Handlebars and Angular's dirty checking
with directives, don't really separate markup from logic. They just invent a
new language to mix with your HTML, and that new language is deliberately made
extremely weak.
~~~
lukeholder
wow beat me by 60 seconds!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you find stories you care about on the web? - mmeister
Hey HN! How do you find stories you care about on the web? Everyday, I have a few go-to sites that I use but usually only find a couple stories I'm really interested in...Extending this circle of sites is difficult as well with 1000's of news/media options (e.g. Vice, NPR, Gizmodo, HBR, CNN, Medium...the list goes on forever) which site to try out and then I have to take the time to find stuff I care about on those sites. Furthermore, this is complicated by each site organizing content such that it's easier to see what they want you to see vs what might interest you (agendas). I've come to realize that it's really difficult to find great stories on a daily basis so thought what if people could share any story they found on the web (from anywhere!) and have this content in one place, then instead of organizations deciding what we see, the community gets to decide that. I put together a simple site to see if people are interested in sharing stories they find on the web and also in discovering interesting content and wanted to see what you all thought? Please all criticism is welcome.<p>http://www.lumn.io<p>This is a work in progress. I'd love to see some of the interesting stuff you all read. If you have any feedback/comments, feel free to email me at mark@lumn.io
======
oblib
Cool site!!!
I like the concept and you've done a nice job implementing it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CSS sprites shouldn't add production time (and 4 other tips) - rriepe
http://matchstrike.net/strikepad/2009/11/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-css-sprites/
======
TheThomas
The transparent spacer image hack seems horribly antiquated to me. I'm
surprised anyone still does it that way.
------
railsjedi
Cool library I've been working on (still early in dev, but I'm using it to
generate production assets): <http://github.com/merbjedi/sprite>
It's a ruby executable (no ruby knowledge required to use it though) that
easily generates sprite files and css from a directory structure. It defaults
to something sane, but you can overwrite it via config/sprite.yml
Install it via:
gem install sprite
Then run it via:
sprite
Check out the README to learn how to configure. If anyone knows their way
around ImageMagick on the command line, please msg me on github (merbjedi).
Would love your help on 4 lines of RMagick code I need to get converted so I
can remove this dependency.
------
fnid
These are good tips, but it doesn't eliminate the additional production time
required to use sprites. You still have to combine all the images into one,
then take time to position them where you want.
The tips speed up production with sprites, but it's still faster to produce
sites without using sprites.
~~~
rriepe
If you're combining images into one at any point, then there's probably a
better way to do it. If you design from the beginning with CSS sprites in
mind, you should always be working from your spritemap image. Then it's a
matter of time spent positioning vs. time spent managing the images themselves
in your document, which I've found to be pretty even.
I really didn't touch on this as much as I would like in the post. Would a
process post on this be of interest to you?
~~~
lucumo
_> Would a process post on this be of interest to you?_
It would to me. I have some interest in CSS sprites, but working with them
always seems cumbersome.
------
rubyrescue
is there a tool (preferably a rails plugin or gem, or rack middleware, but
hosted web service would be fine too) that will take images linked to in a
site's css and auto-sprite them, fixing up the css at the same time?
~~~
rriepe
There's several: Google "CSS sprite generator"
I'd categorically recommend against all of them, however. I feel it's a better
practice to manage it yourself. Of course, if you need to convert multiple
sites fast, they might be worth a try.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Job Interview Will Soon Be Dead. What It's Being Replaced With - gmays
http://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/science-81-percent-of-people-lie-in-job-interviews-heres-what-top-companies-are-.html
======
muninn_
Not a very good article. At the end of the article they even say "While
traditional interviews aren't going away any time soon..."
So which is it? The job interview will soon be dead or it's not going away
anytime soon? Stupid clickbait headlines.
~~~
omouse
The answer is!!!!! Clickbait. That's what won't ever go away.
------
joezydeco
_In an effort to simulate their work environment, they bring in 50 job
candidates at one time and pair them for 20 minutes._
Riiiiiiight.
If you're doing a cattle call for college interns, that sounds totally
feasible. If I'm looking for a senior embedded developer, I'm lucky to get 5
resumes in hand and getting 2 in the room at the same time is nearly
impossible schedule-wise.
------
kabdib
Three week "paid trials" \-- so they're only going to be able to hire people
who have already quit their jobs and who have stopped interviewing elsewhere.
Nice power structure there; all the risk is on the applicant. Wonder how many
experienced engineers they're able to hire?
~~~
jlebrech
it sounds like exploitation.
~~~
kabdib
It actually sounds like they're going to chase away good candidates.
Regardless of whether I'm a "good" hire for them [think what you like], I
would just walk away from a deal like that.
Given that the company down the street is hungry and in competition for
engineers, I suspect that this kind of fear-based nonsense is not serving them
well.
~~~
jlebrech
this happened with me for a job interview, I did a day trial and next week I
had another interview and was offered a job while they were probably mulling
over giving me the job.
------
hughdbrown
> Now, every final candidate that makes it that far works for the company for
> three to eight weeks on a contract basis, doing real tasks alongside the
> people they would actually be working with if they had the job.
> The goal, says Mullenweg, is not to have those candidates finish a product
> or do a set amount of work but for a quick and efficient assessment of
> whether it would be a mutually beneficial relationship.
> To keep it simple, Automattic pays a standard $25 an hour, whether the
> candidate was hoping to be an engineer or the chief financial officer.
How could you ever hire someone who already had a job? Who would leave an
existing job to do a tryout for 3-8 weeks for $25/hour?
~~~
throwaway2016a
I know personally I wouldn't be willing to go through this process.
$25 means significant opportunity cost for me. If that is three weeks I'm
essentially paying $3000+ to interview. The offer waiting on the other end
must be really really good.
Sounds like a great way to get contractors / consultants for 1/6 the price.
------
throwaway_374
>>"In an effort to simulate their work environment, they bring in 50 job
candidates at one time and pair them for 20 minutes. This is because work at
Menlo is done in pairs, two people sharing a single computer, passing the
mouse back and forth while brainstorming ideas.
They give them an exercise typical of the kinds of work done at Menlo. While
the pair work together, a staff member observes their interactions. At the end
of 20 minutes, everyone will get new exercises, new partners, and new
observers. Twenty minutes later, they will switch for a third time."
Talk about extreme - excuse the pun - commoditisation of programming. Your
experiences no longer matter. Just walk in, do your audition, and hope you can
shine against the herd. This is frankly ridiculous and I cannot think of a
single benefit this would yield.
~~~
noer
I was "interviewed" like that once. I found it incredibly unsettling. It
devolved into three politely introducing ideas while trying to outdo the other
two in discussion while three people watched silently from across the room. I
didn't feel like the discussion was organic or actually moved to solve the
problem.
~~~
Bartweiss
The problem is pretty much always that if there's a breakthrough or hard part
to be handled, everyone feels like they need to be the one to do it. (And
they're probably right, which is an even bigger problem.)
I've heard of collaborative interviews that work well, but they're almost
always collaborations between people who aren't competing for the same role.
------
VLM
An audition. Huh. I'd call it a contract. Kinda like some goofy companies call
their employees "associates" as if that means anything.
My short term contracting rate is higher than medium term, so there's that
interesting issue.
------
johnvega
There are people who do very well on in-person interviews, but do poorly in
actual job performance. This article will not likely benefit them. On the
other hand, there are people who do very poorly on in-person interviews, but
do very well in on the job performance in rare situations that they somehow
got hired. Those that don't get hired becomes lost opportunities for both
hiring companies and the candidates.
The approach is similar to a consulting contract with option to hire. Getting
a candidate working for a few weeks or even a few months on an actual work
environment as if he was hired should give hiring managers the real deal about
a candidate.
I don't think the specifics has to be the same, but the general idea or
structure is important.
This looks like a very promising approach for getting the best possible team.
I agree that the article looks like a clickbait and that this will work with
smaller subset of candidates. But I think this information is important and it
should be out there.
------
orless
> In an effort to simulate their work environment, they bring in 50 job
> candidates at one time and pair them for 20 minutes. This is because work at
> Menlo is done in pairs, two people sharing a single computer, passing the
> mouse back and forth while brainstorming ideas.
> What's being evaluated in this audition process is whether job candidates
> bring out all the best qualities in their partners and make them look as
> good as possible.
This is crazy. So the candidates are to compete elbow-to-elbow to 50 other
candidates and be evaluated on whether they "bring out all the best qualities
in their partners". And that shoudl simulate work environment at Menlo? And
that should somehow be better that a traditional interview? I don't know what
these guys think about themselves.
Next one is no better:
> Now, every final candidate that makes it that far works for the company for
> three to eight weeks on a contract basis, doing real tasks alongside the
> people they would actually be working with if they had the job.
> To keep it simple, Automattic pays a standard $25 an hour, whether the
> candidate was hoping to be an engineer or the chief financial officer.
So you do normal inteviews an then get an 8-week-contract for $25 an hour and
THEN they maybe decide you're worthy? I'm based in Germany, a senior-level
Java dev freelancer gets somewhere between $80-100 an hour. This means a loss
of say $60/h for 8 weeks * 5 days * 8 hours which is around $20k. How can it
be worth it?
~~~
Bartweiss
> 8-week-contract for $25 an hour and THEN they maybe decide you're worthy
Even for junior devs outside Silicon Valley that's not a very good rate. On
the other hand, contracting firms here seem to _love_ this approach
(cynically, it's just discount labor). Last time I was looking for a job, I
started getting calls from people who wanted me to do a _half salary trial for
six months_. And no, the 'full' salary wasn't anything special.
I'm assuming these places are trying to pick up people who are desperate or
unwilling to move at discount rates, but it's not a very attractive system.
------
k__
"People who are good looking tend to be evaluated as being more
competent...People who are taller tend to be evaluated as having more
leadership skills...People who speak with a deeper or lower-pitched voice are
viewed as possessing greater strength..."
The problem with this is, that most people have these biases also, when
working with other people, not only on interviews.
So hiring a ugly, small person with a high pitched voice won't change the fact
that people working with that person will value them less.
Also, people tend to hold their human knowledge rather high. Everyone thinks
they know people and how they work.
I don't know how much friends of mine started relationships that were doomed
to fail horribly because of this bias.
Or how much executives I worked with hired people based on their hipster-
ninja-superhero-factor, that failed to perform later.
------
sixstringtheory
On one hand, I think it's a great idea because I've done _stages_ (STAH-jes)
as a sous chef, and always liked the experience.
On the other, it definitely excludes a large amount of people who can't
dedicate the time, or need to be paid a real salary for their trial period.
I like Menlo's approach of rapid staged pairing. I've gone through
Automattic's trial but they pay little and it takes way too long, I wound up
cutting it short.
(edited for spelling)
------
ubersoldat2k7
I can see how ignoring the interview can be an interesting approach, but
having people do some test work must be limited. I can see myself doing this
for a few hours, but just setting up an environment I'm comfortable with takes
half that time. IDK, the first point of the article can't be denied, the
current process is broken.
------
Beltiras
Auditions. You mean like coding on a whiteboard to see if I can actually
traverse an algorithm? What a novel suggestion!
~~~
deong
Pretty much everything in the article is simply unworkable for nearly every
company on the planet, but to be fair, there's a huge difference between what
the article is talking about -- doing actual company work for a few weeks in
the case of Automattic -- and reversing a linked list on a whiteboard while an
engineer pretends to read your CV.
------
ams6110
Before reading, I thought it was going to claim that deep learning applied to
a candidate's social media footprint would develop an accurate profile of the
applicant's personality, intelligence, psychological stability, etc, because I
think that's what might replace a job interview.
Was disappointed.
~~~
sixstringtheory
This sounds like a terrible idea.
Besides the Facebook phenomenon where people portray a falsely positive self,
I often playfully troll or otherwise post sarcastic status updates all the
time on social media, because I just don't take it that seriously. It is only
intended for my audience, who already know me in person (for the most part),
not a bunch of cobbled together algorithms.
Then again, if a company rejects me based on my social media accounts instead
of, you know, _talking_ to me, I probably didn't want to work for them anyway.
I just hope something like this doesn't become the norm.
------
pps43
> $25 an hour
This is counterproductive. I can (and often do) spend an hour to answer a
question on StackOverflow, for free. Offer me $25/hour for answering
StackOverflow questions and I'll decline - it's well below my hourly rate.
This is a well-known result in psychology.
------
jlebrech
no longer choosing the best looking candidate can be counter productive, as
you could hire someone with bad personal hygiene and compromise the whole
team, for example.
------
rubber_duck
I like how just because those physical traits don't correlate to skill that
makes it irrelevant or wrong to use as a criteria.
I've rarely seen a job where the performance is based on purely technical
skills - the % varied from job to job - but a lot of it comes to how effective
you are at working with others and just like the article argues - people in
general respond to those physical traits.
------
FussyZeus
> It makes sense. Musicians and singers have to audition. Actors have to
> audition. The people employing them don't sit down and dart scripted
> questions their way. They want to see them play, sing, perform. Doesn't it
> make sense to audition a prospective employee for the same reasons, before
> they sign an offer letter?
No, that doesn't make sense AT ALL. Musicians, actors and other purveyors of
the Arts deal in a subjective and extremely hand-wavy set of skills (not
denigrating them at all, just saying) that are oftentimes equally skilled as
one another and the "choice" depends on which one fits the given role/piece
you have in mind for them.
Software developers are more closely related to skilled craftsmen, even if the
fruits of our craft aren't as tactile as a nice table or chair. The current
Interview scheme has it's issues, but I can't see how this is improving on a
single element of that.
~~~
heurist
You might be surprised by how technical fine art really is. I've learned as
much about programming from painting in the last two years as from
programming.
~~~
FussyZeus
Oh no question, but the difference is the results of a craft can be tested and
held to a standard that's firm and very objective, whereas the results of the
other are nothing but subjective all the way down (aside from the basics like,
did the actor show up).
~~~
inimino
Music and acting are not "subjective all the way down". They are technical
skills which some people spend years honing to an incredible pitch. There's a
difference there, but this isn't it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why we were wrong about why we were wrong. - StavrosK
http://blog.historio.us/why-we-were-wrong-about-why-we-were-wrong
======
ced
_Decide your sample size beforehand, and only stop the test after you've
reached it._
That may be the gospel among A/B testers, but from a Bayesian perspective,
this is definitely not the best you can do (though it won't necessarily be
_wrong_ ). Beware, Bayesian methods are provably optimal.
The details are here for the interested (chap. 4 & 6):
<http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html>
It's not casual reading... I wish there was something shorter available.
~~~
StavrosK
Thank you, I downloaded the Bayesian method paper linked in the article and
was going to read it, I'm very interested in a probably optimal stopping
method (obviously). I'm only afraid it'll fly over my head, despite my having
a bit of stats background.
Thanks again!
~~~
ced
You mean this paper?
Berry, Donald A. “Bayesian Statistics and the Efficiency and Ethics of
Clinical Trials,” Statistical Science, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 2004), pp.
175-187
I haven't heard of it. But if you're seriously motivated to do things right
and you're "mathematically mature", I would advise you to read Jaynes' book
linked above. For me it was a huge eye opener. The screed of the Bayesians is
"You don't _need_ a separate statistics field! You just need the laws of
probabilities, and that's enough to answer any question you want."
Let me know if you need help, my email is in my profile.
~~~
StavrosK
Yep, that's the paper. I'll try to read the book when I find some time
(thankfully, "get more data" is good enough for now).
Thanks again for your help.
------
carbocation
StavrosK, I'm delighted to see you post this; I was hoping you'd do so!
If people are interested in calculating the sample size before running an A/B
test, I'd recommend tools such as the following (to which I have no
connection):
<http://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/calc01.aspx>
~~~
StavrosK
Thank you very much, I looked for a calculator like this but they were all too
complicated. I'll update the article to include this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reason #562 newspapers are doomed: One of them bought this... - brandnewlow
http://www.quantcast.com/wikicity.com
======
brandnewlow
Here's the news: [http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/omaha-world-herald-
rethinki...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/omaha-world-herald-rethinking-
its-product-buys-hyperlocal-wikicity/)
~~~
wgj
I'd hate to be competing with Wikipedia.
Also, is it really fitting the definition of hyperlocal if there's no dynamic
content, real-time news, or social capability?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool - susiecambria
https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
======
azepoi
see also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871593)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
After a failed crowdfunding, Mayan EDMS future uncertain - aminoson
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mayan-edms/vu7wq5aR11I/eUdJ33AzCAAJ
======
karinato
Is it ethical for the Mayan EDMS developer to close the project and leave all
his users up in the air because of a failed crowdfunding campaign?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HN-Our dev's need a hand, any python wizards want to make some $? - Binary
We are finishing up a web app but need some APIs setup and a few other things coded. If you are interested in helping put the final touches on a startup before launch and make some $$$ shoot me an email. The api's you'll be playing with are..
-Fb open graph
-Twitter
-M Turk
-Bit.ly<p>Shoot me an email with some work you've done recently and I'll send more details about the work we need. Thanks HN!
DScott@Swappel.com
======
gchandrasa
what language or framework do you use?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The ideal startup team - istoselidas
http://johndel.gr/blog/ideal-startup-team
======
sarahallen
The ideal team is not three "guys" \-- diversity of perspective helps
creativity and versatility, of course your team should be aligned in values
and methodology. Your post is fine as far as it goes, but there is so much
more to the ideal team than just three people with different skills.
~~~
istoselidas
Yes you are right. I just wrote for the "skills" approach of an ideal team,
regarding the founders.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If you had a magic button on your phone that could do anything what would it do? - furqanrydhan
======
scottyallen
Teleport me through time and space.
On a more serious note, I think you're probably trying to do customer
development, and trying to modify the question people tell you to ask "If you
had a magic wand, what would you improve to solve your problem?"
This can be a useful question if you're already talking about a pretty well
defined problem space. So, for example, if you were talking about how people
deal with all the photos they take on their phones, the magic wand question
might yield you things like "I want an easy way to back them up online".
But the way you're asking it is so open ended that you're essentially saying
"What app do you want that doesn't exist", which tends to yield nonsense
because there's not a concrete enough frame of reference.
------
1amzave
Turn it into a real computer -- i.e. materialize a keyboard, decent-sized
monitor, and ethernet port out of the aether.
------
level09
Put it into self destruction mode, explodes within 30 seconds.
------
raghav305
cigarette lighter
------
nummy
extend my light saber ... on my iSaber
~~~
xauronx
[http://www.iphoneappscool.com/invisible-viagra-natural-
viagr...](http://www.iphoneappscool.com/invisible-viagra-natural-viagra-
alternative-for-iphoneipad/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebGL Fluid Simulator - grimmfang
http://dev.miaumiau.cat/sph/
======
cimonDuke
Awesome work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you backup your DB? - wasd
Feel free to include where your db is stored (bare metal, cloud, managed), how often, how you do it and a short story about recovering your db.
======
codegeek
1\. mysqldump.... > $curr_date/backup.sql
2\. aws s3 sync $curr_date s3://mybucket
The 2 steps above go into a crontab.
------
kull
Hosting on digital ocean, backup on S3 Amazon, hourly database backup.
------
element121
Rackspace cloud, backed up via CodeGuard to Amazon S3 daily.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android at risk from SpyEye banking Trojan - EdwardQ
http://news.techworld.com/applications/3303493/android-at-risk-from-spyeye-banking-trojan/
======
nextparadigms
Sounds more like a case of PC malware rather than an Android one. Of course if
your PC gets compromised and they get access to your accounts, that will give
them access to a lot of other things.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook marketing? Don't bother, says new report - codegeek
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101151565
======
jccooper
We found Facebook PPC ads to be about twice as expensive as they are worth,
and well under-performing Google. We shut it down. But that was based on
direct conversions; I guess if you're doing branding you might have a
different calculus.
But I'm not surprised to find that other companies don't find it worthwhile
either. I'm not putting much effort into the "free" art of FB marketing
either.
~~~
thomasd
Hmm, this is interesting. What we've found is the direct opposite. Facebook is
4 times cheaper than Google for us. But I suppose the nature of our companies
are different. We're in the movie industry and Google search on movies that
were released a couple of months ago are almost always queries looking for
pirated sources.
~~~
jccooper
Interesting. I can imagine how ads on such searches would do poorly!
We sell custom bottle caps, and usually people searching for terms in that
area are looking for something like us (or us in particular) and are ready to
buy. So search advertising is good for us; but even targeted to home brewers
we didn't get much traction off Facebook, where people aren't usually looking
to buy. It was worth a try, but not a good fit for us. I do think it has some
general branding/awareness use, but that's hard to quantify, and we don't
really need that right now, certainly at FB's prices.
------
wyck
The big take from this is not the effectiveness of Facebook for marketing,
since it can and is done successfully, but rather a rant by marketers on the
amount of exposure Facebook's algorithm gives them.
The situation is that brands small and large spent lots of money building up a
following, but when they post something it only gets exposed to a fraction of
the followers. The argument is, why should I spend money getting 100k
followers if you only show my posts to 15k (or less) of them at any given
time.
On one side, more brand exposure degrades the Facebook experience from ad
inundation, on the other side marketers are not seeing the value for
time/money invested.
This has always been the thorn in the side of not just Facebook, but most ad
driven revenue models. Since Facebook is a social experience it's a challenge
that's tricky to navigate, they can't exactly bend over to marketing products
and services, that would be a disaster, but the tools and feedback for
marketers leaves a lot to be desired.
~~~
jonnathanson
Indeed. There's nothing wrong with Facebook as an advertising channel, when
used effectively and with expectations properly calibrated.
There's a _lot_ wrong with blindly throwing money at a Facebook "fan page" and
an ostensible following, expecting miracles to happen and any of those
followers to care. (There's also a problem involved in paying for the fans,
then reaching a fraction of them with each update -- but that's the nature of
how Facebook works, and that shouldn't have been a mystery to most marketers
for quite some time now.)
What we're experiencing right now _isn 't_ a "revolution" in advertising, as
the article suggests. But then again, it's the marketers' fault for expecting
there to have been one in the first place. They bought, traded, and sold the
hype. Big brands made relatively blind, multi-million-dollar commitments to
Facebook and other social channels before stopping to think about what,
exactly, they were hoping to achieve.
What those brands are learning today: there's no such thing as a magic bullet.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as a "revolution"
in marketing. Nothing will allow you to grow a fanbase, increase engagement,
and sell more products without an ounce of forethought and hard work.
Facebook is a channel, like any other. It can be a very effective channel. But
like any channel, it needs to be thought through, analyzed, and used properly.
The blind honeymoon is over. The platform's usefulness remains.
~~~
the_watcher
>> There's a lot wrong with blindly throwing money at a Facebook "fan page"
and an ostensible following, expecting miracles to happen and any of those
followers to care.
This has actually been by far the worst way of making money off of Facebook in
my experience - and I do this full time.
~~~
jonnathanson
Agreed. The whole "fan page" thing can be a total money pit unless a marketer
knows exactly what he's trying to get from the investment.
Conversely, I've had _fantastic_ results from targeted ad buys on Facebook. In
particular, mobile app install buys. Great results, decent tracking, easy to
analyze from an ROI and LTV standpoint.
Just because you can target people by #anything doesn't mean they'll care
about your content. Your content has to _fit_ what you're targeting and whom
you're targeting. I feel as though a lot of brand marketers -- ordinarily
extremely smart people -- lost their senses about this when they first jumped
on the Facebook bandwagon. I've seen some very sophisticated AdWords buyers
treat Facebook like a Magic 8 Ball, for instance. It blows my mind.
------
morganb180
A few things:
1) Facebook allows you to do some ridiculous targeting, that when combined
with retargeting can create some powerful stuff. Check out Marty Weintraub and
your head will explode.
2) Our Facebook ads (esp. retargeting w/perfect audience in the news feed)
work far better than Google and Goog retargeting.
3) We've found Facebook ads to be great re-engagement tools. People who
created an account but have been in-active or didn't complete setup are re-
engaging via Facebook ads, leading to more active users.
YMMV of course, and being dumb with any ad dollars is always a bad
idea—regardless of platform.
~~~
thomasd
Yes, exactly! I'll like to add a few more points.
\- The approval process for FB ads is dead simple. Ads are usually approved in
minutes vs Google day(s) long wait. The longest it'll probably take is a 1 to
2 hours (usually as a result of a new image upload). This makes it very easy
to iterate and improve upon your result
\- FB gives pricing flexibility. You can choose whether the objective is for
branding (CPM) or if you're looking for conversion (CPC, CPA). The ad units
lets you focus on your objective
~~~
morganb180
Agreed. I also like the bulk uploader and power editor. It's easy to launch
200 variations of ads in a matter of minutes.
------
ameister14
Their argument that their targeting creates massive value is only correct so
long as their competitors don't catch up. Linkedin, though, is building out
its advertising tools and API and allows for really good targeting based on
more accurate job positions than Facebook can provide, which is often more
useful.
If a company pays for their facebook likes through advertising, why should
they then need to pay again to advertise to this same group of people with a
sponsored post? It really changes the ROI of a facebook like.
~~~
duaneb
Google Ads target people who can't tell the difference between search results
and ads.
LinkedIn succeeds because they have ads people actually want to
click—virtually everyone needs employment, and generally jobs are far more
valuable than anything else advertised online. Any given ad for employment
will be many, many, many times more interesting to any given person than any
given ad on the internet will be.
Facebook has very little worth selling to a young audience that will never
click online ads. Who goes to Facebook to find ways to spend money? It's a
social network with little relevance to commercial interests (for end users).
Market-specific businesses will almost always beat out the special
interests—facebook would probably get more money selling users to specialized
advertising customers on demand, or even getting users to pay to make
ads/stupid "features" (Games! Anything involving microtransactions! Bugging me
to like things I have no desire to like!) go away.
Speaking of which, how is the model of pay-to-remove-ads not more prevalent?
Surely it wouldn't REDUCE profits.
~~~
c0ur7n3y
Well, I think Facebook would have a hard time making the transition from
advertisers being their customers to users being their customers. They'd have
to listen to their users if they did that. That sounds expensive.
~~~
duaneb
> They'd have to listen to their users if they did that. That sounds
> expensive.
You know what else is expensive? When everyone hates your brand.
------
_nate_
Facebook pay per click remains a mystery to me. We are huge PPC media buyers,
but we gave up on Facebook a long time ago. We’ve experimented with it over
the last year or so when new features were implemented, but in general, it’s
at the very bottom of our marketing budget as well. I used to think it was
something we were doing wrong, but this report suggests a lot of people aren’t
finding value there as well.
It really seems that when people are on Facebook, the one and only thing they
pay attention to is their friends and personal interests, and it’s very
difficult for ads to convert that interest.
~~~
patmcguire
What industry are you in?
~~~
_nate_
We think it has a lot to do with our demographic. We’re a research and
publishing company and our customers are for the most part consumers over the
age of 35. With that being said, I find it hard to believe our demographic
should be a hindrance, considering FB is massive and now spans the general
population. Furthermore, there are tons of options and means to target our
specific demographics. Yet FB leads have the lowest conversion rates seen
anywhere and in general every attempt at using the system fails. (once again,
we are highly experienced PPC buyers)
Either way, we’re fine spending our budgets elsewhere and understand that FB
is working miracles for others. We’ve just always been vexed by the FB
advertising hype and this report helps to validate for us that not all markets
work for everyone.
------
affmkter
Ha.
I've been an affiliate marketeer for quite some time now, doing FB ads and I
can tell you, FB ads DO work: both for the affiliate and the advertiser.
Last month I generated around 50K rev in comisions (around 60% profit) and the
advertiser even increased my payout because the leads are converting to paying
users.
Of course this is not always the case, but in general they do work and quite
good I might say.
------
the_watcher
This report is so wrong it's painful. "Likes" are great, but that's not the
most valuable ad type on Facebook. In fact, in our most successful ads, I
intentionally exclude people who have liked us (why would I pay to reach
people who already know who we are?). Facebook ads have been the single
biggest win for us of the past year, as we are seeing 80% of our Facebook
customers are new to us.
A useful framework I have used to explain to people the value of Facebook
advertising is to imagine the internet as a hardware store. Someone goes to
the hardware store because they need a hammer. Google would be the aisles with
signs and directions to get there. Once they are there, and waiting to check
out, they see things like gum, or energy drinks, or keys, etc., that they
needed to be reminded that they wanted. Facebook is more like the checkout
stand, as it can remind or introduce impulse purchases that the intent
leveraged by Google intentionally excludes.
Facebook is also much more similar to hyper-targeted television ads.
------
mehuldesai
Im going to comment on the model for Facebook and how it seems unnatural and
forced. With Google, the user has indicated intent via a search or visiting
some site of interest. Google associates ads based on the content which is
based on the users intent to find information.
Facebook for their newsfeed and ads on the right seemed to inject ads right
into content and force some portion of its users to see them. The user likely
never wanted or had any intent on seeing anything but friends posts. Thus its
not surprising many users may not participate with clicks. Its interesting
from the article on bus insider that the click thru rate is high for news
feeds. I suspect that forcing ads in the middle of a friend to friend
conversation gets the users attention and some clicks. However, is it what a
user really wanted to do in the news feed. The user wants friend-to-friend
information. Facebook for the news feed ad inclusion reminds me of TV
infomercial or tv ads but on a channel that the user themselves value. A bad
experience overall.
What can drive real conversions is user intent. A user wants to find
information or opts in to an ad channel, then you'll get very good click thrus
and conversions. Thats why i like Google's model so much. However, google
suffers from a hit or miss approach on actual content and its value. however,
as we know, the page rank/etc... tries to make computers get a good match.
i think if we can have a social fabric that is truely social and valuable and
not polluted by injected ads that may be very very valuable. I think Facebook
could suffer a demise more and more for this ad strategy they have. Ads,
promotions, attractions should be a fun and willing experience not a forced
one. Perhaps this is an idealist view. comments ?
------
steveplace
Yes. Facebook marketing is dead. You shouldn't even try it and just go to
other places. It's literally impossible to get a positive ROI there so just
move along, nothing to see here.
------
jayzalowitz
Hiring people that have no idea how to market: Dont bother says me.
I know people cleaning house marketing there. Groupon is doing an exceptional
job for example.
------
littlemerman
The difference between the top and bottom result in the survey is 0.3 on a
scale of 5. Given the small sample size of most survey research my hunch is
that these differences are directional only.
Here is the original report:
[http://blogs.forrester.com/nate_elliott/13-10-28-an_open_let...](http://blogs.forrester.com/nate_elliott/13-10-28-an_open_letter_to_mark_zuckerberg)
------
the_watcher
One problem I see with people bashing Facebook ads is that it is definitely
easy to burn money quickly on Facebook chasing things that seem profitable.
For example, we found some very small targeting groups that generated
extremely good CPAs initially, but they were so small that once we saturated
them, our overall CPA skyrocketed. Once we established what was risky and what
was less risky, we've been able to keep our numbers strong - mainly by using
Custom Audiences, lookalike audiences, and competitor segments. Facebook also
takes much more active management in terms of turning ads on and off than SEM
ads. However, a huge pain point for those of us in places where we seem to
have come close to maxing out growth from search. Facebook has helped us
address this, since it seems like there is a substantial portion of Facebook
users who simply haven't heard of us, and Facebook is way cheaper than TV ads.
------
tomgruner
Facebook marketing is great for some things and horrible for others. It is
good for building up a brand that has a cool image. Here is an easy test,
would the thing you are advertising interest somebody at a party, or would you
promote it to your friends as something interesting or valuable without
receiving any payment in return? Is it something that has intrinsic social
value, or is it just a product that you are trying to spam people with? I have
seen real results in FB advertising for building up artists and musicians and
growing their own fan base. But, for selling products it has not worked out
for me to be a good ROI.
------
rebel
As someone with an array of absolutely massive fan pages (> 3 million fans on
some), that are completely legitimate, I'm getting a viewing percent of < 1%.
Unpaid marketing on Facebook is useless. It feels similar to extortion that
I've built up so many people who have specifically asked to receive
information about my websites/products via Facebook and Facebook wants to
charge me over $5,000 PER status update just to reach MOST of my fans. I've
learned my lesson on investing into the Facebook platform
------
janj
Is Facebook vulnerable to people not taking Facebook and its 'likes' seriously
anymore? I've started liking every page that is 'suggested' by Facebook only
because I've grown bored with Facebook and was curious what result this would
have. I started thinking about the implications of this becoming a trend and
it seems Facebook would lose most of its value to brands and companies if
Facebook 'likes' stopped corresponding to real world 'likes'.
------
kposehn
"Everyone who clicks the 'like' button on a brand's Facebook page volunteers
to receive that brand's messages — but on average, (Facebook) only shows each
brand's posts to 16 percent of its fans,"
This is due to the way EdgeRank works - you get low exposure if you make page
posts that do not get viral uptake. I know people that routinely get over 70%
engagement because they make content that people, you know, _like_.
~~~
thomasd
There is a problem with a focus on getting "likes". It doesn't convert.
Neither does it increase sales. It's a vanity metric. I just wrote a post to
explain how small of a mileage like actually brings for the effort exerted.
[http://thomasdiong.com/post/65443615643/social-media-
vanity-...](http://thomasdiong.com/post/65443615643/social-media-vanity-
metrics)
~~~
kposehn
I've never pushed for a focus on getting likes; instead, it is just one stage
in the conversion funnel.
I consider them akin to email addresses, just with a much more variable ROI.
You do have to manage your fan base, cultivate it and engage it as you would a
large mailing list. They are definitely not a direct revenue driver though.
As an affiliate I've not used FB pages to profit, but I've got a few friends
in the industry that have pages with massive followings. They are very skilled
at monetizing their followers, but it is also an extremely tough thing to do.
It is definitely not for the faint of heart - or wallet :)
------
SimpleXYZ
The problem is user commercial intent: "I need to spent $3600 on a new thing
for my thing. I'd better search the web with Google to find it." "I need to
find out what my ex-girl friend did last Saturday. I'd better go to Facebook."
The average Facebook cost per click is about $0.80. I would be a buyer at
$0.04 cost per click.
------
oddthink
I would be shocked if those survey results were statistically different from
"the same." The spread from the top (YouTube) to the bottom (Facebook) is 0.11
on a 1-5 scale, with a sample size of 395.
If I assume a std deviation of 1 (which seems low), that's 2-sigma, total,
top-to-bottom.
------
nhangen
Facebook retargeting and general CPM advertising works well, but don't bother
trying to build your fan page likes/numbers.
FWIW, we spend about $40/month getting to 1k+ likes, and only 35-50 people, on
average, see our non-boosted posts.
To be frank, it really pisses me off.
------
patmcguire
Shameless plug, my employer has done pretty well with direct marketing on
Facebook, which from this thread seems to be way more common here than it is
elsewhere (I guess branding's more corporate?) So if you're curious shoot me
an email (it's on my profile).
------
chrisgd
There is no point to making a forecast unless you either say the "sky is
falling" or "utopia ahead" since no one will remember your prediction
otherwise. Nuanced predictions are only for those not selling something.
------
brandnewlow
This is silly. At Perfect Audience, we have thousands of customers making
anywhere from $5-15 for every $1 they spend retargeting on Facebook. Yes, it
takes work and some testing. But to say "don't bother" is silly.
~~~
FireBeyond
At the risk of “citation required”... Really, you can show “thousands of
customers” who generate up to $15 of income for every dollar spent with you?
~~~
brandnewlow
I won't, but I can, sure. Check out this post on our blog about a guitar
teacher using us to sell online lessons through a combination of Facebook ads
and banner ads: [http://blog.perfectaudience.com/2013/10/24/retargeting-
micro...](http://blog.perfectaudience.com/2013/10/24/retargeting-
micropreneurs-online-guitar-teacher-makes-13-every-1-spent-perfect-audience/)
We track sales and conversions for our customers pretty carefully to make sure
we're producing results.
Also, I said $5-15 in sales. That's a big spread :)
------
droob
"Give us $499 to substantiate these inflammatory headlines," says new report
------
jliptzin
Our experience has been that FB ads for a particular service/site work well
for about a week, and then the cost quickly rises to the point where it's no
longer worth advertising there.
~~~
the_watcher
That's about right. Their ads do have an insanely short shelf life relative to
other paid ads. You have to be aware of this and plan for it. However, an
engaging ad will continue serving long after you stop paying for it, which
helps mitigate this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where to live in Boston? - frodo01
I'm moving to boston in January, and have to start looking for apartments. I like startups, hackers, bookshops, theatres, sports (skiing, skateboarding). If anyone could tell me which places I shouldn't miss checking out, it would be great.<p>I checked the past discussions and it seems that Cambridge, Somerville and Harvard Square are nice places. Is there anywhere else I should definitely look at?<p>I'm single and can pay about $1.5k in rent.
======
desigooner
I think Davis Square is a little too far removed from quite some Boston areas
.. I'd suggest Harvard Sq or Central Square if you liked Cambridge ..
I've been happily living in Brookline (Coolidge Corner) for the past 2 years.
Not as much of student population as Cambridge or certain other areas of
Boston. It's quiet and safe. Only downside: No overnight street parking
------
djb_hackernews
I lived in Central Square, and in my partial opinion, it was perfect. The
Square itself has tons of shops, bars and restaurants, and is right on the red
line and more importantly major bus lines. It's in the middle of MIT and
Harvard, tons of startup activity here. Parking was always easy to find and
neighbors were all young people. Whole Foods, Shaws and a Whole Foods knock
off I can't remember. Trader Joes in neighboring Cambridgeport. It was a 2
mile walk to Fenway, a walk I made many times. For 1.5K you _might_ be able to
find a one bedroom, definitely find one that is not directly in the square.
I also have to make an argument against South Boston. It's like a whole
different city, you seriously need to get on a highway to actually get into
the city if you aren't taking public transportation. Plus parking is terrible
and rents are inflated.
------
cschmidt
Davis Square in Somerville is nice. It is on the Red Line of the T, so can pop
into Boston without driving.
~~~
djb_hackernews
I had many friends who lived in Davis, it really only made sense if you went
to Tufts or worked north of the city. Besides that rents were inflated because
of Tufts and you are pretty far removed from Boston proper.
~~~
nostrademons
It's been about 4 years since I checked, but at the time, Davis was
significantly cheaper than Central/Harvard or anything downtown.
It's about a 20-25 minute subway ride on the red line from Davis to downtown.
Judge for yourself if that's too far. It's definitely more removed from things
than the Harvard/Central/Kendall area, but that's nothing compared to some of
the commutes that people are willing to put up with in the Bay Area (where
it's an hour, with no traffic, to get from San Francisco to Mountain View).
The other thing I liked about Davis is that there seemed to be a burgeoning
micro-startup scene there, with a lot of tech minded people working out of
coffeeshops. Granted, that was 2006-07, so I'm not sure if it's still there.
But there were many more young people than in, say, Central Square or
downtown.
------
fjabre
Cambridge/Somerville - Porter Square, Harvard Sq, Central Sq
Boston - Allston/Brighton/Brookline.
~~~
mickt
There's also Back Bay, parts of the Fens, and Downtown.
Downtown is where all the subway lines meet. Back Bay & the Fens have a bit
more nature around them, and easy access to the slow Green Line.
------
venturefizz
Cambridge is great - especially Harvard Sq. You might want to check out South
Boston. I lived there for four years and liked it. Good luck with the move!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An emerging black market offers Amazon sellers ways to cheat the marketplace - minimaxir
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/leticiamiranda/amazon-marketplace-sellers-black-hat-scams-search-rankings
======
iooi
Just today I was browsing for new wine glasses. I finally found the product
that I wanted and checked out a couple of options on Amazon. The first two
reviews for the pair[1] I liked were complaining that they received
counterfeit items.
The reviews are verified reviews, but there's no way for me to know which
third party they bought it from so I could avoid them.
I ended up buying them on the manufacturers website. The shipping might not be
as fast, but I got a great discount by signing up on their newsletter and it
ended being significantly cheaper than Amazon.
This isn't my first experience like this. The biggest pain point of shopping
outside of Amazon is the checkout experience of a lot of smaller sites and
slower shipping, but I would much rather get my items a couple of days later
than have to deal with returning counterfeit items.
I'm surprised about how Amazon is dealing with this issue. It's the growth at
all costs approach, taking care of this would hurt their sales numbers -- but
that's a pretty myopic view of things. It's the kind of attitude that flooded
Twitter with bots, since taking care of that issue would hurt their growth
numbers that investors love.
I really hope Amazon fixes this since I like the idea of a one stop shopping
experience, but maybe people buying from the manufacturers directly might be
better for everyone involved. A universal checkout experience (one login,
saves CCs and contact information) would make Amazon obsolete in my opinion.
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Riedel-Burgundy-Cabernet-Merlot-
Glass...](https://www.amazon.com/Riedel-Burgundy-Cabernet-Merlot-
Glasses/dp/B000NB03L2)
~~~
dahdum
Amazon commingles inventory, so it doesn't matter which 3rd party you select
from the product page. Any one of them can inject the counterfeit into the
supply and affect sales from the others.
~~~
ryanburk
just a note: this commingling only happens if it is "fulfilled by Amazon" vs
buying directly from the 3rd party through Amazon.
~~~
dahdum
A bit more clarification, the page right now says:
"Sold by Spark Maestro and Fulfilled by Amazon."
While this is a 3rd party sale, it will be fulfilled from the inventory Amazon
has from any other seller. It has to ship from the 3rd party to be safe from
counterfeiting.
~~~
tedmcory77
Not exactly correct; the seller has to allow comingling as well.
~~~
dahdum
Does the buyer have any way to tell if an item is commingled, and if the
seller they selected does not commingle? The pressure to get the buy box on
competitive items means missing out on sales if you don't commingle.
------
cc439
>For just $5, Seller Mafia will “brush” an account, which is when a product
page is stripped of all information except its reviews and listed with a new
product, which is against Amazon’s marketplace rules. This allows a seller to
inherit a positive star rating and high ranking for a product without ever
selling anything. So a shopper may see a four-star product like a jade roller,
but the listing has had previous lives as a garage opener and a step stool to
earn that average four-star rating.
Ah, that explains several incidents where I rebought a previously purchased
item by searching through the listings in my order history, only to receive a
completely different product (I once received lace underwear when rebuying a
specific shampoo for example).
~~~
mgillett54
Wow this is really sleazy.
This seems like something that Amazon could solve by having humans in the
loop, but they probably have too much inventory.
~~~
nrb
This seems like something Amazon could trivially solve with software. Product
name, description, and listing categories all provide obvious context about
what is being sold, they could easily analyze these changes and detect abuses
such as this.
I'm surprised they don't automatically scrub the rating and reviews (why not
just automatically generate a new listing and list the old one as
unavailable?) for such consequential changes to a product listing.
------
chkaloon
"Amazon declined to comment on the specific black hat consulting firms named
in this story, but it told BuzzFeed News that these 'bad actors make up a
fraction of activity' on the site."
So some number below 100% apparently.
~~~
RyJones
This is one of my hobby horses. 1/1 is a fraction. Don't say something is a
fraction, say it's a small fraction, or express it in ppm or something
~~~
scarejunba
Languages work this way when the meaning is unambiguous. No one is going to
say "I used to live in London in the United Kingdom. The big one". No one's
going to always say "So desu ne". No one's going to say "a small fraction"
when "fraction" will suffice.
It's natural language. Conciseness is high value.
~~~
bdsa
Not to correct you as such, more to share a nice word: "concision" is a bit
more pleasing than "conciseness" in my opinion.
~~~
scarejunba
Funny story but I actually used that all the time till someone told me it
wasn't a word and I believed them. Truth set adjusted. Thank you.
It sounds so much more natural.
~~~
bdsa
It does. People have a weird tendency (it's not that weird I guess, it's the
same "force" that means less frequently used verbs are more likely to have
regular conjugations) to just use <adjective>ness when there are so many
beautiful words out there...
Don't get me started on "comfortableness".
------
downrightmike
This all seems completely intentional on Amazon's part. Why? Because it sends
people to the amazon branded version of the item, one they sell directly, or a
substitute. This is clearly an action they are taking to under cut their 3rd
party sellers. Amazon can and is doing this. And it is working. Why would
amazon want 3rd parties to sell something that sells well, when they can take
the sale directly away from competitors? Co-mingling is just their excuse that
covers up what they themselves are doing. A very convenient straw man for a
problem that they don't want to solve in any other way that doesn't benefit
only them in the end. This is a long play to have their cake and eat yours
too.
------
Lich
Something that I don’t see alot of people mention that is another huge problem
on Amazon is that many products are exactly the same white label products with
different logos and slight variations. Lots of the same alibab products
slightly customized. Some consumers are paying way more than others for the
same product.
------
pseudolus
Coincidently this week the podcast "Decrypted" featured an episode that
details how difficult it is to compete on the Amazon platform, especially
against Amazon itself. [0]
[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2019-04-22/as-amazon-
ge...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2019-04-22/as-amazon-gets-bigger-
sellers-feel-the-squeeze-podcast)
~~~
toasterlovin
Yeah, it turns out that, for tons of product categories, the value is in
controlling the customer relationship, not in merely offering goods for sale.
Who woulda thought?
The way you get around this, by the way, is by doing the hard work of
establishing a brand that customers are willing to pay for. Even then, a
certain segment of the market is going to go for low-price. Nothing you can do
about that.
------
dwighttk
I’ve stopped buying from third party sellers on amazon. And I’ve bought a lot
less from amazon proper too. Probably started about 4 years back.
~~~
0xADEADBEE
I did the exact same thing as you around the same time-frame and with the
amount of comments I see on here extolling Amazon I assumed I was an outlier.
What made you tail off? I was in the UK and I started noticing that while they
had originally been cheaper for most things, they were not and the convenience
(or inconvenience if I was out when a package was delivered) didn't really
offset that particular delta. I made the exception for about a year after I
caught on to that in order to buy second hand books because typically they
would retail for 1p with a ~£2.50 postage fee but I stopped that after a while
for various reasons (travel, ebooks, relocation).
~~~
dwighttk
Books are about the only thing I still buy at amazon. It probably started with
a purchase I made that kept delaying shipping, but the price was like 20%
better than anywhere else and I didn’t need it anytime soon. After a couple
months and like 6delays I canceled the order and decided to start buying from
bestbuy and Walmart. (Also Barnes&noble locally but their website is bad and
their app is even worse.)
Oh the other thing that definitely turned me off is searching for something
like a hoodie and getting a page full of results that each give ranges of
prices from $10-$50 and the only one for $10 is an xxs in dingy white and
everything else is $50. (Just made that example up)
~~~
tinus_hn
That’s the same on AliExpress, if you search for SD cards you get offers for
$0.01 cards and when you look at the offer you chose capacities and the 0.01
offer is for a 1 megabyte SD card that is sold out.
------
Guvante
I saw an interesting example of cheating during one of Amazon's sales. Someone
had posted an "updated" version of a board game that wasn't updated, it was
just a different language version. It was hard to tell if the release date was
updated but everything on the page pointed it to being the same product.
However it was prices higher of course.
------
adinobro
What I find really interesting is that Alibaba inside China has already solved
this problem in Tmall and Taobao (it doesn't really work for international
sellers).
Once you've built up a buying history and reach the level of VIP you get a
guaranteed refund policy while claims are being investigated. If you request a
refund you get the refund while they investigate.
Also refunds for counterfeit are triple on Tmall (optional on Taobao) which
makes it fairly easy to figure out if something will be real or not. The
seller also has to have a bond of different amounts which is public so you
know how much they trust their own products.
I thought that this would be interesting since Amazon just pulled out of
China. This is probably one of the main reasons they struggled here. (I live
in Shanghai as an expat)
------
seibelj
Any single thing there is not-insignificant demand for will have a market.
Think of any possible thing and google “buy [that thing]” and you will find a
seller or a story about sellers.
The question is what Amazon will do about it.
------
millstone
Say sellers banded together to form a communal market site. The market would
be jointly owned and controlled. What are the barriers to that? Is it just a
mass coordination problem?
~~~
shapov
Amazon’s strength is their logistics network. Any co-op you’ve just described
will have an incredibly difficult time competing on shipping prices and speed
of delivery.
~~~
nrb
Yeah Amazon clearly dwarfs the logistics capability of nearly anyone, but as
far as the 2-day delivery advantage Amazon has, there are some companies
making competition in the space: ShopRunner is one I'm aware of and I'm sure
there's others.
------
skookumchuck
Amazon should just sent employees to those black hat seminars, learn how they
work, and block them. As long as there's a market for black hat services,
Amazon can find it as well as anyone, sign up, and block it.
~~~
Regardsyjc
I'm an Amazon consultant and I wasn't aware that super urls were black hat
until recently. Even today, "gurus" or big Amazon software companies promote
urls and launch services.
I think Amazon usually catches on and starts suspending sellers after 6 months
to a year after an exploit is discovered but that is a really long time. Even
then a lot of these issues are probably small beans compared to the major
abuse I see on their platform from Chinese sellers. I can't imagine what kind
of counterfeit problems they might have but they have been making changes so
I'm sure they'll figure it out within the next year or two. Changes like more
seller suspensions for manipulating sales rank, TOS updates, requiring photo
ID for new sellers, vendor central updates, and more.
In the long run, it won't matter what third party sellers do because Amz will
probably sell directly themselves the 20% of the catalog that makes 80% of
their sales whether through their own secret private label brands or their
vendor program.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Future of the Web Is 100 Years Old - pmcpinto
http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-future-of-the-web-is-100-years-old
======
petewailes
In a world where the Trump bid for the Whitehouse has popular support, and a
lot of it, and where things like Fox News and Buzzfeed exist, it's reasonably
clear that people care more about being entertained and having their opinions
validated and reinforced, more than being right.
It's a difficult question - should information be censored, to make sure it's
actually correct?
Personally, I struggle with this one. My default reaction would be yes, a
curated internet, fact checked for accuracy would be better. But at the same
time, I know that people interpret unbiased information with their own
prejudices, to reinforce their own views. So simply curating and only
reporting truth, I suspect, isn't enough.
My own feeling is that the issue at its root is societal in nature - how do
you get people to care more about being right than about holding opinions that
fit their narrative of the world, or their own ego? I'm not sure there's an
answer to that.
~~~
onion2k
_My default reaction would be yes, a curated internet, fact checked for
accuracy would be better._
I'm the opposite. I'd rather have a free, open web that's full of lies and
misinformation, but with a population who understand it's like that and
question what they see.
Something based on your default position is probably easier to implement.
~~~
petewailes
How would you educate people to fact check and question? I'd love a good
mechanism for this.
~~~
soapdog
At Mozilla we are running a program to teach Web Literacy and new digital
skills called "Mozilla Clubs" [1] it is based on hands-on activities that are
participatory in nature. Basically a group of people that meets regularly to
learn and teach about the web in an inclusive and fun way.
Here is our activity aimed to teach about fact checking and credibility:
[http://mozilla.github.io/mozilla-club-activity-kraken-the-
co...](http://mozilla.github.io/mozilla-club-activity-kraken-the-code/)
Be aware that this is aimed at a young crowd but it works with any group. It
is a very simple activity but it has all the basis needed to understand that
not all the stuff online is gold.
This is just one activity in our "Web Basics I" curriculum. This set of
activities aim to teach the basics of Web/Internet understanding and
mechanics.
[1]: more info about Mozilla Clubs at:
[http://teach.mozilla.org/clubs](http://teach.mozilla.org/clubs)
------
SRSposter
>Otlet hoped that this new system would allow for a grand unification of human
knowledge, and entirely new forms of information. But neither he nor his
Mundaneum survived the ravages of World War II. After invading Brussels, the
Nazis destroyed much of his life’s work, removing more than 70 tons worth of
material and repurposing the World Palace site for an exhibition of Third
Reich art. Otlet died in 1944, and has remained largely forgotten ever since.
Thats just sad, really tragic.
~~~
czam
What's even worse is that even today Belgium fails to realize what a great
cultural heritage they have in Paul Otlet's work. The remainders of his
collection are dumped in a museum in the city of Mons which completely misses
the chance to explain the originality and reach of Otlet's work and ideas.
------
Aardwolf
Off topic but still related:
When opening this nautil.us page, it turns out to be one of the MANY websites
that show a modal javascript "popup" after a few seconds of reading the
article.
We're back to the year 1999 with the popups.
I found no plugin for firefox that blocks those (and only those plus EU cookie
warnings, I want other JS to run). Does anyone know one? What is the correct
word to search for (it's not really a popup)?
Thanks!
~~~
insin
It looks like Fanboy's Annoyance List [1] would have blocked it with this
rule:
nautil.us###adpayload
There's a checkbox in uBlock Origin's settings dashboard to enable this list.
[https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/](https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/)
~~~
Aardwolf
Thanks! Helps against the nautilus one. Not at "yesmagazine.org" unfortunately
:)
I wonder how possible it is to make something more advanced that blocks these
things programmatically by detecting the behaviour (rectangular thing in
center modally popping on top of large amount of text).
~~~
tajen
What about the "reader view", either the one of iOS either Pocket or Evernote?
~~~
soapdog
There is also the "reader view" of Firefox. This is present on all Firefox
browsers so it works on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows and Android.
More info at: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-
clu...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-
web-pages)
PS: This is not the pocket thing.
------
tudorw
So can we point a deep learning network at a digitised library, teach it the
Dewey decimal system then get it to classify web content?
------
ilaksh
Of course we don't want one curated internet. Unless 'we' are a repressive
government.
Leave it open and allow people and companies to create different curations.
But there is room to promote things like Linked Data or the like.
But I can imagine a type of language with less ambiguity than natural language
that would be more easily machine-processable and indexable. Like Attempto
Controlled English or something more elegant and not an offshoot of English.
------
nekopa
Off-topic: This sentence really caught me:
_Personal liberation, empowerment, and revolutionary rhetoric—all deeply
American traits—_
As an American, I feel like these are no longer deeply American traits, and
that makes me sad...
------
dctoedt
Wasn't Yahoo's original vision much like this --- a curated Internet (but
without the Dewey Decimal System-like numerical taxonomy)?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How we use Backbone.js to build Codiqa – Part 1: API - yesimahuman
http://blog.codiqa.com/2012/05/how-we-use-backbone-js-to-build-codiqa-part-1-api/
======
zgohr
Excellent article. Did you run into any major pain points when ramping up with
Backbone? Any resources you used that you would recommend to a newcomer?
~~~
yesimahuman
Thanks! Yes, I had some issues with dealing with collections, and also tying
collections in with views. Really it was more of a mismatch between what I
expected and what I _should_ have expected. Additionally, making the mistake
of assigning data on the prototype of an object rather than the instance
itself was an initial mistake I was making but I that's just a JS gotcha.
Really the best resource I found was just googling for examples. I didn't find
the Todo example very helpful because it's not network oriented, but it does
help for views.
------
zafriedman
+1 for wrapping your back-end resources as a Backbone.js model
------
theatrus2
So, how would this compare to Ember?
~~~
SkyMarshal
[http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-
Em...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-Ember-js-
formerly-SproutCore-2-0-and-Backbone-js)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460632>
[http://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/q6vvu/spinejs_vs_back...](http://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/q6vvu/spinejs_vs_backbonejs_vs_emberjs/)
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10099059/whats-are-the-
ke...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10099059/whats-are-the-key-
differences-between-meteor-ember-js-and-backbone-js)
etc...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Flop That Saved Microsoft - iwh
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/10/microsoft_zune_how_one_of_the_biggest_flops_in_tech_history_helped_revive.single.html
======
quanticle
Well, it hasn't saved Microsoft _yet_. Yes, the Zune's UI has had huge
influences on both Windows Phone and Windows 8. However, Windows Phone hasn't
been very successful, and the success of Windows 8 has yet to be determined.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BYTE, the most beloved computer-magazine brand of all, is coming back. - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2010/12/22/good-grief-byte-is-coming-back/
======
cpr
The back story of Byte (if anyone cares) is that Carl Helmers, who was working
at Intermetrics at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, MA at the time (1973? 74?--forget
details at this late date), was publishing a little samizdat Intel 4004/8008
hobbyist newsletter on the side (mimeographed, etc.).
I was working at Intermetrics (mostly a government compiler house at the time)
as a consultant on a competitor language to ADA, as a sophomore in college.
Dan Fylstra, a friend from San Diego high school days, and the future founder
of VisiCorp (publisher of VisiCalc), was also working there, and we were both
interested in what Carl was doing.
Somehow, he dragged us both into talking to Wayne Green, then the somewhat
eccentric publisher of the most popular ham radio magazine, up in
Peterborough, NH, and we three got Byte off the group with Wayne's help. (Carl
was the main editor, and I was just a part-time editor/writer.)
As much as I enjoyed the work, I was still in school full-time, and also
working more than full-time at Intermetrics (hey, it was fun work and paid
well), so I had to drop out later that fall. Not sure what happened to Dan's
involvement, but I think he also was then at Harvard Business School after
undergrad at MIT (and soon thereafter starting VisiCorp), and thus pretty
short on time.
The very early Bytes were completely "golly, gee whiz, look what you can do
with this thing!" and more like Carl's newsletter--very amateur. I guess it
eventually got a lot more professional, but I never really kept up with it.
(Edit: Hunh, looking at some of these scans, I managed to stay on the masthead
as an associate for quite some time after I dropped off the map.)
------
comatose_kid
All Byte fans (and 20-somethings that have never heard of Byte) - some guy is
scanning issues to pdf here:
<http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167235-byte-magazine/>
Get them. Read them. You're welcome :)
~~~
aw3c2
Isn't it sad how this is absolutely not legal? I wish copyrights would expire
as quickly as their original intent would justify. Maybe 5-10 years.
~~~
rbanffy
The original copyright holders would probably just state that their intent has
always been for them to last forever.
What BYTE would need is a "OK. You sat on this copyrighted material for very
long. It's now time for this knowledge to be available again" mechanism that
would prevent abandoned works from remaining abandoned.
------
jhrobert
I am french. At the time reading Byte was basically like having the Internet
today, suddenly amazing things were "available". The magazine was not easy to
find in France in the early 80's. I read all the back issues I could find.
Nothing is perfect. I blame the (in)famous 1990 article "Is Unix dead?" for
keeping me away from Unix for years.
------
thristian
The article includes a picture of the December 1975 cover issue:
[http://technologizer.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bytecover.j...](http://technologizer.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bytecover.jpg)
The first listed article is "What is a Character"; it amuses me that thirty-
five years later, with the invention of Unicode, you could still fill a few
pages with an article under that headline.
~~~
RyanMcGreal
Case in point: <http://diveintopython3.org/strings.html>
------
julian37
The story of what happened to BYTE in 1998, from Jerry Pournelle's point of
view:
<http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/fiasco.html>
And from the perspective of Tom R. Halfhill, BYTE Magazine senior editor:
<http://www.halfhill.com/bytefaq.html>
------
michael_dorfman
I loved BYTE, but I could lose the hyperbole: _What’s the most-loved computer
magazine of all time? There’s really only one contender: BYTE,_
Creative Computing, Kilobaud, and Dr Dobb's Journal are all strong contenders,
in my book.
~~~
code_duck
Amiga World? It's the only one I've ever actually had a subscription to.
~~~
protomyth
Antic was the Atari camp's equivalent. It amazes me how many programs I typed
from magazine listings.
------
jaskerr
I loved BYTE, back in the day. At one point, I lugged around ten years' worth
of back issues, before giving them to the local library.
I'm not very hopeful for the new edition. From the press release: the new BYTE
"will serve as the professional’s guide to consumer technology, providing
news, analysis, reviews, and insight across the media gamut."
Not reaching very high, are they? This doesn't sound like the publication that
gave us in-depth articles on every bus type from S-100 on, languages such as
Forth and Smalltalk, and Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar ...
------
shortformblog
When I was twelve years old, I read these magazines cover to cover at my local
library (even the really old ones), and ESPECIALLY loved Jerry Pournelle's
"Chaos Manor" columns in the back. To see its name being mentioned again warms
my heart, even if Pournelle isn't involved.
~~~
kazuya
When I was 12, I was a regular reader of _bit_ magazine.
No, not a joke. It was a Japanese magazine similar to BYTE in spirit, but more
of CS taste. I remember articles about concurrent Prolog, machine translation
using pivot representations, distributed systems etc.
I stopped reading it when I got to the university, where I was able to be up-
to-date with such kind of information without it.
And then, its publishing ceased in 2001.
------
imaginator
I loved Byte.
As a kid growing up in South Africa, Byte was my connection to the outside
world. International sanctions made computers incredibly expensive. Byte gave
me hope that if I could just get abroad...
I would sit for hours in the local library and read 6 month old issues and
live in hope that I would one day be able to play with the machines mentioned
in there.
------
kentbrew
It won't be the same without Chaos Manor. :(
~~~
comatose_kid
Here's a silly send-up of his writing style:
<http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/95q1/jpreviews.html>
------
tsotha
Still won't be good unless they bring back _Ciarcia's Circuit Celler_ as a
regular feature.
~~~
joe_bleau
You know that he's been doing his own magazine, Circuit Cellar Ink, right? (I
think it recently hooked up with Elektor, at least in the US market.) Worth
checking into.
~~~
tsotha
Yeah, actually. He has a website too.
------
efutch
As a CS student in Guatemala in the 80s, Byte was like news from the cutting
edge of technology. We used to get like 5-10 copies for the only store that
sold them, and they went fast. I had to literally keep up with their shipping
schedule in order to get my copy.
I've missed the deep technical articles, and fighting with my PC Magazine-
reading friends about the superiority of our magazine.
Just recently, I was wrestling with the idea of discarding my old Byte
magazines, but I really couldn't throw them away, some of the articles are
still very good to read. I still have the Byte CD-ROM, wonder if it would
still work?
~~~
efutch
Oh yeah, and I have a Tinney signed print of the robot coming out of the
eggshell. I also have the magazine.
------
blue1
I hope this is not the usual resurrected brand disappointment, Amiga-like.
~~~
steveklabnik
Or Atari. Or Commodore. :/
~~~
rbanffy
Be fair - that new C-64-named PC looks like a C64.
------
turbodog
Two words, young folk: "Cover painting"
<http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/169>
------
mtkd
Crash magazine will always be my most beloved.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_%28magazine%29>
------
timthorn
The announcement makes it sound as if the magazine isn't coming back - just a
relaunched website. Anyone know if this is the case? I'm one of those people
who likes to have a physical magazine to flick through.
I paid for a three year Byte subscription with my first pay cheque and got two
issues before the magazine folded, so am keen to get back to it!
------
JoeAltmaier
I think I still have the 1st two years' edition packed up in a box in the
shed...moved from home, to college, thru 3 apartments, then 3 houses, and now
in my shed. Never opened the boxes, but they survived many, many cleanouts.
Don't really know why.
------
norswap
I don't want to break anyone's hopes but this doesn't really sounds good to me
:
"[BYTE] will serve as the professional’s guide to consumer technology,
providing news, analysis, reviews, and insight across the media gamut"
------
stretchwithme
Loved Byte. What a dense collection of enjoyable articles every month. I'd
subscribe and I don't get any paper magazines any more.
I don't understand the business case for gutting this fine publication.
------
Imagenuity
I hope they are able to bring back their archive of stories back to the
beginning of the magazine. That is a tremendous amount of information
documenting the beginning of the personal computer era.
------
patrickaljord
Never heard of it.
~~~
Zev
Its from the mid '70's and stopped publishing in the late 90's. I suppose that
you'd have to either be slightly old (late 20's) or a computer history geek to
know about it. I'm the latter -- they stopped publishing when I was 9 (!)
years old
~~~
mindcrime
Heh, it's always funny to hear youngsters talk about what's "old" to them. And
even funnier, is that pretty much every group has an older group looking back
and going "you kids don't know what old is yet, now get the hell off my lawn."
Late 20's is young as shit to me.... now you 60+ year old fossils who might be
hanging around can go write some COBOL or whatever it is you do...
<tongue_firmly_in_cheek />
------
arjn
Yay!!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I convince a company to participate in Open Source? - opendomain
I have been asked to give a proposal to my friend's company for why they should participate in Open Source. They use a lot of open source, but I think their current policies do not allow employees to contribute code or time. I am looking for concrete reasons such as proof it is more secure, help from outside developers finding bugs, Return on Investment, etc.
======
michaelpinto
the only strong case i've heard for that is that contributing code will boost
your reputation and thus improve sales. but i think that only works well if
you sponsor an entire project or if you're a custom software shop looking for
clients.
~~~
opendomain
Thank you. I guess it could also improve their reputation to be able to hire
developers
~~~
michaelpinto
Put another way "street cred".
: D
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. sets plan to build two exascale supercomputers - jonbaer
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3143551/high-performance-computing/us-sets-plan-to-build-two-exascale-supercomputers.html
======
thomasrossi
I was at a conference in Sept (actually YC startupschool:P) and there was a
comprehensive speech by Rigetti about quantum computers and how much more
powerful they are and how much less energy they need. In the article above
it's not clear what technology they are planning to use.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Archy - GuiA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy
======
aidos
For anyone who hasn't read it, Jef Raskin's _The Humane Interface_ is a great
book. Makes you really stop and think about how we interact with objects
around us - physical and virtual.
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Humane-Interface-Directions-
Intera...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Humane-Interface-Directions-
Interactive/dp/0201379376)
~~~
specialist
I still find a lot of inspiration from the earlier UI books (ideas), before
everything settled down. Lots of crazy, awesome ideas. Now it's just how to
books.
I've been anticipating the ZUI for ages. eg It's the correct answer for a
window manager. It's the only way to maintain continuity, preventing users
getting "hyperlost", kinda like what breadcrumbs try to accomplish.
Did you see the new flashy zooming Calendar transitions in the WWDC Mavericks
demo? It appears to have the right balance between zooming and level of detail
(LOD). Me want!
FWIW, I did _not_ anticipate the dynamic 2.5D in the forthcoming iOS 7. That's
gonna be huge.
------
Uchikoma
I've clicked because I tought it was Archie
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine)
for which I have fond memories.
~~~
rwmj
Fond memories? Archie was truly horrible.
~~~
sdfjkl
Archie was no doubt truly horrible compared to every search engine that came
after it. However it was at it's time a god-send, as previously there was
simply no way to find anything you weren't directly linked to.
~~~
Uchikoma
Exactly.
------
ripperdoc
Nice, especially the zoom-approach, have anyone seen this being implemented?
However, I disagree with the whole idea of typing commands. For power users
that's great, but for casual users, it's nearly impossible to know which
commands exist, what they are called or what they will do. The menu based
interface has the great advantage that it categorizes commands and allows the
user to see what can be done, and use deduction to pick the right command.
There should be no need to remember any command names or key combinations for
light users.
~~~
TuringTest
Menu and typing commands are not either-or exclusive; you can have both. In a
system like Archy there can be menus stored as plain text - given that it's
trivial to select text and invoke it as a command. It's just that menus don't
require a separate subsystem or component, they're stored in the homogeneous
system's data representation (and they can be user-editable, which modern GUIs
don't allow - yet).
I've known of Archy and The Humane Interface for about ten years, and it's
funny how more and more interfaces are converging towards the interaction
style defined by it (with some tweaks because of backwards compatibility and-
or because some of the ideas in the book have been tested and improved since
then).
------
lloeki
Interesting how OSX strives to achieve similar points, although not coming
from a "from scratch" experience.
\- persistence + universal undo: Versions and Time Machine
\- leaping: missing (although OSX strives to support both fn/alt/cmd+stuff and
a reduced set of emacs keybindings, it's a far cry from doing it anywhere)
\- commands: services. Also, the 'bundle' architecture, of which applications
are a specific instance of aims to make self contained components that add
features to the system.
\- zoomworld: Exposé/Mission Control/App Exposé (with open/minimized/MRU).
Also, Finder inline previews, then QuickShow and finally the document opened
in the corresponding app.
Again all of this is in a reduced form, and applied to a pre-existing WIMP
environment. None of those features existed on OSX 10.0, and it gradually
evolved to have them.
------
perlgeek
Has anybody used this, and can comment on how well the "type while holding the
Alt (or capslock) key" works? I imagine it's a bit hard to type with both
hands while holding down a key.
~~~
mvaliente2001
I used it. It was a very interesting experience, but a little hard to get used
to. The position of alt is not comfortable for the quasi-mode required. CAPS
is more accessible, but then you can't use your pinkie. Raskin's idea was to
use a special keyboard with two spacial keys, LEAP FORWARD and LEAP BACK near
SPACE.
It's so sad that the project died. The interface was very promising and I long
for that keyboard I never used.
~~~
TuringTest
Even though the project died, the ideas in it have spread. It's a funny
exercise for a trained eye to look for ideas originating in The Humane
Interface throughout all kind of modern interfaces.
That book has been much more influential than it may seem - all the good
interface designers seem to know it or at least follow its principles.
------
mntmn
The hardware keys were actually implemented, in the Canon Cat project:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat)
------
arocks
Looks like a lot of good ideas have been taken from Emacs and applied to the
windowing system; which btw is a great idea. Hope it is as scriptable and
extensible as well.
~~~
muxxa
A big difference between Emacs and Raskins' design is the concept of
modelessness. If you've ever typed META+X in emacs in anticipation of typing a
command, and then switched windows or got distracted or clicked the mouse,
emacs is left in the 'command mode' and will misinterpret your next input.
Raskin coined the term 'pseudo-mode'. The difference between a pseudo-mode and
a mode is the difference between the SHIFT key and the CAPS-LOCK key (for
entering uppercase letters). The latter frustrates while the former goes
unnoticed because it works so well.
If you are in any way involved with usability, read The Humane Interface:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface)
~~~
TheZenPsycho
actually he coined to term "Quasi-mode"
------
brini
I like that he named Archy after Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel, the
cockroach and alley cat duo. Archy the cockroach would spend hours throwing
his body against the keys of a manual typewriter to convey his poetry about
his muse Mehitabel, who in turn would throw herself repeatedly against the
harsh world of alley-cat living with irrepressible gaiety. Two paragons of the
struggle with interfaces!
------
eitland
No comment on the license yet?
I might be dumb but if somebody don't sell commercial licenses why would they
restrict the usefulness by adding restrictions on commercial usage?
Edit: style. And a possible reason - maybe they have used a non-free library
with a non-commercial only clause?
------
phryk
Don't take this the wrong way but for an interface expert Raskin doesn't seem
to give much consideration to typography. While it might be innovative, I
couldn't use that interface simply because of the bad readability…
~~~
sdfjkl
Those are details that can be refined later. The overarching concept is great.
~~~
hrkristian
I see what you did there.
~~~
throwit1979
Is this reddit?
------
gohrt
Interesting. The modern smartphone OS is almost exactly like Archy. Perhaps
related to the common Raskin@Apple lineage of Archy and the iPhone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A light-touch educational game engine in ES6 - justosophy
https://github.com/justosophy/Plausible-Game-Engine/
======
sargegood
Looks pretty cool. I think I'll check it out.
------
alifa
Pretty cool! awesome
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Psychology of “OK, Boomer” - Pick-A-Hill2019
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-do-you-know/201911/the-psychology-ok-boomer
======
Quequau
I'm old enough to be just barely a boomer and I have to admit that I've long
suspected that if all the kids, _en masse_ , ever figure out just how much was
given away or squandered to facilitate lifestyles that besides not being
sustainable were in many important ways inauthentic, that there would be some
sort of major generational strife. Maybe not as violent and wrenching as the
Cultural Revolution or the Killing Fields but something deservedly unpleasant
and disruptive.
"OK Boomer" is basically the tiniest slight that's producible in the English
language and it's being passed around on images and gifs as jokes. That's it.
Nevertheless, it's provoked a stream of pathetic outrage and whiny articles
coming from the status quo.
~~~
charlesism
Your generation had "Don't trust anyone over 30!”
We should revise the message to be “people of all generations make lousy
decisions” and leave it at that.
~~~
Pick-A-Hill2019
One of the reasons I posted this is because I was interested in finding out if
this (ok Boomer) was the historic equivalent of 'Ok Gramps' or if the under-
laying sentiment is substantially different this time round. You are right
that each generation holds the previous to blame so maybe it is just the
amplification effects of social media. Perhaps it is thanks to the internet
that different generations now share some common domains of social interaction
and therefore have an increased awareness of others views. The disconnect
between the opposing views seems different and I'm unsure about why. Is this a
storm in a teacup or is there a sense of real frustration on the part of you,
the new generation?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Elsevier boycott one year on - tokenadult
http://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/the-elsevier-boycott-one-year-on/
======
aswanson
I would like to see a similar effort directed towards the IEEE and Acm
publishing associations. They both leech off of publicly funded research and
impede scientific and technological progress with their myriad paywalls.
~~~
scott_s
They are professional organizations, not just publishers. As professional
organizations, their primary goal is to support their members and the
betterment of the field. They may not always have paywalls; unlike Elsivier,
their organization exists for purposes other than getting money from
publications.
The co-chairs of the ACM Publishing Board recently wrote an editorial,
"Positioning ACM for an Open Access Future":
[http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/2/160170-positioning-
acm-...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/2/160170-positioning-acm-for-an-
open-access-future/fulltext)
It's not enough, but it's a start, and I'm hopeful. I am a member of both the
ACM and IEEE, and I want both of these organizations to move to a fully open
access model.
~~~
joelthelion
>their primary goal is to support their members and the betterment of the
field
Their primary goal is securing a nice remuneration for the members of their
board.
I've been in this field for a long time and I want to see these organizations
disappear. We don't need them (anymore).
~~~
jrochkind1
Those on the IEEE board get paid? That surprises me, although I could believe
it -- do you have a cite?
------
tylerneylon
I'd say the boycott has reached the point of crossing the chasm into adoption
by mainstream users. There are still new people signing up all the time, but
the pace is low.
A bottleneck to mainstream use is the lack of overlap between hackers/devs and
people who are most influential in academic publishing, such as senior
editors. To developers the question is: if editors want to post their articles
on the web, why don't they just do that? To editors, the question is: how can
I practically make my journal open access? There is a need for technology to
assist in setting up open access journals.
Some people are working on solutions, but it's not obvious what that solution
will ultimately look like. There is some trial and error happening, and I hope
great progress is made while the problem has the attention of the community.
~~~
anonymouz
"A bottleneck to mainstream use is the lack of overlap between hackers/devs
and people who are most influential in academic publishing, such as senior
editors. To developers the question is: if editors want to post their articles
on the web, why don't they just do that? To editors, the question is: how can
I practically make my journal open access? There is a need for technology to
assist in setting up open access journals."
That seems pretty far-fetched. Lots of Open Access journals and preprint
platforms exist, and there is no evidence that lack of a suitable software
platform is a limitation. The problem is more one of those new outlets gaining
sufficient reputation to be trusted by more people (and hiring comittees) and
figuring out how they should sustain themselves financially.
With the more adventurous approaches the main problem is once again coming up
with a model that is actually better and then convincing a whole scientific
community to drop their current approach and make their careers depend on a
new publishing model. Writing the software is easy by comparison.
------
rumberg
Off-topic: I updated the sites' design to make it more readable:
<http://cl.ly/image/3l3M0E320S3m>
------
rayiner
This "free as in speech" == "free as in beer" shtick has become weird. When
you're more fundamentalist than RMS it's time to step back and introspect.
~~~
clicks
Have you read Eben Moglen's writings per chance? Your thoughts?
If you haven't looked into his work, here's something (in line with topic) to
get started on: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcy_ZxXLl8> \-- I'd be
curious to hear your thoughts. It's 1 hour 11 minutes, but I promise every
second is worth watching. Moglen is an excellent communicator.
Near 8 minutes in, he says this:
_This is the introduction to the free software movement. This is the purpose
of the free software movement. This is the aim not only of the free software
movement, but of a large number of the other things we are doing that arise
from the fact that the digital revolution means that knowledge no longer has a
non-zero marginal cost, that when you have the first copy of any significant
representation of knowledge – whatever the fixed cost of the production of
that representation may have been – you have as many additional copies,
everywhere, as you need, without any significant additional costs.
The non-zero marginal cost quality of all the things we digitize, which – in
the society we are now building – is everything we value, because we digitize
everything we can value, right down to how we fit in our jeans, right? In the
world where we digitize everything of value and everything of value has been
digitized, a moral question of significance arises: When you can provide to
everybody everything that you value, at the cost of providing it to any one
body, what is the morality of excluding people who cannot afford to pay?
If you could make as much bread, or have as many fishes, as you needed to feed
everyone, at the cost of the first loaf and the first fish plus a button
press, what would be the morality for charging more for loaves and fishes than
the poorest person could afford to pay? It’s a difficult moral problem,
explaining why you are excluding people from that which you yourself value
highly and could provide to them for nothing.
The best way of solving this moral problem is not to acknowledge its
existence, which is the current theory. The current theory in force takes the
view that industrial society lived in a world of non-zero marginal cost for
information – information and the ability to learn had to be embedded in
analog things: books, recordings, objects that cost non-zero amounts of money
to make, move, and sell. Therefore, it was inevitable that representations of
things we value would have significant marginal costs. And in economies
operating efficiently and competitively, – or for that matter, efficiently and
non-competitively – there would still be some cost that somebody has to pay at
the other end to receive each copy of something of meaning or value, unless
there is somebody available to provide a subsidy. And since that was the 20th
century reality, it was appropriate to have moral theory which regarded
exclusion as an inevitable necessity.
The discussion, of course, was about scale. “Ought we to find ways to
subsidize more knowledge for more people?”, and the United States became not
merely the wealthiest and most powerful country, after the second world war,
not merely the indispensable or inevitable country, it became the
intellectually most attractive country because it heavily subsidized the
availability of sophisticated knowledge to people who could make use of it,
even people who came elsewhere from poorer societies, or who had not the money
to pay. And after the second world war, in the G.I. Bill, the United States
took a unique approach to the age-old problem of how to reduce social disorder
after war time through the demobilization of a large number of young men
trained to the efficient use of collective violence – a thing which is always
worrisome to societies, and which typically produces repression movements
post-war, as the society as a whole tries to get back its leverage over those
young men – the G.I. Bill was a radical, and indeed productive approach to the
problem, namely send everybody to as much education as they want to have, at
the expense of the state which is grateful to them for risking their lives in
its defense. A splendid system; on the basis of that, and the provision of
tertiary and quaternary education to the talented elite of the world, the
United Stated government built a special place for its society in the world,
as throwing away fewer brains than its power and importance would otherwise
have tended to indicate it would do.
But we are no longer talking about whether we can save people, identified as
the elite of other societies, from the ignorance to which they might otherwise
fall prey, through enlightened federal spending. We are talking about
eliminating ignorance. We’re talking about addressing the great deprivation of
knowledge of everything of use and utility and beauty from everybody, by
building out the network across humanity, and allowing everybody to have the
knowledge and the culture that they wish to obtain. And we’re talking about
doing that because the alternative to doing that is the persistence of an
immoral condition._
Please watch to see how he continues :)
~~~
rayiner
He loses me at "zero marginal cost." What is the here or there of the
"marginal" part? "Zero marginal cost" is not the same as "zero cost." Since
when do people have a right to receive things for their marginal cost? What
difference does it make whether that marginal cost is zero or very small?
I love free software. But one of the things I love about the free software
community is that it is self-sufficient. It respects that some people don't
want to "share" so it shares amongst itself. RMS didn't copy the source code
of some commercial compiler and "free it." He wrote his own. Miguel de Icaza
didn't copy the source of CDE and put it on Pirate Bay and "free it." He
started GNOME and wrote his own desktop.
I see the "free information" people as the antithesis of that. They don't just
want to share what they create. They want to share what _you_ create. And I
see that as an impingement on freedom.
~~~
clicks
> I see the "free information" people as the antithesis of that. They don't
> just want to share what they create. They want to share what you create. And
> I see that as an impingement on freedom.
I think the way the "free information" people see things is that a free and
easy, attractive accessibility of knowledge (or more generally, information)
is needed for anyone to truly prosper in their life, and for humanity to
progress further as a whole. A physical good (like food) is not reproducible
at an effective zero marginal cost -- digital data is. So, when you in fact
_can_ provide everyone this resource, and work to achieve a world with true
equal opportunity at least in this one aspect (of knowledge) at a practically
zero or near-zero cost, you are indeed _morally obliged to_ distribute this
good to everyone who will prosper from it. As it stands, _culture_ is no
longer free -- to be able to participate you must pay. The more you are able
to pay, the more cultured you can be. Books, movies, music -- you can have
only as much culture, knowledge as you can pay. Why... when it's finally
gotten so much easier to afford everyone culture and information for free, or
near-free costs.
~~~
rayiner
Okay, so digital data is reproducible at near-zero marginal cost, and so there
is a moral obligation to distribute it for zero cost to anyone who will
benefit from it. Let's generalize this principle. There are physical goods
that are reproducible for very low marginal costs. Clothes, food, etc,
medicine, etc, are all very cheap to produce in large quantities. Is there a
moral obligation to provide those goods--not for free but for their low
marginal cost, to anyone who will prosper from it? If the answer is no, how do
you justify the distinction? The producer is in no different a position if he
is obligated to provide something with $0 marginal cost for $0 than if he is
obligated to provide something with $3 marginal cost for $3. There is no
mathematical discontinuity as the marginal cost approaches $0, as long as the
producer is compensated for whatever the marginal cost happens to be.
~~~
clicks
> There are physical goods that are reproducible for very low marginal costs.
> Clothes, food, etc, medicine, etc, are all very cheap to produce in large
> quantities. Is there a moral obligation to provide those goods--not for free
> but for their low marginal cost, to anyone who will prosper from it?
A physical good (food, clothes) is depletable, and in that way too unlike
digital data, which is for all practical purposes undepletable. But if you
consider even highly inexpensive physical goods, they have various substantial
costs of transportation, inventory, etc. associated to them, and thus they are
not truly as fluidly and effortlessly reproducible in the way that digital
data is reproducible for zero cost.
You have a network in which it is so convenient to share that it's almost
begging you to. There's a lot of fundamental rethinking of commerce here, and
I was quite bugged by it all when I started looking into it myself. But when
you see how badly the bigger half of people in this world are suffering it's
easier to see why this is necessary.
You're going to get a much better explanation of things from Moglen himself
than me -- here, the transcript to the video I linked (if you're unable to
watch the video):
[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Free_and_Open_Software:_Paradi...](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Free_and_Open_Software:_Paradigm_for_a_New_Intellectual_Commons)
~~~
rayiner
> A physical good (food, clothes) is depletable, and in that way too unlike
> digital data, which is for all practical purposes undepletable. But if you
> consider even highly inexpensive physical goods, they have various
> substantial costs of transportation, inventory, etc. associated to them, and
> thus they are not truly as fluidly and effortlessly reproducible in the way
> that digital data is reproducible for zero cost.
Right, that's why I said "not for free but for their low marginal cost."
You're hand-waving with the "zero marginal cost" argument without addressing
my counter-point. If the fact that something has a marginal cost approaching
$0 means you are morally obligated to provide it for a price approaching $0,
why is there not a similar moral obligation to provide something that has a
marginal cost of $3 for $3?
~~~
clicks
Oops, sorry I misread you.
> If the fact that something has a marginal cost approaching $0 means you are
> morally obligated to provide it for a price approaching $0, why is there not
> a similar moral obligation to provide something that has a marginal cost of
> $3 for $3?
If it were up to me, it would be -- or roughly something like that. But I have
supposedly radical views on a lot of things (FWIW I affiliate to a local
socialist party). I think a lot of the decisions made by big pharmaceutical
companies, retail corporations, etc. are morally reprehensible. To give you a
more direct answer of why I do not go down the streets at night shouting for
change on this: because it'll be much harder for me to achieve that change.
It'll be much harder for me to be an influencing force of bringing about a
system I would be happy with. But because I _am_ someone of a technical
background, this fight is the fight I choose to participate in. Also, charging
something $3 for something that has a marginal cost of $3 sounds kind of lousy
-- I'm sure there's got to be a more elegant way of doing that. :)
~~~
rayiner
I disagree with you, but admire your consistency. I think a lot of people
pushing for "free information" draw an arbitrary distinction between digital
things that are almost free to reproduce and physical things that are fairly
cheap to reproduce.
~~~
czr80
I think the real difference here is not so much that the marginal cost of
digital goods is low, but that customers also own the means of reproduction.
That is the fundamental difference that leads to arguments over rights, and
then to arguments over morals, as these things often do.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Oracle loses on fair use; Only rangeCheck left (w/o new trial) - fpgeek
http://www.theverge.com/android/2012/5/9/3010404/judge-denies-oracles-motion-for-ruling-on-fair-use-says-new-trial
======
lbrandy
These infamous lines are certain to get copied quite a bit more. In case you
haven't seen them:
private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
if (fromIndex > toIndex)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
if (fromIndex < 0)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
if (toIndex > arrayLen)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
}
~~~
BlackAura
Just a bit of background:
Those lines of code are from OpenJDK's TimSort implementation. It was written
by Joshua Bloch, who was actually working for Google at the time, and
contributed to OpenJDK. He later re-used the same code for Android's
implementation of this same function.
In order for this to be a copyright violation, Bloch would have had to assign
exclusive ownership over the code to Oracle.
Quoting from the relevant section of the Oracle Contributor Agreement:
"You hereby assign to us joint ownership", and "grant to us a perpetual,
irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, no-charge, royalty-free, unrestricted
license to exercise all rights under those copyrights". However, "each of us
can do all things in relation to your contribution as if each of us were the
sole owners".
So, Bloch still owns this the copyright in this code, and is free to do
whatever he wants with it. All he did was grant Oracle the same rights to that
code that he has, so that Oracle can do whatever they want with it as well.
So, _not_ copyright infringement. Oracle's own contributor agreement makes
that very clear.
Edit: Added references
List of signatories of the Oracle Contributor Agreement (Google cache, because
the main site is down at the moment):
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6zsMkHa...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6zsMkHaeV9kJ:sca.java.net/CA_signatories.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a)
<http://sca.java.net/CA_signatories.htm>
Oracle Contributor Agreement:
<http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oca-405177.pdf>
~~~
peeters
I don't think you have the facts right (and your citations only back up your
logic, not your premises). If it were true, you don't think the lawyers would
have maybe mentioned this in court?
Bloch _used_ the function in the course of implementing TimSort, but copied it
directly from Sun's version of the Arrays class (it existed long before Bloch
worked for Google). And the reason he did that was because he thought TimSort
was going to be contributed and added to Arrays, where it would have direct
access (and the copying would at that point be removed). That never happened,
which lead to this count of infringement.
It's absolutely ridiculous though. Even though they infringed the damages for
that infringement should be about $100, which is the maximum amount you'd have
to spend to reproduce that in a clean room. Reimplementations of that method
would look pretty much byte-code identical so Oracle really has no basis for
seeking anything more than trivial damages.
~~~
BlackAura
I just went and did some more digging around. Looks like you're right - the
method in question was present in OpenJDK's java.util.Arrays first, and seems
to have been copied into the TimSort implementation.
------
gvb
Very important note that tends to be overlooked:
"[Judge Alsup] has yet to decide on the overall copyrightability of the
structure, sequence, and organization of the 37 Java APIs themselves. Ruling
that the APIs are not covered would render today's decision entirely
meaningless, essentially throwing away the jury's earlier finding of
infringement on the SSO issue."
The judge instructed the jury to assume the API is copyrightable when they
determined whether Google violated that (assumed) copyright. The actual ruling
whether the API is copyrightable will be decided by the judge as a matter of
law.
~~~
Tobu
I disagree with that analysis. The Judge asked the jury to decide fair use
assuming API copyrightability because he had them at hand, and it was an
opportunity to make his eventual ruling more appeal-proof. Finding APIs
copyrightable rather than purely functional would create new barriers to
interoperability, which would be a little more important than having part of a
jury's verdict moot.
------
SlipperySlope
I hope that Judge Alsup rules that APIs are not subject to copyright, as the
EU has already ruled.
It certainly would be in the public interest to do so!!
But supposing that the Judge rules that APIs are subject to copyright, I
expect that a developer boycott of Oracle would soon follow, together with a
push to get the US Congress to change copyright law.
~~~
guelo
Only Hollywood gets to change copyright law,
~~~
fpgeek
This may have already been decided (in the direction of APIs not being
copyrighted) by Lotus v Borland:
[http://madisonian.net/2012/05/09/oracle-v-google-digging-
dee...](http://madisonian.net/2012/05/09/oracle-v-google-digging-deeper/)
Note that this a blog post by a _very_ respected IP law expert (cited by the
Supreme Court in recent decisions). One detail I find particularly interesting
is that, unlike most common summaries which focus on the UI issues, he points
out that there was also an API issue at stake in Lotus v Borland: the menu
structure was effectively part of the macro programming API.
------
tzs
It's not accurate to say Oracle lost on fair use. What they lost on was their
motion to have the judge rule on fair use as a matter of law.
~~~
guelo
Oh, that makes more sense I couldn't parse the article. So without a ruling
then it has to be retried by a jury.
~~~
Natsu
Alternatively, the judge can rule that APIs are not copyrightable, making the
issue of fair use moot. I personally believe that this is what will happen,
but it remains to be seen.
------
elithrar
Also, for some context (via
<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012050909451990>)
> Google has filed a motion [PDF] for a new trial on both question 1a and 1b,
> arguing that they are indivisible and that Google has rights under the
> Seventh Amendment for a new trial on both sides of that same coin:
>> "Under settled Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit law, the jury's failure to
reach a verdict concerning both halves of this indivisible question requires a
new trial concerning both questions. To accept the infringement verdict as
binding on the parties and retry only fair use would violate both the
unanimity requirement and the Reexamination Clause of the Seventh Amendment."
~~~
fpgeek
Good point. We know that a retrial is necessary to find any infringement
beyond rangeCheck. We don't know what the parameters of that possible retrial
would be.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Meaning of Null in Databases and Programming Languages (2016) - raaij
https://arxiv.org/html/1606.00740
======
carapace
Not to be flip but the crux of the issue is (I think I've got this correct):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
world_assumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-world_assumption)
vs.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-
world_assumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-world_assumption)
Which means we're dealing with philosophy, no?
------
ken
> The relational null represents the absence of a value in a field of a
> record; whereas the programming language null represents one of the possible
> values of a variable.
This sounds like splitting hairs, especially as they never seem to explicitly
define what "value" means. How is it _not_ a value? It sure looks like a
"value" to me.
It's not just the occasional textbook that uses this nomenclature. In SQL
itself, you type "INSERT INTO mytable VALUES (NULL);" to insert a NULL. Did
the designers of SQL not understand what "value" means?
They also claim that databases are special in that they use "three-valued
logic" \-- which would seem to imply that NULL is a third _value_. Does
"value" have different meanings in different contexts? For the word whose
precise definition is central to their thesis, it has some remarkable
linguistic flexibility.
> Here is a partial list of the reasons why NULL can occur. 1. The field has a
> value but it isn't known... 2. The field has no value because it isn't
> applicable...
These are all reasons I've seen people use null in programming languages, too.
> The field is not allowed to have a value. For example, the root node of a
> tree has no parent node. The fact that the field is NULL in this case is not
> due to missing information.
Are they really trying to claim this is somehow unique to relational
databases? Trees work exactly the same way in programming languages.
~~~
nerdponx
I think I understand what they're trying to say.
The value of a variable with type "non-nullable 32-bit integer" is an element
of the space {-2 __31, ..., 2 __31 - 1}. The value of a variable with type
"nullable 32-bit integer" is an element of the space {-2 __31, ..., 2*31 - 1}
U {NULL}.
There's a "main space", and an extra singleton space tacked on, containing the
"NULL" element.
So NULL isn't a value in the "main space", and therefore in some sense "isn't
a value". I think it's wrong for the same reasons you stated, but I think this
is what they were trying to describe.
------
anw
This is a very interesting article, especially since I can now appreciate the
meaning, having spent the last year doing both SQL schema design and backend
development that works off that schema.
The main point here is that Language null is a possible value, whereas
Database NULL is a composite with several different meanings, which can often
trip up people who are not familiar with how some SQL systems treat it (NULL
<> NULL, etc)
The important takeaway from this article is that DB NULL can arise for a
variety of reasons (taken from the article):
1\. The field has a value but it isn't known.
2\. The field has no value because it isn't applicable.
3\. A field value could have been inferred but was not inferred, because of an
overriding requirement.
4\. The field has a value but it is not within the domain.
5\. The field value cannot be determined due to an exception.
As the author suggested, "NOT SET" does a good job carrying the meaning behind
what NULL is used to accomplish (I also think "NOT GIVEN" or "NOT AVAILABLE"
could work and keep the idea.
~~~
ken
I don't understand how those aren't also descriptions of Language null.
Haven't you seen programs that use null in those ways (and several others)? I
certainly have.
------
rskar
Fun factoid, VBA/VB6 dichotomizes between the "NULL" of value (keyword Null)
versus the "null" of reference (keyword Nothing).
Dim x
x = Null
Debug.Print "x", x
Debug.Print "x = x", x = x
Debug.Print "x <> x", x <> x
Debug.Print "x = 0", x = 0
Debug.Print "0 = x", 0 = x
Debug.Print "0 + x", 0 + x
(Yep, all of the above result in Null.)
Dim y
y = Nothing
Debug.Print "y", y
(That one results in an "Object variable not set" error.)
~~~
perl4ever
VBA seems to have null, empty, "" and nothing, all of which have different
semantics. But only variants can be null or empty, I believe; if you have a
typed variable like a Date or a String, you're out of luck.
And then, I was using either Power Automate or SharePoint/odata and it turned
out "null" does not have the "normal" null semantics, and to test for null,
you simply check if something is equal to it.
I think I remember from using SQL Server that there is a option that you can
treat null either way.
Microsoft has a weird relationship with null.
On the other hand, I'm sure someone has complained about Oracle's idea that
empty strings are null values. And once you think about it, SQL's handling of
nulls is weirdly inconsistent, because the special handling of them doesn't
always apply in aggregates.
Somewhere I had a book by C.J. Date/Hugh Darwen in which I remember a rant
about how nulls are a terrible offense against the true relational model.
~~~
rskar
>But only variants can be null or empty...
That's true, only Variants can be Null (Null is a state of Variant); however,
Empty is translated to whatever default value makes sense for some of the
(non-Object, non-user-defined) data types:
Dim s As String, d As Date, x As Single, y As Double, i As Integer
s = Empty: d = Empty: x = Empty: y = Empty: i = Empty
Debug.Print s, d, x, y, i
(The above compiles and runs, and - no surprise - numerics are made zero, and
string made "".)
>I'm sure someone has complained about Oracle's idea that empty strings are
null values.
I have certainly complained about that: I mean, what's not to love about
conflating "this field intentionally left blank" with "no certain value could
be obtained for this field"? /s
>...a rant about how nulls are a terrible offense against the true relational
model...
By way of Wikipedia, found this: [https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-
TheAskewWall-pri...](https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-TheAskewWall-
printable.pdf). A fine read. I am left wondering about how OUTER JOINs would
be handled without NULLs. I am now also wondering if it was OUTER JOINs that
made NULLs seem necessary.
~~~
perl4ever
"I mean, what's not to love about conflating "this field intentionally left
blank" with "no certain value could be obtained for this field"
Well, probably because Oracle was the first database I used a lot, it just
seems natural to me and Microsoft's distinction between the empty string and
null is annoying.
On the other hand, if I were to try to rationally defend Oracle's way of doing
it, it would be something along these lines:
You can subdivide the concept of "this field doesn't have a normal value" into
an _infinite_ number of reasons. So if you're not going to have _zero_ "null-
like" options, and you're not going to have _one_ , then where does it stop?
When you have two, or three, or four, etc. that seems like you've gone down
the wrong path no matter how good your intentions are. It vaguely reminds me
of the "zero, one, infinity" rule.
------
vivekseth
Although this is relevant for languages like C where NULL == 0, other
(typically more modern languages) treat Null similar to how databases treat
it. Ex: Swift, Kotlin, Rust
~~~
klodolph
This can’t be correct.
At least in Rust, null (or None) is not treated at all like how databases
treat it. If you have T: PartialEq<T>, then there’s an implementation for
Option<T>: PartialEq<Option<T>>.
With this implementation, None == None. The result is true. None != None is
false.
In an SQL database, (null = null) is null. Neither true nor false. (null !=
null) is also null. Neither true nor false.
This is an enormous difference, and it is basically THE gotcha for working
with null in SQL databases.
If you want to translate that into a "traditional" programming language, the
closest I can give you is Haskell, where you can think of SQL equality as
being normal equality lifted into the Maybe applicative functor. (If that
doesn’t make sense, you’re not a Haskell programmer, don’t worry about it.)
sqlEq :: (Applicative f, Eq a) => f a -> f a -> f Bool
sqlEq = liftA2 (==)
This has a generalization of the tri-value semantics.
> Nothing `sqlEq` Nothing
Nothing
> Nothing `sqlEq` Just 4
Nothing
> Just 4 `sqlEq` Just 5
Just False
> Just 4 `sqlEq` Just 4
Just True
I say “generalization” because this works in any applicative functor.
~~~
vivekseth
Thanks for the explanation, I forgot that null != null in databases. I was
thinking more about how null != 0 and is a separate concept in languages with
optional values. You’re right that optionals in these languages don’t quite
work the same as in databases
~~~
Sniffnoy
But it's not NULL != NULL. It's that NULL == NULL is NULL. That's different!
NUll != NULL is also NULL, for instance.
~~~
vivekseth
Maybe a concise way to describe it is that in databases NULL represents the
absence of a value. Since NULL is not a value, operators like == and != don't
really make sense on NULL, and also produce NULL as an output.
------
brummm
How the hell is there no proper pdf to read this on the arxiv?
~~~
recursive
Don't know much about arxiv, but reader mode in Firefox works pretty well
here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How does the Twitch iOS app keep me logged in after reinstalling it? - holidaytrucksky
I thought that deleting an iOS app would delete all data related to that app. How does the Twitch app still know my account after I delete it and instal it again?
======
solumos
Uber got in Big Trouble for this a while back[0]. Basically, device
fingerprinting[1]. It seems like it's sort of OK now?
[0] [https://the-parallax.com/2017/04/26/uber-device-
fingerprinti...](https://the-parallax.com/2017/04/26/uber-device-
fingerprinting/)
[1] [https://nshipster.com/device-identifiers/](https://nshipster.com/device-
identifiers/)
------
searchableguy
Slightly related, I was able to take over an account with functionality
similar to this in one of the apps from a big tech company recently. I
reported it but no response so far.
Are there companies using unique fingerprinting methods to map users for
faster logins? I didn't test it further. It happened accidentally.
------
neximo64
Apple keychain
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Art of Fear Blogging - rob_dodson
http://robdodson.me/blog/2013/09/16/the-art-of-fear-blogging/
======
duggieawesome
Rob, great post. I especially liked the Ulysses anecdote.
Somewhat irrelevant, but when using Octopress as a blogging platform, do spend
some time working on the CSS. Octopress has some great features, however, too
many of the generated blogs look similar. By spending a weekend working on it,
you can really differentiate your blog and add your own "character" to it.
Keep up the good work!
~~~
rob_dodson
Thanks :)
I haven't spent much time with the CSS, primarily because I wanted to make
sure it was going to be worth the effort and that meant getting into the
blogging habit. Now that I have a bunch of posts and am starting to get
meaningful traffic I'm planning to overhaul the look and also optimize the
heck out of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fireworks - Cheap Thrills with Toxic Consequences - gnosis
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Falls/9200/toxic_fireworks.html
======
movix
"If for some reason I can't be on the trail I'll hole up indoors next to my
air filter."
I appreciate his concerns for the environment, but isn't this taking things a
little too extremely? Judging by the comment he makes about the pollution of
his urban area by fireworks, I'm assuming that he has to drive to the trail...
presumably past houses where people are sitting next to their domestic air
filtration systems, in the hope that they can breath air with all the motor
vehicle toxins removed.
We should all be concerned about protecting the environment, but maybe a
campaign against the pollution caused by international freight shipping may be
a better point to start than with fireworks.
FYI ships at sea create more greenhouse gas emissions than the whole CO2
output of the UK, yet there is no fuel duty on the fuels used in these
vessels.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Visualizing Representations: Deep Learning and Human Beings - irickt
http://colah.github.io/posts/2015-01-Visualizing-Representations/
======
colah3
I cut the following sections, on user interface and machine learning, because
they were too speculative. But they might be of interest here, so I'll post
them.
===
Perhaps you are now persuaded that deep learning has something helpful to
offer in visualization problems. But visualization is really about making
interfaces for humans to interact with data. It’s a small subset of the
general user interface problem. I think that machine learning, and deep
learning in particular, also has a lot to offer for the general problem...
[Remainder moved to notehub, to be keep comment to a reasonable length:
[https://www.notehub.org/2015/1/16/perhaps-you-are-now-
persua...](https://www.notehub.org/2015/1/16/perhaps-you-are-now-persuaded-
that-deep-) ]
------
wxs
I really like the figure showing the nearest-neighbour graph of MNIST being
stretched as it goes through the hidden sigmoid layer. Really helps build an
intuition for those of us who think visually or geometrically.
He quotes Bret Victor at the end:
"When Hamming says there could be unthinkable thoughts, we have to take that
as “Yes, but we build tools that adapt these unthinkable thoughts to the way
that our minds work and allow us to think these thoughts that were previously
unthinkable.”"
Great work!
~~~
JackFr
This is a fabulous article in general, and I love the Bret Victor quote as
well.
And while I love the analogy -- and I think is applicable to what we're
calling data science -- thoughts, speaking broadly, are fundamentally
different than sounds and smells and wavelengths of light. The essence of
thought is that we think it (it is thunk?). All of those other examples are
subjective representations of physical phenomenon, while constitutes a
thought, again broadly speaking, is less well agreed upon (understood?).
Still a terrific article, my pedantic nitpicking aside.
------
GrantS
He makes an excellent point about the possibility of comparing word vectors
trained on different corpora to make quantitative statements about differences
in culture, either over time or between sub-cultures:
"I’d like to emphasize that which words are feminine or masculine, young or
adult, isn’t intrinsic. It’s a reflection of our culture, through our use of
language in a cultural artifact. What this might say about our culture is
beyond the scope of this essay. My hope is that this trick, and machine
learning more broadly, might be a useful tool in sociology, and especially
subjects like gender, race, and disability studies."
~~~
colah3
Thanks! That was one of the most exciting parts of the post for me.
It would be really cool to have something, like the Google Books ngram viewer
[1], which would allow you to see how this changes over time, using a huge
corpus. I imagine a graph where the x-axis is year, the y-axis is a linear
combination of word vectors that the user defines, and then the user can
select words and see them plotted over time.
[1] [https://books.google.com/ngrams](https://books.google.com/ngrams)
~~~
GrantS
Ha, I was thinking along exactly the same lines when I read that paragraph.
Last week, I found myself reading a 1784 magazine article [1] about
"Aerostatical Experiments" (the first hot air balloons) which referred to
"inflammable air" which is what they called hydrogen in those days. Google
n-gram viewer gives a beautiful illustration of when the name changed [2] --
this is an obvious switchover but I imagine many words change meaning and
usage more slowly and in more subtle ways, so your proposal was quite exciting
to think about. Let's hope someone takes up that line of research, either from
the humanities side or the machine learning side.
[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=lvsRAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA29&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=lvsRAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA29&ots=krFkUZKv1t&dq=principals%20of%20aerostatical%20experiments&pg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false)
[2]
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inflammable+ai...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inflammable+air%2Chydrogen&year_start=1750&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cinflammable%20air%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chydrogen%3B%2Cc0)
------
xtacy
Colah, your posts are really inspiring and thoughtful. Your thoughts about
visualising the space of representations by looking at the properties of
pairwise distance matrix is quite illuminating. It might be a nice empirical
way to get a glimpse of the model complexity: If "simpler" models cluster
close to more complex models, the simpler models are more desirable.
I wonder if all over-fitted models cluster in one region in the meta-SNE
space, or do they show up as noise?
Keep up the great posts!
~~~
colah3
Thanks, xtacy!
> If "simpler" models cluster close to more complex models, the simpler models
> are more desirable.
Well, it would suggest you aren't winning very much for your more complex
model, at the very least.
> I wonder if all over-fitted models cluster in one region in the meta-SNE
> space, or do they show up as noise?
This corresponds to an empirical question: do models overfit in the same way,
or different ways?
One small experiment I did, which might offer some intuition here, was
training lots of extremely small networks on MNIST, with hidden layers of only
1, 2 or 5 neurons. What do they look like in meta-SNE?
Well, it turns out that when you only have a very small number of neurons,
they latch on to random useful features! These randomly selected features
don't tend to be the same, so you end up with the models horribly disagreeing
on what is similar and what is different.
As you increase the number of neurons, the space of features they look at, if
not the features of individual neurons, becomes similar across models. And so
the models agree more, and cluster more tightly.
...
Another fun idea for using meta-SNE is ensemble models. We know that training
a bunch of models and then averaging their results (ensembling) can improve
results a lot. When is this helpful? My guess is that the farther apart
compatibly good models are in meta-SNE space, the more ensembling will help,
because they've learned different things.
~~~
xtacy
Ensemble (and also boosted) models: Very nice idea.
I like the takeaway that meta-SNE idea is powerful to compare the space of
models by through the lens of pairwise distances as a proxy for the distance
metric. Are distances _the_ defining property for a vector space R^d? Could
you have used some other quantity instead of pairwise distances?
~~~
colah3
There "the defining property" if you want to mod out isometries. :) They're
nice, because they encode the geometry of the data.
You could very reasonably try things like cosine distance. And I did some
experiments, to good results, with sqrt(d(x,y)), to emphasize really close
together data points as special. But these don't feel as motivated.
Hm. It might also be interesting to try with the p_ij values from t-SNE, which
model the topology of the data. Then you'd really be getting meta. :)
~~~
xtacy
Interesting. IIUC, what you're implying is that defining a metric defines the
topology and they're equivalent.
Isn't p_ij in t-SNE also derived from the distances themselves, where p_ij ~
student_t(d_ij, degrees_of_freedom) (I forget how the d.o.f. is actually
computed in t-SNE.)
Which leads me to one way this distance based approach might be limited: It
models similarities using distances, which are symmetric. If similarities
aren't symmetric, then this visualisation could hide some information. For
example: The specific entity "BMW car" is more similar to the more general
entity "car" than the entity "car" is to "BMW car." It seems this asymmetry
could capture things (such as the generality of concepts), not reflected in
metric spaces (on first thought).
------
cafebeen
Interesting stuff--it's worth mentioning some of the prior visualization work
in this area, e.g.
Interactive data exporation:
[http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/75818/cockburn-
ComputingS...](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/75818/cockburn-
ComputingSurveys09.pdf)
Distance-based visualization:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_scaling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidimensional_scaling)
------
netheril96
A tangentially related question: why do the fonts look like computer modern?
Do you write the article in LaTeX and have it translated into HTML preserving
the font style?
------
eveningcoffee
This page has some serious issues with JavaScript.
Edit: Or of course my browser has issue with it.
~~~
colah3
I have to load some non-trivial datasets for the interactive visualizations.
It may take a minute for javascript to fully load.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
S.F.'s hottest area for Millennials: Cow Hollow - lskurman
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-s-hottest-area-for-Millennials-Cow-Hollow-5407820.php
======
lskurman
Hey my company came up with the methodology for this ... just trying to get a
sense from some locals if we got the right neighborhood for Cow Hollow? On SF
Gate, there are over 150 comments, it seems like people generally agree (but
also feel like we're not saying anything that "new"). Thoughts? Or any insight
for the other Metros?
[http://ink.niche.com/the-25-best-cities-and-neighborhoods-
fo...](http://ink.niche.com/the-25-best-cities-and-neighborhoods-for-
millennials/)
Thanks for the help and the feedback!
luke
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Masashi Wakui Look with GIMP - BuuQu9hu
https://pixls.us/articles/a-masashi-wakui-look-with-gimp/
======
jbmorgado
Sorry, I don't want to sound like overly critic, but the final product has
nothing to do with the Masashi Wakui photographs.
It's still an interesting Gimp tutorial though.
~~~
patdavid
It was inspired by Wakui's work, and attempts to produce a similar glow/bloom
to highlights in an image, which it sort of achieves. The overall color
grading could be pushed further, but the author wasn't looking to exactly
match the style.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Experience with System76 14“ model? - DoubleMalt
I'm seriously considering it given the possibility to load it up with 32GB of RAM, but I'd like to hear from someone who actually used it.
======
morpheuskafka
I'd recommend a Thinkpad T series (or even P series if high budget), use the
perks code found on the r/thinkpad wiki and you can get a T series at a really
good price. Great Linux support, quality build, great keyboards and screens
(esp >FHD models), and up to 32GB RAM as well. The new T480 is light and
powerful and features Intel's 8th gen ULV quad-core CPU, or you can get a
T470s if a dual-core is acceptable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Running a small company using outsourced IT services - ilamont
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/26/running-company-using-outsourced-it-services
======
earle
Running a decentralized workforce in the 90s was not viable for most people
for obvious reasons. Today, tools are better, and more widely available, but
more importantly the overall demographic of the technical workforce has
improved by orders of magnitude. This is the foundation of why outsourcing is
able to be an attractive (and more importantly viable) solution.
In the 1990s finding competent well rounded developers was throwing darts at a
board. With the advent of modern frameworks and standards, and the increase in
global capacity for technology development, outsourcing now makes a lot of
sense, for a lot of people.
(article should have mentioned online collaboration specifically as well).
------
ten-seven
I wish my former employer was willing outsource services. While the customer
base grew from two to twenty, the staff size trippled, the IT staff eventually
doubled.
It takes strategy and vision to outsource and manage the IT house. But, you've
got to hold on to somebody to run the outsourced IT shop and hold them to your
standards and keep them on your strategic course. An IT project manager of
sorts.
And while it takes money (expense instead of payroll and training), be
prepared to spend it. IT isn't something you try to afford, it's something you
can't afford not to do right.
If you find yourself working in an IT shop where every smart solution (keeping
to the strategy) is too expensive, look around and consider getting out.
They're on the path to bungle it.
------
erickhill
I still find it is a double-edged sword. It totally depends on the company you
hire. Plus, the time-zone differences with, say, working with folks in India
vs. working with folks in Canada is important. It all boils down to
competency, execution, and communication. In some cases, it has worked very
well for me. In others, it has been horribly bad. It's still a gamble today,
as far as I'm concerned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lisp as a replacement for XML -- any ideas? - mojuba
If I want to use Lisp syntax to store tree-like data structures (as a replacement for XML), are there any libraries, standards, or just ideas how to do it?
======
gibsonf1
Here's how we do it:
("as_2586" ("as_2587" ("as_2588" ("as_2637" ("as_2638" ("as_2639"))
("as_2640")) ("as_2595")) ("as_2589")))
Equals:
Sub Projects
* 200705_PSC_Trinity (Construction)
o as_2587 (Client Approval)
+ as_2588 (Building Permit)
# CD Set (Deliverable)
* A-110 (Deliverable)
o 1. Site Plan (Deliverable)
* PSC Survey Info (Building Surveying)
# as_2595 (Systems Coordination)
+ as_2589 (Programming)
~~~
mojuba
I don't quite get it -- can you show an example with tags, attributes and
text?
~~~
gibsonf1
I just showed the hierarchy structure. You can put anything you want in the
nodes of the hierarchy. In the example, these are object names that then
generate the example hierarchy below in our application. Hope this helps.
------
bitwize
Until all Lisps standardize on Unicode (at least UTF-8 and UTF-16), Lisp will
never replace XML. It's been slow going just getting Unicode _support_ into
Lisps, let alone having internal data structures (symbols, etc.) represented
in Unicode.
------
jkush
Read this essay for some ideas:
<http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp.html>
------
edu
I think you can do it directly. No? I've just started to study List, but I
think you could do sth like:
'(root (child-1 attr1: val1 attr2: val2)
(child-2 attr1: val1 attr2: val2)
(child-3 attr1: val1 attr2: val2))
And then recurse over it?
BTW, If I'm wrong please teach me :D
------
brlewis
XML and Scheme <http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/xml.html>
------
marketer
You're just replacing the data storage. XML has a lot more features, like
schema validation and querying.
~~~
mojuba
True, but syntax doesn't matter, I think. Everything can be re-defined in Lisp
style if needed.
What I'm looking for is a clearly defined syntax, character sets,
metachchacters, etc for Lisp-like representation of data.
~~~
dpapathanasiou
_syntax doesn't matter, I think. Everything can be re-defined in Lisp style if
needed._
Yes, you're right.
You might be interested in this:
<http://www.pmsf.de/resources/lisp/expat.html>
If you use Mai's modified expat, you can convert any feed into s-expressions,
preserving all attributes and namespaces.
Here's a quick example.
This is the beginning of the xml for the news.yc feed:
<rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Startup
News</title><link>[http://news.ycombinator.com</link><description&#...](http://news.ycombinator.com</link><description>The)
most interesting startup-related links, as determined by
readers.</description><item><title>PG: If starting viaweb today, would you use
lisp?</title><link>[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905</link><...](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905</link><comments>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905</comments></item>);
And here's the expat-parsed, s-expression:
(("rss" "version" "2.0")(("channel")(("title")"Startup
News")(("link")"<http://news.ycombinator.com>")(("description")"The most
interesting startup-related links, as determined by
readers.")(("item")(("title")"PG: If starting viaweb today, would you use
lisp?")(("link")"<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905>")(("comments")"<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905>"))
~~~
mojuba
Thanks.
I wonder if quotes can be omitted to make it slightly more readable. Anyway,
this idea obviously needs some effort for improvement before it can be brought
to market, so to say.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Web 2.0: Making Friends / Web 3.0: Making Money - bdfh42
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/09/web-20-making-friends-web-30-making.html
======
dejb
For me the term 'Web 2.0' is more closely related to collective intelligence
and social media/apps than AJAX or other UI inovations. But hey it's just a
term.
By the time 'Web 3.0' could actually apply we'll probably have another term to
use for the change.
~~~
hank777
That is one axis. But would you say that, for example, gmail is a web 1.0 app
since it is not at all about social media or collective intelligence?
~~~
mileszs
I would say it is a web-based email client. Is everything either "Web 1.0" or
"Web 2.0"? That seems silly.
~~~
hank777
Well, perhaps, but really it is one of the apps that, when it came out, helped
define the term. So one would have to call it retrospectively silly. In my
mind any terms can be silly depending on how you look at things. But it seems
to me no more silly to call digg web 2.0 than gmail. I will agree that most of
the apps that have been called web 2.0 have been social, but most of the apps
of any kind have been social, which is, as I see it, part of the problem.
social != $$$$.
~~~
unalone
I'm going to say something unpopular and lose friends:
Who the hell CARES about the term?
Gmail is a good application. Digg was a good idea but it didn't scale. You can
argue about Web 2.0 all you want, nobody cares. And you can go out and make
money right now, and that's a fact regardless of whether you're 2.0 or 3.0 or
whatever in between.
I never got the reason behind the "2.0" buzz. I never will. It's such a
pathetic waste of time.
------
Angostura
Summary:
Web 3.0 is mashups, in an environment where more Web components have well
defined interfaces and are, therefore, mashable.
------
knarf
Wow! Some guy finally invented Web 3.0..
------
pxlpshr
You would have thought after web 1.0, that web 2.0 would have been about
making money.
------
MicahWedemeyer
Seems a little light on content for such a provocative title.
------
Ardit20
It is always about the money :) well, almost always
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On Twitter, mindcasting is the new lifecasting - robg
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/03/on-twitter-mind.html
======
smoody
Minscasting = "Twitter meets Delicious." It would be more appropriate to use a
service like Diigo to accomplish the same feat. Then they could also highlight
relevant text, attach notes, etc. But you have to go where the people are I
guess. Twitter is a lowest common denominator for information exchange and to
watch people use it instead of the right tool for the job is, sometimes,
unfortunate in my opinion. As practical as he makes it sound, he probably
still has to sift through dozens of "the lettuce in my sandwich is soggy
today", etc. posts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I form an LLC for my side project mobile app? - trident2
Or am I just being paranoid?
======
droz
I think you should ask yourself what you will gain by having an LLC.
* Are you trying to reduce your liabilities in the event of lawsuit (how likely is one?)
* Are you trying to get certain tax advantages with an LLC over a sole proprietorship or s/c-corp (are you actually going to make money?)
* And so on...
------
michaelpinto
The devil is in the details (is the app making real money, are there potential
legal liabilities, etc.) — so that may be a conversation to have with an
accountant or lawyer that you trust.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Redis Cluster meta-data handling - llambda
http://antirez.com/news/62
======
jessaustin
Newb question: how would Cluster and Sentinel interact in a typical
deployment? I thought I understood Sentinel's operation, but I'm at a loss as
to how Cluster fits into the picture of Sentinel I have in my head.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Voltron: A hacky debugger UI for hackers - okanesen
https://github.com/snare/voltron
======
Roritharr
Sometimes my girlfriend reminds me that its kinda fucked up that I get excited
when the things I need to understand are presented to me in a more readable
way but still look like the Matrix to her.
~~~
JustSomeNobody
My wife looks over my shoulder and refactors my code.
------
raimue
I saw this before and it always looked like a nice pice of software. The sad
part is, it is still at "0 releases".
To the developers of this software: please provide a stable release that can
be packaged for the popular package managers/distributions. That will help to
spread the word about your work and make it easily accessible.
~~~
boxfire
RTFM? Release versions are on pip. Unfortunately most distros think they have
the one holy package management solution. pip IS a release and distribution
system. With the current popularity of Python, it is only going to be a matter
of time before apt / rpm / etc support working through it.
~~~
tomc1985
It is trivial to generate a .deb from nearly any pip module...
sudo apt-get install devscripts python-all-dev python-stdeb; cd path~to~pip;
python setup.py --command-packages=stdeb.command bdist_deb
~~~
duaneb
It's trivial to do a lot of niche catering and die by a thousand cuts. It's
also trivial to install pip.
~~~
tomc1985
I'd hardly call debian and its derivatives 'niche', but whatever floats your
boat...
~~~
duaneb
It's not niche in terms of OS deployment, perhaps, but a user's request for a
`deb` file over traditional python packaging certainly is.
~~~
tomc1985
Perhaps, but this is to answer the call of 'os-native' packaging. I'd figure
between msi+pkg+rpm+deb you'd have most of the bases covered.
~~~
duaneb
Death by a thousand cuts! Pip is enough for anyone with google.
~~~
tomc1985
This sounds crazy but we are actually in a situation where it is preferable to
deploy python libraries via APT
------
XorNot
I've just never been a fan of console-based debugging. The greatest thing an
IDE brings to the table for me is debugging against a GUI editor window.
~~~
bjackman
I recently discovered you can use GDB from inside Emacs. [1]
Before, I always used some awkward IDE to debug with a live source view, then
switched back to my editor to fiddle with code... but with this things are
finally unified!
(Of course, to use it you first have to be able to tread water in Emacs...)
[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/GD...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/GDB-
Graphical-Interface.html)
~~~
lallysingh
many-windows mode is really nice. But this offers memory dumps, which I miss
from codewarrior.
------
0xdada
I guess the news here is that they now use Capstone. I haven't tried either,
but I'm excited for a de-facto standard open-source disassembler. A lot of
great tools could come out of it. Now if we had something of similar quality
for decompilers...
~~~
seanp2k2
...after IDAPro is pried from many cold, dead hands.
------
jbverschoor
Wow that looks a lot like softice
~~~
viraptor
Very close.
[http://commandercat.com/img/ms06007/softice-1.png](http://commandercat.com/img/ms06007/softice-1.png)
It was a great app.
~~~
snarez
Definitely inspired by other debuggers (OllyDbg, Immunity Debugger, etc) that
were inspired by SoftICE :)
------
jiiam
Seems good. Actually what I like most is that it appears to be well
documented, so it might be worth a try. I always found cumbersome to use
console based debuggers, and wonder if there's any real advantage once the
learning curve as been climbed.
------
idsout
Reminds me of gdb-dashboard [1] with the additional debugging engines
supported. Very nice.
[1] [https://github.com/cyrus-and/gdb-dashboard](https://github.com/cyrus-
and/gdb-dashboard)
------
greggman
So... if it works cool but just in case I thought I'd point out some
alternatives
* emacs [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/De...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Debuggers.html)
* VSCode [https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/extensions/example-debugg...](https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/extensions/example-debuggers)
* Slickedit [https://www.slickedit.com/products/slickedit/343-slickedit-h...](https://www.slickedit.com/products/slickedit/343-slickedit-has-debuggers)
~~~
oneweekwonder
Can those alternatives debug without the source, which seems like one of the
features of voltron?
Adding to your possible alternative list:
* vim [https://github.com/joonty/vdebug](https://github.com/joonty/vdebug)
------
altano
Do people outside of MS actually use WinDbg?
~~~
mpeg
Mostly Microsoft or Windows device driver developers, but also people who want
to reverse engineer device drivers.
There's many DRM / anti-hacking tools that rely on windows drivers to hook
Windows kernel APIs at the lowest level they can.
~~~
snarez
Yeah security people use WinDbg a lot.
------
caf
Does it work with disassembly-flavor att ?
~~~
snarez
No syntax highlighting for AT&T syntax atm. It still displays it, just not
highlighted. Feel free to add a Pygments lexer for it and send me a PR :) I'll
probably get to it some time, but there's other stuff ahead of it in the
queue.
------
svlasov
Cat it be used in a more traditional use case with source available and
locals/watch/etc views?
~~~
snarez
It has a "command" view which executes a debugger command and displays the
output each time the debugger "stops" (ie. whenever you step over an
instruction or a line of code, or hit a breakpoint, etc). So anything you can
do with a debugger command, you can stick in a view.
e.g.
$ voltron v c "fr v"
$ voltron v c "source list -a \$rip"
[http://i.imgur.com/2505o16.png](http://i.imgur.com/2505o16.png)
------
matt4077
<This is where I was being stupid before. I have removed that stupidity.>
~~~
infinite8s
I think you misread the title. It is a system for composing UIs for hackers
running debuggers, not a UI for 'hackernews'.
------
artpar
Reminds me of softice
------
cosarara97
It reminds me of the emacs gdb mode.
------
redsummer
Can't you do this with tmux instead?
~~~
raimue
Read on, this is exactly how it is meant to be used. You can run the various
`voltron view` commands in separate panes.
This would be a nice example configuration:
[https://github.com/tuxotron/voltron-
tmux](https://github.com/tuxotron/voltron-tmux)
------
remindsmeofv
Reminds me of visual studio
------
js8
Looks like a nice operating system, but it seems to lack a decent editor..
Edit: Downvoters, can you care to explain? I would actually like someone to
reinvent Emacs (or Vim, for that matter) as something more general.
~~~
nxzero
(This is not an operating system.)
~~~
js8
For lack of a better word, yes! You're taking it too literally - if I wrote
something else, then I couldn't make a subtle reference to Emacs.
I wish this project success, and if it will be successful, it will no doubt
evolve into having it's own scripting language and other things. Basically, it
will become "operating system" like Emacs.
PS. It's unfortunate that people here downvote for misunderstanding a common
reference.
~~~
gjm11
> It's unfortunate that people here downvote for misunderstanding a common
> reference.
No, people here downvote for saying things that don't actually add to the
conversation. "Hey, I know an old joke about Emacs!" doesn't add anything to
the conversation here. (Voltron is not particularly Emacs-like; its readme
says in its second paragraph that it "doesn't aim to be everything to
everyone"; it's not a thing anyone is going to spend all their time in; the
parallels it would take to make the reference apposite really aren't there.)
Also, I think you botched the joke; "... but it seems to lack a decent
debugger" would have fitted the pattern better. (But it still wouldn't have
been either very funny or very insightful.)
Oh, and I downvoted your second comment for complaining about being downvoted;
I have a policy of always downvoting waah-I-was-downvoted comments when I see
them. (Unless what they're complaining about is a very clear injustice, which
it isn't here.)
~~~
js8
Actually, I didn't botch the joke - it was you who missed the subtle point I
was making. I think that, paradoxically, this may evolve eventually to more
complete (operating) system with an editor, just like Emacs has a debugger.
That's why I asked the question, and made a clarification (which unfortunately
killed the reason for being subtle) - your "doesn't add anything to the
conversation" missed the point! (Actually, downvoting without a comment
doesn't addd anything to the conversation either.)
~~~
sp332
It looks like your original post doesn't actually say any of those things.
There's a line between subtle and uncommunicative.
~~~
js8
I think the 1st does, if you're willing to entertain the idea that it's not
just the old joke about Emacs. The 2nd one actually explains it quite well.
In any case, I think that downvoting without a comment crosses that line too.
Sadly, the only guy who was willing to explain his disagreement with my
original comment got downvoted too.
~~~
scrollaway
> _I think that downvoting without a comment crosses that line too_
You're not being "downvoted without comments". gjm11 has made the effort of
explaining to you why he's downvoting you. Expect a lot of people to feel the
same way.
Your comment was unnecessary, unjustified, insulting and you're still
defending it. Don't be surprised.
~~~
js8
I wonder what you think was insulting in it? I was not particularly defending
it, merely explaining the original intent; I don't see any insult in it.
(Actually I wish people would discuss the valid point I made, as marssaxman
did below, rather than the segway.)
gjm11 explained his downvote, but after I asked. He was also downvoted
(temporarily) for some reason.. I don't understand why calm debate about why
something was downvoted is a source of so much emotions, that people have to
downvote it as well.
It makes me unhappy when people downvote without commenting, because it
doesn't add to a discussion either.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computational performance — a beginner’s case study - nuclear_eclipse
http://lbrandy.com/blog/2009/07/computational-performanc-a-beginners-case-study/
======
scott_s
I was appalled at the Stack Overflow answer; thankfully the author corrected
it. This sort of exercise is a first homework assignment in a computer
architecture course.
It's worth remembering that C is an abstraction. Even assembly is an
abstraction. If you care about performance, you need to understand the
limitations of the abstraction level you're working at - where your
abstraction leaks, and what it is that leaks through.
~~~
Herring
The SO answer is still not correct.
------
pj
This is a good article, because it illustrates the counter-intuitive aspect of
computer programming. We would think initially that they both should take the
same amount of time, but due to the way information is represented in the
computer, the times are vastly different.
~~~
profquail
What would be even better is if the compiler could realize that the loops are
independent of each other and compiled either way to the better machine code.
I don't think that'd be possible with C, but possibly C# or Java could have
the JIT engine recognize such a scenario and make the proper optimization.
~~~
scott_s
It is possible with C.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_interchange>
[http://gcc.igor.onlinedirect.bg/summit/2004/High%20Level%20L...](http://gcc.igor.onlinedirect.bg/summit/2004/High%20Level%20Loop%20Optimizations.pdf)
~~~
profquail
Oh cool, thanks for sharing. I learn something new every day here...
------
robryan
Nice article, I know I for one can give these issues little thought when
coding at a higher level of abstraction but certainly necessary knowledge for
performance critical code.
------
Herring
Given a large enough performance difference (and non-pathological code), is
the answer ever "fewer op codes"?
------
malkia
That's why you have swizzling in textures (grouping close pixels
(left,right,up,down) in close proximity).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Instapaper is now a free app, with extra Premium upgrade that costs $30/year - kanamekun
https://www.instapaper.com/premium
======
bdcravens
Those who purchased app get a month free. From the email announcement:
"Since most Instapaper users purchased the iOS and/or Android app, we’d like
to thank you for that past support by giving you a free month of Instapaper
Premium."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trust in Physics - ColinWright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXF2C-vrQE
======
bubalus
Other lecturers have replicated this experiment, sometimes with the subject
(often a student) simply standing still, rather than standing with their head
against a wall. With no reference point for keeping the head still, some
subjects end up leaning forward slightly after the ball is released... you can
guess the result.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kotlin Is Better - praxxis
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2017/05/why-kotlin-is-better-than-whatever-dumb.html
======
bpicolo
I've started to come around on a similar thought recently, after a few years
avoiding static typing in python. I've been toying with C# specifically.
C# with visual studio is, I think, the most productive environment I've come
across in programming. It's ergonomically sound, straightforward, and the IDE
protects me from all sorts of relevant errors. Steve mentioned Intellij is a
bit slower than he'd hope typing sometimes. I totally agree with that. I think
Visual Studio doesn't quite suffer from that (though I haven't worked on huge
projects, and that may well affect it). My main problems with IDEs are
twofold: for non-static languages like Python, they're just not very good.
Sometimes they do exactly what you need, and 70% of the time they're just
totally useless (which is a knock on the programming languages more than the
IDEs). The zippiness on reaction to my typing is another huge deal. If it's
anything other than instantaneous, then I notice my editor in a negative
light. When you pair a tremendous IDE with a good language though, the
productivity loss of typing becomes pretty much negligible, and the gains for
all the other reasons start to become apparent.
Changing one parameter or type on a class or function to refactor, and then
just following the chain of compiler errors, reaching the end, and seeing that
everything just works exactly how you want it to was a big eye opener to me.
Definitely going to give kotlin a go some time as well.
~~~
sreque
I developed at a Windows-centric shop for several years using C# and Visual
Studio, and I can personally attest, at least in 2013, that stock Visual
Studio is pretty far behind Java IDEs in its capabilities. At the time
everyone I talked to recommended I get my manager to get me a copy of
ReSharper, but it wasn't in our team's budget. At least in 2013, here's where
I remember C# IDE support was lacking:
* No automatic incremental compilation. It turns out, this feature is specific to Eclipse alone. In my current job I'm forced to use Intellij and cannot figure out for the life of me why people think Intellij is better. Automatic incremental compilation is a game changer and only Eclipse has it.
* Limited Code analysis and search. For instance checkout this SO: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/282377/visual-studio-how-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/282377/visual-studio-how-do-i-show-all-classes-inherited-from-a-base-class). This kind of symbolic analysis and code search feels essential to me in an IDE, and stock Visual studio just didn't seem to have it beyond the basics.
* Weak refactoring and code generation support. ReSharper might bridge the gap a little here, but stock Visual Studio felt way behind.
* Weak ecosystem for plugins and tool integration. With Java IDEs I have excellent integration with unit test frameworks, code coverage tools, checkstyle, my command-line build tool, etc. I remember it taking a fair bit of effort just to be able to run NUnit tests in Visual Studio. Why NUnit? Well, our software needed to build on Linux with Mono so we needed to use a cross-platform unit testing framework instead of the one built into visual studio.
As a side note, I think the plugins ecosystem is another area where Eclipse
has an edge over Intellij. For instance, when I tried Intellij's code coverage
tool I eventually gave up on it because it had a critical bug I couldn't
diagnose that resulted in incorrect code coverage being displayed.
~~~
ptx
Kotlin has incremental compilation since 1.0.2 last year, both in IntelliJ and
Gradle: [https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2016/05/kotlin-1-0-2-is-
he...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2016/05/kotlin-1-0-2-is-here/)
...and in Maven since 1.1.2:
[https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2017/04/kotlin-1-1-2-is-
ou...](https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2017/04/kotlin-1-1-2-is-out/)
------
cromwellian
The only problem with Steve's rant is that he starts out describing his
experience with APIs, but then it turns into an issue of better languages.
Presumably Kotlin doesn't wrap the entire Android API with some kind of better
API, but most Android API calls would be direct Kotlin->Java calls, so how
does Kotlin solve the nasty API issue?
Really, this seems to be another Java critique by Steve. He's also written
critiques against typed languages in general, including Scala.
Android's API issues are language independent I think. Compare the design of
Guava vs Android, you can make well designed and easy to use Java APIs, it
just takes thoughtfulness.
~~~
Scarbutt
I was asking myself the same question, then he wrote:
_Kotlin manages to help you route around just about all of Android 's Red
Lights, and turns the experience into something that on the whole I now find
superior to iOS development._
I haven't done any android and don't know kotlin either, so maybe someone here
who does can expand on this.
~~~
andybak
And this paragraph:
> I was first in line to throw the Android book at the wall and give up last
> summer, but now with Kotlin I'm finding Android programming is, dare I say
> it -- enjoyable? I think this suggests that Android's "bad" APIs weren't all
> that bad to begin with, but rather that Java has been masking Android's neat
> functionality with a bunch of Java-y cruft.
~~~
cromwellian
I don't think it's Java fault per se, just the API design. Java8 streams,
RxJava, BufferKnife injection, Guava, etc are pretty nice to use, especially
in combination with Java8. There's no async/await, but if you use ReactiveX,
you don't really need it.
Kotlin looks very nice, I'm just pointing out that if the Android
View/Fragment lifecycle design is an issue, language design isn't the cause or
solution, and most likely, you will need a middleware/facade to mitigate it.
------
barrkel
Other language built around IDE support: Delphi.
The compiler was built with callbacks to provide code completion; it runs in
process, as a DLL, as part of the IDE.
No accident that Hejlsberg also design C#, and innovated further with
TypeScript's language server. He wrote the original Turbo Pascal (IDE +
Compiler in the same executable) in assembler, so he's been building IDE +
language combos all his life.
~~~
comboy
Oh Delphi.. every time I fight with CSS and think about how easy making GUI
apps used to be almost 20(sic!) years ago, I feel like something went wrong.
Mandatory:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4)
~~~
marktangotango
So did Delphi handle dynamically resizing and positioning layouts? My
impression is all the old highly productive gui languages (Delphi, Visual
Basic, ...) used absolute positioning. Personally I'd rather have a more
complex gui framework (css, swing, wpf) that handles positioning than to be
forever cursed tweaking pixel width, height, x, y values.
~~~
bitL
Yes, if you set anchors on each component you wanted to be resizable (more
specifically, all four sides could have had an independent anchor).
~~~
flukus
Same with winforms. I'm not sure if it was added at some point or always
there, if it was always there I wish I knew about it a lot sooner.
------
shawkinaw
Two thoughts. First, I also thought Android programming was horrible at first,
but have since come to see it as no worse on average than iOS programming. The
only really sucky thing about it IMO is the lack of ability to pass an object
to another activity without serializing it (or maybe there is one I don't know
about.) But since everything is done with fragments now that's moot anyway.
Second, I tried Kotlin and liked it a lot, but found it so much like Swift
that my brain kept thinking it _was_ Swift, so I ended up making mistakes and
getting frustrated. That would probably go away with experience though.
~~~
jayd16
It's hard to pass objects like that because it's a terrible idea. If you can't
serialize the object then your state isn't stored and you'll possibly lose
that object on a screen rotation and activity restart.
~~~
sidlls
It's a pretty terrible design to couple activity state to the physical
orientation of the device.
~~~
jayd16
No, you don't understand. The state is serialized and stored. You might
navigate away or pop into a windowed state. These things might rebuild your
activity and the idea is your state should be serializable. The idea is every
activity can be restarted outside of your control and your state should be
fully storable.
~~~
sidlls
No, I understand the Android Activity lifecycle quite well. I think it has
severe flaws from a design perspective.
~~~
AstralStorm
Not from design, no. Design is pretty sound.
It has implementation issues - you get to use a crusty ContentProvider or
manually serialize everything into also crusty Bundle. Then you have that
separate SharedPreferences thing. Or you can do it on your own, typically more
cleanly, with an object database.
Instead it would be often fine if it just took a Java Serializable and ran
with it, just call you back so that you can read all the state and redo
whatever you need to redo.
Likewise IPC with Intents is pretty crusty as is with Binder, though bit less
with the latter.
------
runT1ME
Does anyone remember when he wrote this?
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/rhinos-and-
tigers.ht...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/rhinos-and-tigers.html)
And in the comments section he got lit up because he was unfamiliar with
Haskell/Scala/OCaml type languages...
and here he is 9 years late to the party touting a baby version of these
statically typed FP languages. I actually laughed out loud reading this blog
post.
~~~
wand3r
I mean guys been blogging for ages and it's been like a decade so maybe his
position changed or he is contradicting himself.
No dog in the fight personally as I don't use any of that stuff. Maybe I am
missing some deep technical blunder but on the face of it seems a bit silly to
cite the guys decade old work against his current; then be surprised they
aren't fluidly consistent..
~~~
runT1ME
It's not that there's anything wrong with someone changing their mind. I
certainly thought FP was useless ten years ago, java was the best and
generally had some bad ideas about software engineering. However, the
difference is I had the sense to _not_ blog about things I only had cursory
knowledge of while attempting to sound like the ultimate authority on the
matter...
~~~
emodendroket
> blog about things I only had cursory knowledge of
Also known as "blogging."
------
andrewstuart
Is there reason to choose Kotlin if you don't already live in the Java world?
Put another way, is it a language that makes living in the Java environment
less painful, and thus only of value to people who continue to need to live in
the Java world?
Why would someone who has never programmed in the Java ecosystem use Kotlin?
I'm surely ignorant and prejudiced but when I read this I thought "Hey why not
try Kotlin?", then I thought of Java and images came up in my head of
thousands and thousands of files being installed, and the vast, lumbering Java
engine cranking slowly and chugging and masses of XML configuration up the
wazoo for everything and I shuddered and thought "I'll stick with JavaScript,
where the pain of configuration is merely excruciating, as opposed to the pain
of Java configuration which is similar to bowing before throne of the Java
king of ninth level of hell awaiting punishment for a lifetime of sin.".
~~~
haspok
You can compile Kotlin to Javascript, as a start. You get the benefits and
drawbacks of static typing and object-oriented (or rather "class-oriented", if
we call Javascript object-oriented) programming support.
But if you choose to stay with the JVM, you get:
\- the JVM - multithreaded, highly tuned and high performance JIT VM, well
documented and continuously being improved
\- mature tools
\- libraries from the Java ecosystem - for pretty much anything you can think
of
\- coroutines (with Kotlin 1.1) for async support.
XML configuration is being phased out slowly (I guess you are talking about
Spring here), in the last ~10 years annotations have become much more popular.
You still have to support those legacy apps though.
This made me laugh: "then I thought of Java and images came up in my head of
thousands and thousands of files being installed" \- well, don't check your
node_modules directory then, or you might be in for a surprise :)
~~~
bollockitis
And Kotlin is targeting LLVM too. It's too early to tell how that will work
out considering that much of Kotlin is dependent upon Java libraries, but it's
promising.
------
pje
The "ew gross weird" reaction to Scala and Clojure is tremendously
disappointing (especially coming from someone whose thesis is basically "give
this new language a chance")
~~~
icedchai
I worked on a commercial project that used Scala. Never again. Compiles were
slow, IDE support was terrible, everyone had their own subset they used. I'm
sure it's improved since 2010.
~~~
runT1ME
I work on a large Scala team. We use microservices so my regular compile times
are somewhere between 4s and 20s. I rarely have to do a full rebuild.
IDE support is bad, that's a good criticism but a good chunk of us don't use
IDEs, and instead write it like a dynamic language. Live inside the REPL, copy
paste back and fourth.
As for 'subsets' everyone uses, I find this advantageous. Our team strongly
encourages a pure functional style, but we realize not everyone is going to
start out that way, and it doesn't get in the way of shipping software.
~~~
thr0waway1239
You might have actually convinced people to not consider Scala. You are
saying, Scala is great, except for these small things:
1\. Modify your codebase to use microservices
2\. Modify your IDE habits to be more REPL friendly
3\. Modify your team coding habits even if it makes it hard for one person to
work on the other person's codebase.
~~~
whateveracct
But the thing is if you modify your habits, it's so much more efficient than
most other languages. It's reasonable to have to learn knew coding style when
paradigm-shifting languages. Why isn't it reasonable for there to be other new
behaviors as well?
~~~
mateuszf
Because there are other languages, which also provide the benefits, but
without these downsides.
~~~
whateveracct
Hah no there aren't. I work in Haskell (one of the few languages that is as or
more efficient as Scala) and these things still arise with it. And they're not
a problem because you do them and you end up programming better than in a
language without these things :)
------
ufmace
I'm glad to hear Steve Yegge's take on Kotlin. I've played with it some and
thought it was quite interesting, and I wouldn't mind doing a project in it
sometime. Although I don't use Java much, I'm more into Rails for personal
projects, and I'm not about to switch any of them to JVM just to play with
Kotlin.
Anyways, I broadly agree with his take that it adds all of the cool toys you
could ever want to Java without the difficulty and mental overhead of learning
Clojure or Scala. Strong compatibility with the existing Java ecosystem seems
like a plus, but I've never dug into it deep enough to notice that.
I did find myself really wanting to know what he figured out to make Android
UI programming non-awful though. I've messed with it some, and I don't see how
adding in Kotlin would make it much nicer. Maybe he loved Kotlin so much that
he was able to forget about the Android UI API.
------
BJanecke
Kotlin is really nice and I am very happy to have more than one
great/fun/productive language however I feel like mentioning typescript might
be worthwhile (yes I know it's "just" a superset of JS and you have a personal
gripe with whatever you think JS is but hear me out).
* Runs everywhere js/asm
* MIxed bag of tooling, but generally you can find something amazing and you won't have to venture to sourceforge or similar to submit a patch
* Doesn't suffer from the coljure/scala "We can totally use other JVM libraries but we only really do that If we have no other option"
* Absolutely beautiful generics and spot on inference
```
function pluck<T>(key: keyof T, from: T[]) {
return from.map(item => item[key]);
}
```
* First class functions
* Incredible flexibility
* sketch in js then annotate
* decide on strict nulls
* decide on implicit types
* various approaches to composition
* Amazing IDE support(VSCode)(This technically falls under tooling ;))
* One of the few cross-platfrom languages that feel pretty much identical on all the platforms
[edit] Formatting
------
jakub_g
Side note: Even if you're not interested in Kotlin, or don't know Steve Yegge,
give a read to this blog post.
The writing is as good and hilarious as in the old good times when he used to
write way more often. Lots of fun for the morning.
For aspiring blog-writers, it's also a good study how to write blogs to keep
readers engaged. I only know 2 people writing in that style, him and Joel
Spolsky, but it's highly effective.
------
Tharkun
Yet Another Java Rant.
In my book, Java is a fine language, and has been since Java SE 6 was released
back in 2006. It keeps getting better, too. "Glacial" pace or not.
Whenever any kind of discussion about Java comes up, people start ranting
about XML configuration or annotations. These are not language problems. These
are developer problems. If you don't like XML or annotations, then don't use
them. Problem solved. Very few Java features require the use of either.
I rarely run into issues with the Java language, syntax or productivity wise.
I've run into a couple of Sun/Oracle/IBM bugs in my 17 years of Java
development. I've greatly appreciated productivity-increasing features like
try-with-resources and Streams, but the lack of those features have never held
me back as a developer.
Given the sheer amount of Java code out there, I would say it deserves a
little more praise and a little less negativity.
~~~
specialist
Kotlin (Ceylon, C#, Nice, Boo, Groovy, etc) isn't better. Just different.
What I want, as a devoted Java partisan, is a Java (Oak) experiment do-over.
More more and less less. A fantasy hypothetical effort I call Encore™.
What are the sources of programming errors? Engineer them away.
What causes the most boilerplate? Engineer those away.
I've got a laundry list that I've collected over the years. Maybe I'll scrub
it for publication.
\--
One specific, novel feature of Kotlin that _is_ better, and should be swiped
for every other OO language, is its automatic generation of the canonical
object methods (toString, equals, etc).
Data classes are dumb though.
[https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/data-
classes.html](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/data-classes.html)
~~~
smichel17
Why do you think data classes are dumb? The only thing I think they're missing
is an automatic method to serialize to JSON or other text format, eg, so they
can be easily stored in an android preference.
------
nemothekid
> _And Android has some pretty big red-light APIs. Fragments, for example, are
> a well-known Flagship Bad API in Android._
Ugh. I left Android development right around Honeycomb - where Fragments were
supposed to be the cool way to manage your app and you'd get screen
orientation and device screen configuration all for almost free. In practice I
found Fragments far more confusing to use than the already complex Activity
lifecycle. To hear that 3 years later that everyone may think Fragments were a
bad idea doesn't leave me feeling good.
~~~
lokedhs
It's not so much that fragments is a bad idea as a concept. It's that its
implementation is a textbook example of bad API design.
I dovt know about other people but I certainly end up cargo culting every time
I want to use the fragments API.
------
bartread
It's impressive to see Kotlin finally getting some traction. The first time I
heard of it was years ago: I was doing a piece of competitor analysis at Red
Gate and I clearly remember reading about it and having a distinctly
"whatever" reaction.
Part of that was because every time I'd seen some (relatively) small shop
invent a language or platform in the past, it sort of sucked. But JetBrains
are a rather different animal. They've done a great job of getting the right
kind of people on board, with the right background and experience, to do
language design well. They also have a talent for making long-term plays and
consistently investing in them; they're patient about achieving long-term
success (examples: IntelliJ, TeamCity, even YouTrack), which isn't so common.
I probably shouldn't be surprised to see the same happening with Kotlin -
they've been plugging away at it for about 6 years, I think. Great work.
------
charlieflowers
The biggest news is: Yegge is blogging again! Glad to see it!
~~~
Cyphase
As soon as I saw "blah blah blah (steve-yegge.blogspot.com)", I came looking
for this comment. I hope he keeps it up. Also, apparently he actually "came
back" back in November[1]. That post is even sort of related.
[1] [https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-monkey-and-
appl...](https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-monkey-and-apple.html)
------
andrewstuart
A few people have said that IntelliJ is slow.
Why is this so, if Java is not inherently slow?
Sure JetBrains are some of the smartest developers around and yet their IDE is
still slow.
I can't help but feel that Java is slow and problems with performance in
something like IntelliJ do nothing to dispel that feeling.
~~~
emodendroket
Because IntelliJ does a lot of work. Similarly, Visual Studio is not usually
slow but sometimes it will mysteriously become so slow as to become unusable,
or at least that was true a few years ago when I spent a lot of time in it.
~~~
iLemming
Visual Studio is a hosting environment for Resharper. And Resharper makes it
awfully slow. IntelliJ compared to VS (even without Resharper) is like Emacs
compared to IntelliJ.
------
agentgt
What makes me nervous about Kotlin is it could become Scala (or even Groovy)
again.
Don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of Scala and highly expressive language but
on the other hand there is something to be said for simple consistent and not
that expressive languages. It pains me to say it but less choices and not
more.
That is I want Kotlin, or Scala, or Java to be a little more like Go (and I'm
not a fan of Go). The development consistency with Go with gofmt and other
build tools as well as having fairly good default concurrency (Java as a
myriad of concurrency practices: eg. streams, actors, rx) help ramp up time.
The ramp up time for all JVM languages is pretty awful compared to C# or Go.
There are so many tools and libraries and different way people do things. I
love the choices but it really hurts bringing on new talent.
Luckily Kotlin is backed by a tools provider so perhaps extreme consistency
will happen but when I look at the Spring 5.0 examples (also on the HN right
now) I get nervous and think oh this is becoming Scala academic DSL confusion
all over.
------
RandyRanderson
So this guy has [0]:
. advocated Javascript on the server-side
. tried to get goog to support Ruby
. is active in Lisp, enough to get it mentioned in wikipedia twice
And now is enough of an expert in Java and Koltin to instruct us on which is
"better". That's a lot of languages to be an expert in! It's almost
unbelievable.
If someone who's been working in Java for years and then has done a
significant Koltin project (100k plus SLOC) that's in production and they told
me "Koltin is ?" I would listen to them. Otherwise I might be tempted to
believe someone's writing another clickbait article.
Regardless, looking to his wiki history, it seems he's, charitably, outspoken.
Not someone i'd look to for a sober technical analysis.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Yegge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Yegge)
------
codecamper
Just wanted to point out that Kotlin is not from Russia. It's from Prague,
Czech Republic. Almost the furthest west you can go and still be Slavic.
Maybe the founders of Jetbrains are Russian. Not sure.
edit: aha Kotlin is in fact developed in Russia. From Russia with love!
------
askvictor
Fwiw, jetbrains originates in Prague not Russia; although the kotlin dev team
is based in Russia.
------
wisty
It seems to mostly be compared to Java. Sure, if you don't like functional
languages or dynamic languages (Jython, Groovy, JRuby) then I guess it's the
best high profile JVM language.
~~~
manojlds
Scala?
~~~
iLemming
Arguably Kotlin was actually created to address some deficiencies of Scala.
------
zengid
>How many languages can you name that were built with IDE support from the
ground up?
Visual Studio Code is pretty nice with TypeScript. I've enjoyed having the
autocomplete for my little Phaser game.
------
sigi45
Awesome article! Not one practical comparison between java and Kotlin.
Anyway as any hype like scala and co. Java works very well, has small issues
and no issue which really hurts me.
------
grunca
You can and should build your domain language on whatever base language you
happen to like/use. This is where most failures happen on big projects. If you
treat your solution as a script or glue code, and your complexity needs to
scale, you will quickly reach a stalling point. A good, well thought structure
& design is required,there is no language available (yet) that will replace
that.
------
ensiferum
How exactly does kotlin fix the bad Android apis? You'd imagine that you still
have to deal with the apis.
"Whereas Kotlin is made by world-class IDE vendors, so right from the start it
has the best tooling support ever."
And then...
IntelliJ doesn't like it when you type fast. Its completions can't keep up and
you wind up with half-identifiers everywhere.
So sounds like the tool support really isn't great.
------
chrisallick
Great article. Slamming android and talking about Russian software. Click bait
to boot? Sold.
My only issue is with his comment on swift. Which also sucks. Objective-C is
wonderful and delightful. I'm sad to see it losing favor.
Oh well, off to try Kotlin. Maybe I'll finally make an android app... no.
~~~
saimiam
Hello fellow Obj-C fan. I tried to teach myself Swift much like I taught
myself Obj-C. It didn't feel right.
~~~
JustSomeNobody
Funny how that is. Some language just click with certain developers.
------
newsat13
I don't get it. How does Kotlin actually solve Android's fragment/activity
issues?
~~~
smichel17
It doesn't, but it eases a lot of frustration in other areas, which makes
fragments slightly more bearable.
The standard library[0] functions `apply` and `run` are really nice with
builders.
When I converted Red Moon[1] from Java to Kotlin (no functionality changes),
the code base shrunk by around 1/6.
[0]: [http://beust.com/weblog/2015/10/30/exploring-the-kotlin-
stan...](http://beust.com/weblog/2015/10/30/exploring-the-kotlin-standard-
library/) [1]: [https://github.com/raatmarien/red-
moon](https://github.com/raatmarien/red-moon)
------
i386
Kotlin wouldn't be happening if Java was shipping things developers actually
cared about.
------
zebra9978
the title has been made politically correct - the actual title is "Why Kotlin
Is Better Than Whatever Dumb Language You're Using". I wonder if that was
intentional editorial oversight.
~~~
norswap
It's been changed. Lol at that.
------
sandGorgon
i wonder what server side platform are they using ? there's been a lot of buzz
around vertx+kotlin or Reactor ... and with android support, it is a very
compelling stack to have for android focused startups.
if they begin to build first class hooks for tensorflow in kotlin (as they
might already have, considering Tensorflow Lite on android), i think it could
replace python as the first language for data scientists.
------
rev_null
Better than Java seems like a pretty low bar.
~~~
MarkMc
Curious: what language would be a high bar?
~~~
rev_null
Rust, Haskell, Lisp, Smalltalk. There are a lot of languages out there that
are already better than Java.
------
gigatexal
Makes bold claims, but shows no code.
------
anjanb
Anyone knows how it performs versus, say, Clojure for server-side development
?
~~~
iLemming
Good question. I would also be interested in seeing some concurrency related
benchmarks. Clojure excels on that field due to immutable data-structures.
There's simply no point of talking about concurrency without immutability.
------
awinter-py
intellij is soooo sloooow
------
r3m3mb3rm3
Having all parameters to be read-only is a deal breaker for me.
~~~
andrewstuart
There's got to be a good reason why though?
~~~
r3m3mb3rm3
Honestly, I can't think of anything that is not bullshit. Having to declare a
new variable for each parameter that you need to manipulate makes the code a
lot messier.
~~~
MarkMc
It's a trade-off. Yes, the code is messier for the 20% of functions where the
input is manipulated. For the remaining 80% it makes it slightly easier to
analyse the behaviour of the function.
~~~
r3m3mb3rm3
I understand that. But I think it's better to let the programmer decide
whether their parameters are mutable or not. Then you don't have to
compromise.
------
gankgu
golang is better.
------
dozzie
Why my programming languages are smarter than whatever dumb writer that knows
nothing about my toolset and my needs is at hand with his trivial cliches.
~~~
enobrev
> whatever dumb writer that knows nothing about my toolset
I consider Steve Yegge to be one of the smartest writers I've ever read on the
subject of programming. You might disagree, but I would recommend looking for
his previous writing (which I'm not sure is still available). You may find he
has a better understanding of your toolset than you presume.
Or possibly not. I personally miss his rants.
~~~
andybak
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/execution-in-
kingd...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-
nouns.html)
This made me hate Java before I knew enough to know why. It's joyful writing.
I'd love to run it past a non-coder just to see if it's enjoyable in and of
itself. I suspect it would be to someone with an ounce of patience.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Notes from Malcolm Gladwell's Writing Masterclass - refrigerator
https://taimur.me/posts/notes-from-malcolm-gladwell-s-writing-masterclass-part-1
======
wenc
There’s a review[1] on Amazon that speaks to the kind of books Gladwell
writes, and it's both funny and perhaps contains a shred of truth. It goes:
_”There 's a school of thought that runs something like this: the average US
citizen isn't very bright, has a limited attention span, and has an appetite
only for the superficial. So if you want to write a book about something you
feel to be important, you have to sugar the pill - with lots and lots of sugar
and make sure it's a very small pill indeed.
Hence the style "American-Folksy." In this genre the author leads the reader
gently along by means of first-person narrative, tons of anecdote, and just
the gentlest hint of new information here and there. The lexicon is
undemanding and the pace is calculated to be just brisk enough to prevent the
onset of catatonia while being leisurely enough not to require any strenuous
intellectual activity on the part of the reader. It's basically DisneyWords.
This is a well-tried genre used across a wide variety of subjects. In Search
of Excellence and The Omnivore's Dilemma both use the same style despite their
contexts being very different. And Weiner uses American-Folksy here for
precisely the same reasons and to precisely the same effect. The purpose of
American-Folksy is to take something that could have made a somewhat
interesting 6-page monograph and stretch it out into a book-length
peregrination.”_
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/re...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R3KMN29SZX9ZKS/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=145169167X)
~~~
AdamSC1
I used to fall into the camp of being frustrated at Gladwell's books.
I would buy them, read them, learn from them, but be frustrated I spent that
time and only really got one nugget from the book.
Then I became an adjunct professor. Teaching in my first course, I noticed
that even the brightest students would ask me to go over content again with
additional examples and it brought me back to these debates about Gladwell's
books.
I decided to split my class in half, into group A and group B and run an
experiment (that wouldn't impact the student's marks).
For Group A, I would give a detailed two hour breakdown of "Topic #1"
explaining each element of it carefully and slowly. For "Topic #2", I would
give only a thirty minute breakdown of the topic comprised of three anecdotes
applying the topic.
For Group B, I would give the detailed two hour breakdown on "Topic #2" and
the thirty minute anecdote series on "Topic #1".
Then I quizzed them.
Both groups performed better on the anecdote topics by a fairly significant
margin, and not only had the class average performed better, but, I found that
many individuals who often struggled on tests were performing FAR above their
averages.
When I look back to the business concepts I remember, it's never long
convoluted blog posts, or books covering an array of concepts. It's ideas that
can be expressed in a few words (Jelly Effect, Tipping Point, Purple Cow) and
then are beaten to death with examples.
There seem two be two reasons, first and foremost, not every anecdote,
example, or explanation resonates the same with each person. So by increasing
the number of examples you give, you are increasing the likelihood of an
individual reader being able to understand.
Second, just like we learned in elementary with spelling and times tables, to
truly 'learn' something repetition and reinforcement are really important and
increase the likelihood of people being able to recall and apply the concepts
that are taught.
Gladwell and others present just one or two nuggets of brilliance across their
books, but, I think most educators would agree with me, that it is because of
that repetition and variety of example's that most of us understand and
remember the concepts they were trying to teach.
~~~
theNJR
So you're saying that reading notes from the MasterClass isn't a great use of
time :)
~~~
AdamSC1
It could be a great use of time to get the initial core nugget of info, but,
unlike the Masterclass course itself you now have to find your own way to
repeat and reinforce it. If you are the kind of person that can give yourself
a structure of daily practice to implement a new concept more power to you!
------
Fragoel2
Despite owning some of his books, I can't say that I am a fan of Gladwell's
writing style. But his Revisionist History podcast (revisionisthistory.com)
is, by far, one of my favourite things to listen to and I highly recommend to
give it a shot.
~~~
heymijo
I came to Revisionist History with a healthy skepticism of Gladwell. I echo
your sentiments about its worth. The semi-connected episodes 4,5,6 from season
1 about education hooked me.
I also enjoyed Saigon 1965 (S01E02) and the one about McDonald's french fries
but more importantly the beginning of the war on fat in America (S02E09).
He unearths some good perspectives in the podcast and it doesn't have the pop-
sci feel that his books do that get my BS detector going.
------
andyjohnson0
Slightly off topic, but I was thinking of doing Neil Gaiman's storytelling
course [1] on masterclass.com. Wondering if anyone here has done it and found
it useful (or otherwise)?
[1] [https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-
the-...](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-the-art-of-
storytelling)
~~~
wildmindwriting
I'm only on the fourth video so far in his class but already I'm finding it
useful, if for nothing other than having validation that it's okay to write
the kind of stories you want to write. It's also quite interesting to hear the
backstory to some of his books. If the first four videos are any indication, I
suspect the rest of the course will be well worth it.
------
cm2012
Whatever you think about the content, you have to admit Gladwell is a
remarkably engaging writer.
------
duado
I can’t believe marketing culture has gotten to the point where someone is
pre-announcing Part 2 of his notes and offers to notify you if you subscribe.
~~~
refrigerator
hey, didn't mean for it to be subscribe-bait — I'd originally planned to do it
all in one, but it took me a fair bit of time just to go through the first
chunk of the course and write up coherent notes. Breaking it up into parts
made it a lot manageable!
~~~
stronglikedan
Don't listen to OP. You did good. Thanks for allowing me to get a notification
when it's ready, instead of just making me rely on my memory.
------
duado
The best way to read Gladwell is his articles in the New Yorker. His books are
just a magazine article’s worth of ideas in book length.
~~~
jjeaff
I feel like many if not most books are that. They turn into the same idea
stretched thin so they can fill a book.
------
Grustaf
What’s the ketchup conundrum? Is he saying that there is only one tomato based
condiment? Or one maker of ketchup? Neither is true.
~~~
bambax
Heinz ketchup has 80% market share in Europe and 60% in the US. Anybody can
make ketchup, it's one of the simplest condiments, like mayonnaise or maybe
even salt. Yet it seems only Heinz can sell ketchup; the question is why.
~~~
klmr
The thing is, different ketchups taste vastly different. There are actually
several other best-selling brands of tomato ketchup in Germany but they all
taste very different from Heinz, and, in one case, objectively worse (bland).
I used to think that Heinz’ taste is simply due to the ridiculous amount of
sugar they pack into it but it turns out that the low-sugar Heinz variety is
almost indistinguishable, taste-wise.
So I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as all that. I’m not saying marketing
doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only thing.
~~~
johnnycab
>I’m not saying marketing doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only
thing.
The 'bliss point' might play a major role, amongst various other factors.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_\(food\))
~~~
gjm11
This is literally just responding to someone saying "people buy more Heinz
ketchup because it's tastier" by saying "perhaps it's because they made it as
tasty as they could".
------
lvs
Step 1: take a bunch of research out of context and spin a nice bedtime tale
that the data doesn't really support.
~~~
zimpenfish
As a wise man[2] once said, "the plural of anecdote is Gladwell"[1]
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861468)
[2] Ok, me
~~~
Casseres
I thought [1] was going to be a link to itself
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19224648)).
------
petulla
This might have been interesting, but, as a source of truths, it did not age
well. [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-
change-m...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-
malcolm-gladwell)
------
dmschulman
For those leveling the criticism that Gladwell's style is too simplistic and
unacademic, is this stylistic form simply a product of the author or a product
of a publishing industry that knows their audience will choose digestible
prose over dense manuscripts (and sponsors authors and their books
accordingly)?
~~~
kirkules
Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, nor is either exclusive
with other notions like reader expectations and capabilities being guided to
some extent by the most popular and/or readily available material.
------
zinxq
In the few times I've read (or started to read) one of Gladwell's books I
always think "This book would make a great article".
------
paulcole
If you haven’t heard this before, listen to Gladwell’s unhinged thoughts on
which race/nationality/region (he seems to use the 3 interchangeably) is best
at basketball:
[https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond-
vs-...](https://soundcloud.com/the-bill-simmons-podcast/draymond-vs-kd-embiid-
for-mvp-and-the-rise-of-podcasts-with-malcolm-gladwell-and-chris-ryan-the-
bill-simmons-podcast-ep-442)
Absolutely wild and the host is just along for the uncomfortable ride. I still
have no clue what he was thinking.
There are hits, there are misses, and then there are whatever that was.
~~~
gnicholas
For those who prefer skimmable text, it's summed up here:
[https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill-
simmonss-...](https://deadspin.com/malcolm-gladwell-goes-on-bill-simmonss-
podcast-deliver-1830449233)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MySQL: the Pros and Cons of MyISAM Tables - ajbatac
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/25/mysql-myisam-table-pros-con/
======
mdasen
Not a good article at all. It makes MyISAM sound good which just isn't the
case.
MyISAM is good for read-only tables. It has very fast reads. Once you start
getting writes, it crumbles. Since most web applications today have a decent
amount of writes, MyISAM isn't that good.
So what is MyISAM good for? Well, let's say that you have a table of post
codes. Maybe you want to add new ones every month, but for general purposes,
it's read-only. You'll get MyISAM's speed for reads and writes won't matter.
On the other hand, say you're making a site like HN. In that case, you
constantly have writes (votes, submissions, comments) and locking the table
isn't an option as it would just crumble.
The article says that MyISAM is good if your application "has to be fast".
That isn't true. Most applications would be faster with InnoDB. This article
takes a completely inaccurate approach to databases. So, they'll be lots of
people who read this and think, "faster is better, therefore I'll use MyISAM,"
when such a choice will give them lots of speed problems as users start using
their app.
~~~
truebosko
Great explanation. Would you recommend mixing InnoDB and MyISAM tables within
a database based on read/write levels of certain tables?
My general knowledge of databases says Yes, no problem but having much less
experience, I figure it won't hurt to ask.
~~~
jkmcf
From what I've read, NEVER mix InnoDB and MyISAM tables in the same database.
Update: While they don't say never, they don't recommend it. Managing backups
gets a lot harder. Also, you should never mix innodb and myisam tables within
a transaction, which is probably what I was attaching never to.
[http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/01/12/should-you-
mo...](http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2009/01/12/should-you-move-from-
myisam-to-innodb/)
------
batasrki
Very basic explanation of the pros and cons. It assumes a total beginner
audience.
I think that the lack of foreign key constraints and transaction support needs
to be emphasized more, especially considering who the audience is.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The NSA's Cryptographic Capabilities - silenteh
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/the_nsas_crypto_1.html
======
devx
After the new revelations every site who's using SSL should be using Perfect
Forward Secrecy with it, too. Right now, only a few known companies like
Google (only for the search engine probably), DuckDuckGo, and
Ixquick/Startpage are using it.
Considering NSA is collecting as many keys as possible, let's at least make
their job exponentially harder by encrypting every session and every message
with a new key with PFS. It's the _least_ these companies can do, if they're
serious about their users' privacy.
Also, as Bruce is saying - use 3072 bit or even 4096 bit RSA keys (or better
alternatives) and AES-256 as soon as possible (hopefully within a year).
~~~
Spearchucker
Whilst it makes perfect sense, it's an exercise in frustration. An asymmetric
key is usually used to protect a shared symmetric key. Generating a strong
asymmetric key on a phone, for example, takes bloody ages. As ever, strong
security comes at the expense of usability.
~~~
devx
PFS only adds 15 percent overhead, and the new ARMv8 architecture will be up
to 10x faster for AES.
------
einhverfr
The idea that we can break public key encryption and go back to shared secrets
doesn't solve the problem for which public key encryption is the answer,
namely sharing the secrets. Schneier's piece would be a little more helpful if
this were considered. Going back to simple shared secrets means that one
cannot securely engage in something like ecommerce, and so breaking public key
encryption would totally break the way we use encryption today.
------
shin_lao
_Certainly the fact that the NSA is pushing elliptic-curve cryptography is
some indication that it can break them more easily._
There are valid and sane reasons to dismiss RSA. Keys are becoming larger and
larger for example.
What Bruce doesn't say is that the NSA made modifications to DES S-Boxes so
that it can RESIST differential cryptanalysis better.
But overall I agree, I think the _" Also, we are investing in groundbreaking
cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit
internet traffic."_ is just vulgarization for the people voting budget.
It doesn't matter if you break the crypto or the implementation as long as you
provide intelligence.
~~~
hga
" _What Bruce doesn 't say is that the NSA made modifications to DES S-Boxes
so that it can RESIST differential cryptanalysis better._"
That was then. Back then, the NSA's clear mission was to help prevent the
Soviets from winning, and that included protecting our communications (still
part of their remit). Now ... it's not so clear.
BTW, according to Wikipedia IBM independently discovered differential
cryptography and kept that secret at the NSA's request, so IBM was potentially
in a position to understand the NSA's requested changes, or just plain worked
with it on them.
There were a bunch of things that the NSA might have though mitigated the
danger so it was an acceptable tradeoff to the very real threat of Soviet
spying on US businesses (see e.g.
[http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/agent-farewell-
and...](http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/agent-farewell-and-the-
siberian-pipeline-explosion/)):
They limited the key size to 56 bits (according to Wikipedia a compromise
between 48 and 64 ... where else have we heard of that sort of thing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_Transfer_Mode#Cel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_Transfer_Mode#Cell_size)).
It was intended for hardware implementations, and perhaps they didn't do a
good job of factoring in Moore's law, which then was only a decade old and had
a lot more skeptics. And microprocessors were still quite new.
There was a strong export control regime back then, and to the extent DES was
implemented in hardware it was more effective.
Getting back to adversaries, official and unofficial, to the extend they
aren't nation states, or not very wealthy and technically sophisticated ones,
the tradeoffs are significantly different today. We can be very sure they're
not worried about al-Qaeda brute forcing a secretly weakened algorithm as long
as it's not too weak (i.e. requires a lot more than a handful of machines with
GPUs or FPGAs).
Same might be true for various nation states as long as they don't get
patronage by the Russians or Chinese Communists, and we might have an idea of
the capabilities of the latter two frenemies (I sure hope we do!).
------
raheemm
On a different note, considering the popular myth that government by default
is incompetent, this is a remarkable degree of competence, surpassing even the
private sector.
~~~
venomsnake
A brute with a mallet can cause a lot of damage. And yet he is not master
fencer.
NSA have a lot of brute force behind their backs. They have a rubber stamping
court, are allowed to read existing laws as a weak guidelines, almost
unlimited budget and the lucky fact that the majority of the world's IT IP is
located in the hands of american companies.
It will be hard to not produce results with all that.
Governments usually are competent in their own way. What they usually lack is
subtlety and elegance.
------
MrBra
> I think it extraordinarily unlikely that the NSA has built a quantum
> computer capable of performing the magnitude of calculation necessary to do
> this, but it's possible.
.
I think, that from the very first moment a quantum computer could be built
(given an extraordinary amount of resources) NSA set this to their highest
priority, and tried to do so, given what this system could provide them, so I
am pretty sure that by now they have already some prototype working and
growing.
Or do you think they're saving money? Or not trying to draw all possible funds
to this cause considering how much appeal its computations could exercise for
exampe for US foreign economy?
------
wjnc
One point that is made more often is: "It's very probable that the NSA has
newer techniques that remain undiscovered in academia."
How does one go around maintaining such an omerta?
Most cryptographic math is not that hard that it requires a team to remember.
So anyone working in this field at NSA could (if true) become professor by
working out that math in academia after his/her career at NSA. Or is there
such strong commitment to secrecy that not one former NSA cryptographer would
try to follow that route?
~~~
mr_luc
Compare it to ASDICs.
The Brits invented Sonar in 1916, and the Admiralty kept it secret for long
enough that when World War 2 broke out, they had it fitted on 5 types of ships
as part of an integrated anti-submarine suite; they were the only ones that
had this operational capability.
If you were a scientist who worked on that project, and in 1920 you published
"On Quartz-Based Range Detection In Water", you would have definitely gone to
jail.
(Or, of course, the Enigma cracking -- but that's not really the best example;
it wasn't a long-maintained operational advantage consisting of abilities the
rest of the world didn't have, but rather an emergency skunk-works that got
jump-started by the Poles; it did, however, have a pretty good record of
secrecy after the fact!)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Best text editor for writing a technical document or programming book? - cyborgdino
What are some good text editors that will help aid in writing a book about coding. I am worried about formatting as well as my code samples staying intact when publishing to print. Any suggestions?
======
allanmacgregor
Give leanpub.com is not only a great publishing platform but their markdown
tools and formatting are great
------
zachlatta
I'd assume either LaTeX or Markdown + pandoc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An important quantum algorithm may be a property of nature - pisky
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614259/an-important-quantum-algorithm-may-actually-be-a-property-of-nature/
======
nicwilson
Hmm, there are several things I find strange about this article.
There are 22 proteinogenic amino acids (admittedly two are rare,
selenocysteine and pyrrolysine, but with rarity comes importance when they do
occur).
The search for the correct amino acid is not class balanced, e.g. the
aromatics are much less common.
The tRNAs are also not equally distributed, neither in the codon-anticodon
pairing, the aromatics are coded for by only one or two, I suppose this is
somewhat reflected in the frequency (see above).
Even within one amino acids possible tRNA the ratio's are species dependant to
a remarkable degree (see codon optimisation in genetic engineering. You can
also tell by sequence analysis if horizontal transfer has occurred if the
frequencies are all wrong) and is used to regulate synthesis. e.g. if a
species has tRNA UUU : tRNA UUC of 3 : 1 then (classically) one would expect a
protein incorporating phenylalanine as UUC to take 3 times longer than UUU to
incorporate.
~~~
knzhou
This is all correct, and shows why both biologists and physicists don't take
the conclusions of Patel's paper too seriously. Just aiming for "20" without
any context for what that means is a bad kind of numerology. There's probably
a grain of truth in the paper, but only enough to get to something like "20
plus or minus 10", not exactly "20".
Speaking as an MIT alumnus, some of the school's promotional material is
glitzy on the outside and hollow on the inside. The MIT Tech Review's
"Emerging Technologies" column is particularly bad. I've written numerous
rants over the years rebutting incredibly misleading viral articles from it.
It's a shame that people automatically trust it because of the MIT name.
~~~
jessriedel
MIT Tech Review is no longer associated with MIT. The name is historical
vestige. It's just another magazine like Popular Science.
~~~
dekhn
that's not correct, they are owned by MIT.
~~~
jessriedel
Thanks you're right. The important idea I was remembering is that they have no
editorial connection to the university; they're just an investment.
~~~
lonelappde
It's part of the trend of MIT and many other venerable institutions cashing
out their reputation instead of building on it.
------
mindviews
"The Grover search as a naturally occurring phenomenon" arXiv link:
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.11213](https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.11213)
------
carbocation
This is a bit of a tangent (that the author takes): “But during protein
assembly, each amino acid must be chosen from a soup of 20 different options.
Grover’s algorithm explains these numbers: a three-step quantum search can
find an object in a database containing up to 20 kinds of entry. Again, 20 is
the optimal number.”
20 is the number of amino acids, but this is ignoring stop codons (and
specialized amino acids used for initiation).
It’s not super clear to me at what level of abstraction the search is taking
place - it can’t be the tRNA space because that’s not just 20 options.
The point that electrons seem to follow a Grover search is cool. I’m just
unclear on whether the biological part holds up.
~~~
jerf
I'd go farther; I can't even imagine in what way matching a codon to a
physical amino acid and attaching it to a protein in progress is a "database
lookup" in a Grover database lookup.
If proteins were created by the cells by selecting proteins out of quantum
superpositions of all the possible amino acids, sure. But that doesn't seem to
remotely describe how that process works.
------
Iv
A reason why I allow myself some skepticism on the feasibility of quantum
computing is that if it were possible, I would have expected evolution to have
used it somehow.
If it turns out that protein folding really use a quantum computation, I'll
move quantum computers from the "too good to be true" category to the
"probably revolutionary stuff that I will see in my lifetime" alongside with
nuclear fusion and strong AI.
~~~
knzhou
This argument proves too much. By that same argument, nuclear fission,
ordinary CPUs, steam engines, rockets, helicopters, jets, X-rays, radio waves,
superconductivity, superfluidity, air conditioning, liquid helium, liquid
nitrogen, the Haber process, the fractional quantum Hall effect, Doppler
cooling, graphene, long-distance satellite communication, gravitational waves,
and GPS corrections for relativity _all_ don't exist, because nothing in life
is designed like them or takes advantage of them. You've literally taken us
back to the 1700s.
I know that it's fashionable to simply declare quantum computing is
impossible, and there are some strong arguments in this direction, but this
particular argument isn't one.
The general reason people believe quantum computing _is_ possible is that it
describes just about all the things I mentioned above absolutely perfectly,
along with literally thousands of other phenomena, with no deviations ever
measured. This gives us good reason to assume quantum mechanics actually
works, and if it does, then it's possible for quantum computing to work.
(Also, of course you need to account for quantum mechanics to account for
protein folding. You literally can't have chemical bonds at all without
quantum mechanics.)
~~~
Iv
The argument I propose is not a strong one. It is still an argument: if
something is possible, why did evolution not use it? There are several
possible answers:
1\. Life may not have a use for it
2\. It may be impossible to achieve with proteins and cells
3\. It may not actually be possible
For quantum computer I (weakly) believe that 1 and 2 are wrong: evolution and
cognition would hugely benefit from quantum acceleration and biology operates
at a scale where quantum effects are visible. I thought 3. slightly more
likely but I'll readily admit that I am nowhere near the knowledge to be
categorical about 2.
And note that of the list of things you are giving, there are many that uses
the same _physical principles_ that are used by life: steam engine (expansion
of heated gases), rockets (ignition of gas), jets (propulsion), helicopters (a
rotating wing is a wing), radio waves/X-rays (the RF spectrum, which visible
light is part of), etc... The rest, IMO, falls either under 1. or 2. For
instance I doubt long-distance communication really offers a substantive
advantage when you know whales can already contact each other at 100s of
kilometers through shouts, and superfluidity may require conditions and
materials that are impossible to reach for organic material.
Note however that this last one is actually a kinda good (if weak) argument:
if superfluidity was achievable through organic material and conditions close
to the temperature and pressure average on earth, life would probably have
found it, as it is clearly a useful property. If tomorrow we find that you can
get room-temperature superfluids that are made out of C,H and O atoms,
wondering why it is not found in nature will be a very good question.
~~~
sriku
All that is assuming that you do know for certain the evolution did NOT
exploit it.
There is some extrapolative argument that hints at the contrary. Adrian
Thompson's evolved FPGA circuits exploited a single chip's underlying physics
in a manner no digital circuit designer would. By that thread, it would seem
possible that evolution has already exploited quantum computation ... just
that maybe we haven't had the tech eye to see it yet.
After all, all systems are quantum mechanical.
~~~
smilliken
Rhodopsin, in our retina, exploits a quantun mechanical effect. You could
argue that our brains are quantum computers if you consider our retina
including rhodopsin to be part of the brain.
~~~
whatshisface
Apples are red because of quantum mechanical effects, but that doesn't make
them computers.
~~~
smilliken
Anything and everything is because of quantum mechanics, sure. But you
could've asked a classical physicist to design an apple "computer" (the
fruit)— just arrange the right atoms— but you couldn't have asked a classical
physicist to design a retina computer exploiting rhodopsin.
------
jjtheblunt
Modal verb ("may") clickbait alert?
------
imvetri
Everything inside living organisms are learnt from nature. organisms with
sight, learn from what it could see. Organisms with sense of sound can create
only what it had heard in past.
Now imagine primitive organisms that has distributed/scattered sensory system
like plants( don't start an argument that plant isn't an organism. instead
start the right argument with most flawed system please)
We cannot create anything new which we haven't learnt in the past.
WE CANNOT CREATE ANYTHING NEW WHICH WE HAVENT LEANRT IN THE PAST.
Great people are not great in finding relation in surroundings. They are only
good at finding what's inside their brain.
What goes inside the brain ? millions of years of nature's influence.
~~~
imvetri
We gotta turn around and rethink how we are educating ourselves and
surrounding us. We have to be very careful in not misinforming facts or the
way we think.
~~~
imvetri
Imagine boolean concept in the computer science. The first guy who theorised
did he just propose something randomly and error free, or was he able to look
/ observe how his brain thinks ? I would pick the second one.
This is an example that anything that feels flawless is from within ourselves!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Online Certificates or Degrees for IT Managers - elcottm
I'm looking for that "edge" to add to my resume to show that I have technical and managerial experience and knowledge.<p>My current situation only allows me to do online courses/programs.<p>What (online) programs are recommended that would be beneficial for my career that would give me hard and soft skills as a manager?
======
GFischer
I don't think you'll get "soft" skills as a manager with an online degree, but
you can get several other useful skills.
I did a Masters of Management in Technology in my country and I recommend it
(though it didn't help me as much as I expected, experience in similar
positions is a requirement for making the jump), in the U.S. there are several
online equivalents, some of them free and some paid, for example:
The University of Chicago - Illinois has an online Master of Science in
Management Information Systems
[http://www.uis.edu/cbam/online/mis/](http://www.uis.edu/cbam/online/mis/)
Harvard has the Extension School which allows you to get a degree (mostly?)
through online courses
[http://www.extension.harvard.edu/degrees-
programs/management](http://www.extension.harvard.edu/degrees-
programs/management)
This one from Michigan State sounds promising:
[http://www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/programs/master...](http://www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/programs/masters-
degree/ms-management-strategy-leadership/)
A list of online masters:
[http://www.geteducated.com/online-college-ratings-and-
rankin...](http://www.geteducated.com/online-college-ratings-and-
rankings/best-buy-lists/best-buy-online-masters-management-administration/)
Edit: U.S. News has a ranking, which has Indiana University as the best online
program
[http://online.iu.edu/](http://online.iu.edu/)
list
[https://edocs.uis.edu/rhadi1/www/2015bestOnlineGradBusinessP...](https://edocs.uis.edu/rhadi1/www/2015bestOnlineGradBusinessPrograms.pdf)
Plenty of choices :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microphone found in the embassy of Ecuador in London. - pitiburi
http://inagist.com/all/352201540880187392/
======
pitiburi
Some explaining here:
[http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http:/...](http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n231944.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3DRicardo%2BPatino%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1408%26bih%3D856%26tbs%3Dqdr:h)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Investors Recruit Terminally Ill To Outwit Insurers on Annuities - cwan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704479704575061392800740492.html
======
flipper
Though I think I get the idea from the first two paragraphs, perhaps you could
provide a summary for those of us without a WSJ subscription?
~~~
cwan
Try
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Investors+Recruit+T...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Investors+Recruit+Terminally+Ill+To+Outwit+Insurers+on+Annuities&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&oq=)
\- and clicking on the first link... not sure if that still works
~~~
flipper
Got it, thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PICO-8 - jmduke
http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
======
modeless
See also [http://puzzlescript.net](http://puzzlescript.net) which is even more
minimalist but has some very interesting games, such as Heroes of Sokoban:
[http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6860122](http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6860122)
------
sspiff
They also have a pretty interesting Voxel fantasy console:
[http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php](http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php).
This was funded through a Kickstarter, and a lot of backers are pretty bitter
over the progress and direction of the project - just check out the forums.
I love the idea, but I'm very sad that this isn't open source.
~~~
kraftman
The lexaloffle forums? I don't see much bitterness there?
~~~
dennisnedry
Read this -
[http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2074](http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2074)
~~~
dan00
So literally one guy is pissed on the internet.
------
Rabidgremlin
I put together a tutorial on writing a simple game in PICO-8
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuaLuMhwcc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuaLuMhwcc8)
its really a fun platform to play with
~~~
fit2rule
Excellent! Really nice demo .. me and the kids are sitting down to watch it
together later today and see what we come up with after watching your
tutorial. Thanks for that!
~~~
Rabidgremlin
Awesome!
------
Temjin
PICO-8 is totally awesome. I've built a few simple games, and have been
encouraging my daughter to make games. She can't program (yet!) but she can
play with the sprite editor and sound editor :)
The limitations really make it easy to not worry and just make a dang game!
For those of you worrying about cart size limits: if your game is too big for
one cart, make it a two-parter :P Also, apparently you can load data from
another cart while your game is running so you could just chain a whole bunch
of them together.
Two things I am really excited for are support on Pi-style hardware, and
mobile support for the web player.
~~~
tmaxxcar
My understanding is that with PICO-8 you can export to HTML5. If this is the
case, (I haven't used this myself.. Yet.) why would you need direct support
for mobile and Pi's? Couldn't you just change the dimensions of the app to fit
mobile devices, and take advantage of the HTML5 support while on a Pi?
~~~
Temjin
You can run PICO-8 games on a phone browser, but there are no virtual buttons
for touchscreens, yet.
Pi is just a bit too slow to run the JS engine, it needs to be ported to
native ARM for full speed.
------
networked
I want to point out that the console uses a (quite appealing [1]) fixed
palette of 16 colors for all of its graphics. I think having a fixed palette
is a great idea. I can see it helping would-be game developers overcome their
initial art style analysis paralysis and helping ensure that the games have a
recognizable "PICO-8" look.
[1] See [http://i.imgur.com/1VOlxCt.png](http://i.imgur.com/1VOlxCt.png).
~~~
ino
You're right, it looks like much thought went into it. I se 4 distinct human
skin tones, or 3 if you include a darker tone for shading, pleasant colors
with darker tones for shading and good availability of high contrast (not
everything is pastel).
------
raziel2p
I love the aesthetics, and the idea to save "cartridges" as png images!
------
greggman
You can play user submitted cartridges here no install required. Pico-8 can
export to HTML5
[http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?cat=7&sub=2&orderby=rating](http://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?cat=7&sub=2&orderby=rating)
------
fit2rule
Very cute and cool little environment .. was pleasantly surprised to see that
it came with my Vexatron purchase (amazing in its own right) .. a truly
delightful little environment, which I'm going to enjoy, very much, teaching
my 8-year old to play with .. just like the good ol' days of computing, before
IDE's came along .. ;)
EDIT: reminds me a little bit of antirez' LOAD81 environment which is also, a
bit of a retro programming experience:
[http://github.com/antirez/load81](http://github.com/antirez/load81)
------
agentultra
This system is quite amazing. Peek and poke! Extremely limited pallet! An
integrated development environment. The restrictions make for some very
interesting design choices and force you to limit the scope of your designs --
super important if you ever actually want to finish a game.
I highly recommend this system to anyone. It's great and I've been having a
tonne of fun with it. It's no Amiga 500, but boy it has that _feel_.
~~~
RodgerTheGreat
You might also enjoy Octo[1] which is based on a real 8-bit system called
CHIP-8. There's even a month-long game jam going on right now![2]
[1] [https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo)
[2] [http://octojam.com](http://octojam.com)
~~~
nickpsecurity
Thanks for the link. Most interesting was that it was implemented on the
mighty RCA 1802 processor and very directly.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_1802](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_1802)
Built on Silicon-on-Sapphire process, it was radiation and EMSEC tolerant plus
low-power. Used in Galileo space-craft. Highly reliable. It's still sold with
a spec that you can fully understand and that documents every state:
[http://www.intersil.com/en/products/space-and-harsh-
environm...](http://www.intersil.com/en/products/space-and-harsh-
environment/harsh-environment/microprocessors-and-peripherals/CDP1802A.html#)
So, not just a toy, Octo or CHIP-8 could be used to prototype applications
that just run and run and run in the field. Heck, even a retro-gamer might
appreciate a system that never freezes past game logic errors.
~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Sure!
Eventually I would like to equip Octo with an optional 1802 emulation mode and
the necessary mixed-mode assembler for producing 1802 machine code. Probably
won't be available any time soon without strong demand, though.
~~~
nickpsecurity
That's understandable. I doubt the demand will show up but it was cool to see
them connected in the write-up. Few even know 1802 exist much less why it's
worth copying.
Not sure how far you like to push yourself on low-level coding, reading on or
doing it. I'll end with these links for your entertainment:
4-bit MCU's: the next challenge for 8-bit masters to strut their stuff.
Interesting article esp how they're sold.
[http://www.embeddedinsights.com/channels/2010/12/10/consider...](http://www.embeddedinsights.com/channels/2010/12/10/considerations-
for-4-bit-processing/)
Example 4-bit CPU's for public
[http://www.ttlcpu.com/content/links](http://www.ttlcpu.com/content/links)
Note: Really wonder what best retro games would look like on 4-bits, esp after
hardware acceleration tradeoffs. I always challenge the demoscene to show us.
;)
Motorola _1-bit_ processor: "Real men don't need hulking 4-8 bitters!" Haha
[http://www.electro-tech-
online.com/threads/mc14500b-a-1-bit-...](http://www.electro-tech-
online.com/threads/mc14500b-a-1-bit-industrial-processor.88417/)
Note: Manual and source code are attached to comments on that page. Would be
amazed at seeing people do anything useful in modern applications with these.
They'd win by default on memory/power/area efficiency haha.
------
cechner
anyone in Tokyo interested in this should check out the Lexaloffle HQ in
Kichijoji - [http://picopicocafe.com](http://picopicocafe.com)
They have a very developer friendly environment (I spent many days programming
there, they often hold Ludum Dare marathons) and Joseph is a first class indy
developer.
------
euske
This totally reminds me of Family BASIC. It had a music editor and level
editor, and I had a fond memory of playing (i.e. programming) it at a friends
house. The biggest problem: its memory storage was only 2Kbytes. A program had
to fit in basically one screen. Also when you use the music editor, you had to
give up the memory for programs. I kept saying "Phah! Mai-con (abbrev. of
"Microcomputer") is so much better!" just like I do today.
------
empressplay
Looks like fun! We're building something quite similar to this, but compatible
with / inspired by existing 8-bit computers / consoles (Apple II, C64, etc...)
Good to see some validation for the space though =)
------
akilism
I love this little fantasy console. I've written a few small games in it
already it's a lot of fun.
------
byron_fast
Only thing about PICO-8 that makes no sense: the 32k limit. Otherwise, an
awesome set of limitations.
~~~
walkingolof
The NES had 2 kb onboard and 8 to 16kb on the cartridge, 32kb ROM and 2kb
display memory
~~~
byron_fast
It doesn't _need_ to do that, though. It's an interesting set of visual
limitations, but the size limit is an arbitrary pain in the ass if your
program gets too big. Nobody's hosting is going to break at 256kb.
~~~
walkingolof
Your missing the point, it has nothing to do with download speed.
32k is not a pita, its the point, this is a fantasy retro consol, giving it 32
MB would do what ? make it pointless probably
Its also a excellent opportunity to show off, for example, nobody would have
thought you could make this on a C64 1984
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kJz_XfbxX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kJz_XfbxX0)
~~~
greggman
I agree. Those limits including the 32k code limit really focus what to aim
for. Google online game editors and there's plenty with few limits and ... No
one is using them. To me it's kind of one of the reasons minecraft has done so
well. The limit style frees people from feeling like they need mad skillz
Also note pico-8 limits the number of instructions executed per frame. So a
faster CPU will not increase what you can do. The goal is to make sure all
games run even on the least powered hardware.
------
ignaces
PICO pal' que lee.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: We built a tool to save and practise relevant words to learn languages - fishsander
https://wordeys.com
======
fishsander
We started working on Wordeys this summer (on a cool hackweekend at a farm),
after we felt like there was a gap between learning the basics of languages
and mastering languages. On top of that, when using existing language learning
apps we always feel some sort of annoyance; it’s really helpful at first, but
then it gets boring, time consuming and irrelevant.
That’s why we made a tool that lets people save relevant words, grammar and
vocabulary into lists, which can be practised (like flashcards, but with soft
spell checks). This enables people to only spend time and effort on the stuff
they need.
By focusing on a minimal, clear UI and integrating Google Translate we make it
possible to build these lists really quick.
We would love to hear everyones thoughts on this!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paul Carr on Facebook Privacy - aaronbrethorst
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/09/fool-disclosure
======
bonaldi
What a massively unpleasant troll. All based on a simple fallacy:
"If all it takes to break a privacy system is for one of your friends to copy
and repost your “private” photos or tweets then they’re not private at all."
By the same measure, no email is private, no hand-written letter, no whispered
conversation, no Top Secret document.
That's not how privacy works. Privacy is about trust between humans, and our
understanding of what's private includes the assumption that we'll have to
trust the other people involved. Where there's technology involved, there is a
different standard: if it pledges to be secure, we expect the only leaks to
come via the humans. I expect GMail to take pretty extensive steps to keep my
email private, for instance, but I don't expect them to stop my friend
forwarding my email to a third party.
Facebook was originally billed as a trustworthy piece of technology. Things
could leak from it, but they'd leak via other people, not via the software.
Now they've quietly changed the rules and are merrily leaking away. That's
privacy invasion, and no amount of blaming the victim will change that.
------
stickhandle
My point exactly ... i was channeling Paul only a few hours before his post.
Want your data private? Simple: DON'T PUT IT ON FACEBOOK!!! Reminds me of an
overweight person complaining about fad-diets not working ... simple again:
stop eating you fat b@sterd. Get a grip ... facebook owes you nothing. Give it
what you want.
~~~
stickhandle
My channeling was on the Wired article ..
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1333502>. Go ahead, vote me down again
alarmists with sense of entitlement
------
steveklabnik
I was specifically watching this story to see if it'd get flagged for the
title.
Guess it just got changed, instead.
------
mgrouchy
There is Facebook privacy?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Change.org Petition - LinkedIn: Protect your users from stalkers - pmikal
https://www.change.org/petitions/linkedin-protect-your-users-from-stalkers-and-help-keep-victims-safe
======
devicenull
How is a blocking feature going to help when it's trivial to create a new
account?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The death of the paper ticket for sporting events - hhs
https://www.axios.com/sports-tickets-paper-digital-19d71f8d-c146-4873-8a83-50de1fbbb25e.html
======
joezydeco
Do mobile tickets put resale capability exclusively in the hands of the
issuer? How does one take a mobile ticket from Ticketmaster and sell it on
Stubhub?
Seems like that's the end goal here, to capture 100% of the market _and_
aftermarket. Imagine being able to collect service fees on the same ticket
multiple times!
~~~
DrScump
Seems like that's the end goal here, to capture 100% of the market and aftermarket.
Exactly.
But the reality is that the added friction in buying and using the tickets
often results in _not attending at all_.
Mobile-only ticketing is toxic. It makes transacting on eBay and Craigslist
impossible, or at best unsafe.
You have no souvenir.
Going as a group? _Everyone_ has to install the app and each ticket be
forwarded individually... and the apps are almost always privacy sucks with
aggressive permission demands.
Going to/from a pricier concourse? Better have your phone to show you are
eligible!
Giving tickets to a group or charity auction becomes impossible.
Major event like playoffs, tournament or top concert? Better hope your mobile
provider added capacity at the venue (this was a HUGE problem for World Series
games in SF, for example).
The 49ers went to mobile only ticketing in 2014. Then they went 5 full years
without a single sellout. The 2018 home opener was 60% empty.
The Sharks went mobile only for awhile and haven't had a genuine sellout since
(including the Stanley Cup Finals!)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Instagram Is the “Top Showcase Platform for Counterfeiters” on the Web - juokaz
http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/instagram-is-the-top-showcase-platform-for-counterfeiters-on-the-web
======
rchaud
This sounds like the modern version of having Disqus comments sections overrun
with spam comments pitching Prada bags, Air Jordan shoes, etc. This kind of
comment spam was huge on blogs in the late 2000s, before social media sites
centralized all that traffic to their comments sections.
I wonder if it's an age thing for me (I'm 34), but I would never consider
buying anything I saw on a random Instagram account. Even the sponsored posts
from influencers pitching say, workout apparel or pre-workout, are from no-
name companies I don't trust, especially given the fly-by-night, dropship-
from-AliExpress nature of such businesses.
~~~
alexpetralia
This sort of misses the point of influencer marketing.
You wouldn't _see it_ unless you subscribed to the influencer. It wouldn't be
a "random" influencer _to you_.
Everyone has their role models, their influencers. It's hard for us to
understand how others could like some influencers - and they probably to ours.
But everyone has their own influencer - and they influence.
[Edit] This is not a defense of the products influencers sell. That's
independent of their persuasive ability, often.
~~~
rchaud
As far as these companies and the influencers are concerned, it's not enough
to simply have some faint awareness of the product. These companies aren't
Coca-Cola, whose presence is ubiquitous, so any marginal increase in awareness
is valuable because you can buy a Coke anywhere.
On IG, you'll see an individual product for maybe a second while scrolling
through a never-ending feed of content. For that reason, the companies and the
influencers need you to purchase the product right at the point in time you
see it on your feed.
Without using the influencer-provided "discount code" shown on the post (which
serves the same purpose as an affiliate link, i.e. a unique identifier), the
influencer won't get paid.
The products in question also tend to be very commodified (tshirts, hoodies,
supplements) and are hawked under different names by multiple popular IG-ers,
which adds to the problem of name recognition.
~~~
theNJR
This may be true to your feed, but it's not true to the industry.
Every DTC brand, from ice cream to back massagers, is using influencers as
part of their marketing mix. And while getting a sale on first view is great,
that is rarely the strategy. Instead, they refine their list and look alike
audiences and hit potential customers with ads over and over and over. When
done correctly, the brand gets added to the influencers Business account,
gaining access to their audience. They then turn the 'organic' post into a
retargeted ad. These make a killing.
------
FireBeyond
There's a Kickstarter project for a magnetic compass and protractor set
([https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1285153000/magcon-
the-m...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1285153000/magcon-the-most-
versatile-and-portable-design-tool)) which looks pretty cool, backed, and
shipping in August of this year.
I've seen no less than _FIFTY_ fake sites selling it "today" for the last six
months on IG, using the same videos from the Kickstarter. Reporting does
nothing. They're all also hugely pumped by bots (most have five digits of
comments).
------
cat199
"With internet sales of fakes accounting for an estimated $30.3 billion in
losses to luxury brands each year,"
much like the music piracy debate, this presumes the purchasers of the
counterfeits would actually purchase the genuine goods at full price, which of
course is not actually true..
~~~
tracker1
More so... there's a _HUGE_ difference for your average ($70k/year USD)
household income not buying a $10-20 CD, and not buying a $10,000 handbag. I'd
say in this case it's _FAR_ more inflated and that at _LEAST_ 90% of those
lost sales wouldn't even consider the actual, full price products in question.
~~~
lotsofpulp
If the people purchasing the products are at least partially purchasing it
based on the ability of the product to send a signal that its owner is not
part of the average $70k/year household, then there can be a loss of value
simply by having $70k/year households have counterfeit ones.
~~~
empath75
Seems like the smart thing to do would be to sell luxury goods that are
actually luxury and not cheap imported shit with a brand slapped on it.
~~~
lotsofpulp
It can be easy to mimic the good without it being the same quality, and it
still results in devaluing the brand since it’s now associated with a cheaper
good.
------
css
This is not an Instagram-only issue. Search any major marketplace for luxury
brand names and you will see fakes represent nearly all of the top results
across Amazon, eBay, etc. I never understood why the level of policing was so
low, especially when the brand names are used in product listings.
~~~
elliekelly
These counterfeiters are running major business operations and it blows my
mind that they're largely ignored by the platforms. If you have a few minutes
check out r/fashionreps where you can find:
\- Instructions for finding an agent(!) to purchase from China on your behalf
\- Coupons
\- Detailed checklists for avoiding U.S. customs/import fees
\- Photos posted for crowdsourced "QC" to make sure a purchased will pass as
legit
~~~
notfromhere
They play dumb and make money, that's why.
------
ungzd
Not surprising, since recent hype around luxury clothing brands was formed in
Instagram. Checked now number of people I know who follows accounts of these
brands: gucci - 3, versace - 0, louisvuitton - 4, dior - 2. None of them can
afford their products and they aren't especially interested in fashion design.
What these companies did to achieve that level of marketing? It's probably
much more effective and insane than traditional "glossy magazines".
------
nodesocket
It’s so bad, that I refuse to buy anything advertised on Instagram after
getting burned a few times. Most of the products are just drop shipping from
China (poor quality) with good “millennial marketing”, while others are just
flat out scams. Facebook seems to be doing zero about it.
~~~
r00fus
You buy directly from Instagram? Or is this "go buy here" link?
Inaction is a choice on the part of FB.
------
vorpalhex
I've noticed that on a lot of these counterfeit ads, there's now a mess of
comments: "Buy this same item cheaper on platform X! Lowest price ever!".
Seems not all the counterfeiters want to spring for ads!
------
ArtDev
Step 1) fresh account with a catfish photo of Chinese girl starts following
you. No photos yet.
Step 2) After a few months, every photo on the account is of questionable
products.
I don't just follow anyone who starts following me now.
------
cma
It isn't a counterfeit if the buyers know it is fake.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Google CDN Down? - eddydkim
West LA folks have trouble accessing sites that use google's cdn js libraries like jquery etc.<p>Other reports:
https://twitter.com/search?q=google%20cdn&src=typd<p>Example link:
https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js
======
d33psp33d
same here, west LA
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wrangling COVID19 Data with Easy Data Transform - hermitcrab
https://www.screencast.com/t/B38HJdHq
======
hermitcrab
See how you can use desktop tool Easy Data Transform to convert the latest
COVID19 data into useful information such as deaths per 10k population per
country.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Peter Thiel: There Are No Good Bets Against Globalization - riffer
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5646
======
Andrew_Quentin
An awful piece. I repent that I read it. His introduction is good though.
Grand claims, appealing to ancient lands, myths.
However, the man seems to have no patience. Jumping from one idea to another
like an adolescent trying to figure out what to do with himself. Grand claims,
without explanation or elaboration, merely statements. We have lost the way of
the ancients. By ancients we are probably led to believe the innocence of
Aristotle.
A complete mess. Examples selected. A very narrow argument. Not a person
engaging, not really a person communicating, but, possibly, a person with an
agenda, someone who is trying to "school" the great ignorant public, to fill
the place of the ancient medieval priests.
That is my impressions. Of which I might be entirely wrong. I must however
say, his world is dark, made dark by limitations of his imaginations, by loss
of hope in the human spirit, by lack of understanding of the human resilience.
Europe has free trade, it has too a fairly similiar ideologies of democracy
and capitalism, yet each country in europe is as different as China and
America. Globalisation in practice is much different from the globalisation of
rhetoric. No need to use the bible. Nor repeat the term apocalyps on and on in
the introduction, to present an impression of something really serious, deep
and secret being told.
Tell what the world is, we have the brains to understand what it should be.
Though this I should not say - I am frankly disappointed in the consciousness
of Hacker News who allowed this article to get sufficient point to make me
force myself to read a most ghastly article.
~~~
akamaka
Well, I'm glad that I forced you to read the article, because I really enjoyed
reading your comments. :)
Although I agree with you, I did enjoy Theil's essay. I think it really
captures and explains the desperate and almost suicidal mindset that is so
common. You put it well. His is a dark world of little imagination and not
much faith in humanity.
------
limist
Interesting that this was published in January 2008, and likely written before
that. Rightly or wrongly, economic globalization's image didn't end that year
untarnished.
The world's a really complex system, even limited to just the human-systems
part of it, and the <50 miles from satellite orbits down to deep-sea drilling
that concerns said humans. So in forecasting and speculating on the future, we
can't help but project our own fears and hopes - in this case, Thiel is a
capitalist/investor who makes a long case for going long on the world economy,
with some Biblical quotes and economic history to make it interesting, if not
quite convincing. Too many false dichotomies are given - I think it's a good
bet the future will not run like a decision tree.
In particular, Thiel wrestles with the fairly old internal contradictions of
capitalism that many other thinkers have, some much more in depth. To use one
more Biblical reference, the Rapture for globalization is a totally "flat"
world of complete freedom for labor and capital (and technology, but
presumably not land). Global capitalism runs, shuffles, or stumbles towards
that end, with much of its participants heedless of the journey, never mind
its destination.
For example, since capitalism's purpose is to accumulate capital for its own
sake, it cannot help but be global (early on, slave trade/colonialism), and it
cannot help but work against itself in the long run (We'll up profit margins
by outsourcing! But wait, then those outsourcers will get richer, and compete
to squeeze our own profit margins. Yah, but then they'll outsource too! But
wait, the planet is finite...). While it is a very resilient economic system,
what might follow it as its contradictions come fully into play is far from
clear.
As an aside, here's someone else who's view on the current globalization
situation is, I've found, comprehensive and coherent:
<http://www.iwallerstein.com/>
~~~
byrneseyeview
You are anthropomorphizing "Capitalism," as a sort of aggregate of all
capitalist behavior, but with a single goal. That's not accurate.
_Individuals_ certainly try to accumulate wealth, but the best way to make a
lot of money is to find a better or cheaper way to do something--a side effect
of which is the impoverishment of somebody else. Just look at, e.g., the way
Sun nearly killed IBM in the late 80's and early 90's. Sun never made as much
as IBM did, but the people who founded Sun made more than they otherwise would
have.
That, I think, is why you see internal contradictions. You're pointing out
that the best capitalists do stuff that harms the average capitalist; if
Myspace is making money, there's always a Zuckerberg waiting to ruin things.
But of course, there is no "Capitalism" that encompasses all of the goals of
Myspace's owners _and_ Facebook's.
That also takes care of the apparent contradiction of outsourcing. The
capitalists who lose to outsourcing don't like it; the outsourcers do. There's
less money made (since the outsourcers charge less), but the economy is more
efficient. That's capitalism--the net result of lots of self-interested
people, who often act against one another's interests. It's not the vision of
capitalism in which the rich, as a group, make consensus decisions to advance
their collective interests.
Thus, that version of capitalism is wrong.
Oh, and slavery and colonialism are much, much older than capitalism as we
understand it today. In fact, one can make the case that slaves are the oldest
form of property. Certainly, I've never heard of a civilization that advanced
at all and never had slaves.
~~~
nl
* Just look at, e.g., the way Sun nearly killed IBM in the late 80's and early 90's. Sun never made as much as IBM did, but the people who founded Sun made more than they otherwise would have.*
I don't disagree with your general arguments, but this bit is factually wrong.
IBM's problems in the late 80's and early 90's were to do with the rise of the
PC industry, not the Unix workstation. Yes, IBM had a dysfunctional Unix
strategy during that period, and yes it lost sales (some to Sun) but it wasn't
Sun that was killing it, it was the rise of client server computing. If Sun
hadn't been there then Apollo (remember them?) or HP or maybe even SGI
~~~
byrneseyeview
Thanks for the clarification. Are there any good sources (books, articles) on
this period and what happened to IBM? I've read about it from IBM's point of
view, but when your business is selling Big Iron, you figure you fail because
of something Big Iron-related, not something external.
------
dfa
Wonderful! So this means I and other Americans will soon legally be able to
purchase prescription drugs from other countries where drug companies sell
them for much less money? Oh, I forgot; "globalization," as meant by
multinational corporations and policy makers, doesn't work that way.
Globalization is not a two-way street, and while it would certainly be foolish
to bet against it when it means American jobs being shipped to other countries
where labor is cheaper and the cost of living is lower, betting against
consumers being able to import goods from those same countries where
multinationals sell their products for cheaper seems, for the time being
anyway, to be a pretty safe bet.
~~~
dantheman
The only problem with globalization is the lack of truly free trade. If
countries didn't have to subsidize nonproductive sectors of the economy then
the costs of living would equalize much quicker - see farm subsidies, tariffs,
and the ban on imports of certain goods.
~~~
dfa
I don't think it's the _only_ problem with globalization, but having recently
paid out-of-pocket for an expensive, patented prescription drug, I think it's
one of the biggest, and much of the hollow pro-globalization, pro-free trade
rhetoric I hear from government and big business never addresses it.
I am curious about why others downvoted my original post; do people here
really think this sort of protectionist price discrimination is OK?
~~~
natrius
I think it's only okay in certain circumstances. Many governments participate
directly in their healthcare markets, which affects the prices at which
pharmaceuticals can be sold in such a country. If goods with manipulated
prices are allowed to be traded freely, the prices in other countries will be
affected as well. Companies that produce the goods in question will either
have to accept lower profit margins or refuse to sell their goods in
manipulated markets. Regardless, such a policy would lower the expected value
of future technological advances in the field, which would result in less
effort being directed to such advances.
It is undesirable for technology to advance at a slower pace than would be
possible if people were expected to pay market prices for the products the
technology would help to improve or create. If you value future advances in
technology, you should want your government to minimize manipulation of the
markets for such technologies. If, on the other hand, you'd like as many
people to benefit from current technology as cheaply as possible, you should
want your government to force prices down as much as possible.
~~~
dfa
If they dislike the price controls and monopsonies that exist in other
countries, they can avoid those markets entirely. Once they agree to
participate and begin exporting their drugs, we should have every right to
import them back at a discount. As large corporations have shown in the past,
they have no issue with planned economies, as long as the planning is done in
their favor (China, Dubai).
It is horribly unjust for Americans, many of whom have no or poor health
insurance, to be forced to pay more money than anyone else on earth for
prescription drugs. If Big Pharma, which spends disproportionate amounts of
money on direct marketing to consumers, can't produce the medications we need
cheaply and efficiently, that represents a market failure, and the government
should step in and take the lead role in drug development. Research could be
done through the NIH grant system and the results could be given away,
unpatented, to the entire world. We could get the same results for less money,
as the NIH doesn't need to make a profit and has no stock holders to answer
to. It could even serve to improve our global reputation, showing the US to be
a force for good in the world.
~~~
natrius
> _If they dislike the price controls and monopsonies that exist in other
> countries, they can avoid those markets entirely. Once they agree to
> participate and begin exporting their drugs, we should have every right to
> import them back at a discount._
As I mentioned, both of those options would make drugs less profitable, which
would lead to fewer advances in technology. Prohibiting the reimportation of
drugs can be a sensible policy.
> _It is horribly unjust for Americans, many of whom have no or poor health
> insurance, to be forced to pay more money than anyone else on earth for
> prescription drugs._
Unfair, perhaps, but unjust? Fixing this problem would either require selling
to everyone at American prices (which could also be described as unjust), or
selling to everyone at the lowest prices available. Both options would be less
profitable that the current system, which would slow the rate of advancement
in drug development.
> _[Maybe] the government should step in and take the lead role in drug
> development._
That can also be a sensible policy, and the American government already does
fund a considerable amount of drug development.
~~~
dantheman
Prohibiting the importation of drugs cannot and is not something anyone should
be for. It is highly immoral and it says that your own government wants to
deprive you of things that others have. Now if the governments that get the
discounts are forced to ban the export of drugs, well then that is completely
different story.
------
gmlk
The entertainment business (MPAA, RIAA, etc) are a very powerful
antiglobalization force? They are in fact betting against real globalization.
Just consider regional coding for DVDs or the fact that there is not just one
Apple iTunes Store but that every nation needs to have its own?
With other words: What does "globalization" really mean?
~~~
dfa
_With other words: What does "globalization" really mean?_
Empirically, it appears to mean a global market for land, labor, and capital
with national and regional markets for consumer goods.
~~~
gmlk
Thank you, I'm going to plagiarize that ;->
------
cmars232
Resilient communities are a good hedge against globalization.
Best case, resilient communities can mitigate the harmful effects of
globalization, improve local quality of life and dampen the magnifying network
effects (whether financial, political, or natural). They can provide a
"monkeysphere" that members can care about and be held accountable to, an
excellent alternative to all the divisive, useless rhetoric and posturing in
the MSM.
Worst case, they're the ones still eating and recovering ground after the the
zombies/terrorists/enemy paratroopers/global pandemic/massive earthquakes
strike.
~~~
tomjen3
That is an incredible nice way to pad conservatives on the head for being
backwards. Globalization is a good thing, so why would you want to hedge
against it?
------
barmstrong
I only read the first third of this - but did anyone else find it wandering
without clear points or thought process? It was fairly confusing, not because
of the content, but how it was written. Was surprised to see this come from
Peter Thiel, but I haven't read much of his stuff so who knows.
------
h3h
Thiel is still an extreme pessimist with regard to the future and this seems
to be his attempt at embracing the views of his intellectual opponents by
running the "Optimistic Thought Experiment", which he nonetheless disclaims
with "Unlike more rigorous forms of scientific investigation, there are no
empirical means to falsify these mental exercises. The optimistic thought
experiment exists largely in the mind. The vistas of the mind are not always
the same as reality."
Fair enough, Thiel, but aren't your doomsayer projections also a direct form
of thought experiment, based on extrapolation just the same?
He goes on to outline what he thinks are three defining markets (or
distortions thereof) that could utterly define the future ("China", "Internet"
and "hedge funds"), and claims that the markets are woefully out of alignment
with reality. I think we have to take his view with a large grain of salt
here, considering his bias: he's a global macro hedge fund manager who also
invests in Internet startups.
I think he's probably right about a lot of the distortion and possibly right
about some of the importance of these markets, but he doesn't even mention any
other possible contenders (energy industry transformation? nanotech? biotech?
government competition?). I think it's a mistake to assume that any one or
three factors will determine the mid-term future when there are literally
trillions of factors in play. Then the logical conclusion is that we can't
really know or predict anything about the mid-term future, which may be
largely right, but I think there is possibility to predict with narrow foci,
like "What will happen in transistor design?" or "What will happen in nuclear
reactor design?"; though those too will always be hampered by revolutions that
we never see coming.
Overall, I hope Thiel is wrong about a lot for the reasons that he so adeptly
explains: there's not much else to hope for if the alternative to what you
want is total destruction and nonexistence.
------
mkramlich
I started reading the article with interest due to the topic and the author.
However, after getting many paragraphs into it and seeing the repeated
references to religion, superstition and apocalypse the author frankly lost me
and I aborted. I would have liked to read something actually about
globalization, but if that was coming up later in the piece I'll never get to
it. Life is too short for some things.
------
ziweb
I just posted my thoughts on it here. <http://bit.ly/b7tGcm> I'd post it as a
comment but it's too long.
He's good on the financial advice but bad on everything else. Why would you
promote Defense technology if you think the biggest risk in the future is war?
Shouldn't you be promoting peace?
~~~
lotharbot
1) That's not too long for a comment. This isn't twitter; we're used to
comments that are several paragraphs long.
2) If you do post a link to something, use the full link. Link shorteners like
bit.ly are frowned upon at HN. This isn't twitter; characters are not at a
premium, and many of us prefer to see the real destination of the link.
~~~
ziweb
Thanks. I'm new here and I'm mostly used to the derp derp stuff, so your
comment was helpful. I'm assuming there is no way to embed html here?
------
herdrick
Some interesting ideas, but:
<http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/features/groeng1.gif>
------
chrismealy
This is the same Peter Thiel that was recently complaining about women being
able to vote.
[http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-
could...](http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-couldnt-vote)
~~~
gort
The offending statement is:
"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for
libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an
oxymoron."
In essence, this appears to be the claim that women are by and large not
libertarian voters, and less so than men. This is a mere statement about the
world. Believing this statement does not commit you to believing Women Must
Not Be Allowed To Vote.
If you object to the statement then you are committed to Women Are Just As
Likely To Vote Libertarian As Men; I'm guessing Thiel has some actual
empirical data to suggest this isn't so.
~~~
_delirium
Considering that the preceding sentence explains that the 1920s---before those
two things happened---were the last decade in which one could be optimistic
about politics, and then explains that those two things happening was the
reason for the loss of optimism, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to
interpret his statement as: the expansion of welfare and the granting of
suffrage to women have turned out to be bad for America.
It's possible that he really thinks, instead: while those two things have
rendered "capitalist democracy" an oxymoron, which I dislike, I nonetheless
must agree that those two things happening was a good idea (for other reasons,
presumably). But that certainly isn't the connotation of the words he chose.
One could be forgiven for reading him to imply that he was at least _not a big
fan of_ either the expansion of welfare or the granting of women's suffrage.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TSMC Details 5 nm - baybal2
https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3398/tsmc-details-5-nm/
======
Symmetry
The thing that really jumped out at me was making the channel partially out of
germanium. Velocity saturation has been a limiting factor in our tiny modern
transistors for a while, playing its own minor part in the breakdown of
Dennard scaling. The article didn't say if the increase applied equally to
both electron mobility and hole mobility. Germanium tends to be better for
both but I my materials science background isn't good enough for me to guess
what it'll be in a Silicon/Germanium lattice. Temperature dependence is also
an equally interesting question since Germanium tends to deal with high
temperatures a bit better.
This won't help with leakage issues or the increasing importance of wire as
opposed to transistor capacitance. But it does look like a nice little win.
Speaking of wires, is TSMC still using straight copper or are they thinking of
incorporating cobalt? Or did Intel's experience with that scare them off?
EDIT: And speaking of cobalt again, I really hope they aren't being too
ambitious with this and that being too innovative doesn't bit them the way it
did with Intel at 10nm. Though the rumor mill isn't sure if it was the cobalt
wires or the Contact Over Active Gate (COAG) that was their main problem.
~~~
baybal2
> The article didn't say if the increase applied equally to both electron
> mobility and hole mobility.
Electron mobility is not high in silicon, but it has never been a "blocker"
before. In fact, the utilisation of strained silicon has gone down from 40nm
in later nodes.
Silicon however has truly terrible hole mobility, and the wider industry has
just started to realise that they have lost many years to fruitless pursuit of
high electron mobility, when the real blocker has always been a pFET.
It was very prudent of TSMC to quietly continue pFET RnD, despite industry's
fixation of HEMTs and 3-5 devices.
p.s. 5N is a COAG process from what they have just said.
~~~
brennanpeterson
The amount of Ge and thus strain has increased every node. All to make hole
mobility better.
No one in industry was confused about HEMTs, and the needs of pfets were well
known.
~~~
baybal2
> The amount of Ge and thus strain has increased every node.
Not really from what I know. The compressive strained channel was dropped out
for some FinFET designs, and I think tensile strained too in some because it
was exploding litho layer count. Can you tell your source?
Compare the amount of money spent on truly moonshot material science like
making 3-5 logic, and the amount of money spent on continuous improvement of
pfet performance for mainstream applications.
~~~
brennanpeterson
From device cross sections and working at both IDMs and suppliers. And reading
and visiting IEDM for a decade. You can keepmup with ost on semiwiki: but
really, just work under the assumption that people in the field are not stupid
and can do math.
Tensile strains has no litho impact, and counting layers in use was a job I
had.
Who spent on 3-5? It got press coverage, but never was part of much logic
research. It was a focus for power, laser, and led work.
Tsmc, Intel, applied, asm, and others spent vastly more on r&d than any
government or academic work, and it isn't published.
~~~
baybal2
I'll give you that. I haven't been involved with device and process
development since around 2009, when I lost hope getting into process
engineering.
So, were strained channels used with FinFETs on anything mainstream? I heard
the news of number of foundries dropping straining at around the time of first
finfets.
------
npunt
171.3 million transistors per mm^2 is mind boggling. Were Apple's A14 to have
the same area as their A13 (98.48mm^2) and maintain that density throughout,
you're looking at ~16+ billion transistors. Some comparisons:
\- Apple A13: 8.5 billion
\- Apple A12X: 10 billion (iPad Pro)
\- Nvidia Titan RTX: 18.6 billion
I wonder what kind of use cases are unlocked with 16 billion transistors in
your pocket. This node might be the one that gets us to AR.
~~~
jp555
There is no Moore's Law in optics & batteries.
The AR everyone imagines is much further away than most realize.
~~~
npunt
Agree, the popular idea of AR going around - wide FOV, fancy graphics, good
occlusion of incoming light, tiny footprint - is unlikely for a long time due
to optics. I think it’s foolish to try to execute that vision now, and why
I’ve always thought Magic Leap’s 'do it all' approach was completely wrong
(and demonstrated they didn't really have a clear vision for what would make
AR mainstream). The only way to achieve that vision for AR is to increment
toward it over a long time.
I see v1 as a simple narrow FOV heads up display in glasses frame with very
focused use case around place based notifications and heads up information. No
input at all, except Siri. Display only turns on when necessary. iPhone is
used for input and config, much like Watch was initially.
Even getting to this v1 is going to be a huge challenge in such a small form
factor, but a chip with this density will help with power budget. This node
consumes 30% less power and fits in an even smaller space.
~~~
SirHound
Siri-only input would make it a joke device. A device like that should be
multi-input. Voice, mouse, keyboard, your watch, phone, ipad etc.
~~~
npunt
What I meant was input via the device itself. You can't expect people to press
buttons on their glasses to get things done, that'd be a bad experience. The
only other hands-free input method is gaze tracking, which would be great, but
it may not make it into a v1 product.
Obviously there's input possibilities from other devices, and I mentioned
iPhone. Unlikely mouse and keyboard input for a long time - AR's unique
offering is freedom of movement, not being tethered to a desk.
Again, a v1 really has to be a minimal product that is first and foremost a
heads-up display for a narrow set of use cases. Else it'll be too bulky or
awkward - just look at the rest of the AR devices out there.
------
georgeburdell
And Intel is now headed by someone with a 100% finance/business background.
Intel is nipping at the heels of Boeing. Tens of billions of dollars in
dividends and stock buybacks announced that should be going to saving their
(and by proxy, the U.S.'s) manufacturing capability.
~~~
gameswithgo
they have jim keller though
~~~
sq_
True, but it seems to me that he's been most successful at companies that are
willing to place big bets on his team and put a lot of institutional weight
behind him. His work at Apple, AMD, and Tesla all seem to point towards that
conclusion. One wonders if an Intel that's less focused on hardware innovation
will see the same effects.
------
danaos
The title is kind of misleading.
> TSMC made every effort to avoid detailing the actual properties of that
> channel (every related question was met with the tautology: “those who know,
> know”). [...] We believe TSMC is employing a SiGe channel for the pMOS
> devices
~~~
baybal2
There is only one known high mobility material availing to easy integration
with silicon MOS process
None of InP, SiC, GaN, GaAs or other 3-5 materials been ever integrated with
silicon in a fab setting for IC production.
And only one material out there makes sense to use specifically for pMOS
production: high hole mobility is much rarer trait than high electron
mobility.
~~~
madengr
Isn’t MACOMs process GaN on Si, which is cheaper, but lousy thermal
performance compared to GaN on SiC. I thought they were touting GaN
integration with CMOS?
~~~
baybal2
GaN on Si is a thing from a completely different ballpark.
Here we talk about material integration per-device basis, not entire wafer
surface.
------
exikyut
> Our current estimates remain at 48 nm poly pitch and 30 nm metal pitch.
> Those dimensions yield an estimated device density of 171.3 MTr/mm².
I just sized up 1mm between my fingers.
Um. _WOW._ Really. Wow.
~~~
raverbashing
For reference a 64-bit Pentium 4 core was (drum roll) 125Million transistors.
And it was 100x bigger (112mm^2)
~~~
exikyut
Wow at that too.
To be honest, one of the things I was considering when posting the GP was the
sheer impossibility of leveling anything more precise than hand-wavy, drunk
opinions about the end-to-end security state of _that much_ , well, entropy.
It's gotten almost like a bizarre version of inverted quicksand, where instead
of it being bad because you're sinking into sand, it's bad because the sand is
shrinking into nothingness from between your fingers.
The next few years are going to be VERY interesting, I think.
IIUC, OOo and branch prediction have kind of been the CPU engineering meal
ticket workaround to "solving" the memory latency problem (IIUC), and now
everyone apparently has to rethink that.
My favorite would be the "disappearance" of the A20 line though. As in, it's
there, it's doing it's thing, but everyone collectively forgot it existed, and
now everybody needs a microcode update and an SGX cert respin AGAIN.
And all this without access to specialized tooling (the kind that evolves over
a decade, regardless of knowledge), AND the fact that we're (apparently?) only
forgetting about (seemingly?) little things at this point. Haha...ha...
------
jl6
On the other hand, I keep hearing people saying than nm is increasingly just a
marketing number - and indeed, for all of Intel’s difficulties I don’t see too
many chips beating Intel in single-threaded performance.
I say this as someone who bought a Ryzen-based system last year after
significant research.
~~~
gameswithgo
the transistors are actually getting smaller, that just doesn’t lead to more
clock rate any more
~~~
navaati
But less heat, which allows you to cram more stuff in a package, which _is_ a
win !
------
jonplackett
I’m starting to (almost) feel sorry for Intel now.
~~~
jokowueu
And 3nm planned for 2022 . They are moving at an incredible pace. They will
definitely hit a wall soon at this speed
~~~
baybal2
Which is their plan, as many people believe.
They want to drive the few competitors they have out of business quickly
before that happens.
Hence them accelerating node transitions in spite of not being able to recover
as much RnD money as they can.
Only really high margin products contend for <14nm node capacity, and nothing
else.
For as long as they maintain such high pace, and wide lead over competition,
competitors get nothing, while still having to spend the same astronomical
sums on fab retooling.
~~~
api
Where are they getting the money? Are they that profitable or state sponsored?
~~~
Arnt
Profitable.
Would be very profitable, if they had the income from their advanced processes
without the R+D expense for those processes.
------
magicalhippo
I remember reading a lot about a "brick wall" when they pushed towards EUV,
how challenging it would be to reduce feature size further etc etc. But it
seems they're moving along just fine. What happened?
------
sytelus
To put it into perspective, Coronavirus would just fit in 25 transistors long
at this scale! However, to be fair, it has 30 kilobases where each base is
2.5nm X 0.3nm. So we still have some way to go...
------
crakenzak
Game, set, match. it's over for Intel. They sat on their asses for too long
and now are getting eaten by the previous underdogs.
This shift is great news for literally everyone except Intel's execs' bonus
packages.
~~~
spectramax
I don't understand callous contempful comments against Intel's manufacturing
capabilities. There are incredible people making things possible fomr both
sides in one of the most advanced manufacturing processes in the world. I've
worked inside a fab and I can tell you that the industry is much more
appreciative of each other's competitors than the outside fanboys who are
largely pissed off at the executive decisions (lawsuits , etc).
This article is about TSMC's technical achievements and your comment has not
added anything to the discussion, time and again I see this rooting for
"underdog" behavior all too the same (just flipped the sides) from 2006. I
wrote about it here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22515546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22515546)
If you'd like to know what goes into shriking a process node from lithography
standpoint, I implore you to watch this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gMdGrVteI)
and be in complete utter awe... Tell me if they are "Sitting on their asses"?
~~~
Valmar
Oh, please ~ Intel fucked up their 10nm process pretty hard, and they kept
trying to fix it for years. They also had to keep pushing their roadmap back
again and again for 10nm.
This is entirely due to Intel's awful management getting in the way. Intel's
engineers might be clever, but with shitty management, that can all go to
waste.
Intel's management have been sitting on their arses, more or less, when you
consider the fact that they've really been dragging their feet in terms of
progress.
AMD has made more progress in 3 years than Intel has made in 10...
Intel simply got too comfortable with their monopoly.
~~~
TomVDB
I know that Intel has major issues with 10nm, but I don’t know exactly what
went wrong.
Can you educate me?
I’m particularly interested in how management sabotaged the ability to get
10nm to work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sweden brings back military conscription - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39140100
======
chrisseaton
How do you motivate a conscript?
When I was in the British Army, which is volunteer only, commanding a basic
training troop if someone was wanted to give up we could say to them 'if this
isn't for you then you can go home' (of course we did coach and mentor people
to help them, I mean in cases where people just give up and stop soldiering
when an exercise gets tough). They usually worked extremely hard to get into
the Army in the first place because it's competitive so we know they're
motivated.
What do you do with a conscript who never wanted to be there and possibly
fundamentally isn't suited to military life anyway gives up? Threaten them
with legal action?
What do you do if they sort of do what they're told, but not really putting
any effort into it?
Conscription seems counter-productive to me. If you can't attract enough
motivated and talented people to join your military then maybe your military
is not representative of your society anymore and you should fix that.
~~~
zmb_
>'if this isn't for you then you can go home'
I did compulsory military service, including in a leadership role. "If you
don't do what you're told, you don't get go home next weekend." Worked very
well for conscripts, who usually get to go home for many weekends (unless on
exercises). There are also many smaller privileges you can take a way for
smaller infractions.
Although when you have a defensive military that does not go around the world
fighting wars, and whose only objective is to retain the independence of your
own country, most conscripts take it as their civic responsibility and don't
cause problems.
Those who are fundamentally unsuited for military usually ended up getting
discharged quickly. Most before ever stepping into service.
>Conscription seems counter-productive to me.
Britain has 150k active military personnel with 80k reserves. Now imagine
you're a country with less than 10% of the population and need to produce a
force of 200k soldiers in order to have a credible deterrent against an
aggressive neighbor. How do you do that without conscription?
~~~
BurningFrog
A credible deterrent in 2020 is not 200k dudes with guns. It's air and naval
power. Expensive and complex hi tech death machines.
Of course, a 10m country will never have a really credible defense against
nuclear super power Russia by itself.
~~~
zmb_
> 200k dudes with guns
Conscript military doesn't mean that you just teach everyone to dig a hole and
sit in it with a rifle. You train conscripts into every role you need in a
200k strong modern military. Including operators and maintainers of the hi-
tech death machines, sigint operatives, radar operators, tank crews, missile
forces, officers of all kinds, and yes, the guys that dig holes and sit in
them with rifles.
One of the strengths of a conscript military is that you get _everyone_ ,
which includes all kinds of current and future skill sets. Modern conscript
armies aim to put that expertise into the best possible use.
~~~
pilsetnieks
You literally cannot use conscripts for anything of "operators and maintainers
of the hi-tech death machines, sigint operatives, radar operators, tank crews,
missile forces, officers." First of all, most of them take at least a year to
get up to speed, if not more, and they have to maintain their competence. You
cannot just release a conscript after his year long stint, and call him up ten
years later - the ten year old tech he was trained on will probably have been
replaced, and even if not, he'd have forgotten most of his training. Oh, and
officers by their very definition cannot be conscripts.
So you're looking at guys to dig holes and sit in them with rifles and maybe
some supporting jobs (administrative, kitchen, IT, construction, etc.)
~~~
phicoh
This anecdotal, but it was suggested that after the Dutch government suspended
conscription, the military lost easy access to lots of highly educated people.
There is quite a large group of people with a university degree who can very
quickly pick up the theory behind complex systems. The same group group will
not sign up voluntarily.
~~~
javier2
This is actually true. When we took 100% of all able men in Norway, the got
the top guys as well as the lump. Now, when it's gotten a lot easier to get
out of conscription, a lot of the well people with other ambitions skip this.
------
robert_foss
So to add some needed background information to this:
Every 18 year old has been forced to submit a form stating if they want to be
conscripted. That's about 100k people every year.
Out of the 100k, about 20k state that they do want to be conscripted.
Out of the 20k that say yes, 4k are selected during a screening process that
evaluates physical and mental fitness.
So there are no less than 2 points where you can opt out of being conscripted
if you so like.
~~~
pinum
That doesn't sound like conscription, then. If they didn't have enough people
saying yes, do they start drawing from the "no" pile?
~~~
yjgyhj
Yes they do - if not enough people volunteer, they will force the ones seeming
most fit for the tasks at hand.
Also, if I know the Swedish military, they'll chose the most fit for the task,
but make absolutely sure to fill the gender quotas.
~~~
kristianp
What's the required gender ratio, out of curiosity?
~~~
robert_foss
I have never heard of such a thing.
------
entropyneur
I am quite surprised by the number of people here (and even larger numbers
elsewhere this is being discussed) who don't seem to have any ethical problem
with conscription. Thought the idea of killer slaves was completely off limits
in the West. Now all of a sudden we are debating cost effectiveness. Guess I
thought wrong.
~~~
samcodes
What western military doesn't pay service members? Pretty sure you mean "a
job, that rarely, but sometimes involves killing." There are many jobs like
that: policing, security, and depending on your moral framework, murdering
animals.
~~~
buzer
Well, I guess most of the countries do "pay", but at least in Finland that pay
is 5.10 euros per day for first half of year (increases first to 8.50 for days
165-256 and then to 11.90 for remaining). If someone other entity was paying
that low wages for even a normal job (let alone 24/7 availability
requirement), the employer would be facing criminal charges.
------
thedevil
I'm not sure why Sweden would be concerned.
I read Russian news/propaganda occasionally. Over the last few years, Russian
news/propaganda prepared Russian minds for interfering in Ukraine. And the
propaganda includes arguments to justify a military buildup. And it seems to
be preparing Russian minds for a possible invasion of Baltic states one day.
But I don't think I've even seen Sweden mentioned in Russian news/propaganda.
I don't think Sweden is a target.
~~~
anticodon
As Russian I don't agree. I don't watch TV and read news (other than HN and a
couple of other sites where I try to avoid politics as much as I can), but why
the hell do we need these Baltic states? What do they have that Russia needs?
Territory, natural resources? Nothing.
I don't know the real motivation for annexing Crimea, but making a conclusion:
first they take Crimea, then they're going to take Sweden and Baltic states -
is nonsense.
~~~
brilliantcode
Putin wants to revive USSR without any of it's benefits but all of it's power
& resources available to him.
He might get his way-we have a "Gorbachev" in the White House or a KGB asset.
~~~
gspetr
Full disclosure: I am Russian.
Even Belarus and Kazakhstan don't really want to join, forget about the rest
ex-USSR countries.
Taking countries by force makes even less sense - there do not exist resources
or territory that make it profitable enough to offset military spending and
new rounds of economic sanctions.
~~~
brilliantcode
it gives political momentum-as did Hitler's blitzkrieg in Poland
Military wise you buy large buffer between US ground & air forces based around
there.
~~~
gspetr
If he wanted a buffer he could have easily taken over Ukraine in the fall of
2014 and spring of 2015. Both times the rebels routed Ukrainian army and the
road to Kiev was essentially clear. Reinstalling the puppet president would
have been easy.
Not to mention that during the coup itself there were reports of Ukrainian
generals sending envoys to Moscow, seeking aid and patronage to throw a
counter coup and either reinstate the former president or setup military
dictatorship. And they easily had the force too. Kremlin just said no.
~~~
brilliantcode
RussiaToday is a poor source.
~~~
gspetr
Yes, go ahead and resort to stereotypes.
RT is external propaganda, TV is the main instrument of internal propaganda.
Very few Russians use that as their information source, even pro-regime ones.
This is tantamount to Americans citing this as their source of domestic news:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America)
------
TorKlingberg
I can give a bit of context. Mandatory military service in Sweden only ended
in 2010, so this is not a huge change.
During the cold was period, almost all men did ~1 year of military service.
After that it was a regular job, but in case of war everyone could be
conscripted.
By the '90s it dropped to maybe 1/3 of young men. Everyone went to a 1-2 day
testing session, and then some were selected. In practice, it became
increasingly voluntary. Soldiers on peacekeeping missions in foreign countries
are all volunteers.
In 2010 mandatory service was dropped completely. I think the Swedish military
found it difficult to recruit enough after that, and the politicians now think
the military has shrunk a bit too much. I don't think it will be a huge growth
(that would cost money), but perhaps a return to early 2000's level. This time
it includes women.
I am not a big fan of conscription, but I can somewhat accept it as long as
it's strictly defensive. One good argument for it is that a conscript army is
unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or
less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at
least a portion of them. But, as military power becomes more about technology
than numbers, I suspect this argument becomes less important.
~~~
jcranmer
> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a
> military coup in a democracy.
Turkey has mandatory military service and suffered an attempted coup less than
a year ago. Napoleon came to power in France after the levée en masse, really
the first major mass conscription act in history. Egypt, last coup being ~4
years ago, again has mass conscription. As does Thailand. And Eritrea, Sudan,
Chad, and Equatorial Guinea, although I don't know if mandatory military
service dates back before the time of those coups.
Coups are often instigated by the officer class, whereas mass conscription is
primarily used to fill out enlisted ranks. There's definitely room for the
upper echelons of a military to support a coup while the lower echelons remain
largely apathetic.
------
ChuckMcM
It is sobering to think that if you have the technology you can conscript a
workforce to build war fighting robots more effectively than you can conscript
a force to fight for you.
I believe one of the developments in Syria and Iraq that is under appreciated
by strategists is the force multiplication efforts of "cheap drones with hand
grenades". Assuming that 50% of the videos on these things are fake, that is
still a good case that it is getting easier and easier to turn money into
usable offensive capability.
In my estimation, THAT pivot is going to have as much impact on conflicts as
the machine gun did.
------
armenarmen
When the US had conscription (at least in ww2) it supposedly had the effect of
creating a "we're all in this together" mentality. I wonder if, in addition to
the threat of a perceived expansionist Russia, the influx of new immigrants
has anything to do with this. A year of servitude might may assist in
integrating new swedes. Or in part help the indigenous swedes see the new
arrivals as somehow more Swedish for having served?
------
Animats
9 to 12 months is short. The first six months are lost to training. The US
used to draft people for 2 years (Vietnam) or, in WWII, "for the duration,
plus six months".
About 75% of the US military-age population couldn't qualify for the US Army
today. Too fat, too criminal, too sick, too crazy, or too dumb. This worries
some military manpower planners. What are Sweden's stats like?
~~~
alkonaut
It _is_ training. Traditionally the 18 year olds were all trained 8-15 months
and then return to civil life immediately.
Now they want those who do the training to stay as employed soldiers
afterwards - but traditionally Sweden had only a conscript army, no standing
army in peacetime apart from those employed in the organization to do the
training.
This makes sense as we don't have wars, don't have large foreign bases to
staff etc.
------
frabbit
So who are we at war with today? Oceania?
------
coldcode
We should have this in the US, starting with the children of Congress and the
Senate. I think Mark Twain or Will Rodgers said something like this.
------
nateberkopec
What's the point of conscription? Surely there must be a good reason. Boosting
the numbers of your military by forcefully bringing in some barely-motivated,
hardly-trained conscripts that are discharged just a few months after
completing basic training seems ineffective.
Is there some larger "get the public used to military service" social goal?
~~~
yjgyhj
We have a long history of conscription. I think it's a good thing. I think
it's the moral choice when it comes to defence (but obviously not enough).
That is because a conscript is not a professional soldier - and a conscript
will never invade another country without good reason. Conscripts will defend
their land, but not unjustly attack others.
~~~
fwn
Then I'd be a bad conscript. I don't even own land.
------
randyrand
If you're having trouble getting volunteers, the solution is simple. Pay them
more.
------
theBobBob
The trend seems to be lately to end conscription or national service, as
Sweden did itself, but is this the first time in recent history that a country
introduced or reintroduced conscription?
~~~
627467
You'll see that many European nations ended conscription during the last
decade(Sweden in 2010)[1]. If anything this seems to signal a new trend:
reactivating conscription.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service)
------
johan_larson
"In Russia all men aged 18-27 have to spend a year in the armed forces."
I don't think that's correct. College graduates only have to serve a few
weeks, IIRC.
~~~
degorov
Not true. Graduates serve for 1 year just as all other men. People who
graduated from colleges with military departments get the rank of lieutenant
and indeed serve a few weeks, but as of 2017 not too much universities have
those departments and even if they do, not every student can enroll there as
there are certain requirements for health and physical abilities.
------
whatnotests
Bork bork!
------
smb06
How is this post not flagged and anything negative related to Trump gets
flagged and downvoted because it is "too political for HN"?
Has HN started to take political sides now?
~~~
grzm
If you think this submission (or any other) are inappropriate for HN, please
do flag. As for political sides, humans are generally biased to see actions
against their own beliefs and miss those that are congruent. Political
submissions in general regardless of political persuasion tend to attract
flags, and this one likely has as well: it has 170 points and is only 8 hours
old, yet is no longer on the front page.
------
valuearb
4,000 troops? Ok.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Shoelace.css – a free CSS boilerplate - claviska
https://shoelace.style/
======
claviska
I created Shoelace.css because I felt like Bootstrap 4 was taking too long and
getting way too heavy for what it's intended to do.
The idea with Shoelace.css is:
\- pure CSS, yet highly customizable via CSS variables
\- import everything with one <link> and customize it in your own stylesheet
\- 31KB minified for everything
\- no unnecessary components
\- no JavaScript
It's great for prototyping and in production with modern browsers. If you need
to support older browsers, the docs provide info about using appropriate
polyfills.
I hope you like it!
(Sorry for the repost — couldn't edit the original and got a new domain!)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Better geometry through graph theory - memexy
https://ideolalia.com/2018/08/28/artifex.html
======
memexy
The trick reminds me of transverse intersection assumption from topology:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transversality_(mathematics)#:...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transversality_\(mathematics\)#:~:text=transversality%20is%20a,intersection).
The confusing part is the description of how the edges are added and removed
to make a "consistent" graph. Graphs don't have a metric associated with the
edges but he goes back and forth between the graph representation and
referencing a metric structure between the nodes and either adding or removing
the shortest path. It makes sense but it's not clear why. I couldn't think of
obvious counter-examples to the claim but maybe someone else can. The graphs
he draws don't make it obvious that the edges are "directed" (inside vs
outside requires choosing a direction/orientation). But after deciding the
direction of each edge why does removing the shortest one make sense for
computing the correct set of nodes for the union of some given geometric
elements?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MacBook Buy Button Is 404 on Apple.com - laithshadeed
http://www.apple.com/us/shop/go/macbook/select
======
brianjking
Wow, that really isn't good for Apple.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steam, PSN and Nintendo eShop are down - kodisha
https://twitter.com/TheAlexLynch97/status/415958971116040192
======
aamoyg
Yeah, I just tried to access Steam, and it does not connect. I believe it is
due to the huge influx of people trying to get free copies of Left for Dead 2.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HackrTrackr now has area based forums for Y Combinator Readers - dottertrotter
http://hackrtrackr.com/blog3.php
======
danteembermage
I feel kinda alone in my forum, do you think you could maybe fold Mississippi,
Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, and South Dakota into the Wisconsin forum so I can have
someone to talk to?
~~~
randallsquared
Maybe there should be "virtual" forums, so you can define an area with all the
selected state forums combined. Seems like it would be easy to do that,
actually.
~~~
acgourley
Sounds like a meta-forum. Or a virtual-virtual-forum.
------
kashif
What language are you using? How many lines of code did this take? How long?
Who are you hosting with and what plan? Just curious...
~~~
dottertrotter
I'm simply using PHP for now. I just wanted to get something done and I think
its the fastest for small projects like this is. If the site continues to grow
I will probably rebuild it in ROR or Python, whichever one seems more
interesting that week. As for how long it took I would say I have a total of
12 - 16 in the project. I didn't bother doing a design, because I didn't think
anyone would use it so I designed on the fly with just solid color divs. I did
take 5 minutes to do the logo though. The majority of the time went into
reading through the Google Maps API documentation. Any other questions just
let me know.
------
joshwa
Idea: if we've already specified our location, give us a link to our "home
area" forum on the homepage, rather than making us browse the map (which is
starting to get crowded!).
Also, is it possible to enable mousewheel zoom on the google map? I find that
a really convenient way to zero in on an area of the map.
also, byrneseyeview and I are both listed twice in NY..
~~~
dottertrotter
Actually I thought about that already. I'm going to be altering the code to
center and zoom in on your location based upon your location once you log in,
but I'll be sure to add a button too. I'll take care of the listing twice.
------
uuilly
Well played dottertrotter, thank you. Myself and a number of others have
duplicate location entries. One where you determined my location by IP and one
by zipcode. The zipcode one is right. How can I delete the IP one? It seems
many others have the same problem...
------
extantproject
Any Virginia, DC, or Maryland YC users out there please check out a potential
meetup here, thanks to HackrTrackr:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001>
------
bootload
I posted a bug to brad. Anyone having the same trouble? ~
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/1264094177/>
------
joshwa
Two more feature requests:
\-- show news.yc karma in the popup and on the forum page
\-- have an area or a email link for feature requests :)
------
brlewis
I get silent failure when I try to create a forum in MA.
~~~
dottertrotter
This has been taken care of. Simply create your forum again and it should
work. If it doesn't let me know.
------
tocomment
How about forums by language?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Arduino gets CLI support - frob
https://hackaday.com/2018/08/26/arduino-gets-command-line-interface-tools-that-let-you-skip-the-ide/
======
frob
Link to the github repo: [https://github.com/arduino/arduino-
cli](https://github.com/arduino/arduino-cli)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tech's push to teach coding isn't about kids' success – it's about cutting wages - rb808
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/21/coding-education-teaching-silicon-valley-wages
======
sharemywin
it would a lot easier to train existing programmers in newer technologies than
wait 5-15 years for kids to grow up.
~~~
wolfi1
there is already higher supply than demand in the industry but the profits
still have to rise
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: My employee equity? - fokker
Hey HN,<p>I Have been working my butt off for a startup for approx 1 year and I have just recently brought up the discussion regarding my equity in the company.<p>There were no formalities such as a contract in place, it was purely based on trust but with a promise of equity towards the end of the year. I agreed to by paid far less than normal.<p>I wore a number of hats as you do in startup land, especially in the early days. I was a Project Manager, Tech Lead, Designer & Developer. Not to be arrogant here, but somebody with this skill set was absolutely crucial to get us to where we are today. Solid deliverables were delivered and the founders were always so pleased and excited to have me on the team.<p>Before I came on board, they were trying to outsource their technology to india. Sending bad looking designs and technical specs written by a non-techy. The final result was always so average. A company specialising in delivering tech, couldn't deliver tech.<p>When I started, we continued with the outsourcing for sometime but with my oversight and redesign of the platforms.. After some time, it simply was not working. I had the connections to bring on a new developer so we could start building things in-house, with proper development cycles, oversight & accountability. So we did that. Over the course of the year the team grew. We're now at 6.<p>Once this happened, we started landing some pretty cool projects thanks to the teams work. The capability and the quality of work we were putting forward and the character of us all helped significantly with getting these projects on board.
A year has passed and I have poured my heart and soul in to the company. I'm pulling 70-80 hour weeks every few weeks- working till all hours of the morning getting things done. Not to forget I'm not on a cushy funded start-up salary (far from it).
HN, what would you value somebody like myself on your team? What are people like myself usually rewarded with?<p>Cheers HN!
======
poof131
1\. A promise of equity is a red flag. A professional startup puts this in
writing. If things don’t work out, that’s what vesting is for.
2\. Wearing all the hats and the only technical hat initially puts you a lot
closer to founder status.
3\. “landing projects” doesn’t sound like a startup, sounds like a
consultancy. Taking reduced market salary here for equity doesn’t seem right,
the equity will never likely payoff to justify it.
Step 1. Interview at big companies. Figure out how much you could earn (total
comp: salary, bonus, and guaranteed equity). Also to get a BATNA.
Step 2. Value the startup. Account for professional investors, market size,
likelihood of success, etc. Don't just go off what the founders tell you. Look
at comparable startups and their exits.
Step 3. Figure out how much the money you gave up is worth. Multiply it by 4
(last year plus the next 3) then figure out the percent of the company. Would
also probably double it for the risk you are taking. (Note: You should
immediately vest the prior year and have no cliff for the three remaining).
Step 4. Negotiate from a higher starting point (I’m a sucker for putting out
what I think is fair and having it cut). Be ready to walk with your BATNA.
5-10 percent might not be unreasonable with what you are bringing to the
table, especially if this is more of a lifestyle business than a
professionally backed startup.
Good luck and don't be afraid to move.
------
dman
Do not leave such critical things under specified. If the response from the
founders goes even slightly short of your expectations you run a real risk of
burnout because you have obviously gone over and above for an extended period
of time. Make sure that there is a reconciliation on your value add between
you and the founders as soon as possible.
Try to also put yourself in the founders shoes and see how you would approach
such a situation rationally. Its best to have a number in mind before you
speak to the founders and have thresholds on either side representing delight
/ time to put in the papers.
------
paulcole
Your only leverage is getting a new job and/or straight up quitting. Unless
you're willing to do either of those, they're going to keep dangling that
carrot.
Force their hand and say you'll have to seriously consider other offers unless
there's an equity package coming from them within a week.
Only do this, however, if you're willing to have your bluff called. If you're
not, you have no negotiating power and will be relying on their kindness.
~~~
fokker
I do have some upper-hand in that they simply cannot afford to replace me -
they'd need to employ 2-3 new people plus all overheads of getting them up-to-
speed with our process, adjusting to team dynamics etc..
Thanks for the advice.
~~~
paulcole
How many people have you worked with who have required 2+ people to replace
them when they left? Personally, in about 10 years "professional" experience,
I've worked with 0.
I'm willing to accept that perhaps I've worked with non-exceptional people (I
am one myself). But really consider whether your employer would actually hire
2+ people to replace you. Your domain knowledge is worth something and the
cost of switching is high, but if your employer is paying below market, would
they really pay below market for 2+ new people?
What I'm trying to get at is the fact that your perception of your value might
be significantly different from your employer's perception. And if that's the
case, you really don't have much leverage.
------
JSeymourATL
> I have poured my heart and soul in to the company.
First-- take out the emotional aspect of your contribution (I know this is
difficult).
Can you calculate your impact on the bottom line? How did you help them save
money/make money?
Breakdown all of your job deliverables-- compare & contrast difference with
what they would likely pay at market rates. Based on your brief description,
you might easily be the equivalent of a $200K/year guy and a full-partner in
the business.
Assuming they agree conceptually-- and recognize your contributions have been
vital to the teams success. Give them options (not ultimatums) on moving
forward from here.
------
rajacombinator
Just get out. They're exploiting you. Leave, start your own consultancy, poach
their clients. You'll probably be surprised how much they're willing to pay.
------
mtmail
Who are you negotiating with? Does one person own all equity or several
founders plus investors?
~~~
fokker
Just the 2 founders, no investors.
------
kasey_junk
It sounds like you are the first employee? If so 1-2% seems to be the norm.
~~~
fokker
Ok cool, this is roughly what I had in mind. Yes, first employee.
~~~
icedchai
1% is way too low as a first employee, unless this is something that's
literally going to be worth 50 to 100 million USD.
Ask for 10%. Accept 5%. Walk away at 1%.
~~~
kasey_junk
This doesn't seem to jibe with reality^. Most of the literature [0] [1] [2]
suggests that the first 10 employees split 10% of the equity (with founders
receiving 50% and the rest left over for VC and later employee pools). Y
Combinator for instance only takes 6%. Sequoia is said to take 30%. Suggesting
that an employee (any employee) is worth the same as YC to the markets seems
like a hard sell.
[0] [http://themacro.com/articles/2015/12/splitting-equity-
among-...](http://themacro.com/articles/2015/12/splitting-equity-among-
founders/)
[1]
[https://gist.github.com/isaacsanders/1653078](https://gist.github.com/isaacsanders/1653078)
[2] [http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-
equity](http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity)
^ I'm no expert on equity and am a "get paid with american dollars" kind of
guy...
~~~
poof131
Saying there should be a standard number for the first employee is like saying
there should be a standard valuation for every startup. Sure, YC throws out a
fairly generous standard valuation, but they are choosing top notch startups
and trying to cultivate an entrepreneur first mindset.
To roll into any random startup and say, “I guess 1 percent seems fair” is
silly. 1-3 percent is fairly standard for the first employee of a well-backed
(YC / VC / Quality Angel) startup, where professionals are taking a calculated
risk because the payout could be huge. They are really overvaluing every
startup, but know that 1 out of 10 will pay off enough to make it up.
One percent probably isn’t fair for someone taking a reduced salary at a
“startup” financed by someone’s uncle targeting a niche market. The limited
upside will never pay enough to justify the money lost. If the startup isn’t
financed by professionals, I don’t see 1-3 percent and reduced market as
reasonable. Even then, I think it’s questionable and really depends on the
product, market, founders, how far along things are, and what you bring to the
table.
Certainly the value you provide and what you can negotiate are the critical
parts, but I feel that a lot of startup pay is exploitative, taking advantage
of younger workers who don’t understand what is going on, that the real payday
in a startup is the equity and they probably aren’t getting a large enough
percent to justify the risk. Why do startups payout so handsomely for founders
and investors, but employees are supposed to be learning and doing it for the
love?
------
bobby_9x
You are replacable. You can try to give them an ultimatium and threaten to
leave. But they may just show you the door.
Even if they don’t now, when things get better, they will probably be thinking
about ways to reeuce their risks by replacing you or dividing your
responsibilities.
Most people in your position don‘t get much equity. Even if you do, it‘s
usually diluted down to nothing with rounds of funding or you never see
anything when the company crashes and burns.
I’ve been there more than once. It’s much better to just work for a salary
that you are worth and forget about equity.
It’s a carrot used to prevent you from leaving when things get bad.
------
LifeQuestioner
Also, ask for a pay rise it's been a year dammit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The big chill of the censor - benfreu
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/apr/03/mediaguardian1.comment
======
brownbat
> "At a recent business conference, I heard CEOs tell FCC chairman Kevin
> Martin to ... get America to broadband parity with Korea and even France.
> Instead, I told him, he was wasting his time, fining farts. And bullshit."
I wasn't able to find the On the Media interview referenced in the article,
but this week's is all about free speech post Hebdo:
[http://www.onthemedia.org/story/on-the-
media-2015-01-09/?utm...](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/on-the-
media-2015-01-09/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=%24%7Bfeed%7D&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+%24%7Botm%7D+%28%24%7BOn+the+Media%7D%29)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is there an increasing demand for martial law to save lives? - thinkingemote
I've noticed that there appears to be a growing feeling amongst my peer group and HN users that our western governments are not doing enough and that, effectively, martial law should be imposed to keep people indoors. It seems to go hand in hand with a kind of labelling of others who are not following the rules as toxic and immoral.<p>Am I wrong in that observation? could it be my social media bubble? Could it be true? Could it be true and actually desirable if it saves millions of lives? At what stage is it worth giving up our liberties to save lives. Is it always a slippery slope?<p>I am feeling more anxious from seeing my friends and co-workers become what I would consider an eco-fascist than about the actual virus. Am I imagining all this?
======
ceilingcorner
No, you are not imagining it. Freedom is difficult; most people can't handle
it and want an authority figure to guide them, especially in times of
(perceived) threats.
"People want to be told what to do so badly that they'll listen to anyone." \-
Mad Men
_Could it be true and actually desirable if it saves millions of lives? At
what stage is it worth giving up our liberties to save lives. Is it always a
slippery slope?_
Yes, of course martial law would reduce virus deaths, just as it would reduce
crime rates. But that's the burden of a free society: the recognition that
some values are more important than life itself and that some risks are worth
taking. It is indeed tragic that many people are almost begging to throw away
their rights and freedoms to deal with what is essentially a minor issue, in
the grand scheme of things.
------
molmalo
Well, here in Argentina, we have an obligatory quarantine till March 31st,
with some exceptions (medical and security services, essential services,
supermarkets, restaurants for takeout, pharmacies, etc)... but we've seen lots
of people taking these days as vacations, attempting to travel to tourist
destinations. So, authorities eventually started blocking access roads to some
of these places.
But in some poor areas, some people are refusing to comply with the
quarantine, even attacking police cars
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4YI8L8l30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4YI8L8l30)].
So, the gov is trying harder to communicate the need for isolation, but if
people keep disobeying, they said they have Martial Law on the table, they
just don't want to get to that point...
------
mrfusion
As a counterpoint I’d encourage you to look back to 9/11\. We lost a lot of
liberty in the immediate aftermath and arguably didn’t get much safer.
It’s important to not lose sight of our fundamental rights in times of panic.
The choices we make now could live on for decades or more.
And governments don’t like giving back powers after they’ve got them.
------
mrfusion
Does anyone worry about a slippery slope in all this? Yearly flu lockdowns?
What if it’s a swine flu?
Traffic stops to check your temperature?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sam Altman interviewed on CNN Money [video] - staunch
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/09/technology/innovation/sam-altman-y-combinator/index.html
======
keithwarren
On acceptance of failure...
I am curious how truly different Silicon Valley is versus other areas. While
we give lip service to the idea of failure being OK, the reality is in most
places it is destructive to your long term prospects.
I am from the midwest and around here there is a very cliquey mindset. Hang in
and around the startup communities and you will see the people who claim to be
investors, the people who actually are investors, the people who claim to be
founders/entreprenuers and the people actually doing something. Then there are
the posers, always around trying to be part of the game and gossiping about
every founder, judging every idea and trying to generally be seen as part of
the in-crowd. It is like high school only with serious money involved. I point
all this out to say that this clique mindset gives lip service to the idea of
failure or pivots being OK but in reality - you just blew it. You didn't have
what it takes. You are really no good. Your idea sucked. etc etc etc.
What is worse is that breaking into the funding market is rather difficult
unless you have a success story under your belt. Started a company and exited
(even if a meager acquihire) then you get an instant seat at the table. On the
flip side, if you failed - that failure acts as a noose going forward.
Like I said, I am really curious if SV is truly different or people like to
think it is different and market it as different when in reality it is the
same high school clique show that I see around here.
I hope it is different, I truly do.
~~~
ChuckMcM
There are posers of course, and people with other issues, but in general I've
found folks to be pretty honest. What a lot of people miss though is that it
takes _time_.
There is definitely an inverse power log sort of thing where the number of
people who have gone right from college into startup success is really small,
and the number of people who have gone from school to startup success in 10
years is pretty large.
A typical trajectory seems to be move here working for some current 'big' tech
company. Build a network of the cool people there and figure out where you
eventually want to live, then show your stuff at BigCorp while people who have
been there longer start peeling off. Most people know who are the 'good'
people and who are the not so good people at their previous employment, if
they have you in the 'good' category and they've gone off to do a startup you
find interesting, you can often follow them there. Then get your feet wet in a
startup early employee to exit (death, buyout, what haveyou). During that time
you get known by the VCs in the company and your peers there, perhaps you
recruit people. You prove you can be effective in a small environment. Then
using your connections with investors or other people you've met you go in as
a really early group of already more seasoned people, which ideally has a
solid outcome, and at that point 10 - 12 years have your graduation from
school you are ready to start your own thing. The graphs in this chart [1]
match my experience. People doing a lot of the founding are in their 30's.
Up until you're the founder though, success or failure is rarely on you, its
on the founders. And even then depending on how it failed well that can
actually be a positive if it was shooting for the stars and only making it to
the outskirts of the solar system.
~~~
keithwarren
Your story in the 30s feels about right. I am 34 and just now starting to
really get serious about founding something. I think the experience of working
for 15+ years yet still having the drive to achieve is a pretty good potion
for success. Would love to find some stats that break down startup
success/failure rates with delineation like age of the founder.
------
MechanicalTwerk
Thinking out loud here...I'm sure this will get downvoted. I've never met PG
or Sam - this comes only from videos I've watched online - but it seems not
only the way they speak, but their mannerisms as well, are eerily similar. I
doubt this is because Sam is mimicking PG or vice versa. Some of it I'm sure
is due to the fact that in many videos they're just giving the standard pitch
about YC's mission which is bound to sound similar.
I don't quite know what to make of it. I can hear my Organizational Behavior
professor from college yelling "Group think! Group think!" or some bs like
that but I was never a huge fan of that stuff. It certainly doesn't stand out
as much as people who have picked up Zuck's habits. Ever hear anyone begin the
answer to any question (literally does not matter what the question is or how
it is posed) with "Right, so...". You can be sure their youtube history is
riddled with Zuck interviews.
I know it's not isolated to tech and every industry faces this phenomenon. It
just makes me cringe and I wish it wasn't so prevalent.
~~~
larrys
From my experience people tend to parrot the mannerisms of people that they
emulate and vice versa. Or maybe spend much time around. No time to find
support for this but I'm sure there are numerous studies that say the same.
Paul has a great deal of repect for Sam and Sam for Paul.
Not to mention that people are probably going to be more likely to support
people that _are like them_ in one way or another. I know when I get a phone
call I tend to like people who talk fast, don't mess around with niceties (to
me "how are you doing" is a complete waste of time) and get right to the
point. Others of course don't. [1]
That said I don't know if your point is correct or not but it wouldn't
surprise me if it was.
Starting a sentence with "so" is a crutch that I started to notice people
using several years ago. That's clearly something that they pick up when
surrounded in a community of others doing the same.
[1] A bit of selling is always like modem negotiation. Usually it's a good
idea to parrot the behavior of the person you are trying to sell to. If they
talk slow you talk slow. If they talk fast you talk fast. In general of course
always exceptions.
------
staunch
If YC's goal is to find the next Dropbox it makes sense that they fund ~3% of
applicants. If their goal is to get more people starting startups it makes no
sense. So this seems like a case where we should look at what they do, not
what they say.
~~~
timtamboy63
Yeah, that confused me. Sam says he wants to help more people who wouldn't
usually start startups, start startups, and he says that YC is the best way to
do that. I very much doubt that people who aren't determined to start a
startup would get into YC (he says so himself when he states that YC looks for
determined founders).
~~~
edmack
There are two separate parts to this: One is admitting people you deem most
likely to succeed. The second is reaching out, enthusing and supporting people
from a wide range of backgrounds so that they apply and know how to be
successful. This is a good approach, the alternative is positive
discrimination.
------
emiliobumachar
"One of the surprises for me, personally - I would have said a while ago that
I thought intelligence was the most important characteristic of founders, but
I'm now sure that that's wrong, and that determination is the most important
thing."
pg says that a lot:
[http://paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html](http://paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html)
"I now have enough experience with startups to be able to say what the most
important quality is in a startup founder, and it's not what you might think.
The most important quality in a startup founder is determination. Not
intelligence-- determination"
------
w1ntermute
The comments on the CNN Money page almost universally negative, and almost all
based on misunderstandings or sheer ignorance. I wonder how much longer the
tech industry can ignore the inevitable backlash from growing inequality in
this country.
~~~
theorique
As long as the backlash is based on ignorance and misinformation, why is there
a time limit on the ability for the industry to "ignore the haters"?
~~~
w1ntermute
As inequality grows (which it is), people become more irrational in their
hatred. Those who are able to harness machines to increase their own value
will be resented by those who are being replaced by machines.
~~~
melindajb
that's correct. It's not like the mobs that put the aristocracy in the
guillotine in France were logical, rational, or even educated. Not intending
to be dramatic, just an example of how bad it could get.
~~~
theorique
Eek, time to hire a bodyguard and driver and move to a gated community. South
African style.
~~~
melindajb
or you know, fix the problem.
~~~
theorique
Well, sure, but in the meantime ... don't want to face M. Guillotin!
------
determinant
Well, the arguments in the thread so far aside, I thought the reminder that
being determined was important.
When you're sitting around in a room at 3AM in the morning in front of the
glow of a monitor slaving away on code with no paycheck in sight, random
inspirational tidbits on the internet make a difference -- particularly from
people on the side of success. Even with funding, sometimes those 3AM silent
moments can be scary.
------
happy_pen
> "How do we convince that brilliant engineer that has the idea he's really
> passionate about, that can change the world, to start a startup and not go
> work as an engineer at a big company?"
I like the thought behind it, but it seems a liiiitle bit ingenuous to say it
like that because success usually constitutes being acquired later on by the
supposed "big company" and VC's making a lot of money.
~~~
chadwickthebold
Right. I wonder if Silicon Valley types will ever be able to move away from
the faux-altruistic mindset and just acknowledge that they are interested in
making more money than a single person could ever comfortably spend in 10
lifetimes. And that's not a bad thing! And maybe the world becomes a slightly
better place in the process, but there's just such a disconnect right now
between what they say and what they end up doing.
~~~
paulbaumgart
There are two types of altruism:
1\. The desire to perform win-win, wealth-creating transactions.
2\. The desire to redistribute wealth from yourself to people who ascribe
greater utility to that wealth.
I think what you're objecting to is Type 1 Altruists pretending to be Type 2
Altruists. Although I can't fault you for that, keep in mind that both types
of altruism are utility-promoting, and that you can't have Type 2 without Type
1. :)
~~~
001sky
Type (1) 'altruism' has various flavours.
Two oligarchs colluding is one.
Selling out to olligarchs may be another.
Both of these seem to be increasing "perceptions"
Of Silicon Valley's ~morality.
~~~
paulbaumgart
Yeah, "win-win" does not imply "wealth-creating". Negative externalities can
cancel out the wealth creation or even push it into the negative. However, a
lot of people who talk about wanting to "change the world" do genuinely want
to make the world wealthier.
------
adamzerner
These are all things that we know already. Does the fact that it was covered
by CNN Money really make it front page worthy?
~~~
wtmcc
I’m very interested to see how the mainstream press covers something I
understand well. Gives me a input → output pair to train my model of the
press’s lens on the world. It’s also interesting to see how the public reacts
to such a thing.
------
7Figures2Commas
"How do we convince that brilliant engineer that has the idea he's really
passionate about, that can change the world, to start a startup and not go
work as an engineer at a big company?"
Silicon Valley's engineer fetish is inane. Most early-stage web startups
simply need CRUD applications that work at limited scale. Commodity-level web
developers can build these applications.
What is not a commodity, in order of importance:
1\. Domain expertise.
2\. Product development/management.
3\. User experience.
I'm sure lots of people would disagree, but you can test this. Go out and try
to find the following:
1\. Somebody who has worked in an industry for more than 5 years, knows it
inside and out, and has relationships that can be leveraged for sales and
business development.
2\. An experienced product manager.
3\. A proven UI/UX person capable of designing quality experiences around
moderately complex workflows.
4\. A PHP or Rails developer who can build a working application if given a
reasonable spec and design assets.
#4 is not your problem. Most of the time, this person will be the easiest to
locate and cheapest to acquire.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AT&T Helped N.S.A. Spy on an Array of Internet Traffic - denzil_correa
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-nsa-spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
======
evook
Cases like this reinforce my opinion, that there is an increasing demand to
educate consumers how to prevent getting data leaked to government
institutions like intelligence services. Especially the consequences of
picking the wrong service provider.
Luckily I am now in a position where I am fully responsible and aware of the
routes my data takes. Yet we as a B2B ISP constantly get requests by
intelligence services to provide information regarding our customers.
Strangely they always assume that's totally okay to -just- ask for the data,
instead of going the formal way. If we demand the judicial permissions they
always rant about emergencies and so on. We can't help but follow the law, and
the law disallows us to keep specific data for more than 60 days. I am really
curious about how many ISPs voluntarily provide their customer data without
asking for judicial permission beforehand.
Such conversations are coming around 2 or 3 times a week.
~~~
Animats
There's one cellular provider which has the obligation under CALEA to do
wiretaps. They comply with the law strictly, which annoys the FBI.
First, CALEA requires that the company provide a "senior official" as a point
of access for law enforcement, and a backup 24/7 contact. Their senior
official is their general counsel, and the backup is another lawyer. It's not
their network operations center. Their general counsel wants to see a warrant,
and checks back with the court to make sure it's valid. This is the way to do
it; bring in Legal.
There's a procedure for "emergency requests" in advance of a warrant under
CALEA. This telco immediately faxes the law enforcement requester a brief form
to fill in for those. It requires name, police department, office address,
badge number, and a brief explanation of why there's no warrant yet. The form
to be signed by the law enforcement official contains a statement that the
official will provide a warrant within 48 hours, and in the event that they
fail to do so, their department will take full responsibility for their
actions, including indemnifying the telco against any costs and damages.
That's followed by a statement that in the event the law enforcement
organization fails to authorize the actions of their official, the official
will be personally responsible for said costs. The telco also reserves the
right to disclose requests for which a court order does not follow.
This discourages fake "emergency" requests. Get your legal people to draft
something like that. The key to this is that law enforcement's interface to
your company should go through your legal department.
(I used to have a link for this, including their forms, but can't find it now.
Can anyone else find it? )
~~~
evook
I am very interested in these forms and would be grateful if someone could
provide a link to them. If they're watertight, we could probably reduce some
overhead with them. Although I dislike the idea of using an employee as an
"responsibility-shield" for failing government agencies.
~~~
gkop
I am interested in discovering the carrier with the most onerous forms in
order to procure service from them.
------
thembones
Where have you all been?
[http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70...](http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908)
10 years old and not even close to the oldest evidence.
~~~
comrade1
This was an interesting and early revelation, but it wasn't until the Snowden
documents that we understood what this closet really meant. We had no idea the
government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s., every email,
etc... We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed and that
this closet was just a way to make targeted surveillance easier.
~~~
PopeOfNope
> but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this
> closet really meant.
> We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the
> u.s.
> We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed
All lies. This was well covered on slashdot when it happened. We all knew
exactly what it meant.
Snowden's release was iron clad and incontrovertible, which was refreshing,
but it also detailed the extent to which private tech companies outside of
AT&T were aiding the federal government in their illegal activities.
Even the most paranoid nutbag commenting on those old slashdot threads
couldn't imagine how bad it was going to get. Reality outpaced the conspiracy
theorists.
~~~
brazzledazzle
This is my recollection too. I think everyone held their breath hoping we'd
pull away from the edge.
------
danso
Worth reading: ProPublica (who co-published with NYT on this story) has an
explainer of how they followed the trail of documents to break this story:
[https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-
leadi...](https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leading-to-
atts-partnership-with-the-nsa)
------
olympus
Is this really a surprise to anyone? We've known that the N.S.A. has gotten
(or coerced) support from communications companies in the past, and AT&T in
particular (the article mentions it going back as far as 2003
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)).
Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in
2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's
up to you to protect yourself.
~~~
comrade1
Spying on the u.n. based on terrorism legislation is a revelation. Recording
of all telephone conversations in the u.s. is a revelation. Recording of all
emails, skype, sms, etc is a revelation.
Before discovery of that room everyone knew that there was close cooperation
between the telecoms and the government, but we had no idea it was this close
and we were shocked at especially the recording of all phone conversations in
the u.s.
~~~
DanBC
Even though we had pretty thorough proof of this with ECHELON? Including the
EU parliamen report into echelon; and the stuff about the US using it to
provide commercial advantage to their aerospace industry?
Risk assessment has always been part of security. And people have always said
that you should probably assume a well funded government can and does read
everything. This was more of an assumption, but the fact that governments do
listen to everything should not have been a surprise.
~~~
comrade1
No, not really with ECHELON. That would have required all phone calls in the
u.s. to be routed outside of the u.s., and really the only cooperating country
was the UK, even though Canada was part of the group. It wasn't practical to
route all communications from the u.s. through the UK, and it probably would
have been noticed.
------
facetube
The NSA's giant database will be breached. It's only a matter of time. It
could be state-sponsored (e.g. like the OPM theft), or it could be due to the
NSA's own lack of internal security oversight. Maybe not this year, maybe not
next. I certainly won't have anything to do with it. But it'll eventually
happen. What then?
~~~
revelation
What makes you think they are not already breached?
By any available evidence, these guys can't even maintain a simple download
counter on their wiki. A random IT contractor like Snowden was already gone
for a month and they had no idea. I think they still have no clue what he has.
All the science fiction gives this very distorted picture when really the
people working at the NSA are private-sector leftovers, and even if someone
with half a brain slips into their ranks, a layer of ignorance and government
inefficiency will promptly suffocate them. It's a good thing, their
incompetence is our only protection.
~~~
knowaveragejoe
Wow, if you really believe this, you've got another thing coming.
~~~
bediger4000
Do you even have anecdotes to back this up? I'd prefer some kind of data, a
citation or a revelation from you, but even anecdotes allow me to consider
internal consistency.
Lately, I'm becoming very suspicious of infosec people who imply huge threats,
or mystical capabilities.
------
ErikRogneby
This should surprise no one.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)
~~~
harry8
You should also be unsuprised to have it pointed out that your surprise level
is wholly is irrelevant and rather silly to mention. Murder is unsurprising
and we don't ignore it. The "And this surprises you?" Meme response should
always be "Adults are talking."
------
white-flame
> At the same time, the government has been fighting in court to keep the
> identities of its telecom partners hidden.
And because of that, we can trust nobody, and work to encrypt everything at
the most fundamental layers we have access to. Good for individual privacy,
but you can't help but note that the NSA continues to shoot itself in the foot
in pursuing its goals.
There has to be willful ignorance at the top of the food chain. They can't
believe this stuff actually works, or is in any way actually related to
national security. But it must be so, so they double-think themselves into
believing it. Having met people at that level in other government branches, I
can't see it as anything else.
------
niteskunk
My favorite part of this was the not 1 but /3/ AT&T U-verse advertisements
embedded in the mobile page.
"Gee guys, any idea why our conversion rates are so low?"
------
RexRollman
It must be so nice for AT&T; making money twice on the same customer.
------
rwhendrix
It's interesting that they released this report on a Saturday, when markets
are closed.
~~~
Istof
let's keep it on the front page until Monday
------
nickysielicki
What we really need is less centralization and more communities able to invest
in 21st century infrastructure. We might be too far gone, though.
Take this for example: I am a student at the University of Wisconsin. There's
a nonprofit/cooperative in Wisconsin called wiscnet [1]. They provide(d)
libraries and schools with Internet. A Wisconsin telecom association (mostly
backed by AT&T) was able to use their lobby to push it out. Millions in
infrastructure made useless because it was argued to be anticompetitive.
The story is told much better by Ars. [2]
[1]: [http://wiscnet.net/](http://wiscnet.net/)
[2]: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-
public-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public-
internet-fights-telecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off/)
~~~
mrbill
I think a lot of states have (if not active, legacy) Internet backbones where
schools and such had connectivity back in the day before the "general public".
Oklahoma's is "OneNet"[1], and we had a T1 at usao.edu back in '93 [2].
[1] [https://onenet.net/](https://onenet.net/)
[2] I set up the very first USAO web site as a summer Independent Study
project in '95, running a web server on our VAX 4700. People told me "You have
to have a Sun box to run a web server!" and I proved them wrong. It was a fun
9-week gig, because the actual work only took me a couple of weeks, including
creating a HTML version of the Student Handbook. Bits of the site I created
persisted for almost a decade.
------
c3534l
“We don’t comment on matters of national security”
Wow, they really think that's what they're doing, don't they? Nothing above
and beyond here, right?
BTW, I was actually surveyed by AT&T on the phone when the news that they were
doing this first broke over a decade ago.
------
kfcm
Geez, what a yawner. This has been either assumed or an open secret for
decades.
------
louithethrid
Could the actual physical infrastructure be decentralised? At least in Citys?
------
eternalban
"news": The "Alphabet" companies help one another.
------
known
Cuckoo's nest?
------
comrade1
Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T.
AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is
profit and loss.
The snowden releases cost u.s. tech companies $100B+, including a 10% drop in
Cisco quarterly revenues. Hopefully this continues as multinationals continue
to move their business outside the u.s.
Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to
like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't
match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian
and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this.
~~~
jonknee
It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct
services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the
like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government,
what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has
regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their
own dark fiber and parcels out capacity?
Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.
~~~
haroldp
Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with
the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.
~~~
us0r
Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's
single biggest customer.
~~~
chinathrow
Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the
Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?
~~~
fnordfnordfnord
That was the CIA.
~~~
chinathrow
The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by
the NSA.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“DataGateKeeper: The FIRST Impenetrable Anti-Hacking Software” - rudolf0
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/datagatekeeper/datagatekeeper-the-first-impenetrable-anti-hacking
======
cpeterso
This "security" company's website does not even support HTTPS:
[https://www.mydataangel.com/](https://www.mydataangel.com/)
------
rudolf0
I really thought this was satire at first, but now I'm not so sure.
~~~
cpeterso
It stops being satire when they start asking people for money.
------
nanis
"Brute Force vs Repitions" ... 'nuff said.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spanish Morphology in Haskell - stralep
http://www.cling.gu.se/theses/2003/cl8tsode_cl8iande.pdf
======
elboru
Great work,I'm a Spanish speaker so I know the complexity of this language, I
mean, verb conjugation is so complex compared to English. Let's just think
about the "Work" verb: English: Work, Works, Worked, Working, will work, would
work, have worked, has worked. Spanish: Trabajar, Trabajo, Trabajas, Trabaja,
Trabajan, Trabajé, Trabajaste, Trabajó, Trabajaron, Trabajaré, Trabajaras,
Trabajará, Trabajarán, Trabajando, Trabajaría. And let's not talk about
"normal" word transformations, like "diminutivos". In this moment I'm
developing a spanish word predictor to help a girl with special needs to
communicate easily, and your thesis is inspiring me, thanks for sharing.
~~~
stralep
It's not my thesis, I just found it on net and it seemed cool.
I wish you good luck in your endeavor! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Since I was 8 Years Old, I wanted to Be a Hacker - Oxydepth
http://stemmatch.net/blog/2015/december/22/so-you-want-to-be-a-hacker-the-perception-vs-reality/
======
imamachine
I've always wanted to be a hacker too. Now I do cyber security & machine
learning. :)
------
theseok
Good post oxydepth
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slavery Ensnares Thousands in U.K. Here’s One Teenage Girl’s Story - dsr12
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/world/europe/uk-modern-slavery.html
======
andyjohnson0
This is an important topic, but some of the comments here are shameful. Stop
spreading hate.
~~~
InTheTank
What's shameful is that you are willing to passively allow the raping of women
and children in the name of some misplaced sense of progressive / liberal
morality.
I am perfectly open to diversity, as long as the people brought in are civil
and open to assimilate to our culture!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Inmarsat's European short-haul wi-fi spacecraft launches - willvarfar
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40435832
======
tyingq
_" from calculations we see that the total capacity of the satellite component
is, for Europe, 100 Megabits per second"_
That doesn't sound like it's going to improve inflight WiFi much. They do
mention also downward connectivity to cell towers, so hopefully the satellite
link isn't used much. There's not much info on how many spots over Europe
won't be covered by the ground cell towers.
Edit: I do find the grumbling about inflight WiFi performance funny. You're in
a metal tube that twists and turns, 5+ miles high in the sky, going 500mph.
Installing the system means cutting a huge hole in the plane and detailed
certification testing down to every wire connector...and thus nothing can be
upgraded at a normal pace. Isn't being able to check your email novel enough?
Why are you surprised that YouTube doesn't work well?
~~~
ghaff
Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only person who genuinely doesn't care if I'm
disconnected for some number of hours while I'm in a plane. I have reading
material, downloaded video, and various apps. I almost appreciate flying time
as an opportunity to catch up on various things without distraction.
~~~
resf
For a short-haul flight I agree. Wifi provides little benefit, and being
disconnected can actually be a blessing.
A long-haul flight is so much more pleasant with wifi. There's only so many
movies I can watch (for me, 1 or 2) before I get bored out of my mind.
It can get lonely on a plane if you are traveling alone. The people around you
aren't always willing or able to talk (they may be asleep, don't speak
English, or are preoccupied with a movie), so you may end up sitting for
extended periods with nobody to talk to.
Being able to chat to friends while in the air makes the experience more
comfortable than any seat ever could.
~~~
ghaff
To each their own I guess. I have no problem spending a long flight without
conversation. Some movies/TV shows/books/games and (preferably) a comfortable
seat and I'm set. Give me the choice between a business class seat without
WiFi and economy with WiFi and the former gets my vote every time.
~~~
nkoren
Out of curiosity, how do you define a long flight? I've found that most
Americans call a flight "long" if it's 4-5 hours. But in my circles -- London-
based, doing business in Asia -- "long" means 9-13 hours. Which is
qualitatively _very_ different.
(Mind, in those circumstances, a choice between being able to stretch out in
business class vs. having WiFi in coach would tilt even harder towards the
former. But after about 8 hours in the air, I do find a lack of communications
really starts to bite.)
~~~
ghaff
I fly to both Europe and Asia from the US east coast. Yeah it's boring but
mostly because I'm more or less stuck in a seat and not because I'm cut off
from email, Facebook, and Twitter. Though, for context, I mostly work remotely
so not having a real conversation over the course of a day isn't that unusual
for me. The boredom of a long flight is more that I can't go outside and walk
around or fiddle around in the kitchen than that I can't communicate with
someone.
------
filleokus
I guess it's never going to happen, but wouldn't it be pretty cool if
Netflix/HBO/Spotify provided a content mirror on the aircraft? Could probably
only carry a subset of all content, but pretty cool to just open your app and
get some nice Silicon Valley episodes man-in-the-middle delivered to your
device of choice.
~~~
ghaff
United and, I'm sure, other airlines have a variety of TV shows and movies
that you can stream to their app on your phone and tablet over WiFi. Also note
that both Netflix and Amazon allow you to download content for offline viewing
these days though HBO doesn't currently AFAIK.
They have music stations as well although I've never used them as I keep a
pretty large library on my phone.
~~~
duozerk
> both Netflix and Amazon allow you to download content for offline viewing
> these days
In both cases sadly still with DRM; beyond the ideological stuff I'd love to
be able to download a file and play it with the player I like, or to be able
to reencode it. On some aspects pirate services are still better (though only
if you care about that kind of things).
------
willvarfar
I know that the laptop bans are currently only on inter-continental routes,
but investors in this kind of system must be watching the laptop ban in horror
of things to come.
~~~
krallja
Airlines can creatively work around this. They could provide a browser on
seat-back touch screens, which would be satisfactory to most customers, who
just want to watch HBO, Netflix, Hulu (maybe not in Europe), or YouTube.
Also, smartphones have WiFi, so that's a way for the security-aware to control
the device for typing your very important passwords into. Bring a Bluetooth
keyboard and a phone mount with a built-in magnifying glass, and it's almost a
laptop!
~~~
willvarfar
I don't think this system's price-point nor bandwidth is going to be suitable
for having large numbers of passengers idling hours by watching movies?
I think the target is more likely to be business users doing work during the
flight?
------
rb808
Just when you thought flying couldn't get any worse, now you'll have some
loudmouth chatterbox facetiming with their friends for hours talking inane b
__ __*t.
~~~
tjohns
Most inflight WiFi services block VoIP and video chat, both to conserve
bandwidth and to preserve sanity in the cabin.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
I VPN and have received (though not answered) FaceTime Audio calls in the air.
~~~
tjohns
Well, sure, there's workarounds. But most people aren't going to be running a
VPN.
And the documentation for in-flight WiFi explicitly instructs you not to take
voice calls, out of consideration for other passengers. You wouldn't be out of
line politely asking somebody to stop.
------
funnyfacts365
Nice to see cell phones don't cause interference with the systems aboard
airplanes... SMH
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How la Gendarmerie (French military police) ditched Microsoft and McAfee - dClauzel
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26373-comment-la-gendarmerie-a-envoye-bouler-microsoft-et-mcafee.html
======
jclos
The last paragraph is a good summary:
Last week, 21 June 2013, the head of technology and information systems of
internal security, General Bernard Pappalardo, wrote to the interdepartmental
steering information and communication systems, by sending a copy of his
letter to all departments. "For many years, the police tried to avoid this
type of dependency and promote free software for its information systems
(workstations and servers)", said the general. "That's why it will not deploy
the solution chosen by UGAP to protect its desktop solution and launched a
preliminary consultation on the acquisition of an antivirus solution which
must include a management console on Linux."
UGAP being (to my knowledge) in charge of making the government save money in
this kind of situation.
------
dClauzel
Automatic translation :
[http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.numerama.com/magazine/imprimer/26373-comment-
la-gendarmerie-a-envoye-bouler-microsoft-et-mcafee.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter deletes anti-Congress cartoons, enrages tweeps - iprashantsharma
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/12/17/twitter-deletes-anti-congress-cartoons-enrages-tweeps-169656.html
======
tn13
Nothing surprising in this. Media is congress' bitch.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A node.js drawing app - Rapp
http://rappdaniel.com/experiment/diddly
======
Rapp
If it's not immediately clear, the purpose of the game is for you and everyone
else online to collaboratively (or individually, but it's more fun if you work
together) draw the image it asks for at the top and bottom of the screen.
It saves every image (you can watch previous images by hovering over the image
to draw) when a few HNers have used it I'll create a gallery :) It's also
available as a chrome app[1] and have been tested on the iPhone (every
version) the iPad and a few Androids :)
In case anyone is curious it's running on an ubuntu server with 512 ram. It's
heavily dependent on Socket.IO and is using the canvas module[2] to create and
save the images.
[1] <http://goo.gl/W1MYL> [2] <https://github.com/learnboost/node-canvas>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
System performance analysis - the USE method - dmpk2k
http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2012/02/29/the-use-method/
======
jaylevitt
I've scaled systems from 500 to 1.5 million simultaneous users, and this is
the ONLY concise, salient explanation of performance troubleshooting that I
have ever seen. Bravo.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you call yourself Ninja/Hacker? - paukiatwee
Do you like a job post "We looking for JavaScript Ninja" or "We are hiring RoR Hacker"? Or some blog title "I am UX Hacker and love to.."?<p>I personally feel annoying. I prefer to use "Talent" or similar term. What do you think?
======
sevilo
Nope, "Ninja"/"Rockstar" on a job posting automatically makes me not want to
apply. "Hacker" is alright, though I never refer to myself as a hacker.
On a side note seeing "we want people who get things/sh!t done" on a job
posting really bothers me too... but that might just be me.
------
krapp
No.
If you have to call yourself a hacker, you probably aren't one.
And if you call yourself a ninja, you're _doing it wrong._
Whenever I see that kind of thing in a job posting it always seems like an
effort to be exploitative.
... of course I never qualify for any of those jobs but then I would never
call myself a hacker or a ninja or rock star anyway.
------
pmurach
When I see the term ninja, wizard or hacker in a job title it suggests to me
that the people recruiting are looking for above average developer. I imagine,
the rationale behind that is to do with looking for someone who will bring
increased efficiency and productivity by being very intimate with a given
technology and deliver value from the start. I am not saying this is the case
at all but it seems like a plausible rationale behind such words. However,
there is quite a stigma attached to these terms and most of the time the
interpretation depends on the context. Many recruiters or companies feel that
these terms resonate with developers and work for them like a bait for fish. I
would definitely approach them sceptically and seek clarification of what the
role involves. Probably the biggest issue with these terms is how do you
actually quantify qualities of ninja or someone who has talent? Everything
depends on context and these are quite murky waters. Software developer or Web
developer as a job title sends much clearer picture of the company recruiting
needs.
------
jamestomasino
The term ninja makes me think that the people running the company don't
understand software development and have relegated it to a category filled
with mysterious doings. I expect the same sort of folks to call it wizardry or
magic.
Hacker isn't as clear-cut a term because there are several different trends in
the industry using the term in different ways. Are you a 40 year unix veteran
who hacks things together or are you a front-end hipster-stack web developer
claiming the title? No, most likely the folks using this term on a job posting
are trying to seem youthful, but I can't be certain. I just avoid it as much
as possible and, like the others commenting, prefer traditional terms that
have legitimate and clear use in the industry.
Think about what is implied for a software architect role vs a web developer.
There's much more differentiation in the denotation of those terms than
ninja/hacker.
------
elviejo
I like the term Software Developer.
I wont apply to any job post with the words Ninja or Rockstar.
Hacker... I would read it.
------
jfb
I find it embarrassing, but I chalk it up to a lack of experience. I always
assumed that "hacker", as a term of regard and a social signal, could only be
granted by others -- it was gauche to use it to refer to oneself.
Me, I write programs.
------
edavis
I'm transported back to 2008 whenever I hear "Ninja." Same with "Rockstar."
"Hacker" doesn't bother me.
Developer, Programmer, Designer, Engineer. Stick with the fundamentals.
------
k3oni
Nope.
Seems that i see more and more ninjas and hackers everywhere.
Funny thing is that some don't want an engineer, as somehow nova-days an
engineer is less then a hacker or a ninja in someones eyes.
~~~
ACow_Adonis
Well if you see more and more of them, they clearly aren't ninjas :|
------
2close4comfort
King S(&* of F&^% Mountain
------
clasense4
I agree with you.
------
adamredwoods
i prefer the term "desk jockey".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does not being a hacker make you less desirable in YC's eyes? - jpalacio486
If you're not a hacker and dont have any idea about programming, does that make you less desirable in YC's eyes?
======
Ultrapreneur
When you say "not hackers" does that mean you still only have an idea for a
site, or that you aren't familiar with programming, but are still moving along
with the site? i.e. are paying someone to do the programming for you?
~~~
jpalacio486
Yeah my partner and I arent't very experienced programmers, but (like everyone
with an idea) we think our idea is awesome. We are looking to partner with a
third party on the programming side.
------
pg
We've funded one company started by non-hackers, but they had studied science
in college, so they understood technical matters.
~~~
jpalacio486
I studied Networking in college for a few semesters, so I have a pretty good
understanding tech matters. I just want to make sure that just because we're
not hackers the possibilities of us being funded don't go down.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook, Microsoft Disclose Government Data Requests, But Google Balks - anologwintermut
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/06/14/facebook-got-fewer-than-10000-gov-data-requests-in-2nd-half-of-2012/
======
LoganCale
This is a poor headline that does not accurately reflect the situation.
Microsoft and Facebook made deals with the government to include NSLs and FISA
warrants in their total disclosure numbers as long as they kept them grouped
together, but Google had already made a deal in the past to disclose NSLs
separately from regular law enforcement warrant numbers and accepting the new
deal would've forced them to lump the NSLs in with the rest, reducing the
usefulness of the overall numbers. Instead they seem to be pushing to be
allowed to disclose regular warrants, FISA warrants and NSLs all separately.
This is a good thing.
~~~
anologwintermut
I believe that data covered only NSLs and explicitly didn't cover FISA
requests. In fact, Google's spokes person makes this clear in the article:
" a Google spokesman said the company has 'always believed that it’s important
to differentiate between different types of government requests,' referring to
requests for data in criminal cases, and data requests stemming from national
security-related, classified orders.
'Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users,' the
Google spokesman added in the statement. 'Our request to the government is
clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests,
including FISA disclosures, separately.'"
~~~
LoganCale
Facebook (and I presume Microsoft) are including regular warrants, FISA
warrants, and NSLs.
[https://newsroom.fb.com/News/636/Facebook-Releases-Data-
Incl...](https://newsroom.fb.com/News/636/Facebook-Releases-Data-Including-
All-National-Security-Requests)
Google is, and has been for some time, including regular warrants and NSLs but
not FISA warrants. They could have gone along with the same agreement Facebook
and Microsoft made, but that would've required them to group the NSLs and FISA
warrants in with the regular warrants. Instead they kept doing what they
currently do, which is to show NSLs separately but not include the still
forbidden FISA warrants.
[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/U...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/)
------
anologwintermut
Despite Microsoft and Facebook being allowed to release data, Google is
refusing. Google claims "Lumping the two categories together would be a step
back for users,” the Google spokesman added in the statement. “Our request to
the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national
security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately"
This strikes me as bullshit. One, more data seems always to be better. Two,
google already releases some data on non NSL/FISA requests[0]. We'd have some
idea which is which and not just lump it all together.
Microsofts numbers were odd too: they only gave requests, not effected
accounts (a marked contrast to the rather complete info Facebook gave out).
Why the discrepancy ? Did Facebook not get many request, so they were allowed
to release everything? Did Microsoft batch requests and so those mere 7k
requests did give out huge amount? Did Google actually make them file
individual requests -- which would be inline with their denial earlier this
week?
It seems the DOJ/NSA is only letting people release (accurate) statistics that
might understat the problem.
[0][http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/?m...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/?metric=targets)
~~~
tptacek
No, what's happening here is that Google is continuing to push the USG to be
able to publish fine-grained data, while Facebook is publishing less
informative aggregates.
In other words, Google is going to bat for its users, and being punished for
it because of the optics that sets up. How does it feel to be a tool of the
NSA? :)
~~~
anologwintermut
Thats noble if somehow publishing non-fine-grained information precludes or
hurts their chances of publishing fine grained information later. I can't
think of a reasonable argument that thats the case.
As for being a tool of the NSA,I feel grossly underpaid.
~~~
tptacek
Publishing the aggregates allows the USG to claim that Google has already been
authorized to disclose the important information. How much do you think it
costs Google to fight this fight with the USG? How much do you think a lawyer
who can participate in a team effort to make this kind of case bills an hour?
Why aren't you cheering for them, instead of trying to tear them down?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android Renderscript from the perspective of an OpenCL/CUDA/C++ AMP programmer - compilercreator
http://codedivine.org/2013/02/01/renderscript-from-the-perspective-of-an-openclcudac-amp-programmer/
======
sparky
There was a talk at the 2011 LLVM dev meeting (cached slides here
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://llvm.org/devmtg/2011-11/Hines_AndroidRenderscript.pdf)
, llvm.org is down today) about Renderscript's design philosophy and LLVM-
based compilers.
In short, it's not an accident or incompetence that aspects of current desktop
GPU execution models (e.g., thread blocks, scratchpad shared memory) are not
exposed in Renderscript. It's a conscious decision to make sure you can get
decent performance on not only those GPUs, but ARMv5-v8 CPUs (with and without
SIMD instructions), x86, DSPs, etc. Getting good performance on these
platforms from a language that does expose these constructs (e.g., CUDA) is
still an open research problem (see MCUDA
<http://impact.crhc.illinois.edu/mcuda.aspx> and friends).
Though Renderscript aims to achieve decent performance on a huge variety of
platforms, even if they only cared about mobile GPUs, the major contenders
(Imagination, ARM, Samsung, Qualcomm, NVIDIA) have wildly different
architectures, and a language that is close to the metal on one will present a
huge impedance mismatch on the others. Note that things are sufficiently
different from desktop GPU design that we're just now seeing SoCs come out
that support OpenCL (in hardware, driver support seems to be lagging), and you
can't run CUDA on Tegra 4.
~~~
tmurray
Pretty much exactly this. Performance portability is our main concern, and we
are willing to trade off some peak performance to get it because of how badly
you will hurt yourself on different architectures. We are trying to solve low-
hanging problems first before attacking more complex algorithms.
~~~
varelse
So if I read this correctly, you're effectively trying to solve the hybrid
computing problem that everyone else is working on too (and the results so far
are pretty disappointing IMO).
To which I have to respond that better is often the enemy of good enough.
I'd personally rather have a relatively OK solution like OpenCL in my hands
today than a currently nonexistent ideal solution at some vague point in the
future. Smart programmers will overcome hardware limitations all on their own
and dumb programmers will trip you up no matter how much you rabbit-proof
their fences IMO.
------
wwalker3
It does look like mobile GPU vendors are about to start offering OpenCL
support. For example, ARM submitted OpenCL 1.1 Full Profile conformance test
results for the Mali-T604 last year
([http://blogs.arm.com/multimedia/775-opencl-with-arm-mali-
gpu...](http://blogs.arm.com/multimedia/775-opencl-with-arm-mali-gpu-
computingwith-no-compromises/)), and Imagination Technologies showed mobile
OpenCL demos last year at CES (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrz-w1jzEU>).
It's easy to see why OpenCL hasn't rolled out fully on mobile GPUs yet:
writing and debugging a full OpenCL software stack is very expensive and time-
consuming, and there's still not that much real programmer demand for OpenCL
on mobile.
As for Renderscript, it's always sounded like a bit of "not invented here"
syndrome Google's part -- we've already got CUDA and OpenCL, and RS doesn't
really bring much new to the table. They've already deprecated the 3D graphics
part of Renderscript in Android 4.1, so perhaps they'll do the same to
Renderscript Compute soon.
~~~
cageface
I'd much rather see Google invest their time in an Android version of
something like the Accelerate API from iOS. It would be a lot more generally
useful.
------
varelse
I suspect that as soon as Apple exposes OpenCL in any way on IOS, Android will
shortly follow. Likewise, if Mozilla exposes WebCL in FireFox, Chrome will
shortly follow. What I don't expect is for them to take the lead in doing so.
Say what you want of OpenCL/CUDA, but what other language smoothly subsumes
SIMD, multi-threading, and multi-core awareness? I expected it to already be
available on smart phones by now. What's taking so long?
------
Osiris
If someone with that level of experience can find so many flaws so quickly,
why aren't people with that level of domain knowledge brought in when the API
is originally being developed? Or, if they are, why isn't there released
documentation on why the API isn't as good as they wish it could be?
~~~
tmurray
I worked on CUDA at NVIDIA for over four years and was the primary API
designer for a large part of that time. I started on RS at Google in
September.
Basically, he gives us too little credit for the execution model (it's young,
it's improving very quickly and is not at all designed to emulate anything
else that exists today) and assumes that GPU compute has the same tradeoffs on
mobile as desktop (it doesn't at all). You'll see more from us soon.
~~~
compilercreator
Hi. Author here. Your name is quite famous in the GPGPU community, and it is
great to hear that you now work on RSC. My experience does not compare to
yours and I do hope my post is seen in a positive light. Would love to discuss
the issues in depth sometime.
Anyway if you were to ignore everything in the post except one item, that
would be to please fix gather/scatter in RSC. A parallel computing API without
proper gather/scatter is simply not very useful, irrespective of whether it is
on desktop or mobile.
I will keep following RSC and look forward to the developments you are hinting
at.
~~~
tmurray
I implemented scatter back in October, but it just barely missed Android 4.2.
It's in the next release.
~~~
compilercreator
Awesome. Thanks. Is there an email ID where I can send you a small note at? Or
perhaps I can send you a PM on B3D forums?
~~~
tmurray
B3D PM is fine.
------
sippndipp
I think that Renderscript is not meant as replacement for native C++ code.
Rather it's an platform independent and easy way to give a programmer more
performance power (beyond Java). I guess that if you need real performance or
more control you'll have go the NDK route anyways. But if you just want to
write another Instagram clone then Renderscript is the way to go.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Analytics for Google Spreadsheets? - iamarsibragimov
Hey HN!<p>Looking for analytics tools/scripts for Google Spreadsheets. I want to know how many people view the table and retention of ppl who has access to the private table.<p>Any suggestions?
======
iamarsibragimov
Anyone? :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Procter and Gamble bids to trademark LOL, WTF and other acronyms - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/24/procter-gamble-bids-to-trademark-lol-wtf-and-other-acronyms
======
olavk
I was ready to become enraged, but the article mostly mentions a range of
_failed_ attempts by businesses to trademark common phrases. Then it does say
_Paris Hilton owns the words “that’s hot”_ \- but googling a bit it seems like
she successfully sued Hallmark for _using a picture of her_ on greeting card
together with the phrase. Reasonable or not, this is a far cry from saying she
owns the words in themselves.
------
krsdcbl
This reminds me of a "naming contest" in the early social media days held by
German manufacturers of the brand "Pril", a dish soap, where consumers where
invited to submit and vote on custom designs for the plastic bottles.
The contest ended up seeing only meme-faces in the top results, and #1 being a
flat brown etiquette with the mouse-written slogan "tastes yummy like chicken"
[1]
I had always seen it as an example of marketing gone wrong, but reading that
article gives me a kind of idiocracy-ish deja-vu ...
[1]: [https://www.handelskraft.de/wp-
content/uploads/2012/09/pril-...](https://www.handelskraft.de/wp-
content/uploads/2012/09/pril-schmeckt-lecker-nach-hahnchen.jpg)
------
CM30
It's like the Sony Let's Play thing all over again.
Honestly though, I do have to wonder why anyone can trademark common phrases
at all. Why not just accept common usage means prior art and they're
automatically deemed invalid? Like with the invalidated patents being applied
for again thing it makes you wonder who the hell even likes this system.
Honestly, at least one political party should make it a policy to rip up most
existing IP laws and rewrite them to be sane again. Just ignore the lobbying,
ignore the corporations and go back to step 1.
------
jamesgagan
WTF???
------
fish44
LOL FML Chanel tried to copyright the word “jersey” it’s no coincidence that
it’s one of the Chanel island...
~~~
olavk
It is not possible to copyright a word.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launched Today: See Amazon's Giftcard Deal in Real-Time - timaelliott
https://analytics.savvr.com/today
======
timaelliott
This little demo of our platform is built using our internal reporting API,
HighCharts for the awesome visusalization and Pubnub.com for the real-time
streaming
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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