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Weird Things Teens do in 2018 - Ephil012
https://medium.com/@etp5501/weird-things-teens-do-in-2018-8322b7896f5f
======
abenedic
These are only weird if you give them weird names like the author. Teens have
been doing the same things forever.
| {
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Freelancer services co Fiverr raises $15m - sparknlaunch12
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000746276
======
ecubed
While people do sell alot of pretty useless stuff on that site, there's also
alot of really useful services too. I wish they would do more filtering of the
nonsense and get it focused to the more serious stuff, but I guess part of the
fun of the site is getting a hipster to dance in spandex and sing happy
birthday... Congrats to the team on a successful fundraising round
| {
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How does one go about choosing a graduate school for computer science? - scarface548
======
stonemetal
Look at what they research. It will more or less define any research you do.
If you don't do research it will color what your professors know, and how well
it is covered in your classes. Another is how well is the school ranked,
generally better ranked schools attract better candidates and better
professors, cooler research etc. For instance consider DARPA grand challenge
entries. How many were done by top universities and how many were done by
community colleges or even universities ranked middle of the pack?
And last but not least soft issues, cost, location, etc.
------
CyberED
I'm assuming that you have an idea of what interests you and that you are
shooting for a PhD or masters by research.
Research your topic of interest on Google Scholar. Read widely to identify who
are doing comparable work.
Write a research proposal and send to the professors who are doing and
supervising such work. You need to be very passionate about your topic in
order to sustain you through 3-5 years of grad school. Of course, what you
write your thesis on won't resemble your research proposal. That's just the
way it is. You discover so much as you dig deeper and deeper into your chosen
area.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Products Over Projects - kawera
https://martinfowler.com/articles/products-over-projects.html
======
mikekchar
I have found that what is important for a software team is having members that
can work well together. It takes time to make such a team and some people can
_never_ work well together. Organisations should spend considerable effort
building and maintaining effective teams. I am often surprised at how poorly
this is understood.
Technology also takes time to understand and be effective with. A good team
can usually work on anything and still be a good team, given that they have
enough time to ramp up, though.
My personal feeling: build strong teams. Ignore technology for the most part.
Put all your effort into getting people who work well together, working
together. Allocate time and money into making sure that the team has time to
gel and that they have the resources (tools, equipment, and working
environment) that they need (hint: each team requires different resources.
Think hard about what each individual team needs).
After that you have choices. Keeping a team on a single "product" eliminates
ramp up time. On the other hand, it also leads to singular ways of thinking
and silos. If you have a "product" that absolutely needs responsive
development all the time, then consider having a "product" team.
On the other hand, not everything requires instantaneous response. A good team
will usually be able to ramp up to very near full speed in about 3-4 months.
For some things, that is completely reasonable. You have to consider the cost
of maintaining a "product team" vs the cost of ramping up a "project team".
The advantage of the "project team" is that a new team can often come in with
new ideas that will improve the project. Moving project teams around from time
to time can ensure that teams are exposed to other ways of thinking and this
can help your organisation. The advantages and disadvantages are not
necessarily obvious.
------
cateye
It doesn't take the contradicting interests in to account. People in IT should
really stop to pretend that they are the only smart people that know how to
run a business.
A cfo can easily understand the benefits of an organizational capability to
continuously improve a core business asset. But he also understands the
difference between capex and opex and needs to take decisions in order to
achieve the strategic goals of the company. This strategy can or can not
define software development (for a specific goal) as a core in house
capability that gets an investment. This relates also heavily with the defined
core business etc. Without understanding the long term strategy of a company,
it does not make a lot of sense to come up with generic advice.
The ceo and the management board do generally (almost intuitively) understand
which activities will generate competitive advantage. If they are not in the
silicon valley hype, this can mean that they can make a deliberate choice to
invest in other things than software teams. Is it really that unthinkable that
other things than software can bring value to a company? Do all companies need
to act like Google or Facebook?
>>for greater responsiveness and a higher benefits realization ratio,
“product-mode” is a more effective way of working than projects.
This is a sweeping statement. This could definitely lead to higher benefits
and lower responsibility for the consulting company. That is almost for sure.
But that doesn't mean that a short living project organization is a bad idea
by default. The choice needs a much more substantial argument like the
probability of a positive realization result (depending on the complexity and
uniqueness of the software) versus risk if it does not get realized etc. If it
can't be bought of the shelf, it can be outsourced or developed entirely in
house by long term perm employees...
>>it may feel unsound to those who are used to approving big change programs
with detailed roadmap...
If a project can be predicted by a high enough level of certainty, I would say
that there is nothing wrong with a detailed roadmap. Also here, a false
dichotomy.
~~~
maaaats
> _People in IT should really stop to pretend that they are the only smart
> people that know how to run a business._
But one problem I have seen as a consultant is companies don't realize they
are software companies now. For instance, they are no longer a bank having a
small IT department, IT is now their core business and should be treated as
such.
~~~
sidlls
No, IT is not their core business. Banking is. IT is a means to that end.
~~~
PeterStuer
Not to be nit-picky, but the 'means' to provide the result are in the core-
business of the enterprise inseparable from 'the business'. Being in the
'conceptual' banking business without the means to do banking isn't going to
fly. Same as casting a farm as a 'food produce provider' and telling them that
farming is not what their core business is about. Semantically correct, but
not useful for most purposes.
~~~
ckastner
Grandparent said IT is _a_ means. There are other means to provide the core
business of banking. There are banks who outsource / spin-off not only their
IT, but even transaction processing and settlement.
> Same as casting a farm as a 'food produce provider' and telling them that
> farming is not what their core business is about
The correct analogy would be the other way round: a 'food produce provider'
whose core business it is to distribute food produce. Here, too, the farm is a
means to the end, but it's not the only means.
------
doug1001
i would think Martin Fowler would know better than this.
to argue that the meaningful rubric of effort ought to be a "product", he
creates a straw-man called a "project"
the much more meaningful comparison is to compare products versus "platforms"
and "tools/infrastructure"
if he had done that, then he i bet that he would conclude that all three
rubrics of effort are necessary, and preferring one vs the other is a question
of priority, not "do one instead of the other"
ie: some things you built to sell; other things you build so you can build
those things better and more efficiently; and still others you build for use
as reusable or modular components across multiple future products, so you
don't have to build the same component over again for each product that
requires it
"tools", eg: the 250-developer-hours spent on a "project" to create an
automated testing & deployment pipeline, will likely net out in a few months
and result in higher quality products almost immediately
"platform": a "project" to factor out code common across many workflows in a
typical web app, and re-implement that code as microservices having endpoints
available to any of the multiple data flows that need them (for instance,
"user-login & authentication", "user-profile fetch", "re-ordering user-search
results using learning-to-rank algorithm" etc
a project to build such reusable utility micro-services obviously don't result
in a "product", and yet such a project is usually cost-justified (in CFO
terms) even over short-term periods (< 90 days)
~~~
pjmlp
Those 250 hours need to be payed by someone, which at an hourly rate of 100
euros, pretty average for some consulting gigs, gets us 25k euros.
Who is going to pay them and how to validate how much money would have been
saved, if those 25k euros hadn't been spent?
Edit: should learn math. :)
~~~
oatmale
that would make it 25k not 250k
~~~
pjmlp
Thanks.
------
skybrian
The opposite of this would be "build it to walk away." It's not obvious that
every project worth writing some custom software for is worth having a
dedicated team working on it.
You need to think seriously about how to avoid changing dependencies, though.
It's like planning an exercise in retrocomputing in advance.
~~~
mr_toad
In my experience, most software development projects have been more like
"build half of it, throw it over the wall, and make yourself scarce."
Especially when consultants are involved.
I have never seen traditional project management techniques successfully
applied to software.
~~~
pjmlp
I used to think like that, then I became a consultant and got to enjoy how
companies whose main business is not at all related to IT do work.
100% of them don't care about code beauty or maintainability, just something
that does what they need for their actual business, done in X days within Y
euros/dollars/yang/....
So they get what they want, with the quality they are willing to pay for.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yes, it's hard to underestimate how poor most corporate software is.
------
baxtr
I find it interesting to observe that Apple - THE product company - works in
project mode. Apple is mainly organized by function. Presumably to avoid
product silos
~~~
tensor
My impression is that Apple works in project mode only for building a new
project, not improving existing ones. The reason quoted for this was secrecy,
not breaking down silos.
Where did you read that they work in project mode more widely?
~~~
baxtr
This is what I assume reading articles like [1]. Obviously, there is no direct
product P&L responsibility
[1] [https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-
crossroad...](https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroads/)
------
brucephillips
This should be called "problem-mode", not "product-mode". The distinguishing
feature is that teams continuously work to solve a problem. This doesn't end
when the product is finished.
~~~
confounded
Software products are never finished.
~~~
rubidium
neither are houses or humans or science or forests or roads or hardware
products or butterflies .... til they die at least.
------
HeroOfAges
I'd like to see more organizations adapt this way of thinking in terms of the
way they build software. Turns out business functionality is a great way to
define boundaries for a service in a micro-service architecture. There's
really no reason why the application code that gets a list of book
recommendations (functionality provided by the business) can't be completely
separate from the code that provides the user with a bio for an author
(functionality provided by the business), or ratings for a book. This allows
teams to work independently and in parallel. Organizing software development
around projects makes it more difficult for software developers to leverage
tools for continuous delivery and deployment. Project based development really
does slow you down.
Hmm... I guess my way would be to have teams that work together to deliver
business functionality over products or projects. Functional teams, if you
will. I see thinking in terms of products as a step in that direction.
*edited to clarify my earlier statement
------
dboreham
I'm not sure much can be done about this. It is what it is. Some organizations
can afford to maintain an "A-team" to crunch through their problems with a
good folk-memory. Other organizations can't. In addition the first kind of
organization often needs something done pronto, ahead of when the A-team can
get to it.
------
gadders
Working in big orgs, I've seen before the problems that too extreme a project
mentality can cause. Developers who move on to the next project on another
system losing institutional knowledge, systems left to "rot" because no-one
has budget to fix them or keep them up-to-date.
However, what they are describing is really a series of projects with the same
team on the same system or "product".
I think there are advantages to both ways of working, but the appropriate one
needs to be chosen.
------
gcb0
both are already the norm on bigger companies.
the money making products have product teams, pumping billions every year
while handling tons of incidents and stress.
the new initiatives have project teams. burning millions while having a coin
flip chance of success and getting every promotions and bonuses.
------
mannykannot
It is ironic that, right now, we are in the midst of an event that shows this
to be a false dichotomy, and that projects and products can be cross-cutting
concerns. I am, of course, referring to the multi-product project of dealing
with Meltdown and Spectre.
| {
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Zappos is offering severance to employees who aren’t all in with Holacracy - SonicSoul
http://qz.com/370616/internal-memo-zappos-is-offering-severance-to-employees-who-arent-all-in-with-holacracy/
======
SonicSoul
I love this idea, but wondering if this will backfire with mostly the best
people (that can easily find other options) leaving
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Presumption of Stupidity - benzofuran
http://www.aaronkharris.com/presumption-of-stupitidy
======
benzofuran
Previous Discussion (~2 years ago) here:
[http://www.aaronkharris.com/presumption-of-
stupitidy](http://www.aaronkharris.com/presumption-of-stupitidy)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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BlackBerry accuses Snapchat of infringing its messaging patents - Zeta_Function
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/4/17196840/blackberry-snapchat-patent-infringement-messaging-app
======
bitumen
Is this Blackberry’s new strategy? Become the next massive patent troll?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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A list of awesome minimalist frameworks - neiesc
https://github.com/neiesc/awesome-minimalist
======
atrilumen
Very cool. Please add
[https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/choo](https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/choo) and
[https://github.com/tachyons-css](https://github.com/tachyons-css). (Too lazy
to send a pull; sorry )
~~~
neiesc
Thanks, added.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Science of Liberty, An Interview with Murray N. Rothbard (1990) - ableal
http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen11_2_1.asp
======
ableal
_Rothbard's law, which is that people tend to specialize in what they are
worst at._
I suspect he was just, tongue-in-cheek, illustrating the specific cases he
made immediately after. It does have a certain Karl "Half-Truths and One-and-
a-Half Truths" Kraus ring to it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Google's $350B haircut - ForHackernews
https://medium.com/s/which-half-is-wasted/googles-350-billion-haircut-fa1a0f33ace1
======
smn1234
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:h6l1gR...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:h6l1gRN_rVoJ:https://medium.com/s/which-
half-is-wasted/googles-350-billion-haircut-
fa1a0f33ace1+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=it&client=firefox-b)
------
masonic
(paywalled)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Future of Neuromorphic Computing - anthotny
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-computer-to-rival-the-brain
======
bcatanzaro
The reason AI has been so successful recently is that the research community
has assumed a ruthlessly empirical philosophy: no idea, no matter how
beautiful or interesting, is considered truly useful until it bears measurable
results on some dataset. The reason neuromorphic computing gets such
skepticism from AI researchers is that so far it has resisted any attempts at
this kind of empiricism. No neuromorphic implementation has shown state of the
art results on any important problem.
If/When neuromorphic computers show groundbreaking results, the community will
pivot quickly to using them. But expecting AI researchers to show deference to
neuromorphic computing because it "mimics the brain" is to ignore the
empirical philosophy that has led to AI's success.
~~~
andreyk
To be fair, this whole Deep Learning renaissance was made possible and kicked
off only after decades of research in multi layer neural nets (going back to
the 80s) by Hinton, Lecun, etc. They stuck to their chosen method despite it
not having great empirical results (the research community shunned NNs in the
90s for SVNs cause they worked better), because they believed it should and
will work - and it did, eventually. So a similar argument for 'basic research'
could be made for neuromorphic computing.
~~~
bcatanzaro
Yes, I totally agree. Yann LeCun, Geoff Hinton, Jurgen Schmidhuber and others
did unpopular work for a long time. And they deserve tons of credit for their
perseverance which paid off.
Similarly, I think it's great that there are AI researchers working on
techniques which are currently out of favor. It's important to have diversity
of viewpoint.
What irritates me about neuromorphic computing is that much of the work I see
publicized (including the work in this article) isn't being presented as basic
research on a risky hypothesis. Instead it's presented as the future of AI,
despite the current lack of any demonstrated utility, and the almost complete
disconnect between the AI researchers building the future of AI and the
neuromorphic community.
The burden of proof is always on the researcher to show utility, and if the
neuromorphic computing community can do that, I'll be super excited! Until
then, I'll be waiting for something measurable and concrete, and rolling my
eyes at brain analogies.
~~~
Russell91
> Yes, I totally agree. Yann LeCun, Geoff Hinton, Jurgen Schmidhuber and
> others did unpopular work for a long time.
...
> Until then, I'll be ... rolling my eyes at brain analogies.
Maybe you don't realize this, but these guys made more brain analogies than
you can count over the same period to which you attribute their greatness.
Meanwhile, they were attacked year after year by state-of-the-art land
grabbers saying the same things you just did.
> isn't being presented as basic research on a risky hypothesis.
It is basic research, but it's not a risky hypothesis. Existing neuromorphic
computers achieve 10^14 ops/s at 20 W. Thats 5 Tops/Watt. The best GPUs
currently achieve less than 200 Gops/Watt. Where is the risk in saying that a
man-made neuromorphic chip can achieve more per dollar than a GPU. There is no
risk, and suggesting that this field is somehow has too much risk for advances
to be celebrated is absolutely crazy.
~~~
deepnotderp
Non-neuromorphic (analog) deep learning chip startup here. We're forecasting
AT LEAST ~50 TOPS/watt for inference.
~~~
Russell91
Sure - I guess it's productive for me to answer why this doesn't disagree with
my comment. By the time you get the software to hook up that kind of low bit
precision (READ: neuromorphic) compute performance with extreme communication-
minimizing strategies (READ: neuromorphic), which will invariable require
compute colocated, persistent storage (READ: neuromorphic) in any type of
general AI application, you're not exactly making the argument that
neuromorphic chips are a bad idea.
We literally have to start taking neuromorphic to mean some silly semantics
like "exactly like the brain in every possible way" in order to disagree with
it.
Edit: also, to ground this discussion, there are extremely concrete reason why
current neural net architectures will NOT work with the above optimizations.
That's the primary motivation for talking about "neuromorphic", or any other
synonym you want to coin, as fundamentally different hardware. AI software ppl
need to have a term for hardware of the future, which simply won't be capable
of running AlexNet well at all, in the same way that a GPU can't run CPU code
well. I think the term "neuromorphic" to describe this hardware is as
productive as any.
~~~
p1esk
Which existing neuromorphic computers achieve 10^14 ops/s at 20 W? If you
compare them to GPUs, those "ops" better be FP32 or at least FP16.
Also, you forgot to tell us what is that "extremely concrete reason why
current neural net architectures will NOT work with the above optimizations".
~~~
Russell91
>Which existing neuromorphic computers achieve 10^14 ops/s at 20 W? If you
compare them to GPUs, those "ops" better be FP32 or at least FP16.
The comparison is of 3 bit neuromorphic synaptic ops against FP8 pascal ops.
That factor is important (as it means that the neuromorphic ops are less
useful), but it turns out to be dwarfed by the answer to your second question:
> Also, you forgot to tell us what is that "extremely concrete reason why
> current neural net architectures will NOT work with the above
> optimizations".
this is rather difficult to justify in this margin. But the idea is that
proposals such as those above (50 Tops) tend to be optimistic on the
efficiency of the raw compute ops. But these proposals really don't have much
to say about the costs of communication (e.g. reading from memory,
transmitting along wires, storing in registers, using buses, etc.). It turns
out that if you don't have good ways to reduce these costs directly (and there
are some, such as changing out registers for SRAMs, but nothing like the 100x
speedup from analog computing), you have to just change the ratio of ops /
bit*mm of communication per second. There are lots of easy ways to do that
(e.g. just spin your ops over and over on the same data), but the real
question is how to get useful intelligence out of your compute when it is data
starved. This is an open question, and (sadly), very few ppl are working on
it, compared to say low-bit-precision neural nets. But I predict this
sentiment will be changed over the next few years.
Edit for below: no one is suggesting 50 Top/w hardware running alex net
software to my knowledge (though would love to hear what they are proposing to
run at that efficiency) . Nvidia among others are squeezing efficiency for cv
applications with current software, but this comes at the cost of generality
(it's unlike the communication tradeoffs they're making on that chip will make
sense for generic AI research), and further improvements will rely on broader
software changes, esp revolving around reduced communication. There are a lot
of interesting ways to reduce communication without sacrificing performance,
such as using smaller matrix sizes, which would reverse the state of the art
trends.
~~~
deepnotderp
Our hardware can run AlexNet...
~~~
Russell91
In an integrated system at 50 tops/watt? How are you going to even access
memory at less than 20 fJ per op? Like, you're specifically trying to hide the
catch here. If we were to take you at face value, we'd have to also believe
that Nvidia is working on an energy optimized system that is 50x worse for no
good reason.
For reference, reading 1 bit from a very small 1.5kbit sram, which is much
cheaper than the register caches in a gpu, costs more than 25 fJ per bit you
read.
~~~
deepnotderp
So this is locked up in "secret sauce". But as a hint, the analog aspect can
be exploited.
~~~
Russell91
Look, it sounds like your implying compute colocated storage in the analog
properties of your system (which is exactly what a synaptic weight is btw), on
top of using extremely low bit precision. So explicitly calling your system
totally non-neuromorphic is a little deceiving. But even then I find this idea
that you're going to be running the AlexNet communication protocol to pass
around information in your system to be a little strange. If you're doing
anything like passing digitized inputs through a fixed analog convolution then
you're not going to beat the SRAM limit, which means that instead you have in
mind keeping the data analog at all times, passing it through an increasing
length of analog pipelines. Even if you get this working, I'm quite skeptical
that by the time you have a complete system, you'll have reduce communication
costs by even half the reduction you achieve in computation costs on a log
scale. It's of course possible that I'm wrong there (and my entire argument
hinges on the hypothesis that computation costs will fall faster than
communication - which is true for CMOS but may be less true for optical), but
this is really the only projection on which we disagree. If I'm right, then
regardless of whether you can hit 50 Tops (or any value) on AlexNet, you'd be
foolish not to reoptimize the architecture to reduce communication/compute
ratios anyway.
~~~
p1esk
Oh, I see what you meant now. Yes, when processing large amount of data (e.g.
HD video) on an analog chip, DRAM to SRAM data transfer can potentially be a
significant fraction of the overall energy consumption. However, if this
becomes a bottleneck, you can grab the analog input signal directly (e.g.
current from CCD), and this will reduce the communication costs dramatically
(I don't have the numbers, but I believe Carver Mead built something called
"Silicon Retina" in the 80s, so you can look it up).
Power consumption is not the only reason to switch to analog. Density and
speed are just as important for AI applications.
------
jjaredsimpson
I never understand the odd advantage that brains are assumed to have over
machines when comparing power consumption.
>... AlphaGo ... was able to beat a world-champion human player of Go, but
only after it had trained ... running on approximately a million watts. (Its
opponent’s brain, by contrast, would have been about fifty thousand times more
energy-thrifty, consuming twenty watts.)
A human brain has a severe limitation though. It can't consume more or less
energy even if it I wanted to. AlphaGo could double, triple, etc its power
consumption and expect to improve its performance.
The brain also took decades to train. Computers also have the advantage of
being identical. You can't train any brain to be a master level Go player.
I just don't see brains as the high watermark of intelligence. They occupy a
very specific niche in what I assume is a vast unbounded landscape of possible
intelligences.
~~~
pron
> The brain also took decades to train.
The brain of an insect doesn't take decades to train, and we're currently
unable to match its capabilities, either.
> I just don't see brains as the high watermark of intelligence. They occupy a
> very specific niche in what I assume is a vast unbounded landscape of
> possible intelligences.
That is a hypothetical claim because we don't know what intelligence _is_.
Surely, some algorithms are much better at some tasks than the human brain,
but that has been the case since the advent of computing, and it does not make
them intelligent.
Intelligence, or how we would currently define it colloquially and
imprecisely, is an algorithm or a class of algorithms with some specific
capabilities. Could those capabilities be taken further than the human brain?
We certainly can't say that they cannot, but it's not obvious that they can,
either. The only kind of intelligence we know, our own, comes with a host of
disadvantages that may be features of the particular algorithm employed by the
brain and/or to limitations of the hardware, but they could possibly be
essential to intelligence itself. Who knows, maybe an intelligence with access
to more powerful hardware would be more prone to incapacitating boredom and
depression or other kinds of mental illness. This is just one hypothetical
possibility, but given how limited our understanding of intelligence is, there
are plenty of possible roadblocks ahead.
Even if a higher intelligence than humans' is possible, its hypothetical
achievements are uncertain. Some of the greatest problems encountered by
humans are not constrained by intelligence but by resources and observations,
and others (e.g. politics) are limited by powers of persuasion (that also
don't seem to be simply correlated with intelligence). For example, what's
limiting theoretical physics isn't brains but access to experiments, and
what's limiting certain optimization problems are computational limits, for
which our own intelligence, at least, does not give good approximate solutions
at all.
~~~
return0
> The brain of an insect doesn't take decades to train, and we're currently
> unable to match its capabilities, either.
It's not particularly useful to simulate insects. We can far surpass some of
their capabilities, but the goal is not to make an insect-robot, just like we
didn't care to make a mechanical horse.
~~~
nharada
Both of these are under active development
Robotic insects:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboBee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboBee)
Robotic horses:
[http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html](http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html)
~~~
return0
Those are mostly interested in biomimetic movement rather than intelligence.
They do have some applications, but i don't think they ve convinced the world
that mimicking organisms is necessarily optimal.
------
JackFr
"Neuromorphic" = "Ornithopter of the mind"
Giving up on flapping wings was the first step to flight.
~~~
varjag
Indeed. Imagine that Wright Flyer never happened, but some time in 1940s, the
progress in engines' specific thrust made a wing flapping machine able to take
off. That's where we are with machine learning.
------
deepnotderp
It bugs me when people always talk about "neuromorphic computing" and explore
crazy ideas that never work and look at them in awe, but when anyone brings up
a somewhat novel architecture for deep learning (nets that are being used
today, successfully...) people say "that'll never work".
For example, our startup uses analog computing to achieve accuracy roughly
equivalent to digital circuits, yet we're told that we're crazy? Meanwhile
people dreaming about memristors are showered with grants and money....
~~~
petra
You're from Isocline, right ? Your GPS chip was really good.
But your SIMD chip will be much more impressive, right?
~~~
Quanticles
No, they are not from Isocline...
There are groups at UCSB and U-Tenn working on analog neural network
technologies as well.
~~~
petra
Could you please share a bit more about your chip and when it would be ready ?
------
lend000
There's a lot of backlash and/or dismissiveness on HN every time someone
brings up neuromorphic architectures, and I think it has a lot to do with the
same defensiveness that people display when their political beliefs are
challenged. _When_ neuromorphic architectures start bearing fruit, programmers
will no longer be so in-demand for configuring the machines, as it will shift
the balance of power towards hardware engineers and hard scientists.
~~~
return0
Computational neuroscientists have been using simplified models like these for
decades, and in principle the operation of these 'neuromorphic' neurons can
already be simulated in large numbers in 'ordinary' computers. So, it's not
clear at all what is to be gained. AFAIK, most of the neuroscience community
considers Truenorth a marketing ploy.
I don't think programmers should wait for these chips before they panic. They
should already panic now, because deep learning works.
------
startupdiscuss
If these articles get into the math behind it, I think they will realize that,
currently, the brain is just a metaphor for a style of computation.
The article does state this towards the end: "Given the utter lack of
consensus on how the brain actually works, these designs are more or less
cartoons of what neuroscientists think might be happening."
We don't really know how the brain does what it does.
------
pron
> the recent success of A.I.
I guess they mean the recent success mostly due to modern hardware of 1960s
statistical clustering and classification algorithms that for PR and
historical purposes some people call "AI", but are currently unknown to have
any significant relationship with what we call intelligence.
When we achieve the capabilities of an insect we would be able to call our
algorithms "AI" without getting red in the face, as we'd know there's a decent
chance we're at least on the path to intelligence. Until then, let's just call
them statistical learning. That wouldn't make them any less valuable, but
would represent them much more realistically and fairly.
It's funny how how statistics was once considered the worst kind of lie, and
now for some it's becoming synonymous with intelligence.
------
partycoder
In the movie Terminator 2, a futuristic robot with advanced AI was developed
by reverse engineering a futuristic chip.
In reality, we do not need to reverse engineer a chip. We can just reverse
engineer our own brains.
------
return0
I see nothing in these "neuromorphic" architectures than hogwash trying to
bullshit governments into giving them money. There's no conceptual advancement
offered by these computers that can't be simulated with matlab. Until the day
when we actually learn how neurons work, these will just be extremely
premature optimizations.
~~~
p1esk
These designs are advances in the field of computer architecture. They look at
how brain processes information for ideas to make hardware more efficient, for
some applications (such as pattern matching). Did you expect something more?
~~~
return0
They use very rudimentary sketches that have little to do with real neurons.
ANNs have been mimicking these things in a slightly lower detail since the
60s. We can do better pattern matching with ANNs.
~~~
p1esk
I think you might be confused about terminology.
Neuromorphic computing is running some known ANN model directly in hardware.
Why do we want it? Because ANN models in software work well for pattern
matching, and we want to speed it up/make it more efficient.
~~~
return0
Nope, ANN's and deep learning are not used by these boards (Neurogrid, zeroth,
truenorth).
~~~
p1esk
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.08270](https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.08270)
They have been designed, and are being used either for more efficient pattern
matching, or to speed up brain simulations (again, using known neuronal
models).
You seem to expect something else from neuromorphic computing, why?
~~~
return0
I stand with Yann Lecun's criticism on the article:
[https://m.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10152184295832143](https://m.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10152184295832143)
> [the truenorth team had] to shoehorn a convnet on a chip that really wasn't
> designed for it. I mean, if the goal was to run a convnet at low power, they
> should have built a chip for that. The performance (and the accuracy) would
> be a lot better than this.
They used their 'neuromorphic' chip in an explicitly non-neuromorphic way,
basically approximately mapping deep learning processes to their chip. There
is very little neuromorphicity (brain-likeness) about it (plasticity rules out
of their ass, for starters). And they still get less than state-of-the art
performance in most tasks!
I expect 'neuromorphic' to be used when sound neuroscience is used in large
scale implementations that allow us to actually simulate parts of the brain.
Anything else, we call it what it is, ANNs.
~~~
p1esk
Well, none of those chips are brain-like at all. For example, TrueNorth is
fully digital, it uses separate compute/memory blocks, signal multiplexing,
signal encoding, routing protocols, instruction set, etc, none of which is in
any way related to what brain is doing. What makes you think it's
"neuromorphic"?
Whether you like it or not, get used to people calling their hardware ANN
implementations "neuromorphic".
~~~
return0
Nope, neuromorphic means the hardware would simulate the neurobiology, not
ANNs. More practically, they would never publish in Science if their title was
"printing ANNs in hardware".
~~~
p1esk
TrueNorth hardware, as I illustrated, does not resemble neurobiology at all.
There are no brain-like components there, on any level. Moreover, it can run
ANN algorithms just as easily as more "neuromorphic" algorithms.
Pointing to how they chose to name it for publication is not exactly a very
convincing argument to support your view, is it? :)
~~~
return0
My view is they 're useless. i don't get your point, sorry.
~~~
p1esk
My point is architectures like TrueNorth are very impressive from the point of
view of a computer engineer, and they are very efficient when running their
intended applications (neural network algorithms). The fact that they are not
"brain-like" does not make them any less impressive.
~~~
return0
> very impressive from the point of view of a computer engineer
Maybe, i suppose as much as a bitcoin ASIC is.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Joe Stump: Why I switched from PHP to Python - dannyr
http://www.joestump.net/2009/09/why-i-switched-from-php-to-python.html
======
steveklabnik
While Python is a great language, aren't "Things Guido doesn't like aren't
supported at the language level" and "Python treats developers as adults" sort
of at odds?
* TCO is dangerous and hard, let's not support it in the language
* ++ is ugly, let's not support it in the language
* Assignment during comparison leads to bugs, let's not support it in the language
* Python gives you more than enough rope to hang yourself, but at least hanging yourself is an option.
One of these things is not like the others.
~~~
hristov
I wonder why supporting TCO or not has anything to do with the language. I
mean isnt it up to the compiler or interpreter? If a compiler can get the same
final results with TCO, then why shouldn't it? And the definition of a
language should not define how a compiler works internally only what the
actual effect of the language instructions should be. Compiler writers should
be free to do what they want to realize the defined effect.
BTW as someone that moved from Pascal to C and C++, I can appreciate the
ugliness of a lot of C shorthand syntax. It is confusing and can cause a lot
of bizarre and hard to catch bugs.
~~~
gaius
That's true; Guido only says that TCO isn't going to be written into the
Python you download at python.org.
~~~
steveklabnik
You are incorrect.
"Second, the idea that TRE is merely an optimization, which each Python
implementation can choose to implement or not, is wrong. " -
[http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion-
elimi...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion-
elimination.html)
------
zokier
Does one really need to explain why he switched from PHP to anything?
~~~
sophacles
This sort of thing is still needed. I have a friend who's boss wont let him
use anything except c, php, and perl. Any attempts to get python in there are
met with resistance and vague hysteria. More posts like these from can slowly
lower people's loyalty to php, and contribute to saving my friend and many
like him.
~~~
jrockway
Well, is Perl really a problem? Anything you can do in Python you can do in
Perl just as easily; Perl actually has _more_ abstractions available for the
programmer than Python. (Grammars in regexes, real closures, coroutines, a
metaobject system, etc.)
Also, last time I checked the programming language shootout, Perl 5.10 is
slightly faster than Python 3.
So with that in mind, the logical "step up" from Perl would be something like
Haskell. Python is pretty much Perl with different syntax, less features, and
the impression that it's "cleaner" because nobody ever bothered using it for
"quick and dirty" scripting.
~~~
codexon
Python 3 smokes Perl.
[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python3&lang2=perl&box=1)
And most people are using 2.x which is even faster.
[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python&lang2=perl&box=1)
~~~
kingkongrevenge
That's winning at the special olympics. They are both so slow you'd never use
either for cpu constrained tasks.
~~~
sandGorgon
That is plain offensive. The special olympics are an even greater achievement
of the human body as a machine, since it must push itself with far lesser
degrees of freedom.
~~~
pieceofpeace
As I saw, it was not meant to be offensive. Special olympics are for special
people. They are not the best among all competitors. Most interpreted
languages are not comparable to compiled languages.
~~~
jrockway
Neither Perl nor Python are interpreted. They are both just slow.
------
lux
You have no idea how much I wish I could do this. Just testing my code from
PHP 5.2 to 5.3 and there are several serious problems now that I get to find
workarounds for, all while maintaining backward compatibility too.
How is it that a minor upgrade changes functions and their behaviour so much
that it breaks existing PHP5-compatible code? WTF is wrong with the PHP
developers?
If I didn't have so much code (whole product with contracts to support)
invested in PHP, I would switch in a heartbeat and never look back.
~~~
Maascamp
Python 2.x -> Python 3 Ruby 1.8 -> Ruby 1.9
Do you actually know anything about languages other than PHP and want to
change for legitimate reasons? Or are you just jumping on the bandwagon
because it sounds cool?
~~~
lux
I'm perfectly aware 1.8 to 1.9 was a pretty big move for Ruby folks (maybe
could've been called 2.0?), and 2.x to 3 in Python, that's the time for big
changes. I've also written real production software in about half a dozen
languages, so yes I do. I just happen to have a codebase of 100,000+ loc in
PHP that I support, so I'm kinda heavily invested in it more than the others.
It sucked trying to rework so much PHP4 code for PHP5 while keeping b/c, since
that felt like the slowest community migration to a new version I've ever
seen... But it seems like each additional release from PHP changes and breaks
something else. My codebase is older than many, so it's possible that's made
it a bit more brittle over time, but things like completely changing the
allowed characters in .ini file keys from 5.2 to 5.3 I find baffling. Yes,
speed things up or improve things, but consider that existing liberties you've
allowed may come to be relied on by your users. If you let them do something
in 5.2, make sure they can still do it in 5.3. I'm always careful myself to
make sure existing code will continue to work, and new features are offered as
optional or via new APIs. Code from 3.x of my software continues to run fine
on 5.x as a result, which lowers my support burdens.
So again, no I'm not just fanboying for other languages or falling for the
"grass is always greener" line of thinking. PHP just has certain inelegant
things that I find add to my overall frustration over time. I value terseness,
so things like -> versus . for objects adds up, just like $ versus nothing for
variables wears at the wrists too. I value consistency, so not remembering
which parameter goes first for in_array() versus strpos(), or why the
differences in naming add up too. Those are minor things that have been
present from the start, but then when I start getting emails from people
saying my software is messing up and I find out it's just that the latest
version of PHP totally broke something I'd been relying on, that frustration
is amplified tenfold.
------
sophacles
Hah, just be careful, having to go back the other way is kinda painful. I keep
a file for myself called pythonisms.php in it i define a few functions that
let me continue to think in ways I've come to love in python. One example, the
get function. It takes 3 arguments, and works like python's dict.get(). I
seriously have no idea how I did php without it.
------
ivankirigin
I'm going in the other direction right now. I have a sheet of notes titled
"PHP WTF". Seriously, PHP is such a mess. Thank Jesus for Thrift
<http://incubator.apache.org/thrift/>
------
electronslave
As a former academic gone mercenary, I love that programmers of all skill
levels can get into organization, language and specification through Python.
It's a wonderful gateway to learning, and in this case, it seems to have done
exactly what Python was specified to do!
For my own projects, I've used pretty much all the fad languages from BASIC to
Pascal to C. I've used industry-adopted languages like Tcl, Java and Perl.
I've experimented with Lisp and Erlang.
After all is said and done, I like Python/Cython/C. It gives me the option to
use a glue language for the Windows programming I've done, which is perfect.
It gives me a compiled (albeit ctypes-restricted) subset language for writing
hashing/storage/whatever functions. It gives me a super-awesome library set
that comes built-in.
I know it'll go away someday, but I'm glad to have worked in Python for as
long as I have.
~~~
hristov
You must be old. Basic hasn't been a fad since the 80s.
~~~
gaius
I assume he means VB(.NET).
~~~
electronslave
Now that this conversation is closed up, I'll date myself further. I do not
mean Visual Basic (nor Victoria Bitter.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sysdig Raises $13M and Launches Container-Native Monitoring - msarmento
https://sysdig.com/monitoring-as-a-microservice
======
wasnaga
Looks cool but do I need to be running containers?
~~~
msarmento
Actually no you don't. Sysdig specializes in container visibility but we have
customers that are getting plenty of value out of the product without using
containers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Complex Systems Fail (1998) - parentheses
https://how.complexsystems.fail/
======
dang
A fine submission, except that it was last discussed less than a year ago,
which puts it in the dupe window for HN (see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)).
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Buy the Humble Indie Bundle #3 with Bitcoins - elliottcarlson
https://www.btcdeals.com/humble-indie-bundle-3/
======
cjzhang
This doesn't seem to be through the main humble bundle site. Are you reselling
the bundles or something?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PxCode Challenge Day 2 – Give us your Sketch, and we give you the Code - pxcode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbQkXGBj2ho
======
pxcode
Give us your Sketch, and we give you the Code!
We make this page within 32 mins. Check our results below!
Preview the result here: [https://bit.ly/33hARHI](https://bit.ly/33hARHI)
Final source code at CodeSandBox:
[https://bit.ly/35rn8Rl](https://bit.ly/35rn8Rl)
------
HolaMan
A revolutionary programming way - visualize the coding process to achieve 10 -
20 times productivity
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Soyuz User Manual - samlittlewood
http://www.arianespace.com/launch-services-soyuz/Soyuz_Users_Manual_CSG_June06.pdf
======
russss
To elaborate, this manual refers to the Soyuz _rocket_ , not the spacecraft
which is flown to the ISS. Specifically, it's the interface documentation for
attaching your payload to it. (The Russians/Soviets have a long history of
naming their rockets and spacecraft identically.)
The ESA are collaborating with the Russians to build a Soyuz launch site at
Kourou in Guiana. It's pretty much a complete clone of the site at Baikonur:
[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SBynwXjyxKI/TZiECQqNtGI/AAAAAAAACS...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SBynwXjyxKI/TZiECQqNtGI/AAAAAAAACSo/QRr2B4CxUdw/s1600/SoyuzESA.jpg)
This gives commercial customers an increase in payload capacity compared to
launching from Baikonur because Kourou is nearer the equator (especially
relevant for geosynchronous orbits). Plus you get the legendary Soyuz
reliability.
I believe they're planning on the first launch from Kourou before the end of
2011.
------
arethuza
It has some great historical details of the Soyuz launcher at the end:
"Vehicles in this family have followed a conservative evolutionary path of
development, and have been in continuous and uninterrupted production and
flight for more than 45 years."
~~~
Typhon
It's more or less the same technology since 1957. It's the most reliable
rocket in the world.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_%28rocket_family%29>
------
mckoss
The chart on page 3-2 gives you a good idea of the G forces you'd experience
on a launch. Imagine the feeling of instantly taking away 3.5 Gs as each stage
blows away. Also notice how the Gs increase as the mass of fuel volume is
reduced during stage firing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists predict green energy revolution after new graphene discoveries - 3eto
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-predict-green-energy-revolution-after-incredible-new-graphene-discoveries-9885425.html
======
trishume
This may well be a very important and interesting discovery but I cringed a
few times at the poor explanation of some of the science.
Example: "a million times thinner than human hair, yet more than 200 times
stronger than steel" the word "yet" suggests that it is very strong in an
absolute sense _despite_ being so thin. Yet in reality the comparison is to an
atom-thick sheet of steel, which is not very strong at all. This strength
doesn't easily scale, as evidenced by the fact that graphite (lots of graphene
layers) is not 200 times stronger that steel. (note that my explanation of the
science may not be perfect but it is better than this article)
~~~
saosebastiao
> This strength doesn't easily scale, as evidenced by the fact that graphite
> (lots of graphene layers) is not 200 times stronger that steel.
This is an even worse explanation of the science. On the level of saying that
the strength of steel doesn't scale because I can bend pig iron with my hands.
------
Animats
Materials-science articles about a modest advance in surface chemistry (which
is usually called "nanotechnology") are regularly being hyped into "big
commercial breakthrough real soon now" articles. Nature and MIT Technology
Review (which, despite the name, is a commercial company) are the big
offenders. Super-battery or fuel cell articles appear frequently, but never
seem to result in actual products.
Hydrogen isn't an "energy source", anyway. You have to crack it out of water
or pull it out of hydrocarbons. Those processes are uphill energetically. At
best, hydrogen is a storage medium.
~~~
ChuckMcM
I agree with your assessment of the materials science articles but in this
case I think you missed the 'breakthrough' part.
Graphene allows positively charged hydrogen to pass through it. The thought
experiment is you create a vessel with an inner porous core, you wrap it in
graphene, and then you apply a vacuum. That device will pull any positively
charged hydrogen out of the atmosphere (which frankly isn't much except during
thunderstorms)
This behavior with graphene isn't unknown, the first example was noting that
graphene made for an exceptional water filter [1].
[1]
[http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=11561](http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=11561)
~~~
Animats
Even if that works, it may be subject to all the usual problems, such as
filter clog. This is a big problem with hydrogen fuel cells, which require
extremely pure hydrogen. It's a general problem with materials whose carefully
constructed surface structure has some unusual property. The surface structure
may be fragile.
A good example is NeverWet, the ultrahydrophobic coating. It repels water
because the surface is composed of tiny spikes, and water's surface tension
keeps the water supported on the surface of the spikes. This works so well
that mud will run off of shoes treated with it. The effect, though, doesn't
last long; even slight wear on the surface damages the micro-spikes. Reviews
of the product on Amazon agree: great at first, useless within hours to days
of use: ([http://www.amazon.com/Oleum-274232-Never-Multi-
Purpose/produ...](http://www.amazon.com/Oleum-274232-Never-Multi-
Purpose/product-reviews/B00DNQBFAW)).
------
upofadown
The article goes on about the idea of collecting hydrogen from the atmosphere
using a graphene filter. There is no appreciable amount of hydrogen in the
atmosphere.
~~~
Gravityloss
Using air humidity? Say we have 10 grams of water per cubic meter of air (so
about 1% of the total air mass), so about 1 gram of hydrogen.
At about 140 kJ/kg, and assuming a 10% reduction efficiency, and 100 watts per
square meter solar panel, it should be able to reduce 0,071 grams per second
or 260 grams per hour.
Assuming 10% of air moisture can be extracted, the wind passing through the
system to keep the water flow would need to be about 0,7 m/s. It's almost
always as windy as that.
The rough numbers are frighteningly good.
All we need is the system to be cheap.
~~~
danieltillett
... and some way to store and transport hydrogen. We can make hydrogen quite
cheaply right now (it is kindergarten technology), but once you try to store
and/or transport it then this is where things get really, really difficult
[1].
1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage)
~~~
Gravityloss
No, I assumed (in hindsight could have mentioned it) that you could use the
hydrogen locally to generate electricity. The thing is connected to the the
electricity network.
But I realized that is roughly the momentary day power of the panel. The real
yearly average production is maybe 15% of that.
Forgot the panel efficiency with this
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system#mediaviewer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system#mediaviewer/File:SolarGIS-
Solar-map-World-map-en.png)
------
thret
A bit OT but this reminded me of Maxwell's demon:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon)
------
andretti1977
Oops the site says "you've been hacked by the sirian electronic army (sea)"
------
SixSigma
No surprise there, they always hook it onto the cause de jour
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's your favorite corporate power move? - jppope
I've never been able to find a list so I figure I would ask y'all.<p>Examples of corporate power moves:<p>- Showing up 5 minutes late to a meeting, to show someone your time is more valuable.
- "The Hard CC" where you cc someone's boss to throw them under the bus for not being accountable.
- Having someone prepare a report or do a lot of work on something and then tell them to "simplify it" or just give you the "key points" in a meeting<p>What are your favorite (or least favorite if something drives you nuts) corporate power moves?
======
celim307
Giving my boss a heads up that I was gonna quit if things didn't change.
Things didn't change, so I quit. They had almost no other technical staff so
they called me asking to fix "just a couple little things". I quoted my rate
at 300$ an hour, minimum 20 hours. They balked. Three days later my former
boss calls me and agrees. I ended up billing 80 hours.
~~~
agumonkey
So weird how human nature works. The more I grow old, the more I see
everything is a struggle/war/negotiation.
I'm always looking for friendly high drive collaboration but it's so rarely
the case.
~~~
celim307
My new place is much better :)
------
themikesanto
I enjoy being a nice person and not fucking over other people for my own
personal gain.
~~~
mieseratte
Seconded, with the caveat that I enjoy fucking over those who fuck over my
team.
~~~
jessicalondon
+1 to this!
------
stronglikedan
I don't know if it's a power move, but I like to reiterate all verbal
communications in a follow up email to the person(s) I was conversing with,
prompting them to ensure I understood everything correctly. While it's more of
a CYA thing, the power move comes into play when they try to feign ignorance
on the topics of the conversation, and I can use their written words to set
the record straight (or just have a record of what _I_ may have understood,
but they failed to clarify by not responding to my follow up).
~~~
airbreather
I would call that good practice and reasonable manners, this is normal in my
professional circle and not doing it would be a dick move or maybe setting up
for an ambush.
Conflict arises from differing or unmet expectations, so continually managing
alignment of expectations is crucial to an end result where both parties feel
there has been a positive outcome.
------
LarryDarrell
Quitting. Especially effective in the Midwest U.S. where jobs are more scarce
and employers tend to take you for granted.
~~~
ok_coo
I'm not sure why you got downvoted, but I have to agree.
At least a couple of employers I had in smaller towns in the midwest would
treat employees like property, and would assume you would never (or be able
to) leave. "You should be grateful to even have a job" was common.
------
cottonseed
Being late isn't a power move, it's just makes you look disorganized and
disrespectful. This would have 100% the opposite of your intended effect with
me.
Real power moves are exercising real power: saying no and being able to back
it up, expressing a dissenting opinion, solving problems and providing real
value, brining in money, controlling budgets or headcount, threatening to quit
because you can/will, leading by organizing people to get something done,
articulating a framing for situations that cut through the BS, understand
people's motivations and what's actually going on, etc. These moves "take up
space," but don't confuse taking up space for power. People with actual power
won't.
So get to those meetings on time.
~~~
loco5niner
> Being late isn't a power move, it's just makes you look disorganized and
> disrespectful.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no
------
nathan_long
The classic programmer corporate power move is wearing whatever you want to
the office.
~~~
aloisdg
Metal/Video Game/Nerd T-shirt + Bermuda short + Espadrille was my main dress
code this summer. Skater shoes + cargo pant + hoodies right now. My power move
would be to switch to a sirwal (best pant ever!). I may try it. My god level
move would be to wear a mundu or a pareo.
~~~
ljm
I've done the pareo before on multiple occasions. The cooling factor in 30°+
heat is unrivalled.
Easily one of my favourite things to wear at work when the weather's good for
it. Probably want to practice putting one on and keeping it secure for a bit
first though - don't want it slipping off in front of people! (That would be a
different kind of power move.)
~~~
stronglikedan
How much cooler if you freeball it?
~~~
ljm
Hard to quantify it but it's far more comfortable due to the soft fabric and
lack of friction around the thighs. It's super refreshing not just with the
breeze but also because it's like shade for your legs.
It's honestly a shame that it's not socially acceptable (in the West) for men
to wear skirts and dresses.
~~~
AstralStorm
One of these days I should go to work in the fencing outfit. (Mask optional.)
Maybe even the full historical reconstruction set I have.
------
airbreather
The response of "noted".
You do a little scribble in your book or tablet or whatever and look up and
say "noted" and then just stare with a pregnant pause, indicating you are
waiting for the next meaningless "concern" to be articulated.
~~~
cyberpip
I do this all the time and didn't realize it was a power move. I find myself
saying it to curb additional discussion I feel like is going to be superfluous
- especially over slack or whatever. Noted!
------
seiko988
Employ or feign total ignorance of operations so no one can expect a raise,
because the boss/manager doesn't even know what you do here.
Assume loyalty only from those whom you have directly hired; remove all those
who predate you.
Make a strict deadline, but merrily add features at your whim, when the
deadline is missed, then act astonished "how could this have happened?"
Elicit sympathy from your underpaid minions for crashing your Porsche again
while auto racing.
~~~
farazbabar
I am sorry.
------
Blackstone4
Having confidence in myself and my own future. Enough so that I can say
exactly how I see a situation and I can deal with the consequences whether
positive or negative.
~~~
Blackstone4
To add to my comment, having learnt this 10 years into my career, I feel like
this thinking is a virtious circle. If I am able to communicate exactly what I
am thinking in a diplomatic manner, the more it is appreciated and the more
success I have. This leads to greater confidence and the more I express myself
in such a fashion.
------
mtmail
At $bigcorp we had a senior vice president continuing his phone calls in the
mens room (toilet) at the pissoirs. I can imagine he saw himself doing a power
move (I certainly didn't) showing how important or busy he is. He did wash his
hands at least.
~~~
smacktoward
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson used to take this power move a step further. In
one-on-one meetings with members of his staff, he would go into the bathroom
attached to his office, start urinating, and then _call the staff member into
the bathroom to continue the conversation._ They would then have to either go
into the bathroom and literally watch him relieve himself, or risk offending
their boss, who happened to also be the most powerful man in the world.
~~~
mieseratte
> They would then have to either go into the bathroom and literally watch him
> relieve himself, or risk offending their boss, who happened to also be the
> most powerful man in the world.
Those are the times you politely demur, and when pressed ask the "reducto ad
absurdum" question - "Sir, you wish for me to watch you urinate?" Helps if you
have a solid poker-face.
------
akman
From the comments, seems there is confusion on what you're looking for. I
sense sarcasm in your request, i.e., 'What are cargo cult things one can do to
show power?' But some responses are more genuine. If you make the ask clearer
in what you're really looking for, it'll make it easier to decipher the
responses.
My 2 cents...
~~~
jppope
Mea culpa. I could have been clearer. I was mainly looking for a "zoo of power
moves". definitely not advocating for the use of dis-respectful social tools.
I was mainly trying to identify what they look like out in the wild - the
good, bad, and ugly included.
------
allworknoplay
Document dump. Not software-related, but someone needs files for diligence and
either has some obnoxious request list or wants something you'd prefer they
not really know about; you just dump literally everything on them in terrible
formats to potentially obfuscate negatives and consume an enormous amount of
their time. Many people will find whatever they need to check the box and move
on. It's a dick move.
~~~
paleotrope
You mean hundreds of scanned pdf files without ocr and password protected with
different passwords isn't helpful?
------
wdhodges
CC boss is called "escalation" and is useful if direct requests don't work.
It's not throwing under the bus, its ensuring accountability. CC boss on the
first request is usually unnecessary.
Showing up late to meetings is indeed a "power move" but not respectful. Its
the same as "busy bragging", talking about how much work/meetings you have.
Both these are completely lame.
The biggest thing I see is holding the floor in meetings, even timing your
words and sentences to prevent interruption. This is sometimes necessary when
making brief, complete points, in a very aggressive environment. I like to
teach people how to break into the monologues.
~~~
mbrodersen
"busy bragging" tells me that you are unorganized/inefficient/trying to
impress (i.e. not powerful).
------
NoNotTheDuo
"Per my previous email" is my favorite. I usually attach the prior email that
answers the question.
~~~
Blackstone4
Isn't this passive aggresive? Would you do this in real life? I feel like this
thinking would breed bad culture and is a short-term win at the expense of a
long-term relationship.
~~~
jerf
"It depends". I've used this when someone is claiming to their boss that we
never communicated something, generally in situations where we've been
communicating like crazy, but possibly not with them _directly_ , but via
emails to the several affected parties.
Generally I assume that the person is just forgetting because they are very
busy rather than out to get me, but, nevertheless, you have to defend yourself
against that sort of thing. Passive-aggressive in this case is superior to
aggressive-aggressive. If you don't defend your reputation, nobody will.
~~~
Blackstone4
I generally agree with what you said. Maybe I take issue with the phrasing:
"Per my previous email" I feel like it triggers some people. I prefer to try
and soften it by saying something along the lines of: "I don't know if you got
my previous email (see attached)"
~~~
AstralStorm
That one is additionally condescending, implying the recipient cannot handle
their email.
Good job!
------
RocketSyntax
These just sound petty, not powerful
~~~
ljm
Wholesome corporate power moves, also known as being a good leader:
\- Allowing your team to work remotely if they want to
\- Assuming responsibility for something that needs doing when it would be
easier to pass the buck
\- Shielding your team mates from unwarranted external criticism
the complete list is practically endless
------
stepvhen
The "Hard CC" isn't a power move its how things get done. I constantly check
in to make sure I'm doing my job right and when I am and the problem isn't
fixed, its time for it to be someone else's problem.
source: working in Support.
------
thefrenchsmith
My boss never accepts calendar invites for meetings, and may or may not show
up to the scheduled meeting.
Brilliant filter since people will ask again if she's really needed, vs just
invited for show.
------
cspags
Being the only remote employee when the rest of the company is onsite.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Huh. Achieved that at my previous job (3 days out, 2 days in), but the effect
was ultimately opposite to what you'd expect. Sure, initially I was _the_
person that managed to convince management to give them remote work. Fast
forward couple months, I was next to nobody on the floor, because I couldn't
keep up with the social aspects of the workplace and wasn't present at the
relevant watercooler conversations.
------
human20190310
I like to leave at exactly 5pm.
~~~
RocketSyntax
Ha. Slave to the man. Do you badge out too?
~~~
human20190310
Few people can entirely avoid having to work for a living.
------
legohead
Refusing to sign NDAs and non-competes
------
cryptoz
How are these power moves? They transfer your power to someone else? Showing
up late for a meeting purely to waste time tells the other person you are
extremely inconsiderate and someone they should actively avoid.
If I value my time, why would I spend any of it around you??
The rest of these things are just extremely rude, I cannot understand why
you'd call them 'power moves'. They show insecurity and a desire to destroy
the company you work in, not 'power'.
~~~
rgoulter
They're certainly quite rude. It's possible the OP isn't sincere in asking for
more ways to be rude.
In a sense, being rude is a signal of power, because if you're rude and not
powerful then you'd get punished for being rude. (As you say, I wouldn't wanna
work anyone who behaves so rudely, though). [https://medium.com/incerto/how-
to-legally-own-another-person...](https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-
own-another-person-4145a1802bf6)
~~~
jppope
(OP here) I am 100% not advocating the use of "power moves". I don't believe
they grow mutual respect or help build constructive work environments... but
let's be real, any of us that exist in the real world have seen this stuff
from time to time and like everything, there are good and bad versions of it.
The "Ask HN" is meant to be of an "observational" nature. My aim is that the
discussion provides utility for understanding social dynamics, and hopefully
people use discretion with the info (i.e. Hanlon's razor).
Hopefully the info can be used to help people navigate their lives better.
------
RocketSyntax
Scheduling an offsite or business trip to avoid trivial initiatives you don't
want to deal with.
~~~
jppope
nice.
------
ghostbrainalpha
I didn't start doing this because it was a "power move" although its been
pointed out to me that it was since.
My company like big 20 person meetings where my portion of the agenda may only
be 5 minutes long.
The rest of the meeting I will listen to what is going on, chime in when
relevant, but I keep on coding so I can meet my deadlines. This bothers some
people who think your full attention should be on the meeting, but honestly it
just isn't required for me so I multitask.
------
mturmon
The re-org in which dead wood is shunted off to an out-of-the way planning or
strategy assignment.
Extra points for dotted-line reporting to another strategy person. Further
extra points if the planning assignment is not funded adequately and/or has no
personnel authority.
------
maliker
Pretty much every scene in the movie Margin Call.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhy7JUinlu0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhy7JUinlu0)
------
stunt
I don’t know what kind of corporate culture you are dealing with but I
personally believe in Open,Honest,Direct approach to solve my problems.
------
segmondy
Canceling the meeting after 3 minutes to show them you don't tolerate
lateness.
------
zwieback
"What I'm hearing you say .." and then say what you want to happen.
~~~
jppope
lol. Yep seen many a manager use that
------
tpae
Working from home
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
10 Must-Have Google Chrome Extensions for Web Developers - mdolon
http://devgrow.com/top-10-google-chrome-extensions/
======
elxx
Web Developer is a Firefox favorite of mine that also has a Chrome version
available now. (<http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/>)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reddit users could be held accountable for suicide... say what? - ryangilbert
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/12/nine-reddit-users-could-be-slapped-with-wrongful-death-suit-in-suicide-case/
======
killnine
"Our family has decided to take legal action not only against his ex-wife, but
those who urged him on to take his own life. Next week, our lawyer will be
filing a wrongful death suit in Washington State against nine individuals. Our
lawyer hired a private investigator and three of the individuals have been
identified from those who urged Jerry to kill himself. Subpoenas will be
issued to find the identity of the other three, though it is possible that
they were the same people. We don’t know yet. We were told by our lawyer not
to give any other information out such as our full names or the people to be
named in the lawsuit"
I am bad at math , but.........?
~~~
kylemaxwell
Six of the defendants are people other than the Reddit commenters, apparently.
------
itg
This is what happens when blogs and tech "news" sites report on stuff without
doing any fact checking at all. Plenty of redditors did a bit more digging
around and it seems to be a hoax since there is no link between the guy who
committed suicide and the posting. There is no subnoea served and the police
report doesn't have any links between them. It's one group of redditors who
dislike another group and seem to be trolling.
Anyway, I don't think these stories belong on hn, so flagged.
~~~
dgabriel
Agreed. This seems to be part of a troll feud between ideologically opposed
subreddits. I find it tedious.
------
kylemaxwell
I've no idea of the legality involved, but from a moral and ethical
perspective, egging on a depressed, suicidal person is immoral and ethical
with a possible few exceptions (e.g. terminally ill person wishing to cut
short a remaining painful period). Ironic, perhaps, that these Reddit users
probably got karma on the site at the same time they in fact earned negative
karma under whatever value system you prefer.
~~~
ryangilbert
"Ironic, perhaps, that these Reddit users probably got karma on the site at
the same time they in fact earned negative karma under whatever value system
you prefer." Probably true... so sad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CEO dares Microsoft to sue him over virtual desktops that flout licensing - GreekOphion
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/03/ceo-dares-microsoft-to-sue-him-over-virtual-desktops-that-flout-licensing.ars
======
forrestthewoods
This really is a fascinating problem. If Guise Bule gets his way the the
maximum number of software licenses sold would be equivalent to the maximum
number of concurrent users. I don't think that's particularly desirable for
either developers or users.
A similar situation exists with video games. The market is going pure digital
and gamers want the ability to sell "used" digital games. If that were
possible then a middleman service would appear which would instantly "buy" and
"sell" the game as you launched and closed a game. A wildly successful game
such as Skyrim sells millions of copies but only had ~300,000k concurrent
users (on PC) at launch. A couple of months later and that number is only
~50,000. Suffice to say this will never be allowed to happen.
~~~
psykotic
This already happened for video games under similar circumstances with
Internet cafes. These days the typical video game EULA prohibits use in
Internet cafes without a special license, but as far as I know that has not
been tested in court. The easier workaround from the developer and publisher's
point of view is to just go online-only, which to a large extent has already
happened, especially in Asia where gaming in Internet cafes is widespread.
~~~
forrestthewoods
Nice point! Valve has a special program just for cyber cafes
(<https://cafe.steampowered.com/index.php> ). I have no idea how much it costs
but you can pay some recurring subscription for access to a large number of
titles. My impression is that most popular cafes pay this and it does very
well for both Valve and the cafes.
~~~
bane
"Add a wide range of 100+ popular titles to your catalogue.
We provide complimentary promotional materials and marketing support for your
cafés.
We are happy to support for in-café tournaments and special events. Please let
us know about your upcoming events.
All participants have access to the private Café Forums where they may discuss
trends and issues in the cybercafé industry with fellow café owners and
operators."
Once again Valve is showing the world how things should be done, is wildly
successful, and nobody else seems to pay attention.
It shouldn't be such a huge issue to just meet your customer in the middle.
------
jlawer
The funny thing is the worst thing Microsoft could do to this is ignore
them.... That would leave the issue unresolved, exactly what the Desktop as a
Service people don't want.
I suppose the real question is if Microsoft's position on the desktop makes it
illegal to do a favorable deal with On-Live? I am not aware if this would be
illegal or not? One would think it would be at least against the spirit of the
law to carve out a market niche for a microsoft "old boy" and protect it
through their monopoly position... but it wouldn't surprise me if there is no
regulation in place to stop this.
I am wondering what the shareholders think. They are refusing to license to
most players in order to protect windows and office on the desktop. On the
other hand they are giving up a new non-trivial revenue stream during the
transition period. I would think a lot of investors would want to take the
short term cash and run.
Having previously worked for Red Hat on the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
support team, it always was strange looking at the VDI products that it was SO
SO expensive to run the infrastructure purely due to Microsoft Licensing.
Microsoft don't want to loose the grip so they make VDI licensing difficult,
instead pushing mixed virtualization where you need to run windows on your
desktop as well.
VDI struck me as almost purely a windows solution. If your running linux you
have a range of other options to have multiple users on a single
infrastructure in a workable way without having hundreds of VMs.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Why don't more Desktop as a Service organizations get together and refine
LibreOffice to heavily compete against Microsoft?
It clearly works; look at other open source solutions that are a collaborative
effort. Linux as a whole, Python, Ruby, OpenStack, etc.
~~~
rbanffy
LibreOffice's codebase is enormous and complicated. It's being cleaned up, but
it may still be hard to maintain. It's doable, of course, but if you implement
too much Office compatibility, you risk Microsoft suing you for some frivolous
patent they keep just for the purpose of crushing LibreOffice when it becomes
a threat.
~~~
rbanffy
It's interesting how the downvoting of comments critical to Microsoft is time-
related (down trends around noon and midnight UTC, up trends shifted about 6
hours). One day I'll have to write a bot to check up/down votes and relate
them to sentiment.
The demographics may prove interesting.
~~~
rbanffy
to say nothing about downvoting of comments that are made to the wrong
comments ;-)
That should teach me not to post right before going to bed.
------
vDesktop
Guise Bule here !
Am just about to begin an IAmA on reddit if you fancy joining me there :
<http://bit.ly/redditor>
Or follow my updates on twitter about this :
<https://twitter.com/#!/Guise_Bule>
OR go read my blog post : <http://bit.ly/MicroFap>
~~~
Drbble
Wow, with that bitly URL for your AMA, you could launch a second career as an
Internet marketing consultant.
~~~
vDesktop
Yeah, attention to detail is important :)
------
Osiris
I'm curious, why don't they just provide Windows Server 2008 R2? With the
Desktop Experience installed, it's functionally identical to Windows 7, and
you can license an unlimited copies on Windows Server Datacenter Edition,
which is $3,000 per CPU.
I have a hosted WS2008R2 instance that I can RDP into and use for whatever I
want. Are there some other licensing constraints that prevent WS2008 from
being used in that manner?
------
savrajsingh
This is definitely an interesting space. I keep a Parallels Windows 7 VM on my
machine, and I use it for the amazing features in the Windows version of
Microsoft Office (former MS Office UI PM here). If I could replace that with
an always up-to-date cloud-based copy (I'm always installing security patches
since I rarely boot it) I'd do so in a heartbeat.
------
jpdoctor
Not that I don't admire the guy's bravado, but there is no obligation for
Microsoft to sue everyone equally.
IANAL so correct as necessary, but he seems like he's tilting at windmills.
~~~
rbanffy
nknight points this out very well:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3726555>
~~~
jpdoctor
Not really. The amount of time and money for DOJ to prosecute microsoft the
first time was huge, and there are competing virtual desktops, so good luck
getting them on this point.
~~~
nknight
Antitrust cases against big companies are always going to be expensive, but
one of the many stupid things the DOJ and states did in the Microsoft case was
making Microsoft fight for its life. It was unnecessarily aggressive and drove
up the expense.
And, there were competing browsers and operating systems during the first
case, too. The mere existence of competitors does not preclude antitrust
action. Just ask AT&T and T-Mobile.
~~~
jpdoctor
> _The mere existence of competitors does not preclude antitrust action._
Agreed. I just don't see the anti-competitive behavior around virtual desktops
that we did with WinOS and IE, so I think it would be a very tough sell.
~~~
rbanffy
What are the reasons to favor one specific vendor giving it a key advantage
over the other? Microsoft seems to be clearly playing favorites here. What are
they trying to do? Give a monopoly to their favorite vendor? Is it legal to
use your monopoly to expand someone else's? Can we really call this company,
with its seemingly deep and strong ties to Microsoft, a separate entity? If
it's not, this is clearly something the DoJ should look into.
~~~
chc
"Use your monopoly"? What monopoly is Microsoft using?
~~~
regularfry
That over the Windows desktop. There's nobody else you can get a license from.
------
powertower
I don't get it...
If I provide a virtualized hardware desktop hosting platform that can enable
the client to load an ISO of Windows and enter his own serial key, am I
violating any Windows hosted desktop restrictions?
Or am I only violating it if I supply the serial keys (from legit
separate/per-customer/never re-asigned OEM copies)?
I think it's the latter, because in the former there is absolutly no contract
between myself and Microsoft. What the client does with my platform is his
business and doing. If he activates Windows there, that's between him and
Microsoft.
So what is the problem that these articles are trying to point out? How is it
difficult for customers to buy their own OEM copy and supply a serial key?...
Cusomter goes to your panel, clicks to load some already predefined or
prehosted VHD or ISO, then supplies serial key him/herself. Problem solved? Or
is this all about the cost of OEM copies?
~~~
wvenable
From the article: "We do know from Microsoft's blog post that vendors can only
host Windows 7 desktops in a virtual desktop infrastructure setting if the
customers buy their own licenses from Microsoft. Even if this requirement is
met, the vendor must host the desktops on separate physical hardware for each
customer, ruling out a multitenant arrangement."
You might be able to enable the client to load an ISO of Windows and have him
enter his serial key _but_ you'd have to separate hardware for each customer
making any virtualization completely pointless.
------
brisance
I don't think Microsoft is playing favorites with OnLive; rather, they are
trying to save their hardware "partners" from certain doom since they do not
have any such offerings. This would indirectly impact Microsoft itself since
OEM licensing makes Microsoft a lot of money.
------
J3L2404
Well it is digital so a copy of it is only like savoring the scent.
~~~
vonkow
It's software, everything's a digital copy.
------
alanh
I’m going to lose mad karma, but we have done all this before, so:
_zzzzzZZZZZZZ_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VUE, Behavioral analytics for mobile users is crowdfunding - waynesutton
https://ramen.is/projects/get-vue-analytics
======
kumarski
How does this affect the speed of the app...?
~~~
blaurenceclark
Hey Kumarski, the app performance change is negligible and a majority of the
work is done in the background, being a UX/Behavior analytics tool, focusing
on not changing the application performance at all is key.
~~~
glovedotcom
blaurenceclark - When you say "one line of code to add the SDK" can you add
some light? Is your plan to track ALL interactions of the user...thats a lot
of data to triage :)
~~~
blaurenceclark
We track interactions/behaviors that matter. From working with a number of
apps we've been able to identify and combine interactions to make the amount
of data to manage much smaller and easier to triage
~~~
blaurenceclark
Using similar language to the asked question :)
~~~
glovedotcom
could become a scaling problem quick...but i suspect those are problem for
future blaurenceclark to solve after the customers start flowing in ... im
intrigued indeed
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Packing heat gets you shot, say profs - billpg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/04/guns_attract_bullets/
======
newsdog
not true - those guys got shot due to their gansta lifestyle, guns were
orthogonal to that
~~~
CWuestefeld
Right. The only explanation offered for the shootings was muggings. I wonder
how much that explains, though. There are certainly those, but also gangsta
stuff as the parent post notes; crimes of passion; drunken idiots; and on and
on.
Seems like a stupid study, as we really can't draw any kind of conclusions
from it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I learn Vala to develop cross-platform software? - yapcguy
Vala is a C# like language, which compiles down to C. It uses GObject from GTK+ as it's base object class. For UI programming, the bindings to GTK+ are pretty good. There are no bindings to QT. I have been playing around with the language on both Linux and Mac OS X. While Vala is still a work-in-progress, it is used in production in applications like Geany and Shotwell. Should I learn GTK+ and Vala or should I use QT and C++ to develop cross-platform desktop apps? Who has more momentum and is likely to be dominant in 5 to 10 years?
======
dubcanada
This is just my opinion, but...
I don't see GTK and Vala lasting very long. For one, GTK3 doesn't even have a
windows version, there are some random people who made one, but no community
supported windows version. GTK3 is also less popular then QT, GTK3 only being
more popular on Linux. While QT looks better and runs better on both windows
and mac.
I like Vala and GTK and I've contributed to elementary OS for a while now. But
every day they get questions about why they use Vala. So... People don't
generally like it or use it.
But... really use whatever you want. If you like or need C, use GTK. If you
like or use C++ use QT. If you use C and want a little more, try Vala. If you
need Windows or really good mac. Use C++ and QT, or do the backend in C or C++
and platform specific frontend. Even with QT5, Mac users will know, because
certain things still look off
Another popular idea seems to be using HTML and JavaScript for your frontend
with things like CEF.
------
switch33
Learn whatever you want I would say. It's your own choice. But in general it's
good to develop learning a language that is applicable to other software
development. Learning C or C++ for that matter is a lot better because C has a
great relationship to show you what assembly does.
QT also has it's strengths/weaknesses. Try using
[http://libnui.github.io/nui3/](http://libnui.github.io/nui3/) if you want it
may be easier.
~~~
yapcguy
I already know C and have experience with ObjC and some C#. I've gone through
the Vala tutorials, not really too complicated.
I prefer to use a language like ObjC or Vala to do GUI programming, but QT
appears to have momentum (e.g. LXDE porting to QT, Linus Torvalds porting his
diving app Subsurface to QT [1]) which means having to use C++ as the bindings
to other languages are always somewhat lagging.
Perhaps C++11 is better for keeping one's sanity, but I haven't used C++ in a
long time and I never really missed it, so I'm not sure I would enjoy QT and
C++ programming.
[1]
[https://plus.google.com/105872806106213007611/posts/MwiTc3cH...](https://plus.google.com/105872806106213007611/posts/MwiTc3cHKgi)
------
rprospero
Is there any particular reason that you've chosen to limit yourself to just
Vala/GTK+ or C++/QT?
For my current job, I've had to write cross platform GUIs in Python/wxWidgets,
Mathematica, Racket, Tcl/Tk, Haskell/GLUT, LabView, Clojure/Seesaw, and
Perl/Tk. From a longevity perspective, Clojure is the only language that's not
older than Vala by at least a decade.
None of those languages are a silver built and there's a couple I hope that I
never have to touch again, but sometimes using the right tool can save you a
bunch of heartache.
~~~
yapcguy
I build desktop apps for the Mac but want to build cross-platform software
going forward. A native look'n'feel is a bonus, as well as easy deployment. I
also don't want to be tied down to proprietary APIs like I am on the Mac with
Cocoa, Core(Whatever), etc.
From a language perspective I prefer Objective-C, C#, Vala over C++. Personal
taste. Sadly those languages don't have bindings to the toolkit which seems to
have the most momentum, QT. There are third-party C# bindings to QT, Qyoto,
but that requires using Mono which for some Linux users is a no no no.
------
AsmMan2
Short answer: No.(IMHO). What about D? it may be dominant in some years.
I don't seen vala in real world development, a good community about vala... in
fact,I'm not a vala expect, but what are the great vala's features? who is
working on to make this a real world language? and improve it? I don't seen a
good reason to invest in vala language. Just change to something like D.
------
FrankBro
This might be off-topic but if you want to see some good examples, elementary
OS uses it for most of their applications. I tried it a while ago and really
loved some of the features (integrated contract driven programming, yes
please). However, as with most new languages, had problems with availability
of tools, tutorials and libraries.
------
artificialidiot
I see no use of vala code in geany source. Am I missing something?
Vala is not suitable for anything production ready because of its half assed
memory management semantics. I believe it is better to invest in C++11 at this
point than vala. At least, it would be a little bit easier to use libraries
which don't have a binding.
~~~
yapcguy
Apologies, I meant Geary the email client which is written in Vala. Geany is
an IDE which has support for Vala.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How should a software engineer go about making a website? - AgathaTheWitch
I have been a professional software developer for four years now and must confess, I have never made a website. Mostly I have done systems engineering (Deployment, security, database infrastructure) but also some QA work and Java app development.<p>I wrote a fiction book in my spare time and would like to create a site to promote it and possibly develop the IP into other products. I already have a domain. The thing is, there are so many ways to create websites. I want a framework that is easy to use but also not too cookie-cutter. I've heard good things about Squarespace.<p>My best languages are Python, Java, and Ruby. Pretty solid with Unix (I've written hundreds of BASH scripts) and I wouldn't mind writing HTML and CSS if necessary. I know Javascript a bit too.<p>Anyway what do you folks recommend?
======
jqm
Wordpress? (Kidding...). I like Python Flask or Python Bottle.
For a small site I would just write the HTML. I realize this isn't a popular
opinion nowadays, but sometimes it beats monkeying with frameworks in my
opinion. Especially when you don't need to. And easier to set up hosting on
shared hosting services. Check the purecss.io post from earlier this morning.
They have some nice layouts.
~~~
tomek_zemla
Exactly! You will probably enjoy learning a few things by building a simple
site from scratch and you will have a better feel for selecting any frameworks
after. I would recommend getting this beautiful book by Jon Duckett that
covers both the design and development basics for a website:
[http://www.amazon.com/HTML-CSS-Design-Build-
Websites/dp/1118...](http://www.amazon.com/HTML-CSS-Design-Build-
Websites/dp/1118008189/ref=sr_1_1)
------
atmosx
Hello,
Ruby should be your language of choice for anything 'web', among the ones you
know. Might be helpful in the future for other projects as well.
As most people said, Sinatra (+HAML or LESS), is an excellent framework to
build up a simple website really fast.
However, I'd say go a step 'up' and use octopress[1]. It's a Jekyll-based
blogging platform. You can set it up on Github, to avoid hosting. If you're
not expecting extremely high traffic Github is fine for static content and JS.
It's flexible enough to do whatever you really wanna do and there's plenty of
documentation online.
You can find many of themes and howto's on how to use 'Liquid' in order to
roll your own or modify one of the current themes. It shouldn't take more than
2 days to have something acceptable, a little longer if you plan to design a
theme from ground-up.
Good luck :-)
[1] [http://octopress.org/](http://octopress.org/)
------
DanBC
FORM OVER FUNCTION.
You have a fiction book. People will want to know what genre it is; what the
reviews say; what it looks like; a sample chapter; where to buy it; publisher
and ISBN and etc. If you're lucky they'll want to discuss it with other
readers or to ask you questions.
If I'm in a bookshop and I see a book, and I websearch it there are a few
things that happen.
1) I get a great website. I am more likely to buy the book.
2) I get a terrible website. I am less likely to buy the book.
A terrible website is one that does a bunch of stuff before I get to the
information I need.
------
insky
Well it seems to me that you are very happy to write scripts so wouldn't be
alergic to writing a little bit of code.
I'd suggest you pick out of your best languages the one you prefer. And go
with that.
Write a few pages of text in something like Markdown or RST (python). Use a
microframework like Bottle (python), that resolves a route
(example.com/about/) to a function. In that function convert your micro-markup
to html, that you then wrap further in a template.
You can find some free html templates available on-line.
Before that, plan the site, define what it is and jot down your expectations
of what it will do. Look at similar sites. Note the ones you like.
Draw up how the pages will be connected. For what you describe, it sounds like
you only need a few pages. With the homepage listing news/updates. When you
add something to the site (news) syndicate elsewhere, with links back (i.e.
Twitter, Facebook).
If I was a fan, I'd probably want to join a community. Perhaps a newsletter
and/or fan forum would be a good addition. You may want to manage a mailing
list and/or a web forum.
If you have a web forum, you might want to stick that on another domain (or
subdomain). You should be able to find an off the shelf solution for that. It
doesn't need to be in the same language as your main site. Or hosted in the
same place.
Getting different web components (forums, etc) to match cohesively theme-wise
is a bit of a challenge. But it's not necessarily needed in my opinion.
Personally as a fan I'm more interesting in content. You could however pay
someone to theme the site after you have it working. That's easier if you
restrict yourself to a minimal amount of templates.
There are millions of frameworks out there to choose from. Start with
something very simple like bottle, it will introduce concepts and if you want
to take it further later on you can.
If you haven't written a web page at all before, then basic html is a good
place to start (elements: html, head, body, head, h1, h2, p, a, ul) page is a
good place to start. Compose two html pages, link them back and forth to each
other and try and add an image and text to both. You don't need a fancy web
server to do that, you can just open a text file and start writing, and test
in your web browser.
~~~
insky
I wrote a quick shell one liner that aggregates text files and simple
templates into resulting html files.
find ./txt/ -type f -name '*.txt' -print0 | xargs -0 -I£ sh -c 'newname=$(basename £ .txt).html; cat templates/header.html £ templates/footer.html > html/$newname'
Each new page (html file) is a sandwich. The filling could be transformed
markdown rather than plain text. A little find and replace for titles, and
such like would make for quite an easy static site generator.
I even found a bash markdown transformer:
[https://github.com/chadbraunduin/markdown.bash](https://github.com/chadbraunduin/markdown.bash)
------
canterburry
Honestly, for what you are trying to do, I would go bootstrap or foundation
framework, HTML5 and CSS3. Not even JavaScript. That's it.
Skip the SASS, LESS, Python, WordPress, Flask or other stuff everyone here is
talking about. You don't need it.
Some plain static webpages. Period.
------
chriswessels
Ruby is a terrible choice. Use a Node.js based static site generator. You
could even host on Amazon S3 (super low cost but globally distributed and
redundant)! Look at Whitesmith/Blacksmith/etc.
~~~
mahesh_gkumar
Pray tell, why is ruby a terrible choice? You can get a basic website up and
running with Rails in less than 10 mins.
~~~
not_kurt_godel
Because you're running a webserver which can crash or otherwise fall over to
serve static content when you could be running a literally zero-maintenance
alternative.
------
YoAdrian
You might start with Github Pages:
[https://pages.github.com/](https://pages.github.com/). It's all Ruby and
pretty easy to use.
------
mkobar
This is what Tails is doing:
[https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/replace_truecrypt/](https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/replace_truecrypt/)
------
adam419
Ruby + Sinatra
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Assange's Op-Ed in The Australian - teoruiz
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mediadiary/index.php/australianmedia/comments/julian1/
======
sachitgupta
Similar discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1978955>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Mystery of the Creepiest Television Hack - mjschultz
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/headroom-hacker
======
mjschultz
Also, here is the Wikipedia article on the matter [1]. And a Reddit thread
(presented as one of the theories in the article) [2].
[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion_incident)
[2]:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eeb6e](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eeb6e)
------
Mithaldu
This is a very long article. Is it just a rehash of what happened, or does it
contain any new info figured out in the past year?
~~~
MWil
If you haven't read the reddit thread from within the last year then it
certainly has a great amount of new information. In fact, I thought the reddit
theory was a more compelling story than this article
~~~
dfc
I couldn't get past the writing style in the reddit post. Maybe it will be
less abrasive in the morning with fresh eyes and some rest.
------
middleclick
What a well-written and researched article. An absolutely fascinating read!
------
stox
I still think someone from the Ripco crew were involved. They were mighty
conveniently located. Maybe, someday, someone will spill the beans.
------
jccalhoun
great article. One correction, however: They say one "suspect" was in "nearby"
Bloomington, Indiana but Bloomington isn't really near Chicago. It is in
Southern Indiana, about 4 hours away from Chicago and to get to Chicago you
have to go through Indianapolis, so if someone from Bloomington were to do
something like this it seems much more likely they would do it in Indianapolis
or even Louisville or Cincinnati which are both closer than Chicago.
~~~
todd3834
Unless that was part of how they intended to avoid getting caught
------
elwell
is that the same character on the tv's in eminem's new video?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGs_qK2PQA)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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EC2 Instance Update – X1 (SAP HANA) and T2.Nano (Websites) - runesoerensen
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/ec2-instance-update-x1-sap-hana-t2-nano-websites/
======
kimcheekumquat
>X1 instances will feature up to 2 TB of memory, a full order of magnitude
larger than the current generation of high-memory instances. These instances
are designed for demanding enterprise workloads including production
installations of SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, Apache Spark, and Presto.
>The X1 instances will be powered by up to four Intel® Xeon® E7 processors.
The processors have high memory bandwidth and large L3 caches, both designed
to support high-performance, memory-bound applications. With over 100 vCPUs,
these instances will be able to handle highly concurrent workloads with ease.
Can't wait to launch one of these.
~~~
kchoudhu
I assume I'll have to declare personal bankruptcy as soon as I launch one.
~~~
jewel
As a point of comparison, the Dedibox Extreme SP launched in 2013 and has 1TB
of RAM and costs €1899.99/month.
[http://documentation.online.net/en/serveur-
dedie/offres/serv...](http://documentation.online.net/en/serveur-
dedie/offres/serveur-dedibox-extreme-sp/server-extreme-sp)
~~~
toomuchtodo
Physical servers at other providers are almost universally cheaper than AWS.
At AWS, you're paying for it to be in your same account, have access to your
other AWS resources, etc.
EDIT: This is not to hate on AWS. I love AWS! (I do devops and
infrastructure). Its to say, if you need what AWS offers, buy it. If you
don't, architect your solution around other providers.
~~~
chimeracoder
> At AWS, you're paying for it to be in your same account, have access to your
> other AWS resources, etc.
You're forgetting the biggest part: you're also paying for the _flexibility_.
Subject to availability, you can provision and deprovision AWS resources at
will, which gives you far greater granularity than you can do with your own
hardware.
This flexibility enables you to save in the long run if you manager your
resources appropriately, but it also comes at a per-unit premium.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Very much this. If you're starting out or have a very dynamic load pattern
(Netflix), AWS is for you. If you have a fixed load pattern, you can see quite
a bit savings going to dedicated hardware (Stackoverflow/Stackexchange).
------
jewel
2TB of RAM would cost $31k or so when built out of 32GB chips.
I don't know if EC2 is done this way, but imagine if the T2.micro class was
running on these servers (to save physical footprint). At 1.3¢ per hour, the
server would bring in $227k/year.
------
trjordan
I know it's happening, but I'm so surprised to see them cater to technologies
like SAP HANA. 3 years ago, there was basically no overlap between people who
wanted to run products from SAP/Oracle and people who influenced product
offerings from AWS.
Obviously, that's different today.
~~~
edwinnathaniel
hi @trjordan, long time no hear ;)
It's amazing to see the progress from anti-cloud (or private-cloud) to "we're
cloud only" within that timeframe (I'm referring to companies that was hard-on
on-premise).
AFAIK, SAP HANA is being used by NBA (NBA.com/Stats), NFL, NHL
([http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=754248](http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=754248))
to provide real time statistics for the whole league. I wonder if they want to
move their infrastructure to AWS.
PS: I work for SAP
~~~
AndyNemmity
I know way too much about this to respond, but I'll just say there are a lot
of pieces driving this. :)
~~~
edwinnathaniel
Send me an email :D, would love to hear the story.
------
AndyNemmity
It'll be nice, I'm in the middle of building a 14 node HANA cluster, and it
would be much easier to just have it all on AWS provided I get the same
performance.
edit: let alone the fact I could take it down when not in use. That's a
ridiculously cool thought. the price of this thing all together is insane.
------
garyrichardson
"640K ought to be enough for anybody" \- Bill Gates, 1981
I can't wait to spin up a 64 node cluster of these new X1's.
~~~
strictnein
> "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one
> involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is
> enough for all time … I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to
> me that says 640 K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the
> quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again." \- Bill
> Gates, 1996
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed)
------
late2part
Very cool. I'm not an AMZN or AWS fanboy, but this is really neat stuff, and
very impressive how much they continue to increase their market lead.
~~~
monksy
I just wish there was a good competitor that bundled the other services like
they do.
~~~
nullrouted
Both Azure and GCE are competitors, both have pretty feature rich clouds. They
may not have feature parity but I'm guessing what they do have fits 70-80% of
peoples needs (Compute, Database, Storage, DNS, Load Balancing).
------
nivertech
My speculation is that X1 instances is where Amazon QuickSight in-memory BI
service is running.
------
nabaraz
Hacker news has become AWS news lately. In serious note, I am curious to see
pricing structure on X1.
~~~
ShaneOG
AWS re:Invent[0] is taking place this week, so there are a lot of news and
announcements.
[0] [https://reinvent.awsevents.com/](https://reinvent.awsevents.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you accept LinkedIn connection requests from recruiters? - johnhess
Let's assume you're open to new opportunities.<p>Does it look odd to have a bunch of connections to recruiters? Is it worthwhile?
======
jsinkwitz
Yes, but not for the reason you're thinking.
Recruiters and sales people (guilty!) tend to network exceptionally well,
which means by connecting with them, you'd just significantly expanded your
2nd level connections within your own industry.
Winz
~~~
k__
hehe, yes did the same.
But then a recruiter I didn't know wrote me how he heared that people say I'm
a real good JavaScript developer. I asked him who says this and his reference
was another of these recruiters I didn't know.
This I found rather suspicious...
------
taprun
I went out of my way to connect with recruiters because it extends my network.
Two benefits:
1) It makes me a 2nd level connection to lots of people I probably _do_ care
about. 2) It ups my visible number of connections and makes me _look_
important. People see 500+ connections and assume I'm someone important.
~~~
Gustomaximus
For this connections number, I now look at connections to skill
recommendations ratio. Generally I see someone as genuinely connected if they
have ~10% skill recommendation numbers for their top skill as they do
connections. If someone have 500+ connections and 10 people have hit a skill
recommendation you know they are spammy.
------
Davidbrcz
I will accept one if the recruiter is targeting me. That means he/she wrote a
custom message, read my profile, propose me something...
Each time that I was asked, they were on a frenzy and it looked like they were
connecting to as many people as they could
------
lmilcin
LinkedIn is meant to create networks for recruiters and candidates. Waiting to
build your network until you actually need work is like waiting to make your
backups until after you had an outage.
As a rule I will accept requests from recruiters unless:
1\. They obviously don't know how to do their job properly. For example offers
sent out without getting acquainted with my profile or asking me to do their
job is a reason for me to drop the recruiter.
2\. They can't explain the offer, for example what I would be expected to do,
or can't connect me with somebody who can. I understand that recruiters can't
have my level of technical knowledge or they would most likely be working as
engineers. Nevertheless, they are responsible for communication and if I can't
get required information I drop the recruiter altogether.
3\. Recruiters who require me to do any work before I can get to know who I
would be working for.
4\. Recruiters who just outright give me the form to fill in to build their
database, including all the information I already included in my CV or Linked
In profile.
------
505
I am open to new opportunities. If I get a request from someone with a lot of
connections, my heuristic is I don't add the someone to my network. I don't
think a single person with lots of connections is actually helpful to the
information represented in 'my' network.
If a recruiter looks interesting, I try and open a conversation without making
them part of my network.
And rules are made to be broken, of course.
------
dozzie
It doesn't look odd, the same way it doesn't look odd that you have in friends
list bunch of people you have never seen and know nothing about. People just
accept anybody as a contact.
Me, I don't accept any recruiter unless I know them in person. I even have it
stated clearly in my profile, though most of the recruiters don't even bother
reading it.
------
ramtatatam
I used to accept when I was potentially interested in getting new job :-) I
even got quite an interesting interview from my LinkedIn network long time
ago. Now recruiters contact me for slightly different purposes and mostly it's
a waste of time from my perspective.
Some of them will try to connect with you if you have many connections so then
they harvest your connections too - I deal with it by making sure nobody can
see my connections (you can set this up in privacy section)
------
adamb_
Generally no. The thing is the value of that connection is really low, because
most recruiters connect with as many candidates as they can indiscriminately.
The reason for that is financial: If you're directly connected then it doesn't
cost any credits to send an in InMail message.
------
joeax
I'll accept a connection every now and again, and only if we share connections
with at least 2 other non-recruiters/technical people.
I try not to overload my connections with recruiters as they don't provide
much network feedback value (i.e. they rarely comment or like anything I
post).
------
hulahoof
I don't think it's odd from an employer's point of view. I accept all requests
that may offer some value to me in the future.
I used to dedicate some time to replying to the messages that follow but they
became a bit overwhelming.
------
JSeymourATL
> Is it worthwhile?
Perhaps more compelling-- connect with senior executives in roles & companies
that you can help. Imagine connecting with CTO/CIO's, VP's of Engineering in
your space.
------
camhenlin
Yes, I don't care to talk to them at this time, but my situation could change
at any time and I may want access to their contact information
------
jeena
I don't use LinkedIn.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Me neither but if I was still in the jobs market I would.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why font rendering sucks in electron based editors? - xstartup
Font always appears fuzzy or blurry. It doesn't happen in Sublime Text. Is there any solution to this problem?
======
Rotareti
I ran into this issue when I installed Atom two years back. Today I installed
VSCode and run into the exact same issue again. I tried a bunch of stuff to
fix it; none of it worked. It was a pain two years back and it's a pain today.
Except for the ugly fonts the Editor seems nice. Maybe I'll give it another
try in 2019...
------
folknor
Several solutions/workarounds, explanations, and links to lower-level bugs are
here
[https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/35675](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/35675)
I would explain more if I knew - but I haven't read it. I just found the
solution and applied it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why the developers who use Rust love it so much - ayoisaiah
https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/06/05/why-the-developers-who-use-rust-love-it-so-much/?cb=1
======
plerpin
I've read the Rust book, maintained someone else's Rust code once, and written
a few of my toy programs. But I find that idiomatic Rust is difficult to grok.
All the constructs required for safety seem to obfuscate the control flow.
There also seems to be a weird schizophrenic combination of imperative and
functional styles in idiomatic Rust.
~~~
oconnor663
> All the constructs required for safety seem to obfuscate the control flow
A couple thoughts on this point, speaking as an admitted Rust fan:
\- A lot of this has gotten better since "non-lexical lifetimes" were
stabilized. In particular, it used to be somewhat common to need extra pairs
of nested curly braces, to convince the borrow checker that some reference
you'd taken really wasn't going to be used again. But today that is almost
never necessary.
\- In some cases, I find Rust's safety-oriented APIs clearer and nicer than
their equivalents in other languages. For me, the big one is Mutex<T>. In
Rust, a Mutex is a _container_ , and you can only access its contents by
locking it. It's _impossible_ to forget to lock a Mutex when you access the
thing it protects.
------
zozbot234
Discussed before at:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23437202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23437202)
Should be flagged as a dupe.
------
zx14
Does Rust have a reach outside the C/C++ section of the market? Or is it only
popular in its own bubble, where developers are now excited to see many of
their once painful problems now fixed?
~~~
gameswithgo
a lot of ruby people are into it, and there is some Go crossover.
a lot of us who don’t like that almost every new language turned into a jitted
or interpreted universe like Go and Rust
~~~
zx14
I can see the crossover with Go, but Ruby?! What is the reason behind its
attractiveness in the Ruby community?
I get that some developers believe that Rust is "better than Ruby" and that
Rust has far more momentum, but their use cases are very different.
~~~
jkachmar
Steve Klabnik and Sean Griffin were both early adopters of Rust (and are now
fairly visible members of the community), and I believe that helped sow the
seeds of the language in parts of the Ruby community [0].
I think Rust managed to also cultivate a community that was very much like
Ruby’s [1], which brought people over.
[0] cf. Klabnik’s “Rust for Rubyists”
[1] mostly being very “people-oriented” in terms of inclusivity and
documentation, as well as putting effort into ensuring that the language and
its tooling provide a lot of “developer happiness”
~~~
steveklabnik
Don't forget Yehuda Katz.
Fundamentally, I don't think it should be surprising that someone who loves
Ruby would look at Rust. That it's very different is the entire point! Why
learn something that's extremely similar, that won't expand what you can do
very much?
------
mangix
Any cool projects to try out? I remember there was one to replace coreutils.
~~~
jabirali
I am a daily user of fd (find), rg (grep), exa (ls), bat (cat), and am
planning to try out sd (sed).
These tools are in my opinion significantly better than the classical UNIX
tools: they can be orders of magnitude faster, understand .gitignore, have
more intuitive command-line options, and make better use of colors.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Google woos developers by releasing cloud platform code to GitHub - jeffreyfox
http://www.zdnet.com/google-woos-developers-by-releasing-cloud-platform-code-to-github-7000010190/
======
manidoraisamy
Smart move! This will neutralize cloudfoundry's advantage. We should see
Appfog like platforms on Google cloud in future.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why hasn't the email client been reinvented lately? - dc-tech-fan
For a tool we are all required to use but hate using, I'm surprised there haven't been huge improvements in email clients since Google introduced Gmail 10 years ago.<p>There have only been small features added over time, like inline attachment viewing, and minor UI tweaks, like matching OS UI trends, but for the most part it's the same Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, etc as we had 10 years ago: a bunch of folders, a single column for the inbox, a box to read or write mail, some icons to delete, forward, reply, etc.<p>There are plugins, like ActiveInbox and Rapportive, but these can be kludgy or not well integrated, especially now that we expect to be able to seamless jump from desktop to mobile email.<p>Am I alone in expecting a significantly better experience from my email client than where we were 10 years ago?<p>Is there somebody out there working on a new type of email client?
======
stevekemp
I seems like you're restricting yourself to graphical clients, ruling out the
(minor) changes introduced by things such as notmuch, etc.
At the end of the day what people do with email is very much the same as it
was 20 years ago:
* Send it.
* Read it.
On that basis there's little innovation that seems missing, unless you're
thinking of something special?
Me? I like console mail clients, so I wrote one with built-in scripting via
lua. It makes me happy, but it'll never take over the world:
[http://lumail.org/](http://lumail.org/)
I suspect my next task is to try something graphical, but I'm in no rush.
------
kohanz
First, I disagree that we don't have today a "significantly better experience"
with e-mail than we did 10 years ago. Gmail was not even available 10 years
ago [0]. Do you remember what Outlook, Yahoo and Hotmail were like back then?
There's a reason GMail was able to scoop up a massive market share. There
hasn't been a complete paradigm shift, if that's what you mean, but I don't
feel it has been necessary.
Second, I don't "hate using" e-mail and I don't feel that I am alone in that.
Your basic argument boils down to saying that e-mail is broken, but I don't
agree with that premise.
[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail)
------
PaulHoule
In the late 90's it was said that Venture Capitalists wouldn't give a dime to
anyone who competed with Microsoft. Today, VC's don't want to give money to
any company that competes with Google.
Google has a good product with several competitive advantages. gmail has great
deliverability, you can easily join mailing lists from gmail which could
exclude you if you were hosting from your_name.com. It handles large mail
spools with ease because it uses parallel programming tricks. Perhaps when you
boot it, it runs a quick Map/Reduce job to build an in-memory index to support
all the searching and sorting you do.
I quit Thunderbird a few years ago because it just couldn't cope. It would
overload, it would fail and get corrupted and I couldn't live with that. I was
using Outlook at work so I switched to Windows Live Mail, which held up pretty
well to the load.
With Live Mail I had two problems. First, People often couldn't read my
attachments. The other was that I felt overwhelmed with the various categories
of mail I was getting. Some of this was spam, but a lot of it wasn't, such as
receipts when I made transactions, newsletter subscriptions, etc.
That really got me to gmail, which goes a long ways to relieve that overload.
Any product has to make decision about client-server components; I can read my
gmail anywhere, and that is a big plus.
Some people imagine a massed up Outlook or Thunderbird with 64 bit addressing
and designed to make the most of multicore processors and large RAM and SSD
disks. The trouble is that most corporations don't give out good laptops so
you can't sell this to large numbers of salespeople unless you bundle it with
the hardware.
The excitement in the client world is really on the other end, you could
shoehorn it into a tablet and they even have octo-core phones so maybe you can
go somewhat far, but the work is going to all be in super-efficiency and
managing differences between tablet platforms.
No matter what a big part of the intellectual work is some system that
maintains document storage full-text index, metadata index, contact book etc.
I'd like to see this subsystem reusable so that it could be used to handle
other sort of document collections.
If you move the database away from the client to the server, you lose many big
differentiations against gmail. (ex. You can physically destroy your mail
spool if it is on your laptop, who knows who can grab it from the firm you
work for. On the other hand, industrial spies can grab a laptop from out in
front of you, and if you didn't encrypt the volume, they have your mail
spool.)
Move the database to the "cloud" and then you are head-to-head with gmail and
the advantage they have is a lot more data. It's much easier for them to know
what a "discussion group", a "promotion", or a "update" is than it would be
for you to do it.
Some kind of CRM functionality could be a big plus. The idea is to put
structure in the communications so that there could be much more automation
and also teamwork in that you can hand off the job to someone else and have
people held accountable if it doesn't happen.
I think people hate CRM, Project Management and those kind of tools worse than
they hate e-mail, so a "business process automation construction set" might be
big success if someone can find a way to make it fun.
~~~
PaulHoule
See reddit
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/20fmbu/ask_hn_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/20fmbu/ask_hn_why_hasnt_the_email_client_been_reinvented/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“So, you decided to contribute to open source” - kawera
https://twitter.com/eranhammer/status/881614401471520768
======
x1798DE
I don't know why people take this stuff so personally. I maintain open source
resources and for the most part people have been fine. Most of my complaints
are that I don't always get reproducible bugs and I don't have enough time to
do everything. Even if someone comes in acting all entitled, that's their
problem, not mine - since in reality I'm under no obligation to support their
use case.
I understand that as infrastructure maintainers, you only get noticed when
your stuff breaks, so you may feel under siege for doing a thankless job, but
honestly the incentives will never change, so it's probably helps to try to
recognize how much control you have in that kind of situation.
~~~
voltagex_
[https://twitter.com/eranhammer/status/881615072283340800](https://twitter.com/eranhammer/status/881615072283340800)
------
aarohmankad
My biggest pain point when I contribute to open source has always been the
owner/maintainers being unresponsive to new issues/pull requests.
I wonder if this is a consequence of the behavior Hammer is describing?
~~~
voltagex_
Issues I can understand not responding to but pull requests that fix things
and pass tests should be a one-click merge.
~~~
klez
That may be dangerous. What if the patch works, passes all tests by contains
non-obviously malicious (or simply non-obviously buggy, which no current test
catches) code?
I prefer maintainers taking a bit more time to review it instead of doing one-
click merges.
Of course, there's a world between one-click merge and total unresponsiveness,
but still.
------
erlend_sh
This is also available as a blog post: [https://medium.com/@eranhammer/so-you-
decided-to-contribute-...](https://medium.com/@eranhammer/so-you-decided-to-
contribute-to-open-source-93b640cf2ae2)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Early History of F# [pdf] - strangecasts
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3386325
======
tejasv
We, at Chaldal (YC S15, chaldal.tech), use F# in production. Most of our
backend projects are in F#, the last one is being migrated over slowly from
C#. Our new frontend projects are also in F# (using Fable).
I want to share some insights of using F# with the community. We started from
a C# codebase, and realized that a better language can help weed out most bugs
in our system. And yes, it works. Pretty much all bugs we face these days are
parts where the F# world touches something non-F#, like .NET and other
libraries written for C#, where interaction (like nulls) is not well-defined.
We've taken Scott Wlaschin's (fsharpforfunandprofit.com) teachings to heart,
and we have a giant banner in our office that reads "Make illegal states
unrepresentable".
It took a bit of learning for everyone to jump in, but our dev team has loved
the experience as the language is a pleasure to use; when they need to go back
to write C# or TypeScript code, a lot of these learnings transfer. People just
become better programmers (as is true with learning any functional language).
To get all the benefits of F#, you must adopt the whole paradigm. While F#
allows C#-like OOP, and while this can be an initial stepping stone in the
path towards F#, you must go all the way. If you simply do OOP, the trade-offs
aren't worth it, IMO, as F# is a functional-first language, and the OOP is
mostly provided for interop with the rest of .NET.
IDE support has been janky in the past, but its improving. Latest VS 2019 is
pretty good, and JetBrains Rider works pretty well on the Mac.
~~~
throwaway_pdp09
I get the "Make illegal states unrepresentable" in theory but how do you do it
actually for nontrivial preconditions like "this list must be sorted"? (as a
precond for a binary search on a vector, for example).
OOP is fine with functional if you make it immutable too, so I don't see the
problem (I've not really got a problem with mutable OOP, or state generally,
if it's done carefully).
~~~
choeger
> how do you do it actually for nontrivial preconditions like "this list must
> be sorted"?
This depends on your data model, of course. But for a list of integers you
could do the following:
1\. Have a unique data type that is the list of Deltas, plus the initial
element (So for instance the list [5, 3, 6] would be encoded as (3, [2, 1]).
2\. Provide a sort function that creates such a sorted list.
3\. Make the sorted list your input parameter.
This is obviously oversimplified, but I hope you get the idea.
A cheaper alternative is to
1\. Make an opaque datatype "sorted list", together with a function that
translates this type to a normal list. Implemen this type just as a list, but
keep the implementation private.
2\. Provide a function sort, that is the only function that can yield that
type.
3\. Demand that type as input.
------
chrisaycock
_Type providers_ were the biggest innovation I learned from F#. Type providers
are a way to have static typing determined from an external source, like a CSV
file or SQL database.
I ended-up using a similar trick (with different syntax) in my own language,
Empirical. I needed a way to infer a Dataframe from a file while in a REPL. It
wasn't until I read the MSR paper that I realized I could do it entirely in
the compiler without creating separate logic for the interactive users.
[https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2908080.2908115](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2908080.2908115)
~~~
ridiculous_fish
Will you please share your insight? What are Type Providers? What is their
advantage over, say, naively dumping type definitions from pre-processing a
CSV file?
~~~
chrisaycock
The user could certainly dump a type definition, but for users who just want
to point to some data in one go, the F# type provider[0] works with just:
CsvProvider<"trades.csv">.Load("trades.csv")
I personally didn't like having to list the file twice, so in Empirical[1]
it's just:
load$("trades.csv")
My current version requires the dollar sign to tell the compiler that the
parameter will be _static_ (known at compile time). I'm planning on an updated
version[2] that will eliminate the dollar from the function call:
load("trades.csv")
Basically, it means that users can just load the file like in a dynamically
typed language, except that Empirical is statically typed.
[0]
[https://fsharp.github.io/FSharp.Data/library/CsvProvider.htm...](https://fsharp.github.io/FSharp.Data/library/CsvProvider.html)
[1] [https://www.empirical-soft.com](https://www.empirical-soft.com)
[2] [https://github.com/empirical-soft/empirical-
lang/issues/23](https://github.com/empirical-soft/empirical-lang/issues/23)
------
strangecasts
Published as part of the History of Programming Languages (HOPL) IV
proceedings[1], which also include articles about C++, D, Groovy, and
JavaScript, and a few other languages.
[1]
[https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/HOPL](https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/HOPL)
------
bern4444
I've recently become interested in F# after I saw its use in a bunch of videos
by Scott Walashin. I came across his talks, and subsequently his blog, as I'm
getting more into functional programming and he has some awesome content.
I use Javascript/Typescript professionally and I really like both of them. F#
though has a minimalism in its design that is very appealing. Code I write in
F# feels a lot less cluttered as opposed to the same function in
Javascript/Typescript. This minimalism seems to be part of the language design
with some following specific examples.
\- `let` is used to declare variables and functions.
\- The last statement in a function is implicitly the return value.
\- The type safety/mechanism is great and seems to be extremely similar to
Typescript's so its easy to pick up for me (I'm not sure which came first or
if there's a relationship but it certainly wouldn't surprise me).
This along with some classic functional ideas that are built in like
immutability by default, automatic currying of functions etc all allow for a
language that seems be made to get out of the way. That's a very compelling
idea for a language design to me that I previously haven't seen.
Because functions and variables are both declared with let, perceiving
functions as data kind of finally clicked for me since I first heard that
concept 3 or so years ago. Another feature was to not require a semicolon as a
line terminator and instead use it for another meaning as a separator. While
JS doesn't require semicolons at the end of a line, its reserved for that
purpose.
Overall, I find F# to be a refreshing language (from javascript, python, java
and even others like Rust or Go but I haven't used those as much so don't want
to make bigger claims) and I'm glad to see a post like this on HN almost like
validation of a community behind the language. I'd be curious to get a feel
for some companies that actively use it as well.
I also love that there's a compiler for F# to Javascript so I can use it to
build front end code as I learn the language. Its pretty incredible we can do
cross compilation of high level languages like this and with others like Rust
and Go to wasm etc
Edit: formatting of bullet points
~~~
logicprog
Wow this is a great comment about a new-to-FP viewpoint on F#. I came to it
after I'd already experimented with Haskell and OCaml, used Rust a lot, and
been programming with Lisps for years - and I was really impressed with it
nevertheless!
I really love the ML-family type systems. They're really great aides to
programming, and makes planning really nice. F# has that, plus that usability
from C# and TS. It's also, like you said, got a really beautiful syntax IMHO.
I keep coming back to Rust though, because Rust is more general purpose, more
performant, and applies better to the stuff I like to work on for my hobby
projects. I'd love to use F# more but can't find a reason to at the moment.
TypeScript, Python and Rust have become my comfort languages, but I like Rust
the best, because it's got a lot of really nice features from ML languages and
a powerful and safe type system.
~~~
kowalgta
We use F# to build fairly complex portfolio management apps. It's a great
match for F# to Javascript transpilers (Fable, WebSharper). It makes it easy
to share functions and types between UI and backend and to have powerful type
safety. I.e. you change your DB data type and compiler informs you where in
the UI you need to make appropriate changes.
This works great with "makes illegal states unrepresentable" approach. It
helps to reduce a need for boring unit tests and lets you focus more on
expressing domain in code directly.
~~~
bern4444
I love this idea too. Is it possible to create a type (in F# or Typescript) to
represent an idea like greaterThan2? A value whose type is greaterThan2 would
have the obvious constraint the value is always bigger than 2. Having the
compiler check such a condition would be awesome.
I kind of can do it for Strings by doing something like this
type ValidStrings = 'name' | age | 'dob';
The easy way around this is a function to determine this
function greaterThan2(num) return num > 2;
but it'd be cool to express this level of dynamism as a type.
~~~
kowalgta
As others mentioned - using smart constructor technique, but not directly as
F# has no dependend type capability.
Smart constructor technique works well with 'parse, don't validate' approach
[0]. You can push type construction to the boundries of your system so that
you can work on a domain code with more precise types. It's not always so rosy
however as too much types can become a burden.
[0] [https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t-
va...](https://lexi-lambda.github.io/blog/2019/11/05/parse-don-t-validate/)
------
xvilka
The original OCaml is more interesting. It has language flexibility F# lacks,
gets new features every year, crossplatform, and compiles into the native
code, thus faster. Once Multicore OCaml [1] project is finished the major
painpoint of it will go away.
[1] [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-
may-2020-update/...](https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-
may-2020-update/5898)
~~~
jolux
I love OCaml. F#, if you squint, is kind of philosophically like Clojure for
the CLR: it leverages a heavily object-oriented but nonetheless very powerful
runtime to allow developers to create strongly-typed functional programs that
interoperate with a massive array of first- and third-party libraries that
already exist.
I wouldn't go so far as to say OCaml is more interesting. F# has things like
computation expressions, async, units of measure, and type providers, none of
which are trivial (or exist in OCaml), several of which are incredibly
influential, and all of which are interesting. The long slog towards multicore
for the OCaml community has been kind of embarrassing, with Haskell having
offered arguably the best concurrent and parallel programming support in all
of software development for years and years now.
I will also note that F# gets new features fairly frequently as well, is
cross-platform, and is _extremely_ fast by virtue of running on the CLR, which
I would not underestimate: [https://benchmarksgame-
team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame-
team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/fsharp.html)
The features that it is missing from OCaml are admittedly pretty major,
though. Row polymorphic records and the structurally typed object system are
missed, not to mention rich modules and functors.
~~~
yawaramin
OCaml has the equivalent of computation expressions since 2018:
[http://jobjo.github.io/2019/04/24/ocaml-has-some-new-
shiny-s...](http://jobjo.github.io/2019/04/24/ocaml-has-some-new-shiny-
syntax.html)
It definitely has async:
[https://github.com/ocsigen/lwt](https://github.com/ocsigen/lwt)
It doesn't have units of measure but due to strong abstraction properties of
modules we can fairly easily roll abstract types.
It doesn't have type providers but it does have plugins for type-directed
derivation of JSON codecs, equality, comparison, printing, etc.
> The long slog towards multicore for the OCaml community has been kind of
> embarrassing
IMHO it's been refreshing to see the pushback against 'multicore at all
costs'. There is a benefit to taking the time to do things the right way.
OCaml is a 30+ year-old language with an even longer ML heritage. It's going
to be around for a while; it doesn't need to rush into a sub-par
implementation. Meanwhile, people are writing highly concurrent, multi-
threaded applications with it right now, and using multiple processes just
fine for parallel computing.
~~~
jolux
I’m glad to see that the language is moving forward in these areas, but I
don’t think you understand how F# implements units of measure. It’s not just
another data type, they’re fully inferred and checked and work with generics:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21538563/can-f-units-
of-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21538563/can-f-units-of-measure-
be-implemented-in-ocaml)
Type providers are a native feature, no plugins required. I have no animosity
towards OCaml (in syntax and semantics, I prefer it!) but this is a bit of a
stretch.
I don’t think anyone would say Haskell does multicore the “wrong” way, and
OCaml as you say has had decades to solve these problems. I love the language
but the community is very small and the language evolution has been extremely
conservative for the most part.
~~~
yawaramin
> I don’t think you understand how F# implements units of measure. It’s not
> just another data type, they’re fully inferred and checked and work with
> generics
Yes, units of measure are really cool, and I understand they support
dimensional analysis out of the box. It's quite unique, and I fully agree that
abstract types don't _fully_ replace them. Just saying that that's what people
do in OCaml.
> I don’t think anyone would say Haskell does multicore the “wrong” way
And it certainly is not something that I said.
> OCaml as you say has had decades to solve these problems.
The 'problems' being the lack of multicore support? As I said, this is not
really stopping people from getting real work done in industry–see everyone
using OCaml currently in highly concurrent and multi-process parallelized
applications, or in fact even people using NodeJS, Python, Ruby.
> the community is very small
Correct, but it is definitely growing.
> and the language evolution has been extremely conservative for the most
> part.
Not so correct. There have been massive amounts of changes in the last few
years: [https://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/09/20/a-look-back-on-
ocaml/](https://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/09/20/a-look-back-on-ocaml/)
And this is not even taking into account the features which OCaml had before
then beyond F#:
\- Polymorphic variant types \- Structural subtyped object types \- Named
arguments \- Optional arguments \- Functors
~~~
jolux
F# has named and optional arguments and I named everything else as real
differences in my initial comment in this thread.
I’ve interviewed with Jane Street and gotten an offer on the basis of my OCaml
and F# skills. I understand where these ecosystems differ. I rest my case.
~~~
yawaramin
From [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/language-
refe...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/language-
reference/parameters-and-arguments#named-arguments)
> Named arguments are allowed only for methods, not for let-bound functions,
> function values, or lambda expressions.
> ...
> Optional parameters are permitted only on members, not on functions created
> by using let bindings.
~~~
jolux
I concede that point.
------
algorithmsRcool
F# is the language that I keep coming back to. And as the paper notes, it has
kept up well with the rapidly changing landscape of .NET Core and newer
defacto standards introduced by modern C#.
~~~
GiorgioG
It had a very rocky start in the .NET Core world thanks to Microsoft's lack of
interest in supporting F#. It lagged behind C# in significant ways and
continues to get very few resources behind it.
~~~
jackfoxy
Actually Microsoft has quite a respectable team of developers dedicated to F#.
It is true development suffered because the Roslyn compiler that MS invested a
lot of effort into cannot be made to work for the language. F# has been made
compatible with surrounding Roslyn tooling over time. (There is a distinction
between the Roslyn compiler and the Roslyn tooling I am not qualified to
explain.) The fact is that as a functional first language it does not require
as much surrounding tooling as C#. Requirements for refactoring tooling, for
instance, are far simpler.
~~~
GiorgioG
> Requirements for refactoring tooling, for instance, are far simpler.
If that's the case, it's sad that Visual Studio's refactorings for F# are so
meager.
~~~
JanneVee
Yet I don't miss any refactoring tools in VS for F#. It is a simpler language
and has some nice design affordances that makes refactoring superfluous in
some cases.
I have a small story around it. A couple of years back I had the nasty habit
of enumerating sequences multiple times with LINQ. Resharper constantly
complained about it. Programmed some F# for projecteuler and advent of code.
My nasty habit of multiple enumeration went away even in C#, because F# design
affordances made me rethink enumeration and sequences. So since then I haven't
triggered multiple enumration in Resharper with my own code. It is always
somebody elses.
------
lihaoyi
I have a special place in my heart for F#. While I do a lot of Scala these
days, professionally and open source, F# was my first introduction to
functional programming that eventually got me into Scala.
F# and Scala are extremely similar languages: garbage collected, hybrid OO/FP
guest languages hosted on a widely-used runtime. Even though the superficial
syntax is very different, and the advanced language features they provide are
pretty different, the core experience of modelling your data as "dumb" data
structures and transforming collections of data using higher-order functions
is almost identical.
Scala ended up winning out for me due to a broader ecosystem (Much more OSS
Java than OSS C# out there), better tooling (Visual Studio's F# support was
always disappointing...), and easier interop (F# <-> C# feels a lot more
clunky than Scala <-> Java). But I can easily imagine an alternate universe
where I'm happily writing F# all day, and almost nothing would be different
from my current work writing Scala.
------
rurban
Oh my so many warts. In haskell, ocaml but also F#.
> Specifically, method constraints were added, introduced by a deliberately
> baroque syntax:
let inline (+) (x: ^T) (y: ^U) : ^V = ((^T or ^U):
(static member op_Addition : ^T * ^U -> ^V) (x, y))
> This definition says that any use of + is implemented via inlining a call to
> an appropriately-typed op_Addition method, defined on the type ˆT or ^U,
> i.e. the type of either the left-hand or right-hand argument. The ˆT
> notation for type variables indicates statically resolved type parameters
> (SRTP), i.e. type parameters which are resolved to a nominal type at
> compile-time.
Why ^ and not using the existing : for seperating types from values? :T * :U
-> :V would have looked like types, not pascal ptrs.
Equally interesting are ocaml warts like let x2 = 1.0 +. 2.0 (+ not overloaded
or defined for floats), or haskell's decision to torpedo the "class" keyword.
Or ocaml hijacking ::
let xs = 1 :: xs, with :: being cons, which was initially the lisp dot
notation '(1 . xs)
In retrospect perl's syntax is sane compared to this.
~~~
smabie
I agree, though Haskell is certainly the most advanced. ML languages tend to
be... primitive, at least to the modern eye. The lack of function polymorphism
in OCaml is such a huge bummer. Modular implicits have been proposed (in a
paper from 2014), but it doesn't seem that they are being actively worked on.
If I could get multicore and modular implicits, OCaml would be _the_ ideal
language.
~~~
octachron
Modular implicits are being worked on actively, it is just a hard feature to
get right in a scalable and future-compatible way.
------
addictedcs
There are a couple of concepts in F# that I really like:
* actor-based approach to concurrency[1]. Very useful when you want to design your code lock-free. Treating instances as agents that read messages from a mailbox, frees the developer from using low-level threading primitives. First time I've used this approach in production with AKKA and Scala. In F# it is much cleaner because the language itself is built on a better platform.
* exhaustive pattern matching[2]. Writing in F# means using pattern matching a lot. Exhaustive matching gives you the confidence to refactor and maintain your code. The compiler will warn you when adding a new value in your type and not covering the execution path that uses it. It catches a lot of errors before you even push the changes to CI.
* obviously immutability, conciseness, currying, these have been mentioned so far by others.
One nitpick in F# are Exceptions [3]. They approached it similarly to how it
is done in C#. You are allowed to define and throw an exception that will
"jump" somewhere in the execution path. I prefer when a method returns Option-
style types. This way, you know what to expect from a call, and pattern
matches on the result without adding one more execution path in your code,
which covers exceptions separately. It was added to support C# style error
handling, though I very much prefer an error-code-based approach.
[1] [https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/concurrency-actor-
mo...](https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/concurrency-actor-model)
[2] [https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/correctness-
exhausti...](https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/correctness-exhaustive-
pattern-matching)
[3]
[https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/exceptions/](https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/exceptions/)
------
dang
A draft was discussed last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18874796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18874796)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gem install will soon be significantly faster, thanks to tenderlove 💙💚💜 - midas007
https://twitter.com/tenderlove/status/449699452895240192
======
rancor
Every Ruby developer on the planet thanks you for this. Lengthy `gem install`
cycles are one of the less fun things about the Ruby ecosystem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are You a Hacker? - thefox
http://www.textfiles.com/hacking/ruhacker.txt
======
ssebro
I have a problem with this: I'm extremely curious and I wind up going down
long paths to find the ultimate solution to problems, when I could have just
asked someone about it. I do it because I learn + remember better, and because
the "How" is important to me. My problem is that wanting to know the "How" is
often at odds with getting stuff done very quickly, and that being someone who
gets stuff done quickly often becomes your personal brand - something that you
are known for. So tradeoffs between the two aren't encouraged in the
workplace- it's often one or another.
Thoughts?
~~~
lloeki
_Sometimes_ it's worth asking because researching it yourself brings little
value compared to a honest exchange with a knowledgeable person. This exchange
is a two-way process and a worthwhile path to travel along in itself, to which
asking is only the entry point. Core to the hacker ethos and at the heart of
the Internet, Unix, open-source and free software is that exchanging ideas
increments both persons knowledge. The key lies in the way and the intent with
which you ask: don't ask to receive, but ask to build yourself.
(I can't seem to write something about the workplace without getting personal
and it wouldn't be wise currently)
------
ramdac
Are you asking because you are looking for answers? Either way, yes.
~~~
thefox
No, that's not my question. It's only the title of this text. ;)
------
hc
cool story, bro
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Exclusive, The Embargo and The Arrington - humanlever
http://www.centernetworks.com/arrington-embargo
======
truebosko
It seems whenever something doesn't go right for Arrington a huge story comes
out of it, 40 blogs write about it, and we hear about it for an entire week.
All I can say is: Yawn.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Super Wizard Fever – A retro style infinite runner for Android - kcbanner
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.caseybanner.wizardrunner.android
======
kcbanner
Hi everyone! I've been working on my first Android game in my off time from my
day job as a game dev, and I've finally released it. I was inspired by games
like Canabalt, but wanted to put my own twist on the genre. The gameplay is
simple but challenging (I can't even beat the current highscores on the
leaderboard, dangit!).
I have full Google Play Games integration with leaderboards and achievements.
Screenshots: [http://imgur.com/a/sUFYG](http://imgur.com/a/sUFYG)
I'd love to get some more feedback!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Will this community avoid an Eternal September? - w0de0
If so, how?<p>Is it not a risk for this community? Why?<p>Is the idea too nebulous for this to be a meaningful question?<p>Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
======
psyc
Regret to inform you that HN's Eternal September passed circa 2011. Before
that, according to my recollection, the community was mostly YC founders and
employees. Discussions were mostly about web startups, ideas, and tech. Tone
was professional, comments were substantive, and people used their real names.
Best of all, people were free to share their experiences without being
harangued at every turn by the "citation needed" and "my science is more
science than your science" cargo cults that became entrenched here at some
point.
~~~
psyc
Almost forgot: Paul Graham used to comment frequently, and now he comments
never.
~~~
fabrice_d
He's too busy since he joined the resistance...
------
jasonkester
We're something like 8 years beyond HN's Eternal September, and seem to be
doing fine.
Early on, this was a place for entrepreneurs to share actionable advice about
building startups and software businesses. Over time, the developer-friendly
nature and hostility-free discussion attracted refugees from Slashdot and
Reddit.
Over time, other people from those communities trickled across, and many of
them were just average developer folk without any real interest in all this
entrepreneuring. But there was the occasional Haskell story here that they
could discuss, so they stuck around.
Eventually, the less civil members of those now empty communities arrived,
bringing their attitude and inclination to snark and pun threads with them.
You'll notice them voted down by the grown-ups, but less frequently than
before.
Still, it's a generally good vibe, and nothing yet has emerged to take its
place.
But it's a little late to worry about the word getting out. This is now the
most popular place on the internet to discuss tech.
------
greenyoda
> _" Every September, a large number of incoming freshmen would acquire access
> to Usenet for the first time, taking time to become accustomed to Usenet's
> standards of conduct and "netiquette". After a month or so, these new users
> would either learn to comply with the networks' social norms or tire of
> using the service."_
This phenomenon is unlikely to occur in a moderated forum. Articles and
comments that violate HN's social norms (off-topic, uncivil, etc.) get flagged
pretty quickly. Users whose behavior is persistently bad get banned.
------
bigiain
Your question assumes it hasn't happened already...
------
angersock
I think that has already been answered by
[http://www.n-gate.com/hackernews/](http://www.n-gate.com/hackernews/) rather
conclusively.
~~~
soneca
I think the author doesn't read the same comments that I do. It is easy enough
to have a deeply cynical view of the world, especially if you chose to ignore
all things that contradict your cynicism.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UX Professional Isn't a Real Job - webwright
http://thinkvitamin.com/opinion/ux-professional-isnt-a-real-job/
======
sp332
What if I'm not designing a web page?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fake Steve Jobs Was A Blog Hater - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/03/fake-steve-jobs-was-a-blog-hater/
======
byrneseyeview
Lyons blogged as Fake Steve Jobs because he knew that when he came out, the
discussion would go from "Fake Steve Jobs says..." to "Daniel Lyons is..."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tackling the misinformation epidemic with “In Event of Moon Disaster” - MindGods
http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-tackles-misinformation-in-event-of-moon-disaster-0720
======
gambler
The very idea that deep fakes are somewhere near the top of the list of
significant concerns for the media right now is in itself disinformation. And
it seems to be very persistent. I keep seeing articles and videos about it all
the time. Someone is pumping significant amount of money into this narrative.
The irony is that all this "anti-disinformation" research will clearly be used
to run better disinformation campaign if/when the primitive shit being used
right now stops working.
~~~
nsnow70
Care to elaborate?
~~~
owenmarshall
I can't speak for OP, but consider: the very strong scientific consensus is
that the earth is warming and that warming is caused by human activity; the
best-case study I've seen showed 75% consensus among Americans and that's
sharply up over previous years.
The gap between scientific consensus and common belief has been driven by
"regular" misinformation campaigns: promotions of conspiracy theories,
manufactured doubt, cherry-picking of claims.
Why worry about the novel when the basics are still working?
~~~
mudsnail
What would you think about a deep fake depicting secret video footage (from a
cell phone) of real climate scientists at at a real conference discussing how
they are manipulating the data to convince the public and the lawmakers that
climate change is a real phenomena. This deep fake would contain real people
who really are climate scientists who really did attend a conference together.
Its just that this discussion never took place. It was created by deep fake
technology.
This type of scenario seems like a very real concern to me. You can extend
this example into practically any hot button issue.
~~~
pessimizer
I wouldn't think it would matter at all. Nobody would know who the scientists
were, so you wouldn't even need to use real ones for the same effect. I don't
even think most warming deniers would really care, and it wouldn't even spend
a week in the news cycle, if aired at all. Do a video of them sacrificing a
child to Beelzebub, and maybe you'd get some attention.
Just telling everybody that you were told that this meeting happened through
secret messages from a secret high-level traitor from the Soros Foundation
would work just as well. It would work on hundreds of people even if you said
that you were receiving these messages psychically or encoded through subtle
changes in reruns of _Law & Order._
------
Press2forEN
There seems to be this hopeful belief out there that if only indisputably
correct information was available to the general public, at long last they
would finally support the correct policies and elect the correct leaders.
I think that is a false premise.
~~~
troughway
And yet even on HN this is disputed with such frequency as to warrant raising
eyebrows as to what kind of mess we're walking into.
Book burners are with us today, and they're embedded within the "cancel
culture" and every online upvote/downvote system.
------
bsenftner
15 years ago I created a "pre-deep fakes" automated actor replacement visual
effects production pipeline. My ambition was to create "Personalized
Advertising" where ordinary people would appear in video advertising for
desirable products like film trailers, and various other products and services
that typically have a celebrity spokesperson - the basic idea was the
celebrity spokesperson would be "with you" in the advert explaining how great
the product was while you are depicted nodding and enjoying it.
The system worked, and still would work if I un-mothballed it. I even globally
patented the system, with an ungodly expense doing so:
[https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731](https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731)
However, nobody believed what I was pitching 15 years ago was possible. After
I'd demonstrate a scaled down implementation, I'd get interest and an
investment pool would start to form. Then one of the investors would realize
the tech could be used for porn, and then no matter how I explained the
economics of failure such an application would cause, their stupid dicks would
take over and I could not get them to realize "porn with anyone inserted" is a
lawsuit engine and not a sell-able product.
While pursuing this, I became extremely jaded about what people think occurs
in a film production, and the time and expense necessary to add visual effects
to any media. The majority of angels and VC I pitched were flabbergasted at
what current media and VFX productions are like, and their current level of
expense and sophistication. My proposing a fully automated incarnation struck
them as complete fantasy. Yet I had a working implementation. Slowly I'd
convince them of the possibility... and then they'd get fixated on porn,
ignoring the fact that there is no way to make money producing deep fake porn.
I eventually went bankrupt and left media production entirely. After creating
my fully automated VFX pipeline, working in VFX without my automation tools
drove me nuts. I work in facial recognition now.
------
quacked
Forget faking news events. What about petty crime? The cops get sent a video
of you defacing property. Your phone data and several eyewitnesses tie you to
the area. How do you escape, without a blanket ban on video evidence? If
there's a blanket ban on video evidence, what if you have video proof that you
were somewhere else?
~~~
neixidbeksoxyd
If this becomes a problem, I think cameras and smartphones would be upgraded
with a way to certify they are real videos. I have no idea how, and it would
likely have to keep evolving, but if the financial incentives are there I'm
sure someone will figure it out. Maybe the video gets signed by the phone and
can only be verified by that device?
This comment was generated by GPT-3
~~~
JoshuaDavid
Flash the flashlight in a sequence corresponding to the most recent hash on
the bitcoin blockchain, then take a hash of the video and send 0.00000001 BTC
to that address from a wallet associated with your personal identity? Would
pretty much prove that a specific person recorded this video between two
fairly close together times, and the blinking lights would probably do things
with shadows that deepfakes aren't great at replicating (and retouching the
video to fix those artifacts would make the hash not match).
------
mellosouls
Very interesting and quite creepy in this specific context - genuinely
enlightening as to wider possibilities.
The actual faked Nixon speech is in the "Special Report" starting at 3.37 here
(after a scene setting prelude):
[https://moondisaster.org/film](https://moondisaster.org/film)
The original contingency letter from which the speech is derived:
[https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-
libraries/events...](https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-
libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf)
~~~
Angostura
Fascinating. It's good, but there are lots of little emphatic "head nods" that
don't make sense in the context of the speech - unless that was just an odd
mannerism of Nixon's.
~~~
owenmarshall
I wonder if a more recent subject would've been better. We all know the tics
and habits of our current president, but Nixon was half a century ago and I
wonder how many of us have seen his speeches in any real depth.
Hell, play me Billy West reading Nixon as "Richard Nixon's head" from Futurama
and I might buy it.
------
camjohnson26
Here’s the video:
[https://moondisaster.org/film](https://moondisaster.org/film)
Not bad but the audio doesn’t sound quite right.
~~~
ghaff
The thing is that you know it's a fake and are looking for clues that it's a
fake. But for many purposes, it doesn't matter if you can fool careful study
or expert analysis, it matters whether you can fool a quick glance from
someone already predisposed to believe the contents who will retweet or share
on facebook and move on.
~~~
najarvg
Well said. Imagine a similar deepfake with a Nixon "confession" about having
to stage the moon landing to make America look superior. You now suddenly have
the next viral facebook or whatsapp forward for conspiracy theorists who are
fully convinced of their beliefs.
~~~
rightbyte
Ye but it has been doable with modern movie production technology for some
time without any fancy AI. The biggest difference is the price drop of it?
~~~
gowld
Not just price drop. Also co-conspirator drop, to reduce the number of helpers
you need to create the artifact.
But, overall, "deep fake" isn't a critical waterfall aspect. It one piece of
the overall trend toward fake archaeology. Fakeaelogy? Farkchaeology?
~~~
CamperBob2
The term "simulation" comes to mind as a description of the emerging art and
science of ultra-realistic bullshit generation.
From Baudrillard
([https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism...](https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism/terms/simulacrum.html)):
"Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a
substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality:
a hyperreal.... It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor
even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the
real."
~~~
lioeters
> Hyperreality, in semiotics and postmodernism, is an inability of
> consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality,
> especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.
> Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is
> fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear
> distinction between where one ends and the other begins.
> "The authentic fake." – Umberto Eco
------
myself248
The irony is that the people most susceptible to this kind of BS also don't
believe we landed on the moon, so the effect may be somewhat muted...
~~~
smabie
Everyone is susceptible to deep fakes.
------
ivanhoe
For some reason shirt collars seem to be the weakest point on all deep fakes??
~~~
acdanger
I noticed that, too. I kept noticing the chin skin tone "smudging" over the
shirt collar throughout the video.
------
shadowprofile77
Cute and well made job. I suspected that the video simply took a standard
Nixon televised speech and used CGI to remake just the lower half of his face
(thus the odd head movements even though his words and lips synced correctly,
and if you look closely you can see that the lower part of his face looks
somehow "cleaner" than the upper half), what stumped me a bit though was the
audio. His voice sounds odd but recognizably his own, especially since Nixon
had a rather unique voice. so I thought maybe they cut together words he'd
said in different recorded contexts and digitally modulated the audio to
construct a speech with an even tone, but no, they actually faked his voice,
which impresses me more than the face CGI.
~~~
chrisdalke
I don't think they are using conventional CGI techniques to "remake" his
mouth/lips and lower face, if that is what you are suggesting. Seems like the
dialog replacement is using a technology called VDR:
[https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/cannyai-vdr-face-
replacem...](https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/cannyai-vdr-face-replacement-
as-a-service/). There's a demo video on that page and some more details about
the technique.
~~~
shadowprofile77
Sorry, maybe I'm conflating terminology, but I was referring to the use of AI
and digital editing to reconstruct the lower part of his face so that it looks
real while moving in ways that are false and say things he didn't actually
say. This is what they did in some way at least, no?
~~~
chrisdalke
Yeah, I see your point, AI-generated CGI is still CGI!
------
foldr
To be honest, you could probably get more convincing results than this just by
using spaghetti-Western-style dubbing of existing footage.
------
DubiousPusher
> an Information Ecosystem at Risk
At Risk? Where have these people been for the last 40 years? I don't want to
say the authenticity of information doesn't matter. But what clearly matters
much more is collective trust in information institutions and from that
standpoint the ecosystem has already utterly failed.
------
prateek_mir
A really good example to showcase the capability of the technology !
In context of India, where news channels have reneged from due diligence on
evidently doctored videos, this is something which can have huge consequences.
------
14
I am very curious how the legal system will handle deep fakes as they progress
to perfect quality that even forensics can not tell.
~~~
Nasrudith
There is already a tool in place that handles much of it, chain of custody for
evidence. The video evidence would need corroborating evidence to "pin it
down" essentially. Just showing say Hillary Clinton making infant stew
wouldn't cut it without a chain of evidence proving there was a location,
time, that a camera would actually be there, and there is some actual physical
evidence of her murderous cannibalism.
------
jmount
A tangent: the movie "The Landing" (2017) is a fun treatment of a non-existent
Apollo 18 and disaster.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP - confluence
http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284v2
======
meric
A while ago I studied a paper where the author proposes using high frequency
trading to exploit price patterns. If that can be done profitably it would
mean markets aren't even weak form efficient! Lately however there have been
emerging views that "efficiency" is not black or white but a continuum. i.e
The market will only be efficient enough such that the marginal cost of making
the market more efficient is equal to the marginal benefit of doing so.
Anyway, I wonder if solutions to NP-complete problems can be approximated
using a market.
EDIT: According to the paper, they can.
~~~
justincormack
"The market will only be efficient enough such that the marginal cost of
making the market more efficient is equal to the marginal benefit of doing
so."
Do we have a model of what markets are like under this type of model? It is
not clear to me that prices are even close to what efficient ones might be
under this situation (though they could be).
Also of course most of the missing markets are the contingent and future ones,
which suggests the ways in which things might be biased (forward planning, the
firm, the business cycle etc) which are quite important inefficiencies.
~~~
meric
"Do we have a model of what markets are like under this
type of model? It is not clear to me that prices are even
close to what efficient ones might be under this situation
(though they could be)."
I don't know what markets are like under this type of model but here are a two
papers recommended by my lecturer on how efficiency is not an either-or
proposition.
_Adaptive Markets and the New World Order_
"Under the AMH, markets are not always efficient, but they are highly
competitive and adaptive, and can vary in their degree of efficiency as the
economic environment and investor population change over time."
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1977721&#...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1977721&);
_Efficient Markets II_ (by Fama who was the one who originally came up with
the efficient market hypothesis describing the three forms of market
efficiency)
"A weaker and economically more sensible version of the efficiency hypothesis
says that prices reflect information to the point where the marginal benefits
of acting on information (the profits to be made) do not exceed the marginal
costs (Jensen (1978))."
<http://efinance.org.cn/cn/fm/Efficient%20markets%20II.pdf>
"Also of course most of the missing markets are the
contingent and future ones, which suggests the ways in
which things might be biased (forward planning, the firm,
the business cycle etc) which are quite important
inefficiencies."
You can often find sets of stock options' prices that you can arbitrage and
make a profit, but only if there were no transaction costs. Information will
only be taken into account of if the cost of the information (after taking
into account all costs including opportunity costs and risk) is less than the
benefit from exploiting that information. So, there are probably lots of
information from the future that are missing in the market, which if properly
exploited will provide a lot of benefit; but the costs of gathering that
information is even greater, possibly requiring the use of a time machine.
_My thinking: It could very well be that markets are only efficient only as
far as everything else allows it to be; If investors are not able to evaluate
information over more than one business cycle, (due to the cost of doing so,
economical or psychological or otherwise), then so be it. The market will move
its efficiency to match the environment and its participants._
------
stevenrace
Previous discussions [Aug. 2011]:
\- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2895474>
\- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2868498>
------
josephlord
This is I think a bogus debunking of a bogus theory.
Try 'Debunking Economics' by Steve Keen for a good breakdown of real problems
with many economic theories including EMH. Mostly by showing the logical
fallacies in assumptions but also the naive maths and divergence from
empirical reality.
[http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Expanded-
Dethroned...](http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Expanded-Dethroned-
ebook/dp/B006BG8UFY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-
text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348943992&sr=1-1&keywords=steve+keen)
His blog is <http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/>
------
kenster07
Economics is clear when explaining its foundation: Markets are only as
efficient as its participants are rational and fully informed. The entirety of
modern economics is built upon the presumption that the last two conditions
are 100% true.
~~~
aristidb
No, it's based on them being true enough that other approximations are less
useful models.
~~~
wisty
Unfortunately, most economists don't develop other models, so the other models
are very immature.
------
csense
From the paper:
> Now, one may argue that a weaker form of market efficiency as per Fama
> (1991) and Jensen (1978) is that patterns are exploited until the marginal
> revenue of further discovery equals the marginal cost of further search. A
> counterargument to that would be graduate students and other hobbyists and
> day traders searching for an edge: to them, the marginal cost is zero and at
> times negative because the value of the search itself, regardless of the
> outcome, is a positive learning experience for them...
A hobbyist has to spend more computation time for every additional strategy
they search, which costs real money. The hobbyist's cost is near-zero for
small searches -- those that can be done by one person using the computers
they already own. Once the size of the search increases beyond what they can
manage with their immediately available resources, they have to hire
assistants and/or buy computation time like anybody else.
------
anonymouz
Is this a serious paper? I can't judge at all if it is, because I cannot find
any useful definitions, exact statement of the claimed theorem or proofs.
Then again, I'm not an economist (coming from a mathematics backround), so
maybe this is the expected form of a paper here?
~~~
yummyfajitas
The original papers proving similar results do prove theorems. This is one
example which springs to mind:
[http://dpennock.com/papers/chen-ec-2007-betting-on-
permutati...](http://dpennock.com/papers/chen-ec-2007-betting-on-
permutations.pdf)
Here is a review of the literature from a while back, it cites plenty of
actual math papers:
[http://dpennock.com/papers/pennock-ijcai-workshop-2001-np-
ma...](http://dpennock.com/papers/pennock-ijcai-workshop-2001-np-markets.pdf)
------
Bakkot
Of course this doesn't mean markets aren't within some small constant factor
of being perfectly efficient.
~~~
confluence
Generally with NP-complete problems - that small constant factor is still
often an order of magnitude away from optimal (path
finding/search/salesman/shortest subsequence etc).
~~~
sold
In general, approximation of NP-complete problems is not that simple. Assuming
P /= NP,
Subset-sum can be approximated within 1+epsilon for any requested epsilon>0 [a
PTAS]
MAX-3SAT can be approximated within 8/7 and not better. Vertex cover can be
aproximated within 2 and its not known if that's optimal.
Set cover can be approximated within O(log n) and not better.
Clique and TSP have no sensible approximation.
I would argue that potentially a loss of factor 2 is not an order of magnitude
away from optimal. I don't know what is the situation for markets.
------
Symmetry
Does this actually contradict the _weak_ form of the EMH, that "future prices
cannot be predicted by analyzing prices from the past"? If it's
computationally unfeasible for the market to incorporate new information,
surely its then equally computationally unfeasible for some outside observer
to predict future prices? I'm not sure this even contradicts the semi-strong
form of the EMH, though it clearly does rule out strong EMH.
~~~
confluence
Weak form EMH is so pointless so as to be essentially useless in predictive
value.
It's like those horoscopes that state - "you will meet someone of great
personal importance soon!"
------
brador
Direct link: <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1002.2284v2> [PDF]
------
confluence
A slightly long and/or dodgy video by the professor who wrote this (I'm
setting your expectations): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iOJZZFDKpc>
I found it rather enlightening - but the paper is still highly readable and I
encourage HNers to peruse it and perhaps check out the video as well.
Previous discussions:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2895474>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1144548>
More from the professor: <http://philipmaymin.com/cv.pdf?q=phil/cv.pdf>
------
drfloob
... and if P = NP, the market doesn't matter because everyone will have
cracked all your bank passwords.
------
pron
I have only had time to skim through this very quickly, but it seems entirely
based on false definitions.
He begins so:
_The efficient market hypothesis claims that all information relevant to
future prices is immediately reflected in the current prices of assets. In
other words, you cannot consistently make money using publicly available
information._
Then, he encodes a 3-SAT problem into market orders and claims:
_So what should the market do? If it is truly efficient, and there exists
some way to execute all of those separate OCO orders in such a way that an
overall profit is guaranteed ... then the market,_ by its assumed efficiency,
_ought to be able to find a way to do so._
So he defines market efficiency to be all-knowing, and then gives at an NP-
hard problem to solve. It seems like he could have given it the halting
problem as well, only it might be harder to encode as market orders. But the
point is that an efficient market is "all knowing" only that which is
"knowable". The market isn't an oracle that can answer any question about the
past, but a true machine that can answer all questions about the past that are
answerable using the machine.
What he's doing seems similar to saying "if God exists then P=NP". After all,
if God is omniscient and omnipotent, He could solve all NP problems in
polynomial time. :)
~~~
uvdiv
I skimmed it quickly too, but I think you've misread. The "interesting" claim
isn't the 3-SAT encoding; it's earlier where he claims that markets
"naturally" have to solve NP-hard problems, in particular that to optimize an
investment strategy you have to solve the Knapsack problem. (?!) It's hand-
waving nonsense.
~~~
pron
It doesn't matter. When people say efficient market, they mean that the market
knows whatever is knowable by the present time using current technologies.
They don't mean that the market knows everything that's theoretically knowable
using unknown/impossible algorithms.
Before there were computers in an efficient market (supposing one exists), the
current prices would reflect everything that is known and can be
computed/deduced without computers by the present time.
Anyway, the paper misunderstands "known" to mean "anything which can
theoretically be known", which obviously includes solutions NP-hard problems.
It's just that nobody claims that's what efficient markets are.
~~~
001sky
RE: _When people say efficient market_
The hypothesis is predicated on perfect rationality.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_rationality>
vs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality>
------
confluence
Honestly - stuff like this reinforces a feeling I have had recently that the
social sciences are nothing more than pseudoscience dressed up most of the
time.
Economists have essentially no idea what is going on and neither do their
financial compatriots and the EMH is by far the clearest example of this.
I'm trying to make it a personal rule that anything outside of the hard
sciences (math/physics/chemistry/statistics etc) is bullshit to me until
further notice.
I mean really - I do advanced math and statistics in moderately complex
systems - AI/robotics - and I can barely wrap my head around them. I shake my
head in disgust at those who apply platonic and unrealistic theories to the
extremely complex system that is the world. Indeed, the surety they display in
their theories amuses me, because to even think that one can reason about the
entire world all at once is, in fact, hilarious.
~~~
throwaway64
This kind of armchair criticism is not particularly enlightening, or
productive. You can still make useful and largely correct predictions without
understanding all of the dynamics in a system.
After all, all science amounts to an approximate model, even your vaunted
"hard sciences".
~~~
confluence
I'm sorry but were you alive during the last couple hundred financial crises?
I mean if your entire field is dedicated to predicting the future of finance
and economics and you don't predict them - it kind of shows that you really
don't know what you are doing.
All I'm doing is pointing out that the social sciences have no clothes on.
~~~
jbrechtel
right....because the field of math has never changed course (see: Godel), nor
physics (see: Newton, Einstein, )...
You're reading too much into the disproportionate effect mistakes in economics
have had on society. Science get things wrong all the time...failure is part
of the learning process.
~~~
confluence
True but at least the hard sciences modify after being falsified.
The social sciences don't have to because they aren't based on the scientific
method - mainly the design and independence of repeatable experiments with
controlled variables.
Hard science equations have no room for bullshit whereas the social ones do -
hence EMH is still taught.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_The social sciences don't have to because they aren't based on the scientific
method - mainly the design and independence of repeatable experiments with
controlled variables._
The same is true of many physical sciences - geophysics, oceanography, climate
science, astronomy, etc. Your criticism applies to basically any scientific
theory which has poorly understood microfoundations (i.e., a lot of them).
The EMH is taught because it's a useful approximation to reality, even if it's
imperfect. Or, as the article puts it: _Whether markets are efficient or not,
and whether P = NP or not, there is no doubt that there will be markets that
can allocate resources very close to efficiently and there will be algorithms
that can solve problems very close to efficiently._
Incidentally, the EMH claims that financial crises are unpredictable. So the
lack of useful predictions of the financial crisis is evidence in favor of the
EMH.
[edit: Note, in response to Dn_Ab that 3SAT, the problem considered by the
paper, is NP complete.]
~~~
Dn_Ab
But he is not, in that quoted statement saying much. For example, if the
problem is NP-Hard but not NP-Complete then we will not even be able to tell
how well we are doing.
Or for markets, aspects of it may invovle solving NP-Hard problems with
efficient approximations that are themselves NP-Hard (you are better placed to
opine on whether such a possibility is likely).
------
realize
The ability of some traders to make consistent significant profits should be
an "existence proof" of the inefficiency of markets. The EMH is just wrong.
~~~
tatsuke95
Now you just need to point to some traders who are able to make "consistent
significant profits".
~~~
rafcavallaro
And not just "some" but a proportion of profitable traders greater than what
we would expect due to chance - i.e. the existence of some lottery winners
does not prove that playing the lottery is in general profitable.
------
michaelochurch
Efficient Market Hypothesis isn't very well defined. It's more like a class of
assertions, some of which are demonstrably true and some of which are false.
Loosely speaking, it says the market price of an asset (or exchange rate
between two assets) will be fair, which means that it corresponds to the
expected value of its basic value. If you're talking about a bond, you can
look at the (known) payment stream, discount the cash flow, and compute a fair
value based on known market conditions. For an equity, there is no fair value
other than "the expected value of its price in the future". Some stocks pay
dividends, but many don't, so their values are based on something other than a
current dividend stream, and largely that "something" is: what is the expected
value of the thing in the future? The question is: what is the timeframe?
In the very short term, EMH is false for computational reasons. Efficient
markets require someone (i.e. an arbitrageur) to keep them efficient. The
profits of arbitrage are the incentive for people to keep markets as efficient
as possible, and they tend to have this effect. This is an extremely
competitive business, and in this day in age, it often comes down to
_microseconds_ , but it can be done and billions of dollars are made every day
by people who are doing it (and, contrary to popular depictions, arbitrage is
actually _good_ for the markets and economy).
In the very-long term, EHM is probably also false. By very-long, I'm talking
about 10+ years. The reason for this is rooted in the scarcity of money: there
are a lot of projects and companies that will produce and capture economic
value in the future, but people don't have enough money to fund them all.
Hence, stocks are "cheaper" than they should be, and risky growth stocks (much
less illiquid private equity) especially so. ("Equity premium.") There are
some people who (demonstrably) "get" value investing and are better at
predicting long-term corporate futures than others. The issue here is the long
feedback cycle. If your frequency of investments is that low, you have no way
of knowing if you're _actually_ good, or just getting lucky, especially in the
context of the non-normal (i.e. fat-tailed) distribution of equity returns
driven by "black swan" events.
EMH is true enough that if you don't have the technical machinery to trade at
microsecond latency, nor the reputation that will allow you to invest for the
very long term despite market caprice-- i.e. even if the market tanks, people
will trust Warren Buffett's judgment-- you probably can't reliably make a
better profit on the stock market than you'd get if you invested in an index
fund.
What does EMH rely upon? Ultimately, it says that if there is _expectancy_ to
be made selling or buying a security at a price other than P, it will be sold
or bought until the price reaches P. This assumes an infinite amount of
capital ("smart money") that people are willing to deploy in order to exploit
pricing inefficiencies or inconsistencies. This is an obviously false
assumption, but for liquid securities of _known_ expected value, it's close
enough. Leverage (borrowing) generates a lot of "additional" smart money, so
that even a 20bp (0.2%) discrepancy can be levered up into a 10% gain. (If you
have $100, borrow $4900, and turn that $5,000 into $5,010, your equity
position has gone from $100 to $110.) Microprofit opportunities will be
exploited so long as there's sufficient leverage to make them worthwhile, but
the willingness of lenders is not infinite.
EMH is usually used to make mathematical analyses work. It's a guideline, but
no one who understands financial markets believes it to be literally and
universally true. No one can actually predict the future or human behavior,
but the (false) assumption that there is no arbitrage produces closed-form
numbers that are often very close to the real values.
Also necessary is the distinction between smart and dumb money. The latter
isn't a pejorative; "dumb money" means that there are incentives other than
informed speculation. For example, when you buy a house because you want to
live somewhere, that's dumb money. Or when an index fund buys stocks because
of its chartered requirement to do so, that's "dumb money", not because the
buyer is an idiot, but because his purchase doesn't convey information about
the stock's real value in the way that smart money would. Markets are
efficient when there's enough smart money to keep the dumb flow from pushing
the price around. This is going to be true of highly liquid stocks, currency
rates, and commodities, but not true of assets like real estate. Financial
engineers tend to discount "dumb" activity as harmless Brownian motion, but
the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown established that not to be always wise.
~~~
confluence
What happens when the smart money realizes that shorting a massive amount of
dumb money would leave them freight trained by the crowds?
Smart money can be dumb as well - because it pays to do so. I'm quite sure
that the number of rational investors/capital are greatly outnumbered by the
irrational investors/capital such that many correct trades become essentially
insolvent before the market becomes rational again. See value shorters for the
last two booms.
~~~
mason55
_such that many correct trades become essentially insolvent before the market
becomes rational again_
Keynes was quoted as saying "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can
remain solvent."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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NSA and Facebook undermine spontaneous gatherings (german) - radiospiel
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/NSA-Skandal-Facebook-unterwandert-Flashmob-Verabredungen-2592853.html
Sry for double posting, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9310402
======
radiospiel
Sry for double posting, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9310402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9310402)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Windows 8 tablet freezes in Microsoft keynote demo - fvbock
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/19/microsoft_demo_trouble/
======
ugh
So, uhm, I’m not a fan of Windows 8, but why exactly is this in any way a big
deal?
It's not finished. It will break. You have a backup device (or two) ready when
you present it in front of a crowd.
Apple does it (I remember keynotes where they had to switch to their backup
Mac), Microsoft does it, everyone does it.
~~~
mitchty
I'm an Apple fan, and I agree, stuff breaks. This is a non-news story.
------
ArthurLozinski
"We're essentially enabling you to break the electronic concrete of the past
and move your business to the future, by connecting your people, by enabling
your people to communicate and collaborate in real time, and by taking all the
wealth of communication, collaboration, and social networking opportunities,
and apply those into very specific business scenarios."
Now that sounds good! What would be even better, is if you build the whole
thing on web-standards ;-)
------
jaems33
"Luckily, there was a second tablet available on stage that was working, so
the changes for the hypothetical app were successfully written to the pretend
database, and all was well."
That's not luck. I would think that a backup is almost always a must for any
presentation.
------
sigvef
"Windows 8, which Microsoft touts as the first operating system to run across
multiple devices"
Doesn't Linux already do this? Or does it not count, as it is only a kernel?
~~~
freehunter
It's marketing speak, and no one of importance to Microsoft is going to call
them on it. I would imagine their line of thinking would be Ubuntu doesn't
ship on tablets or phones. OSX doesn't ship on tablets or phones. What they
run are stripped down and re-imagined versions of the parent OS.
Approval of the magnitude of this claim is up to the reader.
~~~
rbanffy
Still, Linux runs on just about everything between a 68000 and an IBM
mainframe. As does NetBSD.
I find the propensity to lie disturbing.
~~~
freehunter
This could get into deep discussions about what is an OS (versus a kernel),
what constitutes the "same" OS (versus a modified version of the OS) and even
what can be put in the same class as Windows.
I think what Microsoft is getting at is, OSX and Ubuntu don't run the same
code on their mobile devices. Windows 8 will. It's marketing, and NetBSD
doesn't even cross their mind.
~~~
rbanffy
It all depends on where is the line defining what's an OS. A Linux machine
doesn't need X to be a Linux machine - Unix machines have been serving
terminals for decades. So much, in fact, I joke that, in order to be a serious
computer, one has to have no monitor, keyboard and mouse ports - if you really
need a physical console, a serial port will do. So, I've seen Linux running
programs on a very broad selection of hardware, from ARM to zSeries (68020+
has always been more of a curiosity, albeit there were serious Unix machines
using them).
Really, it's marketing. Not truth.
------
firefoxman1
Has anyone figured out why exactly Microsoft makes such buggy software? Is it
a company culture thing?
~~~
freehunter
Massive company. Massive software projects. Massive amount of end users.
Massive amount of use cases for their software. Time restrictions on their
development.
The wording you used makes it sound like they make buggy software on purpose,
which makes no sense.
~~~
firefoxman1
Oh, sorry. Yeah I meant why they end up producing buggy software when
competitors like Apple have proven it's possible to both ship _and_ make
stable software. And Apple does both hardware and software.
~~~
stevejabs
I seem to recall an iOS presentation where people were told to turn off their
wifi or Jobsy wouldn't continue...
~~~
Zirro
Which had absolutely nothing to do with buggy software.
------
Radzell
Lol, maybe Microsoft hasn't changed. I like windows on desktop, but I love
android on tablet. I guess I'll sticking with android for now.
~~~
freehunter
Android never freezes or crashes. Come to think of it, neither does iOS or
OSX, or Linux.
Oh wait, almost all software crashes.
~~~
twargoth
No iOS product would crap itself like that during a keynote demo. Sure, I've
had them panic and reboot on me in real world use, but Apple takes the time to
make sure the demo runs smoothly.
When you can't or don't make your demo run smoothly during a high visibility
presentation, it makes you look careless, either in the development of your
product or of your demo. In either case, it reeks of incompetence. This might
not be a justified impression (accidents happen), but that's how life is.
~~~
dangrossman
No iOS product comes close to the complexity of a Microsoft Dynamics product
either, nor are developers at Apple expected to develop and demo such complex
products on pre-beta operating systems created by a different group.
~~~
twargoth
You're right about apple developers not being expected to demo apps on pre-
beta software. Because doing that makes your software look shitty.
Don't do that. Or script out the demo really carefully.
PR exists to make the products look good.
------
conradfr
Classic Microsoft :)
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Apophis is currently considered the largest threat to our planet - ca98am79
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
======
ca98am79
at least that is what it says here:
<http://en.rian.ru/science/20091230/157423845.html>
| {
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California Zero-Emission Push Grows to 8 States, 3 Million Autos - tocomment
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-24/california-zero-emission-push-grows-to-8-states-3-million-autos.html
======
tocomment
I'd be curious if any of these 8 states is also blocking Tesla sales with
dealership laws. Or have special taxes for electric vehicles. I know VA
charges something like $64/year.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Quora is down - gauravsc
http://www.quora.com/
======
raghav305
i am able to access quora
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The End of the Past - diodorus
https://medium.com/@MarkKoyama/the-end-of-the-past-2f028cb970ed
======
adrianratnapala
A good article with an opaque headline that gives no clue that it compares the
ancient Roman economy to the early modern one.
I agree slavery was very important but, early modern Europe had slavery too.
It begs the question to just say slavery was less important to the modern
economy: why was that? One difference is that early modern Europe, for all its
wars, had no dominant apex predator like the Roman Republic.
True, the Republic fostered advanced trade -- it was wise enough not to
destroy provincial economies. But aristocrats still lived off the taxes and
bribes payed in conquered lands.
This meant that if you had some wealth, the best investment for it was to
bribe your way to a government post. This general pattern lead to the empire,
and to its corruption.
It also explains the rentier culture that the article describes.
~~~
PeterisP
Yes, it's important to read such claims exactly and literally - as the OP
states, " __ _Roman Italy_ __had comparable per capita income to the Dutch
Republic in 1600 ". Assuming that this is true, it is still clear that Roman
_Empire_ and even more so Roman _Egypt_ did not have a comparable income.
Roman Italy was fed and clothed by products of non-Italian economies; It's
easy to get a multiplier of your GDP if you have landowners that "farm"
overseas land with overseas slave labor that isn't part of your economy
consumption.
~~~
abecedarius
There's a recent book by Ober, _The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece_,
pointing out that the pre-Roman Greek world had per-capita income that high. I
think a better question is why did _that_ culture not keep advancing, and
maybe the biggest part of the answer is that they got conquered by Rome.
~~~
adrianratnapala
But first they were conquered by Macedonia -- was Greek in many ways, but it
did not have the political culture that Ober says distinguished the Poleis.
~~~
abecedarius
I'm including the Hellenistic era. It continued to grow economically at well
above normal preindustrial rates (according to Ober), if not quite as high as
in the classical period. Technological progress might've been even faster then
-- it was the time of Archimedes and the Antikythera device, and much else.
(Russo, _The Forgotten Revolution_.) Ober concluded with a post-Alexander
chapter: the Hellenistic cities were not completely at the mercy of empire-
building despots because a walled city at the time was very hard to conquer
(instead of starving out) leaving a Nash equilibrium where cities paid
substantial taxes but weren't messed with too much in their internal politics,
so that much of that culture survived for quite some time.
(From my memory of a book I read a year ago.)
I'd guess that even without Rome, military technology & organization would've
made cities increasingly vulnerable, and it'd have been a race between
increasing despotism from such developments and the fact that freer more
dynamic societies also have a kind of military advantage (see Archimedes again
at Syracuse). But of course I'm indulging in total speculation.
------
Animats
(Title is poorly chosen.)
I've asked this question before - why didn't the Roman Empire progress to an
industrial revolution?
The Roman Empire never developed the concept of the corporation. They never
got beyond the "one rich guy" or "rich family" stage of business organization.
They never had much in the way of inter-city businesses. They didn't have
common carriers for shipments. They had the roads and the legal system to make
that work, but somehow never developed something like Wells Fargo, the
stagecoach line. They lacked the organizational tools to scale a business.
The Roman Empire had figured out how to scale government, training provincial
executives in Rome and sending them out to govern. The Empire had a sizable
grain and oil shipping operation, but this seems to have been done as a
Government contracting operation, not as a private business.
Another argument is that the industrial revolution needed coal, iron, and
water power in reasonably close proximity. Italy doesn't have much of that
that. England and France do. So do parts of the US. Once you've got railroads,
the proximity doesn't matter as much, but until then, it's hard to get
started.
The political importance of land ownership may have been an obstacle, but
England had a landed gentry all through the Industrial Revolution. The
landowners couldn't stop progress, although some of them opposed it. They
couldn't even stop railroads; Parliament could and did approve "compulsory
purchase" of the right of way.
It's a good question. For a thousand years, the Roman Empire couldn't solve
this basic economic problem. What are we missing about our own society?
~~~
milesrout
The concept of a company is not important to economic and technological
progress. In fact, it's actively detrimental to it.
~~~
MR4D
I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion, let alone your confidence in it.
A corporation allows for both pooled and limited risk.
This permits a civilization to take on large projects such as building a
railroad or a refinery - activities that were both expensive and financially
risky.
The only other alternative is the State, but then that involves taxes and
keeping the populace happy, which tends to impede progress. Things like the
Coliseum get built instead of railroads.
Individuals have high tendency not to do it because once people have attained
a certain amount of wealth, they are more interested in protecting against
losses than taking on expensive risky projects. Daniel Kahneman wan a Nobel
prize for work related to this kind of decision making
([http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/nobel.aspx](http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/nobel.aspx)).
------
maldusiecle
The author links to pseudoerasmus's blog post about Empire of Cotton as if it
were a refutation of Empire of Cotton's thesis. But that blog post is a
summary, not a critique--the author says this explicitly in its comments. The
closest the author comes to a critique is an aside in this post:
[https://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/04/26/mccloskey-cotton-
ir/](https://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/04/26/mccloskey-cotton-ir/) with similar
points made earlier in:
[https://pseudoerasmus.com/2014/11/10/slavery_and_industriali...](https://pseudoerasmus.com/2014/11/10/slavery_and_industrialism/)
...which is far from open-shut, in my reading of it. It's a tangential point,
I guess, but worth considering in evaluating the plausibility of the whole
argument.
~~~
adrianratnapala
Just in case anyone is wondering, the linked pseudoerasmus post is:
[https://pseudoerasmus.com/2016/06/16/eoc/](https://pseudoerasmus.com/2016/06/16/eoc/)
------
zeteo
> Was the Roman economy only as developed as that of Europe circa 1300 or was
> it as advanced as that of western Europe on the eve of the Industrial
> Revolution in say 1700.
The question is ill posed. It assumes that economies move on a linear scale -
with definite positive and negative directions. Was the economy of the Soviet
Union in the 1930s more advanced than that of the Dutch Republic in the 1600s?
Well, the USSR could produce tractors and icebreakers. But the Dutch had a
stock market and a really good internal transportation network.
------
b_emery
Makes me wonder: Would the slavery-based economy of Roman times represent a
model for what will be the robot-based economy of the future?
~~~
bdrool
That was my first thought as well. Another thing that came to mind is that way
manual work / craftsmanship was looked down upon has its parallels in the
present day, particularly in the US. It's often said that other parts of the
world see engineering in particular as a prestigious line of work, but the
same cannot be said for the US. It's strange how the US lauds only the
extremes: either very blue-collar manual laborers, or very white-collar
0.001%-ers (very often rent-seekers who don't actually add much value to
society). People who actually engineer things and drive innovation are not
looked up to.
~~~
ci5er
> People who actually engineer things and drive innovation are not looked up
> to.
In the US? Compared to whom? Doctors? Bankers? Lawyers? Politicians?
Who do you think that you are better than?
~~~
bigger_cheese
I don't know about the US but here is Australia Engineers are consistently
rated as one of the most ethical and trusted professions eg.
[http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/work/2016/05/14/most-
trusted...](http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/work/2016/05/14/most-trusted-
professions/)
Most of my ethics course from university focused on US based case studies
(Tacoma Bridge, Kansas City walkway collapse, Space Shuttle etc.) So it could
be possible Engineers in US have a worse reputation.
------
thisrod
There is potentially a really simple answer to the question, "What happened in
England in the 17th Century and changed everything?"
Isaac Newton.
I'm surprised that historians don't consider that possibility, at least to the
extent required to exclude it.
~~~
GlennS
It's an interesting proposition. There is certainly a history of scientific
paradigm shifts, although I don't think it's very popular among historians.
Consider also the printing press. Invented much earlier, but something which
built up momentum as it was improved and paper was made cheaper.
Perhaps the improved ability to disseminate information made the industrial
revolution inevitable?
------
lolive
Holy cow, dudes!!! There is a massive cultural overload in all these comments!
Are you really the same guys who code websites all day/night long?
| {
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Judge Shoots Down ‘Bitcoin Isn’t Money’ Argument in Silk Road Trial - pat2man
http://www.wired.com/2014/07/silkroad-bitcoin-isnt-money/
======
ChuckMcM
This wasn't particularly surprising, either in putting it out there or
shooting it down. Every trial starts with a whole bunch of motions which the
judge evaluates. If your lawyer isn't throwing up every possible angle they
aren't earning their pay.
~~~
absherwin
-Bad: Do nothing
-Better: Object to everything and you might win the lottery
-Best: Object reasonably that they may be taken seriously
-Beyond amazing: Admit everything in such a sympathetic way to minimize guilt*
*Gerry Spence
~~~
dlss
Source? I can't find your last quote online, and want to read more about it
------
mikeyouse
This was always an idiotic premise. The Federal money laundering statute
refers to 'monetary instruments' which it then defines:
(i) coin or currency of the United States or of any other country, travelers’
checks, personal checks, bank checks, and money orders,
or
_(ii) investment securities or negotiable instruments, in bearer form or
otherwise in such form that title thereto passes upon delivery;_
If you could convince a judge that Bitcoin wasn't currency, it would still
qualify as an investment security / negotiable instrument by just about any
definition.
~~~
Drakim
I'm pretty confused over that even an idiot would try to argue this case. It's
something that has "coins" in it's name, and is touted as "the internet money
of the future" and that is being used in substitute for regular money when
buying wares all over the world.
If that isn't money, is ANYTHING money? Could one not just as well argue that
dollars are just ink on paper, and therefore not money?
~~~
kaonashi
Money is a loosely-defined word that ends up being a huge sticking point in
economic conversations because people end up using different definitions.
One thing Bitcoin is not is a unit of account; it is nobodies liability the
way that dollars, treasuries or reserves are a liability of the issuer. When I
think money, I think balance sheet; and by that criterion, Bitcoin is not
money. It's a currency and an asset.
~~~
ahomescu1
Germany seems to disagree with your point:
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/germany-
declare...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/germany-declares-
bitcoins-to-be-a-unit-of-account-a-917525.html)
Edit: Wikipedia gives the following requirements for "unit of account":
_To function as a 'unit of account', whatever is being used as money must be:
Divisible into smaller units without loss of value; precious metals can be
coined from bars, or melted down into bars again.
Fungible: that is, one unit or piece must be perceived as equivalent to any
other, which is why diamonds, works of art or real estate are not suitable as
money.
A specific weight, or measure, or size to be verifiably countable. For
instance, coins are often milled with a reeded edge, so that any removal of
material from the coin (lowering its commodity value) will be easy to detect.
_
Except for having a specific weight, Bitcoin has these: 1 Bitcoin is the same
as any other, and it can be broken into 0.5, 0.1 and even 0.0001 Bitcoins.
~~~
kaonashi
I think the sticking point there is differences in definition of 'unit of
account'. My main point is that Bitcoin is nobodies liability; this is by
design. The dollar is a liability of the issuer, which can be used to
extinguish tax debt.
This goes into a much larger point about the nature of money and how it
evolved from ad-hoc credit arrangements.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tks7oJkFRg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tks7oJkFRg)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEbo8PIPSc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEbo8PIPSc)
~~~
Mandelbug
Regardless of its "technical" or "economic" definition, to the layman and all
its users, Bitcoin is treated, traded, and consumed as money.
The exact origins of Bitcoin do not change its utility, which is as a unit of
exchange, which is what money is in its most general and flexible definition.
~~~
kaonashi
All true, but it does not diminish my point; that since the dawn of
capitalism, money has been a balance sheet phenomenon: being simultaneously
someone's asset and someone else's liability, and in this Bitcoin is
different.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
That seems odd - if A visits will road and buys drugs off B then A owes B one
bitcoin - that is a human level contract that is clearly understood. A balance
sheet accounting of this transaction would as easily be In bitcoins as dollars
(A has a liability of 1 bitcoin, B has an asset)
As long as B wishes to denominate their accounts in bitcoins this is quite
reasonable.
Or am I missing something ?
(Interestingly the Indian mathematician who invented negative numbers did so
using accounts and debt as an example (bhagravita? 500AD)
~~~
kaonashi
>Or am I missing something ?
Banking.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
I don't understand - why is banking meaning that I owe someone 100 bitcoins a
problem? It's an unstable currency yes but the same can be said for Zimbabwean
dollar
~~~
kaonashi
In your case, the transaction is barter, a transfer of one non-financial asset
for another.
If you have a contract to provide 100 BTC, then that contract would be money,
denominated in BTC (not the BTC themselves). It would exist on one balance
sheet as an asset, and on another as a liability (at the same time).
------
canjobear
The article says this was a motion to dismiss all charges, on grounds that
bitcoin isn't money and that Ulbricht wasn't responsible for website users'
actions.
What happened to the murder-for-hire charges? Those seemed pretty damning...
~~~
herendin
All dropped, except the Maryland case, which isn't being tried yet and could
also be dropped when the time comes
------
svedlin
The claim is that the term "funds" included in the definition of "financial
transaction" [1] covers bitcoins.
"Funds" typically denotes cash or an asset that is highly liquid, not just
anything which can be purchased or sold. Black's Law Dictionary defines "fund"
as a "sum of money or other liquid assets established for a specific purpose."
Bitcoins, at this stage, are accepted almost nowhere, recognized by few people
as currency, and represent a tiny, highly volatile and risky niche compared to
other markets. It's much easier to convert a used iPhone (the top search on
eBay) into cash, sell concert tickets on craigslist, or trade collectibles,
than it is to convert bitcoins into legal tender, but no one would mistake
those goods for "funds." The law isn't intended to cover anything which can be
exchanged for cash. In fact, it specifically enumerates the following types of
property separately when defining the scope of "financial transaction": "real
property, vehicle, vessel, or aircraft." [1]
Because currency is accepted nearly everywhere as payment, the government
considers it difficult to police and subject to special penalties when used
for criminal ends. Goods like collectibles or bitcoins don't operate at that
scale, since they're accepted by relatively few businesses and specialized
experts as payment. If a tiny (in comparison to the economy at large)
experiment like bitcoin is "funds", then almost any object bought or sold in a
zillion stores and marketplaces can be construed as "funds". Any quid-pro-quo
could be considered laundering, which broadens the law beyond its intended
scope.
The ruling says:
"Ulbricht's alleged conduct is more akin to a builder who designs a house
complete with secret entrances and exits and specially designed traps to stash
drugs and money; this is not an ordinary dwelling, but a drug dealer's 'dream
house.'" [2]
It's not illegal to build a house with secret entrances and compartments. Such
a house could be used by anyone who wanted to hide their own possessions on
their own property. The fact that someone might use it for illicit purposes
doesn't implicate the owner or builder. It must be proved separately that the
owner or builder knowingly entered into some kind of agreement with another
conspirator to facilitate a crime [3]. Merely hosting a chat room isn't a
conspiracy.
Unfortunately, this is just a perpetuation of the same pointless drug war. The
prosecution's position is wildly overblown. The alleged activities are akin to
operating a motel where a victimless offense might have been committed by a
third party.
Drug prohibition is ineffective and is on the way out in favor of treatment
and social programs that are more effective.
[1]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956)
(4) the term “financial transaction” means
(A) a transaction which in any way or degree affects interstate or foreign
commerce
(i) involving the movement of funds by wire or other means or
(ii) involving one or more monetary instruments, or
(iii) involving the transfer of title to any real property, vehicle, vessel,
or aircraft, or
(B) a transaction involving the use of a financial institution which is
engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce
in any way or degree;
[...]
[2] [http://www.scribd.com/doc/233234104/Forrest-Denial-of-
Defens...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/233234104/Forrest-Denial-of-Defense-
Motion-in-Silk-Road-Case)
[3] [http://conspiracy.uslegal.com/elements-of-the-
crime/intent/](http://conspiracy.uslegal.com/elements-of-the-crime/intent/)
~~~
rtpg
>It's much easier to convert a used iPhone (the top search on eBay) into cash,
sell concert tickets on craigslist, or trade collectibles, than it is to
convert bitcoins into legal tender
Really? What about all the services like Bitstamp? I am fairly sure that
bitcoin is more liquid than used iPhones.
~~~
svedlin
I think for most people, bitcoin isn't particularly user-friendly yet. By
comparison, selling a used phone on eBay or craigslist is pretty easy...
~~~
a_c_s
Being user-friendly has nothing to do with liquidity.
Stocks, which most people don't understand and can't be sold without
contacting a broker are considered liquid.
Jewelry & stamp collections are not considered liquid assets, yet everyone
understands what these are and where to purchase them.
------
sashanna
Breaking news: judge exercises common sense.
------
BeyondTime
Bitcoin is based of cryptography which is completely broken before
implementation so, this would have to be a discussion about before time.
No one has experienced security.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How the backpropagation algorithm works - mblakele
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/how-the-backpropagation-algorithm-works/
======
mblakele
Direct link:
[http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap2.html](http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap2.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Monetization Tips For App Developers - SavvyGuard
http://mobile.openx.com/blog/monetization-tips-app-developers/
======
shahinh
Great read, Best tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting
to crunch the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
shahinh
Wow Great tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting to
crunch the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
jackson1990
Best tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be more interesting to
crunch the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
jackson1990
Great Idea, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting to crunch
the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
jackson1990
Great tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting to crunch
the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
shahinh
Great tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting to crunch
the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
jackson1990
Great tips, everything makes sense logically. Would be interesting to crunch
the data and see if everything plays out as described.
------
jackson1990
Great tips, everything makes sense logically.
------
shahinh
Great read, Best tips, thanks for posting.
------
shahinh
Best tips, thanks a lot for posting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google will now show bosses if employees are actually using its apps - Leary
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/18/google-g-suite-launches-work-insights-tools-to-track-app-adoption.html
======
tannhaeuser
I can see PHBs wanting to discuss G suite's performance reports, and leverage
that for firing.
Office 365 does the same thing? MS, for all their faults, was once a pioneer
in personal computing, and pitched Word and Excel against centralistic
mainframe text procesing and accounting software. How could MS not build on
their pro-end user stance and deliver mainframe-like (borg-like) "telemetry"
software to spy on you instead? I doubt this is even legal in EU under privacy
and employment legislation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why didn't Osama Bin Laden get a trial? - Khao
I remember that Saddam Hussein got a trial when he was captured by american soldiers. Why didn't Osama get a trial then and got killed in his hideout instead?
======
jws
Edit to include: it appears he was not shot on sight, but shot when he
"resisted". This is tremendously important when you think about the order
which must have been given.
Saddam's trial was about documenting his government and demonstrating the
authority of the new Iraqi regime. No one ever expected it to end in anything
but a hanging.
There is no similar motive to have a trial for Bin Laden.
Another factor since 2006 is a development in the United States presidential
interpretation of the constitution that gives the president the authority to
order the death of individuals without judicial oversight[1]. This comes as a
surprise to most Americans and should be addressed, but it won't happen soon.
[1] Except for foreign officials or heads of state. Notice the gymnastics the
US went through to say they were not targeting Ghadafi, but might target
command centers where he might be present.
------
chickenorshrimp
Because he resisted. Saddam Hussein surrendered.
[http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_PA3pyZRo...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_PA3pyZRo9ICegSAKkm1e9xPk8A?docId%3D272f40ddeb4f42e48e3cb06132d9c7c3)
~~~
Khao
Oh well, this looks to me as if they had to have an excuse to shoot him.
What I find weird is how it doesn't look like this question gets asked a lot.
Everyone seems to think that killing him without a trial is how we do it now,
but Saddam Hussein had a trial and the nazi SS had a trial. Killing bad people
on sight is normally NOT how we do it.
~~~
genericbrandx
Saddam and the Nazis surrendered, bin Laden did not. The rules of engagement
are clear, which also hold true for metro police actions, in that lethal force
is authorized when the other party brandishes a weapon. If he had not had a
weapon, if he had raised his hands instead of an AK then he would have faced
trial but that is not how things went down.
~~~
Khao
I cannot find any article that talks about how exactly did bin Laden resist.
Do you have any link saying that bin Laden was armed?
~~~
chickenorshrimp
I believe the story I linked from the AP has the most info that's out now. The
President still hasn't authorized releasing the photos of the body yet either,
so there is still more info to come.
------
thedangler
I'm sorry, But were any of you guys there? How do we know he resisted.
Assuming it was really him they killed and tossed in the water with in a
couple hours. Where is the report and photos?
He's resisting shoot him. You saw that right? he resisted. Yup.
Cops do it all the time what makes you think the NAVY Seals are any different.
History is written by the winners, Correct?
This is fishy and really good timing.
Around 2 min mark <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg>
He was a CIA asset. I really don't know what to believe any more.
I'd really like to know if the guy who tweeted the whole thing knew he was
there. Someone should interview him.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
DoDont: A New Social Network; Bring On The Snarky Comments - jblarge
http://blog.dodont.com/2010/07/dodont-a-new-social-network-bring-on-the-snarky-comments/
======
Jun8
Interesting idea: Two recommendations: (i) Add an openid-based login (e.g.
GMail), nobody in their right mind would use Facebook connect (ii) The home
page design is kinda weak, for example it doesn't show how the comments are
grouped, e.g. will I be able to see all the Do's for restaurants, are they
grouped by geotags, etc.
~~~
AmberShah
I agree the Facebook Connect was enough to scare me off. I did end up signing
up, but didn't actually post any information because I don't care to connect
with people on my/through my Facebook account.
For example, I thought about using my "Do/Don't" as a funny resource for
hackers but none of my Facebook peeps really apply.
By the way, I LOVE the write up. What a great way of circumventing the
inevitable ridicule by doing it yourself.
------
gergles
"How is this different from status updates?
DoDont is a filter for important and useful information, and with great tag
integration, your trusted information is always easiely available."
Great tag integration? There aren't any examples of tags in any of the samples
(unless they're hidden, in which case it still seems silly to discuss them as
the only differentiator of this service from FB).
Also, guys. Spell check your HTML. You're a startup, but you don't have to
look like one. Modern HTML editors will helpfully put red squiggles under
words like "easiely" to draw your attention to the error. They're not there
for flair.
nthing the complaint about FB connect; you don't need to know my real name,
especially without a privacy policy other than "Trust us, we won't post
anything unless you say it's OK!". Sorry, that's insufficient to give you
complete, unfettered access to my FB account and to datamine all of my friends
(part of the bad about that falls on FB, but since that's what you chose to
use...)
------
ratcliffco
I avoid FB connect - sites/services I try don't need to be linked to my
identity on Facebook, that's just too private, sorry.
~~~
powrtoch
Seconded. I think the move towards not having a new login at every site is a
good one, but FB connect doesn't seem like the way to go. I'd like to see
something like OpenID, but at the very least there should (always!) be a
simple userid or email option.
~~~
c1sc0
Or maybe you're just an outlier who (a) understands how Facebook Connect works
(b) actually cares. Does anyone have hard numbers on Social (FB/Twitter/...)
signup vs. old-fashioned signup. In other words: as a site owner, why should I
go through the trouble of setting up my own user management when I can get
that for free by integrating FB Connect?
~~~
mikumetz
As a site owner you should probably have both. FB connect isn't "free":
implementing integration probably takes more time than installing
authentication plugin for Rails (and doesn't Django have built-in user
management?)
But I think you _should_ have Facebookless login if you care about early
adopters: too many of them are indeed "outliers" you've identified above. I
also think you should have facebookless option simply because it's good for
the Internet: I wouldn't want to see so much of it being controlled by a
handful of large corps.
------
hexidecimal0
So how do I sign up? I don't see a link anywyere. There's FB button but I
don't use FB.
~~~
texasrgr453
I feel like I'm being forced to get a fake FB account (or a bunch of them)
just for purposes to bypassing "Facebook tax" on the Internet.
------
dpnewman
Maybe i missed something obvious, but why call yourselves a social network at
all - why lead with that? Opinion engine is much more accurate and much more
compelling.
~~~
what
Opinion Engine reminded me of Bing calling itself a decision engine.
------
sjs382
"Sign in or Sign up here" doesnt work in Chrome.
DONT make your new startup's page unusable in a major browser. ;)
~~~
DotSauce
It's Facebook connect and works for me.
Really hard time envisioning this taking off.
Needs rewards, benefits, resources... something, anything besides people
telling me what I should and should not do.
~~~
philcrissman
the FB connect button did not appear for me, either (also in Chrome). Saw it
in Firefox; but... I'm not interested in logging in with my facebook account,
so I guess I won't be using the site.
If it had you create a new account, quick and simple like, I would have
checked it out.
------
limaya
Interesting to note that half of the comments isn't about the service but
about Facebook connect...
------
thinker
There are plenty of niche networks that are interesting and useful (HN, Quora,
Reddit). As long as creating friends isn't your primary activity, you're good.
This reminds me of the FML-style websites out there.
Your logo is a train crash right now. I hope its meant as an anti-web-2.0 joke
otherwise there is no reason you needed to get Frank Gehry to design you a
logo.
------
mindcrime
Hmmm... gotta admit, it's an intriguing idea. I think you might just be onto
something. A new "general purpose" social network, probably not a great idea.
But something dedicated to a particular topic, or theme (like opinions) could
very well succeed.
Good luck!
------
shaunxcode
"Never lose track of what you've thought and experienced" Man I would love to
spend some time writing a debord-esque critique of that statement, but I am
too busy also developing software to help people never lose track of their
authentic experience...
------
cmars232
DONT require a sign in just to browse. I'm not going to sign up just to see if
there's anything in there worthwhile.
------
dshupp
witty. looking forward to tweetdeck picking it up
------
djb_hackernews
why not just aggregate #dodont on twitter/facebook? There is no need to create
a totally new messaging platform, just build something on top.
------
tysonlundbech
i just did it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Has the TIME Person of the Year vote been fixed? - MattBearman
A few days ago I voted for Edward Snowden, and at the time I'm sure he had nearly 200,000 votes. Now he only has 44,000 - http://poy.time.com/2013/11/25/vote-now-who-should-be-times-person-of-the-year/slide/edward-snowden/
======
dylz
It has always been. The online vote is just merely for fun, the actual
choosing is done by the editors, and hsa absolutely nothing to do with the
online vote.
------
api
I love how the Internet is facilitating this slow awakening to the degree to
which the media is controlled and spun.
~~~
sparkie
The media is not controlled at all!
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9oJZswV6Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9oJZswV6Y)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon Joins the Instant Party - what
http://amazoninstant.appspot.com/
======
what
Woo, got it to return relevant results, finally. If anyone ever does anything
with the Amazon API, when doing an ItemSearch always include a BrowseNode.
Post any queries that get bad results.
------
fookyong
I'm guessing this is caused by their API rather than this app... but it's
actually faster to search Amazon the regular way than it is to use this
"instant" version.
~~~
what
Yeah, I know--at least I didn't spend to much time on it :( Seems to be better
if you set the category to books/music/movies. Problem is you can't sort the
results with api if you search across all products. Even if you can sort the
results, most categories seem to return a bunch of junk. Don't think it's the
same search Amazon uses on their site.
------
ajennings
Here's another one: <http://shoptivate.com/amazoninstant.php>
------
what
I know it's a few days late, but I was bored between classes so I slopped this
together. Not sure if anyone already did amazon.
------
mikecane
I think I broke it. All I get is a spinning wheel now, searching for "Fleming,
Ian," one of my test searches.
~~~
what
No, that was me. I changed something without testing it : / Fixed though, I
think.
~~~
mikecane
Whatever you changed broke it in Opera. Won't clear a search now.
------
hrrld
Interestingly, when I type 'kindle' I don't see any kindles...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The webworkers driven UI framework – defining the scope of the v1.3 release - tobiu
https://github.com/neomjs/neo/projects/16
======
tobiu
As an entirely free to use open source project, it relies on your input.
I just started to define the scope of the next minor release and your feedback
is not just only welcome, but makes a big impact on the current roadmap.
So, what would you like to see next?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Livestreaming Google Chrome Announcement @ 10:30 Pacific - panarky
http://www.youtube.com/googlechrome
======
panarky
Sure bets - Cloudprint
(<http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/p/cloudprint.html>), Chrome App Store
(<https://chrome.google.com/webstore/>)
Likely - Chrome OS alpha/beta release (<http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os>)
Speculative - Chrome netbook or tablet released with hardware partner, free or
subsidized 'test drive' of Chrome notebooks
~~~
panarky
Watching it live ...
Chrome Browser:
1\. Google Instant baked into the Chrome omnibox -- type one character,
favorite page loads
2\. Very fast PDF reader baked into the browser -- can load 1,990 page PDF in
less than a second
3\. Hardware (GPU) graphics accelaration in the browser
4\. Chrome beta was V8 engine had 16x better Javascript performance ... today
adding 'Crankshaft' to V8, will be 100x faster than IE from 2 years ago
(<http://blog.chromium.org/2010/12/new-crankshaft-for-v8.html>)
5\. Sync bookmarks, themes, extensions across machines
6\. Security sandboxing pioneered by Chrome is extended to plugins like Flash
and PDF
Chrome Web Store
1\. Helps users find apps, allows developers to get paid; rich interactive
apps from NPR, Sports Illustrated, New York Times HTML5 app
2\. Games from EA in Javascript + HTML5 instead of Flash
3\. 120 million regular Chrome users will make this the biggest app store in
the world
Chrome OS
1\. "Nothing but the web" -- browser running as close to the hardware as
possible
2\. Fast boot, suspend with instant resume, reconnects to network subsecond
3\. "Friends let friends log in" -- share your notebook with other people and
preserve everyone's privacy
4\. Offline Google Docs, games, apps -- resync automatically when reconnected
5\. Cloud print (<http://code.google.com/apis/cloudprint/docs/overview.html>)
6\. Partnered with Verizon for pay-as-you-go mobile data
7\. All data on the disk is encrypted by default
8\. Partnered with Citrix for 'Remoting' -- demoed running Excel, SAP, CAD/CAM
hosted in the datacenter right in the browser
9\. Notebook pilot program! Jailbreaking built-in!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SoundBrake 2.0 device makes headphone users less oblivious - sharieskenas
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/914595512/soundbrake-20-the-awareness-device-for-headphones
======
slang800
Cool concept, but why isn't it an app? Couldn't you use the mic on my phone to
listen for volume spikes, or even fine-tuned sound patterns?
Surely a modern phone CPU can do audio processing a great deal faster than a
common microcontroller. Plus it would be far easier to keep the phone charged
than to worry about a second device running out of battery.
~~~
smt88
I agree that an app has better ergonomics, but I believe it would murder the
phone's battery life. Better to run out of battery on a third-party device
than your phone.
Plus, a separate device allows you to use it with your laptop or your phone.
~~~
slang800
> murder the phone's battery life
I don't think that kind of audio processing would be an issue for battery
life. They're able to do everything on a coin-sized battery in their system.
From their prototype pics, they're using this:
[https://www.adafruit.com/product/1572](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1572)
That's a 120mAh coin cell that they say lasts for 50 hours. They might be
using something different in their final product, but we can safely assume
that their algorithm isn't super power-hungry and running a small mic isn't
going to do anything to your 3000-something mAh phone battery.
Obviously implementing this is a higher-level language like Java is going to
incur some overhead, when compared to their microcontroller implementation...
But the point is, they're not doing some advanced pattern matching on a
database of sounds or anything that's going to use crazy amounts of CPU-time.
> Better to run out of battery on a third-party device than your phone.
I disagree on that - it's really easy to remember to charge my phone. I do it
every single night. Other devices that I don't use for days at a time are easy
to forget about.
> a separate device allows you to use it with your laptop or your phone.
True - it would need to be ported to work on those platforms.
------
smt88
This is a cool idea. When posting your own projects on HN, it's better if you
prefix with "Show HN:" so that it's clear to us that you're advertising
something, rather than a random person endorsing a product you like.
~~~
sharieskenas
Thanks smt88!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
$10 ebook debate - who should decide? - francissson
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/panacea-or-poison-pill-who-gets-to-decide-about-the-10-e-book/
======
Nogwater
Where else do manufacturers decide on the price of the good and not the
retailer? I know lots of items come with MSRPs, but they're just suggestions.
Also, what about resale price maintenance?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance> I just stumbled upon
that page from the MSRP page.
Edit: fixed typo
~~~
Confusion
_Where else do manufacturers decide on the price of the good and not the
retailer?_
Everywhere. If a retailer starts selling a product below a certain price, that
will have its effect on the reputation of the product. Therefore the
manufacturer often contractually requires that the retailer will not sell the
product below a certain price.
------
francissson
Are ebooks a tangible artifact? I don't have the answer.
But, I think that ebooks should be cheaper than their paper counterpart. The
paper version should be considered premium version.
------
Zak
Ebooks should cost whatever the seller charges for them. The publisher's only
influence over that should be the amount the publisher charges for wholesale
copies.
------
waterlesscloud
In the end, of course, the consumer will decide.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On the History and Future of Cosmic Planet Formation - dstyrb
http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.01202
======
CaiGengYang
This is a related article on alien life by Nasa
[http://www.space.com/29041-alien-life-evidence-
by-2025-nasa....](http://www.space.com/29041-alien-life-evidence-
by-2025-nasa.html)
I would love to be able to help build cheap spaceships that can travel to
Europa , drill into the ocean underneath it and fish for life in there. There
could very well be life in there, and to find it would be an amazing hack ...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Python 3 Wall of Shame - iamelgringo
http://python3wos.appspot.com/
======
agentultra
"Wall of Shame," sounds harsh. However I don't think it's entirely
inappropriate. The premise is that it has been two years since py3k has been
release and the community has little to show for it. One would think two whole
years would be enough time to port a library. Especially if most of the
fundamental challenges of doing so are matters of syntax (not in all cases I'm
sure) and changing some names.
OTOH, maybe the community still refuses to switch? Maybe py3k is viewed as
"that bad," that no one wants to bother with it?
FWIW, py3k is quite fast now and the language "enhancements" do make a
significant difference. I actually quite like it now that my primary OS, Arch
Linux, gave me the boot and made py3 the default interpreter. Many of my
projects are still in py2.7, but I have been working on converting them.
Sometimes I get lucky and all I need to do is run 2to3!
~~~
briancurtin
"Maybe py3k is viewed as "that bad," that no one wants to bother with it?"
I don't think anyone's viewing it that way. A lot of people want to switch and
many are, but there's the non-zero cost of porting and also the generally low
demand. No one wants to spend 3 days of initial work on a port that no one
currently wants, then tack on the continued maintenance of two branches (or a
single code base that works with both and requires twice the testing).
Part of the reason we have the PSF Sprints funding is to solve that problem. A
group of 6-7 developers in Cape Town is taking advantage of the funding in
early March and plans to complete more of the py3k port of matplotlib.
matplotlib is a great one to work on in terms of community impact since it
usually ranks highly in any poll of 3.x blockers.
~~~
agentultra
Actually, my LUG is also considering doing some sprints. I'm more inclined to
join them after using py3 and wishing there was more support for it (and
feeling bad about my own laziness in porting my own stuff). The sprints are a
great idea and we're quite lucky to have such support!
------
JonnieCache
The equivalent for Ruby 1.9 is here:
<http://isitruby19.com>
And there's a version that shows rails3 compatibility amongst other things
here:
<http://railsplugins.org>
------
yuvadam
Let's admit it.
Once Django is Py3K-ready, all other projects will follow suit.
~~~
dagw
Is Django really that big a deal in the python world? I know it is a big deal
in the python web world, but the web seems a pretty small part of the python
world as a whole. If I where to ask all the python developers I knew to
prioritize the projects they want ported to py3, I'd imagine the results being
numpy/scipy/matplotlib first followed wxpython or pyqt second followed by PIL
and a whole bunch a smaller libraries, with Django getting a "sure I guess"
down at the bottom of the list.
~~~
glenjamin
I would expect NLTK to have a fairly broad user base too, although possibly
the community is less likely to be involved in the broader python landscape.
~~~
dagw
The thing with Python is it has very long tail of libraries, like NLTK,
OpenCV, openopt, Mayavi etc. who's individual communities might not make up
significant portion of the python community, but taken together is probably
more significant than that of any single high profile project.
------
paganel
Funny to see zope.interface on that list. I remember back in 2005, when Zope 3
had just been launched, about how everyone who mattered in the Zope world
would say things like "only stupid, retrograde people won't switch to Zope3".
I guess the stupid people won, because 6 years on Zope is like the Cobol of
Python web frameworks. I just hope the same thing won't happen to Python
itself.
~~~
rbanffy
Let's just call Zope 2 the Common Lisp of Python frameworks... I guess it
survives mostly because Plone needs it.
Zope 3 and Grok are pretty cool.
~~~
jnoller
twisted and a few others rely on zope.interface too. I never saw the draw
personally
------
pnathan
I've been doing a ton of Python work lately. Frankly, in my experience, Python
3 is more of a pain to develop with, primarily due to two factors:
* Encoding specifications required.
* maps/reduces returning iterators objects instead of a list. Having to call list() on anything I map is just a pain.
I don't plan to switch to Python 3 until a compelling reason shows up. 2.7
works great for what I do.
The real story here is how Python 3 appears to be a largely unwanted
improvement, IMO.
~~~
briancurtin
maps/reduces returning iterators objects instead of a list. Having to call list() on anything I map is just a pain.
Why do you require it to be a list?
------
mapleoin
This is a really good list for people who want to get involved in a Python
project. I only wish it were bigger and it would contain smaller projects as
well.
DecoratorTools shouldn't really be on that list though, since it doesn't make
any sense for py3.
~~~
jnoller
The list is horribly wrong and misleading. The author and others are working
to rectify it. There's a lot of packages on there that simply don't belong
there.
------
garnaat
"Wall of Shame"? Really?
As someone who's project appears on this list (and in the WRONG color) all I
can say is that I don't think anyone is trying to dis Python 3.x. Support will
come when a critical mass of developers are using 3.x. I know it's kind of a
chicken and egg problem but this seems to be saying that it's the package
developer's fault and I don't really think that's fair or true.
~~~
DeusExMachina
I think it's not really a chicken and egg problem though.
From a user point of view, using Python 3 looks like giving up on a lot of
libraries, which in turn means a lot more work to accomplish the same things.
It's a big effort that does not benefit anyone. If switching to a new version
of a language makes my life harder, then I will not, especially if working on
a startup or a project which is time critical.
On the other hand, this is a work that the developers of the libraries will
have to do anyway, sooner or later. Doing it now would benefit a lot of people
that would like to use the latest version of Python and now simply cannot
afford. So why do not do it? In this case the effort would benefit a lot of
people at once, which is the purpose of a library in the first place.
~~~
garnaat
It's a chicken/egg problem in that developers are saying I'm not porting
because no one is using Python 3.x and users are saying I'm not moving to
Python 3.x because none of my packages are available.
I can't just move to Python 3.x and abandon 2.x. And I have not been able to
find a way to have boto support both with the same code base. So, then it
becomes a matter of maintaining multiple versions of boto. Just shoot me now.
If the barriers weren't so high, more packages would be running in Python3.x.
~~~
wisty
Yep, everyone has limited time and resources. Another problem is that many
libraries have dependencies, and they can't start porting until the
dependencies have been ported (or a replacement is found). Finally, library
developers only want to develop for languages they like using, and who likes a
language with no good libraries?
------
jnoller
Pretty much inaccurate data. For example many project release under a new "3k"
name, and leave the old ones. One of those is a backport of a stdlib module
(multiprocessing), etc. So, it's bad data, and misleading, but I admire the
idea.
~~~
ubershmekel
Thanks :) You'll notice I removed multiprocessing. I'm considering removing
setuptools as well. Too bad I have to hardcode these things. I wish there was
some metadata about a package having a py3k counterpart.
------
rm445
Is this a wall of shame for the packages in red, or for Python 3 itself?
~~~
ubershmekel
I think my inspiration was a little of both.
------
overgard
I think a large part of the problem is that there aren't strong incentives to
switch to Python 3, or at least that was the case when it first came out, and
first impressions tend to matter. To me, as a user, it looked like "slower and
none of my libraries will work."
A better way to sell python 3 should be to highlight python 2's pain points,
and show why 3 is better. If they were to show a significant performance gain
over Python 2.x, or some sort of killer new feature (ie, get rid of "self"
everywhere) I suspect python 3 would get a lot more traction. As it is, Python
2 as a language works just fine for me, and most of what I want (a better
interpreter) are being addressed by the PyPy project.
------
leejoramo
At first I was going to say that we need some sort of dependency graph to
focus on what needs to be ported first. As a Plone developer, I see lots of
stuff down the stack that needs to be done before Plone could move to Python
3. However, simply ranking based on number of downloads seems to do a pretty
good prioritization.
Out of the first 10 packages that haven't been ported to Python 3, I think
nearly all are needed for Plone. (Although things like virtualenv are not a
requirement for Plone, they are widely used in Plone development)
------
Encave
I am currently doing a similar sort of website, but trying to limit it to
popular projects only. Also trying to group together a lot of the python 3
related articles and porting tips.
My current research can be found here: <http://goo.gl/SCImr>
Any corrections, or ideas for what can be on the site would be appreciated.
~~~
victorg5
You're welcome to use content from <https://bitbucket.org/pypy/compatibility>.
There is a growing list of dependencies at
<https://bitbucket.org/pypy/compatibility/wiki/depends.yaml>.
~~~
Encave
That just saved me a hell of a lot of work. Thank you!
~~~
victorg5
You're welcome. You can even clone that and make a wiki for py3k from it if
you want. There's a script (in the wiki repo) to parse the wiki into YAML, so
reuse of the current content should be easy no matter what format you want.
------
sigzero
So this is a small shout out to Pythonistas. Get involved with a project and
help port it.
------
moe
It will be interesting to see how Guido et al will judge the py3k transition-
strategy in hindsight and whether they will repeat it or move back to a more
traditional, incremental development model.
~~~
beoba
If you 'incrementally' include changes which are incompatible, you end up with
many more compatibility barriers to keep track of.
"Oh wait, this machine has foo 1.5.2, not 1.5.6!!!"
Though a solution to this scenario is to avoid including too many libraries in
the standard distribution in the first place, so that incompatible changes in
those libraries don't affect the base.
This in turn means that big packages with lots of dependencies would need to
say "you need fooliba-1.5.6, foolibb-4.3.2, etc" instead of just "you need
foo-5.2", but other languages do this and they seem to manage it alright.
~~~
moe
Well, most other languages use the incremental approach, python is the outlier
here.
I'm not saying one or the other is definitely better, just that I'm looking
forward to the final judgement after this multi-year effort.
------
zeemonkee
Arch Linux uses Python3 as the default system Python, which I found a bit daft
as almost every Python library I use relies on Python 2.x.
------
lbolla
Just picked one from the red list (pytz) and it looks like Py3.1 is
supported...
~~~
briancurtin
Too many authors don't update their classifiers before uploading to PyPI.
Plenty of things on that list are incorrect, but it's the package author's
fault.
------
s3graham
There's a lot of improvements in 3, but I'm sad to say I'm really hung up on
print (and that's why I'm still using 2.x).
Eventually, I guess. If I have to.
~~~
metageek
Yeah, there's no good reason to change print. Sure, making it a function can
be handy; but they should recognize the "print foo" syntax and compile it to a
function call.
------
RyanMcGreal
The real issue is that for both developers and library maintainers, moving to
Python3 entails a lot of aggravation for a comparatively small net benefit.
~~~
jnoller
Porting is actually fairly trivial in many cases. If you go and look at most
of the porting stories for Python 3, you'll find the authors saying "I was
worried it would be hard... but it was really easy".
~~~
metageek
I have the impression that translating the Python is easy (it was for the one
project I did), but the C bindings are more of a pain.
------
enduser
The wall of shame itself is written in Python 2.
~~~
danielsoneg
Well of course - there's no libraries for Py3k.
------
j2d2j2d2
Interesting to see pymongo on that list.
What about other databases?
_Edit: Mysql appears to be represented too_
~~~
zeemonkee
SQLAlchemy is ported at least, don't know about all the low-level drivers
though.
------
alifaziz
You don't need to name it as Wall of Shame.
~~~
sigzero
No, that is a sensational title. It got everyone to look though didn't it.
------
listic
I just realized: Python is supposed to move slowly. Maybe they should have
come up with a better name?
------
juanefren
Why isn't reportlab in the list?
------
hazelnut
well, it's the same with php4 and php5. and php5 has been released in 2004 ...
~~~
eel
PHP 5 was still, as much as I can remember, compatible with PHP 4, wasn't it?
Anything that worked in PHP 4 worked in PHP 5.
~~~
jinushaun
That's not true. If one used OOP in PHP4, running that code in PHP5 will
produce lots of bugs related to the new object model.
------
c4urself
does this highlight how hard it is to move from python 2 to 3?
sidenote: love the pink select must be html5 boilerplate :)
------
tonetheman
funny... everyone needs to run out and convert so that the 3 people using py3k
can have new packages... doh
~~~
dagw
And the reason only 3 people are using py3k is that there are no packages for
it...
~~~
muuh-gnu
So what is the point in using py3 then? They either should keep using the
version with the largest library base, in order to profit from other's
momentum, or invest their own ressources (money/time/skill) into making a
py3-only library attractive enough to pull everybody else against their will.
What they're doing right now, is not investing anything at all to make py3
more attractive, but simply being loud and vocal and trying to coerce the
majority through social pressure to do work to support their version of
choice, even if there is no actually noticeable benefit in for them to do so.
~~~
sigzero
Well...eventually 2.7.x is going to be it except for security patches. The
future of Python is the 3 branch and I am confident that everyone will port.
You have to keep in mind though that P2->P3 was laid out as a 5 year process.
We are only half way through it at this point.
------
zeynel1
"Get the source for this GAE app at google code."
Google App Engine should be in the list as well. GAE supports Python 2.5.
~~~
lusis
Google only supports 2.5 for anything python related. Take a look at the
python protobuf client:
[http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/issues/detail?id=66&q=...](http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/issues/detail?id=66&q=Python%202.6&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20FixedIn%20Owner%20Summary)
Don't expect google to upgrade anytime soon.
~~~
anamax
Python 2.7 is now on the roadmap.
<http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/roadmap.html>
~~~
lusis
Oh now that'll be nice. Wonder if they'll let let me future import ;) I seem
to recall some restrictions in how they implemented the VM for AppEngine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Advice concerning rucx.com as a startup domain/brand name - rucx
What do you think about the domain rucx.com for a startup?
Will it lead to too many spelling issues?
Does the X imply pornographic content too strongly (which it shouldn't)?
Is it memorable enough?
======
mikerhoads
X does not imply porn if there is only 1 of them.
To me this is a decent name for a dev shop or someone that offers technical
B2B service.
If you want to do something that would appeal to the average person, I'd look
for something a little more "natural langageish".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms - Anon84
https://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shais/UnderstandingMachineLearning/copy.html
======
nafizh
The author has also kindly posted a solution manual for all the exercises [0].
Last time I checked (year ago) this wasn't available publicly. I love books
that have solution manuals available, crucial for self-learning.
0.[https://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shais/UnderstandingMachineLearnin...](https://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shais/UnderstandingMachineLearning/exercises.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & 6950 Debut: Enter Cayman - MojoKid
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970--6950-GPU-Reviews-Enter-Cayman/
======
frisco
_Hold on, hold on a second._ Let's put this in perspective. This _brand new_
ATI flagship card has a whopping 24 cores clocked at 880 MHz and a memory bus
capable of 5.5 GB/sec. There's no general purpose API here; everything is
shaders. Let's compare this to the latest NVIDIA desktop GPU, the GTX 580,
capable of both shaders (graphics-native code) and general purpose
programming: _512 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz with 192 GB/sec in memory
throughput_. What? And this isn't even NVIDIA's most powerful card. How does
ATI get out of bed in the morning?
~~~
sparky
There is a rational debate to be had about the relative merits of the two
architectures and programming ecosystems; this isn't it.
1) A GPU "core" is loosely defined. Those "512 CUDA cores" are 16 streaming
multiprocessors with 32-wide SIMT.
2) Big parts of GF100/110's SMs are double-clocked; most of the rest of the
chip runs at 750MHz (for the clock rates in your example).
3) 5.5 Gigabits per second per data pin (faster than GF100/110). 256 data pins
(fewer). 176 Gigabytes per second per chip (close).
4) OpenCL. There are and have been others, but OpenCL is probably ATI's bet
for general purpose programming. You could say it's inferior to CUDA (and I'd
agree), but to act like it doesn't exist cheapens the debate.
This does speak to the immense power of marketing though; it's easy to lay
down such a thicket of buzzwords that you can spin a product any way you want.
~~~
MojoKid
Exactly, it's all how the two companies market their architecture is all, that
and branding. Technically speaking, AMD does more in less silicon area but
also has to run at higher clock speeds to do so. The power draw is about
comparable between similar price/performance ratios from each camp.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask YC: Books/Links on giving better demonstrations. - Hates_
I fudged my through a demonstration this morning and really want to improve the way I do it. I'm not looking for info on presentations so-much but just books on how to give a better run through of software. Are there techniques I can use to do a better job next time a client comes in for a meeting and I'm left holding the ball.
======
mixmax
I think that this is not the kind of thing you learn by reading a book - or
sitting in front of a computer. It's a people thing. People have a knack for
seeing through other people, whether they believe what they are presenting,
like what they do etc.
These are the things I would recommend if you want to do a great
demonstration:
\- Love your product - nothing shines through like enthusiasm. Don't be afraid
to show it either.
\- Talk to people, study their reactions, smile to the waitresses, hook up
with girls (or guys if that's your preference), start conversations with
strangers on the bus. Like in all other walks of life if you practice
interacting with people you will become good at it.
\- Study great speakers when they do their thing - Start by looking at some of
Steve Jobs keynotes. The guy is amazing. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are
great at it too.
\- Be prepared - Do your presentation until your girlfriend starts complaining
that you talk in your sleep and she has heard more about you product while you
sleep than she has heard about her other girlfriends sexlife. And that's a
lot... Steve Jobs recites until everything is absolutely pixel perfect, and
every eventuality is covered - and it shows. On their keynotes I heard that
they have three independent AV systems. Just in case two of them break down.
\- Read Dale carnegies "how to win friends and influence people - it's much
better than all the modern crap. It's from the 1930's if my memory serves me
correctly.
Good luck :-)
------
johnm
(A) Presentation Zen both the book (that came out recently) and the blog:
<http://www.presentationzen.com/> and Beyond Bullet Points,
<http://beyondbulletpoints.com/> the book and online seminars.
Yes, both of them are primarily focused on "static" presentations, however the
focus on the telling a good story through your demonstration is the point. In
presenting Krugle at DEMO06 (and winning a DEMOGod award, woohoo!), the
biggest failing we saw in many of the other presentations was the fact that
the "story" was a confusing, convoluted mess.
(B) Spend a lot more time building and practicing your
presentations/demonstrations than you think. Video yourself is great if you
can do it but just standing up and actually running through the entire
presentation/demo repeatedly goes a long ways.
(C) For online/web demos, I always build a completely usable, static
presentation (in Keynote/PowerPoint) using lots of e.g., diagrams and
screenshots so that the presentation still works for the audience even if the
network/server is down/slow.
(D) Have a personality -- and bend it towards your audience. I.e., a
presentation needs to be engaging/interesting to the audience. I.e., think at
least as much about entertaining (in the best possible way) as you do about
being e.g., informative.
(E) Have fun!
Hope this helps, John
------
dkokelley
I don't know exactly what your background/experience is, but experience in
sales will give you good, everyday practice interacting with other people and
demonstrating on the fly.
Like mixmax said, watch for Steve Jobs' presentations. He has a strange
personality but his stage presence is outstanding.
How to win friend and influence people (Dale Carnegie) is also really good.
I would avoid most of the current "sales/presentation" self-help books out
there. Most of them are not worth the paper they're printed on.
One last thought, try and find a mentor or a coach and/or join a speaking
club. Toastmasters (<http://www.toastmasters.org/>) and the National Speakers
Association (<http://www.nsaspeaker.org/>) are good, but they may be overkill
if you don't do demonstrations regularly or to larger audiences.
------
wallflower
There are many things I can list. But I'll provide just one - get a
tripod/camera and videotape yourself presenting.
"Speaking Secrets of the Masters: The Personal Techniques Used by 22 of the
World's Top Professional Speakers" is the best book I have ever come across on
speaking as an art/science because it has many different insights.
------
sanj
1\. <http://presentationzen.blogs.com/>
2\. Practice, practice, practice.
------
edw519
Run, don't walk to:
<http://www.toastmasters.org/>
Listen to mixmax - all the books/info in the world are absolutely no
substitute for practice. Find the smallest toastmasters chapter close to you
(so you get more chances to present), join, and go every week, no matter what.
In 6 months you'll wonder why you ever had to post this here.
I always used my Toastmasters group to practice my sales presentations. It
forced me to be ready by a deadline, and the people there provided excellent
feedback. It gave me a chance to try new things, and best of all, it never
cost me a sale.
(Oops, just noticed that dkokelley suggested the same thing. See?)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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First contact: what if we find not organic life but ET’s AI? – Aeon Essays - rbanffy
https://aeon.co/essays/first-contact-what-if-we-find-not-organic-life-but-ets-ai?__twitter_impression=true
======
mojomark
The article discusses the history of the concept, but completely misses
Disney's fair treatment of the topic in Flight of the Navigator(1) CA. 1986;)
1\. [https://youtu.be/gVebPEYiq2o](https://youtu.be/gVebPEYiq2o)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Threat Modeling Newsletter - threatmodeler
https://www.toreon.com/threat-modeling/keep-up-to-date-with-the-latest-threat-modeling-news-and-insights/
======
jvandenbroeck
More appsec people should start performing threat models, I would definitely
recommend the newsletter.
You can read old editions on mailchimp: [https://us11.campaign-
archive.com/home/?u=b3d749f15634df3ec1...](https://us11.campaign-
archive.com/home/?u=b3d749f15634df3ec111f27ee&id=a9ff7b2f72)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Next-gen Intel notebook chips to exceed 3.0GHz - jmorin007
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/18/next_gen_intel_notebook_chips_to_exceed_3_0ghz.html
======
wmf
They're at 2.8 GHz now, so I rate this rumor "duh".
------
simianstyle
Moore would be spinning in his grave.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to undo accidentally clicking flag at hn? - jerven
======
ColinWright
If you really do mean "flag" then it should have turned to "unflag" and you
can just click it again.
If you mean the down-arrow, there is no undo.
~~~
jerven
Thank you, unfortunately I lost the story l clicked flag on in the list.
------
detaro
the flag link should have turned to "unflag"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any good Python App Engine Frameworks? - gcmartinelli
What framework would you recommend for Google App Engine (in Python), besides the default webapp?<p>If it has a module for integration with Facebook Connect it would be a plus.<p>Pre-built admin like Django's would be great also (I know I can use Django on GAE, but I believe the pre-built Admin area does not work with GAE).
======
aitoehigie
take a look at web2py.com. I used it in developing gowork.com.ng and I had no
issues, worked perfectly on localhost and also on app engine. It has no
inbuilt module for FB integration but you can try Janrain
~~~
gcmartinelli
thanks. I'll check it out
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
White South Carolina Police Officer Shoots Fleeing Black Man in Back - dankohn1
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2015/04/07/south-carolina
======
dankohn1
Wait until every cop in America has a video camera running at all times, and
lack of video footage implies they have something to hide.
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Wait until it still doesn't make a single bit of difference.
~~~
dankohn1
A cop has been charged with murder, while yesterday he was being lauded for a
good shoot. Not "a single bit of difference"?
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
They charged the guy who killed Eric Garner, and look what happened there.
~~~
dankohn1
No, they did not charge the cop that killed Eric Garner. So this case is
already different.
| {
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Re-implementing the XMonad window manager core in Coq: PDF - dons
http://www.cs.ru.nl/~wouters/Talks/BrouwerExtraction.pdf
======
chwahoo
This is a cool effort. Since agda : haskell :: coq : ocaml, I'm curious why
agda wasn't used. Does it not not support extraction in the same way?
I would liked to have seen the talk itself since there are a few places in the
slides where more detail would be nice. For example, I saw no reason why
focusLeft on slide 40 wouldn't be total---it's not recursive, so why wouldn't
it terminate? (given that reverse is total)
I also wonder whether most functions in functional programs can be rewritten
so that termination is evident due to structural recursion (like the
transformation described on slide 41).
~~~
colanderman
Never heard of Agda, thanks for the pointer. From what I read, it seems that
Agda proofs are written declaratively, rather than interactively using tactics
as in Coq. From experience, Coq's tactic-based proof system is very nice as it
"unravels" the proof term in a way that makes it more manageable than
balancing lambda terms in one's head.
Regarding the question of totality on slide 40, a naïve analysis would say
that the deconstruction "let (y : ys) =" could fail (if the list returned from
reverse were empty), and thus the function would not be total. Of course this
is not the case, since reversing a non-empty list returns a non-empty list,
but this requires that reverse be dependently typed.
(Slightly off-topic: the Mercury logic programming language supports just the
right amount of dependency to allow this specification of reverse, and would
deduce totality for this function.)
Back on topic, yes, most _practical_ functions can be rewritten to be
structurally recursive. The most brain-dead easy way is add a "time-to-live"
argument to the recursive function. This argument is a Peano number initially
set to a value higher than the expected number of recurrences. (In the example
from the slides, one could choose the total number of windows on the screen.)
The function is then modified to decrement the time-to-live argument on each
recurrence, and to return a dummy value should the time-to-live reach zero.
It's then trivial to prove that the function terminates, and usually easy to
prove that it does what it's supposed to do before the time-to-live zeros out.
~~~
chwahoo
> Regarding the question of totality on slide 40, a naïve analysis would say
> that the deconstruction "let (y : ys) =" could fail (if the list returned
> from reverse were empty), and thus the function would not be total. Of
> course this is not the case, since reversing a non-empty list returns a non-
> empty list, but this requires that reverse be dependently typed.
You are right, I missed the deconstruction. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
All The Metrics! Or How You Too Can Graph Everything. - pmoriarty
http://sysadvent.blogspot.com/2011/12/day-23-all-metrics-or-how-you-too-can.html
======
SEJeff
Graphite co-maintainer here. We are working through the issues to finish up
the 0.9.13 release now, the last of 0.9.x. There are some exciting features
coming up in the master branch (future 0.10) as we slowly merge megacarbon
into master. We are also slowly upping the test coverage one project at a time
(I spent some considerable effort on whisper over the Christmas break) to give
us more confidence when merging contributions from our huge user community.
So TL;DNR: if you've got graphite questions, feel free to ask here :)
~~~
pmoriarty
How would you respond to the criticisms of graphite in a previous graphite-
themed HN thread? [1]
Some examples:
"FWIW I've found influxdb considerably easier to install and manage
than graphite (graphite doesn't play well with virtualenv, which
makes dependency management horrible, compared to influxdb's single
static binary)
Also, I can see logging dictionaries being much more efficient and
useful than logging single values -- with graphite if you want to
track page hits per section of your site (of which you have 10) per
user (100) per browser (5), you end up with 5000 individual metrics,
and you need to have thought of them in advance. With influxdb you
can log {"section": "front page", "user": "bob", "browser":
"firefox", "hits": 1} as a single metric and then use an SQL-like
query to filter by section / user / browser (or any combination of
those) as and when you want to."[2]
"I've spent the last week working on upgrading our Graphite
system. I ultimately killed it and went with InfluxDB. The ease of
installation and cluster creation were clear winners.
Additionally the storage options for Influx trump Graphite across
the board. I tried writing a custom backend and it went nowhere. The
docs and code are terrible. I also noticed that Ceres hasn't had a
commit in a year - kind of disheartening."[3]
"I haven't had the best experience with Graphite. Namely, our main
systems practically never crash but Graphite does fall over every
few months. Seriously, Graphite is less reliable than the systems we
use it to monitor."[4]
"We've had the same problems."[5]
"My biggest problem with Graphite was that it managed to grind an
expensive large RAID array into the ground with a relatively small
number (in my eyes) of metrics. We had the realisation that we'd
waste a tremendous amount of hardware or have to cut down
drastically on our data collection if we were to roll out Graphite
across the board.
(And yes, we had crashes too)
The reason for the disk grinding was simple: The whisper storage
system is ridiculously inefficient as it does tiny writes all over
the places, and an excessive number of system calls to boot."[6]
[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739208)
[2] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739784)
[3] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740058)
[4] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739391)
[5] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8742242](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8742242)
[6] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8739465)
~~~
SEJeff
Ooooohhh a hard one. I better get an upvote for this (joking)!
So WRT installation, it is a PITA to install graphite as it follows an
antipattern of hardcoding /opt into setup.cfg, which we'll be changing in the
0.10 release (to making installing via normal python tools like virtualenv and
pip work). That being said, there are really 3 main components to graphite:
1\. Whisper, the "improved" RRD. 2\. Carbon, the relay and caching daemon that
writes out metrics (as whisper by default) 3\. Graphite, which is simply a
webui for reading data from carbon and creating graphs, or returning JSON.
The only part that is actually interesting is Graphite, whereas carbon and
whisper can be though more of as implementation details for when Chris Davis
first wrote graphite. There is a large collection of tools that work with
carbon's super simple text based line protocol. Additionally, there are tons
of tools that work with the json or png graph data that graphite-web returns.
As an ecosystem, we've made it so that swapping out for a different backend is
trivial.
""" Also, I can see logging dictionaries being much more efficient and useful
than logging single values -- with graphite if you want to track page hits per
section of your site (of which you have 10) per user (100) per browser (5),
you end up with 5000 individual metrics, and you need to have thought of them
in advance. With influxdb you can log {"section": "front page", "user": "bob",
"browser": "firefox", "hits": 1} as a single metric and then use an SQL-like
query to filter by section / user / browser (or any combination of those) as
and when you want to."[2] """
This is precisely what statsd is for, if you're not familar with it, you
really should look into it.
Now regarding "influx vs graphite", I honestly don't see influx as a
competitor nor will I likely ever see it as a competitor. Sure you can do some
aggregations and apply some functions to your data stored in influx, awesome,
but Influx can be used as a backend for graphite[1]. So many people don't
realize that writing a pluggable backend for graphite is pretty simple. For
super scalable backends, I'm somewhat partial to the Cyanite[2] backend which
stores metrics in Cassandra, but other people swear by opentsdb + graphite[3].
One thing I will say is that the carbon relay is not great software. Around
100k metrics per second even tuned on excellent hardware, twisted (python)
falls over and it just eats it. I've been meaning to take a shot at rewriting
this in golang, but don't have tons and tons of free time to do this on just
yet. For a faster relay/aggregator, may I point you to the c version[4] which
is super performant.
Now for anyone who says that whisper is inefficient because it does tiny
writes, perhaps they should understand the software they are attempting to use
before deploying it. Whisper is more or less RRD, but allowing backfilling old
data. Lots and lots of tiny writes are how the software it replaced worked and
how it is meant to work. That being said, there have been several pull
requests to batch the writes so that where possible, it has less of an IO
penalty. However, you fundamentally need to understand how to troubleshoot a
Linux system and tune a system / hardware for the application running on it. I
can't stress that enough.
Regarding other choices, I think quite highly of a drop in graphite-web
compatible rewrite in flask named graphite-api[5] from one of our excellent
contributors who works for exoscale. Graphite api is interesting in that it is
basically just the good parts of graphite-web, namely the functions.py that do
all of the transformations. For a dashboard with that, I also suggest you look
into grafana[6], which also supports influxdb natively, but again, graphite
has a ton more options for transforming the data so they are overlapping, but
not competitors.
Also please note that unlike Influx or many of the "competitors" of graphite,
we're a small handful of developers spread out over 2-3 continents who don't
have a ton of free time. We work on Graphite for fun and try to make things
better for the community. There are plenty of good tools != to graphite to
use, this is a good thing! #monitoringlove
Does this answer most of your questions?
[1] [https://github.com/vimeo/graphite-
influxdb](https://github.com/vimeo/graphite-influxdb)
[2] [https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-
cyanite](https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-cyanite) and
[https://github.com/pyr/cyanite](https://github.com/pyr/cyanite)
[3] [https://github.com/mikebryant/graphite-opentsdb-
finder](https://github.com/mikebryant/graphite-opentsdb-finder)
[4] [https://github.com/grobian/carbon-c-
relay](https://github.com/grobian/carbon-c-relay)
[5] [https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-
api](https://github.com/brutasse/graphite-api)
[6] [http://grafana.org/](http://grafana.org/)
~~~
pmoriarty
Fantastic answer! Thank you for taking the time to answer in such detail.
You've definitely got my upvote, though you deserve far more.
~~~
SEJeff
Thanks! I should also point out the Synthesize project, which makes setting up
the entire graphite stack trivial. It was written by another one of the
Graphite co-maintainers, the famous Jason Dixon aka obsfuscurity:
[https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize](https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo acquires Astrid - tamersalama
http://blog.astrid.com/blog/2013/05/01/yahoo-acquires-astrid/
======
general_failure
I don't want to take anything away from Astrid.
I keeps dismissing my ideas as trivial and already done. When I think I have a
new idea, my friends would dismiss it as trivial and already done. Take
astrid's todo list or task sharing for example. My initial and only thought
would be 'does the world need another todo app', 'another list making app'
really? If I take the idea to my friends, they would bombard me with companies
who do exactly the same thing. And yet here we are with Astrid being acquired.
It seems to have some angel investment/funding even. The founders may not be
millionaires but they definitely made more money than I did.
Note to self: do something. anything. and get acquired.
------
greenyoda
Already discussed here:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5641288>
------
shenanigoat
Good for them. Astrid is best todo/task app I've ever tried...and I've tried
many. In fact, testing out todo/task apps is a great way to procrastinate.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cooking Patterns - appplemac
http://alexey.ch/cooking-patterns
======
batbomb
They aren't called patterns, they are called techniques.
There's tons of books about all the techniques you can use. When you
understand some of the basic techniques, it's apparent what techniques are
being used when you read a cook book. The problem is, even if you only got as
technical as saying "make a velouté sauce" in half the cookbooks you see, then
people would freak out if you didn't tell them how.
When you learn the fundamental techniques, you can easily extrapolate them and
realize half the recipes you read in your cookbooks are (necessarily)
overcomplicated and can be reduced (no pun intended) to a few techniques.
Jacque Pépin is an good resource for beginners and intermediate cooks to learn
french techniques. You can find techniques online and in his book New Complete
Techniques. The CIA book is good, but a big gripe with the CIA book and the
FCI/ICC book (Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cooking) is that the portions
are pretty huge because they are for professional chefs and caterers. That
aside, they are still a good resource for learning that. IIRC the James
Peterson "Cooking" book is pretty good at basic techniques.
The Joy of Cooking is still one of my favorites, because the recipes are basic
(but delicious), and because it's a compendium of recipes, it builds on itself
more than nearly every cookbook you can find. So the recipes include in the
ingredients do say "2 cups béchamel (Page 400)", and you can backtrack to that
recipe and learn.
One problem with these books people don't usually like is the basic recipe
isn't often fancy enough to be novel. It's kind of up to the cook to
understand "Oh Coca-Cola would be a good substitute for the acid and sugar
here" or "maple syrup would be better than brown sugar here" or whatever.
For that, it's nice to have McGee's "On Food and Cooking", as it goes into
details about ingredients you've never really thought about.
~~~
wiz21
> They aren't called patterns, they are called techniques.
I totally agree. That's weird to see the n+1-th geek discovering something
people have been doing since the dawn of humanity.
Damn, we're just talking about basic cooking. I understand many of us didn't
learn the basics, but nonetheless, it's basic.
Imagine somebody saying he discovered "patterns to ride a bicycle" and
explaining how to go from A to B with a regular bike in the most obvious
fashion...
~~~
mercer
I think it's great that someone is trying to make cooking more approachable by
using 'geek jargon'. Who cares that it's slapping a different label on an old
thing?
~~~
VLM
Confusion when you meet a chef and try to learn something or at least
commiserate about cooking and what he calls a béchamel you try to provide ...
a functional programing lambda statement based on map and reduce statements
applied to lecithin proteins using heat as an anonymous lambda function.
Sorta.
Fooling around as a mental exercise is fun. Hey look at this, a floating point
multiplier in BF! The problem is mis categorizing or mis titleing it as
"learning floating point math". Describe Ops activity as a "insights from
looking at cooking thru a programming lens" would sell a lot smoother than
learn to cook using c++ design patterns.
There is a minor area of danger in that there are many ways to hurt yourself
cooking but working slowly with common sense should prevent serious accidents
(I hope?) Perhaps a good analogy to "don't write your own crypto" would be
"don't invent your own canning recipes" or "don't invent your own deep fat
frying procedures (unless you like burn wards)"
------
mattdotc
To those of you who got into cooking later in life, consider your experience
if you [ever] have kids. You will enrich the rest of their lives if you
involve them in the kitchen and teach them some of what you know.
I learned how to cook by helping my mother and father for as long as I can
remember. I don't honestly know when I started but it was definitely before
10, and likely around 7 or 8 when I could make meaningful contributions and
not just get in the way. It has benefited me greatly and I should really make
a point of thanking them more often for it.
Sure, I might have groaned when being tasked with preparing my own school
lunch, or being asked to help peel potatoes, but through the years I picked up
lots of valuable experience without even realizing it. I learned these
patterns that the author talks about, even if I didn't have a word for them.
Cooking is one of my greatest pleasures and, to be honest, I feel sad that
some people see it as only a means to an end.
------
tptacek
This is the premise behind Ruhlman's books _Ratio_ and _Twenty_. Both are
great.
Another interesting prism through which to look at cooking is the format used
by the CIA's _New Pro Chef_, which covers technique, still focuses on recipe,
but also introduces evaluation criteria for each dish: you're not simply
following steps, but also judging the outcome carefully, which forces you to
focus on what you're actually doing.
And then there are recipe books that use recipes as a vehicle for teaching a
broader technique. A good example would be _Sauces_, which is compromised of
recipes for sauces, but is a survey of the techniques involved in saucing a
dish.
------
gms7777
I really like Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Series for this. It has a
ton of recipes, but there is also a decent amount of discussion of the
concepts behind recipes and multiple ways to alter most recipes, as well as
tables that make this sort of concept explicit (e.g. There is a table for
soups that has a list of well known soups with a column for the liquid base,
protein and vegetable). I rarely pull recipes directly out of this book, but
it has completely changed the way I think about cooking.
~~~
jschulenklopper
Second that advice for Mark Bittman's book. The main advantage (for me) is
that it briefly discusses the basic recipe (and some of the reasoning behind
it), and then mentions 10-20 variations w.r.t. ingredient alternatives that
are worth a try.
------
xutopia
That's funny you say that. I am a computer programmer and I also do a once a
year pop up restaurant. I cook on the level of some very good chefs without
the formal training so I'm more wasteful and slower but create great dishes
just the same.
I started thinking of design patterns in cooking when I took a class on
stocks, soups and sauces. In traditional French cooking you see the bones,
shells and carcass of any animal you cook used to make a base liquid that can
then be transformed (refined) further.
Take a chicken for example. I'll debone it and use the bones, feet, head and
excess skin to make stock with it. I'll either grill it before dipping it in
water to extract the flavour or do a "white" stock by dipping in water without
browning. To this I'll add aromatic veggies and spices. Once you understand
how to extracts taste from the carcass you can expand on that and concentrate
the flavour by reducing it and then you have a liquid with many good
properties. You can then apply the same technique to any mammal, bird, fish or
seafood you can think of.
Perhaps my favorite "cooking pattern" is the demi-glace. This takes the
(usually veal) stock, concentrates flavours further with tomatoes, mushrooms
and a standard mirepoix but adds a roux to thicken it. You can then use any
tasty liquid you can find to mix with it and you have an instant high quality
sauce. I've made demi-glace that I've used for mushroom sauce, bordelaise (red
wine), tarragon poultry sauce, porto and cherry sauce, etc...
The reality is that a lot of the idea of patterns have been codified by the
late Auguste Escoffier
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Escoffier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Escoffier).
His influence is huge in the cooking world. Kitchens and cooking just wouldn't
be the same without him.
~~~
appplemac
Sincerely saying, I have never made a demi-glace, although I should have. Will
try after studying the process, thanks for sharing!
For me, Escoffier’s book is probably comparable to Bjarne Stroustrup’s “The
C++ Programming Language”, at least by complexity of the material, so I am
somewhat afraid of using it. As far as I know, “Le Guide Culinaire” is used as
a source of recipes for the Master Chef exam, for example.
Maybe I should try approaching it again with some patience. Cheers!
------
pit
Michael Ruhlman's _Ratio_ espouses a similar philosophy: that recipes can be
looked at as patterns which you can build on.
It's a great idea, especially because it encourages experimentation.
------
jpp
I couldn't agree more. So much so that I wrote the O'Reilly book on the topic:
[http://www.cookingforgeeks.com](http://www.cookingforgeeks.com)
~~~
ascorbic
It's a great book! I use it often.
------
L_Rahman
As someone who's recently started cooking as well, thanks for putting into
words something that I've been struggling to do myself.
Hoping to submit a pull request soon.
My go-to pattern is stir-fry:
\- Aromatics (ginger, garlic, onions)
\- Crispy vegetable (red/green/yellow Peppers, snow Peas)
\- Thin cuts of meat
\- Absorbent starch (Vermicelli, egg noodles, steamed rice)
\- Sauce (Cornstarch, soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce)
------
dipanddough
Nice article! I definitely think this is the right approach for absolute
cooking novices who also happen to think like engineers. For those who haven't
learned to think like engineers, this might seem... boring. I won't say that
you're taking the discovery out of the equation, but I think you're distilling
this process. Discovery is important as a novice because it inevitably helps
build your palate.
Patterns, in this particular viewpoint, seem to have a limit with regards to
becoming a better cook. Sure, you're going to learn how to cook, but you won't
really know why things come out a certain way. Rather than use the analogy of
a pattern, I think it would be more advantageous to break meals down into
flavor profiles. These are the building blocks AND personas of food. By
learning how to make something taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, or
even French-y, Chinese-y, Mexican-y, Mediterranean-y, etc, etc, you can take
very foundational dishes and produce countless variants.
Anyways, I think it would be really helpful for you to check out how the
French structure their mother sauces. They are very foundational and develop
into so many different things. Not unlike what you're talking about, but
allowing for unlimited creativity, engineering.
------
andy_wrote
I'm also a coder who has recently started attacking his kitchen incompetency!
(but on the order of months ago, not years ago...) I prefer baking because I
can rigorously follow directions in the worst case and get something
acceptable, and because it feels a little alchemical and magical.
Something I wish recipes would discuss is "why do we do X?" or "what would
happen if we did not do X here?" Like, say, the recipe calls for one teaspoon
of salt. What if we added zero, or two? I think this is a little different
from the pattern recognition discussed in the article.
These explanations would help beginners understand what is essential and what
can be omitted (if necessary) or substituted. It would also foster creativity
in the learning process. I don't want to experiment blindly and fail and have
spent lots of time and effort on something inedible, especially given that I'm
a novice who needs all the encouragement he can get. But if I understood the
reasoning behind a particular step in the recipe, I'd be more willing to mess
with it.
~~~
mercer
A friend of mine once remarked that I would probably love baking, and that I
might want to start with that before I move on to cooking. Why? Because, at
least according to him, baking is more like chemistry, where doing it right
means doing things _exactly_ right, whereas cooking is generally more
improvisational and free-form. For 'programmer types' he figured the former
would be easier.
I took his advice, and baked a really good cheesecake. I would like to say I
was hooked and kept going, but I didn't. But it was the first time I started
to see the fun of making food, and I'm sure I'll pick it up again soon.
~~~
andy_wrote
I agree with that distinction. Also, making food for many people is much more
rewarding than making food for just yourself. (When I do the latter, it's lots
of work for 5-10 minutes of payoff, and I often find myself wishing I'd
ordered instead.)
Many baked goods are easy to toss in a box and bring to the office or to
friends' places. You're not going to bring a tureen of polenta to work and
tell your colleagues to dig in for a midday snack.
~~~
vonmoltke
> Many baked goods are easy to toss in a box and bring to the office or to
> friends' places. You're not going to bring a tureen of polenta to work and
> tell your colleagues to dig in for a midday snack.
A nine-pound pork butt on the other hand...
------
arafalov
I am a beginner cook and was moving countries. I had to start the kitchen
setup from scratch. So, I got a Thermomix.
It's very expensive but was a great match for my use case. Usually, the target
audience is mothers with multiple kids, especially when kids have allergies.
But to me, it was a gadget that allowed to select temperature, time, and
strength of pulverization/cutting/mincing. It also has built-in scales. And it
came with recipes that were using absolute quantities for weight and all
settings, so no guesswork required.
So I could follow the recipe/algorithm to the letter and get perfect result.
Then, I could slowly learn _why_ that happened in the repeatable conditions.
Then, I could start change things and see what happened. And adapting non-
Thermomix recipes based on understanding the temperature/time/cutting axis.
So back in September 2014 I was looking up how to fry an egg (seriously! Not,
apparently, at the highest heat). By now, I've made risottos, soups, breads,
sweets, chocolate, smoothies, Indian Chai, some Russian specialties
(hrenoder), etc.
I am feeling a lot more comfortable in the kitchen. And, since I eat at home
most of the time now, Thermomix - nearly - paid for itself already.
So, the kitchen equipment is also about patterns, not just the
ingredients/steps.
Bad news: Thermomix is not available in the USA. Not yet anyway, maybe in a
year.
------
jeffyee
I saw "Ratio" by Ruhlman mentioned below, but also wanted to mention "The
Flavor Bible". Technique is half of the battle, and flavor combination is the
other. The Flavor Bible is basically a encyclopedia for food combinations.
Look up a food and see what goes well with it. Eg apples go well with
cinnamon, pork, and nuts. It's based on interviews with chefs, but I've also
built a version myself with recipe ingredient analysis.
There's scientific analysis that can be done on flavor compounds in foods as
well to find complementary flavors, foodpairing.com is working on this.
~~~
tptacek
The Flavor Bible is interesting (and so badly wants to be a web app). There
are things it's _amazing_ at; for instance, if you have one or two base
ingredients, The Flavor Bible will generate thousands of plausible soup ideas.
I don't find that it informs my cooking all that much though; the most
important combinations are also very well-known.
------
pjmorris
Julia Child built a career out of using recipes to teach reusable techniques,
starting here [1] and culminating with [2]. In each of these books, she embeds
what a software person would call a pattern in each 'master recipe',
illustrates with a handful of variations, and offers suggestions of
applications.
[1] 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' [2] 'The Way to Cook'
------
noelwelsh
Agree 100% with the approach described in the post. The most useful cookbook I
own is The Modern Cooks Handbook[1] which follows the pattern approach.
[1]: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Cooks-Handbook-Lynda-
Brown/dp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Cooks-Handbook-Lynda-
Brown/dp/0718138155)
------
zwieback
Good to see coders getting excited about cooking but if we now call technique
and process "pattern" then I wonder what else is a pattern. Pretty much any
creative process would end up being a pattern of some sort so the term ends up
being meaningless.
------
Tiktaalik
I believe this is actually how professional cooks discuss food.
For example the various components of a soup all have their own names.
* Stock
* Mirepoix (flavour base eg. carrots, onion)
* Bouquet Garni (more flavourful herbs eg. basil, pepper)
* Protein
Replace the various ingredients in these component categories and you get
different soups.
(I am not a professional cook)
------
v1p1n
just putting it out there: this idea is not new.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-buzzell/pattern-
recipes-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-buzzell/pattern-recipes-the-
cure-_b_811588.html)
------
jkscm
But the recipe is the solution, the finely crafted source code, that we have
to deploy. Cooking may be more similar to DevOps than software engineering.
~~~
pit
Throwing spaghetti code over the wall?
------
pcthrowaway
I would say the example with different kinds of fritters is more a
demonstration different implementations on an interface than of cooking
patterns
------
jorjordandan
Nice! Now we just need to be able to deploy lunch with `git push table`
~~~
teh_klev
And for that after dinner trick 'git pull tablecloth'.
~~~
jschulenklopper
Might try that once with "git checkout new-trick"
------
venomsnake
Cooking is really simple. Lets take meat:
Tender - keep the juices inside. Heat to the minimum possible safe temperature
on the inside.
Tough - nuke it till its gelatinized.
Brown generously because people love that taste.
Salt is your friend in 1-2% range.
Just by knowing these four things you will be able to convert any cut of meat
into something edible with whatever equipment you have on hand.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Iran's army prevents couchsurfers to host foreigners - randy_gilette
https://www.couchsurfing.com/people/peace-gulf
======
f14ist
Not a 'Show HN' but an (important) news item, should be re-titled
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Association of insulin resistance marker with severity and mortality of Covid-19 - sudoaza
https://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12933-020-01035-2
======
arkades
Please note:
The calculation of TyG is ln (fasting blood sugar) x triglycerides/2). Many
studies make the error of calculating it as (ln (FBS x TG))/2\. The only
online calculator I've found, I think, falls into the latter category, or has
worse errors - I didn't go through it too rigorously, but I put in values
beyond what human life can sustain and didn't get close to the cut-off for
this paper's bottom risk tier.
If you look at studies/calculator using the latter calculation, it looks like
this study looks at _really, really_ severe diabetics.
If you compare with the appropriate calculation, though, they're looking at
more run-of-the-mill "not optimally treated and obese" diabetics.
Hosseini 2017 did a paper analyzing a number of other TyG papers and
calculating results under both calculation methodologies, for context.
Please also note that this paper does not state _when_ the results were
collected. Insulin resistance/hyperglycemia is a symptom of sepsis - if these
labs were drawn on already-severe patients, it would be entirely unclear
whether they reflect a cause or an effect (or, as is almost certainly the
case, both!).
~~~
dreamcompiler
> The calculation of TyG is ln (fasting blood sugar) x triglycerides/2).
You have a extra right parenthesis, which makes it ambiguous. Do you mean
ln (FBS) x triglycerides/2
Or
ln (FBS x triglycerides/2)
?
~~~
tw000001
Doesn't matter since both multiplication and division are...commutative? Don't
remember the terminology but (10x2)/4 == 10x(2/4) == 5
~~~
rat9988
It matters here because he is using ln, and we don't know if we should stop at
the first right parenthesis or the second.
The word you are looking for is associative.
~~~
CydeWeys
Ooof, thanks for that. I didn't realize that was the natural log function
because of the space. My brain was parsing it as the word "In" and essentially
ignoring it.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
There shouldn't be a space IMO, reading it out of context I couldn't see what
the issue was either as I too was not parsing the ln as log_e.
ln x
or
ln(x)
but not
ln (x)
------
subsubzero
Covid-19 is a very strange disease, it seems like it is amplified either way
(severe vs. non-severe) depending on health. This seems different from the flu
as the flu hits everyone very hard, the elderly/sickly especially hard. With
covid some people who have it, do not and will not have any symptoms which
cannot be said for the flu. I feel like the insulin marker data is an
albatross, having high TyG means alot of systems in your body are not doing
well, and the virus attacks weakness, it(covid-19) is also found to produce
extreme clotting so that is probably why people with diabetes/heart disease
and hypertension are all at high risk.
~~~
nradov
Asymptomatic infections are about as common with influenza as with SARS-CoV-2.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586318/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586318/)
Some influenza strains hit young, healthy patients harder than the elderly by
triggering a cytokine storm. This was particularly bad in the 1918 H1N1
pandemic.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/)
------
ashtonkem
I've suspected for a long time that Insulin resistance is going to be one of
the next big areas of focus for public health, but I thought that it was going
to happen the moment Apple finally figured out blood glucose measurement
through the skin. I did _not_ see a pandemic being part of it.
~~~
gumby
I love my Apple watch but I am astonished at your faith in their ability to do
noninvasive glucose measurement. People have broken their picks on that
particular coal face for decades.
For that matter DM2 is an area of quite active research (and, like diagnosis,
has been quite active for decades) as the financial payoff for any success is
enormous.
The only downside for transdermal diagnosis is the lack of consumables, which
makes it a tough market to enter and to be funded for. That _is_ an area
that's good for Apple as they are already selling the platform, so this would
be a feature that would add to sales. And one I'd use.
~~~
dreamcompiler
O2sat measurement has been noninvasive without consumables for a long time and
many phones can do it now. Why do consumables matter?
~~~
gumby
Investors don’t typically like diagnostics as the margins and volume tend to
be quite low. They also tend to be more “vitamin” than “aspirin”.*
Consumables, a least, give you recurring revenue and even in some cases the
opportunity for a razor-and-blades model.
You’d be surprised how many med products are designed specifically to require
consumables.
* (funny analogy to use in a med context)
------
49para
Insulin Resistance is the start of (all?) metabolic disease. So easy to
resolve using fasting, intermittent fasting, keto, carnivore etc diets.
Unfortuneately it slowly builds up over decades and only once disease has
progressed do Drs move on to treat the resultant disease (and mainly with
cholesterol lowering drugs).
Instead of measuring fasting glucose levels (which indicate diabetes), insulin
levels should be measured as they are the leading indicator.
~~~
conistonwater
> _So easy to resolve using fasting, intermittent fasting, keto, carnivore etc
> diets._
Or, you know, you could resolve it by eating a balanced diet too.
~~~
dghughes
On my mother's side of the family they were practically vegetarian or normal
as it was called back then. Vegetables all week and maybe on Sunday a roast
probably fowl of some sort.
This was during the 1940s. There were nine children and the parents on a farm
in a small rural area. So no extravagant purchases no pop, candy, etc. My mom
told me one Christmas her present was an apple and she was excited! The apple
came from the tree out back.
Sounds good? But all the women (grandmother and aunts) in the family developed
diabetes, one male (uncle) too.
Type 2 diabetes isn't always due to a poor diet.
~~~
49para
All carbohydrates become sugar, sugar elevates insulin, constantly elevated
insulin leads to diabetes.
I'm not sure all the causes of Type 2 diabetes but I would wager that the
current epidemic of Type 2 Diabetes is caused by too much sugar.
~~~
conistonwater
It is not currently established what the exact relationship is between sugar
in your diet, obesity, diabetes. They are all basically risk factors for the
next one, but they definitely don't _cause_ (in the strict scientific meaning
of the term) one another---there is nowhere near enough scientific evidence
that would support that. There's enough uncertainty about the whole process
that saying "avoid known risk factors" is about the best advice you can get.
------
danans
Given that insulin resistance is strongly correlated with obesity [1], I'm
surprised that wasn't a factor they controlled for, especially since the
respiratory difficulties associated with obesity seem to be a significant risk
factor for death with Covid19 cases.
1\. [https://obesitymedicine.org/obesity-and-insulin-
resistance/](https://obesitymedicine.org/obesity-and-insulin-resistance/)
------
shakil
Lets not confuse correlation with causation. All this study shows is people
with insulin resistance are at significant risk of dying from Covid, it
doesn't identify what actually kills them. However, if you look at the role
Vitamin D plays [1] in suppressing cytokine storms, which is what actually
pushes over an organism to the point beyond recovery from Covid, and then
understand that Vitamin D deficiency is common [2] in Type 2 diabetes, you can
begin to understand the fuller picture.
1\.
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20058578v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20058578v4)
2\.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26375925/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26375925/)
------
hirundo
"[triglyceride and glucose] index was closely associated with the severity and
morbidity in COVID-19"
So perhaps part of the reason why COVID-19 morbidity is lower in
Japan/Korea/Taiwan compared to the U.S. is due to lower prevalence of
metabolic syndrome. I wonder if that's also true for Europe.
~~~
arkades
> It suggests a protective effect of a keto/paleo diet.
No, if it can be taken at face value, it suggests a protective effect of a
healthy lifestyle.
~~~
floatingatoll
If taken at face value, it suggests a protective effect of low insulin
resistance as measured by the TyG marker. Everything else is interpretations
and chains of logical reasoning.
Neither of you are particularly wrong necessarily, but a third option is that
someone could be sedentary and eating carbs every day and have low TyG. It's
common to state that "activity XYZ will provide action-at-a-distance medical
benefit ABC" because stating accurately what's going on takes more words that
sound less certain:
"Paleo and keto diets may weaken Covid-19 by lowering insulin resistance"
"A healthy lifestyle may weaken Covid-19 by lowering insulin resistance"
But it's really worth saying it like this, even though few do. (And yes, these
aren't 'maybe' enough, but they're an improvement.)
~~~
arkades
You replaced the word "suggests" with "may".
You're seeing a distinction between these two words that I apparently do not,
since I take them both to indicate "this is a possibility, though not the only
one, and a far from proven certainty."
I would add that, even there, my statement was predicated on making an
inference about dietary habits - something I cast doubt on with the opening,
"if taken at face value." Something I further opined on in my other post,
where I pointed out that the paper may be reversing causality.
I feel like you're criticizing a strong inference having been made, that I
think pretty clearly wasn't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google veterans head off on their own to work on self-driving trucks - lemiant
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/17/11686912/otto-self-driving-semi-truck-startup
======
cheriot
Sending a truck down an interstate for 20 hours has to be the lowest hanging
fruit for self driving vehicles. When was the last time an entire category of
jobs became obsolete fast enough that laid off employees blamed the
technology? When long haul truckers are out of work, how will municipal bus
driver unions react?
~~~
wmeredith
An actual long-haul trucker commented at length about this on a reddit thread.
I can't seem to find it. The TL;DR was that tyhe actual driving of the truck
was a no-brainer to automate away, but that despite being a large portion of
the job from a time perspective, it was a small portion of the job
functionally speaking. The majority of a long haul trucker's job is
interacting with legal authorities at weigh stations, dealing with loading
crews, performing required truck maintenance on the road, etc...
It was an interesting insight. I'm sure all of that could be automated away
eventually, but no where near as quickly as the actual driving. I agree with
other commenters in this thread that I see truck driving going the way of the
train engineer quite soon, but that having truly driverless trucks is a bit
further out.
~~~
calbear81
The train engineer analogy is a good one, you would imagine that a single
"truckgineer" so to speak could be responsible for managing a convoy of let's
say 10-15 trucks which would make it much more efficient. In regards to
fueling, would you make that more efficient by adding a larger fuel tank or
fuel car?
~~~
chefkoch
> In regards to fueling, would you make that more efficient by adding a larger
> fuel tank or fuel car.
Or have someone at the gas station fill up the trucks like it was decades ago.
~~~
awesomerobot
or you know, automate it
------
chefkoch
>If you need to replace all of your trucks to get the technology on it, the
rate of penetration you'll be able to have is pretty low. Trucks last ten
years, a million miles.
Actually i would find a adoption rate like this very fast.
~~~
danvoell
Yea, seems extremely fast. They last 10 years now, with maintenance. But
assume you have a moderate repair come up and you start running the
calculations drive labor + maintanance vs. maintenance only and that 10 year
life will shrink to bring in new vehicles.
------
B1FF_PSUVM
_" Many of Otto's founders have done well for themselves over the years, and
it shows: the company is entirely self-funded right now without any external
investment. (In the wake of the reported $1 billion Cruise Automation sale to
General Motors, I ask Ron if the plan is to get acquired, but he's insistent
that they're focused on bringing a product to market.) Even George Hotz's
scrappy upstart Comma.ai has recently taken on venture funding from Andreesen
Horowitz."_
My crystal ball tells me that they'll soon find this course of action unwise.
~~~
xiphias
I wanted to ask the same thing: did they quit because they didn't get enough
money/stocks at the companies that they were at, or were not working on
important enough stuff, or just wanted more risk for the sake of getting into
more risk? Or do they think that their business model is so much better than
Google's? (facilitating drivers to drive even longer without sleeping)
The salary of a truck driver is about $50000, I guess he costs at least $80000
for the employer. Buying a new self-driving truck for $200000 should pay for
itself in at most 3 years. Retrofitting may work, but it's quite short term
business.
~~~
luma
You're forgetting that one driver can only drive 70 hours a week (with rules
around breaks in the middle), while presumably the AI could run the truck much
closer to 24/7\. In this case, installing a $200k system would allow the
company to replace ~3 drivers with no interruptions in service.
~~~
icefox
More valuable than replacing three drivers is the fact that because the AI can
drive all of the time the total time to deliver goods goes down which means it
is more valuable and a higher price can be charged for the delivery.
------
TY
Reading this article, brought back memories of this 1986 film about trucks
going homicidal that Stephen King's directed himself:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091499/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091499/)
Looked ridiculous back then, does not seem so any more.
Imagine a new class of malware that turns our vehicles into weapons for
criminal and terrorism purposes. Imagine this conversation in a sitcom about
near future:
_Honey, did you update antivirus on the car? Some script kiddie just
destroyed our neighbours car - thankfully they weren 't in it..._
Yeah, I know it won't really work this way - OTA updates and etc, but try to
picture this from the layman perspective.
------
ndr
The Simpsons predicted this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq7CnsZzEEM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq7CnsZzEEM)
------
fwiwm2c
This makes a lot of sense. Given how rule-based the trucking industry is (max
11hrs/day; 30min break after x amount of driving etc., strict speed limits,
complete in lane driving with little overtaking etc.), self driving trucks
could gain very strong adoption given they could follow the road rules in
place predictably and will not have any time based restrictions wrt driving
thus saving a lot of cost.
~~~
JoeDaDude
Agreed. HN highlighted this artice a few weeks ago. It does the numbers and
estimates a 400% increase in productivity by having trucks drive (themselves)
around the clock. [http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/the-driverless-truck-is-
com...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/the-driverless-truck-is-coming-and-
its-going-to-automate-millions-of-jobs/)
------
ju-st
Company name not to be confused with German e-commerce company Otto group
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_GmbH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_GmbH)
------
karussell
Everyone who is wondering ... here is the website:
[http://ot.to](http://ot.to) and the original post:
[https://blog.ot.to/introducing-otto-the-startup-
rethinking-c...](https://blog.ot.to/introducing-otto-the-startup-rethinking-
commercial-trucking-cfdc502ef452#.j3gfbzfl9)
------
the-dude
Already being tested in North West Europe :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kANWFKKT1AA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kANWFKKT1AA)
------
monk_e_boy
It'd be interesting if they could sell the customer a little 'truck' so when I
order something and that thing gets to a local warehouse my little truck could
drive off and collect it. It could collect from various places (depending on
how I prioritize my items) and then drive back home. I don't have a private
parking space and I'm rarely in my house when deliveries are being made, so a
mini 'collection truck' would hold my items in a secure way for me. I suppose
it could be tiny, maybe only a couple of meters long.
~~~
reustle
In theory, this sounds cool, but I feel like in practice it would be pretty
wasteful. Does a town of 500 people really need 500 trucks sitting around
doing nothing most of the time? Isn't one of the main promises of autonomous
vehicles that we can all share vehicles and we don't need to let them sit
parked for days on end?
Regarding the safe storage of your items, I think that can be solved with
something similar to what Amazon Lockers attempted.
~~~
uola
Some buildings have integrated lockers. In some countries you can order things
to your nearest convenience store. It a fairly solved problem.
------
parfamz
Otto, really bad name regarding googling
~~~
coredog64
It's the name of the autopilot in "Airplane!". I'm hoping they whimsically
include an inflatable entity to let people know the truck is under computer
control.
~~~
cjslep
What if Otto starts deflating?
------
nabla9
>there's nothing on the books banning self-driving cars as long as a human is
in the vehicle (which Otto's product would always still require).
This company basically wants to increase efficiency of long haul truckers.
They can sleep in the wheel and move 24/7 without mandatory breaks.
Turning 11 hour drive into 23 hour drive would bring huge savings for the
company. If they make it happen, it sells like candy and after few years all
have one.
------
zipfle
OT, but can someone explain why this won't instantly be sued into oblivion by
the former employers? It seems like some of the Otto team will be using
knowledge they gained at their last job on what seems like a competing
product.
~~~
spacecowboy_lon
Depends CA is quite liberal in terms of non competes and I suspect they woudl
argue that self driving trucks is sufficiently different from self driving
cars.
~~~
exhilaration
This is one reason why California is great for tech workers, the unenforceable
non-competes. In much of the country you'd have to wait out a year before
working in the same industry as your current employer.
~~~
spacecowboy_lon
Agreed the USA having 52 separate sets of employment laws does not make sense
- really employment law should be done at federal level - think of the saving
in reduction in red tape.
Though I suspect HR and Lawyers might lobby against that as a job protection
scheme.
------
lgieron
Who goes to jail when the self-driving truck kills someone?
~~~
true_religion
Why must someone go to prison? If the vehicle is operating normally and
regulation allows it to operate without a driver in command, then there is no
crime.
~~~
lgieron
I agree that if the regulation allows it, then the self-driving car is a
device like any other. I wonder if startups such as Otto will actually wait
till such legislation passes in entire country, which is arguably going to
take at least a decade (and they declare they don't want to be acquired, but
sell to end customers).
------
codecamper
refueling?
~~~
jon-wood
All the out of work truck drivers can become pump attendants waiting to fill
up their former vehicles as they pull in for more fuel.
~~~
stuxnet79
Funny comment, but it looks like you are fishing for downvotes here buddy.
Assuming these trucks are electric, they could set it up like the Tesla
recharging stations where you can recharge simply by driving over a mini-
trapdoor that houses a fully charged battery pack and a robotic arm which can
swap your expended pack for the new one.
~~~
jon-wood
What's the point in karma if not to blow it on bad jokes now and then? I'd
completely missed the electric trucks angle, but that could work well assuming
they can master hit swappable battery packs.
------
amelius
> Otto isn't alone in trying to automate big rigs. Daimler and Volvo Trucks
> have both demonstrated self-driving systems in recent months, but
> Levandowski doesn't sound worried about those efforts. "I think the trucking
> folks are doing a great job, and eventually they would probably solve the
> problem. But a company that is used to building trucks is not well
> structured to solve a technology problem," he says.
As opposed to what, an advertisement company?
~~~
wrsh07
As opposed to a company with top of the line machine learning systems.
~~~
vonmoltke
A company with top of the line machine learning systems designed to improve
advertising results is not better positioned to build an autonomous vehicle
than a company with top of the line non-autonomous vehicles.
~~~
amelius
Indeed. It has been said many times before: machine learning is all about the
data, not about the algorithms.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing Syngr, my attempt at an Standard Library for PHP - niteshade
https://github.com/hassankhan/Syngr
======
MattBearman
I once starting building a PHP library that was pretty much identical to this,
I was really excited by the prospect of being able to write beautiful, object
oriented, method chained code. Eventually I was overwhelmed by the sheer scope
of what needed to be done and abandoned it. These days I work (almost)
exclusively in Ruby, and life is good.
I'm not trying to dump on this project, quite the opposite, I hope they
achieve what I was never able to. The point I'm trying to make is that I could
only defend PHP for so long before I had to admit that it's a lost cause, and
other languages are simply a better fit for web development.
Stuff like this should already be part of PHP, but it's not, and I'd bet good
money that it never will be. But hey, we got namespaces and late static
binding, things I've used maybe once each.
~~~
niteshade
Totally agree with you, and just having done the String class, I am appalled
at how many different kinds of return values you can get from methods. If
that's not bad enough, then PHP will throw a curveball at you with its 'this
method may return falsy values'.
That's the kind of thinking I've avoided here, trying to explicitly return a
boolean value, or results.
~~~
MattBearman
Indeed, PHP desperately needs some standardisation. At least with your string
class there'll be no more needle/haystack confusion :)
If I find a bit of free time I'll see if I can contribute anything to this, as
while I've all but abandoned PHP, I'd still like to help bring a library like
this in to existence :)
~~~
niteshade
Your help would be highly appreciated - there's loads to cover yet, and God
knows what other horrors PHP has in store.
As a sidenote, I read somewhere recently that there is some method to the
needle/haystack madness. Basically, for strings, its needle/stack, and for
arrays its stack/needle. Thought I'd share that.
------
sandfox
I know microbenchmarks are generally daft and horribly misapplied, but it
might be worth showing/measuring the difference between using built-in
procedural methods and your OO ones on some some example use cases to stop
people speculating and just to make sure you aren't majorly shooting yourself
in the foot perfomance wise for the benefit of a nice API.
All that aside, kudos!
~~~
niteshade
Funny you mention that, just started working on something now. It's slow, I'll
tell you that much. Noticeably slow? Not so sure.
~~~
rorrr2
Show us the numbers.
I'd expect an order of magnitude slower for most of string and number
operations.
~~~
niteshade
Someone on Reddit did the honours:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1my5cv/introducing_syng...](http://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1my5cv/introducing_syngr_my_attempt_at_an_stl_for_php/)
~~~
rorrr2
So your code is 45.7 times slower.
HAHAHAHA.
------
beberlei
some feedback from me:
1\. the value types are not immutable, which will make it very hard to work
with them on larger scale. You should create new instances instead of
modifying the original ones, keeping the originals intact.
2\. The object hierachy is borked. You are exposing way to much information.
Instead of generically allowing to save values and options in the Object, you
should specialize the types much more and hide the actual value.
3\. You should convert the value when creating the type, using (int) for
example, or throw an exception if not convertable. The current converts the
values at many places, which increases the complexity of the code
unnecessarily.
~~~
niteshade
1\. I had thought about that, but then I thought I'd go sort of like the
Javascript route where everything can be modified (well, mostly, anyway)
2\. Specialise the types more how? Why would I want to hide the actual value -
although I suppose I'd want to make sure that no external object can modify
its value directly.
3\. Like in the constructor? What about for Number, where you can pass it an
int, double or float?
~~~
MattBearman
If you're interested, when I was working on a lib like this, each method had
two versions, to* and as*, eg:
$string->to_upper_case() # change the original
$string->as_upper_case() # keeps original, and returns a new upper case string
------
cabalamat
AIUI, if I do:
$x = new Number(-3.2);
$y = $x->absolute();
Then not only is $y equal to 3.2, $x is now 3.2 as well. Is this correct? If
it is, I think it is non-intuitive.
~~~
niteshade
That is correct. What would you expect it to do?
~~~
cabalamat
I would expect $x to remain the same. What's wrong with:
$x = -3.2;
$y = abs($x);
------
ivanhoe
It looks that you don't do any checks if the object is really initialized with
the value of the given type? However, if you did, then one could use this for
a quick & elegant input validation and that would be extremely cool. It should
check the value in the constructor and throw the exceptions if the type is
wrong. And then you will also need more granular types like Integer and Float
to make this more useful for everyday cases.
------
cstrat
This came to mind when I saw what you've created -
[http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/)
Although I do believe that there is value in someone forking PHP and
standardising everything in this fashion... just throwing out the legacy
support entirely.
~~~
niteshade
Yeah the idea is to have something that hopefully paves over the rough parts,
and who knows? One day this might be similar to what PHP will look like in the
future (in a galaxy far, far away)
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Actually, it is possible that PHP in the near future will look like this. I,
nikic, and some others, want to add methods to primitive types.
------
gh0zt
I like the idea but i don't like the actual implementation. For example:
Number::tan takes an array of flags as an argument but only one flag is ever
used to determine which kind of tangent method is eventually executed. For me
as a user this does not only complicate the usage but it is also potentially
(microoptimizationwise) slower because of the necessary condition check.
So instead of
$number = new Number(4.2);
$number->tan(array(Number::TRIG_ARC))
why not just implementing it as a separate method?
$number->atan();
~~~
niteshade
Well, PHP has four 'tan' functions, and in all fairness, I might just remove
those functions altogether and leave the basic ones. I do agree that its
longer to type now, but at the expense of remembering WTF atan() does.
~~~
gh0zt
Well, if you need the atan function you probably know what it should do and
apart from that why does the Number:tan method take an array of arguments when
only one is ever used? So at least it should be usable like
tan(Number::Number::TRIG_ARC).
------
eridal
Hey, nice project. I had started something very similar some time ago but I
realized that the oop approach doesn't work quite well as you can't force
other to use your classes. Then I decided to go functional style, where you
receive "kind of" unexpected input but produce predictable output; the result
is a very simple and small api that plays nice with others. Take a look at the
code at [https://github.com/eridal/prelude](https://github.com/eridal/prelude)
I'd really like to join forces :)
------
VMG
STL stands for Standard Template Library -- I think you just mean "Standard
Library"
~~~
agumonkey
The right acronym would have been SPL
------
rnts08
This is great, to bad I left PHP for Python a year or so ago. I'll keep an eye
on this though!
------
agumonkey
Arrays could benefit from a little wrapper
~~~
niteshade
Haha, I just made a commit where I'm going to start adding that.
------
dancecodes
not bad, but where getContent();
how about boxed objects?
~~~
niteshade
getContent() is a magic method.
How would I go about adding boxed objects in PHP?
~~~
dancecodes
Hint: just use container for any php term - but this can unify access I hope.
------
rorrr2
Why would you do this for numbers?
How is
$number = new Number(6.9);
echo $number->ceiling() // 7
->max(array(5, 9, 49.1)) // 49.1
->floor() // 49
->sqrt() // Value
->value(); // Get raw value rather than string
better than writing it in actual functions?
sqrt(
floor(
max(
5, 9, 49.1, ceil(6.9)
)
)
)
~~~
niteshade
I think its ugly?
~~~
rorrr2
I think converting numbers to objects and back is ugly.
And insanely inefficient. For this particular example it must be orders of
magnitude slower.
~~~
rorrr2
OK, if I never need to write insanely slow object oriented code for no good
reason, I will download your "library".
~~~
matthewmacleod
Don't be a dick, dude.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do I find an entry-level software position? - homie
Recent CS grad here.<p>Is it me or have entry level positions almost completely dried up in the software industry? Almost everything that I find requires 2+ years of experience. I apply anyway, but needless to say I'm not having any luck finding a job.<p>Am I approaching the job hunt the wrong way or something? I'm beginning to worry that I'll never find any sort of desirable employment simply because there are hardly any reasonable positions for me to pursue.<p>P.S. I'm looking for jobs in and around Chicago (this may be contributing to my lack of luck finding a job, but I don't think that's the case).
======
segmondy
I just hired 3 PAID interns that can turn full time, and they have 0
experience in the industry. These positions are out there, go knock on as many
doors as you can. I've also hired many entry level developers.
What do I look for? I look for "can you code" as an entry level developer. I
don't expect you to understand design patterns and all that crap. Can you hack
your way around and get the damn code running? Great, you are better than 50%
of the candidates. Have you taught yourself any new tech recently? Great! Do
you know more than one language? Great! Have you finished any online course?
coursera, udacity, udemy, whatever, just something or a book? Awesome. Can you
show me some of your shitty code for a silly side project? Awesome. Are you
passionate and willing to learn? Great! Do you know other things that you need
not know such as Unix, DB, RESTful API, git, etc?
You already met everything I need in tech. The only other thing is to at least
pretend to be a decent person during the interview be nice, polite,
respectful, punctual, clean.
Go knock on doors.
~~~
tudelo
Not to be that guy, but emphasizing that it's paid? Is that really necessary?
What are the chances that it wouldn't be...
~~~
camhenlin
Well there are lots of unpaid internships out there, and the OP is looking for
a paying job, so I think it was worth mentioning that the internships were
paid
~~~
tudelo
I guess it depends where you live. I have never heard of or known anyone doing
an unpaid internship in real life. I have only heard of it in whispers on the
internet.
------
1ba9115454
If you're applying for jobs requiring 2 years experience and you don't have
that on your CV then probably you don't make it past HR. The hiring manager
never sees your CV.
Also, most jobs ask for a particular programaming languages and usually an
architecture. i.e. Ruby on Rails.
If your CV isn't targetting the skills asked for in the job you won't get past
HR.
CV --> HR --> Hiring Manager --> Interview --> Hiring Manager --> 2nd
Interview --> Offer
You might be stuck at the 1st stage.
When I was starting out I got on a free course that helped with my CV and got
me an unpaid intern poisition. I worked for free for around 9 months, then I
progressed rapidly after that.
------
protonimitate
Unfortunately it's largely a numbers game.
If possible, be willing to relocate for work. Most entry level seekers are
applying to everything they can, all over the place.
Work any and all connections you have. Anything you can do to get past the HR
filter will help 10x your chances.
If you are pinched for money, you can always look for temp to hire work. It's
unstable and the pay is usually crap, but it will get you in the door at one
or multiple places and will get you to broaden your network.
Keep at it. It's discouraging and terrible, and the process is largely broken,
but its entirely possible.
------
meric
You can get some working experience doing freelance gigs. You could probably
find better ones than upwork.com, but otherwise, do some jobs there, do bigger
and bigger ones, until you've got a couple of 1-month long gigs and some good
reviews. Then go after the 1-2 year work experience ones. The lower end you
go, the less onerous the requirements are, and it's possible you can build up
your work experience that way.
------
inertiatic
I think that they're just not as advertised, but they're there. I'd consider
applying for any non-senior position in your situation (and in fact I did when
out of university).
Are you sure your CV is on point? Without much working experience you get to
use up the space to show that you're actually "passionate" about your craft by
stating anything remotely interesting you've done.
------
saluki
Keep learning while you are looking.
I would recommend learning Rails or Laravel developing web applications. Those
jobs are pretty interesting and they are out there.
Usually when you find jobs it's through someone you know or meet so go to meet
ups, contribute to an open source community. Pick a side project to build so
you have some samples of your work.
Landing your first job takes work, keep at it.
Good luck.
------
meatbundragon
Highly recommend Glassdoor. Also, I work with people who attended coding
bootcamps and then used the connections and new skills (front-end development)
to join an established startup.
------
akulbe
In the meantime, find projects on GitHub that are written in languages you
know and fix bugs.
That may help give you cred, where you have a dearth of it, otherwise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Smaller is Faster - yusufaytas
http://www.yusufaytas.com/smaller-is-faster/
======
speedplane
Smaller is faster is nothing new to software developers. Any embedded software
engineer that has spent hours to avoid loading a few extra kb of code into RAM
on a hardware limited system can tell you that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two Congresswomen Not Allowed to Speak on House Floor in Michigan - clbrook
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/06/14/155059849/michigan-state-rep-barred-from-speaking-after-vagina-comments?ft=1&f=1001
======
manglav
being banned for mentioning "vagina" and "vasectomy" during a bill about
abortions...how else would you discuss the topic?!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are you ready for America's data protection laws? - elorant
https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/12/are-you-ready-for-americas-data-protection-laws/
======
alexfromapex
The government should be providing a free guide for how to be compliant. It’s
stupid that we have all of these regulations and the layman won’t know how to
follow them.
~~~
m-p-3
Considering how slow the government and legal system are to adapt to new
technologies compared to the private sector, I do not think this is a good
idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to beat the competition (Steve Pavlina) - tomjen
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/02/how-to-beat-the-competition/
======
jgrahamc
I'm always mystified when Steve Pavlina posts get voted up onto the front
page. He does a great job of self-promotion, but I have a hard time reading
his stuff because he goes on and on, and he has that whole 11:11 thing on his
web page.
If you are not familiar with 11:11 then read Uri Geller's web site:
<http://www.uri-geller.com/articles/11.htm> Benford's Law would tell us to
expect to see numbers beginning with 1 a lot and hence it's no surprise that
the number 11 seems to turn up a lot. Ooh. Cue the spooky music.
That's just another example of my law: "To idiots, any sufficiently simple
explanation is indistinguishable from magic"
~~~
Xichekolas
While I generally agree that Steve Pavlina has jumped the shark (when he
started pitching that self-affirmation guy (whatever his name was)), he does
have some good articles from back in the day.
His 10 reasons you should never get a job is one of my favorite motivator
articles: [http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-
shou...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-
get-a-job/)
Like you say, if we can learn anything from Steve, it's how to promote
ourselves. The guy is either really good at it (if he makes what he claims to
make) or really good at faking it. (Is there a difference on the internet?)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Question about Docker and supported ISAs - lch_ian
I am new to computer programming and computer architecture, and have a stupid question on the relationship between Docker and underlying hardware instruction set architecture (ISA). My question is: if Docker (or Linux Container in general) is built on top of OS of Linux, and also if Linux runs on various ISAs (e.g. x86, PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, etc.), why Docker cannot run on those ISAs out-of-box? By reading the post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6709517), my impression is Docker may be able to run on different ISAs in the future, but so far only supports x86_64 and ARM. I wonder why is that, why cannot Docker run on Linux unmodified which runs on many ISAs? I guess my real question is what is the relationship between the layers (hardware <-> OS <-> Docker). Thanks for your comments!
======
wmf
Good question. In theory, Docker should be able to be compiled for all ISAs,
but it's written in Go and Go does not have compilers for many ISAs. (gccgo is
more portable but it's incompatible enough with real Go that it's a net
negative IMO.)
~~~
lch_ian
Thanks a lot for your answer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazing Stat: California Uses More Gas than China - sah
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/amazing-stat-ca.html
======
bilbo0s
There is already a thread on this stat here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=249867>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Internet and the Third Estate - theNJR
https://stratechery.com/2019/the-internet-and-the-third-estate/
======
rayiner
> “China is building its own internet focused on very different values, and is
> now exporting their vision of the internet to other countries. Until
> recently, the internet in almost every country outside China has been
> defined by American platforms with strong free expression values. _There’s
> no guarantee these values will win out._ A decade ago, almost all of the
> major internet platforms were American. Today, six of the top ten are
> Chinese.”
(Quoting Zuckerberg)
I’m pleasantly surprised to hear Zuckerberg articulate this thought. It’s
something I’ve thought about a lot over the past decade or so. At one time it
seemed investable that key American values like free speech would become
universal. We thought our engagement with China and the Middle East would
hasten adoption of our culture and values. That future is far from certain
now. Americans need to think really hard about what kind of world they want
their kids to grow up in.
~~~
vkou
> I’m pleasantly surprised to hear Zuckerberg articulate this thought.
I'm pleasantly surprised that people are waking up to this problem, but
disappointed as hell that what they are waking up to is not the problem - but
rather, the disruption of the status quo.
To the rest of the world, American values, media, culture, etc, being the
dominant shaping force on the internet (And before that, through literature,
television, film, etc) was cultural imperialism, that has shifted discourse,
starved local culture, and, in short, was Americanizing the world. [1]
Americans now feel threatened by China's cultural weight being thrown around
in this space. Okay. You don't like China using the same mechanisms that you
used in the past, to broadcast and spread your mono-culture.
But instead of taking a moment to self-reflect, about whether it is good for
the world to have an 800-pound cultural gorilla warping discourse, culture,
and media around the world...
... We are upset that _we_ stopped being that gorilla! It's more than a little
hypocritical and peevish.
[1] Talk to a Canadian sometime, and ask them about Canadian culture, versus
American culture - in the media sense. You'll find there to be very little of
the former left, despite the government's best efforts to promote, and develop
it.
~~~
ivl
The difference is that with American cultural values the freedom to criticize
them remains. The option exists to say "I don't care for the US's culture or
values".
I fear the concept of an internet where posts are censored and police arrive
at your door for the wrong opinion.
~~~
vkou
The option also exists to say "I don't care for China's culture of values",
you just have to not worry about selling your media there.
You're speaking from an incredible position of privilege - from the point of
view of a net exporter of culture. Countries that were net importers of
culture never had this concern.
Nobody in Germany would care about this sort of thing, for instance, because,
I am sorry to say, nobody outside of Germany consumes German culture. Nobody
in Germany needs to tailor their speech to not offend China, because nobody in
China cares to listen to what they, their films, or their sports teams have to
say.
This whole thing is uniquely an American problem - and you're discovering what
it feels like to have your culture be shaped by the orthodoxies of a foreign
set of values. It sucks, but that's how the rest of the world has had to
operate for a long, long time.
~~~
harryh
_nobody outside of Germany consumes German culture_
Everyone in the world that listens to electronic music would like to disagree
with you.
~~~
monocasa
House and Techno are from Chicago and Detroit respectively.
~~~
harryh
Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter would like to have a word with you.
~~~
jpadkins
electronic music != house or techno. kraftwerk early stuff does not sound like
house or techno.
------
oflannabhra
Thompson has recently been on a tear. Two of his recent articles (this and
China Cultural Clash [0]) are some of his best writing yet. Actually, I'd say
they are some of his best _thinking_ yet.
Whether you agree with him or not, I think it is clear that he is asking the
right questions, at a time when most people are not. More than even asking the
right questions, I think he is seeing much more clearly, and forwardly, than
is common.
I'm not sure I agree with all of his framing. For example, I'm not sure I
agree that the invention of the printing press directly lead to nation states
450 years later. However, there is definitely more than a nugget of truth in
his framing of the future, here. I think hindsight will judge him quite well,
in more than just technology.
[0] - [https://stratechery.com/2019/the-china-cultural-
clash/](https://stratechery.com/2019/the-china-cultural-clash/)
------
NotSammyHagar
Another great piece. The world is changing, in the same way that the printing
press caused change, people to break away from the control of the church. For
many years it has been American views of freedom of the press that had a lot
of sway in the world.
> And then China is building its own internet focused on very different
> values, and is now exporting their vision of the internet to other
> countries. ... There’s no guarantee [American notions of free speech] ...
> values will win out. A decade ago, almost all of the major internet
> platforms were American. Today, six of the top ten are Chinese.
> We’re beginning to see this in social media. While our services, like
> WhatsApp, are used by protesters and activists everywhere due to strong
> encryption and privacy protections, on TikTok, the Chinese app growing
> quickly around the world, mentions of these protests are censored, even in
> the US.
Scary to think that China can force censorship here via TikTok. I'm not a
tiktok user, but that's terrifying. Hidden, defacto commercial censorship.
(edited to remove the > on the last thing above, that was my comment)
~~~
newfangle
There is hidden and overt censorship. I actually find it absurd that we allow
our children to use social media software developed by a hostile foreign
power.
------
dmvinson
Ben Thompson continues to amaze. Pointing out the pointlessness of controlling
the impact of tech by limiting Facebook's influence is important.
Authoritarian China's biggest advantage is its ability to pick winners and
multiply their impact by leveraging how decisive their decision making can be.
Where this fails is at finding local maximums. The winners China picks will be
the best of what's available right now, which for a while has often been a
Chinese clone of what's working in America, adapted to local preferences.
America's startup culture and competitiveness is our biggest advantage, and so
I wish the US and EU would do more to force tech. companies to fight it out
instead of picking winners by regulating the industry and controlling what
Facebook and Google can do. Instead of just putting cumbersome regulations
like the GDPR around user data, also dictate companies above a certain size
have to have open APIs and easily exportable/programmatically accessible user
data. Obviously this must be balanced by granular controls, but how can
upstarts be incumbents when the data moats are so large. The APIs of Google,
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are pretty abysmal and continue to become
worse with no punishment. Yet, that programmatic access to data is probably
the only way an upstart could compete outside of a complete paradigm shift.
~~~
aidenn0
> America's startup culture and competitiveness is our biggest advantage
It's not an advantage against China though when they can do both of:
\- Block US apps from the Chinese market \- Encourage wholesale copying of the
best features from US companies
If I were to start a FB clone of <insert any social app> in the US, it would
fail miserably. China can ban the US version and simultaneously fund a clone
for the Chinese market. Combined with the fact that Chinese networks (e.g.
TikTok) have full access to the US market, this makes competition very
asymmetric.
------
dredmorbius
The "fifth estate" usage as referencing bloggers long predates any recent
social media apologia.
Wikipedia article history shows the reference already by 2009:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fifth_Estate&oldi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fifth_Estate&oldid=308845816)
It cites Stephen D Cooper (2006). _Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers as the
Fifth Estate_. Marquette Books. ISBN 0922993475.
It's possible that there are yet other estates to be discovered:
[https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102989723532565277](https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102989723532565277)
And of course there was the 2013 film of the same title:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Estate_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Estate_\(film\))
------
40acres
Generally I think Zuckerberg is correct, Facebook is very powerful no doubt.
But that power is vested upon by it's users.
There clearly was a lot of misinformation going around during the 2016
election and at some point we have to look back on ourselves and ask: "why are
we so gullible"? There is a balance between Facebook moderating it's platform
and controlling speech and I think we are near that line.
Labeling articles as misleading or doing some fact checks along with making
sure that there are no bots and extreme hate speech is near the limit of my
expectations of what a platform should do in terms of moderation.
------
Tomte
> Europe’s Three Estates
Wikipedia says the same in the context of the press as the fourth estate, and
I think it's wrong, at least from a German point of view.
While it is correct that the medieval Estates (or "Stände") were the nobility,
the clergy and the people, nobody has ever called the press the fourth
"Stand".
The press is the fourth "Gewalt" (or "Power"), and that is a clear reference
to the three powers in the state: the legislature, the executive and the
legislature.
It's interesting how those two trinities mix with the press in different
languages and societies.
~~~
Torwald
> nobody has ever called the press the fourth "Stand".
Because unlike in the UK, the press as a Gewalt in a political system with
Gewaltenteilung (division of power), appeared only after the society divided
in estates (Ständegesellschaft) ceased to be. It's a timeline issue.
------
reilly3000
I find it incredibly ironic that Mark Zuckerberg claims that the 5th estate he
helped create has no gatekeepers. In fact, Facebook finds itself the largest
gatekeeper of speech the world has ever known. How our society deemed it fair
and prudent to allow a private corporation to 'moderate' and prioritize
billions of communications a day... that I'll never understand.
------
dredmorbius
There's a glaring issue with Ben Thompson's essay, in that so far as I'm aware
there is _no_ independent US tradition of "estates" independent of either
Continental or British European formulation. Rather, there are the three
_Constitutional_ branches of government, the legislative, executive, and
judicial. One can find informal references to fourth (and occasionally higher)
_branches of government_. But not "estates" as such, within the US.
Otherwise, you _will_ find frequent usage of "fourth estate" in the
traditional European sense, almost always referencing the press.
See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government)
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22united+states%22+%22fourth+esta...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22united+states%22+%22fourth+estate%22&ia=about)
I'm trying to decide if this is a major or minor flaw with Thompson's essay.
Either way, the claim without reference suggests a sloppyness or lack of
diligence, which calls into question his larger points.
And there are certainly questions to be asked. The claim that the so-called
Fifth Estate is free of gatekeepers is specious, as Jon Evans pointed out at
TechCrunch (posted yesterday to HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21306086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21306086)):
Facebook isn’t free speech, it’s algorithmic amplification optimized for
outrage.
Whether the gatekeeping is one of blocking specific types of content, or
amplifying others to the point that unwanted messages are completely drowned
out really doesn't much matter. Attention, individual or collective, is
finite, and whatever means are used to deny it, the end effect is the same: a
message is lost.
------
bovermyer
That's an excellent read and gives me much to think about. In particular, I
need to reassess my understanding of Facebook's role in political discourse.
------
juped
>It’s also a framing that is, appropriately enough, uniquely American; in the
United States, the first three estates are commonly thought to be the three
branches of government: the executive, legislative, and judicial.
The author of this article may have misunderstood it this way but I guarantee
that this is not commonly thought in the United States.
~~~
dredmorbius
In the US, the press is occasionally referred to as the _fourth branch of
government_ (after the legislative, executive, and judiciary). Occasionally
others are proposed: lobbyists, special interests, the intelligence services.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government)
~~~
juped
That's a different term used to mean entirely different things.
~~~
dredmorbius
My point is that Ben Thompson seems to have confused the terms "fourth branch"
and "fourth estate" in his essay.
Which is not among his better ones.
The usage of "branches of government", the three Constitutional ones (leg,
exec, judicial), and various others generally posited as a fourth, or
occasionally higher, branch. See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government)
I'm entirely unfamiliar with a notion of _estates_ in the US independent of
Continental or British traditions. That seems to be a novel creation, or mis-
remembering, of Thompson.
DDG finds nothing aside from the European usage under fourth/fifth estate,
specific to the US:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q="united+states"+"fourth+estate"&ia...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q="united+states"+"fourth+estate"&ia=about)
~~~
juped
Estates are real and they aren't branches of government - more like divisions
of society. I agree regarding the confusion in the essay.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estates_of_the_realm)
------
ajudson
The discussion of the press reminds me of the propaganda model of media
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model)
------
cowpig
> The third concern is what has dominated the news cycle as of late:
> Facebook’s decision to not fact-check any posts or ads from politicians.
> This is largely being framed as aiding President Trump in particular, which
> is probably both true and also an unsurprising complaint from the Second
> Estate used to having monopoly control over fact-checking.
Does he mean the American second estate, i.e. the legislative branch? Or does
he mean the Nobility?
And what does he mean by Monopoly Control?
And what is he trying to imply with the word "unsurprising" here?
~~~
naringas
I think he means the European second state, the one after the church-backed
monarch state, i.e. nation state. (I also think his use of the nth-state
analogy is slightly is confusing).
I think he is referring to the media establishment's (i.e. TV news) monopoly
over fact checking. and it's unsurprising because of course they would like to
keep that same power they had before the internet
~~~
cowpig
Isn't the media the fourth estate?
I can't find any way to interpret this excerpt such that it makes sense.
How does anyone have "monopoly control over fact checking"?
And I also can't think of a way to favorably interpret that statement, given
that I consider fact-checking to be an integral component of any information
dissemination system.
Like many of Ben Thompson's articles, I find his ideas here compelling, but I
also find myself feeling like he's an industry apologist and it clouds his
thinking/makes him myopic.
~~~
dmvinson
I think he made a logical leap based around the US political parties and
wealthy elites' influence over the fourth estate - sanctioned political
debates on CNN, sources of information with perceived authority such as Fox
News, etc. While I also think it's explained poorly, there may be a connection
here to his point about the largest advertisers (politician and large
corporations) who fund the media which is meant to check them.
~~~
cowpig
That seems like a lot of hand-waving to me.
> this was the context for Edmund Burke’s remarks in 1787 that “There are
> Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there
> sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”
There's this quote early in the article about the Fourth Estate being the most
powerful, and yet by the end I'm supposed to assume all these things to accept
this claim that "monopoly control" of the Second Estate exists on fact-
checking?
What I actually see is an article where someone started with a conclusion
(that some sort of free-market/libertarianism/lassaiz-faire/whatever brand of
let tech companies do whatever they want is The Way) and then spent a lot of
time thinking about how to reach it.
------
icodestuff
> The third concern is what has dominated the news cycle as of late:
> Facebook’s decision to not fact-check any posts or ads from politicians.
> This is largely being framed as aiding President Trump in particular, which
> is probably both true and also an unsurprising complaint from the Second
> Estate used to having monopoly control over fact-checking.
> The broader issue is that the third concern and first concern are so clearly
> in direct opposition to each other. If Facebook has the potential for
> immense influence on politics, why on earth would anyone want the company
> policing political speech?
Maybe because they're fact-checking lots of other things to promote themselves
as a platform you can find facts on? I don't know, I'd think if there was any
ostensible non-partisan shared value in a democracy, it'd be a desire for
factual information. Spun and biased, sure, but fundamentally factual. (In
reality, I don't think this is true anymore, at least from the head of the
executive branch and his sycophants, but this shared value is not irreparably
broken nationwide.) If Facebook isn't going to fact-check anything, then
that's one thing, but if they're going to fact-check some things, it's far
from unreasonable for them to fact-check political ads.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Programming Languages Aren't - BigZaphod
http://blog.bigzaphod.org/2008/09/29/programming-languages-arent/
======
jwilliams
He's right that the API is important in the language debate - I'd argue the
.NET class library is semantically more significant (e.g. to learn) than the
individual .NET languages.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Translation of Genesis I using word2vec - mdlincoln
https://llamasandmystegosaurus.blogspot.com/2017/05/alpha.html
======
qbrass
Emphasis on the 'A'
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: How do you get the word out about your product? - abstractwater
Even great products like the Macintosh had an evangelizing effort behind it, and from talking to people at Startup School it seems like the "TechCrunch" effect just gives you a peak that dies out quickly, with low conversion rate.<p>Does a compelling product just do the magic by itself, or do you need a marketing plan? What strategies do you have to "bring the good news"?
======
axod
I'd say this is a good recipe (Not speaking from a lot of experience, but the
theory seems sound to me :/ ):
1\. Make it so good people want to tell others about it. It can't be an "hmm,
yeah I guess that might be useful later. I'll bookmark it". It has to be a
"Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my friends
I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found". (A hard ask,
but it's nice to aim for that 'wow' factor).
2\. Make the base product free, and politely refuse donations. Ask people to
simply tell their friends about it. I think people kinda feel guilty about
having a cool product for free, so they become evangelists for it, and help
you sell it.
Having said that, it's good to get something to start off. Look at
websites/domains that are related, and have been neglected... Send emails,
make an offer, buy domain, get traffic. It's not a sure fire thing - some
people still believe domain names to be worth millions whatever they are. But
you can pick up some real gems. More likely to be sustainable traffic unlike
tc/reddit/etc mentions.
~~~
shiranaihito
> "Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my
> friends I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found"
\- That sounds more like Facebook!
Are you sure that the "hmm, that might be useful" -reaction is not good
enough?
~~~
axod
Just speaking from my own experience. If I say to myself "Yeah that might be
useful", I bookmark it, and probably never get around to looking at it again.
------
pg
Make it so good that people tell their friends about it.
------
optimal
I'm sure there are people who can shout louder than everybody else, but this
may be one of those cases where the best way to achieve something, is to do
something else first. [I hate stuff like that. ;)]
If you want to date a girl, you could just approach one after another until
one finally says yes (e.g., "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with
my parents."). Or you could improve yourself by learning how to cook or play
music, getting in shape, etc., so you have something to actually bring to a
relationship. At that point you'll either be turning them away, or you'll have
a life and won't care (which can also be an attractor).
Same approach in the technical world. Do you have a blog? Or do you
participate in open source projects, or attend conferences, or anything else
to demonstrate how you bring value to others?
Another common path is consulting, which basically accomplishes the same
thing. Prove your worth to others, and your goal of introducing a new product
becomes much easier.
I think sometimes we may care so much about the end product that we have
trouble switching from the techie role to the business role. But you have to
save some of that energy for marketing, and it may be better to take a more
dispassionate view of the finished product (or risk never releasing anything).
------
geuis
Forget about marketing for a second. Is your product compelling? The first
thing I always look for when developing something new is whether or not it
gives me an "ohhh" response once I see the initial concept in action. To be
specific, as you are working on your project have you had the moment where it
does something unique and you suddenly see that your idea has real potential?
Or conversely, have you spent a lot of time working on your idea but you
haven't had that moment of realization? If so, then unfortunately your project
might be dead on arrival.
I am working on something right now that started as an idea that popped into
my head. I took 6 hours writing the core part of the app, then let it run for
a couple days. As I started using it myself, I had that "Ohh!" experience. To
me, that's what tells me this can be a very compelling experience and why I'm
pursuing further with it.
So if your product is compelling, then you've already gone 80% of the way
there. The last 20% is the hard part. Find the audiences that will use what
you're building. Demonstrate it for them. Free access, full-on support to your
initial base of users, etc. Devote yourself to answering people's questions.
You will find that word of mouth happens very easily when people are excited
about what you're doing.
When you have introduced it to your core audience, which will be very small to
begin with, then look around at media outlets. These days media outlets range
from popular forums about the niche you are filling, to blogs and related
mass-media publications. Getting on Techcrunch is cool. Its a good way to get
some exposure. Hacker News itself is becoming a good place to launch, because
the community is still very small and much more devoted to trying new things.
I used to get hit occasionally by Slashdot and Digg, and that traffic was good
for big spikes, but I would only see about 1-2 percent overall traffic boosts
after that overally. However, that was an extra 2 percent I didn't have
before.
Now, once you are established and have a small but active user base then you
might consider bigger venues for advertising. Buying ads on popular sites like
Digg and Techcrunch can help. Its very targeted, which is what you want. If
you want some Google juice, oddly enough doing press releases can help. I
started a company in the beginning of 2007 and we were paying about $150-$200
for press releases a few times a month. We didn't see huge amounts of direct
web traffic, but it was really good for getting the word out. People in the
financial industries (who pay more attention to press releases than the rest
of us) were talking about us and daily I was seeing our name being talked
about in the niche circles we were targeting. The co-founder was invited to
interview on a few radio shows, which helped after that. (Sadly the company is
defunct now. That's how startups go. However that was not because of the
advertising and word of mouth.) Don't spend a ton of money on press releases.
If your target audience is general web users, then releasing a press release
4x a month will do bollux for you. If you're targeting businesses, then press
releases can be more helpful. But still be careful.
The last thing that I can suggest, is remember your users are "customers" and
NOT "consumers". You can always tell a marketing shill versus a true
entrepreneur by how they refer to people. Everyone forgets that before the
20th century, consumption meant you had tuberculosis. Then that term got
morphed to refer to "the dirty poor masses that buy the rotten horse meat we
sell them as hot dogs." I am a customer, a user, not a consumer. Remember that
if you treat your potential audience with respect, _your_ users, then they
will respect your product and that goes much further than any dollar spent on
marketing.
~~~
cmm324
I agree 100%. We recently validated that there is a need for our product and
it is an amazing thing. So much so, that one of our best clients wants to
start promoting us to collect a commision on every new signup once we launch.
Its amazing that if you put yourself in the right place, or talk to the right
people about your valuable product, then its like the virus from "28 days
later", it spreads quick.
Chris Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC
------
Jesin
The purpose of advertising is to get people look at your product. The product
itself is what determines who sticks around as a user and who wanders off to
look at something else. I don't seem to have any advice beyond that.
------
shafqat
Make sure you have a great blog that exudes passion and excitement about your
product. Thats a start. Also, treat every user like how you would treat your
mother.
------
iamelgringo
As Marc Andreessen said, make it so good that people can't ignore you.
~~~
mhartl
I was surprised he said that. People can always ignore you. Marc himself
emphasizes that the greatest product in the world can still lose if the market
isn't good.
Some might reply, "How many great products can you name that people ignored?"
I can name very few, but there's massive selection bias at work; the great
products that people ignore are _ipso facto_ ones that most people haven't
heard of.
------
redorb
be as natural as possible.
Most natural (word of mouth) Least natural (spam)
most success is probably somewhere in between
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Curious Case of Linux Containers - coloneltcb
https://medium.com/@sumbry/the-curious-case-of-linux-containers-328e2adc12a2#.ehqvuvenq
======
tinco
We solve all of those use cases in our cluster management system of which
Docker is a key enabling component, except for point 5, though we do have
other components that require multiple steps to provision. I bet we could run
Hadoop if we needed it.
It's easy to point at Docker and say it's a trivial wrapper around some
technologies that have been around for years and call everyone crazy for
buying into the 'Docker is going to change the (sysadmin) world' hype. Of
course in essence it's pretty trivial, many things are.
Docker, and Docker-like systems really are changing the sysadmin world. Easily
formalised software environments is what this hype is about, and the fact that
the Docker community isn't really looking at the stateful service problem
right, doesn't mean they're not enabled by Docker either.
To me, and to many 'devops' (i.e. developers rolling into sysadmin roles)
Docker was eye-opening. We reduced our chef scripts by 80%, and thus our
headaches by 95%. It's saving us months of ops work. If you were a seasoned
sysadmin and rolling your eyes at the fact that we were rolling out
application level services in the same chef codebase we were setting up our
system environments with, then yeah you already were better than us. But as
far as I could tell the way we used to do it really was the status quo, at
least in the startup/small it business world.
~~~
sumbry
Someone once said that the public cloud was never about virtualization but
rather automation. I would contend that the container revolution we're going
through now isn't really about containers but ultimately distributed system
platforms. And if it changes the way many have traditionally approached
problems great!
My main point is that we're really just at the beginning of all of this. I'm
not picking on Docker (I'm actually embracing containers) but rather pointing
out that many of these next gen solutions are only tackling the basic use
cases right now. While I'm excited there is so much more work left to be done.
Implementing many of these solutions still requires a bunch of engineering
effort and I'd like to see more turnkey solutions. The developer end is
definitely getting easier and more productive but the operational end is
getting more complex and still not solving some use cases everyone has. How
many different ways can different companies implement HA MySQL for example?!
There are tons of other platforms out there that have recognized and solved
many of this class of problems for years but the Cloud and microservices are
actually starting to make this worse as adoption skyrockets. Platforms are not
really a new thing, we went through this with JVM Platforms a ~decade ago,
Heroku style PaaS ~five years ago, and now containers + cloud today.
I guess this is what progress looks like :)
~~~
iheartmemcache
Ha you weren't kidding about the number of HA MySQL drop-in engine
replacements out there, damn. At least most people follow the ANSI-SQL
standard, which is something.
I'm not being snarky, but what are the use-cases that everyone have? I'd argue
authentication and authorization would be one of the few things, and it was
already solved with JSR 196 like 15 years ago. It worked, had a well defined
spec, and most importantly it had interop with PAM on UNIX, Kerberos, LDAP,
raw db's, mixed mode, you name it. Everyone complained it was too enterprisey
and no one used it, so they re-invented the wheel in the early 00s with Rails
and Devise and Authlogic and a billion other non-standards. Transactions?
Persistence? Java's spec took care of that too, and fairly rigorously. So I'm
with 100% with you on this being a solved problem.
We're making gradual progress (i.e., the option to develop in a language where
the correctness of our code can be formally verified thanks to more readily
available, mathematically sound type-systems) but like any society there are
trends, and where there are trends you'll have the recurrence of many old
things (Interpol ripping off Joy Division) and the invention of a few new
things (where are often the composition of two older ideas, or the
implementation of a new idea which wasn't computationally feasible previously
but now is, or a concept from another industry like signal analysis or three-
phase road traffic theory applied to our code-monkey'ing domain).
RE: Overall progress - Microsoft is doing some fantastic things in Powershell,
effectively taking concepts like package management, man pages, and the shell,
extracting the best elements from each of those, and implementing them in a
consistent manner. No more choosing between systemd or init.d or other holy
wars. If you want to do it differently, you effectively have a standardized
interface to write your new implementation against within most of the
platform. Don't like ASP.NET's templating system? No problem, it's all open
source, and you can swap your own in, but it's all modular so nothing will
break, and your co-workers can continue working in the traditional Razor
templating.
------
tobbyb
What I find curious about all the container discussions and narrative is the
strange lack of context. Sure discuss Docker but also discuss namespaces,
cgroups, overlayfs, aufs, and all the other critical enabling technologies
where a lot of major problems with containers exist and will be solved. For
instance user namespaces, cgroups are not namespace aware, how to integrate
overlayfs or aufs so they can be mounted by user namespaces seamlessly.
Surely these projects and developers need support and focus. Or else it become
mere marketing for companies that have the funds or ability to market
themselves. Do we just talk about libvirt without context or understanding of
kvm and xen, how would that be useful or meaningful?
An ‘immutable container’ is nothing but launching a copy of a container
enabled by overlay file systems like aufs or overlayfs, a ‘stateless’
container is a bind mount to the host. Using worlds like stateless, immutable
or idempotent just obscures simple underlying technologies and prevents wider
understanding of core Linux technologies that need to be highlighted and
supported. How is this a sustainable development model?
Docker chooses to run containers without an init. The big problem here is most
if not all apps you want to run in a container are not designed to work in an
init less environment and require daemons, services, logging, cron and when
run beyond a single host, ssh and agents. This adds a boatload of additional
complexity for users before you can even deploy your apps, and a lot of effort
is expended is just managing the basic process of running apps and managing
their state in this context.
Contrast that with LXC containers which have a normal init and can manage
multiple processes enabling for instance your VM workloads to move seamlessly
to containers without any extra engineering. Any orchestration, networking,
distributed storage you already use will work obviating the need for
reinventing. That’s a huge win and a huge use case that makes deployment
simple and slices all the complexity, but if you listen to the current
container narrative and the folks pushing a monoculture and container
standards it would appear there are no alternatives and running init less
containers is the only ‘proper’ way to use containers, never mind the
additional complexity may only make sense for specific use cases.
~~~
icebraining
_Docker chooses to run containers without an init._
I don't think Docker chooses one way or the other, and people do run Docker
with an init: [http://phusion.github.io/baseimage-
docker/](http://phusion.github.io/baseimage-docker/)
~~~
shykes
Correct, Docker doesn't care what you run inside the container. You provide a
command to run, and it runs it. That command may be your application server or
a traditional init process which in turn will fork multiple children.
Docker _does_ make it easier to follow an "application container" pattern, and
that pattern avoids (with good reason) booting an entire traditional init
system inside the container. But following that pattern is not mandatory. Not
forcing too many patterns upon users all at once was part of the original
Docker philosophy. Unfortunately that aspect was drowned in the cacophony as a
few loud and passionate people interpreted Docker through the lens of their
own favorite patterns.
In retrospect I wish we had been more assertive in reminding everyone to
respect the philosophy behind Docker: that you can share tools with people
without forcing everyone to use them in the same way as you.
------
anotherhue
Many of the author's desires are handled in SmartOS
([https://www.joyent.com/blog/triton-docker-and-the-best-of-
al...](https://www.joyent.com/blog/triton-docker-and-the-best-of-all-worlds))
~~~
zwischenzug
And OpenShift:
[https://enterprise.openshift.com/](https://enterprise.openshift.com/)
~~~
jacques_chester
I'll pile on!
Cloud Foundry is another opensource PaaS:
[https://www.cloudfoundry.org/learn/features/](https://www.cloudfoundry.org/learn/features/)
(Disclaimer: I work for Pivotal, which donates the majority of engineering
effort to Cloud Foundry)
------
jondubois
I don't like containers for the purpose of deployment. All they do is hide
complexity from DevOps people - But the complexity is still very much there.
Hiding complexity from DevOps people is useful in a PaaS context, but it is an
anti-pattern when you consider pretty much every other use case.
Docker encourages developers to keep adding more and more different
technologies to a system. If you consider most popular applications today,
they are usually made up of hundreds of different technologies - Each of which
requires their own bootstrap/setup logic.
Maybe if each micro-service was made up of fewer different technologies,
deployment wouldn't be such a headache and you wouldn't need Docker to begin
with.
------
vezzy-fnord
Author's terminology seems muddled. The first bullet is correct, but only on a
technicality, and it fails to point out that strictly there is no "Linux
container," only an emergent and weakly cohesive combination of features that
as an artifact create a so-called Linux container (as opposed to being a well-
defined atomic unit/OS resource). The third bullet equivocates archive formats
with application containers.
------
contingencies
The author's 'platform' concerns are in fact infrastructure automation
concerns generic to any service-oriented architecture and _not_ specific to
containers.
My take as an early LXC adopter (way pre docker) and from-concept builder of
two production clusters using custom automation:
1\. Service state. The author essentially requests master-slave promotion.
Corosync/pacemaker is an excellent place to look for well tested solutions
here. The normal approach used there is superior to the author's, ie. a
floating IP used by all clients is switched to an already live replacement
master, which is first jabbed in to action, and which shares the same backing
storage as the nodes which has failed. (A great solution for shared backing
storage on standard hardware is DRBD)
2\. MySQL update. Change management with SOA has to be far more rigid due to
complex interdependencies. Typically you version your entire service,
exhaustively test it against peer services, and only then deploy the updated
service. This implies a workflow process more formalized than the series of
manual operations the author hand-waves about. That said, in a typical
database scenario it is often possible to upgrade across minor versions simply
by updating the binary, since it will read the old on-disk database store
fine.
3\. Heartbleed. With an appropriately automated approach to service builds,
this should be trivial. Mask the affected packages or versions, rebuild all
services, test and deploy. This really goes back again to overall workflow
formalization and automation. (Solid infrastructure would have cryptographic
signoff on stuff before it runs, eg. production demands a signature from test
infrastructure that all tests have passed before executing a new service)
4\. Service dependencies. This is far more complex than people assume. My
advice is to use corosync/pacemaker, a well tested approach. (There are
others)
5\. Hadoop. Same as any other service.
There are many other problems with SOA-type infrastructure automation; some
ideas I wrote up ages ago can be seen at
[http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/](http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/) as well as the
sketch/documentation of the solution I built.
------
gingerlime
> Did you know that even with all the advances with technology the amount of
> time that a housewife spends maintaining a household today is the exact same
> as it was in the 1950s!
Unrelated to the core of the article, I know. But it seemed odd to me. Is this
true? Or was it a metaphor?
EDIT: did a bit of googling and found a couple[0][1] of not-extremely-academic
references that claim that it's less than half... but couldn't find anything
more authoritative.
[0] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-
life/9721147/Women-s...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-
life/9721147/Women-spend-half-as-much-time-on-housework-today-compared-
to-1960s.html)
[1]
[https://www.anglianhome.co.uk/50years](https://www.anglianhome.co.uk/50years)
------
cbd1984
Are cgroups meant to be secure against malicious code trying to get out and
install rootkits on the underlying system?
AFAIK, hardware-level virtualization is. If code running under Xen can get
out, that's considered a bug in Xen and it gets fixed, right?
OTOH, chroot is not considered to be secure. It isn't designed to be secure.
It is not a security tool. Code in a chroot jail is expected to be able to
leave without subverting the security mechanisms which, by and large, don't
exist in the first place.
So, are cgroups Xen or chroot?
~~~
kijiki
Containers (which are more than just cgroups) are supposed to be secure.
In practice, the attack surface is much bigger for containers than VMs, so
there are far more "break out of container" vulnerabilities out there than
"break out of VM" vulnerabilities.
Most containers are run in a VM, usually one being run for you by Amazon or
Google.
------
powera
"Also be warned — I have no idea what I’m talking about. Take everything in
this article with a grain of salt." \- pretty much. I'm not sure whether the
author thinks "platforms" even are. And the complaints that "linux cgroups
aren't the entire platform so why call it containers" seem pedantic.
I don't see why "handling MySQL failover", "resource management", "upgrading
OpenSSL" should all be handled by the same piece of software in any case.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Software Products Tracker - sg_ltv
Curious if anyone knows a website that tracks all new and upcoming software products (e.g. productivity tools from different categories, CRMs ,finance platforms, etc. - really can be anything). I see products and companies pop up here and there (e.g. on TechCrunch) but can't find anything in one, organized place. Please let me know.
======
antoineMoPa
You mean like Product Hunt [1]?
[1] [https://www.producthunt.com/](https://www.producthunt.com/)
~~~
sg_ltv
YES, thank you a lot! ProductHunt it is
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Totally Normal Town Where Everyone Worked on Weapons of Mass Destruction - Huhty
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-totally-normal-town-where-everyone-worked-on-weapons-of-mass-destruction
======
schoen
I thought this was going to be Amarillo, Texas, because of the Pantex plant.
There was a book from the early 1980s focusing on the religious beliefs of
some of the nuclear weapons workers there
[https://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Assurance-Home-Amarillo-
Texas...](https://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Assurance-Home-Amarillo-
Texas/dp/0815605080)
which tried to convey some of the cultural and psychological tensions about
working on these weapons, and how people dealt with them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pascal Executable Parser - peter_d_sherman
https://github.com/stievie/pesp
======
peter_d_sherman
Excerpt:
"A collection of classes and functions to parse executable files for the
Pascal language, namely for Free Pascal and Delphi. Everything is implemented
in Pascal, there are no external dependencies."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
John McAfee AMA - Garbage
https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3hr9f0/i_am_john_mcafee_ama/
======
jmkni
I thought this was good:
> OT, but do anyone know exactly what went wrong with McAfee after the founder
> left the company?
> It grew, it got big, like every company. When I started, there were 4 of us.
> Generating $10M/yr, we could have lived happily for our lives on that. VCs
> came and offered to make it bigger, we had to grow, we didn't have sales,
> marketing, etc. I gave it away, unless you were a government, corporation,
> etc. Once I went public, I had 1000 bosses, investors, FTC, SEC, all my time
> in meetings and interviews. I hired a programmer/day for over a year! I used
> to spend time taking apart viruses, not I was an accountant. Once a company
> gets big, it becomes slow, and cannot survive in its current form.
Nice cautionary tail there about ruining something good by trying to go too
big
~~~
derrickdirge
Going public is often the turning point where a 'Good Company' starts to
become a 'Bad Company'. It becomes no longer good enough to make a good
product.
~~~
yuhong
I didn't think it was that simple in case of McAfee or for that matter in most
cases however.
------
orthoganol
When asked what someone can do to be successful in software:
> That;s a tough one. get out of the box no1. REALLY out of the box. Abandon
> every social norm, esp those closest to you. Then look at the world with
> objective eyes. Look what is the thing to do? Every entrepreneur I know (I
> know Steve Jobs, and he was out of the box) went out of the box. If you
> can't go work for someone else.
Yeah the older I get the more it becomes clear that there's inherent conflict
between following social norms (developing a cushy social life) and achieving
something big. Like with being a startup founder I think almost all have to go
through intense anti-social periods, admittedly I judge founders as being
average or worse if they don't seem to have some anti social or obsessive
streak to them.
Kobe is a cool example too, a guy who had a relatively bizarre social life for
an NBA player, with a manic obsession about work and improvement. I think he
even said "Friends come and go, but banners stay forever." Extreme, but hits
on a deeper truth about what all it takes to make it big.
~~~
eli
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but that kinda sounds like a
justification for being a workaholic.
~~~
prawn
Often, work pays off. The Lakers used to try and lock Kobe out of the gym to
stop him getting shots up at all hours before dawn. But he persisted and found
other ways in.
~~~
_RPM
Why would his team not want him to practice?
~~~
prawn
He would go in at 2am, 4am, etc and put up hundreds of shots. They changed the
locks. He would wedge open service doors, etc. Risk was burnout or injury from
sheer repetition.
They might've underestimated the sort of character he is. There are some great
stories out there about his training habits, the Lakers scouting him as a
rookie pre-draft, etc. Contentious character, but hard to deny his focus.
There is one great story of him calling in a trainer to work with him after
midnight. They take a break, the trainer understanding they were done for now
and going home. Trainer came back in the morning for team training and made
smalltalk with Kobe about hopefully he had had a good rest after their
workout. Kobe was confused. He'd been there all night training and hadn't gone
home.
------
nnq
This is a gem of wisdom:
_pair-programming between devs and hackers will allow for instant security
feed-back [...] It will be the only possible way to develop ironclad software.
Starting with the system architects, there need to be arcdhitectural hackers -
all the way through the coding process._
...and reading the other stuff too, he seems to still be knowing what he's
talking about!
~~~
butwhy
Yes he is very good at explaining good practice, such as precise instructions
on removing software:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg)
~~~
Someone1234
The dude is very likeable and I don't care about him doing illegal drugs (I'm
no moralist).
That being said, the accusations that he killed his next door neighbor in
Belize and then fled the country are disconcerting...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues)
~~~
speeder
As someone that lives in a third world country, I think that everything John
said about the case (that it was about people wanting bribes) is true.
Also he said people hit him with a baseball bat after putting a helmet on his
head, I know even other techniques (a cop friend told me one of the things his
corrupt colleagues do is hit people with soap bars inside towels, it also
hurts a lot without leaving bruises if you know what you are doing).
~~~
rainer_muell
I don't think he said this had been done to him. He merely said that's a
common 'questioning' technique used in Belize.
~~~
drzaiusapelord
In another reply he claims they did it to his post-arrest.
------
dr_zoidberg
What I liked the most is that they took the time to reply more than the top-
level question -- many AMAs I've seen* just answer the top level question and
move on to something else.
* disclaimer: I don't read so many AMAs, just the ones I find interesting.
~~~
raverbashing
Several AMAs lately have been a PR exercise (like showing up on a talk show)
~~~
jessriedel
I don't think there's a clean line between for-fun celebrity AMAs and PR
exercises. They blend smoothly into each other, and the real division is just
whether it trips your personal "authenticity" alarm.
~~~
nickysielicki
There's an easy well to tell, just look in the OP and see if they're plugging
something. John McAfee is not. Woody Harrelson was.
~~~
jessriedel
Everyone is plugging something all the time. Just because they're plugging
their general popularity rather than a particular movie does not make
something unassailably authentic.
------
mentos
It was wild to follow John McAfee a few years back when he was on the run in
Beliz. His podcast with Joe Rogan at the time was pretty entertaining and so
I'm not surprised to see they are looking to make a movie (not sure if this
was mentioned in the AMA, still making my way through it)
Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski To Script John McAfee Film For Warner Bros
[http://deadline.com/2013/07/scott-alexander-larry-
karaszewsk...](http://deadline.com/2013/07/scott-alexander-larry-karaszewski-
to-script-john-mcafee-film-for-warner-bros-551655/)
------
paradisechris
Wow really enjoying the level of effort put into these responses
~~~
nathanvanfleet
Possibly drug fuelled..
~~~
_RPM
Regardless if that's true or not, how is that relevant?
~~~
slowmotiony
Relax, it was funny.
------
ousta
this is the best AMA ever from the most fascinating crazy man in the IT world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Musings on JIT performance - luu
https://github.com/burningmime/curves/blob/master/RyuJITPerf.md
======
Joky
Context: this shows the improvement of the new JIT implementation for C#
(RyuJIT is the codename for Microsoft’s project to improve the performance and
functionality of the just-in-time compiler used by .NET).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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