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Ask HN: File format for declarative language? - mchahn I&#x27;m in the process of developing a pure declarative language. The source consists of simple JS-like data structures that would be at home in a JSON file. I have two questions ...<p>- I&#x27;m naturally considering using JSON, but I don&#x27;t think it is great for writing original code. It has too much visual clutter like quotes. My next thought was YAML but it seems kind of obtuse and overly-complex. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Am I overlooking any?<p>- Assuming I have a format chosen, can I use a new custom file suffix matching my language or must it be `.yml`, `.json`, etc.? One could argue that the suffix should match the syntax (`.json`) or one could argue it should match the semantics (my language). There are languages than match C syntax but don&#x27;t have the `.C` suffix (if I&#x27;m not mistaken). ====== twangist If you opt for making your declarative language a subset of JSON or YAML, presumably it will be a proper subset, with some further expectations and constraints. It makes total sense to use a custom file extension — say, `.mdl`, "my declarative language", for the sake of discussion. Users will be able to easily find their files written in your language without having to wade through all possible files of the superset format. A `.mdl` file really is its own thing, it's not just a .json or .yml file. It may be the case that a `.mdl` file is a just `.json` or `.yml` file, but the converse will not be true. The only advantage I can think of that accrues from using the more common extension is editor support: a user's favorite editor may well provide syntax highlighting and checking, auto-indenting, etc. for `.json` or `.yml` files, but not for `.mdl` files out of the box. You might want to develop `.mdl` profiles (sic) for popular editors. Any decent parser for the 'true' format will accept either a string or a full filename (including extension) and shouldn't expect a fixed file extension. Regrettably I can't think of a single example right now, but I know I've encountered many programs that use custom file extensions which have turned out to be just some familiar format after all. That said, it's another question whether either JSON or YAML is a great choice. I agree with your reservations about both. In fact I've had the very same problem in a couple of development projects, one recently. JSON is friendlier than XML, true, but it's not really a language to think in, even declaratively — too much clutter. YAML is certainly versatile enough, but it provides probably more than you need, and it is... yes, obtuse. Of course, it depends on your intended users; I found it was too "programmerly" for mine. I ended up developing a custom parser for a language with more syntactic sugar than YAML, which has its advantages and disadvantages. ------ brudgers One way to look at it is as a domain specific language and the choice as between an embedded DSL or a stand alone DSL. The advantage of an embedded DSL is that a lot of existing tooling can be leveraged and the entire host language can be leveraged. On the other hand, debugging in the new language may wind up requiring deep knowledge of the host. JVM languages often have that drawback. But at a higher level, the new language should be designed around it's use case. If it's always used in a JavaScript context, the JSON might make more sense. If it's for *nix hackers then YAML might be better. If it's for phlembotomists then perhaps something altogether new. Good luck. ------ mchahn Thanks everyone. You've given me more to think about. Unfortunately I'm still on the fence. Usually I'm a lot more decisive. I guess it shouldn't matter in the long run. But you know how it is, I want my new language to be perfect. ~~~ ahazred8ta [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xupl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xupl) are available and have many language bindings ------ twunde 1)There are a couple alternatives. There's TOML, axon. 2)It can be whatever you want. It's your language. If you are reusing a current format it will be easier for devs and sysadmins to keep the current syntax ------ borplk If you don't mind I'd like to ask what the language is about?

Show HN: Videoloupe for Mac – A new video player and editor for macOS - kennycarruthers https://www.videoloupe.com ====== kennycarruthers Developer here... Two years ago, the Hacker News community helped kick off my indie-developer "career" with Fileloupe for Mac. Now I'd like to share my second app, Videoloupe for Mac with everyone. If you're a macOS user and do anything with video, then Videoloupe probably has some cool features you'll find interesting. I've "soft launched" the app this week and would love any feedback. There's a free trial, but if you'd like to purchase a copy then please take advantage of this 50% off coupon code: VLHACKERNEWS [https://www.videoloupe.com](https://www.videoloupe.com) I've benefitted so much from reading the stories of other indie developers here on Hacker News. Hopefully my story helps encourage others. Thanks so much.

Show HN: My humble little side project to support OSS and developer happiness - sleight42 http://rubypair.com ====== damncabbage Just a heads-up: signing in with GitHub automatically puts you in _both_ the Remote and In-Person lists if you just cancel out of the form that pops up after you authenticate. ~~~ sleight42 Yup. That's intentional for now. We assume that you signed up for a reason. You just didn't tell us exactly why. So we make a broad assumption. ;) ------ tomstuart What does this site do? Is it a directory of developers who are willing to pair, or something more/else? Can I find out without signing up? ~~~ sleight42 Ok, we kind of glossed over that. I'll update the about page. In a nutshell: we're about helping kindred developer spirits find one another for local/remote pairing. Later on, I'm hoping to add more features to actively mediate the experience. I'd love to integrate with pair.io to help other people remote pair. But, for now, I use a simple arrangement of SSH+tmux+vim+skype to remote pair with folks when I do. ------ ahmetalpbalkan Why is this Ruby-specific? I see other language tags in other people's interests. ~~~ sleight42 Totally. Nola already had the domain so we went with that. I still see the app as an experiment. Once we get things more nailed down, I'm thinking about opening it up beyond Ruby. Besides, frankly, we "Rubyists" tend to be polyglots. That is to say: there's nothing stopping Java developers from signing up. :D

[iOS] Create a Protocol-Oriented Animations Library in Swift 3 - kalub92 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AySlYrel7fc ====== fish111222999 I saw this video a while back. Pretty good stuff. Any good protocol-oriented book suggestions? ~~~ kalub92 Hmm... The Packt Publishing POP book is good and actually it looks like they just came out with the Swift 3 version! I only have the Swift 2 version but it really compares the POP method with OOP and shows it's strengths and pitfalls. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1787129942/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1787129942/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491399538&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=protocol+oriented+programming)

The tyranny of chairs: why we need better design - SirLJ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/aug/25/the-tyranny-of-chairs ====== mattlondon Just out of curiosity, am I the only one that seems to be happy to just sit on a dining chair when at my desk? When the WFH wave hit, people seemed to be going mad buying webcams and office chairs. Loads of people I work with spent a _lot_ of energy researching and discussing chairs etc. I have a sit-stand desk and I stand for perhaps 2 to 3 hours any working day. But the rest of the time I just sit on a normal old wooden dining chair. No pain. No aches. No RSI. No CTS. I've been doing this for decades and nothing seems to have gone wrong yet. I do run 2 to 4 times a week so I do wonder if that helps avoid problems? Are all the uber-expensive office chairs just snake oil? Or have I just been lucky? ~~~ 2OEH8eoCRo0 >I do run 2 to 4 times a week so I do wonder if that helps avoid problems? I think there are a lot of stressed and unconditioned office workers who want some magical device to solve everything. Vertical mice, split vertical keyboards, expensive chairs. None of it replaces exercise. Might be a controversial opinion. ~~~ nostromo This is my experience. I had lower back pain while sitting at a desk when I was younger. Once I started lifting weights, and specifically doing heavy deadlifts, I've never had back pain again. Interestingly, a lot of people are afraid deadlifts will _cause_ back pain, but in my case at least, it _cured_ back pain. ~~~ stouset General fitness and strength training is just about the closest thing we have to a miracle cure for a wide array of common issues. ~~~ 2OEH8eoCRo0 Yup. Too bad it doesn't come in pill form. ------ scrooched_moose If anyone is looking for a better chair, we found this was a great time to pick up Herman Miller Aerons off of craigslist. There's a steady stream of small-to-medium offices in our area closing, and they're all liquidating office furniture. We picked up 2 for $500. They're a massive improvement over my $80 chair that was fine for a few hours a week pre-WFH, and my back is feeling much better. ~~~ supernova87a This isn't exactly work related, but do people have opinions on the Herman Miller Eames chair? You know, this iconic look? [1] I ask because the lockdown has me fantasizing about distracting myself with replacement stuff for the home. But this chair is freakin $5000. Is it that good to be worth it? Or are any of those $1000 knockoffs acceptable quality? [1] [https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/lounge- seating...](https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/lounge- seating/eames-lounge-chair-and-ottoman/) ~~~ scrooched_moose We have a 60s hand-me-down Eames. It is a very good chair. The build quality is fantastic and stylistically it still holds up. It is truly a "lounge chair" though - almost a semi-recliner. I rarely use it if it's a social situation because it sits back so far. It's amazing for relaxing and watching TV or a movie though. I'm assuming the quality has held up. I've never tried a knock off. ------ adamnemecek The worst chair in the world is the American high school/college desk+chair combo like this one [https://www.schooloutlet.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/Screen...](https://www.schooloutlet.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/Screen%20Shot%202016-07-13%20at%2010.00.49%20AM.png) The people making and buying these place are committing crimes against humanity. ~~~ grugagag It's not comfortable but I don't think that's the worst chair especially if you pay attention how you sit in it. The worst chair is the cheap office chair that is often misaligned, wobbly and encouraging you to rest your back in a wrong way. And the free rotating swivel makes sure you are you really have a bad posture and not being able to sit properly. I relearned to sit down and now prefer a rigid surface and most often don't rest my back on anything. If your back is tired and you need to use the backrest it's time to get up and walk around a bit. ~~~ adamnemecek You shouldn't have to pay attention to how you sit in it. there is literally only one position to sit in. ~~~ KozmoNau7 You can almost certainly improve how you sit down. A lot of people just sort of flop down and sit with their hips slid forward and a pronounced bend in their back. Anecdotally I have also noticed many of the same people complaining about a lack of legroom in trains, airplanes, cars and so on. If they would simply sit down by pushing their butt and lower back into the chair instead of lazily flopping down, there would be plenty of space. (Not directed at those people with long legs, who do have genuine legroom issues even when sitting up straight) ------ Theodores Chairs need a failsafe mode. This is what I call better design. Recently my father sat on a chair that collapsed underneath him. It was a seemingly okay teak garden chair that had been recently in service and offered up to important guests. So in that way it was good that it was him rather than his brother in law or elderly neighbour that received a bruised elbow. This got me thinking about the safety of chairs. This chair - a folding chair - really should have included a wire around the seat so that it had a failsafe mode in order to prevent complete failure once the wood of the seat eventually gave up. There should be proper testing of seats to see if they are fit for purpose. Car seats for babies can't be passed on because there could be some crack in the polystyrene, yet regular chairs have no standards for safety. It is not a big deal until such time as you see a valued relative come a cropper. Design is how it works and chairs are not designed to have a failsafe aspect to the design. ~~~ lightgreen Realistically, how many people get injured from collapsed chairs? I think less than from fire or drowned or something. Just buy not the cheapest chair, and you will be safe. ~~~ Theodores There is no such thing as an accident. If your chair breaks in a restaurant you can sue them. I bet the restaurant owners never thought of this when setting up. Injuries can also be quite serious, it depends on the circumstance and the individual. Your argument is the same for airbags, seatbelts and wearing hard hats. We live in a Health and Safety world where liability exists. Except for chairs. ------ jamespetercook I don’t think I’ve ever found a chair that I felt completely comfortable in. I like to sit upright and feel alert and most chairs seem to be made for relaxing. I’ve always wondered if it’s just me or not, and have often thought about designing a chair but realistically I don’t have the skills :( ~~~ TACIXAT I have this same issue. I've never seen a chair that supports shoulders back and down good posture. They all seem to hunch or arch forward. None offer the mid back support needed to put your chest forward. Same situation for sitting cross legged. My solution for posture has been a standing desk. I never really made any progress on my posture until I started standing. ------ blunte At age 35, otherwise healthy and having spent 10 years in Herman Miller Aeron chairs, I had hip problems and a small but growing waistline. Then I transitioned to working from home and built my own standing desk (sadly before the very affordable mechanical Ikea standing desk was first released... But which I have now happily used for years). The first few weeks were challenging, but within three months I could stand for 12+ hours a day, and my hip problems went away. Also my overall energy seemed higher, and afternoon energy dips became less noticeable. For 13 years now I stand for virtually all of my day, and I have no back or hip problems. I do have slight spider veins on my ankles and knees, and that may be due in part to the standing. But it is cosmetic and barely visible, and totally worth the trade. ~~~ grugagag How do you type standing for long periods of time? Do you rest your arms on the table? ~~~ chiefalchemist If you're using a mouse my PT told me to "anchor" your elbow on the desk so you use your wrist to move the mouse, not your upper back. This is true whether standing or sitting. There was a good reason I was in PT and was told this ;) ~~~ blunte I've always used a mouse with my fingertips, and my outer hand bone is resting on the mouse mat. Rarely am I pushing the mouse around with my entire hand or arm... ~~~ chiefalchemist It's not your "entire arm" per se. It's that - per the PT - the shoulder and upper back aren't designed for repetitive micro-movements. That is, unless your elbow is anchored your shoulder is likely doing more work than it should. ------ raindropm For anyone that have sore butt syndrome, here's my personal tip: improve blood circulation of your...butt! I bought Steelcase Think six month ago to replace my $50 chair, and while it is good chair with good price and comfy-but-firm seat cushion, it cannot solve my chronic "sore butt" problem. Half and hour in the chair and my butt soreness begin to appear. Doesn't help that I'm the type that sit in front of monitor all day. I know I need to move more frequently, or did some light exercise or stretching, but when you need to work, you need to sit anyway. Then I read that the soreness is the result of lack of blood circulation, so I decide to give thing that improve it a try: a beads car seat. You know, the vintage-looking one taxi driver use. THE SORENESS IS GONE. It's been several months since. Now I can sit all day long without feeling a thing. Note that the version I use is the 'beads mat' with rubber texture on the bottom(This is important because it help prevent the beads seat from slipping) ~~~ mpol Sore butts are a common theme in cycling :) On longer rides people might prefer harder saddles. A softer seating clamps down on your soft tissue and prevents proper blood circulation. Having a harder seating will make you sit on your sit bones and have your blood flow free. The sit bones can start to feel a bit irritated after some time, but that is the time to get up for a walk. If your soft tissue (from lack of blood flow) starts hurting, it is because it is starting to get damaged. Even if you would walk for an hour and sit again, the pain would come back instantly. ~~~ raindropm That's new to me! because I never ride a bike more than 10 minutes at a time haha. Everything you describe is what I experience. I have good time sitting on my old wooden chair, and yes, the butt is free of pain (but my back hurt instead, because its backrest is in upright 90 degree angle) also there is not armrest whatsoever so I can't work for long.... well, maybe that's the point, I need to move more. ------ rkagerer I hate how the first thing this site does is make me lie and say "I'm Happy" about their cookies. ------ war1025 I read somewhere that if you want good posture, just sit on the edge of the seat. So that's what I do and it seems to work fine. Chairs with backs are nice, but it seems like they will always just lead to terrible posture. ~~~ NicolasGorden I've used a posture corrector. It's really very effective and cheap. Love it since it makes me conscious every time I start slouching. ------ amanaplanacanal We would do better for ourselves to get rid of chairs entirely and sit on the floor. Getting down and up from the floor is a natural human movement that would keep us all fitter into old age. ~~~ johnchristopher Have you tried sitting on the floor and work with a keyboard ? Do you have a setup you could share ? I suppose Japanese should have something fitting but that might be a stereotype. ~~~ dmvinson [https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/furniture-free- ahs13/](https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/furniture-free-ahs13/) is an example of someone doing this in their home. Personally, my setup is a coffee table along with a zafu (buckwheat hull filled floor cushion) and sheepskins or a zabuton to cushion the floor a little. It's very comfortable, although I'd like to also have a standing desk to go with it. Coffee tables tend to be a pretty good height for this purpose if you want to avoid purchasing something custom. Besides that it's just a regular desk setup, albeit missing drawers or storage on the table. ~~~ johnchristopher > [https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/furniture-free- > ahs13/](https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/furniture-free-ahs13/) Interesting reading, thanks. Would you be so kind as to share a picture of your setup ? To have a rough idea of heights, space arrangements, elbow positioning, etc. ? ~~~ dmvinson Yeah, here is what I'm working with as of now. Moved recently (like everyone else) and still getting an office setup, but this is the basics. As far as height, I'd say it's a very ergonomically sound setup when in kneeling position with the cushion in between your feet. Laptop just below eye level, arms level, etc. I think the biggest benefits are it forces you to move and adjust a little bit more than in a chair, and forces you to use your muscles to sit properly much more. Would highly recommend to anyone. [https://ibb.co/XYN3HFx](https://ibb.co/XYN3HFx) The coffee table is [https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lisabo-coffee-table-ash- veneer-...](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lisabo-coffee-table-ash- veneer-70297658/) The sheepskin is from sheepskin town, but any cushioning that softens the floor for your ankles/knees is good. ~~~ johnchristopher Thanks a lot, much appreciated ! I was browsing though the different pillow/cushion and was a bit worried at first by the $150 zafu/zabuton but it looks like there are ~$50 ones so I can give it a try. ------ gagabity The Ikea POANG recliner chair, you know the one, is the most comfortable chair I have ever used, you need to rearrange your desk setup because its so low and leaned back but once you have it destroys any other option out there, your back is just relaxed. ~~~ tonyedgecombe I can sit and read in mine but I can't imagine trying to work in it. ------ polote I have been trying to find info on laying down desks and chairs in the past few weeks, but there is really not a lot of people who have experienced with it. If you had, please comment here ~~~ megameter Here is my setup, which is a very inexpensive, low-footprint way of doing it: 1\. A large lap desk. This is a powerful tool for adding flexibility as you'll see. It lets you keep all the peripherals near you. I currently use it with a USB hub, a 65% mechanical keyboard, a keypad with macro functions, and a trackball mouse. 2\. A floor chair with reclining functions. The one I have is one of the cheapest on Amazon, basically a folding backrest with a bit of cushion. 3\. A laptop/monitor arm and a shelf to hang it off of. With a laptop angled at 90 degrees so that the screen is overhead, I have a fully supinated setup on the floor, with the floor chair folded most of the way back for support. But it gets better. With a low folding table or breakfast tray I can switch the laptop and chair over to floor seating. Here the lap desk serves as a way to let me move around more. This is a great way to add variety of posture and stretch as I work, and I find that I use different positions for different levels of intensity during the day. Supination is better for passive viewing, while upright with no support is focused, intense. Seated with the chair reclined is the medium for "Tired but still want to work". And then I still have more traditional feet-dangling seats I can use too. Again, just haul over the lap desk and plug in. The best part is, none of these items need to cost more than $100. Most are closer to $50. So you can solve everything with an investment of perhaps $200-300. ~~~ nfour Sounds interesting - I have a lapboard setup as well but it could use improvement. Any chance you could provide some pictures? ------ spaetzleesser It kind of sucks that computers allow us to do most of our work while sitting in the same place. When I started working there were more reasons to get up, take something somewhere, walk to the printer and so on. This feels much healthier. I don’t think any design with better chairs, stand up desks or whatever will make it healthy to stay in the same place the whole day. If I had to choose a career now I would definitely think about something that allows for more walking or other activity. ------ jseliger For people working at computers in offices, get a motorized desk that can raised or lowered to a pre-determined height at the push of a button. [https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/24/geekdesk-max-sit-stand- de...](https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/24/geekdesk-max-sit-stand-desk-review- two-years-with-a-motorized-desk/) ------ armagon Gee, I was just thinking I needed to make some new chairs for the kitchen table (which seems to be a somewhat challenging woodworking project, as curves as usually called for and the way to craft them isn't obvious). I wish the article offered more advice about what makes a good chair, or chair alternative. ~~~ cpwright If you are going to invest the effort in a set of dining chairs, I would recommend watching the Wood Whisperer guild dining chair videos. I have made a Hank chair and high chairs, but have never made a dining char. I did buy the class and found how Marc Spagnuolo broke it down interesting and informative. ------ throwawaysea Perhaps we need to design for a furniture-less world, where we sit and stand as we did for most of our evolution. ~~~ lightgreen We just need neuralink with text input and output to the visual cortex so we could do our work literally anywhere: on the bus, lying on a bed, taking a shower. ------ trashcan I replaced an Aeron with a a gaming chair that was much more affordable (although it was back-ordered for a few months). What a huge improvement! It feels like I'm in a bucket seat in a car, which is basically what it is. ~~~ herman_toothrot Which specific chair did you get? ~~~ trashcan [https://secretlab.co/collections/omega- series](https://secretlab.co/collections/omega-series). I opted for the fabric cover to discourage my cats from chewing on it. :) ------ unnouinceput I use my bed as my chair. My desk has wheels, so I can sit on my "chair" way more comfortable then on any expensive chair. ------ sgt101 I got a gaming chair at the beginning of lockdown, and I propped up my desk to get everything to the right height. The things I looked for : adjustable arm rests, adjustable height, adjustable tilt and headrest & lumbar support. Also buy a 28" 4k monitor, proper keyboard and mouse device of choice (I got an apple magic pad). All for ~ £500. It's worth the investment. ~~~ _alex_ Do you like the gaming chair? I ordered an aeron and didn’t like it, sent it back. Need a new chair. Decade old office chair is falling apart. ~~~ sgt101 yes, it's good : [https://secretlab.co.uk/collections/titan-xl- series](https://secretlab.co.uk/collections/titan-xl-series) ~~~ bladegash I have the Omega and love it. Comes with a lumbar pillow too, which works great. ------ lightgreen Btw for those who are in London I can recommend refurbished Herman Miller chairs from this guy [http://www.welovechairs.co.uk/](http://www.welovechairs.co.uk/) I’m not affiliated with him, just bought a chair from him and was very happy by the service. ------ ezoe Exercise ball is the best chair for me. It has the best cushioning unmatched to any unreasonably expensive chairs. Backrest and armrests aren't necessary. You should have developed enough core to support your weight. You are free from developing injuries caused by long use of ordinary chair. It's cheap and portable too. ------ BrandoElFollito I've been sitting on a ball at the office for now 3 years. I love it. I do not have any hard numbers, but the fact that I move around, make small jumps , must keep balance etc. seems to be a good thing. I was sitting on an office chair at home during lock down and I think my back hurted more ------ LoSboccacc > The real science of ergonomics, Cranz argues, should point designers toward > chair design that supports and enables the body’s need for movement, not > stillness – with seats that angle downward in front, for example, and have a > base that’s flexible enough for the sitter to shift their body weight from > leg to leg weird then not finding mention of the Varier Balans chairs. I had one growing up, and bought another one after a month of lockdown as my home office setup wasn't meant for extended usage. that one and a standing desk seems working well so far. ------ mspe You could also combine furniture instead of buying an expensive standing desk: [https://imgbox.com/9tFW5Pvs](https://imgbox.com/9tFW5Pvs) ------ blueridge My sense is that we all just need to _move_ more: sit, stand, roll around on the rug, squat, go for a walk, you get the idea. Basically don't spend the entire working day in a single position. I briefly went through a phase where I thought I'd enjoy the no-furniture lifestyle, but it wasn't for me. It also wasn't for my partner, nor my parents when they come to visit, nor anyone else whom I might want to invite into the home. I don't want to Marie Kondo the shit out of my space—I want to surround myself with beautiful, practical pieces of furniture that I enjoy using. I don't think most people go and try out furniture before they bring it home. I'm talking multiple trips to a furniture store, where you go and sit and explore the same few pieces over and over and until you're sure you've found something you love. You've got to stay seated for a bit to figure out where the pressure points are, whether or not the angle or depth of a seat makes your legs go numb, or hurts your back, etc. Do you like a firm seat? Do you like to sit "on" the cushions, or "down in to" the cushions? You want something with a high seat, or a low seat? There's a lot of furniture out there. It pays to take time to do the research, learn about how it's built, learn about different fabric types and how they affect the way a cushion holds it shape, then spend a good deal of money on a quality product. Furthermore, there's a huge difference in quality between buying a chair from West Elm and buying a chair from Knoll. For instance, I think this is one of the most comfortable and practical chairs on the planet: [https://www.knoll.com/product/saarinen-executive-arm- chair](https://www.knoll.com/product/saarinen-executive-arm-chair) We use it as a dining chair, and as a reading chair with an ottoman, and as a standard desk task chair. It's truly wonderful. Is it expensive? Yes it is. But it looks great, it's built well, it has a firm and comfortable seat, and it'll last a lifetime. But hey, comfort is subjective, you like what you like! Edit for those who are furniture shopping: \- Saarinen chair linked above also comes with casters and hydraulic lift: [https://www.knoll.com/product/saarinen-executive-arm- chair-s...](https://www.knoll.com/product/saarinen-executive-arm-chair-swivel- base) \- Don't knock it, it's surprisingly comfortable for long stretches: [https://www.knoll.com/product/brno-chair-flat- bar](https://www.knoll.com/product/brno-chair-flat-bar) \- Great reading chair (with ottoman) if you have the space: [https://www.knoll.com/product/womb-chair](https://www.knoll.com/product/womb- chair) \- Of course, the Eames lounge chair is a classic, though if you're taller than 5'8" go with the Tall version as you'll get a deeper seat and head support. For those with lumbar spine issues, probably not the most comfortable: [https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/lounge- seating...](https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/seating/lounge- seating/eames-lounge-chair-and-ottoman/) \- Wonderfully firm sofa, great for long meetings, reading with attention. If you like to lounge, not great for movie nights. Durable fabric options, along with custom leather: [https://www.roomandboard.com/catalog/living/sofas-and- lovese...](https://www.roomandboard.com/catalog/living/sofas-and- loveseats/andre-sofas)

A Field Guide to the 'Weapons' of Hostile Architecture in NYC - pseudolus https://gothamist.com/2019/08/14/hostile_architecture_nyc.php ====== ng12 Skateboarders destroy things. They wax concrete edges and repeatedly grind them with metal trucks -- it doesn't take long at all for the edge to be worn away. If you've skated for any period of time you can pretty easily pick out where skateboarders have been. Additionally these edges usually exist in pedestrian areas, I can't tell you how many times I've almost been knocked down in front of Borough Hall. I don't know if I'd term anti-skater deterrents as "hostile" but they are a necessity. ~~~ ceejayoz Stuff like [https://www.instagram.com/p/B0jF72Sp- wh/](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0jF72Sp-wh/) aren't for skateboarders, though. ------ thinkingemote There was a great blog by a PhD student called Architectures of Control that listed many of these. ------ clockfan24 Walk through there on your way home from work at 9pm and tell me if you change your mind. ~~~ sterkekoffie Do you think all the people taking these photographs just go home to the suburbs at night? This is a difference in worldview, not life experience.

Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions Scandal - aaronharnly http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/volkswagen-chief-martin-winterkorn-resigns-amid-emissions-scandal.html ====== jeromeflipo In July, France 2 (the #1 public national television channel in France) released a documentary [0] that showed to which extent the French auto manufacturer PSA lied about NO2 emissions. At 1h19s [1], Pierre Macaudière, head of emission control systems at PSA, admits that the model tested emits 1700 ppm of NO2, after measuring 200 ppm (the legal limit) with their own machines. At 1h17m11s [2], the researchers commissioned by the EU shows the journalist that _not one_ manufacturer respects the legal limits of 200 ppm. He's frightened to tell the journalist that it's all just a widespread fraud. * [0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFprj6v37Q) * [1] [https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s](https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h19s) * [2] [https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s](https://youtu.be/5JFprj6v37Q?t=1h17m11s) ~~~ differentView If that's true, then there's no way government officials weren't bribed and need to be prosecuted. ~~~ ekianjo Which calls for decentralized inspection, instead of relying again and again on governments to do the right thing. The only thing they are good at is accepting bribes. ~~~ anigbrowl Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no? I was in and out of publicly-run hospitals as a child, I wouldn't be alive today if not for socialized medicine. ~~~ duncan_bayne That's incorrect. You wouldn't be alive today without medicine; the fact that it was provided by a socialized system is almost certainly irrelevant. There exist other, better and fairer mechanisms to provide healthcare, especially to those in genuine need. _Edited_ : to put it another way, imagine if you lived in a country with socialized car mechanics. You could easily make the claim that the only thing keeping you on the road was your good comrades at State Autoworks ... ~~~ kefka That's right, the capitalist-libertarian answer is always "Fuck you, pay me", or in this case, "fuck you, die". We have insurance. Its a great way to leverage the group so that all get a low rate. That given, "socialized" medicine is a group policy population wide: which should give the lowest rates split equally between all. Certainly makes the most sense. ~~~ duncan_bayne Further to this, in Rand's words: ===== “Dear [socialists], our objective, like yours, is the welfare of the poor, more general wealth, and a higher standard of living for everybody—so please let us capitalists function, because the capitalist system will achieve all these objectives for you. It is in fact the only system that can achieve them.” This last statement is true and has been proved and demonstrated in history, and yet it has not and will not win converts to the capitalist system. Because the above argument is self-contradictory. It is not the purpose of the capitalist system to cater to the welfare of the poor; it is not the purpose of a capitalist enterpriser to spread social benefits; an industrialist does not operate a factory for the purpose of providing jobs for his workers. A capitalist system could not function on such a premise. ===== ~~~ dragonwriter > This last statement is true and has been proved and demonstrated in history On the contrary, that last statement is false, which has been demonstrated in history, and is largely why the system for which the term "capitalism" was coined is no longer the dominant system of the developed world, having been replaced by mixed economies -- which transition Rand was part of the rear guard arguing against, and to reverse -- which retain in outline the property structure of capitalism, but import many aspects of socialism to deal better with exactly those problems than capitalism ever did. ~~~ duncan_bayne "... which retain in outline the property structure of capitalism, but import many aspects of socialism to deal better with exactly those problems than capitalism ever did." That's a contradiction. You can't have both the property structure of capitalism, and state socialism. You have to violate the former to achieve the latter. I'd argue that current systems _claim_ to keep the structure of the former, but violate it at will. In terms of dealing better with the provision of healthcare than capitalism ... have you _seen_ the state of the American healthcare system recently? ~~~ dragonwriter Yes, US healthcare sucks, but is still-- despite being less universal and less efficient than that of any other modern advanced economy (all of which are also mixed economies) -- better than anything that existed anywhere when capitalism was the dominant model, and not just due to (non-social) technical advances. Of course, the US has adopted, in many areas and healthcare particularly, less elements of socialism than other advanced mixed economies. So maybe there's a reason US healthcare sucks so hard, and its not insufficient devotion to capitalism. ~~~ duncan_bayne "So maybe there's a reason US healthcare sucks so hard, and its not insufficient devotion to capitalism." The list of problems that the previous poster provided were almost all ( _especially_ cronyism and cartels) characteristics of systems _other_ than capitalism. Is it possible we're using different definitions of capitalism, here? I think you might mean crony-capitalism, a.k.a. fascism. ~~~ dragonwriter I mean the real economic system that was dominant in the developed world from the late 19th to early 20th Century, which certain of its socialist critics created the word "capitalism" to refer to, since criticising it without a name was problematic, and it was an economic system by which property arrangements, policy, etc., were organized around the interests of the capitalist class. Cronyism and cartels were certainly not infrequent features of that system. Fascism is something different and newer. ~~~ duncan_bayne ... which was also the system that produced _this_ : [http://crfblog.org/wp- content/uploads/2010/03/2007112238img1...](http://crfblog.org/wp- content/uploads/2010/03/2007112238img1.gif) Sure, there were problems. Abuses of power, cronyism, etc. But capitalism quite literally rescued the world from poverty, and continues to do so: [http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/wordpovert...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/wordpoverty2-600x387.jpg) ------ lordnacho How is it possible that the real emission is 40x the allowed limit? Wouldn't you see VW being the only manufacturer under the limit, and everyone else unable to get the car approved? Or alternatively, everyone is cheating? Because you can imagine a world where some firms cheat to get 10-20-30% less than rated, so that they're in line with the industry. But if VW's normal car is 40x worse than advertised, and most cars were close to the correct standard, wouldn't they just hire a guy who knew how to fix their cars? Did VW's internal testing test competitors' cars? Is this going to explode across the industry? Also, this isn't the only kind of test that a car goes through. There's crash tests, MPG tests, and all sorts of things that I wouldn't know about. If you can game an emissions test, you can game the crash test and the MPG test, which are probably both things people care about a fair bit more than emissions. ~~~ joshmoz When I was car shopping the VW diesel numbers, for tdi sportwagen in particular, were impressive. Nothing else came close to VW's combination of power, space, and mileage. Now maybe there are people who know more about cars than I do and can dispute that, but that was my perception a couple of years ago. If I were the other car companies, I'd want to know exactly how VW was pulling that off. They must have looked into it, and surely they're not as easily misled as I apparently was (how would I know if VW was outright lying about the car?). This suggests to me that the other car companies must have known that VW was doing something wrong. The fact that they didn't rat VW out suggests to me that they were either doing the same thing (maybe not as aggressively as VW) or they hoped to get away with the same thing. The former seems more likely, and if that's true then I expect this to spread beyond VW soon. ~~~ Nelson69 VW has also built a huge reputation on diesel. They go and win Le Mans with diesels. They have a giant budget and research ability. They've pushed diesel forward in a lot of ways. Maybe the others knew they were cheating, I can't imagine that it wouldn't leak out some how. I also can't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market. With mid-sized and heavy trucks, there is an entire subculture of guys that mod them for "more power" and such. There is a little industry built on it and nearly a religion surrounding the "better mileage" and "more power." Some of the systems and devices are sophisticated enough that they have integrated on/off switches for passing smog tests and such. If we really really cared about it, that would be illegal, there would be much more stringent emissions testing more frequently. I'm of the belief that the regulators knew or suspected there was some cheating but it's political to make waves. ~~~ CamperBob2 _I also can 't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market._ This is exactly how the auto industry works, contrary to the uninformed person(s) who modded you down. People should refrain from moderating posts from users who actually know what they're talking about. For example, the first thing GM did when they began work on the current- generation Corvette was buy a Porsche 911 (from Volkswagen, no less) and study it in detail. This is an objective fact by GM's own admission ([http://www.edmunds.com/porsche/911/2013/comparison- test.html](http://www.edmunds.com/porsche/911/2013/comparison-test.html)). Competitive analysis is a key engineering strategy, no less important than any other. It's inconceivable that other manufacturers weren't aware of exactly how VW's seemingly-impossible engineering worked. The only question is why _they_ didn't rat them out to the EPA. ~~~ henrikschroder > It's inconceivable that other manufacturers weren't aware of exactly how > VW's seemingly-impossible engineering worked. The only question is why they > didn't rat them out to the EPA. Everyone cheats, and preserving status quo is in the best interest of everyone. ~~~ SapphireSun What worries me is that if this explodes across the industry, the common refrain will become that EPA guidelines are unrealistic and that's why everyone is cheating. Just what we need as the world is coming around to direly needed environmental regulation. ------ codeshaman As I'm observing this scandal unfold, I find it amusing that all the eyes are on the VW company and how it affects it's finances, it's reputation, etc While the effects on the company are extreme, I think we should also consider the broader and ultimate consequences of this trickery. The fact that those cars pollute a lot more than officially acknowledged. I've read figures like 40x as much. Does that make those 11 million VW cars caught cheating the politically accepted pollution equivalent of 440 million cars ? Another interesting question - if VW was caught doing it, who else is doing it ? And if other companies (and factories, etc) are doing it, what is the purpose of the international pollution treaties ? How does it affect the plans to reduce pollution, given that the numbers that we base our calculations on might be off by factors of 40x ? ~~~ rcthompson Nitrous oxide is about 300x more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2[1]. It also depletes the ozone layer. So yes, this could be a major issue for climate change. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide) ~~~ refurb Is nitrous oxide a major component of the nitrogen oxides from car exhaust? I thought it was mostly nitrogen dioxide (NO2)and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). I haven't heard of nitrous oxide (N2O) being much of a concern. ------ hackuser Will the EPA and other automotive regulators test other brands for similar problems? Perhaps this practice is widespread. Testing them seems obvious, but I know little about how regulators work. EDIT: VW isn't the first. From the other story on HN's front page right now [1] _[Caterpillar Inc and Cummins Engine Co] agreed to pay $83.4 million in civil penalties after federal officials found evidence that they were selling heavy duty diesel engines equipped with “defeat devices” that allowed the engines to meet EPA emission standards during testing but disabled the emission control system during normal highway driving._ [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10264894) EDIT2: On queue, from the NY Times: "Volkswagen Test Rigging Follows a Long Auto Industry Pattern" [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/vol...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/business/international/volkswagen- test-rigging-follows-a-long-auto-industry-pattern.html) ~~~ Shivetya The EPA has already stated that all diesel passenger cars will be retested. I think all cars should go through the same complete testing process and by more than one organizations. The EPA didn't find this issue, a university testing team did ~~~ e40 Does anyone know how the test was detected? I'm thinking they noticed either the revving of the engine without the wheels turning or just one set of wheels were turning. Hopefully the EPA will test in a real situation, by attaching the test equipment to the car and actually driving it. That should foil the cheaters. ~~~ tzs From the EPA's description: "The 'switch' senses whether the vehicle is being tested or not based on various inputs including the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, the duration of the engine's operation, and barometric pressure. These inputs precisely track the parameters of the federal test procedure used for emission testing for EPA certification purposes." Somewhere I saw a description of the EPA test procedure. It is not just a simple small set of test points. It is a long sequence of operations, calling for specific speeds and durations and rates of change simulating a variety of operating conditions ranging from a wide open freeway to a New York City traffic jam. I believe I read that the order of the various test segments might change from test to test, but each segment's parameters were very strict. ~~~ tlb But keep in mind it has to detect the test pretty early. Because non-test-mode emissions are 40x, it has to detect it well before 1/40th of the test is over or it will dominate the average. You can see the test schedule at [http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text- idx?SID=457ac7ef4b94883cc2c...](http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text- idx?SID=457ac7ef4b94883cc2c6bdca43e80640&mc=true&node=ap40.19.86_11931_686_11999.i&rgn=div9). It starts with 21 seconds of warm-up at zero speed, which is probably unusual for real drivers. ~~~ marincounty The engineer/engineers who pulled this off were pretty slick. I don't condone the cheat, but I am still trying to figure out how they turned on specific emmissions devises, or fooled with pulse cycles, etc. I have a weird feeling it wasn't fool proof, and they're a bunch of VW owners who failed smog? They brought the auto back, or to a different shop and the code somehow turned on the right components, leaned out injectors, etc? The problem is the customer had to pay for this slick trick. These smog tests are not cheap in my neck of the woods. Every two years, I end up paying close to $100. They always try to nail me with the "leaky" fuel cap. I just keep a new one in the back storage area, and bring it out at the right time. I'm an ex- mechanic so my vechicle always pass the emmission test, but boy, I have had problems with the visual test. While I'm here, some of us drive older cars, for a long time. Smog shops in California are required to have one copy of an Emissions Publication. Most use use Motor Publications. That manual is filled with errors. It's is the cheapest emmission manual on the market. If you happen to fail a visual smog test, go to a smog shop that has access to Mitchell Emission Smog manuals(OnDemand5). I have yet to find an error in Mitchell manuals. (The only reason so many smog shops only buy the Motor publications is because they are cheap. Any Smog technician will tell you they have found multiple errors in Motor Emission Publications. Vechicle owners don't have a clue to this problem, and are just sent home with a failed Smog test, or end up spending a day taking to CARB--just praying they will get an exemption. All of this is due to errors in Motor Emission Publications.) ------ harryh Two things that are surprising to me about this story: 1) The secret was kept for so long. How many programmers were involved with the relevant code? How many project managers signed off on it? Surely VW does its own emissions testing internally so some of them must have known. How high up in management did this go? It seems like it must have been quite a few. Amazing that none of them got mad and told someone outside the company. 2) I would never have guessed that emissions from a car engine could vary so widely. 20%? Sure. 50%? Sure. But news outlets are reporting that these cars are emitting at least 10x and possibly as much as 40x NOx as they should. This is clearly because of my ignorance of the details of the engineering here, but I was shocked that such a difference could happen. ~~~ hackuser > The secret was kept for so long. How many programmers were involved with the > relevant code? How many project managers signed off on it? Surely VW does > its own emissions testing internally so some of them must have known. How > high up in management did this go? It seems like it must have been quite a > few. Amazing that none of them got mad and told someone outside the company. We should not be surprised; we need to learn to expect it and manage that risk. Institutions of all types have long histories of such conspiracies to cover illicit activity. Think of the many recent financial industry scandals, the Catholic Church (and Penn State University) covering widespread rape of children, various military scandals, US government spying on citizens, IT companies spying on their users, performance enhancing drugs in baseball ... in fact we should be surprised when someone steps forward. The #1 rule of any institution is loyalty. Rape will be covered for; blowing the whistle is a mortal sin. It shouldn't be that way but we can't deal with these problems until we accept that it's human nature, at least in certain situations. EDIT: I don't mean to preach. A certain part of me is always surprised too. ~~~ notvladputin The used of PEDs in baseball was a well known issue dating back to the 1980s. Players, front office types, writers, and anyone in the public paying attention knew about it. I can't comment on the other items, but it's pretty clear that everyone knew about PEDs but just didn't care enough to ban them. (That said, my personal opinion is that steroid testing done in baseball is much more about using the issue as a wedge to weaken the MLB Players Association, rather than "fixing" the game.) ~~~ hackuser I don't agree: Back then I was a very knowledgable baseball fan (I probably could have named almost every player on every team) and I didn't know. I heard occasional rumors but nothing more persuasive than that, and nothing at all which indicated, in any convincing way, how widespread it was. When Jose Conseco talked about it, he was ridiculed as a nutcase and shunned (as expected; see my comment above about loyalty). I remember when home runs and offense increased dramatically, to record levels, and everyone was saying that the ball was juiced - nobody suspected it was the players who were juiced. ~~~ notvladputin In 1991, the commissioner tried to institute a policy banning steroids. He didn't have the authority, so it was no different than if I tried to write that. But it's a clear indication that MLB was aware of the steroid problem and tried taking a small step to fix it. Regarding the "players being juiced", it's never been shown that juiced players performed better. There have been a number of studies comparing players who were caught using PEDs, before and after, comparing to clean players, etc. None of them show any indication that taking steroids helped players perform better on the field. If you look at the power-on-contact or ISO of players across periods (the 90s, 00s, current game), you find that there is just as much power on contact in the game now as before. The different is strikeouts, which is clearly tied to strike zone enforcement and some other tradeoffs hitters are making now that teams understand strikeouts are fine if you have power. I apologize if my tone has some frustration in it, but my pet peeve is people saying that steroids = strength = McGwire hit ball far. The reality is far more nuanced, and if you are able to come into the analyses without preconceived conclusions, it's pretty clear that the 'steroid slugger' era happened to overlap with the power era, but it does not appear to have driven the higher rate of home runs and offense during the time. ~~~ hackuser I don't know about studies, but the evidence is strong. Let's look at home runs: * Since 1920 [1], excluding the PED era, only twice have players hit 60 or more home runs in a season and both barely passed the threshold: Babe Ruth hit 60 in 1927 and Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961. * In the 4 years from 1998 to 2001, the feat was accomplished 6 times by 3 different players (2 very strongly associated with PEDs, the other widely supsected of it), many blowing away the former threshold, hitting 73, 70, 66, 65, 64, and 63 home runs. * Since PEDs were banned in baseball, only one player has hit more than 55 home runs in a season. [1] 1920 is when hitters embraced the modern strategy of trying to hit home runs, led by innovator Babe Ruth. Before that, a period called the 'Dead Ball Era', they generally just tried to get any hit they could and home runs were much more rare. Also, there were technological and rule changes which may have facillitated home run hitting. Before 1919 players regularly led the league with 10-15 home runs; in 1919 Ruth hit 29, a record at the time and more than most entire teams hit; in 1920 he hit 54. ~~~ notvladputin The problem with this type of evidence is that it assumes the single change in the game was the presence or absence of steroids. To learn more from the data, check out the references I included at the bottom. The TL;DR is that there is no compelling statistical evidence that suggests steroids impacted homers, or offense in general. The facile argument fails to address the fact that the game underwent expansion (weakening the average pitcher). The strike zone was changed a number of times (if you normalize for strikeout rate, the power in today's MLB is the same as in the 90s). Umpires got a lot better once PitchFX was able provide them feedback. (Lots were let go as well). Colorado started using a humidor, reducing home runs at the greatest hitters park of all time. There's not really any way of knowing who did or did not use. MLB and mainstream sports media "strongly suspected" PED usage is closer to HUAC findings than real evidence. Also, it doesn't acknowledge the fact that a lot of pitchers were found using PEDs. In short, it's incredibly facile to look at some superficial stats and hints of suspicion in order to reach the "steroids = homers" conclusion. But when you look at the underlying component numbers and adjust for the changing environment in the game, there is no evidence to support that conclusion. (That does not mean steroids had no effect, just that we cannot detect them with our best efforts.) Here's an incredibly strong counter argument from Joe Sheehan's paywalled newsletter [I added it to pastebin for reference, I doubt Joe will mind]. [http://pastebin.com/DXW0HSSt](http://pastebin.com/DXW0HSSt) Dan Szymborski is one of the top baseball data analysts in the country. From [0] (paywall) "Despite the rhetoric surrounding PEDs, players caught for steroid/testosterone use do not show a pattern of overperforming their projections in the years leading up to the drug suspension or a pattern of underperforming their projections in the years after a drug suspension." In layman's terms, if all you knew about players the past 10-15 years was their past OPS+ and whether they were busted for steroids -- now or at any time in the past -- it appears the PEDs had no noticeable effect on the projection of their future OPS+. What this means is that, even with the knowledge of what outliers such as Barry Bonds accomplished while allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs, as a whole, there's extremely limited evidence of a significant effect on statistics of the drug users as whole. And without double-blind research studies of PED use among major leaguers and/or detailed information of what players are using, all we have to go by so far is the bottom-line results. Now, none of this should be taken as endorsing the idea that MLB should simply open the floodgates and allow players to do whatever they want. Instituting drug testing is a very good thing for the sport -- but that improvement is for reasons other than the record books, such as the long-term health of players and the public trust. As far as the record books being tainted by PED use, well, it appears there isn't much evidence of that." [0] [http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/10922627/m...](http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/10922627/melky- cabrera-strong-start-helps-demonstrate-why-peds-really-enhance-performance- mlb) ------ korisnik Somewhat relevant, allegations have come out that the German government was aware of VW cheating on emissions tests [http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal- germ...](http://www.independent.ie/world-news/volkswagen-scandal-german- government-accused-of-covering-up-rigged-emissions-data-31552152.html) ~~~ yc1010 I am currently shopping for a car and now need to keep in mind which brands/models are affected by this fiasco as another factor in my shopping. Here in Ireland motor tax is based on CO2 emissions I can see some very very unhappy VW drivers in this country in coming months if their tax suddenly jumps by an order of magnitude due to this avoidance scheme putting these cars into the high emission bands I do wonder how Revenue will handle this, not only some people might find themselves with a more polluting car but a larger and unexpected tax bill will impact peoples pockets directly. ~~~ organsnyder The CO2 amount should remain the same—the issue is with other pollutants that cause smog. The only reason that CO2 might go up is if the fix involves increasing fuel consumption. However, you might not even need the fix in Ireland, as many European countries (as I understand it) have laxer smog requirements to begin with. Regardless, though, I wouldn't buy a VW product right now, wherever I lived. ~~~ tadfisher Euro standards are backwards; they have stricter CO2 emissions regulations, but are lax on NOx. I'd imagine they don't have a lot of smog events like what happened in California during the 60s and 70s. ~~~ organsnyder I wouldn't call them "backwards". They're opposite of the US, but that's because they're optimizing for reducing a different pollutant. Smog is certainly undesirable (as an asthmatic, I know that from experience), but CO2 may well have more dire long-term costs. Of course, the optimal situation would be to tightly regulate both pollutants. ~~~ ars I would definitely call them backwards. The amount of extra CO2 from a car running a better NoX system is utterly irrelevant compared to how much CO2 is emitted. Trading CO2 for NoX is completely indefensible. NoX is really really bad for the environment. ------ WalterBright The emissions standards are particularly inefficient. They say things like emitting 101ppm is bad and 100 ppm is good. But pollution isn't like that. A much more practical solution is to annually measure the pollution emitted, multiply by the number of miles driven in the last year, and multiply by the tax rate. What this does is: 1\. cause the consumer to care about the emissions 2\. introduce competition to have better numbers, rather than merely meeting the standard 3\. enable higher polluting occasional uses rather than banning them outright ------ ArkyBeagle Other than border disputes, when has _measurement_ been a political football before? The nerd in me is happy about this, but the rest of me is kinda ... sad. It's also interesting that there appears to be a tradeoff between NOx and CO2 here. IMO, VW sort of ... prematurely fell on the grenade in a PR way of thinking about it. Actually proving it as fraud would have taken some doing. Admitting it up front does not have clear advantages that I see. If we use the GM keyswitch debacle as a yardstick, there's evidence than being a cheeseball is rewarded. GM managed to constrain the damage to $99M . Not saying anyone did the right thing here, but the adversarial approach has consequences. ~~~ ZeroGravitas They appear to have been denying it for a year at this point, before they admitted it. So presumably something happened in that period of time that made them calculate that admitting it now was better than continuing to deny it. ~~~ whatthesmack I don't recall where I saw it, but there was mention of 2016 VW TDI models not getting road certification until the issue was dealt with. Maybe this was incentive for VW to come clean. ------ DrNuke Problem is they've got the money and the market, CEO can't resign and get away with it, they should pay back all plus a hefty fine. This is much too common nowadays, big corps have no face and are too big to fail, no one is directly accountable and geopolitics are at stake. Hit them hard in the monies, would say, but the risk is fear and a market bubble. ------ floor__ As bad as it is to screw the environment.. I am still shocked by all the out rage coming from countries. Its like everyone forgot GM knowingly left faulty parts that were killing people for 10 years. This entire thing seems so political. ~~~ InclinedPlane Diesel pollution is deadly. And it seems that more people at a higher level are complicit in this scandal than in the GM one. Besides which, what does it matter how bad GM was? This scandal stands on its own. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) ~~~ floor__ Yeah that is kinda my point. I am upset that GM wasn't held to this standard of accountability or any other car company for that matter. I agree with you that this one is as bad or worse. ------ JustSomeNobody Really? 11M vehicles affected and you knew nothing about it and you simply get to resign? I'm growing more and more disappointed in the world we are living in. ------ hodder [1] Winterkorn studied metallurgy and metal physics at the University of Stuttgart from 1966 to 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research and Metal Physics, where he received his doctorate in 1977. Winterkorn embarked on his career in 1977, as a specialist assistant in the research division "Process Engineering" at Robert Bosch GmbH.[4] From 1978 to 1981, he headed the refrigerant compressor development group "Substances and Processes" at Robert Bosch and Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte GmbH. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn) ------ jhallenworld I wish this scandal would somehow add pressure to clean up ship and truck pollution. VW is having severe consequences, but their contribution to the problem might not be that significant: [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping- pollution) [http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and- western-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/california-and-western- states/diesel-trucks-air-pollution.html) ------ deegles I'm expecting a snarky press release from Tesla any moment now... ~~~ TeMPOraL They'll probably start installing NOx emitters in their cars - with defeat devices that will make them active only during tests) - in order to bring Teslas in line with the rest of the industry. ------ Scramblejams He was only in his job for about 5 months, but I'm not familiar with his previous work history at VW. Was he in some significant sense responsible for the scandal by way of his prior responsibilities? Or is his resignation, for lack of a better way I can think of to put it, an honor move? Edit: Thanks for the clarifications, all. Although he assumed Ferdinand Piëch's former position as chairman in April 2015, he was VW's CEO since 2007. ~~~ pc86 He has said publicly that he is not aware of any wrong-doing on his part. I imagine that just about any board would require just about any CEO to resign after something like this, though. ~~~ Scramblejams When it comes to a relatively new CEO, I'm not so sure about that. GM didn't require Mary Barra's resignation over the ignition switch scandal, for example. (Though admittedly that one was smaller than VW's.) Edit: Winterkorn took over as chairman of the supervisory board of VW in April, but as petewailes pointed out, he's been CEO since 2007, so his resignation makes more sense. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Is it the difference between deliberate/undefendable and simple cost savings? I'm not very familiar with the switch issue. ------ arbuge There is usually more than one cockroach in the kitchen if you spot one. I wonder how many other aspects of their software they messed with in ways they probably shouldn't have... ------ largote What surprises me is that VW thought they wouldn't be caught doing this, it took a while but it seems like sooner or later someone would figure it out. ------ jschulenklopper Well, you could say that Volkswagen implemented an A/B test on the emission control, but with an unfortunate population segmentation. ------ gherkin0 Does anyone have an technical details on what their "defeat device" was actually doing (like what systems it was disabling)? ~~~ thrownaway2424 It doesn't disable anything, it just uses a different engine management map that runs the engine hotter or leaner (probably both) to get more power and better fuel economy while producing more NOx. ------ emodendroket I just can't see how someone sits down and green-lights this decision. It seems like it'd be sure to come out eventually. ~~~ jtriangle It's market demand for efficient yet sporty cars. They saw a market and made their cars dominate that market. To that end they were wildly successful, so if you set aside any ideological barriers that would speak against creating more pollution than is allowed, it's a fairly logical decision. ~~~ emodendroket Yes, but what's not logical is cheating by means that seem so blatant as to be sure to be discovered and potentially vaporizing all the gains you made by cheating in the first place. ~~~ jtriangle Weirdly enough, it wasn't the EPA that caught them, so they were doing a good job hiding it from the people that are in charge of finding these things out. So you could say, they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids! ------ twblalock I would be very surprised if VW was the only company that did this. I hope this is a catalyst for the EPA to change to real-world emissions testing. ~~~ Kenji 'a catalyst for [...] emissions testing' Hahaha, that is a fantastic pun that lightens up the mood of this comment section. ------ mtgx And if all of that wasn't bad enough to make you dislike VW, they've now hired BP oil spill lawyers to defend them: [http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen-h...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/23/volkswagen- hires-kirkland-ellis-to-defend-emissions-cases) ~~~ ArkyBeagle Well, yeah. ------ paulojreis Is he going to jail? ------ iamleppert I think someone at the EPA should be held liable for their lousy testing practices. They test cars on a dyno, which is far from real-world testing. They would have easily caught this if they tested cars in the way and same environment that they are driven. I fully expect corporations to try and skirt the law whenever possible, that's why we have institutions like the EPA. Their practices need to be sound and tamper-proof. It's not impossible. It's engineering 101. The head of the EPA should resign in disgrace for letting this situation get this far. ~~~ robwilliams I mean, they caught it. This is a win for the EPA. ~~~ setpatchaddress Well, they didn't catch it, but when it was brought to their attention, they verified it and went after VW. This exposed a gap in their their testing practices, but the overall process certainly worked as it should. ------ simi_ Edit: Thank you for the several downvotes. I initially wrote a stupid rant based on this [0] about how VW's ex-CEO doesn't speak English, but a quick Youtube search proved that was wrong [1]. Oops! I'll just leave some quick facts that I dug up in the process: * VW just had another scandal that made it to HN recently, regarding hiding security vulnerabilities [2] * VW Group numbers for 2014: €204B of which €12.7B revenue, 583k employees [3] * the board made some weird-ass declarations about the ex-CEO [4] My confidence in VW is shaken to the point that I'll never buy another car from them again (I didn't like how they artificially segment the market by owning Audi/VW/Skoda/etc anyway), but how do other German manufacturers compare? [5] 0: [http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry- meet...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9347275/auto-industry-meet-the- apple-effect) 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEPJluU09RU) 2: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has- spe...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/vw-has-spent-two- years-trying-to-hide-a-big-security-flaw) 3: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group) 4: [http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen- board-s...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/23/9383835/volkswagen-board- statement-diesel-scandal) 5: [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only- car-18...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-may-not-only- car-185400060.html) ~~~ mason55 > _I didn 't like how they artificially segment the market by owning > Audi/VW/Skoda/etc anyway_ How is this different from Honda/Acura, GM/Cadillac, or Toyota/Lexus? ~~~ joezydeco Not just GM/Cadillac, but GM/Chevrolet/Buick/GMC/Opel/Vauxhall/Holden/Cadillac ~~~ function_seven I miss the old days: GM/Chevrolet/Buick/GMC/Opel/Vauxhall/Holden/Cadillac/Oldsmobile/Pontiac/Hummer/Saturn/Saab ~~~ joezydeco What, no love for Geo? =) ~~~ ams6110 Those were actually Toyotas. ~~~ joezydeco More than Toyotas... "Geo models were manufactured by GM in joint ventures with three Japanese automakers. The Prizm was produced at the GM/Toyota joint-venture NUMMI assembly plant in Fremont, California, and the Metro and Tracker were produced at the GM/Suzuki joint-venture CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario. The exceptions, the Spectrum and Storm, were entirely manufactured by Isuzu in Japan. Geo Metro convertibles and early Geo Trackers were built by Suzuki in Japan." Postscript: The NUMMI plant is now owned by Tesla. ------ vaadu GM killed more than 100 people with a known defective ignition switch. Volkswagen killed ... the air. Guess which company will get the greater penalty from the US government? BTW, GM spends significantly more on lobbying and campaign contributions to political candidates. Source: OpenSecrets <a href="[https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&a...](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&amp;cycle=A">Volkswagen</a>) and <a href="[https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&a...](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&amp;cycle=A">GM</a>) ~~~ jeromeflipo Seriously? Just in France, diesel emissions kill 42,000 persons every year [0]. In California, they kill at 1,500 to 2,400 people a year [1]. It might be possible that these estimations rely on measurements communicated by the manufacturers (i.e underestimated by 40x)! [0] [http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-...](http://www.lemonde.fr/sante/article/2013/03/02/diesel-42000-morts- prematurees-chaque-annee-en-france_1841726_1651302.html) [1] [http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel- health.htm](http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/diesel/diesel-health.htm) ~~~ happyscrappy European cities have much worse air pollution than American ones because they went with diesels instead of hybrids in an attempt to be more green and partly because of German auto lobbying.

Google Drives Towards Microsoft and Adobe With Gears - ideas101 http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/13/google-drives-towards-microsoft-and-adobe-with-gears/ ====== ComputerGuru Only problem: Google doesn't support x64 Linux installations. [http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=83194...](http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=83194&topic=11691) (note that the nspluginwrapper link on their site doesn't work for Gears - it was reported by a poster on a mailing list as working, but future posts confirmed it doesn't do the trick) ...whereas both Flash and Moonlight work quite well on x64 now (nevermind the past). ------ ph0rque This article helped me refine an idea that's been sloshing around in my semi- subconscious for a while: a server-side plugin that lets the designer write 100% standards-compliant CSS, and it would be "compiled" to whatever is needed for various quirky browsers requesting to see the particular page... is this feasible? ~~~ jsjenkins168 You are partially describing what GWT does. Except that it doesnt do much special in the way of CSS yet... But in terms of Javascript/HTML/AJAX, it compiles separate versions for each browser (which are automatically loaded), virtually eliminating the need to handle various quirky browser behaviors. And any standard Java app server works fine for the server side, nothing special needed there.

Ask HN: Managed VPS or shared hosting? - maxraz For a non-server guy, I&#x27;m quite comfortable with cPanel on shared hosting (I can add domains, set up an email and SSL). So I want to ask you if a managed VPS with free cPanel included can be also easy to handle for a simple designer?<p>I don&#x27;t even know what is LAMP is, and it seems to me this one is not installed...<p>Can I make this move, as I need more resources for my site? Thank you for advance. ====== tmaly I use both, but if your a non-server guy, your going to have a learning curve if you want to use a VPS. ~~~ maxraz Thank you, Sir! ------ maxraz I tried already a VPS, it's not for me - too hard. But recently I've heard about managed VPS with free cPanel, that's why I had this idea.

Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (March 2011) - kevinburke Did I miss this thread somehow?<p>Full time positions only and please lead with the location.<p>Thread for remote workers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2216921<p>Thread for internships: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2273865<p>Thanks! ====== robinwarren There is this one which seems the most popular at the moment. Put your weight behind that and see if we can get it where more people will see it. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270790>

State.of.dev – Explore the current state of development - carlio https://stateofdev.com/home/ ====== BrandiATMuhkuh Your SEO chart pretty much confirms my strategies. It's all about the incoming links and disavow links. Looks like really useful info overall, thanks.

Real-time sentiment analysis of the debate - nikita http://election.memsql.com/ ====== grzm Interesting! I wonder how well VADER handles tweets. Is there a lot of sarcasm in 140 characters? Reminds me of the vector space mathematics post from a a couple of days ago. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12714406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12714406)

U.S. Warms Up Its Own Old Spy Stories to Bash Putative Chinese Espionage - cribbles https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/02/us-warms-up-old-spy-story-to-warn-of-foreign-espionage.html ====== java-man This is the _real_ story.

Surfing, Schools and Jets: WeWork’s Bets Follow CEO Adam Neumann’s Passions - terryauerbach https://www.wsj.com/articles/surfing-schools-and-jets-weworks-bets-follow-ceo-adam-neumanns-passions-11551787200 ====== kolbe [https://outline.com/tWd8Z4](https://outline.com/tWd8Z4)

Idea for the structure of a tutoring site - andrewmech55 I don't have any real coding ability and I certainly don't have time for a side project but I was hoping to get some feedback on an idea of mine:<p>Upon visiting the site you would be asked to register as a student or as a tutor. Upon registering as a tutor you would select your areas of expertise and take a few diagnostic tests, perhaps pulled from khan academy and other sites. You would be encouraged to buy a low cost usb writing pad to assist you in your teaching, and you would agree to accept no payment for your first 20 or so tutoring sessions. This is because you would be proving your abilities as a tutor to students who had agreed to do sessions with tutors of unproven ability (this would also serve as the free pricing tier). After each session the student would rate the tutor in several categories, allowing them to build up credibility and desirability among the students. Once they are proven the students who would like a more professional experience can submit reasonable payments before their session through stripe or some other simple payment system. The sessions look like a split screen with a video feed of the other person on one side and a virtual paper display on the other. Tutors can log in and do sessions with available students whenever they want, or students can subscribe to specific tutors at given times if both parties agree. I can see this having a problem with an initial lack of tutors/users and also a library of diagnostic tests would be difficult to build up since this idea isn't limited to standard subjects. I'd love to hear HN's ideas on this, thanks for reading. ====== dmils4 Make a few mockups dude! Even if you can't code, use microsoft paint or whatever program you have - it'll help you clarify your own ideas of how the product will work, but more than that, it'll give the people here something more actionable to help you with! I don't understand the "buy a low cost usb writing pad". Shouldn't be necessary. But other than that, anything in the tutor providing space sounds useful - there's a need there, and tons of companies trying to address it (study aid sites like notehall/cramster, course management platforms like piazza) that's more than enough validation to keep moving on it.

Employee retention rate at top tech companies - throwaway40483 http://www.businessinsider.com/employee-retention-rate-top-tech-companies-2017-8 ====== mgiannopoulos These seem very low, but how do they compare with other industries?

The traveling German carpenters - luccastera http://blog.intellum.com/2011/04/traveling-german-carpenters.html ====== dylanz My good friend is a journeyman, and I always wished there was a US equivalent, especially in the realm of software engineering. I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy coding with brilliant programmers and traveling around the country. Anecdotally speaking: My friend has a "wunderstick", which is a hand made walking stick. When we go into bars in Germany, he taps it, and the bartender gives us free drinks. Before we leave, he taps his stick again, and says some big speech in German (about how grateful he is, etc). Most bars and hotels cater to the journeymen quite well. While we were in Berlin, he also had girls run across the street to him and kiss him on the cheek or lips. I guess it's good luck to kiss a journeyman. ~~~ robyates Actually, there are journeyman software developers. Here are some links: 1\. Corey Haines: <http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/>, <http://www.coreyhaines.com/>, <http://www.coderetreat.com/> 2\. Journeyman Programmer Description: <http://teamdoty.us/journeymanwp/?p=4> (from <http://www.thejourneymanprogrammer.org/>) 3\. Software Craftsmanship: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_craftsmanship>, <http://scna.softwarecraftsmanship.org/>, <http://www.softwarecraftsmanship.org.uk/> ------ ugh This article talks only about journeymen and women who are truly exotic and rare but it doesn't really emphasize that vocational training — the alternative to college — still is alive and well in Germany. You usually don't got to college if you want to become a hairdresser or a mechatronic engineer. After they finish school, the apprentices work three or four days per week at some company and go to a vocational school the rest of the time. ~~~ zwieback The German system indeed has a lot more options between a full blown academic career to learning a craft in a structured 4 year program all the way to being an unskilled laborer with 10 years of school. The drawback is that career paths are also more structured than in the US and take a long time. Want to start a painting business? Better get your Meisterbrief first and that will take a good while. Here in the US things are more fluid, which leads to people changing careers and going back to school at a later age more willingly. The flipside is that almost everyone is an amateur and quality of work varies wildly. ------ zinssmeister Yeah I experienced this growing up as a kid in Germany. I remember these people from other towns in their "strange" outfits. Over the years they got less and less but you can still find a few. Now living here in the U.S. I wonder how something like this would maybe translate over to coders and designers in startups. Seeing that we have these startup heavy areas across the country. Why not have people work a year in the Valley, then move a year to NYC, followed by another year in Boston or Austin. Would be a fun and rewarding program for young talent. ~~~ nir No need for a program - you can just do it. Even go outside the US (some countries have a work/holiday visa program, eg Australia). It's a great learning experience. ~~~ zinssmeister Yes of course one can just do it. But having a bit of an umbrella organization around this would help get the word out. ~~~ plastics What would we need to create one? ~~~ zinssmeister I think the most critical step towards success of such a thing is getting a few bigger companies in each of the startup areas to offer exclusive intern/entry/mid-level positions to these kinds of people. ~~~ plastics I guess a lot of hacker news reader work in said startup areas. So is anybody willing to give it a shot? I am located in Munich, Germany, not exactly a startup hup, but I have some connections to Berlin and would be willing to annoy my contacts there until they agree. Also should the plans for my own company work out in the next months, I would be willing to offer exclusive intern/entry/mid-level positions. ~~~ eru I'm in Cambridge, UK, but come from Germany and have seen the Walz. I'd be interested. ~~~ zinssmeister I was born and raised in Germany as well but am now in Dallas getting ready to move to Palo Alto. Besides this digital Walz it might also be interesting to start a small network for "Global German Tech Talent" or something. I know there are a few germans in the Valley. ~~~ eru That might actually work in practice. But in principle selecting on the basis of nationality always sounds silly to me. (But I guess I'm just being a good German here. Where not even our President is a patriot.) ------ intellectronica It's worth keeping in mind that the travelling carpenters are a souvenir from dark times in Europe, when economic progress remained extremely slow because craftsmen were evaluated by their belonging to a guild and would not compete. ~~~ gwern It's worth noting that those 'dark times' were periods of perfectly ordinary economic growth compared to the rest of the world and all the millenniums previous. Comparing those times to the Industrial Revolution that came shortly after is a little unfair - _no_ tradition or souvenir compares well. ~~~ roel_v Eh, no. The first explosion of efficiency and economic prosperity was in Roman times, when there was peace in much of Europe and cities flourished, complete with sanitation systems, elaborate transportation networks etcetera. When that crumbled, city states took over, and economic life was once again dictated by the whims of rulers who in reality depended on keeping the ruling classes of the cities in their empire happy; in these cities, tradesmen classes operated in rigid, protectionist and mercantilist guild systems. There was stagnation and in many fields enormous regression until the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution (when freedom brought back the drive for progress). ~~~ arihelgason Exactly. Economic activity centered on agriculture where efficiency increases were minuscule. Because of this economic activity did not grow much. See this diagram for an idea of just how little growth there was: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_Capita_1-2003_A....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_Capita_1-2003_A.D.png) ~~~ gwern On a small base (like a graph where the initial datapoints are less than 1/27th the ending datapoints), even large percentages can be hard to see. And I'm not sure how you can be agreeing 'exactly', since the Roman empire was as agriculturally based as anything else around (latifunda, panem et circenses, the Egypt grain tribute etc.). But you are right that the annual growth due to _efficiency_ was relatively small: > Indeed generations of English schoolchildren have read, probably with bored > bemusement, of the exploits of such supposedly heroic innovators as Jethro > Tull (author in 1733 of An Essay on Horse-Hoeing Husbandry), “Turnip” > Townsend, and Arthur Young. But this agricultural revolution is a myth, > created by historians who vastly overestimated the gains in output from > English agriculture in these years.4 The productivity growth rate in > agriculture was instead modest, at 0.27 percent per year, lower than for the > economy as a whole. But even these modest gains represented considerably > faster productivity growth than had been typical over the years 1200–1800. > Figure 12.4, for example, shows wheat yields per seed sown in England from > 1211 to 1453. Medieval agriculture seems to have been totally static over > hundreds of years. (Clark remarks elsewhere that agricultural productivity growth is more like 1 or 2%, and the Chinese had easily double England's agriculture efficiency, but because farming is a war against entropy, with land being damaged and local pests adapting etc., the net productivity growth is small.) Economic growth came mostly from population growth and exploiting additional natural resources. ------ wazoox In France there is a related system, "les Compagnons du devoir". However, it exists for carpenters, masons, sculptors, bakers, etc. Almost all hand crafts, in fact. They must travel around the country to learn their craft, and present a "masterpiece" as a proof they master it. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France> ------ vidar Reminds me of a proverb from Nassim Taleb: "Skills that transfer: street fights, off-path hiking, seduction, broad erudition. Skills that don't: school, games, sports, laboratory - what's reduced and organized." ------ arjn Back when I was in undergrad, I met a German exchange student who mentioned something about this. He may have been part of it at some point. They have a special belt buckle or something which identifies them and he said it was almost a status symbol (the belt buckle). I believe he was a roof-shingler and not a general carpenter though. ------ Luc I really wanted to see those beer-giving sticks, and found that the magic google word for more pictures is 'Wanderschaft': <http://www.google.com/images?q=Wanderschaft> ~~~ jsilence Sorry, but "Wanderschaft" is a rather old fashioned word for hiking. It is the noun version of the verb "Wandern" (to hike). The stick is called "Wanderstab" or "Stenz". ~~~ DanielH "Wanderschaft" is the German noun used especially for the carpenters journey. ------ bobbywilson0 Corey Haines has done this with software development. In a similar fashion working for room and board. Which turns out to be a great deal for the company and I assume great experience for Corey. ~~~ kragen He has a blog at <http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/> but I don't see where he talks about programming for room and board. ------ mrspandex Did anyone else read that title as "time traveling German carpenters?" Does the internet make this less relevant for those in the software field? ~~~ plastics The "Walz" is not for building primary skills (i.e. in our case Software Development or in their case Carpentry). It is assumed that carpenters doing it are already quite skilled in their respective profession. The reason of the "Walz" is to teach self reliance, soft skills and to round out ones primary skills by being exposed to practices of their craft that have evolved/developed differently from those they learned during their apprenticeship. In short the goal is to become a "Master" which in the german vocational tradition originally meant having your own shop and not needing to be an employee any longer (so in our case to become a founder). I think the internet undermines these goals, because, well IMHO it is becoming more and more a gigantic echo chamber (we all read the same blogs/books, admire the same persons, use remarkably similar tools etc.) I think it is astounding that a lot of very smart people assume that currently hip and promoted best development practices, say for a Web 2.0 whatever platform are relevant for other areas (e.g embedded, big iron, medical, aeronautic, finance) because there is not much evident push back in the blog sphere from practitioners in these spheres... which AFAIK is more a result of these people tending to much less likely to blog or work on open source software, than of the universal applicability of said practices (and if the push back, the results I have seen so far have been highly embarrassing for the hipster crowd). ~~~ mhd _In short the goal is to become a "Master" which in the german vocational tradition originally meant having your own shop and not needing to be an employee any longer_ Not just originally, for some professions you're _still_ not allowed to have your own business without your "Meister" degree. Never understood why this included hairdressers… Totally agree with your assessment of the web subsection of the IT profession. And it's quite splintered, with the "young turks" against academia against the enterprise, with plenty of small areas of expertise vanishing in the cracks. It does get a bit better if the forum of discussion is sufficiently abstract and spread over different niches (e.g. programming languages that transcend specific fandoms). ------ fleitz Interesting article, it's one of the directions I want to take with Answer in 30. We're very people focused so I think it's essential to be out and about with the 99% of people who aren't tech startups, getting work, getting to know our customers and seeing how our product can make their lives better and businesses more successful. I want to take a van and travel North America working on the startup and talking to our userbase and customers. What could be better from a community management perspective than to get a visit personally from the founders. I think it says a lot more than some silly badge you can display on your profile. ------ WA Funny, I have seen these guys in a bar a few months ago (in Germany). I didn't talk to them. However, that would've been interesting I guess. Anyways, interesting story.

McDonald's Europe: Computers to Replace Cashiers - chailatte http://www.thestreet.com/story/11122512/1/mcdonalds-europe-computers-to-replace-cashiers.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN ====== IanMikutel "The touch-screen platform will be implemented in around 7,000 McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom, according to reports, in an effort to improve efficiency and speed up customer service times." Here's an idea: create a Chipotle-style ordering app. You'll improve efficiency, speed up customer service times, cheaper capital investment than buying all those touchscreen kiosks, still get the benefit of looking technologically savvy, increase your brand recognition by getting your logo on millions of phones, and most of all, keep all those cashiers employed and contributing to the economic growth of Europe--a win-win for the long term health of McDonald's and their shareholders. ------ jff They have an order kiosk here at the local Jack In the Box (California). I've enjoyed using it simply because most people seem to want a human to take their orders; I'm comfortable using the computer, so I can step right up to the unoccupied kiosk and place the order. It's convenient.

Pin your friends - edwardliu http://www.hellol.com ====== edwardliu we're the pinterest for people. Right now our theme is focused on dating. Check it out and give us some feedback :)

Resources for Learning Graphics Programming - ingve http://stephaniehurlburt.com/blog/2019/3/25/resources-for-learning-graphics-programming ====== renholder Simplygon[0,1] has an SDK[2] - migh be worth a look, as well? [0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplygon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplygon) [1] - [https://www.simplygon.com/](https://www.simplygon.com/) [2] - [https://account.simplygon.com/#/downloads](https://account.simplygon.com/#/downloads)

Air Force Blocks Media Sites That Posted Leaked Cables - shrikant http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019944121568506.html ====== DupDetector Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007332> \- wsj.com - no comments Additionally, same story, different sources: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007015> \- nytimes.com - 2 comments <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2007650> \- theregister.co.uk - no comments <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2008075> \- reuters.com - no comments

Highly mutated cancers respond better to immune therapy - pseudolus https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00143-8 ====== apathy That’s not the important conclusion of the primary article. Highly mutated cancers _of certain types_ respond better to checkpoint inhibition and so forth. Melanoma, lung adeno, colorectal with MMR defects, for example. Others (glioma, high-grade serous ovarian, germ cell for example) don’t seem to get “hot” immunologically in proportion to their mutation burdens. (And there are other tumors, serous ovarian hypercalcemic for example, that have a vanishingly low mutational burden and respond to checkpoint inhibitors anyways). The initial results suggested that more mutations == more immune response. That’s clearly not universal enough to rely upon clinically, although in some tumor types it’s suitably reliable to stratify clinical trials. In other tumor types, it looks like we are stuck with trial and error to find good enough biomarkers for response, as with most drugs. So while TMB can be useful, it has limitations, and this study (the primary results, published in _Nature Genetics_ , a related but different journal) helped clarify where those limitations are. The news & views piece just has pull quotes. ~~~ yread I think there were some trials with negative results trying to link just TMB to immune response or outcome. It's really about problems with MMR genes. ~~~ apathy Not only, and not always. HGSOC-hypercalcemic is a particularly notable exception. The idea that it’s always MMR came from Lynch syndrome, but that doesn’t seem to be universal. Immunity is complicated, you heard it here first... ------ arcticbull Makes sense, the immune system is for detecting things that aren’t “you” and killing them, so the more mutated it is the less you it is — the easier it is to kill. Intuitively, anyways. I wonder if this is what spontaneous remissions are all about: the cancer mutates to the point that the immune system picks it up and knocks it out? ~~~ najarvg The headline is a bit misleading and if you look at the landscape of cancer immunotherapy research you will see this generalization does not hold at all i.e. tumor mutational burden is not necessarily a good predictor of response in all types of tumors. See apathy's response above. W.r.t spontaneous remission, there have been a few lines of research that would seem to lend credence to your hypothesis (e.g. - see [http://www.fevertherapy.eu/](http://www.fevertherapy.eu/)) but it has never been studies systematically enough to draw any conclusions one way or the other. ------ crb002 This makes sense. Barely mutated cancers are harder to distinguish from cells with benign mutations.

QuickStart for a SQL Database with Blockchain Features - auxten https://testnet.covenantsql.io/quickstart ====== daniel-l Great work, I have Stared your project, so what's the difference between u and bigchain? ~~~ auxten First, we have SQL support, Bigchaindb is MongoDB. CovenantSQL is written in Golang and C. Bigchaindb is written in Python. For more, you can refer our README

Y Combinator - Startup Library as Single pdf (12 MB) - Chirag http://ff.im/776I7 ====== davidcc This is handy! But embedded flash adverts? Not for me. ------ danw What's in the pdf? ~~~ jcl It appears to be a capture of the articles on this page: <http://ycombinator.com/lib.html> ------ sid Freaking awesome, thanks for this mate. Once i finish the current book im reading (on the train commute to work) i will have more great reading with this 12.8meg file :P. I have read alot of PG's essays but it wouldnt hurt to re-read some of it again .. could notice things i hadnt the first time through. ------ Virax I was expecting something useful - like legal documents, lots of howtos. For example: basic Linux networking including setting up services, basic security; legal documents, basic negotiating, basic people networking, PR strategies, etc... This is just a bunch of advice - not really that useful. ------ terpua Thanks for the library. Useful. However, I found a blog post cut-off. Here's the post: <http://evhead.com/2005/11/ten-rules-for-web-startups.asp> ------ callmeed Sent to Kindle! ... props to whoever put that together. ------ rrikhy This is great...thanks for the upload, Chirag!

A behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering - 3lit3H4ck3r http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/exclusive-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-facebook-release-engineering.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29 ====== joshuahedlund So many gems in this article. _To help spot problems, Facebook employees who access the social network from within the company's internal network will always see an experimental build of the site based on the very latest code, including proposed changes that haven't officially been accepted._ Probably the only place where your excuse for checking Facebook at work can be "Looking for bugs!" _The many data sources tracked by Facebook's internal monitoring tools even include tweets about Facebook. That information is displayed in a graph with separate trend lines to show the change in volume of positive and negative remarks_ Guess I need to tweet more about how slow their mobile app is getting... _One of the major ongoing development efforts at Facebook is a project to replace the HipHop transpiler. Facebook's developers are creating their own bytecode format and custom runtime environment.... the company can push thin bytecode deltas representing just the parts that have changed. Facebook may even be able to splice the updated bytecode into the application while it's running, avoiding a process restart._ Even though I'm doing nothing nearly this awesome, this article has done more to inspire and excite me about my own coding than anything I've read in a long time. ~~~ mikeleeorg I'm also really intrigued by the "karma" rating for all of their developers. Can anyone speak to how well that is working? Has it been effective? Any negative side-effects? Is it just for the release process, or for any development effort? ~~~ nbm It is "Push karma", so generally only applies to the push process. It isn't visible to anyone but the pushers and yourself (at least, I can't see anyone else's push karma in the expected places). It isn't a complex rating system - there are probably 97% of people at the base karma level, maybe 0.1% at one rung higher, 2.7% at one rung lower, and 0.2% at lower than that. The "Push" tech talk at <https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100259101684977> has more on it. Mostly it is a way of letting you know that you made people's lives difficult by holding up the push process by not being available to support your changes. You know that you won't get away with that, that you need to make up for it, and you also know when you've made up for it. (It also doesn't apply to a decent number of engineers, since they work on services and infrastructure that are not part of that process.) ------ brown9-2 This tech talk video from Chuck Rossi on the same topic also has a lot of really interesting information <https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100259101684977> ------ benjaminwootton I'm surprised by the monolithic all-or-nothing deployments that they have off of the single binary. I prefer to componentise applications and allow those components to be deployed, released, and rolled back separately. I also don't agree with the 'rollback is for losers' message as hinted at in the article. A fast dependable rollback (measured in the seconds) is significantly preferable to getting a developer to implement a fix to some issue under pressure and push it out in a rush. Much better to roll back, take stock, then implement the right fix under the tested process. ~~~ flyt Facebook is updating tens of thousands of servers with every push. "Rolling back" a release could take as long as a regular push and contribute to problems as the version in use diverges. Instead, FB has an aggressive and flexible internal system for "ungating" features to groups based on different criteria. Usually a feature would be pushed out in a deactivated state, then a developer will slowly ramp up its exposure to actual traffic. This limits the ability for a push to insta-break the site and means they can come back around for the next day's push with tweaks, then increase the code's exposure. ~~~ numlocked According to the article reverting does NOT involve re-deploying. Each server maintains the previous version of the binary and if needed the release team can pull the switch to revert all the servers. I assume that takes seconds, not 30 mins. ~~~ TeeWEE In fact i worked at a dutch social network where we also used hiphop. The new compiled binary is pushed to all servers and then it is started, the old binary is stopped and a port handover is done. Thus deploying without downtime. The old binary is available on the system, making a rollback very fast. However old binaries are removed after a time. So you can only roll back to a previous version quickly. ------ stcredzero _Facebook's developers are creating their own bytecode format and custom runtime environment.... the company can push thin bytecode deltas representing just the parts that have changed. Facebook may even be able to splice the updated bytecode into the application while it's running, avoiding a process restart._ NB: Fast JIT byte code VMs running web app frameworks in high level languages that can do all of this have been around since the early 2000s. (Including the distribution of binary deltas that can be applied atomically to live servers.) Smalltalk web app servers had all of this tech, plus refactoring capabilities and distributed version control years ahead of the rest of the industry. It makes me wonder what else is out there beneath the radar today. ------ jpeterson Why would they transfer the entire 1.5g binary each time, and not a delta? Surely it doesn't change _that_ much between releases. ~~~ jrockway Because the continuous integration runs tests for all components at HEAD, not at every random possible combination that could end up on a machine. The key to releases is repeatability and consistency. Copying one big blob to every machine is repeatable and consistent. Installing a bunch of libraries and updating things piecemeal is much more difficult to do right. Internal bandwidth is cheap, so this is almost a no-brainer. Even without an internal bittorrent distribution mechanism, it's still easy. The reason why people tend to gravitate to incremental deployments for web applications is because the typical tools encourage it; modules get installed in separate directories, each part of the app is a separate file (back in the CGI days), etc. When you compile everything into one file, though, then you just copy that file around to deploy. It's easier. (Ask a PHP programmer how to change one file, and it will probably be "change that one file". Ask a Java programmer, and it will be "fix the file, build a WAR, and replace the WAR". Tools dictate process, and the "scripting language" default is to work on a file level instead of an application level.) I've always wanted one-file deployment for my personal applications, but I never saw anyone doing it so I assumed I was wrong. But nope, it turns out that everyone else was wrong :) ~~~ sciurus jpeterson didn't suggest "installing a bunch of libraries and updating things piecemeal". Instead of transferring the entire binary for every release they could generate a (likely much smaller) patch, transfer just it, then apply it. I expect they're not doing this because it's computationally intensive compared to transferring the entire binary. ------ bonaldi I find it most interesting that they rely on irc internally. They work on one of the world's largest online communications platforms -- surely they could solve their problem in a way that gives it to their millions of users too? ~~~ nbm We do make extensive use of Facebook messages (many people, including me, make good use of Facebook Messenger on mobile and/or desktop) and of Facebook groups. IRC's ability to quickly create temporary groups, temporary membership (essentially muting discussion by leaving, or peeking by joining), bot frameworks, and multiple clients are potential reasons why IRC might be preferable for the sort of things it is used for, I guess. ~~~ alexgartrell As I understand it, the main reason is that IRC is decoupled from Facebook completely (or should be). In "Oh shit, the sky is falling!" SEV situation we can trust (sorta) that IRC will be there. ------ raphinou The article mentions that employees visiting Facebook from inside use an experimental build. Any idea how they manage this if the experimental build requires changes in the data structures used by the site? ~~~ bonzoesc I suspect that if new features require storage changes, the changes are strictly additive and won't affect old features, or old features are modified to use the new storage setup. With the amount of data Facebook has, they probably don't have the option of an "iterate over every row and change a thing" kind of migration. ~~~ flyt No, but they do have an extremely fast and efficient tool for performing online schema changes to its huge MySQL deployment: [https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online- sche...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online-schema- change-for-mysql/430801045932) ------ cake _The company has two separate sets of these tests; one does some conventional sanity checking on the code and the other simulates user interaction to make sure that the website's user interface behaves properly._ Anyone know more about this ? How are the user interaction made ? ~~~ rheide I'm guessing they're talking about unit tests and integration tests, the integration tests probably simulating user input using a framework such as Selenium(RC). ~~~ alexgartrell It's been a while since I've had to deal with it (bootcamp), but I'm pretty sure we still use Watir [1] [1] <http://watir.com/> ------ zbuc How do you wind up with a 1.5gb binary? That's incredible -- especially considering all their static assets are on their CDN, so this is basically their code and all the libraries they're pulling in. ~~~ kmavm (I work on the HipHop compiler.) You start by compiling PHP source. Simple PHP statements take a lot more space in the binary than intuition suggests. E.g.: if ($a == $b) ... would seem like it should be cmp $rax, $rbx jz ... But! If type inference has failed, we don't know what types $a and $b are, so they might be strings or objects or something crazy. So we're going to have to indirectly dispatch to $a's '==' method. We also spend a ton of space on reference counting code; the semantics of the language basically force you to do naive reference counting, since refcounts can be witnessed in various ways, so every time we pass an argument, do an assignment, sometimes even evaluate expressions, we need to manipulate reference counts, and if they've gone to zero call a destructor. It ends up making the code really large, and one of the things that's unique about our efforts to run PHP fast relative to other dynamic language efforts is that sheer code bulk ends up being our largest enemy; if we're not careful, icache misses eat us alive. Finally, I'll note that it's not _quite_ a 1.5GB binary. The actual ELF binary is something like 1.1GB, and the remainder of the package we bittorrent around production is stuff like static resources (javascript, css) and primed contents for the APC cache that we want prepopulated on boot. ~~~ cookiecaper Based on your work heretofore, do you think it's wise for Facebook to continue on the PHP path instead of working on a backend rewrite in C# or some other, saner language? I find it odd that Facebook is still using PHP and pouring lots of effort and cash into things like HipHop when they're obviously hiring people smart enough to use another language, and when they obviously have the runway to perform a dark horse rewrite into a much cleaner, saner backend. ~~~ kmavm This is a long and deep subject. I wouldn't say that we've "continued on the PHP path." I'd say that we've refused to throw out the precious PHP parts of our application, while not being afraid to use more appropriate languages across Thrift boundaries when needed. Our search engine, newsfeed, and ad serving infrastructure, for instance, are in C++. A drop-everything-and-rewrite of the PHP code is entirely out of the question, for all the reasons covered in Spolsky's 12-year-old classic on the subject: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>. Those of us working on making PHP perform better are a tiny fraction of Facebook engineering as a whole; this small overhead cost is nothing compared to the risks inherent in a ground-up rewrite. Most of PHP's language-level faults can be engineered around. For instance, we have a code-review-time script that parses (really parses) the code to warn engineers (and reviewers) about dangerous or deprecated idioms. PHP also has some affirmative virtues. The programming model is more productive than that of compiled languages, and even many interpreted languages; save/reload the web page is just a better, tighter loop to get work done in than save/compile/restart my server/reload the web page. I'm actually a fan of PHP's concurrency model, which naifs often mistake as "no concurrency allowed"; PHP's concurrency primitive is curl[1], and if you wrap a tiny bit of library around it, you can make it behave like actors. [1] Seriously. curl provides a shared-nothing way to asynchronously run code, and has the virtue of not caring what language the other side is written in to boot. ~~~ cookiecaper Right, I'm familiar with Spolsky's piece, but I think there are times when a rewrite is legitimate. I think that a situation where you must roll a completely custom in-house compiler that generates binaries which exceed 1 GB in size in order to get adequate performance of your app is a good candidate for a new architecture, despite Spolsky's claims. Spolsky's article discusses throwing out pages of code because the programmers "don't know what half of these API calls are for" and "[wanting] to build something grand" -- these are quite different impulses than the real-world problems staring Facebook in the face by its continued usage of PHP. I think also that there is a difference between writing a new backend for something that is solid and in place and just throwing the whole product out the window and re-imagining it from the ground up, and I think the latter is the kind of rewrite that should be avoided and considered dangerous. When you could throw 4-5 guys on a real C# or C++ rewrite and tell them the final product has to behave identically to the PHP version, you have a much less volatile situation. As for the PHP workflow, I agree it's nice not to have an intermediate step, but that intermediate step can usually be circumvented pretty rapidly by throwing a script or two (or just flipping a config option) into your development environment. ~~~ ericd I think developing in PHP and compiling to C++/binary probably results in much higher developer productivity than developing in C++/C# directly. Developer salaries are undoubtedly their largest expense, by far, dwarfing those salaries of the people who make PHP performant and 1.5 gig binary updates sane. ~~~ sciurus I expect that running their datacenters is a larger expense than developer salaries. "In 2011, $606 million was allocated towards total capital investment in data center infrastructure by Facebook, which includes the cost of servers, networking equipment, construction, and storage." - [http://www.colocationamerica.com/blog/facebook-data- center-i...](http://www.colocationamerica.com/blog/facebook-data-center- infrastructure-expenditures-a-quick-analysis.htm) ~~~ evgen The assumption that migrating the entire www stack to something like C++ would help with the datacenter costs is not supported by reality. Please remember that the bits that are in PHP are mostly front-end code. This handles the presentation of the data, but the actual heavy-lifting and data manipulation is done by the back-end infrastructure which is mostly C/C++ with some Java thrown in for the hadoop bits. ~~~ nbm I would disagree here - every percent CPU saved for the same workload is a 1% reduction in the number of machines needed. The number of web machines is sufficiently large that savings of even 1% are praiseworthy. Quite a bit of effort is expended to keep this going down and to the right (at least some of the time). ------ algolicious _Facebook's testing practices and culture of developer accountability help to prevent serious bugs from being rolled out in production code. When a developer's code disrupts the website and necessitates a post-deployment fix, the incident is tracked and factored into Facebook's assessment of the developer's job performance. [...] Employees with low karma can regain their lost points over time by performing well—though some also try to help their odds by bringing Rossi goodies. Booze and cupcakes are Rossi's preferred currency of redemption; the release engineering team has an impressive supply of booze on hand, some of which was supplied by developers looking to restore their tarnished karma._ This sounds like Facebook strongly rewards developers who work on trivial, low-risk features rather than larger, more important features. Also, it sounds like bribery factors into your overall job performance rating. ~~~ nbm Push karma primarily affects how likely the release engineering team will accept any breaking of the standard rules of getting your code into the push. It generally doesn't drop if you are responsive and responsible for any problems your change causes. The only way to restore points is to show respect and consideration for the hard work the release engineering team does. (I'm not 100% sure, but I think most of the booze and cupcakes come from people who were appreciative of the release engineering team for bringing potential issues to their attention or for being accommodating in terms of hours and in terms of delay to get things fixed.) Being irresponsible (not supporting your changes) will factor into your performance review, but working exclusively on low-risk features will most likely hurt it way more.

Run Ruby on Rails on Apache Mesos - tknaup http://mesosphere.io/learn/run-ruby-on-rails-on-mesos/ ====== film42 I've never seen this before: [https://elastic.mesosphere.io/](https://elastic.mesosphere.io/) Seems like an awesome idea to onboard people to using Mesos. I'm definitely gonna play with it this weekend! ------ pspeter3 This looks awesome!

Apple Security Update released, fixes several serious vulns - lvh https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 ====== Someone That's not the best HN story title (it currently is "Apple Security Update released with several serious vulns"). From what I can tell, this update doesn't _have_ several (known) vulnerabilities, it _fixes_ them. ~~~ lvh That's fair. I've edited the title. ------ lvh If you have an Apple device, be it running macOS, tvOS, watchOS or iOS, you should go update it, right now. Details aren't entirely clear, but it doesn't seem impossible that these vulns together chain from browser to kernel. ------ 0x0 Unfortunate choice of URL, since this is the generic list of all Apple security advisories. ~~~ lvh I wanted to link the the most official source. They're sorted by date, so you can just look at the ones released today.

Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign - rbanffy https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/breitbart-other-conservative-outlets-escalate-anti-spacex-campaign/ ====== marksellers This new flavor of conservatism is so strange in light of how bound to free market ideals most flavors of conservatism are. In general, I really quite dislike Conservative/Liberal labels as political stances are not two-dimensional, but rather multidimensional. Parties are loose alliances of disparate groups. And somehow there's this rising contingent of neocons, who also happen to dislike SpaceX. Does anyone understand this? Edit: I want to clarify that the alternative to private enterprise competing for government contracts (usually military, again usually a conservative delight) is direct government sponsorship, i.e. NASA. SpaceX is one of those cases where the free market actually has been more effective. So why not seize on it? ~~~ eli_gottlieb "Neocons" were the foreign-policy hawks of the 2000s. These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right". They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes. Even I find this particular turn against SpaceX somewhat weird. My internal model of the alt-right has largely been that they have one wing who are basically Nazi fanfiction, another who idolize the "throne and altar conservatism" of pre-Revolutionary France, and another who think they should build Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man as a real-life society (they're _very_ pop-culture influenced). Turning against a private space company seems to indicate that some factions (Nazis plus... someone else?) are throwing the "far-right futurism" faction overboard. (Again, these guys are _really weird_ , but hey, it's all there on their blogs.) My big question is: where's Peter Thiel in all this? Just last year, he was the one trying to assure everyone that, oh don't worry, this was all about tearing down overbearing regulations and political correctness in favor of unbound innovation, that the Right weren't anti-science religious people anymore, etc. Turning against SpaceX isn't just throwing a faction of bloggers overboard, it's thrown Thiel overboard, and he was a major billionaire backer for all of this. ~~~ exelius I'm not saying I agree with them, but a common theme I hear from the alt-right is "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture). Now, nevermind that these guys are setting up as many gatekeeping functions as they tear down; they simply justify it as "protecting real hard-working Americans" through xenophobia. It's all built on the false nationalism of a flagging superpower, and if any of these people traveled in the least they would see that other countries are actually doing a lot of things better than we do here. We got arrogant, our politicians got greedy, and our voter base got complacent. It's only going to get worse too. ~~~ kevinmchugh > "no gods no masters" (Game of Thrones reference, ding on the pop-culture) that's not a game of thrones reference as far as I can tell. It's an old anarchist and socialist slogan. It'd be an odd fit for that part of the right. "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes in those parts. ~~~ Freak_NL > "No gods or kings, only man" is a Bioshock reference that pops up sometimes > in those parts. Which in turn uses Ayn Rand's philosophy (Objectivism) as the basis of the fictional (failed) society in Bioshock. (Compare with this quote: [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first- man-was-ens...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/207108-at-first-man-was- enslaved-by-the-gods-but-he) ) Ayn Rand and her philosophy are quite popular in right-wing circles (and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles). ~~~ wmil > and incidentally, largely denounced in academic circles Not surprising. A tenured professor getting government grants for research is a villain by Randian standards. ~~~ jandrese It has been many years since I read the books, but I'm pretty sure university intellectuals were actual villains in Atlas Shrugged. IIRC didn't they say that more testing was needed before they could count the new supermetal as safe? I remember thinking at the time that the hero was being really reckless and that advanced composites often fail in new and unexpected ways and that building an entire rail line out of the stuff before you understand how it fails is beyond risky. Of course because it was a book the metal is perfect in every way and never has a problem, but the real world is rarely so forgiving. ------ tim333 Not that I agree with it but the conservative argument against SpaceX seems to be largely: >Despite the numerous public statements by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk decrying crony capitalism, SpaceX would not exist without government contracts and subsidies. According to The Wall Street Journal, government contracts account for about 70 percent of SpaceX’s contracts. U.S. taxpayers have provided SpaceX more than $5.5 billion in the form of Air Force and NASA contracts. from "Ron Paul: Crony defense budget hands SpaceX a monopoly - why?" op ed in Fox News [http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony- def...](http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/09/12/ron-paul-crony-defense- budget-hands-spacex-monopoly-why.html) I think he also annoys Breitbart types by talking about global warming. ~~~ Cuuugi Thank you for not falling into the "Conservatives hate science" trap. I can't speak for other people, but my personal issue with Musk's ventures are how much money he funnels from the government. ~~~ pjc50 Multiple choice question! For its launch capability, the US government should: \- buy on the open market at the lowest available price. Currently this turns out to be Russia. \- buy on the US market at the lowest available price. This may be SpaceX although other contenders are mentioned in the article \- build its own rocket systems from scratch inside government agencies \- just pay Boeing/Lockheed like they've always done \- just give up on space (basically, if you think Musk funnels a lot of money from the US government, you should check out the rest of the aerospace industry...) ~~~ wallace_f There is a fair point to be made that we _should_ be quite critical of how taxpayer dollars are spent. Musk himself even agrees that subsidies lead to cronyism. He has even said himself that subsidies to Tesla should end in favor of a carbon tax, which would be a more just,fair, competitive, and efficient policy tool. Musk and Ron Paul are both actually right about that. So given that government money spent towards space should be spent fairly and in support of a policy that maintains multiple competitors, these criticisms are a mix of 1) A warranted and necessary critical thought process, 2) likely influenced and supported by some good-old-boy network/industry support for ULA, and 3) opportunistic politics cashing in on a shallow opportunity to get back at a couple of Trump's adversaries like McCain and Musk. ------ InTheArena Ron Paul and Rand Paul identify as libertarians and are as close to libertarian as the (R) party gets. Ron Paul has the added benefit of having wacky neo-nazi roots that he disavowed during the Clinton era. They loathe any sort of government investment. McCain is the only real conservative mentioned here. The alt-right has their true god (Bannon) and their lesser god (Trump). Trump loathes conservatives, and conservatives mostly loathe him, but they need each other (for the moment). McCain has traditionally been a huge backer of Mueller, and is openly looking to take Trump down. Both sides have seen ideological purges, and the "blue dog democrats" and "Rockefeller republicans" were purged over the last twenty years. The last real moderate was probably Boehner, and the combination of the Tea Party, and aborted "great compromises" by Obama did him in. The former Senate Majority leader claimed to be a pro-life (personally) Democrat from Vegas, but increasingly abandoned this as his party lurched to the left, and was replaced by a corporatist Democrat with deep deep links to investment banks (Schumer). Biden is still out there as a moderate Democrat, but was completely marginalized in party politics when his great compromise efforts with Boehner were torpedo'd by more activist portions of Obama's cabinet. (No one has ever taken credit for actually convincing Obama to ask for additional trillions in tax-raises last minute both times). I think Biden is just about the only candidate who could have won against Trump in the last election. The so-called "Neo-cons" (their original name was "Vulcans") were not neocons because they were reformed conservatives, but rather former Wilsonians who turned more Jacksonian over time. As for Musk, Shelby and Ryan, more then anything else, they are opportunists. There is a very similar fracturing and disintegration on the left right now, with the AntiFa, the move on crowd and so called progressives all purging those who disagree with them. Then you have much much more radical elements in the colleges and universities. The French Revolution comparisons are not without merit. ~~~ orblivion The "god" of the alt-right is Richard Spencer. Granted the definition of alt- right has shifted around, but by the current prevailing standard among those who adopt the label and used to do so, I think it is strictly an ethnonationalist movement. Unless you're going to cite rumors about Bannon, I'd say Breitbart doesn't quite qualify. Again, forgetting anything Bannon once said about it being the platform of the alt-right, and going by current running definitions. Breitbart would probably be considered "alt-light". ~~~ bbctol No one cares about Richard Spencer other than media figures who needed a dude in a suit to claim to be the leader of the alt-right. He's a random non-entity that was virtually unknown even in cryptofascist circles until liberals decided, for no good reason, to start paying attention to him. ~~~ orblivion Well, he coined the term alt-right. Maybe he's not the most important figure, that was just my best guess. My point is about use of the term. In particular, the way it's fuzzy, and attributing ethnonationalism to people who are civic nationalists. ------ curiousgeorgio I'm not intimately familiar with the details of this issue, nor with the various "flavors of conservatism" mentioned in comments here, but this article makes a strong argument for a few points that we can probably all agree on: SpaceX likely isn't responsible for pushing for the legislation in question (as some news outlets claim), but there _does_ seem to be ample evidence of private influence on the government leading to proposed legislation with anticompetitive characteristics. If it does pass, SpaceX is expected to benefit as a result, so whether or not they are pushing for the legislation themselves, the end result may be just as worrying as if they had. Instead of debating labels or levels of political congruence among the various people who have brought up this issue, perhaps it would be more productive to discuss the possible ramifications of this legislation passing. Also worth considering is the topic of private influence over government (especially in defense, where it's largely just "the way things are done"), and whether or not business practices that benefit from such arrangements actually qualify as capitalism. ------ perlpimp Suppose ULA charges 10x for launches and SpaceX bargain bin launches that get ever cheaper(with reusable rockets) have threatened ULA. I bet if you follow the money you will find the culprits. ~~~ DenisM ULA isn’t the only entity hurt by cheap launches. ~~~ le-mark Are you alluding to other launch providers such as Russia, European Space Agency, etc, or did you have something else in mind? ------ brennankreiman I recall a congressional hearing where a person from SpaceX stated that Couldn't figure out why ULA rockets cost $422 Million while SpaceX rockets only cost ~$90 Million. Methinks there are some established players pulling their congressional strings. [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air- force-budget-rev...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/air-force-budget- reveals-how-much-spacex-undercuts-launch-prices/?comments=1&post=33514969) ------ Mountain_Skies Elon Musk picked up the mantle of Steve Jobs tech showman. His high visibility makes him a target. There is no public face that I'm aware of for ULA and while Jeff Bezos is certainly hated in that crowd for his ownership of the Washington Post, Blue Origin gets very little criticism. Some of that might be due to differences in what entanglements each has with the government but Bezos also avoids the type of spotlight Musk goes to great effort to stand in, at least when it comes to rocketry. If Tom Hanks somehow became the face and chief string puller at ULA, he'd probably get the same hatred that Musk receives. ------ laretluval Not a single link to Breitbart in a piece about Breitbart. Are they so afraid of the site that they feel they can't link to it? The result is I can't evaluate what they're talking about. What Breitbart articles do they have in mind? I found a bunch of neutral articles about SpaceX there, and this negative op-ed: [http://www.breitbart.com/big- government/2017/09/18/elon-musk...](http://www.breitbart.com/big- government/2017/09/18/elon-musk-giveaways-wont-make-america-safe- again%E2%80%A8/) Is that what they're talking about? ------ maxxxxx How can anybody keep reading Breitbart or other partisan sites? Are people so addicted to outrage that they want keep reading stuff that's obviously wrong if you take the time to check things for only a few minutes? ~~~ williamle8300 Breitbart is a bastion for free-thinking much like HackerNews. While you may criticize their opinions, it's at least sane reporting... instead of cheerleading and narrative controlling like CNN and NBC. ~~~ maxxxxx Are you kidding? ~~~ mercer Based on their comment history: it's a lost cause. Don't waste your energy here. ~~~ maxxxxx I honestly didn't think that anyone would think of Breitbart as sane reporting. If the comment was honest then I have to change my opinion and have learned something. ------ kharms The only motivation I can think of is that Musk's resources are limited and if he spends more time/money on SpaceX less gets spent on Tesla. Still, super weird. ~~~ mmcwilliams What about the fact that Musk publicly exited the presidential councils he was a member of over the Paris Accord? It was a move that would have offended US conservatives, particularly those at Breitbart, on at least two fronts: supporting efforts to combat climate change and damaging the President's reputation as an ally to Silicon Valley. ~~~ kelukelugames True, the President is vindictive. I wonder if we can use this. Send in someone who pretends to be anti renewable energy and then piss off Trump so Trump will praise solar power. ------ gozur88 Ron Paul has always been seen as a crank, even by other conservatives. ------ Helmet EDIT: The article does break down the purpose of Section 1615, and shed light on its context - I did not see that the article continued beyond the massive picture below the blurb that I quoted. ~~~ tclancy It's very strange you would read that bit entirely but miss the multiple paragraphs directly below it saying it is equivocally untrue. ~~~ Helmet All I saw was a large picture below the article and didn't scroll all the way down. I've updated my comment after this was raised to my attention. ------ PatientTrades Elon Musk has proved again and again that he is a gift from heaven to the human race. We must continue to support genius like him for the sake of humanity. Stop wasting money on endless wars, entitlements, fraud, waste, abuse, etc. Give our tax dollars to people that want to help mankind make a quantum leap forward. Extending life beyond earth is a necessity for the sustainment of humans ~~~ strange_quark Is this supposed to be satire? ~~~ AnimalMuppet My money's on "true believer", but satire is also possible... ~~~ mercer Part of the appeal is that's it's impossible to tell. ------ make3 "Musk has given lavishly to politicians, especially Arizona Senator John McCain (R). In return, McCain added Section 1615 to this year's defense authorization bill, which includes language to restrict the military from investing in new launch systems." As much as I love Musk, this is fucked up. Just a normal day in the American democracy I guess ~~~ Footkerchief That argument is presented for context in the introduction. The entire rest of the article is about debunking it: > The central canard of these attacks is that John McCain did not, in fact, > add "Section 1615" to the Defense Authorization Act, which is now being > finalized by a conference between the House and Senate. This clause does not > exist at all in the Senate language. Rather, it was inserted into the House > legislation by US Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama. > Two sources familiar with the legislation told Ars that Rogers added Section > 1615 specifically to benefit Aerojet and its AR1 rocket engine. > "The purpose of the provision is simple," one Washington DC source said. > "Instead of the Department of Defense continuing their open-ended, market- > friendly risk reduction investment across several providers to enable > Russian-engine-free launch capabilities, Rogers wants DOD to fund Aerojet to > build AR1 to be inserted into Atlas V." In other words, the language > benefits Aerojet by favoring its "drop in" engine solution over building a > completely new Vulcan rocket. ------ danjoc Suppose Elon is a bad guy. What's to stop him from dragging a big space rock into orbit and holding the planet hostage in X years? Government will build in redundant checks and balances at extra expense. Corporations, not so much. ~~~ tekromancr The hundreds, maybe thousands, of people working under him. The majority of which would need to agree that project "Dr. Evil style giant space rock randsom" was a good idea. ~~~ danjoc You're the only response that actually tried to make a legitimate argument without resorting to logical fallacies and insults. Thanks. Still, I have to disagree with your point. Lots of people did bad things on Hitler's orders. Lots more looked the other way. The "thousands of people" argument falls apart when looking at historic examples. ------ creaghpatr So is their argument “the bad guys are against it so it must be right?” They made a point to drop that terrifying B-bomb in the title, sending shivers up the spine of many a HN reader. I see the ULA vs Space X competition as productive in producing innovation, regulatory fairness aside. Regulatory problems are much less of a drag if resulting innovation is a net positive for both private and public sectors ~~~ linkregister > They made a point to drop that terrifying B-bomb in the title, sending > shivers up the spine of many a HN reader. I chuckled at this. I think your analysis of their rhetoric is apt. That said, the lede of the article is the media campaign pushing the pay-to- play narrative, not the righteousness of SpaceX (which is expected to be taken as a given). Overall, the article was informative because I wouldn't have known that there was a counter argument to Sen. Paul's narrative. ------ eighthnate As much as I despise all "news" organizations, I say good. Considering that most of the media has been fawning over musk and spacex and everything musk does, perhaps some criticism of musk is required in a free and democratic system. I just don't like how so much of media are pretty much colluding with each other to spread the same narrative. On almost all topics, it seems like most of the media is pushing a particular narrative. I wish we had a media environment where about a third is pro-musk, a third is anti-musk and a third is neutral. The same with trump/obama/clinton, politics, technology, business, globalization, economics, international relations, etc. All we seem to get is cheerleading by the media for one particular agenda. I'm a believer in diversity and I think we need diversity in the media. And I don't believe in saints. Musk has done a lot of good things, but he isn't a saint. He has done plenty of things that can be criticized. How most of his business lives off government subsidies. How much in bed he is with wall street. How he really hasn't invented or created anything new. Most of his proclamations and "inventions" are decades old technologies. None of his grandiose proposals have born fruit yet. If all the media seems to do is praise or criticize, then I know something is wrong. Edit: Wow, that was a swift and quick number of downvotes. I know that pay to play is a big thing in news ( both arstechnica and brietbart and everyone else does ). But I wonder if musk has pr firms working the social media scene? ~~~ barrystaes In the US are only two political parties. Yet North Korea and Russia only have one, so its not that bad. And diversity does exists. ~~~ corpMaverick AFAIK, China only has one. And it seems to work remarkably well. At least they seem to have very smart people at the top. ~~~ kelukelugames I would say the bottom quintile Americans is doing orders of magnitude better than the bottom quintile of Chinese. Maybe even bottom half. This is probably true when comparing any developed nation to a developing nation. ~~~ rbanffy It seems the bottom quintile Americans (WRT intelligence) took over the government... Burn, karma, burn!

Ask HN: What is wrong with my Launch Page? - psg Hi everyone. I'm working on a project and have created a launch page with the hope of compiling a list of early adopters. As with many other websites that have launch pages, the hope is that these early users would provide valuable feedback and would allow me to iterate and (hopefully) achieve market/fit.<p>The problem is that my launch page isn't getting a substantial number of sign-ups. At a quick glance, this could be for one of three reasons.<p>1: I'm attracting the wrong type of users (through advertising). In other words, not early adopters; 2: My launch page needs improvement, or; 3: My idea just sucks, and it's validation that I should not pursue this idea.<p>I truly believe I need more tests to validate that the idea is not worth pursuing (It's only been a few days). Therefore, I'm looking for advice on the other two bullets. In other words,<p>1) Any advice to get potential early adopters to the website? I've tried Google Adwords and StumbleUpon ads (note with StumbleUpon I did the auto-targeting). 2) Any advice on the launch page itself (It's at http://www.lloquy.com/).<p>Thanks in advance. ====== entangld I think your users don't understand your website. The word content and conversation are very abstract terms that don't inform the reader to specific uses for your website. I watched your video thinking I would get a clear use-case but it still wasn't clear to me. It would be easier to understand if you said use lloquy to follow interesting comment threads on the most interesting topics on your favorite websites (blog, Huffingtonpost, etc...) while you continue surfing the web. The explanation you gave requires the user to use their imagination a little too much. I know you don't want to limit the use of your site, but it would be helpful if the writing was more specific and exciting and the video was focused less on explanation and more on fun useful actions users are actually going to take on your site. You start off talking about content creators (like it's a tool for blog authors) and then you describe it's use for blog/content readers. That's confusing. 1\. In your example of how to use it, you start off talking about a "conversation" (a little vague - I wouldn't know where to find a conversation on the web) and you start to list other uses for it before I understand the initial use for it. 2\. You suggested people "filter content by calculating influence". That's too abstract. I think you meant "follow popular and interesting users and vote for the best comments." I think more exciting language that describes tangible actions users will take and pictures that are not flat screenshots of text will improve your conversion rate. ~~~ psg Thanks. Your feedback makes me believe I've fallen into the chicken/egg trap, where I switch between different types of users. Will fix. Also appreciate the feedback on the video. ------ danny3stacks I have a few quick thoughts about why you're not getting many sign-ups. The copy on the landing page makes sense, but it's still confusing in a way. Maybe if you had a small diagram or brief description on how this is done, people might be more interested. But, if I was interested I would be weary of oauthing on twitter because I'm still not sure what or how you do what you claim to. The video should probably be less than 60 seconds and should answer what the service does, how, why, for who in the first 20 seconds. Stumbleupon traffic doesn't work well. People are simply browsing from one site to the next looking for articles or funny cats and your bounce rate using SU is probably 100%. Google ads might work but you might be better off getting on <http://betali.st> and <http://startupli.st> to get those early adopters. Best of luck! ~~~ psg Thanks for the links, as well as the feedback. I have been wondering if oAuth with Twitter has been turning people away, so definitely appreciate the comment and will look into straight email. ------ toddwahnish Just my 2 cents, Your join button is pretty muted- it's gray, it's small, it's in the corner and it's surrounded by the same blue color that sits in the background. Try A/B testing by moving the join button to the center of your top banner, making it big and green. :) ~~~ psg Thanks. I've been testing different text throughout, but haven't looked at button placement. Will definitely look at that. ------ patheman hey, some feedback: \- on first glance i don't get the idea of the site, somehow not even compelled to start the video (maybe try a more "compelling" preview-screen there) \- some "bussines buzzwords" like Online Conversation and Audiences . .. maybe try a quote instead (ask a friend if you dont want do make one up) in the quote, state the one or max. two TOP benefits i have from the site.. and also give me a hint who needs your thing. like: "lloquy helps me maximize my readers engagement.." (Jon Doe, BigBlog.com) \- signup might increase with a green or orange signup button, conveys success and gets attention I think you really need a 1-sentence pitch to tell whats the benefit for me as a user? (answer for what? so what? now what?) Best regards Patric ~~~ psg Thanks Patric. A more compelling preview screen is something that hasn't even crossed my mind (Sometimes it's the little things). Also appreciate the other feedback.

T-Mobile CEO to users hiding their hotspot tethering activities: “It's over.” - atomical http://www.zdnet.com/article/t-mobile-ceo-to-hackers-stealing-hotspot-data-its-over/ ====== brandon272 I always find it amusing when these issues come up and people need to remind us all that "UNLIMITED SHOULD MEAN UNLIMITED!" ... I've always assumed it was common sense that "unlimited" is essentially a marketing buzzword. No network is capable of offering "unlimited" service to all customers. It means they aren't going to enforce draconian caps on every day usage. It's to give the typical user the reassurance that they have nothing to worry about in terms of overage. It's not to provide people with 2TB a month of transfer. Frankly, I find using 2TB a month on an "unlimited" plan to be abusive and disrespectful to other customers. These networks obviously have real limits and capacities. Clearly abusing an "unlimited" plan does little but encourage service providers to enforce data caps and overage fees. ~~~ userbinator _These networks obviously have real limits and capacities._ There are only real limits in terms of bandwidth, and not the quantity of data transferred. ~~~ snuxoll You are 100% right. Unfortunately, due to the way wireless spectrum works you have no choice but to oversubscribe available bandwidth in the hopes that not every user is using their devices at once. While they suck for a consumer, limits on total data transferred allow wireless providers to allow users the ability to use their devices but limit the _amount of time_ they are consuming available bandwidth. ------ duaneb The idea that data can fundamentally change based on how it's viewed, legally, is absurd. I hope this trend passes quickly. ~~~ snuxoll > The idea that data can fundamentally changed based on how it's viewed, > legally, is absurd. Data itself doesn't change, usage patterns do, and that is why restrictions like this exist. My internet connection at home is a reasonably fat 75/5Mbps 'business-class' pipe, I'm paying for a service that expects pretty high usage and the infrastructure is designed to handle it - the coaxial cable going to my house has enough bandwidth and so does the fiber going from the local cable node back to the big datacenter where my traffic eventually gets routed to the rest of the internet. Mobile has an extremely annoying limitation in that we can't just run a cable to every phone, we want stuff to happen wirelessly! Well, since there's no wires providing service every user has to in essence share the same bandwidth coming from a cell site. We can make sure there's plenty of fiber going to each site, but physically 10Mhz of spectrum can only provide so much bandwidth, and that is a huge limiting factor of wireless service. Your 3-6" smartphone has very different usage patterns compared to my 13" ultrabook. You may watch a couple youtube videos, stream some music, maybe even watch a movie on Netflix - but you are unlikely to do so for extended periods of time or on a frequent basis, the usage is very sporadic and lends itself well to sharing with other users. Usage on a tethered laptop or other device is very different, I'm sitting down right now connected to my work VPN 'getting stuff done', checking email, moving large files around, downloading an update for Visual Studio, the list goes on. And this is not something that I do for 10 minutes or even an hour, this is my entire work-day, and I regularly use 10's of Gigabytes of data, something our limited wireless spectrum is not well suited to handle for a large amount of users (that's what WiFi is for!). Unless nationwide we are going to turn a large enough block of wireless spectrum into a national wireless ISP (we're talking probably 100-200Mhz) we simply do not have enough bandwidth over the airwaves to support people with these usage patterns. ~~~ duaneb This strikes me as preemptive optimization. That's a lot of argument to back up, though I think it has merit. I would feel much more comfortable with straight up metered internet, variably-priced based on current congestion. I would feel much more inclined to believe you if it didn't look like the service providers were trying to change the meaning of internet access—it shouldn't matter which kind of device is "plugged in". That's just terrible service. ~~~ chc In what way is it possibly beneficial to me as a user to have metered Internet for all cases rather than unlimited for most cases and metered for others? ~~~ duaneb Because, when I look around, I don't see internet being offered at a e.g. per GB rate. So I don't think your dichotomy is correct; I think people WOULD look quite favorably on metered tethered data with up-front costs as opposed to a cap with hidden metered fees or retroactive fines. However, even if it WERE correct, I much prefer to think of internet as a service. It is incredibly frustrating to deal with tiers that are only slowly approaching the reality _they use to defend the tiers themselves_. I'm very open to the idea that bandwidth might be a dominating restriction, but the optimal way to deal with it would be a) transparency and b) incentivizing avoiding congestion. However, I'm afraid to tether my computer and actually take advantage of the service I'm paying for since the tools are horrible to actually figure out what the costs might be or how to avoid them. ~~~ chc T-Mobile offers apps with up-to-the-minute accounting of your usage, and at least with me, they were quite explicit about how everything is priced. It doesn't seem that hard or scary to me, and I've never gotten "shock" bills from them. ------ drivingmenuts Seems to me that T-Mobile should not be able to tell me how I use my device. The device-to-device connect (hotspot) occurs on my hardware and doesn't involve them. The data usage is _all_ mobile usage after that, since it's coming thru my phone. Now, T-Mobile may object to certain kinds of traffic (torrents, etc.) but that opens up a whole different can of worms. If the high-volume data consumers are _actually_ causing a problem for other users, then T-Mobile probably should consider expanding their bandwidth with new equipment. Trying to squirm away from the term "unlimited" because of a few inconvenient users with inconvenient bits, however, is just weaselly as hell _and_ avoiding the real issue. ~~~ chc If it seems to you that T-Mobile should not be able to tell you how you use your device, then it seems to me that you should not sign a contract granting T-Mobile that permission. ~~~ brandon272 Consumers never look at that side of the equation. They don't read their contracts, they don't do their due diligence. They just blame the company and claim the role of victim when something doesn't work out in their favour or when the company does things like ask people to not abuse the network. ~~~ teacup50 The party with more resources has the advantage -- information and power asymmetry falls in their favor. _Of course_ consumers don't "do their due diligence", because they'd have to do so 1000s of times a day. This is a large part of why we have consumer protection laws in the first place. ~~~ brandon272 I don't sign 2 year cell phone contracts "1000's of times a day" and when I do sign them I read them because they're really not that long. And if I don't read them and something doesn't work out in my favour I don't pretend it's the phone company's fault. Consumer protection laws do not remove all responsibility from the consumer to be aware of what they are getting into. ~~~ teacup50 What percentage of consumers do you think are capable of reading contract language accurately, assessing risk/value, judging things like how much bandwidth they use, doing what, and how that may increase or decrease? Likewise, how many lawyers working for cell phone companies are capable of reading contract language accurately? How capable do you think cell phone companies are at projecting data utilization based on the huge trove of customer data they have available to them? Requiring honesty around simple terms like "unlimited" helps level that playing field, at least in some small way. ------ doki_pen I don't think it would hurt their business to say something like : 120GB of data (compared to verizon's 12GB) If they are being honest and really are only worried about people using 2TB, then this should solve the problem completely. 120GB would be unlimited for 99.99% of users. ~~~ gkanapathy They actually do say "unlimited phone, and 7GB tethering". It's very explicit, and limited tethering is a specific part of the "unlimited phone" plans. And as the article says, if you want more tethering, you are able to add and pay for that separately. The issue is people bypassing the tethering limitations. ------ roddux This is the reason that I always take a very sceptical view on mobile contracts that offer "unlimited" data. I wonder if they'll be allowed to continue calling it "unlimited" here in the UK after this revelation. ~~~ DanBC ASA ruled that unlimited doesn't mean unlimited and can be used in adverts when referring to limited plans. [https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Hot- Topics/~/media/Fil...](https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Hot- Topics/~/media/Files/ASA/Hot%20Topics/Broadband%20hot%20topic.ashx) All you can do is keep sending complaints and encourage others to keep sending complaints. They do, apparently, occasionally take notice of complaints. ------ briantakita Labeling people as thieves is manipulative & hypocritical when the marketing literature claims "unlimited" data. All TMobile needs to do is tell the truth & have a reasonable plan for high bandwidth customers. Instead they treat these customers like criminals & turn into the data gestapo. In the meantime, TMobile seems to be quite profitable. [http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-mobile-raises-subscriber- growt...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/t-mobile-raises-subscriber-growth- outlook-1438257047) ------ joezydeco Wait - so TMO monitors your data usage and throttles you down when you exceed your cap on a _phone_ , but doesn't do this for hotspots and trusts the hotspot to police the data cap? ~~~ StavrosK No, I think the phone sends a certain bit to their servers when you're tethering, to say "this data is from tethering", and they only allow a certain cap for that. These "omg hackers" found a way to prevent that bit from being sent, forcing the carrier to make good on their promise of "unlimited data", which the carrier doesn't want to do. ~~~ mmcclure > forcing the carrier to make good on their promise of "unlimited data" I'm on the fence about what I think about the announcement itself (because of the implications around enforcement), but this is a pretty untenable argument if you want to get into "promises", or, who's really breaking their contract. Contractually, the promise is unlimited data _without_ tethering. Explicitly. If we want to talk about who's breaking what promises by rooting phones to bypass tethering data limits, it's actually the "omg hackers". ~~~ StavrosK How do they know it's people tethering? How do they know it's not someone just doing all their downloading on the phone and then transferring it to the computer or whatnot? The only clue they have that these people were tethering was that they used 2 TB, but they may just as well have been watching a lot of Netflix on their tablet. ~~~ jsnell > The only clue they have that these people were tethering was that they used > 2 TB That's not true, and it's kind of uncharitable of you to assign malice and technical incompetence to T-Mobile. There can be all kinds of differences in the tethered traffic patterns vs. native phone traffic. For example: \- Differences in IP TTL of packets \- Differences in TCP options, advertised windows, and so on \- Differences in packet ordering / RTTs (if you've got interleaved TCP flows one which is terminated at the phone and one which isn't, you'd see the terminated packets being acknowledged sooner) \- Differences in the application layer data (for example the user agent field) The people who are camouflaging their tethering would of course try to apply countermeasures against as many things as possible. But if they miss one kind of fingerprint, it could be used to detect the tethering. That'd be the case if it's a signal that'd be hard to deal with by a realtime automated system, but requires some kind of expensive offline analysis. ------ mrrrgn I noticed that when I hit my tethering cap, and start seeing an upsell page, my Linux vms can still access content like normal. Seems that they do all of their fancy tracking via user agent strings and consider Linux browsers as being smart phones. If true, it means that Linux users might end up getting accused of being ToS breaking "hackers." Beware. ~~~ iotku I wouldn't be surprised if how these "Hackers" were getting around the data limits was far from sophisticated. I've ended up getting around somewhat similar restrictions accidentally due to poor implementations. ------ NovaS1X Can someone clarify this for me (still haven't finished my coffee yet): If T-Mobile is offering "Unlimited Mobile Hotspot" data as a part of their plans then how exactly is this stealing? ~~~ JohnTHaller They don't advertise unlimited hot spot. They advertise unlimited data for your mobile device and 6gb of hot spot data. Some users are cheating and masking their hot spot data used by multiple PCs and sometimes servers to get around the 6gb limit without having to pay for the additional hot spot data. ~~~ thescriptkiddie You actually don't have to do any masking, it just works. It's not like your phone tells T-Mobile's servers when you start tethering, or they can detect tethering through DPI. It all looks the same to them. So when they accuse customers of "cheating" because they neglected to obey a hidden clause in a contract they didn't read, it comes across as insulting. ~~~ ryan-c Android's built in tethering absolutely does explicitly tell T-Mobile you're using it. [http://danielpocock.com/android-betrays-tethering- data](http://danielpocock.com/android-betrays-tethering-data)

A startup’s plan to sell solar like cell phones - FluidDjango http://gigaom.com/cleantech/a-startups-plan-to-sell-solar-like-cell-phones/ ====== amalcon From a marketing perspective this seems absolutely genius. From an engineering perspective, it seems completely backwards. The coupling between the actual cost of the system and what the user pays is minimal: drawing more power doesn't actually increase wear on the solar cells. Really, all they have done is wired a meter whose sole purpose is to waste electricity if the user isn't paying. If it works, and if it successfully brings electricity to people who would really benefit, I can't argue with it. It just seems so very wrong from an engineering perspective. ------ dmbass Doesn't this model work for cell phones because they are really cheap and the provider doesn't care if they get lost/stop paying? Afaik solar panels are expensive to make so how does this make any sense? ~~~ meow A 50W solar panel isn't all that costly (150-200$). This model is just a way to 'loan' these devices for consumers who can't afford even those. You will be surprised by how much utility these small capacity solar panels might provide even for those Indian consumers connected to grid (if they provide 2 lamps/ 1 fan as mentioned). This is because in rural areas, power cuts of around 8 hours/per day are very common. ------ dfxm12 I wonder what their overhead is for going to rural areas to install/service these devices. ~~~ GiraffeNecktie Probably not too bad since labour costs in rural areas are very low. I'm not sure what they are now, but unskilled labour used to be about $3 a day. I remember when I was in India seeing guys climbing telephone poles with no safety equipment whatsoever, just raggedy street clothes and flip flop sandals. ------ mmatey Curious how they would keep them from not just ripping off the meter? ~~~ bobds I wonder why they chose a pay-as-you-go system depending on how much energy they use. I think this would be much better as a rent-to-own program with a flat monthly fee. ~~~ marquis Seasonal work, summer hours, school and other needs take precedence over what a family spends money on, on a month-to-month basis. Pay-as-you-go electricity is common in some western countries and it is not unusual for there to be days where the family cannot afford to top-up until pay-day again, where food etc comes first as a primary need. ------ ww520 Cell phone can be cut off at anytime so as making it easy to link its access to continuous payments. The company has little leverage against the cell panel users due to non-payment. ~~~ justsomedood These look like pre-paid power-minutes or something similar. So you pay for 500 minutes of power, and when you've used it all the power stops. When the solar panel knows when you've paid for however many minutes are required to "own" the device you stop having to buy minutes for it. So they could run the risk of people just not paying for the device anymore because they can't afford or don't want it anymore, or tamper with it to try and get it working without paying it off. They'd still have the 10% initial fee plus any minutes they paid for already.

Interview with "The Founder's Dilemmas" Author Noam Wasserman - tmflannery http://startupharbor.me/2012/09/17/the-founders-dilemmas/ ====== tmflannery Fred Wilson asked for it a long time ago in this post: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/moneyball-for- startups-1.htm...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/moneyball-for- startups-1.html). I think Noam hit it.

Ask HN: How to get a programming job as a twice exceptional? - twExceptional https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twice_exceptional<p>I have a CS degree. I have been unable to get a job for 2 years. I have obvious symptoms of being 2e. I usually fail the communication portion or get rejected due to low GPA. My tech skills are decent.<p>Are there any services that can help me? ====== mattbgates I failed miserably when they gave me a math portion, but they still hired me, because I knew the language and I was good at logic. Anyways, you might want to try a job site like [https://codefights.com/jobs](https://codefights.com/jobs) in which they test you on your coding skills. I would also suggest getting together whatever projects you have worked on and your portfolio and resume. Aside from that, I highly, highly recommend you go back to the college you graduated from and see a career counselor. Why do I recommend this? They can likely help you with your interview skills and personality. (Believe it - a sense of humor helps) I'm convinced that personality plays a huge role in helping with the hiring process, and since you claim you fail the communication portion of your interview, it may be that you just need some help with your people skills. While GPA matters slightly, a good personality can probably explain yourself out of why that isn't important in who you are. Additional advice: \- Make sure you have nice clothes to wear to the interview with a nice pair of shoes. (hopefully a strong resemblance to what you will be wearing and feel comfortable in, business casual) \- Make sure your hygiene is on par along with a nice smelling cologne (if you know any women at all, ask them if they could come shopping with you or find a woman at the store -- the clerk who will likely be standing near the cologne / perfume section -- and ask her for an appropriate "business casual cologne") \- Make sure you appear confident (even if you have to spend hours in front of the mirror practicing)

AresDB: Uber's GPU-Powered Open Source, Real-Time Analytics Engine - Recovery2020 https://ubere.ng/2HzMPVK ====== uberemployee When I worked at Uber, this project was openly mocked. One of the CTO’s biggest failures was implementing a promotion scheme where you needed to create a new service in order to be considered “innovative”. This promotion scheme marked what I consider the end of Uber’s engineering excellence and the start of what made Uber turn into a bureaucratic mess. One of the VP’s of engineering called it “toil vs talent”. People who “toiled” at work, meaning doing good maintenance work, would be rewarded with good bonuses but those with “talent” would be rewarded with promotions. Of course this drove people to come up with fake new services so that they could demonstrate “talent”. This also lead to an explosion of new services that overlapped or did nothing useful. Instead of working together, groups would make new services instead of working with existing service-owners because they needed to justify writing a new service. It was sickeningly transparent. This project was one of those projects. It has no real use case because why the fuck would we want to use GPUs except to look cool on your resume. The sad thing is that the projects is overstating how well it’s being used internally. Internally people use Pinot instead of this. For all you future CTOs, consider your incentive schemes carefully and don’t be so far removed from the action that you can’t see when your org is rotting. This is what the CTO did, and like I said, it was one of his biggest failures because it gutted the engineering org. Instead of working together, every team was looking at get promotions at the expense of the company and it showed. ~~~ PragmaticPulp I wish I had understood this earlier. My past company made a push to hire from top companies like Uber for some key positions. Some of them were great people who were relieved to be out of the FAANG rat race. Others were single-mindedly focused on rewriting everything they touched with cleverly-branded project names, regardless of whether or not it made business sense. Early I on, I made a harmless comment in Slack about how one person’s pet project wasn’t a good fit for our needs so our team would be using the older, more proven solution. Later that evening the person pulled me aside, almost in tears, begging me to never say anything critical about his project in a Slack channel again. He explained that at his previous role, success or failure depends entirely on the perception of one’s personal projects and that seemingly innocent comments could tank someone’s promotion chances for years. I felt bad for him because he had clearly come out of a toxic situation. However, one of his teammates later warned me that he was keeping a journal of potentially incriminating things that I had said in Slack and a detailed log of every issue that he could find with our team’s project in case he “had to use it against me later”. I could never tell if this was a unique experience or the norm at some companies like Uber. ~~~ uberemployee What you describe was definitely not a common occurrence. Engineering wasn’t toxic for many years until the last 9-12 months or so I would say. Pre-Susan Fowler memo, it was the best company I had ever worked at. From 2017-2019 we sort of stalled because of the internal drama and it didn’t get really bad until the last 9 months, where attrition of our best engineers and vile political maneuvering from the dregs made it too much for me to stick around. The engineer you describe sounds like they have mental health issues. There may be some teams with terrible managers but all companies have this, and I’ve seen similar or worse situations at Amazon. Most engineers I worked with were great but there were many engineers that “played the game” in order to get a promotion and more money. It was sickening but if that’s the way the CTO sets the incentive scheme, who can blame an engineer for following it? It’s more on the CTO for setting the terrible culture than the engineers. ~~~ kamaal Being blind to politics rarely ever means politics isn't going on. Pretty much every company out there has a concept of _' promotion packet'_, its basically building a case for one's promotion. Of course in a company the budgets are fixed, and so are promotion cycles(yearly in most places). You miss out a turn, you could lose an year, or even risk losing two. In that case its fairly common for managers to build a list of accomplishments(file/packet), and rival managers to build a anti-case/defence for the same. Stack ranking eventually is all about a combination of merit+advocacy+lobbying+counter-lobbying at so many levels that I'd say the engineer who cried wasn't wrong at all. This is the case in nearly every company. We just wish to delude ourselves that politics is absent at some places. This sort of power play comes with the territory in a large people structure. ------ statictype > Like Pinot, Elasticsearch is a JVM-based database, and as such, does not > support joins Uh. What does the JVM have to do with the data model’s ability to do handle joins? ~~~ EdwardDiego Yeah that's a very odd statement, I mean, PrestoDB, Impala, KSQL... ------ einpoklum GPUs and analytic DBMSes / query engines are actually my own field of research ([https://eyalroz.github.io);](https://eyalroz.github.io\);) and it's obviously beyond what a comment would encompass, but: 1\. There are very few analytic DBMSes which are actually fast (and compare against reasonable baselines). Most claims of speed are bogus. Or rather, might be better than what's otherwise available to use, but are still slow. 2\. Designing an analytic DBMS to properly utilize a massively-parallel processing device is a monumental task, and I would claim that it has not yet been undertaken. Existing research and production systems graft such use onto a system whose fundamental design dates back to the 1980s in many ways. 3\. CPU-utilizing anallytic DBMSes are typically faster than GPU-based ones, to a great extent due to the above - but also since we've had decades of work on optimizing them. 4\. GPUs are artificially handicapped on Intel-architecture systems, because they are placed "far" from main memory relative to the CPU. More literally - the bandwidth you get t between your GPU and main memory is typically 0.25x the bandwidth a CPU socket has with main memory. This is critical for analytic query processing (as opposed to neural network simulation which is more computation-heavy and can tolerate this handicap much better). \-- PS - Always glad to discuss this further with whoever is interested. ~~~ bronxbomber92 How much would the trade offs change if GPUs shared the same main memory as CPU? ~~~ einpoklum Not sure I understand exactly which trade-off you're referring to, but on systems without the GPU-handicapping (e.g. IBM Power; and also when you put link up many GPUs together with NVLink) - there is still a significant design and implementation challenge to produce a full-fledged analytic DBMS, competitive vis-a-vis the state-of-the-art CPU-based systems. There are also other considerations such as: The desire to combine analytics and transactions; performance-per-Watt rather than per-processor; performance- per-cubic-meter; existing deployed cluster hardware; vendor lock-in risk; etc. ------ social_quotient Curious - what’s the use case for an organization like Uber needing real time analytics at high frame rates? I noticed the emphasis on dashboards but was curious what a real-time dashboard at this scale actually ends up being used for. Maybe my question is more around, what business decision would be impacted by not having real-time instantly reserved dashboards. Honest question here not trolling. ~~~ Donald All sorts of departments at Uber use real-time queries (operations, marketplace, eats, new mobility, their data science and growth group, finance, communications, legal.) Marketplace in particular has a demand for real-time prediction, matching and dispatching, and pricing queries. ~~~ bogomipz I understand why any marketplace-based system would need real time data but why would any of "growth group, finance, communications, legal" require real- time data to do their jobs? ------ ed25519FUUU It must have been fun to be at Uber 2017-2019. They seemed to have an unlimited appetite (and funding) for “invent it here”, and a lot of those projects made it into open source. ~~~ tyingq I'm sure it was fun, but it does seem to point at a lack of focus. I suppose that's hard to resist when there's an endless pipeline of money. ------ uberOG I worked at Uber before. The team and the project is pretty much gutted after last couple layoffs. Check the commit history/contributors and go figure. It was some amazing tech, but it falls into the category of "when all you have a hammer, everything looks like nail". sometimes you really need a company culture to reward people for creating values instead of deliverable for promotion ------ DevKoala Does anybody with Clickhouse experience at scale know if AresDB is better on some use cases? ~~~ hodgesrm It's hard to say, though I think the UPSERT capability looks useful because it simplifies handling duplicates. On the other hand it does not appear that Ares offers clustering, which is critical for large datasets. (I work on ClickHouse and enjoyed this article when it came out.) ~~~ einpoklum It should be mentioned, to ClickHouse' credit, that they made an effort to publish relatively detailed benchmark results for a some data sets and queries, when they first came out. They even got in contact with my research group at the time (the MonetDB group at CWI) to make an effort to present the MonetDB results in a fair manner. ------ kuharich Past comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19028860](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19028860) ~~~ ramoz > GPU databases are brilliant for cases where the working set can live > entirely within the GPU's memory. For most applications with much larger (or > more dynamic) working sets, the PCIe bus becomes a significant performance > bottleneck. This is their traditional niche. > That said, I've heard anecdotes from people I trust that heavily optimized > use of CPU vector instructions is competitive with GPUs for database use > cases. This comment is important imo. Also related to applied ML inference in applications... the memory needs can grow quite a bit and this data transfer cost, including the memory size limitations vs RAM, becomes very real very fast. Not sure I understand the scale of the use case or where it's mentioned as well as in comparison to the big data tools mentioned. ~~~ kanwisher Next gen Nvidia 30x0 series, can have direct access to SSD without hitting the CPU. In that case would they be any worse than cpus on any workloads? I guess you could still have larger ram amounts on the cpu, albeit slower ram usually ~~~ WanderPanda Wow nvidia is selling SBCs now? ~~~ ReactiveJelly No, there's a new thing about giving GPUs some kind of DMA to storage. And it's pointless on HDDs, so it's only discussed in terms of SSDs. Microsoft is bringing the DirectStorage API from XBox to Windows, Nvidia calls theirs RTX IO. I think they're the same class of idea, like Vulken vs. Metal. They do have SBCs, I think, but other than being the basis for the Nintendo Switch I haven't heard much about them. ------ briandilley > Like Pinot, Elasticsearch is a JVM-based database, and as such, does not > support joins and its query execution runs at a higher memory cost. What does the JVM have to do with joins? ------ kevsim > In the past, we have utilized many third-party database solutions for real- > time analytics, but none were able to simultaneously address all of our > functional, scalability, performance, cost, and operational requirements. Completely original excuse for an over-staffed engineering organization to justify doing some crazy stuff. ------ grej Does anyone know how this compares to the RapidsAI project called BlazingSql? ~~~ roaramburu Howdy, full disclosure I'm the CEO at BlazingSQL (BSQL). I'm not incredibly familiar with Ares save the linked article, but we aren't a DBMS or manage data in any way. BlazingSQL is a SQL engine, it's easier to think of it similar to SparkSQL, Presto, Drill, etc. We're core contributors to RAPIDS cuDF (CUDA DataFrame), which is a Pyhton and C++ library for Apache Arrow in-GPU memory. The Python library follows a pandas-like API, and the compute kernels are in C/C++. BSQL binds to the same C++ as the pandas-like cuDF. What this enables users to do is interact with a DataFrame with either SQL or pandas depending on their needs or preferences. This interoperability means that the rest of the RAPIDS stack can be applied to a variety of different use cases (data viz, ML, Graph, Signal Processing, DL, etc), with the same DataFrame. The DataFrame also has performant libraries for IO, Joins, Aggregations, Math operations, and more. Here is an example of running a query on ~1TB on a single GPU in under 9 minutes. The data was stored on AWS S3 in Apache Parquet. [https://twitter.com/blazingsql/status/1303370102348361729](https://twitter.com/blazingsql/status/1303370102348361729) Here is an example of scaling that same query up to 32 GPUs and running it in 16 seconds. [https://twitter.com/blazingsql/status/1304450203030880257](https://twitter.com/blazingsql/status/1304450203030880257) Again, think of BSQL as a query engine, that runs queries on data wherever and however you have it. Here is a BSQL user running 1-2 minute queries on 1.5TB of CSV files using 2 GPUs. [https://twitter.com/tomekdrabas/status/1303824164273270789](https://twitter.com/tomekdrabas/status/1303824164273270789) Let me know if that helps at all (or not). ------ shaklee3 This should have the 2019 tag in the title

Netflix is down. Some tweets say scheduled maintenance on Sat Evening. Wtf? - BIackSwan https://twitter.com/#!/search/netflix ====== hollerith Was up for me first time I saw this submission, but a few minutes later it went down, saying "Streaming is temporarily unavailable." ------ chokolad Up and running for me right now.

Is this research on Roundup as damning as it looks? - aethertap I started reading this paper [1] on the effects of glyphosphate and quickly realized that I'm way out of my depth here. The claim they make is very bold, basically that glyphosphate inhibits a critical enzyme (Cytochrome p450), ultimately leading to many of our modern diseases through a process that damages gut microbes.<p>While I'm not a fan of glyphosphate or the model of agriculture it supports (for other reasons not relevant here), I don't know anywhere near enough about biochemistry to know whether there's any merit to this paper's conclusions. Are there others in this community who can shed some light on this?<p>[1] http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416 ====== PaulHoule Well, Cyto P450 is involved in the detoxification of drugs such as dextromethorphan. Two important things about it are: (1) it is possible to overwhelm P450 activity which will slow down the metabolism of other P450-metabolized drugs (drug interactions) and (2) a big chunk of the population (I think 10-20%) have insufficient P450 function and they metabolize P450-toxins slower than most other people. Of course the dose makes the poison. It's not a good idea to guzzle roundup. It's not particularly persistent and I don't think you're at a risk of eating it from food or spraying roundup to kill a weed now and then.

AWS Costs Cheat Sheet (Updated) - edbyrne https://cloudvertical.com/cloud-costs ====== pixeloution This is a very nice tool, although it should really have "include upfront amortization cost" checked by default, otherwise the "75% savings" for a 1-year heavy reserve is very misleading. I'd previously done the same on a spreadsheet but its nice to have this tool instead. ~~~ edbyrne Thanks for the feedback. We can enable by default no problem - we just left it out since the upfront cost is included in the list. I had a spreadsheet prior to this too ... that's why we decided to publish it (and programmatically keep it updated so it's always right - spreadsheets are tiresome to maintain!)

The Hidden Co-Founder - remyt http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/05/the-hidden-co-founder/ ====== rifung It's fascinating that some founders will always post things like this, "I don’t think true work/life balance is possible in the day-to-day reality of startups" and yet others say that there's really no need to sacrifice work life balance even at a start up, and that if you are working yourself to death, you aren't working smart. I suppose there's not necessarily a right answer. ~~~ onion2k People who say it isn't possible to maintain a work/life balance in a startup are usually those who find it hard to delegate - they don't have people around them that they trust to do as good a job of something as they do themselves so they refuse to hand responsibility to other people or accept that they aren't the best person for the job. In a small startup that's fine because there aren't that many things to do. A founder _can_ be the developer, support, strategist, and marketer all at once. Arguably it's even a good thing at that stage because it keeps the burn rate down. The problems arise when there's too much growth for the jobs to be all be done, or even just overseen, by a founder. Then they struggle and start to hold the business back. A good founder is always be looking for people who are _better_ than they are to hand things over to. That's how a business succeeds. ~~~ louischatriot Absolutely. It's crucial for a founder to be able to take a step back and think strategically. Being always under water and completing task after task prevents you from seeing the big picture and taking the big decisions. ------ davidw If you're interested in this kind of thing, Sherry and Rob Walling have been doing a nice podcast here: [http://zenfounder.com/](http://zenfounder.com/) Highly recommended, although I hope that sooner or later they'll add a transcript. ------ thomasatethose isn't this just a different way of saying success is who you know, not what you know? also what do you do if you don't have any of those support systems or connection networks?

The Economy According To Mint - bd http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/30/the-economy-according-to-mint/ ====== vaksel if their average user spends $4,000 a month(before savings etc), wouldn't this mean that this data is pretty much useless? I mean sure it might help you identify some middle class families trends but thats about it Based on that data an average minter makes at least $4,100 x 12 * 1.33(to account for taxes) = $65,436...and thats specific spending, who knows what % of their income gets saved or invested. So thats the 10% or so of the population who are well off, what about all those people making less than 70-80K? ~~~ sangaya The data is likely limited in scope by more than just income. For instance, its a web-based startup. This means that users of it are more likely to be tech savvy. It also means that the users are younger, which gives the baby boomers a weaker representation. Mint is also a money management site, so by it's very nature it's users are interested in properly managing their money. People who care about proper money management are probably doing a better job of making/saving/investing it. My life experience is limited (I'm only 24) but from it I can say with confidence that the majority of people in my community, family, school, etc are not tech savvy, don't worry about managing money, and frankly most still believe that if you can't buy the software at bestbuy or walmart it's not made by a reputable company. ~~~ jerf Yes, this struck me as a classic example of how you can't just say "Look, I have a huge sample, so it's statistically valid!" (1% is a huge sample by statistical standards at this scale... or it would be if it were properly random.) The bias in the data is strong and pervasive. Having such a huge sample means that the data does at least mean _something_. It does indeed tell us something about the habits of those likely to sign up for that service, after all. It's just that converting that to the universal data we're all really interested in is non-trivial, and if the bias is strong enough, basically impossible if the projection of the noise dominates the signal. (In other news, this article worked. I'm seriously considering signing up. :) Informative marketing, the best kind.) ------ jacoblyles I wonder if they took into account normal seasonal variation in their data. From the looks of it, they didn't. It's mighty hard to draw conclusions from one year's worth of data. We see consumer spending spiking again in December. Is it Christmas (.com), or is it a recovery? ~~~ marketer I completely agree. They claim this is a 'quantitative' analysis, but it's really anecdotally describing a graph. They should have removed seasonal variations, used a larger data set, and tried a couple time series models. Maybe in a couple years, when they actually have more data, it will be more meaningful. ------ BFalkner It mentions that "the WSJ used our empirical data on bank fees to identify the worst banking offenders" but no link to an article and I'm coming up short with Google. Has anybody seen this? ------ jderick ~300$/mo for a financial advisor? ------ jupiter This is very insightful and because it's real life data (as opposed to data gathered/guessed/invented by agencies) it has authenticity. Patzer should be official advisor to the government. ~~~ iron_ball By 'agencies' I assume you mean government agencies; and by "gathered/guessed/invented" I assume you mean government agencies are wildly inaccurate. Citation needed. ------ socmoth this is the best techcrunch article posted in ages. (we've had a negative trend, just giving credit where it is due, even if it is just a guest article.) ------ lionhearted Anyone have numbers for revenue or projected lifetime value of a customer for Mint? It looks like they've raised over $19m in venture capital and I like what they do - I'd be curious how they're doing on money.

Sublime Git is a clean code editor for merge conflicts - bedros https://thenextweb.com/dd/2018/09/21/sublime-git-is-a-clean-code-editor-for-merge-conflicts/ ====== mockindignant The product is called Sublime Merge.

Getting Started with Algorithmic Cryptocurrency Trading - jaynagpaul https://jaynagpaul.com/algorithmic-crypto-trading ====== brndnmtthws If you want to lose money, this is a good way to do it. You're better off buying what you believe in and holding it. It's easy to fit a perfect model to historical data, but it rarely works going forward, unless you have insider information. ~~~ a13n Can you expand on why you don't think algo trading with predictive algorithms is a viable strategy? GDAX has 0% fees on limit orders. Say you set a limit sell at +1% and a stop loss at -1%. You could trigger a buy whenever you predict that it's >80% likely to hit +1% before -1%. Plug in everything you can get (trades, order book, etc) from GDAX's WebSocket API into an RNN, and I'd guess you can be right more than you're wrong. Aka profitable. ~~~ adjkant Another interesting idea is that patterns can hold if the market is mostly being affected by bots. Especially at the micro level. Even basic ML/AI strategies can be easily profitable with the current volatility. It drastically reduces the risk of the HOLD strategy, and while not necessarily the top profits, can be much safer. I've been running various algorithms for the past 4 months with varying success (whole system homemade in Python), all profitable. I'd also note that as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, what algorithm is very important. This market is like few others, and thus I have found lends itself to very different strategies. ~~~ a13n See? Now there's a blog post I'd read! ------ scottmsul I was hoping to see some discussion about market-making bots or arbitrage bots, which I know for a fact can make money. Can these kinds of prediction bots actually beat random chance? I assumed price fluctuations mostly followed a random walk. ~~~ joosters That's not really related to it being a bot, though. For any form of trading (whether manually or through some form of automation), of course there's going be some choice of buys & sells that return a profit. How you choose such a profitable strategy is a huge area of discussion. However, it's a completely different subject to the article, which is just focused on the mechanism of running a bot. ------ bigiain > # Install NPM dependencies > $ npm install So we know for sure that there's not a malicious leftpad.js getting pulled in there that looks for and exfiltrates your exchange credentials? Yeah - I'm not going there... Not anywhere near there... ------ oil7abibi All this post is how to set up a github project. Nothing more. I’d hope to rather see writing on portfolio management, risk management, or other strategies. That said, Zenbot actually provides a decent platform to start trading. ------ lvturner Thanks for this - would be nice if the article included an example on how a strategy was built, or how to add additional ones into the framework. ------ jiggunjer I've heard of strategies where multiple accounts can collude to manipulate the solo bots that make statistical decisions. Is this a real danger when professional companies start getting involved in crypto? ~~~ a13n Hmm, just looking at GDAX's API, you aren't able to tell who's making an order. You don't know if it's one account with ten orders, or ten accounts with one each. So I don't see why multiple accounts would be an advantage. ~~~ lvturner One thing that springs to mind is that it would allow you to have POSITIONS on both sides of the market, you could use this to create a series of small sell orders that would lure the bots down towards a larger buy order. You could do this by just placing orders, but I guess in some instances it would be beneficial to be able to hold positions in both directions. ~~~ RandomInteger4 The API let's you take positions on both sides with a single account, or prevent yourself from self-trades by setting a flag. EDIT: Nvm, the flag just specifies what the behavior is in the event that the system encounters a self-trade: decrement and cancel, cancel resting, cancel incoming, cancel both. ------ locusm This reminded me of Tradewave back in 2014, any idea what happened to it? ~~~ senatorobama [https://archive.is/ZvE6z](https://archive.is/ZvE6z) ~~~ locusm Thanks.

Show HN: An ATS with smart requirements, digital profiles and more - micael_dias https://www.mropus.com ====== micael_dias Hi guys, I've developed Mr. Opus in the last few years (with big breaks in between) but I feel it's now in a good place to see the world. Features: \- smart job requirements include professional field experience, education experience, language spoken and country of residence. If the applicant doesn't meet them, he can't apply. \- digital profiles so you won't have to parse cvs as word documents anymore There's quite a few features I want to add in the future but for the time being, give it a try and let me know what you think! The first job opening is free.

MSBuild is now open source on GitHub - pauljz http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2015/03/18/msbuild-engine-is-now-open-source-on-github.aspx ====== jammycakes The problem with MSBuild is that it tends to get used for things for which it is not really designed. MSBuild was originally designed as a file format for Visual Studio solution and project files, generally intended to be managed by a GUI. If all you are interested in is spitting out binaries, it works pretty well, and the fact that it adds a ton of extensibility is actually quite useful. It becomes problematic though when people try to use it to manage their entire end-to-end build process -- running tests, generating reports, stopping and starting servers, manipulating configuration files and so on. When you get to that level you really need a proper scripting language with a clean, readable way of expressing loops, conditions and subroutines, and that's where MSBuild falls down -- XML is horrible for that kind of thing, and the declarative, task-based paradigm simply isn't flexible enough. Unfortunately, because of the all too common insistence of many .NET teams on being spoon-fed by Microsoft, a lot of projects stick with MSBuild for their entire end-to-end build process regardless, simply because they believe That Is How Microsoft Wants You To Do It. ~~~ raverbashing > XML is horrible for that kind of thing, and the declarative, task-based > paradigm simply isn't flexible enough. Of course! That's why the Java world uses maven It makes no sense, but hey, it's XML ~~~ kyllo Task running is more what Ant is for, isn't it? Maven is more of a dependency management tool than a task runner. A lot of Java projects use both tools together for builds. I've never used it, but MSBuild sounds like Microsoft's version of Ant to me. ~~~ eropple MSBuild has a lot of Ant-yness to it, yes. However, I quibble with your definition of Maven as a dependency manager--it has one (and the independent implementation that can work with Maven repos is Apache Ivy) but I've never seen a Java project use both. Usually somebody jams some sort of runner into a Maven project as a different build step or something. ~~~ kyllo _Usually somebody jams some sort of runner into a Maven project as a different build step or something_ Like this? [http://maven.apache.org/ant-tasks/](http://maven.apache.org/ant- tasks/) ~~~ eropple If you're lucky. I've seen a lot more home-rolled ones in Java. ~~~ kyllo Yeah... I've also worked on corporate Java projects with no Ant, Maven, nor hand-rolled substitute, where the build process was to download the dependencies' jars from the internet manually into /lib. ------ MrZipf IIRC MSBuild was the brain child of Alex Kipman, father of Kinect and HoloLens. As legend tells it he lashed up a demo version over a weekend and pitched it successfully in the corridor shortly thereafter. The rest is history. MSBuild is essentially a clone ant, and it's not a bad tool per se. For the devdiv engineering team it allowed them to get off the horrible pre-msbuild project files. The messiness came with solution files (since VS uses solution files and project files). Unfortunately, they left the also awful solution files around. And this added an alternate way to specify dependencies between projects. VS solution files are awful to maintain - just a bag of guids that makes resolving conflicts very hard for humans and VS is poor at automatically resolving them (very noticeable when you get >3 developers on a project). The solution to the messiness would be to use an MSBuild project file instead of a solution file. It'd have to conform to a schema VS understands, but it's not rocket science. However, fixing this would require the VS source code and MSFT to accept a patch. Using Visual Studio, gui or command line, uses the MSBuild engine though the VS wrapping does some internal caching that occasionally makes it wrong (ah! There's a cryptic flag that fixes this). ~~~ stinos _The solution to the messiness would be to use an MSBuild project file instead of a solution file._ Read somewhere this is definitely on the dev team's list, but cannot find it anymore. When building a solution it is first converted to an msbuild file which is then built. So all that is left is to add VS gui support for such files to treat them as project containers, and then it's byebye sln. ~~~ MrZipf That's good news. I left MSFT last year and know some of the internal build toolsets have their own similar solution, but it's not integrated with Visual Studio. ------ rsuelzer Fantastic. As a .NET Developer, who has been forced into doing Ruby and Java development, I really miss the .NET framework and c#. I'm hoping that this move toward open source will help more open-source projects adopt .NET. C# is such a wonderful language and anything that helps make it more mainstream in the open-source community is a Good Thing. ~~~ ryan-allen As a .NET developer who has wholly abandoned Ruby and it's culture, I'm having the time of my life! C# and Visual Studio are seriously good tools. I'm using Typescript and Angular, too. Good times! ~~~ ghuntley This * 10000. ------ zaphar I have a hate/hate relationship with msbuild as a build tool. However the mono xbuild tool has subtle incompatibilities and holes in functionality as compared to msbuild so for no other reason than having the "same" build tool in mono and .Net I applaud this move. ------ serve_yay I spent a lot of time with this thing in my career. I wish I had some nice things to say about it. But I'm glad it is open source. ------ mattchamb Nice to see this makes the old approach of using reflection to use msbuild internal classes to parse solution files obsolete. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/707107/library-for- parsin...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/707107/library-for-parsing- visual-studio-solution-files) ------ akandiah Simply one of the worst development tools that MS has put out. Its problem is that it's a hack-job - an attempt to make it in to a 'project' file that Visual Studio can load and also where one can treat as a traditional (n)ant- like build file. That's not to say that I think (n)ant is better, but it's certainly not hacky and far better documented. ------ arrowgunz Licensed under MIT, impressive. ~~~ ghuntley All of the Microsoft technologies which have been open sourced over the last couple months have been under MIT which is really strange actually as Mono is licensed under LGPL2 which is actually more restrictive! Fancy that, how times have changed. ~~~ masklinn Wouldn't licensing under GPL limit their flexibility with respect to external contributions? They wouldn't be able to use that in proprietary product, or move the project's development back to a closed model. ~~~ hyperpape Depends. Some companies use GPL with copyright assignment to control the project: you can use it as a wholly open source product, but the company has the right to do future development in a closed source way, embed it in proprietary products, etc. I don't know if that's likely with a build tool, but it happens elsewhere. ------ dclusin Sort of off topic, but I've always wondered if github charges larger orgs for hosting their projects like this. It seems like google and and microsoft get tons of free bandwidth from github to the point of being unsustainable w/o charging. ~~~ Negitivefrags I would bet that it helps github far more than it hurts. Having a company like Microsoft mentioning github all the time is great publicity. Also bandwidth for hosting code is so cheap to be practically negligible. ------ pionar The worst part of msbuild has (for me) been the lack of documentation of flags. Hopefully this will help. ------ ghuntley MSBuild is great and all but seriously why bother when there's better alternatives available - i.e. Fake? [https://github.com/fsharp/FAKE](https://github.com/fsharp/FAKE) ~~~ Rapzid I was curious to see what would happen with build systems when they first announced the open source/cross platform. Initially I figured maybe something like FAKE or scriptcs based so we could break away from msbuild and powershell. But then they announced cmake and now this. This was inevitable from the announcement last year, but I'm afraid the community has not spoken on this, per say. One of the benefits of the open source community is that ideas get to duke it out in the wild and the most fit will survive. How long will we be saddled with msbuild? Maybe some brave heroes will create an alternative some day? There is a lot of legacy stuff that has not been properly vetted. Will be interesting to see what happens. ------ acqq Really great news! For those who didn't do Windows programming, the MSBuild is the "back-end" "make" engine behind the Visual Studio. ------ O____________O Despite being a Windows developer for 90% of my career, I have no idea why anyone uses MSBuild. I've created several automated build and deployment systems, but I always used the command line Visual Studio interface. Honestly, I don't know why anyone wants MSBuild. Poking around, people cite not needing to install the VS IDE on build servers, but I see zero drawback to doing that. Why would I want to maintain project dependencies, build orders, and whatnot in two places, when I could just build in exactly the same way, using the same solution/project files, on my dev box and my build server? It seems to me that this is actually vastly more meaningful to traditionally open-source LAMP developers who are considering C# and ASP.Net on Linux in the future. ~~~ cssmoo _> I could just build in exactly the same way, using the same solution/project files, on my dev box and my build server_ Do you run VS on your production servers? Because that's where it will shit a brick because you forgot to install ASP.Net MVC KB123123213 but the IDE installed it as part of update 4. Etc etc... This problem gets VERY deep. ~~~ O____________O _Do you run VS on your production servers?_ Why would I have any build system installed on a production _server_? ~~~ snuxoll For CI? Gotta run your builds somewhere, and a build agent is a production application. ~~~ O____________O What is CI? ------ pvsnp This is really exciting move. I wonder if this would make compiling the .NET core easier in OSX and Linux? ~~~ mattchamb Interestingly, Roslyn already includes its own parsing/handling of visual studio solution files: [http://source.roslyn.codeplex.com/#Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Wo...](http://source.roslyn.codeplex.com/#Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Workspaces.Desktop/Workspace/MSBuild/SolutionFile/SolutionFile.cs,102) ~~~ ygra Which is built on the MSBuild API. Which makes it a bit annoying to use without the pre-release Visual Studio right now, as Roslyn is built against an MSBuild assembly that doesn't exist on my machine. ~~~ khellang See [https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/212](https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/212) ------ michaelfeathers It would be poetic if they put up Visual SourceSafe. ------ angersock Perhaps we can use this to start making headway in the fight to get rid of make, autotools, and cmake? :) ~~~ moron4hire I come from a Windows background. I've been having a need to do more C programs lately, and I have generally been trying to migrate more towards platform-agnostic configurations. I had started looking at CMake under the promise of a cross-platform build system, but now I see a lot of non-specific complaints about it. Is there something specific you can articulate that is wrong with CMake, and what alternative is there for someone who A) wants to build cross-platform, but B) with as native of tools as possible for those platforms? In other words, I'd rather not build with GCC on Windows. ~~~ angersock Sure, I'll bite. So, my issue with CMake is that I usually run into it with annoying academic projects, or other weird shit--that doesn't matter, but what does matter is that the code quality tends to correlate pretty well with my personal rage. When I try to run it on Linux, sometimes it'll just fail because reasons (looking at you, player-stage five years ago). When I try to run it on Windows, I have to fiddle with settings, rerun it a few times, and only grudgingly will it emit a project and directory for me. And what it does emit? Almost never a properly organized project. Usually a project with a name like "Project1" and some rando layout. Usually I can't even figure out what #defines are being set, because it's hidden away. I'd much rather people just write simple Makefiles (it can be done!), and a few VS project files, and be done with it. CMake has never once, in the last five years, ever resulted in me looking up from my machine going "Man, that was such a good experience, I'm sure glad we have CMake!". The JS ecosystem, as crackheaded as it is, is still not 1000th of 1% of the annoyance as dealing with C/C++ using CMake. ~~~ moron4hire Ok! Thank you. I think that makes a lot of sense. ~~~ angersock No problem. And to be fair, there are a couple of folks I trust who have had great success with it--and yet, I never seem to run into those projects when I need them. Cool VR stuff by the way...hit me up if you'd like to BS about it sometime. ------ voltagex_ Will this help CMake's ability to generate solution files? ~~~ dietrichepp Solution files are easy. Project files (I think you meant project files) are not too hard, if all you want to do is build. Integration with Visual Studio is part of the equation, too. ~~~ voltagex_ From memory CMake was only producing VS 2010 project files which then had to be fiddled a bit to upgrade them to 2012 - so a version bump would be appreciated. ~~~ ihnorton CMake supports VS2012-2015 natively in the latest releases. ------ julbaxter What's the difference with Roslyn? ~~~ MichaelGG Rosyln's a compiler/framework for certain language tools or something like that. Msbuild is like a Make type tool that actually calls the compiler, passes in flags and input files, determines what else needs to get done, etc. ~~~ julbaxter Does it mean msbuilb uses roslyn somehow? ~~~ MichaelGG I understand that Roslyn powers or is the C#/VB compiler. Yes, the build system will often call the compiler as part of the build. ------ detay Would this lead to a Visual Studio on MacOs/Linux one day? (I hope it would) ~~~ NoGravitas It's more likely that it would make MonoDevelop more strictly VS compatible. It already opens and saves .sln and .csproj files, but my understanding is that going back and forth between VS and MD can lead to problems. ~~~ floatboth I'm working on a pretty advanced solution right now (F# + PCLs), everything works both fine both in VS and Mono's xbuild. ------ edandersen Nobody is seriously going to fork this and create their own port of MSBuild, possibly one of the most mocked and reviled parts of the .NET ecosystem. I do however congratulate the ground level MS staffers on the effort it likely took to convice the Risk and Legal departments that open sourcing something like this won't make their business fail. That must have been trying. ~~~ cwyers > Nobody is seriously going to fork this and create their own port of MSBuild, > possibly one of the most mocked and reviled parts of the .NET ecosystem. You're probably right. But it does mean there's one more part of the .NET ecosystem that potentially runs on Linux and OSX, and that's probably the reasoning behind this. ~~~ edandersen The reasoning is likely that there is now an internal KPI for open sourcing code because it helps MS PR. ~~~ cwyers I doubt that it's anything as ephemeral as "public relations" that's driving this. They want developer mindshare. Having developers writing for .NET means more software available for Windows users and for Azure services. That means more people buy Windows devices and Azure time. ------ steveklabnik The, uh, first PR: [https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/pull/1](https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/pull/1) ~~~ acdha I wish he had a bit more empathy for whatever poor grunt at Microsoft had to slog through the process of open-sourcing it only to get this in thanks ~~~ robashton2 I got loads of time for that, but I've also suffered at the hands of MSBuild as have thousands of others so the PR seemed like a funny troll at the time. Seriously - I remember at one client there was a specific machine set up to edit the build on because it was the only one that could open the workflow editor without crashing. Why there was a workflow editor to edit MSBuild stuff I don't know but that's that world in a nutshell. ~~~ acdha I don't disagree that people have problems with Microsoft products but I would just suggest asking yourself whether the people who went to the trouble of open-sourcing something are likely to want those problems to exist rather than, say, engineers trying to do what they can at a big, complicated company. Is it more likely that the person who reads a troll PR is going to say “I had no idea everyone wasn't happy with this!” or that their boss will say “See, I told you that releasing this was a waste of time”. ------ nickbauman What the hell is MSBuild and why should I care? ------ edandersen [https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/commits/master](https://github.com/Microsoft/msbuild/commits/master) 3 commits. Because MSBuild just happened. The whole point of open source is that you get to go back and see how the software evolved. Git blame. Everybody learns. ~~~ adamtulinius The historic commits might contain things unsuitable for relicensing. Also, never before have I heard such an absurd claim as to what the purpose of open source is. ~~~ iso8859-1 I think it is an interesting perspective. What would you say the purpose of open source is? If not purpose, you can call it an attractive property. Let say you have the sources of an algorithm implementation, but they are unreadable because the variables are not named, you don't know the name of the algorithm getting implemented and so on. Of course this is a lot harder to understand than code which cites its references (like papers and so). Wouldn't this qualify as being able to "see how the the software evolved"? Granted, VCS history is only a small part of this, but I think it may help cause it would show what improvements were done, which shows the direction of the project, showing what's important. A large part of being a good programmer is knowing what NOT to do. If you see what others failed to do, don't you think that helps? ~~~ dragonwriter > What would you say the purpose of open source is? The Open Source Initiative has this to say: "Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in." Recognizing that "Free Software" and "Open Source" are terms for essentially the same thing originating from groups with slightly different goals, the FSF says this about Free Software: " Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us." [1] Seeing the past history of a project before the point at which it was opened is somewhat related, but not necessary, to the motivation cited by the OSI, and not, as I see it, even related to the FSF motivation. [0] [http://opensource.org/about](http://opensource.org/about) [1] [http://www.fsf.org/about/](http://www.fsf.org/about/)

Japan's second highest volcano erupts - oska http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-27/several-injured-in-volcanic-eruption-in-central-japan/5773890 ====== oska Good collection of photos in this Guardian piece: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/sep/27/escape-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/sep/27/escape- from-mount-ontake-in-pictures) The last photo shows the erupting volcano with Mt Fuji looming in the background.

Mozilla Launches Preview Of Firefox For Windows 8 Tablets - Garbage http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/20/mozilla-launches-preview-of-firefox-for-windows-8-tablets/ ====== isaacwaller I just tried this on my Surface Pro and although performance is really lacking and pinch to zoom does not work, I am excited about the possibility of using other browsers than IE11. Chrome for Windows 8 has been abandoned since release so I hope Firefox will continue to develop this UI. ------ corporalagumbo This looks like that Firefox Junior prototype that popped up a while ago. Nice to see thumb-centered controls spreading on tablets. ------ l0c0b0x I sure hope its less buggy than regular Firefox on Windows 8. I mean, my lord its bad most of the time! (depending on the update). ------ methodin I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that WP8 apps break all historical resemblance to other app UIs. Anyone with first-hand experience that can offer some feedback of how these apps hold up from a usability standpoint? ~~~ Aaronontheweb Varies a lot by form factor - my experience with Metro apps on touch devices has been amazing. On desktops, I rarely have a reason to use them - except for running a full-screen Kindle / Netflix app on an additional monitor. FWIW, iOS7 and the latest Android UI actually borrow a lot from the Windows Phone flavor of metro pretty heavily. The context switching between apps on iOS7 is identical to what MSFT introduced in WP7.1 (Mango.) ~~~ jccalhoun I agree. On my (non-touch screen) laptop I hardly ever use the metro apps. I like win8 but I just go to the desktop practically every time. There just aren't any metro apps worth using right now (I basically only use this laptop when i'm in front of my netflix-capable tv) ~~~ Aaronontheweb Decent Metro Apps: I recommend ReddHub - it's a pretty slick Reddit client for the Windows Store. I use it on my Surface RT all the time.

Extend the life of threads with synchronization (C++11) - indatawetrust http://stackoverflow.com/q/15252292/3986712 ====== obi1kenobi My two cents -- just use Cilk Plus: [https://www.cilkplus.org/tutorial-cilk- plus-keywords#spawn_a...](https://www.cilkplus.org/tutorial-cilk-plus- keywords#spawn_and_sync) Why I like it: \- easy to learn (3 keywords total: cilk_spawn, cilk_sync, cilk_for) \- runtime handles thread creation, deciding appropriate number of threads based on hardware \- provably efficient work-stealing scheduler \- natively supported in GCC 5, branches available for GCC 4.8/4.9 and Clang \- comes with a race detector (guaranteed to discover determinacy/data races) \- trivial to convert your parallel code to serial (#define spawn/sync keywords -> empty string, and cilk_for -> for)

Building software to identify trends in unsolved murders - adventured https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-02-08/serial-killers-should-fear-this-algorithm ====== e28eta Does anyone know why MAP focuses on the clearance rate? It seems to conflate arresting someone with "solving" the murder. I can think of some plausible reasons: practicality (easiest to collect, stable over time), political (if your audience is the police, basing your work on the assumption that they arrest the right guy is probably smart), standardization (is it?), etc. Wikipedia is fairly light, but does link to a pair of articles on the criminal justice conflict vs consensus models, so it seems this is a potential can of worms. ------ dsfyu404ed I'm really not moved by the "resources" argument all the PDs are giving. Investigating murders is the kind of thing you do when you've run out of meth labs to bust and black guys to beat. It's a high effort, low reward task. Of course they'd much rather cut back there than not buy everyone tazers. ------ masscontrol The article title "Serial Killers Should Fear This Algorithm" is naive since psychopaths do not feel emotions like fear or empathy, or at least not spontaneously.[1] I've tried to test a psychopath in the wild using a word association psychoanalysis method[2], but they are hard to find. Hospitals would not divulge names (no surprise there) and many psychopaths are senior corporate professionals who run successful companies.[3] [1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-empathic- brain/2013...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-empathic- brain/201307/inside-the-mind-psychopath-empathic-not-always) [2] [https://criticalstimulus.com/](https://criticalstimulus.com/) [3] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos- are-p...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are- psychopaths-australian-study-finds/) ~~~ wmil A serial killer who strangles women is probably a "Lust Killer" and not a psychopath. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_murder) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_serial_killers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lust_serial_killers) ~~~ abiox > a "Lust Killer" and not a psychopath are these exclusive notions? ------ eptcyka And regular readers should fear this headline. ~~~ dang We've replaced it with a phrase from the subtitle. ~~~ riskneural I feel like you build a model which you implement in software. (which runs on hardware) ------ ffef Keyword: Before the fact ------ Shivetya cynical me thinks it simply isn't profitable to them to solve murder cases unless public outcry is very high and more profitable to beat on the fear of drugs and perform seizures. post 2010 drop could unfortunately be attributed to a hostile media and Presidency towards the police because of some overly politicized cases ~~~ mcphage Definitely there's been a reduction in trust between police departments & citizens, but I'm not sure I agree with you whose _fault_ it is. ~~~ ep103 The drug war. #1 culprit.

Why Google allows target.com to spam search results - madars http://www.goodroi.com/why-google-allows-target-com-to-spam-results/ ====== codexon This is a result of Google's reliance on domain authority over relevance and pagerank now. [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-spam-illuminates-the- algos...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-spam-illuminates-the-algos- reliance-on-domain-authority) [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-googles-rankings-algorithm- ha...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-googles-rankings-algorithm-has-changed- over-time-) ------ Evgeny A guy posted a "fictional" link to a search for "jon payne is so hot" on target website in the comments: [http://www.target.com/gp/search/188-1977530-4602238?field- ke...](http://www.target.com/gp/search/188-1977530-4602238?field- keywords=jon+payne+is+so+hot&url=index%3Dtarget%26search-alias%3Dtgt- index&ref=sr_bx_1_1&x=0&y=0) Soon enough, the search for "jon payne is so hot" on google returns target as top result. [http://www.google.com.au/search?q=jon+payne+is+so+hot&ie...](http://www.google.com.au/search?q=jon+payne+is+so+hot&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en- US:official&client=firefox-a) ~~~ timdorr Also humorous, on these search results: [http://www.google.com/search?q=site:target.com+We+could+not+...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:target.com+We+could+not+find+matches+for) the top result is: "Anal Massage for Lovers Vol 2 : Target Search Results" :| ------ robryan I would go as far to say any results page which is the result of an in site search should be removed, rarely if ever have I found any value from these pages through google. ~~~ andrewljohnson I disagree with this as an absolute. Google will often show cooks.com search results for a search for "X X recipe," and these are typically the correct result, showing a dozen similar recipes for the dish I'm looking to cook. ------ Maciek416 Are these pages being served up as 404s ? If not, that sucks. If yes, why would Google diligently index a 404 and strongly rank it? ~~~ madars Unfortunately they are served as 200 OKs (see <http://tinyurl.com/yzca7ec>) ~~~ pyre I'm not really 'up' on involved rules with respect to web programming / interfacing with Apache, but is it standard practice to return a 404 when your search finds no hits? Technically it's not a 'page not found.' ~~~ ars It would require extra programming, so is not done unless you think of it/get a special request for it. Should you use a 404? I could see arguments both ways. A "no results" result, is still a result. So it's not a 404. I would do a 404 if you try to link to a product that does not exist, but not for a zero results found page. BTW madars don't use url shorteners here - even for really long ones. ------ wglb Interesting: this story is apparently of enough concern that when i serch for "Exercise Bike Clearance" I get mostly articles talking about Target spamming Google. ------ vaksel how hard is it really, for Google to add if "we are sorry we couldn't find" + searchquery then nofreetrafficforyou I mean there are only a dozen or so ways for people say "we are sorry we tricked you into coming to our site with fake content", surely a company the size of Google can do a fix for this. Would eliminate overnight 90% of all those crappy fake search results ~~~ robk But that's not really feasible for 100+ languages, not to mention character sets, etc. Editorial doesn't really scale for Google at all. For many of the smaller languages (i.e., outside the top 20 or so) Google only employs at most one native speaker who's tasked to work on search quality. ~~~ vaksel but they only need to cover 1 language, English. EVERY SINGLE "fake" page I've seen was in English. ------ andreyf _Big brands have more links and more trustworthy websites referring to them_ Here's something I don't get: where the hell are there links to target.com? I sure have never seen one... ~~~ almost [http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.targe...](http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com) ~~~ redorb [https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.ta...](https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.target.com&fr=sfp&bwm=i) is a better source, it shows 3.1mm incoming links... [https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.ta...](https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http://www.target.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=u) Shows that only 267k are from outside sources. Target is getting the credit of internal link structure from all their other pages. </educated guess> ~~~ byrneseyeview If that were true, this would be the best-ranked site in the universe: <http://ianab.com/trillion/1.html> ~~~ redorb Except that those trillion pages have little incoming links ~ so they have no "juice" or "pageRank" to pass. Target has 267k incoming links then redistributes that via internal links / a while ago people started "link sculpting" using 'no-follow' in the link <ahref> to take all the homepage link juice and pass it to what they perceived as their better converting pages.. but google has since come out and said that wasn't a good thing to do... ~~~ byrneseyeview Right. Having extra pages, versus extra content, is not specifically beneficial. If that were the case, other sites would fill themselves with specious stuff like empty search results pages. ------ almost "Imagine if each page generates just one visitor each day" Yes, just imagine that! While we're at it we could even imagine that each page generates 6 billion visitors a day. How bad would that be??? Looks like a flaw in Target's site. Not news. Not interesting. Not anything

Meeting Technical Cofounders in SF? - absamer Hey guys - I will be in San Francisco between Aug 22 - Aug 24 and was wondering if I could meet technical cofounders who are interested in building the following tourism mobile app:<p>What is Tropoo: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=I4SJHPOrk_g<p>How it works: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Aawxqetbyss<p>Drop me an email at: samer@tropoo.com<p>Cheers!! ====== absamer test

Uber Data and Leaked Docs Provide a Look at How Much Uber Drivers Make - impostervt https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/internal-uber-driver-pay-numbers?utm_term=.ncJOK7YoA7#.tsrdRXW7rX ====== danso > _Rather than relying on Uber 's figures, BuzzFeed News conducted an > independent analysis of the raw trip data and driver data. Uber subsequently > recalculated BuzzFeed’s estimates using a broader and more detailed set of > internal data — which it declined to share directly with BuzzFeed News._ Was it the calculation or the original data that they declined to share? If the former, I guess that's a sign that Buzzfeed isn't far off?

Ed Mastery (Is This a April Fools Joke) - joelinuxyx https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/?product=ed ====== cperciva It's a real book.

Cornell professor driven to convey beauty of mathematics - tokenadult http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20130114/NEWS02/301140061/Cornell-professor-driven-convey-beauty-mathematics ====== pcurve Old video, but in case anyone wants to see metronomes syncing in action. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysnkY4WHyM> ~~~ DanBC I also like the video on this page: ([http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyw...](http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k16940&pageid=icb.page80863&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent341734&state=maximize&view=view.do&viewParam_name=indepth.html#a_icb_pagecontent341734)) (<http://youtu.be/yVkdfJ9PkRQ>) ------ chris_wot This is very interesting. I've always struggled with Mathematics. Recently I got a Dover book on Trigonometry, and I finally understood what radians are! Now I know there are folks here who intuitively grasp mathematics - I see and sometimes envy their grasp of the material - but I'm finding that I'm enjoying understanding the most basic of mathematical concepts. There's something incredibly satisfying about it all. ------ mathattack Given my screen name, one would suspect that I like this article. :-) Math should be a joy. I wish I had heard of this book sooner. I certainly added it to my wish list in Amazon. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Joy-Guided- Tour-Infinity/dp/054751...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Joy-Guided-Tour- Infinity/dp/0547517653)

The Sound of Pixels - myth_drannon http://sound-of-pixels.csail.mit.edu/ ====== a-dub Interesting. I wonder how well a logistic regression that spits out masks would perform in the source separation task. Also a bit surprising to see that they had to STFT the audio before feeding it into a convnet. I thought half the point of convnets was that they figure out how to do spectral domain representations on their own... ~~~ black_puppydog in theory yes, but in practice, giving the network the full information _in the right format_ is crucial to have it train well and quickly. ~~~ a-dub isn't that supposed to be the magic of convnets though? they _figure out_ the right format. instead of doing feature engineering, like stfts and mel warping, you do stuff like build convolution layers into an ann and let it sort it out? ------ keyle Cool stuff. Any real world usage/benefits for this? I can't think of any. ~~~ drhodes matching faces with voices in a surveillance situation, which person is talking? ~~~ vernie That's actually this paper: [https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/04/looking-to- listen-audio-vi...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/04/looking-to-listen-audio- visual-speech.html) ~~~ black_puppydog that's actually a whole subfield, not "this paper". ------ rflrob I haven’t tried my hand at any machine learning, but I’m impressed that it could work with only 60 hours of training data. Perhaps the input clips were fairly short, which would increase the total number of videos. ------ app4soft It remind me such apps like _PhonoPaper_ [0], _Nature - Oscillator_ [1] and _PixiVisor_ [2] [0] [http://warmplace.ru/soft/phonopaper](http://warmplace.ru/soft/phonopaper) [1] [http://warmplace.ru/soft/nosc](http://warmplace.ru/soft/nosc) [2] [http://warmplace.ru/soft/pixivisor/](http://warmplace.ru/soft/pixivisor/) ------ funkdified This is going to be huge for the hard of hearing. ~~~ pjgrad Unlike reading, I don't think audio can convey the same meaning in a different sensory format. At best, they perceive it but in an alien way to most people. It's like describing a painting in musical notes. ~~~ pjgrad And the "some" to that "most" are those with synesthesia ------ ggm Does anyone remember Gerry Anderson? he designed relays attached to puppets, which made the jaws clack in time to the sound-track being played, while they filmed the puppets for _Thunderbirds are go_ in the 1960s. Look at me ma! my puppet is speaking! Thus, it only took us 50-odd years to write the reverse-compiler.. ------ xtagon I wonder if this can segregate vocals from instrumentals in a mix? That would be great for mashups. ~~~ bscphil Incidentally, due to the way a lot of stereo tracks are mixed, it's often possible to mostly remove the vocal track from a song. I'm more curious if this algorithm could perform the reverse task - playing the vocals only. My intuition is that the results would be poor because of the wide human vocal range and the fact that words need to be discernible, not just notes. But I would love to be proven wrong here. ~~~ StavrosK If you can remove the vocals from a piece, you can then subtract that from the original to get just the vocals. ~~~ nawgszy Well that's not quite true. The point is, I believe, that vocals are generally put right in the center of the sound-stage, so they play equally in the left and right channels. Thus right - left is most of the rest of the song, but the vocals cancelled each other out. However, the right - left mix isn't exactly the song minus the vocals, it's an odd off-version, so subtracting that from the original song will leave mostly the vocals but with artifacts from the difference between the song truly without vocals and the right - left mix's interpretation thereof ~~~ StavrosK Yes, certainly. My point is that if you have "mostly no vocals" you can subtract that from the left + right mix to get "mostly the vocals". It won't be exactly right, sure. ~~~ nawgszy Fair enough! ------ hrayr Interesting, I was wondering what to do with my audiblepixel.com domain.

Dragscroll – a tiny JS library which enables scrolling via mouse drag - xpostman https://github.com/asvd/dragscroll ====== atesti Even before having a mouse with wheel I used to scroll stuff with by dragging: I just selected text and when the selection reached the border, it started to scroll. I bet I'm not the only one. Anybody considering disabling selection or showing social media tools after selecting text should consider such weird behaviour. Nowadays I use my Thinkpad without Synaptics or trackpoint drivers and the middle button works perfectly: Either using it open links in new tabs, or pressing it to start scroll mode. Now the mouse pointer changes and moving it scrolls. Unfortunately some software breaks this, probably WPF ~~~ joeframbach Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/) ------ ams6110 Tangentially, what's a good JS library to implement drag/drop on mobile? I'm thinking of one site in particular that implements prioritizing choices by drag/dropping them into order of preference. But when you try to use the site on a mobile browser, it just scrolls the page when you try to drag an item. I'd like to suggest to them how to fix it, rather than just complain. ~~~ jewel If they are using jquery UI, then there is a small fix addon called "touch punch" which repairs it. A similar approach should work for other libraries. You need to handle the "touch" events in addition to "mousedown" and "mouseup". ------ WhitneyLand It's a nice idea, but could it be made to be mobile friendly? For example when touch scrolling on a device the text scrolls in a choppy fashion rather than smooth with momentum. I understand this is for desktop, but it would be nice if it could not get in the way of what div/overflow gives us for free. ~~~ xpostman Sorry, I think I don't clearly get what you mean. Tablets normally scroll smoothly pixel-wise as long as you move the finger. In fact, dragscroll implements the similar behaviour for desktops, because I consider such behaviour as more reasonable in many cases (comparing to selecting the content of the area, I mean). ~~~ WhitneyLand You are right about how tablets are supposed to work. The problem is that in your examples this behavior no longer functions as expected on tablets. The example should work well for both desktop and tablet. Your current implementation changes the normal behavior on tablets. ~~~ xpostman There probaby an bug in dragscroll then. It is not supposed to break the behaviour on tablets, will test it.. ------ unicornporn The problem with solutions like these: without a notice, how will the user ever know that they can drag scroll on my site? Perhaps for a web app with a limited user base that can be educated... ~~~ mobiuscog The cursor changes. Admittedly, if people aren't capable of noticing that, they may be a lost cause. ~~~ contradictioned True for images, but not for the text (chromium+linux). And I get annoyed when I cant select text. ~~~ xpostman This is defined by the developer actually. And besides there is no problem for a user if he does not know that he can scroll with dragging. ------ 1and2equals0 I also like the idea. Would be cool if it could work naturally with pointer lock - annoying to have to reset pointer position manually :) ~~~ xpostman then you will have to manually reset the mouse on the table :-D ------ glxybstr sort of interesting. i expected it to have velocity/inertia, but I think that would make it much more than ~900 bytes ------ nfoz Why shouldn't this be up to the mouse driver? I used to just use middle-click for this. ~~~ adrusi Because sometimes there are scrollable areas on the page that you want to pan, not scroll, but there's no panning built into HTML. Yes, mouse drivers should make it possible to pan any scrollable area, but most don't, and websites have to be usable with shitty drivers. ------ supercoder I've been using ftscroller which is great for emulating UIScrollView ------ whoisthemachine Nifty

Tracking Cirrus: Is This the Silk Road 2.0 Mole? - r721 http://motherboard.vice.com/read/tracking-cirrus-is-this-the-silk-road-20-mole ====== pstuart Why was Homeland Security involved in this? One of their charters[1] is to "Safeguard and Secure Cyberspace", which they state is: * analyze and reduces cyber threats and vulnerabilities; * distribute threat warnings; and * coordinate the response to cyber incidents to ensure that our computers, networks, and cyber systems remain safe. None of that looks like "stop people from buying drugs". [1] [http://www.dhs.gov/safeguard-and-secure- cyberspace](http://www.dhs.gov/safeguard-and-secure-cyberspace) ~~~ dmix A friend of mine did contract SEO work for a company selling synthetic drug similar to marijuana (before the DEA made it illegal). But they kept selling it after it was made illegal and long after his online-marketing contract ended. But he was contacted by the DHS, specially ICE with questions about his prior involvement. Nothing came of it but this story shows that they do investigate drug matters. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement) > ICE is the second largest criminal investigative agency in the U.S. > government, following the FBI. > HSI Special Agents investigate a range of issues that threaten the national > security of the United States such as human rights violations, human > smuggling, art theft, human trafficking, drug smuggling, arms trafficking, > transnational gang investigations, financial crimes including money > laundering and bulk cash smuggling, trade-based money laundering (including > trade finance and Kimberley Process investigations), computer crimes, > including the production and transportation of child pornography via the > Internet, import/export enforcement issues, trafficking of counterfeit > pharmaceuticals and other merchandise, and international Cultural Property > and Antiquities crimes. ICE basically investigates any sophisticated crimes and their mandate definitely covers drugs, especially drugs that are imported from overseas. This is part of the reason why 90% of the time the patriot act has been invoked it has been for drug investigations and not terrorism related crimes. [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110908/02534215846/wasnt...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110908/02534215846/wasnt- patriot-act-supposed-to-be-about-stopping-terrorism.shtml)

How one SV engineer benefitted from the tacit acceptance of entrenched sexism - gregleffler https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-one-silicon-valley-engineer-benefitted-from-tacit-faye-keegan ====== a_puppy I agree Haseeb's comment was sexist, and I'm glad that Keegan called him out on it. But I think the punishment she's asking for is too strong. She seems to be implying that he shouldn't be allowed to have a successful career after making that comment, which I think is a massively disproportionate punishment. Also, this isn't "tacit acceptance of entrenched sexism". There was nothing "tacit" about her calling him out, and her response and Ruggeri's response were not "acceptance". In fact, if every sexist comment got called out like this, people would stop making sexist comments. The problem is when people make sexist comments and don't get called out on it, or when the incident is brought to higher authorities and the authorities defend the sexist comments-- neither of which happened in this case. ------ PaulHoule Also it is not so clear that this person is really a winner in the long term. My experience is that if you negotiate for a high salary, unless you really perform like a super-superstar, you will be the last to get a raise and the first to go if anything goes wrong. ------ andrewl I'd only heard the name App Academy before this article. I did a bit of reading on it. It's an intensive twelve-week program, and it looks like applicants have to pass heavy screening for aptitude. I can well believe that properly screened and highly-motivated people can learn a huge amount in twelve weeks. And Qureshi seems highly intelligent. He's described in the Business Insider article as a former professional poker player with an English degree. His blog says he was a millionaire poker player by the age of 19. So I'm guessing he's pretty powerful analytically. But still. If a company is putting a _quarter of a million dollars_ on the table, I would think they'd be able to find somebody as smart as Qureshi who also had a computer science or computer engineering or mathematics background and _years_ of coding experience. I don't work in the tech world this article is describing, so I don't know. But it seems odd to me. ------ 11thEarlOfMar If you're looking for a job in any field, and any type of _ism_ is a concern for you, you have three options: 1\. Ignore the _ism_ and be yourself. 2\. Call out bad behavior and campaign against the _ism_. 3\. Adopt the behaviors of the _ism_ and try to minimize the differences. Individual personalities and circumstances likely dictate which of these you choose, but everyone who is subjected to an _ism_ and looks for work chooses, and none of those options are the better choice for everyone. If you are in a hiring role, keep in mind that you put your company's reputation at risk and can invite legal action if you judge candidates by any measure associated with _isms_. Be thoughtful and prudent out there. ~~~ fullshark you forgot 4\. Whine about it in a blogpost to try to create an internet outrage army ------ xiphias I think Haseeb wants to offer genuine help to women. If this woman doesn't want to take the advice, it's OK. Just ignore it. But please don't write a blog post about how he communicates instead of what's important: the message. For Engineers communication style was always secondary, and although it's getting more important, it should be staying secondary to the content and the real meaning behind the message. ------ YeGoblynQueenne >> “Shake hands like a man, especially if you’re a woman.” Er, that's a load of bollocks. ------ skmurphy [Haseeb left a long comment (sorry it does not seem to be possible to link directly to it) Here is an edited version (I have removed sentences but believe I have preserved some key points) To be clear I don't know Haseeb and have never met him, but I thought his comments helped to put aspects of the original post in context. I don't know that they are true but they are posted under his LinkedIn ID.] Hey Faye, Someone linked me to your article that you posted on LinkedIn Pulse about me. First off, your article is completely fair. Though this took place about 6 months ago, it's something that weighed heavily on me when it happened. I never reached out to you to discuss it personally, though I don't think that was my fault. Let me explain. [...] That presentation was the first time that I realized I'd said something flagrantly sexist. I'd written the slides about 30 minutes before the presentation and never read them aloud to anyone. I immediately felt ashamed when I read them aloud, because I knew it was a sexist line that I should've immediately deleted and re-written. So when you pointed out that it was sexist, I hoped that the best way I could concede the point would be to acknowledge you were correct and fix it in front of everyone. After the presentation, I was pretty ashamed. I wasn't really sure what to do about it, because I thought two things: one, I made a point to fix the presentation, so was that enough? Should I have done something else? Second, should I apologize to you personally? But would that be weird? You weren't the only woman in the crowd; should I go apologize to every woman? Would that be even weirder? I wasn't sure what to do, so I decided I'd wait for lecture feedback. [...] When Ned took me aside a few days later and told me about receiving an anonymous e-mail about it, it made me feel even worse. He didn't tell me which female student it was, but his conversation had confirmed both that someone was strongly affected by this incident, and that I hadn't done enough to address it. Ned did not tell me who you were. I told Ned to let whoever had sent that message know that I'd be happy to apologize to them personally if that was something they'd be open to. I also would've hoped to ask what I could do best to address it to the rest of the class. I never heard back. So the personalized apology you said never came, was because Ned rightly did not reveal who you were unless you wanted to communicate with me directly. Though I didn't hear anything more about it, that incident affected me very strongly, and made me much more vigilant to be thoughtful about my language and what biases I bring to my teaching at App Academy. I decided that if I were ever to make a mistake like that again, the best thing to do would be to call it out and openly address it as a mistake after the lecture, and apologize explicitly to the students. [...] There's a lot in your post I don't agree with (no surprise there). I also don't think Ned was in the wrong in any way here, and I think it's unfair for you to paint him as having been complicit in anything untoward. But mostly I want to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry both that this happened and made you feel unwelcome at App Academy, and also that I wasn't able to make it right after it did. Sincerely, Haseeb ------ JoeAltmaier tl;dr: too-blunt reality check offends some ~~~ sp332 Trying to make your interviewer believe you are like them is fine. Accepting that most interviewers are men, as immutable fact, is not. Telling women they need to be less womanly to get a job is not. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Even if it works? I mean sure, in a perfect world. But the advice was to job- seekers in the current world. Thus, 'reality check'. We can spell out the right and wrong way things should be run all day long. Not useful unless you're in a position to change them. For the rest of us, good advice is to adapt. ~~~ sp332 Well I also left out the most obvious thing, which is describing a confident handshake as "shaking hands like a man." That really is blatantly sexist. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Did you understand what was meant? Then the phrase was effective. Are there statistical correlations between handshakes and gender? Blunt reality check again. ~~~ sp332 What it means is that women should be encouraged to give confident handshakes, not that women should renounce their femininity and try to be more manly.

Google BigQuery Service: Big data analytics at Google speed - Anon84 http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-bigquery-service-big-data.html ====== epaulson It has joins now, but Google says this: "Joins have size restrictions due to implementation details. Essentially it means that the data on both sides of the JOIN clause cannot be large. For example, select count( _) FROM big_table JOIN another_big_table will fail, but select count(_ ) FROM big_table JOIN small_table will succeed. Because this size restriction depends on many complex variables, the best way to handle joins is to try your join, and if it returns a "Table too large for JOIN query" error, limit the data handled by join clauses by specifying fewer fields or rows." If someone is in the pilot, I'd love to know some different table/result set cardinalities where you hit the "too large for join" limit, as well as what your data and join conditions look like. ~~~ ameyamk I was taken aback by support for 'JOIN' but this comment makes me less excited about the service. ~~~ rxin Support for joining two very large tables is nice, but isn't really a super big deal. In a typical warehouse star schema, you have a very very large fact table, and a number of dimension tables. The dimension tables tend to be small. ~~~ jukaykwek That's the general idea. At least for the current release we prioritized a more common case ilke what rxin describes. That said, if you have a "big join" use case, please sign up for the wait list (<http://goo.gl/7zpSn>) and specifically list your use case. We'd like to talk to you about that. :)

Bootstrap 3 - bauerpl http://getbootstrap.com ====== saurabhnanda Is it just me or do flat styles actually have worse usability? There's absolutely no visual cue for what's clickable and what's not. ~~~ wiremine Yeah, I agree. A good case-in-point is the new button groups. Here is 2.3.2: [http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/components.html#buttonGroups](http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/components.html#buttonGroups) And here are groups in 3: [http://getbootstrap.com/components/#btn- groups](http://getbootstrap.com/components/#btn-groups) There _is_ a rollover state, but it doesn't really convey it is a button anymore. ~~~ zeckalpha And rollover doesn't work if you are mobile-first. ------ yesimahuman If anyone's interested, I wrote up a little guide on how to prepare yourself for B3 - [http://blog.jetstrap.com/2013/07/bootstrap-3-how-to- prepare-...](http://blog.jetstrap.com/2013/07/bootstrap-3-how-to-prepare- yourself/) ------ pixelmonkey The actual reason that all the styles are "flat" right now? One of the main project authors removed them temporarily while he focuses on fixing other issues in the current pull request for Bootstrap 3. mdo commented: Gradients and other embellishments have temporarily been removed while I focus on other things. It has nothing to do with skeuomorphism or anything like that. Stop reading the tea leaves, people. Source: [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342#issuecomment-123...](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342#issuecomment-12332378) ~~~ WickyNilliams It would be pretty neat if all the "gloss" was an additional, optional "module" that you could add in at your discretion. People who want something they can work with straight away can then add that in and get their gradients, drop shadows etc. People who want something more basic that they can augment with their own styles can then choose to not include this "module", and save themselves having to jump through hoops to undo the default styles (which is a pain, as anyone who has had to do this knows) ------ taspeotis > Bootstrap 3 It's a release candidate. The first of at least two. If you want discussion, check out [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6112141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6112141) (disclaimer: my submission). @mdo jumped in for a bit of commentary, too. ------ girvo Man, I feel weird. I used BS2 temporarily, but then stripped it out for a straight reset and grid system. Old habits die hard, I guess, and what I Want from a UI doesn't always match Bootstraps ideas... I'll give this another shot for my startup prototype, but I have a feeling the same will happen. Is anyone else like that, or am I now old-school at the ripe age of 22? ~~~ moogleii Maybe Foundation would suit you better. I heard it's a bit more lightweight than BS. ~~~ nahname I checked it out for that reason. Then I found a number of social images and began wondering why a lightweight CSS framework needed images for facebook, twitter, etc... ~~~ jaredmcateer You mean the Social Icons in the _Add-ons_ section? You don't need to include those, in fact, I believe they are opt-in, not opt-out. ~~~ nahname Just checked and you are correct. ~~~ thatswrong0 If you want something lightweight, I wouldn't go for Foundation either. Even after stripping out the unnecessary stuff, I found it overly obnoxious to style. I ended up with the Skeleton framework after struggling with both Bootstrap and Foundation for a few days. It was a much better decision. I've also been eyeing Bourbon Neat lately as well. ------ message Dude, [https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Bootstrap+3](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Bootstrap+3) ~~~ scrrr So what. Now all the people that haven't seen it will notice. heh ~~~ thejosh It's still on the second page of HN, was on the frontpage for a while. ~~~ GoNB I guess it goes to show front end design is one of the most controversial topics on HN. On GitHub, Bootstrap has maintained an almost permanent position in the daily top ranked repos. ------ xtrumanx I don't think I get the new grid system. <div class="col-12 col-sm-8 col-lg-8">.col-12 .col-lg-8</div> What's going on here? If I were to guess, I'm assuming it's going to be 12 columns if its a mobile, 8 if a tablet or a desktop. In what situation would that be useful? It looks like you'd end up with some pretty complicated mark-up quickly like that. ~~~ timdorr In order to reduce complexity like this, you should avoid using Bootstrap classes in your HTML directly. Instead, use semantic class names for your app and use the new &:extend() directive in LESS 1.4 or @extend in SASS (if you're using bootstrap-sass). You'll end up with much more readable HTML and CSS, and will insulate yourself from future changes in Bootstrap. I do stuff like this in SASS %flash { @extend .container; @extend .alert; margin: 15px auto; border-radius: 0; .close { top: 0; } } .flash-success { @extend %flash; @extend .alert-success; .close { color: $successText; opacity: 1; } } .flash-error { @extend %flash; @extend .alert-error; .close { color: $errorText; opacity: 1; } } ~~~ WickyNilliams I'll politely (and completely) disagree with this. I much prefer the HTML convey semantics (to the dev, not to the user) than having magic happening behind the scenes with CSS. By having the classes in the HTML, you know at a glance what is going to happen. Whereas using extend there's an extra layer of indirection, you end up having to look at the HTML, see there's a class called something like "sidebar". Then you have to look at the SASS, find the sidebar class to see there's an extend directive, then and work out what's going on in there. That's an extra step i'd rather avoid. People usually follow this approach to get "clean" or "semantic" markup, but there's some falsehoods in that thinking. The "markup looks ugly", or is "non- semantic" are misguided: no user agents infer semantics from classes, and the ugliness you describe is purely aesthetic, _the real beauty is in the semantics the developer can infer from having clear and obvious classes in the HTML_. Another classic argument is it makes the markup bloated. This may be true on the surface, but when you factor in GZIP, it is completely negated as more repetition == better compression. A great read on the topic is Nicholas Gallagher's article "About HTML semantics and front-end architecture"[1]. Reading that article for the first time was one of those moments of clarity, where your previous perceptions are completely shattered. Hopefully you guys will feel the same :) [1][http://nicolasgallagher.com/about-html-semantics-front- end-a...](http://nicolasgallagher.com/about-html-semantics-front-end- architecture/) ~~~ timdorr I'm not sure I follow. You're basically arguing for including style attributes throughout your HTML. CSS classes are always a layer of indirection, regardless of whether they are semantic or functional. As such, you shouldn't be forcing style and layout directives into the structure of the document. The main benefit of what I'm describing isn't actually semantics. It's allowing CSS to do what it does best: cascade. Say I've got an application where I've got several pages with unique layouts and the designer has come up with a new form style that has all the labels inline instead of on top of each input and has a new dynamic tour system that needs some area on the right of each form. If you were using Bootstrap classes directly, you'd have to go to _all_ of your forms and add .form-inline and change the column size classes. You wouldn't want to redefine what those classes are because that may have effects on other areas of the application. This may also break some of your Javascript, as it was dependent on those class names. If you were using semantically-named classes, you'd simply change the width and add @extend .form-inline to your main form placeholder (which is in turn @extend'ed by any specific form class). Your HTML would stay the same, meaning any Javascript dependent on those classes wouldn't break. ~~~ WickyNilliams No I'm not arguing for style attributes, that's a maintenance nightmare waiting to happen (with very little waiting needed!). They are a layer of indirection indeed, but which of these do you think conveys more information/semantics to the developer (these aren't bootstrap specific classes, just illustrative): <div class="sidebar"> <!-- content --> </div> <!-- or --> <div class="sidebar grid-one-whole grid-one-half-medium grid-one-third-large"> <!-- content --> </div> The second one is _way_ more verbose, but at a glance you know exactly what is happening (assuming my class names are obvious enough). The classes convey information that an amalgamated class you get from @extend simply cannot. First let me say that a lot of what I'm talking about is optimal for building large-scale web sites with lots of page variants. Your mileage may vary for smaller sites, the principles can still be applied, but you might not need adhere to them as strictly. There's been a movement in recent years, Object Oriented CSS (OOCSS). This ethos urges the developer to write CSS as they would other code, using the hard lessons that have been learnt in other language. We should be thinking in abstractions, utilising the single responsibility principle, favouring composition over inheritance, loose coupling, and self-documenting code. I'll go through these one at a time, because the benefits of each flow throughout one another. Abstractions - using a single class like "sidebar" to contain all your styling for the sidebar is not thinking in abstractions. The sidebar may need specific styling (say a different BG colour) but it also has a lot in common with other parts of the page. For instance, it's nothing more than a grid column, so why bundle all styles into one class instead of using the grid abstraction to "decorate" the sidebar with this? This is equivalent to breaking a system into reusable classes. See Nicole Sullivan's article on the Media Object [1] and Harry Roberts on the open/closed principle in CSS [2] Single-responsibility principle - Do one thing and do it well. A class should have a single-responsibility so that it can be composed into larger "blocks" of styling. A class that does everything is monolithic and difficult to work with as soon as a design needs to change. Overly broad selectors in CSS can also break the single responsibility principle - suddenly your styling is relying on the coincidental placement of elements inside one another. Harry Roberts cover this [3] Loose-coupling: Can parts of your code base change without affecting others? By @extending grid classes you're tightly coupling yourself to the implementation details of the grid system. Now you can of course override styles in your sidebar class, but overriding styles from previous classes is a code smell. If you're "undoing" what another class has done, you've applied a style too early. You suggest changing the CSS and leaving the HTML the same when a change is required. I always prefer changing the HTML because it has a far more limited scope for far reaching changes. If you change one segment of HTML you know it's not going to affect other parts of the site beyond itself (and possibly it's children), but if you change some tightly-coupled CSS its effects could ripple throughout the whole site. The previously mentioned article on the open/closed principle [2] touches on tight coupling in classes. Favour composition over inheritance - In OO languages we've learnt that we should favour composition of granular, single-purpose classes over deep inheritance hierarchies. Why? Inheritance is a fundamental tenet of OO, just as the cascade is in CSS, but we still frequently eschew it. The reason for this is because we can compose infinitely more flexible pieces of functionality from granular building blocks than we can from inheriting traits from "super classes". And now that we're thinking in abstractions (as outlined above) using the single-responsibility principle, we can put multiple classes on an HTML element to compose them as you wish into large blocks. Harry Roberts (CSS Wizardry) covers this nicely [4] and also when talking about grid systems [5] Self-documenting code - From the HTML I ideally want to know exactly where each bit of style is coming from. With one monolithic class all I know is that it's a sidebar, which doesn't really tell me much that I can't work out visually. Multiple classes tell me exactly how it will behave at a glance. This means your classes should be as descriptive as possible. Classes should not describe the content of the markup they are applied to (sidebar is definitely content-centric) but rather their intent. And small, abstract, single-responsibility classes convey more information than a monolith can, and they ease understanding of the system. Someone familiar with bootstrap could quickly get to grips a site using the plain bootstrap classes, whereas @extending all over the place necessitates digging into the CSS to gain an understanding of the system. This is covered in great depth in the original article I linked to. Finally, you should never use as a JS hook a class whose purpose is visual styling, then the whole mess you outlined is avoidable. Either use data-* attributes (as most bootstrap widgets do) or a class which conveys intent and a single responsibility e.g. "js-date-picker". Now my incoherent ramblings are probably lacking in a number of points, I had to leave out a lot so this didn't balloon even further (e.g. I didn't talk about specificity or BEM methodology). I urge you to read all the articles I've linked to, as hopefully you've already read the original one. You might also want to read this article which kinda covers everything in one post: [http://engineering.appfolio.com/2012/11/16/css- architecture/](http://engineering.appfolio.com/2012/11/16/css-architecture/) Most of the principles I've outlined here are actually used in bootstrap. PS. if you want to continue the conversation, hit me up on twitter (@WickyNilliams) or something, I always forget to check back on HN comments for replies. [1] [http://www.stubbornella.org/content/2010/06/25/the-media- obj...](http://www.stubbornella.org/content/2010/06/25/the-media-object-saves- hundreds-of-lines-of-code/) [2] [http://csswizardry.com/2012/06/the-open- closed-principle-app...](http://csswizardry.com/2012/06/the-open-closed- principle-applied-to-css/) [3] [http://csswizardry.com/2012/04/the-single- responsibility-pri...](http://csswizardry.com/2012/04/the-single- responsibility-principle-applied-to-css/) [4] [http://csswizardry.com/2012/10/a-classless-class-on-using- mo...](http://csswizardry.com/2012/10/a-classless-class-on-using-more-classes- in-your-html/) [5] [http://csswizardry.com/2013/02/responsive-grid-systems-a- sol...](http://csswizardry.com/2013/02/responsive-grid-systems-a-solution/) ------ weego Meh, at some point they should start to realise that you can't change everything every release and expect everyone to keep up. It feels like it's becoming more of a chore than the real initial win it was able to deliver on first release. ~~~ jvzr You don't _need_ to stay up to date with this kind of frameworks. It isn't like every update has security fixes. The company I work for uses several versions of Bootstrap 2 and we have no issue dealing with it. Newer projects will use BS3, but we don't need nor feel the need to update every project. ~~~ steveklabnik There is an image gallery plugin that I use that secretly downloads its own latest version of bootstrap, which can conflict with the one you have loaded, breaking everything :( ~~~ nahname It must be a very good library to be chosen in spite of that behaviour. ~~~ steveklabnik As you might tell by my :(, I wasn't aware that it did this until quite recently. When it broke my site. ------ WickyNilliams Is there actually a changelog somewhere or will that be written up with the full official release? I can't see anything detailing what's changed Also, it's a damn shame they're still using pixels for everything (from a cursory glance). Fluid grids (i.e. %-based) and ems (for font-size and media queries) are much better. They are infinitely more flexible and much more easily adaptable to any layout. ~~~ pixelmonkey The Bootstrap 3 pull request has a lot of details about what is changing: [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342) ~~~ WickyNilliams Thanks, that's really comprehensive (perhaps too low-level for the end- consumer to care about). Reading through that PR it seems they are actually using percentage-based grids now, but the grid containers are fixed width (and probably defined in px). That's definitely better than completely fixed width grids, though I'd much prefer having max-width on my containers instead of an absolute value, and relative values used throughout ------ dave1010uk This looks like the changelog: [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342) ------ nateweiss While simple, I believe Panel and Listgroup are new components; nice to have those nicely implemented and styled in the framework. Will be handy for me. In many ways I think Bootstrap helps the most with the little things like this. I am very appreciative of this terrific framework being made available for us to use. ------ NanoWar Why is everything _flat_ :-C ~~~ joeblau I think it's flat because it's easier to add CSS and build up widgets as opposed to having a stylized widget, then trying to override the CSS to re- customize each widget. Foundation, the original front-end framework which Bootstrap emulates, works the same way. ~~~ jaredmcateer Foundation doesn't isn't completely flat though. Buttons, for example, hint at being intractable by giving a tiny bit of depth using the line at the top of the object. ------ chrisweekly A big improvement: the media queries are ordered properly, mobile-first. Great decision. ------ phpnode It's interesting to see that the references to twitter are basically gone now, presumably this means we'll see more things from `Bootstrap` in future, perhaps a company since it already has a lot of mind-share. ------ LukeWalsh The nav bar that automatically collapses for mobile is an excellent addition. This is one of the main things lacking in quickly made prototypes. ~~~ nadaviv This exists in Bootstrap 2 too: [http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/2.3.2/examples/fluid.html](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/2.3.2/examples/fluid.html) ------ jasonkester Bug report: - open on iPad in landscape - navigate to a long doc page - scroll halfway down - rotate to portrait Expected: content scaled to fit Actual: content zooms way in, document scrolls several pages - rotate back to landscape Expected: content returns to previous view Actual: content zooms even further ~~~ frakkingcylons It's probably best if you submit bugs to their issue tracker: [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues) ------ db-dzine wtf is wrong with the button ... srsly. [http://s14.directupload.net/images/130729/kassm787.png](http://s14.directupload.net/images/130729/kassm787.png) ~~~ adventured I'm on Firefox 22, and the same thing happens here. Mouse over download button, click it, download pop-up appears, click cancel on the download, button disappears. It re-appears upon giving focus back to the page. ~~~ epmatsw Still happens in FF 25 nightly as well. ------ jzone3 Personally, I think the "Download Bootstrap" button is too ambiguous. Why is the default color the same as the background color, it is just confusing and ugly ~~~ wilfra I love that button, think it looks awesome. ------ hearty777 I'm assuming this was design by committee. The first versions of Bootstrap seem a whole lot better visually. ------ greaterweb It's really unfortunate to see all the haterade being spilled over the comments. The efforts to take Bootstrap to version 3 were pretty significant, at the minimum they deserve a pat on the back for that alone. Here are some important concepts I think a good portion of people are missing. _Upgrading_ \- Don't upgrade for the sake of upgrading. If you have a fully functional site right now which uses or extends a previous version of Bootstrap your incentive to upgrade at this point is probably minimal. At some point you had conceded that version X of Bootstrap was the right front end framework for your project. If that has changed you need now concede you have some work ahead of you. Identify and evaluate the features introduced in Bootstrap 3 that are lacking from your current project. Scope out the markup and stylesheet refactoring required for any of the "must haves" and setup a schedule to integrate. Realize that this doesn't necessarily mean you are bringing Bootstrap 3 into your project, more so you may just be adapting your existing front end assets to model Bootstrap 3 features/patterns. This is really no different than an existing site that doesn't use Bootstrap now wanting to bring the framework into their project. If you've identified that you need Bootstrap 3 for your project, you would expect there is work to be put in. _Usage_ \- I see a number of comments critiquing design and usability. Is Bootstrap really intended to solve those problems for you? In my opinion this is a framework intended to bootstrap your front end assets and development efforts. It prescribes conventions for common component markup and their respective selector naming conventions. Think about that for a moment how valuable that is to your project (especially those with a large number of contributing developers). How many projects previous to one using Bootstrap did you have such well documented markup, style and naming conventions? Bootstrap standardizes and documents front end patterns for rapid adoption and implementation into your project. That's pretty damn special. If what they promote doesn't align with your needs or development practices, well, don't use it. _Style_ \- Bootstrap wasn't designed for your site, your users or even to keep up with the latest design trends. The styling, while in the view of many is decent, seems to have been intentionally minimalistic and not overly opinionated. It provides basic structure and basic styling. It's your starting point. You can get to your destination now a bit quicker without needing to reset their style rules. Having such minimalistic styles probably serves to be good motivation to get creative. If you want custom and don't have the design ability to get there, rest assured there will be a companion stylesheets to extend bootstrap coming soon to at a market place near you. _Inspire_ \- If the Bootstrap shoe fits, wear it. If Foundation, Pure or any other front end framework fits the need, use it. To me the great benefit of all these popular frameworks is they bring to light many well thought out development approaches to the front end. Not everyone will agree with them. They aren't always bullet proof. Though at the end of they day though they invoke developers to take a look at their individual assets and recognize areas of improvement. Find the framework or approach that best aligns with your needs and personal preference and customize the hell out of it. ------ da_n This is awesome work, well done to the Bootstrap team. ------ dangayle Other than the grid, it looks like all the classes and markup are the same. I wish the examples used more semantically meaningful html5 elements where appropriate, but that's not too big of a deal. ~~~ mrgreenfur I noticed last night that the forms have been cleaned up a bit and outfitted with new class names ~~~ dangayle Oh, I missed the forms. I haven't had much call to use them in my current project, so I missed those. ------ hawleyal The CSS/JS on the website is broken.

Show HN: Deb-simple, a no fuss/frills apt repo server - johnnycarcin https://github.com/esell/deb-simple ====== justinsaccount Shouldn't createPackagesTar be createPackagesGz ? ~~~ johnnycarcin Probably ;) fixed!

The Substance Found in Pencils will Speed Up our Computers One Thousand Fold - cwan http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/toys-tools/graphene-next ====== vl As it quite often happens it's better to read wikipedia article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene> than to suffer through things like "substance found in pencils" ~~~ po I hate how science writers get to the part of the article where they have to write about why it is useful. They usually start dipping into their stock cliché material. This one is particularly bad. The whole last half of the article is junk. ------ hga Check this out, it sounds like it might be fairly near term stuff, e.g. Fujitsu is depositing it on Si wafers, IBM has preliminary (large and hopefully slow) 30GHz test transistors, which is where Si maxes out according to a linked article at the bottom.

Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution - lelf https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/security/2963983 ====== eps Mitigated by EMET. If you are on Windows and you are _not_ running EMET, you should really drop everything right now and install it. [http://www.microsoft.com/emet](http://www.microsoft.com/emet) ~~~ bananas No you shouldn't. 1\. It breaks a lot of stuff. 2\. It isn't very good: [http://bromiumlabs.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bypassing- eme...](http://bromiumlabs.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bypassing-emet-4-1.pdf) At best it's a dose of Tamiflu. As many people before have said, you can't retrospectively apply security mitigations properly; you have to design them in from the start. ~~~ Spittie 1\. Really? I've been using it for a while, and no breakage. Sure, I just use the default rulelist instead of applying rules to everything (which imo is what most people should do). 2\. Sure, but it's better than nothing. As parent said, this exploit is mitigated by EMET. See [http://rationallyparanoid.com/articles/emet- testing.html](http://rationallyparanoid.com/articles/emet-testing.html) for more tests Yes, it's a bandaid. But since it help and it's free, why not? ~~~ bananas We've had a couple of older COM-based applications that target Windows 5.1 (2003/XP) platforms fail unpredictably with it on later operating systems. Whether these are just badly behaved applications or compilers or a faulty design in EMET we don't know as it's all closed source and when you're left with a steaming minidump (because you can't catch these unless you use ADplus) it's not easy to work out why a process failed from that if EMET shot it. As for the better than nothing, yes until your phone starts ringing like a cheesy sci-fi flick because half your MSMQ sinks are crashing... My comment above probable shouldn't have been: no you shouldn't use it until you've soak tested your applications on it. ~~~ noinsight EMET should show a notification when it blocks something and it should also make an event log entry. (These are configurable iirc.) ------ mkempe The subtitle has the meat: "Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution". "Microsoft is aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit a vulnerability in [IE 6 through 11]." \--date published: April 26, 2014. ~~~ easy_rider I think remote code execution and the easy method for payload delivery warrants a high level of concern. ~~~ rainforest It seems from the subtitle that this isn't just a known vulnerability, but one being exploited in the wild, if I'm not mistaken. Definitely a serious concern either way though. ------ ld00d XP is absent from the list of affected OSes. Does that mean XP isn't affected, or is it just off the radar now that it's no longer supported. Could this be the first big unpatched XP hole? ~~~ 0x0 Isn't there an extended, for-pay support service for xp? In that case, it must mean a patch will be engineered and released to paying customers. How long until these leak out and pirates start trading XP patches? ~~~ TheLoneWolfling How long until people start offering unofficial patches that include backdoors?

Karma Is Coming - mitko https://dimitarsimeonov.com/2019/08/20/karma-is-coming ====== Causality1 I disagree. Call-out culture is not karma. Karma is equal reward for good as punishment for bad. Call-out culture is informational natural selection that benefits the most outraging story, whether or not it's even true.

Custos is using Bitcoin to turn digital pirates against each other - eddyg https://qz.com/1028528/custos-startup-uses-bitcoin-bounties-to-make-pirates-rat-on-one-another/ ====== badosu > _Custos embeds imperceptible bitcoin private keys in the digital files, with > different keys for different advance copies of a movie or ebook. (...) > At the same time, Custos makes a piece of free software that screens movie > files for these private keys and markets the screener to content pirates. > Pirates now have an incentive to check pirated movie files in case they > contain a key. If a key is detected, the pirate can claim the bitcoin > bounty—usually between $5 and $10—and is free to keep it. But once a bounty > is claimed, Custos is alerted, and can begin the process of figuring out the > origin of the leak._ This is really clever! A very interesting social experiment with some game theory dynamics on the way. ~~~ Blahah Seems pretty self-defeating. I'd just strip the keys and not claim the bounty. This whole system depends on pirates wanting $5 more than they want to pirate the thing, which from my 10 years around release and fxp groups in my younger days, I can say is barely ever the case. ~~~ codezero I'm assuming the keys are embedded before it's leaked like a watermark of sorts. The leaker isn't the pirate in the scenario described _I think_. ~~~ Blahah Ah! I read the references to pirates as referring to the person sharing the file online from an original source. But someone just torrenting it or something makes a lot more sense as the target here. ------ Adverblessly Maybe I don't understand something? John Doe, random employee working for Universal Studios leaks an advance copy of "The Revenge of the Avengers: The Revengers Strike Back" to their contact XPirateSepirothX for 250$ (or for free because they really want to get back at their boss for laughing at them). XPirateSephirothX passes on the watermarked movie to their friendly neighbourhood reencoder IAmBecomeDeath who notices the watermark strips it, and reencodes the movie for general consumption. The pirating public receives an unwatermarked copy and cannot claim any prize. IAmBecomeDeath, XPirateSephirothX and John Doe have no incentive to claim the prize because they will implicate themselves in copyright violation. Are they implying the watermark is impossible to remove? That seems unlikely to me as pirates can be quite enterprising (and there may be some money on the line for them as well), so I'd expect them to reverse engineer the process and figure out how to strip it. Heck, this company is even offering an application that checks if the watermark is present or not which should at least give the pirates a measurement on whether their watermark removal method worked (on at least some version of the watermark detection logic). Or maybe the plan is to play a constant game of cat and mouse, Custos will continually switch up their methods for watermarking and so the pirates will never be sure if they caught and successfully stripped the latest and greatest version of the watermark, preventing some piracy through uncaught watermarks and some piracy through fear? ~~~ anilgulecha > IAmBecomeDeath who notices the watermark strips it, and reencodes the movie > for general consumption. Or wants the $$, so claims it, putting down a breadcrumb. (Atleast that's what the technology in the article is for.) ~~~ horsawlarway It's not lucrative enough. The product is worth far more than the measly bounty. Sure, claim that 15 dollars in bitcoin, and _never_ receive another pre-release copy again, or... strip it and continue business as usual. This model really only works when most encoders are not aware the tag is there at all, and don't strip it. Alternatively (as some other comments suggested) Custos buries additional tags without revealing them, in which case they act just like all sorts of other watermarking companies doing the same thing (not terribly effectively). ------ plus If it is possible to strip the private key, e.g. by re-encoding, then an intelligent and determined leaker would simply do that before distribution. They likely won't be tempted to take the reward for themselves, given the consequences, and by stripping the private key they can prevent anyone else from claiming it. I suppose this would catch less savvy leakers, though. Edit: To be clear, I understand that digital watermarking techniques can be resilient to a simple re-encode, but since Custos is providing the tool to claim the reward for free to pirates, it should be possible to reverse- engineer the tool to identify and destroy the watermark. ~~~ dragonwriter Reading data out of an enclosed file is much less of a problem than altering that data without damaging the file. All you need for “screening” and “claiming” is to read out the keys and check if the funds have already been transferred out on the blockchain and, if not, transfer them out. There's no alteration to the file content involved. Destroying the keys requires altering the file while leaving it functional, which requires more than reverse engineering the tool, because the tool doesn't need that capacity. ~~~ plus My point is that if you can identify how the private key is stored in the video, then it should be possible to develop a strategy to destroy that data without damaging the integrity of the file. Presumably the key will be hidden in such a way that it won't be obvious to viewers (that is, it won't be a _literal_ watermark). If that's true, then it should be possible to destroy the key without making the video quality noticeably worse, e.g. by selectively re-encoding certain parts of the video in a certain way that ensures destruction of the private key. Of course I'm speculating, because I don't know exactly how the private key is stored in the video, but video quality is a lot more robust to bit massaging than a hidden digital private key would be. ------ tuxxy This is neat, but I can't help but feel it's not going to work. It would work if you encounter a movie that you wanted to watch, decide you want the money instead, and you report to Custos. This is not how piracy works. Instead, a pirate knows the value of the good they have. They know it's worth more to their reputation in the community than $5-10 dollars. By setting a bounty on it, you'll just have others willing to pay more to leak it themselves. This is an experiment, not a business. ~~~ simias You don't "report" to CustOS directly, rather you simply move the money from one of the CustOS "bounty" private keys into one of your own. Effectively it does the same thing but I think psychologically it's pretty different. For one thing you know that the bitcoin transaction will be very hard to trace (you can't be betrayed by your IP address or something like that) and you don't really rat anybody, you're just moving bitcoins. If you don't have any direct relationship with the original leaker (say, you downloaded the file through bittorent on some private tracker) there's really no incentive not to claim the bounty. It's free money. I wonder what happens if a legitimate recipient of one of these copies decides to claim the bounty without actually leaking anything. Could they be in trouble? If people accuse them of leaking a copy and they show that they have control of the coins, will they be off the hook? Do they have to sign something that forbids them from using the key? ~~~ pavel_lishin If I were a pirate/leaker/sharer, I would be very tempted to just paste the key on some completely unrelated forum to lay down a false trail. ~~~ philh What does that get you? If I understand correctly, I don't think the content owner finds out who uses the private key. They find out that the key has been used, which normally means that someone leaked the file to a pirate, and tells them who leaked. ~~~ simias Plausible deniability? Since there's an other way for somebody in the wild to have had access to the key without IP violation you could claim that you never leaked the file in the first place. Of course it's one of these smartass "hacker technicalities" that may not hold much water in a court of law. ~~~ kgwgk So your defense would be that you didn't leak the file but you did leak the key? ------ grizzles It seems like a good way to drive awareness of digital watermarking in the file sharing community. ------ jakobegger The big disadvantage with this scheme is that the publisher needs to pay the reward in advance for every copy they want to protect. That‘s why the rewards can‘t be big. (The publisher could of course keep the private keys and redeem unclaimed rewards themselves after some time, only risking currency fluctuations) ~~~ rtkwe How much do they have to actually stock though? 50-100k USD ($5-10 over 10000 screeners) is a good bit of money but they'd probably only pay out a tiny portion of that and compared to the budgets of a large blockbuster it's not that large of an outlay. If they can reliably embed multiple private keys into the screener DVDs they could get by with having fewer account and using the combination of accounts as the key. Though really if they're able to embed a whole private key in a way that survives encoding why bother with the bounty, though I guess that saves them the trouble of having to go find torrents/rips themselves. ~~~ jakobegger This is a brilliant idea! Since we expect only a handful of leaks, each screener could contain lets say around 100 bounties of $10, with 200 bounties total. Then the first leak would be worth $1000, the second leak $500 (expected value) etc, and the studio only needs to pony up $2000 in total. We are guaranteed to be able to identify the first leak, I'm not sure if we can identify further leaks (there is probably some kind of trade-off between payout for the first leak, total amount of bounties, and probability of being able to identify further leaks, but the mathematics of this is probably not trivial. ------ 0x0 I looked around their web page but I couldn't find the "freely available bounty hunter tool" they are talking about. Does it exist somewhere or is this not actually launched yet? They are saying that individuals in pirate circles are already hunting bounties with this tool...? ------ air7 tl;dr: Scenario: Studio sends 10ks advanced copies of their film to reviewers before screening. One of them gets leaked. They want to know who leaked it. Custos embeds a "watermark" in the copies that contains a private key of a bitcoin wallet containing 5$. Each copy has a different wallet. When anyone down the pirate chain decides to take the money, Custos knows who the leaking source was. Benefit over traditional watermarks is that they only have to monitor the wallets. IMO this is quite a clever idea because even after pirates start scrubbing the key off, there will always be an incentive to claim the money, perhaps much later when someone can get many of them at once. It will seed distrust that'll be hard to weed out. ~~~ delinka If cashing out were delayed well past the statute of limitations, it'd be interesting to see the repercussions. ------ anotheryou I see no advantage over traditional invisiblee watermarks. A movie usually just leaks once or twice, these leaks get replicate everywhere. So if you are looking for a specific movie, just get a pirated copy from anywhere and check the watermark yourself. It's trivial to check if there is a leak at all and also trivial to find that leaked version and test it. No need to throw 15 bucks per copy on it, just let the intern monitor some torrent trackers. ~~~ icebraining I think the difference is that the person who spreads the movie over the trackers, who is not necessarily the original leaker, now has an incentive to report it, whereas with regular watermarks they'd simply remove it before distributing over those public channels. Of course, it's hard to see such person being in a position to receive many leaks in the future, after burning the original leaker, so the incentive seems quite small. ------ bcoates Calling "Insider gets the master private key list, steals all the bounties" as the way this turns out. ------ borne0 I don't get it. Any 'damage' to the studio happens when the movie is publicly leaked, at that point just download the copy yourself and check for a watermark, telling you where the leak originated without ponying up $5-$10 (which is a paltry sum to begin with). ~~~ Matt3o12_ For this, the company has to first find the leak version. This means they need people to monitor all kind of sites for this material. With the bitcoin method, the company only needs to monitor a bunch of bitcoin wallets and, as soon as a transfer is made, the are aware of the leak immediately (with much less men power. Furthermore they also don’t need people who have access to those “private” torrent exchanges). Furthermore, their response times are pretty awesome (if they are in fact true): > Van Rooyen claims once a leaked copy containing a bounty hits the dark web, > it takes just five minutes on average for the bounty to be claimed and > Custos and its client to be alerted. On social networks it takes 42 seconds; > and offline, like if a movie is copied or shared on a DVD or USB drive, it’s > 28 minutes. ------ mustafabisic1 “You just need a single rotten apple in that group,” he says. Reminds me of my Primary school teacher :) Custos did it masterfully. ------ nfriedly Hah, now some pirate is going to try and figure out how to get all of the private keys :P ~~~ rtkwe Beyond just hacking into Custos and stealing them or Custos using a somehow predictable keygen (not even sure that's really a thing?), in doing that they'd be tracking down all the leaks which is exactly what Custos and their customers are wanting. In reality only a few screeners seem to leak for any given movie. ------ test6554 What's to stop the intended recipient of the movie from intentionally and unabashedly claiming the bitcoins for themselves. ~~~ et2o 1) It marks them as a "leaker" 2) If you keep claiming the bitcoins, you are going to stop getting videos sent to you. This could have professional implications. ~~~ pavel_lishin You can claim the bounty without leaking the film, though as you point out, this could prevent you from being sent films in the future. ------ drewbuschhorn It's a great idea from a game theory perspective, but I think an adversarial neural network plugin built into vlc as a preencoding step would probably defeat it pretty quickly with minimal quality loss. You just can't effectively watermark data intended for human consumption, our tolerance for intentionally induced noise is too high. ~~~ plus I don't want to be confrontational, but I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Why a neural network, why VLC? I understand that you are suggesting it would be possible to strip the watermark, but the way you've said it sounds a lot like "create a GUI interface using visual basic, see if I can track an IP address"[0]. Which is to say, you've not said what you would do to defeat it, but how you think it would be implemented... which doesn't really tell us anything about HOW you think it could be defeated. >You just can't effectively watermark data intended for human consumption, our tolerance for intentionally induced noise is too high. If this were true, steganography[1] would be useless in practice (it isn't). I would suggest reading up on digital watermarking[2]. [0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking) ~~~ drewbuschhorn > I don't intend to be confrontational Of course you do, or you wouldn't end the comment with "I suggest you read up on." Stenography is only useful when it's unknown or impractical to investigate possible payloads, either do to volume of possible hits or lack of knowledge how to decode the payload out of the source. If you tell an opponent: here is the decode technique and here is where the message is likely to be, you've basically defeated your own stenography. ~~~ plus It is true that my intention was not to be rude. My "I suggest you read up on" comment was in response to your claim: >You just can't effectively watermark data intended for human consumption, our tolerance for intentionally induced noise is too high. Which is simply not true! That kind of misunderstanding suggests that you are unfamiliar with the kinds of digital watermarking that are used TODAY, hence my suggestion that you read up on it. If the comment came off as rude, I certainly apologize, but I stand by the point I was trying to make. >If you tell an opponent: here is the decode technique and here is where the message is likely to be, you've basically defeated your own stenography. I agree with you on this point 100%. I also made a post to that effect elsewhere. But that is not the same argument you made in your previous post!

Compiling to CPS Javascript (part 2): stepping debuggers, no callback hell, etc - jlongster http://jlongster.com/2012/05/18/cps-results.html ====== mahmud Very interesting. Seems like you're having heckova time, cheers! :-)

Spain Runs Out of Workers with Almost 5M Unemployed - dismal2 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-01/spain-is-running-out-of-workers-with-almost-5-million-unemployed ====== knocte > Pimentel’s client asked him for list of candidates trained in “Agile” > project management techniques for helping companies boost their productivity > by using more I.T. systems. The client was offering as much as 200,000 euros > ($220,000) a year -- almost 10 times the average salary in Spain. > But such people are thin on the ground in Spain. It takes at least eight > months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification > and they also need the ability to deal with senior executives, limiting the > pool of people who could potentially fill the roles. That part of the article is hilarious, not only because 200K euros is completely made up and untrue (by far surpasses best salaries in other more decent countries), but because of the Agile qualification mention. Do we have Agile certifications now? What a load of bullshit. The only truth in the article is this: > Spanish executives are less-skilled than their competitors in Germany, > France or Italy, according to a study of 11 European countries. Only Greece > came out worse. And that's the reason why the executives don't find workforce. Being less- skilled means they don't value the engineering profession up to the required level to compromise and give good salaries. (Spanish dev here --working abroad obviously--.) ~~~ logingone Agile is barely different to how teams I worked on in the 90s operated, naturally, without trying to implement and enforce a new holy grail, chase the rainbow routine of machinic efficiency. I find it really is much ado about nothing, the emperors new clothes. An anal retentive formalising and trumpeting of common sense. I recall only one project which was waterfall, and the rest were used as soon as they were useful. I have an agile coach at my current job. As far as I can tell his job is to be the expert at drag and drop in Jira, and peeling post it notes. The only good thing I can say about agile is that it fills a space that will otherwise be filled with the next holy grail gimmick which management won't be able to resist as they sell themselves and their new magic power up the corporate ladder. I'm neck deep in this farce at the moment. ~~~ kpil Sure. A lot of "Agile" is actually cargo-cult agile, used as a vehicle for self-promotion: The daily scrum, the sticky-notes or the Jira.board, and all that other ceremony. Typically retrofitted on top of a defunct process, with separate requirement analysts, "software architects" whatever that means, and a lot of control functions and processes inherited from the manufacturing industry. What makes that work is probably the few people that actually understands software development - typically a low percentage of the massive overhead in a typical business software development center. But you've got to start somewhere. The Agile ceremonies are not bad, but relatively useless if there is no "real Agile" beneath. Unfortunately, they are easy to implement whereas "real" agile is not. And what is "real" agile: The core agile ideas (the manifesto), the focus on flow-control, the incremental analysis-build-analysis cycle, continuous improvement, multi-disciplined teams, knowledge sharing, analysis methods that involves multiple people (like story mapping), empowerment (self governing teams, but also product owners). Perhaps above all, the idea that software development processes should not be defined by business administrators, but instead by people that are actually qualified. I guess it could be labeled as "common sense", but a few things are typically hard to reason about for a lot of people, for instance the flow-control part (such as kanban), as dynamic efficiency is harder to "see" than static efficiency. But getting good at that is actually hard. Adding 1000 fields and workflows to Jira is easy. ~~~ Retric Process is not going to fix a toxic work environment. But, it can make a positive difference over time. Many teams start out productive, but they also tend to degrade over time. How many 10 year old projects have you been happy to start working on? How about 20? Those are the places most in need of someone to cut the bullshit. ------ vemv Spanish dev here, 3 years in the business, been twice a freelancer and twice an employee. My main complaints: \- The maximum salary a developer can earn at any given company is almost written in stone - around 36000 euros. Every public job posting will have that figure as the max. When it's higher, they'll water it down in the interview. Why? Probably because they don't have the notion of a 10x programmer at all. We all are perceived as 'equal' or even replaceable. \- Also, companies are scared of the mere possibility of their programmers leaving. The sole hint of that you may leave will turn their red alarms on, and they'll start searching a replacement. There rarely exists here the mentality that a work relationship is a commercial exchange, not an intimate family-like relationship. Being open to the market is not 'treason'. \- Tech stacks tend to be years behind San Francisco, whether is languages, frameworks, ops practices... \- Functional programming opportunities extremely scarce. Elixir is gaining traction here though. ~~~ charlesdm Have you considered working remotely for a US company? I know a guy making €7 or 8,000 per month, after tax, living in Paris. Best of both worlds: amazing quality of living, cheap cost of living + healthcare, lots of spending (or investing) money! Seems to be working well for him. ~~~ jules Is the cost of living in Paris less than a normal US city? ~~~ fchollet Paris is much less expensive than the bay area, but more expensive than the average US city. In fact, it's barely less expensive than NYC, one of the most expensive US cities. Also, if you are working remotely you cannot command a bay area salary. ~~~ gorkemyurt So you are saying NYC is much less expensive than Bay Area? ~~~ fchollet Yes. Specifically, rents are much higher in SF/SV than in NYC. SF has even higher rent than Manhattan. Most of NYC (not Manhattan or Williamsburg) can be quite reasonable. ~~~ feklar Does SF gave rent brokers you have to go through? Manhattan you have to pay first/last rent to a broker plus deposit you need around 8-$12k to sign any lease up front ~~~ JBReefer Brokers fee is one month, not two, and the outer boroughs are much cheaper. ~~~ dlandis Broker's fees of 15% or even 20% seemed to be fairly common last time I was looking in Manhattan several years ago. It's definitely not pegged at one month anymore nowadays even in Brooklyn. ------ altoz You have two groups: 1\. 5 million unemployed people 2\. very highly sought after workers The employers complaining about people in group 2 being scarce are merely not paying enough. The workers complaining in group 1 need more skills that the market wants. They're at different ends of the spectrum. Other than that they live in the same country, they really don't have much to do with each other. Whether you can convert people from group 1 to group 2 is an interesting question, but generally if it were easy to be in group 2, a lot more people would be in it. ~~~ charlesdm Very true. Just compare salaries of software engineers in most EU countries with salaries in the US. If you're a good developer, 99% of the time it's better to work remotely from Europe for a US company. It really is a simple problem to solve -- pay talented people in Europe more. And yet, for some reason, this is often dismissed by CEOs as a ridiculous statement. They're probably the same people who think you need 100 software engineers to complete a complex technology project. ~~~ duckingtest I don't think it's that developers are underpaid in Europe. They are just objectively less productive there. After all it's a very specialized job that requires modern, developed economy open to disruptions to be really productive. On the extreme opposite end of a spectrum - a pre-industrial economy - a developer's productivity would be zero. American nominal GDP per capita is 2.13 times that of Spain's and 1.38x that of Germany's, and the distance keeps increasing. There are many possible causes, but I think lower salaries are a symptom. ~~~ pcrh GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is likely to be productive. Would a Luxembourgish, Swiss or Norwegian dev be expected to be more productive than one from the US or UK? It seems to me that the prime determinant of pay is how close the worker's "category" is to the money. So in a start-up intensive environment like the Bay Area, the devs are also sometimes the executives, and executives are often former devs, so devs get paid correspondingly. ~~~ duckingtest Switzerland does have higher average pay CHF 91,374 = $93,703.5 [0] compared to USA $68,082 [1]. Their nominal GDP per capita is 36.62% higher and the pay is 37.6% higher. Norway interestingly has almost the same pay as USA - $68,737 [2], probably because of high share of oil extraction in GDP (22% [3]) which skews the result. If you subtract oil share from the GDP, you get $56,195.88 nominal GDP per capita, which is almost the same as the American one ($57,220)! Now Luxembourg is a tax haven/financial center with a population of half a million so I don't think it's a relevant comparison. Just due to population to get something close to true pay average you would have to ask a relatively (to other countries) very big percentage of their developers. Same site for comparable data [0] [http://www.payscale.com/research/CH/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...](http://www.payscale.com/research/CH/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary) [1] [http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/S...](http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/Salary) [2] [http://www.payscale.com/research/NO/Job=Software_Developer/S...](http://www.payscale.com/research/NO/Job=Software_Developer/Salary) [3] [https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/artikler-og- publikasjoner/_...](https://www.ssb.no/en/befolkning/artikler-og- publikasjoner/_attachment/237252?_ts=1516c73e3a8) page 40, graph ~~~ igravious Dude. You're not getting the objection. We're not objecting to the numeric ratios, we're objecting to using those numbers in the first place. > GDP per capita seems to be a curious way to estimate if a local dev is > likely to be productive. Curious is putting it mildly. :) What is being objected to is your _measure_. Stop using the GDP per capita _of an entire country_ as a proxy for software developer productivity. It's frankly stupid. Anyway GDP per capita using PPP (purchasing power parity) is seen as a fairer comparison. But even GDP per capita by PPP is a stupid metric to compare software developer productivity. I'm sorry for using the word stupid. But it's stupid. ~~~ duckingtest >Stop using the GDP per capita of an entire country as a proxy for software developer productivity. It's frankly stupid. Outside of entertainment where software is a direct consumer product, the developer's productivity comes from increased efficiency of use of other productive resources. You can't eat code, but you can eat food that comes from higher production due to better software. So software has a multiplicative effect on existing production. That is, GDP. Now even added value of entertainment software (games etc) depends on total GDP, because people have to pay with something for that entertainment. So average developer's productivity IS a function of GDP, with different coefficient depending on the structure of a economy. A primitive non-mechanized agricultural economy would have a coefficient of near zero because there's almost nothing to automate. >Anyway GDP per capita using PPP (purchasing power parity) is seen as a fairer comparison. A fundamentally wrong metric because pay is nominal. ~~~ pcrh This way of estimating a dev's likely productivity would operate independent of their individual ability, as well as be applicable across all worker categories. For example a dairy farmer in Switzerland earns more than one in Poland because people pay more for milk products in Switzerland compared to Poland. So why would the GDP per capita of their country be a useful tool in deciding who to hire? ~~~ duckingtest >For example a dairy farmer in Switzerland earns more than one in Poland because people pay more for milk products in Switzerland compared to Poland. A Swiss farmer is much more productive when measured in currency units, but probably not that much in milk volume. However as we are talking about salary differences it's money that matters. >So why would the GDP per capita of their country be a useful tool in deciding who to hire? Why would it be? In this conceptual model the ability of a developer is how much he multiplies the output of whatever he's working on, but his productivity is the absolute value of added output. How could it be counted otherwise, in what? Lines of code? If productivity didn't depend on location immigration wouldn't exist. ~~~ pcrh I guess it depends on the sense in which "productivity" is being used. A remote dev working for a Bay Area company from Spain can be just as productive for his employer as one located in Los Gatos, CA. However the above method would categorize this dev as "objectively less productive", which seems counter-intuitive... ~~~ duckingtest >However the above method would categorize this dev as "objectively less productive", which seems counter-intuitive... It wouldn't, it purports to explain the differences in local salaries, or more precisely salaries paid by local entities to on-site developers. It's true I didn't specify that explicitly in the first comment, along with definition of productivity, so your reading of it was a reasonable understanding. It's a good thing you helped me clarify the intended meaning. One assumption is that foreign demand (for non-local use) for local on-site developers is small enough to not change the workforce demand significantly. So it won't work for India or other common offshore destination, but it seems to explain pay differences between USA and Spain, Norway and Switzerland reasonably. ~~~ pcrh In other words, pay differentials are more closely related to locale than to the amount or quality of work produced. ------ whamlastxmas The article says the average salary in Spain is around $22k. Even at twice that, it's not hard to see why developers are not working for (or maybe even in) Spain. I suspect the problem has more to do with Spanish businesses not being willing or able to compete for developers with market salary rates. It's frustrating that they don't provide data like that in articles like this. Instead of they a single data point anecdote about how a company can't find an Agile project manager for "up to" $220k. How about comparing the percentage of software developers in Spain to the US? Or discussing how the education for technology is different? Or what percentage of the unemployed are developers? Or software developer salaries compared to rest of EU. Or the number of Spanish developers working abroad or for companies abroad. Instead have a graph of Spain's GDP and a graph showing the size of their workforce. This is why I rarely ever click on articles and only read the comments. Most of the time it's the only place with any substance. ~~~ ldng A lot of skilled Spanish dev have fled to Paris and London despite the high cost of living of those cities and being paid less because they're foreigners because it is still more rewarding. In Spain, politician and corruption are pushing skilled people away. I have seen (and heard of) too many people moving out to be just mere coincidence. The subtlety is that most of the time the greedy consulting firm will keep 198K out of the 220K and the be surprised not to find anyone. "Spain is different" as some friends say. ~~~ adwf After Brexit, I'm very tempted to move in the opposite direction. If the Spanish consulting firms can be undercut to that extent, there's a potentially lucrative market. Unfortunately I only know French and German, but I could learn Spanish relatively quickly I guess. The corruption and politics is troubling however. ~~~ calgoo Its not to bad. I live in Barcelona, the corruption is a problem, and will not be solved soon. But thats such a deep problem thats going to take a long time to solve. There is currently a a lot of talented local people and international people who want to work here. A lot of the agencies pay between 15K and 25K on average for junior developers / administrators. However, you can be stuck in the bracket for a long time unless you are able to find a way to switch to a different position. The issue is once you get a job in the 30K+ group where its a lot harder finding anything. Let me know if you have any other questions :) ------ franciscop Spanish dev here. I created with some friends the most active Maker group in Spain [1]. We won contests like Hyperloop's, NASA's SpaceApps (once winners, twice finalists), making robot competitions [2], teaching to everyone, etc. A couple of days ago we were talking about who would continue it, since ALL of us are leaving the country for different reasons. So I can say that I know what it means that skilled workers are leaving first hand. Now I reverse the question, why would we stay? Spain has some great things, such as weather, food and party, but it's horrible in any tech-related industry. For instance, I did a couple of internships to help with my University credits and earn some money. I got paid per month almost the same that I'm getting paid now every couple of days working as an US contractor. Not only that, now I'm doing things that I really love, challenging but rewarding, collaborating with the best people I know and living wherever I want. We made [https://www.angularattack.com/](https://www.angularattack.com/) , now we're launching a new one way better (not yet public though) and I'm helping doing two websites for two of the biggest Venture Capital firms in USA. Now tell me, why should I go back to working 9-5 for some company that doesn't care at all about developers and treat us as code monkeys, for peanuts and in horrible conditions? I had a horrible chair for example but there was "no budget" for a better one. It's a pity because the country gets worse, but it's also good since the hard working Spaniards get the best -- even if it has to be outside. I am lucky I can visit my sister in UK and my friends in Japan, Sweden, Germany and USA :) [1] [http://makersupv.com/](http://makersupv.com/) [2] [https://orchallenge.es/](https://orchallenge.es/) ~~~ imaginenore Same shit in Italy and the Netherlands. I get with very low offers, recruiters are shocked that I bill $100-150 per hour. ~~~ raarts I work in the netherlands and I bill $125/hr. ~~~ jc80 I too, but with mainly US and Nordic customers -- my hourly starts at €250, last contract was above €500 ~~~ kofejnik Wow, congrats, really envious here. May I ask - what industry and tech? And how do you find those clients? ------ Daishiman I'm wondering what is the cognitive dissonance with employers who are unwilling to train workers. I mean, I understand the reasons if you're a an SMB, but large corporations used to train their employees or hold something close to apprenticeship programs. I'm guessing this is more along the lines of "we want qualified work but we're not really willing to pay for it"? ~~~ zeveb > I'm wondering what is the cognitive dissonance with employers who are > unwilling to train workers. I mean, I understand the reasons if you're a an > SMB, but large corporations used to train their employees or hold something > close to apprenticeship programs. It was far less common for people to change jobs back then, too. Neither employers _nor_ employees feel any real loyalty towards one another, so investing in one another feels foolish. There's nothing to incentivise someone to stay once he's learnt the skills he needs to get a position elsewhere. ~~~ ZenoArrow > "It was far less common for people to change jobs back then, too. Neither > employers nor employees feel any real loyalty towards one another, so > investing in one another feels foolish. There's nothing to incentivise > someone to stay once he's learnt the skills he needs to get a position > elsewhere." Sorry, I still don't understand this attitude. I live in the UK, it's common here to have at least some level of on-the-job training, especially for jobs where there's a skills shortage. In my experience, training opportunities are a great way of building up company loyalty, you want to stay with the company because you know you can progress in the company. ~~~ NetStrikeForce Job culture in the UK is soooo much better than in Spain. I've worked on both places, so this is first hand experience. In Spain I would get sent to a training, because we needed to have someone certified on that product to get discounts, then the company would ask me to sign a contract to either stay with them at least two more years or pay a 2k fine. The idiots only tried to do this after the training, thinking otherwise I might just refuse to get trained. Of course I refused to sign, but I was only one of the few who would refuse. In the UK I even get to choose my training. Not just technical, but also on soft skills. Even training that I might not apply in my current role, but I might need to move to a new role. The biggest shocker for me was the manager-employee relationship. In Spain the manager owns you. In the UK the manager is a team member with a very specific goal: make you and your team successful. And don't get me started on leaving the office before your manager does... Of course he would be the biggest sucker (otherwise you don't get to be a manager) and won't leave until 8pm. Leaving shortly after your shift ended was frowned upon by colleagues and verbally challenged by managers: \- Where are you going? \- Home. \- Don't you have work to do? \- Yep, that's why I'm coming back tomorrow again. That company was terribly toxic and I have seen it destroy several families and people's health. ~~~ cwilkes > \- Don't you have work to do? > \- Yep, that's why I'm coming back tomorrow > again. Hah, good one. I'm curious in this toxic situation doesn't it just take a few good companies that treat their employees well to change things around? The good engineers will flock there leaving the bad ones at the old companies. Granted that probably means the managers will now try and get 2x the work out of the remainders. Maybe some will get a clue though and change their ways. ~~~ NetStrikeForce I thought about it a few times. What would it take to turn this around? Surely I can take some capital and start a development company where the people are treated better hence more productive, so I can deliver better products? The problem is the customer. The customer ends up always being the government (national, regional or local) and they have a higher degree of employees that don't care about quality, so the big software factories (called butchers over there because they sell you almost by weight) can put under payed, under qualified and burned out developers on the project. I have hopes on all the new tech companies flourishing around the country that are looking outside Spain for their customers. I am hoping they will end up shaping the market for good. ------ jandrewrogers The gap isn't the pay or the training per se. A growing issue I see frequently is that companies need more highly experienced (read: senior) people, and are willing to pay for it, but there is no fast pipeline from "no experience" to "highly skilled" even if companies did invest in training. Meanwhile, the existing pool is much too small to meet demand; redistributing the talent won't address the underlying issue. Companies are hiring to fill a need _now_ , not 2-3 years in the future. The company or product generating the demand might not even be around in that time. An unfortunate reality that people tend to ignore is that the length of time required to train for the average high skill/high pay job has been _increasing_. There are many high demand specialties in software that require a _minimum_ of 2 years of hardcore experience to really be "experienced", but you can't manufacture that overnight and the hiring companies have little use for someone without that experience. Many companies with existing teams do recognize this and hire a mix of junior and senior talent to generate an internal pipeline but you still need the senior talent when building teams in the first place. Reallocation of people sounds simple but it doesn't account for the increasing latency of acquiring a different skill set at the level of quality required to perform the jobs that actually exist. It is a sticky problem because it is a bit of a vicious cycle. NOTE: this is a more general observation, Spain has its own peculiarities. ~~~ kartan King hired in Barcelona a lot of highly senior developers, people that were leading protects, being architects, etc in other companies. How? Better pay, better conditions and it gives more autonomy to the developers. A fraction of them are talent brough from abroad because they wanted to live in Barcelona. So it is less hard to find talent when you are willing to be competitive. ~~~ vacri > _willing to be competitive._ On the other hand, it's not like businesses have a big bag of gold that they can simply choose to dip into to increase salaries, especially for the smaller shops. ------ muse900 Greek here, living and working abroad. Spain is doing a bit better than Greece but its on the same boat. When I speak with friends back home, I do get a feeling that they don't want to work. Is it because they are lazy? part of me wants to say yes. I can't ignore the fact that the working conditions are awful. Salaries are quite low compared to the rest of Europe, an employer has full control over you, and can fire you any time. An employer won't ever promote you. They will just hold you as long as they can and then they will just hire someone else for less money. Also when you have internet and so much information avaialble to you, and you can see what are the working conditions in other Countries it kinda makes you sad. I live in London, and tbh there have been many times that I've been thinking what am I doing here. London is quite expensive and the salaries are not as high compared to rent, food etc (at least for developers). Now I just made this comment in order to give an overview of whats going on to a country that is on the same boat as Spain. ~~~ inoop > I can't ignore the fact that the working conditions are awful one of the great things about the EU is that people can freely move inside it and work wherever they want. Nothing is stopping your friends from doing what you did - seek employment elsewhere. At the same time, if Greek and Spanish companies want to survive they'll have to learn to adapt to the new order and treat their people better, or perish. ~~~ noinsight > one of the great things about the EU is that people can freely move inside > it and work wherever they want. That's true in principle but languages are an issue. In Nordic countries everyone will speak English but central Europe is different. You might get by with English but not everyone (or even most, depending on the country) will speak it. Do you want to go through the trouble of learning another language from scratch? The culture will be completely different too. Coming from Finland I've thought about moving somewhere else just for the experience as it would probably be interesting, but I don't really feel like learning another language when I already speak English. I've also always wondered how difficult it would be to actually get a job, especially if you don't speak the local language. Maybe with a rockstar education and resumé it would be easy but what if you're "average" (at least on paper)? Having worked for well-known international companies would probably be beneficial. ------ kartan Spanish here. I moved to Sweden, I prefer the business culture here. Less non paid extra hours. More respect from managers. Better pay. Etc. They rant about not being able to use more people as part time slaves. It's a problem of using industrial business mentality in the high tech industry. They care only for reducing salaries and getting long hours with no respect for the developers that are expected to be code monkeys. So yes, they don't find as a big supply as they want. ------ calgoo So I live in Barcelona at the moment. I have 10 years of system administration experience and 3 years of devops / sysadmin experience as well. The average salary I am offered when I look around is between 25K and 45K Euros a year. However, I would say the ratio is about 60% < 30K & 30% < 35K. For friends and family that are looking it really depends. If you are lucky and have / had a position in certain companies who are well known, you might get into the higher bracket. If you dont, and for example only have a University degree, then expect to start between 15K and 25K (unless from one of the known private schools, in which case you can normally jump to the next bracket). From what I know, the two places to look are Madrid and Barcelona, but Madrid normally list almost double the amount of jobs that Barcelona does (mainly because a lot of headquarters are located there). Another important thing that I have notices is that its a lot harder to climb internally in companies here. It depends if the company has American business culture or Spanish (but sometimes it tries to be American but its run in a Spanish way). This is in general over all businesses. My wife is currently working at a call-center and have co-workers who have been in that position for over 10 years. There are basically no way to get promoted, unless you get lucky and someone retires or leaves. I have seen this everywhere, basically no way to really grow, no incentives to grow, an over educated workforce, where the cashier in the supermarket has a masters degree in childcare or similar. There is a saying here, where they call people "mil eurista" meaning thousand euroist more less. The amount of the working population that earn around 1000e a month is quite high but its something thats accepted here basically. People are not happy about it, but "At least I got a job" attitudes are everywhere. A last thing, take care regarding any unemployment numbers that appear during the month of May, as thats basically when the tourist season starts. That alone probably employs over 1,000,000 workers during the summer months. ~~~ njloof This promotion stagnation happens in the US as well, but if the market is fluid enough you can get the promotion by changing employers now that you have your 5+ years experience in skills and methodology. ~~~ collyw Its crazy as it takes 3 - 6 months to get up to speed on any non complex software system. They will save on wages but loose on productivity. ------ tluyben2 I live in Spain (am Dutch); even more; I live in Andalusia. For me that's better, besides getting people to work. We cannot find people at all for programming or our brewery. Everyone around us is unemployed, however they either a) do not speak English; we speak Spanish, but a lot of our clients do not b) do not want to work c) are foreign and have no papers to work. It's quite horrible. And it's not for lack of trying; we have been trying for at least 5 years. In my experience it has nothing to do with payment. This is just limited to Andalusia ofcourse; my colleague says it's better up north, however some people I met from other parts and who have companies complain about the same thing. Then another issue with the country is the extremely hard time you have in hiring someone ; paperwork, you cannot fire them even if they are crap etc. And the paperwork to get grants for hiring people (which are there) is incredible. We have a company in PT as well and it's quite different there. The gov needs to take their finger out. Luckily we have a very helpful (Spanish) mayor who loves entrepreneurs and helps us with whatever, but he also shakes his head when talking about hiring people locally. ~~~ Oletros > you cannot fire them even if they are crap etc. I highly doubt that, it has not been easier to fire someone in Spain since the latests reforms. Not taking into account that there is always a period were the employer and the employee can cancel the contracts without any duty. Normally 6 months ~~~ tluyben2 When were those because I was discussing this 'recently' with my lawyer on the coast? Yes the 6 months is true and I compare it with NL where firing is also hard but it's very straighforward how it works. Here I haven't been able to get it explained in that fashion. So far people look at us with pity when we talk about hiring people legally. Note; we are a tiny company. ~~~ Oletros Basically you can fire anyone when you want. If the cause is justified you pay 10 day for year worked, if it is not justified you pay 20 ------ jlg23 What I am missing in the article and in all discussions here is: Why not pro- actively train people? Looking 2 months for someone with some kind of certification for "agile" is already a fourth of the time required to train someone who is already working for the client (numbers taken from the article). If one is willing to pay 220k and cannot find anyone while most job offers (according to comments here) max out at 36k, make a deal with a current employee: "We pay for training, after 2 years you get a bonus of 72k and we double your salary." Company does not make a loss even if the dev leaves after 2 years, it has built the experience in-house and it had 16 months to disseminate the newly acquired knowledge to other employees. The mindset that people must already have knowledge about some specific technology and universities accommodating employers there is exactly why we have so many code monkeys who don't know anything about CS finishing with a degree in CS who, after a few years, realize that their knowledge is basically worthless because the IT world has moved on and other languages or stacks are now en vogue. ------ pvaldes The "you need more skills" issue is a false problem. Is just that the bad guys have kidnapped, blocked for years, or freeze, most of the good jobs. This is a mediocrazy and they need to raise a lot of walls for keeping off the brigther people who give them a bad image by comparison. And all is carefully planned to keep this people unemployed also for the next four years. Requisites to be a minister in Spain?. Speaking english? not necessary. Holding any sort of degree of PhD? Not necessary. Years of experience working for private companies?. Not necessary, but it helps. If you helped a big company to contaminate a bay for example, you could be even be promoted as the next environment minister. Requisites for the rest of guys for a normal job?. A hamster wheel. Well, first of all you need to be fluent in three or four languages, just because maybe one time a year, or once in ten years, you could need to speak with a foreigner; and for some reason you can't just raise a phone and hire a professional translator for this special day. You will burn in hell if you dare to suggest your boss this logic and simple solution. Then you need to have a degree, a PhD, and also a few masters, and being able to hypnotize a goat in less than five minutes, and work for free for some years, and ... Job market in Spain is a question of kinship and means being promoted directly in lots of cases... or never. ~~~ wallflower > Well, first of all you need to be fluent in three or four languages My understanding is that English to CEFRL level B1 was mandatory to work at a multi-national company. Are there other languages required? ~~~ pvaldes Yes, it happens. In any case 500 millions of people have spanish as native language in the world so "mandatory" is a relative term. You will need chinese to work in China, and spanish or portuguese to work in South-America. If you don't speak Catalan and live in Cataluña you just will never finish the middle school. Or if you want to work for the administration you will be ostracised or directly banned for working for the public, just because you are "an subhuman stubborn charnego". If you born in Euskadi and then go to Barcelona for work, you need to be able to speak fluently four languages (spanish, english, vasque and catalan) just to start talking about having a job. If this guy move to Galicia later, will need to learn the Galizian language also. Oh, If your foreign language in the middle school was french, and a lot of spanish people still studied french in this generation, you will not graduate unless you speak French. If you want as adult to work for a german company you will need a little deutsch of course to be competitive in the job interview. But the worst stupid thing is that most of the time to be fluent or not is not necessary at all for the job because some kind of problems can be solved in any language and because human brain can fill the communication gaps easily. Is just that is trendy to ask for this. For some jobs you will need to be "fluent" also in more languages: C, Ruby, Java, Python... Don't worry. They still will say that you are "unskilled" and will want to pay you in peanuts. ~~~ throwaway_9191 Oh please, spare the HN crowd of your anti-Catalan obsessions. Or, on second thought, please continue to educate the community on the anti-Catalan sentiment that is unfortunately so common throughout Spain. > If you don't speak Catalan and live in Cataluña you just will never finish > the middle school. Or you will learn Catalan which is kinda the fucking point of education? Boo- hoo, Catalonians want kids to learn Catalan if they are going to live in Catalonia! By the way Spanish is mandatory too, why won't you find a problem with that? > Or if you want to work for the administration you will be ostracised > Is > just that is trendy to ask for this. Try getting a job in the public administration in Spain without speaking Spanish, in France without speaking French, in Italy without speaking Italian, in the UK without speaking English... see the pattern? Should we give up our right to address our public administration in our own language just to please non-Catalan Spaniards? > because you are "an subhuman stubborn charnego" Your comment depicts the Catalonian society as overtly xenophobic. This is an extremely offensive and unfair characterization of Catalonian society as millions of native Spanish speakers living here can certify. You are either completely misinformed about Catalonia, or spreading lies deliberately (both being extremely common within Spain). Fortunately support for independence is growing fast. Hopefully once we are independent we won't have to endure this sort of bs anymore. ~~~ pvaldes > Try getting a job in the public administration in Spain without speaking > Spanish, in France without speaking French, in Italy without speaking > Italian, in the UK without speaking English... see the pattern? Yes, I see it, and is not the same as you think. Would be, "Try getting a job in the public administration in Spain without speaking Spanish AND catalan, in France without speaking French AND Patóis, in Italy without speaking Italian AND Lombard, in the UK without speaking English AND Gaelic"... see the pattern? Duplicated effort, same result. But in Argentina the same guy could use the extra time to learn other things, that maybe could be even useful for their employers. ~~~ throwaway_9191 Again, you mirror the Spanish public opinion very well. The pattern is clear: you only respect state backed cultures, my culture and language are mere nuisances that waste people's time. That's one of the main reasons we need to break away from Spain ASAP. Before it can complete the cultural genocide it has repeatedly attempted during the last 3 centuries. ~~~ pvaldes I'll hire the Argentinian. Looks like a less problematic fit. Maybe this could be one of the problems here?. ~~~ throwaway_9191 So people who know more languages are now a problem. Please, stop it. ------ dthal >>“It’s a paradox,” said Valentin Bote, head of research in Spain at Randstad, a recruitment agency. “The unemployment rate is too high. Yet we’re seeing some tension in the labor market because unemployed people don’t have the skills employers demand. There's no real paradox there. Employment of young people, and therefore normal career progression for that cohort, essentially shut down for 6-8 years. Now the pipeline is a little empty. ~~~ pvaldes This is also a big point. One of the problems with teachers and scientists for example. ------ anjc Same thing is happening in every country, it seems. Spanish companies have the entire EU from which they can draw workers without any paperwork or issues, and yet they can't find any? From central/eastern Europe even, whose workers may have lower wage expectations? No. They're flagging this "shortage" and will simultaneously petition their government to allow faster issuing of/more visas to non-EU countries, i.e. India etc, with lower wage requirements for incoming workers. ~~~ UVB-76 How many people from Eastern Europe speak Spanish? Obviously not as important for low-skilled, manual labour, but we're talking about highly skilled jobs in the tech sector here. ~~~ calgoo Romania is one example, but there is a bit of a racial issue going on between the countries. ~~~ NetStrikeForce Yet Romanians are the second biggest minority in Spain. There are no more problems than the disgusting and systemic racism that Spain has towards any other country and hurt feelings on the other side. ------ winestock Check out this little gem from the article: “Education and work exist in two alternative worlds that don’t really connect,” Gomez said. “While in other nations, like the U.S., college education is designed to get you a job, that’s not the case in Spain.” This may be a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill." ~~~ nostrebored Greener but not false. There is a reason why a US education is highly valued by exceptional international students and by multinational companies. ~~~ lacion corporate you mean, most startups and valued tech companies don't give any credit to formal education, and the real balance is moved by experience, seconded only by cultural fit. ------ joeyspn It's a catch 22 1 - Spanish Universities not in tune with the market reality, pouring out thousands of unemployed people into the market... 2 - Graduates living in a bubble... 99% not wanting to move their asses and thinking that the academic degree is all they need. Get a crappy job or move to another country. Let others create the jobs... 3 - Zero entrepreneurial spirit and risk aversion, making starting up a remote to non-existing option. Blame it on the executives of your crappy company, and obviously, the government... 4 - Gov not having a clue about scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship, with policies that fail to build a proper ecosystem for startups, and also fail to connect academic and industry worlds (I.e: Silicon Valley <-> Stanford). 5 - Back to 1 ~~~ internaut You're getting the downvote brigade but you're right. It's a many faceted problem with plenty of blame to be shared around. There are almost zero people at the best colleges and universities in Europe who want to start a new company. I remember trying to convince about a dozen people to start a bitcoin exchange several years ago when it was in the single digits. No go. We could have fucked up almost everything and still been millionaires. I did okay but we would have done much better working together instead of looking for 'a good job'. > Graduates living in a bubble... 99% not wanting to move their asses and > thinking that the academic degree is all they need. Get a crappy job or move > to another country. Whole lot of that going around. They don't realize they will be living in their city living hand to mouth for the rest of their lives. There is no big break coming for them. The smarter ones move, but the core problem is entrepreneurial spirit. ------ konschubert > It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn > an Agile qualification and they also need the ability to deal with senior > executives, I am a bit confused by this sentence. How does one "ear an Agile qualification"? Why does it take eight months? What is "the ability to deal with senior executives"? ~~~ tremon _What is "the ability to deal with senior executives"?_ Patience and prudence. ~~~ whyaduck Actually, I think it's the ability to translate the state of a project into risks, rewards and trade-offs. It's not necessarily an innately understood skill for technical individual contributors. ------ HillaryBriss Starting about 2009, there have been a lot of discussions about whether the unemployment in the US was "structural" or not. Some argued that a huge number of laborers and potential employees did not have necessary skills and therefore would be unable to find work. Period. This was a big component of unemployment. Others including Paul Krugman and Dean Baker argued that, because employment was down _across most every field_ , the cause of the unemployment was insufficient demand. They basically likened it to the Great Depression, where highly employable people were thrown out of work despite their skill levels. This news story makes me think that we have some combination of the two stories going on in Spain. And maybe also the US? Of course, how the country responds to that situation is a separate discussion. Maybe the government can just borrow some cash (at historically low rates) and, instead of building another airport somewhere, educate twenty thousand IT engineers, even paying them to go to school. Maybe government could demand that employers train people. Also, what's going on in the EU with the free movement of labor? Don't some IT people want to move from Estonia and Poland down to sunny Spain? ~~~ Findeton In Spain, we just had elections on the 26th of June, and the conservatives won. There is money, as taxes in Spain are high on wages but low on big companies and the government's budget is 10 points lower % than the EU average... but we have a conservative government. ~~~ switch007 PP won the most votes but not enough to secure a majority. Rajoy is currently in talks with other parties to form a majority, hopefully "within a month." Technically you still have a conservative government but who knows what will happen. ------ mtrn A company once flew me to Madrid for an interview. Unfortunately, I cannot understand Spanish, but the receptionist at the hotel seemed to mumble to a friend: look they are flying people here, but our people are unemployed. It seemed a bit crazy for me as well, since I was unsure, if my person and skills justified _that_ kind of effort. The interview went fine and I think I was offered something around 30k, which was below my current wage in another (non-capital) European city, so I had to decline, although I loved Madrid and the team seemed really nice. ------ mooreds Wonder if it has anything to do with low salaries? Just as an example, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12017439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12017439) has a pretty low salary for the skills they want. ~~~ merqurio I don't think so.. Most of my friends left Spain looking for better long term opportunities rather than money. Even if our economy (and politicians) sucks, quality of life is pretty high with those salaries. I think the problem is the polarisation in the population. Very well trained people is leaving the country while non-skilled people remain. Skilled people do not trust the system therefore they leave as soon as they can. ~~~ nostrebored Quality of life is high, but what if you have a long term goal of moving? Making a lower wage even if proportionally you're taking home more money has a break even point, and 35k in Spain doesn't hit it. ~~~ merqurio Totally agree, i wasn't defending low salaries at all, just sharing my insider experience of the reasons why people is leaving Spain. ------ mathattack I've seen software projects where this was a big issue. Many ambitious Spaniards wind up working in London or elsewhere. Then Spanish companies have to hire overpriced consultancies to fill local tech positions with underqualified resources. I wonder how much the Brexit will send folks home. My impression is that many companies are looking at Spain as alternatives to London HQs, but those are also the kind of jobs for elites, rather than the 5M unemployed. Very hard to convert housing builders into programmers. ~~~ patrickaljord Brexit will happen in 2 years at best. Even so, the UK would still offer work visa to skilled EU workers, there's nothing stopping them from doing that, in fact this is what they said they were going to do. Does everyone really think Brexit is some kind of apocalypse or something for the UK? They love money as much as anyone else and want to remain the finance capital of Europe because money. ~~~ NetStrikeForce Yes, but big part of the people that voted Leave are not the people that do business or that like money above other things. Many Leavers I've talked to justify their decision on "border control" and "sovereignty". They have been given the power to decide and apparently they were "better off with a grand or two less" (sic) "than being slaved to the Eurocrats" (sic). The problem with visas is that if I have to go through the burden and uncertainty of visas for me and my family, I might as well just move to Paris, Hamburg or Munich for no visas or Australia or California for good economy and fucking decent weather. You'll still get talent, but the shortage will still be much worse and you'll end up lowering your requirements. ~~~ patrickaljord EU citizens probably won't event need a visa, just a passport. Especially from rich western EU countries, like it was already the case before Schengen. ~~~ NetStrikeForce The UK is not in Schengen, that's a common misconception :) One of the points of the Leave campaign, reinforced after the vote by some of its leaders like Michael Gove, is to setup a points system for immigration. If there was no "limit EU migration" argument, Leave would have easily lost the vote. ~~~ patrickaljord I know it's not, it's why my wife can't get there :) That's why I said that's how it was even _before_ Schengen, ie French and German didn't need a visa to go to the UK even before the EU. ------ macspoofing This was a frustrating article to read. I got the sense the author missed something. Spain is part of the EU common market which numbers 500 million people - how is it that this is only a problem for Spain, and why can't they recruit fellow EU citizens to make-up the shortfall? ~~~ cloakandswagger This assumption is the same mistake made by almost all supranational federalists. Europe is composed of different countries with vastly different languages, cultures and economic conditions. Just because they're technically "joined" together via treaties doesn't mean labor is going to naturally distribute throughout the union. ~~~ themartorana And yet they thought a shared currency would be no big deal. ~~~ cloakandswagger Don't get me started. Economists from around the world were adamant that the Euro was a terrible idea when it was founded. Binding dozens of wildly differing economies to one currency controlled by one central bank has always been a pipe dream, but it takes decades for it to start to unravel. ~~~ ZeroGravitas The politicians knew a shared currency without sharing other aspects was a bad idea, but they gambled that as the problems became manifest, they would be solved by greater unity. Maybe that was stupid, but it's a different kind of stupid than not listening to the economists. ------ davidgerard Pay. More. This. Is. The. Market. Speaking. ~~~ sbmassey €200,000 in Spain seems a pretty good wage ~~~ ldng Yeah, that's what the client is willing to pay to the consulting firm who don't want to hire the guy at more than 24K ... Sad truth. ------ p0nce When you are willing to hire women, older people and provide adequate salaries (dare I say work conditions), suddenly there isn't so much tech shortage. ~~~ ci5er Couldn't 100% of your claim be solved with just the salary variable? What evidence do you have that old+female+cheap people are not being considered as part of the option matrix? ~~~ p0nce No only anecdotal data that I hear again and again. Likewise, where is the avidence about the tech shortage? ------ winestock From the article: "Pimentel’s client asked him for list of candidates trained in “Agile” project management techniques for helping companies boost their productivity by using more I.T. systems. The client was offering as much as 200,000 euros ($220,000) a year -- almost 10 times the average salary in Spain." So they're willing to pay ten times the going rate, but they're not willing to take the time to train anyone? But wait; there's more! "But such people are thin on the ground in Spain. It takes at least eight months for an experienced software developer to earn an Agile qualification and _they also need the ability to deal with senior executives_ , limiting the pool of people who could potentially fill the roles." Again, note that they're willing to pay ten times the going rate, so training them for eight months and then paying them the regular wage would pay for itself after a few months on the job; but they still won't train. More importantly, look at the part which I italicized. Dealing with senior executives takes special skill? I am but a lowly suburban nerd, and the ways of my betters intimidate me, so could someone enlighten me as to what that journalist is talking about? I have a sneaking suspicion that Clay Shirky knows. [http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and- the-...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf- between-planning-and-reality/) "Back in the mid-1990s, I did a lot of web work for traditional media. That often meant figuring out what the client was already doing on the web, and how it was going, so I’d find the techies in the company, and ask them what they were doing, and how it was going. Then I’d tell management what I’d learned. This always struck me as a waste of my time and their money; I was like an overpaid bike messenger, moving information from one part of the firm to another. I didn’t understand the job I was doing until one meeting at a magazine company. "The thing that made this meeting unusual was that one of their programmers had been invited to attend, so management could outline their web strategy to him. After the executives thanked me for explaining what I’d learned from log files given me by their own employees just days before, the programmer leaned forward and said “You know, we have all that information downstairs, but nobody’s ever asked us for it.” "I remember thinking “Oh, finally!” I figured the executives would be relieved this information was in-house, delighted that their own people were on it, maybe even mad at me for charging an exorbitant markup on local knowledge. Then I saw the look on their faces as they considered the programmer’s offer. The look wasn’t delight, or even relief, but contempt. The situation suddenly came clear: I was getting paid to save management from the distasteful act of listening to their own employees." EDIT: formatting ~~~ shostack It is easy to be dismissive of executives and the fact that dealing with them takes a certain skill set. If it is one thing I've learned as someone in a data-heavy field it is that executives don't care about the details and nuances, and that distilling the details of things like log files, etc. and conveying it in a way that aligns with their pain points, strategy, etc. does in fact take great interpersonal skills that many more technically-inclined folks unfortunately lack. ~~~ ZenoArrow > "conveying it in a way that aligns with their pain points, strategy". In my experience, some executives don't even care too much for facts if it interferes with their agenda. This is usually expressed in subtle ways, but in one instance I've heard an executive directly ask for a report that was easy to manipulate the figures on in order to push our employees into generating more sales. This is part of the problem when you have directors who see themselves as insulated from day to day challenges. I accept that there's a need for a long term vision, but if someone isn't prepared to understand the details of what's blocking it, they'll not be in a place to advise on how to fix it, and if they're relying on other people to fix those organisational issues, what's the point of having directors at all? ~~~ internaut > This is part of the problem when you have directors who see themselves as > insulated from day to day challenges. I accept that there's a need for a > long term vision, but if someone isn't prepared to understand the details of > what's blocking it, they'll not be in a place to advise on how to fix it, > and if they're relying on other people to fix those organisational issues, > what's the point of having directors at all? There isn't any. Why do you think small groups of computer programmers and a handful of venture capitalists are like a wrecking ball to so many different industries. In the 20th century we got used to the idea of managerial capitalism. Now in the 21st we're seeing that unless you're an Elon Musk level manager, capable of both understanding fine detail plus having comprehension of the big picture, you're surplus to requirements. You'll be competing against managers who are also geeks as well aka the real Silicon Valley advantage. If your manager thinks 'the market should decide' they ought to step down unless they mass produce widgets in a B2B context. Their entire job is central coordination. In the 18th/19th centuries the manager of a factory would have understood the functions of every bit of machinery they acquired. ------ alienjr There was a Polish composer, writer and politician Stefan Kisielewski who used to say: "Socialism is a system which bravely fights problems that are not known in any other system". That describes situation of Spain perfectly. ~~~ pvaldes Nice cliche. That describes the situation perfectly, except by the small fact that Socialism parties do not rule in Spain since a lot of years. We have the equivalent to the Conservative Party, that... ehem, aren't exactly "socialists". ------ BjoernKW Language is a large part of this problem, not willing to pay market prices is another. Why else would recruiters have to look for candidates in Argentina when there's a huge amount of suitable candidates in the EU with an automatic work permit? ~~~ vacri Argentines speak fluent Spanish, and will be able to understand complex and subtle business requirements presented in Spanish. ~~~ BjoernKW Therein lies the rub. In most other countries business people who have to deal with subtle business requirements speak English decently well where in Spanish business it's absolutely normal for a CEO of an international company to only speak broken English at best. ------ Oletros I've seen offer for senior .NET developers for 20.000€/year before taxes and going through outsourcing companies. 20.000/year is 15.000/year after taxes. ------ heisenbit Mr. Pimentel is a Managing Partner and regional director over several countries and as such the main job is to talk the playbook and drum up business. Finding good people is hard and we are the right guys to talk to. Finder fees are proportional to salary so aiming high is important. He claims on his web page to hire country sales directors and country managers so talking salaries of 200k+ is probably quite natural for him. Maybe he is more thinking of a person who can turn a dead end organization into an agile one - such a feat is hard and requires a multitude of skills. In any case it is likely that some things were mixed up in the interview. One thing is clear - after the property bust in Spain and Portugal a lot of the higher skilled and mobile people were heading elsewhere. There has been a brain drain in the region. Disproportionally high (vs. average Spanish) salaries may be required if mobile top talent is needed. Agile project management or product ownership for run of the mill projects aren't those. But when talking about roles that shape organizations then things may be different. ------ njloof One of my first jobs (in the US) had a great strategy for getting low cost talent: 1\. Hire cheap 2\. Train on the job 3\. Lock in your investment with a multi- year employment contract, broken down into options to "not renew" the contract at 6-month, then 12-month, intervals. Worked great, they got cheap talent and a means to weed people out, and I got valuable training I used for the next 15 years. ------ fiatjaf > From software developers and mathematical modelers to geriatric nurses and > care workers, a mismatch in qualifications means companies are struggling to > fill posts, even though the unemployment rate at 20.4 percent is the second- > highest in Europe. This is the result of years of malinvestiment in human capital. The Austrian Theory of Business Cycles explain. ------ smsm42 So, if they don't have enough qualified workers, why don't they start creating on-the-job training programs? I understand there's risk in such investment (i.e., you train a person and then they leave for a higher salary) but there are many ways to counter it. Is there something like that happening in Spain? If not, why? ------ rcarmo I've been pinged by recruiters for positions in Spain pretty much every week, either multinationals who need to grow their presence or local corps looking for experts. Cost of living is about the same as here in Portugal, but my previous experience with local execs makes me leery of those opportunities. ------ SixSigma The agriculture sector employs many North African illegal immigrants. Visit the greenhouses of Almeria and see what happens when you take your camera from its bag. ~~~ patrickaljord The do so because local people don't want to do these jobs. ~~~ SixSigma If people don't want to do a job, it is because it is not suitably remunerated. Using illegal labour instead should not be defended. It undercuts the position of the legal workers. ~~~ patrickaljord Paying people more for these jobs would make the end product way more expensive and make it hard to compete on the global market and make your country not competitive (what's happening here in France). Another side effect is that because the price of the end product gets more expensive, people will have to work more in order to buy said products or just avoid buying them. ~~~ SixSigma The EU restricts agricultural imports, fixes prices and pays out massive subsidy for non-production via the CAP. Perhaps market manipulation by the EU should be reassessed if the consequence is widespread and necessary use of illegal labour by some of the richest farmers in Europe. [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.ht...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_5.2.1.html) Objectives Article 39 TFEU sets out the specific objectives of the CAP: 1 to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and ensuring the optimum use of the factors of production, in particular labour; 2 to ensure a fair standard of living for farmers; 3 to stabilise markets; 4 to ensure the availability of supplies; 5 to ensure reasonable prices for consumers. ~~~ patrickaljord I totally agree that we should get rid of the CAP. Not going to argue on this one. ------ vonnik The skills gap is very real in America, too. It can be hard to find the people you need. And many of the folks who are out of work don't fit the bill. There are specific training programs, sponsored by large companies, that are trying to give post-high-school trainees the right vocational skills... (Can't remember the names atm!) ------ reledi There's a lot of talented Spaniards out there. I know because I can proudly say many of them are my teammates. Did I mention we are hiring? Clojure, Ruby, Data. [https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/careers/](https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/careers/) ------ Animats That's what the US has done. There are lots of available workers in the US with non-salable skills. ------ forthefuture It looks like Spain has almost reached the US' rate of economic non- participation. [http://www.ine.es/en/prensa/epa_prensa_en.htm](http://www.ine.es/en/prensa/epa_prensa_en.htm) ------ known [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery) ------ fiatjaf At the same time, I bet there are a lot of Spaniards getting majors on philosophy and other weed-smoking specialties. ------ ssjohal So EU was merely a clever plan by stronger economies to suck brains out of struggling economies? ~~~ fwn I guess a good rule of thumb is: If you can pack what you think is the motivation for such a big and time intensive project as the EU into one tweet, it's probably far from the truth. ------ SFJulie It means the expectation of the demand (companies) are not matching what the market provides. Having to look for a job in Europa, I dare say most job offers are laughable. C#, PHP and java are MODERN technologies that no one should be scared of. Windev is a very good tool. Mysql and mssql are the only two worthy databases. Free software is a free as a bier. AGILE is SOOO complex...it has to be officiated religiously like ITIL or ISO norms. They want software devs on the market already proefficient in proprietary/tricky technologies, and no one understand why jobless persons with so much time cannot buy these 10K€ tools and use their worthless time in self formation. And salary expectation are low : a coder MUST not be paid more than any manager. Even the manager responsible for the cleaning team of 500m² office with a headcount of 2. They just have irrealistic expectations. That's all folks. ------ mikerichards So Spain isn't Germany, but I'm curious why even in the midwest (St. Louis no less), senior developers easily command $120k+. But I guess this also goes to the point why SV is only playing "normal" senior developers $150k/yr? Unless you're really digging the Bay Area lifestyle (or "I'll get my chance in the next cool startup), why even bother. ------ internaut Europe in general, with some rare exceptions, does not value the kinds of skills that are selected for in SV. The culture is bad. The incentives are all wrong. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. The typical business person in Europe considers him or herself top of the pecking order. This only looks to be true relatively because they hire less capable workers. These are the exact kind of people who imagine hiring twice as many developers gets the job accomplished faster i.e. simpletons. The typical software engineer is at least one standard deviation above them. Just not in one specific area. In everything. I have friends who did part-time degrees in literature or language studies while they were also studying for computer science at some of the most elite european universities. Most geeks are systems thinkers and have no trouble in grokking areas outside of their main thing. Many of us refuse to be put into a box. Having interests in exclusively one thing is a pretty fair indicator of not being very adaptive, I'd say it's almost defintional. That is the kind of person they want to hire. You can hire them, but they won't be very good. Then you get these idiots who think they can run circles around us because they have the phone number of a venture capitalist or bank manager. Get a grip boys, your money doesn't count for much when a software engineer can be ramen profitable so easily. I have all manner of skills I don't bother to put on the market because the rates of pay are so pitiful and I can obtain better results by doing my own thing. Lots of other people just physically move. This is then misread by the business community as 'not enough skills'. The other thing is that most projects they offer are really boring grunt work where you learn nothing by doing them. If there was an actual project we found cool or innovative we'd probably work for lower base salary plus some equity, but that's not the kind of work we get here in Europe, those kinds of benefits are reserved for Clod-Class. A good many programmers would prefer to work 20 hrs a week as janitors and then work on interesting projects rather than put up with this bullshit plus work 60-70 hour weeks. How many European programmers are told they'll be paid 20-30 euro per hour but actually are required to work three or four hours a day for free? Apparently they like to think we can't do arithmetic but can order a machine to do floating point operations just fine. Diagnosis: Failure to Coordinate. Failure of Imagination.

Ask HN: Best Object-Oriented Programming Book - Kinnard What&#x27;s the best book for getting a handle on object-oriented programming? I&#x27;m an experienced web dev but new to OO. ====== rahimnathwani I was looking for a similar thing a while back. I don't remember why, but I decided on Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: [http://www.poodr.com/](http://www.poodr.com/) Although it uses Ruby as the instructional language, you don't need to know much Ruby syntax to be able to understand the examples. ------ vram22 The Object Primer by Scott Ambler (IIRC). Read years ago but got some insights from it. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ambler](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ambler) [http://www.ambysoft.com/books/theObjectPrimer.html](http://www.ambysoft.com/books/theObjectPrimer.html) Note that is the 3rd edition. I had read an earlier edition. He lists the differences between 2nd and 3rd. ------ stevenspasbo Check out the Head First: Object-Oriented Analysis and Design. It's pretty basic, but would be a good intro if you're brand new to OO. ~~~ romanhn Seconded. It's a great introduction to OOP written in a very approachable manner. ------ ruraljuror I am relatively new to this myself, but at my work there is a lot of discussion of the SOLID principles: [http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.PrinciplesOfOod](http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.PrinciplesOfOod) ------ paulroest I would highly recommend Eric Evans' Domain Driven Design as the second Object Oriented book to be read. Most any primer on OO will give you the foundation of ideas but Erick's book makes the knowledge useful and has been repeatedly called OO done right. ISBN-13: 978-0321125217 ISBN-10: 0321125215

Ted Ts'o: For those who believe systemd developers are reasonable - dredmorbius https://plus.google.com/117091380454742934025/posts/K7ijdmxJ8PF ====== dredmorbius Linus Torvald's commnt provides some additional context (on the link above): _I think what you (and others) seem to miss is that the systemd people made the "debug" option that we introduced not just do something - but do something useless that actively broke other peoples use of that option._ _It doesn 't matter who "owns" it, the fact is, they broke it._ _Ok, fine. Bugs happen, and that 's not what makes people upset._ _What makes me (and others) upset is that when the bug is reported, with explanations and a suggestion for how to fix it, Kay just closed the bug- report, claiming it wasn 't a bug._ _Seriously? You want to debug kernel stuff, using the kernel command line command "debug" that makes the kernel more verbose, and now the systemd people say "sorry, we stole your thing and made it useless, and it's not a bug because you didn't call shot-gun"._ _Now, if this was an isolated incident, I personally would let it go. There are bad engineers out there, it 's not worth worrying about. Ignore them and move on._ _But this is not an isolated incident. This is how Kay has treated other bugs in the past. Literally months of stalling, closing bug-reports, and blaming other people and projects for problems that he caused, telling others how they should change their projects because he broke something, and obviously it can 't be his fault._ _And that is a problem._ I'll openly admit I'm not a systemd fan. I've seen too much brokenness from the developers involved, in this and other projects. I've seen far too much arrogance. I see too much complexity. I'm quite disappointed in both the Debian vote and Ubuntu's decision to go along with it (I was really hoping that Shuttleworth would hold out as loyal opposition). Yes, systemd does provide _some_ useful features, but at an extremely high cost in complexity and unproven changes to a system at the core of every last Linux system. Emphasis on "Linux", as it's also not cross-compatible with other OSes on which many Linux programs will run, and on which some distros (such as Debian) provide builds. ~~~ coldpie I'm still mixed on systemd. My favored distro, Arch, switched to systemd well over a year ago, and is currently the only supported init system. It works fine for me, but I don't do a lot of complex sysadmin tasks. To be honest, I haven't even learned the unit file syntax yet. I do find Lennart's software to have godawful UIs and APIs. I dare you to write a simple audio output program using the PulseAudio API. Let me know when you've got the threading, mainloop, and callback APIs figured out so you can write your sine wave... The command to interact with systemd is not 'systemd', but instead 'systemctl' (which is not 'sysctl'!). Systemd has units and targets which can be enabled and started and disabled and stopped (what's the difference again? off to the man pages...). systemd is trying to replace /var/log and cron as well, but damned if I can remember the right four switches to journalctl to make it do something useful. On the other hand, systemd feels cleaner at a conceptual level to me. Apparently more competent sysadmins find the new journalctl idea to be super useful--it provides a consistent window into log files, so you don't have to remember varying paths and log file formats and such. Service unit files allow for complex dependency resolution for service startup, far more powerful than the old symlinks-in-etc or rc.conf files allowed. It feels like the right solution to me. I just wish it was more intuitive to use. ~~~ loudmax I've found systemd to be fast and stable on Arch. There's a learning curve associated with a new way of doing old things. That doesn't bother me that much because this is how progress happens. What I find far more disconcerting is that systemd seems to eschew core Unix philosophy ([http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html](http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html)): _This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface._ Systemd does none of these. Well, maybe it works with other programs... it really feels like it's own world. ~~~ hga That philosophy, which has many merits, was nonetheless a virtue forced by necessity. UNIX(TM) is Multics with, as the name implies, various important features ... omitted in squeezing down a big system, for a multiple 32 bit CPU mainframe architecture, to minicomputers. The first PDP-11 they used, which was not the first PDP model used, was the original, later named the PDP-11/20, which had 56KiB maximum of memory (above was reserved for memory mapped devices, an innovation of the architecture). The 2nd, where they really got going, was the PDP-11/45, which allowed any one program 64 KiB of code and the same of data, but due to its paging architecture the data was divided into 8 KiB of stack and 56 KiB for normal user data. So now that we use computers with as much or more L1 and L2 cache, we can, if warranted, ignore that philosophy. Don't know if that's the case here, the gravamen is that systemd's development team is grossly irresponsible. Which could be reflected in its architecture, but even if it was more in the traditional UNIX(TM) philosophy, their being that way would be as bad. I just hope the next version of Debian is not a disaster, would not like moving off of it, not that I'm entirely satisfied with it. ~~~ killnine So wait, some geniuses came along and banged out the OS of the future, in the smallest purest form they could, and now decades later, just because our computers have improved, you think it logical to ditch the philosophy that got us here??? ~~~ peawee More like "some geniuses came along and banged out an OS that would suit their needs on the limited hardware they had on hand" ~~~ felixgallo The philosophy applies no matter how much hardware you have. ~~~ hga Not going to directly reply to the reading comprehension impaired, but my point is that part of the philosophy _was required_. To print technical papers to a phototypesetter, one of the first use cases for which the UNIX project got serious funding, required a pipeline so that, as I remember, tables, equations and basic formatting were all separate programs piping their output to the next, with troff at the end (as I recall, I only used nroff in one step to a Xerox daisy wheel printer for one paper before I moved to Scribe and then TeX to a laser printer). No one single program doing all that could fit into the 11/45's split I&D address space as described above. Now we can and have made individual programs bigger, but the philosophies of doing a limited number of things well and communicating by plain text are still very solid for many applications (but, not, say, many of the use cases of Photoshop/GIMP etc. Or a browser. Or (in)famously, the linux kernel itself). How much they should apply to system initialization and daemon management etc. I just don't know, haven't examined the issue. Not entirely, I would hazard a guess, certainly nothing I can think of that looks like the chain ending in troff. That the creators of systemd are reported to have ignored this philosophy does not automatically make it bad. Their reported consistent bad behavior (from people I know and trust, at least in the case of Ted Ts'o) would seem to make it automatically problematical. That Linus felt compelled to revoke this person's kernel commit privileges ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7522791)) is also telling. Or let's put it this way: a program like systemd must, by definition, "play well with others", _that 's its job_ after all. That main developers can't do that in the real world is a very bad sign. ------ devnonymous Just a small note, this story was posted earlier today ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7521153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7521153) ). For people looking for a tl;dr: a. systemd hijacks the usage of the 'debug' parameter on the kernel command- line for it's own purposes. In some cases this renders the system un-bootable. Since kernel devs can no longer use a parameter that has literally been around for _years_ and was introduced with the explicit intention to help debug the kernel, this is reported as a bug against systemd. b. The maintainer of systemd closes the bug as NotABug and refuses to fix it c. A patch is posted on the lkml that simply 'hides' the debug flag from userspace in retaliation. d. The patch is accept and Linus expresses his anger at what he thinks is a repeating pattern of behavior (to cause regressions, break userspace and refuse to fix the cause of the breakage forcing kernel devs to work around the matter). He also decides to ban systemd maintainer from committing to the kernel hth, ------ profquail I'm not a heavy Linux user -- I mainly use Windows and FreeBSD -- but I'm curious to know why none of the Linux distros have looked at using launchd? It's being ported to FreeBSD ([https://github.com/rtyler/openlaunchd);](https://github.com/rtyler/openlaunchd\);) is there some reason it _couldn 't_ work with Linux, or is it just being overlooked/ignored? I have heard that launchd doesn't have all of the features systemd does, but launchd does seem to be fairly solid for the features it does support. ------ rcxdude [http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2014-Apr...](http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2014-April/018390.html) Can't say I'm terribly impressed by the communication on either side currently (apart from the above email). ------ yoha Google Cache of the linked article: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&sclient=psy- ab&q=cache:I4weZxyAFqUJ:http://lkml.org/lkml/2014/4/2/415%2Bhttps://lkml.org/lkml/2014/4/2/415&gbv=1&sei=SmA9U7n7E6nT0QWN5oFw&hl=en&ct=clnk) ------ dman Can someone please copy / paste the post here - sadly google plus is blocked for me. ~~~ loudmax This is the entirety of Ted Ts'o's post. _For those who believe the systemd developers are reasonable and will listen to constructive criticism....._ [https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/4/2/415](https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/4/2/415) There are dozens of comments on the G+ page. At the moment, I can't even pull up [http://lkml.org/](http://lkml.org/) Not sure if that's an outage or just me. ~~~ Daviey [http://www.gossamer- threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_fl...](http://www.gossamer- threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_flat;post=1897161;;list=linux) ------ adobriyan I didn't know about "debug" until this post because I used "ignore_loglevel" for years. Kernel is fun.

What is signals buissness model - egodestroyer Signal is run by the signal foundation. But what are the financial incentives behind all of this?<p>I want to create an open source, rake free poker client myself, and I dont know how to finance it, i also want to get rich in the process ;) (just being honest) ====== notkaiho Signal's initial funding were $50 million from one of the founders, and "Between 2013 and 2016, the project received grants from the Knight Foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation, and the Open Technology Fund."[0] They are not in the game to make money. As long as they can cover costs, and given they are tax-exempt as a non-profit they can't 'get rich' off of it, the work can continue. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Developers_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_\(software\)#Developers_and_funding)

The Quadshot: combining a quadcopter and a plane in one - jgrahamc http://thequadshot.com/ ====== unwind If you were confused by the logo's use of a coffee cop in the initial 'Q', that's a reference to espresso (each individual espresso is called "a shot"). A drink with four espressos would be considered very strong indeed, and probably make you go fast. ------ esden Thank you very much for featuring a link to our website here. Calculating the time of the post you probably missed the newest video of a prototype gimbal mount for the Quadshot. You can see it here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1js8WIL7E> So Quadshot is not only a mix of a quadrocopter and a plane but also an aerobatic aircraft that can be stable enough to shoot areal footage.

Killing a process and all of its descendants - shiroyasha23 http://morningcoffee.io/killing-a-process-and-all-of-its-descendants.html ====== rlpb This is why cgroups were invented. They solve this problem. Start a process in its own cgroup, and you can later confidently kill the process and all of its descendants. Container "technologies" use cgroups extensively, as does systemd service management. ~~~ menage [CGroups original developer] Yes, for tracking processes and reliable resource control. Prior to cgroups, in Google's Borg cluster management daemon the best strategy I was able to come up with for reliably and efficiently tracking all the processes in a job was: \- assign each job a supplementary group id from a range reserved for Borg, and tag any processes that were forked into that job with that group id \- use a kernel netlink connector socket to follow PROC_EVENT_FORK events to find new processes/threads, and assign them to a job based on the parent process; if the parent process wasn't found for some reason then query the process' groups in /proc to find the Borg-added group id to determine which job it's a part of. \- if the state gets out of sync (due to a netlink queue overflow, or a daemon restart) do a full scan of /proc (generally avoided since the overhead for continually scanning /proc got really high on a busy machine). That way we always have the full list of pids for a given group. To kill a job, nuke all the known processes and mark the group id as invalid, so any racy forks will cause the new processes to show up with a stale Borg group id, which will cause them to be killed immediately. This approach might would have had trouble keeping up with a really energetic fork bomb, but fortunately Borg didn't generally have to deal with actively malicious jobs, just greedy/misconfigured ones. Once we'd developed cgroups this got a lot simpler. ~~~ the8472 Was giving each job its own UID not an option? users are the original privilege separation after all and kill -1 respects that. ~~~ menage No, because multiple jobs being run by the same end-user could share data files on the machine, in which case they needed to share the same uid. (Or alternatively we could have used the extra-gid trick to give shared group access to files, but that would have involved more on-disk state and hence be harder to change, versus the job tracking which was more ephemeral.) It's been a while now, but I have a hazy memory that in the case where a job was the only one with that uid running on a particular machine, we could make use of that and avoid needing to check the extra groups. ------ pixelbeat__ The GNU coreutils timeout command encapsulates a lot of these issues. It's surprisingly difficult to handle all the edge cases and races. [https://www.maizure.org/projects/decoded-gnu- coreutils/timeo...](https://www.maizure.org/projects/decoded-gnu- coreutils/timeout.html) ~~~ castratikron Cool. Anyone know how they make diagrams like those? ~~~ kevinoid I was curious as well. According to the author, "All the diagrams were hand- crafted in PowerPoint." [https://github.com/MaiZure/coreutils-8.3/issues/1#issuecomme...](https://github.com/MaiZure/coreutils-8.3/issues/1#issuecomment-455773553) ------ srathi Sometimes I wonder if I'm on a list somewhere for frequent Google searches such as this one - "How to kill a parent with all the children"! ~~~ stephen82 Personally I use `killall` command and works as expected, at least on Debian. For instance, when I want to stop conky, all I do is run `killall conky` and kills all of its processes at once. Another longer way to do such thing is to run `kill -9 $(pidof conky)` which kills all returned processes. ~~~ Dylan16807 Just be careful around Solaris! ------ jchw Bazel-watcher tries to accomplish this on Linux by using process group IDs. It works, if imperfectly sometimes. I ported this to Windows[1] using Job Objects. As usual, the Windows API was hell, and I made use of undocumented syscalls in order to make it work (though that part is partly Go’s fault: when you start a process, it immediately drops the thread handle on the floor. If you start a process suspended, that means it’s impossible to resume _using documented APIs._ ) Thankfully Raymond Chen wrote an article[2] about Job Objects which helped me figure out the last bits. I genuinely am not sure I could have gotten it right without that article. There’s so many subtle ways to fail! [1] [https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel- watcher/pull/144/files](https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel- watcher/pull/144/files) [2] [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130405-00/?p=47...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130405-00/?p=4743) ~~~ neerajsi I'm confused by this post, but I'm an ex-dev on the NT kernel. ResumeThread is a well documented API. As is TerminateJobObject. The one thing I find a bit baroque is the recently added way to make sure a process is in a job on creation, which I believe is part is the ProcThreadAttributes mechanism. ~~~ jchw Yes, ResumeThread is. NtResumeProcess is what I had to use, because Go immediately closes the thread handle. I’m sure it’s safe to rely on NtResumeProcess. I have used it since XP without issue. But I definitely wish there was a better way to go back from a process to a thread. The best I could find is using Toolhelp32 to iterate all the threads on the system, which I believe is just wrapping NtQuerySystemInformation. Would’ve worked but definitely wasn’t fast. ------ eikenberry On Linux you can also use prctl with PR_SET_PDEATHSIG to set a signal that will be sent to all child processes when the parent dies. This is a syscall you'd need to make from in the program. See 'man 2 prctl'. ------ PopeDotNinja One low hanging fruit I've thrown into my ssh-ing aliases/functions is is just throwing 'timeout' on the front. I usually exit cleanly and/or don't spin up zombie-prone processes, but sometimes I do dumb things, so to exit after a day... timeout 86400 ssh me@example.com I was reading the man page for timeout, and it looks like you can throw some kill options, but I never needed them, so I never looked for them. ------ adrianmonk Really nice writing style on this article. It covers everything that needs to be covered, but it also gets right to the point. Yet without being overly terse or dry. And it explains everything clearly. So often the writer is good at understanding an idea but not conveying it. This lays it out where it's easy to pick up. ------ k_sze Can somebody re-explain the last part about nohup propagation to descendant processes? I don’t quite get what the implications are. The author also doesn’t seem to talk about their solution for it in the context. ------ nanaya >but on BSD and its variants like MacOS, the session ID isn’t present or always zero Don't know about macOS, but session ID/pointer does present on FreeBSD and OpenBSD. ------ psef Related post with interesting comments: UNIX one-liner to kill a hanging Firefox process: [https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2008/09/unix-one-liner-to- kill-h...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2008/09/unix-one-liner-to-kill-hanging- firefox.html?m=1) ------ bandrami Isn't this exactly why you can freeze cgroups? ------ mehrdadn Even _waiting for a process to exit_ is surprisingly hard (impossible?) in Linux, unless it's your child. ~~~ AnssiH That is getting considerably easier with the addition of pidfds, though: [https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/794707/93ffb35438fd3710/](https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/794707/93ffb35438fd3710/) ~~~ twic > Beyond the ability to unambiguously specify which process should be waited > for, this change will eventually enable another interesting feature: it will > make it possible to wait for a process that is not a child — something that > waitid() cannot do now. Since a pidfd is a file descriptor, it can be passed > to another process via an SCM_RIGHTS datagram in the usual manner. The > recipient of a pidfd will, once this functionality is completed, be able to > use it in most of the ways that the parent can to operate on (or wait for) > the associated process. So, to wait for a process that is not your child, do you have to get the relevant pidfd from its parent? In which case, this doesn't help all that much. Or is there some other way to get pidfds for arbitrary processes? ~~~ mehrdadn Perhaps pidfd_open(pid, ...)? [https://lwn.net/Articles/789023/](https://lwn.net/Articles/789023/) I find it bizarre they called it "pidfd_" rather than just "process_" or "proc_"... almost seems like they deliberately avoided the obvious? ~~~ cyphar It's because the object you get is a file descriptor. In fact it's exactly equivalent to getting a file descriptor for /proc/$pid -- Christian (the person who developed the patchsets) quite cleverly solidified a trick that some folks knew about for several years (that you could use /proc/$pid as a race-free way of checking if a process has died if you grabbed a handle while it was still alive). Before pidfd_send_signal(2) there wasn't a way to use that "interface" nicely. But now it's a first-class citizen (and Christian had to fight a lot of battles to get this in over several releases). It's really cool work and I have high hopes it will be used far and wide because it solves so many individual problems in one fell swoop. ~~~ mehrdadn > It's because the object you get is a file descriptor. It is, but you're opening the object, not the descriptor (which doesn't even exist yet). When you open a kernel object, you always get back a (new) file descriptor representing that object. It's against previous naming conventions too. It's not like mkfifo() was called mkfifofd() or socket() was called socketfd() or perf_event_open() was called perf_event_fd_open()... I'm really amused that you're so excited about it and find it so cool. I mean, I'm not suggesting it isn't awesome that they added it, but to me, it's such a glaring obvious deficiency that I'm completely flabbergasting that a lot of battles had to be fought to include it. It should've been added and embraced with open arms over two decades ago... ~~~ cyphar > It is, but you're opening the object, not the descriptor (which doesn't even > exist yet). pidfd_open(2) is still a proposed interface, and isn't in mainline yet (and if I'm remembering the ML discussions correctly, it might not even go in any time soon). The currently-available interfaces are pidfd_send_signal(2), CLONE_PIDFD, and the new pidfd_poll(2) support for pidfds. In that context, calling it "pidfd_" makes more sense (since you're operating on existing handles) and thus pidfd_open(2) also makes sense because otherwise the naming would be needlessly inconsistent. There are also several pre-existing APIs that are called process_ (such as process_vm_{read,write}v(2)) which use pids and not pidfds -- so calling the new APIs process_ (or even proc_) could lead to confusion. From memory the first couple of iterations of the patchset changed the name several times until we landed on pidfd_ and nobody really complained much afterwards. Also (and now I'm just nitpicking), mkfifo(3) doesn't give you an fd -- it's just a wrapper around mknod(2). But I do get your point. > I'm really amused that you're so excited about it and find it so cool. I might be a little bit more biased towards thinking it's cool, since the developer is a good friend of mine and we went back and forth on the design quite a lot (the fact he managed to get /proc/$pid fds to have these features is pretty remarkable and it's unbelievably cool that it didn't require having multiple classes of fds -- if you'd have asked me a year ago I would've said it'd be very hard to get right and would never be merged because it'd be so invasive). But thinking that it's neat isn't mutually exclusive with thinking that (something like) it should've been implemented a long time ago. ------ wilsocr88 Off topic, but this headline makes me think "...unto the tenth generation upon the Earth..." ------ sabujp advanced programming in the unix environment is an excellent book that dives more into this ------ sadris I just use rkill

Ballmer sells Windows 1.0 - g0atbutt http://codesketch.com/2010/11/25-years-ago-this-was-the-future-of-computing/ ====== jimminy "Except in Nebraska!" Does anyone have a reason why Nebraska would be singled out? ~~~ beej71 [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OfferVoidInNebras...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OfferVoidInNebraska) ------ chamakits It makes me sad that those features seemed advanced, when something as complex as the Sketchpad had been created a good amount of time before. (more here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad>) (Note: Its not completely related, but its just that the Sketchpad seemed to me much more advanced than what had Stevy here so excited) ~~~ jonhendry Hell, NeXT was founded 25 years ago. ------ itblarg Hilarious. Is this real? ~~~ rpeden I can't find a source at the moment, but I remember reading more about this a few years back. IIRC it was made as a joke for an internal company conference, or something along those lines. ------ antipaganda wait... I had that clock on my Amiga 500! And Reversi! And notepad! ...or something like it. So what gives? ------ jared314 Reminds me of the old SNL Bassomatic skit. ------ danilocampos Good old Microsoft — selling features instead of benefits. Some things never change. It's a shock that the same company who brought us Windows could also make the Xbox. Without J. Allard, I worry about its future.

Ask HN: How did you solve the "developing on multiple machines" problem? - Eduard I have several computers (a desktop computer, a laptop, etc.). I'm developing with Eclipse, using a bunch of plug-ins.<p>It's a time-waster to synchronize my development environment between all my machines. Usually, I develop on my desktop computer. Whenever I'm "on the road", I first have to configure my laptop Eclipse setup - reflecting the current setup of my desktop computer (including custom views, custom hotkeys, esoteric plug-ins etc.).<p>What is your solution to the "personal (integrated) development environment on multiple machines" problem? Which related problems are you facing? ====== dwc I use Vim. Most of the fancy IDE features are one of a) already there if you know where to look, b) available in one or more plugins, or c) not actually as useful as you've been lead to believe. Seriously. My setup is something you can put on a thumb drive, or better yet put it in source control and sync whenever you like. Much or all of this applies to Emacs. I realize that some people will never be happy with Vim or Emacs and really want a big GUI IDE. That's ok, too. ------ dlikhten Well, Eclipse, unlike intellij, has a special workspace directory, you can sync that baby up using dropbox/aerofs. I use intellij/rubymine (jetbrains) and the advantage is that I pretty much check in my configurations along with my repo. Good stuff. ~~~ Eduard Eclipse plug-ins are usually located in the plugins folder of the Eclipse installation. Do you mean there is a "special workspace directory" that could contain all sorts of plugins?

What’s New with “The Rust Programming Language”? - doppp http://words.steveklabnik.com/whats-new-with-the-rust-programming-language ====== EduardoBautista I really like Rust. As someone who never had a formal computer science education, the early version of this book helped me understand how programs handled memory in a way that no other resource has been able to. I started looking at my Ruby programs and would focus on trying to reduce the amount of memory allocations in order to improve performance, and it worked. Even though I don't think I am going to use Rust in a production environment soon, it taught me to think about my code in a new way. It definitely is a language that everyone should take the time to learn. ~~~ steveklabnik I am really glad to hear it. One of the reasons I had made the Ruby -> Rust jump fairly easily was that I'd been programming in C for most of my life, and got a BS in CS. But I also know that a _ton_ of people have not. So it's really really important to both me and the Rust team broadly that we make Rust accessible to this crowd. (I also agree with you with going back to Ruby; I look at my code now and go "oh no so many allocations" "oh no is this threadsafe I have no idea" :) I will still always love Ruby though. ) ------ ardit33 I have a serious question: Is anybody using Rust in production? I mean, I have seen so many countless blogs about it, but I have yet to hear it being used seriously. At this point it looks like it is just a lot noise/marketing but no real large scale deployments yet and why is this? ~~~ pornel FWIW, I'm using it for [https://imageoptim.com/api](https://imageoptim.com/api) — it's an image compression API. Rust is at its very core (with high-level fluff in NodeJS). It's not large scale yet, but that's only because I'm just starting. Rust is working great. It's stable and reliable. I don't love Cargo, but it's still _sooo_ much better than autotools. I've got efficiency I need for pixel-pushing, and I'm not worried that an off- by-one error will get my servers owned. ~~~ namelezz Why don't you like Cargo? Do you use pure Rust or have FFIs to C libs? ------ jat850 Steve, TRPL has proven a fantastic resource for learning Rust. I'm wondering if you have a plan for how it will track the advancement of the Rust language itself - do you intend to maintain a version of the book for major point releases of Rust, minor point releases, etc? I wish I could cite some specific examples but I didn't keep notes, but I think I've come across a a few instances where, say, something behaved differently in Rust 1.10 versus Rust 1.12. Will the book attempt to tackle this? ~~~ steveklabnik This is a great question, with a lot of details. So, let's start from the beginning. In a sense, there _is_ a version for each version of the language: * https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.8.0/book/ * https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.9.0/book/ * https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.10.0/book/ etc. Since the current book is stored in-tree, this is just part of the regular release cycle. That said, I haven't been working on the book because I've been working on the new book, so it's largely the same, just with some typos. The second bit is, thanks to the stability guarantees, these days, the book doesn't really go out of date. Everything works. That said, there are sometimes new features added that it doesn't always cover; this is really tricky in general. There's an overall tension here, since it's an official project: I feel the need to be comprehensive, yet a good text is often defined just as much by what you leave out as what you put in. So the book tries to be _mostly_ comprehensive, but not totally so. So it's okay if new features aren't immediately in the book. This also ties into Rust itself, and something the team has been thinking a lot about. With most languages, you have major releases in order to sort of chronicle the language through history: new idioms, new features, etc. With our release schedule, and no plans to make a "2.0, major breaking changes everything is different" release, we don't have that normal point to tell the story of how Rust is changing. So I can imagine that major updates to the book will happen along these same "epochs", as Rust changes over time. We're still trying to figure that all out, though. But the key is that many Rust releases aren't game-changing: only some features actually change idioms. Finally, No Starch will be publishing the book in paper form. So there's also the question of that, but at the moment, we're mostly interested in shipping this one, but everyone is on board with _some_ sort of periodic refresh of the printed edition as well. We'll see how it goes. Does that make sense? ~~~ ronjouch Related: I understand the versions hosted at doc.rust-lang.org you mention above, but what's about the version linked in your post? ( [http://rust- lang.github.io/book/](http://rust-lang.github.io/book/) ). It's what's in master right now, right? EDIT ah, [https://github.com/rust-lang/book](https://github.com/rust- lang/book) clarifies this, it's a rewrite, and is not (yet) part of the main Rust repository. ~~~ steveklabnik The version hosted on docs.rust-lang.org is the current edition of the book, whose source is in-tree. [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/tree/master/src/doc/book](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/tree/master/src/doc/book) In order to not trash the book while we're doing the re-write, we've moved it to a new repository, which is the one you've linked. When the new book is ready, we will either merge it into `src/doc/book` or remove the book from the main repository and use rust-lang/book as the new official source, it's not totally clear yet which. ~~~ carols10cents > When the new book is ready, we will either merge it into `src/doc/book` or > remove the book from the main repository and use rust-lang/book as the new > official source, it's not totally clear yet which. Also, no matter which of these two options we choose, we still plan to ship the book inside installations of Rust for offline reading, and host the book on docs.rust-lang.org. ------ steveklabnik Hi all! As always, happy to answer questions here. ~~~ kevinmgranger The Rust Programming Language remains as one of the best introductions I've had to a new programming language. I thank you for your work on it. ~~~ bluejekyll Yes, and the work on the documentation in general. It's amazing. So many other young languages are crap in this area, even mature ones. I think the thing that makes Rust amazing is that it's young, and yet well documented, making it easier to get started. Can't thank you enough, nice work. ------ doppp Has anyone used Rust for game development? I know about the Piston engine but has anyone successfully released a commercial game on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux with it or is it still pretty much an academic endeavour to make games in Rust? ~~~ rsaarelm I've been developing a hobby game engine and did a 7-day roguelike with it last year: [https://github.com/rsaarelm/phage](https://github.com/rsaarelm/phage) I'd say it's about on par with C++, effort-wise. Big learning curve to get something as complex as a game off the ground, and you need to think about the design, but I can't think of many long-term annoyances. The ecosystem is still sparse, so viable game projects will probably skew towards 2D and otherwise modest scale. ------ dman One feature request - could the book be made available in info format so that its idiomatically integrated into emacs? ~~~ steveklabnik Is there a good markdown -> info converter? I don't use emacs. ~~~ dbaupp The default answer for "is there a X to Y?" converter for text formats is pandoc, so one could possibly go markdown -(pandoc)-> texinfo -(makeinfo)-> info. I do not know if this is sufficiently high fidelity. ~~~ dman Will give this pipeline a shot and see what the results look like. ------ seeekr OT/typo: "and I’m proud to have her name next time mine on the cover" should have -time and +to. Keep up the good work! ~~~ steveklabnik Gah, thanks!

What the Public Knows About Cybersecurity - rrdharan http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/22/what-the-public-knows-about-cybersecurity/ ====== chha Non-IT friends tend to see me as somewhat paranoid when they notice me using 2FA or VPN's, but I was actually surprised people knew this much.

Color e-book devices coming from E Ink in 2011 - waderoush http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/03/15/new-e-ink-leader-sees-colorful-future-for-company-under-taiwans-prime-view-international/ ====== Xichekolas E Ink's big problem is the Mirasol technology that Qualcomm has. Mirasol supposedly has better power usage characteristics than E Ink, and does color and full-motion video to boot. It's also basically ready now, with Qualcomm promising both 5.7 and 10.5 inch tablet/readers using the display by the holiday season. To see the Mirasol in action: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmpBgaPGYKQ&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmpBgaPGYKQ&feature=player_embedded) The rumor is that this is the display that will be found in the next Kindle, but who knows for sure. ~~~ elblanco Thanks for linking to Mirasol, I hadn't heard of it before and am now terribly excited. I think E-Inks main problems are two-fold: 1) It took _forever_ to come to market in any meaningful way. I think I remember reading about it in the mid 90's if I'm correct. 2) It cost too much once it did come to market. I'd expect an 8.5"x11" display capable of showing PDFs to cost a fraction of what they do now. okay, actually three-fold 3) It's dead slow and leaves artifacts all over the place unless you do an annoying blank out of the entire display area. There's plenty of room for B&W digital paper displays in today's world, but it just seems to have come out all wrong, too late and too much money for the industry to stick with it. E Ink just won't be able to keep up with the technology demands of the market space it seems to have created. ~~~ berntb The slow update is my main problem with E-Ink. I want to browse and make notes in documents/code on an A4-sized screen which is as easy to read as paper. (Preferably sized as two A4. Color and video would be nice, but optional. Minimal power need also optional.) I don't really care if Pixel Qi, E-Ink, Mirasol or one of the others solves this, but is seems I'll finally be able to buy one in less than a year.

Sharing Salary Figures on Facebook - chaostheory http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/fashion/27salary.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin ====== jeremytliles When I was getting my MBA, one of my professors discussed the idea of a workplace where everyone's compensation was disclosed. The basic conclusion of the discussion was that since there are virtually no workplaces in which compensation is truly tied to value (and value is impossible to measure anyway), knowing what co-workers make will always lead to morale issues. As far as friends go, I think we will experience feelings of resentment, jealously, inferiority, or superiority to a lesser degree than with coworkers, and are more likely to be happy for a friend who is compensated above what we see as her perceived value, and more willing to try to help someonse who is compensated below what we see as her perceived value. This is at least partly because we are not competing for pieces of the same pie as we are in the workplace. ~~~ ryanmahoski As the number of measurable work metrics increases, it becomes (roughly) exponentially more difficult to assess employee net value. If we can triangulate this measured value, we still may have immeasurable metrics--which will always break the formula. To the extent compensation is tied to immeasurable quantities, all employees should resent the system as unfairly hackable. Some work systems are possible to measure and thus compensation may be formulaic and (roughly) just. For example, if I offered you a monetary reward to enter a boolean into a form, you either do the work (by entering a 1 or 0) or you don't. With Mechanical Turk, I can design complex algorithms with failsafe controls that will objectively assess and reward worker value. To the degree I can describe real-world problems and automate inputs and outputs, I can build an efficient and viable organization. Is a fair, transparent system intrinsically "happier"? I am not sure, but I do know the wealth creation potential here is massive. ------ hugh Is this a real trend, or just another trend made up by the New York Times to fill in space? ~~~ simianstyle The only other company that I know that does this is Whole Foods Stores. Each store has all the salaries listed up for all the employees to portray a completely transparent display of trust. However, i'm not quite convinced that it works.

Safety Implications of Serialization Timing in Autonomous Vehicles [pdf] - blahblahblah1 https://polysync.io/download/polysync-safety_and_serialization.pdf ====== jjj777 I don't get the context for this paper. Normally in a mission/safety critical system you're looking to determine the worst-case latency from stimulus- response. This means you: 1\. Determine the worst-case execution time of the software on your system (all components, including ISRs) 2\. Do scheduling analysis (e.g. construct a static cyclic schedule, use a priority preemptive scheduler and do Response Time Analysis). 3\. Do scheduling analysis for the network (e.g. using CAN you can apply Response Time Analysis to get worst-case latencies). 4\. Do system- wide analysis (e.g. using Holistic Scheduling) to get the end-to-end latencies. Then check these against the requirements. This is particularly important in TMR systems where you need all three channels to produce results in order for voting to take place - a late result = a serious fault condition. So I don't get why there's this focus on average performance of this algorithm rather than looking for a deterministic algorithm with good low bounds. It also seems that the message sizes depends on the algorithm itself: that also needs to be bounded to be able to analyze the communications system to determine worst-case latencies (this is of course crucial if a static time- triggered communications bus like FlexRay is being used). The paper mentions that Linux is used to conduct the tests. But what's the actual target platform? A microcontroller with a cyclic schedule or an RTOS with priority pre-emption? If the latter, what does the schedulability analysis look like? If the former, what does the cyclic schedule look like? What's the communications architecture look like? Is it switch-based like AFDX? Or a CSMA/CA bus like CAN? Or a TDMA bus like FlexRay? What's the timing analysis look like for the communications? ~~~ zackpierce Hello, and thanks for the feedback. What you have described is absolutely the reasonable and traditional approach for designing a solution for a particular critical hard real-time system. The context is that broad serialization technology decisions for autonomous vehicles are being considered outside of the focused engineering process for specific critical systems. For example, when middleware or integration frameworks come up (often with an eye toward being imposed top-down for many systems), consideration of serialization technology and its implications for performance seems to occupy an unfortunately small portion of the analysis. This paper attempts to send the relatively simple message that "yes, serialization tech choice matters" to decision makers for whom it may not be apparent. Also, to highlight that there's a need to pay attention to messaging performance even outside of the hard-realtime parts of an autonomous vehicle. In retrospect, you're right that more detailed bounds analysis rather than relying on the relatively facile use of means (outside of the minimal outlier visualization in the boxplot) would have been a good addition to the paper. Thanks again! ------ jjj777 OK, I get it now. Quite surprising that serialisation is a key performance issue. But then again, pushing signals in and out of CAN frames is also a key performance feature in regular ECUs so I guess that's a universal issue with all sensor/control/actuator systems. Finding the WCET used to be about cycle accurate models but that's long been blown away by the complexity of real hardware. But there's quite a good bit of work on how to instrument real hardware and then pick up key subpaths measurements to assemble into a good bound. These guys have been doing this for a few years now and have a good tool: [https://www.rapitasystems.com/products/rapitime](https://www.rapitasystems.com/products/rapitime) ------ zackpierce Primary author here, should be able to address questions that arise.

Quickly review changed methods and functions in your pull requests - stablemap https://github.com/blog/2407-quickly-review-changed-methods-and-functions-in-your-pull-requests ====== zachrose This sounds like a step in a good direction. IMHO diff-based code review creates distorted incentives. Moving large pieces of code around feels harder to review, and adding an extra line or two feels easier to review. In the long term, this drives codebases in the wrong direction. (That 900-line method got there through hundreds of innocuous- looking PRs.) I hope eventually we get tools that make refactorings easy to review. I don't know what that would look like, or how well this can be done in today's languages, but there's room for improvement. ~~~ sdesol Having talked to both Microsoft and GitHub, I get the impression that intelligent code reviews, is an area of great interest for both companies. In the near future (~2 years), I can see us starting to review code in both the traditional way (line diffs) and in a more intelligent way (semantically and by code change impact). For example, if you moved a function 50 lines down and changed a string variable in that function, you'll be able to review and discuss the code changes like so: Semantic changes - Moved function FOO with public scope 50 lines down - Updated string variable FOO with public scope in function FOO Change impact - Moving function FOO 50 lines down does not change its scope. - Lines 56 and 30 in files X and Y in repositories Q and Z, reference the BAR variable. - Open pull request #35, contains FOO function changes as well. - Active releases 1.x and 2.x do not have these changes. The basic idea is, instead of only being able to review and comment on the lines changed, I fully expect us to be able to discuss their impact as well. ------ apeace I hope Github introduces this to the main code browser as well, not just PRs. I very often clone repos just so that I can open the code in an IDE, CTRL+Click a method and jump to its definition. It would be neat if Github had IDE-like features (but without becoming a platform for editing--just viewing!) ~~~ alimoeeny sourcegraph.com is your friend, at least for some languages. ------ nikic Tangentially related, my number one feature request for GitHub would be support for cross-referencing (a la Opengrok) in the code browser. Browsing through project code without a local checkout is one of the main things I do on GitHub, but it's not very ergonomic without cross-referencing. (I also realize that this is much to ask for, considering how much time Opengrok takes to index large codebases.) ~~~ michaelmior Sourcegraph[0] has a Chrome extension which provides a version of this feature. [0] [https://sourcegraph.com](https://sourcegraph.com) ~~~ sqs Sourcegraph founder here. The Chrome extension direct link is [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for- gi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sourcegraph-for- github/dgjhfomjieaadpoljlnidmbgkdffpack?hl=en). Thanks for the mention! ------ tedmiston > Searching the file finder for a method or function in a Go, JavaScript, > Ruby, or TypeScript file will provide you with a timeline-style view of the > results, so you can skip to the most impactful parts of a pull request. It would be awesome to hear a timeline for rolling this out to more languages, especially Python. ------ bcherny I wonder how the Souregraph guys feel about Github getting into their territory.. ~~~ sqs Sourcegraph founder here. We love it. The more developers who are using code intelligence in their tools, the better the language support will be for all the various languages and repositories out there. That's good for developers everywhere, and we (Sourcegraph) could never build it all alone. Our master plan at [https://sourcegraph.com/plan](https://sourcegraph.com/plan) describes what we're building on top of these basic "code intelligence" primitives, to help developers in all of their dev tools (not just GitHub), in all of their workflow, and in companies that have lots of code. And just like GitHub, we let people use these things for free on open-source so they can see how useful they are. ------ petetnt Nice addition! If anyone at GitHub is reading this, the dropdown cannot be keyboard navigated because the dropdown doesn't scroll with the focus. ------ pmoriarty Can magit do this for code outside of github? ~~~ cosmicexplorer Actually not sure how to do this with magit, but I just tried `vc-region- history' while highlighting an R method signature and body and got a pretty slick view of all the relevant commits. Would definitely prefer magit for jumping to commits, might take a few lines of elisp. EDIT: Actually, [0] mentions =L, which seems to work flawlessly. Hacking on an option to take the selected region instead of manually specifying file and lines is easy. Alternatively, magit-blame lets you look at a specific change's commit. [0] [https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/1717](https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/1717)

Our first $100,000 Month and the Hacker News discussion from a year ago - localcasestudy http://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1dy1i0/one_year_anniversary_of_my_first_post_and_we_just/ Thought it would be interesting to stop back and show what we've done. ====== josephagoss Impressive. Being open about the journey and giving ideas and hope to others is very commendable. Also $100,000 a month from a company that couldn't scale like a software company is really cool. I think more Hacker news people should worry a bit less about 'scaling' and getting a good product going first and foremost. ~~~ localcasestudy Thanks man, really appreciate it. It's been a fun ride! You're absolutely right. I think, "will it scale" is often a fairly silly question when you think about it. Not every company has to become a billion dollar company to be successful. And while scaling geographically is great, one can create a model that goes deep instead of going wide, and for a local business this could mean totally dominating a city with multiple verticals. Either way, "will it scale" shouldn't be the question. "Will it sell?" is more important, especially for a boot-strapped company.

Show HN: Shakti.sh: Arthur Whitney's latest K version (k9) - jloveless https://shakti.sh/ ====== jloveless Includes new FFI interface. node.js , C and python. See (limited docs) [https://shakti.sh/ffi/_.d](https://shakti.sh/ffi/_.d)

Meditations on Moloch (Coordination Problems) - arikr https://archive.fo/Yiryp ====== arikr Using the archive.is link because the current version of the post has some edits from the original.

Ask HN: How do you learn a new language or library? - eric-hu I've been reading through the Backbone.js source code this week. While it's been a good exercise for my javascript-fu, it does feel pretty dull at times. I'm forcing myself to power through all of it because I know that I can't really form ideas with tools I'm unfamiliar with.<p>So, out of curiosity, how do you learn a new language or library? What's been most effective? Has that changed over time? ====== saiko-chriskun I don't really see why I'd take the time to learn a new language or library if it seemed dull to me. ------ tjr Make something with it.

Shapeoko forums and wiki hacked – obfuscated PHP found, we're trying to reverse - justinclift http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7659 ====== justinclift Is anyone around with experience reversing obfuscated PHP code? We're trying to figure out what the code implanted by some hacker types in our forum pages does: http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7659 Initial reversing of code here by jacob32123, one of our Community members: http://pastebin.com/U6qwqhSX (line 221+ has more decoded info) If people are around with interest in this kind of thing, and time to assist... it would be really helpful. :) http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7659&start=10#p60550

Class-action settlement against Paypal - alphydan https://www.accountholdsettlement.com/ ====== teslabox Paypal closed my account a few years ago - my friend panicked when her own account was closed, and ended up taking me with her. Looks like I'll get $3 as a result of this class action lawsuit.

Can American soil be brought back to life? - clumsysmurf http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/soil-health-agriculture-trend-usda-000513 ====== oldandtired Like a lot of things, soil infertility is a symptom of a much larger societal problem. Within society, there are many different competing groups that have "the answer". Progressives want a specific list, conservatives want another list, city dwellers want a list (irrespective of being progressive or conservative), country dwellers want another, business owners want their own list, workers want another, government wants a list, law enforcement wants one, radicals want one, etc., stc., etc. All of these lists of wants are at cross purposes. All of it is based on self- interest. Very little of it is based on a wider responsibility for all citizens and the country that supports them. This won't change as people won't give up on their list of wants. The attitude of "us and them" just reinforces the basic problems. Is there a solution? Most certainly. But it requires a change in the basic attitudes of every citizen and most will object to having to face who and what they are. When a society is focus on "rights" instead of responsibilities then the society loses its ability to think in the large. When a government is focussed on it continuation and power it loses sight of its responsibility to build society. There is no short term solution that is a quick fix. In the case of America, it is heading down the path of civil war and devastation because pretty well every level in the American society is in the mindset of "them and us". This is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes. Law enforcement has forgotten that they are there to serve and protect the citizenry and not themselves. Government is self-serving. Corporations are treating their customers as slaves and a resource to control. The general population is focussed on their own little problems of day to day self-gratification. ~~~ AdamCraven You've hit the problem on its head, but the solution is not to try and change people's behaviour on a large scale, but to incentivise based on the self- interest you've mentioned. From the consumers perspective, there is little indication as to the quality of soil something has been grown in. But there must be an effect on the plant itself if it is grown in poor soil in the form of lower macro, trace minerals and other indicators of plant health detectable within the plant. Like the organic standards that cover production methods, we need an opt-in food quality standard. If plants were tested after production for indicators of plant health and labels could be put on vegetables indicating quality. Self-interest of the consumers buying higher quality foods would quickly incentivise farmers into increasing plant quality, which in turn will correct our soil. ~~~ oldandtired I grew up in an area in which the major crop was sugar cane. Some years ago (15 or so), I was talking to my father about the fertility of the soil in the area. He passed onto me a conversation he had had with one of his farmer friends. He was told that the soil was totally infertile and was only there to hold up the cane. All nutrients came from fertiliser that they put into the soil. In this case, the results is sugar which you can't tell how good the plant is. There have been a number of farmers over the years in that area who did crop rotation and field resting. But they were far and few between. In other areas, they are using recycling methods to put organic matter back into their fields. However, this is not common, even though there are groups of farmers who see the benefit of these processes for themselves and the surrounding environment. Part of an education process that we undertake with our young people is for them to understand where food comes from, including when we have the opportunity to teach them gardening (vegetables), animal husbandry and the killing, dressing and butchering of animals for food (sheep and goats). Some take the lessons well, some do not. But they do start to understand where their food comes from. Too many people have no idea of what is needed to produce the food they consume. No idea. Testing foods can be quite simple. The taste of good quality well grown food (meat, vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, etc.) is quite different to those that are grown in the common farming practices of today. I am currently enjoying eating 7-8 year old mutton and it is better than the best spring lamb that I have had. They ate and they wandered and were not stressed. ~~~ dennis_jeeves >I am currently enjoying eating 7-8 year old mutton and it is better than the best spring lamb that I have had. Where do you get this? ~~~ oldandtired The sheep were originally given to me by people who just wanted to get rid of them, I still have a goat that was originally intended for someone else and I had been asked if I could look after it for a few weeks. The person who was to receive it moved into a nursing home and it was subsequently given to me. My 6 year old granddaughter has been keen to be involved with doing the goat, which I'll be doing later. If the weather is still cold when I get back from visiting my parents, I'll be looking at doing it then. In the meantime, he will be fattened up as much as possible. I have 2 acres just on the edge of town and for many years, we have run some level of stock on it. All of the various beasts have ended up in my freezer. The last lot I killed, dressed and butchered myself (with the help of a number of young people) out of necessity as no butcher would come in for just 3 sheep. As the sheep had little need to run anywhere and had luscious feed, they turned out to be so tender. I did try to source some more via the local butchers, but found that would be extremely expensive as most of the sheep are culled for lamb and not kept for wool in our region. If you ask around, you might find some appropriate beasts that you can get cheaply (whether that be steers, goat or sheep). Though you may find getting them to the abattoir and then to the butcher somewhat expensive. ------ escape_goat > The federal crop insurance program is based on farmers planting the same > crop in the same place each year to have a record for production, and it is > not flexible enough to account for practices like cover crops. If you want to take an actionable item away from this article that fits (potentially) the skillsets of your friends and neighbours on Hacker News, it is this one. This is a data problem and an actuarial problem. Solving it can result in net social benefit disproportionate to the investment in infrastructure, politicial capital (to change legislation), and (already existing) government programs required. I don't know if, politically, there are any groups who would be organized to swing into action in opposition to federal crop insurance reform, but they or any who may shake out of the math (presumably there's some practices and crops _cough_ corn that benefit from less information, relatively speaking) have an uphill battle to fight against a variety of constituent-motivating narratives. It's hard to argue against big government spending when tens of millions of dollars is at stake. ~~~ 24gttghh So, after the Dust Bowl, there were all kinds of things promoted by the Federal Gov't like crop rotation, contour farming, and planting wind breaks to keep the soil from blowing away. When did we forget that lesson? And I looked up what I think is an actual rule regarding Crop Rotation when it comes to the FCIC[0]: >(B) ASSIGNED YIELD.—If the producer does not provide satisfactory evidence of the yield of a commodity under subparagraph (A), the producer shall be assigned— (i) a yield that is not less than 65 percent of the transitional yield of the producer (adjusted to reflect actual production reflected in the records acceptable to the Corporation for continuous years), as specified in regulations issued by the Corporation based on production history requirements; (ii) a yield determined by the Corporation, in the case of— (I) a producer that has not had a share of the production of the insured crop for more than two crop years, as determined by the Secretary; (II) a producer that produces an agricultural commodity on land that has not been farmed by the producer; or _(III) a producer that rotates a crop produced on a farm to a crop that has not been produced on the farm;_ Just search the doc for "rotate". It is only mentioned once. I think the FCIC only applies to wheat and some other grains. [0][https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/75-30%20-%2...](https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/75-30%20-%20Agricultural%20Adjustment%20Act%20Of%201938%20&%20Federal%20Crop%20Insurance%20Act1.pdf) ------ exDM69 I recently took part in a course on doing farm work with horses. It was a large garden where all the farm work had been done exclusively with horses for about 10 years, after decades of using tractors. The tractors had turned the soil into hard, clumpy clay which yielded bad crops and required more and more fertilizers every year. In about a decade of using horses, manure and traditional methods, the topsoil had turned nice and soft and nutrient-rich. Not at all like the hard clay my grandparents' farm and the owners of the garden were more than happy with the results. Working with horses was slow, hard and laborious work but it was a lot of fun! Much more fun than doing the same with tractors (which I also think is quite fun). Unfortunately, going back to horses or oxen never going to be viable in a large scale. The recent trends in agriculture have been making machines larger and larger to reduce the amount of labor required, causing the soil to be packed even harder, requiring more tilling for the next crop. Maybe autonomous farm equipment could reverse the trend, as machines could be made smaller without increasing the amount of human labor. ~~~ roel_v "The tractors had turned the soil into hard, clumpy clay which yielded bad crops and required more and more fertilizers every year." Mechanization is of course the main driver of soil compaction, but here too there are advances in technology that mitigate issues without having to revert back to horses (or needing revolutions like swarms of small autonomous bots). For example, soil compaction can be reduced to the point where it doesn't affect plant growth significantly any more by using the correct tire pressure on tractors; i.e. (much) lower pressure when the tractor is on the field. But those pressures are not suitable for riding on roads or longer distances, so many farmers (actually, generally the contractor doing the work, although this varies by region/country) don't deflate their tires because it takes so much time to adjust them every time. So, modern tractors have automatic inflate/deflate installations, making it much easier to use the right pressure for every task and on every soil type. Of course this costs extra, so you still need to convince people of the need for it, and enforce the habit on those actually doing the work. ~~~ dsfyu404ed It's not practical to deflate a liquid filled tire. Most tractors run liquid filled tires for weight/traction. ~~~ roel_v Not sure if you're saying I'm just making things up - here are some of the first links off a quick google: \- [http://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/tractor-tyres-make-sure- your-...](http://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/tractor-tyres-make-sure-your- pressures-are-right.htm) \- [https://www.agribrink.com/](https://www.agribrink.com/) \- [http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/field/news/croptal...](http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/field/news/croptalk/2013/ct-1113a1.htm) Now I'm not a soil scientist, but I am a programmer who's for the last year or so been programming models for assessing soil threat risks, including soil compaction (one of the biggest soil threats in agriculture); and work with some of the world's foremost expert scientists in this field, as well as with representatives of e.g. machine manufacturers. They all say that compaction is mostly due to increases in weight of machinery, and that proper tire pressure is the most important mitigation measure we have available. Liquid-filled tires are never mentioned in this context, it's a rarity. You claim that 'most' tractors run liquid filled tires - I'm not sure what you're basing that on, or what locality you're talking about, but while I do not have any numbers at hand, I have never heard of this being something other than an incidental thing. For example, the Michelin site ([http://agricultural.michelinman.com/us/Properly-use-your- tir...](http://agricultural.michelinman.com/us/Properly-use-your- tires/Ballasting-tyres-for-better-use)) mentions it as a possibility, but not as something that 'most' tractors would have. ------ AFNobody Well the obvious answer is "Yes" but I am honestly uncertain whether it can be done while maintaining current profit margins which is was always the _real issue_. A well-educated farmer, focused on a plot of land that is meant to be kept for generations without a profit focus can certainly do it. I suspect if you try to scale this process up, the issue is its more expensive if you were a corporation who has to pay a better educated class of labor to maintain soil quality. Till, fertilize, water is alot simpler than trying to build an ecosystem that spans a 4000 acre plot of land. I think until society values externalities more accurately, it is unlikely to catch on like so many other things that cost even a tenth of a percent of the overall corporate profit margin. ~~~ QAPereo This is also a society that happily wastes a vast amount of food which is produced based on conformity issues, and other nonsense designed to maximize profits in supermarkets. At every level, we’re deeply complicit, and our revealed preferences are clear. ~~~ AFNobody I think the majority's preferences as a society is clear. I also believe there is a substantial minority that would prefer a more sustainable approach to many things in the interest of long term sustainability. The reality is our level of infrastructure spending, to the way we produce power, to the condition of the majority of the arable land is fundamentally unsustainable for more than another 50 years without substantial technological change. This does not even get into climate change related impacts on agriculture. ~~~ WalterBright We've historically often engaged in unsustainable practices, like: 1\. hunting whales for lamp oil 2\. cutting down trees for fuel to make glass and build ships 3\. using natural rubber 4\. no sanitation in the cities 5\. using horses for transportation 6\. using well water in cities As these became unsustainable, alternatives were discovered and developed. ~~~ jacobolus Or in some cases they weren’t, and civilizations collapsed. ~~~ pdfernhout To support your point: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse#Theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse#Theories) ------ jfarlow Check out Trace Genomics [1] for a new company at QB3 that is taking a stab at quantifying what organisms are part of a particular farm's microbiome. They sequence the DNA of everything in a given soil sample, then figure out who's DNA is who's - providing a snapshot of what life is living in that soil. And with enough snapshots, a farmer can actually start to develop a quantitative picture of the web of inhabitants in a given parcel of land. And then act on that information. [1] [https://www.tracegenomics.com](https://www.tracegenomics.com) ------ Twirrim What's somewhat amusing is this is essentially talking about a variation on the four course crop rotation, a farming practice that dates back to the 17th century, and at one stage dominated the farming practices of Europe. from [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norfolk-four-course- system](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norfolk-four-course-system) > In the Norfolk four-course system, wheat was grown in the first year, > turnips in the second, followed by barley, with clover and ryegrass > undersown, in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed > in the fourth year. The turnips were used for feeding cattle and sheep in > the winter. This new system was cumulative in effect, for the fodder crops > eaten by the livestock produced large supplies of previously scarce animal > manure, which in turn was richer because the animals were better fed. When > the sheep grazed the fields, their waste fertilized the soil, promoting > heavier cereal yields in following years. ~~~ stinos > dates back to the 17th century Note that crop rotation itself (2 course/3 course) is much, much older. And Wikipedia claims it was first done in the 16th century in what now is Belgium. Actually, there are a bunch of things presented as 'new' in the article while I read nothing which I never read before, and many of the solutions bascialy come down to 'do it as our ancestors did it' so it's not all that new either. The vast scale of it though is new. And the rigid economic system attached to it. ~~~ Twirrim 2 course / 3 course used to rely on fallow periods, IIRC, though it's been more than 20 years since I covered this in school :) What's so significant about all this stuff is that this agrarian revolution lead to greater food productivity, increasing populations, and started to increase the labour pool available for other tasks. This stuff basically kick started the eventual industrial revolution. That's part of why it's so strange to see it coming around again ------ seiferteric What about the fact that our agriculture system is (mostly) open loop? Every time you harvest food and consume it, where do the waste products end up? I think we need to also work on closing this loop. ~~~ abhinavkulkarni @seiferteric: Can you please explain this more? I don't quite understand what you mean by 'open loop'. Thanks. ~~~ mikekchar Not the OP, but essentially you take vegetables out of a field. You eat the vegetables. You poop. Your poop ends up in a sewage treatment plant. Nothing ends up back in the field. Instead we add fertilisers that we have mined out of the earth for the macro nutrients. It's not just sewage either. Every time you till the earth, you expose it to the air. This oxidises the minerals and often makes them unavailable for the plants. Because the fertiliser we add is very water soluble it drains through the water table and ends up in the rivers and eventually washes out to sea (or just clogs the rivers with algae). Tilling and pesticides also kill the organisms that are responsible for moving nutrients around under the earth. Additionally, we tend to plant mono-culture crops with short root structures. This stops a variety of plants from breaking down nutrients in the soil and moving them to the top layer of humus. So either we till deeper (exacerbating the problem) or we essentially lock all of the nutrients below the level that the plants can access. In the end, you basically are slowly extracting all of the bioavailable nutrients out of the soil, and depositing them in the sewage treatment fields. At the same time you are oxidising what's left and washing everything else out to the sea. Any fertility that remains is below the access of the plant roots (and probably not in a form that can be utilised right away). "Closing the loop" means looking at the places where we are losing fertility and making sure that it is looping back. So, if you take nutrients out in the form of food, we return it in the form of sewage. You avoid tilling and you plant a variety of crop varieties that circulate the nutrients in the soil layer. You avoid adding highly water soluble salts that simply leach out of the soil and into the water table. It sounds simple-ish, but it's actually quite a bit challenge. We don't really do a lot of research in this area (as far as I can tell). Most agricultural research is geared toward increasing yields and reducing costs as opposed to sustainability. ~~~ oldandtired It is not just a bit of a challenge, it is a huge challenge that requires so many things to change in the infrastructure. There are many who have researched this problem and have published their results. But it requires some expense which many of the farmers cannot afford and certainly the corporations that control the various associated industries don't want to put funds into as it would drastically reduce their control and profits. ------ wavefunction I am doing my part in my backyard as I'm fortunate to live in an extra- judicial territory of my municipality so the regulations are sparse at the moment. Mulch, sun and water. I also dug a large bio-char pit I've been using to reduce wood-stuff into carbon and potash. I am eventually going to ammoniate these products and redistribute throughout the plot. I also underestimated the biochar hell-pit and buried and hosed-down a hot- burning pyre and one week later woke up to a tendril of smoke curling up from the pit which later turned back into a fire with additional fuel. I found it alarming and remarkable so be sure to be safe with pyrolysis, folks! ~~~ Sophistifunk I would like to know more about this "bio-char pit" could you point me to a URL or three? ~~~ debacle A good video series on the topic: [http://skillcult.com/biochar-and-charcoal/](http://skillcult.com/biochar-and- charcoal/) ~~~ Sophistifunk Thanks! ------ kwhitefoot > Promoting soil health comes down to three basic practices: Make sure the > soil is covered with plants at all times, diversify what it grows and don’t > disrupt it. What this means in practice is rotating crops, so fields aren’t > trying to support the same plant year after year. And it means using > techniques like “cover-cropping”–planting a secondary plant like grasses, > legumes or vegetables–between rows of crops or on other exposed soil instead > of leaving it bare. This is hardly news. How come Norfolk crop rotation has been 'forgotten'? See this Britannica article: [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norfolk-four- course-system](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Norfolk-four-course-system) ------ bostik Regenerating soil is nothing new, really. The Amazonian tribes learned how to cultivate a rich black soil[0] long time ago. There is ongoing research on how to make that work again on an industrial scale - and with sufficiently short timespans. The article mentions that even common composting helps, but the problem tends to be how to prevent it from running off. No wonder. As anything in biology, soil regeneration takes time. Having your fresh biomass flow elsewhere runs counter to the purpose. 0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta) ~~~ sigmaprimus I agree this is nothing new, and although I tend to believe that no till is an essential part of healing the soil it will not work alone if nothing is done to break up the agricultural economic complex controlled by the multinational companies only interested in profit. A good book published in 1975 written by Masanobu Fukuoka called "One Straw Revolution" is very informative on this subject easy reading and obtainable for free by searching it's title followed by .pdf in your favorite S.E. ------ pdfernhout It's long been known how to fix soil; see for example from 1987: "Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach" by R.W. Widdowson: [https://www.elsevier.com/books/towards-holistic- agriculture/...](https://www.elsevier.com/books/towards-holistic- agriculture/widdowson/978-0-08-034211-5) Or from 1911: [https://permaculturenews.org/files/farmers_of_forty_centurie...](https://permaculturenews.org/files/farmers_of_forty_centuries.pdf) More: [http://soilandhealth.org/](http://soilandhealth.org/) Adding rock dust works wonders too: [https://remineralize.org/](https://remineralize.org/) My wife and I wrote a FOSS garden simulator in the 1990s (a six+ person-year labor of love) to help people understand some of this: [http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/summary_gwi.html](http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/summary_gwi.html) I got the idea while working as the Program Administrator on summer for the NOFA-NJ Organic Farm Certification Program in the later 1980s, but it took many years (including more education in grad school in biology) to make the software. See especially from the help system of that software on how conventional agriculture destroys the soil: [http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/help100/00000385.htm](http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/help100/00000385.htm) "In the soil, tiny charged particles called micelles usually have many areas of negative charge (called sites) on their surfaces. Positively charged ions (cations) are drawn to these negative charge sites and stick to the clay particles (are adsorbed). In most soils, 99% of soil cations can be found attached to micelles (clay particles and organic matter) and 1% can be found in solution. Mineral cations in the soil (mainly Ca2+, Mg2+, K+ and Na+) maintain an equilibrium between adsorption to the negative sites and solution in the soil water. This equilibrium produces exchanges -- when one cation detaches from a site (leaving it free), another cation attaches to it. Therefore the negatively charged sites are called cation exchange sites. The number of these sites per unit weight of dry soil is called the cation exchange capacity, or the capacity of the soil to hold cations. Because any cations loose in the soil solution are vulnerable to leaching as water flows out of the soil, a high cation exchange capacity is always desirable. Cation exchange sites act as a sort of mineral buffer for the soil, storing minerals important to plant and animal growth for long periods of time. The attraction of cations to cation exchange sites is strongest for H+ ions (which make the soil acidic) and for polyvalent ions such as Ca2+ and Al3+. The weakest attraction is for monovalent ions such as K+. When ammonium nitrate fertilizers are added to the soil, the ammonium ions (NH4+) are strongly attracted to cation exchange sites because of their high valence (4). The ammonium ions displace many other cations which are then leached out of the soil and lost to plants. Some of the ammonium ions are converted to nitrate during nitrification (by aerobic soil bacteria); the process produces excess H+ ions which acidify the soil (causing earthworms and other soil organisms to die or desert the area). (For an excellent description of cation exchange capacity, see Widdowson's Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach.)" That's a big reason why organic agriculture which focuses on building up organic matter in the soil (which increases cation exchange capacity) is better for soil health (and human health too, as the plants are better fed). That's reflected in the article when it describes two lumps of soil put on wire mesh that behave differently -- one falling apart as dust (from lack of organic matter and so not much CEC) and one clumped together (more organic matter and CEC). Wish I had time to bring that Delphi app to the web as a JavaScript app... And improve it further. I don't know the exact numbers to completely quantify this, but I suspect poor farming practices on the US prairies that have reduced (in some places) six feet of topsoil to six inches of top soil have released a vast amount of carbon from lost organic matter into the air and contributed to climate change. ~~~ roel_v Does your model support root nodule nitrogen fixation? I've been looking for simulation software to estimate optimal levels of nitrogen fixers, but I didn't find any comprehensive models that included this. I didn't look at your model for it though; although I _did_ come across it several years earlier when I was looking for plant growth simulations for another reason. In what way(s) does it diverge from EPIC? EPIC & APEX are (widely) applied for policy evaluation purposes (how much sense that makes is another matter, but let's just accept reality for now); is your model robust enough for such things, I mean comparable to EPIC? And does it still run on Windows 10? I tried to install it but got some error that it failed writing to a registry key, and then I didn't look any further. ~~~ pdfernhout Most of the model source code is derived from EPIC (and a bit from SPUR which was about rangelands, weather, and plant competition). The EPIC conversion involved a person-year of painstaking work going through EPIC and creating sensible names for the cryptic FORTRAN variables (which were also sometimes reused multiple times with different meanings) and short function names as the code was rewritten into C++ and then later Delphi. My wife -- who I met via the PhD program in Ecology and Evolution I went to to try to learn enough to write the simulator -- did most of that translation. It's been twenty years, so I could not answer detailed questions about it of the top of my head without digging into the code (and maybe not even then). But the core parts of the soil percolation model should be very close to EPIC's code and data. The source code for the soil models references the EPIC equations and the related scientific literature. The simulator was written under earlier versions of windows (Win 3.1 and 95), and from around WinXP and later it seems the code that updates the registry causes an error. Not sure how to easily work around that. You can download the source here: [http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997...](http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997InDelphi.zip) Or, I just put it up on GitHub right now for you: :-) [https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997...](https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997InDelphi) Here is the file you would want to focus on first, and it does mention nitrogen fixation and nodules, but you'd have to make your own decision about how useful that was to you as a reference: [https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997...](https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997InDelphi/blob/master/ueq.pas) Here are the lines to look first inside that file: [https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997...](https://github.com/pdfernhout/GardenSimulatorSourceCirca1997InDelphi/blob/master/ueq.pas#L4741-L4764) Remember that a lot of EPIC is empirically derived functions and values from US soils in certain climates -- so it may not be totally applicable elsewhere, even if it is a place to start. And here is a 100 page programmer's manual: [http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/progmanlong.htm](http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/progmanlong.htm) I put our PlantStudio and StoryHarp code up on GitHub (which share some common code with the garden simulator) and have been meaning to someday put the garden simulator code there. I spent a couple of months about a decade ago porting part of the code base to Java and also Python which involved writing a Delphi parser and translation tool, but the result is not a finished work. But the converted code for the garden simulator is not on GitHub (yet). You can see some of the converted plant drawing code here though: [https://github.com/pdfernhout/PlantStudio](https://github.com/pdfernhout/PlantStudio) I had wanted to help develop self-replicating space habitats and helping people grow their own food better seemed like a good first step towards that which both had short-term on-Earth benefits plus long-term benefits for space settlement. We did this all on our own money from consulting and also credit cards. When they were maxed out (~US$100K) we took unrelated programming jobs at IBM Research and elsewhere to pay it all back on-time with interest -- it took many years to get back to zero -- and we never got a chance to do that much more with the simulator... Our (at first shareware) PlantStudio software was a spinoff for breeding virtual plants which got substantial interest from 3D modellers -- but even there, we did not have time to keep improving it since we were both working full-time the at IBM. PlantStudio was mainly my wife's project in response to user feedback from the Garden Simulator that people liked playing with the plant design part of it. We eventually made that free and then open source. [http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/userssay.htm](http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/PlantStudio/userssay.htm) And then we had a kid: :-) [http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/historyandfuture.html](http://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/historyandfuture.html) After that effort on our own, I'd get a bit annoyed I got when I'd watch NASA and other places give big grants to people who then made proprietary software with it. That motivated me to write essays like this back around 2001: [http://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public- works.html](http://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html) "As a software developer and content creator, I find it continually frustrating to visit web sites of projects funded directly or indirectly by government agencies or foundations, only to discover I can't easily improve on those projects because of licensing restrictions both on redistribution and on making derived works of their content and software. ..." But I can give kudos at the USDA ARS BRC and the EPIC team for developing their code in-house and putting it in the public domain. The EPIC developers (but not administrators) were annoyed a bit themselves at our own plan originally to make proprietary software from their models, which was another factor in our making that garden simulator effort FOSS. Our hope had been to keep improving those models and getting more people involved in that process online with a 2.0 version of the software as a shared modelling environment. But our few small efforts to find funding to continue in that direction were not productive. I guess we were just better software developers than sales people. :-) Plus we have learned a lot since then about a more incremental development style. [http://gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm](http://gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm) Anyway, I can hope that using that Garden Simulator software as an initial reference point can help a next generation of soil scientists and free software developers create even better software for research, education, and applications from bringing soil anywhere back to life. :-) ~~~ roel_v Thank you, very interesting. I feel your pain wrt converting Fortran models; I've spend quite some time doing it for models similar to EPIC. In fact, about 7-8 years ago in a fit of hubris, we submitted a proposal as part of which I would integrate EPIC into some other models, as a part of which I would have to convert it to C++; IIRC I estimated about 6 months for it. TBH I do have large libraries of simulation framework, so it would mostly be understanding equations and converting them. Still, I'm happy we didn't win that proposal :) ------ beautifulfreak Paul Stamets has studied the soil restorative effects of mycellium mushroom and published a number of videos. In this Ted Talk at the 10 minute mark, there's a demonstration of just how rapidly a patch of ground can be transformed compared to other commonly used methods, even land polluted with diesel fuel, which the mycellium rapidly breaks down into harmless compounds. All the videos are fascinating. [https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_c...](https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world/transcript#t-452343) ------ kwhitefoot The problem is not going to be really solved until we get rid of the idea that a corporation can own land. The big agribusinesses don't value the land as much as society needs them too so of course they don't look after it. Land is a common resource and no one business should have unfettered control of it. ~~~ bluGill That is false. Big business cares about land more than the small farmers It is the big farmers that care the most for the land. They are big enough that they have collected the data and seen that investments in the land pay off. When you have one field it is really hard to test for yourself how different practices pay off. The university will tell you "go no till, after 7 years your yields will be bigger than if you till the land every year", but small farmers generally think "yeah right, it works for your soils over there, but here we have different soils and so that won't work". By contrast the large farmers have enough fields that they are willing to try every new practice in a couple places to see if it really works for them. The largest farms are now able to scientifically show that they are building soil every year. Second, in Iowa corporations are banned form owning farms. There are exceptions for seed companies and equipment manufactures, but those are specific loopholes with limits to what can be done. I work for John Deere (but of course do not speak for them), and we have to be very careful that the places where we test our prototypes does not count as farms. (generally the crop is destroyed before harvest - I don't know how the harvester division does their testing though) ~~~ kwhitefoot I was not contrasting big and small farmers. I was contrasting big business behaviour with what society needs. ~~~ bluGill True, but big business behavior is often closer aligned with what society needs than small farmers. ------ sampl Here's a great book on the subject, "New Roots for Agriculture" by Wes Jackson (forward by Wendell Berry) [https://www.amazon.com/New-Roots-Agriculture-Farming- Ranchin...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Roots-Agriculture-Farming- Ranching/dp/0803275625) ------ mmagin As has been hinted at by other commenters, I think the big thing that's wrong with modern industrial agriculture (including some "organic" agriculture) is that it typically does not add carbon to the soil (via composted plant matter, manure, etc) and it also unnecessarily disturbs the soil structure, allowing the organic carbon compounds in the soil to become excessively exposed to the atmosphere where they'll break down or be eroded. (No, I don't have specific sources for this, it's mostly a combination of what I've read from the Permaculture folks and personal observation in my own garden over the past 5 years.) ------ vram22 As a teenager, I had read this book called The Forest and The Sea, by Marston Bates, which explains many of the fundamental principles of ecology that underlie these issues. [https://www.google.co.in/search?q=book+the+forest+and+the+se...](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=book+the+forest+and+the+sea&) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marston_Bates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marston_Bates) I thought it was a pretty good and informative book. ------ MisterBastahrd We could probably simply compost the produce and meat that gets thrown away from grocery stores and fix that problem. A moderate sized grocery store in a small town is going to throw away a ton or two of compostable material a month. This all goes into a landfill. Most of these stores are very good about recycling dry paper waste... but do nothing about the rest of their waste sans cooking oil. ------ Overtonwindow Not likely, unless we turn away from corn and abusive practices. Farming has become such a money-losing venture that the only way to survive is to increase yield, and try to squeeze more out of the same acre of land. This, imo, leads to abuse. ~~~ devmunchies People consume too much meat and dairy, which requires lots of corn and soy for feed. Thats one reason why corn and soy is so heavily subsidized. ~~~ kwhitefoot Why does that make the production heavily subsidized? Surely the state doesn't need to subsidize what is already very popular? ~~~ bluGill The state has a different concern: making sure you have enough to eat. One crop failure and people starve to death. We as a society have chosen to solve this problem by subsidizing farming ensuring that there are more crops grown every year than is strictly needed. As such farmers plant more crops than people will eat. This ensures that in bad years there is still enough food. You can argue that there is a better solution to the problem, but don't argue against subsidizes without a different solution. ------ madshiva Can half of America be given back to native American? ------ martin_a Has anybody already tried to put Brawndo on the fields? I think it got electrolytes, that should help! ------ alexnewman Not until we figure out what's killing it ~~~ reefoctopus > the main change from one year to the next was intensively planting more and > more acres of corn and soy, churning up the soil and using ever more > chemical fertilizers and herbicides to try and turn a profit.

From WikiChina - credo http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01friedman.html ====== raghava >>America’s politicians are mostly lawyers; not engineers or scientists like ours Is that so? /* Am really asking an honest question! */ A google_search("chinese politicians scientists"); seems to be a story by it's own, BTW.

This battery advance could make electric vehicles far cheaper - NicoJuicy https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610792/this-battery-advance-could-make-electric-vehicles-far-cheaper/ ====== demwitt Anode is negative??? Guess that explains hole flow....

“Critical mass” vs “network effects” - olivercameron http://daltoncaldwell.com/critical-mass-vs-network-effects ====== dm8 I do agree that Twitter's asymmetric model works. And Google + also have same feature. I don't have to be "friend" with someone to follow them. Having signed up on Orkut in 2004, and used that social n/w quite regularly for ~ 4 years. People forget the beauty of Orkut. In someways they were ahead of times - 1\. Privacy: Privacy settings were impeccable. In fact, it would notify you if someone visited your profile too. So no more "stalking". Believe it or not, Orkut never allowed search engines to index their pages. 2\. Communities: Facebook groups are quite popular now. But still, Orkut communities in 2005 were better. They were malleable. You could turn them into forums/boards for discussion. Group announcements. Group Polls etc. And most importantly owners/mods had ability to make any content public/private with simple switch. 3\. Testimonials: LinkedIn started with this "recommendations" feature. But Orkut had "testimonials" since its beginning. It was fun reading testimonials once in a while. 4\. Design: Orkut's design during initial years was the best any social network could have. Simple and clean! 5\. Search: I've used majority of the social networks. Orkut's search engine was simply the best. It's search engine in 2005 could easily beat FB's search even today. What led to Orkut's downfall? I've heard form Googlers that there was no strong internal support to Orkut. In 2008 they started copying FB and it became unusable since it had worst UX due to this. And last but not the least, Facebook's Feed. Feed was game-changer for FB and it's eventual growth. Edit: Grammar ~~~ dalton You are correct about many of these points. The other thing worth mentioning re:Google internal support is that Orkut had some, um, early controversy: <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/06/64046> ------ kingsley_20 I resent the digs at Orkut. It was a great community - if you were Brazilian or Indian. That Google chose not to run with it says more about their lack of long term social vision and parochialism than about the health of the community itself. ~~~ dalton To be clear, it's not a "dig" at international users. To speak from personal experience, the site that I was founder/CEO of earlier in my career, imeem, was wildly popular in the Philippines and Thailand. At peak, we were a top 20 site in the Philippines, according to Alexa. We spent a lot of time adding country-specific filters to music charts, comments, etc once tagalog and thai started seeping into every page of the site. We loved our foreign users, but from an advertising business perspective, a user in southeast asia is worth a small fraction of a US or UK user. The relative low value of developing country users to brand advertisers is the primary reason sites like Orkut, Friendster, Hi5, etc ended up in the place they are. It's not a question of nationalism, it really does boil down the what the advertising market is willing to pay. This is one additional factor re:why ad- supported social platforms end up with mis-aligned incentives w/users... ~~~ kingsley_20 I would invest the same way (focus on users in developed economies) if it were my startup - but Google isn't a startup. When you have two of the BRIC economies sewn up in a social network, AND you have cash to stay for the long game, I think you're doing your shareholders a disservice by not sticking it out. ------ jfarmer A slightly better article on the same topic from a few years ago: [http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software- sundays-2-the-...](http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software- sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/) It's funny we couch it in such intellectual language. There's an everyday word for this: Potemkin village. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village> Or, a thought experiment. What's more valuable? A social network with 10,000 people who are all at most two degrees of separation from everyone else in real life? Or a social network filled with 10,000 people from around the world, selected at random? Could you even call the second thing a "social network?" ~~~ gruseom "Potemkin Village" isn't about original communities leaving. A Potemkin Village is a fake facade erected to hide the real thing and fool visitors. ~~~ caseysoftware "Potemkin Village" is what the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare. ~~~ woah Wait, can we get a link? This sounds pretty epic, I haven't heard about it before. ~~~ jfarmer Just Google: "reddit fake accounts" ------ kbenson In his bid to get more viewers of his blog, and thus more perspective signups for join.app.net which he links to in every post, Mr. Caldwell has put out more interesting articles on the social space than I've seen in a long, long time. App.net seems like an interesting experiment, and I support it in theory, but don't really use much of social networks so haven't contributed yet. I think I'm going to give him $50 just to see if he can sustain the same level of output on his blog, as my own little experiment. ~~~ breckinloggins I agree. It just goes to show you that marketing and self-promotion only make you look like a sleazy used-car salesman when you have nothing interesting to say. ------ russtrpkovski The In the Plex book provides some insights into why Orkut failed: 1\. As Orkut increased in popularity, it was flooded with identity thieves and Viagra ads. 2\. Google focused on rewriting Orkut's Windows-based infrastructure to scale on Google's platform instead of improving the design and adding features 3\. Users bailed because of poor response time. Brazilians and Indians used to slow Internet access so they were tolerant of the delays. 4\. While finishing the rewrite of Orkut, Facebook was starting to take off. ------ JVIDEL I just want to say is funny how some people downplay Orkut for being full of Brasilians and Indians when those are 2 of the most growing consumer markets in the world. You have companies all over the world fighting to get those markets, Apple went as far as building a factory in Brasil to get a foothold there. ------ mrkrwtsn It's really exciting to consider how Twitter fundamentally changes how we can communicate in large groups. Essentially, through the use of hash tags, Twitter has created a new conversation/comment stream that any one in the world can be a part of. For example, while watching the Olympics, there are several hash tags that show up on screen and allow everyone from celebrities to random people talk about it. It creates a conversation that is not even possible using other mediums. They're not doing social networking better, they've created a new way to communicate. This changes mass media from being a one-way conversation to a place where anyone can participate in the conversation. App.net simply can never do this as a result of it costing money. Since it can't build a large user base of "regular" people, the data on App.net simply won't be that interesting or very open. Sure it would be a cool service, and for many people, particularly geeks, it might be nice. It could even be a great medium to communicate with specific people, but it will never be as useful as Twitter in the sense that it will never be able to fill the same space as Twitter. If there really is a problem with Twitter's business model that's causing cash problems all they need to do is charge for API access. Twitter's data feeds provide immensely valuable data about a large variety of issues. ~~~ te_chris They do charge for api access. You have to pay for the firehose. ------ joe_the_user I think what the author is talking about is the spamminess/internet-y-ness that has crept into Facebook in the last few years. But that is something that I think most Facebook users at least try to ignore. The goodness and desirableness of Facebook happens despite this stuff rather than because of this stuff. Facebook has been a place where a lot of people like to come to chat with their friends (duh!). This kind of virtual tavern is something that a lot of people enjoy. But the problem is that Facebook has succeed so well at being that kind of place, that the limitations of being that kind of place are showing; suddenly realize you just own the nightclub, you're not the most popular person in the nightclub. And making grandiose statements on the nightclub loud speaker isn't going to make you more popular. \- Being the place where people talk to their friends does mean you can sell people anything (they don't come to buy but to chat). \- There are plenty of things that it's in people's better interests not to share and sooner or later they'll figure that out - when they do, they don't appreciate being previously mislead and get more closed about the entire medium (it's interesting how the telephone produced a lot of same ). \- And there are many reasons to step outside your circle of friends. And completely outside is both easier and safer than any conceivable "multiple circles" system. Facebook's stuff lately has been butting-up against these limitation but not overcoming them. I don't know these can be directly overcome with the "I will monetize my efforts" approach and if they can't, it might be good. ------ nrmehta Thought-provoking post. To me, one way to determine whether a system will have network effects or anti-network effects is to ascertain how much of its usage is driven by fashion versus utility. Take email as an extreme example of the latter. It's valuable because it's so universal - but it's not fashionable at all. It's a pure utility. So no anti-network effects (perhaps beyond spam but those are less about #s of participants as behavior). I put Facebook in an intermediate category where it's transitioned reasonably well from fashion to a utility, though the folks that looked at it as fashion are now getting more turned off by it. Indeed, the anti-network effect isn't simply about numbers - it's about who is coming into the network and a lost feeling of exclusivity (which honestly sometimes picks on very base human emotions) when the network grows with certain types of people. I think twitter has moved further up the utility value chain than facebook has so I'd posit it's less vulnerable to anti-network effects (not to mention the asymmetric follow model that dalton talks about). ------ Sniffnoy I feel it is worth pointing out here that asymmetry is not original to Twitter. Consider e.g. LiveJournal. ------ epaik This effect seems to happen commonly among news aggregating site communities. Digg used to be pretty cool when it was used largely by people excited about the start-up/tech enthusiasts. As it became more popular, the user-base seemed to devolve as the content started to cater to the LCD. Reddit has done a good job combating this, with their implementation of subreddits that focus on specific core user demographics. But most of their largest subreddits have a dubious quality of users. Hacker News seems to have the best quality of discourse/users at the moment, but I attribute this to its relatively small user-base. ~~~ pooriaazimi > _Hacker News seems to have the best quality of discourse/users at the > moment, but I attribute this to its relatively small user-base._ 50 to 100 thousand daily users ("users", not visitors) is not small by any means! ~~~ dredmorbius At Internet scale (~2 billion connected users) it's minuscule. 0.005% of all available users. Within the United States, it would fall well below the 100th most widely circulated print magazine, as a _monthly_ circulation statistic. I'll assume that monthly stats are a few times higher than the daily usage metric, but you'd still have to hit roughly 1 million to break into the top 100. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines_by_circulati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines_by_circulation) From an advertising perspective, unless you're extremely focused in your interest base (and there are markets of interest within the HN readership), it's tiny. ------ pdog I think Mr. Caldwell makes a convincing argument that there needs to be a compelling (not ad-supported) alternative to Twitter. My question is this: Why can't this alternative have a "free tier" that allows the average user to access and use the service without paying and have additional features available to those who pay for them? In determining a payment model for app.net, it seems he's never addressed why there isn't a free tier... ------ daemon13 Excellent, very well thought out post. First time I saw the notion of diminishing effect of adding new users. Would be great if author elaborated on various "how to" to mitigate this. ~~~ simondlr I think one of the best ways to do this, is to keep the social system smaller once it reaches critical mass. It sounds counter-intuitive, but hear me out. New users that join once critical mass has been reached, will be able to create their own graph and enjoy the social network in question equally to when a person joined it 4 years ago (given the site is still the same in terms of functionality). However, the person that joined 4 years will become bogged by an ever increasing graph of connections to pages, friends, groups, history etc that eventually undermine what made the site relevant to them in the first place (ie Dalton's experience with Orkut). So, just as in the real life, social relationships come and ago, a natural decay has to happen that allows a person's graph to remain relavent. Currently Facebook (and to a certain Google+) are doing it right. They filter. Heavily. If you don't interact with the people from 4 years ago, you just don't see them anymore on it. ------ simondlr App.net's approach won't solve the problems that Dalton here talks about. Does he have plans that will solve this? ------ NHQ Social networking services and APIs are not the utility. The Internet is the utility.

An attorney suing Uber, Lyft, GrubHub and a dozen California tech firms - jackgavigan http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-class-action-lawyer-20160124-story.html ====== 100k The most recent issue of Mother Jones also has an article about Liss-Riordan and her employment law lawsuits. According to the article, she got her start suing restaurants that were skimming tips from employees -- which Uber is also accused of. [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/uber-lawsuit- dri...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/uber-lawsuit-drivers- class-action-shannon-liss-riordan) ~~~ SilasX Oy gevalt! That again? It's the modern version of counting angels on a pin. Uber said, "drivers get this percent from the fee, Uber gets this much". Uber claimed "tip's included". Modern philosophers claimed this makes a difference because the law prohibits taking a cut of tips. But there is no difference! Any allocation of the fee can be rephrased as being "with" or "without' a tip in such a way that the money flows are all the same. There is no "fact of the matter" as to what part of the fee is a tip! Any phrasing can be correct! Let's say Uber took 25%. You can say that the fee breaks down as: 1) 25% to Uber, 50% driver payment, 25% driver tip 2) 25% to Uber, 75% driver payment, no tip 3) 25% driver payment, 75% tip to driver, which Uber takes a 1/3 cut off (illegal). If the law treats observationally equivalent situations differently because of how they're labeled, that law is meaningless, and basically just taxing you on angel pinheads. (I call the property of passing this test "nominal invariance".) (The exception of course is when a customer gives a cash tip on top of the fee directly to the driver. But Uber definitely doesn't take a cut of that! ------ gpsx And when it is all over I can see each driver getting a check for $2.37 and Liss-Riordon getting a check for $60,000,000.00. (OK, this maybe a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.) ~~~ rayiner In the Fed Ex settlement she won $223m for 2,600 class members. Even if she gets a 1/3 cut that's, $60,000 on average per class member for mis- classification over a seven-year period. ~~~ toomuchtodo I assume that doesn't include back taxes and fines due to the IRS. ~~~ rayiner Yeah, that's just the fund for claims from employees. ------ bluefinity Uber is the world's most highly valued private company? Somebody better tell Saudi Aramco. ~~~ mikeyouse Or Koch Industries.. ~~~ zzazzdsa or Cargill, or Mars.... ------ benbowden If she does win the case then wouldn't Uber and Lyft simply give less of a percentage of earnings per ride to their drivers to compensate for the change of cost? Would Uber and Lyft make more if they had their drivers on a similar model to a pizza delivery driver ($4.50/h + tips)? ~~~ toomuchtodo > If she does win the case then wouldn't Uber and Lyft simply give less of a > percentage of earnings per ride to their drivers to compensate for the > change of cost? Uber and Lyft would need to pay hourly wages, along with all of the associated taxes due. > Would Uber and Lyft make more if they had their drivers on a similar model > to a pizza delivery driver ($4.50/h + tips)? Uber and Lyft's entire business model is built on the independent contractor model. I don't believe they could reach profitability in any scenario with human drivers if they have to pay them as stipulated by IRS regulations. ~~~ SilasX >Uber and Lyft would need to pay hourly wages, along with all of the associated taxes due. Not true. You can be an employee with a non-hourly pay structure. Just one of many misconceptions batted around about the implications of driver reclassification, along with (these aren't all false per se, just not- necessarily-true): \- Drivers would have to get the Uber-paid lavish health care plan that developers there get. \- Driver cash payments would remain the same and not be reduced. \- Drivers would get fixed work schedules. \- Drivers would value the compensation package that includes employee benefits but has lower cash pay, over the compensation they get now. \- Uber would have to provide the vehicles. \- The economic incidence of FICA taxes would shift to Uber (not how economic incidence works[1]). Again, the employee/contractor distinction depends on a number of factors; you can be classified as an employee without meeting all of criteria. [1] Good explanation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/422av5/some_g...](https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/422av5/some_good_old_fashioned_101level_errors_on/cz73e8g) ~~~ toomuchtodo I agree those are all things _that should happen_. But can Uber be profitable in that configuration? I would argue not, but maybe they pull it off. ~~~ SilasX My point was that the reclassification as employees does not imply that any of those would be true (very unlikely for a few, false as a matter of law in at least one). You can't just assume that the change would achieve this state where workers get strictly more benefits and Uber's profits are sucked out. You need to take into account how much they can cut driver cash payments in that circumstance (i.e. paying them via benefits), where the economic incidence of car costs and FICA taxes currently lies, what the law says about piecework, etc. ------ Karunamon One thing I never see addressed in these Uber stories is how, precisely, the drivers got classified as employees. The only test I'm aware of refers to things like set hours, dictated methods of working, company equipment, payment, and so on[1]. Just by that those tests alone, I don't see how an Uber driver is realistically anything other than a contractor. So either a judge screwed up somewhere, or I'm really missing something. Would anyone have some more information on the particulars? [1]: [https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Emplo...](https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-Employee) ------ eugenekolo2 Reminds me of Microsoft's contractor lawsuit. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp#Vizcaino_v._Microsof...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp#Vizcaino_v._Microsoft) [http://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us- findlaw-d...](http://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont- treat-c-idUSTRE53063S20090401) ------ secondtimeuse Discounting the tripe "You go girl" tone of the article, there is no divine law asserting that there ought to be only two forms of (W2/1099) employees. The labor laws should change in tune with evolution in technology. However given the current dysfunctional congress, and from experience with other Patent/Immigration laws this won't happen any time soon. Had it been about Patent/IP litigation and any other lawyer the tone of the article would be different. This is parasitic legal rent seeking at its worst, let's call a spade a spade. Here is an WSJ article that calls for change in labor laws.[1] [1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-if-there-were-a-new-type- of...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-if-there-were-a-new-type-of-worker- dependent-contractor-1422405831) ~~~ zzalpha _This is parasitic legal rent seeking at its worst, let 's call a spade a spade._ Or, its someone fighting organizations profiting illegally by flouting labour laws that have protected workers from corporate exploitation for decades. But potato, potahto, right? ~~~ secondtimeuse "Fighting organizations" is a rhetorical device used by lawyers to fool general public and people like you. The reality today is that there is a large lobby of litigators actively trying to keep any change in labour/Patent laws from happening. [1] I own no shares of Uber Inc. and any other companies involved in these litigations. But the reality is that by framing this incorrectly as David (The attorney) vs Goliath (Uber et. al.) fight the article is just pushing your emotional buttons. At end of the day litigation is not going to magically create jobs out of thin air. Uber will eventually shift to autonomous cars or will go bankrupt or might end having chinese drive the cars via video conference. It's easy to blame Uber for the mess that is the employer provided insurance. Its not the Uber which created that problem, its the legislative gridlock which is at fault. But its cooler these days to hate Uber for all that ills the hapless middle class in USA. [1] [http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/16/how-the- tech-...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/16/how-the-tech-lobby- got-beat) ~~~ geofft The way that inappropriate laws get fixed in the US is that new laws get passed, not that people violate the laws that seem irrelevant to them. I have no objection to Uber lobbying for laws to introduce a new class of employees (and I have absolutely no objection to Uber or anyone else making life hard for the taxi lobby). I do have a strong objection to Uber deciding to treat employees in a way prohibited by law because they, on their own, think it makes more sense. "Legislative gridlock" is a weak excuse. Plenty of legislation gets through, from PPACA (which had, and continues to have, widespread objection) to USA FREEDOM (even if you claim PATRIOT's expiration was the result of "deadlock", the replacement came a day later) to JOBS (specifically legalizing things that startups wanted to do!) to allowing people to unlock their cell phones (not really a Big Foo priority). If the people really want Uber and Airbnb -- which they seem to -- why can't they just get a law passed? And why can't all these innovative, well-funded startups figure out how to disrupt and fix something as obviously dysfunctional as our political system? My worry is not so much with these particular ways they're breaking the law; it seems like this is probably reasonable (though I'd still like someone other than Uber to consider it). My worry is with the loss of the rule of law, and the precedent that we're not going to care about whether the law is followed. It's certainly true that Uber et al. aren't the first companies to break laws, but this seems like a qualitative change in what laws are being broken and what the impact on society is, and a democratic society should be able to have an opinion on it. ~~~ hollerith >The way that inappropriate laws get fixed in the US is that new laws get passed, Fixed a lot of inappropriate laws, have you? ~~~ 1stop ... It was a statement of fact. I know how a plane flies without being a pilot. Obvious troll is obvious. ------ la6470 Millenials are unknowingly signing up for slavery and throwing away all the hard earned labour rights in the name of being more agile. ~~~ aggieben ...or simply trading those "rights" for the freedom to be responsible for their own lives. One gives up a lot of freedom to be an employee. That tradeoff might be worth it for some people, and not as much for others. ~~~ skrause > _One gives up a lot of freedom to be an employee._ As an employee I can walk away from my job any time I want and just get another. If I had my own business that would be _way_ harder. Because of that I feel actually more free and independent as an employee. You just need to make sure to have a good financial buffer so that losing/switching a job won't hurt very much. Then your employer also can't pressure you too much. ~~~ aggieben I feel exactly the opposite: I'm independent now, and I can walk away from my current gig without all that much disruption in my life because I don't depend on an employer for benefits or what have you. While I'm not walking away, I've got more flexibility than I might with an employer (depending on the employer). You're 100% right about having a buffer, though. That's a pretty immovable prerequisite no matter what your professional situation is. ------ steven2012 I don't think they will win. Every single uber driver I talk to loves it. They love that they can work whenever they want, that they can choose to work for Lyft or uber, etc. I don't know how you can say they are anything like an employee. There is no negative consequences for not working except less money. ~~~ toomuchtodo > I don't think they will win. Every single uber driver I talk to loves it. That's not quite how the law works. Whether you enjoy being subjugated or not doesn't effect if the law can be enforced against the entity violating the law. ~~~ steven2012 How are drivers being subjugated and what law is being violated. What evidence is there that they are actually employees besides the fact that lawyers and union activists want them to be? ~~~ toomuchtodo > How are drivers being subjugated and what law is being violated. Drivers are being paid as independent contractors. Under the current Uber model, they are not independent contractors as defined by labor law (nor the IRS). Ergo, Uber is in violation of both labor law and tax regulations; if they are found to have violated IRS employee classification rules, they'll be liable for back taxes, penalties, and officers of the company can be held personally liable. > What evidence is there that they are actually employees besides the fact > that lawyers and union activists want them to be? You must be blinded by some sort of belief that Uber is the victim here; my apologies. Employee vs independent contractor classifications can sometimes be difficult, but the gist of it is: If you tell someone how to do the work, and you set the price, they're an employee; if you give someone the work, they set their prices, and they have control over how the work is performed, they're a contractor. Guess which model Uber uses? ~~~ steven2012 You are wrong. They are independent contractors. They are not employees as defined by current labor laws. I think it is you that are blinded by your beliefs. They are not told how to do the work. Each driver chooses when they want to work and how long they work. They are free to work with whomever else they want, including other ride sharing companies at the same time. Uber is a marketplace that brings drivers and riders together. It's not an employer because drivers have complete freedom. ~~~ timwaagh although i think most people would agree with this the local laws apparently say everyone who does something central to the core business of a company and gets paid for it by the company is an employee. it's in the article. ~~~ pfarnsworth Except for taxi drivers. ------ gnodar It would have been nice if this article addressed the negative consequences of these companies skirting labor laws. The only mention of this is here: _" she alleges that these firms exert the kind of control that employers would have over employees — without providing any of the benefits employees, by law, are entitled to."_ But it doesn't explain what specific benefits are being withheld from employees, so I don't know what bad thing she is trying to prevent, or the magnitude of the problem, if there really is one. ~~~ 100k W2 employees have all kinds of protections that 1099 contractors don't. Paid sick time, FMLA leave, retirement plan contributions...A big difference is that 1099 contractors must pay their own self-employment taxes (15%) to cover Social Security and Medicare whereas W2 employees have half of that paid for by their company. (Economists would say that comes out of wages, but it still means $15/hour W2 is not directly comparable to $15/hour 1099.) ~~~ ProAm >still means $15/hour W2 is not directly comparable to $15/hour 1099 of course not that is why contractors get paid more than salary employees. If contractors dont ask for more money per hour then its their own fault. ~~~ toomuchtodo Can you show me how "independent contractor" Uber employees can ask more per hour? ~~~ zzalpha Which is, incidentally, one of the points this case will hinge on. Being able to set your own rates is one of the key differentiators between contract and employee labour, and Uber drivers clearly do not have that ability.

Bump stocks are turned in or destroyed as ban takes effect - oblib https://apnews.com/ea1b1c1b13194118b83a1f0d4aa08a2a ====== oblib "Anyone in possession of a bump stock from now on can be charged with a federal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison." I may be wrong, but I don't think this is widely known right now. I live in an area where there are a lot of gun owners and "AR" type rifles are one of the most popular among those who love to shoot guns. I'm sure quite a few own bump stocks, but not at all sure they know they need to get rid of them. ------ sarcasmatwork I'm keeping my rubber bands tho.... Are they going to ban rubber bands now? Dumbass law that does nothing! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5XzQ1BS7gU&t=0m25s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5XzQ1BS7gU&t=0m25s) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ0jTMLK9jI&t=0m18s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ0jTMLK9jI&t=0m18s) ~~~ oblib As I said, I live in an area where guns are very much a part of the culture. Hunting is big here, and so is shooting for fun. 76% of my neighbors voted for Trump, and they're very open and vocal about that and their 2nd Amendment rights. I don't personally own a gun and very rarely shoot them. I don't hunt either, but I don't have any fears of or animosities for those who do. But they've been completely silent on this on FB. And looking back, with all the noise from Kavanaugh to the Mueller report this issue has been buried by the media, and that 10 year potential prison sentence has too, and that really bothers me. I don't know what to make of that. I don't know if they're uninformed or not willing to criticize Trump or why they're so silent. They've been very open about their right to own firearms in the past and the right to own a bump stock.

Statically Checking Web API Requests in Atom - allthingsapi http://www.apiful.io/intro/2016/11/30/ide-specification-checking.html ====== krsyoung All the more motivation for API Providers to publish their specifications so that IDE integrations like this are effective!

Free O'Reilly Books - Cieplak http://oreilly.com/openbook/ ====== olefoo Managing Projects with Make 3rd edition <http://oreilly.com/openbook/make3/book/index.csp> This is the definitive reference to the software that lifts you from writing software to building software systems. See also <http://bost.ocks.org/mike/make/> for why it's still a useful book, 27 years after the first edition. Compare that to most of the technical books you own; most of which were hopelessly obsolete by the ripe age of 27 months. ~~~ pjmlp Actually I find it quite sad. It means many developers are doing software in 2013 as if their main system was a System V one, stuck in 1977. ~~~ olefoo Not quite, a linux system of ~2010 has several advances over a Unix system/V from the late 1970's it's a late 1960s muscle car compared to the Model A of PDP-11. Same basic technology under the hood, but refined and much better understood. Most of the "advanced" programming environments look very nice but fail to meet the needs of real world usage; where you have to talk to other systems and get dirty doing it. ------ hkmurakami _> Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software_ <http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/index.html> I'm familiar with the general gist of the FSF's philosophies but I had never really sat down and read an in-depth write up of the importance of Free Software, so I'm looking forward to reading this :) ~~~ AndreasFrom I found it good and think you can look forward to reading it. ~~~ hkmurakami Thanks! Just finished reading the first chapter and I found it to be surprisingly well written. ------ bstpierre > Through its Open Library project, the Internet Archive is scanning and > hosting PDF versions of our open books. _scanning_?? I would have thought that O'Reilly could give text/source to the Internet Archive that could be massaged into a better quality output product. (And allow formats other than just PDF -- text/epub/mobi/etc.) ~~~ bluedino I wouldn't be surprised if the originals are lost. ------ bravura There is also _Learning JavaScript Design Patterns_. It's an O'Reilly book, and it's under creative commons, but it's not on that list. You can find it here: [http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/bo...](http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/) ------ hayksaakian Does HN have any good picks from this list? I see a lot of out of print books and books not about programming/software development, so if there are any that someone could recommend from this massive list I'd appreciate that. ~~~ koralatov A lot of the stuff in it is out of date, but `Unix Text Processing' is a great read, if only to get a feel for the concepts and ideas. ~~~ D9u That title caught my eye also. Not much difference between Unix text processing then, and now. ------ zimpenfish Grief, I had dead tree versions of the XView books back in 1993. Back when dealing with X was Proper Work. None of this GNOME bullshit. ~~~ adrianhoward Yeah - doing X work was "my job" for a few years in the early nineties. The various O'Reilly XLib/Xt books were a godsend. Still have 'em somewhere in the garage. ~~~ prakashk I also have a few of those sitting in boxes in my garage. Every time I do some cleaning-up, I debate (just for a second!) whether I should dispose of them, but end up keeping them. ------ brudgers I bought _The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog_ in early 1994. I had an account at NERDC, a 9600 baud Intel modem, and connection time was $0.01/minute. One month my bill was over $20.00. That's a lot of Gopher and Usenet. ------ xradionut I'm surprised that there isn't any Fortran guides or manuals on how to maintain VT100 terminals on the list. ~~~ wglb Just checked, they don't have no TECO manuals. ------ prostoalex Open Feedback Publishing System from O'Reilly is another source <http://ofps.oreilly.com/> ------ SkittlesNTwix Many of these books are out-of-print for a reason - they're not really relevant in todays tech landscape. There's a few gems in here though. ~~~ dogweather And those are...? ~~~ jlarocco My choices for the "good" ones are: The PNG book: <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/book/toc.html> The GNU Make book: <http://oreilly.com/openbook/make3/book/index.csp> The Subversion book: <http://svnbook.red-bean.com/> The Cathedral and the Bazaar: <http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral- bazaar/> And I haven't read it, but I would guess "Making TeX Work" is still relevant: <http://makingtexwork.sourceforge.net/mtw/> ------ Aloha I've found Unix Text Processing (<http://oreilly.com/openbook/utp/>) to be very very helpful when trying to some data processing I would normally do in excel. ------ DigitalJack It says that Archive.org is producing pdfs of these books, but I'm not having any luck finding the Managing Projects with Make as a pdf. Anyone else see it? EDIT: I misunderstood, it's at archive.org's openlibrary project: [http://openlibrary.org/works/OL3823216W/Managing_projects_wi...](http://openlibrary.org/works/OL3823216W/Managing_projects_with_Make) ------ progrock I was excited to find one book as html broken into chapters, but the others are in various formats - there isn't much consistancy - which makes it difficult to read them, or write my own glue code - to get them onto my e-reader. ------ dfc The list of out of print books is twice as long as those still in print. ------ jjacobson Oh man, a book on Mason! That takes me back to some good old Perl days. ------ jasongaya Good

Pyresto - A general REST based ORM for Python - berkerpeksag http://pyresto.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html ====== alpb This would be great library -- only if they begin to support a wide range of commonly used APIs. Idea is good, so should be the execution. ------ gokmen Nice. i think to use it my django projects. ------ embrangler Seems useful! ------ fka Awesome!

For Bono and U2, Apple iTunes Partnership Finally Hits a Wrong Note - NaOH http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/business/media/for-bono-and-u2-apple-itunes-partnership-finally-hits-a-wrong-note.html ====== gph This is perhaps a bit off-topic but, >after all, the company is fresh off a hack that allowed strangers to steal, view and share nude photos of famous actresses from iCloud accounts Why do people still parrot this line? Unless I missed some later revelation, this was barely even Apple's fault. They may have had some subpar security practices, but it's not like their system was utterly compromised like this makes it sound. I'm not an Apple fan, but they don't deserve the ignorantly parroted line that they let celebrities phones get compromised. And I would especially expect more from the New York Times. That statement is almost libel. ~~~ akamaka If the claims that they ignored warnings are correct, I would indeed lay most of the blame on Apple: [http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher-...](http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/25/researcher- accuses-apple-of-ignoring-icloud-brute-force-attack-for-6-months) It may be the case that celebrities chose poor passwords, but how can you blame them? Did Apple enforce strong passwords? Did it allow an excessive password retry rate? Did it fail to follow up on warnings from security researchers? Unless the answer to each of those questions is "no", it is entirely fair to blame them. ~~~ gph I suppose what mostly bugs me is using the word hack. Calling something that appears to be targeted social engineering a hack seems wrong to me. I guess the definition of hacking has been rather fluid in recent years. Course that word has been redefined and misused for a very long time so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. ~~~ transpy If you can fire up the Task Manager in windows, you are considered a hacker in my circle of friends. ------ adventured "It took nearly 30 years for “The Joshua Tree,” the 1987 album that was U2’s breakout ticket to megastardom, to reach 30 million people." That's a bit disingenuous. More people than that would have heard all the major songs off of Joshua Tree on the radio and on MTV in one single market - the US - in just the first few years. U2 was everywhere from 1988 - 1995. It's very likely that college radio stations alone ended up playing the entire Joshua Tree album for 30 million people in the US over the first decade of its release. ~~~ PsychoPenguin Yeah, you can't compare actual album sales with free listens. ------ EarthLaunch I liked his answer. Transcript: Q: Can you please never release an album on iTunes that automatically downloads to people's playlists ever again? It's really rude. A: Uh, oops! Um, I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea. Got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing. Drop of megalomania. Touch of generosity. Dash of self-promotion. And, deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into for the last couple of years mightn't be heard. There's a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it. ~~~ joering2 Bono is a hard-core businessman, not an artist. This is a guy who raised to fame on giving fundraising concerts to help poor children in Africa, and himself donated ZERO dollars out of 1.7 billion he made on Facebook stock. God only knows what deals has been made behind scenes U2 vs Apple. Edit: I stand corrected: first and foremost, he's a hard-core businessman, THEN an artist. ~~~ pbreit Sorry, still clearly an artist first. Perhaps even philanthropist would be higher than "hardcore businessman". And Bono made way less than $1.7b on Facebook. Probably well less than $100m. Possibly less than $10m. Simple downvote. ~~~ aaronbrethorst Some math: [http://fortune.com/2012/05/18/no-facebook-did-not-make- bono-...](http://fortune.com/2012/05/18/no-facebook-did-not-make-bono-worlds- richest-musician/) So, again, at best Bono gets $43 million. Or, in other words, just more than Britney Spears will make for two years of judging The X Factor. Let alone Paul McCartney’s reported $1.04 billion net worth. Clearly Facebook has been good to Bono, but not nearly as good as is being portrayed… ------ logicalman It would have been amazing if they released the album for free but people had to download it. By making it mandatory, they showed they were very tone deaf and ruined the promotion. ------ MCRed Nobody seems to talk about how much Apple paid U2 for the right to give the album away for free. I suspect that U2 may have made more money from this album than they did from the last-- and that's just in the free period. (after some amount of time it goes back up to normal price.) I bet even after it goes up to normal price it will do better due to the publicity of being free. I don't think Apple got the album for free. :-) All in all, I think it was a great deal. I didn't get the album pushed on me-- I went and chose to download it from iTunes-- and I think the "album as promotion for larger brand" method is kinda win-win. It's not relevancy U2 is chasing but awareness, and that's the trade they made with Apple. That plus bags of cash. ~~~ userbinator > I don't think Apple got the album for free. :-) In other words, it wasn't exactly pro-Bono. :-) _I didn 't get the album pushed on me-- I went and chose to download it from iTunes_ Many people did get the album automatically downloaded, which is really what angered them, and not the fact that U2 is giving one away for free. ------ NaOH If a moderator thinks it's worthwhile, the article headline has changed to Chasing Relevancy at Any Cost, Even Free. ~~~ jack-r-abbit This is probably due to the bookmarklet[1] that just reads the document.title from the page you are posting. It fills in the title automatically in the posting page. It is quite convenient... but often ends up not producing the actual title that is placed on the page. I believe this is the cause for a lot of HN posts not using the article title but the html title instead. And then people complain about the wrong title. And then mods make a call. [https://news.ycombinator.com/bookmarklet.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/bookmarklet.html) ------ pbreit I wonder if this would have blown over more if iTunes had some sort of "hide album" feature from the get go? To achieve their distribution objective, I think it had to be automatically added to libraries vs being a free "download". Comparing to Taylor Swift's removing all her stuff from Spotify, this all seems rather minor. ------ IgorPartola I really don't get why people are this upset over this little stunt. I remember when I bought my first iPod it came with a U2 song. Winamp came with the "llama's ass" thing. Other players had their own promo songs. Now Apple has taken it to the next level and pushed a song to you rather than sold it with the device. It's a little weird, a little selfish, maybe even a little desperate, but I wouldn't characterize it as anything but at most mildly annoying. Who cares? Unless you ran out of room on your device and couldn't take that one in a million picture because of it, what does it matter? I am not defending it, just trying to figure out why anyone would give it more than 30 seconds of their time, to complain, etc. ~~~ gwillen Because if you don't want them to take a mile, you'd better watch out when they start taking an inch. ~~~ IgorPartola What? Sorry, still don't get it. Are you saying that using a branded Apple phone which you know they can completely control remotely is all good as long as they don't push music you don't want to it? If so, this is probably the last inch in the mile they are taking. There are lots of issues with how mobile phones operate and even specifically how Apple does them, but if we are doing the whole fight for our freedom thing, this is probably not the best place to start. ~~~ rakoo > which you know they can completely control remotely That's the problem though -- people don't know it's remotely controlled, so they didn't expect this. When you think of it, there is very little to remove the notion that a Music app is not just a glorified mp3 player because the whole system is different.

Yahoo! Pipes and the web as a database - Readmore http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_pipes_web_database.php ====== Readmore This is a really interesting idea, it would be cool to have an API for pipes but I supposed you could really do the same thing locally by just scraping the data sources. I'm pretty excited to play around with this. ------ eli I bet Google really wishes they thought of pipes (to go with Google Base). (Note: Google Base is one of the potential data sources in Pipes)

Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars - Shivetya http://syonyk.blogspot.com/2016/03/is-tesla-building-throwaway-cars.html ====== ryandrake One of the things that makes a car valuable is having a healthy aftermarket. It looks like, from this article anyway, Tesla is doing anything they can to make sure there is no aftermarket for their vehicles. To me, a car that you can't service yourself is worthless. A car that needs the manufacturer's permission to activate is not your car--it's owned by the manufacturer. And, when the manufacturer places a threatening call to the "owner" after he tries to get diagnostic information from his own car [1], well that's so far beyond crossing the line it's not even funny. I think we're going to start seeing "jailbroken" Teslas soon after they start falling out of their warranty period. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. You'd think that out of the thousands of people who have already bought one of these cars, there might be one out there with both the skills and desire to actually own what they paid for. 1: [http://gas2.org/2014/04/14/road-slightly-traveled-hacking- te...](http://gas2.org/2014/04/14/road-slightly-traveled-hacking-tesla- model-s/) ~~~ userbinator _You 'd think that out of the thousands of people who have already bought one of these cars, there might be one out there with both the skills and desire to actually own what they paid for_ On the other hand, it could just be that those who want to really own their cars would not consider buying a Tesla anyway, and those who have the skills are too scared of the legal aspects. I think at the moment, electric cars are still somewhat niche and don't really appeal to the demographic who would be modding their cars. The aftermarket community for existing cars basically doesn't care about emissions --- one of the biggest attractions of an electric. As a bit of a car-geek myself, I'll admit that electrics are rather "boring" and for the same reason I'm not so interested in the newer super- computerised vehicles either; it's the noisy, smelly, smoky, aggressive, obnoxious-mechanical-monster nature of petrol/diesel engines that's the really "fun" part. Batteries, electronics, and motors just don't evoke quite the same feeling. ~~~ Amezarak At least for me, it's not about souping the car up, it's about doing repairs and maintenance myself because a) it's cheaper and b) it's more convenient. If I knew I was going to have to drive a car to the dealership anytime something went wrong, I would not buy that car. It's a big hassle (especially if the dealership is any distance away) and almost always outrageously expensive for anything outside of warranty. And if it's something that I can't do myself, I'd rather take it to a cheaper local mechanic I know and trust. According to the article, Teslas only have service manuals available in Massachusetts (and there only on an extremely expensive subscription basis), no independent shops, and doesn't have a working OBD-II port. That sounds like a nightmare to me. Granted, it's way out of my price range anyway. ;) ~~~ mcv Same here. We recently bought a second hand Prius at an official dealer (because new is unreasonably expensive, we do care about emissions, and I think we got some warranty from the official dealer). Half a year later, the brakes need to be replaced. Turns out not to fall under the warranty, whereas we think it's unreasonable to sell a car with brakes that need to be replaced that soon. Repair at the official dealer is pretty expensive. So my wife takes it to our old, trusty local mechanic, and their repairs are a lot cheaper. I forgot if they could also advise us on whether this was reasonable in the first place. I think my mother also often ended up at an independent mechanic after getting disappointed by official dealers. (My dad always drove leased company cars so didn't have to worry about this stuff. I know nothing about cars (but I'm glad my wife does).) ~~~ ufukbay I bought a used car around 2 years ago and went to the dealer because of a problem and was shocked when he informed me about (obviously after selling the car) what everything doesn't fall under the warranty. It's probably easier to say what falls under which is the motor and transmission. Otherwise they bring the argument with wear parts which I can understand for the brakes. It's unlucky that they sold you a car where the brakes were soon to be replaced but they are really wear parts. However I was suprised to hear that also most of the electrical stuff doesn't fall under warranty. I'm from Germany so it might be different in other countries. ------ brandmeyer > A lot of Tesla fans claim that electric vehicles are inherently superior, > because with fewer moving parts, they'll be able to stay on the road > basically forever - no piston rings to wear, no transmissions to fail, no > oil to change. There are at least two major components that "wear out" in power electronics - capacitors and power transistors. Traditional vacuum-impregnated motor winding insulation also has a wear-out mechanism. Electrolytic capacitors have both an electrolyte breakdown and dryout at extended temperatures and voltage. Film capacitors also have a (much slower) dielectric breakdown. Power transistors have two wear-out mechanisms: one that is based on thermal cycling of the wire bonds and one that is based on thermal cycling of the solder between the transistor and direct-copper-bonded substrate. Datacenter-scale UPS addresses both of these with field-replaceable modules. The main AC and DC capacitor banks are replaceable in advance of failure, and power transistors are field replaceable in much larger power modules, typically only after a failure. Vacuum-impregnated motor winding insulation is typically not completely void- free. The high dV/dt that a direct-connected inverter imposes on the windings causes large repetitive voltage spikes across the winding insulation. The voltage spikes trigger partial discharge in the voids, which in turn erodes the insulation. IMO, long-lived electric cars should at least have capacitor banks that are schedule-replaced, and drive modules that are replaceable after failure. With the level of diagnostics and history monitoring available today, we should be able to replace both components in advance of failure as well. Do electric cars have lower maintenance, longer life, and higher reliability than ICE cars? Definitely, probably, and probably, respectively. But "lower", "longer", and "higher" don't mean "zero", "forever", and "infinite". ~~~ georgefrick I found your addition very interesting. But I think the "Tesla fans" referred to, are referring to something different. The Tesla vehicles are "missing" a lot of parts that rust, corrode, and cause engineering challenges. One of the main ones behind the exhaust system. Speak with a series of car mechanics and they'll invariably tell stories of cars that never received an oil change until something fails. There are videos, pictures, and documentation of Tesla being able to swap drive trains, etc. Put together, Tesla is able to better protect the frame and body from corrosion by separating it from the same parts that usually "Carry this along". That's a lot of text to say they reduce the surface area and mass of corrosion and failure prone parts. This isn't to say I agree, but I find the information all fascinating (as a car guy). The best way to make a car, in my mind; more serviceable is to increase the protections from rust and corrosion. Otherwise a simple brake pad ends up being an entire brake system upon repair attempt. In regards to electronics; they can go in sealed compartments and be easily serviced. How awesome. They can also just as easily be replaced by a superior implementation. Anyways, your post made me ramble a bit but I'm trying to determine if I agree with the original post or not. ~~~ WalterBright I have an 89 Ford. It has been parked outside in rainy Seattle for 20 some years. Other than the exhaust system, it is free of corrosion. I find this rather incredible. Ford has done a truly amazing job with corrosion protection, unlike my older car which rusts when a cloud passes by. I also have to compliment Ford on building a low maintenance vehicle that is also cheap and simple to repair when it does go wrong. ------ qume This is a good place to share this with geeks who may not be into cars: I drive a 1994 Mercedes (W124 chassis). One of the most reliable cars ever made. Simple to repair yourself. A TON of info available online for anything you could want to fix. Pretty much (probably 100%) of all parts on the car are available super cheap as chinese replacements because the model was around for so long and so many of them are still on the road (I just replaced the car window regulator - normally a few hundred $$, got it on amazon delivered for $23). Made to be serviced/repaired. Quite a bit of fun doing it too. You can pick one up for $2k and it will probably do another 200k miles no problem. And the best bit? FAR FAR more environmentally friendly than a new Tesla. I'll leave that up to you to figure out ;) ~~~ Swizec You should look up crash tests between cars considered safe in 1994 and modern cars. I saw one for two Renault Espace models. The old one was so crumply compared to the new one, that the new one didn't even deploy airbags because there was no need. Both got top safety ratings when new. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xQS-7heF- og](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xQS-7heF-og) ~~~ qume Oh, and one more thing. Go walk around the yard of a tow company. Be prepared to feel sick. You'll come away with the conclusion that the standard crash tests, which are well designed for common accidents, are still just a small minority of serious accidents. And the most horrifying thing that I came away with is the number of wrecks where there is 'car' where the passengers should be. Even in trucks and SUVs. The strongest cars ever built historically are still the strongest cars on the road, even though there have been some great innovations that they miss out on. This is just for fun really, not trying to make a point with it, but this is an old Volvo destroying other cars: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R95yOXPoR_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R95yOXPoR_s) ~~~ userbinator Volvos definitely have a well-deserved reputation; for many years, their slogan was "Drive Safely", and they took it seriously. Here's another video where the Volvo's passenger compartment doesn't even change shape while the other car's is completely crushed: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt0oQsRvtWI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt0oQsRvtWI) Although a downside is that, as the joke goes, "a Volvo doesn't need a crumple zone; it uses the other car." Not so good if the other car also happens to be a Volvo... ~~~ kerberosg That is only true if the other car is of the same era. Verus newer cars the crumple roles are very much reserved [https://youtu.be/qBDyeWofcLY?t=105](https://youtu.be/qBDyeWofcLY?t=105) ------ valine This is very troubling to read. I can understand that tampering with an automobile might pose safety concerns. I can also understand that Tesla is trying to protect its brand. That being said, the fact that Tesla is monitoring individual cars in a way that they can detect when you're used the Ethernet port is seriously Orwellian. I can only imagine this will get worse as cars become more autonomous. ~~~ zanny The ability to potentially break your car has never stopped any other car in history from having an accessible engine compartment. This is basically in tandem with the John Deere story - the consequences of proprietary software bleed into the physical world and cause an incredible amount of difficulty for people who do not even recognize what the problem is. Tesla can only get away with all this because of how digital the car is in the first place. ~~~ ericd Tinkering with an electric car when you don't know what you're doing will kill you so much more easily than a gasoline car will. That probably has something to do with it? ~~~ zanny "Sticks a potato in exhaust pipe" "Drives around car" "Dies" Alternatively, disconnect the steering column and drive off a cliff. There are a thousand easy ways to kill yourself making uninformed modifications to any motor vehicle, by its nature. Its a ton of steel that goes up to a tenth the speed of sound. If anything, the reduced complexity of electric vehicles gives you fewer vectors for wrongdoing to screw yourself over. You can break any number of parts in a combustion engine to make it fail, whereas in an electric vehicle all you really have is steering column + drivetrain + battery pack. ~~~ ericd It's much easier to intuit the risks from a mechanical danger than an electrical one. It's the difference between breaking a mechanical linkage and accidentally brushing up against a live terminal. ------ bri3d The "paywalled workshop manual" requirements are common to every manufacturer. The only reason service manuals are available for free online for other modern cars is that they're ripped from the manufacturer's pay portal, not that the manufacturer is supplying them out of the goodness of their hearts. And the service prices are pretty much in line with other luxury cars at the price point. Not that that really defends Tesla, though. Cutting off an owner from dealer parts supply because their car is salvaged is unprecedented as far as I know. And the cutthroat attitude that every part of the car is a trade secret is ridiculous. I think the biggest challenge for Tesla when they release the Model 3 will be scaling up their service network while scaling down costs. $70,000 car owners are generally willing to pay $400-$800 every few years for a dealer service. $30,000 car owners aren't. And for most manufacturers, scaling dealer service is a franchise : they need to supply parts, training, and certification, not a whole service department. For Tesla, it's a brave entry into a challenging core business. ~~~ JupiterMoon Do most manufacturers only supply manuals when legally compelled to? ~~~ burger_moon If you pay for alldata or michelin ondemand you get access to all of that. ------ nraynaud Interesting, I work in the wind turbine industry (at the margin, and since one month, I guess I'm an expert), and it's the same, there are interesting sensors and data everywhere, but everything is locked down, and as long as the warranty runs, the owner of the turbine is at the mercy of a very reluctant maker for every maintenance task. The owner can't use any of those very useful sensors to assess the state of the turbine, he has to call external consultants who will re-instrument the turbine with external sensors at great cost, when they could have just downloaded the existing data from their office to give a look at it. ~~~ brandmeyer And then what happens when the mfr. goes out of business? For example, see Clipper Windpower. ~~~ scblock Specific to Clipper, the owner of the technology keeps enough money around to keep rebuilding the crazy gearboxes for current owners, while other spares can often be obtained directly from the actual component manufacturers. Third party service organizations like EDF Services or UpWind keep them running for you, or you can hire your own techs. Depending on the contract the relevant design information may also put in escrow in the event the manufacturer goes under and spares are no longer available. For comparison, Zond and US Windpower died more than a decade ago but the owners are still keeping the machines going. It can be a challenge but it's not the end of the world. ------ nkw I'm glad someone wrote about this. I have a deposit on a Model X, and this is the single largest issue that is making me lean towards not buying the vehicle. I occasionally enjoy doing my own maintenance or repair on stuff I own and my present vehicle (close to a Model X equivalent but dinosaur powered and German) has been pleasant in that regard. There is nice fully functional (though Windows) third-party diagnostic software available, the actual service documentation is available to owners (for a pretty reasonable fee), there is a bit of competition on parts price amongst dealers (though ultimately only within a certain range as they still originate with one manufacturer) and I haven't once felt like instead of owning the car I merely have a license from the manufacturer to use it. I worry after the warranty expires that I will be at the mercy of Tesla for any service and support, which is an unknown quantity right now. I've seen the terrible spot a product owner can be left in when a manufacturer decides (for whatever reason) that service and support are now their primary profit center. Not only are you screwed in that your product now costs a fortune to maintain, your product is now essentially worthless for resale because everyone knows the cost to maintain and repair it makes it uneconomical. (See, e.g. several private aircraft companies which went bankrupt) ------ phkahler This is dumb. Can you replace the tie rods, brake pads, tires? So long as the regular maintenance items can be handled I don't see a problem. Electronic parts on other cars are getting herd to replace too - they do things like record the VIN code upon first use and refuse to work in a different car, all in the name of anti-theft. Also, as people get excited about self driving cars, safety becomes a huge concern. You have throttle, brakes, steering, camera systems, radar, all working together to achieve that. You're not going to be tampering with any of that stuff on any car in the near future. So if regular maintenance items can be replaced, and body damage can be repaired, I don't see the complaint. ~~~ mdorazio Yes, basic maintenance like you describe is entirely possible to do on your own or at any normal mechanic. Body work can be done at normal high-end body shops as well, with the caveat that getting replacement panels from Tesla is expensive and challenging due to their limited production capacity. Source: Friend's Tesla recently needed some body work to repair a dented door. ------ pcarolan This sounds a lot like the open vs closed system debate we had/(have?) with computers. I'm glad that in my youth I could wrench on the internals of a PC and I'm glad that in my 30s I never have to because my Mac 'just works'. Also, this debate is older than I am: [http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle- Maintenance-Inquiry...](http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance- Inquiry/dp/0060589469) ~~~ loopbit If you had read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance you'd known that it has very little to do with actual motorcycle maintenance, apart of using it as a tool to make its point. ~~~ wetmore This is a kind of dickish way to reply. Yeah it's not the original point but there is a discussion of this issue in it IIRC. ~~~ loopbit It may have come across dickish, It was not my intention. I had no time to go in more detail and just left it as a note. As for the issue at hand, yes, it's mentioned nearly at the beginning of the book, when the narrator is discussing the motorcycles each character has and why they chose it, mentioning the two views[0]. If I recall correctly, there's no discussion, it's simply there to give an example of the concept of quality that the author is trying to define. Anyone thinking that the book has anything to do with actual motorcycle maintenance (or worse, trying to use the advice) didn't understood the ideas and concepts of the book. [0] The tinkerer, open view, exemplified with an old motorcycle (of which I don't remember the make) vs the "it just works", closed view, using a brand new BMW. ------ tokipin People used to repair televisions but at some point it became cheaper to just buy a new one due to the tech/manufacturing being sufficiently evolved and commoditized/cheap, as well as the issues involved with repairing more complex circuitry. Electric cars have the same potential, I think, because of their inherent simplicity. That potential already seems clear given that battery costs will keep falling. ~~~ seiji VCR repair too. The big thing nobody talks about (or some people even brag about) is how Tesla records your entire driving history to improve their future products. It's kinda creepy and you have no option but to obey if you want the Tesla Experience. Other companies are trying to "catch up" in this way too like how Google Android Auto Car Integration _requires_ manufactures allow Google Android Auto Car Integration to send live, real-time individual car performance data back to Google HQ so they can also analyze it all for their own purposes. There's basically no legitimate reason why a 3rd party music player app requires your car to transmit real time acceleration data, sensor data, fluid levels, and seat positions back to Google. ------ vvanders I don't think things are as dire as he makes it out: 1\. Small amount of cars on the road so there's limited incentive for aftermarket parts. 2\. People already do brakes/tires/suspension/etc. It's a car after all. 3\. I wouldn't want to get _near_ the powertrain. 425kw(~400V @ 1,000 Amps) will kill you if you touch something that you shouldn't. I think it'll be a bigger issue once we see the Model 3 on the road. ~~~ TD-Linux Your computer power supply has a ~400 volt rail in it. Are you unwilling to ever open a desktop computer? The Tesla battery has contactors inside of it, so you'll only have 400V live when the car is on. Additionally, assuming the HV is floating relative to the chassis, you need to touch two spots at different potentials to actually get shocked. That said, it looks like this is an attempt to prevent service of a lot of non-powertrain components, considering that the Tesla owner in the article got a letter for connecting just to the ethernet port. ~~~ saulrh > Your computer power supply has a ~400 volt rail in it. Are you unwilling to > ever open a desktop computer? If it's plugged in and turned on - yeah, sure, I don't want to muck around in there. The thing is, my computer power supply: * Can be completely physically disconnected from the rest of the computer * _Doesn 't have a battery in it_ If I pull the plug on my desktop, disconnect the power supply, and maybe if I'm being really paranoid touch a lamp to it just to be sure there isn't anything trapped in a cap or inductor, I know that that 400 volt rail is actually at _zero_ volts relative to anything near me. Batteries? Especially power batteries that I can't guarantee are physically disconnected, and that can't really be grounded because they're inside an insulated mobile platform? It's more like looking inside a microwave oven or a CRT, and you're _damn right_ that I don't open those up. ~~~ smileysteve > Doesn't have a battery in it Any work done on a car w/ airbags (the last 20 years) has had a risk of airbag explosion with any localized short. The Takata airbag recall means that many of these may shoot shrapnel at you. And the original airbags were known for occasionally flinging phosphorous at you. Beyond that, Lead Acid batteries can be dangerous when the battery or the alternator fails - that's not steam, that's sulphuric acid steam. ~~~ saulrh I don't know why airbags aren't opto-isolated digital devices activated by simple challenge and response over canbus (read a single byte off address 0, write the same byte back to address 1 to trigger). I'd have expected pyrotechnics to have been first on the list for conversion to digital. ------ dkhenry This article is spot on, but the author fails to account for the fact that on _most_ new cars, your in the same boat. Unless its a maintenance item, your not going to be able to replace it with anything but the manufacture's blessing. The biggest difference is there are a lot more maintenance parts on a conventional car, so you have more of an opportunity to replace things. It was my understanding that the only true maintenance part on the Tesla was the wiper blades. ~~~ jonknee > It was my understanding that the only true maintenance part on the Tesla was > the wiper blades. And the brakes / tires. ~~~ tclmeelmo And the HVAC system. I don't know but wouldn't be surprised if the HVAC system on Teslas, in addition to the cabin environment, had some responsibility for the battery and motor thermal management too. ------ charlesdenault If Tesla's longterm business strategy is to build a fleet of autonomous cars that operate in fractional ownership/lease models, of course it makes sense to build a car that has a <10 year product life cycle. They can iterate quickly, release new versions, and not have legacy hardware on the market. If they use a buyback program similar to Apple's it might make sense for their particular demos. Time will tell, and it will be interesting to see what the Model 3 has for a warranty, considering it's targeting a much broader market than the Model S/X. ~~~ teacup50 Iterate quickly? Hardware is not software. The environmental cost alone of building a new car is outrageous. In addition to which, the SV2.0 "iterate quickly" ideal turns consumers into guinea pigs for half-baked and half-broken products that will just be updated out from under them. ~~~ mdorazio And yet Apple produces a new $500+ phone every single year, intentionally leaving behind customers who are still using hardware more than 3 years old. I would say that the software iteration business model is making inroads into the hardware market as well, including in the automotive space. The solution to your guinea pigs point is a lease model, in which customers get a new car every two years to stay on top of developments. Or when autonomous cars are available, don't own a car at all - outsource all the hardware upgrades and maintenance to the manufacturer and pay for the service of getting from point A to point B when you need it (ala Uber). ~~~ teacup50 What you're proposing isn't a good thing. It's an ugly, environmentally unfriendly, anti-consumer model. How many people are debt-financing their $800+ iPhone? How much value is that extracting from people, and what are the opportunity costs for them? What's the environmental impact of phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use? What happens when market choices disappear along with the very concept of ownership? This dystopian ideal of inescapable corporatism may be a commercially viable, but it's not remotely ethical. ~~~ mchahn > phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to > lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use? I have repurposed my old Samsung android phones around the house as displays on the walls. They all have the net connection shut down and I use the wifi. They all work great and I see no reason they won't work until the hardware dies. I know this is only one data point. Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks? Edit: People less weird than me can still use the phones like tablets are used without a radio connection. ~~~ teacup50 > _Can someone describe how other models of phones can become bricks?_ iPhone's have a fully DRM'd trust chain, starting with the bootloader, which is itself on-die and immutable. Installing a new OS image requires online activation with Apple's servers, which return public-key signed installation permission. Unless there's a vulnerability that allows jailbreak, you're not installing non-Apple-approved software on that device. That's the future of the fully centralized/cloud-based 'software iteration business model ... making inroads into the hardware market' ~~~ mchahn Ah, I understand what you are saying now. Technically, not being able to install new software isn't bricked since you can still run the old. I only run the browser on my old phones so I didn't notice this. ------ sremani Great article, very forward looking and constructive criticism. Tesla is a young company with Silicon Valley ethos, it does not surprise me, they are treating Cars like Software. Where you are licensed to use software but do not own it and how that world view may or may not work. I am just wondering since Volt is from Old guard, its chances are better because the maintainability is a bit more traditional (but not all Volts can be repaired at any GM dealership). We may need a different model for EVs and PHEVs. [http://www.voltstats.net/Stats/Details/1579](http://www.voltstats.net/Stats/Details/1579) Logically it may extend to other EVs and PHEVs like Model S, but here is a real world volt which crossed 300K miles (the driver has a long commute, its kind of real world validation of longevity of EVs/PHEVs) ~~~ ams6110 _they are treating Cars like Software. Where you are licensed to use software but do not own it_ Why do they sell the cars at all then? Why not just lease them? ------ pyb After reading the article, really I don't think Tesla is offering particularly worse conditions than any other manufacturer. Their 8 year guarantee is actually pretty inclusive, and now it's transferrable as well. The lack of indie garages is the only item in his list I agree with, but things could change in the future, as the pool of ex-Tesla mechanics grows. ------ api A lot of this revolves around the new business model of using the Internet to lock everything down. Basically half your car, house, whatever will be in the cloud. ~~~ jacquesm I refuse to buy products like that. If it doesn't operate stand alone then you can keep it. ~~~ awqrre There should also be an easy way to disconnect your car from the network, because apparently, newer cars are always connected and reporting on your activities[1]. 1\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec- gps-2014-1](http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1) ~~~ bane Or visa-versa, let me tap into that data connection for free for internet access. ~~~ awqrre Most people probably would choose that option then, but either way, you should have to opt-in for the data sharing (whether or not it includes free Internet or other services...): Example: 1\. Do you want to share data with us?* 2\. Do you want to share data with us and get free Internet?* 3\. Do you want to share data with us and get a free service service that requires data sharing (ie: ads as you drive past businesses)?* 4\. None of the above. * Position, speed, microphone, car weight, Wi-Fi devices detected, etc.. ------ matt_wulfeck why wouldn't an electric car be easier to service? A combustible engine has so many moving parts, fuel pump, filter, oil changes, regulator, etc etc. an electric car is just a battery and an electric engine, which is actually a pretty old peice of technology. I do concede that the battery is a pretty complex piece of engineering. My fear is that DRM "authorized" replacements will become like the toner cartridges of the future. ~~~ CalRobert The article discusses the difficulty of servicing a Tesla at length. Perhaps you should read it? ------ protomyth How is "Tampering with the Vehicle and its systems, including installation of non-Tesla accessories or parts or their installation, or any damage directly or indirectly caused by, due to or resulting from the installation or use of non-Tesla parts or accessories;" not a violation of Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act? ~~~ arkem There's an exception if you can convince the FTC that the product will only work correctly with branded parts. Take a look at 15 USC 2302(c): [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2302](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2302) ~~~ protomyth Has that ever been applied to car parts? ------ greendesk I remembered this story when reading the article: A boy wants to repair his dad's printer. As he troubleshoots the problem, he calls a repair shops with the information on the printer. The repair shops gives him guidance on how to repair the printer on his own and sends the parts for it. The boy asks: "Why would you do it? Would not you make more money by asking me to have it repaired at the shop?" "Oh, but when people try to repair it on their own they usually spend much more money after their attempted repair." I have been burned many times by car repairmen. A misdiagnosed or malice repair is a very big nuisance. I rather trust official repairs than garage shops. If I had a Tesla, I would lean towards using the official service. ~~~ protomyth "I rather trust official repairs than garage shops." Had a Chevy and took it in for an official repair on the recall. They didn't do it correctly. Had it in the shop because the belt broke (not timing) and they asked if it I had taken it in for the recall. I was a bit peeved to find out the official shop had not only messed up the recall repair on the brakes, they had actually broke some other stuff. Took my Dad's Buick into Devils Lake to get the door repaired. Common problem on that model, and the local repair shop (Harold's) decided ordering a $120 plastic part was all kinds of dumb, so he made an aluminum version of the part. It never broke again. Its about people and incentives. There are very important consumer protections in not letting the manufactures control everything. I have seen bad manufacture shops and good ones and good and bad independent shops. Its about people. If we can keep manufactures from controlling all repairs with decent legislation, we might be able to keep a strong and healthy 3rd party repair capability. Otherwise, its just one more thing we don't actually own and the incentive is to build things that will break. ------ AndrewKemendo So maybe this is a dumb question but does this mean that whomever builds an "open" EV will win in the long run? My guess is not and people will just get locked into their "platform" vehicle in the same way that you are locked into Apple devices. ~~~ neffy Not a dumb question at all. I would say that it means that there's a very real business opportunity for anyone who wants to compete with Tesla and takes the open route. Beyond that who knows, but the very fact that they're shutting down analysis as much as possible (they probably don't really care that much about hackers, it's the reverse engineering shops that all the major car manufacturers run that would be their big fear), suggests that what they have is easy to copy. Or reinvent. History, I suspect, will be on the side of the battery makers. ------ tinhangliu Putting a lithium battery on a traditional car doesn't make the mobility industry more sustainable. Tesla's are still going to end up in car graveyards.. To be sustainable, we need to rethink how cars are designed from the bottom up. Especially to sustain the growth in car-as-a-service (i.e. Higher usage rates) we need modular design to have replaceable and upgradable parts, without throwing away what works. That's why we created OSVehicle,the first open source electric vehicle platform. www.osvehicle.com ------ al_biglan Interesting, but Tesla is both just getting started and "feeling the space" in the auto industry. They have taken pride in taking a different approach to traditional car companies and I imagine some of the wording around the Extended Warranty is simply being new and not copy-pasting examples from other companies. Also, Tesla isn't making cars for everyone (yet) but instead focusing on expensive/luxury cars. Rather than compare against GM/Honda/etc. How do they compare against Maserati/Aston Martin/etc.? Finally, as a young company, it may indeed be their _goal_ to build cars that last forever, but the first few generations they are still pushing the envelope of (their) understanding. In this case, bringing ell cars back to their repair centers may be the "right" way to build this experience into their future automobiles. So... "yeah, they aren't making cars that will last more than N years unless you, as an owner, are prepared to sink a bunch of cash into achieving this" It may be more interesting to watch the auto that replaces the Model S. Both in terms of their timeframe for introducing new models (beyond expanding into different classes of vehicles) as well as how they adopt what they learn into more fundamental design changes. Thank you to all those cutting edge people willing to buy Teslas now. I'll wait 5-10 years till they get mainstream and keep my Honda and Toyota on the road for 250k miles :-) ------ norea-armozel There's always been a push in the automotive industry to make parts in cars that the average person can't replace or repair easily. If anything, this makes more money for the automakers (like Tesla) because they can setup all kinds of service licenses and the like at their leisure. And if a particular product line gets too long in the tooth, then you just killed off any authorized servicing and parts. Now you got an instant customer if they keep thinking it's worth it. Especially if Tesla were to institute some sort of trade in program that would be cheap to finance but great for PR especially if it touts the recycling angle. Frankly, I'm surprised no one would think such a possible outcome was going to happen. Elon's not dumb, he's a businessman first and foremost. Telsa cars aren't a charity. You buy them to feel good, they are nice fun cars to drive, then when the time comes you're likely to get bored with it anyways and want to trade for the newest model because you're a good little consumer, right? ------ lacker None of this seems "throwaway" to me. It just means that rather than build a product that ends up being repaired by a distributed army of mechanics, they are going "full stack" and aiming to repair everything in-house. To me that seems like the ideal system - some people like the author might enjoy repairing their own cars, but I would rather not. ~~~ carlivar Now imagine Apple got rid of independent repair shops (they are already heading in this direction pretty much). There would be outrage, and there's already unease with Apple's direction in these areas. Why does Tesla get a pass? ~~~ x0x0 My phone and laptop have a much lower price and expected service life than a $100k vehicle. ~~~ carlivar What is the price and service life at which it becomes okay? ------ mhandley If the resale value of an out-of-warranty Tesla ends up being essentially zero, the new ones will start to look like a pretty poor investment. This will impact Tesla's sales. You can be pretty sure that Tesla will rectify this eventually if they want to stay in business in the face of emerging competition from other electric cars. ------ mizzao It seems like at least one of the problems mentioned here is going to be common to many cars in the future: more and more of the vehicle will involve software rather than hardware, and as such is less transparent to the end- user. It's not just Tesla customers who will be dealing with this. ------ sklogic Not sure singling out Tesla is fair. Pretty much all the modern (built in 21st century) cars are far less serviceable and far less modular than they used to be before. The military designs are the only exception from this unfortunate trend, for the obvious reasons. ~~~ mcv I've always loved the idea of the Citroen 2CV, which was famously easy to repair (sometimes with some string and chewing gum), and trivial to modify. But it's an old car and is not being made anymore, and no modern car really seems to fit that niche. ------ callesgg The first thing that hit my mind was that they are doing it the apple way, apple is doing quite fine with its locked devices. like most engineers I like to play with and explore my technical equipment but for most people it is just a hasle. ~~~ soared I had the same thought. How many people would ever even consider maintaining their own car? I bet its insignificant in the face of Tesla's target market. ------ greggman Given the cars have various levels of self driving it would seem like the moment you mod your car Tesla would want nothing to do with you because you've changed something that could cause a crash. That seems in some way different from a non-self driving car. Of course you should be able to do anything you want with your car but would it be unreasonable if Tesla basically disabled all their software and services at that moment? Basically making it clear if you mod the car they want no responsibility in what happens when it's self driving. ------ rebootthesystem Inherent issues with anything battery powered: - I have 20 year old grid powered drills, saws, routers, sawzalls, sanders - They all work and in perfect condition - Same period: Three sets of battery powered drills - Technology changes: NiCd to Lithium - Battery pack voltage/form-factor EOL - Aftermarket batteries expensive crap - Good motor, gearbox, chuck discarded - Environmental impact of early EOL? The Tesla scenario: - Will they be around in 20 years? - Will there be any parts for current cars? - Will you have access to service manuals, software and information? The battery packs: - Technology and chemistry will evolve - No reason to make packs with 20 year old tech - Will Tesla guarantee replacement packs in 10 to 20 years? - Could be vehicle lifetime limiting factor - Shame to crunch a perfectly good chassis, motor, etc. - Potentially significant environmental impact Working on electric cars: - Most people not qualified, even most techies - 400~500 V DC systems are deadly dangerous - Electric cars will be the domain of experts, not hobbyists - High voltage, high power, high energy density system can do horrific things in accidents - Who wants to be the responsible party? After market: - Potential for advanced after-market companies - More efficient, smaller motor controllers - Smaller, lighter, more energy-dense battery packs - On-board computers and entertainment systems - Might not be viable market for another 20 years - Tesla (and others) likely not interested in doing this themselves, they want to sell new cars Electric car market: - In 20 years all makers will have electric cars - Multiple models per maker, multiple choices - Buying from established makers gives you massive sales and support infrastructure - As market grows Tesla might have trouble reaching scale - Tesla has a 3 to 5 year window to become mainstream - If they fail at that they might well become irrelevant - Battery manufacturers (Panasonic, etc.) will support large car makers - Car manufacturers know how to make cars by the millions - Ford made a million F-150 trucks last year - That's just one maker and one model - They have the factories, people, process and product know-how - Electric cars far easier to build than IC cars - Tesla might be reduced to the Ferrari/McLaren of the industry Better for the environment: - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty battery manufacturing - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty battery disposal - Nobody talks about/quantifies dirty electricity generation - It's like leather: Process is dirty and disgusting but the end product looks beautiful and clean and nobody thinks about how it got there - Where is reality of environmental impact of 100 million pure electric cars when considering the entire chain of events that leads to manufacturing, using and retiring one? - I don't know the answer - Point: Don't be too sure you are "clean" - Maybe you are...by a little bit In all, today, analytically, I don't think electrics make much sense yet. Good for you if you are OK burning cash on one of these things. Thank you. I think. The inflection point for this industry is 100% connected to better battery technology. No other technology matters one bit. We know how to make cars, electric motors, transmissions and electronics. We need better and cheaper batteries. The minute a new battery technology (super-capacitors?) emerges with twice the energy in half the volume at half the cost we will have dozens of pure electrics to choose from. The infrastructure will be built as soon as companies can start making money with them. ------ micheljansen A lot of this is not that uncommon for other car manufacturers as well. The "Premium" warranty of a used BMW also depends on the car being serviced at an authorised repairer. Yes, it's the manufacturer trying to be more of an "integrated" service provider and keeping the resale value up, but it also ends when the car gets older. Most of those cars the go on to lead a long life with aftermarket parts and repairs. ~~~ ghaff I think the question is how practical third-party service will be (by individuals or independent garages). As you suggest, the common wisdom that I've always heard is that, if you want to hold onto a luxury car past the warranty/extended warranty timeframe, that's great and can be a fun and cost- effective auto--but only if you're handy and willing to spend the time or have an indie mechanic who you trust. Otherwise, dealer service will eat you alive. ------ imh This seems to be part of a larger trend towards controlling the things we own. Cell phones, tractors, cars, and I'm sure tons of other things are moving this way, where they're trying to make it illegal to root/jailbreak/service your own property. Cell phones seem to be trying to move away from ownership in general. What's the solution? ------ ck2 So super-liberal-progressive Vermont doesn't have a "right to repair" law? Interesting Mass. is the first. Should be a federal law. ~~~ castratikron I was delighted to read that a right to repair law exists in at least one state. I've been working to get one passed here (MN). ------ deagle50 Lease and all the complaints go out the window. Why buy when battery density keeps going up? Not to mention the autopilot features and other tech. Model S well equipped lease is <$1000, why the hell anyone without f-u money would shell out $100k upfront I'll never know. ------ kayman I don't care to own the car. From my point of view, it's a service I want access to, to get me from point A to point B. Tesla makes that process enjoyable. Because Tesla leveraged software, like an app, I want Tesla to handle the updates for life of the car. ------ Johnnybe And now I know for certain I will never purchase a Tesla. What a shame. ------ Spooky23 It's pretty easy. They don't want an aftermarket for the cars because the batteries will wear out, essentially cannot be replaced, and you'll see lots of Teslas in the side of the road. I still don't understand why these cars exist. You pay a premium that vastly exceeds the fuel savings vs a comperable gasoline vehicle. The warm fuzzy feeling associated with saving the earth is low value to me. They also aren't magical machines that don't break. A guy on my campus bought one about 18 mos one and it's been towed (presumably to NJ or Boston) 2-3 times. There goes the warm fuzzy feeling about saving the earth! ~~~ mikeash Why do you say the batteries cannot be replaced? Swapping a battery literally takes five minutes. The cost of a new one is high, but will likely come down. As for why these cars exist, it's simple: they're awesome cars. They're powerful and quiet and have advanced technology. Never mind environmental concerns, not having to visit the gas station is just very convenient. Not emitting (local) pollution is a nice bonus, but it's pretty far down the list. ~~~ Spooky23 They can't be replaced because they are extremely expensive, and no mechanic is going to touch these thing without manuals and tools. ~~~ mikeash Expensive is different from "can't," and there's definitely one company whose mechanics can replace the battery. ~~~ Spooky23 It's all about ROI. You can make a case for almost any conventional repair, save a transmission or engine overhaul. When a battery replacement exceeds the value of the vehicle, and the one source of mechanics is incentivized to sell a new car, the economics will never make sense. ~~~ mikeash Much will depend on exactly what batteries cost in 10-15 years, or whenever the current batteries start to fail. If they still cost $25,000, then yeah, that's probably going to be a poor value proposition. If they cost, say, $5,000, then no problem! If Tesla and others start selling ~$35,000 cars with 200+ mile ranges in the next couple of years, then I think it's going to be closer to the latter scenario. But it's hard to know for sure. ------ kuschku This is an interesting topic. And an interesting idea for a hack: Hacking a Tesla Model S to work without any connection to Big Brother, eh, Tesla, I mean. ~~~ martin_bech But you want a connection to Big Brother, you want free super charging, you want software updates, you want free internet access and navigation, you want the free Spotify Account. My Car wouldnt have AutoPark, Summon, Traffic Aware Cruise Control, Lane Assist, Spotify, Autopilot, 50 ekstra Horse Power and so on, without the software updates the connection to Big Brother provides. (Euro Spec S85D) ~~~ dingo_bat How is the extra HP related to the Big Brother connection? ~~~ sahat I don't remember the details, but in one of the recent updates they increased the performance at top speed and initial start (below 3 mph). Prior to that, 85D and 90D (all-wheel drive configuration) got a significant boost to its 0-60 performance via a software update. Since all the hardware is controlled via a software firmware, they are able to tweak the voltage supply of each motor to decrease or increase output performance. ------ Animats Just think of it as customer engagement. It's like calling slavery "job assurance". ------ pravda I don't think anyone who buys a Telsa for 100 grand cares the slightest bit about being forced to pay overpriced dealer service rates. And it's not like a 'worn out' Telsa is going into the car crusher. Every part is going to be pulled from it and sold on eBay. I look forward to being able to buy a Telsa motor for cheap on eBay. Maybe in 2026. ~~~ gambiting "And it's not like a 'worn out' Telsa is going into the car crusher." Well, it actually might. The article mentions it - if a car is deemed a "write off" by the insurance company(because cost of repair is quoted as >50% of the value of the car) then only Tesla can re-activate it. It's crazy, my dad used to have a car repair shop any buy dozens of cars that were "written off" by insurance companies, he would fix them, they would go through an official check-up process to be allowed on the road and that was it. He never had to ask Mercedes or Honda or Audi to "reactivate" their cars. ~~~ pravda What happens to cars that are written-off and not bought by your dad or someone else who wants to fix them up and get them back on the road? They go into the car crusher, but only after every part with any value is stripped from them. (Yes, I agree that a functioning Telsa car is worth more then a bunch of Telsa parts) If Mercedes could prevent people from buying written-off Mercedes cars, fixing them up and re-selling them, they certainly would! Telsa can do this, and they have a phony-baloney reason for doing this (safety! protecting the children!), so it makes sense for them to do it. And also, this is good for Telsa-buyers. If I spend 100-large, or 70-large on a Telsa, I don't want the hoi polloi to be able to purchase value-priced Telsas! It's a win-win-win. Telsa gets more money, Telsa-buyers get a more exclusive brand, and hackers get cheaper Telsa parts on eBay! ------ njharman Haters gonna hate and short sellers gonna drum up FUD. ~~~ wetmore So you're saying this guy's blog post is part of a conspiracy to drive down the price of Tesla stock? ------ gcb0 it's a $100+k car. it's a luxury, anyway you look at it, not a necessity for anyone. it's not the same as a car but the same as a money pit Lamborghini. stop trying to make Tesla happen so hard, internet yuppies.

Ad slowdown finally hitting Google, too? Revenue estimates cut. - pakafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081110/ad-slowdown-finally-hitting-google-too/ ====== josefresco If Google had more inventory I'd buy it. For those of us that have mastered our niche in AdWords Google is practically a money printing machine. For others? Not so much. Maybe this will get rid of some of my pesky competitors.

Pyrex - tosh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex ====== rini17 inbound: lamentations of USians that pyrex isn't borosilicate glass anymore... 1\. You can buy proper ISO 3585:1998 borosilicate glass kitchenware on amazon, just under another brands (Boral, Simax). 2\. The borosilicate glass is softer than lime glass and thus prone to scratching and subsequent catastrophic failure. With laboratory glassware this isn't an issue as reagents aren't likely to contain sand grains.

Show HN: PJDL v2.0 – Single wire data link - gioscarab http://www.pjon.org/PJDL-specification-v2.0.php ====== gioscarab Here the repo: [https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/strategies/Softwa...](https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/tree/master/strategies/SoftwareBitBang) This is a totally software emulated single wire, multi-master data link implemented in less than 200 lines of code, supporting direct pin to pin communication with more than 50 meters range.

Line Notify Client SDK – Lotify - NiJiaLin https://github.com/louis70109/lotify ====== NiJiaLin Lotify is my first client SDK with my friend, It support developer use LINE Notify quickly, I referenced line-bot-sdk-python tests which I think so good! Welcome Issue or PRs if any problems :)