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Ask HN: How to archive online articles - jdowner
Often, after reading an article online, I want to be able to archive the contents of the article for future reference or to add notes. Obviously I could just save the webpage, but I was wondering if anyone knows of a service or application that can extract the contents of a online article (ideally into a text-based format like markdown).
======
CM30
Archive.is works pretty well:
[http://archive.is/](http://archive.is/)
(or at least, it does in non Firefox browsers. Seems uBlock and this site are
conflicting at the moment).
You can also do the same thing with the Internet Archive itself:
[https://archive.org/web/](https://archive.org/web/)
Just enter the link into the lower right text box, and click 'save page'.
There are others too, as well as tools you can download to locally save
articles (or whole websites) for future reference.
------
ashokr86
[https://zoho.com/notebook](https://zoho.com/notebook) You could very well try
Zoho Notebook's browser extensions available in Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
Clean view the article and store it in Notebook for future reference.
------
jdowner
To provide an answer to my own question: I have found that a combination of
pythons 'readability-lxml' package and 'lnyx' works pretty well. For example,
python -m readability.readability -u file:///foo.html | lynx -dump -stdin
produces a pretty nice text format.
------
mkbkn
Maybe [https://instapaper.com](https://instapaper.com)
------
edotrajan
check out [https://webrecorder.io/](https://webrecorder.io/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why my first startup in the valley “flopped” - pat2man
http://pozo.me/post/28603867718/startup-flop
======
ChuckMcM
I've seen a lot of startups come and go and there is a huge difference between
'coming up with a problem to solve' and 'finding a problem to solve.'
They sound the same but they aren't. In the first case you look around and you
say "What problems are people having?" and you see one and you thing "Oh, I
could solve that, let's go!"
The challenge is that if you asked them they might agree its a problem but
might not think it is worth solving. If instead you talked to a bunch of
people and said, "I'm here to solve your biggest problem, tell me about it so
that I can get started." you get from your future users what they think is the
biggest problem that needs solving.
Now if you talk to a lot of people you will get a set of problems. If you make
sure you talk to people of different ages then you'll populate your set with
problems from different age groups (and different life stages), if you talk to
people in different industries you will populate your set of problems with
with different skill sets, and if you talk to people at different sized
companies you will populate your problem set with people with varying levels
of time/money to invest or spend.
Now if you take those problems, and try to tease out what the underlying
structural issue is that makes it a problem you will get a list of structural
issues.
Finally, after all this talk talk talk, you find the structural issues which
are at root of many problems, and then design a product around that.
Your will have a huge advantage. You'll know _why_ you built your product, you
will know the kinds of problems it can make go away and how much of the
problem it will mitigate. You can quantify the impact on your customer's
quality of life, and you can target people who you can reasonably expect are
having the problem you can solve.
In many ways understanding how your vision fits in to the rest of the world
will be the 'secret sauce' that makes you successful.
~~~
seunosewa
This sounds very good, but many sensible ideas don't work in practice. Any
practical experience to back it up?
~~~
ChuckMcM
Well this the way we went about developing our product at FreeGate which was
widely praised by our customers and lead to a successful exit (acquisition )
in 2000. However through out my career so far I have had more success when
problems come to me rather than making ones to solve.
~~~
freeflop
FreeGate? Wasn't that the company that thought the way to build a manageable
router appliance was to take FreeBSD and rewrite all the software to use a
_custom built database_ instead of their existing config files (without
/etc/passwd, /etc/hosts, etc)?
Didn't that mean replacing a large body of stable working code and engineering
knowledge with fresh stuff with unknown behavior possibly understood by no
more than one or two people in the entire world?
Didn't that cause recruiting headaches, quality issues and schedule slips
causing them to almost entirely miss the window for their product?
I'd think it a bit disingenuous to call that company a success. If anything
they should serve as an example of what happens when a company's technical
leadership identifies the wrong problem to solve.
Edit: there appears to be a timeline here
<http://www.freegate.net.au/news/press_releases.html> with plenty of mention
of funding and partnerships starting in 1997 but no announcements of actual
shipments or sales.
~~~
ChuckMcM
Throw away accounts with snarky names aside [1], the problem FreeGate set out
to solve was that small to medium businesses wanted to be on the Internet,
ISPs wanted to sell them Internet service, but the economics of doing that for
non-tech savvy businesses was broken. This was in 1996. At that time, if you
were Pizza hut, and your Internet access went down, and then you called
support, they would likely as not ask you something like "can you ping the
router on our end?" If the telephone company was run like that their question
would be like "Can you measure the voltage between ring and tip?" We talked to
a lot of ISPs, and a number of value added resellers (VARs), and small
business (SMB) owners, and networking companies, the common bit that was
underpinning a huge number of issues was that SMB's didn't have the resources
to hire a system administrator or IT guy, the kinds of things they wanted to
do however could mostly be automated. The ISPs wanted to sell to SMBs but if
they called support too often it cut into their margins so much that they
started losing money. The VARs were selling switches and patch panels but the
'big money' was above them selling servers and routers, they wanted to capture
more of that business.
The solution then was a system that could provide a full point of presence on
the network _and_ be fully debuggable by a service tech without having to roll
a truck to the customer site or ask them questions they had no way of knowing
how to answer. This has been a remarkably successful tool in the telephone
market in the form of private branch exchanges (PBX). So how do you build a
network server with the management and usability characteristics of a PBX?
The path FreeGate chose was to design and build a 1U server that could fit
inside the telephone racks of the time, and then create a management package
on top of a stable OS release that would allow us to offer the local customer
a UI for doing the kinds of things they wanted to do (like add or delete email
accounts, put up web pages, or create a VPN tunnel between outlets or offices.
FreeGate shipped the first one about 3 weeks later than the original schedule
called for it to be shipped. That included designing a new motherboard,
creating a chassis to hold it, and getting it through a bunch of modem
qualification paperwork. As for market window, FreeGate, Whistle, and Cobalt
who all ended up in variations of this space shipped about the same time. So I
really don't think we'd characterize it as a market window 'miss.'
We also didn't replace "large bodies of stable working code", we did create an
entirely new management system, and we did create a way to proxy DNS requests
so that you could have a DNS namespace for all of your machines both those
with public addresses and those with private addresses. (the box did NAT and
Firewalling as well).
The biggest headache turned out to be Java. And more importantly how 'not
true' the 'whole write once run everywhere mantra' was. Of course Microsoft
and Netscape and Sun were all pointing fingers at everyone else but Java code
that worked fine on Netscape didn't on IE and vice versa, and to make it worse
from minor release to minor release of either of them.
This comment: "Didn't that cause recruiting headaches, quality issues and
schedule slips causing them to almost entirely miss the window for their
product?" is amazingly exactly opposite reality.
During the dot.com "boom" recruiting was challenging for everyone due to the
insane competition for talent, people were giving away 1 year leases to a BMW
sports car for sign on bonuses, kids with 1 year of experience out of school
were demanding titles and pay of "architect." But none of that was at all due
to our implementation.
We did have a weird quality issue, it was too high. One of the strangest
things I learned from that experience was that VARs (those people who re-sell
gear from Cisco and Juniper etc) loved the fact that our product dropped in
and worked, but they didn't like that it never broke. As it turned out their
business model was predicated on making service calls and charging for each
one. When they installed the FreeGate box the customer was 'done', they just
didn't have issues.
After the acquisition, the stock continued to gain value. I don't know about
you, but being worth multiple millions of dollars (on paper of course) post
acquisition made me feel pretty good about the exit.
[1] Sidebar: This comment from 'freeflop' is showing as posted 8 hrs ago from
an account created 8 hrs ago. This is not particularly unusual, especially
when someone wants to talk about their own company in a bad light, but these
things happened last century man. And it seems you still have a lot of pent up
anger/hurt. I think if you came out in the open and had the discussion you
might be able to get some closure but also respect your choice to live with it
inside of you too.
~~~
freeflop
From my perspective[1], instead of being a good example of a company that knew
the right product to build and the right way to get it built, I think it just
shows what happens when a company gets some bubble funding, tries to build
"The Right Thing" and gets forced into an acquisition when it turns out too
hard to do and the easy money runs out.
I find your quality claims rather incredible but I have no experience with
your box. However I do find it rather curious and ironic that you of all
people, an original member of the Java team, were burned by quality problems
in Java. I know WORA fooled a lot of newbies but shouldn't you of all people
known enough about Java at that time to have avoided being bit by those?
Perhaps you personally benefitted from the deal and I'm sure it was fun while
it lasted, but your overall rationalization leaves me unsatisified. Let's be
serious here. If FreeGate
a. knew what to build
b. knew how to build it
we'd all know about it.
[1] Well, I could have posted this from the HN account I abandoned 4 years ago
but who cares. I'm just a FreeBSD contributor who got wind of what FreeGate
was doing second hand and was a bit saddened when I heard about the whole
database thing. That meant I thought they would be unlikely to ever be able to
contribute back to the FreeBSD codebase in a meaningful way (e.g. the way
Whistle did with netgraph).
~~~
ChuckMcM
FWIW we sold a few million units between the A1000 and the A500 over the
lifetime of the product. The FreeBSD folks weren't interested in some "other"
way to manage system configuration (it was all user level anyway), and third
party awareness isn't a measure of quality for any product.
To this comment "Well, I could have posted this from the HN account I
abandoned 4 years ago but who cares." I don't know if anyone 'cares' whether
you post on a newly created count or existing count, but I do care that
creating a throwaway with a snarky name often can indicate a lot of unresolved
personal pain and anger on the part of the poster. That stuff can eat away at
you and leave you in a bad place. As a community we've lost too many good
people to unresolved anger and depression.
------
kkowalczyk
"We took a small friends and family round"
That I do not understand. Why are people so desperate for funding, any
funding?
An ex-Zynga engineer should be easily able to save enough money for at least 6
months, while he's working on an mvp.
Pre-emptive note: I do understand the value of idea validation, expert advice
and connections that comes from getting a small investment from YC or a well-
connected angel investor like Kevin Rose.
But "friends and family"? It seems bad for both parties.
If successful, the founders will loose a significant portion of the business
for insignificant help (small amount of money but no expert advice and no
network to help them in the future).
But most likely they'll fail which doesn't seem fair to their friends and
family.
Incubators like YC and angel investors are sophisticated. They only invest
money they can afford to loose, they understand that any single investment has
10% chance of succeeding so they hedge their bets and they also have a much
better understanding of what has a potential to be successful enough to offer
enough ROI for the investor.
Compared to that, an average person is naive and over-confident about
investing, just like the author of the article was ("I quickly learned that
unless your product has mass appeal and traction, or you are Kevin Rose, high
profile Angels are not going to throw money at you.").
Both parties are victims of confirmation bias: reading TechCrunch one reads
mostly about successful investments and exits which makes inspiring
entrepreneurs think that an investment is normal and inevitable (reality: it's
extremely rare and only awarded to those who stand out from the crowd) and
makes naive "friends and family" investors think that making 10x ROI is a sure
ticket to riches (reality: only the top investors make significant returns).
------
dglassan
It flopped because you didn't make it into an incubator? C'mon.
I don't know what product you built but it sounds like it flopped because no
one needs a better way to gather their friends. That doesn't sound like a
problem (or a business) to me.
~~~
emmanuel_p
That was one of the factors that contributed to the "flop". And your point was
addressed in my first issue. "Identifying a problem vs fabricating one".
~~~
dglassan
There are tons (maybe more?) companies that are successful without the help of
an incubator. People have been raising money and building successful companies
decades before the idea of an incubator even came about.
Not making it into an incubator didn't contribute to the flop at all. A bad
company going through an incubator is still a bad company. I'm not saying your
company was bad, I'm just trying to explain that this whole idea that a
startup can only be successful if they go through an incubator is completely
bogus.
~~~
cutie
I read it as, perhaps the incubator people would have helped shed light on the
reality of the situation.
~~~
dglassan
I get that, and I'm saying you don't need someone at an incubator to tell you
that.
------
bitanarch
My last startup flopped as well. But honestly I couldn't be happier - I think
a lot of first time entrepreneurs make similar mistakes. But you wouldn't be
able to learn them by heart until you've made them and seen what'd happen
after each and every thing you did. Learning by screwing up is 1000x better
than learning by reading Hacker News or Venture Beat.
------
robomartin
It's tough, particularly if it's your first time out. Thankfully the cost of
trying out ideas in the software world is very low. Try experimenting with
hardware to see the other extreme.
In many ways doing hardware ventures teaches you something very important:
Ideas are not what's important; Opportunities are important. This, because the
cost of failure can be very high, and so you learn very quickly that the idea
is almost of no real value until a matching opportunity is identified.
Everyone has ideas for a million different gizmos. I certainly get approached
on a regular basis with "let's build this thing that does this and that and
that". When I ask about the opportunity I usually get blank stares. People
think in terms of ideas. Business is about opportunities that are then matched
with solutions and execution in order to turn a profit.
I used to be on the "I have this great idea" camp. After a number of
businesses all I really care about are solid opportunities. Ideas are nearly
worthless on their own.
------
joshu
i wish people would stop distilling their experiences into pithy blog posts.
the experience is the valuable bit; if you just supply the lessons learned, no
lessons are actually learned.
~~~
rachelbythebay
Speaking as someone who learned a lot from Usenet back in the day, I'm going
to have to disagree with you. Remembering nuggets of data from old posts has
made me able to pull off feats of magic at times when I shouldn't have known
anything about a system in question (because I had never touched one before).
Even just knowing where to look can give you a head start.
Now, if I never remembered this stuff, okay, it would have been time wasted.
If that's the case for you and you don't take away anything from blog posts
(the closest thing we have to rich Usenet posts any more), then perhaps you
could try not reading them.
~~~
joshu
Did the nuggets concern software or people?
I think useful advice about the latter is far more rare about the other kind.
------
klawed
>Changing consumer behavior
Kevin Maney, in Trade-Off, posits that something needs to be 10x cheaper (or
better, or faster or...) to compel someone to change a behavior. Ray Ozzie
liked to apply this rule during his tenure at MS as well. Obviously, measure
10x cheaper is much easier than measuring 10x better but the point remains
that if you're asking people to change their behaviors in any meaningful
fashion, you need to give them real incentives. Edit: adding line break for
clarity.
------
zeeed
but hey, you had a start-up in the valley. congrats on learning from your
mistakes and committing to making it better, next time. Good luck finding your
path!
| {
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The quest for the perfect Linux distribution: an ongoing journey - pietrofmaggi
http://rainbowtux.blogspot.it/2012/08/Quest-for-perfect-Linux-distribution.html
======
neverm0re
I read articles like these hoping they'd contain more interesting
distributions that would challenge the status quo. Projects like GoboLinux,
NixOS and such are far more alien from the average Linux distribution, which
tend to be more alike than they are different. There's strong viewpoints
behind them that are offering new looks at how we all could be doing things,
even if they are merely one or two radical changes here and there.
On some level I think that people who try new things with Linux tend to get
shouted down, usually with intense appeals to tradition -- and unless you're
working on Fedora, chances are it won't see light of day. I actually view this
as pretty unhealthy. It doesn't matter if these new hypothetical alien Linux
distros are actually good or bad, what's important is that people are
constantly trying new things for all of us to learn from.
If someone asks me about the 'perfect Linux distribution' and they only want
to talk about the mainstream distributions, it means we're not dreaming big
enough.
~~~
zokier
I feel like even mainstream distros are beginning to branch out. Ubuntu got
Unity and upstart, Debian is switching to LXDE, Fedora spearheading systemd
and selinux (while keeping gnome), opensuse experimenting with new release
models, and Mint doing its Mate/Cinnamon thingy.
Contrast that to the situation couple of years back, when Ubuntu was mostly a
rebadge of Debian, and almost everyone was shipping with Gnome2 as default.
Even the init systems were more unified then.
------
qznc
This SuSE Tumbleweed looks nice. In my opinion this is what most users
actually want: A stable core system (kernel, cron, Gnome, bash, ...) and
bleeding edge apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, ...).
For Debian and Derivatives this seems to be missing. At least Debian backports
are not in widespread use.
~~~
lunarscape
Ubuntu + PPAs is another solution.
~~~
qznc
PPAs become quite messy in my experience. For example, they get disabled on
major upgrades and I forgot why I included them.
------
scribblemacher
I really want a distro that is minimal but also "just works." I like tweaking
things as much as the next guy, but when I'm heading off to work and want to
print a shipping label from my laptop quick, I really don't want to have to
sit and read a manual to figure out why my printer isn't working. On the other
hand, 90% of the time I'm at my computer, I'm just using Vim or a web browser,
so running a full desktop stack seems like a waste.
The closest thing I've found to what I want is Debian Testing. I've heard good
things about Gentoo, and while I think I'm more than capable of RTFM and doing
it myself, and sometimes I enjoy doing it myself--other time, I really do want
it to just work so I can get work done too.
~~~
keithpeter
"Sometimes I liked to learn things, but on other days it just had to work,
without fiddling too much."
Desktop: CentOS 6, laptop: Ubuntu whatever. I've used Debian Stable on the
desktop previously. Good people are finding things that work for them.
------
icebraining
Debian Unstable:
\- apt-get / aptitude
\- lots of packages
\- rolling release
\- big community
\- committed to support Free Software
~~~
cgh
Over the years, I've had too many issues with Unstable breaking when I needed
it most (generally something work-related). As a home/hobbyist system, it's
probably fine though.
The article's mention of this Tumbleweed distribution is interesting - a
stable, non-breaking core, with up-to-date applications. In fact, achieving
that sweet spot is why I migrated to OS X some years ago. I'm going to check
it out.
~~~
qznc
In reaction to this article I googled around and found SolusOS. Building on
Debian stable, adding convenient non-free stuff (drivers, flash, etc.) and
fresh apps (e.g. current Firefox). I'm currently preparing the install disk,
so no real experience so far, but the reviews are good.
<http://solusos.com/>
------
lnteveryday
A note about Arch: most WMs and DEs have support for packages that allow
configuration through a GUI, although the installation is all text.
Configuration through editing text can sometimes be faster when you really
know your system. As the author points out, running arch can really help you
to get to know your system.
Also, it's been awhile since I was "new" to linux, but arch installation can
be very easy if you follow the beginners guide on the arch wiki. Everything is
spelled out plain and simple.
There is a graphical installer for a branch off of arch, known as Archbang.
It's basically a live system you can boot into (with openbox) and install from
there (still text based really, but a little more friendly). (Some arch users
also fear the road of a GUI installer because it would make it easier for
people with little understanding of linux to run arch, but that is a flawed
philosophy. Arch can be for learning too)
~~~
tikhonj
Installing Arch is easy as long as you don't want to do anything clever. As
soon as you want to do something like setting software RAID up, it becomes
much less easy :P. At least that's been my experience.
Maybe with my next laptop I'll try Arch properly, but it was too much of a
pain last time I tried to install it with my current setup.
~~~
lnteveryday
I generally don't set up RAID on any of my machines because there really is no
need. A quick google search though returns tons of stuff on the archwiki,
which goes through preparation and installation/execution. This isn't only the
case with RAID. As awayand said, the documentation is golden.
------
zwdr
Obviously there is no "perfect" Linux-Distro for everyone. I grew to like
Fedora, but the perfect Distro to me would've been one I put together myself.
And thats why we use Linux after all, isn't it? Because we can choose from so
many flavors. That's also the conclusion the writer comes to- the article is
more of a look at some popular distros, even if the title suggests something
else.
------
autophil
I've been using Mint the past few weeks and it's been solid. I'll stick with
it for the time being (but the new SusE sounds awesome and I've always
preferred RPM over DEB).
------
urlwolf
Sabayon is a rolling release distro that is far easier for newbies than arch.
Worth looking at.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Create a portfolio of the mobile apps you've built - satjot
http://tapfame.com
Tapfame is the easiest way to create a portfolio of all the mobile apps you've worked on. Once you create a portfolio you will start receiving freelance gigs that businesses and companies post.
======
ken
I'm seeing a pattern here (and this is not a criticism of Tapfame, though I'd
love to hear their perspective).
There seems to be general agreement that a startup should build something
people want. The most common response here (and with similar apps, in recent
memory) is people saying they don't want to have to register with another
service like Facebook to use it. And yet, people keep building websites that
do just that, and indicate that they will not change this.
Is Facebook so big that startups can afford to blow off everyone who doesn't
use it? Is integrating with Facebook's identity system so much easier than
writing your own that it saves significant development time? Is there a
strategic plan to do something unique with Facebook later?
I'm not saying anyone should do product design by surveying users, and I admit
I'm not a great product designer, but when potential users all say "I'm not
going to use this product because it makes me jump through hoop X" (and X
isn't a fundamental component), my response would be to remove X.
~~~
potatolicious
> _"And yet, people keep building websites that do just that, and indicate
> that they will not change this."_
IMO there are two salient points to this:
1 - The people who really, really dislike logging in with Facebook (to the
point where they will refuse to participate) are a small but vocal minority.
Even in the tech industry itself.
2 - The strong dislike for using Facebook login is many-fold. For most people
it comes down to abuse of the Facebook link (e.g., spamming things onto your
feed, messaging your friends, being in general awful), and that is a trust
issue that can be mitigated with the correct positioning and assurances. The
people who are against cross-network authentication on principle (as opposed
to some negative artifact of its current implementation) are an even smaller
camp, and they're the only ones you're really guaranteed to lose out on.
> _"but when potential users all say "I'm not going to use this product
> because it makes me jump through hoop X" (and X isn't a fundamental
> component), my response would be to remove X."_
1 - Beware of what your users say, it is not always what they want, or what
they would use. People are extraordinarily bad at guessing their own
motivations, if you took all feedback literally at face value, you might be
screwed. A complaint against X may be actually a complaint against sub-
component Y, or the interaction of X with unrelated bit Z.
2 - The benefit here _vastly_ outweighs the objections. The numbers have shown
this again, and again, and again, _and again_ , that when given the option to
do a one-click signin vs. filling out a form (and giving out your email
address, _again_ ), people will overwhelmingly choose the former.
------
ja27
It looks like I have to manually enter each app's URL. I like how easy it was
to try Kickfolio - just enter app names. <http://kickfolio.com/>
~~~
satjot
Do you know someone there? Would love to chat.
~~~
danielamitay
They're just querying the app store search API:
[http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=$APP...](http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=$APP_NAME)
This is the same search API that Apple uses for the App Store, and returns the
same order and results as Kickfolio. The first result is usually correct, but
you could always double check with the developer.
Example:
[http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=Shar...](http://itunes.apple.com/search?entity=software&term=ShareCal)
~~~
chrisnolet
Nice work! Daniel is pretty much spot on. We run the search term through a
regex to see if the user has entered an iTunes URL first (as we accept either
search terms or URLs), then we pass the search term to the search API listed
above. There is a little magic in sorting the results and a little magic in
combining results from the different international stores. We started with
that though and it gets great results. There are a couple of (fairly old)
Rails gems for it too.
------
philippb
I like the idea. When I worked at appbackr we thought about something similar.
It would be cool when there is a little more data in the about the performance
of the app. I think of it like a dribble for app developers that keeps itself
up to date. As we're programmers we don't want to maintain it :)
You should talk to my friends from appmonsta. They have a lot of data around
apps. Maybe you can work something out.
~~~
satjot
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Can you shoot me an email satjot at
tapfame ?
------
spaghetti
Please provide alternatives to fb login. What are other ways to vet someone's
identity or prevent outsourcing firms from creating profiles?
~~~
satjot
Linkedin maybe?
What if we let developers create portfolios without social identies. Then, if
they do want to be notified about freelance gigs they would need to connect
their Fb/Linkedin.
~~~
spaghetti
I definitely prefer Linkedin over Facebook.
The multi-stage approach could work. When a developer creates a nice profile
it will probably get interest from people seeking freelancers. You can then
entice developers to add social identities with something like "123 people
were interested in your profile. Verify your identity and contact them
today!".
I forget how eLance does the identity verification. iirc it was on the
thorough side. Perhaps more work than you want to invest now but perhaps worth
it later.
~~~
satjot
noted. thanks!
------
gamzer
Interesting idea!
Not sure why but I have only read your main headline when I looked at the page
for the third time. My attention was completely drawn to anything below that
blue-black bar. It has almost camouflage-like properties.
In the featured portfolio all tooltip app names are "App Name".
~~~
arank
sorry. fixed the "app name" thing.
------
autotravis
Am I the only one seeing the "e" cut off of "you've" on the site? :
<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1634015/photos/tapfame.png>
~~~
satjot
What browser are you using?
------
chomchom
I'd like to stick Novoda on it but we are a company of developers rather than
an individual: http;//www.novoda.com but I can only sign up as an individual
on Facebook.
------
vellum
You should put up a screenshot on the front page. Also, the demo link just
looks like regular text.
------
verganileonardo
I dont have a Facebook account. :/
------
dheedene
has a really nice light feel to it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Oracle Webinar: Lowering TCO by moving from MySQL to Oracle - mattmcknight
I received an email invite to this webinar a couple of weeks ago. It takes on a whole new dimension with the Sun acquisition...and it's IE only.<p>4/28 Lower Total Cost of Ownership with Oracle: Comparing Oracle to MySQL<p>As the global economy slows down, companies continue to look at alternative technologies that they feel are more cost effective and will save money on their bottom line. Learn why choosing an Oracle technology platform lowers the total cost of ownership for your company during this live, interactive one hour program. Tony Tarone, the Director of Operations at Cedar Document Technologies, will discuss how he gained a reliable, scalable, secure, and cost effective platform by moving from MySQL to Oracle. Here is the agenda for the session:<p><pre><code> * Oracle Database Overview
* Cedar Document Solutions
* The Move to Oracle for Cedar Documents
* Oracle comparison to MySQL
* Live Q and A with Tony Tarone, Cedar Documents Director
</code></pre>
Please join us to understand the role Oracle could play in helping reduce total cost of ownership at your company.<p>Tuesday, April 28, 2009
11:00 a.m. PT/ 2:00 p.m. ET<p>You can also view our entire schedule and register by going to: http://www.oracle.com/goto/odirectseminar.<p>Audio Information for the Day of the Event:<p>Dial in Numbers:<p>U.S / Canada: +1.877.698.7943 (toll free)
International: +1.706.679.4876 (chargeable)<p>Passcode: nas1<p>Web Information for the Day of the Event:<p>Conference Key: nas1<p>Browser Settings: http://conference.oracle.com/imtapp/app/nuf_sys.uix.<p>To ensure your system is compatible with our conferencing console, Please ensure you follow the steps below. Please complete these steps to avoid any difficulties in joining the web conference.<p><pre><code> * The Conferencing system is compatible only with the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser only. Other browsers are not compatible
* Disable any pop up blockers you might have enabled. For Internet Explorer, Please go to Tools -> Pop up Blocker -> Turn Off Pop-up Blocker
* Please run the browser test</code></pre>
======
andr
This says enough:
* The Conferencing system is compatible only with the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser only. Other browsers are not compatible
There will always be a market for non-technical people that don't know enough
about sharding, replication, etc. and want to have someone else handle this
for them.
~~~
redrobot5050
Yes, but your IT department should not be filled with non-technical people who
want to have someone else handle the sharding, replication, etc. That's an "IT
Department Fail".
------
neovive
The lower TCO claim is frequently used when enterprise apps compare themselves
to open source options. Oracle clearly has better tooling than MySQL which
could make sense for a large corporation, but a small business or startup
would find it difficult to justify the cost of an Oracle backend from the
outset.
Wonder if the IE-only conference link is probably due to a third-party
recommendation. Now that Oracle owns Java, they will probably switch to some
Java conferencing software like Eluminate.
~~~
dmix
Oracle has been developing their products in Java since the 90s, if I'm not
mistaken. I doubt acquiring the language itself will affect their use of Java
products.
Other then that I agree with your comment.
~~~
philcrissman
I worked for Oracle for a couple years. The trend toward IE-dependency is
(largely) because of time invested in a lot of in-house solutions where
ActiveX was employed as part of the web app architecture.
There may be other reasons, but I think the main one is definitely all the
different apps they have (including some acquisitions, i.e. Siebel) which
depend on IE. If they start to move away from IE dependency, it will probably
be a long, slow transition.
------
redrobot5050
I guess the next generation of Rails/Django apps are going to have a
PostgreSQL backend.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
App gold rush is over - tschellenbach
http://www.plattysoft.com/2013/05/09/app-gold-rush-the-gold-is-almost-over/
======
tschellenbach
i think the app store as a distribution mechanism just doesn't scale to the
current number of apps. on the web we've seen the same with yahoo, dmoz etc.
there is still a lot of potential in mobile app development. in fact i think
it's in the early days and the big hits are yet to come. only over the past
year or so is smartphone penetration really starting to pick up. the
difference with the beginning is that you no longer can rely on the app store
to drive traffic though. a few seconds ago · Like
------
ziko
I disagree.
iOS (number of users) - rising Android (number of users) - rising
That are the only two things you need to know - you have a terribly large
market.
You can't make a living with a sh*t app anymore. No, people won't buy just any
app just because it's .99 in the store.
But with the right approach and the right idea (and naturally, good
execution), the outcome (revenue) will be at least the same as if you launched
that same app some time ago.
I'll even go as far that good apps sell better today than a year or two back.
| {
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Ask HN: Suggest me some good books on work ethics - aryamaan
I have found that well-written books help me a lot getting back on track and also getting better at some values.<p>These days I feel in need of some inspirations, anecdotes, and experiences about work ethics and productivity. If it's by someone in the tech domain that would be an added excellence.<p>Thanks, fellow kind people.
======
croo
The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers by Robert C.
Martin
------
matfil
It's a tough question, and I think depends a lot on what you're looking for.
For the specific case of work ethic in the sense of committing deeply to
projects you believe in, then I'd point you towards "The Soul of a New
Machine".
But I'm sure others see it completely different.
~~~
aryamaan
Interesting suggestion; thanks for this. What changes did it bring for you?
------
nf05papsjfVbc
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
It's not about Zen or motorcycle maintenance. However, it _is_ a book that
will make you think about the nature of work and how one way of looking at
work collides with another.
~~~
aryamaan
Thanks, I will give it a try again. I tried reading it years ago but didn't
find it clicking.
------
SamReidHughes
FYI it's "work ethic", not "ethics".
~~~
aryamaan
Thanks.
------
dv_dt
Ray Dalio's Principles I think is an interesting read for that area.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Help the EU make free software more reliable and secure - M2Ys4U
https://juliareda.eu/2016/06/eu-free-software-security-audits/
======
benaston
The EU is a supra-national political union with the aim of turning nation
states into regions and centralising power and wealth in an
unelected/indirectly elected elite.
You might make free software more reliable and secure. The EU won't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An evolved circuit, intrinsic in silicon, entwined with physics (1996) - timdierks
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50.9691&rep=rep1&type=pdf
======
timdierks
Moral: evolved complexity ≠ designed complexity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Startup Quote: Henry Ford, Founder, Ford - raychancc
http://startupquote.com/post/11315452477
======
raychancc
Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain.
\- Henry Ford
<http://startupquote.com/post/11315452477>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Eric Schmidt is stepping down as Alphabet’s executive chairman - dcgudeman
https://abc.xyz/investor/news/releases/2017/1221.html
======
Overtonwindow
Previous Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983211)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My first open source project (micro check library) - arasatasaygin
http://arasatasaygin.github.io/is.js/
======
callum_hart
Really like the look of this!
~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks, appreciate it.
------
zekiunal
Cool, congratulations!
~~~
arasatasaygin
:)
------
bbcbasic
is.verynice()
~~~
arasatasaygin
Thank you :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why You Should Never Center Align Paragraph Text - bankerofpawns
http://uxmovement.com/content/why-you-should-never-center-align-paragraph-text
======
teye
Another painfully obvious, no-data article from uxmovement.com.
A minute of Googling gave me a more researched article with more comprehensive
suggestions. See 3.5 on p. 390.
[http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/MennoMenno/ftp/williams%202000....](http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/MennoMenno/ftp/williams%202000.pdf)
(Link fixed, thanks!)
~~~
Semiapies
Dead link.
~~~
kmfrk
Works if you remove "25":
[http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/MennoMenno/ftp/williams%202000....](http://core.ecu.edu/engl/tpc/MennoMenno/ftp/williams%202000.pdf)
------
Groxx
> _In other words, a centered headline should never go with a left aligned
> paragraph._
And then their poll is an exact example of this. I swear, _every_ UX movement
article I've seen has had an example of what they're campaigning against
elsewhere in the page.
I ask: why? Headings are a different section of the page, a different
conceptual item than the paragraph they relate to. Centering them, and giving
them a different left-edge helps differentiate them from merely large text.
~~~
jerf
"I ask: why?"
They told you. It will look off-center. Draw the lines on the right side of
the text that they drew on the left above that and you'll see it. If the box
is 20 units wide, the center of the centered text will be put at 10 units by
your layout algorithm, but that will actually be to the right of the "actual"
center, because nearly all lines of text will actually be shorter than 20
units. The 20 is an upper bound, not an actual bound.
I would be intrigued to see if they say the same thing if one justifies the
text, but my guess is that they would tell you not to justify your text on the
web anyhow.
~~~
Groxx
That's _their_ why, and it's a style choice that's heavily influenced by the
size of your text chunks. And style choices are fast-changing.
Try the same experiment with a wider (say, 6-800px) block of text, such as you
see more frequently than the ~200px they demonstrate with, and try to tell how
off-center it is. Or with a longer block of text, where the width is more
easily visible because the ragged edge on the right will inevitably get close
to the actual width of the container. Or with anything with surrounding images
/ colors that are different, where it'll _clearly_ be centered.
Meanwhile, left-align everything and then compare with a center-aligned
header, and decide which one reads more easily. This is " _UX_ movement", ie
"user experience", not Designer Daily; ease of reading and detecting different
sections of the page are part of UX.
------
pavel_lishin
What about text justified to both sides?
~~~
Groxx
I personally despise justified text. Losing the ragged edge means it's easier
to lose your place, and varying spaces between words just means more brain-
load if you're reading quickly.
~~~
mooism2
It's odd. I find justified text difficult to read on a screen, but when it's
printed I read it easily, without even noticing it's justified.
If the reason for this is that screens are lower resolution than print, I
would expect reading justified text on screens to become easier over the next
few years, as 300dpi screens first become available and then common.
------
idheitmann
Fewer vertical lines looks cleaner to the eye.
But "never"? I'm sure gorgeous counterexamples are only a few hops away.
Reminds me of militant opinions on font choice for resumes.
------
pedrokost
What is you opinion on All caps or Small caps headlines? I think they are
captivating, and small caps even induce some eye flow.
------
snorkel
WHAT ABOUT ALL CAPS? GOOD? BAD?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Illinois Man Charged with Desecrating US Flag After Posting Photos on Facebook - jackgavigan
http://www.forbes.com/sites/fernandoalfonso/2016/07/04/illinois-man-charged-with-desecrating-american-flag-after-posting-photos-on-facebook/
======
waterphone
> _Champaign County State 's Attorney Julia Rietz said today that the man
> arrested on July 4 after a flag-burning Facebook post will not be charged._
> _" The State's Attorney's Office is declining to file charges against
> (Bryton) Mellott as the act of burning a flag is protected free speech
> according to the US Supreme Court decision, Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397
> (1989)," Rietz said in a statement._
[http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-07-05/update-
urb...](http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-07-05/update-urbana-flag-
burner-wont-be-charged.html)
------
coreyp_1
don't link to Forbes or support their paywall
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ungit – Git UI that makes you understand git - rplnt
https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit
======
rplnt
Quick video introduction:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkBVAi3oKvo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkBVAi3oKvo)
Some discussion with the author present on reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1kqotu/ungit_ne...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1kqotu/ungit_new_git_ui_that_makes_you_understand_git/)
~~~
fuddle
You should add this or a screenshot to the Github page.
~~~
anigbrowl
Indeed. Life is short - if there aren't screenshots, I'm not willing to put in
the time to find out whether I'm interested or not. As it happens, this is a
very nice looking project, which makes the absence of screenshots even more
surprising.
------
dz0ny
I'am not comfortable using this, because by default he is collecting all debug
and analytics data. If he is from Europe he might be also breaking the
law(depends on country) by doing this.
PR ->
[https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit/pull/91](https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit/pull/91)
Edit: added PR
~~~
mjs
Going from the comment in the config file, "debug" data is only collected if
the application crashes.
Google Analytics is hooked up by default though, which is unusual. (Actually
I'm not sure how that's going to work, since everyone's going to be on a
different domain name.)
[https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit/pull/91/files#L0L16](https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit/pull/91/files#L0L16)
------
norswap
From the video, it looks like all changes are automatically staged. Ignoring
the staging area is not going help users understand git I think.
Otherwise, it looks very very cool.
~~~
StavrosK
I think the staging area is a horrible idea. It greatly complicates the UI
("diff --cached"? Really?) without providing many benefits (if you want to
commit just some files, you could simply specify the names at commit time.
I really love bzr's UI in this respect, and I understand Mercurial is similar
too.
~~~
Nervetattoo
You couldn't run tests only on your staged changes pre-commit without the
staging area. Right now my pre-commit hook stashes any non-staged changes,
from inside the same files that has staged content, and then runs tests. This
ensures I can create commits with just the stuff that works of my changes
without first removing the ongoing work.
The staging area surely adds complexity, but if you do not like it then simply
don't use git.
~~~
StavrosK
> This ensures I can create commits with just the stuff that works of my
> changes without first removing the ongoing work.
If I have ongoing work I want to remove, I just stash it, as you said. I don't
need a staging area to stash things, and it's pretty rare that I'll have
unrelated work anyway.
> The staging area surely adds complexity, but if you do not like it then
> simply don't use git.
Ah, the old "your arm hurts? Just cut it off!" solution. Yes, I will just not
use git, I will just email my team diffs.
------
ivan_ah
screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/hovCdWP.png](http://i.imgur.com/hovCdWP.png)
VERY COOL. I love the idea.
If you can make somehow easier to use (for non developers) this could be a
life saver. Your designer is not expert at git... so you decide to just email
each other stuff.... OR.... you show him/her how to use ungit and BAM! they
are in your world with no command line invocations required.
Could you drop the node.js dependence and wrap the entire UI as a chrome
extension? Is there git in the browser? Of course, you would still need some
"server" to access the file system...
------
iaskwhy
GitHubg related: FredrikNoren got unlucky with the GitHub generated avatar.
Maybe they could provide the users with a way to generate a new one.
~~~
Mithaldu
He can upload whatever he wants, so i don't see the issue.
~~~
iaskwhy
I believe he can only upload a picture to Gravatar which then is used by lots
of apps. Even Gmail if I'm not mistaken. So it's either the middle finger or a
selected Gravatar everywhere. I still prefer my suggestion.
~~~
killercup
If you have more than one email address set up in GitHub, you can choose which
one's Gravatar to display.
------
pedalpete
I watched the video, and it looks really cool, but the way I was taught to use
git was to create a branch, make your changes, commit the changes, then merge
back to master, rinse and repeat.
Is that not the standard way of using github? How does that look in this
scenario? Everything almost always being in a straight line, and the author
always working on 'master' makes it a bit confusing to imagine in a real-world
scenario (based on my Git usage).
~~~
jlgreco
If I am only working on one thing at the moment, I typically just make a lot
of commits on master then rebase them all before publishing them. I only start
branching if I'm doing multiple things at once. (And it is pretty easy to move
changes to a branch later if you want to start work on something else.)
~~~
zeppelinnn
I think this is correct for personal projects, but when working with teams
it's better to create dev branches especially for major feature/functionality
additions. I personally try to stick with separate branches and then merge
just to uphold that practice, as well as being able to revert/find your mess-
ups quicker.
~~~
jlgreco
Feature branches in git most frequently only live on the developers machine,
often for only a few hours, _(unlike feature branches in centralized version
control systems, which are almost always long-lived)_ so there is no harm in
not branching if you're only working on something thing . If it is a feature
that multiple people need to work on, or needs to be worked on for more than a
few hours, then a separate feature branch is of course the correct thing to
do.
Branches in git are literally just pointers to commits _(write a sha1 object
to any file under refs /heads to see what I mean)_ so they don't really buy
you much if you're not frequently switching between locations in the DAG, but
can be created retroactively with zero hassle if you do find yourself needing
them.
Basically, what you do with your private DAG doesn't matter at all, what is
important is that you only publish things that are sensible.
------
tunesmith
The tree graphics are really cool. I'm trying to figure out how that was done
- it doesn't look like it's D3.js, which still lacks graphviz-style layout of
trees. It looks like it might actually use graphviz behind the scenes, but
then I'm not sure how it animates from one tree to the next when it changes.
~~~
xxbondsxx
Most likely a custom algorithm -- I had to make my own for LearnGitBranching
since most tree algorithms don't exactly fit the needs of a VCS visualization.
Imagine the author did the same, but its all open source
------
btbuildem
Very nice, installing now.
Please add the video to the GH page.. I almost meh'd out of there, but was
lucky to notice someone's comment here mentioning the youtube vid.
EDIT: just tried it.. Dear god, our repo looks like a swarm of drunken spiders
was hard at work there..
Also, +1 to the request to change the default config and not track everything!
------
flog
Great. I hate the git CLI and constantly shoot myself in the foot with my
ignorance.
UX wise I don't know if the drag and drop works 100%. As a suggestion to the
author, how about drawing lines instead from the working node to a future node
state? 2c
------
contingencies
I put some of our non-devs on _git_ today for managing a complex and growing
set of legal documents. They use SourceTree[1], which is a great GUI that
Atlassian bought recently. All they needed to understand was 'add' (to index),
'commit', 'push' and 'pull', which took about 10 minutes to communicate on
Skype.
[1] [http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/](http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/)
------
guynamedloren
This is awesome. I'm building a 'github for non-developers' and I think I'm
going to fork this and integrate it into my project. One of the goals is to
have all of the features and benefits of git but masked behind a clean,
intuitive UI. This project fits that goal perfectly. Thank you!
------
ecuzzillo
One of the most common failures of understanding I come across when people
first start trying to use git is that there are two dimensions of parallelism:
between branches in one repo, and between repos. This can't address that, as I
understand it, because it works on one repo at a time.
------
jtagen
info: Inception error sending error to bugsense 0=null, status=402, data=[],
error=Throttling limit reached.
Excellent.
------
pertinhower
Neat. Not vastly different from gitk. Crashes for me after I try the fetch
button.
------
perlgeek
I teach introductory git courses at work, and I think I'm going to use ungit
to show the commit graph is built, what happens when you leave a comit behind
etc.
------
kemist
Great work! You're off to a good start. I like the visualization, the intro
video, and the easy install. I look forward to seeing it improve.
------
johnnyg
Love the concept.
The npm install errored out, I got it going via sudo, loaded a large project
with it and it crashed.
I will be back in a month to have another go. :-)
------
shangxiao
I personally believe that "tig", a TUI for git, is easier to use than this.
------
denrober
Works for me but almost unusable on anything but the simplest of repositories.
------
jonahx
This UI is slick. The whole thing seems well designed. Very nice work!
------
jtagen
Crashes like crazy for me. Hopefully report to bugsense will help.
------
twodayslate
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing. It looks really clean.
------
jliptzin
Cool. Won't replace Tower though, for me at least.
------
denysonique
It would be nice if you packaged it in node-webkit
------
a5m0
How does this compare to gitorius or gitlab?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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D-Wave confirmed as the first real quantum computer by new research - paulgb
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/184242-d-wave-confirmed-as-the-first-real-quantum-computer-by-new-research
======
valarauca1
I really had to do some digging for the source. But it appears to be 'old
news' i.e. 2 weeks old. The publications was made by D-Wave on May 30th [1].
The paper is here [2].
[1] [http://www.dwavesys.com/press-releases/latest-research-
valid...](http://www.dwavesys.com/press-releases/latest-research-validates-
quantum-entanglement-d-wave-systems)
[2]
[https://journals.aps.org/prx/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.021041](https://journals.aps.org/prx/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.021041)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Is the stock market going to crash? - truffle_pig
https://isthestockmarketgoingtocrash.com/
======
pdog
If you're looking for The Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market
Returns[1], here it is: [http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2013/12/the-
single-gre...](http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2013/12/the-single-
greatest-predictor-of-future-stock-market-returns/)
This is a long read, but it's worth it. The metric can be calculated in
FRED[2], and as a predictor of future returns, it outperforms all of the most
common stock market valuation metrics, including cyclically-adjusted price-
earnings (CAPE) ratio[3]. (Basically, the average investor portfolio
allocation to equities versus bonds and cash is inversely correlated with
future returns over the long-term. This works better than pure valuation
models because it accounts for supply and demand dynamics.)
[1]: [http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2013/12/the-single-
gre...](http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2013/12/the-single-greatest-
predictor-of-future-stock-market-returns/)
[2]:
[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=qis](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=qis)
[3]: [http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/](http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/)
~~~
PDoyle
Wow, really interesting read. Thanks for the link.
Only trouble is that once people find patterns like this, they have a habit of
disappearing. Hopefully this one is based on solid enough fundamental market
forces that it persists after its publication. It was published in 2013 so we
won't know for sure until after 2023.
~~~
babaganoosh89
I actually made an automatically updating chart for this using FRED data:
[http://financial-charts.effingapp.com](http://financial-charts.effingapp.com)
TLDR: The correlation did go down a bit since publishing but still seems
alright.
~~~
cloudkj
Thanks for this. Can you also add a way to change the window for S&P returns
from 10 years to other time windows? It'd be interesting to see how the plot
changes with adjustments to the window.
~~~
babaganoosh89
I remember looking at other time windows, anything 5 years or below wasn't
great.
------
runako
I've never seen market valuation expressed as market cap as % of GDP. I'm not
an economist, so I'll leave the detailed arguments to them. But it would be at
least useful to explain why you think this is a meaningful metric as compared
to those typically used to measure market valuation (e.g. P/E ratios etc.).
Your graph also ties your valuation metric to the 2000 peak and the 2008 peak.
However, there were crashes in 1990 and 1987 as well. Should readers conclude
that the 1987 peak level was also too high, and that therefore the last ~30
years have also been too high as well? (Abstaining from investing in the stock
market at levels above the 1987 crash would have resulted in the loss of
tremendous opportunity for wealth creation.)
There are a lot of opinions implicitly expressed in this site; it would be
good to try to make those explicit.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _market valuation expressed as market cap as % of GDP_
This metric makes little sense for this use case. Consider two countries. They
are identical in every way except in Country A 90% of the companies are
publicly-traded while in Country B 10% are. Country A will have a market cap
to GDP 9x Country B's. Does that mean Country A is 9 times overvalued relative
to Country B?
The objection works in-country, too. Saudi Aramco is going public in New York
or London [1]. This will lift one of those market's aggregate capitalisation
by up to $1 trillion. Does this mean that market will _necessarily_ become
overpriced?
The answer to both question is of course not. Market cap to GDP tells you the
degree to which a country has developed public markets. Not anything
interesting about the levels in those markets.
[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-05/aramco-
ip...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-05/aramco-ipo-is-just-
the-first-step-for-saudi-arabia)
~~~
JimboOmega
So I've had a fundamental complaint about Market Cap to GDP at least since
2005, which I've never gotten a good answer to:
There's this expectation that the market returns 7-10%... a number much in
excess of the actual rate of GDP growth (over any significantly long period,
anyway)
That can't continue forever. Especially in aggregate across the world. At some
point the public market has captured substantially all the economic activity -
after that there's no way for it to grow in excess of GDP without things like
PE increasing (and again, that can't go FOREVER, regardless of what the "true"
PE should be).
This is assuming all numbers are inflation-adjusted "real" numbers, of course,
because the money supply CAN grow forever.
~~~
stvswn
I'll probably get some of this wrong, but I read up on these arguments back
when Piketty was in the news w/ his book:
Yes, it can go on forever -- the rates of retun in the stock market are based,
theoretically, on the changing expectations about the future and not based on
current income.
Thought experment: 100 of us live in small society producing widgets, we each
make a widget a day at the factory. GDP is 36500 widgets/day. We also spend
some time researching a way to make widgets faster. Yesterday we found a
breakthrough that made it 50% likely that in 5 years we'll each be making 10
widgets a day.
It would be reasonable for the valuation of our widget company to go up
something like 40% on that news, right? But GDP next year is stlil going to be
36500 widgets/day.
Since the stock market bakes in all optimistic expectations, then in the eras
it that it outpaces GDP it could be the case that there remains unrealized
optimism for the future.
If the question is "but where is the capital coming from that flows into the
stock market?" The answer is that it can be created via credit, or it could be
created via appreciation in assets not captured in the stock market (like
housing, the major one).
~~~
JimboOmega
Your example anticipates a huge growth in productivity, which is a factor in
GDP; in that case, the stock market is a forward indicator of anticipated GDP.
Which, if so, still doesn't allow it to grow infinitely _out of proportion_ to
GDP, unless the time horizon keeps changing or the anticipation of the future
gets steadily farther away from reality.
So you mention _in the eras it that it outpaces GDP_... I've consistently had
the message drilled into me that in the long term (20+ year horizon), stocks
will return something like 7-10%, while of course, nobody would expect GDP
growth anything like that (outside of a rapidly industrializing environment
where productivity is rocketing upward, like China).
An era is not forever, so...
------
uiri
For market overvaluation, it says: 9.1 / 10 "DEFCON 4"
DEFCON 5 is peacetime, DEFCON 1 is imminent nuclear war. For example, during
the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US reached DEFCON 2. Should this say DEFCON 2
instead? Or is "above" normal readiness the intended meaning?
~~~
truffle_pig
Yeah was trying to communicate "moderate risk", but it's kinda tongue in
cheek.
~~~
laumars
We got the tongue in cheek point of the comment. However what is being
discussed is the ordering. Defcon 1 is more serious than Defcon 5. ie it
counts backwards from 5 to 1 as situations become more serious. So your
comment should be Defcon 2.
Pedantics aside, I did enjoy those little comments you put alongside the
threat level.
------
misja111
The metric used to calculate market overvaluation is interesting but it has
little value for predicting a stock market crash. Let's take he last 3 major
US crashes:
1987: this crash was caused by automated trading systems which could run wild
in the absence of any prevention regulations such as circuit breakers
2000: the collapse of the dotcom bubble
2008: start of the financial crisis caused mainly by opaque credit default
swaps and packaged subprime loans
Of those 3, only the dotcom bubble seems to be a bit related to the market
overvaluation metric. And even right before the dotcom bubble crash there were
plenty of economic guru's who argued that classic overvaluation metrics were
not valid anymore because we were now in a 'new economy'.
The other two crashes were caused by black swans; occurrences that nobody was
aware of and that were only understood afterwards. Most likely the next crash
will be a black swan as well.
~~~
luckydude
"occurrences that nobody was aware of and that were only understood
afterwards"
Umm, I'm no genius but I was managing my mother's money at the time of the
2008 crash. It was very obvious to me that there was going to be a crash, I
pulled out of the market in late 2006 and didn't lose a dime in the crash.
I think the better statement is "The 2008 crash was obvious but many people
were in denial".
Again, I'm not a financial wizard, I could just see the writing on the wall on
that one, everyone was getting approved for houses they couldn't afford, you
just knew that was not going to end well.
~~~
matt_wulfeck
Predicting a crash is easy but timing it with accuracy is extremely difficult.
In fact you were two years too early and lost out on a lot of potential
return.
There will always be a crash/correction. Easy. But when?
~~~
leongrado
Completely agree. Yeah luckydude I can say with 100% certainty that if you
took all of your money out right at this moment, you won't lose any money in
the next crash. Give me the nobel prize in economics guys.
~~~
empath75
unless the 'next crash' is runaway hyper inflation.
~~~
nycdatasci
Great point! Important to look at crash in real, not nominal, terms.
More:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_illusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_illusion)
------
lr4444lr
Can someone with an actual economics degree explain to me whether it's a valid
criticism of the "Market cap as % of GDP" metric that many US companies derive
value from multinational labor and consumption, and if not, why not? Thanks in
advance.
~~~
pinky1417
SB in economics here and current business school student (I know, I know: burn
the future MBA at the stake!).
Indeed, it is a valid criticism. The market cap/GDP measure is mismatched,
since market cap theoretically reflects investors' expectation of future cash
flows globally while GDP is a measure for only one country. Also, GDP is
problematic for a bunch of reasons, so even if all companies were only
operating in the United States, GDP would still only be a crude measure of
economic output.
~~~
zmk_
Plus, as you mentioned yourself mcap corresponds to the present value of all
future cashflows and GDP to one years output. The only way this would make
sense is you were comparing changes in GNP to changes in mcap.
------
mendeza
What about student loan debt, how does that factor into the economy or the
stock market being affected?
Right now student loan debt is at 1.4 trillion
source: [https://www.debt.org/students/](https://www.debt.org/students/)
~~~
SmellTheGlove
I wouldn't worry about student loan debt being a problem. It's very likely
that they're going to get a bailout before a bubble bursts. Where on earth did
I come up with this, you ask? Easy - I just paid my student loans off last
week. It's only natural that everyone else will now get bailed out!
Seriously, though, this is a real problem and we need to do something. Even if
it doesn't have a direct effect any time soon, it's going to have an indirect
effect as our generation (I'm some kind of X-ennial, apparently, but let's
just say everyone 20-40) continues to replace retiring boomers in the economy.
If we're all saddled with non-dischargable debt, it's going to hurt the
housing and consumer spending segments.
~~~
knewter
> Seriously, though, this is a real problem and we need to do something
the thing we have to do is not borrow money we can't repay. capitalism is a
distributed system. borrowing money you can't repay is a broken local
protocol. don't try to fix that with anything but fixing it locally.
~~~
thomascgalvin
This is at least partially true, but ignores the "reality on the ground." Even
many entry-level jobs require a college degree now, and forgoing a college
education makes you unhirable in many markets. Until that changes, "college
you can't afford" is pretty much a mandatory expense.
There are ways to minimize the cost -- basically two years at a community
college and two years at a state school -- but the days of being able to
afford college by working a part time job are long over. The reality is, if
you want to participate in today's job market, you probably must take on at
least some college debt.
~~~
fabatka
I think college degree is highly overrated, and higher education is very
inefficient overall. But it is like a prisoners' dilemma, where all of the to-
be-students would be better off if say 70% of them didn't go to college, but
no individual has the incentive to decide so.
They wouldn't need to pay the enormous tuition, and as the job market would
change (as far less people would have a college degree), the lack of degree
wouldn't hurt them.
~~~
notfromhere
College degrees are oversaturated, but there's no real alternative outside of
a few fields where education isn't as important as experience.
College degree nowadays is basically a pre-requisite for not getting your
resume thrown out at first glance.
------
pillowkusis
A site like this seems dangerous at best. Nobody can predict the stock market.
Nobody can predict when a stock market is more likely to crash. This site
tries to indicate otherwise. Whatever causes the crash it probably won't be
one of the indicators listed here.
~~~
choxi
I think the subtitle sets expectations pretty clearly:
> No one knows for sure, but there are indicators that can help us guess. We
> can chart these indicators to give us the illusion of foresight.
~~~
module0000
Holy shit, just seeing the "indicators that can help us guess" gives me
shivers. The person who utters that phrase is admitting to _guessing_ with
their money. Does anyone else find that as absurd as I find it? If I hire a
pro to enter/exit a position, if they are guessing(with or without the
assistance of indicators), I have made a _very bad decision to hire them_.
~~~
MarkMc
Perhaps you and I have different definitions of the a word 'guess'. To me, it
includes 'Making a logical estimate based on available evidemce'. Every
investment decision is a guess.
------
avip
I love the design and phrasing. This is just a well-done website.
It would be really interesting to see your collapse pyramid over time. How did
it look in 2000? 2008?
~~~
truffle_pig
This is a good idea. I'm going to implement it as a timeline I think.
~~~
solatic
Since the diamond is a 2D figure, then if you add time as a third dimension,
you'd get a diamond-shaped cylinder. Add a blue-red spectrum color code,
whereby blue is a time slice with a small surface area and red is a time slice
with a large surface area, and you'd be able to plot the dangerously large
Diamonds of Economic Failure over time in a way which clearly indicates when
the danger signs were worst.
------
daotoad
Good idea for a website, should be able to get you some nice revenue from
intermittent visits. You probably want to focus on financial services for your
ads.
I'm not going to say anything about your numbers and your models other than,
without the ability to see how they looked at previous crashes, it's hard to
see if the site is useful. To the innumerate masses and emotional investors
the flickering numbers are persuasive enough. So they really don't matter.
On the bad side, your UX is god-awful. Use an oldish, slightly crappy monitor
to look at it and you will discover that your background is indistinguishable
from the foreground. The top bar of the box completely disappears, too. Also,
a row of buttons is NOT a good tabbed interface--there is no indication that
clicking on "Market Volatility" is going to reload all the content below the
row of buttons. Maybe make actual tabs, at least make that stuff a distinct
box.
This could be a nice little side product to make you some extra money. Get
some GA on there, and slowly add features. I think a bit of interactivity and
the ability to customize the predictive models through some drag and drop
could actually make the page sticky and get people coming back.
------
benmarten
How is the heat matrix diagram calculated? It seems to be wrong. Public Debt
has a 3.7/10, while it looks like its around 8.5 in the heat diagram.
Looking at the individual ratings: \- Household Debt: 5.5 / 10 \- Market
Overvaluation: 9.1/10 \- Market Volatility: 0.3/10 \- Public Debt: 3.7/10 \-->
SUM = 18.6/40 or 46.5%
Also I noted: Drawing a linear trend line through the "Market Overvaluation"
diagram, does make it look a lot better though. One could argue that people
get used to certain levels, hence a growing trend over time.
Taking only these factors into account, it does not look like the market is
gonna crash soon. In my opinion it's likely going to be caused by another
factor not listed here ;)
~~~
wuliwong
I'm also confused by the public debt number. It is far higher now than in
2008.
~~~
kerkufle
Thanks Obama!
------
omg_ketchup
Site just displays a blank page. No error or anything.
I think that's a better statement than whatever the app actually does.
~~~
aembleton
You need to switch Javascript on.
~~~
duxup
Thus crashing my browser and answering the question at the same time.
------
indescions_2017
Correct answer, of course, is no one knows, because the future is opaque and
unpredictable. And indeed you have some very smart professionals going to cash
or directly betting on a 5-10% correction in the S&P500. And a set of equally
smart fund managers calling for a 2600 target by mid-2018.
What we can say with some certainty, based on options activity, is that if a
single day 3-4% drop in the S&P500 occurs it can trigger a massive unwind in
short volatility positions:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-volatility-
idU...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-volatility-
idUSKBN1AJ328)
And with several political risk factors on the near term horizon, including
the possibility of a government shutdown in late September due to the failure
of Congress to extend the debt ceiling (yes, they are arguing over who is
going to pay to fund the border wall with Mexico). It certainly should
surprise no one if a coming tomorrow could be very different than the
extraordinarily low-volatility landscape we face today.
The Case For Long Volatility by Eric Peters
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-long-volatility-eric-
pet...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-long-volatility-eric-peters)
------
saimiam
I was (sort of) there when the 2000 tech crash happened and was in the thick
of it when the 2008 crash happened.
This thread and a few offline conversations made me reexamine what I believe
about the stock market and the nature of the 2000 and 2008 collapses. Of
course, I'm not an econ nor do I have data to back up anything I'm saying.
All manias, from tulips to tech IPOs to housing bubbles are born when the
common person joins the frenzy. On the flip side, the mania collapses when the
common person walks away or never shows up the party. For the tech IPO frenzy
of 2000, the common person never even showed up to use all those exotic new
ideas which were getting funded and going public. During the housing bubble,
the common person bought and sold houses which setup the flywheel. Eventually,
the common person walked away from the asset in question bringing down the
entire charade.
Today, the market is soaring. People are starting to wonder when gravity will
reassert itself but in my view, this time the difference is that the common
person cannot walk away. Unless adblocking and disdain for social media become
extremely mainstream, the common person is so busy amusing themselves to death
online that they are not going to leave the tech mania. Companies like FB and
Google have made the web sticky.
Does this mean the stock market will rise indefinitely? I don't know. I do
know that once there is a captive market comprising everyone online, no
company is going to stop advertising or figuring out ways to reach buyers
online.
We are in a new age where you just can't get away from the web. We are the
product but we also have no way of exiting the dragnet.
~~~
plaidfuji
This is probably the most insightful comment here. When your grandma is buying
some asset class, it's time to sell. I think the biggest complicating factor
here is the US government debt and the massive amount of it that the federal
reserve owns via its treasury bond buying program since 2008. Who's on the
hook for this debt? The common person, via the value of the US dollar. The
next crash will be precipitated by actions of the fed and creditors to the US
government, not stock market investors. Incidentally, in this environment,
cryptocurrencies could emerge as a safe haven.
------
qubex
Economist here. You should really keep in mind that the same GDP must go both
towards paying off the national debt and paying off household debt. Also you
should track commodities (at the very least, the ratio between put & call
options).
~~~
crdoconnor
Are you familiar with MMT?
~~~
qubex
If you mean _Mark To Market_ , yes. It you mean anything else (and I am
wracking my brains trying to come up with another relevant meaning for that
acronym), no.
~~~
RobertoG
I think he is talking about Modern Monetary Theory, where one of the
conclusions they arrive, after studying how modern economies work, is that
private sector debt grow when there is not enough government deficit.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances)
Another of the conclusions is that the national debt, for countries with a
floating sovereign currency, is just a number without real meaning.
[https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/taxation-
government-...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/taxation-government-
spending-the-national-debt-and-mmt.html)
~~~
qubex
Ah. I'm dyslexic and ashamed and I'm going to put myself to bed and try to
forget this before the morning comes.
~~~
RobertoG
I don't think you are at fault. We abuse acronyms.
------
tveita
Normalizing household debt against the GDP makes the assumption that we are
comparing the debt with the ability to pay for it.
But according to graphs like this, even though the GDP has been rising, median
households have not been getting a corresponding increase in income:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_GDP_per_capita_vs_median_household_income.png)
So the income we are adjusting against is not necessarily going to the people
that are in debt!
~~~
JumpCrisscross
Household debt to GDP tells you the state of the society. Household debt to
income tells you households' ability to repay. If Debt/GDP is fine but
Debt/Income is not, you're looking at (a) default (lenders eat dust), (b)
inflation (savers eat dust) _or_ (c) public assistance (non-borrowing
taxpayers eat dust). That's a political question. If Debt/GDP isn't fine,
option (c) flies off the table.
~~~
tveita
That sounds reasonable, but aren't all of those mitigations for _after_ the
shit hits the fan? None of options will prevent a crash unless you can
actually exercise them pre-crash.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _aren 't all of those mitigations for after the shit hits the fan?_
Not necessarily. Raising minimum wages or cutting certain taxes are examples
of pre-emptive steps political systems can take to increase households'
incomes. Making debt harder or easier to discharge, or raising or lowering
policy rates, can be similarly prophylactic.
------
where_do_i_live
Your volatility section seems to be a very poor indicator of a future crash in
the manner you are using it. Volatility is not a predictor, but instead a
descriptor. An analogy I think is the weather stick - Is this stick wet? Then
it is raining. It is a very poor item to use in your context.
Further, sustained periods of low volatility often are sometimes indicators of
complacency among investors and indicators of higher chances of bubbles.
Sustained periods of low volatility are at times indicative of higher future
risk of a market crash, not a low predictor. I think you need to re-evaluate
how you use volatility.
~~~
dnadler
Well, he's using the VIX, so it is technically market implied future
volatility. Whether it has predictive power is open to debate, but it is
_technically_ a forward-looking indicator.
------
Nursie
"NaN% more overvalued than just prior to the 2008 financial crisis,"
I think there might be a few coding errors still lurking in there.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I got that in Firefox, whereas it works in Chrome. Poor cross-browser testing?
~~~
bkanber
Seems to be because all the market data hasn't loaded yet. If you look above
it should say "Loading data" under one of the categories in the text.
~~~
Nursie
Yeah, on a second visit, everything seems OK.
Didn't notice the loading indicator myself.
------
mxschumacher
American companies sell products & services outside of the United States.
Comparing American GDP with the aggregate value of the US stock-market is
deeply misleading, especially given a historical comparison: foreign markets
such as China have gained in relative importance over timeframe under
consideration.
When looking at debt, one should not just observe the nominal amount, but also
the interest rates, which have never been lower. Large companies can tap
public debt markets and borrow billions at 1.5% over a timeframe of ten years.
Risk is thus lower than the website suggests (at lower interest rates, a
company can carry more debt). Additionally, returns to equity will be higher
(the I in EBIT is smaller, so profits are bigger).
~~~
georgeecollins
The American GDP includes net exports, ie: goods that are bought in other
countries. So its not a crazy comparison. But it is not great ratio for long
historical comparisons because of the changing nature of economies and
markets.
------
timsayshey
Really cool idea. As someone that hasn't really investigated the market
indicators for collapse this is really eye opening. It really breaks things
down into plain english. Hope this goes to the top for some
rational/interesting conversation.
~~~
truffle_pig
Thanks for the kind words! I'm not an economist myself so I'm hoping others on
HN might be able to correct any inaccuracies.
~~~
nautilus12
Is this open source? Id like to see how/where you are pulling your data.
~~~
myth_drannon
The source is not minified.
------
anonu
As the site makes clear, nobody really ever knows if the market is going to
crash. On the market valuation side they claim the current market is
overvalued. But overvalued is a relative term... As you have to value versus
something, and that something is usually something historical.
The way I see it though is the markets are a big voting machine.. and they're
making predictions about the future and incorporating future expectations.
With the current US administration still pondering over tax plans and
infrastructure stimulus packages that are promised, market may be
underpriced???
~~~
smt88
> _The way I see it though is the markets are a big voting machine.. and they
> 're making predictions about the future and incorporating future
> expectations_
This is likely true because of "wisdom of crowds" (aka regression to mean of
randomly-sampled human estimates).
> _With the current US administration still pondering over tax plans and
> infrastructure stimulus packages that are promised, market may be
> underpriced???_
The president doesn't control taxes or spending, and he can't do anything
about infrastructure on his own. All he can do is use political capital to
push Congress in a certain direction. So far, he's been totally unable to do
that.
In terms of the national economy, the US is the same as it was under Obama --
House totally under Republican control, Senate mostly under Republican
control, Janet Yellen running the Fed, no major shocks.
There's little unity among Republican Congresspeople, and even less when you
include Democrats. Tax reform _may_ be a bipartisan issue, but it's likely
going to be limited to simplifying the tax code (lowering taxes while closing
corporate loopholes). If all the trickle-down dinosaurs believe that higher
corporate taxes will harm the economy (which it almost surely won't), then the
stock market should -- if anything -- go down.
This could mean that it's underpriced, but not for the reasons you seem to
suggest.
------
mathiasben
I feel as though the "stock market" following the 2008 crisis has become
further insulated from the larger economies fundamentals. wages can continue
to not keep up with inflation, savings rate continues it's downward slide,
household debt service payments consume an ever increasing slice of disposable
income, etc... all the while the type of dramatic dislocation event similar to
1929, 1987 are unlikely to occur. the market "circuit breakers" ensure any
crash is a slow moving trend and not a single calamitous event.
~~~
mathiasben
the stock market is so divorced from the actual economy that over half of
Americans don't participate in any way at all whether through direct purchase,
401k, mutual funds, etc.. most of the action on the stock markets is companies
rebuying their stock to generate earnings and hedge funds and the less than
half of Americans who have access to retirement planning.
~~~
vkou
What percentage of Americans have historically participated in ownership of
capital?
------
bluetwo
The volatility index, or VIX, has become a popular measurement to reference in
the context of predicting the market over the past couple years.
The problem is that it does not seem to have any real predictive power and I
have yet to see any shred of evidence that the VIX has been shown to have
predictive power over the future value of the stock market.
It is calculated from past price variance and is used in calculating the
theoretical price of options, but that is it.
Does anyone have any evidence the VIX has value?
~~~
hidenotslide
It is calculated from the (theoretical) implied volatility of listed S&P
options, so it is indeed forward looking (not past variance).
But it is riddled with microstructural issues and to my knowledge doesn't
really have any track record of predicting crashes. It will react to market
events contemporaneously though, so it is a decent measure of expected future
volatility.
Besides household debt, the rest of these indicators don't make much sense
either. Much better would be measures of the yield curve, inflation, and
corporate credit quality.
------
Kiro
I got a "Add Create React App Sample to your home screen" notification on my
phone.
~~~
rcpt
Same here - wonder how they did that.
~~~
longwave
<link rel="manifest"> in the header, see [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Manifest](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest)
for more.
------
csomar
Does it make sense to have "marketcap" / GDP if the Nasdaq/DowJones has non US
companies like Alibaba? Or is it taking these into account?
------
apsec112
I think you could estimate much more accurately with the prices of deeply out-
of-the-money put options. Those are effectively a betting market on whether
stocks will crash or not. We should expect option prices to take into account
every major factor (not just these four), because if they didn't, people would
get rich by trading on the "missing" info until prices corrected themselves.
~~~
TuringNYC
Agreed, these are good indicators because people are actually backing these
"predictions" with money...as opposed to theoretical models with no skin in
the game.
------
lordnacho
One could argue that the volatility scale should be the other way round; that
the diamond should be showing extreme values on everything other than
household debt, which is middling.
The market is normally calm on the way up, which is why you might think its
current upward movement will soon be interrupted by a volatile down-move.
------
brookside
A great read on how to capitalize on the upcoming crash! _The Sale of a
Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017-2019 Can Make You Rich_ [1]
Also good is the author's earlier book _The Great Crash Ahead_ [2] "outlining
why the next financial crash and crisis is inevitable, and just around the
corner— coming _between mid-2012 and early 2015_ "
Hmmm...
1\. [https://www.amazon.com/Sale-Lifetime-Great-
Bubble-2017-2019/...](https://www.amazon.com/Sale-Lifetime-Great-
Bubble-2017-2019/dp/0735217742/)
2\. [https://www.amazon.com/Great-Crash-Ahead-Strategies-
Turned/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Great-Crash-Ahead-Strategies-
Turned/dp/1451641559)
------
grandinj
The answer is of course: YES.
The more important question is when, and the answer to that is "who knows".
The market is a chaotic system, with severe non-linear responses. As such, it
can remain stable much longer than people think, and crash much harder than
anyone expects.
~~~
csours
I was expecting the site to just have YES at the top in big letters with some
explanation below. Things are certainly feeling bubbly lately.
------
cs702
I love the idea, the simple design, and the humble tone of the byline ("no one
knows for sure, but there are indicators that can help us guess. We can chart
these indicators to give us the illusion of foresight.").
However, I have two suggestions. First, the numeric rankings (such as "5.5 /
10") need context: why not say something like "10 is the highest value reached
in the historical record"?
Second, the explanations you give for chosing these indicators need a bit of
work, as evidenced by some of the comments and questions on this thread. Most
lay readers won't understand why the ratio of total stock market
capitalization to annual GDP is important.
~~~
truffle_pig
Good point, I think I will go into a bit more detail as to how the risk factor
is calculated.
Yeah seems like I might need to go into a bit more depth explaining the
rationale behind each indicator. I'm open to including different indicators
too.
------
TekMol
The page strives solely on it's nice graphics, and sensationalist wording.
There is little to no content of substance.
For example the page calculates "Market Overvaluation" as the US stock market
value divided by the yearly US GDP. Hilarious.
~~~
vvdcect
How would you calculate Market overvaluation?
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _How would you calculate Market overvaluation?_
The market is a conversation, not a calculation. There is no equation for its
"proper" valuation because there is no equation for an asset's "proper" price.
We have markets because these calculations, the economic calculation problem
[1], are hard.
Financial theory has a habit of magicking uncertainty into variables that look
like constants but aren't. With option theory, it's the volatility curve. With
CAPM [2], it's the risk-free rate curve and general market risk premia (also
beta). In the discounted cash flow model [3], it's the discount rate and
future payout curve.
These models sort of work a lot of the time, but not always and not as well as
we'd like them to. Unfortunately for the precision-minded, the bridge between
the quantitative models are people doing their people things.
Note that I'm not saying it's all voodoo. There _are_ models. But
understanding them takes appreciating their constraints, assumptions and
strengths.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_asset_pricing_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_asset_pricing_model)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounted_cash_flow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounted_cash_flow)
------
mcguire
Is this a psychological experiment? All I get on Android Chrome is a white
screen.
------
lg
Could the fact that a lot of US companies book profits overseas and keep them
there for tax reasons foil your assumption about the meaning of a high US
market cap:domestic GDP ratio?
~~~
qubex
That is already implicit in the Efficient Market Hypothesis' valuation of the
total market capitalisation of stocks (that is part of the reason for which
the total value of the stock market exceeds GDP).
~~~
xphilter
Right, but this chart ignores that (as far as I can tell). If US listed
companies are going to eat more of the global GDP, then it wouldn't be crazy
that the value of the stocks will exceed GDP of the country in which it's
listed (i.e., the fact that the value does exceed GDP might not be a precursor
to a crash).
~~~
krit_dms
There's really no reason why GDP should equal market cap. Companies are
largely (especially now, since interest is so low) valued on future income,
rather than current income.
Look at Amazon and Netflix, both tradin at 200x earnings. This is beacuse
investors think they will earn a lot more in the future than they do now. Are
they overvalued? who knows.
~~~
qubex
Indeed, market valuation as a multiple of GDP is hitherto unknown to me.
However that's why I wrote _partially_ : foreign assets are factored into the
value investors attribute to the stock market as a whole. In retrospect I
shouldn't have argued from the standpoint of percentage of GDP.
------
Glyptodon
Question (as someone without domain knowledge): could someone explain what the
expected relationship between GDP and total stock market value is? GDP
represents non-publicly traded, and even non-private activity, while
presumably the stock market's valuation is at least somewhat driven by
expectations of future growth/profit, rather than current productivity. I
don't doubt that there's a relationship of some kind, but what is the simple
ratio actually showing?
------
aagha
This is sooo cool! Great job.
One thing that might be helpful is to have a separate (informational) page
that indicates what the diamond looked like at other period of economic
failure--in fact, what it looked like leading up to the period of
failure/crash would be really interesting.
I'm curious: How quickly can some of these variables changes? For example, it
seems the VIX is at it's low end--how quickly can it spike to say, 30? How
fast can the other vars change?
------
module0000
So, if the stock market is hypothetically predicted to crash in 10-25 days -
what are you going to do? Short it now? Short it later? Buy?
Just curious what HN readers think. For the giggles...I'm going short when the
tape says market sell orders exceed the rate of bid additions, and the
opposite for going long. I like long-term analysis as much as the next guy, I
just never, ever, ever, ever, ever make decisions based on it.
------
tome
Market Volatility section:
Current risk:
NaN / 10
"Calm waters"
(I'm using Edge)
~~~
lowboy
Ah, I was getting the same error in Chrome Canary and it just took a while to
load data. Came here to let the OP know about it and when I tabbed back it was
no longer NaN/10.
------
AJRF
"We can measure Market Overvaluation by looking how much the stock market
costs vs how much it is providing." Isn't this the opposite of what the stock
market is supposed to provide? I assumed valuations for the most part are
guided by what a companies outlook is for the future, not the present.
------
jostmey
"We can chart this to give us an illusion of foresight"
Got to respect the Author's humility in foretelling the future
------
coverband
Interesting analysis, but I'd not have included public debt as a risk factor.
If anything, increasing public debt provides upward support for the equity
market, regardless of whether the money goes to public investments, tax cuts
or bad government spending.
------
cm2187
Blank page for me. Don't know if it is there but a nice chart is size of the
Fed B/S vs S&P 500, since 2005. Suggests a large part of the valuation of
stock is generated by QE, which the Fed intends to start withdrawing this
year...
------
neilwilson
'Public Debt' is a private asset. Why is having more wealth a bad thing?
The idea that being 'in credit' with a sovereign government with its own
currency is a problem has been thoroughly debunked. Primarily by Japan.
Time to stop repeating the myth.
------
sigmar
>The VIX is generally consistantly low (10 - 15) until it isn't. To get a
sense of what a crisis would look like, we can compare to a few historical
values.
What's the point of using a metric that can turn on a dime in a predictive
model?
~~~
cbanek
People use a low VIX to represent complacency, which is typically present
before a market crash, along with the famous irrational exuberance.
Once it goes up, it means there's volatility in the future coming, because the
VIX is based on S&P 500 options.
------
socrates1998
Low Volatility might actually be an indicator that the stock market is going
to blow up, rather than stay calm.
Volatility tends to cluster, and periods with really low volatility are often
an indicator that there is a big movement coming.
------
kmfrk
If nothing else, I like how this might stir some interesting discussions about
the state of the economy.
One thing I'd like is a link to the cited data to make it a little more
serious and conducive to debates.
------
forbiddenlake
Says "Stock market is closed" at 10:45AM EDT. Is it really?
------
neom
Distribution of household debt is to significant to look at the health of the
economy in this way, especially so when you look at how the GDP is generated
and who is generating it.
------
unknown_apostle
Cute site :-) Btw we have the added issue that the volatility of volatility
appears to be rising. Meaning periods of apparent big calm turn into big price
swings more rapidly.
------
peternicky
Why does this site report "the stock market is closed"?
------
artursapek
A high VIX would indicate that the market is crash-ing.
~~~
jaaames
Only indicates it's moving, doesn't necessarily mean crashing.
~~~
artursapek
VIX rising means market is moving, but strictly downwards, right?
------
tambourine_man
Site's broken on mobile:
[http://imgur.com/BD6gzVZ](http://imgur.com/BD6gzVZ)
------
franciskim
Lowest volatility ever in 27 or so years according to VIX apparently, which is
actually a warning sign.
------
odammit
Nah, Trump says it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's the best. May see a dip
in 2020.
------
malynda
Another pedantic remark: Next to the clock, you should include a timezone.
Very interesting!
------
wuliwong
I like the idea. I think it could benefit from some transparency into the
calculations.
------
rrggrr
Household debt should be measured against household income and not against
GDP.
------
movedx
Can you please open source this under an MIT or some license you agree with?
------
yosito
I fully expected this to be a page with the single word "Yes."
------
JVIDEL
This is actually a pretty useful site
Don't get to say that a lot around here
------
myth_drannon
You can setup webpack to minify/uglify your source files.
------
iliveinseattle
market cap as a percent of gdp is a very bad indicator. In today's world a
very large and increasing percentage of revenues is derived from outside the
U.S.
------
nnd
What library did you use for the counting animation?
------
mathiasben
market overvaluation section could do to include the yield spread on bonds as
this is sometimes quoted as a volatility risk indicator.
------
woah
Diagram doesn't work on safari with Adblock
------
kurtisc
>Is the *US stock market going to crash?
------
petters
> Create React App Sample
Shows up on Chrome mobile.
------
Sujan
Yes.
~~~
Sujan
(Sooner or later...)
------
hathym
The real question is when?
------
ringaroundthetx
So VIX doesn't give an indication of much. The VIX formula has changed so many
times, and the human behavior around the assets that VIX tracks has changed to
reflect those changes and the new products those changes are based on.
Different people gamble in weekly S&P500 options than gambled in monthly
S&P500 options. Different people gamble in the 5 consequetive week at any
given moment weekly options, than gambled in the single week at a time weekly
options.
The options market itself has had ebbs and flow in interest.
And the self fulfilling prophecy of keeping the market propped up when
everyone buys PUT options expecting it to crash has disillusioned a lot of
people from participating at all. People know what the central banks are up
to, why pretend to have confidence in any of it. The Swiss bank is printing
money to buy US stocks for free. Everyone's creating money through new bond
issuances to buy things for free.
This all contributes to a lower VIX.
------
yuhong
Yea, the US economy is based on constantly growing debt basically, which can't
last forever. My favorite is the ad bubble now, and ads are basically designed
to increase consumption. It is probably worth mentioning China too:
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-06/chinas-minsky-
momen...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-06/chinas-minsky-moment-
imminent)
------
19890903
Oh dang ! That household debt sure is scary. Where's the real time data
sourced from?
> U.S economic risk as of ...
With the click of a button, may be also allow a view of where it was at a
point in history...? i.e. U.S economic risk as of [insert point in history]
Great work so far. Simple and usable.
~~~
matt-attack
But while the household debt is huge, isn't it naturally balanced by the
equally massive collateral the banks have in the houses themselves? I mean,
sure Joe America has a $500k mortgage, but the bank has first position on
Joe's house which is worth $675k.
~~~
tveita
> first position on Joe's house which is worth $675k
Only in a healthy housing market. In an economic downturn where a lot of
people are defaulting, the bank will not be able to sell the house for
anywhere near that price.
------
davidreiss
Only the elite know. It's so funny how people think that recessions,
depressions, stock market crashes, etc are some "natural" event.
A stock market crash happens when the elite decide there should be a market
crash. When they pull money out of the market.
~~~
shostack
That's a bold claim. Source?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Daimlers MyTaxi to merge with Hailo - madbiz
http://www.reuters.com/artic
======
madbiz
Cant edit the link: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-mytaxi-hailo-
idUSK...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-mytaxi-hailo-
idUSKCN1060FK?utm_source=applenews)
------
shaqbert
With heavy regulation in Germany preventing a true Uber like model, MyTaxi has
become nothing but a more convenient cab hotline that is powered by an app.
Not much going on in terms of innovation or user acquisition.
Seems reasonable to reduce mgmt complexity by putting two similar things into
one, now that the growth dynamics have petered out...
~~~
lentil_soup
honest question, for the end user, what does Uber offer that MyTaxi doesn't
have?
~~~
exit
in my experience, nothing.
------
hclivess
never seen 2.5mil reads on anything in my life
~~~
AjithAntony
Are you using feedly? I saw that too. I never understood what that number is.
Obviously some popularity score. I assumed it was some measure of "shares" for
a specified link.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How long is a 'long term investment'? (a brief analysis of S&P500 since 1950) - tomsaffell
http://saffell.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/snp500/
======
mattmaroon
He's missing dividends. The average S&P 500 dividend yield is 1.37% according
to something I just found on Motley Fool. If that's accurate, that's pretty
substantial.
Too bad they didn't have SPDRs in 1950, he could have been much more accurate
with the same amount of effort.
~~~
tomsaffell
Good point. I would like to analyze returns assuming re-invested dividends
(TSR), which I will try to do in my next analysis. However, as I search around
the web I'm having trouble finding enough data (SPDRs only go back to '93, and
even the economagic data only starts in 1970, which isn't really enough data
to meaningfully look at 'average' 30 year investments)
Does anyone have access to data going further back? I will continue looking
myself, maybe also looking at DJI data.
In the spirit of _hypothesis lead analysis_ , perhaps we (or I) should lay out
hypotheses for how the TSR analysis will differ (Total Shareholder Return).
Clearly the curves will be shifted to the right, probably by the ~1.37% that
Matt mentions. But what about the variance? (which is more interesting IMO). I
need to think about that..
~~~
bokonist
Here is a dataset that includes the value of the S&P and dividends, going back
to the 1800's. <http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm>
The dividend yield used to be much higher, the long term average is 4-5%. The
current yield of 2% is pitiful. Dividends are really how you make money
investing in stocks, the price appreciation is really just a proxy for money
supply growth, see <http://www.cashflowanalytics.com/news.php?articleID=172>.
You can get that same kind of appreciation investing in gold, art, 1950's
baseball cards - anything that people value and find hard to dilute.
I've wondered if the appreciation of the S&P index takes into account the
constant reweighting that needs to be done. For instance, there's a lag as the
company falls out of the index and when a mutual fund can actually sell it.
I've also wondered if it takes into account the dilution rate of stocks, which
traditionally has been around 2% a year.
~~~
tomsaffell
Excellent - thanks for the link. I'll redo the analysis with the new data.
------
marvin
There are lots of interesting things to consider here. Thanks for putting this
together, it set me thinking.
The analysis doesn't consider investment over time - as far as I can tell,
this graph shows the probability distribution of returns on a one-time
investment after a period of years. The goal of investing long-term is to
dampen the effect of investing at a (in retrospect) very good or very bad
time. (In addition, of course, you need to put your money somewhere to get
returns at all).
Random oscillations can be dampened further by investing at regular intervals,
disregarding what the stock price is at the moment: for instance, investing a
smaller amount every month for five years (or even every month, period). It
would be interesting to see how the probabilities of such an investment scheme
fares against a savings account.
You could even make two probability distributions: one for stock market
returns and one for savings account returns, considering taxes where they
apply. (In my part of the world, income from savings accounts is taxed
annually while returns on stock is only taxed when the gains are realized,
which affects returns over time substantially). Inflation affects all
investments equally, and could be disregarded.
Now that I think of it, maybe I should do this myself. This is exactly the
kind of investment scheme I am betting on for the next 20 years, so it seems a
bit irresponsible not to do this kind of thing beforehand.
~~~
gamble
Investing a lump sum by spreading it out over a period of time ('dollar cost
averaging') has been shown to produce lower returns than making one large
initial investment. Most experts regard it as a marketing gimmick used to ease
nervous customers into investments.
~~~
nostrademons
That assumes that you have all the money in the beginning, correct? Makes
perfect sense in that case - the market goes up on average, so if you invest
early on, you get a better price.
But most people don't have a large pile of money sitting around, and earn it
over time. AFAICT, dollar-cost-averaging gives you a better return than the
alternatives of buying a certain number of shares monthly, buying the best
performing stocks, or holding all the cash and investing it when you think
it's a good time to invest.
~~~
gamble
Yes, the term 'dollar-cost averaging' tends to be overloaded. Strictly
speaking, it refers to a strategy where you start with a lump sum and invest
it in chunks over a period of time, rather than at once. Some people have
extended the concept to periodic investments, like you might make in a 401k.
In that case, there's really no reason to sit on your money rather than
investing it as you go.
------
mixmax
One of the flaws in this is that since he's looking back in time he doesn't
include potential investments in companies that go bankrupt. This would shift
the whole thing somewhat to the left.
Interesting nonetheless.
~~~
mattmaroon
I don't see how that matters. You can and maybe should just invest in SPDRs.
~~~
mixmax
OK, here is the explanation. Maybe it isn't as obvious as I thought.
Let's say that you invest in 100 random stocks in 1978 and intend to keep them
as a long term investment. In 2008 when you want to sell your stock it has on
average risen by x%. But some of the companies you invested in have gone
bankrupt, and thus these shares are worth nothing. This pulls your entire
portfolio down by quite a bit.
Now if you look back from 2008 instead of looking forward from 1978 you will
see a different picture. If you pick 100 random stocks and see what their
stockprice was in 1978 (which is what this guy seems to have done) you might
expect to get the same result, but you don't. A lot of companies have gone
bankrupt in those 30 years, and you don't include these in your back-looking
portfolio. Yet, as we see these days, it is a real scenario that the company
you have invested in will simply tank and your shares will be worth nothing.
Over thirty years my guess is that 3 out of 100 companies will go bankrupt,
meaning that bankruptcies alone diminishes your portfolios value by 3%.
I think this is quite substabtial.
~~~
tomsaffell
This is an interesting point. The analysis was done on the 'index value' of
the S&P 500 (from Yahoo Finance), not on any individual equities. I'm trying
to discover how long a 'long term investment' need be, if one invests in an
S&P 500 index / ETF / iShare. (I'm no expert on the subtleties of those
investment vehicles). My understanding is that they track (as best they can)
the value of the index by investing in the stocks that compose the index.
Therefore I _guess_ that when company in the S&P 500 goes bust the effect that
has on one's investment closely matches the effect it has on index value. I'll
research that. Assuming this is true, I think we needn’t be concerned by the
bankruptcy issue that you make. But please correct me if I'm wrong about that
- I'm interested.
I'll try to add TSR in the next analysis too.
~~~
mattmaroon
It's not interesting, it's just wrong. Even if the total market averages 10%,
that's counting bankruptcies. It's not a median or a mode, it's a mean.
~~~
mixmax
Matt, you're right. I thought he was looking at a portfolio of individual
stock, not an index where bankruptcies are supposedly included.
My bad...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Side project you're working on? - startupflix
======
jwbensley
I've been working on some software called Etherate that let's you test (or
"rate") an Ethernet connection:
[https://github.com/jwbensley/Etherate](https://github.com/jwbensley/Etherate)
I use it for testing that devices parse frame headers correctly, that L2 VPNs,
rate limiting, QoS etc. are all working correctly.
I sometimes find bugs in routers and switches when I find that they parse
certain headers incorrectly.
I have also been working on a multi-threaded version which doesn't provide any
header manipulation, it is a pure Ethernet load generator / sinker for testing
higher bandwidths:
[https://github.com/jwbensley/EtherateMT](https://github.com/jwbensley/EtherateMT)
~~~
startupflix
Looks impressive
~~~
jwbensley
That's the beauty of anticlimaxes ;)
------
marketgod
I have been working on creating a system that reads the stock market for
patterns in order to buy valuable contract options, calls in bull markets and
puts in bear markets.
The major issue I had was being away from the computer when a trade needed to
be made. Now I get in automatically and sell with stops.
Been showing impressive returns for myself. Was not thinking of running it as
a business.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17270396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17270396)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Keep unwanted photos off any site with javascript one-liner - chrisconley
http://houdiniapi.com/2011/05/introducing-safecontent-keep-unwanted-photos-off-any-site/
======
chrisconley
Hey all, Chris from Houdini here. This is a new idea we're currently working
on - any feedback is greatly appreciated!
------
Quarrelsome
How does the tech work? Are you looking for some sort of standard deviation
from what a "correct" image should look like or farming out the work to
monkeys, or something else?
~~~
ptm
According to the reddit submission -
<http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/hk4j5> \- seems to be using
Amazon Mturk.
------
hollerith
The title, "Keep unwanted photos off any site," should be "Keep unwanted
photos off sites you own".
------
pcolton
It's not clear what happens to the moderated photo. Is a placeholder returned?
Is it blurred, etc etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pattern-defeating quicksort - pettou
https://github.com/orlp/pdqsort
======
atilimcetin
Rust's stable sort is based on timsort ([https://doc.rust-
lang.org/std/vec/struct.Vec.html#method.sor...](https://doc.rust-
lang.org/std/vec/struct.Vec.html#method.sort)) and unstable sort is based on
pattern-defeating quicksort ([https://doc.rust-
lang.org/std/vec/struct.Vec.html#method.sor...](https://doc.rust-
lang.org/std/vec/struct.Vec.html#method.sort_unstable)). The documentation
says that 'It [unstable sorting] is generally faster than stable sorting,
except in a few special cases, e.g. when the slice consists of several
concatenated sorted sequences.'
~~~
gnarbarian
I like merge sort. Average time may be worse, but it's upper bound is better
and it is conceptually cleaner and easier to understand (IMO).
~~~
partycoder
Just that it takes extra space and that's sometimes a constraint.
~~~
chii
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2571049/how-to-sort-
in-p...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2571049/how-to-sort-in-place-
using-the-merge-sort-algorithm)
In place merge sort exists. It's hard to write tho
~~~
partycoder
Which decreases the space complexity but increases the time complexity.
~~~
stjepang
No, the time complexity is the same: O(n log n). The author of the top answer
links to his book, where you can find a proof of time complexity:
[https://sites.google.com/site/algoxy/home/elementary-
algorit...](https://sites.google.com/site/algoxy/home/elementary-
algorithms.pdf)
~~~
EvgeniyZh
...but it increases run time. It's fine not to care on hidden constants while
analyzing algorithms, but not while using them in real life
------
stjepang
I think it's fair to say that pdqsort (pattern-defeating quicksort) is overall
the best unstable sort and timsort is overall the best stable sort in 2017, at
least if you're implementing one for a standard library.
The standard sort algorithm in Rust is timsort[1] (slice::sort), but soon
we'll have pdqsort as well[2] (slice::sort_unstable), which shows great
benchmark numbers.[3] Actually, I should mention that both implementations are
not 100% equivalent to what is typically considered as timsort and pdqsort,
but they're pretty close.
It is notable that Rust is the first programming language to adopt pdqsort,
and I believe its adoption will only grow in the future.
Here's a fun fact: Typical quicksorts (and introsorts) in standard libraries
spend most of the time doing literally nothing - just waiting for the next
instruction because of failed branch prediction! If you manage to eliminate
branch misprediction, you can easily make sorting twice as fast! At least that
is the case if you're sorting items by an integer key, or a tuple of integers,
or something primitive like that (i.e. when comparison is rather cheap).
Pdqsort efficiently eliminates branch mispredictions and brings some other
improvements over introsort as well - for example, the complexity becomes
O(nk) if the input array is of length n and consists of only k different
values. Of course, worst-case complexity is always O(n log n).
Finally, last week I implemented parallel sorts for Rayon (Rust's data
parallelism library) based on timsort and pdqsort[4].
Check out the links for more information and benchmarks. And before you start
criticizing the benchmarks, please keep in mind that they're rather
simplistic, so please take them with a grain of salt.
I'd be happy to elaborate further and answer any questions. :)
[1] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/38192](https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/pull/38192)
[2] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/40585](https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/issues/40585)
[3] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/40601](https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/pull/40601)
[4]
[https://github.com/nikomatsakis/rayon/pull/379](https://github.com/nikomatsakis/rayon/pull/379)
~~~
Retric
Comparing sorting algo's often says more about your benchmark than the algo's
themselves. Random and pathological are obvious, but often your dealing with
something in between. Radix vs n log n is another issue.
So, what where your benchmarks like?
~~~
stjepang
That is true - the benchmarks mostly focus on random cases, although there are
a few benchmarks with "mostly sorted" arrays (sorted arrays with sqrt(n)
random swaps).
If the input array consists of several concatenated ascending or descending
sequences, then timsort is the best. After all, timsort was specifically
designed to take advantage of that particular case. Pdqsort performs
respectably, too, and if you have more than a dozen of these sequences or if
the sequences are interspersed, then it starts winning over timsort.
Anyways, both pdqsort and timsort perform well when the input is not quite
random. In particular, pdqsort blows introsort (e.g. typical C++ std::sort
implementations) out of the water when the input is not random[1]. It's pretty
much a strict improvement over introsort. Likewise, timsort (at least the
variant implemented in Rust's standard library) is pretty much a strict
improvement over merge sort (e.g. typical C++ std::stable_sort
implementations).
Regarding radix sort, pdqsort can't quite match its performance (it's O(n log
n) after all), but can perform fairly respectably. E.g. ska_sort[2] (a famous
radix sort implementation) and Rust's pdqsort perform equally well on my
machine when sorting 10 million random 64-bit integers. However, on larger
arrays radix sort starts winning easily, which shouldn't be surprising.
I'm aware that benchmarks are tricky to get right, can be biased, and are
always controversial. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.
[1]: [https://github.com/orlp/pdqsort](https://github.com/orlp/pdqsort)
[2]:
[https://github.com/skarupke/ska_sort](https://github.com/skarupke/ska_sort)
~~~
prestonbriggs
There's lots of pathologies to watch out for... Imagine sorting 10 million
random ints, where 1% of them are random 64-bit values and 99% are in the
range [0..9]. Might be extra fun in parallel.
------
nneonneo
I would love to see the benchmark results against Timsort, the Python sorting
algorithm that also implements a bunch of pragmatic heuristics for pattern
sorting. Timsort has a slight advantage over pdqsort in that Timsort is
stable, whereas pdqsort is not.
I see that timsort.h is in the benchmark directory, so it seems odd to me that
the README doesn't mention the benchmark results.
~~~
nightcracker
There are multiple reasons I don't include Timsort in my README benchmark
graph:
1\. There is no authoritative implementation of Timsort in C++. In the bench
directory I included [https://github.com/gfx/cpp-
TimSort](https://github.com/gfx/cpp-TimSort), but I don't know the quality of
that implementation.
2\. pdqsort intends to be the algorithm of choice of a system unstable sort.
In other words, a direct replacement for introsort for std::sort. So std::sort
is my main comparison vehicle, and anything else is more or less a
distraction. The only reason I included std::stable_sort in the benchmark is
to show that unstable sorting is an advantage for speed for those unaware.
But, since you're curious, here's the benchmark result with Timsort included
on my machine:
[http://i.imgur.com/tSdS3Y0.png](http://i.imgur.com/tSdS3Y0.png)
This is for sorting integers however, I expect Timsort to become substantially
better as the cost of a comparison increases.
------
ComputerGuru
Just because I was confused: this is by Orson Peters who first invented pdq.
It's not brand new (as in yesterday), but is a very, very recent innovation
(2016).
------
dpcx
Question as a non low-level developer, and please forgive my ignorance:
How is it that we're essentially 50 years in to writing sorting algorithms,
and we still find improvements? Shouldn't sorting items be a "solved" problem
by now?
~~~
stjepang
Basically all comparison-based sort algorithms we use today stem from two
basic algorithms: mergesort (stable sort, from 1945) and quicksort (unstable
sort, from 1959).
Mergesort was improved by Tim Peters in 2002 and that became timsort. He
invented a way to take advantage of pre-sorted intervals in arrays to speed up
sorting. It's basically an additional layer over mergesort with a few other
low-level tricks to minimize the amount memcpying.
Quicksort was improved by David Musser in 1997 when he developed introsort. He
set a strict worst-case bound of O(n log n) on the algorithm, as well as
improved the pivot selection strategy. And people are inventing new ways of
pivot selection all the time. E.g. Andrei Alexandrescu has published a new
method in 2017[1].
In 2016 Edelkamp and Weiß found a way to eliminate branch mispredictions
during the partitioning phase in quicksort/introsort. This is a vast
improvement. The same year Orson Peters adopted this technique and developed
pattern-defeating quicksort. He also figured out multiple ways to take
advantage of partially sorted arrays.
Sorting is a mostly "solved" problem in theory, but as new hardware emerges
different aspects of implementations become more or less important (cache,
memory, branch prediction) and then we figure out new tricks to take advantage
of modern hardware. And finally, multicore became a thing fairly recently so
there's a push to explore sorting in yet another direction...
[1]
[http://erdani.com/research/sea2017.pdf](http://erdani.com/research/sea2017.pdf)
~~~
xenadu02
It's always good to remember that while Big-O is useful, it isn't the be-all
end-all. The canonical example on modern hardware is a linked list. In theory
it has many great properties. In reality chasing pointers can be death due to
cache misses.
Often a linear search of a "dumb" array can be the fastest way to accomplish
something because it is very amenable to pre-fetching (it is obvious to the
pre-fetcher what address will be needed next). Even a large array may fit
entirely in L2 or L3. For small data structures arrays are almost always a
win; in some cases even hashing is slower than a brute-force search of an
array! __
A good middle ground can be a binary tree with a bit less than an L1 's worth
of entries in an array stored at each node. The binary tree lets you skip
around the array quickly while the CPU can zip through the elements at each
node.
__It is more important than ever to test your assumptions. Once you 've done
the Big-O analysis to eliminate exponential algorithms and other basic
optimizations you need to analyze the actual on-chip performance, including
cache behavior and branch prediction.
~~~
flukus
> It's always good to remember that while Big-O is useful, it isn't the be-all
> end-all. The canonical example on modern hardware is a linked list. In
> theory it has many great properties. In reality chasing pointers can be
> death due to cache misses.
My favorite example is adding and ordered list of items into a a simple tree,
all you've really done is created a linked list. Big-O doesn't know what your
data looks like but you generally should.
~~~
beagle3
Simple binary tree is O(n^2) just like a linked list.
Unless you know what you know your distributions and are generally proficient
in probability theory (in 99% of the cases, neither can be relied on) the only
relevant big-O metric is the worst case one
------
graycat
I always wondered if there would be a way to have quicksort run slower than
O(n ln(n)).
Due to that possibility, when I code up a sort routine, I use heap sort. It is
guaranteed O(n ln(n)) worst case and achieves the Gleason bound for sorting by
comparing keys which means that on average and worst case, on the number of
key comparisons, it is impossible to do better than heap sort's O(n ln(n))
forever.
For a stable sort, sure, just extend the sort keys with a sequence number, do
the sort, and remove the key extensions.
Quicksort has good main memory locality of reference and a possibility of some
use of multiple threads, and heap sort seems to have neither. But there is a
version of heap sort modified for doing better on locality of reference when
the array being sorted is really large.
But, if are not too concerned about memory space, then don't have to care
about the sort routine being _in place_. In that case, get O(n ln(n)), a
stable sort, no problems with locality of reference, and ability to sort huge
arrays with just the old merge sort.
I long suspected that much of the interest in in-place, O(n ln(n)), stable
sorting was due to some unspoken but strong goal of finding some fundamental
_conservation law_ of a trade off of processor time and memory space. Well,
that didn't really happen. But heap sort is darned clever; I like it.
~~~
torrent-of-ions
It's cool to play with a pack of cards and run sorting algorithms on them. To
see the worst case of quicksort, use the first element as the pivot and give
it an already sorted list. It will take quadratic time to give back the same
list.
~~~
graycat
Right. So, for the first "pivot" value, people commonly use the median of
three -- take three keys and use as the pivot the median of those three, that
is, the middle value. Okay. But then the question remains: While in practice
the median of three sounds better, maybe there is a goofy, pathological array
of keys that still makes quicksort run in quadratic time. Indeed, maybe for
any way of selecting the first pivot, there is an array that makes quicksort
quadratic.
Rather than think about that, I noticed that heap sort meets the Gleason bound
which means that heap sort's O(n ln)n)) performance both worst case and
average case can never be beaten by a sort routine that depends on comparing
keys two at a time.
Then, sure, can beat O(n ln(n)). How? Use radix sort -- that was how the old
punched card sorting machines worked. So, for an array of length n and a key
of length k, the thing always runs in O(nk) which for sufficiently large n is
less than O(n ln(n)). In practice? Nope: I don't use radix sort!
------
jkabrg
[Post-edit] I made several edits to the post below. First, to make an
argument. Second, to add paragraphs. [/Post-edit]
Tl;dr version: It seems to me you should either use heapsort or plain
quicksort; the latter with the sort of optimisations described in the linked
article, but not including the fallback to heapsort.
Long version:
Here's my reasoning for the above:
You're either working with lists that are reasonably likely to trigger the
worst case of randomised quicksort, or you're not working with such lists. By
likely, I mean the probability is not extremely small.
Consider the case when the worst case is very unlikely: you're so unlikely to
have a worst case that you're gaining almost nothing for accounting for it
except extra complexity. So you might as well only use quicksort with
optimisations that are likely to actually help.
Next is the case that a worst case might actually happen. Again, this is not
by chance; it has to be because someone can predict your "random" pivot and
screw with your algorithm; in that case, I propose just using heapsort. Why?
This might be long, so I apologise. It's because usually when you design
something, you design it to a high tolerance; a high tolerance in this case
ought to be the worst case of your sorting algorithm. In which case, when
designing and testing your system, you'll have to do extra work to tease out
the worst case. To avoid doing that, you might as well use an algorithm that
takes the same amount of time every time, which I think means heapsort.
~~~
nightcracker
The overhead of including the fallback to heapsort takes a negligible, non-
measurable amount of processing time that guarantees a worst case runtime of
O(n log n), and to be more precise, a worst case that is 2 - 4 times as slow
as the best case.
Your logic also would mean that any sorting function that is publicly facing
(which is basically any interface on the internet, like a sorted list of
Facebook friends) would need to use heapsort (which is 2-4 times as slow), as
otherwise DoS attacks are simply done by constructing worst case inputs.
There are no real disadvantages to the hybrid approach.
~~~
jkabrg
Thanks for your reply.
> Your logic also would mean that any sorting function that is publicly facing
> (which is basically any interface on the internet, like a sorted list of
> Facebook friends) would need to use heapsort (which is 2-4 times as slow),
> as otherwise DoS attacks are simply done by constructing worst case inputs.
Why is that a wrong conclusion? It might be, I'm not a dev. But if I found
myself caring about that sort of minutiae, I would reach exactly that
conclusion.
Reasons:
* the paranoid possibility that enough users can trigger enough DoS attacks that your system can fall over. If this is likely enough, maybe you should design for the 2-4x worst case, and make your testing and provisioning of resources easier.
* a desire for simplicity when predicting performance, which you're losing by going your route because you're adding the possibility of a 2-4x performance drop depending on the content of the list. Ideally, you want the performance to solely be a function of n, where n is the size of your list; not n and the time-varying distribution of evilness over your users.
Finally, adding a fallback doesn't seem free to me, because it might fool you
into not addressing the points I just made. That O(n^2) for Quicksort might be
a good way to get people to think; your O(n log n) is hiding factors which
don't just depend on n.
~~~
carussell
I'm sympathetic because it may not be clear:
pdqsort is a hybrid sort; when it encounters apparently pathological input, it
switches from a strategy resembling quicksort to heapsort—it doesn't share
quicksort's worst case characteristics.
Your thesis is wrong:
> you might as well use an algorithm that takes the same amount of time every
> time, which I think means heapsort
Heapsort has a variable runtime. It will selectively reheap. Whether this
happens is dependent on the state of the heap and your next element, which
means the total number of times you reheap will vary with input.
~~~
jkabrg
> pdqsort is a hybrid sort; when it encounters apparently pathological input,
> it switches from a strategy resembling quicksort to heapsort—it doesn't
> share quicksort's worst case characteristics.
I understand how hybrid sorts work. I thought that would be clear enough. I
guess when you're a stranger on the internet, people don't automatically trust
you to know what you're talking about. I imagine this is even truer when you
say something counterintuitive or controversial. In spite of learning that,
I'm responding chiefly because of that quote.
> Your thesis is wrong: > > Heapsort has a variable runtime
Let's not get hung up on heapsort. My thesis is if you have an algorithm with
a gap between the worst case and average case, then you shouldn't use it on
the web. That gap might _not_ manifest as gap in the big O -- it could be 4x
slower in the worst case than the average case, and that would still be bad.
To see why, try imagining this world of pure evil:
You create a website that uses _gap_ sort. Gapsort is an algorithm that is 4x
slower in the worst case than it is in the average case, for a fixed value of
n (the size of the input). On top of that, triggering the worst case by
accident is hard. You deploy your site for several months, buy servers, and
get a userbase. In your performance testing, you only encountered the average
case, so you only provisioned hardware for the average case. Now imagine that
suddenly all your users turn evil, and start triggering the worst case; this
leads to a sudden 4x performance drop. You may have underprovisioned for this.
So my thesis is it _looks like_ having differences from the worst case and
average case is great, on average. But in a hostile world, that actually makes
things more complicated. When doing empirical performance testing, you'll test
for the average. _Moreover_ the gap can be just 4x; _this will not manifest as
a difference between the big Os of the worst and average cases_ (as I've said
previously).
Changing from quicksort to heapsort on some inputs may manifest as a
performance gap between the QS case and fallback case. Maybe that's not such a
good idea. In fact, maybe you shouldn't use any quicksort variant, even
introsort, in a potentially hostile environment, _because of the unavoidable
average-to-worst-case gap_. In introsort, that gap is merely a different
coefficient, but it's still a gap.
I hope that wasn't too repetitive.
[edit] I deleted and reposted this because the edits weren't being applied.
[edit] Done it twice now.
~~~
bmm6o
I hear what you're saying, but it seems like this is potentially a problem
only in cases where you are devoting significant resources to sorting. Like if
sorting takes only 1% of your CPU time, worst-case input will only bump that
to 4% - and that's only if every user starts hitting you with worst-case
requests. Even if you spend more, it's a question of how much work can the
malicious users cause you to do.
------
j_s
Has HN ever discussed the possibilities when purposely crafting worst-case
input to amplify a denial-of-service attack?
~~~
nightcracker
If whoever you're targeting uses libc++, I already did the analysis:
[https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20837](https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20837)
To my knowledge it's still not fixed.
------
kleiba
This book is one of the most general treatments of parameterized Quicksort
available: [http://wild-inter.net/publications/wild-2016.pdf](http://wild-
inter.net/publications/wild-2016.pdf)
------
beagle3
Anyone knows how this compares to Timsort in practice?
A quick google turns out nothing
~~~
mastax
[https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/40601](https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/pull/40601)
"stable" is a simplified Timsort: [https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/pull/38192](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/38192)
"unstable" is a pdqsort
~~~
stjepang
To summarize:
If comparison is cheap (e.g. when sorting integers), pdqsort wins because it
copies less data around and the instructions are less data-dependency-heavy.
If comparison is expensive (e.g. when sorting strings), timsort is usually a
tiny bit faster (around 5% or less) because it performs a slightly smaller
total number of comparisons.
------
jorgemf
Where is a high level description of the algorithm? How is it different from
quick sort, it seems quite similar based on a quick observation of the code.
~~~
klodolph
The readme file actually contains a fairly thorough description of how it
differs from quicksort. Start with the section titled "the best case".
~~~
jorgemf
> On average case data where no patterns are detected pdqsort is effectively a
> quicksort that uses median-of-3 pivot selection
So basically is quicksort with a bit more clever pivot selection, but only for
some cases.
~~~
stjepang
You're forgetting probably the most important optimization: block
partitioning. This one alone makes it almost 2x faster (on random arrays) than
typical introsort when sorting items by an integer key.
------
wiz21c
Is there a analysis of its complexity ? The algorithm looks very nice !
~~~
nightcracker
Hey, author of pdqsort here, the draft paper contains complexity proofs of the
O(n log n) worst case and O(nk) best case with k distinct keys:
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-vl-
dPgKm_T0Fxeno1a0lGT0...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-vl-
dPgKm_T0Fxeno1a0lGT0E)
~~~
ouid
Best case? Give worst and average case when describing complexities.
~~~
nightcracker
I already did, you may want to re-read my comment.
~~~
ouid
Am I misinterpreting your usage of "best case"?
~~~
nightcracker
Without enlightening me on what your interpretation is, I have no way of
telling.
pdqsort has a worst case of O(n log n). That means, no matter what, the
algorithm never takes more than a constant factor times n log n time to
complete.
Since pdqsort is strictly a comparison sort, and comparison sorts can do no
better than O(n log n) in the average case, pdqsort is asymptotically optimal
in the average case (because the average case can never be worse than the
worst case).
On top of the above guarantees, if your input contains only k distinct keys,
then pdqsort has a worst case complexity of O(nk). So when k gets small (say,
1-5 distinct elements), pdqsort approaches linear time. That is pdqsort's best
case.
------
unruledboy
it's interesting that .Net built-in quicksort is actually doing the same
thing, with introsort behind the scenes.
------
torrent-of-ions
I can see why one might blindly call qsort on already sorted data (when using
user input), but why sorted data with one out of place element? Presumably
that element has been appended to a sorted array, so you would place it
properly in linear time using insertion and not call a sort function at all.
Why does such a pattern arise in practice?
~~~
nightcracker
You would be surprised how often people just use a (repeatedly) sorted vector
in spite of a proper data structure or proper insertion calls. It's a lot
simpler to just append and sort again. Or the appending happens somewhere else
in the code entirely.
As a real-world example, consider a sprite list in a game engine. Yes, you
could keep it properly sorted as you add/remove sprites, but it's a lot
simpler to just append/delete sprites throughout the code, and just sort it a
single time each frame, even if it only adds a single sprite.
So yes, technically this pattern is not needed if everyone always recognized
and used the optimal data structure and algorithm at the right time. But that
doesn't happen, and it isn't always the simplest solution for the programmer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I need to know what is the future of mobile app development? - umairmehdi
I am planning to switch from php side to mobile app development side. I need to know what is the scope of android and ios app development.
======
zer00eyz
Its pretty huge right now. The realities are the space is evolving, I suspect
that in 5 years your going to see a "front end" vs "back end" split in mobile
development. Its the way that everything else has ended up, why would mobile
be any different?
------
jrpt
React Native is pretty interesting, and I could see it becoming very popular
over the next five years.
------
raooll
I think go with IOS development, learn swift.
------
nphyte
go for it. definite shortage
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Decide if a New Hire Will Be a Team Player in the Interview - erinbryce
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130718210257-15454-the-best-interview-question-of-all-time-to-assess-team-skills
======
mtkd
Why do they have to be?
Just because a person isn't 100% 'team player' material doesn't mean they are
not capable of massive step-change contributions to a team activity.
If you hire all 'team players' or all PhDs or all men or all people who have
been successful in their lives you are likely to have a team that has less
capability than one that has some diversity.
Unless you're just building a production line - in which case you probably
want the uniformity.
~~~
nahname
If no one rocks the boat, it comfortably goes over the waterfall.
Hiring everyone with the same mindset is a great way to limit innovation and
creativity. You also run the risk of being blindsided by upcoming challenges
because everyone is so eagerly agreeing to the plan.
------
danso
The OP purports to have a way of assessing teamwork-capability based on good
interview questions (and I think his questions are spot-on)...but the anecdote
he closes with is too pat:
> _Many years ago a CFO of a fast-growing Southern California medical products
> company excluded a candidate I presented for a corporate cost accounting
> manager spot since he believed he lacked strong team skills and a sense of
> urgency. This was after a 20-minute “chat.” After I mentioned that the
> candidate was assigned to lead an international task force to implement a
> state-of-the-art cost system for a F50 company he quickly relented, re-
> interviewed the candidate, and hired him a few days later._
As the OP describes it, the overriding factor is: what is the candidate's
_claimed_ team-related achievement(s)? In this case, it was "being assigned to
lead an international task force to implement a state-of-the-art cost system
for a F50 company"...but that doesn't seem enough on its own...for example,
_was that project successful?_ seems to be an equally important question...and
even the answer to that doesn't definitively quantify that person's ability to
work on a team.
To be fair, the OP is describing a situation in which the hiring company
apparently made a decision based on first impressions (i.e. mannerisms,
appearance, etc.)...which of course is just bad. However, it'd be interesting
to hear more in detail what factors were used to assess the candidate that
were not found in that initial interview.
------
incision
I wonder how my honest answers to that line of questioning would be
interpreted?
_" >What were the biggest challenges the team faced?"_
Struggling with a crony manager whose universal incompetence worked its way
into every aspect of the project. This ultimately made a smoking wreck of the
first public milestone.
_" >Walk me through the biggest team problems and how they were resolved.
What was your role in this?_
After the major public embarrassment described above I was sent before a panel
of consultants to effectively interview for my job. I successfully convinced
the consultants of my own my own plan to recover the project while laying
provable blame for the project dysfunction on the problem manager.
The team was appointed a new manager who was happy to stay all but completely
out of the way. I was made technical lead and given free reign to pull
together a new team. Within six weeks we completed a new public milestone with
4x the scope of the previous failure without a hint of trouble.
\---
Personally, I see "team player" often being confused with simply being
subordinate to the established team.
I think there's definitely wisdom in a mentality of service, to the team or
the job.
Thing is, the team may be best served by having part of it removed and the
team _function_ may be best served by a completely different team.
In my experience, people don't like to hear that.
~~~
kabdib
Biggest challenge: A fake scrum system whose claim was "this will make us into
great teams" when really all it was used for was micromanagement and
scapegoating.
"Your velocity is off by ten percent. We're concerned."
"You're the most talked about person in the scrum-of-scrums."
Gahhh.
------
6d0debc071
Are you a team player? Well now, that kinda depends on the team, doesn't it?
You can't just slot people in and out like identical Lego blocks. "Ah, yes,
I'll take a bag of 15 size-10 database programmers with 4 years experience
please."
Charitably, I'd call this a complexity problem - it costs resources to look
into individuals, and that's why you have an interview process rather than
having the people who do the job talk to the person and see what they think.
Uncharitably, I'd say there are people seriously out of touch with their
humanity. Who view people as components because they don't _care_ about
people. Perhaps because, if you do, it's emotionally draining to get to know
so many people and then hurt them by turning them down.
Since it's hard to believe this is really an efficient long-term approach to
recruitment, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.
------
coldcode
If you really want to know if a (otherwise qualified) developer will fit into
your team you should do contract-to-hire. Anything less is a guess. Every team
is different, every need is different and every candidate's experience is
different. Assuming you can ask a magical question or two and know is the
realm of psychics.
~~~
chollida1
> If you really want to know if a (otherwise qualified) developer will fit
> into your team you should do contract-to-hire
The difficulty here is that no one who is even mediocre would ever do a
"contract to hire".
If they are good they have options and there just isn't any upside to doing a
contract for hire when you can take another full time job.
Contract for hire is a big red flag!
~~~
beachstartup
> The difficulty here is that no one who is even mediocre would ever do a
> "contract to hire".
this is absolutely not true. good people will simply demand a high hourly
billing rate during the contract phase to compensate for the opportunity cost,
which you have to be prepared to pay.
sure if you're dicking around with $20/hr "contracts" everyone decent will
tell you to kick rocks.
have you ever worked with people who are used to getting paid $100+/hr? i.e.
top people? it doesn't sound like it.
~~~
chollida1
I think we're going to have to disagree here.
> have you ever worked with people who are used to getting paid $100+/hr? i.e.
> top people? it doesn't sound like it.
I saw this and wondered if you were trolling. It's certainly a rude and
undeserved comment, but I'll be charitable and bite:)
My main point is that "good" developers, always have options.
My assumptions:
1) the developer wants full time work, otherwise they would just do
contracting and not contract for hire.
2) jobs are plentiful for good developers.
Why would the developer assume all the risk with contract for hire, unless
they had no other options? Why not just take the full time job instead?
Basically my point boils down to two points...
1) How would a company convince me to do contract for hire work when I can
work somewhere else without that risk? What's my upside to doing this?
2) As long as most companies don't' do contract for hire, a company is putting
themselves in a position that excludes most talented developers. ie if you
aren't facebook, twitter, dropbox, etc. my contention is that the top
developers will laugh at your contract to hire request.
~~~
phlo
Done right, contract-to-hire seems like a great solution to me. It's actually
a chance for the employer and employee to get to know each other and make sure
their mutual expectations match.
Assuming the position were to be salaried at $104k, a sensible agreement might
be: \- The employee is hired temporarily for a period of one to three months.
\- Their wage is paid weekly, at a rate of $2k per week (i.e. 1/52 of their
expected salary) \- The contract may be cancelled by either party with seven
days' notice. \- At its end, the contract automatically converts to a
permanent position.
If a signing bonus is called for, it should be due early during the
probationary period. A separate bonus for the transition from temporary to
permanent employment may not be a great idea as it may incentivize the
employer to terminate the agreement.
~~~
rdouble
That's the issue. A job explicitly labeled "contract to hire" is never done
right. No good developer is going to do contract to hire at 1/52 of the
salary, because they already either make an equivalent salary or far more as a
contractor. The company isn't going to pay an actual contracting rate, because
they are either cheap or can't afford it. Contract to hire is almost
exclusively done in places where it's hard for a developer to find a good job
and it's used to take advantage of this situation.
~~~
beachstartup
> A job explicitly labeled "contract to hire" is never done right
i don't understand how you and the other guy can make these blanket black and
white statements like this. have you guys ever had to hire people based on
advertised solicitation only?
contract to hire is mainly done in situations _where a new employee can not be
vouched for by an existing one, or a large number of new employees must be
brought on at once_.
the reason why it's so rare among elite silicon valley firms is because
everyone knows each other and recruiting is usually a personal process between
existing employees and prospective ones. THIS IS NOT HOW IT IS EVERYWHERE.
outside of the echo chamber it's very common and good people can be hired this
way.
~~~
rdouble
I'm not sure what I said contradicts what you're saying. I've been involved
with hiring over 100 people in Boston, San Francisco and NYC. Everyone does
not really know everyone but that's a different story. Contract to hire is
very popular in the part of the Midwest where I'm originally from because of
no particular reason other than the hiring firm can and the person being hired
doesn't have many options. At one place I worked in Boston everyone was
theoretically "contract to hire" but it was atypical as the rate paid was so
high that nobody ever took the full time job.
~~~
beachstartup
i see you deleted your anecdote, which to me basically exemplifies my theory
that the opposing opinion on this matter is simply just a way of validating
ego.
"I would never do that, so therefore, no other good developer would either.
Ever."
~~~
rdouble
I deleted my anecdote because I didn't feel it was appropriate to leave
details up about my friend's company as he's still my friend and they still
need to fill the position.
I guess I don't get what you're saying. Who does contract to hire where it's
good a good deal for someone other than the employer?
------
islon
Throw a dice: if it's a 6 then he'll be a good team player. No, serious, it's
really hard to know that beforehand, an interview with the right questions can
help but luck is still involved.
------
pstuart
I think this is better:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiter_Rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiter_Rule)
~~~
tome
I hear this a lot, especially with regard to dating advice, but I don't think
I've ever eaten with someone who was rude to the waiter. Have I just been
lucky?
~~~
SomeRandomUser
Maybe you're rude too so you can't tell how the waiter should be treated.
/joke
I've never eaten with someone who was _rude_ to a waiter, but there are some
things that you can learn from a person by looking at how he behaves with
other people.
For example, if someone is putting food on your table, try to not be in his
way and maybe tone down the conversation a little bit. Saying thanks is also a
nice thing to do... looking at you, study team member.
------
livestyle
Very similar approach as this article by Tucker Max.
[http://tuckermax.me/dont-look-for-talent-find-people-who-
do-...](http://tuckermax.me/dont-look-for-talent-find-people-who-do-things/)
~~~
csours
I really like asking questions about what a person has done (especially as
personal / home projects), also to a lesser degree what tech blogs they
frequent (if they only mention aggregators, thats half a demerit).
What are the weaknesses of these questions?
~~~
acuozzo
The problem with rating a candidate on the basis of his personal/home projects
is that it excludes potentially-excellent candidates who are __unable__ to
work on anything at home due to, e.g., having several young children and half-
dead parents to care for.
(Also, don't try to retort with "so ask them about the personal/home projects
they did _before_ having kids", as that wouldn't be sufficient to cover the
people who have had children at a young age; e.g., before turning 20 years-
old.)
~~~
aestra
Or how about those potentially-excellent candidates who don't have children
but just have a life? I love my job. I love writing code. I am passionate
about it. The time I spend at work I mostly enjoy, but 40 hours a week is
enough for me. I would rather spend the rest of my time with the people I love
or on other ventures that don't involve sitting in front of a screen. If you
don't want to hire me because my job isn't my entire life, than I don't want
to work for you. Nobody should be penalized career-wise for enjoying their
free time.
~~~
auggierose
Never seen that. All people I know who love programming even find time to do
their own stuff on a 60 hour schedule.
~~~
acuozzo
I love programming, but I love my hobbies (e.g., film and video preservation)
A LOT more.
I don't love programming enough to devote time outside of my 40 hours/week to
it.
------
mathattack
I find this is very hard to screen for by looking at resumes, and almost as
hard to detect in interviews. Even with an interview, sometimes people just
talk a good game. The only reliable methods I've seen are "Hiring people you
already know to be good team workers" and "Watch them over a 10 week
internship."
------
snorkel
The Airplane test: imagine sitting next to this person for 8 hours on an
airplane. If your first reaction is "No thank you!" then your team will feel
the same about working with them.
------
cafard
In 1683, Prince Eugene of Savoy applied to Louis XIV for a commission in the
French army. Louis XIV turned him down flat; whether as not a team player or
just as ugly, unprepossessing, etc. I don't know. Prince Eugene turned to
Vienna, and spend the beginning of the 1700s winning campaigns and battles
against the French marshals, often in cooperation with John Churchill,
eventually Duke of Marlborough.
Wikipedia has the dates etc.
------
seivan
"Personally, I see "team player" often being confused with simply being
subordinate to the established team."
+1
------
FajitaNachos
Some of the best team players are those who would do anything, for anyone, at
the drop of a hat. They are the people who show up early, bust their ass,
never complain, and wouldn't think twice about lending a hand whenever you
ask. I have no idea how to determine that from an interview.
------
_sabe_
Didn't read. But why does all this "Management" experts seems to love awful
stock-photos? And why are these Management/HR people always obsessed to come
up with rules and guides, as if they ironically are to incompetent to handle
people so they need a manual...
~~~
MDCore
> rules and guides
Repeatability would be one reason. Asking the same questions to different
candidates will help you make better and comparable decisions. The usual
"casual chat" interview is heavily biased towards people who are good looking
and interview well.
~~~
_sabe_
That was my whole point...all these NLP, coloring personalities and all other
bullshit HR and management people are into is only due to their lack of
ability to read and sense people. If they don't come up with all this
bullshit, they'd be completely lost (just to fall back on looks).
------
michaelochurch
Wait, people still use "team player" non-ironically?
"♪ The dream of the oh-ohs is alive on Linkedin... ♪"
~~~
dpritchett
You'd think they'd look for cultural fit, but instead they're looking for
"growth in terms of the size and importance of the teams the person has been
assigned". Feels bigco-oriented to me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Musicslu's "name your own price" music distribution system - dimarco
http://musicslu.com/we-are-artists
======
dimarco
The basics of Musicslu:
How does a community purchase work?
1\. The artists of We Are Artists lists a total amount they would like to sell
their release for, in this case $1,500.
2\. You name your own price, using the "Make a pledge" button above, and offer
the amount you would help purchase We Are Artists for.
3\. If the total $1,500 is raised before Nov 27, 2009, the pledges are given
to the musicians and the album is released under the Creative Commons license
as a download for free sharing.
4\. If the entire $1,500 is not reached, all pledges are discarded, and
everyone walks away like nothing happened. The music is not released under
Creative Commons and you pay nothing.
\--
Musicslu is an attempt to address the problems with pirating music. If some
music pirates could take a few steps out of their trenches, and some artists
take a few steps out of theirs too, this could work.
"A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a
symptom."[<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html> , listed at #1] If not the cure,
at least a solid attempt.
------
DanielStraight
I know I'm going to be slammed with downvotes, but I don't care, $1500 is a
pathetic price for a CD. I think the concept has some cool potential, but an
artist can't possibly survive on $1500 per album. And why the hell are there
artists on here which are already on record labels that are clearly not going
along with this and what the hell does "pending approval" mean. I'm sorry, but
if you want this to work, it's going to have to be reasonable for artists, not
deceive people into thinking music is there that isn't, and make a heck of a
lot more sense.
~~~
dimarco
It's not $1500 per album, it's however much the artist chooses. In this case,
a bunch of artists from reddit.com got together and decided to make a mix tape
and split the $1500. They are all relatively unknown artists who would like
some exposure.
If another artist came and set the price at $10,000, then he'd receive 10k.
The albums on the front page pending approval are just that, artists that have
been contacted. Without those placeholders, the site would be rather empty.
It's no different than how reddit supposedly started as very few people with
multiple accounts pretending to be very many people.
~~~
DanielStraight
Placeholders are shit. I'd greatly prefer an empty and honest site. And it IS
different from reddit if those accounts actually contributed something. One
Republic? Are you serious? Do you think there's a snowball's chance in hell of
getting One Republic on that site? It's a trick. These placeholder accounts
are contributing absolutely nothing and never will.
On the issue of money, I see what you're saying, but the site seems to suggest
that $1500 is a reasonable price one might see on here. $10k is barely
reasonable when you consider that most artists make one CD every 2 years or
so. Not that most artists GET $10k, but it's still pathetic. I'd like to see
some consideration too for the fact that artists get a pathetic amount of
money for their work. The notion of a starving artist is insane in a world
that is so obsessed with entertainment.
I don't mean to sound angry. I'm just frustrated. I think there is a lot of
potential here.
~~~
dimarco
I'm sorry, I must be explaining this incredibly bad. It's not $1500 or
$10,000, it's whatever the artist chooses. This isn't only for Jay Z or the
Kings of Leon, there are thousands upon thousands of artists out there that
don't have record deals or world-wide tours.
"I'd like to see some consideration too for the fact that artists get a
pathetic amount of money for their work."
I couldn't agree more, this is why musicslu.com was created.
~~~
DanielStraight
You're explaining it fine, but when I see prices that aren't even in the right
order of magnitude, it makes me wonder. A reasonable price for a high-quality
CD is over $100k. For a billboard-top-100-quality CD, over $500k. For a Jay Z
CD, over $1m easy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When we forget why we bothered to try - as
http://www.jorydesjardins.com/pause/2006/05/the_retired_sai.html
"You just can't imagine how frustrating it is," he said, looking up at the ceiling, as if trying to make sense of the ceiling tiles. "I keep looking, but there's just no answer!"<p>This would be my worst case scenario.
======
cousin_it
Brilliant story. It was easy for me to empathize with the father, and I think
I'll eventually die like him.
~~~
as
It's especially likely with complacency like that.
------
allenbrunson
holy crap. i'd upvote that six times if i could.
find something cool for me i wouldn't have otherwise found by myself ...
that's pretty much the _definition_ of what i want from sites like hacker
news.
~~~
as
_/me tips hat_
This would be along the same vein as the prior thread on existential
questions. A popular topic among young, intelligent people for whom tradition
has little weight.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paypal making a change? An automated e-mail I just received from them. - massarog
Rewarding your PayPal performance<p>Dear <i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i>* <i></i><i></i><i></i>*,<p>PayPal appreciates your business and continues to design its products and services with you in mind. Our goal is to make sending and receiving payments simple and seamless.<p>With that in mind, we want to share some good news with you. Due to your feedback and outstanding account performance, PayPal will no longer temporarily hold your funds in the event of a dispute, claim, or chargeback. These processes used to require funds to be held in a pending balance while the outcome was determined. Going forward, your funds will not be held in a pending balance.<p>Please be aware that we still need your assistance by responding accordingly in a timely fashion, and that the dispute, claim and chargeback process will remain the same. Although PayPal is not placing a temporary hold on your funds, a lost dispute, claim, or chargeback will still result in your PayPal account being debited at the time the case is closed. Please note there are other transactions that can still result in funds being temporarily held and this new change only applies to claims, chargebacks and disputes.<p>Your account performance will consistently be monitored and the terms of this feature are subject to change based on your selling performance. In order to maintain this feature, above-standard performance is necessary. PayPal sends system-generated e-mails which may cause you to see references to held funds in e-mails, disputes, claims, and chargebacks. Despite this, your account is exempt from such holds at this time.<p>The PayPal Debit MasterCard Business Card® will also provide you with fast access to your funds. Thank you for your continued commitment towards the PayPal community as we partner with you to grow your business.<p>Sincerely,<p>PayPal
======
bradmccarty
Any chance you can email me a screenshot of this? Happy to blank out the name.
Would just make a great addition to an earlier story we did.
brad@thenextweb.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Uber is the new Google - viscanti
http://www.fastcompany.com/3029457/technovore/uber-is-the-new-google
======
kb120
When should Google acquire Uber? It seems inevitable (Uber + Google's self-
driving cars) but the longer Google waits the higher Ubers valuation will be.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can a single car break a traffic jam? - chiachun
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one
======
logn
I often try the technique of leaving lots of space and going at a slower,
steady pace. One problem is that everyone re-routes around you, and you induce
road rage and traffic weaving. The other problem is that unless it's a
straight stretch of road, you have no idea what speed is slow enough.
~~~
GigabyteCoin
Truckers (professional drivers) do this all the time.
If ever there is a traffic jam on the highway, you will see the big rigs
consistently leaving hundreds of feet of space in front of them.
They also seem to concentrate in the center lanes of the highway for reasons I
haven't figured out yet.
~~~
dsl
Semi trucks aren't trying to calm traffic, they are maintaining a consistent
speed (or rather engine RPM) and gear for fuel efficiency. Drivers are paid
per mile and the further they can go on a single fill-up is more money in
their pocket.
Edit to add: It is a computer telling them how fast to go, usually something
similar to [http://www.scangauge.com/](http://www.scangauge.com/)
~~~
iokanuon
>Drivers are paid per mile
That doesn't seem to be the majority here.
------
cortesoft
This sort of traffic jam dissipation is only applicable to phantom traffic
jams. Here in Los Angeles, traffic jams are caused by too many cars being on
the road.
At some point, every available square foot of roadway is filled with a car. AI
can help limit the amount of extra space taken up by air, but that will only
moderately increase the number of cars that it will take before traffic hits.
That number of cars will be reached, easily.
~~~
cft
AI will eliminate truck night stops, allowing them to be driven 24/7\.
Hopefully more trucks will be moving at night. That should reduce the jams.
~~~
paulmd
Increasing the efficiency of a process also tends to paradoxically increase
its utilization (Jevon's Paradox). So it's entirely possible that automated
trucking will actually increase total traffic volume.
Still though, even a few vehicles "eating traffic waves" can break up a
traffic jam. I've heard the number put at 3-5% of traffic being self-driving
would prevent phantom traffic jams.
So overall I would say that self-driving cars could help reduce phantom
traffic jams, but they may actually increase _real_ traffic jams caused by
overcapacity.
~~~
maxerickson
Tariffs. If people want access to a congested zone, charge them for it.
Dynamically adjust the tariff based on the level of congestion.
Of course people hate this and wail that it isn't fair, but it is among the
more fair solutions to the immediate problem and inflicting traffic jams is
probably not a good way to address economic inequality.
~~~
SilasX
Agree. Tolls (assuming they means the same thing as tariffs) can also create
the critical mass necessary for commuter bus lines to work, thereby allowing
people to spend only a little more than they do now on commuting but get there
faster since the roads are cleared. (The per person effective toll would be
lower on a bus, even if they are charged by size.)
But they would have to be much higher than in most proposals, and they should
be much lower or non-existence during hours when they're not choked despite
the zero price.
~~~
rando18423
So the poor person who needs to get to the doctor should take the slow lane,
and the rich person who wants to get to the next bar faster should take the
fast lane? Public utilities INTENTIONALLY are not and should not be run
according to the principles of profit maximization.
~~~
SilasX
The poor person should take the bus, which could actually be a fast option if
the streets weren't choked at critical times. That's what a sane utility looks
like. (If they're not choked, no congestion charge.)
I'm not a big fan of the mentality that the transportation system should suck
just so we can avoid the rich have better options than the poor. Taken
seriously, that would mean a ban on air travel because the poor can't have as
much.
If you meant emergency vehicles, those always have priority :-p
------
Coincoin
Over here, I noticed it is much more pleasant to be stuck in rush hour traffic
than off peak. At peak hour, people know the game and know they won't get
anywhere faster by cutting and trying to fight for every inch. They tend to
stay in their lane, merge smoothly and all lanes go the same speed.
But as soon as the traffic lightens a bit, idiots just come back to break the
peace. I include myself in those.
------
ianferrel
The game Error Prone is cute, but it mostly shows that it's very difficult to
keep going a constant speed when your only controls are a binary "Full
Throttle" and "Idle".
~~~
Johnny555
Which is exactly how some people drive - an ex- used to make me car sick with
the way she drove - rather than maintaing a constant speed, she'd speed up
'till she got too close to the car in front of her (dangerously close), then
let off on the gas (or even tap the brakes) to slow down.
Annoying and led to no end of arguments "Why are you always criticizing my
driving!?".
~~~
wnissen
With that style of driving, the minimum speed is also far more likely to drop
to 0. And when one person is stopped, everyone behind them is stopped. Even
for people who don't normally drive that way, add in a cell phone and that's
exactly what starts to happen because they don't have enough remaining
attention to avoid being "surprised" by a stopped car.
------
elchief
The trick is to leave enough room in front of you so you don't have to jam the
brakes, but not enough room that some fucker will pull in front of you.
I also try to jump into the left lane at an intersection stop, if there's no
left turner, to let people turn right
~~~
serge2k
> not enough room that some fucker will pull in front of you.
why does it matter, most of the time?
~~~
arprocter
Because then you have to slow down to open a new gap.
And then once you do some other genius pulls into the space.
Repeat for entirety of journey.
------
xbryanx
William J Beaty's video on Traffic Waves (linked in the article) is an
enjoyable summary of some of these ideas:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs)
------
talldan
When driving I've also noticed another phenomenon. When reaching the crest of
a hill there's an optical illusion that cars are bunched together. From this
viewpoint the driver can see more of the road and vehicles ahead. My theory is
that this causes a momentary shock or panic, and it often causes drivers to
slam on the brakes, causing ripples of braking behind them.
------
Houshalter
A long long time ago, I stumbled onto the personal website of a guy who was
really into this. He had little simulations of different types of traffic
patterns, and how a single car could break it and return it to normal. It was
really interesting, but I don't have the slightest idea on how to find that
website again if it even still exists.
EDIT: Found in the comments, this may have been it. Honestly don't remember:
[http://trafficwaves.org/](http://trafficwaves.org/)
~~~
furyofantares
This was one of the first sites I remember finding, in the late 90s. Back then
it was hosted on the personal website provided by the author's dialup ISP,
eskimo.com, as I recall.
Edit: I just noticed it still is hosted by eskimo.com, it just has its own
domain now.
------
cortesoft
Every time people try to say we can eliminate traffic if we just leave space
in between cars, I think of this great article:
[http://jliszka.github.io/2013/10/01/how-traffic-actually-
wor...](http://jliszka.github.io/2013/10/01/how-traffic-actually-works.html)
TL;DR there is an effective maximum number of cars that can pass through a
given point of roadway (about 1 car per 2 seconds per lane). No amount of
space-leaving is going to chance that.
~~~
tetraodonpuffer
I think you need to read the update #2 in the page you linked, of course you
can't create capacity out of nowhere, but if you are in a "phantom jam"
situation it does help to "smooth things out" as the page clarifies (which I
think is what this article is about)
~~~
cortesoft
I guess I am just not used to that sort of traffic jam where I am. Here, it is
always just 'way too many fucking cars on the road'
~~~
janekm
In that traffic jam, is 1 car passing that point every 2s? No? Then I guess
your road is not operating at peak capacity.
~~~
cortesoft
That is the maximum number of cars that can pass a given point in 2 seconds;
it does not mean that a road operating at peak capacity can reach that number.
You also have to take into account cars merging onto the road you are on.
Imagine a road acting at peak efficiency, with a car passing every 2 seconds.
Now merge in more cars. They are going to push back every car behind by that
same 2 seconds.
You can read the section on 'merging' in the link above to read more details.
------
mjevans
I want to propose a second more radical suggestion.
I think pacer cars might work very well for phantom traffic jams, but I very
much disagree about /how/ they should be used. Instead of encouraging an over-
capacity jam, I believe that the pacer cars should expressly communicate to
other traffic something along the lines of.
"Temporary" / "Speed Limit" / "Follow at XX"
On a rear message board.
The pacer car would then draw out the stuck traffic in to the space /ahead/ of
the jam and encourage the compression wave to expand to the front instead.
------
piracyde25
Somewhat related to this traffic hobbyist, written on 1998--
[http://trafficwaves.org/](http://trafficwaves.org/)
~~~
Lorin
Somewhat related? It's linked in the second part of the article :/
------
DonaldFisk
Traffic jams are often causes in the way the article suggests, and if you
drive at the average speed, instead of the maximum legal or safe speed
whenever you can, there's a good change the jam will have dissipated just
before you reach it, and you'll get where you want to go just as fast. This
means that the cars behind you (provided it stays behind you) also don't have
to stop. Their drivers should thank you for saving their fuel rather than
curse you for driving too slow.
To minimize fuel consumption, it's best to drive in the highest gear, at the
lowest speed for that gear. Failing that, to drive at a constant speed in the
highest gear for that speed. If you do have to slow down, ease off the
accelerator and change down gears, rather than use the brake. This means
thinking ahead. You can do this when approaching a red traffic light, so that
it will be green by the time you reach it.
There are a few other tricks to save fuel, such as driving at the minimum
_safe_ distance behind a big rig, and using gravity on hills to slow down or
speed up.
This is sometimes called hypermiling: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-
efficient_driving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving)
------
jetengine
This game is easy to beat. Wreck most cars except a few, get a single car in
the inner circle by slightly bumping it and press and hold the corresponding
key.
62.8 kilometers covered.
------
feelix
I've always wanted to see what would happen if the government employed workers
(maybe traffic cops) to take up each lane on the motorway, and form a line
that you can't get passed, and drive at a speed just right to unclog traffic
jams during peak hours.
I wonder how much more throughput and time saved we could get just by having
lines of breakers every 50km or so on a highway during peak times.
------
noonshine
I have adaptive cruise control in my Subaru Legacy and I have often wondered
what will happen when more people have ACC. Or even if I were following
another car exactly like mine - would the lag time grow exponentially with
more intense stop/go or would it even out? Or does it depend on how well the
car implements it?
~~~
blakeyrat
The adaptive cruise control in my Ford turns itself off if the speed is low
enough-- which on Seattle-area freeways happens pretty often. So I stopped
trying to use it.
~~~
ahlatimer
The Subaru one stays on until you come to a complete stop. Even then, it's
still "on" in a way, since it'll hold the brakes, but you have to flick up on
the cruise control switch to get the car to start moving again. It'll also
notify you if the car in front has started moving again and you haven't done
anything (with or without ACC on). It's on my girlfriend's car, so I don't use
it every day, but it has been nice the times I've driven it in traffic.
------
mjevans
No, at least not for I-405 / I-5 near Seattle.
These roads, due to a complete lack of effective urban planning and
development, are several times over capacity.
I like to think that this heuristic would be effective for such cases.
* Aim for a hard speed limit (maybe the actual speed limit).
* Actually obey the law of this state: Keep Right Except to Pass.
* ALWAYS allow merges (from either side) with higher priority.
Edit:
After reading the github link from one of the other posts I want to expand why
I disagree and suggest always allowing merges.
It is to allow traffic to leave the freeway (merge right to exit) as well as
to enter the freeway (merge left, mostly to enter at all, but also in case
they're going a long distance or need to get to special use lanes on the
left).
~~~
PantaloonFlames
> Aim for a hard speed limit (maybe the actual speed limit).
That's not gonna work. Depends on the day, the time, the weather, rain, fog
etc. Some days, traffic flows at 70 on 405 during rush hour. If you go the
legal speed limit you will be the dangerous blockage that makes everyone else
down, and makes a few people unnecessarily grumpy. Other days it's misty
because the water on the road gets stirred up by all the trucks. It's
impossible to go the speed limit on these days, the flow is going 45.
There is no hard rule, except: go with the flow. SEE the traffic. BE the
traffic. Do not FIGHT the traffic.
~~~
ThrustVectoring
Enforcing a speed limit on freeways is completely possible. They've got it
done in England. What you need to do is capture license plates on entrance and
exit, and calculate the average speed for each car's trip. If the speed limit
is 50 MPH for traffic-flow reasons, and you do your 15 mile commute in 15
minutes, you're getting a "60 in a 50 MPH zone" ticket in the mail, every
single time.
People will learn in a hurry that speeding is pretty much pointless and self-
harming.
~~~
noarchy
They've really got the surveillance state thing down to a science there, if
they're doing things like that. In North America, where there are cameras,
they tend to only look at your speed at a specific moment.
------
gerbilly
I wonder if we'd have as much stop and go traffic if every car on the road was
standard.
I drive like this just to avoid using the clutch. I'll basically crawl at the
average speed in 2nd gear, until traffic speeds up.
I suspect truckers may be doing it for the same reason, and their gear ratios
mean they would have even more gears to cycle through.
Stop and go would be a huge pain for them if they have to come to a full stop.
------
arprocter
I wonder how much of this is mitigated by good lane discipline?
My SO actually got pulled over the other day (or at least that's what the cop
used as an excuse) for driving in a passing lane when not passing anything. I
said I was glad because it's a terrible habit - every lane ending up going the
same speed as the slowest driver
~~~
gerbilly
>every lane ending up going the same speed as the slowest driver
And if two drivers drive abreast, then it's like having two roads going to the
same place, where no one can pass anyone.
------
sickbeard
Vehicles talking to each other will not break a practical traffic jam. The one
caused because one car had to stop for some reason or other, now everyone has
to stop or slow down in the same vicinity until there are less cars flowing
through the area.
~~~
creeble
I'm not so sure. I think the big difference it would make to have cars talking
to each other is that they can all know where the other (within a local range)
is heading, make interchanges more optimal.
A lot of traffic congestion happens because we have nothing but (too-
infrequently-used) turn signals to indicate our intentions. If all the cars
knew where they were going at an interchange, you could at least optimize the
flow.
Of course, there is _no_ solution when there are just too many cars trying to
fit on a road that can't handle it. And that's probably 80-90% of the problem
anyway :(
------
afterburner
I would avoid blaming any traffic on "non-optimal" driving by other drivers
(not leaving enough space so they maintain constant speed, stuff like that),
since it's just another recipe for road rage.
------
mathogre
I just had fun crashing cars. 25 crashed with 1.8km travelled. I know it's not
the point, but I don't care (nod to Icona Pop). I love it. I needed the laugh.
------
mdotk
Without AI, the answer today is to drive as fast as possible all the time.
------
mannykannot
While, in the right environment, a single driver may be able to break a jam, a
single driver can create one just about anywhere.
------
StillBored
This theory has been running around for a a few decades now. But a couple
years ago I read a paper where they were studying traffic jams, and the
conclusion is that elastic traffic is the problem, and this technique does
nothing really to solve the problem. Instead simply maintaining the exact same
spacing in front/back of your vehicle does a much better job of avoiding and
clearing traffic jams.
------
revscat
This is almost a perfect metaphor for the failings of capitalism, or at they
very least the notion that the singular pursuit of selfish greed can lead to
ideal outcomes. The selfish need for individual drivers to go as fast as they
can leads to a collective failure, here in the form of a traffic jam.
~~~
ctdonath
Capitalists are generally smart enough to forego immediate gain in favor of
substandard greater gains under different conditions.
Rather than drive as fast as I can in Atlanta's 8AM rush hour (and get nowhere
fast in the ensuing jam), I leave for work before 6AM (with half the drive
time).
~~~
darpa_escapee
On the other hand, quarterly profits.
------
stevebmark
Traffic jams exist because humans drive cars, and humans are not designed to
process data at 120 kilometers per hour.
This is a major repost but still misses the main problem. When you look at a
car in front of you, you perceive it as a stationary wall, not a moving wall.
When you slow down, you're trying to avoid hitting where the car in front of
you _is when you press on the brake pedal._ You're not smart enough to realize
that you should be slowing down to avoid hitting where the _car will be_ when
that car stops.
You do this, and you should not be driving cars. Leaving space in front of you
is an inefficient solution to this problem, now you're overcompensating even
more for the problem.
You can try watching one car ahead of the one in front of you to predict when
the car in front of you will slow down and need to stop. Your passengers will
freak out, constantly thinking you're going to hit the car directly in front
of you, because they perceive the car in front of you as a stationary wall. In
reality, you're driving more efficiently.
The day when us unevolved meat sacks stop controlling two ton metal bullets
can't come soon enough.
~~~
to3m
But my car weighs only 1600kg, and for _years_ my passengers have been telling
me I'm going to hit the car directly in front of me. Looks like that day has
already come ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pot Plants Draining Drought-Ridden California - prostoalex
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/266119311.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_BAYBrand
======
dobbsbob
Nobody uses that much water to grow indoor weed. Plenty of grow guides around,
if I remember correctly water every 3-5 days depending on if coconut fiber or
soil, and pot size, flush daily towards the end of the flowering cycle.
Meanwhile, the average California household was estimated in 2011 to use more
than 360 gallons of water per day.
[http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/01/23/how-much-water-
do-c...](http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/01/23/how-much-water-do-
californians-use-each-day-and-what-does-a-20-reduction-look-like/)
Of course nothing was said about the wine industry, or how California uses 6
billion gallons of water annually to irrigate highway vegetation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
World's First Slaughter-free Steak - brandonhall
https://nationalpost.com/life/food/israeli-start-up-aleph-farms-raises-the-steaks-with-the-worlds-first-lab-grown-sirloin
======
qnsi
The price is very low. Is there anyone knowledgeable with industry to maybe
shed some light on this issue? I thought we were years from lab-grown meat in
this price range
------
pizza
The first commenter is right: that image looks nothing like what the video
shows [0]. Though the prototype looks not bad at all.
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txFN1qr1dWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txFN1qr1dWU)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are porn site video players really better than youtube? From Reddit. - uast23
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/rbn7u/why_do_porn_sites_have_video_players_that_are_so/
======
uast23
This amuses me. In my experience I haven't seen any porn site player being
faster or better than youtube; or may be I have too little experience to make
a judgment on this. I find the fast-forwarding on youtube most efficient when
compared to other video playing sites on web. The switching between full
screen and half screen acts cranky at times, but other than that youtube
videos run just fine. Also, many players don't even allow fast forwarding.
------
mackyinc
The main difference I can see that adult site have is the .gif previews as
this can distinguish the fake from the rest. Also you cant see any troll
videos on adult sites.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A short tale of a read overflow - ingve
http://antirez.com/news/117
======
wyldfire
> You can never detect a read overflow otherwise: it will just access data
> outside your structure, but inside mapped memory, so the bug would be
> totally harmless and silent, with the exception of doing the same operations
> at the end of the mapped region.
Unless you use one of the sanitizers while fuzzing, right? If not ASan then I
would wager MSan could detect this.
~~~
justinsaccount
Was going to say the same thing. ASAN would have probably flagged this, I've
seen this exact thing with a read overflow. In the wild it only crashed if you
were very very unlucky. The code would do something like copy 2x as many
bytes:
xyz\0XXXX
instead of
xyz\0
Since the \0 was still there, it would work fine as long as it wasn't at the
end of the heap.
As it turned out, the test suite itself would abort if ran with ASAN enabled.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Evolve your hierarchy - wallflower
http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/
======
kiba
This is posted in 2007 but it is still useful, at least a possible solution.
As of right now, I am still doing game entities like he is describing except
it is divided up into three parts which are events, models, and controllers.
It was largely the result of having the needs to easily doing unit test
without doing extremely complicated of a setup and as well making it far
easier to maintain my code.
This setup migrates the game codebase from total disaster to something that is
much cleaner. Now that this article has come into views, I fear that the
codebase I have will slip back into oblivion as models, their corresponding
rendering code, and the controllers gathers into blobs.
~~~
pmjordan
Having been through this sort of headache a couple of times, I'm convinced
that the coupling of functionality must be as loose as possible. It sounds
like OP's solution follows that approach, although he's a bit thin on
specifics. Another useful concept in this context that is usually unknown (and
often partially reinvented) by C++ programmers is protoypal inheritance. C++
makes this anything but simple, and you essentially have to reinvent your
object system. It can be done, but it's not pleasant. I'll need to try these
things in more expressive languages sometime.
------
cellis
Wow, cool. I was wondering when these would show up here on HN. For a more
thorough treatment, you may want to read this series of posts by Adam Martin :
[http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-
are...](http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-are-the-
future-of-mmog-development-part-1/)
~~~
wallflower
Thanks, I felt it relevant in light of the interest in Flixel. The other
classic article of the pair I submitted:
The Gorilla Guide to Game Coding
<http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050414/rouwe_01.shtml>
------
pmjordan
The problem he's attacking is very real, especially in game development - your
objects don't obey a tree hierarchy, and diamond multiple inheritance is
definitely not the answer either. I'm not 100% sure I understand how he's
implemented this, however. I'd be useful to see some more specific examples
than the extremely abstract high-level diagram.
_My approach was to introduce it in a stealth manner. I first discussed the
idea with a couple of programmers individually, and eventually convinced them
it was a good idea. I then implemented the basic framework for generic
components, and implemented one small aspect of game object functionality as a
component.
I then presented this to the rest of the programmers. There was some confusion
and resistance, but since it was implemented and working there was not much
argument._
This bit sounds familiar...
~~~
stcredzero
Seems like the Go language's implementation of Interfaces would be very useful
here!
~~~
pmjordan
I've not looked into Go yet (I go on holiday and Google release a new language
while I'm a away, hmph!) but if it's anything like Objective-C's 'protocols',
it could work. You'd need to capture any messages and forward them to the
appropriate component using some fast dispatching mechanism (hash table, I
guess).
------
Dav3xor
This can also help performance -- you get much better cache coherency by
putting the components in arrays (an array of bounding boxes, an array of
geometry...), and then you can do all sorts of cool data transformation tricks
on these arrays (build a tree across it, or a sorted list of pointers, convert
to a different coordinate space...) without all the OO overhead (which you
still get when you need/want it...) But underneath all that, you still have a
tightly packed array of data.
------
camccann
This sounds like a way to essentially accomplish multiple inheritance without
having to deal with the problems caused by _actually_ using multiple
inheritance. Mixins (in languages that have them) would seem to do much the
same thing as well.
Seems like a really good idea in this context; I will definitely keep this in
mind whenever I'm faced with a huge, hairy, blobby object hierarchy.
------
mcav
This brings back terrible, terrible memories of MFC. I remember opening up my
Visual C++ packaging to find a gigantic poster, several feet wide, showing the
entire MFC class hierarchy. And the text wasn't even very big.
CObject anyone?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gallium oxide to boost field-effect transistor performance? - rbanffy
http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-news/gallium-oxide-to-boost-fet-performance/168259/
======
romdev
Neat thing about gallium - it has a room temperature melting point. Learned
this from a book I recommend: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/The-
Disappearing-Spo...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/The-Disappearing-
Spoon-Audiobook/B003ZZK5IY)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: CloudDeck | A music discovery and listening tool for SoundCloud - kowdermeister
http://clouddeck.net
======
Borealis
You couldn't build something like this in HTML5? A lot of people will not
install Adobe Air (or Microsoft Silverlight, etc.) plus a desktop application
just to be able to search a crappy music service like Soundcloud.
~~~
kowdermeister
I could have, but my idea was to build a streaming tool that works outside the
browser and I don't have to worry about keeping my music collection up to
date.
I'm constantly working on improving this project the next thing will be a
mobile app with similar functionality.
------
pella
Is it working on Tablet ( or Phone ) ?
( iPad/iPhone/ Android )
~~~
kowdermeister
Hello,
It is a planned milestone to build a mobile/tablet version. Right now the only
mobile support is that you can access your playlists in the browser, which is
HTML5 audio enabled.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snowden may be granted entry to Russia Wednesday - ra
http://rt.com/news/snowden-russia-asylum-request-503/
======
peterkelly
> "He plans to get a job"
Getting a letter of reference from his previous employer may turn out to be a
bit tricky...
~~~
dmxt
In Russia Federation, most employers don't require a letter of reference and
they don't contact previous employer.
~~~
ekianjo
Not only Russia, most companies don't, almost everywhere in the world.
------
adcoelho
I feel like this is more of a gateway for applying for asylum in some
embassies, as required by some countries, rather than an opportunity to stay
in Russia indefinitely, or at least for an year until the next renewal.
~~~
k-mcgrady
I think that is his plan. He can't apply for asylum in most countries without
going to their embassies and to do that he needs entry to Russia.
~~~
adcoelho
But its weird that Russia suddenly decided to grant him this safe pass after
denying him asylum in order to maintain the relations with the USA. Could
there be a hidden agenda somewhere?
~~~
k-mcgrady
I don't think they ever denied him asylum, this is the first he has applied.
They just said that he had to stop releasing information that's damaging to
the US in order to be granted asylum.
------
kushti
Proud to be Russian today
------
xentronium
_Sigh_ , he probably doesn't know what he is signing for. Unless one of his
friends from foreign organizations is ready to employ and shelter him, of
course.
~~~
mjolk
Snowden is not stupid - he knows what he's getting into. If the Russian
government is offering to shelter him, it's in exchange for more information.
They have no use for a mid-level sysadmin that they can't trust.
~~~
lhnz
I still find it difficult to believe that the Russian government didn't have
information about the US' spy programs already.
~~~
Teapot
They might have. They wouldnt tell anyone what they know, or what they dont
know about.
~~~
mjolk
Exactly. This is an American (well, former) screaming from a soapbox that
whatever USA-conspiracy theory in mind is factual. This is a free pass to use
him as a puppet.
------
mtgx
It's really very unfortunate that he couldn't go to Latin America, all because
US' European friends would rather break international law, and try and stop an
asylum request, than let him go. I think even most accused terrorists would've
had an easier time getting asylum than Snowden. In fact, I think I've just
read about one getting asylum in Europe recently, and it has happened before,
too.
~~~
eshvk
> European friends would rather break international law, and try and stop an
> asylum request, than let him go.
I am confused; I thought airspace was sovereign territory. As a country, are
you not allowed to allow or deny access to anyone you wish to allow ? I am not
clear where the breaking of international law comes.
~~~
pyrophane
Sort of. It could be considered a violation of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which states that "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy
in other countries asylum from persecution."
------
moocowduckquack
I really hope he takes up Anna Chapman's offer of marriage, mainly because it
would be hilarious and would keep Bruce Sterling happy.
Of course it would look really bad in the US press, and mean that he would
definitely be under surveillance from a known Russian spy, but that is
probably better than the paranoia of maybe being under surveillance from a
companion who could well be a spy, and at least he'd share some ground.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Review my Idiocy prevention without site-wide https - notphilatall
I've been reading a lot of hype about idiocy and how long it will take people to implement site-wide https. Unless I'm missing something, it's already possible to avoid hijacking on the internet by combining a few existing approaches, and enforcing sequential requests[1] for privileged actions:<p>The client and server establish a secure connection using https, authenticating via regular ID and password. The server provides the client with a regular session ID, and a new session_signature_key which the client will hold in memory and never send back to the server.<p>Each server response includes an unsigned random 64 bit challenge with each request between client and server. The client will sign this value with its session_signature_key, and return this signature in its next request. The server barks if the signature does not match expected the challenge response from the user.<p>The server would obviously have to keep the user / session_sig_key / last challenge map in mem, but it seems easy enough.<p>[1] parallel requests should be doable as well, but I'm still thinking about it.
======
gdl
Maybe I'm missing something, but what are the advantages of this over simply
enabling HTTPS for everything? Performance, maybe, but Google has been often-
quoted these past couple days calling that a very small issue.
It sounds like you're still assuming HTTPS to start the connection, then
transitioning to a different encryption / authentication scheme after that. It
would still require the time and effort involved in making the switchover
(both HTTPS and the new bits) on a large scale, and any new parts of the plan
would need to be made to work with old browsers and operating systems on the
client. And since most of the data would be unencrypted, a lot of potentially-
sensitive data could still be sniffed.
So I think you're overcomplicating things. We already have a good system in
place to handle this stuff, people are just too lazy / ignorant / indifferent
/ resisistant-to-change to make it standard. See also IPv6.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Field Guide to Yelp's Unhappy, Unhelpful Eaters - pkarbe
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/03/a-field-guide-to-yelps-unhappy-unhelpful-eaters/72248/
======
mattlanger
As Merlin Mann so brilliantly put it, "Yelp.com: Explore Where Local
Illiterates Have Recently Stopped Eating.™"
<http://twitter.com/#!/hotdogsladies/status/1453581139>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wat by Gary Bernhardt - coreyp_1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20BySC_6HyY
======
Zekio
Been a long time since I last watched that, still makes me laugh every time I
watch it haha :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Merkel admitted in 2011 Greek debt unsustainable - thibaut_barrere
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/merkel-admitted-in-2011-greek-debt-unsustainable-1.2270858
======
DrScump
I think "admitted" is an unfair characterization. Experts and leaders from all
over the world were telling the Greek government that their projections on
economic growth, on which their paper solvency depended, were unrealistically
high.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Day 1 for a $1 app on the Mac App Store - pavlov
http://lacquer.fi/pauli/blog/2011/01/day-1-for-a-1-app-on-the-mac-app-store/
======
pavlov
Yesterday I promised [1] to tell HN about the sales of my app on the Mac App
Store. This blog post exclusively opens the business secret kimono to reveal
the riches I shall make from selling $1 image generator apps. (Spoiler: not
likely.)
[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2076077>
------
matthew-wegner
I posted our sales stats here (alongside stats from other Unity-made games):
<http://blur.st/sales-day-1>
Units sold for us, all of these are $2.99:
452 Blush
128 Off-Road Velociraptor Safari
101 Crane Wars
13 Time Donkey
694 total units, $1,452 revenue after Apple's take.
~~~
jat850
Man, I don't know what any of those games do, but "Off-Road Velociraptor
Safari" and "Time Donkey" sound amazing.
I don't own a Mac, however. Off to your page to read about your company!
~~~
koichi
I think you can play it free in your browser. Works surprisingly well,
actually.
<http://blurst.com/raptor-safari/>
My favorite Blurst game, though (not in the app store yet) is Minotaur China
Shop. Doesn't get better than this.
<http://blurst.com/minotaur-china-shop/>
------
bemmu
This is a nice boost to a typical $4k / month Finnish programmer salary.
~~~
pavlov
You think I'm making that much from my one-man video software operation? Sorry
to disappoint you :P
------
mrbill
I bought it after I you mentioned it on Reddit. 8-)
------
cageface
This seems like too small a sample size to really conclude anything.
~~~
jkaufman
He doesn't seem to draw any solid conclusions but instead has started a blog
to keep the community updated with actual numbers. The title is "Day 1" even -
unlike some articles which are trying to draw out grand conclusions on the App
Store.
It is interesting to see the type of numbers the developers are seeing. They
tend to be promising and I look forward to analysis as more and more users
update and Lion is released.
~~~
cageface
And, are we informed now? Can we make more intelligent decisions based on
these data? It doesn't have to be a peer reviewed article but ~100 sales for
one dev in one day doesn't tell me anything.
~~~
pavlov
I don't have access to anyone else's data. Apple only publishes relative sales
rankings, as in: "sixth highest-selling app in category XYZ". (Apple has also
told us that there were a million downloads during the first day, but that's
even less useful than my number...)
That's why I felt that there is some general interest in publishing these
numbers, as it gives other developers an idea of what level of sales is
actually taking place on the Mac App Store. At least I find it interesting to
know that ~100 units / day is enough for a solid position on the Top Paid list
in the Graphics & Design category.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Senator Schumer's waffling response to SOPA - foolinator
http://i.imgur.com/hD9T5.png
======
foolinator
TLDR - He hears us, but he's doing nothing.
This motivates me to go to the tech meetup on Wednesday.
www.meetup.com/ny-tech/events/47879702/
~~~
nextparadigms
Schumer is a PIPA sponsor:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/1red1bluekick2/comments/nuyta/list_o...](http://www.reddit.com/r/1red1bluekick2/comments/nuyta/list_of_senators_supporting_sopapipa/)
~~~
foolinator
Yeah it pisses me off. He admits and clarifies that what we say he understands
but still goes on the side of the RIAA.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where to buy Computers, Monitors & Peripherals in bulk at a discount? - jtesp
Any advice on where to buy discounted equipment in bulk? Looking for some cheapo Atom or the like computers, 19" LCD/LED monitors, and basic peripherals. They can be no-name brands.<p>Is there a minimum amount before such items get discounted? Say I was looking for 10, 20, 50 or 100. Or anyone have any secret spots to purchase items on the cheap?<p>Any info or leads appreciated.
Thanks!
======
JoachimSchipper
Some companies dump all their computers at once (either by upgrading on a
fixed N-year cycle or by going out of business); these machines occasionally
show up as large lots of refurbished equipment at certain internet stores.
(The store presumably didn't pay a lot.) If you're looking for basic and
cheap, you should at least consider it.
makethetick is right, though - give a location. I seem to recall that
<http://www.mr-at.nl/> occasionally had such lots (I'm not affiliated and in
fact never bought anything there), but I'm not sure they still do and it
wouldn't be very useful to you unless you were in the Netherlands.
------
staunch
A liquidator could sell you this kind of stuff in bulk for very cheap.
There are a bunch of them, but you may want to find one in your region to save
on shipping.
------
makethetick
You might want to list your location or at least country!
------
jtesp
Hey thanks for the ideas. I'm in southern California USA. thanks!
------
bmelton
You might check Retrobox.com if you're looking for not new stuff.
Edit: Nevermind, they appear to have gone belly-up.
------
jtesp
Anyone have any luck with alibaba?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Team email from Shopify CEO re Diablo 3 - edwardog
Team,<p>Diablo 3 comes out tomorrow. Since 90% of you won't be able to concentrate anyways let's just meet tomorrow after lunch in the Lounge for an impromptu Lan party.<p>Need a refresher on why you need to play Diablo 3 ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geuAc8F7Gt0&feature=g-hist<p>P.S: I call dips on jewelry drops.<p>- tobi
CEO Shopify
======
staunch
> _P.S: I call dips on jewelry drops._
But...all drops are per-player. No dibs.
------
debacle
Diablo 3 doesn't have LAN play.
~~~
brandoncordell
Doesn't mean you can't party up on Battle.NET and play together.
------
bking
Why don't I work at Shopify =/
------
pcopley
I don't think Tobi knows what "impromptu" means.
~~~
ksec
" Prompted by the occasion rather than being planned in advance"
So what's wrong with it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Being a Doctor Made Me a Better Founder - jakek
http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/how-being-a-doctor-made-me-a-better-founder.html
======
dmfdmf
It has been my experience that doctors make horrible businessmen. I think it
is the medical school training that encourages over confidence in their
abilities, even outside their domain, and a dangerous reluctance or inability
to listen to outsiders or experts of lower social status. Perhaps this guy is
the exception but I don't think it was the doctor training so much but the
fact that high intelligence is general can quickly be applied to any area.
~~~
stillbreathing
Not sure whether docs generally make better, same or worse businessmen, but my
experience with medical training taught me to question everything rather than
to encourage overconfidence. There's certainly value in artificial confidence
in medicine as it applies to most patients, who aren't knowledgeable or alert
enough to distill information like you may be able to.
~~~
dmfdmf
> medical training taught me to question everything...
Certainly this has value but the ability to question everything in an
intelligent way is not generalizable. By that I mean that the training in med
school includes a huge context of medical knowledge not just this method. The
danger and error that I see is that many docs think the method is sufficient
without out the context.
> There's certainly value in artificial confidence in medicine as it applies
> to most patients...
I get it and understand the need. However, in my experience the eventual dupe
of the con is not the patient but the doc. I have seen it often enough that it
is my default assumption though I have met some good people who happen to be
doctors who have not fallen into that trap.
------
kyro
Great article.
What I have come to appreciate more and more about physicians is their on-the-
fly algorithmic decision-making ability whereby the doctor must account for
factors that go well beyond pathophysiology and extend into statistics,
social/cultural conventions, benefits/costs analyses, financial situations
(insurance coverage, or lack thereof), and more. To gather, categorize, rank,
simplify and prioritize data is an incredibly valuable skillset no matter your
profession, particularly for an entrepreneur whose roles can vary greatly
hour-to-hour.
------
siculars
Spot on. I work in medical informatics and my brother is a doctor. Doctors
have a unique way of distilling information. My brother likes to say "does it
change management?" aka, is a piece of information important enough to change
outcome.
The problem I have with virtually all medical information related startups
revolves around protected health information (PHI). How does a startup get it?
How does a startup attain a level of credibility, both financially and
technically, where an organization that has access to a patient population -
like a physicians group, hospital, etc. - get the opportunity to prove their
product. Unless you make your case directly to the patient and get them to
give you their data, any sizeable organization is going to be extremely
reticent to part with their PHI for political, legal and, of course, general
technical ineptitude reasons. Not a trivial problem, I can assure you.
------
davak
I'm also a physician and my hospital uses a similar product that I wrote with
symfony. It's rough but we've been using for three years now. If you are
interested in helping me take it to the next step or you need a doctor as part
of your project, just contact me. carotids at g mail
------
Mithaldu
Very interesting article. Just wish it explained what medisas actually does.
Also slightly amused that they really seem to stick to the priotizing by
having a website that's simple and not minding that it's slightly broken:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gk8om9gnsujhte/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gk8om9gnsujhte/Screenshot%202014-02-07%2002.17.30.png)
Edit: Huh, looks like they don't even have a product yet.
~~~
gautamsivakumar
Unfortunately we've had to prioritise building product and taking care of our
customers - the corporate site is a lower priority item ;)
But we're hiring, so anyone who desperately wants to fix the website should
send us an email.
~~~
Mithaldu
I don't see it as something unfortunate, just a consequent application of your
other conclusions. :)
------
ztnewman
The biggest takeaway is that medical troubleshooting methodology carries over
to running a startup? Someone clearly needed some press...
------
crackerz
I was expecting to open this article and read the word "MONEY" in big bold
font.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Calculating 316 Million Movie Correlations in 2 Minutes (Down From 2.5 Hours) - physcab
http://dmnewbie.blogspot.com/2009/06/calculating-316-million-movie.html
======
physcab
Hi HN, I submitted this article because it has sat in my bookmarks for a while
and I've referenced it quite a number of times over the past few months. I
thought it may be helpful to some of you who work on similar problems.
I like it because when most people think of "giant datasets" they think they
need some special tool to process it. Infact, there are such tools and I use
them everyday (namely Hadoop), but this article is a reminder that with the
proper forethought and consideration for the data structures in question, it
is quite possible to wrestle a large dataset on a single machine.
Also, people always wonder how to better optimize their code. I think this is
one of the few examples I've seen where the author went through a series of
steps to obtain the optimization they had in mind and documented their
strategy well. It serves a practical purpose too.
If you want to try your hand out at this problem you can obtain the dataset
here: <http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Netflix+Prize>
and follow the forums here: <http://www.netflixprize.com/community/>
------
blantonl
I hate to ask this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Can someone explain this to the rest of us (maybe just me) what the heck this
article is about?
This article started right out of the gate assuming the reader was well
informed of the context.
~~~
jey
k-nearest neighbors is a simple approach for prediction in machine learning.
The objective is to predict the value of a function at some point for which we
don't have an observation in the training set. In the Netflix Prize, this
means predicting the rating a user _U_ would give to some unrated movie _M_.
The kNN approach is: 1. Identify the k users most similar to _U_. This is
called the "neighborhood". 2. Have these k neighbors vote on the rating that
_U_ should assign to _M_.
The premise behind the above scheme is that similar users will assign
approximately the same rating to a particular movie. To actually implement the
kNN scheme requires a notion of "similarity" for step 1 and "voting" for step
2. The linked article is using Pearson Correlation as the similarity function
(aka the "distance metric"), and some kind of weighted average as the voting
function (as mentioned in [http://dmnewbie.blogspot.com/2007/09/greater-
collaborative-f...](http://dmnewbie.blogspot.com/2007/09/greater-
collaborative-filtering.html) )
I don't think this would work very well on the Netflix dataset because the
training set is super sparse. I deliberately glossed over this above, but
users in _U_ 's neighborhood who haven't rated the movie _M_ are useless when
voting on the value that _U_ should assign to _M_! So you have to make a call
about how you form the neighborhood: do you just find the k nearest users and
only average over the <= k users who actually rated _M_? Or do you find the k
nearest users who actually assigned a rating to _M_ (ignoring _U_ 's neighbors
who haven't rated _M_ )? Either way, with a dataset that's as sparse as the
Netflix data, you're going to have a hard time forming useful neighborhoods
since either you're going to have neighborhoods where there's very little
information to go off of, or the "k most similar" users are actually really
not very similar to _U_ at all, leading to inaccurate prediction.
More info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-nearest_neighbor_algorithm>
Chapter two of the excellent and free book "Elements of Statistical Learning"
has a better exposition of this idea. [http://www-
stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/download.ht...](http://www-
stat.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/download.html)
~~~
Xichekolas
(Not really on topic, but if I could nominate this as an example of the ideal
HN comment, I would. It'd be nice to have a gallery of things like this
attached to the guidelines. Thanks jey!)
~~~
iamelgringo
Seconded. Excellent work, Jey.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Your Architecture Sucks and I Don't Care - rco8786
http://friendlydingo.com/blog/2011/your-architecture-sucks-and-i-dont-care
======
CodeMage
Same old warning against becoming an "architecture astronaut". Look, I
understand you got burned and you want to share. However, I'm getting a teeny
little bit tired of people who -- out of good intentions -- make it sound like
architecture (and clean code and whatnot) isn't important at all.
There's a reason you should pay attention to the state of your codebase. Or
rather, there _should_ be a reason for it, one that is better than the
intellectual equivalent of wanking. If you're trying to make your code
"beautiful" just because you've heard that it's good to keep it "clean" and to
"follow every coding standard you've ever heard of", then you're wasting your
time.
However, if you're refactoring your code because you found yourself doing the
same thing for the 10th time (with small differences), then it's time well
spent. If you're spending a bit of effort to structure your code in a way that
will help you avoid shooting yourself in the foot (because you've been there
and done that and it's no fun at all), then it's effort well spent. And guess
what? That's what architecture is all about.
_Your users don’t care about architecture, they only care if your app works._
Architecture is what keeps your app working over time.
~~~
synotic
I think that this article is talking almost entirely about shipping. If you
consider the start of Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, a lot of what they had
going for them was first-mover advantage and building out a product that
people actually used. If Twitter started out trying to build the architecture
they have now ([http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/how-twitter-
uses-n...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/how-twitter-uses-
nosql.php)), they probably would have never launched.
Re: refactoring and other comments. Of course optimizing and re-working your
code for new use cases and scale issues is critical to support your product,
but unless people are using it, you're not going to know what those use cases
are and what parts of your product you need to scale.
~~~
DougBTX
He says that his latest creation with "minimal" architecture hasn't shipped
yet either, so this is all hot air.
------
lemmsjid
This article makes such sweeping generalizations.
Customers may not care about the details of the architecture (they may not
even know what 'software architecture' means), but rest assured they
indirectly care about the architecture. As a layperson when it comes to
automobile engineering, I only care about whether or not my Toyota works. But
as a customer who relies on its safety, I assure you I care a great deal about
whether or not it is well architected. As a layperson when it comes to
structural engineering, I only care that my house stays up. But it better be
well architected.
Don't mistake a customer's lack of caring about C# vs Java with them not
giving a crap about whether or not your application will suddenly spew their
credit card numbers to the world due to a slipshod security model. I don't
care what approach Toyota took to form my transmission, but I would sue Toyota
if my transmission suddenly broke and it turned out they'd put it together in
a sloppy fashion.
Like all things, a customer's real care is based on a continuum. I don't care
particularly if Reddit or Twitter goes down, but I care a great deal if Bank
of America suddenly lowers my balance due to a rounding error.
Of course you can get overwhelmed by architectural possibilities. Assess your
customers' expectations of your uptime, overall quality, etc. Assess your
customers' expectations of your ability to release new features quickly.
Assess projected scaling issues. Avoid buzzwords. Adjust accordingly. A
foolish building architect could easily spend a year figuring out the ideal
materials, but a competent one will still get the building done safely, on
time and on budget. Same with software architecture.
~~~
derefr
> I don't care particularly if Reddit or Twitter goes down, but I care a great
> deal if Bank of America suddenly lowers my balance due to a rounding error.
I believe that, if you are writing the latter kind of software, you already
know who you are and what you should be doing (whether or not you actually do
it is another matter.) Most software _isn't_ "important": it doesn't affect
the user's life or health or wallet or relationships or _anything_ when it
screws up.
Defaulting to assuming your software needs to be as
security/privacy/stability-conscious as online banking, is just as much of a
waste of time for the average programmer as assuming every website will get
hit with as much web traffic as Facebook/Google/etc. and so needs to be "web-
scale." Your company's intranet to-do list won't get a million hits a day, and
if it goes down, people will just write things down on paper instead. It can
be a 20-line Python script. Really.
~~~
bad_user
Every time I tried Foursquare their service was down ("for maintenance" their
page said). After ~ 5 attempts in ~ 5 different days I stopped trying. Maybe
it was just my luck, but even Twitter has been more reliable for me.
I fail to see how this is not important: they haven't won a conversion out of
me although I'm still getting spammed by them through my friends.
Your company's intranet to-do list won't get a million hits a day,
and if it goes down, people will just write things down on paper
instead.
If that to-do list goes down repeatedly, people will not use it ... it's hard
enough to convince them to try it in the first place.
~~~
derefr
But Foursquare being down, and losing a conversion from you, didn't affect
your life any more than if you had just _not heard of_ Foursquare in the first
place. "Important" software can actually have _negative_ utility if it's
programmed wrong: it can take away your money, make you lose your job, give
you a lethal dose of radiation, etc. Most software isn't important in that
sense.
The applicable advice for startups here is: when you're just starting off,
your software can afford to be hella buggy, because (unless you're entirely
dependent on viral growth) one lost conversion here and there doesn't do
anything more to your product's momentum than any other leak in your funnel.
Make a buggy v1.0, sell it to the people who _will_ buy it, and forget about
the tiny[1] number of people who check out your 1.0 and write you off because
of it. Then, use the money from 1.0 to fix the bugs, and release version 2.
_Assuming your product survives, most of its lifetime will be spent beyond
version 2_ —and so most of the customers your product gets (or loses), it will
get (or lose) based on how version ≥2 works, _not_ on how buggy 1.0 was.
[1] The people who will write your 1.0 off will be "tiny" in an absolute, not
relative sense. You might be losing 50% of customers because your software is
crap—but if that 50% is 50% of 100 people per month, then you still aren't
doing yourself much damage. Once you have 50000 satisfied users, those 700 or
so people who you scared away in the first seven months will be entirely
forgotten. Heck, they might even come back again, if their friends are telling
them about all the features of 2.0.
~~~
bad_user
You're argument would be OK if there weren't alternatives to Foursquare.
As it is, there are alternatives available, and my friends experimenting with
Foursquare are early-adopters that also have accounts on the alternatives. If
your assumption would be right: driving 50% of users to those alternatives is
an awful thing to do.
As I said, it might have been just my luck (I don't have something against
Foursquare, it was just an example from my experience).
My preference is to just build less functionality in version 1.0, such that
scaling / availability is just not an issue, but IMHO first impressions and
early adopters count a lot.
------
wccrawford
Yes, the end user benefits from refactoring code. Good code is easier to
maintain and has fewer bugs. That means faster updates and fewer failures. I
can't imagine a user that doesn't want that.
~~~
jbri
It seems that, once again, the best position is somewhere in the middle,
rather than on either extreme.
~~~
kls
Right good architecture is transparent things seem intuitive but yet not
cumbersome. A good deal of standards and conventions can eliminate a fair
amount of "architectural" code. When I see managers and factories everywhere
is a project I know that it has the signature mark of being "architected" and
usually find a good deal of gold-plating that need not be in the project.
------
statictype
Agreed. No one cares about whether you used lisp or C++.
What are the products that failed, not because they weren't popular or solved
problems, but because they had a poor architecture or codebase?
I'm hard pressed to think of any.
Twitter had terrible scaling issues early on, but they solved it and are still
successful.
I've heard that Flash's coded base is a steaming pile of unmaintainable C++
[citation needed]. But most of the backlash from Flash comes from the fact
that it's proprietary and only partly from the fact that it runs poorly on
non-Windows platforms.
Most products that fail because of poor technology choices do so before they
ever get released so it's hard to judge whether or not the product would have
ever been successful at all.
~~~
evgen
_What are the products that failed, not because they weren't popular or solved
problems, but because they had a poor architecture or codebase?_
Friendster. With better architecture they are sitting on billions and Mark Z
is writing code in a cubicle at Google...
~~~
statictype
What architecture issues caused Friendster to fail? I'm not very familiar with
it.
~~~
blasdel
Every single thing a user could do was based on FOAF-keyed permissions, and
graph traversals were slow as hell.
In implementing Facebook, Zuckerberg redefined the problem space to give him
an implementation advantage at every turn. Limiting it to manually-added
colleges didn't just restrict the total userbase to be manageable -- it also
introduced the concept of 'networks' that mostly eliminated the graph
traversal problem. Photos were severely limited for a long time to constrain
the storage problem. They also had a massive advantage in that they came of
age in the post-bradfitz era of big consumer webapp architecture.
------
powdahound
The real lesson here is "balance". You won't be successful if you have a
kickass architecture and no users. You also won't be successful if you have
users that are always frustrated because your site is slow or unavailable.
------
suprgeek
Your Architecture needs to be "good enough". If you strive for the absolute
best, most flexible, most extensible, blah blah, you will be stuck with
analysis paralysis and spend too much time upfront with less information to
make decisions. Conversely if you just begin coding with no plan - you will
have an unstable product that will fall apart at the first instance of some
deviation from the normal.
The (very hard) trick is to do a good enough job to deliver fairly quickly for
a fairly stable product. Then be prepared to learn and refactor until it
becomes better. How do you decide what is good enough? Experience...
------
yesno
There's not enough detail of what kind of "gold platting" the author had done.
Now I'm not an expert on "architectures" or "patterns" and my view is just a
personal observation when I glanced over HN, slideshare.net, and InfoQ to some
extend.
Often I saw 2 types of architectures:
1) System-Level
2) Component-Level
The System-Level type of architecture usually shows up in companies (or person
that does the explanation) where the tools being used are UNIX-y: python,
ruby, rails, django, apache, nginx, mysql, linux/command-line, syslog, etc.
These people/companies tend to adopt a strong "pipe"-like architecture.
The mindset here is to write a program/application that does one thing really
well.
The Component-Level type of architecture usually shows up in places where
there's a strong OOP/Java/.NET culture. Often, this is the place where many
people try to write the best damn code possible. You'll see some sort of
"ManagerXYZ.java" or "XYZService.java" or "PolicyXYZ.java" or
"XYZProvider.java". The Component-Level type of architecture tends to link
many components tightly together and somehow each Component acts as if it is a
"mini-API".
The mindset here is to write a library/component/class that does one thing
really well.
Which one that the author chose?
Now when ugly code happens. Well.. I'd like to stay away from flame-war and
all that stuff so I suppose you'd have to make your own judgement which way is
better: System-level or Component-level.
------
Jach
Besides the reasons users benefit from good code, if your code is open source
and you want anyone else to contribute it better be decent.
------
mcantelon
Meh. Pay at the beginning or pay 10 times over if you're forced to re-
architect.
~~~
ceejayoz
Paying 10 times the cost in the future may be easier than paying the cost
today.
------
ukorac
Marcus Ranum on why bad architecture can lead to bigger problems for everyone
else:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o59mQhBiUo4>
------
EGreg
Sorry man, I like architecting things. And as a result, I now have a framework
that will help me crank out lots of stuff, instead of that one-off project.
------
brudgers
A case in point:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2062057>
------
weixiyen
I'm re-doing my architecture because it will allow me to push these said
features out much faster.
------
atomical
What if your business is based on architecture? What if your customers are
developers who care about a rock solid foundation?
------
napierzaza
I love "why are you not rich yet?" articles. It's so motivating.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: RoughJS – Create hand-drawn graphics now supports both SVG and Canvas - shihn
https://github.com/pshihn/rough
======
shihn
Hi, I launched Rough.js a month ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16571827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16571827))
and was overwhelmed by all the love.
Now Rough.js renders SVG nodes as well. This would be great for creating more
interactive graphics. [http://roughjs.com/](http://roughjs.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blockstream Commits to Patent Nonaggression - wslh
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/blockstream-commits-patent-nonaggression
======
wslh
More opinions in this thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5clbgz/sergioalso_bloc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5clbgz/sergioalso_blockstream_hid_the_fact_they_had/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Facebook needs? A killer search engine - paraschopra
http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/what-facebook-needs-a-killer-search-engine.htm
======
indigoviolet
You know what would be cool? If the author went to www.facebook.com, found the
rather prominent input box on top called 'Search', and tried putting something
in it.
There's a lot that can be improved, but Facebook already has a search engine.
One that even produces Bing results, like the OP wants.
~~~
paraschopra
I'm talking about searching the web, not my social network.
~~~
indigoviolet
That box searches the web. It even uses Bing.
~~~
zaidf
The Facebook-Bing deal _might_ be geo-targeted and not show up from India
where Paras is located.
~~~
paraschopra
No, I spot it now. But I wonder how many people actually realize that you can
search the web from within Facebook. It almost looks like a side-feature while
I argue that it should be a central feature of Facebook.
~~~
skbohra123
Interestingly enough, how you made a complete post without actually verifiying
the issue .
And as a side note, how do you manage to get all your posts hitting to HN
homepage?
~~~
paraschopra
Yeah, agree I did not verify but it wasn't an obvious feature and I think my
argument is still valid -- Facebook could use search as its central strategy.
As far as HN homepage is concerned, I don't know ranking internals but I think
it is probably timezone issue -- as of writing this comment, the submission
has just 7 upvotes and is still on homepage.
------
zazi
> Google doesn’t have as much insight into my personal life as Facebook has.
This is debatable. Off the top of my head, Google has my search history, gmail
(my facebook alerts get piped here as well), gtalk, google reader, calendar...
and the list goes on.
------
aditya42
Absolute drivel.
In a year or so, when online music streaming becomes big (maybe) with Apple
and Google both competing in the sphere, will you want Facebook to add a music
streaming service as well?
How about a map service? Or an image or document format converter? People seem
to use those a lot too.
\----
Stepping away from the argument that Facebook is a direction-less fad that
probably will become irrelevant in the coming years, they're fine how they are
--- a big aggregator for your social activities on the web. There is no reason
for them to start moving towards a kitchen sink approach.
------
dotcoma
buy blekko. and stick the search bow right on the homepage when you're not
logged in, and make it clear that if you search without logging in, you get
standard results, whereas if you search after you have logged in, you get
results tailored to your interests, the things you 'like', the stuff your
friends 'like' etc. It's a great opportunity because it is relatively easier
for Facebook to expand to search than it is for Google "to become social",
imho.
------
lachyg
You know, I think they need a better internal search engine. Whenever I'm
looking for something on facebook, within my inner social circle (and
sometimes extended) I have a very hard time finding it. I think they could do
a better job at that.
~~~
adrianN
That would make the stalkers happy too.
------
kondro
Well… you know they're hiring all those Google engineers right?
Just saying™
------
bvi
Not a good idea. I come to Facebook for one reason only - to see updates in my
social circle. Nothing else. I don't (want to) come to Facebook to search for
"consumer trends in the QSR industry". That's Google's job.
~~~
apl
It's not about what you (or I) need. Sure, using both Google and Facebook is
fine. But Facebook might gain ground if they added (social?) search functions
to their offerings.
I don't necessarily agree with the author's assessment -- building a search
engine that competes with Google is a decidedly non-trivial project. Still, I
think you may be missing his point.
~~~
bvi
Oh, I get his point. It's just that his point doesn't make any sense from
Facebook's perspective as well. Facebook's essence is to be your one-stop
destination for _anything_ "social" in your life. They would not do well to
expand into generic search, since that's what most users associate Google
with, not Facebook.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did James Damore really deserve to be fired for what he wrote? - saltvedt
http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/opinion/google-wrong-article-1.3399750
======
richmarr
It's a valid question, but Singer gets the answer wrong.
This is politics, not science.
1) Biology is a red herring. There's a huge chasm between any supposed
biological difference, and an actual model that can predict what proportion of
employees should 'naturally' be male or female.
Then there are culture issues (which are likely much larger than any
biological ones, after all countries like India have roughly 50/50
representation without needing special intervention).
Then there are bias issues.
To leap all the way from some small (debated) physiological differences to
suggested HR policy in a single bound speaks more to politics than science.
This requires primary research, not memos and hyperlinks.
2) Damore takes his selection of gender research and then generalises to _all_
forms of diversity... even accusing diversity programs of "lowering the bar",
which is incorrect and damaging to his colleagues hired through those
programs.
------
saltvedt
This is written by the somewhat famous moral philosopher Peter Singer[1].
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Site with tools people use? - aviraldg
So I vaguely remember this website which used to publish articles describing the tools (software, hardware, etc.) used by famous designers, developers, musicians and so on. I think I remember reading an entry on Linus on that website. Does anyone remember what it was?<p>Haven't been able to find it on Google so far.
======
attheodo
[http://usesthis.com/](http://usesthis.com/)
~~~
aviraldg
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cask: a Scala HTTP micro-framework - based2
https://github.com/lihaoyi/cask
======
based2
[http://www.lihaoyi.com/cask/page/about-
cask.html](http://www.lihaoyi.com/cask/page/about-cask.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Blockchain Is a Reminder of the Internet’s Failure - skilled
https://medium.com/s/love-hate/the-blockchain-is-a-reminder-of-the-internets-failure-b16c58d70413
======
hndamien
Come together, like as in a consensus?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“There is no justifiable reason to be working 100+ hours a week." - minimaxir
https://facebook.com/groups/759985267390294?view=permalink&id=1424100054312142
======
seldo
Reminds me of this great presentation:
[http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf](http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf)
Especially this graph of productivity over time:
[https://slides.com/seldo/makersquare-6-stuff-everybody-
knows...](https://slides.com/seldo/makersquare-6-stuff-everybody-
knows/live#/102)
TLDR: if you crunch for 4 weeks it will take you so long to recover that it'll
be as if you never crunched.
~~~
maverick_iceman
Source? Also is the 4 weeks time a universal constant?
------
codingdave
I recall an interview once where I was told that everyone on the team put in
60+ hour weeks, every week. They then said something along the lines of, "Hey,
nobody has ever turned down a job with us before, just because we work too
hard."
They honestly looked surprised when I offered to be the first and walked out.
~~~
pmiller2
I'd be the second if they told me that. Places like that, with their "live to
work" culture are always shitshows.
~~~
convolvatron
i've worked 100 hours for a year at a time. thats not living to work. that's
being a useless zombie
nothing quite stings like being woken up from sleeping underneath your desk at
8 am, not having left the office for a week and smelling like a rabid dog and
being told that your level of commitment is disappointing.
~~~
nodesocket
I'm sorry to hear this. Was this for a company? If you can say, love to know
which one so I know to never apply or recommend them. I really can only do
around 5-7 hours of solid productive programming a day. Otherwise my brain
gets fried and quality, innovation, and speed diminish.
I've done three bootstrapped startups (none ever raised VC capital), and while
I usually work every day of the week, it is typically 4-10 hours a day.
------
minimaxir
OP of the rant here:
I wrote this in response to another post about a "15-year old founder who
works 130 hours a week ‘pure hustle’" and the backpatting that followed in the
comments:
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1422409584481189/)
~~~
wheelerwj
okay that's just absurd and literally inhuman. 18 hours of
sleep/eat/rejuvination is.. not possible.
best case scenario this is one of the 'runrate math' scenarios where someone
worked one 18 hour day and multipled by 7.
~~~
WalterSear
It's also bullshit, every single time.
------
darkstar999
I work for a web agency who bills my time directly to the client, but I get
paid salary. I would have a very hard time working more than 40 without
feeling like I'm getting ripped off (since I get paid the same amount
regardless of time). I don't understand those of you putting in 60+ unless you
have stake in the company.
~~~
karmajunkie
I have a really hard time billing more than about 30/week without feeling like
i'm being taken advantage of in those situations. There are all kinds of non-
billable activities that you do as an agency developer that need to be
accounted for; hitting 40 billable hours means I did 50+ actual hours,
minimum; oftentimes more.
I went out on my own again after a couple of W2 jobs and this time resolved to
calibrate everything on the assumption of working 20 hours a week, including
my rate. End result: I'm not overworked (not on my client work, anyway), I
don't feel stressed about making my quota, and I have more money coming in
than I ever did as an agency dev. I will probably take another W2 job at some
point but after burning myself out several times on my own startup, compared
to how I feel about my client work (nice and rosy feeling) I feel pretty
confident that I won't let myself get pushed into it from an employer again.
------
kabdib
In my 20s I regularly did 80 hour weeks.
In my 30s it was probably 60 hour weeks, but I once did six back-to-back 100+
hour weeks to ship a feature. Took me a few months to recover from that.
When I was in my late 40s I did a three-week reprise of those back-to-back
100+ hour weeks, and again it took me months to recover. I escaped that
particular group just ahead of a year+ death march that I probably would just
have quit in the middle of.
Sure, you can crunch. There is a cost. I probably would have been a lot
happier not working so much, but honestly I didn't know _how_.
It's still easy to get sucked in, but I'm both too wise and too old to do
heavy crunch hours, though I will happily spend the odd few late nights
getting something out the door.
~~~
edblarney
Agreed. Past 35 there is quite a noticeable recovery period.
Also - I find it's not the actual work ... it's the stress and the relentless
nature of it. 100 feels like watching 3 toddlers every waking moment of the
day.
------
jpeg_hero
Founder of Cisco:
[https://youtu.be/mhz24AR3nIc?t=1m20s](https://youtu.be/mhz24AR3nIc?t=1m20s)
"Sincerity begins at 100 hours per week..."
~~~
andars
I can see dedicating the vast majority of one's time (even 100+ hours a week)
to doing something you deeply care about. I would say, however, that the vast
majority of people, even entrepreneurs, are not in a situation where their
work satisfies that condition. I can only suppose Mr. Bosack's work did.
Nonetheless, idolizing 15 year olds who work 130 hours seriously rubs me the
wrong way.
~~~
mickronome
We already have 10-11 years old that are burnt out by performance related
stress even without such idols, so I'd say idolizing 100hours week for 15
years old are patently insane.
The age of onset for serious stress related psychiatric issues has been
dropping for quite some time, it's all very concerning.
~~~
mickronome
But yes, I agree with you in principle :)
------
yarou
I find it strange that in certain tech shops, the measure of your productivity
is not efficiency, but how many hours you spend physically in the office.
Doesn't this select for inefficient and incompetent employees?
~~~
Mz
No doubt. It is likely rooted in (or related to) the high school thing of
grading good students apparently based on how much they sweat rather than the
quality of their work.
The world at large seems to generally do a poor job of figuring out how to
measure productivity in a good way that promotes the best practices.
------
spdionis
I think 40+ hours weeks happen only in the US. This is one of the reasons I'd
be reluctant to ever work there.
It's very hard to program effectively (effective being the keyword) more than
4-5 hours a day for most people. Sometimes you get that day/week when you're
inspired and work more, but otherwise it's just pointless, maybe even
detrimental, to force yourself.
------
a3n
[http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-12-25](http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-12-25)
------
Ezhik
If you keep pushing yourself like this, you'll crash and burn, and it takes a
_long_ time to recover, trust me on this. Get your 8 hours of sleep, and
remember that you are not a robot. Take care of yourself.
------
carlmcqueen
I'm curious to see what the definition for most here as to what those 100
hours would be. All in the office?
I work for a big corporation and do 40-45 hours a week. I'm paid well, and
have great work life balance. I started at the bottom however where I was not
paid well, worked 50-55 hrs and did not have any balance but endured to help
support the family while my wife completed her doctorate.
My wife practices as well as teaches now. Teaching requires grading and if you
add up all the hours she thinks about her students and takes their emails and
waits for them to turn things in at 11:59 she easily works 50-60 hours but not
'traditional hours'. We have a great night and she comes home and guiltily
brings her laptop to bed to get a little work done, etc.
Maybe I just don't have the drive to make more money than I need to live in
the cheap mid-west and that's a huge driver? Live to work, work to live
differences I suppose.
------
AndrewKemendo
I come at this from the opposite side: Under what circumstances is working
100+ hours a week optimal? I can think of quite a few actually.
Building/updating life critical systems come immediately to mind. Security
vulnerability work, in the same vein.
Let's also not ignore that plenty of people are working 100+ hour weeks. Many
Nurses/Doctors, laborers & construction workers, deployed military members,
movie producers, financial brokers.
I've seen all of these first hand - hell I've done it for extended periods.
Near Christmas of 2010, about a month after I got back to the Pacific from 8
months in Iraq (Those were 90-100 hour work weeks at a minimum), the Koreas
got into a little fracas [1] and it looked like war time for PACOM. That first
week I worked 136 hair on fire hours with 38 of those being straight through.
That's 20 hours working, 4 hours of sleep (usually on a cot in a meeting room)
with meals eaten while reading message traffic and reviewing documents in the
bathroom. The following months were better, but not by much.
In my experience 100+ hour weeks are usually less than 12 months and then a
break. Often though, the break is short (a week or so) and it's time to start
again.
So it's actually not that crazy, but you have to be committed. Most people
aren't that committed, and I find that sad, as there is so much worth
committing yourself to.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Yeonpyeong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Yeonpyeong)
~~~
will_hughes
> Under what circumstances is working 100+ hours a week optimal? I can think
> of quite a few actually. Building/updating life critical systems come
> immediately to mind. Security vulnerability work, in the same vein.
I would say the opposite.
If someone is working on critical systems where literal life and death is at
stake, I want them rested and at full mental capacity with the ability and
time to think through repercussions to choices they make.
~~~
AndrewKemendo
Agreed generally. I think the rub is where you get systems that are so
specialized that you can't throw bodies at them. The Apollo missions are a
great example of this [1].
So while it would be ideal to be able to have 3 shifts that work on the same
project or codebase, to get the desired speed you need, in practice generally
only a handful of people can manage the complexity.
[1] [http://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollos-
army-31725477/](http://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollos-army-31725477/)
~~~
will_hughes
I'm not suggesting throwing more bodies at a problem is a solution, it's often
not.
Apollo is a good example of artificial deadlines pushing development effort.
What would've been the impact of pushing back? A launch delay? Okay, maybe a
considerable delay. No life was in jeopardy by pushing it back. It was all
political (and maybe some orbital mechanics too).
Similarly for folks working on life critical systems today - sure, $Company
might launch their new thingy sooner, and perhaps nobody dies as a result of
shitty code getting shipped. But a week or two's delay is probably worth it.
If you're responding to an emergency - that's an entirely different situation.
Maybe everything's on fire and you're losing money hand over fist or someone's
life is actually in danger - sure, fine, work the stupid hours to solve the
immediate problem.
------
tomrod
Graduate school found me working more than 100+ hours a week in measured
doses. I have the 40 or so white hairs to prove it.
~~~
hyperbovine
It's funny how much your perspective on graying changes in your early 30s: I
feel like I _earned_ those hairs (for which I also have a PhD to thank) / am
just grateful to have hair at all. My 18-year old self would appalled.
~~~
tomrod
I hear that!
------
crdoconnor
I've noticed that the managers and companies that do this seem to be fostering
cult-like behavior.
It's obviously deleterious to productivity, but where people consider
themselves to be doing it of their own volition (as opposed to being
threatened with termination), it does seem to breed loyalty and dedication.
The non-loyal get weeded out and the half convinced convince themselves that
they wouldn't be working 100 hours a week without a good reason.
Economically it only makes no sense if you assume that companies are
optimizing for productivity.
------
burger_moon
In a field I used to work in we did 84hr weeks (7-12s) for a few month
stretches then a little break to normal hours or time off before ramping up
again. This was physical labor work however. There's no way I could work that
schedule productively in a programming job. That was one of the hard things to
get over when I went from skilled trades jobs to programming. It's a different
kind of exhaustion you feel from working long ass hours and it's much harder
for me to concentrate on code after hour 10.
------
Mandatum
As a contractor, I'm OK with companies that want me to work 100 hour weeks. If
I get a 3-month contract, that year I'm only working 3 months.
~~~
chii
The problem comes when they want to pay you like you worked 30hr.
~~~
slowmotiony
So...? I can just refuse, can't I?
~~~
AnimalMuppet
Not only can, but should.
------
wheelerwj
big fan of measuring the quality of work vs time invested. ive been working on
this myself. i don't necessarily plan to work less over all, but i think id
like to work on other projects. if I can spend 4 hours managing, 4 hours
coding, and 4 hours researching things, and I can accomplish 50 or even 60% of
my my normal 12 hour single topic work load, I'm way ahead and not burning
out.
------
johan_larson
I have to wonder how many of the claims of heroic work-weeks really are true.
I think I have worked something close to 80-hour weeks once in my life, and it
left me a complete zombie.
------
mlnhd
No politics.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rock climber Alex Honnold doesn’t experience fear like the rest of us - beefield
http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-solo-climber
======
forgotpwtomain
For such along article (and I did enjoy some of it) they spent almost no time
on describing the study methodology.
> Nowhere in the fear center of Honnold’s brain could the neuroscientist spot
> activity.
Could this be solely accounted for in the selection of pictures and experience
of the participant? Compare e.g. the response to the sound of explosions for
someone that has lived in the US vs. someone who has lived in Damascus the
past couple years.
edit: Not sure why this is being down-voted? Is there a detailed description
of methodology that I missed somewhere?
~~~
madaxe_again
Well, they do touch on desensitisation as a potential route to how he ended up
as he is, so it's possible that he's equally desensitised to gruesome imagery.
They don't mention much about the control subject other than that he's also a
climber - but he may come from a culture where the kind of imagery described
is less prevalent.
I'm a high sensation seeker - I don't climb, but I do skydive, bungee, and I
love to ski at ludicrous speed down unmarked terrain - flying off a cornice
that you didn't see and having to think fast about where and how to land is a
crazy rush. Why I mention this - I can identify with the visualisation and
memory rewrite process he describes. I am, by no means, master of my amygdala
- but more often than not I am. I think about the bad possibilities of
anything I'm about to do, and visualise avoiding or dealing with them. I
rehearse in my head. By the time I get to the real thing it's old hat. There's
no fear, just supreme confidence that I know what I'm doing. It's the same
sort of process one goes through before pitching to a customer or investors.
Rehearse mentally until it's easy, even if you've never done it before.
When I do have an unfortunate experience, like chopping off a thumb, knocking
myself out, or shattering a hand because I forgot that trees are quite hard at
100mph, I revisit it until it's funny, and no longer regrettable and
associated with pain, both in my own mind and by recounting the tale. Having a
wilful disregard for the integrity of your own body is quite useful - I know
I'm not bulletproof but I don't mind the missing and numb bits.
That all said, once in a while I find myself with shaking legs, tunnel vision,
and all the rest - usually from stupid and inconsequential shit that,
critically, I didn't anticipate - like his ten foot fall.
I remember the moment I figured it out, aged seven, halfway down an icey mogul
black, panicking and crying, and then suddenly realising that I didn't know
what I was scared of - and then blasting down the piste, realising that it was
all about just believing that you can and it'll all be fine and just getting
on with it.
Anyway. My two cents is that you can self modify and override "hardwired"
behaviour with only moderate conscious effort, and far more people do this
than we currently realise.
------
Fricken
I was four when I saw on television a special that featured either Peter Croft
or John Bachar free soloing a granite face somewhere in Yosemite and I decided
then and there that that was the most badass thing a person could do.
I've been obsessed with climbing ever since, and progressed from furniture to
trees to nearby buildings, and it wasn't until I was 16 I finally got my own
car and gear and independently made the 4 hour drive to the nearest natural
vertical face to climb it. This was in the early 90s, before climbing gyms
were common.
Though I decided not long after, after spending most of a day stranded 2/3rds
of the way up a cliff that I had taken it as far as I was willing to go as a
free soloist.
Alex Honnold is something else.
~~~
hentrep
I was under the impression that Alex practices each free solo route multiple
times while roped.
I'm by no means discounting his accomplishments and skills, but rather
highlighting that it isn't quite as reckless as it first appears.
~~~
Fricken
Here's a video that touches on Honnold's prep for his ascent of El Sendoro
Luminoso. Given that it's likely the most difficult ropeless climb in history
(and on limestone, which is far more prone to breaking holds than Yosemite
granite), he wasn't exactly super meticulous:
[https://youtu.be/Phl82D57P58](https://youtu.be/Phl82D57P58)
At lower grades he has been known to just go for it.
~~~
pierrec
It's pretty crazy with 11 pitches rated 5.12, but it's still not the most
difficult free solo that's been done. For example Honnold himself free soloed
5.13, and Dave MacLeod free soloed a 5.14b. These are only single-pitch but
they're still tall enough to classify as free solo (as opposed to
bouldering/highball). And don't go thinking that 11 pitches of 5.12 is harder
than one pitch of 5.14. Lots of people can do 11 pitches of 5.12 without
falling. Only an extremely small portion of these can send a 5.14 - rope or no
rope, when someone sends that grade it often ends up in the news (well,
climber news, of course).
~~~
justinator
> Only an extremely small portion of these can send a 5.14 > \- rope or no
> rope, when someone sends that grade it often > ends up in the news (well,
> climber news, of course).
Rarely does anyone make even climbing news climbing 5.14, as the limit now for
sport climbing is 5.15c and bouldering is V16. There are routes rated 5.14 at
the gym I frequent that get sent nightly. Granted I live in Boulder CO, lots
of pro climbers do as well, and grades at gyms are often soft, but still...
The last time 5.14 was newsworthy was the first female ascent of a trad. route
in Boulder Canyon
[http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web16b/newswire-china-
doll-5.14-...](http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web16b/newswire-china-
doll-5.14-heather-weidner-interview)
and the Dawn Wall, which is 32 pitches,
[https://www.mountainproject.com/v/dawn-wall-
free/109951912](https://www.mountainproject.com/v/dawn-wall-free/109951912)
a few of which are rated 5.14.
Perhaps Ashima makes news climbing 5.14's, but it's also because she's still a
teenager.
There's a dude that works as a routesetter at my gym that just sent 5.15. His
instagram was pretty popular for a while, but he's just a dude.
[http://www.rockandice.com/climbing-news/jon-cardwell-
sends-b...](http://www.rockandice.com/climbing-news/jon-cardwell-sends-
biographie-realization-5-15a)
5.14 made big news 25 years ago with routes like Action Directe. Things have
progressed since then.
IMHO rating comparing a one pitch 5.14 and a 11 pitch 5.12 is comparing two
different things. :shrug:
~~~
pierrec
You guys in Boulder CO have all the mutant climbers. You should see our little
Ontario climbing news outlets! I'm pretty sure there's only one guy in the
entire province that even _sets_ indoor 5.14 (despite having quite a few gyms,
I believe at least 15). Anyways, it was a bit overboard and in terms of
international climbing news, I very much agree with you.
~~~
justinator
> You guys in Boulder CO have all the mutant climbers
There's some truth to this. Just today, I was bouldering next to a dude that
look somewhat familiar. Turns out it's Paul Robinson, just here traveling
through town.
Took a few tries to nail a V12 set, didn't even look like he broke a sweat.
------
sgrytoyr
I feel compelled to post this video whenever Honnold comes up. Here he is
free-soloing El Sendero Luminoso:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58)
He really is something else.
~~~
arcticfox
Amazing video. I went to see him speak and he introduced himself with that,
and then quickly went over his philosophy about the risk of death as "the
boring stuff".
He seems genuinely sick of discussion about death, which at first shocked me
(shouldn't someone _tell_ him that almost every free soloist dies?! It's
irresponsible not to!).
But if you listen to him, it's immediately apparent that he's fully cognizant
of the situation. After just a few minutes even I was annoyed by the hypocrisy
and judgment when someone questioned his risk assessment. And he has to deal
with that almost every time he interacts with people outside of his inner
circle. I can hardly imagine how frustrating that must be.
~~~
rwallace
Almost every free soloist dies? Literally? That would make it the most
dangerous hobby in the world? Are there any references or discussions on that
handy?
~~~
justinator
Well everyone dies.
If you mean, "died while freesoloing", you've got,
* Derek Hersey * John Bachar
off the top of my head. There are others,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing#Notable_acc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing#Notable_accidents)
Dan Osman died from a roped fall (jumped with the intent of the rope system to
slow his fall), not a free solo. Dean Potter died from a wingsuit accident,
which "literally" is probably the most dangerous hobby.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_due_to_wing...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatalities_due_to_wingsuit_flying)
"72 percent of fliers had witnessed death or serious injury, and 76 percent
had experienced what they categorized as a “near miss.”
[http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/12/thrilling-deadly-world-
wi...](http://www.newsweek.com/2014/09/12/thrilling-deadly-world-wingsuit-
flying-267468.html)
Dean Potter on Heaven,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRUkolahw58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRUkolahw58)
~~~
Hoasi
The late, great Patrick Edlinger survived a terrible fall before retiring,
only to fall into depression.
------
sergioisidoro
Fear is crippling. But safety if also misleading.
I do aerial acrobatics, I've tried to battle fear of heights when being 5/10m
up and making a drop, having to be sure that I did the correct moves and the
rope will stop my fall. The only safety I have is a 2 by 2m crash mat that
won't protect me from broken bones. Not to mention that falling to the mat in
the wrong position or outside of the mat will also have potentially serious
consequences. And yet when I don't have it, something goes off in my mind and
it gets much scarier. I'm afraid of doing anything, even the most
inconsequential moves.
Fear is irrational, and I've realised that safety is sometimes psychological
and misleading. You'll likely put yourself in more dangerous situations by
having a safety net, and knowing you can fail. Thing is, safety also fails,
and you can also fail in setting up the safety material (knots, ropes, mats).
My point: This guy knows the consequences of every move, will be much careful
in execution of every step. Much more than if he had a rope. He can't afford
to get distracted, while someone with a rope will likely pay less attention to
details.
------
toss1
"many high sensation seekers’ problematic behaviors involve intense
experiences that can be pursued impulsively and without obvious immediate
consequences, such as binge drinking or drug use....Joseph wonders if that
energy could be redirected into high-arousal activities—such as rock climbing,
but with protective gear—that by their nature involve constraint,
premeditation, and specific goals, reinforcing different life patterns."
I read some time ago about a drug treatment program centered around rock
climbing, said to have astonishingly high success rates. But then I never
heard much more about it. Perhaps it doesn't scale due to small supply of
climbing teachers and/or large supply of skeptics?
~~~
forgotpwtomain
I grew up getting dragged along on climbing trips, also competed briefly (my
father as most of his friends were mountaineers). It's a great sport and
community. Most significantly, that you can climb with a relative stranger and
trust them to belay you (even if it's just top rope) is a wonderful thing I
think most people never experience (I'm rationalizing in retrospect now) -
still I think this is part of the underlying basis which makes the community
so much more trusting and friendly. Also the outdoors, physical exertion etc.
Do you have a link for the study?
~~~
toss1
Yes, climbing is a very cool sport and community. I wish I had a link, but it
was years ago that I read it.
------
sn9
Tim Ferriss actually did a podcast interview with Honnold [0] and it delved
into how he handles fear and thinks about risk in his own life. A really great
interview.
[0] [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/05/17/alex-
honnold/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/05/17/alex-honnold/)
------
carsongross
To quote Bill Burr on Lance Armstrong:
"The guy was a sociopath on a bicycle. As far as I'm concerned, we got off
easy!"
Just keep him on the rocks...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uol6e5YAPqs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uol6e5YAPqs)
------
WhitneyLand
Why not just get rid of the amygdala? Looks like it doesn't reduce brain
function. If you can live with the 3% mortality rate, maybe a lifetime free of
anxiety?
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18590383](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18590383)
~~~
trhway
Wrt. Honnold's amygdala - it isn't clear that his amygdala doens't work - at
least looking at the brain scans of Honnold and of a control climber's one can
see that the control's brain has the signal going all the way from the visual
cortex (back of the neck) to the amygdala, while Honnold's brain doesn't seem
to conduct that signal to the amygdala. According to the article both climbers
were _looking_ at the same arousing images. One can wonder - how about scary
sounds or touches - would Honnold's amygdala receive such signal from the
corresponding parts of the brain processing such sensory input? Or
alternatively - if we instead of getting rid of amygdala just block or
attenuate the signal pathways to it?
------
fletchowns
Nothing else makes my palms as sweaty as when I watch videos of Alex Honnold
free soloing.
~~~
steveax
I've watched many free soloists that make me nervous, but I don't get nervous
watching Honnold. He is so amazingly solid, so methodical, so smooth.
~~~
mr_overalls
Indeed. From his facial expressions and body language, I get the feeling he is
utterly dialed in to a personal real-time risk-assessment algorithm. He is
100% focused on rational self-preservation, given the parameters of the task
at hand.
------
was_boring
There's a great documentary on the history of climbing in Yosemite called
Valley Uprising that he is in (albeit towards the end). Truly remarkable what
they do.
~~~
vanattab
I love this documentary. It's entertaining even for non climbers. Netflix.
------
cko
Slightly relevant video about him living in a van:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CArfaGmYuGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CArfaGmYuGM)
------
niels_olson
> "This is what I do".
Kelly Slater and I'm sure many other athletes have expressed a similar
sentiment.
I suspect there are other professionals, mathematicians, physicians,
playwrights, who have a similar sentiment. I wonder if a rather simple model
of this is that their neural nets are highly optimized for the task. And if
that's the case, is that a tell for a task that can or can't be automated?
Can a machine drop into a triple-overhead wave and throw improv tricks with
grace? What does grace mean to the machine? Dignity?
------
jonah
I followed with rapt attention the first free-climb of the Dawn Wall[1] but
free soloing is orders of magnitude more incredible and he makes it look so
easy. Amazingly talented guy.
[1][http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/sports/el-capitans-dawn-
wa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/sports/el-capitans-dawn-wall-
climbers-near-top-yosemite.html)
------
sakopov
Here is a great interview with Joe Rogan (yeah, i know) where Alex shares
information about his climbs and free soloing in general.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OusYaNWBy08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OusYaNWBy08)
~~~
zeddie
Your comment suggests reservations about Joe Rogan content...what are they?
------
takk309
Here is the NatGeo talk that is referenced at the beginning of the article.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFfTHoJ9khs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFfTHoJ9khs)
------
CaptainReality
He probably won't experience old-age, child-rearing, and working to improve
his local community like the rest of us either. Because he'll likely be dead
in the next few years.
------
bdrool
I am unable to read articles about fMRI results without thinking of this:
[http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/](http://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/)
~~~
sliverstorm
A humors piece, thank you!
In Honnold's case, they may be safe from this, as it's the _total absence_ of
signal relative to a control subject that is interesting, not activity in some
unexpected region of the brain.
------
guard-of-terra
Frankly I don't understand why people turn risk of falling into risk of death.
Why can't they make some device for him, say, a thick-ish belt, which will
make him hang inside of a sphere full of compressed gas, after a second of
free fall? Not unlike how car SRS work?
Why don't ships have inflatable balloons strapped to their hulls that would
allow them to float indefinitely? We still have sinking ferries with hundreds
dead that could perhaps been fully prevented?
~~~
CamperBob2
_Why can 't they make some device for him, say, a thick-ish belt, which will
make him hang inside of a sphere full of compressed gas, after a second of
free fall? Not unlike how car SRS work?_
Probably because the inflation of such a sphere, like an airbag going off,
would be an incredibly violent event in itself. Also, decelerating inside the
confines of a small sphere wouldn't be much gentler than just hitting the
ground at full speed.
Some sort of jet-assist contraption to slow your descent might be a better
bet. It would arm itself when it senses that you've fallen, and fire the next
time it senses that it's upright.
I have a feeling that a lot of people who die in this sport are either
paralyzed or dead before they hit the ground, due to collisions with
outcroppings in the rock face. Free climbing isn't something that you would
want to do if you have the slightest concern for your own neck, and I don't
think any number of Rube Goldberg gadgets will change that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drinking age of 21 doesn't work - edw519
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/16/mccardell.lower.drinking.age/index.html
======
ScottWhigham
Not hacker news certainly?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A little idea to resolve special m:n relations a bit different with MySQL - seonap
http://www.xarg.org/2010/09/resolve-many-to-many-relations-a-bit-different-with-mysql/
An approach to resolve many-to-many relations without an additional table.
======
michael_dorfman
So, you break First Normal Form, require some text-processing code to be put
into your queries, and lose the benefit of indexes, all in order to avoid
creating another table?
For the love of God, _why?_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Motigram, an SMS based to-do app backed by real humans not a.i. - titusblair
https://motigram.com
======
ismail
I went through the entire page trying to figure out what the humans offer and
value I get. My best guess it is motivation and accountability?
Did not look at the video. Maybe this has a specific target market who
understand the value?
------
aub3bhat
I think you need to do a better job telling the story. Honestly it would also
help pictures of real humans/motivators. E.g. let Brad help you out by having
a conversation the next time you are feeling anxious about <some issue>. I see
honestly see both Fitness / Weight-loss as big markets.
------
kowdermeister
Great, I was about to complain that motivational content is really hard to
find on the internet. (nope)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sex, Steroids, and Arnold: The Story of the Gym That Shaped America - jseliger
https://deadspin.com/sex-steroids-and-arnold-the-gym-that-shaped-america-1828228786
======
B1FF_PSUVM
This slid off the front page pretty damn quick - the culture so deftly
portrayed is probably almost as alien here as anything short of martians ...
This bit in the middle is striking:
_Charles Gaines (author of Stay Hungry and co-author of Pumping Iron): Among
other things that’s not widely understood about bodybuilders, I think, is how
good they feel. Working out they have these endorphins cascading their bodies.
They’re eating enough meat for a male lion every day, and lying in the sun and
screwing whoever they want to screw. It was a kind of paradise. They’re always
tanned and they’re in great shape. That sense of physical well-being and pure
physical pleasure was a big part of that scene.
Drasin: We’d go to the Marina on Friday and Saturday nights to pick up women.
Donkin’s Inn, Charlie Brown’s, Captain’s Wharf, The Warehouse. They’d go crazy
over us. They’d never seen anything like it.
Bill Pettis (bodybuilder): I had like 10 girlfriends. I said, “Jane, you’re
Tuesday. Sally, you’re Wednesday.” We were broke, but we lived like kings._
What follows is more sordid, but still recalls gladiators, minus the bleeding
...
------
jseliger
A surprisingly large amount of commentary on business and being at the right
place at the right time, too:
_Joe Weider was an excellent promoter. Hoffman wasn’t. That made the
difference. Weider began to create more romance—he had a sharp eye for
photography—and he was a better businessman than Hoffman. The one thing I
respected about Joe Weider was, he gave everybody an opportunity to do
something with themselves. He gave us exposure. It was up to you to take
advantage of it and do something with it. Many bodybuilders expected money to
fall to them. That ain’t the way it happens. You gotta get out and hustle your
ass off. The ones who’ve prospered the most were guys who took advantage of
the publicity and let that spill over to other aspects of their life._
------
mojoe
I love the fact that these guys were so dedicated to their craft in the face
of zero money and all the ridicule. I always enjoy seeing that kind of extreme
motivation.
------
RickJWagner
A good read, it gives insight into a specific period of time.
One quote that didn't make it comes from Marlon Darton, another giant of the
day. Asked if he took steroids, Darton is said to have replied "Yes, I do. But
so does everybody else."
------
Animats
Oh, that place. There was a restaurant across the street, on Speedway, that
served ostrich. Bodybuilders were into that.
------
tvh
This was an awesome read. I watched Pumping Iron some years back, but this
makes me want to watch it once more!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon S3 Simple Backup Script - s3backup - leftnode
http://artisansystem.com/blog/entry/37
======
callmeed
I've been using s3sync.rb combined with a cron job and shell script. Working
great for me.
Good to see a PHP-based alternative I suppose.
~~~
leftnode
Thanks! I don't know Ruby/have never played around with it, but I saw s3sync
and it looks interesting. I'll have to check it out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A New Way for the Wealthy to Shop for Citizenships - lebek
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-way-for-the-wealthy-to-shop-for-citizenships?mbid=rss
======
liamcardenas
> The U.S. ranks twenty-eighth on the Q.N.I., behind nearly every E.U.
> country. Kalin told me that the U.S.’s rank is partly due to its restrictive
> immigration policy, and partly because “there are so many weapons, and a
> high incarceration rate.”
Why does the fact that there are "so many weapons, and a high incarceration
rate" make the US a bad place to live for millionaires?
There is a lot of subjectivity here. If you want to live in America, then an
American citizenship is the most important one to have. However, if you want
to live abroad, an American citizenship is terrible because you still have to
pay income tax no matter where in the world you are.
(I do like measuring travel freedom though!)
~~~
HillaryBriss
This "QNI" value that law firm invented seems mostly of interest to wealthy
people who want to visit a lot of countries with short visa delays (if any)
and little to no red tape at points of entry.
QNI seems minimally useful/relevant to people who live in a country full time
and rarely if ever leave that country. For them, other indices and statistics
are of greater interest.
~~~
sudhirj
Also taxes. Tax rates and laws differ based on citizenships.
------
owenversteeg
Firstly, I think this is a fascinating subject that isn't discussed on HN
enough. A lot of friends of mine have multiple citizenships, so this is an
interesting subject for me personally. I know two people with dual Russian-US
nationalities, which they both loudly proclaim to be the best. I also know a
number of people with dual European-US citizenships, and a handful of people
who have a smaller non-EU country and a US citizenship. I also know some
people who only have just one smaller non-EU country's citizenship.
I've personally had the discussion several times about what the best
citizenships to hold are. Some people I know are wealthy enough that they
could simply afford to purchase additional citizenships; some are undocumented
in their country of residence and holding even dual citizenship is only a
dream.
I'm personally of the opinion that there are a few "classes" of passports:
European, American, Russian, South American, and everyone else. Russian,
because it allows you free travel between the former Soviet states; European
and American for obvious reasons, and South American because most South
American countries permit free travel with citizenship.
Less commonly known passports I have special love for are the Chilean passport
and the Dutch passport (which I have). The Dutch passport because it is very
difficult to obtain (and requires you to give up all other citizenships unless
obtained by birth), and the Chilean one because it is the only passport to
allow free travel to all G8 countries.
It's also interesting to watch how the Syrian passport fell from "medium
quality", relatively close to high quality, to the fourth worst passport
ranked. In the same time, only a few countries fell positions: El Salvador
went from high quality to medium quality, and the Congo went from medium to
low quality.
For those in the thread asking for a copy of the 2016 report:
[https://www.henleyglobal.com/files/download/HP/hvri/HP%20Vis...](https://www.henleyglobal.com/files/download/HP/hvri/HP%20Visa%20Restrictions%20Index%20160223.pdf)
~~~
Teever
I would think that Canadian and German passport would be quite excellent.
Canadian because it gives you access to free healthcare and the United States,
as well as visa free entry to so many countries and the German one gives you
all of the EU.
I knew a person with Canadian, Swiss, and New Zealand -- now that's an awesome
combination.
~~~
sdm
Canadian passport does not give you free healthcare; it is completely
unconnected with citizenship.
Health care, like most thing, is the responsibility of the provincial
governments. You have to be a resident of a province for a period of time,
usually 6 months, to get free healthcare in that province. Provinces do cover
out of province travel and some limited international travel though usually
not the US -- but that all varies by province.
If you are a non-resident Canadian citizen, you will __not __be covered and
have to pay full even if you are treated in Canada. For example, if you move
to the Bay area for work, go home at christmas and break your leg, you will be
out of pocket the total costs.
However, if you a resident non-citizen (i.e., PR, TFW, Student), you will be
covered after your residency is established.
~~~
raverbashing
It's 3 months for Quebec and 153 days for Ontario
[http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/](http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/)
~~~
codexjourneys
What happens to you if you move and then get in a terrible accident? Does your
former province cover you during this in-between residency establishment
phase? Do you need to move back to your old province (or be moved back) before
the waiting period expires? Or are you completely SOL?
~~~
raverbashing
I'm not sure, I think that in the specific case of an inter-province move
you're still covered by the older province
Or you get a separate private insurance if you're coming into Canada to stay
I suspect that even without any coverage you're not SOL because of things like
the mandatory insurance that vehicles must have
~~~
codexjourneys
Okay, I figured there must be some provision for movers but was unwilling to
assume - so the old province would cover me if I had some incident in the new
province (car accident, heart attack, mega food poisoning, whatever)...
------
emptybits
Referenced but not linked by the article:
[https://www.nationalityindex.com](https://www.nationalityindex.com)
------
Cyph0n
I feel that it's a much more interesting comparison. Other rankings simply
compare the number of countries your passport can enter visa-free, which
obviously ignores many factors.
I'm lucky enough to hold three citizenships (no I'm not rich), so I have no
trouble entering most countries. I just wish one of them was from the EU... it
would make working there much easier.
------
projectramo
1\. I wish they had published their list
2\. The simple metric that might help us understand the value of the list:
access to high paying jobs
3\. From #2, you can derive other properties as corollaries (freedom to
travel, settle Etc)
~~~
y4mi
they did publish it. emptybits posted a link to their index
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886215)
------
Brandanna
Yeah, passports.io does a better job than this firm. I incorporated in
Seychelles, have citizenship in antigua. All thanks to them.
Remember, kids: tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is _discouraged_.
~~~
lucaspiller
Where do you usually reside? First of all you've got issues with visas, but
also in a lot of countries you automatically become a tax resident after
staying there for more than ~180 days per year (as in most EU countries).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Some Technical Clarifications About Do Not Track - tshtf
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/harlanyu/some-technical-clarifications-about-do-not-track
======
jdp23
Important clarifications, in particular highlighting that it's _not_ a do-not-
track list.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alienware Evaluating Customers' Interest in Linux - vimes656
http://www.osnews.com/story/24310/Alienware_Evaluating_Customers_Interest_in_Linux
======
goombastic
Would have been easier for them to allow people to say no to Windows when they
buy the laptop, rather than do polls and other stuff.
I would be interested in: a) easier windows refunds and b)GNU-Linux compatible
specs.
------
trotsky
Gaming is one of the few things I still boot into windows for.
~~~
chris11
I'd chose linux if it was cheaper. MSDNAA is free so there is no reason for me
to pay any money for another copy of windows.
------
narrator
If I want a high-powered computer to run desktop Linux I go for HP. They
certify and rigorously test a subset of their desktop systems to fully support
Linux:
[http://h20338.www2.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321143-0-0-0-121....](http://h20338.www2.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321143-0-0-0-121.html)
~~~
sigzero
I had no idea HP did that.
------
arespredator
As much as I admire Alienware computers' design, craftsmanship, speed, etc.,
and as much as I appreciate the company's interest in linux, I hardly think
there's any sense in Alienware linux-based computers, since they're designed
for gaming and gaming only.
~~~
burgerbrain
As much as I admire any manufacturers interest in linux, I hardly think
there's any sense in anybody shipping with it. _Few_ people who want to use
linux are incapable of spending the 20 minutes to install it themselves, and
no matter what distro you pick you'll never satisfy a large portion of your
linux using customers.
Just sell me a computer with a blank harddrive. That would be _swell_.
~~~
Dobbs
I want hardware support. I want a set of open specs on a laptop. That way
FreeBSD, Debian, Ubuntu, and Slackware could all possibly run on it. I don't
want to purchase a system in which if you use their preinstalled version of
Ubuntu it works but anything else your hosed.
So when I look at a 'Linux' laptop that is what I'm looking at it for. Can I
run FreeBSD with working sound/sleep/wireless?
~~~
burgerbrain
How common are laptops that don't work well with linux these days? With
graphics you're golden: either it's AMD (uncommon) and it has working FOSS
drivers out of the box, or it's Nvidia where you have working FOSS drivers
sufficient for work needs, and proprietary drivers sufficient for whatever
gaming you could possibly be doing on linux. With wifi, you're almost always
golden these days. Most laptops seem to have intel or atheros chips, but even
the traditionally hellish broadcom cards don't provide much of an issue from
what I understand. If anything else in a laptop could cause you any real
showstopping trouble I'd be very surprised.
Note also that both of these potential hangups are something you can easily
access beforehand. Every site I've used lets you pick your wifi chip from one
of a few choices and will at least tell you what the GPU is.
~~~
Dobbs
This is wonderful in theory but I've purchased laptops pretty recently
(Thinkpad x200e) which I didn't fully vet before I purchased. This laptop had
lots of issues. Non Working Wifi, couldn't sleep correctly and had issues with
sound.
Having everything work out of the box is not guaranteed. Ubuntu is generally
better about it but not all distros have the level of workarounds that Ubuntu
does. As far as ACPI is concerned not even Ubuntu is decent.
------
corin_
"Would you be willing to pay extra for a Linux-based Alienware system?"
~~~
boredguy8
I thought one of Alienware's distinction was their support. Presumably they
need to hire support reps for whatever flavor of Linux they support. Also
presumably, this is more costly and intensive than hiring someone with an A+
certification. Obviously this is conjecture, but it would explain the 'charge
more'.
~~~
ZoFreX
If it was reasonably priced and decent, I would actually love support for
Linux on my pc. My next one will probably be an Alienware (the mx11 netbook),
and if they can make things less of a headache, I'm all for it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek, I'm a power user, I can fix my own computer. I
just don't _want_ to. I just installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my
current netbook, and surprise surprise, I need to hack some drivers and
recompile the kernel. It's a chore that I just don't want to deal with any
more.
More economically, if the price of support works out less than the opportunity
cost of doing it myself, then it obviously makes sense to use the support.
------
polymind
I love alienware products very much. Their sheer no-compromise attitude to
build the best gaming pc's is known through the world. I personally feel that
they should enter linux market by manufacturing specific products, for ex
something on the lines of google cr-48 chrome notebook. There is lot of scope
in this area and personally as a hacker/programmer I know what kind of hunger
we are in. Also a lot of customizations can be done on linux desktops &
laptops which the traditional companies like sony,lenovo,ibm,apple don't
offer. //(There is lot to talk, but i think i made all my important points)\\\
So I hearty welcome their interest in knowing our interest, but will be
seriously disappointed if they didn't enter this market. :)
~~~
ZoFreX
> Their sheer no-compromise attitude to build the best gaming pc's is known
> through the world
Sorry, but this is fluff. There are many companies that make specialist gaming
PCs, and Alienware aren't number one. Don't get me wrong, they're good (and
the vast majority of pre-made "gaming" PCs I've seen were absolutely
terrible), but they're no Scan for example.
~~~
polymind
>Sorry, but this is fluff. There are many companies that make specialist
gaming PCs, and Alienware aren't number one. Don't get me wrong, they're good
(and the vast majority of pre-made "gaming" PCs I've seen were absolutely
terrible), but they're no Scan for example.
If you got the idea from my post that Alienware are the best manufactures of
'gaming pc', then I am sorry. All I was claiming is that their 'attitude' 'in
building' the best pc's in the world. And for the sake of debate, name any
other company that is as consistent as alienware in offering similar products
across a wide spectrum. Please don't say my 'backyard tony' builds a better
one than them. One company that is accessible to all kind of people.
~~~
hazzen
Their _brand_ is that they manufacture the best gaming PCs in the world. But
if one only pays attention to branding and not realities, you end up thinking
Chevy's are indestructible rocks and that Sprite quenches thirst and gives you
the power to play sports.
And in case you missed it, GP mentioned Scan as an alternative. I'll add
Falcon Northwest.
------
freyrs3
If I have $3k to drop and need that much horsepower I'd rather build a small
cluster for the price.
~~~
asdfj843lkdjs
You can do MUCH better building for yourself. Sadly, some of us don't have the
time.
------
iwwr
If you're paying $2-3K for an Alienware machine, you might as well fork over
$99 for a Windows OEM.
Edit: A link to the actual survey
[http://www.alienware.com/Surveys/AlienSurvey.aspx?Id=2960712...](http://www.alienware.com/Surveys/AlienSurvey.aspx?Id=29607129825)
~~~
goombastic
Geeks optimize everything. 99$ extra for Win (esp. if you don't use it) is 99$
wasted. Many of us are also finicky about taking a stand. A thousand geeks
saying no to 99$ extra is a lot of money and a community in itself.
~~~
iwwr
What would you use an Alienware Linux machine for?
~~~
__mlm__
There are many companies (and government agencies like NASA) that do a lot of
high-end 3D visualization and processing on linux. Having one of these
desktops would be nice in one of those environments.
------
sgt
Sigh, I can't read OSNews anymore. It's got ugly ads plastered all over it.
~~~
wazoox
Funnily, it's one of the very few websites I white-listed in adblock, because
they asked very nicely their readers to do so to support them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
40% off Pragmatic Programmers books and screencasts. - steve19
http://media.pragprog.com/newsletters/2009-11-18.html
======
simonista
Anyone have recommendations? The only thing I've ever bought from PragProg is
Agile Web Development with Rails, which I can recommend.
~~~
justinweiss
Most of their language books are pretty good -- Programming Erlang and
Programming Clojure are both worth reading, if you're interested in either
language.
It's disappointing that they don't discount The Pragmatic Programmer, as
that's a book I wholeheartedly recommend to every working developer. I think
that's still owned by Addison Wesley.
~~~
runevault
Yeah sadly they don't have the publishing rights to that book. Actually I
should reread my copy at some point, seems like every time through something
new sticks.
------
steve19
does anyone know how these discounts affect author royalties? Do they get 40%
less and do they have any say regarding their books going on sale?
~~~
javery
Yes they get 40% less and no they don't have any say, that being said 40% off
at pragprog is probably still more money to the authors then the 40% + cut
that Amazon or other retailers take.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Medieval Mindset (2017) - marchenko
https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/09/thinking-medieval-seeking-endarkenment.html
======
hprotagonist
Much of the mindset(s) of the 14th century make a LOT more sense when you
realize two things.
1\. 19 year olds were routinely making critical military decisions. Remember
how friggin' twitchy you were at 19 about big capitalized ideas like Honor and
Purity and Romance? Yeah, now be that guy but in charge of a thousand lances.
A reasonable modern equivalent to 14th century france is 21st century
afghanistan. A few old survivors trying to keep the peace, and teenagers
flipping out on blood vendettas keeping everyone on their toes.
2\. Basically everyone had PTSD and most of the warrior class had semi-
permanent concussions. This explains most if not all of the weird
contradictions between battlefield brutality and the extremes of social
politesse off it. Froissart and other chroniclers of the age have plenty of
examples of knights who would shit themselves in terror before making
themselves fight, or have screaming nightmares for days, or any of a long list
of things that are pretty obvious signals of severe psychological distress.
They would also do things like bawl their eyes out at music or at the death of
a pet or other seemingly small things -- and flip into murderous rage when
social conventions were violated. This is entirely coherent with, for example,
things we see retired NFL players do. I suspect it's for a lot of the same
reasons.
~~~
benbreen
These are great points. I specialize in the period a bit after the 14th
century (the early modern era, roughly Columbus to the Industrial Revolution)
and often say something similar to my class.
I add these as points #3 and #4:
\- Diseases that we would consider to be debilitating were so common that it
was completely normal for a person to suffer from, say, smallpox, dysentery
and a gangrenous limb in a 10 year period. All in a world with no painkillers
whatsoever (oddly enough, opiates were almost never used in a clinically
effective manner in surgery prior to the late 17th century). The sheer level
of physical pain that people dealt with on a daily basis is staggering and
would have taken a psychological toll.
\- It was also completely normal for someone to have dealt with the loss of
_multiple_ siblings and children in infancy. You commonly see families that
had 10+ children, of which only two or three survived into adulthood. So not
only warriors but virtually everyone would have had something similar to what
we'd today call PTSD. (Incidentally, this is also my theory as to why putti
and the baby Jesus motif are so popular in medieval and Renaissance art - what
today seems like a tacky baby painting was, in that period, deeply resonant
with virtually everyone's personal experience of the loss of a beloved family
member in infancy).
~~~
froasty
I call shenanigans on all four points.
1\. Delayed adulthood along with the carceral infantalization that accompanies
it is purely a modern phenomenon.
2\. Jousting was not nearly as common as popular culture presupposes. The
notion that pitched battles, particularly ones that involved the nobility
fighting personally and carelessly in melees, were encountered _so frequently_
as to suffer from CTE goes against the historiography of the era.
3\. Smallpox lasts about two weeks (if you live). Dysentery lasts about one
week (if you live). Gangrenous limbs either kill you, come off, or recover.
None of these cause persistent pain. If I get the flu every year, I'm going to
have a worse time than these people, regardless of the existence of opiates.
4\. Low infant mortality is _also_ a purely modern phenomenon. It also ignores
all known sociology on infant mortality. When infants and children die in
highly mortal societies, their value is accordingly diminished. In many
cultures where infant mortality is extremely high, they're not even considered
fully human until around their first birthday.
Humans are amazingly resilient when it comes to persistent stress and develop
culture-ways to cope.
~~~
benbreen
1\. This is an on-going debate to a certain degree (I mainly have encountered
it via Phillipe Ariès's _Centuries of Childhood_ ). But I have never bought
the argument that childhood is a modern invention. If you actually read
primary sources from the period it is abundantly clear that parents sought to
protect their children, that they treated children as different from adults,
and that children were expected to behave in a manner different from adults.
To me, that's a childhood, albeit one that looks very different from modern
norms due to the existence of widespread child labor, etc.
2\. It's too strong of a claim to say that medieval or early modern warriors
suffered from CTE (mostly because retroactive diagnosis has a terrible track
record) but I think it's very reasonable to say that warriors of this period
suffered from severe psychological and physical distress that derived directly
from their training. Likewise, you're leaving out the fact that nobles hunted
and rode on horseback (with no helmet!) on a daily basis and that these are
exceptionally dangerous occupations by modern standards.
3\. Smallpox might last a matter of weeks as an active illness. But it is
permanently disfiguring. Elizabeth I is just the most well-documented of what
we can imagine were literally millions of people who suffered trauma from
smallpox scars. Similarly, many illnesses of the period (like malaria, polio,
scrofula, etc) were chronic. As for gangrenous limbs, Henry VIII suffered from
a wound (from recreational jousting no less) that ultimately killed him via a
leg ulcer, but it took years of agonizing pain to do so. Maybe not gangrene,
but the point remains that a world of sharp objects + no antibiotics is no fun
for anyone.
4\. It's very difficult for me to imagine that the pain of losing a child ever
really goes away, even if you live in a world where it's commonplace.
Likewise, the evidence about children not being considered "fully human" until
age 1 relies on naming practices. But it ignores things like murder
prosecutions for infanticide which were widespread in the period - if babies
weren't considered fully human, why did courts care if they were killed? And
finally, most childhood mortality occurred after age 1, regardless.
Edit: I mostly agree with your critique of the OP, by the way. But I think the
fact that we agree on humans from the past being more or less like us
conflicts with your points about parents in the past being relatively un-
concerned about the loss of a child, etc.
~~~
froasty
1\. Do you include adolscence within childhood? Because that might be where
we're disagreeing. How would you define childhood?
2\. I don't think a comparison between cultures where horse-riding is
fundamental to one where it is primarily a leisure activity makes much sense
when it comes to estimations of danger. Yes, hunts could result in injuries; I
don't disagree there. However, if attrition was severe enough to impede the
function of the martial culture, it wouldn't be actively propagated.
3\. Yes, disfigurements and scarring would be common in the aftermath of
epidemics, but in those situations, it's so common that to form cultural
persecuting complexes around it is difficult to justify. Lepers, on the other
hand...
4\. That's really my entire point: the reason it's so hard for you to imagine
is because, if you live in the United States, the entire existence of death
has become divorced from culture and daily existence. It's an aberration and a
taboo. In a culture where death during childhood is common, there are cultural
forms that account for it. That doesn't mean that it is or isn't a loss, but
that it accomodates and integrates that event within a broader chain of being.
As far as judicial injunctions against infanticide go, early mortality is
incidental to life, not fundamental. Actively destroying a potential person,
particularly within a truly local culture, when it _isn 't_ already part of
the folkways, is _of course_ going to result in reprisal. However the very
existence of cultures that practiced exposure shows that it isn't fundamental
to the human condition to viscerally value the lives of infants
unconditionally. As far as PTSD goes, it's largely about _being unable_ to
cope with a traumatic event. In a functional society, it seems unlikely to me
that PTSD strictly as a pathology surrounding child loss would be a thing--and
the sociology surrounding it as I've read it supports that assertion.
I really think our disagreement resides in our perceptions of how
durable/fragile humans can be under duress. I think humans are especially
resilient, particularly if given adequate cultural coping mechanisms within a
culture.
~~~
benbreen
Interesting discussion here, and I certainly don't disagree that humans are
resilient. All I'll add (re: point 4) is that I literally spent 2-3 months
translating letters sent by Portuguese soldiers stationed in 17th century
Angola as part of my PhD research. Those guys were among the most deeply
unhappy individuals I've ever encountered in an archive. They were completely
unable to cope with the severity of disease and death all around them. I think
they're more of the norm than many recognize, because most of us don't spend
time reading through primary source letters in archives. I think that spending
a lot of my mental life in the 17th century makes me fairly well placed to
imagine what it's like to lose a child in that world, and I really don't see
what you'r arguing here reflected in the archives.
If anyone reading this is interested, btw, the depiction of a fictional Thomas
Cromwell's loss of a child in Hilary Mantel's _Wolf Hall_ struck me as
incredibly well-observed and accurate. I really loved that part of the book.
~~~
froasty
How were the Angolans coping? Did you encounter them in the archives?
~~~
benbreen
Yes, in the form of thousands of African slaves (visible more via their
absence, but showing up obliquely in complaints about "the cadavers of the
blacks" being eaten by hyenas). Suffice to say that they were not coping well
either, since Angola at this time was one of the centers of the Atlantic slave
trade. The only person in these letters who seems at all calm is Queen Nzinga
of Ndongo, an independent African ruler who communicated with the King of
Portugal via a couple letters. But her family again proves my point - her
brother, the former ruler, committed suicide due to his grief at his kingdom's
loss of power. 17th century archives are basically a non-stop litany of
enslavement, murder, illness, and complaints about lack of basic necessities.
The one exception among the archives I've looked at are those of the Royal
Society - but then again, those archives describe medical experiments that
would be considered completely appalling today (like trying to replace a
madman's blood with that of a sheep). People might be resilient, but by and
large they were not having a good time in this period, and they knew it.
~~~
froasty
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you're stating that there weren't primary
sources directly involving the Angolans that you encountered? Just inference?
Are there known records of their folkways concerning death?
Call me cynical, but any time a person near to power "commits suicide" or
otherwise recuses themselves from the scene (present or historically), I
generally take their volition in the matter with a very large grain of salt.
~~~
benbreen
The vast majority of the surviving primary sources weren't _written_ by
Angolans. But because Portuguese Angola was centered around slave trading, the
sources produced by the colony certainly _involved_ Angolans: reports of
slaver's raids, counter-attacks by African military leaders, surgeons
remarking on slaves' diseases, etc.
Vincent Brown _The Reaper 's Garden_ is a great guide to diasporic African
folkways surrounding death in the early modern period. He argues that enslaved
Africans mobilized their social practices surrounding death as a way of
asserting a kind of underground political power in plantation societies. At
any rate, you won't find many people studying the history of the Atlantic
slave trade or colonial Africa who think that people were coping adequately
with the situation. The debate is more about whether it was so shatteringly
destructive that it led to a total "social death" or whether some elements of
culture and personhood were able to survive. I am in the second camp. But like
I said, people were deeply psychologically and often physically scarred in
this period.
~~~
froasty
Okay, so there aren't primary sources. That's totally fine, though at this
point, it's moot to speak about the relative ability for a traditional culture
to cope with elevated mortality since we've moved into dealing with conjecture
purely in slave economies created by conquerors and entirely subaltern
peoples.
Just curious, earlier you stated that you spent "a lot of [your] mental life
in the 17th century", where does that reach extend to? Is it just Portugal or
is it specific to the Atlantic Slave Trade?
~~~
benbreen
All history is conjecture. The primary sources relating to 17th century Angola
exist, they're just sparse. I just told you that Queen Nzinga sent letters to
the King of Portugal, for instance. If you're genuinely interested in this,
John Thornton and Linda Heywood both give good surveys of what sources are
available and what they can tell us.
I work on early modern Britain, Portugal, and their colonies.
------
twoquestions
My favorite comment from this story, one which I'll remember the next time I
run a low fantasy or Bronze Age game:
"You know the creepy basement at your cousin's house that's full of furniture
covered in sheets, weird barrels, and bad smells? You know how the lightswitch
is way on the other side of the room so you've got to walk through, in pitch
darkness, to try and find it? And you know how you always had one eye on the
stairs just in case you had to run away from whatever horrible monster might
live down there?
Well medieval life is like that _all the time,_ except there is no
lightswitch, and there are no stairs."
------
andrepd
>We live in an enlightened era. Our mental toolboxes are full to bursting with
evidence-based reasoning, with precedent, with doubt, and with logic. We hold
many truths to be self evident. We stand on the shoulders of intellectual
giants and we think this plain of shoulders is ground level.
>If you want to think medieval, chuck your entire toolbox out the window and
start from scratch. You need to un-learn rationality, un-learn concepts you've
been steeped in since childhood.
This is one thing I've thought about before and that made quite an impression
on me. We are _physically identical_ to humans in the 14th century, or any
period of history for that matter. Same brains, same "intelligence". But we
would never dream of doing most things that were commonplace in the 14th
century, we would never tolerate living in the way they did. Some things we
know are elementary and almost childish in their simplicity, but took
millenia. They looked at the world in a way that seems entirely silly to us.
Aristotle was probably more intelligent than anybody in this thread, however
he believed the most ridiculous things, same for, oh I don't know, Julius
Caesar or St Thomas Aquinus.
We all are in a very real sense standing on the shoulders of billions, and
their slow and tortuous progress.
~~~
Clubber
The thing that blows me away is homo sapiens have been around 300K years
(latest evidence). Imagine living with a current brain psysiology 300K years
ago. What the hell did we do for all that time?
[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/world-s-oldest-
homo-s...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/world-s-oldest-homo-sapiens-
fossils-found-morocco)
~~~
ItsMe000001
It occurred to me some time ago that the big question is the opposite: What do
we not do that humans thousands of years ago did with their brains?
My thoughts went like this:
Since the brain is quite expensive evolution would not have grown it so much
if it had not been needed. But this means humans really used all that brain.
That means if we now use it for so many very different things in a very -
very! - recent technological world, with an equally recent extreme increase in
population density worldwide (both movement top cities as well as the
unprecedented total population size increase), what exactly did they do?
I think that this indeed is a very interesting question, I'm not sure we can
answer it. Medieval brains are one thing, but what about 20,000 years ago? The
brain must already have been pretty much the same.
~~~
kaybe
Emotions and relationships with other humans are still hard though.
~~~
ItsMe000001
But relationships have become a lot more complex with the huge increase in
population density, plus a _lot_ more flexibility and movement. We now have to
deal with a lot more people than any of our ancient ancestors, and a lot of
change. Our networks of work and cooperation are unprecedented by anything in
history too.
------
jkingsbery
As a defense of medieval society, I see where this is going, but a lot of the
details of the defense are just wrong. Just a couple examples:
"Foreigners. I can read about far-away places in a book or look up a street-
view picture of a city on the other side of the world. I live in a
multicultural city. I'm not so much tolerant as apathetic, but that's good
enough (and might even be better; tolerance implies tension). Anyway, forget
all that. Ignorance and fear all around." We often think about how the
educated spoke Latin in addition to their local language. But on top of that,
many commoners were bilingual. There was a fair amount of movement of people
between France, Scandinavia, Ireland, England, Scotland, just as one example.
With that, came a sharing of culture, artistic style, literature, and so on.
Elements of this shared culture can be seen from the Black Sea all the way to
Ireland.
"The person of the monarch was literally sacred - divine matter" \- Compare
this claim, for example, with the story of England
([https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-medieval-
en...](https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-medieval-england-from-
king-arthur-to-the-tudor-conquest.html)). Actually, the opposite is closer to
the truth: the king was not held sacred and was almost continually under
attack from the lower nobles.
"Neither speech nor assembly nor the commonest transactions of life are free."
\- This would depend in large part on where you were. In Ireland or Scotland,
this was certainly not true. In England, customs taxes didn't come about until
the second half of the Middle Ages.
~~~
Skerples
> _With that, came a sharing of culture, artistic style, literature, and so
> on. Elements of this shared culture can be seen from the Black Sea all the
> way to Ireland._
Absolutely! But remember that the process was generally slow, non-uniform, and
perilous. People did travel the world, but with nothing close to the ease of
modern life. I really wanted to drive the contrast home. _On average_ , the
medieval world was local.
> _Actually, the opposite is closer to the truth: the king was not held sacred
> and was almost continually under attack from the lower nobles._
Just one counterpoint: the King's Evil:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculous_cervical_lymphaden...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculous_cervical_lymphadenitis#History)
The status of kings... varied.
> _This would depend in large part on where you were. In Ireland or Scotland,
> this was certainly not true. In England, customs taxes didn 't come about
> until the second half of the Middle Ages._
Again, 100% correct, but it's a 2000 word post for a blog about pretending to
be an elf! Some bits are going to get left out.
~~~
jkingsbery
I could have kept going - these are meant to be examples, not exhaustive. My
point is that rather than rebutting simple stereotypes with other simple
stereotypes, everyone is better served by acknowledging that history and
people are complicated.
------
simonh
On top of all that, you also live in a world full of heavily armed and
armoured impulsive brutes that will murder you and your entire family as soon
as look at you. They may well have tried to do so pretty recently too.
Fortunately many of those people are foreigners or strangers, but they are out
there, they want all of your stuff and it's only a matter of time before they
come to get it. Or, you can team up with your family, friends and allies and
go get their stuff off them first. Much of the time, these are pretty much
your only viable options. Everything else that your community do - farming,
crafting, trading - is largely geared towards supporting a defence/offence
capability to keep hold of it all and stay alive.
Furthermore, staying alive when it gets real usually doesn't mean looking down
a sight and pulling a lever, it generally means forcing a metal object vary
hard and deep into someone else's body face to face. So you'd better gear
yourself up to be ok with that, or at least become very good friends with a
lot of other people who are.
~~~
tabtab
_a world full of heavily armed and armoured impulsive brutes that will murder
you and your entire family as soon as look at you..._
So, like a 3rd world country or living under a dictatorship.
~~~
simonh
Perhaps. The problem developing countries have - including our own in their
time - is that the social conventions and norms of behaviour that promote
survival in such conditions take generations to correct to the new
socioeconomic conditions.
------
drzaiusapelord
>Rationalism is a very modern invention
Statements like these are probably good for D&D campaigns, but its really
dismissive of ancient thought, even medieval thought. No, they didn't have
germ theory but they had a complex rationalism of their own and every 'dumb'
serf could outlive us in any environment considering how educated they were on
farming and survival.
Also the laundry list of things that they didn't have mostly applies to us as
well. I take issue with how equality is supposed to be a modern given. Even in
enlightened societies the difference between someone with a 7 or 8 digit net
worth and a low class person is incredible. I mean, a sci-fi level of oddness
here. Worrying about your next meal or next rent is a universe away from being
pissed that the guys who waxed your yacht didn't do a perfect job. I sometimes
end up in one of Chicago's less than stellar neighborhoods and the incredible
desperation and violence and just hopelessness is overwhelming compared to my
upper-middle class life.
Ignoring technology, we aren't too different from them. We had two world wars
very recently, for example, which would be horror unimaginable in that age.
I'd think a good D&D gamer would know that we're not different from them
socially or politically and that what he describes isn't modernity but the
entitled and pampered life of a suburban white American male who has never,
and will never, have any real hardship in his life.
~~~
Skerples
It's tricky because it's at the start of a sentence, but I was trying to go
for capital "R" "Rationalism." Not "every medieval peasant had no idea how the
world worked and planted grain in December half the time because he was afraid
the devil might steal his socks." There were profoundly irrational acts, but
I'm not trying to say that there was a total lack of a societal framework or a
total absence of logic or reasoning.
>I take issue with how equality is supposed to be a modern given.
I think it's fair to say that equality is supposed to be a modern _ideal_ , in
contrast to the medieval world. I don't think I said "everyone is equal these
days", and I'm having difficulty finding where you read that into the text.
>and that what he describes isn't modernity but the entitled and pampered life
of a suburban white American male who has never, and will never, have any real
hardship in his life.*
I'm not entirely sure how to respond to this. I think you may be bringing
outside baggage into the discussion, and it's informing your view of who the
author supposedly is.
------
lainga
In the spirit of Patrick Stuart's review referenced at the start of the
article: perhaps future generations will look back at us and think, "those
poor fools! Instead of doing actual work, they spent their days congratulating
each other for being born into a more advanced society than their ancestors."
~~~
LoSboccacc
not really, ideas come in stages, you have intuition that something is there,
realization of what it is and formalization of how it works.
once you start reflecting on the topic, your knowledge may or may not advance
but the formal structure of the inquiry marks it at least as something that
was studied and talked about systematically and not incidentally, so it
becomes a partial view on a subject more than a unsubstantiated belief.
take gravity: even if we are way ahead of newton and galileo in terms of
understanding, we'd be hard pressed at calling them fool for not understanding
gravitational waves or relativity or spooky action at distance, because they
started the research systematically instead of postulating that each body has
a "natural place" it tends toward.
------
sunseb
I think it may be biased to think that medieval life was a nightmare. It's
kind of a modern propaganda (that started in the Renaissance - a more bloody
period with a lot more wars by the way) to dismiss this old world and impose a
new one.
~~~
avocad
Indeed. People tend to forget that the Middle Ages lasted for a thousand
years. When all the conflicts are put together it seems there were only
murderous barbarians out there trying to murder and/or rape you. But most
areas were war-free most of that time. The reason that Barbara Tuchman wrote
about France in the 14th century is that there happened so much.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail was not a documentary but satirised (among
other things) the way the Middle Ages were depicted in movies and books.
One of the reasons we have such a bad image of that period is that the
brutalities of the French Revolution needed to be justified.
~~~
mkirklions
>But most areas were war-free most of that time.
Can anyone verify that?
I imagine that the last 2,000 years have been filled with territorial disputes
that were solved with the blood of males.
The survivors of the battle getting to keep the land and the women.
I dont think these were petty disputes either, I think these were rational
decision making from leadership.
But I really dont know. Ive thought about this question, to propagate your
genes, is it better to be Royal or peasant stock?
~~~
mantas
Depends on what you consider "filled". Most people or their living relatives
saw some sort of action. But in many cases it was once-in-lifetime happening.
On top of that, a big chunk of medieval wars were meet-you-in-a-field-out-of-
town kind of affairs.
As for royal vs. peasant.. big chunk of "blue blood" royalty had genetic
diseases thanks to intermarriage to keep pure blood.. Meanwhile peasants knew
it's not good to marry exclusively inside of a village and tried to spice
things up by mixing with neighbouring villages.
------
LoSboccacc
This is half right. The half wrong part is thinking that medieval people were
inconsistent, painting a picture of brutes changing behaviour on a whim.
There are instead two aspects to consider: one cannot completely trust
contemporary accounts, as these were propaganda. Written word was a tool of
the influential and used as deliberately as today. The other was that the wast
majority of time was rough but uneventful, so there isn’t much prose about it.
We do have a glimpse of it trough official records tho, which are free of
glamour and paint a quite banal view of medieval life
------
Karolus
for those who unlike the author aren't drawn to lazy and dismissive
conclusions and are genuinely interested to study the beginning of this
fascinating and terribly misunderstood era (in particular, it seems, in the
Anglo-Saxon world) from a literary perspective, I recommend the following
write up/compilation as a good starting point:
[https://pastebin.com/8ZgDV5mt](https://pastebin.com/8ZgDV5mt)
------
tabtab
I don't see that "insanely flaky deluded narcissists" went out of style. We
just have slightly more checks and balances on them now.
------
gumby
This is quite good, though I disagree on one point:
> "FORGET...Progress"
I mean I completely agree, it's just for the modern reader infected with the
victorian idea of "progress" (which has also polluted most people's
understanding of how evolution works) this difference is even more profound.
There was a common belief in a largely static social order; why try for
profound change? You can try to usurp the king, but that just shows that the
old king was illegitimate, and anyway only certain people could get away with
it.
But the other significant and related force was one of declinism: the romans
had had a more advanced society (look at all their artifacts still around!
Their literature!) and that, perhaps due to original sin, the then-current
world was a less advanced society.
~~~
Jesus_Jones
i don't get what you are talking about. please explain what the problem is
with the victorian idea of progress (with or without scare quotes. And what do
you mean by that, including evolution. besides christianity taking over
religious thought in roman society, what does original sin have to do with
that, just the philosophical impact?
------
CalRobert
"The Autumn of the Middle Ages" by Huizinga is a fascinating exploration of
this time period and how people thought during it. If you don't read Dutch
there's a few translations out there; I liked the most recent.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autumn_of_the_Middle_Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autumn_of_the_Middle_Ages)
------
Dirlewanger
Slightly off-topic: the second link goes to a site called Erenow, which has
many, many books for free. Anyone know anything about this site? It doesn't
make sense, I don't see how it's legal? Especially when the site has an OK
layout.
~~~
Skerples
I have no idea how it's legal, but it sure is useful.
------
1123581321
I would recommend reading A Distant Mirror, the book referenced at the start.
~~~
wrp
I would recommend reading Bernard Bachrach's review of _A Distant Mirror_.
"...her generalizations about medieval warfare are grossly inaccurate. Her
discussions of individual psychology and group psychology are equally foolish.
She seems to have little understanding of what motivated the people about whom
she writes and generally resorts to cliches such as chivalry or individual
neuroses as explanations."
~~~
mcguire
Any idea where to get said review?
(One of the best things about Computer Science is that, generally, every
publication after 1990 is online and available for those of us without access
to an academic research library.)
~~~
wrp
[http://gen.lib.rus.ec/](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/)
------
froasty
This article is everything wrong with privileged moderns looking back on the
past.
The world and the humans within it hasn't changed at all, barring costumes and
jewelry.
The biggest fallacy in this article isn't that it's _wrong_ per se; it's that
the thesis distilled is "a member of the current intelligenstia criticizing
the hoi polloi of the past" when the hoi polloi of their own current era are
just as ignorant and the intelligentsia is just as fallible.
I really wanted to deconstruct the entire article, but I've spent way too much
time on this as it is.
_> Here's an early modern example, right when the world seemed to start to
make sense. It might seem insane to us that George Spencer, a troublesome one-
eye old servant in Connecticut, was tried and executed in 1642 for the crime
of bestiality after a one-eyed pig was born in his village. It might also seem
insane that both the pig and his own retracted confession were called as the
two witnesses required to convict him. But by the standards of the community
and the times, the only insane person was that godless trouble-making pig-
fucker, George Spencer._
Let's look at some secondary sources regarding this case:
_> "The early court records teem with incidents of irreligion, drunkenness,
profanity, lechery, and worse. In one of the most extreme cases, George
Spencer was charged at New Haven with 'prophane, atheistical carriage, in
unfaithfulness and stubbornness to his master, a course of notorious lying,
filthiness, scoffing at the ordinances, ways and people of God' culminating in
his bestiality with a pig. An anxious committee of ministers asked him
'whether he did use to pray to God. He answered, he had not since he came to
New England, which was between four or five years ago'. Spencer admitted that
he had scoffed at the Lord's day, calling it Lady's day, but denied all the
rest. However, he could not gainsay the record of his bad character, or the
evidence of a monstrous piglet, to which he allegedly showed a telling
paternal resemblance." 1_
One can almost imagine the #LeafletStorm released in the days before his
arrest:
_" George Spencer Calls The Lord's Day The "Ladyes Day": Gets Schooled On
Godliness"_
_" George Spencer: Genius, or dude who's gone too far this time?"_
_" George Spencer's Brand of 'Freethinking' Has a Long, Awful History"_
_" George Spencer Needs To See Some Of These Epic #IfTheLordWasALady Leaflets
To See How Ridiculous His Remark Really Was"_
And then you have this:
_> "One of the magistrates reminded him of the scriptural text: "He thatt
hideth his sin shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh his
sans shall > finde mercie." Spencer confessed, clearly misunderstanding the
magistrate's use of the word "mercy." The judge was thinking of the next
world, Spencer of this one. Before the trial, Spencer confessed the act eleven
separate times and permitted a paper asking for mercy to be put up in church.
At his trial, he refused to confess, apparently on the advice of a man who had
told him that without it he could not be convicted. Faced with the many
persons to whom he had confessed, he admitted that their testimony was true
but denied having had intercourse with the sow. The court found him guilty
because the "everlasting equity" of the Bible demanded the verdict." 2_
So from these sources we can establish that:
1\. The case of George Spencer is an outlier as considered by historians of
the era.
2\. George Spencer is essentially a neckbeard of the New Atheist type, circa
17th century America.
3\. George Spencer admits that he is an irreligious, uncleanly man with a bad
reputation, and that he admitted his guilt to these people, but that truly, he
did not have sexual relations with that pig, even if the resemblance _is_
uncanny.
4\. The "proper" classes thought and had thought that he was clearly an
ungodly person. Periodde. By troth, why are we even having this conversation?
It's 1642 Anno Domini. #BurnAHeretic
5\. His legal advisors insinuated that if he pled guilty, he could get a plea
bargain.
6\. Apparently, someone whom he trusted more advised him pre-trial that this
was ill-advised--although whether it was "they're still going to hang thee if
thou confess" or "the constable hath lyttle but shite in his hands without
thine confession, brethren" remains ambiguous.
7\. The court, having their orderly show-trial upset, says _fuck it_ , claims
that George Spencer is clearly guilty because of something he said in the
past, and the pig is a self-evident witness, and why the fuck not? No one is
going to defend this blaspheming piece of shit.
None of these strike me as particularly particular to an era. People have been
crucifying others with the force of social pressure since recorded history
began. The only difference is the scenery.
_> We live in an enlightened era. Our mental toolboxes are full to bursting
with evidence-based reasoning, with precedent, with doubt, and with logic. We
hold many truths to be self evident. We stand on the shoulders of intellectual
giants and we think this plain of shoulders is ground level._
Hint: _Every_ class of intelligentsia throughout time thinks its own set of
platitudes, dogmas, and evidence-derived conclusions are immaculate and
inviolate. It's like a twisted form of Conway's Law 3 for ideology.
_> Displays of magnificence were not only convenient, they were mandatory.
Misers were spurned and mocked. Today we value a person by the money they
have, but to the medieval mind, it was the money you spent and how you spent
it that elevated your status. The Church glittered. Cathedrals were pieces of
heaven brought to rest upon the earth. The nobles ate extraordinary dishes and
wore imported silk, and the rising merchants strove to imitate them. The
peasants might be annoyed by the idleness and corruption of the nobility, but
few ever expressed wonder at the cost of their everyday behavior, only at cost
wasted on pointless wars or lost causes. A crown of diamonds could silence any
peasant in awe. To the First and Second Estates, earning money by labour or
personal action was degrading; gifts were common and welcomed._
So let's break out two of the most egregious assumptions:
1\. Conspicuous consumption is a medieval construct absent in the modern
period.
2\. All peasants are identical and identically stupid. They have no capacity
for rational thought. If you put shiny in front of them, they will be
entranced like Lennie Small.
The first is ludricrous, as the existence of the entire field of consumerism
theory proves (an invention solely of the 20th century).
The second is equally as ludricrous and ironically, embraces mythological
feudal castes as reality.
_> Patrick says "the ruling class are living like Kardashians" and he's
exactly right. The Kardashians seem to be reviled because they are talentless,
unproductive, and ignorant - all flaws to a modern viewer, all virtues to a
medieval one. We prize our working celebrities and revile our idle ones; if
you want to think medieval, flip that idea on its head._
Uh, people _revile_ people like the Kardashians? _What?_ Their reality TV show
has been running for more than _ten years_. Before that, it was Paris Hilton.
Before that, it was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The great masses of
people (you know, the generally termed talentless, unproductive, and ignorant)
in all eras love vicariously revelling in decadence.
_> Even today, people who meet a celebrity or a monarch express wonder at the
oddest and most mundane details, as if some part of them had expected the
object of such idolization to be more-than-mortal. Also, men and women were
made of completely different substances. The idea of a law that applies
equally or fairly to everyone was neither acceptable nor practical. Justice is
a modern conceit. All relationships are horizontal and unsymmetrical._
I have but one retort to this: _When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then
the gentleman?_ 4
History is a long series of contentions, victories, and defeats by conflicting
parties with their own self-evident and self-motivated truths--No people, no
culture, no time is homogeneous, except to the extent that they are
homogeneously heterogeneous.
My favorite counter-point to the implicit idea that people "in the past" were
unthinking proto-humans unlike us is the entirely mundane ancient bathroom
graffiti of Pompeii 5 that wouldn't be out of place in any public restroom
anywhere.
-
1 Cressy, David. Coming over: migration and communication between England and
New England in the seventeenth century
2 Chapin, Bradley. Criminal Justice in Colonial America, 1606-1660. University
of Georgia Press.
3
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)
4
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ball_(priest)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ball_\(priest\))
5
[http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2...](http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%20Pompeii.htm)
~~~
Skerples
Hi, trying to figure out how this site works. Hope you can see this!
It's good to see that someone else likes the Spencer case. It really is a
fascinating case study.
Spencer was trapped in the legal quagmire of Puritan law. He didn't know what
to do - he feared the law, and tried to obey his advisers, and generally made
a legal mess of things. Looking at it from a great distance it's easy to see
what he did wrong, but it's also important to remember that he was the victim
of a hysterical hunt and an irrational prosecution.
I've written another high-level (and therefore, very general) overview of
medieval laws and trials here:
[https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/08/thinking-
medieva...](https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/08/thinking-medieval-law-
trials-and.html)
and I come to the same conclusion you do. "No one is going to defend this
blaspheming piece of shit," is a core component of medieval justice.
I think you're also convinced that I'm claiming these things as _uniquely_
medieval which isn't true. I'm trying to provide perspective for someone
approaching this topic from a non-academic background of Disney movies and D&D
games.
> _Hint: Every class of intelligentsia throughout time thinks its own set of
> platitudes, dogmas, and evidence-derived conclusions are immaculate and
> inviolate. It 's like a twisted form of Conway's Law 3 for ideology._
Well... yeah? You didn't think I was going on some sort of unironic Randian
super-rant here?
> _Conspicuous consumption is a medieval construct absent in the modern
> period._
I was mostly trying to contrast this with the modern idea of "net worth" and
"worth so many billion dollars." Wealth as assets, not as an abstract.
> _Uh, people revile people like the Kardashians?_
Absolutely. Chat with the viewerbase. It's mostly "oh my god, did you see what
they did now?" It's shock and drama and voyeurism. It's not a positive
experience, despite being a popular one. Not sure if you're familiar with
modern game streamers, but it's the same attitude.
> _History is a long series of contentions, victories, and defeats by
> conflicting parties with their own self-evident and self-motivated truths--
> No people, no culture, no time is homogeneous, except to the extent that
> they are homogeneously heterogeneous._
Again, I think you are reading way too far into the intent.
Remember, I write a gaming blog. The goal is to try and allow a modern human
to quickly adopt a point of view. Most people play medieval people exactly
like modern people. Sure, my post deals in high-level generalities - it's
designed to grind 1000 years of history and an entire continent and turn it
into an easily digestible paste. And it's only 2,000 words long! Of course
some detail is going to be lost! Of course important elements are going to be
left out! Your response to a few elements is nearly as long as the post
itself.
> _My favorite counter-point to the implicit idea that people "in the past"
> were unthinking proto-humans unlike us is the entirely mundane ancient
> bathroom graffiti of Pompeii 5 that wouldn't be out of place in any public
> restroom anywhere._
And yet, for every similarity, differences:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevole...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolent_Knowledge)
------
cat199
or, how to regurgitate the inherent biases used to justify the establishment
of of your own philosphy about another one without actually understanding it
to be biased...
> Nobody is Equal The world is hierarchical.
Unlike now?
> People of different estates and statuses are widely seen to be "of a
> different substance." > Peasants, seen by the nobility, are closer to hounds
> than the noble's peers.
1st world 2nd world, developing countries, etc.
> The person of the monarch was literally sacred - divine matter.
Not actually true. Rule by divine right was not universally accepted, and
didn't imply immunity since this was a 'right' or 'title' under a christian
society - the monarch was _intended_ (yes I know) to embody the best virtues
of the best families, and if this was not the case, he (or more rarely she)
was deposed.
Indeed, having such a strong power structure meant abuses were rampant, and
people took advantage. but even the philosophical basis of the time did not
believe this.
> Also, men and women were made of completely different substances.
Clearly much crazier than the present day, where men and women are made of the
exact same substance even though they actually aren't but somehow embody
distinct 'gender identities' which are devoid of biology and can be applied
equally and arbitrarily in differing configurations.
> The idea of a law that applies equally or fairly to everyone was neither
> acceptable nor practical.
Pretty sure murder was punished with death, as one example. Whether one could
get away with it is another thing.. Certainly our courts now are always fair
and never manipulated..
> Justice is a modern conceit.
justice under rule of law is an enlightement concept. justice under law of
'what is right' is more traditional.
I posit that false convictions or incorrect enforcement are both feasible
under either model.
> Neither speech nor assembly nor the commonest transactions of life are free.
mass surveillance, etc.
> There are laws for everything, and if there are no laws there are customs,
> and if there are no customs people will be reactionary and suspicious
> anyway.
see also voting response to this post, I am sure.
> The medieval world could be shaken by a speech, forever changed by a book,
> split by theological controversies over a line of text or the intonation of
> a hymn or the date of a holiday.
And what are the Kardashians up to this week? I hear so-and-so is planning to
invade somewhere-or-the-other.. It's 9/11.
> Displays of magnificence were not only convenient, they were mandatory.
> Misers were spurned and mocked.
Indeed. This is why monasteries utterly failed in that time period, and
dressing simply and repairing ones garments, items, etc. is a common practice
in modern consumer society.
> The Church glittered. Cathedrals were pieces of heaven brought to rest upon
> the earth
John Calvin called, he want's his reformation back. But I guess you were away
and on holiday in Vegas, so you missed the memo.
> Patrick says "the ruling class are living like Kardashians" and he's exactly
> right.
welll well, looks like we agree on something.
~~~
mamon
>> Pretty sure murder was punished with death, as one example.
Depends on social classes of the murderer and the victim.
If peasant killed a noble it was punishable by death. And sometimes they would
also torture said peasant before killing him, because the death alone wasn't
enough punishment.
If a noble killed peasant they would typically only need to pay a small fine
(unless the peasant was not his own subject, in which case instead of fine
they would pay retribution to peasant's lord for the "lost income")
------
js8
This is a great article. I almost cannot watch any historical movie, the life
was so hopeless back then.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook Brain Computer Interface Program Update - atlasunshrugged
https://tech.fb.com/imagining-a-new-interface-hands-free-communication-without-saying-a-word/
======
atlasunshrugged
Nature Article that has the bulk of the information
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10994-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10994-4)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to get Google Chrome old versions between 46 to 49? - iamtrying
I need to play MP4 files which was working fine between Version 46 to 49. But since 50 there is many major bugs which i cant live with.<p>I can go back to Chromium but then MP4 files does not work on it, how can i therefore get Google Chrome version 46 or 47, or 48 or 49?<p>Please advise, i have tried many stackoverflow sites advise but they all seem to fail. can anyone show working example of real-world?
======
datalist
[http://www.oldversion.com/windows/google-
chrome/](http://www.oldversion.com/windows/google-chrome/) might work
But you would need to make sure to disable the auto update, and double check
as Google is very "persistent"
------
nness
I can't help, sorry. But curious, what broke with version 50?
~~~
iamtrying
Version 50 have a serious problem. Please check and spread the message else
WebRTC will die because of this problem:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=605385](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=605385)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why People in Cities Walk Fast (2012) - vinnyglennon
https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/03/why-people-cities-walk-fast/1550/
======
xyzzy123
I think it would be interesting to see not just the average but also the
_distribution_ of walking speeds. I posit the effect might just be “number of
people walking to/from work or arrival time sensitive activity.”, with
“average age” and “adoption of mass transit” as significant factors.
(Mass transit because you’re more likely to see commuters! Outside big cities
you will measure fewer people walking to work, because they drove).
So, strongly correlated with economic activity and cultural factors around
timeliness, but no deep psychological explanation required.
I walk fast in the city when I’m going to/from work or trying to get somewhere
on my break.
I _don’t_ walk as fast on the weekends, and tourists in the city certainly
seem to be in no particular hurry (at least, it seems that way when stuck
behind them clogging up the footpath).
~~~
dagw
I think there's a secondary aspect here as well. I walk a lot and always have.
And while I almost never feel I need to walk 'fast', I've observed that my
comfortable walking pace is a lot faster than most people I know who don't
walk every day, even when I'm in no particular hurry.
~~~
Merem
I can confirm it and have to add that it's the same with riding my bike.
Moving at a "normal" speed becomes even somewhat hard when with other people
who always tell you to slow down (because when you are not paying attention,
you are already speeding up again).
------
ken
I'm surprised they don't mention the obvious practical reason. I walk faster
when I'm in the city because I have farther to go.
Last week, I was working in a smaller city 30 miles out. So I drove, and out
in the suburbs, I can park pretty close to where I'm going.
Today, I was working in the city, a mile from home. At that distance, there's
a good chance I wouldn't be able to find parking any closer to where I'm
going! So I walk, and that's a decent amount of ground to cover.
Smaller city means better parking, so you don't need to walk as far. When you
get really small (like Psychro), things are naturally close enough together
you don't need to walk far at all.
I'd look not just at how long it takes people to cover 50 feet, but the
starting/ending points for their entire trips. I bet when people take optimal
modes of transportation for their routes, their trips simply require more
walking in bigger cities.
~~~
benj111
"a mile from home. At that distance, there's a good chance I wouldn't be able
to find parking any closer to where I'm going"
Would you drive, just to travel a mile? Barely seems worth it in the best
case. That's without getting into the environmental and social issues.
~~~
setr
If parking were easily available & free, then whats the downside? 15 min + a
bit of effort versus 5 min and no effort... and you have the convenience of
having a car nearby for your next thing (eg lunch).
The choice seems obvious to me.
~~~
benj111
That 15 minute walk will always take 15 minutes, whereas that 5 minute drive
may turn out to be a 15 minute space hunt, so you still have to set off at the
same time.
So unless you're travelling somewhere afterwards, where's the upside?
~~~
setr
One of my favorite ideas about selecting a major for college is that, if you
don’t know what you want to do, you should select the option that gives the
most freedom for when you do decide.
Eg a math major can transfer to just about any engineering field with little
cost, but its harder to go from say CS to a math major. Philosophy might apply
to anything, while art history is quite limited in application elsewhere.
In the same fashion, you should not ask “unless you’re travelling elsewhere”,
but rather, “unless you’re planning not to travel elsewhere”; the car gives
you both options. You’ve essentially not made a decision regarding travel.
Walking otoh does make a decision on the matter (at 15 minutes extra, outside
lunch is less appealing; at 20-30, its likely unviable).
Thus, in this particular regard, driving needs no justification, but walking
does.
------
peterwwillis
The whole thing seems like a hammer looking for a nail. It's clear from every
study quoted that there were always multiple factors that changed the results,
and they were trying to find one "overall" factor, but even that was limited.
For example, most of the "walking speed" measurements are done in "downtown
locations". Most cities are not made up of downtown locations, downtown is one
location in the city, so the measurements only indicate why people walk fast
_in downtown locations_.
They also quote other factors that change the results, like environment, and
culture. So basically the results change for any cities that aren't identical.
And they're trying to use a national metric (GDP) to relate to walking speed
in individual cities, when it's obvious that walking speed is going to relate
more to local economic metrics, not national.
------
mmPzf
I remember reading this. I also remember reading a compelling argument that
the conclusions drawn by those studies were wrong, and that the actual cause
for the difference in walking speed is age. People in big cities tend to be
younger (due to urban migration, and whatnot), and with lower age comes faster
walking speed.
I can't remember where that argument was made, and I never fact checked it, so
take it with a grain of salt. However, it seems much more convincing than the
'pace of life' argument.
------
rossdavidh
Doesn't it seem like somewhere out there is a company with a lot of data on
people's walking speed, which could just bury these studies with orders of
magnitude more data? Some smartphone app or similar device for counting steps,
or maybe just Google Maps when you're using the pedestrian option to plot your
path.
~~~
kwhitefoot
Google has a lot of data from the Google Maps timeline and also from Google
Fit.
------
burfog
Muggers consistently choose targets based on how they walk. This is shown to
be the case even if other physical information is hidden during the research:
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131104-how-muggers-size-
up...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131104-how-muggers-size-up-your-walk)
To avoid attack, move with "synchrony and energy", with purpose. The city
people are doing exactly this.
~~~
jasonkester
I just realized that I walk this way whenever I'm traveling in an unfamiliar
place and find that I've chosen a route through a sketchy part of town.
I'll walk straight through at a brisk pace with a little bit of a scowl on my
face as though I'm annoyed to have to be crossing this _same_ area of town
_again_ and none of these f'ng people had better get in my f'ng way.
Now I know why I do that.
------
creddit
OT, but a sentence that struck me as weird:
> Interestingly, Wiseman clocked some of the quickest feet in Singapore,
> China, and Brazil — perhaps a reflection of these rising economies.
Sure, China can obviously be considered rising. Brazil; sure why not? But
Singapore? That economy already rose a long time ago. The have one of the
highest GDP PPP per capita in the world and have reached convergence. How odd.
------
INTPenis
I'm fairly certain why I walk fast in a city and it's because of the lights
and buses. In certain parts of downtown you turn into a video game character
because you've learned how all the crosswalk lights work, how the traffic
flows.
So if I see that I might make a green light if I walk faster I start to speed
up, and then I catch myself maybe 20 meters after the light and slow down.
Same with trying to avoid bicycle paths and catch buses.
It's all one big video game and it raises your pace significantly. I often
catch myself walking faster than I intended and make an effort to slow down.
------
anotheryou
Maybe it's just how many people are late for work/appointments they measure.
Travel time is less predictable in the city.
But actually I think it's a mix: more dates in peoples lifes, wanting to flee
the noise (little joy in transit on foot), false urgency to catch public
transit because murphies lets you remember all the times you just so missed
the tram, as noted by others: more transit by foot in the city in general
because of public transport.
------
hnruss
I walk faster in the city because there are more people who are walking faster
and if I walk slower, they will walk around me, which is more annoying in the
city due to the closeness by which people walk. If people kept a respectable
distance behind me regardless of my pace, and didn’t try to push past me, I
probably wouldn’t walk faster in the city.
------
theriddlr
I live in Bristol, UK. I walk fast because I know where to go and because I
have lots of errands to run. Another reason is to avoid beggars and charity
muggers (chatty fundraisers hired by charities to approach people on the
street and ask them to make a cash donation/recurring donation) from chatting
me up because I appear busy.
~~~
Balero
I walk slow because some tourists have stopped to take a photo of a Banksy
again. And also because of hills.
------
frumiousirc
> "The resulting correlation between walking speed and population was
> strikingly linear"
> (plot with logarithmic axis)
/me closes tab
------
arandr0x
It would be interesting to relate this to how stimulating the environment is.
I walk fast in cities because doing so lets my brain "compress" the
information from the never ending shop windows, people yelling, people
walking, cars honking, people asking for money, ambient music, street names,
landmarks, camera flashes etc. I also walk very fast in malls for this reason.
(A correlate is --yes-- I actually walk slower at night, because there is more
to pay attention to at night.) It's possible that fast walking is an
adaptation to decrease the neurological load from the stimuli economic
activity generates (or even a consequence of the fact that exciting things
prime the brain towards moving and make physical action more desirable), and
not a consequence of "how much your time is worth".
------
rikkus
Opinion on factors based on introspection:
\- Desire to shorten the parts of the commute where I can’t read a book (on my
phone)
\- Desire to shorten the commute in general to maximise time at home or work
(day is more relaxed if you arrive earlier)
\- Have a set of transport departure times in mind, for the optimal ‘smooth’
journey and want to be sure to arrive early enough to guarantee not missing
these. Lowers stress.
\- Brisk walking raises heart rate and brings endorphins
\- Everyone else walks at this speed. To deviate makes it harder for the
person deviating as they aren’t working with the ‘flow’.
------
baxtr
I don’t buy this. It seems they’ve tested one potential explanation only, GDP.
What about the size of the city per se or mean walking distant between
objects? As example: Berlin is a city which is not compact and quite spread
out. What if people just need to walk quicker there to make it to work on
time? I am not saying this is true. But I want to make a point that you could
come up with other things to test easily.
~~~
TomMarius
Why would people go fast in dense cities, then?
"Interestingly, Wiseman clocked some of the quickest feet in Singapore, China,
and Brazil — perhaps a reflection of these rising economies."
------
dm33tri
They walk faster but still slow. I'm amazed by how little they care for
others. You can't cut them in front because they are fast and don't see you,
you can't pass them from behind because they are slow and don't see you. (Same
goes for many cyclists. Only car drivers seem to care about surroundings and
their speed.)
------
pimmen
Cities have more young people and a higher proportion of women than rural
areas (women are more likely to walk or use public transportation than men).
The researchers have t6o do better than just look at two variables, see that
they correlate and jump right to drawing conclusions.
------
sonnyblarney
They are more likely to be commuters, have jobs and need to be somewhere.
I'm originally from a small town and everything is slower there, not just
walking.
Time is processed differently.
Also - consider if they did the same measurement in a city, but out in the
burbs? I'll be you find most people not so fast.
------
de_watcher
In crowded environments when you go slow you feel bad that you're making
people go around you. So your speed naturally climbs to the speed of the
faster people. Even if there are few of them the overall speed will increase.
Subways just have flow speeds.
------
viburnum
Jan Gehl measures walking speed in his studies of how people public space.
There's a hundred little factors that go into making a place walkable. And of
course people who walk a lot are in better shape and can walk faster.
------
Reason077
In big cities, walking is transportation. So the faster the better.
In small towns, walking is, for the most part, a recreational or social
activity.
------
fouc
Climate matters a lot. You're not likely to walk nearly as fast in Bangkok.
------
scirocco
Related book recommendation: A geography of time
------
nmstoker
In Canary Wharf, being a well off part of London, the speed of walking was
traditionally quite quick, however there has been a prolonged yet steady slow
down. It could easily be a spurious factor but it feels like it goes hand in
hand with the trend towards hiring more pliant, less imaginative people!
------
burfog
They speculate about all sorts of factors, such as sensory overload and the
monetary value of time, trying to tease them apart, while ignoring danger.
Right at the top of the article, the photo of rapidly walking people is taken
on London Bridge. That is where people were run down in 2017. Of course people
would want to get through that area as fast as possible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_London_Bridge_attack)
~~~
stinkyball
The same didn't happen during the IRA campaigns. Are you supposing that the
people of London are scared ? I'm fairly sure that people in London walk fast
as they have busy lives, not because they think walking fast will increase
their likelihood of survival. Perhaps the behaviour you describe is more US
centric?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can the Hacker News maintainers darken the user submission body text? - zappo2938
The text of the body of user submitted stories is very light and difficult to read. Is it possible to darken it a couple shades for legibility?
======
gus_massa
It's on purpose to discourage that type of submissions. The links in the text
are not converted to real links. And also, these submissions have a penalty so
it's more difficult for them to reach the front page. If possible, I recommend
using a normal submission.
Anyway, if you want an official reply from the mods, try writing an email to
hn@ycombinator.com
------
tod222
WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) shows numerous contrast errors[1].
(Click the contrast button on the sidebar.)
[1]
[http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/...](http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622948)
------
kgtm
You gain flexibility by letting your browser handle such things. Have a look
at Stylus
[https://github.com/openstyles/stylus](https://github.com/openstyles/stylus),
which is a privacy-conscious fork of Stylish for Chrome, also compatible with
Firefox as a WebExtension.
------
gremlinsinc
probably not, don't think they make frequent updates.. but you can use stylish
plugin to change CSS on hackernews or any site really.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Does taking a severance package make you less marketable? - DrWumbo
Is it a bad idea to take a severance package from a job that I was already planning on leaving?
I work as a developer at a Fortune 50 company that is currently doing "restructuring" and is offering severance packages to anyone who wants them. The package is enticing despite my position (unlike the Business Analyst) not being in danger.
======
ChuckMcM
Absolutely not, _take the package_. Use the extra runway to recharge your
batteries and destress and re-focus. You'll come back stronger.
~~~
DrWumbo
Thanks for responding :) I took the package, and am very excited to move on!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tmate - Instant terminal sharing - dkthehuman
http://tmate.io/
======
kareemk
I've tried this out and it is dramatically better then other alternatives,
full screen-sharing suffers from latency issues (screenhero, logmein, etc...)
and sharing an ssh session is a pain to get setup (e.g. wemux). I highly
recommend it.
------
huma
A package for Archlinux:
[https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/tmate/](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/tmate/)
~~~
nviennot
Added on the [http://tmate.io](http://tmate.io)
Thanks!
------
joshbaptiste
I really really like this project.. combined with some HTML output page of
some sort, one can display errors in real time to an interested party for
debugging purposes.
------
kfir
I don't get it why not just use tmux?!
tmux -S /tmp/pair
chmod 777 /tmp/pair
tmux -S /tmp/pair attach
~~~
nviennot
Because you need to open some port on your router, create an SSH account, and
let your friend connect to your machine. That's a pain point.
~~~
kfir
From the video it looks like this works via SSH as well so you will still need
to "create an SSH account, and let your friend connect to your machine"
~~~
kareemk
You don't need to create an SSH account or let your friends connect to your
machine. Your session is proxied through the tmate.io server (safely) so that
you can avoid the headache of opening up a connection.
------
wisesascha
Why is this any better then wemux
~~~
nviennot
with wemux, you still need to give SSH access to your local machine, but with
tmate, you don't give SSH access. As a matter of fact, you don't even need an
SSH server on your machine.
The trouble of having to setup networking // SSH accounts is gone
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One Paradigm to Rule Them All - adosburg
https://medium.com/@dosburg/one-paradigm-to-rule-them-all-546440de57e
======
0_gravitas
I saw your other post on this as well and I'm left with the same question.
These are some significant claims, but not much has been mentioned in these
sales pitches as to how exactly this is going to work. I'm all for new shiny
things, I'm not that cynical yet, but I'd like to know how these goals are
going to be met in the most explicit description possible- I've been holding
out for a Google glass replacement for quite some time now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Great Buenos Aires Bank Heist - acdanger
https://www.gq.com/story/the-great-buenos-aires-bank-heist
======
t_mann
Quite endearing Sunday afternoon read. The complete absence of violence makes
it easy to sympathise. It seems they hold no grudges amongst each other too,
which is remarkable given the sums involved.
------
anonu
> After the movie, he hopes to produce a nine-part Spanish-language TV series
> about the heist.
Isn't this loosely the plot of the Netflix show Money Heist (casa de papel in
it's original Spanish)? There's already a show!
Otherwise it's a really strange coincidence that many of the plot points line
up. Or, its just standard practice to want to dig yourself out of a bank you
just robbed.
~~~
mrleinad
Money Heist is complete fiction, that's the difference.
------
solids
They even had time to leave a note for the police:
“En barrio de ricachones, sin armas ni rencores, es sólo plata y no amores”
~~~
gus_massa
Bad manual translation:
> In the neighborhood of ricachones[filthy rich men],
> without weapons or grudges,
> it is only silver[money] and not love[feelings].
Note that all the part of the original end with ___o?es, so it has rhyme in
Spanish.
> En barrio de ricachOnEs,
> sin armas ni rencOrEs,
> es sólo plata y no amOrEs.
~~~
lazyant
"plata" is exactly "money" in Argentinian Spanish, no need for
"silver[money]", no allegory here.
~~~
ggambetta
Can confirm. In Uruguayan Spanish too.
------
pachico
The style and rhythm of this article is superb. I wish they did a movie about
it.
~~~
lucb1e
Dare I ask, did you read the article? :D
> There is also a third book, written by yet another journalist, and just this
> year, a major film was released in Argentina, heightening national interest
> in the caper all the more. [...]
> But there's also this: If they hadn't been collared, there'd be no books, or
> movies. [...]
> Beto sold the rights to his name to the producers who made the film and he
> visited the set a few times. He pulls out his phone to show me a photo. It's
> of him, dressed for a small but important role—as the cop who pulls over the
> actor playing Beto, who in the movie version is definitely making a run for
> it with his mistress.
Edit: much further down the name is also mentioned:
> El Robo del Siglo (“The Robbery of the Century”), the big movie dramatizing
> the heist
~~~
pachico
Yes, let me rephrase "I wish there was a decent movie about this written by
the same person who wrote this article". I am actually originally from
Argentina and knew about this case.
~~~
lucb1e
Ah, fair enough. For what it's worth, they do say one of the gang hopes to
make a tv series and documentary about it. I don't know about a tv series
(that sounds expensive) but a documentary can be made expensively or cheaply
and still be pretty good so that might make it, if they're serious about it.
~~~
pachico
It is true that during the last decade documentaries have raised their level a
lot, however it won't be as entertaining as a series, right? Who knows,
Netflix has knocked at the door of much worse stories than this, haven't they?
------
S_A_P
Isn’t this a similar plot to the inside man by spike lee? That movie came out
around the same time as well. 2006
------
PhantomGremlin
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Like a real-life Ocean's Eleven.
~~~
atmosx
..and as often happens, they got caught using the most dullest of possible
scenarios.
~~~
lotsofpulp
Was really let down by the stupidity of it, I was under the impression these
guys were professionals.
------
toyg
Reminds me of something I read by David Simon (author of The Wire and a crime-
beat journalist): police like to think they are smarter than criminals, and
often are, but not always.
------
sireat
Such a brilliantly insane plan:
Pretend to have a "Dog Day Afternoon" type of scenario when you really have a
"Red Haired League" underneath.
So so many things that could go wrong and some actually did.
Also reminds a bit of misdirection in first "Die Hard" and yes also a bit of
"Man Inside".
Add in a bit of Rammstein's "Ich Will" type of use of publicity.
------
tuesday20
* Why, he wonders, do people care so much for these stories?*
I can’t understand this either. I have a curiosity about heists too, but the
max I’d do is watch an occasional movie or read an article. Ask for photos?
What are they gonna do, frame and hang it at home?
Even worse is the public’s interest on serial killers, especially in the US.
There are so many movies, books, shows on them!! Women write letters to these
guys. It’s like these guys have celebrity status. This strikes me as weird.
~~~
Shivetya
sufficiently large populations leave rooms for many view points and with a
very well connected society people of similar interest can more readily find
each other.
subjects that would die or not even gain traction can now find exposure which
does give them this opportunity. it is the same mechanism by which people can
now challenge news articles and the claims of people in power.
~~~
kragen
Dillinger and Robin Hood were celebrities before the internet and before the
Green Revolution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why can't programmers design software? - pcr910303
https://qnoid.com/2011/02/23/Why-cant-programmers-design-software.html#main
======
jiriknesl
Is it just me? I don't like this design.
What's the point of wrapping an algorithm in strategy, when there is no reuse,
nor any need to exchange algorithm?
And more. Why FizzBuzz(15), Buzz(5), Fizz(3); in enum and not in the
constructor?
Why "mod" attribute, when the rest of the code doesn't use shortened words? It
should be modulo.
Why FizzBuzzOperator when FizzBuzzStrategy's initialization is that easy?
Also, again there's no requirement for reusability.
The code here is a classic example of why people make jokes about (usually in
J2EE) overengineering solutions where even FizzBuzz will be designed for
1000MD-average-task-size scale.
I have switched to Clojure for good. Our FizzBuzzes are oneliners
[http://www.learningclojure.com/2014/05/fizz-buzz-
interview-q...](http://www.learningclojure.com/2014/05/fizz-buzz-interview-
question.html)
~~~
epicureanideal
The Clojure FizzBuzzes may be one-liners, but they are multiple statements,
which I'd find easier to read on multiple lines.
~~~
capableweb
Which is exactly what you found when you clicked on the link to the blogpost
in the previous comment. So what is your point?
------
vanusa
Very simple:
Because in the precious few hours they have to devote to "pure learning", when
between jobs -- they're only motivated to hunker down and bone up the only
thing that really matters: the latest tips 'n' tricks for passing all those
fun programming quizzes (and the occasional "culture fit" question or two)
that are the mainstay of the modern interview process.
Designing real, usable, maintainable ... _software_? That's much more
difficult to "test" for.
~~~
dnautics
Is it though? I give an interview question where I present a spec to be
implemented. There's no algorithmic trick, but you do have to know to watch
out for common problems (end of array conditions, etc). Sadly though we hired
someone against my vociferous objection that failed my question in the worst
way - he ditched the spec, attempted a complicated solution, and proudly
asserted that "it works" at the end of the interview, because it passed the
four test cases that I wrote as examples. I couldn't identify the bug by eye
and in fact had to write a property testing framework to identify the bug. On
the plus side, I now have a property testing framework for my interview
question.
~~~
whycombagator
Do you ask the same question each time?
~~~
dnautics
low n. I'm just starting out.
------
krebs_liebhaber
I guess it's because I haven't worked on a really massive project with lots of
other people, but I've never really needed to "design" software. Sure,
sometimes I'll stop for a minute to think about the next thing I'm going to
write and how it slots into the existing parts, but for the most part my
programs grow organically. They start from a small kernel, parts of them grow
and are branched off (B-tree style) into new files and subdirectories, and
soon enough the whole thing is complete, or at least as complete as I need it
to be for the moment.
The best experiences I've had programming are with languages and tooling that
make this organic growth and splitting process as painless as possible (Rust
in particular is really strong in this aspect). Doing such a thing from the
top down (as with Java, where you have to be very thorough with your design
patterns and UML diagrams and whatnot) seems unnecessarily difficult and
restrictive.
~~~
restalis
Designing from top down may help you a bit when you already have a mental
model that you'd wish to convey in written form rather quickly, otherwise
risking to loose sight of it when you get into details. UML helped me write
down ideas (mostly communication flows and other behavior related aspects, not
class diagrams), but I can understand why one may feel restricted when that's
not necessary. Growing organically has its benefits for sure (is more fun, at
least), but I also had more than one case of reconciling
diverging/incompatible parts of a system simply because I went ahead of myself
there with improvements on the go. Wasting time on that under deadlines is
less fun.
------
SamReidHughes
I can't tell whether this is real or a parody.
~~~
sylvainr65
It is parody.
------
Retric
Perhaps the issues is a programmer actually writing that in an interview they
would be given a hard pass from any team I would actually work with.
------
declnz
Surely someone needs to mention FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition [1], which is
clearly the best resource in this domain? Don't ignore the issues, true gold
in there :)
[1]
[https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris...](https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition)
------
traderjane
Summary: 2011 OO FizzBuzz joke...
------
stickfigure
Is this article some sort of joke? Poe's Law seems to be in force here.
~~~
sylvainr65
Cannot be anything but a joke. The problem is simple, the solution requires 10
lines. There is no reason, absolutly none, to create an interface for a such
simple problem.
~~~
loopz
Until this is done in Reactive programming style, this is far from complete.
------
baxrob
Maybe it's that ol' Software Crisis or thar Pleasantness Problem
------
0xdeadbeefbabe
Because the language discourages it? Language, or pretentious Pidgin in this
case, limits thinking.
~~~
postalrat
Is it Java the language or Java developers that people think is a joke?
~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Hey, minecraft was done in java. It can't be that bad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This Map Shows the Average Commute Time in Every U.S. County - ourmandave
http://lifehacker.com/this-map-shows-the-average-commute-time-in-every-u-s-c-1796559696
======
tbirrell
As someone who lives in one of those counties... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. Not even
close buddy. Try 1.5x and you might be right.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why do programmers prefer Python over Ruby? - daviddavis
I'm a Ruby programmer. Recently there was a poll about everyone's favorite programming language and Python came out ahead over Ruby. To me, Python seems to lack some of the niceties that Ruby has like blocks and it also seems to have some superfluous stuff like having to pass self into each method. I'm not trying to ignite a flamewar but rather I am genuinely interested in why a programmer might prefer Python. Thanks.
======
dwong
I've done some programming in Python and am currently learning Ruby.
One of the differences I see is Python's philosophy of having one, correct way
to do things, while Ruby supports having multiple ways. This difference in
philosophy seems to be clear in the language design. Python usually has one or
two accepted ways to do basic tasks, while Ruby has more.
It's a little frustrating because in Ruby, I have to remember different syntax
and constructs for doing the same basic thing. I'd much rather just have to
remember one way, and expect other people's code to use that one way (ie,
Python is more readable).
Python also seems to have a larger community and more well-developed/useful
libraries and tools. I don't think NumPy and SciPy have equivalents in Ruby.
Also, even though Ruby says it advocates the principle of least surprise, I'm
often surprised by Ruby, and much less so by Python.
------
jtchang
I'm going through Ruby koans right now but am a Python programmer.
The #1 thing I like about Python is the community and has nothing to do with
the language. I find the python community doesn't actively champion the
language as the end all be all (for better or worse). Rather it is accepting
of when Python sucks for a specific task.
I also find Ruby to be really web focused. Python tends to have lots of
libraries that are not solely for web based needs. Not to say Python doesn't
have web stuff...there is so much I can't even keep up.
~~~
LoneWolf
I have that same feeling about the ruby comunity and its the main reason why I
try to stay away from it, it gets on my nerves. About the python comunity, no
complaints so far with one or two exceptions. I also feel the same about ruby
being more web focused, it may be wrong but that's how I see it too, one
"problem" of python is that there is too many modules and with some variations
so its rather hard to know it. And maybe its just me but the python docs
sometimes are rather confusing, with few examples (I like to read examples,
its a lot easier IMHO)
------
schrodingersCat
As a scientific programmer, I like python because I'm used to it, because
there are a wealth of useful libraries and packages that suit my needs, and
that it can be "fast" (if you know how to take advantage of the underlying c
code and use numpy whenever possible; and the obvious fast-prototyping
advantage over compiled languages). I don't have much experience with Ruby so
this is by no means a diss of the language. Its just why I have stuck with it
for so long
------
beza1e1
Disclaimer: This is very subjective and from a Python guy
1\. While Python and Ruby are roughly of the same age, Ruby was only popular
in Asia before Rails. At that point Python already had a solid base of non-web
stuff.
2\. Ruby feels more wild and crazy to me. Is monkey-patching still considered
cool in the Ruby community? As a Pythonista I try to avoid such confusing
stunts.
Due to both of those reasons I believe Python has more solid libraries. For
example, Rails was extracted from a small productivity app, while Django was
extracted from a serious newspaper website. While Ruby was fixing memory
leaks, the Python interpreter was speeding up its hash map.
As a language enthusiast I envy Ruby for the blocks. As a Python programmer I
never felt the need for them.
~~~
Wilduck
> As a language enthusiast I envy Ruby for the blocks. As a Python programmer
> I never felt the need for them.
I think one of the reason why Python isn't hurt by the lack of blocks is the
difference in namespacing rules. Since defining a top level function doesn't
pollute the global namespace, there's much less of a need for blocks and
mulit-line lambdas. If I feel that I've got too many functions sitting around
in one of my project's files, I can simply open up a new file, utils.py, and
all my utility functions will be in their own namespace.
So, I agree, blocks are cool, but when it comes to re-reading code, I like
that I've been forced to spend the extra few seconds to give my functions
names.
------
true_religion
One word: Cython.
Having a fast way to interface C code, and speed up your bottlenecks is a
godsend for anything that isn't a strict web app.
I'm sure Ruby has an FFI, and most likely even has a SWIG interface but Cython
is far beyond that--its a typed version of Python that compiles directly down
to C/C++, so you can port code between Python and Cython instanteously.
Doing just that usually makes it 2x faster. Annotate it with types to make it
more than 10x faster. Change the algo to something you can only do efficiently
in C, and it's 100-1000x faster. Seeing something go from taking 10 minutes to
taking 600ms in less than a days work is fantastic.
\----
Also personally, I find I like white-space scoping. Python is like
psuedocodethat actually runs.
~~~
rmk
Hmm... Could you recommend some resources for this? I need to wrap a couple
libraries and make them accessible in both Python and Ruby.
~~~
synparb
The best thing to do is to take a look at the Cython docs
(<http://cython.org/>) and check out some of the whitepapers they have posted.
There is also a bunch of cython code on github. If you search "cdef extern"
you should find examples where other people have wrapped external c libraries.
~~~
rmk
Thanks!
------
mhd
I like Perl, I like SmallTalk, and given that, I actually do like Ruby the
language. My main peeve is the infrastructure. No, not even the community,
you'll find nice people and bumwads on both sides. But I just can't stand the
penchant for overly cutesy DSLs that seems to pervade the Ruby world. It's
basically Lisp macro abuse all over again.
------
mark_l_watson
I know that you are asking why Python might be better for some uses, so pardon
a little tangent:
About 7 years ago I tried really hard to get into Python because someone I
know at Google really liked the language, and I needed to pick up a better
scripting language (I dislike Perl). I used Python a lot for about a year,
reading a few books, using it for a lot of small projects. Python was nice!
Then I started looking at Ruby, and for me it was programming language love at
first sight. I can not justify my strong preference for Ruby on technical
grounds, rather I simply prefer it. Ruby is no longer just a scripting
language for me (although I write a _lot_ of 20 line Ruby programs just to get
stuff done).
So, I would argue that you should choose either Python or Ruby based on your
personal gut feel, after spending time with both languages. The only exception
to this advice is if you want to work for a company that prefers one over the
other.
------
bmelton
Readability. If I'm working in a team, it's generally the _number_ _one_
concern for any language I'm using, but even if it's code that I know nobody
else will ever touch, there's a great comfort in knowing that I won't have to
spend too much effort figuring out what I was thinking when I'm reading year-
old code.
~~~
nwmcsween
This is moot you're not writing a low level math library nor are you using
some archaic programming language, readability is relative and it's between
the chair and the keyboard that defines that value. You can write unreadable
code in python just the same as you can in ruby.
~~~
bmelton
You're right in a sense, but I strongly disagree.
The trick is to write readable code, and Python encourages that at every step.
The Python mantra is "don't be clever". Compared to Ruby, where developers
routinely vie for the most clever way to do something that may or may not (and
usually isn't) in the interest of readability.
Also, the significant whitespace enforces the readability of Python vs.
something like Perl, which is a very information-dense and, in the opinion of
myself and many others, a substantially less readable language.
Either way, for my money, having used both languages extensively, Python
proves to be more readable over the long haul. YMMV.
------
dagw
One point is that the python eco-system covers a lot more ground. Ruby and the
ruby eco-system basically only focuses on web development, if ruby has other
strength the community is pretty quite about it.
Python is also pretty good at web development, but is also excellent at
scientific computing and visualization, data processing, statistical analysis
(including nice bindings to R), network servers using twisted, natural
language parsing, GIS analysis, computer vision and image processing and so
on. Python also has Cython which makes it trivial do use C to speed up crucial
functions.
Basically I prefer python because I can use the same language for everything I
need and want to do.
~~~
bowyakka
I would second this, in my $DAYJOB which is focused on building search
engines, python is one of the goto languages alongside R for doing a lot of
exploratory stuff.
Sure ruby could, but it would have to play catchup adding things like sage,
cython, numpy, scikits etc etc
------
paulsutter
I think it has nothing to do with the languages themselves, and more to do
with a sort of tipping point around tools, libraries and adoption. Through
random chance, I prefer Python simply because people I know use Python so I
started to use Python.
At the end of the day, there really isn't much inherent that makes Python
better than Ruby. Which is exactly why the world would benefit from the
eventual dominance of one over the other. Even if it is a randomly driven
tipping point process.
On the other hand: Ruby vs Java vs C++, each has clear advantages in certain
situations. These languages seem less likely to compete with each other.
------
codesuela
I am not sure that this poll was representative of the whole programming
community. We are a Berlin based startup and we're looking for a Python
developers and they are a lot harder to find than Rails devs. Not to talk
about PHP, C# and Java developers.
Also there are tons of existing libraries and you don't have to implement
anything but your actual business logic.
------
badragon
When I was starting learning Python, I considered Ruby. At the time, Ruby was
Active Record only. Active Record does not let you use SQL procedures without
defeating the whole purpose of Rails. For me, it meant that Rails was only
good for toy CRUD apps.
------
amalag
The opening of classes seems to cause people problems. A lot of Ruby's
popularity is from it's killer app, Rails. But trying to program python after
Ruby for me is difficult, python feels so constrained.
------
shawiz
Python is a lot easier to learn than Ruby, therefore there are more people
know Python than know Ruby. The poll just shows the demographics.
------
arjn
I came from a java background. I like Python because I feel like I think in
python and it makes me write elegant (IMO) code.
------
shortfold
because FUCK RUBY (c) the black guy at security conferences
------
PythonDeveloper
Well, for me, it's readability and maintainability. I find Ruby unreadable,
and if I want to hire a programmer, it's easier to take a Perl, PHP, or even
C# developer and teach them Python than it is to teach them Ruby, at least
from my experence.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Ruby as a language, and until it was
added to most languages, the scaffolding held me in awe...
I just prefer Python's readability.
~~~
canatan01
I agree. I am a PHP developer and just started learning Python a few days ago
and must say, for now, it is indeed easy to learn and is very readable. Though
I never tried Ruby so I can't tell you if I would find that easy also.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook's Gateway Drug - applecore
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/opinion/sunday/evgeny-morozov-facebooks-gateway-drug.html
======
ef4
> In a short essay outlining the vision behind Internet.org, Mr. Zuckerberg
> says one of its goals is to offer credit and identity infrastructure “that
> is still nascent in many developing countries.” Such services might be of
> some help in developing countries. But is Facebook the best entity to
> provide them?
"Best" among what alternatives? If nobody else is providing these services,
then Facebook may necessarily be the best by default. Of course we can imagine
better ways. But those ways are _imaginary_ until somebody actually shows they
can do it.
And I have a hard time getting upset that Facebook might beat out Experian and
friends to become the credit bureau of choice in some developing countries.
Why should I have a dog in that fight?
~~~
mcgwiz
Because the people that live in those developing countries are fellow human
beings, and generally have no economic/political power relative to Facebook
and other MNCs.
~~~
cynicalkane
This excuse has very often had the result of denying basic jobs and services
to people in developing countries.
Like the GP said, "alternate ways" are _imaginary_ until someone else does it.
The best way to provide an alternate solution is to provide an alternate
solution. The worst way to provide an alternate solution is to complain about
it with that typical rich Westerner indignation that some people face harder
choices than themselves, with the end result sometimes being that no solutions
at all are provided.
------
k-mcgrady
Although it is concerning that Facebook could essential become 'the internet'
for people in developing countries you can't sit in your nice, comfortable
office and tell people that should be their main concern. When you don't have
internet access and when you can't access essential services with as much
efficiency as we can, privacy and monopolies aren't the main concern. Easy
access to health information, banks, money, and business opportunities are the
main concern. Long term thinking is hard to grasp when you are forced to focus
on the short term. Long term thinking is a luxury a lot of people in
developing countries can't afford.
~~~
mcgwiz
Fair point about citizens in developing countries being forced to focus on the
short-term. But does that mean it's right for Facebook to take advantage of
them in a way that, in the long-term, is questionable at best?
This is about more than just providing heating oil or railroads... this is
about their entire information infrastructure, and they're in no position to
negotiate.
~~~
judk
Offer an alternative, or get out of the way.
~~~
fred_durst
The alternative is to "get out of the way." Instead of allowing these
countries to get to internet access in their own way, and at their own pace,
internet.org will hamstring the efforts by providing this free crippled
version that will permanently warp these users view of what the internet is
and push out smaller local competition that provides real internet.
The very fact that it's called internet.org is obvious proof of the dishonesty
at play.
Sometimes the right answer is to do nothing if you don't have anything good to
contribute.
------
caster_cp
From the Internet.org website itself, comes a very timely affirmation: "The
future of the world economy is a knowledge economy - the Internet, its
backbone". Should this backbone be on the hands of, or at least controlled by,
one single company (or cartel, or association)? This move is a very good
strategic move to access the so called "other 3 billion", and the mixture of
tech companies and public services in developing countries has been proven
effective (see M-Pesa, an initiative that revolutionized the financial
services ecosystem in Kenya). But there are very deep philosophical
implications when private companies start taking the role of government on the
internet. Nowadays, many public servants do not understand the implications of
this "knowledge economy" referenced on the internet.org website. Specially
when it relates to the forces that lead to huge market concentrations and even
de facto monopolies in these industries (see Facebook, Google, Amazon,
Microsoft, ...). The irony of this specific initiative is that a company that
fights for net neutrality with the EFF against the telcos tries to do the same
thing, but at a different layer, in developing countries. In reality, this
raises a very important question for the future of the internet: what is the
right amount of private interference on services that were previously
considered public ones (identification being the most prominent of these
nowadays)? Are we heading to a new Bell style monopoly, but at a global scale,
nowadays? And what will be the outcome of the very important fight of internet
versus infrastructure companies that is going on? Regarding these doubts, I
really and firmly believe that the most interesting phenomenons will not
happen in the US, but on the most unsuspecting countries out there (again, see
M-Pesa). We just have to wait and see
------
mattangriffel
"Imagine your water meter giving you free quick showers but charging you for a
bath."
Am I the only one that doesn't think this is ridiculous? We already pay for
the water we use to take a bath or a shower. So basically this amounts to free
showers. Isn't that something to be happy about?
~~~
exit
no, it's a step away from completely commodifying water; and if someone
offered that "package" i wouldn't for a moment believe they aren't making more
money off of me in the long run than had they charged just a flat fee.
and i feel the same about internet access.
~~~
IBM
No one will actually care if they're making more money overall if the end user
is saving because they spend less on water/data because their usage is lower.
The sooner ISPs start charging based on usage the better. Low usage customers
have been subsidizing heavy users for a long time.
The alternative is having heavy bandwidth services subsidize their customers'
data use which would also work.
------
slurry
What's frustrating is how un-data-driven these efforts are. Surely we have
some empirical research by now on the most cost-effective ways to improve
quality of life through aid projects. And my guess is the top ten are all
sanitation-related.
But they do this. What a [presumably tax-subsidized] waste.
~~~
k-mcgrady
Because other people are taking care of sanitation related problems. Why can't
we tackle more than one issue? Throwing money at one problem, solving it, and
moving on to another one isn't necessarily the most efficient way to solve
those problems.
~~~
pjscott
Yes, of course you want to direct your efforts at whatever will bring the
largest _marginal_ benefit -- and you're right that that can change if other
people are already working on the absolute best things. However, that doesn't
mean that all the other options are equally good! Would Facebook's money be
better spent on internet access, or by being one among many working on
sanitation? It's not a forgone conclusion, and it would be nice to see people
be more data-driven about how they spend their charity money.
In practice, the internet thing is probably Facebook's only option, since it's
the only one they can convince their investors to back. This isn't really
charity; they intend to make a viable business. I really like that aspect of
the plan. Charity comes and goes, but businesses tend to stick around when
they're making money.
------
dan_bk
> Mr. Zuckerberg retorted that he preferred to think about it as an “on-ramp
> to the Internet”
And the gov't of course welcomes the initiative as it lifts the rest of the
world onto the surveillance platform.
------
happycube
Sounds like he's trying to remake AOL/Compuserve/et al...
~~~
joaorj
hopefully he'll succeed
~~~
spacefight
Why?
~~~
nine_k
Imagine your life with crippled, limited, silly AOL connectivity vs your life
without connectivity at all.
------
IBM
Don't be afraid startup/VC bros. Just raise a little more money and start
subsidizing your users' data use as well.
------
furyofantares
What's with the dot.org link?
------
higherpurpose
And like most drugs, it's usually bad for you. Say NO to Facebook!
------
sbierwagen
Permanently deleted my Facebook account a couple weeks back. I hadn't
seriously used Facebook since high school, but had held back from deleting the
account, because I didn't want to lose the data.
Of course, the older you get, the less of a good idea it seems to preserve all
the dumb shit you said in high school for perpetuity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Research Details Room2Room Project – Life-Size Telepresence - vyrotek
http://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-research-details-room2room-project-enabes-life-size-telepresence/
======
vyrotek
Source paper:
[http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/262648/Room2Room_CSCW2016...](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/262648/Room2Room_CSCW2016.pdf)
~~~
detaro
then submit that, and not some blog that doesn't add content.
_Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on
another site, submit the latter._
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
vyrotek
Did you click the link? The page I submitted contained an additinonal video
demonstration which I found far more interesting than the original source PDF.
Additionally, I didn't think it was appropriate to directly link to a PDF
download. Generally, readers don't expect that.
~~~
detaro
MSR page for the video would be here:
[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=262...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=262649)
, but they hide the link to the paper surprisingly well :/ (bottom right)
So yeah, your link makes more sense than I assumed, sorry.
~~~
vyrotek
Thanks for finding that. I literally searched the source of the blog article
for the video src url and then searched the PDF hoping to find some match
pointing to a more authentic source.
~~~
detaro
Yeah, I knew the MSR page and that you have to basically start at their front
page. Because of course you can't just remove the file from the paper URL and
get an overview or something like that, that would be to easy...
It seems to me like the internals of their content management system are
showing through and making it complicated. "Oh, a video? That's something
completely unrelated and a stand-alone artifact"
FWIW, I think submitting papers with a [PDF] in the title is fine, because
many people seem to start in the comments anyways, but that's just my opinion.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Review my app coded in the past two days: BookBox - lkozma
http://www.lkozma.net/bookbox<p>embedded for ex. on my main page: http://www.lkozma.net<p>I made this small widget during this weekend to learn a bit of javascript. I'd be glad to get feedback on how understandable, usable, etc. it is or feature ideas, suggestions.
======
trickjarrett
Pretty nifty for just two days of work. If it's something you'd like to pursue
then the obvious choice is to incorporate your own Amazon Associate codes into
the links and thus earn income from the book sellers (be up front about doing
this.) Also you can offer a cheap paid account where you allow the users to do
this themselves.
For the widget, it looked somewhat easy to theme, but you may incorporate
theming options into the interface as well. Color the links. Center items,
etc.
------
kenver
It's a really nice project. Overall I found it quite easy to use, but I think
you could improve the distinction between creating new BookBoxs and updating
BookBoxs.
Perhaps only showing one of the password options based on where you came from
or what your last action was would be a good start.
As everyone else said, there is loads of scope for expansion which is great.
------
marcusbooster
Nice.
Which reminds me, where's that StackOverflow clone that was supposed to be
written over the July 4th weekend? Considering all the hullabaloo I'm curious
how the final product turned out.
------
rathboma
I actually like it quite a lot! To be honest I like the simplicity, and the
fact it works and does what you'd expect it to.
Plus you have the ability to do so much with it, like extending it to
incorporate your own amazon ref, making it do stuff when you click a book
(like display a larger image and the book blurb), or even integrating it with
other book services.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
College President Gives $90,000 of His Salary to Lowest-Paid Employees on Campus - praneshp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/04/president-gives-up-salary-psu_n_5647997.html?ncid=dynaldusaolp00000255
======
radmuzom
Great gesture, however not a solution to the systemic problem. It is only when
the government mandates a much higher minimum wage and universal healthcare in
the US, irrespective of what the market demands or thinks, will the lives of
ordinary citizens improve.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ingredients for creating disruptive research teams - barry-cotter
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dCjz5mgQdiv57wWGz/ingredients-for-creating-disruptive-research-teams
======
jandrewrogers
In my experience, attempts to build these organizations are unsuccessful
primarily because they fail to understand the functional role of the visionary
leader and/or they select team members based on them being very smart with
little thought toward how the selection will impact social dynamics.
A “visionary leader” is not a charismatic person executing someone else’s
vision, but this is the model many organizations use. A visionary leader is
always executing their own vision, the object is to find one with a vision
that aligns with the organization and giving them a platform to execute their
vision. It is difficult to navigate the intrinsic ambiguities of a vision
effectively without it being your own. In the specific context of research
organizations, leaders must be viewed as technical peers by the people they
are leading or it will be difficult to build trust in the vision. An ideal
leader is one that everyone suspects could do their job if required. You can’t
fake that technical gravitas with seniority, pedigree, and credentialing but
I’ve seen many organizations try. I would argue that finding a suitable leader
is the biggest hurdle to building an effective disruptive research
organization.
One under-rated aspect of building a top-tier team in my opinion is selecting
each member for unique, critical expertise that does not overlap with any
other person on the team. This simple practice mitigates many adverse social
dynamics that destroy team productivity when two excellent people have non-
distinct expertise. It creates natural ownership, encourages self-
organization, and makes it obvious to everyone on the team the value every
other member brings to their work. With this comes the obligation to educate
and mentor the rest of the team on your area of expertise and to
explain/defend decisions to anyone that asks. Pride in being the expert in
their area and wanting to be recognized for that usually compels it. No one is
excluded from this obligation, not even leaders. This sounds like a single
point of failure but in practice it causes a lot of critical knowledge to be
efficiently socialized by the members of the team that are expert in that
knowledge.
------
paulsutter
You don’t create breakthroughs through checklists.
Examples:
“This study says 80% of successful pitches have a ‘purpose’ slide so we need a
purpose slide”
“If we build a control tower, the cargo planes will return”
------
mistermann
> Psychological safety, i.e., the feeling that voicing controversial ideas or
> dissent will not cause abandonment or loss of status, seems to be an
> important factor for making interactions between researchers particularly
> fruitful. _It’s not clear to me how exactly this can be achieved._
I know I've read various articles/blogs on this topic, including techniques to
achieve it, but it seems I neglected to save any of them in my EverNote.
Anyone happen to know of any good ones off the top of their head?
~~~
heymijo
Here are a couple but just reading through them, I think they are lacking. I
need to think more about why. I suspect it's about tactics vs. principles.
For example the one talks about pre and post mortems. I have seen those done
badly first hand where they do NOT create psychological safety.
Anyways, check these out but do so with an inquisitive mind.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Psychological Safety from NOBL
Academy
[https://app.getpocket.com/read/2567268015](https://app.getpocket.com/read/2567268015)
Tool: Foster psychological safety
[https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-
effe...](https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-
effectiveness/steps/foster-psychological-safety/)
\----------------------------- Before Google came along with Project Aristotle
there was W. Edwards Deming, who advocated "driving out fear" in reference to
creating psychological safety.
Here's a blog post with some ideas from Deming's work. You'll see things at
the tactics level but also much at the system level, like stack ranking is a
bad idea for psychological safety.
Much of Deming's work had manufacturing as its context but an enterprising
mind can see how it relates to knowledge work and other endeavors. Read
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull to see how he used ideas from Deming to build
their systems and culture.
[https://michelbaudin.com/2012/10/27/deming_8_of_14_drive_out...](https://michelbaudin.com/2012/10/27/deming_8_of_14_drive_out_fear/)
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-
inc](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-inc)
------
tlb
“...I picked based on my own non-systematic judgment...” is a pretty big
caveat for deciding what makes something good. If his judgement is biased
toward being impressed by quality X of a group, then sure enough the study
will conclude that quality X is important.
However, any objective measure of research group effectiveness is probably
worse. You sometimes see them ranked by number of papers published, or number
of patents filed, which is definitely the wrong criterion. Whereas the
author’s judgement is probably mostly aligned with what you or I might value.
It’s better to be subjectively right than objectively wrong.
------
vikramkr
The article talks about how the evidence seems to point to the opposite
direction of constraints stimulating innovation, but I wonder if this finding
is a side effect of the small sample size issues the author discussed at the
beginning. The amount of innovation coming out of startups is high, and they
certainly operate under enormous constraints. Furthermore, there is a
difference between no inconveniences (no teaching obligation) and no
constraints - technical constraints in particular (Wozniak dealing with
significant constraints in designing computers etc.) could be powerful
stimulants of creativity.
~~~
fuzzfactor
Resource constraints act like foul lines, limiting where you are allowed to
hit it out of the park, but also making you concentrate on where you can.
Distractive constraints are like fewer times at bat.
A natural abilty for overcoming either or both disadvantages can give rise to
exponential performance once the restrictions are reduced or removed.
------
vikramkr
The author mentions they dont know how a culture if psychological safety is
created, and then mentions the outsized importance of the leader. I would
hypothesize that the leader's character is what helps create that safety. If
you are allowed to disagree with the boss and have robust debates, then surely
you can disagree with your colleagues and deal with colleagues disagreeing
with you as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cloudflare's distributed database is out of beta - zackbloom
https://blog.cloudflare.com/workers-kv-is-ga/?hn
======
Phillipharryt
It's interesting that they bring up the CAP theorem, because they've chosen to
go for the two prongs of it that generally not preferred. Data consistency in
my opinion is of utmost importance.
Though I may add it still looks pretty interesting
~~~
steveklabnik
PM on KV here.
We want to be _really_ clear about the guarantees here, because we want to
make sure nobody is surprised by them. You’re right that this combo is
preferred less for primary data stores, but we feel that means we should talk
about it more, not less, so that people can properly evaluate if this is the
right store for them.
There are still a lot of use cases where this is okay, which is why we built
the thing in the first place.
~~~
Phillipharryt
Fair enough, thank you for the transparency then.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacking an Android TV in less than 2 minutes - vmulas
https://medium.com/@drakkars/hacking-an-android-tv-in-2-minutes-7b6f29518ff3
======
vmulas
LinkedIn article: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hacking-android-tv-less-
than-...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hacking-android-tv-less-
than-2-minutes-valerio-mulas/)
YT Demo:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpdVk7Vv-C8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpdVk7Vv-C8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Grand Image Compression Challenge at ICIP 2016 - 112233
http://jpeg.org/items/20151126_icip_challenge.html
======
vanderZwan
Eh... isn't the Joint Photographic Experts Group the one that patents
everything?
~~~
defenestration
I'm wondering, what incentive do researchers have to share their new
compression algorithms with JPEG? Especially if JPEG patents everything as you
suggest.
~~~
joosters
If it works similarly to other standards groups, they don't take the patents
from inventors. Instead, they manage the patents and collect fees on behalf of
the (many) holders, allowing anyone to buy the rights through a single entity.
The various MPEGs and other formats like DIVX work in this way.
~~~
0x09
No that isn't true. ISO (MPEG/JPEG) does not play a part in licensing patents
or forming patent pools, which is only natural when you consider the fact that
ISO is an international organization headquartered in Geneva and every country
has its own patent ecosystem.
Individual companies within a certain jurisdiction can certainly set up pools
and court the various rightsholders who participate in the standards process,
and that is what you see with e.g. MPEG-LA and HEVC Advance in the US. But
these have no direct connection to ISO beyond using the name and serving the
contributing organizations.
Also, JPEG and MPEG are both part of the same standards group. And Divx is
just a brand of MPEG implementations.
~~~
vanderZwan
Ah, so I accidentally spread FUD because, well... the situation is complicated
and confusing.
Sadly I can't edit my top post any more :/
------
pornel
I hope evaluation will use more diverse set of images than the subset given.
Only a couple of example images have highly saturated color, and all example
images will tolerate poorly done chroma subsampling.
On the web there are categories of images, such as logos, screenshots,
renders, large icons, photos with captions, that aren't simple enough to
compress well with lossless encoders, but become a mess when compressed with
codecs tuned for high-res photos without any sharp highly saturated edges.
~~~
vardump
You don't need to subsample chroma in JPEG. I often disable it (use 4:4:4
sampling) if there is high color contrast detail. Say a tree with red fruit,
marketplace, kid's toys, etc.
~~~
pornel
I know it's not necessary in JPEG, but some codecs (especially video and
therefore video-codec-derived still image formats) have only 4:2:0 option. And
if a codec chooses to use it, I'd prefer the test suite to require it done
well.
I've recently looked at it closely and found that almost every codec does
chroma subsampling incorrectly, but the error is visible mostly in computer-
generated graphics, and rarely in photos, and probably that's why nobody cared
to fix it.
[https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg/issues/193](https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg/issues/193)
------
vardump
For _most_ purposes, image compression is a solved problem.
I assume this challenge exists to create a new image compression format. But I
don't see any reason why JPEG2000 doesn't happen again - a new format that
almost no one adopts. JPEG was simply good enough.
Although 12-bit color depth with JPEG comparable compression levels would sure
be nice.
~~~
vanderZwan
Holy shit do I strongly disagree with this.
> _Although 12-bit color depth with JPEG comparable compression levels would
> sure be nice._
Exactly: there are _so many_ features - like higher bit depth, alpha
transparency, different colour spaces - missing form JPEG.
IIRC, JPG2000 wasn't adopted because back in the day we only had Internet
Explorer, which required a special plugin, it was too slow, and there weren't
many export options.
BPG and FLIF are good contenders in the lossy/lossless area though.
[http://bellard.org/bpg/](http://bellard.org/bpg/)
[http://flif.info/](http://flif.info/)
~~~
vardump
I agree new features would be nice. Like alpha transparency like you
mentioned. Or how about cool things like depth or normal maps? I just think
almost no one cares. We represent 0.1% of the population.
The last new image format to be universally adopted was PNG in 1996. A lot of
entrants have tried ever since, but I think it'd be fair to say none of them
mattered the slightest.
------
udev
This would be a good occasion to have scrutinize the compression algorithm in
BPG image format [http://bellard.org/bpg/](http://bellard.org/bpg/) .
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Marijuana Investors Lost $23.3B in Penny Stocks Last Year - wclax04
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/marijuana-investors-lost-billions-in-penny-stocks-last-year
======
lbradstreet
I'm skeptical of the total loss quoted. If a stock drops from 2B to 0.3B
market cap, it doesn't necessarily mean that investors lost 1.7B in the pump
and dump. For that to happen 100% of the shares would have had to have traded
hands. The remaining investors would have been there for the ride up as well
as the ride back down.
------
byoung2
_In 2014, pot companies had the most drastic ups and downs for penny stocks_
A missed opportunity to use the phrase "highs and lows"
~~~
wclax04
$23.3B up in smoke?
------
realsimoburns
Dot-com era, more like dot-bong era!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building Fizzbuzz in Fractran from the Bottom Up - braythwayt
https://malisper.me/building-fizzbuzz-fractran-bottom/
======
braythwayt
Previous discussions around John Conway's FRACTRAN esoteric programming
language:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23142232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23142232)
and:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14202367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14202367)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Differences between the word2vec paper and its implementation - bollu
https://github.com/bollu/bollu.github.io#everything-you-know-about-word2vec-is-wrong
======
DannyBee
Speaking as someone who has read about 40 years of papers in compiler
optimization, it's very interesting.
In the early days, there were fairly exact algorithms that worked as
described, and were implemented as described, but were pseudocoded in papers.
Where the pseudocode differed from implementation, differences were described
in great detail (IE they may say an array can be shared but isn't to make the
pseudocode easier to describe).
Then, over time, things start to get further away from that. You start to see
papers published with algorithms that either don't work as described, or are
so inefficient as to be unusable. Like literally cannot work. Where you can
get source code, later looking at the source code shows that's not what they
did at all.
One infamous example of this is SSAPRE - to this day, people have a lot of
trouble understanding the paper (and it has significant errors that make the
algorithm incorrect as written). The concept sure, but the exact algorithm -
less so. Reading the source code to it in Open64 - it is just wildly different
than the paper (and often requires a lot of thought for people to convince
themselves it is correct).
It's not just better engineering/datastructures vs research algorithms.
The one shining counterexample is the Rice folks who wrote their massively
scalar compiler in nuweb (one of many literate programming environments), so
the descriptions/papers and code were in the same place - these are very very
readable and useful papers in my experience.
Nowadays it's coming back to the earlier daysdue to github/et al. People seem
to try to make the code more like the paper algorithm since they now release
the code.
Word2vec appears to be a counterexample (maybe because they released the code
they didn't feel a need to get the paper as right)
~~~
bayareanative
Editors gotta be more rigorous and only accept papers with completely
reproducible portable examples, i.e., docker images, literate code and source
code repos. Pseudocode is helpful to be platform neutral, but if it's not
precise enough to implemented as code, then it's still a proprietary figment
of someone else's imagination akin to the squishy social sciences where almost
anything goes, not rigorously reproducible science. Keep the standards high or
the quality will taper off.
PS: Sometimes I think some researchers think they're helping themselves keep
their research proprietary so they will able to monetize their special
knowledge or implementation, especially if no one else can make it work
("knowledge" (job) security/silo). Why do the hard work of figuring out how to
make a novel AI/ML algorithm if it can be readily commercially monetized
without recompense? (Modern Western civ doesn't have a good patronage system
to uniformly support arts, trades and sciences.)
~~~
opportune
In some fields, like in ML/AI or in other data-sciencey fields, keeping your
code / training data closed prevents other researchers from building or
improving on your work. It's more than just monetization, in that case it's
just tragedy-of-the-commons career growth
~~~
duckmysick
> keeping your code / training data closed prevents other researchers from
> building or improving on your work.
I might be naive in this regard, but isn't that the main point of doing
research?
~~~
opportune
In theory, yes. The actual main point of doing research, from the researcher's
point of view, is to advance their career. Typically this means posting
cutting-edge results in high impact journals using novel methods.
Relinquishing control over crucial details allowing a researcher to continue
publishing high-impact papers would increase the competition for the
researcher in that academic space, making it harder for that individual to
advance their career.
~~~
duckmysick
How do the sources of funding (R&D divisions, universities, governments) fit
in this picture? Do they have access to the "secret sauce" or do they have to
pay extra consultation fees on top of research grants.
------
RyEgswuCsn
I find the title of the article rather exaggerating...
As of the first difference pointed out in the article, one of the CS224D
lectures on word2vec did addressed it:
[https://youtu.be/aRqn8t1hLxs?t=2650](https://youtu.be/aRqn8t1hLxs?t=2650)
It was also mentioned later in the lecture that having two vectors
representing each word is meant to make the optimisation easier (so it's kind
of a trick); at the end, the two vectors learnt will have to be averaged over
in order to reach a single vector for each word.
To be fair, the fact that each word is represented by two vectors was also
mentioned in the original paper describing word2vec:
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.4546.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.4546.pdf)
On page 3, just beneath equation (2).
Why so surprised?
------
billconan
For the past week I have been frustrated by an opensource code of a deep
learning paper. This type of things are so common in academia. The particular
code I looked at has missing documentation, hardcoded local paths, broken
dataset download links and broken pretrained model download links. I have to
fix bugs before the code can run. I'm very curious how did the author run that
code with the bugs.
I call them insincerely opensourced projects.
~~~
throwaway287391
This sort of thing is aggravating to read. Frankly it comes off as really
entitled. As researchers, the expectation is now that we not only have to do
the research and write a paper like the good old days, but we have to release
the code too. Okay, fine. But now that's not enough either -- the code has to
be well-documented and clean. Ugh, alright, fine -- it's going to take me a
few extra weeks of not doing research, but I'll clean up all the code, rerun
experiments to make sure it all still works like before, and add a bunch of
documentation. But no, still not good enough -- it has to run at the press of
a button in _your_ particular programming environment. If we don't know how to
write a script (or couldn't be bothered to spend the time writing one) to
check that the data is on disk and, if not, crawl a website to download some
huge dataset in one click, test our code on your OS, your CPU/GPU/TPU/...,
etc., we were being "insincere" with our open-sourcing efforts.
~~~
KirinDave
Pardon me, maybe I just misunderstood the whole idea of research but _what
good is it if it 's not reproducible?_
I can understand it may be part of a meaningful personal journey for you, and
I appreciate that. But if no one else can validate your research they're
correct to discredit it and you.
So what is the optimal outcome here? Should we hold you to a standard of
reproducibility even if it is as minimal as, "actually describe your
algorithms correctly and don't misrepresent a piece of code and a paper?" Or
should everyone just decide you can find your own research funding if it's not
going to help anyone?
~~~
archgoon
The original idea behind "reproducible" is that the ideas conveyed in the
paper should be enough to reproduce the results. Physicists and biologists are
not expected to drive over to your lab to figure out what's wrong with your
setup.
Now, that said, reproducibility is terrible in many fields. CS has an
opportunity to act as a trailblazer here, but it should be noted that this
would be holding themselves to a higher standard than their peers in other
fields. As a result, there's going to be a learning process for everyone as
they figure out how to make this all work. :)
~~~
throwawayjava
Some pretty good computer science got done before devops was gifted to the
world.
And some pretty good science got done before computer scientists were gifted
to the world.
I'm genuinely skeptical that modern software engineering practices are a good
way of thinking about reproduction in science. Even in computer science.
There's a lot that scientists can learn from software engineering (and in fact
I've helped run workshops in the past on exactly this topic), but science is
not engineering.
~~~
KirinDave
> Some pretty good computer science got done before devops was gifted to the
> world.
I'm happy to talk about this if you want. One of the most important aspects of
this work was that people like Dijkstra started using notions that approached
what real computers could read while remaining human-readable. This is some
measure of classical "reproducibility". And work like McCarthy's was
revolutionary in part because it was a definition of reproducibility as a
result!
I can give examples of shockingly good papers that are struggling to see the
light of day in their industry because they're written in ways that make them
hard not only to understand, but to reproduce.
So don't presume to lecture me about this. Part of the reason the word2vec
paper stands out is precisely because this is such a deviation from the norm
to have a paper misrepresent its most fundamental component: the algorithm.
------
utopcell
I think it very unfair to the original set of word2vec papers to be talking
about 'academic dishonesty'. This is a case of a user that has little to no
experience with neural networks. There are a ton of articles describing the
need for random initialization [1][2]. In fact, if one spends a few seconds
thinking about it, the need is evident. Without it, the NN cannot perform
symmetry breaking: If inputs are set to zero, all neurons will perform the
same calculations, rendering the network useless.
[1] google: "neural networks vector initialization" [2]
[http://deeplearning.ai/ai-notes/initialization/](http://deeplearning.ai/ai-
notes/initialization/)
~~~
bollu
That's hardly the point of the article --- the actual paper does not describe
the use of two separate vectors for each word. The initialization was an
interesting tidbit.
~~~
exgrv
Except it does? After Equation 2: "v_w and v'_w are the input and output
vector representations of w."
------
b_tterc_p
On a similar note, a long time ago I read the Doc2Vec paper, then looked at
popular Doc2Vec implementations. They didn’t seem to do the same thing. The
paper said you basically make vectors for words, then append on an additional
space that represents the additional information of documents as opposed to
single words.
All popular implementations I found seemed to put the document vectors into
the same space as the word vectors. They also didn’t seem to do any better
than a tf-idf weighted average of word vectors... curious if anyone has ever
bumped against this.
~~~
gojomo
The only code released by the 'Paragraph Vector' paper authors was a small
patch, from Mikolov, that added paragraph-vectors to the original `word2vec.c`
implementation in a very simple way: treating the 1st token of each line as a
special paragraph-vector, still string-named (and allocated in the same lookup
dictionary). Only by convention (a special prefix on those paragraph-vector
tokens) could collisions with similarly-named word-vectors avoided.
That's a nice minimal way to demo/test the idea, but limited and fragile in
other ways. The initial gensim implementation did something similar, then I
changed it to use a separate doc-vectors space, to better support a lot of
options (including the PV-DM mode with a concatenative input layer – which has
never been confirmed to perform as well as the original paper implied).
~~~
b_tterc_p
Insightful. Thanks
------
slx26
Just as a curiosity, complementing what others have already written... I read
part of Mikolov's thesis and code in the past (when I was still studying at
the university, so I might have got everything wrong (I still don't get half
of it :D)). First I found it quite shocking that the code was so bad. The
training code was pretty confusing to me, and I found the lack of useful
comments discouraging. The test code (which loaded stored embeddings from a
file and allowed some basic operations) was even much, much worse. Like,
declaring three variables (a, b, c) and reusing them for different things in
the main functions without explaining anything, and doing linear searches
through the whole embeddings to find a word vector... very ugly and scary
things.
So, I had a very bad impression of the code. But then, I checked the thesis,
and I found it awesome. The amount of tests and implementations the guy made,
and how he showed in practice how better results could be achieved in a good
number of different setups... I found it really impressive. But such great
work paired with such bad code! I was just a CS student, so I found it
shocking. Nowadays I realize he was simply focused on a different thing, and
the results he obtained were indeed outstanding and talk for themselves.
It's easy to look back and criticise the code, but when you look at the work
he did in perspective... it's completely unfair to ask more from him
(admittedly, they had time to address some of the issues later, but they
probably had better things to do too).
------
newen
This kind of things happens all the time in academia. The authors are either
constrained by space due to paper limitations or they are too lazy to explain
all the little details that go into the algorithm.
I used to do research in computer vision a few years ago and it used to be
that people won't publish their code _and_ they purposely won't put in all of
the details of the algorithm in the paper. Many of those algorithms were
patent pending and I assume the authors were hoping to make some money from
the patents. Compared to that, it's a lot better nowadays where most of the
popular papers come with published code.
~~~
bollu
Is this really that common? That's disheartening, I want to spend time in
academia but experiences like this are sucking the fun out for me...
~~~
toast0
I tried to make use of some public audio research and it was pretty bad. There
was an audio comprehensibility competition a few years ago. Some of the papers
submitted are still around, as well as the summary paper describing the
results. But many papers are hard to find, and those that claimed to have
source code available are hard to find --- i was able to get matlab sources
for a few algorithms, but they somehow work on the example files, but mostly
crash on my files.
It's a shame because I understand the idea of the paper, and have an excellent
place to apply it, but I lack the DSP background, so I can't really rebuild
the code from scratch -- so the work is not able to be used.
~~~
DoctorOetker
this sounds interesting, would you care to reference the paper in question?
~~~
toast0
I'm not sure if I can find the exact paper anymore. This was in response to
the Hurricane Challenge, a summary of results is available [1]. I tried to use
code for uwSSDRCt available from the legacy page of the conference [2], under
the link "Live and recorded speech modifier", direct download here [3].
The basic context is verification code delivery -- I'm playing pre-recorded
samples of numbers to users, and can't control or sample the noise (either
transmission or environmental), but would like to enhance intelligibility to
reduce user effort, improve experience, and reduce costs.
[1]
[https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/17887878/Cooke_et...](https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/17887878/Cooke_et_al_2013_Intelligibility_enhancing_speech_modifications.pdf)
[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20131012005150/http://listening-...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131012005150/http://listening-
talker.org/legacy.html)
[3]
[http://www.laslab.org/resources/LISTA/code/D4.3.zip](http://www.laslab.org/resources/LISTA/code/D4.3.zip)
------
gojomo
They're not really that different.
There's only a second vector for a word in the (common, default) negative-
sampling case, where each predictable word has a distinct "output node" of the
neural network, and the second vector is the in-weights to that one node.
Still, most implementations don't emphasize this vector – the classic "word-
vector" is a word's representation when it's a neural-network input. And in
the hierarchical-softmax training mode, there's no clear second vector.
I suspect the original word2vec authors left out a clearer description of the
initialization as they were following some oft-assumed practices implied by
their other descriptions.
Another minor difference between the literal descriptions, and original C
implementation, was a slightly different looping order in skip-gram training:
holding a target-word, and then looping over all context-words, rather than
holding a context-word, then looping over all neighboring target-words. One of
the authors once mentioned that the shipped approach was slightly more
efficient – maybe it was due to CPU cache issues? In any case all the same
context->target pairs get trained either way, just in a slightly different
order.
------
eggie5
instead of thinking about what it is in practice: skip-gram negative sampling,
I think it's much more intuitive to think about what it is in theory: extreme
multi-class classification.
word2vec is a multi-class classification problem with a softmax output layer
and cross-entropy loss. The novel part of word2vec, in my opinion, is two:
1\. dataset (proximal input word & output word) generation from documents eg:
skiagram, CBOW, etc 2\. engineering speedup for softmax: Approximate Softmax
eg Negative Sampling using NCE, hierarchal softmax, etc
If you just build word2vec w/o step 2, it's a easier to understand. Then when
you get that working, add in the negative sampling speedup trick which isn't
core the theoretical algorithm.
~~~
utopcell
Can't really call it a speedup trick, since it actually improves the
performance of the embeddings but in terms of qualitative understanding, I see
where you're coming from.
------
xxxpupugo
The title reads to me like hyperbole.
The implementation can differ, they got time to refactor/optimize it after the
publication. But they can't probably revise the paper itself. As long as the
code is there and can produce said/better result, then it is probably your
responsibility to keep the differences in check.
It is actually quite common for deep learning papers overall, the github repo
gets updated after the paper is out, and you will find the divergence lying
there.
------
MichaelStaniek
My intuition for that, and you can tell me if its wrong.
The normal explanation for Word2Vec is 2 weight matrices, so the formula looks
like this: (One_hot_input x W1) x W2, which is then softmaxed.
W1 then is the matrix that contain our focus embedding from, but if we only
evaluate specific words on the target side, then W2 are actually our context
embeddings, and the normal multiplication then is focus_w x context_w.
Am I wrong?
~~~
bollu
Now it's `one_hot_focus x W1 x (one_hot_context x W2)^T`. So we still pick one
row of the matrix from the focus and context embeddings, but they're separate
embeddings.
~~~
MichaelStaniek
Yes, but thats also what happens in the normal formulation, no? So the second
weight matrix actually are our context embeddings?
------
lelf
It’s patented BTW —
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US9037464B1/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9037464B1/en)
~~~
rurban
Turns the patent only describes the paper, but not the implementation. Great,
and somewhat ironic
------
skythomas
Grossly unfair title
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What if we were all Uber drivers? - mk44
I just had an idea. What if there existed %50 of the cars that exist in US today, but they were freely available for everyone. What's the catch? You have to pick up people on the way to where you are going. There will be a cloud system that similar to Uber, where people input where they need to go. If they see a car standing, they can just start driving it. If there's someone who needs picking up on the way, they do it. Each person will have a card they scan when the get in the car or drive it. This way you identify cheaters (those who didn't pick up appropriately). What do you think?
======
dalke
Here are some of the things that can go wrong:
1) some teen drivers are not allowed to drive at night. Some people have a
suspended license and are legally restricted to only driving to/from work or
to/from school. These people might not be able to participate. How are the
restrictions added to the system?
2) My timing is tight. Work ends at 4:00 and I have to pick up the kids from
day care by 4:15. It's a 10 minute drive. Do I schedule a pickup every day or
do I chance that I might be required to detour for someone else?
3) I live in the countryside about 10 minutes drive from the nearest neighbor.
Do I get to have my own car? If not, how long does it take to get a ride?
4) I live on an island where the ferries to the mainland only run during the
day, and I want to take the first ferry of the morning. How do I arrange a 5am
drive if there are no cars on the island, or none close to me? What if there
was a storm that prevented the ferry service from running the previous day?
5) Does the scheduling system know the ferry schedule well enough to know if a
pickup is even possible? What if I and the car are on the ferry going from A
to C, with a stop to load/unload at B, and there's a notice for a pickup at B.
It's not possible to unload, pickup, and load in the short time the ferry is
at the harbor, and the next ferry is an hour later. Am I penalized for
declining the ridiculous assignment?
6) I do social work and visit 12 residences each day. If I partake in this
system, will it introduce enough variability that I have to reduce the number
of home visits I make?
7) I am moving and the car is full of boxes and luggage. (It took an hour to
load everything.) Do I still have to pick up other people?
8) I suffer from social anxiety disorder and have difficulties dealing with
strangers, including as a driver or as a passenger. Do I still have to
participate or is there an ADA exception?
9) I have a restraining order on me which prevent me from being within 1,000
feet of my ex-spouse. I'm scheduled to pick up someone from next door to said
spouse, and that address is well within the exclusion range. What do I do?
What is the resolution process should there be a conflict between what the
system expects that you can do, and what the reality is?
~~~
mk44
While you are correct, Many of the points apply to mass transportation in
general, and society might no have a choice due to
environmental/growth/resource problems.
~~~
dalke
I don't understand your statement.
Mass transit is a different issue. A good mass transit, which holds to a
schedule, does not have the same built-in variability that an "everyone is an
Uber driver" scheme has.
My ferry example, for example, _is_ mass transit. If I live in the
countryside, and have an hourly bus or even twice daily bus, then that's both
a maximum time to wait, and a schedule I can plan on, while Uber for that case
will be highly variable and therefore difficult to plan around.
Other issues are only specific to the Uber case. If there are no personal
vehicles then there's no need to worry about teen drivers with a sunset
driving curfew or people with a restraining order who are nevertheless
obligated to pick up a passenger.
I am hard pressed to think of a future where "society might no have a choice",
but where your proposal makes any sense.
~~~
dalke
In any case, the examples I gave were lead-up to "What is the resolution
process should there be a conflict between what [your proposed] system expects
that you can do, and what the reality is?" Your followup didn't address that
point.
------
johnreagan
This will happen with Uber + self driving cars. Car capital will just
concentrate, and we will all rent it went we need it from well organized
network of company cars.
~~~
mk44
Will we be picking people up on the way? like uber drivers? because that would
be the real value.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Opt-IN, No Ads, and No Tracking Solve a Lot of Problems in Society - kgwxd
https://puri.sm/posts/opt-in-no-ads-and-no-tracking-solve-a-lot-of-problems-in-society/
======
filoeleven
Pure clickbait title.
“Stuff in my timeline that I don’t want to see” is an annoyance, not a
societal problem. Privacy is a significant problem, but nothing in the write
up says how fixing it on one platform can solve “a lot” of other problems in
society.
Just say that your platform enforces privacy and is designed to be a social
good rather than an addictive attention sink. Those are good things, and given
time and mindshare could help to fix some of the nastiness that social media
has fostered. But it ain’t gonna stop pollution, or address income inequality,
or American health care, or any of the problems that I’d class as societal.
------
Mirioron
It does solve the problems by getting rid of these websites. No ads or
tracking means that the site isn't going to be making much money. Contextual
ads will only ever work for a small amount of companies, because it takes too
much effort for a company to approach hundreds of websites to work out deals
about it.
~~~
stubish
They are hoping to prove your assumption that money needs to come from ads
wrong. While they are offering a free tier for librem.one on what seems to be
an honor system, it is supposed to be a subscription service.
~~~
philpem
They're getting a lot of flak (and instance mutes) from Mastodon instances at
the minute.
Librem/puri.sm have gimped their Mastodon fork to entirely disable reporting
(both handling incoming reports and sending abuse reports to other instances).
Understandably, a lot of the fediverse and especially instance admins are
unhappy about this.
It wouldn't surprise me if this just turned into yet another walled-garden or
echo-chamber, though the question is for whom.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Theoretical Computer Science Cheat Sheet [pdf] - kdrakon
http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/cheat.pdf
======
hugelgupf
This seems more like a cheat sheet of applied mathematics with CS flavoring
than a theoretical CS cheat sheet...
~~~
j2kun
Seriously. Five pages of calculus? Come on. A real cheat sheet might have:
* Optimal asymptotic time/space efficiencies for the most important problems
* The best known exponent for matrix multiplication
* Names and definitions of some popular complexity classes
* Some common but not obvious big/little O comparisons
* Dual conversions from optimization
* Probabilistic bounds used all over CS (Chernoff, Chebyshev)
* Basic facts about spectral graph theory
* The most often used inequalities like (1-x) < e^{-x} that follow from Taylor expansions
* Best known approximation ratios for various problems
* Central open conjectures like P vs NP and the unique games conjecture
* VC/margin bounds from learning theory
I could go on...
~~~
mrcactu5
this has lots of useful formulas that are useful when you are stuck but no
THEOREMS to really guide your work.
jkun, you have the honors?
------
elf_m_sternberg
Interesting, but woefully incomplete since it doesn't include a single
turnstile-based statement. I'm still looking for the cheat sheet that includes
an explanation for how to read and comprehend anything written by Simon
Peyton-Jones.
~~~
noblethrasher
[http://siek.blogspot.com/2012/07/crash-course-on-notation-
in...](http://siek.blogspot.com/2012/07/crash-course-on-notation-in-
programming.html)
------
peter303
I recall for out PhD written exams we were allowed on leter-size cheat sheet.
The irony is the act of compiling such a sheet meant you temporarily memorized
the information on the sheet and didnt really need the sheet.
~~~
yessertuto
Do PhD students have written exams? I thought they did research and wrote
papers? How can you write an exam to test a PhD student when they are the ones
coming up with the knowledge in the area?
~~~
honorious
PhD students take classes, and some of them do have written exam (in CS theory
more than other parts of CS). In the US, where the PhD is 5 years, you spent a
good portion of the first 2 years taking classes.
Before coming up with new knowledge you need to know what's already out there.
------
brooksbp
Jaehyun Park's Stanford ACM-ICPC resources:
[http://web.stanford.edu/~liszt90/acm/](http://web.stanford.edu/~liszt90/acm/)
------
serve_yay
Sheesh, I'm glad I didn't go to whatever school you guys went to.
------
mastax
After a single page, it usually becomes quicker to just google it.
------
kleer001
Sheets. 10 of them.
------
valbaca
what is the grid of numbers on the last page in the bottom right? (above Fib
numbers)
~~~
Someone
10x10 magic square, I guess (tested that by summing a few rows and columns
modulo 10; got 5 everywhere. Rows and columns should add up to 4950/10, so
that doesn't disprove the hunch)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Lorem Picsum – Lorem Ipsum but for photos - dmarby
https://picsum.photos/
======
O1111OOO
Just wanted to comment on the clarity and effectiveness of the home page. Love
it! So many user-friendly checkboxes are ticked off. Nice look, great
description, plenty of examples, advanced usage section that's very easy to
take in, credits at the bottom with some backend tech used, a welcoming
contact link...
All of this accomplished (landing page and documentation) in just a few
scrolls of the mouse. I went from novice to expert in a minute. There was a
real effort to communicate with the end-user from an (empathic) end-user
perspective.
Even the parsed json page listing a default 30 images (with credits) is easy
to navigate with all the pertinent information available - including urls that
open in a new tab (so a user doesn't lose their place on the origin page).
You mentioned in another comment that 400 million images are served per month.
Yet... it has the feel (and performance and care) of a small static site.
~~~
hliyan
Exactly. It took me under 30 seconds of scanning through the page to
understand most of the API. No fancy badges, abstract graphics or buzzwords,
just a direct demonstration of the value. This is how product pages should be.
------
throwaway2016a
I'm personally partial to PlaceKitten[1] though around halloween I will
sometimes switch it up with PlaceZombie[2]
This one looks nice in that you wouldn't be embarrassed if it goes live since
the images are generally nice looking but part of the appear of YAPHS (Yet
Another Placeholder Service) is that it is really obviously a placeholder so
you catch it before it goes live.
[1] [https://placekitten.com/](https://placekitten.com/) (warning: contains
fluffy kittens)
[2] [http://placezombie.com/](http://placezombie.com/) (warning: contains
images of simulated violence)
~~~
chx
Let's not forget [http://placecorgi.com/](http://placecorgi.com/)
I wear corgi t-shirts, carry a little felt corgi keyring charm, have unicorgi
stickers on laptop and tech bag both, my lunch bag is printed with corgis...
there's a pattern here.
~~~
adzm
... do you have a corgi?
~~~
chx
No. I live in a pet free building and also travel too much for the poor thing
to be left alone.
I didn't mention five corgi plushies: one memory foam pillow and four
Unicorgis. One pair of the Unicorgis are set to fly -- they had wings and the
previous owner left hooks in the ceiling so it was pretty self evident what I
needed to do...
~~~
kennyadam
How quirky!
~~~
chx
Sometimes a corgi is needed.
[https://teespring.com/shop/corgi-
symbol_copy_1](https://teespring.com/shop/corgi-symbol_copy_1)
:D
------
neilpanchal
Tangentially, I got tired of Lorem Ipsum text and created Quantum Lorem Ipsum,
now with 100% more physics jargon.
[http://neil.panchal.io/articles/quantum-lorem-
ipsum/](http://neil.panchal.io/articles/quantum-lorem-ipsum/)
[https://github.com/neilpanchal/quantum-lorem-
ipsum](https://github.com/neilpanchal/quantum-lorem-ipsum)
Edit: Created a Github repo
~~~
ebg13
I feel like this misses the entire purpose of lorem ipsum. Good layout
designers don't just want letters and spaces. They want letters and spaces
that approximate the whitespace ratio of writing. Your version has only very
long words and very short words and nothing in between. This feels like the
telephone game version where all of the original intent has been lost and all
that's left is a weak simulacrum in vaguely the same symbol space.
~~~
stephenr
This _also_ misses that Lorem Ipsum is effectively gibberish for most people.
It's impossible to get hung up on the content.
~~~
sadness2
It is literally gibberish, for everyone.
~~~
stephenr
I thought it was essentially Latin, so gibberish for most but possibly
readable for those with a penchant for dead languages?
~~~
WorldMaker
When used for typesetting the Latin was intentionally scrambled, so even
someone familiar with Classic Latin should find it more gibberish than not.
For instance the `lorem` itself was most likely a chopped part of a longer
word (dolorem).
An interesting comparison of the "Modern" typesetter's lorem ipsum and the
likely source text is in the Wikipedia article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum)
------
berbec
Normally, I don't think much of the name of a product. Descriptive, flowerly,
pie-in-the-sky, complete bs, etc.
This one is genius.
~~~
olalonde
I strongly suspect the name came first.
~~~
graphememes
If I remember correctly it used to be unsplash.it, github seems to confirm.
~~~
dmarby
That's correct! We changed the name to avoid it being confused with
unsplash.com as the sites grew in traffic
~~~
Theodores
Do you get sponsorship from Digital Ocean and that CDN company? How does that
work out?
~~~
dmarby
DigitalOcean sponsors our infrastructure, and BelugaCDN covers our CDN costs,
yep.
Very happy with both services, been a customer of DO for years.
------
kumarm
Anyone notice the CDN they are using
([https://www.belugacdn.com](https://www.belugacdn.com))? Looks like their
pricing is 1/10 of S3 and GCP.
Anyone used belugacdn before? Care to share your experience?
~~~
busymom0
Somebody researched a bunch of CDNs and compared them:
[https://www.custompcguide.net/keycdn-vs-bunnycdn-vs-
belugacd...](https://www.custompcguide.net/keycdn-vs-bunnycdn-vs-belugacdn-
cloudfront-performance-compare-review/)
~~~
kumarm
Thank you. Thats helpful.
------
jypepin
I recently launched [http://joeschmoe.io](http://joeschmoe.io), which is a
similar API but for illustrated profile pictures. Did pretty well on product
hunt and other places, so might be of interest here too :)
------
marc_abonce
Are the photos scraped automatically from Unsplash or are they manually
curated in some way? I'm wondering because it looks like that website
classifies photos by category (animals, architecture, fashion, food) but that
information is not on your API.
I think it would be really useful to be able to get a picture of a random
animal or a random landscape rather than just a random anything. But I'm not
sure if that's outside of the scope of the project.
~~~
memco
There’s a very similarly named “Loren Pixel” service which offers categories
(but from a different image set):
[http://lorempixel.com/](http://lorempixel.com/)
------
pvorb
This looks neat and might come in handy. I'm concerned about the legitimation,
though.
Citing from [https://unsplash.com/license](https://unsplash.com/license):
> This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to
> replicate a similar or competing service.
I'd argue this is exactly the type of "similar or competing service" that is
meant by this sentence.
Edit: Did Unsplash give their consent?
~~~
dmarby
This site pre-dates the Unsplash license (and before Unsplash had their own
API/website even, it started when they were still a tumblr blog), the images
used on it is from back when Unsplash still licensed images under CC0.
We're on good terms with the Unsplash team, and think they're awesome.
~~~
pvorb
Thank you for the clarification.
------
wtracy
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen a placeholder service that serves up ads
in the images. The service gets revenue, and the dev gets something that's
obviously not a final product.
~~~
arendtio
Placeholders are meant to have no 'message'. In general, ads have messages.
Might be a bit difficult to find common ground.
------
jbkkd
Simple service, easy to use, gets the job done, good selection of beautiful
photos and great documentation on the open source repo. I'm sold
------
an4rchy
Great name! Also, seems like a nifty, simple and useful service for quick
prototyping.
This seems like a bandwidth heavy service. I am curious to hear how you are
thinking about managing/scaling this.
~~~
dmarby
The service has actually been around since about 2014, currently, we serve
about 400 million images a month, using some 6TB of bandwidth. It's pretty
manageable since we use a CDN on top of the service, to cache already
processed images.
Hoping to do a write-up of the architecture in the future, but the source and
deployment setup is available at [https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-
photos](https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-photos) if you're interested
~~~
cbluth
I've checked out the source, thanks. I'll say that a write up on the
architecture would be very interesting, if you ever make it then please post
it on HN.
------
n_u_l_l
What is the difference between this and Unsplash Source[1]?
[1]. [https://source.unsplash.com/](https://source.unsplash.com/)
~~~
graphememes
According to github looks like this came first. Seems like unsplash's attempt
at making this? However this service doesn't seem to have rate limiting like
theirs.
------
dosshell
Wonderful, this may be.. IS the best product website I have ever seen!
If you have not thought about it: images does not really work for place
holders for charts. Maybe placeholders for pie-, bar- and line-charts etc, can
be a feature to come?
------
ndusan-hn
I've used this plain placeholder
([https://placeholder.com/](https://placeholder.com/)) and it worked nice, but
this looks like next level :) Thanks!
------
gloflo
What is your privacy policy? Do you store any information about the users?
~~~
dmarby
There's Google Analytics on the website. For the API/service, there's no
user/usage information being stored, other than aggregated bandwidth/total
requests for the entire service, by our CDN provider, BelugaCDN. You can find
the source code, as well as the deployment setup here:
[https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-photos](https://github.com/DMarby/picsum-
photos)
------
anbop
How is something like this funded? Doesn’t this cost money to host?
~~~
dmarby
It does indeed. DigitalOcean is kind enough to sponsor the infrastructure, and
BelugaCDN provides us with CDN services. Any other costs I cover out of pocket
/ via carbon ads.
~~~
celicaraptor
How did this sponsorship take place?I have a free server from a goverment
program for University Students,but i am curious if you contacted them and
talked about your project and they agreed.Same for Beluga
------
codesections
Cool project. Last time I looked, the image selection was a bit lacking—in
fact, I blogged about choosing between Lorem Picsum and several alternatives a
couple months ago: [https://www.codesections.com/blog/guide-to-placeholder-
image...](https://www.codesections.com/blog/guide-to-placeholder-images/)
I eventually settled on Pixabay, but if Lorem Picsum has added more images
recently, I might need to give it another look.
------
blackbrokkoli
This seems to be built on top of the unsplash API. That is of course ok, but
does it provide any relevant additional functionality?
You can literally use
[https://source.unsplash.com/random/800x600](https://source.unsplash.com/random/800x600)
(with or w/o the dimension) and get the same result, one level less abstract.
Meanwhile, filter() in CSS provides both greyscale and blur with way more
power.
I like your homepage - but what does this add to my workflow?
~~~
dmarby
This service isn't built on top of the Unsplash API, in-fact, it predates it.
------
yaleman
Hipster ipsum ([https://hipsum.co/](https://hipsum.co/)) is (good|bad) if you
want text :)
------
40four
Looks like this is not the first service like this, but I'll be honest, I
wasn't aware they exist! Haha!
This one might win the contest on beat name though. I feel like it's a "Doh!!
Why didn't I think of that!" moment.
Really cool, great work!
------
onlyrealcuzzo
I love this. Simple service. It's useful. I hope this goes somewhere.
------
edgarvaldes
Similar:
lorempixel.com
[https://placeholder.com/](https://placeholder.com/)
------
ricardobeat
Has there been some kind of relaunch? Service was unreachable last Friday.
~~~
dmarby
We switched over from our old NodeJS backend to a new Go backend recently, and
gave the website an overhaul as well, things were a bit shaky during the
transition.
~~~
abhilash1in
Any reason for the transition from the old NodeJS backend to the new Go
backend? Did NodeJS hinder the performance in any way?
~~~
dmarby
I wrote the old codebase ~4 years ago when I was just learning NodeJS, and
didn't touch it too much after that, so it was in dire need of being replaced,
in particular since it wasn't really written to scale horizontally.
Didn't have any particular issues with NodeJS in terms of performance, just
felt like using Go when I was rewriting it.
------
TomK32
This needs some support to query by tags to turn into something awesomer.
------
tikumo
Ive used lorem pixum for a long time, how is this different...?
------
busymom0
Somebody should built an equivalent for gifs and videos
------
ameliozanchi
What does it use to random images?(retoric?.)
------
PopeDotNinja
This is really cool. Will use this :)
------
nkg
I will use this everywhere.
------
uberman
How does this service distinguish itself from any of the other image
placeholder services out there?
~~~
amanzi
I haven't seen any other image placeholder services that look similar to this.
Can you share some examples?
~~~
PavlovsCat
[http://lorempixel.com/](http://lorempixel.com/)
It's pretty old, too.
[https://www.awwwards.com/sites/lorempixum](https://www.awwwards.com/sites/lorempixum)
~~~
blotter_paper
At the top of the lorempixel page it says they used to be lorempixum.
~~~
PavlovsCat
Yes, I know that. First link is the service, second is the award they won in
2008.
~~~
blotter_paper
I was noting it for the interest of the general reader, since the incredibly
similar "Lorem Picsum" is garnering so much praise in this comments section.
------
arendtio
Love at first sight!
------
strictfp
Hello from Realms!
------
xiphmont
Damn. I thought it said Lorem Piscum. I'm so disappointed.
------
herpderperator
I don't like the fact that it's /200/300, it should be /200x300. The slash
makes it more difficult to read, i.e. in the example:
[https://picsum.photos/id/237/200/300](https://picsum.photos/id/237/200/300),
it would be much easier to read and understand if it were
[https://picsum.photos/id/237/200x300](https://picsum.photos/id/237/200x300).
Terrible decision.
~~~
quickthrower2
It should be
[https://picsum.photos/id/237?w=200&h=300](https://picsum.photos/id/237?w=200&h=300),
IMO.
~~~
enriquto
oh, god, no! what an ugly, absurd and unnecessary over-engineering
~~~
quickthrower2
Ugly yes, over engineering? no it's what you would have done in PHP in the
90's. Doing the URL thing would need more work (hello .htaccess). Anyway...
Good points: It is semantically correct and self documenting. There is no
resource called 300 nested under a resource called 200 so lets not pretend
there is. The query string seems perfect for the job of providing size
parameters. You can then extend this interface to take other factors you want
to affect the image, and keep it backwards compatible. Function over form.
~~~
jeremy_wiebe
Add to this the fact that you don’t have to memorize which order the
“parameters” go.
Is it `/width/height` or `/height/width`?
To me this is very similar to languages that use names parameters vs
positional.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google introduces fact checking feature whether news is actually true - hitr
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-fact-checking-presidential-election-candidates-news-hoax-fake-real-a7361231.html
======
LordWinstanley
Who decides whether something is 'fact'? Google?
The reason we don't all agree on a lot of things in life is that a lot of
things are more nuanced than "Two legs good. Four legs bad".
* God exists
* iOS is better than Android
* Capitalism good. Socialism bad.
... over to you, Google!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Starting indie game dev. need advice - rythmshifter
So I've decided to start in the game development field. I am a programmer, and I have 2 friends with skills I need, graphics and audio. I love both of them dearly, but they have their flaws. I am concerned about several of these flaws and how they will apply to our project. I am not really sure how to bring them up to them, or if I even should. does anyone have any advice on how to constructively bring it up in a conversation and address my issues? the issues include, laziness, smoking too much pot, and general lack of ambition, among other things. After watching the indie game dev documentary on netflix, I know what it is going to take to make this dream of mine a reality. however, i cannot do it by myself. I am personally willing to put in the time and effort necessary, but how do I inspire them to want the same?
======
ASquare
The time to have the difficult conversations is now - before you start
anything. You'd rather put all your cards on the table including what you see
as obstacles (include some of your own challenges/deficiencies in that mix).
A good way to start such a conversation is to assess if to get a sense of
whether everyone shares the same goal and what they are willing to do to get
there. If that alone is something where everyone is not on the same page then
there is no point in getting into conversations on personality etc.
If everyone is on the same page, that naturally will lead into talking about
challenges of achieving the goal.
You can google things like "how to handle conflict" or "how to have difficult
conversations" etc to see which specific strategies/tactics for handling such
a conversation could work for you given your temperament and the group dynamic
in general.
If you don't do this now, it will be 100x harder later and likely cause a lot
of friction/ill-will and possibly even cost you your friendships.
If having the conversation means that your friends don't land up wanting to
work with you, that's fine. They are likely not the only 2 people on the
planet with those skills.
If this is something you are serious about then you cannot let anyone else
hold you down. If they can't/won't be inspired to work with you then you've
gotta do what you gotta do to move forward.
Hope that helps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A breakdown of a GIF decoder (2012) - userbinator
http://commandlinefanatic.com/cgi-bin/showarticle.cgi?article=art011
======
nineteen999
The first "serious" C program I wrote was a GIF87a decoder on Linux, using
SVGAlib, back in 1998 or 1999. The reference implementation I had was written
by somebody else, in QBASIC of all things. So I just translated it into C
line-by-line until it worked. Of course the resulting program was not pretty
at all, and I don't really think I understood how it worked, but I learned a
lot. It was my first experience learning how to not write good C programs,
something I am still trying to avoid today.
------
nayuki
For anyone interested in implementing low-level code to read/write GIF files,
here is the reference spec reformatted from plain text to HTML:
[https://www.nayuki.io/page/gif89a-specification-
html](https://www.nayuki.io/page/gif89a-specification-html)
------
xvilka
If not Mozilla Internet would have migrated to animated WebP already. But due
to their unreasonable policy they ignore users' voice for eight years:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600919](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600919)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Russian hackers allegedly behind cyberattacks to steal Covid-19 vaccine - wheretheheartis
https://www.cnet.com/news/russian-hackers-allegedly-behind-cyberattacks-to-steal-covid-19-vaccine/
======
moksly
This is obviously wrong, but shouldn’t something as important as a vaccine for
the worst pandemic in a century kind of be open source?
~~~
TomMarius
I don't know why it's wrong. It's wrong to keep it closed. Somebody has tried
to fix a problem, can't blame them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Freedom of Speech: A Right for Everybody, or Only for Like-Minded People? - Reedx
https://heterodoxacademy.org/social-science-freedom-of-speech/
======
DanielBMarkham
From a meta standpoint, it's interesting to me that the most vociferous
deniers of free speech throughout history have made some version of the case
"But they're wrong!" (You can add stupid, evil, whatnot. The point is that
whatever they're saying, it should not be said because it is not correct)
Whereas folks supporting free speech have made the argument: maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know everything, and I've been wrong before. More concisely, looking
back through history a lot of those times we got so upset about people saying
various things, we were wrong. Those people changed all of us for the better.
Unless we continue to humbly think we could continue to be wrong, we stop
evolving. Cue curtain. There's no way to have difficult societal discussions
and fight for the moral and right thing for all of us if we're constantly
going to use current group consensus as a measure of what can be said or not.
That's not progress. That's a popularity contest.
~~~
TulliusCicero
> "But they're wrong!"
I'm pro-free speech, but this is a pretty disingenuous take on the other side.
Pretty much without fail, the argument to restrict speech is not merely, "but
they're wrong!", it's some variant of, "but they're harmful! Their speech is
hurting people!"
And the truth is, quite often they're right. Not in the sense of "people's
feelings are hurt by bad speech", but in the sense of, "this speech openly
displayed encourages X, which is associated with actual, tangible harms to
people". E.g. maybe that one racist dude isn't himself inciting anyone to
violence through his screeds, but he's encouraging sentiment that does lead to
real world violence and other harms.
One of the more understandable restrictions is the ban on Nazi imagery in
Germany. Yes, it's a violation of free speech, but given their history one can
see why they would consider this a special case.
~~~
BurningFrog
You can _always_ construct a credible argument for how any statement is
"encouraging sentiment that does lead to real world violence and other harms".
So with that "exception", you can ban absolutely anything.
~~~
throwawaygh
So, two things:
1\. Your assertion has empirical counter-examples. My favorite example is
Tinker. The dissent in that case already foreshadows exactly your concern,
that the "substantial disruption" test was quite arbitrary. But, in fact,
lower courts were by-and-large extraordinarily friendly toward student speech
when applying the Tinker test. So much so that SCOTUS has had to limit the
scope of Tinker at least a few times in the intervening years (e.g., Hazelwood
and Morse). It's not perfect, but no reasonable person looking at the
historical record can say that the "substantial disruption" exception to free
speech was used to ban "absolutely anything". And "substantial disruption" is
probably the most mild form of harm.
2\. Remember that TulliusCicero isn't arguing against free speech. They're
only pointing out that DanielBMarkham's particular defense of free speech
isn't compelling. I think that's fair. DanielBMarkham's approach toward
defending free speech, which has at its roots in some enlightenment-era ideas
about what man is, really doesn't provide us with a good conceptual framework
for addressing TulliusCicero's critique.
So, although I'm pro-free speech, but I don't think the argument that either
you or DanielBMarkham put forward are particularly compelling.
If you want to defend free speech, you have to honestly deal with the valid
concern that speech really can harm. Insisting that man is a rational animal,
or even that the search for truth will always lead to good outcomes, is...
just not historically compelling.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
You're certainly not using SCOTUS arguments for Enlightenment ideals. I sure
hope not.
My argument was mean in the generic and at an abstract level. I understand
that for some people this is not compelling. Conversely, if were to dive down
into specifics, we would need a somewhat lengthy conversation about where the
guardrails were and where the (hopefully unmovable) goalposts were.
Of course at some level of analysis free speech can cause harm, otherwise
there would be no point in defending it. My admittedly-oversimplified point,
which I have yet to see refuted, is that in the main, we really suck at
predicting the difference between harm and progress. Many times it takes
decades or centuries to sort it out. From there we can end up with the law
being an ass[1] or some finer definition of legitimate public policy choices.
But unless we can all admit that we suck at determining who should speak or
not, we really don't have a basis to continue the conversation, legally or
philosophically.[2]
It's fine to say "Let's start here, and given the current tech, governmental
structures, and laws we live under, where do we go?" It's also fine to say
"What is the purpose of letting people say things that can hurt others,
anyway?" Pick one. I chose the second one. If you'd like to talk about the
first one, that's a completely different conversation. However if you don't
grok the conversation on root principles, it's unlikely any sort of more
complex or nuanced conversation is going to lead you anywhere useful. That has
to be where we all start.
Also, insisting man is a rational animal is yet another can of worms which I
didn't open up. I don't think man is a rational animal at all, and that
doesn't change my opinion or where I think the conversation has to begin.
[1] [https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-
ass.html](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html)
[2] When I say that we suck at determining who should speak or not, I mean in
a moral, ethical, and public policy sense. I do not mean in a legal sense.
Obviously there's a ton of case law around most all of our amendments. I'm
surveying a landscape, not preparing a legal brief.
~~~
throwawaygh
_> You're certainly not using SCOTUS arguments for Enlightenment ideals. I
sure hope not._
Sorry, I'm not sure what that means. The Tinker example was just a
demonstration that, empirically, adding "harm reduction" exceptions to free
speech doesn't always result in arbitrary restrictions on speech. Not for any
profound ultimate reason, but just because that's just not how the herd
dynamics of on particular judiciary worked.
_> But unless we can all admit that we suck at determining who should speak
or not, we really don't have a basis to continue the conversation, legally or
philosophically._
Okay. But that's a bit of a strawman. I don't see anyone here arguing that
perfect censorship is possible. NB: most people in this thread aren't even
arguing against free speech. We just don't think you're providing a compelling
justification for free speech. Which is different from disagreeing with your
conclusion. But the difference isn't pedantic; it has important down-stream
effects and implications.
_> insisting man is a rational animal is yet another can of worms which I
didn't open up... I don't think man is a rational animal at all, and that
doesn't change my opinion or where I think the conversation has to begin._
Well, I think my entire point was that you _do_ open that can of worms and
perhaps don't even realize it.
Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by "rational" here. I don't mean
"perfectly rational" or "good at reasoning" or "not susceptible to
emotion/propaganda" or anything like that. I mean it in a much more basic
"what is that thing that is happening when we think and speak, regardless of
any consideration of truth or correctness or progress or any of that" sense.
To keep things concise and specific, the following sentences exemplify the
thing I find philosophically suspect in the way you think about free speech:
\- _" a lot of those times we got so upset about people saying various things,
we were wrong. Those people changed all of us for the better."_
\- _" we really suck at predicting the difference between harm and progress."_
\- _" Unless we continue to humbly think we could continue to be wrong, we
stop evolving."_
I disagree that these propositions are even particularly meaningful.
To be clear and to avoid a tangent, it's _not_ that I disagree because I think
the opposite. I.e., I disagree equally and in the exact same way with the
statement "we are good at predicting the difference between harm and
progress".
My disagreement is at a fundamental and philosophical level. In the sense that
I think there's a bunch of incorrect stuff we have to assume about the role
that rationality plays in human thought and human language (and, therefore,
human politics) in order for a discussion about _any_ of these propositions to
_even make sense_.
Perhaps this will help get the point across: when I say "you think man is a
rational animal", what I really mean is that you have a very specific type of
answer you're going to give to the question: "what is the reason that it
doesn't occur to us to use any of the quotes I listed above to talk about deer
or bears or whales?" And your answer to that question is simply not the answer
I would give.
(NB, to avoid a tangent, it's the _reason_ those sentences have meaning for
humans and not other animals -- not _whether_ they have meaning for one and
not the other -- that is the thing that I think we disagree on at some sort of
fundamental philosophical level.)
You see enlightened subjects coming to belief (perhaps false or perhaps true)
through the use of cognition (perhaps logical or perhaps emotional; perhaps
sound logic or perhaps bad logic; perhaps positive emotion or perhaps negative
emotion).
I see a herd of animals acted upon by emergent social phenomenon over which no
one of the herd has particularly much control.
When I think about the reason for free speech, I think about herd dynamics and
the importance (or not) of entropy. When you think about the reason for free
speech, you think about individuals reasoning and the limits (or not) of
rationality. Of course both of us see shades of each, I'm just much more to
one side of that continuum and you're much more to the other side.
------
motohagiography
There are topics we can reason abstractly about well, and topics we cannot. I
find when people get to the edge of their abilities in a topic, we tend to
fall back on moralizing and personalizing it. The author's link between
cognitive ability and liberality towards speech I think can be explained by
how cognitive ability is the capability to think abstractly about things using
properties and categories, and not explained using the implication that
believing in certain rights is a proxy for smart.
The speech and tolerance question is hyper-personalized because the tools for
reasoning abstractly about it have a steep learning curve. Some of the most
educated people I know hold objectively extreme political views because I
think it's something they don't really consider in the abstract, and
expressing those views is a sympathetic outlet for other personalized
anxieties. Ultimately I think political discussion is something they engage in
for excitement and entertainment, and so they aren't held to the same level of
intellectual rigor in it as they are in their chosen fields of expertise.
Extreme views become a kind of vice or indulgence because it's exciting to be
outraged and engage in recreational conflict - especially when it has no
bearing on their real expertise.
I'd argue what we may think about freedom of speech doesn't actually matter,
as public discourse is no longer about ideas, principle or reason, it's just a
power struggle. One that otherwise smart people seem to participate in as
intellectual tourists without much thought as to what their impact actually is
because it's exciting.
~~~
koheripbal
I think this hits the nail right on the head, but I think there is more...
The point at which theoretical political dogma transition from a recreational
debate into a something an intelligent person might feel uncomfortably
obligated to place more thought into, is when there are real personal impacts
on them.
Everyone can talk about universal healthcare as an intellectual concept, but
it's not until they finally have the experience in a socialized hospital that
they might take the time to wonder about the real merits of a single-payer
system (this is a random example - don't get hung up on it).
This problem is then amplified by two recent phenomena...
1\. The drastic decrease in age of the average political participant. With
Reddit as an example, the average age of Reddit users has dropped nearly 1
year for every year over the last ten years. Presumably, Twitter has seen the
same demographic shift. This means these politically active users have less
education to fall back on, and approach these subjects with more emotion. That
leads to more insults and less constructive arguments, and a general
intolerance of opposition.
2\. International participation. There is a drastic increase in US social
media platforms from non-US participants. For those people, the debates are
_pure_ recreational debates as they will never see the consequences of any
systemic changes. They have no skin in the game, so the most radical options
always seem more appealing.
...and of course there is also _intentional_ foreign influence campaigns to
polarize online discussions.
I think the way out is to rethink how social media is structured. It's causing
some very systemic issues.
------
AlexMax
So I've been sitting in this comment thread for a while and something has been
bothering me. I'm noticing two things that are consistently brought up:
1\. Free speech as some sort of abstract enlightenment ideal.
2\. Cases of clear injustice in our past that stemmed from denial of free
speech.
But that's not really why this article was posted, was it? It's really part of
the ongoing modern conversations we're having around certain groups claiming
their free speech rights are being infringed.
I think that injustice was done to Galileo, but I'm not going to shed a tear
for somebody who was booted from an internet community for arguing that
certain races have a lower IQ and LGBT+ folk are degenerates that need to be
sterilized, even if they do it in a faux-earnest way.
~~~
dependenttypes
> for somebody who was booted from an internet community for arguing that
> certain races have a lower IQ and LGBT+ folk are degenerates that need to be
> sterilized
Usually this is not why people are booted off from platforms but rather
because they do not follow a specific rhetoric or because somebody claims that
they said X while they actually said Y. See the recent stallman case for
example. I was actually censored from a certain platform for defending
stallman's right to express what he thinks regarding pedophilia.
> for arguing that certain races have a lower IQ
Is this not a science related-debate? If anything this (in general things
related to science) is the kind of speech that should be protected the most.
~~~
thephyber
> Usually this is not why people are booted off from platforms
As someone who worked on a social media platform (large, but not one of the
largest), I got to see the evidence that admins and moderators used to make
their judgements (which they aren't given much time to do) and frequently the
banned user mischaracterizes their actual behavior (both current and previous)
and has an incomplete understanding of what the ToS says or the implications
of the literal ToS text.
I don't know about Stallman or more academic exercises, but the average person
arguing on social media is very likely to go over the threshold of acceptable
behavior and may not even know what the threshold for which social media
companies are required to report content to police.
The best thing platforms can do to mitigate some of these issues is to give
public explanations of their ToS as the moderators are taught to interpret
them (basically reduce the information loss from the ToS legalese) and to give
moderators more freedom to explain exactly what behavior violated exactly what
part of the ToS (reducing some of the confusion from ambiguity).
------
MattGaiser
My self-check on restricting freedoms is whether I would let someone I
ardently oppose have the same power.
~~~
hackissimo123
This times a million.
"If you invent a weapon, eventually your enemies will have it."
------
jungletime
Is it ever a good idea to tell someone the worst things about them? I would
say maybe, depends on the context, because talking is always preferable to
violence. But there does come a point, when talking is just used to organize
violence. So clearly there is a line.
"Tutsi were increasingly viewed with suspicion; Radio Rwanda aired incitement
to ethnic hatred and a pogrom was organised on 11 October in a commune in
Gisenyi Province, killing 383 Tutsi."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War)
~~~
jhhh
Inciting imminent lawless action is not covered under the first amendment.
~~~
thephyber
> So clearly there is a line.
So you agree with your parent.
> is not covered under the first amendment
The 1A doesn't explicitly define its limited uses, but thru jurisprudence,
courts have ruled that the 1A only protects American persons within the USA
and that it's not an absolute protection, but can be infringed / withdrawn /
overridden if it violates the rights of others or the national security
interests of the country.
------
jimbob45
The two dead comments below are right. The premise of the article is that
people who scored higher on IQ tests tended to be more likely to support free
speech. That’s got to be the laziest argument I’ve ever seen.
~~~
daenz
It wasn't even an IQ test. According to the paper, they gave participants 10
words, with each word being presented with 5 other words. They were instructed
to match each of the 10 target words with the closest of the 5 words. The
claim is that vocabulary knowledge is highly correlated with general
intelligence, and so this simple test is a proxy for cognitive ability.
------
CoolGuySteve
"Now that the show is over, and we have jointly exercised our constitutional
rights, we would like to leave you with one very important thought: Some time
in the future, you may have the opportunity to serve as a juror in a so-called
obscenity case. It would be wise to remember that the same people who would
stop you from viewing an adult film may be back next year to complain about a
book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, then
it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your
constitutionally protected rights - no one else will do it for you. Thank
you."
~~~
imustbeevil
A website owner's right to choose what to publish is a _more important
application_ of the first amendment than anyone else's right to force you to
publish their speech.
If you disagree, I command you to post this post on _your_ twitter. If you
don't, you're censoring me.
~~~
nitrogen
This argument has been made back and forth many many times. Private property
rights vs. privatization of public spaces. Quantity becoming quality. Etc.
Surfice to say that when a corporation controls more "territory" than most
state governments, when a very small number of corporations control the vast,
_vast_ majority of communication channels, the rules must change to maintain
the access of the people to the new public square.
~~~
vharuck
It's trying to solve the wrong problem. If there's a monopoly, it should be
busted. Not declared a new government agency.
~~~
ufmace
IMO, the problem is that some fields are natural monopolies. This has long
been known to include things like electric utilities, water, etc. I don't
think anybody but the most crazy extreme libertarians objects to these types
of companies being heavily regulated by the Government. The question is,
should this apply to internet companies, and how?
It is a bit tricky. I think there is a solid case that, once social networking
companies get to a certain size, there is a dominating network effect that
makes them sort of like natural monopolies. Thus I think there should be some
kind of regulation of their behavior. Maybe not as strict as other types of
natural monopolies, but I think they have too much power to be allowed to just
do whatever their owners feel like.
~~~
Natsu
One way to solve this would be to regulate only the largest platforms. So
maybe this different kind of net neutrality only applies to
Twitter/Facebook/YouTube, domain registrars, ISPs, large cloud providers and
other significant privately-owned infrastructure, but not to every random bit
player with no real market share.
Otherwise, what happens if the ISPs decide that, say, Net Neutrality cuts into
their profit margins, so they're just not going to route traffic for the sites
that are politically antagonistic to them right before the election?
Sure would be a shame if something happened to that site of yours, huh?
------
throwaway_jobs
I wish people would take the time to read 1st Amendment case law.
I think people would be shocked, even when the court get it wrong, the
justices and opinions explore the subject in a depth that laymen will go their
entire lives never exploring or understanding. Plus the bonus of it being
maybe one of the more interesting areas of law factually.
Some of the major topics I suggest looking at/googling:
-1st amendment restricts the government from infringing speech Not private parties (I.e. you say something about my wife/kids I can shut your mouth, maybe I will face criminal/civil penalties for damaging your face, but not for chilling your speech)
-the marketplace of ideas (perhaps my favorite concept in free speech)
-government can restrict Speech based on time/location (i.e. require permits for using public spaces or limiting your access to public space such as closing a park at night and arresting you for trespassing preventing you from distributing your speech when/where you want)
-“Fuck the draft” (just lol) vs burning draft cards
-obscene speech (porn - Imagine the justices Getting together with their popcorn and watching porn together...they still can’t define it, “but they know it when they see it”)...this extends to child porn too
I’ll leave it there, have fun!
~~~
koheripbal
Free Speech != 1st Amendment.
Free Speech is a _principle_ that allowing opposing viewpoints is the
cornerstone of political discourse and a functioning democracy. Only through
discussion, debate, and argument, do we avoid what all governments are
designed to avoid - violence.
The 1st Amendment is a Law that is meant to protect the people from
restrictions on freedom of speech from the government. It if not the totality
of the idea.
In the same way that the government regulations on clothing imports are not a
national dress code.
The dangerous territory we have recently waded into is that the younger voters
are so emotionally tied to their political ideas within their bubble that they
cannot stand to hear discussions that do not agree with their existing world
view - and are happy to see violence used to silence dissent.
It is the _principle_ of Freedom of Speech that is under attack - not the 1st
Amendment.
~~~
throwaway_jobs
Well of course in addition to free speech the 1st amendment includes other
rights such as freedom of religion (Separation of church and state), freedom
of the press, right to assemble and right to petition the government for
grievances. In its plain wording “the government shall make no
law...prohibiting free speech...” but people get hung up on that when we know
government can in fact pass all sorts of laws that limit free speech and in my
experience I can get even the most die hard “absolutists” To agree certain
speech should be illegal (this typically stems from the fact people don’t
understand what “speech” is from a legal context).
I stand by what I said, people should read the case law.
While you say the danger is young people being emotional in their bubble, I
think you will find every generation says something similar about the next
generation.
Why I encourage people to read the case law is because it provides historical
context for these rights and how the law is actually applied. I think one of
the biggest dangers, is failure to educate ourselves especially learn our own
history (history of our laws or otherwise). The point of studying history is
so we can hopefully avoid the mistakes of our past...yet as history suggests
we will continue to neglect history and make the exact same mistakes.
------
fomojola
You can say whatever you want: you should also expect to take heat from non-
like minded people. At some point the free speech concept transitioned to "I
should be able to say whatever I want with no consequences". The First
Amendment is very specific:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Says nothing about any one else's responses to your words.
~~~
kerkeslager
Free speech is important even in contexts where the First Amendment doesn't
apply. The First Amendment is important because free speech is important, not
the other way around.
I agree with this:
You can say whatever you want: you should also expect
to take heat from non-like minded people.
But I think this misrepresents the view of free speech advocates (it certainly
misrepresents my viewpoint):
At some point the free speech concept transitioned to
"I should be able to say whatever I want with no
consequences".
On the contrary, I think a lot of left-authoritarians who want to censor
right-leaning speech are the ones touting this viewpoint. It's not the pro-
free-speech crowd that wants no consequences for what they say, it's the anti-
free-speech crowd. One of the consequences of stating your opinion publicly is
that people will disagree with you.
------
hkt
The problem people have with free speech is the way it is used to legitimise
bad behaviour. Creating a hostile environment for people - questioning their
equality and validity - is not a reasonable moral choice. Being ostracised for
one's awful choices isn't unfair or unexpected, or indeed unprecedented. Most
people complaining about free speech are essentially campaigning for their
right to be cruel and impolite in polite society.
~~~
kerkeslager
That's a total mischaracterization of people who believe in free speech.
I don't think people should say bigoted things. But more importantly, I don't
think people should _think_ bigoted things.
If you shame and ostracize people into not _saying_ bigoted things, but you
don't solve the _thinking_ bigoted things problem, then all you've done is
hide the problem, and you're suddenly surprised when a bigot gets elected to
the White House or a bigoted police officer murders someone and gets away with
it (again). Censored bigots don't magically stop being bigots--they just go
form their own communities.
The way you get people to stop _thinking_ bigoted things is not by silencing
it, it's by explaining to people why they're wrong. Even if you don't change
the mind of the bigot you're talking to, you might change the mind of someone
else who is listening to or reading what you say.
I'm not campaigning for people's right to be cruel and impolite. I'm
campaigning for conversation that brings the truth to light and improves our
collective thinking.
And to be clear, I'm also not saying that free speech means you should have no
consequences in any context. If you say something racist at work you should
absolutely be fired. I'm saying that we need places where people can say
racist things so that those racist things can be confronted with the truth.
~~~
UncleMeat
> If you shame and ostracize people into not saying bigoted things, but you
> don't solve the thinking bigoted things problem, then all you've done is
> hide the problem
This is not true. It does not solve that person thinking bigoted things, but
it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots. A huge number
of people have fallen into terrible thought patterns after being exposed to
these ideas through youtubers and faux academics. If there are fewer people
with PhDs after their name willing to lend a veneer of legitimacy to defeated
ideas then there will be fewer people drawn into the trap.
~~~
dependenttypes
> but it does help prevent them from turning other people into bigots
This is the same as saying "I can't logically defeat their points so I will
use underhanded censorship tricks". I would not care so much if it was only
about actually bigoted things but it seems to include everything that goes
against what the average SV google engineer believes.
At the same time you are punishing these that are interested in seeing what
the censored side thinks as well as the points against it.
~~~
UncleMeat
> "I can't logically defeat their points so I will use underhanded censorship
> tricks"
You _can 't_ logically defeat bigots in a way that actually matters to them.
If this were the case, then there wouldn't be bigots. The existence of
systemic racism is not controversial among experts and hasn't been for a long
time. Yet people insist on arguing about it forever. They don't care that
logical arguments dismantle their beliefs.
Because it is a trick. It is a denial of service attack.
~~~
kerkeslager
> You can't logically defeat bigots in a way that actually matters to them.
The goal of public debate is never to persuade the person you're debating,
it's to persuade those watching the debate. Sometimes you can persuade the
person you're talking to, but that take a lot more sophisticated understanding
of the other person than you're going to achieve if you simply dismiss them as
illogical.
> If this were the case, then there wouldn't be bigots.
That simply doesn't follow. Bigots _do_ change their minds sometimes, slowly
over time.
> The existence of systemic racism is not controversial among experts and
> hasn't been for a long time. Yet people insist on arguing about it forever.
> They don't care that logical arguments dismantle their beliefs.
It's not that they don't care, it's that they don't agree that they are
logical.
Keep in mind, also, that logic is only as good as the evidence you feed into
it. Logic in a vacuum of evidence is completely useless. People don't always
change, but they do sometimes change.
Also, keep in mind that censorship isn't the only poor strategy the left is
employing here. Sure, getting rid of censorship and just arguing with people
won't fix things, but that's in part because the argumentation of the left is
crap too. The cry of many people on the left these days is, "Come to the left,
we'll call you a racist!" and they're surprised when this actually pushes
people _to the right_. People think minds can't be changed because they've
never actually learned how to change minds.
The truth has power. If you want people to stop supporting cops, for example:
show them this video[1] and then point out that the murderer in that video now
receives $2500/month in medical pension because he claims PTSD from the murder
he committed. Try it out! It's not hard to science this for yourself.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc)
~~~
UncleMeat
> The goal of public debate is never to persuade the person you're debating,
> it's to persuade those watching the debate. Sometimes you can persuade the
> person you're talking to, but that take a lot more sophisticated
> understanding of the other person than you're going to achieve if you simply
> dismiss them as illogical.
Debate is not the only mechanism to do this. Why invite a bigot on stage?
Wouldn't a better option be to have academics give lectures on the topic? What
use is there to have somebody sitting next to them interjecting?
~~~
kerkeslager
A staged debate is a curated event. There might be strategic reasons to invite
a bigot on stage, but you're certainly not obligated to--in general I think
putting reasonable voices next to ignorant ones gives an air of legitimacy to
ignorance and drags down the reputation of both the reasonable voices and the
curators. So yeah, don't invite a bigot on stage.
Curation is not the same as censorship. Curation is a whitelist where by
default you don't let anyone speak, and choose specific people to give voice
to--the choice of who to give voice to is in itself an act of free speech
which I think should be protected. Newspapers, TV news, staged debates, etc.
are all curated venues. I absolutely support boycotting Fox News and its
sponsors, for example, because they're a curated venue which has decided that
bigotry is the message they want to put out into the world. If the Mother
Jones or ProPublica started hiring bigots to write their articles, I'd support
boycotting them too--these are curated news sources and I donate to them
because I expect them to limit their content to quality content.
A curated venue is different from a communications platform where the default
position is to let everyone speak. Letting someone speak on a communications
platform doesn't lend legitimacy to their opinions: everyone knows that any
idiot can post on Facebook. Censorship is adding a blacklist: the default
position is anyone can speak, but you've decided to make an exception to that
rule.
The topic of this subthread isn't curated debate in curated venues, it's
censorship of debate on social media.
If you want to argue that Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Instagram/YouTube/HN should
be curated venues where only academics are allowed to post on topics they are
experts in, then start by showing me which credentials you feel qualify you to
debate about human rights. If you actually believe what you're saying, then
follow it to its logical conclusion and self-censor.
To be clear, I'm _not_ actually saying you should self-censor--I don't believe
that social media should be limited to academics. I'm merely pointing out that
you aren't following your own principles.
------
duxup
>The series of studies suggest that cognitive ability is related to support
for freedom of speech for groups across the ideological spectrum.
It's an interesting result and I have a lot of questions that I think are
mostly because I don't understand how studies like this work, but that's kinda
a laundry list to throw at a short article like this ;)
I do wonder if put to the test if those conclusions hold up. Introduce fear,
or just personal interests and does that support go out the window?
I suspect that there might be a difference from general support for freedom of
speech... and a willingness to also support some contradictory policies /
points of view at the same time when fear, or personal interest are at play.
History is full of ideology turned to something else entirely.
Granted I don't know how you'd test that reliably in any way.
~~~
staplers
I do wonder ... Introduce fear, or just personal interests and does that support go out the window?
Anecdotally, my view of 2A rights completely flipped once I saw police
attacking people in their homes and property for no other reason than filming
protests.
I used to (naively) think the police and government were generally passive to
citizens even when politically differing. It's amazing how quickly the
illusion can be shattered.
~~~
JoeSmithson
What's the logic here? How does police brutality and 2A relate?
Police are aggressive and corrupt, so you get a gun, so...?
~~~
staplers
Why do the police carry weapons when violent criminals are aggressive and
corrupt?
------
RegnisGnaw
The simple truth is that most people like "free speech" as long as they agree
with it.
------
HissingMachine
I would find interesting if someone conducted a study, where they asked if the
participant supports freedom of speech for various categories and their
perceived ability to argue pro and con in that category, if it was possible to
test their argumentation ability in said categories it would be also
insightful. Mostly I suspect that while people hold strong beliefs, they don't
have a deep enough understanding of it to rationalize why and argue if someone
disagrees with them. In addition it would be interesting to know the
participants readiness to enter an argument if they support the freedom of
speech in each category.
------
mcguire
" _Cognitive Ability Is Related to Supporting Freedom of Speech for Groups
Across the Ideological Spectrum_ "
I don't have access to the paper. How do they define "cognitive ability"?
------
seph-reed
Ethos, pathos, logos :: social credit, intuition, logic. Each a very
reasonable means of surviving, but ethos is by far the strongest. If you fit
in which a bunch of things that aren't dead, you'll probably not die.
Something about this play-style seems to result in more than just fitting in,
but also hating those who don't. If freedom of speech is your ability to say
divergent things, being hated for being different is a problem.
------
jheitmann
The speech that should absolutely be abridged is using the phrase "Freedom of
Speech: A Right" seemingly without referring to the U.S. constitutional right,
and also without defining what you mean otherwise. The penalty for violating
this law shall be that you have to read every single forum comment about your
abstract.
~~~
kerkeslager
Communication is not a one-person activity--some of the burden of
communication lies on the listener/reader/etc. If you have questions about
what someone means, ask them. It's unrealistic to demand that people somehow
foresee your questions and answer them without you having to ask.
------
mdoms
The contents of the article has nothing in common with the title.
------
andrewprock
I'm not sure heterodox academy is worth the paper it is printed on.
The article itself attempts to make some kind of vague argument about
cognitive ability and social positions. Any time a blogger trots out cognitive
ability as one of their primary evidentiary threads, you can be fairly certain
that the rest of what you read will largely consist of confirmation bias from
the privileged class.
~~~
nabilhat
Just this morning I was thinking about the increasing volume of propaganda,
trolling, and heterodox/'edgy' I've been seeing on HN in the last couple of
months. Now here we are with a piece suggesting that cognitive superiority or
inferiority relates to subjects like "homosexuals", "communists", "anti-
american Muslim clergy", and it's on the front page.
------
Vysero
Imo, it's an unalienable right for everybody, but that doesn't mean cancel
culture won't #$(% on you for speaking your belief. However, sometimes you
have to say what you believe in even if you know you are going to be shamed
for it. Perhaps this would be a good time for us all to go re-read The Scarlet
Letter, eh?
~~~
isbjorn16
Ugh. Can we stop with the cancel culture narrative? When people say
objectionable things, there may be consequences. This unhinged proposition
that you should have an invincibility force field around you when you spit out
obnoxious shit is absurd.
If you say something people don't like, they may want nothing to do with you.
They may want nothing to do with people associated with you. Those people may
be your employer. Your employer may not agree with the stuff you say AND
you're harming them. Thus, your relationship is terminated.
Nobody is being victimized here. Everyone's rights are being upheld and
maintained. If my employer hated this comment enough to fire me, then onward I
go to another employer, or onward to destitution. If I'm not confident that
what I say is mainstream enough that I could be fired for it, then I shouldn't
say it, or I should accept that I'm not mainstream enough and thus can't
attempt to live in mainstream society.
Arguments against "cancel culture" fundamentally mean that people should be
forced to have a relationship with me they may not want even if I'm an
objectionable, reprehensible twat, and that's too bad for them, because my
position is somehow more important than their right to freely associate. I
reject this utterly.
~~~
steve_g
I reject your rejection.
Cancel culture is terrible because the goal is to destroy people who hold
unpopular beliefs. It not enough to refute the belief. The transgressor must
be punished with the full fury that internet-enhanced social pressure can
bring to bear. The goal is to punish and destroy.
Shaming and social opprobrium can work in a community where there's
interaction between the parties. This also allows for grace and restoration.
It doesn't work in the global twitter-verse.
Civilization is the ability to live in peace with people that aren't like you
- you may disagree with them, disapprove of them, or dislike them, but you
don't seek to destroy them. We seem to be losing it.
~~~
isbjorn16
Destroy, or show there are ramifications for speech?
I find the "I can say whatever I want, it's just words" to be an immature
stance to hold. Words hold power, and power can be used or misused. We know
words hold power; otherwise protesting wouldn't work, MLK's letters from a
birmingham jail wouldn't matter, even the very constitution itself would be
pointless.
So if that power is being applied to harm people, there needs to be a check on
that. I fully agree it isn't the government's role to play that part; it's
society's full, universal, democratic decision what to do with it.
The final result is "if you say something so upsetting that you can get a
large group of people to use their own words and freedom to associate to harm
you in return, then that's on you". If you don't like the worst that the so-
called "cancel culture" response can bring you, then the solution is
relatively simple: choose your words carefully and _own them_.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
> it's society's full, universal, democratic decision what to do with it.
That might be fine, if that were the way it worked. In practice, though, it
seems more that it's a minority forming a howling mob that brings the heat.
> "if you say something so upsetting that you can get a large group of people
> to use their own words and freedom to associate to harm you in return, then
> that's on you"
I prefer the legal system to mob "justice".
------
ditonal
In 2020, free speech is most often attacked under three false premises:
1\. "It's a private company, they can deplatform whoever they want!"
This is obviously true to an extent, but as all communication is increasingly
dominated by a few private companies, leads to a situation where free speech
is effectively stifled not by the government but by an oligarchy. This is
especially true since internet infrastructure like DNS is implemented by
private companies.
2\. "It's freedom of speech, not freedom of consequences of speech!"
Clearly this argument is absurd and wrong, yet I've seen it get touted
nonetheless, notably in an XKCD comic. If the government threw you in jail for
political speech, and defined that as "allowing free speech but simply having
consequences of that speech", most would agree that's not true free speech.
Yet people accept that flawed logic in other contexts.
If you can lose your livelihood for a political opinion, you don't really have
free speech, yet that's increasingly the precedent set by Silicon Valley as a
reasonable consequence of unpopular political opinions.
3\. "We can't be tolerant of intolerant opinions!"
Again, perhaps some truth here in the most extreme cases, yet increasingly we
label all but the most anondyne opinions as intolerant. The range of
acceptable opinions gets narrower every day, and the consequences for
diverging from it increasingly harsh.
To me it's an objective reality that there's a massive attack on free speech
in 2020, especially in places like Silicon Valley and primarily by people who
identify as "the left", usually using the fallacious arguments noted above.
~~~
fzeroracer
> If you can lose your livelihood for a political opinion, you don't really
> have free speech, yet that's increasingly the precedent set by Silicon
> Valley as a reasonable consequence of unpopular political opinions.
A hypothetical for you. Let's say you're married to someone. That someone
later down the line turns into a massive jerk, frequently spouting obscenities
at you and has changed politically. If you divorce them, are you violating
their right to freedom of speech? Should we as a society not allow divorces
lest they censor someone's opinion?
~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I have no issue with people being fired or divorced for spouting obscenities.
I would certainly think poorly of someone who filed for divorce because their
spouse changed politically.
------
hirundo
Alternative causality chain:
1\. The more politically powerless you feel, the more you support free speech
in order to protect speech you agree with.
2\. More intelligent people are more likely to land in less politically
powerful ideologies, just due to exploring more of them.
The graph showing that "Communist" most favor free speech and "Military"
supports it least seems to be consistent with a political power gradient.
A prediction of this explanation: As power shifts, e.g. as leftists come to
dominate academia, the group gaining power will tend to favor free speech
less, and visa versa.
~~~
ivalm
Totally agree, in many academic settings this is already a thing (and I say it
as a social democrat!).
------
GenerocUsername
Free speech will and always will be about not taxing speech. The government
has no right to tax speech.
------
EGreg
WHAT EXACTLY IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH?
My view on freedom of speech is different from most I found, but I think it’s
the one that is consistent and stays true to actual definitions of words.
Human freedoms are about what the human can do. Right to bear arms. Right to
speak. Right to assemble. And so on. That is how the Bill of Rights seems to
intend it.
Note that the freedom to physically say anything and not get carted away is
_different_ than that of an organization.
Corporations may be “persons” for the purpose of suing and being sued in court
etc. But when it comes to freedom of speech, it is quite another level of
indirection!
When Sinclair TV buys a bunch of local stations, and makes them say something,
they are not really free. They are saying whatever they are being told to say:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/04/02/598794433...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2018/04/02/598794433/video-reveals-power-of-sinclair-as-local-news-
anchors-recite-script-in-unison)
But here is the proper description: freedom of speech is different than
_access to a megaphone that an organization with a large audience gives you_.
And I prefer that our news and announcements would be run more like Wikipedia
than FOX, CNN or even Twitter. Because the latter tear apart our society. News
outlets were disrutped by the Internet so they adjusted by locking in an
audience by choosing a side and publishing clickbait. And social media in
their race to the bottom for advertising dollars herded us into echo chanbers
around this content. The current political fever pitch is NOT an accident or a
plan by any one person. What can we do instead? Run it like Wikipedia.
Think of concentric circles. The smallest circle is what certain groups of
mutually distrusting / disagreeing experts / pundits discussing things. They
are the ones to go and publish dissenting opinions. This is analogous to the
Talk page on Wikipedia.
This circle of people get a notification every time that one of them posts, so
they can add their 2 cents.
Then once enough of them have weighed in, the next level is opened up — which
is either the public or an intermediate circle of fact-checkers or news
organizations.
I do not think the public should get stuff unfiltered from the megaphone of
anyone with a Twitter audience of 50,000 or a podcas audience of 40,000. Sure,
we are not used to this kind of society, but it is NOT a FREEDOM of speech
issue. It is an issue of access to megaphones.
The current understanding of “freedom of speech” leads to contradictions and
idiosynchrasies where one side claims that Facebook, Twitter are private
platforms and aren’t covered under the Bill of Rights, while another side says
that they are larger than many countries and are directly distributing speech
on their platform. Whether these are “online countries” or not and whether
they are subject to the US Bill of Rights because they are located here or
operate here is up for debate. But under my definition the forced
restructuring of how information is disseminated to wider and wider audiences
wouldn’t be a Freedom of Speech issue.
PS: By the way, what I described is how news desks used to be run, with
various editors being involved before things went to press.
~~~
hirundo
1A: "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the freedom of speech, or of
the press;"
EGreg: "it is NOT a FREEDOM of speech issue. It is an issue of access to
megaphones."
Are you saying that the "freedom of speech" part is a good idea, but "freedom
of the press", phrased as a "access to megaphones", is the problem?
~~~
intopieces
The freedom of the press is the right of like minded people to print what they
want (barring slander and libel). It is not a requirement that those like
minded people print content they object to.
------
daenz
Interesting and totally tone-deaf timing for this article, given the current
climate of the world ("Post a black square on your social media or you are
committing violence with your silence.")
------
contrapunter
Speech isn't free. It's a form of action and actions are constrained. As the
West changes from a Christian to a post-Christian culture, one set of
blasphemy laws are being replaced by another set. One set of words you can't
say in public by another.
Thoughts, on the other hand, are _sometimes_ free. That's one reason the
promulgation of despair is continually attempted: to shut down free thought.
------
ulucs
The funny thing is, the shift of accepting the existence "unacceptable" speech
hurts liberal speech more than conservative speech (I looked at the numbers
from [https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-
speec...](https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-
crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/)). Considering how people chasing
cancellings on twitter tend to hold extreme opinions themselves, they actively
contribute to the thinning of the ice they're walking on.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I Learned Building Twitter Bootstrap - dcope
https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/b95033c270af
======
NathanKP
Interesting... For some reason I had always assumed that Bootstrap was
associated more closely with Twitter because it had the word "twitter" in the
name.
Now I understand why some business are so concerned with preventing other
websites and people from using their name. I'm not saying that Twitter should
have demanded that these guys change the name of their framework to something
else, but this is a good object lesson of how using someone other company's
name can cause confusion.
In retrospect probably one of the biggest things that motivated me to
investigate Bootstrap was because it had Twitter in the name, and I had the
mindset "If Twitter uses it, then it must be good."
So I'm surprised to find out that it wasn't actually that deeply tied to
Twitter.
Edit: I went back to the website for Bootstrap and the website clearly says:
_Built at Twitter by @mdo and @fat,_
versus here @fat is saying:
_it isn’t actually maintained by a team at Twitter (nor was it ever)._
So now I'm actually more confused.
~~~
fat
Mark and I built bootstrap while we were employed at twitter on twitter
hardware. Also, undeniably it was largely influenced by our work there (and
later would largely influence a lot of the code at twitter as well as power
lots of projects both internally and publicly) – but it was never a company
mandated project. It was something that Mark and I came up with on our own and
pursued outside of work hours.
~~~
NathanKP
Okay thanks... I understand now. You started the project at Twitter, but it
wasn't owned by Twitter. I'm glad that Twitter didn't claim Bootstrap as
company owned code, because I and thousands of other people have really
enjoyed using it in our projects.
~~~
fizx
One of the reasons I worked at twitter is that they want you to open-source
virtually everything. They weren't likely to put up a fuss, and everyone was
really proud of bootstrap.
------
jenius
Dear fat,
This post comes off to me as cocky and untrue.
First, the general tone of this seems very pompous to me. To me, it reads: "I
know so much that even building the most popular project on github and
possibly of any library on the web can't teach me anything new." It might have
been a little more gracious perhaps to thank people for using and contributing
to the project...?
Also, you definitely learned something building bootstrap. I'm willing to bet
you learned a lot of things between the few major version updates and 2,500+
issues, most of which are closed. In fact, here's a presentation that _you
made_ detailing something you learned from bootstrap (accessibility,
specifically): <http://wordsbyf.at/2012/05/21/jsconf-argentina-2012/>
I'm really not trying to be that negative guy on hacker news, this was just my
immediate reaction upon reading the post. That being said, congrats on
building an immensely popular and important library, and here's to hoping that
you learn and always continue learning.
~~~
fat
hm… sorry it came off that way. :(
fwiw, the amount of technical things i've learned from working on bootstrap is
not proportional to the amount of work i've put into this project… at all.
But, i never expected it to be, and that's totally fine.
Have I learned any technical things? lol sure, of course!
Funnily, the accessibility thing you linked to wasn't really something I
learned building bootstrap… the presentation was all about how accessibility
is too hard to really learn… and you need to become a specialist, which is sad
times. Paul Irish wrote a great post about it a while back:
<http://paulirish.com/2012/accessibility-and-developers/>
maybe i learned that i knew nothing, but that was about it :P
My friend Dustin (who created this writing topic on medium) asked me to write
about the single most important thing i learned from working on bootstrap.
And for me, that single thing was that I love working with people and hate
working alone.
It took me a while to realize that what was bumming me out the most about
running bootstrap (and other projects) was that as they became more
successful, there was more of an expectation that i would be working on them
all the time (which meant the expectation that i would be working on them
independently/alone all the time).
That's ok from time to time, but isn't why I get excited about free software
and ultimately i became pretty depressed/negative about the whole thing.
I'm just now starting to identify what makes we want to continue to dedicate
all my free time to a project like bootstrap. And right now, the main
motivation is to spend time creating stuff with my favorite people.
I can assure you – it's definitely not to learn more about css/js !! :)
~~~
cloudsteam
Hi,
I just wanted to say thanks. I have been integrating bootstrap into my site
for the passed few months and I am happy to know it will look better then
otherwise ever would have. I still have some trouble figuring out why the hell
some parts don't work (can you recommend a debugging tool?) but all in all I
am pretty chuffed and can appreciate why it is popular.
Take it easy = )
PS - wtf was with the radioactive download bootstrap button on the download
page of the last release? I don't think you were involved with it, but I was
surprised to see it . EDIT> It has been removed and now is a normal download
button again.
~~~
fat
haha! mark loves these, i think he started doing them way back at zurb.
we took them away because they are _hooorible_ for perf – and were exposing a
memory leak bug in chrome i believe
------
JuDue
What I want to know is... Why LESS and not SASS?
Seems to me, TBS is the only thing keeping LESS alive.
SASS/Compass seems to be the better choice? <http://css-tricks.com/sass-vs-
less/>
(Logic and Loops are big ticket items).
~~~
jayflux
From whispers I've heard within the TB community, is that it may at some point
jump from LESS to SASS. But right now its not a priority. Someone tell me if
im wrong here.
~~~
fat
ha, well that is definitely not happening anytime soon…
but, here is a whole thing on "why less" I wrote up about it a long while
back, and it still holds true today: <http://wordsbyf.at/2012/03/08/why-less/>
------
sgdesign
Not what I expected from the link-baity HN post title, that post does not
actually tell us what he learned at all, if anything.
Not complaining about the post itself, just thought it'd be very cool to have
an actual "what I learned building bootstrap" post one day.
~~~
dreamdu5t
I was thinking the same thing. All I've learned is how much power/draw the
Twitter name has.
------
owenjones
Makes me sad that all my post-work hacking on things has been by myself. As a
musician his description sounds similar to playing an instrument by myself;
fun but not as great as with a group of friends.
~~~
ctb9
Same here.
Is there an app with traction that helps people like us find fellow hackers to
collaborate with. If not, sounds like an idea right there. Want to help build
it?
------
jquery
What I Learned from reading "What I Learned Building Twitter Bootstrap.":
Unironic "brogramming" is still alive and well. What a slap in the face of the
community that made bootstrap successful.
~~~
bonzoesc
If having fun making things with friends is "unironic brogramming," I'm proud
to be an unironic brogrammer.
~~~
jquery
No, but extreme arrogance and braggadocio is. The only thing missing from that
article was a keg stand in the top photo, to show just how little they need to
try to be awesome.
------
veidr
FWIW, I learned this same thing working cashier at a dry cleaning shop in my
teens.
TL;DR Hooking up with people you like and making something cool is way better
than doing something annoying and stressful that sucks.
------
crowdmatch2
There's a lot of truth to the notion of 'building things with friends' is what
fuels a lot of developers. I am the same way. I think the same thing can be
said for building a startup. It just has a completely different feel and
excitement when it's something mutually taken on with a friend.
Also major props to Bootstrap for everything they have done for the web.
------
DanBlake
Is twitter trying to claim ownership over bootstrap? I assume you 2 guys left
twitter to do this as-a-living. The post reads like a "Twitter does not own
this, we made it on our own time, Its just the two of us, etc. etc."
Do you even need to worry about this? Pretty sure since its open source you
guys are fine, unless something in your twitter employment contract says
otherwise. That being said, Bootstrap is a valuable asset to the web and I
think you would be not-paranoid in assuming that twitter might want to call it
a asset it owns.
Step 1 for you guys should really be moving from
<http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/> to <http://domainyouownpersonally.com>
~~~
caniszczyk
The short answer is no, Twitter is not trying to overtake bootstrap. Although
we have some ownership of the code base, the community has definitely let its
mark on Bootstrap with Mark and Jacob's great leadership.
In fact, we have been working closely with Mark and Jacob on the bootstrap
transition. There are plans to migrate bootstrap into its own organization
soon and kick off an effort to migrate it to the MIT license, all supported by
Twitter.
Stay tuned for details!
~~~
fat
yep, twitter has been great. And mark and i didn't leave to start a bootstrap
support company :P
------
callmeed
I met a Twitter engineer at startup school who said any side projects had to
be approved by Twitter's legal team. Was this the case with Bootstrap?
Also, was it put on Twitter's GitHub account in order to increase visibility?
~~~
fat
yep, lots of legal hurdles to go through – took us like 6 months – but now
they have a full time opensource shepherd @cra which makes this _much_
smoother
~~~
caniszczyk
<3, thanks for the kudos
------
smegel
Is Bootstrap mainly for CSS? Or should it be viewed as a fully-blown
alternative to HTML5BP? I would love to read a guide on how to incorporate
Bootstrap with other tools like HTML5BP and the Javascript framework of my
choice.
~~~
joshuacc
Bootstrap is primarily a CSS framework with some accompanying JavaScript
(jQuery) plugins to provide things like tooltips and popovers.
You can very easily use it with HTML5 Boilerplate. You incorporate it in
exactly the same way you would any external CSS file. And if you want to use
their JavaScript you add that the same way you add any other JavaScript.
------
trustfundbaby
What stuck out to me was how you pursued this on _your own time_ ... does
Twitter not give its engineers time on the clock to pursue things like this?
How do you feel about that?
------
iguana
While this post is a bit on the brogramming side (I would actually love to
read what you learned from the project technically, and why you made certain
design decisions), I have to give you and @mdo props for building Bootstrap.
I have to say that Bootstrap is the best thing that has happened to client
side web development since jQuery, even if the web is doomed to drown in an
ocean of Bootstrap-looking sites.
------
mikerg87
I am, for one, thankful you did this. I have been able to stand on your
shoulders and see farther. certainly the front end work I have built with
bootstrap and derivates has made the shallow end of the web I swim in better.
------
runn1ng
Technical issue, but... is the "Recommend" button doing anything? (or supposed
to be doing?)
I push it and nothing happens.
~~~
skeletonjelly
Redirects here for me: [https://medium.com/m/signin?redirect=%2Fwhat-i-
learned-build...](https://medium.com/m/signin?redirect=%2Fwhat-i-learned-
building%2Fb95033c270af)
Check your javascript console for errors
------
totaljohn
this project makes building a project with friends even more fun. thank you
for all your hard work on it.
------
alwaysright
I think we all should just say thanks for building this, and nothing more,
well, perhaps thanks to Twitter for not claiming the code. We all should
aspire to do what fat and mdo did, build something out of passion, in our
spare time, that will be freely available for everyone. There is nothing that
anyone can say, (including them) that will take it away from them. They belong
in the hall of fame of FOSS and hacker spirit. This is true whether you like
or don't like what they write in a blog post.
------
azio
So, what did he learn exactly?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tails is a operating system that protects your privacy and avoids censorship - Sami_Lehtinen
https://tails.boum.org/?new
======
dang
Lots of previous discussions, so the project home page is probably too generic
to make a good HN submission.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Tails%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story)
The reverse is also true: if the project hadn't had much attention on HN
before, this would make a fine submission.
I wrote about this issue recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23071428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23071428)
------
LockAndLol
Is tails supposed to be run as an OS installed on the main disk or even as a
main OS? From this it looks like it's supposed to be for temporary use in
high-risk situations.
~~~
secfirstmd
Mainly from a USB stick so that you run it in memory where possible
------
RikNieu
My first question is who's behind it?
~~~
upofadown
Crypto AG shows us that you should assume it is entirely owned by the CIA...
You should evaluate stuff like this independent of your feelings towards the
people that did it. Ultimately you can't trust anyone but yourself.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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