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Cringely suggests job losses at Microsoft should be ten times greater - naish
http://www.cringely.com/
======
JoelSutherland
I am failing to see a point in this post. Would it have killed him to write:
Microsoft should lay off 50,000 employees because...[his point].
The closest he comes is this:
_Instead of 5000 positions, the company should drop 50,000. It should decide
what businesses it is in and close or sell the rest. It should be a lot better
than it is at running its true core – the muscle that’s been hiding beneath
all that fat._
But that omits a _why_.
~~~
tptacek
I'm not sure you read the whole article; it's mostly about how Microsoft is
overstaffed, and that if you conservatively assume a 10 year average tenure
for FTEs at Microsoft, they're losing a multiple of their layoff size every
year just in turnover.
~~~
mlinsey
That answers the question of "How can Microsoft get by with so many more
layoffs" but not the question of why it would be a good idea. Specifically,
the author identifies Microsoft's real long-term problem as the growing
irrelevance of the PC and MS' inability to control the various markets that
are supplanting it. How getting rid of half of the employees in the company
would fix that problem; I'm not sure.
~~~
tptacek
One inference I made easily from the article: if most of what Microsoft is
doing is increasingly irrelevant, then they may be heavily staffing projects
that are not strategically valuable.
------
mtkd
Don't have a lot of time for Cringely any more.
However there is a strong argument for breaking Microsoft up in to smaller
units - gaming, office, OS and hardware.
If broken up I think the individual units would have a lot more drive, focus
and identity.
It must be quite depressing being a creative developer in a company that does
so much you can never feel you'll make a difference.
------
old-gregg
It's funny how consistently, for such a long time, year after year I see this
as-a-matter-of-facty drops of _"... when desktop disappears ..."_ into
sentences. Seems like everybody else but me surely knows that it will, and
understands why. I can hear Eric Cartman whispering into my year _"You're so
stuuuuupeeed."_
~~~
axod
For several people, it already has. What you use certainly doesn't matter as
much as it used to, as long as it has a browser.
------
leed25d
Cringely is a stooge for The Man.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Embarrassing Story. Moral: Take Care of Your Health - healthfirst
For obvious reasons I created a new account for this post.<p>I just had a miserable 8 days where I suffered from an embarrassing and painful ailment called hemorrhoids which were the byproduct of a two day hack-a-thon. As embarrassing as this is to write, I wanted to provide a word of warning to hopefully prevent someone from having to endure the same annoyance.<p>Because I have a full-time job and only have weekends to work on our startup, last Saturday-Sunday we coded for 12 hours, slept 5, then coded for another 12. During that time, I sat at my desk for virtually every minute. I was certainly uncomfortable at times, but was getting so much done that I kept telling myself to grin and bear it. This was a catastrophic mistake! You should move around and shift positions a lot. Also, get a good chair. My wood chair with a cushion is not built for long term comfort.<p>My second error was diet. My diet constituted chips, cookies, soda, and candy. As peculiar as that sounds, I have always found a diet rich in junk food to be advantageous for coding. Turns out, it may help you accomplish more in a few hours, but it could cost you days of lost productivity if your system doesn't handle it well.<p>Finally on Monday I developed the problem which stemmed from the weekend. Twas a grind of a week and had to miss work nearly all of last week.<p>Until last week, I thought Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, poor eyesight, and bad posture were the only occupational hazards of hacking. Not so!<p>I hope by sharing this someone will avoid a repeat situation.<p>Please list any other warnings or health tips for hackers. And Merry Christmas!
======
jmtame
I did a spree of hacking last week, but came away very healthy. It was about
72 hours, and I only took breaks to eat and sleep. I follow a few basic rules,
I would encourage you to do the same:
1) Find a comfortable chair with a comfortable desk. I refuse to work on a
wooden chair, it's just distracting and like you pointed out, it isn't
healthy.
2) Take breaks and eat decent food every once in a while. I went and got
Subway and drank lots of green tea (has tons of antioxidants and some
caffeine, which keeps you awake and helps your immune system deal with the
lack of sleep). You cannot overdo caffeine because your body will quickly
build tolerance. You have to sleep at some point. If you're tired while
drinking caffeine, go to sleep.
3) I slept in two 4.5 hour chunks throughout 24 hours (biphasic sleep cycle)
and it worked really well. Some people do polymorphic sleep cycles, and some
do really weird uberman cycles. I suppose it depends on how much control you
have over your schedule. I don't like monophasic because 8-10 hours at a time
seems to have a recovery curve from waking up to being fully ready to go back
to coding.
4) Work with friends. Preferably on the same project.
5) Play classical music (I recommend sky.fm solo piano station). Caffeine
makes it difficult to learn new material because you're too energized (or at
least it has that effect on me), but classical helps me focus.
EDIT: because of the shorter sleep cycles, I remembered more of my dreams. I
had some really weird dreams during this time (robots assembling themselves
and teaching each other how to subclass).
------
coolestuk
I don't think anyone stresses just how much damage can be done by sitting
immobile for long periods of time can be.
Whilst I have no problem with 'piles' and was not hacking as the OP was. I was
slim and athletic - used to walk 5 miles a day, do weight-training and
cycling, etc. Then 6 years ago I moved in my chair in the office and had a
feeling like an electric current travel up my spine. It was months before I
could turn my head without pain, and in the following years I've suffered
terrible back, pelvis, and hip pains, and it's getting worse. I cannot really
sit upright, and now even have trouble walking. No doctor can explain how all
this began or even if the various problems are connected - and even when they
have some 'treatment' the odds are even as to whether it makes matters better
or worse.
So please, if you value a normal life, take care of yourself and don't sit too
long without breaks. It won't matter how much money you make if you can't
enjoy an evening at the cinema or can't go for a walk when on holiday.
~~~
Derrek
FYI, you might want to check into acupuncture for that neck and back pain. It
worked great for my shoulder pain. Good luck
------
kranner
I had something far worse a few years ago as a result of a bad diet. A bout of
gastrointestinal bleeding which combined with mild hemophilia almost did me in
- seriously. I went running 5 miles every evening, so lack of exercise wasn't
the problem.
I've switched to fruits and unprocessed grains since then but it took me
another few years to realize the other serious dietary problem I had - not
chewing food enough.
Now it's a lot, lot better and I can focus on work instead of my stupid
digestion.
~~~
wallflower
I tend to wolf my food down without thinking. How did you consciously solve
your issue?
~~~
kranner
Well, I'd moved to Singapore for about six months and I returned (to India) a
few months ago. Like the dog that didn't bark in the night, the time in
Singapore was perfect - speaking of my digestion - without any special effort.
But after I returned, the same old bloating and hard stools (sometimes quite
painful) recurred. Obviously, these conditions became sufficiently irritating
that I was forced to analyse.
After a bit of thought, I realized that the Chinese-ish diet in Singers was
mostly soup-like with lots of hot water, whereas back here at home it's stiff
grains like wheat and corn with lots of husk, with much less liquid ingested.
So I figured I should try to make what's going in be of similar consistency to
what I knew worked. I decided I would try it for a week, strictly, and it
worked wonderfully. And so I've stuck to it.
------
Tangurena
One tip is to avoid putting your wallet in your back pocket and sitting on it.
This tilts your pelvis a tiny bit that adds up over time, and can lead to
lower back pain.
Another thing that is helping is that our employer signed us all up for virgin
health miles. Just having a simple pedometer and the ability to track how much
you walk in a day is getting more and more people out of their chairs (at
least at our office). <http://www.virginhealthmiles.com/>
------
pmarsh
Hurt my lower back coding years ago on a wooden chair so here are my tips.
\- Eat healthy, plenty of greens and veggies and as little sugar as possible.
If you're young get in this habit and you won't need to break it when you're
old (late 20's being old)
\- Switch up coffee and caffeinated beverages for green tea.
\- Get up and move around often during the day. Might hurt the end LOC numbers
but being away from a problem can help you come up with a solution. Plus it
gets you away from your desk and be social for a bit.
\- Exercise. Seriously. I don't care what your deadline is, you can put aside
60 minutes to run/walk/shower. If you can't, then go for a longer walk and
find a more realistic goal/job. You'll gain health and be able to stay awake
longer without aides.
Nothing is more important than your body. Take care of it you only get one.
------
ratsbane
Sometimes I forget to drink anything but coffee and I end up dehydrated and
with a headache. This impairs my productivity, to say nothing of quality of
life. I try to avoid this by keeping one of those disposable water bottles (I
like the Glaceau SmartWater ones best) close at hand. I'll use the same bottle
for weeks or months, just refilling it from the tap. I try to drink at least
three per day. Eating fruits and vegetables and exercising helps me feel
better and stay focused too but I don't do those enough.
~~~
johnyzee
Be careful when reusing water bottles. A recent study found that re-using a
disposable plastic water bottle a few times raises bacteria and fungus
contamination beyond the threshold for acceptable drinking water.
~~~
ratsbane
I used to use a Nalgene bottle. I wonder why a Nalgene (or other) reusable
bottle would be safe but a disposable bottle would not? Possibly: wider mouth
facilitates washing? It's a good point but I'm a little skeptical - if the
study was sponsored by bottled-water sellers then...? In any case I'd like to
look into it more. How to test easily for bacterial/fungal contamination?
~~~
ratsbane
A little googling turns up a lot of discussion about reusing water bottles.
The fear of bacterial and fungal seems to come largely from a single study of
Canadian elementary-school students and the contamination may have come from
their hands. There seems to be a consensus that if you occasionally wash the
bottles with soap or let them sit with water containing a spoonful of bleach
then reuse is okay.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_water_bottles>
------
healthfirst2
The same thing happened to me. I had a nice Aeron and desk, but had moved to
the couch with the laptop for several day hacking sessions. I wasn't as
afflicted as you, but it was extremely unpleasant. My diet wasn't bad, but my
posture was.
Invest in (and take advantage of) a proper work environment!
------
wallflower
For your eyesight: The 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look away from the
monitor to a spot at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Special
computer prescription: You can get a special prescription for computer work
based on your current Rx that will help with eye strain issues.
RSI: Swimming (the TotalImmersion way). Beware that any pain in the lower arm
extremities may be a symptom of problems upstream (e.g. shoulder/back - try
rolling your shoulders)
Roids: Splash cold water on affected area, ideally right after you-know-what
Favorite healthy snack: Formula = Carbs + Protein (e.g. whole wheat no-
preservative bread with natural Trader Joe's peanut butter or apple slices
with peanut butter)
~~~
lackbeard
I usually think of peanut butter as fat, not protein. Does it really have a
sufficient amount of protein?
~~~
DaniFong
It's a protein staple for many vegetarians (who aren't allergic to peanuts,
like me :-/)
------
Tichy
I am guessing junk food played the largest part in bringing forth the problem.
------
clintavo
I too have had multiple problems since taking my web company full time about
three years ago. I've had the tingling, muscle knots and I've also had
prostate pain and frequent urination. I'm not sure if the prostate thing is
related but my doctors have not found any other underlying cause.
I've recently found a couple of things that help:
1\. A book called "Pain Free at Your PC" <http://www.amazon.com/Pain-Free-at-
Your-PC/dp/0553380524>
It has special stretches, some yoga inspired, to counteract the problems
developed from sitting for long-periods.
2\. A got a think called a "butt-cushion". I was skeptical when my friend
suggested it, but felt some relief almost immediately.
Hope these ideas help someone.
------
yef
Not that I've tried it, but I want to:
<http://images.google.com/images?q=treadmill%20desk>
------
thinkzig
A few other tips to add here beyond the other great ones already mentioned. I
had to learn about these the hard way.
1.) Massage.
You may not think it's the manliest thing ever, but if you can afford it you
should find a good local masseuse and get yourself an hour session. Even if
you go once and never go again, you'll get an education in just how kinked up
your back and shoulders probably are.
I tweaked my back lifting a lawn mower out of my car a couple years ago and
didn't think much of it at the time. Over the next few weeks I started to have
all kinds of shoulder problems and other various pain to the point where my
arms were getting tingly and I couldn't sit and code for more than 30 minutes
at a time.
Long story short, I went through a few doctors before I finally just decided
to see a masseuse and see if it helped. I was lucky to find someone that knew
what they were doing and helped get me straightened out. It took about 5
sessions over 5 weeks, but I've never had problems since.
2.) Trigger points.
Learn what they are and how you can fix them. This was my problem that the
masseuse turned me on to. Trigger points are essentially little micro-knots in
your muscle fibers that can add up to cause big problems for you. For me,
lifting that mower was really just the straw that broke the camel's back. It
just exacerbated all the trigger point problems I'd been creating over years
of coding and not stretching out my back and shoulders properly.
If you know where the common trigger points creep up and how to get rid of
them you can save yourself a lot of pain and downtime (not to mention massage
bills).
Buy these two things: The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook
([http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-
Tr...](http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Therapy-Workbook-Self-
Treatment/dp/1572243759/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230263929&sr=8-1))
and a TheraCane ([http://www.amazon.com/Thera-Cane-Theracane-
TheraCane/dp/B000...](http://www.amazon.com/Thera-Cane-Theracane-
TheraCane/dp/B0007YZ1BM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1230263980&sr=8-1))
The book will show you how to identify and treat the trigger points all over
your body, and the TheraCane will help you reach the places on your back that
you can't reach yourself.
3.) Yoga.
Once you get all your issues straightened out, yoga and/or a good daily
stretching regimen can help keep you kink free.
Hopefully some of this advice is helpful. I was really messed up for a while
until I figured all this out. Again, echoing what others have said, please
take care of your body. It's the only one you have.
~~~
Todd
I second yoga. It is the only exercise that I know of that is built around the
back and posture. It does wonders for people who sit at desks all day. I have
only done it occasionally over the past several years, but it has helped every
time.
The other important exercise is walking. As imperfectly designed as our bodies
are for bipedal locomotion, walking turns out to be one of the best exercises
for them. For example, the disks in our backs don't have blood vessels bathing
them in oxygen. One of the only ways to oxygenate them well is to walk (due to
the back and forth motion).
A healthy spine, back muscles, etc. will go a long way to making your 8+ hour
stints in a chair bearable. Think of it as the penance that our body demands
for our hacking.
~~~
davo11
pilates is great for back strength - it focuses on your 'core' muscles that
keep your back straight.
------
wesley
YC admins, please compare IP addresses to find out who this is. J/K.
Get an exercise ball to sit on, I can't recommend it enough. Had lots of
problems with my back, which vanished soon after using such a ball.
~~~
JMiao
"it strengthens your core."
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TS3xP-tOWM>
------
Hates_
Drink plenty of water, eat plenty of healthy foods, exercise a lot. And don't
wait to make it a new years resolution.
------
alnayyir
Uhhh...call me crazy but as someone who has been programming since the age of
8 and am prone to such excursions...I've never once had a bad chair.
Even before I had a job I would fight tooth-and-nail to get one of the better
seats in the house which I would then enhance with pillows and blankets.
These days I just sit in a nice chair that is nicely padded and older than I
am. No roids.
~~~
Tichy
How old are you now?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PIN-Punching Robot Can Crack Your Phone's Security Code In Less Than 24 Hours - Element_
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/22/pin-punching-robot-can-crack-your-phones-security-code-in-less-than-24-hours/
======
Element_
direct link to youtube video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R_D-
zX3yP8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R_D-zX3yP8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA: Four Astronauts Will Stay on the Moon for Two Weeks - yobananaboy
https://futurism.com/nasa-moon-visitors-stay-longer-apollo
======
pnako
While the rest of the world is busy eliminating human beings from dangerous
work sites (factories, mines, etc.) it seems counter-intuitive and wasteful to
focus on sending humans, and fund research in this direction (with space
suits, life support modules, etc.) instead of focusing on developing more
agile robots that would be able to do assembly and maintenance (even if they
are not really completely autonomous but remote controlled, like surgery
robots).
I get that latency could be an issue ultimately, but here we're talking about
the moon (3 seconds RTT).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Andreessen Horowitz Backs SkySafe, Which Wirelessly Grounds Your Drone - cpeterso
http://recode.net/2016/04/20/skysafe-uses-a-wireless-signal-to-take-down-drones/
======
viperscape
So this might not work with totally custom drones, and that's a huge market in
done world. They'd have to continually track and build a database of new
controllers as they come out. Unless they plan on just saturating the 2.4ghz
air waves, is that legal? Any ways, seems kinda unsafe to see the drone fall
in disabled mode. Hopefully no one is near by
~~~
god_bless_texas
Yep I was coming here to post something similar. I imagine they are further
along than I am assuming. Or maybe they are OK with only being able to protect
against a certain percentage of drones out there.
~~~
rasz_pl
They probably count on clients being clueless or not caring. 'we stop 99% of
drones out there by sales volume' might by enough for the same people that buy
application firewalls and antivirus software pretending its a sound security
strategy.
------
snsr
I'm curious about the legalities of a product like this, FCC and otherwise.
~~~
NickNameNick
It does seem to run straight into the 'harmful interference' part of part 15.
I've seen people in previous discussions (mostly around the 'rogue ap
containment' feature of some wireless access points) try to argue that only
'dumb' broadband jammers fall afoul of the limitations on jammers, and that
'smart' or protocol aware jammers wouldn't. I don't agree, and based on the
ruling against the conference centre that was abusing the AP containment
feature of their wifi AP's to block other peoples wifi signals, I'm guessing
that the FCC doesn't think so either.
------
HoopleHead
So. What if you disable a drone and it hits someone as it falls?
~~~
falcolas
This is my thought as well. Not all drones (I hate that term, but that ship
has sailed) have return to home or even fail safe operations.
Imagine, for a moment, someone triggering this while there's a quad racing
event going on. All of a sudden, you have between 3 and 5 unguided projectiles
following unpredictable paths, usually with spectators present. All of them
are also carrying a fairly nasty incendiary device (also known to laymen as a
battery), which reacts poorly to being crashed.
Or a fly-in, where not only the quads, but all RC aircraft are affected. Some
of those move at well over 100mph, and are filled with jet fuel.
------
datalord
These guys have something similar:
[http://www.department13.com/](http://www.department13.com/)
Existing military contracts. Probably similar tech.
~~~
mrpants1
I think one difference though is D13 can take control of the drone, fly it
somewhere, and land it.
------
Klasiaster
Any details on what they are emitting to disable the drone?
~~~
headShrinker
My guess is it's a 2.4Ghz narrow beam jammer. It would likely have little
effect on say a 400Mhz receiver. Not to mention it is reliant on a predicable
failsafe. What if the failsafe is 100% throttle. It would be pretty easy to
make this device useless.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
So you still don´t know AngularJS? - alfongj
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=angularJS%2C+backboneJS%2C+coffee+script%2C+nodeJS
======
alfongj
And just before anyone points it out, I know that Node JS, Backbone, Coffee
Script and Angular have little to do with each another.
I did the comparison with them just to put in perspective what is the
popularity and growth of Angular, in comparison to other Javascript related
things you might know better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
7 Things No One Ever Tells You About Raising Venture Capital Financing - xutopia
http://www.instigatorblog.com/7-things-no-one-ever-tells-you-about-raising-venture-capital-financing/2007/11/12/
======
xutopia
I especially like point 7. A more succesful team where you make a smaller
percentage is better than a failing team where you make a larger percentage.
------
mattmaroon
Maybe it's just because I went through Y Combinator, but I've heard those all
before.
------
downer
_It might not be worth negotiating the finer points of the deal at the term
sheet stage. The fact is, everything can be changed once a term sheet is
signed, so negotiating on the finer points of it may be overkill._
This reminds me of <http://www.negativland.com/albini.html> :
"These A & R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present
the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some
terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has
been agreed on. The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little memo,
is that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the
band signs it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If
the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all
the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign
the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength. These
letters never have any terms of expiration, so the band remain bound by the
deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes. The band
cannot sign to another laborer or even put out its own material unless they
are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make no mistake about
it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually
sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Your next conference should have real-time captioning - steveklabnik
http://lkuper.github.io/blog/2014/05/31/your-next-conference-should-have-real-time-captioning/
======
bibinou
dupe :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7829357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7829357)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Wordpress alternatives for simple content management? - jc_811
I do some front-end development and mostly do everything by simply writing the HTML/CSS/JS (with other frameworks included - bootstrap, etc). I enjoy writing the code and the flexibility it gives.<p>The issue is when clients want to be able to update the content themselves. I know this is where wordpress shines, however I've used it in the past and wasn't a big fan.<p>Do you guys use/know of any alternatives that can provide simple content editing without all the extra baggage that comes with WordPress? Ideally it would be something where you can easily edit any <p> tags , or tags with a special class such as <div class = "editable-content"><p>No database or backend needed, but something where a client is able to edit text in an easy manner; and I still have full control over the HTML and code.<p>Thanks!
======
szensius
I do a lot of Wordpress development as well and I'm not a huge fan. This
GitHub repo has a long list of flat file CMS
options:[https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-
cms](https://github.com/ahadb/flat-file-cms)
I've used Kirby and found it to be pretty intuitive if you have a custom
design. The thing that is lacking from these other options is a lot of theme
options which Wordpress has a plethora of. Often my clients don't have the
budget for a full fledged design and there are plenty of Wordpress themes out
there which make it easy to have a decent looking website (mobile responsive,
custom fonts, intuitive layout, etc). Hope that helps.
------
mtmail
There are a couple of cloudbased CMS like
[https://www.contentful.com/](https://www.contentful.com/) or
[http://getcockpit.com/](http://getcockpit.com/) They make money by storing
the content (monthly subscription) and could be too expensive if you have many
clients.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
White House Tries to Prevent Judge From Ruling on Surveillance Efforts - rosser
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/us/white-house-tries-to-prevent-judge-from-ruling-on-surveillance-efforts.html?_r=0
======
pvnick
So, [Clapper] said, he was continuing to assert the state
secrets privilege, which allows the government to seek
to block information from being used in court even if
that means the case must be dismissed.
It's almost funny to see the administration's hypocrisy on full display. They
seem to think that if they keep pushing this issue under the rug that it'll
just go away. The Obama administration wants to have its cake and eat it to.
On one hand, Obama wants to retain support from the folks who elected him to
dismantle these abuses, so he sets up an "advisory board" to "investigate" the
reports. On the other hand, he remains silent while his staff lies to
congress, and he rejects the recommendations by the review panel.
We'll need someone like rayiner to weigh in (I have almost zero legal
expertise), but some wikipedia reading says that while the state secrets
privilege was recognized by the supreme court, the government's case was later
found to be fraudulent [1]. Clapper's assertion is such a glaring abuse that I
would hope it could set up another supreme court challenge to the privilege.
More wikipedia-ing seems to suggest that might be possible [2].
I'm optimistic. The parties who have a stake in the surveillance apparatus
have been on the defensive now for half a year, and it's obvious they're
losing ground (example FTA: "Still, Mr. Clapper’s description of the program
as 'an important tool' for tracking possible plots was a downgrade in
rhetorical urgency. In earlier, now-declassified court filings, he and other
officials had portrayed it as 'an essential tool.'"). I do actually have hope
that we could see some real reforms, and for someone like me to say something
like that is a big deal.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#Supreme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#Supreme_Court_recognition_in_United_States_v._Reynolds)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#cite_no...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#cite_note-
Carrie_Newton_Lyons-1)
~~~
DannyBee
"I'm optimistic."
Don't be. The supremes have made it clear as recently as last year they have
little to no interest in this one.
~~~
rayiner
I don't see Roberts embracing a reading of the state secrets privilege that
essentially makes these sorts of constitutional claims unreviewable. What was
on the line in both Reynolds and General Dynamics was money. The justices were
quite pointed about this in General Dynamics, accusing the company in oral
arguments of just being greedy, etc. The assertion of the privilege in at
least some of the NSA cases raises countervailing issued that didn't exist in
Reynolds and GD. If the Court does decide to take up the issue, I think the
government will find the privilege less helpful than they might wish.
edit to my other comment: Reynolds wasn't a contract action, but a tort
action, but what was essentially on the line was damages.
~~~
DannyBee
"I don't see Roberts embracing a reading of the state secrets privilege that
essentially makes these sorts of constitutional claims unreviewable."
Roberts didn't seem all that interested in Amnesty vs Clapper, which, while
not a state secrets claim, is, IMHO, not going to be all that wildly different
in terms of ideological breakdown.
In fact, they even went so far as to say "Second, even if respondents could
demonstrate that the targeting of their foreign contacts is imminent, they can
only speculate as to whether the Government will seek to use §1881a-authorized
surveillance instead of one of the Govern- ment’s numerous other surveillance
methods, which are not chal- lenged here."
Which is just, IMHO, beyond throwing the government a bone and going whole hog
into crazy land on government surveillance.
I'm aware of the aftermath of the oral arguments/opinion on clapper, and I
could see SCOTUS taking something on because the government kinda screwed them
on parts of the opinion, but I have a lot of trouble believing the court is
going to be all that receptive, state secrets claim or not.
~~~
wavefunction
Roberts is actually the one Supreme Court Justice heavily involved in the FISA
court, as he is responsible for appointing the Federal judges that sit on its
bench.
See how this represents a Mexican standoff where every branch of the US
government is complicit? I think the American people are going to have to
offer Amnesty to one of the 3 branches to get them to roll over on the other
two ;)
~~~
DannyBee
"Roberts is actually the one Supreme Court Justice heavily involved in the
FISA court, as he is responsible for appointing the Federal judges that sit on
its bench."
I doubt he really wants this, actually (and I believe he's said as much). It's
simply what congress made law, so he does it.
------
salient
EFF is doing such amazing work with these lawsuits. I hope people remember to
help them out and donate:
[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)
You could also help this campaign for privacy tools which NYT and many other
journalists are going to need from now on, to reach its goal:
[https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/](https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/)
~~~
rz2k
One extremely easy way to donate is Amazon Smile [1]
With the Firefox[2] and Chrome[3] extensions you automatically access Amazon
through the Smile portal so that Amazon makes a donation equal to 0.5% of all
your purchases to the charity you chose. Even if you spend $10,000 that only
comes out to $50, but it's a start.
[1]
[http://smile.amazon.com/gp/charity/change.html](http://smile.amazon.com/gp/charity/change.html)
[2] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amazonsmilere...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amazonsmileredirector/)
[3] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-
always/jgpmh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-
always/jgpmhnmjbhgkhpbgelalfpplebgfjmbf?hl=en-US) OR
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-smile-
redir...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-smile-
redirect/dejndilpaooedcdalbciiopmdoepgeee)
------
Theodores
This is great - they are making it worse for themselves!
Before the Snowden revelations came along nobody took you seriously if you
thought we lived in a world of mass surveillance. Now we all know all too well
that we do.
As the scandal unravels the government are clinging to the 'terrorism' fig
leaf. They haven't got anything else, no other plausible excuse for what they
have been up to. Nobody has completely seen through it yet, or, if they have
then they haven't shared with the rest of the world exactly what it is that
they are hiding. (There is something else going on, the 'al-qaeda' thing is
just a ruse, however nobody really believes that it is a complete, total,
utter sham of emptiness. We aren't there yet...)
They are going to have to squirm for a little bit longer before the grand
reveal. Exactly who steps up to do this is not known, however, there are
plenty of candidates out there, getting bolder by the day. One thing is for
certain though, that grand reveal will happen and, when it does, this NSA
spying lark will be put into perspective. That perspective will show the
spying story so far to be nothing more than an appetizing 'light snack' before
the immensely satisfying main course. Compared to what we have got coming the
fall of the Berlin Wall was nothing!
Anyone care to guess what the ace is that trumps the government's 'terrorism'
card? (There is one!)
~~~
sparkie
The "protect the children" card. It's already in full use in the UK, with
mandatory opt-out porn filtering.
~~~
dobbsbob
Canada also tried this card unsuccessfully. Lately they've been trumping up
phony terrorist busts where they groom crazy people online and sell them inert
explosives, then never stop talking about how great their anti terrorist
squads are for breaking up plots they themselves plotted
------
amark
Basically what they're saying is "we're ok with subverting the constitution if
it fits our needs".
The executive branch's power has gotten completely out of hand in the past
decade, all under the guise of "security" and preventing "terrorism". The
reason the judicial branch exists is to stop crap like this. If they can't do
their job constitutional balance of power doesn't exist.
~~~
babesh
The 3 branches of government were for settling disputes between those in
power, not for those without power.... without all out war. If you look at
history, look at the division of new states into equal portions of slave and
non slave prior to the Civil War. Balance of power between Northern
trading/industrial interests and Southern plantation ones. In this case, the
countervailing power are businesses that cannot sell overseas because of this.
So if anything changes, focus on external software versus domestic where they
already have you over a barrel.
------
joering2
_“Disclosure of this still-classified information regarding the scope and
operational details of N.S.A. intelligence activities implicated by
plaintiffs’ allegations could be expected to cause extremely grave damage to
the national security of the United States,” wrote the director of national
intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr._
I am really getting sick and tired of listening to this dirtbag scum
motherfucker. He lied to the congress (willfully knowing upfront what the
questions would be), something you or me would be behind bars for 10 years at
least, but yet Obama promotes him to oversee NSA program. What a joke.
~~~
mitchty
Keep in mind he's not being promoted, he's the fall guy if things go south.
Basically he's being setup to be the lightning rod if things go bad.
Note the new talk about possible pardons. My take on the tea leaves is that
they now realize that Snowden has been saving the best for last (or later).
And that he's only revealing whats needed to effect change. If they don't
start damage control the right way Clapper is going to be thrown under a
parked bus as fast as the media can spin it.
As soon as the bad stuff comes out Clapper is going to get to be the fall guy.
He won't get replaced until something bad gets revealed. Then a "reformer"
will be brought in. Least that would be the PR way to approach it. Not sure
it'll work in this case but old tricks are the best tricks.
Course I could be wrong, eh we'll see.
~~~
mikevm
My take on the tea leaves is that they now realize that Snowden has been saving the best for last (or later).
Snowden is not leaking anything. He leaked most of what he had a long time
ago, and now the documents are in the journalists' hands.
------
patrickmay
"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the
most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated
injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define
a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
------
oelmekki
Terrorism has won.
Twelve years later, the country that was so proud to be "leader of the free
world" is now affected by a cancer named secrecy and defiance ; defiance from
government toward people and defiance from people toward government (well,
that last part is not new, but it's not baseless anymore, which make a huge
difference).
US should definitely work on trust, especially because their main strength is
business and that can't exist without trust.
~~~
e12e
I'm afraid this all dates back further than 12 years (eg: see Binning at hope
9). There's little evidence the true motivation was to defeat terrorism (if
for no other reason than domestic terrorism falls under the fbi, not nsa --
and is and has been arguably the bigger threat).
~~~
tinfoil007
William Binney's keynote at HOPE 9:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxnp2Sz59p8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxnp2Sz59p8)
all talks:
[http://www.hopenumbernine.net/schedule/](http://www.hopenumbernine.net/schedule/)
~~~
anoncowherd
"I played a central role in setting up this all-encompassing surveillance, but
_now_ that it's been in operation for years, I realize it could be used for
_naughty_ things. It's time to blow the whistle on this!"
Binney's case is interesting, to say the least.
------
atmosx
> _But the government said that despite recent leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the
> former N.S.A. contractor, that made public a fuller scope of the
> surveillance and data collection programs put in place after the Sept. 11
> attacks, sensitive secrets remained at risk in any courtroom discussion of
> their details — like whether the plaintiffs were targets of intelligence
> collection or whether particular telecommunications providers like AT &T and
> Verizon had helped the agency._
The only one who THINKS that it is _unknown_ whether AT&T and Verizon were
obliged by the government to hand over data is the government[1].
I remember when Wikileaks released the cables and US government employees were
not _allowed_ to read them. The rest of the world, was reading them anytime
though.
In the world of governance I'd expect rationale to be above everything else.
Apparently that's not the case in today's world. USA it's just another
example, in Greece where I live, common sense has long been gone by
politicians and population...
[1] However, there is a minor detail here. If this fact gets court proof,
maybe some government members would be in terrible trouble. They can always
mention _National Security_ but God forbid, what if they have to bring proof?
------
mabhatter
As President he's "supposed" to fight for this, even if it's crap. That's how
our "adversarial" government works. That's why it's CHECKS... As in gloves
off, missing teeth, hockey checks.
It's up to the other TWO BRANCHES to get off their lazy asses and knock the
Executive branch down a peg or two. They liked blaming the President but they
gotta do the WORK to take things back. Shut up and FIGHT!
~~~
Malician
In the case of DOMA, Justice Scalia noted that, if Obama thought DOMA was
unconstitutional, he could simply refuse to enforce it.
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307#writing-...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-307#writing-12-307_DISSENT_5)
Doesn't this suggest that it is, to some extent, the President's
responsibility to maintain his own branch?
Or do you think Scalia is wrong in both cases?
~~~
rtpg
Where exactly is it said in there? I'm having a hard time finding something
that means that. And in a more general sense, isn't the executive bound to
laws passed by congress?
Slightly off-topic, but the fact that Justice Scalia doesn't believe that the
Supreme Court has the right to judicial review. An interesting concept to me.
~~~
Malician
Sorry for the delay.
"This suit saw the light of day only because the President enforced the Act
(and thus gave Windsor standing to sue) even though he believed it
unconstitutional. He could have equally chosen (more appropriately, some would
say) neither to enforce nor to defend the statute he believed to be
unconstitu- tional, see Presidential Authority to Decline to Execute Un-
constitutional Statutes, 18 Op. Off. Legal Counsel 199 (Nov. 2, 1994)—in which
event Windsor would not have been injured, the District Court could not have
refereed this friendly scrimmage, and the Executive’s determination of
unconstitutionality would have escaped this Court’s desire to blurt out its
view of the law."
------
scotty79
"You can't outlaw this beacuse it's super secret" defense.
------
thinkcomp
The actual case dockets and documents can be found here:
Jewel v. NSA -
[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1911200](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1911200)
Shubert v. Obama -
[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1901515](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=1901515)
------
babesh
Obama is a politician: someone who says anything to get elected and once
elected does what he wants instead of what he said he would do. A politician
tries to amass power. Information is power. There is NO way the government
would give up that power. Don't expect him to do anything nor should you
expect most politicians nor the next administration.
------
RexRollman
There really is nothing the government won't do to keep its illegal
surveillance powers.
~~~
drcube
Yeah, does anybody think this will actually stop, even if the courts demand
it?
------
samgranieri
James Clapper needs to be fired
~~~
CamperBob2
He needs to experience the same treatment I would experience if I lied to
Congress. This treatment would go quite a bit beyond being fired.
~~~
sneak
[http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com](http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com)
------
aluhut
I'm curous. Could someone tell me how the republicans feelings are towards all
this? Are they doing something? They are in some way in a bad position. Much
of the stuff has been established under Bush but on the other hand they
pretend to "protect the constitution" and of course they don't like Obama.
~~~
joelgrus
It varies, the "national security Republicans" are all for the surveillance,
e.g.
[http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/12/mike-
rog...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/12/mike-rogers-
defends-nsa-data-collection-180105.html)
whereas the "libertarian Republicans" are just as strongly against it, e.g.
[http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-
rapids/index.ssf/2013/12/ama...](http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-
rapids/index.ssf/2013/12/amash-backed_bill_aimed_to_end.html)
~~~
ScottBurson
It really is an issue that cuts across party lines. I've found that people of
a libertarian bent get offended when I suggest this. If they're Republicans,
they think that the GOP is the bastion of liberty and the Democrats are the
authoritarians. If they're Democrats, it's the converse. But it seems to me
that the issue is pretty close to orthogonal to party affiliation.
One example is California's two senators: both Democrats, but Feinstein is
famously authoritarian, while Boxer AFAIK tends in the other direction.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scribd "YouTube for Text" Gets $300K - perler
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/06/scribd-youtube-for-text-gets-300k/
======
ed
I think the concept sounds great and it is beautifully executed.
Books don't have the same broad appeal as videos but are definitely easier to
classify, search, and analyze. There's a whole lot of semantic data to work
with in a book so a site like Scribd should be much easier to monetize than
youtube with context-sensitive advertising. Couple this product with some sort
of publisher agreement a la youtube and you'll definitely have a winning
investment.
Congrats on the cash infusion! Spend wisely!!
------
danielha
I love this idea. My co-founder and I were working on something similar a
while ago before deciding to pursue our next idea.
Scribd's implementation is absolutely top-notch. I'm very excited for them,
especially knowing that our ideas are shared by some other clever folks.
------
nickb
This has nothing to do with YouTUBE. This is just a pirate's heaven that will
be taken down by some angry publisher.
~~~
danielha
Your second sentence made it even more analogous to YouTube.
When YouTube was younger, its popular use was to facilitate the spread of
copyrighted content. Now there's a whole slew of user-generated videos out
there.
There will inevitably be pirated material on Scribd, sure. But surely you can
see further than that. Sharing group documents? Helping some self-"publish"?
Spread works in the public domain? Share academic and/or research papers?
~~~
nickb
Ever heard of HTML/XML? How about CSS? How about Prince?
http://www.princexml.com/ Why would anyone wanna publish through Flashpaper?!
Oh, that;'s right... only if you have a scanned book. But even then, Google
Books' AJAX reader is so much nicer than Flashpaper.
YouTube solved the problem of not having a codec or a media player installed.
Scribd is solving a non-existing problem. No one wants to read a book in some
tiny window.
There's a huge difference from writing books and making videos in front of a
camera. I'll let you figure out the difference in magnitude of work required
to do each.
Also, most of the people don't read that much.
Sorry to rain on the parade but Scribd is NOTHING like YouTube! It's just a
"clever" marketing gimmick.
~~~
danielha
There is more to reading than physical books.
There are MSWord documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoints, etc. These are
documents that someone might want to simply embed in a blog post. A user might
want to embed a PowerPoint presentation on their MySpace profile. Getting
videos online was not an impossible task before YouTube. YouTube made it
easier, as you mentioned, by enabling users to view without worry of player or
codec. With Scribd's flash viewer, people are able to view through their
browser regardless of document type.
I'm no fierce advocate of Scribd; in fact I'm not too familiar with them. I
just know it's something that would make things easier for me personally. This
is reason enough for me to be a believer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Hackers Must Welcome Social Justice Advocates - kawera
https://medium.com/@coralineada/why-hackers-must-welcome-social-justice-advocates-1f8d7e216b00#.nv8s2ka1m
======
ferrari8608
I really don't understand what point the author of this article is trying to
make. Is it that diversity in self identification amongst open source
collaborators is an overall good thing and there should be more of that?
------
analognoise
I'm actually dumber for having read that, and I advise everyone else to
protect your neurons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Use after free bug in OpenSSL - beala
http://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/5.4/common/008_openssl.patch
======
userbinator
It's good to see that one of the positive effects of Heartbleed is that it
motivated people to inspect OpenSSL's code, leading to more bugs being found
and fixed.
This is supposed to be how open-source works; it's unfortunate that it had to
take a huge vulnerability to cause this motivation.
~~~
midas007
It still doesn't get at two top points of meta: TLS is a horribly
overfeatured, design-by-committee standard AND C makes it incredibly easy to
screw up and so requires zealous attention to a defensive coding style to
introduce fewer flaws.
~~~
cynicalkane
It's possible to defensively code in C, particularly with modern tooling (some
of which lets you write provably secure code) and good process.
The fact of the matter is the OpenSSL people simply did not care about writing
good code, and the open source community as a whole was happy to assign their
most critical security features to a library widely known to be confusing and
terrible and not even remotely properly analyzed or tested.
Like most people, I see Heartbleed as a process failure; unlike most people, I
think the process failure goes far beyond TLS or OpenSSL or C.
~~~
ahomescu1
> The fact of the matter is the OpenSSL people simply did not care about
> writing good code, and the open source community as a whole was happy to
> assign their most critical security features to a library widely known to be
> confusing and terrible and not even remotely properly analyzed or tested.
Sure, but open source developers have no obligation whatsoever to anyone.
Considering they're not being paid in any way for their code, they can write
whatever code they want and under whatever process they like. The problem IMHO
is that OpenSSL was used for highly sensitive commercial uses (like Gmail,
Amazon and others); I think responsibility should fall on companies who used
the library without checking it first (Disclaimer: I'm not in anyway
associated with OpenSSL or any crypto library, this is just how I see things).
~~~
midas007
Dead wrong. When lives and money are on the line, there is obligation
somewhere along the line back to the source. Maybe it stops elsewhere, maybe
it doesn't. If folks are depending on open source for life-safety or risk the
safety of innocent or targeted individuals, there is an obligation at some
point to ensure systems are as secure as humanly possible. More importantly,
regardless of circumstances, there is a fundamental duty of engineering
ethics. [0] They're not just cliche words or some worthless university course,
but the implications of how design decisions and construction of something
affects the real world. That crappy commit to [project here] might be the
difference between someone living and someone dying.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics)
~~~
ahomescu1
The page you linked to starts with: _Engineering ethics is the field of
applied ethics and system of moral principles that apply to the practice of
engineering. The field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to
society, to their clients, and to the profession._ I read this to only apply
to professional engineering, where engineers do work for money or other forms
of payment. I don't think freely-given (or almost freely, such as GPL code)
hobbyist code should be held to these standards, for one reason: it's being
given for free, with no expectations in return. If the developer expects
nothing from you in exchange for the code, you shouldn't expect anything more
than getting the code as-is.
~~~
vfclists
I disagree with this.
If the hobbyist knows that the code may be used in a critical environment then
the hobbyist should withdraw the code or make it very clear its suitability
for some task has not been tested. It is rather like asking someone for
directions and the person misleads you on the basis that you are not paying
him for directions.
Ethics always apply whether you are being paid or not.
~~~
ahomescu1
> If the hobbyist knows that the code may be used in a critical environment
> then the hobbyist should withdraw the code or make it very clear its
> suitability for some task has not been tested.
It's already made very clear in the license that the code hasn't been tested,
and comes with no guarantees. How much clearer than that can it be?
Also, you can't really withdraw code from the Internet. Even if you take down
the original repository, there may be dozens of forks.
~~~
sitkack
That is CYA boilerplate, OpenSSL is most surely designed and implemented for
security even if the license says it is for making cupcakes.
------
jevinskie
I believe this is the same patch as previously written about here on April
10th: [http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/analysis-of-openssl-
free...](http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/analysis-of-openssl-freelist-
reuse)
~~~
caf
The patch is slightly different, but it is the same bug.
------
frik
One may consider Mozilla's NSS library (Netscape invented SSL, "Network
Security Services") as an alternative to OpenSSL. It has an compatible API
layer (extra package), is used by Firefox, (Chrome), OpenOffice and has more
sane default settings. Check out the comparison tables:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_TLS_Implementatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_TLS_Implementations)
~~~
gcb0
Chrome used NSS on android only because of license or something else... now it
uses openssl all around.
~~~
barkingcat
Chrome is planning to move to openssl for everything, doesn't mean it uses
openssl "now all around".
According to the planning doc linked earlier this week, it might take some
time to get openssl into chrome. The Plan is for it to occur over 4
"milestones". I'm not sure how long each milestone will take, but suffice it
to say, it's not "now".
And it was the other way around. Only Chromium Android used OpenSSL.
Everywhere else it used NSS (linux, mac desktop, windows)
Quote from
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ML11ZyyMpnAr6clIAwWrXD53...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ML11ZyyMpnAr6clIAwWrXD53pQgNR-
DppMYwt9XvE6s/edit?pli=1)
"Currently, Chromium supports two different SSL/cryptographic backends. On
Windows, OS X, iOS, Linux, and Chromium OS, Chromium uses NSS. On Android,
Chromium uses OpenSSL. "
Please check your sources carefully and don't write unfactual information.
Especially in the realm of crypto it's important to get the details right.
It would be even better if you edited your post so future readers don't have
to read my post at all in order to get the correct information.
------
nemo
I wish Theo and his colleagues would create a fork of OpenSSL that was up to
OpenBSD/OpenSSH standards. It would be a huge level of work, but I'd happily
donate to help fund it.
~~~
peterbotond
src/lib/libssl is in the openbsd tree as of 2 days ago approximately, and
being trimmed as seen in commits: [http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libssl/](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/cvsweb/src/lib/libssl/)
edit: precesion: libssl has seen a set of large commits, in the past 48 hours,
and other libcrypto related changes.
~~~
clarry
More like as of 15 years ago.
------
andrewchoi
Sorry if this is a silly question, but is this simply the Heartbleed bug? Or
is this a different memory leak bug?
~~~
IgorPartola
This is not the Heartbleed bug. I am not certain this is actually an
immediately exploitable vulnerability (aka a sexy bug). What this looks like
is an instance where the code calls free() on a buffer, then assumes the
buffer is still available (uses it in some way). The patch seems to make it
only free the buffer after it is empty, preventing this behavior. I think this
is related to OpenSSL's issue with malloc and the way it handles memory
allocation.
~~~
yaur
No this was written about a couple days ago. It frees the memory and because
Open uses a LIFO memory allocater it can "safely" assume that whatever was
still in there is still in there. I belive that in order to exploit this you
would need to exhaust its internal allocator (so that it requests more from
the OS) and your payoff would be... having your connection dropped.
This was discovered in the course of someone's attempt to figure out why
OpenSSL randomly drops connections when its using a sane/OS supplied
allocator.
------
xorgar831
It seems like someone should start a Sourceforge for security project; a place
that tracks and does high quality static analysis of open source projects, and
makes the reports readily available.
~~~
robbyt
Static analysis isn't going to beat humans, also:
[https://hackerone.com/](https://hackerone.com/)
~~~
projuce
You should also check out [https://bugcrowd.com](https://bugcrowd.com)
------
yelnatz
That's pretty sick. I'd rather have bugs fixed now than later.
Another!
------
victormx
Anyone known a real alternative to SSL to secure communications? No GPG,
POW(or bitcoin, similar, etc.)
~~~
justincormack
You need to be more specific about what kind of communications. You could look
at spiped as one example
[https://www.tarsnap.com/spiped.html](https://www.tarsnap.com/spiped.html)
~~~
victormx
thanks this is what I was talking
------
danieltillett
I think that this is a good sign. I know everyone has been saying that OpenSSL
code is terrible (can't say I have looked myself), but if this is the worst
bug found since heartbleed then maybe it is better than it appears.
~~~
clarry
This isn't a bug found in a thorough audit of the entire OpenSSL code base.
This is a bug that was discovered while trying to understand why applications
using OpenSSL would run into trouble after disabling the code that made it
impossible to detect Heartbleed with OpenBSD's malloc safety features.
~~~
danieltillett
I understand this, just with the amount of attention OpenSSL has been getting
not much worse seems to have come out.
------
cybernoodles
It appears Heartbleed has riled up the Hound dogs. It's unfortunate the funds
aren't available for bug bounties in OpenSSL.
~~~
regecks
There are bug bounties for OpenSSL.
1\. [https://hackerone.com/openssl](https://hackerone.com/openssl)
2\. [https://www.google.com/about/appsecurity/patch-
rewards/](https://www.google.com/about/appsecurity/patch-rewards/)
~~~
midas007
Beware of the chilling effects of collecting Google bounties, they will claim
a reward is invalid if you've blogged about the vuln outside of their
timetable.
~~~
innoying
Isn't that common sense? If you disclose the bug publicly before it's patched
you won't get the reward...
~~~
midas007
Sort of. But Google has a history of how it treats independent researchers.
------
eudox
Are we going to post every new OpenSSL bug until everyone switches to miTLS?
~~~
lawnchair_larry
There are no plans to switch to miTLS. It's a toy project unsuitable for
displacing OpenSSL.
~~~
jewel
I believe that most other implementations are unsuitable for displacing
OpenSSL for licensing reasons alone. I didn't look at every other
implementation since I was looking for one that supported a specific mode, but
the majority of them are GPL with the option to license for proprietary code.
GnuTLS is LGPL, at least.
Wikipedia has a pretty good list of possible implementations:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_TLS_Implementatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_TLS_Implementations#Overview)
------
dbbolton
What is up with that patch command? Why not
cd /usr/src; patch -p0 </path/008_openssl.patch
?
~~~
sarnowski
Because now your command isn't /path/ independant. The original assumed you
downloaded the patch to your current directory and you can just copy&paste
this command. Your example requires me to modify your line making this
"process" more error prone.
~~~
dbbolton
In that case, their command is exactly as "error prone" to anyone who did not
download the patch to the PWD.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: SentiNews – first intelligence news reader - Yeroniomus
http://www.sentinews.ml
======
bradknowles
The first "intelligence" news reader? You mean a news reader for classified
"intelligence" material for the CIA, NSA, etc...?
Or did you mean the first "intelligent" news reader, in that it uses machine
learning to figure out what articles you like and what you don't?
~~~
Yeroniomus
The main idea was to avoid negative news content with the help of sentiment
analysis algorithms. It detects good/bad news articles automatically. So you
can read about only good things that happens in the world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let's talk about sex baby, let's talk about PGP (by Jacob Applebaum) - preek
https://voicerepublic.com/venues/193/talks/284
======
mxmo0rhuhn
Interesting crypto beginner talk to share with non IT people!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Relevé Heels – Rent designer heels at a fraction of retail - antognini
http://www.releveheels.com
======
antognini
Co-founder of Relevé Heels here. We recently launched and are grateful for any
feedback!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Wii U web browser's HTML5 gaming capabilities - richtaur
http://www.lostdecadegames.com/wii-u-browser/
======
hayksaakian
While what it does support is cool, what it does not support is more worrying.
I doubt the browser will be a high priority for them, so the lack of audio
support and web sockets will likely persist for longer than most PC browsers.
~~~
georgemcbay
As a Wii U owner, I'm actually shocked how great the Wii U's browser is
considering how half-baked other parts of the system currently are.
Sure, it doesn't have all of the newest HTML5 features, but compared to your
average browser-on-a-console, the Wii U's is surprisingly functional for
general purpose web browsing and way better than what I was expecting.
Also, the Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime Streaming apps are pretty cool and
just beginning to show some of the potential of 'second screen' interaction
using the Wii U GamePad. These were actually the killer app for the Wii U for
me. I doubt the system will get much third party support, but the video
streaming apps are great now and likely to get even better as the "TVii" stuff
starts coming online.
~~~
onetwothreefour
That's because a large portion of the system runs on JS/HTML.
------
gaaaaaaaarf
A shame that they implemented a broken localStorage.
Interesting that it is no longer Opera, but WebKit under the hood according to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_Internet_Browser>
~~~
toni
> A shame that they implemented a broken localStorage
If as he describes "the data is wiped when the browser is closed", then i
think Wii U implemented "SessionStorage".
~~~
lucian1900
But it's exposed as window.localStorage, which is just plain wrong.
------
TazeTSchnitzel
Sounds the same as the 3DS browser. In fact it probably is the same version of
NetFront.
------
goggles99
The bigger question is, Why does it matter???
------
Rhythmic
Oh Nintendo, thanks for the memories!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Users hack around SublimeText open bug when not addressed for years - bluehex
https://github.com/SublimeText/Issues/issues/27#issuecomment-66480303
======
snarkyturtle
When you the dev seems be only releasing a version every 6 months or so, what
else can you do?
------
ggreer
Sublime Text 2 and 3 have many bugs, including ones that only affect specific
platforms. If you're on OS X, `import ssl` works in the Sublime console, but
it throws an exception on Linux and Windows.[1] This can have far-reaching
effects, like fetching of HTTPS URLs breaking.
These sorts of issues make it really hard to write stable plugins, since the
only way to ensure stuff works everywhere is to manually test all six
combinations: Sublime Text 2 and 3 on OS X, Linux, and Windows.
1\.
[https://github.com/SublimeText/Issues/issues/177](https://github.com/SublimeText/Issues/issues/177)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Popup Encyclopedia – A lightning fast popup encyclopedia/dictionary - pncnmnp
https://github.com/pncnmnp/PopUp-Encyclopedia
======
pncnmnp
Most of the other extensions do not support encyclopedia ( or proper nouns ),
hence the motive was to support both. Also the dictionary can be used offline.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Analyzing Big Data With Twitter - EzGraphs
http://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i290-abdt-s12/2012/12/13/uc-berkeley-course-lectures-analyzing-big-data-with-twitter/
======
Jagat
Looks like I've found a very nice todo for the winter break.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Gods of Silicon Valley are on the wrong side of history - jimnotgym
https://twitter.com/TEDTalks/status/1118280949991714817
======
MrZongle2
I've always found people declaring a particular position on any current event
"on the wrong side of history" to be incredibly arrogant.
_Nobody_ knows how history will portray (if it will record it at all) a
particular current event in the decades to come. What gift of foresight do
these proclaimers have, that allows them to so confidently make that
assessment?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zen, Skill Development, and The Inner Game Of Tennis - zackattack
http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/zen-skill-development-and-the-inner-game-of-tennis-this-post-is-not-about-tennis/
======
Perceval
This is more or less how I played tennis in high school. I never had the best
skills, but my doubles partner and I were great at getting under the skin of
our opponents—essentially making them play down to us.
The whole purpose of drilling—in whatever field of life, whether sports,
academics, military, etc—is to get you to stop thinking about what you're
doing. In tennis, if you're thinking about how to hit the ball you're going to
mess up your shot. You need to get your brain out of the game and rely on
muscle memory: footwork, positioning, grip, bend your knees, brush up stroke,
eye on the ball, follow through.
Once you frustrate your opponent and get them thinking about their game their
technical advantage has been mitigated. Smile at them, talk a bit of trash,
ask them questions, position yourself aggressively to signal that you don't
rate their shots/serves highly, lob the ball, hit volleys at their feet, etc.
Not the most noble way to play, but a sure way to keep yourself in the game if
you never had the money for private lessons.
------
edkennedy
Excellent post and advice. The Self 1 / Self 2 comparison reminded me of the
book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. They discuss both a rider and elephant, the
intellectual and emotional sides of the self. The metaphor is useful in that
it shows how effective motivating or controlling that self 2/elephant can be.
------
bitwize
See also: _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_
------
sabat
I saw a clip from 60 Minutes in college that showed Tim Gelway teaching tennis
to a group of middle-aged people. None had ever played tennis before. He
picked the person who showed the least potential and within 20 minutes had her
serving better than I've ever served in my life. It made a huge impression on
me. The book isn't really about tennis; it's how the human mind is meant to
think and learn, and how far off we are in our preconceptions about those
things.
~~~
Yrlec
My mom is a psychologist and she travelled to the U.S. just to attend one of
his courses (we're Swedish). She had never played tennis but she got elected
as the one he would teach how to serve and she managed to hit almost all
serves after 20 minutes. She got so excited that she brought me to the U.S. to
practice for a couple of days with Tim Gallwey's tennis-partner Sean
Brawley.Throughout my life I've always been extremely bad at performing under
pressure (especially in tennis) but he taught me things about myself which
improved my tennis more in an hour than a full year of practice with any other
coach. I never became a good tennis player (partly because I'm cross-eyed and
therefore lack normal depth perception) but I've had amazing use of the tricks
he taught me and a couple of years ago it helped me win the World Championship
in NHL 2004. It still amazes me how I managed to overcome my extreme
performance anxiety (which has always stopped me from performing well when it
mattered the most) and focus, while having four TV-cameras right behind me. It
was like someone else was playing for me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chess Move Compression - nreece
https://triplehappy.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/chess-move-compression/
======
mjn
Although I'm also not very familiar with the history of such schemes, I do
recognize the (not quite) 12-bit one, which I believe was the first scheme
proposed, by Claude Shannon in his 1950 article "Programming a Computer for
Playing Chess" [1]. Perhaps because it's naturally the first scheme anyone
would come up with, but nonetheless, here's what he had to say about it:
> A move (apart from castling and pawn promotion) can be specified by giving
> the original and final squares occupied by the moved piece. each of these
> squares is a choice from 64, thus 6 binary digits each is sufficient, a
> total of 12 for the move. Thus the initial move P-K4 would be represented by
> 1, 4; 3, 4. To represent pawn promotion on a set of three binary digits can
> be added specifying the pieces that the pawn becomes. Castling is described
> by the king move (this being the only way the king can move two squares).
> Thus, a move is represented by (a, b, c) where a and b are squares and c
> specifies a piece in case of promotion.
I'm actually slightly surprised Shannon didn't propose a more compact scheme
using the lower entropy of legal chess moves, but I guess his purpose in this
article was more to do a ballpark estimate of the feasibility of computer
chess playing in general.
[1]
[http://www.pi.infn.it/~carosi/chess/shannon.txt](http://www.pi.infn.it/~carosi/chess/shannon.txt)
------
bo1024
Very cool. I suspect that much better compression is possible in principle
(not that I'd want to implement it) using an openings book or game database
and an engine. The idea would be to first record the opening played in the
game and the move number at which the game deviates. A lot of work would need
to go into figuring out the optimal opening-book size. Then, use a
deterministic chess engine with predefined parameters at each move, and record
which move number on its suggested list was played (e.g. the top move, second
move, third move, etc) with a fallback to manually encode the move if none of
the top 8 or so moves are played.
A more sophisticated version would use arithmetic coding, with the predictions
of the next move initially coming from an opening book / game database, then
coming from the engine. The idea being that most games you want to compress
are at a high enough level that the engine gives good predictions ... perhaps
one could even tune the engine's parameters for better results. But again,
like I said, it doesn't sound like fun to code.
A separate comment: I wonder if the time efficiency issues mentioned are
really that severe? Since the problem is so small/finite.
~~~
billforsternz
Article author here: I do mention the idea of using a chess engine to improve
compression. I propose a simple scheme and calculate/estimate my scheme would
compress moves in a reasonably played game to about 3.9 bits each on average.
I am sure it's possible to do better, but I suspect you'd hit diminishing
returns before you get close to 3 bits.
I really should have included something about adding an opening book as I
thought about that quite a lot. My conclusion was that an opening book is not
going to be a really dramatic win. A simple scheme might encode say 64K
opening sequences using 2 bytes, and save an average of perhaps 10 (half)
moves. So a saving of 10*4 - 16 = 24 bits, spread over an average of 80 (half)
moves. So about 0.3 bits per move.
You might question my estimate of 10 half moves max, but it's an educated
guess. One thing I've discovered whilst working on my chess database is that
the standard tabiya positions are reached by huge numbers of different
transposition possibilities. See my blog post at
[https://triplehappy.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/statistics-
and-...](https://triplehappy.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/statistics-and-
transpositions/)
This means that the standard canonical way of reaching a well known position
doesn't serve as a good proxy for the start of all the games that include that
position.
~~~
howeman
In the "Checkers is solved" paper, they state "The complete 10-piece databases
contain 39 trillion positions (Table 1). They are compressed into 237
gigabytes, an average of 154 positions per byte!"
Do you have any idea how this would be done? It seems crazy.
~~~
mappu
Probably just standard compression techniques - the linked article is mostly
discussing a standalone move, but there are a lot more options available when
working with large strings of text (dictionaries, BWT, arithmetic coding,
...).
The downside is a lack of individual byte accessing without a lot of
surrounding decompression work, but it'd be appropriate for stream processing
In fact the best compressed size is probably found by reducing some of the
clever tricks in the article in order to expose more structure to a general
compressor. Similar to running `precomp` or `antiX` before solid-packing
multiple already-compressed files.
------
slm_HN
Chess move compression was an interesting topic back when the games were
stored on 360k floppy disks. Nowadays every master chess game ever played in
the history of chess fits easily on one DVD, uncompressed.
So it's not clear what the point of compressing the moves, especially since at
some points the article is concerned about size and sometimes about speed. If
it's just an intellectual exercise then consider the following scheme:
Generate the legal moves for a position, then sort them. However don't sort
them using a naive method like alphabetical order. Instead sort them in order
of likeliness of being played. For example moves that capture the last moved
piece are at the top of the list. So for example 1.e4 d5, now the first move
in the list would be exd5, capturing the last moved piece. So the move exd5
can be encoded in 1 bit. Now imagine a 40 move game where every move played
was the first one on the sorted list. This takes 80 bits to store the entire
game. Of course moves farther down the list take more bits to encode.
This is similar to one of the schemes in the article, but the article gets
hung up with fixing bit sizes rather than just using the exact number of bits
required for each move which results in variable bit lengths for each move.
This is, more or less, the scheme Chessbase first used for their data files
almost 30 years ago.
~~~
steveridout
> Nowadays every master chess game ever played in the history of chess fits
> easily on one DVD, uncompressed.
If someone created a mobile app containing this database, I would certainly
appreciate those multiple gigabytes of data being compressed.
------
abecedarius
That 8-bit code is clever.
At [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1831386/programmer-
puzzle...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1831386/programmer-puzzle-
encoding-a-chess-board-state-throughout-a-game/1838023#1838023) I suggested
combining the sort-the-moves-by-their-evaluation scheme with arithmetic coding
according to statistics from a database of games -- how often do people choose
the move the engine picks as best? Etc. (It's always easy to propose work for
someone else.) (The third paragraph of that answer is irrelevant to real
games, which always start from the same configuration.)
------
bjornorn
Related: 100TB of all the possible 7-piece chess board states and their
solutions [http://tb7.chessok.com/about-site](http://tb7.chessok.com/about-
site)
------
fabriceleal
I've been doing some spare chess programming on a GUI myself (non-intensive
on-off work for 1 year so far) and I decided to stay with the naive method (12
bits, straightforward src and dest squares) for compressing moves. It's
obviously easier and faster to implement, I'm not hostage for some wacky bugs
I could have done, and it's straightforward to parse and to format to long
algebraic form (e2e4), which is the format UCI likes to receive (stockfish,
for instance) and to store to a file.
Having said that, I might take a look into this 8 bit format :)
------
level3
Very interesting! But I don't quite see why you need to bother with tracking
pieces and swapping them. Can't you just go by the convention that pawn 0 is
the first pawn you find when scanning across from a1 to h8, pawn 1 is the
second pawn, etc.? Similarly for the knights, bishops, and rooks? (obviously
still using the fallback when necessary)
That would eliminate the need for computing swaps while still producing the
same move code for a given move in a given position.
~~~
billforsternz
This would work but it requires a scan of the whole board for pawn (and knight
and rook) moves. I wanted (and eventually got - after a lot of mistakes along
the way) a system which would use negligible CPU cycles for almost all moves.
~~~
level3
That makes sense. I'm probably underestimating the amount of cycles saved by
your swap method.
------
meta_AU
I'd suggest a slight change. Code all the pawns into 2 'pieces' and have a
special piece for promoting. The 16 moves for the special piece can be an
index from a list of possible promotions which is easier to generate and
canonicalise than the total move list. This frees up 5 pieces for promoted
queens. You could special case the king into the spare entropy in the rooks
and bishops to save one more piece.
~~~
billforsternz
I don't think that would work (but possibly I misunderstand!). The system
cannot cope with (up to, if all 8 pawns stood on the 7th rank) 8 more pieces!
The fact that the queen needs 1 more 'piece' already requires a certain amount
of ingenuity to work around.
------
breakingcups
"An amusing point is that some moves really would require zero bits – this
happens when there is only one legal move in the position, there’s no need to
store anything at all in that case."
What if a player decides to resign before making that move?
~~~
billforsternz
You would need to indicate the number of moves in the game at the start.
------
PepeGomez
Why does every move have to occupy the same number of bits? That looks
inefficient to me. Why not make the movement of pawns occupy fewer and the
queen more bits?
~~~
billforsternz
In the worst case pawns can be quite demanding - because of underpromotion -
there can be up to 12 moves available to a pawn - more than a knight or a
king. Of course it is possible to design a scheme where moves take a variable
number of bits - I discuss some promising methods in the article. But you will
always need 8 bits for some moves (information theory says so) and the beauty
of my "sweet spot" scheme is that it simple and quick, whilst still offering
reasonable compression.
------
mherrmann
Interesting. What are the practical implications of using 8 vs 12 bits? Does
using fewer bits allow chess engines compute more moves ahead?
~~~
billforsternz
No, chess engines use the simple highly performant "native" move
representations. My 8 bit scheme approaches the performance of native
representation, but is only (potentially) useful for other types of
applications, particularly chess databases.
------
hartror
Love the disclaimer at the start.
~~~
billforsternz
Article author here: Hope you are not being sarcastic/ironic. I thought the
disclaimer was necessary and complete :-)
~~~
leni536
I think you are much more modest than necessary, not a bad thing though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WhatsApp Is Down - aginovski
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/whatsapp-down-not-working-picture-voice-messages-photo-video-download-failed-a8986406.html
======
tsjq
governments testing their kill switches
------
the-dude
FB pictures and movies not loading.
~~~
paganel
Same for me.
~~~
the-dude
Problem seems to have resolved here ( NL )
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If It Was My Home (Oil spill visualization) - angusgr
http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/
======
retube
At the risk of getting downvoted, and I'm not saying the oil spill isn't bad -
it is (very) - but let's remember some context:
1) The area is large. But this is meaningless without knowledge of the
density.
2) I can't find a reference, but a prof of marine biology was on the bbc a
couple of days ago and apparently this oil spill doesn't even make it into the
top 40 worst man-made disasters (e.g compare to bhopal, chernobyl, pacific
gyre)
The Niger Delta sees this volume of oil spilled EVERY SINGLE YEAR and no-one
gives a fuck. No-one is held to account, there's no press, there's no nothing.
The culprits are all the major US/European oil firms.
~~~
hugh3
More relevant than the comparison to other disasters is the list of largest
oil spills:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spills#Largest_oil_spills>
on which it is currently somewhere between third and sixteenth, depending on
which estimate you believe. The point being that if the ecosystem recovered
from all these other oil spills (most of which you've never heard of) then
it'll recover from this one too. If you want to worry about something, worry
about overfishing in the oceans instead.
Besides, hasn't there been a shocking lack of photogenic oil-drenched wildlife
washing up on beaches? Anyone know what the deal is with that?
~~~
pyre
Tighter controls over the media? Did they have no-fly zones and tightly
restricted waters during the Exxon Valdez spill?
~~~
hugh3
The entire coastline is free and populated... I haven't seen any pictures of
dead wildlife or even oil on land yet.
~~~
pyre
There was a story[1] posted to HN last week with oil-covered animals and oil
on land. I don't remember of there were any dead animals though.
[1]
[http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/oil_reaches_louisia...](http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/oil_reaches_louisiana_shores.html)
------
pyre
When I click "Put it back in the gulf," the size of the oil spill shrinks.
When I click "Put it in Portland, OR, USA," it grows again. I don't think that
the map scale has changed, because slider doesn't move.
{edit} Is this just a by-product of mapping the surface of a sphere to a
rectangle?
~~~
ugh
It’s a by-product of the projection Google Maps uses.
Try “congo” and then “greenland” (and then never trust maps again :).
This is actually another good reason to use a tool like this. Projections
distort.
~~~
tjr
Wow. Putting it in the "arctic ocean" is pretty interesting too.
------
koops
Give the subjunctive some love: "If It _Were_ My Home"
------
angusgr
(Sorry if this was submitted already.)
The genius I see here is that the relative size of a large area is really hard
for people to actually understand. Until you show it relative to something
they know intuitively (like where they live.)
------
castis
Not to try and get downvoted and not saying this isn't an absolutely shitty
situation for the gulf but this thing cant really take into consideration
elevations and/or valleys where the oil would rest and not spread. Then again
I don't think google maps can do something like that and/or was never intended
to do so.
------
dice
I zoomed out so that I could see the entire Earth, which is where I live.
Looks pretty small on that scale.
~~~
nuxi
The area covers my whole country and then some. Although small compared to
whole Earth, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't enjoy having the spill as a next-
door neighbour.
~~~
hugh3
Good thing it's out in the sea, then.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Was Bitcoin Created by This International Drug Dealer? - esalazar
https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-international-drug-dealer-maybe/
======
blakesterz
Even though there's no good answers here, I still enjoyed reading this. It's
as much about the process and the hype as it is about trying to answer yes/no.
In the end he decides it's a maybe, and that's probably good enough for now.
It's a fun little piece.
------
lightweb
No, it's not Paul, but wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that the
designer and architect of the original Bitcoin protocol was (partially)
responsible for putting him behind bars?
------
milesokeefe
My favorite part of this is that there's a clear reason for the Satoshi coins
to have never been spent. Like the article says, the only other theories that
allow for that are Satoshi being something like a nation-state.
------
segfaultbuserr
The speculation that Paul Le Roux (the developer of TrueCrypt's precursor E4M,
and the suspected coauthor of TrueCrypt) is Satoshi Nakamoto has a long
history, but ultimately many found that it was still unpersuasive.
------
deweller
Has anyone analyzed the coding style of E4M and compared it to the original
Bitcoin release?
Coding style may not be as unique to an individual as prose, but it would be
an interesting smoke test.
~~~
esalazar
They mention it in the article and couldn't come to any conclusions.
I don't see anything that stands out as saying these couldn’t have been written by the same person (especially separated by a decade),” he wrote. “Nor do I see any similarity that wouldn’t also be true for many other authors and codebases. At a minimum, however, if they were written by the same person that person’s styles changed a lot (either due to time or intentionally hiding them).
~~~
deweller
Thanks. I hadn't gotten that far in the article yet. :)
------
HeyZuess
Another interesting article on this topic ....
[http://cryp7o.me/pujs9](http://cryp7o.me/pujs9)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Minteye wants to put an end to the CAPTCHA as we know it - iProject
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/12/15/minteye-wants-to-put-an-end-to-the-captcha-as-we-know-it/?fromcat=all
======
nwh
That would be horrendously easy to write a bypass for. As with most of these
"lets end CAPTCHA" solutions.
------
diziet
Strangely, adblock seems to block the tech demo on minteye's site. Or perhaps
not?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Story of How McDonald’s First Got Its Start - samclemens
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-how-mcdonalds-first-got-its-start-180960931/?no-ist
======
dharmon
Despite the tone of the article, Kroc did not just swoop in and capitalize off
of the Brothers' genius. If anything, they were an albatross around the
company's neck, as their contract specified that Kroc basically wasn't allowed
to change anything. Fortunately they got "creative" to get around these
restrictions.
If you are interested how McDonald's became a company that is recognized
around the globe, I would highly recommend the book _Behind the Arches_. A
very interesting corporate study.
One of my favorite anecdotes: 80-year old Kroc's favorite pastimes was flying
around in a prop plane with a highway map scouting out potential McD
locations.
~~~
mattnumbe
According to the Wikipedia article on Kroc, soon enough you won't have to read
his story because Michael Keaton will be playing him in the movie The Founder
coming out in December. Really interesting guy though. I had no idea about all
the positive things he did while he was in control of McDonald's
------
ajeet_dhaliwal
The brothers seemed like the typical startup style hustlers of today.
What struck me most however was this quote:
"Soon, they believed, the work week would shrink to under four days, leaving
Americans with abundant leisure time in which to tool around in their cars—and
stop to eat."
I didn't realize this idea was so old and we're not really any closer.
~~~
zeroer
You can fit your work into a fraction of a typical workweek and still maintain
a 1950s-esque lifestyle. But the job market frowns on people working less than
40 hours per week, so if you want to go this route, the thing to do is work
full time, save, live frugally and retire early. It's not the easiest thing to
do, but it is possible. I know because I did it, retiring at 34.
~~~
flukus
How many of us do you think could work 32 hours a week on a single income to
support a family, a home loan, a car, etc?
~~~
kw71
This is why I made my money before having a family. The downside to this is
I'm going to be in my 60's when my first kid graduates highschool. But in the
meantime I have plenty of time to spend with the most important people in my
life.
~~~
tekklloneer
My parents did this. They will be around less of my life but were around more
of my life. I'm glad for it.
~~~
dsajames
My children will have parents and grandparents for a very long time. On top of
that, we couldn't really have spent more time with them, what with a stay at
home wife and all. I'm sure they're glad for that.
------
M_Grey
This is more like the corporate legend of McDonald's. It actually has very
little to do with what McDonald's became when Ray Kroc got his hands on it,
and that's literally only introduced in the last line of the article.
~~~
hudibras
I'm pretty sure the author is aware of this, since this is an excerpt from her
upcoming book about Ray and Joan Kroc.
------
slantaclaus
'Grinding It Out' by Ray Kroc is without a doubt the best business founder
autobiography I have ever read.
------
eliaspro
Mark Knopfler wrote a great song about this story - Boom, Like That.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvj4svKcjl0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvj4svKcjl0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google to allow certain cryptocurrency ads in U.S., Japan - sahin-boydas
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-advertising-crypto/google-to-allow-certain-cryptocurrency-ads-in-us-japan-idUSKCN1M5248
======
montenegrohugo
I really do hope there is some sort of curation system. The amount of scams
run in the crypto space is absolutely insane.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HTC Vive review: You can now buy your own holodeck simulator v1.0 - drewrv
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/htc-vive-review-you-can-now-buy-your-own-holodeck-simulator-v-1-0/
======
gr3yh47
Good article with some great demos but man, I'm reminded that I stopped
reading Ars gaming because Kyle brings massive bias against nintendo to the
table to such an extent that it shows poor journalistic integrity IMO.
It's pervasive in his articles, and he casually drops statements like:
>Nintendo’s Wii Remotes aren’t precise enough for much more than
undifferentiated shaking.
Which is SO factually incorrect it's borderline disingenuous.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MIT Hacks Kinect Laser For A Wearable Map Generator For Firefighters - dmoney67
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/mit-hacks-kinect-laser-for-a-wearable-map-generator-for-firefighters/
======
mertd
Direct link to MIT news release:
[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-
mappin...](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-
mapping-0924.html)
Wouldn't smoke scatter the IR pattern of Kinect? I think there might be some
more work to be done before it can be a useful tool for firefighters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Y-Combinator-company heysan! looking for software developer. Meet us at startup school! - gustaf
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfsgtr7_181cpm27z
======
danielha
So tell me, how awesome is it to be at a point where you're able to recruit
developers to join your team? Exciting times, gustaf, exciting times.
~~~
gustaf
It's pretty awesome! :)
\--------------------------------------------------------
heysan! is a Y-combinator (ycombinator.com) funded startup creating the next
generation of mobile instant messaging services.
We're looking for a smart and talented software developer to join our team.
You are like us if your laptop is your lifeline and your passion is well
written software.
You know Linux, Java, PHP and MySQL really well and understand why standards
and open source matter.
Our team of 4 founders has a strong background in mobile/wireless. We're
looking for someone who can join us full time in San Francisco and both salary
and equity is negotiable in this round.
We're going to be at startup school at Stanford on Saturday and at the startup
school reception on Friday night, want to meet up? Send us an Email, IM or
text at:
gustaf@gmail.com, 646 266 9612 or marie.brattberg@gmail.com, 347 323 8922
------
pg
These guys made the slideshow on <http://ycombinator.com> btw.
~~~
JMiao
Wow, I like the new look.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Starting Justin.tv Was A Really Bad Idea, But I’m Glad We Did It Anyway - icey
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/12/starting-justin-tv/
======
cfinke
That was the first guest post I've ever read on Techcrunch that was genuinely
interesting and didn't read like droning self promotion. Thanks, Justin!
~~~
benologist
I'd go one further .... it was the first post on TC in a very long time that
was genuinely interesting full stop.
------
staunch
The trolls on TC said one reason for the new brand is because VCs own almost
all of Justin.tv. Is Socialcam owned by Justin.tv Inc?
~~~
justin
The trolls are rampant and ill-informed. Socialcam is a Justin.tv project
under a new brand and all of the founders are still with the company.
Only someone without a functional understanding of basic math could look at
our funding history and believe that the founders own less than 10% of the
company.
~~~
staunch
To be fair to the trolls it's fairly common for companies to do funding rounds
that are not publicly announced.
------
phil
Justin captures the main thing I remember from seeing these guys early on. It
wasn't entirely clear what they were doing, but they were just having so much
fun, you knew they would figure it out.
------
benologist
I really liked that. All the uncertainty / lack of specific and detailed plans
is something I can definitely relate to, it's nice to see someone as
successful as you guys never knew exactly where you were going till you got
there.
~~~
justin
We still might not know what we are doing... you never know.
~~~
zach
There's no provable answer anyhow, because it's an inherently subjective
matter.
Since circumstance can make a fool or a hero of any of us anyway, as you say,
you never know.
------
sage_joch
I remember the sale of Kiko being a frontpage story in Reddit's early days.
I'm still a huge Reddit fan but it's amazing how much the community has
changed since then.
------
badkins
A really good read. More proof that a great team is worth more than a great
idea.
------
vaksel
isn't the whole lets make a platform kinda obvious...is that really what you
were thinking(or not thinking) at the time or is it just a PR spun story to
get coverage.
it's like the Goog guys designing Google just so they could better find their
own stuff, only to realize that other people might like to use it too
I mean, even in the story you are talking about mass producing the hardware,
when you were supposedly just doing the show
~~~
justin
Yeah, I think it was pretty obvious, which is why in retrospect it seems
stupid that we weren't pursuing it in the beginning. But I distinctly remember
that after launch we debated which direction we should go (options included
becoming a live (or not live) video cdn, the live platform, or trying to spin
off multiple shows that we produced ourselves).
We were talking about mass hardware production to support shows that we
directly produced or contracted.
To be honest, I wish that I was able to go back and tweak our execution: if
the Justin.tv show was just a stunt, I would have had a platform ready to go
when we launched it instead of waiting six months to build it!!
------
jeromec
It didn't look like there was no vision from an external perspective. It
looked just as described, like Justin.tv was launched to build out a huge live
video platform.
~~~
justin
We tried hard to make it seem like we knew what we were doing :)
It was a challenge.
~~~
jeromec
You guys did a great job. I remember watching the GoDaddy advertisement banner
going up in the "startup apartment headquarters", and at one point you
following a reporter who was covering you out to her news van, then talking
shop about video broadcasting. I remember thinking wow these guys totally
raised the bar on what it means to create technology for a web startup. And it
looked like everyone was having so much fun too. Fantastic.
------
vannevar
There's another reason why justin.tv was a bad idea and that is, far from
being a new form of entertainment, lifecasting had already been done to death
by the time it came on the scene. There were even two major Hollywood movies
built around the idea. And predictably, justin.tv in its original form did
fail, but in the process opened up a new opportunity based more on a 'long
tail' strategy.
This is a great example of how funding and connections are more important than
a good idea. It gives you the luxury of changing direction if something
doesn't work. And ultimately, the proximate cause of every business failure is
running out of money. The lesson here is to gain the trust of wealthy patrons
who are willing to give you a $50K check just to see how you fail.
~~~
justin
I disagree that our idea was bad because lifecasting had been done before.
First of all, you are calling it "lifecasting" because we thought of and
popularized that term, and the fact that we were similar to two movies didn't
prevent the idea from getting a massive amount of attention because it
captured the interest of people and the media. Almost every idea has been
"done before", but winners often emerge by innovating in an existing space
(Google, Dropbox, Facebook, the list continues to infinity).
I said this earlier today to a friend: the most important things are team and
perseverance. While it is true that we had the luxury of great advisors and
investors who believed in the team from the beginning, many of my friends
(Airbnb comes to mind) have gone from a great idea that NO ONE believed in,
stuck with it, and got the funding later.
Connections and funding cannot save a team that isn't strong, and often times
just set up a larger failure.
~~~
vannevar
It wasn't just the two movies, it was Jenny and everyone who came after her.
You're right that it got attention, but there was frankly no reason to expect
it to given it was a trend that had already played out once.
I agree with you that funding and connections are not sufficient. But it is
the limiting factor in the sense that there are more strong perserverant teams
out there than there is money to service them all. And a team's strength is
not a constant: most teams are only as strong as the list of mistakes they've
made. Having funding gives you the luxury of making the mistakes and getting
strong.
Perseverance is important but what it means depends on the context. A trust
fund baby who keeps trying new businesses doesn't have much to lose, while a
guy with a family to support who uses all his free time to work on his startup
is making a huge sacrifice. And while I believe that perseverance is generally
rewarded in many ways, the likelihood of it being rewarded with massive wealth
is greatly overestimated.
------
alexophile
I guess this was the answer to my question:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2149968>
------
trustfundbaby
mixergy interview in the works?
------
Aegean
why does he say they failed?
~~~
dkokelley
The original idea (a form of entertainment by 'lifecasting' Justin) wasn't
sustainable on several levels. Of course, the company Justin.tv is alive and
well, but with a different game plan than when they started out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OneJS lets coders convert NodeJS projects into single, stand-alone files - combataircraft
https://github.com/azer/onejs
======
dkastner
I've been using a very similar tool, browserify to do the same thing. The
great thing about browserify is it already comes with core node.js library
support, as well as an http module wrapper.
With tools like this, I love being able to modularize my client-side code
using CommonJS modules and running JS test from the command line using tools
like Vows and Buster.js. I also love being able to declare dependencies on npm
modules. It's just as easy as testing and writing Ruby code with rubygems and
rspec.
The only issue that still bothers me is that nearly every DOM
querying/manipulating library out there assumes there's a global window or
document object. This means I have to stub it out in any CLI tests I run and
then make sure jquery or whatever is referencing a virtual window I create
with jsdom instead of the global stub.
I have a few project using vows/npm/browserify for reference if anyone is
interested. A FF/Chrome/Safari plugin:
<https://github.com/brighterplanet/careplane> A simple SPI app:
<https://github.com/brighterplanet/hootroot1>
~~~
combataircraft
although onejs and browserify tries to accomplish similar tasks, onejs has
some noticeable implementation and concept differences (e.g browserify
pollutes global scope a lot and it expects you to provide it a main module
instead of a package manifest)
here is the output comparison of onejs and browserify:
onejs: <https://gist.github.com/2398843> browserify:
<https://gist.github.com/2398824>
and here is a real world example of onejs;
<http://multiplayerchess.com/mpc.js>
The second thing is, onejs lets us use the core NodeJS library, too. It
doesn't contain it by default but you can install the available modules by
typing; "one install assert path util url"
------
RossM
I've been looking at Node recently and I'm struggling to get my head around
the run both on server and client methodology. I understand why it's useful to
define model classes and include the file in both places, however I don't
really see how this extends to the rest of the app. This tool seems to imply
that you join all the modules of the app together into one file, which you can
then include on the client - but surely there'd be code that you don't want
included in this (like the server-side of websocket communication)?
Does anyone have any articles that can help me to fill the gaps?
~~~
Lazare
There's two separate issues here.
1) "Hey, how can I use the same code on the server and the client?" Hard
problem, but you can look at Meteor or Derby for people working hard to solve
it. It's unrelated to this project though.
2) "Hey, I've been using npm and require and coffeescript to write some cool
code, but I want to run the _entire_ thing in the browser. How can I somehow
"bake" this all down to a single JS file I can deliver to the client where
everything just works? This is a pretty easy problem, and it's been solved by
Stitch (my favourite), Hem, Browserify, and probably a few more. And now,
OneJS. :)
If it helps to see an example, I'm working on an app with a really big
complicated source code tree; it's split into lots of files, plus a bunch of
libraries, some of which are "traditional" JS libraries like jQuery, and some
of which are "modern" CommonJS modules installed by npm. I use Stitch to
bundle the whole thing into a single application.js file which contains every
bit of my client-side code (only). My HTML file only contains two script
blocks.
<script src="application.js"></script>
<script>
app = require('app');
$(function(){
app.run();
});
</script>
That's all it takes to load all my client side code - including all libraries
- and then kick off the initialization code once the DOM is ready.
I'm using Stitch, but I believe OneJS is designed to do the same thing. I'm
afraid I find the documentation on the project really hard to follow though,
so I might be wrong. :)
~~~
combataircraft
FOA, "using same code" means "sharing same source code in all JS environments"
in this context. "Proxying some server-side JS code to client-side" is totally
irrelevant to this topic, as you pointed.
And here are the differences of OneJS:
- it produces unobtrusive code
- it bundles any level of dependency properly
- it's not only for web browsers, but also all JS environments including Node itself
- it's a command-line tool that doesn't require you to code.
------
sudhirj
Interesting. From what I can see, it just tricks any CommonJS style module
into thinking that the module and exports variables are available; and that
it's running in a node like environment. Things like accessing the file system
and http wont' work, but that doesn't seem to be what it's meant for - it's
more "write your client side js in a testable common js format, declare
dependencies like backbone and underscore, and you'll get a neat little
browser runnable package at the end".
------
btown
_sigh_ If I had known about this a week ago, I could have avoided a whole lot
of hardship dealing with Require.js + node_jasmine + NPM... three complex
things that were never really meant to work together. But I can see this as
being really groundbreaking, kind of sidestepping the whole AMD vs. CommonJS
protocol fragmentation and offering NPM as a way to distribute code meant to
be bundled for clients!
------
olalonde
I wish I had known about this earlier. In a recent project, I had to come up
with a pretty ugly hack to make my script both Node.js and browser compatible:
[https://github.com/olalonde/kmeans.js/blob/master/lib/kmeans...](https://github.com/olalonde/kmeans.js/blob/master/lib/kmeans.js#L154)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Does it make sense to replace all disks with SSDs? - neilc
http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2009/10/14/ReplacingALLDiskWithSSD.aspx
======
mckilljoy
Those Fusion IO cards are wicked fast, so long as you don't mind paying like
$8K for 160 GB.
------
favouriteduck
No.
~~~
Devilboy
Ask again in 5 years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is your advice/comments on "publish or perish" culture in academia? - trashpanda
======
cmdoptesc
Think you meant "publish or perish." I'm not on academia, but it seems like
it'd lead to a lot of filler articles written.
The problem with research is that it doesn't always move in predictable
increments. Sometimes things do take a few years to actually have any sort of
breakthrough. Secondly, it might pressure researchers to falsify their data
just to appear that they're making progress. I remember this being a
contentious issue laster year.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any good publications that deal with the Internet? - unalone
I'm working on an essay regarding the Internet and how creative minds can use it - regarding various mediums and their limitations. Usually I'd just publish it online and link here, but this one is exceptionally good, and I'd like to see if I could get it published somewhere more reputable. Does anybody know of any good publications that deal with articles like that?
======
tuukkah
''First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peer–reviewed journals
on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet.''
<http://www.firstmonday.org/>
People such as ESR and Eben Moglen publish there.
~~~
unalone
Excellent! Thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I become an 'elite' programmer? - iobt92
I'm a budding undergraduate awaiting enrollment this year. I've already started to get into programming, and am nearing the end of a ML internship. I really admire people with robust programming skills and hope that I can become one of them (hopefully by the end of university). I wanted to ask, what steps can I take to help me work towards that goal? (I was thinking along the lines of daily deliberate practice, but what would be most efficient?).
======
verdverm
\- learn to break things, git affords you a place to do this (XR will for the
masses in domains we haven't considered this idea yet. I'm largely all in on
the HL2 right now)
\- try out as many projects as you can, specifically the k8s ecosystem as this
is where most efforts are orbiting
\- learn bash, it's an automation super power. Keyboard shortcuts too, make
lots of scripts, aliases. People perceive wizardry when you move around code /
computer at 2-5-20x the speed they do. Also, use the mouse as little as
possible
\- learn people skills (lots here), there are many discussions here you can
find by search. Also consider business (startup ideas around iteration and
get-to-market-fast ). Most elite devs keep the biz context in mind and that's
part of what makes them special.
\- keep all you things in something like GitHub, it becomes a bit of a library
or archive for projects, and also I a resume / portfolio
* This all depends on the elite type of dev you are referring to
------
tomohawk
First, consider what your goal is. Is your goal to use programming to get into
something else, or is your goal to make a long career of it?
If it is the latter, consider that you will be running a marathon, not a
sprint. Early on, look for positions and people to work with with good
mentoring possibilities. Also, cultivate relationships with healthy and
optimistic people.
Later on, look for positions where you can be the mentor, and don't be afraid
to strike out in new directions. If you never fail at anything, you likely
have not pushed yourself enough (a cliche, but true).
Like any marathoner, you need to take care of yourself. Physically, if you do
not actively cultivate healthy habits, you will not last in this career.
Drinking, smoking, drugs, unhealthy food, lack of exercise - they all take a
toll. The couch potatoes who were ubiquitous in this field when in their
twenties are gone within 10 - 15 years, or they are in a stagnant niche job.
~~~
iobt92
Ideally at the end of the day a long and fulfilling career would be my goal.
Hence why I am trying to source for more internships and hope to land a few
more opportunities over the next few years (although it is trying times amidst
the current virus situation).
By new directions would you also include exploring new fields of
programming/disciplines? If so, what are some which you think are good to
venture into and may potentially be something one would hold interest in the
long run?
~~~
verdverm
AR, get an Hololens 2, the world will change when consumer priced models are
widely adopted. If you can't get one, they have emulators and the Oculus Quest
is close enough for basic dev.
Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK), YouTube this to see why without the experience.
Everyone I'm showing is losing their mind at how amazing HL2 is out of the
box. I'm now dev'n for it full time
------
gregjor
Practice, a lot. On real projects when possible. There's no shortcut and no
substitute for experience.
You need peers and mentors. Practice only gets you so far if you don't have
people telling you what you are doing right and wrong. Don't take criticisms
of your code personally.
Read lots of code. Learn to run code in your head.
Don't just learn languages and tools. You have to master some subset of
available tools, but you also need domain expertise, people skills, and
judgment to succeed.
Master Unix/Linux and the shell and command line tools. Master a text editor.
Understand version control (git) and collaboration.
------
secondbreakfast
Daily process goals are a wonderful life skill.
You can improve your writing skills by writing every day. I recommend it.
But the best way to become an elite programmer is to understand complexity:
when it’s okay and when it will kill you. The best way to understand
complexity is to have ownership of projects that grow in size. You’ll watch
the database queries start to buckle or the abstractions hamper readability or
the singleton grow grossly in scope.
Build things, publish them, and work on them over longer periods of time.
Share them with friends. Learn from the brittle parts of the code.
~~~
iobt92
I like your point on complexity; from that statement alone I am far from it
yet. The layers of abstraction which I have had to deal with so far can be
said to be merely surface-level. This is a goal I'm still trying to
consciously work on as well (being able to handle complex projects). I guess
for someone who is a newbie like myself I may be jumping the gun too early by
finding myself veering towards systems which I may not understand e.g.
operating systems, compilers.
~~~
secondbreakfast
There is no jumping the gun! Go for it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Iceland to elect citizens' panel to rewrite constitution - gruseom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/26/iceland-elect-citizens-rewrite-constitution
======
ilkhd2
... it is a good side of having only 300000 of population. My observations
convinced me that there can be no democracy with population bigger than 50E6
people.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A system to help you remember more of what you read - robheaton
https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/
======
allworknoplay
I find that simply sitting and thinking while -- and after -- reading
nonfiction (or fiction, if it's got good ideas) burns the facts and ideas in
as well as anything. I don't think most people allow as much time for
reflection and mind-wandering as they ought to; expecting yourself to remember
fact after fact without taking time to really absorb, reflect, and expand on
them doesn't seem realistic.
It's not unlike a memory palace -- rather than just read the fact, think on
it, expand on it and give it context and a place to live in your brain.
~~~
BeetleB
I've tried this and failed - I don't retain much a few months down the road
with this method. And as with false memories, what I _do_ retain is often not
quite right.
My process is not as involved. I take notes in a notebook while reading. Then
I make blog posts out of them. This way I can review/consult any time, any
where.
This really does slow down my process, though. I used to read several books in
the time it now takes to read one. Writing blog posts is time consuming (and
my notes are very rough).
~~~
2020-3030
I like your method because it shares what you learn with others while helping
you repeat and process the material.
And what good is it to plow through book after book if we remember little or
nothing? Quite a few universities also don't give people any time to reflect
between courses so modern schooling and many people's reading habits are
geared more to the initial stimulation of reading and less to memory.
I'm a firm believer in taking notes, reflecting, and explaining the ideas to
others for anything we really want to remember or master.
------
Terretta
Underlining and highlighting have a mechanical failure for recall — they do
not exercise the output circuits even once.
Instead, if you want to remember the thought you were about to highlight or
underline, _write it out long hand_ , and _from short term memory not copying
rote_ , in a note book.
This exercises the full path: reading, comprehension, decision you’ll need to
recall, storage, retrieval, and output from mental storage back into physical
world.
Plus, the notebook then provides a hook for refreshing the information
geography in your storage. Reskim the notes and you refresh the larger
narrative and how it hangs together. Revisit the notebook on a periodically
decreasing interval, you’ll still recall the narrative decades later.
~~~
repsak
Just skimmed the article but underlining only seemed to be one small part of
the method.
Understanding by summarizing into Anki cards and then making sure you remember
it trough spaced repetition (both "output") seemed to be the most important
part.
Distributed learning, practice testing and Interleaved practice all seem to
have some scientific backing.
~~~
QasimK
What is distributed learning? Is it spaced repetition?
~~~
repsak
It just means distributing your learning trough time, so basically the
opposite of cramming.
I guess spaced repetition can be seen as a combination of distributed learning
and practice testing.
I got the terminology from here
[http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/Z10jaVH/60XQM/full](http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/Z10jaVH/60XQM/full)
Here is a nice summary of the results
[http://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/s...](http://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/psia/2013/psia_14_1/1529100612453266/20160822/images/medium/10.1177_1529100612453266-table4.gif)
------
lucb1e
Relevant:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/know.html)
> What use is it to read [hundreds of books in my life] if I remember so
> little from them? [...]
> Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget
> the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world
> persists.
~~~
jseliger
I use this method: [https://jakeseliger.com/2018/06/30/how-i-remember-what-i-
rea...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/06/30/how-i-remember-what-i-read-and-
connect-it-to-what-else-ive-read)
------
larkeith
While I agree that the author's method likely helps comprehension and
retention, I disagree with his premise that it is necessary for these, or even
particularly time-efficient. His key factor seems to be "Learning comes from
repetition"; though important to he learning process, repetition is neither
the sole, nor even the primary factor. When it comes to retention of concepts,
rather than raw data, comprehension and connecting to other knowledge is
crucial.
In the author's method, these are reinforced with marginal notes (for
comprehension) and a post-reading writeup (to connect concepts). I suspect
this to be significantly inferior to more in-depth note-taking, as a
significant amount of information may be lost in the time between reading
chapter one and finishing the book, whereas complete notes should allow for
immediate relation and processing. A high quality book will be organized to
assist the reader in relating concepts, and waiting until book completion to
prioritize this defeats the purpose of reading a book rather than a collection
of disparate articles.
Still, the author is absolutely correct in that active reading is a worthwhile
habit, and you should try to find an optimal method for your learning
tendencies; While for me focusing on repetition and post-read review is
brutally inefficient, everyone learns differently, so it may be perfect for
you.
~~~
knight17
The author mentions writing down a summary after every chapter in the book
itself. The final notes are prepared from each chapter's annotations and
handwritten summaries. If anyone is interested in reading to retain more, try
How to Read a Book [1] by Charles Van Doren and Mortimer J. Adler. Reviews and
summaries of the boook [2, 3].
[1] : [https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/0671212095)
[2] : [https://fourminutebooks.com/how-to-read-a-book-
summary/](https://fourminutebooks.com/how-to-read-a-book-summary/)
[3] :
[http://oxfordtutorials.com/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Book%20Outl...](http://oxfordtutorials.com/How%20to%20Read%20a%20Book%20Outline.htm)
------
PuffinBlue
I have a somewhat similar system but without writing anything in the book,
because I use ebooks, and it's not quite as intensive.
An example is here[0] but basically I keep notes on:
Places
Things
Characters
Plot
Nothing too long and it's all filled in in a few seconds in an Evernote
notebook/note as I read along.
The main reason this is effective for me is that I can very quickly look up a
character/place/plot in one single place in just a few seconds.
Often I don't need to re-read the whole thing, just the 'recent past' bits to
quickly remember where I was in the plot after I put the book down for a week
or two.
It ends up looking like a lot but it's more a consequence of doing a little a
lot of times rather than a large amount of burdensome work.
I'm not sure if it helps long term retention, but it does help short term and
it certainly helps comprehension when I've forgotten some characters
significance or minor but consequential plot point.
[0] [https://www.josharcher.uk/blog/diaspora-greg-egan-book-
revie...](https://www.josharcher.uk/blog/diaspora-greg-egan-book-review/)
~~~
maaaats
Kindle has this as a feature called XRay. Can click a name for instance, and
quickly see relevant info so far.
~~~
PuffinBlue
I don't really want anything to do with connecting the Kindle to the internet.
Mine has never been off airplane mode and books are transferred by USB so xray
isn't very useful to me. Also it means I can't simply scan over the notes to
see catch up.
------
danial
I only record facts that I read in non-fiction (the mark-as-Q method from the
article). I highlight them in Kindle while reading ebooks. I then transfer
them into Anki flashcards after I'm done reading it.
I don't highlight analysis and commentary. I don't highlight how the author
reached a certain conclusion, just the end result.
Some examples of what I am highlighting while reading On Intelligence by Jeff
Hawkins:
"This is the neocortex, a thin sheet of neural tissue that envelops most of
the older parts of the brain."
"the neocortex is about 2 millimeters thick and has six layers,"
"Stretched flat, the human neocortical sheet is roughly the size of a large
dinner napkin. The cortical sheets of other mammals are smaller: the rat’s is
the size of a postage stamp; the monkey’s is about the size of a business-
letter envelope."
I wish there was a good way to transfer these highlights from my Kindle into
Anki flashcards automatically (if someone knows a way to do this, I'm happy to
hear from you). It feels like a chore right now, so I often forget to do it.
~~~
emilga
Just a suggestion:
If you download Kindle Mate (kmate.me), you can import your Kindle highlights
to your PC and export them as a text file. Then you could make a script that
parses this file line by line and saves it as a csv-file. Then use Anki csv-
import.
EDIT: fixed the link.
~~~
danial
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, kmate.me is PC only and I'm on a mac.
------
laurieg
Here's a slightly silly way to keep your brain switched on while reading:
Set an alarm to go off every few minutes. When the alarm goes off shut the
book and summarise what you read in the past few minutes. Writing it down
helps keep you honest (if you do it in your head its very easy to fool
yourself). After you summarise start reading again.
Forcing yourself to practice recall helps memory. Being interrupted helps
memory too. You don't need any fancy software, just a timer.
~~~
elboru
Interesting, where did you learn that interruptions help memory? I would like
to read about it a little more.
~~~
manjunaths
It is called the Zeigarnik effect.
[https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/zeigarnik-effect-
in...](https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/zeigarnik-effect-
interruptions-memory)
------
fishyofsea
My reading changed after adopting a similar system. Reading on a Kindle and
with a new Google doc created for that book, I:
1\. Highlight the passages that are important along the way
2\. After each chapter I try to summarize its important points and any
challenges I have to them.
3\. Over multiple chapters, I have a section at the top "Key Ideas" with the
top 5-10 points over the course of the book.
4\. After the book is done, I edit the doc to include a "My Thoughts" section
and gather all my critical thoughts into one place. This is probably the most
valuable.
Overall, even if I don't remember the details of a book, now I have a
collection of summaries that I can pull up to remind myself about each book if
it comes up again later and I need a refresher.
As a bonus, it's super easy to write a review of the book afterward because
you have all the pieces almost already in place.
------
iandanforth
If this article is your cup of tea you might also be interested in "Learning
How to Learn" a Coursera course by Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowsk. It boils
down to a similar system but gives more background, science, and detail.
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn/home/we...](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn/home/welcome)
------
achow
Inability to recall what you have read maybe is not that all is lost.
Reading changes your brain; in brain connections are continually created while
synapses that are no longer in use degenerates. Or in other words you are a
very different person today just by reading all those books in all those
years, that you don't remember anything of now.
~~~
tinyrick2
Just like what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "I cannot remember the books I've
read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me."
~~~
achow
Beautiful!
------
fantispug
I don't want to remember more of what I read; I want to have access to a
breadth and depth of ideas I can justify with evidence.
Repetition and flashcards will help you remember the content, but it won't
help you understand it. That's only done by actively engaging with the content
and connecting it to and comparing it with other facts and ideas.
The summarising, keeping lists of questions, and writeups will help you
understand the content, and I think is the only valuable part of this process.
Why rote memorise when you have lovely writeups you can refer back to.
I find Luhmann's Zettelkasten method, as described in 'How to Take Smart
Notes' more persuasive. As you read make bibliographic notes in your own words
(on page X it says Y), store these in one place for everything you read. Also
note down key ideas as you read with cross references to the bibliographic
notes, and to other key idea notes that are relevant; store all these notes in
another place. When you're filing a key idea have a look for similar ideas
already noted; is this the same? Supporting? Contradictory? These questions
help engage with the content. Over a lifetime you can amass a treasure chest
of ideas that you can refer back to at your leisure, as Luhmann did.
~~~
coldtea
> _I don 't want to remember more of what I read; I want to have access to a
> breadth and depth of ideas I can justify with evidence._
That's bad, because without remembering you don't have the ability to quickly
know where to look for those ideas and how to evaluate them. Nor do you know
how to justify them with evidence (because that depends on remembering domain
knowledge of evaluating, classifying and using the evidence itself).
Even if we assumed that you kept a working memory of "first principles" of
every knowledge domain you're interested in, and only cared to search and
evaluate ideas on demand, you'd still be at a disadvantage to anybody who
remembered not just first principles but also higher level information about
the knowledge domain -- and thus could skim through tons of BS or bad ideas
and sources of information and quickly pick and evaluate only what's relevant.
------
deltron3030
Trying to improve my own knowledge management, and looking into how regular
people who specialize in this area (people who read tons of non-fiction books)
handle this stuff, extract and conserve knowledge, I've stumbled upon methods
like "Zettelkasten". Does anybody here have experience with it?
~~~
azeirah
I've tried maintaining a zettelkasten (zettelkasten?) Using software, but all
available software just seemed overly convoluted and weird.
Another huge problem was that I read everywhere, anywhere and anytime.
Maintaining a zettelkasten required me to be at home, near my desktop.
I've tried many, many, many things, and have written like 5 different note-
taking programs over time, nothing ever really worked for me. Even keeping a
notebook with me at all times wasn't working out well, I always lost my pen,
realized too late that my notebook was full, etc (adhd forgetfulness ;c)
Now I own a remarkable tablet, and while it's not the perfect note-taking
system, at least I I always have the pen with me, it has all my notes, and
it's this weird mix of being simultaneously sort-of analog and digital.
~~~
deltron3030
Interesting, I was eyeing the reamrkable as well, but for drawing. It's
hackable, it runs Linux right? So it might be possible to hack into a portable
Zettelkasten with good UX! :)
~~~
azeirah
Oh yes definitely, it comes with root-access by default (and Vim
preinstalled!). And there are interesting open-source libraries available to
hack in new features:
[https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable](https://github.com/canselcik/libremarkable)
------
obscura
To digress from the main point: the suggestion of writing in (physical) books
makes me cringe. Once you do so, they become absolutely worthless to anyone
but you. Trying reading a book that someone else has underlined and/or
annotated - it's highly distracting and annoying.
~~~
mistersquid
I used to be a professor of American Literature. I literally owned thousands
of books in the margins of which I wrote copious notes for research and
teaching.
When I left academia to move cross country, I had a yard sale and at the end
of the day a few hundred books were left over.
A young man who had come by earlier still had some interest in the books and
so I bequeathed them to him.
Then I moved cross country.
Over five years later, I received a FB message from someone who asked if I had
ever taught English in Ohio, and I confirmed that I had.
He replied he wanted to thank me because he was the recipient of those books.
He was a Ph.D. student in Math and he read many of the books he got from me
and said he learned so much about literature and writing that he never would
have as a result of the notes in my margin.
I was humbled that he found my scrawlings worth reading and even more humbled
he was able to learn something from them. I honestly think his intelligence
was the real key driving his learning, but I am beyond grateful that whatever
notes I left in the margins of those books provided enough information to
encourage a self-motivated learner to think deeply about the works he was
reading.
So while some may find annotations distracting and annoying, there are some
that can find those same annotations to be pointers to a fuller understanding
of the material so annotated.
EDIT: Change "and" to "to be" in last sentence.
~~~
obscura
> So while some may find annotations distracting and annoying, there are some
> that can find those same annotations to be pointers to a fuller
> understanding of the material so annotated.
The problem is that there's no guarantee that your marks/annotations will add
value for the next reader. It depends on who you are.
Of course, such value is subjective, so it depends on who the second reader
is.
Because of this, my preference is to have an unmarked book.
Also, the way in which you mark is the book makes a difference. Using the
margins is fine - I can live with that. But when the body text is underlined
en masse or seemingly arbitrarily with pen and by freehand, I think it's
really hard to argue that value has been added.
------
deskglass
Incremental Reading[1] is a related tactic that coverts reading material into
facts preserved via space repetition software.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_reading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_reading)
------
WhATiSCaMeLcaSE
I also find it useful to organize my notes by topic rather than by
book/author/time. Over time, I will build a master reference for topics that
I'm interested in.
OneNote/Evernote is especially helpful when you use handwritten idea maps
(e.g.
[https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvGG5UqSCqXTnjq9_pD_gb7SJPce](https://1drv.ms/u/s!AvGG5UqSCqXTnjq9_pD_gb7SJPce)).
I can't run out of space on my page and I can easily modify the contents if I
find better material down the road.
------
totalperspectiv
If anyone is interested in a deep dive on this topic, I highly recommend 'How
to Read Book' by Adler and Doren. It is a fantastic how to on learning and
understanding new ideas.
[https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-
Intelligent/dp/0671212095)
~~~
organic_markov
Here's a nice summary of the algorithm:
[https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ](https://pastebin.com/wGFMM1pZ)
------
psergeant
I’ve been doing something very similar to this for about ten years. I did
experiment with using Anki for it, but ended up with a more manual approach
involving wiki software and manually rescheduling when I’d read a chapter
again. Anyway, can highly recommend.
------
mad44
Very similar to how I read [http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-i-
read-research...](http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-i-read-
research-paper.html)
------
SloopJon
Can anyone recommend software to help generate quizzes, preferably with a
spaced repetition component? So, instead of a single card that associates
"agua" with "water", a set of cards like "____ es mojada" or "vaso de ____
fría". It might have a multiple choice interface where the order of the
choices varies, and maybe the wrong choices vary as well.
~~~
rjeli
Anki calls this _cloze deletion_ :
[https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html#cloze](https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html#cloze)
------
projectramo
I remembered enormous amounts of what I learned in college and grad school. My
friends are often shocked (or claim to be) at how much I can recall years
later.
Now, I did take notes and we did write papers but I think the key to it is
really: I explained it to other people. Either in class or socially (probably
some people considered it boring but it was a nerdy school and it wasn’t
uncommon.)
------
internetman55
My question: if great none of the essayists, thinkers, writers, etc. have used
and endorsed such a method, why am I going to care enough about the method to
even read such instructions? If they have, why isnt this explained in the
introduction?
------
nottorp
Isn't this article 10 years too late?
Today people need youtube tutorials to show them how to edit a 10 line
configuration file. A (video) tutorial explaining to them how much time they
lose watching videos instead of reading would be more appropriate.
~~~
michaelcampbell
"prefer" != "need"
Most of that is what they are used to.
------
kuwze
This reminds me of this 15-minute break period[0] that was recently featured
on HN.
[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16364423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16364423)
------
erfzsven
it's unnecessary to remember the whole book just for explaining it to someone
what you've read. that isn't worth another 4 hours.
for a non-professional book, it's the idea behind the story or the art of
writing or both, that values. if you can't explain what you've read, i think
it's most likely you haven't catch the main idea of the story rather than the
story itself.
------
DelightOne
Compared to doing nothing anything is better if you want to remember more.
Dunno if this one is better than others.
~~~
confounded
Can you recommend any of the others?
I’m aghast at how little I remember about the books I read! I’m very
interested to see other approaches.
~~~
karimdag
I only read on a kindle, so obviously the marginalia system is out of
question. Here’s what I do: I highlight the passage, write a note where I
summarize it _with my own words_. That’s all. But I also have a (physical)
notebook where I write using the Feynman technique. On top of it all, I read
at least 1 hour a day where I’m fully focused (or at least at 80% capacity)
and you know what ? _Good shit sticks_ : I trust my brain to capture what it
deems valuable. If I forget something I don’t sweat it, it’s more likely that
I don’t need it.
~~~
ozim
I agree and also if I read similar concept in other book, even if I did not
"remember it", I feel often dots connecting somehow in my brain and "ahh I
just read that in other book". So it is more like gathering concepts than
explicitly remembering that concept so I can quote it back when woke up past
midnight.
If someone wants to quote book from his head go for Anki and drill, most of
books I just want to internalize concepts.
------
slics
The challenge this days with remembering anything is the fact that we no
longer train our mind to remember or store anything. We are slowly learning
how not to remember anything. The convenience tools such as Alexa or Google
will one day make us even forget our own home address. Convenience is the Evil
of Everything. (yep just made that up on the fly).
~~~
bachbach
David Krakauer of Santa Fe Institute has expanded on the same concept with
some great Youtube videos.
Everybody I meet today has some memory loss, the younger the worse it gets.
In the future there may be "Mind Gyms" for exercising our mental processes to
keep them fit.
------
referata
Interesting..
------
bachbach
Like the orly shorthand. I've used less polite versions for years in the
margins.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why It's So Hard To Find A Software Engineer - erratic
http://www.businessinsider.com/engineer-shortage-2010-9
======
canterburry
I think what isn't mentioned in this article are some of the unrealistic
expectations posed from employers as to what a "skilled" software engineer is.
I have countless times seen job requirements demanding X+ years of some
acronym when the technology has only been around for half of X.
Also, candidates are rejected by the people who interview them, each with a
particular bias as to what they expect. Typically, a technical interviewer
(i.e. fellow software engineer) will be heavily biased towards their own
preferred technologies, philosophies or approaches. Anyone who doesn't share
them with equal enthusiasm or depth of knowledge just isn't "skilled" enough.
Software people, and especially programmers have A LOT of ego, and it comes
out especially strong when judging candidates.
I think startups probably do need an all star team to get off the ground and
succeed. But once a company goes into operations mode, you need a mix of both
stars and "average" programmers. The stars will probably tackle the new and
untried while you also have a stable of people who don't mind doing the day to
day boring maintenance bit without complaining too much.
~~~
ahi
You're right about the X+ years phenomenon, but I also see tons of job
requirements demanding X/2 years of some incredibly obscure technology that
maybe 1000 people even know exist. So maybe there's 100 competent engineers on
the planet half of whom have less than one year of experience. Even if you're
offering good money you just aren't going to find any candidates. It seems to
be an enterprise thing with tech that is only used by top 100 companies or so.
The problem isn't too little supply, but too little demand.
edited so it makes some sense.
------
gacba
WTF? The NYT says this just a few days ago:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07jobs.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07jobs.html)
and now this article says the opposite? Can't have it both ways.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why you shouldnt join an accelerator - prostoalex
http://blossomstreetventures.com/blog_details.php?bcat_id=87&utm_campaign=Mattermark+Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=38905427&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--29ibnuPT1REKKwKpWPd51yPlSueoHPA2EgmT2oLad53JLTZfkFn1dY41YdpF-rqIWWO4SWTI1E8peUnDh2kJWLwIahw&_hsmi=38905427
======
gumby
Where are the successful accelerators? I count "success" as "have nurtured a
number of companies that went on to be successful".
I think YC counts as one. But I think it counts as _the_ one. Accelerators
(AKA incubators) go back a long way (e.g. techfarm back in the 1990s) and yc
is neither the first or last. But I've looked at the proliferation of
accelerators and have not seen a lot of success. There is idealab, but that's
more a bill gross shop (like Kamens' operation) than a true accelerator IMHO.
My sole metric here is successful companies: those that went on to have
significant impact.
Not to pick on anyone, but lets look at techstars's own report since to their
credit they publish one:
[http://www.techstars.com/companies/](http://www.techstars.com/companies/) .
Two things jump out: they _did_ nurture a significant company: digital ocean.
They list Sphero, who is doing great with BB-8, but who already had $40M
invested and were willing to pay techstars' large fee basically for an
introduction (that was hugely valuable). The rest of the companies, well,
apart from sendgrid I haven't really heard of them (or the couple I have heard
of are struggling). Worse, TS's published metric is funds raised by alumnus
companies. It's hard to find a better metric but funds raised don't
necessarily predict success, and after all these years you'd think they'd have
more than 28 companies on their list.
------
HugoDaniel
Stating the obvious: it is better to learn with the mistakes of others than
with your own mistakes.
I enjoyed the reference to [http://autopsy.io/](http://autopsy.io/) this is a
good resource to have. Reading this text was worth it as a bootstrapper even
though i dont intend to join an accelerator.
------
CalChris
You can look at the graduates of an accelerator to get an idea of that
accelerator's judgment. Then ask whether 7% for some cash is worth it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are now VCs - dwynings
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/27/meet-silicon-valleys-newest-vcs-tyler-and-cameron-winklevoss-video/
======
bermanoid
The Zuck > Winklevoss thing here is out of control. Do you guys even
understand what really happened?
This is not a tale of "Rich assholes tell hacker about their idea, then sue
him for building it without them."
This is "Rich assholes come to hacker with mostly built site, he agrees to
finish it up for an equity stake, and then lies to them for two months about
progress _to make sure that he can beat them to market_."
Do all of you Winklevoss-haters even realize that the site was almost done
when Zuck joined up?
That the guy that started building the site worked on it for four months and
only stopped because he graduated to get a job at Google?
That the next contractor specifically referred Zuck as a good person to get
the job finished when he had to leave?
That if Zuck had said "no" they would have found someone else to finish it,
but he didn't say "no" because he realized how important it was to be first to
market?
It's not like this was some fucking pie-in-the-sky idea. There was code on the
table (crafted by a guy that got a job at Google a few months later, so
probably pretty decent code), and they were putting money behind getting it
finished. The only reason that Facebook beat them to market is that
_Zuckerberg lied to them for four months about working on it_. Specifically so
that he could delay them, from the looks of it - his IMs indicate that within
a couple weeks of first meeting with them, he'd already decided to string them
along but had no intention of actually doing the work.
Do I like the idea of non-technical founders getting hackers to work for
equity? No, I don't. It's their right, and it's the hacker's right to
foolishly say yes, but I don't think it's ideal.
But I'm far more offended at the idea that a hacker agrees to take on the task
of finishing a project, digests the confidential IP (including code) that
they've agreed to flesh out, and then lies to the client to delay them and
then crush them in the market. That's disgustingly unethical (not to mention
fraudulent) behavior.
If you question whether Zuck's motives were really that sinister, read some of
his IMs, like the one he sent to Eduardo, in December (3 months before launch,
as he was telling the twins that the site was "almost complete"): "Check this
site out: www.harvardconnection.com and then go to
harvardconnection.com/datehome.php. Someone is already trying to make a dating
site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I'm
like delaying it so it won't be ready until after the facebook thing comes
out." ([http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-
founded-2010...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-
founded-2010-3) \- there's more sinister stuff there, too)
Shit like this? He should have lost 100% of the business, plain and simple,
and (to their discredit) if the Winklevoss twins had played the legal dispute
competently (they should have pushed harder, earlier, and they obviously
should not taken the settlement offer when they did), _he would have_.
~~~
9oliYQjP
I'd love to see the source code to that site at the point it was handed off to
Zuck. If this was really near finished, or at least significantly far along,
it would be extremely illuminating.
Here's the thing though. How could the Winklevoss twins get strung along for 4
months? Not that this has any relevance to the ethics of the matter. But their
contribution to developing this idea was simply money. They needed technical
people to build on that idea. Outside of this one idea they funded, they
haven't done anything significant or relevant in business since. And now
they're just spending money that they got from the settlement.
I'd much rather take a $5 Starbucks coffee and a conversation with Paul Graham
over $1M in funding from the Winklevoss twins. I just don't see what value
they bring to the table. Money can be found all over the place.
------
mtgentry
Tyler Winklevoss: "We were there at the beginning of web 2.0.."
Yes, technically you were both alive on earth at the time. So was my Nana, my
creepy uncle Hank, and about 6 billion other people.
------
ojbyrne
I didn't watch the video, but the first question I had was - wouldn't they
have become VCs anyway? Harvard Business School, upper class background (right
schools, right clubs, etc), probably a massive rolodex (Larry Summers at the
very least), and one startup that failed because they didn't hire good lawyers
to make sure their programmer didn't get uppity.
This seems to fit the profile of thousands of people in the valley.
~~~
yequalsx
I don't think they have Summers' info on their rolodex.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjJgUlme1XQ>
------
joshmlewis
I guess one good thing that came out of the Social Network is that they will
never live down their parts in the movie. Especially being portrayed as "bad
guys." Just the start of the interview the first 30 seconds must have been
very awkward for them.
~~~
c250d07
I only saw it once a while ago, but I don't think they were portrayed as 'bad
guys' in the film. They even came out in support of how their story was told
in the movie.
~~~
corin_
To me it portrayed them as money-grabbing, egotistical and a bit moronic. Is
it possible that the film manages to re-inforce whatever views the watcher had
before seeing the film, I wonder what somebody who had never heard of those
twins before seeing the film would think of them.
~~~
intended
Is that because in the end we are rooting for Zuckerberg?
I mean I could understand 'naive' and even understand dislike for kids who
come from old money.
Yet money-grabbig/egotistical is a bit weird to parse. Heck if it was a kid
from lesser beginnings and he fought back, he would have been the hero of the
movie.
~~~
corin_
I'm not a huge fan of Zuckerberg in real life - I admire what he's done, but
not his personality. But in the movie, he's written to be the hero, a hero
with flaws certainly but hero none-the-less. So yes that's certainly part of
it, but just as he was written to be the hero, so too were the twins written
to be the bad guys, even if they weren't as bad as we might expect hollywood
villains to be.
I don't think egos is weird to parse, they didn't just come from money
(incidentally I come from money, to a lesser extent, so that doesn't set me
automatically against people), they were the type of people that think their
coming from money makes them superior in more ways that just their bank
account balance.
As to money-grabbing, it's my opinion both from the actual story and also the
movie, that they frankly didn't deserve the money they got from Facebook, so
yeah they were money-grabbing in their legal pursuits.
------
IsaacL
People are being way too negative about this. So, they were a pair of "idea
guys" who failed to execute and then managed to grab more than their fair
share of the latest Valley success story. Does this warrant their eternal
membership in the tech community's pantheon of evil?
It seems to me like they're trying to put the Facebook thing behind them and
use their wealth constructively. If you think startups are generally a net
positive for the world, then more money going into startups has to be a good
thing. And you have to admit they do have _some_ ability to spot big ideas.
~~~
bermanoid
_People are being way too negative about this. So, they were a pair of "idea
guys" who failed to execute and then managed to grab more than their fair
share of the latest Valley success story._
I'd be fine with the negativity if that was even what happened. But it's not.
They _didn't_ "fail to execute". They were fairly far along in the process of
executing ("the previous HarvardConnection programmers had already made
progress on a large chunk of the coding: front-end pages, the registration
system, a database, back-end coding, and a way users could connect with each
other", according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU>), and would have
finished up just fine with someone else if Zuck hadn't signed on and lied
about progress specifically to delay them (that this was his intention came
out pretty clearly in the IM conversations that were leaked a couple years
ago, he basically lays out his plan to feign progress so that they don't look
for someone else to finish ConnectU up before Facebook launches).
It's one thing to get beat to market because you didn't hire the right
programmer, that's a straightforward failure of execution; it's another thing
altogether to get beat to market by the very programmer that you hired to beat
the competitors to market. That makes you a victim of fraud, and I have a lot
of sympathy for that.
------
joelrunyon
"We focus on early stage disruptive startups." Does this scare anyone else?
Just feels like people with money are throwing it around and making it look
pretty with buzz words.
~~~
raverbashing
"Just feels like people with money are throwing it around"
Also, there is this quote: "One of the areas of focus for their fund is cloud
computing"
So, it looks like EXACTLY that. They will probably end up with lots of
"Pets.com 2.0"
~~~
joelrunyon
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire startup ecosystem doesn't end with a
bunch of Pets.com clones.
------
tdfx
"Operational experience" == "litigation experience"?
~~~
untitledwiz
I LOL-ed really hard when they claimed they had relevant/useful "operational
experience".
~~~
maaku
I don't know about you, but I remember ConnectU.com being an actual, usable
website. Not that it at any point gained traction over Facebook, but they did
at least execute the idea.
------
cheebla
Money is the great equalizer. I don't imagine they'll have any trouble getting
start-ups to take their money. Then again, 65 million seems like a lot of
money but if these guys don't know what they're doing it won't last them very
long.
~~~
wallawe
That initial 65 million in equity is worth easily 3x that much now, even more
post-IPO
------
SkyMarshal
They didn't seem to have much original to say. Everything they discussed could
have been gleaned from Techcrunch, Mashable, etc.
I wonder if their money and network will be enough to compensate for lack of
(real) operational experience when they court top tier startup teams.
Reading PG or Thiel, or watching Andreesen's presentations at
<http://ecorner.stanford.edu>, there's a world of value beyond money that they
bring to table.
------
rollypolly
Would working for the Winklevoss'es be a black mark on someone's resume?
For one thing, you'd never get hired at Facebook after that. Then again,
Facebook isn't the only game in town.
~~~
jonnathanson
Honestly, I doubt they occupy more than a passing thought in Mark
Zuckerberg's, or Facebook's, minds these days.
------
spitfire
They actually come across fairly well. They mention the history of
timesharing. Which is an important indicator that they pay attention to
history.
This is key, we've had "social networks" since the 80's. We called them BBSes.
We dialled them up to chat, play online games, etc. Bring some historical
perspective to the party and you can short circuit a lot of work - or just
pass off something old as new again.
Their focus on enterprise tech is probably a good one too.
------
zeruch
They are not VCs. They are opportunist/tech celebs with a pool of cash. I
simply do not see the announcement of them "becoming VCs" as much more than
PR. When they actually start investing and getting returns, THEN let's give
them some attention.
------
binarray2000
Imagine they invest in your startup and later say "It was our idea!"...
But on a serious note: I'm happy for them because they'll see now that
business is more than suing someone for the mere idea.
------
bborud
I think they should hire Aleksey Vayner as their spokesperson.
~~~
BadassFractal
I wonder how many will get that. I still remember the guy, he's awesome.
------
nikcub
"we think the cloud will be really big"
mind. blown.
~~~
bborud
followup question: "how big? can you show me?"
------
draggnar
that was painful
------
eli_gottlieb
Who?
------
adaml_623
So since I have only watched the Social Network I'm very uninformed about the
Winklevoss brothers and facebook. Can someone throw up some links to give me
some more datapoints on the issue. From my point of view they are the same as
normal VCs
~~~
mkramlich
I didn't downvote you but I wanted to respectfully point out that your
question could have been more easily answered by taking a moment to Google
about the Winklevoss brothers and the Social Network, rather than post your
comment here. That kind of thing is all just a few clicks away at any time, on
the web.
~~~
adaml_623
Thanks for the reply, I was wondering why my HN points had dropped. I think my
original post should have read, "The Winklevoss brothers seem to be fairly
normal VCs with a short track record of backing good ideas. Why are people
_here_ on HN dismissive of them." Live and learn I guess.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin Surpasses PayPal in Transaction Volume? - lelf
http://coinowl.com/bitcoin-surpasses-paypal-in-transaction-volume/
======
nly
More pitiful, bullshit statistics out of BTC fairyland. PayPal currently
processes 100 times as many transactions in a day as the Bitcoin network. 8
million [1], versus ~80,000 [2]. The difference is Bitcoin is averaging
$17,000/transaction, at current market price, compared to PayPals ~$60.
PayPal processes about $500M a day [2]. Even if Bitcoin was pegged at $1000,
that's be equialent to ~500,000 coins being traded for USD in a day.... which
is 10 times the average daily trading volume of the largest exchange, BTC
China [3] ... and most are those are probably from market makers, whereas
PayPals volume overwhelmingly reflects real purchases (30% is eBay, for
instance).
Whatever way you cut it, Bitcoin _as an economy_ is still tiny. Like Gold
perhaps [4], a large % of trade is pure investment.
[1] [https://www.paypal-media.com/about](https://www.paypal-media.com/about)
[2] [http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/](http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/)
[3]
[http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btcnCNY.html](http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btcnCNY.html)
[4]
[http://www.gold.org/investment/why_and_how/why_invest/demand...](http://www.gold.org/investment/why_and_how/why_invest/demand_and_supply/)
~~~
fat0wl
The Bitcoin fantasy is spamming up HN so bad lately. I think soon I will have
to ditch for r/programming.
All their stats are wild distortions based on made up numbers. Until it is in
widespread adoption as A CURRENCY, these stats all mean nothing. They can
speculate the price up to whatever they want and trade at that price, it
doesn't mean its worth that much.
Only a major cashout or actual usage will provide some metric of Bitcoin's
value and I think even then it will still be hard to peg. I hope it's dead
before it gets to that point because the ecosystem as it stands now is very
dangerous. It's just not sound theory for currency stabilization... it's good
for a get-rich-quick fantasy, little more.
~~~
fragsworth
> the ecosystem as it stands now is very dangerous
I do agree that the Paypal number is a load of bullshit - because Paypal
transactions are mostly between merchants and consumers, while Bitcoin
transactions are often between users and themselves. That one $150 million
transaction, which was likely someone moving stuff into their own wallet,
nearly doubled the "transaction volume".
However, I really think you're being overly negative.
~~~
fat0wl
No apologies, Bitcoin can rot.
We as a society have the unique opportunity to reverse a pyramid scheme & foot
black marketers with the bill, but instead everyone is just buying up more
because "up up up and awayyyy it goes!!!". Because computers. Because
cryptoooo. Because whatever-BS-notion-you-use-to-convince-yourself-that-the-
ecosystem-is-so-valuable-it-has-an-insane-amount-of-subjective-worth-and-for-
some-reason-subjectivity-is-now-esteemed. Because Litecoin isn't as hip.
Instead, people are contributing massive amounts of money to the ecosystem
where black marketers & the founders already have the upper hand (you're
buying that one Bitcoin for $600 or w/e made up price it currently has been
bid to, as opposed to their hoards).
Even with your enlightened knowledge about "subjective value" you should
realize that once you're in the same medium, their much bigger BTC# means a
much bigger slice of the pie. But Bitcoiners believe the pie is infinite,
right?
~~~
ISL
Erm, in order to cash out, founders/early adopters have to sell a slice of the
pie. Furthermore, anyone with a lot of BTC is incentivized to cash out slowly
in order to keep the price up.
The Man has the upper hand, as does any weakness in the protocol. Either one,
especially the latter, has the capacity to destroy bitcoin overnight. I'm not
too worried about "Nakamoto" devaluing bitcoin (though I do wonder what
"Nakamoto" will do with that much money/power. A billion dollars can do a lot
of good or a lot of ill.).
~~~
fat0wl
i'm not convinced the currency can survive since it's really blind faith that
is holding it up, so i'm partially just examining an end-game scenario.
If BTC starts to plummet (which will likely happen at some point in an
ecosystem so volatile) people may literally lose their investment entirely.
Why? No one will want to sell assets they paid $600 for for $10, they'd rather
believe it is going to climb back up. Then even if they decide "fuckit it's
over its just a currency now I guess I'll sell" nobody will want to buy.
They'll instead buy a cryptocurrency that has a better theoretical mechanism
for stability and can actually be used in practice (unless people are so dense
that they want to restart the speculation cycle).
The ecosystem could just freeze and there is no way to force people to
continue to buy into it (I once read an analysis by an economist in which he
mentioned that black marketers may end up having to intimidate constituents to
buy into it in order to keep it afloat).
Basically this all kindof boils down to a Game Theory issue where everyone
wants to sneak their money out at the proper time in order to maximize their
cashout before the system fails or the market corrects (I'm not sure it ever
will based on the nonsense principles used to design the mining rules /
currency cap).
But not everyone can cashout at the amount they paid in. In fact, as I point
out in my endgame scenario, many _may not even be able to cash out at all_.
It's a mass vehicle for redistributing wealth and the volatility makes it
useless as a currency. It may take a while to fail but when it does a lot of
people will get screwed.
Think about it. The guys with those hoards are probably slowly cashing out 10
BTC now & then to put 5k in the bank, knowing full well that these crazy
prices can't hold forever. They are a godsend for the scheme's designers who
printed all the free money for themselves. For blackmarketers & gambling sites
its more dangerous because they may end up with a wallet full of worthless
coins.
When people say "Don't invest more than you can afford to lose" I like to
internally translate that to "Don't invest more than you'd be comfortable with
having a criminal potentially steal from you".
And then good luck trying to get the US Gov to bail you out, lol. They are
looking at Bitcoin totally amorally to understand it. They couldn't give a
rats ass about the investors. Amway is legal, after all. :D
~~~
AJ007
There is nothing unique about Bitcoin's jump from any other asset price bubble
other than possibly there is little leverage involved (30:1 leverage at
investment banks during 2008.)
I have nothing against Bitcoin. The concept of programmable currency is great.
To use the word investment here is a mistake. Buying bitcoin for the purpose
of holding is a speculation that the price will continue rising.
------
ErikHuisman
If i got a million dollar bill and take it out a wallet in my right pocket in
put it in a wallet in my left pocket (and vice versa) every 4 minutes. Would i
myself be bigger than paypal?
~~~
FBT
That's how these things are calculated. It's nonsense, but it's the best we
can do, or something. It's the same with GDP figures. But no one seems to be
able to find better metrics to use...
------
jfoster
One critical difference between PayPal and bitcoin here. PayPal is not treated
as a currency to be traded against other currencies. I suspect that the vast
majority of bitcoin transactions are currently just trades to/from USD.
~~~
kylebrown
Bitcoin trades happen on exchanges, off the blockchain. Bitcoin "transactions"
are bitcoin payments going from one address to another, not trades.
------
ashray
This was just because of that single $147MM transaction yesterday. Of course
it's great because this shows bitcoin can sustain a small number of high
volume transactions.
Unfortunately one of the biggest challenges the bitcoin network is facing
right now is getting smaller transactions confirmed faster. This issue will
need to get solved and get solved sooner rather than later if bitcoin wants to
be a competitor to VISA or MasterCard.
Maybe more HNers should take a look at the core:
[https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin)
~~~
ISL
This is an argument not so different from those often given regarding 'linux
on the desktop'. Bitcoin doesn't want anything. It's an idea, not a company.
If the protocol is effective, it will thrive in its own right. If it doesn't,
something else will appear in its place. The designer(s) of Bitcoin could have
favored short confirmation times, but they didn't. Plenty of companies are
working on solutions that effectively yield shorter confirmation times for
merchants.
If I want to buy a car with BTC, I'll be happy to wait five minutes to ensure
the transaction goes through. It's a lot faster than going to the bank for a
cashier's check.
~~~
mikeash
Just a nitpick, not arguing your point in general, but: car dealerships
generally don't require cashier's checks. Regular checks do just fine. Not
that taking ten minutes to pay for a car is a problem, but you can pay for one
with a normal check in no time at all.
~~~
ISL
I've only ever bought used cars :).
------
mpg33
I'm more interested in the Daily Transaction Quantity (table on right side
[http://coinometrics.com/bitcoin/btix](http://coinometrics.com/bitcoin/btix)
). Bitcoin still lags far behind.
To put it in perspective:
Paypal 7,700,000 transactions per day
Bitcoin 67,000 transactions per day.
~~~
fragsworth
But, by protocol design, bitcoin's number of transactions will not get much
higher than that. Only the transaction size will get larger.
For a higher number of transactions, you need to include the 3rd parties that
provide services as a layer on top of the protocol.
~~~
oleganza
It's not by design. There was a temporary built-in anti-spam limit (max block
size of 1Mb) that is not even hit yet. When the pressure of transactions will
push blocks closer to 1 Mb, most miners will raise the limit to not diminish
the usefulness of the protocol (and therefore value of their own earnings).
Essentially, the limit will depend on network latency. No miner wants to risk
creating orphan blocks if his 100 Gb block takes too much time to reach
everyone else. I don't expect hardcoded limit to be completely removed. Miners
will still want to have some limit to still prevent a situation when someone
creates a huge block just for fun, so everyone has to carry it around forever.
I wrote in detail on economics of block size limit here:
[http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43849158813/this-is-how-
block-...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/43849158813/this-is-how-block-size-
limit-will-be-raised)
It's a question of whether the hardcoded block size should or should not
raised. There's no incentive not to raise it when needed, that's all.
Of course, there's also need for some ultra-frequent small transactions. Those
will be handled just fine by some clearing houses or distributed clearing
networks. All debts will be covered very often with real BTC transaction
completely automatically, so there's no much risk of fraud (like creation of
yet another fractional reserve system).
~~~
makomk
Not really. Satoshi may have intended it as a temporary measure, but he
underestimated just how hard it would be to change a lot of things about the
Bitcoin protocol. In particular, changing the maximum block size will result
in a hard fork of the Bitcoin network - since existing Bitcoin clients will
reject any block over 1 MB, everyone has to be convinced to move over to the
new block size at once. This is unlikely to happen. We've never had a
successful hardfork of this kind (I think there was technically a very minor
one at one point due to Bitcoin being too dependent on the internals of BDB,
but that was to remove an unintended - and previously unnoticed - protocol
rule.)
Also, at least one of the main Bitcoin developers is strongly opposed to the
idea of increasing the block size - he believes that the 1 MB limit is
essential in order to avoid a race to the bottom that would end in miners not
making enough money from fees, and that small transactions should be done off-
blockchain by Bitcoin institutions analagous to banks.
~~~
oleganza
I don't think he underestimated it. Here's a quote:
[http://blog.oleganza.com/post/61694565252/satoshi-on-
bitcoin...](http://blog.oleganza.com/post/61694565252/satoshi-on-bitcoin-
design)
Later in 2010, Satoshi also mentioned that block size limit can be raised if
needed in the future.
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.0)
My point is not philosophical. It's purely economical. When miners start
getting much more transactions than they could fit in, usefulness of Bitcoin
will become limited by the costs of transactions (bigger fees would be needed
to outcompete other transactions and get in the block). If costs go up, value
of Bitcoin does not grow or even goes down (because value of money is always
speculative: if the future does not look bright, one money quickly loses in
value and becomes replaced by some other money). Miners earn bitcoins, not
dollars. Investing a lot in expensive hardware, they are very interested in
getting a decent return. They would never do something "out of principle" if
it hurts their entire business. Block size will be raised by the vast majority
of miners from 1 Mb to, say, 8 Mb. It's still small enough to protect against
flood, but still gives enough room of growth.
Also: "race to the bottom" is just someone's personal fear. In reality, very
soon only huge chip factories will be miners. They will produce chips as fast
as possible and plug them into their computing clusters right away. Forget
about shipping nice boxes overseas, that's too inefficient. Mining will be
done by big factories in China or Iceland (cheap electricity).
I believe, mining in the hands of small number of big players is not a problem
for censorship of transactions or raising their cost. If a miner tries to hurt
fungibility of the coins on large scale, he'll simply be boycotted by other
miners. (Because they are driven by desire to keep Bitcoin value up.)
------
drakaal
Painfully inaccurate.
This appears to assume all coins were valued at Today numbers, not the numbers
on the days they occurred.
PayPal does $44B a year in transactions. [https://www.paypal-
media.com/about](https://www.paypal-media.com/about)
Today there are $12M Bit coins in existence. If each coin is valued at $800
(make my math easy and assume the sum of all bit coins is $10B)
It is possible to have more in transactions than you have in holdings. I pay
you, you pay your baby sitter, $20 was $40 in transactions. But for the math
to work BitCoin holders would have to be all averaging 4 transactions of 100%
of their holdings a year.
This isn't possible since we know that the majority of bit coins are held by
speculators, not consumers. (We know this because no one would buy bread if
the price could double or half in 6 hours).
------
alexkus
One crucial difference:-
One system is an utter pain to actually cash out of if you start pulling in
decent revenues.
The other one is...oh.
~~~
javert
I don't think bitcoin is a pain to cash out of.
------
eonil
It's too early to measure any value of BTC in dollars. Any trial comparing to
dollars or in any other currency are hype.
BTC transaction meaningless because you don't need to pay commission. It's
simply can go infinite at any time if you have enough BTC.
------
gesman
So if I'd send 1 BTC to myself - this would be considered as $800 transaction?
------
krelian
What exactly is bitcoin being spent on?
~~~
a3voices
Even if Bitcoin is spent on nothing, it could become worth as much as gold
eventually.
~~~
Sprint
It could even become worth as much as the moon eventually. Your comment is
pretty void of anything but hype.
~~~
a3voices
My comment is true even if I didn't go into a huge explanation of why.
~~~
Helianthus
Your comment is nonsense even if you _had_ gone into a huge explanation of
why. Hell, I thought it was sarcasm at first.
------
adamors
How is this useless blogspam getting upvoted to the front page?
~~~
seanalltogether
I have this fear that too many HN readers have bought into bitcoin and are now
using this website to keep promoting it in order to keep the hype (and price)
high.
~~~
adamors
That may be it; in the last couple of weeks there's regularly been some
useless Bitcoin related speculation/incorrect statistic etc. on the frontpage.
Or the constant announcements how much one is worth.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Have you seen group interviews for people who want to work together? - Elof
======
par
This is something that so many dev teams have pined for. We wanted this as a
dev team so badly when we were all acquired and wanted to move on from the
acquiring company. Unfortunately in practice it's a lot harder than it looks.
Acquihire is currently the best form of 'group interview' that I know of so
far.
~~~
Elof
Yeah, I imagine it would be hard to do _unless_ the hiring org explicitely
wanted to and put effort into figuring out how to make it (outside of
acquhire). Honestly I would rather have the individuals pick the people they
want to work with over the company picking a team. Not sure about you but I've
only wanted to work with part of every team I've been on (or managed for that
matter)
------
Elof
One example and of course it's Stripe: [https://stripe.com/blog/bring-your-
own-team](https://stripe.com/blog/bring-your-own-team)
~~~
wikibob
> Update: After spending about a year on the BYOT experiment, we’ve decided to
> sunset it. In short, it didn’t work; we didn’t hire any teams as a result.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Audience Interaction System running on iPod - demetree
http://demetree.yourqforme.com
======
demetree
Go ahead and try it. Ask a question.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spacebook: AGI's near Real-Time satellite viewer - dricornelius
http://apps.agi.com/SatelliteViewer/
======
L_226
This one is pretty good too, and doesn't eat all my RAM -
[http://stuffin.space/](http://stuffin.space/)
------
pierrec
Interesting stuff, it appears to be their own data (I'm guessing aggregated
from sources like the UN registry and observation). I was curious about the
statistics on satellite missions so I put it into a table:
Operational satellites by mission:
total 2154
Communications 740
Scientific 592
Navigation 135
Technology Development 109
Earth Observation 99
Surveillance 58
Engineering 20
Weather 13
Not Recorded 8
Early Warning 3
Search and Rescue 1
Space Station Flight 1
~~~
molyss
A few interesting things :
The sum of all mission-detailed satellites is lower than the total (even
thought there’s a « no recorded » line
There’s a grand total of 58 surveillance satellites around the earth today ?
Yeah... I think there’s a few missing
------
SanchoPanda
This is wonderful.
If it catches your fancy, I have also found termtrack to be a great way to
fill in a corner of a tmux window.
[https://pypi.org/project/termtrack/](https://pypi.org/project/termtrack/)
------
CSMastermind
So the Cesium you see at the bottom is actually a new startup they spun out of
AGI (note the letter order, very different from AIG).
They build an open-source WebGL-based competitor to Google Maps' engine.
Patrick Cozzi, the driving force behind the technology is one of both the
smartest and nicest people I've met during my career.
~~~
pedalpete
We use Cesium at [https://ayvri.com](https://ayvri.com) (with some of our own
magic sprinkled in). It is an incredible bit of software, completely agree
with your comments regarding Patrick. He's also the driving force behind glTf
and wrote the book on virtual worlds in webGL.
[https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-
Cozzi/e/B004LGLPIA/ref=dp_byl...](https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-
Cozzi/e/B004LGLPIA/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1)
------
ascales
[http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/lab/orbital_decay/](http://www.lizard-
tail.com/isana/lab/orbital_decay/)
If you want to see how long it takes for satellite orbits to decay in LEO,
check this out. Illustrates how quickly some of these satellites would reenter
without station keeping.
------
emptybits
Total objects: 17,642
Status non-operational: 15,389
Yikes?
~~~
xt00
Yea for sure.. I would hope that there is some rule now related to making sure
things can be deorbited with some scheme relatively easily? For example a
mandatory unit that attaches to the side of your satellite that has a small
antenna only possible to communicate with using a high gain antenna on the
ground that can transmit back using a battery that is only for that unit and
can only command some relays to fire thrusters to de orbit the thing and read
back basic telemetry to help validate what the slow down burn direction is..
anybody know how they accomplish this?
~~~
Nodraak
To deorbit a satellite, you need an antenna (to receive the command),
electricity (working solar panel / battery), working on board computer, fuel,
correct attitude determination. So basically you need a full working
satellite. As soon as one of these element fails, your satellite is dead. At
10-20 k dollars per kg, you dont want to add another satellite to your already
expensive satellite.
Concerning rules, there is some progress, because nobody wants a Kessler
syndrome, too much is at stake. For instance, European satellites are launched
only if they naturally deorbit in less than 25 years (for LEO, of course.
Above a certain height, atmospheric drag is too weak).
~~~
Sanzig
Actually, the newly-proposed FCC rules would require fail-safe deorbit systems
when operating above 550 km and below 2000 km. Above 550 km, most stuff takes
more than 25 years to deorbit, and the NGSO volume below 2000 km is considered
the most useful (and thus most likely to get crowded). These fail-safe systems
should be designed to cause the satellite to deorbit within 25 years of
activation.
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-159A1.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-159A1.pdf)
The FCC hasn't proscribed exactly what these look like (that's
implementation), but electrodynamic tethers would seem likely.
------
alkonaut
I made a similar site 20 years ago (an applet, what else) and a lot of people
seem to be wondering "how does it work" or "where does the data come from?". I
can only describe how I implemented it, but it's probably similar.
Data is not "real time" for each satellite in any sense. But since satellites
follow orbits, it's enough to have recent state, and you can extrapolate where
they are. The data comes from places like NORAD, and has a standardized format
called a "Two line element set". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-
line_element_set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-line_element_set)
Here is the current state of the international space station for example as
described in a TLE:
ISS (ZARYA)
1 25544U 98067A 19238.30917157 .00002323 00000-0 48072-4 0 9991
2 25544 51.6438 13.4147 0007728 328.5901 233.9236 15.50389701186137
It's mostly opaque but we can see near the end of the second line that at the
current orbit means it does around 15.5 orbits per day. When I implemented my
app, I just grabbed some data from a public link with up to date TLE's. Such
as this one, for the 100 brightest satellites is a good start for a simple
visualization app.
[https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/visual.txt](https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/visual.txt)
Once you have the TLE for a satellite which describes where it was a while
ago, you need a function that gives you the _current_ state vector for the
satellite, given the time delta since the known state. Far from earth this can
be done approximately with simple orbital mechanics, but close to earth you
need to account for athmospheric drag and also the uneven or "bumpy"
gravitational field. At some point someone devised a set of algorithms for
this called the simplified perturbations models in 1988
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_perturbations_model...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_perturbations_models)
Basically current_state = SGP4(old_state, time_since_old_state)
Luckily, these functions were released together with a Fortran implementation,
so porting it to whatever language you want is fairly straight forward. Here
is an example port of SGP4 to python [https://github.com/brandon-
rhodes/python-sgp4/blob/master/sg...](https://github.com/brandon-
rhodes/python-sgp4/blob/master/sgp4/propagation.py)
------
jonbaer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)
~~~
willis936
I hope we get the GPS III constellation up and running before any catastrophic
LEO cascades. Having a self sustaining common clock system that can run for
centuries has a very high scientific value (and really, just a huge value for
any industrial, commercial, and consumer applications).
~~~
GhettoMaestro
From what information are you assuming these will run for centuries? Most sats
have a design life of like 10 to 25 years max. Also keep in mind that station-
keeping and correction data is mandatory to keep the accuracy in check. I
think I read somewhere that after 180 days of un-corrected drift the GPS would
be able to get you within a few km of your target - not meters/feet.
~~~
willis936
I was told by someone who follows theses things more closely than me that
block III GPS would have an inter satellite network that could share clock
information independently of ground control. While looking into it the closest
I could find was references to OCX, which is ground based controls. So maybe
we're not there yet idk.
------
inamberclad
If people want to see some good satellite data, I very much recommend
[https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/](https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/)
------
ilaksh
Are there standard libraries or agencies or something for aggregating the
latest data and then based on your satellite's planned trajectory, ensuring
that you aren't getting too close to another satellite?
I am guessing that space is pretty big even in low earth orbit and so
probabilities are small even with thousands of objects. But even so, if you
are spending millions of dollars, you would want to have some idea rather than
just keeping your fingers crossed.
~~~
wrigby
NORAD tracks everything in space, and works directly with satellite operators
to reduce collision risks on the rare occasion that it could happen.
------
ilaksh
Is there a global database or protocol or blockchain or something where
satellite positional data is aggregated? Like if you are launching a satellite
then you log into a website or something and enter the planned orbit. Or
something.
Or is it just a bunch of random tracking efforts with duplication and
incompletion?
~~~
modeless
The data for Spacebook, like almost all public satellite position data, comes
from tracking radars run by the US Air Force. They have a public website and
database with API at [https://space-track.org](https://space-track.org).
I've been working on my own website using the space-track.org API to show you
when/where/how to see satellites in the sky with your naked eyes from your own
backyard. Hopefully launching soon.
------
gchokov
So many dead satellites. Is there solution to that, or is there a problem with
it in the first place?
~~~
panzagl
Most of the current debris comes from an anti-satellite missile test (China)
and 1 collision caused by an out-of-control (Russian COSMOS) satellite. So,
basically stop blowing shit up in orbit and it should be ok.
------
rtkwe
What's neat is you can see the actual Starlink chain and a few other defined
satellite trains. I'd link to it but I don't see a way to link directly to a
particular satellite.
------
Applethief
Wow that's a lot.
------
willis936
Using this I just learned that Beidou's orbit is geosynchronous with a high
inclination. That's a lot of delta-V!
~~~
cfraenkel
Not really. They're launched from a base at 28 deg N. So assuming they launch
due east, you can get to a 56 deg inclination and spend less delta-v than
you'd need to drop the inclination to zero.
------
richk449
Was expecting social media, al la seveneves, but that is much better. I wonder
where the data comes from?
~~~
chrissng
I might be wrong, but I don't think they are data captured in real-time.
Based on a cursory understanding of the AGI STK, these satellite positions are
calculated from ephemeris data which are updated on a regular basis (e.g.
weekly).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeris)
~~~
modeless
The ephemeris data is updated approximately daily and also allows you to
predict the satellite's position fairly accurately several days in the future.
Satellites change orbits very infrequently, so it's close enough to real time
for most purposes.
------
zionazhy
so cool
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android Lollipop is out, but almost no one is using it - AshleysBrain
http://www.zdnet.com/article/android-lollipop-is-out-but-almost-no-one-is-using-it/
======
fivedogit
This is not surprising and this hit-job of an article implies it has something
to do with the quality of Lollipop rather than the real reason: When Google
first released Android, it was a major underdog to iOS. As part of the
negotiations to get the carriers to... um... carry phones with Android, Google
sacrificed the ability to push out Android updates. That ability rests with
the cell providers and they _always_ take their sweet time with it.
Note: I have no particular love for Google. Just the truth.
~~~
wlesieutre
> That ability rests with the cell providers and they always take their sweet
> time with it.
Can't just blame the carriers, it's manufacturers too. I have a Xperia Z3
Compact direct from Sony, which is a practically brand new mini-flagship. US
release in early November, but no sign of Lollipop.
From what I've read, _maybe_ it gets updated in February?
Granted the carrier locked versions will be even slower, but having just
switched to this from an iPhone it feels pretty absurd.
~~~
Veratyr
Sony's still actively working on the Z3 Compact, they've posted some demos but
I think your February estimate is probably a bit optimistic unfortunately,
judging by the rate of commits on Github.
------
drzaiusapelord
Well, its fairly unstable and the OEMs know it. The much publicized memory
leak hasn't been fixed, performance is poor, battery life isn't good, and big
changes like Volta and ART aren't being well utilized by app developers yet.
I imagine 5.0.2 isn't enough of an incentive for hesitant OEMs to push out
just yet. Maybe 5.0.3? 5.1? Who knows when a lion's share of the new bugs will
be fixed. I imagine the memory leak is a dealbreaker as it breaks the GUI.
Clearly, 5.0 was pushed out early for the N6 launch event, which is
bothersome, but that's just how google does business now I guess.
Not to mention, even under ideal circumstances with a solid version of
android, there's a 12 month lag before the newest version breaks 50% of
installed devices. Lollipop isn't changing that. I used to joke that owning a
Nexus was like being a beta tester, but honestly, its pretty close to the
truth.
~~~
Zigurd
ART is transparent to app developers. BUT ART is less of an improvement than
many would think. Almost all the heavy computing in Android is below the Java
layer, or in app level native code, or in RenderScript. So, except for grossly
un-optimized app code, ART is going to be hard to notice. TL;DR: Andoid wasn't
slow. ART won't make it fast.
~~~
agumonkey
On non flagship devices, you feel the difference between dalvik and ART. The
latter having less overhead and reaching lower latency, but it comes in spikes
which is a regression in terms of UX (I prefer less fast but predictable).
~~~
Zigurd
Native code produced by ART is going to have a larger footprint than Dalvik
bytecode, which is very compact compared to Java bytecode, never mind native
code. The inconsistent, or even regressed performance is, if not predictable
at least not a surprise since the system might be having to reap whole runtime
instances more often to free up memory for what are now larger heaps, using
ART. Especially on low end devices with less RAM. ART will work best in
devices with plentiful RAM.
------
PaulHoule
Well, I wouldn't have installed Android L if I knew how it was going to (1)
slow my tablet down, (2) have problems with WiFi, and (3) look awful.
There's a reason why they ran ads for the Nexus devices last month that only
showed the devices turned off.
~~~
mdm_
My Samsung tablet runs 4.4.2 and since I rooted it, it tells me "this device
has been modified and cannot be updated". Sounds like I'm not missing out on
much!
~~~
shrikant
This might just be Samsung's "take" on the update. I have an old rooted Nexus
7 (2012), and it updated to Lollipop just fine. Performance is quite poor, but
the update process itself was perfectly smooth.
~~~
AjithAntony
Was the performance on your 2012 Nexus 7 already very poor before L? I had
read that the missing trim stuff came in kitkat, but my Nexus 7 2012 is
painfully slow.
------
redeemedfadi
And it's a shame because it's the fastest/prettiest version of Android I've
ever used. I have a Nexus 5 as a test device and using it with Lollipop makes
me consider switching from iOS.
~~~
pdx
My Nexus 4 phone is now often, not an actual phone, since I often lose phone
audio until I reboot. This is a known bug introduced and not yet fixed with
Lollipop, so it's a good reason to not upgrade.
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/j74JlSh...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/j74JlShhihc)
~~~
IkmoIkmo
Which is pretty poor, it's like the iPhone 5 (released slightly before the N4)
not being able to run iOS 8. I mean it's a different price range, sure, but
you'd expect to install software updates 2 years later without it breaking a
core feature like making a phone call.
------
lnanek2
Not really a fan of it. My Nexus 4 updated to it and is really buggy.
Sometimes I'll go back to the home screen and there are no icons until I swipe
away and back. Wish I could just turn off all the new gratuitous animations
since they are broken and buggy anyway and they slow down using the thing.
Triangle instead of home seems really obscure and bizarre to me too. I don't
even remember what that circle thing is supposed to be any more. Wish they
would stick to meaningful icons. I'm glad some graphics designer at Google
probably got a promotion for screwing up the OS and changing everything, but
hopefully the next graphics designer gets a promotion for fixing it.
~~~
nly
I'd recommend moving back to CM11. That's what I did when 4.4.0 broke a tonne
of stuff on my N4.
~~~
Fuzzwah
I've been getting two issues more and more recently running CM11 M12 on my
m7vzw:
\- random reboots \- lack of signal (while the icon in the notification bar
shows connection)
I've been considering moving to CM12 when M1 is released, or perhaps trying
out OmniRom.
Now I'm starting to think that maybe just wiping and starting with a fresh
CM11 M12 could be the better option...
Thoughts?
~~~
nly
Can't really comment. I tried to update CM11 nightly and accidentally flashed
CM12 (they moved CM12 to nightly a few days ago). Seems tolerable but doesn't
feel like Cyano yet.
------
mmahemoff
"less than 0.1 percent of all Android devices were using Lollipop"
I'm surprised by this figure, with the number of Nexus devices that should
have auto-upgraded by now. I assume OP is basing this on "Any versions with
less than 0.1% distribution are not shown" and Lollipop not being shown, but
it seems more likely it hasn't been added yet.
I'm seeing ~7% usage on current installs of my app. It might be
disproportionate for some reason, but it's not a new app and I can't imagine
it's that skewed.
~~~
dkopi
Users are most likely to go out seeking new apps after a major upgrade or
buying a new phone. Users with older phones are much less likely to seek new
apps
~~~
JTon
Interesting. Makes sense, but are you aware of any data to back this up?
~~~
dkopi
Only from my own apps. New android versions are always much more likely to
install my apps than their actual percentage of devices out there.
------
jareds
Are ota updates being pushed out slower for Lollipop then Kitcat? I ahve a
2012 Nexus 7 and still have not gotten the 5.0.2 update. I'd install it if I
got it but don't want to have to go the factory image rout.
~~~
finishingmove
I have a 1st gen Moto G and it hasn't received the 5.0 update yet.
~~~
worklogin
Me too. One of the reasons I bought the phone was to get OTA updates, and I
don't want to sideload things on my prod phone. So it's up to Motorola to get
it out to me.
That said, I'm hearing a lot of negative about L, so I'm not sure if I should
be upset or not. I think 4.1 had a better interface than 4.4 anyway.
------
dkopi
I was "forced" to update to lollipop in order to add lollipop support for an
App I'm working on. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. The upgrade was
seamless, and I immediately felt the improved speed thanks to android's new
ART. Material UI is a pleasure. It's great to see how much effort Google has
put into the look and feel of lollipop.
Either way - If you're developing a new app or releasing a new product - don't
let the lollipop percentages confuse you. Early adopters of your app are much
more likely to be early adopters of new android versions as well. About 15% of
the users of one of my Apps recently released to the play market are Android
5.0 users. The rest are on Kit Kat, and virtually none of them on Jelly Bean
or ICS.
------
dragthor
Possible that KitKat is "good enough" for most users?
~~~
PaulHoule
not just "good enough" but "better"
------
fakename
nexus 5 with busted wifi checking in. I wish I weren't using lollipop.
------
Gracana
My first gen Nexus 7 is using it, but I'm not. It's so slow that sometimes I
can't even get past the login screen -- it goes dark before it registers that
I've swiped my lock pattern! Other Nexus 7 owners have complained about this
as well, but we don't matter enough for Google to issue any sort of fix.
------
TranquilMarmot
We are the 0.1%! I love Lollipop and my Nexus 6 (also have Lollipop on a 2012
Nexus 7 with _NO_ performance or WiFi issues and, in fact, increased battery
life)
All the changes made to Android since KitKat are very nice and welcomed
(mostly the better notification system and pull-down menu) and material design
is pretty slick.
------
bbody
I was offered to update my Nexus 5 after Android Lollipop was first released,
however I was living in a country with low bandwidth so I deferred it until I
returned home. Now I can't update and am stuck on 4.4.4, so I don't really
have a choice but to not use Android Lollipop.
------
Zigurd
It's a travesty that Dell had to ship a really nice tablet with Android 4.4.
Especially since Dell isn't dragging around a bloatware portfolio the way
Samsung is.
------
wuliwong
Is this worse than previous adoption rates for new Android releases? If not,
then this article is pretty boring. "Steady as she goes in Androidworld!"
------
wldcordeiro
Odd that there are so many complaints about Lollipop vs KitKat here. I have a
2014 Moto X on Verizon and Lollipop has been excellent for me.
------
aosmith
I'm using it on a very old galaxy tab and it's surely the nicest version of
Android I've seen.
------
birdsareweird
It's an inconsistent mess that destroys muscle memory. The new notifications
are retarded. The "privacy conscious" notification screen is useless, won't
even show you a clock timer. Typing this on Android. 5 and it still doesn't
know how to scroll back to the left when the text area is wider than the
screen.
How is this a 5.0 instead of 4.5 alpha?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Danger of Too Much Information (2013) - hhs
http://randomglenings.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-danger-of-too-much-information.html
======
armaanbhati
Really good read. Thanks for sharing with us
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Parents of overweight children don't know their children are overweight - yummyfajitas
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/how-deep-can-we-get-our-heads-underground-ctd/
======
patio11
Quick guess: "How can little Timmy be overweight if half the kids in the
neighborhood are chubbier than him?" (Psst: not that difficult, actually.)
~~~
JonnieCache
Indeed. I would say that because of various inherent cognitive biases, people
are likely to interpret terms such as "overweight" as a comparison to their
local average, rather than a medically-established ideal weight range.
Such abstract thinking just doesn't come naturally. We are incredibly biased
here because our jobs often require little else _except_ abstract thinking.
This is massively atypical.
~~~
ErrantX
I think you have hit the nail on the head. This brings to mind one rather long
and tedious "discussion" I had on Wikipedia last year that revolved around
whether "above average" was an adequate way to summarise "Overweight and
Obese".
Getting across the concept that the latter terms were - in the context of the
source - medical definitions and not going to change with the (ill-defined)
average, was difficult at best. There was a lot of "but _obviously_ being
overweight means you are above average".
I'm not surprised to see others observing the same issue in different
contexts.
~~~
rapala
By my observation, this is pretty common logical fallacy. If from A follows B,
many will deduce that from B follows A. This often happens in math, when a
lemma says that A => B is true. Many will use the lemma "the wrong way
around".
------
billybob
A lovely interchange my wife overheard in a medical office:
Parent: "He needs to gain weight, right?" Doctor: "Why do you think that?"
Parent: "You can see some of his bones!" Doctor: "You're SUPPOSED to be able
to see SOME of them."
------
rmassie
I see so frequently that when a child is overweight, their parents are
overweight as well. I wonder what their perception of their own weight is.
~~~
firefoxman1
It's really crazy how your eating habits are influenced by your parents. My
mother is really into eating really healthy and both I and my sister eat
healthier by choice now. I remember when I was really young my mom's friends
were impressed that I willingly ate vegetables...they were actually impressed
by that! I would always notice the look on my mom's face like "...uh why
wouldn't he?" It's really kind of sad that eating your vegetables nowadays is
_impressive_.
~~~
JonnieCache
Peoples' perception of various tastes vary dramatically, partially through
genetic factors (some people are even termed "supertasters,") but also with
age. There is research showing that children perceive bitterness especially
strongly, and that this attenuates with age.
See: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3087510/> _Age modifies the
genotype-phenotype relationship for the bitter receptor TAS2R38_
So when some children say they don't like vegetables, it may not be such an
illegitimate claim after all. I personally still cannot stand brussel sprouts,
into my mid 20s.
~~~
dgordon
I never had them until my mid-20s, but apparently a lot of people's only
experience of brussels sprouts is boiled to death, which allegedly increases
their bitterness. I've had them roasted, and they were reasonably good.
------
SNK
Since so-called overweight - BMI 25-30 - is the longest-lived cohort, I'd say
parents aren't the only ones with distorted perceptions.
~~~
drblue
Citations please. If that was true, I've learned a new fact that conflicts
with most of what I know about obesity having an effect on, for example, heart
disease.
The first link when googling for "lifespan by bmi" is:
[http://wehrintheworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/bmi-and-life-
expe...](http://wehrintheworld.blogspot.com/2009/05/bmi-and-life-expectancy-
results.html)
Which cites two metareviews. The first is a collaboration between the UK
Medical Research Council, several British organizations including one out of
Oxford, and the US National Institute on Aging (which is under the NIH
umbrella). It was published in _The Lancet_ (Impact factor: 33). I will quote
the quoted part from said blogpost:
> BMI is in itself a strong predictor of overall mortality both above and
> below the apparent optimum of about 22·5–25 kg/m2. The progressive excess
> mortality above this range is due mainly to vascular disease and is probably
> largely causal. At 30–35 kg/m2, median survival is reduced by 2–4 years; at
> 40–45 kg/m2, it is reduced by 8–10 years (which is comparable with the
> effects of smoking). The definite excess mortality below 22·5 kg/m2 is due
> mainly to smoking-related diseases, and is not fully explained.
While I found a few studies that didn't find a correlation (including one in
AMA), I can't actually find an academic source for the claim that people with
a BMI of 25-30 have the longest lifespan and see _lots_ of claims that the
optimal BMI is in the low 20s. Do you have any citations handy?
~~~
blahedo
If you run a search for '"slightly overweight" live longer', you'll turn up
links to a number of different studies in a number of different jurisdictions
that have shown this. For instance:
[http://lifehacker.com/5303009/being-slightly-overweight-
coul...](http://lifehacker.com/5303009/being-slightly-overweight-could-lead-
to-longer-life)
------
niels_olson
Here's my experience in primary care: obese parents bring in their obese child
with a complaint of some minor illness. My sense is they tend to be less
confident in themselves than leaner folk, so they tend to resort more
frequently to more physical positioning to get an antibiotic for their kid's
viral URI. It probably doesn't help that they had to endure more stress at
home before rising to the necessary motivation to move, then moving itself is
more of an effort. By the time they've been sitting in the waiting room for an
hour and the clinic room for 10-15 minutes, they're just in a foul mood.
Being in a closed room with large, physically unhappy people can be
intimidating, never mind that there's a waiting room full of other patients.
Rather than addressing ancillary issues head on, it's infinitely more
convenient to focus on customer service for their immediate issue.
The issue needs to be addressed in a more benign setting.
------
robododo
I found it really interesting that someone piped up in the blog comments
disagreeing with the measure for overweight: "Since so-called overweight – BMI
25-30 – is the longest-lived cohort, parents aren’t the only ones with screwed
up perceptions, IMO."
Denial's everywhere, I guess.
Tangentially related: I was buying a coat as a gift for my mother, and was
perplexed by the sizes. So I went to my local expert: Me: "What's up with all
the women's sizes? They're all 1-X, 2-X, etc." Wife: "Oh, 'woman' sizes mean
fat. Misses means normal." Me: DOES NOT COMPUTE
So even sizes in stores work to make people feel they're ok. 1X isn't "extra
large" It's "woman sized". WTF?
~~~
Dylan16807
Bringing up conflicting evidence in a scientific discussion is denial?
~~~
mikeash
Bringing up a single piece of conflicting evidence and using it to declare the
other side to be completely wrong is _definitely_ denial.
~~~
Dylan16807
I don't read that as declaring the other side completely wrong. That study was
for people a _little bit_ overweight, while the apparent delusion of parents
extends into the very overweight. Even the phrasing of "aren't the only ones
with distorted perceptions" suggests that _both_ sides have their failures.
~~~
mikeash
This may just be a pessimal interpretation of humanity, but I definitely read
that sort of flip response as a quick way to dismiss the entire side's merits,
attempting to show that they have an obvious agenda, are ignoring something
obvious that shows they're wrong, etc. I certainly could be misinterpreting.
------
redfiche
I don't understand this, it's such a routine part of the doctor visit for my
two sons for them to tell us what percentile the boys are in for both height
and weight. At one point one boy went above the 75% in weight and we
immediately made changes. Are pediatricians really not giving out this data on
a routine basis?
~~~
Someone
As another reply said, being heavier than the average kid need not be a
problem, e.g. When your kid also is taller than normal.
Your logic is broken (or you do not present all of it) in a different way: a
quick google gives me the impression that for kids in the USA, the 75th
percentile is about the edge case, but you need extra data to convert
percentiles to 'being too heavy'. In the extreme, if everybody is overweight,
even the lightest percent of kids will be overweight).
~~~
redfiche
My only intent was to say that in my experience some data has been quite
readily available. In our case it was enough data to understand our son's
weight was trending in an unhealthy direction. We made small changes to the
quantity and quality of food available to him and reversed the trend. The 75th
percentile just happened to be the trigger in our personal case. I make no
suggestion that it is an appropriate trigger in general, or that it equates to
'being too heavy.'
------
tokenadult
"Does Weight Matter?" by Steven Novella of Science-Based Medicine
[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/does-weight-
ma...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/does-weight-matter/)
has a good discussion of the definitional issues. The article links to pro and
con sources about whether excessive weight can lead to health problems, with
discussion of logical fallacies related to arguments on the issue.
------
blahedo
Oh, where to start.
\- BMI is a poor measure of obesity. Among other things, bone and muscle are
both significantly denser than fat. People, including children, with thicker
bones and/or more muscle will have higher BMI regardless of fatness. So it's
at best a poor proxy for fatness, not the One True Measurement that so many
people use it for.
\- BMI is an especially poor measure for children. The ideal BMI (to the
extent that means anything) varies according to developmental stage. Which is
why you'll get tables and graphs for BMI that are indexed by age---except that
age and developmental stage are themselves only roughly correlated, and a
child at an earlier or later stage than is typical for their age will _not_ be
well-described by such a chart, and the "ideal BMI" that the chart lists for
that child's age will actually be a non-ideal BMI for that child.
\- BMI _percentile_ is an even _poorer_ measure, because it provides only a
comparison against the population; if the population is skinny, even a high
percentile might not be overweight, and if the population is fat, even a low
percentile might be overweight. And that's modulo all the concerns in the
previous two paragraphs.
\- Even after taking _all_ of that into account, we _still_ have the problem
that our conventional idea of "overweight" meaning "more weight/fat than is
healthy" is likely inaccurate, in that some amount of certain kinds of fat
actually make one healthier, and (as cited elsewhere in this thread) people
who fall into the range often called "slightly overweight" actually live
longer.
So evaluating kids' health (or their parents' assessment thereof) with
reference to their BMI percentage is fraught in _four different ways_ with
inherent, systemic problems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Darknetplan: organizing a decentralized alternative to traditional ISPs - ilaksh
https://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/
======
sova
When wifi-receiver -to- wifi-receiver comms become a standard practice, we'll
truly have a decentralized and open net. and it'll be glorious.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rich Kids: Social network for the “wealthiest and most interesting” kids - fnordsensei
https://richkids.life/membership/
======
LordWinstanley
Oh dear. How common!
My even more exclusive social media site "evenricherkids.life" has a
membership fee of €10000 / month. That should keep out the ghastly parvenus
I'd expect to be attracted to your sort of tawdry establishment.
[Seriously though. Good luck with it. It's such a cheeky idea, it might just
work.... It won't, but it might]
------
Nothorized
Their targeted customer are the kind of people of want these kind of products.
But if the only exclusivity of the product is about being rich, and all my
others friends are rich, where is the exclusivity ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mechanics of Building a Carpooling Service - WestCoastJustin
https://www.sysadmincasts.com/episodes/51-mechanics-of-building-a-carpooling-service-introduction
======
partart
I look forward to this series, I can feel my horizons broadening already !.
Thanks again for your previous ansible series.
------
bmohansa
Looking forward for the series.
------
Vietwear
Thanks for Episodes ! Looking forward for new episode on this topic.
------
mikeziri
OMG you're back. yes!
~~~
WestCoastJustin
Haha. Yes, sir!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Identifying HTTPS-Protected Netflix Videos in Real Time [pdf] - cpeterso
http://www.mjkranch.com/docs/CODASPY17_Kranch_Reed_IdentifyingHTTPSNetflix.pdf
======
mholt
Before people panic and again try to claim that HTTPS does not help here, note
that the leak here is not in HTTPS itself per-se: it's in DASH and VBR
encodings. Segment sizes can be predictable and are unique for each video.
Higher variation in bitrate leaks more unique fingerprint information, and
Netflix happens to support high variation in bitrates. HTTPS still does
guarantee integrity and confidentiality.
Stepping back a bit, although this paper is definitely valuable, it isn't that
startling, because we already know that encrypted communications are
vulnerable to passive attacks when the contents are predictable. It's a good
reminder that "vanilla" encryption isn't necessarily the best way to protect
privacy when the attacker can simply guess what we're transmitting because the
search space is so small; in this case, it's easy to compare the length of
what is being transmitted against a corpus -- and bam. There's only ~42k
entries...
Entropy entropy entropy. It is your friend. Just so happens that VBR and DASH
weren't designed to increase entropy when transmitting segments.
~~~
loeg
Re: Entropy: Note that just adding random padding to packets doesn't actually
protect you from this kind of analysis. You'd want a constant bit-rate ("CBR")
encoding instead. Even with CBR, the exact length of the video might give away
the contents too.
From a bandwidth perspective, such CBR encodings are either wasteful or low
quality for high motion scenes—or both. So it makes sense that Netflix has
chosen a VBR system, but does have this privacy caveat.
~~~
notgood
> Even with CBR, the exact length of the video might give away the contents
> too.
To avoid that issue you just artificially make multiple movies have the same
length, meaning do some padding to round up to the next e.g. 10 minutes (so if
the movie is 1:48:23 it becomes 1:50:00), to do so the movie keeps buffering
in the background (some random audiovisual noise).
Maybe netflix should have a "Fully safe" mode where it uses CBR instead of VBR
so the user knows the trade off (slower/heavier buffering)
~~~
Franciscouzo
It wouldn't work, that sounds like adding sleep calls to prevent timing
attacks, which doesn't works...
Different bit rates on the random audiovisual noise (white noise would be
uncompress-able, thus weight more, pure black would be too compress-able,
etc).
~~~
aianus
Why wouldn't adding sleep calls help prevent timing attacks? Assuming you're
padding all response times to the same total response time.
------
ims
The scraping and automated viewing in question pretty clearly violate
Netflix's terms of use. As junior officers in the U.S. Army, the authors are
more vulnerable than most to trivial but "correct" accusations of illegal
activity, so I wonder if they were at all concerned about the government's
sweeping interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
> In order to generate these fingerprints, we first mapped every available
> video on Netflix. We took advantage of Netflix’s search feature to do this
> mapping by conducting iterative search queries to enumerate all of Netflix’s
> videos. This enumeration was done by visiting
> [https://www.netflix.com/search/<value>](https://www.netflix.com/search/<value>)
> where <value> was ‘a’, then ‘b’, etc. and then parsing the returned HTML
> into a list of videos with matching URLs.
This is not the same as but still in the same class of "unauthorized" use that
Weev was charged with carrying out on AT&T endpoints. No privacy concern here,
and in theory you are authorized to view this Netflix content but not to "use
any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Netflix
service; decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble any software or other
products or processes accessible through the Netflix service; insert any code
or product or manipulate the content of the Netflix service in any way; or use
any data mining, data gathering or extraction method." Though Weev's
conviction was vacated on appeal, that was only based on a venue problem so
the prosecution's legal theory about violating terms of use still seems to be
in play.
Not concern trolling here, I do this sort of scraping all the time and there's
no reason to believe the authors are at any risk. It's just an interesting
juxtaposition that illustrates how overly broad the DOJ's interpretation of
CFAA is, and how selectively it can be pursued. As the EFF notes, one of the
major impacts is that is puts security researchers in a legal gray area
([https://www.eff.org/issues/cfaa](https://www.eff.org/issues/cfaa)).
~~~
otterley
Alternatively, this research could have been done with Netflix's consent and
cooperation, in which case there's no TOU violation.
------
Buge
Very interesting that they can get a video fingerprint without even
downloading the video. So they can fingerprint 44k in 4 days (7 seconds each)
instead of downloading each video which would be very demanding. I wonder if
Netflix had any monitoring that noticed them initiating a stream of every
single video. I wonder if they used multiple Netflix accounts.
They mention they used Silverlight. I wonder if this also works for videos
when viewed with HTML5, and if the same fingerprints can be used.
~~~
saurik
> I wonder if Netflix had any monitoring that noticed them initiating a stream
> of every single video. I wonder if they used multiple Netflix accounts.
I am very curious why this matters to you.
~~~
Buge
I'm curious why you're very curious why I'm curious.
I would think Netflix would be protective of their content and would likely
have monitoring to detect mass downloading. The adversarial nature of one
person trying to do something and other people trying to detect and stop them
is interesting to me. I find JSOR's account of their monitoring, detection,
and attempted blocking of Aaron Swartz's downloading of academic papers (not
just metadata like this post), and the cat and mouse game that followed to be
very interesting.
[https://docs.jstor.org/summary.html](https://docs.jstor.org/summary.html)
And the perspective from the other side: the authors of this paper, whether
they were concerned with being detected by Netflix and possibly blocked or
even banned from Netflix for life, and maybe took action to avoid that such as
using multiple accounts or VPNs.
~~~
toast0
How is Netflix going to ban someone for life? Get a new email address, a new
IP, a new credit card, and you're a new person. You may have lost your
ratings, but maybe a fresh start is nice from time to time.
~~~
dogma1138
Possible but not that simple since a new CC is also tied to your identity and
billing address.
Paypal does do checks to ensure that blocked accounts are not easily
resurrected.
Netflix has less incentive to perform such a costly operation but it's more
than possible, this is what every credit and background check agency can do.
Sure if you want to get a completely new identity, credit history and address
you can probably fool most of these but you are going to be violating a few
laws in the process and it would be probably be cheaper to purchase the entire
Netflix library on DVD/BR at that point.
~~~
toast0
> Possible but not that simple since a new CC is also tied to your identity
> and billing address.
Billing address sort of, but address verification is usually only on the
numbers, not the names of the street. Very few credit card systems pass the
name on to the bank when requesting authorization. If you're only using
streaming, it doesn't really matter if the street address isn't correct.
Credit and background checks usually request a lot more information than
netflix does; nobody would give netflix their social security number, or
recent addresses.
------
ChrisCinelli
The result of this is generalizable. Looking at your encrypted HTTPS traffic,
people can still tell what you are browsing and downloading especially when
they have a good idea of what you could browse or download.
For the rest, I am not sure how many people should be afraid to let people
know what they are watching on Netflix.
~~~
santaragolabs
Yep, people can infer a lot. I did a demo of this a couple of years ago for my
employer at the time by creating a tool which, in a slightly contrived
scenario, is able to figure out what one is looking at on Google Maps over
SSL.
Blogpost (includes demo vid): [http://blog.ioactive.com/2012/02/ssl-traffic-
analysis-on-goo...](http://blog.ioactive.com/2012/02/ssl-traffic-analysis-on-
google-maps.html)
------
dbg31415
Given that Netflix won't let anyone use a VPN to access their service, any
security / privacy issue is 100% on them.
~~~
lbatx
You sure about that? You sure it's not on the person who, knowing that, still
__chooses __to use Netflix?
Note: not defending Netflix's position on VPNs, just pointing out that the
user still has free will.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What do you do to make sense of your thoughts over time? - IgorCarron
A generic question that comes back often is how to put one's thought in consignment somewhere so as to not let this potential "big idea".<p>My question is further down the road: once all the ideas have been streaming and been written or stored somewhere: how do you assembled them together ? how do you review this product several months later ? Are you happy that you have been mindmapping your thoughts correctly ? has this had an influence on how you conducted your "business" ?
======
thaumaturgy
I don't even bother trying. Hoarding "ideas" doesn't make any sense to me.
I will always have ideas. The Halfbakery website is full of people's ideas. My
mom has ideas. Everyone has ideas. Someone's probably had the very same idea
already.
Ideas are so cheap and common, they're almost worthless by themselves.
I put far more value into execution. Actually making an idea happen, that's
where the value is. In order to make ideas happen, I need resources, so what I
need to concentrate on right now is developing lots and lots of resources.
Whenever I need an analogy, I think of ideas as being seeds. You can go to
just about any store these days and pick up a little packet of seeds for real
cheap. Each one of those seeds has the _potential_ to become something
beautiful, but only if you give it soil and water and sunshine and a place to
grow.
So before I go trying to figure out where to store all my piles of packets of
seeds, I should figure out how I'm going to get the farmland I need to grow
them all in the first place.
~~~
hooande
Ideas have value. Most good ideas are a result of the unique perspective of
the person who has them. Many years of life experience (working in an
industry, talking to others, etc) usually go into coming up with a new idea,
not to mention research and detailed thought about specific problems.
Ideas are very common, every person has them. But _good_ ideas are rare.
Consistently coming up with good ideas is difficult, and it might be worth it
to give some thought to the process.
~~~
IgorCarron
I am of the opinion that good ideas are generally the sum of worthwhile but
small ideas and that there is in fact the need for "coagulate" these together
to have something worth it.
------
diiq
I wrote a little cl script called 'do'. It requests a name, description, and
tag list for anything I think I might like to 'do' in the future. For
instance:
Name: Gideon Series
Do a series of new-primitivism photos, Goldsworthy
pieces, except environment is cheap motel room. Bible,
towels, bad art, curtains, etc.
Tags: art, medium, moderate
Then I can forget the idea. When I feel the need to begina new piece, I can
ask for ideas about art:
> do art
And one will appear for my perusal. 'Medium' and 'moderate' refer to
difficulty and time required.
> do short easy
Helps to fill spare moments, when I don't have much attention to spare.
~~~
olliesaunders
Have you open-sourced that? I'd like to use that.
------
gizmo
I don't worry about that. It's the process of writing down ideas that matters
to me. Writing it down forces you to think clearly; gives your idea structure.
If the idea is still good when you read it to yourself: great. You'll be able
to reconstruct the idea at a later time if you need it. If the idea doesn't
sound that good anymore, just forget about it. So I don't file ideas anywhere.
I often don't even bother to save the files with all my ideas when I reboot my
PC. Saving stuff I'm not going to look at later isn't worth it.
You write ideas down so they don't distract you while you're trying to work.
Ideas interrupt your train of thought: they're harmful. Write them down clears
your mind -- and a clear mind is far more valuable than any single idea.
~~~
IgorCarron
Nice solution, writing the thought or blogging about it is definitely a good
way to anchor it in one's memory for future reuse.
------
aibras
The process of collecting the ideas is super easy for me. I use the all-time-
and-devises-compatible .txt file. I am attached to 5 different machines. My
laptop (Linux) , office PC (WinXP), Home server (Linux), Pocket PC (Wm6) and
the work UNIX servers (HP-UX x 4). Whenever I have an idea I fire the
minimalist text editor I have. Usually [ ~> vi idea_description.txt ] then I
write whatever on my mind. I don't care that much about the writing; just a
mind stream. Considering me as a media carrier, the 5 devises are in some kind
of a network. Every couple of days I collect the ideas from the different
machines into single directory called [IN BASKET] in my laptop. Usually
through the FTP, email and/or bluetooth.
I don't care that much about making the ideas real. If they are worth living
they will occupy my mind a great deal. Which means the .txt file will get
bigger and bigger over the time. At the end I will naturally make them happen.
By just executing the .txt file in the life environment :P.
~~~
IgorCarron
Thanks. Once again it looks like one cannot be sophisticatged neither in the
thought collection mode nor in the eventual growth of certain ideas.
------
derefr
Right now, I'm using the "Someday" slot in Things to represent concepts,
ideas, and other things that don't have an immediate "plan" attached. It works
well enough for _storage_ and _search_ , but that "assembling together"
process has brought up another idea for something that would work better:
basically, a program that shows you all your ideas as little fridge-magnets,
allows you to move them around and draw relationships between them, and group
them together under "named entities" (e.g. for a novel, character traits could
be moved around and grouped to form characters.)
~~~
IgorCarron
This is what mindmapper like freemind allow you to do. I am very much
interested in hearing about the next step. When one has one or several
mindmaps, how do these grow old ? do we see a larger mindmap of the smaller
ones, something else ?
------
matt1
Two things:
1) I use an iPhone todo app (<http://www.appigo.com/todo>) to jot down ideas
as I get them in a "Projects" category. This lets me quickly browse through
them at a later time. You can add notes too if your ideas are elaborate and
you want to jot them down too.
2) Keep a journal. Write down what you're thinking. There's nothing quite like
reading something you read six months ago and wondering, "What was I
thinking?"
------
ScottWhigham
I have re-do the whole thing - that helps me coagulate everything and throw
out the redundancy and unnecessary.
~~~
IgorCarron
Nice solution. But in that process you don't really have a history or version
control of this document.
------
edw519
It's really simple for me...
1\. I write everything down in an unlined spiral notebook with perforated
detachable pages.
2\. I file every page into a labeled green file folder in a file cabinet.
3\. I keep all of it.
I've been doing this for 30 years. I have _everything_ I ever wrote. If fills
3 two drawer file cabinets.
I don't print and save anything which is already stored digitally. I hardly
save much else.
About once a month I pull out a folder a go through it. Obviously, there's a
lot of stuff that appears to be of little use now, but I never fail to find
_something_ of value.
I give away or donate any that is replaceable (which includes all books). But
not my own writings. I don't remember how I handled that issue 12 years ago,
but I do know that I can find all my notes on it pretty quickly. This way I
don't have to remember every detail, but I always have my younger self and
much of my experience as a resource at my disposal.
~~~
IgorCarron
once a month you go through that month's folder, once the folder has been
viewed what do you do with it ? do you put in the drawer file cabinet never to
be seen again ?
------
rw
I almost wrote you a detailed response but then I realized you didn't even
proofread your post. :(
~~~
IgorCarron
It's a shame.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing the PiCloud Notebook - usaar333
http://blog.picloud.com/2012/12/23/introducing-the-picloud-notebook/
======
scorpion032
The iPython Notebook is really amazing which is seriously under utilised and
under marketed.
Every "I will teach beginner to program" site these days creates a new
platform which starts with "Enter you name in quotes" ends up re-inventing the
whole server-client console thing. Not every one of these platforms does a
great job at it.
All you need really is an iPython notebook (which btw can also be used for
alternative languages, there is a fork that runs ruby) which has alternative
"markdown cells" and the "console cell".
The tech behind the whole thing is rather impressive. It uses zMQ, Tornado and
can connect multiple client terminals to the given server.
This can be integrated for development with web frameworks like django/flask
and can be very useful for debugging.
------
steve918
Was expecting a Raspberry Pi Laptop connected to iCloud or something.
~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
Yeah I don't see any reason for this to be PiCloud over PyCloud. I don't know
how long it's been named PiCloud but it seems like they're trying to cash in
on Raspberry Pis success.
~~~
usaar333
PiCloud dev here. PiCloud has been in existence since early 2009. That we
share a "Pi" with Raspberry Pi is just a coincidence; it didn't even exist
when we were founded.
We aren't named PyCloud as that would imply we are solely for python, which we
are not. While we have very close ties to python (namely the powerful language
bindings), we support every programming language.
------
csense
Things the service needs to explain before I'd consider buying it:
Similar technology already exists in the form of Sage [1]. How is this
different or better?
From a business standpoint, it's great to host the running code server-side:
You can measure usage and charge heavy users, and you have a decent excuse to
do so (market expectation that servers resources cost money). But what
advantages does this offer that client-side Python in the browser, Skulpt [2],
does not?
Also, "a notebook...allows you to explore the system that a job sees...You
can...Peek around the filesystem...Run non-Python programs..." I _really_ hope
each user runs in their own VM for security's sake.
[1] <http://sagemath.org>
[2] <http://www.skulpt.org>
~~~
usaar333
PiCloud dev here.
The IPython notebook feature itself is comparable to other offerings. The
advantage of PiCloud's offering is that it is not just a web-based python; it
also is the interface to a supercomputer that you can leverage with the cloud
library (<http://www.picloud.com/platform/>). As long as you wish to make use
of that supercomputer, the notebook allows you to run an interactive
interpreter on your already configured PiCloud environment.
As far as security goes, every user is run in separate LXC containers.
(<http://lxc.sourceforge.net/>)
------
zemanel
Any of you had success setting up ipython notebook with IPC transport? Been
trying to setup an out of the box project for running it on the free Openshift
paas, in which you can only bind to an internal ip and some internal/external
ports, but only managed to use ipc by forcing the config value somewhere on
the call stack, as it always uses tcp.
from the feature merge on ipython repo, it seems it may be a bug or unfinished
work.
will look deeper.
------
endlessvoid94
Seems to me like hosted ipython notebooks could be a product all its own.
I can imagine an instant evaluation aspect to this - on keyup
(_.debounce'd).fireEvent('play') - an awesomely tight feedback loop, light-
table-esque.
makes me excited for some better tools on their way.
------
tluyben2
I always liked this way of working since first touching Mathematica; does it
exist for other languages? (I think there already was one for Python before,
not browser based?)
~~~
StavrosK
ipython has notebooks, but they _are_ browser-based.
~~~
tluyben2
Yeah which is fine; I just remembered another Python notebook environment but
that might have been just this one :) Unfortunately I don't get to work with
Python much.
~~~
xnyhps
It somewhat reminds me of <http://www.sagemath.org/>.
~~~
pwang
The IPython notebook came after the SAGE notebook, but it seems to be gaining
popularity faster in the broader scientific Python community. (The SAGE
community tends to be more oriented towards pure math.) SAGE is a very
powerful system and introduced many cool things very early on, but it
definitely is a bit of its own island in the scientific python landscape. I
don't know if that's because of the licensing (it's GPL) or the software
distribution logistics or what.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics - chocolateboy
https://jeremykun.com/2018/12/01/a-programmers-introduction-to-mathematics/
======
threwythrw
Do the exercises have solutions? The most annoying things about math books is
the lack of solutions. A beginner absolutely needs to know whether or not
their solutions are correct.
The “the reader should know if they are correct” logic doesn’t apply here. A
beginner could easily have faulty logic and fool themselves into thinking
their solutions are correct.
I usually don’t buy math books without solutions if I’m self-studying. Would
like to know if solutions are provided in this book. If not, I won’t consider
buying it.
If this book doesn’t make the cut with a solution manual, does anyone have
recommendations on an intro to proofs book with one?
~~~
amelius
> The most annoying things about math books is the lack of solutions.
To me the most annoying thing about math books is hand-waving, lack of rigor,
and unexplained notation.
At least in programming, everything is formal and I can figure out the entire
problem by looking at the source.
~~~
kccqzy
I think you aren't buying very good math books then. I find the exact
opposite: the thing about math books I have read is that they overemphasize
rigor at the expense of intuition. Everything is painstakingly illustrated in
such great detail that I sometimes see the trees and lose sight of the forest.
I feel as if reading proofs and doing problem sets in math books is just
manipulating symbols in well-known ways without really understanding
intuitively why something must be true. For example my introduction to metric
spaces started by defining the characteristics of a certain function d without
explaining how this could be thought of as a generalization of distance.
On the other hand, many programming stuff is ruefully hand-waving and lacks
rigor. They might present important algorithms in pseudocode; even when they
present in real code, the precise semantics of the real code is often
underspecified and vaguely described in English. I mean take a language; how
often do you see in the language specification the semantics of the language
defined rigorously, using operational or denotational semantics? PL nitpicking
aside, how many programmers think a piece of code must be correct because they
pass a few test cases, without ever giving a proof?
I'm of course not saying the lack of rigor in programming is bad. Perhaps 95%
of the software we are building isn't mission-critical and relying on
intuitions is fine; we ain't got no time to prove every piece of code we
write. But my point is your observation really does not match mine.
~~~
billfruit
But at least all imperative procedural steps are clearly understandable from
source code given in many programming books. Where as maths books routinely
leave out many steps in proofs and calculations, on top of many ambiguously
used notations and terminology that can leave a self-student confused.
~~~
username90
A program proves nothing at all so I am not sure what you can understand from
it? Typically in programming you are presented with a piece of code, a
statement that this piece of code solves a specific problem and then a proof
of that it actually works. Those proofs are typically far from understandable
or rigorous.
~~~
sfvisser
But programs are proofs!
At least in the light of the Curry–Howard correspondence. :)
Anyways, I do agree that in programming it’s easier to see what are
introductions, assumptions, definitions, functions, values etc. You can’t just
invent a notation and go with it. Everything needs to be defined from the
ground up. It’s constructive and I like that, probably because I’m a
programmer.
~~~
smadge
That’s true but in most languages the things you prove are relatively obvious
propositions like “(A and A)implies A.”
------
mlejva
I have a genuine question which might sound dumb but I really do wonder.
How do you actually read math, physics and programming books?
Reading them the same way as you'd read a novel doesn't seem right. I try to
go chapter after chapter and make notes but I often get bored because I don't
see the usage in my real life coding. Maybe I'm not working on problems that
are challenging enough? Also after few chapters it often turns into a "job" of
finishing the book. I don't have the pleasure of learning new stuff anymore.
Do you really finish such books? What am I doing wrong?
~~~
joaorico
Here's Alain Connes, Fields medalist, on how a mathematician works and should
read a book [0]:
"To understand any subject, above all, a mathematician SHOULD NOT pick up a
book and read it.
It is the worst error!
No, a mathematician needs to look in a book, and to read it backwards. Then,
he sees the statement of a theorem. And, well, he goes for a walk. And, above
all, he does not look at the book.
He says, "How the hell could I prove this?"
He goes for his walk, he takes two hours ... He comes back and he has thought
about how he would have proved it. He looks at the book. The proof is 10 pages
long. 99% of the proof, pff, doesn't matter.
Tak!, here's the idea!
But this idea, on paper, it looks the same as everything else that is written.
But there is a place, where this little thing is written, that will
immediately translate in his brain through a complete change of mental image
that will make the proof.
So, this is how we operate. Well, at least some of us. Math is not learned in
a book, it cannot be read from a book. There is something active about it,
tremendously active.
[...]
It's a personal, individual work."
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qlqVEUgdgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qlqVEUgdgo)
~~~
finaliteration
This approach seems very similar to working backwards when trying figure out
the behavior of a function that calls other functions or libraries and when
trying to a debug an issue and following the stack trace to determine the root
cause of the issue. Not a perfect analogy but I find it helpful to think about
it that way.
------
sjroot
As someone who works as a programmer but wasn’t super interested in
mathematics, I’ve found this blog to be a fantastic read time and time again.
I’d highly recommend going through Jeremy’s previous posts if this is your
first time seeing his site on here.
If this topic piques your interest I would also recommend Mathematics for
Computer Science:
[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf)
------
_Nat_
To the author:
You might want to extend the preview PDF to include a few pages from later
chapters. The issue's that the [current
preview]([https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf](https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf))
only gets into polynomials over its 45 pages. But since polynomials are
typically taught to students during early childhood, it seems like most
readers are liable to just skim that content, being more interested in the
topics discussed later. For example, the start of Chapter 14 (on optimization)
would be neat to see.
That said, I like the parts that translate between analytical expressions and
programming code. Such mappings seem like high-value content to readers; the
language barrier can keep people from understanding mathematical writing,
while a few helpful translations can help to tear down those language
barriers.
~~~
j2kun
The Amazon preview has more pages, in case you're still curious.
------
alan_wade
I really wish this book would include probability and statistic sections. My
guess is that a lot of people, like me, will want to read it because they're
getting started with ML and need help getting used to the math, and
probability/stats is an important part of it that's missing.
Any chance you could add it in the future?
~~~
j2kun
Well, two chapters have singular value decomposition and neural networks as
the applications. So it does have a lot of ML :)
But yes, I unfortunately had to cut a probability chapter. I think someone who
reads this book would have a much easier time learning probability after, and
a better foundation.
~~~
codesushi42
Thank you for this book. There is a huge need for this.
It saddens me that schools may be handing out CS degrees without having first
required students to at least have taken linear algebra, multivariable
calculus, and discrete math that covers basic counting, sets, graphs and
groups. How can this be?
Probability and statistics should also be a required part of every CS program.
~~~
j2kun
/shrug misaligned incentives probably. Schools are also handing out CS degrees
without students being all that good at writing programs either.
------
Koshkin
It's good to have something that lowers the bar for programmers so they could
learn themselves some math without much fear. Knowing math is very important
if you are a coder - and not just linear algebra: knowing a formula, for
example, might let you do certain things in constant rather than linear time
or, perhaps, reduce the cost of the iteration. Unfortunately, too many of
those who can call themselves programmers by trade know very little math
(you'd be lucky if they remember what they learned in high school).
~~~
Waterluvian
I'm sorry if this isn't your intent but the way you structured your comment
comes off as very condescending.
Aside from that, I'm also skeptical that the frequency in which these maths
apply to practical, commercial programming is really that high.
Im not anti math or something. I just think the practical value gets way over
sold by some people. And sometimes it feels like it's because of the dislike
of "those who can call themselves programmers by trade."
~~~
codesushi42
It is an incredibly important foundation for analyzing any kind of data. That
is a need that crosses many different fields, be it sales forecasting,
quantitative finance, econometrics, deep learning, signal processing, any sort
of scientific computing etc.
I would be more interested in hearing an argument about why math knowledge is
not useful or lucrative.
------
EGreg
I was teaching a college class for high schoolers last year and thought it
would be great to record my lectures for them. Then I put it up as an entire
youtube channel for everyone:
[https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuge8p-oYsKSU0rDMy7jJlA](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuge8p-oYsKSU0rDMy7jJlA)
It basically builds up mathematics rigorously from basic definitions, while
trying to stay very accessible.
If anyone has the time, or desire to learn math this way, let me know what you
think, and if I should make more in this series!
------
yantrams
I am a huge fan of Jeremy's blog. Found his primers on a multitude of topics
very useful - [https://jeremykun.com/primers/](https://jeremykun.com/primers/)
As a Math guy who got into the world of programming relatively recently, I am
on the opposite side of the spectrum I suppose but I'm gonna order this
nonetheless to support him.
~~~
j2kun
Would you read "A Mathematician's Introduction to Programming"?
------
aargh_aargh
Hmm, the "first few pages" end just before the "meat" begins.
From the table of contents, there seem to be short prose sections inteleaved
with the teaching sections. I hoped to see an example of the teaching section,
not the prose.
~~~
j2kun
Yeah, I should update that to have the full first chapter.
~~~
j2kun
First chapter is up now at
[https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf](https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf)
Also note that the Amazon "Look Inside" lets you see basically any page. Some
readers have told me the first chapters were too slow, and so I think more
advanced readers will want to breeze through that (though the applications in
the first two technical chapters have a coolness to them that is hard to
beat!).
------
bootsz
> _The problem is that the culture of mathematics and the culture of
> mathematics education--elementary through lower-level college courses--are
> completely different ... I 've had many conversations with such students
> [...] who by their third year decided they didn't really enjoy math. The
> story often goes like this: a student who was good at math in high school
> (perhaps because of its rigid structure) reaches the point of a math major
> at which they must read and write proofs in earnest. It requires an earnest,
> open-ended exploration they don't enjoy._
I found this interesting because I too discovered this difference in approach
but had the complete opposite reaction. I absolutely _hated_ math in middle
and high school. It wasn't until I took a discrete math course for my CS
program that I got exposed to dealing with real proofs, which I found required
a level of creative thinking, and I totally loved it. This admittedly wasn't
an "advanced" university math class, but the difference from high school math
was still quite stark.
~~~
j2kun
That's exactly how I felt. I didn't really discover math until college.
------
mkagenius
Nice.
I tried to start something similar which tried to explain all weird maths
symbol via code. It went nowhere.
But feel free to check
[https://github.com/mkagenius/mathsymbol2code](https://github.com/mkagenius/mathsymbol2code)
------
newnewpdro
What's provided currently at [1] doesn't provide the reader with any
impression of the teaching style or quality/quantity of visual aids.
I'm very likely to buy a hard copy of such a book, but not unless I can do the
equivalent of flipping through it like I would in a book store.
Consider changing the preview instead to a scattered sampling of some of your
proudest pages.
[1]
[https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf](https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf)
------
jamestimmins
On a related note, I'm curious if anyone has taken the Mathematics for Machine
Learning ([https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mathematics-
machine...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mathematics-machine-
learning)) courses on Coursera, and whether it really covers enough to be
comfortable with ML. The course bills itself as enough math knowledge for
folks who barely remember high school math.
~~~
harias
I have completed all three courses in the series. It was a good supplement to
other resources, especially 3blue1brown's Linear Algebra course on youtube[0]
(mind-blowing, do check it out) but I wouldn't recommend it as a first course.
The first two courses weren't rigorous enough for my taste (I am yet to find a
rigorous course on Coursera), but the third was pretty good. You should take
up books if you are serious.
MIT OCW Scholar(independent study) course on Linear Algebra by Prof. Strang[1]
is really good and is designed for self-study. If you have the time, you could
look up Coding the matrix[2] too. I read probability from Mathematics for
Computer Science-MIT[3] and also referred Khan Academy[4] and PennState STAT
414/415 [5] for statistics and probability. StatQuest channel[6] on Youtube
has handwavy but easy to understand videos on statistics for ML too. The Deep
learning book[7] by Ian Goodfellow et al. has a couple of chapters at the
beginning that gives you a fairly good idea of the mathematics required to get
into Deep learning. Communities like r/AskStatistics and r/statistics on
Reddit were really helpful when I got stuck.
I also chanced upon Mathematics for Machine Learning[8] book recently and it
seems to be good. It has a chapter on optimization that is left out in most
books but skips statistics.
[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2x...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab)
[1] - [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-
algeb...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-algebra-
fall-2011/)
[2] - [http://codingthematrix.com/](http://codingthematrix.com/)
[3] -
[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring18/mcs.pdf](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring18/mcs.pdf)
[4] - [https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-
probability](https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability)
[5] -
[https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat414/](https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat414/)
[6] -
[https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmer/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmer/videos)
[7] - [https://www.deeplearningbook.org](https://www.deeplearningbook.org)
[8] - [https://mml-book.com](https://mml-book.com)
~~~
jamestimmins
These are great insights! Thanks so much. Do you think it's worth going
through pre-calc/calc deeply? I assumed I should do that first, but it would
take quite a while (I haven't taken calc in ~8 years and barely remember more
than the basics).
~~~
harias
Essence of calculus[0] by 3blue1brown for the basics and the second course in
the Coursera Mathematics for Machine Learning would let you get started. You
would rarely need calculus more advanced than that covered in the above, and
if need be you will be in a position to look it up quickly. If you can sustain
your interest in ML over a long period of time and are in no hurry, I would
recommend going through all the math mentioned. If you are a top-down learner,
the fast.ai course on ML and deep learning for coders will get you started
head-first. All the best!
[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr)
------
armatav
Can we get that GitHub solutions repo going? I feel like that's super
important for this book. Bought it anyway.
~~~
j2kun
Let's get it started, and initial thoughts, questions, or suggestions can be
in Github issues for now.
[https://github.com/pim-book/exercises](https://github.com/pim-book/exercises)
------
baron816
I’ve found myself unable to do even elementary maths recently just because I’m
sorely out of practice. Hasn’t really affected my performance as a programmer.
Wondering, what kind of math I could learn that would benefit me in my job?
~~~
diego
What kind of work do you do? For some types of development, basic knowledge of
mathematics will take you reasonably far. Knowing more math opens up
possibilities. For example, I recently found myself wanting to add features to
some flight control software for drones. I wanted a return-to-home feature,
which involved implementing a PID controller for gps navigation. I studied
control theory in college decades ago, and hadn't used it for anything
professionally until this year. Also, autonomous navigation requires taking
vectorial inputs from sensors that must be rotated to the frame of reference
of the drone (e.g. the accelerometer). I could not have participated in this
project if I didn't have enough knowledge of calculus and algebra.
------
beefsack
It appears the ebook is in PDF format[1], does anyone know if an EPUB will
become available?
[1]: [https://gumroad.com/l/pim-book](https://gumroad.com/l/pim-book)
~~~
Snowe
I prefer EPUB for most ebooks, but maths books work far better in PDF because
mathematical notation gets turned into image files in an EPUB and don't render
nearly as nicely.
------
mrcartmenes
It’s a shame you don’t get to read any of the actual maths in the sample
pages. Otherwise I might have been able to evaluate whether I want to buy this
book. Intros don’t really tell us much
------
febin
I have been searching for something like this for a while. Just bought the
book, I will get back to you. I hope the book will give me exactly what it
promises.
~~~
febin
I would have loved to have the printed version of this book. Unfortunately not
available in India.
------
oblib
I've been wanting to peek into mathematics and an "introduction" is exactly
what I need.
Thank you for sharing this.
~~~
org3432
This was the book that Richard Feynman used to teach himself calculus when he
was 10 or 11 as I recall: [https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Practical-Man-J-
Thompson-ebo...](https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Practical-Man-J-Thompson-
ebook/dp/B004SN1UMC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1543707079&sr=1-2)
~~~
elbear
This book looks great. Thank you for sharing!
------
madhadron
I would be interested to see someone post their experiences after working
through at least half of the book. I am completely outside the target
audience, and it would be really useful to know what works to teach
mathematics to programmers and what doesn't.
------
dhodges
Long-time programmer without a CS degree here. I've studied polynomial
factoring, adding, subtracting, graphing them, etc. Sites like Khan Academy
break things down in little bits but the underlying theory seldom emerges. But
after working through the preview pages of this book I feel like I finally
have a feel for some of the underlying theory ideas behind polynomials. This
really emerged during the proofs section. The bits of code and analogies to
programming really help. It was like a lightbulb going off in my brain. As a
result I have ordered the book from Amazon and can't wait for it to arrive.
Thank you for this book.
------
bwobst
I recently started reviewing mathematics on Khan Academy to brush up on my
math skills and learn more Calculus so I can better understand ML. Really
looking forward to reading this!
------
paultopia
This looks really nice, from the preview content---I really like the approach
of explaining the background assumptions of reading mathematical definitions
and such. Ordered!
------
Sniffnoy
Some comments/corrections on the first chapter, if you don't mind:
1\. Theorem 2.4 is stated incorrectly. Given the context, I feel like this is
worth correcting. Specifically, it says "degree n" rather than "degree at most
n". Part of the proof purports to prove that the degree is indeed n but of
course it doesn't because that needn't be true.
There are other cases where you say "degree n" for "degree at most n". Again
usually this would be a minor error not worth pointing out, but in this
context it seems worth getting right.
2\. At one point you introduce a convention that deg(0)=-1. Later, in the
exercises, you ask, is this really such a good convention? (The answer being,
of course, no.) IMO you should anticipate this. Indeed I don't think you
should state, as you do, "By convention the zero polynomial is defined to have
degree -1", because that suggests it's some standard universal convention,
which is definitely correct, and it's neither of those. Rather you should say
something like "We'll use the convention that the zero polynomial is defined
to have degree -1". But anyway, the point I made is that, if you're going to
question its correctness later, you should anticipate that here, maybe saying
something like "(Think about whether this convention makes sense.)" Or maybe
not, and just getting rid of the absolutism of your current wording is
sufficient. Either way, getting rid of that absolutism and certainty is good;
you want to encourage to people about this sort of thing immediately, not
encourage them not to think about it until later.
3\. You say that when you see a definition you should write down examples. I
would add, "and non-examples". Ideally non-examples that come as close as
possible but don't quite make it. You touch on this a little with your
polynomial examples, but it's worth stating explicitly.
(In some cases non-examples are unnecessary, but in the generic case one
should look for them.)
4\. Regarding your polynomial examples, you don't justify that they are, in
fact, not polynomials. Now of course you don't, that would be too hard to do
here and take up lots of space you want to use for other things. That's fine.
But if you're not going to do it, you should call out that you're skipping
over it, like you do with other things. After all, all sorts of nonobvious
things can be polynomials -- such as (x-1)(x+6)^2, as you pointed out earlier,
but included no similar examples here. (Yes that's obvious to anyone who knows
anything about polynomials, but my point is that it's not in the correct
syntactic form.) Like, x^e - x^e is a polynomial, you know? Because it's 0. So
without some more knowledge, you can't _immediately_ conclude that your
example x + x^2 - x^pi + x^e is in fact not a polynomial! You should make a
note of that, as I said.
5\. I feel like it's likely worth noting somewhere in this chapter that
actually in general in math it's the "syntactic" definition of polynomial that
turns out to be the right one (you don't want to define polynomials to be
functions if you're working over a finite field, say!). Maybe not and that
would just be confusing, I dunno.
6\. This is just nitpicking, but I'd suggest rewriting Theorem 2.3 in a
clearer, more standard way. "A nonzero polynomial of degree n has at most n
distinct roots." What you wrote down is equivalent, of course, but (IMO)
harder to read.
Otherwise, this is pretty nice. I remember being distinctly confused by stuff
like "the product over j not equal to i" when I was a kid. I imagine it'll be
quite helpful to a number of people that you're laying things out like that
explicitly.
Actually, sorry, on that note, one further comment:
7\. You comment on how sigma and pi notation are special cases of fold, but
you might want to make a further note about how (unlike general folds) these
are folds where the order doesn't matter, and that the fact that the order
doesn't matter is one of the things that allows notation like "product over j
not equal to i".
~~~
j2kun
Of course you're right about degree n vs. at most n, with many easy
counterexamples (the list (1,1), (2,1), (3,1) being a simple one). If you'd
like, please submit an erratum using the link at pimbook.org, and other
readers can see it, and I will include the fix in the next version of the book
and credit you.
Thanks for reading! ^_^
~~~
Sniffnoy
OK, will do! Like I said, I think a lot of people will find this book quite
helpful. :)
------
40acres
Thanks for the effort. I purchased the e-book and will start working through
it immediately. I'll let you know what I think.
------
codesuki
Just ordered from Amazon! I used to read his blog a few years ago and I loved
the articles and the breadth of topics. Thank you!
------
hdt91
From the ToC, is the any reason there is no chapter covering
probability/statistics? It has chapters for single/multivariable calculus and
linear algebra, and all CS programs I know have all three, especially when
there are some nice connections between them, not to mention how useful they
are in other CS/engineering subjects.
------
alan_wade
Can you create an EPUB version? I'd like to buy it but I need EPUB for my
reader.
------
wainstead
Please tell me you wrote it in LaTeX. It would be another reason to buy it.
~~~
j2kun
Of course!
------
antoinevg
I tried to buy it but for some reason Paypal refuses to use my existing
balance and instead asks for my card.
Is this something you can control on your end?
------
blt
minor suggestion: make it easier to see the table of contents. A survey book
leaves uncertain exactly what is included.
------
billfruit
Does it compare to Don Knuth, et al, "Concrete Mathematics: A foundation for
Computer Science"?
~~~
johnsonjo
It might have some crossover, but my guess is it's probably much more
introductory than that book. I didn't know this until fairly recently, but
Concrete Mathematics was used in a Graduate level course at Stanford as the
textbook (with the course name following the book's, Concrete Mathematics).
Kind of threw me off when I first found out, because the book says it's a
foundation for computer science, so I thought it would be an undergraduate
course. So, I don't think you need to be a graduate student or in particular a
Stanford level computer science graduate student to read Jeremy Kun's book.
------
holmberd
Ebook a tad too expensive for me.
------
master_yoda_1
I think the author is confused. His book is not for programmers his book is
for "programmers lacking computer science education" as computer science is a
branch of applied match. If somebody says they have a computer science degree
and they don't know math, I would doubt their degree.
------
harias
I see a lot of users are learning maths for machine learning. I did the same
and here is what I found:
I started with 3blue1brown's Youtube course[0] on Linear Algebra and loved it.
I had already done a college course on LA, but this made me truly understand
what I was doing.
MIT OCW Scholar(independent study) course on Linear Algebra by Prof. Strang[1]
is really good and is designed for self-study. If you have the time, you could
look up Coding the matrix[2] too. I read probability from Mathematics for
Computer Science-MIT[3] and also referred Khan Academy[4] and PennState STAT
414/415 [5] for statistics and probability. StatQuest channel[6] on Youtube
has handwavy but easy to understand videos on statistics for ML too. The Deep
learning book[7] by Ian Goodfellow et al. has a couple of chapters at the
beginning that gives you a fairly good idea of the mathematics required to get
into Deep learning. Communities like r/AskStatistics and r/statistics on
Reddit were really helpful when I got stuck.
I also chanced upon Mathematics for Machine Learning[8] book recently and it
seems to be good. It has a chapter on optimization that is left out in most
books but it skips statistics.
[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2x...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2x..).
[1] - [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-
algeb...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-algeb..).
[2] - [http://codingthematrix.com/](http://codingthematrix.com/)
[3] -
[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring18/mcs.pdf](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring18/mcs.pdf)
[4] - [https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-
probability](https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability)
[5] -
[https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat414/](https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat414/)
[6] -
[https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmer/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/joshstarmer/videos)
[7] - [https://www.deeplearningbook.org](https://www.deeplearningbook.org)
[8] - [https://mml-book.com](https://mml-book.com)
Copied from my comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18582022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18582022)
------
nootropicat
The description got me excited, but looking at the table of contents, the
level is ultra basic - appears to roughly correspond to first year of a cs
degree.
~~~
0xddd
Certainly more than just the first year, and I don't think the majority of CS
degrees require multivariable calc or any group theory.
I do wish there were more of a preview than just the TOC to see how novel the
examples are and how much it helps with intuition for these mathematical
concepts beyond what you would learn in a plain CS sequence. That would be my
reason for buying the book and I wouldn't write it off just because the list
of topics covers the first two years of college math.
~~~
preommr
My uni did this weird thing where they put all the math courses into the first
year (except for one stat course in the second year). The first semester had
highschool basics like calc and trig, followed up by another two courses the
following semesters that covered linear algebra and ... something else. I
don't remember, I because I was too busy with girl problems.
Looking back, that first year was brutal with each successive year getting way
easier and way more fun.
------
Nasuno
A section on quaternions would be nice.
------
herostratus101
I'm a little skeptical of CreateSpace.
Why did you decide to self-publish?
~~~
j2kun
I actually used to work for CreateSpace! I think they do a splendid job on the
printing, and the royalties are much better than a publisher. I think I will
write a longer blog post with more details.
~~~
herostratus101
I had a CreateSpace textbook once and the mathematical notation was so grainy
that it was unpleasant to read.
------
00067349
why is it not working
------
ziont
I am basically trying to understand the formulas in machine learning papers,
will this book help achieve improvements in speed?
I just realize I fear math because the educational system I grew up in was
violent (like beating kids for getting a quiz wrong wtf).
It was only through psilocybin mushrooms did I discover math and calculus
again.
~~~
Ericson2314
Plenty of cliffhangers in this comment
~~~
ziont
Sure, I grew up in South Korea much of my childhood, corporal punishments was
the norm.
So I have this phobia of calculus and math. Anytime I'm faced with a formula I
get this panic attack. Some may call it PTSD. But it explains why I had such
problem with calculus and it really made me feel inferior.
it's still a cliff hanger, searching for my arc.
------
mlevental
Jeremy, been reading your blog for years. Just wanted to say thanks for the
wealth of readable intros to interesting mathematics.
~~~
cbHXBY1D
I'd like to tag onto this: I've been reading your blog for nearly a decade and
can say that you were one of my inspirations for studying math and CS.
------
liftbigweights
I guess this is for the nontraditional programmers since computer science is a
mathematical field and programming is simply applied mathematics in some
sense. I don't see how you could get a CS degree without being competent in
mathematics to some degree since CS is a mathematical field.
------
andrepd
From the bit I've read from
[https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf](https://pimbook.org/pdf/pim_first_pages.pdf)
it seems to be very very poor.
* 19 pages of droning before you start with something concrete. Much talk talk talk about your experiences before you get to the point. I can't put into words how much it frustrates me when I'm expecting to read something interesting and the author takes 3 paragraphs talking about nothing (usually with lots of overexcited exclamation marks).
[sorry if I am being blunt, but it's how I feel]
* Imprecise definitions. This defeats the purpose of learning mathematics. Like Leslie Lamport says, rigour in mathematics is not a hurdle or a chore one must endure, it's the whole point of learning the damn thing. You give imprecise definitions, and then _obscure it even further with neverending paragraphs of confusing explanations_. This to me kills the whole pedagogical value the book might have. Here is a rule of thumb that in my experience applies well to almost everything in mathematics: the simpler your explanation is, the better. Your goal is to explain a concept as succintly and beautifully as possible. This exposes the _idea_ behind it. A long and meandering explanation only serves to obscure the idea behind. Less is more.
* Attempting to shoe-horn programming "lingo" into mathematics. Sometimes, the best way to explain something, even to programmers themselves, is not to force an awkward analogy with Java programming. EDIT: 5 pages later: "The best way to think about this is like testing software." oh boy...
* The graph in e.g. page 8 (20 of the pdf) is terribly typeset. The axes text is way too small to read and in a font that doesn't match the rest of the content.
~~~
mlevental
wtf is wrong with hn.
>[sorry if I am being blunt, but it's how I feel]
you should learn to keep your feelings to yourself when the only function they
serve is to denigrate others and derive cruel satisfaction for yourself.
>Here is a rule of thumb that in my experience applies well to almost
everything in mathematics
this is aspirational pretension - everyone claims to appreciate formal purity
/after/ they've learned something but when you're /learning/ none of that
matters because you're just trying to develop intuition. to be one of those
people that understands after their own stumblings/ruminations and then
begrudge the next person the same is despicable. shame on you and i hope
you're never in a position where someone depends on you to teach them
absolutely anything.
>Imprecise definitions. This defeats the purpose of learning mathematics. Like
Leslie Lamport says, rigour in mathematics is not a hurdle or a chore one must
endure,
but that's just like your opinion man (or leslie lamport's). there are shelves
and shelves of books for people like you - go read bourbaki or rudin or
mochizuki or whomever you'd like. this book is not for /you/ \- it's stated
purpose is to excite and entice people that don't have formal mathematical
training to learn mathematics and those sorts of people decidedly don't enjoy
austere definitions and succinct theorems and terse proofs.
hence the only purpose your comment serves is to hurt the author's feelings,
an author whom i might add has done infinitely more for the math community
than you have with your pedantry and vitriol by maintaining a blog
[https://jeremykun.com/](https://jeremykun.com/) with literally reams of
interesting mathematical content that is simultaneously exciting /and/
rigorous. and furthermore iirc jeremy was originally a math ed phd student so
i trust his opinion of the right way to teach math infinitely more than i do
yours mr random internet physics guy.
next time think twice before posting this kind of lowbrow mean shit.
~~~
theoh
"wtf is wrong with hn"
One thing that's wrong with HN is that perceived "negativity" often gets
condemned in exactly the way you have done here.
It seems as if a significant number of HN readers have never really
participated in a spirited discussion with arguments made from multiple
different perspectives. Maybe any kind of apparent conflict scares them, maybe
they project their own aggression onto a comment that seems to go against the
grain of the discussion. It will never change.
~~~
axiometry
There are many easy ways to rephrase OP's comment into one that isn't so
direct and denigrating. The only thing "apparent" here is that OP has trouble
with empathy.
~~~
andrepd
"Direct", yes. "Denigrating", how?? I'm genuinely asking so I can fix that in
the future, unless you think criticising is offending.
_> The only thing "apparent" here is that OP has trouble with empathy._
Again, I can do without the online pretend-therapy. Amazing how perceptive
some people are that they deduce the most profound things from a dozen lines
of text!
~~~
hyperpallium
I wanted to say I found your original comment critical, but not offensive. But
I found the reply made to you offensive, because personal and aggressive.
Which I think is how you see it too.
However, it seems several people took the side of the replier.
So I reviewed your original comment, and I think I've found the problem: it
exaggerated and labelled, e.g. _droning_ , _talk talk talk_ , _talking about
nothing_ , _neverending paragraphs_.
Many of these aren't literally true ("nothing", "neverending"). Others are
emotionally loaded ("drone"). It's probably almost always better to speak
directly, without exaggeration or emotion... but this is particularly
important when criticizing.
I didn't notice these at first because I tend to filter out decoration, and
just hear the content (i.e the literal meaning) - though this is much easier
to do when I'm not personally involved!
I think, "to be blunt", to speak plainly, to get to the point, really mean to
be factual and accurate - without emotional language, exaggeration or
labeling.
Anyway, I notice dang asked to not continue this thread, but I was troubled by
it, and reviewing it helped me - maybe it will help you too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Static Analysis in GCC 10 - fanf2
https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2020/03/26/static-analysis-in-gcc-10/
======
WalterBright
Double-free's can be tracked by doing data flow analysis on the function. This
is how D does it in its nascent implementation of an Ownership/Borrowing
system. It can be done without DFA if getting it only 90% right and having
numerous false positives is acceptable.
I've used many static checkers in the past, and the rate of false positives
was high enough to dissuade me from using them. This is why D uses DFA to
catch 100% of the positives with 0% negatives. I knew this could be done
because the compilers were using DFA in the optimization pass.
In order to get the tracking to work, one cannot just track things for a
function named "free". After all, a common thing to do is write one's own
custom storage allocators, and the compiler won't know what they are. Hence,
there has to be some mechanism to tell the compiler when a pointer parameter
to a function is getting "consumed" by the caller, and when it is just
"loaned" to the caller (hence the nomenclature of an Ownership/Borrowing
system).
One of the difficulties to overcome with D in doing this is there are several
complex semantic constructs that needed to be deconstructed into their
component pointer operations. I noticed that Rust simplified this problem by
simplifying the language :-)
But once done, it works, and works satisfyingly well.
Note that none of this is a criticism of what GCC 10 does, because the article
gives insufficient detail to draw any informed conclusions. But I do see this
as part of a general trend that people are sick and tired of memory safety
bugs in programming languages, and it's good to see progress on all fronts
here.
~~~
anchpop
> This is why, for D, I was determined to use DFA to catch 100% of the
> positives with 0% negatives. I knew this could be done because my compilers
> were using DFA in the optimization pass.
Is this really true? I thought this was impossible due to Rice's theorem
~~~
WalterBright
Fortunately, I am unaware that it was impossible and did it anyway :-)
But it is possible I made a mistake.
It is also true that for it to work, one has to change the way one writes
code, like Rust does. This is why D requires and @live attribute be added to
functions to enable the checking for just those functions, so it doesn't break
every program out there. It will enable incremental use of the checking at the
user's option.
~~~
nullc
You're probably using a different definition of 100% than any impossibility
proof would use.
Consider some code:
\---
a=malloc(1);
needfree=true;
if (hashfn(first_factor(huge_static_rsanum1))&1){needfree=false;free(a);}
if (hashfn(first_factor(huge_static_rsanum2))&1){needfree=false;free(a);}
if(needfree)free(a);
\---
The decision if this has a double free or not depends on the factorizations of
two huge difficult to factor constants. It either double-frees or not
depending on those constants.
Surely your software cannot decide that...
What you probably mean is something like "100% on real programs rather than
contrived cases". Of course, in that case, your definition of 'real programs'
is the catch. :P
Sometimes things that seem like they should always work except on contrived
junk like the above example actually run into limitations in practice because
macros and machine code generation produce ... well ... contrived junk from
time to time.
~~~
WalterBright
> Surely your software cannot decide that...
The D implementation would reject such code. The DFA assumes all control paths
are executed. For example,
if (c) free(p);
*p = 3;
is rejected as use-after-free.
if (c) free(p);
if (!c) *p = 3;
is also rejected as use-after-free. If the DFA is done properly, you will not
be able to trick it.
~~~
UncleMeat
Then that doesn't mean "0% of the negatives".
~~~
bonzini
No, it means you have false positives. But no false negatives.
~~~
UncleMeat
And that's a "negative" in a practical sense.
An abstract interpretation that outputs Top for all programs is sound but
useless. In practice, most sound static analyses for complex problems aren't
too far from that.
~~~
bonzini
It's not a "negative", it's a disadvantage. "Negative" has a specific meaning
that should not be used in this context.
Safe Rust is also in the same boat: it has a lot of false positives that are
rejected by the borrow checker even though they would be okay, and yet it's
being used just fine. Think of doubly linked lists which are pretty much
impossible to implement in safe Rust unless you replace pointers with integer
IDs which basically disables borrow checking. Non-lexical lifetimes are an
example of downright changing the definition of the language in order to
remove some of these false positives.
~~~
UncleMeat
I didn't it that way. I read it as "downside" rather than "false negative",
especially because a sound static analysis is trivial and not something to be
proud of in the abstract.
"Output Top" is sound for all non-inverted lattices and takes constant time.
Woohoo! But it is also useless.
------
mynegation
I, at one time, worked on a tool, commercial and external to the compiler,
that did this (among other things). Probably the most intellectually
challenging job I have ever had. I am happy static analysis makes inroads into
mainstream!
Few takeaways from that time: inter procedural matters: if your function
reallocated a pointer passed as an argument, you want to treat it as ‘free’
regarding this argument, and conversely, if your function returns a newly
allocated memory, you want to mark it as such, and so on. There is also a
trade off between the breadth of the analysis and the human ability to
comprehend it, author mentions 110 node path in the article.
The subject of my unfinished PhD thesis and something I hope also picks up is
the combination of static and dynamic analysis, used iteratively. If your
static analysis flags a suspicious path but does not have the means to figure
out if it is true or not, instrument it and leave it to the dynamic analysis
to run through it (the idea here that total instrumentation a la valgrind is
detrimental to performance so you will get some gain from selective
instrumentation). Conversely, dynamic analysis may provide some hints as to
where static analysis should be applied at a greater depth and provide
automatic annotation of functions with regard to their behaviour and -
possibly - invariants, that help with the state explosion.
~~~
DyslexicAtheist
ca 2000 - 2004 I had the luck to work on a massive C/C++code base building
base station / telecoms infrastructure. We had several hundred engineers
contributing code with all kind of different philosophies (many grey beards
who did C/C++ for decades).
Running Flexelint was part of our CI chain and also part of the internal
coding standard (e.g. definition of done). There was no other time in my life
where I learned so much about secure coding as I did back then. Biggest
challenge was agreeing about false positives and we had 1 guy in the team who
maintained the official wiki document on when a lint warning needed to go on a
whitelist with an agreed description of why. The initial overhead to become
_lint-clean_ got a lot of push-back but thanks to management support we got
there and you could really see how things stayed at that level even after
years.
It felt at times bureaucratic or like yak shaving, but in retrospect linting
was what kept the code base at a quality I haven't seen ever again since. It
also ensured everyone was on the same page. Taking linting seriously required
a small learning curve though and lead to some discussions here or there.
These discussions were really valuable since we got to really learn from
another too.
When I left and went to another project it felt like a step back where we were
chasing the same old bugs due to bad coding practices and it was a major step
back in my career as a dev. I miss those days.
Really love that this becomes part of gcc.
~~~
neilv
Kudos for lint-clean, and for high-quality C/C++ programming. One of my own
stories of that (coincidentally, from when I worked on dev tools for
aerospace/datacomm):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21158546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21158546)
------
archi42
Oh, that's really nice. Though, as a user one should remember: The approach
described here gives up at some point. So it doesn't prove the absence of a
bug class (e.g. double free), but it finds some instances. Which is already a
very good thing, and hugely non-trivial.
The problem with "not giving up at some point" is the computational
complexity: Analyzing big code bases takes half an eternity (days), while
using huge amounts of memory (>128GB). And once you enter the "least-defined
state", you either throw lots of false positives (which gives the users a hard
time) or you need to "give up" (and hence potentially miss bugs).
Disclaimer: I work for a company that builds static analysis tools. I don't
see this as competition, though. Our tools are used in industries where
"safety-critical" is _really_ important - so the "giving up"-part of the
analysis is no option for us, and solely relying only on GCC isn't an option
for our customers either ;-)
~~~
a1369209993
Per Rice's theorem, it's _not_ giving up that's not a option; it's just a
question of whether you have false positives or false negatives. (To be fair,
for safety-critical code, insisting on only false positives (ie treating
anything you give up on as a positive) is a pretty resonable choice.)
~~~
nullc
A tool like this could be sound but incomplete. E.g. return true, false, or
idunno.
~~~
a1369209993
Yes, exactly; "idunno" is the giving-up answer.
------
_bxg1
I have to wonder if Rust is putting pressure on C/++ to have more static
analysis (while at the same time blazing trails in what's possible in that
space, and what's possible in terms of error message helpfulness). I think
it's a great idea to start baking these things into the compiler, even if it
will never be 100% free of false-negatives because of the limitations of what
the language can express and guarantee. Still seems like a great way to
eliminate a lot of common problems, as a default across the ecosystem instead
of as an extra step.
~~~
rurban
It's clang, not rust.
And clang's analyzer has different UI concept via web, which is far superior.
And for the screen valgrind has a far superior solution. I don't see the
advantage of gcc's analyzer yet. Far too verbose. and the most important
errors, like wrong optimizer decisions based on their interpretation of UB
code are still silenced.
~~~
TwoBit
I'd love to see a compiler warn me that it's doing something potentially
unexpected due to UB considerations.
~~~
ali_m
clang has UBSan, which adds runtime checks for detecting various kinds of
undefined behaviour:
[https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer.html](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer.html)
~~~
rurban
That's not helping. I'm talking about wrong decisions, made during compile-
time optimizations, like assuming dead code or a value being NULL, and then
ripping apart the written code. Without warning.
Or the famous optimized away memset call. Which is a security issue. At least
a warning would be in order. Or at least an analyzer warning.
------
saagarjha
Nice, this looks pretty cool! It seems a bit like Clang’s static analyzer:
[https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/](https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/)
------
jchw
> As of GCC 10, that option text is now a clickable hyperlink (again, assuming
> a sufficiently capable terminal)
Seems like mostly only GNOME Terminal and iTerm2. Here’s some that apparently
won’t work:
\- Konsole
\- Kitty
\- LXDE Terminal
\- MATE Terminal
\- hyper
\- Windows Terminal
\- ConEmu
\- PuTTY
... so it’s kind of weird to suggest this is an accepted standard. Especially
since some of the discussions in feature requests suggest they will likely not
implement it due to security concerns or otherwise.
~~~
guerrilla
how does on produce such a link in output? (not that i really want this bloat
and increased attack surface)
~~~
bonzini
Escape sequences. It's similar to the "tell the emulator about the current
directory" feature that is used to open new windows on the current directory.
~~~
labawi
Does the CWD feature actually use terminal escape sequences?
I always assumed the emulator accessed the working directory of the child
process (as in /proc/$PID/cwd). On my terminal the CWD feature only seems to
work for the topmost shell, and symlinks get resolved.
EDIT: Linked bug report mentions OCS7 (presumably an escape sequence), as one
of the ways to track CWD.
------
leni536
It looks great and useful. I suspect that this only works within a single
translation unit and can't work between separate translation units. But maybe
it could work together with lto, that would be pretty awesome.
Some of the worst lifetime issues are 3rd party library calls with unclear
ownership semantics and static analyzers are just as clueless as you are. The
function signature doesn't help you out in this regard (in C). My recent
"favorite" is libzip's zip_open_from_source that conditionally takes ownership
of its zip_source_t* argument.
[https://libzip.org/documentation/zip_open_from_source.html](https://libzip.org/documentation/zip_open_from_source.html)
[https://libzip.org/documentation/zip_source_free.html](https://libzip.org/documentation/zip_source_free.html)
------
mshockwave
Just a side note that the equivalent solution in LLVM/Clang is Clang Static
Analyzer: [https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org](https://clang-analyzer.llvm.org) .
But it's an external tool rather than integrating into clang
------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
These types of tools go a really long way in improving the reliability and
safety of C code.
Hats off to the redhat team for putting in the effort on this. Their blog
posts have been really interesting. It’s definitely changing my perception of
what redhat really does.
~~~
jabedude
I've always had a positive impression of redhat, but I was recently blown away
with their dedication to upstreaming contributions across different open
source projects. I was investigating a new Linux kernel feature that redhat
contributed and saw that the same developer opened pull requests that added
support for the new kernel feature in three major open source projects. And
one of the projects took over a year to accept the changes, but he was
persistent in reaching out, making requested changes, etc. It really shows the
passion at the company to share their contributions.
~~~
Vogtinator
It doesn't have to be passion - having something upstreamed has a lot of other
benefits as well.
------
olivierduval
"using the compiler the code is written in as part of the compile-edit-debug
cycle, rather than having static analysis as an extra tool “on the side”
(perhaps proprietary)"
Mmmm... and why not have an external tool, part of the GCC family but with a
proper API, to allow to use ANY TOOL instead of bloating GCC with one more
tool that won't be usable on other compilers and will need specific
maintainers, althought this field is already really complex and need a lot of
different knowledges ?
For example, it could be based on intermediate code so better than just
source-code or machine-code analysis...
~~~
olivierduval
Just to be more specific: why not use the "UNIX philosophy" with a compiler to
compile (translate to Intermediate Representation), an optimizer to optimize,
an assembler to produce machine code from IR (with allocation registry) and so
on...?
~~~
UncleMeat
Because GCC is explicitly designed to be a tangled mess (as opposed to
Clang/LLVM), in part because it makes it harder for groups with different
beliefs about FLOSS code to repurpose it.
Its a choice that has caused them to cede a lot of territory to Clang/LLVM.
~~~
ndesaulniers
I think the major mistake was FSF refusing the objective c front end from
Apple.
~~~
NovaX
They also refused Apple's offer to relicense LLVM to the GPL, contribute it to
GCC, and assign copyright to FSF.
~~~
saagarjha
When did Apple offer this?
~~~
NovaX
In 2005.
[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-
devel/2015-02/msg00594.html)
------
thekhatribharat
I believe _type sytems /type theory_ is likely going to be the most popular
method for _formal verification of programs_ (aka _static analysis_ ). And of
course, there's a limit to what you can _prove_ about programs (ref: Rice's
theorem).
~~~
jfkebwjsbx
Static analysis is not formal verification.
~~~
thekhatribharat
Sure, things like enforcing style guides, etc. can be seen as _lightweight_
formal verification.
~~~
irundebian
Yes, but you wrote "formal verification of programs (aka static analysis)".
Formal verification is not also known as static analysis.
------
wyldfire
Previously submitted as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22708586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22708586)
------
ufo
I wonder... Has anyone here tried using gcc with the -fanalizer option? Did it
find any bugs that you did not know about?
------
ape4
You don't want that option every time since its slower. But I wonder if there
would be a smart way to run it occasionally, like an option to -fanalyzer
every 10th time or when the size of a source file changes a lot, etc.
~~~
saagarjha
Perhaps as part of your CI?
------
6gvONxR4sf7o
I'm super happy to see more static tools to prevent or at least find buggy
code.
------
google234123
How far behind LLVM/Clang is this?
~~~
anarazel
Last time I checked - I'm not sure how long ago that is - llvm didn't detect
double frees etc statically. There's an annotation framework for locking
though, which I hope to play with more.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CloudMine now allows you handle any 3rd party HTTP callback with their platform - ilyabraude
http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/18515705556/http-callbacks
======
tlianza
This is really a fantastic idea... partners should be lining up. More and more
services have http hook support, but I'm sure people don't want to (or don't
know how to) run a server just to turn, say, a json callback into an e-mail
that goes to their sales department. Similarly, all of these companies
building callbacks don't want to provide a custom scripting environment / rule
editor for customers to write this code. Seems like a great bit of glue.
------
alttab
The documentation assumes I know why I would need to do this. This sounds
kinda cool but as someone who wasn't already fully aware of CloudMine won't
understand this press release.
If the goal is to announce platform expansions to draw in new people you'll
need to paint the problem-space a little clearer. Tell a story.
~~~
grexican
Ditto... From the demo, it looks like it's simply remote logging the data to
cloudmine. I'm sure it's doing something cooler than this, but I don't quite
see it.
~~~
ilyabraude
Hi, CloudMine founder here.
The idea is that you can now have 3rd party services interact with your
CloudMine powered app from the server side. From there, you can update
data/state, send push notifications, or do whatever makes sense for your app.
That particular example is for a contest we are running with Nexmo
[http://blog.nexmo.com/post/18010293444/contest-cloudmine-
nex...](http://blog.nexmo.com/post/18010293444/contest-cloudmine-nexmo-just-
make-it-easy).
------
gruwired
Great team behind a great product.
------
spatesbot
nice work dudes. keep up the good work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman - revorad
http://stallman.org/articles/jinnetic.html
======
xxzz
Fascinating story.
The story's narrator is supposed to be a woman, but the story has an
unmistakably male voice. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but everyone I know who
talks like that is male. Part of it may be that there is no discussion of her
emotions at all, she sounds like a perfectly rational robot.
Also, considering the impact of voluntary ovulation and superior intelligence
on reproductive fitness, I suspect evolution will quickly develop an immunity
to the virus, reverting the harmful changes in merely a few generations.
~~~
jerf
"I suspect evolution will quickly develop an immunity to the virus, reverting
the harmful changes in merely a few generations."
Not with millions-soon-billions of super-intelligent people running around
with the capacity to choose to fix that. Evolution will be dominated by human
intelligence and intention at that point. It'll still exist, but, well,
essentially the story is a Singularity story and we can't predict what will
happen past the end of it.
------
dagheti
The question that this story raises is "Can we solve these hard problems of
aging, thinking, and feeling if we had intelligence far greater than we do
today?"
Are we meant to read the narrator's idea that they can even solve the problems
of aging and diseases and voluntary ovulation through science and intelligence
as naive or inevitable?
Just because we can imagine a virus or a team of super smart people solving
these problems, doesn't mean in reality it actually is possible to do so given
limitations of physics and human nature.
I guess it doesn't really matter if RMS meant this story to be a satire of a
technocrat's fantasy or a example of how increased intelligence would solve
some of our biggest problems but I think how people read the story will depend
a lot on their ideas about what is ultimately achievable and what is not
through intelligence.
~~~
revorad
This discussion between Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Aubrey de Grey -
<http://www.vimeo.com/7396024> \- has some good thoughts from the top people
who are in fact working on those problems.
Couple of important highlights for me were:
Eliezer saying that he has to often remind himself to do not what he has most
fun doing, not even what he has talent for but what _needs to be done_.
The other is Aubrey talking about how appalling it is that the smartest people
in science work on the same things instead of working on important but ignored
problems.
I highly recommend watching it, it's well worth the 29 minutes.
------
mike_organon
This is a weak story. It even says the genie is supposed to screw with the
wishes, but then apparently doesn't. The only point of the story is to state
some sci-fi fantasies about improving human life, and these aren't very
illuminating.
Concerning the ethical statements (selfishness is foolish and will lead to
disaster) of the jinn, it might be interesting to see a jinn story about an
altruist that gets 3 wishes and how those lead to disaster. Of course, real-
life history is full of that.
------
colah
I'm not sure the three wishes chosen are the best possible.
Obviously, ``Five more wishes, please.'' Would be nice, but the Jinn obviously
would have refused.
Something that would have broken entropy would have been nice, though. A
battery that can give infinite current...
A spaceship would also have been a good choice.
~~~
bitwize
"Name anything, uchuusen that blings..."
------
rman666
Square Spots Illness? Indeed.
------
greyman
"I can't give you the interview you've been begging for, but at least I can
now explain how I was able to change fields and accomplish so much in such a
short time."
It's not very often I stop reading HN-submitted article after the first
sentence. ;) Do we really need more Stallman here?
~~~
praptak
Oh yeah? So I'm modding you down without reading your comment. Neener-neener.
~~~
dunstad
One: Since you're responding to his comment, it seems likely that you did, in
fact, read it. True, it could have been read to you, or you could perhaps have
used a Braille reader, or maybe you were bitten by a radioactive spider and
developed the ability to psychically know what people's HN comments say
without reading them, but statistically speaking it's probably safe to assume
none of those are true.
Two: Assuming you _did_ downmod his comment without reading it, you're
exhibiting arbitrary behavior in a community of mostly reasonable and logical
people. Perhaps this isn't the best place for you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Tracking Down Missing TCP Keepalives Taught Me About Docker, and Golang - sytse
https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/11/15/tracking-down-missing-tcp-keepalives/
======
sytse
Not sure what word to leave out of the title so I opted to leave out our
company name.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AOL Takes Over Majority of Microsoft’s Ad Business, Swaps Google Search for Bing - whatgoodisaroad
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/06/29/aol-takes-over-majority-of-microsofts-ad-business-swaps-google-search-for-bing/
======
reilly3000
MSFT isn't out of the ad business. They are keeping Bing and likely to make
some interesting new ad units that involve Cortana.
Getting out of display media for them is smart. Fundamentally they are a
software company and there are already players that sell media better than
they can. It isn't a software problem, it's about building sales relationships
with media agencies.
A streamlined P&L and staffing strategy will let them focus on making a
developer-centric product company. They will still make plenty of ad money,
but don't have to staff for it.
~~~
Mahn
The question is whether this deal is about getting out of display advertising
for Microsoft, or simply an effort to push Bing in exchange for the less
performing advertising units. AOL owns a ton of traffic, technically it's a
big win for Bing.
------
shostack
I'm just praying it doesn't result in all of the _fun_ that was had when the
Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance came about.
Anyone who had to deal with the billing headaches at a search agency <raises
hand> does not look fondly at that time.
I wonder what this will do to Search Partner Network performance for AdWords
customers. AOL represented one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) search
partners.
The Search Partner Network is one of the few areas of AdWords that is still a
black box wrt placement-level performance (unlike the GDN). Previously the
only way to get visibility into the AOL portion of it was to run directly with
AOL using AOL's licensed version of the AdWords UI, but with some minor
differences in how you used it.
If the biggest volume driver of Search Partner volume goes _> poof<_ I'd
expect that to noticeably impact performance for Search Partner traffic. Would
love an official comment from Google on this here, on their blog, or through
industry pubs like SearchEngineLand.
------
wenbin
My first reaction was: Horizontal and vertical alliances
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period#Horizont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period#Horizontal_and_vertical_alliances_.28334-249_BC.29))
------
whoisthemachine
Verizon now owns AOL, AOL (Verizon) now has major advertising business,
Microsoft gains additional search share... Google's weight in this business
has definitely managed to create some strange alliances against it.
------
pcora
Microsoft choose to sell it all today?
~~~
orik
Microsoft's fiscal year ends tomorrow, so it looks like they're balancing
things out.
~~~
AdieuToLogic
> ... it looks like they're balancing things out.
Or throwing things out?
------
jkuria
This is sad if we go by what happens on AdSonar. Lots and lots of fake bot
traffic. Microsoft seemed serious about tackling the problem and were good
about issuing refunds for fraudulent clicks. Not so AOL, Adsonar, Huffpo and
all the properties in their network.
~~~
droopyEyelids
If the bot traffic is factored into the price, what does it matter?
------
tootie
Bob Lord of AOL used to be CEO of Razorfish, sibling company to Atlas which
was acquired by Microsoft in 2009 or so to kick start their ad business. When
it flubbed they took a huge write down and just sold it back to Bob Lord.
~~~
blumkvist
They sold Atlas to Facebook, no?
------
turingbook
Microsoft is quitting from Internet Business？It also sold part of map business
to Uber
------
SEJeff
I'm gonna guess that Google _or_ Bing over AOL's dialup is still awful.
~~~
nacs
Well Verizon (DSL, fiber-optic) bought AOL out recently.
~~~
rayiner
So Verizon just took over Microsoft's ad business?
~~~
discardorama
Display ad business, yes.
------
inthewoods
I've long thought that Microsoft should sell off the Bing business - I
recognize that they gain benefits from Bing, but it is fundamentally a
different business that they have shown no little ability to capitalize on for
a long, long time.
------
bhaumik
>>Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who has been in his post for 17
months, has made clear–including in an employee memo last week–that Microsoft
needs to concentrate on technology areas where it has the biggest
opportunities for success, and make “tough choices” in fringe areas.
So instead of layoffs, they're just selling their employees*?
(Uber deal):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799997)
~~~
cheriot
You say that in a disparaging way, but this is capitalism at it's finest.
People and IP are moving to where they're more productive.
I'm sure it's jarring to the employees involved, but not nearly as emotionally
and financially draining as knowing that layoffs are coming and scrambling for
a job... at the same time as 1,200 other people with similar qualifications.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's the best tool to convert any doc to PDF? - voicemynah
I am working on a side project that needs to convert any document (typically word/excel/text) to PDF that can be rendered on the server via pdf.js<p>I see lot of cloud SaaS products that seem to do it - but I don't know how good of a quality they provide. What's the best open source tool that can handle this ? I would consider commercial product also as a fall back. Appreciate pointers.
======
ColinWright
pandoc
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MarineTraffic.com - Live Ships Map - gtzi
http://www.marinetraffic.com/
======
joezydeco
Note the hundreds of ships parked off the coast of Singapore. That's the US
economy anchored out there.
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Reve...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-
The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did You Know? HTML5 Tag Omission - BasDirks
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/syntax.html#syntax-tag-omission
======
quink
We knew :)
<http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2010/a-minimal-html5-document/>
<!doctype html> <html lang=en> <meta charset=utf-8> <title>blah</title> <body>
<p>I'm the content
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Eric Ries: Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics - _pius
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metrics-vs-actionable-metrics/
======
tophat02
"Actionable Metrics" is quite possibly the worst business buzzword combination
I've ever heard.
Hey Lawrence, when you're at work does anyone ever talk to you about
"Actionable Metrics?"
No. NO. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked for saying
something like'gat man.
~~~
davidbnewquist
Despite seeming a little jargon heavy, I was able to distill out few useful
ideas.
For example, say you're considering a cool new CAPTCHA for your registration
page. The article would advise doing an "A/B split test" before phasing out
the old CAPTCHA.
Such a test would involve creating an alternate registration page with the new
CAPTCHA, and randomly directing x% of users to the alternate page. You could
then obtain registration completion % from both groups, which would drive your
decision to switch to fully switch to the new CAPTCHA.
~~~
jfarmer
Why is cohort analysis a buzzword? It's a specific technique for doing
longitudinal studies.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This popular teen app is quickly turning into Chatroulette 2.0 - SirLJ
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/03/popular-teen-app-monkey-turning-into-chatroulette-2-point-0.html
======
KiDD
The Not Hot Dog protocol in action!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
YC interview advice - drusenko
http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2008/11/y-combinator-interview-advice.html
======
tdavis
Speaking of Ramen, don't get the grocery-store stuff, that's for suckers. Get
the good stuff off Amazon or VeryAsia.com. I'm pretty sure we lived
exclusively off of _Mi Goreng Pedas_ for about 2 weeks straight when we just
didn't feel a trip to the grocery store was a good use of time.
Also, try to find a non-technical co-founder. Dan didn't have a ton to do
before we launched, so I got free (as in cooked) meals! Woo!
Now nobody cooks :(
~~~
fallentimes
At least we have the old school deli.
You should provide links to the GosuGod Noodles and Jebus Sauce. Jebus makes
GosuGod, but Jebus is somewhat worthless without GosuGod - sort of like the
holy trinity. The spirit can be the boiling water. Or maybe I should just call
the aggregate: Flying Ramen Monster.
Anyways...
Once we have salaries instead of stipends I'll start cooking again :).
------
bigthboy
Thanks for the advice and good luck, again, to all those venturing out there
in a couple of weeks.
------
sovande
I'm more interested in the banner picture used in that blog. Incredible cool
holographic effect when you move your mouse cursor over the banner. Never seen
that before
~~~
cstejerean
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=288894> for more info on the
technique.
~~~
sovande
Thanks a bunch
------
Haskell
'Having said that, be sure you know your market in and out. You better know
who your competitors are ("We don't have any" is not an acceptable answer),
the history of the market (What previous companies were similar?...'
At least, both Reddit and TicketStumbler claimed they didn't know who their
main competitor was and they were accepted.
So, "We don't have any" _is_ an acceptable answer.
~~~
fallentimes
Not true.
I said when we first formed the idea and started working on it we didn't know
who our competition was (if any). However, by the time we got to the
interview, we did.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
America Needs Compulsory National Service - wellsjosephc
https://josephcwells.com/blog/e-pluribus-unum-a-case-for-compulsory-national-service
======
babulus
Counterpoint: no we don't.
Fucking idiot.
~~~
dang
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you
don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give
us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AI websites that design themselves - nvk
https://thegrid.io/#53
======
minimaxir
The website is doing stealthy user-referral tracking. Note the end of the url:
[https://thegrid.io/#53](https://thegrid.io/#53)
Other links on Twitter have the same #<user_id> schema.
From the FAQ:
> _How do referrals rewards work? We offer rewards for referring new paid
> Founding Members. Every Founding Member is provided with a unique referral
> link that we use to track people who have signed up through referrals.
When you purchase a Grid Founding Membership, well give you a unique referral
URL to share with your friends. For every person who purchases a Grid Founding
Membership using your referral URL youll receive $32 of the proceeds refunded
toward your order, until your Founding Membership has been paid for. That
means if you get three friends to purchase, youll get your membership free._
~~~
ivan_ah
Well spotted, that's a cool trick---it is almost hidden.
Any recommendations for passing referral ids in a fully stealth fashion
between domains, e.g., by reading the referrer attribute of the GET request? A
django app?
People comping to mysite.com/refID could bypass the referral program and re-
visit the base url mysite.com. I'm fine with this, but it's not cool from
refID's point of view. The main problem is the person visiting via the
referral link might wonder whether the refID really recommends mysite.com
wholeheartedly, or out to make a buck.
~~~
JohnRandom
That's really that problem with every recommendation system that actually
offers you something of worth, isn't it? When I wrote the referral system, I
wasn't aware of the fact that people might read something into it. I was
basically coding away and thinking: "Well now that I used the referral code, I
might as well remove it. Nobody needs it anymore."
As people started complaining that their links didn't work - which in fact,
they did all along - we decided to leave it in the URL from now on. Such is
life ;)
------
wmeredith
Is this an art project or self-parody? The site is completely broken and
unusable in Chrome.
~~~
stevebel
AdBlock for Chrome completely destroys the layout. If I disable it for the
page, it looks fine.
~~~
Kyen
Had that same hypothesis, works great in Chrome for me; installed adblock, it
explodes.
------
panopticon
Another Sandwhich Video. I'm starting to group all these products featuring
Adam Lisagor together, and it's not necessarily a positive association.
~~~
nacs
To their credit, this video doesn't feature him as prominently as in many
other Sandwich videos and mostly just uses his voice and some static images
(which I did immediately recognize however).
It also spends most of the time showing the actual product instead of just
Adam doing 'funny' things.
------
ommunist
Ponzi 2.0? I can't see any reference to domain mapping, migration of the
existing websites and heck, links to existing websites on "the grid". UPD:
multi language support, hey, I want Hebrew/Arabic dual-language e-commerce
shop for SCAD schematics. Can you help?
------
drdeca
It says they have a github and says "here's ours" but theres no link, and
github doesn't appear anywhere else in the page source.
Looks nice in firefox (doesn't work in chrome)
~~~
minimaxir
GitHub appears to be the where the rendered sites are deposited.
~~~
bergie
A little bit more than that. We both
* Store the normalized content of our users to per-site repos in Jekyll-like Markdown + Front Matter documents
* Store the actual pages our engine designs
This means users have full access to their content on both levels.
~~~
jononor
Example: [https://github.com/the-domains/the-grid](https://github.com/the-
domains/the-grid)
------
huntleydavis
I honestly think that if executed correctly, this will completely replace
squarespace, and then possibly wordpress.
------
razster
Best of luck, looks promising.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reverse Engineering a NAND Flash Device Management Algorithm - jwise0
http://joshuawise.com/projects/ndfslave
======
Coko
I realize that this whole process was more than just data recovery (it's a
very valuable learning experience too), but if it was _just_ about data
recovery, couldn't he buy another SD card and re-solder the IC from the broken
board to the new one?
~~~
jwise0
Ha, yes, good point :-) I didn't write about that, but I did take some
pictures of failed attempts at that.
That's one of the first things I did, actually. After dumping the contents of
the flash off, I went on Amazon and hit 'reorder' on the same SD card that I'd
bought before. Unfortunately, it was not the same: in the picture [1], the
left is the one I'd purchased this time, and the right is the one I'd
destroyed. The deals that low-cost SD card makers get on NAND flash vary
greatly from day to day, so they just manufacture based on whatever controller
and flash combination they can get cheapest on any given day: even the same
SKU is unlikely to stay the same internally very long.
I did also try soldering to the BGA pads on the damaged one [2] [3], but no
joy: I imagine that there were some traces that went backwards on the board
before going towards the controller (for instance, to meet the TSOP leads),
and on inserting the SD card into my laptop, I still had no signs of life.
[1] [http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-11.xscale.jp...](http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-11.xscale.jpg)
[2] [http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-13.xscale.jp...](http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-13.xscale.jpg)
[3] [http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-15.xscale.jp...](http://joshuawise.com/photos/etc/sd-card/sd-
fux-15.xscale.jpg)
~~~
flashsd
5 minutes of googling == 6 months of reverse engineering :)
recovery tools for SM2683EN flash controller:
[http://www.usbdev.ru/files/smi/](http://www.usbdev.ru/files/smi/)
xor formulas and block structure for Transcend card: [http://flash-
extractor.com/library/SM/EN2683/EN2683b%20BA__e...](http://flash-
extractor.com/library/SM/EN2683/EN2683b%20BA__ec_de_d5_7a__2x2)
~~~
jwise0
Aha, very good! Yes, I had seen the second link -- and, in fact, posted on the
Soft-Center forums at the time. It gave me some of the basic information, but
sadly, without the "key" to what some of that means, it's not terribly useful
to me :-( for instance, I'm still not sure what "xor 0186" means, and how that
translates to the whitening scheme I saw.
The "Update size" and "Update enable" did give me the idea to do what I called
'sector updates'. Do you have any more information on how those work?
I didn't have that 'usbdev.ru' site at the time. That page seems specific to
the USB versions, not the SD card (SM2683) parts; unfortunately, I speak very
little Russian. Do you have any particular parts I should ook at?
Thanks so much for any help you might be able to provide! I'd like to fill in
the blanks in my knowledge of these things; in particular, I'd feel a lot more
comfortable if I knew how the sector updates worked...
------
userbinator
You are lucky that the SD card you had used a discrete package for the flash -
to reduce costs, quite a few of them just encapsulate a bare die, which is
nowhere near as robust; even assuming the die didn't crack, trying to wirebond
one of those without special machinery is nearly impossible. MicroSD almost
exclusively is constructed this way.
There's also a very interesting article about reverse-engineering the
microcontroller used inside:
[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554)
~~~
jwise0
Very interesting! I wonder where on the flash the firmware for the SD card is
stored -- or perhaps it's stored in the controller EEPROM? If I could dump it
out, that would be very valuable indeed.
------
aaron_l
My EE knowledge is a few years out of date, but I was surprised to learn that
excessive correlation between pages causes problems. The XOR key used for
decorrelation is apparently not too hard to reverse engineer, so I wonder if
this could be turned into an attack against solid state storage devices. Would
storing a particular data stream which becomes very correlated once the XOR is
applied lead to data corruption? Wear leveling and filesystems might make this
difficult to pull off, but it still scares me a bit.
~~~
bahahah
Due to close physical proximity, there will always be some degree of
capacitive coupling between the cells. This coupling will cause a cell's
potential to increase slightly when its neighbors are programmed. Having all
of your neighbors programmed to the highest potential state is the worst case,
as your delta V from coupling is greatest. If it is shifted enough, there
would be a bit error at that cell.
Data randomization seeks to mitigate this issue by normalizing the
distribution of states across the page. Having a single XOR key wouldn't do a
very good job for the reasons you noted. When I worked on flash, we used
elements of the address to seed a PRNG for data randomizing. So the XOR key
varies across the entire device.
There are other systems in place in flash to further mitigate these issues.
All programming is adaptive, using feedback between programming pulses to hit
the target. The pages within a block are intelligently ordered so that a
programmed cell cannot possibly have all of its neighbors programmed from
lowest to highest potential.
But yes, in general, if you had the right data stream, you would be able to
slightly degrade the BER, possibly past what the ECC can repair. There are a
lot of systems in place though, as NAND is inherently lossy to begin with.
These issues are compounded by MLC designs which have tighter margins per
cell.
SSDs have yet another layer of system mitigation. I know of at least one
manufacturer that disables NAND level randomizing in favor of encrypting every
bit of data that is programmed. Some drives have enough redundancy that they
can lose an entire flash die without losing data -- as if losing a disk in a
raid setup.
You probably shouldn't be storing anything important long term on a device
that programs NAND raw. i.e. flash drives and sd cards. They aren't designed
nor spec'd for high reliability.
~~~
StillBored
This whole XOR scheme seems destined to fail! Why not just use a 64b/66b (or
similar) encoding scheme?
~~~
bahahah
The XOR scheme is perfectly good enough. If it were a real issue affecting
customers it would be replaced (but it isn't).
The XOR scheme is extremely cheap (compact) and does not need to operate
serially on the data stream (good for performance). The only applications that
use the NAND provided randomizer are the cheapest of controllers. In fact,
even the SD controller in the linked article used their own XOR scheme. A
system designer can always turn off the builtin randomizer, and replace it
with whatever method they choose -- they all do for various reasons. At the
controller level it can be implemented in, typically, higher performance and
more compact logic processes. It does not need to be duplicated for
multichannel devices, as it would if it were in the NAND.
~~~
userbinator
_The XOR scheme is perfectly good enough_
...until someone finds a way to exploit it, as has happened with CD's "weak
sector" copy protection schemes. It's only a matter of when it will happen,
not if.
~~~
bahahah
Corrupting the storage of a test pattern isn't particularly useful. MAYBE, you
could cause premature tagging of bad blocks wearing out a flash drive/card
faster. If the system you are using is allowing these kinds of writes to your
storage device you have more pressing issues.
Only the most primitive SD/flash drive controllers actually use this scheme
anyway -- encryption is much better at randomizing.
------
kabdib
Very nice article.
I wrote a lot of the flash object store for the Apple Newton, back in 1992.
I've often wondered how many of the things we came up with were later patented
by other companies.
------
mng2
Impressive work and a fantastic writeup to boot. Kinda makes me want to
accidentally break something (okay not really).
------
kasperset
ECC explanation is also good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kickstarter apologizes for hosting pickup/rape how-to guide - sequoia
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/21/kickstarter-seduction-guides/
======
sequoia
Justification for putting the world "rape" in submission title (excerpt from
guide): "Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for
permission. Be dominant. _Force her to rebuff your advances._ "
Sourced from here: [http://caseymalone.com/post/53339539674/this-is-not-
fucking-...](http://caseymalone.com/post/53339539674/this-is-not-fucking-
harmless)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Search engine to find the best online courses on the web - intous
https://coursesity.com
======
intous
Coursesity is a platform to discover the best online courses & tutorials on
the internet. Find the best online courses across hundreds of subjects
including programming, design, marketing, business & more. Publish courses to
reach to thousands of learners.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Slaughterhouse-Five - DanielBMarkham
http://www.hn-books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm
======
KarmabalanceDeb
Time changes everything. That certainly goes for the way you feel about the
books you've read. It also changes the way you feel about books that you've
always wanted to read and are just now getting around to reading.
I like and agree with your review. Remember when the book was written it was a
much more naive time, not just for us, but for the world as well. We were
still practicing for the Russian invasion.
How can you not love a character named Kilgore Trout? Mr. Vonnegut was nothing
if not "trip-y".
~~~
futuremint
I always try to appreciate the context of the times when a story was written.
Learning a little more of the external context within which a story was
written can, at times, enhance the understanding of the story.
This might be a story that lends itself to that. Maybe. I read this book in
high school and thought it was ok then, but I didn't really understand why the
people I knew who read it thought it was so great. I didn't do any research
about the era this was written in though, so I don't really know if it'd help
or not.
It certainly is trippy though and an entertaining read in the least.
------
filosofo
The point of the book isn't so much to argue against war in general as to
argue against the idea that _war is inevitable._
The idea that war and specific acts of war are unavoidable parts of the human
condition is supposed to seem as insane and pathetic as the protagonist's
passive view of his life, a view that comes from his beliefs about time
travel.
------
ukdm
Is it just me or is the text on that page very difficult to read?
~~~
tvon
No, but in Safari I'm seeing the content column below the sidebar column.
~~~
gommm
Same here... I'm using Safari 5.0.4
------
brudgers
> _"it seemed a bit trite."_
And so it goes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I move from my little pond to a bigger lake? - DrorY
I am a web developer. I've been working on an idea of mine with friends. We all left our day jobs.
We've built a product, we've got our first customers, people are happy, but we can't seem to move out of our little pond.
We are based outside of the US, and so it seems that most of our connections are local.
We've been marketing our product for small business and PR agencies.
There seems to be a steady growth in our user base, and yet reaching abroad is so tough.<p>How do we take our leap forward? How do we get people abroad to learn of our product?<p>We've been struggling with this, and I wrote it down in our company's <i>blog</i>. I explain more of our product and pain.<p>http://kulu.lu/blog.htm<p>And here's a link to our product, a real super easy way to choose music together (shameless brag):<p>http://www.facebook.com/NotJustMusic?sk=app_182149675137227<p>What am I missing? How to move from localized to international?
======
dirkdeman
It's not exactly clear to me what it is you're offering. I can add music to my
FB fan page where people can vote for songs? How does that relate to my
business? What would my business gain from it?
I'm pretty shure it doesn't have to do with your not being from the US. You
say you've done some marketing to small businesses and PR firms, so it's
logical that your clients are from that group / region.
My advice: polish your proposition a little and try to get some international
attention. Good luck!
~~~
thenomad
Slight expansion on this - you might want to grab some copywriting books or
sales courses and look into things like defining your appeal.
Or just practise on us! So, who are you selling to, what problem are you
solving for them, and why would they care?
------
stasix
Have you tried to raise money?
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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IJulia: iPython Notebook for Julia - terhechte
https://github.com/JuliaLang/IJulia.jl
======
StefanKarpinski
To be clear: IJulia is still in a pre-release state but we're working on
getting it ready for general consumption in the next couple of weeks. Fernando
Perez's G+ post has a nice write up of the situation:
[https://plus.google.com/105051551851350439748/posts/GMNjgaug...](https://plus.google.com/105051551851350439748/posts/GMNjgaugGCf)
The Julia/Python interop, on the other hand, is already quite mature and
complete thanks to the incredible work of Steven G. Johnson (of FFTW fame),
who has also done the lion's share of the work on the native Julia kernel for
IPython.
------
terhechte
There's even an example notebook:
[http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/jdj.mit.edu/~stevenj/IJulia%...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/jdj.mit.edu/~stevenj/IJulia%2520Preview.ipynb)
------
ngoldbaum
You can do some pretty interesting stuff with this using julia's pycall
library:
[https://github.com/stevengj/PyCall.jl](https://github.com/stevengj/PyCall.jl)
------
carreau
Amazing how people achieve to put an uppercase I to IJulia, but not IPython!
:-)
------
joelthelion
Who is using Julia? Is it gaining traction in the academic community?
~~~
ovis
I think grad students make an obvious target audience. They both write a lot
of code, and (often) have freedom to choose their tools. My impression is that
that's where much of the original momentum for Python in the scientific
community came from as well.
~~~
joelthelion
I was one of these grad students a few years ago :)
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Apple may have finally gotten too big for its unusual corporate structure - JumpCrisscross
http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/27/13706776/apple-functional-divisional
======
qwrusz
I'm not defending Apple's shitbox of a new Macbook Pro and the fact that the
latest iPhone can't even be plugged into a computer the company released a
just few weeks later is a bad sign.
But Macs are a tiny fraction of Apple. The Pro products within Mac are an even
smaller percentage of that. And actual Professional users of these Pro
products are an even smaller percentage of that. A tiny fraction.
If Apple is committed to being this single compatible secure platform (which
obviously they are not doing a great job at right now) then devoting more
resources to regular updates of their Pro line to include the latest hardware
is just not going to happen when you compare the risks to the upside. That's
not how their internal product cycles work. A corporate restructuring can't
really help with this, it might even add to the risk.
Sucks for us few pro users. If this is such a pain point then start new
hardware company, there's a market for it. Or is there?
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How Facebook Saw Trump Coming When No One Else Did - anchpop
https://medium.com/@erinpettigrew/how-facebook-saw-trump-coming-when-no-one-else-did-84cd6b4e0d8e
======
herbst
IMO pretty much the whole world saw that coming. Except appearantly the U.S.
itself?
~~~
hga
America's ruling class was in denial. (Heck, I'm sure a lot of it still is.)
In fact, their being in denial about a very many great things is how they
ended up with "God Emperor Trump" as their president-elect.
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How to create a startup in 10.5 hours - mmaunder
http://markmaunder.com/2007/how-to-create-a-startup-in-105-hours/
I just launched FEEDJIT. It took me about 10.5 hours (4pm until 2:30am) from the first time my hand touched the keyboard until I fixed the last bug and went live. I got a question on the Seattle Tech Startup list about how I spent my 10.5 hours. So here's a brief summary....
======
sbraford
If this counts as launching a startup then I've "launched" about 27 startups
over the past 8 years. Others might call this a feature or clever hack. (not
to denigrate at all what Mark did here - it's cool stuff, just not a startup
in the traditional sense)
~~~
nick_man
While you might not see it as a start-up, it is generating significant number
of users and there must be some value in the type and volume of data being
collected.
What we see depends mainly on what we look for. I prefer opportunity.
------
webwright
The thing that I like about this is that he distilled it down to a
hypothesis/test.
Hypothesis: Bloggers/site owners would like a stream-like
display/understanding of who's visiting, where they come from, and where they
leave to. Something a bit lighter and more fun than a standards analytics
package.
Do you need registration/passwords to test that idea? Focus groups?
Customizable widgets? Public profiles? Fancy graphs? Historical data?
Nope. Apparently all you need is 10.5 hours. ;-) If he sees any traction, he
can start piling on cool features based on user feedback. If not, he can let
it be as is.
------
jkush
Good things happen when you put everything aside and really focus on getting
Version 1.0 done. Imagine what you can do if you did that for 3 months and had
YC's advice.
~~~
palish
Right! When you're moonlighting, it's difficult running on 6 hours sleep each
day while managing 2 projects. Being able to focus on one thing 24/7 would be
great.
~~~
adamdoupe
After working 8 hours, I end up avoiding working on my website. Instead I end
up playing wow or watching TV. I long for school to start so I have more free
time.
~~~
far33d
You have more free time in school than you do at your job?
School was way more time consuming for me.
~~~
palish
The draining part of work is the fact that you have people expecting you to
get X done absolutely as fast as you can, recurse with Y. And the
micromanagement. By the end of the day it's mentally draining.
At school, nobody cares whether you do anything. And when you do something,
it's by your own decision. I mean, I know you _decide_ to do something at
work, but.. It's hard to put into specific words. School lays all its
expectations out in front of you; work shoves them down your throat.
------
epi0Bauqu
This goes in the "wish I thought of that" category. Not many things do.
------
trekker7
This is really brilliant. Imagine what people would say if you traveled 50
years in the past and told them you could launch a new business in less than
11 hours.
~~~
brent
This business would be analogous to a lemonade stand. The people in the past
would understand it just fine.
~~~
rrival
Not to discount this remarkable achievement, but a lemonade stand would have a
business model ;)
~~~
mmaunder
Sometimes folks forget that AdSense is a widget. :)
~~~
brent
No, AdSense is a business model in which there is a simple javascript widget
interface. The model is money in exchange for advertising across billions(?)
of websites. A startup is created and launched when there is a business model
that uses the widget. Otherwise its a programming exercise. Any reasonable
programmer can create a program in <10 hours, but unless there is a business
model it is not a startup.
~~~
webwright
A good example being YouTube? Or Google (before adwords)? Twitter? Delicious?
Reddit (before advertising)? If you build something people want to use,
monetizing it is always something that you can pull off.
I would say that a business model has to exist eventually-- and a startup
ought to have a few in mind. But I don't think an active business model is
required to be labeled as a "startup".
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July 8th Gezipark Turkish Police Fires with Tear Gas and Water Canons - Page 1 - l8in
http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php?topic=20328.0#.UdsH99RoxHA.hackernews
======
lifeguard
related:
[http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/](http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/)
[http://www.livestream.com/revoltistanbul](http://www.livestream.com/revoltistanbul)
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Show HN: Official Aaron Swartz remembrance site is now CC-licensed, open source - bguthrie
http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/
======
bguthrie
Hi everyone. You can find the link to the code here:
<https://github.com/rememberaaronsw/rememberaaronsw>. You can read more about
our reasoning here: <http://www.rememberaaronsw.com/about/>.
We wanted something that would be open-source, easy to hack on, leveraged the
technologies Aaron worked on, and Creative Commons-licensed. If you'd like to
submit a memory of Aaron or a general improvement to the site, please do so
via pull request. In particular, if anyone can think of a clever way to make
it easier to contribute to, perhaps via pull requests generated in Javascript
using Github's CORS support or something similar, we'd love your support.
I apologize that it doesn't use web.py; I'm just not a Python hacker, and we
wanted to get something out there quickly. If you'd like to help pull it in
somehow, that'd be great.
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Big Phones? So Over. - linhtran168
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/29/big-phones-so-over/?grcc=33333Z98
======
sebandr
There's only two formats that succeed: briefcase size and pocket size,
anything else better fit in one of those two otherwise it's a Betamax.
------
anigbrowl
Takes one to know one...
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Why Microsoft Needs All the Code: To Build a Virtuous Cycle for Windows 10 - werencole
http://arc.applause.com/2015/05/01/microsoft-windows-10-ios-and-android-apps/
======
werencole
Microsoft needs all the code from iOS and Android to help escape the vicious
cycle it created with Windows 8.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Chrome's experimenting with URL display again. Truth is, humans can't read URLs - mdoms
https://twitter.com/jaffathecake/status/1272777814891266049
======
elktea
I'm not really in the habit of watching rambling videos, shame the tweet
author won't articulate his position in a thread instead of responding to all
commentators "did you watch the video????"
| {
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Dear Marc Andreessen - steveklabnik
https://al3x.net/2014/06/17/dear-marc-andreessen.html
======
alaskamiller
Tragic that we all inevitably grow up to replace the old outdated system we
grew up rebelling, nee disrupting, against.
Hunter S. Thompson said something profound and unique to his position. He
remarked his biggest fear, and the man knows a thing or two about fear, was
waking up to realization that the same people he went to high school with
ended up running the show.
Here we are.
I'm at the same age now as when Marc grew out Netscape. His path shaped how I
walked my path. Yet he's going to some place that I no longer understand.
Maybe he sees it better, maybe he sees it differently, but jeez louise, what
is going on?
The new boss isn't better than the old boss. And just you wait until my
friends become bosses.
~~~
mattgreenrocks
In the end, how much of tech was just about a few guys aggrandizing
themselves, not actually benefiting others? From my viewpoint, an enormous
amount.
Disruptive, my ass. These guys are chasing the same stupid status symbols that
everyone else is. They are not the ubermensch that society holds them up to
be, just people who finally Made It (tm).
Motives are _exactly_ why the outcome will be just as rotten as before.
~~~
alaskamiller
It's why Ayn Rand is so popular.
------
bokonist
I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the
choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income
tomorrow"
In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into
education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But,
IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social
club. Spending more money on college is just a wealth transfer from tax payers
to upper middle class teachers and administrators. I do not agree with Peter
Thiel when he says that kids should start businesses instead of going to
college. But I think there is lots of room for designing some sort of adult-
life on-boarding process that was far more cost efficient than having the
government write a check to subsidize teenagers getting black out drunk every
weekend. I'm not sure what this system would be, but there are lots of options
- could be some sort of apprenticeship, or a co-op mixed with classes, or a
light-weight, low cost online education combined with assigned mentors.
The real issue is that any form of labor that is a commodity, and that does
not have union or legal protection, has been screwed over by the trifecta of
globalization, immigration, and automation. But, I disagree with both the
neoliberals and progressives in that I do not think it is possible to educate
the great masses and enable them to find non-commodity career paths. There are
only so many content marketers, enterprise salesmen, management consultants,
and product managers that the world needs. Those jobs are going to go to the
genetically and socially privileged. Therefore, the only solution for the
normal person, who will be at a commodity job in customer service or doing
sales at a Verizon store, is collective bargaining.
One form of collective bargaining can take is democratic politics. My policy
preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an
hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour. I
would couple that with a "job of last resort" program that would replace long
term unemployment and disability insurance - everyone who wants to work can
get a job, no matter how blighted their city, no matter what kind of
disability they have. Even if they are a quadriplegic they can be assigned to
monitor security cameras or something else.
~~~
gbog
Ok, but those who just do not want to be assigned a productive task, what
would you do with them?
~~~
bokonist
Then they go hungry. When they are ready to work and to eat, their local
employment office will be ready with a job and a paycheck. But in the
meantime, they need to stay off my lawn. I am a believer in anti-vagrancy
laws, so I think with the "jobs for everyone" comes enforcement against
sleeping on street benches and panhandling.
~~~
sanswork
Your plan depends on everyone being able to work. There are a lot of illnesses
and disabilities(physical and mental) that make that assertion not true. Would
you have these people starve?
~~~
bokonist
No, I said very clearly in my original comment that _everyone_ gets a job,
even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is _something_ that everyone can
do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or
transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled
you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work
job available for almost anybody. The only exception would be the extreme
mentally ill, who would need to be treated and provided supportive housing as
they are now. But if you are mentally able, but just unwilling, then you go
hungry. Or maybe you get a soup kitchen and a bed in a shelter. But in someway
it will be unpleasant and hard, so as to disincentivize sloth.
~~~
sanswork
Do you have any experience with people with mental illnesses or disabilities?
"Everyone can work, we can find a job for everyone" just seems like something
that could only be claimed from a position of ignorance. Further shown by your
suggestion of having them pick up trash. People with a lot of mental illnesses
aren't incapable of working due to a lack of skills.
~~~
bokonist
It really depends on the mental illness. Most mentally ill people could do
_something_ , most of the time. What exactly they could do would depend on the
particular illness. Many are not currently hireable because even one episode a
week is enough to get them fired. Some are not currently hirable because they
have been out of the workforce for so long, that they have lost a bunch of
habits. I think that could be remedied.
But, as I said, if they are really incapable of any possible employment, then
they should get treatment and supportive housing.
------
rdl
I don't think pmarca is saying people are against robots per se, but against
the efficiency-driven unemployment they see. I'm firmly on the side of pmarca
and technology here -- I'd love to see virtually all crappy jobs today
disappear, and we could find new and better things for those people to do
(through the market, ideally, but I'd be open to Basic Income or other forms
of wealth distribution if needed).
I cannot imagine retarding technology just to preserve existing jobs being a
winning strategy which makes the world better. If we did that in the 1700s,
there would only be a few thousand people left over after primary agriculture
to do anything else. That would suck.
People holding unionized or otherwise protected jobs are rent-seekers (albeit
on a smaller scale than large companies in regulated industries). Rent seekers
do not make the world a better place.
~~~
coldtea
> _I cannot imagine retarding technology just to preserve existing jobs being
> a winning strategy which makes the world better._
The problem is accelerating technology doesn't make the world automatically
better either.
It can also make it patently worse. E.g, someone presses the red button, and
here's a nuclear war. Or some idiot gets access to viruses, and here's a bio
attack that wipes out half the population. It's technology that will have
enabled both. Actually, the number of people that have died in World War I and
II (from the mustard gas to Belsen and from Dresden to Hiroshima) is already
tens of millions -- all due to improved technological efficiency.
Compared to that kind of harm to the whole of humanity, some people getting an
"artificial heart", a guy walking on the moon, and being able to exchange IMs
with WhatsApp on one's mobile is not that much of an balance at all. Just
something to keep in mind, lest someone thinks technology is all just
"embetterment".
> _People holding unionized or otherwise protected jobs are rent-seekers
> (albeit on a smaller scale than large companies in regulated industries).
> Rent seekers do not make the world a better place._
Quite the opposite. Protected jobs stop the madness of everything going
forward for the sake of going forward, and ask for real improvements to the
lives and treatment of real people. It's only a problem when the protection is
to a small subclass of people, instead of extending to all workers. We have
the 8-hour work day (well, had), we've had booming middle classes, and we've
had safety laws and child labor laws because of those "unions" and protests.
America was better in the fifties, middle class wise, when unions were strong,
compared to what it's now.
~~~
wutbrodo
> Compared to that kind of harm to the whole of humanity, some people getting
> an "artificial heart", a guy walking on the moon, and being able to exchange
> IMs with WhatsApp on one's mobile is not that much of an balance at all.
> Just something to keep in mind, lest someone thinks technology is all just
> "embetterment".
Woah, what? Are you really saying that the negative uses of technology in the
World Wars have outweighed the positive uses of technology (even if we limit
ourselves to a timeframe that contains an unusual amount of war deaths)? It's
beyond ridiculous to reduce the benefits of technology to "some guy" getting
an artificial heart, the moonwalk (which depending on your perspective is
either a prestige achievement or a step towards space exploration whose
benefits we haven't seen yet), and a messaging app. I really, really hope
you're being disingenuous instead of just ignorant because I'm practically
rendered speechless at the thought of having to explain how electrification
alone has saved countless lives.
OTOH, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, since it seems to be a very
common phenomenon for people to ignore steady long-term effects in favor of
flashier one-offs, even if the latter has a tiny, tiny, tiny cumulative effect
in comparison.
As just a couple of examples (I tried to focus on things that would be the
most affected by technological/scientific/economic progress):
\- The five-year mortality rate of breast cancer today is roughly the same as
the mortality rate of GIVING BIRTH in 1900 (also known as something damn near
half the population does, several times in their life).
\- The Spanish flu infected 500 million and killed 100 million people in 1918.
Today you can go to Safeway and get a flu shot for 10 bucks.
\- In the early 20th century, the life expectancy at birth was 31 years of
age. In 2010 it was 67 years.
\- Per CDC data, 60 years ago, 38000 people died of polio each year in America
alone. These days, 300 people die of polio per year in the ENTIRE WORLD.
\- From 1920 to 1980, 395/10000 people died from famine each year. In 200,
that number was THREE out of every 10000.
Of course I agree with the larger point that's tangential to the one you're
making: blind progress without ethical safeguards is definitely foolish.
That's not really what this discussion is about at all though (there are
people already talking about the need for ethical standards around AI
development and I'm the first to agree with that).
> America was better in the fifties, middle class wise, when unions were
> strong, compared to what it's now.
This is so incredibly ignorant of history that it's unbelievable. You're aware
there was a World War right before the 50's, right? And damn near the entire
world was either coming out of centuries of suppressed economies under
colonialism or trying to recover from being, you know, blown up? Might that
have _anything_ to do with the success of American labor (it's not a
coincidence that the opening of developing-world markets in the 70s and 80s
coincided with the loss of America's unskilled-labor competitiveness)? Not to
mention the fact that "middle-class wise" is an incredibly idiotic metric to
use as a proxy for "better". Refer back to the list I had above for examples
of _real_ ways that lives can improve (or seriously, just Google it: you can
literally find HUNDREDS of ways life was worse back then, even if you limit
yourself to the 50s and to America). The places that we _have_ gotten much
worse (i.e. economic prospects for lower and lower-middle classes) is amply
addressed by the grandparent comment's allusion to a proper welfare state and
basic income. To put it another way, retarding progress so people can have
pretend-productive jobs could not be stupider; through inefficiency, you're
destroying wealth that can be redistributed to people who actually need it
instead of to people who happen to hold arbitrary obsolete jobs. What you're
fundamentally saying is that we should implement welfare in the most
inefficient way possible and then give it not to the poor, or the sick, or the
needy; but to people in arbitrary industries (like dockworkers or taxi
drivers) at arbitrary income levels.
~~~
coldtea
> _Woah, what? Are you really saying that the negative uses of technology in
> the World Wars have outweighed the positive uses of technology (even if we
> limit ourselves to a timeframe that contains an unusual amount of war
> deaths)?_
I gave the World Wars as an example. Perhaps you missed the part where I also
mentioned possible outcomes like a full on nuclear war (enabled by technology
etc). And of course, there's also climate change and such. Or even simple
rampant deaths due to overuse of antibiotics.
Compared to such ability (and possibility) to wipe all humanity, the "decline
in the mortality rate of giving birth" is not that much impressive.
Not to mention it has little to do with any advanced technology, and more with
simple precautions, like running water, cleaner birth environments, etc. You
can get over 80% of the decrease in the infant mortality rate just by those,
and in fact many activists in third world countries do exactly that -- not
much modern equipment required.
> _This is so incredibly ignorant of history that it 's unbelievable. You're
> aware there was a World War right before the 50's, right? And damn near the
> entire world was either coming out of centuries of suppressed economies
> under colonialism or trying to recover from being, you know, blown up? Might
> that have _anything_ to do with the success of American labor?_
For one, there was also a World War right before the 20s, with the large
colonial powers striving to recover from it. Still what happened to US economy
in the 20s/30s was not exactly beneficial.
Second, the success of the American labor is not tied to the success of the
American laborers. You can have one without the other. And for a century or
more, since early 19th century, you did have -- tons of Americans working in
medieval conditions (including harsh child labor, even in coal mines, and of
course actual slavery), while the American industry was increasingly booming.
> _What you 're fundamentally saying is that we should implement welfare in
> the most inefficient way possible and then give it not to the poor, or the
> sick, or the needy; but to people in arbitrary industries (like dockworkers
> or taxi drivers) at arbitrary income levels._
What I'm fundamentally saying is that the "market knows better" is borderline
religious fatalism. People shape and create their society, and people decide
what it will be. Most people, if they are empowered to, or few people, if they
can control legislation, education, markets etc.
Nobody gives money to the "poor, or the sick, or the needy" that are taken
from "dockworkers or taxi drivers". What happens is that the "dockworkers or
taxi drivers" are instead thrown into the ranks of the "poor or the needy".
And not only because their work gets obsolete or trivial by technology -- but
because people controlling the market can force them to squeeze their margins.
Let me put it this way: it wasn't because growing cotton was cheap "in itself"
or trivial that the cotton industry people thrived and prices were low. It was
because they could push human beings to do it for substinence level
compensation. Throu raw force first (slavery) and through "law" and taking
advantate of their situation later then (Jim Crow etc).
~~~
wutbrodo
> I gave the World Wars as an example. Perhaps you missed the part where I
> also mentioned possible outcomes like a full on nuclear war (enabled by
> technology etc). And of course, there's also climate change and such. Or
> even simple rampant deaths due to overuse of antibiotics.
Oh.my.god. Can you really be so clueless as to use antibiotics overuse as an
example of the BAD side of technology? I think I actually might die of
laughter. It blows my mind that you don't realize that the worst-case scenario
of antibiotics overuse is that every antibiotic will become useless...i.e.
taking us back to the situation before antibiotics were developed. Your
example of "a nightmare scenario of science and technology" is "going back to
before this technological advance existed". If I wasn't convinced before, I'm
100% certain that you're truly way, way, way out of your depth when trying to
comprehend this topic.
> Not to mention it has little to do with any advanced technology, and more
> with simple precautions, like running water, cleaner birth environments,
> etc. You can get over 80% of the decrease in the infant mortality rate just
> by those, and in fact many activists in third world countries do exactly
> that -- not much modern equipment required.
Oh you're totally right, and the scientific advances and (relatively) huge
amount of resources required to bring these things to the entire world had
nothing to do with science, technological advances, or economic growth.
I...how do you think these things happen exactly? Do you think that God pops
down every twenty years and drops off another set of stone tablets with a list
of scientific discoveries and inventions? I've officially crossed over from
finding this hilarious to finding it terrifying that there are people who
think the way you do.
> What I'm fundamentally saying is that the "market knows better" is
> borderline religious fatalism.
Do tell how "We should have a complete and robust safety net" is anywhere
close to religious fanaticism around "the market knows better"? AFAICT, what
I'm talking about is leveraging the market's strength (making local decisions
about cost, price, and efficiency) AND avoiding its weaknesses/leveraging
govt's strengths (dealing with externalities, providing safety nets, etc). How
the fuck is that more fanatic than your proposal of ignoring the market's
ability to do anything and making _everyone_ poorer in the process?
> Nobody gives money to the "poor, or the sick, or the needy" that are taken
> from "dockworkers or taxi drivers". What happens is that the "dockworkers or
> taxi drivers" are instead thrown into the ranks of the "poor or the needy".
Oh holy fuck what are you even saying. If unemployed dockworkers and taxi
drivers become poor and needy, then _by definition they're covered by the
robust safety net for the needy jesus christ_. The whole idea behind a safety
net is that there ARE no needy people because they're taken care of. If
someone in a replaced industry happens to be independently wealthy, or married
to someone who makes a decent amount of money, or hell just rich from their
protected job, you'd have to have the brain capacity of a toddler to think
that it makes sense for welfare transfers to go to them (and make no mistake,
protecting obsolete jobs is a transfer of wealth AND a net destructor of
wealth). If you think this is impossible, just take a look at what percentage
of farm subsidies goes to the very wealthy owners of huge agribusinesses.
Giving money to random job classes independently of need in the hopes that it
will roughly line up with the needy is _fucking stupid_ compared to actually
just giving money to the needy. I can't imagine what sort of bizarro-world one
would have to live in where that sounds like it makes any sense.
> Let me put it this way: it wasn't because growing cotton was cheap "in
> itself" or trivial that the cotton industry people thrived and prices were
> low. It was because they could push human beings to do it for substinence
> level compensation. Throu raw force first (slavery) and through "law" and
> taking advantate of their situation later then (Jim Crow etc).
Right.....which is an excellent argument for outlawing slavery and Jim Crow. I
definitely agree that there are jobs out there right now that only exist
because they people are driven to work them by the whole "needing food and
shelter" thing. How in God's name is that not completely addressed by "a
robust safety net"? Shit it's the DEFINITION of "a robust safety net".
TL;DR: I've yet to hear a single credible argument between "1) Maximize the
amount of wealth society has, by not intentionally gimping productivity
(education funding etc is also part of this, as is welfare et al but this
connection is murkier to explain). 2) Use this wealth (by taxing wherever can
take it: the rich have historically low top tax rates atm so that's naturally
a good place to start) to redistribute to those who actually need it. By
definition, this means a robust safety net and ideally a basic income. This is
made much easier by the excess amount of wealth generated by step 1.
~~~
coldtea
> _Oh.my.god. Can you really be so clueless as to use antibiotics overuse as
> an example of the BAD side of technology? I think I actually might die of
> laughter. It blows my mind that you don 't realize that the worst-case
> scenario of antibiotics overuse is that every antibiotic will become
> useless...i.e. taking us back to the situation before antibiotics were
> developed. Your example of "a nightmare scenario of science and technology"
> is "going back to before this technological advance existed". If I wasn't
> convinced before, I'm 100% certain that you're truly way, way, way out of
> your depth when trying to comprehend this topic._
You keep writing insults and empty boasts. Is this for the good of the
discussion, or so that you feel better for yourself? You could have answered
the same thing as above without all the BS ad hominens -- which don't matter
anyway, because your core logic is faulty. (Also, "oh.my.god"? Seriously? Are
you like 12 years old?).
For one, the "worst case scenario" from overuse of antibiotics is not just
"that every antibiotic will become useless".
You missed the whole part of the overuse having first created more-resistant
strains -- and a humanity with less resistance from being over-dependent on
antibiotics for all these decades.
So, no it's not just "back to square one". It's "back to square one with our
shoelaces tied together and a tiger hunting us".
> _Oh holy fuck what are you even saying. If unemployed dockworkers and taxi
> drivers become poor and needy, then _by definition they 're covered by the
> robust safety net for the needy jesus christ_._
Only in some fantasy world where the "robust safety net" exists. In the real
world, when they become poor and needy, e.g by taxi companies or competition
squeezing their margins, they just become poor and needy, end of story.
>* How in God's name is that not completely addressed by "a robust safety
net"? Shit it's the DEFINITION of "a robust safety net".*
I don't disagree with the "robust safety net".
I simply aknowledge that it doesn't exist.
Which means that in real life throwing whole professions to live with
diminished wages and be taken advantage of because of their need is not
automatically taken care of by any (non-existant) "safety net".
You cannot say some real and existing abuse is OK because those people can be
taken care of because of an imaginary and not-yet-existing safety net.
------
paulbaumgart
The most meaningful disagreement is summed up in this sentence:
"Emerging technologies can also create demand for things that are inherently
expensive – cutting-edge medical procedures and treatments, for example –
driving up costs in entire economic sectors."
It boils down to: should we subsidize cutting-edge medicine for everyone, or
treat it as a luxury because people who can't afford it are no worse off than
they were before its invention (in absolute terms)?
The pragmatic answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
~~~
steveklabnik
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_excluded_middle)
~~~
SatoshiPacioli
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation)
~~~
paulbaumgart
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeroll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeroll)
~~~
icpmacdo
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta)
------
jdminhbg
> Taxi drivers protesting Uber aren’t saying that they want apps out of their
> cabs.
Of course they aren't _saying_ that, it would be political suicide to say it.
But given the stubborn resistance to even using the credit card readers forced
on them by utility commissions, do people really think that cabbies are aching
to have apps between them and their customers that would thwart their ability
to skip inconvenient fares or grab an easier ride on their way to a call?
Uber's end-run around regulation is only possible because cabbies use
regulation to make consumers' lives worse.
It's kind of crazy to me the degree to which the left is becoming a movement
built around kneejerk status quo bias, based on nothing but a distaste for the
idea that someone might be making money off of making consumers' lives better.
~~~
paul
I feel like both the left and the right are trying to take us back to some
idealized version of the 1950's. I want a political movement based on creating
a new and better future, not hanging on to shreds of the past.
We now have the technology and resources necessary to provide everyone with
adequate food, housing, healthcare, and education. That's what I want, not
more "job creation" or preservation of obsolete jobs. The future could
actually be BETTER than the 1950's :)
~~~
taurath
What motivates people in a society where all their needs are met? Competition
for resources has long been and will continue to be large aspect of humanity
as a species, but I imagine we could reach for a truly golden age once a large
group of people have the luxury of thinking about things like we're talking
about now. It'd be amazing what we could build if more people had time to
experiment - possibly bewildering and dangerous!
~~~
wutbrodo
I wouldn't say food, housing, health, and education comprise "all needs"...and
I'm pretty sure the behavior of billions of people supports that. How many
people earn enough to simply have food, shelter, and healthcare and then go
"well I guess I have enough, I don't want a single other thing". Even the
usual claim that "people will just spend it on weed, beer, and videogames"
shows the clear desire for things beyond the necessities. _That_ is what would
motivate people.
------
corford
Very nice to see pmarca's neoliberal idiocy taken apart so thoroughly. Peter
Thiel could do with similar treatment imho.
~~~
patrickaljord
So things we disagree with now can just be labelled as idiocy?
And no matter how much you and other statists hate neoliberalism and how it's
taken over the world, thing is the world has never been so rich, so peaceful
and people have never lived so long and so healthy in the whole history of
humanity. So, if neoliberalism is having a bad effect on the world, I wonder
what it would do if it had a good effect.
I would also add that the countries that are doing better in this world are
all pro free-market such as Switzerland and Hong Kong. In fact, as someone who
has lived in Peru for 5 years, I can tell you (and numbers will show), in the
90's, Peru and Venezuela had similar economies. Then in the 90's and up to
today, Peru has liberalized its economy and privatize a lot of industries,
Venezuela has gone the opposite way. Today, Peru is prospering more than ever
while Venezuelans unfortunately have to wait in line for hours to buy toilet
paper, flour and meat. I think reality is on my and Andreessen's side.
Statists are obsessed with inequality gaps and how some people are so much
richer than others. I and people like Andreesen are obsessed with fewer people
dying of hunger, violence and disease. Once we get rid of that, maybe we can
work on reducing that gap you're so obsessed about, but right now, let's help
people not die of hunger at least and make make enough of a living to support
themselves, and nothing is as efficient as free market economies for this who
have lifted billions of people from extreme poverty from China to Peru.
~~~
corford
Neoliberalism (of the Milton Friedman kind) hasn't taken over the world. It
gained traction in the mid 70's, peaked in the 00's and is now, thankfully,
slipping back from its extreme heights.
Also, pmarca's particular interpretation of neoliberalism is what I was
referring to as idiotic, not the broader concept as a whole (which I think is
also very flawed but can at least respect).
Let's not confuse well regulated free-market capitalism and a dollop of social
state support (which I think together represent the best model the world has
so far come up with and is the one followed, more or less, by the best
economies) with pmarca's extreme interpretation of how an economy should be
run.
Edit: Oh, and finally, "people like Andreesen are obsessed with fewer people
dying of hunger, violence and disease." It would be nice if his investments
better reflected that apparent 'obsession':
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz#Investments](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz#Investments)
To my eye he seems to care solely about making money for himself and whoever
A16Z's LPs are. Nothing wrong with that (he runs a VC firm after all) but
let's not pretend he's a saintly figure obsessing over the plight of the
world's poor.
~~~
RichardFord
_Neoliberalism (of the Milton Friedman kind) hasn 't taken over the world. It
gained traction in the mid 70's, peaked in the 00's and is now, thankfully,
slipping back from its extreme heights._
Slipping back to what - the horrors of statism that we saw in the 20th
century?
~~~
corford
>Slipping back to what - the horrors of statism that we saw in the 20th
century?
No, why should it? Just because we've learnt neoliberalism is flawed doesn't
mean we should unlearn that statism was also disastrous (in different ways).
I think (hope?) it's slipping back to somewhere in-between i.e. better
regulated free markets, a sensible approach to privatisation and the
acknowledgement that capitalism vs socialism is not a zero sum game. Both
ideologies have good bits and bad bits, the path we're walking down now is one
of figuring out the optimal ratio between the two. The fabled "third way".
~~~
RichardFord
_No, why should it? Just because we 've learnt neoliberalism is flawed doesn't
mean we should unlearn that statism was also disastrous (in different ways)._
Thanks for keeping on making my point :) There is no "we". There is you and
some people that are in ideological agreement with you, but there is no we.
Why do you have such a hard time understanding this?
~~~
corford
Fair criticism. To be honest, I just (arrogantly) assumed we'd reached a point
and accumulated enough evidence to remove any argument that the 20th century's
experiments with communism and socialism and the recent 25 year infatuation
with neoliberalism were anything other than overall failures. Judging by the
down votes I'm getting, I'm clearly wrong and the idealogical battles rage on
(mine included).
~~~
patrickaljord
In what way has neoliberalism been a failure? Most prosperous countries are
the ones that practice it the most (Switzerland, Hong Kong) and EU countries
who have gotten better lately have been the ones taking neoliberals measures
by cutting state spending (UK) and in South America the best economies have
freed their ecomonies the most. There is nothing that can beat a free market
economy, sure you can regulated to some extend if you want and it is all
around the world, but a healthy free market economy with as few regulations as
possible is still the best way to go as reality has shown, call that
neoliberalism or mixed economy with as few regulations as possible or whatever
you want, but it's not a failure and it's not going away.
~~~
corford
It's the "few regulations as possible" part of neoliberalism that has, for me
at least, been the unquestionable failure.
The following could all have been avoided or had the scope of their damage
drastically reduced had better regulation been in place:
LTCM and the Asia crisis in the 90s, the flood of bad IPOs in the dotcom era,
the subprime and CDO disaster that sparked 2008, the asset bubbles over the
last three decades (e.g. the UK housing market after mortgage LTV regulations
were relaxed), the extreme widening of the gap between rich and poor.
A more nuanced and sensible approach to regulation than neoliberalism promotes
doesn't (in my opinion) mean we'll suddenly see a reversal of all the good
bits a very lightly regulated, market orientated economy has brought us and
the return to inefficient, planned economies. It just means removing the
shocks, excesses and some (by no means all) of the inequalities an
uncompromising belief in 'free market economics over everything else' appears
to invite.
~~~
burntsushi
I just don't understand how 2008 was _obviously_ because of deregulation. Not
only is that a _contestable_ claim, but you're simplifying the entire crash to
a convenient cause that clearly confirms your biases.
Just take a walk over to Wikipedia[1], and you can clearly see that ascribing
the crash in 2008 to _only_ deregulation is complete and utter nonsense:
_The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 established an affordable
housing loan purchase mandate for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that mandate
was to be regulated by HUD. Initially, the 1992 legislation required that 30
percent or more of Fannie’s and Freddie’s loan purchases be related to
affordable housing. However, HUD was given the power to set future
requirements. In 1995 HUD mandated that 40 percent of Fannie and Freddie’s
loan purchases would have to support affordable housing. In 1996, HUD directed
Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to
borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was
increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Under the Bush Administration HUD
continued to pressure Fannie and Freddie to increase affordable housing
purchases – to as high as 56 percent by the year 2008.[22] To satisfy these
mandates, Fannie and Freddie eventually announced low-income and minority loan
commitments totaling $5 trillion.[23] Critics argue that, to meet these
commitments, Fannie and Freddie promoted a loosening of lending standards -
industry-wide.[24]_
And if you can't ascribe 2008 to deregulation, then your point starts to
become watered down: maybe deregulation isn't the "unquestionable failure" you
claim it to be.
You can read on to see about other things that government had their hands in,
such as the CRA and lower interest rates. (Among other things, such as the
institutions of Fannie and Freddie themselves!)
[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_United_States_hou...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_United_States_housing_bubble#Mandated_loans)
~~~
corford
My understanding was that Freddie (and later Margaret Thatcher's imitation
with selling council houses in the UK) were policy decisions made on advice
from the then nascent neoliberal movement.
~~~
burntsushi
I honestly don't know. But I do know it's not deregulation when you add more
government intervention in markets.
------
SatoshiPacioli
"Taxi drivers protesting Uber aren’t saying that they want apps out of their
cabs. They want leverage to negotiate wages and working conditions so they
aren’t barely scraping by. The pushback is on exploitative business models,
not technology."
I have been on the receiving end of exploitative business models. The answer
is Exit, not Voice. Here's why: enough people exit -> wages go up and/or
working conditions improve. Period. Yes, it's that simple. The problem is that
we are creatures of habit, driving around is a relatively easy job, and the
self-awareness necessary to change is scarce.
But wait, survival of the fittest and I don't give a shit. I really don't.
These taxi/uber drivers will be replaced by driverless cars. We need a
government program to retrain these people and employ them, just like we had
for farmers and factory workers. Or not. Seeing people try to fend for
themselves is more interesting than seeing them do make-work in a federal
building - who knows, they might actually adapt, thrive, and makes something
of themselves.
~~~
cariss
To the quote above: wages are determined by productivity, not negotiation
leverage. The moral implications of "barely scraping by" don't factor in.
~~~
SatoshiPacioli
Ehrm, no, obviously not. A marketing intern can be more productive than an
engineering intern and make 1/2 as much. It's determined by supply and demand,
nothing else.
------
tomasien
Just a clarification: Cab drivers are protesting Uber because Uber takes away
their business and there's nothing they can do about it. It's not because they
feel pressured to become Uber drivers and take less money - Uber drivers make
a shit ton of money. It's the cab OWNERS who are really fucked.
~~~
acdha
> It's not because they feel pressured to become Uber drivers and take less
> money - Uber drivers make a shit ton of money
What evidence do we have that this is true or, if so, will remain so past the
period when they're recruiting to enter a new market? It seems a lot more
likely that Uber is going to keep gradually lowering the rates paid to drivers
to maintain their profit margins amidst competition.
~~~
tomasien
I've spoken to every Uber driver that I've ever had, every one in SF was on
pace to make 6 figures this year and thrilled with it. Average seems to be
80-100k depending on how much you drive. Cab drivers have to work their asses
off on someone else's terms to even approach that.
------
freshhawk
Apparently this is an unpopular opinion here but fucking mental standing slow
clap in my head when I finished that.
That's a nice piece of cogent writing.
------
jgalt212
Finally a Marc Andreessen take down by a respected member fo the hacker
community. In short, Marc and Ben just need to STFU.
------
Detrus
An affordable safety net could be possible with cheap renewable energy and
magic hydroponic farms that make food even cheaper. Anyone could have a small
farm in their room! Then you just need housing. Maybe we'll make some fancy
new materials in the next tech bubble, so that you can put up luxurious,
energy efficient, 10 story housing with the ease of a trailer park.
These technologies were promised a while ago, we just need to make them work
well. Any day now. Then tech progress can continue unchallenged by the needs
of human sustenance.
On the other hand, the Amish approach has its own merits.
------
nationcrafting
<blockquote>Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and
financialization. The result? Global recession, lingering structural
unemployment, and an accumulation of capital at the top of the economic
pyramid.</blockquote>
To blame systemic deregulation for the recession is to be profoundly unaware
of the system in question. One cannot speak of a free market when the very
thing at the core of that market - i.e. money, the one thing that everyone
buys when they're selling something, and that everyone sells when they're
buying something - is in the hands of a monopoly, and a politically motivated
one at that: its raison d'etre is not even the quality of the product it
provides.
If money were edible, you would see much more clearly just what a centrally
managed, soviet style style system this really is, because there'd be queues
of starving citizens just as we saw back in the era of soviet resource
management.
If anything, it could be argued that without the level of free market we've
enjoyed, things would be much, much worse. After all, the one sector where
there's been close to zero regulation, the internet, has been the sector
that's enjoyed massive growth over the last few decades. Compared to the days
when telephony was state managed and nothing worked, we've been progressing in
seven league boots, thanks to the free market.
PS: how does one quote on HN?
------
fpgeek
> Did I miss one of Asimov's Laws that says androids are always programmed to
> be more socially-minded than neoliberals?
If you missed Asimov's Zeroth Law [0], then yes, you did.
That being said, since, AFAIK, we don't know how to program robots with
Asimov's Laws anyway, I'm not sure how relevant that is.
[0] "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to
harm." (with the expected modifications to the First, Second and Third Laws).
------
guiambros
Worth watching the talk by Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO, during last SXSW. The
interesting part starts at 20:30s, when he talks about the impact of
technology on our economy and society.
He's not against technology or robots. Quite the opposite; he's a maker, geek
and technology enthusiast. But he still raises good points of what will happen
with jobs and wealth distribution, due to technology growth.
We're on a one-way street, and yes, this is completely different than what
what happened 50, 100 years ago. We'll have significant changes in our society
as we all learn how to live in a world with less jobs, explosion of
technology, increasing wealth concentration, and fast gentrification of main
cities.
Kudos to Al3x for bringing light to these important topics.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npYV5bzy7ug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npYV5bzy7ug)
------
tormeh
We live in the techno-utopia today. Food and shelter are not problems anymore.
If it were otherwise, we would all be farmer-lumberjacks. It used to be like
this, but it's solved now. We have enough for everybody - it's just about
spreading the goods a little bit more evenly.
~~~
mempko
Really? Have you seen the solved problems of food and shelter in places like
Detroit?
~~~
tormeh
My comment consisted of five to six sentences, depending on how you count
them. It's not hard to read all of them before replying.
------
sinwave
Some points in Andreesen's post were eerily reminiscent of Keynes' musings
about the fifteen hour work week. See link [http://georgemaciunas.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/Economi...](http://georgemaciunas.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/06/Economic-Possibilities-of-Our-Grandchildren.pdf)
------
tempodox
This post (+ the comments, of course) should be on position 1. I think there
are few topics more worthy of discussion than that.
------
patrickaljord
> Well, we’re three decades into an era of systemic deregulation and
> financialization. The result?
Not really, finance and banking are still the most regulated sectors on earth.
Hardly deregularized.
~~~
phillmv
A field can remain highly regulated while having certain aspects deregulated.
This is what we saw before the financial crisis. For instance, the repeal of
the Glass-Steagall act is credited with enabling the broad systemic risk that
created Too Big To Fail - by allowing commercial banks to invest in securities
and proprietary trading.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation)
This was further compounded in Europe by loosening up leverage ratio
requirements - but I don't have a link handy for that one.
You're also not commenting on the second word in there - financialization. The
2008 crisis wasn't possible in the 90s, because the residential mortgage
market in the US hadn't been fully securitized prior to the aughts.
Anyhow, to pretend like there has been _no deregulation_ is to be disingenuous
at best.
~~~
seehafer
> Anyhow, to pretend like there has been no deregulation is to be disingenuous
> at best.
True, but then to blame a financial crisis on free markets when no such thing
even remotely existed is also disingenuous at best.
------
comboy
Seems that both authors don't really see strong AI as a possibility (at least
within say next 50 years). I wonder what HN readers take on that is, but to me
it seems quite likely. Not necessary designing one from the scratch, but
"uploading" human brain (once we have good enough resolution and technology).
It changes quite a bit about everything.
~~~
J_
Like you said, strong AI would change everything. The richest will be the
first to utilize them. Things get scary from that point on.
Unless we massively redistribute wealth, then inequality will arrive at
unimaginable levels. It's hard to think of a world where the top 1% owns many
multiples of what the bottom 99% owns.
I'm guessing at some point that we'll decide as a species that strong AIs
cannot be owned by individuals. I'm guessing that it won't be a smooth
transition. Instead, we'll become quasi-communists and fairly evenly
distribute gains made by the strong AIs.
Also by "uploading", I'm guessing you mean simulate the human brain? Actually
uploading a human consciousness would come a while after the advent of strong
AI.
~~~
comboy
Yes I mean simulating human brain (of course with all advantages of digital
form, including increased speed and multiple copies).
I don't think that wealth would matter at all after strong AI.
------
nomedeplume
tl;dr: Rich assholes abuse language to protect their power by rah-rahing the
weak into spirituality-based causes. Business as usual.
------
cariss
Technological innovation is driven by consumer demand to a much greater extent
than the "decisions and whims" of billionaire VCs. If only it were that
simple, r>g might actually be true.
This is crap.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dat, open-source software, seeks to restart the open data revolution - gordon_freeman
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/dat/
======
danieldk
Can anyone explain how this is different from iRods, which is already in
production at many organizations, abstract away the underlying data storage
systems, provides policy enforcement, authentication [1], and trigger rules?
[http://irods.org/](http://irods.org/)
Moreover, iRods is written in C++, which can be an advantage to Node.js at
various levels. First of all, because it is easier to provide interoperability
with other languages. Second, because many data centers are very conservative
(you often see CentOS/RHEL 3/4/5, or even SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), and
will not be happy to install the relatively bleeding-edge Node.js stack.
[1] In practice, a lot of scientific data is provided for non-commercial use.
This is often a necessity, because the data was originally provided by a
commercial entity, who don't want to provide the same data to competitors.
E.g. in NLP, a lot of treebanks are based on news papers. They can often be
redistributed freely for non-commercial purposes, but not for commercial
purposes.
~~~
pbnjay
AFAICT, in my limited experience with irods and reading through the dat docs.
Is that irods is mainly a data distribution mechanism. Whereas dat here seems
to be the a generic ETL framework (data extraction and munging).
------
rpedela
Based on a quick look at the documentation, it looks like it can read, write,
and store data. Is the functionality for versioning, diffs, different storage
backends, etc there yet? I know it takes time to build these things, I am just
wondering how far along the project is.
I also have a concern about the fact it is written in Node. It is well known
that Javascript doesn't understand large numbers so I am curious how the
project is handling this?
~~~
sh1mmer
Node easily does arbitrary sized numbers. This is achieved either using Node's
own Buffer type, TypedArrays or a binding such as BigNum which provides an
interface to the number functions in Node's openSSL binding.
~~~
rpedela
> Node easily does arbitrary sized numbers.
No it doesn't. Having to use buffers is not easy and the BigNum OpenSSL stuff
is slow and limited (only integers). I have personally had a hell of a time
supporting PostgreSQL's numeric type in a Node web server. Can it be done with
Node? Sure, but it is not easy or fast.
If dat was just for moving buffers around then it would probably be okay, but
it is wanting to be the place for data transformations as well which is what
concerns me.
------
terhechte
Here's a good explanation of what the software tries to achieve, from one of
the files in the Github repo. Much more informative than the Wired article:
Here's a concrete example: A police department in a city hosts an Excel
spreadsheet on their web server called Crime-2013.xls. It contains all of the
reported crime so far this year and gets updated every night at midnight with
all of the new crimes that were reported each day.
Say you wanted to write a web application that showed all of the crime on a
map. To download the new data every night you'd have to write a custom program
that downloads the .xls file every night at midnight and imports it into your
application's MySQL database.
To get the fresh data imported you can simply delete your entire local crime
database and re-import all rows from the new .xls file, a process known as a
'kill and fill'.
But the kill and fill method isn't very robust, for a variety of messy
reasons. For instance, what if you cleaned up some of the rows in the crime
data in your local database after importing it last time? Your edits would get
lost.
Another option is a manual merge, where you try and import each and every row
of the incoming Excel file one at a time. If the data in the row already
exists in the database, skip it. If the row already exists but the incoming
data is a new version, overwrite that row. If the row doesn't exist yet, make
a whole new row in the database.
The manual merge can be tricky to implement. In your import script you will
have to write the logic for how to check if an incoming row already exists in
your database. Does the Excel file have its own Crime IDs that you can use to
look up existing records, or are you searching for the existing record by
other method? Do you assume that the incoming row should completely overwrite
the existing row, or do you try to do a full row merge?
At this point the import script is probably a few dozen lines and is very
specific to both the police department's data as well as your application's
database. If you decide to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL in the future you
will have to revisit this script and re-write major parts of it.
If you have to do things like clean up formatting errors in the Police data,
re-project geographic coordinates, or change the data in other ways there is
no straightforward way to share those changes publicly. The best case scenario
is that you put your import script on GitHub and name it something like 'City-
Police-Crime-MySQL-Import' so that other developers that want to consume the
crime data in your city won't have to go through all the work that you just
went through.
Sadly, this workflow is the state of the art. Open data tools are at a level
comparable to source code management before version control.
[https://github.com/maxogden/dat/blob/master/docs/what-is-
dat...](https://github.com/maxogden/dat/blob/master/docs/what-is-dat.md)
------
gordon_freeman
Dat can be useful to let city governments create data visualizations for
dynamically changing real-time data from various entities without worrying
about what kind of format the original data is in. This can really empower
cities becoming more efficient. One application would be they might create a
dashboard where they can see real-time analytics of their library systems,
fire-depts,crime-zones vs police-stations etc even though all these entities
have raw data in different format and even different database management
systems.
------
fiatjaf
I like the idea behind Dat, but I totally hate its authors because they said,
somewhere in their page, sometime ago, that their preference is for "academic
research data" (or something like that).
Why did they need to say that? I don't want a tool that has a preference for
something so stupid as academia.
But I'll probably forget this and start loving Dat if it manages to enable
this "open data revolution".
~~~
rwl
According to the article, the focus on scientific data is a product of funding
from the Sloan Foundation:
"Although Ogden's background is in city government, the Dat team is now
squarely focused on the needs of scientists. That's largely because of the
Sloan Foundation's focus. 'I don't come from a scientific background and
wasn't even thinking about science data,' he says. 'But they convinced me that
I should.' He explains that scientists have to deal with many of the same
issues with formats and tracking changes that city governments do. Using Dat,
Ogden says, much of this complexity could be abstracted away, at least for
some users of the data."
I don't think this is a reason for hating the authors or the project. Academic
scientists face a lot of the same problems as users of open data, and if the
Sloan Foundation wants to pay to solve those problems for science, the project
moves forward more quickly, and people using open data in other ways still
benefit.
~~~
fiatjaf
This is good to hear. My hatred has gone. Thank you!
------
dang
We changed the title to a sentence from the article since the thing about free
food is misleading.
------
mlvljr
Dat open-source again! ;)
~~~
mlvljr
Oh, come on, was there no one else who initially misread the title?? :)
------
random28345
> Let’s say your city releases a list of all trees planted on its public
> property. It would be a godsend—at least in theory. You could filter the
> data into a list of all the fruit and nut trees in the city, transfer it
> into an online database, and create a smartphone app that helps anyone find
> free food.
So assuming that an individual fruit tree produces 20,000 calories of edible
fruit annually, and there are a couple dozen fruit trees in a typical American
city, we will have spent a hundred man hours in app development and testing to
turn half a million potential calories into a few thousand, as we inflict the
tragedy of the commons on these public resources and encourage people to pick
the immature fruit before someone else with the app does.
That idea is so stupid, by next week I expect to see 8 startups with a
combined valuation of 80 million dollars all attempting to monetize the 24
fruit trees on public property in Mountain View by selling ads targeting
"urban nomads" (aka homeless), or by paying homeless to gather unripe fruit
for each other in whatever litecoin or ripple clone is in vogue that week.
~~~
tlrobinson
I don't think I could have written a more perfect parody of Hacker News
comments that ignore the point of the article but nitpick one small thing in
an attempt to demonstrate the commenter's intelligence.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How much can you earn from blogging on Medium? - mese848
https://medium.com/swlh/how-much-money-can-you-actually-make-writing-articles-on-medium-e9855c255485
======
sytelus
TLDR; They only want to give max which is in range of $5000-$11,000/mo income
for a writer. This could obviously be deceiving as we get to see only extreme
outliers. Slighly better stats are here: [https://medium.com/s/partner-
program-updates/april-update-fr...](https://medium.com/s/partner-program-
updates/april-update-from-the-partner-program-1bf39020f3f4)
* 7.1% of active writers earned over $100/mo
* per article lifetime value of an article could be $200-$500 (we don't know the criteria)
Again, without clear filter criteria, mean (or better median) above numbers
are pointless.
However I do believe in their vision of making writing as a profession where
you can actually make living out of. All the income is through $5/mo premium
membership, part of which gets distributed in proportion of engagement on
article. There are lots of people who wants to simply travel the world and
make living from their explorations. I think Medium is becoming very
attractive for such lifestyle as Medium takes responsibility of SEO and
infrastructure while writer just focuses on content.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How would go about building an online store in 2020? - ricedigi
======
Nextgrid
Shopify is nice to get started.
When you get big enough or have custom requirements you can develop your own
solution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where to witness a full solar eclipse in 2017 - titusblair
http://www.visittheusa.com/experience/witness-solar-eclipse
======
darkseas
Gotta say that the total solar eclipse i witnessed in Hungary round 2000 or
so, was one of the most memorable moments of my travels. The sensation of the
terminator rushing at you was breathtaking. The unearthly silence as all the
wildlife goes silent. Very worthwhile.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Learning with Texts (2020) - azurexp
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt/
======
azurexp
To give a bit of the backstory, Learning with Texts was a web application
written in JavaScript which allowed for a sort of computerized reading of
interlinear texts. However recently, Steve Kaufmann and LingQ have decided to
threaten legal action against the software (in the public domain/Unlicense
previously) to remove it from public circulation.
~~~
wkrause
Do you have a source that confirms LingQ filed the motion?
It seems like the most likely explanation, but I haven’t been able to find
much more context here outside of the update to sourceforge.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Road to Clojure Survey - cubix
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/d05837df1efe075/6e382d9b74bee86e
======
old-gregg
A lot of folks seem to _like_ the fact that Clojure runs on JVM. It solves the
libraries problem and takes advantage of probably the best implementation of
VM available. But unfortunately that guarantees that Clojure will never be
truly mainstream.
Why? Lack of shared libraries. This is why Java itself failed. Look at the
list of your processes: they all have significant number of code shared
_between each other_. VM-based languages don't share anything [the only
exception I'm aware of is ngen-ed assemblies in .NET]. If you rewrite all your
running processes in Java you RAM consumption will go through the roof. Or
perhaps even rewriting openssl in Java will double memory consumption of all
processes that use it. Python/Ruby are little better because most of their
standard libraries are implemented in C so at least two Ruby processes share
the same implementation of printf.
In short, that's probably the biggest reason why VM-based languages can't come
close to replacing various dialects of C on OSX/Linux/Windows: they don't play
nice with the OS they're running on.
And needless to say, I would _LOVE_ Clojure to become such replacement.
This brings me to a little dream: wouldn't be nice if Linux had a JVM-based
userspace which would run all Java programs inside of just one big POSIX
process, separated only by means of JVM without kernel involvement? Microsoft
uses does something similar inside of IIS to host separated "application
domains" for different web sites hosted by that IIS instance. If Linux did
that, it would solve the following issues:
* Shared code!!! Loading a library once will guarantee that generated bytecode will be shared by all in-memory programs that use it. I.e. starting a 2nd instance of any Java program will eat zero plus process-specific local data.
* Instant startup times (JVM is loaded and all images can be pre-cached avoiding code validation). Caching of validated bytecode in a dump image AKA CL images is already a feature of JVM AFAIK.
* Seamless interop between processes since they're all running under the same garbage collector and share the same type system.
* Vastly increased productivity for desktop software programming. Not having to use dialects of C is awesome.
</dream>
BTW I heard of Microsoft's "Singularity" project which looks something like
this, but for .NET. I wonder where are they going with it...
~~~
moe
Hm, so you're saying that arguably the most popular language today has failed
to become mainstream? Sorry, lost me at that assertion...
~~~
pygy
Java is popular for server-side applications, where one program runs on a
cluster of machines. The RAM consumption issue arises on the desktop, where
lot's of apps run on a single computer... and Java didn't get much market on
the desktop.
------
icey
I can't say I'm surprised that it devolved into a flame war by page two.
~~~
critic
It started as a sarcastic flame, intended to mock a language (you have to be
familiar with the characters to see it though)
~~~
icey
Yes, I'm familiar; that's why I'm not surprised.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LILO development ends next month - zlatan_todoric
It is stated on its site but developer is offering adoption to anyone who wants to move forward with it. It has basic GPT and RAID (so more work there) and also needs BTRFS love.
======
mschuster91
tbh I didn't know it still was under active development. Last time I used LILO
must be... 15 years ago?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: How to Dazzle? - ideamonk
http://ideamonk.blogspot.com/2008/08/trying-to-dazzle.html
eversince I have seen http://tinyurl.com/6ddzjh , I have always wanted to automate creation of such images. such an attempt is http://ideamonk.blogspot.com/2008/08/trying-to-dazzle.html
But I am wondering how to perfect it. Right now it's just a rand() doing the magic. But there is something more to the original art. It seems that "the edges have a nice particle effect, the size of squares vary according to either luminance or similarity of neighbor area... and there might be a lot more to watch out! Boxes don't overlap much in the original work, and smaller tiny boxes play very significant role in giving life to the guitar kid..."<p>So, fellow hackers please help this kid as to what he needs to know in image processing to be able to do the trick. Like how to detect uniform areas in an image... how to detect edges. For example if i have a photo of a shirt, I wish to detect where it is crumpled where it is plain. If I am able to do this, I will put big squares at plain areas and small ones at non uniform areas. I think that might reproduce the effect!
Thanks!
======
ideamonk
eversince I have seen <http://tinyurl.com/6ddzjh> , I have always wanted to
automate creation of such images. such an attempt is
<http://ideamonk.blogspot.com/2008/08/trying-to-dazzle.html> But I am
wondering how to perfect it. Right now it's just a rand() doing the magic. But
there is something more to the original art. It seems that "the edges have a
nice particle effect, the size of squares vary according to either luminance
or similarity of neighbor area... and there might be a lot more to watch out!
Boxes don't overlap much in the original work, and smaller tiny boxes play
very significant role in giving life to the guitar kid..."
So, fellow hackers please help this kid as to what he needs to know in image
processing to be able to do the trick. Like how to detect uniform areas in an
image... how to detect edges. For example if i have a photo of a shirt, I wish
to detect where it is crumpled where it is plain. If I am able to do this, I
will put big squares at plain areas and small ones at non uniform areas. I
think that might reproduce the effect! Thanks!
~~~
dandelany
In regards to the size, it looks to me like it varies according to similarity
of neighboring area. This makes much more sense than luminance, since it
allows the more complex areas of the images to be represented by more
"pixels".
~~~
ideamonk
Yes after trying out luminance style plotting, I'm sure its based on
uniformity!
How about taking a point(p,q) and the area of 3x3 around it,
find the average of luminance in this 3x3 block,
store it as a0 and
now increase the size of 3x3 square to 4x4, find average of luminance, lets
call it a1,
now if |a1-a0|<threshold, we say the area is uniform! and repeat steps till
size<size_threshold
Will this work? or instead of averaging luminance, I should average R,G,B
separately and match against threshhold to increase the size(to be more
strict)
Have got exam tomorrow, will work more on these insights as soon as I finish
preparing my data sctuctures and discrete maths syllabus. thanks :), (psst!
can't get my head away from these new ideas)
------
omouse
I'm curious, why aren't you trying to use the GIMP to do this? It can be
scripted with Scheme/Script-Fu and Python, it seems that would be easier than
using C++ and Allegro.
Cool stuff in any case :D
~~~
ideamonk
It will be less _open_ in nature if I try doing in Script-Fu. Firstly I will
have to understand how it works... then it will become something which only
GIMP users can use, and besides... I just want to do from basics... once done
;) I will surely make it for GIMP and Matlab (psst.. I have no idea of matlab
and know very little python ;) )
yeah! GIMP will give support for loads of image formats ;) But nothing new to
explore before my exams get over :X
------
rewind
Here is another option:
<http://mybedazzler.com/>
~~~
ideamonk
what the hell is this?
------
maxklein
Split the picture into grids of 10x10. Take the color in that grid and find
the average color of all the colors in there. Calculate the color distance to
the box beside it. Do same for luminance.
------
alex_c
It's been a while since my multimedia class (and I was never that good at it
:D) but the effect is reminiscent of JPEG compression. Might be worth looking
into that algorithm.
~~~
ideamonk
JPEG compression is producing pixelation type effects... I think it is bigger
than this. <http://ideamonk.blogspot.com/2008/08/dazzle-hard.html>
~~~
alex_c
Not as very low quality settings:
<http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~ace/jpeg-tut/pix/imagec3.jpg>
------
herdrick
This is great.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Textdb.dev – simple data sharing for fun projects - bontaq
https://textdb.dev
======
bontaq
Made because I couldn't find a simple, no-sign-up service to sync a list of
names for a command line tool. And resubmitted because yesterday I goofed and
the curl commands listed didn't point to the right location, which really took
the fun out of it.
Favorite part of the project: trying out Phoenix's built in pub sub + live
view (the live view subscribes to a data/:id topic, which the api write
endpoint publishes to) to get that nice instant update on write if you have
the data open in the browser without polling.
It's also fun to see how fast it syncs multiple browser windows watching the
same data when you edit it in one window. That's not useful, but I give it 1
"neat".
~~~
chris_st
That's pretty cool! Are you doing anything like rate-limiting to prevent
abuse?
~~~
bontaq
Thanks 8), rate limiting is just the most basic of nginx configs to like, 10
requests / second / ip
~~~
sreekotay
Really simple cool! One minor thing on the IP rate limiting side.... LOTS of
mobile/cell users might end up NAT'ed behind a single IP. Just an FYI.
~~~
blisseyGo
That's a good point. How does one rate limit correctly in that case?
~~~
anderspitman
Rate limiting by data UUID might actually be pretty effective. I should add
that to patchbay.pub.
~~~
blisseyGo
That might be an issue if someone is using it to deliver lets say settings
json and multiple users try to request the file.
------
miki123211
It would be cool if it was possible to read the data not just by the ID, but
also by the hash of the ID.
That would let us serve stuff like version information and links to the latest
version, without the fear that somebody is going to reverse engineer our app
and replace the data with something malicious.
We, as the app author, would have the full key, so we could read and write,
whereas users would have nothing but the hash.
~~~
bontaq
That's a cool idea, I'd definitely like to add the ability to create a little
store with more safety, and that totally works with the goal of simplicity.
I'll give it a shot.
~~~
TedDoesntTalk
It's a cool idea, but the old anti-pattern about security through obscurity
applies.
~~~
bart__
I never really understood this argument, obscurity add an obvious layer of
protection, not impenetrable of course, but still valid. Why is this different
than an API key for example?
~~~
gregmac
If compromised, you can change an API key. The key is like a password, and
keeping that secret is important.
Where the "obscurity" aspect comes in, as an example, can be through the
mechanism used to generate and validate that key.
Let's say you decide you don't want to or can't store the keys, and don't want
a full pki system (public/private keys or certificates), so go with:
sha256(clientid + userid + "hardcoded secret"). Your security now 100% relies
on no one knowing that algorithm. If someone figures it out, you need to
release a new version of your software, invalidate ALL API keys, and for that
effort you still haven't done anything to prevent the same thing happening
again.
A good test of this is: if someone has your source code, can they break your
security mechanism? If yes, you're probably relying on security though
obscurity. By contrast, if you're using asymmetric encryption to generate
keys, it doesn't matter if someone knows that: if they don't have the private
key, they can't do anything. (This leaves aside the issue of storing your
private key or other secrets in source code, but I'd describe that as an
operational failure rather than a fundamental design problem).
~~~
Chickenosaurus
If a cryptographic hash function is used, the security of this scheme doesn't
rely on keeping the algorithm secret, though. Therefore, it's not security
through obscurity. Of course, weaknesses could still exist (e. g. a too small
input space because the ID that is hashed has too little entropy).
------
josefrichter
Whoever made this, I love you. I do a lot of prototyping in Framer, and this
just make simple prototypes that communicate with one another hell of a lot
easier!
~~~
StavrosK
You may also like this super simple MQ I wrote a while ago:
[https://www.stavros.io/posts/messaging-for-your-
things/](https://www.stavros.io/posts/messaging-for-your-things/)
~~~
canada_dry
+1
A handy substitute for mqtt since it doesn't allow a simple http get/post
method to set and query keys - something very useful with iot _stuff_!
------
bontaq
I see some of you are realizing that I haven't enforced any data url to be a
UUID, good on you. I hope it opens up new neat things like
[https://textdb.dev/data/hello-hackernews](https://textdb.dev/data/hello-
hackernews) or more creative ideas.
~~~
ASVVVAD
That's awesome! I was wondering if I had to go to
[https://textdb.dev](https://textdb.dev) using the browser to get an ID x)
~~~
bontaq
Nah it just gives you a more secret id, I'm happy to support people talking
about apples at
[https://textdb.dev/data/apples](https://textdb.dev/data/apples)
------
redm
I really like simple tools like this. Well done; I can see lots of uses for
this, especially with the Serverless/Jamstack surge.
I love the idea of Hashing and read/write keys mentioned in this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=miki123211](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=miki123211)
I also like the idea of batch requests so you can pul multiple keys at once,
or set multiple keys at once. It seems better for everyone.
My only concern is that a small portion of users will undoubtedly try to abuse
this with high volumes or large objects, or both.
Have you published any limits on value key size, value size, read/write limits
for keys etc? It might be worth thinking about now before you have to shutdown
users or shutdown the service due to cost.
Congrats again!
~~~
bontaq
Thanks! So far the limits are about 500Kb, which is more than enough for what
this service is intended for.
The setting of multiple keys I'd have to think about, as it's already so easy
to acquire multiple keys -- ie I don't think I'd be saving or making anything
much faster by special handling for it. Pulling multiple keys is likewise,
you're free to do it in an async all.
------
ximm
This seems to be in a similar spirit to
[https://patchbay.pub/](https://patchbay.pub/).
I love these small services, but I still don't have an idea how they can be
scaled up: If you want to use them for anything serious you probably have to
prevent abuse and comply to all kinds of regulations.
~~~
anderspitman
I didn't design patchbay to scale. I think of it more as a hammer, or maybe a
Swiss army knife. Things can be useful without scaling.
------
berkas1
Hi, is the source code available? :)
BTW, the front page's HTML seems to have a <head> and <body> inside another
<body>.
~~~
bontaq
Sure, I just made it public over here:
[https://github.com/bontaq/textdb](https://github.com/bontaq/textdb)
Yeah I'm not sure why it's doing that, v annoying though
~~~
cocktailpeanuts
probably you have a layout bug. it's wrapping a layout within a layout.
~~~
bontaq
Yep that was it, ty, it should be fixed now
------
jwarren
I think this is really nice and smart. I would suggest left-aligning the text
in the edit/view mode for a few reasons:
1) It's a bit easier to read for longer text sources 2) It makes
writing/reading JSON/YAML/other data sources _much_ easier 3) lists are much
easier to parse
~~~
bontaq
I have added an option in the data view to customize text alignment, thanks
for the good idea
------
abathur
I'd already been pondering the paperclip-machine universe that could be
created by a Twitter bot that just pipes tweets to bash and posts the output.
Now it could just trawl Twitter for addresses at
[https://textdb.dev](https://textdb.dev), and throw the contents through bash,
post the result back to textdb, and tweet a new link... :]
~~~
lou1306
I'm pretty sure you could build a Turing machine with textdb as tape and a
Twitter bot as the tape head.
------
TedDoesntTalk
What language is this? I visited
[https://www.phoenixframework.org/](https://www.phoenixframework.org/) and
even watched a few minutes of a video but there's no mention of the
programming language. I suppose the language is called Phoenix?
~~~
detaro
It's Elixir.
~~~
TedDoesntTalk
huh. I would have thought
[https://www.phoenixframework.org/](https://www.phoenixframework.org/) would
mention Elixir then.
~~~
detaro
It does in a few places, not very obvious though, especially if you might not
know that "Elixir" is a programming language, agreed.
------
webmaven
Very cool! Do you have any sort of dashboard displaying stats for the service?
Simple totals would be interesting, of course (size, # of buckets, # of edits,
etc.), but I'd find histograms of edits etc. per bucket particularly
fascinating.
~~~
bontaq
I don't yet, but let me get back to you in a couple days. I think it'd be
interesting to all.
~~~
webmaven
_ping_
------
gmemstr
Is there an upper limit to the amount of data that can be stored on an
endpoint?
~~~
bontaq
There currently isn't, but it is intended for small amounts of data. Today or
tomorrow I'll probably put a cap at 500Kb or so, which is still a heckload of
data.
------
mkoryak
Can you add a link to your GitHub from the website?
I usually star things instead of bookmarking and others probably do too.
~~~
NetOpWibby
[https://github.com/bontaq/textdb](https://github.com/bontaq/textdb)
------
rendall
Is there a maximum file size limit?
~~~
rendall
This was answered here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23949917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23949917)
"There currently isn't, but it is intended for small amounts of data. Today or
tomorrow I'll probably put a cap at 500Kb or so, which is still a heckload of
data."
------
mhass
Very cool. Are you using just cowboy as a server or do you have nginx/Apache
in front?
~~~
bontaq
nginx is in front, but it's just doing a proxy and setting some headers, so
effectively cowboy's serving everything.
So far it's doing a great job too, CPU is at 2%, 1Gb free ram of the 4Gb
available, and a pretty constant 1Mbps outward, on the 20$/m digital ocean
droplet. I may have jinxed it by saying this though.
~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
This is fancy...
------
tannercollin
Great work! I wrote something similar at:
[https://reg.t0.vc](https://reg.t0.vc)
It's useful if you set up bash aliases like "push" and "pull" so you can
quickly move snippets of text across servers.
------
spery
Manually editing data has a bug. If you click cancel it will still update the
value.
~~~
bontaq
Thank you, fixed
------
unixfox
Alternative service except there is no live update:
[https://jsonbox.io/](https://jsonbox.io/)
------
jrott
Thank you for making this it's super handy.
------
WA
What’s the purpose of the read-only link if it has the same UUID?
~~~
bontaq
I just built it without a backfill, new data should have a full read-only hash
-- I'll try to backfill the data tomorrow
------
ximm
The HTML of the frontend is messed up (<head> is duplicated)
~~~
bontaq
Should be fixed now 8)
------
erezsh
Cool idea, nice implementation. But man, fix your README.md!
------
josefrichter
One more question: Does the data expire?
~~~
bontaq
Nope, especially seeing the current usage / data size I think it's perfectly
fine to hang around forever. I may eventually implement something to clean up
data with no reads for > 1 month, but again so far it looks fine to leave
things around.
------
known
Similar service [https://u.instacrypt.me/](https://u.instacrypt.me/)
~~~
mkoryak
No, it's not.
Your link is a message service that self destructs.
OPs link is a storage service
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Edit tests are out of control, say journalists in search of jobs - paultopia
https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/edit-tests.php
======
paultopia
Apparently journalists have their own whiteboard interviews/take-home
exercises!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Flip – A ReactJS Game - xngzng
http://henleyedition.com/flip-a-reactjs-game/
======
tomw1808
I hate you for posting this. I kept playing it while I should have done
something else :)
Great idea, great concept! Keep on! You got your first addict.
~~~
taude
Agreed. I originally was looking for the ReactJS implementation, but find the
game mechanic intriguing. Reminds me a little of the 3d Fez game.
------
colinramsay
This is cool!
Around line 327, would it be better to use classSet rather than string
concatenation?
[http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/class-name-
manipulation...](http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/class-name-
manipulation.html)
~~~
baddox
It certainly would. I wish React would improve the syntax by allowing the
className prop to directly take an object.
~~~
peterhunt
Hehe, believe it or not pre-open source react supported this. We thought it
was too magical but it was crazy convenient.
~~~
baddox
I'm generally a fan of explicitness, but it's just such a ubiquitous pattern
that I think the convenience would make it worth it.
------
tech-no-logical
playing this without really thinking it through, so my remarks may be off.
the mechanics are unusual in the sense that they're deceptively simple but
cunningly difficult at the same time... challenging.
becoming stuck (in level 3, e.g. when reaching the spaceship without the key)
is annoying. could be that you intended this, but for a casual game it would
feel better if that couldn't happen.
related : having to grab the mouse to click the 'replay' button is annoying
too. maybe just use a key ? same goes for the 'next' / 'prev' button. when the
spaceship flies away it triggers an annoying (growing) scrollbar at the bottom
of the page. some overflow: hidden missing somewhere ?
overall I like the concept. someone else already suggested making the board
larger, which I completely agree with.
~~~
henleyedition
Hey thanks for the feedback! I hotfixed the issue with level 3 and added keys
for next/prev/restart (period, comma, and 'r', respectively).
The overflow thing I'll have to fiddle with. I am with you on the board size,
and I'm going to try to find a better way to do it than the zoom.js plugin.
Tile sizes currently are hard coded into the css AND the JavaScript because
I'm stupid, so I'll have to figure out a way to make them fluid-width. Hmm....
------
scscsc
I like the concept, but the graphics is a bit off. First of all, I would
suggest making the board as big as possible and lose the shades of grey.
------
djrconcepts
The game is fun to play, but I recommend using vector .svg graphics for when
the board is zoomed in.
~~~
henleyedition
Hey, game author here! All the sprites are from an svg icon font and the rest
is all just divs. My understanding is that the blurring has to do with how
certain browsers handle 3d transforms by converting vector graphics into
textures:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8024061/webkit-blurry-
tex...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8024061/webkit-blurry-text-with-
css-scale-translate3d)
CSS transforms are awesome, but when you're doing crazy things with them
things can get pretty buggy. Thanks for playing!
------
matthewrhoden1
Add more levels so I can play it longer :)
------
scotty79
Touch on iPad Safari double clicks.
------
maouida
Reminds me of SHIFT2 game.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users - mrduncan
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cormac/papers/2009/SoLongAndNoThanks.pdf
======
epochwolf
tl;dr ->
_...The cost-benefit tradeoff for most security advice is simply unfavorable:
users are offered too little benefit for too much cost. Better advice might
produce a different outcome. This is better than the alternative hypothesis
that users are irrational._
------
fnid2
Every email I get with a url in it gets hovered over to examine the target of
the link in the status bar. I'll never click a link without examining where it
goes. This is why I very rarely click shortened urls, because I don't know
where they go. It is also one of my pet peeves with flash plugins, because I
can't right click on them and see where the content is coming from, of course
if it is in my browser, it's already too late.
It may not be in the best interest of my time, mathematically, but I won't
stop examining urls. For my internet databases behind websites, I always use
random strings for the name of the db, the usernames, and the passwords. I
never need to type them directly, so they can be extremely complicated, long,
and _nearly_ impossible to remember.
I want to reduce the risk that someone can associate www.somesite.com with the
database behind it. If they do that, then they also have to figure out the
weird username and pass. but if the database behind somesite.com is
somesite_db and the user is somesite_user, then I'm already in trouble.
Instead, somesite.com is backed by a database called 3ksxi32kkk329 with a
username of 2391kkxkw329049 and a password of
asdlkfjl2k3j2ol3iosioci923002309899
__*7232$!939120012klk3129x9d923lsd923lse923lll212--0342lsiii
~~~
epochwolf
I think you missed the point. I would assume most people on hacker news know
how to read urls and do it on a daily basis. For you the cost of finding where
a link goes is minimal.
Most people elsewhere do not know how to read urls. Their cost for learning to
read urls and remember how to find out where a link goes is higher than they
are willing to pay and statistical more expensive than not doing so despite
the risks!
~~~
mechanical_fish
_Most people elsewhere do not know how to read urls_
True, and probably an understatement. Many people, perhaps even most of them,
don't know what a URL is, let alone how to interpret its components.
These are the people whose ultimate means of navigating to something is to
type its name, or something like its name, into the browser search box.
Assuming they pay any attention to URLs at all, they presumably treat (e.g.)
the "www.mcdonalds.com" that they see on a print ad as a special magic keyword
that can be typed into Google. And so it is.
------
mrcharles
This is a very interesting whitepaper and makes a lot of sense. Worth reading,
especially around here.
The person to innovate in a way that capitalizes on this research is going to
make a lot of money.
~~~
eru
> The person to innovate in a way that capitalizes on this research is going
> to make a lot of money.
Isn't this the very definition of `capitalize'?
------
bediger
Does this paper represent one of those "Only Nixon could go to China" moments?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bleeding Edge HTML5 - franze
http://kinlan-presentations.appspot.com/bleeding-berlin/index.html#1
======
ccanassa
I saw this presentation on the Google Developers Day, the WebRTC was working
during the presentation.
------
pan69
"webkitMediaSourceURL is not available"
Guess my latest Chromium isn't bleeding edge enough.
------
ciupicri
I'm getting lots of "503 Service Unavailable".
------
Tichy
Doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome for me.
------
DrinkWater
the page is empty except for the js-alert telling me that
"webkitMediaSourceURL is not available"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
GitKraken 0.5.0 with Git Flow integration - smonff
http://www.gitkraken.com/release-notes
======
brudgers
GitKraken home page: [http://www.gitkraken.com/](http://www.gitkraken.com/)
------
ivl
It's really superficial, but the name alone makes me want to give it a try.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How much (or how little) we trust the world's biggest brands - lpcrealmadrid
https://intel.morningconsult.com/featured/2017/12/13/brands-review#section_home
======
oomwat
Awful UI on that page ... whoever designed that should be shot!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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