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Ask HN: What are the best resources to properly learn Scala? - godmodus Hello, I've started to work with scala and I think it's a beautiful language. that said, I'd like to be better at it. What are some good books to get thst teach about the nitty gritty details of the language and it's use in production? ====== noelwelsh I'm the author of a couple of books on Scala: Essential Scala and Advanced Scala. You can find them here: [http://underscore.io/books/](http://underscore.io/books/) Depending on what your background and what you want to learn, different books will be appropriate: \- Our books are focused on what we consider the most important concepts for functional programming and how they are implemented in Scala. If you want to know about algebraic data types, type classes, and so on, and how to implement them in Scala or use the implementations in the Cats library our books are a good choice. We emphatically do not teach all the language. If you want to know about OO features like self types and trait mixins don't turn to our books. \- Odersky's book has a lot of detail. It does a good job of presenting all of the language but doesn't IMO do a good job of showing you how to use the language. \- FPiS is a very good book that does what the title suggests. My main criticism is it can take a bit long to get to the point and it doesn't talk about libraries you might use in practice like Cats or Scalaz. \- The Coursera courses I have taken are fairly good, but don't do a great job of talking about the higher-level design concepts. I haven't read other books, so can't comment on them. Finally, if you don't have a background in formal CS our free book Creative Scala might be useful. The current draft is at [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8669329/creative- scala.p...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8669329/creative-scala.pdf) and the source is at [https://github.com/underscoreio/creative- scala/](https://github.com/underscoreio/creative-scala/) ~~~ pc86 I'm interested in hearing about your team and diversity discounts, it doesn't look like there is any information on them on the site (unless I missed it!) ~~~ noelwelsh Team discount is 20% off for purchases of ten or more copies. Diversity discount ... I don't think we have a policy for books, but for training we offer 50% off to people who are under-represented in tech and I'm happy to offer the same for books. Email me (noel at underscore.io) to arrange either. ------ vasshu There is a course on Coursera thaught by the Scala creator: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/progfun1](https://www.coursera.org/learn/progfun1) ~~~ gingerbread-man It's actually a series of 4 courses, 5 if you include the "capstone project." I've watched a few of the videos-- it's pretty decent, but intended for those who don't have much experience with functional programming. The first course I believe is modeled off the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. I think the answer to this question really depends on where you're coming from. An experienced Java developer will need to focus on different things than someone who has spent the last decade hacking Common Lisp or OCaml. ~~~ joncrocks I would agree and disagree. The first course is the one that's dedicated to Scala the language, whereas the rest are more focused on reactive/parallel programming that happens to be in Scala. The first course is good, and acts as a good introduction if you've encountered functional programming before. ------ SatvikBeri I found _Functional Programming in Scala_ to be the best source: [https://www.amazon.com/Functional-Programming-Scala-Paul- Chi...](https://www.amazon.com/Functional-Programming-Scala-Paul- Chiusano/dp/1617290653/) ~~~ nrinaudo I would say that rather depends on what OP means by "properly". If OP already knows Scala and would like to get better at it _and_ one assumes that "Scala as Haskell in the JVM" is more desirable than "Scala as a better Java", then yes, that's a great suggestion. If OP wants to learn Scala from the ground up, I disagree pretty strongly with starting there. It's a great book, well written, with a wealth of challenging and mind-opening exercises, but I wouldn't recommend that as anyone's first exposure to the language. The second or third, sure, but it purposefully restricts itself to what its authors consider a sane subset of the language. I happen to agree with their definition, but, in my experience, knowing a programming language is about reading it as well as writing it, and by restricting your learning to a subset of the language, you'll find yourself unable to understand perfectly valid, normal code - code that is part of the standard library, for instance. I would rather suggest reading Odersky's book while allowing oneself to skip large chunks that go rather in too much details about fairly useless things like the XML API. Or going through scala-exercises ([https://www.scala- exercises.org](https://www.scala-exercises.org)). Or the coursera class - its first incarnation was pretty good, I assume the new one is at least of the same caliber. They might not make you an expert overnight, but they'll get you to know most of the Scala features you're likely to encounter in the wild, and to be able to read and learn from most Scala OSS projects. ~~~ SatvikBeri I actually learned Scala from this book, and the only languages I had used in production before were Python and Fortran. I don't think learning the functional subset first made it harder for me to learn the object-oriented and imperative parts later on. Plus, understanding the functional subset gives you a better understanding of many of the internals, such as what `for` comprehensions are actually doing. Of course, if you _just_ read one book and stop there, I'd agree. But most people will continue learning from tutorials, videos, stackoverflow, etc. I've also seen several other people learn Scala this way, usually without knowing any functional programming before, and really haven't seen any signs of issues wrt not understanding code written in other styles. ------ scalatohaskell Depends on your level. Scala is extremely powerful, and so can be you. Just pick progressively more and more advanced books, and you'll be there in no time. Compiler's always got your back. Seriosly, I've been on search for good language for last 8-10years, always been unhappy. 2 years ago I started working with scala, and never looked back. I am happy with it and I can see myself doing it for as long as it's around and there is competetive market. ~~~ edem Until you try clojure or even kotlin ~~~ scalatohaskell I mastered kotlin to dev some mobile apps. Having years of C# behind me, it does not impress me much. Clojure only for fun, I need types. But lisps sounds fun. Can't comment more. Prehaps you're right ;) ~~~ edem There is `clojure/core.typed` if you want types or `clojure.spec` if you want specs. What I love in Clojure (and in any lisp for that matter) is that you can imlement language features if you need them and the language itself provides you with many but only if you need it (optional dependencies). This gives you flexibility which you can only dream of if you use scala. ~~~ scalatohaskell I know of clojure typed. But im worried it needs to be first class. I.e i need all my dependencies to be typed, as that is my api and it usually covers large surface. Id also be careful with your 2nd statement. Scala has macros. Im happy clojure is on the block, dont get me wrong :) each to their own. Type system is incredibly important to me and my productivity. ~~~ edem Scala macros are not like clojure macros. Clojure is homoiconic while scala is not so you really can't compare the two. ------ sreque I would recommend the stairway book and the coursera course. I would also steer away from the some of the other recommendations posted here, including "Functional Programming in Scala", which are basically teaching you how to write Haskell in Scala. I don't think this is a good way to learn Scala because I don't think Haskell-style code makes for effective Scala. ~~~ dominotw >I don't think this is a good way to learn Scala because I don't think Haskell-style code makes for effective Scala. Why is writing functional code in scala not effective? How would one go about understanding 'for comprehensions' in scala without understanding what flatMap/map is used for in lieu if exception. Or why pattern matching is used. ~~~ sreque In my opinion, functional programming, like most programming terms, including object-oriented programming, means very different things to different people. For example: 1\. The LISP family of languages encourages a style of functional programming that eschews static type systems, relies heavily on macros and algorithms involving singly-linked lists, and doesn't mind exposing the ability to mutate state. 2\. The ML family of languages, of which I am the least familiar, are statically typed, but are also OK exposing mutable state and do not track any effects in their type systems. 3\. Haskell heavily pushes reliance on Monads, monad transformers, and effects/state tracking through the above. 4\. Proof assistants and similar languages like Coq go beyond tracking effects in the type system; they track values themselves, and essentially require you to prove mathematically that your program is correct. So, given the above, what do you mean by functional programming? From the talks I've seen given by the creator of Scala itself, I believe he sees Scala as fitting in with the ML family languages moreso than Haskell. Also, the way Scala's type system and runtime currently work, I don't think it's a good fit for Haskell-style programming. I tend to find monad transformer-based code in Scala exceedingly ugly and difficult to read compared to Haskell. The underlying runtime itself also has little mechanism for optimizing monad-based code, whereas the GHC compiler has probably man- years of effort spent into optimizing code using monads. ------ raystar I used [https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/](https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/) to learn, I found it useful. ~~~ partycoder That tutorial is good. But be mindful that in it there is no explicit distinction being made when using Scala standard library types and Twitter library types. e.g: Futures used in there are from Finagle rather than scala.concurrent.Future ~~~ rlau26 Just to add on to this incase anyone is wondering, Twitter has a library that allows you to use the different futures together ([https://github.com/twitter/bijection](https://github.com/twitter/bijection)) if you need to. ------ rollulus I started with Scala a year ago for work. I used a mixture of the resources listed here, but I found this [1] series the most valuable, after the other resources gave a basic foundation. [1]: [http://danielwestheide.com/scala/neophytes.html](http://danielwestheide.com/scala/neophytes.html) ------ wsargent The Artima book by Odersky is the bible, and so you need that one. For reference, I like [http://naildrivin5.com/scalatour](http://naildrivin5.com/scalatour) although it's 2.8 rather than the current 2.12. For style guide, I'd go with Li Hiayo's blog, notably the Strategic Style series: [http://www.lihaoyi.com/post/StrategicScalaStylePracticalType...](http://www.lihaoyi.com/post/StrategicScalaStylePracticalTypeSafety.html) ------ mosqutopi I read scala for the impatience, but once you know clojure, haskell, erlang and other languages the scala language seems to be one more language, a better java but nothing that really surprise you. I know that using scala you can make your programs very difficult to read using obscure notations for operators. I like to use scala as a repl for exploring java classes, a little more useful that clojure in this regard. ------ gh0zt As you are asking for books \- Scala for the impatient ([http://www.horstmann.com/scala/](http://www.horstmann.com/scala/)) \- Programming in Scala ([https://booksites.artima.com/programming_in_scala_3ed](https://booksites.artima.com/programming_in_scala_3ed)) I found those books very good resources. The Scala website lists a few others ([https://www.scala-lang.org/documentation/books.html](https://www.scala- lang.org/documentation/books.html)) Aprt from that I found Daniel Westheides blog a very good starting point ([http://danielwestheide.com/scala/neophytes.html](http://danielwestheide.com/scala/neophytes.html)) ~~~ taway_1212 I learnt Scala from Odersky's "Programming in Scala" and can fully recommend it. I didn't have any functional language experience beforehand. ------ rv11 If you want to learn "functional" aspect and not only library and syntax, I would recommend SICP. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full- text/book/book.html](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html) ~~~ ScalaNovice How much of this book is "functional" aspect and how much is everything else? Going through the TOC, it looks like the book tries to start from 0. Would you recommend any particular sections for someone who's looking to only understand the functional parts? ~~~ Philipp__ Your comment tells me you should start from the beginning and read the whole thing. :) Just give it a try. I was hooked after first chapter! ------ ohmygeek Scala Cookbook: [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026914.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026914.do) (most of it is available online here: [http://scalacookbook.com/](http://scalacookbook.com/)) Once you are done with this, you can pretty much pick any of the projects here and start reading the source code: [https://github.com/lauris/awesome-scala](https://github.com/lauris/awesome- scala) [https://github.com/adamw/awesome- scala](https://github.com/adamw/awesome-scala) Reading code is the probably the best way to learn any programming language IMO ------ partycoder "Another tour of Scala": [http://naildrivin5.com/scalatour](http://naildrivin5.com/scalatour) was informative for me. It's a bit dated, mostly targetting Scala 2.8. Current version is 2.12. But should not be fundamentally different. ------ thelittlenag I know this question is mostly about resources in dead tree format, but don't forget there are sometimes local events and meetup groups that can help you learn Scala (and other languages too!). For example... If you live in Dallas/Fort Worth and would like to learn Scala then you should know that the local Scala Enthusiasts group is hosting a Scala Essentials workshop on April 7th, 2017. This will be an all-day, hands-on event for Scala beginners. We will start with a language intro and finish up coding a REST server. More details can be found here: [https://www.scala- enthusiasts.com/scala-essentials-workshop-...](https://www.scala- enthusiasts.com/scala-essentials-workshop-2017-04/) ------ eb0la I reccomend "Just Enough Scala for Spark" tutorial from Dean Wampler. It was scheduled in Strata NYC, Singapore, and San Jose. Good part: practical. No "weird" or "religion-like" stuff. Just get s __t done today. It's archived in SafariBooksOnline: check [https://conferences.oreilly.com/strata/strata- ny-2016/public...](https://conferences.oreilly.com/strata/strata- ny-2016/public/schedule/detail/51593) before applying to Safari just in case. ------ rathboma If you're looking for books I recently made a list of good books for Scala - [https://blog.matthewrathbone.com/2017/02/14/scala- books.html](https://blog.matthewrathbone.com/2017/02/14/scala-books.html). Otherwise Scala School is awesome: [https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/](https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/) When I worked at Foursquare we would send folks to the Scala School website as homework. :-) ------ rlau26 [http://rerun.me/](http://rerun.me/) This blog has some good articles on how to work with Futures properly as well as some Akka stuff. ------ salmonfamine I would recommend Introduction to the Art of Programming Using Scala: ([https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Programming-Chapman- Text...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Programming-Chapman-Textbooks- Computing/dp/1439896666)) It's very practical, however it approaches the language from a completely novice perspective. If you have years of programming experience, it may be a little redundant for you. ~~~ tinathefatwhale Same ------ VeronicaHadley You should check this [https://www.tutorialspoint.com/scala/](https://www.tutorialspoint.com/scala/) & [https://bigdatauniversity.com/learn/scala/](https://bigdatauniversity.com/learn/scala/) ------ beastman82 I learned by reading "Programming in Scala" by Martin Odersky who invented the language. [https://www.artima.com/shop/programming_in_scala_3ed](https://www.artima.com/shop/programming_in_scala_3ed) ------ suls I hope you don't mind me asking: Is there a specific reason behind you wanting to learn Scala "properly"? ------ dominotw piggybacking on this question. I am really struggling with sbt. Is there is a good FP in scala equivalent for sbt that walks you through feature by feature via exercises and examples . ~~~ scalatohaskell Hi. Sorry I don't have a good answer for you, but check sbt docs, it's pretty comprehenful, but it's not best. Your best bet is to visit opensource projects and look into their build.sbt's, how they do things -they're usually not big enterprise projects and you can quickly 'get' how they setup what. Always feel free to visir /r/scala and ask sbt-related question there, there is active community happy to answer both sbt/scala/fp related questions. ------ emodendroket I liked Scala for the Impatient but I'm pretty novice. ------ vram22 What's the market demand for Scala like? ~~~ runT1ME Very good on the coast, high paying, fun work. Pretty sparse otherwise. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it does seem like it is growing. And, ironically, the main reason companies cite not choosing Scala (or only dip their toes into Scala) is lack of Scala engineers. ~~~ vram22 Interesting, thanks. I suppose companies on the coast may tend to be more open to new stuff. ------ Larrikin If you aren't leaning Scala for work or a specific project that requires it , have you considered Kotlin? I have found the language much more productive in my day to day, after initially discovering Scala and digging deeper.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What are your tips on becoming a better manager? - serbiruss ====== DVassallo The most powerful feature of a team of creators is their idiosyncrasies. The best way I found to build something as a team is to adapt the work to the strengths of the individuals. Job titles squash the peculiar strengths and differences into a label and make managers treat people as fungible units of work. Too many managers define the work first and then assign it to the individuals, rather than define the work _based_ on the individuals. It's very hard to make creators work on something they dislike.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
IPv4 addresses in the USA now have les than a year before exhaustion - AndrewDucker http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html ====== jstanley They had less than a year before exhaustion 3 years ago.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Selling my Slack App - rgbasin www.pixibot.co<p>Don't have the time to work on it currently. Maybe someone here will find it interesting. ====== O_H_E Very nice idea, about the money situation: maybe you could try make every user pay something as little as $½/month It would also be very kind move from you if you open sourced it instead of just pulling the plug, so if any one really wants to use it, he can on his own server/expenses ------ mromanuk Hi, could you please describe the app situation: How many users does it have? Got any traction?, etc ~~~ mtmail There seem to be some details from 3 months ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051920) ~~~ testb $60 heroku seems odd. I wonder why the app can't be transferred over to cheaper (or free if using trial credits) hosting on aws/gcp/do etc. ------ hackathonguy OP, could you share an email address where I can reach out? ------ rgbasin basinr@gmail.com	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t - igonvalue http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/one-twin-exercises-the-other-doesnt/ ====== gwern Fulltext: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/gfch760k1ratwo3/2015-rottensteiner...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gfch760k1ratwo3/2015-rottensteiner.pdf) / [http://sci- hub.org/downloads/045f/10.0000@pdfs.journals.lww....](http://sci- hub.org/downloads/045f/10.0000@pdfs.journals.lww.com@generic-FD16BBD9129B.pdf) Buried some interesting points there: > The researchers were looking for young adult identical twins in their early- > to mid-20s whose exercise habits had substantially diverged after they had > left their childhood homes. These twins were not easy to find. Most of the > pairs had maintained remarkably similar exercise routines, despite living > apart. Besides the testament to how 'everything is heritable' inherent in that observation, it also raises the question: if they are so unusual, doesn't that make confounding more plausible? > Interestingly, the twins tended to have very similar diets, whatever their > workout routines, so food choices were unlikely to have contributed to > health differences. Also very interesting, and counter to the usual narratives about health. (Everything is heritable...) > The twins’ brains also were unalike. The active twins had significantly more > grey matter than the sedentary twins, especially in areas of the brain > involved in motor control and coordination. Warning sign: 'significantly'. Does this mean, as any ordinary person would take it to mean (in conjunction with that lazy stock photo), 'a lot' or does it mean 'p<0.05'? Trick question, of _course_ it means the latter, which is useless! Take a look at the fulltext, pg6, table 2, which spits out the _actual_ differences between the twin pairs. I hope you're ready to be wowed by how much difference an exercise regimen makes when you control for genetics (picking out a few I recognize): 1\. BMI: -0.8 2\. VO2max: 6.3 3\. weight: -2kg 4\. waist circumference: -3.3cm 5\. fat percentage: -3.3 (!) 6\. lean mass: 1.4kg I'm not sure I've seen such a damning indictment of exercise in a long time. (Less than 1 on BMI? 2kg of weight? I fluctuate more than that on a weekly basis...) ~~~ lurknomore There are several sayings in fitness circles that are similar to this: "You can't outrun your fork." Diet is the primary reason people are obese, not lack of exercise. ~~~ WildUtah "You can't outrun your fork." I can. People who can't outrun their forks aren't running hard enough. Hunting down a lot of calories and eating them is part of being a mammal. I bicycled across North America one fall on a mostly mountain route. Four times a day I ate full meals and added as many Dove bars as I could without being sick in between. I biked up and down hills with 30kg of gear all day. And I lost a lot of weight. Sure it hurts to work that hard, but it's supposed to hurt a little. Being comfortable all the time isn't part of being a mammal. ~~~ rtb I look forward to your enlightening anecdote based debunking of other sayings, such as that time you made a great broth despite too many cooks, or that time a gathering didn't get merrier with more people. ~~~ WildUtah I'm a little too busy to entertain you with vignettes right now; I need to supervise this pot closely until it boils. ------ AstroChimpHam >But eventually the researchers homed in on 10 pairs of male identical twins, one of whom regularly exercised, while the other did not, usually because of work or family pressures, the researchers determined. That "work and family pressure" sounds like stress and a pretty important confounding variable. ~~~ reedlaw It's also a choice, or even an excuse. Nearly everyone has work and family pressures. Some find relief in exercise. ~~~ maratd > It's also a choice, or even an excuse. Alright, get off your high horse. Just because you "excercise" doesn't make you better. There are plenty who don't need to because they work with their hands and plenty more because they have active hobbies. And while it's a popular notion that constant activity makes you healthier, it's just common sense that the body is a machine and the more you stress a machine, the likelier it is to break. See athletes for common ailments. ~~~ runamok > it's just common sense that the body is a machine and the more you stress a > machine, the likelier it is to break Except a biological system gets stronger if you stress it in a progressive manner. While athletes constantly pushing themselves certainly do get injured, doing nothing seems to cause far more harm long term. Everything from heart health to bone density is usually better in an athlete. Almost everyone in my family is obese with a host of maladies. I've been running 23 years and am incredibly healthy despite the occasional hamstring pull or achilles tendonitis. ------ probono1 The full data set seems to show that the strongest argument in the article is that propensity to fitness is mostly a result of genetics and upbringing - it was apparently very difficult to find twins where the level of fitness was different, and very difficult to find twins with significantly different dietary preferences. This seems to indicate that in most cases, your level of fitness is basically pre-determined by age 18. ~~~ tghw Propensity and pre-determination are very different things. The whole point of the article is that someone who makes fitness a priority and exercises regularly has better health and fitness indicators than someone who doesn't, all else being equal. Being active is a choice (for most people). Certainly, some people are more likely to do it naturally, but that doesn't preclude the rest of us from doing it. ~~~ DougWebb It might also show that someone who has better health and fitness indicators is more likely to exercise regularly. Maybe environmental concerns (eg: stress) impact your health and fitness indicators, which causes a lack of motivation and energy for exercise that you would normally have without the stress. I know, as an overweight and highly stressed person, that I often feel that way about exercise. ------ bootload _we can “move more,”_ surprisingly this is difficult, not impossible. Back in 2007 I did a simple experiment myself asking, _' at what point do you fail when repeating exercising?'_ The idea was pretty simple: pick a arbitrary impossible distance to cover and move each day to reach it. The impossible distance I chose 1000km in a year. So I selected a difficult 10km source and set out each day moving 10km per day until I complete my target. I reached my target by late November and decided to push-on to 1000Ml (1600Km), the last 400 in 20 days. The key failure point I found? Just before I started. If you could psychologically push through _any_ excuse made not to go, just before you started, It's pretty likely you will start and finish. I keep this up averaging about 2000km/yr using that insight into failure. Up to 300km so far this year (with min/max 1kg weight and 8kg pack). ------ Timothee I'll admit I didn't read the study but the results summarized in this post don't seem very interesting: _The sedentary twins had lower endurance capacities, higher body fat percentages, and signs of insulin resistance, signaling the onset of metabolic problems._ _The active twins had significantly more grey matter than the sedentary twins, especially in areas of the brain involved in motor control and coordination._ Isn't this expected to anybody not exercising vs. someone who is? It would have been interesting to see if there were results beyond the obvious effects of exercising. ~~~ hayksaakian what's interesting is that this comparison controls for genetics, given that they're twins. ~~~ Timothee I get that, but I feel like we've known for quite a while that people who exercise can run longer and have lower body fat, regardless of genetics. Genetics can affect how long you can run compared to others, but you will run longer if you exercise than if you don't. If you take anybody in the world and have them exercise, they'll lower their body fat, everything else being equal, no? And that's not only the same genes, it's actually the same person. ~~~ jschwartzi I thought, too, that genetics only controls for something akin to a few percent of your potential, and that to bump up against that limit you would have to already be in the 99th percentile for a particular capability. So your endurance is controlled by past training almost exclusively. ------ laichzeit0 I always find it interesting that whenever exercise/diet topics come up on HN that people will go to the n-th degree to try and discredit or rubbish the studies. Could it be a bias in the stereotypical geek which shuns both these habits and so seeks an intellectual reason to justify his sedentary lifestyle? ~~~ philjackson It's a cynical view, but I'm afraid to say I feel it too. This whole 'body acceptance' movement (in the context of obesity) that's happening at the moment is detrimental to society and should probably be shunned as overweight people justifying their inactive lifestyles. ------ darkhorn Can someone explain to me why an identical twin is allergic to mushrooms and the other one is not? Also why a symmetric identical twin is more friendly/outgoing and speaks fluently while the other one is opposite? ~~~ jepper Because your immune system, a highly complex interaction between countless cells, is not fully determined just by your genes or your environment. There is also a stochastic factor. ------ Udik I wonder if they took in account the fact that, as they say, the twin that stopped exercising did so reluctantly and in response to some social or family pressure. In other words, they're comparing a person who keeps doing what he always liked to do with another that had to give up. I'm not sure the result can be transferred to people who never felt the urge and benefit of exercising. How would compare two twins, one of which has only in recent years being forced to exercise? ~~~ revelation Whats your point here, motivation is necessary to realize benefits from training? And the absence causes body fat to accumulate? ~~~ bsder Actually, yes. There have been several studies that seem to point towards significantly less benefit from exercise when people don't enjoy it. Obviously, this is really hard to control for since those who enjoy exercise less are less likely to do it, push themselves, etc. That's not to say that exercise doesn't help at all, but since many of us are concerned about efficiency of exercise that's an important finding. ~~~ sliverstorm Another key one would be, less likely to do it well... The more I learn about exercise & fitness, the more I discover it is a learned skill. For a simple example, despite the fact that my push-ups looked ok, I was in fact doing them terribly wrong all my life which meant they did absolutely nothing to strengthen my pectorals. You might think something as simple as a push-up would be hard to do wrong... ------ gadders From the report: "The scientists invited these twins into the lab and measured each young man’s endurance capacity, body composition and insulin sensitivity, to determine their fitness and metabolic health." Shame they couldn't find twins that took part in strength training, but not surprising given the difficulties in finding any participants. ------ mathattack "But eventually the researchers homed in on 10 pairs of male identical twins, one of whom regularly exercised, while the other did not, usually because of work or family pressures, the researchers determined." Oh boy... How can 10 possibly be enough? ------ Kiro > The active twins had significantly more grey matter than the sedentary > twins, especially in areas of the brain involved in motor control and > coordination. Is that good or bad? ~~~ pingou That looks good to me. What I'm wondering if that it only means that people have better motor control or coordination, or that it can also help people be good at math, for example, or at least help them if they decide to learn math? ------ parag_c_mehta Would have been great if some pictures were shared. Mere numbers do not tell full story that gets shown in actual pictures. ------ waynecochran Amazing. The twin that exercized looked different and was more healthy. ~~~ jostmey Is that an actual picture of the twins? ~~~ kafene My guess is that that's a picture from the art department. ~~~ alecdbrooks It's attributed to Getty Images, so it's actually a stock photo.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
PHP 5.3: `if (strcmp($passwd, $_POST["passwd"]) == 0) { login(); }` is broken - danielweber http://danuxx.blogspot.com/2013/03/unauthorized-access-bypassing-php-strcmp.html ====== danielweber It's not the correct way to compare passwords anyway, since people can do timing attacks on any kind of direct string compare. But this was a really clever exploit this guy found. Not too major, since only C programmers would use strcmp().	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The end of the housing supply debate (maybe) - jseliger http://cityobservatory.org/the-end-of-the-housing-supply-debate-maybe/ ====== quotemstr That there was ever a debate at all is still astounding. Economics has fuzzy areas, but basic principles of supply and demand are very well-established. It's clearly nonsensical to imagine that we can simultaneously lower prices, limit supply, and allow for demand growth. The longevity of this bizarre idea demonstrates how strongly political ideas of how the world _ought_ to work blind us to how the world _does_ work. We'd do well to take the wool from our eyes in other contentious disputes. ~~~ jjxw It is perplexing to me why the burden of proof was ever placed on "increasing supply decreases prices" when the mechanism by which rent control + limiting construction is supposed to benefit anyone besides those already occupying those units is totally unclear. I don't even think it's "ought" vs "does" \- it's more NIMBY interests being more ingrained into local politics allowing them to somehow gaslight everyone into thinking the laws of supply and demand don't apply to housing. ~~~ leggomylibro Yeah, it's not about economics or politics at all. People who live in an area want policies that will benefit them at the expense of newcomers, full stop. And when you concentrate value and therefore power in those existing landowners to an extreme degree, you get a political feedback loop strong enough to overpower something as trivial as reality. After all, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. ~~~ JPKab Here in the Denver area, we have a lot of people moving here for good jobs, strong economy, etc. The locals bitch and moan endlessly. A lady the other night at a dinner party was, in the same conversation, complaining about the "high-density" (townhouses, but she acted as if they were high-rises) housing being built in the area, and moved on to whining about how her daughter was priced out of a home in the area. I stopped myself. ~~~ breischl I can absolutely believe that would happen. Also interesting to watch the debate around conditional removal of the parking requirements for new builds. You see people that complain about lack of affordable housing, but also demand a parking lot/structure for every new building - these things are in conflict. I do understand the bitching & moaning. I remember, and miss, the days when there wasn't a standing jam on I-25 every single Saturday, you could show up at a trailhead later than 8 AM and actually find parking, or rent a nice apartment in Wash Park for $600. But then I'm an immigrant too, so I don't have much moral authority to tell the more-recent immigrants to GTFO. ------ rayiner > . . it has become an article of faith that building market-rate housing > raises rents, rather than lowers them. The logic of Econ 101 — that an > increase in supply lowers price — is alien to many progressives, both in the > Bay Area and around the country. Pretty much. I'm progressive on a lot of issues but many public-interest minded people are immune to economic realities. The example about subsidized versus market-rate housing is a great one. Subsidized housing reducing displacement twice as effectively as a market-rate house sounds great. But put another way: permitting two market-rate houses that bring in tax additional tax revenue is as effective as building a subsidized unit, which costs the government a bunch of money. The "trickle down" effect is also real. > Building more market rate housing isn’t so much about “trickle down” as it > is building enough new housing to keep higher income households from moving > down-market and bidding up the price of older housing that would otherwise > be affordable to moderate and lower income households. In Chicago, which has never had rent controls, there are tons of high-end highrises going up. But the high-end units there were built in the 1970's and 1980's have been retargeted now as more value offerings. ~~~ TulliusCicero Exactly. Affordable, market-rate housing is just old housing that used to be luxury. It's not that much different from cars. In the US, working class people can largely afford cars, they just buy used. ------ iandanforth I live in a very interesting area, across the street from me is a different city with housing costs roughly 10x the costs of mine. I am daily confronted with the absurdity of pricing of housing. In addition as I've watched rents around me rise, and anticipated my own rent rising, I wonder at the expectation that we should continually get less for more. My house isn't getting any newer after all. If my employer decided to cut my pay by 10 or 20% every year there's no way I would stay, and yet I must admit that I have tolerated this behavior from my landlords. Unlike commodities or consumables, for which unrestrained markets influenced by collective expectations of supply and demand are not routinely shocking, the expectation that my house, in which I already live, and for which I have been paying consistently for years, suddenly being much more expensive ... well that feels like a hole in the social contract. A problem to be remedied by legislation if the governing societal expectations do not naturally lead to a different equilibrium. What if the expectation was that if you let someone live in your home you are granting them significant rights, significant stability, and are assuming significant risk of losing money? This set of expectations is well known elsewhere, but not so much where I live. So while I am willing to be convinced that a humane and equitable improvement to a cities housing situation can be achieved by building more housing, I would hate for legislative restrictions to be ignored as complimentary and beneficial efforts. ~~~ bhauer > _my house ... for which I have been paying consistently for years_ If you are _paying_ for it, not past-tense, then it's not technically _your house_. The apparently uneven market for real estate is shocking to buyers because of the variability of supply constraints, caused by geography but also in great measure by zoning regulation. The hackneyed refrain of "location, location, location" as the chief determinant of the value of a property illustrates this point. > _I must admit that I have tolerated this behavior from my landlords._ You have tolerated it precisely because you actually know that the value of property is not fixed. As demand increases while supply does not, the value/price goes up. Clearly you like the location, so you've not moved away. You are part of the demand that is moving prices upward. Your _willingness_ to pay more is precisely what sets the price, along with supply. > _A problem to be remedied by legislation if the governing societal > expectations do not naturally lead to a different equilibrium._ As the article points out, legislation focused on remedying the problem would relax constraints on supply caused by zoning, regulatory hurdles, etc. But so often the people complaining about the cost of housing are the same people voting to keep supply constrained. ~~~ hackits There does come a tipping point that most land lords don't like to talk about. When interest rates go so low that the cost of owning your own home is cheaper than renting. This is including all the cost of maintenance, water rates, garbage collection, insurance, taxes, and also property tax's that come with it. Do be careful when you decide to enter the market as choosing the wrong time can wipe out about 3-4 years savings within 2-3 months. ------ RangerScience So, it sounds like: 1) Building any kind of more housing is beneficial 2) Building subsidized housing is more beneficial than market-rate housing This leaves me with two questions: 1) Does subsidized have double the effect because you can build twice as many? 2) Zoning laws seem to prevent cheap housing from being cost-effective for developers to build. If you made it possible to build cheap housing (in LA, maybe by reducing parking requirements), would developers be building cheap housing on their own, without prompting / subsidies? ~~~ OrwellianChild In order: 1) Yes. 2) More beneficial in limiting _displacement_ only. No considerations of cost. Answer 1) Subsidized housing provides more benefit because it provides immediate housing stock at lower prices, replacing any stock lost to luxury construction. It is definitely _not_ cheaper or easier to build more - the same areas that _need_ subsidized housing are the ones where housing in general is more expensive to build. Answer 2) Absolutely yes, zoning laws increase the cost of construction, leading to more expensive housing units. Explicit recommendations in favor of more affordable housing include: A) Removing parking requirements B) Allowing more density (more floors, smaller required sq. ft per unit - yes, this is a thing, and fewer yards, set-backs, etc.) ------ cwperkins This is something I've been trying to understand for a long time. In New York City because of the rent controls it seems like the market rate has diverged alarmingly from the subsidized rents. From my perspective it seems like this propagates the "Tale of Two Cities" and makes it a much wider leap to go from rent-control or subsidized housing to market-rate. In my naive opinion it seems like in a system without all of the controls in place there may be a more even spectrum of price points and make jumping to the next level of housing easier. There are other forces at play here too such as foreign buyers speculating on the Manhattan Condo market, look no further then the foreclosure at One57 penthouse to show how it has gotten. I think building more housing at all levels is the best way to solve the affordability crisis, but naturally the higher-end of the market would be built out first due to developers wanting to cater to the highest bidder. The cities current approach of providing tax- incentives to developers to allot a certain portion of housing to affordable housing is seemingly a good strategy to tackle the problem of affordable housing as well as integration. ~~~ cwperkins Does anyone know anyone from Starsky robotics? I think it would be interesting to deploy the remote technology used in it's trucks to construction vehicles. Imagine being able to have continuous delivery at construction sites. For example, excavation is a relatively quiet activity that seems like it just requires a back hoe and a dumpster to haul away waste. If we can be able to control these remotely, would we be able to increase the efficiency of construction sites? ------ sliverstorm This doesn't seem to address high end housing vs (unsubsidized) low end housing. Is a hundred new units with marble countertops as good, holistically, as a hundred with laminate? I think a lot of the opposition revolves around frustration with developers building luxury when the intent of the given policy was low or mid market units, combined with a belief that units targeted at the needy market segment would be the best solution. ~~~ jogjayr There are reasons for developers to prefer to build high-end housing over low- end housing. 1\. City parking requirements drive up the cost of construction to the point that only luxury units would be profitable. 2\. Land acquisition costs (referenced in the article) are high due to zoning laws, so developers prefer to build high-end housing to recoup those costs. 3\. Labor costs the same no matter what you're building (beyond some extra for a marble installer or whatever). Labor cost is a function of cost-of-living in the area, which itself is proportional to housing costs. Since the cost of construction is high, a builder is going to build the highest-value product possible at that cost. So really all the problems boil down to city regulations, zoning, and unaffordable housing creating more unaffordable housing. "Trickle-down" is a dirty word in many circles but I think it does apply to a certain extent for housing. Today's luxury apartment is tomorrow's mid-market apartment. If I could get a better apartment than what I have for slightly more rent, I'd probably upgrade, but the difference is stupid high (nearly double). In turn, my current apartment would probably be rented by a middle- income earner if it was located somewhere other than Silicon Valley. ~~~ sliverstorm It's pretty obvious why luxury development is preferred; anybody, in any market, would prefer to make luxury units. Yet no other market seems to operate by supplying only luxury units and depending on trickle down. Why are there Corollas, instead of just more Lexuses? ~~~ kelnos SF already has plenty of "non luxury" housing that has been gobbled up for luxury prices, often displacing people who could normally afford such housing. The theory is that building more luxury housing will take pressure off the non-luxury stock. I agree with that theory, but building more affordable and below-market housing (instead, or simultaneously) will likely have a faster, more positive effect. ~~~ jogjayr But it's impossible to make affordable and below-market housing profitable unless the underlying issues, land acquisition costs and zoning, are addressed. That means the government will have to subsidize these units and they still won't be enough to meet demand. So only the lucky few who win the housing lottery will benefit. Everyone else (most lower-income people, middle- income renters overpaying for low-end housing) still loses out. I'd prefer that we solved the problem for most people rather than just a lucky few. If people couldn't afford food because not enough farmland was available for reasons like "preserving the character of the area" (imagine that you can't truck food in from lower-cost locations in this scenario) you bet we'd find a way to start growing more food stat. No one would say "Well we'll just subsidize food for some people so fewer people will starve. But it's no use letting farmers farm because they'll just grow Kobe beef and avocados instead of wheat and corn". ~~~ kelnos > But it's impossible to make affordable and below-market housing profitable > unless the underlying issues, land acquisition costs and zoning, are > addressed. Totally agree. Developers don't want to build affordable housing because they in some cases actually stand to lose money when doing so. SF's byzantine planning process makes it that way, and that's not going to change without some heavy reform there. ------ empath75 If you build new luxury housing presumably people now living in less desirable housing will upgrade, making their housing available at lower prices, etc. ~~~ 1_2__4 This claim keeps popping up. I’ve yet to see it include a citation. Maybe today will be different. ~~~ empath75 It’s in this very article. What other outcome could happen? ~~~ throwawaymsft That new luxury housing makes a city more attractive and induces demand from outside. Adding new roads can make driving more attractive and worsen congestion. Not saying that’s what happens, but a simple supply/demand analysis (ceteris paribus) may not suffice. ~~~ OrwellianChild No one has seen fit to build much luxury housing in Cleveland, OH lately, but what exists already (at rock-bottom prices) doesn't seem to be attracting much population from outside... Induced demand is definitely a thing for roads, but that demand is from fixed supply of people. In the roads case, it is counter-intuitive specifically _because_ it causes the same number of people to drive more, on average. That dynamic simply doesn't hold for luxury goods in general or luxury housing in particular. There are effectively no replicable instances of more luxury good = more buyers unless price falls or supply was previously constrained. ~~~ throwawaymsft I'd posit it's hard to know what the dynamic would be. Consider certain luxury goods ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)) where increasing the price increases the demand. (Conveniently, economists have a model and also a name for things that don't follow the model. The universe can be divided into bananas and non-bananas.) Cleveland isn't a prestigious world-class city attractive to the wealthy, but if new luxury condos in a tier-1 city come online, it may induce demand from wealthy/speculators who would not otherwise have considered that city, or were picking between alternatives. (Investment, signaling/status-seeking, etc.) Treated as an investment vehicle, increasing supply (e.g., having an IPO where no shares existed before) can unlock latent demand (people divert income into that investment and drive up the price). Perhaps housing needs to be modeled as a mix of investment, local demand for shelter, status symbol, tax haven, political baton (keeping existing homeowners above water), etc. Again, not sure how housing actually behaves but it seems complex enough to defy my econ 101 understanding. ~~~ OrwellianChild I'm assuming you're suggestion that housing is a Veblen good is in jest - I can build a shining, gilded tower in the middle of Wyoming and I'm not going to attract America's wealthiest citizens to Cheyenne... It seems like you're conflating cause and effect here - If Cleveland isn't good enough, then it must be the tier-1 city that is the cause of the demand. Not the housing itself. Further, unless the new luxury units are sitting empty (a problem Vancouver, BC dealt with for awhile), then the market for rents functions regardless of whether speculation is occurring. I invite you to find an example of vacancies increasing in the same place that housing/rents climb - it won't exist in any of the real estate hot-beds in America. The main thrust of this article and the research surrounding it by folks like City Observatory, Sightline Institute, etc. is that we now _do_ know the dynamic of housing prices in booming economies. I don't feel like you've provided any evidence that contradicts the conclusions presented in the research, so I'm having trouble pinpointing your skepticism. Let me know if I've missed your point! ------ alexasmyths Folks - please add immigration. Why on earth people don't grasp that when population is increasing mostly due to newcomers it affects housing ... this bothers me - because it's politicized, nobody can talk about it it seems. Immigration is just a reality, it's part of the equation - it has real effects on housing costs and wages, one can't ignore it because sometimes the answers might not jive with one's politics. So, immigration (or rather, population change, which can include births etc.) - is an important driving factor. Which includes migration between states/regions obviously. ~~~ ouid just build more housing. ~~~ Danihan Not everyone wants to live in a super over-populated / densely populated area... In general, more saturation of humans == more problems. People make fun of NIMBY, but at the end of the day who better to manage the neighborhood than the people who are already invested in it..? ~~~ OrwellianChild You wish to extend control of property beyond the borders of what they own outright? ~~~ AnimalMuppet But that happens all the time. Neighborhood zoning restrictions, restrictive covenants, homeowner association rules, and so on. So Danihan's position is, _de facto_ , what the situation already is in many instances. So: You wish to _not allow_ any control of property by anyone other than the property owner? Are you sure you really want that? ~~~ OrwellianChild You just listed the principal agents in the NIMBY crusade, which I suppose it's clear I am in pretty strong opposition to in most cases. Tyranny of the majority is a serious problem in race, class, social, and wealth spectra, and these groups represent that form of tyranny in action. They're great right up until you do something that the majority disagrees with. Not recognizing the red flags this throws up makes me think that you've probably found yourself in the majority most of your life. It's worth considering what these systems mean for folks who fall outside of the majority on any of these issues. ~~~ AnimalMuppet OK, but I don't have to be part of the minority to understand why I don't want my neighbor to be able to tear his house down and replace it with a 7-11, or an oil refinery, or a landfill. Do any of _those_ things throw up red flags for you? I mean, sure, it changes the value of my property if my neighbor doesn't keep his bushes neatly trimmed. But there's stuff that he can do that's a lot more serious than that. I don't regard opposing a 7-11 on my neighbor's property as "tyranny of the majority" \- or at least I regard letting my neighbor freely choose to do those things as "tyranny of the minority", which I regard as worse. Now, obviously you can take this to extremes, and you can get upper-middle- class white-bread cisnormative-with-2.3-kids neighbors who insist that you have to have exactly 2.3 kids or you can't live in the neighborhood. Also, your garage has to be painted the right shade of blue. That's definitely tyranny of the majority, and I agree that it can be oppressive. And I guess opposing a 7-11 next door, or an oil refinery, or a landfill is exactly NIMBY-ism. But I moved into a neighborhood where part of the restrictive covenants said that I _couldn 't_ open a convenience store on my lot - because it was going to conflict with the one that they were planning for a block or two away, on the corner of the subdivision. That was known in advance to everyone who bought into (or built in) the subdivision, and I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with an oil refinery next door, either, _if I know it 's coming when I buy the property_. (I would probably not buy, but if I did, I would know what I was signing up for.) And I didn't have a problem with the neighbor two doors down starting a hair salon in her house, even though I _didn 't_ know that was coming when I bought into the neighborhood. There was a mechanism where anyone who had a problem with it had a chance to be heard, though. (I don't know if they could have blocked it, or if someone else got to judge the seriousness of the objection.) TL;DR: I'm not opposed to people being able to do things. I'm opposed to people being able to do things that significantly harm the value of their neighbor's property in ways that the neighbors didn't know was coming at the time they bought the property. ~~~ OrwellianChild I realize I was being somewhat inflammatory with my talk of "being in the majority" and "missing flags" \- thanks for being willing to engage anyway. :-) I also like your characterization of "upper-middle-class white-bread cisnormative-with-2.3-kids neighbors" \- this is who we're usually speaking of when we talk about the "NIMBYs". You're right that there _is_ a difference between starting up an oil refinery and building an apartment complex. The problem with many of these organizations you mentioned is that they weaponize their power (intended for use against oil refineries) _against_ people, lifestyles, and forms of housing they don't like. In Seattle (as elsewhere) it is justified in order to, for example, preserve the availability of free public street parking in front of and near their home. This perceived "right" to public, shared property has extended to mobilizing against dense housing like "apodments" for fear it would "take up street parking" in my town. In my opinion, if you want parking, you should build it on your own plot and not expect the city to limit development to provide it for you free of charge. You seem to have a pretty reasonable expectation of entitlement - no 7-11, but fine with small in-home business - and I wish there were more like you out there. In practice, these "NIMBYs" move to an area circa 1970 and expect it to _never change again_. This is untenable in downtown SF, Seattle, or any other major metropolitan area, as I think you realize. The natural evolution of these HOAs, neighborhood associations, and like seems inevitably to be towards oppression - anyone more Laissez-faire wouldn't bother joining one in the first place. ------ xenadu02 The idea that a government - at any level - is going to fund enough subsidized housing to make even a tiny dent in the housing problem is completely laughable. Anyone proposing such nonsense isn’t serious about the problem in the least. That’s what bugs me so much about so-called progressives who oppose more housing. There is no half-plausible scenario where SF or CA comes up with the hundred billion it would take to solve the bay area’s housing shortage. ------ purplezooey A major part of the problem is that it costs too much to build. Too many construction entities living on cheap funny money and a supply shortage after the real estate crash that has still not rebounded. Why does it cost $200,000 to add a second story to a house, for example. ------ ouid I said it before here, but the situation in oregon is fucked up more than normal. The state constitution limits the rate at which property taxes can be raised to 4% a year, provided no new construction occurs. Increasing housing supply is actually penalized here. ~~~ jackcosgrove I think that's the point. Didn't the governor of Oregon tell people from other parts of the country not to move to Oregon in the 70s? Everyone wants their own private paradise without having to share. ------ gech As long as we don't have developers that are willing to build only luxury, bought by speculators and remaining vacant. Please answer this. ------ hardlianotion Interesting article. However: "Rent increases, which were measured in the double digits eighteen months ago, have gone negative." I call those kind of increases: decreases. ~~~ elhudy That kind of wording leads me to believe that he is referring to the rate. I.e. Rent increases are still occurring but at a decreasing rate. Maybe? ~~~ icahnvalyou Possible, but I think it's more likely poor wording than linguistic calculus. ------ verulito We don't build housing, builders do. We simply decide what is permitted to happen. We could eliminate restrictions on construction and that would help but the rate of housing growth would still be limited by money available to pay for new housing, which is a lower bound to affordability. It's actually a worse problem than it sounds for, if we're decreasing building restrictions then we're slowing price growth and decreasing the attractiveness of housing to investors. To accelerate affordability, we probably also need to subsidize or at least incentivize then. That gets to be fairly expensive so where's the money going to come from? My proposal is a national growth tax, whose money is redistributed from areas which don't grow to those which do. That money will be used to pay for infrastructure improvements needed to house those people as well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Which service to use to show web-site design mockup to a client? - rusinov Hello. I'm doing WordPress development on the side, and usually clients provide their designs for web-pages themselves. However, new client wants me to come up with the web-page design. I'm curious, what is the go-to service these days where one can mock up a web-pages with dummy data, preferably link them together, with ability to toggle mobile version? Maybe, Figma? My goal is to show client a mockup-page where they can approve the design, and I then will focus on recreating this design in WordPress. ====== codegeek Don't do it loosely otherwise you may end up spending a lot of time on it. If you are not a designer, tell the client that you can get a designer who can work with them first. Some clients are too anal about pixel perfect design and this client is one of those, you will spend 10s of hours just dealing with "can you tweak this button a bit to the right" type of requests. So tell the client that you are happy to code the WordPress site but how specific of a design are they looking for ? If pixel perfect, you need a dedicated designer. Otherwise, you may be able to get the client to work with existing templates in WordPress BUT those are also dangerous since it leaves too much room for interpretation. I would start by asking the client "Are you looking for a specific design that is done exactly to your specs or are you ok with using existing templates" ? Their answer may give you a clue. Also, remember that design itself could be lot more work than coding the actual WP site.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Startup: give up? - tty123 This Q probably must have been asked several times; but as each situation is different, 'dare to ask this ;)<p>My situation: worked on my startup, so far self and little friends/family funded. Almost 3yrs; did some parttime jobs here and there. I am in a highly overcrowded but lucrative mkt; 2 patents pending; 3 to 4 customer Letter of intents(LOIs); but no tangle progress as all of the customers have outsourced their platform (application) and both my and my prospect's hands are tied. 2 of the platform guys put us on hold; 1 other platform vendor is painfully slow; running out of money in next 3mths; pitched to VCs, no funding, asked to come back when gained more mkt traction; due to lack of funding, 'am working w avg team (mostly on equity) but progress is very little; myself spinning all the threads; now, even to pivot, 'need $s;<p>I do belive in the idea and have pitched to several. If it weren't for LOIs from prospetive customers, 'would have given up; I am highly qualified (education & corp exp), but feeling as if no talents due to above all; can someone give their perspective here? 'Also regret 'haven't moved to bay area.<p>Next 2 mnths, seeking angel round; but not optimistic; lack of motivation even to revamp my resume (as 'feel at crossroads w no talents)<p>Feeling like putting company in hibernation and do some job. Any advice , will take it. Thank you! ====== tren Instead of creating this extremely brief and hard to read summary, it might be worth making a blog post describing exactly what your situation is, the problems you've encountered, so that people can provide you with better suggestions. ------ tty123 C'mmon folks; I really am looking for some directions; yes ultimately its me who has to decide w/o emotions. One other option 'am looking at is : focus/wait on patents being issued and then re attempt; or atleast 'can sell/license them. PS: read "tangile" as tangible; "belive" as believe in the main posting; typos ------ angryasian You probably already know the answer. Only you know your business best.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Verlet-js - Open source dynamic body physics engine - subprotocol http://subprotocol.com/verlet-js/ ====== subprotocol Hi HN. I recently open sourced a verlet physics engine that I wrote for fun. Four example experiments are in there so far. I have a few other experiment ideas in mind that I hope to get implemented soon. Anyways, it was a blast creating this and thought others might like to look/play with it too. Cheers ~~~ iambot Looks great, thanks for sharing. One thing I would suggest is to not worry about rendering the physics on the canvas, threejs is good at what it does and lacks a good physics engine. It's just my opinion, but I think the project would benefit from either making it work with threejs or by not solving the render problem, and just focus on doing great physics, so that people can use the results in their threejs scenes. Great work though ~~~ subprotocol This is a really great point. Abstracting it away shouldn't be bad, and it is possible to extend by vec2 implementation to 3d. After I finish my next batch of examples I will venture down this path. Thank you for the feedback! ~~~ bm1362 There is a physics engine for threejs- it's somewhere on their demo page. I'm actually working on a physics engine as well- I'm willing to help you extend it in whatever direction. A question, Why did you chose Verlet integration? I know it's great for particles but I always had issues trying to do angular mechanics. ~~~ iambot Are you thinking of Physijs [0], which is made to work well with ThreeJS? Its a wrapper around Ammojs for ThreeJS. It does look good and integrates well, but to be honest ThreeJS is so mature and battle tested with multiple renderers (canvas, webgl etc) that when building a physics engine, I really think it would be better to spend ones dev time on the physics and not waste* time reimplementing a portion of ThreeJS. [0]: <http://chandlerprall.github.io/Physijs/> *Obviously not actually 'wasted' time, hacking is great even just for the sake of it - but I'm sure you know what I mean. ------ michaelkscott Nice project. The spider was a bit unexpected though. I had to jolt back a bit. I then pulled it out of the web and it died. Phew. (: ~~~ pooriaazimi I thought you were joking (about dragging the spider out), but it actually works! Extremely well-done. ~~~ Zecc You drag it slightly off the web and she will hold on for dear life. Verly funny! ~~~ rurounijones Amazingly "life-like" behaviour on the spider considering such simple "AI" ~~~ subprotocol Thanks =) ------ blixt You should make a benchmarking script to track speed over time. I've written probably 10 different Verlet engines in JavaScript, and the overhead of JavaScript's dynamic nature can be very palpable in the simulations. For my most recent attempt at something speedy, here's some source code making use of typed arrays and doing away with objects completely. The speed improvement is good, but maybe the maintainability suffers a little (press space to create blob): <https://c9.io/blixt/blob/workspace/index.html> Note that the particle-line collision is currently inefficient, so it slows down the simulation a lot more than it should. ------ alexvr Awesome. I love the spider demo, especially -- the way it sticks and everything just feels right, to the point where it's too realistic for comfort. I felt like I was messing with a real spider. ~~~ ikawe I pulled her off, and then felt awful about it. Luckily you can put her back on. I'm not sure what about it is so effective. ------ donpark There is a similar project named Coffee-Physics [1] by Soulwire. [1] <https://github.com/soulwire/Coffee-Physics> ~~~ rorrr2 Also Box2D JS and Box2Dweb <http://box2d-js.sourceforge.net/> <https://code.google.com/p/box2dweb/> Bullet JS <https://github.com/adambom/bullet.js/> Cannon.js <https://github.com/schteppe/cannon.js> Ammo.js <https://github.com/kripken/ammo.js/> Physijs <http://chandlerprall.github.io/Physijs/> JigLibJS <https://github.com/supereggbert/JigLibJS> ~~~ Ygg2 Interesting list but I wonder how do these libraries fare when used by JS developers? What are their performances and experience with them? ~~~ seanmcdirmid Also, a verlet-based physics engine is a very different beast compared to a rigid-body one (a few in the list above are also based on verlet, but not most). ~~~ jjoonathan Err, I thought verlet was just an integration technique? How does it translate into a "very different beast"? ~~~ bm1362 Verlet integration uses an object's change in position at time t to determine the velocity for t+1- it is typically used for particles not full rigid bodies. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Verlet is incredibly stable and allows you to update the position of a mass directly (velocity, force, momentum are all implicit), making it very easy to work with if not very accurate. You can't emulate rigid bodies very well (shape matching kinda works), collision response and stacking is a pain in the ass. ~~~ jjoonathan I guess I'm still having trouble understanding where the complexities arise. I have no difficulty believing that they _do_ arise, but I would like to understand how it happens if you're willing to take the time to explain. I would think that rigid bodies -- either perfectly rigid or semi-rigid via springs & struts -- would not handle all that differently in verlet since force is explicit (typo on your part?) and a v/p estimate is available from the last position, albeit with a bit more phase lag than usual. Does the phase lag induce nasty oscillations or something? ~~~ seanmcdirmid We can make semi-rigid bodies in verlet using strings are shape matching techniques, but the pressure needed to maintain shape necessarily interferes with stacking or any other kind of stable contact. Actually, their was a solution to this in a shape matching paper by Matthias [1] but I was never able to get it to work right. I've played around a lot with Verlet, it is very powerful in certain cases...especially since you can just update the position of a mass directly (very easy to program, very mouse/touch input friendly). However, a rigid body physics engine is probably better for most game use cases. [1] <http://www.matthiasmueller.info/realtimephysics/> ~~~ jjoonathan Cool, thanks for the link! ------ arocks The spider has been extremely well done. Spent a lot of time playing with it. ------ drorweiss Awesome! Thanks for sharing. It's amazing what you can do inside the browser these days. Any thoughts of integrating it with SVG? SVG is super useful for drawing and manipulating shapes in the browser. ~~~ subprotocol Thank you! I have actually not played around with SVG yet. Is it as easy as canvas? I am very new to canvas and found it to be super easy to pick up and run with. ~~~ drorweiss I haven't played with canvas yet... it's quite powerful... checkout [http://www.netmagazine.com/features/20-svg-uses-will-make- yo...](http://www.netmagazine.com/features/20-svg-uses-will-make-your-jaw- drop) ------ talloaktrees I pulled on a circle and it became a bicycle. That is the best bug ever. ------ goyalpulkit This looks really good. Just for fun, try pulling one of the spider's legs and bring it close to the web! I really like how it clings on to the web. ------ opminion Awesome. This kind of well designed personal site mixing tech with demos is very appealing, because if gives you something beautiful, potentially very useful, and chewable. Anyone knows a good "directory" or collection of such sites? Another example of that kind of site: <http://worrydream.com/> ------ f4stjack Hey, I downloaded the zip sourcefile from the github repository but any change on the tree example code (for example commenting out tree1) increases load time tenfold. Has anyone experienced this? Thanks for any reply. edit: after I deleted google analytics code, everything went hunky dory. Thanks for this amazing piece of code :) ------ Hawkee Reminds me of another project done in Java Processing. It implements a similar curtain effect except you can tear it to pieces, [http://bluethen.com/wordpress/index.php/processing- apps/curt...](http://bluethen.com/wordpress/index.php/processing- apps/curtain/) ------ C1D This is great, it doesn't seem to have any lag and I can't wait to see this being implemented. ~~~ lanstonpeng I'm diving into it.LOL ------ accatyyc This is awesome. Very well done, and very nice looking examples. Simplistic and stylish. Props for the spider! ------ BaconJuice Holy crap, I am blown away by how amazing this is! great work guys and thank you for sharing. ------ somid3 I am intrigued, this is a lot of work it seems, what inspired you to create this engine? ~~~ subprotocol It all started as play coding. The deeper I went the funner it became =) ------ buren Really great work! Thanks for open-sourcing the project, already love playing with it ------ bluepill Very nice work, thanks for sharing ------ mouseroot that spider example is pretty freaking neat	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Re: $150K conv. debt for YC - what if company raises no more money? - yakto Just curious regarding the terms of the $150K debt from Yuri and RC: what happens if the company never raises a follow-on round, and a) there is plenty of cash flow to pay back the debt, or b) there is insufficient cash flow to pay back the debt.<p>Anyone know when the debt comes due, what the interest rate is, and if payback terms are pegged to cashflow somehow? ====== bkrausz A blogger somewhere saw the terms of the note and commented on it (don't remember what site). Basically if the note converts for any reason other than an equity round it does so at a $5M cap. Even more interesting: that $5M cap also applies if the terms of the future equity round don't allow for re-upping. So basically, if StartFund can't re- invest in the next round, they get better terms on the note. Really smart. ------ minalecs I really don't know the answer to this question but my best guesses a) At some point you would do a real valuation on your company and debt would be converted to shares or some type of equity. Investors would hope that you become profitable and investors could sell shares on secondary market or company would eventually buy back shares. b) If no cash you would eventually close shop, and I imagine if you dissolve your corporation nothing happens. Like going bankrupt and if you have no money theres nothing to collect on and nothing happens. I guess its possible to sell what assets are available. Thats why investment is a risk.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
'Digitize Your Inventory' – Would You Buy This Product? - sanna_inventory https://www.sanna-tech.com/ ====== rtag Cool product! I would totally use this for organizing my wardrobe.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple approves Dogecoin iOS app - madeofpalk http://www.mydoge.co ====== Tarang From the page: >MYĐOGE is read-only. It can be used to monitor your Dogecoin at a glance, watch the markets or read about Dogecoin. So it can't be used for transfers. It still doesn't look like Apple is approving apps that send *coins ------ mrtksn Dogecoin is an example how your story about your product could make it or break it. Dogecoin is not yet another digital currency and this has nothing to do with it's technology. ~~~ commandar I'd also say it demonstrates the importance of identifying a niche. Nobody cares about generic AltCoin #842012. Positioning themselves as a tipping currency was a smart move. The internet has badly needed a way to reward people with very small amounts of money for years. That's one of the things I really like about doge, personally. ~~~ rglullis The thing I don't understand, though... why not just use bitcoin to do it? It was BTC that found a way "to send really small amounts of money through the internet". No need to invent a niche. To me it looks like the ones using dogecoin don't want to think of it as money, but just some other form of internet points like karma. ~~~ nahname I agree, let me give you 0.0000005 BTC. Or I could give you 100 DOGE. ~~~ Spittie So it's because it looks better? You could always say "here, have 500 Satoshis". [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi) ~~~ nwh Here's 5400 Satoshi, actually. There's a dust limit to prevent micro cent spamming. ~~~ lvs Just to be clear, Doge tipping is mostly not happening on the blockchain. These transactions are only transacting on the chain when people cash in or out of a tipbot. ------ higherpurpose I wonder if this is the typical left doesn't know what the right does in regards to Apple's "personalized" cryptocurrency policy, so someone approved it without realizing the top executives don't want it there, and they might request for a ban later - or Apple has an incredibly inconsistent policy regarding cryptocurrencies. Neither one makes much sense. ~~~ madeofpalk What seems to be consistant is that they don't actually care about cryptocurrencies. They care about not copping the blame when third party payment platforms cause problems for their users. If there was some sort of security hole in a bitcoin iOS app that caused the owner to loose money, Apple will recieve some of the blame and negative press. Apple disallowing these apps is their way of mitigating that damage. ------ Viper007Bond Why is this news? There's been other Dodgecoin apps in the App Store for a while now. I've been using this one personally to track my wallet balance: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doge-tracker-dogecoin- price/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doge-tracker-dogecoin- price/id785007290?mt=8) Infact I think the one I've been using is probably better designed, although it isn't free. ~~~ k-mcgrady It's news because yesterday there was a story about them removing a Bitcoin app. ~~~ theboywho They removed the Bitcoin app because you can send coins with it. This dogecoin app is "read-only" for your dogecoin accounts. ~~~ k-mcgrady I know. Obviously a lot of people didn't get that (too busy grabbing their pitchforks) which is why this story has probably made it to the front page today. ------ Geee It doesn't seem to be a wallet app, just for checking balance. ------ sentientmachine These handheld devices will someday become so close to us that it will be difficult to tell where the device ends and where the human begins. Someday large segments of the population are going to gladly submit some control of their mind to 3rd parties who know which programs and products are good for you, and which you are unauthorized to use. I'll decide what I want to run and what not to run on MY computer, thanks. I guess it comes down to whether you want to be a pet in a safe walled garden with a pre-programmed experience, or a free agent out there with terrors to freeze your soul and delights to satiate your every desire. ~~~ rimantas > Someday large segments of the population are going to > gladly submit some control of their mind to 3rd parties > who know which programs and products are good for you, and > which you are unauthorized to use. This is already in place and has nothing to do with technology. Just observe carefully all the stuff people get offended about, or call racist, or call sexist—usually there is little to no thinking involved, just conditioned response, sometimes reaching absurdity (like insisting that black person from UK should be called african-american). My impression is that in these cases people don't really have moral compass or deep understanding why something is right and something is wrong—this all was "outsourced" somewhere and all left are just learned reponses to stimuli, with extremely crude pattern recognition. And yes, to some degree this applies to those inceasingly speaking about walled-gardens. ------ plg so here in my hand I have a $100 bill. How do I turn it into Dogecoin?? ~~~ zedpm Well, if you literally mean cash in hand, you're going to have to do a bit of work. Much like with other crypto coins, you can sometimes find a local person who will do an in-person exchange[1]. Otherwise, you can use something like the dogemarket subreddit[2] to do an exchange using Paypal, Google Wallet, etc. Another option is to link a bank account to a service like Vault of Satoshi[3] and make a USD/Doge trade there. [1] [http://www.dogesnearme.com/](http://www.dogesnearme.com/) [2] [http://www.reddit.com/r/dogemarket](http://www.reddit.com/r/dogemarket) [3] [https://www.vaultofsatoshi.com/](https://www.vaultofsatoshi.com/) ~~~ throw938265 Curious as to why you didn't jut say "you can directly buy Dogecoin for $100 USD on a website called Vault of Satoshi." Instead, you opened up your longwinded response with "doing a bit of work" and other mumbo jumbo, leaving the direct answer as a marginal note at the end (just "another option" in your words.) Edit: the most challenging part would be going to a bank to deposit the physical Franklin, if the end user didn't have a fiat in an account already. ~~~ zedpm The options are listed in order of increasing difficulty. Vault of Satoshi requires verification of users, which means sending them personal information and waiting for it to be processed. Once you've jumped through all the hoops, it's easy. Finding someone to meet you at the coffee shop and exchange the $100 in person is potentially the quickest and easiest, assuming such persons exist in your area. The PayPal/Wallet option is somewhere in the middle. All that having been said, _I'm_ a bit curious why you felt the need to bitch about someone giving a detailed answer. I wonder at the intellect that labels four sentences as long-winded. ------ muratmutlu That design looks familiar [http://liber.io/](http://liber.io/) ~~~ kaugesaar [http://www.blacktie.co/2013/12/flatty-app-landing- page/](http://www.blacktie.co/2013/12/flatty-app-landing-page/) ~~~ janantala All site templates are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, he didn't include BlackTie.co credit ------ VexXtreme Misleading title. ~~~ Cthulhu_ No it's not; it's a Dogecoin app, in the app store, so the title is accurate. Sure, it may need a clarification that it's a read-only app, but still. ~~~ epmatsw Just because something is accurate doesn't mean it's not misleading. That it may need clarification would seem to be an indicator that it is in fact misleading. ------ chalgo I want to add my wallet without using the scanner. ------ detay Yet apple bans the bitcoin apps. Such travesty. ------ brooklynjam Wow. Much Cool! Sigh. Big Crash. But there in spirit. ------ felipelalli I know it is not appropriate on HN but I can't resist: AUEHAUEHUAHEUAHEUHEUAHEUAHUEHAUEHUAHEUH WOW Apple! Such Apple... Many Apples... ------ lurkinggrue So wise. ------ jashjacob so wow. nice ------ dpanah The reason why this is worthy news is that you made it so. Hence, think twice unless you are Dogecoin lover, and if you are, mission accomplished. Many times things come from behind and win, watch the moon closely this time. ------ IE5point5 Icons/UI details could use a lot of work in this. Actually the website is much better designed than the actual app.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An Analysis of Linux Scalability to Many Cores [OSDI'10 PDF] - yarapavan http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/linux:osdi10.pdf ====== patrickgzill Summary: they found bottlenecks in many applications and found that by implementing various code changes to the kernel, about 3000 lines worth, they could greatly improve performance on a 48-core Linux box. For instance, per-core data structures to speed access to commonly used kernel items. They also introduce a concept they call "sloppy counters" which is a per-core, reduced lock contention method of handling certain systemwide counters. ------ xtacy As noted in the paper, something of relevance: Receive Packet Steering is a recent patch from Google for the Linux Kernel addresses the issue of packet processing by hashing packets to specific cores, while honouring data locality. <http://lwn.net/Articles/328339/> Facebook also apparently made some changes to their Kernel to optimise the IO path for memcached. Mark Zuckerberg presents some of the modifications in this (slightly long) techtalk: <http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=631826881803> ------ jgrahamc It's worth pointing out that people rarely get the gmake speedups that the authors are seeing from gmake -j because most makefiles contain problems that constrain parallelism and cause broken builds. For example, many have missing dependency information, or reuse the same file over and again for intermediate results. Fixing that was part of the motivation behind Electric Cloud.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 - davidiach http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/press.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twitter_tweet ====== smharris65 I hope more people will become aware of her book "Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster". A sad witness of a human tragedy. [http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear- Disas...](http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear- Disaster/dp/0312425848) ------ varjag Her writing is vivid and terrifying. Her _War Does Not Have a Woman's Face_ is at the top of my list of books to unread. It's a collection of accounts from female survivors of WW2 trenches. It is not pushing a feminist narrative in traditional sense (wasn't a thing in USSR) but is haunting in its honesty. Think _Saving Private Ryan_ without the humanistic takeaway. She's a part of Belarusian late 20th century documentary realism tradition, where authors build around authentic, traumatic biographies of the war generation. In literature, Vasil Bykau, her contemporary, even better known domestically. In cinematography, Klimov's _Come and See_ perhaps the most known work. ~~~ vkb Thank you for the background. I am super-familiar with the Soviet WWII documented experience (Vasiliy Grossman, Ehrenburg, etc. ) but I've embarrassed to say I've never heard of her. ~~~ varjag That's hardly surprising: I only read her since am originally from Belarus myself. She's also an outspoken critic of both Lukashenko and Putin, something that doesn't bode well for a Russian language writer at all. I'm happy she gets the wider recognition now. ------ fsiefken Is it odd that neither the local city library and the university library don't have one of her works (pop. 320k)? She has gotten awards before, so one would think she's more popular. How political is this choice? As a child of two parents who lived through WWII I recognized her sample from the book 'unchildlike stories'/'last witnesses' [http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf](http://www.alexievich.info/knigi/LastWit_En.pdf) but on her page it seems it has only been translated into japanese and is not available in a language I (or my parents) understand, it's a pity. Another book I would like to read is 'The wonderful deer of the eternal hunt' but that doesn't seem to be ready yet (or abandoned?). In an article about her work from 15 years ago it's mentioned that she has been working on this book for 3 years now and she wants the topic to be part of her work. [http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a- crack...](http://www.tol.org/client/article/8060-a-writer-from-a-cracked- world.html) Fortunately I can order 'Voices from Chernobyl' and 'War Does Not Have a Woman's Face' in paper format (only), just as well as in a way it makes the stories more memorable for me then the dead and cold e-surrogate. ~~~ johansch The "Swedish Academy" who awards these prices are considered somewhat of a joke here in Sweden. Almost as much as we consider the Norwegian Nobel Committee a joke - remember the embarassingly prematurely awarded Obama nobel peace prize - basically only awarded because the Norwegians wanted to frolick with celebs. They have a very elitist stance - if an author gets popular, no matter how "good" or "bad" he or she is, the prize seemingly cannot be awarded to them. [http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today- today_books/t/nobe...](http://www.today.com/id/15210453/ns/today- today_books/t/nobel-prize-literature-goes-who/) "A political bias may be hard to prove but there is no doubt the academy favors lesser-known writers to international best sellers. Few outside literary circles had heard of China’s Gao Xingjian, Poland’s Wislawa Szymborska or Kenzaburo Oe of Japan. Gert Fylking, a Swedish radio journalist taunted the academy for a decade by showing up at the award announcement and yelling 'finally' when Engdahl read the winner’s name. After being barred from entering one year, he showed up the next in disguise. 'The point is that 99 percent of the time, the writer who wins the Nobel Prize is completely unknown to the big masses,' Fylking said." ~~~ hullo I don't see how "literary circles" should be criticized for choosing works that they believe have merit in their own field. Nobody was up in arms earlier about the chemistry award going to people who weren't "household names" \- other than the Peace prize, the odds that anyone who wins a Nobel this year will have a bigger public profile than Alexievich are slim to none. ~~~ hugh4 > Nobody was up in arms earlier about the chemistry award going to people who > weren't "household names" That's because chemistry papers can only be appreciated by a trained chemist, whereas literature is a popular art form which ought to be appreciatable by anybody. Or any _educated_ person, if you want to dismiss the tastes of the great unwashed (it's interesting how literature is one of the few fields where it's still socially acceptable to be a snob). Now, maybe the Nobel Prize Committee is doing us a great service by uncovering the works of these great authors whose work has never been appreciated before. But in that case, you'd expect them to become popular _after_ their prizes, and everyone would be going "boy, I sure am glad that the Nobel Prize Committee brought Derek Walcott to my attention or else I'd never have read _Omeros_ ". But nope, most of the laureates continue to languish in relative obscurity even after they win the prizes. ~~~ hullo Well, it's also a lot easier to validate their choices - you and anyone else who are fluent in English, Russian or a number of other languages can go pick up a copy of Voices from Chernobyl, say, and give it a try. (It's amazing.) You will have a harder time validating the chemists' work. ------ GFischer I find it interesting that betting houses have gotten the winners right for a few years already. [http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting- odds-w...](http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/nobel-prize-2015-betting-odds-who-are- literature-peace-physics-favorites-2127359) Something similar to the DraftKings affair maybe, where someone or several someones with insider information are using it for their advantage? She wasn't a dark horse to win though, she's been favored for at least a year now: [http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural- comment/nonfiction...](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural- comment/nonfiction-deserves-nobel) So it might be a case of a Prediction Game doing right I remember from some years ago the Hollywood Stock Exchange ( www.hsx.com/ ), an online game where people "invested" on movies, was used as a "crowd wisdom" source for decisions on whether to fund movies, etc, and was fairly accurate IIRC. Maybe there's a similar opportunity for other fields? A Startup Stock Exchange game? :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Stock_Exchange) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market) ~~~ hullo This is actually only the second time in 12 years that the favorite per the Ladbrokes odds has gotten the award, the last being Pamuk in 2006. [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win- nobel...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123058/who-will-win-nobel-prize- literature) ~~~ GFischer I stand corrected, it seems the Literature nobel prize is very hard to guess correctly, they did find out last year's prize early but it was because of a leak. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won- by...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by-french- writer-patrick-modiano-1.2793454) "Betting on Modiano to win the Nobel surged in the last week, raising questions about a possible leak. David Williams of bookmaker Ladbrokes said Modiano's odds had shortened from 100-1 a few months ago to 10-1 before the announcement." Edit: I still think a "Startup Stock Exchange" could be fun, maybe based on CrunchBase or something :) ~~~ EvanKelly I used to mess around on exchangel.co, but mainly I'm interested in placing long bets which just require some patience rather than trading in the artificial market. I think there's another one out there too that does start up trading. ~~~ GFischer Thanks! I'll look them up. ------ guard-of-terra I've never read her but I assume this is where you start: [http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt](http://lib.ru/NEWPROZA/ALEKSIEWICH/zhensk.txt) ~~~ varjag Be warned, none of her books are light reads. I put a summary in the other thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10352263)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
My First Year in the App Store - trevmckendrick http://www.trevormckendrick.com/my-first-year-in-the-app-store/ ====== dhruvmittal I was actually really excited by the "...you can get the next 9 posts delivered to your email by signing up here:" at the bottom. I like it. I like email, because I can read it anywhere and filter it any way I want. I dislike unsubscribing from email updates about as much as I dislike getting updates I'll never read. By making it easy to get emailed only about a story I've already demonstrated interest in (by reading all the way through), you've made sure I'll come back for your next 9 posts. I'd like to see more people use something like this. Or, if I've misunderstood how this works...well, the concept was exciting. ~~~ trevmckendrick Very kind words. Glad you liked it. Indeed, fewer people sign up, but you know they're the ones who value the content the most. ~~~ grecy Given that you're using wordpress, is that a plugin for the "sign up by email"? Thanks, ~~~ trevmckendrick It's just HTML that Mailchimp gave me that I stuck in the post. ------ andrewljohnson Whenever anyone complains to me that its hard to make money on software, and/or the App Store is rigged, I always tell them I think anyone can make a living by making a bible app. You don't even have to be the best one, just pretty good, and iterate - it's the canonical product that you know has a big audience, willing buyers, and poor competition on the low end of the market. Case proven by this guy! The next time you think to yourself that there is anything needed to make money on software besides persistence, thoughtfulness, and picking something you know people want, you're in a trap of your own creation. People who don't make money on their apps typically fail because they try to be too novel, try to make the app too good, or they don't stick in there long enough. ~~~ gwern Patio11 has argued forcefully that developers systematically neglect women and underserve that large market; I wonder if we can add to that 'and developers also ignore religious markets too'? ~~~ soup10 Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. There's a reason "suits" are often at the head of large creative focused corporations and compromise artistic integrity to make things more palatable to their target markets. Market research and knowledge is a very real thing that product focused developers often completely ignore or rely on instincts of unknown quality. ~~~ gwern > Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. Unfortunately, that is not really a meaningful thing to say as a guide to behavior: it's like suggesting that someone sell non-apples - meaningful, not wrong, and useless advice. You need to know what demographics developers _aren't_ before that can be useful; you need to know, say, that developers tend to be male, white/Asian, First Worlders, before you can say 'ah, females may be underserved!' And you need to think of the categories in the first place, like this religion example shows. If someone asks you if developers might tend to not be fans of religion than the general population, it might seem obvious, but 'being atheists' is not the most salient feature of developers. ------ jkira I'd be interested to hear how you marketed the app. Just building an app seems to be only half (or less) of the battle these days, as far as App Store success goes. I've got seven apps on the App Store, and combined they usually don't even bring in $200/mo. Discouraging. ~~~ trevmckendrick I'll talk about that in one of the upcoming posts, but basically: I started with an app niche that I knew people were already searching for. And I knew _that_ because there were crappy Spanish Bible apps already making money in the App Store. Since then I have started collecting users' email addresses which helps with promotions and new app launches, but initially all my traction was through search. ~~~ SurfScore Sounds like any successful business I've ever heard of. Find a niche with an unsatisfied need, then grow organically. Good for you. ~~~ trevmckendrick Thanks! ------ danenania Thanks for writing this. It's very insightful. One question - do you have any interest in spanish and/or the bible, or is this purely a business exercise? ------ alexvr It's a good reminder to me, as a developer, that people simply buy (or use) what they want, not what _I_ think they want. ~~~ trevmckendrick Amen! (no pun intended :) ) ------ callmeed I'm curious what translation you used (I signed up for the rest of the posts but haven't got through them). Most modern English translations of the Bible are copyrighted and often you can only quote/print a limited number of verses without paying licensing. (I think the best public domain version is probably the ASV from 1901). Did you license a spanish version of the Bible? Pay someone to translate a modern one? If so, were there legal hurdles to translating a copyrighted version? ~~~ trevmckendrick You're right that most well known Bible translations are copyrighted. I found one that is in the public domain so it was game on. ------ timack I thought the App Store had a rule that you couldn't submit an app that was essentially a 'book or a film' how did you get around that? ~~~ trevmckendrick Great point. I've actually run into that problem. On some updates they would reject me and I'd have to add a few features to be approved. That's part of the reason I'm redoing the entire app from scratch with tons of extra functionality, etc. ------ aeontech Fascinating example of finding and successfully filling an under-served niche. I would have never thought of creating this kind of app. It makes me contemplate - how can you break out of your filter bubble to come up with and test product ideas for markets you can't even imagine exist because they are so far from your experience? ~~~ trevmckendrick My two cents: I scrolled through tons and tons of top ranking apps in each category. That was where the initial brainstorm began: profitable apps that didn't look very good. ------ austenallred The coolest part of this post, IMO, is that by finding that niche you freed yourself up to work on whatever you want to work on. Legitimate residual income. ~~~ trevmckendrick Thanks, and yes and no. When I realized I'd found a decent sized niche I had to make a decision: do I let it sit and coast/build something else, or do I invest more here? I've decided with the latter, which will play out for at least the next year. Jury still out whether it was the right decision. ~~~ sillysaurus If you completely abandoned the project as it currently exists, do you think your income would drop off sharply? In other words, how much of an ongoing effort is it to ensure your income stays high? Does search favor apps that are being updated constantly? Or is there any reason not to eventually just stop working on the app? ~~~ trevmckendrick It wouldn't drop off. In fact there's many apps in the App Store that haven't been touched in years that continue to bring in money. My thoughts are that I have so much to improve upon, and there's a lot of low hanging fruit left for me, so it's likely worth the additional investment. I compared investing more time/money in this niche, vs in other unvalidated ideas I have and it made sense to stick with this for now. ------ orangethirty Religious products are big sellers. Specially anything that has to do with the bible or prayers. I used to sell bibles as a teenager. Made more money than drug dealers. It was funny. But then I went ad turned atheist. I could no longer sell itwith a clean conscience. ------ jordan_clark Is there a link to the app on the app store? Or did I miss it? ------ trevmckendrick My server is struggling, here's a cached version for the interested: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.trevormckendrick.com/my- first-year-in-the-app-store/) ------ scottluptowski This sounds very interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more. How much time did you spend researching potential app categories? Was your category decision driven by any hard data, other than anecdotal knowledge that Spanish bibles were a category that was selling and had search volume? ~~~ trevmckendrick Great question. No hard data. I saw that Spanish Bibles were ranking in the Reference and Book categories, like you said. Also important (but not "hard data") is that when I searched "la biblia" relatively few apps appeared in the search results compared to other search phrases. ------ fuddle Great idea, did it cost much to record the Bible as an audiobook? ~~~ trevmckendrick Yes. The most expensive part of the app by far. ~~~ jacalata So the $73k is net revenue after Apple but before costs, correct? ~~~ trevmckendrick That is correct. ------ mansigandhi trevmckendrick - good to see the app do well! If you remember I (Sleepyhead) helped with the email forms. We pleasantly surprised to see the post here :) ~~~ trevmckendrick Hello! You guys did great work; those forms have done perfectly... over 30,000 signups so far. Thanks for saying hi! ------ nicholassmith Nice work for sure. One thing that rang true, $73k isn't the sort of money that gets VCs going but that's full time salary for a lot of people. Making money on the app store is definitely possible, but we're no longer seeing the half a million in sales in one month figures we did at the start. Does that mean you can't make living from the App Store? No, it just means being realistic. ------ speedyapoc Very surprised by that type of revenue. What kind of marketing did you put into it? Without marketing, my first app on the store went as follows: > The next morning (and literally every day since) I woke up and first thing > checked my email for that magical message from AppFigures. My total day one > net sales? $0.70. Admittedly not very much. ~~~ trevmckendrick As far as I know, all downloads are based on search. ------ ronyeh Congrats on the success! Can you share a link to your app? Also, do you think the only way to get discovered (for indie devs) is to pick app ideas that will match nicely to keywords that users search for? If you don't have a marketing budget, is there any other way to get discovered? ~~~ monkey_slap I'm going to be doing a similar writeup as my app launches in 2 weeks. I've got a small budget. All the design+dev was me, but I'm spending about $300-$400 on marketing. We'll see how that goes. If anything I believe you should be spending more on marketing nowadays. There's no real way, at least to my knowledge, to search for a niche hole with keywords. I do, however, like to think of an app idea and then spend an hour search various keywords and seeing the results/competition. <https://appstorerankings.net/> is a good website to find the keywords of an app. I combined common keywords in the app that I'm releasing with common keywords that are missing among competitors that yield few results. Again, I haven't launched this app (my 7th) yet, but I'll be doing some analysis of its success using the marketing budget and keyword research. ~~~ trevmckendrick I agree it's hard to do really detailed research similar to, say, the Google Keyword Tool. It's mostly a gut check. "Does this have a lot of competition? Does this keyword appear to get a lot of searches?" What's your app name? ~~~ monkey_slap Poetreat. Aiming for May 7. Week of polish then submission. <http://poetreatapp.com/> ~~~ trevmckendrick Nice landing page for sure. Maybe this is obvious, but they key is finding out a solid upgrade that makes IAP's worth it to customers. ~~~ monkey_slap Agreed. Doing a freemium model where you can save only save 1 poem. Unlocking adds theming, Facebook+Twitter connection, and unlimited poems. Worth $.99? That's subjective, but this entire app is more of an experiment than a business. Just going to iterate and improve on the next one. ------ jacoblyles Is that a scroll bar down the right side? Seems poorly placed if you expect people to touch on the right side to advance a page. ~~~ trevmckendrick Great point. The navigation between chapters is still being decided. ------ nathanbarry Nicely done! I'd love to hear more about the marketing efforts that went into promoting the app. ~~~ trevmckendrick Thanks for the comment Nathan. Initially it was all via search. Since then I've started collecting email addresses the very 1st time the app launches. I'm up to over 30,000 emails now so every new product launch starts relatively well. ~~~ nanijoe Impressive...How do you collect the email email addresses? Do you just ask people for their addresses? ~~~ trevmckendrick Yep. When the app launches the very first time I ask for their 1st name and email if they want to hear about deals/offers, new apps, etc. They can cancel out easily and never see the form again. But when you have a free app that quite a few people download, email addresses start accumulating pretty quickly. ~~~ Paul_D_Santana I was under the impression that this was a paid app. How does it generate so much revenue while still being free? I signed up for future posts ( _extremely_ well-placed sign-up form by the way!), but I didn't see a description of in-app purchases or other revenue model as a topic for a future post, which is why I ask. I am also using Android. Thank you for this post by the way. This is amazing and I'm excited to read your future posts! ~~~ trevmckendrick Great questions. Revenue is where it's at! Initially it was just a paid download for the text of the Bible. With more research in the App Store though I realized audio Bibles were selling much more than I was. So I outsourced the audio (mentioned in the post I think) and now the model is that users download the original app (with the text) for free, and then can buy the audio as an IAP. This works great on multiple fronts: I collect more email address, I rank better in search because I get more downloads, and the audio sells better as an IAP than as a stand alone app. ~~~ Paul_D_Santana Wow, you are incredibly ingenious! Thank you for responding! ~~~ trevmckendrick :) You bet ------ jebek I'm sure you'll make it clear in later posts, but are you a developer? ~~~ trevmckendrick I'm not a dev or a designer. I'm tech savvy enough that I'm still the computer repair guy for my entire extended family, but I'm def not fluent in Objective C. ~~~ tachion If so, and only the later posts are about hiring, what, I assume, means you were hiring only after you've found about initial success, how come the first version ever came out? Beside that, great story, great spirit, congratulations, I admire everyone actually getting things done :) ~~~ trevmckendrick I'm not sure I understand the question, but I think you're asking how I made the app at all if I'm not a dev/designer? I outsourced 95% of it. I created the initial mockups by hand and did some of the debugging, but the core app development was done by contractors. And yes, for $500. The point is it wasn't great, but it was good enough to test the market. ------ unreal37 Great first article in the series. Can't wait for the rest. ------ yoster Nice! Even the most frugal of people will shell out some money when it comes to religion. ~~~ trevmckendrick True about the copycats. Although there are a few things you have to do right in the app that most people don't know. Most versions of the Bible are copyrights for example. And I also speak Spanish. I can't imagine doing this app in a different language. The text has to be perfect and it's (obviously?) hard to tell what's wrong when you can't read it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Boeing unveils its brand new 777X airplane - wtf42 https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/boeing-777x-what-you-need-to-know/ ====== perilunar There's a tradeoff between passengers and fuel - the quoted range with a standard passenger load is not the maximum range. E.g. the 777-8 has a range of 16,090 km (8690 nmi) with 365 passengers, but the business jet variant (BBJ 777-8) has a range of 21,570 km (11,645 nmi). We are so close to airliners that can fly non-stop between any two major cities on Earth. Not sure I'd want to do 20+ hour flights, but amazing that we will be able to soon. ------ dzhiurgis > A second, no-less-impressive but smaller model will follow. The 777-8 <..> > Covering 8,700 nautical miles, <..>, the plane is Boeing's challenger to the > Airbus A350ULR's crown as the world's longest-range airplane. IIRC A350ULR can get you all the way from Auckland to Istanbul, Warsaw or even Copenhagen. 777-8's 8700nm gets you to Moscow at most - none of the European flight hubs (that I know of). ------ ilaksh Does it run on Ada?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Iran Not Cutting Off Internet Access, Bullet not Dodged - 3lit3H4ck3r http://pandodaily.com/2012/04/10/iran-not-cutting-off-internet-access-bullet-not-dodged/ ====== 3lit3H4ck3r Clarification: _Which is why this report from the International Business Times is distressing. Much like Mike Daisey’s false reports from Foxconn, the reports have told half-truths, and once discovered, mislead the public into believing that there is no problem. This is only compounded when other outlets (like PandoDaily did) repeat the news. There is a problem, but it hasn’t fully developed yet._	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Design Trend: Long Shadows (Flat) - Examples - SmeelBe http://designmodo.com/long-shadows-design/ A new trend is making its way through cyberspace – long shadow design. The concept, which borrows themes from flat design, is popping up in a big way in recent weeks. ====== Bradnerby While flat design done right is good design, especially on the web, I find clients immediately think the work looks "cheap," "unfinished," and "missing life." Seems like many clients still want wood grain and candy buttons. I like this shadow effect, it adds a little more to the design so, perhaps, clients may feel like they are getting more for their dollar if they get those drop shadows that "pop." Wow I sound jaded right now. But I'm not :) I believe flat design is a solid trend (any design trend with roots in Swiss design are good, especially when organizing content), however these shadow effects are more of a fad that should be used sparingly. ~~~ SmeelBe Completely agree with you there. I think in the right place it can give a different perspective. One of the above graphics looks like you're looking down onto a monument so to that degree it could be used but I know I wouldn't even get away with 'flat design' with most of my clients as they would say a 5-year-old had done it and it wasn't worth the price tag. As with most things design it's about getting the appropriateness of technique to task. ------ ejfox This is not so much as a design trend as a designer's in-joke that is getting more attention than it deserves. While more dimensionality vs. texture and gradients for depth is definitely where things are going and this is part of it, it's like saying coughs are the new trend while there's a flu epidemic. If you're stuck emulating little techniques like this to stay current you're doing it wrong.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Are you looking for a founder? - hajrice If you're looking for a founder please post the description the role! :D<p>I'm interested to join a startup. ====== bgnm2000 What are your skills? developer/designer/other ~~~ hajrice Developer and designer AND business guy, and very efficiently. Experiance in UI design(I make people say DAMN! when they see my design), coding(PHP(CodeIgniter and Kohana framework), MySQL, jQuery, ...) along with good marketing(just call me Seth Godins son, for now) and good team management skills. After all being an entrepreneur is all about using the tools you have and making a good opportunity out of them, right? :) ------ p01nd3xt3r do you code or play more of a business role? ~~~ hajrice Both, and very efficiently. Experiance in UI design(I make people say DAMN! when they see my design), coding(PHP(CodeIgniter and Kohana framework), MySQL, jQuery, ...) along with good marketing(just call me Seth Godins son, for now) and good team management skills.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Loudness Penalty: Find out if audio will be turned down by streaming services - zdw http://www.loudnesspenalty.com ====== janwh Interesting idea, but personally I like the Dynamic Range (DR) measurement developed by the Pleasurize Music Foundation more. It also provides a one- value output that has a direct relation to the statistics of the input audio, and AFAIK it is a somewhat established measurand in audio engineering. Self-plug: A while back I reverse-engineered the DR algorithm and implemented it as a Python script. It's [DRmeter on GitHub]([https://github.com/janw/drmeter](https://github.com/janw/drmeter)). ~~~ kstenerud Is that similar to what replaygain uses for adjusting loudness? ~~~ janwh TIL of ReplayGain, thanks! From what I quickly gathered from the specs^1, Replay Gain (RG) and Dymanic Range (DR) are indeed similar in the grand scheme of things. Both algorithms employ percentile-based statistic of RMS values. While RG is determined by the 95% percentile of RMS values on 50ms audio frames, DR uses the 80% percentile on 3-second-long audio frame RMS values. So RG is definitely on the side of short-term analysis, while DR is long-term. What differentiates RG more plainly though is its stronger psycho-acoustical foundation in regards to frequency response: It applies a so-called "Loudness filter" (modelled after the Equal-Loudness contour^2 found in human hearing) before doing the RMS statistics. The Equal-Loudness contour (also known as "Isophone" where I come from) is in turn modelled after non-linear response of the ear to sound pressure levels in relation to the frequency. It basically adjusts for what in layman's terms I'd call "Importance" of the different ranges. Therefore I'd say RG is very much focused on what human hearing will _perceive_ as loud (too loud, or just loud enough), while DR focuses on "exposing offenders in all ranges of the spectrum". My educated guess would be: Loud bassy sounds would not harm an RG score, while having a significant impact on the DR, as its not attenuating low frequencies. Would be interesting to see a comparison of the two! [1]: [http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain_specif...](http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain_specification) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal- loudness_contour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour) ------ hamburglar Ironic that Spotify will apparently penalize the music for being "too loud" when their ads are regularly ear-splittingly loud. It's egregious. When listening with earbuds, I have to have a quick reaction on the volume control because the commercials literally hurt my ears. ~~~ saltypal Have you considered that this may be by design? Have you considered paying for the service? ~~~ hamburglar Of course it's by design. And sure, I've considered paying for it, but I don't. Does that mean my complaints about the free service are somehow invalid? I'm still a customer, just a different kind of customer, and if they make the experience bad enough for me that I avoid it in some circumstances, that's relevant to their interests. If they didn't want free-tier customers, they wouldn't be offering the free-tier service. ~~~ ggg9990 The free tier is to get paid users. If you have no chance of being paid, Spotify hardly cares whether you stay or go. ~~~ QasimK I’m sure Spotify would rather everyone that isn’t going to pay use their free product than move to competitor X. ~~~ viraptor Pros: they potentially play the Spotify ad to their friends, effectively advertising the service. Cons: each playback means bandwidth + royalties cost. So the question is, does the probability times the return from their friends bring more money than the free playbacks? I'd really like to know the answer. ------ p1mrx It's hard to trust a service like this without some information on where they pull the numbers from. How did they determine which normalization algorithm each service uses? The "give us your email address for more information" part also seems slimy. ~~~ ikerr TIDAL has openly said that they are using -14 LUFS for normalization while Spotify has said they are using ReplayGain. The other platforms required more investigation, and we're continuing to refine the estimates, but we feel that we've gotten pretty close. ------ rcthompson I'm confused about why this website is using the word "penalty" to describe the process of normalizing songs to have the same loudness. ~~~ jtbayly From the email they sent when I put in a sample song and asked for the more detailed analysis: "Since streaming services are going to turn loud music down anyway, more and more people are deciding they would prefer to take control of this process themselves, and optimize their music for the best possible results." and "We recommend avoiding very large negative LP values, especially on YouTube because songs like this often sound “smaller” than those with LP scores closer to zero. Hear it for yourself For example, compare the loud sections of these two Metallica songs on YouTube - The Day That Never Comes (LP -5.8)[1] and Hardwired (LP -2.4)[2]. Which has more impact? Loudness normalization means you have the opportunity to make your music sound better, too. In our experience, LP between 0 and -2 on YouTube will work well for even the loudest genres. For example, Drake’s recent hit God’s Plan has a score of LP -0.8 on YouTube, and it sounds huge." [1]: [https://youtu.be/dkNfNR1WYMY](https://youtu.be/dkNfNR1WYMY) [2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBHL3v4d3I&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBHL3v4d3I&feature=youtu.be) [3]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVfcZ0ZcFM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVfcZ0ZcFM&feature=youtu.be) ~~~ oldcynic Ironic you pick on Metallica as example as they basically "won" the loudness wars[0] with the release of Death Magnetic. So ridiculously overblown and compressed that it was clipping constantly and heavily featured in mainstream media. Even one of the album's mastering engineers complained. Lars thought it was great. [0] [http://recordinghacks.com/2008/12/20/metallica-wins-the- loud...](http://recordinghacks.com/2008/12/20/metallica-wins-the-loudness- wars/) ~~~ jtbayly Just to be clear, it is the site authors who wrote that about the two Metallica songs, not me. ------ acd For background there was a loudness war/race as has been an increasing tendency to increase loudness of music songs and by so removing dynamic range. Background article on Loudness Race [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war) ------ stephengillie Wasn't YouTube supposed to do this a few years ago?[0] Yet some videos at full volume are still quieter than other videos at 10% volume. Does it not work? [0][http://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube- loudness/](http://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube-loudness/) ~~~ nkozyra This is about automatic volume reduction, not normalization. In other words, YouTube isn't going to adjust your volume up, only down if it's too loud (or saturated?) ------ amelius Why do audio formats use a linear scale, instead of exponential (like our ears seems to use)? ~~~ jtbayly I'm not sure what you are referring to with audio "formats," but audio _programs_ work in dB, which is logarithmic. ~~~ wl Audio is commonly represented in a format called pulse code modulation (PCM), where the amplitude of the sound is recorded using an integer or a floating point number (a "sample") anywhere from 12,000 to 192,000 times a second. Each sample is usually linearly proportional to amplitude rather than logarithmically. I am unaware of any audio program which internally represents audio in dB. Waveform displays default to linear scales, though logarithmic scaling is usually available. Just about the only place where logarithmic scales are the default is frequency domain graphical representations like spectrograms. ~~~ namibj Actually 32bit float is such a logarithmic format.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? - omnibrain http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality ====== danieltillett Interesting. I picked the 320 Kbps mp3 for each of the samples. There really is not much difference with wav at this bit level. I would have like to see some examples at 160 or 192.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hardware Hacking: Tim O'Reily on Hardware Innovation - njyx http://www.slideshare.net/timoreilly/hardware-innovation-pdf-with-notes ====== njyx I like the "create more value than you capture" - I wonder how many companies genuinely think like that though. Wonder if Apple genuinely thinks about it like that.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Theo de Raadt: "[heartbleed] does not affect SSH at all" - chrissnell http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140408063423 ====== bostik Well, duh. OpenSSH links to OpenSSL libraries, but only for the cryptographic primitives. SSH is a different protocol. It doesn't need TLS for anything. It's also a simpler protocol, with less baggage and interoperability requirements. ~~~ webmaven Huh. That suggests a strategy for a viable OpenSSL replacement: create a new protocol implementation that also links to the OpenSSL libraries only for the cryptographic primitives. ~~~ bostik As someone who has actually had no choice but to write code that uses OpenSSL libraries: if you're going to reimplement a proper TLS stack, you might as well actually spend time to design the API properly. (And use some less insane crypto library instead.) OpenSSL is used because it has a lot of inertia, and because it still has had _a lot_ of testing. Any new library would need to have an imperial buttload of extremely aggressive tests with near-complete coverage from the start to be even considered an option. Even then the uphill battle to unseat OpenSSL will be long and arduous. Being simply superior and easier to use is not enough. You have to convince an industry, worth tens or hundreds of billions, to actually see big enough a benefit to even consider your implementation as a viable option. So in addition to economical realities you would still have a massive hurdle ahead: getting crypto right is hard. Really, _really_ hard. Sure enough, there are alternatives to OpenSSL. But unfortunately it's like having to choose between varieties of cancer or STD's. You don't like the any of the choices, and in fact, you would prefer not to be in a position to have to make the choice in the first place. ~~~ webmaven How many Metric Buttloads in an Imperial Buttload? ~~~ bostik Roughly 1/e * pi.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Live editing for native iOS and Android - peternash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpILSWEzrvU ====== alexjarvis This is awesome, especially like the part around 48 seconds after changing something -"You'll notice this happens... IMMEDIATELY" ------ stefanha Looks useful for development. Does live editing also work with Xcode? ------ noin Live editing sounds brilliant. Would love to try this. ------ lelton thats cool! you can do styling on native app with CSS.. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Technology Going Downhill - timf http://www.highway12ventures.com/2009/07/10/technology-going-downhill/ ====== HoneyAndSilicon "some interesting banter about how we (a VC firm) spent our weekends." ?¿?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Python Fire: a library for automatically generating command line interfaces - nafizh https://opensource.googleblog.com/2017/03/python-fire-command-line.html?m=1 ====== Groxx Convenient. I especially like that it has a completion-helper. The docs seem to go to great lengths to _not_ state this clearly, but it works fine on bare functions too: example.py: import fire def test(a="yes"): print "a: " + a fire.Fire(test) cli: $ python example.py a: yes $ python example.py no a: no $ python example.py --a maybe a: maybe ------ wink I wonder whose problems this solves. I have a handful of scripts with miniscule CLI handling (usually len(sys.argv) is enough) - so it's 3 loc instead of 5? Then I have a moderate amount of scripts where using click or optparse makes sense. Just looked up one tool, there's exactly 12 lines (including import, ignoring linebreaks) to handle 6 different CLI args. I could use fire. Less code, more "magic", less self-documenting excplicit code Then there's this application with 15 @click.option() lines (don't ask, ran out of sensible single-char argument shorthands). Yes, it has an ugly main() with 15 keyword arguments, but I'd also have that with fire I guess. but here at least it's explicit again. TLDR: Sounds absolutely nice on first skim, but I don't see why I would ever use this. Have I been writing so many CLI apps in python already that I exhibit stockholm syndrome towards click AND optparse? :) ~~~ BerislavLopac I've lately come to know and respect argparse. Click is nice and great, but can present an unnecessary burden if your script uses (intentionally or not) no other dependencies outside the standard library. And optparse is deprecated in Python 3. ~~~ wink Oh yes, I'm strictly a Python 2 user (I know, I know). ------ jsmeaton Some libraries just seem obvious in retrospect. This looks very cool. I've had a lot of success using click for command line programs in the past. Fire looks like it'd replace click for the majority of simple cli programs I write. ------ rajathagasthya Looks pretty good. But if you're going to open source it, you might as well make it a proper Python project and conform to style guides (Google's own for one). This one has all the tests in the same directory as other files instead of a 'tests' directory, it's missing requirements.txt and method names start with upper case. ------ scrollaway Looks great! Very intuitive. This is something I could actually see myself using instead of argparse; and being able to generate a CLI from a third party object is amazing! ------ empath75 Looks fantastic. Argparse isn't hard to use, but it's a lot of boilerplate. I'll be happy not to have to deal with it again. ~~~ BrandoElFollito You may want to give a try to docopt	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Evolution of JavaScript Modularity - myshov https://github.com/myshov/history_of_javascript/tree/master/4_evolution_of_js_modularity ====== myshov Hi, everyone! I want to share with all of you my article about modularity in JavaScript. I know that there are a lot of other articles about the same theme, so I took a different approach. instead of simple repetition what has been already said in the other articles about AMD, CommonJS, UMD, ES2015 Modules, you will learn a lot of other approaches for the modularity. Also you will find a lot information about the history of emerging these technologies and you will learn about the people who stood behind of them. I wanted to write this article as comprehensive as possible. It may sound ridiculous but I was working on this project in course of more than a half of year in my spare time. So I hope you will probably learn something new, even if you are already seasoned JavaScript developer. Enjoy!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Canadian judge: No warrant needed to see ISP logs - rewind http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/canadian-judge-no-expectation-of-privacy-in-online-tasks.ars ====== cperciva Just to clarify: The judge rule that ISPs are not _required_ to demand a warrant. Police can't walk into an ISP's head office and demand log files -- but they can ask politely and the ISP can choose to cooperate (or, of course, they can choose not to cooperate). This is, of course, different from the situation with wiretaps, where it is illegal for a phone company to allow police to install a wiretap if the police don't have a warrant.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Band-e Kaisar – “Caesar's dam”‎‎ - benbreen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-e_Kaisar ====== benbreen Posted this because I found it fascinating that a Roman-built bridge and dam was being used as far east as Iran and for as long as the late 19th century. But on top of the that, the possibility that it was built by Roman soldiers _under the command of the captured emperor Valerian_ is what really amazed me. Valerian has gone down in history as the only Roman emperor to be captured in battle [1] but I didn't realize that his soldiers basically became a civil engineering corps for the Persian empire. [1] From Wikipedia: "Eutropius, writing between 364–378 AD, stated that Valerianus 'was overthrown by Shapur king of Persia, and being soon after made prisoner, grew old in ignominious slavery among the Parthians.' An early Christian source, Lactantius, thought to be virulently anti-Persian, thanks to the occasional persecution of Christians by some Sassanian monarchs, maintained that for some time prior to his death Valerian was subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, such as being used as a human footstool by Shapur when mounting his horse." ~~~ SixSigma That's interesting. It seems too coincidental that Fallout: New Vegas has Caesar's Legion fighting over a dam and a character called Valerian.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tesla Model X autonomously crashes into building, owner claims - Foggydog http://www.computerworld.com/article/3079807/car-tech/tesla-model-x-autonomously-crashes-into-building-owner-claims.html ====== Matt3o12_ I'm very skeptical about it. A lot of accidents happen when people confuse the brakes and acceleration paddle. Furthermore, the person who had the accident claimed the break was unresponsive. This could further mean she confused the paddles and instead of breaking, she accelerated even more. I'm happy to hear, though, that the person was not heavily injured (she had burns on her arms but I don't think they are of the second or third degree because she would have mentioned that). Those accidents can be quite dangerous (especially in fast cars like the tesla). I'm looking forward for the black box reporting ~~~ zerooneinfinity Where did you get your information on the danger of a crash with a tesla vs a regular car? They surpassed every car in collisions tests and the concerns about the battery going up in flames have been fixed since the car was established. ~~~ Matt3o12_ > Where did you get your information on the danger of a crash with a tesla vs > a regular car? They surpassed every car in collisions tests and the concerns > about the battery going up in flames have been fixed since the car was > established. I'm not saying that tesla is not safe, in fact I'm saying quite the opposite. Tesla is a fast car and if not properly handled, all fast cars are dangerous. Since the 75D's aren't delivered yet, I'd expect it to be a 90D or P90D. The go from 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds. I believe they are fast then any other SUV out there (except prototypes, maybe), when in ludicrous mode. So, I'd expect that this tesla did not crash with 10mph into the wall. I'd expect a Porshe with similar acceleration to have much more serve damages to the driver. This, once again, shows how safe a tesla is. ~~~ zerooneinfinity my bad! ------ DigitalJack That is some terrible reporting. Who knows what will come of this accident, but the one referenced where the guy claims the car ran into a trailer on it's own was pretty well refuted by Tesla's black-box style monitoring. It raises the question of how to prove the trustworthiness of the event recording. I suppose an audit of their recording mechanisms could be enough, but it would be nice if the permanent recorder was made by a third party. ~~~ gist Crazy idea but what about a camera placed in a way that Tesla would capture footage of the brake and accelerator. Store up to X minutes/hours of that would come in helpful when combined with the other data they collect. ~~~ Sir_Substance Sounds like an unnecessarily complex alternative to just logging the pedal state the same as you would a keypress. ~~~ i_are_smart The problem with just logging like that is in the reliability of the logs - what if there's a defect in the position sensor? The pedal (and thus the logs) may report throttle at 100% and breaks at 0% even if it was the other way around. ------ drawkbox New car, 5 days old, seems from the onset that it is driver error as someone was in the vehicle behind the wheel. New vehicles are a major change to routine. Speculation... the data might reveal that the wife lied to cover crashing a 5 day old car. ~~~ arcticfox This story will certainly be more interesting once Tesla publishes the data from their side. ~~~ dragontamer The story is already interesting because Tesla does this, and no other car company seems to. Tesla monitors your driving behavior so that they can save face and blame the driver if things go bad. I don't know of any other car company that does this. Those monitors are installed to protect the company image, not you. Its like you're buying a $100,000 piece of spyware. The car isn't your possession. Its sensor data belongs to Tesla the company, and not you. Despite your purchase of the vehicle. And that's assuming that Tesla's secret black- box technology is actually legitimate, and that they're not making stuff up / hiding the truth from us. ~~~ hardwaresofton This is true, and while I do despise the invasion of privacy, and everything that comes with owning a $100,000 piece of spyware, I do appreciate that barring conspiracy and a flagrant disregard for the law someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. Tesla has also convinced me that it is the type of company whose employees that would not seek to hide something data it correctly clearly supported. That's a completely unverifiable (and most likely incorrect) assertion on my part, and of course a result of brand-cultivation on theirs, but still some companies just can't claim that at all, and I think Tesla has a leg to stand on still. ~~~ dragontamer > someone somewhere has some sort of technical data unlikely to be vulnerable > to human memory/eyewitness accounts related to the crash. I can agree with this. Having this information recorded should be a standard feature for cars of this price-range. However, the information should be in the customer's control (which should also be fairly passed onto Tesla through a subpoena if necessary). Its a basic tenant of "ownership". If you don't have primary control of the data, you really don't own it. ------ tener There are plenty of vidoes on YouTube of cars "suddenly accelerating to maximum speed, jumping a curb and slamming into things". They all do it accidently. People will blame others for their errors. Bad journalists will pick up the shit for page views. ------ palakchokshi Tesla is famous for publishing the logs. The owner should be aware of this before making claims. It would have been prudent to keep this quiet till Tesla had a chance to respond. Now if the logs prove it was driver error Tesla will publish the logs and all this outrage would be over nothing. On the other hand if this was an error in Tesla's system it is in Tesla's best interest to be transparent and publish the logs and an explanation on how it intends to fix this. Either way a public outrage was not required unless the owner wanted to ensure he got a new car even if it was the driver's fault. By claiming ""I don't' know if they're going to acknowledge if it was their fault," Puzant said.", the owner wanted to cast doubt on Tesla's integrity and also give himself an "out" if Tesla determined it was driver's fault. ~~~ gist I would suspect that if Tesla has a rock solid way to determine it was the drivers fault they will fight that till the ends of the earth. (Of course the same could happen even if not the case but that would be a conspiracy and probably less likely for practical reasons). ~~~ palakchokshi Considering that the owner's wife said that she tried the brakes but they weren't working I am pretty sure there will be brake usage logs coupled with associated acceleration/deceleration data. That should tell us if the brakes were applied and if they were working. The acceleration logs will also show if the acceleration pedal was engaged at the time or not. I am assuming that an auto acceleration log is different from a hardware pedal usage log. If not we can't determine if the acceleration was due to software or hardware. ~~~ gist Sure but by the same token in theory if a brake was applied it should work and in this case the car owner is saying it didn't work (hence my video footage comment elsewhere). ~~~ greglindahl Given that this type of accident happens all the time in all types of cars, why is it that the car owner's memory is preferred to a sensor? Because you're basically saying that ALL cars have the same flaw. It's a lot more likely that humans are fallible. ------ deegles Tesla is quick to publish data that shows driver error, I wonder if they will be as quick to do so if it actually is a software issue. My guess however is that any refusal to publish the black box data will be taken as an admission of guilt. I get the impression that the media is just itching for an actual software error so they can start a FUD firestorm about SDCs. ~~~ ambulancechaser I don't think they quickly publish data to show data error, but just to refute claims that their product is deficient or dangerous. This might be what you mean but they aren't looking to disparage customers but just to maintain the integrity of their brand to false claims. ------ prudenthints > It's not like she's a 90-year-old person who's going to press the gas pedal > instead of the brake While there is a correlation between age and difficulty driving, I don't know how this is a valid defense. In moments of stress and danger we're all prone to making mistakes. > It's a mile and half away from our house Many accidents happen close to home due to your perceived feeling of knowledge and safety in the environment. ------ hardwaresofton Looks like an answer is already out: [http://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-x-crash-not-at- fau...](http://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-x-crash-not-at-fault/) No idea about that source but supposedly tesla has made a statement. Similar statement also at this site: [http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-x-crash-result-human- er...](http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-x-crash-result-human-error/) ------ Matt3o12_ Turns out my skepticism was right after all, the driver did hit the wrong paddle: [http://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-x-crash-not-at- fau...](http://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-x-crash-not-at-fault/) Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851817) ------ whamlastxmas The state of journalism today is pathetic. Some random person claims something that is extremely unlikely and it gets run as a story. No verification of events or even a comment from Tesla. They likely published intentionally before Tesla's comment because they knew it would be "Our logs show the driver did something incredibly stupid and it had nothing to do with auto-pilot" and this would become a non-story. Instead we have this clickbait bullshit that unjustly harms Tesla's reputation. ------ Radle "He said his wife had not activated any self-driving features at the time of the crash." He said it himself, the electronics were off, his wive fucked up. ~~~ Nadya They are claiming that the features were off - but malfunctioned and 'worked' anyway. (eg: a mishap by Tesla) As with most others here, I believe it was user error. These sort of accidents happen - it's just "unique" this time since they are claiming it was Tesla's fault. ------ hashkb If we don't develop due process for machines, they're going to be the scapegoat for everything. ...and I'm going to get away with murder. ------ hartator The model X seems to attract a lot of issues. Too bad it also tarnish the reputation of the model S. ------ pj_mukh This is a very bold effort on Tesla's part. Fast deployments of autonomy code has never been tried before. There will inevitably be some casualties (even some deaths) in this process, but no other process can guarantee otherwise. The long term impact on public health is HUGE [1]. Some company just has to figure out how to weather the storm of (possibly irrational) criticism from the first such casualty. The company that can parse through this process and update their methods first will win. [1] [http://www.sciencealert.com/driverless-cars-could-reduce- tra...](http://www.sciencealert.com/driverless-cars-could-reduce-traffic- fatalities-by-up-to-90-says-report) ------ dragontamer Unlike the previous accident, which the Tesla S literally doesn't have the sensors to see the above-ground trailer... this Model X crashed into the side of a building. I'd like to assume that the below-chassis sensors would have been able to pick that up. I'm more concerned about edge-cases like the Tesla S autonomous crash rather than cases like this one. My current assumption (pending evidence: we don't have any yet so we can only assume) is that the driver is the blame in this specific case. We'll see when more data comes in. \---------- Unfortunately, I don't think it is moral for a car company to install sensors and use sensor data against the car's owner. If I buy the car, then the whole car is allegedly mine: including these sensors that only Tesla can tap into. The fact that I don't have access to all the sensor data means that Tesla's definition of "ownership" is rather convoluted compared to a normal car. ~~~ dgacmu Sure it's moral - in fact, it's great. The question of morality only arises if there's asymmetric access to the data. In the event of a claim being made by the driver against the company, _both_ sides should have complete access to the logs data to make their case more firmly. What shouldn't happen is ONLY one party being able to inspect the data. But this is unlikely to happen in practice. A lawyer for the driver would undoubtedly subpoena Tesla for access to the data. And a reasonable judge would probably concur. IANAL and IANAJ, so the latter is a guess. :) ~~~ dragontamer > But this is unlikely to happen in practice. A lawyer for the driver would > undoubtedly subpoena Tesla for access to the data. And a reasonable judge > would probably concur. IANAL and IANAJ, so the latter is a guess. :) So what's the process here? You're going to start suing Tesla so that you hope you can officially subpeona them of the data you don't have access to? Its asymmetric no matter what. The role of these logs should be reversed: the driver ought to have first-dibs at the logs to determine if he has a legitimate case to bring forth against Tesla. Then Tesla should subpeona the data once they start getting sued. In any case, Tesla holding the data so that they have the information-advantage against their own customers is a bit fishy. ~~~ dgacmu Yes, that's exactly what you do when you sue anyone and you believe they have data relevant to the case. It's called discovery. First you have to have a reasonable basis for doing so, and a claim that their car auto-drove into the wall is such a basis.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Modern and Cross Platform Stack for WebRTC - todsac https://github.com/pion ====== gfodor Whenever these threads pop up I always ask: is there an erlang/elixir implementation anyone knows about? I check every couple of months and come up empty (there is one closed source one.) Being able to speak WebRTC natively to a Elixir/Phoenix cluster would be a pretty killer app, but the hurdle to get there is quite high. ~~~ toast0 In terms of communications between client and server, I'm not sure what you get with WebRTC that you don't get with websockets? What's your intended application? ~~~ lux For game-related use cases, we need to be able to specify which data is reliable and which isn't. Websockets use TCP which doesn't give you that control. ~~~ gfodor Yep, also I’d like to be able to transfer voice/video through the erlang cluster ------ vasilakisfil Interesting! Personally I am looking forward to a Rust implementation. ~~~ littlestymaar I also would like to have a WebRTC lib usable from Rust, but it doesn't necessarily need to be written in Rust itself. This one being in Go means it's probably hard/inefficient to write binding for it, but maybe this one (in C) could do the job : [https://github.com/rawrtc/rawrtc](https://github.com/rawrtc/rawrtc) ------ valera_rozuvan Some signaling strategies for WebRTC: \- WebSockets \- XHR and other Comet options \- SIP over WebSockets \- XMPP/Jingle \- WebRTC's Data Channel Obviously, one would want the data channel (last option). There's some work done in this area. However, it's still not full featured. ~~~ valera_rozuvan For anyone curious, there is a great article [1]. WebRTC enables peer to peer communication. BUT... WebRTC still needs servers: For clients to exchange metadata to coordinate communication: this is called signaling. To cope with network address translators (NATs) and firewalls. \------------- [1] [https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/infrastructur...](https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/infrastructure) ~~~ k__ You need a signaling channel to your peer. This doesn't have to be a server, but it makes things simpler. ~~~ ChristianBundy My preference is IPoAC. ~~~ RcrdBrt I think that adds up some latency ------ dbrgn How's the native Android / iOS integration story for Pion? Are there any Java / Kotlin / Swift bindings around? ~~~ dep_b I have the same question. If it doesn't work on iOS it's not a cross platform stack. iOS is the third most popular operating system in the world after Android and Windows. ------ mikerg87 Looks cool. Does it have the capability to do SFU or is there planned work to include that capability ? ~~~ zazerr They have this SFU example but I didn't look at it closely yet: [https://github.com/pion/example-webrtc- applications/tree/mas...](https://github.com/pion/example-webrtc- applications/tree/master/sfu-ws) ------ dintech I'd like to stream high-quality, low-latency audio from a C++ app alongside webcam/mic from chrome/firefox. The receiver should get video and a mixed blended audio. Maybe even screenshare and mouse/keyboard control. Is this possible? ~~~ expialidocious Yes. Maybe look at Gstreamer. ------ fouc Has anyone noticed "Modern and Cross Platform" usually means Golang? ~~~ rapsey This industry is insanely fad driven. Every aspect of it. Terminology, tech stacks and methodologies are all one fad after another. ~~~ paulgb Go is over a decade old, not counting a couple of years of development in private. I'm not the biggest fan of the language but it's hard to think of it as a fad. ~~~ jonex Fad or not, in terms of programming languages, ten years isn't such a long time. It typically takes a few years just to reach the eco system maturity and community size needed to become a popular language. Rust is also ca. ten years old and I'd argue that it still haven't reached its full potential. ------ xg15 > _Ship to Mobile, Desktop, Servers and WASM all with one code base._ Dumb question: what would a WASM implementation be useful for? Browsers don't expose "raw" TCP or UDP connections, so even if you have a fully working WebRTC implementation in WASM, there would be no way to connect to anything when ran inside a browser. Or is this for WASM use outside the browser? ~~~ microcolonel People are building server-side WASM runtimes, which I suspect is your answer. To me the other answer is they could provide the same API in the browser through a shim. ~~~ fulafel It's the latter. See [https://github.com/pion/webrtc/pull/479](https://github.com/pion/webrtc/pull/479) ------ weavie What are the best resources to learning WebRTC at the minute? It seems to be a pretty fast moving area, a lot of what I find out there is outdated. ~~~ expialidocious MDN docs are very good. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/WebRTC_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/WebRTC_API) For landscape, I also like the webrtchacks.com blog, and a very smart consultant runs a blog at bloggeek.me. ------ expialidocious I wonder how go garbage collection and real time data streams get along together. ------ mothsonasloth Are there any web rtc implementations with Java?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hotfixes: Fix iOS bugs live - nancyhua http://apptimize.com/blog/2014/04/hide-bugs-without-app-store/ ====== alook Does this only apply to UI changes? Or can i fix, say, a logic bug as well? Also, what kind of performance concerns might I see? ~~~ mikestew You don't "fix" anything, unless by "fix" you mean "turn off broken feature". It's a nice idea, too bad they tout it with such deceptive marketing. ~~~ nancyhua Hm, I hadn't thought it would be misleading and asked for feedback on the heading. I guess the people I asked for feedback already know how it works... Thanks for telling me this because we consider ourselves super straight- shooting and want to be clear. We'll improve. ------ lolwutf That's really a misleading - almost bullshit-level - description. More accurately, you can 'remotely disable features so, if you shipped something broken, you can turn it off'. You're being almost misleading using phrasing like you can 'fix iOS bugs live'. You can disable parts of your implementation. That's quite a bit different. Stop trying to mislead the biz side of the house that doesn't know any better. ~~~ nancyhua Our users call it a hotfix so that's what we're calling it. Often the fix is something they do on the server side while they disable the frontend. Does that make sense? It's not meant to be misleading but succinct headlines are hard to write.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Review my app: For you NYC Hackers/Subway Riders - bdotdub http://www.exitstrategynyc.com/ ====== bdotdub Hi HN! My buddy and I just released an app in the App Store for all you NYC Subway hackers. If you like saving a few seconds to a few minutes on your subway rides, take a peek at our app :) We figured some of you here in NYC love little hacks to save time so we thought we'd share and here your thoughts. I always love the discussion here on HN so I'd love to hear some feedback if you have any! ~~~ Frocer I used to live in NYC, and I have sent this to all of my NYC friends. Awesome app! For those of you who thinks this is stupid... trust me, New Yorkers value every second of their commute. And exiting from the wrong end of the exit could mean 5+ more min just to get out of the subway... considering the hundreds of people exiting the subway at the same time. Great job, great idea, great execution! ~~~ bdotdub Wow thanks for the great words :) The second paragraph really nails it. Thanks for summing it up so concisely! ------ MicahWedemeyer I live in Atlanta, where the subway system is much simpler (and shittier), but this is exactly how I think when standing on the platform. In short, the app is awesome. Feature addition: Running ticker for total time saved, both for the current user and all users overall. Make it as accurate or "imaginary" as you want. ;) ~~~ bdotdub Ooh, good idea ;) Thanks for the tip! ------ bryanwoods This is fantastic! I sent this to some other friends here in NYC who have all had the same response: "I always thought that would make a great app." It hits the iPhone sweet spot of being a perfect blend of mostly fun and somewhat useful. _Edit_ I just purchased the app. Really nice and slick. Though living off the G (a cross-town line), it's hard to choose from only Uptown and Downtown options. Otherwise, this is great. ------ gnargeot In Tokyo (and maybe other cities), this data is displayed in all the train and metro stations. Also, there is data on which car to ride if you want to use the escalator or elevator when you get out. ------ lallysingh I bought it, and I have to admit, I'm a little underwhelmed. A basic subway map would have been useful. For the extra points, a schedule would be wonderful. ~~~ teej I think the singular focus is great. It has one goal - saving you time by optimizing your car position. If it saves me five minutes, it has already paid for itself. ------ jrockway FWIW, the Tokyo subway posts this data throughout the stations. I always wondered why they don't do this in the US. Edit: here's the best picture I can find: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/eloketh/320918361/sizes/l/> It's that blue sign in the background/center. I will try and find a better picture. But at least I know that I am not imagining this :) ------ oliverkofoed I really like the video presentation. Short and sweet while being entertaining enough to watch. ~~~ allenbrunson yes, the video is good. but it's in flash, which means it can't be viewed on a real iphone. ------ pieter It's nice how you released it for a lot of different platforms. Would you mind sharing the % of sales / platform once you have some sales? ~~~ bdotdub Will do! I always enjoy "the numbers" type posts so I'd love to share when we gather a bit more data ------ akaalias It's exactly what I always do, especially for fastest transfers and being the first one on the stairs. Recently I have been taking the 6, L and G a lot, terra incognito where your app comes in fitting perfectly. Love it! Edit: Installed it, very smooth operation, took less than 6 seconds to find a perfect exit strategy for L -> 6 train transfer. Nice! ~~~ bdotdub Glad you like it! :) It's saved me a bunch of time already and I hope it does for you too ------ DannoHung I only see one problem with this: During rush hour trains, choosing the optimal exit location is a good way to not get on the train, because people that take the same line every day know where to stand. Maybe a "Overcrowding" mode that does the exact opposite and shows you where the least crowded cars are likely to be? ------ domodomo Nice. This is application equivalent of a comedian "saying what everyone is thinking". When I lived in Tokyo, I always tried to do these kinds of mental calculations on the train on unfamiliar lines (already 100% optimized by daily commute). ~~~ jimbokun Yep, I've lived in both Manhattan and Tokyo, and one of my first thoughts is that Tokyo is the other market that needs this. Is the code portable enough to subcontract development of the Tokyo version to native Tokyo-ites? I'm sure there are several other metro regions that would love this, too. But I'm sure you will have your hands full just keeping up with the NYC version, for now. ------ cing Nice! You should add data for other subway systems too. Here are the exit locations for the TTC: <http://www.ttcrider.ca/download.php> ------ bihi That's just nice… I've had the same strategy, and obviously I know the station exits of my commute perfectly… :) But it makes it all the more annoying to go to some station I don't know, so I think it's just awesome! But as it is right now, I won't buy it. Simply because I'm talking about the Parisian metro… So tell me, do you plan on supporting more subway systems in the future? How do you plan to gather the data? Tell me if I can be of any help. ------ TrevorJ Extending your idea to it's wildest reaches - could you make an app that used the GPS data and date/time of day to build a statistical model of the best street-level routes and optimum time of day between any given point in the city? It would take a really long time to aggregate enough data to make it useful, but it would be pretty handy eventually. ------ notirk I haven't bought it yet, but I probably will for my work Blackberry. A suggestion: mark where the elevators are for all the subways too. It would be useful for disabled people and also anyone carrying heavy items or bags. Hopefully you wrote down that information so you don't have to search all the stops again! ------ crux This is magnificent. I haven't tried it out yet, so I'm obviously jumping the gun—but that is exactly what I'm working through in my head every time I get on and off the subway. N -> L is an easy one. I'll let you know what I think but this is an app that's very much in line with my own obsessive concerns. ------ jakewolf I love the idea. Had it myself, but please please don't tell anyone about it. Isn't it nice being the first one to the stairs? Let's keep the best exits to ourselves. Downloaded the sample on my kindle. It would be nice to see an actual map, if only just one instead of a huge listing of all the stops. ~~~ bdotdub Glad you like the idea! Hopefully we will get one in future versions. The MTA has some weird licensing for all of their trademarks so we'll have to work it out with them ;) ------ danw There is a similar app available for the London Underground at <http://www.tubeexits.co.uk/> The data is pretty good (only found a single sub-optimal station so far), whilst the UI is fidgety at times but I'm sure it will improve. ------ gchucky Haha, that's great. Clever idea. Wish there was some kind of interface for those of us without smartphones who just want to look stuff up online, but that sort of defeats the point of having it as an app. Still, good idea. ------ brown9-2 Interesting idea - if I were you I'd figure out how to extend the software/engine behind this to support other cities before others become to copy the idea. (and if you're already working on this, then kudos!) ------ fortes I like the idea, although honestly not that useful for me given that the exits I care about I already know. You've got a decent start on an offline subway map though -- I'd pay for a good one of those. ~~~ asnyder MTA.info offers a downloadable PDF. Also, if I recall correctly from my jailbroken iPhone days there was a very good offline NYC Subway Maps app. ------ unohoo awesome app - even though i dont live in nyc, i've visited nyc often & i can definitely see how useful it could be to a daily commuter. ohh - and you get double brownie points for the name 'exitstrategy' - gels so well with what your app does..i bet nyt will come calling for a writeup soon - so stay prepped :) ------ kingkawn isn't this the kind of thing that people who live in NY know just by virtue of riding the train everyday? ~~~ skinnymuch Ideally yes, but most new yorkers only go on a few lines regularly. I've only been in the city for a month now, but going to lines that you've never gone to before gets a bit confusing. ~~~ kingkawn 1 month isn't much for a system with 468 stations. ------ DTrejo Great demo video and music, fun to watch. A good example of how a demo should look. ------ sfphotoarts love the video you guys put together. Im in SF so have little use for the app, but I really like the ingenuity and looks like you've done a really job of the pr side of things. ------ karanbhangui A very clever app. One of the best I've seen for iPhone :) ------ zackola This is great! I only wish I had thought of it first :) ------ vaksel Something like this would also work for airports. ~~~ jrockway How? You don't get to pick which gate you arrive at. ------ tommy_chheng wow, great idea. I was in NYC the other weekend and this would have been handy. ------ raheemm Awesome! ------ vincent_vega well. It certainly can "sHave minutes" from my trip... You may want to change that typo on your homepage ~~~ philwelch That's a colloquialism, not a typo. ------ vincent_vega 3 questions: 1) wont this lead to everyone standing at the same positions? 2) isnt this useless at peak times ( exactly how often can you choose where to stand) 3)isn't this simple enough to build it yourself rather than pay someone else to do? PS:i see that you and your sister are trying to build a business, rather than making an interesting project. If so, your site looks rather amateuristic ~~~ bdotdub Hey Vincent, thanks for the questions. 1\. If that becomes the case, we'll be rich ;) 2\. Do you mean because you're running to catch a train? Usually I find myself pacing back and forth not knowing where to stand. 3\. The data for this app is not publicly available so my partner and his sister had to run around the city to every station and mark down every exit and stairwell. The whole process of checking, rechecking, and confirming took them ~2 months re: website. We hadn't planned on releasing this just yet but a major newspaper had a blog post that ran early this morning so we had to hack this together :) It'll get better in time!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Prynt – Smartphone case printing pictures instantly - humpt http://www.pryntcases.com/ ====== simonguigue awesome project. just wonder why any serious prototype has been release for the public? ~~~ clemfeelsgood Hello Simon. You can follow our Instagram account to see live pictures and more of our product!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to build your own neural network from scratch in Python - vikingo9 https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-build-your-own-neural-network-from-scratch-in-python-68998a08e4f6 ====== a_bonobo Too often you see articles like this and they start with $ import a_whole_bunch_of_stuff Good to see that this is not the case here :) The fast.ai course has a similar exercise in the beginning, but you'll still import the weights from somewhere else. Their fast.ai v1 library has a very short implementation too (loading the MINIST example dataset and then using Resnet18): from fastai import * from fastai.data import * untar_data(MNIST_PATH) data = image_data_from_folder(MNIST_PATH) learn = ConvLearner(data, tvm.resnet18, metrics=accuracy) learn.fit(1) Done! Source: [http://docs.fast.ai/](http://docs.fast.ai/) ~~~ sprobertson How is your example not "$ import a_whole_bunch_of_stuff"? ~~~ ScoutOrgo This notebook from fast.ai is more in line with what op mentioned. It starts from nothing but Python and slowly swaps out chunks of code with functions/classes from Torch/fastai: [https://github.com/fastai/fastai/tree/master/courses/dl1](https://github.com/fastai/fastai/tree/master/courses/dl1) ------ maurits Almost obligatory, but Stanford cs231n [1] lets you implement a complete (deep) neural network from scratch [2] before venturing into pytorch/tf. Its super fun. [1] [http://cs231n.stanford.edu/](http://cs231n.stanford.edu/) [2] [http://cs231n.github.io/assignments2017/assignment1/](http://cs231n.github.io/assignments2017/assignment1/) ------ drej I can highly recommend Joel Grus’ live coding video. He creates a deep learning library only using numpy in an hour and it’s really fun to watch it all come together. [https://youtu.be/o64FV-ez6Gw](https://youtu.be/o64FV- ez6Gw) ~~~ lunchladydoris That was really good! Thanks for the link. ------ tomglynch Towards Data Science is definitely one of the best Medium Publications. I hope they don't begin to monetise with Medium's member-only content. It's such a drawback to Medium. ------ vesche Nah, let's make that 10 lines: [https://gist.github.com/vesche/72dafed33d614710f03f1b75cff1c...](https://gist.github.com/vesche/72dafed33d614710f03f1b75cff1c807) I got a beer for anyone who can golf it under 5 lines ~~~ applecrazy Naive solution (1 line): [https://gist.github.com/applecrazy/deda2fac6e83c07b93e001731...](https://gist.github.com/applecrazy/deda2fac6e83c07b93e0017314de6cce) Edit: I literally took newlines, converted to \n in a string, and then exec()ed the whole thing. Here's a repl of it working: [https://repl.it/@applecrazy/Code-Golfing-a-Neural- Net](https://repl.it/@applecrazy/Code-Golfing-a-Neural-Net) ~~~ vesche Oh dear, I got played. PM address if you want the beer, you sly dog. Obligatory, I'm a normal dude: [http://vesche.github.io/](http://vesche.github.io/) Edit: Wait, you can't PM on here... PM on reddit /u/vesche ~~~ applecrazy Well, I don't drink (see my bio), but thanks for the offer. :P ------ plg Honest question: what are the reasons to code this up using OOP, creating a neural network object plus methods, instead of data structures and functions that operate on them? If it’s just personal preference, I’m fine with that, I’m not trying to start a flame war. ~~~ claytonjy Python, both the language and community, are _very_ strong proponents of OOP. While you _can_ do a lot of more functional stuff, esp. w/ functools, the community at large tends to discourage that. "Never use map/filter" is a weirdly common phrase among pythonistas. So this, like most python-driven examples, is doing things in a _pythonic_ way. Coming from the R side, I tend to prefer structures & functions as well, but if I tried to write Python that way I'd be wary about showing that code to anyone more entrenched in the Pythonic way of thinking. ~~~ jononor The never use map/filter is in favor of list comprehensions, which is not really a OOP construct. But sure, it's a conventional thing. And for a long time the built-in alternatives to a class for such a datastructure tuples and dicts, neither which are very nice for functions to operate on (dict values have to be addressed with d['key'] instead of d.key). With a class and method there is also no doubt as to what the function operates on, which is convenient when there type hints and IDE support is missing. This is changing since Python 3.5 and type checking tools like MyPy. Since Python 3.7 there are also data classes, a primitive for classes which just hold values. [https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/introducing- python-37s-...](https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/introducing- python-37s-dataclasses) But it will take a while before programming conventions change. ------ derekmcloughlin I found this very useful: [https://makeyourownneuralnetwork.blogspot.com/](https://makeyourownneuralnetwork.blogspot.com/) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1530826608/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_x...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1530826608/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_xmXTBbB5R5A2R) First part goes into what a NN is and how backprop works, second part is an implementation in Python. ------ bluemania Thanks for submitting, this is going to come in handy for my education! I have an assignment next week which requires creating a neural network, then substituting various optimizers in place of backpropagation and comparing performance over iterations. Have found that simple numpy based NN's are easier to examine and connect the changes with the theory, this guide looks to help further with this understanding! ~~~ dnautics That sounds really fun! Do you get to pick optimizers? Obviously direct gradient is a thing (calculate the partial for every parameter) but also particle swarm optimization might be cool to profile. ------ peter303 I suggest a remarkably useful device: Four circular disks when attached to a cart make it easy to move the cart from location to another. Furthermore you could put goods in that cart and move them too. A lot easier than carrying the goods on you back or an animal. A brief search of the internet finds this is a new idea. ~~~ qbrass What do the disks do? A cart already moves pretty easily on it's wheels, so how much improvement have you made by attaching these disks to it? ------ amasad Very cool! Here's the full version if you want fo run it/play with it [https://repl.it/@turbio/neural-network](https://repl.it/@turbio/neural- network) ------ starpilot Another thing to try is calculating backpropagation by hand, on paper, with a small NN. This is what my mentor said his final exam on NN in college involved. ~~~ anonytrary I would have thought calculus 1 was a prerequisite for that course. ------ wheresvic1 If you're looking for a similar from scratch tutorial in Java, check this one out: [https://smalldata.tech/blog/2016/05/03/building-a-simple- neu...](https://smalldata.tech/blog/2016/05/03/building-a-simple-neural-net- in-java) ------ master_yoda_1 This is not as glorified as it sound. 100 of thousands of students around the world build neural net from scratch as their homework. People please move on, spend your time somewhere else which is more productive. I coded neural network using c++ in 2009 as homework. But I never though about showing this to people. ~~~ tobr > People please move on Strange reaction to a “beginner’s guide”, how can someone move on before they learn the basics? ------ deytempo Programming != math	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hopper: Stop emailing yourself notes, files, and images - endtwist http://gethopper.com ====== georgemcbay On the one hand, this is cool... on the other hand, I'll never use it (sorry). I email stuff to myself on gmail because I can have thousands of things in there that I can instantly find via powerful search. And I'm fairly confident that 5 years from now they'll still be in there and just as easily discoverable. While Hopper's UI is certainly better than email attachments in gmail currently are, I suspect Google will rectify that on their side much faster than Hopper will rectify my previously mentioned primary two concerns about the data I'm storing. As others have already mentioned, seamless integration into email would go a long way toward getting me to use this at all. Augment instead of trying to replace is a much better strategy here. ~~~ endtwist No problem, Hopper might not be for you. However, I've gotten a lot of requests re: emailing updates, so I will consider it! Let me say, though, that I absolutely respect your privacy and have no intention of looking at your data. It's as private as you want it to be. I'm also happy to put this in the TOS. Exporting is another story as its easier said than done. Emailing you the pastes periodically (optionally), however, may alleviate that problem. ~~~ llambda > Let me say, though, that I absolutely respect your privacy and have no > intention of looking at your data. It's as private as you want it to be. I'm > also happy to put this in the TOS. OP's issue wasn't so much privacy as it was permanency, as I read it. So using Gmail, I can rest assured that in five year's time my documents will still be around, just as they are today. Whereas with a new service, who's to say what lies in store for it? What if you pivot? What if you're acquired? Unfortunately a service like Gmail wins in this context. ~~~ code_duck I used to think that about email services, too. Then one after another they changed their terms when I wasn't looking, and deleted data I thought was safely stored. What ever happened to 'your own hard drive'? Is there some reason people can't use that for storage? I have a VPS that I use as a file intermediary. I'm highly confident that, and my backups, will be there in 5 years. ~~~ emmett For most users, "your own hard drive" is a terrrible solution. They do not have a VPS that they use as a file intermediary (they don't even know what a VPS is), and they don't know how to keep backups, and if they did the backups would probably be corrupted or out of date. This is the miracle of web hosted software for most users. It's also what makes Dropbox so special. ~~~ code_duck I know plenty of people who use portable hard drives, flash drives and writable optic media as a backup... I don't see many downsides in that, barring catastrophic loss (which can happen to second party storage as well, though they do tend to be more professional about being careful). Of course, a burned DVD isn't going to let me access my file from the office and at home unless I take it with me, so there are drawbacks. ------ AceJohnny2 I have DropBox, EverNote, and Springpad, on the multiple devices I use: work/home PC/laptop and smartphone. The above tools serve to keep notes and files. Nevertheless I continue to use e-mail as an archiving tool because: \- it pops up unread in my inbox for later processing. If I want to use it on a specific device, I can just leave it unread until I have access to the right device. \- more importantly, email is ubiquitous, and I can have somebody else email me a file. I still need convincing on what problem Hopper solves for me that the other tools don't. That said, trivially easy drag-and-drop file storing is cool, and I for one welcome our so-simple-my-grandma-can-use-it usability overlords. ~~~ endtwist I found that I regularly emailed myself notes and files for later processing, and they'd then get lost in the inbox. I wanted to be able to search my notes (and only my notes), as well as easily share them with one or several people. Every other one of those services got me partway there but felt like they were lacking (no web search, burdensome to use, etc). Paste and forget until later - no more than 20 seconds to save something. Notifications and device web apps are coming, too. Does that help? ~~~ icebraining I just add "note:" to my emails and then I have a gmail filter that tags the messages based on that and the sender's address. ~~~ dmn001 On a similar note, I have a gmail filter that picks up when the source and destination email addresses are the same, i.e. when I send an email to myself, tagged under 'self mail'. ------ statictype People use email because that's still the only ubiquitous app. I use Dropbox and Pinboard and Instapaper. I still find myself emailing things to myself because whatever iPad app I'm using doesn't yet integrate to any of those but does have email. Email also exists on all sorts of devices that don't support apps. That said, nice job - the simplicity and UX is great. ~~~ alphakappa The reason I (and I suspect, many others) email stuff to themselves is that I expect my email to be there with me years from now. Websites like these come and go, and I wouldn't want to build up a collection that might just disappear a few months (or maybe a few years) down the line. I remember collecting links for years on del.icio.us before Yahoo decided to shut it down. Then I moved everything over (though it's nice that del.icio.us made it convenient to move my data over, it's still a hassle) to trunk.ly, but now they have been acquired by delicious.com and will be shutting down too. In the end, I find that email is more reliable and easier to search (searching on Gmail is pretty easy) One way such a website could be useful is if it did the job of emailing me the stuff I collect (or some other similar solution) so that I'm still guaranteed to have my collection, but it's possible to browse it in a better interface on this website. TL;DR - This is a well-done website, but I'll be hard-pressed to use it unless it also solves the reliability problem. ~~~ eternalban It should be trivial technically (but not sure about the biz model) to allow for itemized and tagged export to a designated email address. If they do that, I will consider using them. ------ mkl There are some odd things in the Terms and Conditions: _"Pasting any of the following is forbidden and a violation of our terms of service: ... copyrighted works or links to copyrighted works that you do not own"_ Virtually everything on the internet is under copyright, so this forbids links, a primary purpose of the site. _"Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on Hopper's web site for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only."_ I don't know if I'm reading that right, but it sounds like you can't get your stuff off the site :-/ ------ Smudge After an unmanageable number of note-to-self emails — I mean, just _imagine_ having to sort through an inbox of hundreds of things you sent yourself with the expectation of following-up later — I finally transferred them all to Evernote and haven't looked back. (Really, I can't recommend using something like Evernote or OneNote more for the purpose of brain dumps). The problem I see with solutions like Hopper is that they aren't ubiquitous. I have to load a website and deal with whatever interface they've decided is the 37signals-esque simple-is-best approach to solving a problem that only matters because their execution pretty decent and for that reason I come back to it more than once... At least with Evernote I can throw shit in, in whatever format I prefer, categorize it, and then come back to it later when I feel like looking at what I thought was so rad at the time. It's no wonder so many people do this over email. Back when I had dial-up and wasn't online all the time, my solution to this problem was Notepad. Yes, plain old .txt. THAT's how to get shit done. Don't matter what fancy tools you use. (No offense, Hopper...) ------ dmn001 The last time I emailed a piece of text to myself was to send an api key from my computer to my iPhone so it could be used in an app. It is a one time operation where I can access the data quickly and the text remains sufficiently private. With Hopper, I don't know if the text will be shared publicly on the web, and if I can rely on it, what if the server goes down or the logs are read or stolen? ------ uiri I have been thinking about solving this since <https://www.xkcd.com/949/> and one thing which I think most file services get wrong is that they practically require you to write down (or email to yourself) the link to the file. I don't want <http://gethopper.com/$hexadecimalgibberish>. I want <http://gethopper.com/meaningfulfilename> If I am trying to send the file to myself because I will be on a different computer, how does this do me any good? Allowing me to make it <http://gethopper.com/reallyimportantfile> then I will remember the URL and I can just put it into the URL bar instead of going to gethopper.com first. ~~~ bcjordan A nice solution to avoid namespace collisions while allowing users to create their own shortening URLs is to use their username as a subdomain (e.g., bcjordan.gethopper.com/meaningfulname). Also: * accept file and submissions by email: subject = optional shortener key, body/attachment = content * slap a sign up with Facebook button on it And one more thing... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEgk2v6KntY> ------ 0x0 Haha. I pasted some random text, hit "shorten link", and changed one character (out of the two-character-long shortlink) ... ended up with [http://www.wtfeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fat- black-g...](http://www.wtfeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fat-black-guy- taking-a-big-mac-bath.jpg) ------ sachleen I created a simple notepad for personal use. It's a textbox that syncs to my server. I have a bookmark to it on my Kindle as well as a notepad widget on the new tab page of Chrome. It can also be accessed from my phone (any device with a browser, really). When I'm on my computer, it's there every time I open my browser. Anywhere else, It's just a few clicks away. That seems to be enough for me as I rarely need to sync files, and when I do, I have dropbox. Edit: Also thought I should mention that before I created my own solution, I used Simplenote (<http://simplenoteapp.com/>) for the webapp and iOS app. Since then they've added an API and have a few other apps I think. ~~~ tealtan Say more about this, please? Is it a single text box? ~~~ sachleen Sure, here's the source: <https://gist.github.com/1609919> Also requires jQuery. I access it like this: <http://domain.com/notepad?key=yoursecret> The JS checks to see if the contents of the textbox has changed, and if it has, it makes a POST request via AJAX to the server that saves it to a text file. ~~~ hardik988 Thanks so much for that! I also added in a Ctrl+S capture because I have an irritating habit of pressing it! Kudos! ~~~ sachleen Mind sharing your code for that? I think I tried implementing that originally but I could never get it to work. ~~~ hardik988 I just used the shortcut.js library.. You can find it here : <http://www.openjs.com/scripts/events/keyboard_shortcuts/> ------ Geee How about sending _also_ an email to my own inbox from every share which links to the content? Could be a good way to keep users getting back if I could just enter my email easily when trying it out. ------ BadassFractal You've certainly identified the problem, but I don't know if your proposed solution make people like me switch off of spamming one's inbox. I've already tried to switch off to RememberTheMilk, but email was just too easily accessible and too ubiquitous, something I look at all the time. I'd need a whole separate screen just to keep track of what I want to do in RTM. ------ mattmanser It seems like a cool idea, but as time has gone on with hosted apps I always find myself now asking this before I sign up: _How will you make money to stay in business?_ If you can't answer that, and you don't, I'm extremely hesitant to sign up. Personal opinion, of course. ------ akg Great work and a great first start. One thing that I find that is still missing from file-sharing is to share your stuff with people in your close vicinity. I often run into cases when I just need to quickly share images, code fragments, links, etc. with another person sitting in the same room. I can use chat (but I generally don't like going on chat while working -- too distracting), I can email (which I often do) or use a service like Dropbox (but that means you have to upload and download files). An easy clipboard that can be sharable and accessible quickly would be very useful, at least for me. Just a thought. ~~~ jmonegro Try Ge.tt ------ jamesrcole Is it 'Hopper' or is it 'Get Hopper'? Ok, so by the title of this post, and the title on the site's front-page, I can see it's meant to be "Hopper". But the site's URL is 'gethopper' and if you view one of the links created by the site there's the red 'Get Hopper' button on the top left. Both of those things suggest the site is called 'Get Hopper'. To the user, what else is 'Get Hopper' meant to mean? You don't see "Get Google" or "Get bit.ly" (along with <http://getbit.ly>) etc. It's a little confusing. Just thought you might like to know. ------ wtvanhest If you add a hot key that allows the user to automatically upload the file/image etc. it would save steps and differentiate you from email. I'd probably use it, and may even pay for it depending on the price. EDIT: Just because I am price sensitive doesn't mean others are (don't price it low on my comment). You also may have some lockin with this since you will have their files so keep that in mind when pricing. ------ firefoxman1 I made something like this for my friend when I wanted to try out the drag/drop API. One thing I also did was give him a little bookmarklet with his hashed password that he could drag into a "login" box so he could quickly log in without typing his username and password every time. You may want to try something like that for quicker logins. It looked something like... hisusername:19fij12dio7giw3 ------ devs1010 I generally am active about keeping my inbox clean so anything in there is important, if its not then I delete it as I prune it everytime I check so not sure this would really be all that useful but for some people it may be, if they're too lazy to categorize / archive emails though I doubt they are going to want to use an extra app just for this. ------ aaronbrethorst it doesn't seem to work for me in Safari 5.1.2. Does it require Flash? I very intentionally do not have Flash installed. ~~~ code_duck I don't see any Flash. It seems to be implemented in javascript. ------ dustingetz killer feature for me: screen capture to clipboard, paste to hopper, and its already uploaded and shareable. i need this like 4 times a week. i would push to buy it at work if it was priced right and based on our existing google apps, so safe for proprietary data. ~~~ vijaykiran If you use a Mac <http://getcloudapp.com/> does something similar, Clipboard capture of screenshots and adds the link to clipboard once the upload is done. ~~~ switz Yeah, CloudApp (Mac), TinyGrab (Universal), and Droplr (Universal) are all great products that provide this functionality. For example: <http://d.saew.it/ocSW> ------ cmer You might want to know that www.hopper.com is very well funded and launching soon. I think you should rename your project... <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/hopper> ------ qq66 This needs to email the entire thing to me once per week before I use it, because I won't start using it if I'm not sure that it will be there in 6 months. ------ sdoowpilihp A big benefit for a user like me would be how to integrate it into my day to day workflow. A chrome/firefox extension would really go a long way. ------ Uhhrrr Does anything in your privacy policy prevent you from looking through user pastes? It appears to me the answer is no, but IANAL. ------ phodo You might want to try wishtunes on the appstore for iPhone as a way to capture snippets of text. ------ Zikes I really need this for my phone. Having it as a Share option would be great. ~~~ endtwist A mobile version is coming soon. I'm just as eager as you are to use it on my phone. ------ mrtron I like this. Make items unique per user though to save yourselves a lot of trouble. ------ treenyc also check out <http://ge.tt> I met these guys at SeedCamp final round. Looks like a very good file sharing product ------ vld And yet another chrome-only website. ------ timanzo guilty as charged. I do it almost everyday. very simple concept. UX is great. ------ mcteapot wow this is perfect for me, would be great if there was an iOS app as well! ------ halayli Or use dropbox	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
PEP 0501 – Translation ready string interpolation - Sami_Lehtinen https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0501/ ====== svieira I like the general thrust of PEP 498 (`f""` is explicit, unlike Ruby or Bash's magic `"` vs. `'`). That said, I think it would be much improved if it went the way of Scala and JavaScript (2015+) and made `r`, `u`, `b`, and `f` all interpolation providers. That way libraries could provide interpolators without having to extend the language to create a new one. For example, in Scala or JavaScript, you can create a string context / template tag for composing JSON strings, resulting in a nice syntax like this (scala-like): json"""{ "my": $data, "anArray": $someArray }""" The `data` and `someArray` values serialized to JSON by the `json` interpolation provider. At that point, internationalization is just creating your own interpolation provider and importing it as `i`, which is far less machinery than this PEP requires. ~~~ dragonwriter > (`f""` is explicit, unlike Ruby or Bash's magic `"` vs. `'`) Both are equally explicit, though f"" is perhaps marginally more clear because it is somewhat mnemonic. ------ imakesnowflakes Reddit discussion [https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/3gfaji/pep_501_tran...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/3gfaji/pep_501_translation_ready_string_interpolation/) I think this and pep 498 are a pretty horrible proposals and does not fit well with the rest of the language and it's spirit. 1\. Decrements readability. When variables are hidden inside strings, you need to check for presence of a variable in two contexts. In the code and inside the strings. With format and % functions, you will be able to spot the variable in the argument list, which is part of the code itself. 2\. Security concerns regarding automatic evaluation of expressions inside the strings. Also, why was format and % made in such a way as to require an explicit list of variables? What was the reasoning behind it? Is that reason no longer relevant? ~~~ masida I agree. For me the automatic "pulling" of local variables from the context feels like "magic", and I think that's an undesirable property for a programming language. Of course, PEP498 has the same issue. ~~~ kerkeslager > For me the automatic "pulling" of local variables from the context feels > like "magic", and I think that's an undesirable property for a programming > language. Sounds like "Explicit is better than implicit" from the Tao of Python. ------ kerkeslager I'm currently working on a heavily internationalized website written in Python 3[1] and as such I've had opportunity to work with a few ways of internationalizing content. My thoughts: 1\. Internationalization is, as far as I know, an unsolved problem. This solution doesn't stand out as obviously better than the alternatives. Unsolved problems don't belong at the language level. I'd rather wait until a real solution to this problem is discovered. 2\. What happened to explicit is better than implicit? Isn't that a core value of Python? Overriding implementations of builtin functions is all too magical, allowing spooky action at a distance. I'm extremely skeptical of solutions that don't allow me to grep my code for where a function is implemented. `gettext`, at least is clearly calling a function. [1] [http://globalcitizen.org](http://globalcitizen.org) ------ byuu The idea that a translation string can execute Python code via ${expression} is really quite scary. Imagine a user downloading a third-party localization file that ends up being malicious. Overall, I see there being two major styles for building strings. Since I use C++, I can't do literal interpolation, but I can get close with variadic templates. I hope you guys won't me talking about a statically typed language here, but it should be on topic to string interpolation at least. //interpolation print("My name is ", name, " and next year, I will be ", age + 1, " years old.\n"); //arguments print("My name is {0}, and next year, I will be {1} years old.\n", name, age + 1); //arguments with hinting (:label is ignored) print("My name is {0:name}, and next year, I will be {1:age} years old."\n", fetch(), values + 1); print(hex(size, 4), " KiB"); //interpolation formatting print("{0,4x} KiB", size); //argument formatting (more covenient, but more cryptic and limited) //without the print component: string s{"My name is: ", name, "\n"}; //interpolation string s{"My name is: {0}\n", name}; //arguments The latter is certainly vastly superior for localization. Because in another language, it may be more grammatically correct to reverse the parameters, eg: "来年の歳は{1}と名前は{0}"; which is something C printf doesn't support, shy of unofficial extensions for argument reordering. But I find that as the string gets longer and longer, the former is much more readable. (You'll have to imagine the syntax highlighting, which helps a lot.) Eg when you have 17 arguments, it can be annoying to count to find the 11th parameter, whereas with interpolation, it's right there where it's used. Ultimately, I decided on the former being the default, and added a format class for the latter, which is also really handy for building your argument lists somewhere else. Plus the default won't clobber your escape characters (in my case, braces.) //inline format print("I am {0}, and I'm {1} years old.\n", format{name, age}); //external format format f; f.append(fetch()); //person's age f.append(values + 1); //person's name ... //you could fetch the string from a translation table below, too print("I am {0}, and I'm almost {1} years old.\n", f); Whenever string::append(format) is invoked, it will use all of the values inside the format array to parse {#} entries in the string. Of course, it's also safe and will simply skip over a reference to {2} in a format array with only one value. Curious to hear others' opinions on the above, and any suggestions for improvement.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CSS Sprites2 - It's JavaScript Time - ra http://alistapart.com/articles/sprites2 ====== jsmcgd If you're interested in using a sprite technique without Javascript here's a tutorial video: <http://css-tricks.com/videos/css-tricks-video-7.php>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Why you do what you do? - lnalx Hi Hackers,<p>We all have project and reasons/motivations why we are on it. For some people it’s just money, but is it sustainable on the long term ? For others it’s charity project, to see people going better.<p>On what project are you right now and what is fueling you ? ====== mikekchar A quote from George Mallory about climbing Mt. Everest: People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for. ------ muzani I just try to do good. My long game is the afterlife. Every philosophy and religion says that if you do good in this life, the next life will be better. If there is no afterlife, I will have lived a good life at least. It's also really practical; doing good and helping people costs little and gives you the best deals and connections. It highlights the parasites in your life. It brings you closer to other generous people and pushes away the selfish ones. Wealth is also a really odd thing - most people with wealth choose to invest it rather than enjoy it. Those who enjoy their wealth, whether it's buying a better car or a gold toilet seat, they mostly enjoy the purchase, but not the state of having the thing they bought. Spending wealth to help others gives you more of a buyer's high, and you don't have to deal with say, the payments of the more expensive car or the guilt of having a gold toilet seat. Wealth isn't just cash, but also energy and time. Spending my time and energy on vices feels bad. Whereas spending it to help others - teaching, mentoring, assisting, learning, blogging, these are all good life experiences, whether or not there's a return on investment. ------ skrtskrt Software is a field where I can just create something out of nothing, virtually in my own. Even at a non-senior level I can make the vast majority of design and implementation decisions for a project - it just might not be as ambitious or complex of a project as someone senior. Most weeks I leave work, something exists that did not before. Bonus points if I’m proud of the design and execution. Eventually I would love to work on open source software like OS’s or languages/compilers. The idea of making even a tiny contribution to something that helps build and run the world and will be used for decades or longer is amazing. ------ yulaow Honestly I like to learn and I love the feeling of "yeah, now I get it" ~~~ skrtskrt Seriously the feeling when something _clicks_ is a giddy rush that never gets old ------ gitgud I like programming, because programming is the fundamental essence of automation. Automation reduces the work humans have to do, which is generally good for everyone. ------ polishdude20 Since I'm not getting paid for writing software, at first glance someone would say I do it so that I get a job in software at some company. But now that I think of it, I don't start software projects with getting hired in mind. I do them because I enjoy the satisfaction of putting together a complex system and turning on the big red switch and seeing it all work together. Why do I enjoy that? Now I can only guess at such a deep question but maybe it's to do with my need for order. I get enough chaotic things happening in my life and personality that I feel programming balances it out. Also, since I'm still pretty new to this, software feels like a new frontier with loads of possibilities. I get this feeling of there being gold at the end of every tunnel of knowledge. ------ ekr I don't think you can get useful answers or of this thread simply because most humans don't have metacognitive introspective awareness; it's not something we evolved to have, in fact it is something that would bring negative reproductive fitness, given that the brain has mechanisms to actually hide the root motivation for our urges. The best way would be to study the neuroscience of human motivation. There's a specific brain circuit involved. But from another perspective, we do what we do to fulfill various needs, mostly security and belonging. That can result in things as complex as status games. Things are a lot more complex than that, if you consider the evolutionary history of the brain stem, limbic system and the cortex, each newer system is able to override the older one, resulting in completely different behaviour. ------ burntoutfire Make money -> retire. Should achieve it in a about a year from now, a bit under forties. The project is relatively undemanding if you know how to deal with the stress of corporate misery (nothing works as it should, the requirements are shit etc.). After that, who knows, make an indie game? The underlying goal is to strive for mastery, autonomy and balance in life, none of which I think I can achieve while in a career. ------ austincheney I love building things and software pays more than carpentry, so there I love writing software and do so full time. The corporate software culture with all of its incompetence and false expectations grates on the soul like sewage flooding your bedroom. As a result I maintain a lower paying employment in the US Army Reserves, because sometimes a year long vacation to a foreign nation doing real work under real leadership recharges the soul. ~~~ gitgud Interesting, I wonder how big the cross-over is between wood working and programming among HN readers, anecdotally I think it's a lot... ------ dilap I'm working on a game for phones. It's defnly a mix of $ and stuff I like; if cash were no object, I'd like to be spending my time doing some mix of trying to make a replacement for emacs, trying to make a better language learning app, and learning more about art. (Though I'm not sure I actually _would_; unfortunately, I can be lazy w/o an external motivation.) I'm not as passionate about games, but it's still pretty interesting to work on, and I can get paid...which, I need. :-) ------ diablo1 > For some people it’s just money Money is a terrible motivator, because when you reach certain monetary events, it doesn't matter how much it is, how you feel internally will decide how you feel about the money. That's why you should always find something that makes you feel really alive, and the money should follow naturally. If it doesn't follow naturally, then find ways to make it follow naturally. Charge money for whatever it is that makes you feel alive. ------ Jeremy1026 Because there is someone willing to give me a sum of money to use a skill that I have worked on over the years, and I need that sum of money to afford housing and nourishment for myself and my family. I have no "change the world" mentality. I'm just doing what I need to do to continue my way of life. ------ dorkinspace The simple and blunt answer is that software dev is easy, the hours are lax, and it pays well. By easy, I mean my most challenging days are those in which I have to solve a hard code/architecture/etc problem and solving hard problems inside a simple defined space is fun. ------ nunez I love being able to automate things that I hate doing and being paid very well for knowing how to do it ------ apple2ta Money. But in your head hear that as "Moooonneeeeeeyy" from the Pink Floyd track. ------ bedhesd I am a technical writer and I am physically disabled. At my point in life I work to survive. Technology is my single source of income potential. ------ rcharpentier I’m currently building a user feedback tool for SaaS companies. I do it because I need freedom. Freedom from working from someone else, from having an employer decide my fate. I need to create, to achieve. ------ k00b I feel compelled express myself. I'm pretty bad at "succeeding" with independent projects but I suspect - like with anything - I'll get better incrementally at least. ------ non-entity For my personal / side projects? Sure I'd love to make money doing the type of stuff I do there, but I'm initially driven by curiosity. ------ zubairq I am building stepping stones for a future in which AI and small robots can help to heal our bodies and other useful tasks ... ------ RajSinghLA Working on a hotel concierge AI. Goal is to make a billion people's lives easier. Have helped 10,000,000+ hotel guests already. ------ rl3 > _On what project are you right now and what is fueling you ?_ I don't know anymore. ------ mortivore Fun, money, and work/life balance. ------ quickthrower2 Side project? To make money of course :-) ------ rolph an archive to facilitate a rebuilding after im dead and gone and people reemerge from the chaos ------ gcheong I got nowhere else to go. ------ a3n They were hiring.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Steinway’s New Piano Can Play a Perfect Concerto by Itself - scottcha http://www.wired.com/2015/04/steinways-new-piano-can-play-perfect-concerto/ ====== sandworm101 Anyone else get sense the desperation in this? Once upon a time every middle-class home had to have a piano. Now they are relics. Sales of home pianos have tanked. Steinway sells to the pros, a small market, and the very rich. But those very rich who were raised with pianos in every home are getting older. Their kids don't want to spend $$$,$$$ on a great piano and the maintenance it requires. So Steinway is injecting technology in hopes of keeping the rich onside. Pianos, the good ones, last for decades. But what will this ipod-dependant thing look like in 2030 or 2060? Will they join their brethren in concert halls, or lie forgotten in grandma's storage locker? An old Steinway is a useful device capable of doing the same job today as it did when built. An network-enabled ipad accessory will not age so well. ------ thejew Not to be that guy, but. You can't play a concerto by yourself because a concerto is when you play as a soloist with an orchestra. And you can't really say "a perfect concerto" like "a perfect arpeggio". Would make more sense to say "Can play a sonata by itself perfectly." ~~~ balabaster _You_ can't, and near as I can tell, _this_ piano can't. However, some Clavinovas on the market [e.g. Yamaha], could theoretically be used to play a perfect [or extremely close to perfect] Concerto by themselves. I agree however that the headline was sloppy. Someone wishing to cast the impression of being an audiophile should have taken more care. Not to take away from this piano though, I enjoyed listening to it. If I had $120,000 to throw away on an expensive piece of furniture that I could play myself from time to time, I'd really enjoy looking at this every day. ------ khdjsgkl This is not new. Steinway has these systems for years; only news is the piano can talk to an ipad now ... The first systems that could reproduce dynamics are from 1904: [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weltemignon.ch%2Fweltemignon.ch%2Fweltemignon%2Fwelte_info.htm&sandbox=1) There are actually lots of old piano roll recordings from great artists like Rachmaninoff, Gershwin any many others around. Some people actually scanned them and converted them to MIDI: [http://www.pianola.co.nz/public/](http://www.pianola.co.nz/public/) These files can now be played on a Yamaha Disklavier, or the Steinway CEUS or now this new one. Or they can be played with software-modeled pianos like PianoTeq or sampled- based software pianos. Really nice. ------ njloof Piano rolls have survived for over a century. I wonder whether these performances will have the same longevity. ~~~ D_ANGER Yamaha has been doing this for at least a decade, recording performers for their player grands. I don't know how intense the home market is but they've used them for master classes and competitions remotely; pretty interesting as a teaching tool. Also, Jenny Lin is a fantastic pianist, check her out. ~~~ colomon Yes, I find it really frustrating that the article doesn't contrast at all with the previous state of the art. I seem to remember that the Yamaha pianos you mention already had significantly better than MIDI reproduction capabilities way back when. Getting all excited about the new system without mentioning how much of an improvement it is makes this sound like a press release rather than a well-researched article. ~~~ balabaster Having played quite a large number of the Yamaha Clavinovas over the years, I can concur. Knowing this makes this read exactly as if it were a press release, or at least an article written by a Steinway Fanboy... of course, I can't blame someone for being a Steinway Fanboy, there's just something about a Steinway that stands on its own. ------ MrBra I can't see the player. I also tried with ublock disabled. ------ concerto I approve	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Synack Raises $7.5M Putting Bounties on IT Security Threats - wickedcoolmatt http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/24/synack-raises-7-5-million-putting-bounties-on-it-security-threats/ ====== cyphunk Just wanted to point out... Kaplan and his co-founder chief technology officer Mark Kuhr previously worked at the National Security Agency as senior analysts Yes, that little fact is going to follow them around for life. It also puts this quote into an ironic light: “We call them security researchers, but ultimately they’re ‘white hat’ hackers,” says Kaplan. ”They’re hacking for good.” This company does not clearly state what their relationship is with western intelligence agencies. Not even as much as a hint of an ethics statement or information about how long they hold disclosure or how this is handled. One should assume that 'white hat' for them and 'hacking for good' may mean the exact opposite. With that I'm a little surprised the irony of Google Ventures money being used for this is not highlighted more. Google complains along with others about the destabilisation of the tech industry at the NSA hands and yet funds a company that may very well help with that? ------ koomar congrats!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Review my coming soon page, SettleIt.org - BentleyDavis ====== laurabw Hey, I have some thoughts for you: \- it's a bit cluttered. People don't have time to read through all the stuff to understand what the page is about. I'd make it simpler with a couple of graphics. \- If your goal is to sign up customers, you should highlight the feature and put it in the center. Also, what's the incentive for people to sign up? Give them something to be excited about. \- How long will they have to wait and what do they get after that? \- The box on the right side is a left unexplained. Might need some context or get rid of it. \- Yesterday I found a threat here for people to promote their beta launches. You might want to check it out :) Best of luck ~~~ BentleyDavis Thanks so much for the feedback. I have been cutting the length of the content. I'll see if I can cut some more. Maybe add some links to more information and keep them off the front page. The box to the right is a screenshot so I can label it. The features are difficult to explain so I tried to have the benefits. I'll think through it and see what I can do to make it clearer. I couldn't find the thread about promoting beta sites. If you can give me the link I would appreciate it. Thanks Again. ~~~ laurabw You're welcome! This is the thread I meant: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822) ------ ericthegoodking I am sorry i still don't understand what your start-up does after reading "I hope to help you be awesome at settling complex arguments". Are you providing legal services or something?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Widget factors current time (based on XKCD comic) - byrneseyeview http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=xkcdtime.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/xkcdtime.xml ====== byrneseyeview Based on <http://xkcd.com/247/>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Executable Models in Software Engineering - brlebtag Dear colleague,<p>We are Brazilian academic researchers investigating how software engineering professionals understand and use executable models in their practice.<p>We invite researchers, professors, industry professionals, undergraduate and graduate students to answer our form <https://forms.gle/fH1gMqGPu9EYZvZL7>. The estimated time to answer it is around 15 minutes.<p>We also ask you to forward this request to your colleagues.<p>Thank you in advance for your participation.<p>Bruno Lebtag (UFG) Valdemar Neto (UFG) Rodrigo Santos (UNIRIO). ====== gtirloni Clicky link: [https://forms.gle/fH1gMqGPu9EYZvZL7](https://forms.gle/fH1gMqGPu9EYZvZL7)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: GIF Directions - jack_riminton https://gif.direct ====== jack_riminton The problem I was trying to solve is the difficulty/speed of finding places relying on 2D tech of maps and GPS. For some scenarios (unmapped areas, indoors, congested environments, no address system) a gif makes finding a place much easier. Future improvements: multiple gifs for each place (for different approach directions), unique links for specific deliveries e.g. gif.direct/redhouse/123456 Its my first coding project I've shipped so any feedback greatly appreciated Stack: Rails, a bit of JS for maps (leaflet), python AWS Lambda for video processing (MoviePy, FFMpeg), S3 ~~~ kohtatsu It looks really good: the idea is cute, and your intro video is great. Would you be open in adding Sign in with Apple? [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sign_in_with_apple](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sign_in_with_apple) I don't have an active Google account, and with Apple's service in I can opt- out of giving my direct email away. ~~~ njsubedi Ah, the problem. I have started using my custom domain and a random username for each service, derived from the service's domain. Pretty easy way to not give away your email. ~~~ kohtatsu I do this as well, but it's a lot nicer (and actually private) to have a random @privaterelay.appleid.com. ~~~ thih9 > (and actually private) It's private, assuming we trust Apple. For now Apple is privacy friendly, but this might change in a couple of years. ------ dheera Honest question here -- why would anyone want to use a GIF for this -- or anything really -- compared to H.264? I feel like even the cat GIFs would look so much better if they were using H.264. GIF is an 8-bit lossless format and it just seems to be that for any kind of photorealistic video content you probably want 24-bit and lossy. ~~~ everfree The term "GIF" is used in a very broad sense nowadays. I'm sure the actual image encoding they're using is a proper video format, not the GIF format itself. ~~~ jack_riminton You're correct, I'm using mp4s instead of actual GIFs. Much more compressed. I think most people understand GIF to mean a short, possibly sped up video ~~~ egfx Wrong. A GIF is an image format. It literally means “graphical interchange format”. A gif displays single image frames in sequence with timings between each frame. When the frames of the gif end, the frames restart from the beginning and so they are often seen to loop. Technically a gif can play indefinitely. It’s just annoying to see people ascribe gif as basically video. ~~~ wetmore Just because short videos aren't all technically GIFs, doesn't mean that people don't commonly understand "gif" to mean short video. ~~~ dheera I think this is similar to how the public has mistakenly understood "HDR" to mean a software local contrast enhancement effect and dialing in highlights/shadows, whereas true HDR doesn't refer to software and requires either advanced sensor hardware or multiple exposures. ------ samstave I have a use case that might be interesting: Hikes. Showing people proper routes to get to a hiking spot, then the path to go down. Some times hiking trail-heads are obscure to find. So tagging a Gif-Dir with #hiking #hike-marin and such would be nice... This would be interesting in places like the Sequoias as sometimes you get lost on Endor trying to find that particular grove of redwoods that are desired. Hiking, biking, walking, running, beach going, even experiences like wine tasting.... ~~~ jack_riminton I love it! hashtagging is a really interesting idea. One feature that I plan to do soon is to offer a search function, so as well as people being able to search by area perhaps I can add tags to these so that people could search by trail names etc. ~~~ samstave Where are you based... i have something i have been working on which would dovetail nicely with your app ~~~ jack_riminton London ~~~ samstave Contact info? Put an email in your profile? ~~~ jack_riminton jack@gif.direct ------ boffinism So this is for situations where 'normally' I would take a video of me walking from A to B and then send it to someone so that they know the way from A to B. The benefit this service offers in these situations is that it speeds up the video and allows me to put a map next to it. Do people actually use first person video to give directions? ~~~ jack_riminton I envisage it would primarily be used by people who live or work in a place that people have problems finding. This is normally a big deal for businesses who deal with a lot of deliveries. An especial problem for places that have specific entrances and possibly need forewarning that they're arriving Yeah this is a new idea, I've seen people upload directions on youtube though ------ yellowapple The sample is a 404 ~~~ jack_riminton Fixed :) ------ TedDoesntTalk > signup with Google You lost me there. I won't use 3rd party auth systems like Facebook, Google. There's no reason they should know i use your service and how frequent i use it. ~~~ jack_riminton That's fair. Someone just pointed me to use metomic.io which protects a user's email so I'm currently looking into spinning that up ------ SquareWheel If the intention is to send it to phones, then gif downloads are going to explode your user's data caps. It also seriously limits the quality of the resulting video. I'd suggest relying on the <video> tag in browsers. It will be a lot easier to encode for your servers too (though may require some retooling). ~~~ jack_riminton Good suggestion, already on it ;) all 'gifs' are actually mp4s ~~~ SquareWheel I'm glad to hear it. Proper video formats will work significantly better. ------ LeonB This is nice. A lot of Airbnb places could use this. ~~~ jack_riminton Thanks! yes they'd be great first B2C users Later I'll be creating an API and marketing it to delivery companies in a kind of B2B2C ~~~ antoniuschan99 Japanese Airbnbs all have it like this. It’s very complicated and something like your solution could simplify it further. The hosts send these pdfs with pages of arrows to go left, right, straight with landmarks to get to your Airbnb. One issue is since the guest is in a new Country, they might not have Internet connectivity at that moment. ~~~ jack_riminton Ah interesting, thanks Yes, connectivity is always a risk. Although perhaps mitigated by checking the gif before you depart. The one thing I've found by creating these gif directions is that they tend to leave quite an indelible impression and are fairly easy to remember ------ hriminton This would be really helpful in Sweden to find the many summer houses that are off main roads. ~~~ jack_riminton Yes that would be perfect use of it ~~~ hriminton Also in Sweden no flats have numbers (like the rest of the world) only the person surname on the flat door. Thus finding the correct flat in buildings with different parts and courtyards is difficult especially when people have the same surname ~~~ hriminton One more also, I bumped into a food delivery guy at our building yesterday and he didn’t know where to leave the delivery… a simple system like this could help him to find the correct drop-off point especially in these times of social distancing ------ themantra514 Why are people asking "what is it?" with next level passive-aggressive polite ranting? 1-Make a video from point A to point B. 2-It gets converted to a gif. It's about the clutter free experience for the user, the wonderful experience of "it shows you the way, nothing else, and it just works." Good work jack_riminton ~~~ jack_riminton Thanks! I have tried to keep it as simple as possible, which means leaving stuff out. Some people don't get it, that's fine, they don't have to :) ------ vaibhavthevedi Your demo is giving me a 404. Can you provide another one? Looks interesting. ~~~ jack_riminton Fixed :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is the Party Over at Google+? - bhartzer http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/07/28/google.plus.traffic.falls.mashable/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 ====== blackboxxx Google+ is too late to win the social media throne. It's boring and only superficially different. The only way Google+ can survive and not shrivel up like Wave is to stop trying to be Facebook 2. Be different Google. Don't be boring. ------ carrington I think this is an amazing new social media feature. They're still testing it as well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Law firm bosses envision Artificial Intelligence to replace young lawyers - hvo http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/law-firm-bosses-envision-watson-type-computers-replacing-young-lawyers/ ====== a3n Where will old lawyers come from? Or are they next? And if we don't have old lawyers, where will judges come from? "A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Only have a 5 percent chance of avoiding ‘dangerous’ global warming - drallison https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/31/we-only-have-a-5-percent-chance-of-avoiding-dangerous-global-warming-a-study-finds/?utm_term=.4bae9019b9dd ====== jamez1 I don't know how anybody can take models like this seriously. It's about as valid as any of these economists models. Hell, it is partly an economic model. Reading the paper, they make a big deal about the out of sample testing - but given that there is a clear trend, is anybody surprised the model fits? Do you even need a fancy Bayesian hierarchical model or would a regression have predicted the same thing. To top it off there's not mention of the CO2 cycle and the forces sucking CO2 out of the air they just assume the CO2 is cumulatively stasis in the air for perpetuity. Shit like this, wins you great points with the environmentalists, who want ammo to throw at polluters. I get it - pollution is shit. But we shouldn't use falsehoods to achieve an outcome even if it's a good outcome. This is the reason why there is growing discontent for climate science. We need it now more than ever, but the academic community just publishes bullshit and yells at us if we doubt the veracity of their models. We've had a period of cooling that none of their models have predicted, and instead of saying, hey we aren't that good at modelling, they and everyone else who went all-in politically on these models have started a hate campaign against skepticism. It's a strange world where scientists use the word 'skeptic' as a derogatory term. ~~~ awkwarddaturtle > I don't know how anybody can take models like this seriously. It's about as > valid as any of these economists models. Hell, it is partly an economic > model. Because bill nye, leonardo di caprio and Al Gore told us it is 100% correct and they are the greatest scientists in human history. It's crazy how this global warming political movement has hijack science to push their agenda. > We've had a period of cooling that none of their models have predicted, and > instead of saying, hey we aren't that good at modelling, they and everyone > else who went all-in politically on these models have started a hate > campaign against skepticism. It's funny how model after model has proven rather suspect and yet you will get called anti-science or a denier if you don't accept their model 100% without question. If only the global warming movement had more humility of scientists rather than the total conviction of a cult members, I'd take them more seriously. And if they were more honest about the data and the science of climate rather than lying about it. ~~~ jgys Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, two things: 1) that your assertion that environmentalists and public figures in media, politics, and (what we'll call, with marginal disrespect, "pop") science are lacking in humility and unwilling to admit any flaw in their predictions or assertions is a fair assertion, and 2) that they are generally correct in their concern about pollution in general and the effect of carbon emissions on global temperatures and weather patterns in particular, and that this is a risk to the welfare of many people around the world. Do you suppose that environmental activists are more likely to achieve their important objective of dramatically reducing carbon emissions by admitting even mild uncertainties in the rationale for their position in effort to appeal to educated, reasoned people like you, or by adhering to a steadfast narrative, increasingly accepted by the masses, that anthropogenic climate change is creating a severe risk to the welfare of people the world around? ~~~ credit_guy there's another thread of articles currently high up on Hacker News about Baltimore cops planting evidence. I don't like police doing that, and I don't like climate scientists being cavalier with the science "for the greater good". ------ marssaxman Yeah, well, this has been basically obvious for a while now: the world simply didn't develop the political will to deal with climate change in time to make a difference. It's probably still worth pretending that we have a chance, if that fiction helps us make changes that will mitigate some of the effects, but we're really just deciding whether we're going for "bad" or "worse". If we were going to achieve a good outcome, we'd have to have gotten serious a decade or two ago. ------ framestr "So you're saying there's a chance"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stop using strncpy already (2013) - ohjeez https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/stop-using-strncpy-already/ ====== AdmiralAsshat In principle, I feel like "Ignore the language-provided standard libraries and use this little macro I wrote in all your code" is bad advice. If the standard libs are _that bad_ , the community should really lobby for the inclusion of a "safe" string copy into the C standard. Failing that, use a battle-tested third-party library like bstrlib[0]. [0][http://bstring.sourceforge.net/](http://bstring.sourceforge.net/) ~~~ pcwalton The C standards committee is incredibly conservative, only adding new features if absolutely necessary. Unless the composition and goals of the committee drastically change, a new standard string API will never happen. If you must write C, you should use a real string library, and not string.h. ~~~ iforgotpassword Nonsense, strncpy and friends are just fi2•∟1F↔Ñ ~~~ adiusmus Looks like a Perl script I read once. ------ gp7 Two years after this post, the Linux kernel added strscpy, the api of which is equivalent to the safe strncpy in this post. Internally, it stops copying once it reaches the null terminator. [https://lwn.net/Articles/659214/](https://lwn.net/Articles/659214/) ~~~ IChooseYou Also Microsoft's strncpy_s has been around forever. ~~~ rurban But Microsoft's strncpy_s is unsafe. My safeclib also had the unsafe versions behind the non-default ./configure --enable-unsafe switch. But this year I decided to make them safe instead. In this case the spec is broken. ------ wmil I feel like all of these articles can be summed up with: "C strings and string functions aren't designed to be safe. If you want safe strings use a library." ------ beefhash > _strlcpy is designed to solve the null-termination problems – it always > null-terminates. It’s certainly an improvement over strncpy, however it > isn’t natively available in VC++._ Let's not forget that it's also not natively available in glibc. Though you'll find it in every BSD you can think of. ~~~ jandrese Sadly, it still has this braindamage: Like snprintf(3), the strlcpy() and strlcat() functions return the total length of the string they tried to create. For strlcpy() that means the length of src. For strlcat() that means the initial length of dst plus the length of src. So if you've mmaped in something like the OpenStreetMaps xml dump file and try to strlcpy out the first 100 bytes (because you didn't want to have to null terminate it yourself after a memcpy), you'll notice that your program is running rather slowly. ~~~ needlepont That is trusting user input. You don't do that, right? ~~~ quietbritishjim It's not about trusting user input. It's asking for a function to create a 100 byte substring of a very long string and expecting it to take time~100 not time~len(src). In fairness, that is probably just not the target "market" for strlcpy. Presumably, it is meant for "please copy this whole string which I expect to fit in the target (but catch me in the rare case that it does not)". ~~~ needlepont As you note: your example is specious. ~~~ quietbritishjim What example? Are you confusing me with GP commenter perhaps? ------ umvi I feel like there are a lot of good alternatives to C. What we did on our team was get our C compiling under g++, and then refactor as C++14. Now string copies are trivial and safe. I'm sure it would have been even safer to switch to Rust or something, but no one in my company has any experience with that, while there were a few C++ gurus. ~~~ jstimpfle What are the good alternatives? You can either copy memory manually, or have a system like C++'s that causes lots of tiny allocations, which is very inefficient. Both in space and time. You can also opt for immutable strings to be able to share strings more conveniently and efficiently, at the cost of O(n^2) build time (where automatic optimizations fail) or decreased convenience (explicit string-stream aka string builder). If efficiency is not a concern for you and you rather like the convenience, good for you. Personally I feel plain const char pointers (plus length, depending on expected size) are good enough to emulate the immutable string type. For modifiable strings, I still prefer viewing them as chunks of memory, using char pointer + length + capacity. Nice thing is, you can easily go from the former to the latter in the lifetime of any one string. You can also pool many strings in large chunks if you build only one string at any one time. ~~~ pjmlp You care about that after a profiler proves that it is actually a problem to the expected delivery SLAs for the application. Micro-optimizing each line of C code based on gut feeling is not an option if quality matters. ~~~ gnulinux This is a horrible stance and this is repeated like broken record. Please stop saying this? A good software engineer should know (1) a suitable data structure to solve the problem in hand (2) algorithms that have certain asymptotic characteristic that makes most sense for the problem (what assumptions can you make). "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" can be used for and only for "optimization". Choosing the right data structure is never an optimization, it's a design choice. You can't just start coding everything with a linked list and then optimize bottlenecks, that's just not how it works. ~~~ pjmlp As you say "A good software engineer should know a suitable data structure to solve the problem in hand". So I expect a good software engineer on my team to be able to design a data structure where the fact that a linked list is being used doesn't hinder to change it afterwards to an array, a B-Tree or what have you. Without changing a single line of client code I might add. Such good software engineer will certainly had attended an algorithms and data structures class on their CS degree and be aware of architecture designs based on Abstract Data Types. Yes, even in C with its flaky translation units instead of proper module systems, it is possible to implement Abstract Data Types application architectures, which any good software engineer can easily tackle. And for those that aspire to reach that level, here are a few examples. "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" by Niklaus Wirth, 1st edition is Modula-2, the 2nd in Oberon "Introduction to Algorithms" by Thomas Cormen, Clifford Stein, Ronald Rivest, Charles Leiserson "Abstract data types and Modula-2: a worked example of design using data abstraction" by Richard Mitchell "Abstract Data Types in Modula-2" by Rachel Harrison "Abstract Data Types and Algorithms" by Azmoodeh, Manoochchr ~~~ gnulinux Your comment still doesn't make sense, even though you decided to choose a certain ADS and then latee decide on the implementation later based on empirical performance data, this is still not unusual. For (1) this is not how people write C. There are ADS libraries in C with which you wouldn't need need to use any DS that you can't change but this is not a usual way to write C code. This will also come with the overhead of pointer indirection and worse cache performance since all your objects will be void* stored in the DS (unless you m4 or macro generate your DS with all datatypes. This is what linux does for example, and I sometimes use this technique too, but this hardly the usual way to write C code). And (2) usually complex problems require special enough datastructures that it doesn't make much sense talk about ADSs. Everyone can code basic foobar with List interface then decide to use ArrayList or LinkedList based on performance. It's more interesting when the programmer decides to use a set, a hash map, a bloom filter etc to solve the problem as any other type wouldn't make sense. ~~~ pjmlp We will have to agree to disagree, then. Sofware quality and meeting delivery SLAs should trump micro-optimizing cache access per code line. So if SLAs define 100ms per access, no need to go crazy making everything under 5ms. Thankfully, the Linux foundation has another view on the matter. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfNt6MsLj0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfNt6MsLj0E) ------ hedora I don’t understand why silently truncating strings is considered to be acceptable practice. If you have the length of both, simply assert the length of the destination is <= the length of the source. Problem solved (bugs become obvious in testing). ~~~ russdill Because the API is stupid and not intuitive. It's for memory buffers where the string is either NULL terminated or it is the length of the memory buffer. This saves an extra byte. yay? ~~~ russdill I'll add that it's really handy for that specific situation as it also avoids leaking uninitialized bytes. ------ dang Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5491121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5491121) ------ kodis I'd say "Stop using C and C++ already" or "Stop using null terminated strings already", but I recognize that those are not always practical solutions. I do have some maintainability concerns though about the promulgation of numerous competing home-brew solutions to a near trivial problem throughout a code base. ------ hzhou321 If we preset the end of buffer with '\0' and then assume the buffer having 1-less capacity, wouldn't it address the strncpy issue? ~~~ needlepont Of course, but everyone wants to overdo the complexity of the time worn solution. OMG you need to null terminate the string after all the _other_ gymnastics..gee C sure does suck! Why don't we use _rust\|go\|c++_ ad-nauseam. bzero(buf,sz); / _memset nazis here_ / strncpy(buf,src,sz - 1); ~~~ bitwize It doesn't make sense to have to null-terminate the string by hand (maybe) after doing a "safe" STRING copy. Which means it's easy to forget to do and that's a dangerous wart in the design. Really, stop using C. To quote Hayao Miyazaki, C was a mistake. ------ mcguire Been a while since I used C++... How does this work if the size of the destination isn't known at compile time? I.e., it's not "buffer[5]”? ~~~ brucedawson You get a compile error. And this is progress. I have fixed code that looked something like this: strncpy(dst, sizeof(dst), src); data[sizeof(dst)-1] = 0; See the bug? Of course not, because it's not visible, but I've seen this pattern used where dst is a pointer. This means that four or eight bytes (three or seven if you don't count the null terminator) gets copied, regardless of how many bytes dst points to. With strcpy_safe an attempt to copy to dst would not work and the developer would have to fix their code. Every mistake that can be made, will be made. ------ ahoka strncp is fine, however it was never meant for null-terminated strings! A safe alternative is using snprintf and checking the return value for truncation. ~~~ brucedawson snprintf is hardly safe. It does guarantee null termination, so that is progress, but it requires the caller to pass the buffer size. As I mention in the "More typing means more errors" section of the article software developers are endlessly creative about ways to pass the wrong buffer size. They _usually_ pass the right buffer size, but 99.9% correct still means a lot of bugs. These bugs can be avoided by using a template function to infer the destination buffer size. A template wrapper around snprintf would work very nicely. ~~~ bigpicture > These bugs can be avoided by using a template function to infer the > destination buffer size I'm a big fan of using strategies to avoid bugs. Another strategy than can be a big help is to spend a little time thinking about what kinds of strings you are going to be using and how big they might be. And then sanitizing your program input based on those sizes. Find the too-long strings before they get into your program and before you start copying them around. The system I'm responsible for came into being as a set of programs on a Univac II and was a bunch of C and FORTRAN when I joined. Because of the need to pass data between C and FORTRAN programs/code, we had a set of 10-20 standard string sizes, based on what kind of text you had. We no longer write new code in either C or FORTRAN, but maintain the concept of standard sizes for our text. By specifying the kind of text (we also do this with numbers) in the design steps, we save far more time and effort than we spend over the entire SDLC.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks - cwan http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.1182 ====== Anon84 There's a nice commentary in Nature about this paper: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/464984a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7291/full/464984a.html) (Sorry, paywall) And also in Wired: [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/networked- networks...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/networked-networks/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Office Chair Is Hurting You - jaden https://elemental.medium.com/your-office-chair-is-hurting-you-882e07c20ff7 ====== m463 This makes me think about Wolfram's blog post about his "personal infrastructure" He found that for some reason typing while walking outside gave a much lower heart rate than typing on a treadmill. So he worked out a system to walk outside while typing... [https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the- prod...](https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive- life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/) ~~~ bigmit37 This is something I have been looking into as well. Those foods vendors carry their supplies in that body addon but I wanted to walk around my apt and have a couple of projectors setup so each wall has a copy of my monitor. ------ poelzi I had back problems from my crappy office chair that I used for more then a decade. I searched for month for a good replacement, sat on every chair I found in nearly every furniture shop in town. After some month, I found the best chair I ever sat on, and it's by far, not the most expensive one ;) [http://www.officeline.se/products/hoganas- eco/](http://www.officeline.se/products/hoganas-eco/) This one is the hit, you can unlock the base so you can use it in different heights. The backrest pressure you can adjust with a button, different locks and full flexible arm rests. I let everybody test sit on it who cares and I only heard excitement so far. Combined with electric table I started to change my working position quite often and my back pain was gone after a month. ~~~ GoToRO I bookmarked it, who knows. What I don't like about it is how wobbly it looks. Also, why me, as a software developer do I need those wheels to move in any direction. I just need to move back and forth and only when go or leave my desk. On my chair I removed the wheels and put static legs and I put my table on wheels that move only backward and forward. The wheels dig into the carpet, so the table stays put if you don't push too hard. For me office chair is one thing, and software developer chair should be another. ~~~ poelzi They give 10 years warranty. I have quite some understanding in mechanical systems and it is well build, thick steel plates. The point is this, sitting long in one position is bad for your back and general posterior. Of course you can change the rollers into static ones, but I wouldn't recommend it. ------ onemoresoop It is true but one does not need a special chair as much as learning how to sit on any chair. If the chair is really comfortable it invites the sitter in really bad unnatural positions and in no time that creates a bad habit. During my 20s, when I basically entered the workforce, I started having serious issues with sitting. I tried a lot of different chairs and while they ameliorated the pain and numbness something was still wrong. Now, almost at twice that age I have very few chair/back related problems. When something hurts I closely pay attention to how I sit. Of course, exercising with proper posture has helped me overcome some of my issues as well. While most chairs are really bad for most of us, I think chasing a perfect chair is not the solution but learning how to sit and have a proper posture is the essential part. ~~~ blanche_ Sitting for extended period of time no matter how 'right' you do it is and will be bad. ~~~ onemoresoop I agree. Breaks are a necessary part of the sitting hygiene no matter what chair is used. ------ kjaftaedi _> Since yoga balls are made out of cheap plastic, it’s not a question of if the ball will pop, but when._ I don't get the feeling this author has much experience with yoga balls, or is just making a statement they want to believe is true and peddling it as fact. ~~~ smileysteve Anecdotally, I've had a yoga ball going on 4 years, though I only sit on them occasionally. I've never heard of one popping, failure on the other hand, can be a bouncing or tripping issue, also sliding off of the front. Though I wouldn't call these catastrophic. ~~~ SyneRyder Leo Laporte's yoga ball popped live on air while recording his podcast. It started with a slow leak: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9A7ACL_n5Y](https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9A7ACL_n5Y) ------ olyjohn What about motorized desks that allow you to go from sitting to standing? I'm not standing all day, and I'm not sitting all day. Plus I take a walk at least once a day. It's helped me tremendously to have one. I suppose it won't help that doctor sell his chairs, though. ~~~ bigmit37 Standing seems to be the worst as it puts a lot of pressure on your veins. With sitting if you sit cross-fold with legs not dangling at the edge it seems to prevent v veins? ------ Terretta Highly recommend the Swopper ‘Active Sitting’ Chair if you can source it at a reasonable price: [https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=swopper+chair](https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=swopper+chair) Bought one on Amazon in 2008, still love it. ------ CrackerNews The biggest takeaway from this article is the advice that you should not adhere to the 90-90-90 sitting posture and instead raise your seat so that your knees are below your hips. I've personally just tried this and it feels much more comfortable. I theorize that the 90-90-90 posture encourages bad habits where your spine shifts backwards from the center so it is no longer supporting the upper parts of your body well. By changing my sitting posture to the author's recommendation, it feels easier for my spine to stay in the center and support my upper body better. ------ tboyd47 The chair looks awesome but unfortunately it's only 1/4 of the problem. Schools need to change desks, keyboards, and the equipment itself, too. ------ symmitchry If standing is so terrible because of immobility perhaps a walking desk is the ideal solution. Remember this amazing post? [https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the- prod...](https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive- life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Diaspora - Moving Forward - sahillavingia http://blog.joindiaspora.com/2011/05/16/moving-forward.html ====== JoelSutherland "For the past few months, we’ve been pretty quiet, because we’ve been hard at work." They are building a product whose success requires overcoming network effects. 90% of what they need to work hard on is not being quiet. ~~~ cookiecaper Diaspora is an open-source, decentralized system. While there may be a canonical installation on a big official "social network", there can be some meaningful separation here between the engineering and the marketing, and I think it's good that they're trying to get a decent foundation in place before they go all over trying to market. ~~~ samtp With all due respect, they don't seem to be the most experienced engineers to solve the problem. Opening up to a larger community who is ready and willing to help would only be beneficial. ~~~ hartror I see your point but one could ask is experience as important as vision and drive? If they were to open it up they would then be inexperienced engineers trying to learn to manage a community of engineers. ------ spoiledtechie Im pretty upset with their performance in general. When I develop, I release quickly and iterate like my life depended on it. I would have loved to see them start standing up real servers to get people joining and over time they overcame bugs, new features etc.... They haven't even done that. Its quite a shame they have taken the Microsoft approach to releasing code and NOT taken the Facebook Approach to releasing code. If they ever wish to take over the social environment, they MUST release then build instead of build then release. Its driving me crazy that I can't even start using their service all the while Facebook over takes all social networks. ~~~ p0ss You CAN use their service, there are a large number of open diaspora servers, and you can even set up your own if you want. Problem is, once you're on there, none of your friends are, and even if you manage to convince even a fraction of your facebook friends to come across, it still totally lacks functionality. At the moment all you can do is post pictures and status updates, thats it. I would love to see regular updates of exactly what they're working on without having to monitor their git repo. Just assuring us they're working on it every couple of months while asking for more money and more time is very very dodgy. ------ stevenj All that post really said was: "We're still alive." Edit: I expected some insight into where it's going, given the headline. ~~~ wicknicks .. which is a good thing. ~~~ evan0202 Sure, but a post with some substance would have been better :) ~~~ rglover Agreed. I was really excited to see something about the company's new ideas/direction only to be left empty handed. Let's just hope a lot of the talk about "speeding up" will actually take place. Granted, it is a team of four so they're only able to produce so much so quickly. ------ michaelchisari A lot of people have related to Diaspora as if it's a startup, but it isn't. It's a free software project, and the rules and expectations are very different. ~~~ bradly I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and the Diaspora team was there talking about how they are in the process of talking with vc's. ~~~ thomasgerbe They also got around 250k in funding. ~~~ ohwaitnvm $190k[1] before Kickstarter took its cut (5%, plus an estimated 3-5% from credit card fees[2]), which conservatively puts it at more like $175k. Also, that was a full year ago. If the guys decided to pay themselves a year's salary out of that (and there were no taxes and other fees to pay), that's ~$44k/person. 1\. [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora- the-p...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the- personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr) 2\. <http://www.kickstarter.com/start> (bottom) Edit: I forgot to mention, there was a fraudulent $10k donation included in the 200k, that's why I'm starting that much lower. ------ initself Everytime I read anything from those guys, it's all just a bunch of words, hype and promises. ~~~ philipn You can go download their code now, run it, and contribute to the project. Maybe they should make more public-facing updates about individual features and changes in their software, but (as is hinted to in their post) it seems like they are limited in their resources. The Diaspora guys have the really-actually-unique challenge of developing an open-source project entirely in the open coupled with attention and radically differing expectations from thousands of people. It's kind of nuts, really. Would you want to be in their position? ~~~ nakkiel They dug their own hole. ~~~ rubidium Well, it's more like: They started digging a hole for fun in their backyard. Then the Army Corps of Engineers showed up, gave them some cash, and told them to divert the Mississippi. ~~~ pestaa No one forced them to take the cash. ------ phatbyte I really hate to piss on Diaspora parade but people are kind of fed up with new social networks, they don't want to change again and again. I believe FB is the final draw as far as generic social networking goes, besides, FB is too embedded around the web. FB has more than 500M users, if privacy and data is what drives Diaspora, for most web users that's almost useless since FB already "owns it". Maybe geeks use it, but I don't see it gaining anything relevant compared to Facebook or Twitter. ------ StavrosK As I said before, my only interaction with them is an email I sent them a while ago (more than a year ago), advising them to seize the opportunity to create a p2p framework for social applications to be built on top on, taking care of permissions, friendlists, authentication, etc under the hood to allow developers to build the fun stuff on top of that. The response I got, six months later, was to the effect of a brief "thank you for your email, answers to some of your questions can be found in the FAQ". ~~~ philipn I think you are being way too harsh here. They obviously get a lot of emails, and they're being pulled in a lot of different directions ("distributed social networking!", "privacy!", "a drop-in facebook replacement!") Maybe they won't amount to much, but criticising them because they didn't respond to your email is not fair. ~~~ StavrosK I'm not criticising the project, just detailing my account. I just wish they actually read my email, at least... ------ perfunctory What an abstract collection of words. This post doesn't contain a single tangible sentence. "We are working on an outline of what we have learnt so far, and where we see Diaspora going in the next year." Right. ------ nextparadigms They should take a look at how BitTorrent is trying to build a P2P social network. Maybe they could get a few ideas from there and implement them. I'd like to see a social network where a true "global" community can be formed, and by that I don't mean only having people from everywhere, but also having people and communities that don't answer to any one Government, at least related to what they post in that social network. I'd like to see a social network that would make revolutions even easier, and even allow the Chinese to make one if they want to, and for that it needs to be very safe and very decentralized so it can't be stopped. ------ mgkimsal Diaspora will be the Hurd of social networking. ~~~ rufibarbatus But the point is not Diaspora, the point is distributed social networking. Diaspora is raising awareness, it's bootstraping a movement around it, and it's contributing to the technology required to make distributed social networking possible (protocols, algorithms). Perhaps they'll be the Hurd of social networking. So long as there's a Linux, I say let them be the Hurd. ~~~ mgkimsal That wasn't a criticism, just an observation. It was a bit of a Rorschach statement - people have read in to it whatever they want. That said, I haven't really seen much from them in the way of developing protocols, etc. They had the money many other projects could've used to get farther, and what would have been better stewardship of the donations would have been to use that money to spearhead a movement between existing projects to interoperate and create formal standards. Instead, they spent several months and gave us insecure rails code. Now _that_ is my criticism. ~~~ rufibarbatus Then we probably share very similar views? :-) ~~~ rufibarbatus Then we probably share very similar views? :-) \--- EDIT: You make a very good point: for the money they got, they could be creating more value (or creating value differently). I'd prefer if they released a stripped-down 1.0 that anyone could dig into; right now, they're centralizing too many design decisions. As far as developing technology goes, a working proof of concept should be as good a starting point as any and that's what they're doing. (Sure: not the best practice out there, to develop first and document later, but in this particular arena, I'm a pathological satisficer: just get the bloody thing done.) ------ nhangen They are going to have to move more quickly if they want to make a dent. I respect that they're still going strong, but the fact that they haven't done anything yet speaks louder. ------ motters Diaspora had a lot of momentum and was endorsed by famous names, but failed to engage with and target the target market - which is mainly software folks and freedom beards running ARM servers. Only once you have a sufficient developer community (a high enough beard count) can you hope to take on the unwashed user masses and industry pteranodons. Probably one of their main mistakes was not to use the accumulated funding to support someone in the role of a community manager. To engage with developers and early adopters you need to have regular and informative communication, and Diaspora's blog output has woefully fulfilled neither of those criteria. ------ adnam The tone is defeatist, I wouldn't expect the project to survive another year. ------ ioa44 They should let me in on what they are doing with my 1k pledge. ------ chrismetcalf Am I the only one who'd basically forgotten about Diaspora until this popped up? ------ akanet I like how they make the ridiculous claim that they are the third search result for "github" on google. What probably happened is they have personalized search on and they upped themselves to #3 by clicking themselves so much. See [http://www.google.com/search?q=github&pws=0](http://www.google.com/search?q=github&pws=0) ------ presidentender I wouldn't be surprised to see Diaspora bring on some more experienced, less risk-tolerant engineers in the near future. They have a grand vision, for which the "minimum" viable product is almost identical to the final version, and bringing more manpower to bear on the problem might not be a bad idea. ~~~ michaelchisari Funds are probably an issue. $200k may seem like a lot, but it isn't when you start hiring professionals. ------ Griever I thank the Diaspora community so much for creating such a large-scale open source Rails application. Coming from years of PHP experience, I had such a hard time learning and getting used to Rails, but digging through the Diaspora repository has really helped me in terms of understanding what should be considered "production level" Rails code. ~~~ gfodor Except, famously, it's not. ~~~ Griever Could you give me any examples of what you would consider to be production ready? ------ Schmidt What I don't get... why not just use elgg...? ~~~ michaelchisari It seems as though Ruby (and maybe Rails) was at least one of the reasons why existing open source social networking projects like Elgg, Appleseed, etc. weren't used as a basis for Diaspora. ------ charlesju That's pretty interesting. I never knew that Diaspora is using Ruby on Rails. ------ ignifero The alternative would be to be "Moving backwards". Why not discuss about their design choices instead? or their choice of programming language? Why do we need an invite to try it? What if the social networking fad wanes before they release v 1.0? ------ rorrr Diaspora needs to just launch. They are repeating the same mistake Google Wave made. If it's invitation only, your friends are not on it, so there's no reason to use it. I give it 0.01% chance of succeeding if keep things the way they are. Seriously, a year of fucking development? Facebook launched after a few hours. ~~~ michaelchisari _Seriously, a year of fucking development? Facebook launched after a few hours._ It amazes me the kinds of expectations people have. I mean, Diaspora is partly to blame with making huge promises and feeding the hype machine, but that can only be a small fraction of the problem, the ideas people have about what's possible in this problem domain is really off the charts. Even hackers and geeks, who really should know better. A year is nothing compared to the scope of what they're trying to solve. Appleseed, Elgg, OneSocialWeb, etc. have all been in development for years. ------ startuplulz Cool, but my startup is doing something similar. <http://openpoke.org/2011/05/16/moving-forward.html> ~~~ samtp All you linked to is your picture...? ~~~ jmathai It's the profile pic of a parody twitter account. Not sure what the source of the image is though. <http://twitter.com/hipsterhacker> ~~~ michaelchisari It's Rivers Cuomo from Weezer.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A texture-mapped raycaster in 128 bytes - RodgerTheGreat http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63518 ====== 3rd3 ; Wolf128 by Baudsurfer/rsi 2014 aka olivier.poudade.free.fr ; A 128 bytes interactive intro tested on XPSP3 and DOSBox ; Presented at Outline demoparty in Eersel/The Netherlands ; 256 bytes versions : ; http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=24755 ; http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=3396 ; P.S : click left mouse button to start moving in maze ; Greets to UkkO Ggn Fra Den and assembly language lovers org 100h mov al,13h int 10h les dx,[bx] A:mov cl,0ffh B:mov bl,cl not bl lea ax,[di-10h] mov bp,140h cdq div bp call G call G test byte [1dh],7 jz C add dh,[1fh] sub bl,[1eh] jmp short E C:mov dl,[fs:46ch] sub bl,[si] test dl,40h jnz D add dh,dl D:add bl,dl E:shld bp,bx,10 sub dh,[bp] mov al,dh and dh,bl or dh,ah and dh,20h loopz B xor al,bl xor al,ah db 0d4h,10h add al,10h stosb or di,di jnz A mov ax,3 int 33h test bl,al mov [1dh],bl jz F mov [1eh],dl mov [1fh],cl F:in ax,60h dec ax jnz B G:xchg ax,dx sub ax,64h imul ax,bx add ax,[si] ret ~~~ atesti Does someone know what "mov dl,[fs:46ch]" does? In win32, fs and gs point to some process or thread info blocks, but in DOS? I was never aware of anything regarding the fs register and DOS unless a dos extender was run or pmode was entered! ~~~ beagle3 If memory serves me right, fs=gs=0 in DOS mode, and 46C is a tick counter of some sort. And on a C64, addresses 53280 and 53281 change text background and border. Don't know why I remember these things. ------ bshimmin Something terrible and greatly upsetting seems to have happened in the comments, but I can't for the life of me understand what. ~~~ patrickyeon As CountHackulus says, basically "drama". If it amuses you for some reason, you might want to check out "Jason Scott - You're Stealing It Wrong! 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles" from Defcon 18. [http://youtu.be/QCAL_YgYiP0](http://youtu.be/QCAL_YgYiP0) The meat of the talk starts around 24min. edit: while re-watching, I should warn you lots of foul language and some NSFW imagery ~~~ anon4 For some reason the link to all the scene lingo is down now. Is there a backup? Did it move? Do I need to be "in" something? ------ hexagonsun Ah the Demoscene... This is the kind of stuff that got me interested in programming in the first place. :) ------ userbinator The 1st place entry is apparently very similar, but trades interactivity for _sound_ and rather more psychedelic colours: [http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63517](http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63517) ~~~ egypturnash Same author. ------ jakejake These demos always amaze me. Can somebody enlighten me as far as the way the size is measured - does it typically include all of the assets such as music and textures? I was watching a few of the demos and it blows my mind that the audio would even fit in that amount of space, let alone the visuals. ~~~ joshvm Size includes everything. Usually the textures are procedural, but can be seeded so they're the same every time. Music is usually pretty easy to encode if it's a chiptune, loads of redundant data. ~~~ malnourish bemmu Hopefully you see this, unfortunately your comment is dead. Because I think your comment has value I will quote it here, please let me know if you'd like it removed. "You can also have procedural music. Viznut (a legendary Finnish democoder) did some experiments to see how short you could code something that still sounds at least interesting: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQdIYUtAHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQdIYUtAHg) I also wrote piece of JavaScript that can play these programs in case you want to try create your own: [http://www.bemmu.com/music/index.html](http://www.bemmu.com/music/index.html) " ~~~ erikano Thank you all, malnourish, bemmu and viznut -- now I understand how the 8bit synth works in Caustic on my Android tablet. Furthermore, I want to make my own music software on my Raspberry Pi and Adapteva Parallellas and this is the first real step on the path to that. ~~~ bemmu Make sure to watch some of the later videos too as viznut added some visualizations as well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRPUv8V22o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRPUv8V22o) ~~~ erikano Thanks for the link, very cool. ------ PhasmaFelis Man, wouldn't it be awesome if we'd had the public internet instead of just BBSes back when stuff like this was cutting-edge tech, instead of just a clever hack? Imagine if, say, C64 devs and hackers could do this kind of sharing instead of being limited to word-of-mouth. ------ leorocky These kinds of ray casters are really cool, but at this point in time I don't care about how small the code base is, just make a really cool ray caster in JavaScript and don't worry about how big the code is (within reasonable limits)! I just want an awesome JavaScript ray caster library to be honest. :) ~~~ leorocky Looks like this comment of mine was irrevocably wrong and completely irredeemable. No apology is possible and I'm sorry for my very existence. Go social voting sites! Go internet culture! Yay. ~~~ bunderbunder A harsh response, yes. But frankly, what you said was harsh. An interactive raycaster in an executable an order of magnitude smaller than most networks' minimum transmission unit is an incredible accomplishment, and your response is to essentially drop trou and take a dump on it because teh w3b 4evaz. ~~~ leorocky What I said wasn't harsh, it just wasn't apparently enough genuflection and awe to appease the people that happened to be interested enough to check the comments on this link. I care about as much as I did yesterday, which is not nothing. You and everyone else who demands more will just have to deal with it. ~~~ fl0wenol No; if you don't appreciate something because you suspect you don't understand or lack context (as you expressed), you should just keep your mouth shut lest you sound like an idiot.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Processed meats as bad as cigarettes: bad reporting on good science - GeorgeOrr https://medium.com/@zsupalla/processed-meats-as-bad-as-cigarettes-bad-reporting-on-good-science-ac43a97be603#.7t8gqi8xu ====== angdis When these stories discuss "processed meat" they always show bacon. But is bacon really processed? It is just cured pork belly, right?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dropbox (YC 07) announces mobile API (and apps for iPad, Android) - jrnkntl http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=492 ====== minouye Just downloaded the Android app and I'm reminded of why I like Dropbox to begin with. It's simple, straight-forward, and does what I want it to. This app is no exception. ~~~ e40 How do I put all the photos on my droid in my dropbox? That should be simple, but I can't figure it out. ------ brlewis I'm still looking forward to a non-mobile API, but I'm doing my best with the CLI. Here's an email I got last night from a user of <http://ourdoings.com/> That was trivial to set up (I already had dropbox, which is partly why I chose to use it to upload the latest set of photos). Your directions were easy to follow, and the email confirmation came within minutes. I dropped the photos into the shared folder, went to dinner, and when I came back, everything was transferred over. thanks, TJ ------ ugh Great product and at the moment all the rage with the lecturers at my university (small university in Germany). I guess it’s the file format agnosticism, the flexibility and the ease of use. Also a good way for them to exploit students and get their 250MB :) (You would really think university IT could provide their own solutions but they just can’t compete. We use Dropbox, Google Docs, Wave and Doodle all the time. And Gmail, so as to not be limited to 200MB.) ~~~ jackowayed Do you really expected university IT to provide comparable solutions? Even the biggest university IT department is providing the stuff to maybe 50k people, and as long as it more-or-less gets the job done, they keep their jobs and don't really care that it's not spectacular. Dropbox is providing the service to 5M people, and the whole business is built on it being spectacular. The economies of scale mean that they can afford to make tiny improvements, and they have serious incentives to make it as great as possible; otherwise, they go out of business. (In fact, otherwise, they would have gone out of business long before they made it to 5M users.) Good OSS can fix this to an extent--if someone started a really good host- your-own Dropbox project, every university could use it, getting you similar scale when it comes to coding it, so people would contribute from all over to make it great, and the IT at each individual university would just have to deploy it and update it as it improves. ~~~ soult I'm sorry that you go to such a crappy university then. Where I study, IT staff try to be use- and helpful, and not just to keep their jobs. ~~~ jackowayed I'm just saying that to make something as seamless and all-around good as Dropbox takes some serious work. Not only do IT people have little incentive to reach that level of perfection, they often aren't really coders and wouldn't be able to get a budget through that gave them enough man-hours to have time to make something like Dropbox. It's not worth it to the university, in general, to pay the full development cost of an extremely well-done implementation of a complex, nonessential system. The economies of scale aren't there. And I'm still a few months away from college. It looks like Stanford has some pretty good systems overall, but just as a datapoint, the design of Axess (the system that appears to handle pretty much everything--course signup, financial aid, etc) is much uglier (and a little harder to use) than any commercial site I use. It gets the job done, it probably dates back to when all sites looked like that, and the people in charge of it don't have enough incentive to give it a facelift. ~~~ ugh My university has kick ass WiFi (Damn you WiFi and the constant distraction you provide!), you can use a VPN client to get access to, e.g., free papers anywhere in the world, the mail account is a bit low on space but works like a charm and you never have to fool around with writing anything on dead tree at some fixed location in space because you can do pretty much everything online. And the IT department tries really hard to make it possible for you to access all that stuff no matter which software or hardware you are using (that’s in contrast to what might be the case in some corporate environments). I can’t complain but it’s probably also true that something like powerful tools for seamless online collaboration is outside the scope of university IT departments. (The university actually uses moodle which would offer some useful functionality but not even the lecturers like it. Asked whether we should use moodle to upload our stuff: _disgusted-look_ “Uhm, it would be nice if we could use Dropbox, that’s a pretty cool service. Do you know it?” :) ~~~ viraptor Ah the joy of Moodle... I haven't met one person who likes it (although I've seen much worse systems - WebCT anyone?) It's amazing that people still want to install it for anything serious. Although maybe there no alternatives feature-wise? ------ RK The only problem I'm having so far with the Android app (on 2.1/Nexus One) is that whenever you view a picture in the Dropbox app it gets added to your Android gallery. The other way around would be OK, but this way just clutters up the phone gallery. ------ derefr Anyone know what the API looks like? The documentation for it is behind the invite-wall, I'm guessing. ------ tingley It makes me happy to see how much success Dropbox is having. It's a great product. ------ evo_9 Yeah these guys are top notch. Excellent product, and now this smart move to further fill the storage void for mobile. Good work DropBox! ------ bmalicoat Won't be surprised when these guys get bought out. Fantastic product, implemented way better than anything any of the major players have. ------ Legion Of _course_. Earlier today I go to Android Market, thinking "gee, the Dropbox app ought to be out by now, right?". It was not, so I downloaded some 3rd party thing. Drive home, fire up HackerNews, and look what I see... Ah well. As if I can really act like I'm mad for having another reason to twiddle around on my phone. ------ grosen iPad App works great and integrated extraordinarily well with the service. No limitations as far as I can see. ~~~ cstuder I especially am looking forward to use files stored on my DropBox in other Apps (Like Air Sharing or Goodreader). It's a nice way to get around the clumsy synchronization via iTunes. ------ mgz Created an mp3 hosting/sharing website using this new Dropbox API: <http://boomp3.com> ------ acgourley Excellent, was waiting for dropbox to give my ipad a cloud filesystem! I'll probably pay for it now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you start your morning? - alehul It'd be interesting to know HNers' morning routines, both in terms of exercise and also reading, listening to a podcast, or whatever else.<p>How do you start your day, and why? ====== PaulHoule I wake up to the sun, get in line for shower, food, etc. after my son who catches the school bus. If I have to I can go straight to work and have an early meeting at a time which is good for Europe, India, and early risers towards the east. I usually have a tablet left by the bed which I can use to start surfing early, check HN, etc. Every other day I go to Planet Fitness and do a long cardio and circuit training workout. I bring my tablet there and read documentation, there is WiFi but I also load it with PDF files -- I have bought and/or downloaded a number of O'Reilly books, academic papers. Other days I probably hike for an hour. I put exercise in front because it helps with physical and mental health, resilience to stress, cognition, etc. ------ caio1982 Badly.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Fish Story (The Washington Monthly) - jayzee http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2012/features/a_fish_story037074.php ====== duncanbojangles This statement in the article really upset me, and I'd like HN to let me know if I'm over reacting: _"at a time when constitutional arguments for states’ rights are gaining traction, this disagreement over the lowly menhaden could be grounds for questioning the constitutionality of the federal government’s power to interfere with the state of Virginia and its ability to manage its own natural resources."_ To me, when a migratory fish's population can be directly linked to one location, and that population has an effect on out-of-state fish and bird populations, then it is no longer that state's own natural resources. ~~~ ggchappell I don't know if over- or under-reaction is really the issue here. I think you are confusing "constitutional" with "good". Whether something is in accord with the U.S. Constitution depends on what the Constitution says, and not on what would be the best thing to do. You've made a reasonable argument, but it is one that is irrelevant to questions of constitutionality. ~~~ duncanbojangles You're completely right, I was assuming that what is good for nature is what should be law. I'm having such a hard time wrapping my head around the short- sightedness shown by these mega-corporations and lawmakers. We're just humans, doomed to die, but whole species are stake here. I don't feel that fishing a species to extinction could be that beneficial to so few people in the short run. ------ duncanbojangles If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy reading "The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean" by Trevor Corson. ------ japaget Single page link: [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2012/featu...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2012/features/a_fish_story037074.php?page=all)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Has Apple announced a language whose name clashes with an existing one? - ColinWright ====== 27182818284 Yes, but so did Google years ago. The author even filed a bug report. [https://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9](https://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9) ------ loumf There are many languages with the same name as another lesser known one. Go was taken before google used it -- there was already a Pearl before Perl. ------ TheCoelacanth Yes. Do they care? No. ------ julianpye Actually the Swift website is down, too, overwhelmed by everyone searching for the Apple flavour. ------ iancarroll yes ~~~ nighthawk24 unbelievable	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How are HN's comments rendered at scale (server-side)? - gigatexal HN, as we all know, is a super popular website. I heard, randomly, that it's hosted on rather low-end hardware but somehow it is capable of handling all the load we rabid HN checkers give it. So without something like disqus how are the comments powered? ====== nostrademons Everything is served out of RAM and then when RAM fills up, the oldest threads are written out as static files. (Note that when you visit a super-old thread [1], there's no "reply" link and voting redirects you to a voteclosed page.) Computers are stupidly fast at serving out of RAM - it's not unusual to be able to serve 100K requests/ _sec_ if a request never needs to touch disk (see eg. the JSON serialization test on the TechEmpower benchmarks, on physical hardware [2] - top frameworks can get 500K request/sec on a hello-world serialization task). They're also stupidly fast at serving static files (which, if the server is implemented right, can be served straight out of the filesystem cache in the kernel without any memory copies through user space). 100K requests/sec is a budget of 20,000 cycles/request, which is eminently doable if most of the page contents is in RAM (or better yet, cache...on a slow day, the entire front page of HN can fit in L3 cache). The same approach has been used to good effect on other websites like Google, Facebook, PlentyOfFish, Mailinator, etc. Eschew databases, serve out of RAM (and now SSDs) entirely. [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) [2] [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r14&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r14&hw=ph&test=json) ~~~ gigatexal Thank you so much for the info. Makes sense and helped to scratch the itch I was having for a while now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Why is Quora popular all of a sudden? - senorgusto It seems like Quora has been popping up in Google searches more and more lately, and it's doubled in popularity in the last year [0]. Does anybody have any idea why? They recently pushed out a snazzy new design (at least for Quora.com), but this can't be the only reason. What do people think?<p>[0] https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F0bm8t1r ====== SwellJoe I dunno about its changing popularity, but like Expert Sexchange before it, I actively avoid Quora. It was the first site I added to my Google Personal Blocklist, and the reason I installed the plugin. Their unsubscribe form is (or was last I saw it in 2015) a nastier piece of work than I could imagine, even if told: Come up with the most annoying unsubscribe form you can. Make it really hard to unsubscribe from everything...make'em work for it. Quora, I hope, will continue to lose to much better, much more ethical, Q&A sites. The Stack Exchange sites seem like the market leaders, as they probably should be. They do nearly everything right, and they do it without being smarmy. Sites that believe they have a _right_ to my attention, and are willing to cheat to get it, really ought to be shunned in polite company. I'm not sure how they've managed to maintain a patina of legitimacy after all these years of being no-good, shiftless, internet hucksters. We, as a community, usually shun the hell out of spammers...and yet, when Quora (and LinkedIn, for another example of a spammer getting a pass) do it, most folks just shrug as though it's no big deal. Does a certain level of economic success lend credibility even when behaving in ways that deserve no credibility? Not that I'm grumpy about it, or anything. ~~~ meowface On mobile, they make you install their app to look at anything at all. Any company that needs dozens of "dark patterns" and tricks to stay afloat probably shouldn't exist. LinkedIn is the same. ~~~ Tomte They suggest their app, but the web site is fully working on mobile (Android in my case). ~~~ maaarghk I wouldn't say fully working. I'm using Chrome on a nexus 5X and whenever I go to their website I get a banner to install the app which is extremely difficult to remove. Tiny, tiny touch area. It then gets in the way enough to make the useable viewport ridiculously small. ~~~ meowface Same experience here. ------ wiseleo They did a very good job attracting core early contributors who wrote unique great content and then it snowballed. Reading answers posted by the top 10 contributors is just fun. All content is SEO-friendly. Much of it is authoritative and Google loves authoritative content. There is a setting to make my content appear as anonymous to search engines, but many of us associate our names with our content. Most of Quora's content is evergreen. They improved question merging recently and that resulted in a high concentration of high quality answers to popular questions. Quora's management calls them canonical questions. The ask2answer flow also improved. You can now find people who can answer your questions. That feature was previously under-developed and didn't work very well. Quora's top contributors enjoy the virtuous cycle. We write answers and people upvote them, which introduces other readers to us. Our audiences are massive. I only have about 250,000 views per month and about 5500 followers, but some other writers have several million per month and more than 20,000 followers. Quora will collapse answers that are highly upvoted but incorrect. This helps with site quality and likely pleases Google. I am one of about 800 Quora's Top Writers ( [http://quora.com/Leonid-S.-Knyshov](http://quora.com/Leonid-S.-Knyshov) ) if you have any specific questions. ~~~ hkmurakami A lot of what you've listed have been true for a long time though. It wouldn't explain a sudden increase in Google search rankings. ~~~ Houshalter The last time I checked quora put up a big "create an account to read this website", which seems to be gone now. ------ Dwolb In addition to wiseleo's comment, the key thing I think they got right was the weekly digest. It's never too frequent, it's relative, interesting, and fresh. It was important to get the digest right because it granted Quora permission to keep getting user's attention even when away from the site (push vs pull) and also gave users a 'takeaway' \- either information or topics of discussion to debate with friends through real conversation or an email forward. This feature lets them have high retention rates and increases word-of-mouth to gain new users. ~~~ inglor This so much. I usually unsubscribe very fast from these sort of emails - I accidentally left a checkbox marked when I signed up to read an article and it actually got me hooked. Lots of good material. I would love to read an article about how to create such digest emails. Typically they are truly terrible but they managed to make it interesting. ------ said I've seen some great answers on Quora, but their growth is possibly due to spam. I hate to accuse them of that, but... Quora lets you sign up using a Google account. Normally, this means you won't need to create a new password. However, Quora _immediately_ asks you to provide one. With that in mind, what's the point of linking your Google account? Well, according to this recent thread, Quora tries to access your contacts: [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3ax27p/tried_to_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/3ax27p/tried_to_register_with_quora_using_my_gmail/) ~~~ moonshinefe That seems possible. Everything I've seen from that site indicates it's terrible. ------ doseofreality Please login to see the answer to this question. ~~~ moonshinefe Do they still make you sign up to view all the answers? I remember being greatly annoyed that the site kept coming up at the top of Google results, only to be blocked by needing to login. Whereas other rivals sites like the ___ exchanges didn't have this nag. ~~~ mullsork Shouldn't Google catch on to this stuff and demote their site ranking? ~~~ jaxbot Google's policy is that the first link from google's results must be freely viewable, but any other links on the site can be paywalled, login-walled, etc. That's why you can often just google a WSJ article or the title of another Quora question and view the results freely. It's all based on the HTTP referer. ------ vinod1073 India is the reason! Look at the regional interest graph at the mentioned URL! Quora is more popular in India than in any other country! Also change the country drop down filter below the search bar from Worldwide to India. You see an exponential rise in popularity, and the rise is not sudden. [https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F0bm8t1r&geo=I...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F0bm8t1r&geo=IN&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-5%3A30) ------ insulanian Because asking a question on Stack Overflow is becoming a formal skill, for God's sake! It gets more annoying and restrictive every day so that I have to think trice before deciding if I should go again trough that agony of asking a question and fight with SO admins to keep it from being closed. ------ chanux I think I was on the site yesterday. Went there through a link on twitter and clicked a link on that page. I was presented with the dreaded 'sign up to see' overlay dark pattern. PS: I deleted my account sometimes back because I thought they used too many dark patterns to my taste at the time. ~~~ durub Tip: when presented with the dreaded sign up to see overlay, you can add ?share=1 to the end of the URL to bypass it. ~~~ justincormack Or you can just stop using the site. I deleted all my content from the site several years ago as I only wanted to write public content, and have never bothered to visit since. ------ arihant The question is -- Is it good for Quora? Recently the site has basically become a plagiarism echo chamber. People copy/paste blogs verbatim in a bid for upvotes. Maybe Quora should stop optimizing for Facebook's key metrics like MAU. Maybe the whole point of Quora is higher quality content, a special place which only allows for certain standard of content. If everyone can have a guard of honor, then it is simply a guard. If anyone is allowed to answer on Quora, it's simply a content mill. And the wrong kind at that. To be what Quora is trying to be, you need a heavy handed deletionist culture. For that you need passionate people who spend time doing that, and you need an open platform. Both of which Quora is not. It's like they had a decent idea in 2010 but never really improvised. ------ jdross My understanding from speaking with former PM's is they moved their sign-up- to-view "paywall" from the first page you view to the second page, at least when you come from a social network or search engine. That obviously increases the relevance and search score when the answer is high quality. ------ adarsh_thampy Google algorithms keep changing all the time. Personally, I haven't noticed Quora results come up in Google search more often. It could be that Google is tracking your clicks with cookies and showing you more of the sites you click frequently in the search results. Or the queries you are using might be dominated by Quora. While I dislike Quora for forced sign up (with an even weirder explanation for why you need to have an account), some of the answers there are top notch. I haven't seen such depth in any Q&A sites. ------ androng Why is Stack Overflow so popular? The website is full of very frequently asked questions and insightful answers for all topics, not just the few topics that Stack Overflow and its sister sites have. And often the highly upvoted answers in the "Life" category are stories, not just answers. It is a place to pick the minds of people more experienced. Most importantly, the site is SEO friendly. ------ airesQ Going for the other comments on this thread, I guess I have a better opinion of Quora than most here. I do appreciate the insider comments we get from a wide variety of areas. My only gripe is a question of style, namely the style that comes when most content creators are in it for self-promotion (which is fine btw); in the end it feels like everyone is in a job interview. ------ ogezi Quora is probably the best social network-ish website ever. It probably gathers all the smartest people on the internet. After I started using Quora I quit fb and twitter. It's not an apples to apples comparison but you get the idea. There are much less trolls because most people on Quora are smart enough to do other things. ------ BilalBudhani I believe this question will get insightful answers on Quora itself. You thought of posting it there as well? ------ jpeg_hero a lot of the content they surface seems to be targeted to people's inner-13-year-old-boy. Grandiose fantasies of world domination. 1\. how do i make a million dollars in a week? 2\. who in history made $1 billion in the easiest way? 3\. who is smarter Terrance Tso or Leibniz? 4\. what's faster Ferrari or Lamborghini? and finally: 5\. who would win: Boxer vs. Ninja?!?!?! ~~~ eecks 6\. Who is smarter Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? 7\. Why do some people think Mark Zuckerberg is a good programmer? 8\. What skills do people who work at Google have that other people don't have? 9\. What are the top things to do before applying for a position at Google? ------ baby On the contrary I've been there less and less. There was a time where I was looking to contribute but the website is flooded with fake users generated questions. I guess they have to do that to fake the growth and attract more people but it just felt empty then... ~~~ TheLogothete Oh, you've been using it less? It must be the case for everyone else then. ------ KuhlMensch I miss Aardvark :( ------ elorant Because the network effect has started to apply. There are enough users now to make the whole ecosystem interesting. ------ onion2k _but this can 't be the only reason_ Why not? ------ uber1geek Because people have questions, all the time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle - peter_d_sherman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGqwXt90ZqA ====== peter_d_sherman Note to future self: This video contains some super-important concepts, re- watch... ~~~ Ozzie_osman Thanks for resurfacing. I watched this a couple years ago but it's always a great reminder.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Turn your browser into a Supermachine - ondrejzabojnik https://moonkit.io/turn-your-browser-into-a-supermachine/ ====== ondrejzabojnik Hi! I'd be grateful for any feedback. I am building a tool that replaces cloud servers with your own browser capabilities: Rapidly analyze websites and augment existing websites with superuser features. Extract emails from websites for free, perform real-time SEO analysis or basically extract any information if there's an extraction model available. (Private Beta) Augment websites with additional features, such as scheduling your tweets directly from twitter.com. I like the idea of performing computations closest to the user. Two major benefits I see there: (1) Efficiency - use the available power, save costs. (2) Privacy - keep your data locally and download models to process the data. I see this as an alternative to SaaS. Currently, I am focusing on tools that can help you grow your niche business. In the long-run, I want to turn my browser into a local, personal "metamind" which can narrow the gap between me wanting to take an action, and performing the action (such as finding information, deploying a landing page etc.).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all - ilamont https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-glasses-lenscrafters-luxottica-monopoly-20190305-story.html ====== jerf It's articles like this that make me wonder how much of our middle class burden comes from hidden rent seeking parasites like this. I honestly don't know. I'm not trying to imply any particular thing. I honestly wonder. These sorts of things can stack up through the layers of companies that make things. And where does this money go? What does it end up doing? ~~~ sampo > how much of our middle class burden comes from hidden rent seeking parasites > like this. If you include the unwillingness to respond to demand by building enough new homes in the popular urban areas, probably a lot. A 1000 sq.ft. home (house or condo) should not cost more than $200,000 to build. Anything above that, someone is making profit. ~~~ eeeeeeeeeeeee It doesn't even seem like anyone has interest in building $200,000 houses anymore, but they will sell you a poorly made condo for $400,000 and $600/mo HOA fees. I am a single person trying to find a house that is not four or five bedrooms (I only need one or two) and doesn't cost 1/2 mil minimum and it's difficult. This used to be called "the starter house" but it doesn't seem to exist anymore with new construction. ~~~ MrLeap I decided to take a break from society last year. I'm fortunate enough where I am that it's eminently reasonable to do. I found some Mennonites that build small 14 * 28 foot cabins with two sleeping lofts. It costs about 8k, and that includes delivery to your land. They come with the exterior/roof finished, but the interior is up to you. Your personal asceticism modulates the cost. My shower is actuated by a ball valve. I set the temperature at the inline gas water heater to perfection, so I don't need hot and cold! I was surprised to learn how cheap the insulation, carpet, sheetrock, mud and paint were. Rural land here is about 2k per acre. Many plots already have wells dug, but if not It'll cost about 4-6k to get one drilled, and 500-1000$ for a well pump. Septic tanks are a few grand. A trenching shovel is cheaper, but that option depends on the topology of your land and your heart. I get my electricity from solar. If you do that, you need some panels, an inverter, charge controller and batteries. My system is pretty modest. 10 deep cycle batteries. I've lost track of how many panels we've got. Most of them we soldered the cells together so it kind of all blurs together. The whole of it probably cost about 1700$. It's enough to run our super efficient 12 volt fridge, the pump and a few laptops.. except when we go a week without sun during the winter. Next consulting gig I get, I'll probably get a wind generator as well. When it's oppressively cloudy, I use a small gasoline generator to power all the stuff. It also will kick on a battery charger that'll top the batteries off. This winter I used a propane heater. I've come to realize liquid propane is somewhat money inefficient compared to a wood stove. I'll have the wood stove installed by next winter. I'll probably keep using the propane oven. Leading up to me dropping out of society, I came to resent paying rent.. I resented the thought of office power games having survival consequences for my life. I didn't have to off-grid like I have.. There are power lines. It's just such a great feeling to cut out monthly subscription costs from my life. The serenity it brings is maximum. Mother gaia gives me my water and sol my electrons. I still do consulting work as it comes to me. Blissfully, I no longer feel desperation and anxiety between contracts. ~~~ hector_vasquez Don't get me wrong, it's great that you found a way to reduce the work stress in your life! But ... I genuinely cannot tell whether the guy posting on Hacker News that he "dropped out of society" is being serious or tongue-in- cheek. If paying society's currency for all the solar panels and the batteries and the gas and the generator and the refrigerator and the laptops and the deeded property and all the other stuff that society created is dropping out of society, I wonder what it is like to be a member of society. ~~~ MrLeap It's a bit tongue-in-cheek but not totally inaccurate. I'm visiting the big city for now which is why I'm on HN. You all are my people, so I like to check in when I can ;) I consider 'dropping out of society' to partially be a state of mind thing. Currently, when I'm 'in country', I am very disconnected from the world at large. I have to drive for 30 minutes in order to receive text messages or phone calls. In order to get internet, I have to drive an hour to the lake so I can get some LTE. I don't have a TV, and I don't listen to the radio. America could go to war and I could go a month without knowing about it. I grew up in suburbia right outside of the densest city in the state. Until last year I had never put a screw into wood, nor had I ever wired up a light or planted a potato. MrLeap's life this year is 180 degrees different than it was every year prior. I think the contrast in my perspective makes the 'drop out' comment more appropriate, but it's a personal thing. I obliterated most of my savings doing this, and I'm on track this year to make SIGNIFICANTLY less than the poverty line. I think that represents a certain uncoupling from the standard structures of society. I intend to increase that as time goes on, but if I fail, I should still keep on living. I've lived an arduous life, and my re-orienting is in reflection of that. If I really put my soul into it, I could garden hard, raise animals and cut out the last human survival-y thing that takes me into town. I really like cans of mini-ravioli though so I might not take it that far. I could get satellite internet, or maybe a cell phone booster and a tower to obviate my connectivity problems. Maybe I will someday. Right now, I'm focused on building a workshop and blacksmithing. The workshop is hexagonal, which I think is cool. Anybody want a forged spatula? ;D ~~~ ohazi America is _currently_ at war, yet most of us still living in society don't seem to know about it. ------ jasode I was able to slash my eyeglasses expenditures in both the exams and the frames: eye exams: I used to pay the optometrist $153 ($117 refraction + $36 dilation). I later found out that Costco often has an optometrist on site in a tiny office and will charge just $59 (and add +$20 for dilation). That's less than half the cost of most other optometrists. frames: switched to Zenni online to avoid the LensCrafters/Pearle/Eyemasters and their heavy markups. Yes, some people don't like ordering online frames because they can't "try them on". If that's a deal breaker, consider going to Costco and see if you like any of their frames. Costco's total price will be about half of the dedicated eyewear chains. If you can't find anything among Costco's selection of frames, I'm afraid you'll be stuck with the Luxoticca monopoly and pay high prices. I know some folks recommend Warby Parker but last time I checked, they cost more than Costco. ~~~ mindslight Zenni requires you to do a bit of your own research, like every other new- economy self-service approach. But it's worth it. Switching to Zenni has allowed me to move to cheap CR-39 lenses rather than expensive high index material. CR-39 is soft, and if I'm paying a lot for frames then the lenses getting scratched is a Big Deal. Then pile on further costs for coatings etc. But if the frames and lenses are both inexpensive, then needing to get a new pair sooner is not really a big deal. (polycarb is right out due to its horrible chromatic aberration. If you don't know what that is, and you're perfectly content with the clarify of things you're seeing, don't look it up lest you sensitize yourself to it!) I still need to find a decent sunglass frame on Zenni. Their basic aviators are way too small. ~~~ frosted-flakes Chromatic aberration drives me nuts, especially when driving at night or using a computer. LED headlights are particularly irritating; if I don't look through the centre of the lenses, the way they separate into distinct blue and white lights creates a visually chaotic scene. The last time I got new glasses (from Costco), I specifically requested lenses that would minimise chromatic aberration. But they didn't have anything better than the high index lenses I already had. I have very bad eyes (rx of -8.25 and -8.00), which makes my lenses quite thick. Are there other lens materials that do a better job of minimising chromatic aberration? I've tried researching this, but wasn't able to find anything. ~~~ theandrewbailey I know exactly what you're talking about. The Microsoft logo drives me nuts, in that I know the colored squares are equally separated from each other, but I don't see them that way. They actually move towards and away from each other as they move around my field of view. ~~~ frosted-flakes Yeah, this effect really screws with my head sometimes. Sitting at a traffic signal and seeing the coloured light floating off to side is a bit weird too. ------ ams6110 I think a big part of this is, like health care, insurance hiding the true cost from consumers. I have a vision plan as a benefit from my job. Covers exams and eyeware, so I have never paid more than a small co-pay for glasses and I had no idea what the cost was behind the scenes. The insurers don't care as they just pass the cost along to the employers who pay for the policies. The employers don't know any better. This is a case of market pressure on prices being totally eliminated by layers of bureaucracy and obfuscation. ~~~ Someone1234 It is worth noting that the same company selling you glasses also owns most Vision Insurance plans. The plans only cover their vendors. ~~~ zymhan And that company is EyeMed. Your Vision insurance is almost certainly through them. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica) ~~~ zippergz I don't know the numbers, but for my entire working life across several companies, my insurance has been through VSP, not EyeMed. So "almost certainly" seems like an overstatement. ------ abruzzi I've always followed the normal route--I have employer provided vision insurance, I would get myself tested every two years by a optometrist that my insurance covered, and I would buy glass using the prescription from the optometrist or a glasses store supported by my insurance. I don't have anything special in my glasses--single focal, no tinting or light sensitivity, and my glasses weren't remotely stylish, and I'd pay ~$50-70 after insurance. I recently lost my glasses in a pond filled with alligators, so I wasn't going to try to retrieve them. I figured I needed cheap glasses until my insurance would cover me again. I had an old prescription but it was over a year old. I looked at Warby Parker, but they seem to require an actual prescription. So I tried Zenni Optical because all they need are the correction figures for each lens, they don't require an actual doctor signed document. Something I've always felt was weird--its not like prescription drugs, and I can decide if the glasses don't work, and a 18 month old prescription is better than no glasses. So $35 shipped for glasses and frames, and they had a lot that were cheaper. The seem to be very good quality, they seem to work better than lost pair (the prescription didn't have a pupillary distance, so I had to measure it. My eyes are pretty wide, and a lot of lenses can't accommodate my PD, so I wonder if the optometrist just figured close enough for lenses with a lower max PD.) Before this I had no idea how much markup was in the cost of a pair of glasses. Now I'll still get my eyes checked locally, but $30 glasses is better than what I can get locally even after my insurance. ~~~ Animats Here's a useful program someone in the HN/YC universe could write - something that uses your computer or phone camera to measure your interpupillary distance. This is a bit tricky to do yourself with a ruler and a mirror. Just have the user take a selfie while holding some object of known dimensions on their forehead. Like a dollar bill. Find the eyes and pupils (OpenCV can do that), find the reference object, calculate. Then take a picture of the prescription, OCR to the numbers (which will need a really good OCR program given the handwriting of many ophthalmologists), confirm the data with the user, and take the order for new glasses. Composite a selfie with pictures of glasses so you can see them on your face. Order from China, deliver via E-Packet, profit. Who needs Luxotica? ~~~ walterbell Some of these apps exist, but none are as accurate as a ruler and two post-it notes with a pinhole. If Apple opens up the depth sensor on the iPhone camera, such apps will be more accurate. ~~~ Animats The trouble with do it yourself measurement of the distance between eyes is that it's done with eyes that need glasses, without wearing them. You need a second person or hardware. ~~~ abruzzi In my case, my distance vision is bad, but a meter away is sharp without correction. In fact, I’ve never had a prescription that doesn’t f-up my near vision, so I had to do the measurement without glasses on. ------ mLuby Money quote: >“Federal officials fell asleep at the wheel,” Dahan said. “They should never have allowed all these companies to roll into one. It destroyed competition.” Butler said it should be clear from EssilorLuxottica’s practices that the company has too much market power. “If that’s not a monopoly,” he said, “I don’t know what is.” Where's the public outrage? Maybe because they're foreign companies? Maybe because the price crept up slowly over time? Maybe because glasses are tied to the medical industry where consumers have come to accept absurd prices? :( Worth noting there's always some markup for brick-and-mortar locations, and for something people like to try on before buying that's (was) a big deal. ------ whizzkid I think Luxottica CEO himself explained the whole situation in 1 second 7 years ago, and it is spot on (Not saying it is how it should be). Listen for yourself. [https://youtu.be/VxPLGPO2q3E?t=749](https://youtu.be/VxPLGPO2q3E?t=749) ~~~ astura For those that can't do audio right now: "everything is worth what people are ready to pay" ------ caymanjim Lens Crafters charges a huge markup if you want their lenses put into your own frames. It's almost cheaper to buy new frames from them (and in the case of particularly-expensive lenses, it is in fact cheaper to buy new frames). That's clearly a scam. Warby Parker sells glasses at more reasonable prices, but their frames are god-awful hideous tortoiseshell plastic abominations. If you want nice metal frames, they have a small selection, and the prices aren't that great. I normally buy two pairs of glasses at once (one for distance, one computer- specific). I'll probably soon start buying a third pair, progressive bifocals. I'm now wondering at what point it will literally be cheaper to fly overseas to get them made. I may in fact have already crossed that line. The only reason I ever use Lens Crafters is when I need glasses same-day due to an emergency. Just last month, I broke my glasses a few days before an extended overseas trip. If I hadn't been going to the Cayman Islands (where everything is more expensive), I'd have waited until arrival to get them made. It's unfortunate that most optometrists have a two-week turnaround on new glasses. For all I know, they're going through the same Luxottica monopoly too, but at least I avoid Lens Crafters. Their quality is absolute shit; poorly-ground lenses, shitty coatings that scratch easily and bubble up. It's probably intentional, so that you're forced to return less than a year later for new glasses. I've heard good things about Costco, but I don't have access to one. ~~~ 1996 > one for distance, one computer-specific How do you find the correction for the computer specific glass? I have a pair for distance but it is a horror to use with computers. ~~~ caymanjim Life-changing. I should have gotten them decades ago. I had no idea how much I was straining my eyes trying to use distance glasses for the computer, until I finally got them. I sat at my desk and measured the exact distance to the monitor, then asked my optometrist to give me glasses with a focal length of that +/\- about eight inches. For me, it's roughly arms' length, about three feet. Many optometrists try to sell me on progressives or some other half-solution, but using large 30" monitors, or sometimes multiple 24" monitors, I need a wide field of view. Having specific glasses is perfect. It's a minor inconvenience having to switch back and forth, but I'll just leave them on my desk and swap when I sit down. I bet my distance vision would be a lot better now if I hadn't spent 25 years straining to see a monitor with the wrong glasses. ~~~ 1996 Exactly this!! I have an extra wide computer screen for work, it is a gamers screen. So when they tried to sell me progressive, I refused. I want 2 good solutions, not 1 half assed one. Next time I see an optometrist, I will have to ask them with my precise focal length. They have the details of my correction, so they should be able to figure it out. Can I bother you more? What is your take on undercorrection? I am wondering if I should go for that for my future computer glasses, or my regular glasses. ~~~ walterbell It works _if_ combined with "active focus". There are references aplenty in the Endmyopia web forum, FB group and YT videos. ------ umvi Seems like the majority of optometrists could be replaced by photo booth-esque optometry machines. Simply sit in a booth, look through some eye ports, and the machine will automatically start cycling through lenses and making you choose between 1, 2, or equal. At the end it spits out your prescription for a nominal fee. For an extra fee you could have additional eye imagery taken by the machine sent off to a remote optometry lab for analysis. I've never been to optometry school, but 10/10 times I've gone to get a new prescription, the prescription process has been extremely algorithmic, to the point where I wonder if cartel-esque forces are _preventing_ automated optometry machines. ~~~ city41 I consider my vision important enough to get a human opinion on it. Even if a machine can do it correctly 99% of the time, having someone experienced there to confirm the choices is worth it. ~~~ smileysteve Even if the human has been encouraged to lie, cheat, and steal from you? ~~~ wycy Optometry, particularly w/ re: prescriptions, seems like the one field of healthcare where patients can be reasonably informed. You can generally tell instantly if a prescription is right for you, and I wouldn't think there's any incentive for an optometrist to lie about your Rx. ------ nerdponx _In 1995, Luxottica purchased LensCrafters’ parent company, U.S. Shoe Corp., for $1.4 billion. The goal wasn’t to get into the shoe business. It was to take control of LensCrafters’ hundreds of stores nationwide._ _Dahan said things went downhill for him after that. Luxottica increasingly emphasized its own frames over those of outside suppliers, he said, and Custom Optical’s sales plunged. Dahan was forced to close his business in 2001._ Funny that Microsoft was under the gun for antitrust violations while this was happening apparently unabated. ------ JustSomeNobody I worked in the industry until a little over a decade ago, putting myself through an engineering degree. The company I started with was bought by LensCrafters, but before it was we pretty much knew the wholesale prices on everything. After LC, LC just distributed stock to us so we didn't follow pricing. I was always amazed at the markup. A pair of Sola lens blanks for FT28 bifocals was about $3.50. A typical name brand frame out of the Frames catalog was less than $10.00 (ie: Perry Ellis). Dies for UV and tint were several dollars a bottle and would last a few days to a week depending on sales volume. Basically one tint and uv job would pay for most of the dies and UV. Now, most of those places were in malls, so the rent there is astronomical, that's one thing to consider. I wouldn't say people are getting "ripped off", but there's definitely quite a bit of markup. A single vision pair with an Rx such that I could use finished lenses, I could edge, uv, light tint and assemble in about 10 - 15 minutes. You'd be paying a couple hundred for that (depending on brand), but I could do it while you wait. And if I did it, you'd be happy (no scratches, gaps, etc). I always take pride in what I do (even now with coding). So, what's the convenience worth? Depends on you I guess. ~~~ mindslight Do you have any recollection what the blanks for higher index materials cost? Zenni's fancier materials are completely lackluster (Abbe wise), and I'm curious if that's because the proprietary high index materials are really so expensive that it would be out of their market, or if Luxottica's anticompetitive behavior extends deep into the supply chain as well. ~~~ JustSomeNobody They weren’t that much more. In the $5 - $10 range for most, but I don’t recall specifics. We did so many FT28 CR39 lenses at that time that’s why I recalled those easily. There were some progressives that cost us over a hundred but that included lab work as they wouldn’t let us process them. Edit: I wanna re emphasize that all this was prior to LC (US Shoe bought us then Lux bought US Shoe actually) buying us. I don’t know what prices did after that. ------ elliekelly I use every chance I get to tell people about ZenniOptical.com because they are so great. A full pair of glasses (yes, frames _and_ lenses) start at $6.95 total. Even with some upgrades for scratch resistance & to prevent glare I don't think I've spent more than $50 on a pair of glasses since I found Zenni. There's also the added bonus of the expensive glasses/sunglasses paradox: the more money I spend on glasses & sunglasses the more prone I seem to breaking or misplacing them. Needless to say at $7/pair I've got quite the collection of Zenni frames going since I've yet to lose a set. ~~~ ourmandave I recently bought a couple pairs from Zenni and couldn't be happier. Just the lens were $55, probably because of progressives, but that's still _way_ less than anything I've paid before. ------ throwaway-1283 I'm a big fan of Jins ([https://www.jins.com/us/](https://www.jins.com/us/)) in SF. They make your glasses on-site in ~30m. Price (lens + frame) is comparable to Warby Parker. ~~~ kalleboo I live in Japan where they originate from and they have stores all over the country. All my glasses have been from them, zero complaints, super cheap, good service too (you can drop in to any of their stores whenever to get things adjusted, lost nosepads replaced, etc for free which is hard to do with an online vendor) ------ dr_ Why would Versace, Chanel, Burberry etc which are considered luxury brands, all of the sudden sell discounted frames? They have extensive markups on all of their clothing, handbags etc. They are targeting a different, and I would imagine dwindling, market. There are plenty of options online and offline for cheaper frames. ------ pedasmith I dipped my toe into the "online glasses" market -- and let me say it's a game-changer. The eyeglass store wanted about $300 per frame, meaning that I'd grudgingly get one pair. The online purchase was only $75 for high-end frames and coatings, plus $27 for three pairs of prescription "computer monitor" glasses (one for the office, one for the home office, one for the other home office!). And by having more pairs, I can bring a pair on trips, just in case the main ones get broken! (Personally, I've also never had any useful help in picking out frames. I'm not very fashion conscious, and every time the help doesn't seem to want to actually help be find frames that would look good on my face) ~~~ 1996 > $27 for three pairs of prescription "computer monitor" glasses You are the second person to mention "computer monitor" glasses so I wonder, are they the same correction as your normal glasses? I am new to wearing glasses. I have a pair I use outside, they make everything crystal clear. I love them!! But for computers they are a pain after while, so I don't use them. As other people mention costs, I paid about $30 total for the eye exam + frame + both lenses + next day delivery (not in the US). Now I am in the US for a while, so I can't ask for "computer monitor" glasses, but with my correction information I could try to order some from zenni or eyebuydirect. ~~~ junaru Guessing "computer glasses" means that they have a blue light filter. The filter doesn't cost much extra and really helps. ~~~ 1996 Just got a reply- it's not. It has a different focal length, so you can relax your eyes when working on a computer screen. ------ sergers I have a friend who runs a chain of prescription eye glass stores. For the generics/non name brand, he only spends a few dollars a frame with the lens costing more. And then marks them up to $200-300 ------ tasty_freeze I don't get it. I just tried a few online "cheap glasses" places. I want single vision, prescription (relatively low strength, nothing exotic), polarized sunglasses. Fashion doesn't really matter, it is just for driving. zenni: $25 frames, cheapest polarization option: $67.89 eyebuydirect.com: $42 frames (malibu), plus polarization: $92 39dollarglasses.com: $39 frames (houston), cheapest polarization option +69, total $108 (more if I want anti-glare) While these prices are better than my optometrist, where are people finding these "I got three pairs of prescription sunglasses for $50" stories? ------ walterbell Eyebuydirect is notable because: \- US based \- Small premium over Hong Kong (Zenni) \- Essilor lenses (similar to LensCrafters) \- Wide frame selection, some are clones of designer frames which cost 20x \- 2 week refund/replace for any reason \- No prescription needed Their human customer service seems to be in Malaysia, so CS interactions via voice or email can take a few iterations, but are usually resolved within a few days. ~~~ Scoundreller They are a subsidiary of Essilor. Will be interesting to see what the effects of the merger with Luxxottica will be. I feel like the frames were more of the cost than the lenses. ------ resters I just bought a pair of glasses from the local optometrist. Lenses and frames came to $650. It turns out the eye exam was done so hastily that I ended up with the wrong prescription. So when I went to a different place to have the exam redone I decided to try some discount glasses. I found a pair for $27 with free lenses. I sprung for the $12 expedited shipping and have been very pleased. The online store I used was GlassesUSA.com, which I believe ships directly from Thailand. ------ webwanderings We were in one of the South Asian country not too long ago (family of four). Bought 2 pairs of glasses each, everything you name it, is included. Cost? <$50 for all. It would have cost us at least $1000 in US. And you cannot tell we wear cheap glasses. They are perfectly fine. Of course they are not original Ray Ban but who cares as long as prescription is right. The eyewear industry in US is totally out of control. ------ eterm "Fashion accessory prices don't reflect supply cost" is hardly news or something to "gratify one's intellectual curiosity" as per the site guidelines. If you buy a fashion brand of glasses frames then you're no more or less getting "ripped off" than you are when buying a Gucci hoodie. Sure, all the brands are owned by the same company, but that affects a lot of things not just eyewear. ~~~ noja > then you're no more or less getting "ripped off" You are being ripped off. Look at how much of the industry they own. The only reason this hasn't been acted on yet is because people see their various brands as being separate. ~~~ chrisseaton I don't even know what 'ripped off' means? Does it mean if you chose to buy their product you'll have to pay more than you'd happen to like to pay for it? There no oracle that can give us one true price, and anything above that is a 'rip off.' ~~~ noja It means not buying from a market with sufficient competition. ~~~ chrisseaton But there is sufficient competition - you can buy no-name glasses for a few dollars. You can’t buy these specific luxury fashion brands of glasses cheaply but that just means you don’t think the name is worth it. It’s not a ‘rip off’. ~~~ tk75x It's a ripoff because the price to quality ratio of the luxury brands are much higher than the budget brands which provide the same functionality and style as the luxury brands the only difference being there is no logo stamped on the side. EDIT: regarding the top comment of this thread, I see and agree with the argument that if you are aware and able to get a cheaper option, then you are not being "ripped off" but just making a bad financial decision of your own accord. ------ dang Other threads on what has turned out to be a perennial topic: 2019: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18980191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18980191) 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061380) 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736573](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736573) 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13091936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13091936) 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9183464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9183464) 2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6718224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6718224) ------ mikevp People who buy hoity-toity "designer fashion" items are paying for those D&G or whatever letters on the item. I find it impossible to work up any sympathy. I get Flexon frames. Actually, I haven't bought frames in years. I just have them put new lenses in the "time before last" frames. So, maybe Flexon has inflated in price, too, in the past few years. But the fact that I'm still happily wearing Flexon frames from years ago, and they still look just fine, and are still comfortable, means it doesn't affect me. They do gouge for some of the stuff I get on the lenses; anti-glare, scratch resistant, progressive multifocal. I could cheap out on some of this, but this, at least, is functional, not "Oh, look how kuuuul I am, my glasses have a "D&G" on them!" crap. ------ ericmcer Can anyone speak to why you need an up to date prescription to buy glasses or contacts? It has never made an ounce of sense to me, yet I have been blocked from doing it in the past, gone through the rigamarole to find out my prescription is unchanged, and then bought them. ~~~ umvi The party line is: "to check your eyes for disease" If you reply: "People that don't need glasses don't get their eyes checked every 2 years for disease" The party line will be: "People that don't need glasses are at lower risk for eye disease" I just got a physical copy of my prescription and uploaded it to my google drive. It's 5 years expired, but I still see 20/20 and use it to purchase new frames online. ------ walrus01 Without even opening the article I can predict that it informs everyone of what a behemoth Luxoticca is. As a person with a nearsightedness measurement greater than -5.5, it's something I had to educate myself on. Costco optical is a decent option for retail sales. ~~~ elektor Do you need a Costco membership to buy glasses from them? ~~~ berbec Even buying a Costco membership for the sole purpose of buying glasses will likely save you money vs LensCrafters or independent eyewear stores. My dad's last two pair of glasses (reading & normal) cost him $2100. That's criminal ------ coldtea Adam Ruins Everything - The Conspiracy Behind Your Glasses [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAeHuDcy_bY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAeHuDcy_bY) ------ chown Recently, I was telling a friend how ridiculously cheap it is to buy a pair of glasses overseas. I paid about $22 for the pair I'm wearing. I went to make an extra pair recently (a backup pair, just in case). They quoted me about $450, which they agreed, was of lesser quality than the one I was wearing. Blew my mind! I then decided to just get it shipped from the same place I got my first pair. They couldn't ship it so my sister has to do it. Ended up costing me about $40 with shipping. ------ kmm I understand how branding and marketing could drive the price of frames up, but I've never understood why the lenses themselves are so expensive. The tolerances are not very high, and there must be a massive economy of scale. The article itself states that they can be made for a buck and a half. Who manufactures those, is there a similar situation as with Luxottica? Why is that market not being disrupted? ------ wickedOne i've got a strong impression this article is about sunglasses rather than eyewear in general. "Armani, Brooks Brothers, [ ... ], Vogue and Versace" neither of them, as far as i know, make decent "regular" glasses. i've been wearing glasses for the last 42 years and apart from when you're a kid (because you break more shit than your parents would like to admit) you don't need (nor want) a different frame each year; it's not a fashion thing, it's something you actually need to function. with that in mind: you don't go to a pearl store to get measurements for your eyes, at least not if you want them to be accurate. so yeah, Luxottica might be behind a lot of "fashion based" eyeware, but hey who's running the show for sneakers or training suits other than nike and adidas? i mean, this is nothing new and if you want to be trendy it's going to cost you. meanwhile i think i spent ~€1000 on frames and lenses the last 15 year whilst wearing silhouette. so, at least for me, it's not as bad as the article makes it out to be ------ monksy This is one of those things that you can buy online and for a lot cheaper. It always amazes me about how much we are charged for things in the west and that when you go to Asia it's soo much cheaper. (Clothing is another example.. when you're looking at a starting price of 150baht for shorts.. [$3.2 before negotiating] ) ------ RosanaAnaDana How reasonable would it be to the prescription process; for example, a kiosk in the mall where I sit in a booth and click (better/worse) while looking into some-kind of a vision testing device. The whole thing is so procedural and really, not very difficult to administer. It seems like extremely low hanging fruit for automation. ~~~ mrob Optimizing for just "better or worse" will result in excessively strong correction. If you're only looking at a single letter in the very center of your field of vision, then overcorrection feels sharper and easier to focus on. You don't notice the additional optical artifacts everywhere else. The ideal glasses have just barely enough correction. However, this isn't an argument against automation, because human optometrists frequently get it wrong too. I agree that it should be automated. ~~~ RosanaAnaDana I've just always found myself frustrated by the sense that beyond looking into my eyes for signs of disease, the actual act of making a prescription could be done by anyone with an afternoon of training; yet I have to make an appointment and drop 100-200$ for something that is, on occasion, less effort than getting an order correct at chipotle. ~~~ ojilles In other countries the exams are totally free (basically because of the reasons you mention). ------ hourislate For the last couple of years I have transitioned to Parker Warby and Costco's Kirkland Brand for reading glasses. As a tip for Americans, when traveling to Europe make sure you go shopping for Frames. You will get them for 1/4 - 1/3 the cost of US prices and have a selection 10 times as large. ~~~ SquirrelOnFire I'll have to keep an eye out, thanks! ~~~ findjashua I see what you did there ------ bluedino I'm not sure if America's Best is part of Luxxotica (I heard they were owned by Walmart but I never checked) $59.99 glasses turn into $349. Special exams, coatings, plastic lenses, 'Contact lens' fees, 'Contact lens club', scammers just waiting to prey on people that walk in. ------ kleiba _I noted that if you wear designer glasses, there’s a very good chance you’re wearing Luxottica frames._ This may be true for the big name brands, but there are also a number of smaller independent companies that innovate with new designs and/or materials. For instance, the German designers "Meyer Eyewear" (www.meyer-eyewear.com) started about 10 years ago with a collection made of buffalo and reindeer horn. Now they moved on to ultra-light titanium frames. And that's just one example. Like in many fields, there is a mass market and then there are niche areas where more exotic (and perhaps more exciting) developments are dwelling. ------ fishywang For the recent years I stopped paying for vision insurance, and just pay out of pocket at Jins when I need new pairs. They have a brick and mortar near me (San Jose CA), and also do prescription sunglasses. When I had vision insurance I feel obliged to get new pairs every year (covered by insurance), and also often pay a fair amount out of pocket because at most shops that accept the insurance the strictly under the coverage pairs are usually ugly or in shitty quality, or both. Jins lenses and frames are actually in good quality and durable. ------ rhinoceraptor A tip for anyone measuring their own PD in the mirror, shine a bright light in your eyes so your pupils constrict. That will make finding the center a bit easier. ------ kashyapc Hmm. Five months ago I spent about 230€ prescription glasses -- as a 40-hour "screen starer", I went for a reasonably good quality French vendor ("Studio FB", and the glasses themselves from Ziess). I shelled out that much as I wear glasses every waking hour and didn't wanted some crap quality glasses / frame. I really like them so far. They better last _really_ long. ------ glitchc I respectfully must disagree with all of the claims here regarding zenni and costco, unpopular as it may be. They are only comparable at the low end but have no matching product at the high end. I bought a pair of glasses at costco for $200 as a backup to my daily rimless wearers. First, costco and zenni don’t have any rimless options. Second, the lenses I did buy ( partial frame) were their lightest but still significantly heavier than what I replaced. Third, the lenses just didn’t have the same clarity and sharpness as my oakleys. They just don’t offer the same quality coatings and I paid for their best. After a couple of months, I caved and went back to lenscrafters for a replacement. My new Ray Bans, although expensive, are like night and day compared to Costco. Light as a feather, outstanding clarity and sharpness, extremely scratch resistant, on the whole simply remarkable to wear. Side by side comparison, exact same prescription, there’s no contest. None. Luxottica may be overcharging, but truth is the discount brands do not carry a comparable product. Certainly you can save money at those places, but the product isn’t the same. In some sense you are getting what you pay for. You can get even better lenses from Zeiss and Nikon if you go beyond Lenscrafters, but I haven’t walked that path yet as it’s a bit beyond my budget (read: insurance), although I’ve heard excellent things. Edit: Grammar. ~~~ mrfredward >my budget (read: insurance) I wonder to what extent the presence of insurance in the mix has made things worse. Markets never work particularly well when the entity paying and the entity choosing the product aren't the same. Textbooks (vs normal books) come to mind as an obvious example of this. ~~~ kps Luxottica also owns the ‘insurance’ provider EyeMed. ------ ourmandave Since this thread is about eyewear, I just wanted to mention you can donate eyeglasses, reading, and sunglasses to the Lions Club Intl. [https://lionsclubs.org/en/resources-for-members/resource- cen...](https://lionsclubs.org/en/resources-for-members/resource- center/eyeglass-recycling-centers) ~~~ dredmorbius That's of very limited use: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2012-05-03/recycl...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2012-05-03/recycling- eyeglasses-is-a-feel-good-waste-of-money) ------ brandonmenc I've been purchasing back-up glasses for nearly 20 years at places like Lens Crafters and have never spent over $50 for such a pair - granted, they're dorky safety frames and no fancy lens coatings, but still. Cheap glasses have always been available, if you don't want fashionable frames. Also, please don't skip an actual yearly eye exam, for your health. ------ jowdones An optician mentors an apprentice on how to sell glasses. "You look in client's eyes and say 'That'll be 100 bucks'." "If he doesn't blink you continue '... for the eye frame. The glasses will cost another hundred bucks'" "If you see that he still doesn't panic, you conclude: '... a piece'". ~~~ yread And that's why it's important to deliver the quote in person ------ GenerocUsername I just recently (2 weeks ago) made my first online purchase of prescription glasses. I entered my measurements and prescription from a 2 year-old check-up and got 2 pairs of glasses for < $50 and they are PERFECT. Honestly NEVER buying glasses from any optometrist or even costco again. Also, not an ad, just a recommendation, but checkout eyebuydirect.com ------ xfitm3 Similarly: screen your optician by what eyewear brands they carry. I saw a “independent” for years that carried small brands and I felt the doctors philosophy was better aligned with patient care vs sales. ------ forthispurpose What are some good online companies that are fighting this status quo? ~~~ beering Zenni is the main online company in the US selling eyeglasses for actually reasonably prices. Downside is that you don't get to try them on before you buy them, and I'm not a huge fan of their styles. ~~~ superkuh Zenni is great for frames. But if your eyesight is seriously bad (ie, -10 diopter) you're much better off getting lenses put into Zenni frames at a local optometrist. Zenni doesn't do things like lens edge bevel which becomes necessary once your eyeglasses are 1cm+ thick at the edges. And no, high index of refraction lenses like Zenni pushes just makes things worse. High index lenses all have very low abbe number and their chromatic abberation is so bad at high diopter that I can even read the license plates of cars in the lane next to me while wearing them. They're only good for vision straight ahead. ------ bonestamp2 My last pair of designer frames with lenses from LensCrafters: $350, similar pair from my optometrist: $750, similar pair (but not designer frames) from an online retailer: $50. ~~~ monksy They're still making a profit off of it. ~~~ SquirrelOnFire Sure. You want businesses you deal with to make profit, otherwise they won't be around to do business with in the future. In industrial supply chain, if you have two suppliers who are each charging the same price and you know that one is making higher profit margins, go with the one with higher margins - they're more likely to be stable. ~~~ dingaling Some profit is useful for saving as a cushion. But in general remember that profit is money that the business literally didn't find a way to spend, to the extent that they're willing to throw away 20% of it as tax. I'd rather deal with a company that ploughs surplus back into salaries or R&D or even charity than squandering it as profit. ~~~ SquirrelOnFire Agreed, but on a transaction level having higher profit MARGINS is what enables the company to have money to plow back into the business. ------ phkahler I've often wondered if there is any reason at all to allow companies to own/buy/merge other companies. I have not found one. ------ chewyland I bought two pairs of prescription glasses including frames and nice little cases + one them was photocromatic. The total cost was 47$ for both. This was in Sofia. ------ aj7 1\. Have your opthalmologist do your refraction. He’ll charge you extra usually. 2\. Walmart. Excellent quality and workflow. ------ joyeuse6701 If Luxottica is a as big a player as they say, shouldn't some anti-trust laws come into play? ------ m3kw9 Just need @AOC or @realdonaldtrump to do a little tweet and the DOJ will get on it. ------ GuillaumeBrdet The answer my girlfriend has taken, get a good insurance. $250 pair for $35. Done. ------ advertising Have bought only retro super future for this very reason ------ arthurofbabylon “Tell all”? That wasn’t very much. ------ natroniks eyebuydirect.com ------ anewguy9000 wait we should be paying costs and not a markup? thats communism	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
More HTML5 APIs - davidwalshblog http://davidwalsh.name/more-html5-apis ====== pygy_ From an advertiser'a point of view, the visibility API is a boon. For users not so much. I've recently noticed several sites that pause their video ads when the tab is hidden. I don't look at adds. I have several ad jingles/slogans from my youth wired in my brain. They popon cue, and since I don't want to add new ones to my collection, I now actively avoid ads. This means that I now have to look elsewhere while the video is playing, or hide the screen, and it annoys me to no end. /rant. To browser authors: This feature has some use, but a huge potential for user abuse. It would be most helpful if it were possible disable the API, or to enable it selectively on a site by site basis. ~~~ eli I think I'm missing something. Wouldn't the alternative be to keep playing the video ad even when you're not looking at it? Why is that better? I don't want my browser wasting cycles to render a video it knows I can't see. At the risk of stating the obvious, it sounds like you have a problem with ads, not a problem with the visibility API. ~~~ pygy_ Meanwhile you can do useful/less annoying stuff in other tabs. And I have a problem with ads that are forced on me, true, my case may be extreme, but I'm sure that it annoys other people too. ~~~ eli Depending on your browser, that seems pretty doable with a plugin. I assumed ad block plugins would nuke video ads anyway -- is the issue that they are preroll and hard to filter? At the risk of getting into an ethics debate, that's sort of the deal being offered by the publisher: you get the content in exchange for watching this ad. ------ FuzzyDunlop I've been writing a library that abstracts the getUserMedia API, and I've found it really interesting to be able to use JS and HTML to interact with hardware in a (mostly) simple way. Even though I prefer the native implementation of these things, the pure creativity HTML and JS allows (because it's less difficult) is where these features really shine. Calling WebRTC "skype in a browser" is just the tip of the iceberg. ------ andrethegiant Could someone explain to me a use case for the battery API? I can't think of a single situation where it would be beneficial. The article states that you can detect if a user's battery is low to avoid battery-intensive processes, but do you think developers are going to spend their time inflating their scripts to deliver a poorer web experience to their users just because they have a low battery? ~~~ quarterto Save prompts when the battery is low? ~~~ Zigurd Quick poll: Which is worse... a) Battery-aware HTML5 apps b) Having a save command ~~~ quarterto Ok, what about more frequent autosaves? ~~~ Zigurd Android's APIs enable easy implementation of a sqlite-based data model, where changes are always persisted. That doesn't solve the problem for things like CAD that need an in-memory object-oriented data model, but the Android support for observer patterns can be wrapped around any data model, and the ability to quickly, which means, in practice, incrementally, persist changes is driven by both Android-specific issues like needing to respond to lifecycle events quickly, and by general mobile considerations like a battery that could fail unexpectedly. In other words, you need to solve the "don't explicitly save" problem for reasons ranging from "it's more robust" to "it fits Android UI conventions" anyway. ------ Arceliapfa Nice! I like the link prefetchin ~~~ tonywok Yeah, definitely going to try that out my next mobile app. Great article. ~~~ true_religion However, I think its only supported on Mozilla Firefox. I used to support it on my media sites when Mozilla was topdog, but since the share is split between Chrome/IE I no longer do so. ~~~ dbaupp Does it hurt to support it? As in, why did you stop supporting it if the infrastructure was already there? ~~~ true_religion Oh its not that. When I re-wrote the pages, or upgraded services, I just stopped including/thinking about prefetching for Firefox. So it pretty rapidly disappeared from all the sites that I support/operate. ------ discordance For the curious: Fullscreen API works on Safari, Firefox and Chrome. Page Visibility works on Chrome and Firefox. getUserMedia (camera access) works on Chrome Canary and Opera Tested on latest public releases; Safari 6.02, Chrome 23.0.1271.64 and Firefox 16.0.2 ~~~ bzbarsky getUserMedia (alas, prefixed) should also work in Firefox, generally speaking... Though maybe it's preffed off by default? The patch for it landed for Firefox 15: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=752353> ------ achal :( No love for the Audio API? <http://www.w3.org/TR/webaudio/> (Admittedly, it's only supported in Webkit at the time) ~~~ kevingadd That is pretty much why, I'd expect. Though Mozilla apparently have plans to integrate it in Firefox, at which point you could probably start using it in HTML5 apps in the wild! ------ sergiotapia I really look forward to the media and prefetching API's. They seem really needed, and now that I've read about them, I wish I could use them in production. ~~~ eli Well, you can rel="prefetch" it just won't do anything unless you're using Firefox (AFAIK). ~~~ emmelaich Is there a privacy vulnerability with prefetching? I can imagine timing it and making inferences about whether it's been cached and therefore previously visited. ~~~ eli Possibly true, but I'm pretty sure you can already do that with something like <img onload="someJavascript()"> ------ MatthewPhillips I hope they start to provide, when appropriate, non-JavaScript APIs for some of these things. Full screen is one that could be useful. ~~~ emddudley Non-JavaScript? Like what? ~~~ flebron Say, <a href="foo" fullscreen="true">, I'd guess. ~~~ MatthewPhillips Probably something new would have to be invented as there is no mechanism to send messages to the browser in plain html. Something equivalent of a form element but without the action attribute. It would be nice to have something like (spitballing) <some-new-form> <input type="hidden" value="fullscreen" /> <input type="submit" value="Go fullscreen" /> </some-new-form> ~~~ detst > Probably something new would have to be invented as there is no mechanism to > send messages to the browser in plain html. Web components. At least their usage is plain HTML and could do what you want internally with the JS API. ------ scottfr I opened up the developer console on Chrome and copied in his code to make the whole page full-screened. It doesn't seem to do anything and doesn't show an error message. Is there an issue with the code? I know Chrome supports the full-screen API. ~~~ bmuon It needs user interaction to start. Have you tried using a button? ~~~ scottfr Thanks, that must be it. ------ OlavHN PeerConnection is an API now enabled in vanilla Chrome. <http://www.webrtc.org/blog/seeyouontheweb> ------ taitems Interesting fact learnt from the Phonegap creator at Web Directions: calls to the battery API actually decrease battery life. ------ monsterix Good that this came in just when I was playing with the Fullscreen API. It is the Firefox's implementation of this that's bothering me. Figured out that we have to put up with a hack to avoid the default "background:black" that Firefox applies to the element being pulled to full_screen mode. But what is worse is that Firefox kills y-scrolling completely for pages longer than screen-height. In effect one can't have full_page rendering (like on iPad or in normal state of browsers) of the website in full_screen mode of Firefox. That's seriously crippling. How do we tackle this? Is there any enlightened soul who got this done already? Or I am hitting the wall, right now? ~~~ kevin_p Sounds pretty stupid, but it sounds like you should be able to get round it by sticking everything in a scrollable wrapper div (height:100%; overflow:scroll) when fullscreen mode gets activated. Or just do things the old fashioned way and tell the user to hit F11 (or apple-shift-F on mac) to put their browser into manual full-screen mode, which supports scrolling. ~~~ monsterix I did try this. I don't remember this exactly, but what was happening then is that only the visible part of the page came in to the F11 wrapper div. There no-scroll in the full-screen browser window. In effect you're left with an option to introduce scrolls within content divs, and that looked worse. Chrome on the other hand manages this quite nicely. ------ pyrotechnick <http://html5please.com>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists Make Mice Immune to Radiation - miles http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/10571/ ====== Udo As has become standard in science articles, this one too is highly sensationalistic and potentially misleading. NO is, in low doses, a signaling molecule used by the body to facilitate intercellular communication. Similarly to ischemic attacks (as in strokes), what follows acute radiation exposure is a massive disruption of normal cell operations. There are, to use a bit of programmer lingo here, "checksums" in place to detect these kinds of disruptions and to shut down affected cells immediately. This is essentially like a segmentation fault or any other kind of fatal exception, and it's called apoptosis. During normal conditions, apoptosis signaling pathways are essential to weed out cells that aren't functioning properly. During massive crisis, however, this mechanism kills people, because it is suddenly triggered in a large amount of cells. That's what kills stroke and heart attack victims (if they survive the incident itself). The body simply doesn't know that in this case it would be life-saving if it kept corrupted cells alive. A similar thing happens with acute radiation poisoning: cells die en masse, usually the mucosae are affected the worst, leading to massive shock and internal bleeding. This particular research apparently focuses on halting these apoptosis pathways, so the body doesn't self destruct. Yes, that's essential. However, there is a price to pay that the article almost completely ignores. While interfering with the cell death signal saves you from immediate death, it does nothing to repair damaged porteins and DNA. ~~~ miles As has become standard in strongly-upvoted HN posts, this one too is highly sensationalistic and potentially misleading. I am genuinely sorry to be so snarky, but I am _really_ tired of scientific- sounding arguments (like the "Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors" article) being automatically credited on this site. _"While interfering with the cell death signal saves you from immediate death, it does nothing to repair damaged porteins and DNA."_ Did you bother to read the second page? "Also, a bigger mystery is figuring out how, by blocking this pathway, cells are able to fix the damaged DNA within. Dr. Isenberg says they know that following radiation exposure, the DNA is scrambled, but somehow, with this treatment, the cells are able to get themselves right." "'It's not that we're blocking radiation from hitting the tissue,' he says. 'Somehow...they repair themselves, and go about their business.'" ~~~ Udo The article flat-out lies about achieving radiation immunity. Claims like these are extremely representative examples of misleading sensationalism. There is simply no room for discussion about the central point: the article is making statements that are provably wrong. After that come the smaller claims they make, several of which sound highly dubious to me, especially your favorite one here: > _"'It's not that we're blocking radiation from hitting the tissue,' he says. > 'Somehow...they repair themselves, and go about their business.'"_ I strongly suspect there is no data to support this statement. We have known about small-scale repairs for a few years now, but this statement goes far beyond that. With the radiation doses involved, this phenomenon would require the reconstruction of information that is quite simply lost from the genome. Of course it is possible that many of these cells "go about their business", but that's not the same as assuming they have somehow repaired themselves. As far as being " _automatically credited on this site_ " I think you should give the other users a little more credit, and perhaps tone down your blanket judgements a little at the same time. Just because I made a few " _scientific- sounding arguments_ " doesn't mean I'm automatically wrong. The article claims immunity from radiation which is total gibberish. As far as the alleged complete self-repair goes, there are plenty of reasons to be extremely weary about this as well. By the way, I think I made it clear in the original post how important research like this is. At the same time I believe it's even more important not to misrepresent findings. ------ miles FTA: _In mice, when Dr. Isenberg and his team introduced a drug that prevented a protein, thrombospondin-1, from binding to a surface cell receptor called CD47, the animals could endure almost unheard-of doses of radiation with virtually no ill effects._ This is from late 2009. Does anyone have an update on this research? Would obviously be a great boon if it was equally effective in humans. ~~~ biot It would be ironic if this therapy causes increased risk of cancer, for which chemotherapy then has little effect. Then again, if the resistance is temporary I imagine some workers in Fukushima might benefit from this once it's been demonstrated safe enough. ~~~ kajecounterhack Go to the second page "Perhaps equally exciting, Dr. Isenberg and his team found that while his technique protected healthy cells from damage, it actually increased the effectiveness of radiation treatments on cancer cells." ~~~ bedris This could also be due to the fact that CD47 blockade allows preferential phagocytosis of cancer cells by macrophages [1,2] so it might not be solely radiation sensitivity that is leading to the clearance of the tumor cells. [1] <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19632179> [2] <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19632178> ------ possibilistic I don't really buy this. There's simply no way that messing with the NO pathway can prevent DNA degradation resulting from radiation exposure. I'm not familiar with irradiation units and how they correlate to DNA damage, but all amounts are harmful to the molecule. Ionizing radiation damage can be fixed via repair pathways, but it's simply a function of probability as to when this machinery fails in a critical location. The paper might be interesting to read, though, especially if it got cited. As always, news articles tend to inflate claims and miss the point entirely. ~~~ Joakal Look to nature surviving so well in Chernobyl? ~~~ smackay Nature is doing so well around Chernobyl because of the lack of humans. I don't have a reference to hand but I beleive that the birds in the area have a high rate of genetic defects and low reproductive success. That fact that the environment seems to be doing well is a statement of how much impact humans have on their surroundings. ~~~ copper Yes, I remember that one: [http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-chernobyl- birds-smaller-...](http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-chernobyl-birds- smaller-brains.html) Rereading it, it seems that the effects seen on the birds are seen in humans too, but at higher contamination levels. ------ bedris Here is the original Sci Transl Med (2008) paper: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811586/?tool=pu...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811586/?tool=pubmed) And here is a follow-up paper in Am J Pathol (2008): [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2543077/?tool=pu...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2543077/?tool=pubmed) Both are freely available at the links provided. ------ Tichy How am I supposed to mutate into a superhero if radiation has no effect? ~~~ reitzensteinm I know you're joking, but from what Udo is saying, it seems like this is stopping the body from killing off corrupted cells. So if anything, this would actually be a step closer to super hero mutation. ~~~ flipbrad Not really. It's a step closer to randomly dispersed neoplasia/tumours popping up around your body! step closer to have super hero mutant children, perhaps, if it's keeping your gonads alive but mutant. ~~~ reitzensteinm Well, to be fair, a step closer doesn't mean it's not still basically impossible... but you're right, children are a far more likely vector. ------ masklinn So coppelions are real?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Underhanded C: The Leaky Redaction - signa11 http://notanumber.net/archives/54/underhanded-c-the-leaky-redaction ====== some1else This reminds me of how some government redacted .doc files by using a virtual "black marker", which of course leaves the text in tact. ~~~ viraptor Like in BALCO case? [http://www.sfgate.com/c/acrobat/2006/06/22/BALCO_quash_subpo...](http://www.sfgate.com/c/acrobat/2006/06/22/BALCO_quash_subpoena_sfchronicle.pdf) (page 6, just highlight the text) Or AT&T? <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1028_3-6077353.html> There was also one more subtle source of a leak. some versions of MS Word will try to preserve/serialise the edit history after you save the document. Google filetype:doc and a simple tool were enough: <http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/strikeout/> ------ necubi It's a neat idea, but wouldn't work for any image format that's actually used. The code targets PPM, which is an ASCII-based image format. In a binary format like JPG or PNG, different values of zero would be indistinguishable. ------ ComputerGuru This is the third or fourth time this has appeared on HN this year... ~~~ peterbraden do you have links to the other ones - would be useful to see the other comments. ~~~ steveklabnik The only thing I found was <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1208097>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why cars went from boxy in the 80s to curvy in the 90s - Hooke http://www.vox.com/2015/6/11/8762373/car-design-curves ====== ryandrake I hate how all cars on the road look like identical bars of soap. I realize a lot of this is due to aerodynamics and safety regulations, but it's a shame. You don't see too many cars anymore that are significantly visually distinct from a Honda Accord. ~~~ jessriedel > I realize a lot of this is due to aerodynamics and safety regulations, I think it's actually almost exclusively fuel economy regulations. Same reason you can't buy a new washing machine that consistently gets your clothes clean. ~~~ andrewstuart2 You don't see a whole lot of distinct raindrop shapes for a very good reason: path of least resistance. ~~~ jessriedel The question isn't "why is there only one shape that minimizes drag?", the question is "why are all the cars sacrificing so much style and functionality to reduce drag?". You would expect some buyers to accept slightly less fuel economy for increased style, especially in luxury case, since they clearly are willing to pay significantly extra for style in ways that don't conflict with fuel economy (e.g., leather seats). The reason is that the market is not being determined by having the consumer trade off style/functionality for fuel economy. Rather, the fuel economy, and hence the shape, is being set by statute. That's why even luxury cars have about the same shape. The only exception are the super luxury cars that make up such a small fraction of the market that they are negligible in calculating a manufacturer's fleet-average fuel economy (which is what the regulation specifies). ~~~ redblacktree > slightly less fuel economy I think the issue is that it isn't slight. Air resistance increases in a cubic ratio to speed. Aerodynamics make a big difference at highway speeds. ~~~ jessriedel They knew aerodynamics in the 1950's too, and the fuel prices were very similar in inflation adjusted terms. [http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasolin...](http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm) (And we are _richer_ then we were before, so modern folks are more willing to pay extra for fashion). The difference between then and now is definitely regulatory. ~~~ dragonwriter > And we are richer then we were before Well, that depends who "we" is. "Car owners" as a whole may well be poorer than in the 1950s in inflation adjusted terms: median income has gone up some, but car ownership has moved down the economic scale, too. And there are different looks at the top end of the market, the part that caters to people who are willing to pay extra for fashion. ------ webwielder2 I don't buy it. Curvy cars were not some high end European flirtation in the 60s. Pretty much all cars in the "old days" were rounded. Random examples: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Deluxe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Deluxe) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Lark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Lark) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packard_180](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packard_180) Why publish an article whose premise is so obviously wrong? ~~~ mhandley I agree. The real question is why did even European cars go boxy in the second half of the 1970s? A good example is the Ford Cortina Mk 3: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina#TC_Mark_III_.28197...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina#TC_Mark_III_.281970.E2.80.931976.29) vs Mk 4: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina#Mark_IV_.281976.E2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina#Mark_IV_.281976.E2.80.931979.29) I think late 70s/early 80s boxy cars were the anomaly - all other eras were curvy. ------ rpcope1 You know, the extra curvy crazy body panels can be cool looking sometimes, but I still wish they'd ship the engineers that build and design these cars out to Alaska in the winter and make them disassemble and reassemble the cars a couple of times before they ship them -- the increasingly custom body panels and designs has made it much more difficult to fix what's there or even get the cars apart for service. ~~~ kazinator Curvy body panels look good as long as there are some sharp curves in the right places. If there is nothing but low-curvature, then the vehicle just looks fat. We look at cars like we look at human bodies. The classic sports car shape has a waits and hips. :) Fat can be cute though: if a sub-compact hatch-back is round in the right way. Classic VW beetle, the new Minis, 5th gen Civic ... (This still jives with the human body theory. We excuse the little cars for being chubby because they are babies.) ------ Tloewald As an aside, Bézier curves were invented at Renault. ~~~ webnrrd2k I always assumed the change in styles was because design tools with Bézier curves became commonly available, and computers became more common. ------ ethana Reason 1 and 3 are totally baloney. European cars were as much boxy as the Americans and Japaneses in the same era and technology have nothing to do with enabling new curvy design either. If you look back to the 50s/60s, cars from Lincoln, Cadillac, Ford, Bentley, Mercedes, etc were not only curvy but there were all kinda of crazy complex shapes. I think people's preference just got tired of the overly designed styles up until the late 60s. I would point to Cadillac as the one that started the boxy cars trend. They are still boxy/edgy today, although much more stylized. I love the newer Cadis design actually, they are so different than anything on the roads. ~~~ kevin_thibedeau The difference is that the parts on the older curvy cars didn't fit together all that well. Modern computer designed parts and tooling allow tight construction without the labor to make things line up. That permits more adventurous shaping of parts. This really showed in the "ovalized" Ford Taurus where the rear quarter panels had a long narrow strip extending forward over the roof. Basically a pointless showoff by engineering. ------ busterarm The 3rd Gen RX-7 was the first to make curves look good. At least it still had the popup headlights though. I sorely wish those would make a comeback, but most folks don't like to have to think about whether their lights are on or not anymore. ~~~ rdl Also your front end can't be too pointy due to pedestrian impact standards, and they're heavy. I believe pedestrian impact safety was what actually killed the pop-ups. ~~~ kevin_thibedeau That and their tendency to break. Another significant change was the allowance of custom headlight assembly's rather than the few standard sealed bulbs that had to be stuffed into a popup if you wanted a wedge that looked different from everybody else. ~~~ tsotha >That and their tendency to break. I'm certainly not sorry to see them go. I was getting tired of being blinded by the car behind me because its owner was too lazy or cheap to fix a headlight that had broken loose. ~~~ busterarm Now you just get blinded by every asshole with a cheap HID kit. ------ zobzu i want to pay for a service that summarize articles in 5 lines tops and a few images (which is honestly the only reason why we click) Demo for this one: 1) aerodynamics/fuel efficiency 2) cost/machinery able to make curves Also, didnt have to read it to figure that out ;) ~~~ redblacktree There is a bot on reddit[1] that attempts this. (sans pictures) It actually works pretty well. [1] [https://www.reddit.com/user/autotldr](https://www.reddit.com/user/autotldr) ~~~ zobzu this is pretty cool. i need this for HN. ------ Splendor While reading about how European car makers like Porsche were toying with curved shapes in the 60s, all I could think about was Corvettes in the 50s. ------ bnolsen i'm surprised no one has mentioned this but it seems like the koreans are now driving automotive style. The 2000's cars pretty much hit jellybean status, toyota/lexus in particular. A few years ago I started noticing some of the hyundai models starting to have a much more aggressive design with harder lines and more angular breaks. I notice the japanese starting to (IMHO) poorly follow this design. ~~~ busterarm Not sure I agree. It's nearly universally agreed among auto-journos that the current Mazda 6 may just be the best looking full-sized sedan...well...ever. ~~~ rhengles It is a mid-size, not a full-size. And the best looking cars are, imo: (1) Ford Taurus/Fusion, (2) Audi A8/A6, and (3) Chrysler 300/200. ------ brandonmenc No mention of Chrysler's "cab forward" design, which imo really broke the dam on this. Average cars didn't start looking curvy until the first Intrepid was released. At least that's how I remember it. ~~~ woofyman The first soap shaped american car was the 1983 Mercury cougar. The success of that led to the Ford Taurus. ------ femto I always thought it was because a curved panel was stronger than a flat panel, hence curved panels allow a car to be built with less metal. ------ secfirstmd I've always felt the Ford KA (here in Europe) was a big influencer in the movement towards curvy cars over here. ------ ChrisGranger No mention of the vehicle that epitomizes curves for me, the Volkswagen Beetle... ------ andrewstuart2 Nothing about the Dodge Neon? That thing was sooo slick to my 6-year-old self. ------ kstenerud 80s cars were damn ugly, even during the 80s. I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally started adding curves again. ~~~ busterarm I disagree. The 70s/80s wedge is still my favorite car shape. Hatchback Louvers were grand and those 5-mph bumpers look great on some cars (VW, Volvo...) Those garish econonoboxes are for-sure terrible though. The Dodge Omni has the honor of being one of the ugliest cars ever made. Which also makes the fact that Shelby turned it into one of the most awesome machines ever on the road (Omni '86 GLHS) that much more satisfying. That said, rally was much more fun when it was with ugly boxy cars and Group B. ~~~ amorphid I love 80s Hondas. Especially the late 80s Civic Hatchback. ------ qnaal that video at the bottom .. Mercedes Benz Cockroachmobile- has aero design gone too far? ------ toolsadmin Vox is non-technical, consumerist trash.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Nice and simple mac cli - rgcr https://github.com/rgcr/m-cli ====== brudgers If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN". Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
JavaScript fetch API - sconxu https://davidwalsh.name/fetch ====== nness Why would you want to "cancel" a request, instead of just ignore the response from the server? I feel like I'm missing a use-case here. ~~~ sconxu You might want to stop the processing of an expensive task on the server ~~~ nness But if HTTP is stateless, can you actually cancel an operation?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yahoo's Flickr Takes on Google's YouTube - danw http://blogs.business2.com/beta/2007/05/yahoos_flickr_t.html ====== bootload Not surprised, heard this a couple of weeks ago listening to Caterina Fakes talk on ITConversation (The History of Flickr) where Fake didn't rule flickr out for hosting video ~ <http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail1755.html> Wonder how this is going to be executed and it's effects on flickr?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How 3 Women Would Hack Tech’s Diversity Problem - DinahDavis https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/how-3-women-would-hack-techs-diversity-problem-118b5cf8f05c#.7gjpcr3i3 ====== unimpressive >Despite an impressively vast sample size, the survey received some flak for the inherent bias it produced by surveying its own, less-than-comprehensive user base. Frankly, Stack Overflow is probably the most comprehensive developer site on the web. If you're a programmer of any stripe you can be expected by numbers to use it. It's not like there's a 'no girls' sign on the front, assuming their survey is representative is damn well justified.[0] But yes, forgetting selection bias in your analysis[1] is a bit silly on their part, and not even raising the hypothesis suggests whoever wrote the analysis wasn't thinking about it as deeply as they should have. Moreover attaching the Stack Overflow brand to conclusions that are based on not-super-rigorous analysis and could have a large impact on already quite plausibly disparately impacted groups is grossly irresponsible. [0]: Was this survey only open to members? If so that was a foolish decision, learning why people lurk and what demographics lurk your site as opposed to contribute would have avoided this exact accusation, as well as providing some very interesting business data for StackOverflow themselves. [1]: Comparing to base rates helps.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
'Cash cow' sales model for a macOS app - walterbell https://medium.com/@drewmccormack/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda-138a11995595 ====== ezekg > In principle, it’s all pretty straightforward. Of course, the devil’s in the > details. I was quite surprised how much work was involved in getting it all > working. Probably 3–4 months all up. And that's why I built [https://keygen.sh](https://keygen.sh), for those that would rather not spend months building a licensing server in-house. I did this one too many times. :) ~~~ userbinator _And that 's why I built [https://keygen.sh](https://keygen.sh), for those that would rather not spend months building a licensing server in-house._ For a second, I thought you were the owner of the .us site, reincarnated it under a different domain, and trying to imply that crackers would create a keygen for your software anyway. But speaking as someone from the other side ;-) any centralised software protection is going to be dead-easy to crack since the checks and ways it makes them are going to be nearly the same between all apps that use it. FlexLM is an existing example of this. ~~~ ezekg I agree that all software protection is able to be cracked, but I wouldn't say it's "dead-easy" just because it's centralized. And actually, Keygen is a little bit more unique in that case, because I don't supply any client libraries, and you can also put Keygen behind your own domain (similar to how you would put Stripe behind your own domain). So every piece of software is going to implement things differently. In addition, you can implement public key signature verification to prevent MITM attacks (each account gets their own 2048-bit RSA pub/priv keys). In the end, the cracker will likely need to spend some time figuring out how your unique piece of software utilizes Keygen, and that will deter the majority. But like I alluded to, in the end, all software is crackable. There are certainly those who won't stop at the roadblocks. But there's not a lot I can do in that case, especially just being an API. It's more down to implementation. ;) ------ antaviana I think that pure subscription is the only sustainable model. If the incentive for a new customer is the same as keeping an existing customer, you aim for the right product. I find permanent license models are pyramidal and/or foster featuritis. ~~~ oldcynic I try not to buy subscriptions because you usually lose all functionality at the end. The subscription is usually significantly more expensive than the simple cost of buying a licence for the current version. (eg 1Password). Between those two points there's no benefit for me, the customer, regardless of what marketing tell me. To add another my thought process is "which sub would I drop to get this?". The answer is usually none. I'm not going to allow myself to end up with dozens of subscriptions for things that don't necessarily require an online component (VPNs and such). I get it. Subs are great for the company. You'll have a significant number of paying users who never get around to cancelling, or forget what service is tied to the mysterious £4.99 monthly charge, you get to charge double in a year what you used to think was a reasonable cost for outright. Edit: Clarity ~~~ chasote I agree that subscription fatigue is a problem and most will opt out but I feel you are projecting too much malice onto the developers in your last sentence. Why does asking for the subscription automatically entail they are hoping people will stop using the product but stay subscribed or are charging far more than they think the service is worth? I think it is too jaded an outlook to see it all as a zero sum fight. The service might just be worth a subscription and the developers want to continue providing it and not be able to with a different business model. ~~~ oldcynic Not saying it's done with malice aforethought, but it's a known and common pattern. I've done it myself with Amazon Prime and other things where I took a few months longer than I should have to actually go cancel it. Some will let things lie far longer. If a service is worthless without the online component, Netflix for instance, a sub is clearly the answer and I'll pay gladly. For an editor, utility or IDE having an online account is usually, _for me at least,_ a minor benefit at best when I'll put my files in iCloud, dropbox or git. You made it a tougher sell as you want a rolling commitment. £50 as a one off? I'll spend that on a whim, then probably upgrade in a couple of years. Most examples I've seen of companies switching to a subscription model end up with a subscription that's more than the previous licence cost. Unless it's something your career or business depends on few would buy every major release widening the real differential further. That we're having this conversation on a post about a "cash cow sales model" says it all don't you think? It simply starts to look like "we'd like more money from you". ~~~ chasote Fair enough, you both make good points. I have been exploring how to make a simple living off one's creations and trying to fight my own cynicism on all the seeming trade offs. Right now that just means staying focused on the creating part and hoping some of you smart folks figure out the best mix of financial feasibility and doing what is right by everyone. These discussions help. And yes, "cash cow" seems a little uncouth in light of that discussion, haha. ~~~ oldcynic For a small dev I think it's difficult now the big app stores have conditioned so many to believe free, £1.99 and £3.99 are appropriate price points for software. That only works for the tiny few that get a viral lottery win. I see the attraction of a sub as implicit copy protection. So I wonder why there aren't more ISVs putting the yearly sub markedly lower than the former licence price. Scrollaway makes great points about microsubscriptions. I think he's right that a central place to _easily_ manage multiple subs would take away most of the pain. Banks seem to specialise in awkward UX and statements that just show "UnknownCo LLC Service" because they're the parent company of coolthing.com's service. Patreon might be better placed to have a try here. Right now I'm having this battle with myself as the side-project I'm slowly progressing looks like having a sub might be right. I'm still reluctant. Oh the irony. :) Good luck with your creations. ------ jakobegger Oh my god I get a headache just thinking about all the feature flags they'll have to maintain, and all the copywriting to describe each feature, and all the support emails from people asking which features they can use... What are they going to do when a new feature makes another one obsolete? Keep both? What if they fix a bug in the new version, do they also fix it in the obsolete version? This sounds like a major maintenance chaos a few years down the line. They'll need to keep adding individual features to incentivise frequent re-purchases, so they'll end up with hundreds of variations of the app, all depending on when you bought it... Thinking about this makes me so happy about the pay-once model of my apps, I'm so grateful that it works, and that I don't need to squeeze every penny from my customers. ~~~ ropeadopepope > Oh my god I get a headache just thinking about all the feature flags they'll > have to maintain Why not use a plugin model? Feature flags can be hacked. ~~~ grok2 Making every feature a plugin is hard -- it requires that the original implementation expose everything possible in APIs to be take advantage of by a plug-in. ------ dep_b That’s a ton of different combinations of flagged features that might or might not exist for a user and almost all possible combinations need to be tested. ~~~ jarfil If I understand it correctly, when a user pays they get all of the features available at that time. So there could be users with only feature 1, and users with features 1, 2 and 3, but never a user who only had feature 3. That reduces the number of combinations from O(2^n) to at most O(n), and you could keep track of which older features no one has, or offer periodic free/discounted updates to reduce the amount of different versions out there. ------ headcanon Renoise ([https://www.renoise.com/](https://www.renoise.com/)) is sold on the same model. Each purchase guarantees free updates for one major version cycle (if you purchase v2.8, you get free updates until v3.8). Might not follow semver rules, but it seems fair to me. ------ orasis These guys are fooling themselves. If their app provides ongoing value, then subscriptions are the way to go today - it's just a matter of charging the correct price for the perceived value the consumer is receiving. ------ walterbell One question about this model: does the client app need to contact the developer’s licensing server on every app start, or after every app upgrade, or only at the time of in-app purchase? If there’s only a one-time “phone home” to the license server, this seems like a good revenue model that balances the needs of users and iOS developers. ~~~ Rjevski In-app purchases are handled directly by Apple, so you can do away with a licensing server and just enforce licensing on the client. ~~~ walterbell But they are allowing all clients to get new binaries (with bug fixes and new features) while limiting them to features within a rolling 12 month window from time of purchase. Apple doesn’t have the ability to gate features that way. ------ digi_owl Software, like books, only has a market as long as the distribution is a pain in the behind. Once the distribution is as easy as the press of a (virtual) button, the market basically evaporates. ------ kennydude SetApp is a great way to do subscriptions on macOS. It has lots of apps, and lets me try them whenever I want without really comprimising on much. ------ cprayingmantis I had to read this very carefully to determine if it was parody or not. This seems just like the old system of selling software. Get a free demo, sell the actual software, 12 months later add more features rinse and repeat. There will always be hold outs content with their feature set but there will always be people on the leading edge and it all balances out but this doesn't seem like anything particularly new or novel. ~~~ danpalmer In this model the user continues to get bug fixes (and likely new OS support) even after their licence expires. ~~~ nodamage Bug fixes make sense, but I wonder if it is reasonable to expect/provide perpetual OS support based on a single purchase? ~~~ JumpCrisscross How does one differentiate fixes and feature? For example, suppose a new TLS standard is adopted. This requires work to implement. Is the change a fix or an upgrade? Will the team be indefinitely required to issue updates to the old TLS? I like the agenda-pricing concept. But it feels like a poor-man’s compromise for a subscription. Why not permit downloads of an executable any time a sub is valid? ~~~ jarfil Easy: what's the feature you're selling? Is it "TLS 1.0" or "secure connections"?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NASA skips Titan Explorer to go back to Mars in 2016 - ck2 http://www.space.com/17195-nasa-mars-landing-mission-2016-launch.html ====== ck2 I was really rooting for this project: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer> Robotic boat over liquid sounds far more interesting with life potential? Maybe a few more years. ~~~ waterlesscloud From what I've read, this was the last opportunity for the Titan mission until 2040. ~~~ ck2 Oh that's horrible then, sigh. Well hopefully the public and funding won't get bored with Mars.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Immersive journalism uses VR to insert viewers directly into the story - maxufberg http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/journalisms-new-reality ====== aaron695 Ain't going to happen before AI. As a 'just so' story think of the radio play 'War of the Worlds' and how hard that is to do in video, then take that again to VR. VR/AR means rather than one story your telling multiple at once. The human hours is just prohibitively expensive. It currently pays off because of novelty, but that's it. What might work is raw footage of something in progress (Since the situation 'pays' for the 3D) but this is rare to non existent in proper journalism. Take the shots being fired in the Paris raid filmed by a 'citizen journalist'. All immersion would achieve is seeing into the photographers apartment. This drone footage would work, but it's less a story about Syria and more about war porn [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ELAa02TUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ELAa02TUY)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Active vs Passive investing - udkl http://avc.com/2016/07/active-vs-passive-investing ====== udkl Tldr: Investors must choose to be either active and concentrated or passive and diversified; big gains require investments of time, energy and intellect, in addition to capital; truly active investing limits the number of investments a person or firm can make; it's difficult to scale.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Think Google Fiber's fast? Nokia to show off tech that's 1,000 times faster - vezycash http://www.zdnet.com/article/think-google-fibers-fast-nokia-to-show-off-tech-thats-1000-times-faster/ ====== matt_wulfeck This is great news on the bandwidth front. Unfortunately we're so pitfully far behind on Fiber-to-the-home that it will be a long, long time until we see this realized as a speed increase. Large internet services providers will roll it out and still keep absurd bandwidth caps as a cash cow. Municipalities In largely populated areas will continue to overregulate the installation of fiber, making t prohibitively more expensive. Where's our Roosevelt when we need him/her?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Humans were once an endangered species - soundsop http://www.physorg.com/print183278038.html ====== hga The Earth is a rather hostile place when you use a megayear scale. Paleontologists and geologists have also found a variety of events (e.g, megacaldera such as Yellowstone cutting loose, meteor impacts) that are correlated with mass extinctions. We shouldn't tarry in establishing self- sustaining habitats off the Earth. ~~~ kiba Is there an organization who is carrying out the necessary task of establishing off-world colonies for humanity? If so, what is the website and how can individuals help? It is one thing to posit a need, but quite another to do it. ~~~ ajju A large number of private space companies (eg masten space) are working on building cheaper spacecrafts. That is the first step. Once we have a way to reach potential off-world colonies more cheaply (and thus conduct more extensive research, create a commercial payoff for creating one etc), establishing one will be a real possibility. ------ ramchip Nitpick: volcanoes cause 'volcanic winters', not 'nuclear winters'. ------ jrockway Don't worry, I'm sure we'll eventually kill ourselves off. ~~~ paulshort After millions of years of being forced to use our wits to survive combined with periods of inbreeding (resulting in a relatively narrow genome), humans are now a super-race of genetic mutants ahead of our time on the evolutionary scale. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if being too smart for our own good contributed to our demise. Edit: By "inbreeding" I mean - if the human population were reduced to a few thousand breeding individuals, and those individuals were also spreading or migrating into different areas of Africa, the middle East, Europe, etc. at the same time, that would mean much smaller groups of people who breed within their "community." It may have been thousands or tens of thousands of years before those different communities met up with each other and combined genetic material again. ~~~ ramchip Wouldn't inbreeding cause the _opposite_ of a super-race? Inheriting different genes from both parents can prevent a lot of problems; for example the fact that women have two copies of the X chromosome makes them a lot less likely to be color blind. Having a uniform gene pool means that people would end up with similar genes and be more likely to have diseases. I'm not sure if/why recombining after a long period of isolation and mutation would be better than staying together and just sharing mutations gradually. It's an interesting question though, there's problem some research paper somewhere that could tell us... ------ tokenadult The brotherhood of humankind is more than just a metaphor--it's a reality. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor> ------ nazgulnarsil we've been through the eye of the needle several times already. we just had (still have?) the nuclear one. we have what is IMO the biggest one coming up: AI.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
RPC and Its Offspring: Convenient, yet Fundamentally Flawed (2009) [pdf] - emmanueloga_ https://web.archive.org/web/20110629071740/http://qconlondon.com/dl/qcon-london-2009/slides/SteveVinoski_RPCAndItsOffspringConvenientYetFundamentallyFlawed.pdf ====== emmanueloga_ The ending notes are appropriate remarks given the time of the year :) > It’s almost 2010, folks — we can do WAY better > ✤ pull your head from the imperative language sand and learn functional > programming > ✤ the world is many-core and highly distributed, and the old ways aren’t > going to keep working much longer	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NY Times halves free views of news stories - taylorbuley http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/03/20/ny-times-halves-free-views-of-news-stories/ ====== jfasi Wait. We do all realize that you can read the article just by removing the arguments from the address, right? ------ stock_toaster In a related story, random internet user stock_toaster now reads fewer NY Times articles. ------ stevear If they halved their subscription fee I would sign up.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: iOS App Discovery Using Homescreen Screenshots and OCR - sfalbo https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/homescreen-genius-learn-about/id884502115?mt=8 ====== sfalbo Hi, I just released Homescreen Genius and I'd be thankful for any feedback. The app is pretty simple. You take a screenshot of your device's homescreen (or any other screen for that matter), upload it in the app, Homescreen Genius uses Tesseract OCR to get the app names, and then provides you suggestions based on apps that similar users have. I created this because I found the Tesseract OCR package and wanted to put it to use in some fashion so Homescreen Genius was created. Thanks in advance for any feedback - I really appreciate it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: sensors that export data? - petervandijck I'm trying to manage the humidity in my new house, and have a humidity meter. But it doesn't export data over time. I'd like it to have a usb port so that I can get data over time and put it on my computer. I can also imagine wanting to do this with other data (temperature, walking data, sleeping data, ...) that various sensors gather.<p>Are there any tools like this out there? Open source hardware projects that I can hack? Commercial tools? ====== gsivil We have just used something like that in our lab. You can check [http://www.itwatchdogs.com/product-detail- minigoose_ii-8.htm...](http://www.itwatchdogs.com/product-detail- minigoose_ii-8.html) it is a device connected with air flow/humidity/ Dew point/ temperature sensors and connected to the internet. The basic models starts from 200 dollars I think. If you want to contact me at my username at g mail I can link you to our lab's website to check the interface ------ brk You can buy sensors for things like that, but they'll tend to be expensive for what you get, eg: <http://www.tequipment.net/AmprobeTR300.html> If you like to hack around with micro-controllers then you can build something that does all that more for about the same price, but have a lot more flexibility. Google for things like "1-wire humidity sensor". The Dallas Semi 1-wire bus is widely supported with most micro controllers, and fairly easy to implement. ------ po Check out Bug Labs: <http://www.buglabs.net/> ------ zeynel1 Is this what you are looking for: <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596807740> Building Wireless Sensor Networks with ZigBee, XBee, Arduino, and Processing	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Survivorship bias – Wikipedia - rbanffy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias ======	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Daylight Saving Wastes Energy - muriithi http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120406767043794825-UOLcfJA8x9Gw9ozbCz77MiLmtaE_20080327.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top ====== gcv Fascinating stuff. I wish a northern state, like Montana, would try a similar experiment in half of its counties, and ditch daylight saving time for a year and see what happens. I suspect it would save money, too. On a slightly more hackerish note: I worked on a power trading system, and it would break like hell twice a year, on DST switch days. Because electricity trades on an hourly basis (except in Texas, which uses 15-minute intervals), everyone who deals with aggregating power flow or power over the course of a day, ends up writing a loop like "for (hour = 0; hour < 24; hour++) { ... }", which is totally wrong. The spring forward day has 23 hours, and the fall back day has 25. That code therefore breaks twice a year and loses money because (a) it needs to be fixed, and (b) it did its accounting wrong. I hope studies examining the economic efficiency of DST take this sort of thing into account. Probably not. ~~~ Electro Probably not, but I'm used to living way more north than Montana and actually more northern than London where the time change is based on for the UK. I have to say it is needed no matter the economic effect, when for over 2 months you see no sunlight what so ever during a working day it has an abysmal effect on worker efficiency. I have only observations to base this on, but workers start dropping off well before 'flu season'. I do a lot of work outside and I find the comments about DST harming farming to be irrelevant; the main one is that harvesting labour becomes in efficient as crops have to be harvested after the dew. If I didn't need workers at 6am I'd tell them to come in at 7 or 8am when the crops are ready to be harvested. That's just common sense; if I'm working outside, I'm not going until it's safe for me to do it and if its too dark I'll tell the customer I'm coming later, if they don't like it lump it. Although, on my more hackerish note: 2 million candela torch + power inverter = sun rise at 3am. I believe it's supposed to produce sunlight-like brightness over some 450m^2, although it isn't always useful and without it being hooked up to some form of power it's out of batteries within 15 minutes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing - megacorp https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/media/facebook-ad-boycott.html ====== salimmadjd Am I the only person who has a problem with this headline, "Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing" am I overreacting here or others feel the same? For me at the face of it's not incorrect, but it feels to me a certain deliberate wordsmithing is used to create a sense of growing momentum. What we don't know if these advertisers represent 1%, more or less than x% of Facebook's ad revenue. I do understand FB will not provide that info, but some real journalism and follow up from said companies could have gathered us the amount this boycott means. After all this suppose to be NYT. They do touch on this number, "smaller businesses that make up the bulk of its eight million advertisers have been considering their options" However, again they are carefully crafting their words in a way that it's not inaccurate but showing a larger problem. Instead of saying "one agency that manages 20 clients", or "we have heard from some advertisers" using "one agency", or "some advertisers" they are saying "advertisers" which to some readers will read as a lot of advertisers or a universal movement among advertisers. ~~~ skewart What’s more, the NY Times has a strong business interest in convincing advertisers not to advertise on Facebook. I’m a bit skeptical of anything they publish these days about Facebook, Google, and other companies that could potentially threaten their access to clicks, just given their financial incentives to weaken these companies as much as possible. ~~~ rossdavidh My thoughts exactly, they have a clear conflict of interest when covering this story. Although, to be honest, all of mainstream journalism seems way more biased and blatantly slanted than I recall from 20-30 years ago. Perhaps I am just better at noticing it now? ~~~ btilly You are not just better at noticing it. It really is more slanted. Journalism 20-30 years ago was mostly funded on a subscription model. In this model they work hard to maintain their reputation, so that people will trust them as an accurate source of news. Journalism today is mostly funded per click. Which means that the most important thing is a headline that grabs people's attention and causes them to click. The incentive is for the most outrageous and attention grabbing headline possible. With no incentive for being accurate - by the time you realize that the article is junk they've been paid and are looking for another sucker. If you're interested in a book length exposition of how this change in dynamics has changed the news landscape, I recommend [https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions- Manipulato...](https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions- Manipulator/dp/1591846285). The trends that it discusses have played out for another decade since it was written, but played out along the direction that it described. ~~~ gms The NYT operates on an online subscription model, no? ~~~ bobthepanda How much of a percentage of revenue is that subscription model vs ads, and how does that hold up to the historical split? ~~~ thorwasdfasdf i heard somewhere it was 60% subscription 40% ad, though I'm not sure. ------ wayne_skylar I find it so funny that Facebook hides behind "freedom of speech" when in fact what they do is the exact opposite. When everything you saw was cronological, you could make that argument. I write a message on my wall and everyone who follows me can see it if they scroll down far enough. Most importantly, the only criteria used was the time it was submitted which I think everyone can agree is fair. By prioritizing certain posts based on what the algorithm thinks will make you stay on the site longer, they are prioritizing, thus interfering with free speech. When I post something, my message will have a lower chance of reaching some of my followers. How can facebook justify tipping the scales for one type of message over another and call it free? ~~~ sneak The (legitimate) argument is that freedom of speech extends to facebook getting to decide what, and in what order, information is displayed on facebook.com. To dictate a chronological order, or to demand that they publish every single thing that is submitted to them, is a restriction of their freedom of editorial expression _on their own website_. ~~~ satokema_work The (also legitimate) argument is that freedom of speech should extend to privately-owned de facto commons, and is a concept beyond the enumeration in the American Bill of Rights. ~~~ phatfish I agree there is a problem with private corporations that control publishing platforms with such a large reach. Twitter and Facebook are really the only ones at the moment with that power (in the "anglosphere" at least). However, for laws to be created that force them to publish posts that fall under "free speech" their algorithms must be fully open and auditable. Otherwise they still hold the power to sensor, or their algorithms could be covertly gamed by those in the know. Otherwise your speech might not be the same, or as free as mine, but who would know? ------ tech-historian Serious questions: Are the people that work at Facebook proud to work there? What is morale like inside that place? When someone asks you what you do, and you say "I work for Facebook," what is their typical reaction? Not trying to be snarky. I'm genuinely curious how these perceptions/feelings might have changed over the past few years. ~~~ erikw I too am curious about the internal motivations of people who work for Facebook. Something I've noticed about myself is that I would be okay with working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which makes machines that literally kill people, yet I could not picture myself working at Facebook. I struggle to square this morally, because I also believe that defense contractors have a greater net negative impact on society than Facebook does, but there is something "icky" to me about Facebook. I used to commute with a group of folks from Facebook, Oracle, and Amazon, and none of them seemed to have any moral qualms about their employers. My buddy from Oracle invited me to apply to work on his team, and in explaining why I couldn't consider working at Oracle, I mentioned some recent terrible thing Oracle had done in the open source community. His response was that Amazon contributed even less open source (which I believe is true). So I think in the end, the internal justification is "Yeah, maybe I'm contributing to something immoral, but it's less immoral than X & Y". ~~~ esperent > I would be okay with working for a US defense contractor, ie a company which > makes machines that literally kill people The thought of working for a company like this makes me feel physically ill. Soldiers can at least feel like they are working to defend a country they believe in. Weapons companies will sell killing machines to anyone with money. Few things in the world make me feel the visceral disgust that these companies engender. By contrast Facebook is icky ... In the sense that there's one naive greedy idiot pulling the strings and he refuses to accept the damage he's causing. Weapons companies and the people who work for them know that their killing tools are sold indiscriminately and will end up in the hands of tyrants and terrorists across the world. ~~~ eanzenberg What damage is Zuck causing again? ~~~ adamsea Damage to society by denying the role - via inaction, if nothing else - the company he leads plays in coordinated campaigns of deceit and disinformation aimed not just to undermine public discourse but also the functioning of democractic government itself (via targeted political advertising and misinformation). Which isn't to say that moderation at Facebook's scale is an easy problem - it's not. And balancing freedom of speech with some degree of accountability and acknowledging empirically verifiable truths is difficult. But, buy the ticket, take the ride. He's a billionaire. FB makes oodles and oodles of money. They just don't want to do it because it would cost them money. Eventually laws will catch up, in one way or another, and the same way other media outlets are (imperfectly) regulated, new-media outlets such as FB, Google, etc, will be as well, IMHO. ------ avernon Maybe I'm cynical, but I would think this has more to do with the cost of ads going up so much. If you were already thinking of reducing spend on FB, why not get a little PR out of it? Also, since the cost of FB ads has been going up over the last several years, that means there is no shortage of demand for ads on FB. ~~~ admn2 Yeah, pretty much all the big DTC brands (Allbirds, Away, Warby, OV, etc.) all have retail store fronts and "showrooms" now across the US. I always just assumed if they were spending $1mm+/month on FB ads, it wasn't a very difficult decision to move $20k/month to a store in a big city and see what kind of lead gen and brand awareness that yields. ~~~ 8ytecoder Personal anecdote - stores resulted in a much better conversion but not a huge uptick in acquisition. ~~~ jonathanpeterwu Can you explain this a bit further, long tail which was better ROI ------ tomp Nice. I like that companies are putting their money where their mouth is, and not just doing cheap virtue signalling, like posting a black square on Instagram. I think, and hope, however, that Facebook will come out victorious; (1) freedom of speech is important, (2) it's not up to Facebook to be the arbitrer of what's allowed or not (it's up to the law), (3) advertisers need Facebook more than Facebook needs them, and (4) sooner or later companies will learn that SJW-ing is at worst negative (each company could easily come under attack itself) and at best irrelevant (did Pepsi suffer any long-term consequences for the backlash against it a year or 2 ago? Did Gillete gain a lot for publishing its anti-toxic masculinity ad? I doubt it.) ~~~ tzs Having the law as the sole arbiter of what is allowed or not would be terrible for free speech. The problem is that we have an overwhelming amount of information being produced, so that people have a hard time evaluating all they are exposed to. Furthermore, we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive, or too gullible, or perhaps just even stupid. Finally, on top of that we have many information producers who are _trying_ to cause harm ranging from people just doing it for fun to countries trying to undermine each other's stability. A society _must_ find some way to prevent or at least limit those who are intentionally trying to harm people from taking advantage of the overly trusting, naive, gullible, and stupid. The law is a monopoly. Using it to try to address that problem will tend toward overly broad restrictions on speech, with little or no recourse for those whose speech should not have been included. It's far better for it to be handled by Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. If Facebook won't let me talk about some particular topic I do have alternatives. They might not reach as far so I might have to go to some serious effort to contact like minded people and get them to agree to discuss my topic on some other platform--but I _can_. ~~~ tomp You're conflating a few issues. Facebook is being boycotted ostensibly for failing to combat _hate_ speech, whereas your comment is mostly written as a argument to censor _fake_ news. Classical mote-and-bailey fallacy. Twitter deleting bots claiming that Obama was born in Africa? Fine. Twitter tagging Trump's warning that any squatters in Washington DC will be treated according to law as "promoting violence against specific groups" or "abusive"? That's quite transparent political bias. Sure, you probably wrote your comment because you oppose Trump on political views and you support Twitter acting against promoting those views, but at least be transparent about it; don't claim that tech giants are just trying to protect the "naive, gullible, stupid" is gas-lighting. Last but not least, do you have any evidence for this? IMO it's mostly just used for journalists to discredit people they disagree with (e.g. Trump or Brexit voters). _> we have a lot of people who are just too trusting, or too naive, or too gullible, or perhaps just even stupid._ ~~~ danans > Trump's warning that any squatters in Washington DC will be treated > according to law What is this law against peaceful protest that you cite? And under what statute is the use of violence against those protesters sanctioned by the law? ~~~ bhupy Squatting + Vandalism != peaceful protest If a group of people peacefully protest on my lawn, they are not Constitutionally protected to do so, no matter how "peaceful" their assembly. If I call the cops to forcefully remove them from my property, I would be acting within the bounds of the law. If a group of people spray-paints my business, and I call on the police to reprimand them, that is again within the confines of the law. The President tweeting about doing the same is a simple extension of this. You may disagree with the law in question (as is your right), but it's a bit silly to suggest that tweeting about enforcement of the law (no matter how unjust you think it is), should be considered beyond the pale on a global platform. ~~~ danans > Squatting + Vandalism != peaceful protest Agreed that vandalism is not peaceful protest. > If a group of people peacefully protest on my lawn, they are not > Constitutionally protected to do But occupying a public space (not a private lawn) in protest - what you refer to as squatting - is absolutely peaceful protest. Lafayette Square is not POTUS' private lawn. ~~~ bhupy > Lafayette Square is not POTUS' private lawn But St Johns church is not a public space, and vandalizing it is not legal. Even in public commons, vandalizing/toppling public statues is currently not legal. Trump's tweets/posts are strictly about reprimanding this behavior. Again, there is a growing orthodoxy that holds that this behavior _should not_ be reprimanded, but tweeting about enforcing those existing laws is well within the realm of reasonable discourse, especially for a political leader. ~~~ danans > But St Johns church is not a public space Lafayette Square is a public place, and that is where POTUS cleared peaceful protectors with force, so that he could walk across it for his photo op at the church. If it were an issue of protecting St John's Church property, they could have cleared just that property, and brought the president in with a helicopter. But the whole point was to demonstrate the show of force against the protesters. You appear to be focusing on St John's Church's private property with the goal of distracting attention from the public place where the actual use of force against peaceful protesters took place: Lafayette Square. One doesn't need to be a liberal to call out the shamefulness of that incident. In fact the hardly liberal James Mattis did exactly that, as did the other general who was caught in the photo op. ~~~ bhupy I think you have that backwards. The "photo op" incident occurred weeks ago, and James Mattis rightfully condemned it. The current spate of boycotts appear to be in response to Facebook's refusal to remove a post by Trump _directly_ referring to the "Black House Autonomous Zone". That's why the focus is on St. John's church and statues — it's what is _currently happening right now_. I will include the text of Trump's post: "There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!" This has nothing to do with the photo op incident, and the willingness to focus on it distracts attention from the private place where actual vandalism and squatting is currently taking place. It's a valid (if crass) expression of a willingness to enforce the law, no matter how much people may disagree with it. ~~~ danans Yes, it sounds like we were talking about different incidents. I personally support Facebook's ability to make the decision to either allow or disallow president's posts - within the parameters of the law - regardless of whether I would agree with their decision. The question is whether the parameters of law allow for a public official to issue credible threats of violence again citizens over mass media channels, and under what conditions. The actual use of force by this president in his shameful photo op incident in front of the church has clearly demonstrated without a shadow of doubt that his threat of _disproportional_ violence against protesters - even for trivial purposes - is credible. The legality of all this is not a settled issue, and is something the courts may have to decide. ~~~ bhupy The courts have already decided. The Brandenburg v Ohio precedent establishes the "imminent lawless action" test. Issuing threats of (legal) force against citizens that they perceive to be breaking the law fails the "imminent lawless action" test, and is currently within the parameters of the law. ~~~ danans From the Brandenburg v Ohio wiki page: > The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that > government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law > violation Brandenburg was an individual private citizen advocating "abstractly" for violence against black and Jews as a representative of his private organization (the KKK). His speech rights were protected then by the case. However, we will almost certainly have court cases in the near future that will test the protections of hate speech, which is what we would more readily call Brandenburg's speech today. POTUS is a public official and in this incident was speaking in his role as a public official with the power to use force, and issuing a concrete threat against a specific target. He is speaking as the government itself because he is invoking the government's powers. It's not at all clear that Brandenburg v Ohio protects this sort of speech. There is plenty for the courts to still consider. ~~~ bhupy > POTUS is a public official and in this incident was speaking in his role as > a public official with the power to use force, and a concrete threat against > a concrete target. Yes, but that use of force is not lawless. Police use of force against vandalism is currently legal. Calling for that is also legal, because it fails the "lawless" portion of the "imminent lawless action" test. Similarly, if POTUS calls for war against a specific nation (or group), it is within his rights to do that, no matter how violent or deadly war may be. War isn't a lawless action (for better or for worse). As such, the Commander in Chief declaring the intent to call on the legislature to approve a war is also protected, for the same reason. ~~~ danans > Similarly, if POTUS calls for war against a specific nation (or group), it > is within his rights to do that, no matter how violent or deadly war may be. Calling for war against a foreign adversary, yes. But for violence against domestic protesters - not clear that Brandenburg v Ohio protects that, regardless of whether the violence is lawful, and to what degree it is lawful. The use of violence by public officials is not a blanket right, and courts will likely consider the types of situation where particular levels of violence are legal or not. Also, there are specific legal prohibitions against using the military against domestic targets, which is one of the things Mattis was so incensed about in the photo op incident. The administration would like to claim they have the option of the Insurrection Act, which will again have to be tested in courts. Calling protests insurrection, even those that commit vandalism, is false on its face. ~~~ bhupy > The administration would like to claim they have the option of the > Insurrection Act, which will again have to be tested in courts. Calling > protests insurrection, even those that commit vandalism, is false on its > face. We're not talking about classifying anything as "insurrection" here. Given the context of the tweet in question, we are strictly talking about vandalism and trespassing, and we're talking about classifying it as "obstruction of the law", which is explicitly carved out in the text of the Insurrection Act. I'm not sure if you can make a strong case that vandalism and trespassing are NOT an obstruction of the law. If a mid-20th century Arkansas school refusing to desegregate can be considered an obstruction of the law, so too can vandalism/trespassing. The POTUS declaring the intent to call on the legislature to approve the Insurrection Act against those that are objectively obstructing the law is protected by the Constitution, and you'd have to really stretch yourself to suggest that this fails the imminent lawless action test. And this is also all assuming that POTUS is talking about using the military. He could also be talking about just calling on the police force to just enforce the existing laws. The statement is vague enough that it's legal on its face, but even in the non-charitable interpretation pretty clearly fails the Brandenburg test. ------ throwaway_jobs It seems the pandemic and unemployment is finally causing voodoo economics (trickle down economics) to reverse course and perhaps cause trickle up economics, where the multi-billion dollar corporations and rich alike will begin to feel the pinch of poverty on a massive scale trickle up. Unfortunately while taxpayers got their $1,200 Checks they were robbed blind of over $4T to the FED which went directly to stabilize the publicly traded companies. If it weren’t for that, we would have already seen bankruptcies on a massive scale from publicly traded companies...instead the markets are back where the were pre-covid. But at some point they will have to admit there can’t be a recovery when there are no consumers left. ~~~ camillomiller I'm frankly flabbergasted by what's going on with the markets. If anyone thought stocks were still somehow a projection of reality and an indicator of expectations on the future of a company's performance, well, that's clearly not the case anymore. I am really scared that a real devastating collapse is still looming, but I frankly have no clue of when that could happen and what could actually trigger it. ~~~ jfengel It is baffling, and I've been expecting a crash for a decade... which is the problem. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. Right now it's kind of persistently slightly irrational. A quick-and-dirty measure of its sanity is the P/E ratio: how much money are the publicly listed companies actually making? Right now, the number is around 22[1], meaning a dollar invested in the market takes 22 years to pay itself back purely in terms of corporate profits. That's a return of about 3%. Numbers over 20 are generally considered a sign that the market is overheated. They peaked at around 45 and 65 right before the 90s and 2000s crashes. So there is revenue there, and not entirely out of line with stock prices, but not entirely line with them either. None of that takes coronavirus into account; that's current price with last quarter's earnings. But if you assume that coronavirus is only temporary (it may not be, but let's be optimistic for a second) it means that long term the numbers are calling for a crash... eventually. One of these days. Longer than you can remain solvent while shorting it. Probably. In other words, I've got no idea what's going on. The markets have been weirdly stable (in price-to-earnings terms) for the past decade, at a number that's too optimistic, before coronavirus. Surely the inevitable at-least- short-term loss of earnings should have corrected that, but it hasn't. So either people are thinking very long term, or they're just nuts. [1] [https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe- ratio](https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio) ~~~ dehrmann I've started ignoring P/E because , among other reasons, it doesn't account for cash reserves. If you have two similar companies, but one is sitting on more cash, it should be worth more, but its P/E makes it look overpriced relative to the other. ------ hprotagonist I wonder how much of the elephant in the room, which is "ad-tech kind of doesn't work so great", people are going to be willing to say out loud. ~~~ mattlondon Based on some personal experience from perhaps 7 or 8 years ago, it can work for driving sales. However it required quite a lot of effort. It wasn't just throw some money into the ads and wait for the returns - you needed to basically spend a full-time job pulling levers and prodding buttons to find out where the "sweet spot" was and then make sure you keep up with the moving target over the following days weeks and months. If you were lucky and your business was selling the "right" things (i.e. large margin items) you could do quite well. E.g. it might cost you $15-20 in ads to make one sale - that is net-positive if the margin on your items is large. So some fashion, furniture, holidays etc a $20+ Cost-per-acquisition is a bargain as you just paid $20 to make a $150 profit. If you are competing for common ad space/keywords and you have a low-margin business then you're probably not going to do so well since you might be paying $20 to sell something that costs $9.99 or whatever. Of course, there is then the question of would you have made that $150 profit without spending the $20? Or did you actually make more than one sale from those $20 worth of ads (e.g. in-store sales etc in addition to purchases made online). I am not involved in online advertising now, but at the time that was the trillion dollar question that everyone was trying to answer... no idea if it is solved now. ------ creaghpatr Given what they are trying to do to Scott Alexander, it's hard to take NYT's reporting angle seriously. ------ avsteele This is a poor article. It mixes up several different issues and lumps them together as if they were one thing. Strongly ideological companies aren't going to behave like the bulk of their customers. I read this as yet another shot from the NYT against tech in general. It's propaganda. ------ donw After the SSC debacle, NYT is likely to learn itself a thing or two about boycotts. ~~~ intsunny If we punish respected organizations (of any kind) for every gaffe, we would not have any left. In an era where the journalists are more under attack than ever, we might want to remember it is easier to tear things down than build them up. ~~~ Veen What about gaffes like the 1619 Project, the shortcomings and errors of which the NYT steadfastly refused to correct in the face of criticisms from historians. At a certain point, when the gaffes all line up in one direction, one might reasonably suspect an underlying motive. ~~~ ciarannolan What were some of the issues with the 1619 Project? ~~~ solarwind The main thesis of the 1619 project was that the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. This is categorically false according to actual historians, and so the NYT had to issue a correction (some 7 months later). None of the leading scholars of the whole period from the Revolution to the Civil War were consulted on the project, yet now it is being taught in some public schools ~~~ Veen > yet now it is being taught in some public schools That's the real problem. Newspapers get things wrong all the time. There's a conversation, people put forth their views pro and anti, and everyone makes up their own mind. But making a newspaper story that has come under fire from a huge number of respectable scholars part of the school curriculum for children is nakedly ideological. ~~~ catalogia I think/hope everybody recognizes that mistakes happen. In this particular case I think it goes beyond a mere mistake. Some points to consider: The 1619 Project refers not merely to "a newspaper story". Originally it was 100 page magazine with ten essays, a variety of poems and stories, etc. It has since become an ongoing multimedia project. Secondly, as mentioned above, the NYTs has not been particularly responsive to criticism from actual historians. ~~~ cmdshiftf4 > In this particular case I think it goes beyond a mere mistake. I think that supports another point made above: >At a certain point, when the gaffes all line up in one direction, one might reasonably suspect an underlying motive. The NYT seems to be beyond "gaffes" at this point, and be entirely focused on promoting their ideology. ------ moksly I wonder how much of it is Facebook being unwilling to be editorial and how much of it is then being unable to moderate a couple of billion users. Either way, they might not get a choice. The EU is going to regulate them more and more. My own country is passing a law to force platforms to remove child pornography within 24 hours of it being reported as an example of where it starts. Won’t be long before we make enabling nazi groups planning hate crimes illegal either. ~~~ HeroOfAges No one has a problem with anyone making nazi groups planning hate crimes illegal. My biggest concern is Facebook deciding who is a "nazi" and what constitutes a hate crime. My belief (backed by scientific fact) that biological sex is real and immutable is enough to have me branded as a "nazi". The statement "males are not females" is enough to be considered hate speech. Saying, "males are not females" could be a hate crime. ~~~ sneak As usual, context is everything in communication. "Males are not females" may be accurate when referring to biological sex, but in the context it is most commonly used (as harassment and as a neoconservative tribal signifier) it is referring to gender, and is roughly equivalent to saying "the gender you have now should match the gender you were assigned at birth, or your gender identity is illegitimate". It's similar to saying "all lives matter". Of course they do, but the context in which its said indicates that it's an opposition to the explicit statement about black lives mattering, a de-focusing and dismissal. "All lives matter" or "males are not females" are not incorrect statements, but in the vast majority of the times they are used on the internet, they are used to express hatred of a group and the active dismissal of that group's efforts to achieve equal human rights. The context in which they are used makes them hateful. Hiding behind the "but it's scientific fact!" is simply a deflection from the fact that it is an expression of hate in the context in which it is used. I shouldn't have to explain this, honestly. Please stop acting like a jerk to people online. ~~~ HeroOfAges Since when does the truth need context? If I tweet "males are not females" on Twitter with no context, they will ban my account. Also, if I want to say "the gender you have now should match the gender you were assigned at birth, or your gender identity is illegitimate", that's precisely what I'll say, but I tend to speak directly. Have you considered you might be projecting if you can read the literal words "males are not females" and conclude a person intends to say, "the gender you have now should match the gender you were assigned at birth, or your gender identity is illegitimate"? That seems like quite a leap. ~~~ perl4ever I'd say the truth value of any possible statement is _entirely_ derived from context. Any possible statement could appear on a sign from nowhere in an infinite empty universe purely out of quantum fluctuations, but it would have no meaning without the context of a universe like ours. Every statement has a context in which it expresses the truth, and many others in which it is false. And people get into conflicts about the meta-issue of whose context is right. Mach's principle is kind of an analogy I'm thinking of. ------ 1235711 One thing to consider is that this is largely a self-correcting problem for Facebook due to the auction model for ads. As money leaves the pool, price per conversion will tend to go down automatically for everyone else. If you think other advertisers will leave money on the table to make a point then you haven't worked in business very long. ------ franze I wrote about it here and I stand with it "Paid Ads are a Trap" [https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/ads-are-a- trap-80df01d2...](https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/ads-are-a- trap-80df01d2fbaf?source=friends_link&sk=ed2680c921a7bb5a0b147b44a9a14b1e) (Medium free to read link) The ad system of Google and Facebook is obviously not created to benefit the businesses which book ads, but Fb and G. The business should be at best held at minimum but viable profit, highest cost for ads. At worst "burn through all your money with us". I by now came to eh conclusion that "paids (ads) growth" is scheme with only Fb and G as the profiteers. ------ newsclues I hope government gets on-board. I frequently see government of Ontario and Canada advertising on Facebook and its poorly targeted and it makes me mad ------ globular-toast I have mixed feelings about Facebook. I was one of the first people in my friend group to boycott Facebook back when it _really_ wasn't cool to do so: back in 2008 or so. I did so for reasons of privacy. As someone who works with data for a living, I know full well the risks people are taking by using Facebook and I also see how little the general public understand about this. So I boycotted them. But nobody talks about privacy any more. The current backlash against Facebook seems to be due to them not wanting to censor the platform in quite the way that users want them to censor the platform. It seems everyone is happy with the censorship---because like anyone who has ever been happy with censorship they don't believe the readership is intelligent enough to read certain words---but they are unhappy that the censorship isn't being conducted in a way that benefits them. Back in 2008 I thought it was simple: just don't use Facebook. Maybe it was that simple back then. But not now. This internet thing really seems to be turning into the great problem of our time and I fully expect it to cause several major crises before we figure it out. ------ code4tee For better or worse money talks. Advertiser pullouts have been an effective change mechanism in many other cases. TV personalities doing controversial things were typically done in when the advertisers pulled their money. Until then nothing happened. Facebook does a lot of cool things but it’s only sustainable as a business if the advertising dollars keep flowing. Shut that off in any appreciable quantity and things will get ugly there real quick. ------ rootusrootus While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come back. ~~~ aphextron >"While it might affect Facebook’s bottom line for a short while, until users start moving away from FB nothing really will change. Advertisers will come back." Counterpoint: users already have moved away, and that's why advertisers are able to do this without hesitation now. FB is still growing in the third world, but I don't know a single person in the US under 30 that still uses it. ~~~ jjice As a Uni student, I still see people use Facebook, but it's a select group of people. It's the same < 5% of the people I interact with regularly. Most people I know use Facebook just for events so you can invite someone to a fundraiser or party. On the other side, I see Instagram doing fantastic among my friends, and it gets way less hate from them, despite being very openly owned by Facebook (it says it on the splash screen). ------ ecmascript So because Mark Zuckerberg won't censor people with different opinions he is complacent in spreading fake news and hate? Wow, that kind of rhetoric is dangerous imo. For once I actually think Facebook have made the right call. Censoring people is wrong and Facebook should refrain from doing it. Let me decide what is true and false, I don't need Facebook or other people to decide that for me. Good job Facebook, thanks for standing up for free speech. ~~~ abtom Facebook as a bastion of free speech? That's not something you hear often. I don't even even want to dig up the old examples of Zuckerberg bending over backwards for China, here's a recent example from Vietnam - [https://in.reuters.com/article/vietnam-facebook/exclusive- fa...](https://in.reuters.com/article/vietnam-facebook/exclusive-facebook- agreed-to-censor-posts-after-vietnam-slowed-traffic-sources-idINKCN2232KP) ~~~ bzb3 They only censor when the government forces them to. In other words they do the minimum to comply with the local law. Isn't that what we were looking for? ~~~ abtom If they were only complying with court orders / subpoenas that's what would be called doing the minimum to comply with the law. They have done way more than that in the past - giving out tools to governments to enable mass surveillance and takedown of posts/accounts. Whatever content any government agency has a problem with is taken down immediately. Don't be mistaken. This is not Facebook standing up for your rights. It's them not wanting to stop fake news from spreading on their platform because that would hurt the bottomline. ------ djohnston nyt will never waste an opportunity to paint their usurper as a failing company.. i am highly confident that this will all amount to nothing ~~~ mintym It gives them political cover to ban content and act as if they are "responding to pressure" but still "striving to be neutral". ------ 0xy This is amazing, because it means less competition and my business will get better marketing ROI. I fully support other businesses reducing advertising. ------ naringas I for one am thankful that thanks to facebook there's not only google. ------ acd I boycott Facebook as a platform for privacy reasons. ------ admiralspoo The NYT is no longer credible ------ eanzenberg Wishful thinking from the nyt ------ mesozoic Wow they're in trouble. Both the left and right are not happy with them. The left cause they won't censor enough and the right because they sensor too much and put in a likely bias review committee. The Project Veritas video was pretty exposing and will likely fuel a senate investigation. ------ buboard Maybe instead of trying to damage fb directly, nytimes could instead write about the countless social communities that facebook destroyed abd sidelined over the years. It s not long ago that nytimes was writing praises about facebook, we remember. Unfortunately these days it doesn’t seem that nytimes holds itself to a higher moral standard than fb [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12...](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/smallbusiness/12guide.html) [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/technology/08class.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tell HN: I'm giving 4 domains away to a good home - andr http://alek.posterous.com/4-domains-free-to-a-good-home You could also post your pitch as a comment here. ====== petercooper I gave away a bunch of domains a few months back (I posted about them here). Of what I gave away, I don't think any has been put to good use, and one of them has been used to spam my own damn site.. Sorta lost the will to give on that one anymore. (Update: Of course, if someone came to me and begged me for a domain I was just sitting on.. I'd probably be OK with giving it up!) ~~~ stevejalim hi petercooper - sorry to hear that the great domain giveway I sparked (referenced elsewhere in these comments) didn't pan out for you. Failed for me too, as it happens - no one wanted anything I had to give away, and I had such specific target markets in mind that I just couldn't find one that I could use -- basically the same issue that meant I couldn't find a good unregistered domain in the first place ------ soult Your post got me interested: Do you think that HN could pull of another thread like this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652952> ------ mortenjorck massivedebate.com: One big 72pt bold, binary question at the top (i.e. "Should the US healthcare reform bill have been passed?) Two columns. You can scroll down the page and read the top-rated arguments on both sides, then choose to type into either the "for" or "against" column field, and once you've made your argument, you can go back up the column (and into the "new arguments" view) and vote up and down _only the side that you chose._ After a few days, the question rotates, and it starts all over again. ~~~ leftnode I developed a site similar to that for a friend of mine: <http://nooges.com> Basically he posts a daily comment through a backend forum, and then people can agree or disagree or talk smack or whatever. You don't have to be registered to post, but if you're registered under the forums and logged in and post, it'll show your username. I do like the name massivedebate.com, I'll suggest it to him to see if he's interested in it. ------ andr If you post your request/pitch as a comment here you'll get bonus points for courage. ~~~ prawn I don't need any more domains or side projects, but I've always thought that large-scale online conversations (Slashdot, Huff Po, etc) are still yet to be done that well. MassiveDebate.com could be a suitable domain for someone tackling the problem. As a reader, one problem is in getting an overall feel for the 'lean' of the conversation. There must be a way to incorporate this in large discussions, or to categorise posts by theme ('Thinks murder sentence given was too short', 'Thinks sentence given too long', 'Discussing increased police attention for bikie gangs', etc). Or identify key contributors by post volume or karma within a thread. Or provide ways for a reader to seek out arguments with people they disagree with, or to mostly see like-minded commentors (confirmation bias). Another problem for readers is knowing where to start. Oldest topics first or newest? Randomised order? I've wondered (half-baked idea) about topics along a horizontal axis with responses hanging down the vertical axis from each parent topic. Might be something in that, or could just be a usability disaster. Or maybe the viewport is fixed (no horiz scrollbar) but you hit arrows to each side to browse top-level topics? Each sub-topic could have a header that included info about the originator, key contributors within, general lean of the contents ('Strongly favours those that think the sentence was too light.'). Another issue is in finding the most worthwhile comments (Slashdot has moderation and so on that can be helpful but I've only ever used it as a set- and-forget thing to browse at +2 with Funny discounted heavily). The biggest news network in Australia doesn't even have this (or threading, or anything useful) in its commenting system. It's flat, no notifications, no ownership of an alias, no prevention of people impersonating others, no up/down vote - and it's been like that for years! As a contributor, a big problem is the perception and reality that a lot of comments are drive-bys. Forcing, encouraging or using a default setting of email notification could help there, but in a way that doesn't leave you diving for the off-switch once the replies start getting heavy. I think the PHP BB (or maybe it's a competing forum I'm thinking of) system of sending one alert only until you return to view the thread has merit. Providing quality tools/experience for regular contributors could encourage people to hang around and build up their karma within the system, etc. How do you tackle a 500+-post conversation? Is it even possible? ~~~ jodrellblank I dislike the way that massive debates turn into selective replies, and think it would be good to try a debate of 2 sides, instead of a debate of 500 serial replies. When you visit the site, you see the current state, and you can look down the points and rebuttals on either side and contribute to those bits specifically and 'push' the center line one way or the other. Tug-o-war style, not HN comment style. Not sure how well it would work in reality - I'm guessing a bit tediously. ~~~ ErrantX This was my thinking too... pick (or have users submit) some option A or option B news stories and then give then let people post debate comments/points for either choice. Upvotes should hopefully drag good comments to the top - then perhaps a "show of hands" to decide the issue Fighting trolls would be hard. ------ fizz972 I'd like to have coolthingtodo.com and host a site where people could share cool things to do in different situations. For example: * When you're drunk and think you got a cool new domain name on your mind -> Write it down on some note and only buy it the next morning ------ mikeyur I own _wantrepreneur.net_ and I can't think of anything to do with it. If anyone wants to use it, let me know and I can transfer it over to you (just need an account at namecheap) comment if you have any ideas for it, or shoot me an email m[]mikeyur[]com ------ axod Not being funny, but these are pretty terrible domains IMHO Why did you register them?! ------ some1else I'd like to make an experimental semantic relevance matcher for twitter on TWANQ. The plan is to analyze and relate tweets using OpenCYC (or even WordNET at first, but I want to try and drop OpenCYC in the mix). It would enable you to possibly start meaningful conversations with people in your extended social graph (the degree of separation would probably be set by a computational limitation on the server-side). Edit: If anyone has experience with OpenCYC or is interested in collaborating, please get in touch via srdjan@filmit.si ------ megamark16 If I pick up any more side projects my wife will kill me :-) With that being said, I bet someone could do something pretty cool and unique with some of those. ------ chime My domain onyourcell.com is expiring soon and I do not plan on renewing it. Let me know if anyone wants it before it expires. ~~~ arethuza Why not try selling it on sedo.com - I purchased a domain there last year and was fairly happy with the way things worked out. ~~~ chime Honestly, not worth the time/effort. I highly doubt anyone will give me $100+ for it. Plus I hate domain-squatters. I don't want to do anything remotely similar to them. Lots of folks here on HN make phone apps. I've had onyourcell.com for 7+ yrs now and many of the things I originally wanted to do with it are being done by Google for free (restaurant listing, directions etc.) So if someone wants to do anything interesting with it, you are more than welcome to take it off my hands at no charge. ------ carbocation I'd like to make dateahipster a soft redirect to chatroulette. ~~~ andr Done! Should kick in after DNS updates. ~~~ carbocation .Hah! Awesome. If only I could be on the other end when someone first discovers what it really means to 'dateahipster'. ------ paraschopra Well I can imagine the weirdest thing ever: just because you are giving away the domains for free, some cool kid will get an idea for a startup. ~~~ axod As has been said a billion times before, the idea is the easy bit. ------ chime I own slickforms.com. You're welcome to take it for free. ------ yan I'll throw mine in also: sansvowels.com ------ clistctrl I love the concept of dateahipster.com, however its been my experience that hipsters hate other hipsters.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Visualizing the ACLU Twitter matches as campaigns - ccorda http://match.patronage.org/campaign/11 ====== ccorda This is just a proof of concept, but it's pretty close to being usable. We built it with real time data via Twitter's streaming API and Firebase. Converting the attachments into data was done via Google's Cloud Vision API. We wrote a bit more of an overview of the campaign as a whole on Medium as well [https://m.patronage.org/sacca-and-the-700k-twitter- match-76b...](https://m.patronage.org/sacca-and-the-700k-twitter- match-76b8452eae9b#.dq7rdzjim) ~~~ jeffgreco Impressed the Cloud Vision API worked so well.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is formal education important? (not for 37signnals) - terpua http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/700-ask-37signals-is-formal-education-important ====== richcollins It is only important for pedigree and networking ------ sriram_sun <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>. Search for "degree".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
FCC votes to overturn net neutrality rules - oori http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39973787 ====== oori quote: "Americans have until mid-August to share their views with the FCC"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Does anyone make a lot of animated gifs? - njoglekar How do you make them? Would love to chat with you. ====== Peroni Took me about 10 minutes to learn how to create gifs using this guide: [http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/build-animated-gifs-in- pho...](http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/build-animated-gifs-in-photoshop/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How much equity for first engineer when there is no salary involved? - goostavos How much equity should you ask for if you're an engineer joining a company for <i>exclusively</i> equity? I would be the first engineer and present from day one (though not a founder).<p>This would be a part-time moonlighting thing for all involved. Still though, having no salary obviously puts me in a much more risky position. I'll be trading life / hobbies / free-time for a large "maybe." That risk should be reflected in the equity, right?<p>Going off Paul Graham's Equity Equation, the small skunk works aspect of project, and the fact that it doesn't get built without an engineer means that I'd expect to ask in the high range, like, 30-40%. However, it's really tough from reading around online to tell if this is reasonable or not.<p>What are the reasonable equity ranges for this situation? ====== davismwfl I get the idea, but in reality there is no fair equity position unless you are considered a co-founder. If you are considered a co-founder then this is workable, but basically you need to have an equal say in all things, otherwise the company needs to find a way to pay you. To be clear, equity is a promise that is broken in all but a few percentage of cases, and even when it isn't broken entirely many times it is nowhere near what you were promised or believed would be the outcome. I say you must be considered and treated as a co-founder because you are taking the same risk the founders are and you need to be treated equally and be able to have unrestricted equity, full voting etc. This mostly prevents them from creating a share class now or later to minimize your payout, or to dilute you first before their shares are diluted. Whatever you do, don't do a deal like this without a lawyer helping you get it all in writing correctly to protect you. If they object to that then you should run away from this deal. To be fair, I have done this type of deal once, where I took only equity for work (and I had most of these protections but not all and not co-founder "status") but I will never do it again without being a founder/co-founder. There are just so many ways to be screwed, even by well meaning founders who just are naive to how investors and business works. It is also easy for people to speak about being fair when a multi-million dollar payout is just a dream, but people change when the money is really there and they see themselves "losing" millions to "non-founders". Not saying all people are like this, many are great and wouldn't be douches, but you have to protect yourself from those situations no matter what. And good founders won't object to you having those protections in place because they were never going to be the ones that tried to screw you in the first place. Lots of lawsuits and insane amounts of money gets paid to lawyers because people don't protect themselves up front and get things clear and in writing. ~~~ greenyoda If this person is treated as an employee (with no decision-making authority) rather than as a co-owner, they might have the legal status of an employee and be required to be paid at least minimum wage. There are definitely a lot of issues here for lawyers to work out. ~~~ davismwfl Yea, something I don't think a lot of people understand, in general, equity can't be used in lieu of compensation for an _employee_ (at least in most US States that I know of, pretty sure it is all but not 100% sure). This hasn't always been true, but the laws changed when a fair number of people were getting screwed with share class changes etc where they put in years of work to come out with not even minimum wage because founders/investors got greedy. Some founders who fought for their people didn't have enough stock to control the outcome so the board would vote the changes through over their objections. Hence why when you are doing these negotiations you have to recognize the person talking to you now may not be the person making the final call in 5 years. There are ways around equity only with specific contracts & wording, but that is where the whole issue around not being a co-founder with equal footing comes in as you are in an unprotected situation. My 2 cents is just never do it, your are a co-founder or getting paid a fair wage. ------ gus_massa Remember to get the % of equity in written. An oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. Get your lawyer to read the written agreement. How many other founders? How long is the other people working in this? How much magic does their equity have? Do they get salary? Do they have some MVP? What happened with the previous developer? ~~~ greenyoda More questions to ask: What is their source of funding (VC, bootstrapped with founders' money, etc.)? What is their business plan, and at what point do they anticipate being profitable? If they're not profitable from the beginning, how long do they think they can run the company on the funds they have? Would they expect you, as a co-owner, to help fund the company? Do the founders have any prior business experience? Have they researched the market they're entering? If you don't know how the business works, there's no way for you to evaluate whether their equity is worth anything at all. ------ dylanjha Everyone is part-time moonlighting, but how many others are involved? If only 2 or 3 of you then I think the range you're asking for makes sense.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II (1998) - mmhsieh https://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-troubles-during-world-war-ii.htm ====== jandrese > Because of this logistics fiasco, veteran submariner and historian Paul > Schratz said he ‘was only one of many frustrated submariners who thought it > a violation of New Mexico scenery to test the A-bomb at Alamagordo when the > naval torpedo station was available.’ LOL. Another interesting fact about the US torpedoes is that they were slow by WWII standards, especially compared to the Japanese torpedoes. This is normally a fairly bad flaw because it gives the enemy ship more time to dodge the torpedo, however in the Battle off Samar it turned out to be an advantage as they allowed the torpedoes fired by a tiny destroyer managed to scare the mighty battleship Yamato away from the battle for quite a long time because the torpedoes took so long to arrive that the Yamato was well out of position once they finally missed. ~~~ m4rtink It's important to note that the torpedoes Japanese generally used we powered by compressed pure oxygen, making them faster & giving them more range. But it also turned them into even bigger explosion hazard than normal torpedoes when the ship caring them is hit. As a result many Japanese ships are documented going down after what would normally be minor hits due to their oxygen torpedoes exploding and causing massive damage. ~~~ dralley Why pure oxygen? ~~~ m4rtink More energy stored in the same volume air tank. With normal air used by conventional torpedoes, you get just 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen, which is not useful for combustion. I think I might need to clarify - we are talking about a torpedo that is driven by combustion engine. It carries some sort of fuel and because it is under water, it needs to provide it's own oxidizer, which is where the high pressure pure oxygen comes in. Also, unlike when using normal air, it should be possible for the combustion engine to be more powerful while being smaller, due to the more energetic reaction. Also the exhaust gasses don't contain nitrogen, which is apparently visible as a noticeable bubble trail, which might result in your target noticing the torpedo and dogging. For more detail, see the Wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo) ------ segfaultbuserr When I was a child, I played a DOS game called Silent Hunter I. Basically, it's a submarine warfare game which you play as a U.S. Navy submarine in World War II, cursing the Pacific Ocean and attacks Japanese warships. When playing the game, I was extremely frustrated about the Mark XIV torpedo onboard - After going through the painstaking process of calculating the projectile, hitting the fire button, I would watch the stopwatch and hoping for the best that the target won't change its course... finally it was the time... nothing! For every five fires or so, there would be one or two torpedoes that never explode - when you need it the most. I was not playing the "hard" mode, it happens even in a "moderate" difficulty setting. I thought the game developers were making it unreasonable. And a few years later, I learned from a history book about the early unreliability of the torpedoes, and realized the torpedoes in the game were an accurate and realistic depiction of its historical performance. Kudos to the game developers. Another tool in the game I felt strange was the "Torpedo Data Computer", which is something that you can simply enter the bearing, speed, etc., of your target via its tuning dials, and the machine automatically calculates the firing position for you. I thought it was just the hand-waving of the game developers to make the game more playable while making it unrealistic - why would a computer even exist in the 1940s? I believed it was all pencil-and- paper. Later I learned it was real as well - totally mind-blowing. When I was a kid, I had no idea about the sophisticated historical mechanical fire control computers in the 1930s-1940s. There is a Hacker News submission of the documentation of the computer. [0] [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12785113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12785113) ~~~ leoc Here are a few fun videos related to this. A 1943 USAF documentary about ground-based anti-aircraft fire: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zPNMqVi2E) A short YouTube documentary about the failure of the German super-battleship Bismarck's anti-aircraft gunnery: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTO3JagV8gE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTO3JagV8gE) In fact the Germans had been working quite seriously on guided surface-to-air missiles during WWII: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx_lsh0BJGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx_lsh0BJGs) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Q92V5hK-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Q92V5hK-c) ------ stcredzero _WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — The Department of Energy said tonight that approximately three‐quarters of the A‐1 model Polaris nuclear warheads deployed on submarines in the mid‐1960 's were probably “duds” because of mechanical defects._ [https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/02/archives/early-polaris- mi...](https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/02/archives/early-polaris-missile-had- defects-scientists-at-government-labs.html) To be fair, the Japanese had really good torpedos at the start of WWII, but there were other things which were just as unproven and wonky. For one, the proposed tactic of letting battleship shells fall short, to target enemy ships underwater, was pretty much useless. (Come to think of it, the initial performance of Sidewinder missiles in Vietnam was another example of this sort of military equipment failure.) ~~~ Smoosh Another example is when the M16 rifle was first introduced in the Vietnam War, it was unreliable due to fouling. ~~~ toomanybeersies One of the major issues with early versions of the M16 was that they used a different propellant for the ammunition than what it was designed with. This propellant caused increased fouling. They were also initially issued without cleaning kits, because they were apparently "self cleaning", which is patent bullshit. ~~~ nyolfen iirc the barrel linings also were not chromed for the first few years, which caused corrosion (half-remembered from chivers' _the gun_ ) ------ ryanmercer It doesn't surprise me. I've seen WWII-era torpedoes and their innards at the Science of Museum and Industry in Chicago in the U-505 exhibit (seriously, if you're ever in Chicago to to the museum and pay the extra fee to go aboard U-505. Totally worth it) and there is a _lot_ going on in one of those. Here's a low-ish quality photo of the innars of a torpedo in the exhibit (not mine) [https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/1jxk7k...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/1jxk7k/u505_torpedo_at_the_museum_of_science_and/) Specifically in that thread these photos [https://imgur.com/a/zNry7](https://imgur.com/a/zNry7) Sadly my photos from last year aren't any better, the cavern that U-505 is in has terrible lighting for photography. I was quite surprised by the amount of gears, tubes, segments, weights, etc inside one. Even the amount of batteries initially caught me off guard because I'm used to thinking in modern lithium batteries and not lead acid. I _think_ that is a G7e torpedo above. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7e_torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G7e_torpedo) ~~~ MrZander Wow, that is incredible. I had no idea they were that complex, or even that big. ~~~ ryanmercer The length was a bit hard to accept. Later I started looking into torpedoes and there are some real monsters that have existed, the Japanese Type 93 used in WWII is almost 30 feet long [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo) . The more modern Russian Type 65 is roughly the same size as the Type 93 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_65_torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_65_torpedo) Russia also has that 'Poseidon' unmanned mini sub that's basically the nuclear powered sub version of a UAV that's something like 65 feet long and is believed to be able to be launched from another sub like a torpedo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_System) ~~~ rmattes If you're into this stuff and ever in the Seattle area I recommend visiting the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport. They have a good collection of torpedoes on display, including a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo. [http://www.navalunderseamuseum.org](http://www.navalunderseamuseum.org) ------ coachtrotz The WWII in Color series on Netflix has a Midway episode in which they indicate a 90% failure rate of the torpedoes to explode. The article says 70 percent rate but either way its pretty unreliable. ------ rocketpastsix They talk about it in the movie "Midway" (2019). It's definitely one of those things a lot of people thought was embellished to make the incoming battle of Midway look more drastic. However it was absolutely true. Without the dive bombers and code breaking they were able to do in the lead up Midway would have been a disaster for the Americans. ~~~ DuskStar Ehhh. There's a lot of people that seem to think that Midway would have been a disaster for the US if they lost, but there's not much reason behind this. The only thing the US was really risking that _had a significant strategic impact_ were the carriers - if the island of Midway fell it would have been essentially unsupportable by Japanese forces (being _far_ past Japan's supply lines, when Japan was already facing logistical issues, and within B-17 range of bases in Hawaii) and even the carriers weren't absolutely critical must- not-lose assets for the US like they were for Japan. (The US commissioned 8 carriers in the year following Midway - four Essex class fleet carriers and four Independence class light carriers) Incidentally, this is part of why Midway was such a huge strategic blunder for the Japanese forces - it risked 2/3rds of their carriers for minimal gain. If Midway fell, it would have extended the war another few months. But I'm not sure that that really qualifies as a disaster. ~~~ NeedMoreTea Strategically crucial in a Pacific that had seen most everything the Japan side of Midway fall. If Midway had fallen, New Guinea, Coral Sea and Fiji were next in line, putting Australia and New Zealand at risk. What you call minimal gain would, had Yamamoto's plan come off, have put over 60% of the Pacific under Imperial Japanese control. US would have been fighting their way across the Pacific, island to island at a range that no longer permitted bombing the mainland of Japan. Which, as seen at the end of the war, was subject to colossal losses. ~~~ caycep Granted, Yamamoto himself had no illusions re: a protracted struggle between Japanese industry, vs. American industry of the '30's/'40's era. Assuming no loss of political will, I suspect even in a worse case scenario where the US lost all its 3 carriers, it would still have eventually produced enough to win the war. Just maybe it would have taken several years longer... ~~~ jcranmer In 1943, the US was commissioning an Essex-class carrier more or less every month, so the extra time would have been closer to "several months longer" instead. ~~~ DuskStar Yeah - the US commissioned 17 fleet carriers, 9 light carriers and a whopping _76_ escort carriers over the course of the war. Japan? 7, 1 and 4. ------ zepearl > _Maneuvering as close to a 90-degree track as possible, the submarine fired > three torpedoes against the rock cliffs. The first two exploded, but the > third threw up the familiar geyser of compressed air and water. Divers > carefully retrieved the activated yet unexploded torpedo. The valuable dud > was then hauled back to Pearl Harbor for examination._ Damn, for me any person who deals with any kind of unexploded ordnance is (as well) a hero. ------ brazzy Previous HN discussion about a different article (focusing on politics and very superficial concerning the actual problems) about the same subject: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665422) ------ gadders If you're fans of alternative history fiction, the Destroyermen [1] series touches on the torpedo issues as well. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen) ------ rshnotsecure It’s very likely that the torpedoes did not work for the whole war really. It sometimes is scary to think about all the complaints sub commanders put in, only to be dismissed by the Department of the Navy as excuses for bad leadership or tactics. I get that you have to take this line sometimes but still... That being said it should be noted US Naval strategy has never particularly relied on subs or been that great at it. This has always fallen to the Eurasian powers such as Germany, Russia, and China/Japan. Nothing has been downed by a torpedo in actual combat for the last 75 years, so realize that there are so many unknowns today in submarine warfare that you don’t see in say land warfare. That being said it looks like Underwater Unmanned Autonamous Drones is where sub warfare is heading. Supposedly China is way ahead of the pack here much like they are in the drone space (supposedly again) as well. The 2016 capture of a US Navy UUAV really was not good for the USA and marked a shift in the balance of power. ~~~ matthewmorgan HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser Belgrano with torpedoes ~~~ DuskStar With a torpedo introduced to service in _1927_ , though. She avoided using her homing torpedoes (the Mark 24 Tigerfish) due to fears that they were unreliable. ------ president There have been similar concerns about the US nuclear arsenal which are decades old and aging. ~~~ quotemstr Which is why the nuclear test ban is, IMHO, a bad idea. A nuclear deterrent must be credible to be effective. If an adversary comes to believe that, say, 80% of our warheads are duds and most of theirs work, the logic of retaliation may come to favor a first strike. ~~~ mmhsieh The logic behind test bans (in conjunction with numerical caps on warheads) is to create uncertainty in the reliability of one's own arsenal to discourage either side from contemplating a first-strike. ~~~ quotemstr I'm not sure about that. What if you're convinced that _your_ brilliant scientists have created working warheads while you think the enemy's dolts haven't been able to keep their arsenal working? What if your enemy thinks the same thing in reverse? I think there's always a temptation to overestimate one's own capability and underestimate the sophistication of others. ------ 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 > _Two completely different devices, each responsible for checking the other, > deviated identically for vastly different reasons._ Happens frequently. “The tests are broken but I’m positive the software is correct so I’m going to fix the tests” ~~~ VBprogrammer That's one reason I hate complexity in tests. Your tests have to be dumb enough that you are 99% sure the code under test is at fault. ~~~ WrtCdEvrydy By definition, tests have to be more complex than the underlying code. The test have to setup the conditions, execute the action and validate it. Don't confuse complexity with shitty unreliable tests (timing-based tests) ~~~ penagwin Depends on the type of test. What you guys are talking about are unit tests, and are designed to test individual methods/functions. You write a separate test for each one. There's other types of testing, integration tests sound like what you are both complaining about. Integration tests test the interaction between components of a system, and are thus far more complex and likely to break as you're developing (which is a huge pain). However integration tests have their place - just because the function works doesn't mean it's being called from the web client correctly. ~~~ cryptonector But you also have to test the whole system. ~~~ penagwin For sure. There's dozens of types of tests (although many don't apply to certain use cases). In a healthy system you should be using a lot of them. And they don't stop at deployment, you need to be tracking exceptions (after all, production is the final, and best test environment). This article has some nice diagrams of the different kinds of tests [https://medium.com/@copyconstruct/testing-in-production- the-...](https://medium.com/@copyconstruct/testing-in-production-the-safe- way-18ca102d0ef1)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Django Front End Validators – form input validation using transpiled JS - franey https://github.com/johnfraney/django-front-end-validators ====== franey Hello! This is a little plugin I threw together after wondering how I might be able to use Transcrypt[1] alongside Django. It's in its early stages (no tests) and has a limited feature set (no class-based validator support; only functions), but I think it's a neat proof-of-concept for a useful application of Python-to-JS transpiling. Let me know what you think, and I'll try to keep an eye out today so I can respond. [1] [http://www.transcrypt.org/](http://www.transcrypt.org/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: How to Setup Node.js App Automated Deployment and CI with PM2 for MVP's - niftylettuce http://niftylettuce.com/posts/automated-node-app-ci-graceful-zerodowntime-github-pm2/ ====== nodesocket pm2 is by far the best node process manager. It is excellent. Though I don't use pm2 for deployments. I create new servers (immutable infrastructure) on AWS every deploy, and use NGINX Plus dynamic upstream to add the new backends and remove the old ones. There is something pleasing about creating new servers and destroying old servers every deploy. Also check out Drone ([https://github.com/drone/drone](https://github.com/drone/drone)) for all your CI and deployment needs. It uses Docker and written in go. ~~~ smaili Launching new instances on a per deploy basis is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. ~~~ adrianpike Serious question, why do you think that? I'm not that familiar with why this would be super wasteful and would love to learn more. ~~~ cosmie I wouldn't say it's super wasteful, but there is waste involved since he's on AWS. AWS bills EC2 usage hourly, and doesn't do fractional billing. If you deploy, then 5 minutes later deploy again (and provision a new instance and destroy the first) you'll still pay for the full hour of that first instance. So every deploy incurs that usage rounding. Depending on the frequency of deploys and the number of servers being deployed to, that adds up. ------ lioeters Thank you for taking the time to write such a helpful, detailed article. With links/references, screenshots, and fool-proof instructions, it's been educational to follow along. I'd used Jenkins before (that someone else had set up) and was familiar with much of the other parts (DigitalOcean, Node.js, PM2, etc.), but had never properly learned how to set up CI for myself. This article was a great introduction. Now studying your Rapid MVP Standards document ([https://github.com/niftylettuce/rapid-mvp- standards](https://github.com/niftylettuce/rapid-mvp-standards)). I appreciate you sharing your experience and knowledge! ~~~ niftylettuce You are welcome. Thank you for the kind words. My email is niftylettuce@gmail.com if you'd like to get in touch or ask questions, or if I can help somehow. ------ azurelogic I just use Codeship's free plan for CI/CD. I embedded the deploy script in my repo and use Codeship to run it via SSH. Works great and costs $0. ------ vonklaus looks good, I've been trying to find a free CI(never used one) but they're usually non-trivial to set up or cost money. This looks like a decent write up and semaphore seems pretty user friendly, just wish they had gitlab support. ------ benatkin PM2 is under the AGPL. Could this be an issue on a non-AGPL project?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Darpa Builds A 1.8-Gigapixel Camera (Six-Inch Targets From 20,000 Feet) - acremades http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/28/darpa-builds-a-1-8-gigapixel-camera-that-can-spot-six-inch-targets-from-20000-feet/ ====== Pr0 Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5129332>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How not to implement a 25MB background movie: faradayfuture.com - Mojah http://www.faradayfuture.com/ ====== Mojah Open your network inspector and notice how the 25MB .webm file downloads again after each iteration of the movie. ------ coreyp_1 OUCH! If they make it to the front page of HN (or anything else big, really) they're going to blow through bandwidth like crazy! A potentially expensive mistake!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: ReactiveSearch – React and React Native UI Components for Search - reactivesearch https://github.com/appbaseio/reactivesearch/blob/dev/README.md ====== reactivesearch Hi HN! I am Sid, one of the authors of ReactiveSearch. We have built ReactiveSearch with the goal of providing cross-platform UI components for building a great search experience. And today, I am excited to share both the React (for Web) and React Native (for iOS, Android) flavors of the library. The library is architected around the concept of reactivity. A UI component in ReactiveSearch can subscribe to and compose its state from any other component. This creates a reactive feedback loop of changes when a user interacts with any one component. You can choose from the current 30+ pre- built components or bring your own design components to work with ReactiveSearch. Would love to hear your thoughts!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
First FORTRAN program runs, September 20, 1954 - jamesbritt http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4396778/1st-FORTRAN-program-runs--September-20--1954 ====== _kst_ So the first FORTRAN program was run 3 years before the first FORTRAN compiler was delivered. Was the program manually translated to assembly/machine code? ~~~ dalke I'm having a tough time trying to find the answer to that question. Most sites just repeat this date as a factoid, with no context. I looked at the videos mentioned at [http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/index.h...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/index.html#Films/video) as well as some of the documents linked to elsewhere from that page. One of the more interesting was the specification, dated November 10, 1954, at [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/10...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/102679231.05.01.acc.pdf) . It's interesting because of the level of detail in the specification The most relevant description I found was [http://www.combat- diaries.co.uk/diary29/whirlwind.htm](http://www.combat- diaries.co.uk/diary29/whirlwind.htm) . > It was a modest effort. At first, it consisted of Backus, an easy-going > young man with a master's in mathematics from Columbia University, and > Irving Ziller, another programmer. By the summer of 1954, three more > programmers had joined the team, and they began running test programs on an > IBM 701 in the IBM complex at 590 Madison Avenue, in Manhattan. From the > beginning, the group concentrated on the compiler. "We simply made up the > language [the commands that make up a user's program] as we went along," > Backus recalled. > We did not regard language design as a difficult problem, merely a simple > prelude to the real problem: designing a compiler which could produce > efficient [binary] programs. Of course one of our goals was to design a > language which would make it possible for engineers and scientists to write > programs for the 704. We also wanted to eliminate a lot of the bookkeeping > and detailed, repetitive planning which hand coding [in assembly language] > involved. > Backus and his team began writing the compiler in early 1955, after a year > and a half of preliminary work. This tell us that the first FORTRAN program (1954) was not run on the compiler that didn't start until 1955, and which was eventually shipped. What I remember from Richard Waychoff's "Stories about the B5000 and People Who Were There", which concerned Burrough's ALGOL development in the early 1960s, was that in that era people spent a lot of time in analysis, before getting to the actual programming. Waychoff proposes that the best schedule is "A. Design of the language complete. B. Design of the Scanner complete. C. Design of the Statement Parsers complete. D. Start of programming. E. Project successfully completed." That model fits what I read about the FORTRAN development. That is, I think the IBM people spent a lot of time developing the language, developing algorithms for things like parsing, fleshing those out, and only then getting to what we would consider to be the programming part proper. All the research though, and I still can't tell you if the first FORTRAN program was hand assembled. However, since Backus had already developed Speedcoding, which was more like an interpreted assembler, my guess is that the first program was processed in the same way, through a limited FORTRAN interpreted that handled the subset of FORTRAN that they tested. ~~~ kps I haven't found a reference to that date that's earlier than 4.4BSD's /usr/share/calendar, which includes 09/20 Harlan Herrick runs first FORTRAN program, 1954 In _The History of FORTRAN I, II, III_ (from HOPL I and available at your CHM link), Backus writes: The FORTRAN compiler (or “translator” as we called it then) was begun in early 1955, although a lot of work on various schemes which would be used in it had been done in 1954; e.g. Herrick had done a lot of trial programming to test out our language [....] So that's consistent. ------ ballard I can't believe it has almost been 20 years since I last dealt with F95. ~~~ bbgm Or 10 since I was writing a ton of code in F77	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Umedoc – Find, visit and keep the perfect doctor for you - ghufran_syed https://umedoc.com/ ====== maryammouse Ahh...so as soon as we posted it seems like the site stopped loading and now it's acting strange. We're scaling it up now so the link should work in just a few minutes! Oops. Well, thanks for showing us there's something we need to fix, everyone! ^_^' ------ maryammouse Hello, I'm one of the founders of Umedoc. Just wanted to say thanks for taking a look - it's only our MVP - we literally launched just now so we'd appreciate all feedback on things that are broken and things we could do better! ------ HSpecials Hi, I'm from Umedoc. After a very painful afternoon, we have everything up and running again. Apologies to everyone who tried to access the site while "broke". We'll try not to do it again ;) . ------ ghufran_syed Hmm, looks like it might not have been us after all: AWS Service Status: US West (N. California): [RESOLVED] Increased Launch Error Rates ------ ghufran_syed Ok, it looks like there's enough server instances now, yay for aws elastic beanstalk :-) Sorry about that...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google's Web video could use pointless squabble - eplanit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052101683.html?wprss=rss_technology ====== ZeroGravitas The title is correctly copied across, but the text of the article makes clear he means "end pointless squabble" not "use pointless squabble".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }