Datasets:

timaeus
/

pile-hackernews

Dataset card Data Studio Files Files and versions Community

Split (1)

train · 100k rows

text stringlengths 44 950k	meta dict
Ask HN: What are the top 3 accomplishments of Obama Administration? - gamechangr I was asked by a foreigner (or I should say aggressively questioned) and I wasn't as concise I would want to be. I thought I would reach out and see what others think? Thanks ====== lend000 \- Record number of commutations for nonviolent drug offenders and now Chelsea Manning, as well. Granted, it's all symbolism, as his administration has prosecuted far more than he's released for those same 'crimes' and done nothing to improve the system, but at least it improves the dialogue going forward, potentially. I will be impressed if he also pardons Snowden, who exposed _him_ (as opposed to Manning who leaked Bush administration secrets). \- Shifted a significant amount of land from the poorly managed BLM to the Forests Service. Again, not actually solving any problems, as the BLM still owns roughly a third of the land in the country, but he did some symbolic improvements which benefit his image. \- Providing a strong voice for the large strides made for the LGBT community during his administration. Again, he opposed gay marriage during his 08 run but slowly came around and ended up warming up to it sooner than others. He certainly was not "the reason" progress was made, but I'm at a lack of other accomplishments. Some additional ones: \- Balancing the budget. \- Getting us out of imperial interventions in the Middle East. \- Reigning in the surveillance state. \- Promoting healthy interest rates instead of kicking the can down the road and encouraging debt. \- Fixing the healthcare system. Those ones were jokes, obviously. Obama has been a pretty awful President where it matters, competing with the Bushes, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson for the title of worst since 1900. The only things the President really has absolute control over are foreign policy, management of non-legislated decisions such as DEA drug scheduling/prioritizing and surveillance programs, and military execution (see: Pentagon audit 2016). On all of these fronts he is an absolute failure who has desecrated our Constitution and hands over the keys to the most powerful Presidency in US history to Donald Trump. But damn, did he look good doing it. Charisma > results, Obama 2020. ~~~ DrScump the poorly managed BLM to the Forests Service which is still run by Obama appointees, just like Interior departments. One change that Obama _could_ have made at the beginning (or anytime since) would have been to move Forestry into the same Cabinet post as the National Park Service and BLM. But, no. ------ slater \- Healthcare \- Sorta-kinda ending Iraq/Afghanistan wars (cue can of worms) \- LGBTQ issues such as repeal of DADT, marriage equality, etc. ~~~ mtgx Not sure how much the Iraq war ended, when last year they bombed it as much as they bombed Syria, and they were actually trying to wipe out ISIS in Syria (or was it Assad? I lost count on which side the U.S. was there) after the attacks in Paris and whatnot. So that tells you a lot about just how active the US military is in Iraq. You can't say you "ended" a war where you're still dropping 1,000 bombs a month in a country, or more than 30 every day. Imagine 30 bombs being dropped every day in the U.S. by another nation. Would you feel "not at war" with that country? And the U.S. is a huge place with the population spread around. The Middle Eastern countries are much smaller so the impact (both physical destruction-wise, but also psychological to the population) is greater. [http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/01/05/bombs-dropped- in-2016/](http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/01/05/bombs-dropped-in-2016/) ~~~ slater Hence "sorta-kinda" and "can of worms" ;)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving - camjohnson26 https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN24F1T5 ====== dkonofalski I agree with this wholeheartedly, even as a Tesla owner. Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" while shifting everything above that to "Full Self-Driving". They should have called it "CoPilot" since that infers that you're still the driver in charge of controlling the vehicle and it would have had exactly the same reception (possibly better) than what's happening now. As it stands, it's misleading and, frankly, disappointing to get into a Tesla for the first time and try "Autopilot" only to realize that you have to keep your hands on the wheel, navigate the accelerator and brakes, stop at lights and stop signs, and basically drive the car while it keeps you in the lane and stops you from hitting other cars. That's not "Autopilot", that's "CoPilot". ~~~ ojnabieoot > Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and > "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" I am not accusing you specifically of using weak language, but let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice. It's one that Elon Musk is directly responsible for and directly encouraged with misleading statements where he deliberately exaggerated the capabilities of Autopilot. It's a disgrace and one of many many many reasons why Tesla needs to outright fire Musk. There are too many good people at Tesla, who don't deserve his selfish and irresponsible leadership. To the people pointing out that airplane autopilots work similarly to Tesla Autopilot: the problem is not the foolish Tesla owners have never flows a plane before. The problem is that in the public mind, they "know" that "autopilot" means "totally autonomous" and they "know" that the computer-car- spaceship supergenius Elon Musk has been hyping his self-driving tech. It is true that highly knowledgeable people know that Musk is an idiot conman, that "autopilot" is a very limited set of features, and so on - and that none of these things detract from the fact that Tesla makes a good car. But Tesla fans shouldn't invent ridiculous exonerations. Tesla has a responsibility for the safety of its users and they failed. Fans (along with the EU and US) need to hold the company accountable. ~~~ typon It's strange how much people will bend over backwards to give Musk the benefit of doubt when he openly lies about such things ~~~ nemothekid Tesla is one part car company, one part battery company, and 5 parts marketing hype. The only reason people are seriously contemplating buying full electric cars today instead of the bullshit BMW produced is because Iron Man convinced enough people that electric cars will simultaneously fly to mars and cure world hunger. The stock reflects this. In other words, there is no Tesla without Elon's meme machine. The graveyard of failed EV startups was chockful of more well meaning participants before Tesla came along. I'd go as far as to argue that the Elon's bullshit was the only thing that could stand up to big oil. ~~~ lazyjones > _The only reason people are seriously contemplating buying full electric > cars today instead of the bullshit BMW produced is because Iron Man > convinced enough people that electric cars will simultaneously fly to mars > and cure world hunger._ Is this supposed to be ironic or do you actually believe this drivel? Drive a modern EV and try again. Most Tesla owners will never go back to a noisy, smelly, crappy, slow ICE. ~~~ yumraj I was all for it and in fact had even reserved a Model 3 when it was announced, but later cancelled after Tesla/Musk engaged in their pricing shenanigans. And, then I had a conversation with a friend who has a Model X and driven from SJ to LA, and he mentioned that it needed 3 charges each way. _Each Way_... Yes, it can be argued that how often do people drive from SJ to LA, but still... On top of that Musk acting like a dude who's permanently high on coke, quality issues with Tesla, the _pedo_ affair, his fights with SEC, the drama he did regarding opening the Fremont plant during Covid-19 and so on and on ...... Anyway, long story short, I'm really not looking to buy a Tesla anymore.. ~~~ jedberg FWIW your friend must have a _very_ heavy foot. My brother-in-law has a Tesla and goes from SJ to LA a few times a year. They make one stop in the middle to supercharge, and use the time to go to the bathroom and have lunch. The car is usually charged before they are done eating. When we caravan, the Tesla is never holding us up. ~~~ yumraj I really cannot comment on that. My friend I believe has the regular ~250 mile, or so, range Model X, so perhaps your brother-in-law has a longer range, but that still won't explain 3 times vs 1. So, don't know.. Edit: Now self-doubt is creeping in and I wonder if they had gone to Palm Springs and not just LA. The conversation was over a year ago.. Will that result in 3 charges each way? I've never driven to Palm Springs, so not sure if there is another mountain pass in that direction or not. ~~~ karolist WLTP spec ranges favors city driving, in which Tesla has an edge because of the really aggressive recuperation braking. It also factors in highway driving at 90km/h IIRC, which no normal human being drives at. Highway it's actually not anywhere "light-years ahead" from other serious EV attempts like Taycan which does similar Autobahn range with wider tires than a model S. ------ SheinhardtWigCo Good. These statements are lies. The company should face punishment in the US for saying that full self-driving is blocked by “regulatory approval” when they’re still an unknown number of years away from even being able to demo something they plan to ship. They still don’t know if full self-driving is even possible at the required level of reliability with their current hardware suite. They could well be wrong and sitting on a scandal that will eclipse Theranos. ~~~ gibolt When it gets there, regulatory approval will absolutely be a bottleneck to deployment. They don't say it is a current blocker. And it won't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class- leading. Even if Tesla can't reach level 5, it will be damn close and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human. ~~~ Silhouette _And it won 't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class-leading._ Class-leading in what sense(s)? _Even if Tesla can 't reach level 5, it will be damn close_ But that's the problem with self-driving cars. _Damn close_ isn't good enough. A miss is as good as a mile. The problem with the self-driving/automation scale is that anything around levels 2-4 probably shouldn't be allowed on public roads, at least not yet. Basic driver aids, where the driver is always fully engaged but the system can help to avoid mistakes, are proven to improve safety. This is what you get at level 1, and such technologies are already widespread in the industry. If we can ever make a fully autonomous vehicle that can genuinely cope with any driving conditions, so you don't need any driver or controls in the vehicle any more, then obviously this has the potential to beat human drivers. This is level 5. But we don't know how to do this yet, and I have seen absolutely no evidence so far that anyone will know how to do it any time soon either. In between, we have several variations where a human driver is required for some of the monitoring and control of the vehicle but not all. This has some horrible safety implications, particularly around the transitions between human- and vehicle-controlled modes of operation, and around creating a false sense of security for the human driver. The legal small print will probably say that they must remain fully alert and able to take over immediately at any time, but whether it is within human capability to actually do that effectively is an entirely different question. _and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human._ I've been driving for more than 25 years, and racked up hundreds of thousands of miles behind the wheel. I've never caused an accident, as far as I'm aware. I've never had a ticket. I try to be courteous to my fellow road users and give a comfortable ride to any passengers I have with me. What, in your opinion, would driving 10-100x safer than mine look like? Humans certainly aren't perfect drivers and we have plenty of variation in ability. Things can go wrong, and I'm sure we'd all be happy to see fewer tragedies on our roads. But given the vast amounts of travel we undertake and how many of us do drive, autonomous vehicles will need an extremely good record -- far better than they have so far -- to justify the sort of claim you're making here. ~~~ perl4ever >But that's the problem with self-driving cars. Damn close isn't good enough. A miss is as good as a mile Maybe close _is_ good enough. The problem as I see it that people usually don't seem to be focused on is that it's impossible for humans to monitor the situation while doing other stuff. You can only do that when you're far away from other things like in a plane or on a boat. How can we simultaneously believe it's possible to instantly engage with driving _and_ that people can't be trusted to text or make phone calls while driving? ~~~ Silhouette _How can we simultaneously believe it 's possible to instantly engage with driving and that people can't be trusted to text or make phone calls while driving?_ Exactly. Driving while distracted by phones is well-known to be very dangerous, which is why it's against the law in many places. Encouraging drivers who might need to take over in an emergency to zone out and focus on other activities seems unwise for the same reason. This is why the middle levels on the self-driving scale could be very dangerous. ------ notRobot > The Munich court agreed with the industry body’s assessment and banned Tesla > Germany from including “full potential for autonomous driving” and > “Autopilot inclusive” in its German advertising materials. Fully autonomous driving won't be here for _at least_ half a decade so this judgement makes complete sense. Tesla was engaged in flase advertising. ~~~ gardaani Only five days ago Elon Musk claimed that _" we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year."_ (yeah..!) [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53349313](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53349313) ~~~ croes Didn't he claim the same last year and the year before? ~~~ Vysero Really? You're guna bet against Elon Musk? You really think that's wise? XD ~~~ u10 Betting against Elon is a fools errand not because he's right, but because he's built a personality cult around himself. ~~~ mtgp1000 Counterpoint: Elon Musk is the only (publicly visible) CEO who is seriously talking about going to Mars and direct interfacing between machines and humans _and making tangible steps_ toward these futuristic goals. His rockets are [mostly] not exploding, his cars are selling to [mostly] good reviews, and neuralink seems to be doing something too. Perhaps his cult of personality is deserved because although he (along with basically the entire industry) overpromised on self driving timelines, nonetheless he does seem to be one of the few people with the practical vision to take us into a techno future. Consider that this guy went from a payment processing app to a bonafide private rocket company and is democratizing space flight (and satellite internet!) in what, about a decade? People love to hate the guy, I believe because he has brash and harbors some unpopular (callous but rational) opinions. Regardless, the respect that he gets from his fanboys is arguably in deserved, if you're the type to find inspiration in great people. ~~~ kerkeslager I don't think that anyone is arguing that Musk hasn't done _big_ things. The problem is, he's about 50/50 on how often the big things he does are actually _good_. This is completely ignored by his fanboys, who ignore the bad, and laud the good to an extent that's entirely untethered from reality. Take your post for example: You soften the word "lied" to "overpromised" and then slowly build to more and more absurd lavishing praise. "Practical vision" is a bit of a stretch, but "democratizing" is _just not reality_. And "if you're the type to find inspiration in great people"\--just about everyone finds inspiration in great people, so that's not even saying anything, it's just trying to indirectly say Elon Musk is a great person. ~~~ Vysero Yes they are. ~~~ kerkeslager Links or it didn't happen. ~~~ Vysero Unless of course you are the one who should be providing links, then they don't matter right? ------ H8crilA Tesla has been selling level 5 autonomy since 2016. I can see nothing wrong with that. Definitely not vaporware /s [https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced- now...](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have- full-self-driving-hardware) ~~~ Alupis I realize this is a sarcastic comment, but I think this illustrates the problem. Tesla vehicles cannot operate fully autonomous as-of now. Tesla has no idea if they'll need to replace or upgrade hardware either. They simply have not solved the problem yet, but want everyone to buy into the hype. And, the hype machine is working, unfortunately. ~~~ rootusrootus It's a scam. They're implying level 5 capability is just around the corner, when none of the current hardware will ever get past level 2. The current cameras can't even stay clean enough to keep autopilot reliable, it'd be pretty foolish to rely on them for any kind of real self-driving. I love my car but the FSD debacle is embarassing. A lot of people are finding out that they'll never get anywhere near $8K value from their pre-purchase, and they bought a license that expires when they sell the car. I expect a class action lawsuit eventually (I'm surprised it hasn't happened already). ------ hudon I own a Tesla and love it. Having said that, “full self driving” is so far off what it actually does it’s actually not just a marketing issue, it is a safety issue. I’ve had my Tesla drive towards an incoming lane, slam on the breaks in the middle of the highway with no cars in front of us, swerve into another lane with no warning, and probably other hiccups I don’t remember. I know now I not only need to keep my hands on the wheel but I need to actively make sure the car doesn’t kill us. And I know the car warned me the feature required awareness, but its name made me think it was way more developed and safe than it actually is, and that disconnect will surely cause other drivers to trust it more than they should. ~~~ bjarneh > I need to actively make sure the car doesn’t kill us Same experience here. Why people say this is relaxing; and takes the stress away from long distance driving is beyond me... ~~~ jiggawatts When I test drove a Tesla for a weekend my opinion of the Autopilot was the same as the car's owner: "It drives like a learner driver". Just like the nervous parent teaching their teenager to drive, this is _not_ a relaxing experience. However, the speed-adaptive cruise control is the best I've ever experienced. It maintains the set speed _exactly_ , slows down for corners automatically, and follows the car in front as if there was a steel rod connecting the two vehicles. Using the cruise control in the Tesla was some of the most relaxing long- distance driving I've ever done in my life... ------ ping_pong His remarks talking about how Level 5 is fundamentally solved should be investigated by the FTC. I think he is purposefully and fraudulently saying that self-driving will be available to get more people to pay the $8000 for the self-driving software "before it goes up". They should make sure his statements are actually true otherwise he would be fined severely because to me, self-driving is decades away still. ~~~ Traster Never mind his $8000 self-driving packages, Tesla's share price is where the action is. ------ libertine When are we going to address the elephant in the room? Advertising regulators aren't able to regulate, or arre taking too long to regulate, and we're leaving this to platforms. When it should be done by a regulator, and fines should be applied to both the advertiser and the media owner - BECAUSE YES, media owners/platforms have the responsibility and should abide by law. I'm looking at Google/Facebook. If platforms can't do it, too bad on them, pay up. False advertising is alive and well, and it's encouraged. People are being defrauded and we're whistling. ------ maxharris If you actually believe that Tesla will fail to deliver full self-driving in the coming years, I have two questions. 1\. have you watched this entire technical presentation made by Andrej Karpathy, Senior Director of AI at Tesla? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8) 2\. if you understand what you've seen in that video, why do you think Tesla will fail? ~~~ ryan93 Google has a much larger and better funded team that still doesnt seem close. Karpathy is no doubt smart but google has like 10 karpathys for every one TESLA has. ~~~ maxharris Did you watch the video? Waymo is stuck using lidar, and the video explains why that's a dead-end. (Want to keep in touch about this bet? I'm maxharris9 on twitter.) ~~~ catalogia I skimmed the video. It's doing what I expected, knocking down a goofy strawman of _LIDAR-only_ while ignoring the obvious _camera /LIDAR sensor fusion._ The depth map Tesla is getting from stereoscopic vision is pretty shoddy; sensor fusion with LIDAR is the obvious solution. The reason Telsa resists this is because they want to market their cars as having all the requisite hardware and acknowledging the usefulness of LIDAR wouldn't let them market their cars that way profitably. ~~~ maxharris Hmm, looks like Tesla actually _does_ do sensor fusion, just not with lidar: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19803817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19803817) I also think that being _so_ cynical about Tesla's motives is pretty short- sighted from an investment perspective. In the long-term, they don't win if they don't get this right. ~~~ catalogia Their radar/ultrasound has _awful_ angular resolution. That's where LIDAR excels. This is why Telsa cars run into trucks parked across the street. Their stereoscopic depth map is shoddy and the radar or ultrasound has awful angular resolution that can't tell the difference between an object parked next to the street and one parked in the middle of the street. > _" In the long-term, they don't win if they don't get this right."_ They've been claiming they're on the cusp of getting it right in the _short_ -term for years. So far, my cynicism has served me well. ~~~ maxharris I have 110 shares, and I'd love to talk to you about how that's going in 2024. I'm maxharris9 on twitter ------ ken47 It's unsurprising that Germany isn't as tolerant of "growth hack" advertising as the US. Many Tesla owners are smart enough to realize that their cars can't actually drive themselves. But those few who buy into the marketing and ignore the fine print pose a risk to themselves and the drivers around them. ------ billfor I wonder how many people complaining about Tesla's marketing actually have a Tesla. The car clearly makes you acknowledge that the driver is responsible before using any Autopilot/FSD capability, and if you bought the car with the expectation that it didn't , you have a return period to get your money back in full. It doesn't matter if they said it would take you to the moon and back. If you test drive or buy it and don't like it then just return it: no harm done. ~~~ Barrin92 It does in Germany (as the ruling in question indicates). False advertising here is very much considered 'harm done' and no way to do business. Lying to the customer until she takes the product out of the box is in no way, shape or form how you operate in this country. (well I guess it was for wirecard which is embarassing enough) I do not want to live somewhere where I have to order ten things, three are fake, three I have to sent back, another few break and the last thing works. ~~~ viklove Even in the US false advertising like OP suggests is considered fraudulent and against the law. There are just too many Musk fanboys around here that don't seem to know how the law works. ------ dlivingston While the average non-Tesla owner might be confused on phrases like “autopilot”, any Tesla owner is very aware of its capabilities and shortcomings. When you first purchase your Tesla and are beginning the setup process, you’re presented with multiple warning screens like this: [https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autostee...](https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autosteer- warning-tesla.jpg) That’s an old image: I couldn’t find the current warning screen on Google Images, but it’s even more stark and serious about the driver’s role w.r.t. autopilot. ~~~ monkeyfacebag Aren't the ads largely targeted to non-owners? Even if I agreed with your point, I just don't see how it's relevant. ~~~ dlivingston I’m actually confused by the phrase “ads”, because my understanding is that Tesla has an advertising budget of $0. I assume they’re referring to marketing materials (pamphlets, websites, etc). ~~~ fluffything The law is against fraudulent advertisement. The channel used to perform the advertisement and how expensive that channel is are completely irrelevant. For example, if Tesla claims in their website that their cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertising and illegal in Germany. If Tesla organizes a concert in some city somewhere, and the singer states that Tesla's cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertisement. If Tesla distributes stickers to their car owners that claim that Tesla's can drive themselves, and their car owners stick them in public bathrooms where people can see them, that is, as well, illegal advertisement, even if Tesla did not stick those stickers themselves. The law basically requires all companies selling products in Germany to be honest about what their products can and cannot do. This is good for consumers, and good for companies doing business there, because everybody is forced to play by the same rules. The definition of being honest and what communication means etc. are all super loose, so most companies don't risk lying about their products. There are dozens of consumer protection organizations that'll sue a company for you due to false advertisement. The main consequences for the sued company are usually damages if there are any, and mainly the fines designed to discourage false advertisement. Most of the money ends up on the tax payers accounts, so consumers are really encouraged to report these times of crimes. ------ kabes Not a lot of companies can get away with selling $6000 packages on which they'll never be able to deliver. ~~~ dlivingston The Full Self Driving package is actually quite good. With the exception of going “hands free”, this is an accurate video on the current state of FSD: [https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo](https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo) ~~~ ReidZB Another huge difference: the current FSD feature set will not make turns at intersections as demonstrated in this video. It now (as of recently) can be configured to automatically stop at appropriate traffic signage (stop signs, red/yellow lights, not sure about yields). However, it won't make a left or right turn. Some caveats: sometimes it will still want to stop at a green light, in my experience, and requires a manual override; and, if you're the foremost car in your lane at a traffic light, it won't begin moving on its own. I assume the same is true for stop signs. I guess that video is intended to be a preview of what the current software could do with all the driver interaction safety switches off (no required hands on wheel, no requirement to confirm safety through intersections/turns, etc) and all the internal feature flags turned on (particularly: enabling turns and enabling Navigate on Autopilot on non-freeways). ------ adamqureshi Why not call Full Self Driving: "Future Self Driving". This way you don't need to make the claim. People will make the inference from FSD. If they can change FSD to mean. "Future Self Driving" Perhaps this will help them make it very clear what the FSD can do and cannot do. amiright? ------ richardrk Good. This kind of advertising is misleading and was not only posing a risk for individuals but also for the sector of autonomous driving as a whole. I always feared that one more Tesla autopilot death might cause the public to generally distrust any company working in the field. ~~~ neop1x Exactly! That's why I am glad EU is very cautious in approving self-driving solutions. Yes, we need full self-driving and it doesn't look like an impossible task to achieve eventually. But it has to be done step by step, ensuring it behaves consistent and that the current limitations are well- understood by drivers. Bad reputation of some self-driving implementations could cause damage to the whole self-driving industry which would be bad. ------ kwhitefoot So no quotes either from what Tesla said or what the court said. Bit of a useless article. ------ simion314 I am wondering if a regular person when is thinking about autopilot term in a car is thinking at movies and not at aircrafts. In SciFi/spy movies autopilot means the ship or car is piloting itself and you can do something else. ~~~ ilikehurdles Sure, they probably do. But more problematic is what does an average person think when they read "Full Self-Driving Capability" and "Includes the Full Self Driving Computer"? ~~~ simion314 Yeah, but the "autopilot" claim will spawn a large numbers of fanboys with dictionaries and definition trying to defend Tesla's marketing department , the terms you mentioned will mostly get the mention of some text message you have to click OK on when you start using the car. ------ subsubzero Auto-pilot is disingenuous at best, it should be labelled "driving assist" or something similar. I remember that one person in florida[1] where they died by having their tesla on "auto-pilot" and a tractor trailer truck collided and killed them while they were watching Harry Potter and not driving with their attention on the road. Would this person have died if the Auto-pilot feature was named something different? Who can say as people do dumb things on the road, but it could lead tesla to future lawsuits from similar events. [1] - [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla- dri...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver- killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter) ------ paulcole > All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the > hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level > substantially greater than that of a human driver. From Tesla.com/autopilot in February of 2017. Absolutely shameful. ------ mindfulplay Great. I hope they bring charges against Tesla for causing deaths that were completely avoidable. In fact we keep talking about AI ethics and so on. But we seem to have missed this very basic key ethical point: when Silicon Valley VC funded madness via AI/ML crap is pushed at breakneck speeds via these metal torpedoes, who is taking accountability? It's really amazing that Elon is worried about AI overlords when a 'simple' autopilot is not engineered to ethical standards. (Same goes for people like Andrej Karpathy and co who should take the blame and publicly apologize/resign). Shameful. Glad Germany is ahead of the curve. ~~~ mleland Out of curiosity, what part of the driving AI of tesla would you say is currently not lining up with ethical standards? ~~~ mindfulplay The fact that they cannot disambiguate between a white truck and the sky color that killed an innocent driver is a starting point. I realize the drivers probably should be paying attention etc: but when Tesla falsely advertises (or worse by the toddler antics of Elon, portrays the optics of L5 automation); and drivers believe such advertisements then of course they wouldn't know that the car is much worse than promised. ------ martythemaniak Well, I'm gonna disagree. Let's quote wikipedia: > An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, > marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a > human operator. Autopilot does not replace human operators. Instead, > autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the > operator to focus on broader aspects of operations (for example, monitoring > the trajectory, weather and on-board systems). This is 100% exactly what Tesla is selling. Instead of constant manual control you focus on the broader operations of your car. Even the colloquial use of "autopilot" makes it clear that being on autopilot means you're not paying very much attention: [https://learnersdictionary.com/qa/what-does-on-autopilot- mea...](https://learnersdictionary.com/qa/what-does-on-autopilot-mean) Your car being on autopilot very much implies you still have to pay attention. ~~~ richardrk Not sure if that quote supports your argument. Tesla states: "Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment." [0] This sounds very different from "allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations". I have never heard of pilots having their hand and feet on the stick and paddles in case the airplane make an incorrect maneuver. [0] [https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/autopilot-and-full- self-...](https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/autopilot-and-full-self-driving- capability) ~~~ atonalfreerider > I have never heard of pilots having their hand and feet on the stick and > paddles in case the airplane make an incorrect maneuver. From the FAA guidlines on Autopilot: > Be ready to fly the aircraft manually to ensure proper course/clearance > tracking in case of autopilot failure or misprogramming [0] [0] [https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a...](https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/advanced_avionics_handbook/media/aah_ch04.pdf) ~~~ ummonk Being ready to fly doesn't require keeping your hand and feet on the stick and paddles. ~~~ atonalfreerider The FAA guideline is "ready to fly manually" -> key word "manual" from the Latin manus meaning "hand". Tesla is going a step further by requiring hands- on contact at all times, which makes this system a MORE restrictive autopilot. Contrary to what has been posted in other comments, pilots don't just get up and start walking around the aircraft. There must be one pilot always ready to take IMMEDIATE control of the aircraft. I hate when arguments devolve into semantics, which is the premise of this whole thread. But for the sake of discussing semantics, the use of the word "autopilot" is technically accurate. Its vernacular understanding is not. But this was also the case with cruise control. See this case where a driver set a cruise control on her RV and got up to make a cup of tea: [https://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/motorhome- crash/](https://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/motorhome-crash/) ~~~ lolc Being semantically right does not help against technically colliding. I can hook up an avian autopilot to a car to keep my bearing. While this is semantically a car with an autopilot, the contraption is useless on a road. When I talk about autopilots, I'm talking about a system that allows me to disengage from steering. Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla "Autopilot" does not permit this because I still have to closely monitor the trajectory at every moment. As such it does not fulfil the main expectation I have of an autopilot. What are your expectations of an autopilot? ~~~ atonalfreerider I'm sorry, I'm terribly confused by your logic. > hook up an [aircraft] autopilot to a car This sounds histrionic > semantically a car with an autopilot ?? > Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla Autopilot does not permit > this This is not how Tesla autopilot works. If you are genuinely asking my opinion, I would very much like to see this technology in the driver seat of more vehicles on the road as soon as possible. Where distracted drivers kill 9 people PER DAY in the US [0], if an autopilot system (speaking about the current one available today) is anything less than that, then it is well worth it. [0] [https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/in...](https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/index.html) ~~~ lolc Autopilots are reliable in aviation because they are simple. An autopilot for road steering cannot be that simple. The term transfers badly. It is a false dilemma to say that we need autopilots to avoid road deaths. Because assistive tech is already successfully being used for exactly this. We want self-driving cars to avoid the drudgery of driving. But the current batch of implementations needs very controlled conditions (Waymo), or close human supervision (Tesla). ------ nixass Full autonomous driving is so far away that I don't know why people and media even talk about it. ~~~ rtkwe Because companies like Tesla keep claiming it's just around the bend... ~~~ kp98 and politicians that need a useful lie to leverage ie Yang stating all the driving jobs will be gone in 5 years lol ~~~ rtkwe Trucking jobs are a little more vulnerable because theoretically highway driving to a depot or drop off is easier than city driving. Or there's an older idea of making convoy trucks where multiple semis follow one human piloted truck. ------ jacquesm Good. Not that it will stop Tesla from the next round of hype, from the most recent news we can expect level 5 autonomous driving soon. Maybe they'll call it 'autopilot'? Who will they blame when it doesn't work? ------ natch Can someone provide a link to a Tesla advertisement? Haven't seen this. ~~~ FabHK [https://www.tesla.com/de_de/models](https://www.tesla.com/de_de/models) > Hardware für autonomes Fahren Jedes neue Model S verfügt standardmäßig über > modernste Hardware, um die Autopilot-Funktionalität schon heute und > vollkommen autonomes Fahren in der Zukunft zu ermöglichen. Software-Updates > werden diese Funktionalität im Laufe der Zeit weiter ausbauen und > verbessern. > Die Autopilot-Funktionalität ermöglicht dem Fahrzeug automatisches Lenken, > Beschleunigen und Bremsen auf seiner Spur. Die Funktionalität für autonomes > Fahren bietet zusätzliche Merkmale und erweitert bestehende Funktionen, um > Ihrem Fahrzeug weitere Fähigkeiten zu verleihen. Looks like a pretty close translation of the same thing on the US site: [https://www.tesla.com/models](https://www.tesla.com/models) > Full Self-Driving Hardware Every new Model S comes standard with advanced > hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self- > driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to > improve functionality over time. > Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically > within its lane. Full Self-Driving Capability introduces additional features > and improves existing functionality to make your car more capable over time > including: ~~~ natch That’s a web site though, not an advertisement. Was asking about advertisements. ~~~ Slartie That web site clearly advertises a Tesla car. Hence it is an advertisement. Maybe you meant to say "TV commercial"? The German law doesn't make that distinction though, which means that blatantly false claims about capabilities of a product are just as illegal on the products' website as they are in a products' TV commercial. ~~~ natch I don’t see any blatantly false claims though. But certainly there can be false interpretations. ------ antpls That's hypocrisy from the German court. This is 100% a push from German car industry lobby. Note that the case wasn't started from consumer complaints, it was instead started by an industrial group. I bet _all_ Tesla buyers are aware about what they are actually buying. They can return the car and get a refund if they are not pleased with it. This ban is bullshit considering that many ads in many industries are deceptive, including healthcare. Tesla is punished only because it is a direct competitor of German cars. ~~~ SheinhardtWigCo Deceptive healthcare ads aren’t allowed in Europe either. Consumer protection standards are much higher. ~~~ pjc50 Heck, in the UK if a medicine is prescription-only you're not allowed to advertise it _at all_. This is a great improvement, frankly. ~~~ DanBC > you're not allowed to advertise it at all. You're not allowed to advertise it to the general public. You can still advertise it to prescribers and suppliers. [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advertise-your- medicines](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advertise-your-medicines) > You can’t advertise prescription-only medicines (POMs) to the general public > but you can promote them to healthcare professionals and others who can > prescribe or supply the product. ~~~ rsynnott The advertising to prescribers is fairly strictly regulated, though; you certainly couldn’t put ‘we anticipate this malaria drug will cure COVID-19’, say. ------ danielovichdk German is a huge car manufactoring country. Wonder if they feel a bit of a threat from Tesla on certain points and wish to control their inner markets. On the other hand, Tesla doesn't come close to driving an Audi, BMW or MB. Neither tech-wise. It might be the choice for the nerd or the socalled envitonmentalist, but for people that don't have time for reloading batteries all the time, it's a toy car. ------ kahlonel This is good, even though it could be a possible result of VW/BMW/Mercedes lobbying efforts. Human life safety is the top priority in any industry in Germany. Regulations are keeping Germany a little behind in the innovation race but, at the end, it is all worth it if people are not dying everyday because of failed tech. ------ runeks > Tesla’s Chief Executive Elon Musk said this month the electric car > manufacturer was close to making its cars capable of automated driving > without any need for driver input, so-called Level 5 autonomy. I suspect we will remain “close to” autonomous cars for several decades. ------ rho4 I think / hope that Elon Musk wanted everyone to be crystal clear about the end goal from the outset. Go on public record about the ambition in a way that will push himself and his employees. Use language to drive vision and outcome. ~~~ pbasista I agree that presenting a vision and facing it with reality of what is currently possible is great because it may motivate people to try to achieve something better than they would normally think of. But misrepresenting the reality as if it already was reflecting the vision, when in fact it is not, bears in my opinion many signs of fraud. For example, consider someone who has a "vision of wine" and decides to sell bottles of grape juice which are supposed to represent that vision. They can have honest intention to fill those bottles with wine at some point in time. But as far as they in fact sell the grape juice, I think that it is reasonable to require them to clearly present it as such. ------ noisy_boy They should call it "DriveAssist" because thats what it is instead of layering autonomy with Autopilot (for that matter, even Copilot carries similar underlying semantics). ------ Robotbeat I think it’s poor for “autopilot.” That word has a long history. It really is the best existing word to use. But a fair ruling for “autonomous.” And I think the concerns HN people have with “autopilot” are in part due to the fact that the terms have not been properly contrasted by Tesla. Being more careful with “autonomous” and “self- driving” would help a lot with the confusion with the word “autopilot.” ~~~ dragontamer Tesla's not only calling their stuff "autopilot", but also "full self driving", which is probably the wrong way to describe their current implementation. Its a bit annoying to see people so fixated on the word "autopilot" when its clear that "full self driving" is complete and utter vaporware, a $5000 lie sold by the company. ~~~ valine The reason many people buy the full self driving package is so they can experience the latest state of the art autonomous driving software as Tesla develops it, and Tesla continues to deliver on that promise. Smart summon and stopping for traffic control were both added recently as software updates. Even more recently they’ve improved the lane keeping performance on curvy roads, which is something nobody really mentions. Many of the problems people talk about like Tesla’s swerving out of the lane have been greatly improved in recent updates. There’s also the auto lane changes on the highway, which is really quite impressive to watch. Your car will automatically pass slow cars, move out of the passing lane when traffic clears up, and change lanes to follow your gps navigation. Not sure how you can call that vaporware. ~~~ dragontamer [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/866482406160609280](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/866482406160609280) >>> (Question from Twitter): Update on the coast to coast autopilot demo? >> Elon: Still on for end of year. Just software limited. Any Tesla car with HW2 (all cars built since Oct last year) will be able to do this. May, 2017. Elon bragging that "coast-to-coast" autonomous driving will be available by end of 2017. Straight up vaporware, a lie, no where close to done. We still have "Full Self Driving" cars crashing into the sides of trucks in 2020. ~~~ valine It’s obviously behind schedule, but that doesn’t make it vaporware. Tesla is still actively developing fsd and continues to release useful features. Would you rather they stopped hyping the feature altogether? The income from selling fsd helps fund development. ~~~ dragontamer > Would you rather they stopped hyping the feature altogether? The income from > selling fsd helps fund development. Selling stocks funds development. Raising bonds funds development. Selling $5000 features to paying customers that don't work is immoral, and the very definition of vaporware. Its blatant false advertisement. When a customer crashes into a police car and dies, due to misunderstanding what "full-self driving" means, the blood is on Telsa's hands. When a customer is beheaded by a stationary truck in the middle of the road, because the "Full Self Driving" Tesla cannot see stopped vehicles, it is blood on the hands of Tesla. \----------- Leave the speculation to stockholders and bondholders. They're rewarded with speculation. Customers literally die if they use these features wrong, and have already died over this issue. ~~~ valine The features do work though, navigate on autopilot is great. Sure there is a potential for misuse but that’s true for any car, cars are just inherently dangerous. Overall Tesla’s have great safety ratings. Can you show me hard data that autopilot makes the car measurably less safe? If anything I would guess that it makes good drivers better. ~~~ dragontamer > The features do work though Not according to the German courts they don't. That's why Tesla's marketing was just banned there. Its not "full self driving", not by any definition of the word. If you don't like it, take it up with the German courts. Despite being from America, I think the Germans did the right thing here. Call it what it is: automated lane assist. Automated lane centering. Etc. etc. Don't lie about it. That's where the line is drawn. ------ kohlerm It's surprising that it took so long to identify this as a dangerous lie ------ coronadisaster Tesla haven't been sued for this yet? ------ lazyjones The hate in this thread is staggering. Let's see you explain how "smart" your phone is... ------ jaimex2 Guess they will need to apply the same to Airbus as the two systems both function in the same way. ------ iamaziz That explains why Germany makes best cars in the world. ------ mrtksn This was probably the most brilliant advertising scheme of all times. Tesla is not just an electric car, it's the self driving car brand - even if it doesn't actually do that. I believe banning this kind of advertisement will only cement Tesla's image as the "Self Driving Car company" as no other company would be able to replicate it. People will continue to post memes about self driving Teslas but no one else would be able to claim anything like that up until they actually make a self driving car, and if they do it before Tesla, when people hear about it they will say "Oh cool!, So just like a Tesla?". ~~~ xinsight Or it backfires when people realize their newly purchased, expensive car doesn't do what they thought it could do. Tesla is not managing expectations well. ~~~ londons_explore That's what the 7 day return period is for. ------ itchyjunk Do regulators have an idea of what test a car needs to pass to be able to claim certain things? It there were levels of tests and passing each gave you better rating, that might give everyone an idea of there the system is. But most of the talks about this type of stuff seems to be gut feeling rating. Someone will say they think some car/software is good, other's will say it's no where close and the conversation ends there. It is also possible that updates can make software worse than it was before right? Say a software does pass some test. But how do you know it's still as good or better after some update? Is the problem we know for sure if has specific issues or it is more that we have no idea where it might fail while randomly driving? Are all this problems considered solvable in short term? ~~~ Barrin92 >Do regulators have an idea of what test a car needs to pass to be able to claim certain things? It there were levels of tests and passing each gave you better rating, that might give everyone an idea of there the system is. The 'five levels' of autonomy are fairly well established by now. Full autonomy generally is defined as driving capability that does not involve human attention, that is to say it is what the name suggests, the vehicle drives itself, you could ship it to the consumer without a steering wheel. ~~~ voqv Likely can't ship. The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic prohibits fully driverless cars [1], I assume the US has something similar. Cruise is still waiting for their waiver to have cars without a steering wheel and that's not even for consumers. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic) ~~~ bearjaws Here in the states, its at the state level what is allowed. We have autonomous vehicle testing in pretty much any state that allows it. ------ bgorman I wonder how much BMW/Daimler/Volkswagen had to do with this. It is a common practice for technology companies to offer features that will only become available after a certain time period. It actually takes time and money to build these features. I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision. Disclosure: I do not any automotive companies stock, and I am a dual US/German citizen. ~~~ chki > I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their > EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash > cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision. What are you implying? That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision? That the judges were biased? Bribed? Vague statements like this are very unhelpful, because you can't argue against them but they try to make a point anyway. ~~~ filoleg > That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this > decision? Probably that + the constituents. When a very large chunk of your constituents are employed by local car manufacturing companies, letting those companies fail and lose to a foreign competitor not only loses money for those companies, it also puts a threat of unemployment on your voting population. Lobbying from local car companies + your voting population's employment dependent on success of those local car companies is a very strong combination. EDIT: to clarify, I am aware that judges in Germany are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would support the ban just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving. ~~~ DasIch Judges in Germany generally aren’t elected. The few that are cannot be re- elected and have fairly long terms. The voting population in this case would consist of politicians in the legislative branch. ~~~ filoleg I am aware they are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would do it just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CERN pushes storage limits as it probes secrets of universe - hugorodgerbrown http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=FF726AD5-1A64-6A71-CE987454D9028BDF ====== jessriedel The filter is known as the "trigger". The trigger has several levels, so that the data rate is reduced by an order of magnitude or more at each level. The lowest levels are done in hardware for speed. The upper levels are in software for flexibility. Designing the trigger is extremely complex, since the various detectors within each experiment have greatly varying response time. Only data from fast detectors is available for the low level trigger. In addition, the speed of light is a real barrier for the lower levels of the trigger; by the time the debris from a collisions reach the outer reaches of the experiment (this is usually where the muon chamber is), there have already been an additional collision at the center. (The speed of light is about 1 ft/nanosecond, the radius of the muon chamber in CMS is about 25 ft, and the time between bunch crossings is about 25 nanoseconds.) The design of the trigger is a very important and often contentious process. A bad trigger will throw out important physics events, and trade-offs can favor one physics search (e.g. the Higgs) over another (e.g. supersymmetry). ------ Xk Alright; I'm confused. First they say that they "generate around 1 petabyte of data per second" Then they say "ATLAS produces up to 320M bytes per second, followed by CMS with 220M Bps. The data from ALICE amounts to 100M Bps and LHCb produces 50M Bps." only that sums up to 690M Bps ... definitely not 1 petabyte per second. (That is, assuming that 1M Bps means 1 million bytes per second, or just under 1 megabytes per second.) And then, later on, they talk about a different mode in which "more data is produced by the four experiments, about 1.25G Bps in total." which is still not 1 petabyte per second. What's going on? ~~~ AretNCarlsen I used to be the sysadmin for a high energy physics lab as we prepared for the ATLAS experiment to come online. (It was a long wait, following helium explosions and such.) The reason you see so many different numbers is that they cannot possibly record the full flow of information. CERN has a very large buffer that the collision sensor data is fed into initially, which is analyzed in realtime to determine which chunks of data are likely to contain significant information. Those chunks are kept, and the rest are discarded. This bothered a lot of people, since they are probably throwing away interesting scientific data, but they are limited by current storage technology. Further preliminary analysis is performed on the retained data, broadly categorizing the energy and other characteristics of the collision. That allows individual physics groups around the world to download only the data that is likely to pertain to their specific research, e.g. the Higgs boson, multiple dimensions, etc. There was some talk of transferring data via Bittorrent or perhaps a custom protocol involving fountain codes. That never got off the ground. Instead, the Russians were working on a custom peer-to-peer system with a monolithic centralized set of indices, a system which is hopefully working better than it used to. P.S. - Here's a hummingbird-speed video of building our prototype fileserver node for local physics analysis of ATLAS data [before I learned about electric screwdrivers]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y6MpPNqxmw> ------ shaggy There was a very good and very detailed talk given by Tony Cass from CERN at the LISA 2010 conference. The talk gives a much more in-depth look at the environment at the LHC. The link below has the audio, video and slides from the talk. Look for "The LHC Computing Challenge: Preparation, Reality, and Future Outlook" <http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa10/tech/> ------ jevinskie How long do these experiments run? 1.25GB/s doesn't seem all that bad if the experiment is only seconds-minutes in duration. ~~~ Create Generally you would fill the machine, then circulate beam "stable", until it wears out (loose luminosity), then dump the remaining, and start again. This is called a fill, and can last several hours. A fill has several runs, some experiments automatically change runs every hour. A run is generally with a given filter (trigger) setting/detector configuration. You would run 24/7, but due to the filling cycle, waiting for ramping up and stable beam etc. will give you "idle" overhead. Furthermore, you are "lucky" to reach flat top stable beam: magnets can quench, power supplies will trip etc. giving unscheduled downtime. Then there is scheduled downtime (like just recently), which can last years :) So all in all, you would get a few dozen weeks of real operations a year, which would include some stable beam (if you aren't into beam gas studies or cosmics). ~~~ AretNCarlsen Do you know what the actual average uptime has been per operation? I have never seen that number. ~~~ Create To be fair, the metric for benchmarking is delivered/recorded luminosity. The machine delivers, and the detector records. It is this efficiency that funding agencies are shown in the periodic reports. Strictly speaking, (down)time can be "irrelevant", in the sense, that with higher luminosity you get more data (LHC can catchup on Tevatron easy). You can have 5 nine uptime, with 1 bunch circulating, or lots of bunches of particles (the beam is not continuous, it comes in trains of particles). So one thing is, that you also go for as many bunches as possible... But the periodical reports are on cdsweb, because of the public funding agencies ie. for the machine itself, setting an upper boundary: "Downtime statistics over the 2010 run" -- Chamonix 2011 Workshop on LHC Performance, Chamonix, France, 24 - 28 Jan 2011, pp.70-74. Then the DAQ of your experiment of choice comes on top of this...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hackers use security camera DVRs as Bitcoin-mining rig - ozh http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/02/dvr_botnet_mines_bitcoins/ ====== sirsar To get a sense of the scale of inefficiency, writing this code was certainly less profitable than walking down the highway picking up bottles to return for their 5-cent deposit.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Kdbus support is no longer compile-time optional - sydney6 http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2015-June/033170.html ====== digi_owl Bugfix release, or smokescreen?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Micro Frontends - headalgorithm https://martinfowler.com/articles/micro-frontends.html ====== shados We do this, with a few hundred apps all loosely linked to each other, for many of the same benefits (and drawbacks!) as micro services. Teams being able to own their stuff without needing permission from the rest of the org, being able to punt on some architectural decisions (since the blast radius is much smaller), being able to rewrite most apps in a pinch as need be (since they're small), much simpler tooling (off the shelf open source stuff work fine, without needing to scale it to hundreds of millions of LoC), and so on and so forth. The same drawbacks apply: cross app changes can be tricky (if you find a security issue in a lib used by 150 apps, its not fun), lack of cascading pull request support in github is annoying, sharing actual business logic through libraries is often a bad idea (which is unintuitive to most). Some challenges are FE specific: unlike micro-services, FE apps are in your customer's face. Being separate apps often means page refresh between apps if you want the full benefits of total separation, which in turn can be a perf issue (vs client side routing). The second is that unlike micro-services, people don't know about this kind of architecture, and every other new hire will wonder wtf you're doing. Overall, if your product is more horizontal than vertical (tons of completely distinct features, vs a few very advanced features), it's great. ~~~ tobr > sharing actual business logic through libraries is often a bad idea (which > is unintuitive to most). Seems unintuitive to me too, would be curious to hear if you have more to say about it! ~~~ shados Imagine you have a React/Redux app with Rest endpoints. You have a dumb "Button" component. You share that with all the other apps. The Button is in React. You now tie your entire ecosystem to React. Not having individual apps have to agree on dependencies is one of the benefits of micro apps, and you lost that. However, you only lost that for React, which many people agree is pretty darn good and not going anywhere. That's a tradeoff we take. Pure React components are also well encapsulated, so whatever the opinions are behind the Button doesn't pollute the apps. App owners are still free to architect their apps however they want: their only hard requirement is React. Now, imagine you have a Medium style text editor built with React, Redux, and rest endpoints, complete with automatic draft save, a working publish button, onboarding experience, etc. If you share that, now all your apps have to agree on: backend, authentication, I18n, Redux, state management architecture, it probably uses local storage and cookies, is opinionated on what you do when logged out, and so on and so forth. If you bring that editor in an app, you're now tied to all of this. If 100 apps use that editor, and they want to upgrade Redux in the editor, they all have to upgrade to get back to the same version. If you change the backend, you have to also upgrade all apps or keep the old endpoint forever. If you want to add an I18n language, you will have to rebuild/redeploy everything. If you don't encapsulate your state, its architecture will pollute the app, but if you do you're likely going to have a much more bloated library (more bytes, slower download). Apps are no longer free to make their own decisions. It gets worse if you have transitive dependencies. Your app depends on A that depends on B that depends on C. Your app also depends on C. C releases a new version that your app wants. You now need to either bundle two versions of C, or upgrade the world. If C has global side effects, bundling 2 versions of C might not even be possible at all. These kind of "full stack components" are tech debt the moment they hit your apps. As the other reply to your post stated: you end up with the worse of both worlds. All the costs of micro-apps, with all the costs of a coupled monolith TOO. Its much worse than if you had picked either one or the other. ~~~ BoiledCabbage I'm confused. You say "business logic", but mention a "dumb button" which is the exact opposite of business logic. Business logic would be the logical code to determine if a user is up to date on their payments. This logic is the same whether it is being used on desktop or android front end, in a back end job or API. And if this changes, it would change in all places simultaneously. A button is technology specific component and should be shared with caution as technology requirements differ and change. The "up to date on payments" logic is inherent to your business. This is business logic and absolutely should be shared. ~~~ shados The button was the example of something that is okay to share because its not business logic. ------ mrsharpoblunto While I can see some benefits in terms of deployment flexibility, this really seems like a case of prioritizing your organizational chart over the end user experience. Its already hard enough to optimize a large JavaScript SPA so that it runs well on mobile devices - are we really suggesting that its a good idea to ship a UI to users device containing N different versions of React, Angular, Redux etc. all built using different build tools/pipelines with the final UI cobbled together and have it give a comparable experience to a native application? Micro services work on the backend because the its effectively hidden from the user - thier device hits and endpoint and gets a response. On the frontend its a different story, the users device has to download and execute all that duplicated code. ~~~ shados > this really seems like a case of prioritizing your organizational chart over > the end user experience No. It's case of being able to give the user more things they want, with each individual ones being built faster and optimized for their specific tasks without having to worry about the others. This comes at the cost of optimization of the whole (local maxima vs global maxima.). If your product is something like, let say, Slack (one specific app that does one thing with a lot of features), it's a horrible fit. If your product is something more like G Suite (several completely distinct apps that are semi related under an umbrella), that is where it shines. Other situations are things like internal apps where being able to DO something (at low cost) is often the priority. There's a lot of ways to mitigate the UX impact, but yes, it has a UX impact. Its a tradeoff. Let's not forget that if you free your org of some burdens, they end up with more time to solve other problems, so it's not completely at the expense of the user. ~~~ ivan_gammel There will be almost no UX impact if the decision on what defines each microfrontend is UX-driven. For example, feed and stories in Instagram-like webapp can be microfrontends - UX defines the structure of the container app and UI integrations, but then they can evolve independently. ~~~ mrsharpoblunto There will almost certainly be a UX impact in the form of performance though - the whole point of micro-frontends as I can see it is that it allows you to have different infra&dependencies in different parts of the UI. The only reason you'd want to do this is because you don't want to share the same infra&dependencies across the UI which inevitably leads to duplication of frontend infra. e.g. if my whole app is React based, why do I need micro-frontends?, using them seems needlessly complex. It only seems relevant if for example I have a product where team A has a legacy jquery UI, team B wants to add a part of the UI built in Vue, and team C wants to build out some features using React - but in that case the user is now having to download 3x the JS infra code that they did before because none of the teams can agree on a shared stack. Also this pattern would seem to make composability of the UI much more rigid and inflexible. In the IG example you mentioned, lets say stories and feed got built out using separate stacks with separate codebases and infra. Now lets say we want to add a saved stories unit to the profile page, or add some recent stories as a new unit in feed (real examples - I used to work at IG :)) If we were on a common stack like React, I could just re-use the React story reel component from the stories tray and drop it into the Profile page (& maybe tweak a few props). With a micro-frontend, I'd have to create a content area for the other team to put thier story unit, agree on what the expected interactions between the profile & story unit were going to be, agree on a contract etc. wait for the other team to adapt the story reel so it was usable in the new context, make sure they deploy the new version of thier story unit... The only situation I can see a micro-frontend being beneficial is as a stopgap pattern while migrating legacy apps - it certainly doesn't seem like an ideal end-state to me. ~~~ ivan_gammel I agree with you that the use case with different stacks is suboptimal and may make sense only in enterprise apps. For consumer apps the impact is indeed too high. However, just like with microservices the main point is not about having different technology, but about having different lifecycle and deferring the component integration to deployment or even runtime. ------ msoad My previous job was doing microservices for frontend and current job is doing monorepos. I prefer monorepo for frontend because: * Full page refresh between frontend services * Inconsistency between services. Sometimes services use different major versions between @company/footer @company/header components that is extremely ugly when navigating * Sharing data between services is hard. How can I update profile photo in header from my page? I saw iframe injection hacks to go around it!! * A single page can have multiple team owners, those things can get tricky fast * Monorepo is easier to make tooling for. ~~~ revvx _> My previous job was doing microservices for frontend and current job is doing monorepos. I prefer monorepo for frontend because:_ I think you're misusing the term "monorepo", no? Monorepo is just a technique for organizing source control repositories. It's possible to have microservices AND monorepos. You're probably thinking of "monolith". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorepo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorepo) ~~~ swsieber While I agree with your analysis, do we have a good word for lots of little repos? ie microservices : monolith and ?? : monorepo ~~~ revvx "Multirepo" is the term I see the most ~~~ swsieber Thanks! I saw 'polyrepo' too, but multirepo sounds more intuitive. ~~~ OJFord 'submodules' too, but which further implies a) git; b) there's a (CD/infrastructure?) repo which collates the pieces. ------ gcpwnd There is no description on how micro frontends can be structured in practice. The run down in the marketing section is feels like a sales talk. No serious mentions of downside. Pretty blunt article hosted on martin fowlers domain. What I would expect is an analysis of strategies to assemble micro fronteds. ~~~ wbronitsky I agree. There is no coherent analysis of how to actually enable this, and what the real pros and cons are. The article also assumes that you have the same order of frontends and services, which is a weak assumption, and that branding, style and design coherency are not important parts of a frontend experience, which is even weaker. This is an incredibly lame argument for any system. I expect a whole lot better from Fowler's blog ~~~ charlieflowers I think this is premature. They're starting with the 100,000 foot overview of why micro-frontends can be valuable. More installments in the series will dig into the details. ------ andy_ppp I find this stuff to be utterly overkill unless you are building the next Bloomberg terminal (say) and have completely separate teams. Or you have more than say 100 frontend coders working on the same codebase. If you think you need micro services you are unlikely to need a micro frontend for another order of magnitude of scale. The people talking about both of these things never seem to point out the downsides and huge delivery overheads to these approaches. Much better to make sure you are doing everything perfectly on a single codebase before you take high risk, difficult to manage decisions because you read how cool it was on Martin Fowler’s blog. ~~~ tsss Not to mention that you get many of the supposed benefits of "micro frontends" by just applying good engineering practices to a monolith. You can easily have independent teams and incremental changes by splitting your application into mostly independent packages without having them live in their own applications. ~~~ andy_ppp Exactly, Bounded Contexts is usually more than enough if you are reviewing the code properly. ------ jedberg Amazon has been doing this for years, and Facebook does it too. There is one team that provides the overall "boxes" but then each team writes their own frontend for their own part of the box (and their own micro service behind it too). I'm glad to see it getting more traction, but just like microservices, it's not for everyone. You need to be at some minimum scale for this to make sense, because just like microservices, there will be an engineering overhead for managing it. ~~~ jayd16 Are those considered successful examples? I would argue both of those sites are a mess. You can't say they're not money makers though. ~~~ beat Well, what's your success metric? I'd argue that neither of them would have been able to implement the rich features they have at the speed and scale they've achieved - features that have given them market domination. If pure aesthetics is your metric, then yeah, they're ugly. So? ~~~ ken Amazon's M.O. is "pay money, get physical item". On the scale of how much aesthetics matters on a website, that's way over on the "not at all" side. About the only thing I'd put further that direction is Craigslist (which is "maybe pay no money, maybe get physical item"). For nearly every other website, aesthetics is of significant or even primary concern. When I'm not receiving packages from it, I care about how it looks. Facebook, Google, and StackOverflow were all much cleaner designs than what they replaced, and Wikipedia is perhaps the biggest and most aesthetically consistent website there is. Aesthetics matter. ~~~ shados Does Amazon do micro apps on their storefront side? I know they do on the AWS side, but the ecommerce bit is very different. ~~~ ci5er Yes. For example, the ratings (stars) and reviews are separate "widgets" in the product page. Search, of course. - https://thenewstack.io/led-amazon-microservices-architecture/ ------ iamleppert Complexity arises in software at the interfaces of systems. Putting a bunch of small apps into a larger container doesn’t address the elephant in the room of how to make these pieces work well with one another. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t in the same repo, the minute one part of the app expects another to behave in a certain way there is a dependency regardless if that is expressed in code or not. ~~~ bcheung I think this is spot on. The problem lies in the incompatible interfaces. I've been studying category theory recently and it is amazing how well things compose when interfaces follow monoidal / monad design patterns. They are so generalized that they can be used in so many different places. Unfortunately it is so rarely used outside of more academic environments. If libraries/frameworks were structured to follow these kind of well defined "interfaces" I think we would have a very different experience than the one we have now. ~~~ flying_sheep Such monad interfaces are best enforced by language / compiler, however it is non-tractable to do that. Even in Haskell they just move the monoid check to programmer (especially associativity). What is worse, if the law is violated in some tiny subset of the data, that can lead to non-trivial bug. That is why it is difficult to apply in real world, which is usually very complicated :-( ------ sillyquiet This really only works if you have at least one team dedicated to maintaining cohesiveness in design patterns across all the 'micro frontends'(i.e., one of those verboten 'horizontals'). Otherwise you are going to end up with a ux experience or even a _UI_ experience that diverges from app to app as each team designs and implements its own solution to common problems ~~~ shados The rise of design systems, and how its pretty much a must these days regardless of your architecture, kinds of takes care of that. It does mean one of the "micro services challenges", code sharing, hits you from day 1. If one app wants to use Angular and another wants to use React, you now need two implementations of your design system from the get go, and that's likely to be your biggest, most complicated and most expensive to maintain library. So you usually want to make a tradeoff right out of the gate and standardize the core stack around a specific core set of UI libraries/frameworks. It takes away from the benefits a little, but its worth it. If you grow to ultra large scale you can have multiple implementations (which I think many of the big techs do), but for most its a bad idea. ~~~ sillyquiet In theory, yeah, but in practice the problem stems from product initiatives for new features that span those micro-front ends. Each team responsible for a particular front-end gets a set of stories: 'implement feature x so that the user can blah blah'. This feature requires using a design pattern that is not part of the core set. Each team, because of the silo'd nature of the article's model, _must_ therefore implment it's own version of that pattern, each subtly or grossly different from the other, et voila, you have inconsistency across what to the user is supoosed to be a cohesive app. Sure, there are solutions for this, one of which is common ownership of that design system and having some kind of product coordination that allows for the contribution of new patterns to the design system in advance of the new feature, but that does require a lot of care in planning and coordination that negates a lot of the benefits of the this sort of model, imo. ~~~ shados Its not easy by any mean, but few things worth doing are. We have a team of engineers and designers working together to maintain our design system and its implementation, and all teams use it. When a new shared pattern comes up, its implemented in the design system and people use it. Teams are heavily encouraged to not make new patterns on their own from scratch (and its a lot easier to have the design system team handle it anyway). Sometimes folks go rogue, but that would happen within a large monolith too anyway. ~~~ sillyquiet > Its not easy by any mean, but few things worth doing are. We have a team of > engineers and designers working together to maintain our design system and > its implementation That would be a horizontal team which this model does not account for. ~~~ viklove In fact, it specifically recommends avoiding that, which is why I think this article falls short. ~~~ shados I can't read the mind of the article's author, but usually in these types of articles about micro-whatever you want to stress how horizontal teams/libraries/ownership is to be avoided, because people "default" to having them, and you have to fight tooth and nail to make them understand it shouldn't be. But for micro-FEs, there's a few things that, IMO, are unavoidable. A design system implementation (keeping its components as "dumb" as possible, no server api dependencies of any kind, no opinion about frameworks beyond the component technology it uses) is one of them. A few very very core things like authentication is another, as well as how all the routes glue together. There's a few more (nav, service workers, etc). It should still be avoided unless absolutely impossible to avoid or if the benefits are overwhelming. ------ kodisha I see that many people are asking for examples. Zalando is doing this for couple of years now, you can look at their talk [1] where they describe how they use this pattern + some open source libs for composing those UI components [2] Many other components of this kind of infrastructure are described and linked here [3] [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m32EdvitXy4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m32EdvitXy4) [2] [https://github.com/zalando/tailor](https://github.com/zalando/tailor) [3] [https://www.mosaic9.org/](https://www.mosaic9.org/) Also this [https://jobs.zalando.com/tech/blog/front-end-micro- services/...](https://jobs.zalando.com/tech/blog/front-end-micro- services/?gh_src=4n3gxh1) ------ ggregoire Not a big fan of solving an organizational issue (how several people can work together on a same project) with a technical solution that adds more complexity and has its own drawbacks (splitting a project into micro services). Last time I heard in real life about splitting a frontend app into micro services, it was because the team was composed at 80% of junior devs who didn't have a correct git workflow. And they were spending hours fixing git conflicts. "It doesn't work, it will never scale when the team will grow, we should split the app in smaller apps so nobody will work at the same time on the same project". ~~~ shados Thats kind of like saying we shouldn't have tests and type systems because people should just learn to code properly. ~~~ techsin101 No, because git is unnecassarilly complex ------ debt The fundamental problem is cleanly persisting data. There's all sorts of design paradigms we use to attempt to send state through the presentation layer to the persistence layer. Ultimately there's no clean way to do it and because of that it's hard to have something like a micro frontend. The presentation layer is always aware of the data persistence layer to some degree. Take a physical light switch. The switch will still work if the power is out; it goes up and down. The same doesn't have to be true from a purely digital standpoint. If the power is out, we can actually disable the switch(assuming this digital display switch is powered by a battery in this case). So in the digital switch case, the switch accurately reflects the global state of power. In the analog switch case, the switch still functions regardless of the global state of power. In the digital case, one must write code that actually checks the global power state to conditionally enable the on/off functionality of the digital switch. So that code, is not strictly presentation layer code, rather it's state- maintenance code or I don't know what you'd call it. Point is, you now have the presentation layer now tightly coupled to the something outside of the presentation layer; in this case, the global state of power("is the electricity working?"). And this is just a simple example of an on/off switch. Micro frontends are a difficult problem. One solution might be to have all frontends be signal based. So if you send a signal a listener can optionally handle it or not or maybe nothing is listening. In the analog on/off switch case, that's exactly how it works. If the power is off, the switch still flips. ~~~ jerf I think that's part of the problem, but only a part of the problem. One of the things I think we're slowly groping towards is the importance of composability in all sorts of programs. The problem is, where we'd like to write "app1 <> app2" and have the result be something sensible (as in monoidal composition in something like Haskell), the problem is that we don't have a well defined definition of "composing" two applications together when those applications each have their own page layout, HTML widgets, style sheet, data persistence, user authentication model, user authorization model, server communication methods, URL scheme, configuration information, and who knows what else I'm forgetting. I was reminded of something like this today as I'm sitting here slicing an application up into bits, and I realized I was basically implementing a composition system for the bits of my app, but the composition of "a thing that has some HTTP handlers, and some data types, and some methods, and some logging code, and some services that it runs all the time, and an API" is really ugly. You have to go out of your way today to structure things that way, because everything is fighting you by forcing you to compose different things in different ways, and encouraging you in a million subtle ways to do something that will add a little spiky bit to your code that will make it impossible to compose. Consider just the HTTP handler. How many "routers" out there make it easy to encapsulate a particular sub-application on a particular URL fragment like "/myforum", and then _all_ you have to do to move the application to a different URL is simply route it to something different like "/public/myforum", and no other changes have to be made? The ones I know that allow that don't particularly encourage it, and there's plenty for which it's all but impossible. It doesn't take many things that can't be composed very well to make composition difficult, and very few things in programming make composition easy right now. ~~~ bcheung I've had similar thoughts after learning category theory. I'm trying to develop a conceptual model where each different category (JSX, data layer, data fetching, validation, 2-way binding) cleanly composes. With arcane nature of category theory not being common knowledge, frameworks, libraries, standards, etc, are unfortunately being created in ways that actually prevent patterns of composition. It's almost to the point that I'm wanting to reinvent things from the ground up based on solid patterns of composition. Have you done any work or discovered any patterns to make things behave more like the monoidal "<>" that you mentioned? ~~~ jerf "Have you done any work or discovered any patterns to make things behave more like the monoidal "<>" that you mentioned?" Only a lot of hard work, honestly. In the case of the HTTP router case, I think it's important to pass the URL being used to access the resource cleanly down to the resource, but it's still up to the resource to then use relative URLs properly, which is an uphill battle. ------ GiorgioG Frontend-development in JS/TS is already complex enough. I can't figure out why you'd want to split up an application into "micro-applications" and provide a worse end-user experience with multiple SPA loads. When will this madness end? Sure, if you're developing an absolutely massive system with dozens (hundreds?) of developers, I can see the potential benefits outweighing the downsides to this approach. But the fact is most frontend applications do not fit into this category (much like microservices - I've written plenty and never had to scale one beyond a single node.) ~~~ shados Unless you plan to have a 2-10+ apps to developer ratio, at least 50+ apps in the medium term, and looking into a future of 50-100+ devs at least, I wouldn't do this. Exception: if your apps are very very distinct anyway. One company I worked at long ago where we did this, we were small, but the "screens" of our apps were very unrelated (no one really used more than 1-2 of them as part of their job), so it was very easy to split them up with zero impact on users. ------ z3t4 There is also the plugin pattern. A small core, with a bunch of independent plugins that interact with the core via events sent out by the core, and calling the public methods of the core. Where it's very important that the independent parts don't talk to each other. ------ rhacker We're doing this exact thing. Our micro front ends are React components (most of them are actually now using hooks!). Our 2 deployed UIs are angular (1!!!) apps. We use react2angular to slowly replace the angular app. The angular components are all Java backed using a poorly maintained swagger set up (and the swagger definitions don't match the actual services :( ). The new backend is all Graphql on top of typegraphql. The nice thing about typegraphq is how easily it converts our models into usable rest services, and allows us to create field resolvers, that basically extend other types and let us pull down additional concepts. Basically we let the front end then choose what it wants to pull down. It's very flexible, self documenting, and reduces the amount of boiler plate we had in in the Java layer a ton. One set of model objects (typeorm) that also have typegraphql decorators. Compared to Java that has models, swagger objects, converters (both ways)... Life before was literally a nitemare. ------ thepinkelefant Is this the equivalent of a portal and multiple “portlets” ? The main SPA is just a shell that holds everything together but the individual portlets build their own SPA ui backed by their own one or more services . Perhaps this gives the “portlets” spa owners to build and release on their own. Is there any React framework which lets you design in this manner ? ~~~ sheeshkebab No, it’s about splitting up web apps based on uris and loading different ui’s for different uri. Thus page refreshes. ------ FlorianRappl I appreciate the trend to break the frontend monolith - I think its one of the next steps for grand scale web apps. However, that noted this is certainly not for everyone and it has some downsides (e.g., complexity) that need to be tackled. Right now there is also some lack on tooling and framework / library side. Nevertheless, there are some approaches already. A project currently in the making is Piral ([https://piral.io](https://piral.io)). It is not production ready at this point, but I think it may hit some sweep spot depending on your requirements (see [https://github.com/smapiot/piral/blob/master/docs/features.m...](https://github.com/smapiot/piral/blob/master/docs/features.md) for features and comparison to other / similar frameworks for micro frontends). Disclaimer: I'm one of the authors. ------ zeroz The best microframework solution I’ve seen so far is the Single-SPA [1] meta framework: [1] [https://github.com/CanopyTax/single- spa/blob/master/README.m...](https://github.com/CanopyTax/single- spa/blob/master/README.md) ------ tomashm Norway's largest classified ads company, [https://finn.no](https://finn.no), has created and open sourced their micro frontend framework: [https://podium-lib.io/](https://podium-lib.io/) ------ bcheung I'd be curious to hear stories of how people are integrating multiple different frameworks and build processes together. The article doesn't mention any details in that regard. Anyone have experience with combining legacy Angular 1.x and modern React? My current work involves porting from Angular to React and we try to style each app to look consistent and just link back and forth between 2 apps depending on the feature. It has a lot of issues like the long reload times and having to fetch data from the API's again. It would be nice if styling and some of the code could be shared between the apps. Anyone have some use cases or insights they can share in this regard? ~~~ dean177 You could fetch and cache data into local storage to prevent re-fetching. Depending on how you are set up you could have both apps loaded at once and display one or the other (perhaps lazily loafing the one you don’t need upfront) ~~~ bcheung We are doing this for simple data where we can but unfortunately having state in multiple locations (backend, memory, localStorage) means lots of cache complexity. How do you refresh and invalidate when the data are in so many places? We've opted to keep data in only 1 place as much as possible due to this exponential complexity. We also have to be careful what we store in localStorage since it is relatively insecure. ------ Pamar Let me repeat myself: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18627950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18627950) So, are "portlets" coming back? Why should they work this time? ------ datashaman Micro services that serve HTML content. No new architectural structures required. ------ desireco42 I feel like he is flogging dead horse here. There are scenarios where microservices make sense, for a large majority of problems, they don't and is harmful as they get companies into managing infrastructure that they have zero experiences, so you have this places that are developing stuff that is totally not appropriate for them. I like things that are simpler and unless the problem is a natural fit for microservices, I would not use them and consider them harmful. I do respect Mr. Fowler to clarify but just start where he says microservices exploded in popularity, he lost me there. ~~~ tmountain He's not talking about microservices in the article. He's likening micro frontends (SPA more or less) to microservices because there are some analogues between the two concepts. ------ ris I've spent more than enough of my life now trying to clean up the messes created by people following Martin Fowler's ideas. It correlates perfectly with my desire to leave the industry. ~~~ Traubenfuchs Cargo cult and reinventing state of the art snake oil all 5 years... What are you plans for escaping the madness? ~~~ ris Unsure currently. ------ jayd16 So lets say you have a team that handles user on-boarding and account management. If you want a top bar with the user name, does this feature have to be owned by the user account team? If they're different teams with different microfrontends, how does the top bar frontend know to update based on activity in the account management frontend? Basically, cross vertical information will exist, how do you solve the caching problems? Maybe some kind of app wide message passing? ~~~ pault If you are using react/redux it would be a rather trivial matter of defining an action/state tree contract between the teams. Other frameworks that use encapsulated state may have to resort to a message bus. Edit: I misunderstood the context. If your front ends are separate applications this won't work. ~~~ shados Having that kind of tight coupling (not only interfaces, but also libraries beyond the minimum you need for core things like the design system) partly defeats the purpose. If you have a lot of micro apps and they share dependencies/frameworks, you won't get the benefits of eventual consistency when the next big thing comes along. For something like onboarding, any team handling that will either just be a "think tank" (PMs/Designers working with the actual owners of the individual affected apps to build the experience), or will be people who jump in other folks' code bases to implement it. Alternatively, they could only be responsible for building a suite of components that the app owners bring in their apps to glue things together. ------ GordonS It's disappointing that the article lacks any actual examples of how this might be achieved. Take web apps for example - I imagine each micro-frontend loading in an iframe, which feels kind of icky. Alternatively, maybe you could build out a plugin architecture, where each micro-frontend is loaded as a plugin into the host. What other approaches can be used, while keeping the "feel" of a single, cohesive app? ------ nanoservices We do this for our app already, right now the biggest issue is switching between pages causing the application to reload. I'm curious to see if anyone has a good solution for a problem like this, each of our apps are written in Angular. ~~~ shados We find that carefully picking app boundary is a big deal to reduce that pain. Also, performance has to be a first class citizen in your org. Since users will be page refreshing a lot, you can't tolerate 5 second load times. With that said, we find that techies care a lot more about fancy client side routing and not having page transitions than users do. There are a few places where its critical though (places where users go back and forth hundreds of times a day), and the routes are too big to keep as a single app while keeping the benefits of our architecture. For that, having separate builds, each generating their own final scripts, but dumping them on the same page is a decent compromise. You don't get all the benefits (you will have a single page, so dependencies have to be compatible and play well with each other. One script can cause another to break, etc), but the user doesn't pay the price. Thats a last resort, but sometimes it has to be done. ------ nhumrich You can use single-spa to do this while still having a "spa" and not using iframes. [https://github.com/CanopyTax/single-spa](https://github.com/CanopyTax/single- spa) Disclaimer: I work at CanopyTax ------ pvorb InnoQ coined the term "self-contained systems"[1], which seems to be related. [1]: [https://scs-architecture.org/](https://scs-architecture.org/) ------ buryat It could just be a side effect of the more focused nature of the front end web sites - the more you focus on the content, the more you feel the less you feel the need for it. ------ harel Spend a few moments within the Playstation network "site"(s) and this would be the best example of many front end independent services going horribly wrong. ------ joewrong I wonder if multiple focused software products would negate the need to have independent front end teams improve and maintain a single giant product? ------ jugg1es The biggest challenge with this approach is how you handle 'user context' and how the different front-ends manage that dependency. ~~~ zachguo In React, a UserProvider at the top of DOM tree plus withUser HOCs wrapping your components should work. ------ patsplat The result of this architectural pattern: [https://vimeo.com/166807261](https://vimeo.com/166807261) ------ rhinoceraptor Isn't this similar to what Spotify does? ~~~ aloer I don’t think they do this anymore. Or at least not like they did around ~2015 with iframes ------ jaequery Reminds me of Zenga, at a certain point of scale, your whole organization will feel like you are playing one. ------ NicoJuicy I would think polymer/ web components is perfect for micro services. Is anyone using that? ------ peterwwillis So, they learned about WSGI middleware? ------ tuananh all the disadvantages of microservices carries to micro frontends :D ------ codesushi42 On Android, this pattern is achievable by breaking your UI into modules. And then by using Dagger multibinding to bind those modules together: [https://dagger.dev/multibindings.html](https://dagger.dev/multibindings.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Elizabeth Warren’s Facebook ad illustrates the company’s politics problem - rahuldottech https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/12/elizabeth-warrens-facebook-ad-proves-social-media-giant-still-has-politics-problem/ ====== mikece I think it's a good publicity gambit, one that Facebook plays best by emphasizing that they are a platform and not a media company with editorial control or policies. If speech on the platform is illegal (eg: libelous or inciting crime) then with proper law enforcement engagement the problem is solved. Of course Facebook is __already __on record of making editorial decisions and removing content so the above argument rings hollow and further plays into Warren 's assertion (as well as the argument of many conservatives who claim they are being targeted because of their values which, if true, would would eliminate Facebook's argument of being a neutral platform).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Visualizing Javascript (ITP Course) - shashashasha http://stewd.io/javascript/index.html ====== songrabbit > Auditing is not permitted and the class size will not be augmented to > accommodate those wait-listed. This is too bad, it would have been nice to drop in on a lecture	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Nearly a third of children on Facebook are ready to unfriend their parents - blahedo http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/la-fi-facebook-teens-20100825,0,4663411.story ====== blahedo Anyone else think this is the shot in the arm that kids need to start caring about privacy controls? Who cares about the government or corporate interests, after all, but _Mom_ on the other hand.... ~~~ ojbyrne My sister made it a requirement for letting her daughter go on facebook, that she be friends with her mom & dad. If she unfriended them, they'd just block the domain (which would likely cause some howls of protests). Obviously non- computer-savvy parents would have more difficulty controlling their kids. ~~~ blahedo Hence privacy controls. The mom can require the kid to "friend" her, but not to actually make visible all of her statuses.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Nvidia's $1,100 AI brain for robots goes on sale - elorant https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/12/nvidia-jetson-agx-xavier-robot-processor-available/ ====== KineticLensman I clicked through the various 'manage settings' dialogues starting at the 'before you continue...' splashscreen and eventually found a list [0] of Oath partners who "participate and allow choice via the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF)". The list contains more than 200 different organisations. I decided not to read the article. [0] [https://guce.oath.com/collectConsent/partners/vendors?sessio...](https://guce.oath.com/collectConsent/partners/vendors?sessionId=3_cc- session_2f4e2e70-b63f-4f48-a2a3-647120b9d27e&lang=en-GB) ~~~ dgzl > Interactive Advertising Bureau Why does this just sound terrifying to me? ~~~ eutectic sounds better than the alternative... ~~~ ethbro Personally, I would prefer to batch my advertising. Ideally while my eyes were not on the screen. ------ snops Actual link to the module, with tech specs: [https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/buy/jetson-agx- xavier](https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/buy/jetson-agx-xavier) A good set of links to resources: [https://elinux.org/Jetson_AGX_Xavier](https://elinux.org/Jetson_AGX_Xavier) Overall, looks incredibly powerful for the form factor and power usage, with a ton of high speed camera, display, and PCIE interfaces. I don't see any mention of production lifetime gaurantees, presumably that's a "please ask". Other SoM manufacturers promise a few years (up to 10), so you don't have to worry about redesigning your product every year. For the Jetson module, it's designed to be fairly tightly integrated and hence an swap out would not be trivial, e.g. you need to design a heatsink system for it yourself so you can choose a fan or heat pipe it to the enclosure walls. ------ tim333 >You're not about to buy one yourself -- it costs $1,099 each in batches of 1,000 units On the site it has: "Members of the NVIDIA Developer Program are eligible to receive their first kit at a special price of $1,299 (USD)" ([https://developer.nvidia.com/buy- jetson?product=all&location...](https://developer.nvidia.com/buy- jetson?product=all&location=GB)) The specs seem quite impressive really. ~~~ pj_mukh Is there a devboard? ~~~ tim333 Kinda. This video shows what you get [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoWW5HiGHsg&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoWW5HiGHsg&feature=youtu.be) ------ jkravitz61 The development kit has been available for the last month. One of the problems no one talks about is that this platform (along with tx2/tx1) runs arm64 which makes it a HUGE pain for getting many libraries to work. I’ve been using these for a while, and consistently need to hunt down library source code and compile it for arm64 since most libraries are distributed without arm64 support. There’s also plenty of device specific closed source SDKs (such as point grey ladybug cameras) which just don’t support arm64 so your only option is to attempt to write your own or pressure the manufacturer to publish an arm64 version. I do not recommend this platform for hobbyists for this reason- go buy a small x64 computer and spend 1/10th the time designing a better battery system. ~~~ jacquesm If you're into this kind of thing a little bit of compilation should not scare you. The norm in the embedded world is to bootstrap your toolchain first, the availability of a good compiler and libraries that are endian clean is amazing progress. ~~~ jkravitz61 I would argue that it should scare you. This is targeted towards people who are working in the AI world and are likely not embedded experts. Also, the bigger problem is closed source libraries and drivers that choose not to support arm64. ~~~ jacquesm When building a product for embedded applications closed source libraries and drivers that do not support your platform are no obstacle at all. You contact the vendor and make a deal. That's in their - and your - interest. This is a totally different world than the open source world that you are referencing, likely that embedded product will _also_ not be open source. Commercial licensing is your only option in that case anyway, unless you are just looking for FOSS stuff with permissive licenses, but in that case those won't be closed source to begin with... So the problem you perceive simply does not exist. The biggest questions will revolve around commercial viability, proof-of-concept and time to market. Rarely around such details as closed source libraries or drivers. Though, in case your supplier goes belly up those could become factors, but for that you have escrow agreements. ~~~ jkravitz61 Respectfully, it is absolutely an obstacle. Not every manufacturer wants to play ball and in some cases it requires much more investment than playing around with the compiler settings. I would also argue that a large fraction of research teams/ companies are just looking for a platform to prototype on rather than actually deploy services on tomorrow. Most applications of this processor are such low volume that it’s not in most manufactures interests financially to care at this point. ~~~ ianhowson Practically every chip vendor provides a free toolchain for their products. The only major exception I can think of are automotive parts, where the customer is always a multi-billion-dollar corporation. arm64 is very common (Android!) and Xavier runs stock Ubuntu. If your camera manufacturer doesn't ship a driver for arm64, you should speak to them. It's extremely likely that they have one already. ------ mark_l_watson Impressive compute in a small form and running on 10 watts. Also interesting going after a non-consumer market although I think the chip would be a good fit in a handheld gaming device that supported some inputs from watching the player and had the power for very interesting/fun ‘game AI.’ ~~~ dejv Havent tried Xavier yet, but I am using TX2 in my work (which is previous generation of this type of device) and CPU is very weak to allow any serious gaming. ~~~ tonyarkles Anecdotally, a friend has been using TX2s and got a Xavier to test out. He was blown away by the performance delta. It’s got an octocore ARM for a CPU, and while I don’t recall what the TX2 has... that’s a lot of CPU cores to work with. I’ve got a Xavier sitting on my desk too, but haven’t played with it much. Running OpenCV on it and doing some light live video processing was really smooth. ~~~ dejv For games you usually want smaller number of high performant cores than many lesser performant. Haven't done much game programming in recent years, but I still remmember the terror of programming PS3 Cell CPU. ~~~ twtw Were the CPU cores of Cell (PPEs) hard to program? I had the impression that the difficulty of the Cell was in the need to manage the 8 SPEs, not in writing software for the Power4 core. The 8 core Carmel CPU in Xavier is not like the SPEs in Cell. ~~~ dejv It was hard to utilise all those cores. I am sure game architectures evolved during the years, but back then we didn't know how to split the code to optimally utilise all available resources. ------ scottlocklin Maybe this should be an 'ask HN' thread. About 10 years ago I considered taking up robotics as a hobby, and thought better of it upon asking a robotics professor I did deadlifts with in the gym. My goal was an autonomous robot which could fetch me arbitrary things from a refrigerator with minimal trickery (aka radio tags on beer cans, magnetic tape on the floor, etc). Seemed impossible at the time, or at least a pretty serious Ph.D. thesis type of effort. Is there some list of 'open problems in robotics' by which I could inform myself if this is still an insane goal? ~~~ sjf Depending on your definition of trickery, you could probably do it right now with a vending machine fridge and a conveyer belt. ~~~ scottlocklin Yeah, when I was originally thinking of this, the conclusion I came to was that this would be a more honest version of the available 'robotics' solutions. ------ joefourier It's interesting how each major iteration of Nvidia's embedded boards keep increasing in price by a significant amount. The TK1 was $199, the TX1 was (at release) $599, and now the Xavier is $2,500/1,299 (with rebate). The TX2 is priced identically to the TX1 at release but was an incremental update. With the TK1 being EOL, it seems there is no longer an embedded SBC in the $100-$200 pricerange that has comparable GPU performance, despite the TK1 being over 4 years old. ------ Symmetry This look really compelling for cases where a robot isn't big or stationary enough to just use an industrial PC. I'm really looking forward to seeing how NVIdia's newest iteration on Transmeta's core does in benchmarks. From the Wikichip Spec results[1] and quick Phoronix tests[2] it doesn't seem too far off from an Intel chip clocked down to a similar speed. The whole approach of JITing form x86 or ARM instructions to an exposed pipeline VLIW design is just a really interesting one. For the last generation that was used in the Nexus 6 it did very well in areas that VLIWs are traditionally good at like audio processing and did sort of mediocre in areas where VLIW tends to be bad. A JIT running underneath the OS has the freedom, in theory, to add things like memory speculation across library calls that an OoO processor could do. But the software to do that is, of course, really hard to write. I hope it's improved in the years since the Nexus 9 came out. [1] [https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/nvidia/microarchitectures/carme...](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/nvidia/microarchitectures/carmel) [2][https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-c...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia- carmel-quick&num=2) ~~~ dejv Also the GPU is usually lacking in typical industrial PC. I am using TX2 for this exact reasons: small form factor and good performance for gpu enabled code (running openCV and ML models). Plus you can easily add your own hardware and it act as kind of a RaspberryPI on steroids. ------ perpetualcrayon I think most consumer robots will be driven by centralized computing power. There's probably no need for the brain to be on the robot, just a good wifi connection. EDIT: That is of course for robots that won't need to leave the house. Then again, I can't imagine the future won't have global high bandwidth cellular coverage with at least 5 9's availability. ~~~ ianai So long as there’s enough low latency bandwidth. ------ syntaxing I bought a TX2 recently at a discount and it was extremely fun to use. I would love to use a Xavier but it is a bit out of my price point so I guess they priced it solely for the industry. It's still amazing to see something priced only at $1K (relatively speaking, this stuff was always expensive). I highly recommend others to buy a TX2 if they want to dabble in embedded electronics machine learning. Shameless plug, if you own a TX2, I recently designed a case for it: [https://www.powu3.com/cad/tx2/](https://www.powu3.com/cad/tx2/) ------ agumonkey 1000 GBP at [https://www.siliconhighwaydirect.co.uk/product-p/900-82888-0...](https://www.siliconhighwaydirect.co.uk/product-p/900-82888-0000-000.htm) not bad ------ amelius How does it compare to e.g. an Intel Movidius neural compute stick? ~~~ jahewson That’s an apples and oranges comparison - the Xavier is an entire computer, the Movisius is just a single accelerator chip. ~~~ amelius Well, nowadays you can buy an entire computer for a few dollars (e.g. in the form of a small PCB board containing an ARM processor), so I think the comparison is valid. ~~~ mtgx Movidius targets sub-1w. I haven't read the article but I assume this needs at least an order of magnitude more power. ------ xvilka Too bad this comes from the worst company to the open source. I wish something other than CUDA and NVIDIA dominated modern AI industry. ~~~ twtw I wish the economics of the present were somewhat different, and that money didn't exist in the 21st century. And yet, in the world we live in, I have a hard time faulting a corporation for not giving away their core products for free. ~~~ xvilka Well, for example, many other corporations have a friendlier stance to open source. It is not only about money and profits. ~~~ TomVDB Nvidia, the worst company to the open source, has 127 open source repositories on GitHub. ~~~ floatboth Yeah, a bunch of little libraries and obscure experiments, while people want _drivers_. Repository counts don't mean anything. You need context. So just look at their competitors. AMD and Intel both have many dedicated employees directly committing into Mesa. There are _two_ open source implementations of Vulkan for Radeon GPUs, ffs. AMD is working on Radeon Open Compute to get all the code written against CUDA to work anywhere. There is _no_ proprietary Linux driver for Intel GPUs. BTW even Broadcom and Qualcomm are supporting Mesa now. While nvidia uh.. was interested in nouveau on Tegra a little bit but is completely against nouveau on desktop. ~~~ TomVDB > ... while people want drivers And Nvidia has decided that it's not in their best interest to give away that IP for free. If they believe that their driver has secret sauce that gives then an competitive advantage, then that's entirely their prerogative. > AMD is working on Radeon Open Compute to get all the code written against > CUDA to work anywhere. If you were in a position where your proprietary software fueled 90%+ of a highly profitable industry, would you open source it just for the good of humanity? Of course AMD is trying to copy that and open source it: they don't have 90%+ market share to lose. It doesn't cost them anything to do so. ------ saosebastiao Does it have onboard memory? I feel like calling it a system-on-chip kind of implies it, but I didn't see anything about it. ~~~ monocasa "SoC" is pretty orthogonal to having memory, but system on modules almost always do. This one has 16GB. ------ techsin101 Could someone eli5 this? I assume it runs coffee in gpu so do you need to know since special programming language ~~~ p1esk It's a Linux board with an ARM processor and 30W Volta GPU. You connect one or more cameras to it, and develop GPU accelerated computer vision apps using the supplied SDK (CUDA, CuDNN, TensorRT, OpenCV, etc): [https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetpack](https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetpack) You can also install Tensorflow on it. ------ sandworm101 They should task this chip with proofreading that article.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Shane Greenup on how to expose bad journalism with rbutr - hngiszmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0S2OHnMT98 ====== hngiszmo Shane is an idealist and big fighter for fact based decisions and I love his enthusiasm. When I tried his very first demo of rbutr.com I decided it is not for me as it "spies" on my browsing which is especially sensitive when using https with sensitive url parts but I guess these issues are long being addressed. Anyway in this video he makes a point in advertising rbutr as a tool for journalists, which I couldn't agree more. Not every school kid has to use rbutr but people who really care should use it to put their findings right in front of the noses of all stupid believers of blatant lies on the internet.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Potato salad on Kickstarter - jamesshen https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad?ref=nav_search ====== jimiwen are there any food regulation involved? ~~~ yebyen I read the FAQ, they have contacted "people to assess the feasability of sending Potato Salad around the world." I think there's a very real chance you won't get a bite of the potato salad even if you pledge $3. Caveat emptor.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stop Distributed Version Control Diaspora - kev009 http://www.kev009.com/wp/2010/10/stop-distributed-version-control-diaspora/ ====== alinhan I think ESR started ForgePlucker to tackle this problem. It's a project for saving "project state" from various project hosting sites. Here is the announcement: <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1369> ------ wccrawford Stopping it now would be very stupid for the exact same reasons listed: The cat is already out of the bag. If you don't allow collaboration now, you -guarantee- that any forks won't end up like the mainline. ------ kev009 The idea is to keep the information open, free, and interchangeable as information is what these sites add. We've had public VCS repos and web interfaces for ages. ------ moe And a pony. I want a pony. Edit: Give those guys a break. They're struggling just to get the fundamentals right. This is not the time for scope creep. ~~~ kev009 I don't buy this excuse. Atlassian is anything but struggling. github and gitorious have an impressive array of enterprise customers. The longer this concept is postponed, the harder it will be to implement as similarities will diverge. ~~~ moe Ha! Your headline made me think you're asking for VCS stuff to be added to the diaspora project (the social network one). It seems I misunderstood you. Anyways and either way, this seems like a (proposed) solution looking for a problem. I'm an avid user of various VCS systems and have never felt a need to port my "followers" or such from one system to another. What exact problem are you looking to solve?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Node NPM rocks - technoweenie http://techno-weenie.net/2011/7/16/npm-rocks/ ====== prodigal_erik The obvious question is how much work it'll be to turn each NPM into a system package for production use. It took us months to straighten out a nest of servers which had assorted unique versions of code smuggled onto them with ad hoc single-language tools completely lacking RPM integration, and we're not about to go there again. The sample package.json doesn't show any way to list native (non-node) dependencies, which is not a good sign. ~~~ mtodd Sounds like you should be using Chef or Puppet to manage these kinds of dependencies. ~~~ prodigal_erik Last I looked, both Chef and Puppet were meta-tools that launch all the other third-party tools I don't want involved. Are either of them solid enough now to actually replace the system package manager? Can they answer questions like "why does /etc/foo exist, which package created that?" ------ cldwalker A few of us in the ruby world use rip, <https://github.com/defunkt/rip>, which also isn't needed at runtime. Unfortunately, the ruby community never took much interest. ~~~ luislavena The problem with rip is the lack of cross platform support due it's usage of symlinks. Its management and mixture of git/gems can make things a bit complicated. Not to mention that it plays with your environment variables (RUBYLIB) making things not as transparent as npm. Node really endorsed npm and both worked together. RubyGems until 1.9.1 was never part of "Ruby", even while is extensively used as package manager. Worse than that, Ruby-Core doesn't use it and cripples it to avoid the startup pain it could be, instead of making it integral part of Ruby. ------ mtodd I love how easy it is to use conflicting versions of packages. Haven't needed it in practice, yet, but I'm sure it'll only be time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
My Semester with the Snowflakes - bkohlmann https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662 ====== jtwaleson Previous discussion 4 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21864639](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21864639) ~~~ telesilla Thanks for the link - it opens up more questions after I listened a while back to the Serial podcast about Bergdahl's desertion that lead to the author's injuries. [https://serialpodcast.org/season-two](https://serialpodcast.org/season-two) ------ gfodor I’m not worried about the kids in college now who are too young, busy, and roll their eyes at mainstream American political culture to give a shit about the latest outrage-du-jour on Twitter. They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history. They’ll be just fine. It’s the young adults who are a few years into their career being crushed by high prices, low wages, holding useless degrees under piles of debt that I imagine make up the majority of the online outage mobs and who are likely going to be a lost generation. ~~~ sysbin > They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history. > They’ll be just fine. How are you forecasting that future? Seems strange to read it with what you see now and as you phrase the lost generation that's struggling from inflation & low wages.. I'm skeptical but I think the worst is yet to come for the next generations. Unless all the young adults that are struggling don't just all commit suicide in the years to follow. It's going to be a disaster when time comes and they need to retire but cannot. The burden will go on the young even more so than what we can imagine today. ~~~ siquick And no mention of the elephant in the room - climate change. It feels like we're already seeing it here in Sydney, Australia. We've had dangerously low air quality from bush fires for the last 1.5 months and we now have a serious water shortage. I've been accepting of climate change up until recently - now I'm genuinely worried about the future here. ~~~ mikemotherwell Why? That's weather and short term. [https://aqicn.org/map/sydney](https://aqicn.org/map/sydney) is the pollution in Sydney. Here is Jakarta [https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta](https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta) Look at the historical data: all red and yellow for Jakarta, almost all green for Sydney, with the last two months an exception. Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the next 50-60 years. ~~~ abraae How do you get from a map of the current air quality in Sydney to blithely saying climate change will have "little to no effect" on Sydney for the next 60 years? ~~~ TuringTest It is a common trolling strategy, I have seen it applied elsewhere to delegitimise measures against climate change. It doesn't make any sense, but apparently it is enough to satisfy the unsophisticated blind followers of climate denialism. Anything that sounds contrarian and data-based is deemed a sufficient response to distract attention, which is scarce in most online discussion forums. ------ sneak It’s interesting how much implied context is in this: that someone old, and related to the military (presumably right-leaning from the “snowflake” term), likely distrusts/disrespects someone young and wealthy from the coasts (presumably left-leaning from geography). Are we really so polarized? Are hundreds of millions so gung-ho to flock away from the center? Can the whole American situation be approximately summed up, statistically, by these two exaggerated caricatures? It seems that’s the tone of the article. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong, but either way I would hope that the real situation is more nuanced than that. Maybe the situation on the ground really is that bad in some places. I don’t leave my house in the US much other than to fly out of the country, and only know what I read online about it. Can someone with direct experiences in these places shed some more light? ~~~ SpicyLemonZest I feel like this is a pretty weird reading of the article. The author makes it clear that the real situation _is_ more nuanced than that, that the people he's met at Yale aren't trying to flock away from the center at all. ~~~ sneak I feel like the article is written into that presumption/expectation. It comes very much from a “I was like that, but now I am like this” place. ------ catchmeifyoucan Well written piece! Never stop learning. In a way there's an underlying political statement here on how diverse opinions and education changes perspective. ~~~ kortilla It’s not really “education” that changed his perspective but rather immersion in a group of people with a completely different mindset. The same could be accomplished spending time with them in a job, a volunteer group, a prison, etc. He also likely wouldn’t have changed his perspective much if he took the courses online asynchronously. ~~~ sneak I wonder what percentage of the United States, due to time commitments related to family and work, get to spend time/immersion in groups other than their facebook/instagram tribe and television/radio broadcasters. My hunch is that it’s pretty low. ~~~ abraae If you are part of an enormous tribe comprising virtually half the country, made up of people who think like you and more or less share your views, why would you hang out with the other tribe? ~~~ sneak I don’t think either of these tribes comprise “virtually half the country” or even an approximation thereof. ------ g000m Great quote: "To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect." ------ luord > Later at some point during the day, a young student placed a glove with red > paint on it on one of the flags as she wanted to demonstrate her displeasure > with something…I’m not quite sure what. > These hardworking kids are very kind and thoughtful. A far cry from the > picture that is often painted of them. I'm... Confused, to say the least. In fact, those two paragraphs encapsulate my confusion at the post in general. ------ BMorearty I love this essay. ------ lechemin Interesting article. Read it this morning. Curious what the 'snowflakes' think about it. ------ EncryptEntropy Stop reposting this over and over. ------ blackflame There was once a guy in his mid-40s that tried to rush the fraternity I was in. I don't think there were any rules that prohibited it either except extreme creepiness. ~~~ sillysaurusx Why would people be unwelcome after a certain age? They’re just as valid of a student as anyone else. “Tried” implies he failed. I wonder if it was due to his own merits, or due to bias against him due to age. ~~~ kortilla Fraternities have very little to do with the education aspect of being a student. ~~~ blackflame College provides more education opportunities than just those found in the classroom. Social skills are just as fundamental as arithmetic in a successful career. ------ he0001 I always thought the “liberal snowflake” term is quite odd. I guess I could qualify or classified as one. There’s something wrong with that statement. I think the meaning of it is quite the opposite. As a liberal, you realize that you are not a special individual and must cooperate to gain more, to distribute the available resources for some sort of greater progress, such as health care for everyone etc. Being the opposite is just what a snowflake would be. The one of a kind, just me and my capabilities and resources against the rest of the world. If you don’t have an insurance to give the appropriate healthcare to your loved ones, you, and only you are the failure here, not the collective “us”. I believe I was less liberal in my youth, but since when I got my children I can’t bare the thought of not being able to pay their health care if they ever needed it. Even though that’s not a problem for me, I still think of it very often when I see them sick.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Flip Founder: People Still Want Single Purpose Devices - davidedicillo http://gigaom.com/video/flip-founder-people-still-want-single-purpose-devices/ ====== officemonkey People are willing to pay a premium for a high-end single-purpose device (eg: a Nikon camera or a Sony professional camcorder). But they don't need a cheap single-purpose device. Especially since their smartphone (which they are carrying anyway) is good enough. I bought a Flip camera back in 2008, but it was the first and last one I ever bought. Flip and Cisco's mistake was thinking that the brand would carry the day. ~~~ jamesbritt _But they don't need a cheap single-purpose device._ I do. _Especially since their smartphone (which they are carrying anyway) is good enough._ No it's not. I have a G2, it plays music, movies, yada yada yada. So it would make a usable Mp3 player. Except, _because_ it is a multi-purpose device, the controls for Mp3 playing are intertwingled with controls for taking and making calls, reading mail, launching other apps. That makes it really awkward to use without looking at it. Stuff like pausing or skipping a song is iffy if I try to do it while driving or running. Yeah, I know, I could probably get some special cord or something that gives me tiny controls that are slightly less awkward to use without looking. However, I have a nice Sansa MP3 player. Takes an SD card so I have around 6GB for music on a $50 device. It's _really_ easy to use blindly. In fact, I have about five MP3-player-only devices. One is for audio books. One is for practicing violin. One has white noise to help me sleep. They're cheap and do just what I want them to do. That's a big win. ~~~ officemonkey You're right, a single-purpose mp3 player has a lot of utility for many of the reasons you say. * Easy of navigation when exercising/driving. * Cheap enough so you won't cry when it dies. * Cheap enough so you can buy multiple for different purposes. In fact, my favorite MP3 player of all time is a 2nd Generation iPod shuffle. It's lasted for years, it survived going through a washing machine, and it's tiny. OTOH, I'll argue that a good MP3 player isn't a "cheap single-purpose device", it's just a quality single-purpose device that happens to be inexpensive. The price of all MP3 players are so low that the difference between a really "good" one and a really "cheap" one is 20 bucks. You can't say the same thing about still or video cameras. The "cheap" Flip camera has less utility than the camera on my smartphone for one reason only: I always have my smartphone on me. I think stand-alone GPS devices are the next thing that will be obsoleted by smartphones. I don't see TomTom or Garmin being competitive with a smartphone with the same satellite reception and the same maps. If I were Garmin or TomTom I'd start putting all my eggs in the software basket rather than the hardware basket. ------ SlipperySlope How come I don't wear a wrist watch? And I can wait to get rid of my plastic credit cards. Device convergence sometimes actually happens - and is good. Sour grapes, in my opinion. ~~~ michaelpinto Actually Swatch is still doing very well (as well as other brands) — a watch is an fashion accessory as much something with functionality. Flip understood that as brand, and was a notch above what you'd get on a cell phone. That gap has narrowed, but had Cisco invested in the product my bet is that their bet would have paid off. The problem was that Cisco had a larger agenda which didn't match the camera. By the way as digital dominates you'll see a specialty market for analog — everything from vinyl to paper books (just ask any hipster kid).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Olympic Committee warns man about sharing photos on website - pmjordan http://www.thestar.com/olympics/article/707868--olympics-warns-man-to-remove-photos-from-website ====== Mankhool The Government of British Columbia has introduced a Bill, that if passed, will temporarily suspended civil rights during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. [http://www.slaw.ca/2009/10/11/proposed-olympic-sign- legislat...](http://www.slaw.ca/2009/10/11/proposed-olympic-sign-legislation- in-b-c/) ------ jrockway This is an abuse of the legal system. If you don't want pictures taken on your private property, don't allow cameras in. I doubt their argument would hold up under any legal scrutiny. ~~~ the_real_r2d2 I am with you. This is going over and over, the FIA, the FIFA, the NBA, the NFL, and now the IOC. Sometimes I am just so tired to hear about the abuse/misinterpretation of Copy Right laws that I do not want to talk about it. However I always ended saying how silly these companies are in trying to "protect" their "rights".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Uber drivers face long hours, no benefits and sometimes danger - spking https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/01/how-much-do-uber-drivers-really-make-three-drivers-share-the-math.html ====== simonblack Uber is a scam, fleecing drivers and investors alike. While Uber creams off billions.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scaling when tied to an external API - arktisklada https://medium.com/@claytonliggitt/scaling-when-tied-to-an-external-api-e7deb2b067c3#.oktl58l70 ====== arktisklada Here are some thoughts I've put together about some challenges experienced over the years. Fairly high level, and would love to hear your thoughts	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Code management that doesn't suck - mfocaraccio http://gitcolony.com?ref=cmang ====== ktRolster The headline is somewhat insulting, because I don't think my current code management system sucks.....different strokes for different folks, I guess. The product being marketed is a replacement for Gerrit, though. They have found a different way to handle code reviews, merges, and also added features like issue trackers and integrations with other tools. It might be worth taking a look at, but I tend to prefer free (as in speech) tools over proprietary tools. ------ leemac Some of the English is sounds a bit quirky to me ... "Pull Requests like never seen before"? Interesting nonetheless as we've been looking for software similar to Gerrit. ~~~ mfocaraccio We will work on that, thank you for your feedback! :) ------ sytse I love the features of GitColony. At GitLab we had many similar requests. We already implemented multiple reviewers, rebasing, marking something as a work in progress. But many of their other features are also very useful. And the good news is GitLab support is coming soon. ~~~ mfocaraccio Thank you Sytse for your words, I do really appreciate them :) GitLab is a great product and we do think we can help to make it even better with Gitcolony! ------ mconzen The pricing is a little weird here. As the team size grows, it gets __more __expensive per head at every pricing level. Usually, it 's the opposite. ------ BinaryIdiot This looks interesting. Does it give you the ability to setup rules so, say, X amount of reviewers must approve a PR before it could get merged? Also what about protecting, say, master from direct pushes? Github seems stagnant and I know Gitlab is rapidly working on many of these types of features; it would be cool to see better support for reviews in general in any of these systems. ~~~ mfocaraccio Yes, you can do that and many other rules: your CI, open issues and you can even have linked pull requests from different repositories. If you have any other questions, just let me know and I'd more than happy to help :) ------ lobster_johnson So how does the workflow work, if you're already using Github and want to keep hosting your projects there? Does it simply pull and push commits via an app token? ~~~ mfocaraccio That's correct! Gitcolony runs on top of your Github's repos and we keep everything synced both ways (we don't lock in any data at all). ------ glibgil I don't see "distributed" anywhere on the product page. That makes it DOA for me, but nice effort ~~~ benwilber0 Git is distributed.. ~~~ Joky The product is not "git"... ~~~ mfocaraccio We are based on Git, in fact you can connect your GitHub Enterprise account	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
OpenAI Five: Goals and Progress - gdb https://openai.com/five/ ====== shawn As someone who was once semi-pro in dota (4400 MMR, get rekt), it's _freaky_ watching these bots play. It's uncanny. Little things... Like, when the bots are taking a tower, one of them will stand in front of the tower and tank the creep wave, so that their creeps do more damage on the tower. They had to learn this. Insta-TPing right when an enemy wastes their stun and can't cancel their TP. Grouping up as 5 at the beginning of the game and pushing into the enemy jungle. _Pubs never do this._ The most interesting part is that OpenAI appears to be discovering new knowledge in the dota scene. For example, they always take the ranged barracks first, never the melee. This is exactly the opposite of what the pro scene does. Therefore, the smartest pro team should study what the bot is doing and trust that on average it's a better idea to always focus on the ranged barracks first. After all, if it was a bad idea, they probably wouldn't do that. The most hilarious part was when OpenAI paused the game, then resumed it. This illustrates that there is still some unexplainable randomness. Question for OpenAI: Is it more accurate to think of the bots as 5 separate minds, or a single mind controlling 5 heroes? EDIT: By the way, TI is going on right now! [https://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti](https://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti) If you're new to the scene, take a peek. TI is always so high energy -- even if it's hard to follow what's going on, listening to Tobi (the shoutcaster) go nuts during the game is always a highlight. And of course, /r/dota2 has the best memes anywhere, hands-down. [https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/) ~~~ eertami >semi-pro in dota >4400 MMR OP is being extremely satirical here by the way. He means he's not great but knows how to play (and definitely not semi-pro) but that context might be lost if you don't play Dota! >Is it more accurate to think of the bots as 5 separate minds, or a single mind controlling 5 heroes? They answered this on the last stream, iirc it's 5 identical clones with the same goals, but not sharing any knowledge, info, or decisions with each other. ~~~ hokumguru I think 4400 MMR places OP in at least Ancient-1 ranking which is approximately the 95th percentile. I'd call that at least semi-pro. ~~~ a_humean Errrrr, at best a dedicated amateur. I'm just 3.5k (I think that's 70th percentile), but I know lots of 4.5k players. To describe the average 4.5k player: Probably has regular groups of people they play with at different skill levels (anywhere from 2.5-5k+), regularly plays battle-cup on Saturdays, maybe played amateur JoinDota league, maybe had a laugh and played open qualifiers only to lose in the first couple rounds, and probably log between between 10-20 hours per week into the game. 4.5k players know how to play to a very good standard and beat the vast majority of other players, but are miles away from the weakest of the professional scene. 4.5k doesn't even appear on the leader boards. ~~~ bkovacev I definitely agree with your statement, however.. Solo - the guy that is the captain of Virtus Pro, was at 4k for the longest time. There's more to dota than just mmr. There are players at 5.5-6k range that still do not understand the basics of team play, but are just extremely mechanically gifted and are in great gaming shape. ------ minimaxir From a presentation standpoint, I am impressed by and appreciate the effort in making the project process transparent and accessible, even to those without an AI background (in contrast to recent AI literature which tends to _obfuscate_ the secret sauce). ~~~ furi There is nothing transparent about OpenAI. They have never released any of their models to the public, despite the fact that their models play completely different strategies to humans in an extremely heavily modified version of the game (multiple updates out of date, 80%+ of the heroes turned off, many core mechanics disabled or modified beyond recognition). Without them releasing the models for people to practice against there is absolutely no way to tell the difference between AI superiority and the humans being unfamiliar with the enemy tactics and even the very game they are playing. Compared to actual professional Dota, where pros have tens or hundreds of matches played by their opponents to study, an ecosystem of thousands of top level players hashing out new strategies for each patch and months to practice that particular version of the game, this is not a test I would call "open". ------ Leary The same 18 heroes? While impressive this is less of an improvement since the August 5th match even if they beat the pro team. I thought they'd at least remove more of the rules (5 couriers, no illusions) or add some heroes. ~~~ nstart Not sure if they can remove the rules of no illusions. The bots would completely wreck the humans if they were allowed to use illusions. I don't even want to think what would happen if they learnt how to use phantom lancer or nature's prophet. Most people throw all their illusions/summons into one bucket and the hero into another. The AI being able to control each unit perfectly would be terrifying. ~~~ evozer But it would be fun to see NP bodyblock the entire enemy team with one set of treants. ------ foobaw I wonder if any updates have been made since the last match to remove more restrictions. The most common complaint from users was the courier changes. ------ exabrial I really want to see them play humans with no restrictions on the humans! I get it they're still in the learning phase but I want to see the gloves off ------ doctorpangloss Is dealing with imperfect information a research goal? Does the OpenAI team think there's a way to adapt the UX of DOTA 2 "Perfect Information Edition" to communicate the game better to human players? ~~~ modeless AFAIK the bot's "vision" is subject to fog of war, so it's not a perfect information game in the usual sense. Yes, it gets precise numerical values for hit points etc from the API, but only for visible units. Honestly I think that it would not be much more difficult to train a bot that looks at screen pixels and outputs keyboard and mouse events instead of using the bot API. In fact it might be easier to code, but the problem is it would require several orders of magnitude more processing power to train, which is impractical. I am confident it would work if the processing power was available, given the success of these techniques on other problems. ~~~ drexlspivey This would require the bot to learn to point the screen to the right place ~~~ modeless It would require the bot to learn a _lot_ of things. Perhaps a curriculum learning method would be appropriate. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible though, given several orders of magnitude more compute power. ------ dbelchamber I'm very excited about this. When I watch this new breed of AI play, I find it really interesting what they value and greatly enjoy speculating as to why in human terms. ------ nstart I watched the Open AI play against the "team" of pros at the calibration match earlier this month. Couple of observations and takeaways. The first is that the bot strategy currently revolves around the special rule of 5 invulnerable couriers. Bots find microing lots of units effortless, so the map constantly showed each bot's courier flying back and forth carrying regen. The bots never had to really go back to base or their shrines to heal. This is important because it changes the meta of the game entirely. The way the game is structured allows only one (very vulnerable) courier per team. Usually this means that after a team fight, teams need to reset since they've expended significant resources for the fight. But that meta was non existent under the rules for matches against the Open AI five. The humans had trouble coping with this as they weren't used to the idea of ferrying regen constantly. Takeaways here - I could go on about the nuances of a single courier. But basically, the bots' gameplay will likely have to change once it comes down to 1 shared courier per team. Not sure how that will affect the architecture of a "no shared mind". Also, humans will likely need to take a page out of this gameplay and realise that couriers are a highly underutilized resource. Every second it's not doing something for no reason is just as bad as a hero not doing anything. The second observation comes from the last game of AI vs pro humans. This was an interesting game where the audience picked a losing set of heroes for the team. Despite a predicted chance of winning being less then 2% (iirc) he AI could have probably won on account of being mechanically better than the humans. But their insistence on sticking to a strategy of "push hard" found them doing really strange things. The strangest of this was Slark running ahead to cut down creep waves in the lane on its own. The human players knew this would happen and they kept forcing the Slark to go hide in the trees and at some point they were always able to corner it and get the kill. Over and over again. The Slark never changed. Similar things happened around the map during this game. What should have happened was that the AI should have adapted to its disadvantage, and poured its efforts into first defending and then snowballing later with its mechanical advantage. But that element of "intelligence" was never there. The takeaway is this. The AI will eventually beat the humans on account of them being always mechanically better. They need very slight changes in their strategy to win 99.9% of the time. They can be aggressive beyond any human possibility because they can calculate everything to perfection. How long it will take them to travel across the map vs how much longer it will take for an opposing hero to have its ultimate ready for example. There are a lot of mechanical components to Dota that the AI will always have an advantage over. But the AI will likely always reveal quirks that can be turned into dumb winning strategies (aka cheese strats). Something like the whole team fighting from the trees for example might just confuse the AI terribly. We don't know but every now and then someone will discover it and the teams working on the AI will have to "patch" the behaviour. Final takeaway from all of that - I'm not sure if training the AI towards "objectives" is really the best metric towards making an intelligent bot. It seems like what's instead happening is that we get software that has no intelligence at adapting in the moment to things its never seen even if they are brain dead. But it'll get better at hiding them through mechanical perfections. Upside - We get AI's capable of doing increasingly complex things in a seemingly perfect manner. Downside - We get a scary future of AI filled with byzantine issues that need to be "patched".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Today's college students have tuned out the world, and it's partly our fault - edw519 http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=9WdWMfPrdR9HJDmcJcW5pMkf4bvmpvgp ====== ericwaller These facts and issues simply don't matter to most people. There is an academic-minded "sect" that might consider this blasphemous, but Kabul, the current Secretary of Defense, even the year of WWII, none of these issues come to bear on the daily lives of college students. Older generations love to talk about how politically/globally minded they were and how they fought against the Vietnam War, but the fervence of their objection was only proportional to what they stood to loose through the draft. I see a lot of opinion that generation xyz is stuck to their blackberries/iphones/facebook/myspace/etc. and that not only are they ignorant, but that this is some kind of historically unprecented phenomenom. But I just don't buy it -- they're in college (or high school), by and large their parents are supporting them -- maybe when the time comes for them to support themselves some of these issues will become relevant (at least tax raises and cuts), and many of these kids will "get smart." There will always be those who are diligent and alert -- as long as being so conveys some kind of quantifiable advantage. I don't mean to say that public education isn't important, only that as a society we're no worse off than we were 25 or 50 years ago. ------ sdurkin "Times change and men decay" Since the Greeks, the older generation has always decried the younger generation as weak, ill-informed, and just not up to snuff by the standards of "back in the day." The truth is, most of my classmates are incredibly informed about current events. They can tell you not only where Kabul is, but also name all of the provinces of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. I think the majority of people have always been a little bit ignorant with regard to foreign policy. And the mean may be especially low today. But this is offset by the upper segment of the population that is better informed than their equivalent at any time in history. ------ streblo As a college student, I can't help but feel that he's exaggerating the issue. I refuse to believe that most of my classmates couldn't answer 90% of those questions. The only question I couldn't answer myself was who is the current SoD, and I was at least informed enough to ask myself who took Rumsfeld's place when he resigned. It makes me wonder whether the problem is with my generation as a whole or with his particular sample of it. ~~~ Zev Maybe its not that he's exaggerating the issue completely, but college students (myself included) are used to being connected to a source of information somehow; a quick google search - phone call to someone at the worst - and we can get any bit of information we could want (slight exaggeration here but the point remains). As a result, we don't place as much importance on rote memorization of daily events and occurrences. While I can personally answer the questions, I do see the viewpoint from the people around me who look at the questions he was asking - "Who else is a democracy?" "Who's the SoD?" etc - and go "Thats on Google/Wiki, why bother memorizing it when I can look it up just as quickly?" And honestly? It's comforting in a way to know that I'm not going to have to remember random bits of information if it doesn't interest me. Is it depressing? In a way. But its the modern world for millions of people and it's not about to change anytime soon. Instead of giving an irate tirade on the issue, maybe it would be better for them to talk to the students and try to look at things from our point of view (grew up with technology and basically always connected) instead of the one they have/want us to have (technology is an aid to help us, not a crutch to rely on) ~~~ jimbokun "It's comforting in a way to know that I'm not going to have to remember random bits of information if it doesn't interest me." The very specific example in the article was the fact that not one single student knew that their government was abducting random people around the world and disappearing them into holes in which anything could be done to them, and there was no legal process for anyone to challenge the practice in any way. Does that qualify as a random bit of information? ~~~ Zev Don't take "random" to mean "unnecessary" Any bit of information that I'm not specifically interested in finding is random as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't mean its not important in some way. ------ kajecounterhack What kind of class was this? I'm a junior in high school, and I've known the meaning of rendition since 6th grade. I and 90% of my classmates know the answer to all those questions. For college students to be unable to answer these kinds of questions...well they live in a hole. Theres no other explaination. What school is this? Case Western Reserve University? What kinds of people attend this school? All this article has revealed to me is that the quality of students at that particular University is quite low. I mean sure, perhaps my standards are high coming from a suburban area where the population is 20% Asian (high education standards). But seriously. 11/18 kids can't tell you Kabul is in Afghanistan, where we've been fighting a war for over a half decade? ------ lpgauth Where I live (Montreal, Canada) we get CNN and I can understand why college kids don't watch the news. It's complete bullsh __news. Lou Dobbs is ridiculous in so many way... Agreed that they could read the news on the net (because who gets the newspaper delivered to their rez?) but personally I feel like reading serious stuff on a screen is dry and very hard to do (much rather like paper). Just my 2 cents. p.s. Also, I haven't completely RTFA but generalizing is never good. p.p.s. It's not because their top of their class they should be more aware of the news, that's BS. ~~~ Jesin > generalizing is never good. Remember, _every_ rule has exceptions. ------ dhimes My professors griped exactly the same way about us. And when I became a professor, I griped the same way. In any country you choose, the professors are griping about how ignorant the students are. It's not just "stupid Americans." But it gets better: professors of X cannot believe how silly professors of Y are on subject X (how would this prof do on an applied technology quiz? A biology quiz? More to the point how would he have done when he was 20?). etc. etc. But man, when I read that some of the students think 1975 is a plausible year for the A-bomb, I feel old...! ------ tx So true: _Those who tune in to television "news" are subjected to a barrage of opinions from talking heads like CNN's demagogic Lou Dobbs and MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Fox's Bill O'Reilly and his dizzying "No Spin Zone." In today's journalistic world, opinion trumps fact (the former being cheaper to produce)_ ------ edw519 Part of the problem of keeping up with current events is understanding who to believe. In an age when anyone can broadcast anything, we end up with almost nothing. Perhaps high schools and colleges should be a little less concerned with transmitting data and concentrate more on how to think, where to get data, and how to evaluate that data. OTOH, maybe this is just another opportunity for those of us who would rather build something than spend time watching American Idol, facebooking, and partying. (Spending time on hacker news is OK.) ~~~ jgrahamc Here's the thing: keeping up with current events is wrong. Don't try to keep up. The right way to understand things is slowly. This is why I don't watch the TV news, I don't read mainstream news web sites. I have two major sources of news: Le Monde (which I have daily) and The Economist (which is a weekly). Of those two I get the most information from The Economist because once a week I can read considered opinion and news not Breaking News which is irrelevant. I also don't follow Twitter and I have a very limited set of RSS feeds. The only social news site I read is this one. ~~~ Alex3917 Salon.com is pretty good too. If you subscribe they send you an email every morning with a link to one article and a short description. They might only publish three or four articles worth reading per week, but the quality of those articles is far better than anything you'll find in any newspaper. There are also almost never any factual errors, unlike the NYT. And also, unlike the NYT, it isn't full of blatant propaganda. (Ever notice how the Times always describes the warrantless wiretapping with the epithet "that begin after sept. 11th," even though their own reporting shows that claim to be false. [1]) [1] [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/14/32927/2778/622/47636...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/14/32927/2778/622/476369) ~~~ wanorris I let my subscription to Salon.com lapse around 2002 when it was no longer possible to ignore the fact that they were happy to be a blatant mouthpiece for the left. It just wasn't worth the work to sort out the good pieces from the leftist nonsense. (Also note: I'm not any more a fan of right-wing nonsense.) ------ mmp Maybe it's just his students that are like this, and not all young people. Considering how mediocre and ignorant most journos are, is it that surprising to consider that the same may apply to journalism students? When I say mediocre journalists, I don't have Hunter Thompson or Helen Thomas in mind, but the people that invariably make you cringe when you read their newspaper article on a subject you're familiar with. ------ b20a61u31 It was a very well written article. Wisdom is something that eludes the masses. I can't begin to comment on it seeing that I lack a lot of it myself. Even though knowledge is more and more accessible, the wisdom to use it will not be within the granting power of Man. [taken from various philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and probably many more have glimpsed this trait of human nature] ------ Alex3917 What about the 60% of twenty-somethings that don't get a college degree? Is their participation in the democracy not mandatory? ------ tokipin i think the major overtone is that life is getting easier and easier ------ nazgulnarsil want to understand the world? study economic history. follow the money and you find the motivations. start in the late 1600's with proto-capitalism and follow the trail of money. ------ craig-faber OK. But how do we build a better news service? ------ weegee I was lucky enough to have a history professor in high school who taught in such a way that opened our eyes to more than one way of seeing any historic event. He listed sources for us to read from around the world. There was also a lot of optional reading, this source is more difficult than this other source. If you're not interested, stick with Miller, if you want more depth, read Blum, etc. I took from that class a new interest in history as well as current events. Of course, this was in the 1980s before the media became so readily available via the net. It's almost at a saturation point. You can get information so easily, why even bother getting it in the first place? I can always do it later, and so on. This might be a common attitude among todays students. I have a 12 year old nephew who is heavily shielded from the outside world by his parents. His father won't let him read Harry Potter because someone dies in the book. It's sickening. When I was 12 I was reading Stephen King and loving every minute of it. Shielding your kids from the world isn't necessary at age 12. ------ slcook54 Case Western University is where the brightest kids in the nation are attending, now that is a piece of news I haven't heard about. ------ izak30 Ok, while I did know the answers to all of his questions (just left college), my reaction was such that I just thought: "Another person who is lamenting about the education system, in regards to current affairs, big deal" I closed it after the second paragraph. I wonder if he also gathers statistics on telia tequila as well as the civil war... ~~~ xlnt how do you know that you knew the answers to all his questions if you closed the article after the second paragraph? ~~~ izak30 Ok, So I read about half way through the article, second idea, and I didn't re-count the paragraphs to type this up. Here is the thing for me: Blaming it on anything other than the individual and their parents seems like a cop-out.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How Transformers Work (2019) - bra-ket https://towardsdatascience.com/transformers-141e32e69591 ====== lowdose Great visualization in this post. Could neural networks in general be compared to the way information is stored in DNA? The encoder/decoder is in the process and the data loop would be the same as life in this metaphor. The training conditions of the NN are constrained such that it is able to store small variational changes, success accumulates by survival over many trial and error experiments. Like animals in nature DeepMind and OpenAI have shown that NN's can evolve into sophisticated local optimum solutions for specific game environments. ~~~ 1e in my experience, it is more useful to view neural nets as geometric transformations - via stateful functions - that map stuff in input space (eg a sentence written in english) to stuff in some other space (eg the same sentence written in french). by viewing neural nets (and machine learning, in general) from a mathematical perspective, you can readily exploit an entire field of tools and techniques (eg numerical optimization) and clearly define objective functions to train against - benefits that you dont necessarily get by viewing ml from a biological perspective. ------ heinrichf This looks like a dumbed down/partly stolen version of [http://jalammar.github.io/illustrated- transformer/](http://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-transformer/) (and his other posts). towardsdatascience usually screams "low quality content" :/ ~~~ livingmargot I know this is a useless comments, but thank you for the link! Finally helped me grasp this model a bit better, OP's link is kind of garbage... ~~~ heinrichf Not useless at all, you're welcome and I'm happy to hear that my opinion about the above link is shared by someone ;) ------ pjmlp And me thinking this would be some post about how physics would apply to Transformer robots change of state.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How to keep focus during work day? - lehtu I think nowadays especially if you are working on computer, it's really hard to keep focus on the work. It's just too darn easy and tempting to check email, talk to friends, watch cat videos and read news during your work day. I have done this, I know most of you have done this, but the question is how to prevent this? And how to keep focus on the work? In the end we want to keep our jobs and be better employees.<p>I have few tricks for this, but before revealing my tricks, I would be more than happy to hear some of yours! and what do you think about this problem? ====== lamby I'd work on the core issue of motivation; the rest is — as you say — "just" tricks. ~~~ greenyoda I have reasonably decent motivation, but sometimes I run into situations at work where I get frustrated by some problem, take what I think will be a short break, and end up tumbling down a rabbit hole of distractions. To address that, I changed the hosts file on my computer at work to redirect HN to 127.0.0.1. My impression (after a few months) is that it makes me more productive (which puts me in a better mood).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Overton Window - bratfarrar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window ====== hga Here's something I stumbled upon WRT to the election that extends the concept: _Rather, it is the views of those who have to maintain_ respectability _in order to maintain their position that have changed. It is no longer permitted for them to even_ think _the thoughts required to understand what just happened. The Overton Window has become the Overton Bubble._ From [https://sydneytrads.com/2016/11/18/alistair- hermann/](https://sydneytrads.com/2016/11/18/alistair-hermann/) which looks at it from the Australian viewpoint (i.e. I can't follow a lot of it ^_^ and haven't really tried to digest it yet).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why 2014 is the year you change - Tzunamitom http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/31/why-2014-is-the-year-you-change ====== Throwadev Is this typical of altucher? This is one of the most poorly written articles/posts I've ever read.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Mark Cuban makes Shark Tank remove equity clause in contract - ohashi http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/mark-cuban-forces-shark-tank-to-remove-equity-clause.html ====== marcamillion I love this. Never knew this was a clause...glad he pushed for this. Mark really does seem like a stand up guy. Shark Tank sounds kinda 'fluffy' and I never paid it much attention for the first few seasons - but then I heard about a company that pitched and I was intrigued so I was searching through the episodes of one of the earlier seasons and I realized how awesome the show is. It is amazing to watch and see how quick the Sharks can sniff out vagaries of a deal - e.g. if an entrepreneur raised money before at some crazy price, or the cap table looks very weird, or the company was loaded up with debt. They always seem to get to that pretty quickly. I wonder if that is because they (the show) do due diligence on each company before they reach the sharks and the sharks have notes about what to ask for. Either way, I am always surprised by the quality of the pitches shown. Some are lame, but some are surprisingly good with solid business and likely solid growth prospects. As a general rule, their instincts tend to be pretty spot-on - it seems. ~~~ pzxc I've read interviews before where it was indicated they know nothing (and want to know nothing) until they walk through the doors to make their pitch. The extensive due diligence is done after the show, which is why deals struck on the show often fall through later on. For example, some of the companies that pitch indicate that they have patents, but of course the validity and defensibility of such patents is something that has to be researched, not something you can take their word for. So on the show they're like, "Do you have a patent?" and they reply, "Yes (or no)" and that's the end of that line of questioning because it has to be researched independently. The reason they seem to get to the crux of the issues so quickly, is because like most reality shows, it is heavily edited. A five or ten minute segment on the show reflects sometimes hours of questioning and discussion. From what I understand they have VERY long days (much longer than 8 hours, more like 12-14 hours a day) so it's almost an endurance thing for the sharks, because they spend so much time fleshing out the issues (and why wouldn't they since they're investing real money). Personally I love the show also. Also check out Dragon's Den, which has both a Canadian and a British version (same format though, 5 investors all competing), and more recently CNBC's show The Profit where Marcus Lemonis (who was on the Secret Millionaire) by himself goes to failing businesses and invests a hundred K or two and takes over management for a week to turn things around. I love this new era of entrepreneurship-themed TV, beats the hell out of Survivor or Lost. =) ~~~ marcamillion Have always seen Dragon's Den but didn't pay it much attention for the same reason. I may just revisit it now, based on your recommendation. Thanks :) The patent move always had me scratching my head - how they could just take their word for it and move on so quickly. Never understood it, but now it makes sense. ~~~ yogo I'm sure there is always due diligence since the people pitching can always lie about purchase orders and the like. Sometimes a shark will even explicitly mention that the deal is contingent on something else coming through. I've watched both and for some reason I find Shark Tank much better. I'm not sure if it's production or just that spark for reality TV that seems to be perfected in America. The personalities of the sharks probably has something to do with it, or the mix since both Robert and Kevin are also on Dragon's Den. ~~~ kohanz I've seen all three shows extensively and actually prefer the BBC show the most. IMHO, the BBC one is the most serious version and even though you have to get your head around some of the UK-specific stuff at first, you'll learn a lot from the show. Canada's Dragons Den and, even worse, Shark Tank, are more heavy on the drama and personalities, so there's more flash, but less substance. Also, Peter Jones on BBC Dragon's Den strikes me as an incredibly intelligent investor. ------ marcamillion This is also interesting that he waited to push for this until now. It just goes to show that no matter how rich you are, you have to understand your value. If he had pushed for this change in Season 1 - which I suspect he may have - he probably didn't get anywhere because the show could always replace him. Now that he has become synonymous with Shark Tank, he has much more leverage, along with the fact that maybe this clause has increasingly become an issue for companies. ~~~ e40 Cuban wasn't on the show in season 1. He joined later. ~~~ aarondf Probably why he didn't push for it season 1 then! ------ ck2 I know very little about him but this instantly makes me think he is a decent person at heart. (and retroactive too, nice detail) ~~~ mdmarra He is strongly opposed to high-frequency/algorithmic stock trading as well. Plus, he is regularly the most-fined owner in the NBA for telling the officials that they blew calls in press conferences. At the very least, he's certainly entertaining. ~~~ devx And against patents: [http://blogmaverick.com/2011/08/07/my-suggestion-on- patent-l...](http://blogmaverick.com/2011/08/07/my-suggestion-on-patent-law/) [http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/mark-cubans-awesome- justifi...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/mark-cubans-awesome- justification-for-endowing-a-chair-for-eliminating-stupid-patents/) ------ ahc While I love Mark Cuban, this move is clearly not just out of the "goodness of his heart". He is a savvy investor. The production company (Finnmax) was receiving the equity stake, not the sharks. He rightly felt that the clause was limiting the quality of startups trying to get on the show. Now that he's used his leverage to get rid of it, he will get better opportunities to invest in. He also gets the benefit of now seeming more entrepreneur friendly than the other sharks, which increases he chance of participating in deals. ~~~ JRobertson He also doesn't have to share stake in a company with a detached investor who literally got paid to get the equity. If you think about it it's kind of insulting to his time where his only payback for being on the show is payback from deals he makes. Where as Finnmax gets paid to produce the show, then takes a cut of every company, and likely does little to help the company advance. This would be extra telling for multi-million dollar valuations where the sharks end up getting single digit shares themselves and are expected to bring many contacts and continue to work with and mentor the investors. ------ 001sky _Savvy entrepreneurs aren 't willing to trade an automatic stake in their company for appearing on a show without a deal_ ~~~ porter Kinda sounds like a jab at all the entrepreneurs that have appeared on the show already in exchange for an automatic stake. ------ netcan A show like this really needs someone like Mark Cuban in a very strong position as the equivalent of a creative director. The reality TV people could be good at turning whatever goes on into a good episode (or using enough nasty tricks to keep you watching for the next 5 minutes). To be a great show they need great material. In this case, that means the best companies need to want to pitch. The deals need to be envied by other investors. That's hard to manufacture and it probably won't be achieved unless someone like Mark Cuban is making it happen. A TV producer thinking from the perspective of shots & scenes & backstory shouldn't be making any decisions about deal terms. Exhibitionist fundraising might actually work if the deal terms were acceptable and your intended market happened to watch Shark Tank. Imagine square raised-launched on this kind of show. ------ jedberg That was always my biggest gripe with Shark Tank and the main reason I would advise people to stay away. I'm glad they finally fixed that. ------ joelrunyon > Cuban said the clause was removed retroactively, meaning every contestant > who's appeared on the show since Season One will be relieved of the > commitment. That's probably a huge sigh of relief for all past entrepreneurs. ~~~ giarc I wonder if they will be paid back any funds that were paid to the production company. ------ crunkykd Wow, he's the real deal looking out for the entrepreneurs. Kinda reflects badly on the other sharks that they weren't agitating to end the Finnmax abusive equity grab too. I concur that a better class of startups can now show up, versus just desperate ones who would give away 5% of their company to extortionists. ------ aubreyjohnson This is an awesome step in the right direction. Hoping to see some better companies and more balanced deals. ------ lesterbuck Recently, the I Love Marketing podcast had an hour discussion with former- Shark Kevin Harrington: [http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-118-the-one-with-kevin- har...](http://ilovemarketing.com/episode-118-the-one-with-kevin-harrington/) Harrington details why he left the show, mainly because all the little deals were sucking his time and it would be a full time, low return occupation managing them. Apparently Barbara Corcoran now does nothing other than tend to her Shark Tank flock. ~~~ mountaineer I watch the show regularly and I've heard Cuban mentions this nearly every time he says no. My time is what's valuable, etc. etc. ------ eponymous I always suspected that ABC (or whoever) got equity in the companies, because they have (or used to have) a brief notice at the end of the show at the bottom of the screen with suggests that. But surely this must have tainted the whole process, because while an entrepreneur is considering a deal with the sharks, they would also have to take into account the equity they give away by just being a part of the show. I'm glad that's gone now. It probably means though, that the entrepreneurs will be able to buy back the equity, or buy their way out of the profit sharing agreement, more than likely at the highest possible valuations. But at least there is a way out. And it's good to know that future contestants won't have that to deal with. ------ csense I'm really glad I read this. I thought from the headline that it meant he wanted the sharks to have more wiggle room to get out of deals made on the show, or something similar that would make me think less of Cuban. I couldn't have been more wrong. This is _great_ for entrepreneurs. Giving up five percent just for the chance to make a deal is BS. Giving it up to a TV production company is even more BS. I greatly admire and respect Cuban for having the guts to stand up for these startups. (And it really does turn out to be in his interest too -- smart founders _should_ balk at having to give up five percent just to appear on the show!) ------ nchuhoai I know everyone here is cheering for that move and inherently it probably is good. But what will inevitably happen is that we will see more people that come on the show for solely/mainly publicity reasons. We already see that happening right now occasionally when people ask for like 5% equity with clear objective or not making a deal with the sharks ~~~ hayksaakian Sure, but now that the show is well known, the producers probably have options to pick from among candidates. So its at their discretion to allow so called "publicity whores" ------ loucal I always wanted to pitch to shark tank and this equity clause was the only good reason I could think of not to. Most of the entrepreneurs were probably happy to give it up because of the exposure, but now it feels like trying to pitch on tv is an even better idea. ------ morgante I still don't think many "savvy entrepreneurs" would/should turn to reality television for VC, but glad this ridiculous term got removed. Any other VC who demanded equity just for a meeting would've been laughed out of town years ago. ~~~ avalaunch True but this isn't exactly a normal meeting. It's 10-15 minutes of television coverage in front of ~6 million potential customers. Estimates have put the value of that advertising at about 600k. 5% of one's company is actually a pretty good deal for a lot of small B2C businesses when you look at it that way. If you already have a product being sold and it would do well on a show like QVC then the deal was pretty good. If, on the other hand, your company is B2B, or too big, or the product isn't being sold yet, than it's a lot more questionable. I'm glad they made the change. We'll probably start seeing a more diverse range of companies appear on the show. ~~~ kronholm Just to add to your post, I don't remember ever seeing anyone getting a deal at 5%. It's usually more around the 20-30% range, and sometimes with equity stakes on top of that. ~~~ jaredsohn The GP is referring to the equity given up just for being on the show (not the equity given up if a deal is made.) ------ xpop2027 This was the reason we didn't try to get on Shark Tank, maybe well apply now :) ------ ryanburk mark cuban, obviously not a traditional VC. and that is a good thing. ------ nsxwolf Bravo.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Unwittingly obfuscating the fact that you're not doing AI - s_Hogg https://breakitdownto.earth/2019/06/06/Obfuscating_a_lack_of_AI.html ====== ageitgey This is great advice. Another related issue I see is when you engineer a new feature that can't always be 100% accurate because the source data is spotty but you intuitively think the new festure should help the classifier anyway when it is present. And if the new feature's feature importance in the trained model turns out really high, you think you've done something great. But in the end you made model that simply detects the presence of your new feature which you knew wasn't 100% accurate anyway because the source data it is derived from is spotty. So you've accomplished precisely nothing. ~~~ s_Hogg OP Here, glad you liked it! The thing you're talking about definitely happens heaps as well, because of a fundamental mental blind spot we have. I'd definitely love to hear if you've got any more stories along these lines. The psychology of what makes a successful machine learning project really interests me, and I don't mean in terms of platitudes about openness and transparency. I'm really tempted to write another post about specifically the sort of thing you talk about in your example - narrative fallacies in machine learning. Basically because we operate in the unknown we tend to want to string the evidence we have together in a nice appealing way. ------ _bxg1 There was an article on here a few months back that said something like, "The majority of today's applications of AI could be just as well - if not better - served by a simple heuristic" ~~~ ksaj I thought it was "database." Or maybe I'm projecting. A lot of "AI" project sales blurbs I've seen suggest they are really just databases with a pretty search function. A number of Knowledge Bases fit this example. ------ privong I think this is minor, but I noticed the example doesn't use error bars for the customer numbers. The customer counts in the product/churn categories are counting statistics, so have an associated Poisson uncertainty. My guess is that considering the uncertainties when doing the likelihood parameter estimation won't fully obviate this issue, but I wonder how much it would help. I'm also not sure if real-world implementations commonly consider such uncertainties on their measured metrics. ~~~ s_Hogg Hi - the reason there are no error bars for the number of customers in that 2x2 table is because there is no associated uncertainty. Those numbers are as you might find them in a dataset from summing with this particular problem. The problem we're looking at here is a binary churn/no churn problem, as opposed to one that looks at how many people churn out of a population. That said, that absolute lack of uncertainty is itself the problem. The Maximum Likelihood approach to this sort of modelling implicitly assumes that the data you have is all there is to know about the problem you're working on and so can very easily overfit on a weird artefact like that. If you want to incorporate some kind of uncertainty in your estimates, then you either need to augment your dataset (i.e. include some random examples, roughly speaking), or estimate your model using the Bayesian approach which explicitly allows for uncertainty relating to the data itself. Hope this clarifies! ~~~ privong > Those numbers are as you might find them in a dataset from summing with this > particular problem. The problem we're looking at here is a binary churn/no > churn problem, as opposed to one that looks at how many people churn out of > a population. But isn't that still a count per bin? Since it's a count it has a Poisson uncertainty. > f you want to incorporate some kind of uncertainty in your estimates, then > you either need to augment your dataset (i.e. include some random examples, > roughly speaking), or estimate your model using the Bayesian approach which > explicitly allows for uncertainty relating to the data itself. Or use a likelihood that considers uncertainties. That also allows one to explicitly consider the uncertainties when maximizing the likelihood. ~~~ s_Hogg > But isn't that still a count per bin? Since it's a count it has a Poisson > uncertainty. Yes, as presented there. But in a binary classification setting, that's not how the data would be presented to the model. Instead you would have one row per customer with a churn/no churn label for that customer along with values for a number of independent variables you deem relevant. The reason I put it in that 2x2 table like that is just to make the problem more apparent. If you had potentially millions of customers (and therefore rows), the exact separation problem would not be as blatantly obvious to the naked eye as it is there - this is partly why I recommend using confusion matrices to check for whether this is happening. > Or use a likelihood that considers uncertainties. That also allows one to > explicitly consider the uncertainties when maximizing the likelihood. Insofar as a set of parameters arrived at by means of MLE has associated standard errors, yes there is some uncertainty involved. If I understand you correctly, what you're talking about is modifying the likelihood to be flatter so that it can't get caught in this one localised whirlpool as easily. That's effectively regularisation - which I cover in the article. You could do it, but it's more or less a band aid. Really the data itself is the problem. Did you have a specific thing in mind when you were talking about likelihoods? ~~~ privong > But in a binary classification setting, that's not how the data would be > presented to the model. Instead you would have one row per customer with a > churn/no churn label for that customer along with values for a number of > independent variables you deem relevant. The reason I put it in that 2x2 > table like that is just to make the problem more apparent. I see. Thanks for clarifying that. > If I understand you correctly, what you're talking about is modifying the > likelihood to be flatter so that it can't get caught in this one localised > whirlpool as easily. Effectively, yes. But by adding a term for the uncertainty on the measurements, not an uncertainty on the fit parameters (though those exist as well).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Protecting email metadata by pouring it down the Memory Hole - hacim http://modernpgp.org/memoryhole/ ====== jcranmer So... there's a specification that has barely any text, which feels way too premature for me to care. But I also wonder why people should expect this to be any more successful in deployment than S/MIME 3.1's use of an encrypted/signed message/rfc822 blob to protect headers. Officially standardized for 11 years and in use by exactly 0 email clients as far as I am aware. ~~~ jakeogh S/MIME 3.1: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3851#page-14](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3851#page-14) ------ jakeogh only tangentially related, I have a very rough setup that stores the maildir encrypted on disk: [https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda/blob/master/gpgmda.README](https://github.com/jakeogh/gpgmda/blob/master/gpgmda.README) Works for me, but I'm rewriting most of the bash in py.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Using AR to help build a complex brick wall - webmonkeyuk https://www.archdaily.com/908618/this-is-how-a-complex-brick-wall-is-built-using-augmented-reality ====== jawns Could you imagine how this kind of technology might change something as boring and frustrating as Ikea furniture assembly? Ikea tries hard to avoid using text in its instructions, because the products are sold in so many countries. So its assembly instructions tend to be very constrained 2D illustrations with simple pictograms. But it would be so much easier if you could just slap on some AR glasses and visualize in 3D what your next step should be! ~~~ lozenge You can also find many fans of IKEA instructions. Consider how you would deal with written instructions that appear to contradict the picture instructions and you'll see why. ~~~ zellyn All it takes to become a huge fan of IKEA instructions is to purchase and assemble a few items of furniture from other stores. ------ kettlecorn A similar surprisingly novel case for AR headsets: trimmming hedges into complex shapes. In an AR headset the final desired design is overlayed within the hedge, and you trim the parts outside. Now try to imagine how you might accomplish something similar without an AR headset. It would be very difficult. ~~~ egypturnash People have been doing this longer than recorded history; there's a lot of knowledge about how to take a block of wood/stone/etc and carve away anything that doesn't look like the desired subject. That said I'm sure there are experts at those methods who would leap at the chance to model their work in more forgiving methods, digital or physical, and use that kind of technology to guide them as they carve! ~~~ codingdave I've done my share of sculpture in my life - the problems you run into when carving an item down to a desired result is often less about being able see what needs to go, and more about the structure of the underlying material, and whether it will break/crack/shatter when you try to take a specific piece off. AR could still help - if an app could visually inspect the surface of your material, or the branches of a hedge, it might be able to flag warning signs. ------ harimau777 I realize this is probably being excessively pessimistic, but couldn't this end up making the work of the skilled trades as soulless and boring as routine assembly line work? That is to say, whenever there is a discussion of the skilled trades on Hacker News it is mentioned that they often take as much thinking and creativity as white collar jobs. It seems like this sort of technology could change that in at least some situations. ~~~ marak830 Good luck running a pass via ar lol. (Pre edit sorry a pass is a restaurant kitchen serving line). Pre edit 2: okay that was a bit snarky, but my point is, ar doesn't give you the skills and training, it just helps ------ Semiapies Very neat, but I'm not sure what human "intuition" is needed or being used when brick placements are being displayed in AR for you. Seems more like a human bricklayer is just more flexible and much less expensive than setting up a robot rig (and will be for some time). ------ germinalphrase Is anyone aware of quality forums/email lists/etc. for keeping up to date on AR UI/UX? ------ theklr This is the only space I see _R taking off for a while. The cost of development is still too high for consumers (and developing for them). Using it for training and virtual modeling is where it shines...for now. ------ abledon whats stopping them from installing a rail along X,Y,Z axis around the build area (with a robot arm), and having the robot build up the wall instead of humans? ~~~ cookingrobot Like this: [https://www.construction- robotics.com/sam100/](https://www.construction-robotics.com/sam100/) ~~~ abledon wow, thank you for linking that. that is insane ------ maxshash Nice!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Should you Open Source? - raghunayyar http://iraghu.com/weblog/why-should-you-opensource/ ====== gcmartinelli I felt his recommended article was even better [http://www.intridea.com/blog/2011/4/28/you-should-be-an- open...](http://www.intridea.com/blog/2011/4/28/you-should-be-an-open-source- developer) ~~~ raghunayyar Yup, I know. I just wrote with the point of view of a newbie coder and the referenced article sums it all. :D ------ stephen_mcd Wrote almost the same article a while back: <http://blog.jupo.org/2011/09/12/open-source-for-you/> ~~~ raghunayyar Nice :D ------ bord2hack Good points, thanks for sharing. Github is changing the world ~~~ raghunayyar thanks for the feedback man.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft sponsored conference brings out the Mac users - anderzole http://www.edibleapple.com/microsoft-sponsored-conference-brings-out-the-mac-users/ ====== Locke1689 I think everyone would agree that Apple produces very good quality (if expensive) hardware and that a useable and productive terminal environment is the bread and butter of the dedicated programmer. ~~~ blasdel Except that these people are dedicated "tech journalists" (and thus are neither). They were invited to this conference because they republish the constant press releases of all the Taiwanese and Korean companies as they churn out poorly- differentiated consumer electronics, many of which feature poorly-customized Microsoft mobile platforms. ------ dazzawazza Of course they could all be running windows on those macs! WHO CARES! ~~~ rbanffy Running Windows on a Mac is just wrong... I really miss the Windows-proof PowerPC Macs of yore ;-) But... If they want to know where the world is going, they should really reach for those few who don't use their products. You can't predict the future just from looking into the mainstream. ~~~ wtallis I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro running Vista x64. It's a MBP because those are really powerful machines, but still have great battery life and are very compact and portable. It's running Vista x64 because I'm doing scientific computation that involves Windows-only software (mainly SolidWorks). It feels weird and a bit dirty, but I'm pretty sure there isn't another mobile hardware platform that can meet my needs as well as the MBP. I still boot into OS X when I'm doing something like watching a movie or if I'm "off the clock" and doing personal stuff with the machine. It constantly reminds me of just how big a difference there is between Windows and OS X in terms of everyday usability. ~~~ rbanffy "involves Windows-only software". Fine. You have an excuse. And you also use OSX when you ar nor working. That's a plus ;-) My main computer is a Linux netbook, but I also have to run XP from time to time (inside a VM, obviously). My bank requires an ActiveX control for the business accounts. I think it's incredibly ironic they found a way to require Windows for security reasons.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Poetic.io – beautiful, simple and professional file transfer - poetic https://poetic.io/ ====== fiatjaf Seems good, but emails? Again? What makes this different from SendSpace or WeTransfer? Do something different. Maybe a combination of keywords + geolocation for identifying files. \-- I've sent you a file at poetic.io! \-- What is the link? \-- Just go there, it's in your address. ~~~ poetic Yes, about emails you are right. I'm pretty open to find another solution. We can also brainstorm a bit about the solution if you like :) I think poetic.io has a much better UI, user experience (comparing it with SendSpace). The real differences will be deployed in two/three weeks: \- previews on pictures (gallery), pdf and media \- background customisation for the transfer (for example with your brand) The pro version will be completely different, I'll keep you updated on that ;) ------ poetic After this chat we made an update to the "terms of service" under "Rights you licence". Let me know what you think guys. ------ 110king What makes Poetic.io different than other methods of transferring and sharing file? (Dropbox for example has 10 GB limit file-size limit) ~~~ poetic with Dropbox you have to register, install a software and, most of the time pay,(actually you just have 2GB per account): [https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/73](https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/73) You have also to keep the file on your computer while is shared. Here you have 3GB per transfer (unlimited number of transfers), no registration needed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Seed Funding Isn't A Regional Business - markbao http://jasonlbaptiste.com/venture-capital/seed-funding-regional-business/ ====== zhyder What would be really great is to have a 'YC of ...' in each different area. For instance, New York could be the YC of Finance (e.g. startup: private equity exchange), LA the YC of entertainment (e.g. startup: low-budget TV show delivered through the web), etc. They needn't be about SW/webapps, but whichever area they focus on should be cheap enough to at least prototype something. Within just the SW/webapps space, it doesn't much sense to have a YC clone in every US city. But it still would make sense to have a YC clone in -say- India or China which focuses on the unique needs of its market. (I suspect these already exist but most of us YC-fundees or YC-wannabe-fundees haven't heard of them and wouldn't care if we did.) ------ mixmax I don't think this is entirely true. Great companies have been started, funded and grown outside the valley. Microsoft, MySQl, Skype, 37Signals, etc. There are more examples than you might think. Also, while I'm sure there is a lot of engineering talent in the valley it isn't unique. Finland, Denmark, India and the baltic states have awesome programmers and engineers. And they're a lot cheaper, especially in the former eastern bloc. ~~~ sachinag Not to be mean, but that's like saying "Since Obama was elected president, racism is no more." You can't point to exception cases and be like "all done". You have to look at things in aggregate and at the trend lines. And those things show a preponderance of the necessities for a startup culture in the Valley and in few other places. ~~~ mixmax I think there's a lot of groupthink going on in the Silicon Valley echochamber. The examples I came up with were just on the top of my head, not outliers in any way. Here are a few more just for kicks. fogbugz, Alcatel/Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Avid, IBM, Ubisoft, Research in motion, Sierra, Kazaa, Joost, Dell. The tech-world doesn't revolve around Silicon Valley. There are actually other tech hubs, and there are important tech companies being started in other parts of the world. The valley is important, but not _that_ important. ------ rjurney I wanted very badly to think this wasn't true... but it is true. ~~~ jasonlbaptiste So did I. Starting a YC like thing in your town isn't easy, but it's not impossible. It's letting the companies grow up and keeping them in your city that usually borders on impossible. ------ alaskamiller I'm going to coin this acronym: YACEP, as in, yet another chicken/egg problem. But sometimes it's not even about having enough talent or enough gasoline. Sometimes, sociological reasons prohibits the growth of multiple fledgling startups in area. One bit of data I want to offer is Pittsburgh, PA. Pittsburgh has both the distinction of having two top-notch universities (CMU and Pitt) and an emerging early-stage seed incubator. But they're having trouble getting the startup culture going because the talented engineers and developers just don't plain don't want to stay in the city, or they get hired for research/corporate work right away. Those college grads actually prefer _that_ rather than working in a startup. You can try to sell them the Silicon Valley dream without the Silicon Valley all you want but if the mentality isn't there it's going to take a lot more convincing than from just the school, the city, or the investors. The rest that do stay have to compete that much harder to deal with external factors affecting their success than they would get instead of just moving to Silicon Valley in the first place. But you're definitely right: time is the only thing that will change this. ~~~ dbul _just don't plain don't want to stay in the city_ I'm not so sure it is that as much as... _they get hired for research/corporate work ... actually prefer _that_ rather than working in a startup_ Most of the CMU nerds want to work at the best companies for stimulating their intellectual minds. I suspect people who get accepted to CMU recognize its capacity for strengthening your inner nerd, and so those are the types who go there: people who can maximize their time thinking about difficult computer science problems. AlphaLab, I presume the seed funding organization you refer to, is going about it all wrong. They are trying to be a copy of YCombinator, and I'll challenge them to a debate if they think otherwise. What they ought to be doing is being more open to the startup community at large to the point where all of the startups in Pittsburgh and all of the investors in Pittsburgh are in one room hobnobbing. So far I have yet to even have met anyone affiliated with AlphaLab. They had some lame happy hour kind of event at their facility _once_ in the last few months, but I left when the director started to waste our time with a presentation which I could have (already had) absorbed via the information on their website. I've overheard a few comments from investors here. One said something along the lines of, "AlphaLab expects you to invest a couple million in some companies who give 10 minute presentations? Get real." This tells me the adaption to the trend of angel investing isn't happening here. Another investor, when I mentioned the startups in Pittsburgh he replied, "Yeah. There are not enough." One solution, as I mentioned, is creating the illusion of a startup scene. Just have weekly events and do what you have to that people will actually go to them. Don't waste their time. Carnegie Mellon has a Pre-college program. These are kids who end up going to UPenn, MIT, Stanford, Cornell and so on. That is, they are there because CMU is one of the best schools for computer science so why not get a sample of what it is like there. So, if incubators like AlphaLab actually helped the startup scene _seem_ as though it exists, those Pre-college students may decide they like it and choose to go to CMU over MIT (let's say Stanford rejected them by chance) because they feel a strong sense of a startup environment.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lynda.com for free check Your local library offering - PerilousD http://www.portjefflibrary.org/lynda.shtml ====== PerilousD Don't know when this started but check your own local library they may also be offering access to Lynda.com for free.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Posterous Growing At More Than 700 Percent a Year - vladocar http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/05/posterous-700-percent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+International ====== hugh3 The headline, of course, is pretty meaningless. If I had one user yesterday and two today, I'm growing at a rate of approximately 2^365/100 = 7.5e105 percent per year, but that's still nothing to brag about. ------ sabj Headline may be meaningless out of context, but when t+1 = 2.5 million users, it's a pretty valid figure I think! I am SUPER impressed with what Posterous has done recently and eagerly look forward to their innovations! I went to reactivate my old, dormant Tumblr a month ago and, in the process, thought to switch to Posterous because it fulfilled my desires better; I was really impressed with how it has changed since I last looked into it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Brokers Fight Rule to Favor Best Interests of Customers - gergles https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/your-money/rule-to-make-brokers-act-in-clients-interest-still-pending-after-4-years.html?_r=0 ====== JumpCrisscross > _The agency is trying to amend a 1975 rule, part of the Employee Retirement > Income Security Act, known as Erisa, which outlines when investment advisers > become fiduciaries — the eye-glazing legal term describing brokers who must > put their customers’ interests first. “The real problem with revenue sharing is that it is an undisclosed, under- the-table payment from the broker to the adviser,” said Professor Bullard, though he noted that not all arrangements were conflict-ridden._ The divergent standards between those - like me - who serve companies and sophisticated investors, and those who serve unsophisticated Main Street clients is startling. To me, it would be preposterous to _not_ be fiduciarilly bound to a retained client. But apparently this is business-as-usual for retirement advisors. Similarly, I face liability if I do not disclose any related fees or payments to all parties following a transaction. But retail financial advisors see those agreements as trade secrets. There may be a good argument for obscuring this information from unsophisticated parties. I think the abundance of information available to be mis-interpreted by unsophisticated retail investors is part of the problem. But I haven't heard the brokers articulate it. As for fiduciary obligation, I cannot understand the present situation. But I also believe that banks should be partnerships, where at the end of the capital structure are the partners' personal assets. Perhaps I'm just old world. ~~~ not_that_noob The sad part is that much of the current business model in the retail financial 'services' industry is built on obscuring what is in the end customer's best interest. This is why Vanguard has so much money fleeing towards them. What gets me is how otherwise very intelligent and successful people (engineers, execs, doctors - you name it) get suckered into bad investments because of a slick person in a suit. I really hope they push this rule through - it's in the best interests of so many hard-working Americans. Who cares if a few sharks have to starve? Maybe they can go sell used cars. ~~~ JumpCrisscross Maybe moving from a % of assets under management scheme is necessary. I would want an investment advisor to earn a fixed dollar amount per quarter, regardless of assets under management. A generous bonus would be given for a fraction of returns above a benchmark. A stiff penalty would be assessed for exceeding loss (e.g. you shouldn't lose more than 10% in any given year) or liquidity (e.g. you should be able to withdraw $50 000 with 2 weeks' notice without impairing your assets' values by more than 2%). Half of any commissions paid to third parties would be deducted from the advisor's fees. Any incentive payments offered by fund managers would be split, 50/50, between the advisor and the client (e.g. as fee waiver). ~~~ gress Why would any advisor choose to work under such a scheme? ~~~ JumpCrisscross Because a good performer will make more with performance incentives than under a flat compensation model. That is why hedge funds are structured with performance bonuses - managers believe in themselves. ~~~ gress But good performers today don't have a flat compensation model they have no downside risk and merely need to increase their assets under management. ------ slg Devil's advocate, why should the financial service industry be different than any other sales industry? Remember most financial service people are simply salespeople pushing a product. No one would bat an eye if a used car salesman put his own personal interest above the interest of his customer? Why should we then be outraged when someone sells you an annuity that isn't the ideal product for you? If it is my responsibility to educate myself enough that I don't spend an extra grand when the dealer recommends they undercoat my new car, why shouldn't I have to educate myself on why I shoudn't purchase an annuity in my new IRA? ~~~ md224 > No one would bat an eye if a used car salesman put his own personal interest > above the interest of his customer? That could be because they expect used car salesmen to behave unethically. In that case, their "not batting an eye" would indicate that they don't feel a responsibility to address this injustice, not that the act under consideration is perfectly just by their standards. > Why should we then be outraged when someone sells you an annuity that isn't > the ideal product for you? Because it strikes us as violating our ethical principles. From my perspective, business should be about providing value for the customer. Taking advantage of people to get their money is terrible, and I would think less of anyone (car salesman or financial planner) who did so. A good salesman persuades customers to take action that is beneficial to both parties. ~~~ maxcan > That could be because they expect used car salesmen to behave unethically. Do you really expect bankers to act ethically? ------ wehadfun They should at least have to disclose if they are getting a paid to recommend funds. ------ critium Thats why we created the service that highlights these broker abuses that we did. But what we found was, people actually dont __WANT__ to care. Which is really really sad. ~~~ critium P.S. These guys are really really good. And they are your friends, your neighbors. They will invite you to golf tournaments, help you talk to the local private school director (who is also their client) and then they're ingratiated. If you're not anglo and male, they'll bring an attractive assistant along that looks like from your home country and speaks your language. Its actually in their playbook (yes a real playbook). I found out somebody talked by parents into a variable rate annuity. The worst of the worst. Guess who it was? My cousin. ~~~ saryant I got hit with this by a college roommate who joined Primerica. I didn't know anything about investing during college so I let him open a Roth IRA for me and put in $100/month from my part-time job. I fell for everything from him and his boss. Looking back, I definitely feel like a moron. The fund he had me in was _terrible_. An expense ratio of something like 1.5%, a maxed-out 12b1 fee and a front-load sales charge of 5.25%. At least it wasn't an annuity. Once I graduated and got my first full-time job, I started reading over the 401k material and doing my own research which lead me to the Boglehead's site. I slowly began the realize the fraud my friend had pulled over me. When I presented him with the evidence, he literally lied to my face. That or he had so completely swallowed Primerica's literature that he believed himself. He tried to tell me that their fund had outperformed the market (it had not) and had stayed stable through the 2008 crash (it had not, it lost far more than the market). He tried to convince me that the fees were actually quite low compared to the average (obviously not) and that Vanguard was in fact more expensive. I ordered him to transfer the entire account over to Vanguard and we haven't spoken since. (Another unspoken advantage of Vanguard or Schwab: if they do something I don't like, I can safely pull my business without risking a personal relationship) ~~~ PhantomGremlin Keep this in mind next time you interact with a salesman. It's a quip I found on the Internet: All really good salesmen temporarily believe whatever bullshit they are selling at the time. It's kind of like method acting. ~~~ free2rhyme214 You have no idea how sales really works do you? ~~~ dang This comment breaks the two most important rules of HN threads: to say something of substance and to be personally civil. A good version of this comment would teach us something about how sales really works, while being polite. ------ ipsin For anyone curious, the link to the proposed rule in the article is broken. [http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister/HtmlDisplay.aspx?DocI...](http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister/HtmlDisplay.aspx?DocId=24328&AgencyId=8&DocumentType=1) is the actual link. I believe that a rule change will save many small investors from being fleeced, but attempting to read this proposed change also made my brain hurt. ------ shaneleonard121 Here in the UK, they introduced rules last year to get rid of conflicts. No more kickbacks from the money managers to the advisors. Result, lots of the advisors have shut down, as that was their main income. Difficult to say, whether no advice is better than biased advise! My gut feeling is yes. Forces us to think for ourselves. ------ bickfordb Although potentially this might help people trapped in employer sponsored 401k plans, this seems too little too late? The trend appears to be for retail investors is to be invested in passive asset allocation mixes of ETFs which have no sales commissions. ------ shiven Link is NYT-walled on my iPhone. Could the mods replace it with a link to the full article please? ~~~ jonknee ... It's a NYT article, this is the full article link. ~~~ shiven Ok, now it loads in full. Earlier I was getting the login/signup screen after pressing the "show full article" button on the iPhone. Thanks! ------ maxcan Unfortunately, there will always be people looking to take advantage of the foolish and unsophisticated. The only solution is on the demand side - reduce the number of foolish and unsophisticated buyers by teaching real financial literacy to the population. Of course no one wants to do this because the industry doesn't want to stop ripping people off and "progressives" and "liberals" don't want to admit that the "the high school science teacher who didn’t realize she had been sold a variable annuity" has agency and shouldn't have been buying a product that she didn't understand and which a quick google search should have quickly warned her about. ~~~ gohrt Why do we bother making {lying, stealing, killing} illegal, when we could just rely on people to have the agency to avoid getting hit? Because we live in a civilization. ~~~ maxcan Luckily for you, lying isn't illegal. A better example is this: Someone goes into a used car lot and explains to the dealer that they live in a cold climate with lots of snow, have three kids, and go camping a lot. They explain that they need a car with lots of cargo room, is reliable, cheap to maintain, and which is good in icy conditions. The dealer proceeds to talk the buyer into buying a 20 year old porsche 911. It doesn't satisfy any of the stated needs and costs the buyer money that they didn't need to spend. The dealer's actions were clearly unethical. But, should they be illegal? Thats a very complex question and not one that can be answered by "MOAR REGULATION!" demands. ~~~ techsupporter Awesome, and just as soon as a long-term financial instrument is as clear and unambiguous as a 2014 4WD Subaru versus a 1994 Porsche 911 (at least the 993 series had air cooling, which should work well in a cold climate), I'll be right alongside you. ~~~ maxcan thats exactly my point. even the most baroque, complex financial instruments are arguably simpler than the mechanics of even a basic internal combustion engine. but, due to cultural issues people are far more educated about the mechanics of an automobile than they are about financial products. ~~~ walshemj Ok so with profits funds is as simple as a basic two stroke IC engine with 3 moving parts not sure I buy your line	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tezos and Ocaml: A self-amending cryptographic ledger - walterbell https://github.com/tezos/tezos ====== StreamBright Can somebody explain with layman terms how this works? ~~~ hestefisk It means hard forks (afaik) are not required when features are added. Protocol can grow organically. Interesting tech but not sure about the use case. Blockchain is all cart-before-the-horse. ------ fsiefken An article providing more background to the project and the open-sourcing. Perhaps they should consider moving to GitLab [https://www.coindesk.com/tezos-launch-story-whats- left-232-m...](https://www.coindesk.com/tezos-launch-story-whats- left-232-million-tech-goes-live/) ~~~ rboyd [https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos](https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos) (betanet branch has the launch release) ------ 1ba9115454 Can't find any information anywhere about how it self amends. Thought about this myself a few times. One way would be to have transactions that contain code and an address. send money to the address and after a certain freshold the code goes live. Node restarts with new code in place. Kind of dangerous and funny at the same time. ~~~ wyas The way they self amend is that they literally will just vote to replace a particular file in their implementation with a new one. ------ xur17 As noted in the README, all of the devlopment now occurs in gitlab [0], and github is a mirror. [0] [https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos](https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos) ------ kbody Too bad the whole thing was/is shadowed by the split of founders and foundation. As always with pretty much any cryptocurrency over-promises that fell short (launch was supposedly scheduled for end of last year) and greed. Cherry on-top they are now demanding passports (KYC) for those that fell for their ICO while nothing was mentioned when they are actually collecting the money. Hopefully at least their software will be of some value and not a total scam like their rest practices. ~~~ ericb I don't think there was a "scam." I think they learned that in order to issue tokens and get exchange listings, they needed KYC in the new environment by the time they were done. There was a definite screw up in the initial governance when the picked a bad apple for the foundation. The foundation and founders are reunited once again, so if the tech is solid, and so far it has been, then all signs are positive. ------ rdl Happy to take any questions from here to the devs/founders. (The 30 June launch date was hard to hit, but I think everyone has recovered by now.) ~~~ fuklief Considering the close ties of OCaml and Coq, has anyone done some sort of formal verification for Tezos ? ~~~ rdl The main focus has been on the formal verifiability of smart contracts written in Michelson -- [https://www.michelson-lang.com/](https://www.michelson- lang.com/) I'm checking on Tezos itself. ------ wyas Worth pointing out: these guys worked for a long time off a very large capital-raise round to implement and run a test net, only to just replace it at the very last moment with a completely new main net. ~~~ atomical Could you expand on that a bit? My understanding is that a test net is launched before main net. Or they are run in parallel. ~~~ wyas If properly designed, the main net should really just be the test net. Any small issues should have been ratified on the test, and the chain should move to production without any issues. However, Tezos basically released a whole new product, without proper prior testing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Invented (HTML) Elements - vgnet http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2012/03/23/invented-elements/ ====== talmand You know, I've always wondered why we couldn't just create our own elements as needed since we have CSS. I guess you'd have to ignore the semantics debate. But it would seem handy to be able to do <myelement> instead of <div class="myelement">.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
MongoDB's New Query Matcher - francesca http://blog.mongodb.org/post/51574091391/mongodbs-new-matcher ====== rogerbinns I wish the 10gen folks would do some work on various issues that have been in MongoDB for a long time. For me the most serious one is data size. Storage is pretty terrible, especially compared to CPU these days. I would far prefer the use of more CPU in order to reduce storage. Records in a collection mostly use the same set of keys. Every record includes the full key which makes the storage that much larger. Strings can interned and replaced with a far smaller numerical token to reduce storage. (I'd be happy for it to be attempted for string values as well.) The other is compression which is a straight forward cpu versus storage tradeoff. <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-863> <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-164> ~~~ mayank Until they do, you could always write a thin wrapper over the client driver to gzip/gunzip non-indexed fields. Something like Google's Snappy would be well suited to that. ~~~ gerner That sounds great if you've got large fields with lots of redundancy. In fact, we do this. But small fields won't compress so well on their own. Often there's a lot of redundancy across records for the same fields which is great for compression. This might be a great way to achieve the benefits of field name tokenization too (which is similar to part of how most compressors work). I'd like to see block compression, rather than field compression . ~~~ mayank Hmm...interesting. I don't know if this will work, but you could try storing your MongoDB database on a compressed ZFS partition. Since MongoDB uses mmap, this would have the nice side-effect of your working set remaining uncompressed, and only being compressed when written to or read from disk. ~~~ gerner you're not the first person to suggest that to me :) although I haven't thought about using ZFS for this. You're not the only one to suggest ZFS. Why that and not compression in btrfs (or something else entirely)? _hopefully_ the mmap interface would provide the best of all worlds: mongodb continues to be simple with respect to how it handles getting data from disk and the kernel/fs can do it's magic behind the scenes of mmap. Of course, it could be that mmap + compressed filesystem leads to some unexpected (and bad) perf results. But then again, I've never tried :) have you? ~~~ mayank No reason for ZFS in particular -- I was just unsure about how stable btrfs currently is. I haven't tried this out, but I think I might. Email's on the site in my profile if you beat me to it. :) ------ nasalgoat As a large commercial user of MongoDB (almost 300 instances of it running in production), I've seen some big shifts in 10gen's focus lately. They've really ramped up the customer service, and they are making more regular releases that seem like improvements. Unfortunately, the better customer service doesn't provide better answers or solutions to problems, and the improvements aren't targeting long standing, basic issues with the platform. This feature announcement fits the pattern: an improvement, but not in a critical area like indexing, or document-level locking, sharding stability, etc. There are basic fundamentals that need addressing like overcoming the 20K maximum connections per server, or mongos CPU usage. These are the things I deal with in production and that are business critical, but those feature requests sit untouched in JIRA for months or years. This feature seems interesting, but it solves a problem I don't have. I'd prefer them to solve real world problems. ~~~ outworlder Why do you need > 20k connections to your database? ~~~ nasalgoat Because I want to run more than 100 instances of a webserver per mongos process, but I can't because it causes the connections per server to go over 20K. Right now my application stack is woefully under utilized due to this completely arbitrary decision on their part not to allow the end user to set the connection limit. They've even admitted that they just picked that number four years ago and haven't looked at it since. Just like they limit replica sets to 12 members maximum. What if I have higher read requirements than that limitation allows? Well, too bad. I think this points at a fundamental issue with MongoDB at the design level - they don't allow end users to make any decisions about how to configure the product, even if those decisions might turn out bad. Every Enterprise-level DB allows end user tuning of parameters, so clearly MongoDB isn't Enterprise-level. ~~~ jasondc The 20,000 connection limit was removed in 2.5: <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-8943> ------ ShabbyDoo My name might be "Mud" a a previous client because I recommended MongoDB and implemented a first-rev persistence interface based on my presumption that this issue would be fixed in the near-term: <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-3253> To be fair, I educated the client on the alternatives should 10Gen not improve the aggregation framework so that it could do arbitrary transforms without failure should the output size exceed 16MB. [Use other MongoDB mechanisms, custom compilation with higher per-document size cap, etc.] What annoys me is that 10Gen did not mention this incredibly important limitation when they were touting the planned features of 2.2. My client would not have minded had it simply been the case that queries with large result set sizes were somewhat slow. What this client could not tolerate were failures to deliver any results at all. In retrospect, I wish that I had pushed harder for a solution based on the Hadoop stack. While it seems to have its own demons, at least there is an ecosystem dedicated to fixing the most blatant of limitations. ------ ghc Do I regret choosing MongoDB a couple years ago to augment Postgres for several data analysis applications? Not really. But I do wish Mongo has been more mature. I'm happy to see each step forward taken, but it does bother me that often serious issues get overlooked for press-friendly feature additions. Until Mongo adopts some form of compression I won't be using for new projects aside from personal ones where development ease trumps everything else. ~~~ nasalgoat How about compression on the replication links? When I inquired about that, they suggested using an ssh tunnel. I can see why they like mmapped files for storing data. ------ mgamache I use MonogoDB. I hope they will be able to manage the technical debt and stay competitive with newer alternatives. Seems like this is a step forward. ~~~ jsemrau Just out of curiosity. A real live application or a personal project. ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The first web site - wave http://info.cern.ch/ ====== robin_reala It’s even got a well-formedness error (check the end of the last <dd>) thus setting the quality level for the web for the next 20 years. ------ Tagith Here's a link to a mirror the actual original page: [http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/T...](http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html) ~~~ Semiapies Sadly, no browsers now-a-days have that default gray background of yore. :) ------ anigbrowl Original w3 proposal (ahem): <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/17/verity_stob_glb/> ~~~ TweedHeads s/[nationality redacted]/frenchie/ ------ mixmax So the very first webserver was a NeXT computer. Interesting. ~~~ gaius And the very first web browser was written on a NeXT too. ------ delano What an excellent title for an individual: _"Robert Cailliau, collaborator on the World Wide Web project and first Web surfer."_ ~~~ TweedHeads I hope "the last web surfer" is never accredited to anybody. ------ TweedHeads Like the CSS Zen Garden, we should take that page and add just one stylesheet and see what we can come up with.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Building a Peer to Peer Marketplace: Single User Utility - cmcewen https://www.credport.org/blog/13-Building-a-Peer-to-Peer-Marketplace-Single-User-Utility ====== numlocked I don't understand the eBay example at all: "eBay's single user utility was a combination of a much larger audience to sell..." That doesn't seem like single user utility at all. Otherwise, good article. ~~~ cmcewen If you think of it in terms of the 1 or 2 pawn shops you might have access to, eBay's initial audience of 100 or 1000 as well as the usenet groups Omidyar would post to provides significant "single user" utility that most marketplaces can't provide at that same audience size. So while you're correct that it's not truly "single" user, eBay did provide significant value to the very very early sellers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Seattle Restaurant Ejects Customer Wearing Google Glass - darkmethod http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/11/29/seattle-restaurant-ejects-customer-wearing-google-glass/ ====== gaius He doesn’t like it, so he tries to get the server fired. It’s a total (expletive) move. And that's why they're called glassholes. ~~~ tadfisher It's worth pointing out that absolutely nothing about this interaction was corroborated except for the fact that there was an issue and the customer left. ------ cgore "But it's my right to make 24/7 video recordings of people I don't know eating at restaurants I don't own!" ------ daveidol What if someone has their smartphone out at the restaurant? Are they asked to put it away or leave for fear of everyone's privacy? Just because someone is wearing Glass doesn't mean they are constantly shooting photos you know... ~~~ DavidBradbury If someone had their phone up and continually aiming it around the room, then you can be sure they'd be asked to stop or leave. The problem with Glass is that you cannot tell if they are or not. Rather than risk their customers being uncomfortable, they decided to be proactive and protect them. That seems perfectly reasonable. ~~~ adamio It's unreasonable. If someone wants to record they will use a hidden camera. This is fake protection. ------ adamio What about using Glass to translate the menu on the fly? Or building a Glass compatible menu that lets Glass users see videos of the dishes? Banning glass because it has a camera is silly. They should ban people too, because people can have photographic memories!! ~~~ dpark There's absolutely nothing wrong with this argument. That's why it's generally accepted for people to set up video cameras in locker rooms. I might have a photographic memory, so you might as well let me video you. ~~~ adamio locker room != restaurant. crime != policy And I'm not saying video. I'm saying banning because capability of taking video. Cell phones are not banned in locker rooms. Recording with them is. ------ benched This is begging for a flash mob. ~~~ DavidBradbury The restaurant is trying make a comfortable atmosphere for their customers. If they feel that someone wearing a camera on their head will make their customers uncomfortable, they have every right to not allow them to wear it. Your response makes you look like an entitled child who gets upset when they are told no.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
China’s Luckin Coffee faked $310m in sales - chewz https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/China-s-Luckin-Coffee-faked-310m-in-sales-in-house-probe-finds ====== toomuchtodo Here [1] is the report released several months ago by Muddy Waters Research [2]. Nailed it. [1] [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LKOYMpXVo1ssbWQx8j4G3-strg6...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LKOYMpXVo1ssbWQx8j4G3-strg6mpQ7F/view) \| [https://archive.org/details/luckincoffeeanonymous/mode/2up](https://archive.org/details/luckincoffeeanonymous/mode/2up) (Internet Archive version) [2] [https://www.muddywatersresearch.com/](https://www.muddywatersresearch.com/) ------ the_resistence Hurting the feelings of global investors..	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Clojure & Scala Similarities — Twins separated at birth? - twism http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2010/04/clojure-scala-similarities-twins-separated-at-birth/ ====== prog I tend to agree most of the post apart from "1. I think Clojure is much simpler". I am not saying that Scala is simpler, just that its a matter of preference. After spending a fair amount of time using both languages (5-6 months each) IMO opinion it boiled down to what style is more suited for a specific project. dynamic + lispy or static + multi-paradigm. One feature of clojure that I did miss in my scala project was macros. The reason I picked scala for the project was that I wanted static typing for the project. Both languages are really neat and I would rather be using one of them instead of java. ~~~ francoisdevlin What prompted you to want static typing? What did it help you do better? ~~~ prog That particular project (simulation) required a lot of bit twiddling and working with data of various sizes 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit. So having the specific types nailed at compile time helped. Lack of unsigned data on the JVM was a pain though. Two other reasons I picked scala for that particular project was OO support and mutability. The problem fit OO better and performance was very important (I was anyway taking a bit of a hit choosing JVM over C), so with scala I had the option of for e.g. setting up a C like while loop with a counter rather than mapping a function. This was maybe 6-8 months back. Since then clojure has added neat concepts like transients[1] which allowing mutability in a controlled manner within a function. So thats worth a look. I just preferred to go for a multi-paradigm language rather than a semi-pure functional language as I wasn't sure how the project needs would evolve. What I would have really liked to do was use Python. I actually created an early prototype but the performance didn't meet the needs. I look forward to unladen-swallow :) Python did have some neat libs like struct[2] that would have worked. IMO the choice of static or dynamic should be decided by the problem at hand. I feel dynamic tends to work for majority of projects so thats what I usually prefer but sometimes static works best. [1] <http://clojure.org/transients> [2] [http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/struct.html#module- struc...](http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/struct.html#module-struct) ------ wheaties Being a Scala programmer I can tell you that most of the developers I've talked to don't, in general, try to program in an imperative manner. For some solutions/problems it is far more concise to write it as imperative code. That's not a problem or negative of the language. That's a plus. This appears nothing more than a "I'm a fan of this language, mine is better" post. They're just different languages. Both do the same thing but in different ways and both happen to be on the JVM. Neither one is "better." ------ michaelneale Probably worth noting that in clojure you can have actors if you like (either in clojure, or using some library - even akkasource.org) - likewise, there is STM in scala (see same link) as a library. It isn't one or the other. I really love clojure, but as I have said to others, have given up hope that a new type of lisp will catch on for more than a very small group. I would LOVE to be wrong about that. ~~~ francoisdevlin How much would you (and anyone in Clojure's corner) love to be wrong? Take a hard look at that question, and decide what you can do to make it a reality. SFD ------ lbj @michael: Today is your lucky day :) The growth of Clojure has been exponential both among users and clients. A few years ago nobody could have imagined that a Lisp would have such rapid uptake, but it seems that the combination of a solid product, great libraries (JVM) and a productive community was all it took. IIRC the Google Group is now in excess of 3000 members and if you'd like to try it out I suggest you follow it or join us in #clojure on irc.freenode.net - If you're a professional developer it'll be worth your time, if not you'll at least have some fun! ~~~ nearestneighbor > The growth of Clojure has been exponential both among users and clients. A > few years ago nobody could have imagined that a Lisp would have such rapid > uptake, but ... Reality check. Both are in the noise: [http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala%2C+clojure%2C+python...](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala%2C+clojure%2C+python%2C+java&l=) Edit: oooh, downmods ~~~ swannodette I think a more relevant leading indicator of Clojure popularity for the Hacker News crowd is GitHub. Clojure is bumping heads with Lua and Erlang at the moment and that is pretty cool. ~~~ nearestneighbor Hacker News and Reddit are gamed by advocates and bloggers. I recall "dons" (Haskell promoter) commenting on Reddit that it's awesome that 30% of Haskell's repositories can compile. The amount of FOSS code in some collection means nothing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Parasite theory stirs a revolution - dood http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/12/31/his_parasite_theory_stirs_a_revolution/ ====== dood See also: How to cure your asthma or hayfever using hookworm - a practical guide [<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971>] ------ Tichy I just envision selling "healthy dirt" in the drugstores ;-) Rub yourself into "safe dirt" in the morning and in the evening to avoid allergies...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twilio launches support for Picture Messaging (MMS) - theyCallMeSwift https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/rest/sending-messages ====== theyCallMeSwift A picture is worth 1,000 words. This is awesome!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How to look for a new job when you in a major project - DownlowOn I really want to move on from my current job (both for salary reasons and wanting to move to a different geographical locale). However, I'm in the midst of a major website redesign, which is due to be deployed this summer. So, two questions: 1. Is it ethical to leave my company in the meantime, as the main developer on this project? 2. Is there a way to look for a new job so that my current job doesn't know about this? ====== uptown There'll always be something going on to keep you where you are. Pursue what's in your own best interest. Some companies try to hang-on after you've given notice by trying to keep some level of commitment ... either part-time, or remote. I'd recommend against this as-well. Find your new place of employment, give notice, and have a clean-break at the end of your notice- period. ~~~ mooreds > Some companies try to hang-on after you've given notice by trying to keep > some level of commitment ... either part-time, or remote. I actually had the opposite experience both times I left FTE to consult. It was really great to have a first client that I didn't have to sell and who was ready to start using my services immediately. However, if you are moving from one w2 job to another, I would follow uptown's advice and refuse to work for your prior employer. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "sure, go ahead and ping me if you have the occasional question" because that is showing that you care for the employees still remaining, but don't take money for that. Not taking money means you can easily set boundaries and focus on your new work environment (where the first 90 days can make or break your experience). ------ minsight I've seen many "main developers" terminated due to layoffs, restructuring, etc. Don't let the your importance to a project prevent you from restructuring your own life. ------ JSeymourATL > 1\. Is it ethical to leave my company in the meantime... Assuming you don't have a specific contractual obligation to deliver a project, yes. A good professional practice is to give proper notice (up to 1 month). And a detailed, written transition plan handing-off your work off to colleagues. Plus, an offer to consult/assist after your departure. > 2\. Is there a way to look for a new job so that my current job doesn't know > about this? Handle any interview phone calls/emails off-premises, only on your personal device, and best done outside of normal business hours. Your lunch hour is fine. Plan PTO in advance for in-person interviews/meetings. Try scheduling on Thursdays/Fridays and call it an extended weekend getaway mini-break. ~~~ nfriedly This is sound advice. Also, I would recommend that you take your time and be picky about your next job. It may well take you into the summer and completion of your current project. When I left my last job, I knew I was ready for probably a year beforehand. On the job, I wrapped up big projects, ensured my colleagues could work on everything that I had built, and mostly stuck to smaller projects and bugfix/maintenance sort of work. (It helped that I had a lot of antonomy in choosing my work.) On the side, I spent time rebuilding my personal website/portfolio and creating/contributing to a few open source projects in areas I wanted to pursue. I applied to a few specific companies, but my next job actually came from an in-house recruiter who was impressed with my portfolio. I've been very happy so far. ------ cballard Assuming that you're in the US, you're probably an at-will employee. This means that the company can fire you at any time, without any notice. Remember this, and treat the company the same way. If the company actually _needs_ you, they can easily create a contract requiring you to stay and complete the project - for which you'd get something in return. They chose not to, so it's their problem, they should have planned for this. You can often do phone interviews by pretending to have a doctor's appointment in the morning and doing them from home. If you can't get all the way to a job offer remotely, you'll probably end up taking days off for on-site interviews, since you'd need to travel to the other geographic locale. ------ petervandijck 1\. Yes. 2\. Yes. Keep it quiet and on personal time/email.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free - mjfern http://searchengineland.com/wsj-pulls-back-on-what-google-searchers-can-read-for-free-112922 ====== warmfuzzykitten This has been going on for quite some time at the WSJ. The only truly newsworthy part of this story is that, after being frustrated by a partial page teaser, the author actually coughed up $260 for a year of WSJ when he knew he could wait for an offer of $100 less. Rupert Murdoch must be rubbing his hands.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Will Paul Graham run for President of the USA? - FrojoS Not for the upcoming election, but how about in ten years? I'm actually somewhat serious with this speculation. He seems to fit all the requirements and more. Good speaker and writer, charismatic, financially very successful and he even went to the same school as the current president.<p>This might be a short spring, but right now it seems like he is helping to innovate a new age economy and together with his Essays and the HN Community he is an idol for a whole new generation of aspiring people. Some of those people might someday be very rich and influential.<p>The success of YC seems exponential right now. So when will someone suggest this to PG and how will he decide? ====== pg I was born in England. ~~~ rewind I won't believe you unless you post your birth certificate. Long-form please. ------ beatpanda Seriously though. I think we'd all be much better off if most or all of the lawyers in government were replaced with engineers, and the language and mechanisms of laws changed to reflect that. Then, if something didn't achieve its expected outcome (take your pick of well-meaning programs across the political spectrum that didn't return on their promises), it would be seen as a bug requiring a fix as opposed to a matter of ideology to be spun into a success by countless PR firms. It would also be nice to have a group of people who collectively have no respect for large incumbent corporations at the helm of this country. I firmly believe that any manifestation of the state necessitates somebody getting f __ __d, but in this scenario it would be an entirely different set of people and in new and interesting ways. I'm all for it. ~~~ FrojoS Though, I don't want no technocrats in my government. Just look at China. I'd prefer entrepreneurs, technical or not, but its hard to convince the successful ones to become professional politicians. edit: Maybe, an effective CEO could run a country as a part time job? :-D ------ endergen Hahahahahahahaha. I don't know why but the idea tickles me. Can you imagine an actual tech entrepreneur in charge. Flying cars and logic. Probably best to have more effect by doing great work instead of managing a country. ~~~ FrojoS Just don't go for a physicist. Big mistake in my opinion [1]. [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel> ------ zoomzoom Much more likely that in 10 years Eric Schmidt runs than pg....	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Do you need a pitchdeck to raise a seed round? - tablet Why can't you just talk with VC and have a conversation without slides? ====== PragmaticPulp Yes, you need to prepare a slide deck. 1\. VCs and their partners might review the deck before deciding to meet with you. They will refer to the deck internally after your meeting. You need some concise material to share beyond your verbal conversations. 2\. A deck shows you are prepared and good at communication, both of which are important founder skills. 3\. You’re asking them for money. A lot of money. Come prepared and make it easy for them. Slide decks are easy to put together. Don’t try to cut corners here.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is a Ph. D necessary for machine learning jobs? - stannisdamannis I'm an undergrad majoring in CS, and I wanted to know if a Ph. D is necessary for machine learning/data mining jobs. I'm not sure if I want to go to graduate school; both personally, and since I transferred colleges midway (going to be a rising junior at a new school), so finding a new advisor to work with and all that jazz may not be enough to get into a top grad program for ML(given the time constraints). ====== mathattack I can't possibly fathom this to be true. Machine learning is one of the few fields where having the Phd is useful, but it's definitely not mandatory. (Same for data mining) Get an entry level job, learn the technology and the theory behind it. Make yourself invaluable. Nobody will worry about the degree. A masters can be useful, but it can also wait until you have some experience. (And someone else can pay for it) One thing about data mining is it's helpful to know the context. If you're doing data mining for consumer products, it can help to learn some Marketing. If you're doing data mining in Finance, it can help to learn some Finance. This gets to a bigger point of the field - it's very much about breadth. Unfortunately Phds push you towards specialization rather than breadth. (Though it still can be useful) ------ m_ke I'd also like to get some feed back on this as I'm currently finishing up a double major in applied math and CS (with a focus on AI). Would taking ML, advanced ML, Data Mining, Computer Vision, NLP, SLP, Biometrics, Computational Learning Theory, Robotics, Linear Programming, Real Analysis, Convex Optimization, Analysis of Algorithms I + II and Differential Equations be enough to get me in the door? ------ iandanforth At my last job we were working on novel machine learning techniques and were hiring either recent CS grads or quite experienced programmers. The only PhD was our VP of engineering. I would say the organization was atypical though and even an in-progress PhD provides a significant boost to your chances of getting hired.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lattice Drops EULA Clause Forbidding FPGA Bitstream Reverse Engineering - homarp https://hackaday.com/2020/06/06/lattice-drops-eula-clause-forbidding-fpga-bitstream-reverse-engineering/ ====== magicalhippo Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23419430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23419430) Glad to see it reversed. Not that I have skin in the game, but I did just get an iCE40 dev board to fool around with.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Russia’s DST invests where other angels fear to tread - JacobAldridge http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2a42578-2ef1-11e0-88ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1CuCPSonG ====== JacobAldridge Interestingly, and perhaps mistakenly, this story in the print edition of the _Financial Times_ (where I found it) had the headline: "Y Combinator invests where other angels fear to tread". Not seeing YC explained by way of pg's personal credibility was also a good sign, I thought, of the incubators rapidly-realised credibility.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Study suggests psychedelics promote eco-friendly behaviors in people - anythingnonidin http://www.psypost.org/2017/09/study-suggests-psychedelics-promote-eco-friendly-behaviors-altering-relationship-nature-49592 ====== anythingnonidin The use of psychedelics predicts more environmentally-friendly behavior in people.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
DotScale, the tech conference to supersize your apps in Paris, June 7 - sylvinus http://dotscale.eu/?hn ====== terhechte Sounds like an interesting conference. Sadly, I'm still hoping to manage to get a WWDC ticket and it may just be during the same timeframe. ~~~ sylvinus I think the rumors say June 10-14 for WWDC so you should be fine :) ~~~ terhechte Conference Marathon :) ------ kmfrk That's quite the line-up, and for what looks like a very sensible ticket price. I'd definitely want to go there, if I had the chance and means. ~~~ sylvinus Thanks a lot ! ;-) What is preventing you to come? Distance? ~~~ kmfrk I live in Europe, but airfare and hotel would bump the cost of admission up too much. I currently don't work at a tech company, so the salary there - or employer- paid expense - would definitely improve my chances. :) ~~~ sylvinus Can't do much about the travel but I can definitely give you a discounted ticket and I'm sure you could find someone in the local community to couchsurf! ~~~ kmfrk That's really kind, but I'll try to catch you guys next time instead. ;) ------ madflo Amazing lineup, I can't wait to see Salomon of dotCloud on stage.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Defensive programming framework for .NET Framework - aljazsim https://github.com/aljazsim/defensive-programming-framework-for-net/ ====== joshschreuder I think PostSharp can do something similar to this also. [http://www.postsharp.net/blog/post/Validating-parameters- fie...](http://www.postsharp.net/blog/post/Validating-parameters-field-and- properties-in-PostSharp-3) ------ rkagerer Nice! Not sure I like littering so many methods onto extensions instead of encapsulating in a Validate namespace, but I understand the convenience. BTW small typo in the comments of your second set of example code: "thorws" ~~~ aljazsim I will correct it, thank you. Good catch! ------ GiorgioG Am I the only one that dislikes ArgumentExceptions - especially if I'm consuming a library (without source.) IMO - exceptions should be for exceptional situations, not invalid input handling. ~~~ nostalgeek > Am I the only one that dislikes ArgumentExceptions - especially if I'm > consuming a library (without source.) IMO - exceptions should be for > exceptional situations, not invalid input handling. Diving by 0 should yield exception for instance. Why not null? or odd when even numbers are expected? ... I think the problem with all this is that you really want a type system that can do most of the validation job not at runtime, but at compile time. Often OO languages force developers into some weird patterns (ex: value object) in order to mimic functional or algebraic types, at run time. Contract programming with static predicates can help as well, I don't know if C# supports this. ~~~ usea C# does have a feature called Code Contracts [0][1]. I haven't used them, and in my experience they aren't super popular. They look like mostly convenience for specifying when to throw, rather than as an alternative to throwing. There is some static capability, but I'm not sure what the extent of it is. [0]: [https://github.com/Microsoft/CodeContracts](https://github.com/Microsoft/CodeContracts) [1]: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/debug- trac...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/debug-trace- profile/code-contracts) ------ kyleperik What makes this better than using regular asserts? Are asserts normally just associated with automated testing in .NET? ~~~ keithnz It essentially is asserts just more "fluent". Not sure if I like it or not. ------ shapiro92 why framework? you limit the usage. ~~~ V-2 It's a nice bucket of handy utility methods, but that doesn't constitute a framework as I understand the term	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bill Gates's new website: The Gates Notes - theycallmemorty http://www.thegatesnotes.com/ ====== dnewcome I think that Bill can do a world of good by sharing his thoughts via a blog like this. Assuming he is candid and fosters real communication, that is. Sections like 'What I'm thinking about/what I'm learning' is exactly the right attitude. ~~~ Alex3917 The problem is that Bill Gates only reads books that reinforce his existing beliefs. That's why he's so pro-KIPP, because he doesn't have any interest in authors like John Taylor Gatto. (Or at least this is what I heard from someone who had lunch with him recently.) ~~~ zach That's hardly unique to Bill Gates. People rarely re-examine what they presume to be correct, and when people call that a "problem" I tend to think that it just means "he's wrong and pig-headed." Which he may likely be, but let's at least speak plainly. ~~~ gcheong I also take it as an indication that the person saying "he's wrong and pig- headed" is also so entrenched in their viewpoint that they are not likely to examine evidence to the contrary either. ~~~ Alex3917 Well in my case I've read a couple books about KIPP looking for evidence that I was wrong, but I didn't find any. The problem is that while KIPP is probably the fastest way to improve kids performance on Things That Can Be Measured, there's a lot of research showing how this approach is really bad for kids. And the pro-KIPP literature doesn't take any of this into account. My problem with Gates specifically is that not only does he not know what these problems are, but even when told about them he has no interest in learning about them despite the fact that they are extremely serious. ~~~ gcheong "The problem is that while KIPP is probably the fastest way to improve kids performance on Things That Can Be Measured, there's a lot of research showing how this approach is really bad for kids." I don't understand this point here. If you cannot measure something, how can you determine what is an improvement and what is not? ~~~ ytinas I think what he means is: you can't measure a specific metric but you can see from the end result that some other technique ended up with a better overall result. ------ javery Why am I not surprised that it is using both WebForms and Silverlight... I see that big chunk of viewstate there Bill. ~~~ kevingadd I honestly wouldn't have guessed. The layout is understated, the page loads quickly, and it's easy to navigate and read. I wonder if the site is based on some existing content management system, or if it's something custom. It would be kind of a cool surprise if it turned out that Bill authored the site himself for fun (but that seems unlikely). ~~~ netcan Why does it seem unlikely? It could be that he is using these technologies purely out of personal interest. ~~~ cschep I think it seems unlikely because we all think of BillG as a business man and not a hacker. Maybe I should only speak for myself, but the thought of him tinkering away into the early morning on his new site is such a wonderful juxtaposition of my image of him. ~~~ profgubler But remember, Bill Gates started out as a hacker. He spent his whole high school days learning on a computer his Mom's Club purchased for their kids. He says he was probably one of 50 kids in the country that had that much access to a computer in his High School days. ~~~ cschep Yeah totally, I certainly meant no disrespect. The man can hack. It'd be nothing but exciting to hear about him doing more of it. ------ dskhatri Just confirming.. built with Microsoft technology :) <http://builtwith.com/?http%3A//www.thegatesnotes.com/> ~~~ terrellm The .ASPX extension in the URLs led me to make the same assumption ------ vinhboy // Workaround for a bug in ASP.NET Ajax Beta, you don't need this in the final version and this is also kind of funny: <!--[if lt IE 7]> ... ------ pierrefar This is doing the rounds on the net too: <http://www.thegatesnotes.com/robots.txt> It doesn't mention Bing. Amusing, and useless. ~~~ walkon Why is it useless (I've never worked with robots.txt)? Are the /css and /js files not large enough to bother skipping? ~~~ pierrefar Useless in the sense it doesn't really need to mention Bing. Blocking /css and /js makes sense because they don't add value in being crawled. Not necessary, but doesn't hurt. Best practice: Always have a robots.txt file, even if it's empty. ~~~ beza1e1 What is the reason for your Best Practice advice? ------ unexpected Really pretty, really well-done website. (Even if it's going to get grief because it uses Silverlight). ~~~ moe I humbly disagree. The fonts are microscopic here and when I increase the size to something half- readable then stuff gets pushed out the right side. (on the section-overview pages that is) I also found this sidebar on the right of the articles very distracting. Don't throw unrelated content at me while I'm reading. ~~~ delackner This is one of the few sites I've browsed on a Windows machine that made me instinctively think "oh the fonts look like crap because someone designed it on Windows and didn't think about Mac usability", since I'm usually on a Mac. That the fonts look nearly unreadable at any size on a windows machine is hilarious. ------ fronx Some notes on the design: IMO { The navigation feels a little fragile, maybe because of the small font size and delicate lines. But it's also quite original, especially the "view by topic" branch. The right column (only visible on some pages) could easily be mistaken for advertising, possibly because of the tiny sans-serif type. Overall the style and copy gives a personal, likable impression. } ~~~ thinkbohemian No favicon ------ mcav Do you think he's actually writing/doing all this himself? (vs. having an intern or something like that be his social media face) ~~~ tibbon I'm sure he's got some other people doing stuff on the site (code, server, etc), but I'm likely to believe that this is indeed him writing the content. Maybe he's got someone proofing it, but Bill like most of us probably find something nice about writing out your thoughts and interacting with people through a blog. ------ pbhjpbhj Doesn't validate for HTML or CSS and has to include IE specific fixes for proper display of PNG. Wish he'd had to code it to spec for himself. ------ sjs382 No RSS feed? :/ ------ dskhatri In the introduction note, Bill says: "I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through email" Besides email (which isn't that great if you don't have GMail style threads), I wonder whether he and other prominent personalities use a closed discussion forum to engage in discourse about interesting topics like HN does. I can understand why he would be hesitant to comment on a public forum like HN. That said, it's great to see people like PG, DHH (and others) mix with the no- names (or future-names) on HN. ------ rudin First twitter and now a website? Looking over the content on the site I was depressed by all the philanthropy and environmentalism. Not that these aren't good things but I think Bill has been so successful at building software and corporations that his time would be better used teaching people these things. Imagine the articles and insight we could get if he would convert into someone like Paul Graham. ~~~ whatusername actually, I completely disagree. What Bill was truly good at, was hiring smart people and getting them to all work towards something big. Putting a computer on every desk was a big goal. Eradicating Malaria and the other things the foundation is working on are big goals. And to be honest - I'm impressed by the way he is going about it. This site isn't about him resting on his laurels - looking back at the success he had. This is the posts/information on what he is working on now. So it wont have the deep insight that he would have about software/corporations. But the fact he is applying that insight to Philanthropy and to the world of NGO's is fantastic and I applaud him for it. ~~~ onoj Totally agree - and also at the very least I rest comfortable knowing that such a large amount of wealth (Most of Buffets' empire also) is bookmarked to at least try and do good. Not somewhere else (ie: funding weapons) ------ pmorici I find this line from the greeting letter a bit odd, "It often feels like I'm back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I'm passionate about." Didn't he drop out of college to start MS presumably because he felt like the things he was learning in school were a waste of his time? ~~~ metra What about elementary, middle and high school? ------ intellectronica It's amazing how the design of the website almost cries "don't read me". ------ thenduks Several typos on the front page... I guess it's just another blog but, I don't know, I would expect Bill Gates to put his stuff through some proper proof- reading. ------ clofresh I can has rss feed? ------ Raphael Such a childish signature. ~~~ JacobAldridge Yup, he'll never make it in the real world if he doesn't master this fourth grade handwriting course. ------ blintson <tin-foil-hat> He could be doing all this because he wants to run for office. The site frequently refers to Gates in the third person, it's kinda structured like a lot of political candidates sites. </tin-foil-hat> ~~~ zyb09 Microsoft for President! ------ rmason I think Gates should turn comments on. People should be registered, perhaps using Facebook/LinkedIn credentials. I do agree he needs to be exposed to opinions outside his comfort zone. ------ ra Lulz: <!--[if lt IE 7]> <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/unitpngfix.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/ie6.css" /> <![endif]-->	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Interview with Chris Wanstrath - obilgic http://fortune.com/2015/09/29/github-ceo-40-under-40/ ====== obilgic Curious about why the title "GitHub CEO: What I learned from our harassment scandal" has been changed to "Interview with Chris Wanstrath: ? ~~~ dang That's a misleading and linkbait title, which the HN guidelines ask to avoid. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) ~~~ obilgic Thats the title chosen by the article's author though. How do you conclude that it's misleading and linkbait? ~~~ kajecounterhack It'd be linkbait / misleading because the interview is not about the one quote, that quote was selected to attract attention. Thus it seems more helpful to call this an interview without the editorialized quote.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Do GPU-optimized databases threaten Oracle, Splunk and Hadoop? - tmostak http://diginomica.com/2016/04/11/do-gpu-optimized-databases-threaten-the-hegemony-of-oracle-splunk-and-hadoop/ ====== gesman Leaving sarcastic comments aside, I think the valid point is made - the rise of commodity, garbage-quality hardware overmanufactured in China and subsequent rise of "commodity-proud" software empowered by penny-wise / dollar-stupid business processes are overdue for correction. Instead of putting 20 rusty bicycles together and claim to be a revolutionary fuel- and cost efficient rocket ship, why don't we build a rocket ship from the beginning that actually flies quite well? Hardware and chips optimized for DB engines, queries and huge amount of streaming data will be welcomed. ~~~ txdv GPUs are already getting slower, CPUs have been stagnant for a while (no 2x every few years), except if they just double the core count. I think in time specialized domain hardware will make financially sense because it will be the only way to grow. ~~~ onion2k _GPUs are already getting slower_ Do you mean the rate of change is slowing down, or that they're _actually_ getting slower? ~~~ tmostak Based on Nvidia's Pascal launch I think you could argue that not only are GPUs getting faster but that the range of change just dramatically accelerated (due to a process node shrink and introduction of super-fast HBM2 memory). ~~~ vetinari Pascal already launched? I'm not getting excited until Nvidia really ships something that keeps up with their promises. For the past few years, their products were underwhelming compared to marketing materials before launch. ~~~ jandrese Only in expensive compute boards. No GPUs yet. ------ tomlock Interestingly, it seems like GPU acceleration will be available in postgresql in one of the next few releases [0]. From that page it seems once enabled, there aren't any special requirements to get a GPU accelerating a query. As a result, I'd be surprised as a result if "GPU optimized" databases overtake regular-db-with-gpu-acceleration-addins. [0] [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PGStrom](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PGStrom) ~~~ tmostak Not all GPU databases are created equal. Notwithstanding the amazing functionality of Postgres and the impressive work of the PGStrom team, afaik they are still limited to a single GPU and do not cache data on board the GPU. It certainly makes Postgres much faster but is still likely one to two orders of magnitude slower than something like MapD that runs on up to 16 GPUs per server and caches hot data in GPU RAM. Disclosure: I am the CEO of MapD. ~~~ fsaintjacques I'm interested in knowing what subset of SQL MapD supports. How does it handle expressions on strings and complex data types (tstamp zoned, dates?), etc. ~~~ tmostak It can do most of the basic expressions on strings (i.e. like/ilike) and can do the standard time operations (date_trunc, extract), with the goal of being fully SQL-92 compliant this year. You have to remember that many of our customers use us with our visual analytics frontend - they don't care about what happens behind the scenes, just that they can interactively explore billions of records with near-zero lag. I'm a huge fan of PostgreSQL and certainly if you need an ACID transactional database with the latest SQL support and extensions you can't go wrong. But if you need the fastest analytics performance there might be more-suitable platforms. Different tools for different jobs. ~~~ swasheck > I'm a huge fan of PostgreSQL and certainly if you need an ACID transactional > database with the latest SQL support This answered my question. So now for the follow-up. Are they limited to one core because their goal is to be ACID? As much as people like to blame performance on the tenets of ACID, it's still pretty important for a great deal of things. ~~~ anarazel Queries are not limited to a single core anymore in the upcoming 9.6 release. There's a lot more that can be parallelized than what's in 9.6 though (sorting most importantly probably). ------ CyanLite2 It doesn't threaten anybody because Oracle/Microsoft/Splunk/SAP/Hadoop/Spark/etc can just add in GPU-optimized code themselves. ------ Waleedasif322 Funny how it mentions USPS using GPUdb to "process complex queries and display 2D visualizations in the time it takes to load a Web page", yet every time I visit the post office, It takes at least 8 seconds after scanning a prepaid package for the package details to appear on the screen. They need to port that tech over to where it matters ~~~ kingnothing If they can do all that, how about adding it to their tracking number system so I can see where my package is and an estimate of what time it will arrive? ------ jkot GPU databases are around for a while, but not much has changed. I think bigger thread is cheap memory and raise of in-memory computing. Today you can have a workstation with half TB RAM for fairly reasonable price. Hadoop is already being crushed by Spark. ~~~ sgt101 Hadoop is not map reduce, repeat Hadoop is not map reduce. Also Spark is not a solution, it is an engine. We run Spark on HDFS using all the paraphernalia of Hadoop to maintain some sort of sanity around it, how do you manage access? Encryption? Scheduling? ~~~ jkot I think we can agree that many users are migrating away from batch processing. ------ pdeva1 the point overlooked in this article is how much costlier vram is compared to ram. to store same amount of data in vram as ram would cost you an order of magnitude more. not to mention dbs like mapd are not distributed, so you are limited to the amount of gpus you can cram in a single box ------ jerven I don't think they really threaten Oracle, even for analytics where this makes sense. The performance increase over in memory on sparc m7 per price point won't be that insane. So just like in memory db the main question is how long before Oracle accelerates it's own DB with this kind of tech. I think they have only 3 years before Oracle will be there. ~~~ sgt101 The challenge for Oracle is not how to do it, but how to make it pay. The price point for a TB class homebrew gpu solution is ~$30k. Oracle implementations used to be in the $500k range. This is why Oracle must move to the cloud and take customers with it. Oracles problem, customers who are keen on the cloud may well go to GCE, MS or AWS. Customers who are not so keen seek to save the money with open source and commodity implementations. If you are sitting on a huge installed base the very last thing you want to see is disruptive technology shaking out your customer base. Oracle has seen three waves in five years - Hadoop, Cloud and now GPU/SCM. It's a tribute to the software and strategy of Oracle that they aren't bleeding rivers of red ink. ------ frozenport If the 2000s didn't kill Oracle what will? In the case of Hadoop, it might be possible to transparently translate the scripts to a GPU backend. ~~~ lmeyerov Yep, multiple Spark->GPU projects already happening. ------ rkrzr AFAIK GPUs only excel at data-parallel tasks (i.e. doing the exact same operation to thousands of data points in parallel, like in a matrix multiplication e.g.). So I wonder how they utilize this for ad hoc SQL queries? Anybody have any pointers to some papers maybe? ~~~ matt4077 SQL is somewhat parallel. All row-level computations are independent and a WHERE maps nicely to a reduce(). I'm not sure if these aren't limited by I/O, though. Here's a recent article by NVIDIA on using GPUs for graph computation which is somewhat related: [https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/gpus-graph- predic...](https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/gpus-graph-predictive- analytics/) ~~~ jandrese I think it will be highly dependent on how you structure your queries. Some will be absolutely I/O limited while others will be barely faster than on the CPU. Piping the data out to the GPU is definitely going to be an issue too unless your database is small enough to fit in GPU memory (in which case the whole approach is probably overkill anyway). ------ capkutay Oracle already sells A LOT of Exadata; premium priced machines to run databases on overdrive. I think they would be fine competing against a GPU- optimized database. ~~~ sitkack Open source gpu databases are just presales support. ------ lmeyerov Maybe a good time to point out we've been specializing more on the visual analytics side (mentioned companies are more like DBs or traditional Tableau) by connecting GPUs in the browser to GPUs in the datacenter: graphistry.com . And, we're hiring ;-) ------ Gratsby LOL. Someone sold USPS a solution to the traveling salesman problem. ~~~ SixSigma It is a very lucrative sector [http://www.paragontruckrouting.com/](http://www.paragontruckrouting.com/) ~~~ Gratsby It's funny to think of all the money and effort spent compared against the savings (in money, energy, and time) you can put in place by simply telling delivery drivers to not make left turns and putting a reasonably intelligent dispatcher in place. ~~~ SixSigma Paragon does multiple drivers / vehicle / load splitting etc. ------ edward "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." [http://enwp.org/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://enwp.org/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines) ------ TheRealPomax Because we've all had enough of buzzfeed: the article doesn't even come close to bothering to actually answer the question. Decide for yourself whether that makes it link bait or not.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
FCC Says BitTorrent Throttling Illegal, EFF Releases Tool for You To Test Your ISP For It - terpua http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/fcc_says_bittorrent_throttling_illegal.php ====== jrockway Wow, the government is actually helping people instead of corporations for once? I'm confused, there must be some ulterior motive... ~~~ qqq The Government does not just help corporations. It also, frequently, hurts them. Overall, the majority of corporations would be better off if the Government mostly left them alone and stuck to the basics of maintaining law and order. The Government also both helps, and hurts, everyday people, all the time. And again people would, overall, be better off if the Government did less. But that is no reason to be skeptical of the good will of the Government when it does something genuinely helpful. Even in most of the cases where Government is harmful, it _means well_. ~~~ mattmaroon I don't believe that. Most cases in which the government is harmful are caused by individuals putting their own interests above that of their constituencies. "The Government" is not an organism and it's a very common mistake to think of it (or a corporation) as one. It's a group of individuals many of whom have to be reelected to maintain their status. Farm subsidies exist, even though every economist says they should not, because congressmen like the bucks passed to them by the agricultural lobbies, because those bucks help them get reelected. Etc. For a real interesting read, pick up Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. It explains how the interplay between government officials who meant well and ones clinging to power through corporate dollars degraded our country's diet to the point where it's significantly less healthy than that of indigenous tribes who eat nothing but red meat. It's neat how a government mandate to eat less meat instead became one to eat more carbs. ~~~ qqq I agree with most of what you say. But consider again those cases where an individual legislator "puts his own interest first". In those cases, our _system of government_ put officials in a situation where they have a conflict of interest. That is a flaw in our system of Government and should not be blamed on the malice of any individual. Whatever you do in a _conflict of interest_ there was no single, clear path to follow, so no one can blame you too much, and if you choose the wrong path it's an understandable mistake. If you don't want people to use power, don't give them power. It's not, individually, their fault. I do not wish to defend out and out corruption, but that's relatively uncommon compared to simple conflicts of interest. Most people are selfish, _and there's nothing wrong with that_ , and what's going wrong is asking them to make terrible choices between themselves and others. ~~~ mattmaroon Totally. Our lawmakers are given an incentive system that often puts their interests in direct opposition to ours. People over time will trend toward their own interests. It's not so much that we cannot give them power (or want not to) as that we must do so while aligning their interests with ours. One example (and I'm not sure I support this) would be to force all campaigns to be government funded. Find every possible reason why lobbyists give money and stop it. ~~~ qqq The more of a free market, and small government, we have, the less there is for lobbyists to buy, and the less decisions for politicians to make. Moving in that direction will at least lessen the problem. :) That's kind of what I mean about power. For example, if there are people in charge of the economy -- with power over it -- that's a problem and people will want to pay them to use the power to their benefit. But there needn't be anyone with power of that sort. ------ Xichekolas The argument that torrent users degrade the network for other users is tenuous at best, and I wish someone would start calling people out on it. If the ISP says I have a 6m/768k broadband line, then I should be able to saturate that limit to my heart's content, with whatever I want to download/upload. If it degrades the local network somehow, that is the ISP's fault, not mine, and my neighbors are free to be angry at the ISP for an unreliable connection. What is the point of having a connection that you can't use to its potential? If torrent users really are degrading the network, then lower the speed caps for the given price tier, as you have obviously oversold capacity. Or, better yet, upgrade the network. Laying a guilt trip on people for 'using too much of something they paid for' is just retarded. ~~~ wmf The argument that torrent users should be able to use all the bandwidth they've paid for is totally disconnected from ISP economics, and I wish someone would start calling people out on it. Wait, that's what I'm doing right now. ISPs are built on statistical multiplexing. They pay something like $40/Mbps/month and resell that bandwidth for around one tenth that price. If ISPs had enough capacity to satisfy all their customers simultaneously, they have to increase prices or decrease speeds enormously. If 6M service suddenly cost $200/month, then any kind of multimedia on the Net dies immediately. Statistical multiplexing benefits almost all Internet users (whose traffic is bursty), so it's not going away. ~~~ Xichekolas Oh I realize how it works. It's the same reason my university parking department could oversell parking spaces. Not everyone is going to be on campus at once. Thankfully not every user is using BitTorrent. But some are. If the statistical model assumes that no one will ever use all they are alloted, then the model is broken and needs to be re-calibrated. If this results in a price increase, at least that is transparent, rather than traffic shaping and individual throttling, which denies people something they paid for, and basically amounts to false advertising: > _"Speeds up to 150x faster than dialup![1]"_ [1] But you can't actually take advantage of that rate, because it'd be rude to your neighbors. ------ tocomment Is there anywhere to post the results from using the tool? Has anyone tried it? ------ mattmaroon I'm assuming that they still have the right to throttle indiscriminately right? ------ newt0311 Is BT throtteling bad? Maybe. Do I want the FCC to regulate it? Definitely not. If the US govt. wants to crack down on ISPs this way, I would prefer that they at least do it through congress. Giving government more power is in general a bad idea. When this power is given to unelected bodies like the FCC (in a system based on "rule by the people") its a recipe for disaster. We already know that government bureaucrats are not the smartest of the bunch when it comes to IT. Do you really want to give them even more power to regulate it in the hopes that they don't do something stupid? I would rather leave it to corporations which have at least some incentive to act rationally. ~~~ mattmaroon I have to disagree about regulation. Most people have 1, maybe 2 choices of broadband providers. Where natural monopolies are involved, the free market has no chance to set things right, and government regulation is a necessity. If we all had 3 or more cable companies to choose from, I'd agree. ~~~ BrandonM But the regulation is a double-edged sword. The simple act of regulating makes it harder for new competitors to enter the game. Let's say someone wants to compete with WOW and Time Warner (the two cable broadband providers in my area), so they get a reasonably-fast connection (but much lower than their competitors, since they have few customers) and get as many new customers as possible. They advertise that they are just as fast as the competition most of the time (not during peak hours), but the price is $10 cheaper per month. This new company starts doing well, and then the BT users start to increase in proportion as the tech-savvy individuals migrate to this newer service. Speeds go down as a result, and it turns out that something like 50-60% of the traffic is long-running BitTorrent transfers. Customers start complaining of slow speeds and other occasional issues. This new competitor has a few options: 1. Upgrade the infrastructure 2. Repackage the service 3. Throttle BT traffic Option 1 is a no-go because the company has just started to turn a positive revenue, and by the time money is found and spent on upgrades (which will also take a significant amount of time), a large part of the customer base will have left, and the company's reputation will be poor as well. Option 2 also has the danger of losing customers. In order to have the intended effect, existing customers will have to make the choice of paying more for the same speed (Why'd I switch, anyways?) or paying the same/less for a lower "guaranteed" speed. Again, this choice is a net lose, although if the company is lucky and can do 1 and 2 at the same time, they might stay in business, at the cost of killing their momentum/reputation. Option 3 is clearly the simplest solution with the least backlash, except that because of FCC regulations, it's illegal. Instead of being allowed to (hopefully) temporarily throttle BitTorrent bandwidth as the company increases its customer base and its infrastructure, it is quite possibly forced out of business. Bandwidth throttling is arguably fair anyways. Consider your OS: if there is a long-running process which will saturate bandwidth, any good OS will put it at a low priority, so that bursty activity (browsing, small downloads, SSH sessions) have a reasonable response time. So we are perfectly happy to throttle our own bandwidth when it benefits us, but it is not okay for the ISP to do the same exact thing, only on a larger scale? This is not what Net Neutrality is about. Net Neutrality is about preventing content providers from creating deals with ISPs that lock out smaller content providers. It is not about protecting users' "rights" to saturate the network at full speed and kill everyone's bandwidth, especially when the reality is that a substantial amount of that traffic is illegal. ~~~ mattmaroon I'm missing how the BT thing matters. An upstart could throttle indiscriminately. They just can't discriminate between different types of traffic. They could easily just put a 10-20gb/mo download cap on their service as Comcast and the others probably will.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Kozmo is relaunching - peter_l_downs http://kozmo.com/ ====== tptacek This is an in-joke about how there might be another startup bubble, right? ~~~ windsurfer I put this up years ago: [http://abielinski.com/startup](http://abielinski.com/startup) ~~~ samstave What am I missing, that link just says: __ _" Too busy coding, follow us on twitter: @crypticstartup(coming soon)"_ __ ~~~ windsurfer That's the joke! So many companies essentially put up a page like that and submit it to HN. ------ asanwal I used to work at Kozmo launching their facilities and new markets, and I can say the brand still resonates with those that used it almost 13 years later. I have a messenger bag from the firm which I use from time-to-time and every time I do, people stop me to say how much they loved Kozmo and of course point how dumb it was that they could order a Ben & Jerry's for $3 at 2 in the morning. So ,of course, the model was fatally flawed, but for the average consumer who used Kozmo back in the day, they loved it. And so there is some brand value and a ton of PR that come with the name that someone could exploit. Let's hope the biz model is just a bit better this time :) ~~~ samstave Absolutely! I LOVED IT. Once I sat on plane next to one of the founders and told them nt only that I loved it - but how fantastic it would be to allow for me to define my location and then search for stuff nearby that I wanted Kozmo to bring: "Show me all indian restaurants within walking distance of me" Yeah - that was coming... just not from Kozmo. I will totally support this resurrection. ------ adamnemecek Seems like they were inspired by Zombo ([http://zombo.com](http://zombo.com)) when making this page. ------ tlrobinson Google Shopping Express, Ebay Now, Amazon Fresh, Instacart, Postmates are all getting in this space, but with a $5+ delivery fee. Free might not be sustainable, but if one of them can pull off an Amazon Prime pricing model I'd probably be sold. ~~~ samstave ELI5 the prime pricing model? ~~~ tlrobinson Unlimited 2 day shipping for $79 per year. ------ staunch Perhaps the improved state of marijuana laws will make them successful this time. ------ dvanduzer Get out of this thread and stay out, under 30s. ------ paulgb There is a documentary on the rise and fall of the original Kozmo called e-Dreams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Dreams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Dreams) Wonder if they'll make a sequel? :) ------ RoboTeddy Has instant delivery been made feasible by some underlying change? (e.g. cheap GPS in phones of deliverers, people being more comfortable buying stuff online, etc). Or, has it been feasible this entire time? ~~~ bastian I believe that the ubiquity of smartphones with GPS capability is an important driver. However at Postmates (I'm a Co-founder), we spent a lot of our time working on our dispatch algorithm, with the goal to constantly improve the way we match the current demand to the available supply. Our challenges are slightly different than the ones Kozmo faced. One huge difference is that our deliveries are much more distributed since we don't deliver from just one or two warehouses but from locations all over the city. This model brings some advantages but also holds some very interesting challenges at the same time. ;) On a typical day, our couriers operate in the most efficient way during our peak demand times - during breakfast, lunch and dinner that is. ------ danso Congrats, but this article from 2001 has some background: [http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=20010426&id=G...](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=20010426&id=GXArAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eHgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3496,3574410) If Kozmo had trouble then, with an employee count of 3,300 and with Amazon barely the logistical superpower it is today, what makes the plan more viable today, with Amazon and Google reportedly getting into the game? ~~~ jsolson Kozmo was originally funded, at least in part, by Amazon. My first boss when I worked at Amazon was a dev for Kozmo (as I understood it, the while staff and possibly the company had been brought into Amazon). I don't know if something similar is happening this time around. ~~~ jonnathanson Ironically enough, Amazon now owns and operates Webvan. ------ evv Ok, I'll be the one to poke fun on a technical level. XHTML, really?? One big splash image, really? Oh, and this unused javascript: > onload="timer=setTimeout('move()',2000)" Is this for real?? ~~~ bliti I was going to mention this. The page is like a trip to the past. Will they handout free AOL cds at launch? (: ------ bastian As far as i can tell, Kozmo.com is now registered by Yummy Foods LLC which operates Yummy.com, a chain of mini supermarkets in the Los Angeles area. I believe that they are either doing a PR stunt, or that they are planning to offer deliveries under this brand name instead of Yummy. Funny enough, when we launched Postmates we toyed with the idea to create a Kozmo themed teaser page but ultimately decided against it. ~~~ colinbartlett Not so subtle plug. ------ itp I fondly remember sitting in my apartment in Boston sometime around 2001 waiting for Kozmo to bring me a new memory card for the Dreamcast, a pint of Ben & Jerry's From Russia With Buzz, and an Entenmann's Coffee Cake. This perhaps does not bode well for my wallet or my waistline. ~~~ discipline Same here, but in our apartment across the river in Cambridge. Magazine, movie, and Ben&Jerry's. And it was freakin' cold out, close to zero! ------ drone Loved the concept back then, wished it would've made it (and hit more markets more effectively) - they folded up shortly after entering my market, and barely got to use them. Maybe they can make it a worthwhile venture this time around. ------ georgemcbay I'm holding out for a return of Webvan. I've moved probably 6 times since they were in operation (including cross- country) and yet I still have 4 of their old delivery boxes that I use for storage and could use some more, those things last forever. ~~~ irollboozers Webvan? Pfft. Some people are holding out for the return of Yahoo. ------ neovive Are the original founders are involved in the relaunch? That would be very interesting. ------ colinbartlett Will it still will be free delivery within an hour? I'd like to see something sustainable this time. Damn, I still wear my Kozmo.com tshirt with pride. I hope this happens. ------ allworknoplay miss the shit out of kozmo, but it's 2013: movies are on the internet and everything else is seamless, so... ------ cortesoft No, I do not remember them. ------ dsjoerg Look out cause here comes UrbanFetch!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Experiment suggests people may sense single photons - agonz253 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-may-sense-single-photons/ ====== thyrsus Perhaps for some people, but certainly not for me. I experience my vision like an old television set between channels, but with an extremely high pixel density (though perhaps a similar frame rate). When there's sufficient light, there's a strong bias to one color/brightness or another per pixel, although even then I can perceive the noise if I choose to. In the dark, it's all noise all the time - dark colored noise, but noise nonetheless - not to mention ghost patterns I hypothesize are due to minute transient pressure or chemical differentials. Far, far too much noise to distinguish a single photon. I've perceived this noise for as long as I can remember, back to early childhood. ------ agonz253 Here's the original paper: [http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160719/ncomms12172/full/nc...](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160719/ncomms12172/full/ncomms12172.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Karen Uhlenbeck, Uniter of Geometry and Analysis, Wins Abel Prize - digital55 https://www.quantamagazine.org/karen-uhlenbeck-uniter-of-geometry-and-analysis-wins-abel-prize-20190319/ ====== kaitai Uhlenbeck is delightful, and one of her big ideas discussed in this article -- bubbling -- truly has changed both her field and algebraic geometry. It's a cool idea. In a previous thread here (How I learned to love algebraic geometry, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397957)) there was some discussion of singularities. Algebraic geometers like polynomials, while symplectic geometers like Riemann surfaces. These coincide at times but Riemann surfaces include lots of non-polynomial examples. Anyhow, as an algebraic geometer, the place I learned about Uhlenbeck's work was in compactification of moduli of curves. Basically, say I want to look at all the polynomial curves that can live in a certain 'environment'. (One 'application' is string theory -- what particle interactions can occur given a certain set of energy constraints? The particle interactions are curves traced out over time by particles/Riemann surfaces traced out over time by the little loops that represent closed strings in string theory; the energy constraints constrain the shapes the particle interaction can take.) If you want to look at limits of families of these interactions, you're looking at some odd behavior. An example is the equation xy = t^2 -- this gives you nice hyperbolas for values of t not equal to zero, but as t -> 0, you get something singular, two crossed lines. Or x^2 - y^2 - z^2 = t^2: you have a nice smooth hyperboloid when t neq 0, and a double cone when t=0. However, these examples are just showing you the idea of how singularities appear in families of smooth polynomials. Uhlenbeck's older work really worked with the system of constraints that I mentioned -- figuring out what can appear under those constraints is a considerably more complicated problem! This is a very imprecise discussion above and I'm totally blurring together Uhlenbeck's bubbling and compactness theorems from gauge theory -- but I never followed her work in a systematic way but instead was plunged into seeing its aftereffects from another related field that the work affected. Last quote really resonates: “Along the way I have made great friends and worked with a number of creative and interesting people. I have been saved from boredom, dourness, and self-absorption. One cannot ask for more.” ~~~ Cobord Meanwhile as a mathematical physicist, I learned about her through instantons. Quite a wide career. ------ otoburb _" Mathematics research had another feature that appealed to her at the time: It is something you can work on in solitude, if you wish. In her early life, she said in 1997, “I regarded anything to do with people as being sort of a horrible profession.”"_ This sentence struck me as slightly odd if only because Erdõs was renowned for his social approach to mathematics[1], and my layperson's understanding of mathematics departments being somewhat collaborative within their sub-fields. I know there are some notable examples of other solo breakthrough endeavours, such as Shinichi Mochizuki[2] or Yitang Zhang[3], and but those examples seemed to be exceptions to the rule. Perhaps I'm channeling too much Terence Tao[4], or maybe the lone wolf researcher only applies to literal geniuses who work exclusively in academia. Is mathematics research still a primarily solitary activity? [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s) [2] [https://www.quantamagazine.org/titans-of-mathematics- clash-o...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/titans-of-mathematics-clash-over- epic-proof-of-abc-conjecture-20180920/) [3] [https://www.cnet.com/news/yitang-zhang-a-prime-number- proof-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/yitang-zhang-a-prime-number-proof-and-a- world-of-persistence/) [4] [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one- have-t...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a- genius-to-do-maths/) ~~~ graycat It is interesting to read what she saw in math, why she liked it. For me, I just thought it would be useful, especially for physics which I thought was even more useful! No one ever explained to me how a career in academic math research would work: I never suspected that just digging into questions that were fun and curious and maybe someday somewhat useful, making discoveries, and writing papers could be a career that could support a family. In particular, I still don't understand why the US has so much respect for research universities: My guess was that college was for teaching the students. But in a research university, nearly all the effort by the professors is their research, and the teaching is a sideline. E.g., might have a really good researcher in far out topics in analysis teaching junior level linear algebra. So, the money to the university, for people directly paying full tuition often a LOT of money, is only a little for that teaching but much more for the research. An analogy for restaurants would be that each hamburger had to come from some three star Michelin place and cost $200. E.g., when I was a B-school prof, I was really discouraged to see that what the B-school was teaching had next to nothing to do with business. Instead, the school was interested in _research_ , e.g., the question P vs NP. If medicine were taught that way, then no one would go to a hospital no matter how badly they hurt. B-school tried to be academic research, not professional training. Besides, for me as a college student, I had to conclude that after junior year level material, the profs really needed to understand what they were teaching much better than they did. For that, they just needed to do a much better job learning and presenting what was already in the library and without more research. E.g., I never had a math or physics prof who had a good grasp of the theory and applications of Stokes theorem, classic potential theory, multipole coordinates, or both the theory AND applications of Fourier theory. None of my undergrad physics profs knew either general relativity or quantum mechanics at all well. I wanted to learn that stuff, not for research but for applications. Math research solitary? It always has been for me. For learning the standard stuff, sure, can have people to talk to. But if they are in the same course and it is competitive, then maybe they don't want to talk? The reason my math research was solitary is mostly just because the new work I was doing was so focused that no one else around knew much about it or had much interest in it. For a lot of math research, being focused is close to necessary and, then, the solitary aspect gets to be close to automatic. Moreover it appears that there can be an effect from outside: Some people are more socially skilled, polished, talented, interested, motivated, etc. than others. In some fields, such social skills are important for success. But in math, if you can learn it, mostly on your own, then you can teach it -- good social skills can help but can get by with not much. This is even more the case for math research: Pick a problem, do some research, get some results, type in a paper, send it to an appropriate journal, maybe all with essentially no contact from anyone else. So, since in math can get by with less than the best social skills, people without great social skills can find math, be successful, and stay, and, then, the result is that comparatively math is not a very _social_ field. But, a lot of people can learn to be social: Gee, a lot of grade school girls (sorry to bring gender into this) have just astounding social skills: E.g., it seems clear enough that long ago Hollywood discovered that among child actors the girls were much better -- they paid attention what was going on socially, reacted to others, had lots of facial expressions on tap, were good at glancing, averting, head tossing, pose striking, cases of body language, expressiveness in their voices, etc. Well, what a grade school girl commonly knows others can pick up, too! Okay performance in the lessons is not seriously difficult. Reading some of what Uhlenbeck said about herself, she was doing well in the E. Fromm recommended social activity "Giving knowledge of oneself" and that can help a person be social because they are letting others know who they are. Or little so interests people as other people; if some other person communicates no better than a stone wall, then there's not much for others to be interested in; Fromm's _giving knowledge_ can help with that. For a nutshell description, my view of mathematicians is that they are less manipulative than most other people. Well, in some activities, can seem to get progress by manipulation, but in math, can't prove a theorem by a fake, manipulative proof! ~~~ cadeira >I never suspected that just digging into questions that were fun and curious and maybe someday somewhat useful, making discoveries, and writing papers could be a career that could support a family. I am interested in pursuing a PhD in Pure Mathematics. What are the career prospects for it? Based on what I read academic prospects don't seem too thrilling. It appears you may have to do multiple post-docs at low pay, and still not be able to be hired at a good school. What is the path to becoming a professor and making a livable salary? If that is the case what are the industry prospects? Would whatever software company want to hire you, if your pure math specialization isn't directly applicable to what they're focused on? In turn, it seems better to learn how to code. But will your pure math specialization (as in not applicable to anything anyone is doing) + coding abilities set you apart? I would rather study mathematics, pure mathematics and not be unemployable. But I don't really know what the job prospects are like. Could you speak to that, say, from a realistic perspective? ~~~ kevinventullo I did a PhD in pure math and now work for a big tech company. Having the PhD will get your foot in the door basically anywhere, so you'll at least make it to the screen, but ultimately you have to pass the same interview as anyone else. That means doing LeetCode and reading Yegge's stuff etc. If your goal is to maximize lifetime earnings, a PhD is maybe not the right choice, but if you want to spend years studying something you love while financially breaking even then go for it. I definitely don't regret it, even though I would be worth a lot more if I had gone into tech straight out of college. Btw, finance is also a common destination for pure math PhD's looking to leave academia. ~~~ cadeira Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m more interested in studying math than maximizing my income, but post-graduation opportunities is a concern, since I’m not well off. Your reply gives me the encouragement I was looking for to pursue my passion. Thank you. ~~~ gautamdivgi To add to the discussion. I did a CS PhD with a statistical bent. It's served me well. However, I would see if an MS provided you with equivalent benefits from a career standpoint. Very few companies do "research". And if you're in the US, unless you acquire funding with yourself as the PI its going to be impossible to find an academic position. ------ dquarks Enjoyed her IAS lecture on Emmy Noether's laws. She's incredibly fun to watch. Well deserved. Congratulations, Karen. ------ marai2 The closest I will every get to something like an Erdõs number is that I can now claim the one and only female Abel prize winner was my Differential Equations teacher at college! I missed taking a class with Steven Weinberg when I got to UT because he semi-retired the year before. ~~~ volkadav I felt very lucky to have had her for an experimental mathematical modeling course (M375) back around 2000. She was simply delightful as a professor, even for a mathematical lummox like myself. :) Encouraging, informative, brilliant ... we should all be so lucky as to have teachers and influences like her in our lives.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cigarette smoking: an underused tool in high-performance endurance training - jamesbritt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/ ====== billswift This was posted on LessWrong yesterday, [http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8j1/how_to_prove_anythi...](http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8j1/how_to_prove_anything_with_a_review_article/) , short, but interesting, discussion. ------ wazoox This is quite funny, unfortunately this shouldn't have been published on any other day than April 1st. In case of doubt see this quote: _With this in mind, smoking should be commenced at as young an age as is reasonably possible. Children who have not yet developed a pincer grasp might require modified cigarette holders, safety lighters or both._ ~~~ frankus The had me until that sentence. Actually increased hemoglobin levels in smokers wouldn't be surprising. The problem is that all of the increase (and then some, most likely) is bound to carbon monoxide and effectively inert. ------ tryitnow This is a good example of the problem with review articles and it's very well done. Totally straight-faced until the part about children smoking. However, I think the use of nicotine as a performance enhancer (not smoking though) is a pretty interesting subject. I've tried chewing nicotine gum and using a patch just to see if I noticed a difference (just a brief experiment I would never do it chronically). I did. Much better concentration, focus, energy etc. I'm curious to see how the "electric cigarette" phenomenon goes. That would be a way to deliver nicotine without the other risks of smoking. From what I understand nicotine is a carcinogen on its on, but I don't know how strong of one it is. It would also be fun to see if we could synthesize non-carcinogenic molecules based on the nicotine molecule with all the positive performance enhancing effects. ------ betterth The headline definite drives controversy and thus views, but wouldn't a much better headline have brought up the very real fact that this has nothing to do with smoking for performance gains and everything to do with exposing 'reviews' as unreliable. ~~~ betterth Then again, using a misleading headline to direct traffic towards a journal article that is inherently misleading on purpose has a sort of meta- awesomeness to it. It's like inception, except with obfuscation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Al Gore: ex-VP, environmentalist, gadget freak - bootload http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/22/al-gore-ex-vp-environmentalist-gadget-freak/ ====== noonespecial Forget global warming. With _3_ 30" cinema displays and all of the computer and graphic power to push them, he should be more concerned with _office_ warming! ------ tonyvt2005 I've always wondered where the 'internets' was born :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Businessing: The Kama Sutra of Success - kennymeyers http://getbusinessing.com/ ====== kennymeyers Self-submitted: For her pleasure.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ecomom mourns the passing of Jody Sherman - andrelaszlo http://www.ecomom.com/blog/ecomom-mourns-the-passing-of-chairman-and-ceo-jody-m-sherman ====== andrelaszlo "While we grieve, our focus is on the business and continuing to move forward with Jody’s vision of providing exceptional customer service and safe, easy choices for moms" That sounds ice-cold to me. But maybe that's just how business works?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Adobe announces Flash Player and AIR for Android - superduper http://theflashblog.com/?p=1758 ====== Frazzydee They better not screw this up. Adobe has had a lot of bad press lately as their exclusion from the iPad has unearthed lingering annoyances. If this makes android devices sluggish or causes crashes, it will lend credence to Apple's decision, and old complaints once again get rehashed. ~~~ dcurtis I'm more interested to see if Android users are willing to deal with the crashes and slowness for the convenience of having Flash. Mac users deal with it because they have to, but Apple decided otherwise for the iPhone. ~~~ bad_user > _Mac users deal with it because they have to_ Actually it's their choice to have it installed or not. ~~~ durin42 Really? I don't recall ever having installed flash on any of my Macs in the last couple of years. It was already there, crashyness and all. That's why click2flash exists. ------ whughes Bizarrely, Flash Player has been available for Windows Mobile for years and nobody has noticed. Windows Mobile also has a YouTube app and most of the other major apps, but they're all terribly neglected and have virtually no users. Microsoft had every advantage even before the iPhone came out and yet they managed to squander them. I predict a Zune phone/PDA which will add even more confusion to the brew of brands Microsoft has managed to concoct. Windows Live Bing Connect Mobile CE XP Pro .net System 8 2010 for Home Users, Enterprise Edition, anyone? ~~~ nailer Sure, but the Flash on WinMo was not made available as a web plugin. ~~~ whughes Yes, it was (how else do you use Flash, anyway?). It worked in IE mobile and I believe there were tricks to get it to work in other browsers (Opera). There was Flash Lite and a normal Flash plugin -- the whole thing was pretty confusing, I admit. There are also apps like Skyfire ( <http://www.skyfire.com/> ) hanging around which claim various degrees of Flash support built-in. In any case, as far as I'm aware all Flash support was and is via web browser. ~~~ nailer > How else do you use Flash, anyway? To play back standalone SWF files and WORA applications. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Lite> But you're right, I just noticed there is indeed a web plugin: <http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer_pocketpc/> \- I stand corrected. It's based on Flash 7, which I think explains why it didn't work for most users (including myself, owning a WM 2005 and WM6 device). ------ ashleyw That video was hovering around 88% CPU usage whilst playing. It's hard to get excited about a technology you know'll ultimately just burn your battery at a dire rate in comparison to a native app. ~~~ dirtbox I smell a rushed out product here so there's not a lot of hope for it having been fully optimised in the way flash has been for Windows (the video was using 8% CPU on my win7 system btw). But at least they're actually fighting back with something other than cheap digs and made up facts and figures this time. Maybe they fired the PR department and hired better programmers. ~~~ mrj Rushed out? They've been working on it for at least a year, probably much longer. And they're not really introducing anything new, just a mobile port. If anything they're taking way, way too long. It makes no sense to harp on Apply when they haven't even been able to release on a willing platform yet. ~~~ dirtbox Sure. Their entire drive recently has been to prove to Apple and the rest of the world that they're worth keeping around. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this release has been pushed forward by a few months. ------ jpcx01 Oh please... this better be _optional_. If they force this into Android's OS, I'm gonna be pissed. I'm already happily living a flash free lifestyle ~~~ olefoo Congratulations on being Adobe's worst nightmare. It's quite a trick for a technology company to become so disliked that it develops anti-customers; people who vow never to use their product and evangelize the benefits of not using it. On the other hand this phenomena usually comes with near complete dominance of the market (vid. Microsoft), so psychotic MBA's might regard it as validation. ~~~ illumin8 It's quite logical given the situation: Adobe essentially had a monopoly on browser-based plugins as it was included natively in Internet Explorer and bundled with every copy of Windows XP. In the years since 2001 when XP was released, they have enjoyed their monopoly status by becoming the defacto standard for streaming video on the web, purely because web developers made the pragmatic decision to go with the monopoly provider, rather than requiring users to download and install a different plugin. That they've squandered their monopoly status is very visible, as their features have been stagnant for almost a decade now. It's a shame that finally, in 2010, they are adding GPU acceleration to their plugin. They are finally caring about mobile power management by offloading video processing to dedicated sub-components. They really are playing catch up here. Apple made the right decision to keep Flash off the iPhone. Until Adobe even cares about GPU acceleration and using the h.264 decoding capabilities that are built into most modern smart phones, it is not worth having on the device. Of course everyone would love to have Flash video available on their smart phones, but until Adobe can prove that they can deliver a reasonable 30 fps and more than an hour or two of battery life, why should we put up with it? ------ grandalf This is great news for Android and for linux in general. I installed the latest flash beta for linux and it's noticeably better than the current official release. I'm guessing Google sees this as an opportunity to take market share from Apple and will make sure Flash runs flawlessly on Android. I think linux represents a huge opportunity for flash/Air and so it's nice to see these improvements taking shape. ------ jrockway This reminds me of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. ------ timdorr So, is anyone going to make ClickToFlash for Android? ~~~ nuclear_eclipse At least the browser app is open source, so we can trivially fork it, disable the flash plugin, and release the replacement browser to the Market. ~~~ technomancy Ugh... hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I know if it does that it'll be the first thing I do. ------ jdietrich I'm an Android loyalist and I really hope that this endeavour fails. Flash is a rotten platform for a litany of reasons. I can only hope that Adobe are beaten to the punch by one of the various open alternatives. ------ dpcan I'm a little lost. Is this a "coming soon" thing, or does it work in Android 2.0 now? Do people have to update their phones for it to work? ~~~ andyjenn I've tried <http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer> from my Nexus One and it still says, "Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is coming to Anroid 2.0 and future releases in the first half of 2010", so I guess it's the former... ------ ZeroGravitas Amusingly, the Flash delivered video was totally wonky for me. The lip-sync was off, the "loading" circle never disappeared and remained overlaid throughout the entire video. I couldn't skip to points in the video and it never indicated any progress, just remained on 0:00 of 0:00. Everything but the lip-sync worked when I clicked the video and watched it on the tv.adobe.com site. ------ mtholking Allowing developers to create apps once and deploy them as native apps across all major mobile platforms would be a big win for Adobe. But as a result, app stores will be overloaded when anyone with access to Flash CS5 can deploy a native application. ------ tszming I think the good news is you have choices in Android, unlike in some platforms they have no choice because their CEO hate it. ------ MikeCapone Somewhat OT: Have they released betas of 10.1 for OS X yet? Anyone here tried it? Have they finally narrowed the performance gap with windows? ~~~ ashleyw <http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html> I often run into Flash which just doesn't work correctly, though. And it uses 10-20% less CPU compared to 10.0, so the gap's been narrowed, but not nearly enough. ~~~ illumin8 Yeah, I've been using this for a few months now, since it is the first version of Flash that can play Hulu in 1080p connected to an HDTV without dropping half the frames. Now, it only drops one frame every few seconds, and crashes about every hour or two. This is with a 1GB Nvidia 9800GT graphics card - Flash plugin 10.1 is now accelerating video playback using the ATI and Nvidia chips that support this. However, they're doing a terrible job of it. Granted, this is a beta plugin, but it still uses close to 100% of the CPU on a dual core machine (2.53 ghz Core2, 4GB RAM, Win 7 64-bit) to playback 1080p video. In XBMC on the same machine I can play back 1080p BluRay rips with 5.1 Dolby Digital without dropping a single frame. Adobe has a lot of catching up to do. This situation reminds me of Internet Explorer 6 before Firefox started gaining market share. ------ colbyolson Interesting video, but why have a macbook sitting there in the interview, but never being used? A small jab at Apple? ~~~ radley He uses the laptop to demo a live Connect Pro video meeting on his Andriod device.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Go issue: memory corruption on Linux 5.3.x from async preemption - alderz https://github.com/golang/go/issues/35777 ====== alderz The Go team has found that recent Linux kernels break the recently integrated goroutine preemption logic. There is deep analysis here [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/35326#issuecomment-55821...](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/35326#issuecomment-558212984) They have bisected the kernel and found that [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/d9c9ce34ed5c892323c...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/d9c9ce34ed5c892323cbf5b4f9a4c498e036316a) is the culprit. Apparently, it introduces changes in the signal handling behavior only visible when compiled with GCC 9, presumably because it uses AVX registers. The entire discussion is a nice read.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What are the most important things to do at your 25? - untitledcalvin ====== throwaway8879 Start working on you health. Learn to play a musical instrument. Or learn a new one if you already play one. ------ craftoman Save till your 40s, then start investing.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Crystal? - sdogruyol http://serdardogruyol.com/why-crystal/ ====== r-w This looks really cool. However, I have to wonder whether performance is the main reason projects use languages other than Ruby. I’ve heard a lot about Go, for instance, being an especially stable language, especially when it comes to error handling. ~~~ sdogruyol Most of the times 'Yes' ------ fka I am a JavaScript Developer. I built Kamber on Kemal which is a static blog server ([http://github.com/f/kamber](http://github.com/f/kamber)). I'm not familiar with statically typed languages as a JS dev. Despite this, it was very easy to develop even I'm not good at statically typed languages, and it is too fast. When you compare Kamber to Jekyll it's 15x faster, doesn't require a server. And it's fully compatible to Heroku with a simple buildpack. ------ rosylilly Sounds good. I love crystal too <3	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Uber COO and CMO to Step Down - northerdome https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/07/uber-chief-operating-officer-chief-marketing-officer-stepping-down.html ====== mdorazio This is really weird to me. It seems strange for a CEO to effectively fire the COO and CMO because they want Operations and Marketing to report directly to the CEO unless the company is in serious trouble and needs a single authoritarian leader to set direction across very different departments. Does anyone else have more info on this? ~~~ jjeaff I don't get from the article that marketing will report directly to the CEO. It says "Jill" will take on all the marketing and will have 2 others under her to divy up some of her other responsibilities. ------ SilasX From the top of the article: >Now that the company is public, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says he has more time to be involved in the day-to-day operations of Uber’s core businesses. Ummmm what? Isn't it normally the opposite? ~~~ mlevental pre ipo CEOs have to fund raise	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Talk at me about some basic business things, pretty please - DoreenMichele It has been my dream for years to start my own clothing line. My vision is a mass customization knitwear line in mostly cotton or cotton-silk blend (cotton-polyester blends would be okay, too).<p>A few months ago, I requested the abandoned subreddit r/ClothingStartups and was eventually granted mod status there. It is getting traffic and membership has gone up from 965 people to 1303 in a fairly short period of time while I mostly neglect it.<p>I am dirt poor and have no funds to spare for anything. I am still in the research phases. I would like to create an app to help me design clothes, basically, and I don't program (yet!) and that app hasn't gotten developed, though I've done some research.<p>I've read business books and the like since I was a teen. I've done freelance work in recent years, so I'm not completely clueless, but this is a different animal.<p>I would like to somehow jump start this idea. So, pretty please, talk at me and answer the questions I'm too clueless to know to even ask.<p>Please and thank you. ====== rahimnathwani Start with the value proposition and price. Work backwards from there, allowing for: \- advertising / customer acquisition cost \- distribution (labels, boxes, shipping, returns) \- production The questions I would ask myself if I were in your shoes: \- what price will people pay for this? \- what evidence do I have for that? \- what are the closest substitutes for my envisioned product? How are they doing? In what way will I be better or cheaper? \- what are non-core activities that I should ignore, at least at the beginning (e.g. developing software, interacting with potential competitors on social media) \- what is the minimum activity I can do, to get my first sale? ~~~ DoreenMichele Thank you. ------ tlb The good thing about mass customization startups is that you can get started by just making individual custom items. You won't make money very fast but you'll learn what customers want that isn't available anywhere else. ~~~ DoreenMichele That's helpful information. I am my own ideal customer. If I were to start with individual custom items, they would be for me. I have a medical condition and I hate the Sluts R Us vibe of so much of women's clothing and blah blah blah. I dream of doing this so I can stop schlepping around in men's t-shirts and men's sweat pants, basically. ------ opendomain I would love to help. I am the founder of several companies and non-profits. I also have won Startup weekend 3 times mentoring teams on how to create a startup. You can reach me Doreen AT Free DOT TV ~~~ DoreenMichele I have sent you an email. If you don't get one from me, my email address is in my profile. ~~~ opendomain Nice to meet you! I replied - i look forward to helping you	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Build Android Apps in PicoLisp Without an Android SDK - homarp https://picolisp.com/wiki/?pilbox ====== klez Out of curiosity, OP: did you fall in the same rabbit hole I fell into after reading the article about the chorded keyboard, finding the link to the picolisp wiki and seeing the snippets about showing notifications on Android via picolisp? ~~~ qop I'd love to see like a browser extension to news aggregators that works like that. I'm sure there are lots of things a few clicks away from a lot of the articles that get posted. ------ speps This is similar to how LÖVE games work on Android [1], you download the app from the store and then load a .zip file of your game and it runs inside that. You can then make it into its own app and publish it to the store. [1] [https://bitbucket.org/MartinFelis/love-android- sdl2/wiki/FAQ...](https://bitbucket.org/MartinFelis/love-android- sdl2/wiki/FAQ_-_Frequently_Asked_Questions) ~~~ veli_joza LÖVE is awesome and Android port works great. The fastest interpreted language that also happens to be elegant and easy to learn, coupled with dead-simple input/graphics/audio/physics API you can actually remember. The APK is tiny when compared to other frameworks, some 4 Mb + assets. ------ zerr Kind of LambdaNative? [http://www.lambdanative.org/](http://www.lambdanative.org/) ~~~ nine_k A bit. But what fills _me_ with joy is the REPL. It's hugely helpful when trying to make use of unfamiliar APIs. ~~~ pjmlp On limited input devices as tablets and phones I haven't yet found anything better than Lisping. [https://appadvice.com/app/lisping/512138518](https://appadvice.com/app/lisping/512138518) Which appears to no longer be available. ------ kristianp I'm slightly confused by this paragraph, what is being emulated and aren't most android devices 32 bit these days? "It comes with PicoLisp binaries for Arm64 pre-installed. If your device has an Arm32 CPU, you can - after installing the PilBox App but before starting it - download and install the emulator version [https://software- lab.de/arm32.zip](https://software-lab.de/arm32.zip). If this was done by mistake, you can revert to Arm64 binaries with..." ~~~ jacknews I'm confused too, how do you install the zip file? Even one of the feedback posts mentions problem solved by "just installing the emulator version". So I download arm32.zip in, say, firefox, and then what? Open it with PilBox just crashes. Clicking it in a file manager shows me the zip contents. Am I supposed to extract it somewhere? I'm not rooted so can't see the app dirs. ~~~ Regenaxer The easiest way seems to be to download it with a browser, and then immediately click on "open" in the little dialog which pops up in the browser after it downloaded the zip. It is then passed to PilBox. Clicking on a Zip in the Downloads app works on some devices, but other systems only offer to extract the files which does not help here. ------ alexis_read I have a node-red instance that does a similar thing, to allow drag-n-drop programming (Including UI), and (using dnr) heterogeneous cluster processing on mobiles (ios and android). It starts a node-red server on the device, and uses cordova to host the webview. I'm in the process of adding an ag-grid node so you can do complex UIs in the dev environment on the phone/tablet. [https://github.com/alexisread/noreml](https://github.com/alexisread/noreml) ------ hardwaresofton tl;dr on how it works: > The PilBox App itself (called the "PilBox kernel") is written in Java, the > normal Android way. It displays a WebView GUI, and starts a PicoLisp binary > compiled for Arm64 CPUs. This binary may now run any PicoLisp program, by > setting up a local web server where the WebView component connects to, > possibly opening a database, and doing whatever is desired. I think this is a really cool project and I'm all for new (to me) lisp dialects doing their thing, but reading the main page, the tag line and copy don't seem to match, for my definition of "simple": > [picolisp is] Programming simplified! > PicoLisp is a programming language, or really a programming system, > including a built-in database engine and a GUI system! These two statements seem to be at odds. That aside, I do like the idea because I'm a huge fan of the HTML/JS/CSS display paradigm for it's easy cross-platform support. I also like reducing the "mobile app" to really just interacting with a single local "edge" (which is what people are calling client-side programs these days I think) server. Just me personally but I would love it if all frontend development was reduced to HTML/CSS/JS -- I have no desire to learn QT/GDK+/wxWidgets/whatever else (just like I don't like learning Java for Android, Swift/ObjC for iOS, Java for Blackberry, etc), and firmly believe that eventually performance will be comparable (or close enough to not matter) and support for native features will be passable. ~~~ pjmlp Easy cross platform at the expense of user experience. ~~~ regul8 Not to mention dev experience. JS is a horrible language that doesn’t scale beyond script kiddie nonsense. ~~~ anaganisk But but hundreds of top websites and now even unity uses js, definitely not script kiddie ~~~ regul8 This is all by unfortunate necessity, certainly not by choice. The very raison d’etre of languages like TypeScript that transpile to JavaScript is because of the flaws of this hack language that simply found itself in the right place at the right time in history ~~~ idiocyreigns And it's all only temporary in light of WebAssembly. ------ zeveb I wish that Armed Bear Common Lisp supported Android — that'd be awesome. ~~~ kuwze It doesn’t? To my knowledge it generates .java files, right? ~~~ fiddlerwoaroof It uses reflection in ways that Dalvik didn’t support last time I checked. ~~~ kazinator Dalvik is discontinued, replaced by something called the Android Runtime. Though that might also not support said reflection ways. ------ jacobush AFAIK PicoLisp is pretty Arc-like so this should be doubly relevant here. :-) ~~~ 3rdAccount Yea...it uses "de" to define a function instead of "defun". People always hate on it for no macros, but macros don't make since when you only have an interpreter. I don't fully understand how, but I've heard people in the past explain how they're irrelevant in Picolisp and how you can still extend the syntax with standard functions somehow. Maybe a picolisper could give some examples? Shout out that there are two free online books on Picolisp. ~~~ rurban You dont need macros as you have fexpr's which don't evaluate it's arguments. It fits much better into the language, and they are first class. See [https://picolisp.com/wiki/?prosandcons](https://picolisp.com/wiki/?prosandcons) And [https://software-lab.de/doc/refM.html#macro](https://software- lab.de/doc/refM.html#macro) for the usage of macros. More importantly it doesn't need lambda, just lists, and quote quotes all arguments not just the first one. An extremely simple and small lisp-1 interpreter, comparable to the old AutoLISP. ------ bitmapbrother I don't believe I've seen apps look like that since Android Cupcake. If you really want to build apps without using Java or the Android SDK you should look into Dart/Flutter. ~~~ rhodysurf You still need the Android SDK to use Flutter on Android ------ hk-mars I donnot like any lisp implemented by Java, very bad taste of developer already. ~~~ projektfu The Lisp is native. This is a Java app that coordinates a native binary running pickup to present a web server that is used by the webview. ~~~ alexis_read I have a node-red instance that does a similar thing, to allow drag-n-drop programming (Including UI), and (using dnr) heterogeneous cluster processing on mobiles (ios and android). It starts a node-red server on the device, and uses cordova to host the webview. I'm in the process of adding an ag-grid node so you can do complex UIs in the dev environment on the phone/tablet. [https://github.com/alexisread/noreml](https://github.com/alexisread/noreml)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask YC: What's the Y Combinator review and decision process like? - malandrew I was curious to know more about how the YCombinator partners review all the applications they receive? Does every partner read every application? Do you review them together or separately? What kind of discussions do you have about each application? Do you talk more about the people or the idea? How is consensus reached to decide to fund a company or not? etc. ====== pg No. Separately. None except about the borderline cases. Mostly the people, but about the idea if it's either very bad or very good. We know one another so well that most of the time we just have to look at one another; if there's debate it's about whether the founders seem relentlessly resourceful. ~~~ malandrew Since all partners don't read all the apps, about how many applications does each partner read and each application gets read by how many partners on average? Two more questions that are unrelated by don't merit their own thread: There's a focus now on the maker of MinoMonsters because he's the youngest entrepreneur you've funded. Who's the oldest entrepreneur you guys have funded? Have you ever funded entrepreneurs that are related? (e.g. parent/child, siblings, etc.) ~~~ pg The numbers vary depending on people's circumstances. I think last time I read about 800. We all read all the top ones. I'm not sure who's the oldest. There have been a few in their 40s, but I don't remember their exact ages. I know we've funded people with kids older than the youngest people we've funded. We've funded brothers, cousins, and married couples. ------ citizenkeys Here's a good place for you to find answers: <http://paulgraham.com/articles.html> You can also find information here: <http://ycuniverse.com/> ~~~ mindcrime And also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310110>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN - where can I get movie data for a movie review website? - wonjun I'm almost done building a movie review website, the only thing is I'm not sure how I could populate it with movie data.<p>Do you have good suggestions? Does anyone know where sites like imdb, cinema clock, http://www.themovieinsider.com get their data from?<p>Thanks a lot! ====== aditya imdb has an open database not sure what the usage criteria is: <http://www.imdb.com/interfaces#plain>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in - benpink https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in ====== defen If I were to give my own tl;dr summary of accelerationism, I would say that they treat intelligence as the "good" of utmost value. In the accelerationist vision of the world, intelligence is a feature of the universe, a sort of higher-level organizing principle, and we should strive to maximize intelligence in whatever form. Accelerationists would be perfectly content with a world of ever more intelligent self-replicating machines taking over the universe, without regard to human life or happiness. After all, Nick Land's personal motto is "Coldness be my God" Everything else is what you get when you take "maximize intelligence" to its logical conclusion. ~~~ aerodeck I think this is more or less correct, but I think the more important take-away from the article is how this kind of thinking ends up getting wrapped up in NRx and inevitably, the alt-right. Viewed from 1,000 ft, it is very easy to coldly construe our weird political landscape as a fulfillment of this hyper- rationalist dream: the irrationalities of the poor and uneducated are something to be corraled by the cold and calculating. It's the sort of thinking popular with plutocrats, since it rationalizes their actions. Accelerationism is interesting to me insofar as it is transparent about the fact that technology is an a-human (not in-human) force. Blind faith in the liberational potential of technology does nothing to actually fulfill this potential, but instead just furthers it's a-human qualities. The reference to the California ideology is apt. ~~~ defen > Accelerationism is interesting to me insofar as it is transparent about the > fact that technology is an a-human (not in-human) force. I think that's a really good, pithy way of phrasing it. > this kind of thinking ends up getting wrapped up in NRx and inevitably, the > alt-right. I would say that accelerationists are very closely aligned with NRx, and only tactically allied with the alt-right. I would say only tactically aligned with the alt-right because they view the alt-right as "identity politics for white people", which is fine insofar as it restricts immigration (because most of the immigrants coming to the US come from cultures that do not value personal liberty as highly as Anglosphere culture does; and do not have mean IQs as high as US whites); but the NRx and accelerationist ideal is to take all (and only) the smart people regardless of race and build a techcomm utopia. NRx / acclerationist immigration policy would probably require scoring at least 130 on an IQ test. ------ nottorp I really don't see what the article's accelerationism has to do with the notion as used in Lord of Light. In spite of the Hindu religion references, that is definitely not a philosophy/politics book. It is Zelazny's best book in my opinion, and you can read it - it has little to nothing to do with the Guardian's article. ~~~ WaxProlix Absolutely agreed. This seems to be a simple case of confusing a number of largely unrelated things just because the names given them are the same. If I were the author, I'd be embarrassed over spending so much time and proverbial ink over what is essentially a misunderstanding of concepts. ------ gt_ It's interesting seeing 'accelerationism' floating up to the hackernews crowd. Unfortunately, this article misses the lasting value of the theory in the arts where it flourishes as nothing short of an artistic movement. Accelerationism has only indirect relations to technology, intelligence, "progress" and is NOT to be mistaken for technological progress or "fast transhumanism" or "irresponsible transhumanism" or singularity chit chat. If this is what you have in mind, keep studying. I am steeped in the circle of artists and thinkers who have been toying with accelerationism, the most important of who are properly mentioned in the article (Marx, Noys, Land, Deleuze and Guittari, more) but the article ultimately misses the usefulness of the concept and waters it down into yet another transhumanist navel gazing and further sci-fi gargling. Accelerationism seems easiest grasped by American millenials and grey haired leftist philosophers, in other words those with a nurtured consciousness of mass consumer culture. Accelerationism is an angle of marxism most at home in aesthetic studies and pretty much nowhere else. Accelerationism usually reveals itself as a reflexive irony (with sometimes thick nuance) in it's aesthetic applications, related to exacerbated effects/affects of the commercial abstraction loop to the point where commercial abstraction is not only "there" but is the material of life experience itself. There are significant strains of culture that are out and out "accelerationist" style. I would argue accelerationism revives the Pop art torch in a truly Warholian manner and at contention with the desperate and defensive current state of institutional contemporary art. Vaporwave, post-internet, Dis Magazine, health goth, 2016 Berlin Biennale are at the least affiliates of accelerationist art and at the most it's representatives. ------ jtmcmc I don't think Zelazny or lord of light is largely forgotten. It's still considered an excellent scifi book! ------ Sharlin This essay reads weirdly like it was transported from an alternate universe where the notion of accelerating human progress only occurred to a fringe group of mostly right-wing thinkers. I guess it reads like what articles about transhumanism and Kurzweil-style singularitarianism did read about fifteen years ago... ------ Apocryphon Another excellent piece on the ideology for the layman: "The Darkness Before the Right" [https://theawl.com/the-darkness-before-the- right-84e97225ac1...](https://theawl.com/the-darkness-before-the- right-84e97225ac19) the same author's clarifying follow-up is good too, though with a lot more academic jargon: [https://pmacdougald.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/accelerationism...](https://pmacdougald.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/accelerationism- left-and-right/) ------ mannigfaltig There is _always_ a fringe philosophy that had it right. ~~~ goatlover Are they right in this case? I see the previous 70 years (1877-1947) as having more fundamental change than the last 70. It's hard to top electricity, automobiles, aircraft, penicillin, vaccinations, refrigeration, radio, tv, QM & Relativity as fundamentally transformative. Also, two world wars transforming the political map and doing away with the dynastic empires of the past. If you define the singularity as being unable to predict the future, then I would say that period of time would have been less predictable than any other time in human history. ~~~ AnimalMuppet Seems to me that, while QM became "understood" in that period, the transistor was only discovered in the last year. _All_ the applications of the transistor came in the latest 70 years. There's also the discovery of the gene, and space travel. Those haven't transformed daily life as much as the inventions of the previous 70 years, but add in the transistor and it gets close... ------ gumby Zelazny forgotten? I seriously doubt it, and Lord of Light is an extraordinary book, though it does suffer at the end from his chronic problem in bringing a story to a close (he's hardly alone in this affliction). But his prose...delightful! ------ Animats Two words: Javascript frameworks. Now that's accelerationism. ~~~ nabla9 More like branchtionism. 1\. New technological platform emergence, 5 years. 2\. Rebuild basic tooling over 5 years. 3\. Experiment with new possibilities for another 5 years. 4\. Find out what the real improvements over previous platform were during next 5 years and settle for them. 5\. Goto 1. With lessons learned from previous platform, but forgetting some earlier lessons. ------ atemerev Is there anybody here who _doesn't_ like technical progress and doesn't want it to go faster? We are still stuck on this little blue marble, with the entire Universe in our telescopes (hundreds of billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions stars in each), that we can see, but can't really visit. It almost maddens me. If we meatbags are too fragile to travel to stars, let's build immortal AIs who'll do it for us. I am going to die on this planet, like every other human being. But I hope that we can create new minds and new non-carbon lifeforms, better than us, who might be able to escape. I guess I am an accelerationist. But isn't it a natural attitude for any thinking mind? ~~~ ABCLAW >Is there anybody here is who _doesn't_ like technical progress and doesn't want it to go faster? Sure. I am quite glad we stopped iterating on nuclear weapon designs and I am quite fine with the state of the art not obliterating entire continents yet. I'm also quite happy we haven't done the R&D and optimization to lower the cost for mass producing neutron bombs too. I think you are too. I like technical progress that ameliorates the human condition. Some of it does. Some of it doesn't. Talking about the idea is difficult and complicated when you drill down beneath some trivial level, so people rarely bother, unless they, in one form or another, abstract that complexity away. If you do that, you're left with "progress is good!" and forget all the times when it wasn't or the reverse. Neither position is particularly interesting. ~~~ atemerev > we stopped iterating on nuclear weapon designs We didn't. Los Alamos is pretty busy this time of year. So is Sarov. > we haven't done the R&D and optimization to lower the cost for mass > producing neutron bombs too. We had. And also, we were smart enough to put these papers on the shelf and not proceed with them. Say what you want about humanity, but 70+ years without a nuclear war is impressive, given our history. It became possible through continuous innovation in game theory, spy games, and yes, improving the deterrents. I think nuclear weapons will never be actually used in large-scale future wars, like chemical weapons weren't massively used in WW2. Progress is good. Wars are part of the progress. Wars themselves are bad, though, so some of the progress is spent to keep wars at bay, to not interfere with the progress. ~~~ bykovich2 "Progress is good" is an implicative tautology -- the seeming obviousness of the statement relies on the fact that the term "progress" strongly implies "betterness." And it is, in fact, its applicability to any state of affairs a matter of betterness -- but betterness of very specific, and often unspoken, types. "Technology progress" may mean "better technology" \-- but it does /not/ necessarily mean "technology that is better for people." ~~~ atemerev Yes, not necessarily. Progress, in my opinion, is increasing efficiency in the modes of operation. Scaling-out. Space programs are progress. Modern warfare is not progress, it is, at best, self-defence and status quo preservation. I believe that intelligence rooted in biology is not the most efficient mode of operation. ~~~ bykovich2 How do you justify that definition of progress? And how do you draw a connection between "increasing efficiency in the modes of operation" and "good" (or even "desirable") -- if you do? ------ elevenfist I guess libertarianism is on its last legs if they have to give it a new name and a fresh coat of paint. The bullshit is still simplistic, as always. ------ mixedCase TL;DR: It's just communism by another name. ~~~ WaxProlix Not quite what the article talks about, but Accelerationism in communist/anarchist thought is the notion that you either permit capitalism to go off the rails without hindering it or even encourage it actively. The goal is to "show it for what it really is" and make things so unpalatable that a worker uprising is inevitable (or at least more likely). So in that view, an accelerationist could be a socialist who opposes things like minimum wage, universal health care, privacy rights legislation, etc. ~~~ ue_ I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. Accelerationism in the Communist sphere tends to align itself with policies against working within the democratic system to improve conditions, as you noticed even to reject social democratic policies. The other argument for this from their point of view is that it would encourage complacency of the workers to be having these social democratic policies, as some view Keynesianism did to the Western capitalist nations. An interesting point here is about Marx himself; he wrote: "Moreover, the protectionist system is nothing but a means of establishing large-scale industry in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the world market, and from the moment that dependence upon the world market is established, there is already more or less dependence upon free trade. Besides this, the protective system helps to develop free competition within a country. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute government, as a means for the concentration of its own powers and for the realization of free trade within the same country. "But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, _while the free trade system is destructive_. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the _free trade system hastens the social revolution_. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." (Emphasis mine) ~~~ dragonwriter The problem with that kind of acceleration is that it assumes that the problem with establishing change is getting people to believe that their life sucks. But that's not the problem, the problem is convincing people that action for change can make things better. Concrete victories, starting small, can do that; letting things get worse doesn't. Capitalism replaced feudalism because the bourgeoisie took power, one small victory at a time, from the feudal nobility. If a system in which the working classes take power from the capitalists is to replace capitalism—and the modern mixed economy may be a transitional form on the route to such a system, or might just be a diversion—then it's going to be the same way.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Second Snowden Has Leaked a Mother Lode of Drone Docs - kushti http://www.wired.com/2015/10/a-second-snowden-leaks-a-mother-lode-of-drone-docs/ ====== dang [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The ‘What Others Are Doing’ Trap - LeonW http://www.startupmoon.com/the-what-others-are-doing-trap/ ====== tlarkworthy Yeah, coz the UI in Blender really worked out well. </sarcasm> Ignoring the established ways users interact with things is is great way to make software unusable, or very difficult to use. People need to be able to transfer their existing knowledge to a new product, thus, you need to know what their existing contextual knowledge is. So you NEED TO DO THE RESEARCH FIRST BEFORE YOU BUILD SOMETHING!!!!!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
PHP To Ruby On Rails? - jason_slack I know a decent amount of PHP. I am not an expert, but I build sites for people, know how to RTFM and I developed my new Apple Fan site using PHP, JS, AJax techniques, MySQL. I have other skills like C, C++, Java (a long time ago).<p>A lot of sites I visit are built with RoR.<p>So how best to transition and re-create my current site in RoR? I assume concepts and programming fundamentals are the same....Mysql querying, laying out data, sessions management, etc.<p>I do need to rely on some HTML5 specific items though....but I am planning a fallback to Flash if I need to.<p>In my unreleased version I have specific things like CSS orientation techniques, lots more video elements and video categories.<p>The site is: http://6colors.net, currently runs CentOS 5.5 and is about 300gb in size. ====== taylorbuley I'm a PHP dev and completely recognize our breed as dirty coders who don't like to deal with memory management. That said, why is it you feel you have to move away from PHP? I know my question isn't an answer but I guess I feel like I have to understand why you want to move to Ruby before I can suggest ways to do so. ~~~ jason_slack It is more advice from others + some learning desire as well. These same devs that know PHP very well also gave me the advice about RoR, PHP not scaling well and RoR being better equipped for the future, less bottlenecks, etc. The last item is complete fluff, PHP will not go away. I guess the simple things I do in PHP (MySQL querying, some string manipulation, etc) should not be a bottleneck. When asked I could not name large scaled sites running PHP, but I could name at least 10 that were using RoR..... ~~~ taylorbuley _When asked I could not name large scaled sites running PHP_ How about Facebook.com? Ruby seems great, but unless you have a concrete reason to switch I wouldn't necessarily pick it over say, Python, which would allow you to start working on Google App Engine projects.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Beginning of series of how "Scientists can save the planet" - godber http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week301.html ====== devijvers "You'll note there's lots of uncertainty, but a rough rule of thumb is that each doubling of carbon dioxide will raise the temperature around 3 degrees Celsius. Of course people love to argue about these things: you can find reasonable people who'll give a number anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 °C, and unreasonable people who say practically anything." What is this scientific method you speak of?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Clojure: Creating a reducible repeat - r4um http://insideclojure.org/2014/12/21/reducible-repeat/ ====== samatman This reminds me of a daydream I've been having, that goes something like this: Rewrite the core Clojure data structures in Rust. Link in LuaJIT. Write a bunch of finalizers and a reader in Lua, skin the Clojure library in the proper syntax, and Bob's your uncle. I'm far too busy to take ownership on such a project, but if anyone starts it or finds it, please contact me. ~~~ Skinney The core datastructures are immutable and uses structural sharing. This would require reference counting (slower) or a proper GC to be efficient (Rust doesn't have one). Doing this in Rust would probably give you worse results than the JVM. Also, why LuaJIT? LuaJIT (or Lua) is not threadsafe, so you wouldn't be able to share state between threads safely, which would conflict with the way Clojure handles concurrency. I'm not trying to be negative. But unless this is a project for fun or excercise, the JVM is a better host. ~~~ Jweb_Guru Rust doesn't require reference counting to make sharing immutable datastructures safe. The interface would require lifetimes for safety, though, and might be generally unpleasant to use. ~~~ Skinney Oh? Lifetimes are that flexible? It's been a long time since I looked into Rust, so I had no idea. I would thought it was difficult to decide when to free an object, if it is linked to by two separate data structures and one of them goes out of scope. ~~~ Matthias247 They are not. Sending something to another thread requires the thing to send to implement some kinds (I think Send + Sync). To have those guarantees the data would need to stored in an atomically reference counted structure (or something else with the same guarantees), which is just like you said. And you would need to watch out for reference cycles. I guess they are quite easy to create with Clojure. ~~~ Jweb_Guru > To have those guarantees the data would need to stored in an atomically > reference counted structure (or something else with the same guarantees), > which is just like you said. That is not true. `Send` is having its `'static` bound removed, so sharing data will no longer require reference counting for threads with bounded lifetime: [https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/458](https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/pull/458) (the RFC hasn't been officially accepted but it's been referenced as a foregone conclusion several times by Rust core team members). There is already an experimental library exploiting this for `Sync` data, which includes immutable substructures: [https://github.com/nikomatsakis/rayon](https://github.com/nikomatsakis/rayon) The only reason people aren't more aware of this is because the functionality isn't exposed in the standard library yet. The language is perfectly capable.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Raspberry Pi WLAN setup - DoubleMalt http://www.berrylan.org/ ====== blumomo In a previous company we built a Bluetooth Low Energy server app into the embedded Raspberry Pi-like system. Long story short: 1\. RPi broadcasts via BLE the wifi networks it can see 2\. A ReactNative App lets the user choose the wifi network to connect to, pre-selected is the wifi network which the mobile is connected to 3\. User enters wifi password 4\. App sends it to RPI, still via BLE 5\. RPi responds with IP address when successfully connected or with an error, all via BLE. 6\. App can now talk to Pi via IP 7\. BLE server on Pi shuts down. Done. Advantage: user never needs to mess with changing to any ad-hoc wifi. Awesome UX. ~~~ Fnoord Hmm, using BLE to send your WPA2-PSK password? Isn't that insecure? ~~~ ploxiln You probably want to encrypt it with a public key for which the raspi has the private key. You could validate the public key with a qr-code on the raspi, or some other pre-arranged scheme. This is a very similar situation to being able to access the device on the LAN over tcp/ip and needing to pass it a secret. ~~~ sdenton4 (Or just use diffie hellman to generate a symmetric key pair for communicating for the length of the session... you'd still want something to prevent MITM, but if you're not concerned about MITM attacks at session creation time, DH gets user effort down to about zero.) ------ yjftsjthsd-h So GUI and displaying the IP at the end is nice. But. I do wonder: If you already have to write a special image, why not just write the network config directly to wpa_supplicant.conf? ~~~ giarc As evan__10 said, if you don't know the details ahead of time. I own a company and we are currently developing a hardware tool for attendance tracking at child care centres. We use the Pi and our plans for shipping these things was to ask our customer what their SSID and password were ahead of time and hard code them in. This tool could solve our problem. Additionally, if the user changes their SSID or password at any time, the Pi won't be able to connect. We use a tool called Dataplicity to remote into the Pi and could change the password ahead of time, however if the user changes the password before we can do that, we lose all ability to connect to the unit. ~~~ namibj Did you consider adding a password-changing webapp that connects via a smartphone's headphone jack? Or maybe even just with a _cheap_ piezo for bidirectional beeping to a smartphone? Consider the equalizer commonly used in the output path of a smartphone, but there should be existing work you might be able to build on. ------ matthewmacleod That’s cool, and the UI is nice! I wrote exactly the same thing as a library, to allow user setup of the WiFi network from within an app as part of a hardware prototype - main difference being it was just a Go daemon running on the Pi. Didn’t end up using it or open-sourcing it but I will re-visit that, since it looks like there are a couple of use-cases. ~~~ dastx Please do let us know if you end up open sourcing it. ------ noja or create /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf and touch /boot/ssh and it will do the right thing on boot. ~~~ Uehreka Can you seriously put wpa_supplicant.conf in /boot and it’ll work? I have honestly never heard this in 2 years of doing Raspberry Pi, after looking at tons of documentation and web sites. This wouldn’t surprise me, but I feel like it should be much better documented, given that it’s pretty much the first and biggest hurdle to getting things to work on a new image. ~~~ tfolbrecht Not in /boot, but the boot partition of the device named "boot". ~~~ kingosticks That is mounted at /boot.... ~~~ tfolbrecht Just wanted to specify. If you put the wpa_supplicant in /boot under the root partition, it won't work :^) ~~~ kingosticks Hehe OK, I'd imagine that would be very confusing when it didn't work. ------ blensor That is something that seems really useful. You can get your Raspberry Pi online without a minitor but it's always a bit like stumbling in the dark. I'll definitely give this a try. ------ crankysiren [https://github.com/jasbur/RaspiWiFi](https://github.com/jasbur/RaspiWiFi) fairly stable light weight system that does the same thing, also comes as an etchable .img one advantage here is that if the Pi goes offline for extended period it will flip on its AP broadcast mode allowing wifi to be setup again. Code is highly modular and maintainable. ~~~ bmc7505 Just out of curiosity, but why doesn't Raspberry Pi 3B support simultaneous broadcasting and receiving of Wi-Fi? I've seen multiple apps that swap between these modes (e.g. using broadcast mode to set up a captive portal) and then swapping to receiver mode, but never both at the same time. I've tried many times to configure this, all unsuccessfully. Is there some fundamental limitation with the underlying hardware that prevents this? ~~~ Wowfunhappy My understanding was that this always requires an entire second wifi module? On my big expensive desktop computer, I can only ever recieve or broadcast a wifi network, never both. Unless I install an additional wifi adapter. ~~~ arthurfm The Pixel 3/3 XL (and several other Android smartphones) can run both a hotspot and Wi-Fi simultaneously. [1] I could be wrong, but I am fairly sure these phones only have a single Wi-Fi module. [1] [https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/03/pixel-3-3-xl- suppor...](https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/03/pixel-3-3-xl-support-wi- fi-sharing-devices/) ~~~ gregmac My first thought was perhaps this could be done using 2.4 for one and 5ghz for the other, but while I was trying to find an example of configuring the radios independently, I came across DD-Wrt "Repeater Bridge" mode [1] so I don't see why that wouldn't be what the Pixel is doing. [1] [https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge](https://wiki.dd- wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge) ------ codyb This seems like it would be super useful prior to Raspbian Stretch for developers using Apple products. Prior to stretch the wpa_supplicant.conf file needed to be modified in the main Raspbian partition which is inaccessible on the unix machine without setting up a virtual linux box and creating a vb disk image linked to the sd card. It was a bit of a pain. With Stretch you can just add a wpa_supplicant.conf file and an empty ssh file to the boot partition which is accessible and you should be ready to go. This still solves the pain point of there being lots of outdated headless instructions out there telling you to modify wpa_supplicant.conf in /etc/wpa_supplicant on the main partition. Would have saved me a ton of time that's for sure! Looks nice and clean as well, design wise. ------ berti Even if you couldn't mount the boot partition on any common desktop OS and setup ssh + wpa_supplicant (it's FAT32), I would greatly prefer the simplicity of a local console session with a $2 USB-serial adapter (am I the only weirdo with dozens of these lying around?). Typically I actually just mount the partitions and chroot with qemu-arm, upgrade packages, and do all of the setup before the SD card is ever inserted in a real Pi. proot[0] makes all this a walk in the park. mount /dev/sdX2 /mnt mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/boot proot -q qemu-arm -S /mnt [0] [https://proot-me.github.io](https://proot-me.github.io) ------ josteink > ETCH THE IMAGE > Download the BerryLan flavoured Raspbian image and flash the SD Card. We > recommend Etcher to do that. I’m curious. Why would anyone recommend people download and run a multi-100mb electron app instead of just using dd? Especially for projects like this aimed at medium technical people. ------ fpgaminer I'm building a gift for someone else that uses a RasPi internally, and thus needed a user friendly way for them to configure its WiFi connection. It's been ... quite the adventure (mostly because I'm dumb). My first idea was to put an OLED and a rotary encoder on the box. That way they can do a special dance on the button to enter setup mode, scroll through a list of wifi networks, and then tediously scroll through letters to enter the wifi password. I found a 1" OLED for cheap, and already needed a button for other things, so this was a cheap, effective solution. But having to tediously type out a password with a knob sounded very user unfriendly. Then I realized I could bring out a USB port, and they could plug in a USB keyboard! So I worked on that for bit. It's a lot easier to use. And the whole keyboard + tiny OLED idea was kinda fun. But then I remembered the idea of doing a WiFi AP dance. That's where the device broadcasts as an AP, you connect with your phone, browse to a webpage to tell the device your Wifi network's info, and done! It's a solution that doesn't require an OLED or for me to bring out a USB connection. Cheaper and less mechanical engineering. To that end I found Mozilla's IoT project which, conveniently, has RasPi compatible code for doing just that dance: [https://github.com/mozilla- iot/gateway-wifi-setup](https://github.com/mozilla-iot/gateway-wifi-setup) (By the way, Mozilla's IoT project is neat and worth checking out). That setup is quite similar to OP, except it doesn't require a separate app. Its downside is requiring the user to mess with the wifi settings on their phone. Not a huge deal (for my target audience) but can be annoying. (Hence why OP's project uses the Bluetooth connection; Smart!) I've been tinkering with this on and off for about two weeks. While I wasn't thrilled with the solution, it was at least usable, cheap, and easy. ... then I realized I was dumb. I have a camera on the device. I could just have them go to a website, punch in their wifi info, encode that as a QR code, and have them show it to the camera... (It'd be a secure website I set up, so no security hygiene problems). Same benefits of being cheap and easy, while being easier to use. Using `pyzbar` to do real-time QR detection I had something working within an hour. Just hold your phone in front of the camera and it'll automatically detect, decode, and setup the wifi settings. The only downside to this approach is that I can't conveniently display a list of nearby wifi networks; so they have to type their SSID manually. Figured I'd share my comedy of errors in case someone is looking for ideas for wifi setup solutions. Obviously if you're just setting up a RasPi yourself it's easier to just pop a wpa_supplicant.conf on the SD card. (Though I wish Raspbian also had a way to configure hostname, authorized_keys, and disable ssh password authentication through boot files. Only way to do that today is by mounting the root filesystem which isn't convenient on, e.g., a Mac) ~~~ ryanianian Raspbian defaults to being discoverable by bonjour so you can just `ssh pi@raspberrypi.local` and then modify the wifi config file (`/etc/network/interfaces`). You can script this bootstrap process pretty easily using Ansible etc. Downside is you do have to have a machine on the same ethernet network as the rpi for a short time. So fewer "cool project" points but ends up being quite simple. ~~~ kingosticks Aside from the simpler method of dropping wpa_supplicant.conf in /boot as has already been said, mdns support in Android is terrible/non-existent. I've had no end of users struggling because of that, I 100% do not suggest relying on it. ------ lisper This looks very cool but you should think twice before you use it. If a hacker wanted to infiltrate your LAN, there would be no better way to do it than to provide a tool like this. ~~~ callumjones But this is just the process of connecting it to a wireless network, which would be the hacker's network? The risk seems pretty contrived? You could make the same argument for other assisted headless installations: speakers, smart plugs, etc. ~~~ lisper > You could make the same argument for other assisted headless installations: > speakers, smart plugs, etc. That's true, but in those devices can be isolated from the internet by a firewall. Berrylan can't be, or it loses its utility. In order to talk to the app, Berrylan has to send packets to and receive packets from the internet. Also, even after the setup, most RaspPi applications entail having the computer continue to have access to the internet. So the situation is much risker with the RaspPi. ~~~ callumjones Doesn't this just work over Bluetooth for the initial config? The internet isn't useful at this point because it isn't connected to a WLAN. ~~~ lisper Ah, that's a good point. ------ swinglock That looks useful. Does it delete itself and the extra repo configuration after setup? If not, while convenient I'm not convinced the increased attack surface is worth it. ~~~ sneak This small patch of mine to raspbian may be useful for you, then: [https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen/pull/207](https://github.com/RPi- Distro/pi-gen/pull/207) The minor downside is that you have to build the image yourself, but fortunately that is a single command once docked is installed. ~~~ swinglock I must say it's silly we can't be trusted with a simple way to drop in a shell script on the SD card that runs at boot as root in rasbian. I don't even understand the idea that it could be bad for newbies to maybe mess up. The whole point of the RPi was to give students a small, cheap, easy to repair computer with low-level features to learn with. ~~~ sneak Yeah, the project is sort of a mess maintainer-wise, but at least it is straightforward to modify/rebuild. ------ rgoodwintx Funny enough, I've been about to embark on something similar, for a project I contribute to that makes a Raspi Zero W into a "smart USB drive" for the built-in Tesla dashcam: [https://github.com/cimryan/teslausb](https://github.com/cimryan/teslausb) (Props to Cim and Ray who are doing a ton of work making the project go, also!) The goals/advantages, vs just using a USB thumb drive: \- will connect to your wifi network (when detected) and copy off your saved dashcam files (over CIFS, SSH, others) \- fixes any FAT filesystem errors on the virtual USB drive (presented to the host using g_mass_storage) automatically; some Tesla software versions had/have a bug that left the filesystem dirty on shutdown, rendering some thumb drives unreadable until formatted again \- (in process testing) uses BTRFS to keep the drive online while taking snapshots to do the file copies (and other neat things I have planned, like extending the 1-hour rolling buffer that Tesla uses by copying off files older than 1 hr into a secondary backing store on disk to be copied off later) \- automated (headless) setup by putting a configuration file in /boot (including wifi setup) \- quite a few more ideas to come; love to hear more brainstorms too. Maybe with a little more work it's worth its own Show HN? :) I've learned a lot about how little I remembered about bash, how Raspbian images are built, setting up Jenkins for automated builds, even controlling the LED on the Pi to show progress of headless setup. (Sometimes it's the little things...) On the to-do list was something exactly like this post: provide a way to get to the files if you are away from your home network, and/or don't have a computer with a USB or SD reader handy. Say, if you had just gotten in an accident and wanted to get to the files pronto. So, a way to trigger the Pi popping into AP mode was my next area of exploration; timely! I was actually exploring having your phone make a BT connection that would cause the host to switch configs (either automatically, or using BT PAN. (And a web UI to grab files, make settings changes, etc.) Good thoughts on security in some of the comments, and glad to see others have thought through this. Thanks to OP and others; I think there's a solution one way or another in several of these project ideas! And, as customary, PR's welcome :) ------ tdewitt I have half a dozen Pis to reimage right now, so this is timely. Can't wait to give it a shot today. ~~~ mirceal Have a look at my project: [https://cattlepi.com/](https://cattlepi.com/) It gives you the ability to basically control what your Pi does (provisioning included) via an API. ------ syntaxing Super cool! That being said, Raspbian latest update have been killing my wifi cards...for some reason none of my old realtek usb wifi dongle works anymore. I had to flash one of the older images (June). Anyone else have this problem? ------ epynonymous 403 for me, i’m in shanghai. but reading the comments, i think i know where you’re going with this. one question i have is, if you have a lot of devices in the same area, how do you make certain the ip address space doesnt collide? ------ aqurai This is awesome! Is the OP the author? Just started using rpi with my underwater robots. Obviously the wifi cuts off when they dive, but doesn't reconnect always when they come back. Will definitely try this out. ------ basdp you can just put a wpa_supplicant.conf file on the USB stick partition and it will automatically connect to your wifi[1]. This seems like an overengineered approach that is far more complicated... [1] [https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wire...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/wireless- cli.md) ------ johnklos The overlap of people who might want to ssh and people who don't know how to configure their own wireless doesn't seem all that large. On the other hand, I could see this being useful as an additional software package that gets run when the Pi can't find or join its usual network. ~~~ Damogran6 My hassle is usually: Where do I dig up that keyboard and spare HDMI video source to bootstrap the Pi. Currently the MAME cabinet does that well, but not everyone has a MAME cabinet. ~~~ avip You don’t. You just enable ssh and connect it to network. Essentially ‘touch /boot/ssh’ ~~~ azinman2 But you can’t do that from a raspbian image, and if you want me to mod my file system post install that only works assuming I can mount it (eg I have another Linux box with keyboard). I’ve had this problem multiple times and find this approach really nice (and wish it shipped with raspbian!) ~~~ otachack But where was the SD card flashed? I think the idea is to enable ssh right after flashing the image. ~~~ azinman2 Say on a Mac or windows box. ~~~ avip But /boot is a FAT32 partition, it's mountable on practiacally any os I'm aware of. On a mac it'll be under /Volumes/boot. ~~~ azinman2 Unless I’m mistaken, /boot isn’t where any kind of network / ssh config would live. ~~~ Drdrdrq Ssh can be enabled and wifi configured in /boot. ~~~ rgoodwintx Yes. Touch (create) an empty file called "ssh" in /boot, and wifi details in wpa_supplicant.conf as mentioned elsewhere in the thread. Very handy! ~~~ Drdrdrq Yes, I know. I was just telling GP that they _are_ mistaken. :) ------ orblivion I'm confused by the Bluetooth logo. ~~~ tyingq There's an explanation of why bluetooth is used here: [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=223380](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=223380) ~~~ orblivion I don't recall my RasPis having Bluetooth built in. Maybe it's the newer models. Just saying perhaps including the word "Bluetooth" once in the description would help. Looking at this page the first time it wasn't so obvious what was going on or what it does. ~~~ tyingq It's the model 3's and the Zero W that have Bluetooth. Models 2 or below, and the "non W" Zero don't have it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
MeTask – New Kanban Tool - MeTask http://www.metask.com ====== MeTask Imagine a better way to organize your tasks with real time team collaboration. MeTask, based on the kanban system, with it's innovative twist will allow you to quickly get an overview of all your projects, due tasks, time tracking and much more. Perfect for freelancers, studios or agencies.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's your favourite typeface? - NSHippie ====== lauritz Adobe Garamond [0] is really nice to look at, I think, especially for long passages of text. With Akzidenz-Grotesk [1] as a runner-up (and for headlines etc.). Font fun fact: This was actually the font Massimo Vignelli originally used on the NYC subway system, before the MTA changed it to Helvetica (which is a fine choice, too, though I personally think Akzidenz (on which Helvetica is partly based) is prettier) [2]. [0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond#Adobe_Garamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond#Adobe_Garamond) [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akzidenz- Grotesk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akzidenz-Grotesk) [2]: [http://www.helveticasubway.com](http://www.helveticasubway.com) ------ J-dawg Fun typeface fact: Stanley Kubrick's favourite was Futura Extra Bold, it was used on the posters for Eyes Wide Shut and 2001 Source: ([http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend](http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/mar/27/features.weekend)) The Nike logo is also from the Futura family ([https://www.quora.com/What- font-is-used-for-the-Nike-logo](https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-used-for- the-Nike-logo)) ~~~ danbolt Other typeface fact! The title text in 2001 uses capital O's instead of zeroes. [1] The zeroes in Gill Sans are thinner than the O's, so part of me thinks Kubrick wanted the logo to look more futuristic. [1] [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e-QFj59PON4/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e-QFj59PON4/maxresdefault.jpg) ------ kleer001 Chicago. For fun, for nostalgia, for distinctiveness, for boldness, for my heart and my soul. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_%28typeface%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_%28typeface%29) Susan Kare, its prolific designer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare) ------ starshadowx2 Neue Haas Grotesk [0], the original name and style of Helvetica. [0] [http://www.fontbureau.com/nhg/](http://www.fontbureau.com/nhg/) ------ charlieegan3 Anything I don't need to extra pay for! Lato is nice - it's on Google Fonts. ------ Raed667 I enjoy using "Duru Sans" whenever I need to write some paragraphs. For headings and titles I like a clean "DejaVu Sans" ------ rooundio Gotham by Tobias Frere-Jones. A very similar open source alternative is Montserrat by Julieta Ulanovsky ------ BjoernKW Is there such a thing? Sounds a bit like 'favourite colour'. Anyway, that said, Fira Sans is very nice. ------ tptacek Chaparral. ------ Tomte Bembo. Impractical as it may be sometimes, I just adore the capital R. ------ kp25 I just enjoy writing code using "Monospace". ------ brudgers Depends on why I am selecting a typeface. ------ mnort9 Open Sans ------ gjvc consolas 11pt ------ ivebencrazy I'm a huge fan of Freight Text Pro for serifs ([https://typekit.com/fonts/freight-text- pro](https://typekit.com/fonts/freight-text-pro)). It's like... just rounded enough to be soft and kind, but still be professional. I'm talking mostly about the medium weight, but the whole series is nice.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
If a Board Meeting was like the State of the Union - lwc123 http://larrycheng.com/2010/01/28/if-a-board-meeting-was-like-the-state-of-the-union/ ====== Semiapies Next up: If a session of Congress was like a print ad. Seriously, what's the idea here? That a speech and a national government are, _gee whiz_ , just a little different from a meeting and a corporation?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Does anyone know how you avoid sending emails to hotmail going to spam? - immad ====== dpapathanasiou Register your server (the one sending email) with SenderID <http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/overview.mspx> which is an MS invention -- their record wizard is here: <http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/> The rest of the world (at least those email servers that check for this stuff) uses SPF records. This site <http://www.openspf.org/> tells you how to setup SPF on your server. ~~~ immad sounds promising. We have SPF setup. Going to check out SenderID now. Thanks ------ willg I do not think that there is "one way" to fix this (if there were, then it would be easy for spammers to go straight to inboxes) Reverse DNS (ip mail domain) SPF Record Sender ID 3rd party verification (goodmail systems is one example linked from aol's spam abuse) - they are $400. 80k sounds like a little bit too much Apply to be "whitelisted" at each specific provider (<http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_bulkmail> is yahoos, aol has one) Switch MTAs (postfix, sendmail, qmail) - try alternating Make sure your headers make sense and are valid (reply-to,return-path, from, message-id, etc) Finally, send email people actually want. It seems that the systems are somewhat automated (aol is for sure) to reject mail if a certain % of users flag it as spam. ------ knome Make sure you have reverse DNS that points at your mail server ( eg mail.your- site.com ) , not just the root domain ( eg not your-site.com ). A lack of reverse DNS or an automatically generated reverse DNS ( eg isp-1-0-0-127.isp- site.net ) won't do. ------ immad I have talked to a few other people and they have had similar problems, thought someone here might have a solution. Basically we are using Qmail to send emails out from our website (ruby on rails). Everything seems to be working except for hotmail, where they always go to spam. We are using a hacky solution at the moment but that limits how many emails we can send, does someone have a good way around this, paying a small price per month wouldn't be too bad for a solution. ------ lupin_sansei Are you sure it's not due to how your email headers and content look? I had to remove my X-Mailer "Mail-Sender" and supply a proper address with a name before Hotmail would stop putting the emails into spam. ------ sabat I may have some information about this, but it's a little bit crude. It comes from Adam Curry's Daily Source Code podcast, when he was first setting up his startup Podshow and was having similar troubles (and not just with Hotmail -- all the webmail providers!). Btw, the first thing I would do is get SenderID working. It will work with almost everything -- sendmail and postfix at least, so I'd bet that it works with qmail too. According to what Adam says he found, you have to be registered with some sort of clearing house or all the webmail providers will drop you as spam. This is not senderid or spf. The only efficient way to be 'registered' is to purchase and appliance from a company for upwards of $80K. I think this includes configuring it with your domain info as well. I wish my 'info' was not so vague. It comes from 1+ years ago, and Adam was never super-clear about specifics. It always sounded a little weird to me, but OTOH I do believe the webmail providers would do this. Apparently, it's done in the name of anti-spam, but the spammers are allowed to buy these appliances, so it's really about milking more money from emailers, and maybe about squeezing out the little guy. I'm hoping someone out there can clear some of this up, because it's a problem we all potentially face (if it's real).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Raiding Clearance Aisles and Reselling on Amazon for Profit - andrewl https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/flesh-and-blood-robots-for-amazon-they-raid-clearance-aisles-and-resell-it-all-online-for-a-profit/2019/02/08/f71bff72-2a60-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html ====== ec109685 This is an interesting gap that these resellers are filling. What Target, Walmart and other chains should do is ship their clearance to Amazon themselves to avoid the middleman, but I guess that isn’t possible given they compete in other areas? ~~~ mindslight I suspect what they would actually do is calculate if shipping them back to their own warehouse and selling the rest of the inventory online would make sense. But I think what they've really done is tighten up their own logistics (and marketing periods) to avoid shipping too many extra items out to the stores in the first place. I remember clearance sales being much bigger back in the day. Today's clearance is probably still being sold above the incremental production cost, with a rebate from the manufacturer since it wasn't sold at full price. It doesn't matter that they're technically leaving some money on the table - their core business is moving "fresh" stuff at higher markups. (Also, that Monopoly thing was a different type of arbitrage than Brickseek)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
US border officials are denying entry to travelers over others’ social media - rmason https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/27/border-deny-entry-united-states-social-media/ ====== dang [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20809435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20809435) ------ akie On and on we slide towards fascism. ------ kissgyorgy This is really fucked-up.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cloud seeding brings 10-15 percent more rain to Los Angeles - soundstruck http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/03/08/58354/cloud-seeding-brings-10-15-percent-more-rain-to-lo/ ====== soundstruck Is it just me, or does cloud seeding present a loop hole for "act of God" type insurance or contract clauses? Just curious.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Who recovered from bad sleep problems? - yonnadri It’s now been almost 8 years that I’m not having proper amount of deep sleep, not insomnia, just poor sleep quality. And I‘m tired of trying things that actually don’t work (good habits, healthy life, sleep restriction, medical analysis..). So who actually made it through this and how ? ====== softwaredoug “Recovered” hmm. But certainly much better compared to a year ago. First _definitely_ see a doctor. Lots of conditions like sleep apnea or periodic leg movements can prevent deep sleep. For me, I have found that anxiety was the root cause of not getting enough deep sleep. My life is so full with kids, work, etc that I can feel like I’m in a constant state of vigilance. What’s helped me: \- Journaling before bed, write down all my worries and cares. Feel all the bottled up feels, etc. also any TODOs. Just get it all out of your head \- talking to a loved one a lot about the same. Just getting it all off my chest \- meditation \- taking breaks from everything for solitude and self care \- exercise \- disconnecting from electronics and reading a relaxing paper book an hour before bed I’d recommend the book The Sleep Solution by Chris Winter. ~~~ yonnadri I did see a doctor and did all the tests for common sleeping troubles, but they didn’t find anything specific. I can define myself as a relatively anxious person and it’s very hard for me to relax fully, but even when I am in good conditions to do it (I did a 6 months break from my work, away from computer and any source of trouble) it’s still the same. I did talk a lot about this to my ex, but it didn’t really help me and now I tend to act as everything was normal because I can’t complain everytimes this is happening, almost every night. But I do feel like a pressure on my chest, but I still didn’t find any way of getting rid of it, I kind of feel this is due to the lack of sleep. Do you feel any change in your state of vigilance ? What actually changed in your mindset to get better ? Thank you for the book, I already read a lot of them, but still didn’t the one with a solution.. ~~~ softwaredoug I think the best sleep advice I have gotten for general insomnia (that I've used some) is to live life like bootcamp \- Always wake up at the same time (like 7AM) \- Immediately exercise outside (wakes you up and helps fight fatigue) I've also had anxiety cause or exacerbate many physical symptoms that cause poor sleep. Namely heartburn, frequent urination, and other issues. Seen so many specialists for these things, but the causality is always shaky and anxiety IS something I have at least some influence over, so I focus on that, and it helps a lot... But of course your mileage may vary, just sharing what helped me ------ Memosyne This advice may not be applicable to you, but have you tried sleeping during the day and working through the night? I used to struggle with headaches and poor sleep until I realized that I simply couldn't be productive during the day. I often like to joke about how I might have some vampire blood in my lineage. ~~~ yonnadri Sadly not really applicable to my job.. Or maybe I should apply for a vampire job as well ! But do you still have the same 24h day pattern ? Because I do feel this could be an issue for me, like 25h days would be the best	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
List of free software testing and verification resources - ligurio https://github.com/ligurio/awesome-software-quality ====== PaulHoule I think testing is part of quality, but it can't be the whole thing. In every other field, the model of "have a dysfunctional process, test every output piece, throw out or rework 5-30% of the pieces" is discredited. General Motors could get away with it before they got Japanese competition, but not after. Post Deming we know the way you get quality is build it into your process. Formal methods are part of that (hopefully will be a bigger on in the future) but there is a lot you can do to build quality in from day one. Software is different in certain ways, but it is the same more than people think. There is a contradiction between "trying to do something fast and cheap" and quality, but not a contradiction between "completing the project economically" and quality -- look at your own experience and you will see that screwing up is very expensive.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
AI ‘judge’ can predict court verdicts with 79 per cent accuracy - CapitalistCartr http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/23/artifically-intelligent-judge-developed-which-can-predict-court/ ====== Grue3 There are countries where more than 90% of court cases result in "guilty" verdict. My AI judge that always says "guilty" has very high accuracy in these jurisdictions. ~~~ binalpatel This is the imbalanced class problem that comes up often in the real world. You can't optimize for overall accuracy, otherwise you'd have classifiers that always just predict guilty (or not sick, or not fradulent, and so on) because they'd achieve 95%+ accuracy. ~~~ hammock So what is the metric to optimize? ~~~ binalpatel I use AUC often, and always look at the confusion matrix. Metrics based off of it (recall, precision) are both useful to use as well. In the end the probability cutoffs you choose are more often than not based on business context and costs associated with various actions. For example - if we're trying to predict whether a customer is going to leave or not, I'd choose a different threshold based on whether we're mass e-mailing people, or if we're having customer service reps call people, since the underlying costs for each action are so different. In the first case it's fine to cast a wide net, and e-mail lots of people who we're less certain about, in the second we'd optimize to target people we're most sure are going to leave, since it costs so much more to reach out to them. ------ mtgx I'm always amused by people who see these headlines like "AI does X with 80% accuracy" and think that's _high_. That's _terrible_ accuracy. Imagine this algorithm would then be refitted to replace the judge (or augment judges in a way that judges mostly rely on the tool to make a decision, which is already starting to happen [1]) and automatically put people in prison - with _only 80% accuracy_. Does that number still seem high now? [1] - [https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk- assessm...](https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments- in-criminal-sentencing) ~~~ arcanus I generally agree with your skepticism of \% as a meaningful metric for AI accuracy or technological prowess. However, do we have any reason to believe that a collection of random, qualified judges would be able to predict the outcome of a court verdict with 80% accuracy? I would be surprised if judicial decisions are not stochastic. Also, we should consider a substitution effect. According to a cursory internet search, 'As of 2012, the pay for federal district judges was $174,000 per year'. If this system is substantially less expensive to purchase and maintain, then there is an argument to be made that it is more _efficient_ , and provides better value, even with a perpetually reduced accuracy. ~~~ tpm Even if it was cheaper to purchase and maintain, it wouldn't be more efficient, because money spent is not necessarily the measure of the efficiency of the justice system. That could be, for example, lower criminality. If a system fails to jail enough criminals to do that, even if it's cheap, it's not working. And also, false positives (e.g. jailed innocent people) are especially troubling and can be very expensive in a justice system. ------ ppereira It should be noted that these predictions are not based on the lawyers' pleadings, but on the facts and law sections from the judges' decisions.[1] There is definitely a possibility of bias in the characterization of the facts. The authors state that for their appellate court, the facts section is uncontested by the parties and derived from the lower court's findings. Even so, it is not clear whether the court's reversal rate is high or low. If low, it could be that the lower court's presentation of the facts was equally varnished. With some judges, it is possible to predict the outcome of the case from the very first sentence laying out the facts and circumstances. In a famous dissenting judgement by Lord Denning, in which he attempts to save a cricket field, the judge begins as follows:[2] In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last 70 years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practise while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there any more. Even with this critique, I think that this research is an excellent first step. It would be great to use pleadings, which are available with effort from some appellate courts. It would likely be necessary to OCR some PDF files. I doubt that this textual approach would work for the more technical parts of the law. Many cases are in areas with very few preceding cases from which to train an n-gram based algorithm. While the author's approach worked for certain human rights cases, it would likely fail for cases turning on an obscure tax provision. [1] Original paper: [https://peerj.com/articles/cs-93/](https://peerj.com/articles/cs-93/) [2] Miller v Jackson [1977] QB 966, see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v_Jackson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v_Jackson) ------ denzil_correa Full Paper : [https://peerj.com/articles/cs-93/](https://peerj.com/articles/cs-93/) I think the authors list down the "Accuracy" but I would be really interested to see "Precision, Recall and F1" scores for this classification task. ------ danvoell I assume that inputting historical judgements by the judge ruling over the case would improve the results but could also prove whether bias was involved. ------ h4nkoslo It sounds like they effectively built a rhetoric detector. "The team found that judgements by the European Court of Human Rights are often based on non-legal facts rather than directly legal arguments, suggesting that judges are often swayed by moral considerations father than simply sticking strictly to the legal framework." ------ dragonwriter Predicting the outcome of a case from the text of the decision in the case (even if only the facts and law sections) isn't that impressive, since that material is selected from all the facts and law that has been presented and considered to focus on what is relevant to and determinative of the outcome. ------ visarga With under 600 training examples I doubt it would be able to generalize well on unseen data. ------ norswap Another question is whether a human could have predicted as well or better. If not, it does not help with the actual difficult case of predicting the outcome of a case that isn't clear-cut for a human. ------ raverbashing This is one case where something much higher above this value would be an indicative of overfitting. This is not like classifying pictures between obvious classes, but something more complex ------ thecolorblue What cases are misses? Did those cases get overturned later? ------ Iv Compared to which score for a layperson?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Poor Internet for poor people: Facebook’s Internet.org is economic racism - sinak http://qz.com/385821/poor-internet-for-poor-people-why-facebooks-internet-org-amounts-to-economic-racism/ ====== musing5225 Great piece that shows ramifications of not having net neutrality not only in India, but around the world.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Clearing the Air on Wi-Fi Software Updates - pavornyoh https://www.fcc.gov/blog/clearing-air-wi-fi-software-updates ====== JoshTriplett > Our original lab guidance document released pursuant to that Order asked > manufacturers to explain “how [its] device is protected from ‘flashing’ and > the installation of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT”. This particular > question prompted a fair bit of confusion – were we mandating wholesale > blocking of Open Source firmware modifications? > We were not, but we agree that the guidance we provide to manufacturers must > be crystal-clear to avoid confusion. Can you feel the wind off of that backpedaling? There's no possible way they asked how devices were "protected" from "third- party firmware such as DD-WRT" while not expecting blocking of Open Source firmware modifications. It sounds a lot more like they got too much backlash: "...no, of course that's not what we meant [looks around nervously] you believe us, right?". While this _might_ result in a desirable outcome, I think it would have come across as far more genuine if they'd directly acknowledged that they originally suggested blocking all third-party firmware, and subsequently decided that they'd need a more nuanced approach. That, at least, would not come across as a (transparently bad) spin attempt. Why does this need any kind of new change in the first place? The FCC can certainly go after people who _actually_ transmit in violation of FCC regulations, and they do, no matter what device they use to do so. ~~~ creshal The irony is that DD-WRT never touched anything within FCC legislation – it still uses the vendors' proprietary WiFi firmwares for the actual radios. It just makes everything around that suck less. The worst you can do with DD-WRT is intentionally set a wrong country code. ~~~ JoshTriplett > The worst you can do with DD-WRT is intentionally set a wrong country code. Which lets you transmit on unauthorized frequencies, such as channel 14. But you can hardly do that by accident. ~~~ creshal > But you can hardly do that by accident. Exactly, and plenty of closed source router firmwares expose the same option. And radios (Japanese radios can listen on German police frequencies, I think), etc. pp.; basically everything with an antenna that's sold in more than one country. ------ th0ma5 I think however what they ultimately do want to do is of course make a 1:1 parity between hardware and the license granted. This is a very good thing with regards to protecting spectrum, but it seems to possibly not reflect the trend to push more and more of signal processing into firmware and software. Will it increase parts counts and the bill of materials? Perhaps it has been too optimistic make one globally available physical product supplemented with a software tweak for each locality. ~~~ bravo Maybe I'm misunderstanding, why is it an issue if the signal processing is done in firmware? Isn't the idea of firmware that it's factory set and read- only? ~~~ x0x0 There are regulations about what frequencies and at what power different devices may broadcast. Currently, those implementations (and hence regulations) are done/enforced in some combination of hardware and software, but mostly hardware. Implementation is moving to software, so updating the OS allows the user to override those regulations. The FTC is not thrilled about this. ~~~ bravo Yeah, I understood that, I was just confused as to why he or she mentioned firmware along with software because I thought firmware can't be modified by users like software can. I was wrong in thinking that though. ------ rlpb "So, today we released a revision to that guidance to clarify that our instructions were narrowly-focused on modifications that would take a device out of compliance." With the advent of software defined radio, how is it even possible to draw such a line between the part of firmware "that can take a device out of compliance" and the part of firmware that cannot? ------ i336_ Nobody will probably see this, but this is my take on the undertone I get from reading this: "Manufacturers are lazy, and hardware/driver implementations are often buggy and not sufficiently restrictive. Lobbying the manufacturers didn't work _[citation impossible]_ , so we might need to block DD-WRT et al. on devices that are sufficiently enough that they freely allow firmware like DD-WRT (and OpenWRT) unmitigated access to the RF chip's parameters via an insecure driver." Of course they had to be much nicer and much more opaque than that, so everyone got confused.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
ReproducibleBuilds - chha https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds ====== chha Would something like this be possible for npm? Why/not?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Seemingly Impossible Swift Programs - wool_gather https://www.fewbutripe.com/2018/12/05/seemingly-impossible.html ====== kccqzy I have translated the pretty long Swift code belabored with manual laziness handling into Haskell where lists are inherently lazy: type BitSequence = [Bool] allSatisfy :: (BitSequence -> Bool) -> Bool allSatisfy p = not (anySatisfy (not . p)) anySatisfy :: (BitSequence -> Bool) -> Bool anySatisfy p = p (find p) find :: (BitSequence -> Bool) -> BitSequence find p = if anySatisfy (\s -> p (False : s)) then False : find (\s -> p (False : s)) else True : find (\s -> p (True : s)) The code still works the same. But now, it is clearer what actually happens. The lexical call chain goes like this: anySatisfy p ===> find p ===> anySatisfy (\s -> p (False : s)) ===> find (\s -> p (False : s)) ===> anySatisfy (\s -> (\s -> p (False : s)) (False : s)) ===> find (\s -> (\s -> p (False : s)) (False : s)) === (by alpha conversion) find (\s -> (\s1 -> p (False : s1)) (False : s)) === (by beta reduction) find (\s -> p (False : False : s)) where I used the long arrow to mean a deeper lexical call chain, and triple- equal to mean a single step of reduction and/or . In other words, as long as the given predicate p consumes a finite prefix of the infinite bit sequence to produce a result, this will successfully return a result. Which is quite intuitive because the function is essentially doing an exhaustive search. It has nothing to do with topology or continuous functions or compactness, IMO. It also has nothing to do with Curry–Howard correspondence. Here's an example when the function fails to terminate: anySatisfy and Here's another example: let parity (False : s) = parity s; parity (True : s) = not (parity s) in anySatisfy parity ~~~ repsilat > _Here 's an example when the function fails to terminate:_ I figured this seemed too good to be true. In fact, isn't there a simple reduction to the halting problem? Make a "sequence" i -> M halts in i steps for an arbitrary Turing Machine `M`. You can implement the "bit lookups" by simulating `M`. The author says their Swift code can run `anySatisfy` on this "sequence" in finite time, right? EDIT: quoted at the top, but afaict not mentioned later, the article says, >> _It is well known that it is impossible to define equality between arbitrary functions. However, there is a large class of functions for which we can determine equality_ It would have been nice if the author had been explicit about the class of functions for which their program terminates. ~~~ wz1000 It works for any decidable/recursive predicate on bit sequences, i.e. one that is guaranteed to halt for any input. `and` on an infinite bit sequence is not guaranteed to halt because it is co- recursively enumerable, i.e. it will reject bit sequences that contain `False`, but it will not halt on bit sequences that contain only `True`, since to verify that a bit sequence only contains `True`, you have to check all elements of the sequence. In ghci, > and $ repeat True <doesn't terminate> > and $ (replicate 10000 True) ++ (False: repeat True) False ~~~ repsilat I noticed my post missed the point a bit... I was thinking about functions that check properties of bit sequences, not functions that check properties of predicates on bit sequences. I get how it works now, thanks. Wish I could edit/delete my old post :-/. Just to check my understanding: a terminating program that decides bit sequences will have \- a maximum number of bit checks it will make regardless of input, and \- a maximum bit index it will access regardless of input, and even \- a maximum running time (measured however). ------ mrmr1993 > It’s going to seem incredible, almost magical, but be assured you there are > no tricks involved. The trick involved is: BitSequence.find is a naïve brute-force search, but the predicates only check n bits (for some n), and laziness ensures that at most n bits are generated. We run into the expected problems if n is large, or there is no such n. For example, func evenNumberOfOnesAtStart(_ s : BitSequence) { return (s.atIndex(0) == .zero \|\| (s.atIndex(1) == .one && evenNumberOfOnes(BitSequence { s.atIndex($0 + 2) }))) } evenNumberOfOnesAtStart == evenNumberOfOnesAtStart will never terminate. (Disclaimer: I don't write Swift.) While it's nice to try smuggling in some mathematics at the end, I think a better conclusion for the article to draw is: if you ask a computer to do a brute-force search on some fixed number of bits, it will do it, even where has to compute this number of bits itself along the way. ~~~ Spivak I think there might be a clearer explanation. If a predicate only looks a finite number, n, of bits of a bitsequence then you can brute-force search the space containing the (2^n) sequences shorter than n. And a predicate can't possibly look at infinitely many bits of a bitsequence as the function which resolves that predicate would never terminate. ~~~ mrmr1993 Agreed. (Although it's (2^m) sequences, where m is the largest index of the n.) ------ svat See also “Seemingly impossible functional programs” by Martin Escardo, from 2007 ([1], also at [2]). It covers similar ground and is referenced at the bottom of the article (along with three other references also by Martín Escardó), but I thought it worth mentioning explicitly because I remember reading it many years ago and finding it really fun. [1]: [http://math.andrej.com/2007/09/28/seemingly-impossible- funct...](http://math.andrej.com/2007/09/28/seemingly-impossible-functional- programs/) [2]: [http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mhe/papers/seemingly- impossible.ht...](http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mhe/papers/seemingly- impossible.html) ------ kccqzy Nitpicking but I don't think this is quite right: > The BitSequence type holds infinitely many values. In fact, it holds an > unconscionable number of values. It has more values than String does. Assuming UInt is infinite precision and Strings can be infinitely long, there is an easy injection from BitSequence to String, therefore String is at least as equinumerous as BitSequence. If we bend the definition a bit and allow UInt to be infinite precision (which it is not), there's no reason not to allow String to have infinite length as well. Also, the article mentioned multiple times how awesomely large the cardinality of BitSequence is. But in fact, the cardinality is the same as that of the real numbers—both have cardinality $2^{\aleph_0}$. So its size is rather intuitively grasped. ~~~ DougBTX > Assuming UInt is infinite precision and Strings can be infinitely long, > there is an easy injection from BitSequence to String, therefore String is > at least as equinumerous as BitSequence. You’re right that a particular series of bits can be mapped to a string, but here the article is talking about the function that produces the bit sequence not the bit sequence itself. There are an infinite number of functions that can create a particular bit sequence, and each bit sequence can be mapped to a single string, so there must be more functions than strings. ~~~ saagarjha > There are an infinite number of functions that can create a particular bit > sequence, and each bit sequence can be mapped to a single string, so there > must be more functions than strings. I don't think this logic works. For example, there are an infinite number of "rational numbers" of the form np/p where n, p ∈ ℤ, and each of these can be mapped to a single integer (namely, n). But there are not more these "rational numbers" than integers. ~~~ kccqzy When you have an injection from A to B, you only know that B is at least as equinumerous as A. Maybe their cardinality is the same, and maybe the cardinality of B is strictly bigger. For your example, we can construct an injection from rational numbers to integers, as well as an injection from integers to rational numbers. Therefore, by the Schröder–Bernstein theorem they are equinumerous. ------ Skeime Here is a more imperative version (using exceptions): The assumption is (as in the article) that each predicate terminates for every bit sequence and that the predicates are actual functions, i.e. they have no state. Also, predicates don’t catch exceptions. We can implement find as follows: Start with n = 0 and generate the bit sequences with all prefixes of length n. Have them throw an exception if somebody tries to access an index past that prefix. This way, you get finitely many partial bit sequences. Apply the predicate to all these sequences. There are three cases: \- The predicate returns true for one of the partial sequences. Because it doesn’t catch exceptions, it only looked at values within the prefix. Hence, the result of the predicate doesn’t change if we change the rest of the sequence—for example, we can set the rest of the sequence to 0 and we have found a sequence that satisfies the predicate. \- The predicte returns false for all our partial sequences. Similarly to the case above, the result does not depend on bits beyond the prefix, so no matter what we do, we will not find a sequence satisfying the predicate and we can return any sequence (by the definition of find, it returns any sequence if the predicate is unsatisfiable). \- For some of our partial sequences, we get an exception. Then we increase n and try again. This algorithm has to terminate: if it doesn’t, we get the third case each time. But taking the bit sequence that we get by always extending our prefix on a path that keeps throwing exceptions, we get a bit sequence on which our predicate does not terminate, contrary to our assumption that it always does. ------ xondono Noob here woth a doubt: “Incredible! We are exhaustively searching an uncountably infinite space in finite time” Isn’t this like a long stretch? Once lazy evaluation is introduced he is pretty much checking until a first hit happens, isn’t he? What would happen if I call the function with predicate ‘x == one AND x == zero’? ~~~ jozefg This algorithm is only total if the predicates supplied are total. Since `x == one AND x == zero` is not total the algorithm will diverge. It will not return the incorrect answer though. ------ ken He lost me when he started talking about the Halting Problem. How is checking all Swift.String or Swift.Int values equivalent to that? There are a lot of Swift.Int values to check (2^64, on a 64-bit platform), and even more Swift.String values (every combination of characters up to that length), but simply being infeasibly slow to run on your Pentium "in a reasonable amount of time" doesn't mean it's an "impossible function to implement, and also equivalent to the halting problem". We could easily write a function to enumerate all Swift.Int values (though it might take 100 years to run). He throws out the parenthetical remark "it’s best to think of Int as modeling the infinite set of all integers" without explanation. When you're discussing whether something is theoretically impossible or not, thinking of a finite set as equivalent to an infinite set is brushing over a pretty major distinction. ~~~ joshuamorton With Int you may be right. But there are an infinite number of strings (and indeed every Turing machine may be represented as a String in swift), so it is indeed related to the halting problem. ~~~ ken Swift.String is composed of a finite set of symbols, with a finite maximum length. How can you create an infinite number of these? The article ignores the distinction in many places, but "String" in a Swift function means "the Swift.String type", not "an abstract string type like those used to represent Turing machine state". ~~~ timjver You're not wrong, but the author's code does in no way rely on the fact that you could theoretically iterate over all the valid Int values in Swift, so it would have made no difference if the Int type was somehow truly infinite. And the author clearly acknowledges this: >it’s best to think of Int as modeling the infinite set of all integers ------ n4r9 Hmm, some questions from someone who isn't familiar with Swift or much functional programming: \- What does this have to do with Swift? Other commenters seem to agree that Haskell would be more appropriate. \- What does this have to do with functional programming? As far as I can tell, an algorithm about bitstrings has been wrapped up and reframed in terms of types. Could you not do this in C without too much headache? \- The recursion aspect confuses me a bit; is it possible to "find" a predicate like "all indices of the bitstring are 1"? Or is that not an allowed type of predicate? \- Again with the recursion, how does the "find" procedure know to terminate if no viable bit string exists? EDIT: I should have read kccqzy's post more carefully. I believe it answers the third and fourth questions. ~~~ saagarjha For the first two: not much, and somewhat. The commenters are correct that this logic is much more easily expressed in Haskell, since it has better support for this kind of programming. Swift is able to do this because it has lazy evaluation as a opt-in feature as well as the parts of the type system that matter; I don’t think you would be able to port this to C easily. ------ aaaaaaaaaab I don't get it. What prevents us from doing the exact same approach for the natural numbers? I.e. represent the naturals lazily via the successor function and use the same exhaustive search as the OP for BitSequence. Of course if the predicate doesn't stop evaluating successor(x) for any finite x then we're out of luck and the computation doesn't halt, but this caveat also holds for OP's BitSequence, as others have pointed out in this thread... ~~~ jozefg So this article shows how to check equality on `(nat -> bool) -> bool`. Your question, I think, is to figure out how to check `nat -> bool` for equality. The issue is that there are more operations we can do with `nat`, more properties we can check, than there are with `nat -> bool`. With `nat -> bool` we can basically check `i` indices and so the behavior of any predicate `(nat -> bool) -> bool` is basically determined by the first `i` indices. And that's finite. This algorithm is basically implicitly finding the indices considered by the supplied predicate and then brute-forcing all those entries. With `nat` there's no such finite cut off point. It's never the case that it suffices to test a predicate `nat -> bool` on finitely many entries to fully determine it. So we cannot do the same brute force search. ~~~ aaaaaaaaaab But a natural number can be viewed as a function from the natural numbers to {0, 1} via its binary expansion. There's a trivial isomorphism between the natural numbers and binary sequences with finitely many ones, so a predicate of type `nat -> bool` can be viewed as a predicate of type `(nat -> bool) -> bool`. ~~~ jozefg It's not an isomorphism though, it misses the always true map. This means that many predicates on nat do not terminate on nat -> bool. ------ riskable This article does a great job at pointing out just how needlessly difficult computer science makes itself when it doesn't have to. Example: !(a \|\| b) == (!a && !b) `a` and `b`. They're meant to represent, well _anything_ really but to the average person (or weirdos like me) it would be infinitely easier to understand if the author wrote it like this: !(Bob \|\| Sally) == (!Bob && !Sally) I don't know why but whenever I encounter single-characters-as-math-variables in computer science I have to spend _far_ more time unpacking such statements into things my brain can understand. It is _so much easier_ if such statements are written as _nouns_ that describe actual _things_. I remember having a hard time working with C for loops until a friend of mine wrote one like this: for (int number = 0; number < 10; number = number + 1) Suddenly it all made sense! I am not alone in this! I have taught programming to kids and others who have struggled to learn programming and this seems to be how _normal_ people think. Note: We, as a geeky community are _not_ normal. I just have a strange exception in that at least one little part of me thinks like a normal person and that is with "what we name things" :) ~~~ chrisseaton I can't understand any point to writing 'a' rather than writing 'Sally'. What practical difference does it make? ~~~ cecilpl2 It makes it WAY easier to understand exactly why !(a \|\| b) == !a && !b. Bob and Sally are things that people already understand and relate to. a and b are not, so there is an extra layer of indirection there when attempting to reason about them. !(Milk \|\| Sugar) == (!Milk && !Sugar), duh. ~~~ chrisseaton Sorry I still don't get it. > Bob and Sally are things that people already understand and relate to. People understand they're people's names. But that's not a relevant detail for the equation, so why add that to the problem? It complicates, rather than simplifies, my understanding of it. > !(Milk \|\| Sugar) == (!Milk && !Sugar), duh. I don't get what the 'duh' is. You've added nothing to the equation! They're just different names! ~~~ uryga _`with_milk`_ and _`with_sugar`_ are booleans that people have (lots of) experience with. this seems to help us think about this stuff – we've seen how milk/sugar "work" many times, and we've already internalized some model of that situation – we already "get it" on an intuitive level. hence, reusing that model for general Boolean variables reduces the cognitive effort required[0]. for a similar example, see [1]. summary: a study presented people with a logical problem. they failed miserably if the question was about abstract math-y stuff, but got it right most of the time if the variables were like _`X is underage`_ and _`X can buy beer`_ (explained in the "Policing social rules" section) \--- [0] as a bonus, we can quickly sanity-check if our reasoning is correct – if there's _`no (milk or sugar)`_ in my coffee, there's obviously _`(no milk) and (no sugar)`_ in it! [1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task) ------ tylerhou > It’s so large that it can hold an infinite number of disjoint copies of the > natural numbers inside it! Nit: you can embed infinite copies of the natural numbers inside the natural numbers as well, with room to spare. Consider the primes raised to integer powers. ------ srikz Off topic: DeMorgan's law > the negation of a disjunction is the conjunction of the negations As a non-English speaker I hated this definition until someone told me to remember > 'break the line, change the sign'. This is of course referring the representation in boolean algebra, where, NOT(A AND B) is represented with a single long horizontal line on top of (A AND B). This becomes NOT(A) OR NOT(B), i.e., Ā \| B̄ according to DeMorgan's law. ~~~ giornogiovanna De Morgan's law is just "not all true <=> at least one's false". I'm not sure why people complicate it beyond that. ~~~ blattimwind In university I had a course (curse?) called "logic in formal systems" (or something like that); I doubt many using only the course's materials truly understood the logic principles demonstrated there. Coincidentally, the course insisted on using ∧, ∨, ¬ etc., while another course also dabbling in a lot of logic using natural symbols was far better in terms of presentation and explanations. (To this day I have to look ∧, ∨, con- and disjunction up to be sure which is which). ~~~ Izkata > To this day I have to look ∧, ∨, con- and disjunction up to be sure which is > which Tip: ∧ is shaped like the "A" in "And". Hopefully others know tricks for the other symbols. ~~~ blattimwind > Tip: ∧ is shaped like the "A" in "And". Meanwhile ∨ is shaped like the "U" in "Und" ... ------ SeanLuke Apple's been in this game a long time. NewtonScript had a powerful function called "IsHalting". See Page 23-84 of [http://www.newted.org/download/manuals/NewtonProgrammerRef20...](http://www.newted.org/download/manuals/NewtonProgrammerRef20.pdf) ------ nathan_f77 That was really interesting! > This is completely impossible to do with Int’s and String’s, but here we > have done it for BitSequence I'm still confused by this part. Can't you convert any Int or String value into a BitSequence? ~~~ fmap He means that it's impossible to write such a function from the natural numbers. It's possible for all finite types such as UInt in Swift. In general, you can do this exhaustive search with any "compact" type and there are a lot of compact types. In particular, the (total continuous) functions from a discrete (i.e. a type with decidable equality) into a compact type are compact. And as the article shows, the (total continuous) functions from a compact into a discrete type are discrete. Together with the observation that the type of natural numbers is discrete and that every finite type is compact and discrete already gives you infinitely many compact types to play with. One caveat with this whole work (which goes back to Martin Escardo by the way) is that this doesn't work with general recursion. E.g. in a language with general recursion you can write a program kleene : (nat -> bool) -> bool which computes the paths in the Kleene tree, where roughly "all total computable paths are terminating, but all uncomputable paths diverge". However, if you have a (total) language with, e.g., only structural recursion, everything works out and you can apply this epsilon operator to arbitrary programs. ~~~ nathan_f77 Thanks for your reply! I think I understood some of your comment, but got very lost at the end. I don't know anything about: Kleene trees [1], "total" languages [2], general recursion vs structural recursion [3], or epsilon operators [4]. (But I've looked those up and provided some links.) I think I understood some of the first paragraph. I'll have to do some mathematics and computer science courses on Khan Academy. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene%E2%80%93Brouwer_order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene%E2%80%93Brouwer_order) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_functional_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_functional_programming) [3] [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14268749/how-does- struct...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14268749/how-does-structural- recursion-differ-from-generative-recursion) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_calculus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_calculus) This seems like a very advanced topic! ------ keithalewis Balderdash, as others have more graciously pointed out. How wrong do you have to be before having your nonsense deleted from HN? ~~~ wool_gather Even if it is balderdash, isn't there value in analyzing(/refuting) it? I submitted the post (it's not mine) because I was interested in hearing people with more maths than I have expand/comment on it -- perhaps even people who had read the original papers. If there's something particular in the post that you find problematic, I personally am all ears. ~~~ keithalewis The author is correct that checking if two functions having infinite domains are equal is often impossible. He also has correct statements of some mathematical theorems. But people in this thread have provided counterexamples to his claim. That means he needs to fix the mistakes he made. If you are interested in what serious mathematicians have to say on this topic see [https://homotopytypetheory.org/](https://homotopytypetheory.org/). ~~~ jozefg It is possible in certain cases, that's the point of the article. One of the contributors to HoTT is the author of the paper introducing these algorithms :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Chrome plug-in replaces occurrences of the word 'literally' with 'figuratively' - luu https://github.com/lazerwalker/literally ====== throwaway13qf85 "A browser plugin that replaces occurrences of the word 'literally' with 'figuratively'. That's figuratively all it does." ------ _rolf But a lot of times "literally" literally means "literally". Why would you get all arrogant and superior over other people's use of language, then implement such an obviously broken concept? Literally the dumbest thing I've seen all day. ------ alexdevkar Lots of innovation in this area: [https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to- butt](https://github.com/panicsteve/cloud-to-butt) ------ 2468ben About a year ago I wrote an extension for finding & replacing whatever spelling/grammar people wanted to change on the WWW: [http://www.ityms.com/](http://www.ityms.com/). It's a poor man's version of the Github PR for typos. ------ arbitrage Why? Modern usage of the word is appropriate. It's widely recognized as a contranym: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto- antonym](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym) Language evolves. Get over it. ~~~ bobbyi_settv I don't think it's accurate to refer to the way "literal" is used today as purely "modern" or a recent "evolution". Most sources say the word has been used this way since at least the 1700s. ~~~ bazillion I can't seem to find the link that said this, but I believe the 1700's-1800's version of our modern use of the word "literally" was "veritably". They used it in the same ways we do when we use it the incorrect (non-literal) form.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Opera Features and the Release Cycle - fetbaffe http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/opera-features-and-release-cycle ====== fetbaffe "We got a long list from you yesterday. Yes we made a list! As we have mentioned in the comments and we want to say it loud now - more features will come in future versions. Just to mention Link, themes support, geolocation and a feature rich tab bar to start with. Some are already in the making - just disabled since not stable enough just yet. Over the time also our settings/configuration will become richer too. And one more - Dragonfly is not dead though we cannot give you more information yet." Dragonfly! I never really liked the Webkit developer tools. Blink-V8 powered Dragonfly is a killer feature for a developer. ------ fetbaffe "You don't need to worry about Opera becoming a clone of something" That is the big risk, but if they play their cards correctly this can be a way of getting Chrome users to switch to Opera. you want the same speed and rendering but better features? We have it!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.