diff --git "a/https:/huggingface.co/datasets/iamgroot42/mimir/tree/main/test/hackernews_ngram_7_0.2.jsonl" "b/https:/huggingface.co/datasets/iamgroot42/mimir/tree/main/test/hackernews_ngram_7_0.2.jsonl" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/https:/huggingface.co/datasets/iamgroot42/mimir/tree/main/test/hackernews_ngram_7_0.2.jsonl" @@ -0,0 +1,646 @@ +"\nShow HN: Julia Observer \u2013 Package Browser for the Julia Language - djsegal\nhttp://juliaobserver.com\n======\nericjang\nIs anyone else concerned that despite being an open-source project with\npermissive licensing, the formation of the Julia Computing group has made\nJulia's development a bit of a walled garden? I don't mean this in the sense\nthat Apple or Matlab are \"walled gardens\", but the for-profit company, of\nwhich many core developers are founders/employees, develops a number of tools\nand services that are not open-source AFAIK.\n\nI believe the group also implicitly controls what packages are\nallowed/disallowed from the packages list. At the same time, I also recognize\nthe need to support the core developers and the business model makes a lot of\nsense. Thoughts?\n\n~~~\nn00b101\nI really wish they had implemented Julia in C++11, instead of C. The source\ncode seems to be very difficult to comprehend for anyone who is not one of the\noriginal developers. [1]\n\n[1]\n[https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/src/julia.h](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/src/julia.h)\n\n~~~\nchappi42\nJulia is mostly (> 65 %) written in Julia. There's some C (20 %, bootstrap\netc.), some C++ (8 % llvm interface), some scheme (4 %, parser). I think it's\none of the main points, that Julia should be" +"\nMultiple Vulnerabilities in IBM Data Risk Manager - Daviey\nhttps://github.com/pedrib/PoC/blob/master/advisories/IBM/ibm_drm/ibm_drm_rce.md\n======\nreader_1000\nThe way IBM handles this is pretty bad. No company, especially the ones\nselling a security product, should ignore security researchers reports and\nfeedbacks\n\nAlso the bugs described in article are quite surprising since for a IBM-sized\ncompany, you expect them to have solid authentication/authorization framework\nwhich they use for all their products. Is this a acquired product?\nAuthentication mechanism is very unusual. Why would anyone save a session id\ncoming from the user? This is more than trusting user input, I think.\n\nAlso ../../etc/passwd attack is a kind of vulnerability that almost every\nautomated vulnerabilty scanner scans.\n\nMost people assume that authenticated pages do not need that much security\nprecautions however as articles shows, when combined with authentication\nbypass vulnerabilities, you basically give keys of your systems to the\nattacker.\n\n~~~\nosipov\n>you expect them to have solid authentication/authorization framework which\nthey use for all their products\n\nhaha\n\n------\nteepo\nAccording to IBM this is not even an active product [1]. Although after some\nreading it does appear that if a client was still using this solution and was\npaying for extended support that IBM would take" +"\nWill This \u201cNeural Lace\u201d Brain Implant Help Us Compete with AI? - dnetesn\nhttp://nautil.us/blog/-will-this-neural-lace-brain-implant-help-us-compete-with-ai\n======\nerikpukinskis\nI love Elon, but this notion of a \u201cbandwidth problem\u201d in UI is what happens\nwhen someone with no training in UI whatsoever tries to extrapolate.\n\nImagine the neural lace already existed. Close your eyes, and picture what you\nwould experience. Would it be 3D? Probably. Our brains have spatial hardware.\nWould it be auditory? Probably, our brains have hardware for that too. Would\nthere be language? Ya, that\u2019s part of our hardware too.\n\nSo it\u2019s an experience of sights and sounds and language...\n\nBut think about an iPad... that already had sights and sounds and language.\nActually it\u2019s capable of beaming far more of all three to you than it does.\nAnd it\u2019s capable of taking in far more input than you generally use. It can do\n10 finger multitouch, plus sound recording. Newer devices will have full body\ntracking.\n\nAnd yet... we don\u2019t use all that available bandwidth. For the most part we\nstare at a few words, some boxes and lines... why?\n\nIf Elon is right that more bandwidth is the problem, why aren\u2019t there more\nhigh bandwidth user interfaces on" +"\nBlack Swan Events - simonpure\nhttps://danco.substack.com/p/black-swan-events?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0MTM5Nzg1LCJwb3N0X2lkIjozMzY2MDgsIl8iOiI5R21UeiIsImlhdCI6MTU4NTQ5MjA2NCwiZXhwIjoxNTg1NDk1NjY0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODYyMyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.RMd2JQv4ETeqg-LZ_LIppo6gfZY-NIpkSvukYVYbO_Q\n======\nzenlot\nN.N. Taleb repeated many times already that COVID-19 is not a Black Swan\nevent. Author of the article is just a con artist. This should be flagged.\n\n~~~\npixl97\nThe author of this article did not say that COVID-19 was a BSE. They stated\nthe jobless claims were.\n\n~~~\nzenlot\nYou're missing the point.\n\n------\nalpineidyll3\nThe only thing worse than Taleb is dollar store imitation Taleb.\n\nGet this armchair stats newsletter ad off the frontpage plz.\n\n~~~\nyawboakye\nDisclaimer: I didn't read the article because I had a sense it will be a\nrehash of Dr. Taleb's work. That said I'm interested in your criticism of the\nman (or his work instead?). I've read Taleb's volume and found them\nconvincing. They're well argued and pull from several sources (history being a\nbig part, which appeals to me a lot as a history buff). Antifragile is up\nthere with the best book I read and has merited a yearly re-read.\n\n~~~\nalpineidyll3\nTaleb has made a career out of popularizing common financial statistics with\nhistorical flavor. He usually presents himself as a polymath/oracle in this\nwriting although he has never developed any" +"\n\nNine-Year Old Whiz-Kid Writes iPhone Application - nuweborder\nhttp://www.retireat21.com/new/Nine-year-old-whiz-kid-writes-iPhone-application\n\n======\ncredo\n[http://www.retireat21.com/new/isteam-for-iphone-earns-\nmakes-...](http://www.retireat21.com/new/isteam-for-iphone-earns-makes-young-\nentrepreneurs-rich) says \"The iSteam application is for sale for just 99cent\nand has been bought over 1 million times since its launch last week! ISteam\nhas currently experienced more than 14% daily growth, with estimated monthly\nrevenues of $100,000 - all this just 8 days after iSteam was first released.\"\n\n\\--\n\nThe numbers on this site seem bogus. iSteam is currently ranked 99th in\nEntertainment. However, if it had been #1 last month, one million downloads in\none week couldn't have been possible.\n\nThe app costs $.99. It is funny that the post talks about one million\ndownloads in one week and then goes on to say that the monthly revenue is\nexpected to be 100,000." +"\nSisyphus Kinetic Lego Sculpture - chaosmachine\nhttp://jkbrickworks.com/sisyphus-kinetic-sculpture/\n======\nmattnewport\nThe working combination safe is very cool too:\n[http://jkbrickworks.com/working-combination-\nsafe/](http://jkbrickworks.com/working-combination-safe/)\n\n~~~\nicebraining\nI really like his version of the useless machine as well, really playful :)\n\n------\nDiabloD3\nNow that, my friends, is art.\n\n~~~\ntajen\nAwesome! Omg there's also a particle accelerator. It seems like Lego is\nencompassing the trend of crowdsourcing with ideas.lego.com, but I'm\ndisappointed it's not a decentralized model where the everyone could sell\ntheir own construction and get a margin from it.\n\n~~~\nsteve19\nIt looks dead. Projects which hit the required 10k supporters 18 months ago\nare still \"being reviewed\" but Lego.\n\nYou are right, they should allow anything to be sold if a certain number of\npre-orders can be met and copyrights cleared.\n\n~~~\njerrysievert\nfar from dead, lego releases a couple of projects about every 6 months. the\nlatest is a doctor who set, that is just about to be released.\n\nit takes a couple of months to review, and usually they (lego) are active in\nthe comments section." +"\nNetflix Instant is coming to the entire Linux Community - taylorbuley\nhttp://benjaminkerensa.com/netflix-instant-is-coming-to-the-entire-linux\n======\njerf\nI will believe it when I see it downloadable, I have downloaded it, and used\nit to watch something, and no sooner. You can't put effectively DRM on Linux;\nyou can binary blob whatever you like, but I own the kernel, graphics drivers,\naudio drivers, X Server, and everything else on the system except your lil'\nbinary blob, and it doesn't stand a chance.\n\n~~~\nniels_olson\ner, I don't think they're worried about _you_. They might offer _you_ a job.\n\n~~~\nZachPruckowski\nYou only really need one guy to hack the DRM and it's game over, since (a) he\ncan share how he did it, and (b) he can freely share the decrypted files. Not\nthat it really matters on Netflix since just about everything is already on\nDVD (and thus on torrents since CSS is cracked) anyhow.\n\n~~~\nniels_olson\nExactly. I'm certain the adults in charge know that some level of hacking is\ninherent to the game at this point. My guess is they're treating the set of\nall consumers as another corporation: an entity to do battle with in the\nongoing pursuit of the" +"\nUX design: Tools, methods and frameworks for generalists - ndewilde\nhttps://nickdewilde.substack.com/p/the-keyring-zac-halbert-on-ux-design\n======\ndenster\nGreat post!\n\nTo op, for tools like Figma, what do you think the future holds? In what\ndimension will they evolve? How can they help you be more effective? Will they\nhelp you express your ideas in ever higher fidelity over time? [1]\n\n[1] Biased questions, but genuinely curious about the op's answers given his\ndeep expertise in the field (as the founder of\n[https://mintdata.com](https://mintdata.com))\n\n~~~\nzachalbert\nGreat question. Figma is leaps and bounds closer to giving designers tools\nthat work like code, but it still has a long way to go. My wish list design\ntool is something that has the creative flexibility of design canvas, but the\npower of clean, performant code. Truthfully I think it'll require evolution\nboth in the design tools space, but also the HTML and CSS specs.\n\nFor instance, in Figma we've only had a reliable way of adding something\nsimple like button padding (where you can create a reusable button that will\nexpand as you type a longer label) for a year. There have been plugins that\ndid it before that, but they weren't reliable. This is crazy when you" +"\n\nTips for Difficult Conversations - alrex021\nhttp://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/dowling/2009/03/7-tips-for-difficult-conversat.html?cm_re=homepage-031909-_-body-left-r1-_-recession\n\n======\nyummyfajitas\nMost important: actually have the conversation.\n\nDifficult conversation: \"You are highly unlikely to ever finish your Ph.D.\"\n\nNet result of postponing: student spends 8-12 years in grad school, 5-9 years\nmore than necessary. 3-5 years of support (approx $60k) are wasted. Multiple\nstudents who might succeed are rejected from grad school.\n\nYou are not doing anyone any favors by avoiding difficult conversations.\n\n------\ntezza\nMaybe worth mentioning again:\n\n* Try using the personal pronoun \"I\" as much as possible.\n\nThis is used in the 7 rules itself \"I... and I... and I...\"\n\n* Try to have the difficult conversation 1 on 1 and face-to-face\n\nAvoid situations where there is more at stake for the person you are having\nthe difficult conversation with.\n\n~~~\nfirebug\nTrue. Helping someone to save face should never be underestimated.\n\n------\nvillageidiot\n->\"Adopt the \"And Stance\". Take control of the conversation by pre-empting distractions, objections and blame by using \"and\". \"I know you worked all night, and I know you want to do well, and I know you just joined the company, and I know the graphics people sometimes get the data wrong, and I know I" +"\n\nOur startup Body Boss getting street cred with the NFL's Carolina Panthers - D-Train\nhttp://blog.bodybossfitness.com/post/48697659311/hello-carolina-panthers-were-body-boss\n\n======\nchiph\nWhy no individual plan?\n\nCan I tell it what equipment I have available (and the exercises it lets me\ndo) and have the software suggest workouts?\n\n~~~\nD-Train\nRight now, we're focused on the B2B market. That is, our target market include\nsports teams and organizations. So we're working with several high schools,\ncolleges, and now an NFL team! We've also got good traction with training\ncamps and big box retail gyms.\n\nWe looked at the consumer-driven apps, and realized that we would rather work\nwith coaches and players or trainers and clients. So for individuals, we may\ngo there, but it's not in immediate strategy.\n\nWhat are your thoughts?\n\n~~~\nchiph\nI believe that most people quit going to the gym because they get bored.\n\nSo if there were an app that takes several factors into consideration\u00b9 and\ngenerates workouts for them, and that would change it up, people would stay\ninterested and gain fitness.\n\nWhich works against the business model of many of the chain gyms -- they\nactually want people signed to yearly contracts that then don't show up.\n\n\u00b9" +"\nCan Users Control and Understand a UI Driven by Machine Learning? - camlinke\nhttps://www.nngroup.com/articles/machine-learning-ux/\n======\ndarkpuma\nIf the system is up front about what the inputs are then I think most of the\nproblems evaporate. The user doesn't need to understand the math behind how\n0-5 star ratings get translated into movie suggestions, if the user\nunderstands that the star rating is the input and not dumb implicit stuff like\ndwell time, then the user will have a more agreeable experience with the\nsystem.\n\nI've recently created a system for assigning tags to files. The system\nrecommends tags that might be applicable to a file given what the file is\nalready tagged with and what other files are tagged with. There are no other\ninputs, I'm not trying to extract information from the filename or running\nimage recognition on images or anything like that. It's straight forward\nmulti-label classification similar to a naive bayes spam filter. Straight\nforward but effective; the relevant tags are often at the very top of the\nsuggestions list.\n\nI've had a few non-technical users try it out and so far the response has been\nvery positive. They don't know how the tag suggester works. All" +"\n\nA Well-Funded Startup Emerges From the Unemployment Lines - jyu\nhttp://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/learnup/\n\n======\nbriggsbio\nThis is one of those \"wow, so perfectly obvious no one has never done it.\"\nThis could (and probably should) the hiring process at many retail and service\njobs. In my teens I would have been all about proving myself by taking\nwhatever quiz or prescreening training available to get the job. This could\nhave micro impacts on allowing the most tenacious to get the job rather than\nthe most experience, which for the level of jobs they're focusing on initially\ncould be a positive force. Just imagine if Wal-Mart was filled with the most\nproactive, not just the one with 6 months more of register experience.\nCertainly many caveats to these statements, but with some evolution and\nexecution this could have really important impacts on the way low-level wage\nemployment is conducted. The interesting aspects would be to see it move up\nthe org chart. Also love the customer development of them walking the\nunemployment lines to understand the market.\n\n------\nsimantel\nThis sounds like a great way for big employers to require what would otherwise\nhave been on-the-job training be completed in advance of even" +"\n\nIBM to build brain-like computers - timtrueman\nhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7740484.stm\n\n======\npg\nA headline from the 1950s.\n\n~~~\nivankirigin\nWe know much more about the brain today.\n\nA similar headline can be found for using \"brainlike techniques\" for object\ndetection. \n\nBut the algorithms in this case are from numenta, jeff hawkin's company. The\nmethodology is:\n\n \n \n 1. Study the brain\n 2. Come up with theories on how memory and processing in the brain work\n 3. Write algorithms with the same structure.\n \n\nI'd call that brain-like.\n\n~~~\njey\nYeah, except that Step 2 is super sketchy and arguably unscientific at this\npoint.\n\n~~~\nivankirigin\nI wouldn't call the thousands of researchers in the field unscientific at all.\nAnd this process is iterative. If you have an algorithm that works, the\nproximity to how the brain actually works is largely irrelevant.\n\n------\ntimtrueman\nHaven't these guys heard of software? I thought the only good reason to do\nsomething in hardware was speed, but maybe I'm just crazy.\n\n~~~\nbchandle\nThe BBC article left out a critical constraint from DARPA. The final\ndeliverable (with the \"complexity of a cat's brain\") isn't just a model or a\nsimulation. It has to be a physical artifact which" +"\nEvolving Lacing Patterns for Bicycle Wheels - alexggordon\nhttp://master.matsemann.com/\n======\nmatsemann\nWow, cool to see my thesis here! I posted a picture of it [1] to r/bicycling\nyesterday titled _I managed to make my thesis in computer science be about\nbicycles!_ , and it got some traction. I answered some questions in the\ndiscussion, if anyone is interested.\n\n[1]: [https://redd.it/3p8hua](https://redd.it/3p8hua)\n\n~~~\nradarsat1\nCan I ask a question, please don't take it the wrong way, as I find\noptimisation a very interesting topic, and in fact it was also the subject of\nmy thesis. However: How is this a computer science thesis, and not a\nmechanical engineering thesis? I'm just curious how you managed to pass a\nwheel-design topic through a CompSci program. Did you have a co-supervisor in\nengineering? Or does your school have a combined CS/engineering program?\n\n~~~\nmaaaats\nIt's really a thesis about EMO-algorithms and how to use them to optimize\nreal-life problems. The wheels just happen to be the chosen _application_ of\nthe optimization, if you get what I mean?\n\n~~~\nradarsat1\nAh ok, I was wondering if that was the case. Wasn't really clear from the way\nyou presented it. Can you summarize your results regarding" +"\nHello darkness my old friend - mariorz\nhttp://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/08/12/year-of-what-now\n======\ndmpayton\nI completely sympathize with Mark. I was an Apple hater for years, and was\necstatic when I discovered Linux (Ubuntu 7.04) and could move away from\nWindows as well.\n\nThen a good friend of mine convinced me to get an iPhone. I was hesitant at\nfirst, but after trying one I decided to go for it.\n\nThen I got a job where my choices were a MacBook Pro or a Dell with Vista.\nThree guesses which one I took (the first two don't count).\n\nI must admit OS X is really nice, and full Unix compatibility is a huge plus.\nStill... _sigh_\n\n[Edit: missing period]\n\n~~~\nelai\nFull unix compatibility without easy, comprehensive & working BINARY package\nmanagement (like debian, or archlinux) is still a big pain in the ass. Setting\nup something like the mysqldb library, mod_python, apache, and django can be a\n1 hour production vs. the 5 minute production that it is on linux.\n\n~~~\ndmpayton\nAgreed, package managers are a godsend. That's why there's\n and \n\n------\ntptacek\nI can't modify the firmware image in my Bosch engine ECU, even though doing so\ncould significantly" +"\nCython 0.23 released - Yakulu\nhttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/cython-users/lfq9CtqGdzY\n======\ngrinalope\nCython is amazingly productive for me. I am so happy to write typed pythonic\ncode.\n\nIf there's one thing missing it's more people showing off their Cython style\nand tricks, like how they do macros (since it's not supported in the\nlanguage), when to turn off safeties, and balancing pure python with typed.\n\nFor instance, I like C macros in header files, but I've played around with\nusing a jinja2 pipeline in my setup.py to write cleaner looking pythonic code,\nand have done generics this way.\n\nmore posts like the one using cymem would be welcome.\n\n~~~\nsyllogism\nUsing Jinja2 for macros is an interesting idea. You could try cog instead?\n[https://www.python.org/about/success/cog/](https://www.python.org/about/success/cog/)\n\nCurrently I don't do any macros at all, although the temptation is definitely\nstrong. I have some code that could otherwise be more generic than it is.\n\nI guess a quick tip/pattern would be to use structs as data containers, with a\ncdef class defined as a \"shell\", to provide access, but not actually hold the\ndata.\n\nAdvantages of this over standard cdef class: Data is contiguous in memory;\nData can be stack allocated; Data can be stored in C" +"\n\nSo you've Upgrade to Snow Leopard? Post Dev Feedback Here - whalesalad\n\nThose developing on the mac generally have lots of added libraries and tools... like Fink or MacPorts, different Python or Ruby versions, etc..

In my case, I don't use the base install of Apache and run my own, with mod_wsgi. I also run my own build of MySQL. Because of things like this, I tend to shy away from all of the automated crap (such as the migration tools, and upgrading a point release rather than a fresh install) and I don't think i'm alone. I upgraded my older Macbook Pro to Leopard by formatting and installing fresh, then manually moving data.

Because Snow Leopard is a smaller release and more of a glorified patch or service-pack if you will, I am wondering if I really need to do this. I'd love to get feedback from all the Mac hackers out there who have upgrade to Snow Leopard. What kind of problems have you noticed, if any?\n======\nGreggW\nI just told my wife, \"The next time I want to be an early adopter, just hit me\nuntil I fall to the ground and stay there.\"\n\nI have a bilateral" +"\nBill Gates: Textbooks are becoming obsolete - sumitsrivastava\nhttps://www.gatesnotes.com/2019-Annual-Letter#ALChapter8\n======\nwaste_monk\nI greatly prefer text to video and/or interactive elements for learning.\n\nThe pacing of video content tends to be much slower than I'm capable of taking\nin, so watching lectures becomes a frustrating exercise. I usually watch the\nvideos at 1.5 speed or just read the transcript, if it's available. And\ninteractive elements are usually so clumsy to use that they become worthless.\n\nI also don't want my learning materials spying on me and reporting back about\nmy progress. That's just creepy, and is one more step in the march towards\nmaking the world a particularly dreary cyberpunk dystopia.\n\nI think the problem is that most textbooks these days are hot garbage -\ninstead of building a professional library, you end up with irrelevant dead\nweights. I have textbooks from back at University which I still refer to today\n(data structures and similar topics), but most modern textbooks seem to really\nfocus in on particular technologies and frameworks, which become useless in\njust a few short years.\n\n------\nvertline3\nI find textbooks painful, but I also think I grow the most when reading them.\nThis is because textbooks are" +"\n\nAsk HN: How Do You Come Up With Blog Post Ideas? - lemcoe9\n\nIt seems like every one in technology has something to say, and many of them have their own outlet for saying those things (that end up getting posted on HN!)

What is your source of inspiration for deciding what to put on digital paper and share with the world?\n======\nnamenotrequired\nI don't blog a lot so far, but I do have a list of possible topics somewhere.\nI tend to add to it when:\n\n\\- I feel like I've come to realise something new (for me) that others might\nfind insightful too. These don't turn into blogs often, but it's helpful to\nhave it written down somewhere nonetheless.\n\n\\- An opinion of mine keeps popping up in my mind and I feel it would be\nrelevant to others." +"\n\nFun human computation games to produce high quality language translations. - amichail\n\nAlthough automated language translations are often sufficient to get a rough understanding, it would be better to use high quality translations to localize your site/app.

So the question is whether you can get high quality translations as the output of fun human computation games.

As an example, one can have a two-player ESP Game-like service where each player is shown a web page and a specific sentence to translate. The game would check that all words used are indeed words from the target language. The score obtained would be based on the similarity between the translations submitted by the two players.

A variant on this idea only requires players to know the target language. The idea is to use Google Translate say as a first step to produce a rough translation. The two players would be shown an automatically translated web page with a sentence whose translation is to be improved. The game would check that each player submits a translation that is sufficiently different from what Google Translate produced. Again, scoring would be based on the similarity of the translations submitted by the players.\n======\nwallflower\nThe game method sounds" +"\nAsk HN: Early in career \u2013 is it a bad idea to change jobs after six months? - mountainApe22\nFor some context: I am in my mid-twenties, have a computer science degree from a top ten American university and moderate experience developing software applications. After graduation I did a bit of research and worked as a bartender/waiter while going through the whole post-grad thing.

I eventually decided on taking a white collar job in technology. I was hired into a subsidiary of a well known CPG company as an Information Systems Specialist. When I was brought on board, I was told that I would be assisting the head of the IS department in documenting ERP customizations, developing/optimizing SQL, and working closely with other departments in order to build customizations and automations. It sounded great.However, my boss wasn't located in the same office as me and only spent 6 days on location "training" me. My "training" was consistently interrupted as my boss had to go put out fires multiple times per day.

Four weeks later I was brought in to HR and told that my boss resigned without notice and that I was to fly to the HQs the next week to do" +"\nSalesforce.com Announces Two $1 Million Winning Teams for Hackathon - jhchen\nhttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-com-announces-two-1-210000741.html\n======\ndraz\nHa. Still sticking to their guns: \"...while the Upshot mobile app used pre-\nexisting code, this did not violate the hackathon rules. Use of pre-existing\ncode was allowable as long as the code did not comprise the majority of the\napp and did not violate any third party's rights.\" I think it does more damage\nthan good\n\n~~~\npuredemo\n\"The internal audit team's review determined that Upshot's mobile app was\ncreated during the hackathon and met these criteria.\"\n\nThey just took an existing application made during a nine year tenure at\nSalesforce, threw it into a generic responsive / mobile app framework during\nthe \"hackathon\" and made a cool mil..\n\nIt helps if Salesforce is already an investor in your product, of course.\n\nAnd this doesn't address why most apps that were submitted weren't even ran.\nIt's not like 149 apps are all that hard to at least take a look at.\n\n------\njere\nFirst place:\n\n>Upshot was created by Thom Kim, who left Salesforce after nine years in\nJanauary, and Joseph Turian, with whom Kim had been friends since they\nattended Harvard University together.\n\nOh" +"\n\nHire me and pay what feels right - manuganji\nhttp://manuganji.com\n\n======\nmanuganji\nI'm running an experiment in Gift Economy. At the end of each project\nmilestone, you can pay me whatever feels right for you.\n\n~~~\nckluis\nI hope no one abuses you.\n\n~~~\nmanuganji\nThanks for the concern! I'm aware of this risk. :)\n\n~~~\nckluis\nSo serious question, what if someone offers you equity instead of cash? I\ndidn\u2019t look carefully, but I\u2019m not sure you specified any payment terms.\n\n~~~\nmanuganji\nAt the moment, I have to prioritize cash over equity. I also think its a\nbetter validation." +"\n\nHeroku for PHP - Private Beta Signup - cardmagic\nhttp://phpfog.com/\n\n======\nmdasen\nI don't think there's a huge market for what Heroku does in the PHP world.\nWith Rails, you want to run it as a long-running process. The amount of time\nto spin up a (Thin|Mongrel|Unicorn|etc.) is too long to do it based on a user\nrequest for a page and it's why Rails isn't run as a CGI.\n\nPHP is a bit different. The language is typically embedded in the server and\nthen the individual files are parsed and run. There's little configuration\nother than uploading the files since the server can just interpret the files\nending in \".php\".\n\nHeroku needs to be able to put your application code on multiple servers and\nknow which servers are responsible for your application. When one of your\nThins isn't working, they need to kill it and spawn a new one, potentially on\na new server and make sure they update their routing table. It's a tad\ncomplicated.\n\nPHP Fog doesn't have to do much. Heroku is running around 65,000 applications.\nAssuming that applications are under 30MB (for the hard drive), a RAID-1 with\n2TB drives on every server they have" +"\nAlcohol as a social technology to check the trustworthiness of others - ivank\nhttps://plus.google.com/+KajSotala/posts/hofuxyXz78j\n======\npatio11\nIn Japanese business culture, being in one's cups is a socially acceptable\nexcuse for saying virtually anything, regardless of e.g. relative social\nstatus or non-desirability of the message. Accordingly, many of the really\nimportant messages internally and externally are passed after hours with a\nbeer in hand. (Incidentally, people will even treat you as being drunk even if\nyou're only sipping coke, because it is mutually socially important that you\nbe seen as being drunk. I mean, after all, you couldn't possibly verbalized\nthat complaint to your boss while being sober, right? So clearly you're\ndrunk.)\n\n~~~\nharisenbon\nTangentially, I've seen \"Nomu-nication\" (Nomu \"to drink\" and Communication) be\na central part of almost all business in Japan -- both internal and external.\n\nOne experience I had with my Osakan clients always stood out to me -- I've met\nmultiple businessmen who say they won't make a deal with a vendor they haven't\ngone drinking with, because the alcohol shows what kind of person they really\nare.\n\n------\nrdtsc\nIn Eastern Europe it was (is, maybe, I haven't been there in a decade now or" +"\n\nZenify meditation and mindfulness app is on Product Hunt - onvel\nhttp://www.producthunt.com/tech/zenify\n\n======\nonvel\nZenify mobile app has been launched on Product Hunt. Zenify is aimed to take\nmeditation and mindfulness globally to everyone with a smartphone. It's\navailable in 10 languages and trains mindfulness through very simple\nmeditation assignments delivered to the phone. It takes only several minutes\nto complete those assignments which can be done anywhere anytime. No need to\nremember about the meditation practice - Zenify will remind you several times\nper day to take a few minutes for yourself and become aware of the present\nmoment. There are numerous benefits of meditation but in general it changes\nthe lives and the world to the better. So why not make this happen together?\nTune in to your senses, and help us spread the word :) Check out web-site and\nfind us on top of Product Hunt today. Much love, Zenify." +"\n16 lenses on one camera - XioNoX\nhttp://www.light.co/\n======\njay-saint\nThis camera is not only doing bracketing, it is simultaneously capturing\nmultiple images at multiple focal lengths and exposures. It is then stitching\nthis data in software to make composite images that can be re-focused, re-\nzoomed and change depth of field after an image is composed.\n\nThey are calling it the first multi-aperture computational camera.\n\nedit: Just discussed this some around the coffee pot, that the real value of\nthis tech will be in new cell phones 2-3 generations down the road. I then saw\nthis press release about light.co and Foxconn. they have already licensed this\ntech. [http://spot.light.co/light-partners-with-\nfoxconn/](http://spot.light.co/light-partners-with-foxconn/)\n\n------\nan_ko\nTo skip to the content:\n[https://vimeo.com/141273968](https://vimeo.com/141273968)\n\nThis is a great product, but the landing page needs work.\n\nThe first video on light.co shows people taking photos with what looks like a\nsmartphone, with no further explanation. I almost left at that point.\n\nThe rest of the page's text is very general, never explaining to me why having\nmultiple cameras is a good idea, other than wishy-washy \"this is amazing\ntechnology\" self-praise. It sounds gimmicky.\n\nThe /camera page is much better. It explains your value propositions; great\nUX," +"\n\nDOJ advises that Net Neutrality could hamper development of the Internet - youngnh\nhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070906/ap_on_hi_te/internet_fees_justice_department;_ylt=AlDVAzEP6zj3FCeqjPcXCsWs0NUE\nBad news and the flawed analogies still persist. This time instead of tubes, the internet is likened to the Post Office charging more for express mail.\n======\nbrlewis\nTalk about spin.\n\nThey use the example of the post office, saying you can pay different amounts\nfor different speeds. That's not what net neutrality prevents. Net neutrality\nwould prevent the situation where you send off two order forms at the same\npostal rate, but one company gets their order form faster because they're a\nsubsidiary of the post office, or have paid a big fee." +"\nSoftware Companies Tech Competency Matrix - ojhaujjwal\nhttps://geshan.com.np/blog/2017/06/software-companies-tech-competency-matrix/\n======\nrgbrenner\nSome of this is just completely wrong. Like the entire row titled code\nperformance.\n\nLevel 4 isn't going around your codebase shaving milliseconds from execution\ntime.. Level 4 is knowing that not everything needs to be optimized.. In fact,\nmost code doesn't need to be optimized at all. The only parts that actually\nneed optimization are those that have been deemed to be too slow (because of\nsome external reason--ie: effect on users, for ex) or that are on a hot code\npath.\n\nI'll go one step further... all new code should be written for clarity only.\nOptimized only if necessary.\n\nNo one cares if your function thats called once a month takes an extra few\nseconds to run.\n\n~~~\nsbov\n> I'll go one step further... all new code should be written for clarity only.\n> Optimized only if necessary.\n\nI'm not saying you do, but many people I run across who have this point of\nview do a poor job at measuring the \"if necessary\" part. You aren't really\nprepared to detect it without some form of production performance monitoring,\nmeaning on the chart, a level of around" +"\nRevolting Mind: Jonathan Swift \u2013 The Reluctant Rebel - lermontov\nhttps://literaryreview.co.uk/revolting-mind\n======\njoggery\nSo he was cold, frugal, petulant and severe? What did they expect? A genius\nthat was easy to get on with? Was there ever such a one?\n\nThere's such a relish nowadays for pointing out how bad people were in private\nwho created marvellous stuff which produced and produces unlimited benefits to\nsociety.\n\nEspecially unsocial geniuses. They are described as cold or inhuman despite\nperhaps being _more_ human than the rest of us. After all it is only their\n_integrity_ that allows their inner worlds to flourish.\n\n(I suspect that sociable people are secretly afraid of other humans. Which is\nwhy they designate a subset of other humans as 'friends' and are nice to them\non condition that they are nice back. They then project their personal issues\nonto humans outside that set.)\n\n~~~\neli_gottlieb\n>A genius that was easy to get on with? Was there ever such a one?\n\nYes, almost definitely. For instance, Benjamin Franklin was quite the\nsocialite. Richard Feynman was also considered very sociable, and while many\npeople also think he was an asshole, that may just be the effect of meeting\ntons" +"\n\nWikileaks' DNS service suspended - anigbrowl\nhttp://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/12/wikileaks-loses-its-dns-servic.php \n\n======\nsmoody\nLieberman's actions are going to make things worse because he's taking\nsomething that is out-in-the-open -- which means is can be seen, understood,\nanalyzed, and managed -- and forcing it to go underground where the government\nhas even less control. This is going to backfire. I \"get\" censoring the\npublication of classified information, but shutting down DNS access from the\nUSA? What is that going to solve except to make information available to\neveryone but us Americans? I wonder if he understands that. And I wonder if he\nunderstands the momentum he's giving to a shadow DNS service that he'll have\nzero control over. And if he thinks this will give him the momentum he needs\nto run for president in 2012, then I'm afraid he's probably right. :-(\n\n~~~\nwoan\nI doubt Lieberman knows anything about DNS and don't see how any of this is\nrelated beyond WikiLeaks being involved in both. everydns.net revoked the\nentry because DDoS attacks were affecting their other customers.\n\n------\nchopsueyar\nThis is bad precedent for any site under a large-scale DDoS attack.\n\nThe DDoS attack undermines the viability of other customers so your service" +"\n\nOpenID Sucks. - veritas\nhttp://irei.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/openid-sucks/\n\n======\njoeguilmette\nI wish people could articulate valid points without writing like 14 year olds.\n\n~~~\nveritas\nI'll own up to it :)\n\nIt was a 5 minute rant to be honest, not a well thought out exposition on\nOpenID's various shortcomings.\n\nSo, apologies if it was inarticulate/verbose. I really should clean it up and\nedit before I submit to YC.\n\nI modded you up BTW :D\n\n~~~\njoeguilmette\noh haha i had no idea you actually wrote it. i mean, you make really valid\npoints, there's a reason nobody likes openid.\n\n~~~\nveritas\nHaha, no worries dude. Your criticism was spot on and appreciated.\n\nI don't usually submit my own writings to YC (first time I believe).\n\n------\nblader\nI agree, but I liked flow|state's concrete critiques by example better:\n[http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/2007/08/openid-great-\nid...](http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/2007/08/openid-great-id.html)" +"\nCloudflare is down along with so many other websites. Error 502. - rishiloyola\nhttps://cloudflare.com/\n======\nmartin_a\nWhy do people even use Cloudflare so extensively?\n\nUsing a CDN is not essential for every website. Just get yourself some shared\nwebhosting or whatever for your tech blog and you are good to go, no need for\nfancy CDNs that go down like this.\n\nOr is it just because it's fancy tech?\n\n~~~\nskilled\nSEO definitely puts a lot of pressure on people. Most guides these days talk\nabout performance, and performance is directly linked with services such as\nCDN's.\n\nBut like you say, this can definitely be resolved through Web Servers and\nresource optimisation.\n\nFor WordPress blogs, OpenLiteSpeed has been a godsend to run a WP blog with up\nto par performance.\n\n~~~\nmartin_a\nYeah, I know. I've developed with/for WordPress for 10 years and most\nperformance issues can easily be mitigated by optimizing your resources, using\ncaching and more. I never had to rely on CDNs for good performance, though,\nalso SEO agencies try to sell you this. Hard to explain to customers, though.\n\n------\nmacinjosh\nNot sure why engineers insist on building their products on top of single\npoints of" +"\nAngara-5 to become Russia's biggest rocket - Gravityloss\nhttp://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara5_flight1.html\n======\nmarktangotango\nDoes any one know what the toxic propellants are (the Briz-m upper stage)?\n\nEdit: \"burning storable propellant combination of nitrogen tetroxide as\noxidizer and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine as fuel. The engine had a\nspecific impulse of 328.1 seconds and was designed for eight firings during a\nmission. \"[1]\n\n[1]\n[http://www.russianspaceweb.com/briz.html](http://www.russianspaceweb.com/briz.html)\n\n~~~\nCapitalistCartr\nWe use hydrazine in US rocketry, too. As nasty as the stuff is, if I were\nstill in the missile business, I'd use it. It's a strong, well-proven\ntechnology.\n\n~~~\nandrewl-hn\nYes, Russia used it in their long- and medium-ranged ballistic missiles. After\na series of agreements between the US and Russia were reached both countries\nagreed to reduce their arsenal (\n[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I)\n). As a result Russia has an excessive amount of Hydrazine in storage. It's\nexpensive to store it because it's a very toxic and corrosive substance. At\nthe same time it's pretty difficult to get rid of it.\n\nAt least in case of Angara they burn it at a high altitude.\n\n~~~\ntrhway\n>Yes, Russia used it in their long- and medium-ranged ballistic missiles.\n\noh, yea, donning these suits (during summer sunny day) before" +"\nNorwegian Air to cancel 85% of flights and temporarily lay off 90% of staff - spking\nhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norwegianair/norwegian-air-to-cancel-85-of-flights-and-lay-off-90-of-staff-idUSKBN2132F7\n======\njohnnymonster\nIt's a temporary layoff and it's exactly what they should be doing. When they\nlay off the employees, they are able to collect unemployment benefits from the\ngovernment. It's a perfect strategy so that the employees will be ok instead\nof not receiving wages. once things rebound, they can hire them back again and\nall is good.\n\n~~~\nmarvin\nWhile I agree with your point in general, Norwegian is done. They've got a\nheavy debt burden that's due soon. They will either go bankrupt and be\nrestructured, or have to do a wipeout-level stock offering (unlikely in the\ncurrent risk climate).\n\n~~~\naxlee\nCan't Norway bail them out? It's not like they lack the capital, and they're\nthe country largest airline.\n\n~~~\nucarion\nThis is not to contradict what you're saying, but it should be clarified that\nNorway's flag carrier is Scandinavian Airlines, not Norwegian Air:\n\n[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines)\n\nAgain: I'm aware that you haven't said anything to the contrary. But it's\nuseful context.\n\n~~~\nmichaeljohansen\nWell. We Norwegians joke that SAS stands for \"svensk alt sammen\" (Swedish all\ntogether). Some of us" +"\n\nThe complexity of sharing scientific databases - Anon84\nhttp://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/07/16/the-complexity-of-sharing-scientific-databases/\n\n======\nalbertcardona\nOne day, all journals will die, all papers will be online versioned papers,\nand science hierarchies will fade, science itself becomming a lot more\nhorizontal. Just a dream.\n\n~~~\nAnon84\nJournals serve the same purpose they always did... as a pre filter for\ncrackpots. Just compare the \"physics\" section on the ArXiv (that isn't\nfiltered) with any major physics journal (where it can take up to 1 year to\nget something published after multiple iterations).\n\n~~~\nalbertcardona\nUnfortunately, journals also act as:\n\n* preventers of anything _too_ new (like fashion, if unrooted in the previous fashion, it's not acceptable.)\n\n* delayers when the work is in conflict with current work by the editor, one of the reviewers, or any of their direct colleagues.\n\nWhat you are referring to is the review process. Which, while essential, is\nalso severely flawed. Making reviewers lose their anonimity, and publishing\ntheir reviews along with the paper when editor and reviewers consider it\nacceptable -- now, that would change the game for the better, for criticism\nwould drift towards constructive criticism only.\n\n~~~\nAnon84\nYou are right... up to a point.\n\nHistory has shown" +"\nRate my Startup: SnapBill - Automated recurring billing - qixxiq\nHey guys,

We're a small team from South Africa that have finally decided our startup is ready for release (been in private beta here for a while).

* Our main focus is on creating Services, and selling them. Once you add a new service to your account, we'll automatically generate signup forms (based on custom fields you specify) and deal with all the monthly invoicing.

* We do provide standard invoicing (ala Freshbooks/co) but its not our focus at all and is purely intended for the once-off invoices recurring billing companies need every so often.

* We only support PayPal for automated payments at the moment, but more support is coming soon - promise!

I'd love to hear any thoughts or comments anyone has.

http://www.snapbill.com\n======\npetervandijck\nI am reading the homepage but don't understand why I would use this.\n\nSentences like this don't help: \"SnapBill is an online invoicing and billing\nsystem with service provisioning capabilities.\" Compare with the writing here:\n\n\nYour explanation here (\"Our main focus is on creating Services, and selling\nthem.\") isn't really clear either. Find a good way to explain that main focus\nin 2 sentences, and put that on" +"\nHow Seattle blew its chance at a subway system (2016) - wallflower\nhttp://features.crosscut.com/seattle-forward-thrust-sound-transit\n======\ngandreani\nThe best time to build a rail system is kind of like the best time to plant a\ntree. 20 years ago.\n\nIt's sad but it seems to me contemporary Americans don't want to pay for\nsomething that they will only reap the benefits of in later decades\n\nThere's so much in that style of thinking. The irony of depending on roads\nbuilt decades ago. The debt system conditioning people to expect to \"get it\nnow, pay it later\". The hypocrisy in \"investing\" 10k-100k in an education but\nnot a few measly percent in taxes\n\n~~~\nrayiner\nThe problem is not that the benefits will come in decades, but that they won\u2019t\ncome at all to most taxpayers. Here in DC we built a subway 40 years ago. It\u2019s\na huge boondoggle that is usable for a single digit percent of the taxpayers\nwho pay for it. Folks in Richmond who might ride Metro a few times in their\nlifetime or lower income folks who work in the suburbs subsidize the commutes\nof lawyers and federal government workers who work downtown.\n\n~~~\npcwalton\nThe D.C." +"\nBrazilian Kids Learn English by Video Chatting With Elderly Americans - felipelalli\nhttp://www.adweek.com/adfreak/perfect-match-brazilian-kids-learn-english-video-chatting-lonely-elderly-americans-157523\n======\njoshmn\nOkay totally unrelated to the open-source stuff BUT.\n\nThat brought tears to my eyes. It was such a joy to see the expressions on the\nfaces of both the Brazilian and the hip elderly person on the other side.\n\nBookmarked under \"Things that will make you smile\"\n\n~~~\nrobmcm\nSomeone could knock up an app using web RTC. A perfect opportunity for some\nhacker out there. Some hacker that reads HN.\n\nThe trick is avoiding it becoming the next chat roulette :/\n\n~~~\nalagu\nHonestly, I don't think building tech here is the hard part. It is finding the\nright audience (Elderly people & Kids who want to learn English)\n\n------\npshin45\nAs someone in another comment already pointed out, YC previously funded a\ncompany called \"Verbling\"\n([https://www.verbling.com](https://www.verbling.com)) in their Summer 2011\nbatch whose original selling point was to provide an instant, one-click 1:1\npairing of language learners with native speakers via videochat.\n\nI'm not sure how well that concept caught on though... And if you check out\ntheir website, they seem to have pivoted to a more traditional \"livestreamed\nlanguage classes\" model.\n\n------\npersonlurking" +"\nUK spy boss warns of technology terror risk - jackgavigan\nhttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34276525\n======\nfredley\n> \"It's in nobody's interests that terrorists should be able to [...]\n> communicate out of the reach of authorities.\"\n\nSince you can't distinguish between 'terrorists', and anybody else, this\neffectively reduces to our old favourite:\n\n> \"It's in nobody's interests that _people_ should be able to [...]\n> communicate out of the reach of authorities.\"\n\n~~~\npfortuny\nEven that first premise is wrong in any state with the rule of law. Only\ncrimes have to be prosecuted, not \"people\" or \"communications\" and prosecution\nis always something done \"a posteriori.\"\n\nThe above must be understood correctly: I am not advocating that one should\nnot investigate possible criminal plans: because planning some kind of crime\n(like killing someone) with intent is, ipso facto, a crime.\n\nIt is not PEOPLE that the law applies to. It is CRIMES.\n\nWe incarcerate people because we do not know a better way to punish them for\ntheir crimes, not because we do not want them to be human beings. CRIME-\nPUNISHMENT, not MAN-JAIL.\n\n~~~\nSilhouette\nThe trouble with this principle is that there is some damage you simply can't\nput right retrospectively," +"\nLet Kids Rule the School - robg\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15engel.html?hp\n======\nRiderOfGiraffes\nI have said repeatedly:\n\nWhy should students do PhDs? For the _vast_ majority of people a PhD is of\nabsolutely zero value.\n\nWhy should students go to college/university? For the _vast_ majority of\npeople a degree is of absolutely zero value.\n\nWhy should students finish High School? For the _vast_ majority of people a\nHigh School diploma is of absolutely zero value.\n\nSchool is all about assessment, but life is about abilities and skills. Why\nare we teaching math that's targeted at the pinnacle of calculus, when\nabsolutely no one uses calculus outside of a very, _very_ small percentage of\npeople in highly technical, extremely uncommon professions or jobs?\n\nIt's the underlying abilities and skills that these kids, and then young\nadults, need. (Actually, there's much more needed if you want to go on to\nprogramming, engineering, physics, _etc,_ and I haven't forgotten that. But\nwhat percentage of people do those? What percentage _want_ to do those?)\n\nBut they don't get to develop or exercise those abilities and skills. And the\nreason is that these can't be assessed _en masse_ \\- which is required for\nschools.\n\nSo how can we" +"\n\nDynamic languages have jumped the shark - levosmetalo\nhttp://swizec.com/blog/dynamic-languages-have-jumped-the-shark/swizec/6204\n\n======\nshizzy0\nThe criticism of ENV only allowing strings has no bearing on his argument. ENV\ncomes from the OS environment. Code in any other language--strong or weakly\ntyped--would have the exact same issue. And not being able to coerce arbitrary\nstrings to booleans is fine because there is no principled way to do that\nexcept through convention. And everybody makes up there own convention: true,\nyes, YES, OK, TRUE, ok, ON, ENABLED, which just goes to show that there's no\nprincipled way to do it.\n\n~~~\nkyllo\nThis.\n\nNote that Java main methods start with public static void main(String[]\nargs){}\n\nThe main method takes an array of String objects from the command line as an\nargument. You can't pass a boolean or anything other than a String in args any\nmore easily in Java than you can in Ruby.\n\nBut Ruby and other dynamic languages give you _eval_ which, although\ndangerous, can have the effect of coercing your string into a boolean.\n\nirb(main):001:0> a = \"true\"\n\n=> \"true\"\n\nirb(main):002:0> b = eval a\n\n=> true\n\nirb(main):003:0> b\n\n=> true\n\nirb(main):004:0> !b\n\n=> false\n\n------\ngvickers\nYou have weak and dynamic" +"\nApply HN:Programmable matter - YuriyZ\nGoal: creation of programmable matter, consisting of many microscopic particles (c-atoms). Which can be manipulated to create a user programmed 3d form.

Achievements. Verified experimentally:

- ways to connect c-atoms with each other;

- the movement of c-atom relative to other c-atoms.

The experiments were conducted with models of c-atoms in the macro scale. The size of c-atoms models was 3 * 4 cm.

Tasks:\n- development of software capable of managing an array of c-atoms;\n- repeating experiments in micro-scale with size of c-atoms - less than one millimeter.\n======\npjlegato\nWhat are the possible commercial applications of this technology?\n\nHow will your company make money from this?\n\n~~~\nYuriyZ\n\\- Programmable matter will replace 3d prototyping, which is now carried out\nby 3d printers. \\- Will be used in telecommunications. The effect of presence\n- Pario. \\- The technology will be used in medicine. The surgeon will be able\nto operate on the patient by manipulating programmable matter, which will be\nan enlarged, precise, copy of the operated area. \\- Toys (gadgets)\ntransformers. The company will make money by selling and renting devices from\nthe programmable matter." +"\nJohn Gruber: Windows Phone 7 \"Really Nice\" And Better Than Android - Flemlord\nhttp://www.businessinsider.com/john-gruber-windows-phone-7-2010-10\n======\nmycroftiv\nSince Android is much more of a threat to Apple than Windows Phone 7 appears\nto be, it makes sense that Gruber would praise it at the expense of Android.\nThis evaluation is based on 5 minutes of use at a cocktail party. I think if\nsomeone had put a live eel in his hand and asked him to compare it to Android,\nhe would have praised the eel's smooth skin in comparison to Android devices.\n\n~~~\norangecat\nRight. Microsoft, Apple, and the carriers would all be pleased if Android were\nto be replaced by WP7 in the market. No more pesky suggestions of user\nfreedom, so everybody gets to keep their comfortable oligopolies and maintain\nveto power over potentially disruptive innovations. Expect to see many more\nMac fans praising WP7, especially once it or the iPhone is on Verizon.\n\n------\nsteverb\nI got about 5 minutes hands on with WP7 hardware last week, and I have to\nagree with Gruber. WP7 is really nice.\n\n* The UI is very responsive on pre-release hardware. I've been told that the released version will be faster." +"\n\nAsk HN: Looking for NYC-based technical co-founder for green meta-retail site - octavia\n\nFully-functional, uniquely positioned green/social impact ecommerce site seeks a co-founder to help oversee site development, co-raise capital, and grow the organization with the existing founder. The existing founder is strong in finance and business development and has founded three Internet startups to date. The perfect co-founder will be strong in technology but also capable of confidently co-pitching the company to potential investors.

This is the perfect opportunity for someone interested in the environment, helping small businesses thrive, and doing something positive for the planet to walk in as a partner and have an immediate impact on the direction of a startup that, with a small round of investment, can be launched in a very short amount of time. The site is real and it's 95% of the way towards being launch-ready in a basic form with plans for continuous improvement. Launch fast, update often.

The company is a for-profit venture, although it's social impact is beneficial, thus it fits the profile of traditional and social capital market investors. It is funded by the founder and friends&family to date. Co-founder salary will depend on successfully raising a round of capital." +"\n\nInstall Chrome Web-Apps from any Site - franze\nhttp://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensions/inline-installation/\n\n======\ndpcan\nThis seems like such a backwards way to address the actual shortcomings of the\nChrome Web Store.\n\nThey can add features like this all day, but it doesn't fix the fact that they\nhaven't improved the actual Chrome Web Store enough to make developers or\nshoppers want to use it.\n\nEspecially regarding GAMES\n\nIf you open the Chrome Web Store. Go to Games, all you get are the featured\ngames.\n\nThey have categories, but you can't BROWSE them. All you get to do is look at\nthe top 5 they've chosen.\n\nWhat's the point in putting an app in the Chrome Web Store, or even developing\nfor it if you will NEVER get found. What's the point in looking there for new\nstuff if you won't be able to browse and find it????\n\nPeople browse for games. There should be a \"More\" button next to each\ncategory. If users could browse through games, it would be worth developing\ngames for the Chrome Web Store.\n\n~~~\nMatthewPhillips\nIt's poorly presented, but you can browse through categories by clicking the\n\"All\" click under Popular.\n\n------\nSephr\nThis looks extremely insecure and" +"\n37signals' Chalk: a fun little browser-based app for iPad - eng\nhttp://37signals.com/svn/posts/2637-introducing-chalk-a-fun-little-browser-based-app-for-ipad-inspired-by-our-new-office\n======\njbail\nSeems like a remake of their Draft app with a chalky UI.\n\nTo really make a mobile web app be cool, it's still gotta work on the web.\nOtherwise, it's not cool. I'm making that a rule right now. Visiting a URL\nthat says I have to be on an iPad is not cool. It's like saying I need to\ninstall a plugin that costs $500.\n\n~~~\nderekdahmer\nIts still a work in progress, but check out my project \nIts a collaborative whiteboard that works in any browser that supports canvas,\nincluding mobile safari on the iPhone and iPad. Runs on node.js + socket.io\n\nExample: \n\n~~~\njbail\nI made a little canvas demo app myself about a month ago. Works on web or\nmobile (least on Dolphin Browser in Android). I haven't tested a ton though.\n\n\n\nIt's more of a concept app to draw on Chipotle or Starbucks napkins than a\nserious endeavor. Some fellow engineers and I were joking about it at lunch\none day and I promised to make a kick ass web 2.0 app that did indeed enable\nyou to" +"\nSoft Errors Are Hard Problems (2009) - ivank\nhttp://codingrelic.geekhold.com/2009/09/soft-errors-are-hard-problems.html\n======\ngeorgecmu\n_Alpha particle strike - two protons plus two electrons, emitted when a heavy\nradioactive element decays into a lighter element._\n\nAlpha particle is the same as a Helium nucleus, so it has 2 more neutrons and\n2 fewer electrons than the article claims.\n\n _Cosmic ray strike - a high energy neutron (or other particle) emitted by the\nSun._\n\nOn the contrary, cosmic rays are very high energy particles mainly originating\noutside the Solar system.\n\n _These particles are gradually absorbed by the Earth 's atmosphere, so they\nare more of a problem in orbit and at high altitude._\n\nWhat does it mean for a particle to be \"gradually absorbed\"?\n\n~~~\nthedufer\n> What does it mean for a particle to be \"gradually absorbed\"?\n\nI assume it means that the number of particles decreases smoothly as altitude\ndecreases, as opposed to largely being absorbed at distinct altitudes (as one\nmight expect the radiation belts to do, perhaps).\n\n------\nPhantomGremlin\nThere are many techniques that can be used to eliminate soft errors. These\ntechniques used to be quite common in the '60s and '70s when hardware was much\nless reliable overall.[1] There" +"\n16 days since last ruby drama - neXter\nhttp://rubydramas.com/\n======\nbdcravens\nI'm a manager of a user group (not Ruby or Rails, but ColdFusion) but when we\nhave celebs in audience, I always default to them. Members have purchased\ntheir books, and read their blogs; they respect them more than they respect me\nor the speaker (usually me, managers commonly speak at smaller communities).\nShould they be pricks? No. But that's a question for the universe to deal\nwith; as for our group, we like the celebs. (Ruby world's Katz's are CF's\nCamdens, Nadels, and Fortas - same difference...)\n\nHaving listened to Yahuda on various podcasts and whatnot, I get that he\ndoesn't keep his mouth shut. Sometime's he's a douche, othertime's he's the\nsmartest dude in the room and should be listened to. If you are a UGM and\ndidn't expect this, maybe you should decline Yahuda's chance to speak.. his\npersonality isn't exactly a secret, just saying.\n\ntl;dr pricks will be pricks; experts ditto. Take the good with the bad, and\nresearch celebs.\n\n~~~\nJohnBooty\nThe ColdFusion scene has stars?\n\nThere's... there's a ColdFusion _scene?_ Do you guys have dance-offs with the\nASP Classic guys or what?\n\n~~~" +"\nMySpace replaces all server hard disks with flash drives - Flemlord\nhttp://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139280/MySpace_replaces_all_server_hard_disks_with_flash_drives\n======\nseiji\nThe article is a blatant advertisement. Let me counter-advertise with my\nexperiences here.\n\nWe did evaluations of a Fusion-io ioDrive card and a Texas Memory Systems\nRamSan card [1] recently. The ioDrive had strange performance characteristics\n(but nicely designed packaging). We ended up going with a few RamSan cards\n(though, they have much uglier packaging).\n\nWe have a few high throughput MySQL instances that needed to perform better.\nThe database in question is only a few hundred gigabytes in size, so it's a\nperfect fit for the current generation of server flash cards.\n\nOur path for improving improving performance went:\n\n \n \n - Started off with 32GB RAM and RAID-10 on SAS disks.\n - iowait sat between 10% and 15% constantly.\n - Moved up to 64GB RAM.\n - iowait cut in half.\n - Installed RamSan card and moved mysql with all databases to it.\n - iowait became negligible.\n \n\nNow the server sits there with a few hundred gigabytes of flash, 64GB RAM, and\nit looks completely idle on usage graphs, but it's serving data faster than\never.\n\nThey are nice devices if you can afford them (and tolerate" +"\n\nAdding Easy SSL Client Authentication To Any Webapp - scriptjunkie\nhttp://www.scriptjunkie.us/2013/11/adding-easy-ssl-client-authentication-to-any-webapp/\n\n======\ndeftnerd\nIt's sad that I didn't realize he easy this was to implement now. I'm building\nseveral sites that implement bitcoins and this has clear advantages over\nsimple usernames and passwords.\n\nMy thought is allow the user to authenticate with the SSL cert. If they're at\nan IP never seen before, require a password.\n\nThoughts? My concern is with people that have a compromised computer that has\na Remote Access Toolkit installed on it. Perhaps always require the SSL cert\nAND a password pair? Not that passwords would be safe on an infected machine.\n\nThese days it seems that the only way to be sure is to require additional\nauthentication from a second device such as a phone with a 2FA app like Google\nauthenticator or Authy or a hardware device like a Yubi key. Even sending one-\ntime text message confirmation xodes .\n\n~~~\ndeftnerd\nI'm embarrassed that I didn't notice my auto-correct mangling my comment. I'll\ncomment from my desktop in the future.\n\nI meant to say that it's amazing how easy this is to implement now and even\nsending one-time text message confirmation codes during" +"\nTiSpark sits Spark SQL on top of a storage engine to answer complex OLAP queries - jinqueeny\nhttps://github.com/pingcap/tispark\n======\nelvinyung\nYes! I've been thinking of something like this for a while.\n\nFor the sake of simple data integration, I think this sort of architecture is\noptimal. As it stands, Spark is basically already a distributed database\nwithout its own storage engine; tighter integration with a transactional\nstorage engine means that you could get the full power of OLTP and OLAP (HTAP)\nunder the same interface.\n\nImagine that you could process transactions in Spark (pushing them down to the\ndistributed storage engine), and then Spark could automatically use the\nchanges to update a materialized view, and you could serve the updated\nmaterialized view directly from Spark for real-time decision support, using\nSQL plus richer analytics like machine learning, graph processing, etc. It's\nnot _quite_ a one-size-fits-all [1] database, but it's close.\n\nPut a PostgreSQL or MySQL wire protocol server in front of it, and application\ndevelopers won't even have to know that they're using Spark.\n\n(I'm glossing over the fact that Spark currently isn't very good at\ntransaction processing in the sense that it literally doesn't have much of a\nwrite" +"Ask HN: Installing Linux on a Mac. Fedora or Ubuntu? - webmasterraj\n======\nLarryMade2\nIve found ubuntu to be the most painless route, usually a resolution to a\ndriver issue is a google search away.\n\nThe best path is to pro-actively google your model Macintosh with Ubuntu\n(version number) and another with Fedora (version number) and see what pops up\nin compatibility issues and resolutions. Really, its pretty much that easy to\nfigure out.\n\n------\nbsg75\nAlso interested in this, mainly to know which ships with drivers that don't\nrequire too many driver shenanigans.\n\nXubuntu \"looks nicer\", but Fedora is more familiar to us CentOS users on the\nserver side." +"\nBSD Unix: Power to the people, from the code (2000) - vezzy-fnord\nhttp://www.salon.com/2000/05/16/chapter_2_part_one/\n======\nnickpsecurity\nGreat read. I think the biggest takeaway is how they organize and run their\noperation. There's a tiny amount of high talent and dedication people that\nreally control the process. They're open for contributions by whoever wants to\ntry. They internally filter the wheat from the chaff to find those who\ncontributions are truly useful. They give them extra power in both what ends\nup in the distro and helping the filtering/discovery process. The rest are\nstill allowed to attempt whatever contributions they can. The model seems to\nhit an optimal point to bring in more good than bad.\n\nMight be worth copying in other projects. Supporting this is the other,\nhighly-successful organizations that use a similar model. Far as Linux,\nthere's always exceptions to the rule and lets not forget it depends on GNU\nwork done differently. That hybrid, immensely popular development doesn't\ncompare apples to apples with about anything. I treat it like its own\ncategory.\n\n------\njustincormack\nKirk McKusick is still an important person in BSD.\n\nThis story omits the role of NetBSD in opening up development in the BSDs\n[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD#History)\n\n~~~" +"\n\nAsk HN: Why has Google kept Android and Chrome OS separate? - panabee\n\nthe separation of chrome os and android puzzled me for a long time. why not merge the two and concentrate resources on a single os? now i suspect they kept the two apart because they serve different purposes. chrome os is designed to reduce the cash microsoft generates from windows -- specifically from desktops and laptops -- much as google apps reduces the cash from office. android is meant to ensure no proprietary operating system dominates on mobile devices. keeping the two divided allows them to focus on their respective objectives more effectively.

anyone have different theories?\n======\ndragonwriter\nAndroid is (and was when ChromeOS was first released) a fairly mature (though\nstill rapidly evolving, because the mobile OS space isn't a stationary target)\nmobile OS with well-established marketshare.\n\nChromeOS is a longer-term, higher-risk, more ambitious OS effort (the all-web\nOS Google has always wanted) with a fairly niche (by comparison to Android)\ncurrent market. There's no real compelling reason to tie them together yet. A\ngradual, eventual convergence makes sense, but that's over a fairly long term.\n\n------\nwmf\nThe actual reason is just that they're separate" +"\nAsk HN: How do you find a mentor? - aryamaan\nI think, the role of a mentor in our life is understated and another issue is finding a suitable mentor.

One can learn things on their own (after job/school) but a mentor can help you narrow down the things you want to learn and supervise your journey.

Please note I am not talking about spoon feeding but someone who helps accelerate your learning.\n======\ndozzie\nWhenever I hear about searching for a mentor, I imagine some guy that simply\nwaits for illumination to happen, by osmosis, I suppose. I see searching\nspecifically for a mentor as a kind of fashion or supersitition of these days.\n(Mind you, this is merely an association, a first impression that I have when\nI see such questions.)\n\nDo you have a plan how to use this \"mentoring\" thing? A concrete idea what you\nwant from a mentor and how your work would look like? Do you have anything to\nshow him/her, so the mentor has any foothold for comments?\n\nThis is a good piece of article about exactly that:\n[http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2010/12/answer-to-will-you-\nme...](http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2010/12/answer-to-will-you-mentor-me-\nis.html)\n\n------\nonion2k\nFind someone who you think you'd like to be mentored by and" +"\n\nBuilding a raspberry pi into a laptop - azeirah\n\nHey, I had this kinda crazy idea when I saw a friend log in remotely to his PI using X-server. Programs would run on the pi, and he would see them on his laptop.

I had this idea of, what if I build a raspberry pi 2 into my laptop. Not like any other pi-top project. I'll have a hybrid intel/pi laptop. I can use it to do Linux-stuff, have a portable gpio prototyping thing, I can host some local webservers, use it as a build server or

My laptop has a cd-drive that I've never used, people suggested me to put an SSD in there, no way, I'm getting a separate computer instead :D

What are your thoughts on this? What would you do with a second computer inside your laptop? Just wondering...\n======\ncamhenlin\nI installed a Raspberry Pi and an LCD with a battery in inside of an old Mac\nPlus. That's kind of a laptop right?\n[http://i.imgur.com/ID7chQk.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ID7chQk.jpg)\n\n~~~\nmore_corn\nCounts! My Mac SE at least had a handle and optional carrying case (which I\nsadly didn't have). I think they were originally advertised as portable.\n\n------\nCyberFonic\nI have a" +"\nNon-Robust Arithmetic as Art - mourner\nhttps://observablehq.com/@mourner/non-robust-arithmetic-as-art\n======\ndromen\nSome syntax errors re.: \"chosenOrient\" and \"orientRobust\"? I'm on Firefox 60.8\nand uBO but not blocking stringently, just Google Analytics from the logs.\n\nI got overloaded by the page being fully editable/interactive AND with errors\nAND with foreign mathematical constructs. Somehow the possibility to edit it\nmakes me walk on eggshells, even if it's just a local edit.\n\nIt otherwise looks good, I'd probably enjoy reading it if I was more fit. I'm\ngoing to take a walk outside now, thanks for the unintended inspiration.\n\n~~~\nmourner\nInteresting, can you share the exact log of the errors you're seeing? There\nare none for me on both Firefox & Chrome with uBO." +"\nIs graphene a miracle material? - fun2have\nhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9491789.stm\n======\nCoffeeDregs\nGraphene and, more generally, carbon nanotubes are exciting because they have\nsomething-for-everyone. Silicon, plastics, water are examples of molecules or\nstructures that have also been spun into important applications for just about\nevery vertical. I suspect we'll seem carbon nanotube products explode over the\nnext 20 years just as plastics did over the last 40.\n\nThe article focuses a bit on whether graphene can replace silicon, which I\nthink kind of misses the point. The material will enable exciting _new_\napplications rather than merely transforming existing ones.\n\nI'm also kinda bummed that this kind of research doesn't have a higher profile\nin the US. This is high-ass-tech and is probably an area in which our oil\ncompanies could play a very large role with their competencies at running\nlarge, highly complex, raw material production systems.\n\n~~~\nSwellJoe\nReading this article brought to mind this scene in _The Graduate_ :\n\nMr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.\n\nBenjamin: Yes, sir.\n\nMr. McGuire: Are you listening?\n\nBenjamin: Yes, I am.\n\nMr. McGuire: Plastics.\n\nBenjamin: Exactly how do you mean?\n\nSo, I'm wondering how and where" +"\nSolar eclipse measured on Mars, affects interior - dnetesn\nhttps://phys.org/news/2020-09-solar-eclipse-mars-affects-interior.html\n======\nChris2048\nMars (mean diameter 6780 km) has two known moons, Diamos (mean diameter of\n12.4 km) and Phobos (mean diameter of 22 km). So Phobos is ~0.3% the diameter\nof mars, and Diamos is ~0.2%; for comparison the moon is 27% the diameter of\nEarth, though is considered abnormally large. Also, \"Mars may have moons\nsmaller than 50 to 100 metres\".\n\nI'm surprised there's no lower limit on what is considered a moon. Wikipedia\nsuggests smaller objects are called \"moonlets\", but I guess Russell's teapot\nwould count as one, but for the uncertain fact it might not be considered\n\"natural\"?\n\n~~~\nlizknope\nWe have changed the definition of \"planet\" multiple times so I'm sure we will\nredefine \"moon\" as well.\n\nPluto was recently demoted but this has happened before to Ceres and others.\n\n[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet)\n\nBy 1851, the number of \"planets\" had grown to 23 (the eight recognised today,\nplus fifteen between Mars and Jupiter), and it was clear that hundreds more\nwould eventually be discovered. Astronomers began cataloguing them separately\nand began calling them \"asteroids\" instead of \"planets\"\n\n------\nandy_ppp\n\"Its orbit passes between the sun and any given" +"\nA new way of rendering particles - plurby\nhttp://www.simppa.fi/blog/the-new-particle/\n======\nCyberDildonics\nThis is extremely unlikely to be a good technique (and it isn't new) but here\nare two alternatives. Even in the demo video, beneath the lens flares and\nother excess, the particles are aliasing like crazy.\n\nFirst of all, particles like this are usually only a few pixels in size, so\nthe shape doesn't really matter as much as the area. Because of this, I don't\nthink there is much gained, but there is a lot lost since it aliases so badly.\n\nRenderman actually creates particles as two bilinear patches that make up the\nsame shape as the intersection given by these two triangles. You could do the\nsame thing with a quad strip, which would still also take only 6 vertices. The\ngpu will deal with the quads itself, possibly by creating two triangles for\neach quad. This is very unlikely to be a performance hit since it does not\naffect shading.\n\nA second way of creating a semi-transparent particle would be make a triangle\nstrip that rotates around one center point. The center point has an alpha of\n1, the outer points have an alpha of 0." +"\nComplex System Failure: The Whole Is More Than the Sum of Its Parts - ITNEXT\nhttps://itnext.io/complex-system-failure-the-whole-is-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts-ac1ee9bc4e6c\n======\namelius\n> there have been critical computer system bugs and defects that have resulted\n> in the loss of human life such as the 346 people who died on-board the\n> Boeing 737 Max 8 flights in Indonesia and Ethiopia during 2018\u20132019\n\nStrange example, as that was more a consequence of a failure in management.\n\n~~~\njchw\nSomething I\u2019ve learned from working in reliability: there is not one cause.\nThere is also not n causes. There is more like trees of different kinds of\ncauses where each node has some weight contributing to the incident. So yes,\nit is a failure in management for sure, but it isn\u2019t also not other things.\n\n------\njeffreygoesto\nI could not really see a conclusion. Is there any? For the list of references,\nI'd add\n[http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Sys...](http://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf)\n\n------\nkunkelast\nThese larger paragraphs are so difficult to read... The text seem to be\nwritten for Google bot, not for real readers :(" +"\nThe Boolean Satisfiability Problem and SAT Solvers - amirouche\nhttp://0a.io/boolean-satisfiability-problem-or-sat-in-5-minutes/\n======\nsjg007\nI've alway been interested in this problem. I feel like information theory,\nBayesian analysis including Markov chain monte carlo could give you some\ninsight into the distribution of truth values for a satisfiable configuration\nespecially around the phase transition. You can covert 3-SAT into a Bayesian\nnetwork but exact inference is still NP complete. There should be some higher\norder information in a graph of the k-SAT problem... But many of the\nalgorithms here are still NPC (e.g. finding a clique).. So then you discover\ntree width (tree decomposition) as an approximation (also in Bayesian\nnetworks) and find out that it is quite useful but still doesn't quite help.\nIt makes faster SAT solvers but we haven't found anything invariant yet.\n\nAnyway I still enjoy thinking about the problem, my random ideas have taken on\nmore structure based on diving into the different subjects and trying to use\nthem on this problem. I find it fascinating that you can take something simple\nlike these linear circuits and it turns out that they are not simple at all\nand that they scale through the different disciplines.\n\n------\nPhilWright\nI'm" +"\nSearX: Privacy-respecting metasearch engine - tvvocold\nhttps://github.com/asciimoo/searx\n======\nhalflings\nEven with a pool of proxies, I would expect an instance of this \"metasearch\nengine\" to quickly get banned by the other search engines. The same IP running\nthousands of queries and scraping its content (which is against their ToS)\nshould be easily detectable.\n\n~~~\nsnowpanda\nBuilding on that issue, I'd like to add that it would be nice to have a\nfeature that alerts a user that certain a search engine is denying requests.\nIt's visible in the logs or settings somewhere, but usually I find myself\nwondering for a while why my search queries aren't accurate before heading off\nto figure out why.\n\nStill a great project though, I use it every day.\n\n~~~\njbg_\nAt least for me, next to each result is a list of the engines that returned\nthat result. I run searx through Tor, so I occasionally find that Google stops\nreturning results for a few minutes.\n\nIt doesn't happen often, but it's easy to tell when it does because none of\nthe first page results have \"google\" next to them, while of course normally\nmost of them would.\n\n------\nsnowpanda\nOn a related note," +"\nAsk HN: Machine learning risk and control framework - ryeguy_24\nI'm working on building a risk framework for machine learning models to mitigate the risks of machine learning going wrong.

What are the risks of machine learning and what are the corresponding controls that can be used to mitigate those risks?\n======\nryeguy_24\nPoster comment here. I spent time in the banking/finance world where \"Model\nRisk Management\" is a huge thing. I think some of that can be used to think\nabout the risks/controls. It focuses on all the things that can go wrong - a)\nmodel doesn't produce an expected result and b) model is used inappropriately.\n\nSo, they do things like, performing a model validation which includes rigorous\nqualitative and quantitative tests, setting limitations on use, testing the\nsensitivity to inputs and boundary conditions, among many others.\n\nIn the traditional sense, a machine learning model is a new beast. In most\ncases, these models don't have an agreed upon \"methodology\" (i.e. neural\nnetworks) and therefore don't have an \"expected\" result that can be tested\n(especially for unsupervised learning models). So, curious to know what others\nare thinking?\n\n------\nmindcrime\n_Superintelligence_ by Bostrom is a decent treatment of some ideas" +"\nWhy the sun is a poor dumping ground for nuclear waste (2010) - gus_massa\nhttp://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/\n======\nleni536\n> To reach the Sun you need to subtract 100 percent of Earth\u2019s orbital\n> velocity; to reach solar escape velocity you need only add 41 percent to it.\n\nYou could send the waste with near solar escape velocity to travel on a really\nlong ellipsis trajectory, at the furthest point you can get rid of the\nremaining kinetic energy with minimal fuel and let the waste fall back\nstraight into the Sun. Subtracting Earth's orbital velocity is by far not the\noptimal method to reach the Sun.\n\n~~~\nkllrnohj\nA straight Hohmann transfer requires ~0.5-1% more dV than a bi-elliptic\ntransfer. Calling this \"by far\" not optimal is by far not correct. So instead\nof 32 km/s you need 31.68 km/s. This changes nothing.\n\n~~~\nbenjoffe\nWhere did you get the \"0.5-1%\" figure from? That may be true in some cases,\nbut not in this extreme case, here it's closer to half the delta-v (which, due\nto the rocket equation is enormously less difficult to achieve).\n\nSolar escape velocity is about 16.5km/s* , and since ~99% of this manoeuvre's\ndelta-v budget is" +"\nTikTok Agreed to Buy More Than $800M in Cloud Services from Google - jmsflknr\nhttps://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-agreed-to-buy-more-than-800-million-in-cloud-services-from-google\n======\narvinaminpour\nTikTok seemed to run off of Alibaba Cloud (from what I read which may be\nwrong) so it's an interesting move to buy Cloud Services from Google. I\nprobably read this as a way of strengthening the case that they're an\n\"American\" software company since they run on the same infrastructure as any\nSV startup.\n\n~~~\ned25519FUUU\nAccording to Chinese law, the government can quietly demand any information\nthey want on anyone. A warrant in China? Hah.\n\nAll they have to do is say \"Give us the data stored on GCP host\" and TikTok is\nlegally obligated to comply.\n\nTo be fair, it's not much different than in the United States unless the data\nbelongs to a US citizen, which is why many companies are attempting to\ndomicile cloud data in their own country.\n\n~~~\nrussli1993\nTiktok' parent is bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. It has a US and\na Chinese subsidiary. Chinese subsidiary runs douyin is subjected to the\nintelligence law. The US subsidiary runs tiktok and is managed by US employees\nand is not subject to the same law. The" +"\nAsk HN: Does anyone actually use /newcomments? - kaishiro\nJust curious - I've been banging around HN for a while and have never really understood /newcomments. Was there orignally a driving idea around this? I've never really seen the concept of a contextless stream of comments before. I don't even dislike it - just a curiosity.\n======\nniftich\nI use it very often.\n\nTo me, it's especially useful at lower-traffic times to gauge which threads\nare getting attention. At high-traffic times, it's utility is somewhat\ndiminished by presenting an almost-entirely new set of comments every time you\nclick it.\n\n------\nDanBC\nI mostly use /newcomments.\n\nYou get to see which articles have interesting discussion." +"\n\nRoy \u2014 small functional language that compiles to JavaScript - paulmillr\nhttp://roy.brianmckenna.org/\n\n======\nMiky\nIt makes me sad that having monad sugar is now just a given feature for a\nfunctional language.\n\nEspecially when that language has unrestricted side effects and the example\ncode using the monad syntax uses those side effects, completely obviating the\nneed for, and in fact rendering useless, monads as used in the example.\n\nThis is cargo cult programming at its worst. Including monad sugar because\nit's the thing to do, without even understanding what monads are or why\nthey're useful. This is quite clear from the \"tracing monad\" example code.\nThis \"tracing monad\" is like the Writer monad, stripped of all utility and\nsense.\n\nWhat drove you to unleash this horror on the programming masses, Moggi? Why\nhave you cursed us so?\n\n~~~\npufuwozu\nThe example sucks but is very simple.\n\nI didn't add monadic sugar just to be part of the \"cargo cult\". I added it\nbecause I'm eventually going to use it to implement an automatic continuation-\npassing transform. I've done a similar thing before with ClojureScript's\nmacros:\n\n\n\n~~~\nMiky\nMonadic sugar is probably not the way to go for implementing an" +"\nShow HN: Semantic Versioning for Natural Language - computerlab\nhttps://github.com/ptsteadman/semver-for-natural-language\n======\nmbrock\nThis ties into a vague idea I have bouncing around my head about viewing\nnatural language works \"structurally\", especially in terms of premises,\narguments, conclusions, etc.\n\nAnalytic philosophers are pretty good at this already, as well as good science\nwriters and thesis authors.\n\nThey can present the high level \"type signature\" of their work: something\nlike, I assume the premises X, Y, and Z, (see books 1, 2, and 3 which argue\nfor these premises) and then deploy arguments of kind A and B in order to\nstrengthen the conclusion C.\n\nInterpreted with a programmer's vocational damage, that text would be a\nfunction from (X, Y, Z) to C, using A and B as implementation patterns or\nalgorithms, and recommending books 1, 2, 3 as concrete providers of the types\nX, Y, Z.\n\n(Some kind of hand-wavey metaphorical Curry-Howard equivalence extended to\nrhetoric?)\n\n~~~\ncomputerlab\nI like the phrase \"programmer's vocational damage\", I think there's often a\ntendency to attempt to over-extend programming concepts to other realms (for\nexample, natural language). The irony is that a lot of the concepts used in\nprogramming are abstractions of patterns from" +"\nLibcrtxy \u2013 The CRT X-Y Library for drawing vector-based games - networked\nhttp://libcrtxy.sourceforge.net/\n======\ntdicola\nNeat looking library, but it seems woefully out of date for today's modern\ngraphics pipelines. Would be cool to see a similar library but that uses\nOpenGL and modern GLSL shaders to more closely emulate drawing vectors on a\nCRT. Still this could be a neat little library for use on low end systems like\na Raspberry Pi.\n\n~~~\ndddddannyyyyy\nThe owner of the github repo and myself worked on this for a while:\n[https://github.com/blucz/Vector](https://github.com/blucz/Vector)\n\nIt does what you said. We never took this anywhere, but it does work, and on\nretina displays, it's really pretty.\n\n~~~\ntdicola\nWow that looks great, nice work!" +"\n\nPinboard - antisocial bookmarking - pstinnett\nhttp://www.pinboard.in\n\n======\nsunir\nHey, that's neat. Maciej Ceglowski and Joshua Schachter (founder of\ndel.icio.us) are good friends. I recall what must have been five years ago\nwhen they would hang out on Freenode arguing how to design various projects\nlike LOAF () and I'm sure\ndel.icio.us. It'd be amazing to see some of that energy again in practice. My\nbest wishes to this project.\n\n~~~\njoshu\nI chime in from time to time but I'm not working on it.\n\n------\njeremymims\nThe payment scheme is what interests me most. I can't even try it out and I'm\nseriously considering paying this guy a couple of dollars.\n\nThis is highly irrational behavior on my part considering there are dozens of\nfree \"social bookmarking\" sites out there that certainly accomplish my very\nlimited social bookmarking goals.\n\nIt reminds me of old carnival shows (or any nightclub with a line outside).\nPay money to get inside. No preview up front. You're paying for exclusivity,\nmystery, and reputation instead of features.\n\nAdditionally, people who pay money for something often feel the need to\njustify the purchase to themselves and others. This will generally increase\ntheir happiness with the" +"\n\nShow HN: Heroku-style deployments for private clouds - wereHamster\nhttp://scrz.io/\n\n======\nwereHamster\nI very much like Heroku, but due to technical restrictions (no WebSockets) we\nhave to use our own dedicated servers. And I wanted to have deployment as easy\nas Heroku where you just push to a repo and done. Scrz is not quite there yet,\nthough. It's more like: upload a slug to scrz and done. How you create the\nslug is up to you.\n\nIt's Heroku-style in the sense that the developers don't need to know on which\nservers the apps will be deployed to, and don't need to have ssh access to\nthose servers. There is also no need to have server addresses stored in the\nproject source code like it's usually done with capistrano.\n\nWe have our CI server configured so it automatically uploads the slug to scrz.\nSo for us it's really like Heroku, developers push to a git repo and the app\nis automatically deployed.\n\n------\ntectonic\nIs this an open source project?" +"\n\nDo you still read Slashdot? - kashif\n\n\n======\nSwellJoe\nI started reading Slashdot when it was Chips and Dips...but I had completely\ndiscontinued Slashdot for about two years and reddit took its place. Now that\nreddit has declined from a \"have to read nearly every link on the page\" to\n\"maybe two or three articles per day\" habit, I find myself going back to\nslashdot at least once every couple of days.\n\nI read news.YC more often than either now...but the volume here is still low\nenough to where it's not a problem. I drop in more than I need to (I'll come\nback not really expecting anything new) kind of as a nervous tick while I'm\nwaiting on software to build or virtual machine images to copy (I manage our\napt/yum software repositories, and do all of the QC testing, so I twiddle my\nthumbs more than I'd like).\n\nLately, there's a lot more of that, as may be seen in my ridiculous increase\nin comment volume this week...I'm kind of embarrassed looking over it\nnow...because I'm in the midst of rolling out a new version of our installer--\nso lots of testing and packaging. I need to find" +"\nUS states: If they were countries - timr\nhttp://www.economist.com/node/17910000?story_id=17910000\n======\nshawnee_\nCalifornia needs to be two states: Northern CA and Southern CA. It doesn't\nmake sense for one state to have so much oomph, but to be such a disaster,\nfinancially.\n\nNorthern CA and Southern CA are completely different worlds; they have\ndifferent agendas and different kinds of people flock to each one for\ndifferent reasons.\n\nState taxes, government latency, budgeting. . . all of these things could be\nsimplified and improved if the state were not such a behemoth.\n\n~~~\nbendmorris\nMany states have groups that want their state to be divided into two or more\nstates; you just hear about California more in the news because they're\nbigger. One less prominent example is eastern vs. western Washington, where\nthe farmers in the east feel dominated by the liberals in Seattle; I believe\nthey even voted on it in the past. If we divide up states into homogeneous\nsections, pretty soon every neighborhood will be its own state.\n\n(Edit: Apparently it's so common there's a Wikipedia article:\n[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_partition_pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_partition_proposals))\n\n~~~\njerf\n\"If we divide up states into homogeneous sections, pretty soon every\nneighborhood will be its own state.\"\n\nSome science" +"\n\nComputer Scientists Show That Mass Incarceration Is Contagious - dallenallred\nhttp://www.fastcoexist.com/3032447/computer-scientists-show-that-mass-incarceration-is-contagious\n\n======\nEvanPlaice\nCrime rates tend to be higher around police stations, military bases, and\nairports. Not because of a higher rate of people committing actual crimes but\nsimply because of the increased police presence.\n\nAll it takes is an ambitious cop who doesn't want to leave his advancement to\nchance. Once you're in the system it's difficult/impossible to get out.\n\nI grew up in a pretty nice area and rarely had encounters with the police\nunless I was doing something stupid and deserving of their attention. Even\nthen, I was treated with decency and respect.\n\nI didn't understand the difference until I moved to an area that was close to\na large police station and courthouse. There was no doubt about the increased\npolice presence.\n\nOne day on my way to work on my motorcycle I got pulled over by the CHP\n(California Highway Patrol). When I went to hand over my\nlicense/registration/insurance the officer reached over and snatched the keys\nout of my ignition. Instead of telling me what I was being charged he started\nwith a threat, \"you will cooperate or I'm going to tow your bike" +"\n\nWho Really Benefits From Interest Deductions - 001sky\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/realestate/mortgages-who-really-benefits-from-interest-deductions.html\n\n======\nmooism2\nIt's only talking about mortgage interest.\n\nThat's a pity. I'd like to read a well-written piece about how interest\ndeduction for business works out. It seems designed to make it easier for\nbusinesses to invest, but I wonder how the costs of leveraged buyouts etc\ncompare.\n\n~~~\n001sky\nThe analysis is the same. The tax-deduction is a subsidy to the \nholders, of whatever asset class. So, for homes, the subsidy accrues to the\nequity holder. For business, the same thing. Policywise, housing is\nconsumption (luxury, in particular) and business capital structure is\ninvestment. Subsidizing the latter has a far stronger policy rationale per-se\nbut the capture technique (components of cost or net profit) is arbitrary.\nAnalytically, see:\n[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theor...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem#With_taxes)." +"\nGoogle+ cannot be used with customer or brand accounts anymore - anticensor\nhttps://plus.google.com/\n======\nneic\nArchiveTeam did manage to scrape ~98.6% of the user profiles before it went\ndown. It was around 16 hours from completion when Google pulled the plug.\n\nIt was done with the distributed scraper 'Warrior' using a massive amount of\nsmall cloud instances to spread the load to 1000s of IP adresses. The dataset\nis ~1.45 PB.\n\n[http://tracker.archiveteam.org/googleplus/](http://tracker.archiveteam.org/googleplus/)\n\n~~~\norev\nI really wonder what is so valuable about saving everything on the Internet.\nFor all of human history until now, every little human interaction was\nfleeting and only meant something to the people involved. Things that were\nsignificant were preserved when the people involved decided they were\nimportant. Now we are trying to keep every one of those insignificant things,\nfor what purpose? Training an AI is all I can think of.\n\n~~~\nest31\n> Now we are trying to keep every one of those insignificant things, for what\n> purpose?\n\nWhat seems unimportant and insignificant to us now might become very\ninteresting in the future. People in the future might consider the arrival of\nthe internet as the beginning of a new age. Furthermore, some" +"\n\nDo you think this iOS Game idea will be fun? I do - FileNimbus\nhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699170558/make-catch-crisis-reach-its-full-potential\n\n======\nnickynix\nIt looks generic and already claims to adopt the freemium model. It almost\nlooks like something Ray Wenderlich (a great blog, by the way) would have made\nto teach people how to develop a game for iOS.\n\nHowever, I could be wrong. The gameplay could be completely unique, but there\nis no demo video to demonstrate that fact; all we have to rely on is the\nauthor's word.\n\nIt doesn't look like something I would pay for, especially given that it is\nstill in the design stage. It might work as a paid-tutorial if all the code is\nreleased (gameplay code, assets, detailed tutorials, IAP code, etc.), but in\nits current state it looks like a Chinese-developed clone." +"\nGoogle says ad blockers will save online ads - peter123\nhttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/16/google_on_adblockers/\n======\npavs\nWow, the first half was all good and informative, than the second half the\nauthors started to dump all his opinion as known, absolute facts.\n\nThe fact is that Google, a multi billion dollar company which make ~90% of its\nrevenue through ads, not only allows ad blocking extensions to be installed in\nits browser (which is rapidly gaining market share) but also not-so-evil\nenough not to tinker with the Top 10 extension list and allow an ad blocking\nextension to be listed as the second most downloaded extension. (2 of the top\n10 extensions are ad blockers:\n).\n\nTo top it off, they are forthcoming about the ad blockers and how they view it\nand discussed it openly with everyone, by justifying it as a good thing. They\nagree with something most of us already know is that the single biggest reason\nwe use ad blocking extensions is because of the intrusive and extremely\nannoying ads. If ads were non-intrusive and fast and targeted most people\nwouldn't bother with ad blockers. Google, the biggest online ad company gets\nit. This is good news.\n\nAnd this is" +"\nAsk HN: Is WSL2 stable enough for devs to switch from MacOS to Windows? - asenna\nFor developers who've switched back to Windows, how is the experience like? Is WSL2 as smooth as actually working on Linux? or does it still crap out on random Node libraries at times (like on WSL1)?

I'm in the market for a new work laptop and a lot of people I know are in the same boat - holding onto older Macbook Pros (2015 and earlier) looking for alternatives, but scared to jump from MacOS. Obviously Apple is busy making the next pro devices thinner which is just.. wonderful for them.

Yes, switching to Linux is an option for many. But I also have to use Adobe CC tools which needs Windows (Wine is not a good option). Hence it's either dual-booting Linux/Windows or Windows full time as the two options for me.\n======\nWorldMaker\nWSL2 is not technically stable yet at all. It's still only in 20H1 Insider\n[\"public beta\"] builds for the version of Windows 10 to be released in the\nfirst half of 2020.\n\n(WSL1 on the other hand has been stable and available for production versions\nof Windows 10 for months now." +"\nShow HN: Libemf2svg, a library/utility to convert Enhanced Metafile (EMF) to svg - kakwa_\nhttps://github.com/kakwa/libemf2svg\n======\nbrudgers\nDoes it vectorize bitmaps from the Enhanced Metafile?\n\n~~~\nkakwa_\nNo, and it doesn't even handle bitmap blobs yet.\n\nThe other big missing parts are clipping and emf+ records as a whole.\n\nHowever, I am not sure it's a good idea to vectorize a bitmap.\n\n~~~\nbrudgers\nWhether it matters depends on the use case of course.\n\nIf the bitmap is not vectorized it can't be styled with CSS. It also means\nthat the resulting SVG contains arbitrary data from the source or edited as\ntext.\n\nAnyway, years ago when I was dealing with WMF in a vector context, not SVG,\nembedded bitmaps made the imported objects mostly worthless. Years before\nthat, I would use Corel Draw to vectorize bitmaps and it worked remarkably\nwell for ordinary cases.\n\n~~~\nkakwa_\nThe trick here is for \"ordinary cases\" ^^.\n\nVectorizing bitmap might not be trivial and results in crappy or huge (in\nsize) outputs.\n\nAs far as I can, I would like to keep this conversion library as simple as\npossible. Ideally it should be a simple translation between EMF records and\nSVG with" +"\nThe Mathematical Con of Hedge Funds and Financial Advisers (2014) - jimsojim\nhttp://www.psmag.com/business-economics/dangerous-mathematical-con-hedge-funds-financial-advisers-79212\n======\npzone\n\"When it comes to publishing in the Journal of Finance or the Journal of\nFinancial Markets, the editors simply don\u2019t have the mathematical knowledge\nnecessary to vet some of the more complex and nuanced assertions.\"\n\nPersonally, I think everyone should stop reading at this point. Of course I\nwent through to the paper itself.\n\nWhat is the paper? Mathematicians citing Leontief from 1982 about the woes of\neconomics as a science, running some simulations (no data for me, thanks!) and\nreally getting quite angry, for what, to remind us that backtesting is a\nflawed methodology? If you invest based on some random back-tested wavelet\nbullshit you're doing it wrong, this is not news to anyone. Harvey, Liu and\nZhu made their point already (note - not the Zhu who authored this paper) and\nnobody cares about your filling in some dull derivations in a mathematical\nappendix and calling them \"proofs.\" Everyone complains about economists doing\ntoo much of that already.\n\n~~~\nyummyfajitas\nI find it entertaining that you simultaneously critique the lack of rigor and\nalso complain about economists making the math rigorous.\n\nThe point" +"\nIn Recession, Japanese Lay Off Robots - peter123\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/technology/13robot.html?_r=1\n======\npatio11\nThis is just a subset of \"capital investment goes down in economic downturns,\nand up in boom times\". The local robot manufacturers are doing poorly because\nthe local automobile industry (which is the largest driver of _every_ industry\nin central Japan) is doing poorly.\n\nAfter the economy recovers and A Certain Automobile Manufacturer starts\nselling its Ridiculously Popular Hybrid to Americans by the container ship\nagain, the factories around here will get spun back up again. Until then\neverybody is just waiting it out, with a lot of belts being tightened and\nbudgets being squeezed. The companies who are in a position to concentrate on\nthings other than survival are doing R&D to have something to attract the\ninevitable tidal wave of cash that will accompany a recovery.\n\n~~~\ntc\n_After the economy recovers and [Toyota] starts selling its [Prius] to\nAmericans by the container ship again_\n\nI would not so casually assume that this will happen. The current downturn is\nin many respects unprecedented, and all of the long-term trend lines are bad.\n\nPeople tend to look at a limited set of examples that show the US recovering" +"\nWhat The Sleep Habits of Famous Writers Reveal About Their Productivity - angelohuang\nhttp://www.fastcompany.com/3026741/work-smart/what-the-sleep-habits-of-famous-writers-reveal-about-their-productivity?partner=rss&utm_content=bufferff287&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer\n======\nsocrates1998\nThis is interesting, but generally meaningless.\n\nStudying successful people doesn't reveal secrets.\n\nIt's the problem of induction. There are probably tons of unsuccessful writers\nthat have similar habits and write a ton of horrible writing.\n\n~~~\nNursie\nThis sort of article also seems to pander to a certain sort of personal\ncontrol-freakery - \"if I just change this one more thing about myself, then\nI'll be truly successful!\"\n\n------\numjames\nWould love to see this for notable programmers. Don't know if the data is\navailable for their wake-up times.\n\nWould also love to see how many of these writers/programmers took naps during\nthe day, at what time, and for how long.\n\n------\nsukuriant\nOkay, so I'm basically seeing that 9am is a pretty good time to wake up; and\nif you like to wake up earlier, that's good too?\n\nThis is still a very small sample of people.\n\n------\nWalterSear\nWhat did it reveal?" +"\nCSS-In-JS and Static Rendering - jamesknelson\nhttps://frontarm.com/james-k-nelson/css-in-js-static-rendering/\n======\nLeonM\nI recently tried to use a popular UI combo (React + Material UI) and wanted to\nuse static CSS. Just good ol' regular CSS files included in the HTML head.\nThis so I could host my frontend on a static webserver (AKA a CDN) and use\nContent-Security-Policy.\n\nI had to jump deep in a rabbit hole of build systems that no-one seems to\nunderstand and a dependency hell that I haven't experienced since my Python\ndays. Any Github/Stackoverflow post I could find on the subject was already\nobsolete.\n\nThe 'advise' most devs gave would boil down to disabling CSP by allowing\nunsafe-inline, or serving the index.html through a NodeJS server and injecting\nCSP nonces through a templating system. Both are not solutions, but\nworkarounds to a problem that shouldn't exist.\n\nOnce again, I had to conclude that the modern webdev frameworks are not mature\nenough to use for any serious work. I'll try again in 2020.\n\n~~~\nChyzwar\nYou used a framework that specifically uses CSS in JS and tried to use it as a\nserver-side rendered website.\n\nThere is plenty of react frameworks that are geared toward traditional CSS:\nreactstrap," +"\nAsk HN: Semi-technical co-founder? - ParameterOne\nWhat would you call a guy that knows hows things work and can ask for specific things to get done but can't write a lick of code? Non-tech or semi-tech?\n======\notoburb\nThree off-the-cuff options based on your vague description:\n\n1) Designer\n\n2) Marketer\n\n3) Management Consultant\n\nTaking a step back, it feels like this question is being asked without a clear\nunderstanding of the underlying \"why\". Could you elaborate further?\n\n~~~\nParameterOne\nJust trying to find out where the tipping point might be between technical and\nnon-profit technical....And if there is a middle ground between the two.\n\n------\nhsikka\nCould you give an example of asking for specific things to get done? I think\nthat the level of specificity and clarification of dependencies there makes\nthe difference.\n\n~~~\nParameterOne\nProbably more like \"On the title, we'll probably have to prevent clicks on it\nto improve UX\"\n\nAnd not \"Use css pseudo elements :after to provide the correct bookmarklet\ntitle.\"" +"\n\nThe San Francisco Rent Explosion: Part II - ryan_j_naughton\nhttp://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion-part-ii/\n\n======\ntwic\nThere is a special hell for people who present tabular data as images.\n\n~~~\ncalbear81\nI sometimes do this in emails because for some reason Gmail hates CUT AND\nPASTE from an Excel table into an email and none of the work I did to format\npadding, widths, etc. in cells are preserved.\n\n------\ndjb_hackernews\nI live in Boston and have visited SF a few times, definitely not connected to\nthe SF rental market like I am to Boston. What I am curious about is how new\nand how large these 1 bedroom apartments are in SF. My hunch is your dollar\nprobably goes further in SF than it does in Boston.\n\nA 1 bedroom/1 bathroom in the Back Bay (nicer, while not nicest part of the\ncity) will run about $2500/mo. But it'll be 100 years old, 400 sq ft,\noutdated, no laundry etc.\n\nI wonder how that compares to apartments in SOMA, which appear to be newer\nbuildings at least.\n\n~~~\nicedog\nI have a friend paying $2200 for a 230 sqft micro-apartment in SOMA. It's like\nhaving your bed in a tiny kitchen.\n\n~~~\nbaddox" +"\nAsk HN: Anybody still into ES5 + traditional Javascript dev workflow? Why? - lewisjoe\nClient Javascript development has drastically changed in the last 5-7 years. ES6+ Standards, module bundlers, Managing dependencies with NPM, Typescript & such modern elements in the toolchain is becoming the de-facto.

Are there any companies, projects/products, indie devs out there still sticking to plain old JS development without the modern tools?

Are there any reasons to not switch to the modern workflow?\n======\navoidwork\ni've avoided it entirely with my latest work project; no transpile, or\nunneeded tools... just awk & eslint.\n\nthere are no* \"de-facto standards\", just people doing what they think is\npopular 'cause they read about it on the net.\n\n------\ngfrryjfcryjry\nMe, because of KISS." +"\nEmployees who quit Shopify over its Breitbart ties can find new jobs - nomadicactivist\nhttps://news.fastcompany.com/employees-who-quit-shopify-over-its-breitbart-ties-can-find-new-jobs-through-this-service-4030797\n======\nclickbait\nI don't particularly like how it has become a normal occurrence for people to\ntry and ruin the lives of others simply because they have a different opinion.\n\n~~~\nflukus\nI wonder how easy it will be to abuse this new system to bootstrap a company.\nFirst clone an already successful company, then find someone politically\nundesirably using the competitor. Finally release a virtue signalling\nstatement that gets people to use your company instead.\n\n~~~\ngydfi\nIt's happening already, but with pretty limited success. Voat is reddit for\npeople driven off reddit. Gab is twitter for people driven off twitter.\nNeither of these is a roaring success just yet, but they're better positioned\nthan the average clone.\n\nIn general I don't think the splitters are ever likely to gain half the market\nshare of the original because 99% of people do not care for this kind of thing\nat all." +"\n\nAsk HN: What do you do when your DNS fails? - hayksaakian\n\nZerigo is having an outage right now on all name servers. This means all heroku apps using zerigo (the only DNS addon) probably don't resolve at their usual domain.

What do you smart people who have a plan B do when SHTF with your DNS?\n======\nmike-cardwell\nI use three separate and unrelated providers. The first being myself (a single\nLinode VM), and the other two:\n\n[http://rollernet.us/](http://rollernet.us/)\n[https://puck.nether.net/dns](https://puck.nether.net/dns)\n\nThey both offer free backup DNS.\n\n------\nstaunch\nYou use a major provider. Providers that have the resources to defend against\nalmost any attack. I trust Route53, Dyn, and Cloudflare. You can also use your\nregistrar (but that often has limitations).\n\n------\ndanypell\nI just use CloudFlare. They just can't really afford going down, and if they\ndo, they're big enough to fix it quickly enough I guess." +"\n\nAgainst Tolerance - mbrubeck\nhttp://tim.dreamwidth.org/1844711.html\n\n======\nchrismcb\nThe author says \"But we know that Brendan has already inserted his views on\nour relationships where those views don't belong: into the workings of the\ngovernment, by means of making a political donation. \" Isn't the whole point\nof democracy to insert your views into the workings of the government. To make\npolitical donations to people that you think have similar points to you? If\nyou can't make a political donation, with your own money, then what can you\ndo?\n\nOne thing I don't get, do people think this guy is going to be a miserable\nleader and a bad businessman? Does the author think only people who believe\nthe same things as the author can lead?\n\nThe title was \"against tolerance.\" I thought the author was going to rant\nabout how intolerant some gays are. But instead he is saying he won't tolerate\nsomeone else having an opinion that differs with his own.\n\nI would be willing to bet every CEO out there has made a political\ncontribution or voted for someone that \"interfered\" with the authors personal\nlife.\n\n------\njedanbik\nIt's incredibly bold to make a public statement like this." +"\n\nI Use GitHub.app and You Should Too - bbaumgar\nhttp://bbaumgar.svbtle.com/githubapp\n\n======\nbradleyland\nI too find Git to be the kind of tool that works well through a GUI. However,\nI went one step further and bought Tower [1]. In addition to the many things\nthat GitHub.app does, Tower takes things one step further. If you tried using\nGitHub.app, but ran up against a Git activity that isn't exposed through the\napp, then you should take a serious look at Tower.\n\nOne specific example is partial commits within a single file. Tower shows a\ndiff view of edited files that breaks edits from different regions of a single\nfile in to chunks. You can stage/un-stage these chunks right through the GUI.\nThis is very similar to `git add -p filename.ext`, but with a very nice GUI.\n\n1: [http://www.git-tower.com](http://www.git-tower.com)\n\n------\ntiquorsj\nIt still has major issues. But, for many things it is absolutely better to\nhave a GUI.\n\n------\nmcmillion\nI use SourceTree for most of these same reasons." +"\nAsk HN: If an obvius idea wasn't tried yet, is it a bad one? - ignaloidas\nI have an idea for a key-value database architecture, and it seems quite obvious for me and how could one come up with such idea. But when searching for prior works, I haven't found anything. Could this mean the idea is bad, as I think it should've came up for at least few CompSci students before.\n======\nmimixco\nEvery great idea is obvious in retrospect. The entire history of science is\nthat of one person finding out something that was true which no one else had\nfound before. Your comp sci invention could very well be one of those things!\n\nBest bet is to scaffold your ideas in working code and then see if they are as\npractical as you think. You might be positively surprised.\n\n------\nnikonyrh\nEven if it has been tried before implementing it yourself will be a great\nlearning experience :) And if you think it will perform better on some work-\nloads than most currently existing solutions then you should try executing\nthose benchmarks as well.\n\n------\nBjoernKW\nWell, someone has to first come up with an idea. Chances" +"\nMultiple ways to compute e in Raku - gbacon\nhttp://blogs.perl.org/users/damian_conway/2019/09/to-compute-a-constant-of-calculusa-treatise-on-multiple-ways.html\n======\nvvillena\nThis article is a love letter to both mathematics and programming. It is\nawesome to read something and grasp the joy and playfulness of the author. The\nmaths are explained in a simple way. The programming concepts go from the\nstraightforward to the delightfully weird (and let't not kid ourselves, Raku\nshines the most the weirder things get). And the final result is downright\nfun. I love it.\n\n~~~\nalfiedotwtf\nDamian is a magician in the way how he teaches different subjects. His talk on\ncalculating PI was fun too.\n\n------\nMrEldritch\nThis looks surprisingly neat, honestly. I've never used Perl, let alone Perl\n6, but I think I see why people cared about it.\n\n~~~\nianai\nIs it officially appropriate to talk about Perl in the past tense?\n\n~~~\nlmkg\nI think technically yes, because the present tense should be referring to Raku\ninstead.\n\n~~~\nmclehman\nRaku is not the direct successor to Perl, active Perl development continues.\n\n------\ntzs\nComputing e to thousands of decimal places is an interesting exercise for the\nmathematically inclined students in a beginning programming class. If you use\nthe \u22111/n! series" +"\n\u2018Human computer\u2019 Shakuntala Devi has died - sindhiparsani\nhttp://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/mathematical-genius-shakuntala-devi-no-more/article4640134.ece\n======\nshared4you\nI feel that she was a child-genius like Ramanujan, but was unfortunate to be\nnot \"discovered\" by a mentor like G.H.Hardy. She had great memorization skills\nand logical thinking, so obviously excelled at writing puzzles' books. It's a\npity that her contributions to modern mathematics is zilch. I still wonder why\ndidn't she take up number theory. She went into astrology (yea, not\nastronomy), which is still debated as a pseudo-science. She could've done so\nmuch, but alas it's too late now. But well, each person to his own, each\n-ology to itself. RIP.\n\n~~~\nceejayoz\nI don't think astrology is _debated_ as a pseudo-science.\n\n~~~\nfareesh\n+1, astrology is the poster child for pseudo-science.\n\n------\nwging\n>Rated as one in 58 million for her stupendous mathematical feats by one of\nthe fastest super-computers ever invented \u2014the Univac \u2014 1108 \u2014, Ms. Devi\nbelieved in using grey cells to silicon chips.\n\nThis is somewhat unclear. Wikipedia clears up what's probably meant here:\n\n>In 1977 in Dallas she competed with a computer to see who give the cube root\nof 188138517 faster. She won. At an American university she was" +"\nGetty's New Watermark - tortilla\nhttp://www.gettyimages.com/Creative/Frontdoor/NewWatermark\n======\nJimmyL\nI think this is great - it's either a win or no-worse-than-it-used-to-be,\ndepending on the kind of Getty client you are.\n\nIf you're a designer at an agency (which would use watermarked photos in their\ncomps, and then purchase proper rights once the client has approved) this is\nno worse than it used to be. You still have a watermarked image, it's just\nslicker looking. Having the URL in there is handy, but you would have recorded\nthat anyways as part of your workflow. It's worth noting that the license\nbehind these images still hasn't changed - you're only allowed to use them for\n30 days, and not in a finished commercial product.\n\nThe other kind of client is the small-time blogger who would never pay for the\nimage rights anyways, and would just use a watermarked comp shot in a post.\nAccording to the click-through license agreed to when downloading these\nimages, this client type shouldn't exist - it's explicitly against what's\npermitted in the license - and yet it does, widely. For these clients, putting\nthe URL in the image is a win for Getty; people who used these images" +"\nSam Altman: 'The greatest threat to this country is incompetence of governance' - dkasper\nhttp://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinators-sam-altman-on-government-incompetence-2015-9\n======\nwaterlesscloud\nWhy should cities build more densely now if truly massive job displacement is\ncoming in as little as 10 years?\n\nWhy do people need to live in cities? To be near jobs that won't exist? Why\nshouldn't they be moving to less expensive low density situations if they're\nnot going to have jobs?\n\nIf you're going to think and talk about these massive fundamental structural\nchanges to the economy, then it's best to step 5 or 10 steps further back and\nstart looking at the really big pictures.\n\n~~~\nefoto\n> Why do people need to live in cities? Short answer: economy of scale. Higher\n> population density is ecologically more sustainable as well as it lowers the\n> cost of services.\n\n~~~\nZeroGravitas\nIt's a bit of a paradox then that city living is generally considered more\nexpensive given that the economies of scale should kick in.\n\nPresumably someone is making money here, probably owners of the land, which\ngoes up in value thanks mostly to the efforts of the other people in the city,\nnot anything the land owner does, as" +"\n2000 shell companies at one address in Wyoming - hendler\nhttp://news.yahoo.com/special-report-little-house-secrets-great-plains-113759191.html\n======\nsivers\nI used Wyoming Corporate Services (the company at this address) to set up an\nLLC a couple years ago, and they were the most wonderful people to work with.\n\n(I would only contact them a few times a year, but when I did, the lady on the\nphone would remember me, \"Oh hi Derek! How are things in the music biz?\")\n\nTheir service is 100% legit, they're prompt and friendly, and I recommend them\nhighly.\n\n\n\nAs most of us know here, there are many valid reasons to set up your\ncorporation in a neutral place that is not your current residence.\n\nMaybe you're online-only and traveling the world.\n\nMaybe you're starting your business in one place for now, but you feel kinda\n\"one foot out the door\", and feel you're going to move it somewhere else some\nday.\n\nOr maybe just because you want to, it's legal, and you need no other reason\nthan that.\n\n~~~\nchopsueyar\nAs I was reading the article I thought about how trying to increase regulation\nof this type of activity would kill entrepreneurship in this country.\n\nThe article had a" +"\nWhat career should I choose? - arikr\nhttps://www.quora.com/What-career-should-I-choose-4/answer/Auren-Hoffman?share=1\n======\nspicyusername\nMany of the best careers are ones that have a fairly high degree of\nspecialization and an official and well recognized track for certification.\n\nGrind hard to meet all of the official certification requirements and do your\nbest to immerse yourself in the body of knowledge. Usually this results in a\nlong career full of flexibility and good pay.\n\nExamples: Actuaries. Consultants. Lawyers. Professional Engineers (Civil,\nMechanical, etc). Auto Mechanics. Paramedic.\n\nThere are tons of them off the beaten path if you look for recognized\ncertifications.\n\nAlso look for quality of life not prestige. There are plenty of great \"blue\ncollar\" positions with good pay and work life balance.\n\n------\npurplezooey\n_Your career should be dependent on the timescale that you operate best in._\n\nWhat about the hiring market that pays you best in" +"\n\nAsk HN: is devving on OSX legit *nix experience? - delinquentme\n\nSo I'm going back and forth about the OS for my new dev machine. Will I be getting good experience with *nix using the \"just works\" OSX.

That being said I'm guessing the inital answer is \"No its not\"\n======\ntom9729\nI developed on Linux for 5-6 years before switching over to OS X on my main\nmachine.\n\nInstalling xcode (3 is free, 4 costs a small fee) gives you GCC4 on the\ncommand line, plus some other tools/libs. Note: I've never actually used the\nxcode IDE, I use Emacs.\n\nYou can also install a rootless X11 server and run X applications in it. Wine\non mac actually uses this, and I've been using it to play Homeworld 2.\n\nMost of the cross-platforms IDEs that you would probably be using (if you're\nthat kind of guy) in Linux are available on mac. Take a look at QtCreator,\nEclipse, Netbeans.\n\nMac comes with Java and Python installed. If you do C/C++ development the only\nreal differences are that some libraries are installed as \"frameworks\" instead\nof in the usual /usr/lib (eg. you link with -framework OpenGL). Also the\ndynamic libraries are" +"\n\nAre coming soon pages, like this, actually effective? Discuss: - applebiz89\nhttp://www.spunlondon.co.uk\nI see this link earlier on today on Hacker News - wondered what peoples thoughts are on successful coming soon pages.

The reason for them is acquiring validation, but are there other methods which can be adopted to acquire this insight other than market research?\n======\nbt3\nLanding pages are inherently vague so as to not limit their potential\naudience. It's a trade off, but being too specific can limit the amount of\nusers who ultimately convert (enter their email). With the goal of a \"coming\nsoon\" page being to build interest, this is usually well accomplished by\nrequesting a simple email.\n\nObjectively, yes, coming soon/ landing pages are effective." +"\nCCC censors comments criticising 32c3 talk - ryanlol\nhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=uWIivWGgZ5o\n======\nsarciszewski\nThe first two minutes of the talk consists of some people speaking for her\n(\"she hates the word 'refugee'\" <\\- Okay then, why can't _she_ tell us that?).\n\nIf you want to watch the talk, skip to 3:03.\n\nSome notes from the first minute of the talk:\n\n \n \n - She opens her hour keynote with she has nothing to say. Um, what?\n - She says, to a room full of hackers at a highly technical conference,\n that she knows nothing about IT outside the basic use of her laptop.\n \n\nThis doesn't look promising. I'm all for hearing different perspectives and\nall, but I'm sure that among all of the \"newcomers\" there were people with a\nreal interest in technology who could have filled this slot instead. I'll keep\nwatching and post a follow-up comment if it gets any better, but this is my\nfirst impression.\n\nI can't say I'm surprised that the CCC team would censor comments on this\nvideo, but they can't censor HN.\n\n~~~\nsarciszewski\nNope, this was a waste of time. :(\n\n------\nryanlol\nSomeone on IRC asked me to post proof, so here's an archive of" +"\nAsk HN: What does Google pay? - realodb\nI am currently interviewing for a director (not senior) of software engineering position at Google. I'm wondering if anyone on HN has held such a position at Google before, or currently, and what it pays. I realize all positions will have ranges based on experience, etc, but what ballpark can I expect for a base salary, bonus, and equity? For a positon based in SF Bay Area, or possibly Seattle?\n======\nthrowaway1500\nMaybe ask that question over at teamblind? According to a somewhat recent\ndiscussion of Sep 2018 at teamblind the TC (total compensation in one year,\nusually not counting any perks) should be at least $750k+ TC, source:\nwww.teamblind.com/article/Engineering-director-at-Google-uaJEgaho\n\nAnother reference might be: www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Microsoft\n\nLevels does not have L8 estimates yet, but L7 is already beyond $600k+ TC." +"\n\nThe art of mastering airline loyalty programs -- Going for Elite - jaf12duke\nhttp://blog.flightcaster.com/part-2-the-art-of-mastering-airline-loyalty-p\n\n======\nben1040\nA few years ago I had a job that had me flying 5000 miles a week. I signed up\nfor AA's status challenge and qualified for platinum status in nearly a month.\n\nI think they charge for taking the challenge now (it was free then) but it's\nwell worth it. Not only do you get better seats, free bag checking, priority\nsecurity access, and earn upgrades, but that was 30,000+ additional bonus\nmiles I wouldn't have earned had I just skipped the challenge and qualified\nfor the status the normal way.\n\nAlso, if you're on the fringe between status tiers, often times it's very much\nworth it to spend a couple hundred bucks on a \"mileage run\" if it means the\nextra EQM will put you into top-tier status.\n\n~~~\nDornkirk\nI'm wondering if you know whether there's any program that allows earning\nmiles to spend on _any_ airline?\n\nI'm going to be doing a trip in two months that will take me from the Mid-West\nto SE Asia and then I'll hop a few places in SE Asia before coming back to the" +"\n\nDropbox sends email about credit card expiration to non-paid users - bdcravens\n\n8:34pm (ET)

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Earlier today you may have received an email from Dropbox stating that your credit card is about to expire. Though the email did in fact come from Dropbox, it was sent to you in error. We recognize that you\u2019re not a paid Dropbox user, and there haven\u2019t been any changes to your account.

We apologize for any confusion we may have caused.

Sincerely, \nThe Dropbox Team\n======\nc0deporn" +"\nAsk HN: Why can't we solve the app store monopoly problem? - jonas_kgomo\nFor the longest time, application distribution has been generally a sport for big companies like Apple and Google. Why hasn't there been enough innovation in terms of creating alternatives despite a healthy improvement of web application distribution like PWAs(Progressive Web Apps). WeChat uses microapps that help users access a lot of other mobile applications. Some interesting innovation might be Dapps inside the Coinbase Wallet or Status IM. What are some reasons it is futile to take on this marketplace.

Most of us here do not want to promote the rhetoric/marketing of DHH but just want to bring attention to important problems that need to be solved.\n======\ncocktailpeanuts\n> Why hasn't there been enough innovation in terms of creating alternatives\n> despite a healthy improvement of web application distribution like\n> PWAs(Progressive Web Apps)\n\nThis is because those who think these solutions will change things have no\nidea where the problem is coming from. Basically they are solving the wrong\nproblem. They must first sit down and think hard about why it is that Apple\nand Google have so much power. It's because they have built products people" +"\nAsk HN: Writing and Variables - thangalin\nMicrosoft Word makes using variables in documentation a labyrinthine act: over a dozen steps to insert variables into documents, to say nothing about organizing them. For a sci-fi book I'm writing, I developed a text editor that allows me to insert variable names into a document with ease. This allows me to make the character sheet part of the writing process. Here's a demo video of the concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_dFd6UhdV8

Why is applying the DRY principle to documentation not more prevalent?\n======\nchalst\nIt's straightforward in the text-based formats used to create man pages\n(troff) and in subsequent native documentation formats: Texinfo, various Wiki\nand Markdown-inspired syntaxes, etc. It might be that relatively little\ndocumentation is created in Word by people who want the process to be as\nefficient as possible (as opposed to copy-writers who charge by the hour)." +"\nAuto companies are lacking key ingredients for the future of the automobile - cocoflunchy\nhttps://medium.com/backchannel/the-auto-industry-won-t-create-the-future-ba1867c9f0d7\n======\nburgreblast\nThis is a great post from someone not in the industry.\n\nCar companies can't outsource production to Foxconn.\n\nSource: gesamtprojectintegrationleiter (complete project integration director)\nfor a german car brand. After the car is \"finished\" setting up the production\nline and making the tools is a 24-36 month process. You _need_ suppliers both\nfor sheer capacity and expertise. On my project, 17,000 parts (most with\nsubcomponents) coming together. THEN crash, emissions, certification, etc.\n\nEasier of course to do at small scale like Tesla, but growth and capacity\nplanning are huge topics. Tesla's run rate is what 30K cars per year? (not\nsure, just a guess). BMW sold 2M cars last year. Factories, suppliers, labor,\npaint, tooling (not the fun stuff) consumes an unbelievable number of cycles.\n\nObviously that revolution will come from software, but there's no getting\naround the hardware. One of the software co's will have to buy a car company\nto achieve revolution and scale.\n\n~~~\nctdonath\nSo build a Foxconn.\n\nSomeone is moving to create a billion dollar scale auto manufacturing facility\nin Atlanta. Seems nobody knows who, but guesses abound." +"\n\nThoughworks Technology Radar July 2014 - skrebbel\nhttp://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/\n\n======\nskrebbel\nI love Thoughtworks' Technology Radar. HN is very hype-driven, you see a lot\nof the hottest stuff, and therefore it's my favourite source of information on\ntechnologies.\n\nThoughtworks, a software agency, is necessarily a little more conservative\nthan the startup crowd. Clients expect them to _deliver_ , and if only one\nproject fails miserably because of a risky technology choice, then that will\nreally hurt their image, and thus their sales pipeline.\n\nAs a result, their Technology Radar isn't so much an overview of what is hot\nor not, but more of which of last year's hot stuff really _made it_. If it's\nwell positioned on Thoughtworks' Tech Radar, then you can be pretty sure that\nit's here to stay." +"\nDepression, anxiety rising among U.S. college students - HNLurker2\nhttps://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-mental-undergrads/depression-anxiety-rising-among-u-s-college-students-idUKKCN1VJ25Z\n======\ntempsy\nI think a huge part of it is that getting a \u201cgood\u201d job out of college has\nnever been more competitive and more important. The idea that one works their\nway up from a secretarial position to executive could not be more unrealistic\ntoday. On the other hand, if you beat the competition (your peers) to get a\nreputable corporate gig at a big co, well known startup, or prestigious\nconsulting or banking you\u2019re setting yourself up for life. Not getting one of\nthose jobs out of college makes it near impossible to be hired at those\ncompanies even a year or two down the road simply because many of those\ncompanies source all their entry level people from colleges and past interns.\n\nYour trajectory is just so different depending on your first job and I think\neveryone is acutely aware but no one wants to talk about it.\n\n~~~\nhourislate\nI don't know if you read the article but I think the authors clearly state\nwhat they think is the issue and it isn't finding your first job.\n\nFrom the article:\n\n>\u201cIt suggests that something is seriously" +"\nTesting Distributed Systems with Deterministic Simulation (2014) [video] - sensible123\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fFDFbi3toc\n======\njacques_chester\nMy experience is that this is difficult without the system under test being\ndesigned to operate deterministically.\n\nSo for example: the system clock needs to be replaceable with a fake, or the\ncurrent time needs to be injected, or perhaps both.\n\nAnother example: Go channels. These are a real PITA to surface in a way that\nallows a test harness to drive them deterministically.\n\nA while ago I built a simulator testing harness for an early version of the\nKnative autoscaler[0]. I eventually ran aground on the difficulty of keeping\nup with changes, but it may be rearchitected and repurposed to assist\nKubernetes HPA development instead.\n\nFoundationDB's approach is to pretty much bake optional determinism into the\nlanguage with some macro magic. It makes me wish that were easier to do in\nother languages.\n\n[0] [https://github.com/pivotal/skenario](https://github.com/pivotal/skenario)\n\n~~~\nryanworl\nIn the FDB simulator case, every event has a future time at which it will\nfire, and the clock advances to that time when the event is dequeued.\n\nThis also has the side benefit of artificially \u201cspeeding up time\u201d, which is\nuseful when many actions happen based on long" +"\nLua: Good, bad, and ugly parts - adamansky\nhttp://notebook.kulchenko.com/programming/lua-good-different-bad-and-ugly-parts\n======\ngraue\nLua's great. I recently used it to rewrite a small audio effect framework[1]\nbased on an older project of mine in C[2]. To my astonishment, without any\noptimization efforts on my part, the LuaJIT version of one effect ran _faster_\nthan the C version, while another more complicated effect (a filter) only took\n2.01x as much time as C. And this was with simple, clean, mostly declarative\ncode (read it on GitHub and see what you think).\n\nOne of the goals of this project was to compile effects code to JavaScript\nwith Lua.js[3] and produce a demo that ran in the browser. There,\nunfortunately, I ran into a showstopper with a Lua.js bug[4] that breaks my\napproach to creating modules. Unlike LuaJIT and regular Lua, Lua.js is an\nexperimental project and far less mature - though totally awesome. I might\nmake another attempt to fix the problem myself at some point. With a more\nmature Lua.js, you could write fast Lua code and port it to nearly every\nenvironment.\n\n[1] \n\n[2] \n\n[3] \n\n[4]\n[https://github.com/mherkender/lua.js/issues/13#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/mherkender/lua.js/issues/13#issuecomment-9220080)\n\n~~~\nazakai\nI'm curious to do some performance comparisons, can you perhaps" +"\nGirard in Silicon Valley: Notes from a Lecture by Peter Thiel - sergeant3\nhttp://www.imitatio.org/mimetic-theory/girard-in-silicon-valley.html\n======\nfitzwatermellow\nGlosses over the role of dynastic succession as a primary motivation to\ninstitute what we now call monarchic control over subjects.\n\nAs much as I dig ontological psycho-historical speculation I find myself\nbeginning to realize just how different we moderns are from the ancients. I\nfear that any resemblance between our own systems and those that existed\nseveral millennia ago would, like \"Business Secrets of the Pharaohs\", be\npurely coincidental.\n\nIt just so happened on this moist summer eve that as I stumbled upon this link\nI happened to be perusing Tagore's S\u0101dhan\u0101.\n\nIn \"The Relation of the Individual to the Universe\" he indeed speculates about\nwhat caused the ancient forest-dwellers to acquire wealth, build cities and\nbecome kings. After failing to become one with Nature, the ancient sadhus\nsought to emulate the wider Cosmos in a controllable microverse, in which they\ncould achieve a limited all-consciousness.\n\nPerhaps somewhat analogously to the way mathematicians in the 1930's, stymied\nby G\u00f6del's proof that axiomatic formalism would always remain necessarily\nincomplete, created their own artificial oasis of finite and deterministic\nbinary logic in the form of" +"\nIs this the most expensive game ever? - abdulhaq\nhttps://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Combos/The-Completionist-Digital\n======\nacemarke\nPlease note that the current actual pricing to purchase the game is $45 for\nthe single-player campaign (Squadron 42), $45 for the MMO portion (Star\nCitizen), or $60 to purchase them together. All other packages that are\nlisted, such as the various ships, are there to allow backers to help fund the\ngame further.\n\nAlso, CIG is currently streaming live gameplay from Gamescom, and will be\ndoing a presentation on Friday where they plan to show off upcoming aspects\nsuch as procedurally-generated planets (and possibly the Star Marine\ncompetitive FPS game mode)." +"\nIf a tweet declares war, is it treason to take it down? - awinter-py\nhttps://abe-winter.github.io/2019/10/18/tweason.html\n======\ntptacek\nNo, for assistance to an enemy to be treasonable, war must actually have been\ndeclared, and only Congress can declare war. Actually _waging war_ on the US\nis treasonable without a Congressional declaration, but the definition depends\non a state of \"open war\" in which you're part of a recognized assembled group\nof people engaged in open armed hostilities.\n\nThe short answer to almost all these kinds of questions is \"it's never\ntreason\".\n\n~~~\ndiego\n1) You're assuming this ONLY discusses the possibility of the US declaring war\nvia tweet. The article clearly talks about ANY country that could declare war\nvia tweet.\n\n2) It specifically addresses the question of the US and Congress.\n[https://abe-winter.github.io/2019/10/18/tweason.html#can-a-t...](https://abe-\nwinter.github.io/2019/10/18/tweason.html#can-a-tweet-declare-war)\n\n~~~\ntptacek\nYes, its analysis of the US and Congress is, I believe, simply wrong. The\nPresident can effectively levy war in the 21st century without Congress, but\nsuch \"wars\" do not create the conditions required for treason. Treason is\nincumbent on war being properly declared.\n\nEven John Walker Lindh couldn't be charged with treason, and he had the weight\nof an actual AUMF against him.\n\n~~~" +"\n\nEl Paso Times censors FBI probe into DA - borderbandit\nhttp://www.elpasonews.org/2012/05/03/el-paso-times-censors-own-article-into-fbi-probe-of-da-jaime-esparza/\n\n======\ncafard\n'The published article, that was later removed, states that District Attorney\ncandidate James D. Lucas \u201casked the FBI and two state agencies to investigate\nhis allegations against District Attorney Jaime Esparza which he had posted on\na website this week\u201d.'\n\nThe story, then, was not about an FBI probe, but about a request from one\ncandidate for office that the FBI investigate another candidate, the\nincumbent. I don't know El Paso politics, but could it be that the paper\nfollowed up with the requests and decided that Mr. Lucas had manipulated it\ninto publishing an article of no substance?" +"\nSick whale found to have 30 plastic bags blocking its stomach - happy-go-lucky\nhttp://news.sky.com/story/sick-whale-found-to-have-30-plastic-bags-blocking-its-stomach-10754077\n======\nevolve2k\nMy home state introduced a plastic bag ban a couple of years back. It was\nacccompanied by a simple campaign that encouraged families to bring re-usable\nbags to the checkout counter when shopping for groceries. If you forget to\nbring bags, you can buy these re-usable canvas bags from the supermarket for\naround $1. Initially we all bought a bunch while our habits switched over, but\nthis worked as the bags are useful anyway and most of us now keep some in the\ncar and some in the pantry.\n\nThin supermarket bags were the focus of the ban. Surprisingly after the ban a\nnumber of venues that sort of need plastic bags, eg for vegetables or takeout\nstarted sourcing 100% compostable bags that are allowed. I didn't even know\nthis solution existed before the ban.\n\nThere is a culture locally now to have reusable bags in the boot of your car\nand for a few items to just load up your arms.\n\nIt's been pretty successful and no-where near as interrupting as you'd\nimagine.\n\nRef: [http://www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/plastic-\nbags](http://www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/plastic-bags)\n\n~~~\nabawany\nIn Austin, TX (USA), one" +"\nAsk HN: Please be more thoughtful when downvoting - guynamedloren\nLately I've noticed far too many constructive comments that have been downvoted (usually without any explanation). Please stop this. It's okay to have comments that are not in support with the original post or your own thoughts. We don't have to shoot them down.

Downvoting is meant as a management tool to filter out comments that negatively impact the community, or ones that provide no substance or insight. Please do not downvote legitimate comments.

Thank you.\n======\nepenn\nI fully agree. I've seen far too many comments that are meaningful or\ninsightful - even ones I don't agree with - get unnecessarily downvoted\nwithout proper cause. On a discussion forum where one of its main objectives\nis to be a safe haven for intelligent discourse this is unacceptable. With\nthat said, this is my officially unofficial guide to downvoting:\n\nNEVER downvote:\n\n1) Just because you disagree with a post.\n\n2) Because you dislike the poster.\n\n3) Because others have downvoted a comment into oblivion and you want to jump\non the bandwagon. i.e. No need to kick a comment when it's already down.\n\n4) When you have not explicitly reasoned out why" +"\nBritain Pledges to Ban New Diesel and Gas Cars by 2040 - kimsk112\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/world/europe/uk-diesel-petrol-emissions.html\n======\nnthcolumn\nAll they have done is made an announcement. Convolutedly, this is more about:\nthe now lame-duck prime minister who asked the people for a stronger mandate\nto negotiate the best out of the Brexit disaster but went down like a bag of\nsick with the electorate thereby weakening the government's position even\nfurther to 'laughing-stock in Europe' status. Who then showed utter contempt\nand a complete lack of integrity by trying to delay the inevitable, cling to\npower and refusing to do the honorable thing and resign, in doing so creating\neven more uncertainty for a repulsive, back-stabbing cabinet member to jockey\nfor position during the recess and a gutless party desperately sucking up to\nthe Greens and their ilk for support in a minority government and trying to\ndivert attention from the stories of historical incompetence emanating daily\nfrom the press.\n\nIt also ironically falls in line with other EU states recent announcements. So\nold-, non-, fake- whatever you want to call it news.\n\n~~~\ndang\n> _All they have done is made an announcement._\n\nYes. We added \"pledges\" above.\n\n------\npiyush_soni\nRecently," +"\n\nProposed new schedule for JDK 8 - austinbv\nhttp://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/jdk8-dev/2013-April/002336.html\n\n======\npswenson\nMy proposed security fix: kill the Java Browser Plugin.\n\n~~~\nmoondowner\nI agree. All the bad rep Java gets is from the Applet 0-day hacks.\n\nJava 8 to deprecate the Browser Plugin, Applets and all related stuff to it,\nand for those who need this technology can use Java 7 and other previous\nreleases.\n\n~~~\nmdmarra\nThen you're going to have all kind of apps stuck on older Java versions\nforever. While I'd love to see it happen, it would be Oracle shooting\nthemselves in the foot with their enterprise customers, which - let's face it\n- is who they actually care about.\n\n~~~\nbradleyjg\nAlthough I don't have numbers, I'm not aware of very many enterprises with\nextensive fleets of java applets. Java in the enterprise tends to be either\nstand alone programs (i.e. Swing), or EJB driven middleware with JSP on the\nfront end.\n\n~~~\nsmackay\nBig chunks of dealing with the government (taxes, etc.) in Portugal are in the\nform of Java applets. I think this is repeated across Europe.\n\nMost of the apps are little more than forms - there's a lot of logic in" +"\nAsk HN: Is bioinformatics/computational biology a valuable field? - rubatuga\nI\u2019m wondering if these jobs will be valued/be in demand in the future, and how much I would earn. I\u2019m currently doing an undergrad Bioinformatics/comp. bio. (BCB) at my university, but I\u2019m unsure if the job market looks very good, and some google searches lead me to believe the pay isn\u2019t great. Furthermore, to get further in the field, a PhD is generally required, which is certainly not appealing. I\u2019m currently aiming to apply for medical school, but am also considering doing a joint degree with BCB and a comp sci major to be more competitive if I don\u2019t get in. However this would mean graduating a bit late. Any thoughts on either my degree, or what the future holds for this field?\n======\nJPLeRouzic\nI could tell you non-specific tips about jobs.\n\nDifferentiating yourself is important if you want to get the best pay in your\nfield. Some jobs are quite repetitive and could be automated easily. And a lot\nof jobs in bioinformatics are re-inventing the wheel, sometimes awfully. It\nwould pay IMO to think at a higher level, standardize the toolset and\nprocedures, use the excellent tooling" +"\nCan Repelling Magnets Replace the Spring in a Pogo Stick? - mhb\nhttps://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=pogo-stick-spring\n======\numvi\nSeems like electromagnets could help compensate for distance by drawing more\ncurrent when far apart, and less when close together. A microcontroller could\nessentially make the force linear like a spring. Of course, then you need\nwires hooked up to your pogo, and that might be scary if the microcontroller\nhas a bug (or somehow fails) since you are now essentially hopping onto a\nrailgun.\n\n~~~\nazhenley\nAbout as scary as my Tesla on autopilot going around a curve at 75mph. Every\ntime I ask myself, what if there is a bug or if it turns off...\n\n~~~\ngumby\nConsider not going on a modern airliner. Every commercial passenger jet since\nthe A340 has been fly-by-wire.\n\n(military jets have been so longer).\n\n~~~\njolmg\nBut you have more time to react on a plane and switch to manual override. It's\nnot like people fly with just a few meters distance to other airplanes.\nThere's also a good distance to the only other thing you can crash into, the\nground, as opposed to driving between walls or with a cliff to one side.\n\n~~~\nhexane360\nOP" +"\nMicrosoft Should Give Windows 7 Away For Free - Flemlord\nhttp://i.gizmodo.com/5141443/why-microsoft-should-give-windows-7-away\n======\nlionhearted\nMy XP laptop died permanently a little over a year ago, and there was a Vista\nToshiba at Best Buy for $1100 on a model that was $1400 most other places.\nMaybe there'd have better value elsewhere, but I needed something immediate so\nmy work wouldn't be delayed and I got it.\n\nVista: Not so bad. I'd love to see it less bloated with MS processes running\ninvisibly, and I'd like to see it change the order things boot in so I turn it\non and get up and running faster.\n\nSecond issue: Some driver issues and some poor backwards compatibility with\nprograms that run fine on XP, which is quite ugly.\n\nBut beyond that, it's a good OS and a legit upgrade over XP. The UI is\nfaster/better once you adopt to the learning curve. Security is legitimately\nupgraded, and I haven't been infected with any viruses or spyware, and I play\naround with random applications all the time. I like that I can easily stop\nnon-MS programs from updating themselves without my blessing. Being able to\nchoose giving a program default \"Run as Administrator\" vs." +"\n\nHow to make your first game for less than $1,000 - gcheong\nhttp://deadpanic.com/make_a_game_1k\n\n======\nwindsurfer\nKeep in mind he's valuing his time at 0$ for the title, in which case you can\nmake your first game for $0 very easily.\n\n~~~\nelectromagnetic\nI'd love to make a video game, but I value my time at $9.25 an hour, which is\ncurrently Canadian minimum wage. I'm not going to work for less unless it\nfulfils some other need, and I doubt video games will ever be need fulfilling\nfor me.\n\n~~~\njacquesm\nThey're one hell of a way to learn, especially arcade style games are more\nlike mini operating systems inside.\n\n------\nConceptDog\nThe bad news is that the iPhone gold rush is basically over.\n\n------\nerikb85\nwhat can I learn from this article? That is, what I can read there: You have\nto create images and sounds and if you can't you have to buy them. And no\nmatter what you do, in the end you still have to pay your rent (what will be\nmore as $1,000).\n\n~~~\npotatolicious\n> _\"You have to create images and sounds and if you can't you have to buy\n> them.\"_\n\nAs a" +"\n\nShame on you Microsoft, for buying a Promoted Tweet for \"Firefox\". - rbanffy\nhttp://twitpic.com/4c6nth\n\n======\nrch\nActually, that's kinda awesome. Talk about effective use of marketing.\n\n------\nsamgro\nWhy is that shameful? Buying AdWords for competitor searches on Google is\nstandard practice, why should Twitter be any different?\n\n~~~\nrbanffy\nCompeting aggressively against a non-profit? Classy!\n\n~~~\nsamgro\nHow does Firefox's tax status have anything to do with Microsoft's business\nobjectives? I hate IE as much as the next guy, but I don't see how Microsoft\nmarketing their business is morally questionable just because their competitor\ngets tax breaks and doesn't pay dividends to shareholders.\n\n~~~\nrbanffy\nWhat would you think of a paid-but-cheap clinic with shady methods and far-\nfrom-best care practices (let's say they kill or mutilate 2% of their\npatients) that targets search-advertisements towards people in need of free\nhealthcare?\n\nOh, and according to Tom Warren, of Winrumors, \"The company was quick to trash\nthe marketing stunt after complaints started rolling-in on the social\nnetworking site.\" so, they probably realize it didn't get down well with the\npublic.\n\n~~~\nsamgro\nI agree that IE is a bad product, and that this marketing campaign may even\nhave been" +"\nWhere Ruby/Sinatra falls short - onli\nhttps://www.pc-kombo.com/blog/68/Where%20Ruby/Sinatra%20falls%20short\n======\nbeat\nI find it really interesting that the Ruby language led to two such wildly\ndifferent, yet equally valid approaches to web apps - Sinatra and Rails.\n\nSinatra is the most minimal web framework I've ever used. It's fantastic for\ndoing quick mockups and small apps. Yes, you will hit limitations. Bicycles\nare not good dump trucks. And even before you hit hard limits, you're going to\nfind yourself inventing a lot of structure/convention to keep it from\ndevolving into pretty PHP.\n\nRails, on the other hand, is fantastically complete. It does _everything_ for\nyou. Convention over configuration is a brilliant concept, and the self-\ndiscovery nature of the ActiveRecord ORM is something that is totally natural\nin Ruby and quite awkward in other languages. For writing basic CRUD apps\n(which is much of the software world), it's really hard to beat the efficiency\nof Rails.\n\nAnd when people whinge about performance... well, so what? Horizontal scaling,\nfriends. Developer performance is _much_ more important than software\nperformance in most cases (especially since networks and databases form the\nbulk of your performance cost out in the real world). But efficient\ndevelopers, that's magical." +"\nAsk HN: How often you take Android device full file backup and store it on cloud? - gkrisub\nThe full file backup means the device folder structure is maintained when stored on cloud (for e.g. Google Drive).\n======\nkrishnaycombi\nBy full file backup are you referring to copying all the data under\n/storage/emulated/0, /sdcard mount points?\n\n~~~\ngkrisub\nYes. Storing as it's on cloud. I should be able to browse on cloud storage as\nI do on device. Basically, maintaining replica of device on cloud.\n\n~~~\nkrishnaycombi\nThat sounds like a good step in the backup strategy.\n\n------\npavan123\nNever. I just took backup of my contacts twice in my lifetime when I was\nformatting my mobile.\n\n~~~\ngkrisub\nHow about backup of SMS, Call log, photos, music and other files, to avoid\nloosing data in case of device lost? The existing backup apps require\nscheduling apriori, and I'll loose new data between schedules, when device\ngets lost.\n\n~~~\npavan123\nIt's a good practice to take regular backups of the entire device. Probably I\nshould do more often.\n\n~~~\nsubramanyamgv\nIt's painful to schedule backups. I believe users are less predictable on what\nand when to backup. Chances are that" +"\nAsk HN: Why has visual programming not caught on? - jshharlow\nIt seems like the concept of visual based programming (think visual basic, or drag/drop components that make code...) keeps on reappearing, do other hacker news visitors ever think it will truly succeed? It always seems to be limited imho, but the idea never seems to die, wondering what others think...\n======\nnostrademons\nIt already has succeeded in one very limited area: GUI component layout.\nPeople use XCode/Netbeans Matisse/DreamWeaver all the time to build their UIs.\n\nIt fails in other areas because code is remarkably info-dense, and if you\nsplit that out into individual components, it takes a huge amount of screen\nspace and visual manipulation for even simple subroutines. I encourage you to\ntake a simple function and draw out the parse tree for it. It's surprisingly\nlarge, with lots of different node types all strung together in unusual ways.\nThink about how much people complain about the parentheses in Lisp; now\nimagine that each set of parentheses is a box on screen.\n\n~~~\ndavid927\nGUI layout is not programming; it's GUI layout. (Or, more concretely: it's\nspecifying a dataset.)\n\nWhen software construction is finally \"solved\", visual representations and" +"\n\nCommercial CAPTCHA breakers for sale - bct\nhttp://www.lafdc.com/captcha/\n\n======\nhenning\nMany CAPTCHAs are positively pathetic.\n\nAdding little bits of salt-and-pepper noise, light-colored lines, and other\ncutesy antics do nothing.\n\nThe simple fact is that machines are better at recognizing individual letters\nand characters than humans are.\n\n------\nmynameishere\nIt might (obviously) tend to weed out the color blind, but I think these would\nbe hard to crack:\n\n\n\n------\nfar33d\nIsn't the best way to break captchas to offer \"free porn\"? Offer free porn,\nask them to send you their email, respond to a captcha... send out spam about\nthis free porn and bam...\n\nmillions of example images solved.\n\n------\nbct\nI'd love to know what's written below.\n\n~~~\nROFISH\nI can't read Chinese, but I've read some English discussion about how that's\ndone. You know how spam filters 'learn' what is spam and what isn't, this is\nthe same idea. It first splits each letter from the image. Then you create an\nalgorithm that compares the current letter it has to process versus what it\nhas learned. The hard part is that algorithm. You can technically do it with\njust image matching, but it's far better to programmically teach" +"\nDeepPCB: Pure AI-Powered, Cloud-Native Printed Circuit Board Routing - chakerb\nhttps://deeppcb.ai/\n======\ngorbachev\nI exhausted the 3 project limit trying to see how it would route open source\nmechanical keyboard PCBs.\n\nEvery single one failed with an error.\n\nThe first one failed with an error that didn't specify the reason, the second\none because it had more than 200 wires, though I wonder how that's possible on\na 3x3 macropad PCB, and the final one failed with \"Sorry, we do not support\nnon 45\u00b0 rotation for this beta version\".\n\nThe errored projects count towards the limit of 3 projects you can create.\n\nDoesn't seem to be working all too well.\n\n~~~\nBubRoss\nYeah, but that failure was the result of advanced pure AI cloud native deep\nlearning neural networks. The future is now. In a few more years you won't\neven be able to tell if a person gave up and quit a trivial task or if it was\njust a sophisticated machine.\n\n~~~\npanpanna\n> In a few more years you won't even be able to tell if a person gave up and\n> quit a trivial task or if it was just a sophisticated machine.\n\nWe have that" +"\n\nAtlas Beta Program Launched - wooby\nhttps://atlas-beta.heroku.com/users/new\n\n======\nbonaldi\nI've been playing with this tonight. I had absolutely no problem paying for\nthe beta - I've paid Microsoft and Apple for betas and they need the cash a\nlot less than these guys.\n\nThat said, I wouldn't quite recommend it if you're on the fence or just want a\nquick intro to Cappuccino. It _is_ a beta -- there are a lot of polish issues\nwith the cocoa app, there are some bugs, and these are understandable. But the\nbiggest problem of all is the total dearth of documentation. There is a class\nguide, there are some non-Atlas tutorials, and that's about it. So, for\ninstance, my app template comes up by default with a menubar, but there's no\nobvious way I can see to remove or edit it. MainMenu.cib has no menu in it, so\nI can't even see how to make connections to it and there's nothing to read to\nfind out.\n\nIt's definitely impressive -- that they've done this in JS and running in a\nbrowser is a little marvel. However, I'm pretty used to Xcode and Interface\nBuilder, and in comparison it's really not there. Trying" +"\n\nInteractive film built with Three.js and WebGL - mhax\nhttp://thecarpandtheseagull.com\n\n======\nevanbbb\nHi, the director / coder here. Crazy to see on hacker news. We had to have it\non just Chrome because of the twin pains of time (never enough) and money\n(added code, more testing, etc). For most of the project there were only\nmyself and one other coder doing the work.\n\nIf it isn't working for you or have questions, feel free to let me know...\n\n~~~\nbsenftner\nWhat aspects of this are not compatible with other browsers?\n\n~~~\nevanbbb\nWebGL isn't supported by IE. Firefox and Safari have patchy WebGL service.\n\nFirefox works but grinds to such a slow pace, so we disabled it.\n\n------\ngkanai\n2002 \"This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer\"\n\n2012 \"The film is optimised for viewing on Chrome.\"\n\nNot interested in a browser-specific web experience.\n\n~~~\nunconed\nMicrosoft hasn't bothered to touch WebGL, clearly more interested in their own\nproprietary Direct3D and Xbox ecosystem.\n\nApple has had partial WebGL support for years now (started with iAds), but has\nnever switched it on by default, not on OS X or iOS.\n\nWhat exactly do you expect web developers to do? Keep" +"\nReading iOS app binary files - msbenighted\nhttps://blog.smartdec.net/reading-ios-app-binary-files-2c9e63a381ad\n======\nfavorited\nObjective-C was the first language I used where I looked under the covers and\ntried to understand the machinery of the language, and its extremely dynamic\nnature makes it a great place to start to understand language runtimes.\n\nIt's so conceptually simple, and (aside from objc_msgSend) you can implement\nthe whole thing in C. libobjc2 has (if I'm counting correctly) 23 .c files,\nand it includes things you can totally ignore as you're learning, like an ObjC\ngarbage collection implementation that no one uses anymore.\n\nThe only tricky part is the message-sending routines, since they have to be\nwritten in assembly. But as long as you understand _what_ they're doing\n(rather than _how_ they're doing it), you don't even need to look at those if\nyou don't want to.\n\n~~~\nhypervis0r\n> The only tricky part is the message-sending routines, since they have to be\n> written in assembly\n\nWhy? (context: never touched Objective-C)\n\n~~~\n_red\nDisclaimer: I may be completely wrong, but I don't think OP is saying that\nwhile writing normal ObjC that you need to write the message passing in\nassembly. Instead, that you could recreate ObjC" +"\n\nWhat to expect when dealing with potential investors - Ztrain\nhttp://www.antiventurecapital.com/valuations.html\nBrace yourselves.\n======\nshogunmike\nThe article emphasises the importance of equity (for a founder) but I'd be\nhappy with 10% of $100 million as opposed to 90% of $10,000.\n\nSurely a more important (but perhaps slightly more subtle) point is that VCs\nwill perhaps impose additional constraints on the company. A good example is\nbringing in a new \"business savvy\" CEO (and/or board of directors) to\npotentially replace you.\n\nAre there any legal tools that allow a founder to maintain control of the\ncompany (in a voting sense) even if the VC firm wants 50% or more equity?\n\nIf Sequoia invested in your startup and asked for 50% would YOU complain?" +"\nInside the food industry - chestnut-tree\nhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/21/a-feast-of-engineering-whats-really-in-your-food\n======\nxkcd-sucks\nSo, this article highlights important issues with convenience foods, with a\nminimum of fearmongering relative to the standard of this topic.\n\nThe article claims that rosemary extract is Bad because it substitutes for\nBHA/BHT, a preservative. At this point I stopped reading due to an\noverwhelming urge to bang my head into the table. Preservation is in fact a\nmajor reason for seasoning-- in a preserved meat, no less! (And BHA/BHT are\nantioxidants-- which makes them Good...)\n\nSimilarly, it's not surprising that yeast extract (nutritional yeast Good)\ncontains the Bad MSG. Glutamate is a fundamental building block of life. If\nyou've ever tasted yeast extract, you will immediately notice that it's very\nsalty. The only reason to eat it is as a flavor enhancer, because as a major\nconstituent it's too salty-- except for various Commonwealth countries that\nlike to put it on toast.\n\nEtc...\n\nShit, I bet the egg yolks in my cake batter are Bad because they substitute\nfor cholesterol, an emulsifier and flavor enhancer which is linked to diseases\n(it also tastes nasty on its own)\n\nCrappy food optimized for convenience, scale and profit is a huge problem." +"\nWhat Is Google Chrome Helper, and Why Is It Hogging My CPU Cycles? - dsr12\nhttp://www.wired.com/2014/10/google-chrome-helper/\n======\nalistair75\nShort version: the Wired journalist doesn't really understand what they're\ntalking about. I can't believe no-one has pointed this out yet.\n\nThere is a Google Chrome Helper process for each tab you have open, for each\nextension you have installed, for each plugin that is currently running and\none to talk to the GPU in your system.\n\nIf you enable \"Click to play\" and open Chrome with one empty tab you'll still\nhave at least two Google Chrome Helper processes. One for the empty tab and\none for the GPU process. If you've installed any extensions you'll have more.\nThere is no way to \"destroy the Google Chrome Helper\".\n\nThat article is very badly written.\n\n~~~\nvteven\n> In many cases, the plug-ins and processes they\u2019re handling aren\u2019t listed by\n> name because the APIs don\u2019t allow it. Google Chrome Helper is a martyr.\n\nThe author's chief complaint is that Google Chrome Helper obscures the source\nof crashes/hangs, making diagnosis that much harder. The article is badly\nwritten, sure; but the workaround does allows you to isolate suspect content\nfrom everything else." +"\nAsk HN: How do you help your team \u201clevel up\u201d? - Tharkun\nI'm the lead software engineer at a company with about 10 other software engineers. Part of my job is coaching them on technical matters.

We organize biweekly talks about various technical subjects. And while these are fun to do, I'm not entirely sure that this approach will scale as the company grows.

How do other lead engineers help their team grow their skills?

Thanks!\n======\nsethammons\nI help them by bringing forth best practices. What is the state the project\nshould be in? How do you get it there? How is logging, metrics, alerting,\nci/cd (roll out and role back), tracing, performance monitoring, system level\ntesting, unit testing, etc. Is there application state that can be removed?\nCan code reviews be improved? Auto remediation on alerting? Techniques for\nbetter project management. Maybe there are new packages or libraries that the\nteam should investigate. Give projects to team members that require them to\ngrow a bit, including presenting knowledge gains to others. There are few\nteams and projects where that is all perfect.\n\n------\natmosx\nSecure a member budget for online classes (e.g. Coursera), conferences and\nbooks. Have them do presentations on" +"\nThe Somali Pirates' Business Model - robg\nhttp://www.undispatch.com/somali-pirates-buisiness-model\n======\nIgorPartola\nAnybody here read Heinlein's \"Citizen of the Galaxy\"? To stop think kind of a\nbusiness, you make it unprofitable. The question is \"how?\"\n\n~~~\nankeshk\nThats actually a very good question. I can think of a few ways to make\npirating unprofitable. Or dangerous. But unfortunately can't think of any non-\nviolent way.\n\n* Equip all the ships with armament. The pirate teams are small in size. So hopefully, the investment in arms wouldn't be a lot to fight them off.\n\n* Turn the table. Offer an insane \"Reward\" to anyone who captures one of the local elders - the people who give anchoring permission.\n\n~~~\nhkuo\nNot sure either of those would work.\n\nI don't think companies would want to spend money for weapons, nor the cost of\ntraining employees to use them, nor the liability of what happens if they are\nused and any ensuing results. They want the police or government to simply\ntake care of it, and they spend no money at all. Unless that happens, it's\nprobably less cost to simply accept piracy as a cost of busienss.\n\nFor the reward to capture or off" +"\nTop Product Management Books? - skotzko\nRecommendations for top product management books? Either \"how to\" books or just ones that will make me better.

Current favorite is \"Inspired\" by Marty Cagan.\n======\nbdickason\nI've been 'product managing' for 4 years now in NYC and haven't found very\nmany books useful. Here are a few:\n\n-Getting Real / Rework (37 signals) - Build a lean product\n\n-Don't Make Me Think - Usability 101\n\n-Web Analytics 2.0 - Metrics are your best friend\n\n-Viral Loop - Great companies and how they did it\n\n-Delivering Happiness - Last 50 pages are phenomenal for building your company's \"culture\"\n\n~~~\nskotzko\nAwesome, thanks! Really appreciate the suggestions here and below.\n\n------\nShimrit\nCheck out Blackblot's new book on Product Management \"The Product Manager\u2019s\nToolkit\". In adition You'll find some good reading in this field on the\nfollowing resource page \n\n------\njamesshamenski\n\"the art of project management\", Scott Berkun. From O'reilly media.\n\nThis book is gold. but when berkun said that the job is essentially just\ncreating/updating lists for people, i liked my job less and the book more." +"\nAsk HN: Why is there no software for generating cross-platform native UI code? - dreamer7\nHTML + CSS, iOS and Android all are complete design systems. Any UI that we design can be developed for these platforms.

Forgive my possibly naive understanding of mobile UI. Why is there no software/ service that allows us to develop on one platform and automatically transpiles into the other platforms?

Is it because it is extremely complex or because developing the UI is not the most time-consuming element of cross-platform development or both?

A form field for web -\n<input ..../>

is \n<EditText ..../> for Android

and \n<UITextInput ..../> for iOS\n======\npraveen9920\nKony is proprietary platform which does generate native app code (\n[https://www.kony.com/](https://www.kony.com/) )\n\nMajor problem for implementing such thing is that there is no exact 1-1\nmapping between all UI elements. There are certainly few elements which has\nthe mapping but all the features cannot be done with those.\n\nAlso, I remember that apple has problem with generated code.\n\nNote: I worked for Kony few years back" +"\nA janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin\u2019 Hot Cheetos (2017) - andygcook\nhttps://thehustle.co/hot-cheetos-inventor/\n======\narkades\nThis article ends right before the actual interesting part begins.\n\nJanitor takes some food his company produces, adds spices, makes a shitty\npitch deck and profit? Cool, but... this could have easily happened in a dozen\ndifferent configurations and gone nowhere. This is more luck than anything\nelse.\n\nThe interesting story begins _after_ that. This guy didn't end his career\nthere - so, presumably, he was't a one-hit wonder. We have an illiterate\njanitor who suddenly got swept into the orbit of the CEO, without any business\nor operational acumen. He somehow -how??- managed to learn the ways of the new\ntribe, learn business, learn to read and write, learn how to lead a business\nunit, and do it well. This guy came out of nowhere, and had to zero-to-sixty\nfrom manual laborer to - what? executive? What position did they put him in?\nHow did he ramp up? What kind of support did he get, if any? What kind of\neducation did they provide him with, if any?\n\nThere's a long, interesting story between \"janitor\" and \"successful VP\", and\nthey neglected to tell almost any" +"\n(Futurama) Bender Smartspeaker using completely offline software - crankylinuxuser\nhttps://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/g3whxq/i_will_make_my_own_smart_speaker_with_blackjack/\n======\nourcat\nNice. Since there's no way I'm going to put a multi-billion-dollar company's\n'smart' speaker in my apartment, I've been wanting to build something offline\nlike this inside an old dial telephone (like a red Bat phone) which only\nlistens to your commands when you pick up the handset. ;)\n\n~~~\nNotSammyHagar\nI like the idea. I'm shocked that a ras pi has enough cpu power to make this\nwork.\n\n~~~\nfoxyv\nMy Dad used to use voice typing on his old Pentium II laptop in the late 90s.\nIt's doable, although a lot less reliable than the ones nowadays." +"\n\nShow HN: Visualize Kickstarter Projects - Written in Clojure with C2 - dwwoelfel\nhttp://canhekick.it/\n\n======\ndwwoelfel\nA few cool things about CanHeKickIt:\n\nThe entire app is written in Clojure, with the exception of some less for css.\n\nI'm using ClojureScript, a compiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript. This\nmeans that I'm able to use the same code on the front-end as I do on the back-\nend. The code that draws the graph, for instance, is exactly the same in\nClojure and ClojureScript. Most everything works even if javascript is\ndisabled (try ).\n\nIt uses a kd-tree to store the points in the graph. This lets me efficiently\nplace the tooltip when someone hovers over the graph.\n\n------\ndanso\nSome design comments:\n\n\\- far too much space is used for the colored boxes, which shout the stats\nthat should be easily apparent from the visualization.\n\n\\- categories need to be included...the titles can often reveal nothing about\nthe project\n\n\\- you might as well add the thumbnails of the projects\n\n~~~\ndwwoelfel\nThanks for the suggestions! I really appreciate you commenting on my work.\n\nThose colored boxes are meant to serve as a legend for the graphs. Maybe I'll\nbe" +"\nRosetta's big day in the Sun - ColinWright\nhttp://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_s_big_day_in_the_Sun\n======\nPhantomGremlin\nI'm glad the ESA is getting its day in the sun (pun intended).\n\nTo steal from Joe Biden: 'this is a big fucking deal'. Why? Because, first,\nwe've never gotten this amount of detail from a comet before, and second,\nbecause it's _different_.\n\nBeing different is good. To a large extent ESA's Galileo is a ripoff/copy of\nthe USA's GPS. But not this. It's not a Mars lander or a flyby of the outer\nplanets, both of which NASA has already done. It's something else. It's new\nscientific research, which will lead to new discoveries and new theories.\n\n------\njessriedel\nSince the sun exposure is going to be decreasing from here on out, does this\nmean the Philae lander is a fully lost cause?\n\n(I know that the Rosetta team would emphasize that the Philae lander is\nresponsible for only a pretty small part of the overall set of scientific\nobjective)\n\n~~~\ngamekathu\nno it is never a \"lost cause\"!\n\nPhilae lander has upto several months before the comet goes out of perceptible\nsolar exposure. During this time, Philae will conduct numerous experiments and\nrelay those data to Rosetta," +"\nThe impact on middleware of expanding APIs with Go's interface smuggling - zdw\nhttps://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/GoMiddlewareVsInterfaceSmuggling\n======\nnickcw\nI had a lot of problems with this in rclone.\n\nRclone has backends which connect to cloud providers. These all implement a\ncommon interface. So far so good.\n\nHowever some cloud providers can implement optional features, say a server\nside copy of an object.\n\nRclone used to use interface upgrades to discover these. Still so far so good.\n\nHowever rclone has backends which wrap other backends, for example the crypt\nbackend which encrypts file names and data.\n\nThis backend has to implement all the optional features - you want to be able\nto server side copy an encrypted file if possible.\n\nThe problem comes when the crypt backend wraps another backend which does not\nsupport server side copy.\n\nWhat rclone used to do here is return a special not implemented error. This\nworks, but isn't ideal because you have to call the method to find out if it\nis supported and often you'd like to know before that.\n\nI eventually gave up on interface upgrades and resorted to good old function\npointers which you can check against nil. When the crypt backend starts up" +"\n\nJavaScript can double your codebase so make sure you need it first - invalid_arg\nhttp://mat-mcloughlin.github.io/2013/08/12/javascript-can-double-your-codebase-so-make-sure-you-need-it-first.html\n\n======\nlucisferre\nThere isn't a lot of detail on exactly _how_ javascript is used in this\ncodebase so it is hard to comment. Having worked in .NET web shops there is a\ntendency to be very back-end (and .NET) oriented and not really having a lot\nof deep expertise in the web, particularly on the front-end. I don't want to\nassume this (the author mentioned UX and some other things which tends to lead\nme to believe they do have this kind of expertise). There is also a tendency\nto avoid technologies that can make working with the web easier. I'm talking\nabout things like Ember or Angular, build tools like Grunt or some kind of\nasset pipeline for work so javascript can be more organized and structured and\nyou can write less of it.\n\nIn the end web development on the .NET platform (can be) is harder and front-\nend development doubly so. I'll admit this is my experience so YMMV.\n\nIn the author's defence though I agree Javascript, when compared with many\nother languages, particularly Java or C# is often unwieldily, there is" +"\n\nOn moving from CouchDB to Riak - franckcuny\nhttp://labs.linkfluence.net/nosql/2011/03/07/moving_from_couchdb_to_riak.html\n\n======\nsmanek\nI went through a length evaluation process of Riak recently, and came away\nwith a generally positive impression.\n\nFirst of all, it's beautifully engineered, as long as you just need a KV store\nor a graph DB (I wasn't in love with the MapReduce stuff, but that's another\nstory). None of the hassle that Hadoop/Hbase have about some nodes being\nspecial (HBase Master, HDFS Namenode, etc). Also, no running multiple daemons\nper server (e.g., no distinction between regionserver and datanode daemons,\nlike HBase). Easy config files, simple HTTP API (so you can just throw an off\nthe shelf load balancer like HAProxy in front of it), and lots of little\nthings that just make life easier.\n\nI also really like how it's very explicit about the CAP tradeoffs it makes -\nwith powerful conflict resolution available for when consistency has been\nsacrificed (instead of trying to sweep the issue under the rug, like many\nother distributed dbs do).\n\nHowever, there are a few downsides.\n\nFirst, as mentioned in the article, with the default backend (a kv-store\ncalled 'bitcask') all the keys per node have to fit in memory (and" +"\nAsk HN: What would a site with threaded bump-order ranking look like? - heartbeats\nThere's a lot of forums, like this one and Reddit, which have threaded discussion and voting. Classic blogs often have threaded comments, but just sorted on date posted.

Classic forums move the thread to the top each time someone responds, but they don't thread the comments.

This seems like a much simpler solution, which is much harder to game. Yet I've never seen a site actually use it in the wild. How come?\n======\njosquindesprez\nI imagine for popular posts, you'd get way too many low-value bumps: lots of\nleaves in the comment tree would be low-effort back and forth replies of\nuninteresting content (e.g. Reddit). If there's a voting system, the top-level\nthread would get bumped a lot but it'd be difficult to find that low-value\ncontent. The signal that the bump is trying to convey (there's new and good\nstuff here!) wouldn't match the value of the information that the user gets\n(the scattered dregs of many conversations). If there isn't voting and you\nsort by newest content, the experience would probably be like 4chan in slow\nmotion: bump ordered blasts of low-value replies.\n\nIn a" +"\n\nIs the new Jeet.gs the most flexible grid system ever? - sheddybird\nhttp://blog.mojotech.com/jeet-a-grid-system-for-humans/\n\n======\nSEMW\nSpecifying the width proportion with fractions looks pretty nice. But the\nparagraph explaining how jeet's better than bootstrap/foundation/etc. because\nit lets you use sass mixins (instead of inline classes) to separate content\nfrom presentation seems a little misleading - it's not like you can't do the\nsame with foundation (jeet: @include column(1/3); foundation: @include grid-\ncolumn(4);). (I don't use bootstrap, but presumably it has equivalent LESS\nmixins).\n\n(True, it's not the most popular way to use foundation, but that's cos a lot\nof people don't care about semantic layout and/or don't want to use a\npreprocessor).\n\n~~~\nCorySimmons\nThe difference between Jeet and Foundation's grid are two things.\n\n1\\. Jeet uses actual columns whereas with Foundation you need to nest elements\nwithin elements: [http://imgur.com/a/OWyOQ](http://imgur.com/a/OWyOQ)\n\n2\\. @include grid-column(4) isn't as \"on-the-fly flexible\" as Jeet since you\nhave to define the base number of columns in Foundation whereas in Jeet you\ncould just say @include column(4/12) or column (1/3) or column(33.333333/100),\netc. - being able to say in natural language what you want your container to\ndo is pretty powerful stuff." +"\nJohn Carmack's BAFTA Introduction, Speech and Interview [video] - nailer\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyjJrF2gJ34\n======\ndb1\nReally inspiring. I really loved his comment about how there are always new\nopportunities and new waves for people to ride. This is something I've always\npersonally struggled with, the feeling that everything has already been done\nand that I've missed the boat.\n\nI guess a lot of these things are only obvious in hindsight. People are\nexploring all sorts of ideas right now, but it won't be obvious which ones are\nthe winners and the losers until 10 years from now.\n\n~~~\njacobolus\nDepending how far down the ladder you go, some ideas take longer than that.\n\nFor example, geometric algebra, invented by Hermann Grassmann more than 150\nyears ago, is the biggest \u201cnew\u201d idea in mathematical modeling of geometry, and\nit\u2019ll probably take another 50 years more to percolate down throughout math\neducation and physics and engineering practice.\n\n~~~\n9erdelta\nDo you have any interesting reads about geometric algebra being the \"new\"\nthing?\n\n~~~\ntheoh\nNot the parent poster, but I have some experience of geometric algebra being\npromoted as a superior language for geometric computing. This started for me\nin the first year of" +"\nDear Programmer, I have an idea - mkrecny\nhttp://blog.mkrecny.com/entry/23/\n======\npadobson\nI'm always looking for a co-founder, whether I'm the geek or the suit. When a\nsuit approaches me to be the geek for their idea, I usually give them some\nsimple technical task to do - like setup a Tumblr or a Twitter account for the\nidea. Then I'll often ask for something businessy - form a C-corp for the idea\nor file a provisional patent.\n\nFinally, before I even consider opening my laptop to code their idea, I want\nsome paltry measure of idea validation. Are you selling a product? Good, find\nsomeone who will pay you to do the task manually before we program it. Are you\nlooking to give the service away and monetize the user base? Good, get 5000\nemails from a landing page describing your idea, or get 1000 followers on\nTwitter for your idea's account.\n\nIf they can do all this in a day or even a week, then they're quality co-\nfounder material. Any longer and it's a judgement call. Most won't get past\nstep one, and you certainly didn't want them as a co-founder.\n\n~~~\nsaurik\n(Note: I am a programmer.)" +"\nCVE-2019-1347: When a mouse over a file is enough to crash your system - danso\nhttps://blog.tetrane.com/2019/11/12/pe-parser-crash.html\n======\njacquesm\nOne more bit of proof that if you want proper isolation _you should not bloat\nyour kernel_. All this stuff belongs in userland. At least there the damage\nwill be limited.\n\n~~~\nmillstone\nThe crash is in parsing an executable file. Linux also performs this parsing\nin the kernel. Moving it to userland would be a microkernel design.\n\n~~~\nduskwuff\n> The crash is in parsing an executable file.\n\nIn a context that doesn't involve executing it. On a Linux system, this\nfunctionality would probably be implemented with libelf or libbfd, neither of\nwhich depends on the kernel.\n\n~~~\nVarriount\nBut here's a question - supposing that this functionality was moved into a\nhypothetical library \"pe.dll\"/\"pe.exe\", how would the kernel load this library\nor executable? Wouldn't one run into a catch-22 situation?\n\n~~~\npaulddraper\nThe kernel would probably statically link it.\n\n~~~\nsaagarjha\n\u2026wouldn\u2019t that have the effect of bringing this code back into the kernel\u2019s\naddress space?\n\n~~~\npaulddraper\nThe code itself would be in the kernel, but the \"parsing while mousing over\"\ninvocation would be on userspace code.\n\nThat is," +"\nAfter 7 years of blogging in German, I am switching to English. Here is why - imartin2k\nhttp://meshedsociety.com/fighting-the-language-fragmentation/\n======\na_bonobo\nI used to blog in German for a relatively large German portal and stopped\nbecause I couldn't stand the commenting behaviour by Germans - where in\nUS/English sites you get 50% joking, 49% niceness, and 1% insight in German\nyou get > 80% nitpicking and complaining, especially hard when we played\naround and experimented with (un)gendered nouns in German. Killed all the fun\nfor me, Germans are strange.\n\n~~~\nSvip\n> where in US/English sites you get 50% joking, 49% niceness, and 1% insight\n\nPlease show me this alternate internet!\n\n~~~\nstdbrouw\nI think we're talking about professional blogs and niche content in\nparticular, not news sites or Reddit.\n\nI've also noticed that Americans are generally more encouraging of new ideas,\neven if they're not fully thought out and a bit wacky, whereas when I used to\nwrite similar stuff in Dutch, I always got a collective \"meh\". Part of it is\njust the fact that more readers almost automatically equals more encouragement\nand sharing, but I can't help but think culture has something to do with it\ntoo.\n\nOf" +"\n\nC++ patterns using plain C - guillaumec\nhttp://blog.noctua-software.com/cpp-patterns-using-plain-c.html\n\n======\nsparkie\nA complaint about all of the examples is the use of free() directly in main().\nI dislike this because it implies that the \"create\", or \"new\" used a single\ncall to (m/c)alloc to allocate the returned pointer. While this is the case\nfor the examples, it may not be the case where you are only given a prototype\nfor \"base_new\" in a header file, and you don't know of its implementation\ndetail.\n\nSuch example might be a jagged array where you allocate several chunks of\nmemory, and a final chunk containing the pointers to each one. Freeing the\npointer returned for the memory containing these pointers will not free the\nmemory pointed to by each pointer.\n\nThe person who wrote the _new function should write the maching _free, since\nhe's really the only one who knows exactly what and how the \"object\" was\nallocated and how it needs to be deallocated.\n\nIf you find yourself ever writing such _new function without the matching\n_free, you're _doing it wrong_.\n\nEven worse is the last list example, as it not clear where, or if memory is\neven freed at all from the" +"\n\nSold my startup for nothing just before it took off. Now i'm broke. Need advice. - ahugefool\n\nHow do you recover from a success (first success after a multitude of failures) that you let slip through your fingers - by selling just before it took off?

It is eating me alive. I'm almost back to square one (broke, no ideas) and can hardly hold myself together.<p>I try to pump myself up to try something new but the thought that had i held on just a little longer i wouldn't even be in this position saps my productivity.

Faced with the prospect of having to reenter the job market (after having actually built something that works) is a nightmare that i never thought would be realised. But here i am.

Every day - completely paralysed by the outcome of my decision.

Really would appreciate anyone's advice here.Thank you.\n======\nDocG\nCongratulations!\n\nYou managed more than most of the start-ups! Your idea was worth it and it\nwill go and change part of the world. It was your doing.\n\nBy now, you have experience in starting, you have confirmation on your ideas.\nThis is bigger win in long term.\n\nBummer that you didn't get paid in" +"\nDo Not use namecheap.com for any large site or important domain - highclass\nNamecheap.com seems popular for a lot of tech companies. However, they seem to be not only cheap in price but in management.

I run a forum site with MILLIONS of visitors and about 5,000 TB of traffic per month.\nNamecheap.com suddenly sent me a link warning that they will suspend my domain completely within 24 hours, if I did not delete two problem images (which were inappropriate/troublesome images but in the context of the forum posts, "a very poor attempt at humor").\nI deleted the images and avoided being suspended, but the way they threatened to suspend my domain due to two images was ridiculous. If I missed the warning email or checked my email after 24 hours they would have completely suspended my domain.\nI'm talking about a site with MILLIONS of visitors per month and ten thousands of posts per day, not some small blog.

They may be suitable for some blog, but I can now say to NEVER use them for any enterprise site.\n======\nLorenzoLlamas\nMaybe I missed it, but did someone point to the actual site with \"millions of\nvisitors and 5 PETABYTES of" +"\nMythBuster's Hyneman Launches IndieGogo to Build VR Shoes Like Mini Treadmills - evo_9\nhttps://www.roadtovr.com/mythbusters-jamie-hyneman-launches-indiegogo-vr-shoes-act-like-mini-treadmills/\n======\nstuntkite\nThis kind of reeks of vaporware and that's sort of the pitch I guess. Hardware\nideas are crowdfuneded all the time that are kind of lofty, but I felt like\nthe common thinking at this point is that you really should have taken the\nrisks to prove the thing plus show that you could potentially build it at\nscale before funding. There are so many ways that the funding of this project\ncan go totally sideways (unlike the shoes!). It even feels weird to have\neveryone's favorite myth walrus promoting something so vapory. He's sort of\nknown for being a stodgy, no nonsense guy in terms of tech.\n\nThis all seems tone deaf. Maybe the shoe is like tunnel vision VR before we\nhad the oculus. The Ah-ha moment with VR was accelerometers, they at least\nkickstarted with a paper one you could start to use no matter what! The\nbackpack and axe with whacky cannon fuse might satisfy some Bustin' fans, it\nleaves me pretty flat. The branding is horror show gawdy too. Promise me a DIY\nkit where I can play with" +"\nYou could have invented that Bluetooth attack - octosphere\nhttps://blog.trailofbits.com/2018/08/01/bluetooth-invalid-curve-points/\n======\njoecot\n\"You could have invented that Bluetooth attack\"\n\n _Proceeds to explain elliptic curve mechanics that would make most readers\ncompletely glaze over._\n\nMaybe they mean they just mean their normal reader base, who has an attention\nspan for those sorts of details? Their assertion that an average reader could\n_understand_ the attack might be true, but the \"could have invented\" is a a\nbit far fetched.\n\n~~~\nmunin\nI think the argument is something like: you could understand what invalid\ncurve point attacks are, and once you did, you could look for them everywhere,\nand if you did that, you would have found this error as well.\n\nThe math behind invalid curve point attacks is pretty straightforward, it's\nsome polynomials and points on the Cartesian plane. You saw this stuff in\nelementary school.\n\nThen, someone needs to point out to you \"oh check out what happens if you\nallow for invalid points\" and now you have a pattern to go hunting for. Then\nit's luck - do you get to Bluetooth before someone else, or do you find\nsomething else, or do you just re-discover other peoples stuff?\n\nMaybe" +"\nConfessions of an Ex-Opponent of Whois Privacy - ca98am79\nhttp://www.circleid.com/posts/20150703_confessions_of_an_ex_opponent_of_whois_privacy/\n======\noldmanjay\nEssentially, the opposition was based on optimizing the handling of\npathological cases - how to deal with abusers was considered more important\nthan how to provide customers with the tools they wanted. This shows up all\nover society, from terrorism to 'think of the children', and any positive\neffects are nearly always swamped by the deleterious ones brought about by the\nperverse incentives created.\n\nShame that people don't see this ahead of time.\n\n~~~\nJoshTriplett\nPeople do, but those people are ignored. The voice of reason is almost always\ndrowned out by the voice of panic and outrage.\n\nNot least of which because the panic and outrage describes consequences that\nsound applicable to the person hearing them (or their family), while the voice\nof reason explains problems that sound like they affect _other people_. (\"if\nyou have nothing to hide\" is one of many instances of this pattern; having\nsomething to hide sounds like something that only affects other people.)\n\n------\nvitd\nI'm glad someone wrote this up. I would love to be able to control who has\naccess to my WhoIS record and to know when it's" +"\nYouTubers lost thousands of dollars as channels were mistakenly demonetized - bigpumpkin\nhttps://www.businessinsider.com/youtubers-entire-channels-can-get-mistakenly-demonetized-for-months-2019-8\n======\ntaylodl\nYouTube is the only Google service I use and this news just brings to the fore\nwhy we need a viable alternative. I understand mistakes happen and when they\ndo there needs to be a process to get things ironed out. Instead, the people\nwho are making tons of money for Google are told to pound sand - and they\nwonder why people are starting to revolt against Big Tech.\n\n------\nsmt88\nGoogle has built its businesses with the assumption that software can do what\nother companies use humans for (customer service, moderating communities,\nrecommendations, etc.)\n\nThey're right in some cases, but they dive so shallowly that their\nimplementation is awful compared to competitors (e.g. Play Music's\nrecommendations vs. Spotify's).\n\nThe cases where they're wrong, like this debacle, should make them sober up\nand build a human organization until machines catch up, but of course they\nwon't because they don't believe anyone can compete with them." +"\n\nAsk HN: Are you like people from Greenland? - pierreminik\n\nHi everyone,

I'm a 27 year old Problem Solver from Greenland.

We aren't many people up here on top of the world so limiting yourself to a single field is most likely gonna mean excluding yourself from potential stuff in the future. Unless you have awesome talents - which I ensure you many greenlanders do when it comes to things as music or drawing or hunting or storytelling... But for those of us who didn't turn out to have artistic talent, well, yeah, we could either pick an education and get a career job to earn some resources or do like me and not care about what people thought, decide money should never rule your life and do whatever you felt like. \nBest decision of my life! It has taken me through lots of awesome positions from assistant-bicycle-mechanic, web programmer, sales person, project manager, web designer, marketing coordinator, entrepreneur, publisher, tourist guide to stuff like cleaning stores so early in the morning I'd wish... I don't know... I'd wish that manual labor in Greenland was so expensive, they'd use robots to clean the stores, or something. And although my list of jobs" +"\nXmonad \u2013 A dynamically tiling X11 window manager - pykello\nhttp://xmonad.org/\n======\nmseidl\nI've been a xmonad user for a long time, but I'm going to switch to i3.\n\nWhile xmonad is nice, and haskell is nice, the haskell eco system is a PITA.\nAnd things break a lot(using cabal). And somehow, after a long time of no\nchanges my xmonad will no longer recompile. Trying to update the haskell stuff\njust turned out to be a HUGE pain. Also the libraries take up way too much\nspace because you have to have then in different ways. I forgot how it went,\nbut having xmonad(a small wm) required something like 1 to 1,5gb of harddrive\nspace.\n\n~~~\nLukeHoersten\nFor your WM you probably want to use a precompiled binary form your distro.\nWhat you're trying is equivalent of trying to get the whole gcc stack and deps\nto build a c-based WM. Haskell isn't a dynamic language and doesn't require\nanything Haskell-specific to be installed on the target system to run a\nbinary.\n\nIf you really do want to compile your window manager from source, newer\nversions of cabal, the Haskell package manager, have something called\nsandboxes which basically remedy" +"\nFive charged with felonies for tweeting or retweeting a cop\u2019s photo - ryanwatkins\nhttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/five-charged-with-felonies-for-tweeting-or-retweeting-a-cops-photo/\n======\nklyrs\n> Update (~4pm ET): Mid-afternoon on Friday, August 7, the Essex County\n> Prosecutor's Office dropped its cyber harassment charges against all five\n> defendants, the Asbury Park Press reports. These charges stemmed from an\n> incident involving a Tweet attempting to identify a New Jersey police\n> officer. Our original story on the situation appears unchanged below.\n\nSometimes a little publicity is all the defense you need.\n\n------\nspinny\n\"If anyone knows who this bitch is throw his info under this tweet.\" \\- it's\nnot just \"tweeting a cop's photo\"\n\n~~~\nklyrs\nTrue, it's not just a photo; it's also a request to identify a police officer,\nwhich has legitimate purposes.\n\nUnless you think that calling a police officer a bitch is a felony.\n\n~~~\nMaximumYComb\nWorded as such it does appear threatening. If someone tweeted that about me I\nwould feel worried about my personal safety and that of my family. The law\nspecifically states that placing a reasonable person in fear for their safety\nvia online communications is a crime.\n\nIf you're going to request personal information for a legitimate reason" +"\nShow HN: Streak.ly tracks what you do daily and I'd love feedback on the concept - kylebragger\nI've been working on a side project called Streak.ly with a friend of mine for the past month or so; it's intended to help keep you motivated to do otherwise mundane daily tasks (like do 10 pushups, read for an hour, etc.) by letting you log \"streaks\" \u2014\u00a0consecutive days in a row of doing something.

It's in private alpha/beta/gamma/whatever right now (has some rough edges to clean up), but is more or less functionally complete and pretty stable.

I'm a big fan of the Seinfeld calendar, and have seen other services which do similar things but were unsatisfying to use, either from an aesthetic or functional perspective. Streak.ly is designed to be simple, good-looking, fast, fun, (and hopefully addictive). (FWIW, it's also a place to experiment with user stickiness stuff I can potentially roll back in to Forrst.)

There are also some in-progress social/game/motivational features I plan to roll out in the next few weeks that hopefully contribute to the enjoyment factor of the app.

Streak.ly uses Twitter for authentication, and I've set up a URL to let HN folks in early: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn

I'd love any and" +"\nShow HN: port-to-process, a sysop script to show what's running on a given port - jph\nhttps://github.com/sixarm/port-to-process\n======\njph\nI'm seeking hacker advice for this sysop script, to make it more useful on\nmore systems. Currently handles ss, lsof, netstat, fuser, on macOS and Linux.\nThanks!\n\n~~~\nzzzcpan\nWhy is this a shell script? Shouldn't it be just a few documented ways to get\nsuch information with mentioned tools? Script is just too much for this, you\nhave to trust the author, trust the source, install it, learn it, run it.\nWhile you could've just read few lines of text and run appropriate commands in\nthe terminal.\n\n~~~\njph\n> Why is this a shell script?\n\nSo this can run.\n\nAlso, so I can run one command that works on a range of systems.\n\n> Shouldn't it be just a few documented ways to get such information with\n> mentioned tools?\n\nYou're welcome to do that. The README.md file is documentation. I welcome\nconstructive feedback.\n\n> you have to trust the author\n\nI am the author, so that's covered. :)" +"\n\nWhen to start publicizing a startup. - knandyal\n\nFriends,

We are a startup that deals with fashion. We are about 3-4 months away from the final product.

Questions are:

1) When is a correct time to start seeding the news about this site?

2) Who are the professionals that do this sort of \"spreading the news\"?

If anyone have any guidance regarding this I will be thankful.

Regds\nKarthik\n======\nbadmash69\nDefine your target audience, find a small representative sample whom you know\nand have them come in to your site and kick the proverbial tires. Don't go\nabout \"spreading the news\" until your representative sample is happy about\nyour product." +"\n\nTech Community Group Hacker Hideout names costume party \"Hackers & Hookers\" - phwd\nhttps://www.eventbrite.com/event/8938393977/\n\n======\nlbarrow\nValleyWag pretty much nailed it:\n\n\"Beer. Dance floor. Shot bar. Food truck. Girls.\" Nerds. Obliviousness. Poor\njudgment. Skewed cultural views. Social regression. Bros. MySQL. Crushing it.\nA party atmosphere combined with everything that makes the rest of the world\nhate you, Silicon Valley: this party is not smart.\"\n\n[http://valleywag.gawker.com/hackers-and-hookers-startup-\npart...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/hackers-and-hookers-startup-party-is-\ntechs-new-worst-1450909234/@sambiddle)\n\n------\njordo37\nMan, what the hell. This is despicable but also just dumb - someone already\ngot in trouble for this exact same stuff last year and there was media\ncoverage.\n\nAt least when lame-o's come up with new forms of misogyny it advances the\nconversation forward, this is just a rehash.\n\n------\ngenevievemp\nCan I debut my 'uber for sex' startup there? #whoresmakeitwork\n\n------\nogghead\nBuncha pathetic bros. I think they believe this pitch will actually entice\nfemale humanoids to attend.\n\nIf this mysogynist debacle comes to pass, I would love to see pictures. Bro-\ndudes are always funny.\n\n------\ncalibraxis\nAt least they're honest about misogyny. Some people see no significant\ndifference between renting machines and females, to carry out commands.\n\n------\ngeetee\nso what.\n\nedit: seriously. that's the response this" +"\nAn Overview of Curcumin in Neurological Disorders - mrfusion\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929771/\n======\ntheseatoms\nI've been incorporating turmeric in my diet for the past few months. I enjoy\nthe taste and the placebo effect, so why not?) I'm curious if others here have\ndone the same.\n\nI wouldn't go as far as to make claims regarding it's effectiveness.\n\nOne tip I've heard is to take it with black pepper to increase\nbioavailability. I don't understand the mechanism, but the active ingredient\nis apparently piperine.\n\n~~~\nmrob\nI mix cocoa powder, turmeric, black pepper, and enough extra virgin olive oil\nto form a smooth paste. I then add hot water and it forms a suspension and the\noil mostly doesn't separate out. I think the bitter taste and the fact that\nall the ingredients are plausibly active makes it an effective placebo, even\nif it turns out not to actually do anything.\n\n------\nToast_\nThis isn't too surprising considering curcumin is a mitochondrial\nuncoupler[1][2]. For the curious, another example of a mitochondrial uncoupler\nwould be 2,4-dinitrophenol, which is currently being looked into as a\npotential anti-Alzheimer treatment[3]. Cool stuff.\n\n1:\n[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715674](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715674)\n\n2:\n[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567840/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567840/)\n\n3:\n[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16754295](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16754295)\n\n~~~\nfasteo\nThanks for the references 1 and" +"\n\nBob \u2013 A Tarsnap GUI client for OS X - CStorm\nhttps://github.com/casperstorm/Bob\n\n======\ngburt\nWarning that this doesn't detect errors properly. Reporting that it\nsuccessfully backed up when it definitely did not.\n\n> command.run(job) File \"/Library/Python/2.7/site-\n> packages/tarsnapper-0.2.1-py2.7.egg/tarsnapper/script.py\", line 347, in run\n> > OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory\n\n~~~\npetergam\nThank you for reporting this.\n\nBob is still a very early project (development started 3 days ago). We just\nreleased version 0.1.2 which improves the error handling.\n\nFeel free to open issues on the Github page if more things come up.\n\n~~~\ngrinich\nYou should probably put that disclaimer on the GitHub README. Lots of folks\nwill have no idea.\n\nIt's a testament to your good design that it looks finished though. Kudos! :)\n\n------\nchrissnell\nHas anybody ever used Tarsnap to back up Time Machine sparseimages? I've\nwanted to try it out but I'm not sure if Tarsnap will handle the de-dup on all\nof the Time Machine snapshots properly. Will I end up with just the original\nplus deltas or hundreds of copies of the original?\n\n~~~\nwatersb\nShort answer: Tarsnap can back up a sparse image without messing up any de-dup\nproperties of" +"\n\nAsk HN: What do we do with an iPad app built on a recently shutdown Google API? - thegrossman\n\nMy coworker and I have spent the last few months building an iPad app on top of the Google News API, which has just yesterday been slated to shutdown: http://code.google.com/apis/newssearch/

We were motivated to create the app based on a lack of quality \"hard news\" sources (for lack of a better term) on the iPad. There is no shortage of \"social\" news apps such as Flipboard and Pulse, and there exist a slew of quality RSS readers (Reeder is indispensable to me). But I also crave conventional, un-sexy, non-web2.0 journalism; a simple reporting of the news of the day.

I used to spend obscene chunks of my day parked on CNN.com, click the refresh button incessantly... before the quality of their reporting diminished. And while there are iPad apps for individual news outlets (the NY Times, CNN, etc all have their own apps), the great thing about Google News is the fact that they aggregate content from news outlets around the word, from the Times to Al Jazeera to my tiny local newspaper.

Google News doesn't have a spectacular web interface, especially when accessed" +"\nWhy Do the Titles of Scholarly Works Sometimes Begin with the Word 'On'? - jordansmithnz\nhttps://english.stackexchange.com/questions/402576/why-do-the-titles-of-scholarly-works-sometimes-begin-with-the-word-on\n======\nDamonHD\nWell, thank you for that thought! I'm renaming 70-odd of my articles right now\nfrom \"A Note On X\" to \"On X\" as a useful compaction, and almost all the titles\nseem fine just deleting the existing initial two words.\n\nNot that I'm claiming to rub shoulders with Darwin and pals.\n\n~~~\nmadcaptenor\nYou could even get rid of \"On\". Most people probably think Darwin's magnum\nopus is titled \"The Origin of Species\" anyway.\n\n~~~\nDamonHD\nEasy tiger! I have to take this one step at a time! B^>\n\n------\naisofteng\nFrom the numerous oddly wrong answers and their votes, it seems that too many\npeople just don't read." +"\nMore details on MAINWAY and MARINA - brown9-2\nhttp://theweek.com/article/index/245694/minimize-this\n======\njdp23\n_Individually analyzing each incoming email is impossible. So the NSA\nautomates the minimization procedures as much as it can. Based on dynamic link\nanalyses done by computers, scores are assigned to emails and associated\nprofiles inside the system. Every bit of data associated with an email address\nthat might belong to a U.S. person \"updates\" the score. Analysts can query the\nsystem for individual names, and email addresses, and even subject lines. They\ncan add, if they want, the place and time that the email was collected, too.\nIf the \"score\" associated with the email indicates that there is a 51 percent\nchance or higher that it belongs to a person overseas, the analyst can start\nmonitoring content right away and not do anything further. If that score is\nless than 51 percent, the analyst can, if directed by a superior, start to\naccess the content, if it's available, but the large team of lawyers the NSA\nhas will be instantly notified, and a FISA order will be sought._\n\nAs I interpret this:\n\n1) analysts are able to access email metadata without a specific court order\nor warrant\n\n2)" +"\n\nThe Real Problem with Mailbox - capwatkins\nhttp://blog.capwatkins.com/the-real-problem-with-mailbox\n\n======\ntptacek\nAnother alternative to things like Mailbox is not using your email inbox as a\nproject manager at all.\n\nAfter 15 years of abusing my own inbox this way (5172 \"unread\" todos to go!\nyay!), I grabbed a copy of Things.app a few weeks ago, and then swept the last\nmonth of my inbox into Things (skipping everything that wasn't actionable). I\nuse virtually none of the features of Things; it's just a hotkey bound to\n\"create a todo for this email\" with the nice property of linking the todo back\nto the original email. I've played with tagging and projects, but they're not\nnearly as useful as just having a list of todos with checkboxes.\n\nI don't do \"GTD\" or any of that stuff, and I am not a believer in the value of\n\"inbox zero\", but I'm now a convert to the idea that your inbox is a crappy\norganizer.\n\n~~~\nhinting\nMind sharing how you hooked the two apps together? Applescript?\n\n~~~\nkmf\nYep, Applescript. Quick Google search turns up this: [http://smoove-\noperator.blogspot.com/2011/05/gtd-intake-autom...](http://smoove-\noperator.blogspot.com/2011/05/gtd-intake-automation-with-things-and.html)\n\nWorth mentioning that OmniFocus has a built-in tool for this (humorously\ncalled the \"Clip-o-Tron" +"\nThe Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code (2000; Still relevant?) - OoTheNigerian\nhttp://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html\n======\npatio11\nSome parts of that have aged better than others.\n\nYou should be using source control. It might sound shocking to the Github\ngeneration, but there was a time _not too long ago_ where important work with\nmillions on the line routinely got done with one copy of the code sitting on a\nsingle workstation, and collaboration happening over network shares or email.\nI worked at one of those places. It sucked. The Joel Test was part of an\nevangelization movement which changed standard practices in our industry\nradically, for the better.\n\nBuilding in a single step? Still relevant for many projects. Less relevant\nfor, e.g., Rails web apps. I migth substitute \"can you deploy to staging and\nproduction in one step\".\n\nSpeaking of which, a Joel Test in 2010 should include \"do you have a fully\nfunctional staging environment\" and \"can you recreate a dev environment from a\nfactory new machine in under an hour\".\n\nFixing bugs versus writing new code, well, one might quibble with that in some\nscenarios. There exist businesses where the marginal business value or\ncustomer value of squashing an" +"\n\nShow HN: \u201cActive Code\u201d in Markdown - chriswarbo\nhttp://chriswarbo.net/activecode/\n\n======\nonaclov2000\nI really like this, I imagine it would be really helpful if you were writing a\nbook/blog post, you could \"print\" the code you were using as an example, then\n\"run\" it and output all of that into your generated HTML, this would ensure\nyou have a \"working\" example at all times.\n\n~~~\nNullabillity\nA while ago I wrote something similar (though only for Scala) for a school\nproject. It would basically fake a REPL session, which had the con of being\npretty tightly coupled to the language, but it would give you nice automatic\noutput that would match what the user would get.\n\nExample:\n[http://www.kodknackning.se/gettingstarted/types](http://www.kodknackning.se/gettingstarted/types)\n\nSource: [https://github.com/teozkr/scala-repl-\nsampler](https://github.com/teozkr/scala-repl-sampler)\n\n------\napenguin\nI love the idea of Literate Programming, and moreover pandoc is one of my\nabsolute favorite tools. As such, I find this very interesting.\n\nHowever, I take issue with your complaint about Emacs being so huge -- pandoc\nis right up there, too (134 vs 89MiB on my system). Not to mention its\nseemingly endless stream of dependencies (50 packages according to my\nmanager), as well as GHC which is over 700MB on its own. If you work" +"\nShow HN: Snapbugz \u2013 The easiest way to discuss bugs. - grexi\nhttp://www.snapbugz.com/\n======\nnwh\n> \" _Your browser is too old for Snapbugz._ \"\n\nLatest Chrome probably shouldn't have this.\n\n> _\" As not yet seen on:_\"\n\nPutting this at the bottom of the page with a list of popular website's icons\nis disingenuous to say the least.\n\nIt's also not clear to the user, but this service silently proxies any site\nyou go to with little concession for what the user might be doing. Given that\nthey're already being so unpleasant with the bottom links, I wouldn't hesitate\nto think that they are capturing user content as well. Even if they aren't\ncollecting private data, they're stripping SSL data and serving it back up in\nplain text.\n\nCompletely unacceptable.\n\n~~~\njamessb\nWith Firefox 27 (or Safari 7.0.1) on a MBP running Mavericks I get the error:\n\n\"Bummer! Creating a Snapbugz currently only works on desktop computers.\"\n\n~~~\npornel\nWhere can I discuss that bug? ;)\n\n[http://i.imgur.com/IGuNEzT.png](http://i.imgur.com/IGuNEzT.png)\n\n~~~\ngrexi\nFor all having this \"desktop\" issue on real desktops - please give us more\ninformation via hello @ snapbugz.com. Kudos!\n\n~~~\npornel\nMy suggestion is instead of chasing UA sniffing" +"\nSnapjoy (YC S11) unveils Flickraft, one-click migration for Flickr users - jpren\nhttp://www.flickraft.com\n======\nsriramk\n[disclaimer: see my profile for my involvement with Yahoo, I have no\nconnection with this particular incident/Flickr/etc]\n\nThis and the TC post annoy me because Snapjoy (or perhaps the tech press) is\ntrying to spin this into some underdog vs evil big company story when it\nisn't.\n\nFor example, when Snapjoy says \"We tried our best to stay within Flickr\u2019s API\nlimits, but the overwhelmingly positive response has exceeded our\nexpectations.\", what they are really saying is that they didn't implement rate\nlimiting correctly.\n\nAnd when they say \"We\u2019re a bit surprised that the key was disabled almost\nimmediately after we reached the limit.\", what they're saying is that Flickr\nactually did implement said limiting correctly (don't have personal knowledge,\nassume that's what happened).\n\nI also like the spin from the tech press on this somehow meaning that your\nphotos are locked into Flickr when Snapjoy has neither an API or any other\nmechanism to get photos out - all I see is a promise of a future feature to\nsync to Dropbox/S3.\n\nI completely understand the PR game being played here but I wish" +"\n\nSimple but Interesting Features of VS2010 and C# 4.0 - yread\nhttp://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/VS2010InterestingFeatures.aspx\n\n======\nnumlocked\nI think the only one of these that's innovative enough to be of interest to\nnonusers of C# + VS is the DataTips. It's basically a small watch window you\ncan pin anywhere in the code, almost like a sticky note. You can pin any\nnumber of them, anywhere in the code, and they scroll around and are visible\nwhen viewing source & debugging. They remain in place between debugging\nsessions (presumably stored in the VS project file). Seems extremely useful.\nDefinitely better than setting up and tearing down watch expressions all the\ntime.\n\n~~~\nmendicant\nYup. There's so many of these that are either irresponsible (Hiding code) or\nof limited usefulness (IsNullOrEmpty) or too limited to be truly useful (Named\nParameters).\n\nHiding Code: I've got an idea. If you've got to hide code, maybe it _doesn't\nbelong in that class_. Single responsibility people.\n\nString.IsNullOrEmpty(): Wow! Thanks MS for saving me from writing one 4 line\nhelper method. What would be useful is if you provided these helpers for the\nother 90 that I need every project. Seriously, any C# dev can provide you with\ntheir" +"\nH1b vs L1 visa - pattamonnu\nhttp://frontsimple.com/posts/H1b-vs-L1-infographic/\n======\nelastic_church\nI think I recently pointed out that focusing on H1B was a red herring.\n\nAny way, I love publicly posted salary information for every H1B applicant by\ncompany and date! [http://www.h1bdata.info](http://www.h1bdata.info) Way\nbetter than Glassdoor or Payscale or any of those \"give us your Facebook\naccount and a ton of information before we show you outdated base-salary-only\ninformation but since you clicked we're sure the ad worked\" websites\n\nDon't know about the history of that transparency and don't care, can probably\nconvince Congress to extend it to other work visa types \"as a compromise to\nstudy the effect on citizens\" lol!\n\n------\nwyldfire\nThe infographic doesn't make it clear what substantive differences exist\nbetween H1B and L1 visas. AFAICT from the text below it's more like\ntransferring within the globocorp.\n\nFrom [1]: \"The new U.S. office must have a corporate relationship with your\nforeign entity abroad where you have been employed as a manager, executive, or\nworker with specialized knowledge. This means that the new U.S. office must be\na parent, affiliate, subsidiary or branch of the foreign entity, and that both\nthe U.S. office and the foreign entity must continue" +"\n\nHow to Kill Mysql Performance - arjunlall\nhttp://www.slideshare.net/techdude/how-to-kill-mysql-performance\n\n======\njaypipes\nHi folks, this is Jay Pipes, the author of the slide decks in\nquestion...someone notified me via email that these slides were up online.\n\nI had no idea those slides were even up online! People tend to take the slides\nfrom my website () and post them on various websites\nwithout my knowledge, which is perfectly fine. :)\n\nThose slides are also quite old (2+ years now). I've done many presentations\nsince then and have a number of alternate slide decks which you may find\nuseful. Here are the links to download PDFs from my website.\n\n\n\n[http://jpipes.com/presentations/target-practice/target-\npract...](http://jpipes.com/presentations/target-practice/target-practice.pdf)\n\n[http://jpipes.com/presentations/target-practice/target-\npract...](http://jpipes.com/presentations/target-practice/target-practice-\nworkbook.pdf)\n\n\n\n\n\n[http://jpipes.com/presentations/dqm/legend_drunken_query_mas...](http://jpipes.com/presentations/dqm/legend_drunken_query_master.pdf)\n\nYou can also download a chapter of my book (Pro MySQL) on SQL Scenarios:\n\n\n\nCheers!\n\njay\n\n------\nams6110\nHow to ensure that [some] people won't read your post: require Flash.\n\n~~~\narjunlall\nYou would probably be better off complaining to slideshare.net or the original\nauthor of the slideshow for posting it there." +"\nThat man who \u2018deleted his entire company\u2019 with a line of code? It was a hoax - empressplay\nhttp://www.pcworld.com/article/3057235/data-center-cloud/that-man-who-deleted-his-entire-company-with-a-line-of-code-it-was-a-hoax.html\n======\ntamana\nCan someone explain how this would win him customers? \"Oh yeah, let's get\nWebHosting with that idiot who trolled ServerFault. He seems like a reliable\nand professional fellow.\"\n\n~~~\ncmurf\nWhat about the $700 juicer that doesn't juice, it uses juice packs, which are\nso bad at preservation the juice can expire, so the whole point of the juicer\nis to scan a QR code to know if the juice is expired because presumably the\nuser can't read an expiration date, and then denies using the expired pack?\nPeople will still buy that ridiculous thing. Same thing here.\n\n~~~\npkroll\nI was so hoping you were joking. A quick search and yep, that's a real thing.\nHopefully not a well selling thing, but that it exists at all is depressing.\n\n------\noconnor663\nThe comments on the original StackOverflow post said the same thing. Sounds\nlike a lot of articles got written without reading the whole thread." +"\nSo much for recession proof: U.S. video game sales take a 17 percent dip in March - peter123\nhttp://venturebeat.com/2009/04/16/us-video-game-sales-take-a-17-percent-dip-in-march/\n======\npotatolicious\nEhhh I think it'd be wise not to jump to conclusions. I'm a pretty avid gamer\nmyself, and this year has seen an absolute drought of interesting games.\n\nAt any given point in a normal year I would have a want-to-buy game that's\ncoming out shortly. So far in 2009 I have not bought a single game simply\nbecause none of them are that interesting. I was looking forward to both HAWX\nand Resident Evil 5, but playing the demos for them convinced me not to buy.\n\nThe movie industry has been through this before - prompting predictions of the\nend of cinema as we know it. Except then Hollywood started producing movies\npeople wanted to watch, and last I checked the industry is thriving.\n\nI'm sure the recession has something to do with it - but I don't think it\nexplains all of the 17 percent drop.\n\n~~~\nDannoHung\nHAWX was awesome. The demo doesn't really give you enough of an idea of what\nthe full game is actually like.\n\nLet me paint you a picture: There are" +"\nShow HN: Imprint \u2013 Rethinking Medium - rolandtshen\nHello! This is Roland from Imprint (https://imprint.to).

We've been frustrated with Medium because of their paywall, content ownership issues, intrusive interface, and low post engagement. So we built Imprint to do things different. We want to take the control and ownership you get with Wordpress/Ghost, and provide distribution/discovery.

To us, a blog is...

1. Openly sharing your thoughts (freedom of expression)

2. Accessible, unobtrusive content (no paywalls)

3. Ownership/control of your work (our policies, custom domains, customization)

4. Building an audience that engages with articles (followers, newsletters, distribution)

5. Simple to run, so you focus on what matters \u2014 CONTENT

Our manifesto (business model, philosophy, guidelines): https://read.imprint.to/post/the-imprint-rundown

Happy to answer any questions and concerns. Thanks!

P.S: yes, our title was inspired by the Ghost launch years ago\n======\nthrowaway888abc\nClickable [https://imprint.to](https://imprint.to)\n\n------\npinkpigpie\nThis seems amazing!" +"\nWebGL Meincraft - llambda\nhttp://dev.pocoo.org/~mitsuhiko/webglmc?hn\n======\nritonlajoie\nThat seems nice but it's taking, also, all my CPU time on my windows machine.\nI don't get it, yesterday there was another WebGL demo on HN and it did\nexactly the same thing. Is that something which we have to live with in the\nfuture ? Is WebGL going to be too much CPU intensive, so much that nobody is\ngoing to be able to run that ? Or is this 'demo' asking too much of WebGL ?\n\n~~~\nthe_mitsuhiko\nThe high CPU usage is expected because I spawn off four background workers\nthat peg all your CPU. It's not intended for public consumption yet, so don't\njump to conclusions.\n\nWhen I have finished this it will perform better.\n\n> Or is this 'demo' asking too much of WebGL?\n\nThe WebGL part is only half the story. It uses webworkers for the perlin noise\ngeneration and this is currently very slow in JavaScript.\n\n------\nquandrum\nThis page consumed all the resources on my Late 2010 MBA pretty quickly. Not\nthat the real minecraft runs well, but it's far more playable than this\nversion.\n\nWhether that's WebGL or the programming is something I" +"\nA curated catalog of iOS frameworks - danielh\nhttp://iosframeworks.com/\n======\naaronbrethorst\nDisclaimer: I'm the creator of , which is a\ncompetitor to iosframeworks.com.\n\n* Provide direct links to the source code where possible\n\n* License info is extremely useful; I'd hate to find something perfect for my app only to discover that it uses an incompatible license.\n\n* Provide ratings support.\n\n* What's a framework in this case? iOS doesn't support third-party frameworks, just static libs and loose bundles of code.\n\n* What differentiated value does this provide vs. my site or ? I'm not trying to be snarky or cut this down; I think there's a lot of room to differentiate and provide value in this space, it just needs to be articulated clearly.\n\n~~~\nfeatherless\nAs a developer of iOS frameworks and libraries, I will vouch for cocoacontrols\nas a solid site. It's easy to add a new entry and search for existing controls\nby license.\n\n~~~\naaronbrethorst\nthanks, jeff. glad you like it! :) also, thanks for submitting nimbus just\nnow!\n\n~~~\nfeatherless\nThanks for providing a solid service :)\n\n------\ndan1234\nIt would be great if the licensing details were included. One of the most time" +"\n\nHow to beta test your mobile apps - ashok_varma\nhttp://blog.appstark.com/post/26209583662/7-tips-to-beta-test-your-mobile-app\n\n======\nDenisM\nThe article is devoid of content, entire text can be summarized as \"strategize\nyour strategy\", \"do the right thing at the right time\", and other such\ngibberish.\n\nThe point of the article is to plug something called \"appstark\", which as best\nI can tell is a library + service combo to collect and aggregate user feedback\nfrom inside iOS apps. Their web site a train-wreck of an attempt to explain\nwhat the service does, papered with \"free trial start now!!!\" buttons.\n\nFrankly, a short and to the point explanation of what the service does would\nbe more welcome here than this spam.\n\n~~~\nluckymurari\nFeedback is awesome. But, I guess you could've reduced a bit of causticness in\nit.\n\nThis is the video, I want everyone on internet to watch - \"A real person, a\nlot like you\" - \n\nPS/Disclaimer: Not directly affiliated to them. Founders are my friends!\n\n~~~\nDenisM\nYou're probably right, I was (still am) irked by the amount of nonsense I had\nto wade through before I got something tangible out of my time investment. In\nmy defense I provided something useful to" +"\nGoogle buys Meebo - jcdavis\nhttp://blog.meebo.com/?p=4974\n======\njry\nOne thing no outlet has reported is that everyone except business development\nand select engineers were laid off as a result of the deal.\n\nThis all comes from someone who left Meebo recently and is still close with\npeople that work there.\n\nNot sure exactly how many, but it sounds like it was a good number.\n\nNote: I said it was the majority, that's what my friend made it sound like,\nbut I'm not sure.. will update once I find out\n\n~~~\nnandemo\nThat sounds pretty bad if true.\n\nIs there a point of working for a startup if there's no financial upside, only\nthe downside?\n\nNot being in the US, I'm curious if people getting laid-off from funded\nstartups get severance packages.\n\n~~~\nmikeryan\nThey're not getting laid off by a startup now they're getting laid off by\nGoogle. They likely get a severance. In CA at least if they're laying off a\nsignificant portion it's cosidered a plant closing which should give everyone\nabout 6 months severance.\n\n------\nmichaelbuckbee\nTo me this makes sense as Meebo has really transformed themselves from a\n\"chat\" company to an \"advertising toolbar\" company.\n\nThey" +"\nThe Social Network Wars Begin In Earnest: Facebook Bans Google Friend Connect - kyro\nhttp://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/the-social-network-wars-begin-in-earnest-facebook-bans-google-friend-connect/\n======\ndbreunig\nGiven that Google was tapping into Facebook as if they were an Open Social\npartner, I can see why FB was quick to react.\n\nIn other news: who is completely underwhelmed by G's Friend Connect? Since\nwhen is MySpace the innovator?\n\n~~~\nblogimus\nWell, I've not checked out Friend Connect, so I can't comment on that, but as\nfar as being the innovator, when you do enough stuff, it is highly unlikely\nyou'll get is all right. Look at Google Video versus YouTube. I (and most\neveryone else it seems) ignored Google Video after trying it out for a little\nbit and just went to YouTube by default." +"\nAsk HN: AMZN is set to be larger than APPL soon. How did AMZN pull this off? - rblion\nAMZN is currently at a $909 billion market cap. AAPL is around $960 billion. These numbers are insane to think about considering how close both companies were to 'being dead' at some point in their history.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts, insights, analysis on how you think Amazon went from being an afterthought to many in the industry to being a force on par with Apple and Google, maybe bigger in a few years.\n======\nTokyoKid\nAs discussed elsewhere, both companies enjoy large tax breaks that give them\nhuge advantages. However, I think only Amazon sells so many items online\nwithout sales taxes across the US.\n\nApple still makes a good deal more revenue.\n\nFor quite some time, Amazon made almost no profit and just spent everything\nthey earned. I believe they recently started taking in more profit, and this\nhas probably excited the stock price a lot.\n\nAmazon also seems to do things Apple isn't willing to. Amazon hosts the NSA's\ndata, while Apple fights for privacy. Amazon has notoriously poor working\nconditions and unethical sources, while Apple leads in" +"\nAsk HN: Are Facebook keeping data on deleted accounts? - jimnotgym\nI deleted my Facebook account some time ago, maybe 2 years. I did it with the service where you ask them to delete everything. Recently I had a need to use Facebook again. From a new computer I attempted to register an account, to find I got an immediate ban! I really did need to join this group, so I used my work computer to create an account from a work email. It worked ok, so I added it to my phone app, and I got an immediate ban. I certainly never had this phone when I was on Facebook before. I was on 4g at the time, so it was nothing to do with IP addresses. I don't understand how this is possible unless Facebook withheld data about me after deletion. I also don't understand why they banned me, do they ban people who leave and rejoin? Has anyone else had this. I also note that 'due to Coronavirus' you can't appeal. This raises the issue of how Facebook can become a service that society relies on whilst arbitrarily denying access to certain users with no right of" +"\n\nAsk YC: Where do you post ads for programmers? - Flemlord\n\nI've got ads posted on Monster and JoelOnSoftware for a .NET programmer at a Salt Lake startup. I'm getting spotty results. Where does everybody run ads?\n======\nspif\nGo to your (local) user groups where your flavour of developers like to hang\nout. You immediately get a feel of who you would like and what their\navailability is like.\n\n------\nbigtoga\nI would suggest joel Spolsky's book on hiring tech folks. He mentions several\nmethods and, although i\"m only on page 30, (1) I like Joel's style/approach to\nmost things, and (2) the first 30 pages made sense to me. it's called \"Smart\nand Gets Things Done\"\n\n------\ngscott\nI am having similiar results trying to replace myself so I can work full time\non my project and getting no serious bites. Next step is to try community\ncollege job boards...\n\n------\nthomasswift\nyou could try 37signals board or maybe krop(more designer related)\n\nor good ole craigslist, but i'd recommend asking their level of .net\nexperience and wait for WIDE range of people.\n\n------\nALee\nelance, odesk, craigslist, and the boards of frequented blogs.\n\n------\nentelarust\ncraigslist\n\n~~~\nbigtoga" +"\nMechanical webpage hitcounter - bemmu\nhttp://spritesmods.com/?art=mechctr\n======\ncomboy\n\n every time a person requests a page from my site, \n the counter would give a satisfying 'Click!'\n \n\nThis is going to be a pretty loud night for the author ;)\n\nI guess most people here know this site well, but if not it's definitely worth\nexploring. Lots of cool projects and much to learn.\n\n~~~\nclemlais\nI wonder what will happen if the frequency of requests is faster than the\ncounter refresh rate. Does the counter stay consistent ?\n\n~~~\ncomboy\nIt reacts to a pulse, so you could solve that with a queue in software,\nwithout that, my guess is that it would be missing clicks (pulses would\noverlap, since I'm assuming there is some minimum required width of it)\n\n------\njacquesm\nSuggested improvement: put a webcam in front of it for full-circle :)\n\n------\ndapra\nAnother nice electromechanical hit counter:\n[https://vimeo.com/119746422](https://vimeo.com/119746422)\n\n------\nxigency\nHm, this seems like a pretty risky way to connect this device to your PC -\nusing a serial port.\n\nEdit: And THAT connection:\n[http://meuk.spritesserver.nl/foto/foto/misc5/img_1999.jpg](http://meuk.spritesserver.nl/foto/foto/misc5/img_1999.jpg)\n\n~~~\nsokoloff\nHe has discussion about that hack here:\n[http://spritesmods.com/?art=mechctr&page=2](http://spritesmods.com/?art=mechctr&page=2)\n\nSeems reasonable enough to me.\n\n~~~\nxigency\nSure, depending on your computer." +"\n\nAre symbols, myths and metaphors sort of like file compression for culture? - eli_oat\nhttp://elioat.tumblr.com/post/86402521425/are-symbols-myths-and-metaphors-sort-of-like-file\n\n======\ncoldtea\nWell, symbols, myth etc are a summary of complex events and notions.\n\nIn that sense, they are sort of file compression.\n\nBut in other senses the metaphor breaks, because it cannot convey the\nsimilarities.\n\nOne can enjoy a myth or symbol in itself -- but a compressed file is useless\nunless it can be opened.\n\nSecond, the uncompressed file can be comprehended at once (e.g a movie can be\nviewed, a compressed doc can be read, etc). The cultural notions that are\n\"compressed\" into myths, though, cannot be understood by anyone in their\nentirety -- so the \"compression\" of the myth is somehow necessary.\n\nThird, a compressed file is usually the work of a single person. Whereas\nculture (and myths, symbols etc) are a shared work of a people.\n\n~~~\neli_oat\nNoting that a myth can be enjoyed in and of itself, while a compressed file is\nreally rather boring until it is uncompressed, I think you've hit on something\nI didn't think of at all. Thank you.\n\nI'm wondering now if a more apt word would have been \"encoding,\" rather than\ncompression?" +"\n\nShow HN: HNBuzz \u2013 daily/weekly digests, full-text search and mobile awesomeness - leandot\nhttp://hnbuzz.com\n\n======\nleandot\nInitially I built HNBuzz in order to have a daily digest with the top stories\nfor myself. Then I added some more features and I believe someone else could\nappreciate it as well. So looking forward to your feedback at hello@hnbuzz.com\nor in the thread below\n\nCurrently HNBuzz has:\n\n\\- sections - All, Ask HN, Show HN, Hiring\n\n\\- time ranges - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, any period you want\n\n\\- full text search within each section\n\n\\- mobile optimised\n\nIn the future I have plans to make HNBuzz personalised and categorise the\nstories. Other ideas?\n\n------\nadvance\nNeat, clean, minimalist and easy to use, providing interesting tech feed from\nmultiple sources in one spot.\n\n------\nhack2good\nnice website. I like the full text search for example to find python related\narticles :)" +"Ask HN: Have you transitioned from software to finance? - zabana\n======\nmattbgates\nLoaded question. Kidding. But one of my side projects invovles a financial\npiece. It's not technically a service or anything, but rather an informative\nguide on saving enough for retirement though I haven't finished it yet.\n\nI've always been naturally good with money and I have a friend who is a\nfinancial advisor, so having never spoken to a financial advisor before, he\ndid me a favor as a friend to show me that I was on track to retire a\nmillionaire if I kept doing what I was doing. He said I basically had to\nadjust nothing because I was doing everything right. Never took a finance or\nbusiness class. I just learned at an early age the difference between wants,\nneeds, and a lavish yearly vacation or getting to travel around the world,\nwhich is far greater than any material you'll ever get.\n\nThe project is a guide to help people understand the differences of wants and\nneeds, teaching about the stock market and investments, 401ks, working\ndifferent jobs to make money, saving when you are youngest, when to invest,\netc., all to prepare people" +"\nGender, Race, and Age Inclusive Makeup Recommendations Through Facial Detection - ajmurill\nhttps://www.facebook.com/BelloFacialDetection/\n======\najmurill\nFor Bello to be inclusive for all genders, ethnicities, and ages where anyone\ncan use our technology to pamper themselves and show self-love. We strive to\ndeliver consistently accurate and detailed results to our customers and to\ntake into account their needs, dreams, and wants.\n\nSteps to get beautified:\n\nStep 1: Like our page and click the blue \"Send Message\" button located in the\ntop right of this screen. Step 2: We will send you a quiz where you answer\nquestions like, \u201cWhat is your favorite/least favorite feature on your face\u201d\nand \u201cDo you prefer drugstore or high-end products\u201d? Step 3: You send us a\npicture and from there we run our facial detection software on your picture.\nWe gather information like your skin tone, age, eye color, blemishes, etc.\nStep 4: We send you personalized feedback, products, and advice based off your\npicture and the quiz. This can include eyeshadow colors that will make your\neyes pop or tips to deal with under-eye baggage" +"\nPalm - chrisdroukas\nhttps://www.palm.com\n======\naarpmcgee\nI feel like the only one who thinks this is kind of awesome. I want a small\nphone. As small as possible, that can still text and act as an LTE hotspot,\nwith very basic browsing, and Spotify. I want that. The iPhone SE was perfect\nfor me.\n\n~~~\nTeMPOraL\nPhones are my go-to real example of different people expecting mutually\nexclusive things from the same type of product. You want a phone as small as\npossible. I want it as _large_ as possible.\n\n~~~\nanfilt\nI don't understand the need for a large phone. If I need a large screen, I\njust use my laptop or desktop. Moreover, without a proper keyboard I mostly\njust read a tad bit of text. You don't need a massive screen for that.\n\n~~~\nTeMPOraL\nPhotos look better on a larger screen. Especially when you want to show them\nto other people. Say, you meet some friends in a caf\u00e9, and want to show them\nyour vacation photos.\n\nYou can fit more text on a larger screen, which makes it better for reading.\nYou can fit more icons, widgets, etc. It's easier to do precise taps.\n\nBasically," +"\n\nAsk HN: Redesign after HN critique (instant \"coming soon\" pages app) - weirdcat\n\nHi everyone,

Last Thursday I asked HN for a review of my web app for creating instant \"coming soon\" pages. The response was great -- you guys really, really didn't like it (and deservedly so). :)

* Here's the original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123228

* This is how it looked before: http://soonhere.com/original.html

* Here's how it looks now: http://soonhere.com

It's obviously still a work in progress (there are still some issues, especially with IE, the interface needs polishing, there's no help etc.) but the main functionality is there.

Some stats:

* The original thread got 5 upvotes and 5 comments (not counting mine);

* The site got 150 visitors on Thursday and 30 on Friday (40% from the US, 20% from the UK -- half of that from London -- and 4% from Canada);

* Of those, 5 visitors created an account (1 or 2 with email addresses that looked real).

I'd like to thank nudge, komlenic, SHOwnsYou (I used your first instinct idea after all), pacifika and dlsay for their comments in the original thread.

Now -- before I spend more time on this instead of other projects I have lined up, I'd like to find out if the" +"\n\nIt's Remarkably Easy to Lock a Pilot Out of the Cockpit - jabo\nhttp://www.wired.com/2015/03/remarkably-easy-lock-pilot-cockpit/\n\n======\nanigbrowl\nAmid all the talk of how the door locking system should or should not be\nmodified (eg always rotating another person into the cockpit or whatever), I'm\nastonished that there's no discussion of having a backup radio system on the\nplane. One of the saddest things about this whole incident is the idea of the\nsenior pilot futilely banging on the door with no way to get in, and no way to\neven communicate his predicament to the ground.\n\nAllowing ground takeover of a plane in distress would bring numerous problems\nof its own and is probably not feasible to implement in the immediate future,\nbut adding an extra radio would be technologically trivial, the protocols\nwould be easy to implement, and it would allow witnesses to (apparent) crimes\nof this sort to pass information that might save lives or at least give\ninvestigators a head start instead of a 3 day delay.\n\n~~~\nsoneil\nI think it's not a priority simply because it makes no difference. I mean, if\nyou had some Disney-style ability to 'go back' and change one thing, it'd be" +"\nShow HN: TorProxy, a kernel module which routes all network traffic through Tor - raw23\nhttps://github.com/r-a-w/TorProxy\n======\nbjpbakker\nInteresting but I doubt whether you really want to route /all/ your network\ntraffic through Tor.\n\nAs soon as some packet that reaches the internet (through an exit node) that\nincludes some identity information your Tor connection is no longer private.\nRouting all your traffic via Tor, increases the chance this will happen.\n\nAlso if many people use Tor for all their traffic, this will become a\nscalability problem for Tor (lack of exit nodes).\n\n~~~\ngiancarlostoro\nI would assume if you're going this far you're likely running this module\nunder a Linux VM so only specifics go through Tor.\n\n~~~\nfmx\nIf you do that then you may as well just use two VMs - Tor router and client -\nand that's basically Whonix.\n\n------\nacebarry\nIt's a terrible idea to route _all_ your traffic over tor. If you have any\nexpectation of anonymity you'll be disappointed. Since tor does not do any\napplication level filtering, it is easy for exit nodes to track you.\n\nIt's a neat idea but has the same problems as network wide tor routers.\n\n~~~\nnikcub" +"\n\nFexl Version a3 now released - fexl\nhttp://fexl.com/code\n\n======\nfexl\nThe code page now includes some simple instructions for doing a quick download\nand test.\n\nI also made a very nice but simple enhancement to the grammar. Now when you\nwant to do a recursive definition, you must use \"==\" instead of the normal\n\"=\". That might sound like a pain, but bear with me, it's really great. In\nshort, the \"==\" syntax announces to the parser that you _intend_ to apply the\nfixpoint operator (Y combinator) to the definition, explicitly making it\nrecursive.\n\nFor example, here is the function which sums the numbers in a list:\n\n \n \n \\sum == (\\list list 0.0 \\head\\tail double_add head; sum tail)\n \n\nOf course, if you don't like saying double_add everywhere, you can easily\nabbreviate as follows:\n\n \n \n \\add=double_add\n \\sum == (\\list list 0.0 \\head\\tail add head; sum tail)\n \n\nNow here's the great thing about requiring \"==\" for recursive definitions. It\nenables us to do ordinary \"procedural\" looking code, like in this snippet from\ntest_procedural in test/try.fxl:\n\n \n \n \\show=(\\name\\value print name; print \" = \"; print value; nl;)\n \n \\x=3.0\n \\y=4.0\n \n \\x=(add x x)\n \\y=(mul y x)\n \n show \"x\" x; show \"y\" y;\n \n \\x=(div x; mul y 4.0)" +"\n\nBloom Filter (Python recipe) - jcsalterego\nhttp://code.activestate.com/recipes/577684-bloom-filter/\n\n======\nhaberman\nOne thing that takes a minute to sink with Bloom Filters is that the size\nrequirements are independent of the size of the individual elements! Storing N\nelements with a given false positive probability has a fixed cost, whether\nyou're storing integers or 100MB strings.\n\nIf you are concerned with speed, a bloom filter is exactly the kind of thing\nI'd never implement in Python. Twiddling bits is orders of magnitude more\nexpensive than in C.\n\n~~~\nraymondh\nPython is written in C and the time consuming parts of this algorithm are\ndelegated to C modules (random, sha256, long int bitshifts, etc). Also, the\nspace efficiency (which directly related to effective use of high-speed cache)\nis language independent.\n\nIf you care about the cost of the Python glue code, the PyPy project nicely\noptimizes that away. Unless you're writing for a Google production server, the\nprogrammer time writing this in C will likely never be paid back in saved CPU\ncycles.\n\n~~~\nhaberman\nWhat you have said is theory. Here is practice.\n\nI wrote a simple bloom filter in C. It took about an hour, including\ndebugging. Here is my bloom" +"\n\nUbuntu AppStore: Like Apple AppStore, but with less Suck - Swizec\nhttp://swizec.com/blog/ubuntu-better-for-app-management-than-apple/swizec/1672\n\n======\nkolektiv\nSigh... I wish Linux (and Ubuntu in this case) were better at UI/UX. But\nstill, it's so clearly designed by programmers (not always a bad thing, but\nsadly more often than not).\n\nSo what's called out here as being good? Well. Subcategories. Average users\ndon't respond well to taxonomy, generally. People are also not good at\nclassifying. So in that example shown, what's the difference between \"Arcade\"\nand \"Sports\"? I've played football games in Arcades. Where should users look?\n\nMore: \"Some items can be bought, others just downloaded\" Cool, where can I\nfilter so I only see free apps? Because it's nowhere in the screen shots, and\nI will bet money that it's the first thing a sizeable percentage of users want\nto do. Which would be known, had any user testing been done. I hope it was,\nbut I'm guessing not.\n\nI could be nit-picky - \"Get Software\" vs. \"Installed Software\" - they're not\neven the same tense. Imperative tense is commonly interpreted by users as\ncausing an action to happen, not a categorisation. I could go on too, merrily\nburning karma as I go," +"\n\nAsk HN: So, does my startup need an office? - BenjaminDyer\n\nI am a man of two hats, my first hat revolves around a very established business. We have customers, battle scars and have been in the space for years. Its a great company to work for, although I am very senior, I am not the founder and I wasn't there at the beginning.

My second hat revolves around my startup Powered Now. We are a 5 person team spread over the globe. Our product is a business administration platform for the Field Services world, we are hoping to launch into private beta within a few weeks.

My established business is a bit of a hybrid. We have two offices in the UK and a distributed workforce of about 20 working at home. I really get to see both the advantages and disadvantages of office / home working. It works for us, but we have been doing this for a long time and I wonder if I am being blinded by the convenience factor.

With Powered Now I have a distributed team, half of us are in the UK the other half are based in Budapest, we try to meet up to work" +"\nThree years later, Mr. Moore is still letting us punt on database sharding - jlangenauer\nhttp://37signals.com/svn/posts/3089-three-years-later-mr-moore-is-still-letting-us-punt-on-database-sharding\n======\nshanemhansen\nA lot of startups engage in a sort of cargo-cult architecture. Their reasoning\ngoes something like this:\n\n1\\. Amazon/Facebook/Google have a lot of traffic.\n\n2\\. Amazon/Facebook/Google use X to scale horizontally. ergo:\n\n3\\. My little startup should use X and scale horizontally.\n\nWhat they fail to realize is that most of these companies would be ecstatic if\nthey could scale machines vertically, if they could focus on great user\nfeatures instead of having to figure out how to shard in the application\nlayer. You should never forget that Amazon, Facebook, and twitter all started\nout as pretty basic LAMP stacks and built the tools when it was obvious that\nno other tool would do. I think google's an exception because their MVP was in\nfact a web scale application. So by all means, vet your idea, get some\ncustomers, get traction, and scale the cheap way by buying more ram for as\nlong as you possibly can.\n\n~~~\nspudlyo\nAmazon did not start out as a LAMP stack, it was more like a \"DNBC\" stack.\n\nD igital Unix\n\nN etscape Commerce Server" +"\n\nAsk HN: For help: Gmail is filtering our URLs - e79\n\nThe gmail.com client normally renders the hyperlinks in our outgoing email just fine. Yesterday morning, this suddenly stopped happening and users were sent links that could not be clicked in their transactional emails from us. I was able to reproduce it by simply including our domain name in an e-mail, which leads me to believe e-mails are being filtered for our domain name specifically. I've reproduced this across multiple Gmail accounts of ours, and all hyperlinking is always fine right until I include our domain name anywhere in an e-mail. Viewing page source shows that gmail.com is employing some HTML to break our URL up so it doesn't turn into a valid hyperlink.

I suspect this is some sort of anti-spam measure. Has anybody else experienced this? I am asking Hacker News for help because there doesn't appear to be any way to get in contact with Google regarding gmail problems. We've already employed everything in their FAQs about avoiding their spam filters. We use DKIM and have a healthy standing with all email blacklists. I'm really not sure what other options we have left.\n======\ntherealmarv\nI've found out" +"\nApple told some Apple TV+ show developers not to anger China - jmsflknr\nhttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/apple-china-tv-protesters-hong-kong-tim-cook\n======\nmokash\nApple are beholden to China. Sure, China is a huge market for them but I think\nthe bigger issue is manufacturing: if they piss China off they won\u2019t have\nanything to sell, anywhere! I\u2019m sure Apple execs know this and I hope they\u2019re\nquickly planning to reduce, if not remove this dependency.\n\n~~~\nchrischen\nChinese people are also beholden to China (the government). It may be a\npolitical game to you, but trying to destabilize the government would have\nserious consequences to the livelihoods of the people there, just because some\npolicies (that don\u2019t affect you) don\u2019t agree with your world view.\n\nEven though there are kinks in their regime, for the most part they\u2019ve lifted\nhundreds or millions out of poverty. Imagine if the U.S. had a massive foreign\npower prodding it during the early years of slavery, manifest destiny (the\njustification for eradicating the Native Americans), racism, drug war,\nVietnam, and mass incarceration.\n\nYes, they have a big brother-style regime, but they are also capable of\nsorting out their own political issues. And if not, they\u2019ll reap the\nconsequences without you having" +"\nWhat Keynes Knew About Bitcoin - petethomas\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-09/keynes-worked-out-the-bitcoin-interest-rate-it-s-57\n======\nthisisit\nJust another clickbait headline article which barely mentions Keynes for the\n\"effect\" while explaining one of the terms in a futures market -\nbackwardation.\n\nThe explanation is also incomplete. No mention of \"cost of carry\" or contango.\nWhile forgetting backwardation doesn't imply _only_ interest rate but risk\npremiums too.\n\nTo top it, the implication of the so-called _interest_ is from an exchange\ncalled Deribit. The 24-hr volume on the market is ~3.8 million or 1% of last\n24 hr BTC volume (from coinmarketcap). Not to mention the contract size is $10\nwhich 0.0014 BTC at current prices. The market is super illiquid to be use for\nany kind of useful analysis.\n\n~~~\nempath75\nSo what do you think the cost of borrowing bitcoin should be?\n\n~~~\neigenvalue\nThe whole thing is absurd because we don't have to guess or speculate-- just\nlook at what the actual historical rates have been for BTC margin loans on\nexchanges such as Poloniex. Nowadays the rate is pretty low, 3.5% to 5%, but\nit can spike to much higher levels based on supply and demand (for example,\nleading into the bitcoin gold fork, rates" +"Ask HN: Should Apple Buy Duck Duck Go? - mack1001\n======\ngaspoweredcat\nsomeone should if only to rename it. why they chose that clumsy name and why\nthey continue to hang on to it is beyond me, i can only imagine its like the\nfirst season of silicon valley where the guy who makes the decisions loves it\nwhile everyone else rolls their eyes on hearing it\n\n------\nmack1001\nConsidering the privacy focus that Apple brings, Duck Duck Go could be an\ninteresting play to reduce Google\u2019s presence from the Apple ecosystem.\n\n~~~\ngreenyoda\nWhy would Apple need to _buy_ DDG to do this? Why not just make DDG their\ndefault search engine?\n\n------\nbradknowles\nHell no. That would be about the worst thing they could do to DDG.\n\nPlease, let it continue to fly under the radar for a lot longer.\n\n------\nemayljames\nNo." +"\nAsk HN: Can a bill be introduced to stop HFT? - mandeepj\nHFT is not trading. It is gambling. It has killed stock market.\n======\n1971genocide\nBernie Sanders has an interesting idea based on some research done by\neconomist.\n\nHe calls it the \"Robin Hood Tax\". Essentially you charge a small fee whenever\nany trade happens in the market.\n\nThe opponents of this idea state that it will prevent the market from being\nefficient as trading would slow down - undermining the Efficient Market\nHypothesis.\n\nHowever his argument is that a small enough charge will not prevent genuine\ninvestor from trading and just discourage the speculative traders.\n\n~~~\nmandeepj\nThere is already a trading fee which equates to 'Robin hood tax'. Each\nplatform has their own number for e.g. scottrade charges $7 for each buy and\nsell. I think HFT traders don't pay that fee for each trade.\n\nHFT is just evil. Direction less buy\\selling based on the trend that is\ncurrently prevalent in the market.\n\n------\nAnimalMuppet\nYes, such a bill can be introduced. I doubt it could pass, though, unless\nthere's _much_ more documented _and publicized_ evidence of damage caused by\nHFT.\n\n~~~\nmandeepj\nOne of the biggest" +"\n\nFines Remain Rare Even as Health Data Breaches Multiply - dthal\nhttp://www.propublica.org/article/fines-remain-rare-even-as-health-data-breaches-multiply\n\n======\nspecialist\nArticle doesn't explain why: All data is stored as plaintext. Including all\ndemographic data.\n\nBecause otherwise there is no way to match patient records across our (USA)\nheterogenous IT systems.\n\nThe two possible technical fixes are\n\n#1 Centralization, where every patient is issued an UUID (aka MRN, PID), their\ndemographic data is hidden, and UUID is used to retrieve medical data (ala\nTranslucent Databases).\n\n#2 Individualization, where every patient \"carries\" around their own medical\ndata.\n\nWe can discuss the social, cultural, bureaucratic, workflow hurdles to either\nof these solutions, if this thread gets traction.\n\nFWIW, I designed and implemented 5 regional health care exchanges 2007-08." +"\n\nAsk YC: How to start becoming an entrepreneur while still being an employee - wallflower\n\nThis short piece from the NYTimes (below) piqued my interest. It offers some advice on how to act like an entrepreneur as an employee.

If you are not a burn-your-boat-on-the-shore type of person, how do you go about making the transition to full-time entrepreneur. Is it abrupt or gradual. I'm guessing gradual. As I make the transition, I'm working on building some web applications that I would find of use (language learning, memorization)

How many of you look at creating your own startup as a hobby, rather than a business, or as both?

What steps (most notably - to expand your comfort zone) do you recommend.? I've heard some crazy advice like lie down in a Starbucks for 10 seconds to desensitize yourself to what you think other people think. I'm thinking seriously of taking a break from my career to learn Spanish in a Latin American country.

[http://tinyurl.com/2k2jdf]\n\"First, act more like an entrepreneur at your current job. Be a maverick. Put in longer hours, give yourself a crash course on your company\u2019s operations and strategic goals and, most important, locate a problem outside your realm of expertise" +"\nShow HN: Pantry \u2013 Free JSON Storage for Personal Projects - fiveSpeedManual\nhttps://getpantry.cloud/\n======\nstevage\nLooks useful. I really dislike the \"Download Postman and then you will have\ndocumentation\" approach. Documentation lives on the web, and there are better\nalternatives to Postman anyway.\n\n~~~\nNezteb\nI\u2019m curious: what are your top alternatives to Postman?\n\n~~~\nbovermyer\ncURL, with some bash aliases to help things along.\n\n~~~\nfiveSpeedManual\nI prefer this as well.\n\nRather not go down the road of having examples for every major platform.\n\n------\nfiveSpeedManual\nI'm so excited to finally be able to share this with you!\n\nPantry is a free cloud storage service that I've been building for the past\nfew weeks. You can use the API to store & retrieve data for you and your users\nonline for free.\n\nLooking forward to seeing what you all think of it, and please feel free to\npost suggestions or AMA.\n\nThanks!\n\n~~~\nwhalesalad\n\\- How would you sell me on Pantry vs. AWS S3? (You can use S3 in much the\nsame way ... throwing up JSON at a path and fetching it. The cost some would\nargue is neglible)\n\n\\- How do you deal with CORS?\n\n\\-" +"\nPyjamas: build AJAX apps in Python (like Google did for Java) - soundsop\nhttp://pyjs.org/\n======\ned\nI'd also suggest checking out pyjamas-desktop (), which\nallows you to deploy pyjamas apps to the desktop\n\n~~~\nmichaelneale\nyeah it looks great. I think its a great idea to use more of the web for the\ndesktop - there is so much work going on in browsers/javascript it makes sense\nto use it for offline work as well.\n\n~~~\nlkcl\nwell, the point of pyjamas-desktop is that you can, if you choose, run an\n\"online\" app that happens to be a stand-alone dedicated app that runs on the\nuser's desktop.\n\nlet me rephrase that :)\n\npyjamas-desktop can be used for \"online\" apps just as much as it can for\n\"offline\" ones. in fact, you _still_ need a web server, even if it's running\non localhost, because applications that conform to the pyjamas API will\n_still_ have to use XMLHttpRequest to interact with the rest of the world.\n\nthat interaction is done behind a neat abstraction module, HTTPRequest.py, but\nit's still necessary.\n\nso - offline / online, there's no difference.\n\nwhat you _do_ get with pyjamas-desktop is a speed-increase in your\napplication, thanks to" +"\nSet Theory and Foundations of Mathematics - bschne\nhttp://settheory.net/\n======\nbubble-07\nWhat is the first diagram on this page supposed to depict? Seems like a bunch\nof unrelated topics with random arrows drawn between them.\n\nAlso, the author seems more than a bit arrogant and deluded:\n[http://settheory.net/life](http://settheory.net/life) \\-- I would _not_ touch\nany of this stuff with a 40 foot pole.\n\n~~~\nDyslexicAtheist\nthe whole thing you linked reads like he is going through some existential\ncrisis triggered by spending too much time in his own head, or he is\nstruggling to find himself. he calls others stupid but that might just be due\nto feeling misunderstood and a symptom of his alienation.\n\none thing I learned is that knowing more doesn't make us happy. knowledge can\nbe the key that opens a door to insanity.\n\nwhether he is a lunatic or genius is hard to say without evaluating the\nquality of his work.\n\n~~~\nonemoresoop\n> But there are still many well-placed people who will never listen, cannot\n> grasp this and that keep denying the right for young geniuses to decide for\n> their own life.\n\nThis obsession with I am a genius is bordering on pathological narcissism," +"\n\nWhy haven't we seen more tech companies focus on small mom-and-pop businesses? - FogHQChris\n\nI submitted this question on Quora, and got some nice feedback. Would love to hear the community about this?

http://www.quora.com/Small-Businesses/Why-havent-we-seen-more-tech-companies-focus-on-small-mom-and-pop-businesses-especially-the-Enterprise-Software-sector\n======\nnickfromseattle\nIts definitely possible to create a successful life style business for the\nfounders and earn a good to great profit - but its hard to make the numbers\nwork enough to grow past a few employees or get an exit.\n\nMost small mom and pops are complacent about their problems. They either don't\nrealize a solution exists, aren't actively looking for solutions, or are\ncontent with their inefficient work-arounds. This means you have to seek them\nout and sell them directly, whether its by phone, email or walking into their\nbusiness - some products require a combination of the three.\n\nYou have to charge enough to pay a sales person, reinvest in the company and\nprobably pay your own (and any other founders) living expenses as well.\n\nIf you're bootstrapped its likely you can only afford to pay a small salary\n(usually not even that though) plus commission. This means you cant pay enough\nto attract talented sales people, so you either get the bottom" +"\nBankers Go Home, Tellers Stay: Virus Exposes Office Inequalities - pseudolus\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/virus-is-exposing-worker-inequalities-as-corporate-offices-empty\n======\nasdfasgasdgasdg\nThe doctors and surgeons don't get to go home, but the hospital administration\nclerks might be able to. The doctors are higher status and make more. I wonder\nwhy that might be?\n\nThis is just cherry picking imo. Jobs that require f2f and physical\ninteraction as a core responsibility don't get remoted? You don't say.\n\n~~~\nJMTQp8lwXL\nHospital admins might be paid more than you think.\n\n~~~\nAdamJacobMuller\naverage admin staff is paid much less than the average doctor.\n\naverage admin staff is perhaps even paid less than the average RN in some\nplaces.\n\n------\nasn0\n_Bankers Go Home, Tellers Stay: Virus Reveals That Some Jobs Are Different_\n\n~~~\nalharith\nThis would be the reasonable title. However, in the current zeitgeist\neverything needs to be framed as some sort of injustice.\n\n~~~\nDeepThoughts\nWhen the bodies start stacking up, we\u2019ll all have a chance to decide which\ndecisions were injustices and which were pragmatic.\n\n------\narbuge\nBankers make more money, tellers make less. The inequalities were really\nalways there...\n\nLife and the human experience have never come with any guarantees of being\nfair or equal.\n\nAll" +"\nPandoc Markdown and ReST Compared (2013) - hidden-markov\nhttp://www.unexpected-vortices.com/doc-notes/markdown-and-rest-compared.html\n======\negh\nThe really nice thing about ReST is that it has provided generic syntax for\nextensions, one for inline text: :foo:`hello world` and for blocks:\n\n.. extension:: hello world\n\nIn markdown, on the other hand, you have multiple, incompatible versions which\nhave entirely different syntax because there is no generic extension\nmechanism.\n\nReST feels more well thought-out, generally.\n\nThat said, I've pretty much given up advocating it, because markdown seems to\nhave won and has so much more tool support.\n\n~~~\nBruceM\nI like ReST as well. With Sphinx, it is great for producing documentation. A\nproject that I work with has converted hundreds of pages of books of technical\ndocumentation over to Sphinx and a custom Sphinx extension.\n\n~~~\nfprintf\nI like ReST as well.\n\nIt's more powerful and looks much cleaner\n\n// e.g. how do you write footnotes in markdown? And how do you do this in\nmarkdown?\n\n \n \n +------------+------------+-----------+\n | Header 1 | Header 2 | Header 3 |\n +============+============+===========+\n | body row 1 | column 2 | column 3 |\n +------------+------------+-----------+\n | body row 2 | Cells may span columns.|\n +------------+------------+-----------+\n | body row 3 | Cells" +"\nWhy BlackBerry Storm Is An iPhone (and G-1) Killer - raju\nhttp://gigaom.com/2008/10/29/blackberry-storm-should-be-blackberry-stealth/\n======\niigs\nFor a long time I was an unflappable Blackberry fanboy. The reality of the\nsituation currently is this:\n\n1) Enterprise ready isn't the unique feature it was 18 months ago. ActiveSync\non WM no longer sucks to the point it lowers the barametric pressure in the\narea (although that's about all the compliments I have for it), the iPhone has\ncompelling Exchange integration, and I have heard good things about Nokia's\nExchange support (will know more when my wife's E71 arrives this weekend).\n\nHaving to pay an extra $15/mo/device for BES service, plus BES server hardware\n+ BES license fees, just to maintain parity with the other products is a\n_huge_ disadvantage. The best thing they could do is walk away from BES, but\nthe carriers won't do it because it's margin for them.\n\n2) They release phones _so slowly_. I appreciate that the build and radio\nquality of the phones are top notch, but slipping announced release dates\n(AT&T BB Bold, at least Sept-Nov, and maybe Jul/Aug-Nov) is not cool. I don't\nknow if that's AT&T's fault or RIM's fault, but the whole process is" +"\nThe Lotus Eaters (2013) - benbreen\nhttp://mikejay.net/the-lotus-eaters/\n======\nharry8\nPretty sure Odysseus did listen to the Sirens, lashed to the mast while his\ncrew stopped their ears with beeswax. Contrary to what is reported in this\narticle.\n\nGetting something as basic as a detail from literature wrong when you're using\nit to make your point puts everything else in the article in a shadow of doubt\nfor me. Can I believe what he's saying about kava when he hasn't got basic\nreading comprehension down? I'm probably being harsh, the detail probably\ndoesn't matter. Or is it a \"No yellow m&m's\" in the rock band rider as a\ntelltale for \"do these guys take care about detail?\"\n\n~~~\nmannykannot\nAre you referring to Van Halen's _brown_ M&M rider?\n\n~~~\nharry8\nMaybe, I've heard the story with just about every 80s glam metal band and\nevery m&m color. Maybe one or more of such stories is true?\n\n------\nslowmovintarget\n>> The lotos is a drug, but it stands for something more: the refusal to\nengage with the world of progress and economic productivity, and [the refusal]\nto maintain a society in readiness for war.\n\nThe short version: Hippies gonna hip'.\n\nThe Lotus" +"\n\nNVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA - pmattos\nhttp://www.dailytech.com/Update+NVIDIA+to+Acquire+AGEIA/article10573.htm\n\n======\nivankirigin\nTwo cheers for dedicated hardware pushing progress while Moore's law for\nsilicone circuits approaches a wall!\n\nAfter a graphics processor, you'll buy a physics engine, and then vector math,\nAI, and Vision engines.\n\nGraphics card makers know this, and will just put all those chips on a single\ncard.\n\n~~~\nwmf\nI think most people will skip the step of buying the physics card and just\nwait for it to be integrated into the GPU. It will be an interesting marriage,\nthough, since the Nvidia and Ageia architectures have some significant\ndifferences.\n\n~~~\npmjordan\nThey are somewhat different, and I suspect the Ageia PhysX line as it is now\nwill be discontinued. It's not exactly been selling like crazy, and I suspect\nnVidia are buying them out for the software, not the hardware side.\n\nIf you look at benchmarks, SLI isn't exactly what they make it out to be: it\nscales very badly in many games, presumably because of render-to-texture and\nvertex feedback rendering, which either have to be duplicated or copied\nbetween the cards.\n\nThose types of effects are getting more common not less, so I suspect it'll\nbecome commonplace" +"\nBlockchain Is Merely a Marketing Instrument - leifg\nhttp://blog.leif.io/blockchain-is-merely-a-marketing-instrument/\n======\npollyannas\nYour arguments don't hold. The point about blockchains in general is: it's an\ninteresting new technology. Do you disagree?\n\nSince we can agree on that, what is wrong about people trying to put that\ntechnology into practice? No one has ever claimed some specific blockchain\napplication would be profitable, but people are trying to put that thing into\nuse. What is the problem with that?\n\n~~~\nYizahi\nIs it interesting though? People put to forefront that it is distributed, but\nI think that being distributed is a secondary attribute (after all you can run\nthis software solo). Mainly it is immutable and public. Immutable public\ndatabase - is it that much interesting? And for what exactly? I don't see many\npossible applications, even for government since they all come with multiple\ncases against this tech - e.g. voting on blockchain, cool, now it is very hard\nto falsify voting but it comes with a neat option to harass and discriminate\npeople afterwards since blockchain is public. And so on." +"\n\nPharen: A lispy language that compiles to PHP - Scriptor\nhttp://github.com/scriptor/pharen\n\n======\nScriptor\nThis was very much a learning experience and I'm sure there will be lots in\nthe code that isn't done properly. If you find something wrong, please let me\nknow!\n\nPharen was also started to eventually abstract out things I don't like about\nPHP's syntax, and maybe add some new ones. It's not meant as a competitor to\nother lisps!\n\nSome special features are micros (closer to C macros than true Lisp macros)\nand partials (partial evaluation). Documentation for those can be found near\nthe end of the linked page.\n\nIt is by no means close to completion. Although lisp should be entirely\nexpression-based, parts of Pharen can't really be used as expressions yet\n(namely conditionals). Closely related is that returning something other than\nthe last expression in a function has to be done manually.\n\nAny questions, glaring (or subtle) problems, or suggestions you have are\ndefinitely welcome.\n\n------\npetercooper\nNicely executed this one! Is it me, though, or has writing cross-language\ncompilers become a sort of open source fad in the last 12 months? There seem\nto be a ton popping up lately. It'd be cool" +"\n\nAsk HN: Should one avoid using niche technologies for a startup? - zaph0d\n\nI am doing a startup with a small tech. team. We would like to use cutting-edge technologies like Clojure, Erlang, node.js, etc. which are not really mainstream but help in rapid application development and iteration.\nThe problem here is that in case of a potential acquisition by another company, the deal might get canceled because the technology we used is non-mainstream, and the acquiring company might face a lot of problems in maintaining the code-base.\nSo the question here is how do you deal with such issues? Should one compromise speed of development now in favour of an easy acquisition path tomorrow? How do you convince the `elders' in your startup about this?\n======\ndavidw\nThis site would not exist and none of us would be here had pg not been\nsuccessful with Viaweb, which utilized Lisp. I think that PG and company were\nprobably bright enough that things would have worked out with other\ntechnologies too, but Lisp made them happy and more productive, I guess.\n\n~~~\npaulgb\n\"Did it alarm some potential acquirers that we used Lisp? Some, slightly, but\nif we hadn't used Lisp," +"\nThe FBI\u2019s Massive Facial Recognition Database Raises Concern - ghosh\nhttp://singularityhub.com/2014/04/27/the-fbi-has-a-massive-facial-recognition-database-but-is-it-ready-for-primetime/\n======\nlifeisstillgood\nI feel this is the least worrying database around, because of a the simple\ncheck on its accuracy and the biometric used.\n\nFacial recognition is what we humans are all about - we have surprisingly\nstrong taboos about covering up this very useful and universal biometric\nalready and any flaws in the algorithm or software are much much easier to\nchallenge than DNA tests (I can stand up to a jury all day and say it was not\nme, and they will most likely believe a DNA expert. show them a picture of\nsomeone who just looked like me and they will all use millions of years of\nevolution to set me free)\n\nYes it is worrying that any mass databases are being compiled, and yes we must\ndebate as a civilisation how we are going to mitigate the downsides and\npromote the upsides, but this is not a disaster. not like PRISM.\n\n~~~\npessimizer\nIf the only thing you're worried about concerning mass surveillance is that it\ncould be inaccurate, I can see why you aren't worried.\n\n~~~\nlifeisstillgood\nThat's a little disingenuous no?\n\nThere are" +"\nEgypt discovers 40 mummies in ancient chambers in Minya - BobbyVsTheDevil\nhttps://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-discovers-40-mummies-in-ancient-chambers-in-minya/\n======\nretSava\nAs far as my understanding goes, finding mummies in Egypt is similar to\nfinding dinosaur fossils - it's common and rarely something that gets/should\nget broad attention. It's more a marketing thing, which the article also acks:\n\n> Egypt has made a series of archaeological finds recently, and it has been\n> heavily promoting them to revive its tourism industry\n\nThis find seems to be along those lines.\n\nVisited Egypt a couple of times, really incredible to walk around in primarily\nLuxor temples. A tip for tourists - buy an egyptian newspaper (in arabic) and\ncarry around visibly. Learn to say \"no thanks\" in as good arabic as you can\n(something like \"la-a shukran\"). That makes things easier.\n\n~~~\nrblion\nCame here to say this. I want to visit Egypt for the history but I honestly\nthink I'd be content with the museums in NYC and London.\n\nOnly Giza and Luxor are my list still, I'll have to wait until a safer time\nthough according to friends who just went and didn't have a pleasant\nexperience.\n\n~~~\nthekid314\nIt's perfectly safe here. Come now before the" +"\nAsk HN: Corp-2-Corp vs W2 Work in San Francisco / Bay Area - lowhangingnuts\nI have over 20 years experience in over 10+ languages, tools frameworks. Active on github and open source also.

Trying to make a lot of $$ in next 5 years and quit the rat race.

Everywhere I apply for contract jobs, the recruiter / person with job says they can only do W2 and not independent 1099 or corp 2 corp contract.

I don't need benefits (have it from my partner) and W2 rates are much less than Independent 1099.

So what's the deal ? Why do recruiters and firms insist on W2 in Bay Area?

Also how do I set my W2 rate vs my C2C expectation.

Ex: If my 1099 / Independent rate is 100 $ / hour, what would the equivalent W2 rate be, so I don't lose money?\n======\nnunez\nI don't know why W2 is so common over there, but you should be hitting up\nLinkedIn and reaching out to recruiters that way. There are plenty of 1099\nopportunities to be found. Ensure that you get contracts with fixed time\nperiods so that you can plan your cash flow a little easier. (It's not a hard\nand" +"\n\nAsk HN: Best way to find front-end/UI developers? - capkutay\n\nMy company has spent some time trying to recruit front-end and UI developers in the Bay Area. We want to spend at least another month searching before we go through a recruiter.

Does anybody have any advice as to which job sites work best specifically for finding front-end/UI devs? dice.com? stackoverflow.com? Thanks! Ping me if you have any other ideas.

john@webaction.com\n======\nzinssmeister\nA good front-end/UI engineer is in general hard to find, because these\nindividuals ideally need to live at the intersection of development and\ndesign. You should also consider searching for\nengineers with design/UI interest. Another good destination would be to post a\njob at and make sure you have the right job\ndescription. Good front-end guys/girls are usually looking for specific\nrequirements in a job post, to make sure their potential employer is aware of\ntheir unique position within the technology stack. Feel free to reach out to\nme if you wanna know more...\n\n------\nmnicole\nI'm going to piggyback onto this and hopefully get a good collective together.\nAs someone that mostly fits this description I've been trying to find similar\nfolks on Dribbble to add" +"\n\nWhy downloading Firefox is like getting into college - Alex3917\nhttp://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/why-downloading.html\n\n======\nAlex3917\nI don't understand why Seth is pro-college on the blog all of the sudden.\nEvery single one of his books takes at least a few passing swipes at college,\nand some of them downright trash the institution in general. I understand that\nthis is about the social signaling value of school, not the pedagogical\nfunction. However, this is what is said in The Big Moo about the social\nsignaling value of school only three years ago:\n\n\u201cThe new secret of success is that winning the game has absolutely nothing to\ndo with hard work and paying your dues. In the old days stable industries\noffered young workers a pyramid structure. If you did the work and stuck it\nout you\u2019d move up.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn our fast-moving media crazed culture, the opposite is now true. Those who\nfit in now won\u2019t stand out later. Those who follow the rules are never noticed\n- because the system has broken their spirit. There\u2019s plenty work for the\nundifferentiated masses, so you can have as much as you are willing to handle.\nThe fast-rising stars are those that question authority and refuse" +"\n\nAsk HN: How hard would it be to allow 120 character titles? - curtis\n\nHacker News currently limits submission titles to 80 characters. Brevity is often good, but I've found 80 characters painfully short more than a few times -- especially for science articles. I can't imagine that it would be technically difficult and I don't think we're likely to see any major increase in title abuse (Reddit-style editorializing in the title, for example) since the HN community is pretty ruthless about flagging submissions if they see a problem.\n======\nchris_j\nDo you have any examples of specific articles with titles that would benefit\nfrom a longer limit?\n\n~~~\ncurtis\nHere's a couple of examples from my submission history. I've probably got\nbetter examples if I search farther back.\n\n \n \n a) Isaac Asimov wrote a \u201cpaper\u201d about a time-hopping compound called thiotimoline\n b) In 1947 Isaac Asimov wrote a hilarious spoof of scientific papers about a time-hopping compound called thiotimoline\n \n\nThe first version is the title I submitted under. The second title is the one\nI would have liked to use. The first is 78 characters and the second is 115.\n\nHere's another one (66 and 115 characters):\n\n \n \n a) Saroo\u2019s Google-Earth" +"\n\nShow HN: A stopwatch for the iPhone with the option to disable screen auto-lock - fam\n\nI've always been annoyed at the fact that there's no way to disable screen auto-lock while using the built in stopwatch app so I finally got around to building my own. Some of you may find this helpful so here you go!

There are some edge cases that I need to fix but for the most part it should be fine for basic needs.

http://thestopwatchapp.com\n======\ndutchbrit\nSimple idea but I can imagine that this could be very handy for people that\nuse the stopwatch functionality a lot!" +"\n\u2018Lede\u2019 vs. \u2018Lead\u2019 (2011) - gruseom\nhttp://howardowens.com/lede-vs-lead/\n======\nscandox\nThis is great news. One of the most frustrating things on Twitter is everybody\npretending to be a hardbitten journo throwing this term around like they were\non a deadline...or even had a job.\n\n~~~\neli\nThough to be fair, actual hardbitten journos use it too. It's the accepted and\nmost popular formulation of the word even if the myth around its origin is\nbogus.\n\nEarliest reference in my OED is 1951 with \"lede\" listed then as an alternate\nspelling of \"lead\"\n\n~~~\nghaff\nYeah. I know long-time journos who use it and it seems to have become pretty\nwidely accepted. But, having been at least somewhat involved in journalism for\na long time, I probably had never seen that spelling before 15 years ago or\nso. I admit I tend to use it today. Here's a piece that William Safire wrote\nin the Times a long way back:\n\n[http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/magazine/on-language-\nhed-f...](http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/magazine/on-language-hed-folo-my-\nlede-unhed.html)\n\n~~~\ngojomo\nThis article also explains TFA's confusion about not finding examples of\n'lede' earlier.\n\nThe variant spelling was an old practice, well-known to Safire & the other\n\"old hands of journalism\" mentioned (such as Herb Caen), as inside-jargon" +"\n\nHustle 101: How to Make Any Startup Want to Hire You - seanjohnson\nhttp://www.onedayonejob.com/blog/hustle-101-how-to-make-any-startup-hire-you/\n\n======\npekk\nApparently (per the article) startups only employ people for customer\ndevelopment, copywriting, analytics and growth hacking. I wonder what happens\nwhen they decide to build a product or a piece of software. Or is it too old-\nschool to actually build something now?\n\n~~~\npavel_lishin\nI think the point was that these are positions that are easier to \"hustle\"\nyour way into with a minimal investment. (\"Read the books above for 30 minutes\na day, and you'll be an expert in 90 days!\") Compare this to becoming an\nexpert in C - 30 minutes a day for 90 days is not going to give you enough\nexperience to waltz into a startup and demand a job.\n\n(Also, in my mind, the word \"hustle\" occupies the same bucket as \"scam\", and\n\"30 minutes a day for 90 days\" sounds like a late-night informercial for\nweight loss.)\n\n------\nmobweb\nDoes anybody have another reading suggestion about growth hacking?\n\n------\nmalachismith\nPartial Cliff Notes for the works of Eric Ries." +"\n\nAsk HN: What's your consulting rate? - equity\n\nI am looking to get a pulse on the going consulting rate for software engineers in the bay area. Please post your rate and include languages of competency, years experience, etc.\n======\nlarrykubin\nI currently charge 95/hr. Been doing a mix of Python/PHP/JavaScript and know\nmy way around their associated frameworks and CMSes\n(Cake/Django/Flask/Drupal/CodeIgniter). I've done only freelance for 5 years\nand have worked in Austin and Portland. Rates are probably higher in SF.\n\n------\ngamechangr\nFriend (moved to palo alto,part of silicon valley, in Feb of 2011) makes $140\nhr for five yrs experience in Ruby/PHP and 2 yr in Python/Ruby on Rails\n\nHe claims most engineers make $120-$150 with a couple years experience.\n\n------\nsamstave\nAvg rates I see for everything/everyone is between 100 and 150/hr." +"\nAsk HN: No intrinisic motivation to build stuff - twink\nDear HN crowd,

I'm not particularly happy in my life. My main problem is lack of intrinsic motivation to create stuff, in the widest sense. For example, I don't contribute to open source projects. I don't have any own programming projects. I don't have a personal web site or a blog. I'm not a member of a political party trying to change the world. I find the start-up scene thrilling, but as long as I don't change, I will probably never be part of it.

I think the underlying problem is that it's quite easy for me to find things that interest me, but very hard not to get bored after a day. For example, think about topics like lock picking, composing electronic music, web development, functional programming languages, [insert random technology here], etc.

As soon as I understand the basics of X, I lose interest. After I had managed to open a very simple lock, I stopped practicing. After I had roughly figured out what the knobs on a synthesizer do, I stopped trying to make electronic music. After I understood which technologies are required to build and deploy a modern web" +"\nInstant 8-bit alpha PNG converter - ck2\nhttp://www.8bitalpha.com/\n======\npornel\nI've got improved pngquant that gives significantly better results than\noriginal version, gd2 library and often rivals pngnq:\n\n\n\nIt is a bit slow (converts image several times feeding back result's quality\nback to the algorithm), but difference in quality is significant:\n\n \\- converted via website\n\n \\- converted with pngquant 1.3\n\n~~~\naw3c2\nAny chance to build this with libpng14? I think compiling fails for me because\nI do have that modern version installed and not libpng12.\n\n~~~\npornel\nIt definitely works with 1.4.1, but the bundled Makefile sucks.\n\nJust compile *.c and link it against libpng in whatever way your system\nrequires.\n\n~~~\naw3c2\nThanks!\n\nI am clueless when it comes to compiling though so for me that stop right at\n\"linking\". I only know that that has something to do with those .o files. :-)\n\nI did find and just installed that.\n\n------\nthingsinjars\nWow, I go on holiday away from a decent internet connection and next thing you\nknow, HN front page. Urk.\n\nHope it all works well for everyone. As mentioned, the source is all on github\n() so if there are any" +"\nBoeing's 737 NG was manufactured using unsafe structural components (2010) - the_fonz\nhttps://www.flyertalk.com/forum/practical-travel-safety-security-issues/1201276-aljazeera-claims-737ng-structurally-unsafe.html\n======\nmjevans\nI think there are two things that would actually satisfy me at this point.\n\nAudited by an independent (E.G. EU's) agency, with open records...\n\nEITHER: A review of the actual paper trails and sources of the news story and\nbuild logs.\n\nOR: A randomized sample of like 5-10% of the planes from the suspect time\nrange looking at the suspect parts in question.\n\n~~~\nspectramax\nAre you suggesting that you\u2019d rather trust EU agency than FAA?\n\nI think FAA had a fantastic record until this whole MAX PR nightmare - they\u2019ve\ncertainly damaged their reputation. But I feel like domain experts at Boeing\nor Airbus definitely are going to have an edge vs a lowly paid government\nauditor. EU\u2019s agency or whatever are still going to have to rely on Boeing\nengineers input.\n\nHaving worked in the aviation industry (I was designing C-130 fuselage\nsection) as a Mechanical Engineer, I can tell you that the whole enterprise\nsometimes feels like it\u2019s supported on stilts, it\u2019s a house of cards.\n\n~~~\nmjevans\nI'm saying that, BECAUSE of the loss of trust, yes. I currently would prefer" +"\n\nTraditional C \"Hello World\" working in NaCl - ginsweater\nhttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/native-client-discuss/lT5bsW1ZlKQ/WsXJ5y_2s54J\n\n======\ncalpaterson\nAs a side note, why is it that I have to sign in to Google in order to be able\nto see this? Is registration /really/ necessary for Google Groups?\n\n~~~\nrnadna\nYou are right. It's very annoying. It's even worse than having links that are\nbehind a paywall, because at least a paywall usually indicates that funds are\nflowing to the person (reporter, etc.) who created the content. The google\ngroups situation is quite different, and quite annoying. I _never_ login to\ngoogle groups to see something listed on HN. I wonder whether HN could provide\nan option to let readers avoid such items, by removing them from the listing\nor flagging them?\n\n~~~\ndangrossman\nYou are only being asked for a password because you're (partially) logged in\nto a Google Account already. Either log out, or open Google Groups links with\n\"open in incognito window\" if you use Chrome.\n\n------\nraverbashing\nCan someone please explain to me why running native code coming from a web\nsite is a good idea?\n\nBecause I see this as \"Google's ActiveX\"\n\n~~~\ncantankerous\nRead the paper. It's a subset of" +"\nPetition to Eliminate Gerrymandering by Using an Open Source Algorithm - Floegipoky\nhttps://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-gerrymandering-using-fair-open-source-and-reproducible-algorithm-draw-congressional-districts\n======\ngrizzles\nInsert loud horn noise here. Didn't use the catch phrase \"Drain the Swamp\" to\nget traction. NEXT.\n\n------\nLorenPechtel\nStill showing only one signature. I suspect Trump fried the system.\n\n~~~\nFloegipoky\nAuthor here. Though I obviously can't be certain, I suspect the reason it's\nstill showing 1 signature is that the petition hasn't crossed the threshold\nwhere it becomes publicly searchable.\n\nI'm not sure what's going to come of this petition; I'm not a political\norganizer, I don't have mailing lists of people to forward this to. I'm just a\nyoung engineer who thought it was a real shame that nobody has been talking\nabout practical, long-term solutions to the real problems that are facing our\ncountry. I think this is exactly the type of problem we should be applying\ntechnology to solve. If you agree, please sign the petition. Your signature\nwill help this reach beyond my personal network and be seen by people who\ndon't already know about the research that's been done in this area. Even if\nit just encourages a few more people to read up on what gerrymandering is" +"\nAre users trying to make developers angry? - joeyespo\nhttps://www.exceptionnotfound.net/are-users-trying-to-make-developers-angry/\n======\ncrasm\n\n But their stupidity persisted. They did things that\n were so wacky they boggled my mind (like putting a\n credit card number in with spaces between each\n number)...\n \n\nNot allowing spaces in a credit card field is a pet peeve of mine. It's a\ntrivial problem to solve in code, and almost nobody does it. Whether it's a\nspace every 4 numbers (the most logical to me) or a space between each number,\nit really shouldn't matter.\n\nThere are spaces in the number on the card itself. Entering the number with\nspaces makes it easy to check if you've made a mistake in only a few glances,\ninstead of painstakingly going number-by-number and losing your position a few\ntimes.\n\nIt shouldn't be the user's fault.\n\n~~~\nourmandave\nI just enter the 16 digits without much trouble.\n\nThen I get to the expiration date and the first column is a drop list of Jan,\nFeb, Mar... wat?\n\nNow my brain has to convert 07 to Jul instead of just picking 07. Why?!\n\n _Are developers trying to make users angry?_\n\n~~~\namelius\nThen I get to the CVC code. I have" +"\nBitcode Demystified - happy-go-lucky\nhttps://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/\n======\nHHad3\nWhen the author pointed out that bitcode may impact security, I expected to\nread about how compiler optimizations that happen during compilation of LLVM\nIR to machine language may introduce security issues.\n\nHowever, the article only mentioned that decompilation is easier with LLVM IR,\nbecause it is a more high-level language. It certainly is a valid point, but\naddresses the topic of binary obfuscation instead for algorithmic security.\n\nI'm thus wondering if anyone can shed some light on the real security aspects.\nFor example, let's say that I compile C that is supposed to run in constant\ntime to LLVM IR and submit it to Apple. Does Apple guarantee that their\nblackbox optimizations do not introduce branches or other factors that may\nresult in variable timing into a constant time algorithm? Can I do anything to\nensure that my code will always run in constant time despite unknown\noptimizations being applied to it in the future?\n\n~~~\nesrauch\nIt seems trivially obvious to me that there is no way to guarantee and code\nyou write won't be transformed into any runtime under arbitrary \"optimization\"\n(transformation).\n\nAs in, you can have just a single" +"\n\nShow HN: Hashdog \u2013 MD5 breaker in Io.js/ES6 - logotype\nhttps://github.com/logotype/hashdog\n\n======\nbeernutz\nInteresting project.\n\nI see in some classes you set the object \"self\" to \"this\" and use it later in\nanonymous functions. That seems to be a common pattern in a lot of peoples\ncode.\n\nIt seems like naming the \"self\" object something more descriptive and specific\nwould make sense in general, but I can't help wondering if there is a more\nfundamental reason for using \"self\".\n\nIs this common in OO parlance for a reason?\n\n~~~\nmdaniel\nThat is a common JS idiom because the binding of \"this\" changes inside\nfunction calls, so one must capture the outer binding of \"this\" which when\nused in an object scenario does behave like the same keyword used in\ntraditional OO. The naming of \"self\" could just be a synonym or a nod to\nPython (I'd have to do research to know definitively)\n\n~~~\nbeernutz\nThat makes sense. I wonder though if there is a better convention than \"self\".\nThat by itself (to me at least) does not say much about which \"self\" we are\ndescribing. Maybe it is just a matter of personal preference, but I like to be" +"\nShow HN: Hacker News as an Event Stream - todsacerdoti\nhttps://pipedream.com/sources/new?app=hacker-news\n======\nsummitsummit\nincredibly cool. im inclined to simplify a lot of my heroku services to a\ncouple workflows here but have the following concerns\n\n* proven data privacy and security\n\n* longevity of this project\n\n* pricing model (free seems unsustainable and suspect)\n\n* daily quotas (30mins seems like it will change)\n\n~~~\ndylburger\nHi, Pipedream co-founder and engineer here. Thank you for noting the concerns.\nSome questions / thoughts below:\n\n* Would technical docs on our privacy and security practices help? e.g. how we use AWS, specific security controls, automatic data deletion policies?\n\n* Yes, the product is still in beta but maturing quickly. Happy to answer any specific questions where you think lack of longevity will be an issue for you.\n\n* Paid plans for individual developers, teams, and enterprises are coming soon. We started with a free tier to encourage experimentation and solicit feedback while the product is in beta. This has worked well, but lack of pricing is one of the top pieces of feedback - I hear you clearly on the concern.\n\n* We've raised the quota for early users who need that added" +"\nCodes of Misconduct - mpweiher\nhttp://hintjens.com/blog:108\n======\nunimpressive\nMy biggest problem with this essay is the idea that in all instances of\negregious social misconduct it's the result of psychopathy. I think the\npsychopath factor should be given a much higher prior, but not an absolute\none. Sometimes people didn't get the socialization that they should have\ngotten in childhood or adolescence, within this industry in particular it\nseems odd to ignore the possibility of social impairment through autism.\nSometimes people really do make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes make\nyou go \"Wow how did somebody not know this wasn't okay?\"[0], and sometimes\nthey know better and had a lapse in judgment or read the wrong signals.\n\nPredators exist, psychopaths exist, most harassment is probably repeat\nvictimization by the same bad actors, but mistakes still exist.\n\n[0]: I know I've asked this question about _my own_ behavior before, I somehow\nsuspect most of us have at one point or another.\n\n~~~\ncbd1984\nAnd you have to take into account the fact culture plays a role.\n\nWhat's your personal space? It varies based on where you were born and where\nyou grew up. Invading someone's personal space is perceived as aggressive" +"\n\nJavaScripts in the JavaScripts [pdf] - sctb\nhttps://wingolog.org/pub/ffconf-2014-slides.pdf\n\n======\nLerc\nIt's quite hard to follow without the associated talk.\n\nI do recall past threads where JavaScript natives were rewritten in JavaScript\nand shown to be faster, then they were shown to be non-standard because of a\nheap of weird edge cases that have to be supported correctly. It hadn't yet\nbeen shown that a fully standards compliant implementation would be faster.\n\nI think a huge amount rests on slide 8 \"No JS/C++ transition cost\". It should\nprobably be the subject of significant analysis on it's own.\n\nThe calulation is min(Ctime + TransitionCost, JStime). Knowing all of these\nvalues individually would give a better picture. Is it better to Minimize the\ntransition cost or eliminate it? It depends on how much less Ctime is compared\nto JStime.\n\n------\nrichdougherty\nHere's a link to the author's blog post:\n[http://wingolog.org/archives/2014/11/09/ffconf-2014](http://wingolog.org/archives/2014/11/09/ffconf-2014)\n\nI really got into this stuff a while ago, even fixing a few bugs in Continuum,\nan awesome (but fairly buggy) JS-in-JS implementation by Brandon Benvie:\n[http://benvie.github.io/continuum/](http://benvie.github.io/continuum/).\n\nFor those who like this kind of thing, I compiled a little list of JavaScript\nlibraries for working with JavaScript:\n[http://notes.richdougherty.com/2014/03/javascript-\nlanguage-l...](http://notes.richdougherty.com/2014/03/javascript-language-\nlibs-in-javascript.html). Let me know" +"\nBoeing 737 Max Aircraft: Preliminary Investigative Findings [pdf] - ddulaney\nhttps://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/TI%20Preliminary%20Investigative%20Findings%20Boeing%20737%20MAX%20March%202020.pdf\n======\nV_Terranova_Jr\nHaving worked with Boeing on other aerospace programs (not commercial though)\nand having been on the Gov side, the basic findings ring true. Boeing's\nculture really is as flawed as the report reads. The idea that Dennis\nMuilenburg, however, originated or did more than prior company management to\nfoster this culture, is nonsense. They remain, even today, operating with this\nculture. The real problem that stands in the way of \"fundamental structural\nreform\" is that regardless of specific aerospace market, few alternatives to\nBoeing exist. And don't think the corporate cultures at other traditional US\naerospace primes is consistently better.\n\nThe points about Government acquiescence to Boeing pressure in performing\nregulation also resonate. Beware the tendency to make this a single-axis \"more\nvs. less\" regulation issue. The solution isn't \"more regulation\". The central\nconcern should about regulatory culture. Ultimately, responsibility lines must\nbe drawn, standards established, adjudication performed, and unique or\nspecific situations accommodated. Inevitably, the \"less regulation\" crowd\ncorrodes the kind of regulatory culture that serves the best interests of the\npopulace in these processes. Good regulation depends on having highly-\ncompetent, wise, empowered, and apolitical" +"\n\nShedding some light on \"dark social\" - vikrum\nhttp://5f5.org/ruminations/dark-social-dubious.html\n\n======\nvikrum\nThis is a pretty cursory look into some other possiblities of refererless\ntraffic. Given an ordinary browsing session or interaction from an end user,\nwhat else could be leading to HTTP requests without the referer header?\n\n~~~\nasparagui\n1) proxies\n\n2) clever antivirus/firewall software\n\n3) htaccess tricks will often drop headers\n\n4) javascript\n\n5) things like amazon silk\n\n6) people spoofing things to make their browser work\n\n7) anonymizer services\n\n8) proxies\n\n~~~\nnostromo\n9) links followed from https -> http\n\n10) bookmarks\n\n~~~\npapsosouid\nThe article in question claims that links followed from https facebook do have\na referrer header:\n\n>In testing links from Facebook and Twitter over HTTPS the referer is present\nin most cases.\n\n~~~\nnostromo\nThat's definitely not to spec if the browser is doing it.\n\n\n\"Clients SHOULD NOT include a Referer header field in a (non-secure) HTTP\nrequest if the referring page was transferred with a secure protocol.\"\n\nHowever, it's possible that Facebook is passing users through an HTTP gateway.\n\n~~~\nvikrum\nIt looks like the intermediate 301's referer is being passed thru (For\nexample, all links on Twitter get wrapped as a" +"\nUnexplored Areas in Data Compression - ingve\nhttps://medium.com/@duhroach/unexplored-areas-in-data-compression-c256f70ba0c7\n======\nAidanChurch818\n`Entropy is a broken measurement. The fact that [0,1,2,3] and [0,3,1,2] have\nthe same entropy value is annoying...' This is incorrect. There is no concept\nof entropy for a specific finite sequence; entropy is a property of random\nvariables. Assuming a finite string is generated (i.i.d.) from a random\nsource, then one way to estimate its entropy is using the histogram but this\nis not always optimal. Also several other parts of the article are over-\nsimplified or incorrect.\n\n~~~\nnabla9\n1\\. Entropy is a broken measurement\n\n2\\. This is incorrect\n\n3\\. There is no concept of entropy for a specific finite sequence\n\nDo you see what you did there? Entropy is limited concept if you want to\nadvance compression beyond certain limit.\n\nGeneral note: There is tendency of commentators to nit-pick blog posts as if\nbeing in debate where the goal is to win. It would be more valuable if we\nwould read the article and try to interpret the intended meaning behind them\nfavorably. Of course there are parts that are over-simplified or incorrect.\nThis is just writing in the blog, not fully thought out edited and peer" +"\nHow a language can be faster than C - beza1e1\nhttp://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/faster_than_C.html\n======\nriobard\nTL;DR:\n\n1\\. Better memory aliasing to use SIMD instructions. But you have to trade in\npointer arithmetic for those cases. Only useful for number-crunching and GPU-\nlike workload AFAIK.\n\n2\\. Pre-compute time-consuming constants during compile time. Though I see no\nreason why you cannot do this in C.\n\n3\\. JIT and runtime optimization. I doubt this though, given various overhead\nof JIT and runtime optimization (GC, memory, etc), that JIT can beat carefully\ncrafted C. Of course it will make it easier to write many types of programs.\n\n~~~\norblivion\nCouldn't carefully crafted C pretty much fix every potential case where\nanother language could beat it? For instance, any reason you can't write a\nmemcopy function that copied 16 bytes at a time?\n\nI assumed that a big part of a language being faster than C is really about\nthe compiler generating faster code than a human programmer in either language\ncould do without thinking too hard about optimization, and not so much the\ntheoretical top speed. As I understand this is the case with assembly vis a\nvis C.\n\n~~~\nbunderbunder\n_Couldn't carefully crafted C pretty" +"\n\nCrank up your Productivity with these 11 Mac apps - rickdronkers\nhttp://rickdronkers.com/post/40338237583/crank-up-your-productivity-with-these-11-mac-apps\n\n======\nricho\n> Internet marketing blahblah, (Web)technology blahblah, Lifehacking &\n> Productivity blahblah, Entrepreneurship & Business blahblah.\n\nI love how this literally is distilled down to blah blah blah.\n\nSeriously though, couple of decent suggestions.\n\n~~~\nrickdronkers\nYeah, you have to be honest right ;). I'm a internet marketeer that rolled\ninto the entrepreneur-role at a web-tech startup. In my spare time i like to\nread about lifehacking and productivity.\n\nCould put drinking beer and barbecuing on there as well, but I like to just\nexercise those activities, not blog about them." +"\nEx-NSA Hacker Finds a Way to Hack Mac Users via Microsoft Office - SQL2219\nhttps://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxamy/hacker-finds-a-way-to-hack-mac-users-via-microsoft-office\n======\nkryogen1c\napple, microsoft, hacking, and the nsa all in the same headline. this editor\ndeserves a raise.\n\n------\nmikece\nI don't know about everyone else but it's the _first_ part of that title that\ncatches my interest. \"Executed a hack via MS Office -- yeah, great but tell me\nmore about the role of 'NSA Hacker'...\" Notwithstanding the \"What? No way...\"\nrevelations in Edward Snowden's book about the United States' SIGINT-via-\ninternet abilities I suspect Snowden didn't even know the half of it.\n\n~~~\nsave_ferris\n> I suspect Snowden didn't even know the half of it.\n\nObviously, we\u2019ll never know exactly how much he knew relative to the entire\nscope of the intelligence community, but he pointed out multiple times that he\nhad pretty broad access to a range of tools and KBs based on his work\nintegrating various tools for the government.\n\nHe\u2019s said himself that he doesn\u2019t know everything, but given his ascent in the\ngovernment contracting world due to his technical skill prior to his\ndeparture, I think it\u2019s fair to take him at his word when he said that there" +"\nBigger does not mean faster - raganwald\nhttp://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/08/13/snell\n======\ncconstantine\nI've worked in one growing small company, and one internet giant. From my\nlimited experience I've noticed that as companies get bigger:\n\n\\- they gain engineering throughput. Given enough time more stuff gets done in\nthe larger company.\n\n\\- they gain latency. It takes longer to get a single feature out.\n\n\\- they lose creativity. Solutions tend to get more boring, and exciting new\nthings get swept under the rug. Powerful levers that allow single developers\nto be highly effective become frowned upon.\n\nThe key things appears to be the way a simple question is answered: \"We need\nto implement X and there are two ways; the risky design that requires a small\nnumber of developers, and the safe way that requires a large number of\ndevelopers. Which design should we chose?\"\n\nEvery manager I've ever worked with wants to chose the safe route because it's\nsafe, but only those in large companies can afford the number of engineers.\n\n------\npongle\nI had two thoughts when reading this: 1) Mythical Man Month... 2) If I was\nApple would I have released the SDK with iPhone 1.0? Probably not. iPods\nbecame" +"\n\nWhat would it take to record and entire life on video? - Zenbach\n\nImagine you were asked to build a system with today's technology capable of storing people's entire life on video. This request would be insane a few years ago only. I think today is already possible and pretty soon it may be a reality ( I know, scary.. ie: wife to husband: \"Let's rewind an see where really were you last night? or an specific date 25 years ago?.. oops!)\nLet's assume video would come at same data rate as YouTube HQ video from a tiny camera (iPhone size) embedded into a person's forehead. Assuming and average life span of 80 years what kind of infrastructure, storage, costs would you estimate?\n======\nZenbach\nHere are some numbers to give you and idea of what it would take to record\nyour entire life on video.\n\nAssumed Parameters: \\- 80 years (average life span) \\- 1000 kbits/sec (YouTube\nvideo datarate) \\- $50.00/TeraByte\n\nSolution: \\- 80 yrs * 365 days/year * 24 hours/day * 3600 sec/hour =\n2,522,880,000 secs/yr \\- Total Secs in 80 yrs * data/sec = Total Storage\nrequired to store 80 yrs so: Total Storage = 2,522,880,000 secs/80yr" +"\nShow HN: Write rust in off-side syntax (indent instead of braces like in Python) - chankyin\nhttps://github.com/chankyin/off-side.rs\n======\nkarmakaze\nToo bad about the trailing commas and semicolons. It would be cleaner if they\ncould be implied and there be punctuation for when a comma or semicolon is not\nmeant.\n\nThe commas aren't visually as bad as the semicolons. Would it work to say in\nan off-side block any non-blank line implicitly ends with semi-colon unless it\nexplicitly ends with comma or colon?\n\n~~~\nchankyin\nAlso, semicolons in Rust have special semantics. In Rust, semicolons are\ndelimiters rather than terminators, and function similar to how comma\noperators work in C++ (see\n[https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_other](https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_other)).\nWhile some may not like the implicit return behaviour in Rust, I think it has\na genuine idiomatic meaning in Rust that cannot be easily replaced. Ending a\nfunction with a semicolon differentiates returning the last value from\nreturning void (i.e. the empty tuple), so it does not seem like a good idea.\n(This is a proof of concept anyway it's not like I'm introducing a new\nlanguage)\n\n------\nsmt88\nWhy do you prefer semantic whitespace?\n\n~~~\nchankyin\nYou can find loads of reasons for and against semantic whitespace" +"\n\nReview HN: BillMeBob.com - Generate free invoices with no signup - SingAlong\nhttp://billmebob.com\n\n======\nsgrove\nVery cool! Invoicing is a terrible (and least interesting) part of freelancing\nand consulting. This looks like a great MVP. I especially like that when I\nprint it out, that there's no big \"billmebob\" logo at the top there.\n\nI think it would be fair to put a self-promotional link/tagline at the very\nbottom of the page though.\n\nAlso, allowing me to email directly from the page would probably be nice. At\nthe very least, just do a mailto: link with the subject and body filled in for\nme to just hit \"send\" :)\n\nAwesome MVP, definitely keep us up to date on the iterations!\n\n~~~\nleftnode\nYeah, this is awesome. Everything I need and nothing I don't. If you allowed\nme to upload my company's logo for each invoice, that'd be even better.\n\nI do freelance from time to time, but not enough to justify spending any money\non an online invoicing service. This does exactly what I want without having\nto have an account.\n\nBookmarked, great job!\n\n------\ncj\nI would have a preview of what the invoice would look like before making" +"\nDeclaring C String Constants - eklitzke\nhttps://eklitzke.org/declaring-c-string-constants-the-right-way\n======\niainmerrick\nThere's a big mistake here:\n\n \n \n // Bogus function, just to see how arguments are passed.\n void bogus();\n \n // Invoke bogus using ptr.\n void do_ptr() { bogus(&ptr, ptr); }\n \n // Invoke bogus using arr.\n void do_arr() { bogus(&arr, arr); }\n \n\n\"&ptr\" and \"&arr\" are not the same. &ptr gives you a pointer to a pointer\n(char * *), but &arr just gives you a pointer to the array data. That's why\nthe code is different.\n\nThis would normally show up as a compilation error, since &ptr and &arr have\ndifferent types. It's disguised here by the variadic bogus() function.\n\n(I didn't know that no-arg functions in C are implicitly variadic! That's\nbizarre. I would have expected modern compilers to disable that by default,\nbut I can't get Clang to warn me about it even with -Wall.)\n\n~~~\ndrt1245\nAdditionally, he keeps talking about dereferencing the pointer, which I don't\nthink is right. The pointer never gets deferenced in the code shown.\n\nI'm not an x86 guru, but I think that \"movq ptr(%rip), %rsi\" is different\nbecause ptr needs to be moved from relative to the instruction pointer\n(because it is on the" +"\nShow HN: ChatPage.io \u2013 Private chat for sales and client communication - going_to_800\nhttp://chatpage.io\n======\niqonik\nLooks good, the only thing I hate is the 'Free during BETA'. It makes me\nwonder how you're going to keep going, I'm worried you'll become a key part of\nmy sales process but then one day, disappear.\n\nTake my money straight away, seriously, I don't care that it's BETA, take my\nmoney! Don't be scared, you're creating value for me.\n\n~~~\ngoing_to_800\nAwesome feedback. Thanks a lot. You are right, the free beta looks un-pro. I\nconsider charging but let the beta badge somewhere.\n\n------\njjoe\nSomething about chatting with clients or prospects on someone else's\npage/domain bothers me. I think your pro plan should have an option to brand\nthe chat page with your client's own sub/domain.\n\n~~~\ngoing_to_800\nThanks for checking it out. Yes, it has the option to use your own url.\nCurrently we're using full page iframe. We'll also add subdomain support soon." +"\nTrucking 'bloodbath': 4,500 truck drivers lost jobs in August - elorant\nhttps://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-bloodbath-4500-truck-drivers-lost-jobs-in-august-2019-9\n======\nJauntTrooper\n4,500 / 3,500,000 = 0.1% decline in truck drivers.\n\nThe industry probably has outsized exposure to the escalating trade wars and\nincreasing tariffs.\n\n~~~\npaulddraper\nAFAIK there is a greater percentage of trucking businesses going down than\ntruck drivers. Consolidation. Amazon, etc.\n\nArticle even says \"It was the first time since March that truckers saw job\nlosses.\"\n\n~~~\nrandogogogo\nThis point wasn't clear to me reading the article. I got the impression that\nmany of those bankruptcies were independent owner/operators but that the\nreporter was trying to downplay that and rather let us believe these were\nlarge operators on the brink of collapse.\n\n------\nMerrill\nOrders for new Class 8 trucks are down about 80% year over year.\n[https://ftrintel.com/news/latest-\norders/index.php](https://ftrintel.com/news/latest-orders/index.php)\n\n~~~\nzachsnow\nIt seems however that 2018 was a \u201crecord year\u201d so maybe it\u2019s just back to\n\u201cnormal\u201d?\n\n~~~\nThePadawan\nApparently they are \"[the] lowest since 2010\":\n[https://www.truckinginfo.com/337568/july-class-8-orders-\nlowe...](https://www.truckinginfo.com/337568/july-class-8-orders-lowest-\nsince-2010)\n\n~~~\nFjolsvith\nProbably waiting to see how the electric trucks pan out before purchasing.\n\n~~~\nahartmetz\nProbably not. Demand for investment goods just varies very strongly with\neconomic cycles.\n\n------\njiveturkey\n4500? That's almost noise level." +"\nEmail Storm - polm23\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_storm\n======\nchatmasta\nWe had a few of these in college. My favorite was when someone replied \"you\nknow, you can just press M in gmail to mute the conversation.\" What followed\nwere hundreds of messages saying just, \"M\". College kids really are the\ngreatest trolls.\n\n------\nilkkao\nSaw these storms couple times at Nokia years ago. By far the funniest replies\nwere those that explained correctly what's going on and then concluded that\ntheir message should be the end of the thread.\n\nWhat they didn't realize was that the email server was overloaded and that\ntheir message would be delivered several hours later together with dozen\nsimilar messages from the other people.\n\nThe next round of people then complained why these people are not stopping.\n\n------\n_nalply\nI saw an email storm on a mailing list for lawyers. Due to a misconfiguration\nout of office notices weren't suppressed and forwarded to the mailing list.\nSoon several lawyers who were taking off were contributing to the storm. I\nimmediately saw the self-reinforcing avalanche and told the operator to shut\ndown the mailing list server.\n\n------\nstygiansonic\nI think almost everyone at a big company has experienced" +"\nShow HN: WizAtHome \u2013 Work From Home Wellness Management - rog4truth\nhttps://www.wizathome.com/\n======\nfrompdx\nI saw this posted a while ago and I would like to provide some feedback.\n\n1\\. The new layout is an improvement over the previous. It looks more modern.\nHowever, the navbar and footer are not responsive so if you are using a small\nbrowser window or mobile device half of the nav and footer are hidden.\n\n2\\. The login links are confusing. \"I'm the wiz\" is a login page, the login\nlink is a login page. There are two additional login links for employers and\nemployees at the bottom. I think it will be helpful to simplify this.\n\n3\\. If your target market is in the United States you may want to consider\nsomewhat different branding. I understand that the term \"wiz\" in this context\nis intended to refer to wizard or expert. However, in the part of the United\nStates I am from, and perhaps all parts, the term \"wiz\" is also a slang term\nfor urination. For example:\n\n\\- \"I need to take a wiz\" = I need to use the restroom.\n\n\\- \"My job is making me take a wiz quiz\" =" +"\n\nSpock sign-up flow demonstrates how to scare users away... (by Jeremy Zawodny) - joshwa\nhttp://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/009370.html\n\n======\njzawodn\nUh, it's not a button, it's a link. Notice that it's pushed to the bottom and\nhardly given equal treatment as the actual button.\n\nIf you've ever seen many eye tracking studies, you know that items in the\nlocation on the page aren't likely to be seen, leading the user to believe\n(right or wrong) that they either must disclose a password or go away.\n\n~~~\nwyday\nOf course they don't give the two options equal treatment. Why should they?\nAll that means is that they don't want you to skip the step. They do provide\nan option to skip, however.\n\nMaybe you missed it because you wrote the story with a sensationalist\nconclusion in mind. At least you got to say 'fuck', right?\n\n~~~\njzawodn\nWhy should they? Respect for their potential users.\n\nImplying that I missed because of how I'd written my take on it seems a little\nodd. You do realize that I wrote it after the fact, right?\n\nOf course you do. But it's more fun to pretend that I don't \"get it.\"\n\nHad I wanted to be sensationalist," +"\nWe Need Young People To Take Risks And Build Inspiring Things - henryaj\nhttp://www.fastcoexist.com/3026586/skip-the-hedge-fund-we-need-young-people-to-take-risks-and-build-inspiring-things\n======\nFD3SA\nThough the author has good intentions, I fear he has very little understanding\nof the reality for today's young graduates.\n\nLet's look at a smart young grad's options:\n\n1) Academia - Potentially interesting work. However, grad students are\nunderpaid, overworked indentured servants in a vicious dictatorial status\nhierarchy (do what the PI says or you're out). Very poor career prospects,\nguaranteed negative return on time invested. The road to PI is sure to destroy\nyour love of research.\n\n2) Industry - Decent pay but work is extremely mundane. Very few \"unicorn\"\npositions which allow freedom for creative roles. No control of hours.\nPromotion becomes a very serious game of office politics, which can get very\nnasty.\n\n3) Professions (Law, Med) - Enter at your own risk. Savagely competitive and\ndraconian entrance requirements, incredibly expensive education, inhuman\nhours, constant stress at every milestone, and a never-ending barrage of\nstandardized tests. However, if you endure, you can start your own practice\nand potentially have a comfortable life.\n\n4) Entrepreneur - By far the riskiest option. Due to the get rich quick mantra\nof current investors, social/web/photo" +"\nMacintosh.js: Mac OS 8 as an electron app - PStamatiou\nhttps://github.com/felixrieseberg/macintosh.js\n======\ndmitrybrant\nI really struggle to not be an Electron hater, but... why, oh why??? Basilisk\nII is already a thoroughly cross-platform piece of software that runs\nbeautifully as a native Windows/Mac/Linux app. What can possibly be the appeal\nto re-compile Basilisk into Javascript, so that it runs at less than half the\nspeed, packaged in a full Chromium/Node installation?\n\nThe total download size of the native Basilisk II is about 8 MB (not counting\nyour disk image). The size of this Electron monstrosity is about 180 MB! I\nfeel like I should be wearing a straitjacket. Does no one else see things\ngoing terribly wrong?" +"\n\nAsk HN: How to Give College Students a Taste of Real World Development? - xerophyte12932\n\nHi! I am arranging a sort of workshop for college students and I want to expose them to professional development. A tentative list of things I want them to learn:

- How to write code with long-term considerations

- How to make our code flexible to future changes

- Importance of User Experience

- Developer-Friendly Code

- How Business considerations affect Technical decisions

- The right way to work in a dev team

Does anybody have any suggestion on what to add to the list or general tips on how to go about teaching them all this?\n======\ndalke\nI once taught a short course in usability. I used an exercise I learned from\nsomeone else: design the controls for a microwave oven. Given them a set of\nrequirements and have them do a paper prototype. Partway through, change the\ndesign slightly. (In mine, started with the assumption that the time could be\nset automatically from the mobile phone network, then I added the requirement\nthat it needed to be set manually.) Then have them do user testing for\nscenarios which test those requirements.\n\nI used someone who wasn't in the class" +"\n\nSizeof(void) == 1 in gcc - mrb\nhttps://twitter.com/#!/bcantrill/status/61503550966087681\n\n======\napaprocki\nGCC just happens to not even print a warning about this (even with -Wall).\nThat is pretty bad. The warning can be enabled by specifying -Wpointer-arith\nor by using -pedantic, though. (Warning: \"invalid application of 'sizeof' to a\nvoid type\")\n\nIBM's xlc compiler produces a warning and compiles the code and it also\nreturns 1. (Warning: \"1506-043 (W) The operand of the sizeof operator is not\nvalid.\")\n\nOracle Studio compiler has the best approach and fails to compile. (Error:\n\"cannot take sizeof void\")\n\n------\nmooism2\nWhat does the standard say?" +"\nThe aliens are silent because they're dead - bemmu\nhttp://phys.org/news/2016-01-aliens-silent-theyre-dead.html\n======\noliwarner\nHow is this news? I'm serious. This is essentially how evolution was taught to\nme some 17 years ago so I'm genuinely surprised to see an article stating this\n\"bottleneck\" as a new theory.\n\nWe exist because of a sequence of scenarios. The probability of that sequence\nhappening elsewhere is rare but given the size and complexity of space, is\nlikely to happen in a similar way elsewhere, at some point in time.\n\nBut it's far more likely that early-stage micro-organisms don't manage to\nevolve. Or other natural extinction-level events occur.\n\nThe headline, that \"aliens are silent\" is very silly. They're only silent in\nthe same way that our native bacteria are silent. Most have no concept of \u2014or\ncapability for\u2014 local communication, let alone interplanetary communication.\nThen they die.\n\n~~~\nbemmu\nI think the new bit was that it is also necessary for life to quickly evolve\nin such a way that it starts to regulate the climate.\n\n------\narc0re\nHaha I don't think humans would be the only species to survive. Its literally\nimpossible, we are so messy and still we managed to survive for a" +"\n11:57 \u2013 A short virtual reality horror film made for Oculus Rift - pmcpinto\nhttp://1157.pm/\n======\neliasdelatorre\nI downloaded it for Windows. It has a mp4 file inside the zip. I was able to\nwatch it using VLC on Ubuntu. Despite being a 360\u00b0 image all cramped on a\nsquare screen it was still pretty scary =P\n\n~~~\nohwhen\nCool, thanks for the feedback :)\n\n------\naleyan\nRan the Mac OS version on Yosemite with 0.4.2 version of the Oculus SDK on a\nDK2.\n\nLoved it. Awesome job. Feels like a haunted house that moves around you\ninstead of you moving through it. Very immersive. Will show this off to other\npeople.\n\nIPD was kind of weird though. I felt like a giant in the dungeon. What kind of\ncamera setup did you use to film this, and how far apart were the cameras?\n\nAlso, I did not feel the 3D sound, though the issue may have been with my ears\nor me not paying attention to it. I will retry again later tonight and report\non the results.\n\n~~~\nohwhen\nSo the camera setup was a fairly standard 6 GoPro rig (Freedom Rig).\nUnfortunately we didn't have the budget" +"\n\nHD Trade Services (YC S12) Lets Small Logistics Providers Track Shipments - dsugarman\nhttp://techcrunch.com/2012/08/17/pics-or-it-didnt-happen-yc-backed-hd-trade-services-lets-small-logistics-providers-track-shipments-like-the-big-boys/\n\n======\nthesash\nI wish I didn't have to read Techcrunch's hollow journalism to learn about the\nlatest YC class, because many of them seem like legitimate business cases\nworking on fairly ambitious ideas.\n\nThe problem is, every Techcrunch post about a YC startup reads like a press\nrelease; completely devoid of any independent research, analysis, or, well,\njournalism. This author's most insightful analysis about the market is that\n\"shipping and distribution\" are \"an essential part\" of global trade. Wow! I\nnever thought about it that way!\n\nWhat's the size of the \"small logistics services providers\" market, who are\nthe major potential customers and partners? How hard will it be to compete\nwith established players like UPS and FedEX? How much is the company charging\nfor the product? Isn't it ridiculous that the founder thinks he can pull a\nviral coefficient of 50?\n\nI know this is nothing new, but seriously Techcrunch: you can do better than\nthis.\n\n~~~\nrdl\nThe startups need TC to reach other publications, but maybe there's a market\nfor a YC (or all major accelerator) focused journalist who does in depth\ninterviews" +"\nThe World Would Be a Better Place if Everyone Was a Hacker - b14ck\nhttp://rdegges.com/the-world-would-be-a-better-place-if-everyone\n======\nwallflower\nNot everyone is a hacker.\n\nI see this in some of my co-workers who only code for a living, not for a\npassion. They go home to their TVs and Netflix and raise their families. They\ncould care less about Hacker News and the signal/noise ratio of the content.\n\nI see this nowadays - people just expect things to work - my niece (under 6\nyrs of age) will go to photo frames and swipe across them, expecting something\nto happen. From a very early age, she expects touch screen interfaces.\n\nI see this in my parents when I have to do technical support (they refuse to\nmove from Windows - Go Microsoft!) - and have to explain to them that a\ncomputer operating system is a dynamic system and, yes, the printer will stop\nworking- just because it worked yesterday doesn't mean it will work today.\n\nWhen I try explaining to my dad the process for fixing something on the\ncomputer, he just doesn't want to do it or can't. He wants a step by step by\nstep process. But I can't" +"\nThis Week in Servo 43 (submitted via Servo itself) - Manishearth\nhttp://blog.servo.org/2015/11/30/twis-43/\n======\nlarsberg\nThe killer feature in this week's newsletter is an image of using Servo itself\nto post this link to HN :-)\n\n~~~\nbttf\nI can appreciate the honesty of that video.\n\n~~~\nperlgeek\nThis bug (input field doesn't scroll automatically, but spills its text into\nthe surrounding elements) is a good demonstration of just how many, many small\ndetails you have take care of when implementing a browser engine.\n\nA really monumental task. The servo devs have my respect!\n\n~~~\noneeyedpigeon\nMaybe I'm missing something hugely obvious, but shouldn't the input field be\nrendered using a native control which would preemptively eliminate that bug\nand reduce the need for rewriting code that's been written countless times\nbefore?\n\n~~~\npcwalton\n> shouldn't the input field be rendered using a native control which would\n> preemptively eliminate that bug and reduce the need for rewriting code\n> that's been written countless times before?\n\nBroadly speaking, native controls don't like being composited into OpenGL\nscenes (which are necessary for things like 3D transforms).\n\n------\npcwalton\n(Copying my comment here from Reddit /r/rust:)\n\nJust to repeat, because this was somewhat" +"\n\nWhy Fukushima Daiichi won't be another Chernobyl - michaelchisari\nhttp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20257-why-fukushima-daiichi-wont-be-another-chernobyl.html?full=true\n\n======\nbioh42_2\nI'm getting pretty tired of this meme.\n\nChernobyl was horrific! It happened at a time and in place that did not care\nmuch about safety or human lives. The technology was primitive. Safety\nmechanisms had been turned off. The response to the accident was to send\npeople on a suicide mission while telling everyone else everything was hunky\ndory. It was a a horrific disaster.\n\nHow the hell could Fukushima be as bad?\n\nAnd what is the point of all of this anyway?\n\nLook, I think we should use a lot more nuclear power, yes despite the fact\nthat I grew up down wind of Chernobyl and with Fukushima still happening, I\nSTILL think we should all drive electric cars that get their electricity from\nnuclear power.\n\nBut I want those nuclear plants to as safe as technology can make them. And I\nwelcome higher per kilowatt prices to make this happen. What I don't want is\nnukes on the cheap, as this particular GE model of reactor appears to have\nbeen marketed.\n\nAnd I am really getting sick of the chorus of the last couple of days" +"\n\nWhy build a site? Why do your customers care? - coconutrandom\nhttp://gist.github.com/40002\n\n======\nfrossie\nYou know this all seems so obvious it doesn't need mentioning, but I am still\namazed that in this day and age people still don't get it.\n\nMy local YWCA just redid their website, and there's all the names of the board\nof directors and their history and this that and the other. What there isn't\nis (a) any e-mail address _at all_ and (b) any schedule for their sporting\nfacilities (whose schedule changes on a monthly basis).\n\nDid anyone not sit and think \"Hmmm I wonder whether the average visitor on our\nwebsite wants to know (a) that we were founded in 1919, or (b) what time the\nlap swim is at the pool\"?\n\n------\nmyoung8\nGood luck if you bury the way to order your product in your contact page." +"\nObama pick for NSA review panel wanted paid, pro-government shills in chat rooms - Libertatea\nhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/23/obama-pick-for-nsa-review-panel-wanted-paid-pro-government-shills-in-chat-rooms/?tid=rssfeed\n======\nthrowaway_yy2Di\nThis guy is staggeringly authoritarian. He doesn't stop at \"correcting\" the\nviews of radicalized nutjobs. He wants the bulk of US political speech\nactively managed, regulated:\n\n _He outlines six specific reform possibilities to improve exposure to diverse\npoints of view on the Internet: 1) creation of \"deliberative domains\" where\ndiverse exchange of views can occur online; 2) disclosure of relevant conduct\nby Web producers; 3) voluntary self-regulation by Web producers; 4) publicly\nsubsidized programming and Web sites; 5) government-imposed rules that would\nrequire the most popular Web sites to provide links to sites with diverse\nviews; and 6) government-imposed rules that would require highly partisan Web\nsites to provide links to sites with opposing views._\n\n[http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/sunstein2.html](http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/sunstein2.html)\n\n~~~\nmd224\nIt seems like he wants to force people to be exposed to diverse/opposing\nviews... isn't that kind of the opposite of authoritarian?\n\n~~~\nferdo\n> It seems like he wants to force people to be exposed to diverse/opposing\n> views... isn't that kind of the opposite of authoritarian?\n\nForce = authoritarian.\n\n~~~\nmd224\n> Force = authoritarian\n\nAre you opposed to all forms of" +"\n\nAsk HN: What online services do you use to calculate and file sales tax? - regnum\n\n\n======\njaz\nIf you're in the US or Canada, Avalara is a solid solution. They offer sales\ntax calculation and filing (in some states) and integrate into the popular\nshopping carts/accounting software. The agency I work at has done numerous\nimplementations for large online retailers. Last I checked pricing was at\n$350/yr for up to 700 transactions.\n\n------\nMankhool\nI might be an old fashioned Canadian, but I refuse to use online services for\nmy taxes because I don't know where, or with whom that information is being\nhosted. So I buy a disc or download the software every year to do the taxes\nand I file them by sending them over the net to the CRA." +"\nNudging out support for a carbon tax - colinprince\nhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0474-0\n======\nPxtl\nThis is happening in Ontario right now as we speak.\n\nThe Ontario government is fighting against the federal revenue-neutral carbon\ntax and has instituted a small grab-bag of subsidies for businesses doing\ngreen refits.\n\nSo in essence, they're taking a neutral system that put money to taxpayers and\nturned it into a subsidy on corporations that pollute, and claiming it as a\npopulist victory. And the public ate it up.\n\nI've heard nonsense like \"I recycle and don't litter, why should I have to pay\na carbon tax\" as if those things are related.\n\n~~~\nmartythemaniak\nIt should also be noted that the federal carbon tax is a tax-and-rebate\nscheme. Ie you get taxed on the carbon and the revenues get refunded to the\nconsumers. If you make a lower-carbon choice, you keep your money. If you\ndon't, nothing really changed. It's also slightly progressive, since lower-\nincome folks will actually come out ahead by a bit without making any changes.\n\nWarning: strong political opinions below.\n\nWhat we're seeing is really a replay of the ACA reaction in the US. Obamacare\nwas a rejigged Romneycare, which was a" +"\nKeep your source code SIMPLE - kevingoslar\nhttps://medium.com/@kevingoslar/keep-your-source-code-simple-d5873cb854dc\n======\ntaberiand\nMy feeling is these paradigms, SOLID and SIMPLE, boil down to basically: small\nobjects, connected minimally, though interfaces.\n\nSIMPLE appears to be leaning even more towards the functional programming side\nof things; I think we should probably just get it over with and accept that\ncomposition of functions operating on immutable data structures is just the\nright way to go.\n\n~~~\ntobr\nIs there a language that leans heavily towards immutable data, but steers\nclear of the, shall we say, _dorkier_ side of functional programming?\n\n~~~\nISO-morphism\nThis is Clojure. It's functional, but more as a side effect of focusing\nintently on simple, immutable, persistent data structures and their\ncompositions. I'd strongly recommend looking into it, along with many of the\npresentations by its initial author Rich Hickey.\n\n~~~\nBoorishBears\nImo no Lisp variant can claim to not be in the \"dorkier\" side of things\n(\"dorkier\" being read as \"hard to approach\" in my eyes).\n\nI'd say Kotlin over Clojure.\n\n~~~\nadamkl\nI\u2019d suggest you watch Rich\u2019s talk \u201cSimple made easy\u201d. [1]\n\nIt\u2019s one of his main points that something like a language being \u201chard to\napproach\u201d can be overcome" +"\nPythonJS now faster than CPython - tyrion\nhttp://pythonjs.blogspot.com/2014/05/pythonjs-now-faster-than-cpython.html\n======\nchubot\nCan it run real programs (i.e. not benchmarks)?\n\nIf so I will be impressed. Glancing over the code, it looks pretty short, and\nI can imagine benchmarks will run, but not real programs.\n\n[https://github.com/PythonJS/PythonJS/blob/master/pythonjs/py...](https://github.com/PythonJS/PythonJS/blob/master/pythonjs/pythonjs.py)\n\nIt's true that most programs don't use all the dynamism of Python, but they\nprobably depend on something that does (e.g. Django). Python is more dynamic\nthan JavaScript, in that it has __getattr__, __setattr__, __getitem__, etc.\n\nIf not, it's not fair to compare it to PyPy... PyPy actually runs arbitrary\nPython programs.\n\n~~~\nbelandrew\n> Python is more dynamic than JavaScript, in that it has __getattr__,\n> __setattr__, __getitem__, etc.\n\nNo, it's not. You can do equivalents to all of those in Javascript. Javascript\nobjects are all mutable with a few exceptions. They are just maps of\nproperties, very similar to Python's. Properties can be added or changed at\nruntime.\n\nFor example, setattr(obj, item, value) in python is basically just obj[item] =\nvalue in js.\n\n~~~\npygy_\n__getattr__ and friends allow to customize the getters and setters.\n\nJavaScript is in the process of getting similar capabilities with Harmony\nproxies, but the spec has yet to be" +"\nCountries don't own their Internet domains, ICANN says - privong\nhttp://www.computerworld.com.au/article/551289/countries_don_t_own_their_internet_domains_icann_says/\n======\ntokenizerrr\nSo instead the US is the only country that \"owns\" domain names, since ICANN is\nan American company? If the domains aren't property then how can they be\nseized? Is a distinction made between domain names and ccTLDs?\n\nedit: Downvotes? Really? For asking a question that seems perfectly on-topic.\n\n~~~\ndragonwriter\n> So instead the US is the only country that \"owns\" domain names, since ICANN\n> is an American company?\n\nIf you read the article instead of responding to the title, you would\nrecognize that ICANN is saying no one \"owns\" ccTLDs, because they aren't\nproperty at all.\n\n~~~\ntokenizerrr\nI have, and yes, they say that, but since they are an American company and\nthus can be compelled to do pretty much anything by the American goverment\n(through secret courts even, which we've been hearing more and more about) it\nseems reasonable to say that America owns them, and their bookkeeping.\n\n~~~\ndragonwriter\nTheir argument here is for why they _cannot_ be compelled to do certain things\nby American courts.\n\n------\ndragonwriter\nICANN documents on the case: [https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/icann-\nvarious-2014-07-...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/icann-\nvarious-2014-07-30-en)\n\n------\nopendais\nSeriously, fuck the" +"\nAsk HN: Any recommendations on dealing with a company restructuring? - startupnomore\nThe company I work for will soon go through a major restructuring. At the moment the company has a /very/ flat, start-up like structure (3 levels: 1 CEO -> 2 Managers -> ~100 employees). There are also roughly 10 team leads in charge of service lines/products, but that are not involved with the business side of things at all (e.g. budgeting, leave approval etc.).

The reorg's purpose is to introduce more structure and delegate responsibility (I guess all startups go through this?). Effectively the plan is to elevate the 10 team leads to managers of the various service lines and products they lead now, including some of the business responsibility.

I am one of the team leads, and also one of the most senior developers on staff. There is a big strategy session being planned to discuss and implement the reorg. The meeting will be politically laden (some guys manage 3 people, some as many as 20, with varying years of experience).

So I have two questions:\n1) In general, what is your advice for handling the restructuring? Any experience, advice or mistakes, pitfalls or caveats you can recall I should" +"\n\nShow HN: GreatDJ \u2013 Create and save playlists that sync across devices - ruiramos\nhttp://great.dj\n\n======\nruiramos\nHi everyone, Wanted to show you a small side project I've been working on -\nGreatDJ, where you can create and save Youtube playlists and optionally have\nthem sync across clients/devices. They main use case was to allow everyone at\na party to push songs into a common playlist (say, a computer that's connected\nto the main speakers).\n\nLately I've been working on making that easier: if you have a computer on\n'party mode' and use a phone on the same network to access the site, you'll be\nautomagically redirected to the same playlist so you can start pushing songs\nstraight away!\n\nThe whole thing is also open source:\n[https://github.com/ruiramos/greatdj](https://github.com/ruiramos/greatdj)\n\nHave fun, feedback would be amazing, thanks!\n\n~~~\nal_james\nCongrats on shipping! I was at a party the other day and we needed a way to\nall contribute to the same youtub playlist. Now we have a solution!" +"\nTesla Motors wants another $250 million (IPO) - transburgh\nhttp://valleywag.com/357770/tesla-motors-wants-another-250-million\n======\ndkokelley\nTesla has a great idea and product. What they lack is a solid mass-\nproduction/distribution system.\n\nAs much as I'd hate to see it, I think Tesla needs to be acquired by GM or\nsome other American brand and then use their technology with their new owner's\nproduction and funding capacities to get the car to market. Current 2008\nmodels have sold out, and they haven't produced any yet! to get one, you have\nto get on the 2009 waiting list, which should ship sometime in 2010, at this\nrate (Tesla is silent on anticipated delivery dates, I'm only speculating 2010\ndelivery). They're already producing and selling their battery system to\nToyota I believe.\n\nA Tesla - GM/Ford combo I believe would be what it takes to effectively\ncompete against Toyota and Honda, who both already have the production\ncapacity and electric cars in the works.\n\nThey could always partner with upscale car makers like BMW, too.\n\n------\njdueck\nI hope Tesla succeeds, but I wonder whether it's even possible for a new North\nAmerican car company to succeed, regardless of their technology. With the\nfalling dollar, maybe" +"\nShow HN: SheetDB \u2013 Connect Remote SQL Database with Google Sheet - zhuxuefeng1994\nhttps://github.com/Xuefeng-Zhu/SheetDB\n======\nkevin\nIs something like this always just a hack/shortcut or are there people who\nwant this as their ideal workflow? I'm curious because I see stuff like this\nall the time being submitted to YC.\n\nFor example, is this for IT / DBAs that need to gather info for data analysts,\nmarketers and sales people? Are there many people in that position and what\nwould the ideal flow look like? I can see startups and small companies willing\nto use this as a stopgap, but I couldn't imagine larger customers/companies\nwilling to use something like this.\n\nThis isn't to say I don't know why this was built. The same forces are what\ndrove us to build Wufoo. We were tired of building these tedious data\ncollection apps. The DIY builder was out of laziness on our part.\n\nBut when it comes to accessing existing data, there's so many concerns about\nsecurity and privacy that I worry an idea like this will always be limited in\nterms of adoption.\n\nIf people think differently, I would love to know.\n\n------\nkevin\nOh, and you should add PostgreSQL" +"\n\nAmEx's answer to PayPal/Square/etc. - taylorbuley\nhttp://www.serve.com/\n\n======\napress\nThey are indeed charging the Paypal standard 2.9% plus 30 cents. See section\n10 \"fees\" here \n\nI don't quite get what they have over PayPal, let alone any less expensive\nservices.\n\n------\naidenn0\nI assume this is what they did with their acquisition of revolutionCard?\n\n------\nviggity\nI couldn't find their fees anywhere on their website, so I can only assume\nthey're going to charge the traditional 2+% + $.30 for each transaction.\n\nI'd much rather use Dwolla (). They charge $.25 flat.\nThat's it. And they have iPhone and Android clients. They don't have a limit\non how much you can transfer, either (serve limits to $1000/day and\n$2500/month)." +"\n\nIron Man Movie Review - Did it Suck? - xeroteam\nhttp://www.jaguarmarketingrevealed.com/2008/05/01/iron-man-movie-review/\nGet a non-spoiler review of Iron Man. Pre-screening was in theaters on Thursday evening before the official May 2, release.\n======\nxirium\nThe Iron Man film is astounding; better than expected. It is bursting with\ncomedy. The visual style of the film is similar to The Dark Knight. The\ngadgetry is amazing. For example, you'll love Tony Stark's multi-monitor\ndesktop. And I've never seen Gwyneth Paltrow looking better. I'm expecting a\nsequel.\n\n------\nTichy\nHard to believe. I don't know anything about this movie except for the poster\nads, and every time I see one of them I feel amazed at how ridiculous the\nmovie industry has become.\n\nOK, a recommendation on Hacker News, that is quite something. But nah - I\nthink I'll still pass for the time being. Maybe if I had a 12 year old son, it\nwould be a different matter...\n\n------\niamelgringo\nI heard, \"That was sick!\" 3 times on the way out of the theater tonight.\n\nIt really was... sick.\n\n------\nwumi\nwas surprised at the quality of the film. very entertaining.\n\n------\nxeroteam\nYes I agree, much laughs. I've never been a" +"\nRussian startup released unlimited storage device which can never be hacked - onelly\nhttp://innmind.com/articles/250?utm_source=HN&utm_medium=repost&utm_campaign=flashsafe\n======\nPiskvorrr\nOnly it's not a device, it's a cloud storage service (\"forever\" and\n\"unlimited\" \\- until further notice).\n\nThe device provides local encryption - and is unsinkab...uhm, I mean,\n\"unhackable\". No parallel with the RMS Titanic, noooosir. And I've seen a fair\nshare of supposedly unhackable cruft: Schneier alert - \"it's easy to make a\nsystem that its' creator is unable to crack,\" to paraphrase.\n\n~~~\nonelly\nIn their official description it is said:\n\nWe take stored data security to a whole new level! Nobody will ever know what\ndata you are keeping, because your files are not linked to your personal\ninformation on our servers. That means total anonymity. All data is encrypted\nusing a 2048-bit key a technology similar to the one used for bank\ntransactions but even better. It all happens on your computer, and even if\nsomeone lays hand on your data, they won\u2019t be able to decipher it without a\nSmartFlash itself. You can use an additional pin-code that is impossible to\ntrack if you use a mouse to enter it. Losing your Flashsafe is like losing\nyour bank card:" +"\nApply HN: Patron \u2013 Uber for the Service Industry - Patronapp\nPatron- patronapp.org Get Sh*t Done

I often find myself not having time to complete chores such as shopping and cleaning. Along with this I found it incredibly costly to hire a maid or caretaker therefore I founded Patron, an app that allows people to post tasks and set their own prices. Well who does the work? I'm doing what no other similar service on the market does, anyone can download the app and complete tasks to earn money. I am hoping to build Patron to be the Uber of the service industry where anyone can be their own boss and work on their own schedule.

Right now, I got a completely working application and am focusing on polishing it for publication.

How (are you going to make money): We take 10% of the total post cost.

Where (are the competitors): UberEats and Taskrabbit are our closest competitors. They all have the issue of quick expansion as they have an actual employee system.\n======\nzelloworld\nIf a customer gets to know a good service provider via you, e.g. a house\ncleaner, they are likely to create a direct relationship with him/her, and\nskip going" +"\nDisney Is Building the Streaming App to Rule Them All - cosmerewit\nhttps://www.pcmag.com/article/357835/disney-is-building-the-streaming-app-to-rule-them-all\n======\nscrumbledober\nIf Disney goes through with their acquisition of FOX, they will control a 60%\nshare of Hulu. Is there a chance of Disney using the platform they've built to\nmake Hulu not suck anymore and put their content there, or will they simply\ncontrol two of the major streaming services at the same time? It seems that\nHulu would be a much better competitor to Netflix if they had the Disney\ncatalogue, but I doubt there will be very many people who will not get the\nDisney service for their children simply because they already pay for Hulu." +"\nReclaiming Software Engineering (2010) - akkartik\nhttp://www.zerobanana.com/essays/reclaiming-software-engineering\n======\ntwic\n> Yet so long as we are developing software within a social context, where the\n> finished artefact has users other than its designers, we can scarcely escape\n> the conclusion that what we are doing is engineering.\n\nThis conclusion is far from inexorable.\n\nThere are kinds of making other than engineering. Carpentry is not\nengineering. Cooking is not engineering. Gardening is not engineering. Sewing\nis not engineering.\n\nAll of these things involve making artefacts for users other than their\ndesigners, within a social context no less. All of them require specialist\nknowledge and tools, involve the application of judgment learned from years of\nexperience, and give rise to communities of practice which codify their agreed\nknowledge in books. They even have formal certifications.\n\nBefore you can declare that making software is (or can be) engineering, you\nhave to be able to explain why those things aren't.\n\nMy tentative theory is that engineering has rigorous ways to check whether a\ndesign will work before it is manufactured, and even before it is drawn in\ndetail. A civil engineer can use known formulae to check if a bridge span of\ngiven dimensions" +"\nBad Times in Tech? Not If You\u2019re a Startup Serving Other Startups - SREinSF\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/technology/brex-start-up.html\n======\nnlh\nI will say, for what it\u2019s worth, that the customer experience of using Brex is\nreally quite outstanding (my current startup is a customer.)\n\nThey\u2019ve figured out things that in hindsight just seem so obvious to a good\nUX, and yet we\u2019ve all been so trained to have low expectations from the\nmediocre service traditional banks/corporate card providers offer that it\nseems outstanding.\n\nFrom limited experience - the fact that virtual cards are first-party\ncitizens, the helpful text messages you get (which include a warning the first\ntime you use a card physically, instant text records when you use a card\nphysically, the ability to photograph receipts and send them back to that same\ntext phone #, and and and.)\n\nAmerican Express (my only other corporate card comparison) of course _could_\noffer this stuff, but it\u2019s just not in their DNA because, well, they haven\u2019t\nhad to innovate because they had what amounts to a monopoly on corporate\nspending cards. And I should note - Amex ties the credit on those cards to the\nfounder (requiring a personal guarantee until the company reaches" +"\nWhat Impossible Meant to Feynman - dnetesn\nhttp://nautil.us/issue/68/context/what-impossible-meant-to-feynman\n======\neigenhombre\nHow fortune the author was to have had these interactions with him. Feynman\nwas my greatest hero as an undergrad physics student (largely because of\n\"Surely...\", and the Feynman Lectures) and I was heartbroken when he died\nbefore I could meet him.\n\nAmong other things, he showed again and again how much economy and power was\ngained by attacking problems from different angles, and by building up and\napplying physical intuition, rather than relying solely on brute-force\ncalculation. More importantly, he showed how much fun you could have solving\nhard problems, simply by _playing_ \\-- lessons that I was able to apply well\noutside of physics.\n\n------\noska\nAfter the description of quasicrystals in the submitted piece, I found this\nparagraph on the author's wikipedia page [1] quite interesting:\n\n> Peter J. Lu and Steinhardt discovered a quasicrystalline Islamic tiling on\n> the Darb-e Imam Shrine (1453 A.D.) in Isfahan, Iran constructed from girih\n> tiles. [2] In 2007, they revealed a conceptual breakthrough that enabled\n> early artists to create increasingly complex periodic girih patterns over a\n> period of centuries, culminating in a nearly perfect quasi-crystalline\n> Penrose" +"\n\nShip It Now Is The Best Time Ever To Start An Internet Company - jpirkola\nhttp://blog.socialmedian.com/2009/05/ship_it_now_is_the_best_time_e.html\n\n======\nJakob\n\"Think small. Think cheap. Think fast.\"\n\nI\u2019d like to add \"Fail fast.\" because that\u2019s what you likely will do thinking\n\"cheap\" and \"small\". Enough of this \"it\u2019s so easy\"-posts already.\n\nHe seems to be an intelligent guy but this post has just no content. (Except\nthose 25 occurrences of \"ship it\").\n\n~~~\nsocialmedian\nFail fast, for sure. Give yourself one year to prove it. If you can't prove it\nin a year, move on. There are plenty of other interesting problems to solve.\n\n------\ntybris\nAlso, you might want to offer a compelling product..." +"\n\nKogan Violating GPL - Benjamin_Dobell\nhttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46737250\nKogan refuse to supply source code for GPL licensed software running on Kogan branded Android devices.\n======\nbelorn\nNoted a few other things:\n\nTheir manual/documentations has no mentioning of BSD licensed software. While\nits possible that bsd license is included in paper form with the devices with\nreference to each software package, it is unlikely. As such, 99% sure that\nKogan is violating BSD licensed software too.\n\nKogan is aware that they are using open source software\n([http://www.kogan.com/uk/newsroom/kogan-\nreleases-119-android-...](http://www.kogan.com/uk/newsroom/kogan-\nreleases-119-android-tablet-55/)), as is indicated by their press releases. As\nsuch, if an infringement is found, it likely to be seen as intentionally and\nwillingly regarding that product.\n\nOtherwise, it seems as a common misunderstanding by Kogan in _how_ one provide\nsource code to users. Its not very complicated, but hand waving users towards\nGoogle is not enough. Had the kernel been gplv3, then they could just given\nthe user a link, but since the kernel is gplv2, the options are either a\nwritten offer for minimum 3 years or to include the source code alongside the\nbinaries. GPLv3 changed the license text regarding source distribution because\nthey did not want to still live in 1990s." +"\nLet \u201cQUIPU\u201d organise your research so you spend more time to explore content - biyanisuraj\nhttp://quipu.tilda.ws/\n======\nbiyanisuraj\nThe very best startup ideas tend to be something the founders themselves want,\nthat they can build, and that few others realise are worth doing\n\nRegister your interest for early Beta access at -\n[http://quipu.tilda.ws/](http://quipu.tilda.ws/)\n\nI want to make QUIPU so that knowledge seekers, like myself, can have all the\nexplored content organised, connected & displayed in real time.\n\nNo more time spent on indexing, trying to remember where that statistic came\nfrom, or keeping 50+ tabs open to avoid dropping a line of inquiry.\n\nClear representations of research information can be created from the\n\u201cdigitally exhaustive information\u201d we create when combined with powerful\nartificial intelligence to do the organising.\n\nPlease us know what you think about it." +"\nIntroducing The New IFTTT - johns\nhttp://blog.ifttt.com/post/25506427600/thenewifttt\n======\namolsarva\nNote to hardware hackers: IFTTT almost certainly started with some musings\nabout \"wouldn't it be cool if I could make my household X trigger web API Y\"\nand for many entrepreneurs would have led to a startup about smart gadgets.\nThere have been many over the years.\n\nThe very clever thing about IFTTT is they sat and cheaply began the process of\nbuilding the web layer.\n\nI like it!\n\nWeMo is likely the first of many many gadgets and interfaces where they can\naccept links.\n\nNow they wait and see how quickly the China Ecosystem and the gadget makers\nlike Belkin deliver lots of nice cheap easy trigger devices.\n\nBugLabs...Nest...Dropcam...LG Smart Refrigerators...Toyota Prius...\n\n~~~\nasmithmd1\nIt would be more exciting if they had an API.\n\nI don't see any way to add channels - either a hardware one or a software one.\nYou could use RSS but that is it. And I don't see any way to add an action.\nThey could very easily add a \"web hook\" URL for a custom action.\n\nI get really annoyed when I see sites like this that anoint winners. They\nalready have an API" +"\n\nAsk HN:why do titles get changed? - thijser\n\nIt seems that the title of HN posts get changed to the website title after a post gets reasonably popular. This often loses the point the poster wants to make (for instance today with the Manchester website).\nWhy is this? If it's automatic, shouldn't it be turned off?\n======\nbrudgers\nTitles should not editorialize.\n\n~~~\nBoyWizard\nBut they should give context, which is often\n\na) purpose for posting (ie 'I like the design of this site', or whatever), or\n\nb) context that is inherent in the article but not obvious as a submission (ie\nthe topic of a blog)." +"\nBitcoin\u2019s Technical Flaw - nanzhong\nhttps://medium.com/@nanzhong1/bitcoins-technical-flaw-3569fc0f7c2d\n======\nA2017U1\nThis reads like an ad for a closed source messenger only available in a few\ncountries. Have no idea how its related to bitcoin. Clicks perhaps?\n\nI have plenty of criticisms for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general but\nsome of the claims here are amazingly absurd.\n\nNote to author: I have used a bitcoin wallet with no troubles in China, it has\nbetter uptime in the last decade than Amazon where you worked with\n\"distributed computing systems\", can your messenger app do the same?\n\n> just imagine that the Great Firewall blocks Bitcoin packets for a week,\n> creating a Chinese fork and non-Chinese fork. Then it unblocks. All of a\n> sudden, the non-Chinese fork would disappear. The Bitcoins that went into\n> your wallet six days ago would vanish\n\nThe fact that the author doesn't understand how wrong this is despite\napparently studying Bitcoin as an AWS employee back in 2010 is scary.\n\n~~~\nnanzhong\nI am the author. I'd love to understand your point. Can you give specifics?\nThanks.\n\n~~~\nA2017U1\nYou essentially point to a very large reorganisation and say all the tx's on\nthe global chain will" +"Ask HN: What do you think about Alibaba Cloud? How does it compare to the big 3? - mike_aarons\n======\ndizzydiz\nI\u2019d be surprised if it ever has meaningful impact in the Western world because\nof company policies/ban lists. You can bet with 100% certainty that the CCP\ncalls the shots.\n\nBut on the flip side, for the most part the big 3 can\u2019t sell into China so it\ncan have a commanding lead.\n\nIts growing at over 60% per year in a far less competitive environment than\nthe big 3. Tencent (mostly focused on gaming) is also competing there.\n\nFull disclosure: I invested in BABA today because of the above.\n\n~~~\nmike_aarons\nVery interesting, thanks!" +"\nIn Nomine Jobs, et Woz, et Spiritus Schiller - Hagelin\nhttp://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/177715198/confessional\n======\nblasdel\nI adore Merlin, but you'd have to be pretty epically stupid to upgrade _all 5\nof your computers_ on day zero of the release before realizing that your\nshit's broken. While you're supposed to be writing a productivity book. When\nyou knew that the release has no new features that affect you.\n\nI guess someone has to lead the troll brigade (deserved or not) for every\nmajor release of every major platform.\n\n~~~\nmerlinmann\n\"Epically stupid\" and \"leading the troll brigade?\"\n\nThank God you adore me, blasdel.\n\n~~~\nblasdel\nIt's better that you're the principal complainer at the moment than any of the\nusual suspects -- like the greybeards at macintouch (still pining for OS9) or\nthe denizens of any of the Mac rumor forums (oh no my themes and Haxies!) or\nany of the surviving BBEdit users. You're doing a pretty good job of playing\nthe goat on Twitter too.\n\nGiven your usual quality of effort and the normal tone of your writing, it\ntook me several readings to realize that you weren't taking the piss!\n\nDid you _really_ upgrade _every_ Mac you come in contact" +"\nTikTok and Microsoft\u2019s Clock - joshus\nhttps://500ish.com/tiktok-and-microsofts-clock-c4c9fd082b89\n======\nchvid\nWhere is EU in this embarrassment?\n\nSuppose Margrethe Vestager called and said TikTok, you are banned unless you\nlet a \"very european\" company take over your business? And by the way. We\nwould like a cut.\n\nAnd would the US still being able to say \"national security\" if it was fully\nowned by German business running on servers in some Swiss mountain?\n\n~~~\nlovetocode\nBecause the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should\nbe playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese\nspammers already.\n\n~~~\nFooBarWidget\nIf the threat of Tiktok gathering data is so real, then isn't a much better\nsolution, to pressure Google and Apple into improving their security models?\nThat way, _nobody_ can spy on your phone anymore. Or do you think Tiktok is\nthe only and last threat there will ever exist?\n\nBut nobody's talking about actual solutions. All this looks more like a witch\nhunt to me.\n\n~~~\nfr2null\nI don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really\nblock on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask\ncontacts, it" +"\nLet\u2019s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it - chrismealy\nhttp://cityobservatory.org/lets-not-demonize-driving/\n======\nfrgtpsswrdlame\nAs much as the idea is nice I think it's just a political non-starter. Making\nthis about \"personal responsibility\" is a pretty see-through cover. This is a\nstick and a stick wielded by \"liberal elites who live in cities\" against rural\ndrivers and mega-commuters won't work in this environment.\n\nPeople will move to cities and use roads less if cities are affordable. If we\ncan lower rent in the city, automobile usage will go down on its own. This is\nwhere the fight should be pointed I believe.\n\n~~~\nnnq\n> People will move to cities\n\nWhy tf would you want this? As an European, what I _loved_ about US was that\npeople don't like being all crammed up in small, old and disgusting cities,\nand they are OK with long commutes as the price for their \"house with lawn\"...\n\nPopulation _dispersal_ should be _encouraged!_ It dramatically increases\nquality of life, and if you take a look at google maps you'll see that the\nEarth is full of unused space.\n\nYeah, energy and climate change and all that are serious problems... but let's\nsolve _so that_ having" +"\n\nShow HN: Open-Source Anonymous Encrypted TLS+OTR Messaging Written in Go - RomanPushkin\nhttps://hacktunnel.com\n\n======\nsusi22\nI'm still waiting for the day that somebody does a \"super simple chat\" with NO\ndependencies. Why do they all need REDIS or some kind of persistence? Why not\njust hold it in memory?\n\nIf you really have a use case where persistence & scaling is an issue you're\nlikely not going to use any of those chat servers anyways.\n\n~~~\ndefaultcoder\nOne of authors is here.\n\nRedis saves data to the disk by default but this can be turned off. That's\nwhat we did. GUIDs of connected users are stored in memory with expiration by\nthe 10 min timeout.\n\nI think scalability does not hurt privacy. It's nice to have 10 servers with\n40GB memory instead of one with 4GB. Connections between servers can be\nencrypted with TLS.\n\n------\nthomasjudge\n\"How safe is my tunnel?\n\nYour tunnel remains safe until your password or our servers are not\ncompromised.\"\n\nuhhh...\n\n~~~\nRomanPushkin\nFair enough, huh :) Actually, it's mentioned because we wanted to note it\nsomehow - it's always better to have this set up on your own server\n\n~~~\nkodablah\nI haven't looked deeply" +"\n\nF-Secure will provide Dropbox-like storage [summary in comments] - sampo\nhttp://www.digitoday.fi/data/2013/09/12/f-secure-haastaa-googlen-ja-dropboxin--jakaa-ilmaiseksi-salattua-tallennustilaa/201312767/66\n\n======\nsampo\nSummary (as the link is in Finnish):\n\n\\- F-Secure, a Finnish company, will provide cloud storage like Dropbox and\nGoogle Drive\n\n\\- located in Finland, 256bit AES encrypted\n\n\\- first 5 Gb are for free\n\n\\- virus scanning for stored files\n\n\\- will open at the end of October\n\n------\nhannibal5\nThe content is encrypted with 256-bit AES algorithm and the content is divided\ninto three different parts stored in different locations. One stores the\nfiles, second stores the metadata and the third stores the user information.\n\nThe data centers are located in two Finnish cities F-Secure does not reveal." +"\n\nAsk HN: Good blog or publication that covers startups (both tech and non-tech)? - stevenj\n\nOne(s) that primarily just cover new products, companies, etc.

Not general industry news, etc.\n======\ntemplaedhel\n covers weekend projects, hackdays, and other\n\"hacker culture\" such things. It is not updated daily, more like weekly, but\nstill good to have in an rss reader somewhere.\n\n~~~\nthehodge\nThanks for the mention :), I'm trying to update daily but my computer died\nwhilst I was in Wales and I couldn't write posts on my iPad ;)\n\n------\nevancaine\n and sister site \n\n------\naspir\nInc.com\n\n~~~\nstevenj\nInc.com covers a lot of general industry news.\n\nI'm thinking more like the \"Show HN: Please Rate My Startup/Web App...\" type\nof posts that reveal tech products, or a local business that just opened, or a\nnew, tangible product that just launched (and is ready to be purchased and\nshipped).\n\n------\nfrankydp\nwww.mixergy.com\n\n~~~\nstevenj\nIf I remember correctly, Mixergy primarily takes a look back on successful\nproducts and companies.\n\nI'd like to read/learn about products and companies that are just becoming\n\"real\". Ones that have just shipped." +"\n\nThe Crazy World of Code - hobonumber1\nhttp://tilomitra.com/the-crazy-world-of-code/\n\n======\nSu-Shee\nWell, this kind of insanity made me step back 10 steps and invest some time\n(almost a year by now) into the \"classics\" so to speak.\n\nInspired by Crockford's talks in which he mentioned a couple of times the lack\nof history and historical knowledge among developers, I suddenly remembered\nthat I got an education in humanities before I even went into programming and\nreally did start with the classics - Greeks and Romans and Philosophy - and I\nasked myself why on earth I never really considered doing something similar in\ncomputing. (Someone called it in some article I've sadly forgotten the Oxford\nway - you learn Latin and Math and from there you can learn anything anyways\n;)\n\nSo I decided to ignore all fashions, new things, upcoming frameworks and such\nfor some time until I got what I would consider (totally subjectively) a solid\nfoundation (not there yet, will probably take another year at least) of\nknowledge.\n\nI personally decided to define \"classics\" along the lines of \"knowing Unix and\nits history and concepts well\" (re-learning shell and commandline wizardry on\ntop), \"understand decent C and Assembler\"," +"\n\nAsk HN: Do you stretch before coding? - nerdfiles\n\nFollowing http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html I have always wondered by there exists stigma/myth/folk-theory surrounding \"popping\" one's knuckles, or more generally, engaging in Asperger-esque self-stimulatory behavior (stressed finger-flipping, simply stretching fingers, rhythmic finger counting, talking out loud to one's self ((vocal stimming)), toe-walking). At the same time, I find that I cannot apprehend my hands and the rest of my body for use of vim/bash/coding/etc. unless I stretch well. (Coding, for me, is a full body experience, where music is also by and large essential.)

Holding a proper posture seems to, as a \"low-cost body hack\" strengthen the fluidity of thought. At various points throughout the day I notice that when I accidentally in engage in self-stimulatory behavior, either for need to reach a raised item on a shelf, before playing an instrument, even curiouser listening to noise music, and on, \"sharpening my tongue\" (guided vocal stimming: re-enacting preferred comedians), I find that various modes of thought are more readily accessible.\n======\nxackpot\nI don't stretch before coding per se, because I am usually standing while\ncoding, so I am already alert. but I do stretches in between coding sessions,\nlike may be every 20-30 minutes." +"\nBeijing struggles to defuse anger over China's P2P lending crisis - lnguyen\nhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-lenders-p2p-insight/beijing-struggles-to-defuse-anger-over-chinas-p2p-lending-crisis-idUSKBN1KX077\n======\n21\nIn the last 5 years retail Chinese investors had massive losses in bitcoin,\ngold, the local stock market, bitcoin again, now P2P.\n\nIs it fair to say that they rush from one investment fad to the next,\ntypically buying the top? This is how it looks from far away, can someone with\nlocal knowledge comment?\n\n[http://static.atimes.com/uploads/2015/07/retail-\ninvestors.jp...](http://static.atimes.com/uploads/2015/07/retail-\ninvestors.jpg)\n\n~~~\nSuoDuanDao\nI remember a significant anecdote about Chinese assumptions when a Chinese-\nCanadian I was dating explained she always goes to busy restaurants on the\nassumption that a lot of customers means they have good food. The western bias\nis towards being the first to discover an unknown restaurant with great food\nthat just hasn't had time to build a reputation, but that's not how a typical\nChinese person would approach the restaurant problem.\n\nAbstracting that decision-making style to retail investing in a country with a\nbias towards savings, and the nature of Chinese equity markets makes a lot of\nsense.\n\n~~~\nsremani\n>> always goes to busy restaurants on the assumption that a lot of customers\nmeans they have good food.\n\nIt is actually good" +"\nIntel announces Cascade Lake Xeons: 48 cores and 12-channel memory per socket - rbanffy\nhttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/intel-announces-cascade-lake-xeons-48-cores-and-12-channel-memory-per-socket/\n======\nSantiagoElf\nDesperate move by Intel. They are stuck with Cascade Lake until 2021, when\ntheir 'new' architecture will be available. In order this Xeon to be under\n300W TDP, they disabled the Hyper Threading and when they benchmark vs AMD\nEpyc they disabled AMD's SMT. Just wow.\n\n~~~\neinr\nNot only that, but they also apparently recompiled Linpack with the Intel\ncompiler -- which is notorious for favoring Intel chips -- before running the\nbenchmarks. Some really shady stuff going on here.\n\n~~~\ngeezerjay\nOn the other hand, these shady practices are a testament to AMD's technical\nsuperiority, as the incumbent is showing himself to be very desperate to react\nalthough it has absolutely no answer to AMD's new line of products.\n\n~~~\nKoshkin\nAMD does not have techinal superiority, as Intel cores have better single-\nthread performance. Look at the recent low-end i3-8100 - it is an amazing\nchip.\n\n~~~\napi\nSingle-threaded performance is a toss up and depends on work load. Overall AMD\nbeats them on price/performance and multithreaded performance, which matter\nmore for everything but some games and a few not" +"\n\nBitrig 1.0 Released \u2013 OpenBSD fork - chrismsnz\nhttp://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.bitrig.devel/6\n\n======\nhhw\nThere was a discussion about this on the OpenBSD misc mailing archives back in\n2012:\n[http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2](http://marc.info/?t=133961305400003&r=1&w=2)\n\nTheo's initial response to the thread, which may help illuminate the\nsituation, was:\n\n\"Except for the fact that it is bullshit.\n\nThey started the fork because they got kicked out because one developer\n(Marco) hired 5 other developers for his startup company, and attempted to\nhire around 10 other developers in a sneaky and underhanded way. They were\ntold, oh i forget they were \"asked\", to not tell anyone else in OpenBSD that\nthis was happening, probably because people \"including Theo\" would be upset.\n\nFunny thing is, I've never been upset about the 20+ OpenBSD and ex-OpenBSD\ndevelopers who now work for google.\n\nPreviously, many of those developers were in critical positions in the\ndevelopment team. As they were suddenly hired with such terms and conditions,\nthey became more scarce in OpenBSD -- perhaps because they suddenly got real\nbusy with work, but also to avoid telling others that this was happening.\nVarious projects lagged. To avoid telling a lie, they instead chose to not\ntell the truth. It had effects. It was" +"\nAnybody Can Fire This 'Locked' Smart Gun with $15 Worth of Magnets - kevination\nhttps://www.wired.com/story/smart-gun-fire-magnets/\n======\nadvisedwang\nThe range extension and lock circumvention is bad, but only weakens back to a\nregular handgun. The jamming is more scary to me as it makes the product\nactively worse than if it wasn't smart at all.\n\n~~~\nalex-\nI could imagine some firearm owners being willing to trade 100% reliability to\nprevent a casual accident.\n\nI imagine some firearm sales are for more recreational purposes.\n\n~~~\ndogma1138\nThis isn't any more likely to prevent negligent discharge than existing\nsafeties.\n\nBasic fire arms etiquette is to treat any firearm as loaded and ready to fire\nunless it's been explicitly cleared.\n\nIf you do not use guns for self defense then keeping them clear and keeping\nammo separate is much easier and safer.\n\nAny type of safety can fail and relying on it is just how you get some of\nthese accidents.\n\n------\narielweisberg\nThe description makes it sound like if you are firing weak hand (or strong\nhand) you might be outside the range of the watch?\n\nThey say \"just a few inches\" which implies less than a foot. That's not going\nto" +"\nA $35 keyboard for children transformed me into a novelist - danso\nhttps://onezero.medium.com/this-35-keyboard-for-children-transformed-me-into-a-novelist-436a55370ee5\n======\nbenjohnson\nThe Japanese have modern devices like this - this one is about $250 and had a\nE-ink display and a folding keyboard. You can put the keyboard in English mode\n- a few keys are in odd places but bearable. It's increased my output by\nseveral orders of magnitude.\n\n[https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/](https://www.kingjim.co.jp/pomera/dm30/)\n\n~~~\ninyorgroove\nThere is also the Freewrite, its a little expensive but is targeted to English\nspeakers: [https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)\n\n~~~\nDigory\nBeautiful, but $400 is steep for a monotasker. I'd gladly let students use\nthese in a class, though, as an alternative to notepads.\n\nWhich probably says something about the rise of keyboards and the fall of\nhandwriting; I get that ASCII is more useful than paper, but $400 buys a lot\nof luxurious pens and paper.\n\n~~~\nBolexNOLA\nProduces a lot of lost pens and paper in waste bins though!\n\n~~~\nsplintercell\nCheck out the fountain pen thread from last week.\n\n~~~\ncarterschonwald\nLink please ? :)\n\nGranted I\u2019m a huge user of fountain pens and note books already :)\n\n~~~\nsplintercell\nThere you go:\n\n[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497259)\n\n------\nJoblessWonder\nI have a very special place in" +"\nMaybe we could tone down the JavaScript - _frog\nhttps://eev.ee/blog/2016/03/06/maybe-we-could-tone-down-the-javascript/\n======\nPxtl\nThe Twitter page is a perfect example of why we use JavaScript for this stuff:\nbecause full-page loads just to hide a div is a shitty user experience. Scroll\npositions jump around, you've made a client-side action into a server one,\netc.\n\nThe whole of html is full of these. Let's be blunt: it's a terrible platform,\njust as JavaScript's DOM API is terrible. Everything about the web is bad, but\nwe make it good thanks to the combined might of the computing industry.\n\nJavaScript's a mediocre language being used to pave over the weaknesses of a\nlayout engine that can't centre things vertically and can't navigate without\nslow server interactions unless you want to confuse the user with one long\npage full of #anchors.\n\n~~~\ndelan\nWith progressive enhancement, Twitter could provide basic functionality with\nfull page loads and the like, and use JavaScript to replace these with a\nbetter user experience.\n\n------\nmattkahl\nThe \"You name a critical .js bundle something related to ads\" point is\nsomething toward which I'm particularly unsympathetic. The fact that most ad\nblockers (a) are whitelist-based and (b) contain blunt-edge/naive\nimplementations" +"\nLily is a hybrid OO+function language I've been building for nearly five years - jesserayadkins2\nhttp://github.com/jesserayadkins/lily\n======\ndozzie\n...and which is better/different than OCaml, because...?\n\n~~~\njesserayadkins2\nLily's made entirely in plain C, and thus it's easier to include as part of\nyour program. Maybe you'd like to run some script from your program and\nprovide some program variables/functions to Lily. You can do that. Now, Lily\nisn't currently totally ready for embedding, but the important parts are\nthere: It doesn't read global variables, and it has a single entry/exit point\nwhen you call it.\n\nYou can also use Lily as a templating language. The support for tagging is\nbuilt into the language, instead of being added to it.\n\nOne of Lily's strengths is that, unlike other scripting languages, it takes a\nvery, very low amount of memory to boot (10K). That makes it idea for,\neventually, truly embedding and being actually useful as a scripting language\nfor whatever you might be making.\n\nI don't know too much about OCaml, so I can't give a good, complete\ncomparison. But Lily's syntax and feel is more inspired by OO languages, with\nthe functional part being more about collections and chainability.\n\n~~~" +"\n\nAsk HN: Advice for those getting started in the Web Industry? - danw\n\nIf you were starting out in the web industry again, what advice would you give yourself?

Or if you're just getting started, what would you like to know?\n======\ndanw\nI'd have given myself three tips:\n\n \n \n * Learn constantly. Read books, blog, tweets, attend events and network.\n * Build things. Apply what you've learnt and constantly build things. Either at work or as personal projects. Don't worry if the things you built are crap or pointless or un-monetizable.\n * Share. Constantly share what you've learnt and built. Help others. Join the community and participate. You could be the best developer ever but it won't matter if nobody knows about you and your work.\n\n------\nvaksel\nStop being a perfectionist, build something and get it out there as soon as\npossible. Don't waste time making sure everything is perfect. Better to lose a\nfew people who get annoyed, than lose the 2-3 months w/o any users\n\n------\nblender\nAlthough the first rule of a startup is build something people want (after PG)\nmore and more that something should solve some \"serious\" problem (after\nO'Reilly).\n\nPlease - no more social" +"\nRecovering Atari ST ASIC Designs - walkingolof\nhttp://www.chzsoft.de/asic-web/\n======\nwalkingolof\nAtari's chip company Styra (from the article) got me to search a bit and its\nonly mentioned on 3 sites according to google, and this goldmine for an Atari\nfan was one of them:\n\n[http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/tramel_technology.html](http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/tramel_technology.html)\n\n------\nAnnatar\nThis is amazing! Time to fire up my Atari Falcon again (anyone out there\nwilling to sell a CT63?)\n\nThese schematics could be used to implement the entire Atari STE's or Falcon\n030's in a single FPGA. In phase two, new chips could be added, or existing\nchips enhanced (Blitter with texel and shading support, anyone?) The best part\nis, as the Amiga 600 Vampire II accelerator proved, the FPGA implementation\ncould be anywhere from ten to 50 times faster and cheaper than the original\nhardware![1] The possibilities are endless with these schematics...\n\n[1]\n[https://youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk)\n\n~~~\ncmrdporcupine\nIt's worth pointing out that the entire Atari ST has been already done in a\nsingle FPGA. See the MiST project:\n[http://harbaum.org/till/mist/index.shtml](http://harbaum.org/till/mist/index.shtml)\n\nI'm sure there are things to be learned from the ASIC designs that could\nimprove the GLUE/MMU/Blitter/Shifter etc. VHDL. But they already work really\nwell.\n\nThe rest of the Atari ST is off the" +"\n\nMinecraft Environmental Lighting Experiment - rutherfj\nhttp://blog.taptonics.com/post/44803397320/minecraft-environmental-lighting-experiment\nA demonstration of an iPad app that interfaces with the Phillips Hue LED lightbulbs to provide environmental lighting synced with the Minecraft day/night cycle.\n======\nqdot76367\nThis kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue\nbeing the newest in a line of lighting control systems.\n\nYears ago, they were peddling the amBX line, which was a set of lights, desk\nvibrators, and fans (yes, as in like, desk fans that blow in your face) that\nwould create an immersive environment for games. Of course, very few games\npicked it up (we worked on it a bit for Second Life, and I did some silly\nthings with it, super mario bros, and alcohol:\n). amBX ended up being mostly a\nfailure, despite having fuck off HUGE booths on the gdc expo floor for at\nleast 3 years running (Who else remembers the huge black blob? Great as a\n\"meet me near [large obvious thing]\" place. :) ).\n\nPhilips ended up either spinning or selling off amBX. It's still around as a\nset of crappy LED lights that burn out quickly (?!) and have crap for contrast\nand color" +"\nTime to fork the FSF - pjhyett\nhttp://larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/time-to-fork-the-fsf/\n======\nsgentle\nI don't get it, personally. Yes, Stallman's a loon - although as an aside I\nthink that every good movement needs its loons. Who's going to say \"you know\nwhat? I believe in Free Software so much that I will use nothing else, and\npublicly and harshly declare that anyone doing otherwise is a moron and a\ntraitor to the future of humanity\"? Anyone who is willing to sacrifice the\nusefulness of the last 30 years of proprietary tech to make a point has to be\na bit barmy. But who else will make that point? All progress depends on\nunreasonable men.\n\nAnd I agree that it would be helpful to have a moderate voice in Free\nSoftware. I use a Mac - sorry, it's really nice to use and I code a lot. I\nlike my Kindle - sorry, it's better than the others and I read a lot. I live\nand work with proprietary software, but I believe in Free Software too. WebKit\nis popular because of Apple and Google. OS X is the most popular BSD, and the\nmost popular consumer Unix. Non-free and free can and" +"\nInterview With the Man Who Could Destroy Photography - nickb\nhttp://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/06/exclusive-inter.html\n======\nryanmahoski\nI've never seen such hype. Does anyone actually think \"the possibilities are\nendless,\" that this device \"is a prankster's dream\" and \"could destroy\nphotography\"? I am skeptical of the physics described but since I'm not a\ndigicam expert I will just have to trust von Bismarck solved an apparent\nlatency problem. (When my digicam flashes, the fulgerator has to receive that\ninput and respond with its own flash, all before my shutter closes.) Ambient\nand direct lighting would both have to be below normal daytime levels and the\nsubject needs to be dark enough to contrast the fulgerator's light. I wish\nthis guy all the luck due a man caught adulterating vacation photos but I\ndon't see how he has developed a viable tool. Maybe if I followed his \u00fcber\noptics hack, I'd understand the secret implications of his toy.\n\n~~~\ngaius\n\"(When my digicam flashes, the fulgerator has to receive that input and\nrespond with its own flash, all before my shutter closes\"\n\nThis really isn't a problem. People have been using on-camera flashes to\ntrigger studio lighting for decades now. A flash is actually between" +"\nBuilding a Home Lab Beginners Guide - ashitlerferad\nhttps://haydenjames.io/home-lab-beginners-guide-hardware/\n======\nm0xte\nI had a fairly large home lab once. I had a fully topped out SPARCserver 1000E\nand a disk enclosure in my bedroom. I also once lived with an E450 on the\nkitchen table for a month. But they\u2019re noisy as hell, inconvenient, expensive\nto keep running and expensive to feed with power and take up a lot of room and\nthus are not compatible with family and general sanity over time. They become\nneedy balls and chains.\n\nSo roll on to now I\u2019m using a silent build Ryzen windows desktop with 64Gb of\nRAM and a couple of mundane SSDs that I fire up VMs in virtualbox as required.\nAt night it gets turned off. I\u2019ve got a $5 digitalocean box that runs all my\npersistent linux stuff. If I want to play with networks it\u2019s done with GNS3.\nOffice 365 runs my email and all my stuff is sync\u2019ed with onedrive and a\ncouple of offline SSDs occasionally when I get nervous. My network is the\nfritzbox my ISP gave me plugged into the back of the desktop via Ethernet.\nThat\u2019s it!\n\nMy life is better for" +"\n\nRails vs. Django - kyro\n\nJust curious, and I want to see which framework I should pursue more aggressively.

So, how about pros/cons of each.\n======\nSwellJoe\nDeployment of Rails sucks.\n\nDjango is far better thought out, and can be deployed in a very sane manner. A\nfleet of Mongrels is just an embarrassingly bad way to handle concurrency. \"I\nknow, let's write a crappy barely functional web server, spawn a metric ass\nton of them, and then balance between them with a proxy. It'll be most leet\nand super fast! We'll call it a Best Practice. It'll be awesome.\" In fact,\nit's fragile, doesn't scale very well, and is complicated to configure. It's\nalso a huge distraction from solving the problem in a sane way--people seem to\nthink \"deploying Rails\" is solved by this and Capistrano, when really, it's\njust a new stack of problems.\n\nOtherwise Rails kicks ass, and I like Ruby better than Python (but I'm a perl\nmonger, so I might be brain-damaged into not seeing the beauty of Python). But\nI do tend to feel like Django is being written by grownups who've got years of\ndevelopment experience, while the Rails folks are making it up" +"\n\nTesting HTTP caching in Go - santiaago\nhttp://www.sanarias.com/blog/215TestingHTTPcachinginGo\n\n======\nalimoeeny\nThe article is very good, I read it all the way to the end and learned quite a\nfew things. But the title is just a bit misleading, it is more like \"test\ncoverage in go, with an example using http cache\". Thanks for writing and\nsharing.\n\n~~~\nartifaxx\nThat is very true, but at least the article has links to the previous\ntutorials that fill out the background of the topic.\n\n------\njzelinskie\nSerious question: is properly handling the \"Not Modified \" status code really\nconsidered caching or is there a better name? Maybe client-side caching? HTTP\ncaching in my mind is associated with something like varnish.\n\n~~~\ngarfij\nYes, that along with dealing with Last-Modified, If-Not-Modified, ETag, and\nother similar HTTP Headers is what is meant by HTTP Caching.\n\nFrom what I can tell Varnish uses these same concepts to do what they do\n(caching HTTP reverse proxy).\n\nSee\n\n* [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7234#section-1](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7234#section-1)\n\n* [http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec13.html](http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec13.html)\n\n* [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Caching_FA...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Caching_FAQ)" +"\nWhat's Up with Those Voices in Your Head? - lermontov\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/books/review/voices-within-charles-fernyhough.html\n======\ncairo_x\nI find when reading fiction, or certain kinds of literature (not including\navant guard lit), using an inner voice is vital to get the full meter and\nrhythm. Then with slowing down my thoughts -- self talk -- rational thinking,\nhaving an inner voice helps too.\n\nWhen reading non-fiction I can more easily drift into a sub-vocal whisper, to\nnothing at all speed read, skipping over to points I'm interested in, going\nback over points, etc. I suspect this is why a lot of non-fiction has\nstandards and formats and certain clich\u00e9s that make visual comprehension less\nintensive.\n\nA friend of mine said she had no inner voice at all.\n\nI've noticed when using Ketamine that I can do this sub-mental-vocal speed\nreading incredibly well for certain kinds of avant guard literature or\nphilosophy lit, like Camus and David Foster Wallace, or Pyncheon, where the\nvoice can change from chapter to chapter -- or rather the content is very info\ndense.\n\nI had great trouble 'getting' Hunter S. Thompson before I'd ever heard him\nspeak. When I heard his voice it suddenly all made sense. Same for" +"\n\nShow HN: Movienr - Discover Movies You Will Actually Enjoy - Made with Meteor - ccan\nhttp://www.movienr.com\n\n======\nUdo\nI quite like it!\n\nMy criticism is that after a while movies that I already marked as \"liked\"\nstill appear in the Discover tab. By the same token, simplify the 5 different\nratings modes into at most 3:\n\n \n \n - liked it\n - dislike(d) it\n - put it on the \"to watch\" list\n \n\nThe rationale for this being that I'm not going to rate all the things I\nwatched with 0-10 stars, and if I heart an entry that should train the filter\nand it should imply that I already watched it.\n\nI get that you want as much data as possible about who watched and liked what,\nbut if it's tedious to provide all that detail people won't do it.\n\n------\njs7\nDoes it just show everyone the same stuff? Or is it personalised to my\nratings?" +"\n\nThaler: Recipes for Ruin, in the Gulf or on Wall St. - tptacek\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13view.html?hpw\n\n======\ntptacek\nRichard Thaler is a behavioral economist at UChicago, and a prolific author.\nHe wrote _Nudge_ with Cass Sunstein at Harvard Law, which is an interesting\nbut dry book on incentives.\n\nI caught this on Marginal Revolution (which is to blogs what The Economist is\nto magazines, namely, something I subscribe to because I feel I must) and\nthought it was interesting.\n\nNutshell: we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We can ask companies\nto insure themselves (either through actual insurance or through heavy\ntaxation) for the harm they might cause. But we don't know how to calculate\nthe costs of future events, which companies will always argue are very\nunlikely anyways. Meanwhile, there's little evidence that being forced to\ncarry insurance would cause companies to evince better judgement.\n\nOn the flip side, we could expose companies to uncapped liability for the\ndamages they cause. But then you run into the inability of companies to pay,\nor worse, the restructuring of industries to ensure that the companies who\nprofit the most from, say, drilling are never the ones actually doing the\ndrilling." +"\n\nAmazon Taking Down Erotica, Removing From Kindles - sahaj\nhttp://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-in-book-banning-business.html\n\n======\nghshephard\nTo be clear, they are currently targeting \"Incest\" erotica. The irony, of\ncourse, is that Amazon's Television Commercial features a women on the beach\nreading her kindle, and the story on her kindle, is about a boy who has sex\nwith his stepmother. Admittedly, not erotica, but still ironic.\n\nAmazon should feel free to yank whatever it wants off its bookshelves (and, in\nfact, should probably be a bit more discerning given some of the recent crap\nthey've been selling) - but, I don't know if they should be sending their\ncustomers _already purchased_ books into the memory hole.\n\n~~~\nflipbrad\nYou didn't purchase a book. You licensed an ebook. Big difference, in Amazon's\nmind.\n\n~~~\nAgentConundrum\nAnd that, in a nutshell, is why I don't really want to buy an eReader. They\njust seem too restrictive.\n\nMy girlfriend and I occasionally share books (usually she borrows mine), but\nmy understanding is that the books you \"buy\" are licensed only to a single\ndevice, and you can only share a book _one time_ , and even then only if the\npublisher allows it.\n\nI could be misunderstanding things," +"\nJudge in Apple Case Seen as Unfazed by Stress, Even a Plane Crash - pavornyoh\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/technology/judge-in-apple-case-seen-as-unfazed-by-stress-even-a-plane-crash.html?ref=technology&_r=0\n======\nbonniemuffin\n...yes, but does the judge understand technology? \"Unfazed by stress\" doesn't\nseem like a very relevant trait. \"Judge has aptitude for understanding the\nnuances of encryption\" would be a much more relevant story.\n\n~~~\naustinjp\nMy personal, anecdotal, highly limited experience of judges is that their\nparticular skill is to cut through technical complexity and fit it to the law.\nThey are briefed by technical experts if there are facets of a case that they\ncannot reasonably be expected to grok.\n\nThere are of course pros and cons to this.\n\nOne con of a technical expert being a \"judge\" is that they cannot see the wood\nfor the trees. Actual judges should, ideally, avoid this situation. Mileage\nvaries, obviously." +"\nWhy now is the best time to study quantum computing (2014) - Phithagoras\nhttp://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00011\n======\ndheera\nAlthough I have studied the basics of quantum computing, I don't think it will\nbecome necessary for computer scientists to know the gory physics details of\nquantum computers. All they will need to know is that a certain function that\nis normally O(n^2) now has a magical implementation that is O(n), and another\nfunction that is normally exponential is now polynomial.\n\nQuantum computers will likely manifest themselves as co-processors, and you'll\nhave a nice well-abstracted API to access those implementations within\ntraditional languages, i.e.\n\n \n \n #!/usr/bin/env python4\n from quantum import qc\n qc.init(device=\"/dev/quantum0\")\n factors = qc.factor(15)\n\n~~~\ns_q_b\nLater in the game, sure. Who's going to build the early toolset? Who's going\nto own it? Will their be a FOSS API, or will we be locked in?\n\nAll of that design infrastructure needs to be built by somebody, and that\nsomebody stands to make a forunate. The tasks you listed are a decent summary\nof the likely eventual outcome.\n\nBut:\n\n\u2022 Who will do the work to create this beautiful API? \u2022 Who will create this\ncoprocessor architecture? \u2022 Will this theoretical stack be built by" +"\n\nComparing Standard ML and OCaml - rohshall\nhttp://adam.chlipala.net/mlcomp/\n\n======\nWilya\nRegarding build systems, ocamlbuild is included with the standard ocaml\ndistribution and gives a high-level interface that is much simpler to use than\nocamldep and friends. Especially when combined with findlib.\n\n~~~\nnrlucas\nYeah, this is really old. I remember seeing it six years ago when I started\nusing OCaml.\n\n------\nbeering\nNothing said about multithreading and parallel processing? Seems like a big\nomission if you're comparing languages.\n\n~~~\nrwmj\nThe user group explicitly rejected multithreading at the OCaml Users\nconference a couple of years back. (There was a working implementation called\noc4mc).\n\nThe reasons were that it will slow down single-threaded performance, and\nthreads as a programming model is not robust (compared to, eg. forking,\nmessage passing, MPI etc). Also actual graphs of 4- and 8-way SMP performance\nshowed pretty poor scaling for real problems, so the benefits aren't that\ngreat compared to going for full MPI, which you have to do for NUMA anyhow.\n\n~~~\nEvbn\nGHC has a compiler flag to enable multi threaded runtime. Why can't OCaml have\nthat? It is a bit rigid to have to build two versions of a binary, but for\nfolks" +"\n\nHire: Equity for talented developer - mikmo\n\nHello,

I'm looking to find an equity partner to help develop an exciting idea for a site. It will be all about community participation with the community choosing and ranking the best ideas/users.

We want a partner with serious enterprise, initiative, creativity and coding skills. I don't know much about hacking but don't think it's a simple job, at least not to do it right. We'll talk in detail about features but community participation, voting and live community activity updates to keep it fresh are a given.

The aim of this project is to help start ups with great ideas, like a lot of the guys on here, to get in front of serious VCs.

I'm in Corporate Finance and have the relationship with VCs, the other partner is a Strategy Consultant at a big firm and now we need a skilled hacker. I think we have the pedigree to make this happen!

Sorry if this is a bad job spec, I'm no expert in hacking.\n======\nowkaye\nPlease post your email address here, or at least put it in your profile, so\npeople can contact you privately instead of posting their own email addresses.\nI'm more than" +"\n\nSquare Closes $200M Series D - misiti3780\nhttp://techcrunch.com/2012/09/17/square-closes-200m-series-d-from-starbucks-citi-rizvi-at-3-25b-valuation/\n\n======\nbane\nSo to the stock-optioned employee what does this mean? Somebody who started\nearly with the company vs somebody who starts after this round? Keeping track\nof the value of options after several rounds seems to be quite complicated.\n\n~~~\nbduerst\nDepends on a few factors.\n\n\\- What is strike price of the option?\n\n\\- What is the expected market value of the company?\n\nIf a company is valued at $1billion dollars and has 10 million shares, then\neach share is expected to be worth $100. This is a rough estimate, and assumes\nthat the valuation accounts for future revenue, violatility, etc.\n\nIf you have options that gives you the right to put (sell) the shares at $150,\nthen you are making $50 on each option, since you can buy your $100 share in\nthe company and sell at $150, guaranteed. 1,000 options would be $50,000\nprofit at that share market price and stock option strike price.\n\nThis means you can expect the option to be worth $50, except that options\ntypically have a date at which the options expire. The price of the option\nchanges relative to this date, and" +"\n\nHow HTML 5 link prefetching can make your site load faster with one line of code - ronnoch\nhttp://keyboardy.com/programming/html5-link-prefetching/\n\n======\nwillwagner\nGoogle already does this prefetch on some search results pages with the top\nresult. For instance, in firefox if you search for \"hacker news\":\n\n\n\nthere is a link element added to prefetch news.ycombinator.com.\n\n \n \n \n \n\nI assume if you aren't careful in your logs, you could be overestimating your\ntraffic.\n\n~~~\ndaleharvey\nwow I certainly didnt realise google were going this\n\nI guess some people with top search results can infer some pretty accurate\nstats from this.\n\n------\nWillyF\nHow will this affect web analytics? Let's say that Google chooses to prefetch\nthe #1 result for any given search term. Will the #1 ranking site's analytics\npackage report a unique visitor for every time that query is searched? If so,\nthat would be a serious problem for those who rely on analytics.\n\n~~~\njeff18\nIt shouldn't affect Google Analytics and other JavaScript based analytics, but\nfrom the article,\n\n* If this becomes popular it has the potential to skew logs and stats. Consider what happens when a bunch of prefetch requests are made to one of your" +"\n\nWebhooks, REST and the Open Web - bpedro\nhttp://apiux.com/2013/09/12/webhooks/\n\n======\nbrissmyr\nWebhooks are in need of some standardisation for sure, so moving towards\nsomething like PuSH is a step in the right direction. However this technology\nhas been around for a while, so whether this will become standard or not\nremains unclear.\n\nPuSH solves a couple annoyances with webhooks that comes to my mind:\n\n\\- Lack of debuggability: the inability to subscribe to events forces me to\nexplicitly set up callback URL(s) on service providers' dashboards or in query\nstrings in requests. IF I managed to set them up correctly, data will come\ncrashing in any day in the future, throwing exceptions, or bouncing on\nunspecified routes. And all these POST catchers and local tunnels developers\nplay with to get this right in the first place.\n\n\\- Ad-hoc verification schemes: Every service comes up with their own way of\nensuring the data originated from their servers. Signature hashes as\n'X-*'-headers, a number of extra fields inside the JSON body, etc.\n\nThere are more, but these two has annoyed me for quite some time.\n\n~~~\njohns\nWe've (Runscope) tried to make debugging better than what you can do with a\nsimple" +"\nGoing All-the-Way with the Client-Server App Concept - yannis\nhttp://peter.michaux.ca/articles/going-all-the-way-with-the-client-server-app-concept\n======\nJoeAltmaier\nI agree -splitting the app into client- and server-side pieces is like cutting\na banana long-ways. Also there's the performance problem. The web link has\nerratic latency resulting in: hesitant response to form entry, lack of hour-\nglass support, unpredictable page updates. When it works its fine; when it\nlags its dang irritating. Worse, its hard to even code the app to accomodate\nlag: the app lags when LOADING the next phase of the app, so \"nobodys home\"\nwhen it lags to even respond to the lag with a progress bar or hourglass or\nwhatever." +"\nAmiato (YC W12) Launches To Bring Big Data A/B Testing With SQL To All - binkert\nhttp://techcrunch.com/2013/03/15/backed-with-2m-ycs-amiato-launches-to-bring-big-data-ab-testing-with-sql-to-all/\n======\ndude_abides\nGreat pitch, but the product and the news article seem to be low on details.\n\nThe \"how it works\" link says that they get read/write access to the data on\ns3, they massage/process the data, and allow queries on it. But I'm confused\nhow this helps in A/B testing.\n\n~~~\nmehulashah\nAB Testing involves (1) changing or deploying a new feature, (2) many times\nmeasuring new properties linked with the feature, and then (3) analyzing the\nresulting user behavior. We help in the analysis process because most tools\nfall short here.\n\nFor example, supposed you add more weapons to promote more battles in an\nonline game to keep players engaged. Say, in addition, you start collecting\nmeasurements about how long battles take. Suddenly, after introducing the\nfeature, the opposite happens: players leave.\n\nMost off-the-shelf AB tools will only tell you whether feature A or feature B\nworked (the \"what\"), but not the \"why.\" It could be that battles are taking\nlonger, so players lose interest without finishing. Or, more battles cause\nplayers to die/lose more, so they leave.\n\nWe let you" +"\nThings I learned from OpenSSH about reading very sensitive files - jsnell\nhttps://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/ReadingSensitiveFilesLessons\n======\ngargravarr\nThere is quite some irony here - I was always taught to code by using standard\nlibraries because they've been tested to destruction and back in ways I'd\nnever be able to work out, and that rolling my own was destined for failure.\nAs far as good practise goes, OpenSSH seems to tick all the right boxes. This\narticle seems to criticise this, but the deeper meaning is that the standard C\nlibrary is not designed with security in mind.\n\nThere's no inherent problem with the approach taken (not like OpenSSL\nreinventing several wheels and causing things like Heartbleed). In fact, the\narticle's conclusion that the OpenSSH team should have rolled their own memory\nmanagement code rather than use tried, tested and approved libraries doesn't\nsound like a good recommendation to me.\n\n~~~\nHerrMonnezza\n> In fact, the article's conclusion that the OpenSSH team should have > rolled\n> their own memory management code rather than use tried, > tested and\n> approved libraries\n\nThat's not the conclusion I draw from the article.\n\nI rather read it as warning that even innocent and quite common" +"\n\nGoogle instant previews - rbarr\nhttp://www.google.com/landing/instantpreviews/\n\n======\nterryjsmith\nI'm beginning to miss Marissa Mayer's axe on things on the main search page. I\nthink Google's primary advantage for a while now has been cleanliness of\nresults (as the difference in relevance between search engines has slimmed);\nthey're opening themselves up to a competitor with a better design/flow by\ncontinuing to cram these \"useful\" items in.\n\n------\nrgrieselhuber\nSo far, it's been one of the goddamndest annoying things I've ever seen on the\nserp.\n\n------\nzachster\nThis has been Snap.com 's competitive advantage for years. I suppose Google\ngave them enough of a head start for them to make something of it if they were\ngoing to. Theirs is certainly more mature though. And they have a JS include\nyou can place on your site to enable this sort of image preview on all\nexternal links.\n\nTheirs customizes the preview type depending on the content. For example,\nlinks to stock information shows a little quote and graph preview.\n\n~~~\nharrybr\nTo call it a \"competitive advantage\" is stretching it a bit. It's a feature,\nthat much is unarguable.\n\nI'd say that the snap.com UI probably falls into the \"Hover and cover\"" +"\nPelorus Jack - asimjalis\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelorus_Jack\n======\nvore\nUnfortunately, as often is with these things, the truth might be less exciting\nthat the legend: [http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/10/pelorus-\njack...](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/10/pelorus-jack-hero-\ndolphin-guided-ships-dangerous-water-early-20th-century/) :(\n\nHowever, if you'd like to savor the magic, the truth and the legend can be one\nand the same: who knows what really happened in 1909, after all :)\n\n~~~\njszymborski\nIs it less wonderful that, in moments of great danger and fear, this dolphin\nwas a symbol of joy and good fortune for the sailors on the ship?\n\nIt's pretty magical to me to think that a dolphin, just doing dolphin things\nand playing in the wake of a giant wooden sea vessel, was enough to see those\nsailors through life-and-death situations.\n\nLittle reminders of good in the world, regardless of whether the reminders\nthemselves are aware of it, can really change things for the better for a\nwhole lot of people.\n\n------\nd_t_w\nPelorus Bridge is the most beautiful swimming spot if you're ever in that part\nof the world. The bridge runs over the river which runs into the sound that\nPelorus Jack was named after.\n\n[https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-\ngo/ma...](https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-\ngo/marlborough/places/pelorus-bridge-scenic-reserve/)\n\n~~~\nIntermernet\nNote to the unwary: If you ever find yourself" +"\nThe Lynx Queue - jsnell\nhttp://www-dyn.cl.cam.ac.uk/~tmj32/wordpress/the-lynx-queue/\n======\npkhuong\nWhy do the authors report performance at O0 and O1?\n\nAFAICT, the experiments are all single socket. There's an important difference\nin coherency overhead for single VS multiple sockets; same for futzing with\npage protection. It also looks like they only tested a single\nproducer/consumer pair. I expect page protection tricks don't scale as nicely\nwhen you have 20+ pairs on two sockets: contention on the page table _and_ IPI\nstorms. The mprotect trick also seems to depend on using small (4K) pages,\nunless you're OK with fairly stale data; probably not ideal for overall app\nperformance.\n\nAlso while they indirectly mention the batching trick of the disruptor (keep a\nreader-local copy of the write index and vice versa), it's not tested\u2026 and\nalso not tested with a forced lag between the reader and the writer. If you\nwant to avoid the ping pong, you can let the reader keep a copy of the\nwriter's write pointer (and update the copy when the reader catches up), and\nartificially make the reader lag behind the writer. That lag gives much\nsimpler code on the hotpath than the MCQueue they mention, which would be" +"\nFacebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it. - slig\nhttp://dashes.com/anil/2011/11/facebook-is-gaslighting-the-web.html\n======\nlbrandy\nI work on the team that generated the warning that seems to be the crux of\nthis post. I am pretty convinced that it is a bug.\n\nHis central theme, though, is a bit misguided. I don't understand why 1) using\nopengraph, or 2) using a like button implies facebook should trust your link\nand whitelist it. Even pages with those integrations can be malicious.\n\nIn this actual case though, the notification link (generated from the\ncommenting widget) seems to malformed and causing it to trip a security check.\nI've pinged a bunch of people about figuring out what is happening and getting\nit fixed. The guy sitting next to me is currently trying to repro.\n\nAs for convincing Google/Microsoft to warn users when visiting facebook.com\nbecause of security false-positives, I'll leave that discussion for you guys.\n\n~~~\ncft\nLet's argue Reductio ad absurdum.\n\nWhy does not Google pop-up similar warnings when you click on its search\nresults?\n\n-Because Google is dependent on the richness and abundance of third-party websites, for its search to be meaningful.\n\nWhat is the objective of Facebook?\n\n\\- To suck users" +"\nTemperatures in France cross 45\u00b0C threshold for first time since records began - reddotX\nhttps://www.euronews.com/2019/06/28/france-records-highest-temperature-since-records-began-at-44-3-celsius-meteo-france\n======\ntomhoward\nI'm an Australian taking a short European getaway. We're currently in northern\nItaly - Veneto region.\n\nHoly crap it's hot.\n\nHigh 30s every day, and perhaps because the towns consist of stone streets and\nbuildings, and perhaps because there's not much wind, but it feels much hotter\nthan the equivalent temperatures we're used to in summer at home. (Edit:\nOthers have pointed out humidity would be a factor too - perhaps the biggest.\nThat may be the case, though at around 50%, it's not as humid as I've\nexperienced elsewhere, including in Australia at times.)\n\nWe're heading to southern France next week, and the forecasts suggest the heat\nwave will still be in force then.\n\nI mean, no complaints, we're feeling lucky to be here and are still having a\ngreat time, but boy, this is not what you expect in Europe.\n\n~~~\nTade0\nFor such weather I recommend Trento. Even though the temperature is the same\nas everywhere, the city itself is filled with greenery - I was there last week\nand comparing to e.g. Bologna it was much more bearable.\n\nAlso" +"\nElectric Generation in Spain \u2013 Latest 24 Hours - vinnyglennon\nhttp://energia.ningunaparte.net/en/\n======\namazon_not\nI think we killed it :( At least I don't get any data plotted anymore when\nloading the site.\n\nI agree it's neat, but I dislike that the plot legend has the text at an angle\nwith poor contrast and in the \"wrong\" order compared to the plot colors. I'd\nalso like a better color scheme with more distinct colors. I'm also not s fan\nof fading out the colors with time.\n\n~~~\ndavidklemke\nSame issue here on the latest version of Chrome. Seems our hug of death might\nhave spread to the official data source too as I just get a blank page there\nas well.\n\n------\nhakcermani\nNeat looking visualization. Sorry for the nitpick but personally a straight\nline (rather than circular) plot 00:00 - 24:00 will help see the peaks and\ncompare high-low better. The time could you also show by time of generation\nrather than local. (it is weird to see peak solar at 0200 hrs )\n\n~~~\nvegabook\nPersonally I quite like the polar coordinates, though it's a pity that by\nconvention, a watch face only holds half a day, as we" +"Ask HN: What is the difference between cold emails and spam? - WolfOliver\n======\nSomeone\nA cold email is something that takes a human at least an hour to write.\n\nSpam is something that takes a factory less than a second to spit out.\n\nSomewhere in-between, there\u2019s a gray area. \u2018Spam\u2019 is in the eye of the\nbeholder (nobody claims to produce spam) so where that is is a matter of\ntaste.\n\nFor me, a cold email _must_ have a human writer. That _hour_ isn\u2019t a strong\nboundary, but once you\u2019re cold emailing ten different people an hour, I think\nyou\u2019re reaching spam country.\n\nI also think there\u2019s computer-produced emails that aren\u2019t spam, but I can\u2019t\nthink of any I would call \u201ccold email\u201d.\n\n------\nandreicon\nSpam is unsolicited correspondence. Cold emails are unsolicited, therefore are\nspam." +"\nVenezuelan Hyperinflation Explodes, Soaring Over 440,000 Percent - sidko\nhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-18/venezuelan-hyperinflation-explodes-soaring-over-440-000-percent\n======\npanarky\nThere's not much difference between an inflation rate of 440000% and 880000%,\nit just means that the bolivar doesn't work anymore.\n\nMoney is a purely social construct. It's only worth something when people\ncollectively believe and trust that it's worth something.\n\nIt's a popular idea that dollars and euros derive their value because taxes\nare paid in that currency, or because it's backed by the state's military\npower.\n\nVenezuela shows that neither of these are the source of the currency's value.\n\nCollective belief is a pretty fragile foundation to build an economy on, hard\nto build and easy to destroy.\n\nAnother term for \"collective belief\" is \"consensus\". We're witnessing a\ndisintegration of political and economic consensus not only in Venezuela, but\nalso in the US.\n\nWhat happens to the dollar when public consensus, trust and collective belief\nis weakened?\n\nThis is why I find the decentralized, trustless consensus of cryptocurrencies\nto be especially attractive at this moment in history.\n\n~~~\ndude01\nI agreed with everything you wrote, until near the end where you said \"but\nalso in the US\". Forget about politics, but economically the US dollar is" +"\nAsk HN: How are you productive without a computer? - singularity2001\nImagine it's a lovely day, you want to spend it outside and still boost your company (or project). What can you do? (If you exclude talking and reading)\n======\nbaccheion\nA large (artist's) sketchpad, brainwave entrainment (or silence), and time\nspent thinking, reflecting, synthesizing, etc.\n\nAs someone who's been constantly on the computer since I was 12 (30 now), I\nlearned early on that it's good to know when I'm spinning in circles blindly\nmore than progressing, and to then move away from it to a quiet place (maybe\nI'll pace around the living room, or work at the kitchen table), then work in\n\"low tech silence.\"\n\nAs a programmer/designer, there tends to be a lot of conceptual thinking and\nsynthesis involved with what I'm doing, which can often be done (better, even)\naway from the computer. When I'm on the computer, I'm either learning,\ndoing/implementing, or screwing around. Deep thinking happens (better)\nelsewhere.\n\n~~~\nJoeAltmaier\nI circle the parking lot, or the block if its a hard problem. Once I went\nclear around an 80-acre field before I had it solved (why the belly button on\nour spherical" +"\nAsk HN: What do you expect from a meaningful technical interview? - pthreads\nRecently there was a post regarding technical interviews (how performance is arbitrary) and it got a lot of responses from HN'ers. So I wanted to ask the community how would they design a great technical interview? Disclosure: The reason I am asking is I am thinking of starting a service that provides resources for companies that want to hire technical talent but are not able to suitably test candidates for technical competency. These interviews would be tailored to specific needs. But I am not sure if there is a need for it in the industry.\n======\nrosspackard\nI am in the process of building a service like that too. Mainly because I want\nit for vetting the candidates that I am trying to hire (I am a principle\nengineer who also manages).\n\nMy focus has been on these things:\n\n-easily distributing and receiving challenges privately (not through github or email)\n\n-tool to help easily and quickly manually review code\n\n-a library of challenges that aren't algorithms based (think like a challenge to fix a bug in a moderately sized system, building a feature onto an existing codebase..." +"\n\nAsk HN: What do new MBA's do in tech? || Self-marketing via RE - schodge\n\nShort question: Various stats got tossed out that x% of Stanford's/Harvard's/Etc.'s graduating MBA class went into tech this/last year, instead of the 'normal' MBA fields (e.g., finance). What are the job titles these MBA's are winding up with?

Motivation, brief bio, see LinkedIn (profile) for longer: I did my Master's in electrical engineering, but turned to the dark side and went off to law school and spent a few years practicing as an IP/patent litigator. (Defending against trolls - the turn to the dark side was incomplete). I then got my MBA (Santa Clara, based in SV), and have been trying to find a suitable role in a tech company. I'm currently consulting as an electrical engineer in a biomedical company (mostly writing Matlab and Python for data analysis, plus designing measurement equipment), but would like to find something more permanent and, preferably, more interdisciplinary. I've yet to find an effective way of branding myself. I like hard problems, my programming skills are excellent for a business-type (mostly Python) but not what you'd want in a software engineer, and my best fit has traditionally been interfacing" +"\nAn open social media network that encrypts your posts and distributes via RSS - espeed\nhttp://www.fastcolabs.com/3016147/this-open-source-twitter-replacement-is-absolutely-brilliant\n======\nest\n> We are building the first fully-conforming trsst server, plus an open source\n> web client including javascript libraries for core functionality like the\n> cryptographic functions.\n\nWait, wat?\n\nFrom the first glance it looks like they just patched buzz words together and\ndecided to call it bitcoin-like decentralized syndication network on a PKI\n\nWhat about anonymity? Anyone who has the whole signing chain could track down\nthe author. The anonymity of bitcoin is achieved by mixing hubs[1], you can't\nsplit a blog post in half and mix it.\n\n[1]:\n[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity)\n\nbtw what happened to Open Source today? You have to hype on Kickstarter and\nwaiting for people throwing money at you in order to start coding?\n\n~~~\nderleth\n> javascript libraries for core functionality like the cryptographic\n> functions.\n\nClientside JS for crypto? No. Bad idea.\n\n[http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-\ncryptography/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/)\n\nTheir reasons:\n\n> Secure delivery of Javascript to browsers is a chicken-egg problem.\n\n> Browser Javascript is hostile to cryptography.\n\n> The \"view-source\" transparency of Javascript is illusory.\n\n> Until those problems are fixed, Javascript isn't a serious crypto research\n> environment, and" +"\n\nGoogle cannibalizing their assets? Isn\u2019t it a bit early for that? - joop\nhttp://thenextweb.com/2008/12/02/google-cannibalizing-their-assets-isnt-it-a-bit-early-for-that/\n\n======\njerf\nThey know that only a fraction of the user base will ever use it (because they\ncertainly won't ship with it, anymore than Firefox does). They know people\nshutting off ads aren't clicking anyhow. They know that the people savvy\nenough to use the ad blocker are also the leading edge people who recommend\nbrowsers to other people.\n\nFinally... how would they block ad blockers, even if they wanted to? Ad-\nblocking proxies are just as feasible as ever. And Chrome is supposed to be\nopen source.\n\nConclusion: Instead of fighting what you can't fight, roll with it, get the\nleading edge people on your side, then cash in on the marketshare of the\nmasses who don't block ads.\n\nIt's not really that mysterious... unless you're trapped in first-order\nthinking.\n\n------\njrockway\n_a few months ago we visited an Internet start-up where the CEO told us a\nfunny story of how one of his developers used an Ad Blocker. He took the\ndeveloper aside and explained to him that their whole business, his company\nand his salary depended on income on ads. He explained" +"\nWhy I'm not laughing at C Plus Equality - xs_kid\nhttp://blog.mollywhite.net/why-im-not-laughing-at-c-plus-equality/\n======\nvezzy-fnord\nThe comments section got absolutely slaughtered by Reddit and 4chan after this\nmade its way on a popular subreddit.\n\nThat said, I personally thought her entry only ended up (unintentionally?)\nconforming to the very stereotypes the project served to satirize in the first\nplace.\n\n~~~\nskunkworks\nI agree with you that her entry unintentionally ends up skewering itself by\nrunning head-first into the joke. Really though, she skewered herself by\nranting about a really bad joke.\n\nThe C+= joke sucks. It's poorly executed. It's far too self-conscious and has\nway too many \"wink-wink\" moments to be effective satire. You either need to be\nclever and subtle, or absurd and outrageous. Instead, most of the jokes fell\nflaccidly in the middle: too obvious about its subject matter, but not even\nremotely clever. Making it a programming language doesn't make it clever joke,\nit just means you tried really hard to tell a joke.\n\nAnd she fell for it. Which ironically validates its existence, poor joke\nexecution be damned.\n\n------\n__pThrow\n\"Your document is a collection of sexist, trans*phobic jokes and negative\nstereotypes, and I'm not laughing.\"\n\nI think" +"\nPopular People Live Longer - DiabloD3\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/sunday/popular-people-live-longer.html\n======\npasbesoin\nI've found human lives to consist in significant part of feedback loops.\nPositive feedback loops, and negative feedback loops.\n\nA person receiving positive feedback tends to feel better, be more socially\ncomfortable and engaging, and to receive resources that help them on their\njourney.\n\nThis response and that assistance actually helps them become better. Better\nnutrition, more attentive and patient instruction. Etc. It's not just that\nthings are done for them; it's that the feedback loops can improve their own\nperformance.\n\nA person receiving negative feedback tends to feel worse, to be socially\nuncomfortable and isolated, and the be denied helpful resources and\nassistance.\n\nThe negative feedback loop can result in that person withdrawing more and\nmore. I've been there: Most people _do not_ want to be where they are not\nwelcome. It is one of the worst feelings.\n\nNegative feedback loops tend to spill over into one's physical health, and\nthat unhealthiness furthers the rejection.\n\nIt is not just the \"big things.\" People with a popular appearance routinely\nget bigger servings, more engaged and attentive care. More respect.\n\nIt's pervasive. Pay attention. You'll see it all around you, every day," +"\n\nMaemo 6 looks even more interesting - kasunh\nhttp://www.slashgear.com/maemo-6-to-get-multitouch-gestures-with-qt-4-6-0955593/\n\n======\nmildweed\nGood that more devices are getting multi-touch.\n\nThat being said, this device is not a game changer. Its a mee-too. Which is\ngreat. It'll force the innovators to innovate more.\n\n~~~\nzokier\nMaemo 6 isn't a device, its a platform or operating system. And my estimate is\nthat first devices for M6 are announced in 2010Q4, so lot of things can happen\nbefore that.\n\n~~~\nkasunh\nI think Maemo 6 would be announced much sooner than that. It is very like that\nit would be announced in the maemo summit scheduled on october this year in\nAmsterdam.\n\n------\nrunwicked\nFinally, a worthy competitor to the iphone OS.\n\n~~~\nkasunh\nA very good competitor I must add. Full linux experience, Multiple\ncustomizable desktops, Multitasking.\n\n~~~\nrimantas\n_Full linux experience_\n\nSounds scary.\n\n~~~\nwmf\nIt even includes anonymous troll developers (look at the video)." +"\nTheoretical Motivations for Deep Learning - rndn\nhttp://rinuboney.github.io/2015/10/18/theoretical-motivations-deep-learning.html\n======\nchriskanan\nThere is a recent 5 page theoretical paper on this topic that I thought was\npretty interesting, and it tackles both deep nets and recurrent nets:\n[http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.08101](http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.08101)\n\nHere is the abstract:\n\nThis note provides a family of classification problems, indexed by a positive\ninteger k, where all shallow networks with fewer than exponentially (in k)\nmany nodes exhibit error at least 1/6, whereas a deep network with 2 nodes in\neach of 2k layers achieves zero error, as does a recurrent network with 3\ndistinct nodes iterated k times. The proof is elementary, and the networks are\nstandard feedforward networks with ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit)\nnonlinearities.\n\n------\narcanus\n1) I am curious about learning more about the statement: \"Deep learning is a\nbranch of machine learning algorithms based on learning multiple levels of\nrepresentation. The multiple levels of representation corresponds to multiple\nlevels of abstraction. \"\n\nWhat evidence exists that the 'multiple levels of representation', which I\nunderstand to generally be multiple hidden layers of a neural network,\nactually correspond to 'levels of abstraction'?\n\n2) I'm further confused by, \"Deep learning is a kind of representation\nlearning in which there" +"\n\nHack your brain: OpenEEG - geuis\nhttp://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/\n\n======\nluckystrike\nThis brought back some good memories for me. (I mean the post only). My final\nyear project at engineering was (an attempt) to build an EEG machine (design).\nI was not much of a hardware guy, and did it as a last chance (at least for a\nwhile) to learn a bit more. The other option in my mind was to may write a\nRTOS or something but i thought that can happen any time later as well.\n\nJoerg Hansmann (the leading hacker behind this hardware design) was simply\nawesome and very helpful with sharing his knowledge about the circuit design.\n(This was late 2001). It was actually the first time i realized the true worth\nof open source communities, and their role in sharing of knowledge and\ninformation.\n\nThanks geius for posting this, i ought to contribute back to this community\nfor sure, in one way or the other.\n\n------\nsown\nI looked into this one time and got scared away the the DIY part of the kit\nand the warnings that you could seriously injure yourself. :( This will\nrequire braver souls than I.\n\n~~~\nqwph\nSoldering up a" +"\nAn Epidemic of AI Misinformation - hughzhang\nhttps://thegradient.pub/an-epidemic-of-ai-misinformation/\n======\nggm\nVery hard to critique an article you overwhelmingly agree with!\n\nThe key point I kept picking up was the extent to which a press willing to\nlaud a discovery was reticent about owning the clinb-down.\n\nPeer review in ML journals should be tighter maybe? If you solve a limited\nsubset of the three body problem you can't claim to solve \"the three body\nproblem\" and if you apply a well known Rubik's cube model solution you didn't\nlearn it, you had it baked in.\n\n~~~\nbuboard\ndo most of the hyped papers have peer review even? the field moves too fast\nfor that, press releases are issued as soon as the first draft is on arxiv.\n\n~~~\neanzenberg\nApologies, but I see a lot of \u201ctrash\u201d published in arxiv (also some real good\nstuff) Peer review could fix some things but would also show some other things\ndown\n\n~~~\nmadenine\nI like to think of arxiv as the holding area for anything that COULD be peer\nreviewed.\n\nAdvantage is we get to see stuff now, not after it gets accepted at by a\nconference or journal. Disadvantage, we have to" +"\n\nCountUp.js - electic\nhttp://inorganik.github.io/countUp.js/\n\n======\nzackbloom\nYou might also want to look at Odometer:\n[http://github.hubspot.com/odometer/docs/welcome/](http://github.hubspot.com/odometer/docs/welcome/)\n\n~~~\nianstormtaylor\nWow, really nicely done on that landing page. Curious, why'd you make the API\ndepend on a class name instead of assuming something more common like:\n\n \n \n odometer(el, 42);\n\n~~~\nzackbloom\nWe've been having fun building things lately with transparent APIs. e.g. You\ndrop Pace[1] in a page, and it figures out how to create a progress bar from\nit.\n\nOdometer is nifty in this way because you can still just set the value with\ninnerHTML or .html, and it will animate it, so the overhead of adding it\nbecomes just adding the class to whatever elements you'd like.\n\nYou can actually also manually instantiate one pretty much exactly as you\ndescribed:\n\n \n \n new Odometer({el: el, value: 42});\n \n\n[1] -\n[http://github.hubspot.com/pace/docs/welcome/](http://github.hubspot.com/pace/docs/welcome/)\n\n~~~\nianstormtaylor\nWow, Pace just blew my mind. You guys are releasing some really awesome stuff\n:) random other thing is would be sweet if these were component[1] friendly.\n(Dunno if you've already checked out component, but it is insanely good for\nfront-end work.)\n\nOne pattern I picked up from reading TJ's code is the transparent\nconstructor...\n\n \n \n odometer(el).value(42);\n \n\n...which I like using to make" +"\nA Brief Guide to Startup Pivots - michellepiped\nhttp://blog.eladgil.com/2019/05/a-brief-guide-to-startup-pivots-4-types.html\n======\nnostrademons\nOne interesting thing I've learned from studying the history of several dozen\nstartups and from doing about 20 pivots myself is that oftentimes the startup\ndoesn't pivot into the market, the market (or technology) pivots into the\nstartup. In other words, the startup is non-viable at the time of its\nfounding, but later events change the structure of the market in a way that\ntakes the struggling business and turns it into a growth powerhouse.\n\nGoogle, Whatsapp, Uber, Twitch, AirBnB, EverNote, Roblox, and to some extent\nApple can all be seen as examples of this.\n\nThis has a bunch of implications for what it's really like to found a startup:\nin particular, it validates the wisdom of keeping burn rate extremely low and\nof being extremely persistent, as well as having a product out there that\npeople can use. It also suggests that it may be better to have a lot of\nusable-but-unpolished working products that are constantly getting exposure\n(even if they're not succeeding), rather than putting all your eggs into\nimproving one product, and argues for putting failed startups in maintenance-\nmode rather than shuttering them entirely." +"\nApple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads - johns\nhttp://www.macnn.com/articles/10/02/04/gps.info.allowed.only.for.beneficial.uses/\n======\ngte910h\nAnd they don't let any app record phone calls anymore...\n\nAre we surprised at their arbitrary nonsense anymore?\n\n~~~\nmetachor\nIs this really arbitrary nonsense?\n\nDo you want ad networks gleaning your physical location(s) throughout the day?\nDo you want random applications surreptitiously recording your phone\nconversations?\n\nWhile both of these limitations might seem, well, limiting from the developers\nperspective, they both seem very much in the favor of the end-user to protect\nthem from potential abuse.\n\n~~~\ngte910h\nNo no no, you misunderstand.\n\nThey disallow you to even tell the person about it.\n\nAs to the recording, you're not allowed to record telephone conversations that\nuse the 3G or phone network in any way.\n\nThis means even in telephone recording application designed to record calls\nthe customer wants recorded. This is now forbidden by Apple. (As one of my\ncustomers found out 6 months of reviews later when the app has done this all\nalong).\n\nThis isn't a \"protect the customer from abuse\" sort of issue, this is a \"Apple\ndoesn't want apps to do it at all\" sort of thing" +"\n\nAsk HN: Do you use oDesk/ elance / Fiverr? - gregmuender\n\nWe are trying to solve some pain points that exist with using these marketplaces. What can be fixed?

Contractor selection...are there too many choices?\nContractor accountability...do you worry about getting poor work?\nDoes it take too long to receive back finished work?\nIs it too hard to post on multiple marketplaces?\n======\ncanterburry\nI have used Elance extensively over the last 5+ years for everything from Logo\ndesign to web programming.\n\n1\\. Biggest challenge is finding contractors who are actually as good as their\nportfolios. I am not sure if this is a case of portfolio fraud or simply not a\ngood enough interview process on my part, however, after working with some\nproviders, I just can't believe all those 5 star ratings are real.\n\n2\\. Too many contracts bid without actually reading or understanding the\nrequirements. The best people I have found actually addressed each requirement\npoint by point.\n\n3\\. Too many contractors provide too little value. I expect them to manage\neverything they need to do on their side, and not just be the hands on the\nkeyboard. Too many times have I had to put THEIR test" +"\nFukushima: Radiation Detection Using Artifacts in CCCD Image? - brudgers\nhttp://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/427-Radiation-Detection.html\n======\nnoonespecial\nI'd just punt this one. Cover the lens so that the image is otherwise black,\nget a good calibrated Geiger counter and wander around taking pictures of your\nlens cover and noting the counter's readings.\n\nGo back and count the light dots in your black photos and see if they\ncorrelate with the counter readings. Use your fancy exposure-time/fstop/ccd-\nsize math after you're sure there's something going on.\n\nFor that matter, bring along a crummy cmos sensor camera as well. More\nsensors, more fun.\n\n~~~\nars\nThat's not punting, that's calibrating.\n\n~~~\ntomsaffell\nAs a Brit living in the US it took me over a year (and several\nmisunderstanding) to realize that there is a difference in the use of the word\n'punt' between US and UK. The main confusion was between:\n\n \n \n 1. (Informal) To cease doing something; give up [1]\n 2. (Chiefly British Slang) To gamble [1]\n \n\nOften the context allows for either of those to make sense. Off topic, I know,\nbut maybe it will help others avoid the confusion.\n\n1\\. \n\n~~~\nnoonespecial\nYes, thanks for that. I should know better by now. Once" +"\n\nAsk HN: Should I focus on getting API customers or direct customers? - paulsingh\n\nI started SnailPad (www.snailpad.com) sort of as a joke about 3 months ago. Now I've got a decent number of direct customers and a few API customers using the service. The volume has helped me justify (and pay for) some pretty badass hardware that I've hacked together to automate most of the process.

I've learned that API customers tend to give me more volume with less margins but require a pretty long sales cycle (it takes time to convince them, have them try the API, receive a few samples, bite the bullet, etc).

I've learned that direct customers are lower volume with (much, much) higher margins and, generally speaking, are pretty quick to get onboarded.

At this point, it's still just me doing the coding, bizdev, mailing, etc (read: everything) and I'm having a hard time trying to figure which of those customer types is \"better\" way for me to continue organically growing the business.

What would you do?\n======\npatio11\nYou have far, far more intestinal fortitude than I do to go into that\nbusiness. (It involves marginal work and low margins. Yikes -- software sounds\nso much better.)" +"\nHey Dropbox, build MailDrop. I will pay you to replace my Gmail - iProject\nhttp://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/15/hey-dropbox-make-maildrop-and-i-will-pay-you-to-replace-my-gmail/\n======\njubari\nIncidentally, that's somewhat what I've been building since my recent\nsubmission: Show HN: A personal Gmail.\n()\n\nI learned a lot from HN about trust and got a lot of great feedback via email.\n\nBasically, I currently manage my own email via a native app I build with\nTideSDK and AngularJS. MailGun catches the emails and my rails service drops\nthem into my dropbox as JSON files.\n\nThere is some magic going on regarding conversation views, labels,\nattachments, etc.\n\nSadly, I came across a critical memory leak in TideSDK, which currently\nprevents me from releasing the app/service to the public.\n\nFeel free to drop me a message if you're interested in updates." +"\n\nCo-founder or no co-founder? - sum_itsin\nhttp://www.roundbreak.com/2012/06/05/co-founder-or-no-co-founder/\n\n======\npedalpete\nCompletely agree, but I think PG assumes that anybody who is smart/good enough\nto get into YC is going to have a solid co-founder.\n\nI wonder how many YC companies have failed due to a co-founder break-up.\n\nOutside of YC, I hear a co-founder break up is one of the top reasons a\ncompany fails.\n\n~~~\nsum_itsin\nThat's true. But I am somewhat skeptical about the fact that a smart person\nnecessarily is the one with good networking skills or the one capable of\nforging sound relationships. There are times when a truly smart person, either\ndue to his own eccentricity or the environment, doesn't get to have a chance\nof having a good co-founder unless he relocates himself which is hardly\npossible in many cases." +"\n\nHow to convert any 3D printer or CNC router into cutting or engraving machine? - reangeorge\n\nIntroducing Endurance L-CHEAPO diode laser

Endurance L-CHEAPO is a 445 nanometer diode laser which easily mounts on your 3D printer or CNC mill\nNo additional power supply is necessary, and it will not interfere with normal use of your hardware\nYou can readily switch from laser to print/mill mode, use your existing software (Slic3r, Skeinforge, etc), and with no tools the laser can be removed in about 2 minutes\nEndurance L-CHEAPO can cut paper and wood up to 3/16ths of an inch, and can engrave most non-metallic materials

Easy to Use and Open Source

No special software or hardware required \u2013 not even a power supply! All you need is to mount the laser, create a special extrusion profile on your standard software and

get to work. Video in action available here: http://endurancerobots.com/products/laser-cutters-accessory/video-in-action/\nEngraving samples: http://endurancerobots.com/products/laser-cutters-accessory/laser-cutter-accessory-engraving-samples/

Low-cost, High-yield

Laser cutting requires a significant initial investment, but opens up a lot of making possibilities \u2014 laser-cut parts are tougher than 3D printer parts. With Endurance L-

CHEAPO, the initial dollar investment goes from thousands to hundreds, and the module requires very little space.

We hope this product will allow high school shop classes," +"\nGeocities Forever \u2013 neural network generated geocities pages - laacz\nhttp://www.geocitiesforever.com/\n======\nversteegen\nThe generated English (and a number of other languages) doesn't make a lick of\nsense (certainly not comparable to decent NN language models), and there's\nHTML and JS visible all over the place. But they certainly _look_ a lot like\ntypical geocities pages. How do you generate HTML and JS with NNs? I wish\nthere were an explanation somewhere. Maybe that's the reason that there's so\nmuch invalid HTML.\n\n~~~\njnpatel\nAgreed about wishing there were an explanation.\n\nIt's not clear to me that NN are the best way to get interesting Franken-\npages. Maybe a Markov chain instead?\n\n~~~\nyolesaber\nThe best way is to have the NN generate the HTML / CSS / JS code and then use\na markov chain to create content to populate the page with.\n\nIt also has to do with quality of input. The texts on geocities pages aren't\nexactly pinnacles of clear and legible language. Same with the HTML.\n\n------\nsupernintendo\nGeoCities was the spark that ignited my interest in programming. I can\nremember hacking together awful HTML, CSS and JavaScript for a Sonic the\nHedgehog fan page as" +"\nThoughts on Lance\u00a0Armstrong [video] - kennyma\nhttp://danariely.com/2013/01/18/thoughts-on-lance-armstrong/\n======\nchubot\nI like Dan Ariely, and most of what he says in this video is true. However he\ndoesn't address the whole Lance Armstrong story, and there is one correction\nto be made.\n\nHe says that it's possible that Lance Armstrong took EPO as a cancer patient,\nand that made it easier for him to keep taking it as a performance enhancing\ndrug.\n\nLance tried a similar tactic in his interview last night -- he explained that\nhis cancer changed him. It made him more of a bully, and more of a fighter,\nand he kind of justified taking testosterone since he had testicular cancer.\nHowever, Oprah had to point out that he was taking performance-enhancing drugs\nBEFORE he had cancer. So the cancer is a scapegoat.\n\nSecond -- people don't really fault Lance Armstrong for doping. I'm sure it's\ntrue that everybody was doping. And Ariely correctly points out that that\nmakes it much easier for someone to justify to themselves.\n\nWhat distinguished Armstrong is going over the top to destroy people who were\ntelling the truth. He was vicious about attacking and suing people who told\nthe truth, and" +"\nTech Industry-Funded Think Tanks Work to Overturn California Privacy Law - aburd\nhttps://theintercept.com/2019/04/16/consumer-privacy-laws-california/\n======\nignoramous\nThe fact that a 100% of the think-tanks taking corporate funding (from the\nlikes of Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Uber, Verizon,\neBay) are trying to undermine excellent privacy laws passed by California [0]\nand Illinois state assemblies should come as a surprise to no one.\n\nThe problem is these think-tanks or variants thereof might end up representing\nthe tech industry in most places where it matters anyway, just like how most\nof the standard bodies have been taken over by them and now slowly approve of\nfeatures that further their business motives (I am looking at you ITU).\n\nTwo ways (there must be more?) I can think of to fix the behaviour of these\nbehemoths:\n\n1\\. External: Internet Activism. This has been well underway for a long time\nnow but the corporates are patient beasts. The problem always remains\ngathering enough support [1] and generally the short attention span of the\nlarger populace.\n\n2\\. Internal: The employees. Be critical, put yourselves in akward situations,\nstart demanding answers [2]. The problem might be risking job security? That\ncould be offset by forming a large" +"\nRetailers Are Losing the Software Talent Wars - jongraehl\nhttp://www.businessweek.com/magazine/retailers-are-losing-the-software-talent-wars-12012011.html\n======\njtchang\nI can't believe some of you are saying they should put together a bunch of\nawesome programmers and rewrite their platform from scratch.\n\nCertainly that is an option. But rarely is it ever the correct one. Your new\nplatform could be as riddled with bugs as the old one.\n\nThe truth is that finding good engineers is about knowing the right\nincentives. Retailers are losing the talent wars because they don't know how\nto compete. And while salary is one lever Target can fiddle with, it certainly\nisn't the only one.\n\nTarget needs to look at the right incentives for the people they want to hire.\nIs telecommuting an option? How about direct authority to approve changes? Or\nthe chance to build your own team? These are the incentives that matter to\nengineers.\n\nThe problem is cutting through all the rhetoric in hiring. Target can say \"we\nwant to revolutionize the ecommerce industry\" but do any engineers actually\nbelieve them? That's tough.\n\n~~~\nkls\n_And while salary is one lever Target can fiddle with, it certainly isn't the\nonly one._\n\nI would argue set high enough it is" +"\nWays in which the WannaCry ransomware could have been much worse - Mojah\nhttps://ma.ttias.be/ways-wannacry-ransomware-much-worse/\n======\njobigoud\nWow the second point, encrypting the files but providing transparent access\nfor a while thereby corrupting even the backups is really scary.\n\nAlthough maybe this would be detected when your incremental backups start\nsaying that all the files have just changed. Some softwares will require\nmanual action if more than x percent of the corpus needs to be resynched.\n\n------\nRichardHeart\nOne option I don't see in the list, is just basic, file wiping, instead of\nencrypting. People are lucky there's even an option to unencrypt.\n\n~~~\ntheoh\nBut why would you pay if there's no \"hostage\"?\n\n~~~\nRichardHeart\nI'm saying that a virus that wants only to destroy, instead of get paid, is\nmore dangerous than a virus that wants paid. It's the difference between a\nkidnapping and a murder.\n\n~~~\nbigbugbag\nWhat's the incentive for such a virus ?\n\n~~~\nsushid\nDo you not remember viruses in the 90s like the ILOVEYOU virus? Plenty of\nhackers wrote viruses that maliciously destroyed data just because they could." +"\nShow HN: JsonTree, a 3.53kb JavaScript tool for generating html trees from JSON - MaxLeiter\nhttps://maxleiter.github.io/jsonTree/\n======\nbrockwhittaker\nYou should consider removing all the other functions from the global scope,\nespecially because they have relatively generic names like \"generateTree\",\n\"toArray\", \"depth\", and \"toggleClass\".\n\nConsider using an actual class or a closure perhaps?\n\n~~~\nMaxLeiter\nWrapped in a closure, thanks!\n\n------\nCheezmeister\nThanks for sharing! I see your 3.5k and raise (lower?) you 1.6k\n\n[https://github.com/cheezmeister/kapok](https://github.com/cheezmeister/kapok)\n\n[I think it does most of what yours\ndoes]([https://github.com/Cheezmeister/kapok/blob/master/tst/kapok....](https://github.com/Cheezmeister/kapok/blob/master/tst/kapok.spec.coffee))\n(EDIT: Nope, missing URL loading and XSS cleaning!)\n\n~~~\nMaxLeiter\nYours is much cleaner code though; this was my first venture in javascript\n(and really programming) when I wrote it and am planning on refactoring it\nsoon(tm). Great work with Kapok, the demo page is well done.\n\n------\nkc10\nI didn't realize it's a tree until I clicked it. Changing the buttons to + and\n- signs might help.\n\n~~~\ntomatsu\nI'm using \u229e and \u229f for that.\n\n~~~\ntimfletcher\nI was confused too. It looks like an bulleted list in Chrome.\n\n~~~\nibgib\nI think its cool, but def the bullets threw me. Maybe an example of the\ncustomized styling would be good.\n\n------\nedko\nI" +"\nStep-By-Step Fundraising Tactics from an NYC Founder Who Raised $750M - imartin2k\nhttp://firstround.com/review/step-by-step-fundraising-tactics-from-the-nyc-legend-who-raised-750m/\n======\nnawgszy\nNot really a criticism, but this read a bit like a slimy dating guide.\n\"Remember, like everyone else they want to feel wanted for more than their\nmoney\". \"Keep them all interested until you've made up your mind\". \"Subtly let\nthem know that you're wanted by others\".\n\nOn an unrelated note: I don't know why I can never contribute constructively\non this site, but here I am.\n\n~~~\nCalChris\nGiven that this was published by a VC and that the writer has been on both\nsides of the table, I think you're misreading it.\n\n~~~\nnawgszy\nI wasn't really trying to imply it's bad advice or isn't ethical or anything.\nI get that the parallel I decided to draw does indeed somewhat imply that, but\nmy intentions weren't as such. Just struck me as funny.\n\n------\nbsder\n> \u201cWhen I plan to be raising in six months, I\u2019m already out there, proactively\n> connecting with VCs, having coffees, making as many of them aware of my\n> company as possible,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cThe conversation is safer when I\u2019m not\n> raising money.\u201d\n\nYeah, because so" +"\nMicrosoft Support for Windows 7 Is Ending Next Month - eXpd8\nhttps://expd8.com/microsoft-support-for-windows-7-is-ended-soon/\n======\naphextim\nFrom the article:\n\n>The first option is to buy the Windows 10 upgrade. The second option is to\npurchase an Office 365 subscription, which comes with a Windows 10 upgrade\nincluded.\n\nI am not sure if this still works so I would not use this in a business\nenvironment without consulting a Windows licensing expert. Also someone who\ndeals with licensing on Windows devices could probably clarify why this option\nshouldn't be done.\n\nWith all that said, as of 2 months ago I ran the windows 10 media creation\ntool on a personal computer with Windows 7 Pro installed. This allowed me to\nupgraded the PC to windows 10 and retain all apps/personal files for free. Now\nthe computer has Windows 10 Pro, and the license activated and appears valid.\n\nI do not want to advocate doing something illegal or get someone in licensing\nproblems, I just wanted to make people aware that running the Media Creation\ntool on a PC with a valid Win 7 install will upgrade it to Windows 10 and\nappear valid/activated when finished." +"\nThings Worth Knowing About Coffee - pegobry\nhttp://theoatmeal.com/comics/coffee\n======\nstcredzero\nThe most important thing I know about coffee: most of what you buy in stores\nis _stale_. Even vacuum-sealed roasted whole beans are a compromise,\nexpiration date notwithstanding. Buy roasted whole beans at a place that\nroasts every week, and posts the roast date on the bin. Never mind stuff being\nfrom Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Kona, &c. It's most important to get the degree of\nroast you like, as recently as possible.\n\nI go to the Allegro Roasters counter at Whole Foods each week and buy a medium\nroast from that day, or the day before. I have a cheap grinder at home, and I\njust use cheap #2 cone filters in a cheap single-cup cone brewer. I emphasize\nthat those last 3 items are _cheap_. You don't need a fancy-schmancy grinder.\nYou get a _huge_ bang for the buck just by using beans roasted in the past 2\nweeks. The other thing: make sure your water is the right temperature. (190 to\n195 degrees seems to work for me.) Just borrow a candy thermometer, always use\nthe same amount of water, the same pot, and figure out how long" +"\nHow I Turned an Idea into $7K by Teaching Online - leerob\nhttps://leerob.io/blog/teach-online\n======\ngenofon\nIt's a great project, I would only make a small correction... What the author*\ncalls profit still includes all the time and effort you put in: building an\naudience, creating the course, building a reputation, marketing, etc.. Just to\nmake people understand that it's a lot of hard work and taking that not\nconsideration the ROI is much lower.\n\n*small correction: you->the author\n\n~~~\nleerob\nThat's a good point to call out. Building an audience and establishing\ncredibility takes time and effort. You pay an upfront cost, but having an\naudience will pay dividends in the future.\n\n------\nBossingAround\nTo me, it's counter-intuitive that people would pay $100 for a course on such\na niche topic such as NextJS. My experience with these courses is that they\nprovide all that's available for free (typically docs), but nicely packaged\nand with videos. And, especially if it is on a custom platform like this one,\nI'd be worried about them being kept up to date.\n\n~~~\nleerob\nHere's how I look at it. You're absolutely right you can learn everything on\nyour own\u2013\u2013but how long would it" +"\nThe Very Difficult Problem of Notifications - showngo\nhttp://brooksreview.net/2011/03/notifications/\n======\nQz\nIt's almost like the author has never used android, seeing as android\nnotifications don't have any of the problems described. Notifications show up\nin a part of the UI you constantly look at but can't actually interact with\n(the status bar at the top), therefore you always notice when there are\nnotifications but it doesn't really get in your way. You can see all\nnotifications at once by swiping down from the status bar which drops the\nnotification screen in over whatever you were doing, showing all the\nnotifications at once. Because of this, you _can_ have a clear all button. If\nyou don't want to deal with a notification right away, you can just swipe back\nup and go back to whatever you were doing. Doesn't seem quite so difficult.\n\n~~~\njsz0\nThere's room for improvement in Android's notification system. I get serious\nnotification fatigue with Android. I see that there are 5 or 6 tiny\nindistinguishable icons up there but I have to pull down the tray to get any\nuseful information. In this sense it's more like an Inbox than a notification\nsystem to me. It" +"\n\nWhy Microsoft killed Courier - j-g-faustus\nhttp://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=23176\n\n======\nwisty\nIn the old days, when competitors were afraid to even say Bill's name,\nMicrosoft would have hedged their bets.\n\nMicrosoft sold some crazy UNIX thing called Xenix, DOS, and ported their\nsoftware to OS/2 and Mac OS.\n\nMicrosoft did not care who won, as long as they were positioned to get their\nfoot in the door, make a huge profit, kill off all the competition, start\ndisplacing their upstream and downstream dependencies, and cement their\nposition by extend-embrace-extinguish.\n\nThey have one offering on the mobile, nothing to speak of in the tablet space,\nand very few apps / trojan horses for iOS / Android. It's like watching\nUlysses stick to the Marquess of Queensberry rules.\n\n~~~\npolitician\nThe difference being, of course, that in the old days Microsoft was not a\nconvicted monopolist.\n\n------\nantonyme\n> According to Courier team members, the 130+ team had several finished\n> prototypes and could have brought the device to market in mid-2010 with a\n> bit of extra manpower.\n\nA bit? They had some prototypes with just the industrial design, some with\njust the software, some with just the performance - but none with" +"\n\nAsk HN: Coming up with ideas? - jwdunne\n\nI'd like to build a few small but useful apps to build experience and a portfolio outside of my workplace, an area shamefully neglected.

I'm stuck at the first hurdle and I haven't got a clue where to start or what to build first!

Do you have any tips for coming up with ideas?\n======\nmc_hammer\ni usually just get the ideas while im working, from things that suck\n\nneed to write a regex for css parsing... why isnt there a regex generator yet\n\nneed to debug my javascript... why isnt there a repl?\n\nwriting windows 10 hello world,