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How the Fleece Vest Became the New Corporate Uniform - msh
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fleece-vest-became-the-new-corporate-uniform-1532442297
======
neonate
[http://archive.is/2uw9H](http://archive.is/2uw9H)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What podcast(s) are you listening to on a daily basis? - orschiro
======
mcphail
Not all are daily releases, but here they are. a16z ESPN Baseball Tonight
Exponent Masters of Scale Recode Decode The Bill Simmons Podcast The Joe Rogan
Experience The Knowledge Project Ross Bolen Podcast
Also Tim Ferris and Founders Fund's Anatomy of Next every now and again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to deliver on Machine Learning projects - jakek
https://blog.insightdatascience.com/how-to-deliver-on-machine-learning-projects-c8d82ce642b0
======
vjsc
So we had this idea of a new feature for our product. The only way to quickly
do it was to somehow implement a machine learning algo and that would give us
the result that we wanted. Viola!! It seemed simple.
Now our company doesn't have any machine learning expert or a data science
genius. Going for hiring one would take time. Taking someone up on contract
would be very expensive (our CEO wasn't ready to shell out that kinda money).
So the task fell on me. They asked me to go through the multitudes of Machine
leaning MOOCs out there and get a working prototype ready in 2 weeks.
I had already done Andrew Ng's course back when it came out for the first
time. But my memory had faded for the lack of practice.
I re-ran the course again. I went over a couple of online ML books too.
Then I started thinking of the problem at hand. Unfortunately, it turned out
to be a chicken and egg problem. For the feature to work perfectly we needed a
large amount of training data to train our models. But without the feature
actually deployed, we didn't have any way to collect any training data.
So we ultimately fell back to simple algo, that took it's decisions based on a
few hard coded rules. Things have been working fine till now.
~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
They gave you two weeks to become a data scientist and implement a working
solution? That's nuts. I'm still pretty early career, but I have done data
science work for about four years now and I wouldve quoted at least two months
to figure out data, clean it, feature engineer, run models, compare results,
and then deliver the best performing solution.
~~~
tedivm
And they didn't even have data!
~~~
pletnes
No data cleaning required. That’s often 80% of a project. So 2 months -> 2
weeks makes sense now!
------
fromthestart
Machine Learning is much more nuanced than people seem to understand. You
can't just throw data at a net and expect results-this field requires a heavy
degree of intuition, and engineers must be prepared for nets to pick up on
patterns not obvious to humans, which can lead to unintuitive results.
Neural nets are basically black box heuristics, with unpredictable edge cases.
Much like human reasoning, I'd warrant!
------
b_tterc_p
this doesn’t seem to offers any novel perspectives. I read it as intended for
self marketing.
~~~
e_ameisen
Co-author here. This post came out of a discussion with Adam, where we both
realized that the advice we were giving to ML teams and ML Engineers to guide
them to better results were very often process centric rather than model
centric.
Many resources exist online about how to get a model to converge, and that’s
not usually what makes or break a project.
Data acquisition, augmentation, model selection, and iterative exploration
however seem quite rarely discussed compared to how important we have seen
them be. This is our attempt at sharing this outside of our usual circles.
------
seren
That sounds awfully close to DMAIC.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMAIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMAIC)
Nothing wrong with that though...
------
sgt101
So we do the loop 50 time and we now have an algorithm that works (97%!) on
the test set. We are happy! We run it in production and everything looks good
(prbly 92% ish). Everyone is happy! We all get promoted or get new jobs. Then,
one day, someone actually looks at what it's doing... and lo. It. does. not.
work (~51%) Everyone is sad. Apart from us! Yay!
Seriously - an optimisation loop on a test set? Seriously?
------
rfeather
The point about hacking away at the code needs to be couched heavily. It's too
easy to conclude you've got negative or positive results when what you really
have is a silly little bug. The lack of focus on implementation skills in data
(or even "real" science) is frightful. The one take away anyone trained in
software engineering could share is that if you aren't very sure if it is
working as intended, it's very likely not. Code review is very applicable here
when making major pivots, even if unit or other testing is decidedly too time
consuming for the train test improve loop.
Edit: typo "of" to "if". Somewhat serendipitous if you think about it.
------
reureu
I love that "Data Scientist" has become such an inflated and meaningless title
that now we have "Machine Learning Engineer".
~~~
ende
Well, “Data Scientist” has been appropriated by the overflow of PhD’s w/o any
actual stats or computational backgrounds and few academia prospects, so I
guess you need to create new job titles for thise who are going to do the
actual work.
~~~
reureu
I totally agree, and wasn't arguing that a new title wasn't necessary. And I'm
ok with my downvotes for that comment :)
It's just funny that "Data Scientist" seemed to be originally branded as the
more technical/engineer-y version of a data analyst. Now I get recruiters
contacting me for "Data Scientist" positions that entirely revolves around SQL
and excel, and nobody in the Bay Area hires "Data Analysts" anymore.
Alright, guess it's time to update my LinkedIn and resume to adjust for this
inflation? Maybe I should jump up a few inflation levels and just become a
"Deep Learning Engineer."
~~~
borroka
I do not see any problem with that. There is a ton of confusion in the tech
world regarding labels, who does what, it is needed or not, outside of the
core actions that need to be done. The net effect of laying off 50% of tech
people from public tech companies might even result in a net positive for the
companies. Not for a tech worker like me, so please do not tell them.
Taking advantage as much as possible of hypes and other people's lazyness is
fine in my book. It is certainly not my duty from the outside to educate
recruiters and business people who make hiring decisions on the field – when I
tried, from the inside, to gently point out that what they were thinking did
not make any sense, I just put myself in a dangerous spot. I can be a data
scientist, deep learning engineer, machine learning engineer, machine learning
research scientist, whatever pays more and whoever has the most fun. If using
an RNN instead of a more effective and efficient linear regression gives me
more money and prestige, I will do it – as an IC you either go with the flow
or you are not having a good time. The vast majority of us is not saving lives
anyway.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The next housing crisis: chronic undersupply of homes for a growing country - jseliger
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/24/11299434/next-housing-crisis
======
maerF0x0
> National Association of Realtors
Sounds like a group interested in a supply crunch. Afterall, prices rise in
low supply, and fear can drive more sales in the shortrun. Two incentives for
Realtors to push a false spin of reality.
How about this headline? "Empty homes outnumber homless 6:1"
[http://www.mintpressnews.com/empty-homes-outnumber-the-
homel...](http://www.mintpressnews.com/empty-homes-outnumber-the-
homeless-6-to-1-so-why-not-give-them-homes/207194/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Everything Breaks, All the Time. - joshuacc
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/06/everything-breaks-all-time.html
======
jng
This guy is wrong, plain and simple. Unforeseeable bit-copying errors caused
by cosmic rays and similar circumstances, which do exist, probably account for
less than a one out of every billion actual bugs/crashes experienced out
there. When a bit is toggled by a cosmic ray in memory, if it hits program
memory, it will with a significant frequency crash your program.
Most bugs you experience daily (Word or your favorite game/appp crashing,
etc...) are caused by actual software errors in overly complex systems with
many dependencies. Multithreaded-coding errors can often account for many of
those, but not only, complex system with many layers and complex dependencies
can often hide obscure behaviors that can cause crashes in a given machine if,
for example, you have a weird combination of disk drivers, file system code,
and an antivirus hooking and acting on every filesystem read or write.
When, for example, a Word plug-in makes a call to Word's object model, this
goes through easily 10 software layers until it reaches its target, some of
these layers being configured via the flaky Windows registry, others going
through jumps from VM-based to native code using weird "marshalling"
techniques, etc... in these cases, you may encounter buggy behavior in any one
of the 10 layers, or in a combination of two of them, even if it seems like
you are just incrementing a simple counter.
Most of the time, though, bugs are caused by the app's own code (your own
code): careless code, dangerous practices, lack of solid control-flow design,
etc... if you write really good code, it's unlikely you will have many support
issues. Only if you are working in some problem-prone area: plug-ins to other
complex, often poorly-designed products, code pushing graphics drivers to the
max, etc... where you get into "complex system" behavior.
Even if you use multithreading, if you control all the code, you can write
very solid code. If your multithreaded code is perfect, it won't crash.
Although it can uncover bugs in third-party libraries, etc... which is why I
tend to write only "worker threads" with no third-party dependency if
multithreading is required.
And I think it's very dangerous to warn novice programmers to think that the
bug is probably somewhere else.
~~~
gwc
His point makes a lot more sense in the context it was originally intended.
He's not making a point about programming or debugging in general; he's
specifically discussing tech support as a one-man indie game shop. In
particular, it's all about the cost-benefit tradeoff. In his words (taken from
the first post in the series - [http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/06/seven-
tips-for-giving...](http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/06/seven-tips-for-
giving-good-tech-support.html)):
_But at the same time, as a small developer, you have very little time to
spare for support. Time spent getting the game working for one person is time
not spent making a new game for everyone. You will need to develop a sense of
when the time lost helping a person is not worth it, either because you won't
be able to solve their problem or because they will not able to implement the
fix you provide._
...
_Remember: It's only worth the time to do tech support if you have the chance
to, in a reasonable amount of time, fix a problem and make a loyal customer.
If you realize that, at the end of the road, you aren't going to end with a
happy person and a working product, end the conversation as quickly and
pleasantly as possible._
In that context, I think his approach is very rational. If you pushed him,
he'd probably agree that more often than not the issue is in his code (even if
it's just a question of inadequate error handling). However, if the problem is
only seen by a single user and will be a significant investment to try and
fix, then it's simply not worth the time when he could be working on a new
game, a port, or even a different problem that has been seen by multiple
users.
------
tsewlliw
I dont get this, its so often a bug, and so many people dont report bugs, this
strategy of telling people to reboot or reinstall or redownload just
perpetuates these voodoo-style fixes.
Im not saying fix everything always immediately, but dont write people off as
victims of cosmic rays just because you can't repro in 30 seconds or dont see
the bug where youd expect in the code.
~~~
jodrellblank
He didn't say "cosmic rays" anywhere in the article.
_voodoo-style fixes_
They're not voodoo, they're sledgehammer to smash a nut fixes. A reboot
reinitializes every part of your system into a mostly-known-good state. If you
knew what, you could say "restart this service" or "reinitialise this driver
like that", but a reboot gets all of it.
If you actually stabbed a doll with a pin and your program started working,
that would be ... scary.
~~~
tsewlliw
His actual criteria for taking the time to find a bug is reasonable, but I
take issue with the assertion that its not a bug in code he wrote most of the
time.
------
wccrawford
Only checking for a bug reminds me of the Intel bug that they claimed would
hardly ever happen, but turned out to happen a LOT.
I don't ignore bugs. I follow the same first step, and send the standard list
of things to try like reinstalling, rebooting, etc. But if they still have it,
I always look into it. Almost every time it's been a real bug. Some were
really hard to track down, but would have caused a lot of grief later. I was
always glad I did it.
~~~
Quarrelsome
Have you encountered a hardware defect yet? If/when you do, it represents a
lot of technically dead time that was spent looking at code. I'm not saying
either premise is right but I can appreciate his philosophy here.
For the record, I killed four weeks digging through code and running tests and
it turned out that temperatures in winter coupled with some bad soldering was
the cause of the issue. D:
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes, you have to track them down, yes it takes forever for the hard ones. But
most of the time it Isn't hardware, most of the time it my own bug and I can
fix it.
It definitely takes some experience to be good at debugging. I guess that's
why all the emphasis on development environments these days, where the hard
stuff is being debugged by someone else and I can work on my app-level stuff
in peace.
------
k33n
This fact drives me insane. It's theoretically possible to write a perfect
piece of software that can never fall down, break, blow up, etc. But it's
actually pretty much impossible in practice unless you have either near
unlimited resources (NASA in the 60's), but even with that you still might
fail (Microsoft).
------
synnik
There are two completely different conclusions that I would draw from his
facts:
1) Most bugs are in code. But it might not be your code. Your code layers
itself on top of many other layers of code that are outside of your control.
Learning to deal with that will make a difference in your work.
2) Know how everything works. I am always hocked at people who claim to be web
developers who don't even understand how an HTTP request/response works, much
less what your browser does with the results. It is one of my interview
questions for tech folk - I ask them to explain to me exactly what happens on
the server when a browser sends it a request. Few people can give much detail
here. Most can only give a generic explanation of the actions taken, if that.
------
rickdale
My biz partner has a GPS system from garmin. He lives in the central time
zone, but works in the eastern time zone. Any time we use the GPS it will
always add an hour to our trip when we are in EST.
Programmers aren't perfect. Practice makes permanents.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ha! And my sister went to Egypt and looked up the gps distance to home (Iowa):
8000 miles. Off by 50%. Why? The programmer was doing cartesian distance
instead of great-circle. So yes, if she drilled a tunnel through the Earth's
core, it was only 8000 miles. :)
~~~
T-hawk
No, 8000 miles sounds about right for the great-circle distance on the surface
from Iowa to Egypt.
First, the diameter of the Earth is not quite 8000 miles, but 7926. So if
anything says more than 7926 (plus maybe the height of a mountain or
whatever), it's not calculating a straight line in Cartesian 3d space.
Second, that distance of 7926 miles would be from a point to its antipode.
Iowa is not antipodal to Egypt, not even close. The antipode of Iowa is in the
Indian Ocean and hundreds of miles from any land. The straight-line distance
from Iowa to Egypt through the Earth's sphere would be more like 6000 miles.
------
sedachv
Read Jim Gray's Why do computers stop and what can be done about it?
(<http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/TR-85.7.pdf>)
Excerpts:
"In the measured period, one out of 132 software faults was a Bohrbug, the
rest were Heisenbugs."
"[retry] routines had a 76% success rate in continuing system execution."
Cosmic rays or race conditions, transient bugs _are_ common.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Why Facebook comments is a bad idea for your site - pytrin
http://www.techfounder.net/2012/08/15/dont-mix-business-and-personal-why-facebook-comments-is-a-bad-idea-for-your-site/
======
alttag
I don't particularly like the trend of sites offloading their commenting
mechanisms to Twitter, Facebook, DISQUS, etc. If it's Facebook, I'll never see
it, due to browser plugins. Twitter is often too short for a good
conversation, but if you do use it, run a script to import/display related
tweets instead of making me click. I'm not a fan of DISQUS either, partly
because I use Ghostery. (Alhough, it's good that the new version has a quick
"enable once and reload" feature.)
If the purpose of your site is to generate discussion, include a discussion
mechanism. If you like the clean look and don't want comments, expect less
feedback.
Sending users elsewhere, or requiring extra clicks to see the conversation
means less engagement. Maybe that's what some want, and use it as an effort to
separate wheat and chaff ... but frankly, that's what moderation is for.
~~~
ed209
Commenting is something I'd much rather offload to someone like DISQUS.
Creating your own commenting system either requires lots of spam management
(for an open commenting system) or forcing users to register for your service
before they can comment.
Frankly I prefer to use my existing identities to comment than have to sign up
each time on someones service just to be able to comment.
~~~
Gormo
I prefer just the opposite: I like having my identities on each site distinct
and autonomous. If everyone has a common identity across multiple sites, it
prevents any particular site from effectively evolving its own internal
community and cultural norms, and raises the stakes of participation.
~~~
dredmorbius
I segment my identities. A very few things will get my real name (or some
variant of it). Most go under a generally-topical alias of some sort or
another. I don't mind those aliases gathering their own reputation, but it's
no major loss if I decide to toss one at a later point.
------
jonknee
I have Facebook resources blocked (thanks Facebook Disconnect!) so I won't
ever know if your site has Facebook comments. Even if I saw them I would never
comment using Facebook, the same as never using it to log-into a third party
service. No need to give FB the opportunity to once again change their rules
and share stuff I'd rather they not.
~~~
tolos
I did not know about this plugin before now. I almost feel like I can start
reading political articles on news websites again. Thanks!
~~~
jonknee
The lack of Like buttons is also a blast of fresh air.
------
DanielBMarkham
I have a bunch of sites, and I've experimented with various options. (Example
of one site with FB comments on: <http://www.hn-
books.com/Books/Slaughterhouse-Five.htm> ) I've also tried LiveFyre comments
and a few other systems.
If there's a benefit to FB commenting by providing more engagement, I'm not
seeing it. I love the LiveFyre system, but I'm not seeing a lot of engagement
there, either.
My opinion is that any little thing you do to make commenting harder by even a
tiny amount has a huge impact on participation. To make matters worse, you're
giving up sometimes valuable feedback and participation content to Facebook,
which just monetizes it instead of you.
Maybe there's a way to make it pay off. If so, I'd like to hear it.
~~~
showerst
I think a fair bit of it depends on your needs for moderation, and what you're
comparing to.
When you say you're not seeing a lot of engagement with FB/Livefyre, were
those sites seeing engagement before with a worse commenting system?
We switched ForeignPolicy.com over to livefyre from the Drupal built-in system
and saw a big increase in participation, both in average comments per article
and the number of multi-message 'conversations' that people were having in the
comments section. That said, we already have an engaged audience, and a big
chunk of the benefit may have been new moderation tools that let us reduce
spam/trolls.
I don't think that any system will create engagement out of thin air, except
in the rare case of a site with a rabid fan base and no commenting/forum
system, but i'd argue that systems like disqus and livefyre make people more
likely to jump in because they don't need to create an account with you.
~~~
memmullen
As someone who reads ForeignPolicy.com every day, I wish you guys would use
Disqus. Curious as to why you decided to go with LF over Disqus.
~~~
showerst
I'm curious about what you dislike about LF. I could also explain our choices
a bit, but I'd rather offline that.
tim.showers@foreignpolicy.com
------
shell0x
I think it's a bad practice to outsource data like comments in general. I
prefer keeping controll over the comments. This way the commenters don't get
monitored/analyzed by Facebook or another US company, which is important,
especially as a European. Maybe Facebook don't like what the commenter wrote
on your site and just censor the comment and you won't even realize it.
Comments should stay on decentral places, which is important to avoid attacks
against the freedom of speech.
~~~
Karunamon
>Maybe Facebook don't like what the commenter wrote on your site and just
censor the comment and you won't even realize it.
Does this ever happen in any appreciable amount? The TOS for what FB will kill
a comment for is pretty reasonable.
As to decentral places, _meh_. I don't blog for a living, and don't have time
to deal with spammers, trolls, and asshats. Something like Disqus or
Intensedebate handles that nicely, with no nebulous "freedom of speech"
issues. Heck even Facebook, to a lesser extent.
------
brudgers
IMO, a Facebook account shouldn't be a prerequisite for any action on the
internet other than using Facebook.
~~~
PCheese
You do not necessarily need a Facebook account to post on the comments plugin.
See the "other login providers" section on the docs:
[https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comme...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/)
~~~
droithomme
That is using Facebook, and it makes use of the implicit, non-consensual
Facebook shadow accounts that Facebook creates for all anonymous users, who
are extensively tracked across the internet.
Many people have blocked all domains associated with Facebook in order to
maintain privacy and thwart their internet-wide tracking.
------
JumpCrisscross
Sorely needed: "Why generalising from specific anecdotes is a bad idea for
your life".
Have sites that enabled Fb commenting experienced a decrease in viewership?
Commenting? Quality of comments? How does this vary based on the audience in
question?
Some of these questions have academic answers, some don't. The proper way to
figure this out is by by experimenting. Not affirming diktats from your
personal beliefs.
~~~
pytrin
This was not a research paper, this was an opinion piece on Facebook comments
~~~
sadga
Why does someone who'se never used _my_ site have an opinion on it?
~~~
tolmasky
Well the article was actually mainly presented from the point of view of a
commenter (as opposed to blog author). Notice all three points were about why
he didn't like to comment via FB (vs. not liking to _receive_ comments via
FB). It was "I don't like commenting on FB, so you probably shouldn't use it"
vs. "I have experienced less traffic when using FB comments, and thus am
extrapolating that you might as well".
Thus, despite not visiting your site, he can still have an opinion about not
liking to potentially comment on it if it contains FB comments. This is not
some weird generalization or overstepping his bounds, its the same as someone
saying "I don't like sites that have ads so think twice about littering your
site with them" and then someone else responding "BUT how do you know if
you've never seen _my_ site?!".
------
thatusertwo
Facebook comments are also bad for your viewers who don't have Facebook... Me
for example.
~~~
LoganCale
And viewers who block the Facebook domain in /etc/hosts.
~~~
chimi
I also block disqus and have noticed a lack of comments increasing over time,
which really isn't a problem at all...
------
franze
i did some simple number crunching some time ago (> 8 months ago) on some
clients sites and on a few private and friendly (which gave me access to their
data) web-properties. it wasn't a big sample (6 sites all in all) but well,
it's the data i had. outcome:
using fb comments - on average over all sites - always increase the valid
comments you will get - and compared to old wordpress-standard-installations,
decreases spam (the difference was between "a lot of spam" and "nothing")
i did not apply a quality metric, but reading over the (valid, not spam)
comments i could not determine a (subjective) trend in either (good / stupid)
direction.
yeah, i'm not a big fan of fb comments either, but well, if your blogs goal is
to get comments (for whatever reason) then i would advise for the fb comment
plugin.
and: it would be cool if you prove me wrong (with data).
i think this is a good time as any to quote Jim Barksdale, former CEO of
Netscape: "If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions,
let’s go with mine."
~~~
dredmorbius
Your data do also inherently self-select unless you're conducting your
research very carefully. Once you throw up a "FB required for comments"
requirement, you're going to start shooing away many people who'd otherwise be
interested in participating. Some/many will simply never come back.
FB has a penetration of roughly 50% of the population in first world developed
nations, and that seems to be its zenith (usage has actually started falling
in the US and other early-adopter regions). So you're excluding roughly half
your potential participants.
How the FB usage pattern distributes across your target/desirable population
is of course another question. I don't have the answers on that.
~~~
franze
as i said before: i would love that somebody comes up with a better study and
proves my mini sample wrong, sadly i know none.
i did a similar research of fb enabled signeups vs. non fb signups (on desktop
web apps) - outcome: if you enable signups via fb, you get more signed up
users.
i think the pro/con fb comments/signups discussion should be based on data
(data that is easy to get on our own webproperties) and not on opinions.
------
alpb
I am using DISQUS (version 2012) for a while on my personal blog and I am very
pleased. I get more comments than the times I installed FB Comments, I get
more traction and people actually share through DISQUS star button.
Here's a blog post I wrote about switching to DISQUS
[http://ahmetalpbalkan.com/blog/disqus-addressed-my-
concerns-...](http://ahmetalpbalkan.com/blog/disqus-addressed-my-concerns-
pretty-well/)
------
AznHisoka
It's also bad SEO-wise. User generated content can help you with long tail
rankings
~~~
Kiro
Facebook comments are crawled.
~~~
franze
if googlebot chooses to render the page, which is - in my experience - not
always the case (sometimes the fb stream got indexed, the spage got found for
it, the other time nothing, sometimes a page that got found for a comment then
lost the comment again, pretty random stuff). but yeah, if you think it's
worth it you can still fetch the fb comment stream and put it below the fb
plugin.
------
gdilla
I think one advantage of FB comments is that it supposedly cuts down on
trolls, spam, and stupid arguments.
~~~
asdfologist
You must be new to FB.
~~~
xqyz
Or to the internet in general.
~~~
gdilla
Just sayin -
[http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/05/starting_later...](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/05/starting_later_this_week_tpm.php)
~~~
xqyz
Same site from the link in the article
(<http://labs.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/post-1.php>):
> Now the downsides, which are probably determinative for us. First, quite
> simply a lot of people don’t trust Facebook for reasons that range from
> quite reasonable to totally paranoid. Second, and more significant in my
> mind, is that many people don’t want to bring their true identities into the
> comments section of a political site. [...]
> For those two reasons, especially the second, we’re probably never going to
> do this.
It's like "yeah we know people probably won't like it, but fuck them."
~~~
gdilla
They also say it frees up their staff to do their jobs rather than moderating.
Nothing is perfect. They made a tradeoff.
------
bluetidepro
Title: " _Why Facebook Comments Is A Bad Idea For Your Site_ " In the article:
" _Perhaps in some contexts it makes sense_ "
Parts of the post sound very contradicting to your actually post title.
Regardless, to answer your third bullet, yes the author can setup Facebook
comments to give him/her notifications that you did leave a comment. Granted,
I guess there is no UI to let you know that the author was notified, but most
blogs (not using Facebook comments) don't have a UI for that either.
I personally like Disqus comment system on blogs because it gives you the
option to comment in various ways. It's a win-win-win!
~~~
pytrin
I am the author - The article lists reasons where Facebook comments are a bad
idea for your site, it is not a generalization.
I mention that in some cases it might make sense to have it - but in the case
of technical or professional blogs / articles, that usually is not the case.
------
mandeepj
It's optional to share your comment on your news feed so I don't know why
author is hating FB comments.
~~~
crusso
I do the same thing as the author. If I see that the comment stream is somehow
related to my FB account, I skip commenting. I don't know how they're used or
how they feed into some other FB stream.
Even if I did have a feel for how those comments currently are integrated with
other FB comment streams, none of us has any idea of how FB will change their
policies in the future that will totally wreck our personal notions of
"separation of concerns".
------
mikeleeorg
Here's a slightly different perspective.
I'm part of a group blog with an active community, and we've experimented with
various commenting systems. Our problem hasn't been getting user engagement,
it's getting quality engagement. The nature of our blog (a cultural blog)
unfortunately invites a lot of trollish and abusive comments.
We've experimented with our blogging platform's native comment system, Disqus,
LiveFyre, and Facebook. Right now, we've got Facebook Comments active. The
number of abusive comments _seems_ to have decreased, as have the number of
good comments (most probably because of the barriers of using Facebook). So
the jury is still out on which is best for us.
Looking at TechCrunch's comments, it doesn't look like Facebook Comments has
helped their quality level that much - though it's much better than Disqus.
So I'd advise understanding your audience before deciding which comment system
is best for your site. Each system has its pros & cons. You just have to
determine if the cons are worth the pros for you.
~~~
pytrin
One of the commentators on my blog (I'm the author of the article), said that
ever since TC changed to Facebook comments, he noticed a reduction in critical
comments and changed the feel into a "Yes man" type discussions. I guess it
depends on how you define quality comments - I prefer people voice their
opinions without fear of repercussions. Obviously, this thinking is not
appropriate for all cases - if you want product comments for example, by all
means Facebook comments might provide the best type.
~~~
mikeleeorg
Fortunately, we haven't gotten any "Yes man" type discussions on our blog yet.
Many of our most vocal commenters (who often state contrary opinions to ours)
took to the Facebook Comment system well, though we've lost a few too. So far,
none of the abusive trolls have come over yet.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen the lively discussions we used to get when using
LiveFyre. So there's definitely a trade-off. We're definitely not sold on
Facebook Comments yet; it's just our most recent experiment.
------
derwiki
We use the Facebook comment widget on almost all the pages on Causes.com. Two
quick comments:
\- When we run a corporate brand community (such as causes.com/att), our
clients LOVE the number of and types of comments that people leave on the
page. We've all been impressed with the quality of the comments as well.
\- Grammar filter
([http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/commen...](http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/)):
adds punctuation (e.g. periods at the end of sentences), trims extra
whitespace, expands slang words (e.g. plz becomes please), adds a space after
punctuation (e.g. Hi,Cat would become Hi, Cat), and fix common grammar
mistakes (e.g. convert ‘dont' to ‘don’t’). tl;dr Comments that look good
encourage more good comments.
Facebook comments are obviously not a one-size-fits-all solution, but we've
been able to use it pretty well.
------
e12e
On a related note: Does the site get a full copy of the comments? Can you do
your own search, translate interesting discussions, go back years after
facebook have changed their api, or cancelled your dev account, and read over
an interesting discussion?
Anyone have experience with disqus in this regard?
Personally, if I enable comments on a site, it is because I hope the comments
will form a constructive part of the content of that site. I wouldn't want
half my content to disappear on account of a policy change or bankruptcy that
is entirely separate from whatever it is I am doing myself.
I've been toying with the idea of hacking together a system that allows
replying/commenting via email (effectively auto generating a mailing-list for
every post or something to that effect) -- and allowing the comment interface
to effectively become a limited webmail gateway to that list.
~~~
bentlegen
Depends on the website/publishing platform. Disqus's Wordpress plugin actually
syncs all of the comments back to the site's WP database. So if they disable
Disqus at a later date, all the comments are still there.
------
markkat
I have a FB account, but never comment with it.
I don't want my every interaction on the web connected.
I am getting tired of the social web.
------
jofo25
I think for an article or blog post, yea Facebook isn't that appropriate but
most other places I find it useful for the pure fact that I can't really be
bothered to make an account for every site I visit.
------
jack-r-abbit
I have never used the Facebook Comment piece of a site for one reason: I don't
want all the people reading THAT site to have a link right to my Facebook
page. Under normal circumstances, the chances of some random stranger getting
to me Facebook page are pretty slim. But if I comment on some article with
Facebook, my real name is right there with a link to my page. The last thing I
need it for some nut job to take issue with something I said and follow that
link.
------
trueneverland
I really hate any commenting system that requires me to register. I don't want
to have dozens of accounts just because of all these various systems for
commenting.
~~~
lmm
Isn't that an argument in favour of using Facebook? One account for the whole
web, rather than one for each individual blog.
~~~
trueneverland
I prefer name and comment, no registration system
------
andy_herbert
In my opinion comments are a bad idea for your site, unless you're fortunate
to have an exclusive audience. Yes, I am aware of the irony of this comment.
------
lucian303
It alienates those of us without a facebook account.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The dangers of deflation - anigbrowl
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21627625-politicians-and-central-bankers-are-not-providing-world-inflation-it-needs-some
======
jandrewrogers
For those that do not understand why deflation is considered dangerous, let me
describe it this way:
It is effectively like cash earning tax-free interest. And since it is cash,
that "investment" is virtually risk-free because you'll always have the cash.
As a consequence, simply holding cash starts competing with the expected
return of investing the cash in other ways, like real estate, government
bonds, the stock market, or a startup. Relative to some traditional
investments, you might maximize your effective risk-adjusted returns by doing
nothing at all!
This sounds great (at least for people with cash) until you realize that this
"investment" is one of the least productive investments possible. No
infrastructure is built, no technologies invented, no products are created for
customers. While people with cash might be nominally wealthier, there is
greatly reduced investment of cash in things that improve the productivity and
wealth of the entire economy.
Furthermore, real investment is how many jobs are created. Several million
jobs in the United States are paid for with funds from speculative
investments. If it no longer pays to make speculative investments on new
technologies, new startups, or otherwise changing the world, what do you think
happens to those jobs that are tacitly funded by that investment?
Mild inflation, for better or worse, incentivizes anyone with a bit of money
to use that money to fund companies, infrastructure, technology, and jobs that
may ultimately return higher value than the loss to inflation. Yes, if you sit
on your cash in an inflationary economy, you slowly lose wealth. It
incentivizes people to attempt to apply their assets toward productive ends.
Lastly, there is the question of what about people with little or no cash in
an inflationary environment? On the surface, it looks like they get screwed.
In practice, the productivity and technology advances created by the
investment by people with money are often effectively neutral or
_deflationary_. Not only are they more productive at their jobs, assuming they
have one, but the costs of many goods decline thanks to the investment. This
doesn't apply to all goods but it applies to many that almost everyone
consumes. That said, if an economy inflates too fast it can quickly outstrip
the earning potential of the people that operate in it. The flow of money
through an economy has a significant viscosity and in extreme cases that
causes much suffering.
In summary, the reason mildly inflationary economies are commonly preferred by
most governments is that, on the balance, it optimizes incentives to maximize
real investment which not only grows the economy in real terms but has quasi-
deflationary effects for consumers as well. There are always tradeoffs but
this is widely believed to have the "least bad" set of tradeoffs for a
currency inflation/deflation policy.
~~~
yummyfajitas
This is NOT why deflation is bad. If there is a deflation rate D and (nominal)
interest rates R, you can still get a real return of D+R by investing your
money. If you want "risk free" income, you can put your money into AAA fixed
income _just like you would do in an inflationary economy_.
The effects on the allocation of investment in a deflationary world are
mathematically identical to an increase in interest rates. I.e., D=0, R=5 is
the same as D=2, R=3.
The only notable economic effect is that black money can now earn interest
(it's hard to invest black money in fixed income or other such things).
[edit: "Black money" is Hinglish for un-laundered money, i.e. cash profits
from crime.]
The problem with deflation is nominal rigidities, i.e. _sticky nominal wages_
or the _prideful worker effect_. Namely, workers will irrationally refuse to
accept work below their previous nominal wage. People's real productivity
fluctuates, and sometimes goes down. In an inflationary economy, you can wait
a little and not give them pay raises until their real wage drops below their
real productivity.
In a deflationary economy, the problem gets worse over time. Hence you'll need
to fire the workers with wage > productivity, and those workers will refuse to
accept new employment since new offers will have lower nominal wages than
their previous job.
~~~
Retric
No bonds are free of risk. Further deflation can be extremely high with real
world examples hitting 50% per year. Remember at 50% deflation your zero risk
cash is makeing an effective 100% ROI. So those AAA bonds need to make an
effective 100+% ROI or there going to default and nobody with a true AAA
raiting is going to pay that kind of interest. Worse places that had a AAA
raiting often fail in those kinds of shocks.
PS: Basically, the root cause of that kind of deflation is rolling defaults
contracting the money supply.
~~~
yummyfajitas
If you have a bond which costs $100 and pays $101 in a year's time, and a 50%
deflation rate, then the real return on the bond is 102%. The real return on
cash is 100%.
Inflation or deflation with magnitudes exceeding 20-30% is generally a _very
bad thing_ , and is also not what the article is discussing.
~~~
Retric
The issue is 3% deflation is already bad and can easily spike to 50% vary
quickly.
------
mindslight
Oh goodness no, not _lower consumption_! In 2014 of course we should all be
working full time just to have roofs over our heads, assuaging our stress by
buying toys that we can't even appreciate before they're obsolete or broken.
The myth that inflation is good is one of the greatest lies used to pervert a
seemingly free society into yet another treadmill of sustenance-based slavery.
In a functioning free market economy, most prices should be always decreasing
- _that is precisely what competition is based on!_
But when we fix the CPI, what we get instead is basic necessities still being
optimized ever-lower, while the currency is inflated to make energy costs (the
only true monetary measure) rise to compensate. Collateralizable assets shoot
through the roof as they're used to facilitate the monetary inflation (those
who control access to the proverbial printing press taking a hearty cut), and
we get to our current point where things that used to be owned are now just
rented from banks.
Ask yourself how many people have avoided owning a computer, knowing that
prices are always dropping? How many people have gone hungry, figuring that
food will be cheaper next week?
~~~
gfodor
I think the theory is not so much that people go hungry because food will be
cheaper tomorrow, but that there is a perverse _incentive_ to spend a little
less because you'll be able to get a little more with it later. I'm not sure I
buy this theory but I think it's more about the macro effects of a small tweak
in incentives.
~~~
imaginenore
That theory is complete nonsense.
If you wait a little longer, you can buy a better tablet, a better computer, a
better phone, a better TV with the same amount of money (inflation-corrected
or not). That doesn't stop people from buying all kinds of electronic devices,
even though they get obsolete much faster than their money.
~~~
gfodor
The point is not that it stops people from buying things, but that on a macro
scale it will cause people to delay or dampen their consumption. Sites like
[http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/](http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/) show
this phenomenon exists, the question is how much of an effect it has when it's
a few % yearly discount spread out over _every_ good and service.
------
sosuke
Such a hard thing to reason out in my non-economist brain. The idea that
people won't spend money today because something may be cheaper in the future
is bad? That sounds really close to saving money instead of spending it. Many
of us are in debt up to our ears from spending past our income, on school or
worthless things. We don't buy a car today because we're afraid the car will
cost more next year, the car costs are largely stagnate. We don't buy a house
today because we're afraid it will cost more next year, we buy a house because
a family is growing, we need a place to live, or it will leave the market and
we'll miss it. A top of the line iPhone last year was the same price as a new
one this year, if we wait its for the last years model. We don't wait to buy
food until tomorrow because it might be cheaper. We don't wait to fill our gas
tank until tomorrow, we have to get to work today. We don't wait until
tomorrow to fill our prescriptions, we need them today. I don't wait to pay my
electric or cable bills, I need them today.
Where is it, who, exactly, does this hurt. Who will be sitting on their money,
waiting to buy things they need until tomorrow. Only people who already have
everything they need, and even then they will continue to buy the basics. Who
does this hurt. The roads will continue to be paved, the cities will continue
to function. How does this all break down when a dollar today is worth a
dollar and a fraction of a cent tomorrow.
We weren't all dying when gas was $1 a gallon were we?
~~~
Nursie
It hurts everyone as the economy shrinks and there's less cash to go around.
That's who.
~~~
msandford
> It hurts everyone as the economy shrinks and there's less cash to go around.
Only until prices fall enough that people start spending again and hiring
picks up again.
The idea of an evenly rotating economy where everything is great all the time
has been thoroughly disproven over 100 years ago. To try and manage the
economy to be so is a fool's errand.
Debt has grown ever-so-slightly faster than income for the last 40-50 years
and that means future purchases have been pulled to the present for the last
40-50 years. If history is a guide (and I believe that it is) one of two
things will happen:
1\. People will start to pay down their debt and this will unfortunately
result in hardship as debt-fueled growth stops
2\. The banks will print more money and the party never stops until the party
blows up in an enormous currency crisis
I can't tell you which will happen, but every time we print more money we grow
the systemic risk of total blowup. People who argue that we should be doing
more to prevent climate change while simultaneously cheering money-printing
need to take a good look at their belief systems.
~~~
Nursie
>>Only until prices fall enough that people start spending again and hiring
picks up again.
But why would I bother investing capital to hire people to make stuff if I've
got guaranteed returns just by sitting on cash?
~~~
msandford
Deflation is only a scary thing because people have adapted to inflation, and
that has shaped the last 100 years or so of financial history in this country.
It used to be that prices went up, then down, then back up again, then back
down again, etc on a time-scale of a couple of years. Maybe spanning a range
of 4x or so. Because everyone knew that's how things went, they arranged their
affairs to cope and things weren't amazing, but a year or two of deflation
didn't destroy the world.
What we have now are huge asset bubbles that are popping and people at the Fed
are trying to reflate and/or at least slow the collapse down. The problem
isn't that deflation might happen; it's that there were years and years of
asset prices going to more and more unreasonable levels that no sane person
would pay.
How do you clean the slate and get asset prices back to levels that might make
sense from a fundamentals perspective instead of a risk-on, risk-off
perspective? The only thing I can think of is to let them fall to levels where
people would be willing to buy them again. It's either that or a 20 year
inflationary slog to slowly reprice them in real terms.
In other words, at 4% inflation over 20 years if a price doesn't change in
nominal terms it'll lose 55% of its value in real terms. That roughly
approximates it dropping in value 50% in say 6 months nominally, because in 6
months nominal terms are unlikely to diverge from real terms by more than a
few percent.
Which would you rather have? 20 year of Japan or the Great Depression, or a
fairly swift realignment of the economy to the new realities? Either way the
assets have to get repriced once everyone realized that they were priced
horribly, horribly incorrectly.
------
001sky
Might be useful to differentiate asset deflation from other forms. Asset
deflation is neccessary to spread wealth more evenly around the world. Such a
policy is he most "progressive" policy given the current skew of asset
distributions. Its possible to de-link asset vol from job creattion. Look no
further than the recent inflation of asset values and the lack of net-job
adds. So, as it is on the way up...so it is on the way down. The beauty of
variance and volatility is that they are naturally "neutral" terms.
The argument that there needs to be inflationary bias to create jobs is weak
on many levels. This is just one.
------
ArchD
I don't know why people are talking as if deflation is a real thing when
there's a worldwide property bubble going on and property price is a a very
real aspect of the cost of day-to-day living. One must question the CPI
metrics used.
~~~
adventured
It's a fraudulent concern meant to enable more printing.
One of the many psychological toys the Fed & Co. use, just like they regularly
threaten to raise interest rates (for years at this point) to buy more time on
holding down the bubbles they've created without having to actually do
anything.
The reason so many people are afraid of deflation, is they're from the
Keynesian school of economics. They've been brainwashed for two generations to
think inflation is how you grow an economy. No coincidence, the Keynesian
experiment has been a global disaster of epic proportions, leading to the
greatest accumulation of debt in world history; and locally, a 40 year
stagnation in the American standard of living, perpetually high real
unemployment, increased poverty, and increased inequality (because the rich
can shield themselves from inflation, the poor cannot).
Every country in history that has ever attempted to implement a Keynesian
inflation based economy, has failed, with the result being a disaster. Such
examples include the US, Japan, much of Europe and lately China has signed on
to the debt / stimulus / inflation party. Japan is a famous, fake deflation
example. They haven't suffered a penny of deflation in 30 years (an inflation
based asset bubble imploding, is not deflation); if Japan had suffered decades
of deflation, their wages and prices wouldn't be among the highest in the
world.
~~~
Nursie
Yup. Total disasters. Higher standard of living than any humans in history,
but Japan, Europe and the USA are somehow failed economies and total disaster
zones.
What colour is the sky on your planet?
~~~
jazzyk
I think the poster above is talking about the trends, not the absolute level
of wealth. The standard of living in the US has been stagnant (even declining,
for the lower-middle class) since 2000. Japan has been stagnant since the
real-estate bubble burst in the 80s.
------
ap22213
All this pro-deflation talk makes me feel like I've walked into a Christian
Science convention.
~~~
001sky
Are you really that proud of the status quo? lets see, we'll take a bunch of
bank acounts, pay zero interest, and only let rich people & corporations
borrow without abandon to finance their acquisition (er, corner) the market in
all real-assets? Sounds like a great plan if your biz modle if f(n)% of asset
inflation.
~~~
pdkl95
Pointing out that deflation is a bad is not necessarily a statement of support
for any aspect of the current system. Staying away from deflation is good; the
other parts are another matter and need fixing in several ways.
~~~
001sky
deflation is a bad is a hypothetical, and the arguments for and against are
not trivially dismissed. your trading book matters more than any theory. since
the analysis is so fact depenedent, there is no simple right answer.
------
Cacti
The problem with deflation is that, if you're trying to control the money
supply, and your control is based on printing money, and you have deflation,
you lose control. The figurative "pushing on a string," you have nothing left
to leverage. You can't go below 0.
It's really more of a power/control issue than anything. The _entire point_ of
centralized banking is to _cause_ inflation, just not enough that it becomes
an issue.
------
vijayboyapati
The reason that political establishments have always been biased against
monetary deflation can be found in the manner in which wealth transfer occurs
under inflationary and deflationary environments.
During an inflationary credit expansion, wealth is transferred from the public
in general to the earliest recipients of the newly created credit money. In
practice, the earliest recipients are interest groups with the strongest
political connections to the state and, in particular, the state institutions
that control monetary policy (i.e., the Federal Reserve in the United States).
Importantly, the wealth transfer that takes place during an inflation is
hidden and largely unrecognized by the majority of the population. The
population is unaware that the supply of money is increasing and the attendant
rise in prices, ostensibly beneficial to business, initially
"produces [a] general state of euphoria, a false sense of wellbeing, in which
everybody seems to prosper. Those who without inflation would have made high
profits make still higher ones. Those who would have made normal profits make
unusually high ones. And not only businesses which were near failure but even
some which ought to fail are kept above water by the unexpected boom. There is
a general excess of demand over supply — all is saleable and everybody can
continue what he had been doing." In an inflationary environment, wealth
transfer proceeds insidiously and is masked by a perceived prosperity. The
unmasking finally occurs at the end of the credit boom when the market's
tendency to clear prior losses takes hold. Failed businesses are liquidated
and their capital is transferred, usually through bankruptcy, to creditors who
must acknowledge losses on these misguided investments. Unemployment soars and
social unrest replaces the former sense of euphoria attending the credit boom.
Professor Hülsmann summarizes the differences between the transfers of wealth
occurring under inflation and deflation as such:
"In short, the true crux of deflation is that it does not hide the
redistribution going hand in hand with changes in the quantity of money. It
entails visible misery for many people, to the benefit of equally visible
winners. This starkly contrasts with inflation, which creates anonymous
winners at the expense of anonymous losers. … [Inflation] is a secret rip-off
and thus the perfect vehicle for the exploitation of a population through its
(false) elites, whereas deflation means open redistribution through bankruptcy
according to the law."
And here lies the answer to why the state prefers a policy of controlled
inflation. Only in an inflationary environment can state largesse be conferred
to the politically well-connected without raising public ire. The widespread
and visible transfers of property through bankruptcy that must take place
during a deflation are often politically destabilizing and thus highly
unappealing to any regime. A sense of injustice grows within the population as
banks are saved from the folly of their misguided investments with taxpayer-
funded bailouts, while debtors with no political clout have property seized in
bankruptcy.
* [http://mises.org/daily/4974/The-Politics-of-Deflation](http://mises.org/daily/4974/The-Politics-of-Deflation)
~~~
MCRed
Or put another way, with inflation government can promise and raise funds for
political programs that help win elections, that they would not be able to
pass if they had to raise taxes (or cut other programs) to pay for.
~~~
anigbrowl
True, but that's not necessarily a zero-sum decision. Use that money for
subsidies or handouts, it's certainly wasted and hihgly inflationary. Use it
to build a port or some similar infrastructure, and it generates significant
real (rather than just nominal) economic activity.
------
dnautics
Maybe not constantly being egged on to consume might have good effects, for,
say, the environment.
------
ww520
Deflation is only bad for fixed interest rate debt bearer. Adjustable interest
rate debt goes lower along with deflation. The only problem for adjustable
rate is that it can't go lower when interest rate reaches 0 and deflation rate
keeps going down. To fix that, allows interest rate to go negative. That means
the principal of the debt goes down faster.
If everything is floating down with deflation, it's not too bad. For the fixed
rate debtors, well they made a calculated risk that inflation will go up.
------
djyaz1200
Anyone who is worried about deflation in the US right now is a moron. We
printed (we actually don't even bother printing it we just change numbers in a
database) more money since 2008 than in the entire history of the country. The
Fed owns over a quarter of the whole bond market.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/11/25/the-
fed...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/11/25/the-fed-has-been-
cornering-the-treasury-market-for-the-past-four-years/)
~~~
w4
And yet inflation has barely cracked 3% since the proverbial printing presses
started up, and has bounced around at <2% for the past few years. Hence the
cause for concern: we pulled an unprecedented amount of currency out of thin
air, and the result was below average inflation.
~~~
adventured
In fact inflation is running closer to 7% to 8% right now.
You're of course referring to the current bogus CPI, which was put into effect
in the 1990s to hide the real rate of inflation.
It conveniently leaves out nearly every major source of inflation a person
would actually want to measure.
~~~
w4
>You're of course referring to the current bogus CPI, which was put into
effect in the 1990s to hide the real rate of inflation.
Let's just assume this is true. CPI, as currently measured, has been in place
since ~1996. One can thus safely assume CPI would reflect the alleged
inflationary effects of QE on price levels, regardless of how accurately it
measures the actual rate of inflation, since it represents a measurement of
_some_ consistent snapshot of the total rate of inflation throughout the
entirety of QE.
But CPI shows no change in the rate of inflation due to QE, and even more
curiously, tells us inflation is currently lower now than pre-QE. Regardless
of your opinion of its measurement of "real" inflation, the fact remains:
there has been no uptick in price levels due to QE (startup valuations aside,
hah!), despite the intuition that it ought to have resulted in substantial
inflation. Hence, cause for concern.
EDIT: And I say all of this as someone who was horrified of inflation back
when the Fed first started QE. So far, I appear to have been worried about the
wrong thing.
~~~
djyaz1200
The whole QE program MUST be inflationary. It don't make any rational sense
that a government could just purchase trillions of dollars worth of it's own
debt with synthetic money and not have some inflationary impact (your initial
fear). So what then? How is that massive force just being absorbed with no
consequence? I don't know, I don't think anyone knows. I could speculate. It's
likely that in a global economy China's artificially devalued currency allows
us to print money without real inflationary consequences for us? Could be the
dollar has become the de facto world currency and with this much wider
circulation the system can absorb much more inflationary pressure than
previously thought. Could be that this system is controlled more by behavioral
economics than economics. Maybe people just believe a dollar is worth about X
and that's very sticky until it isn't. This last idea is the scariest. Our
government is just like a big bank. The value of the dollar is subjective and
I believe serious inflation won't come in an incremental fashion, it will come
in a black swan tidal wave. I could be wrong and I seriously hope I am!! I
just don't think it's prudent to say, well we all thought (rationally and
rightly) QE was going to cause inflation because it's so obviously an
aggressively inflationary policy... then since it didn't we just turn the page
and say oh well... glad that didn't blow up the dollar. We need to understand
why that didn't have an effect.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
H-1B Workers Not Best Or Brightest, Study Says - Libertatea
http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/h1b/h-1b-workers-not-best-or-brightest-study/240149839#.UTXKPHIlC6o.hackernews
======
stewie2
I think his study is biased if you check out his personal website:
<http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/matloff.html> He is a longtime anti-h1b
activist.
~~~
stewie2
giving them h1b is not because they are the brightest, it's because there are
not enough equally good workers for the industry.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Focus and concentration - gdberrio
Maybe it's just me, but anyone else has troubles dealing with lack of Focus and concentration, ending in not getting things done and getting stuck in a "disfuncional perfectionism" with lots of ideas but zero execution? [It's doesn't help having fear of failure]<p>How did you deal with it?<p>PS: I know it may sound a) dumb question, b) lack of discipline.
"I Have Met the Enemy, and It's Me" comes to mind.
======
plinkplonk
When I used to suffer from this(no longer, touch wood) I found this extract
from Steven Pressfied's "The War of Art" inspiring
_"In my late twenties I rented a little house in Northern California; I had
gone there to finish a novel or kill myself trying. By that time I had blown
up a marriage to a girl I loved with all my heart, screwed up two careers,
blah blah, etc., all because (though I had no understanding of this at the
time) I could not handle Resistance . I had one novel nine-tenths of the way
through and another at ninety-nine hundredths before I threw them in the
trash. I couldn't finish 'em. I didn't have the guts. In yielding thusly to
Resistance, I fell prey to every vice , evil, distraction, you-name-it
mentioned heretofore, all leading nowhere, and finally washed up in this
sleepy California town, with my Chevy van, my cat Mo, and my antique Smith-
Corona.
A guy named Paul Rink lived down the street. Look him up, he's in Henry
Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. Paul was a writer. He
lived in his camper, "Moby Dick." I started each day over coffee with Paul. He
turned me on to all kinds of authors I had never heard of, lectured me on
self-discipline, dedication, the evils of the marketplace. But best of all, he
shared with me his prayer, the Invocation of the Muse from Homer's Odyssey,
the T. E. Lawrence translation. Paul typed it out for me on his even-more-
ancient-than-mine manual Remington. I still have it. It's yellow and parched
as dust; the merest puff would blow it to powder.
In my little house I had no TV. I never read a newspaper or went to a m o v i
e . I just worked . One afternoon I was banging away in the little bedroom I
had converted to anoffice, when I heard my neighbor's radio playing outside.
Someone in a loud voice was declaiming " . . . to preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States." I came out. What's going on?
"Didn't you hear? Nixon's out; they got a new guy in there." I had missed
Watergate completely.
I was determined to keep working. I had failed so many times, and caused
myself and people I loved so much pain thereby, that I felt if I crapped out
this time I would have to hang myself. I didn't know what Resistance was then.
No one had schooled me in the concept. I felt it though, big-time. I
experienced it as a compulsion to self-destruct. I could not finish what I
started. T h e closer I got, the more different ways I'd find to screw it up.
I worked for twenty-six months straight, taking only two out for a stint of
migrant labor in Washington State, and finally one day I got to the last page
and typed out: THE END.
I never did find a buyer for the book. Or the next one, either. It was ten
years before I got the first check for something I had written and ten more
before a novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was actually published. But that
moment when I first hit the keys to spell out THE END was epochal.
I remember rolling the last page out and adding it to the stack that was the
finished manuscript. Nobody knew I was done. Nobody cared. But I knew. I felt
like a dragon I'd been fighting all my life had just dropped dead at my feet
and gasped out its last sulfuric breath. Rest in peace, motherfucker.
Next morning I went over to Paul's for coffee and told him I had finished. "
Good for y o u , " he said without looking up. "Start the next one today."_
"
So now I just work. Decoupling work from one's emotional state is just a habit
more than anything else. A few "Rest in Peace MF er " moments of my own taught
me that.
~~~
stevetjoa
This excerpt is fantastic -- refusing to let Nixon's impeachment derail his
path toward writing a novel.
When I find myself about to lose focus, I ask myself, "Ten years from now, are
you going to remember that crappy TV show you watched for one hour on a
Tuesday, or are you going to remember the moment your advisor kicked you out
of his group?"
------
katieben
Here's what helped me:
1\. LOVE what you do. Figure out how to love what you do. 2\. For the stuff
you aren't as crazy about:
\- If you're on a Mac, download SelfControl. It permanently blocks websites in
all browsers for a certain period of time, making it appear pretty
nonreversible. I block facebook, twitter, and of course, hacker news. (:
\- Use a to-do list. Make it consist of a reasonable number of bite-sized
tasks.
\- Take care of yourself - get sleep, eat right, exercise.
\- Give yourself a time limit so you HAVE to let go. Transfer the perfection
from the task itself, to getting the task done efficiently. If you're on a
Mac, download Vitamin-R. It forces you to chunk out blocks of time, and
explain exactly what you're going to accomplish in the 45 minutes of focus you
probably have. Read the Vitamin-R manual, it's actually really helpful.
\- Study the Pomodoro technique. That's something you can do on Win/offline;
Vitamin R makes it dead-easy.
\- Make a chart for yourself. Mine's big, neon, and plastered on the wall in
front of my desk where I'm reminded of it. Every day, give yourself a mark
about how focused you were, and whether or not you accomplished everything on
your to-do list. This'll help you learn what realistic to-dos are.
Good luck, you can do it! (:
------
Jarred
This is a good question, and one I've been thinking about myself.
I don't have a direct answer, but this is what's helped me.
(1): 4x3 Dry Erase Board nearby Computer, it might be because of having ADD
but I find I do the best idea-refinement/drawing stuff out on a dry erase
board, both because you can erase it easily and it involves some walking
around. Thinking about it aloud and gesticulating helps me a lot as well, but
I gesticulate quite a bit normally so that might be more specific to me.
(2): Quiet place to work, best situation is to reserve a room your
house/apartment/etc specifically devoted to working. I would say an office but
office normally includes taxes, finances, faxes, etc
(3): Have water within arms length and drink it often
(4): Have a clear mind, vent out your mind before you get started and it will
make it easier to be productive.
Start with the dry erase board, it really helps to get started focusing.
------
thatusertwo
You got to find something thats interesting to you, then it will be easier to
stick to it. My friend and I have worked on various projects from start to
end, but sometimes he comes up with good ideas that have nothing to do with
his interests. You can get motivated for a day or two, but it drops off
afterwards.
Find something you like, and force yourself to work on it in your free time.
Don't give yourself to much time either, if you have 8 hours a day there is
much more to waste. Once you got a good base you can spend more time (8 hours
a day) cause you'll be invested by that point.
------
wmboy
Try the Pomodoro technique... set a timer for a period of time (between 15 to
30 minutes long) and focus on working on a project constantly. Once the timer
sounds, stop working (even if you feel like you could keep going) and have a 5
minute break).
There's also the (10+2)*5 technique were you work for 10 minutes, stuff around
for 2 minutes then repeat 5 times. After an hour you've had 50 minutes of
productive time and 10 minutes of "play time".
------
adziki
I can get into spells of this as well. What I try to do is to set high level
goals (maybe 1-6 months out), break those goals down, and break those goals
down, and really scope out the big things into a lot of small things. Only
look at a day or week's worth of small things at a time (to not get overloaded
in the quantity of small tasks). Set milestones at which you can assess your
perfection, and if its not to your standards, revise your goals.
------
gschill21
One word: passion. If you are not emotionally attached to your idea, which
passion is, then you are going to drop it when another idea pops up. Finding
something you are passionate about and connecting that to a business or
project will allow you to focus on whatever goals you have set. If not then
the project will be just another thing in a sea of great ideas...
------
ulisesroche
Is there anything bugging you that won't let you focus and concentrate?
------
jackkinsella
Regular exercise works wonders.
------
Mz
When I was a teen/young adult, I felt like this. I read a lot of interesting
stuff, some useful but a lot not. Then I was diagnosed late in life with a
medical condition. For me, inability to focus is usually rooted in my health
issues. Working on my underlying health issues has been the main thing that
has improved my ability to focus.
The other thing that comes to mind is something I read in my twenties about
individuals having specific types of "doing" energy which needs to be expended
and you can't effectively stop it until it's used up and you can't effectively
push much beyond that once it is used up. On HN, people sometimes talk about
either being unable to work a full-time job doing X and also do it on the side
or you hear people talk about things like "the need to code" -- that they just
have to do a certain amount of X. Another example is folks who do cross-word
puzzles at bedtime to help them sleep and they can't sleep until they have had
a certain amount of a certain type of mental stimulation. If you can figure
out what your mix of "doing" energy is and consciously direct it into
productive outlets, rather than frittering it away for personal satisfaction,
you will get more done.
Concrete personal example: I like writing but probably spend too much time
frittering that interest away posting on forums like this one rather than
developing my websites. That's in part due to my health: It is far easier to
respond to something someone has said than to write up something from scratch
without having something to respond to. When healthier, I am more able to do
the kind of writing that I want on my websites. (In fact, my first website
started while I was quite ill was basically an edited collection of emails of
mine or excerpts from emails.) I have left a number of lists related to the
topics of my websites, in part because I am so controversial in certain
circles and in part because I felt that I need to put my energy into
developing my websites rather than trying to chit chat with people on email
lists. Chit-chatting with people on email lists _feels_ very productive to me
but it's not that productive. There is a "live" audience that can respond and
interact with me and I just feel like I am doing so much more than I really am
because of the responses. This is a personal issue that I am aware of and have
been trying to work on for some time. I recently unsubbed from a health list
in large part so I can move on to doing more productive kinds of writing about
health issues.
As for "dysfunctional perfectionism": After nearly dying and finally getting a
serious diagnosis late in life, I promptly returned to college while still
very ill with the attitude "A sick person like me needs to make more B's if I
am ever going to get a degree." I've also done volunteer work at a homeless
shelter and went down in flames horribly in various online forums while
publicly withdrawing from all kinds of prescription medication. I'm a lot
thicker skinned than I used to be and much more okay with failure as a
productive means to learn what not to do, what my limits are and so on.
Good luck with this.
------
stray
I used to. Then in '99 I bought an old Volkswagen microbus. That old rolling
pile of junk was the coolest thing on the road (when she was in fact, on the
road).
When I bought the VW I planned to restore her to showroom condition.
Never happened.
What did happen is that I developed an appreciation for "good enough". She'd
just barely top 55 mph - good enough. She had rattles, a fuel gauge that never
worked, a steering system that really kept me on my toes, and to balance it
all out she had a ragtop - all in all, good enough.
You see, I had wanted a 21-window VW since I was like twelve years old. And
when I finally got one I was determined to drive it. And I drove it all over
the country - for years...
And maybe that's all _you_ need to do - determine that you're going to "drive"
your projects (even if they leak oil and rattle while you drive).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Want a Verizon iPhone - DigitalBoB12
http://www.iwantaverizoniphone.com/
======
gabea
From a design perspective I think they would probably get many more sign ups
if they had a better call to action for their sign up button.
It is hidden as a regular anchor tag and took me more then 5 seconds to even
think about signing up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our first patent troll - hysan
https://mycroft.ai/blog/troll-hunter-mycrofts-position-on-patent-trolls/
======
PaulDavisThe1st
I hope they don't end up in court. I've been a fact witness in 3 patent troll
cases. The side I was a witness for won one, forced a settle-out-of-court for
the second, and lost the last one. The last one was the biggest and most
egregious. There was clear prior art, at least to anyone with a solid
understanding of the field (in this case, adding state to otherwise-stateless
HTTP interaction).
I remember looking the jury in the eye during my testimony and thinking "these
people are tired, they are bored and they don't really have a clue about any
of the technology involved here". Sure, it's the lawyers job(s) to try to make
sure they do, and that they decide in the "right" direction. But seriously -
taking a semi-random set of 12 jurors, sitting them them for 1-2 weeks of
court room "education" in network technology, protocols, filesystems, cookies,
URL structure and so much more, and then expecting them to come to an
"informed" decision?
This is not a justice system worth defending. In the last case, no jury of
"peers" \- ie. other engineers who actually understand what the patents are
about - would ever have found for the plaintiffs. But you end up in court with
a very different jury than that, and at that point, the battle has just
started.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
USA used to have an expert patents court AIUI, anyone know why things were
changed?
~~~
brlewis
No, nobody knows why things changed.
There was a U.S. Supreme Court case called Diamond v Diehr such that if its
precedent were followed, software patents like the one in the comment above
would never be granted. Somehow lower courts confused things enough that
software patents started being granted again.
Once you open up patents to a super broad and prolific field like software,
it's impossible to maintain enough expertise to assess novelty and non-
obviousness. And at that point the system completely breaks down. A
presumption of validity when the USPTO cannot reasonably be expected to judge
validity basically means that people are being denied due process when sued
for patent infringement.
------
redm
Having gone through this a number of times, and its never about the validity
of the patent. These patents are often acquired from defunct companies anyway.
If they don’t acquire, they have revshare deals for enforcing.
Patent trolls typically have almost no overhead, just a small office in a
cheap venue (Marshall Texas) and time.
Its simple math, 1) it’s cheaper to settle out then litigate (by far) so
boards usually want to settle, and 2) its too expensive to litigate, ie you
don't have 1-2 million to fully fight a patent troll.
Good for you for fighting. Ultimately thats what we've done and its the only
way to stop the Trolls. (Shout out to Lee Cheng formerly from NewEgg)
There are some patent defense consortiums that you can join that will share
the burden if you are sued by a troll making you a much less appealing target.
Good Luck!
~~~
streetcat1
Question,
So do you happen to know if the troll needs to prove that the company violated
a claim, or does the company need to prove that it DID NOT violate the claim?
~~~
chx
This will be fought on an entirely different level: the patent is bogus in the
first place. There's nothing patentable about it.
That's how you hunt trolls. Merely proving you didn't violate their patent is
not helping the next guy (and actually, you might have violated the patent,
who knows with these frivolous things). Killing their patent does.
~~~
anonsivalley652
There ought to be a super PAC / legal collective in US whose primary goal is
to basically hack the system by using it against itself for the net effect of
mostly eliminate the patent system with the chief aims of:
0\. making it harder to _get_ a patent (not adding arbitrary bureaucracy, but
ensuring examiners maintain high and fair standards) 1\. making it
harder/shorten the time to _keep_ a patent
EFF, ACLU, etc. might nibble around the edges on this issue, but there's no
one going after the politicians with lobbyists, a bucket of money and a deep
bench of patent attorneys funded by something like a Kickstarter/IndieGoGo
and/or subscription model to the tune of a Bernie Sanders-equivalent funding
level.
~~~
rayiner
There is an enormous, well funded, Silicon Valley lobbying effort directed at
weakening the patent system. The last Patent Office director was head of
Patent Strategy for Google for almost a decade. However, almost all the other
industries, from automotive to pharmaceuticals to aerospace, and even some of
the more traditional players in Silicon Valley, are on the other side of the
issue.
~~~
uep
No matter how detrimental software patents are to the big players, they are
far more detrimental to the small players. If it can keep the smaller players
from being real competitors, it's in the best interest of the big companies to
just pay the patent tax. They stand to lose far more with a lower barrier to
entry to their markets.
Software is kind of unique (and even moreso now with the prevalence of cloud
providers) with its otherwise low barrier to entry; as capital expenses are
extremely low compared to other industries.
------
modeless
East Texas? Should be thrown out after the recent Supreme Court ruling, unless
Mycroft actually has an office there. Apple went to the trouble of closing
their stores in East Texas for that exact reason:
[https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-
in...](https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-in-eastern-
district-texas/)
Did this troll not get the memo?
~~~
tim--
Interesting that this is the same area that Samsung spends hundreds of
thousands of dollars to 'bribe' the local community with feel good public
relations, like building ice skating rinks and donating monitors to local
public schools.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-40021491](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40021491)
~~~
nothrabannosir
NPR's This American Life and Planet Money had an episode on this phenomenon as
well. I think it was:
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack) (2011)
follow up: [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/496/when-patents-attack-
par...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/496/when-patents-attack-part-two)
(2013)
------
heisenbit
The first one claimed:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US9794348B2/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9794348B2/en)
Abstract A method of using voice commands from a mobile device to remotely
access and control a computer. The method includes receiving audio data from
the mobile device at the computer. The audio data is decoded into a command. A
software program that the command was provided for is determined. At least one
process is executed at the computer in response to the command. Output data is
generated at the computer in response to executing at least one process at the
computer. The output data is transmitted to the mobile device.
It is worth noting (based on Google...) that they are the first ones against
which this patent asserted in court. Based on its broad applicability they are
clearly following a strategy of getting a few wins against weaker targets
before taking on the rest of the world.
Alexa, Siri please help!
~~~
rayiner
The claim is the relevant part, not the abstract. Claim 1 recites:
> A method of remotely accessing and controlling a computer from a mobile
> device, comprising:
> receiving audio data from the mobile device, at the computer, at an audio
> command interface; the audio command interface decodes the audio data into a
> command;
> the audio command interface selects, from two or more applications, one
> application the audio command interface decides is the appropriate
> application to execute at least one process in response to the command,
> wherein in deciding which application to select the audio command interface
> uses biometric data;
(This step is likely the basis for any claim of patentability over the prior
art. Interestingly, the patent doesn’t use the term “biometric” in the
specification. So there might be a written description or enablement problem.
Caveat: I’m a lawyer but this is not legal advice, just entertainment.)
> executing with the selected application the at least one process in response
> to the command;
> generating output data in response to the selected application executing the
> at least one process;
> and transmitting the output data to the mobile device.
------
lordnacho
The whole patent system needs a good looking at. I'm not a lawyer, but I did
manage to get a patent a few years ago. It was for something obvious (math in
fact!), but my business partners at the time thought it was worth getting.
Haven't used it to troll anyone, and I don't like the idea, but the process
did get me thinking a lot about whether patents are a net positive to society.
I think they aren't.
Having a patent system gives people the wrong impression that there's some
special nugget of knowledge that is crucial to creating value. You often hear
people who aren't in the entrepreneurial space talk about how they just need a
"good idea". In practice, there's very few things that work that way. Every
time I've started a business, there's been a lot of work that isn't so much
developing "the idea" as much as finding ways to connect it economically the
rest of the world. Whereas the naive view would be something like "once we
invent fusion, it will be easy to sell".
For similar reasons, exclusivity is not necessarily a good way to reward
innovators. Essentially my thinking is that innovating is actually only half
the work, if even. Say you invent the cure for coronavirus. How useful is that
actually, without a plan for making it at scale and distributing it? And what
is the chance that the guy who spent his life building cures for viral
diseases is also the guy who can build factories and delivery networks? The
retort to that may be that the innovator can outsource those things, but why
would we give them the exclusive right to do that, when he'd only gotten one
piece of the puzzle?
Patents also allow incumbents to create costs that deter new entrants. They
seem to be so loosely defined that any suitably large corporation that feels
threatened can throw them at any other player and the lawyers win, like this
article is talking about. It's great that they are fighting but there's a
problem if the troll has deep pockets.
One big issue that is mentioned is that the troll doesn't need to produce
anything working. So basically they don't need to show that they are making
anything of value. No customers needs to ever have benefitted from the patent.
So somehow the system would still punish an honest player who tries to be
useful to other people.
Finally, the thesis itself of how patents are supposed to work needs evidence
to support it. I don't see any evidence other than thought experiment to say
that something was invented because the patent system existed. All I see is
that if you can patent something, you do. Not that you try to invent something
because patents exist.
~~~
wizzwizz4
> _I don 't see any evidence other than thought experiment to say that
> something was invented because the patent system existed._
The patent system is designed to reward the publication of technologies, not
their development.
~~~
philipps
That is technically correct but in policy discussion and the Economics
literature patents are usually linked to innovation (where innovation is
defined as invention + commercialization). As the earlier poster suggests the
link may not be as strong as its proponents argue, but we don’t have a lot of
counter factual data. Innovative economies generally develop strong IP
protection around the same time they become innovative.
~~~
_jal
> Innovative economies generally develop strong IP protection around the same
> time they become innovative.
This is another way of saying "actors in less advanced economies ignore IP
protections until they've more or less caught up".
That was the US IP strategy, which it now decries when others follow it.
Enabled by faster international feedback loops, China is, er, innovating on
the strategy, simultaneously weaponizing IP law while also expropriating
through various means.
------
glangdale
We once got spammed by Columbia Universities' IP arm when we were a tiny
startup. They just send us this giant booklet of random patents with the
strong implication that there was some relevance to what we were doing, but it
just seemed like a bulk trolling effort.
We just threw it in the trash and moved on with our lives and that was that.
No follow-up, of course.
Ah, the delights of Pure Intellectual Research in the ivory towers of academe,
right?
~~~
unishark
Generally they want to license the IP to you, which might be a good idea as it
adds prestige, plus they will defend it in court. Note that even if your
technology did not infringe on their patents, your marketing claims might have
appeared to.
Many schools try to make money by licensing patents, even giant public schools
(oddly). Faculty and research staff are pressed to make invention disclosures
of ongoing research that hasn't been published yet, and the school decides if
it can make money patenting it. If they do, the inventor gets a cut.
In terms of ownership, all govt funding of the research means is the govt
itself gets a free license to use it, not the public.
~~~
glangdale
None of the patents seemed to have anything to do with anything we did whether
actual IP or marketing claims. I think the generalized scheme was "spam out
this huge brochure to enough people and hope we get something back".
I understand the whole 'ownership of govt funded stuff' well enough; I don't
think I am entitled to ride around in a tank. And yet it doesn't seem entirely
like the public good that was trying to be achieved, especially this kind of
spammy approach, where they clearly had no idea of which patent we might be
"infringing" or interested in licensing.
------
streetcat1
The patent is likely invalid.
First of all, based on my understanding of Mycroft architecture, voice
recognition is done on the device itself, as well as application selection.
Hence, the voice command AND the command logic is done on the mobile device,
and DO NOT access a remote computer.
Also, the prior art is likely very strong as evidenced in the patent itself:
"from a mobile device to remotely access and control a computer are known in
the art. However, such prior art systems are application-specific, meaning
they are configured to allow the person to use voice commands from a mobile
device to remotely access and control a specific application at a computer.
Therefore, the prior art systems 25 require the person to have multiple mobile
devices and/or systems to remotely access and control the different
applications at a computer. Additionally, the prior art systems limit the
audible and visible feedback the person can receive from a computer while
using voice commands from a 30 mobile device to remotely access and control
the computer. "
So the patent admits that prior art exists for sending commands to specific
applications, but not for general application? , I fail to see the difference.
All voice commands are sent for a specific application.
Hence, since any voice command is for a specific applications, I fail to see
how Mycroft violated the current claim.
If you want an example of the prior art, here is a very famous system (from
2006)
[http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/letsgo/](http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/letsgo/)
In general, the patent shows its age, such that it confines itself to a simple
client-server architecture, where the mobile device gets the audio, and the
remote computer (the server) does speech recognition and command selection.
However, if you do the speech recognition on the mobile device, as well as the
app selection, I think that the patent is no longer valid.
~~~
istillwritecode
Mycroft does not do on-device speech recognition. That is currently
infeasible.
~~~
streetcat1
I was assuming that this is their main competitive moat against Alexa, etc.
I.e. that they avoid sending any audio to some central server.
It is possible:
[https://github.com/kaldi-asr/kaldi/issues/3571](https://github.com/kaldi-
asr/kaldi/issues/3571)
------
pushswap
"voice commands from a remote device to remotely access and control a
computer". Filed in 2007.
I imagine the IBM Simon would be an example of prior art being first
demonstrated in 1992.
~~~
mrtksn
That’s up to the court to decide, we wouldn’t know until spending a lot of
money I guess.
~~~
onli
Courts don't decide facts, and they are not the usual venue to invalidate
patents.
------
epicgiga
The root cause of this is the "American rule" of costs. It's no where near as
viable to troll when you have to pay their costs when you lose (especially
given that frequently the plaintiffs are lawyers themselves, so aren't
actually spending any legal fees to troll).
The case portrayed in the TV show "Silicon Valley" was illustrative: "best
just to settle because it'll cost us less", because the mere act of suing
itself financially damages the victim, often severely, given lawyers' typical
rates.
But not so under the "English rule": it costs you nothing if they lose.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I can't understand for the life of me why USA don't make awards of costs to
successful defendants, is there a logic to it that I'm missing?
~~~
patentatt
The benefit is that it lowers barriers to entry to the legal system.
~~~
epicgiga
That's not a benefit. "Entering the legal system" is just as often someone
suing you (including BS reasons like in the OP) as it is suing someone else,
and if you can't "enter the legal system" because you know you'll lose and
have to pay for it, that's a good thing.
------
keanzu
"We are going to litigate every single patent suit to the fullest extent
possible including appealing any adverse decisions all the way to the Supreme
Court."
~~~
lolc
They write this to scare off trolls looking for marks. They would not do this
in clear-cut cases.
------
mwerty
Related (and covered on hn before): [https://blog.cloudflare.com/standing-up-
to-a-dangerous-new-b...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/standing-up-to-a-
dangerous-new-breed-of-patent-troll/)
~~~
t0mas88
Interesting to note that Cloudflare went a few steps further and not only
tried to invalidate the patent but also took the troll to the state bar
association for disciplinary action. I'm not sure there is an outcome on that
yet, but I think the strategy to do everything you can to destroy the trolling
entity that sued you is a great one in this case. Might even consider filing
several lawsuits and complaints to overwhelm a small scale troll.
Or if you're the size of Cloudflare, bully them in other ways. In this example
it's an operation setup by just two lawyers, easy to make them regret going
after you if you make their work impossible. You could for example hire away
their legal staff, delay things for ages, screw with the personal life of the
two founders. They can't keep a small business afloat for very long if you
dedicate some resources to screwing with their operations.
Might even just sue their clients for something else (one of your patents for
example). In this case the client is a small firm in Germany, they would be in
a very bad place if they got sued in the US home district of Cloudflare and
had to defend. High probability that they would put pressure on the lawyers to
drop the troll suit.
~~~
chalst
Cloudflare took them to court, where the judge invalidated the patent.
Blackbird appealed and lost.
[https://blog.cloudflare.com/winning-the-blackbird-
battle/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/winning-the-blackbird-battle/)
------
javajosh
So, if you're interested in starting a software business, it seems like the
risk of being sued by a troll is close to 100% - how do you budget for this?
Is there something like insurance you can buy?
~~~
unishark
It's generally not a problem until you start making enough money (or get a lot
of funding) to be worth suing in the first place, at which point you can
afford to pay them off (or potentially fight it, though as noted that can be
much more expensive). There's supposedly recent changes in the law allow you
to fight patent suits without a million-dollar legal process. Not sure how
well it works for people.
I don't think the risk is really that high of dealing with a patent troll.
Competing firms are much more likely to sue you in my experience. To "insure"
against these you need your own patent portfolio to counter sue them with. Or
license some technology from a giant company that protects it for you. Or,
again, just pay them off.
Either way, the goal isn't to shut you down but to bleed you of some of that
money you are making. So it's a good problem to have in a sense.
------
api
Is there some historical reason East Texas is a rubber stamp mill for patents
and troll suits or is it just something they decided was a good way to make
money?
~~~
di4na
Yes. The main attorney specialised in patent law there is the son and nephew
of the judges.
They made a business of it
~~~
pwneror
Leonard Davis -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Davis_(judge)#Patent_l...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Davis_\(judge\)#Patent_law)
Bo Davis - [https://www.davisfirm.com/attorneys/bo-
davis/](https://www.davisfirm.com/attorneys/bo-davis/)
------
burlesona
Admirable stance. I hope these guys win.
------
breck
> For some inventions this makes sense
No. It never makes sense. You cannot justify the Intellectual Slavery system,
anymore than you can justify the Human Slavery system. It's a restriction on
human freedoms; it's incompatible with actual property rights (as it restricts
what I can do with my own physical property); it's a subsidy to those who were
born into it (when you follow the money that flows to copyrights and patents
holders, you see the majority goes to inherited wealth).
It's economically bad and morally wrong, is as much as you can have something
morally wrong. Here is a classic example of what the Intellectual Slavery
industry has brought us: [https://qz.com/1125690/big-pharma-is-taking-
advantage-of-pat...](https://qz.com/1125690/big-pharma-is-taking-advantage-of-
patent-law-to-keep-oxycontin-from-ever-dying/) half a million Americans dead
from a "novel" patent.
The system is utter garbage. We need to shatter the brainwashing that these
things make sense.
------
steveeq1
Do you have this guy's name? You should create a website with his name and
company in the domain. That way, it's searchable by google and so when people
eventually search for him, people will know what he does for a living.
While you obviously can't "win" in a legal sense, you can at least make it
know to his family and friends what he does for a living. If he does unethical
things in his jobs, he probably does other unethical things in his real life
and people should be warned about him.
~~~
xiweve8512
Voice Tech Inc Type: Corporation for Profit Entity #: 1551867 Partner: MICHAEL
D. GOLLER Partner: STUART E. GOLLER Agent: MICHAEL D. GOLLER, 2204 BLUEGRASS
LANE, CINCINNATI OH 45237 Filed: 06/21/2005
Who are the Goller's? [https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-
blogs/tom-e...](https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-
eblen/article65676402.html)
Jewish deli owner family. Now making a living as trolls.
Here's a photo of them: [https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-
blogs/tom-e...](https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-
eblen/dh1ody/picture65676392/alternates/FREE_768/160306AGS-Sun.094)
[https://www.crunchbase.com/person/s-e-
goller](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/s-e-goller)
------
supergirl
> It is also cheaper to give a schoolyard bully your lunch money than it is to
> visit a doctor. The thing is, once you pay the bully, he’ll just come back
> again and again and again. Eventually, that lunch money adds up to a lot
> more than a doctor’s visit
doctor? wat?
------
ElonMuskrat
<<< Patent trolls get paid because short-sighted companies make the decision
to pay. Simply put, it is usually cheaper in the short run to pay a troll than
it is to litigate. It is also cheaper to give a schoolyard bully your lunch
money than it is to visit a doctor. The thing is, once you pay the bully,
he’ll just come back again and again and again. Eventually, that lunch money
adds up to a lot more than a doctor’s visit. In the long run the best way to
deal with a bully is to punch him square in the face. You might take a
beating, but if you do it every time? The bully will find easier prey. >>>
This is very naive. Patent trolls get paid because they are highly effective
at weaponizing the legal system.
~~~
ScottBurson
You must not be aware of Newegg's success in defending themselves against
patent trolls. They demonstrated that stonewalling can pay off.
~~~
unicornmama
The plural of anecdote is not data.
------
theflyingkiwi42
In my experience, attorney fees for screw-ups (accidental or not) get very
rarely awarded :( Hope just fighting makes the troll go away.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Icons for your web apps - coderdude
http://blog.iconspedia.com/icons/free-web-design-icons-282/
======
aaronbrethorst
All well and good, but this line makes me stop cold: "Please check the license
specified by each author of an icon pack before using them."
I'd love to see a website that could track these licenses and let me filter on
them: free, free with attribution, free for non-commercial, for-purchase, etc.
Sort of like <http://sxc.hu>, I suppose, but strictly for icons.
~~~
stingraycharles
<http://www.iconfinder.com/> allows you to filter on commercial use.
------
lovskogen
I'd take a set of 250 good icons over 2400 random ones, any day.
<http://iconkits.com/> \- <http://stockicons.com/>
------
iamcalledrob
Helveticons, at <http://helveticons.ch> are incredibly well thought out icons,
which I use _everywhere_.
Their minimalism is their strength.
Well worth the money.
------
alanh
How on earth did this make the front page? This is hardly the first or best
meta-collection of icons. A lot of the sets here are too inconsistent,
amateur, cutesy, or small to be of much use. And any round-up of free icons
that skips Silk is irresponsible.
------
jheriko
Why does it have to be a web app? I've used some of these for the interface in
my game engine...
~~~
eswat
Not sure about a game engine (editor?) but one has to be a lot more careful
with using stock icons for a typical desktop app than they would with a web
app.
It's easier to retrofit an icon set into a website (where you’re expected to
come up with your own aesthetic) than it is to retrofit it in a desktop app
(where you’re expected to follow certain metaphors and not deviate your
appearance too much from the rest of the system).
I’ve been seeing a lot more OSX apps lately use the icons from Icon Drawer
(<http://www.icondrawer.com/>). While they look fabulous in their own right,
IMHO they do not fit with the rest of the aesthetics set by OSX (look at the
Concentrate and CallitADay apps for examples).
------
yesimahuman
Once again, the amazing contributions of designers like these help web apps
push forward on functionality and experience without worrying about small yet
very important and time consuming details like creating good looking icons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bernie Sanders’ problem with Amazon - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/28/bernie-sanders-problem-with-amazon/
======
pizzazzaro
The marketplace may "set the going rate for labour" and all, but oligopoly and
cartel-ism artificially depress wages.
Much like walmart, Amazon's wages do not respect the costs it takes to survive
and continue working. It's just that simple. If you want your workforce to be
able to do their jobs, they need to be afford a living standard above poverty.
Anything else is either asking taxpayers to fund your business, or financially
gaslighting your workers into failure. How is either option acceptable?
Much like Walmart has historically done, Amazon warehouse workers in the US
get "coached" in how to get food stamps. If you get sick, you risk getting
fired. Get too old, you risk getting fired. Need too much time off? You
guessed it... All of this is federally illegal, but conservative state laws
make it impossible to hold any company accountable.
Move over to their sysadmin side, and you'll see wages $10-20k less / year
than the competition, for 80 hours work in a week instead of the average 60.
And the same issues of what'll get you fired show up here as well.
Combined with the fact that Amazon avoids paying taxes, this makes Jeff Bezos
the biggest welfare queen in existence.
Anyone else wanna kick Jeff Bezos off welfare?
~~~
ALittleLight
One way to think of it is as Bezos being on welfare. Another way to think is
that, presumably, the Amazon workers don't have better jobs available to them.
If they weren't at Amazon then they'd be somewhere paying less, with less
benefits, or unemployed. Without Amazon the workers would require more from
the government. In this sense Amazon is subsidizing social welfare and not the
other way around.
~~~
prostoalex
They briefly mention that in the article - Amazon might be the household name
in e-commerce, but they're kinda small fry as far logistics and fulfillment
industry goes, and apparently a higher-paying one at that: "That Amazon
positions its own offerings as _highly competitive_ can, perhaps, be seen as
something of an indictment of larger issues with warehouse fulfillment. While
the company is an easy target, it’s certainly not alone."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What benefits of quitting alcohol consumption? - throw51319
I've decided to do a "dry" January and if I can do it, will try to extent to all of 2020.<p>I didn't drink often, not more than once a week. But it was usually a binge episode, having at least 10 drinks.<p>Has anybody stopped? What were the benefits? I am thinking that the reduction of stress on the body might lead to clearer thinking during work, etc.
======
ramraj07
Another angle: ego.
Never drank in my life till 25 due to growing up in India and luckily finding
myself among folks who didn't drink most of the time. I then had a chance to
decide without baggage and never drink in my life.
The voluntary reasons are several, but the primary is the fact that I respect
my authority over my mind too much. Even if you're slightly drunk, you're
legally not allowed to drive. Neither are you considered "able" to give
consent for things. Suggests to me (rightly?) That we momentarily don't
consider people who are drunk as human, but as some mentally challenged being
that is incapable of good reason. I personally feel like voluntarily becoming
a mentally challenged person just to get a buzz is just too demeaning, so it
encourages me to stay dry.
Why completely dry? It's always easiest to draw the line where it's absolutely
clear, and with "addictive" things like drinking it's easiest to draw it at 0.
~~~
throw51319
Yeah I agree with the completely dry. My parents are always like "just have a
few!". Which I can do at family events, etc. But at a big party, it is tougher
and sometimes impossible to just have 2-3.
------
bawolff
>I didn't drink often, not more than once a week. But it was usually a binge
episode, having at least 10 drinks.
Just fyi, i think most people would consider having 10 drinks in a single
session, once a week, to be "often"
~~~
throw51319
I live in NYC so maybe it is more excessive. But usually if you start at
9:30pm and end at 3am... that's 2 an hour. Not unrealistic. Honestly it's
usually even more for me.
------
PaulHoule
So far as binge drinking:
I used to go to parties, drink too much, and then act like a jerk.
My brother-in-law kicked me out of his house. After I stopped binge drinking
and atoned I get along better with my brother-in-law, which is a real benefit.
Otherwise:
The worst immediate consequence of overdrinking is that you feel worse the
next day. Alcohol can mess up your sleep and also feed into the metabolic
disorder behind insulin resistance and Type II diabetes.
I don't think you will notice a difference between 2 beers a night and no
alcohol at all, but if you drink more than that you probably will perform
worse the next day.
~~~
throw51319
Nice. That is pretty much the same reason I am stopping. Did you notice any
other benefits on a large or small scale?
------
f_nachos
Alcohol is known by medical science to be
\- neurotoxic.
\- carcinogenic.
If that's not persuasive, I don't know what else could be.
~~~
asjw
So are wasted fumes coming from your car, without the benefits
The same can be said for barbeques
When will people stop pretending that changing one thing doesn't really change
anything in life in general?
Drinking is like everything else: if you do it with moderation it is not that
harmful
If you don't, you got bigger problems
~~~
f_nachos
If you're implying that I am overestimating risk by comparing it to barbecued
meat and exposure to vehicle exhaust then I would say that maybe you're
underestimating risk from those two things.
I personally avoid barbecued meat for that exact reason, as well as refrain as
much as possible from huffing exhaust fumes. If a lifestyle that allowed me to
avoid being near cars were reasonably easy to achieve I would choose it.
Because as you say, car exhaust is neurotoxic and carcinogenic.
~~~
asjw
I work in healthcare in Italy, where we live more than anyone else in the
World, on average, except for the Japanese.
You are overestimating the causality between consumption and actual damages.
Consumption is ok, abuse is not.
Even too many showers can kill your skin
Of course if you have a condition even a simple contact can be deadly (think
about favism)
And of course people are free to not drink, there's no shame in that, but
don't think that it will give you more chances to have a long life than
someone who drinks moderately
It's like smoking, it is bad, you shouldn't do it, but truth is that smoking a
couple cigarettes a day is like not smoking at all
Paracelso said, many centuries ago, that it's t he dose that makes the poison
and it's still true.
------
helph67
A few recent links for your consideration... [http://cancerherald.com/alcohol-
itself-causes-cell-damage-an...](http://cancerherald.com/alcohol-itself-
causes-cell-damage-and-mutations-and-its-metabolite-acetaldehyde-is-highly-
carcinogenic/)
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708084334.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708084334.htm)
[https://neurosciencenews.com/age-alcohol-
consumption-10835/?...](https://neurosciencenews.com/age-alcohol-
consumption-10835/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+neuroscience-
rss-feeds-neuroscience-news+\(Neuroscience+News+Updates\))
~~~
throw51319
Thanks for the info! I think the 2nd link doesn't work.
~~~
ken
Google search suggests the title of that page began with "Quitting alcohol may
improve mental well-being, health ...", which leads to pages like [1] with the
same title from around the same date.
[1]: [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/ji-
qam070319...](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/ji-
qam070319.php)
------
alt_f4
I don't drink at all anymore, but I also never liked the taste. I used to
drink socially (maybe a beer or two or three, once a week), but I found better
friends, so I don't need to do that anymore. It's been like 5 years.
> What were the benefits?
The benefits are that I look younger and I'm definitely smarter and sharper
than people that binge once a week at my age. Alcohol dehydrates you (which
makes you look older) but it also destroys your brain, especially in binges.
The downsides are some people try to peer pressure you or try to make you feel
bad for not drinking in social situations.
My $0.02 are - if you can't do a dry January, for whatever reason, then you
probably have a drinking problem and need help.
~~~
ramraj07
I don't drink and I _really_ wish it were true, but just drinking (unless
you're alcoholic) by itself doesn't make you "dumber". You probably are
anecdotally associating idiots around you (who tend to drink like the morons
they are) with causation.
------
aeternum
Just for a counter opinion: I only drink on the weekends in social situations,
but have gone 2-3 months without as an experiment.
I didn't notice any difference other than it completely resets your tolerance.
After the break it only takes one beer to feel buzzed, whereas before it was
2-3. In a big city, I'd recommend trying it once regardless of the benefits
because it is challenging from a social POV. A surprising number of events
center around alcohol, and people think it is strange that you're not
drinking.
~~~
bradhe
> After the break it only takes one beer to feel buzzed
Not sure if this was your experience, but at the same time hangovers get
_enormously_ more painful!
~~~
Symbiote
I thought that was just because I was getting older.
(A couple of people 5 years older than me say the same thing.)
------
rdiddly
You will save a ton of time, money, energy and productivity that you currently
waste in going drinking and recovering from drinking.
I mostly stopped, not particularly by trying, but just by sort of growing out
of the lifestyle and almost like, "forgetting" to drink, after a while. I'm
big on the forgetting thing. When I failed to quit smoking dozens of times, it
was by paying close attention to what day/time I was going to stop, how long
it had been since then, etc. In other words, thinking a lot about smoking. The
time when I finally succeeded, was the time when I just sort of forgot to
smoke. Although note that there was undoubtedly an "infrastructure of
forgetting" in place, without which it wouldn't have been possible to forget.
For example the band I was in (with two smokers) broke up, so I stopped being
reminded so often of smoking. So set yourself up for success by going through
and trying to get rid of things that remind you of drinking. And don't make a
big deal of it or count the days. Certainly "Only 5 days left until I can
drink again" is a sign of failure, but in my opinion so is "Alcohol-free for
12 days! ... 13 days! ... 14 days!" Makes me thirsty just typing it! The
biggest indicator of success in my book would be that the thought doesn't
enter your head, and you're not paying any attention to it. Fill the extra
time that you save, especially at first, with new or neglected activities that
are more interesting & pleasant, yet not too demanding, so that you have
better things to do and experience and think about.
~~~
throw51319
So true about "forgetting". I've also come to the same conclusion, in my
experiences with other substances. If I simply forgot about it being something
that I would do, it just seemed a lot easier.
For instance, a nic vape, I would just put it in a drawer after the last coil
finished... and within a day I forgot about taking hits in the morning or
while on the computer.
------
mc3
* All the cliche health benefits and then some! Car analogy: you'll fire up the other 2 cylinders while no longer needing to tow a caravan. Combine with exercise and better diet which will be easier to stick to due to no drugs to sap your will power.
* Ability to drive places. Not worry about being "DUI" the same or next day.
* You'll exercise your ability to say no! In the UK for example it is sacrilegious to not drink unless you have a good excuse, which apart from religion (along with appropriate ethnicity to make that believable) there seems to be no acceptable excuse. So you can say "fuck you, I'm not drinking that shitty poison" and be an outcast for a while, then find people worth hanging out with.
Australia is not as bad because of the sport culture. "My personal trainer
said no" is acceptable and most places I have work have had a mild to zero
drink culture.
Not sure about the US, but I get the impression that like Australia and unlike
UK, Russia, etc. it more acceptable to not drink.
~~~
el_dev_hell
> Australia is not as bad because of the sport culture. "My personal trainer
> said no" is acceptable and most places I have work have had a mild to zero
> drink culture.
That's a pretty specific edge case.
If you're sitting at the pub with friends or work colleagues and you're the
only one not drinking, you can expect some irritating comments.
I've learned to deal with it. I've figured out the main reason people push a
drink on you is to justify their bad choices (e.g if you're at the pub with
Bob and he's sinking 12 pints tonight, he doesn't want a reminder that he's
killing his body and will have a terrible hangover in a few hours).
~~~
boblebricoleur
When I tried to stop drinking in college, I used to fill empty beer bottles
with water to drink at parties. This helped a lot with social pressure. I
reckon one could do the same in a pub if the bartender is understanding and
discrete, but I never tried it.
~~~
chrisco255
Nowadays just get some Topo Chico (carbonated water) or you can drink the
Heineken Zero.
------
wetpaws
I did it for year. Two big benefits: first, you are loosing weight (I lost ~10
pounds) and second, craving has gone. It was seriously concerning me and a big
motivator to quit.
I did not find much difference in how I feel, but at least this disgusting
feeling in your mouth in the morning has gone too.
------
cyorir
Binge drinking is not synonymous with alcoholism, but comes with many
downsides nevertheless. The benefit to stopping binge drinking is to avoid the
associated risks of binge drinking (including risks to health). Avoiding binge
drinking could certainly improve work performance. However, just trying to
avoid binge drinking may be difficult. I would consult a health professional
who specializes in addiction.
[https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-
treatment/bi...](https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-
treatment/binge-drinking-problem)
------
supernintendo
Lifestyle judgments aside, you'll certainly save a lot of money in the long
term.
Good luck! I'm trying to rein in my affinity for craft beer (I love the beer
but hate the empty calories that come with it).
------
cmdshiftf4
>I've decided to do a "dry" January and if I can do it, will try to extent to
all of 2020.
There's no "can" about it, you'll do it, and you'll enjoy it. Whether it has
to be a whole 2020 thing is up to you.
Personally I do dry months during the comparatively quieter social periods at
the start and near-end of the year (leading up to Christmas), and I find that
I both enjoy the months where I allow myself to drink and those that I remain
dry all the more because of it. YMMV.
------
batt4good
I reached six months alcohol free in January. I didn't have a problem but once
I turned 23 I found my body just seemed to no longer tolerate alcohol and
decided just to try not drinking for a while.
To be honest, my life hasn't really changed as a result (socially), but I
definitely feel healthier, have a clearer head and my skin has never been
better.
Friends from college that kept drinking 4-5 times a week (2-7 drinks per
outing), especially women, appear to have aged years more than me.
~~~
alt_f4
> Friends from college that kept drinking 4-5 times a week (2-7 drinks per
> outing), especially women, appear to have aged years more than me.
I have observed this too. Not sure why but this and also smoking seems to hit
women's age appearance a lot more than men's.
~~~
batt4good
It's really kind of uncanny. I think the root of it is alcohol dries out your
skin and causes lots of mid-level inflammation. Smoking is just all around bad
for your body (I didn't realize it causes your body to heal about half as fast
- although I've never smoked), granted your face is always inches away from a
source of smoke.
------
boblebricoleur
here is a testimony that motivated me to try and stop like you are :
[https://thinkfaster.co/2019/02/quitting-
alcohol/](https://thinkfaster.co/2019/02/quitting-alcohol/)
------
moxd
Take the problem at the source and ask yourself why do you need to get wasted?
~~~
throw51319
Yeah true. I thought about this a lot and I think it is an expression of some
inner nihilism and a self-destructive habit. By trying to focus on something
creative and doing a good job, I can put the nihilism at bay and thus my
desire to self-destruct through drinking is reduced.
------
smallcharleston
I wonder why some folks seem to only go on these huge drinking sprees. Why do
few people seem to discuss simply drinking 0-2 drinks daily? Ie using
moderation like an adult.
~~~
cmdshiftf4
I don't go on huge drinking "sprees", but I feel like this comment applies to
me.
I don't drink during the week as I reserve it for social occasions, even
though I really enjoy certain drinks (wines, cocktails and liquours). I also
eat healthily during the week and try to look after myself physically and
mentally.
I'm pretty actively social, between family and friends, and we get together
pretty often. That manifests itself usually with a dinner, with a drink or two
proceeding it depending on the time available, drinks over a nice slow dinner,
maybe a digestif and then either relaxing with a couple bottles of wine and
good conversation at one of our houses/apartments or maybe move on to go
listen to some music, go dancing, etc.
All-in-all, over the course of a typical 5:30pm to 2am gathering, that can
equate to quite a few units of alcohol (at one unit per hour you'd be looking
at 8.5 units, and it doesn't take an hour to finish a cocktail or glass of
wine) and the majority of the time it's not people getting wasted, it's simply
enjoying themselves with a variety of alcoholic beverages they enjoy.
I, and I'm sure many others, enjoy this approach while also enjoying not
drinking on a day-to-day, "more moderate" approach.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Engineering tour de force births programmable optical quantum computer - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/engineering-tour-de-force-births-programmable-optical-quantum-computer/
======
Strilanc
> _The [two qubit] gates are about as reliable as any others you will find in
> the quantum computing world, which is to say that operations complete
> successfully around 93 percent of the time. For comparison, ion-based
> quantum computers are at 95 to 99 percent and superconducting quantum
> computers are around 90 to 95 percent. [...]_
Those comparison numbers are incorrect. Ion-based and superconducting-based
groups have reported two-qubit gate fidelities of 99.9% [1] and 99.4% [2]
respectively.
[1]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.04600](https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.04600)
[2]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.4848](https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.4848)
~~~
jessriedel
I don't know if there's a sensible way to define "typical" gate fidelities,
and I agree "90 to 99 percent" is misleadingly low, but picking some of the
highest reported numbers (possibly achieved in specialized non-scalable set
ups) is also not very representative. The engineering of gate quality is too
messily intertwined with the rest of the device.
~~~
Strilanc
The article is also reporting numbers for a one-off setup that has scaling
challenges, so it seems appropriate to compare against that type of number.
~~~
jessriedel
Fair enough.
------
foxes
I like optical quantum computing, it feels hands on, like it's almost
something you could build in your garage. Linear optical quantum computers
just need waveguides, beam splitters, phase shifters and mirrors (no
disrespect - I know it's not trivial to make work). You set up your circuit
and fire your light through it and measure the system at the end.
It's a nice way to think about quantum computing. You aren't allowed to do any
measurements half way or you will destroy your superposition. It's a bit like
a pure function, no IO allowed until the very end.
Also I know three of the people on the paper, good to see them getting some
mainstream attention for a nice result.
~~~
vtomole
> You aren't allowed to do any measurements half way or you will destroy your
> superposition.
This is true of all quantum computations. It doesn't matter what the
underlying hardware is.
~~~
Strilanc
It's actually extremely common for quantum algorithms to have measurement
operations halfway through. But they apply to individual qubits, not the whole
system.
For example, error corrected quantum computation involves continuously
measuring particular stabilizers in order to catch when they flip. Another
example: measurement can reduce the cost of uncomputation (e.g. [1]).
[1]: [https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2018-06-18-74/](https://quantum-
journal.org/papers/q-2018-06-18-74/)
------
Soundest
Bingo, straight across the middle. See that, I never thought I was going to
get optical and quantum in the same headline but there you go. You never know
with bullshit bingo.
------
biswaroop
A cool implementation of a deep ANN using a similar system:
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.02365.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.02365.pdf)
(the nonlinear units and the backprop are done on a classical computer).
The paper also points out that thermal cross-talk between the thermo-optical
phase shifters can limit gate fidelities or conversely the smallest spacing
between the waveguides.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Benefits of Continuous Delivery - henrik_w
https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/19/benefits-of-continuous-delivery/
======
coldcode
I find continuous delivery to the mobile app stores to be rather silly and
wasteful, updating your app every two weeks for example consumes vast
bandwidth especially for people with automatic updates on. The benefits of
changing apps on such a quick basis makes it unlikely customers will even
notice changes or be able to adapt to what's new or different. Being able to
delivery quickly is not the same as having it be automatically useful, just as
being able to easily add some new functionality is not the same as having that
be useful or desirable to the end user.
~~~
chaosphere2112
On the bandwidth end, both Android and iOS do use incremental updates ([1],
[2]); if the changes are something that you would be releasing eventually
anyway, you're not wasting any bandwidth, and are instead loadbalancing it
over multiple payment periods.
[1]: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/07/23/new-play-store-
tools...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/07/23/new-play-store-tools-help-
developers-to-shrink-the-size-of-app-updates/)
[2]:
[https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1779/_index...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1779/_index.html)
------
ryanbrunner
I like that this article doesn't focus too much on the technical aspects of
auto-deploys and CI. I've been in a lot of places where the concepts were
lumped together, and while we could have easily delivered software
continuously, we falsely believed we needed every last thing to be perfectly
automated before we did.
It's important that your deployment process is repeatable and simple (i.e.
typing one or two commands into a terminal), but if a human is still kicking
it off that's still a net positive over big timed releases.
~~~
jbattle
I agree that reaching perfect automation isn't critical - but one thing that
_is_ critical is to ensure that local uncommitted changes do not get deployed.
I've been burned a couple of times where changes from a developer's machine
ended up in production
~~~
rhizome
How does that happen? The only way I can think of is when using a "copy local"
type deployment rather than a repository checkout, which is a pretty basic bug
in this kind of process that should be eliminated by the time "automation" is
a priority.
------
vsupalov
Great article! A tiny nitpick: the distinction between continuous delivery and
continuous deployment, is that in the first case you _could_ deploy anytime
your want, but the triggering is still up to a human. With continuous
deployment, everything is shipped to prod automatically, given that all
conditions are met.
If you want to learn more quickly - I did a talk on the topic last week, and
did my best to provide a concise overview of the most essential terms. Check
out the slides for a high-level view on ci/cd [1] and deployment pipelines in
general [2] if you want to learn more.
[1] [https://www.slideshare.net/VladislavSupalov/automated-
testin...](https://www.slideshare.net/VladislavSupalov/automated-testing-
environments-with-kubernetes-gitlab/12)
[2] [https://www.slideshare.net/VladislavSupalov/automated-
testin...](https://www.slideshare.net/VladislavSupalov/automated-testing-
environments-with-kubernetes-gitlab/17)
~~~
rhizome
Your "continuous delivery" definition sounds like CI to me.
------
zeroz
Good summary. One missing argument IMHO against continuous deployment: Fear of
consequences in strong regulated sectors, like finance and insurance.
Continuous delivery is highly encouraged, but for deployments I see strong
preferences to test everything (in some parts automation is still weak) and
therefor some bundling of deployments or special dates are still preferred. I
think costs of bad reputation or being watch by regulators because of failed
or illegal 'transactions' are in these businesses much higher than e.g. in
retail, gaming, etc.
~~~
beat
And meanwhile, we have Equifax losing tons of valuable data due to a breach
caused largely by how slowly they deploy, and how difficult it is for them to
get rid of antiquated technology.
After many years in big enterprise, I've learned something important - the
_appearance_ of risk is more important than the _existence_ of risk.
Continuous delivery looks "risky". Slow, deliberate release cycles on a
quarterly or even yearly basis look "safe", because "testing".
In practice, those quarterly deployments have far too many changes embedded in
them all at once. Worse, teams race to get their features in under the
deadline, knowing it can be months before they'll get another chance, leading
to careless coding and inadequate testing. So, based on both my experience and
a little beyond-common-sense logic, slow release cycles are _more_ risky than
fast ones.
~~~
zeroz
I absolutely agree with you! These huge quarterly updates with last minute hop
on's and changes ("otherwise we have to wait another three months") which
large enterprises did or are still doing are more risky than smaller ones.
Does this require to jump directly to continuous deployment? I don't think so.
What's wrong with continuous delivery to user acceptance stage and e.g. two
weekly deployments after ~98% automated tests ~2% manuel test (especially
penetration).
------
atsaloli
If anyone wants to learn how to set up CI/CD, I have a free self-paced class
at
[https://gitpitch.com/atsaloli/cicd/master?grs=gitlab#/](https://gitpitch.com/atsaloli/cicd/master?grs=gitlab#/)
\-- all you need to follow along is an Ubuntu VM for the hands-on exercises.
------
OtterCoder
I'm working on CD for a project I've been working on, but one difficulty I'm
facing is that the clients and server are being developed on parallel tracks,
and aren't always in feature parity at any given moment.
Which repo should own the integration tests? How do I synchronize the releases
of matching front and back ends?
~~~
wpietri
This is a strong sign that your client/server distinction is artificial.
If it were in a true client/server environment, where you had a variety of
different client versions rolled out, then I expect you would have already
found the obvious answer: the server has to support multiple versions of
clients and clients use a mechanism like feature switches or capability
detection to enable functionality as it becomes available server side. Both
repos have their own integration tests: the server's make sure the server
supports multiple client versions, and the client's make sure that the client
degrades gracefully in the face of server variation.
From the way you talk, though, it sounds to me like you expect client and
server to always be released at the same time (e.g., where it's a web front
end and web back end). If that's really the case, then I'd just have everybody
work as one team, working off a common set of features switches.
Is that helpful?
~~~
OtterCoder
The distinction is only artificial because we are in early stages of
development. Our MVP will require a web client and an intermittently offline
mobile client.
It is helpful, but certainly doesn't sound simple. Feature switches would
require the messages to already be designed, which is most of the work already
done. It also sounds like an edge-case nightmare.
~~~
pbecotte
Add new features in the backend first...then the clients can add the new
features over time. The feature toggle is that the web client just hasn't
added the feature yet!
I usually put integration tests in the client repo but it doesn't matter. The
key is that you put in a trigger so they get run by changes to any of the
projects.
------
github-cat
Hmm, another big challenge for continuous delivery is actually human factor.
You need to have people who can work in continuous delivery mode. This factor
is more critical than that of traditional software development based on my
experience.
------
korzun
Good article. I want to offer my thoughts on a couple of things from my
personal experience.
> If the change deployed is small, there is less code to look through in case
> of a problem. If you only deploy new software every three weeks, there is a
> lot more code that could be causing a problem.
That's relative. Pushing out an accumulated amount of small changes once a
week will most likely have the same end the result. The difference is, if you
commit more than one breaking change you are dynamically expanding the window
of service degradation. One release with three breaking changes is better than
three broken pushes.
> If a problem can’t be found or fixed quickly, it is also a lot easier to
> revert a small deploy than a large deploy.
It is also harder to revert two non-consecutive deploys out of three.
> If I deploy a new feature as soon as it is ready, everything about it is
> fresh in my mind. So if there is a problem, trouble shooting is easier than
> if I have worked on other features in between.
Personally, I favor stability vs. easier troubleshooting. This works for some
products and not others.
> It is also frees up mental energy to be completely done with a feature
> (including deployed to production).
Anecdotal evidence, but my team would usually catch and correct bugs when they
have to come back to green light a production push. Engineers that ship clean
and fast are rare.
> All things being equal, the faster a feature reaches the customer, the
> better. Having a feature ready for production, but not deploying it, is
> wasteful.
Something like this would usually be pushed out manually to align with other
non-engineering parties within your company. Pushing broken features to the
customer faster is not a good thing. Unless you can assume 100% success rate;
which is not possible.
> The sooner the customer starts using the new feature, the sooner you hear
> what works, what doesn’t work, and what improvements they would like.
This depends on the stage of the company, the product, and your customers.
> Furthermore, as valuable as testing is, it is never as good as running new
> code in production. The configuration and data in the production environment
> will reveal problems that you would never find in testing.
All of the environments I govern match production 1:1 (sans data sanitation)
in every way possible. I feel pretty strongly about this, if you can't test
your code without pushing it into production, you should not be automating
anything.
> Continuous delivery works best when the developers creating the new features
> are the ones deploying them. There are no hand-offs – the same person writes
> the code, tests, deploys and debugs if necessary. This quote (from Werner
> Vogels, CTO of Amazon) sums it up perfectly: “You built it, you run it.”
Don't compare a start-up to Amazon. Amazon has dedicated teams to govern the
process and you most likely not replicate that. Also, hiring people that 'just
send it' without doing damage takes money, time and a lot of training. It's
expensive.
~~~
pbecotte
> One release with three breaking changes is better than three broken pushes.
Why? Each of those pushes you have one thing to check, and if it is messed up
only one thing to revert. With a batched release you have multiple things to
check, and are reverting other people's working stuff when you have to revert.
Even worse, you have to choose between reverting slowly (but checking every
feature) and possibly having to revert a second time because there was another
bug you missed!
> Personally, I favor stability vs. easier troubleshooting. This works for
> some products and not others.
I don't understand. If you make the same number of changes with the same
number of breakages, is packing them into a smaller window really more stable?
Even worse the more time it takes you to fix those breakages, the less uptime
you have... The opposite of stability.
> All of the environments I govern match production 1:1 (sans data sanitation)
> in every way possible. I feel pretty strongly about this, if you can't test
> your code without pushing it into production, you should not be automating
> anything
I agree with this! But... Then why are you advocating for staging to digress
further from production waiting for a big release?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Could a randomness machine help you fight procrastination? - arnejenssen
https://excelerity.com/blog/arne/randomness-jar
======
UweSchmidt
I don't like convoluted schemes to make myself "productive". Hold a carrot on
a stick in one hand, a whip in the other and feel bad about myself? That's no
way to live.
I try to find better reasons why I do the things that I do - why isn't it
exciting right now? I try to check my emotions - is something bothering me so
I flee to Instagram? I actively try to enjoy small pauses to reflect on what I
just did, read or learned, how to generalize, memorize and improve it.
And I want to smell the flowers along the way, just like all humans have done
before us.
~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I try to check my emotions - is something bothering me so I flee to
> Instagram?_
What do you do when you _know_ what's bothering you, but it's not something
you can really fix?
I know why I'm stressed, but the dishes still need to be cleaned.
~~~
afarrell
Then I explicitly talk to myself about how I am choosing to endure the
discomfort.
If I have to go into a situation: "This is hard. This is scary. This is worth
it and I am stronger than I feel."
or
If I really have no power over it: "This is hard. This is scary. This too
shall pass and I am stronger than I feel." I find repeating the Litany against
Fear to help too.
\--------
Sometimes I choose to distract one half of my working memory. Doing the dishes
only requires visuo-spacial working memory, so I'll put on a non-mathematical
podcast or call a friend.
[https://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html?fbcli...](https://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html?fbclid=IwAR0ENwxL838Lz0GWERwFbw8jCMfNMC09qzMIjClCfDQ2F_m4OcR3FFY8KeM#pl)
------
Jommi
My original assumption based on the title was that the author was going to use
a randomness machine to assign tasks to himself. Because usually
procrastination isn't about not wanting to do something, but just getting over
that initial hurdle.
~~~
robotbikes
I have done that at times, when nothing is particularly compelling but I have
a lot of potential things I could work on. I would come up with a list of 20
things and include possibly some fun activities that aren't necessarily
productive. Assign a number to each and roll a 20 sided die. It usually worked
pretty well, especially if a focused on actions that I could actually do or
next actions in GTD terminology. Maybe not the best productivity hack but a
good way to break an impasse of being overwhelmed by too many things to do.
------
karaterobot
I'd like to see a followup after 6 months or so. Are you still using the
method, and is it still having a noticeable affect on your productivity and
well-being?
~~~
james_s_tayler
This. Always see so many "I've been doing X lately and I'm so productive!"
How long you been doing it?
"Oh, about 2 weeks"
I'm guilty of the same thing. We probably all are. But it makes me all this
stuff with a sceptical eye.
~~~
nefitty
I created a Notion doc (instead of in my huge Evernote notebook, and right
after abandoning workflowy and right before I discovered Roam...) to list out
all the productivity methods I’ve tried and ones I have yet to try. After
several hours, I had listed dozens and dozens of tactics I’ve tried with
specific examples of how I used them. I had not been faithful to any of them
for longer than six months.
This stresses me out. Is there something wrong with me? Do I have some problem
with my “internal authority”? Maybe bucking it so many times and so often is
contributing to its influence on me...
~~~
purplerabbit
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you -- many of us are in the same
boat. It's a problem you can make progress on, not an inescapable curse.
When you're addicted to novelty, mechanical approaches like pomodoro or the
one described in this post aren't good long-term solutions. I would suggest
checking out more mindfulness-based approaches.
Here's my current recipe:
1\. Notice when I feel the pull of a distraction. 2\. Stop what I'm doing.
Literally stop everything for as long as I need to clear my mind. This usually
takes about 15 seconds, but sometimes it takes more like 10 minutes. This part
is really hard -- when I started doing it, I would feel guilty for "wasting
time", even though getting distracted often meant 20 minutes, an hour, or even
more completely wasted, and in the worst, most guilt-inducing way. 3\. Once my
mind is clear, ask myself this question: "What do I truly _want_ to do with
this moment of my life?" 4\. Do that thing.
If I want to cruise Reddit for half an hour, I'll cruise Reddit for half an
hour, and feel good about it. If I want to go back to my original task --
that's great. If I want to call up my dad and see how he's doing, or write a
nice note to my wife, that's even better.
Never do anything you don't want to do. It's the _guilt_ that's unhealthy and
addicting. Do what you _want_ to do -- and that doesn't have to look like
being a programmer/working prodigy all the time.
I regularly fail at this, but over the past year, I've gotten better. And I
promise you can, too.
Learn to be happy, and you'll be more productive :)
~~~
nefitty
Thank you for your thoughts! This is very insightful.
------
tgsovlerkhgsel
Slight offtopic: The web site's GDPR notice is worth a read. It caught my
attention by actually having an equally-sized decline button, which is sadly
so rare that it stands out. (TL;DR: They make clear that it's your choice and
that they use analytics with privacy-friendly settings to make the site better
for readers.)
And it's incredible what an effect such a small gesture of respect has. On any
other site I'd have CTRL-W'd such a long-winded explanation much earlier.
The TL;DR of the article - Adding randomized rewards to the Pomodoro technique
by randomizing what fun/distrating thing you'll do during your break, later
mixing in other "healthy" activities in with the "fun" stuff.
~~~
gurjeet
I intend to use that clear, concise language, normal sized fonts, button size,
button colors to correlate with effects of the action, and humility in my
future projects. Oh dear, I am thinking of copying all of it! I hope they
don't send lawyers after me :)
That all made me click the "Accept" button rather than "Decline" which I
usually do when given a choice.
Loved that the very first sentence gave the reader the choice to decline.
Perhaps that made me read the rest of it, or maybe I was already biased
(unlikely, but possible) based on the comment here I had read in its praise.
------
tomcooks
I use the same method to force myself to do exercises.
I do standing desk coding for 1 pomodoro, then exercises (alternating pushups,
squats, wall sits, mountain climbers, jumping jacks) during the 4 of the 5min
breaks. This way I can intermittently break a sweat and find time to exercise
during the day.
Much like
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QqoSyqckqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QqoSyqckqA)
but spread across working hours.
------
Torwald
> " …here’s the method I am using at the moment with great success. You need a
> random-number generator to work it."
[http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2014/1/22/random-
tim...](http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2014/1/22/random-time-
management.html#comment20750649)
------
boffinism
I think he got distracted while typing 'Indesctractible' in the first
sentence, and procrastinated instead of proof reading...
~~~
arnejenssen
Thanks :)
------
AlexCoventry
I need to make the breaks more structured than that. I find meditating during
the breaks is helpful to keep me on course, and also improves my attitude
during the work.
------
TACIXAT
This sounds really cool. The other thing I would like is more sound effects on
real life goals. I play Overwatch, and I always say I wish the stuff I want to
be doing would make that sweet headshot ding.
Patch in a bell into AFL for everytime it finds a crash. Maybe even a generic
function I can throw at the end of main so when my code builds and runs I'll
get that audio stimulation.
------
seesawtron
You should try Stretchly. Its a desktop application that forces you to work
with the Pomodoro routine. It can get really annoying when you are coding and
want to finish that last bit of code but otherwise I liked it.
------
Scarblac
I don't know how effective this will be but you sound exactly like me, so I
have to try this.
------
rantwasp
Randotron, stop the procrastination!
~~~
donquichotte
You s.o.a.b., I'm in.
~~~
rantwasp
I’m in, I’m out. Who’s kidneys are these?
------
rzzzt
At first, I thought Nir Eyal is a partial anagram/pseudonym of Dan Ariely.
~~~
beagle3
Both are unmistakably Israeli names.
------
XCSme
This could be an app.
------
oh_sigh
What does it mean when I pull out "Muhammad hands you a salmon football
helmet" out of my machine?
------
bobblywobbles
No, I don't think it can (completely).
If you procrastinate, you lack discipline. No technology can change or give
you discipline. You have to work on it and you can't let yourself say no, it's
a mindset.
~~~
james_s_tayler
Side note: If you chronically procrastinate, and have your whole life, you
probably lack dopamine.
~~~
synaesthesisx
Which implies they likely have ADHD (or similar) and require medication,
right?
~~~
james_s_tayler
Or complex multi-level coping strategies. Whatever works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I spent five years trying to learn all these bits I need to build full stack - andrewstuart
Here's what I know in some depth following a tangible decision five years ago to invest my free time in learning all the technologies I need to build my own applications end to end:<p><i></i> back end programming: Python 3<p><i></i> database: Postgres<p><i></i> Python database: SQLAlchemy, psycopg2<p><i></i> Python web server: Falcon<p><i></i> JavaScript version: ES2015 / ES7 (async & await)<p><i></i> browser front end development: ReactJS (without Redux!)<p><i></i> browser framework: Bootstrap 3<p><i></i> desktop application development: Electron with ReactJS<p><i></i> operating system: Linux<p><i></i> cloud: AWS primarily, have developed with all the major cloud platforms.<p><i></i> cloud services: S3, EC2, SQS, Cognito, SES, Lambda<p>I am happy to say after 5 years I have now a level of competence sufficient in each of these to be able to assemble the parts into a whole application.<p>There's a real joy in knowing that for the most part, I have already solved most of the major problems and learning challenges required to get a substantial application built.<p>Five years in, my productivity is now dramatically higher than when I started on my mission.<p>Along the way, so many, many other technologies tried and discarded because they didn't appeal to me at a personal level.
======
tmnvix
Congratulations. It's good to look back and appreciate how far you've come.
What is it that you have built (or plan to build) with these technologies?
What you describe is very similar to my own experience - in terms of the
timeframe (previous five years) and technologies. It's been incredibly
rewarding and satisfying. About two years in I was able to make an actual
living from my new skills and knowledge.
I am about to start a project that will bring together all of the various
parts of my preferred 'stack'; Nginx, Django, React, AWS (though looking
closely at GCP), Redis, Postgres, etc... I'm also currently trying to evaluate
whether graphql would be a worthwhile addition (most likely graphene +
apollo).
~~~
andrewstuart
I've built about seven major projects, most of which are either internal or no
longer online.
www.lunikernel.com is freshly complete.
bootrino is complete but not yet released - video here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB4oan18MpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB4oan18MpI)
Another one should be complete within a week or so.
------
k__
I always get asked why I won't call myself full-stack developer when they here
what I built in my 10 years as a dev, but it's not just a question of job
availability to me.
Yes, I got "forced" to build and deploy services at some jobs, I even had to
work with some low level MQTT message queues with IoT devices, but I enjoy it
much more to build front-ends and do UX.
------
darth_mastah
Well done. I'm just wondering why React "without Redux!". Is it one of those
bits which did not appeal to you on a personal level?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In Escape Rooms, Video Games Meet Real Life - ahamilton
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/arts/video-games/in-escape-rooms-video-games-meet-real-life.html
======
schoen
I did the two permanent room escapes run by Real Escape Game/SCRAP in San
Francisco (in the New People mall in Japantown), namely Escape from the
Mysterious Room and Escape from the Time Travel Lab. They were great fun. (My
teams didn't manage to escape from either of them.)
I also did their Escape from the Bank (themed after the aftermath of a bank
robbery), where I think my team was the only one to make it out. That event is
possibly less awesome because you're seated at a table in a big hall with a
lot of other teams around you, rather than exploring small room all by
yourselves.
Now I'm looking forward to trying the games in New York City!
~~~
fallinghawks
I did Escape from the Mysterious Room as well, and really enjoyed it. We
probably needed another 15 minutes to complete because we got hung up on one
of the puzzles that needed a piece we hadn't found yet.
I'd like to do it again but would like to go with people who have actually
have played escape games (esp. Japanese) before.
------
Udo
It's interesting how much LARP ideas are beginning to diffuse into general
culture. Lastly I was talking to someone who basically organized themed mini-
LARPs for corporate teams. Since these are audiences who generally aren't
familiar with the medium, they're always amazed.
I think as our natural environment continues to become safer and more
virtualized, these immersive adventures and ARGs will become more popular and
mainstream.
------
wzsddtc
These are really popular in China Mainland as well since about 2 years ago.
People just create rooms at their own places and put ads on WeiBo to get
people to come.
------
prawn
Are they the same every time or is there an element of randomness in the
puzzles and codes?
It'd be interesting if they could be random enough that someone couldn't spoil
it for others, and people could use AR or just wi-fi to research clues?
~~~
jevinskie
I don't think many people are paying money to go to these just to "cheat".
Unless... there are competitions.
~~~
prawn
If there was randomness, you could offer "Free if you can escape in an hour!"
Otherwise someone could get the full experience by going in with the
instructions written down and pull it out of their pocket in the last five
minutes if they'd failed to escape.
------
briggers
These are awesome. I did a couple in Warsaw, one in Budapest and now one in
Prague.
I use it mostly as a 2nd/3rd date to find out how people handle
stress/cooperate, but they're really fun too.
------
martinshen
We've been working with "escape room" game event organizers like SCRAP for a
while now. They're incredibly popular on our "Netflix for Events" service.
I've done a handful and can certainly attest to this "video games in real
life" trend in events from traditional scavenger hunts to a maze that you have
to solve from the third person. I love this intersection of technology and
real life entertainment. Folsom Street Foundry in SoMA has even started
hosting weekly social game nights on Tuesdays
------
personlurking
There's an entertaining Spanish film called La Habitación de Fermat (Fermat's
Room) which deals with this.
"Four mathematicians who do not know each other are invited by a mysterious
host on the pretext of resolving a great enigma. The room in which they find
themselves turns out to be a shrinking room..."
Here's the trailer (w/ subs)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fS74Y-qBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fS74Y-qBs)
------
brador
This escape the room as a live event started in Hong kong a few years ago.
Glad to see it finally come here.
------
justjimmy
These are popular here in Taiwan, I think there's like 1 every day - held by
many different organizations. The concept's the same - solve puzzles before
the time runs outs.
Different organizations go to different lengths to make the activity feel more
immersive, some are great, some are meh. Sometimes the group is so big, it can
get very chaotic with everyone running around looking for clues.
The only downside is once they reveal the clues/answers, it can be frustrating
if they were impossible to solve in the first place.
------
austinl
I was at the Escape from the Moon Base [1] in SF two weeks ago and it was a
lot of fun. I went with some coworkers, but I'd also recommend going with
friends, and would definitely participate again.
The puzzles are fairly challenging (no one in my session of 30 teams/180
people) finished with an entirely correct solution, so it's satisfying when
your team solves certain parts.
[1] [http://realescapegame.com/sf07_mb/](http://realescapegame.com/sf07_mb/)
------
lukas
I played the Escape from Time Travel Lab as a team building exercise and it
was an awesome experience - I totally recommend it. I just wish they would put
out more games!
------
nitrogen
Sounds somewhat like murder mystery dinner parties. Also: why does NYT hijack
the left and right arrows to take me away to another article?
------
nschuett
One of the hardest things about these "escape from the room" games is keeping
all the puzzles and clues organized, and sharing progress across the whole
team. It's a pretty great exercise in project mgmt and teamwork.
------
nnnnni
It's not exactly the same, but TrueDungeon has a similar premise of "a small
group of people attempts to figure out puzzles together to get through
something".
------
kqr2
For a zombie themed escape, check out:
[http://roomescapeadventures.com/](http://roomescapeadventures.com/)
~~~
seeken
I did this a couple weeks ago. The puzzles are a bit contrived but it is
challenging and fun.
------
antonmaju
This reminds me of a popular visual novel game, "9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors".
------
jsemrau
Boring, in "In Shadows" (www.inshadows.asia) video games meet real life.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Risks, Rewards, Stress: Early Employees & Founders - eladgil
http://blog.eladgil.com/2012/03/early-employees-versus-founders-risks.html
======
autarch
I agree that founders take on much more risk and stress than the early
employees. I think the source of the discontent that some early employees
(like me) express is that the rewards for a founder are worth it, while the
rewards for an early employee generally aren't.
I wrote about this in more detail in a comment a few months back -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3490364>
(Some day, I will write a blog post that goes into more detail. Really. I
swear. I'm totally on it. Any day now.)
~~~
michaelochurch
I agree with you. For two other categories of employment, the risks, rewards,
and promises are clearly laid out.
Founders: take on risk (no salary pre-seed, zero job security) but get a
massive payout if it works.
Big-company employees: no risk, high job security, guaranteed payout.
For startup employees, the bargain is murky and implicit. These employees take
some risk and stress (not as much as founders, but probably 30-40% as much) in
exchange not for a huge payout, but for the promise of a leadership position
when the company gets big. _That_ 's the (implicit) contract. It's not, "Get
$100 million when this thing exits" but "Get a VP-level position, that might
help you along to something else, when we hit 500 people".
The implicit nature of that bargain makes it problematic. A founder with 5% in
equity is always going to have those shares of stock. (His percentage can be
diluted, but he has legal recourse if it's done improperly.) Even if he's
fired, he has whatever equity he has vested. The early employee (whose equity
amount is small) who worked his ass off to get a leadership position in the
company as it grew can be denied that opportunity at any time for any reason.
There isn't an easy solution, because some early employees don't deserve the
leadership positions they want, but they usually aren't bad enough to be fired
either. My solution would be to give them very small-scale leadership, or even
autonomous contributor status (they can work on whatever they want, but can
only pull other people to their projects if someone else thinks it's a good
idea) as a token of appreciation. Perhaps that's because I think there are few
truly incompetent people; some just don;'t grow as fast, for whatever reason.
There's another dynamic that hits this whole thing in the side: as startups
grow, they start wanting "The Best" hires, which often means that they have to
hire people into positions of some status. But if your older employees feel
promised leadership positions, and those opportunities are bargained away to
new employees in order to make the best hires, you can end up with a conflict.
~~~
autarch
Also don't forget employees of small, profitable companies.
I work for a small, profitable company right now. It's great. The pay is good,
it's low stress, and I have a lot of control over the direction of the product
and the work I do. There's no expectation of crazy hours, and we have time to
do things well.
Yeah, I won't make a bazillion dollars, but I've already worked at two
startups, and clearly I'm not a bazillionaire.
~~~
michaelochurch
What's the company? That sounds like a great arrangement.
I find that both startups and big companies usually fail (not maliciously, but
just due to failures of introspection) to deliver on their non-monetary
promises.
Startups: people associate startups with interesting, creative work
reflexively. Not so, or not always. First, 80% of startups aren't doing very
interesting things (social semantic coupon aggregators? That's the business
plan analogue of OOP's VisitorFactoryObserverFactory pattern!) Even in those
other 20%, there's a lot of uninteresting stuff that has to be done in order
to meet the rapid client-acquisition or growth targets.
Related to this, every startup has deadlines, and that can be managed so it
doesn't become a problem, but too-often startups develop Deadline Culture and
accumulate technical debt at a rapid pace. (It doesn't take long.) One of
those unpublished startup negativities is how quickly and how often this
happens. It's not published because, by the time Deadline Culture is having
serious negative impacts (in code quality, organizational structure, morale
and blame-shifting when things break) the people being affected have double-
and triple-digit employee numbers (i.e. they're nobodies).
With big companies, the promise is that you can have a career within the
company that transcends "jobs". That is, if one job doesn't work out, you can
move to another one and still have a 12-year career (possibly moving into
another role entirely) with the company. In theory.
What happens in practice in BigCos is that manager-as-SPOF is still the law of
the land. Large-corporate middle managers often have zero interest in extra-
hierarchical collaboration, some actively want to isolate their reports, and
are just as liable to take employee's extracurricular interests (or outright
desire for transition) personally as startup founders. The problem with the
middle managers' emotional outbursts related to people wanting to "leave them"
is that they have a lot more power (within their organizations) than "jilted"
founders.
What I find darkly ironic is how many rapid-growth startups-- mostly managers,
engineers aren't this way-- want to become huge corporations (and naively
think they won't lose their character in the process). I find that
hypocritical. "We're agile and awesome because we're a small startup. We also
want to become bigger than Google." What people can't say (because it's
impolite) is that they _won't care_ that the thing became a BigCo because
they'll be very rich by then-- or at least, rich enough to easily move on.
It's a less brazen variant of "build to flip".
People tend to fetishize 200%/year growth curves and billion-dollar exits,
while ignoring the fact that anything growing that fast is going to get
destroyed in the process. Fuck 200%. If my income grows at a "piddling"
10%/year for the next 40, that will give me more money than I could ever need
at any stage of life (and more than I could ever deserve toward the end). So
I'd rather focus on building real skills and learning how to actually reliably
deliver value to the world than chasing some huge acquisition.
Out of curiosity, what technologies do you use at your company? I've become a
major fan of Scala of late, but I'm also impressed by Clojure and Ocaml.
------
klochner
Little bit of a strawman argument here regarding early employees taking on
equivalent risk - I don't know anyone who believes that, other than the
situation where early employees are unpaid and the 'product' is just a slide
deck.
As for how hard people work, I would expect people to work in proportion to
their expected payout. Founders have the biggest upside, so naturally they
work much harder. An early employee paid with salary and little equity doesn't
have the same incentives to be working 20 hours/day.
~~~
eladgil
Hmm, I am not sure I agree with the second part of your statement for a few
reasons. E.g.
1\. Relative utility of the upside. It is not the absolute value of the
outcome that matters per person, but rather the relative value.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility>
2\. Other incentives (fun, interesting work, wanting the "startup experience"
etc.). These dont always exist, but often they do and people value them.
3\. Passion for making an impact. Some products are really exciting to work
on. Not everyone is in it just for the money.
I think in general my personal bias would not be to hire people who think
purely in economic terms about e.g. their work ethic. Obviously, you want all
the people who take the risk to work with you at a startup to do extremely
well, but you don't want people whose primary thought is "well, if I make 2X
more I will work 2X harder" as there are lots of ups and downs at a startup,
and sometimes it is unclear what the outcome will be.
~~~
sid6376
I am interested in knowing what do you mean when you say you do not agree with
the second part of the statement. Do you mean, just because I want some of the
things that you listed above, say the startup experience, does that mean I
should be working as hard as the founders?
~~~
eladgil
I mean: When I was working at other people's startups, I never thought "boy,
the founders have way more equity then me, I should slack off or not work as
hard because of that".
I always tried to do my best at whatever job I had, and would want to hire
people with the same attitude.
~~~
klochner
Yes, you want people who are passionate and want to work hard, but there are
sacrifices made to work 18 hour days, and people are much more likely to make
those sacrifices when their upside is in the millions rather than the
thousands.
The difference between a 60 hour week and an 80 hour week is pretty
significant in terms of personal sacrifice.
No one says "I'm going to slack off", it's just that the founders are
inherently (financially) more motivated.
If the money _isn't_ a motivation, then the founders should have no problem
giving out most of their own equity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Elon Musk on the future of the future - akandiah
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/02/elon-musk-on-the-future-of-the-future/
======
cribbageisfun
Elon Musk is really awesome. Coming up with 3 products in completely different
industries. Especially electric cars and rockets. Amazing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Are Infosec Pros Affected by Pentagon’s 46K Layoffs Plans? - grecs
https://www.novainfosec.com/2013/01/26/how-are-infosec-pros-affected-by-pentagons-46k-layoffs-plans/
======
phaus
I would imagine that many Infosec positions would be safe, as there are
regulations in place that mandate many aspects of security, including, what
functions have to be performed to keep an entire data
center/telecommunications site from being shut down due to noncompliance, the
qualifications a person must have to perform these duties, the minimal number
of people that can be on shift, etc...
It's funny, when the American people think about government cut backs, they
think about getting rid of $500 hammers, congressmen getting 200k a year for
pension after serving a couple of years, programs with multiple redundancies,
and high ranking federal employees making 200-300k a year to do almost
nothing.
When the government actually makes cutbacks, it's always the military,
education, research, or middle class employees that get fucked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Offer HN: Friendship in the Valley? - juiceandjuice
I kind of feel retarded for posting on here, but I'm starting to go out of my mind doing everything by myself, and looking for buddies on CL/okcupid seems weird to me. I'll try to keep this simple.<p>I just moved here to work at SLAC from SLC, Utah a month ago, and most of the people I know are physicists twice my age. In true nerd form, the idea of meeting a ton of new people by myself gives me some anxiety, a bit more than the thought of me trying to sell myself online to a bunch of strangers.<p>Anyways, I need new friends. I've got a ton to offer, but the most relevant thing, the reason this is <i>really</i> an offer, is probably the fact that I have a car and I'm not afraid to use it (i.e. driving to the city for whatever). Also, I'm 100% down for food adventures, beer (first round is on me), live music, movies.
======
bigiain
Can I suggest Dorkbot? <http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/>
Their tagline is "People doing strange things with electricity" - in my
experience you end up with a fascinating crowd of people hovering somewhere on
the borderline of hardware geeks, software geeks, artists, and pranksters.
They've got a meeting next Wednesdsay in SF - I've made some _great_ friends
via Dorkbot in SF as well as Sydney (where I live) and Seattle.
(If you go, find Karen and tell her Big says "Hi!", and there might be an
Australian girl named Pia visiting, tell her I say Hi too!)
------
scrrr
You will probably meet more interesting people here than on okCupid. I like
this offer and would go for a beer with you if I was in that area.
------
util
Lots going on at Noisebridge in SF:
<https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge> In particular, you might want
to check out Five Minutes of Fame next week (8 p.m., Thursday). Could be a
good opportunity to bump into some interesting people.
------
fbailey
can't help you, but it's absolutely understandable and not at all retarded :)
------
rms
Try posting an intro message on SF Redditors.. it's a very friendly group.
<http://groups.google.com/group/SFredditors/>
~~~
juiceandjuice
Thanks, I just joined... waiting to be approved.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where are my flying... motorcycles? - Zak
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9494328/Aerofex-hover-bike-brings-Star-Wars-transport-closer-to-reality.html
======
Zak
I remember seeing <http://hover-bike.com/> last year, but this one seems to be
closer to production-ready.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Feeling sorry for machines is no joke - gilad
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/6/17/18681682/boston-dynamics-robot-uprising-parody-video-cgi-fake
======
bryanrasmussen
I recently submitted Why do Children abuse robots?
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20195120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20195120))
which links this research
[https://rins.st.ryukoku.ac.jp/~nomura/docs/CRB_HRI2015LBR2.p...](https://rins.st.ryukoku.ac.jp/~nomura/docs/CRB_HRI2015LBR2.pdf)
which has some relevance to this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Friday Code Monkey Song - TheOrange
http://blog.crowdstorm.com/?p=154
======
danielha
Coulton's stuff is great. And although this is one of my favorites, it's
important to remember that you don't HAVE to be a code monkey if you're a
software engineer. I think a lot of students are getting discouraged from the
computer science field because they don't want to be pre-Matrix Neo or stuck
in the daily grind from Office Space.
You definitely can end up in that situation but if you're smart and
passionate, you won't. Being a developer in a startup is an example of that.
If you love what you're working on and you're contributing to its potential,
you're not going to be that monkey.
Or if there's nothing already out there where you can apply this passion, take
the entrepreneurial route. That's likely why we're all here on this site to
begin with. :)
------
TheOrange
This is really funny - think of all you are missing by not being a coder for a
faceless corporation.
~~~
danw
Jonathan Coulton rocks. Check out his other stuff and buy his music at
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ready Lisp version 20090130 now available - vrs
http://www.newartisans.com/blog/2009/01/ready-lisp-version-20090125-now-available.html
======
DenisM
From site:
What is Ready Lisp? It’s a binding together of several popular Lisp packages
for OS X, including: Aquamacs, SBCL and SLIME. Once downloaded, you’ll have a
single application bundle which you can double-click — and find yourself in a
fully configured Common Lisp REPL. It’s ideal for OS X users who want to try
out Lisp with a minimum of hassle. The download is approximately 73 megabytes.
------
vikram
It works fine. But doesn't have sb-threads enabled so, at best you can use it
for fun or development. Webservers like hunchentoot will give errors if you
open a second request at the same time.
The way to fix this is, to do a which sbcl to find out where it's installed
for me it was in /opt/local/ then download the source from
<http://www.sbcl.org>
In the sbcl folder create a file called customize-target-features.lisp and put
the following code in it...
(lambda (features) (flet ((enable (x) (pushnew x features)) (disable (x) (setf
features (remove x features)))) ;;; Threading support, available only on
x86/x86-64 Linux, x86 Solaris ;;; and x86 Mac OS X (experimental). (enable
:sb-thread)))
now sh make.sh and then export INSTALL_ROOT=/opt/local/ and sudo sh install.sh
Try sbcl
if you get an error that it can't find the core then copy the core in output
folder in sbcl to where it says it can't find sbcl.core
that'll give you sbcl with threads on macosx and Aquamacs that loads it in a
fraction of a second.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
9 Year Old Girl Becomes Microsoft Certified "Professional" - ojbyrne
http://gizmodo.com/5116747/9-year-old-girl-becomes-the-youngest-microsoft-certified-professional
======
Eliezer
Jeeblus, what's wrong with you people? If she'd gotten a high score on the
SAT, would you be telling her how boring and useless the SAT is? High scores
on adult tests at a young age, _almost no matter the test_ , are something to
congratulate her for.
But instead you're dumping on her because of "Microsoft" in the title? If
you're going to dump on someone, dump on Microsoft! And even that is a
backhanded insult to her. There are just some very bright 9-year-olds out
there.
~~~
randomwalker
I'm from the same part of India that this girl is. This kind of crap is very
common there. The kids who do this are not necessarily intelligent, they
usually just crammed for years. Nor do they have a say in the matter.
Everything is orchestrated by the parents. It's like a dog show -- the parents
compete using their kids. Needless to say, the kid's childhood and normal
development are completely derailed (I've seen it in person). The parents
aren't evil; it's just a facet of the hyper-competitive society. The best way
to describe it is that it's India's version of the contest in Little Miss
Sunshine.
The negative comments here don't come close to capturing how messed up this
is.
~~~
gruseom
I've seen this kind of thing a lot - it's not limited to India - and
completely agree with you that it's almost always the parent(s) pushing the
kid, and very sad. Every now and then you see some 11-year-old or 13-year-old
finishing an undergraduate degree, paraded in front of foolish journalists who
dutifully put out the next "genius" story. Same thing with most musical
prodigies - the 9-year old performing with the local philharmonic or what have
you.
Kids don't care about super-achievement of credentials. Mostly they just want
to know their parents love them and to be like other kids. It's parents who
perversely put their children through this, to fill their own ego needs. Your
dog show analogy is unfortunately apt.
~~~
DaniFong
Actually, kids can be hyper-focused on credentials. That's why they're so
susceptible. The very same behavioral triggers can create obsessions in
videogames, especially RPG's. The nice thing about 'real-world' credentials is
that they have a path leading out of that mess, whereas videogames often
don't.
~~~
gruseom
I'm unconvinced. Sure, children can internalize anything very quickly - the
question is why this rather than that? I'm sure that little girl was very
focused on achieving her Microsoft certification. But I'll bet you the task
itself was originally handed to her by a parent, and that her motivation had
everything to do with pleasing that parent.
As for "a path leading out of that mess", the only path I know is growing as a
person. What's sad about these manufactured prodigies is that they end up
having to do a lot of that the hard way, if they do it at all.
~~~
DaniFong
I think you underestimate the agency that a nine year old can have, and the
influence of the extended family, friends, and role models. It's probable that
the specific task was handed to her, yes. And it's often true that parents
push their children too far. But I think it's also possible she decided to do
it on her own after reading or hearing some inspirational story.
I am _projecting_ my own experience as a child onto her, but when I was her
age I heard about Microsoft credentials. I considered trying for them, but my
mother's friend told me they were a distraction, and gave me a copy of Turbo
C++ instead. I can't remember ever thinking about pleasing my parents. It
never entered my conscious thought. I just knew I wanted to learn to program
computers, and I couldn't, in that time, be interested in computers as a kid
and envision Microsoft's credentials with the disdain that I do now. I suspect
it's the same now, in India.
It's true that the only way out of credentialism is growing oneself as a
person, and finding a way to develop a self-referent identity. The _advantage_
is that one grows while striving, and one can often find oneself in much
better place, with better social support, and deeper values. It's a lot more
difficult to see this in the construct of an RPG, or in most public high-
schools.
~~~
gruseom
Yes, I acknowledge what you're talking about is real
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=400286>), and the two phenomena are
quite different, though they may be difficult to distinguish from the outside.
------
biohacker42
During the .COM 1.0 recession, back in the stone age, one of my fellow fresh
faced and unemployed CS grads was considering getting MCTS certified in order
to improve his job prospects.
I used the then popular story about a 12 year old Pakistani girl who got the
same certificate, to dissuade my friend.
And so I encourage all of today's fresh faced and unemployed hackers to think
of that 9 year old when the current recession is wearing them down. Do you
really think that MCTS will help?
~~~
nostrademons
I thought about getting a MCP when I was 15. Then everyone I knew in the
computer field told me it was a waste of time.
So I learned Perl instead, which honestly helped my career a whole lot more.
~~~
sigh400
How old are you now? When I was 14 there were no certs -- I got a job in a
local PC shop as a stock boy. I am convinced I worked for Korean gangsters
now; However back then I thought it was a kick ass job (Since nobody I knew
was working.) I still own one fried 8088 mobo (black to black wha?) and the
three surfboards I managed to buy whilst working. In reality it was one of the
worst jobs I have ever had, as I had to work in an attic sorting PC parts and
fetching orders in 100+ attic heat with a 4ft ceiling (I kid not) and had to
get to work Sundays @ 5am to unload "orders" from Mexico from the meanest
people I have ever met. I learned more about life in that year then I have in
the last 20.
~~~
nostrademons
27\. This was about 1997.
I was in kindergarten when people were still using 8088s.
------
mattmcknight
Shouldn't the practical test consist of misconfigured ActiveDirectory
permissions to fix,spyware uninstallation, and a registry to clean? The
general tip to choose whichever option requires buying more Microsoft licenses
worked when I took the test 10 years ago.
------
simpleenigma
I've always thought that these certification programs were more of a game of
trivial pursuit then a good gage of abilities.
------
mixmax
maybe this says more about the certification than the girl.
~~~
socratees
For any Microsoft certification, there are dumps everywhere on the internet.
I'd rather be happy if the girl became a SJCP.
~~~
RavingGoat
Meh, dumps exist for SJCP too... just not the whole test. Years ago when I
took it for an employer about 1/3 of the questions were in dumps at the time.
A co-worker said almost all his questions were from dumps when he took the
SJCP exam. Sun does a better job than Microsoft but not much better.
------
natch
Scarred for life. Someone should call child protective services.
~~~
DaniFong
You know this how? Being threatened with being taken away from her family
would be any better?
~~~
Leon
I think it was a joke...
~~~
DaniFong
_nods_
Point taken. Some people actually do stuff like this, though, and I don't
think jokes like this should be propagated (or at least unopposed) on HN.
~~~
natch
Noted. I do try to hold back my silly humor somewhat on HN. Thanks for the
nudge back on course.
------
seshagiric
With all the exam dumps available it is no longer difficult to clear any
certification exam. However still, if this 9 year old sits in front of a PC, I
will be sure she knows what she is doing. That in itself is an achievement for
her age.
------
liamQ
this proves that MCTS certifications are bullshit (btw - I have an exam
scheduled for January)
~~~
wynand
She might be unusually gifted. The article states that she has a fairly
excellent memory. And it is conceivable that she has a fairly high IQ.
We wouldn't have scoffed as much if she mastered a branch of Mathematics
instead.
~~~
mechanical_fish
We also wouldn't have scoffed as much if she were merely three years older,
and a boy, and working in PHP and Javascript instead of Microsoft
technologies:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156863>
Can't we just congratulate the kid and move on? I mean, vital as it is to
teach her that credentials are bullshit, can't we let her turn _ten_ before
breaking the bad news? She's already much closer to figuring it out for
herself than I was at that age.
~~~
blasdel
He did something creative, she just passed a helpdesk test.
~~~
mechanical_fish
Perhaps when she is _thirty-three percent older_ she'll be more creative, too!
Or, instead of showing off her chops, perhaps she'll prefer to quietly rake in
the cash as a Windows programmer. It's not like she'd be the only one to make
that choice.
~~~
tome
So your first argument is that he's "merely three years older", and then your
response to a rebuttal is that he's as much as "thirty-three percent older".
~~~
mechanical_fish
The sad thing is, I actually noticed this inconsistency. But I decided to
leave it in just to see who noticed. ;)
But if you want to be more serious about it: Sure, I concede the rebuttal.
Gaskin's a very creative programmer. He also works on stuff that I actually
care about. I agree that passing a Microsoft certification is not in the same
league as the _least_ thing that the guy has done. And I agree that cramming
for Microsoft tests is not an especially great activity to encourage a nine-
year-old to do.
None of which alters my initial reaction: Congratulate the girl and move on.
Just because she's no Gaskin doesn't mean she deserves to be the scapegoat for
things that are not her fault (the purported meaninglessness of her prized
credential; the bureaucratic, credentialist nature of the Microsoft IT
consulting ecosystem; the existence of cram schools and dominating parents;
the insecurity of Western IT folks about the rise of the Indian software
industry; and the fact that she is _nine years old_ and can't necessarily be
expected to understand any of this). She's a living, breathing kid who may be
reading this thread _right now_ \-- a kid with the potential to become
creative and talented, who may _already be_ creative and talented when she's
not being paraded in front of news cameras. She's not a hypothetical pawn in
our intellectual game.
------
known
And 11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School
<http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/30/1443202>
------
kirubakaran
I always wondered why MS chose a title that abbreviates to MCP, which means
Male Chauvinist Pig in the non-tech world. I once created an infamous
'Production Metrics Spreadsheet' which the female members of my team were
justifiably referring to as PMS. Operation Iraqi Liberation comes to mind.
------
grouchyOldGuy
Gee, it must be extraordinarily difficult to become a Mouse Certified
Professional.
------
gaius
What's remarkable is that grown adults become MCPs.
~~~
jeroen
2 out of 4 previous employers (I'm a freelancer now) gave me a raise whenever
I passed an MCP exam. That's enough motivation for me, since it's not very
hard to pass MCP exams (at least MSCD related ones) when you have decent
practical experience.
~~~
ciscoriordan
Do you think the certifications have an impact on your freelancer rates?
~~~
rbanffy
Well... I can tell I wouldn't pay more for one.
Even if I used something Microsoft ;-)
------
trezor
I think I smell "bias" against Microsoft in the headline.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Rails-like Framework from 37signals for HTML5 Mobile Apps - abraham
http://thinkvitamin.com/mobile/new-rails-like-framework-from-37signals-for-html5-mobile-apps/
======
sstephenson
Hey folks, there's nothing to see here right now. We spent three weeks
experimenting with some new tech to see what we could build, and ended up with
something that looks a bit like Rails, but entirely client-side and written in
CoffeeScript.
The project driving the framework—an HTML5 mobile UI for Basecamp—has been on
hold for about a month now, and we're still a ways off from having anything to
show. It just isn't a priority for us right now. When (or if) we do have
something we'll be sure to post about it on our blog.
~~~
kevinholesh
Why not put it up on Github so we can help you finish it?
I'm currently a full time jQTouch developer, but I would much prefer a working
environment like the one you're describing. I would certainly be willing to
help develop it.
~~~
sstephenson
We have open-sourced one component, the Eco template language:
<https://github.com/sstephenson/eco>
A couple of other smaller components are ripe for release, too. But the
framework itself needs more work before it can be made public, and that work
is directed by the needs of the application.
------
petercooper
For anyone interested in the idea of having multiple views in JavaScript (with
their own URLs!), "Sammy" is a client-side JavaScript framework that's like
Ruby's Sinatra: <http://code.quirkey.com/sammy/>
Indeed, what Ryan mentions sounds a bit like the ideas of Sammy, Backbone, and
HTML5 local storage and offline caching blended together into a single tasty
package.
~~~
jashkenas
If you'd like to browse an example Todos application (with annotated source
code) that fuses Backbone.js and HTML5 local storage, here's a good place to
start:
[http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/inde...](http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/index.html)
The particular Backbone/LocalStorage integration works quite well for this
little app, despite being simplistic:
[http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone-
local...](http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone-
localstorage.html)
_Edit_ : There seem to be a lot of folks who think that Sammy is the only way
to get client-side routing -- nothing could be further from the truth. Sammy
asks you to structure your entire app around an inappropriate faux-server-side
API, and Sammy apps don't work correctly in Internet Explorer because Sammy
doesn't use an iframe to set history in IE. Doing hashchange events yourself
only takes about a page of code, and handling hash URLs is a relatively tiny
portion of a client-side app:
<https://gist.github.com/624773>
That said, so many folks have asked for hashchange routing that perhaps it
would be wise to build a Backbone plugin for it that smooths over the
difference between pushState and hashchange...
~~~
boucher
Completely agree, and I'd definitely recommend an integrated history
management component.
------
pygy_
After node, this is the second big project to endorse Coffescript (although
this is still vapourware of course). And 37signals rock at marketting.
I' glad the language is getting traction.
~~~
boucher
Not really sure to what extent Node is embracing coffeescript, unless there's
news I haven't read you could link to.
------
Void_
Why only mobile? We need something like SproutCore, but easy like Rails.
Backbone.js maybe?
~~~
thibaut_barrere
Why ? I would say: "Focus, focus, focus"!
After doing my experimentations with various mobile stuff, I tend to think I'd
prefer investing time in something specific to mobile like this or sencha, and
rely on a (Rails or other) app with JSON API for the site or back-end.
------
chrisbroadfoot
Doesn't sound very mobile-specific to me. Buzzword? But still, I'm interested
to hear more.
~~~
LaGrange
The target seems very mobile-specific. HTML5 is better supported on mobile,
and the proposed model sometimes fits "desktop" web apps, and almost always
mobile web apps.
So yes, buzzword, but it fits.
------
mhd
Ah, Coffeescript, the Ratfor of a new generation…
~~~
apl
It's mildly annoying. Unlike Fortran, JS doesn't desperately need a
preprocessor language. Adding another layer of "abstraction" and some
syntactic sugar will make the process of developing good JS needlessly complex
and fragile.
~~~
pygy_
So "it turns out"[1] that Coffescript will make the process of developing good
JS needlessly complex and fragile.
Would you care to elaborate?
From the coffeescript site :
> it compiles into clean JavaScript (the good parts) that can use existing
> JavaScript libraries seamlessly, and passes through JSLint without warnings.
> The compiled output is pretty-printed and quite readable.
[1]<http://jsomers.net/blog/it-turns-out>
------
yatsyk
Own programming language, own templating engine - looks like NIH syndrome. But
with 37signals' developers they could afford it.
~~~
thibaut_barrere
The trick with NIH syndrome is balancing, as with any other syndrom. Once you
know about it, you can also detect situations where it's worthy rolling your
own (GitHub's Resque is another successful example of that).
~~~
yatsyk
I agree that HIN is not always bad, Joel has good article about this:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000007.html>
~~~
epo
Is HIN a reinvention of NIH? :-)
~~~
yatsyk
when Forth programmers are not reuse code I believe it should be called HIN :)
~~~
epo
Touche!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Clever Recruiting Techniques? - jack7890
For me, the biggest surprise about running a startup has been how difficult it is to recruit top-notch engineers. It is shockingly, bewilderingly, impossibly difficult to find qualified web developers. Granted, my notion of "qualified" is discriminating, but it's been surprisingly difficult nonetheless.<p>I've tried all the traditional channels for finding developers: job boards, networking events, and my own personal network. It's time to get more creative. I'd love to hear about any clever techniques or tactics others have used to identify promising web developer candidates.
======
andrewstuart
Forget clever. Try providing a place people want to work, doing interesting
stuff, with reasonable pay, working with smart people, with the hardware and
software needed to get the job done, along with a sense of mission, excitment
and purpose. Take a humble attitude to recruiting them instead of requiring
people to "prove that that want to for us". Give people a job that the want to
rush to in the morning to get started on. Demonstrate during the interview
process that your company is smart and understands software development, by
asking smart questions that reveal meaningful insights into the candidates
capabilities as a coder. It's not all about you - ask them what _they_ want -
take an interest. People want jobs that make them feel a sense of mission and
purpose, along with reasonable reward for their skills and experience.
~~~
dsplittgerber
That's very nice and how it should be.
Still,if noone knows about your ideal workplace, you're still stuck trying to
differentiate your firm from hundreds of others vying for attention with all
the same marketing-speak.
------
enry_straker
Speaking as someone who has started and run both small and medium-sized
organizations, i would suggest the following:
1) Hire folks who exhibit good problem-solving skills and possess a good
attitude. These folks usually are easily trained and become productive in a
short span of time. But you have to invest in your employees - through
training, through remuneration, through building an open culture.
Good leaders work with the tools they have and the people they have - not set
improbable standards. You would be surprised by what people are capable of if
you support them, encourage them, train them and give them room to learn by
making mistakes.
2) Nowadays i usually try to find good open source developers in my area,
study their code, check out their blog listings, check out their mailing list
responses - and then do my best to convince them to work with me. These folks
are among the BEST.
3) In the past, i have conducted coding competitions in universities and
collages - and have hired many of the student participants after interacting
with them informally, talking to their friends and checking out their code.
4) I would also humbly suggest that Web development has such an enormous set
of great tools, books, articles, tutorials etc, that any curious and
persistent person can pick up the basics in a short span of time - given the
right motivation.
------
buro9
I am now using developer IRC channels to recruit.
After exhausting agencies, linkedin, and adverts I was particularly frustrated
by what I had seen and the quality of who we had interviewed.
So I asked the simple question, "Where do devs hangout?". And I'm not talking
bars, I'm talking those who are busy actually doing stuff, especially if it's
stuff they're working on in their own time (a passion for something).
And the answer to myself was in the community channels for a given tech. For
the most part this was freenode IRC rooms, but sometimes it's Google Groups.
The important thing with approaching people through these channels is not to
go in cold or piss them off. But as this should be an area which you know too
(or your CTO does, or other devs you have does), then you should open the
dialogue in their comfort zone.
Encourage use of the channels and just watch for a bit to see who is giving
answers to other people... they're the ones who know what they're doing, and
they're the influencers.
Once you know who they are, ask them if they're looking for work, where
they're located (timezones help here, if you're in the UK go in early in the
morning and you mostly have europeans, and if you're in the US go in late as
you mostly have Americans). Even if they're not looking, they may very well
know someone in the channel who is looking and they will recommend a good
person.
Does this method work? Yes, for me it has done.
Using HN to hire is one example of this (and we found a terrific graduate who
started today), and I did the same with the android-dev IRC channel to get a
great Android dev. I've also done the same with hiring a great devops guy
(another IRC channel).
Basically... if you can't find them, and if you aren't doing things like
airbnb (great hiring pages that go viral), red gate (giving away ipads for
good interview candidates), then spend your time and effort to go where they
go.
I wouldn't call this clever. It's just very basic head-hunting. But frankly
that's what you're doing. Stop expecting that the good guys are out there
looking for you, they're busy doing stuff... the average guys are out there
looking for you.
------
frisco
The most clever I've seen so far is to start with this code:
<http://github.com/mmcgrana/gitcred>
and then work down the list looking for languages and frameworks of interest.
~~~
andrewgodwin
I saw that earlier in the year - it's a nice idea, but I can't help but think
there's a significant portion of people who aren't on GitHub (for example, I
have an account, but the majority of my projects are on BitBucket, mostly due
to technology choices).
Still, it's certainly a reasonable initial source of people, and I would
imagine you'll find that a lot of the "good" programmers who aren't in this
list are only a couple of real-life connections away, at most.
------
kunjaan
Maybe it's not the technique but you, your company, your employees, your
location, your pay that is turning off engineers.
~~~
andrewstuart
Hear hear. Perhaps not the poster specifically, but many companies wonder why
they can't get good engineers but offer nothing in the areas you identify.
------
parbo
I was recruited to Spotify through a programming contest. The site seems to be
down, but here is the google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://contest.scrool.se/)
I didn't do great in the competition (67th place or so), but I suppose the
main thing was to attract people who actually enjoy programming (and
challenges).
A was also on an interview for Propellerhead (<http://www.propellerheads.se/>)
in 2003 after they had a (kind of hard) programming quiz that went viral.
Didn't get that gig though.
~~~
sunkencity
I don't consider myself the worlds best programmer, but I feel that it's kind
of demeaning with a programming contest. It's like when you go to a job
recruiting agency and they run all this shit IQ test shit on you. If they want
you in that setting - run like hell.
If you want me, let me show you what I have done - I don't want to compete in
a programming contest where the grand prize is a poorly paid job, where you
are expected to work unpaid overtime and be subservient. I know my worth, and
is pretty happy running my own startup business defining my own terms as I go
along.
I looked at a job at klarna but the thought of spending some time re-
sharpening my skills at Erlang and then spending some days doing their code
challenge _unpaid_ \- not so interested. I'd rather do something else and get
my moneys worth for my time. Although I'm kind of tempted for a job where I
get a chance to work face-to-face with some more senior people to learn from
them.
Some time though I might want to take a job, my plan to be able to skip all
these silly programming contests is to have some open source projects or
contributions to show. I have a couple of project that I wish I had been able
to open-source, but I think that I will go by the route of contributing to
some existing project. I feel that recruiting by looking at open source is a
very good thing, where the interests of both employer and employee are upheld.
~~~
aaronblohowiak
The programming contests should be fun! If they aren't your thing, then you
are right to opt-out of the process as there likely won't be a good culture
match. However, I think it is a little off to characterize them as somehow
extorting job applicants.
~~~
sunkencity
I've participated in several programming contests and think it's a lot of fun.
what I dislike is when a company is hiring and expect applicants to do free
labour. it's bad for everybody, the company doesn't get to hire people who
have got a life or are too busy with other things. and the applicant is
welcomed by the message - we expect you to work for free. having a programming
competition in the open might alleviate some of the problems of doing work and
sending it off into the void.
------
tomjen3
We can't really help you much unless tell us how you define qualified.
------
imwilsonxu
How about changing your recruiting strategy from 'top' to 'potential' since
it's so hard to reach top ones?
Diff from big-fat-cat company, startup has a big advantage that it's going to
grow and employees can really feel it.
This is a good chance to cultivate ownership, loyalty, sense of belonging,
etc.
Good luck :)
------
kqueue
You'll find tons of high quality mailing lists for whatever skill set you are
looking for. Python, C etc... Read through the archive and find people that
are active and provide solid answers. Get in touch with them and see how far
you can go.
------
woan
Go on campus. Do a presentation with a student group, i.e. IEEE/ACM
programming SIG...
Join a professional developer organization... Plenty of Linux, iPhone,
Android, .Net, etc. developer groups in most major tech hubs...
------
fizx
You could always pay more.
~~~
philk
I'm not sure "spend more money" constitutes a _clever_ idea.
------
wazoox
It's close to impossible to be competitive with high flyers (the Google,
Microsoft, etc) when you're a small company or startup. Just imagine yourself
in their shoes : would you rather work for some unknown company, with no
benefits, no carrier perspective and little money, or Google? Yeah, you see
what I mean. You need to take a different, peculiar approach to recruitment.
So far, my very best way to recruit was through internship. The downside is
that it will take long months to get acceptable engineers, then they won't
stay with you for more than a year or two once they're competent.
~~~
pvg
_It's close to impossible to be competitive with high flyers (the Google,
Microsoft, etc) when you're a small company or startup._
This is utter nonsense. There are plenty of people who aren't necessarily
interested in working for Google or Microsoft. Neither does working for a
startup mean little pay and neither benefits nor career prospects (assuming
that's what you meant by 'carrier perspective')
~~~
wazoox
That's certainly true in "the Valley". In Europe, it's nigh to impossible to
attract really qualified people in a small company/startup. They all work in
safe, warm places :)
~~~
adw
I pretty much entirely disagree with that. OK, this is a product hire rather
than engineering, but this is us:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/22/timetric-
fin...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/sep/22/timetric-financial-
times-simon-briscoe)
We're obviously delighted, and it wasn't easy, but it can be done. It's more
than purely a sales job, particularly if you're trying to bring in someone
really good.
We're six full time right now, by the way.
------
amorphid
You have discovered why recruiters exist.
------
adsahay
It is a really tough problem no doubt. We use interviewstreet.com to screen
candidates before spending time on an interview, saves us a lot of time.
------
newyorker
How about job fairs? Social media?
~~~
zumda
Job fairs from universities are amazing places to find talent (and that cheap
;)). They aren't refined yet, but if you find the right people they are
willing to learn, and are usually fast at it.
~~~
newyorker
Yeah, the young talent still in school still have a hard time finding work.
They are so desperate, they would take basically anything they can get their
hands on. Give them a good proposition - a reason to work hard and stay!
------
zackattack
how technically strong is your CTO?
------
AmberShah
I'm looking for alpha employers to find very qualified programmers through
Code Anthem. Email me amber at codeanthem dot com.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Starlink satellite-train visible with the naked eye - sagitariusrex
https://twitter.com/Marcin_Loboz/status/1132070509246652421
======
thanatos_dem
Looks a lot like the cloud ark from Neil Stevenson’s hard science fiction book
”Seveneves”.
The long of the short of it is that moon goes boom, kills life on earth,
humanity survives onboard the ISS and a flurry of small habitation pods which
are splayed out into a string so they share an orbit, but isolated in case
they get hit by space debris.
The book came out in 2015, and despite having a fictional plot, nearly all of
the science checks out.
~~~
sharcerer
that novel was amazing. I loved the 5000 year jump too. Although I found it
difficult to visualize some of the futuristic parts. I think a movie is being
made based on the novel.
~~~
eightysixfour
Interesting, I loved the book until the jump, after that I found it to be too
ridiculous. The submarine storyline was absurd.
~~~
sharcerer
I mainly loved the various cultural aspects, differences after the jump. The
Red vs the rest. The Red had a Soviet/Chinese vibe.
------
aristophenes
Imagine all the people who have never heard about SpaceX that see these. They
will think the aliens have arrived :)
~~~
agildehaus
[https://twitter.com/hashtag/ufo](https://twitter.com/hashtag/ufo)
Already happening.
~~~
childintime
[https://phys.org/news/2019-05-encounters-spacex-
satellites-d...](https://phys.org/news/2019-05-encounters-spacex-satellites-
dutch-ufo.html)
------
childintime
Counted 52 spots, plus an additional 2 which only appeared briefly and dimly,
a little off the track of the others. 4 or 5 dots seem to be pairs. So that
acounts for pretty much all satellites. I'd like to experience this for
myself. With 12000 of them the sky will be quite littered with them though.
Astronomy will never be the same again.
~~~
chomp
>I’d like to experience this for myself.
Find out when the satellites pass over you!
Here's the TLE data that someone estimated:
[http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html](http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2019/0207.html)
Here's an online calculator: [https://www.satellite-
calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker...](https://www.satellite-
calculations.com/TLETracker/SatTracker.htm)
Plug in the TLE data, select your town or enter your coordinates, and generate
a 24 hour projection! Find a time where the elevation is higher than 10 or 20
degrees so that you can actually see it.
~~~
childintime
Is there a map out there showing their current position? Tried n2yo.com, but
as fas as I know it isn't catalogged yet.
~~~
chomp
No there isn't, but I saw this tool on Twitter that you can plug TLE data
into:
[https://www2.flightclub.io/dashboard](https://www2.flightclub.io/dashboard)
------
mrep
Here is another video:
[https://vimeo.com/338361997](https://vimeo.com/338361997)
~~~
clashmoore
Like morse code trying to tell us something.
------
childintime
Good info on starlink: [https://wyliodrin.com/post/starlink-the-internet-of-
space](https://wyliodrin.com/post/starlink-the-internet-of-space)
6 months ago, so not accurate about the height.
------
anthuman
I respect and admire the risks Musk is willing to take and am amazed that he
is able to find financial backers for his projects.
But I have to wonder whether the internet connection can be maintained during
cloudy days and what the expected upload/download speeds will be and finally
what the expected costs will be.
Affordable and globally available internet could be a game-changer. If viable,
couldn't it challenge wireless carriers and ISPs?
Also, aren't there geopolitical ramifications. Would China, Russia, EU, etc
allow their citizens to access the starlink system? Or will starlink have to
be censored, filtered and monitored in these regions?
~~~
brad0
I’m not an expert but I don’t think clouds will affect it.
Do clouds prevent you from getting a GPS signal? (I know these satellites are
LEO but I don’t think that should matter)
~~~
Rebelgecko
GPS is a bit different. It's uses multiple frequencies, so receivers can
correct from some of the water vapor attenuation. I suspect that GPS
satellites also broadcast at a much higher power than the starlink terminals
will. Starlink is also using a much higher frequencies: GPS is around 1ghz.
Starlink is in the 12-40 range since it used Ku and Ka band. Ku and Ka are
much more susceptible to problems from moisture in the atmosphere. That's
actually why K Band was split into Ku(under) and Ka(above). The middle parts
around 22ghz are not useful for communicating through lots of atmosphere
because so much of the signal gets absorbed by water (sidenote-- NASA and NOAA
use signals around 22ghz to measure water vapor in the atmosphere. That's why
they're pissed that the FCC auctioned off 24ghz spectrum for 5G-- it's going
to interfere with forecasting things like hurricanes).
------
sschueller
Is this only until they are in position or are going to see this everytime
they fly over?
~~~
mikeash
You’ll be able to see them as individual dots any time they’re illuminated by
the sun when they fly over at night (like any other satellite), but they won’t
be bunched together like this.
~~~
perilunar
Each time they launch a new batch you'll see them like this briefly. There's
100+ launches planned over the next decade.
------
senectus1
is this what its always going to look like when we have 12000 of the things in
the sky?
Astronomers are going to be going _spare_
~~~
colek42
Sending telescopes to space will be cheaper as the volume of launches increase
------
CorvusCrypto
Okay that's interesting but I have to say it's also quite ugly. Is this a new
trend to cluster satellites like this? If so what advantage does it bring and
is it worth that ugly streak appearing in the night?
I get this comment is very subjective but surely I'm not the only one thinking
it's a bit of an eyesore
~~~
dahfizz
Is it uglier than telephone poles and huge cell towers everywhere? Of all the
infrastructure humans build out, this is probably going to be one of the least
eyesore.
~~~
CorvusCrypto
That's good then. And no I don't think it's uglier. You're right that many of
the billboards and such are ugly but I still believe this to be ugly as well
and I don't thing something being uglier invalidates it
Someone else commented something that puts me at more ease but it is worrying
at first glance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Would you be interested in a Python to WebAssembly compiler? - syrusakbary
Hi HN!<p>I'm Syrus, from Wasmer (server-side WebAssembly runtime [1]). We are in the midst of prioritizing our next quarter and I thought it could be interesting to ask here if you would be interested in a Python to Wasm compiler.<p>We already have a prototype working, but need a bit more time to perfection it.<p>Here are some use cases of a Python-to-Wasm compiler:
1. Usage of python libraries in the browser easily
2. Creating universal binaries that work anywhere<p>How would you use a Python to Wasm compiler? I'm eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!<p>[1]: https://wasmer.io/
======
billconan
I have used: [https://github.com/iodide-
project/pyodide](https://github.com/iodide-project/pyodide)
on my project
[https://epiphany.pub/post?refId=2684bc94f9fcb9ffe637ebfbeba2...](https://epiphany.pub/post?refId=2684bc94f9fcb9ffe637ebfbeba2af8c797c6ad9a66181026ee4bd3806b6f211)
the experience is kinda poor, it's very very slow. At first I thought the
reason was the packages are too huge, it took a very long time to download
them. But it turned out that the slowness comes from the python runtime when
loading a package.
I guess directly compile python into wasm will make code execution faster, but
I'm interested in building a scripting environment.
~~~
syrusakbary
Yeah, Pyodide is great, although a bit slow.
I think the targets are a bit diferent: Pyodide is just a notebook for
executing Python code and what I wanted is to transform Python code to Wasm
(this implies some speedup as well).
------
starlingforge
I'd use it for something. I wanted to use pyiodide but the learning curve and
the browser fiddling did me in. If it was fast, could be embedded in nodejs
and deno it would fill a void. Granted, a big part of pythons draw is the std
library, which is also part of why I don't think pyiodide is ideal.
~~~
syrusakbary
Great feedback, thanks!!
------
jedieaston
Yep. But Pyodide is under development and has numpy and friends already...
[https://github.com/iodide-project/pyodide](https://github.com/iodide-
project/pyodide)
------
j88439h84
Tell Beeware about it
[https://gitter.im/beeware/general](https://gitter.im/beeware/general)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PostgreSQL 9.5 will have native sharding - sickpig
http://www.depesz.com/2015/04/02/waiting-for-9-5-allow-foreign-tables-to-participate-in-inheritance/
======
unmole
So, it will be web scale?
~~~
sickpig
I don't know about "web" scale, but it will definitely scale horizontally
without using any external tools/extensions.
There's still a somewhat annoying limitation that is related to the status of
table partitioning in postgresql.
In fact the planner automatically choose the right child table, be it on the
same db or into another server, for UPDATE and SELECT statements but not for
INSERTs. This is a known limitation and there's active work to fix it but
don't hold your breath though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dow plunges 1100 points as coronavirus market tumbling into correction territory - koolba
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/dow-futures-fall-after-microsoft-issues-coronavirus-warning.html
======
rogerkirkness
Ah yes, the old "use digital currency as an N95 mask" defense against pandemic
virality.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UCite.it: beyond search - agibsonccc
http://ucite.it/
======
agibsonccc
Feedback is appreciated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Did you turn golden handcuffs into your next sign-on bonus? - relaunched
Have you successfully used a closely impending bonus, retention bonus with vesting, stock vesting, or similar future compensation to effectively negotiate your next opportunity? If so, is that effective when negotiating with a well-funded startup (how well funded), large corp, etc?<p>In the event that you are forgoing a large cash payment or have to pay back cash when leaving, were companies receptive to compensating you with some sort of sign-on bonus? If so, what were the driving factors that made for a successful negotiation?
======
celticninja
this will ultimately depend if the new company came to you or if you went to
the new company.
If they want you they probably have an acquisition price in mind i.e salary +
benefits but you are in a decent bargaining position for any potential losses.
If you have gone to them then I am not sure they would really entertain the
idea.
If they did agree to discuss it you may want to consider asking for a like for
like compensation in the event you do lose your options/bonus etc, as you dont
know what exactly you would lose until you tell your current firm you are
leaving.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Girl unaware all her pictures are sent to journalist - lordlarm
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagensit.no%2Farticle2596740.ece
======
gcb0
I'm experiencing something that is obviously dumb users.
i have a first.last@gmail address and my name is very common. So i bet others
had to use less desirable gmail addresses.
Since google started to aggressively push for adding alternative email and/or
phone number, dumb users that initially wanted my email address entered it as
their "alternate email" not understanding it's for password recovery only.
I clicked the "not me" link in more than 20 confirmation emails, but google
probably never used that to better inform the dumb users.
Now my gmail account is a cesspool of emails intended for other people, site
registration confirmation for idiots with same first/last name but a different
middle name... And there's no spam algorithm that can fight that!
Time to start looking for alternatives.
~~~
AJ007
Most of my projects involve a mass-market audience so I get a pretty good view
of what average competence looks like. Based on this, I would guess that a
significant portion of Americans have a great difficultly reading. Even when
you put a big message that says this is not for X, people will continue to do
X.
If you run a startup or a company whose audience is early adapters you get a
skewed view of the average level of competence of users.
I don't know if things get worse in other countries. However, I would guess
that 10-20% of the US population lacks the basic literacy and logic skills to
hold a manual job involving anything but repetitive tasks.
~~~
vellum
_However, I would guess that 10-20% of the US population lacks the basic
literacy and logic skills to hold a manual job involving anything but
repetitive tasks._
~13% when it comes to reading, ~20% when it comes to quantitative tasks.
<http://nces.ed.gov/naal/pdf/2006470_1.pdf>
~~~
derefr
And even besides the people with low IQ, most everyone is only capable of
thinking abstractly _some of the time_ \--and even then only after years of
cognitive development[1]. System 2 thinking[2] is taxing to the brain
(consumes more glucose/oxygen/etc), and is switched out of whenever it's not
absolutely necessary.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piagets_theory_of_cognitive_dev...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piagets_theory_of_cognitive_development#Formal_operational_stage)
[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory>
------
oellegaard
tl;dr
A Norwegian girl, living abroad, enabled "auto upload my pictures to Google+"
on her phone and for some reason they end up in a Norwegian IT journalists
Google+. Everything from full passport details to regular photos are uploaded.
The journalist can see Geo location etc as well. Google keep stating it is not
possible and the journalist are experiencing problems contacting Google.
~~~
esalman
You do not have to `enable` it, as soon as you add an account to an android
phone, photos automatically start syncing.
~~~
UnoriginalGuy
What kind of account? I have my Google account(s) synced up to my Android
phone and have a total of 0 photos in my Google+ album.
I have them syncing with DropBox intentionally.
~~~
dkersten
Same for me - but I noticed that it suddenly started syncing to Google+ too a
few weeks ago (not sure why it started doing this, either there was an update
or it was because I logged into Google+ using the default Android Google+ app
and it enabled it then). Either way, I wasn't particularly happy about it,
though I believe it uploaded them but did not make them public. I turned it
off as soon as I noticed as I don't need my photos synced to two places and I
already had photos synced to DropBox.
~~~
myko
> or it was because I logged into Google+ using the default Android Google+
> app and it enabled it then
It asks you if you want the uploads to take place when you first setup the
app.
~~~
dkersten
Unless its a small, easy-to-miss checkbox, I was only asked to log into my
Google Account.
~~~
lawdawg
it's definitely not small or easy to miss. The whole "instant upload" part is
an entire screen outlining what it is with a clear opt-out.
------
Osmium
Just a warning: blurring pixels in sensitive photos like this is often
insufficient. Always black out the information instead (and make sure to
flatten the image! and not save it as e.g. a pdf with a black bar over it
which has actually happened before too)
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/how_to_recover...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/01/how_to_recover.html)
~~~
aaron695
That would be interesting if they actually deciphered a real blurred picture.
Which they didn't cause it's not possible, I mean, left to reader.
[edit: I put it with the myth you need to erase data on a hard disk randomly
multiple times <http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-gutmann.html> ]
~~~
tjoff
Funny how you present your view as fact and then complain about having to put
up with myths...
<http://yuzhikov.com/articles/BlurredImagesRestoration2.htm>
~~~
aaron695
No, I more commented on the article made a pretty bold statement and then
didn't follow it up yet everyone buys into it.
I've never seen it actually shown so that to me makes it dodgy. If it was
possible it'd be a pretty cool demo.
(And I assume I don't need to say removing camera blur, the famous photoshop
swirls incident etc is not the same.)
------
web64
I guess tech-journalists gets to try out quite a few mobile phones through
their work.
Would it not be a reasonable scenario that the journalist got to try a phone
and used the Google+ app with his account. Upon returning the phone, it wasn't
reset properly before being sold on to another person. So the Google+ app
could still be associated with the journalist's account when the phone was
sold on.
Update: In this article(<http://www.dagensit.no/tester/article2355417.ece>)
the journalist reviews the Sony Xperia S, the very same phone model that the
girl uses.
------
drakaal
I am guessing there is a user Hash Collision.
Google uses hashes for a lot of things. Hash tables are very fast, and great
for database look up. In Python if there is a hash collision both entries are
compared and resolved by comparison. This is still fast because doing a
compare against 4 collisions is still much faster than doing a compare against
1Billion user names.
That said... The odds get to be beyond astronomical. What percentage of people
are journalists? I mean if they said someone contacted us to let us know, that
would be believable, but "I am a journalist, and this is happening to me"
seems a lot less likely.
I'm not ready to side with Google that this is impossible, but even the
response from Google doesn't sound like the Google I know. While Google is
hard to get a hold of for tech support and resolution of things, if you do get
them to respond to a privacy concern they are swift.
With a Teen Girl they would be even swifter. One naked Bathroom pic and they
are suddenly in the Child Porn distribution business, knowingly infringing
(since they have been told now) on a teen with out her knowledge. That's the
kind of thing that an employee goes to jail for, not just gets some big fines.
~~~
ams6110
_The odds get to be beyond astronomical_
The odds of winning the lottery are pretty poor too. Yet people win them every
day.
~~~
pjscott
Let's not hand-wave; the numbers actually matter here. One-in-a-million
chances happen every day. One-in-2^128 chances do not. If you're exclusively
using a hash for identifying someone, then you'll make sure it's big enough to
prevent accidental collisions. This is not expensive.
------
brudgers
As much as I love bashing Google over privacy. And as highly probable as I
believe the sort of glitch described is likely to occur, two things make me
skeptical of this story.
A) That of all the random ways that a bug like this could manifest itself, it
happened with a tech journalist on the receiving end.
B) That the author spoke with a live human Googler over a customer service
issue in regard to a free service.
The real story here is B not A.
~~~
objclxt
> _The real story here is B not A_
I would assume if you're a journalist in the tech industry worth you salt you
probably have a Google contact you could call.
~~~
brudgers
There is a difference between knowing someone at Google and getting someone at
Google to go on the record in regard to a customer service issue with a free
product as "spokesperson Cristine Sorensen" is reported to have done.
~~~
Evbn
Claims of Brokenness don't get support. Claims of violations of privacy policy
and law get support.
------
OSButler
My wife had a problem with a girl creating a facebook account using a similar
email to hers that somehow got her gmail account connected to that facebook
account.
There was some account sharing going on, as the girl used that email address
to login to her facebook account and all the FB notifications ended up in my
wife's inbox.
At first I thought her account was compromised, but it was a secure password,
so it seemed to be caused by the only slightly differing email addresses
somehow being shared internally by gmail.
Only after activating 2-factor authentication did I manage to prevent that
girl from using my wife's gmail account. However, this was followed by a few
weeks of constant gmail notifications about a detail/password change request
sent to her phone.
------
drucken
" _The girl lives on another continent, so it is not just knocking on the door
either._ "
from
" _Jenta bor på et annet kontinent, så det er ikke bare å banke på døren
heller._ "
Can I assume that is mistranslated since the passport picture shows Norway
which is the same country as the journalist?
Separately, DN.no seems to be a business tabloid, 8th largest, in Norway,
according to Wikipedia
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagens_N%C3%A6ringsliv>).
~~~
zidel
The translation is correct, so she might be living somewhere else.
On the topic of translation issues, "We" in the first sentence of that
paragraph is "Google" in the original which changes the meaning a little.
------
antsam
For the longest time, I used to receive someone else's e-mails on GMail. Our
e-mail addresses were very similar except that mine had periods in it and his
apparently didn't. Either that or he really loved signing me up for things.
~~~
andrewaylett
My understanding is that Google strips full stops before comparing email
addresses and accounts for equality, which is really annoying when people
split their email addresses differently at different times, making them look
distinct when they are actually the same.
~~~
myko
It's really useful to me.
I have a filter for messages to: m.y.g.m.a.i.l@gmail.com
which marks the message read and moves it out of my inbox.
This is the address I give out to companies whose correspondences I don't care
to read generally but don't necessarily want to go directly to the trash.
~~~
scott_karana
You can also use + suffixes, which allows you to label.the address.
Scott+newslettername@Gmail.com for example.
~~~
SoftwareMaven
Assuming the crappy regex on the form will accept it.. :( It's better now, but
I still fail about 20% of the time.
------
_delirium
Minor wording point: I think "sensitive" rather than "delicate" pictures is
what's meant here, i.e. in the sense of "sensitive documents".
(Sensitive/delicate overlap in some of their meanings, but not this one.)
~~~
RexRollman
I thought the same thing but had assumed this was a Google Translate issue.
------
Hitchhiker
" Whether you are trying to protect corporate intellectual property or just
the privacy of your personal life, the key idea is that you shouldn't
underestimate the importance of your disclosures, particularly over time. "
[1]
[1] - Conti, Greg (2008-10-10). Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know
About You?
------
ddod
I'm glad to see a story like this getting some press as I've suspected that
I've been dealing with something very similar for years now. Every so often I
get an email from Facebook or some other service asking me to confirm a sign
up I never made and under a different name, and then afterwards (where it gets
strange) I get an email thanking me for confirming. Gmail says no other IPs
have logged into my account and there's nothing in my sent folder related to
it. I've changed passwords and it still happens. It's almost as if I share an
email address with someone but they have a different "account".
~~~
Evbn
That is just someone using your address as their alternate email.
~~~
ddod
I really doubt that, as it doesn't seem like you can put in multiple email
addresses when you are first signing up for Facebook
(<http://puu.sh/2IP5J.png>). I also don't imagine Facebook continues to email
the unverified email addresses after a user has changed their address to pass
the verification.
------
dwc
Uff! Min paranoia fortalte meg å slå av automatisk opplasting. Jeg er veldig
glad jeg gjorde.
~~~
zerr
კარგი გადაწყვეტილებაა.
------
jayferd
slight mistranslation: "...sak som Google ikke kan forklare" means "...that
Google can't explain", not "...that I can't explain". (my Norwegian isn't that
good, but this kind of sticks out...)
------
OGinparadise
Reason #12 why I will not use Google Glass or talk (beyond "hi" and "Yeah,
nice weather") to one that has them on. I don't care how much they keep
pushing them, they have their agenda, I have mine.
Stuff like this has the potential of ruining lives and relationships.
~~~
corresation
Unwanted sharing is not cool, however when you say-
_Stuff like this has the potential of ruining lives and relationships._
Do you mean that _truth_ has the potential of ruining lives and relationships?
~~~
kevingadd
The idea that context-free photos uploaded to the internet (and potentially
shared with the public) without the subject's permission somehow represent
'truth' is hilarious.
If they say a picture's worth a thousand words, then it's not much of a leap
to apply this quote:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I
will find something in them which will hang him."
How many pictures out of context do you think it would take to ruin the
average person's marriage? Destroy their career? Make them a public
laughingstock? Not many pictures, if you choose the right ones.
~~~
corresation
The idea that you can misphrase what I actually said so grotesquely is itself
"hilarious".
The GP opined that photos ruin lives and relationships. I've yet to hear a
scenario where a unwantedly shared photo ruined either a life or relationship
where it _wasn't_ that it actually revealed a hidden truth.
~~~
sesqu
You're awfully close to a No true Scotsman argument, there. However, if you're
interested in damaging photos that aren't secret, you need but take a look at
the history of social news. There have been a number of high-profile false
allegations with associated vigilantism.
~~~
corresation
I'm nowhere near that fallacy. I am specifically looking for examples to the
claim that I questioned (the single example provided to me thus far actually
supports exactly what I said).
That the crowd can be stupid (as in the recent Reddit Boston bombing nonsense)
has absolutely no relevance to this.
~~~
sesqu
So what you're looking for is 1) a photo 2) not depicting a secret 3)
publicized unintentionally 4) that ruined a life or relationship 5) without
involving mass misunderstanding
Sorry, I can't provide one for you. The documentation on such events is
typically kept to a small circulation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Evidence of Zika virus found in tears - upen
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/4952.html
======
binalpatel
Found this pretty informative answer to one of the questions I had (mainly,
whether Zika had always been this bad, or had mutated in some way to make it
worse).
[http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/42891/did-the-
zik...](http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/42891/did-the-zika-virus-
mutate)
TLDR: It's likely it's spreading so quickly because there's no natural
resistance in the areas where there have been outbreaks, though this isn't
proven.
------
spitfire
EDIT: Apparently this is already known. But it wasn't by me.
I'll make a statement now, I expect Zika to be found in the Gonads.
Specifically the testis.
This is one transmission vector for Ebola - remains actively transmissible for
at least 3 months.
~~~
phonon
Yes, it can be found in semen months after infection.
[http://abcnews.go.com/Health/zika-virus-remain-semen-
longer-...](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/zika-virus-remain-semen-longer-
previously-thought/story?id=40764544)
------
blisterpeanuts
Just more evidence that the primary vector of this terrible virus -- Aedes
Aegyptus -- should be eradicated. I suggest a multi-pronged approach,
including genetic modification such as Oxitec's sterility in males, release of
natural predators such as dragonflies, and minimizing their habitats, i.e.
standing water in urban areas.
That last one is tricky, since A. Aegyptus is notoriously tenacious and can
breed in a body of water as small as a bottle cap. But, we have to try.
~~~
fernly
Well, ok, but...
“The Zika epidemic has been very explosive, more explosive than we can account
for by just mosquitoes and the level of Zika virus in human blood. Some other
factor may be at play ... it could be some other bodily fluid – saliva, or
urine or tears.”
~~~
dvh
Well stop crying then, ban all telenovelas.
------
nnq
Hope this Zika thing scares enough people in the developed world to _finally_
start a _world-wide_ program for completely eradicating _all_ disease bearing
mosquitoes.
And hopefully skip the damn talks about "the consequences of removing an
entire species from the ecosystem for ever" (hint: humans already did this
dozens of time by now, and now we can also froze some damn buzzers for future
scientific study or whatever). Or about "developing a technology for
completely exterminating a given species" (hint: besides being cool science,
having a technology like this around and field tested could prove _extremely f
useful_ in quite a few scenarios).
_Is there anywhere I can put my money where my mouth is and donate money to
someone developing this? Like, not "doing the science and if it works out use
it in 10 years time in the field", but more like "engineering and testing as
you go, with iterative deployment of multiple batches of 'extermination
agent', be that genetically engineered mosquitoes or bacteria or viruses,
until the damn things are completely gone, even if we don't get to publish
many papers because we've been a bit sloppy in measurements and focused on
engineering and not science"?_
P.S. And really, the best way to "investigate the consequences" of such a
thing is to _fucking do it an see what happens!_ Imagine the cool papers
you'll publish about "ecological consequences of mosquito extermination" when
you actually have data about this! And if you're into debating and stuff, you
can debate "reintroducing mosquitoes into the ecosystem", and see how that
goes after the picture of the "first kid dead from malaria after 10 years"
shows up in the Times magazine. You can always keep a few mosquitoes in a lab
in repopulate them afterwards if we turn out to actually need them.
~~~
bad_user
That's a really unhealthy mentality. There are aprox 3500 species of
mosquitoes, out of which about 100 draw human blood. And first of all it's
probably really hard to target just specific species. And if the solution is
chemical or some sort of virus, then how do you know it won't spread to other
insects?
Mosquitoes are pollinators, also being a food source for birds and fish. If
mosquitoes vanish, you could end up with an ecological disaster, remember that
we've been exterminating bees as well.
But OK, mother nature can still cope with a species vanishing, but this means
another insect will probably fill the vacuum left by exterminating mosquitoes.
How do you know that the insect taking the place of mosquitoes won't be much
worse? You know, nature has a strange habit of fucking up our plans.
It's also important to remember that life on earth is 3.5 billion years old
and we are fucking it up, destabilizing it in just a couple hundred. And "
_just fucking do it_ " is not science.
~~~
saiya-jin
I presume seeing somebody very close dying from dengue/cerebral malaria/etc
would change your perspective of "this ain't science". But that won't happen
to many in 1st world countries, would it. Few millions of poor dying somewhere
far away ain't that much of a hot issue to you?
mankind wants to eradicate all diseases for example. don't you think that they
also have their role in the food chain, albeit probably more on the single
cellular scale? why not protect those?
It's us vs them, due to global warming they are spreading to new places all
the time. nobody is talking about removing all mosquitoes from the face of the
earth, just those 100 you mentioned. Will there be some mess and consequences
from it? of course, there are always consequences, even if you fart in the
wind. considering the clusterf __k we are heading to in terms of destroying
the nature, this is peanuts with very real positive and immediate results to
poorest and weakest of this world. count me in.
~~~
bad_user
I had my grandfather dying from a bacterial infection developed while
hospitalized, not responding well to antibiotics. I know how that feels.
Having close people die does change our perception, but science requires
objectivity and a move like this requires careful planning, as you have to
admit, we aren't known for making the best choices in healthcare.
And an ecological disaster probably won't happen, but lets consider that it
does for the sake of argument, having as result a much lower yield for the
crops in Africa or the rest of the world for a while. It's not impossible and
the world's supply of food is actually very fragile. So you save millions from
the spread of viruses, but then starve them to death.
I'm not against killing all mosquitoes, I'm just against doing it without
thoroughly researching the effects and having a prepared contingency plan.
------
tezza
"Cry into this jar and write your name on it."
"I've printed a copy of my bill with the test lab fees in case you have
trouble getting welled up"
~~~
ChrisClark
As someone not in the US. What are the bills like for test labs?
~~~
ars
> As someone not in the US.
What difference does US make? It's not something someone in the US would know.
If someone is sick the CDC would do the testing, and they don't change.
The only time you would have to pay is if you are doing it out of curiosity,
and then you would have to pay if outside the US as well.
No one in the US who is sick with Zika would ever pay those fees.
~~~
duaneb
Actually, many lab tests charges are passed on to the patient: employment drug
tests, std tests, PRN blood tests, etc etc.
I don't believe the OP was asking about Zika in particular.
~~~
nommm-nommm
Um... I've never been billed for an employment drug test or an employment
background check and I've had several of both.
~~~
pscsbs
Probably because you or your employer have health insurance to cover the
costs.
~~~
ams6110
Health insurance would be unlikely to cover an employment drug screen.
If you're not paying for it, the employer is. Same with the background check.
And it makes sense that if the employer is requiring these things that they
should pay for them. They get to expense it as an administrative cost of
hiring.
~~~
jacalata
Employers make employees pay for them often enough that many states have laws
prohibiting it
> Q: Can I make an applicant/employee pay for the costs involved in drug
> testing?
A: There are certain states that specifically address this issue, and
employers should familiarize themselves with their state requirements. For
example, employers in New Jersey cannot make a candidate pay for his/her drug
testing (or medical or other evaluations), unless the position they are
applying for is that of a security guard.
[http://www.sbsofsa.com/Articles/Drug_Testing_FAQs.html](http://www.sbsofsa.com/Articles/Drug_Testing_FAQs.html)
~~~
pluma
Wow, that's adding insult to injury.
I mean, employee drug testing (outside a small number of specific fields and
roles) is unthinkable enough as it is, but making the employee also pay for
that kind of invasion of their privacy is just despicable.
~~~
nommm-nommm
I really hate having to pay for tenant background checks now. It gives the
background check company free reign to change whatever they want and they are
friggin expensive! My state allows landlords to pass down the _exact_ cost of
the background check to the tenant which really isn't fair IMO, it should be
considered a cost of doing business.
I solved that problem by purchasing a house. Landlords around here have gotten
crazy since the housing bubble burst.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Solutions to stop the pop under plague? - maximveksler
I seems that for now the spammers are winning.
What could work to kill this annoyance?<p>Am I mistaken in assuming that browser makers don't know how to fight the new pop under window advertising technique? How about window dependencies graph, where if you switch tab context to a different URI and have not gave focus to the related window that was opened from the main window - Kill it without questions, and also refuse to save the cookies it gave you, Otherwise if user has visited the pop under page apply normal browser behavior?
======
benologist
Better Popup Blocker
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nmpeeekfhbmikbdhlp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nmpeeekfhbmikbdhlpjbfmnpgcbeggic)
It can block legitimate actions but they've recently added a list of blocked
popups on that page so you can manually allow them.
I really don't know why browser vendors can't just fix it themselves but stuff
like this might make it upstream eventually.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why have SVG images not yet replaced PNG on the web? - seky
http://blog.sekera.cz/2013/09/why-svg-images-did-not-replace-png.html
======
jahewson
Nobody has mentioned the abandonment of SVG 1.2 as a factor. It was dropped by
the W3C and never implemented in any browsers. This not only stalled
improvements to SVG 1.1 but created a situation where the editing software
(e.g. Inkscape) allows the user to create files using SVG 1.2 features which
are invalid in SVG 1.1.
The abandonment has resulted in much-needed improvements to SVG being delayed.
The last full release of SVG was 1.1 which was in 2003, we won't see another
full release until SVG 2 which is expected in 2014, over a decade later!
Never mind the fact the browser implementations of SVG are still _riddled_
with bugs and none are complete.
~~~
ahoge
> _we won 't see another full release until SVG 2 which is expected in 2014,
> over a decade later!_
HTML4: 1998
HTML5: 2014
~~~
nerfhammer
HTML5 has been rolling out since 2004
~~~
ahoge
It's from recommendation to recommendation.
------
oofabz
A vector format is insufficient to make an image look good at all resolutions.
Without hinting, lines are not aligned to pixels, making them blurry.
We have solved this problem with fonts, but it is extremely complex, both for
the artist and for the rendering code.
~~~
crazygringo
Optimizing for hinting has been rendered pointless by the fact that people
zoom around on mobile devices.
You can no longer expect bitmap pixels to map to device pixels in any
reasonable way. (Heck, just turn your desktop browser zoom to 90% or 110%.)
There was a time for hinting, but it's long gone.
~~~
mistercow
I don't understand what exactly zooming has to do with hinting. Fonts use
hinting to great effect, and they're specifically designed to be displayed at
different sizes and resolutions.
~~~
PeterisP
Hinting makes all vector drawings (including fonts) look better; but zooming
means that bitmaps don't have an advantage, since a PNG will be no better than
an unhinted SVG.
~~~
johnbm
That's not true at all. Firstly, any PNG would have a limited resolution,
requiring massive file sizes to be indistinguishable from an SVG. Secondly,
browsers don't scale bitmaps with perfectly alias-free filtering, which means
you get artifacts when scaling down and blurryness when scaling up.
------
sambeau
I use SVG a lot and I'd say the reasons are:
* Browser support is still new and in places still a little rough
* IE support has only recently arrived
* SVG creation tools are either rough or expensive
* SVG can create sub-Flash-like performance if used carelessly
* SVG has no detail optimisation (or detail hinting)
I think we're about to see SVG usage pick-up steam now that IE has support and
retina displays are becoming commonplace. Hopefully we'll get the tools and
performance we deserve.
I'm very hopeful for SVG in the next 18 months.
~~~
gglanzani
[Not trolling, genuinely interested in the answer]
> * SVG can creat sub-Flash-like performance if used carelessly
Could you elaborate on that? What should I be aware of if exporting vector art
from, say, Illustrator or Inkscape?
~~~
ygra
From Inkscape? Little, as SVG is its native format and thus Inkscape's feature
set aligns nicely with the capabilities of the format (if used carefully, e.g.
using clones instead of copies for identical shapes, etc.). Illustrator,
however, will export more or less with a minimum SVG feature set used and for
complex drawings that may end up fairly large and fairly inefficient.
Drop shadows and filters in general are a concern. Not so much on desktop
browsers nowadays, but in mobile very much.
------
ygra
I guess Wikipedia's approach is a fairly good one here: Use SVG behind the
scenes and generate PNGs for the articles themselves in the necessary sizes.
Fast display of PNGs (also for complex imagery they tend to be smaller, but
that's often just because Inkscape's default SVGs are horribly bloated¹) and
the vector image for easy changes and printing.
That being said, back then I struggled fairly often with annoying bugs in
Wikimedia's backend renderer rsvg. It got better over time but back then
browser support was also very spotty. By now SVG is still my favorite vector
format to use, mainly because it's trivial to write scripts around (it's just
XML after all) and converting to PNG if you need it (or whatever else is
needed) is trivial.²
So generally I'd say SVG is very much not dead, it's just rarely used
_directly_ on the web, except for interactive things where hit-testing
arbitrary shapes is important.
____
¹ I used to vectorize a few (around 200–300, I think) flags on Wikimedia
Commons and for simple shapes I concentrated on it was usually a difference of
350 bytes vs. 2–3 KiB. I wrote my code by hand for the most part, utilizing a
few templates for common flag formats ( _n_ horizontal or vertical stripes,
checkerboard, etc.) and small scripts for the more annoying things to write by
hand, like wavy lines.
² Current use case from today: action bar icons on Android. When creating them
in Eclipse from an image it only generates enabled, not disabled icons and I
have to remember what padding I used and select the correct theme. After two
or three changes in the source images (which were SVG anyway) it was enough
and I just wrote a tiny script to generate them. Another use case were the
images in my final thesis which I kept in SVG because back then I wasn't sure
yet whether to use Word (needs EMF) or LaTeX (needs PDF) for writing. The fact
that I needed Graphviz a lot which outputs nice, clean SVG also helped.
------
MaxGabriel
Re: the author's experience with Android: Android 2.x doesn't support SVG. It
makes up 33% of the devices that visit the Google Play store
[http://caniuse.com/#cats=SVG](http://caniuse.com/#cats=SVG)
[http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html)
~~~
droidist2
True. Android is the new IE when it comes to supporting features like this.
Strange since Google pushes HTML 5 so much.
------
qwerty_asdf
Because parsing XML can become a bottomless pit of nightmares and sorrow.
Unholy floating point calculations that make Baby Jesus cry.
Meanwhile, pixel rasters are a finite array of bytes, confined to specific
dimensions and resolutions. Plain old integers in 24 bit color with an 8 bit
transparency channel.
And, specifically with respect to PNG, those pixel values are compressed row-
by-row, using the DEFLATE algorithm.
------
amadeus
I'm surprised file size hasn't been mentioned as a mother major reason.
With tools like ImageOptim, and ImageAlpha, you can make PNGs INSANELY small
with 0 or an imperceptible loss in quality.
For example, PNGs do insanely well when you have few numbers of colors that
are repeating often. I've had had images that were 640px by 960px (pixel style
art) that compressed down to sub 3kb with no quality loss. Good luck getting
that with an SVG.
(Yes, there are certain types of images that PNGs are a terrible solution for,
however, really, what I mean here is, right tool for the job.)
------
ris
Answer: because there are plenty of things you simply can't express in SVG
with its current level of support across browsers.
e.g. no blend mode except "normal" really works reliably across browsers yet.
And just a reminder: it's 2013, everyone.
Next question...
~~~
seky
Well, many websites uses simple graphics, simple logos... It's 2013 - yes, and
nowadays simple, flat, design is modern, rather than graphics with a lot of
effects, that was modern in the past, IMHO.
But I agree with your argument regarding to something is not properly - yes,
that can be the reason why people don't see the whole thing as reliable
------
marijn
The responses here (so far) are mostly pointing out why SVG is not suitable
for _all_ situations. There are many images where
\- SVG will be smaller than a bitmap
\- The sub-pixel rendering isn't really an issue (do you check that all the
lines are aligned on pixels when you export something from illustrator?)
\- No advanced/poorly supported features are necessary
Platform support is still a stumbling block, but that will get better. I
seriously considered going svg-only for the vector-friendly illustrations in
the new edition of
[http://eloquentjavascript.net](http://eloquentjavascript.net) . But in order
to not screw over people on old devices, I will probably use svg with png
fallbacks instead.
~~~
guptaneil
Honest question: Will people with devices old enough to not be able to render
svg really be reading a programming book?
~~~
marijn
Well, my own phone is unable to render svg, so I can imagine there is such an
audience.
------
drcode
I think SVGs have failed so far on the web because of a sort of "paradox of
choice": As soon as you use SVG images, you'll be tempted to make them do
things you can't do with PNGs, but you still end up in a world of hurt if you
attempt to do this.
Chiefly among these new features are (1) inlining directly into html (2)
making them interactive via javascript.
Both #1 and #2 are possible in theory, but in my experience these features are
very painful practice... both of these are still very buggy. That's the
problem with SVGs: Most of the new "options" they open up are still not ready
for prime time.
~~~
corresation
_Most of the new "options" they open up are still not ready for prime time._
I had an article in MSDN Magazine promoting SVG graphics 10 friggin' years
ago, and _it_ made use of inline SVG and JavaScript animations, to fantastic
effect. Since then I've used SVG in countless places, with very little
downside. The major problem are some laggard browsers, but if you have a
supporting browser neither inlining and script are a problem whatsoever.
SVG is one of those technologies where many (such as myself) overestimated the
short-term impact, and under-estimated the long term impact. As a technology
it was usable and enormously powerful in some situations ten years ago, but it
is really just starting to gain serious inertia.
------
ScotterC
I would say the main reason is because there's not a 'Save As SVG' in
photoshop. Most non tech people haven't heard of SVG and by the time they
have, they already have a process for making images and the switch doesn't
have enough apparent value on the surface.
~~~
Pxtl
Also, illustrator sucks.
~~~
nness
Illustrator is an absolutely fantastic tool for print production and design.
It is not a suitable tool for SVG, hasn't been for many versions (if it ever
was).
~~~
Pxtl
Adobe's forgotten, unpromoted, and now discontinued fireworks is their actual
svg art tool. Apparently illustrator isn't meant to illustrate.
------
etchalon
Exporting a bitmap is easy, and will always look correct when rendered.
Exporting SVG is difficult, requires specific tools, and is gonna render
differently depending on the browser.
SVG solved a problem exactly no one had.
~~~
Mindless2112
SVG solved a problem essentially everyone will have: pixel density.
~~~
masklinn
Except it failed to solve the related problem which everybody already has: eye
resolution.
~~~
avmich
If you know the physical pixel density, SVG image can maintain its physical
size on different devices. Now try to do that with PNG...
I think PNG and SVG inherently solve somewhat different problems in the realm
of image representation, so there are going to be cases where each of them has
the clear upper hand. However, with pixel density going up and file sizes and
network bandwidth not being the limiting factors in many cases, I'd guess SVG
will command increasingly bigger share of uses.
~~~
etchalon
You'd be dead wrong.
SVG has been out for awhile, long before Retina design became a part of the
web development workflow, and yet, when faced with the challenge, most web
shops didn't swap to an SVG workflow.
They just designed everything at twice the resolution.
Even Apple, who was leading the way for a hot second there on HDPI and vector
assets, has swapped to mostly using 2x image assets.
The whole "will we swap to vectors?" debate already happened.
------
JohnHaugeland
1) Different browsers can render SVG pretty differently, especially where two
regions are within a pixel of one another. If you have a blue rect next to a
red rect with a yellow background, some browsers will render the middle line
purple, some green, some orange, and some brown.
2) Pixel choices by vector renderers are generally dramatically worse than a
human artist's choices. We don't want accuracy, we want perceptual emphasis.
Look at NES Mario in your head, then look at the blur you'd get if you took a
modern hi-res Mario and vector rendered it at that size. For icons, this can
be murder.
3) IE <= 8 is still a pretty significant chunk of your viewers.
4) There's a lot of knowledge built up around how to work with pixel images,
especially when sprite sheeting for performance. Much of that knowledge needs
to be re-learned for vector. Even when it's a good idea, many developers feel
they don't have the time for a knowledge overhaul.
5) A big chunk of the web is legacy sites. This is why you still see
javascript in html comments, or the occasional isindex. They aren't getting
updated, pretty much ever.
6) For visually complex sites, SVG can still drag on budget and older mobile
devices.
7) Older android had SVG turned off in Chrome.
8) It's a lot harder to get vector artists than pixel artists; it's a lot
harder for artists to give developers SVG than pixel images.
9) Because it isn't trendy yet.
------
anjc
Because they're completely different formats to be used for completely
different purposes?
------
olegp
Because most of the images out there are in pixel and not vector format.
Converting the latter to the former automatically doesn't always produce the
desired results.
At [https://starthq.com](https://starthq.com) we do use SVG for the logo and
all icons. Falling back to PNG for older browsers requires a CSS hack though
and that fails on some older mobile devices.
------
dmlorenzetti
I used SVG to make some interactive demos of some methods for solving ordinary
differential equations. At the time, I remember being frustrated by the poor
documentation available for the scripting aspects.
Naturally, there are a number of web resources, but none of them felt
authoritative (in the sense of complete coverage). Furthermore, they used
different techniques, so it was hard to integrate code samples from different
sources. Finally, some had outright errors (my vague memory is that some of
this was due to the documentation being written before a working
implementation was available).
All of this had the effect of making me feel like SVG was a bit of a
backwater. I liked the technology, and was willing to use it since I had total
control of the machine I was going to run the demo on. However, I didn't feel
comfortable with the idea that I could make the demos public and have them run
anywhere.
------
crazygringo
> _For some time, all major browsers already support SVG._
Not time enough. Plenty of people still use IE8, which doesn't.
~~~
frik
You can use SVGWeb as fallback solution for IE6-8 user:
[http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/](http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/)
~~~
panzi
If your SVG file is properly crafted (viewBox & maybe preserveAspectRatio
attributes) then you can do this:
<object type="image/svg+xml" width="640" height="480" data="http://example.com/image.svg">
<img src="http://example.com/image.png"/>
</object>
------
JoelSutherland
IE8 doesn't support SVG and still has nearly 15% marketshare in the US. This
is essentially the entire reason.
------
egypturnash
"Why have SVG images not yet replaced PNG on the web?"
I'm an artist who's been using Adobe Illustrator as her primary medium for
thirteen years. Here's some reasons why my site is still serving up tons of
bitmap images:
\- Any interesting vector image will be a much larger file as an svg than a
web-res png/gif/jpg.
\- Sophisticated effects in AI can get lost in the transition to SVG. I don't
know if this is AI's fault, SVG's lack of support, or the fault of the various
things rendering the SVG, and the first point leaves me disinterested in
experimenting.
That said, I _have_ been playing with using web fonts for sets of simple
images.
Also, most of my artist friends are completely baffled by AI; they prefer
bitmap programs like Photoshop, Sai, or Artrage.
------
neovive
The SVG spec has been around for so long, but the fact that it competed
directly with SWF held it back. Adobe was a major proponent of SVG until they
bought Flash and focused their efforts accordingly.
Although SVG is "readable" in a text editor, all but the simplest shapes are
extremely complex and require the use of graphics editors such as Inkscape.
Vector formats are definitely the future for source images as they can
generate any size bitmap you need for any device. However, as a delivery
format, SVG will likely be relegated to niche and specialized sites (e.g. data
visualizations and animations) for quite a while.
------
puller
Because browser support is inconsistent, SVGs are often larger than equivalent
than even lightly optimized PNGs, and it's a lot easier to find or create
raster images than to obtain high-quality vector art. Also, you actually often
want different images at different scales, so that automatically scaling one
image is not that big an advantage.
I want to use SVG, particularly in Javascript apps. It seems like a more
elegant solution/workflow for things like icons. It would certainly beat
abusing fonts to put small images on a page. but it has sort of missed its
opportunity.
------
bcrescimanno
Let's not forget the issue that scaling vectors does not necessarily mean
scaling intent and communication. Vector imagery for some things sounds great;
in practice, it doesn't always come out as well as you'd hope--and certainly
not as well as a hand-optimized set of work.
See: [http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-
vector-...](http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-
icons.html)
------
taf2
We use SVG on our homepage via raphaeljs to draw the graphics showing
marketing, phone calls, metrics, and insights... It was always my goal to one
day animate it to help better explain our product, but for now I think it
looks pretty good and the PNG version was larger in bytes when converted...
the example is here:
[https://calltrackingmetrics.com/features](https://calltrackingmetrics.com/features)
------
tmarthal
I think that the web is slowly starting to adopt SVGs where it makes sense.
d3.js is bringing svg charting to the web in a major way. Most, if not all,
modern web dashboards are using it.
Google Maps has been using SVG icons for custom markers for awhile, embedded
into their json configuration. This may not be strictly 'the web', but it is a
major component of online GIS applications.
------
eddieh
Because IE 8 doesn't support SVGs and still accounts for >20% of desktop
traffic (by some reports). Likewise, Android 2.x doesn't support SVGs and
accounts for some non-ignorable amount of mobile traffic.
Where I currently work we can't support SVGs with some projects due to a bug
in the middleware we're mandated to use.
------
grogenaut
It's pretty simple. People in charge of corporate logos want COMPLETE CONTROL
over how they look. If a rendering engine can mess it up, they're not going to
use it. Thus PNGs. What you put into a PNG is what you get out. Not so with
SVG.
------
Grue3
Because they are completely different image formats for completely different
purposes! I'm so tired of these articles. PNG vs JPG, Animated GIF vs video,
Flash vs HTML5. These things have barely anything in common!
------
zach_s
Because people haven't caught on yet. Browsers will start to support it and it
will catch on once people realize its vast benefits over PNG. For now, it's
not worth it for people to switch.
------
brianfryer
If you're going to use SVGs, might as well make a font out of it. Otherwise,
PNG is the way to go to guarantee uniform display.
~~~
illicium
Icon fonts are a horrible hack that's only in use because SVG support in
browsers has frankly been terrible so far. Plus, you can only use them for
single-color shapes.
------
nyar
Easy answer - when you're making an image in photoshop and you go to save it
you don't get to save it as .svg
------
ronreiter
Because you need both raster and vector images. You can't just ignore all
pixel based images.
------
aidenn0
SVGs are more expensive to decode: The law of spline demand.
------
drill_sarge
you could ask the same question for .gif, flash video, mp3, mpeg2, analog
tv/radio, pci bus, d-sub...
------
deletes
>>as PNGs are just plain bitmaps<< .png is definitely not a plain bitmap.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compression)
| {
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Jx9: A direct competitor to Lua - xtremejames183
http://jx9.symisc.net/index.html
======
losnggenration
While the language & feature-set might be a direct competitor to Lua, the
license may make it a non-starter for many.
Lua: MIT: can be used in closed source software.
Jx9: Symisc Public License (basically the Sleepycat license): Very similar to
the GPL in that all source code using it must also be open source upon
distribution. Otherwise, a license must be acquired at some unknown price to
use it in commercial software.
~~~
xtremejames183
I think the Jx9 license is correct and acceptable for open source softwares
since many open source projects embed BerkeleyDB which use this kind of
license.
| {
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How To Talk to Investors About Your Competitors - Cmccann7
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/12/26/talking-to-a-vc-about-your-competitors/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BothSidesOfTheTable+%28Both+Sides+of+the+Table%29
======
lionhearted
Love this quote, a great reminder:
> Remember: being too early is the same as being wrong.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: What are your thoughts about this goal tracker and time management tool? - deniza
Satistime (www.satistime.com) is an online tool that combines To Do List + Goal Planner/Tracker + Calendar. It streamlines the whole process from goal setting to daily routine - all the while being easy to use. What are your thoughts about the website? Any feedback is welcome so that we can make it better! Thank you
======
neuroticfish
Saturated market and personally something that has never worked for me -- I'll
try one out for a week, forget about it for a few months, and then try a
different one before continuing the cycle. I suspect my experience is not
unique and that if your implementation of a ubiquitous product is going to
succeed it has to bring something innovative to the table.
~~~
deniza
It seems that we need to communicate the difference of the product better..
Thanks for the feedback!
------
bachmeier
This is an _extremely_ crowded market. Your website makes it look like just
another one of dozens and dozens of such apps. Anyone wanting me to even look
at a new app (much less start a free trial and actually use it) is going to
have to make a heck of a case as to what you do that others don't.
"You’re more effective when you don’t feel overwhelmed. Satistime is a goal
tracker and time management tool that helps entrepreneurs build online
businesses—one task at a time."
This sounds like every other task management app on the market. You might have
a great product but the website needs to be more effective.
On a more specific note - do you allow file uploads? Without that, task lists
are incomplete. It goes against "it’s got everything bundled together".
~~~
deniza
Thank you for the feedback! File upload is not currently there but working on
it
------
mattmanser
You should use Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
------
muzani
It's a nice idea. But at this point I've tried many of these kinds of sites
and they never had any real effect. Currently doing bullet journaling, which
works parallel to this.
But IMO the main feature any such tool needs is accessibility, as short as
possible from brain to check box. This would probably work best as an app for
that reason. No login needed, no need to deal with the lag of opening a
browser.
~~~
quickthrower2
Yeah this idea of tracking time is blue collar thinking. Are CEOs doing this?
Usually at companies where they are logging everyone’s time and scrutinising
it, the CEO, exec team and perhaps managers are exempt from needing to log
their time.
But as programmers (and related creative jobs like BA, UX, Graphics, Architect
etc) I think it is also folly to track time to the minute. As long as you can
track what has been delivered by the team over the last X weeks in production,
you’ve got a fair idea if they are worth the money. Whether I took 2 or 4
hours to fix a bug, well if you trust me not to have popped to the beach and
claimed it took 4 there is no business for a company to track it, and there is
no need for me to personally track it either.
Instead you want yourself to be passionate about becoming great at your craft
as a pragmatist. A good balance about knowing the ide way to do things, the
quick and the slow way and how to choose wisely. These are the sorts of people
you want to employ.
A personal standard is I won’t take a job where they track my time. And I
don’t track my own time for work or side projects.
~~~
muzani
Plenty of CEOs schedule meetings. That's pretty much the same thing. Tracking
time is just allocating some time off to do a thing.
But it's entirely different reasoning. Their job is more to make decisions as
it comes or at least to link together people who can solve a problem or make a
decision, and track it for their own uses. Most of the things managers do
don't apply to people who do the work, e.g. waking up at 4 AM, working long
hours.
Scheduling interrupts flow, and is thus very bad for creative workers. But
tracking time isn't so bad. I track all my work, partly to estimate things
like how long a page takes to set up, or how long it takes to build a
dashboard.
------
ikarandeep
The registration page is a little weak. Maybe add some info as to what the
user is registering for. The page doesn't give any info.
~~~
deniza
Yes the registration page will need improvements, thank you!
| {
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JQuery Cheatsheet - just found it, oh so useful - geuis
http://www.gscottolson.com/jquery/jQuery1.2.cheatsheet.v1.0.pdf
======
thomasmallen
This one hangs in my cube: [http://colorcharge.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/12/jquery12_c...](http://colorcharge.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/12/jquery12_colorcharge.png)
------
aasarava
<http://www.visualjquery.com> is an excellent resource, too.
~~~
markbao
I'm wondering if there's a way to download that and use it offline.
~~~
geuis
Its a pdf file. Save it to your computer, print it out.
~~~
markbao
I mean Visual jQuery :)
~~~
geuis
doh sorry!
------
trickjarrett
Great stuff, just printed 8 copies and handed it out to my fellow developers.
------
maxwell
This one is good too: <http://remysharp.com/jquery-api/>
------
debt
Scribd is terrible! Can we just use images for things like these?
~~~
jcl
The "[scribd]" part of the headline is actually a separate link pointing to
Scribd. The headline title points to the original PDF.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Rate my free group texting service with public API - geoffc
http://groupflier.com
======
geoffc
I just launched the API today so any feedback on it would be greatly
appreciated. The direct link to the API is
<http://www.groupflier.com/api.html>
P.S. Click the phone image to watch the video easter egg
------
johnrob
"Add a row" is not a good call to action since "row" is a developer term. I'd
go with something like "Add more users".
~~~
geoffc
Thanks, will do!
~~~
geoffc
Done and live. I went with "Add more".
------
tdd
Service sounds fantastic, can't wait to see more progress on it!
Also suggestion - I think the design could use some work, have you considered
making the grey footer abit bit lighter so there is better contrast with your
links?
I would also create real text on your page, for example the "free text
messaging groups for friends, family, colleagues" could easily be in text
rather than a .gif
Keep up the good work!
~~~
geoffc
Thanks for the feedback, I will pass this on to our graphics guru.
------
JocoProductions
Great service, I might have to switch my fraternity which is using a paid and
broken service (textmelater.com) over to this. One quick thing though. The
title tag of the form field didn't show up on Mac FF (3.6.13) and it isn't
apparently obvious what the fields are there for. Maybe add a label to the
fields or at least the top name and number fields to make them stand out more.
~~~
geoffc
Rat's I will look at that version of FF. If you switch over I would appreciate
the feedback on how it works for you.
------
harrisonhjones
Just noticed something, when you click "Your Groups" and then enter your phone
# it tells you to enter a pin. If you click off of that box while waiting for
your pin the damn pin box goes away. Kinda annoying because now you have to do
everything again
~~~
geoffc
Thanks, will fix.
------
joshma
Awesome idea, maybe biased because my friend and I were talking about a
similar idea maybe just a week ago. :) Maybe some way to import contacts? Not
sure if it's overkill, but maybe worth considering.
~~~
joshma
Ouch, does Your Groups work? I typed in my mobile number and it said it
couldn't be found, now it's alerting THROTTLE since I probably tried too many
times haha.
~~~
geoffc
Ah, I think I know what is going on. Did you send a welcome message to the
group from your cell phone? If you didn't then your group is staged and not
yet created. I need to check for numbers in the staged groups as well. Thanks
for the feedback.
------
endtime
If you don't mind my asking, what's your business model?
~~~
geoffc
The VC's are funding a few companies in this space on the hope that this is
the future of social networking. If that happens the biggest network will be
able to monetize the traffic with tag line ads, mobile ads, coupons or the
like. Until then the VC's are paying the freight for all the SMS traffic so
enjoy the free texting :-)
~~~
yantramanav
It looks like a killer app to me. There is a similar service in India called
SMSGupShup which is a big hit.
best luck!
------
joshma
Suggestion, change * for commands to something else. I like to use * to
correct typos.
~~~
geoffc
I picked * as it is a primary key on a regular cellphone keypad. I might add
the option for the user to customize the command prompt. Thanks for the
feedback.
~~~
joshma
Oh wow, that makes a lot of sense actually. Sorry for my bias, snobby iphone
user here.
------
ameyamk
What are you using for telephony integration? twilio?
~~~
geoffc
Yes
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pre-trained neural networks? - gregw134
Has anyone compiled a list of pre-trained neural networks available for download? I'm hoping to contribute some ML to Apache Nifi. Thanks!
======
malux85
You will need to be more specific, a trained neural network is heavily
dependent on implementation - for example a trained TensorFlow network is not
interchangeable with a trained Caffe network. There are tools to convert
between the two, but they're limited in scope.
Do you have a target implementation in mind?
~~~
gregw134
Tensorflow is preferred but Caffe works too. What I'm looking for are
pretrained image recognition, audio recognition, etc algorithms that can be
embedded into a Nifi processor, so that popular ML techniques can be accessed
with a drag and drop interface :)
~~~
malux85
This is a cool idea!
I dont know of an authorative list, but it might be good to start one!
Usually the models have a name, after the project or paper that was used,
To get you started, here's the "Inception v3" model:
[https://storage.googleapis.com/download.tensorflow.org/model...](https://storage.googleapis.com/download.tensorflow.org/models/inception_dec_2015.zip)
Maybe making a list of "Inception v3", "ImageNet" etc, then letting the user
select? Most ML engineers know these by their names.
One for caffe: You can download BVLC CaffeNet Model from:
[http://dl.caffe.berkeleyvision.org/bvlc_reference_caffenet.c...](http://dl.caffe.berkeleyvision.org/bvlc_reference_caffenet.caffemodel)
------
joewitt
obviously there are some interesting details to get this right but sounds like
a really cool idea and look forward to seeing this pull request come into the
apache nifi community.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Fire Non-Performers - terpua
http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/07/how-to-fire-non-performers.php
======
onreact-com
What about motivating your team? Caring for the people who work for you?
Assigning he right tasks? those that fit? When you're a misanthrope, people
won't "perform" for you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scale Fail (part 1) - ableal
http://lwn.net/Articles/441790/
======
wccrawford
The bit about metrics really rang true.
At 1 company, we had a situation where 2 of the 3 webservers were out of
service for various reasons. I knew from past experience that even a single
web server should have a load less than 1 with all our traffic. The others
were just there in case they went down. (Like they did!) In the middle of
that, the 1 working server suddenly starts spiking load to 40 and misbehaving.
There was a really smart new guy there that was usually right. But this time,
he said there was no way 1 server could handle our traffic and that was the
problem. He refused to listen to reason and eventually I gave up and started
working on the problem alone. I eventually found the code that was going crazy
and fixed it... And voila. 0.4 load.
The point is that people get things in their head that 'have' to be true, but
they aren't necessarily. He assumed that the existence of 3 webservers meant
we had that much load, but it was just for redundancy. If I had had metrics to
prove my case, it would have gone a lot smoother... But instead I just had my
experience.
~~~
JonLim
I think having numbers to prove your case is generally a good way to approach
things. If you can get objective numbers that really show and prove what you
are talking about, you can swing most people your way.
If not, they are probably not the best of people to work with.
~~~
wccrawford
I want to reiterate that the guy was really good at his job. One of the best
people I've ever worked with. He was generally pretty easy to get along with.
But my lack of hard data meant I couldn't sway him on that problem, no matter
how right I was.
That company had a history of not having metrics to work with. Every new
sysadmin or db admin came in and asked for metrics and we'd shrug and laugh
nervously. (I mean, there was a reason why hired so many new ones!)
~~~
JonLim
Oh, no, heard you very loud and clear. Was just reinforcing your anecdote by
saying that it's applicable to a lot more than just scaling apps. :)
------
asymptotic
This is a phenomenal article. After wading through bullshit "X HTTP server
beats Y HTTP server at serving 40 bytes of static content!!!" articles this is
a breath of fresh air. This is clearly written by someone working in the real
world.
~~~
krakensden
LWN is pretty great, I'm quite happy I bought a subscription. Very few other
publications will have long articles with diagrams explaining a kernel memory
corruption bug a day after it happens.
~~~
michaelchisari
Honestly, I'd consider getting a subscription just for this:
_"When I was at Amazon, we used a squid reverse proxy ..."_
_"Dan, you were an ad sales manager at Amazon."_
------
johngalt
It continues to surprise me how much IT/sysadmin work is done by heuristic
rather than actual measurements.
Applications slow? -> Add RAM
Database is slow? -> must be network/load
Service failures? -> reboot
It becomes very problematic in large IT organizations. Teams will play hot
potato with issues, and all use excuses. Desktop support will blame the DB
team, DB will blame the server team, then they all blame the network. All the
while no one is actually measuring anything.
~~~
Meai
Surprisingly almost no one cares about performance. When was the last time you
have seen a webframework or a database that routinely does performance
benchmarks at each iteration? In fact, I don't know any. I was very impressed
with the continuous measurements that PyPy does.
~~~
shimon
<http://django-speedcenter.djangozoom.net/>
~~~
hartror
The site is great, but ironically a bit slow.
------
armored
Comments > the article:
_So to avoid these ends, let's avoid these beginnings: avoid multi-threading.
Use single-threaded programs, which are easier to design, write, and debug
than their shared-memory counterparts. Instead, use multiple processes to
extract concurrency from the hardware. Choose a communication medium that
works just as well on a single machine as it does between machines, and make
sure the individual processes comprising the system are blind to the
difference. This way, deployment becomes flexible and scaling becomes simpler.
Because communication between processes by necessity has to be explicitly
designed and specified, modularity almost happens by itself._
~~~
jshen
"Use single-threaded programs, which are easier to design, write, and debug
than their shared-memory counterparts."
Not really. Well, only true in simple cases. Let's say I have a 16-core box
and I want to crunch some data using all the cores. What's easier, clojure
with a single shared memory data structure that collects that stats, or a
multi-process system where we not only have to manage multiple application
processes, we also have to use something like redis to hold the shared state?
~~~
minimax
Here is a link to the commenter's full comment:
<http://lwn.net/Articles/441867/>
He's precisely considering your 16-core case. Now think about what happens
when your dataset grows and you need more cores than you can reasonably fit in
a single machine.
~~~
jshen
It's not when, it's if, and often you know it won't happen. Being a good
engineer requires understanding when k use which model. acting as if there
aren't a lot of cases where singel process, shred memory, concurrency is the
only good choice for almost all cases is wrong
------
CountHackulus
What I do appreciate about this article is that it doesn't just give
anecdotes, but actually quantifies and explains the problems. In fact it even
explains why not to use anecdotes!
Seems like most of the tips here could be applied to all sort of problems, not
just scalability, and I think that's probably what the author was going for.
To show that scalability isn't some special problem that needs special
solutions, but that if you think hard about it, and use data to back up your
findings, then it's just like any other problem you want to solve.
Can't wait for part 2.
~~~
valyala
Part 2 is already available - see <http://lwn.net/Articles/443775/>
------
gregburek
How does everyone here gather and analyze their metrics? What do you have
always deployed and what do you use when shit hits the fan?
[Edit for typo]
~~~
seiji
<rant> The "standard" ways are all very outdated, ugly, unscalable, and brain
dead in implementation. nagios, cacti, munin, ganglia, ... -- all crap.
</rant>
People end up writing their own [1]. They rarely open source their custom
monitoring infrastructure. Sometimes a private monitoring system gets open
sourced, but then you see it has complex dependencies. The complexity of
monitoring blocks wide-scale deployment. People stick with 15 year old,
simple, dumb, solutions.
I'm working on making a new distributed monitoring/alerting/trending/stats
framework/service, but it's slow going. One weekend per month of free time
doesn't exactly yield the mindset to get into hardcore systems hacking flows
[2].
[1]: [http://www.slideshare.net/kevinweil/rainbird-realtime-
analyt...](http://www.slideshare.net/kevinweil/rainbird-realtime-analytics-at-
twitter-strata-2011)
[2]: Will develop next-gen monitoring for food.
~~~
gregburek
I'm getting the feeling that with all the unique server setups in use,
monitoring and metrics systems are going to be just as unique and specific.
There are some interesting process monitoring projects out there like god,
monit and bluepill, as well as ec2/cloud specific stuff from ylastic,
rightscale and librato silverline. Have you ever used any of those tools?
Fitting all these together for my setup is trial and error, but it really does
force me to think hard about my tools and assumptions even before I get hard
data.
~~~
josephruscio
I hack on the aforementioned Silverline at <http://librato.com>, and we
provide system-level monitoring at the process/application granularity as-a-
Service. (We also have a bunch of features around active workload management
controls, but that's out of scope here). It actually works on any server
running one of the supported versions of Linux, not just EC2. Benefits of
going with a service-based offering are the same as in any other vertical, you
don't need to install and manage your own software/hardware for monitoring.
Here's an example of the visualizations we provide into what's going on in
your server instances: [http://support.silverline.librato.com/kb/monitoring-
tags/app...](http://support.silverline.librato.com/kb/monitoring-
tags/application-monitoring-versus-server-monitoring)
------
chaostheory
> Single-threading is the enemy of scalability.
Multi-thread programming is hard. Everyone already knows about Node.js, but if
you're on the Java I suggest you check out Akka (<http://akka.io>) - makes
concurrency much easier
~~~
IgorPartola
Is it hard? Always? If it is so hard then why is it around. How would you go
about parallelizing even mildly CPU heavy work loads on node.js?
Node.js and the like are awesome, but only if you have no blocking calls and
your CPU usage is tiny. Otherwise you get the performance of a single threaded
server. You know, because that's what it is.
~~~
chaostheory
>Is it hard?
Yes multithread programming is difficult (for most people - like me). Hence
the popularity of stuff like node.js, and also why people highlight Erlang's
Actor model.
> How would you go about parallelizing even mildly CPU heavy work loads on
> node.js?
I'm not sure I understand your question, since (I believe) node.js has an
event based concurrency model and not thread based (at least for its users).
------
selectnull
Part 2 has been released, for those who have subscription.
<https://lwn.net/Articles/443775/>
------
hartror
The talk is very amusing especially the use of Jason Fried in one of the
slides.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPG4sK_glls>
------
chopsueyar
Well written article and funny, too. Nice job.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Today – Quantified self and habit tracker app - baronetto
https://neybox.com/today
======
gherkin0
That looks neat. Is there anything similar (and good) for Android?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Echo Linux : a social news site dedicated to Linux and related topics - fcambus
http://www.echolinux.com
======
fcambus
For your information, the site is using the 8x16 BIOS format font (also
referred as IBM PC Code page 437) in order to mimic the look of textmode
terminals.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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North Carolina May Ban Tesla Sales To Prevent “Unfair Competition” - smokinn
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/13/north_carolina_tesla_ban_bill_would_prevent_unfair_competition_with_car.html
======
tonteldoos
Atlas Shrugged, anyone?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Machine Learning Algorithm Cheat Sheet - breck
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/machine-learning-algorithm-cheat-sheet/
======
ColinWright
It would be interesting to compare this in detail with the SciKit-Learn chart
that we've seen before here. It's not the same, so the question is whether it
varies in significant detail. These previous submissions were, of course,
specific to the SciKit-Learn libraries.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9064068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9064068)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251710)
(16 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5915737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5915737)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5831512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5831512)
(23 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122409](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5122409)
(8 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2679288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2679288)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2592797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2592797)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2583913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2583913)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515612)
(13 comments)
Anyone care to do the comparison? I wonder how this information is most easily
packaged for use. Is this kind of flowchart really the best way to present it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Capital market analysis app - kausti
Sharing a MVP for visual interactive analytics of capital markets. At the moment it works on most liquid 500 stocks in NSE (National Stock Exchange India) and sector indices published on the exchange.<p>Please visit http://www.nirvana.market/
on a computer preferably as interactive elements don't render too well on mobiles at the moment.<p>I would really appreciate any feedback/suggestions/brickbats.<p>Thank you
======
PaulHoule
The first page loaded super-fast for me, when I went into the "Explore" area I
felt overwhelmed with text that seemed well-written and was meant to be good
documentation and also explain the value proposition but I just wanted to jump
past the tutorial and start analyzing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Make Mistakes in Python (Free EBook) - Garbage
http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/how-to-make-mistakes-in-python.csp
======
maweki
Even here, in a O'Reilly(!) textbook from 2015(!), we get python2.7 advice.
No, since python 3 you (sensibly) can't "True, False = False, True" since True
and False are now keywords and can not occur as a name in any case (not even
an object property).
~~~
ben-schaaf
As much as I like python 3 I don't think it really matters in this case. Other
than the common python pitfalls everyone already knows about, the rest of the
book can be applied to most OOP Language. So its really less python 2.7 advice
and more general programming advice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Gin – Golang Martini-like web framework - manucorporat
http://gin-gonic.github.io/gin/
======
Artemis2
Real-time code reloading from the author of Martini: Gin -
[https://github.com/codegangsta/gin](https://github.com/codegangsta/gin).
Quite an unfortunate choice of name.
~~~
manucorporat
As author of Gin, I like Gin(the drink) and the martini framework, it was a
clear decision to me. I did not know about the existence of codegangsta/gin, I
just discovered it with your comment :) You are right, definitely it was not
the best choice.
~~~
jonalmeida
Maybe he was referring to something like this?
[http://youtu.be/wDIiPIJmXcE](http://youtu.be/wDIiPIJmXcE)
------
im_dario
How does it compare to Negroni + httprouter? I see Gin uses httprouter and I
guess it is the main difference.
Anyway, Gin looks nice too. I like how the routing groups are done.
I used Negroni with httprouter and it is a bliss. Just a note, gin is also a
codegangsta tool to live reload your Martini/Negroni app.
~~~
manucorporat
Of course you could use Negroni with Gin. Anyway, Gin is a full-featured
framework on top of httpRouter, I will explain this later (eventually I would
like to merge both in the future, removing one abstraction layer and tunning
the performance).
Gin is also a better fit for httpRouter, it's not designed to fit any other
framework. I wanted Gin to share the same philosophy than HttpRouter.
Basically the Gin/HttpRouter community cares about performance, so you don't.
For example in Gin, you can created thousands of nested groups and the
performance will be still the same.
Gin is full-featured, to me it means: control flow, middlewares, error
management (errors and panics both), easy rendering, easy validation, easy
data passing between middlewares. For example you can collect errors (not only
panics) and then send them to Sentry easily.
The control flow is interesting: if a middleware calls c.Abort(code) or
c.Fail(code, message), the rest handlers in the chain would never be called,
this is very useful when authorisation is required. [https://github.com/gin-
gonic/gin/blob/master/auth.go#L76](https://github.com/gin-
gonic/gin/blob/master/auth.go#L76)
Of course authorisation can be just applied to a group, you can see example in
the github page. Per-group middlwares and even per-request middlewares!
We added all that features without making it significantly slower (compared to
httprouter) and for sure that overhead will be reduced in upcoming releases
(no API changes). If you want to use HttpRouter and you also want cool
features, in my opinion Gin is one of the best choices. Just try it.
~~~
im_dario
I don't think Negroni and Gin will mix well</pun>
I implemented almost the same features as Negroni's middlewares [0] in my
project (a backend for grassroots referendums). I was even asked to do a
Sentry middleware [1] to improve it.
I would advise you against merging projects. It would be great if you separate
the route grouping code and release it as an independent library to build on
httprouter (even merging them) and keep Gin as it is.
Although, my question was performance-wise because I think Negroni will be
similar in performance.
[0] [https://github.com/imdario/minshu/blob/master/minshu-
server/...](https://github.com/imdario/minshu/blob/master/minshu-
server/http.go) [1]
[https://github.com/imdario/minshu/issues/1](https://github.com/imdario/minshu/issues/1)
------
jrk
Dear god, can we please stop saying "Golang" before it's too late?
~~~
pjmlp
Damage is already done, just look at the comments in every HN discussion
thread.
Apparently people are too lazy to write "Go Programming Language" on their
searches.
------
codegangsta
Looks neat. Very I think it was a smart choice to pick an existing HTTP
router. Like was mentioned above, the name was unfortunately used beforehand.
[https://github.com/codegangsta/gin](https://github.com/codegangsta/gin)
------
jzelinskie
Thank you for your efforts. Some people may be giving you flack for "making
just another Go web framework", but I wouldn't even be looking at a Go web
framework if it was using reflection. Sometimes, you just don't want to pay
the performance tax of reflection. I'd actually reckon that the use of
reflection is a common reason for why you see alternate implementations of
many libraries (i.e. JSON encoders)
------
javierprovecho
Check out some middleware and a benchmark suite test at
[https://github.com/gin-gonic](https://github.com/gin-gonic)
~~~
stock_toaster
Looks like the actual results are not updated/included in the readme though.
~~~
manucorporat
I will ask to the original creator of the benchmark suite to run the tests
again. My development environment is very different, adding the results for
Gin would mean that I should change all the results.
Just a tip, to compare martini with Gin, you can run this:
go test --bench="(Gin|Martini)"
------
chrismorgan
Firefox user. I see the first chart, but all the content sections after that
are blank.
~~~
manucorporat
thank you! I think I fixed it, does it work now?
------
sergiotapia
Looks excellent! I'll be using this for a little API idea I have.
------
brianbarker
Why didn't you just contribute to Martini and fix the parts that sucked? It
just feels odd to me to re-invent a web framework, utilizing the same
interfaces so it's the same to people who use it, yet it's a completely
different code base and project.
It seems you could have just helped codegangsta along instead of "yet another
web framework in Go."
~~~
manucorporat
I can explain that.
First. Martini uses reflection, it's IMPOSSIBLE to make it as fast as Gin
without removing all the reflection. Obviously it would break all the API,
__it would not be Martini anymore __.
Martini is not slow because a bug, it's slow by design.
Second, Gin uses the fastest http router available, HttpRouter. I strongly
believe that people should use HttpRouter, it will work perfect for you unless
you need regex to validate the URL. The problem is that HttpRouter is not
strongly featured, it lacks things like groups, middlwares, error management,
control flow, rendering...
One requirement for my startup was high performance, HttpRouter was the best
choice, we added a very lightweight system on top of it, so developers are
happier.
The final results, from 20x to 40x times the performance.
As I said, if you need performance and productivity Gin is probably a good way
to go :) I hope it was useful.
~~~
brianbarker
That's fair. If the change is too big or you can't agree on the changes,
there's not much to do. It may have still been possible to do a big rework of
Martini or even just deprecate Martini and move to Gin...idk.
I just hate "yet another xxx in yyy" projects, but I'm not downplaying the
work involved.
~~~
elithrar
> It may have still been possible to do a big rework of Martini or even just
> deprecate Martini and move to Gin...idk.
But again, this project (Gin) is completely unrelated to Martini. Martini
itself is not that old; deprecating it would be pretty poor form given that
refactoring your project to work with Gin would be A Big Deal.
If the author had forked Martini your argument would have made more sense, but
we shouldn't be afraid of building something new just because someone else
broke similar ground before.
~~~
brianbarker
Well, this is a tangent anyway. The main point was "why another go web
framework" then he gave a better clarification. As you watch new languages
spread, it's amazing how many web frameworks pop up. It's happening to Go and
Node. I also inferred that Gin intentionally mimicked the Martini API so as to
have a small learning curve and be a potential drop-in replacement.
You say deprecating it is poor form, yet this guy just built a "better"
version of the framework and says we should switch to it. I don't see how
that's any classier than just saying "Martini sucks."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren - abhinav
http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf
======
Jabbles
Launching Gmail on April fools' day was, for me, hilarious. At a time when
Yahoo! and Hotmail were offering 5/2 Mb, Google came out with 1Gb. It was so
obviously an April Fools' joke... but then... wow!
But I can see that from their perspective it caused a lot of confused users -
although it probably kept the story in the news a day longer than it would
have been otherwise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is it a good idea to sell my startup? - gamebak
I have been running my startup for a while, no seed funding and still was able get around ~$500 (ish) monthly profits.<p>Yet I was thinking that if I could sell it I would have more money to start something new plus to help me with my college.<p>I would like an advice from someone with more experience, should I sell my startup and attempt to create something else or focus more on my product?<p>Url: http://skyul.com
======
jpetersonmn
I actually would be in the market for your product. It's not so much the web
design turning me off, it's that a 1 day trial costs me twice as much as it
would to sign up for the service.
$2/day = $60/month.
I would suggest a way to get a free trial, for at least a week that's linked
to a credit card or paypal account or something to keep people from just
signing up for tons of free trials. Kind of like how Netflix or Hulu does it.
------
brokenbeatnik
How many hours a month would it take to run if you weren't focused on
improving the product, just keeping the site running?
If the answer to that is a decent hourly rate, do that and then just start
doing something else.
If it's not, and you aren't able to figure out growth, you may want to shut
the doors, as I think it's not likely that you'll see a lot of buyers looking
for $6K annual revenue, even at high margins.
I'm not that good at marketing either, but I'm having to figure it out. We
programmer types think that "if you build it, they will come", and that a
better mousetrap will trump any need for a sales and marketing strategy beyond
a good checkout page. The truth is, if you don't figure out some of the
marketing basics for yourself, at least enough to know what type of marketing
experts to use, you'll be likely to have the same problems with your next
venture. You might get lucky and stumble into a hot market, but if you don't,
marketing will be the difference between being in the top tier making a double
digit percentage of the available revenue in the market and being an also-ran
making a pittance.
~~~
gamebak
Thank you, this really put me on thinking. The good part is that I always like
to work hard and automate most of my products even if it takes me more time,
and in this case it's ~97% automated. The problem with marketing is that I
couldn't find my buyers when I tested, most of the success was with forums but
at a low volume. So I assumed that I picked the wrong niche where to do
business :)
------
benologist
What have or are you doing to grow that revenue?
If you've done your best and you can't get past that $500 barrier then move
on. But getting from $500 to $5000 should be a shorter path than starting a
new product from nothing.
~~~
gamebak
I tried different approaches but I'm not that good when it comes to marketing.
From what I saw the proxy industry is pretty big with over 1 mil searches
monthly, just that I don't know how to get to my customers. Recently I tried
to get more exposure and it has a slowly growth, but yet I don't feel that I
can get much out of it.
~~~
fractallyte
You could probably secure more customers with a better landing page. It's too
wordy, gramatically awkward, and there are several spelling errors
('ressource' -> 'resource'; 'recieve' -> 'receive'; 'paypal' -> 'PayPal'). The
crucial 'Subscribe' button is semi-transparent, overlaid on a busy background.
The menu is not 'balanced' vertically. Also, I don't particularly like the
name, either; but that's just a random point-of-view.
Basically, considering that you mention the proxy industry is pretty big, your
offering is just not competitive! Yet with a few simple cosmetic changes, the
look (and thus the impact on first-time visitors) could be improved hugely. It
might make all the difference...
------
thenomad
FYI, I'm in the target market for your product and after reading the sales
page, I'm not entirely sure what your product does.
So there may well be some potential improvements to be made there!
~~~
anotheryou
this :)
------
gamebak
Thank you guys for the great feedback, I never considered that my dirt looking
design could be the source of my problems, plus the embarrassing typo errors.
~~~
benologist
I think you're making a mistake writing this off as an issue you can solve by
working more on your website and perhaps most importantly using only your
existing skills that you are comfortable with.
Your design and the improvements and optimizations don't mean anything until
_after_ you find a way to reach your market. If you can't reach your customers
nothing else matters. You have some paying customers so apart from typos your
website is good enough at least for now.
------
mattm
Web apps generally sell for about a year's worth of profits. So you'd probably
get around $6000 if you sold it. Is that worth it to you?
If you are serious about selling, I'm currently looking at acquiring products
in your profit range. Please email me if you'd like to discuss.
------
michaelbuckbee
I took a look at your site and you could probably double signups if you bought
a $20 theme (or even just used default Bootstrap) and fixed the typos.
~~~
gamebak
Thank you, I prepared a new design for my newest product
[http://seo.skyul.com](http://seo.skyul.com) and I will implement that in the
main domain as well and see how people are reacting to it.
~~~
Gustomaximus
Marketing guy here, once cleaned up that will be a massive 'trust'
improvement. Though I'm a little confused, you seem to have a proxy scanner on
one page and a kw tool on the new site... what are you doing? If your focusing
on search volume and KW cost, Google have a very good tool for this so not
sure why I would use you? I cant see a USP.
In general, the new website will help but probably less than most people
think. The most important thing for a product is distribution channels until
they build their own brand. For a product like yours (either) you need to get
a view on what your expected customer life value is, what margin you expect to
retain and then look at distribution channels you can fit. An obvious one is
Adwords. Test using social as a knowledge point. Also look to resell your
product via other seo 'experts' as you might get fast recognition through
this.
I'm not kidding about the distribution focus. As a young marketer I was so
concerned about a perfect website and content. Experience has taught me I will
take a weak product & sale point coupled with good distribution over a great
product/website with weak distribution any-day.
------
rolyatyasmar
How much would you consider selling it for?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Schizophrenic Brains Not Fooled by Optical Illusion - LogicHoleFlaw
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html
======
joe_bleau
Impressive, especially the linked YouTube video. Reminds me a bit of the old
Alan Kay video lecture with the faces and scary inverted mouths. (I can't help
but think of Vanilla Sky when I look at that mask, either.)
------
weaksauce
This actually reminds me of disneyland. In the hallway to get on the haunted
mansion they have these inverted busts that seem to stare at you as you walk
around the room. Interesting effect in person.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
History of the Internet in ship years - zeynel1
Years ago I read about TRIZ in HN. (I couldn't find the article now but it was this article http://www.triz40.com/aff_Principles.htm)<p>The Principle 27 of the 40 principles is "Cheap short-living objects" eg, replace an inexpensive object with a multiple of inexpensive objects, comprising certain qualities (such as service life). This is the philosophy behind Google's building their servers from cheap components and allowing for their failure. I was wondering if with their Russian background Google founders were familiar with TRIZ.<p>Then I thought about another notion of TRIZ: the constants of evolution (or patterns of evolution, as TRIZ calls it). If we can recognize the constant of evolution in two systems we can use the known stages of one system to predict the future stages of the other system.<p>To test this view I compared the history of ships with the history of the Internet. http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/history-of-the-internet-in-ship-years/<p>This is topical because with Google Super Bowl ads it seems that we reached the "cruise ship" consumerism stage of the Internet.<p>Comments are welcome. Thank you.
======
zeynel1
[http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/history-of-the-
inte...](http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/history-of-the-internet-in-
ship-years/)
<http://www.triz40.com/aff_Principles.htm>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Down Argentina Way - phreeza
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/down-argentina-way/
======
pedalpete
I just got back from a trip to Buenos Aires. It's an amazing city, but this
article says absolutely nothing about the growth or stability in that country.
From my understanding (and I didn't dive to deeply into it on my visit), the
current leadership is making moves which are very threatening to long-term
prosperity and stability. As the article mentions, they are nationalizing
industries and restricting imports which is going to set-up walls between them
and other countries. Combing that with aggressive posturing regarding the
Faukland/Malvinas Islands does little to give much confidence in the
opportunities in Argentina.
Just my 2 cents from the little I gained while there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Famed Apple engineer rejected for job at the Genius Bar - Overtonwindow
http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-scheinberg-apple-engineer-rejected-job-apple-store-genius-bar-2016-9?yptr=yahoo?r=UK&IR=T
======
wott
Wrong title. He _was_ rejected.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Feedback on Scribnia - Everest
I am the co-founder of Scribnia, an online community where users can rate and review bloggers, journalists, and other online authors. Our site also allows users to discover new authors. We have an algorithm which provides tailored author recommendation and use AJAX filtering to allow uses to search for authors on criteria specific to that writer. For example, users can filter for a conservative, controversial blogger who writes for political junkies.<p>Our company recently received funding from DreamIt and will be re-locating to Philadelphia for the summer. We just launched our alpha version and we would appreciate commentary from the HN community. Since our site is in private alpha, please leave an email address and we will send an invitation. Sorry about having a password protected site, we wanted to get feedback before launching our commercial version.
======
systemtrigger
I think the reason your post isn't getting traction is that you don't have
anything to show us unless we leave our email addresses for you here in the
open. Maybe you should leave your email address and let us privately contact
you.
I signed up for an alpha account a few minutes ago. If I hear back from you
I'll check out your app.
~~~
Everest
Hi, I hope that you received an alpha email. If not, please send me an email
at Russpd@gmail.com and I can send you an alpha invite to your email address.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts, sorry for not making the sign in
process more clear.
------
kbrower
<http://scribnia.com/>
~~~
kbrower
I have firefox 3 but my user-agent but it warned me my browser was not
compatible. Very clean design, would love if it was easier to rate people and
get recommendations. I don't want to comment on everyone I rate. Users tab
probably will not always == profile page, but for now thats confusing. 404
responses from <http://scribnia.com/css/register.css> and
<http://scribnia.com/css/style.css>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Proving our universe is one among many would be a fourth Copernican revolution - pseudolus
http://nautil.us/issue/64/the-unseen/the-fourth-copernican-revolution
======
lisper
> We can only see a finite volume—a finite number of galaxies. That’s
> essentially because there’s a horizon, a shell around us, delineating the
> greatest distance from which light can reach us. But that shell has no more
> physical significance than the circle that delineates your horizon if you’re
> in the middle of the ocean.
No, that's not true. You can rise above the surface of the ocean. Barring some
major unforeseen revolution in our understanding of physics, you cannot
transmit information faster than light. The oceans horizon is grounded in a
technological limit, but the cosmological horizon is grounded in a fundamental
physical limit.
~~~
btilly
According to current cosmological thought, the laws of physics at that shell
are very close to if not identical to the laws of physics here. And yet, that
shell is retreating from us faster than the speed of light. The shell is ever
expanding, but we shall never see what that current shell will look like when
it is 10 billion years.
How can that be, you ask? It is quite simple. The speed of light is a limit on
how fast light can travel through the universe. But the universe is expanding.
Light trying to get to us is like a bug crawling over an expanding balloon. If
the balloon is expanding faster than the bug is crawling, it can crawl forever
but never reach the point it is trying to crawl to.
So there is a fundamental epistemological limit - we can't actually _know_
that our current models are correct. But within existing theory, the location
of "the farthest we can see" is not particularly meaningful physically.
~~~
lisper
> within existing theory, the location of "the farthest we can see" is not
> particularly meaningful physically
Except that you can always put a finite upper bound on that distance. That is
what matters with regards to the topic under discussion.
~~~
btilly
Which means that it is exactly as meaningful as the event horizon of a black
hole. The last point where the external observer (ie us) can see what happens.
But in a different coordinate system, not particularly special at all.
~~~
lisper
Yes, that's right. Different observers have different light cones. Yours is a
little different from mine. But that is missing the point, which is that every
observer _has_ a light cone beyond which they cannot see -- not even by
collaborating with other observers with different light cones.
------
excalibur
> At first sight, the concept of parallel universes might seem too arcane to
> have any practical impact. But it may (in one of its variants) actually
> offer the prospect of an entirely new kind of computer: the quantum
> computer, which can transcend the limits of even the fastest digital
> processor by, in effect, sharing the computational burden among a near
> infinity of parallel universes.
I'm far from an expert on quantum computing, but this seems inaccurate to me.
There may be an explanation for a quantum computer's operation that invokes
parallel universes, but I don't believe that they are actually required for
the systems to function. Quantum mechanics is sufficient.
~~~
jbattle
Similarly, by the copernican principle, wouldn't our "local" quantum computer
also then be burdened by the work being sent from a near infinity of parallel
universes?
~~~
tvmalsv
I would say "yes" to that. But fortunately, with the load being so widely
distributed, the load on our "local" quantum computers would effectively be
zero (ie. x/inf). Unless, of course, our universe is the oddball and most
others are running at full capacity. That's a depressing possibility.
~~~
dsp1234
The load could be zero, it could be infinite, or anywhere in between. Infinite
universes sending infinite work is inf/inf. It's not possible to know if
that's going to tend towards something like 0 or something like positive
infinity without having some way to measure. But it's an error to just assume
it's zero.
~~~
tvmalsv
I completely agree. I was thinking it highly unlikely that other universes
would be operating at full efficiency, so the average would more on the zero
side. But, yeah, that's not how infinities work I suppose :) Still, I'm
enjoying thinking about it.
------
lucas_membrane
> if the universe stretches far enough, everything could happen <
The article says this. Is this an assertion that the number of things that
could happen is finite, or is it an assertion that the number of elements in
one infinite set is greater than or equal to the number in another infinite
set? Which infinity is equal to the number of things that could happen? How
many dimensions would the universe need so that the number of things that
would happen in it would equal the number of things that could happen in the
most inclusive case?
~~~
Phrodo_00
It's also not such an easy assertion to make, distribution of things that
could happen matters, and there could be events with 0% probability.
------
mortenjorck
_> “The long-term future probably lies with electronic rather than organic
‘life.’”_
I guess this is the standard transhumanist position, but it strikes me as both
pessimistic and overconfident. Pessimistic because it doesn’t see the life
that arose against all odds on this rock as fit for or worthy of continuation
on a solar timescale, and overconfident in its implication that we will
inevitably create something in our image that will succeed us.
------
hprotagonist
The middle of the article reminded me of Asimov:
_The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21,
2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came
about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this
way..._
[http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html](http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)
~~~
kurthr
It always interested me that this could be Asimov's (1956) response to Arthur
C Clarke's (1953), 9 Billion Names of God, where the stars went out.
~~~
lioeters
Your comment led me to search for the latter title, if I could read it online.
Instead, I found the following project.
[http://ninebillionnamesofgod.com/index.html](http://ninebillionnamesofgod.com/index.html)
------
qubax
What exactly would be "copernican" about it? Also 3 of the 4 "copernican"
revolutions outlined have nothing to do with copernics. Even copernicus's
"revolution" was just a rehash of ancient greek idea of heliocentrism (
aristarchus of samos ).
------
jvanderbot
What a mess this article is.
------
yters
Proving our multiverse is one among many will be the fifth Copernican
revolution. Proving this sequence of Copernican revolutions is one among many
will be the aleph one Copernican revolution.
~~~
davesque
I think it would be the aleph naught revolution, no? :)
------
prmph
> if the universe stretches far enough, everything could happen
This means, I presume, that in an alternative universe, children-like
creatures are being boiled alive forever with no hope of dying (since they are
immortal), there exists creatures being tortured alive forever, although they
have evolved to be a million times more sensitive to pain, and a God-like
being exists... the possibilities are truly endless.
~~~
_emacsomancer_
If other universe contain all logical possibilities, then yes. David Lewis
talks about this and points out the moral issue is that even if you choose to
do good things in this universe, in some universe your alternate is a
psychopathic torturer, so decisions to do good don't actually lessen universal
suffering, if calculated across all alternate universes. I think his
conclusion was that it's still desirable to locally decrease suffering anyway.
~~~
prmph
But, apart from the moral absurdities, there are logical inconsistencies.
In a certain universe, there will exist a God capable of influencing all other
universes, and thus constraining the set of possibilities, no?
~~~
tdfx
The gods are sandboxed, so unless they've discovered an escalation
vulnerability in the multiverse substrate, they can execute any permutation of
possible behavior but never affect the lower layer. If that happens, it's back
to "turtles all the way down" as we then try to figure out what's running the
multiverse VM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: What is the end game for cryptocurrency? - S_A_P
As crypto starts to enter the mainstream consciousness, Im curious what the killer app or utility crypto currency will provide? Aside from the theoretical, what is the end game of crypto? Is it just an elaborate digital pyramid scheme? Is there some near term utility that could be derived from crypto? Is this really just going to end up being a way to semi anonymously send payment for legal gray area goods and services? I see several barriers to widespread adoption:
1) Governments cannot universally agree how to treat it
2) Its still hugely volitile
3) It is able to be manipulated with both FUD and outright misinformation
4) probably a dozen other things.<p>I would like to hear objective discussion around this, and just curious what some of the better minds that lurk on HN have to think about this.
======
tboyd47
The end game for cryptocurrency has already been achieved, which is for
significant monetary value to be attached to it. That alone is a preposterous
idea that has nevertheless become a reality.
The question now is how much value? And that depends only on what the wealthy
people of the world decide to do. Do they keep it as a risky speculation game,
or a capital flight escape hatch? Or do they build it into the global economy
on a more permanent basis? Only time will tell.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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White House will not sign on to Christchurch call to stamp out online extremism - hirundo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/15/white-house-will-not-sign-christchurch-pact-stamp-out-online-extremism-amid-free-speech-concerns/
======
bediger4000
From the article: "U.S. concerns that it clashes with constitutional
protections for free speech". That's a good thing to hear from any White House
spox.
It's too bad that journalism doesn't espouse including any context around what
government spoxpeople say. It would be interesting to see some kind of stats
around citing free speech concerns, and around waving off others' free speech
concerns. That sort of context would help all of us understand a lot of what
any government's spoxpeople say. Concerns that some might have, like "they're
just citing free speech because it's convenient" could be immediately
dispelled. Other times some government's use of a general principle ("small
government", "individual freedom", "freedom of association") could be seen as
cynical exploitation, and we could all evaluate the current situation more
intelligently.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bracketed paste mode - falava
http://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste
======
gjmulhol
Does this work otuside the terminal in interefaces like browser windows? I
could imagine a case where it makes sense for security purposes to not allow
pasting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Announcing React Native 0.60 - stablemap
https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/2019/07/03/version-60
======
mrlambchop
Expo released their support web (still in beta) at the start of the month,
bringing react native + API extensions to iOS/Android + web.
[https://blog.expo.io/expo-sdk-v33-0-0-is-now-
available-52d1c...](https://blog.expo.io/expo-sdk-v33-0-0-is-now-
available-52d1c99dfe4c)
Ignoring the user interface, having a single JS codebase for APIs, business
logic and unit tests is pretty darn exciting IMO, especially with typescript
support.
~~~
The_rationalist
What added value does react native has over Ionic and the likes?
~~~
tomduncalf
Uses the real native UI components so you get the look, feel and performance
of native UI instead of HTML recreations
~~~
la_fayette
Performance is not true, if measured in terms of cpu! See e.g.:
[http://www.insticc.org/node/TechnicalProgram/icsoft/presenta...](http://www.insticc.org/node/TechnicalProgram/icsoft/presentationDetails/78380)
------
matchbok
Great work, however I think RN will always remain a tool for experiments and
toys. I now had to migrate two RN projects to native because of the many
issues we encountered. The promise of "write JS, deploy anywhere easily" will
never be true given how complex both iOS and Android deployment is.
Plus, javascript.
------
MuffinFlavored
It isn't possible to write React once, and test it on all platforms, right?
(iOS + Android + web)
Why doesn't the React team do an official release of
[https://github.com/necolas/react-native-
web](https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web) instead of leaving it on the
community to support?
~~~
lacker
That isn’t really how the React team operates. They are more about providing a
small well-functioning core and letting things like react-native-web and redux
be independent libraries. The things that go into React itself and are
supported by the core team are generally the things that wouldn’t work
anywhere else.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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UBiome (YC S14) Raises $4.5M to Crowdsource Microbiome Research - katm
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/ubiome-raises-4-5m-from-angel-investors-andreessen-horowitz-to-crowdsource-microbiome-research/
======
untilHellbanned
This is similar to 23andMe in that lots of people can obtain this type of
genomic data. I know how to PCR your poop and can do it for less than $89.
Alternatively I can happily teach you how to do it in less than one hour for
free. The MAJOR issue that nobody has any real answers for what to do with all
this information. That simple fact is always neglected in all these "we can
analyze your genome and will change the world!" types of stories.
------
jessicarichman
I'm Jessica Richman, Co-Founder and CEO, happy to answer any questions!
~~~
fractallyte
Isn't there a close relationship between the human microbiome and the local
environmental microbiome?
If so, wouldn't the data be more meaningful if local soil, air, and water
samples were also included; or is that just too complex?
------
goodJobWalrus
So, I should pay them to have my data in order to sell it.
~~~
jessicarichman
We don't sell the data. It's used to generate better results for our users.
You can also just download your own data if you prefer and it won't become
part of our dataset.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Anyone else still using RSS? - jetgirl
https://jetgirl.art/2019/07/21/rss-is-better-than-reddit-twitter-and-email-subscriptions-for-updates/
======
AdamGibbins
Yes, heavily. If your blog doesn't have an RSS feed, I won't read it. NewsBlur
is incredibly powerful and makes filtering 100s/1000s of feeds easy.
~~~
mcgrath_sh
Agree. I no longer read Players Tribune because they killed their RSS feed.
Several teams I follow don’t have an RSS feed, therefore, I don’t get news
from the official team sites. I don’t even care if the RSS feed makes me click
through. Give me a title, the first sentence, and tags. Then I can filter and
click through as I like.
------
mguerville
Yes, 300+ feeds in Feedly (pro account with some "mute" filters)
------
NicoJuicy
Yeah, by handlr.sapico.me
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kill Your Dependencies - StreamBright
http://www.mikeperham.com/2016/02/09/kill-your-dependencies/
======
creshal
> Can I implement the required minimial functionality myself? Own it.
And now _you_ are responsible for tracking down and fixing every single bug
and security weakness in it. You and every other developer needing the
functionality.
Dependencies are used for a reason. Usually.
~~~
EvanPlaice
Exactly.
If you can't handle tracking external dependencies that come with battle
tested code and relatively well-defined APIs. What makes you think you can do
better by recreating all the same functionality as internal dependencies.
Unless you have a glut of excess code monkeys to throw at solving problems
that already have existing solutions, eliminating dependencies for the sake of
reducing complexity is a lost cause.
OTOH, if your goal is to reduce dependency duplication. The problem isn't the
code, it's the poor quality package manager you're using. Lately, package
managers are switching to flat dependency structures because they solve this
exact issue.
If you're worried about managing the uncertainty that comes with dependency
updates, lock in the version numbers and shrinkwrap the dependencies.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did Functional Programming get it wrong? - bhoggard
https://medium.com/@reinman/monoids-to-groupoids-492c35105113
======
sevensor
Despite traces of interesting ideas -- spreadsheets are underappreciated, so
is Multics -- this article is full of hot air. It implicitly equates Haskell
with functional programming. It hypes HOTT but doesn't explain. It bashes West
Coast programming culture for being short sighted and money hungry, while
praising the finance industry. (Who are never short sighted or money hungry?)
Worst of all, it name-checks a bunch of category theory lingo but doesn't do
anything with it besides try to look smart.
Actually, the worst thing about this article isn't the hot air. The worst
thing is that I think I would agree with it, if it had ever managed to get to
the point.
~~~
reinman
The reason that monads don't need to explicitly show up in an article about
monads is because they are the same manifold as the subject line. For the same
reason, people don't use the suffix "set" or "collection" when designing a
relational database schema. If you are already in the manifold, it makes no
sense to call it out separately (e.g. Russell's paradox)
------
ilimilku
This rather scattered and jargon-laden article seems to be pointing out the
differences between the lambda calculus (stateless) and the Turing machine
(stateful), which, while computationally equivalent, are not formally
equivalent (pardon me if I get the verbiage wrong as I am not a
mathematician). While the hardware architecture is essentially a Turing
machine and thus stateful, the lambda calculus cannot be mapped onto it
without somehow extracting state. In my (rather simple) mind, this shouldn't
be a problem if functional programs are not used to do things that they were
never intended to do in the first place. If you are trying to use Haskell to
do stateful jobs like UI or DB management, you are probably using the wrong
tool. Use Java or some other OOP language. Use your FP languages for
middleware services that take an input and give an output that can be consumed
by whatever is consuming the service. And guess what, the enterprise is
already build that way.
~~~
ilimilku
The other thing this article seems to miss is the level of abstraction at
which FP applications need to live. At the OS level, where state is being
managed, using FP would be insane. I don't think anyone really would want to
do that. The UNIX philosophy of piping along a stream, while it may have
something in common with FP, it still exists at a higher level of abstraction
than the kernel, which is still a giant, complex Turing machine.
~~~
reinman
The top-level FP CLI is unsafe for exactly that reason
[http://okmij.org/ftp/Computation/monadic-
shell.html](http://okmij.org/ftp/Computation/monadic-shell.html)
------
otabdeveloper1
> For example, why don’t operating systems support native JSON or SQL by now?
Because the job of the OS is to manage computer hardware resources.
'JSON' and 'SQL' (whatever that means) are not hardware resources.
Next stupid article, please. This one is broken.
~~~
reinman
Managing for whom? Is that a resource optimization problem? What if I use a
control monad that does the same thing? If TF finds the shortest path for a
computation does that make it an OS according to your definition ?
JSON and SQL are closer to preimages of data and computation manifolds
respectively that are projected (or fibrated) via Kan
------
lame88
I checked out this and the some of the author's other posts. A lot of
complaints here in the thread are valid and pretty consistent through their
articles. However even though the ideas are scattered and loose and they're
trying to market their product, there was a lot of interesting food for
thought - it helped that I've spent some time studying FP. I also feel that
operating systems have been stagnant for a long time. Yes, the OS should
manage hardware and resources, but also the OS is a platform on which other
things are built. The platform part is mainly what has felt quite stagnant and
perhaps more layers of systems on top (JVM, containers, etc.) might not be the
best answer. Adding a layer on top has the benefit of compatibility and
reliability that the layer below provides, but layers also compound
constraints, possibly sticking us with local maxima.
------
bollu
I don't understand what this article is trying to say. The snippets of
category theory just seem to be technobabble: While they are all
"mathematically true" (upto a generous reading), they don't really "make
sense". It reads like the output of a well trained statistical/neural language
model on the #haskell IRC channel.
For example:
> The act of “unbundling” functions (lambdas) from their traditional
> containers is really what Serverless and the Functional Programming
> movements are trying to do
I have no idea where the author got this impression about the functional
programming movement (insofar as such a thing exists) is trying to do. For a
reasoned view on functional programming, check "Why functional programming
matters"
> In FP, you are either writing functions or doing something else (like gluing
> or wiring functions together). Simply put, a monad is an industry-generic
> term for that “something else”.
That is meaningless. A monad is a precisely defined mathematical object in
category theory.
> Technically, monads are instances of special ‘containers’ called monoids
> (sets) that manage the above activities.
This part of the article manages to completely misunderstand or misrepresent
what monoids are. They are not just "sets", they are sets with additional
structure on them.
> Incidentally, the most troublesome spot for both OO and FP has been homotopy
> type theory, which is similar to the debate over the mutant creatures that
> emerge from relational joins
Uhh, no? HOTT does not come from relational joins, it comes from a desire for
a constructive viewpoint of mathematics in which one can encode proofs well,
so we can check proofs on our computers.
> .. databases and programming _will_ converge — and something called the
> Curry-Howard correspondence suggests we cannot ignore this forever.
I don't understand what this is trying to say, but on a simple reading, this
is blatantly false. While curry howard provides a way to connect proofs in
proof systems to lambda calculus, _(relational) databases don't use lambda
calculus_. Instead, they're based on (surprise surprise) relational algebra,
for which I don't know of a curry howard style analogue.
> Meanwhile, the geometry community will talk in terms of topos, sheaves and
> data (note how a spreadsheet is sorta both code and data at the same time).
Wow, that is _such_ a misrepresentation of how mathematicians use "data". The
word "data" is usually meant to encode "some structure owned by the
mathematical object". One often reads sentences like "the galois group encodes
data about the field", the "data" is not the "dual of code" or some such
nonsense.
> That’s probably why applying algebraic “lambda calculus” to geometric
> problems (remember XML?) tends to be a rather unpleasant programming
> endeavor.
Why is XML geometric? What is this guy talking about? Can he even define a
category? (Forget a topos)
> Vendor software is often needed to establish a “standard” way to assign
> names to lambdas so we can find them. Mathematically speaking, this is the
> job of homotopy. On the other side of the Yoneda “tunnel” we find something
> called an Eilenberg-Moore (EM) category (technically the flip side of
> Kleisli) and other alluring blobs like Serre subcategories and Segal spaces.
> None of which get much play in computer science.
Thi is once again, meaningless. Homotopy is a geometric idea about
deformations, which in homotopy type theory gets utilized to define equality.
But again, this has nothing to do with naming!
Also, elinberg-moore and kleisli categories are very well known. Open any
category theory text, this will a part of the adjoints chapter. Indeed, you
can search on hackage and find packages for it:
[https://hackage.haskell.org/package/streaming-0.2.2.0/docs/S...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/streaming-0.2.2.0/docs/Streaming-
Internal.html) for example.
> In category theory, we call these “adjoints”, as in “joins”. If you ask the
> memoization crowd they sometimes actually do think in terms of SQL joins. In
> the database world, this is like joining keys of a schema.
What? Adjoints are not about joins. They are kind of generalization of
inverses. Once again, this just reads like technobabble
> Haskell devs have to manually tinker with adjunctions and monads because in-
> memory data support is pretty dumb
What in memory support? What do monads have to do with anything in memory?
Monads are a structure that we use to structure code, it has nothing directly
to do with "memory data support" or whatever this guy is on about.
> If we follow Yoneda and accept that topology (geometry) and algebra are two
> different worlds, then we can “attach” functions to the fabric (geometry).
> But in a “serverless” world, what is this fabric?
What in the world is he on? How does Yoneda (where I presume he is referring
to the Yoneda lemma) say this? Also, more importantly, much of Category theory
exists to explore the _duality_ between algebra and geometry, it says nothing
about them being "two different worlds". The very existence of Algebraic
Topology means that geometry and algebra are married to each other --- not to
mention the other objects mentioned in the technobabble above (topoi,
grothendeick categories) arose from Algebraic Geometry, which, guess what,
combines geometry and algebra...
At any rate, the entire point of the post is to sell their "Multix 2":
[https://www.codecraft.ai/](https://www.codecraft.ai/)
From this post, I have lost all confidence in whatever it is they are
building...
~~~
reinman
\- If you are confused, it is probably because FP languages are really only
half the story of CT
\- Adjoints are all about joining things hence the name; much like chasing
dependencies (arrows) between cells in a spreadsheet and then going back to
the relational database where the sheet was extracted from. You have
seamlessly jumped from algebraic morphisms to geometry without even thinking
about it
\- Homotopy is about finding "paths" between things and therefore imply some
relative naming (coordinate) scheme is possible. The segments of a path arise
due to torsors. Hence homotopy is associated with paths. UNIX paths and URLs
come to mind
~~~
bollu
\- Adjoints as far as I understand are not about joining things, adjoints are
about a generalization of inverses. Can you formally (and I mean
mathematically) define what this intuition you have about adjoints ~= "joining
things"? Also, the word "adjoint" does not come from "join". It comes from
"adjoint" in the theory of complex operators:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjoint_functors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjoint_functors)
\- Homotopy is not about finding paths, it is an equvalence relation _between
paths_. a path is _homotopic_ to another. Homotopy is also a _continuous
object_, unlike torsors, which are discrete objects (a continuous torsor is an
affine space).
So, while UNIX paths and URLs are "paths" in the sense of torsors, they have
_nothing_ to do with homotopy (as it is classically defined). Unless you are
using some weakened notion of homotopy that I am unaware of, in which case I'd
love links.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can you teach a man to fish who doesn't want to learn? - travisro
http://travisrobertson.com/leadership/can-you-teach-a-man-to-fish-who-doesnt-want-to-learn/
======
jmount
Don't click on link- page hijacking overlays.
~~~
travisro
My apologies for offending you with my "hijacking overlay." It's been turned
off. I'm quite new to the HN community and didn't realize this was a problem
for a legitimate site to have.
Regards, Travis
~~~
jmount
I don't think it is policy (I don't speak for HN)- but I find it really
irritating. Thank you for turning it off. I hope people enjoy your article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Suggestions for writing a new compiler? - chm
I am a chemistry grad student and will be attending a graduate course in CS at my university in the coming weeks. The course is called "Programming languages and compilers" and its goal is to teach students about compilers by making them write one.<p>As I have never ventured into the world of compilers, I'm a bit lost as to where to start. I'm familiar with C, Python, HTML, Mathematica, FORTRAN 77, all of which I've used at different times and for different purposes, but haven't mastered any of them.<p>We (teams of 2) have the choice of either adding functionality to an existing compiler (suggestions include Gambit-C, Pascal-S, Tiny C, Small C) or write our own for any language or a subset thereof. If we choose to write our own compiler, it has to be written in Scheme, unless it can compile itself, in which case we can write it in any language. Coincidentally, I have begun reading Practical Common Lisp [0] last month and enjoy it.<p>The suggested textbook is "A. Appel, Modern compiler implementation in Java/ML/C". Other suggested readings are by Paul Graham.<p>Now my questions are:<p>1) Should I write my own compiler or extend an existing one?<p>2) Should I write a self-compiling compiler?<p>3) What language should I try to compile?<p>4) What books/resources will be helpful?<p>I'm asking these questions because I want to get the most out of this class. I think it's a great opportunity but that I could easily get lost. Almost everything written in the course plan I had heard of or read somewhere, so I am not <i>completely</i> out of the game.<p>Thanks in advance.<p>[0]http://gigamonkeys.com/book/
======
Turing_Machine
If you decide to go with something in the Lisp/Scheme spectrum, you might find
the book Lisp in Small Pieces to be helpful.
If you decide to go with a non-Lisp language: are you allowed to use tools
like bison/yacc and lex/flex (or analogs for non-C languages)? Those can cut
down the amount of work by _a lot_. Making it self-hosting over the course of
semester is still going to be challenging, I think, especially if you have no
previous background in compilers and/or low-level code (there are a lot of
other issues there, such as the need to write or otherwise obtain an I/O
library).
If it were me, starting from ground zero, I'd either go with extending an
existing compiler or writing something in Scheme.
~~~
soegaard
"Lisp in Small Pieces" is _very_ well-written. It will teach you a lot about
how to compile (subsets) of Scheme.
If you decide to compile a Pascal-like language, I can't recommend "Brinch
Hansen on Pascal Compilers" enough. If I remember correctly the Pascal
compiler described in the book can compile itself.
------
inetsee
I don't know whether this would qualify for your class, but the Racket
documentation includes an implementation of Algol-60 "[http://docs.racket-
lang.org/algol60/"](http://docs.racket-lang.org/algol60/"). You might be able
to use this as the starting point of an implementation of another language,
maybe a subset of Algol-68, or Simula.
Algol-60 was the first programming I learned, and I've always been fascinated
by Algol and the languages derived from it.
------
AnimalMuppet
It seems to me that "can compile itself" is going to be extra work. That is:
You specify a language. You write a compiler for that language in that
language. But you can't compile the compiler, since you don't have the
compiler yet. So you have to write the compiler in some _other_ language that
already has a compiler.
Note that this does not apply if you are writing something like a C compiler,
because there are already C compilers out there.
------
marktangotango
That's really interesting, given your Chemistry focus, what has motivated you
to undertake this course? The requirement to write it in Scheme seems a bit
onerous to someone who's never used Scheme. Given that, it would probably
still be easier than extending an existing compler. I think you'd spend A LOT
of time learning some ones design and coding practices.
I always point people at this article. It's a nice short synapsis similar to
Crenshaws "Let's Build a Compiler" series only much shorter in length. Plus
it's Python, so may give you some ideas for Scheme:
[http://www.jroller.com/languages/entry/python_writing_a_comp...](http://www.jroller.com/languages/entry/python_writing_a_compiler_and)
~~~
chm
I (try my best to) do research in molecular electronics. I need to write
software to perform calculations. The reason I chose this particular course is
simple: I have no other choice. Either I already have taken the other
available classes or they aren't given in winter. My department doesn't offer
many graduate computational chemistry courses. Thanks!
------
X4
This can be of help:
1)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_compiler_constructio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_compiler_construction)
2)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Compiler_construction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Compiler_construction)
3) CC500: a tiny self-hosting C compiler:
[http://homepage.ntlworld.com/edmund.grimley-
evans/cc500/](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/edmund.grimley-evans/cc500/)
------
porlw
Regarding 3, I would consider compiling a simple lisp - if you're coding in
scheme that will take care of the parsing, so you can concentrate on the code
generation side.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Payments on the Solid Framework - jmunsch
https://docs.solidpay.org/
======
ryanjshaw
Okay I'll bite. I've worked in both retail and corporate banking for over a
decade. I've been responsible for software that processes large payments and
receipts daily. I've cloned a few cryptocurrencies for fun and have a pretty
good understanding of them. I cannot understand anything on this entire site.
Does anybody know what this is all about?
~~~
apo
I've studied Bitcoin for many years on a technical level. I've studied altcoin
and ICO scams from the beginning. This site has all the hallmarks of a
technology scam.
Case in point: nowhere does this site articulate a problem to be solved. This
has become my litmus test for a technology scam. Instead we see marketing
happy talk - lots of it.
Most ICO and altcoin scams make vague references to Bitcoin's limitations.
This one makes vague references to Lightning Network's limitations:
_Layer 2 such as lightning network has a deposit in order to participate and
two transactions to build a channel, then can scale micro payments across a
network efficiently._
Gobbledygook designed to bamboozle the technically illiterate.
Looks like another rung has been added to the evolutionary ladder of the
Bitcoin, But Better scam. First altcoins, then ICOs, now not-Lightning.
~~~
pwaai
helps to flag if you find shady submissions
------
Renaud
The solid infrastructure looks promising to me. Based on the other submission
today on Solid[1], there are varying opinions on whether it will take off and
really be able to challenge the big social media.
However, I think we _need to want_ this to succeed, even if there are other
ideas of what decentralised architectures should look like.
It may not be the best system to everyone, but it has some clout with Tim
Berners-Lee behind it and its architecture and capabilities can -and will-
evolve. It looks to me like our best chance to start 'disrupting' the current
status-quo, even if it flies under the radar for a while.
I can imagine an Instagram-like app that would let me import a take-out
archive from my Instagram account and just let me continue where I left off.
Maybe I would need to rebuild a user-base, but that's OK, there would be new
people on that platform and and more control over what I want to see, rather
than some ad-optimized algorithm deciding for me.
A payment systems built on top could allow direct monetisation for content-
creators without having to go through a 3rd party that enforces arbitrary
rules over what content gets and doesn't get monetized.
[1]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100895)
~~~
eksemplar
Disruption is driven by need though. Uber succeeded because traditional cab
companies suck. I can’t remember when people weren’t complaining about cabs,
even before the internet, and Uber came and removed almost all of the
annoyances. Sure they were bad for labour, but for the customers it made
sense.
I’ve never seen anyone complain about Instagram or visa. How can you disrupt
services that people love?
I mean, it should be obvious by now that almost nobody cares about privacy.
~~~
fastball
Literally everyone that has interacted with the financial sector has
complained about the financial sector at some point.
Person-to-person settlement is a stepping stone on the way to a better
financial/banking system.
~~~
eksemplar
We already have person-to-person payment apps that work instantly and feeless
though, at least in my country we do. They were made by banks.
------
jarym
2nd solid post today and despite being familiar with the concepts I don’t
understand any of the detail.
Marketing spiel is fine but somewhere concrete details need to be provided
without the BS. Very disappointing that Tim Berners-Lee would be associated
with something so poorly expressed.
~~~
j45
In the case of SOLID, I'd probably cut the guy who started the web some more
slack than a cursory glance at the work and determine if I can't immediately
understand it - there can't be any understanding or value in it.
Some things that take years to design and put together, might take a while for
all of us to catch up to.
I hope examples continue to come out, but more importantly, those who develop
can spend some time to hack with it. Maybe some brains are seeing this that
are primarily wired to work and understand through a lens of front end, or
back-end development, where but Tim Berner-Lees like lots of other devs here
is used to end-to-end.
It seemed pretty simple to me, and pretty simple to follow along with. If
we're looking for something shiny, the web wasn't shiny on day 1.
~~~
Aeolun
Every single user story on that website uses concepts that make absolutely no
sense to me. And I’m a power user.
If you can’t make it understandable to me. I just don’t believe that you’ll
ever get anyone to use it.
~~~
j45
I don't disagree that it could be easier to understand.
My point is presentation doesn't wipe out the initial or potential long term
relevance of the tech, only accessibility and approachability to create
beginners. Bitcoin comes to mind.
Maybe some experienced power users helping tell some more stories.
------
sunseb
The web 1.0 was a success because it was simple. I don’t understand anything
about Solid.
~~~
GordonS
You probably would if the Solid websites actually explained anything about how
it works, rather than being filled with ridiculous marketing speak. I'm
honestly really disappointed that TBL is obviously OK with this.
------
gilbertmpanga12
Read about Solid yesterday and was super fascinated by the idea of Pods and
since am solving a payment solution, I saw it would be a kickass solution for
payments.Now solidPay is out but sadly it's confusing, how do I begin
implementing it
~~~
stephengillie
You get some Bitcoin and send it to a URL, then it will be in your wallet, or
so we hope.
Some parts are incomplete. This service isn't ready. From the Paywall page:
> _Process
This is a work in progress_
------
datavirtue
[https://solid.mit.edu](https://solid.mit.edu)
------
z3t4
One of the basic ideas of a ledger is that once a transaction has been added,
it can not be removed or changed.
------
simonmorley
No https redirect on signup or login. That worries me.
~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Where are you seeing a signup/login? I'm only seeing the documentation (maybe
one of my plugins is blocking something?).
------
etaioinshrdlu
It is pretty interesting and kinda disappointing to see renowned tech
luminaries hopping on the hype train left and right.
~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Or maybe there's something to it, and it's still being worked on?
I have no opinion either way on Solid (yet), but the comments on these
submissions seem extremely critical considering they're still rolling it out
and it's a work in progress.
When I read the OP link above, and the other submission today, I just see an
early-stage project that is still being actively developed, no different to
thousands of other projects posted on HN.
I do think their marketing/buzzword approach to be a bit "thick", but that
could also be said about 90% of HN-loved products/services.
~~~
nulbyte
> ...but the comments on these submissions seem extremely critical...
I think there are very good reasons for the critical commentary. Tim Berners-
Lee made the comment recently that it took 15 years for us to get "here,"
where here seems to be a bunch of handwavey marketing fluff and broken demos.
I am going to take what he says and believe he meant that the broken demos
were built upon 15 years of prior work on bits and pieces that no one put
together until recently; at least that is slightly more palatable. But Solid
Pay suffers even more from the handwavey marketing fluff, because its
handwavey marketing fluff relies on Solid's handwavey marketing fluff.
> Solid builds on 30 years of Web research and development. It has a cutting
> edge semantic layer with proven scalability...
Since when has Solid proven its scalability? The demos don't even work. Even
if it overcomes the infirm state of Solid, it then suffers from the apparent
fact that while Solid Pay is intended to interact with the existing monetary
infrastructure, no one working on Solid Pay seems to understand that
infrastructure. In Solid Pay, a Credit increases your balance; but everywhere
else, a credit decreases it. This sounds simple, but if you mess up simple, I
fear for the complicated bits will be worse.
There are real problems here, and we can't just hope they go away; we must be
critical of them or else we risk dealing with them for quite some time should
these systems actually materialize.
------
simonmorley
Oh and ‘add your producst’. I’m out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WBC to Picket Aaron Swartz's Funeral, Anonymous to Counter - eeirinberg
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/technology/anonymous-plans-defend-aaron-swartzs-funeral-westboro-baptist-church-protests
======
tptacek
Although I may be depriving you of the humor value of reading a press release
that I swear to God reads for all the world like the product of a markov
generator I- kid- you- not, I flagged this post, because the WBC is trolling
you; that's what they are, a troll church.
------
aidenn0
This sounds as good an idea as hiring Hell's Angels as security for a concert.
------
gburt
I don't understand why? I mean, other than WBC being a bunch of trolls.
~~~
danielweber
This is _exactly_ what they do.
Their entire M.O. is to get people really really mad, and then get assaulted,
and then sue. They are literally a family of lawyers.
If you decide to "take one for the team" by attacking WBC, you are enabling
them. They live off of that.
Ignore them. Completely.
------
OGinparadise
So what? Freedom of speech and all.
Ignore them and they will go away. That's the best medicine for them
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Xkcd: Orbital Mechanics - ColinWright
https://xkcd.com/1356/
======
stevep98
There is a lot of opportunity to explain engineering concepts through gaming.
Especially training users in intuition, and in the applications of math.
Calculus and trigonometry have tons of applications in aiming mortars!
~~~
HNLurker2
Too bad I can't afford a gaming PC to play KSP.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New book on female advancement from founder of Girls Who Code - acjohnson55
http://www.womenwhodontwaitinline.com/
======
acjohnson55
I don't expect this will get much attention around here, but I just got a mass
mail from Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and recent primary
candidate for NYC Public Advocate, about the book she wrote. I just felt it
was timely given the periodic flareups of debate on gender and technology on
HN. In particular, the questions of why women are still conspicuously missing
in the tech scene and whether it's a problem, and if so, if it requires action
from inside the male-dominated community?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are we solving the same problem? - terpua
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/are-we-solving-the-same-problem.html
======
ryansloan
I've got a lot of respect for Seth Godin, but sometimes I feel like his blog
posts are just regurgitating facts we already know. Yes, it's important to
talk to whoever will be consuming your product. Yes, it's important to set
clearly defined goals. He doesn't even mention fact that here are also
drawbacks to heavy design up front. Not really anything new, but maybe it
helps to be reminded every once and a while...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
15 Incredibly Stupid Ways People Made Their Millions - denzil_correa
http://www.mathfinance.cn/15-stupid-ways-people-made-their-millions/
======
Dylanlacey
This seems to be a wee bit of "ideas which I didn't think of and don't appeal
to me, which I'm bitter are successful."
Or, to put it another way, people busy making don't have time for complaining.
------
greenyoda
Some of these businesses are definitely not stupid; they provide extremely
useful services:
\- Bio-hazard cleanup (#14) -- most people would gladly pay someone else to
clean up a murder scene rather than doing it themselves.
\- Public toilet finder (#2) -- not as glamorous as foursquare, but probably
one of the most useful location-based services ever offered on a cell phone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists characterize a new shape using rubber bands - ABS
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2014/04/scientists-characterize-new-shape-using-rubber-bands
======
bhouston
It is also known as the kinked phone cord (back when phones had cords between
the base station and the headset):
[http://i.imgur.com/AS7UI.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/AS7UI.jpg)
:)
~~~
tlarkworthy
I tried for ages to work out how to unkink them. I never figured it out. I
could just move the kink location around but never anhialate it.
~~~
weinzierl
Phone cords usually end in straight sections, you just move the kink there and
it disappears. I think there is no other way.
~~~
shasta
No, you can unkink them locally, the opposite of how you introduced them.
~~~
pinko
Wonderful! Could you provide a diagram or explanation? I've never been able to
do it reliably, only by random luck.
~~~
dual
Here's a hint that helped me understand much of the mystery of phone cord
kinks: Notice how in bhouston's image above the coil on the left of the kink
has opposite spin as the coil on the right. With this kind of kink there is no
solution but to completely re-coil one of the sides.
~~~
sp332
I think you could "fold" the whole cable back on itself at that point. Instead
of unwinding around the axis of the helix, unwind around an axis at a right-
angle.
~~~
shasta
No, dual is correct. There's no local way to unkink the phone cable in that
image. Just notice that the orientation (whether a cord spirals clockwise or
counterclockwise as you travel along it) doesn't change in a properly unkinked
cord, but the left and right side of the cord in the photograph have opposite
orientations. Whatever manipulation you do locally around the kink (even if it
involves rotating the whole rest of the cord around rigidly) won't change the
orientation of either side.
A corollary to this is that the kink in the picture wasn't created locally,
and is not the kind of kink you accidentally create. Though you can create a
stretch of mis-oriented cord by trying to fix what starts as a local kink, but
that requires fiddling with that entire section of cord.
~~~
sp332
I had to go play with an actual cable for a while, but I see what you mean :)
------
jdmitch
This also happens with slinkies - I've ruined more good slinkies that way!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer - dopeboy
http://dopeboy.github.io/in-the-zone/
======
sktrdie
I get this too, but it's very draining - similar to doing an intensive
workout, or given a talk at a conference.
The negatives are obvious; less sociable, more easily irritated, wanting to be
by yourself. After you've spent a day in the zone, you're not really "party
material".
The positive (apart from being very productive) is that I use it to get my
negative feelings out of the way - anything that is bothering in my life is
somehow gone when I am in "the zone" \- it is truly a zen feeling as the
author explains.
It's also important to mention that you can't force yourself to be in the
zone. It comes and goes, with very little control on your behalf. People that
try to force themselves in the zone by working harder, are not truly in the
zone. It happens seamlessly without you even knowing or wanting it.
For instance, I'm hardly in the zone. It happens probably once every two
weeks, if not less - it also depends on what I'm working on; if it's something
new and exciting I'm more predisposed to get in the zone.
Being in the zone is like getting an adrenaline rush - you can force yourself
to do it more often (go skydiving for instance), but if you do it too often
you'll quickly drain out and not enjoy it as you used to.
~~~
synthmeat
> It comes and goes, with very little control on your behalf.
As anecdata makes the data, here's mine - you have a lot of control of it.
If you can control your environment (audio, light, temperature, food,
exercise, communication, interaction, ...), you can get _in the zone_ too just
by virtue of almost exclusively focusing on some type of work you _get in the
zone_ for in the first place.
Live by code, die by code.
~~~
falcolas
No amount of control of my environment will put me in the zone when I'm
working on boring code. Crud framework? I'll be reading HN while going through
the motions. Code review? Time for some stimulating music (though not too
stimulating, I do need to pay attention to the code review).
But give me something interesting - a real challenge - and I'm able to get
into the zone, the hours flying by like they were minutes. My brain has to be
able to fully engage with the problem to hit that zone.
Of course, I'm a technical lead in my group, so the ability to control my
environment is limited. So I get up absurdly early just to get work done
before I have to be available to be interrupted.
~~~
derping69
>No amount of control of my environment will put me in the zone when I'm
working on boring code.
adderall
~~~
atemerev
As an ADD person who has to take it regularly, I can say that it can just
easily focus you on replying to anything of interest on Hacker News... so no,
doesn't work this way.
~~~
derping69
Yeah I've lived it. You have to get to work right away so when it kicks in
otherwise you'll generally keep doing whatever you were doing when it did. It
can turn you into a god of productivity if you use it right or a degenerate
jacking off for 12 hours straight.
------
tastyface
Speaking of The Zone:
I often see programmers on HN talk about building mental castles of their
programs, but I feel like I don't really code the same way. Instead, my
thinking seems more "functional". For a given problem, I can often make out
the faint outline of an optimal solution, but there's a lot of cruft and
misplaced bits in the way. Most of my work involves mentally simulating the
consequences of different options and then bending the architecture into such
a shape that the whole thing just sort of assembles on its own. I'm only "in
the zone" when I have to make that final leap. There's very little castle-
building along the way.
As a result, I feel like I'm somewhat incapable of working on massive, multi-
part architectures, since I just can't see the running state in my head. Once
I zoom in to work on a single component, the rest fade from memory and I lose
the big picture. On the other hand, I have no problem working in open-office
environments: I don't mentally deal with a lot of program state, so I'm able
to just dive right back in. This also influences my code to be more
functional, as I know I can rely on e.g. idempotent methods to keep doing what
they're supposed to regardless of any finicky global state.
I wish I could get better at building those "mental castles" since it's a huge
barrier to designing complex architectures (like games). I don't want to be
stuck forever working on the leaves of the tree. Might be related to OCD: I've
had the disorder for a long time and I've sort of conditioned myself to avoid
keeping running thoughts in memory before the "OCD daemon" distorts them into
something horrible. As a result, much of my thinking is necessarily
spontaneous and intuitive, or at the very least wordless.
Can anyone else relate?
~~~
synthmeat
I relate.
> I wish I could get better at building those "mental castles" since it's a
> huge barrier to working on complex architectures like as games.
If you truly wish to do so - go make technically challenging systems like
games. From start to end. Solo.
~~~
freehunter
That's actually how I got into that mode too. I picked up Phaser.js and
started making something and quickly realized that games give the opportunity
for states to change very quickly and often in unpredictable manners
especially compared to CRUD or web apps. It's not as easily defined, so you
kind of are forced to hold it all in your mind to understand the ramifications
of some code you're running. Especially when that code can run 60 times per
second, constantly, if you put it in the update loop.
Plus testing is not just running RSpec, you have to play the game, play it a
ton, play it in stupid and unpredictable ways, and when something breaks try
to figure out where it broke. So you have to hold that code in your mind the
entire time you're playing, too, to keep an idea of what methods are
triggering at any moment.
Games are an amazing way of forcing you to "see the Matrix" and read the code
in your mind as it runs in real time.
------
tekromancr
I haven't been in the zone for months. It's mostly general dissatisfaction
with my job, but it's gotten worse of late.
On an average day, there will be 4 hours of calls spread an hour or less apart
for the first half of the day, with the potential for surprise calls for the
rest of the day. The irony is that a lot of these calls are about why things
aren't getting done.
The surprise calls are the worst. Even if I might have 2 hours of uninterupted
time at the end of a day (when I am most tired and frustrated) it is
impossible to get focused when there is always a looming threat of
interruption. It's gotten so bad that I only get anything done late at night
or over weekends, but then I am tired during weekdays and resentful that I had
to throw away my freetime in order to move a project forward.
~~~
ratherbefuddled
Might not help if you're stuck in an authoritarian micro managing matrix but
some tactics I've found useful before.
1) Block out 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon in your calendar as
busy, marked private, at slightly different times each day. If asked you can
be honest, many times people will not ask and simply avoid booking.
2) Leave your least productive time of day open for 90 minutes of meetings -
for me this was post lunch.
3) Always reply and ask for an agenda so you can be sure you're necessary
(it's a constructive way of making the requester think twice about whether
they really need a meeting).
4) Often suggest a new time that is only 30 minutes long rather than the
default hour.
5) Decline politely if you are not specifically necessary (Thanks for the
invite Peter, appreciate being kept informed but I don't think you need me for
this and I have a conflict - no need to reschedule for me).
But mainly just look for a way to leave. That company is heading down the
tubes.
~~~
zild3d
Simple and easy to apply. I will start using some of these, thanks
------
rhizome31
I don't think I've ever experienced anything like this. As I practice TDD, my
usual workflow is think -> test -> code, code usually being the easiest part.
Things like "problems break down instantly", "everything becomes effortless"
sound strange and exciting. I wonder how that relates to the concepts of
maintainability, cowboy programming and 10x engineer.
I've met a few programmers in my career who were able to write a huge amount
of code doing wonderful things without testing at all. One guy I think of
would spend days coding without even trying to compile his code and
apparently, except for minor typos he could quickly fix, his code was working
when he decided to compile and test it. He impressed bosses and colleagues
with amazing features developed in a very short time but, on the other hand,
nobody on the team was able to maintain his code. This was explicitly stated
and accepted by team members, we knew we couldn't maintain his code but we
were ready to accept it given the productivity of the guy. It was a trade-off.
This way of working is completely alien to me. I can't think things in my head
out of nothing and write working code. I need to start building something and
get feedback from the computer to go to the next step. That's why when I was
introduced to TDD it immediately made a lot of sense to me. It matched the way
I was already operating. If I didn't have this workflow I think I would be
unable to write even mildly complex code.
It's interesting how people can operate differently. In a way I'm a bit
jealous of those "zone" programmers who can produce amazing things very
quickly. But, on the other hand, I can see that I'm also useful because
companies hire me and want to keep me. I've seen many times people taking over
my code, maintain it and develop it further. I've even been explicitly told a
few times that my code was very easy to understand and maintain. Seeing people
taking over my code and develop it further is one of the most satisfying
things in my work.
~~~
emerged
I'm one of the coders who will sit down for hours without compiling and end up
with working code (doing it right now, I've got a new algorithm which I
couldn't wait until Monday to dig into). But there's a process of preparation
leading up to that point.
First step usually involves a whiteboard and/or pen-and-paper notes for
developing the overall design, data structures and algorithms. Then I'll use
hierarchical note taking to sketch out the data structures and algorithms in
what amounts to pseudo-code. During that step, I'm constantly looking through
any existing source code and repeatedly iterating to make sure all cases are
handled.
Then the fun part of walking through those notes and coding out each
individual step one by one. That will typically take anywhere from 2-8 hours
without touching the compiler (though sometimes, if the changes are
incremental, I'll compile occasionally to check for typos). I'll queue up a
few albums and/or mixes to help focus and just sort of disappear from the rest
of the world.
~~~
lisper
> 2-8 hours
I'm at the opposite extreme: I code in Lisp, so design and coding are
interleaved with a cycle time measured in minutes or seconds. The compiler is
my collaborator throughout, checking my work at every step.
[UPDATE] Downvotes? Seriously? Why?
------
stevewillows
Years ago I went through some neurotherapy with a local doctor [1]. One part
of the process had clips on my ears and a sensor on my head to read
biofeedback (or something along those lines).
The game was simple: there's a silo on the screen with a hot air balloon on
the left side. When I get into 'the zone', the balloon goes up and around the
silo. This will loop for as long as I can hold it.
It took about two sessions with minor success, then suddenly it clicked. Now I
can easily enter that state on demand.
This might sound odd, but the neurotherapy helped eliminate a lot of the
negative parts of ADHD without losing the edge that a lot of medications take
away. I still have a lot of energy, but I can always sit and focus on the task
at hand when I need to.
[1] [http://www.swingleclinic.com/about/how-does-neurotherapy-
wor...](http://www.swingleclinic.com/about/how-does-neurotherapy-work/)
------
xaedes
“The Dexterous Butcher”
Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. As every touch of his hand,
every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee
— zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect
rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or
keeping time to the Ching-shou music.
“Ah, this is marvelous!” said Lord Wen-hui. “Imagine skill reaching such
heights!”
Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way,
which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see
was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now —
now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and
understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along
with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through
the big openings, and following things as they are. So I never touch the
smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.
“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook
changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine
for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the
blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are
spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness.
If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of
room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after
nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came
from the grindstone.
“However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties,
tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work
very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until — flop! the
whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand
there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and
reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”
“Excellent!” said Lord Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Cook Ting and
learned how to care for life!”
Translated by Burton Watson (Chuang Tzu: The Basic Writings, 1964)
[http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/chuang-
tzu.htm](http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/chuang-tzu.htm)
~~~
xaedes
Also:
The Tao of Programming [1] 4.4
Prince Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon the
keyboard. The program compiled without and error message, and the program ran
like a gentle wind.
"Excellent!" the Prince exclaimed. "Your technique is faultless!"
"Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I follow is
Tao -- beyond all techniques! When I first began to program, I would see
before me the whole problem in one mass. After three years, I no longer saw
this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. My whole being
exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, free to work without
a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program writes itself. True,
sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them coming, I slow down, I
watch silently. Then I change a single line of code and the difficulties
vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the program. I sit still and
let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my eyes for a moment and then
log off."
Prince Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!"
[1] The Tao of Programming
[http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html](http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html)
~~~
wavefunction
"without and error message"
I did enjoy the story though.
~~~
xaedes
Actually didn't realize this until you pointed it out. It is written like that
in the original. I like to interpreted it as a hilarious self-referencing
pun^^
------
luckydude
Back when I worked at Sun, and got in the zone all the time, I worked on a ~32
hour daily clock. Because some of the work I was doing would take me about 8
hours to get back to the state of mind where I was yesterday. So instead of
working 8 hours I would work for about 16, so I actually made 8 hours of
forward progress. The 32 hour "day" was so I could have the rest of a normal
day to eat, sleep, etc.
This got to be common enough that someone made a clock, where you could move
the hands, it said "Larry will be in here" and stuck it on my door. I think it
was sort of a joke but I think some people actually used it.
I couldn't come close to doing anything like that now. And at 55 years old, I
can tell you that the days where you get in the zone, for me at least, are few
and far between. I used to be able to just go there, now it sort of happens to
me and I have to drop everything else and ride it before it fades away.
------
robotmay
I find that isolating myself from my surroundings can actually help encourage
me get into the zone. I work from home, usually by myself, but if I want to
get into the zone I'll chuck on a pair of headphones; something about that
helps focus me, prevents distractions, and pulls me into the zone more easily.
I suggested this to a friend recently whilst he was writing his dissertation,
and he found that it worked well for him too and really helped him get through
it.
However I can't have folk music, as I stumble across a great tune too often
and get up to play it instead :)
It is much easier to stay in the zone when there's a physical barrier between
you and other people. Even so much as being asked if you want a cup of tea is
enough to pull you out of it. I recently asked my boss to stop other people
from phoning me if they want me to be productive, and that really helped. I
don't think most people understand what it's like; that amazing feeling you
get when you're in the zone when programming, and it can be difficult getting
them to understand why it's so frustrating being pulled out of it when a
simple message would have sufficed.
------
QuercusMax
I find that doing TDD makes it much easier to get in the zone; more
importantly, it helps to get back into the zone if I get off track.
I typically stub out a bunch of tests (just empty methods named based on what
I plan to test), then go one by one and fill in the tests and write the
implementations.
In the codebase I work in, we use a lot of mocks / fakes, so I typically write
my tests "in reverse" \- first the verification of results, then the mock /
fake expectations for what methods should have been called. Then I'll write
the actual implementation, and then fill in the mock inputs.
This way, if I get interrupted, it's very easy to transition back into what I
was working on, as I make sure to always leave a breadcrumb trail for the next
piece (when I run my test, the failure will give me a hint as to the next step
to take). And since I have a bunch of stubbed out test methods, once one bit
is finished, I can move onto the next one and repeat the process.
~~~
askafriend
The style of work you described sounds like torture to me.
I don't know why the idea of TDD sounds so terrible to me but it does.
~~~
dozzie
Because it sounds like "start with tests, design and plan never". Too often
tests-first is a substitute for a thought-out architecture and data flow.
~~~
QuercusMax
That's certainly true; but when you've done your homework, it can be a really
great experience.
For example: the past 3 weeks I've been pounding out tons of code in a TDD
fashion. But prior to that:
* I spent a week writing up a detailed design document and getting feedback from teammates and stakeholders.
* Another week refactoring (TRULY refactoring; no changes to functionality) the existing implementation so I can reuse the existing work in my new implementation.
------
EdgarVerona
Getting in the zone is something exhilarating for me - I experience euphoria,
though I don't really notice the feeling until after it's over or if I get
broken out of it.
It was actually something that as of late has started to disturb me: I notice
that I live for moments like that, when I get in the zone and the whole world
melts away. I feel like a junkie seeking a high, and thinking back on my youth
and how destructive I was to my body and my interpersonal relationships in
pursuit of "code all the time," I wonder whether that analogy is even more
accurate than I'd like to believe.
I look back on my life and wonder if I've actually been a lifelong addict who
is lucky enough to have a productive output of his addiction rather than a
functioning member of society.
I don't know if others feel or have felt this way, or if it's just a phase
that I'm going through. But these are my thoughts at the moment.
~~~
DutchKevv
Same here.. I made a comment somewhere saying the same as you, but I feel like
I'm in the middle of the thing your looking back at.
I really do feel like a junky, that has found a pile of whatever it needs and
the world encourages me to get better in 'using' and keeps paying me more to
get higher and higher.. it's such a strange 'unethical' feeling.. I'm
programming for about 8 years now in full throttle, and it keeps feeling
stranger.. I'm somehow glad others experience it also...
------
EliRivers
Oh yeah, here comes the zone, here comes the zone, it's taken an hour of
intense study of all this code but now I can see all the pieces at once inside
my head and I can feel exactly how to thread this code right through the
middle of all of it and -
COLLEAGUE LEANS OVER FROM NEARBY DESK IN OPEN OFFICE: "Hey buddy, what's the
password for the - oh no, wait I remember."
Wait, what was I doing? What's all this code on my monitors? Why was I looking
at any of this?
~~~
jackcosgrove
I don't feel much while in the zone but I sure get irritable when someone
disrupts it.
------
gggdvnkhmbgjvbn
Used to get this feeling from video games, now i get paid for it as a
programmer. As a result I've found it hard to go back.
------
cpayne624
I'm a Fed engineer and spent a 4 mo. assignment on an integrated team with
Pivotal pairing exclusively. It was a long 4 months for me. There was no
"zone." I'm not built for pairing.
~~~
calafrax
pair programming is an anti-process. its only purpose is to control employees,
limit individual productivity, and drive down wages.
~~~
majewsky
> drive down wages
Yeah, because everyone knows that you have to pay less wages when you have two
people do the job of one.
~~~
calafrax
Sure you do. Two mediocre programmers working as a pair might get 100k each.
One elite programmer can clear 7 figures easily. The elite programmer will
also have much more control over the IP they create and be able to negotiate
much more stringent terms for how it is used.
If you think pair programming is a good idea you are just at the bottom of the
industry.
~~~
bussierem
> One elite programmer can clear 7 figures easily
Can I come live in this fantasy world you found yourself in please? You're
gonna need to provide some SERIOUS proof for a claim like that...
------
Excluse
Contrary to what a lot of people here have said about boring tasks, I find
that's the easiest way for me to get into the zone.
While it may not be my most economically productive part of the day (aka I'm
not working on the hard, important problems) there's no doubt that for the
10-15 minutes one of those menial tasks requires, I'm in that special state.
An environmental trigger for me is to play familiar music. It doesn't have to
be a special playlist; any album I've listened to >50 times will suffice.
Remaining in the zone requires incremental progress (momentum) which I think
is easy to find in a boring, repetitive task that's squarely in your
wheelhouse.
The real productivity sweet spot is when you're able to get that momentum
going on a valuable project.
------
Uptrenda
Good luck ever getting in the zone if you do anything with modern blockchains
(especially Ethereum.) All of the documentation is terrible and you waste
hours trying to find a bug only to realise it was a problem with the library
all along... Assuming of course: that you don't give up after seeing the
"developer tools." What little tools you have for solving problems feels like
you're trying to carve a delicate ice statue with a giant hammer while wearing
clown gloves.
How do you deal with the related stress of having to struggle against
needlessly difficult tools, libraries, documentation, and bugs caused by other
people?
~~~
TimJRobinson
Most of the time I've found no one intended for the tooling to be difficult to
use, it's just that they didn't know any better or haven't had time to fix it.
Those are still early alpha projects so the creators are probably more focused
on the core product than the tooling around it.
Follow the boy scouts rule: leave documentation and code in a better state
than you found it. If enough of us do that it'll naturally get better over
time.
------
dghughes
I'm trying my hand at programming and I'm surprised at my progress so far.
But as a person who is very unfocused and poor at math programming has got to
be the worst thing on earth for me. But I like it, and math.
As with anything learning to focus takes effort it's different for each
person. But a clean desk, calm environment, goals, lots of sleep, eat well and
I find post exercise all helps. Not just learning to program but any task.
------
atom-morgan
What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer is what it feels like to
be in the zone doing any task that can put you into flow state.
------
engnr567
When I was single, for most of my big projects I used to get 70-80% of the
work done in 4-5 days of being in the zone. And then spend months on changing
the bells and whistles. Now I have to be home at a reasonable hour and
hopefully in a good mood. So I have become hesitant to even get into the zone,
because getting out of this state of high efficiency would make me extremely
irritable.
How do married people or those with kids balance such bursts of creativity
with personal commitments to their family ?
~~~
SimonPStevens
I usually don't start work on side projects until the kid(s) are asleep. Only
works while they are young I guess. My wife has always been understanding of
my personal projects, provided I don't let them dominate every waking hour.
When they are older I plan to teach them useful complimentary skills. Graphics
design. Testing. Copywriting. Marketing. Sales. :-)
~~~
fencepost
> When they are older I plan to teach them useful complimentary skills.
> Graphics design. Testing. Copywriting. Marketing. Sales. :-)
That's not what most people mean when they say "growing a company."
------
amelius
I notice that I can be in the zone while programming, but then when I need to
research something (do real thinking rather than work by reflexes), I pop out
of it.
------
fnayr
This is almost disturbingly accurate to how I feel in the "zone" as well. A
consequence of this is it's hard to have a healthy life as a self-employed
programmer. If I want the app I'm working on finished faster (and I do or I'll
run out of money), I must stay in the zone as long as possible. Which means I
must ignore people as long as possible and put off eating/exercising as long
as possible as well.
~~~
maxxxxx
Putting off exercising and eating may work short term but I don't think it's a
good idea to do long term. In the long run you need to find a sustainable
rhythm.
~~~
fnayr
I agree. And the excuse I tell myself it's only temporary. But it's been 3
years now...sigh.
------
chrisfinne
Well articulated and very concise. This could have been laboriously drawn out
into a 10 page article.
"Half as long" writing lesson from "A River Runs Through It"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhOdf-6co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhOdf-6co)
------
orthoganol
Prerequisites for 'the zone' (why not call it flow? isn't it the same thing?):
a) You have to be interested and eager to get started. If you're not happy
with the project, if anything else going on in your life is taking your
attention, you will not experience it.
b) When you experience it, you feel like you're a 'real' engineer, like that
is your true identity now, your imposter syndrome disappears. So ultimately,
if you don't identify as a programmer, as opposed to identifying as someone
who programs because it pays well or view it as just a temporary phase of your
career until you do management or become a startup CEO or something, you may
never experience it.
c) After you experience it, your brain goes "whoaaa" and needs to recover. You
won't be able to experience it for at least another 2-3 days, in my
experience.
------
depressedpanda
What a great article; it concisely and succinctly describes what's going on,
and does so much better than I could.
I shared it with my significant other, in order for her to better understand
the grumpy responses she sometimes gets when asking seemingly innocuous
questions like "would you like some tea?"
------
d33
How does "being in the zone" compare to being in the state of "flow" [0]? Are
those synonymous?
[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_\(psychology\))
~~~
depressedpanda
The first sentence in the article reads: "In positive psychology, flow, also
known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person
performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full
involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity."
Also: "Achieving flow is often colloquially referred to as being in the zone."
So, yes, they are synonymous. :-)
------
twodave
I disagree with the premise of this article (though I haven't always). I
generally find that I'm always in the zone for _something_, and after more
than a decade writing code I've found that often when I'm feeling less
productive at it, it's because there is some deficiency in my life, be it
social interaction, nutrition, fitness, over-exertion, etc. Over the years
I've come to know myself better, which allows me to take better care of myself
holistically in order to be not just more productive at work, but more content
with life in general. Keep everything in it's proper place and all that.
------
djhworld
I sometimes find myself in this situation too. I often find that I feel most
productive when I reach this state. But it's quite rare, a lot of my day is
interrupted by colleagues, meetings, noisy office etc
It's cool, but you can see the downsides. A few weeks ago I basically
disappeared for a few days writing some code. Great fun for me, but not
exactly boosting growth opportunities for the team.
------
bcrisman
I get there as well, but it takes a bit. Generally, the zone hits me when I'm
in crunch time and I know that I won't have any meetings for a while. My ideas
all work together and if I get stuck on something, it's not long before I can
figure it out. I can generally get a ton of work accomplished.
But then, someone knocks on my cube to say, "do you know where the elevators
are at?"
------
NicoJuicy
This happens a lot to me. Although i always go out friday and saturday
evenings. It's just hard sometimes switching it off and takes a reasonable
effort...
Sometimes i'm more quiet the entire evening and sometimes it's easier. In my
mind, i'm constantly thinking about code then and it's hard to be social then.
All arround, i'm a very social guy. Just when i leave the zone, i'm not.
------
Tepix
Recommended related reading: Zenclavier - Extreme Keyboarding by Tom
Christiansen
[http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/zenclavier_129...](http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/zenclavier_1299.html)
------
astrod
I started using guarana tablets to help stay 'super' focused, but only when
required. I find it helps me a lot with productivity, often 3+ hours of
optimum output. No side effects, only other supplements I take regularly are
fish oil and I dont drink coffee or energy drinks.
------
amiga-workbench
I haven't been getting this much for the last few months, but I think that's
due to my scattered workload. I'm about to start a new project build and am
looking forward to falling back into the flow.
Its a wonderful feeling, its like the fog in my mind has been lifted.
------
tiku
I've done a minor in Flow, the theory about getting in the zone. Very
interesting. It manifests itself mostly when the challenge is hard enough and
your knowledge is also good on the subject. Boring tasks won't trigger flow
etc.
------
kolari
I guess when a programmer is in the zone, he/she is much more effective
communicating/instructing the machines (in the language defined between humans
and machines), than communicating with other humans (programmers or not).
------
subwayclub
I try to not stay in flow state. It means that the problem I'm working on is
too familiar and I should automate the programming of it so that I'm grinding
on something hard again.
Edit: but it's okay if it's a prototype
------
macca321
Then the next day you realise how to achieve the same thing in a tenth of the
code...
------
klarrimore
You mean when you sit down at your keyboard 45 minutes after you popped those
Adderall?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Liquid breathing - zacharyvoase
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing
======
augiehill
Reminds me of The Matrix
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IojqOMWTgv8&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IojqOMWTgv8&feature=player_embedded)
~~~
StavrosK
That's a tube with air so the human can breathe _even though_ it's submerged
in liquid.
------
silvajoao
This reminded me of the Lost Symbol book (which is also mentioned in the
article. For reference, it's from the same author of The Da Vinci Code).
I recall reading this in the book and regarding it as junk science, but it
really exists after all. The other "science" mentioned in the book though...
I never imagined my "bogus science" detector to fail me in this unexpected
way. I guess I have to check not only for "bogus" science, but also for
fantastic yet _real_ science!
------
danielle17
reminds me of the film Abyss
------
lizzard
Neat, thanks. I just learned the word "aliquot" from that article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebCL – Heterogeneous parallel computing in HTML5 web browsers - matt42
https://www.khronos.org/webcl/
======
kevingadd
Relevant Bugzilla bug for Gecko:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=664147#c30](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=664147#c30)
An interesting spec, certainly, but no traction so far. A bit unfortunate. It
sounds like on desktops the ARB_compute_shader GL extension provides a lot of
the functionality you'd get through OpenCL with less new feature surface (it
can piggy-back on WebGL), while on mobile there is currently not common access
to OpenCL. Interested to see whether either of those situations change.
~~~
lmeyerov
Close, but it looks like the pipeline for WebGL extensions will get feature-
wise, in 5 years, where OpenCL was upon release ~6 years ago.. if even. Basing
webgl standards on already obsoleted mobile opengl standards is bad for the
web.
(Our startup is deep in this space, and after using both WebCL and WebGL, are
going a third way.)
------
just_bytecode
One one hand I'm happy to see the web able to do more and more. On the other
hand, I worry that as we turn the browser into a platform with all these
client side capabilities, browsers will become big complicated messes.
~~~
vezzy-fnord
They already are, to one extent or another. Browsers are rivaling monolithic
kernels and entire operating systems with userspace applications in size.
~~~
Rusky
I wish we would see more browser features (cross-browser standards, app
deployment style, ability to run random 3rd party code relatively securely,
app interoperability) moved into the OS, rather than more OS features moved
into the browser.
~~~
pjmlp
We already have them, it is just web devs tend to blindly ignore them.
~~~
Rusky
I can't quite yet make a native, cross-OS app I can deploy by clicking a link
and that anyone will trust not to eat their computer just by running it. It's
also a lot more work to implement things like networking.
~~~
pjmlp
JNLP deployment of Java applications.
Click once deployment for .NET applications as another example.
~~~
coldtea
Only nobody likes Java desktop applications. Including me, and I've programmed
professionally in the language since 1998.
And they are non starters for demanding multimedia work, which is some of the
most interesting stuff you want to do in the desktop as opposed as a web app.
.NET feels better (because MS didn't screw up as much, as Java did with the
overengineered uncanny valley mess that is Swing), but it's not cross
platform.
So, still, not comparable to deploying in the browser sandbox.
~~~
pjmlp
> So, still, not comparable to deploying in the browser sandbox.
That much is true, I haven't yet used so brain damaged set of programming
tools as the HTML/JavaScript/CSS gimmick required to make the so called web
applications in all browser versions required by our customers.
------
jnbiche
Why was this posted now? It's been around since 2011, and since then hasn't
seen any significant browser penetration as far as I know.
Have there been new developments?
~~~
randomfool
Last I see on the Blink front is
[https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-
dev/xy_ExyPCN1I), essentially: 'No'.
------
Hydraulix989
Embedding computationally hard problems into users' browsers and leeching
users' computing hardware to solve these problems for you? I can't think of an
actual application's use case for this that's not nefarious.
Reminds me of the MIT Jersey kids who were about to try doing in-browser
Bitcoin mining using WebGL.
~~~
ryderm
folding@home? hardly nefarious
~~~
kllrnohj
Why would you want F@H in a browser instead of as an app?
~~~
morenoh149
atwoods law
------
IvanK_net
WebCL is already running on Tizen:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TurCVdaUTMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TurCVdaUTMY)
So that is going to be my next cellphone ;)
~~~
pjmlp
If you can _ever_ get one.
------
Joyfield
Imagine Facebook/Google renting out capacity on its users computers for
companies and giving money to people for being able to do so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Charge in Euro or Dollars for an online service? - jontro
We are running an online service (http://decor-fb.com/) and are currently charging our customers in Euro.<p>Users subscribe with a monthly plan and we are using facebook payments.<p>Our customers are from all over the world, our top countries for already paying customers are Brazil and Italy.<p>We are considering changing our plans to charge in dollars instead.<p>I wonder have any of you have experience in charging in both USD and Euro and if the wrong currency this is a deal breaker for potential customers.
======
workhere-io
Only 45% of Europeans use euros
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone)),
so even for some of your European customers the euro is a foreign currency.
If, on top of that, you have a lot of customers from outside Europe, I would
say go with USD.
Having said that, I don't think you charging in EUR would be a dealbreaker.
~~~
jontro
Thanks. I wonder if there are studies in conversion rates when using different
currencies...
~~~
caw
I wouldn't be surprised if it impacts it a bit. While I wouldn't mind paying
in Euros, my currency is USD. When I see prices in Euros, my first thought is
"that's not actually that much, it's actually more expensive." Then I catch
myself and go and covert the price to figure out how much it actually is.
I have an aversion to fees though, and while I wouldn't mind buying the SaaS,
I then have to remember which of my credit cards charge foreign exchange fees
and how much they are, and then add that to the price of the service I'm
buying.
So I guess it depends on how logical your customers are, where they would stop
in that thought process, or if they would care if your prices were 3.5% higher
to them.
EDIT: Also, on pricing I think maybe you should consider getting rid of the
0.99 cents on there. There's a bunch of logic in pricing, but I think in
general $X.99 is what people expect to see, whole numbers is premium (think
upscale restaurants), $X.95 is a bit better than $X.99, and then if you have
an odd amount like $X.82 they would think it's discounted.
~~~
jontro
Thanks for the feedback! We are now trying out USD with the .95 price point
instead to see if there is any difference in conversion rates.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: What options are available for sharing ad revenue with users? - ulfstein
Is anyone here aware of a way to share a site's ad revenue with a site's users?
======
yourabi
I think for a smaller shop / startup the easiest way to go would be to have
users enter their own google adsense client number and use that a certain
portion of the time.
By making them sign up for Google you get G to do the footwork of verifying
they are eligible, and managing payments...etc
------
rrival
Take a look at what Revver has done with user accounts. Or Jellyfish.
There's usually a float involved which can be fun for cash flow (time between
affiliate payout >= time your affiliates need to be paid).
Some companies won't let you / have rules about compensating users. For ex:
WalMart doesn't like it, on the grounds that they feel their brand is strong
enough to attract people without affiliates having to offer a monetary
incentive.
~~~
axod
Float is good. Also usually the deal is "Minimum payout $20" for example.
Reward sites actually make most of their money by relying on the fact that
most people earn a few rewards, give up, and never claim because they don't
get to the minimum payout threshold.
Not a great business, but that's how that sort of thing works...
------
andr
Well, just give it to them.
Cut checks, use PayPal, or Amazon FPS.
Accounting would be your biggest hassle. You need to file a separate 1099 with
IRS for each person you pay more than $650.
~~~
concealed
But how do you easily measure what pages the clicks are coming from?
Oh and if a ton of people were making me 1200 each (@50%) then I wouldn't mind
filling out 1099s all day:)
------
ulfstein
Thanks for the feedback everyone - some nice leads.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The chemfp project: problems selling free software - dalke
https://jcheminf.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13321-019-0398-8#Sec24
======
dalke
I started the chemfp project in part to see if I could develop a self-funded
free/open source product in my field, cheminformatics. (In short, storing and
searching chemical information on a computer. Chemfp does very fast Jaccard-
Tanimoto similarity search for "short"/O(1024 bit) bitstrings.)
The answer: no.
The section I linked to highlights some of the problems I had selling software
under the principles of free software. For examples: How do I provide a demo
if I always provide MIT licensed source code? Academics expect discounts, but
they are also the ones most likely to redistribute the code. Which is not a
wrong thing to do! But it affects the economics in a way I could never
resolve, compared to proprietary/"software hoarding" licensing models.
As an HN note, I contracted a couple people to help improve the popcount
implementations. HN user nkurz developed and tweaked the AVX2 implementation,
and proof-read the paper. Thanks nkurz! As a result, chemfp is, I believe, the
fastest single-threaded Tanimoto search implementation for CPUs available, and
most likely memory bandwidth limited, not CPU limited.
(Note: the mods asked me to repost. My earlier post is at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23598470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23598470)
.)
~~~
alicemaz
have you considered offering it as a cloud platform? we're doing something
along these lines, niche scientific software (biological modeling,
bioinformatics) as a paid hosted service. still at the prototype stage! so I
can't comment on how well the business model actually works yet lol
but the idea is our mathematician will be able to publish whatever novel math
she develops, and we may eventually open source the math core as a reference
impl, but we'll keep all the cluster management and other supporting
infrastructure code proprietary. sort of a "if you want to run it on your
desktop, go ahead! if you want to actually scale this up for big jobs, we've
done all the legwork already so it's really in your best interests to just pay
us." I think open source ideals are good and worthy but from a business
perspective, you capture value by providing value that can't be got without
you. relying on customer goodwill is particularly difficult because any large
org, the people who will feel goodwill toward you and the people who can
authorize purchases are in two different departments
also fwiw I think if you wanted to do the model you described in the paper
unchanged, gpl is a much better choice than mit. copyleft actually serves as a
wonderful poison pill: you can try us out for free, but if you want to ship
us, you need to pay for a proprietary license or legal will nail you to the
wall. whereas mit, there's no stick. I've seen affero used by several projects
for this express purpose: you _have_ to buy a proprietary license because agpl
is so onerous you just can't use the code for commercial purposes at all
interesting project btw, I love seeing stuff like this!
~~~
dalke
Thanks!
Yes, I've considered cloud platform. There are several big difficulties with
that.
First, data. It's easy to grab public data from PubChem, ChEMBL, and a few
other projects, and make a service. But why would anyone pay for it given that
PubChem, ChEMBL, ChemSpider, and others already provide free search services
of that data?
There's search-as-improved-sales, like how Sigma-Aldrich lets people do a
substructure search to find chemicals available for sale.
There's value-add data. eMolecules includes data from multiple vendors, to
help those who want to purchase compounds more cheaply.
Or there's ZINC, which already provides search for their data.
So you can see there's plenty of competition for no-cost search. I don't have
the ability to add significantly new abilities that people are willing to pay
for.
Note also there's a non-trivial maintenance cost to keep the data sets up-to-
date.
Second, the queries themselves may be proprietary. I talked with one of the
eMolecules people. Pharmaceutical companies will block network access to a
public services to reduce the temptation of internal users to do a query using
a potential $1 billion molecular structure (or potential $0 structure).
eMolecules instead has NDAs with many pharmas which legal bind them. Managing
these negotiations takes experience I don't have, and neither do I have the
right contacts at those pharmas.
Sequences don't have quite the same connection between sequence and profit as
molecules do.
BTW, part of the conclusion of my work is that people don't need a cluster for
search - they can handle nearly all data sets on their laptop, so there
shouldn't be a need to scale up any more. And small molecule data has a much
smaller growth curve than sequence data, so Moore's Law is keeping up.
My first customer, who continues to be a customer, said outright that they
would not buy if it were under GPL.
Since my paying customers are pharmaceutical companies who, as a near-rule,
don't redistribute software, it doesn't really matter if they don't
redistribute under MIT or don't redistribute under GPL.
I came into the project in part to see if FOSS could be self-supporting _on it
own_. AGPL is often used as a stick to try to get people to use a commercial
license - the implicit view of the two-license model is that FOSS is not
sustainable. Which is now my conclusion, for this project and field.
------
zokier
I think to truly appreciate FOSS as a model, one needs to shift away from
thinking software as an asset to be monetized to more of a liability that
needs to be managed and maintained. Then the benefit of FOSS becomes clear: by
publishing your software there is possibility of sharing that burden with
others instead of carrying it alone yourself.
~~~
taneq
I agree. I can't see how you can 'sell free software' as a standalone product.
You build and evangelise free software while selling feature requests,
services and support to the users.
~~~
dalke
You can sell a proprietary product, right? With a restrictive software
license?
That means customers are willing to pay $base + $yearly renewal for the
product.
Why aren't they willing to pay the _same price_ for the _same product_ but
with an open source license?
I really don't understand why they don't.
I'll go one further - how much will people pay for an open source license over
a source available license with a right to modify, no time limits/renewal
requirement, but no distribution right?
Answer: all but one of my customers jumped at the chance to reduce the cost by
switching from the MIT license to a not-quite-open-source license.
Which means they don't really value the redistribution right.
And I saw this at one small conference about industry use of open source. The
organizers - who use chemfp! - stated at the start that the biggest reason
they love open source is because it's "free" (meaning no cost), not the
principles of software freedom nor the improved development methodology of
open source.
I tried selling feature requests, services and support to the users. That was
my original plan, and it worked _so long as_ those feature requests were easy
and there were enough of them.
But consider that the upgrade to Python 3 took two months. Who pays for that?
The first customer who wants Python 3 support 5 years ago, who pays $20K for a
feature request which everyone else gets for free? Then there's inventive to
wait for a feature request in hopes that someone else will pay it. While the
sales model - even as free software - lets me split the cost among multiple
customers who need that feature, and across a few years.
I also pointed out that selling services is a disincentive to developing good
document and good APIs. I feel like there's a sweet spot where if I were to
skimp on the documentation some then there's an increased chance of getting
consulting work.
~~~
imtringued
>the biggest reason they love open source is because it's "free" (meaning no
cost), not the principles of software freedom nor the improved development
methodology of open source.
I'm a cheapskate but that's still pretty weird to me. Open source software is
free because the entire idea behind it is users don't get excluded. It's more
about being accessible than not charging money.
There was a dual licensed HTML component that I was going to use at work but
the commercial licensing conditions (not the price) were pretty bad. Per user
licensing with a strict upper limit for both active users and the number of
apps even though we don't know how many people are going to use the software
and most users are only going to use it for one hour per month and we would
probably integrate it into a library that will be automatically included in
every of our applications to maintain consistency even if the commercial
component is not actively being used in every project.
Paying $100/month or maybe a little more for a commercial license with few
restrictions that I can just plop in would have been a no brainer but since
I'd have to constantly play license tetris it's going to cost my company more
time than the product is worth in the long run. It's not a lack money that
forced me to go with an open source project that also happens to be free. It's
the massive headaches caused by the commercial one.
~~~
dalke
My running hypothesis is that many people see open source as a way to avoid
dealing with upstream developers.
If I "pip install" a package which brings in a lot of other packages, I don't
need to have any relationship with any of those developers. It Just Works.
I don't have to know about their projects, find their web sites, read their
calls for funding, learn their licensing options, etc. I don't have to worry
about billing. It Just Works.
Even if the price is $100, the fact that it doesn't Just Work means the
effective price is far higher.
I decided to focus on industrial customers who were used to software in the
EUR ~5-20K/yr range (rather than the ~$1000/yr range) so the overhead costs
are proportionally smaller. And why I try to make the code fit into the "Just
Works" framework, eg, on Linux-based OSes:
pip install chemfp -i https://chemfp.com/packages/
------
dekhn
It's funny just how much the implementations described in the paper map to how
modern search engines implement retrieval. The same is true for BLAST and
other search engines.
(it's a very readable paper and I enjoy the frank expression of view, even if
I have a vastly different perspective on how to accelerate problems like this)
~~~
dalke
There's a deep connection between what I do and text retrieval in general.
Take a look at the early work in IR in the 1940s and 1950s, at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_retrieval#Timeline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_retrieval#Timeline)
1947, "Hans Peter Luhn (research engineer at IBM since 1941) began work on a
mechanized punch card-based system for searching chemical compounds"
1950s, "invention of citation indexing (Eugene Garfield)" \- Garfield's
earlier work was with chemical structure data sets, and his PhD work was on
the linguists of chemical compound names.
1950: "The term "information retrieval" was coined by Calvin Mooers." \- that
was presented at an American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting that year, and in
the 1940s Mooers developed an early version of what is now called a connection
table, hand-waved a substructure search algorithm which was implemented a few
years later. (I'm a Mooers fanboy!)
Many of the early IR events were at ACS meetings - the concept of an "inverted
index" was presented at one, as I recall.
This is because in the 1940s, chemical search was Big Data, with >1 million
records containing many structured data search fields, and demand for chemical
record search from many organizations.
So many of the core concepts are the same, though in cheminformatics we've
switched to a lossy encoding of molecular features to a bitstring fingerprint
since we tend to look more at global similarity than local similarity, and
there are a lot of possible features to encode.
Thank you for writing that it was a very readable paper. I have received very
little feedback of any sort about the publication, and have been worried that
it was too verbose, pedantic, or turgid.
~~~
dekhn
Its a bit verbose, and I really think it's several papers (the technical
details of the package is one, the open source positioning is another). But
it's readable- a person outside the field (say, a search engineer at Google)
could sit down, read this and immediately recognize what you were trying to
achieve ("implement popcnt" used to be a popular question), and then
immediately suggest ways to get the output results faster by using a cluster
:)
~~~
dalke
Indeed, it is several papers. There are two journals in my field - one I can't
read because it's behind a paywall and one that's expensive to publish in. I
choose the latter, but couldn't afford multiple months of rent in order to
publish several papers. :(
A blog post I wrote years ago use to part of the "implement popcnt" literature
-
[http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2008/0...](http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2008/07/03/hakmem_and_other_popcounts.html)
. It's now outdated, and actual low-level programmers have done better, but it
still gets mentioned in-passing in postings like the one referenced on HN last
year at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914479)
.
~~~
dekhn
It's really extraordinary how tightly coupled modern innovation in scientific
fields is to processor implementations. I suspect you and I share a keen
interest in the path by which we got to this enviable situation.
------
rurban
Im sceptical that a good single CPU search can compete with massive parallel
HW, like this one: [https://www.graphcore.ai/posts/introducing-second-
generation...](https://www.graphcore.ai/posts/introducing-second-generation-
ipu-systems-for-ai-at-scale)
~~~
dalke
Sure. It can't. Even GPUs will beat a CPU. In my paper I commented:
> GPU memory bandwidth is an order of magnitude higher than CPU bandwidth, so
> a GPU implementation of the Tanimoto search kernel should be about ten times
> faster. Chemfp has avoided GPU support so far because it’s not clear that
> the demand for similarity search justifies dedicated hardware, especially if
> the time to load the data into the GPU is slower than the time to search it
> on the CPU. GPUs are more likely to be appropriate for clustering mid-sized
> datasets where the fingerprints fit into GPU memory.
Corporate compound sets have ~5 million records. That can be searched on a
laptop in about 50ms.
A large data set containing physically measured properties is ~100M records,
which takes a bit over a second. The largest data sets people search, with
synthetically generated compounds, is around 1G records. That requires
distributed computing. But most people don't work with them.
They say the best camera is the one you have with you. Most people have a CPU
with them. Fewer have massive parallel HW with them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: are you working on a commercial project with no sales ever? - andrewstuart
Curious to know how many people are working on projects that intended to make money but have never made a single dollar.
======
LarryMade2
[http://www.doplaces.com](http://www.doplaces.com)
In a slow development phase and building a starting database. Been an idea for
about three years and an actual thing for one.
One of the challenges here is many in this rural area aren’t all that computer
savvy, many folks I talk it up to don't use a computer or have one at home.
------
mkal_tsr
I'm turning a side-side-project into one (which itself was part of a side-
project turned commercial project). Oldest project (SP) has seen money,
current SSP has not, but it's nearing launch.
------
edoceo
You should get sales before the MVP. Letters of intent/commitment. If you
don't have sales you don't have a business. Hope won't change a hobby into a
business.
~~~
mrfusion
How do you get sales with a demo? Just curious.
------
dqmdm
That is how my project is going right now. As it turns out, many enterprise
customers don't want an mvp.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High School - wesd
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/randall-munroe-xkcd-science-textbook.html
======
jonahrd
I'm not a huge fan of the way he explains things with common vocabulary. Sure
it makes sense to me because I understand that he means "organs" by bags and
it's a kinda nice metaphor, but I feel like some of these explanations are
just additionally complex because of the need to work around vocab
limitations, and to someone who doesn't already know the material might be
hard to follow.
~~~
TheOneTrueKyle
You have to keep in mind that this is also entertainment
~~~
jeffwass
For me the concept got old _really_ quickly in 'Thing Explainer' to point that
while browsing in a book shop I went from quite interested in buying it to
absolutely zero interest in the span of a couple minutes.
The constraint of using only a limited number of common words made it feel
like I was reading someone's speech impediment.
~~~
Nadya
I wouldn't read an educational material about how a submarine works, a
helicopter works, and a microwave oven works all on the same day. I don't
imagine many people would - especially if it were more technically laden in
its vocabulary.
Likewise - I wouldn't read all of 'Thing Explainer' in a single sitting
either. A page every now and then and you don't get bogged down with reading
simple language for hours on end.
Reading over simplified things gets as tiring as reading overly complex
material - because both can be quite mentally taxing. The increased difficulty
of reading "eight and one" instead of "nine" gets more tiring than one might
think...
------
jccc
He's doing educational strips to appear in a textbook (just in case you'd
prefer not to reward that bait-y headline).
~~~
joezydeco
Not to be too cynical (but here I go anyway)...but how long before it becomes
"hey, instead of a few funny comics, let's do a whole textbook this way!"?
Then we continue the de-evolution into a mix of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-
city slang and various grunts.
Please forgive us, Mike Judge.
~~~
pepsi
The Manga Guides to Databases, Statistics, Calculus, Molecular Biology, etc.
are all highly rated.
[http://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-
Takahashi...](http://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-
Takahashi/dp/1593271905)
~~~
dragontamer
That database fairy really knew what she was talking about. And that's why the
Princess was able to join (tables) with the prince.
I'm not kidding btw. Its a funny book.
------
gyardley
Good lord, enough with the pedants complaining about the title already. We are
all adults and know that sometimes article headlines are not exact literal
representations of their contents.
~~~
Artoemius
It's one thing for a headline to be inexact, it's another thing to be a
standard clickbait perversion of the contents.
~~~
peeters
I don't get why people are seeing this as egregious clickbait. It's taking
well known saying "going back to school" and using it in a figurative, instead
of literal, sense.
He IS "revisiting" high school, in a sense. Most people graduate high school
and never look back. Munroe is looking back. The title did not say he would be
a student.
~~~
SilasX
Call me crazy, but I wish news articles would focus more on being information
and less on being comics or novels intended to drag you along.
Choosing a cute, misleading title over an accurate one seems like the wrong
choice.
------
ryandrake
I'm probably in the minority but I never grokked the whole XKCD "stick figure"
thing. I'm not an art critic, but if you're going to put your work out there
in the format of a comic strip, wouldn't you try to take the time to draw
something more... I don't know... artful? Theres not a huge difference between
a bunch of stick figures with walls of text crammed into each frame and simple
text prose.
~~~
jawns
I think you're going to get pretty heavily downvoted, but I want to try to
respond to you as if you're not trolling, but generally don't understand what
all the fuss is about.
Munroe's technique is a type of minimalism.
By drawing mostly in stick figures and simple forms, Munroe is giving you
_only what is needed to set the scene_ , similar to a theatrical production
with minimal props, costumes, and sets. You get to use your imagination to
fill in all the rest.
In the xkcd world, it doesn't particularly matter that Cueball has a simple
circle for a head, with no facial features present, because Munroe's comedy is
not primarily a visual type of comedy. The humor is found in the text, and in
the situations he sets up, not in the facial expressions of the characters or
in elaborately drawn backgrounds.
Which is not to say that the visuals don't matter. They certainly do. Looking
at an xkcd strip is a lot different than reading the transcript on
[http://www.explainxkcd.com](http://www.explainxkcd.com). But the _way_ that
they matter does not depend on them being drawn in a more elaborate style.
~~~
kneeko
Scott McCloud's very excellent book, Understanding Comics, goes into great
detail about this. Minimalism in comics is often used for focus.
------
api_or_ipa
My professors sometimes would put a relevant xkcd on the last page of our
midterms/finals as a small gift. Small stuff like this always made my day in
university.
------
cbhl
Gee, I feel like it'd be a decade before a significant number of students got
their hands on these updated textbooks with comics inside them, since schools
have such long textbook refresh cycles.
My other worry is that any such textbooks would be so riddled with errors that
it would be undeserving of Munroe's comics -- I got new math(s) textbooks in
4th and 5th grade, and my classmates and I often found errors in the answer
key in the back. If the teacher was going off an answer key and had an
incorrect answer, sometimes we'd band up and go up to the chalkboard to prove
we were right (by showing our work on the board). If there was time after we
might even conjecture about the error the textbook authors originally made to
get the wrong answer in the back.
------
coherentpony
Randall Munroe is not going back to high school, his drawings are being
incorporated into high school text books.
~~~
flying_kangaroo
Good old clickbait titles. Gotta love 'em.
~~~
malz
I don't see this as classic clickbait (as opposed to, say, "The shocking
change at your kids' high school you absolutely must know about") so much as
an attempt at cleverness, which is not uncommon for human-interest NYT stories
even if it obscures the actual meaning.
~~~
ghaff
There are certain patterns of annoying headlines online. However, pretty much
every headline written anywhere (online or off) is _supposed_ to be clickbait
in that it's supposed to grab you to read the article. And, if anything, SEO
probably discourages the use of headlines that are too clever. Personally, I
don't see anything wrong with this headline but I get it if someone wants to
argue for headlines that are "just the facts" followed by an inverted pyramid
story.
~~~
jccc
There is exactly no one arguing for just-the-facts headlines to the exclusion
of any with style.
The objection is to intentional misrepresentation of the story you get after
you click. This one clearly does that.
Even the example given above ("Shocking!" "You wouldn't believe!!!") is the
kind of headline that virtually always misrepresents the shock(!) and
disbelief(!) one will experience upon giving it the click it so desperately
wants.
------
Chirael
Thing explainer meets thing learners?
------
mr_sturd
The next great explainer?
~~~
cableshaft
In ten years time: Cosmos, the XKCD edition
~~~
gooseus
I would fund a kickstarter today that was an XKCD comic adaptation of Carl
Sagan's original Cosmos series with asides to update any relevant science
information.
~~~
saganus
Ditto.
Hopefully not in 10 years though, but much sooner.
I would also fund such a thing in a heartbeat.
------
colinmegill
This looks terrible
------
loco5niner
clickbait title... ugg
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My First Year as a Freelance AI Engineer - polm23
http://masatohagiwara.net/202002-my-first-year-as-a-freelance-ai-engineer.html
======
mhagiwara
Wow, it's nice to see my post on the top page of Hacker News.
Note that I wrote this post back in February 2020 and there are a couple of
things that I would like to add:
\- Due to high demand, I increased my rate to $250/hour + some fixed monthly
fee in April. I didn't drop any single client :)
\- I'm seeing very little impact from the coronavirus. I have a client base
spanning between Japan and the US in a little-impacted industry (education).
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
\- I would strongly encourage everyone who's considering making a leap to read
"The Win Without Pitching Manifesto" [https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-
manifesto/](https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-manifesto/)
\- Due to a sheer volume of my incoming emails I can't answer all of them, but
do let me know if you are interested in working with me!
~~~
mhdhn
I don’t get what “NLP/ML for Asian language processing and language education”
work is. Can someone explain a bit more. What kinds of companies do this, what
kind of businesses?
~~~
polm23
An example of "language education" is Duolingo, where the author used to be an
employee.
"NLP/ML for Asian language processing" covers anything that has text in
CJK/other languages. I work with Japanese and lots of things taken for granted
in NLP pipelines require entirely different approaches specifically for
Japanese. For example, there's no spaces, so word tokenization is actually a
complicated issue.
------
hash872
As a business owner & non-engineer who sometimes uses freelance software
engineers like OP, it's fascinating to see so much pushback to the guy's
hourly rate. On Hacker News!
People are so hung up on how much the guy gets per hour, as a business owner
all I'm thinking about are the _total costs_. There are lots of cheaper
developers who would take longer to get the job done- how have I saved money
by hiring them? And that's before getting into quality of work. I think many
commenters are imagining OP as a contractor who works 40 hours a week for his
clients, 9 to 5. The whole point of a consultant is that they're project-
based, it's not an ongoing expense. I would certainly hire OP for a 20-50 hour
project, say, and then an hour here or there to fix bugs and answer questions
as needed. It's not a huge total cost, I don't care what the guy gets paid per
hour. I literally just look at it like 'overall, this ML/AI project cost me
$10k, and delivered x amount of value'.
If HN commenters think $250 an hour is a lot, wait till they hire accountants
or- god forbid- attorneys :) I bet OP is much smarter and delivers more value
than my attorney that charges $400 an hour for simple contract review, and
breaks out specific line items for answering my e-mails and 10 minute phone
calls with me....
~~~
tcbawo
When I notice people pushing back on hourly rates, I think of a story a friend
told me about an expert locksmith. He could unlock a door in under 30 seconds,
but he often fiddled around a bit so his customers would feel better about
having spent $200. He was very good, but if he made it look too easy, they
would complain or give him a bad review. I try to never begrudge someone that
knows how to add value and set a marketable price. If you're consistent,
reliable and add value, they deserve it!
~~~
Rastonbury
I'm not saying it's easy but $200 is a lot. Hypothetically purely based on
opportunity costs, the AI freelancer could afford spending an hour trying to
unlock his own door, someone like me I could spend like 6 hours buy a lockpick
and watch a YouTube tutorial, or maybe easier to spend the next hour looking
for a cheaper locksmith!
~~~
purerandomness
That is only possible because you didn't put a price tag on your own time.
Similarly, a company's CEO could say "Hey, I could simply go to university
myself and learn everything about NLP and solve my NLP problem and save
10.000$ for this contractor! Yay!"
That's only scalable up to a certain point, and that point is usually reached
when you realize that you need employees.
------
ganstyles
Super cool, I've been thinking a little about this for CV rather than NLP. One
thing that gave me the idea is I (the company I worked for, at the direction
of me) engaged an outside expert on a particular ML domain. It wasn't a
freelancer, but just someone at a major company who did some cool stuff. I
approached them, told them about what issue we were having, and engaged them
for a 50 hour contract @ $500/hr. Completely worth it, but looking at your
rates maybe we super overpaid. Not that it matters, but just an interesting
data point and got me thinking about freelancing purposely if those are the
rates. Thanks for sharing your experience.
~~~
nvilcins
New to freelancing, and while I get the hustle and pricing according to the
value for the client, it's still hard to wrap my head around people charging
500$/h+. Like, what is the value an AI contractor can deliver in ~50h that
easily justifies spending 25k (and without much prior knowledge about the
product, systems in place, etc.). Honest question, trying to understand the
game.
~~~
ganstyles
Imagine developing a core competency for your company where it's complicated
enough that you're not sure what route to take. Also assume you have a team of
maybe 8-10 ML engineers who all make what ML engineers make. It makes so much
more sense to pay $25k to get direct knowledge of systems and techniques
versus your team spending a bunch of time exploring different
products/methods/algos to find something that might work in the end, or might
fail in a few months. $25k is like 5 MacBooks, hardly worth thinking about
versus being able to get experienced direction from someone who has done what
you're trying to do and saving your team literally hundreds of hours of
exploratory work. It's not really a game, it's good sense. Yeah given the covo
here I probably could have negotiated them down, but that's my time doing that
and then things have to be vetted with outside counsel and the CFO, also time
wasted, versus just telling them this is what the person charges, we need them
for 50 hours, "authorize the charges please." And at what cost, saving a few
thousand dollars?
~~~
mlthoughts2018
How do you develop a business connection and market your service as being more
valuable that the wide abundance of free materials, engineering blogs,
research papers, etc., in this space?
Just for example, I run a team of 10 machine learning engineers at a large
ecommerce company. We mostly do NLP and computer vision, some time series
forecasting.
I cannot imagine ever paying anything close to $25k for consulting advice,
that’s just bananas to me. We recently purchased licenses to use the data
annotation tool prodigy from the spaCy creators at explosion.ai. That was
~$4000 and the decision whether to build our own data annotation system or not
was excruciating, involved all kinds of business documentation, RFCs,
approvals, NDA processes, etc. It was deeply non-trivial to procure that, and
building our own was a very serious option we pursued with tech specs and
prototypes and everything.
Spending 6x that amount for _advice_ about NLP, which practically grows on
trees today, is just totally unrealistic.
It makes me suspect the real target customer for you is not companies with
actual ML engineering teams or ambitious data-driven projects, but more like
someone looking for McKinsey-lite. Some place that has no serious ML use case
beyond drop-in pretrained models and sees $25k as the cheaper path to rubber
stamp certification that dissolves internal political feuds. Most likely just
selling super cookie cutter NLP models as if they are advanced and represent
some sexy leap forward for a company with a couple junior data scientists.
Algolia or just some drop-in Elastic tfidf search is more than enough for
these companies. Spend the $25k on an intern who can tell you anything you
need to know about neural network frameworks.
In reality, the 4-5 ML engineers you already hired are very likely _more
knowledgeable_ than the freelance consultant you might hire. They can tell you
much more about state of the art and simultaneously know the specific
integration path in _your_ company’s web service and data ecosystem. Those
folks won’t be wasting time prototyping - they would be pursuing a _more
efficient_ way to get the answers you need than advice from a freelancer, even
if that freelancer was Bengio for pete’s sake.
I just cannot see the value prop here except for the usual story of paying for
consulting as a virtue signal / credential / politics kind of thing.
~~~
ganstyles
I just really don't know what to tell you, I'm sorry. We saw the value,
pursued the person, and had an engagement with them effectively consulting for
50 hours. There was no justification to anyone outside of our team, other than
getting the very quick approval, and the consultant worked with our team
directly and not to anyone outside the team. There was no internal politics at
play.
And again, this wasn't a "freelance consultant" in the sense of the original
story posted to HN, but an accomplished person at a very respected company who
was able to secure the approvals from their side to help us out. This was
novel/niche work for which "drop in pretrained models" don't really exist or
apply.
Frankly to judge and belittle someone else who is just sharing their
experience by saying they're not doing serious work and don't have serious
customers is very rude.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
It’s not rude at all to highlight how this warrants huge skepticism. “Just
calling someone up” to spend $25k+ on “advice” and claiming it’s justified in
time saved of your existing staff not flailing around to research the same
topic is _very_ weird. That doesn’t line up with any professional experience
I’ve ever seen in any machine learning team at Fortune 500, startup, finance &
academia jobs. _Maybe_ for appearance fees to have a big name researcher come
and give a company presentation or keynote. _Maybe_. Absolutely not believing
it for ad hoc freelance consulting based on someone having some NLP projects
on GitHub, conference presentations or publications, or gigs at “fancy” AI
employers, and I find it’s worth making this comment so other readers can
consider how extremely shaky that premise is.
~~~
arbitrary_name
Just to provide another perspective : I've consulted for 20+ companies.
Spending money for outside advice or actual work products is extremely common
and generally worthwhile if done right. There's a reason why consulting is a
multi billion dollar industry.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
I disagree. Consulting is fashion signaling. It’s a huge business because it’s
about buying and selling political status in the context of company decision
making. It offers value from social signaling, not from strategic facts that
demonstrably yield improvements to success metrics.
------
forgingahead
Great article! The most important part for others reading this:
_Narrowing your niche down attracts specific types of clients who have
specific needs that few people in the world can solve._
_My expertise is NLP /ML for Asian language processing and language
education. When defining your specialty, I think it helps if you define it in
terms of the industry, not in terms of an ML stack. People look for, e.g., “AI
solutions for healthcare” and “text analytics for finance,” not for “GANs” or
“Seq2Seq models.” You need to be willing to learn a very wide range of ML
techniques and models, from simple regression to GANs and RL, no matter what
industry you work in._
In other words, _define your niche in terms that make it easy for someone with
budget authority to say "yes" to hiring you_.
This is worth noting also because if you accidentally cross over into talking
with recruiters or other gate-keepers to the real budget authority holders,
you'll be misled into talking or padding your resume with technical terms that
are not the key value drivers for why you'd get a nice-paying contract.
------
damon_c
One interesting thing about being freelance during times of economic
instability is that the "steadiness" metric is inverted when you have multiple
sources of income compared to relying on one company.
------
aantix
LLC? You’re leaving thousands on the table.
Switch to an s-Corp.
30% of the gross will be paid as a salary, as an employee of the s-Corp. you
must pay social security, etc on that.
The other 70% can be taken as a dividend distribution As the owner of the
s-corp. Thats not subject to social security, etc.
Will save you ~15% in taxes.
at your level, it’s Well worth the cost of the cpa to handle the payroll,
quarterly, etc.
~~~
mhagiwara
I do have a CPA and we did an S-corp election for 2019 tax return. This is
something I didn't get to mention in the post because we hadn't filed the tax
yet.
~~~
aantix
Maybe convert it in a a future post.
I don’t think devs realize that a 1099 costs you money.
------
mfalcon
What about client's valuable and private data? I've always thought it'd be a
big problem for freelancing as an AI engineer.
~~~
mhagiwara
This has never been a big problem for me. Some clients have strict policies
(e.g., only allowing you to work on their servers) while others don't care as
much. In some cases, as a freelancer, you only work on a "proof of concept"
prototype assuming you have access to their private data. It is their FTEs job
to actually train/implement/deploy this prototype using their private data.
~~~
mfalcon
How can you work on a "proof of concept" prototype without access to their
data?
------
kazuki
Great post. I felt like $150/hour is way too cheap for his resume (10+ years
of experience, PhD, author of book, based in Seattle). I am pretty sure some
companies will be happy paying twice as much.
------
FpUser
"As a freelance AI engineer, you are expected to, for example, start with a
client, familiarize yourself with the product and the codebase, submit the
first PR within a couple of days"
Although I have my doubts maybe this is true specifically for AI area. In
general contracting, getting familiar with the large project and "submitting
the first PR within a couple of days" is a wet dream. I will exclude cases
when one is hired to find and fix bug in some simple, short piece of code.
~~~
sbacic
Are you trying to say it's unreasonable to expect a freelancer to start
contributing within a couple of days? Or the opposite?
Because I can't remember a single project where I wasn't expected to
contribute something immediately, especially with new clients (that need to be
convinced of the value).
~~~
FpUser
I guess we are talking about different kind of projects. I had few very short
limited scope projects (shortest one 3 days I think) but generally I design
and develop products from ground zero (some I own, some made for corporate
clients). It could take me a month sometime to write first line of code. And
no one in their right mind would expect me to start coding big product with no
design in place on a first day. As for trust - I have big portfolio and
stellar references from satisfied clients and some of my products can be seen
on the web. In my case this is normally what counts, not me banging on
keyboard from the first hour. You do not start coding major project without
without first having a clear and documented picture of what exactly is being
built. Doing it other way is a recipe for major disappointment.
------
angel_j
This person, like many, makes the error of commodity pricing for labor. They
charges less, the more the client buys. That's how corn is bought. Don't sell
your time like corn.
This kind of thinking/pricing has been inculcated by so much free-market
idealism, and of course on some level human labor can be thought of as a
commodity, but that's neo-evil.
~~~
namenotrequired
Would you mind sharing what you think are the practical downsides of this
pricing approach?
~~~
angel_j
I'm more interested from a labor perspective, but practically, you get less
money for your work, and no benefit. Especially as a freelancer, paying all
your own taxes, insurance, health, and company costs. That means you need an
addition 20% revenue, not less.
If you work in demanding field, and have a client that needs—and can
afford—your work, giving them them a discount only takes away from your stack.
What possible benefit is there? Repeat business? They will repeat if they need
it, not b/c it's on sale.
Assume you are literally putting money in their pocket (ROI) and get paid what
you're worth.
------
t0ughcritic
I think the lawyer example is great! People here don’t question how a lawyer
or good accountant can charge 500$/hr easily but an engineer, oh heavens no it
can’t be possible. Big business pay this because as others have said it’s
about returns, and they aren’t experts in the field and they know they’ll make
more back. As startup owners or employees, it may be hard to fathom.
If anything more engineers need to be paid even more. Heck even consider a
real estate agent that puts your house up for sale, and your house is worth 1m
and they get 2.5%, let’s say they walk away with 15k how many hours do you
think they spent marketing and managing the sale? In a hot market, where
prices are higher and things move fast, even they are reeling in 500$/hr so a
PhD level engineer pulling that shouldn’t shock you.
------
polm23
Hey, quick clarification - I posted this because I thought it was interesting,
but I am not the author and can't answer questions about it.
------
JoeMayoBot
Really nice article. I've been an independent consultant (freelancer) for
several years and there are so many parts of this that match my experience
too: whether freelancing is right for you, being prepared for uneven work
cycles, and what is fair game for billable hours. To me breadth of experience,
time flexibility, and just being independent are the strongest perks.
------
bigmanwalter
Congrats on making the leap! Do you find that your pipeline is busy enough are
are you still looking to grow it?
------
justingreet
Just wanted to say that even though you said you're not a native English
speaker, I never would have known if you hadn't mentioned it. Very well-
written and clearly organized post.
------
th_wacc_nt1
Great post! Anybody else here who is currently employed in this field and
wants to start a consulting agency or similar? Feel free to reach out at
ideavalid@icloud.com
------
bluekite2000
Who are your typical clients/industries? And how long is a typical engagement?
And why per hour vs per project pricing?
------
RocketSyntax
what are most people asking for - pytorch? or are they leaving those decisions
up to you?
~~~
m0zg
As a practitioner in the field and in similar circumstances, the answer will
probably be: it doesn't really matter. Personally I prefer PyTorch, but I can
work with whatever the client already uses, if anything. For one of my clients
I worked in both because there was no viable deployment option out of PyTorch
to one of their platforms. There still isn't, so both models are still
maintained and trained.
If they aren't 100% set in their ways, I do make them aware that things will
move at about half the speed with TF, so they'll effectively be paying twice
as much. If they are set in their ways, I do not mention it, since I'm not
going to change their mind anyway.
That said PyTorch 1.5.0 is just broken pretty much - tensor permute (which in
computer vision you end up doing for every input tensor) is 10x slower than it
used to be. There's an issue in GitHub already.
I'm beginning to worry about PyTorch.
~~~
m3at
Thanks for sharing your experience!
I'm working with TF and Pytorch as well, but so far for the later I have found
the project to be reasonably reliable (though I did find Chainer considerably
more polished). Can you share more about what worries you with Pytorch?
~~~
m0zg
1.5.0 is basically broken for computer vision. Input tensors are usually in
NHWC memory format, but PyTorch (and CUDA) prefers NCHW (planar). So you'd
normally run permute() to move things around. But
[https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142](https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142)
(and possibly other bugs) kinda gets in the way of that. I had to roll back,
since training got way slower than it was before, and it wasn't super fast to
begin with, even on my quad-GPU workstation.
The fact that such obvious, severe bugs make it through the release process
likely means that there isn't really much of a release process. And what's in
place doesn't even test the release on totally bread-and-butter models like
resnet50.
~~~
smhx
PyTorch maintainer here: we're looking into that and if needed will issue
1.5.1 asap. It didn't show up in release testing, which among other things
does end-to-end imagenet runs with ResNet50 and a few other models (i.e. time
and memory didn't regress). Will also figure out how to catch this early.
~~~
smhx
@m0zg if you could comment on the issue you quoted with any details, it would
be really helpful to us. Unlike what is reported in the github issue,
`permute` isn't the regression.
For reference, one of the core devs added more details based on where we are
with our investigation:
[https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142#issuecomment...](https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142#issuecomment-623205729)
------
Advaith
This is super cool. I'm curious if OP engages in cold emails to scout for
leads.
------
hoerzu
What are your clients?
~~~
sbmthakur
His clients are in education sector spanning from the US to Japan.
------
quaquaqua1
To anyone who is seriously considering paying $250 an hour for someone who
isn't guaranteeing they will deliver anything--
I will personally quit my job and sign a contract with you that clearly
defines what will be delivered by what date, if you are willing to pay flat
rate of $X.
You will not pay until after you accept delivery of the system.
~~~
TrackerFF
Just wait until you discover what the government is paying McKinsey (and the
likes) for their services. Hourly rates starting at $500, growing up into the
thousands.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Please give us your valid feedback to improve Skillendar. - sunsai
Skillendar is back! Now with more focus on you and your neighbourhood. Please have a look and give us your valid feedback on design, usability, features etc.<p>A bit about Skillendar:
Skillendar is a neighbourhood network for you to connect with and reach out to your local community. Like Facebook is a network for friends and LinkedIn is a network for professionals, Skillendar is for your neighbourhood. Also Skillendar has a unique calendar based skills search that helps you find the availability of people in your neighbourhood who are open to share their time or provide a service, at a glance. Hence the name Skillendar, short for 'Skills On Calendar'.
======
sunsai
Clickable <http://www.skillendar.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple closes as most valuable company - ashishgandhi
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/10/as-stock-market-burns-apple-most-valuable-company-in-it/
======
pyre
> iPods start at just $49. That’s less than a tank of gas. No
> wonder Apple is more valuable than Exxon Mobil right
> now.
What? Over the course of time that someone will own that iPod, they will most
likely purchase _multiple_ tanks of gas. Also, just because iPods are cheap
doesn't mean that people will start buying them in bulk (or using them as a
substitute for tanks of gas for that matter).
"Why buy a tank of gas, when I could get two iPods for the same price?"
------
reso
I am constantly unimpressed with the quality of writing on Forbes. Its like
The Economist written by highschoolers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I made a Halo 5 Web UI - decidertm
http://successbreak.net/halo/
======
decidertm
I'm trying to develop my skills in UI and web development, would be nice to
hear your thoughts.
------
benbristow
Looks great. I doubt Halo 5 will ever come out for PC though!
~~~
decidertm
One can only hope!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Output of Dutch solar bike lane exceeds expectations - Rafert
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Fnieuws%2F102994%2Fopbrengst-fietspad-met-geintegreerde-zonnepanelen-is-boven-verwachting.html&edit-text=
======
meric
Roads are quite a good place to place solar panels, logistically speaking. Yes
they are 30% less efficient, but they are also closer to where the electricity
will be used, and the marginal opportunity cost of real estate is zero since
road use is retained. You don't need new land and you don't need to worry
about transporting power at great distances. I'm glad such experiments are
being conducted to see how well this idea performs in practice. It's good they
started with bike lane as opposed to truck roads. It will give them
opportunity to iterate on the panels resiliency.
~~~
guiomie
Not sure why you are being downvoted, but I thing your comment makes a lot of
sense, and I'd like to know why some think otherwise.
~~~
hoopd
Logistically speaking, there's a nightmarish level of complexity introduced
here. Put a country's food distribution network on top of its energy
production system? Put solar cells where you know they'll be constantly driven
over by heavy machinery? Replace some of the most durable materials known to
man (asphalt and concrete) with glass encased electronics?
These things aren't impossible, but it's such an uphill battle that I wouldn't
hold my breath. ([http://jalopnik.com/why-the-solar-roadway-is-a-terrible-
idea...](http://jalopnik.com/why-the-solar-roadway-is-a-terrible-
idea-1582519375))
~~~
Retric
Thick pices of tempered glass are vary durable and could easily outlast
asphalt as a road surface. Right now the decreased efficiency makes this a non
starter, but long term if solar keeps getting cheaper it may become a
reasonable supplement to the power grid.
PS: Bullet resistant glass is surprisingly clear dispite how thick it is.
~~~
ljf
I wonder what the stopping distance is on this glass?
~~~
dogma1138
Not as big as wet glass or icy glass ;)
------
dorfsmay
I'd love to see some financial analysis:
1) cost of producing the same amount of electricity with Netherlands' most
common electricity production
2) cost of building this vs. a normal bike path, and time for recovering the
cost considering #1
3) expected life of this system + anual maintenance cost
4) cost of a typical roof installation for the same surface
~~~
quchen
5) Cost of a normal bike path with ordinary solar cells of equal area next to
it
~~~
ghshephard
5.1 Cost of a normal bike path with ordinary solar cells on _top_ of it
(providing shade, and shelter from the rain, with presumably greater
efficiency)
~~~
mod
This is actually what I envisioned before I looked up some pictures (if there
were any in the article, they didn't load for me).
It seems more practical, in particular for a bike path.
~~~
greglindahl
That's already well-studied, for parking lots with shade structures.
I'm astonished how many people are weighing in to trash a small project
researching something new that might be interesting!
~~~
ghshephard
I'm definitely not trashing it - I'm enthusiastically interested in whether
it's viable. What I'd love to know is what the expected cost structure, at
scale might be, in comparison to other options.
------
hoopd
Really? On their website[0] they claim their _glass surface_ doesn't require
snow removal because the heating elements melt it and as such asphalt roads
have a cost of snow removal that apparently comes for free with these.
However, it takes more energy to melt snow than to push it to the side[1]
which they simply ignore and that makes me question what other things they're
leaving out in order to tell a good story. I'd really like to see the numbers
crunched for how many snowy days a year will cause the system to consume as
much energy as it produces.
[0] -
[http://solarroadways.com/snow.shtml](http://solarroadways.com/snow.shtml) [1]
- [https://what-if.xkcd.com/130/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/130/)
~~~
woah
It takes moe energy to melt snow than push it to the side? This is
northwestern Europe, where the snow never gets more than a few centimeters
deep, and the temperatures never go more than a few degrees below freezing. I
could definitely see heating a surface by a few degrees being cheaper than
bringing a plow or other snow clearing machinery out to some path.
Now, northern Canada would probably be a different story.
~~~
onnoonno
The enthalpy of fusion for water is 335 J/g. The specific heat capacity of ice
at -10C is 2.1 J/(gK). So the major part in melting the water isn't heating it
until it melts - it is the melting itself that is expensive.
That said, I do see some value in solar ways in the space savings.
~~~
stcredzero
Why not awnings over the bike path? This can be done in ways that look awesome
and do not ruin the scenery and the view from the bike path. Thin film
collectors in the form of tarps suspended from poles would make the
installation cost commensurate with installing light poles. You'd need
significant R&D in the aerodynamics, etc. However, you already need
significant R&D for collector roadways, and you're starting out with an
inherently disadvantaged design.
------
Someone
The FAQ of the project at
[http://www.solaroad.nl/en/faq/](http://www.solaroad.nl/en/faq/) is worth
reading. Among others, it explains that the €3.5M spent wasn't only used to
produce this stretch of road (unfortunately without going into detail), and
that covering _all_ rooftops in the Netherlands would only cover 25% of Dutch
_electricity_ demand.
Given European clean energy goals, more square meters are needed. Those are
hard to come by in a densily populated country such as the Netherlands.
Is this a sure win? No, but if it works, it can be a useful part of the energy
mix. Also, if it works, I guess scaling it up will not meet much nimby
resistance, unlike he alternatives of huge wind parks or sacrificing land or
water area for solar arrays.
------
invisible
Sounds like the first comment hit the nail on the head: there being 25% more
sunlight hours than expected.
------
stephengillie
Interesting points:
1\. > _That is more than the upper limit calculated on the basis of laboratory
tests._
Does this mean the panels generated more than they were tested to generate?
2\. Part of the purpose of the project was to beta test the suitability of
their glass surface treatment as a biking/walking surface. (I'm imagining it's
textured like a truck bed liner, but transparent.) They did have an incident
early on with a bicyclist slipping, related to a stick-on surface, so they
switched to a spray-on surface.
3\. Commenters slinging arrows at a Conservative strawman for the high price
and comparatively low (factor of 500) energy output vs government building
rooftops.
~~~
Rafert
1\. No, it means that the panels generated more than the predicted upper
bound. As a commenter on the source article mentioned, this year's April was
one of the most sunny in recorded Dutch weather history, which might have
contributed to this fact.
------
jimrandomh
Numbers from the article:
3000 kWh in six months = 684W average
70 kWh per m^2 per year = 8W per m^2
As a comparison point,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system#Solar_arra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system#Solar_array)
gives a typical output for a square-meter panel as 0.75kWh per day, or 31W.
~~~
jsnell
That's the wrong 6 months though, since it's including the whole winter and
none of the summer. Looking at the graph, April accounted for as much power
production as the other 5 months combined.
------
suls
Could this be the missing link to make electric cars winning the battle? No
need for plugs at gas stations, inductive charging [1] while driving on the
road will do it.
Am I being too futuristic?
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging#Electric_veh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging#Electric_vehicles)
~~~
dredmorbius
No.
And no. The fault isn't Futurism but fantasy.
------
gus_massa
> _The cycle path was opened in November as a pilot project for three years
> and was followed with great interest, also by foreign media._
I'm not following this new very closely. "Open" means that they allow cyclist,
pedestrian (and dogs) to use a small 70m pilot segment, or that they have a
70m segment in the middle of nowhere?
~~~
panarky
Here's a photo. It's a bike path between two towns, and about 2000 cyclists
per day ride on it.
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/05/worlds-
fi...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/05/worlds-first-solar-
cycle-lane-opening-in-the-netherlands)
~~~
ChrisGranger
It cost three million euros but can only power three houses? A _million euros_
to use solar to power a house? Am I missing something?
~~~
fche
Government economics, working as designed.
~~~
learnstats2
>Government economics, working as designed.
You've been downvoted perhaps because it's not clear if you're being
sarcastic, but I agree earnestly.
The primary purpose of government is to organise things that benefit people:
and they only need to do this when business can't or won't. Governments should
act as a balance to the negative aspects of capitalism.
As such, I genuinely believe that governments should be "uneconomic".
------
lotsofmangos
Well, it makes slightly more sense than the solar roads for normal cars and
trucks, if only because it doesn't have to be quite as tough, but I do suspect
that it would be cheaper to install, easier to maintain and far more efficient
in terms of power generation, to put a normal cycle path down and put a roof
of solar above it.
~~~
reirob
Yes, but it wouldn't be as pleasant to ride on the road. Riding a bike with a
roof over your head? I don't know, but I appreciate seeing the sky and the
horizon when riding a bike.
~~~
lotsofmangos
It wouldn't be a roof exactly. Because you can angle the panels and have much
better transmission of light to the panel from not having to have a bike-proof
coating, you wouldn't be completely covering the path and you would get the
same amount of power from a strip that is thinner than the path, angled and
fairly high up, this would cost far less money as it is available off the
shelf, so you have more cash to spend on making more of it. Also, if you
integrate it with lamp posts for your support pillars, you are not increasing
the amount of street clutter either.
------
toast0
Are Dutch bike lanes like US bike lanes? Adjacent to motor vehicle lanes, with
no grade separation, and an expectation that motor vehicles will use the lane
whenever it is convenient, regardless of right of way? If so, this is really
solar panels for the right shoulder, and I would really expect a big truck to
break them
~~~
PhasmaFelis
The title seems to be inaccurate. The test area is a dedicated bike path, not
attached to a standard road.
------
ukandy
Why anyone would pursue such a suboptimal installations is beyond me.
Researchers finding ways to waste grant money I guess..
~~~
Someone
The company leading the project claims commercialization is five years away.
They likely are optimistic or biased, but I am not sure they are outright
lying.
Prices of solar cells drop fast. Extrapolate a few years, and costs of solar
installations will be dominated not by what solar cells cost, but by what it
costs to install them.
In this case, something must be installed anyways to build the cycle path. It
might well be that installing a (cycle path, solar cells) combination will
only be marginally more expensive than installing a traditional cycle path.
Will we get there? If solar cells and the electronics needed to wire than
together (which, in this case, are more complex because the road may see
highly variable shading patterns) get dirt cheap, we might.
~~~
mason240
Do you really believe that it is more efficient to build a bike lane paved
with solar panels, rather than a bike lane paved with asphalt and separate,
dedicated solar facilitates?
EDIT: Looking at the pictures others have posted you still have to use asphalt
(or more likely concrete because you need better stability, which is even more
expensive) underneath, so there really is nothing saved by doing this. What a
waste of money.
~~~
drabiega
How is the presence of asphalt underneath an issue? The deciding factor will
be whether the marginal cost of a solar path over an asphalt path will be
greater or less than building an equivalent solar facility. That seems like it
could go either way.
~~~
IkmoIkmo
Very good point. Plus even if the marginal cost is lower than a dedicated
solar facility, we don't necessarily have that luxury. We do if we want just
5% sustainable energy, not a problem. But if we want 99% sustainable energy,
surface area is a very tricky challenge [0] and so it'd be a matter of the one
_and_ the other, instead of the one _or_ the other.
[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE)
------
Giorgi
Why is it bike lane though? any practical considerations?
~~~
Maarten88
In the video they explain they use a bike lane to learn before going to real
roads. Bikes are much lighter than cars and trucks, and they want to learn
what materials work best.
------
jkot
What were the expectations?
~~~
Rafert
According to [http://www.solaroad.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Artikel-
So...](http://www.solaroad.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Artikel-SolaRoad-
BU2013.pdf) it was 50 kWh per square meter.
~~~
fche
(over what unit time)?
~~~
icebraining
Per year.
------
rebootthesystem
Sorry, this is beyond silly. Do they actually have any scientists with some
command of mathematics working on this project?
Other than to screw ignorant government morons out of lots of money I could
not imagine any reputable scientist or engineer not falling to the floor
laughing uncontrollably when presented with the idea of putting solar panel on
a sidewalk/bike path.
The whole thing is so utterly ridiculous that the only possible explanation is
someone is making millions with this project.
~~~
rebootthesystem
The dynamics of down-voting on HN can be interesting. I have this --possibly
flawed-- mental image of emotional impulse voting devoid of any effort to
analyze what is being said.
For the benefit of those who didn't take the time to think before down-voting
my prior comment I'll try to spell it out here.
A few facts:
\- Good commercial cells deliver an efficiency in the 14% to 19% range.
\- This efficiency assumes the cells are aimed at the sun
\- Optimal winter angle for the Netherlands is approximately 76 degrees from
horizontal
\- Peak efficiency also assumes the cells are clean and have nothing
obstructing or altering light from reaching it's surface at the optimal angle
\- In all cases you can Google my claims and verify their veracity
Option #1:
\- Cover the solar panels with glass \- Scuff-up the surface so people and
bikes don't slip and slide all over the place \- As an alternative, apply a
film to achieve the same effect \- Mount them flat on the ground \- Place
trees around it \- Have people, bikes and dogs walk on it
Analysis:
\- The cost of encasing panels in concrete and glass modules and installing
them is monumental
\- The optimal angle for Amsterdam is approximately 76 degrees. Panels mounted
flat simply throw away a significant amount of available energy.
\- Solar cells laid flat will produce between 20% and 30% less when compared
to optimally aimed cells.
\- Glass will create problems based on how light enters. You have reflection,
diffraction and scattering as possibilities. A percentage of the energy will
never reach the cells.
\- A non-slip surface will scatter and absorb a significant amount of energy.
Based on the images I've seen of these road modules I am going to guestimate
that at best 70% of the light entering the road reaches the cells. I base this
on years of working with a wide range of optical diffusers.
\- Dirt and particles on the cells can have huge efficiency effects. From
light scattering to simply blocking and absorption. I'll go ahead and guess
that you can't keep a roadway clean 100% of the time, therefore, you probably
pay a, say, 20% penalty on average for having dirt, leaves and dog shit on the
road. This is entirely a seat-of-the-pants number. It could be 10% or 50%. It
isn't going to be zero.
\- Power generation is now utilization dependent. With more people on the road
more light is blocked and less power is generated. I won't put a number to
this. I will rather make a statement: If nobody uses the road, what's the
point of building one in the first place or building one that is so much more
expensive than simply pouring plain concrete?
\- Depending on angle, trees, buildings and even tall vehicles on the road
will cast shadows on the panels.
A very rough calculation then says that, at best, our solar roadway will
operate at 40% of peak efficiency. If we factor in the constant need for
cleaning this number could very well go down significantly. For example, do we
have a crew of a few people using gas powered leaf blowers cleaning the
roadway a few times a day?
Option #2: Build a light steel structure atop a conventional bike path. Angle
the panels for optimal efficiency at that latitude. You might splurge and add
active tracking.
Analysis:
\- The cost of installation is significantly lower
\- By mounting the panels at the optimal collection angle we ensure converting
power as near to the efficiency peak for the panel in question
\- Angled mounting also aids in reducing surface particulate contamination and
makes cleaning potentially as simple as an automated water sprinkler system
\- The entire system is far less costly and efficient
\- The bike path gets "free" shade as a side effect
So, yeah, the entire idea is absolutely ridiculous if anyone bothers to do a
little math. Someone has got to be lining their pockets or whoever is leading
this project is simply in denial.
Go ahead and downvote, but, if you do, please show your calculations and how
you arrived at the idea that this concept actually makes sense to deploy at
scale. I'll bet you can't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Name Recessions After People - mariorz
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Name_20Recessions_20After_20People#1223696557
======
JacobAldridge
Where names have doubled up, I've used the most interesting surname or middle
name. This has prevented three Recession Williams (a tip when choosing the
next cabinet).
This titling system makes conversation so much easier: "Well, I survived
Recession McAdoo, but Recession Andrew was a doozie! If they ever name a
Hurricane after that guy, I'm outta here."
1797-1800 Recession Oliver
1807-1814 Recession Albert
1819-1824 Recession Crawford
1837-1843 Recession Levi
1857-1860 Recession Howell
1873-1879 Recession William
1893-1896 Recession John
1907-1908 Recession George
1918-1921 Recession McAdoo
1929-1939 Recession Andrew
1953-1954 Recession Magoffin
1957-1958 Recession Robert
1973-1975 Recession Pratt
1980-1982 Recession Donald
1990-1991 Recession Nicholas
2001-2003 Recession Paul
2008- Recession Henry
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_the_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_the_Treasury)
~~~
steveplace
Greenspan's policies were the main cause of the current recession. I think we
should give credit where credit is due.
------
dfranke
This would encourage the wrong behavior, namely doing accounting shenanigans
to put off the recession until your successor takes office.
~~~
yummyfajitas
This already happens.
Remember how, around 2000, we went from budget "surpluses" (based on
projections which assumed the .com bubble would never burst) to deficits
almost immediately?
Notice how we are bailing out the financial industry, in an effort to postpone
problems? (I don't think anyone really believes the bailout will prevent a
recession, though it might postpone it.)
------
mattmaroon
Unfortunately this will often mean the recessions are named after the person
trying to fix them rather than the ones who are chiefly responsible.
I despise Bush as much as anyone, but he's only had a small part in getting us
into this mess.
~~~
Fuca
Without his made up war this would not have happen.
~~~
yummyfajitas
The housing bubble, generally thought to have begun in 1997, would not have
occurred without the wars in Afghanistan (2001-present) and Iraq
(2003-present)?
Ok.
~~~
mattmaroon
Right. The pickle we're in is clearly the result of the actions of two
Presidents, multiple Congresses, and millions of individuals.
Our budget deficit may be largely Bush's fault, but it's not the reason for
the current woes.
------
fallentimes
Damn it. I wanted to name this one "Scoble" or "Le Recession".
~~~
jgrahamc
<pedantic>Récession is a feminine noun in French, hence it would be La
Récession</pedantic>
~~~
fallentimes
Haha good point, but it was a play on "Le Web" and "Le Meur".
------
jhancock
I think we should name the recessions after men and go back to naming
hurricanes after women.
------
tomjen
Yes, but not just some people, the people who caused the recessions in the
first place.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bacterial molecule trains the immune system to tolerate infection - dnetesn
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-10-bacterial-molecule-immune-tolerate-infection.html
======
DrScump
blogspam of:
[http://www.massgeneral.org/about/pressrelease.aspx?id=2001](http://www.massgeneral.org/about/pressrelease.aspx?id=2001)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SUSE: More Than Linux - CrankyBear
https://www.zdnet.com/article/suse-more-than-linux/
======
sarcasmatwork
duplicate
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548418)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mithril.js 2.0 Released - mesaframe
https://github.com/MithrilJS/mithril.js/releases/tag/v2.0.1
======
keb_
Huge congrats to the Mithril team. Been using Mithril for over two years now.
I credit Mithril and its amazing community for making me the front-end
developer I am today. When the massive amount of tooling and plugins for React
overwhelmed me, the simplicity of Mithril and its focus on JavaScript
fundamentals saved me and helped me gain a better understanding of modern
JavaScript UI frameworks.
If you're curious, I highly recommend giving Mithril a shot, if not just for a
simple toy project. The Gitter chat
([https://gitter.im/mithriljs/mithril.js](https://gitter.im/mithriljs/mithril.js))
is also always active and full of great people.
------
simplify
Mithril is a true work of art. Rendering, routing, and XHR are all provided in
a bundle under 10kb. All pure JavaScript with no compilation needed. Closure-
style components that make React Hooks look wholly unnecessary. And the list
goes on.
So many correct decisions made, slowly and carefully, by a fantastic community
that values discovering the right way to do things above all else.
~~~
wishinghand
Not sure what React hooks are other than maybe a replacement for Redux, but
how does using closures help out?
------
anderspitman
Mithril is fantastic. I think it does a great job of giving you the 20% of
features that cover 80% of what you need to do for a solid web app.
------
CharlesW
This seems like a significant release, so it's a shame that there's nothing in
the changelog or on the interwebs at large that tells me why it matters. Does
anyone know?
~~~
lhorie
Over time, a few things were identified that would require a breaking change
to improve. These changes have to happen at some point, and the 2.0 milestone
is that. The community agreed that a big bang major release makes migration
easier than many disjointed breaking changes mixed with other bug fixes of
various priorities.
Prior to this release, the Mithril team went through painstaking troubles to
release RCs to help consumers prepare for the breaking changes and find issues
before the official version bump. Now that the code is deemed stable, the 2.0
milestone simply formalizes that the major version bump is now official.
~~~
CharlesW
lhorie and smuemd, thank you for the additional detail, but as a non-Mithril
user I still don't understand the big picture.
For example, Vue 2.0's announcement[1] made clear that the release was about
performance, new render functions enabling new component-based patterns, and
server-side rendering.
What's going to "wow" Vue and React users who haven't looked at Mithril?
[1] [https://medium.com/the-vue-point/vue-2-0-is-here-
ef1f26acf4b...](https://medium.com/the-vue-point/vue-2-0-is-here-ef1f26acf4b8)
~~~
dragonwriter
> What's going to "wow" Vue and React users who haven't looked at Mithril?
That doesn't seem to be covered by the release announcement, but is addressed
here:
[https://mithril.js.org/framework-
comparison.html](https://mithril.js.org/framework-comparison.html)
~~~
CharlesW
This helps contextualize Mithril a lot, thank you!
------
ydnaclementine
big user of mithril is lichess, in both web and mobile app
------
oceanghost
Can someone explain what Mithril is and why I might want it? Not a troll.
~~~
grzm
[https://github.com/MithrilJS/mithril.js/blob/next/README.md#...](https://github.com/MithrilJS/mithril.js/blob/next/README.md#what-
is-mithril)
> _”What is Mithril?”_
> _”A modern client-side Javascript framework for building Single Page
> Applications. It 's small (9.55 KB gzipped), fast and provides routing and
> XHR utilities out of the box.”_
~~~
oceanghost
Obviously, I was looking for something more than your pedantry.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wave Gigs - mrtron
http://www.wavegigs.com
======
mrtron
Just launched.
Site: <http://www.wavegigs.com>
Blog: <http://blog.wavegigs.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is Bitcoin split possible - tnt128
Similar to stock split. Seems both the sellers and buyers have the incentive for such event to occur. Can someone comment on how technically possible/impossible for that event to occur? And how would it impact the x-coin eco-system?
======
sp332
Bitcoins are divisible down to 1/10,000,000 BTC. That's actually the
fundamental unit of a transaction. The network doesn't deal in whole bitcoins,
each transaction is recorded as some number of these little tiny pieces. (They
have been nicknamed "satoshis" after the creator.) So technically it won't
make any difference to the network.
~~~
roasbeef
Small correction, they're divisible down to 1/100,000,000 BTC.
------
bmelton
I'm having a hard time imagining how this would occur.
Stock splits are done to increase liquidity of trading. Because GOOG is
~$1000, and I can only purchase a whole share, I cannot purchase any Google
stock if I have less than ~$1000 available.
With Bitcoin, it's simple to purchase $10 worth of Bitcoin (in most places),
by just purchasing the equivalent fraction's worth. At the moment, the
Coinbase spot price for $10USD equates to .0136BTC.
A 'split' for a US Dollar is a conversion to a smaller denomination, which
does make it more liquid in a physical sense, but only for physical purchases.
In the case of Bitcoin, i can already send fractional bitcoins wherever, and
however.
~~~
wmf
Under super-optimistic predictions a Satoshi could end up being worth more
than a US cent, which may motivate a split.
~~~
bmelton
It would probably need to be at least a nickel before that was a serious
consideration, but good point, because I honestly hadn't thought of that at
all.
------
drakaal
A split would likely only happen if it were agreed that BTC was no longer
viable because of a flaw in the protocol. And more likely as a reverse split.
A currency that didn't have the flaw would have to be developed, mined, and
when it got to a certain size and date BTC would be traded for the other
currency. Basically doing a migration. Since the new currency would have been
around for less time you would trade something like 10BTC for every one of the
new coin.
There is no reason for BTC to go the other way. The smallest unit of BTC can
be reduced to a smaller size so that the price handles any size transaction.
This might be necessary if the whole world moved to BTC, as we'd have a few
quadrillion dollars held in a few million BTC so each coin would be worth over
a million dollars. But that is unlikely.
------
27182818284
No, it seems much more likely that some of the other crypto currencies will
continue to rise and be a cheaper alternative to BTC rather than BTC
splitting.
------
wmf
It's happening; Bitcoinity switched to mBTC the other day. The exchange rate
is now $0.9/mBTC.
~~~
drakaal
Selling smaller units is not a split. That's like saying a split happened
because PertPlus is now available in a convenient travel size.
Or Outback released a 2oz Steak.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Netflix and Ch-Ch-Chilly - geodel
https://backchannel.com/the-internet-really-has-changed-everything-here-s-the-proof-928eaead18a8#.vrhmwhsi2
======
enthdegree
Really interesting content, it is fascinating and somehow heartwarming to see
a picture of an environment like this one. Unfortunately this is in stark
contrast to the narrator, who at times seems like a total jerk. Why be so
snarky to the photographers? They're just trying to do their job! I have to
admit, I had to stop reading and start skimming when I got to this line:
> I consider asking the boys if they appreciate music beyond the norm, maybe
> bebop or grime or chiptune, but luckily realize the ridiculousness of that
> line of questioning. So instead I ask about their favorite rappers. They
> amass a respectable list: Kendrick, Wiz, Jeezy, Kanye, Juicy J.
There are many more lines just like it scattered throughout the article, and I
hope I do not have to explain why they leave a negative impression of the
author. I am sorry Mr. Sorgatz but your culturally-savvy, hard-edged
commentary makes me feel like you are a phony.
~~~
mysterypie
The line you quote seems completely innocuous to _me_. If he actually asked
teenagers if they like bebop or grime or chiptune, I imagine the answer would
be something like, "Uh, noooo, I don't listen to anything weird" or "I don't
know what those are." So he asks a safe question about rappers. The writer is
explaining his thought process in a lighthearted way.
We both read the same thing, but I like the author and you dislike him. Which
is really interesting, because this is a totally uncontroversial article. It's
funny that subtle choice of words have hugely different effect on different
people.
~~~
alexilliamson
I read the comments before reading the piece, as one tends to do, and I
started out on the side of the narrator being pretentious, if that's the best
word to describe enthdegree's feelings on the conveyed tone. Interestingly,
however, I am now most the way through the piece and am strongly identifying
with the narrator, have warm fuzzies, and completely trusting of his or her
good intentions.
Maybe I should start reading posted content more often, rather than reading
only the comments?
~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Not that it matters a lot, but isn't this pretentious:
> Every spring, around 20 new kids don graduation caps, celebrate their
> nascent adulthood with a class party in a rye field, and return to the farm
> the next day to plant corn or milk holsteins.
It's like milking holsteins and planting corn is inferior to complaining about
it. As if the author is the only one smart enough to complain.
~~~
strictnein
I take that as just an honest description of what happened.
------
drewg123
Interesting read.
I grew up in a rural town just outside the suburbs of a US rust-belt city. I
had a similar experience, but not nearly so severe. Luckily for me, the
suburbs were a 40 minute drive, and we had access to 2 metro areas worth of
radio stations (thanks to being across lake Ontario from Toronto). So I not
only heard the talking heads thanks to CFNY, I saw Depeche Mode, New Order,
etc in concert with my high school friends.
The point I was going to make is that I just returned to the town for the
first time in 20 years (my parents moved away in the mid 90s) due to a family
vacation to Niagara Falls. I was AMAZED at how little the town had changed. If
I squinted, I could be back in high school in the mid 80s. The only real
differences were some of the shops had changed hands and the cars were newer.
This is in stark contrast to the places where I've lived in my adult life
(Raleigh-Durham, the Bay Area, Virginia) where things change at a rapid clip.
------
gilgoomesh
Photog2 (aka Andrew Spear) really is "annoyingly good at his job". I
especially liked the disheveled gaze of "Rex Sorgatz on West Lake outside
Napoleon" in contrast to the author's cheery, preppy profile picture.
~~~
bshimmin
The photographs really made this piece for me. The church is fantastic.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
Agreed. That's a tricky shot and he nailed it.
The piece was a little too rambling for me, but the mix with the good pictures
made it all work.
~~~
econnors
What parts of the picture make it tricky? Is it balancing the roofing with the
whites of the building/snow?
Genuinely curious, I don't know enough about photography to tell what shots
would be hard to capture.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
The tough part about that shot is, imo, figuring out what you want to do.
You've got a white church all alone with a black roof on a white background.
There's not a lot of information in the scene. It's way easy to burn out big
hunks of the image and try to grab some contrast in the boards of the building
or in the roof.
What I'm guessing he did -- and this is only a guess -- is take a multiple-
exposure shot and then do some magic post-production. But instead of trying to
pull more information out? He left it mostly a wash, with only the roof having
detail. (I'm thinking he pumped that up a bit)
This makes your eye struggle to find information and meaning in the walls of
the church, or the surrounding land. You see the roof, it is interesting, so
you assume there are other items of interest there. But there isn't any --
which nicely tells the story of a remote community that's timeless, the gist
of the writing.
He formed the shot in an original way to have the viewer's mind play into the
theme of the text, while still making a nice image. Very cool.
ED: Actually the more I look at it, the more I like it. It's almost like he
used a gauze of soft focus on one of his shots, with the church in focus and
everything else just a little blurry.
~~~
mysterypie
Keegan, AI-based image analysis that's on the front page of Hacker News right
now, also liked the photo:
[https://keegan.regaind.io/p/XlF3k_kKSMqjacY8minUhQ](https://keegan.regaind.io/p/XlF3k_kKSMqjacY8minUhQ)
------
runj__
Why don't I read more articles like this? I always enjoy it, instead I read
some inconsequential piece about nothing. This was great, personal,
journalism.
~~~
Mathnerd314
It reminds me of a Jack Reacher novel, minus the fistfights of course.
In answer to your question: HN has stories like this every day, maybe you
haven't scrolled through the 2nd/3rd/4th pages enough?
------
MrZongle2
I really enjoyed reading this.
I grew up in Spokane, and graduated from high school there in the late 80s. At
the time, the place seemed just as boring and backwater as Napoleon...though
it retrospect it was far from it. I was eager to get out and go to "real"
places, so I joined the military. I saw new states, countries, _continents_.
I still went back to Spokane, though. Up until this year, I had family there.
My mental map, however, was frozen in the early 90s; 1993-94,
specifically...the year I lived in town after getting out of the Army.
Subsequent visits to Spokane over the next 20 years became increasingly
jarring, as that city moved on but the image in my head did not.
In that respect, I envy the author because sometimes a lack of change can be
comforting. The fast-food place where I worked my first job for two years?
Demolished. The same for movie theaters where I took dates, pizza parlors and
bowling alleys where I hung out with friends. That's progress, of course, and
if Spokane hadn't changed at all that would probably be even more disquieting.
After reading the article, I think the residents of Napoleon may have the
advantage over the rest of us "big city" dwellers. While modern technology has
made it into their world, they still have developed interpersonal skills that
a close-knit community fosters. In my neighborhood, in contrast, I barely know
my neighbors. We all have Netflix. I've worked on sexy, shiny things in my
career but as the cutting edge has moved on, they've faded away; folks in
places like Napoleon are more likely to focus on hardy things that _last_.
Small, remote towns have obvious disadvantages but I think sometimes their
benefits are overlooked.
~~~
nkurz
_Small, remote towns have obvious disadvantages but I think sometimes their
benefits are overlooked._
I'm probably blindered by my asocial nature, but I strongly agree. "Internet
culture" is often considered synonymous with urbanization, but improvements in
communication and delivery make rural living (at least in the developed world)
much more appealing.
For me at least, technology removes the need for proximity. If I were
incubating a technology company and working with a small team, a small town in
the Dakotas would be an ideal location. Yet so far as I know all of the
incubators are encouraging companies to base themselves in expensive (and
distracting) urban areas.
Assuming you have an idea, and a small team, and need a place to implement it,
what are the actual disadvantages to a rural location? Sure, maybe bustling
cities are great for generating new ideas, but what startup has ever been long
on time but at a lack for ideas?
Veering off in analogy, my guess is that there is probably a correspondence
between those who like "open office layouts" and those who want to live in
dense cities. Many productive engineers prefer offices with doors, and fewer
distractions. Am I wrong to associate "rural life" to a "an office with a
door"?
------
flomo
The second picture perfectly sets the mood for this piece.
The 1970s Plymouth Sapporo in the foreground (a rebranded Mitsubishi Galant).
Haven't seen one of those in decades, and this one is rustless. Behind it a
1990s Chevy Caprice, a 20000s Chevy Impala, and then the grain elevators. It
is the land that time has forgotten.
------
feintruled
Fascinating article. I would have expected that modern technology would tear
old fashioned communities like this apart, but it can actually enable them to
survive. People don't have to leave to see the world, it comes to them.
~~~
tempodox
Reminds me of the Tao Te Ching:
Not venturing out-of-doors, one may know the world
Having technology actually support this is fascinating.
------
imjk
I'm really glad the editor was insistent that he have a professional "photo".
Those photos were beautiful and affective.
------
nkurz
The photographs look hauntingly familiar. I lived for a few years in a mirror
image town just across the South Dakota line an hour due south. Some stray
thoughts:
The area was mostly settled by "German-Russians". These were Germans who moved
to Russia under Catherine the Great, and then re-immigrated to America in the
late 1800's:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans).
German was the primary spoken language in the area until World War Two
(1940's) when it became too politically unpopular to continue. Which is to
say, they made it through World War One before making this change.
Pheasant hunting is probably the primary activity that brings visitors in to
this part of the country. Pheasants were introduced from Asia about the time
the German-Russians came, although they nativized faster. There is lots of
public land available for hunting, much of it enrolled in the Conservation
Reserve Program, which pays farmers to keep land out of production and often
opens it up to public access:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Reserve_Program#E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Reserve_Program#Enrollment_Procedures).
The town's approach too "development" was different than other parts of the
US. Primarily, they were concerned with tearing down houses before they became
dilapidated, or worse, "bought up by some California trucker passing through
who'll move in with his Go-Go girlfriend" (close to exact quote). You could
(and still can) buy a very nice house in town for less than $50,000, or a
livable fixer-upper for much less. There's probably better potential for being
a remote technology worker now than when I was there trying to do it by
dialup.
I was back a couple falls ago, visiting from California for pheasant hunting.
The town I was in looks exactly like the photos in the story, enough so that I
wondered at first whether Napoleon was a pseudonym. Visually, it was almost
identical to how it had been when I was last there a decade before. I had been
wondering how much impact the internet has had on the culture, and this
article gives nice insight. Thanks Rex!
------
bryanlarsen
"no drags to cruise"
Strange. That was the only daytime form of entertainment for a large portion
of the teenage population of towns like this: driving up and down Main Street
and in front of the school, either showing off your car (your status) for the
girls or showing off that you have a girl in the passenger seat.
------
nl
Maybe next time someone on HN claims that FB is dying among teens it would be
possible to point them at this story.
| {
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Subsets and Splits