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Show HN: TweetFull – an automated Twitter marketing and branding tool - dinwal http://tweetfull.com ====== seanrrwilkins Just put in a test, will check back with comments in a few days. ------ dinwal Would love to hear if you guys have a feature request.

US Supreme Court Will Hear Case Re: Standards for Software Patent Eligibility - jakewalker http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/alice-corporation-pty-ltd-v-cls-bank-international/ ====== leeoniya can you imagine if every RFC had been turned into a patent where we would be today? i think this alone should be telling of how every software patent rides on the goodwill of a culture of open source and standardization that has existed for decades (when true innovation was taking place). it's complete insanity that patents can be granted for inventions which rely so fundamentally on an infrastructure which could have only been built so successfully - and explicitly - without them. ~~~ rayiner A substantial part of the work that resulted in the RFCs happened pursuant to federal funding before December 1980. This is significant because prior to December 1980, the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, inventions developed in federally funded programs had to be assigned to the government. Therefore, there was little incentive to patent those inventions. If the developments had happened today, at MIT, BBN, etc, they would be patented. ~~~ malandrew Are there any studies that do a deep analysis of the impact of the Bayh-Dole Act? Were there any benefits? If not, is this an act that we should lobby to undo? ------ twoodfin IANAL, but I'm surprised by the EFF's amicus brief. A large portion of it is an enumeration of the deleterious effects of NPE "trolls", but from my understanding of the case, it's purely about establishing better guidance on what is or isn't patentable under section 101. SCOTUS seems unlikely to be moved by the pain caused by NPE's, when Congress could readily change how patent infringement or licensing works for PE's vs. NPE's if they considered it a serious problem. Obviously they still got the cert, though not of the particular case they wanted. I'm interested to hear how some of the much brighter legal minds on hn would handicap this case. My uneducated guess is that the patentability of software will largely survive, but the Court will try to formulate a test designed to exclude claims that would be clearly too abstract were they not "instantiated" on a computer. Something like the Amazon 1-click patent would probably survive, while the _Alice_ patents would not. ~~~ WildUtah Last time the patentability of business methods came around was 2010's Bilski v. Kappos case [0]. Software was discussed as a related matter. The Supreme Court rejected any specific test as dispositive for patentability. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [1] had advanced a "machine or transformation" test as the standard for abstraction and unpatentability. That test would have required that a patent specify a specific machine or a transformation of a form or state of matter somehow in order to be sufficiently concrete. It was a vague test that would have allowed almost anything not as awful as Bilsky's application, which essentially claimed various century old hedging strategies whenever implemented on a computer. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the test was an indicator of abstraction but not definitive. It also ruled 9-0 that Bilsky's patent was garbage. The patentability of business methods in general was discussed in the opinions. The great John Paul Stevens [2] wrote the dissent in Diamond v. Diehr [3] thirty years prior explaining why and how software patents were terrible and should never be allowed, but only gained four votes. He wrote an opinion explaining again why software patents should not be allowed and gained four votes again in Bilsky in a court where every member but him had been replaced in the interim. Unfortunately Stevens is retired (it's well earned -- he's 93) and the leading intellectual property expert on the court is now Breyer. Breyer wrote the dissent against effectively permanent copyright terms in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Sotomayor and Ginsberg have also been in the Stevens camp on patentability. New Justice Elena Kagan usually votes with those three. So we can hope for four votes for software freedom once again. There were also four votes in Bilsky for patenting software, though not with any visible enthusiasm. They were Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas. Finally Scalia refused to join just one opinion and split between the two without addressing the serious ongoing questions of patentable subject matter. So the final tally was 4-1-4. The CAFC split 5-5 on the Alice [4] case the Supreme Court just decided to hear. The split was similar to the Supreme Court in Bilsky and did not resolve any simmering issues because of the even split. Note that even the Google and EFF briefs on the Alice case didn't suggest outright abolition of software patents at the CAFC. Justice Stevens may have seemed like a lonely crusader by 2010. It may be that the enemies of our industry have gained so much power in Washington and the patent bar that the best we can hope for is a slow, slow rollback. Certainly there are a lot of people making billions without the trouble of actually building anything who can spend their efforts to keep the racket going. Without the need to make things, they can lobby full time to continue getting rich at the expense of innovators and startups and the public through software patents. The most likely result here is a 4-1-4 split again, unless a new way to appeal to Scalia can be found. Real progress from the Supreme Court probably requires a new justice; the current pattern indicates that pragmatic Democratic appointee is much more likely to abolish software patents and a movement Republican appointee is most likely to definitively endorse them, but individual justices can always assert their own visions once appointed. [0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski_v._Kappos) [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Federal_Circuit) [3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr) [4] [http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CLS_Bank_v._Alice_(2012,_USA)](http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CLS_Bank_v._Alice_\(2012,_USA\)) ~~~ twoodfin From the tilt of your comment, I assume you think that a properly constituted, wise SCOTUS would rule software patents unconstitutional, or more likely in violation of statute. What's the short case for that? I don't see how my black box with some novel capability becomes un-patent-worthy as soon as I replace the gears and levers inside with a digital computer. ~~~ WildUtah There are so many conclusive arguments against software patents that the result is overdetermined. Nevertheless, lining the pockets of the patent bar is likely to overcome any quality of argument as long as computer programmers have even less Washington influence than illegal alien terrorists. I'll give a few arguments, but first let's consider yours. Black boxes are never patentable. The concept of patents is that you reveal exactly how your process works and you get a limited monopoly on the totally new and non- obvious bits of your process for the public benefit. It always matters how the process works inside. That's the theory anyway; the patent bar loves to rob the public by cheating the bargain. 1\. Computer programmers are overwhelmingly against software patents. For the first time in my life I see educated people advocating the abolition of the entire patent system, even at the cost of life saving drugs, just to get patents out of computer software (John Siracusa, to cite a public personality, but there are many, many more who agree). Programmers hate patents in their industry by something like ten or twenty to one. 2\. Software patents are harmful to innovation. They created almost all the modern patent trolling crisis. They shutdown startups and innovative projects and block open source. They promote vendor lock-in and empower giants over small companies with new ideas. 3\. Software is math and both math and mental processes are SCOTUS identified ineligible subject matter. 4\. The quality of software patents we see is uniformly bad. None of Apple's, Motorola's, Oracle's, Samsung's, or Microsoft's recent patents in litigation or threats thereof have contributed anything to the public. The billion dollar patents from Eolas and NTP were pure garbage. None of the troll patents we hear about all the time ever contributed anything to our art or even constitute inventions at all. Bilsky, Ultramercial, and Alice are all ludicrously abusive. Whole teams of programmers could work for decades searching without finding a single plausibly valid and useful patent in their field. 5\. When we bought our computers, ever since the first general purpose computers in the 1940s, we have done so expecting to run programs on them. Using a machine for its expected and customary use is not subject to any patents beyond the patents on the machine itself. Running any program at all is the expected use of a computer, at least for programmers who write their own programs, so any program running on a computer is automatically in the prior art. In fact, we already have a list of every program our computers are expected to run and it includes every program any computer can run. We haven't printed the list out (not enough paper), but we know exactly how to produce any part of the list for your pleasure on demand. Now the patent bar wants to tell us that programs we expected to run, that are the conventional use of our machines, and that have been on our list since the 1940s are their brilliant inventions and they are going to prohibit us from running them. No thanks. ~~~ DannyBee " lining the pockets of the patent bar is likely to overcome any quality of argument as long as computer programmers have even less Washington influence than illegal alien terrorists." 1\. The patent bar[1] itself has little to no influence in Washington. Nobody cares what they think. Congress cares about what the companies some of these folks work for think, but AIPLA, for example, has never had any real lobbying impact. They've complained about every rule change, every bill, every everything that has ever "hurt" their members. As far as i'm aware, there has never been any changes that have resulted from their comments. 2\. The influence of computer programmers in Washington is mostly due to the fact that they spend time posting here instead of doing anything about anything. This is an entirely self inflicted wound, and the sooner programmers stop convincing themselves this isn't true, the better off they will be. Watching this happen without fail since _1997_ is one of the reasons i became a lawyer. I would wager a large amount of money if even 1% of the local user groups of programmers of various sorts that still exist, each appointed a representative, and had that person go to their local congressperson/senator, and said "I represent a concerned group of local small business people and programmers, and software patents are destroying our ability to make a living and causing us to lose jobs", that software patents would have been a solved problems years ago. [1] I'm also not sure why you keep saying "the patent bar". The patent bar itself is not of one mind, and there is no real, single organized patent bar that does anything, because the patent bar are those attorneys and agents licensed to practice before the PTO, and since being a lawyer is not a requirement, they come from a variety of walks of life, not just a bunch of attorneys. The actual patent bar (IE as run by the PTO) offers literally no opinions on anything, and certainly does not lobby, just like the bar of the 9th circuit court of appeals doesn't lobby. There are a number of outside organized collections of patent attorneys, like AIPLA, but as mentioned, none are really "the patent bar". There is no single mind among these folks, either, Most of the inside and outside litigators I have met in the corporate realm rail against software patents. So even "the patent bar" is not consistent here, it's more like you have the criminal defense lawyers vs the prosecutors, rather than a single "criminal law bar". ~~~ throwawaykf _> ... and said "I represent a concerned group of local small business people and programmers, and software patents are destroying our ability to make a living and causing us to lose jobs", that software patents would have been a solved problems years ago._ That is very true, but my very strong hunch is that this hasn't happened because software patents are _not really a problem_ \-- at least not anymore. As I've said elsewhere, the vast majority of programmers barely even know what a patent is, and tons more consider them a good thing. Those are also overwhelmingly the people that don't spend time posting on places like this. Another indirect piece of evidence is the current uproar in Congress about patent trolls: A handful of trolls (that I'm aware of) -- like the WiFi guys, the scan-to-email guys, the vehicle-tracking guys -- send out demand letters to mom & pop businesses, and suddenly Congress is up in arms. It's possible, but I find it unlikely that, if there are so many companies involved in software patent litigation, there are not even a few that would reach out to their representatives. ------ jakewalker Because it is not (yet) reflected on the SCOTUSblog page, here is the Order granting certiorari: [http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120613.zr_4g1...](http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/120613.zr_4g15.pdf) The actual link above links to a number of amicus briefs urging the court to grant (or not grant) review, and would be good reading to understand the issues in the case. Links to Coverage: [http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/12/court-to-rule-on-patent- ri...](http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/12/court-to-rule-on-patent-rights/) [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/06/us-usa-court- softw...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/06/us-usa-court-software- idUSBRE9B50QJ20131206) ------ baldfat There needs to be more money spent on staff at the US Patent Office so they don't just rubber stamp patents and let the courts decide. 1) Something needs to be a true innovation to be a patent 2) The process should take a lot of man hours. I don't feel either of those things happen due to shortage of staffing and a wild everything is possibly patentable. ~~~ rayiner > 2) The process should take a lot of man hours. The intellectual property laws generally reject this "sweat of the brow" doctrine.[1] The idea is, that someone should be able to get a patent for something that results from a flash of insight rather than years of expensive R&D. I think rejection of this doctrine is a grave mistake as applied to patents. Essentially, it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of innovation in the 21st century. A new invention does not happen because someone has a clever idea one day while mulling over a problem during lunch. That may have been true in the early 20th century and earlier, but it's not true today. Today, invention is driven by research labs staffed by expensive PhDs using even more expensive capital equipment. The purpose of patents in the 21st century is to protect and be able to transact in the results of this capital-intensive R&D. E.g. Adonit has a new iPad stylus that's 1.9 mm versus the 6 mm typical for iPad styluses ([https://adonit.net/jot/script](https://adonit.net/jot/script)). The capacitive touch matrix on the iPad normally cannot pick up on such a narrow point, so they use some active sensing technology that relies on measuring the electronic field emitted by the capacitive matrix and feeding that back to special software over Bluetooth. For this they have a patent. This was not a flash of insight. This was the result of measuring EM field strength with expensive equipment, buying lots of iPads to test product variability, doing lots of experiments and iterating the design. The purpose of a patent here is to keep companies from free-riding on all that R&D, not to reward anyone for a flash of insight. By rejecting sweat of the brow doctrine in the context of patents, patent law has become divorced from its underlying economic justification: the prevention of free-riding. The magnitude of the disincentive created by free-riding depends very much on the capital investment that went into the invention. [1] Sweat of the brow doctrine is more typically used in the context of copyright, but is applicable to a degree for patents as well. The doctrine has opposite effects in the two contexts. In copyright, it has been used to reject copyright-ability for things like phone books that might take work to compile, but aren't "original works." However in patents, it has been used to justify granting patents for "inventions" that weren't a lot of work to invent. ~~~ nimble > This was not a flash of insight. This was the result of measuring EM field > strength with expensive equipment, buying lots of iPads to test product > variability, doing lots of experiments and iterating the design. So what do you think is going to happen if someone else takes the same flash of insight ("use active sensing technology to achieve a smaller stylus"), puts in their own brow sweat to work out the details, and deploys a competing product? Adonit isn't going to sue for infringement, right? And if they do, they won't win. Right? ~~~ rayiner I'm talking about a hypothetical change to the patent system, so your question about what would happen under the current system is pointless. As for what _should_ happen, then under my proposal, proof of independent invention should be a defense to infringement. This falls out of the first principles (the economic concept of free-riding). The purpose of patent protection, economically, is to protect some $(big number) capital R&D investment from a competitor that trivially copies it for $(small number). If, instead of trivially copying it for $(small number), the competitor instead goes to the trouble of engaging in its own R&D for $(big number), then there is no free-riding and no reason to find infringement. ~~~ nimble I see what you meant. Your proposal sounds more like copyright-for-ideas than patents. In such a system, why would you need to apply for a patent? Samsung copied your phone design? Sue them for that, holistically, rather than finding some arbitrary set of "inventions" that they infringed on. It sounds like the jurors mostly looked at things this way, anyway, when deciding who's morally right. Zynga probably wouldn't like the change, though. ~~~ rayiner Useful articles do not fall under copyright, except for the separable portion that can be considered purely aesthetic. E.g. if P&W disassembles a Rolls-Royce engine, and copies the shape of the turbine blades (which are the result of very expensive R&D), Rolls-Royce can't assert copyright because the shape of turbine blades is functional, not aesthetic. ~~~ nimble Now you're the one who's ignored that this was hypothetical. My point was that if we go ahead with your proposal, such that patent protection becomes about preventing copying work rather than (possibly accidentally) duplicating an idea, then what's the point of filing for patents? It could work just like copyright does now. Rayiner: I can't respond to your next post for a while, but you didn't address the main point I was attempting to make in comparison to copyright: You don't need to file. There would be rules that you can't significantly copy someone else's hard work. If someone copies your hard work, it will be evident from the facts, just as it is evident with copyright violations, and you can sue them. No patent required. ~~~ rayiner It wouldn't work just like copyright does, even if you extended copyright to functional designs. Consider how patents and copyrights interact with respect to software. Say you make a new audio encoder leveraging some psycho-acoustic property. Copyright protects the literal source code only. It doesn't prevent someone from doing a "clean room" reimplementation of your software, and in the process taking advantage of all of the expensive testing you did to validate your psycho- acoustic model. Patents as they exist today might apply to any encoder leveraging that psycho- acoustic property. I.e. a competitor couldn't hold up the fact that it performed independent testing to build its own psycho-acoustic model as a defense to patent infringement. My proposal falls in-between. You can prevent someone from reverse-engineering your program to copy the essential details, which is the fruit of your expensive R&D. However, you can't prevent someone from using the same basic idea when they go to the expense of deriving those essential details for themselves from the basic idea. What patents as they exist now protect, and what my proposal explicitly wouldn't, is the "flash of insight." The realization that multiple people may have in response to some journal paper that some newly-described psycho-acoustic phenomenon may be used to build better audio encoders. ~~~ nimble Implicit in my characterization "copyright for ideas" is that this proposal will somehow _extend_ copyright, as it's currently understood, to cover ideas. I understand your point that copyright as it exists today does not cover more abstract ideas. The main difference I was attempting to emphasize between copyrights and patents is that copyrights are automatic whereas patents must be filed and granted. And my point is that your proposal, which seems quite reasonable to me, would seem to work just fine with the copyright model of automatic rights: no patent filing required. And for that matter, the distinction between elaborate designs, which cannot be copied, and "flashes of insight", which can, looks a lot to me like a principle of fair use. No? ------ shmerl So this is about functional claiming in patents? ------ xutopia That class action lawsuit is horrible... 23andme is awesome and I love having it. I never felt cheated or any of that because I read it carefully. ~~~ dragonwriter Reading it carefully doesn't help if the information provided isn't accurate.

Node OS - dhruvarora013 http://node-os.com/ ====== Havvy The main benefit they're giving is that you can use `npm` instead of `yum` or `aur` or whatever the package manager you use is. IMO, you're better off using Nix if you are tired of your package manager. ------ mrmondo That is disgusting, it's not even native (not that you'd want it to be), not to mention that NPM is the most unreliable package manager out there. ~~~ arms Why do you think NPM is "the most unreliable package manager"? I don't use Node, but I thought the general consensus was that it's one of the best out there. I'm genuinely curious. ~~~ stormbeta No offense, but where on earth did you get that impression from? I have a feeling whoever told you that has either never used npm with a non-trivial project or was messing with you. I've had more issues with npm in the last month than I've had with pip, gem, and apt combined over the last two years. "most unreliable package manager" is an apt descriptor. ~~~ shayanjm If you've used it for anything non-trivial, then you probably should've been using a private registry - in which case you get the decentralized benefits of npm sans npmjs.org availability issues. source: a number of non-trivial node deploys ------ spankalee I was hoping that this would be about a unikernel for node.js, ala MirageOs, which would be quite interesting for running node directly on VMs, Xen, Raspberry Pi, and such. ------ andrewstuart2 I think calling it an OS might be a stretch. "Linux distribution" is perhaps a little more accurate. ~~~ awalton Honestly, it might be time to put the pejorative term "Linux distribution" to death. It was pretty true when there was Slackware and Debian, but the we're not talking about two stalks off of the same evolutionary branch anymore, but an entire ecosystem of different animals. Modern "distributions" ship with vastly different libcs (bionic, newer vs older glibc, muslc), different userland runtimes (busybox, "GNU/Linux" with core utils, etc), different compilers (various branches of gcc, llvm increasingly), different init systems (SysV, upstart, systemd, etc), different security frameworks (AppArmor, SELinux), different display servers (X, Wayland, unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger) and vastly different UIs (from Android, to GNOME and its fragmentations, to KDE and its fragmentations, LXDE and XFCE, and so forth). You can't even bet on the file system hierarchy being the same anymore, with aberrations like NixOS running around. The saddest part is that Linux is the most some of these operating systems have in common, and these days it can easily have the least overall impact on most of the users. These things are completely different animals, loosely bound by design contracts like FreeDesktop.org's various specs and Linux Standard Base specs which everyone violates in new and unique ways. Not treating these operating systems as entirely different entities is being at best dishonest, and at worst is costing millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars in effort across the industry. You can't honestly target "Linux" as a platform because it's _not_ a platform. If you've maintained, or especially if you've distributed any piece of software on "Linux" these days, you've seen the horrors. ~~~ broodbucket >unfortunately Mir and SurfaceFlinger I don't know anything about SurfaceFlinger, but why do you call out Mir here after referencing a vast amount of other components of a Linux distribution that all essentially do the same thing? Who knows, Mir could turn out better than Wayland. Weird how everyone's happy for an abundance of choice, except when it's a display server or init system. Those two generate so much hate and I don't really get why. ------ CoffeeDregs Not to say that the project doesn't look valuable, but I'm not sure if the project is still alive. See: [https://github.com/NodeOS](https://github.com/NodeOS) Latest commit was 4 months ago. ~~~ jackmoore I thought the same thing, then noticed the only files in the repository are the readme and info for contributing. I'm not sure where the actual project source is. ~~~ centizen It's here: [https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS- Docker](https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS-Docker) EDIT: Nevermind, seems this is all meta and dockerfiles. ------ codereflection npm frustrates me to no end, so my knee jerk reaction to this is "No!" Interesting idea though. However it's not an OS, it's using NPM as the OS's package manager. [http://node-os.com/blog/introduction/](http://node-os.com/blog/introduction/) ~~~ Vekz Nice blanket negative statement "NPM IS BAD". Maybe you'd consider expanding on why npm frustrates you? and leaving a comment with more value. ~~~ Pacabel I don't see why codereflection needs to spell it out. The problems with npm, and JavaScript in general, are quite apparent to anyone who has used them. And if you haven't used them, a quick search engine search will turn up this information many times over. It'd make sense to ask for such clarification if the information truly wasn't available elsewhere, and accessible with a quick search. But that's obviously not the case. It's pointless to rehash this obvious stuff over and over and over and over again. ~~~ bshimmin It'd be good if there were a canonical "Why npm sucks" article, like the "fractal of bad design" one for PHP. This one seems like a fairly reasonable candidate: [http://www.jongleberry.com/why-i-hate- npm.html](http://www.jongleberry.com/why-i-hate-npm.html) (though the "nested dependencies" bit needs much more swearing, and I disagree with the last paragraph suggesting things in Ruby and Python land are just as bad). ~~~ evanriley In the last paragraph there, is he saying that Golang is 'bad' because it doesn't have a package manager? Does it need one? I always assumed 'go get' was enough. Honestly curious here. ------ Pacabel What benefit does this approach bring? It reminds me of Chrome OS and Firefox OS. These all are based upon the Linux kernel, so they could potentially offer a very rich user experience like so many more traditional Linux distributions do. Yet they intentionally cripple themselves into being limited, JavaScript-only platforms. This would be understandable if, say, storage space was expensive, like it was in the 1980s, and the software had to be kept lean and limited. But that's clearly not the case today, even when it comes to low-end smartphones. The same goes for runtime performance. It'd be one thing if software written in JavaScript was consistently and significantly faster than software written in C, C++, and other commonly used languages. But that just isn't the case. Unless we're looking at highly tuned and highly unrealistic benchmarks that even the JavaScript VM authors have focused on making run fast, JavaScript's performance is quite bad. It would be understandable if perhaps the user experience could be improved in some way by them providing superior alternatives to the traditional userland software offered by Linux distributions. Yet this isn't the case, either, because some of the biggest complaints with Chrome OS and Firefox OS are that the bundled software is awful, and users have no real recourse due to the very limited environment that both offer. As far as I can tell, users just can't win with a system like this. The kernel is powerful, but this power is isolated and kept inaccessible. The userland experience is much worse than what one would get if just using a traditional Linux distro, and running the JavaScript software on top of that. The benefit to the user just isn't apparent. ~~~ Havvy Well, with FirefoxOS, you don't have Android's Dalvik nonesense nor iOS's restrictive marketplace. They needed some userland language, since the isolation keeps security high. These mobile computers aren't used in a security conscious way, and many developers are unscrupulous in the environments. Give them the power to install rootkits, and they will. ------ cdnsteve This link seems to have detail than the homepage. [https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS- Docker#introduction](https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS-Docker#introduction) ------ dhaivatpandya As a concept, I guess this can be called an OS, but at the present moment, it is pretty far from one. Right now it seems like this is basically a work-in- progress replica of BusyBox built on Node. ------ lorddoig > 83 points by dhruvarora013 4 hours ago I'm guessing there's a hundred neckbeards on 4chan who've been laughing hysterically for ~3.5 hours ~~~ hartator why would be they laughing? It's a hoax? ------ vanilla npm gives you dependency hell in a medium sized project, with a node_modules folder 10 times larger than the project. This on a OS level ... interesting ------ varkson I'm generally pretty open about using web technology outside the web, but come on guys, why do we need this? ~~~ mmahemoff No doubt JavaScript's past, present, and future is intertwined with the web, but really it's an independent programming language. It's not like there are primitives for divs and tables. And by an accident of history, it also happens to be the world's most popular programming language and overall a decent scripting language, so I can't see why its web association should make it any less OS-ready than any other language. Plus, Node's async model lends itself implementing lower-level OS features (not that they are present so far in NodeOS). ~~~ CmonDev We are forced to use poorly-designed legacy languages on the "open" web, but why would you torment yourself with them when you are not limited outside of the "open" web? ------ freakonom npm as your package manager: npm install -g node as your shell: node An actual minimalist kernel booting to node might be interesting. But this isn't that. This just looks like plain node and npm, except locked down and made complicated for no reason. ------ sarciszewski I haven't dabbled in Node yet; my main source of hesitation was I've been told npm doesn't cryptographically sign packages. If npm as a package manager is a selling point, I would hope this has been corrected (or had been all along). Otherwise, enjoy your MITM trojans. ~~~ wcummings So then you can't host a mirror? ~~~ sarciszewski Sure. But if anyone wanted to use your mirror, how would they know you didn't make changes to the base package without crypto? :) ------ Touche The main repo hasn't been updated since February: [https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS-Docker](https://github.com/NodeOS/NodeOS- Docker) ~~~ yebyen This is not necessarily a bad thing, right? I've written Dockerfiles before that don't need updating and are useful months later ~~~ Touche Is your dockerfile an OS? ~~~ yebyen Yes? Sort of .. is your distribution an OS? (Should the distro's source repo change every time the installer is rebuilt from new upstream packages? I don't think so) Someone has been working on this repo for the last 22 days and they merged their changes back in #12. Possibly in response to allegations that the Node- OS project is dead. I would expect most of the active development to be in the upstreams of this project (npm, linux kernel), it doesn't seem to be dead at any rate. Just not very fast-paced or popular. ------ xj9 How is this useful exactly? I suppose there _are_ JS bindings for GNOME (if I remember correctly) so getting a GUI stack wouldn't be that difficult, if that's where they want to go. I just don't see how using NodeOS would be an advantage over any other *NIX distro. ~~~ naturalethic It isn't useful at all. It is an experiment and a hobby. For those of us who use javascript everywhere we already can, it is natural to want to push it further and see what we come up with. ------ xiaoma Atwood's law continues. ------ dubcanada Reminds me of [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript) ------ noobermin I am an outsider who is starting to touch javascript but I have my history in scripting and numerical sims. Is all this stuff about node.js really something revolutionary or is it hype? ~~~ sarciszewski My experience with node-webkit leads me to believe it could, once ironed out, actually become a popular way for web developers to get their start with client-side apps. As far as Node.js as a server-side scripting language? Idk. I'm a PHP guy. ------ imslavko First submission of this link a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6519671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6519671) ------ mappu A similar project in perl: [http://perllinux.sourceforge.net/](http://perllinux.sourceforge.net/) (2005) ------ naviehuynh what is the purpose of this OS anyway? ------ mattdeboard No. ------ totoroisalive The npm / node bubble has begun. ------ sauere Operating Systems written in JavaScript, Webframeworks written in C. It sure is a strange world we live in. ~~~ oscargrouch nah.. its still Linux.. much like Android or Firefox OS ~~~ rkda Wonder why you're downvoted. I think your point is valid. ~~~ sarciszewski Yeah... Anyone who makes a valid point or say something possibly humorous gets downvoted by overly sensitive HN readers. (Like this comment inevitably will, too.) ~~~ sarciszewski (I wonder how many people downvoted it because they disliked what I said, and how many downvoted it as a proof of concept?) ~~~ andrewflnr It was downvoted because it was manifestly false and destructive. ~~~ sarciszewski Destructive? In a literary sense, or in a "10 tons of TNT" sense? I'm no literary critic if that's what you're implying. ~~~ stingraycharles Destructive as in the opposite of constructive. Your comment added no value to the discussion. ~~~ sarciszewski Adding no value to a discussion makes a comment neutral, not negative.

Functional programming for Object Oriented programmers - lifebeyondfife http://www.lifebeyondfife.com/82-f-sharp.html With the continuing popularity of functional programming, it doesn't look like it's ever going away. Here's is an introduction to functional programming in F# written with the object oriented (C#) programmer in mind. ====== AndrewDucker My problem with these things (and I'm not picking on this particular article, just on introduction to functional programming articles in general) is that they always tell you how awesomely easy it is to make lists, or calculate the fibonacci sequence, two things I never have to do in the office. What I want to know is whether functional programming languages would help me to write UIs better than C# does, to create XML documents from data, to retrieve data from web APIs and then display the results, etc. These are things I have a need to do on a daily basis, and I'd like to know if F# is the tool for them, or if I should stick to C# unless I'm writing a list processor or calculation engine. ~~~ profquail I was a C# programmer for several years, and I've been writing F# full time now for a little over a year. To briefly answer your points: \- F# doesn't have tool support for _building_ UIs (e.g., Winforms designer), but beyond that, it's very good for the code which actually runs the UI (the eventing and so forth). \- You could build some functions to manipulate fragments from XML, then build some higher-level functions from those, etc., then traverse your data (whatever it is) and use the functions you've built to emit XML in a clean and _precise_ way. I think Haskell already has such a library -- perhaps someone's ported it to F#? \- You can use F# 'async' workflows to retrieve data from web APIs really easily (and quickly, if you are doing it in bulk). In fact, this is probably one of the most common code examples shown for async workflows. In my experience, F# isn't great at everything, but in general, I'm much, much more productive writing F# than I ever was/am in C#. ~~~ thomasz Can you share some experiences with F# in bigger projects? I'm a little bit worried about the accessibility of larger code bases with global type inference. I would say that I have a pretty good grasp of the language in general, but I usually feel lost without IDE support or comments because heavy usage of things like currying and type inference assures that the signature of a function is pretty meaningless. ~~~ Dn_Ab Currying and type inference do not make function signatures meaningless, unfortunately however, reading their types is a skill that you need to practice for it to become natural. As for global type inference the one in F# is only partially global (between Scala and ML , Haskell). Anytime you are dealing with ad-hoc polymorphism, even when F# has inferred the types, you will often have to put the type in. Full point free programming also does not always resolve if you are into that. I have gotten into the habit of putting types and names for complicated functions in comments (///). I also write short descriptions for particularly dense pieces of code and have gotten in the habit of writing clearer, less dense code with full names because otherwise it does take longer to mentally unpack. That is, functional languages make it easy to write stuff like: let wu wp wn nu y x = wp * (exp (nu * y * x)) , wn * (exp (-nu * y * x)) ------ Zak The article says _List.map function list - Invokes function on every item within list and returns nothing._ which isn't what map does in other functional programming languages. Applying a function and returning nothing isn't a very functional thing to do in general, as whenever possible functions should be called for their return values, not anything else they might do[0]. Map normally returns a list of the function applied to every element of the list. I looked up the documentation for F#'s map, and it appears to do the same thing: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee370378.aspx> [0] And when possible, a function should _only_ return a value, not do other things. ~~~ lifebeyondfife Yes, my mistake sorry. Correcting it now. ------ xentronium I would recommend "Why functional programming matters"[1] paper to anyone struggling to understand the purpose of functional programming. It's only about 20 pages. [1] <http://web.mst.edu/~tauritzd/courses/cs347/whyfp.pdf> ~~~ Confusion That paper is a surefire way to scare people and keep functional programming from those that could use it perfectly well. You, and many others, vastly overestimate how capable even highly educated programmers are in understanding the arguments made in such a technical text. ------ mjbellantoni "Functions are invoked without using brackets or commas" Is this really a strict property of functional languages? :) ~~~ nandemo Yeah, the post is mixing essential features of functional languages with incidental points about a specific language's syntax. It's not wrong but somewhat misleading. ~~~ lifebeyondfife I hope it comes across in the preamble that I've been using F# (the only functional programming language I've ever tried out) for just a few days and as such I simply don't know which is which yet. Anybody who's read this blog post and is interested enough to look further into functional programming should (a) download LINQPad and play around with the interactive F# tutorial and (b) start reading things by people with a few years of functional programming experience under their belt, not a few days. ~~~ nandemo Fair enough. Sorry if my comment came out as negative, I simply meant to elaborate on bellantoni's comment. Minor inaccuracies aside, if your post instills the curiosity of a few programmers out there, it's a good thing. Please keep writing. :-) ~~~ lifebeyondfife Not at all, I'm really happy it's garnered so much interest and I'm glad people have taken the time to help correct me / advise what's not quite right. ------ marshallp One thing missed in a big way by this article and other newbies when it comes to (static) functional programming is the centrality of types. It really is what makes ml-derived languages special and it's a shame it's not promoted to non-functional programmers more. Most of your work is related to specifying your types, the rest falls into place naturally, and is why you can think and write code elegantly (and is super fun). ~~~ mushishi I would really like to hear more about this. I also do type-oriented programming in OO languages, such as Java. The code naturally falls into place, too, but it's just because of Java's verboseness, you end up a lot of hand-waving. But I don't think it differs much from how I would program in functional style, say, in Scala. ~~~ jberryman This talk by Simon PJ on type classes might be good [http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/MDCC-TechTalk-Classes-Jim- but...](http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/MDCC-TechTalk-Classes-Jim-but-not-as- we-know-them) ~~~ mushishi I actually have that on a browser tab, and will take a look at it. I know some Haskell (have read maybe 4 books but haven't really ever wrote it). ------ josh5555 great article...very useful. tyvm!

Ask HN: SMS vs Push Message? - chintan39 Which one is a better feature for a birthday reminder service for http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.birthde.com? ====== mdewinter Not everybody has a smartphone, your target might be more than just techies, so an SMS would be good. Also, choice. Give people the option to choose an email, push message, text and whatever else. Choice is important! ~~~ chintan39 Is it worth implementing push notification when SMS still works fine? ------ dear_srik If you want to serve even feature phones, of if the notifications should arrive even not connected to internet then SMS is best. But, consider the cost aspect too... ~~~ chintan39 So I should have both SMS and Push ?

Pandora and Spotify Rake in the Money and Then Send It Off in Royalties - jamesbritt http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/pandora-and-spotify-rake-in-the-money-and-then-send-it-off-in-royalties/?ref=television&gwh=0E551F7612AEE5E7D138ABC9DBFC8F3F ====== pvnick As someone who was entrenched in the music startup world for a while, I've concluded that the only way to save the music industry is for the major labels to die or become obsolete and for new, innovation-friendly content producers to emerge in their place. We need for music what Netflix is trying to do for movies/tv (see Lillyhammer, new Arrested Development season). It's that broken. ~~~ willwhitney I would be very excited for Spotify to start signing artists directly, without the major label middleman. It could let Spotify turn a profit on those artists while simultaneously paying out more to the people making the music. As an insider, pvnick, do you think Spotify could ever pull that off without burning the bridges of its current label deals? ~~~ rm999 Spotify already lets unsigned artists add their music through music aggregators like cdbaby: [http://www.spotify.com/us/work-with-us/labels-and- artists/ar...](http://www.spotify.com/us/work-with-us/labels-and- artists/artist-page/) I suppose the music aggregators are a modern day take on record labels. ~~~ k-mcgrady Not really, a label does much more than get an artists music in a store. Distributing the content is probably the easiest thing for artists to do on their own. Marketing, touring and merchandise are more complication and labels are still the best solution. ~~~ rm999 Well, that's why I said "take" on it. These companies are actually doing quite a bit that a traditional label would do: they store the media (the digital version of manufacturing it), distribute it, and market it. I don't think a traditional label is always the best solution, especially for groups that will never be big enough to justify the huge upfront costs a label puts in. These aggregators are really for the tail end of the spectrum: the 90% of bands who represent 1% of music listening time and don't have much hope of getting signed. ------ ricardobeat I wonder how much of that combined $380m ended up in the artist's hands and wasn't consumed in industry "fees". ~~~ jaylevitt Some history, for those not in the know: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/03264014993/riaa-a...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/03264014993/riaa- accounting-how-to-sell-1-million-albums-still-owe-500000.shtml) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml> [http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/prin...](http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html) Spoiler: bands get about 20% of what the label gets. Your album can sell 1 million copies and your band might still owe the label $500,000. Labels take 10-20% off the top for _breakage_ fees. Breakage. As in vinyl records that broke during shipping. ~~~ ricardobeat Yes, but that's for the recording/release/marketing/tours side. Royalties continue to be paid long after the production costs are covered. I imagine they _should_ go 100% to the artist, but wouldn't be surprised if they don't. ------ Sambdala "With artists and labels hit hard by declining sales over the last decade, it’s hard to argue for lower royalty rates." It isn't really. Changing times sometimes call for drastic measures. What you were able to charge in one medium might not be the same as you are able to charge for a new medium. It might not be fun for the people who were at the top of the heap before the paradigm shift, but that just means they should have made preparations for that shift when it was easiest for them to do so. ------ unabridged As bandwidth increases and hosting gets cheaper, someone is going to create a nonroyality paying music (and eventually video) streaming site with the ability to select any song. And it won't even have to be hosted from countries that don't reliably enforce copyright, as the number of cloud providers and hosting resellers increase it will become easy to rent new servers to repopulate their CDN faster than they can be shut down by the government/RIAA. ~~~ ladzoppelin So wait nobody gets paid for anything? Where does the music come from? ------ stickfigure _Pandora paid $149 million, or 54 percent of its revenue, for “content acquisition,” otherwise known as royalties._ What does Pandora do with the other $127 million plus?!? It's incredible to me that they can't operate a profitable company on that kind of cash flow. I'm genuinely curious - where does it go? ------ brady747 Still waiting for one of these or Mog or Apple or Rdio to sign artists themselves... ------ monsur This is really a shame because these companies are making a shitload of money. ------ paulhauggis Pandora and Spotify may rake in the money, but they never actually created the content. It would be like me starting a business that resells Microsoft software and complaining that it's too difficult to make a profit because I have to pay Microsoft for the content. I would be much more impressed if they signed their own artists and made a huge profit. ~~~ JasonFruit A popular and easy-to-use medium for finding and listening to music is a valid product, and they deserve to be paid for it. Spotify is useful enough to me that I'm happy to pay for it, and I listen to more music than I would without it. I hope that labels make enough from these services that they allow them wide enough margins to stay in business. ------ miratom Aww, you mean a CEO can't stay rich by giving away other people's creations for free? What a tragedy. ~~~ timmyd I don't think that's fair. These 2 companies have done more for music and promotion of music than anyone in the modern age - from an industry renown for collusion between the four majors (one falls into line and they all do etc). They have basically rescued a dying industry that essentially built its modern day business model on litigating everyone through RIAA and so on. That's not innovative - that's stupid and idiotic. Instead, what you have now is two companies who are trying to save a dying industry through subscription and the music industry trying to milk every single penny out of them. The dichotomy that creates is that these companies aren't sustainable long term - they are hemorrhaging cash re-the article: _Spotify’s accounts for the last year, recently filed in Luxembourg, show that it lost $57 million in 2011, despite a big increase in revenue, to $236 million ... On top of that it had more than $30 million in salaries, and more than $30 million for various other expenses. That is how you lose $57 million on $236 million in revenue._ That's just sad. The only incentive these companies have is to be ultimately purchased by the recording industry who can then dictate pricing on their own terms - and that's bad for everyone because then they are going to push prices up insanely. In fact, if these were purchased by the recording industry - it might be the worst thing to happen to music because we are all again at the mercy of the industry. They will want to maximise pricing and I believe, given their history, they will maximize anti-competitive behavior by essentially price fixing competing services out the market. By staying out the USA for 2 years, it was evident Spotify pushed (to some degree) the music studios to capitulate on their pricing - they both gave a little because the industry was desperate for cash. It's obvious to anyone that's the only reason Spotify weren't in the USA sooner - it wasn't economically feasible because the model was _already proven to be a hit_ in Europe. I don't, for one second, believe that the Music studio's are paying this out to the artists. They are dumping this straight into the bank - the industry in that regard is now basically running on live shows and tshirts for artists to survive. So don't be so quick to judge "giving away for free" - because thats not what they are doing. They have produced amazing services in my mind - and there should be some reward for that by the industry in recognizing and enabling them to create sustainable businesses. ~~~ willwhitney Not to mention that Spotify and Pandora are making it possible for young, poor people to be active music consumers without turning to piracy. When I was in high school, my options were to pay $15 an album, and thus only have access and exposure to a tiny music collection, or pirate music, hear a lot of great music, especially from smaller artists, and drag my friends to their concerts every time they were in town. Now I'm in college and still broke, but I pony up the $10/month for Spotify, and I continually encourage my friends to do so as well. They've created an experience that's dramatically better than piracy (even with nice private trackers), pays out at least some to the artists along with the moneypile that goes to the labels, and enfranchises people like me. I've always listened to an extremely wide selection of music, and now that I can pay to do it, I'm very happy to. And I still drag my friends to every good concert in town. ~~~ nilliams Exactly, I'm proud to pay my Spotify membership and I feel I get my money's worth... I'd probably pay more. I have now gone over 2 years without torrenting a single album (the exception being one quite-large Canadian band who happened to not be on Spotify at the time ... I'd already bought the album on vinyl so I didn't feel to bad about it). Before Spotify my best effort at _trying_ to be legal was to splash out every couple of months on some vinyl copies (nice to own... I still do this sometimes) of albums I'd already _stolen_ via bittorent. Spotify, is a music-lover's dream and it's how music distribution should work.

Danish Researchers: A Better Way to Line Up Than 'First Come, First Served' - ColinWright http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/lines-efficient-first-come-served/404218/?single_page=true ====== everyone It sounds to me like the researchers trials were ignoring the reason queues exist. You dont _choose_ to go to the bank or post office (for example) at an arbitrary time. You go because you have business which must be conducted and you only have certain time windows available in which to go there. The higher the overall demand for service is at this time the bigger the queue will be. Also in the last served first system it would be possible for people in the bottom of the stack to never be served! As long as a steady stream of newcomers arrived. ~~~ dnautics Agreed. In supermarket lines, for example, you let people choose their queue because you can see what people have and let them judge which queue they should be in to incentivise them to go to the queue which packs them in the most. I always feel a bit guilty when I purchase dry ice (for science) at the supermarket because it causes queuers to make an error in judgement as to the length of the line. At banks and the DMV, because there is no way to judge how long someone in front of you is going to take, it doesn't make sense to let people choose, so there is a single queue that is distributed at the end of the line. ~~~ mjevans Actually the DMV in my state works a little differently (at all of the secondary businesses which perform that task under some state license system, probably notary of the republic based; I never looked in to the details). There is generally a queue for a /type/ of operation that you are doing. It's expected that the average time to service a given person receiving that service has only minor variation and an occasional outlying exception. It seems that there is usually one agent assigned to each queue, and sometimes additional agents are assigned (balanced?) as load dictates. ------ pontifier I've often thought that the root of many queues is a discontinuity in pricing. This is most apparent on black friday. If prices were smoothed out then a time/money trade-off can happen. Anyone can jump to the front of the line if they are willing to pay more. This is more "fair" than last first but would optimize revenue for the seller, and lower wait times for everyone. Imagine: The next iPhone sale stars at $10,000. The crowd makes a loose circle as the clock starts to count down to sale time. Just before the clocks reaches zero, one obviously rich and important individual struts up to buy one. They casually complete their transaction, and hold up their prize as the clock starts counting down from 30 again. At time=zero, the current price starts dropping $5 per second until about a minute later the next person is willing to step up to buy it for $6k. They walk away satisfied because of the conspicuous consumption they have just experienced. Several more step up as the price begins dropping again at $4k, $3750, and $3100. The envy of the crowd is palpable. At $2560 a small swarm of early adopters breaks ranks. It's a good 20 minutes before the price starts dropping again. As you watch the large pile dwindle and the crowd begins to vibrate it's clear they will not be reaching the base price today, but will instead sell out the entire inventory at some unknown price. As you eye the crowd, you think about how much you want it, and suddenly your heart races as you step out in front of everyone else to get your hearts desire. ~~~ marshray I once tried to sell a car like this. I put an ad in the paper that said, say, $6000 and dropped it in price over time. It didn't sell. Years later when I went to buy a house the real estate agent explained to me why. The market for houses (and presumably cards) include lots of people who are watching and waiting for months or years to buy. They get into a steady state where they only look at new listings and ignore the ones they've already seen. So if your house or car doesn't sell relatively quickly, you move from the seller-arrival queue to the buyer-arrival queue. Which takes disproportionately longer and it's likely that you won't be getting the best price for it. ~~~ maxerickson The incentives for the real estate agent make them think that way though. If they sell a house for $200,000 in a week, they are probably a lot happier than if they sold it for $300,000 in 6 months. ------ smegel > the queues are more efficient How? Are they processing more units from the queue per second? Is it easier to find the vague end of a line among a jumble of people than the head of a queue? Are LIFO queues more likely to have something in them than FIFO queues thus avoiding wait times for the next customer and idle staff? Is it a good idea to leave a large portion of boarding to the last few minutes of the boarding interval? ~~~ dnautics There's probably also a pareto equilibrium illusion going on. If you screw the one person at the bottom of the stack, but serve everyone else more efficiency, is that 'the best choice'? Indeed, there may be no way to rearrange the order of service so that no one is worse off, but that is not necessarily the 'correct' optimal. ------ chrismcb The problem with this method is starvation. If you treat a queue like a stack, and you have a steady stream of incoming people, the first person in the queue will die of starvation before they are helped. ------ peteretep This is horrifying. Literally the fabric of society would break down.

Mat Dan: 'I became an accidental celebrity 6,000 miles from home' - amaccuish https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49466721 ====== propter_hoc See also the case of "Da Shan" [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashan), who is supposedly the most famous Canadian in the world by dint of his mega- celebrity status in China. He wrote an amazing Quora note a while ago on his position: [https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-Chinese-learners- seem-t...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-Chinese-learners-seem-to-hate- Dashan-Mark-Rowswell) Well worth reading in its entirety. ~~~ zaat The level of self criticism, self awareness and frankness is inspiring. ------ mogadsheu A couple of personal anecdotes: When I took a VC internship in the Philippines during the summer, one of the big pop stars was an American Filipino. We had a convo at the bar he owned—turns out he was a SoCal boy like me, and got tired of going to school at Devry, so he moved to the motherland and got famous. When I visited Norway for the first time, I saw a girl whose presence really floored me. As she was leaving the club, I followed her out. Turns out she was a pop star as well, and liked me for my American-ness. I think with the right presence, it’s not as hard as one might think if you’re from an OECD country. ~~~ sdiq And, do could you also have anything to do with a city in the Horn of Africa? Your username kind of sounds that. ~~~ mogadsheu It’s an old nickname! Given to me by a very clever friend ------ mark_l_watson Nice story! A good read to start off Monday morning. Off topic, but one of the really beautiful things about this planet we live in is the diverse cultures. ------ kamfc It's fascinating to see a white or black person make it big in an Asian country; in the startup sense, does this mean their ethnic and skin color became their USP and advantage? The same thing I've seen happen when a black or white person show up in talk shows in S. Korea, Japan, and China. Oh, let's not forget Jonny Olsen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNm7k2PUGzI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNm7k2PUGzI) =) The saying goes, you're only limited by your thinking 〰️ think big! ~~~ tokai A kind of generalized Asian version of 'big in Japan'. ------ telesilla Learning the local's language is THE way to become in good favour of those who live there. When I'm travelling for more than a few days I learn "hello" and "Sorry, I don't speak x language" which usually gets a smile and I can then politely ask if they speak english. I used to learn enough to read a menu but these days I get lazy with Google translate (which is incredible, when you use it in real-life. Hands down, digital translation is one of my favourite technologies) ~~~ nerdponx It's also in my opinion basic courtesy. You are a guest in their country, at least try to learn how to say hello and thank you. ~~~ karl_schlagenfu I disagree, English is fast becoming (already is?) the global language. It makes sense to standardise on English instead of learning hundreds of different languages (which is no easy task). ~~~ Infinitesimus English is woefully inadequate to capture cultural nuances of a lot of places in this blue-green spinny ball though I grew up multi lingual before moving to the US and there are still several things that i have to say "well, there's no word for that in English but it's kind of xyz". There are so many ideas, thoughts and feelings that cannot be captured with the English language presently. Of course every language has that issue across borders so I'm not convinced standardizing in english as a global language will bring enough benefit to be worth the cost ~~~ celticninja I think that's unfair, just because there is no direct or succinct translation doesn't mean the same thought cannot be expressed, it's just that it needs to be more verbose perhaps. It is also incredibly open to new ideas and words, best put by James Nicoll >The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. ------ alephnan > A lot of people say they know hundreds of foreign workers who come over here > and speak Malay in two or three months and they don't turn into a celebrity Can you really speak a language sufficiently well in 3 months, especially when you are there to work on something potentially unrelated to language ? ~~~ jamesrcole My mother's family are from Malaysia (from the Terengganu mention in the article) and I've been told by a couple of people there that Malay is a pretty easy language to pick up and that foreigners can learn it pretty quickly. ~~~ klingonopera Yes, Bahasa can be learned very, very quickly, it uses the Latin alphabet, words are written how they are spoken and vice-versa, verbs are never conjugated nor do they have tenses and the grammar is simple (e.g. plurals are created by simply doubling the words, like rumah, house, becomes rumah-rumah, houses, which in written form is abbreviated to rumah²). My father used to joke you can learn Bahasa in three weeks, English in three months, and German in three years. I've no clue about the Terengganu dialect, though. It's my third language, and I've never needed it professionally, so I whatever I've said may not be 100% accurate... Source: Am half Malay, lived there for nine years, around the KL area. ~~~ rudilee People called any malay or Indonesian language "bahasa" really bother me, bahasa means language, so if you tell people "i speak in bahasa", literally translated to "i speak in language", sounds really weird to me ~~~ klingonopera I've often heard locals refer it to nothing more than "Bahasa", but yes, correctly you'd have to say "Bahasa Malaysia" or "Bahasa Indonesia", which can get umbrellad to "Bahasa Melayu", but that then sometimes offends the Indonesians, so I'm sticking to "Bahasa". My previous comment is valid for both. Since we're nitpicking: People call _ing_ any Malay or Indonesian language "Bahasa" really bother _s_ me, Bahasa means language, so if you tell people "I speak Bahasa", literally translated to "I speak language", _it /that_ sounds really weird to me. (Personally, I find that beautiful. If nothing else is specified, it "defaults" to itself, how awesome is that?) ------ wprapido There's Dustin Luke from the States in Argentina, too. Obviously, the cultural difference is much lower ------ ptah This is awesome! I can't wait for the movie ------ tamizhar From the article. "'What's the difference between Mat Dan and a Bangladeshi worker who can speak Malay?'" Mat is white whereas Bangladeshi people are black. Malay people worship white skin and thus they even give money to beg-packing white people who exploit this to travel South East Asia for free. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEGFARCfQUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEGFARCfQUU) In fact, Mat himself was one of those. "Rather than just spending his time travelling with Western backpackers". ~~~ coldtea > _Mat is white whereas Bangladeshi people are black. Malay people worship > white skin and thus they even give money to beg-packing white people who > exploit this to travel South East Asia for free._ It's much simpler: Bangladeshi workers speaking Malay are a dime a dozen. Westerners learning a minority language in Malaysia are relatively few and far between. Millions of whites visit Malaysia as tourists but they don't become celebrities. It's also not about "worshipping white skin", but about being amused and/or feeling validated by the western internet. Finally, the protest against western backpackers asking from money (a recent fad protest in some countries) is irrelevant to this particular story. ~~~ tamizhar > the protest against western backpackers asking from money (a recent fad > protest in some countries) is irrelevant to this particular story. There's a term for that, it is called beg-packing. It is not irrelevant as it has been suggested in the comments that Mat was originally a beg packer. The article itself states that he was a back packer travelling South East Asia. [http://www.popularyoutube.com/video/HYkgwRJvc2s/Dear- White-B...](http://www.popularyoutube.com/video/HYkgwRJvc2s/Dear-White-Beg- packers/) > It's also not about "worshipping white skin", but about being amused and/or > feeling validated by the western internet. Thank you for clarifying. I'm using the term worshipping perhaps to oversimplify "feeling validated when a white person gives attention/time". And yes, it is about skin color, as a Western black person who is fluent in Malay would not get any attention. ~~~ coldtea > _There 's a term for that, it is called beg-packing. It is not irrelevant as > it has been suggested in the comments that Mat was originally a beg packer._ I mean not relevant as in "there are tons of beg packers and hardly any raise to any fame with local populations". I've been in Malaysia several times and in the general area. It's not like there's any work shipping of whites, much less white beg packers, going on, waiting for someone to speak the language to ignite... >* Thank you for clarifying. I'm using the term worshipping perhaps to oversimplify "feeling validated when a white person gives attention/time".* Well, that I agree could play part. Tho that's the same often happens in white places, e.g. in my Eastern / Southern European land, western validation is often celebrated -- so I wouldn't say it's tied to skin color. ------ haunter Funny how cultural appropriation works sometimes ~~~ devnonymous That word you used, I don't think you know what it means. Appropriation is when you take something (often by deceit, lies or force) and (this is the important part) call it your own. Had he for instance learned Terenggaun food, clothing, habits, or any part of the culture, returned to the UK and announced all of it as something he came up with, that would be cultural appropriation. OTOH, what he has done -- given himself up to it ("I'm more Malay than English.") would be described, as why-oh-why points out, cultural integration. ~~~ simonh Cultural appropriation really doesn't mean claiming you came up with something. It's a fairly broad term but a recurring issue is when a cultural element is used in ways incompatible with or insulting to it's original meaning. So for example a head dress or garment meant to signify ritual purity becoming a common thing to wear while getting drunk at frat parties.

How A Reddit User’s Post Made Him A Hollywood Screenwriter - cpeterso http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/04/storyboard-how-a-reddit-users-post-made-him-a-hollywood-screenwriter/ ====== noonespecial I'm just thrilled we might get a movie without a "2" in the name or a "reboot" in the description out of the deal.

The Realities of Installing iBeacon to Scale - GuiA https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2015/02/04/the-realities-of-installing-ibeacon-to-scale/ ====== verelo Personally my experiences with iBeacons have been horrible. For an app of any real scale, you want to control your own messaging, but most of the vendors in this space want you to use their messaging platform (otherwise, what would be the point in partnering with them?). Unless you go all in and do it yourself, you're potentially setting yourself up for a very fragmented user experience and fruitless campaign. Additionally, for iBeacons to work you basically need the stars to align (or for you to have some of the most trusting users in the world). You need: * the user to have a data connection (likely and reasonable) * always on location permission (depends on your app, possibly difficult to justify) * the users bluetooth to be on (somewhat likely) * access to send the user a push notification (in most cases, without this beacons are fairly useless as you're using them to message the user in response to their location) In my experience, getting a few of these isn't hard, but getting them all requires a lot of story telling and justification (and rightly so!) This is much worse on iOS than it is on Android, but with Android 6.0 you're going to see the same issues for iBeacons are you now need to ask permissions as opposed to simply getting them as part of the installation process. Essentially, in my limited experience with two different beacon installations, beacons are great in concept, but in practice difficult to turn a profit on. ~~~ IshKebab The only permission you need to ask for for beacon scanning on Android 6 is "coarse location". Fairly reasonable I think. ~~~ verelo Yeah I agree that is reasonable, but the other non-requirement based requirements still exist, which add to the level of success you're going to have when executing a project using beacons. ------ manyxcxi I do have to say that some of their pains could be alleviated by choosing the right vendor(s). We started with a few Estimote beacons (they are fantastic for small site/Dev work and really are a great company), but we met with and found many solutions to management, security, etc. Estimote beacons are VERY simple. Choosing another vendor allows remote management, health monitoring, rolling identifiers, a whole host of other solutions to the problem. We even went to a Meetup where Nordic Semiconductor wound up sending us some of their Dev kits and WE created our own beacon OS. There are so many more options available for really big installs. ~~~ IshKebab Yeah the Nordic chips are really great. I've created a device that is both an iBeacon and a normal BLE device, and another that is as many iBeacons as you want in one. I did try spamming hundreds of random iBeacons to see if it would crash any phones (apparently that used to crash old Android phones) but it didn't really do anything. ------ flashfabrixx The reality of posting a popular article on HN ;) Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&r...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cache:https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2015/02/04/the- realities-of-installing-ibeacon-to-scale/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) ------ jfim What do museums get out of using these instead of, say, QR codes for visitors to get informations on exhibits? Do these require users to install a custom application? ~~~ manyxcxi Having used them for a number of different applications, I can tell you that they are way better than QR codes from a 'just works' perspective to the user. Now, the dev/site team knows darn well that the hardest part of using beacons is getting the distances/interference measured and dealt with, but at the end of the day the user shouldn't have to do anything other than walk around and have your app installed on their phone. That is key, they have to have your app installed (and allow the correct OS permissions). After that you can (on iOS at least) pop up alerts, passively track how people are moving through your space, see what the most popular spaces are, change your app context to show them details about where they're standing, give them directions, etc. ~~~ greggman I don't know how accurate beacons are but I recently visited the Greenwich museum in Greenwich, the Museum of Musical Instruments in Brussels, In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, and Casa Mila in Barcelona. All of which had audio tours using numbers (punch the number on some device they hand you) and all of them were fairly crowded and dense. If they were using beacons and the beacons had a range or more than about 1 to 1.5 meters I'd imagine a lot of conflicting inputs. I suppose good UX design could mitigate that showing all the options from all nearby beacons. I guess it just has me wondering is this a solution in search of a problem. Reading the article it also sounds like lots of poorly designed software. The author complained about pairing being a chore but it seems like with some good software you'd just put up any beacon, scan it, then pick what it corresponds to. If that beacon disappears or breaks just pick any beacon out of sack of beacons, place, scan, pick what it corresponds to. That seems like it should be a trivial 5 second operation. Am I missing something? I shouldn't care what the id is. I only care that it's unique to every other beacon (which the software can tell me the moment I scan it). I don't care about major or minor numbers. Just put any beacon anywhere, scan, pick what it corresponds to. Done. ------ blisterpeanuts Batteries: an unfortunate weakness of ibeacons. I would recommend a six month schedule of preventative battery replacement. Someone at AnDevCon recently showed how to replace Estimote batteries though it might be less work to just go with Sticknfind or another maker that allows battery replacement. Range: use the SDK to set power to a lower value, to avoid overlap. Installation: maybe install small (white) plastic boxes to the wall with screws, then can easily place or remove beacons. Color becomes less of an issue as well. There's a product "BluFi" or something like that, plugs into a wall socket and utilizes both ble and WiFi. Might solve several problems in one blow. I have no experience with this however. Android prior to KitKat has some problems with BLE including inability to clear the device table without wiping and reinstalling the OS. I agree that BLE doesn't scale that well. Currently it's something of a solution in search of a problem, but future potential is good. ~~~ eman2611 checkout BeaconOutlet:[https://www.beacongrid.com/index.html#technology](https://www.beacongrid.com/index.html#technology) I think you'll be happy. (disclaimer: i've been working on this for about 2 years.) ------ tedmiston Full disclosure: I work for an audio beacon startup (in bio). It's great to see this article getting attention. I also shared it two days ago in a comment on a story about audio beacons ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10563134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10563134)). Mainly my goal was to remind people there are some realistic use cases where audio beacons >> BLE beacons. For some reason audio beacons seem to be often forgotten about as a viable alternative. ------ VLM "What should be an easy and quick process is a mess of pencil erasing on a floor plan combined with trying to track changed numbers." I found this collision between thousands of year old tech vs modern tech intriguing. In the business world, it never fails that no matter how high tech an individual product is, it always relies on paper and pencil and human operated accounting at some point. ------ ctz Site is not responding. "The Realities of serving static HTML with Wordpress"? (I'm assuming its wordpress and a static blog at this point.) ~~~ tim333 Yup, seems to be Wordpress. View source includes "wp- content/plugins/portfolio-slideshow/css/portfolio-slideshow.min.css" etc There's a google cache ------ MrQuincle Absolutely true! It might come across as an ad, but our solution is especially created to remedy these problems. We're using SLAM from robotics to get beyond basic triangulation. And we have them behind power outlets to get rid of battery and management issues. See [http://crownstone.rocks](http://crownstone.rocks). ------ gkop > If we can sneaker-net a problem I think from context the author means something closer to "hack" than "sneaker-net". Sneakernet has a useful and more precise meaning.

Ask HN: Concurrency in Go vs. C/C++ - Ch3ck I know in C++ multithreaded programs share memory as to way to track resource access. However in Go this is done through channels. I&#x27;m trying to explore some subtle differences writing concurrent Go code the C&#x2F;C++ way. My aim to find some bad practices in the process and figure out the best way to fix them. I&#x27;m currrently out of ideas.<p>Thanks, ====== cpg1111 I'll preface this with: I am in no way affiliated with O'Reilly. I would suggest this book for a deeper look into Go's concurrency [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920046189.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920046189.do) While Go does have channels to allow concurrent communication, it also allows the use of mutexes for concurrency similar to c/c++. And on the flip side, there's things like libmill in C that will give you Go-like concurrency. It is also worthwhile looking at how Go's memory model works (it's similar to tcmalloc). Additionally, looking at the implementation of channels maybe interesting for you. It consists of a buffer that gets memcopy'd with mutexes for synchronization, granted, that's a very simplified view of it. ------ staunch Rob Pike did a number of interesting talks on concurrency in Go. If you search "Go concurrency" on YouTube there are more good talks. Go Concurrency Patterns [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6kdp27TYZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6kdp27TYZs) Concurrency Is Not Parallelism [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_DpYBzKso)

Show HN: I'm Creating a GitHub Repo Quality Bot - schachtecode https://github.com/Schachte/Git-Enforcer ====== dreyfiz I do like the idea overall. So, let me tell you why I instantly hated it and closed the tab. Your Show HN headline did a great job, I was excited to see what a github repo quality bot does! This is a personal preference, but I find the name "Git Enforcer", the police officer emoji, and the git logo with a police hat on it completely off- putting. Not the atmosphere I would want to foster when I'm trying to use persuasion to get colleagues to adopt good practices. In my world, police are authoritarian bullies who demand instant compliance without negotiation, or else they'll brutalize you. It's humbler and more inviting for a bot to come across as an assistant. "Git Enforcer" comes across as something a clueless boss imposes. I think all the wrong-footed design cues come from the name "git enforcer". Basically your bot is a _linter_ for collaboration behaviors. It can't actually enforce anything, all it can do is nag. Actually, if the name was GitNag and the icon was a horse, I would find your bot charming. Speaking of linters, lately I've been using [Black]([https://github.com/ambv/black](https://github.com/ambv/black)) for my Python. Its self-description in that Readme sold me on it instantly. I wish you well with this! It is a cool idea. ~~~ mtmail In Ruby world I use [http://batsov.com/rubocop/](http://batsov.com/rubocop/) every day. In Perl world [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl::Critic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl::Critic) I personally couldn't care less about logo or naming. ~~~ dreyfiz That's just like Perl to have a literary name like Perl::Critic :-) ------ kl94 Looks nice indeed but it reminds a lot this tool: [https://github.com/danger/danger-js](https://github.com/danger/danger-js) ------ Boulth Git Enforcer... Doesn't have anything in common with Git. ~~~ ReedJessen True. But it's a helpful messaging touch stone to get people into the intended headspace. That said, I agree the branding is a big off. All that said, Great project, OP. Keep up the good work. ------ hk__2 Why do you use labels and comments instead of GitHub’s Statuses API [1]? [1]: [https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/statuses/#create-a- sta...](https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/statuses/#create-a-status) ~~~ WillAbides I’m not involved in this project, but I would guess that it’s because it validates both issues and PRs, but only PRs have statuses on GitHub, More precisely, only commits have statuses, and issues aren’t associated with commits. ~~~ schachtecode This is exactly correct. I haven't finished the pull request feature yet, what you're seeing on the repo is just issues. I will be taking requests for any desired features ------ deadcoder0904 Looks nice

A Mysterious Military Spy Plane Has Been Flying Circles Over Seattle for Days - pera http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13154/this-mysterious-military-spy-plane-has-been-flying-circles-over-seattle-for-days ====== coin > Nobody at the DoD seems to know who the aircraft belongs to or what exactly > it is doing flying so many missions over the Seattle area. No. They know they just aren't disclosing it. ~~~ hellofunk Source? ~~~ PhasmaFelis You think the DoD would stand by and do nothing while a completed unidentified military surveillance plane circled a major city for days? Whatever this thing is doing, it's cleared at a high level. Maybe the people answering the phones for journalists don't know. ~~~ archgoon Not to mention that the last few days the Navy's been conducting an air show. [http://komonews.com/news/local/blue-angels-air-show- begins-t...](http://komonews.com/news/local/blue-angels-air-show-begins-takes- off-as-planned-despite-hazy-skies) ------ Animats "You guys are going to go up there and circle until you can replicate that failure." (Much of what test pilots really do is stuff like that.) ~~~ ozfive I can attest to this. I was a systems engineer for a (In-Flight Entertainment System) company and I can't count the amount of hours I have held a plane in the air just to read the bits over the ARINC bus from the FMS. No documentation. ~~~ greedy_buffer What is there about entertainment systems that can't be tested on the ground? ~~~ detaro Data from the flight management system via an undocumented protocol? ~~~ drdeadringer I might be dense here: Why would the protocol be undocumented? Entertainment to toilets to guidance, it's still a flight system. ~~~ derefr Perhaps because it was spurious traffic "leaking" over the bus that wasn't actually intended to be there, and would be removed if anyone in the flight control systems department were told they were exposing it. And yet, that leaking data was the only way to build a cute view of travel-time or somesuch to differentiate their software for their bid, so they had to use it, and had to _not_ mention it or request assistance with it. In software terms, it's a bit like Windows software that relies on OS-private APIs or registry keys. Sure, the data is there to use, but it wasn't intended to be used by anything other than the OS itself, and if they could (without impacting performance), they would have made it inaccessible to userland. But, in both of these scenarios, the platform owner always seems to be happy to see the program using "their API" once the app is released and gains traction and draws attention to the platform. That doesn't mean they _do_ anything about the API; if it's private, it stays private; if it's deprecated, it stays deprecated. But they don't tell the company to stop once the app is out, and may even feature them in advertisements about their amazing platform. ------ 1_2__4 Here's something I think about sometimes: we're not far from a future where it would be trivial for every major city to have drones flying over it 24x7, collecting everything - license plates, faces, electronic signals, and so on. Cost and technological ability are basically there already, if we're willing to budget the money (as in, it wouldn't cost fifty trillion a year or whatever, its within the realm of financially possible). And all our laws say that is totally legal, even to share every bit of that data with every police department everywhere. Are we ready for that? How would the world respond? How would American respond? Would we collectively decide this is not something we want and pass laws to stop it? How would those work, when the same laws that protect those methods also protect citizens right to photograph anything they want from a public location? Is there any degree of surveillance that Americans would reject, and would the government accept that rejection? Or has the world changed so much now that that's our inevitable future? Honestly I think it's the latter. ~~~ eldavido I'm reminded of an article in Foreign Affairs arguing that our our data privacy laws need to be based on use rather than collection, e.g. even if you know someone goes to the bar every week, it's illegal to predicate a credit or insurance decision on that knowledge. Might be worth considering. ~~~ andrewflnr Even if I personally know that by happenstance, I'm not allowed to use it? Laws that try to regulate my private thoughts are much scarier than surveillance. ~~~ geon That's not a private thought. You would be taking action against another person. ~~~ andrewflnr Yes, deciding whether to enter into a contract affects the other person, just like _everything else_. That's a red herring. The point is, my motives should be my own. Do you really want a court second-guessing every decision you make in the marketplace because it constitutes "taking action against another person"? ------ joshuaheard The annual SeaFair air show is over Seattle this weekend with many different military aircraft circling overhead all weekend. [http://www.seafair.com/events/2017/seafair- weekend](http://www.seafair.com/events/2017/seafair-weekend) Also, McChord Air Force base, North America's largest air force base, is about an hour south of Seattle. ------ leroy_masochist SIGINT platform providing support to a training exercise for ground-based assets. There is no substitute for a big city with a whole bunch of different signal sets emitting in and around the spectrum of the actual selector you are looking for. ~~~ binarytransform >> selector Found the former SIGINT guy. ~~~ EADGBE My clue was their use of "SIGINT". ------ QAPereo It doesn't sound like that much of the mystery at the end of the day, as the article concludes that it's probably a USAF/JSOC/CIA training mission. ~~~ ISL As they're flying out of Boeing Field, I'd tend to agree. Plenty of aircraft go through rounds of testing and qualification there. The following, though, does remain the law of the land: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. ~~~ pdonis Surveillance of publicly visible areas is not the same as search and seizure of your person, house, papers, or effects. ~~~ unethical_ban One cop on a street corner observing the public is one thing. A group of people with a warrant gathering detailed routines of a suspect is one thing. An apparatus that can observe the detailed activities and whereabouts (location AND behavior) of all people in a metro area is a completely different thing, and one our courts and Constitution have not yet handled. ~~~ meddlepal What's the difference other than technology makes it more efficient. I'm sure the courts will weigh in eventually but this seems like a legislative issue. ~~~ flogic Efficiency is a problem in it's own right. It drives down cost. Which means that surveillance will be used more often and for less important reasons. It's not uncommon for people to need to skirt the law from time to time. This is particularly true of people in the lower classes of society. Is it fair to ding a retail worker whose car registration just expired but needs a few days to get it all straightened out? That's something modern surveillance could easily handle nearly perfectly. ~~~ meddlepal We could also just write laws that allow grace periods to cover problems like that. It is already common legislative practice to do that in many cases... My original point was I find the "It's too efficient" argument to be a very weak attack angle on the use of technology in surveillance. ------ ajarmst There's lots of possible reasons that aren't nefarious. Could be training of pilot or crew (I once watched a passenger aircraft orbitting the base I was stationed at for most of a day. Turned out it was commercial pilot training and check rides). Could be test flights of equipment and systems for airworthiness certfication. Could be DoT testing navigation aids, etc. If the government wanted to surveil Seattle residents for some reason, I expect the NSA could come up with something a little more subtle. ~~~ partisan One possibility plucked straight from a thriller: a nuke or dirty bomb is somewhere in the area and they are scanning for it. ~~~ nl " _scanning for it_ " ~~~ angstrom Cue head explosion... ~~~ partisan The lack of sense of humor here is stunning. Other comments here are deep in conspiracy-land. Forgive me for contributing a differing, humorous viewpoint. ~~~ yodon You might want to read up on Poe's law[0] before spending too much more time constructing clever ironic posts for threads like this. [0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law) ------ cr4ig_ Why does it have to be a DoD/CIA mission? It's quite possible it is Homeland Security gathering information on illegal immigrants, or possibly the FBI conducting surveillance. I've seen these sorts of overflights regularly in the Baltimore/DC area. Most of the time it is Cessnas over a specific area (usually the FBI, judging from the shell company associated with the aircraft no.), but recently there was an umarked/blocked info aircraft canvasing Baltimore for a couple hours -- just the city, a very specific grid flight pattern. It was flying out of a commercial facility in Delaware. My money is on surveillance targeted at locating illegal immigrants, using ELINT and photographic evidence together. ~~~ enraged_camel >>It's quite possible it is Homeland Security gathering information on illegal immigrants How would it do that using this plane? ------ cyberferret Is it a US military asset?? It's a CASA (European made aircraft). What is the possibility that it is a foreign military aircrat on joint exercise, or testing out integration of US made ECW equipment installed at Boeing field? ~~~ manarth "the only visible markings being a USAF serial on its tail" ------ apozem Reminds me a lot of a persistent surveillance program they've tested in other cities. The idea is if you record all movements in a city from the air, you can trace where criminals come from or where they go. This system has not been implemented in a major American city, to my knowledge, because of the privacy issues. Excellent Radiolab episode about it: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye- sky/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/eye-sky/) ------ mkstowegnv I think the theories in the other comments are more likely and I would prefer that this one was not correct: Seattle is one of the largest sanctuary cities close to the US border and a spy plane would be one way to try to gather evidence of illegal immigrants and to try to intimidate city officials (who might be unofficially alerted to the reason for the plane's presence). ~~~ matt4077 How (tf) would you gather "evidence of illegal immigrants" from the air? ~~~ codezero One of the main things these aircraft do is to record video over long periods of time. It could follow vehicles from known work sites back to their origin, pinpointing the homes of day laborers. That's one thing I can think of, there are probably a lot more. Like sigint on certain types of mobile phones calling internationally etc. ------ mjevans Another possible reason is the unusual smoke in the area from the BC Fires. It's been horrid viability quality for almost the last week. ~~~ 35bge57dtjku But you get a nice red moon. ------ slm_HN Seattle has been blanketed in smoke during the last week from forest fires in British Columbia. The flyovers may be related to this or the Seafair airshow. [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/weather/why-so- much...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/weather/why-so-much-smoke- from-b-c-fires-natures-air-conditioning-is-broken-weather-service-says/) ------ flashman > very unique sigh ~~~ boot13 Stopped reading after the third word. ------ criddell Maybe it's one of those rigs with a huge-sensor camera that records the entire city. RadioLab did a story about this technology. So, for example, if a gas station is robbed, they can go to the video and play it backwards from the time of the robbery and follow the criminals back to their homes. ------ alkonaut Is Boeing making any military systems at Boeing WA, or only airliners? I'd assume they make at least the military versions of civilian airframes (e.g P-8 Poseidon) there? If that's the case, won't Boeing often be doing long test flight campaigns for various subsystems out of Boeing field? ------ forkLding Is this the same plane flying around Vancouver, BC, Canada as well? Mention of an army plane(s?) kept appearing on r/Vancouver today. Although I could be very well mistaken and its a coincidence. ~~~ na85 The Rcaf just bought new Search and Rescue aircraft and the training centre is in Comox. Could be them. ------ qrbLPHiKpiux Related to a threat from North Korea? ------ hordeallergy Any embassies, foreign properties in those circles? ~~~ matt4077 There are no embassies in Seattle. ...unless some insanely stupid government somewhere got the Washingtons mixed up. ~~~ Godel_unicode There are 7 consulates (diplomatic mission representing the embassy in the capital) in Seattle: Canada, Japan, Mexico, Russia, El Salvador, the PRC, South Korea [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_in_the_United_States#Seattle_.287.29) ~~~ EADGBE Don't you just love how people post on the internet with such confidence in what they believe. ~~~ Godel_unicode Getting facts is hard! ------ flaque This reads like a broadcast from Night Vale. ------ known It's NSA ------ honestoHeminway Teaching criminal startups to track such planes with lasers from drones, to prevent surveilance? Also, i guess for gangs the somali option of burning tires is viable.

Ask HN: Remember if a user has completed a first-use feature tour? - aen Example: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebizroi.com&#x2F;Portals&#x2F;176237&#x2F;images&#x2F;new-facebook-share-message.jpg<p>By cookie? But he&#x27;ll be prompted to do it again when he logs in from another device. Database? Overkill? What&#x27;s a good design? Caveats? Any other ideas? ====== jufemaiz Alternative option for DB is to not remember each feature tour completion, but rather have feature tour table and store last feature tour completion and just show the ones since then? ------ onion2k Think of the value as a user preference along the lines of "Do you want to see the product tour? [Yes|No]". How would you store any similar user-set preference? In Usable Requirements ([http://www.usablehq.com](http://www.usablehq.com)) we use an untracked JSON object as part of the user document for preferences (this is in MongoDB). This means we don't have to keep a schema up to date - the front end can essentially put anything in that object (subject to some validation obviously). Consequently the front end code has to be tremendously defensive as values may or may not be there, but that's a good thing anyway. ------ davismwfl My question would be, user or visitor? If user than I equal that to a logged in or known person and therefore I would store it in a cache of some sort that is also persisted for those times you have to reload. If for a visitor, meaning you have no clue who they are then I'd store a cookie, and give them the option to skip out of the tour if they have already seen it. ~~~ aen It's going to be a logged-in user. I suppose I'd use a tour_completed KV store for a bunch of tour_type : boolean. ------ gumballhead redis (with persistence) or a serialized user config field in a database. It's not overkill, because you'll likely wind up needing to store more user-specifc data in the future.

Google BigQuery API: Interactively analyze large datasets - yarapavan https://code.google.com/apis/bigquery/ ====== dougb I applied for access to this months ago and I'm still waiting. Has anyone received access to this ? Can you comment on your experience with it ? I'm interested in how much data you were able to store into it and what kind of response time you see. Thanks! ~~~ snissn Also how expensive is it? ~~~ JakaJancar That has not been announced yet. ------ kondro Seems like a reasonably good product. The biggest issue still remains that you need to get your data into it and, because it is designed to handle really big datasets, that data could be terabytes or more. Another example of an interesting Google product that no company could look at using because they won't specify how they will offer it commercially. What's the point of adding your 50 billion rows if they start charging $10/100,000/month like database.com?

Invalid SSL certificate for www.php.net, belonging to cu.be - ai_ja_nai https://www.php.net/ ====== ai_ja_nai they fixed that ------ ai_ja_nai Notice that this doesn't happen when heading to [https://php.net](https://php.net), only for [https://www.php.net](https://www.php.net). Bad vhost?

Google promoted Texas gunman fake tweets - dberhane http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41915065 ====== colemannugent My summary of the article: An algorithm designed by Google engineers to promote upcoming stories does exactly what it was supposed to do, and people who don't understand why Google employees did not manually review just one out of one hundred thousand things that the search engine indexed that day are suprised. Google Search is a content aggregator that show you what it thinks you are most likely to click on. It does not know about politics, it cannot fact check, it does not think care about effort journalism, the only thing that matters is what stories generate more ad revenue. Of course, Google will try to police its results better after this incident, but they can't effectively do this without mass censorship. If you don't believe me, see the recent YouTube drama over monetization. ~~~ maxerickson Could you explain why it is good for society for Google to not give a shit about what it promotes? I mean, the point of limited liability is not to give investors a path to profit regardless of all other things, it is to encourage investments that are beneficial to society. If it isn't working, we should retink it. ~~~ lettergram > I mean, the point of limited liability is not to give investors a path to > profit regardless of all other things, it is to encourage investments that > are beneficial to society. If it isn't working, we should retink it. From my understanding, a limited liability company exists to protect the business members and shareholders from legal action of their private persons. I.e. if the business goes under due to a poor product or something, they can't be held personally liable. That doesn't mean they are excused from criminal behavior, they can still be liable for some of that. However, in either case there is no "benefit to society" clauses. It's simply a legal construct to protect people. In this case, Google did what they did... They probably weren't criminals though ~~~ ams6110 Yes, exactly. The point of Limited Liability is _not_ simply to create a guaranteed path to profit (in fact it does no such thing; LLCs go bankrupt every day, and members can lose every penny they have personally invested). Though there is no explicit "benefit to society" clause, that is the basic rationale for limited liability. It's an incentive to allow members to define the extent of their personal financial exposure. In so doing, they are more willing to invest in businesses, which can produce a net benefit to society (e.g. by employing people, paying taxes, etc.). ------ beaner I feel like there's a big push to blame "fake news" and related phenomena on tech companies right now. Fake news is created and shared by people. Tech is just one of the vehicles through which we share it. The problem isn't tech, it's people. Fix the root cause with education and the tech will reflect it. ~~~ PostOnce The problem is that tech companies aren't just showing you everything everyone says... they're picking and choosing what to show you. The 10,000ft overview is that they show you whatever keeps you coming back or staying on-site longer. This gives them more ad impressions and makes them more money. Therefore, if their algorithms determine that showing you fake news, lies, and other socially-destructive and false propaganda is more profitable... they can and will do that. So the question is, how do we regulate what the tech-utilities get to filter from your view? Should we regulate? It's not the regulation of speech, but rather the regulation of the willful filtration of speech for profit. i.e., "dont show this guy dissenting views to his position or he'll stop coming back", where does that fit into our needs as a society and how should our laws tackle it, if at all? ~~~ opportune I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media. I completely abhor the stranglehold its placed on culture and media, especially for the younger generation. It has dumbed everything down into what will get clicks, and is extremely invasive to boot. The only thing we "gain" from having social media as a society is advertisement.... which is essentially a way to get us to consume goods we wouldn't be consuming otherwise (i.e. waste). I don't see anything good coming from replacing the more or less natural human social structure that evolved over millions of years increasingly with an app designed to get us to buy goods we don't want, or get just 5 more minutes of attention. Such a waste of humanity's minds and effort. Ultimately I really don't think you can say that Google/FB's dominance is a net positive for humanity. Sure we get to enjoy a lot of "free" goods, but those goods are merely a vector through which advertisements can learn more about us. Google/FB wouldn't be rolling in it if advertisers weren't making money off from advertising through them. I see it almost as a maladaptive coping mechanism adopted by our society at large. We have a completely self-destructive reliance on perpetual inflation- beating growth, and at this point some of the most important mechanisms driving this growth are highly sophisticated advertisements designed to squeeze every last bit of consumer spending out of the economy as is possible. Not only that, but they've collectively convinced almost all of humanity to whore out all of their own personal information just so they can browse meme pages or check up on old high school acquaintances. It's absolutely disgusting behavior that to me resembles the informed preying on the ignorant. ~~~ PostOnce A couple points and devil's advocacy on a couple as well: Search is as bad as social, even if we give up social, it'll be hard to replace search (I read Wikimedia is working on something... a nonprofit search would be a fantastic asset to the world.) Advertising generates a lot more than waste, in fact it may advertise to you a tool that you didn't know existed that prevents waste. Maybe rechargeable batteries or a water filter so you don't buy water bottles or who knows what, that sword cuts both ways. The ethics of advertisers and the lack of regulation in advertising though is easy to attack. That stuff is a mess. As for Google being a net negative, I lean to your side of the argument but I think it'd be difficult and both sides would have a lot of merit; other search engines are just less efficient; think of all the man-hours of wasted research Google has saved by giving you the right result the first time, it must be billions of hours annually, maybe more. A lot of time and money has been spent competing, and the competition hasn't gotten much closer in terms of actual search results, so, if Google didn't exist, we may just be at a loss for that stuff. ~~~ annabellish Neither is intrinsically bad for society, merely the monetisation model. "State owned" search/social would obviously be even worse, however, so there isn't a clear path to having a version of either of those things which actually have as their primary aim the things Google/Facebook claim to. ------ runesoerensen Not sure what to think here... Google's 'public liaison for search' says _" Google briefly carried tweets with dubious info "_[0] without defining further what that means - except their Twitter results are changing _" second by second"_[1], and later assuring that it _" only happened for a few thousands who searched for his name"_[2]. This was not my experience. I took a screenshot of my search results at 9:06PM ET [3], e.g. 1-2+ hours after the egregious tweets (which were already prominently featured within 30-40 minutes, if not earlier, as several other sources suggest[4]). I might be missing something, but it seems disingenuous to suggest that this only happened for a short period of time, while downplaying the matter by vaguely and generally hinting at second-by-second dynamic tweet update algorithms. Also I even think the claim that only a few thousand people saw this may be disproven by Google's own statistics. According to Google Trends, searches for Devis Patrick Kelly peaked between 7-9PM ET [5] - so before I took the screenshot that night. I find it very hard to believe that only a few thousand people saw this over the 2+ hours when this peaked on that night. Based on the Google Trends graph[6] it seems the vast majority of searches happened during the peak, and I suspect it's reasonable to assume that millions have searched for his name since his name was publicly revealed? [0] [https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713318172635137](https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713318172635137) [1] [https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713426440253440](https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713426440253440) [2] [https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713578827653120](https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/927713578827653120) [3] [https://imgur.com/a/ao4kK](https://imgur.com/a/ao4kK) [4] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/06/google_twitter_fake...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/06/google_twitter_fake_news/) [5] [https://imgur.com/a/lAh12](https://imgur.com/a/lAh12) [6] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2017-11-05T05%...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2017-11-05T05%202017-11-08T06&q=Devin%20Patrick%20Kelly) ~~~ csydas More than likely it is Google trying to downplay it, but it's their search being gamed - the BBC article is actually inaccurate as far as I'm aware, as at least in the case of Sam Hyde, I was under the impression he was in on the joke, though I may be wrong. Regardless, the length of time probably isn't as important as the frequency with which this occurs, as the search frequently returning verifiably wrong or fake information is probably a bigger issue. The length of time it lasts is just a symptom of the tool providing news without the news being curated. ------ mythrwy Yes, there is bad information on the Internet. Yes, when you aggregate tons of user content some inaccurate things will be there. Go somewhere else BBC, NYT, WaPo. We know, you'd like to see a content regulated Internet. I wouldn't and I'm weary of seeing these articles day in and day out. Beside why are articles from newspaper on HN front page so much lately? From HN guidelines: Off-Topic: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon....... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." This self serving media policy seeking doesn't belong here IMOP. It's not interesting, it's not informative. Shouldn't be constantly on front page day after day. ------ tclancy >Google's Danny Sullivan - "We want to get this right" I feel like in a better world that would be, "We are legally obligated to get this right or stop trying." ------ imdhmd A little off-topic, but on similar lines: searching for "demagogue" on google, gets you a Trump's picture: [https://i.imgur.com/qFJk9io.png](https://i.imgur.com/qFJk9io.png) I wonder how that ends up happening, is google able to sum up popular opinion or is this someone's mischief? ------ amelius I wonder when we finally get mandatory electronic locks on guns. Having an electronic license for a single gun could have prevented this man from using a whole battery of guns. It makes little sense that we can have more sophisticated locks on an iPhoneX than on guns.

Affordable Care Act – Journal Paper by Pres. Obama - krapht http://ja.ma/29xgcBR ====== baisong Is it unique for a sitting president to publish a journal article?

New Y Combinator startup: overhear.us - nostrademons http://overhear.us/ ====== myoung8 Is anyone else kind of dissapointed to hear that after what seems like a grueling application process (I didn't apply) this is the best YC can come up with? Maybe there aren't that many areas on the web that are still ripe for innovation... ~~~ nostrademons I think it's kinda clever. It reminds me of my reaction when I saw Reddit. "Well, this is new, but I can't imagine anyone ever doing something useful with it." I was right about the first part, right about the second, but completely wrong about the implicit assumption that things have to be useful before they'll be used. ~~~ myoung8 Agree with the first two parts, although I do think Reddit serves a useful purpose. I don't use it because news.YC and Digg provide me with more than enough to digest every day. Back to the point, though: who do you see as the target demographic of overhear.us? I suppose when I think about work, I think of my parents, and despite being technologically capable, 1) this site would get blacklisted where they work and 2) I can't see them sitting in front of a computer at home gossiping, although they do talk about work quite a bit ~~~ nostrademons I figure it's made for the younger FaceBook generation who're just now entering the workplace and want a place to gripe about FaceBook being blocked at work. ~~~ myoung8 I can certainly see this being more appealing to them (us) as a generation, but I still think the fear of getting caught will outweigh the desire to post one's thoughts online in many cases, especially when it isn't all that hard (and is actually more useful for one's social life) to talk to someone at the office, be it at the water cooler, in the hallway, in your own office with the door closed, or at lunch or dinner. ------ tx Are you serious? This _is_ the idea? That you had 10 slides or whatever to present it to investors? Wholy cow. The end is near... Soon dressed up "hello world" implementations will pass by as "startup ideas". Why bother going to college and paying for CS degree if after 10 days with a RoR book you can start your company! ~~~ nostrademons "Why bother going to college and paying for CS degree if after 10 days with a RoR book you can start your company!" I think that's kinda the point of YCombinator... ------ neilk YC folks: I sure hope you told this crew about password hashing. ------ Tichy I don't think people are paranoid enough to use this. ~~~ randallsquared That depends strongly on the company, doesn't it? A list of companies represented here after they get some usage would read like a "don't apply to" list. ~~~ danielha That shouldn't be a problem. You have to already have a company email to view that company's comments. ~~~ nostrademons But you can view the fact that people are commenting on a company. If a whole bunch of one liners suddenly appear as soon as the work day is over, you could guess that it's been banned at work and everybody's griping over it. ------ zangief This thing will be a victim of its own success. If it ever takes off, it will be blacklisted by every web-content filtering program. If gmail and vault.com are blocked, you'd better believe this will be, too. ~~~ pg They thought of this. In that case people will use it from home. And if they're working for the kind of company that would block Overhear.Us, then there will probably be a lot they need to talk about. ~~~ zangief People are lazy. And people at big companies, where web-blocking software is routinely deployed, are especially lazy. Standard Bayes. Vault.com, despite not having nearly as nice a site as overhear.us, had reams of traffic and posts about individual employers, until it got blacklisted. I can imagine this site having a good following with companies that are not strict about the web-filtering list [which I abhor, btw]. However, those companies are not likely to be large because large companies have burdensome regulations [SEC in financial industry, HIPAA in healthcare industry, SarbOx for all public companies] that generally require (or imply that) employee communication and web usage should be monitored. And large companies are the interesting ones for overhear.us, because they have the most interesting networks and stories! ~~~ myoung8 And also provide the least chance of getting caught. Yeah, I know it's anonymous, but at a small company "anonymous" doesn't mean much. It's not hard to figure out who's dissatisfied, who's the gossip queen/king, or even figure things out just by the way someone writes. ------ immad I like the idea, anonymity but based on verified identity, facebook could do a similar spin on it for university gossip, or in fact you could do a similar spin on it for universities with a little fb integration. No one should be using it from there work though because if they post anything offensive up quite a lot of companies monitor all traffic and it wouldn't be hard to find out who it is. Txt-in method would help with that, trcky but not impossible. ------ nickb Guys, watch out for lawsuits and subpoenas! Some employers are gonna go nuts over this... trade secrets, harassment charges etc. Make sure you remove logs, IPs, etc. ------ randallsquared Wow. I guess this explains why they weren't interested in our <http://dontrentfrom.com> , since it's a variant on the same idea. It would be trivial to spin off various topical forums. ------ mhidalgo This has to be weakest idea I have seen come out of Ycombinator. ------ yaacovtp Look out when the bosses pretend to be coworkers. ~~~ danielha A boss _is_ a coworker. It's all anonymous, anyhow. ~~~ SwellJoe That's the point. I think. ------ SwellJoe It's actually a lot of fun to use. I'd like to see a web chat client that works the same way. ~~~ socmoth thanks ------ Leonidas Guy Kawaski just invested in something similar to this didn't he? ~~~ someremains i don't think its similar. kinda like a papparazzi thing. ------ orlick This could turn into the non-nerd version of InklingMarkets.com. Or it could just be a place to bitch about your boss. I think it's great! ------ mojuba xx xxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxx? so the arrows are for rating? I guessed it, haha!

Ordinary Income vs Capital Gains - cwan http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/05/ordinary-income-vs-capital-gains.html ====== spenrose The thrust of this post is wrong; while I'm looking for a good breakdown of tax burden by quintile I'll just observe: "We live in NYC and according to our accountants, we pay a marginal fully loaded tax rate of 47.62%. That means we keep about half of the ordinary income the Gotham Gal and I generate." The second sentence glides over the key word in the first sentence, "marginal". AVC and GG pay much lower rates on the first income they earn during the year -- it is only the income that exceeds what most people will ever earn during a year that is taxed at the higher income rate. Conversely, the first income -- the income they have in common with ordinary people -- is subject to social security and unemployment tax -- but the extraordinary income that makes them very wealthy is not. They also probably pay much less of their income in sales tax and small fees that most Americans. Finally, according to the IRS in several recent years 10% of the capital gains income in the entire country has gone to the richest 400 tax payers, whose average tax rate is not the 47% rate AVC cites, but 17%: [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/who-benefits- fro...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/who-benefits-from- bubbles/) Edit: here's total tax distribution by quintile: [http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/01/07/moving- fr...](http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/01/07/moving-from-judd- greggs-dubious-tax-math-to-robert-reichs-dubious-tax-language/) . Note that the 34.5% paid by the richest 20% drops sharply for the very richest. ~~~ yummyfajitas Yes, instead of paying taxes directly, the corporations owned by those 400 taxpayers paid taxes on profits (15-35%). Then their owners paid an additional 15-35% tax on those profits (averaging out to 17% for the top 400). I agree - we should make it fairer. We should eliminate taxes on corporations and replace it with taxes on their owners. It's unfair that the owners of corporations are taxed at such high rates, but the taxes they pay are ignored by journalists and propagandists. ~~~ yequalsx When dealing with corporate tax rates one should talk about effective tax rate. There are quite a few examples of corporations paying very little tax on their profits. Some even pay zero tax whilst making billions in profit. I believe that the effective tax rate on U.S. corporations is roughly the industrialized nation average. Having no corporate tax would make the U.S. an outlier in terms of tax policy. This doesn't make it unsound but does make me hesitant to agree with you on this point. Are the tax policies of most nations unfair to corporations? I have a hard time believing this to be so. Imagine a business with one owner. The owner employs 5 workers. Shouldn't the business pay tax on the profits? Suppose the business owner makes a profit of $100,000. Should this be tax free because he/she owns a business? If the business owner made $100,000 while working at 3M then the salary (profit) would be taxed. I think the philosophy under girding the tax system is that, roughly speaking, any entity that gets money [edit] should pay tax on it. This seems fair to me. There are notable exceptions of course. If I find $5 million dollars in gold while on a walk I pay tax on the whole amount. If I get the money because someone died I don't. ~~~ yummyfajitas _Some even pay zero tax whilst making billions in profit._ Yes, typically because they lost billions in prior years. Sometimes also due to various tax subsidies (e.g., green energy tax credits in the case of GE). _Are the tax policies of most nations unfair to corporations?_ I didn't say it was unfair to corporations. I don't believe that a claim like "unfair to corporations" even makes logical sense. I said it was unfair to their owners. Consider your hypothetical business owner. Out of the $100k in profits, the business pays perhaps $20k. The business owner then pays another $15k. But then people trying to score political points complain that he is getting away with something, and paying only $15k on $80k (19%). I think that's unfair. Under my proposal, the business pays $0k and the owner pays $35k. This way, he gets to take (moral/political) credit for the taxes he pays just like a salaried employee. (Similarly, I favor eliminating payroll taxes.) ~~~ yequalsx In the example provided, the business does not pay tax on the $100,000 given to the owner (as salary or other form of compensation) as that is an expense of the business. The business only pays tax on the profits to the business (as an entity separate from the owner). There is nothing illogical with the phrase "unfair to corporations". A corporation is a person in the U.S. Is is it illogical to say, "unfair to people"? It can be said of a policy that it is unfair to corporations. Suppose the only entities that were taxed were corporate entities. In such a case one would reasonably say that the tax structure was unfair to corporations. Owners of a corporation are stock holders. They make a profit on their holding via dividends and selling the stock at a higher price than what they bought it for. I disagree that it is unfair to a stock holder to pay taxes on the dividends received or on the capital gains. I believe it is a sound principle - for the maintenance of consistency, which is what fairness really is about in this issue - that entities that make a profit pay tax on it. ~~~ yummyfajitas You are conflating salaries and dividends. The business doesn't pay tax on $100k salary (it's an expense) and the owner pays ordinary income tax on that. The same is true for pass-through corporations, which make up a large fraction of the profitable corporations that pay no taxes. The business does pay tax on profits and spends _after tax_ dollars distributing dividends to shareholders. Similarly, _after tax_ dollars contribute to a corporate valuation which enables owners to sell shares and take capital gains. _A corporation is a person in the U.S._ The term "person" has been overloaded and you are conflating different uses of the term. A corporation is a legal person, which means they can enter contracts, file lawsuits and be sued. This provides a common interface for counterparties, nothing more. A corporation is a set of assets, liabilities, a web of contracts governing the management of said assets/liabilities and a government guarantee of limited liability. I can't see how it makes sense to discuss whether something is unfair to my company. Similarly, it makes no sense discussing whether something is unfair to my cell phone and service contract. _I disagree that it is unfair to a stock holder to pay taxes on the dividends received or on the capital gains._ Me too. All I said is that it's unfair to tax profits to the tune of $20k, dividends to the tune of $15k, and then pretend the owner of the corporation is only paying $15k in taxes. If you want to discuss the taxes paid by the top 400 taxpayers in the US, include the corporate taxes paid by the companies they own. ~~~ yequalsx In my example the $100,000 was salary. When you wrote: "I said it was unfair to their owners. Consider your hypothetical business owner. Out of the $100k in profits, the business pays perhaps $20k. The business owner then pays another $15k. But then people trying to score political points complain that he is getting away with something, and paying only $15k on $80k (19%). I think that's unfair." I thought you were talking about salary. Sorry for the confusion. I can't think of an example where it makes sense to say, "that isn't fair to your cell phone". I can think of lots of examples where it makes sense to say, "that isn't fair to cell phone providers [companies]". ------ ulf The major problem with the much cheaper taxing of capital gains remains the growing inequality: Of every you dollar you earn through your own labor, you get less (until you pass the max threshold). And this while your capacity of personal labor is clearly somehow limited. On the other hand, people earning one million dollars from capital gains are taxed equally with people who earn one billion. ~~~ cynicalkane There are two counterpoints to this. The first is that capital gains taxes tend to be on investments made with income you've earned, so there's already been an income tax. The second is almost all of the uber-rich made their fortunes by growing a small company into a big one, so it's not as though they're already being taxed (through progressive corporate taxes). There are obvious flaws to this scheme, but it's pretty hard to tax income in a fair way. Some places (notably the EU) favor using a consumption tax instead. ~~~ _delirium > The first is that capital gains taxes tend to be on investments made with > income you've earned, so there's already been an income tax. I don't really get this counterpoint; isn't _everything_ in the economy a flow of money that has been taxed at a previous point in the flow? If I have $100,000 that I've already paid taxes on, I could invest it in external assets and hope to make capital gains on them; or I could plow it back into my own occupation and use it to generate income (say, by setting up an art studio). Why should I pay more taxes in the second case? Consider two eBay-painting-seller scenarios. In the first, I buy painting materials, paint paintings, and then sell them on eBay. In the second, I buy existing paintings on eBay that I think are underpriced, and then resell them later for a profit. Why should I pay _more_ taxes in the first case, just because I painted the paintings? In both cases my occupation is basically "selling paintings on eBay", but in one I'm creating new ones and selling them for an income, and in the other I'm flipping existing paintings, making a capital gain. In both cases the starting capital is money I've already paid taxes on. If anything, the first occupation seems like the one policy should encourage, rather than the second, but at the very least I don't see any reason to actively encourage the second version over the first. ~~~ cynicalkane I am not a tax lawyer, but my understanding is that capital gains only count as such if you've held the asset for at least a few years. By the way, in the first case, your outlays are tax-deductible. (edit: I'm not an expert, so downvoters, please explain your disagreement.) ~~~ _delirium The outlays being tax-deductible is the same in both cases: you only pay tax on the gains between what you put in and got out, not on the total revenue. If you spend $100k on art supplies and sell $110k in paintings, you pay taxes on the $10k net profit. Same as if you bought a bond for $100k and sold it for $110k; you only pay taxes on the $10k net gain. But in the second case, you're taxed at a lower rate, so the tax code appears to want to discourage you from investing your capital in your own work. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you could make a 10% return on capital by putting that capital to work yourself, or could make the same 10% by putting that capital into a passive investment, the tax code promotes the 2nd option. ------ dbfclark Several points from a NYC taxpayer: 47.62% is the top marginal fully loaded tax rate on ordinary income. That is, 35% individual federal plus 8.97% state tax plus 3.88% city, less rounding and maybe a few dollars of unused credits. This is the rate on the next dollar of ordinary income (and the number you use if you wish to maximize your claimed tax rate). The claimed capital gains number of 27.63% is 15% plus that same amount for state and local taxes, which do not treat capital income differently (the .62% on the end of both is the giveaway). Neither of these numbers is an _effective_ tax rate (=tax actually paid/pretax income), or "tax pressure," whatever that is -- at my guess, Mr. Wilson probably pays effective tax in the 30-40% range, depending on how much capital gains he realized in the year. On capital gains rates generally, tax does work on the margins, but this means that we should worry about what kind of investments are incentivized by lower capital gains rates. I seriously doubt that a Mr. Wilson taxed at the regular income rate for capital gains would put even one fewer dollar into his fund, making 20+% pretax, if his other choice were, as he says, the mattress making 0%. Even at equal income and capital gains rates, the incentive to maximize your returns is pretty strong, so the idea that the differential rate is changing behavior in a useful way needs more analysis than Mr. Wilson gives it. For corporate taxes, effective rates are indeed what matters when comparing tax burdens since corporations get such a variety of credits; that said, the fewer deductions/lower rates tradeoff is free economic growth and we should do it (it'll never happen, though, since congress is too dysfunctional). And last on "double taxation": gopi is right that most corporations are organized as passthrough entities -- they pass all income through to their owners, who then pay tax on it. Those that aren't do have lower taxation of dividends to make up for the equivalence of share buyback and dividends. ------ gopi Most of the small business in US are pass thro entities so they pay ordinary income tax rates and also they reinvest the money back into business. They are inherently non-scalable business so the owners don't realize wealth by selling the business instead they get it thro the profits from operating the business... IMO, its not ethical that his tax rate is double than that of a tech entrepreneur or a wall street hedge fund guy. My personal preference would be a lower overall rate (25%) with no deductions for both ordinary income and capital gain. For a brief time in US history (in the Reagan administration) this was the case and from what i read it never discouraged capital investment. ------ kleiba > _And when you go to the pay window [...], you will be sharing a lot less > with the government and keeping a lot more._ Ever used a road? Or went to a public school? Do you have a local library? Your tax money doesn't go to the government, it goes to the state. And yes, the state has an expensive administration, but by and large the state is all of us. ~~~ dpatru Roads are paid for with gas taxes, something that is hard to avoid if you drive. Public schools and libraries are supported by property taxes, again, something all residents pay. Income taxes primarily go to the federal government to pay for military bases abroad, wars, and a lot of other functions that either aren't needed or could be better done by non-government entities. ~~~ maigret Interesting. In Germany, the law states that taxes can't be bound to a certain goal. Taxes all go to a big budget basket, which is then allocated by the year budget. It means that the oil tax can finance school, military, or anything. ------ jbellis Note that many _states_ , including California, tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income. ------ truthtechnician Taxing income higher than capital gains encourages investment over consumption.

React Demystified (by HN's haberman) - swah http://blog.reverberate.org/2014/02/react-demystified.html ====== swah _" How does introducing an extra layer make things faster? Doesn't that imply that the browsers have sub-optimal DOM implementations, if adding a layer on top of them can speed them up?"_ A great little meta insight on how to think about stuff.

Adventures in Sourcing and Building an ErgoDox - mafuyu http://edwardsh.in/ergodox/2014/12/29/adventures-in-sourcing-and-building-an-ergodox/ ====== thechut Interesting that you went it alone. I bought mine on mass drop and it cost me around $275 when all was said and done. I did get the full hand with metal tops though. I think you saved a good deal of money by having access to a laser cuter, which makes me think that the mass drop price is actually not terrible given the extra convenience of everything arriving as a kit. The blue acrylic top is awesome! Have you considered tents to tilt the edges? They made a huge comfort difference for me. ~~~ mafuyu Thanks! The Massdrop price seems pretty fair, especially considering that I was able to get a discount on a few things and had free access to a laser cutter. I haven't looked into tents, but they seem interesting. Getting used to reaching the far thumb keys takes a bit of work. Seems like it might make gaming awkward, though. What design did you use to make the tent?

A list of facts about Google - tedsanders https://www.tedsanders.com/on-google/ ====== tedsanders Another fun fact about Google: both Google and Domino’s IPOed in 2004. Since then Domino’s stock has done better. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/02/25/dom...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/02/25/dominos- stock-yields-higher-returns-than-google-since-ipos.html)

Tim Cook is stepping down. Apple is looking for a new CEO in Barcelona (Spain) - soci http://www.jobsbcn.com/offers/apple-ceo-english-ios-mac-osx-d14801?result=0 ====== xae Although he definitely shouldn't be stepping down from his position he absolutely needs to come to Barcelona and open a development center in the city. Quality talent at 1/3 of the cost

Company claims to "track exactly who is visiting your website" - replics https://www.relead.com/ ====== tzaman Hopefully I'm not the only one feeling uncomfortable with this. I mean it's okay for advertisers to know some info about me - but _everything_? ~~~ rcush It looks as though this site is not able to track individual people, but only companies. I'd guess they're doing this by querying each visitor IP with a database of known IP addresses used by companies. If so, it's not particularly sinister, not particularly useful, and not particularly accurate. The discussion being had here - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891637> \- deals with a site that is allegedly identifying visitors individually somehow, most likely through something to do with social media. However, I'm skeptical. ------ josscrowcroft I hate them just for the website alone... all the scroll effects kill the experience ------ james-singh Then why is it asking for my name during registration? ~~~ Svip It looks like it is only companies it can track for you. ------ Tactix47 This site's tracking is covered in another thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891637> I agree with tzaman that there are serious privacy concerns here... ~~~ NaturalDoc I must agree with you and tzaman on this. In a time when we are fighting hard to protect our personal privacy online, companies like this are trying to take more of it away. I hope beyond hope that this company fails miserably! ------ bmaguire This is a pretty strong argument for using TOR. These guys may not be seriously malicious but they are definitely seriously creepy.

Short, Readable Deep Learning Implementation - jeremynixon https://github.com/JeremyNixon/oracle/blob/master/convolutional_neural_network.py ====== p1esk Where is max poooling layer?

Get Well, Om (Om Malik suffers a heart attack) - nickb http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/03/get-well-om/ ====== Tichy And stop smoking...

Rules That Warren Buffett Lives By - edw519 http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/108903/rules-that-warren-buffett-lives-by ====== byrneseyeview _"Rule No. 1: Never Lose Money. Rule No. 2: Never Forget Rule No. 1."_ I wish he'd state this more clearly. It's not "Don't invest in anything that fluctuates in price," but "Only invest when you know you're buying something at less than 100 cents on the dollar, and you also know it's going to be worth more than that dollar in the future." ~~~ Retric What makes or breaks on invester is being willing to sell a stock that went up 30% a year for the last 5 years, and being willing to buy a stock that lost 50% of it's value last year. ~~~ byrneseyeview That may have been true in the past, but there's a lot of money invested in data mining past returns to find patterns like that. If stock prices are predictive, who's going to make the better prediction--you, or a team of MIT CS and Physics PhDs with an unlimited budget and years of experience? ~~~ RyanMcGreal The problem with the data mining approach is that it works spectacularly until it doesn't, and when it fails, it also fails spectacularly. ~~~ byrneseyeview That's true of any strategy in any situation in which your strategy affects the behavior of whatever system you're interacting with. i.e. value investing works, but if everyone does it then people will undervalue intangibles. If everyone chooses to be honest, the first fibber will rule the world. If everyone is violent, the first non-violent _group_ will waste fewer resources. Etc. ~~~ Retric There is actually a lot of research into this area (game theory). And for a surprising number of situations the best and most stable strategy is somewhat random. EX: Throwing a fastball vs curve ball where the odds of hitting each depend on which was expected. While it's clearly not a stable strategy if everyone did the same thing it's actually fairly hard to consistently beat a basket of randomly chosen stocks. Which is why I think rating stocks based on their relative value for your goals and then randomly picking a basket of them is probably the best and most stable strategy. (Excluding inside information.) ~~~ byrneseyeview As long as you're smart enough to abstract out of your valuation system, you can survive. Buffett made his early money buying at a discount to assets: the company had a $5 million in the bank and their total market value was $3 million. Those opportunities mostly disappeared in the 1960's--conglomerates bought them out. But Buffett's meta-strategy of buying things at a discount still worked; it just worked better applied to businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage. But if you're not exceptionally good at what you do, yes, some randomness would help. Though wouldn't the closest analogy to the fastball / curveball thing be to randomly alternate among asset-management paradigms, instead? Have some of your portfolio passively indexed, some invested for catastrophe, some in pie-in-the-sky growth, some in inflation-resistant consumer goods, etc. ------ nazgulnarsil ugh, this again. Warren Buffet is an outlier. Never model your behavior on outliers. If you want to know how to get rich look at the average rich person (small business owner). ~~~ zts While I agree with the advice about outliers, I'm not sure I'd describe the average small business owner as rich... Is your personal experience simply different to mine? ~~~ nazgulnarsil goes the other way. most rich people are small business owners even if most small business owners aren't rich. also depends on what level of liquid vs total net worth we're talking.

Portsmouth regulators vote to eliminate taxi regulations in response to Uber - sighsighsigh http://m.seacoastonline.com/article/20150121/NEWS/150129793 ====== greggyb A few key things: It seems like the cab companies are not happy about this move by the commission. Second, this portion of the proposal: > Replace the current taxi medallion system with a registration process that > would require all drivers to register with the city clerk's office and > provide proof of commercial insurance. This article does not make it clear if the insurance Uber provides by default for UberX drivers would count here, or if drivers would need their own commercial insurance policy. If UberX's insurance does not count, then this move would not introduce significant ridesharing, and the only benefit to the policy change would be the elimination of the medallion system. Do not read me wrong, that is a wonderfully good thing, as regulated limits to supply legally enforce monopoly pricing. I read the primary benefit of UberX and similar services in the massive increase in marginal transactions facilitated, rather than the relatively simple task of acting as a modern taxi dispatcher. Again, this is all conditional on the proposal passing, and the commercial insurance requirement excluding UberX insurance for casual ride-sharers. ------ stolio > Cataldo said if drivers are smoking, or offering rides in unkempt vehicles, > consumers will decide if they want to hire them. Remember this only works if there's an "arbitrarily large" number of other drivers competing for the same fare. As always, deregulation only works if the markets being deregulated can become healthy and stay that way long term. ~~~ greggyb Uber has a pretty good track record of bringing in more and new drivers. Given that personal automobiles are a large sunk cost that many people have incurred, being able to generate marginal income through ride-sharing seems like it needs a lot of active barriers to entry (like restrictive regulations favoring incumbent taxi services) to really limit the supply of drivers. ~~~ stolio Personal automobiles are NOT a sunk cost. You can sell your car, the portion of the cost that is "sunk" is small. It's really expensive to drive for a living, especially in a nice car. Obviously you can make a ton of money if your parents bought your car and pay for your repairs, if you're not paying for commercial insurance, and if your main competition faces strict regulations that you've cleverly sidestepped. To this day Uber releases numbers that don't account for wear and tear on your car, anybody who's ever delivered pizzas will tell you that changes the economics of it drastically.[2] There are also reasons not leave a public good like transportation in the hands of people looking to "generate marginal income". But the real joke is Uber's brought in about $5 billion in funding in the past five years, their recent valuation came in at over $41 billion[0] and there's still this narrative of Uber being the little guy out there fighting big government. It's a real underdog story! They're simultaneously taking on _" 6,300 companies operating 171,000 taxicabs. More than 80% of these companies operate less than 50 vehicles"_[1] in America alone. Think about that, they're poised to put about 3,000 small business under in the coming years, but they're out there for the little guy. They're taking the market over and if they have their way it'll go from regulated oligopoly to unregulated oligopoly with them at the top. It's an absolutely huge power play, and like every rational business they're fighting for whatever monopoly power they can get: > There’s not a lot of earth-shattering IP in the ride-sharing space, but Uber > seems to be making a play to own it, having submitted 11 patents that cover > every major aspect of its business model. If granted, it could find itself > with a technical monopoly not only in ride-sharing but other businesses > based on its processes, like general delivery (again, more reason for those > rich investors to be excited, right?)[0] Forgive my rant, Uber's marketing pisses me off. They're not some benign force trying to help people get luxury rides to the airport, they're a rational business making rational business decisions. [0] - [http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2014/12/05/t...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2014/12/05/the-5-keys- to-ubers-valuation/) [1] - [http://www.tlpa.org/about/taxicab.cfm](http://www.tlpa.org/about/taxicab.cfm) [2] - [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2015/01/22...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2015/01/22/the-missing-data-point-from-ubers-driver-analysis-how- far-they-drive/) bonus link: [http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-an-Uber- driver-make-1](http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-an-Uber-driver-make-1) ~~~ greggyb Regarding sunk costs: in a strictly technical sense, you are correct, but in a practical evaluation a personal vehicle represents a large sunk cost for an individual. How do I justify this? People only sell their car to finance buying a new one. Individual car owners always have a large amount of their capital tied up in _a_ vehicle, even though the specific vehicle will change over the course of years. For those (vast majority) of car owners who do not choose to eschew personal vehicle ownership, it is entirely accurate to consider a vehicle a sunk cost. That being said, I don't really disagree with most of what you have to say, though I do disagree with your negativity. It is expensive to drive for a living - so expensive, in fact, that it was not a living until monopoly pricing was forced by government regulation. The excess capacity of vehicles owned for personal transportation is huge. I don't want to repeat myself, so I'll link to another thread discussing Uber (and friends) where I participated that makes my position very clear[0]. I do not view Uber as an underdog. I agree with you that they are a rational business pursuing their profit. I also believe that in pursuit of their profit they will provide a great amount of value to consumers, and to ride-sharers who can defray some portion of their cost of ownership of a personal vehicle. The point is not to make a living, but to defray costs. The historic trend of jitney services (a combination of ride-sharing and public transit in widespread practice before regulation - history in linked thread) was of a high turnover driver base, with many performing relatively few trips, and some few working "full time" for a short time frame. This is the model that Uber (along with its friends) improves upon. While I do not debate the narrative you have presented as common about Uber (and friends), I have not made arguments that follow it. It is a valid point that does not apply to the discussion I have engaged in. I view as a net positive the dissolution of all 3000 firms you have referenced if Uber (and friends) can provide an analogous service more desirable to consumers and at a lower cost (I do not deny the transitional pain - note I said net positive, not absolute). We can certainly disagree on this point and have a discussion about the merits of industries being displaced and altered with technological and regulatory change, if that is what you'd like. Even if Uber manages to acquire patent protection over every aspect of its business model and on the terms they have applied for those patents, this is still a superior situation to the stagnant monopoly pricing that has been enforced by medallion systems for nigh on a century. Patents will expire before another century has passed. That being said, the fact that there are already multiple players in the market for ride-sharing apps indicates that the ideas are, while novel also rather obvious. I would be surprised if they managed to acquire patents that remove their competitors from the market completely. I agree that Uber is not a benign force trying to help people get luxury rides to the airport. I also agree that they are a rational business making rational business decisions. The way I read the situation, though, is that they are eliminating significant deadweight loss that is a direct result of the status quo they are challenging. They are providing significant competition in an industry which has seen consumer-harming regulation for a century. Forgive me for not being upset that a company pursuing its own self interest is also doing good as a side-effect. [0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874249) ~~~ stolio > It is expensive to drive for a living - so expensive, in fact, that it was > not a living until monopoly pricing was forced by government regulation. This was done in exchange for stability in price, stability of service and other benefits i.e. we're getting something for our money. > The excess capacity of vehicles owned for personal transportation is huge. I > don't want to repeat myself, so I'll link to another thread discussing Uber > (and friends) where I participated that makes my position very clear[0]. I glanced through it, I don't find the argument convincing. > They are providing significant competition in an industry which has seen > consumer-harming regulation for a century. #1 Is it consumer-harming? #2 if it is, does it harm consumers more than it benefits society at large? The medallion system has limited the number of cabs on the road which minimizes the pollution and congestion they cause, it also makes sure they pay their fair share for things like road repairs since they're using a public good for commercial use. Because the cars are generally awful shades of yellow or orange pedestrians, cyclists and other cars are safer as well. These are things that benefit society as a whole. Believe it or not, many people like to know ahead of time how much a cab ride is going to cost so they can plan accordingly. At the end of the day Uber is going to regulate the market using their market power to whatever extent they can. They simply aren't going to bring an efficient, competitive market place where everybody wins. You don't get valued at $40 billion when all you have are easily substituted assets (it's an app, a brand, and some logistic management software) unless you have a long term angle of somehow making massive profits which according to basic economics _are assumed to be impossible in healthy markets._ ~~~ greggyb >> It is expensive to drive for a living - so expensive, in fact, that it was not a living until monopoly pricing was forced by government regulation. > This was done in exchange for stability in price, stability of service and > other benefits i.e. we're getting something for our money. If you'd read the history in my linked post, it is clear that these were not salient issues and the regulation was pushed through by municipal carriers and private trolley operators who could not effectively compete in the market. The regulation was not desired by taxi/jitney operators nor requested/supported by the public. While it is true that regulation _can_ be a general benefit, it is often the case that it is supported, at least in part if not in full, by firms/industries desirous of legal protection and elimination of competition where they cannot effectively compete. What "we" the consumers got was less regular service, areas that are typically avoided by cab drivers and thus underserved, legally enforced monopoly pricing, "and other benefits." >> The excess capacity of vehicles owned for personal transportation is huge. I don't want to repeat myself, so I'll link to another thread discussing Uber (and friends) where I participated that makes my position very clear[0]. > I glanced through it, I don't find the argument convincing. Let's be clear here, the point you are explicitly disagreeing with is that there is a large amount of excess capacity in the vehicles which are currently owned and operated for personal use. To disagree you must claim that there is not much excess capacity in these vehicles. To weakly support this position you would need to argue one of two things: 1) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are in use for the vast majority of the day (i.e. they don't sit parked for more hours than they spend driving). OR 2) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are filled to seating capacity in the vast majority of the trips that they make (i.e. every time someone drives, they have more seats filled than empty). To strongly support your position you'd have to argue both of the above. I am not trying to artificially box you into a corner, but I can truly think of no other arguments to support the premise that there is _not_ a large amount of excess capacity in vehicles owned and operated for personal use. >> They are providing significant competition in an industry which has seen consumer-harming regulation for a century. > #1 Is it consumer-harming? I argue yes for the simple fact that the supply is artificially constricted. Fares are higher than they would otherwise be and there are fewer suppliers of rides-for-hire, thus underserving geographic areas or limiting capacity at peak hours. > The medallion system has limited the number of cabs on the road which > minimizes the pollution and congestion they cause, it also makes sure they > pay their fair share for things like road repairs since they're using a > public good for commercial use. I will not divert this into an argument as to the size or costs of these effects. If pollution, congestion, or fair-share-of-costs are concerns, then the appropriate way to address this is to address the actual concerns - use costs, congestion fees, gas taxes, or any other similar policies address these concerns while also providing revenue that could (in an ideal world) be used to pay directly back into road maintenance. That being said, medallions are privately owned, and the rents accrue to the holders of the medallions. Thus one of your benefits, namely "makes sure that they pay their fair share for things...." is not even true. The medallion system does literally nothing but reduce the number of cabs and increases the fare. > Because the cars are generally awful shades of yellow or orange pedestrians, > cyclists and other cars are safer as well. These are things that benefit > society as a whole. Citation needed. Seriously. You are claiming that the color of a car impacts the rate of accidents they are involved in. Besides this being fairly absurd, you are conflating cab coloring with regulation of taxi services. If the color of cars providing a taxi service is of such public concern, then it would be much easier (and less costly) to require enhanced visibility modifications to such cars, for example reflective sections or only allowing yellow cabs (which are not even the norm in many areas - not everywhere with cabs is NYC). Why should we resort to a consumer harming medallion system to make sure cabs are garish? What should we do about the widespread black car industry of other cars for hire that have been around since long before Uber and compatriots? > #2 if it is, does it harm consumers more than it benefits society at large? > Believe it or not, many people like to know ahead of time how much a cab > ride is going to cost so they can plan accordingly. You can easily check the fare before the ride with the Uber app, so I'm not entirely sure about the argument here. > At the end of the day Uber is going to regulate the market using their > market power to whatever extent they can. They simply aren't going to bring > an efficient, competitive market place where everybody wins. They are not going to devote their efforts to doing so, this is correct. But the actions they are taking are moving the market in that direction anyway - for example in the parent article, it is leading to moves which will allow enhanced competition in the Portsmouth market. Even where taxi regulation change not a whit, UberX and similar (ride-sharing version, not taxi-dispatch version) will allow price competition against incumbent taxi services, and excess capacity at peak times and in underserved areas. Even if the price they can charge is restricted, the latter two benefits remain. > You don't get valued at $40 billion when all you have are easily substituted > assets (it's an app, a brand, and some logistic management software) unless > you have a long term angle of somehow making massive profits which according > to basic economics are assumed to be impossible in healthy markets. Well, as covered extensively above, the market for taxi services is far from healthy, so there's a large immediate opportunity for Uber in soaking up the excess demand that current taxi services simply do not fill. That being said, even if Uber and similar move the taxi service and ride sharing industries toward more health, there is a huge difference between economic profit (revenue > opportunity cost) and accounting profit (revenue > outlays). Consumer electronics are a good example - there are commodity parts and labor easily available, but there are many firms in this market with healthy profit margins and prices have been tumbling for consumers for decades. I am not saying that Uber and similar are identical to consumer electronics, but there is obviously a significant network effect and first mover effect which contribute to the valuations we see. I read your posts as seeming to assume that I am naively painting some panglossian image of Uber as the champion of the everyman, providing cheap and wonderful transport for all. This is not the view that I hold. If my understanding of your tone is incorrect, I apologize. I would like to engage only on the salient points of the issue. I have identified several I find important and supported them above. I will summarize below. 1) The current regulatory regime was implemented primarily for the benefit of incumbent and municipal public transit providers. 2) There is excess capacity and some level of sunk cost in vehicles owned and operated for personal transportation (they are not constantly utilized or filled to capacity, but a single owner bears significant fixed costs that are not adjusted for this fact). 3) Medallions artificially restrict the supply and raise the price of cab services, without significant benefit to consumers. 4) Uber and its competitors (whom you repeatedly do not acknowledge) are providing a service that is of objective value to consumers. 5) Uber and its competitors are, in so doing, providing competition at a level unseen for nigh on a century to the incumbent taxi service industry. ~~~ stolio Fine. > 1) The current regulatory regime was implemented primarily for the benefit > of incumbent and municipal public transit providers. Without buying into free-market libertarianism I don't see how to convince myself of this. Do companies try to purchase favorable regulation? Of course, it's exactly what Uber is doing right now. But I don't believe people go to engineering school for 4+ years, then work 5+ years for their PE licenses just so they can take kickbacks. Traffic systems and roads must be engineered, it's why they work, and at the end of the day limiting the number of cabs on the road seems like a pretty obvious thing to do. > 2) There is excess capacity and some level of sunk cost in vehicles owned > and operated for personal transportation (they are not constantly utilized > or filled to capacity, but a single owner bears significant fixed costs that > are not adjusted for this fact). Sunk costs? No. You're making up a new definition of a well defined term. Excess capacity? 95% No. Lyft Line is the only place I've seen where that argument makes sense. Maybe Uber has a similar set-up, but when people are driving 20-80 hours a week that's just another 3,500 lbs of metal on the road. Cars don't depreciate _that much_ while sitting in garages. > 3) Medallions artificially restrict the supply and raise the price of cab > services, without significant benefit to consumers. Medallions are just part of a comprehensive regulatory system designed over many decades. They do decrease the number of cabs on the road. Every cab increases congestion, increases everybody's insurance rates, increases pollution, increases the risks faced by pedestrians, etc. > 4) Uber and its competitors (whom you repeatedly do not acknowledge) are > providing a service that is of objective value to consumers. I never said they weren't. What, am I the Grinch trying to deprive people of value because I don't buy into Uber's PR? > 5) Uber and its competitors are, in so doing, providing competition at a > level unseen for nigh on a century to the incumbent taxi service industry. I never said they weren't. It's useless to compare the long-term steady-state of the regulated cab industry to the brief period of competition that will occur if barriers to entry are removed. Of course that increases competition. In the short term. Then new barriers to entry are erected and the market concentrates again. The long term picture of "deregulation" is a probable Uber/Lyft duopoly that thanks to their size will likely have as much or more regulatory power than the current cab companies. Investors don't believe this will be a long term competitive market, that's why Uber's valued at $40 billion. I don't believe it's going to be a long term competitive market, I think it has oligopoly written all over it. Uber certainly doesn't think it's going to be a long term competitive market, in fact it's probably one of their greatest fears. The only people who actually believe that Uber marks a return to free-market economics are the libertarians, and this I attribute to the genius of Uber. edit: > Let's be clear here, the point you are explicitly disagreeing with is that there is a large amount of excess capacity in the vehicles which are currently owned and operated for personal use. To disagree you must claim that there is not much excess capacity in these vehicles. To weakly support this position you would need to argue one of two things: > 1) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are in use for the vast > majority of the day (i.e. they don't sit parked for more hours than they > spend driving). > OR > 2) That vehicles owned and operated for personal use are filled to seating > capacity in the vast majority of the trips that they make (i.e. every time > someone drives, they have more seats filled than empty). > To strongly support your position you'd have to argue both of the above. I > am not trying to artificially box you into a corner, but I can truly think > of no other arguments to support the premise that there is not a large > amount of excess capacity in vehicles owned and operated for personal use.* I really have no idea why you're going on about this. Uber isn't a car-pooling service, it isn't car-sharing. It doesn't even solve this supposed problem of "excess capacity" because what's the average number of occupants in an Uber car on the road? I suspect it's less than 2. I'm not disagreeing with the argument so much as saying it's just too bizarre to disagree with. ~~~ greggyb I'm going to stop repeating myself. You have not materially engaged with any of the arguments I have made in support of my positions nor coherently addressed my position, rather have taken the positions I have provided and engaged in no dialog beyond repeating your own claims that I have tried to address reasonably. At this rate we will continue in circles. ~~~ stolio Just a note: if you're going to bow out of a conversation you don't feel is productive there's no shame in that, we all do it from time to time for a variety of reasons. You don't have to save face by suggesting that you're reasonable and I'm not, you're coherent and I'm not, you dealt with all my arguments and I dealt with none of yours, etc. I don't find your arguments compelling, you don't like mine. Whatever, it happens. ------ a2tech Good for them! I'm glad at least one city is living in the future with the rest of us ------ lsllc New Hampshire. Live free or die! ------ sighsighsigh The title is very misleading, as the taxi commission voted to eliminate itself. It isn't on the chopping block for any other factor than by its own volition; an incredibly rare example of public watchdogs intentionally giving way as the best way to pursue the public interest they were made to help.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: Apple Watch Edition - jkestner http://www.newsweek.com/how-lose-friends-and-alienate-people-apple-watch-edition-331213 ====== cjoh I just don't buy this "Wearing the Apple Watch makes you a Pretentious Douchebag" argument. I bought it with Google Glass because it was ugly and pointed a camera at someone's face, all the time. But the iPod, the iPhone -- these were also expensive goods that cried out "pretentious consumer" at the time in comparison to alternatives. Many watches cost much more money than the sport/watch editions of the apple watch. ~~~ glogla > Many watches cost much more money than the sport/watch editions of the apple > watch. True, but most people can't recognize "nice watch" and "omg look at me I'm rich! watch". Apple Watch is instantly recognizable. ~~~ seanmcdirmid > True, but most people can't recognize "nice watch" and "omg look at me I'm > rich! watch". Rich people know their own. Expensive watches ($40k and up found at Basel World) are meant as signaling devices to other rich people, not us lowly peons. ~~~ smhenderson Well that removes the DB factor then doesn't it? I mean if only other DB's recognize your watch than it's OK. I think the difference between the phone and the watch is that you have to actively go out of your way to make people notice you on your phone. The watch is pretty visible to everyone all the time; coupled with the fact that it's hard to resist responding to it and that you're now constantly looking at it does seem like it sends a rude message to those around you. ~~~ seanmcdirmid Yes, the Apple Watch DB factor is that it is expensive relative to very cheap watches, but cheap enough to be universally recognized. When the watch is new, there will be a period of time where early possessors are seen as douche because of from those that want but don't have yet. However, in a few months, it will just become another watch that you either have if you want, or just don't want. ------ sneak I've had mine for about a week and I can confirm: this is pretty true. I am really good now about never pulling out my phone when in face to face presence with people; I can't say that about checking my (never before worn) watch. “the Apple Watch inherently combines two of the rudest things you can do among friends—check your watch and look at your phone—and suggests that you do them incessantly.” ------ ArekDymalski >it's "like having someone shout your name every 30 seconds, looking up and then having them reply 75 percent of the time with “nevermind.” The best metaphor for the flood of notifications I've ever seen. ------ weavie > You have reached the limit of 5 free articles a month No Apple Watch needed.. ~~~ aninteger Same. I don't ever read Newsweek. "How to lose readers and alienate people: The broken Newsweek free 5 articles a month edition" ------ Thasc I got halfway through reading that, well enough absorbed, and then an invitation to subscribe popped up in the middle of my field of view and nuked my attention. When are those going to stop being popular? ~~~ sneak They became popular because they are effective. Expect more of that. Get uBlock Origin and default deny third party js requests. Greylist on a per- site basis. The uBlock docs tell you how, though it is somewhat buried. Click the lock after every change to persist settings (this bit me many times). ~~~ _rpd > They became popular because they are effective. I believe this, but I'd like to read more about their effectiveness. Is there a particularly good article on the topic?

Machine Reading at Web Scale - njrc http://videolectures.net/wsdm08_etzioni_mrws/ ====== shotgun Interesting lecture.

Ask HN: Is there an E2E encrypted team chat like Slack? - Lxr I am wondering what security-minded folk use for team chat. In particular, I don&#x27;t like the idea of storing plaintext commercially sensitive messages on external servers.<p>I&#x27;d think this is a common requirement for most serious companies - what does your company use? ====== mtgx Yes: [https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase- teams](https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams) ------ jnthn Wire has teams functionality now as well. [https://wire.com/en/](https://wire.com/en/)

The Saga of Craig Wright, the Latest “Inventor of Bitcoin” - jstoiko http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/bizarre-saga-craig-wright-latest-inventor-bitcoin ====== Lazare Regardless of whether Craig Wright is Nakamoto, there's an interesting story here, and I'm looking forward to it coming out. Someone has spent a fair amount of time and effort forging documents and setting up an elaborate paper trail to lead some journalists to this conclusion. Why? It's easy to compare this to the Dorian Nakamoto thing, but this is quite different. Nobody had a vested interest in making Dorian look like Satoshi, it was just sloppy journalism. This is something else (although it might be sloppy journalism too...) ~~~ joosters My best guess is that the fraud angle is most likely. Especially the 'fortunate' emergence of draft contracts showing that the guy has claim to a huge stash of bitcoins (but conveniently he can't access them until 2020). Perhaps he hoped that by appearing to be 'doxxed' it would lend more credence to his claims that he owned/controlled this wealth. A fraudster could get a lot of mileage out of a "I will pay you back later, look I've got all this future wealth" claim. ~~~ jgalt212 > but conveniently he can't access them until 2020 Maybe that's his estimate of when the supercomputer he's built in Iceland will crack Satoshi's private key. ------ runn1ng As others have said, I lost a little confidence in Gwern, who was a co-author of the the Wired piece and who I, until now, viewed as more skeptical. Especially given his history at LessWrong. ~~~ Moshe_Silnorin Gwern has a sterling reputation at LessWrong - or do you just mean having an association with LessWrong is bad in itself. One Satoshi candidate, Hal Finney, was a LessWronger, too. I, too, am surprised he believes this, but I'm not about to write him off. He could still be right and if he's wrong so what. ~~~ runn1ng Yeah, that's what I meant. He has a great reputation, so I held him in high regard somewhat until now ------ phpnode This reddit thread offers some pretty interesting / convincing speculation on Craig Wright's scam - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3web4s/some_more_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3web4s/some_more_info_on_craig_wright_and_his_scam) ------ vezzy-fnord I swear with all the rampant speculation and hunting for Satoshi's identity that have led deep to a multitude of rabbit holes, the only way for the real Satoshi's uncovering _not_ to end up a disappointment, would be if he's also revealed to be simultaneously D.B. Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa (maybe even the Zodiac Killer while we're at it). ~~~ keithpeter The reality might be quite everyday like the strange case of David Rodinsky [1] I'm just wondering why those early-mined bitcoins have not been touched... [1] [http://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianr...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9) ~~~ oh_sigh Perhaps he just used a throwaway key and Satoshi no longer has access to it. ~~~ keithpeter That would chime in with the idea that the reality was much more mundane than what we all imagine. I suppose before bitcoin actually took off, that might be a reasonable thing to do, just check it was all working as intended with early adopters... ------ canjobear Is there anywhere I can read a concise summary of the evidence for and against this guy as Satoshi? Right now the facts seem spread out across popular press articles and random forum threads. ~~~ jnbiche If you're technical, this alone should be enough to convince you that none of this has any connection to Satoshi: \- [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/satoshis-pgp-keys-are- proba...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/satoshis-pgp-keys-are-probably- backdated-and-point-to-a-hoax) If not, then this will probably at least convince you of the (lack of) veracity of Craig Wright's many claims: \- [http://www.zdnet.com/article/sgi-denies-links-with- alleged-b...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/sgi-denies-links-with-alleged- bitcoin-founder-craig-wright/) (Wright claimed to have SGI supercomputer, turns out to not be true) \- [http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitcoi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitcoin- creator-satoshi-craig-wright-lies-hoax/) (Wright claimed to have CSU PhD, turns out to be false) Go and look up the claims this guy has made that turned out false. The guy is clearly a massive fraudster, which was crystal clear to me from the moment I first heard him speak, and who has encouraged this "I'm Satoshi" thing for the last year or so (probably for financial reasons). I mean, the fact that a lot of people in the "technical community" and "Bitcoin community" fell for this have seriously lowered my esteem of both. Bitcoin in particular seems to have been attracting a certain type of gullible gold-seeker since ~2013. Sadly, the scammers go wherever these folks go, and so Bitcoin has been absolutely besieged by them. Similarly, the number of "journalists" who wrote off the difference between "[email protected]" and "satoshi@gmx" as it were an unimportant detail is pretty stunning (my opinion of them was already pretty low, so no real hard done). ------ ikeboy That's probably the most "forum" links I've ever seen in a mainstream publication. ------ fiatjaf Why is the police trying to catch Satoshi Nakamoto? ~~~ ufo The police is going after Craig because he owes millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. It has nothing to do with him claiming to be Satoshi (although his name getting in the news might have prompted them to raid his house before he ran away with the evidence). ~~~ fiatjaf Thank you for summing that up for me. ------ cornchips My summaries (with evidence): [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3weotb/evidence_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3weotb/evidence_the_craig_wright_emails_were_genuine/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3wi2qk/twitter_acc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3wi2qk/twitter_account_of_the_satoshi_doxer_and_more/) There's a whole other story to people's reactions to this. I'm quite surprised there is an equivalent of lack of belief here; as reddit can be really childish and vile. Meme phrase "Regardless of the outcome.. I believe this is a hoax" ------ mbrutsch Who doesn't love ~~doxxing~~ investigative journalism? ~~~ Kutta Please don't propagate this crap. The stories came out only after the guy publicly paraded himself as Nakamoto. Quite possibly we would have gotten articles published even if Wright didn't "out" himself, but I highly doubt that gwern would have given his name in that case, and Wright did out himself after all. ~~~ baby How did he out himself? He was outed after an "investigation". This is doxxing, not journalism, I will agree with the parent comment. ------ fredgrott Craig Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin... First Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym first part implies clear thinking second part implies central in origin..its meaning might be central to the origin of cyber-encryption movement..although that probably is not it..but the made up name does imply that the inventor is central to an encryption movement. ~~~ plorg I probably need not explain that this is simply tautological.

Painless Merge Conflict Resolution in Git - aeontech http://blog.wuwon.id.au/2010/09/painless-merge-conflict-resolution-in.html ====== aeontech I spent an hour this morning trying to find this link again, because I was convinced I read it on HN yesterday. Turns out I didn't read it on HN, so here it is. I found this approach very useful when I had to do a couple KLOC merge last night. ~~~ peterbotond git rerere --help once you resolve a conflict git will remember, and do it for you. :-) ~~~ aeontech I know about rerere, this is about taking the guesswork out of that initial resolution and making it more logical, especially when merging someone else's code.

Google Video Quality Report - bradly http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport ====== nysv So, what does it show? I only get "Results from your location are not yet available." ~~~ jchulce It's only available in Canada right now

New frontiers in text editing - gandalfgeek http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/31970017734/new-frontiers-in-text-editing ====== gexla Same way I feel. What does it matter what your text edit looks like? It's just text. Text editing is solved for the keyboard. If you want to create something new, then do it for the touch screen. ------ lutusp > _Over the last couple of months I’ve watched the unfolding drama of TextMate > lovers scrambling to find a replacement after it was open-sourced, and > presumed abandoned._ Say again? Open-sourcing equals abandonment? This outlook may come as a surprise to the growing open-source world. So, on the basis of this reasoning, Linux has been abandoned? How about LibreOffice, the open-source office suite, which happens to include a pretty good word processor? It's such a shame that it and Linux have no future -- after all, they're open source, "and presumed abandoned." ~~~ batista > _Say again? Open-sourcing equals abandonment?_ More often than not, yes. Open-sourcing is where lots of commercial products go to die. > _It's such a shame that it and Linux have no future -- after all, they're > open source, "and presumed abandoned."_ Ho ho, I appreciate the sarcasm, but it's misplaced. Linux was open source all along and carrying on a gigantic community. LibreOffice too. Projects like TextMate usually don't fare as well when open sourced. There are lots of examples.

Speaking JavaScript - rauschma http://speakingjs.com/es5/ ====== eddd I hate books with contents like: Variables and Assignment Values, Booleans, Numbers, Operators, Strings,Statements, Functios, Exception Handling, Strict Mode, Variable Scoping and losures, Objects and Constructors, Arrays etc... there are milions books like that. I require from book to introduce me into new language in a manner where i don't have to suffer due to going throught dry facts and definitions. Give me pure examples. I want to create something useful during lecture of book about programming. ~~~ ritchiea Agreed. Books that focus on teaching syntax and common use cases really fall flat for me. The best programming books teach you how to think in the syntax of the language. Eloquent Javascript [1] does a good job of that and is also free. The best programming book at teaching a practical contemporary language in depth while teaching you to think with it is Metaprogramming Ruby. That's a great read for anyone considering writing a book to teach a programming language. And the best book I've ever read on thinking about programming comprehensively is SICP. Which again, I would recommend reading at least half of if you are going to write a book teaching a language. 1\. [http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/) ~~~ blumkvist Hey, I stumbled across a post of the author of eloquentjavascript that he's crowdfunding second edition of the book. My question is - how current is the first edition? Is it suitable to teach me JS, considering it's quite old? I'm not a good programmer. I know a bit of python, mainly for statistical tasks and some automation/scraping. ~~~ ritchiea It's a great intro to Javascript. It's not going to teach you the most current webdev libraries but if you start with a strong foundation in Javascript (which you will get from Eloquent Javascript) you should be fine applying your knowledge to using popular libraries. ~~~ blumkvist Thank you! Thanks to marijn too! ------ caniscrator 'Eloquent Javascript' ([http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)) and 'Learning JavaScript Design Patterns' ([http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/bo...](http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/)) are the best resources so far. ~~~ ritchiea I second Eloquent Javascript. It's the book I recommend to JS beginners. Secrets of the Javascript Ninja by John Resig & Bear Bibealt is another good one once you get past the terrible title. I will checkout Learning Javascript Design Patterns on your recommendation. I bookmarked that book a while ago but forgot to return and give it a read. ~~~ caniscrator Yes about Javascript Ninja, you are quite right. No doubt, its one's best companion for getting firm grip on cross-browser compatibility issues. ------ camus2 Recently found this : [http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/](http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/) SICP in Javascript.While the coding style is a little bit old school this should be linked in every javascript book / blog about learning Javascript. This stuff is just awesome. I would gladly pay 30 bucks for a revised paper back version. ~~~ draegtun Also see _Higher-Order Javascript_ by Sean M. Burke which is a "JavaScriptish companion" to Mark-Jason Dominus's _Higher-Order Perl_ book - [http://interglacial.com/hoj/](http://interglacial.com/hoj/) ~~~ camus2 thanks for the link. ------ Flimm This book deliberately omits talking about Javascript in the browser, but the only reason I want to study Javascript is for its use in a browser context! ~~~ rauschma It’s a matter of deliberate focus! If you are interested in browser stuff, you can either combine Speaking JS with the content on MDN [1] or buy a different book. I like the books by Nicholas Zakas and “JavaScript: The Definitive Guide”. [1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/) ------ hawkharris I never knew that NaN is not strictly equal to itself in JavaScript (so NaN === NaN => false). Very interesting. ~~~ memming I would be surprised if it were. All languages I know says NaN == NaN is false. ------ gtirloni Is it possible the author is getting more revenue from that little ad on the right side then from actual sales? Is it common for O'Reilly authors to release their books this way? ~~~ ptwobrussell I strongly considered the approach of releasing the contents of my recent book online with Mining the Social Web 2E [1] but instead decided to pursue what I felt was a standard OSS model: release a really high quality version of the source code that's optimized for easy learning in IPython Notebook format (optionally packaged as a turn-key VM) on GitHub [2] with the book being a form of "premium support" for the codebase if people want to learn more or dig deeper. I touch on all of this somewhat in the book's blog's "book as a startup posts" [3], and it seems to be working well so far. I'm increasingly becoming interested in the prospect of releasing the entire contents of the book (both prose and source code) in IPython Notebook format so that you could read and work in the book seamlessly as "executable paper" like this full-text sampler of Chapter 1 [4] if it were hosted on Wakarii or a similar platform that offers a free tier. It really seems to me that this is the future of tech books: _learning platforms_ with prose and example code integrated seamlessly. [1] [http://amzn.to/GPd59m](http://amzn.to/GPd59m) [2] [https://github.com/ptwobrussell/Mining-the-Social-Web-2nd- Ed...](https://github.com/ptwobrussell/Mining-the-Social-Web-2nd-Edition) [3] [http://miningthesocialweb.com/category/book-as-a- startup/](http://miningthesocialweb.com/category/book-as-a-startup/) [4] [http://bit.ly/IW3cbc](http://bit.ly/IW3cbc) ------ hoers Anybody else getting 404s? ~~~ petercooper I saw some tweets yesterday from which I inferred there have been some DNS propagation issues. I notice the IP is an S3 one so I tried.. [http://s3.amazonaws.com/speakingjs.com/es5/index.html](http://s3.amazonaws.com/speakingjs.com/es5/index.html) and it seems to work, so might be a good temporary workaround. ~~~ hoers thanks!

The Demise of Chrysler - sown http://www.newsweek.com/id/166659/page/2 ====== sown And I meant to post this: <http://www.newsweek.com/id/166659> ------ sown Sometimes I wonder if this will ever happen to silicon valley. The tone of the article is very ... final.

UK Parliament publishes 250+ pages of sensitive, internal Facebook documents - burtonator http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/seized-facebook-internal-emails-published-by-u-k-lawmakers ====== mtmail discussed in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608658)

StackExchange site for Freelance Developers - needs your votes - tomsaffell http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/11624/freelance-developers ====== kylec It now has enough followers, but it still needs 5 "on topic" and 5 "off topic" questions. A question is considered "on" or "off topic" when it reaches 20 of those respective votes.

Is anyone using Google Drive? What's the take? - webwanderings It seems the buzz over Google Drive have disappeared. What is the take on it over Dropbox? I have yet to install the client to check what its all about. ====== sidcool I am actively using Google Drive and I like it so far. It's faster than Dropbox. The only issue Drive will face is that it's a bit late in the party. Dropbox has the lion's share right now. But Drive is amazingly fast (Web and Android) and allows editing and live publishing etc. Best part is it's total integration with Google Docs. I, by far, am very impressed with Google Drive and will continue to use it. ~~~ webwanderings I have several Google accounts with documents spread out. So I have been hesitating to start using the local client because I can't decide which account to use (assuming Google doesn't allow multiple accounts sync up with the locally installed client?)

Show HN: Browsergram, a one hour Chrome extension that Instagrams everything. - hazelcough https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/browsergram/nfimhjenbdbaofikdffcinpepgpmcmcb ====== jeffehobbs Haters gonna do the thing that haters are naturally best at.

Google Has A Solution For Internet Explorer: Turn It Into Chrome - jasonlbaptiste http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/google-turns-internet-explorer-into-chrome-yes-seriously/ ====== scotty79 I think someone should write internet worm that upgrades IE on the computers it infects, spreads for after a while then closes hole through which it spreads (so the computer won't get infected again) and then delete itself. The fact that such worm does not exist yet after all years of IE6 suffering might mean that worm writing hackers are assholes. ~~~ swolchok No one legitimate is going to do this because of the legal risks. No one illegitimate is going to do this because it's probably not as profitable as building a botnet. ~~~ scotty79 Do you imply that people who ignore some laws do things only for profit? ~~~ pwmanagerdied No, he didn't. ------ mquander This is entertainingly insidious. Can anyone think of similar instances where a flexible plugin/extension system was subverted to basically turn one product into a competing product? ~~~ webwright It's entertaining but it's not insidious. It's a nice bit of additional PR for the "IE Sucks" movement, but no one will use this. The people who are using IE6, by and large, don't have the ability to install stuff on their machines. Assuming any of them know/care what browser they are running. Most of the time when I answer support emails with "What browser are you running?" the response is "I don't know-- how do I check that?". ~~~ trunnell _...don't have the ability to install stuff on their machines_ But their IT departments can install it. Those IT departments usually _want_ to upgrade because they have to write internal web apps and they feel the pain, too. But they can't upgrade due to various legacy apps that are tightly coupled to IE6. This lets them have their cake and eat it, too. ~~~ arebop In my experience working in IT, the cost of MSIE6 is implicit and invisible and there's even some fear about security and legal problems related to free software. These companies are still targeting MSIE6 first and sometimes only in completely new applications; it's support for other browsers that is explicitly considered as an optional expense. ------ awolf Nice. The only problem is that most of the people who still use IE6 are in locked- down corporate environments where they can't upgrade their browsers. They most likely won't be able to install this plugin either. ~~~ paulo72 You have to wonder if Google have got some sort of killer app they want to launch but IE is the problem — the sort of killer app that corporates and institutions will want access too. I don't see that they did this to raise anti IE feeling (unless they get off on preaching to the choir). Don't see that WAVE necessarily fits the bill but it does need proper HTML5 support ... What do you reckon? ~~~ disnet Well, the wave people have already said they're stopping development for IE and will just be forcing the chrome frame: [http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-wave-in- int...](http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-wave-in-internet- explorer.html) As long as wave takes off it'll drive adoption. ------ GiraffeNecktie Nice idea. Unfortunately it requires running an .exe. In my work environment, running an unapproved executable is strictly forbidden. IE is also locked down pretty tight so I doubt that it would work even if I could run the installer. I can't even upgrade the Flash plugin, how bad is THAT? ~~~ ShabbyDoo > running an unapproved executable is strictly forbidden By technology or words in a policy manual? If it's the latter, most employees can claim they had no idea they were "running a program" ~~~ jpwagner haha, just the image of telling someone that "i had no idea it was a program" makes me laugh. ------ CWuestefeld I can only imagine the support headaches that this will create. On one hand, the user insists (correctly) that he's using Internet Explorer. On the other hand, the observed behavior will be as if he's using Chrome. ~~~ natrius Create a web page for support requests. Check the User Agent in addition to what the user reports. ~~~ trunnell Yes, but which part of "IE" is sending the User-Agent header? Does IE send User-Agent for the initial request and Chrome Frame sends User-Agent for all subsequent requests (after it detects the <meta> tag)? ~~~ natrius I presume every IE request will have "chromeframe" in it, which conditionally serving the meta tag[1] would require. [1] [http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/developers_guide.h...](http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/developers_guide.html#Detecting_Google_Chrome_Frame) ------ starchy I wonder if this will work inside IE Tab in Firefox. So far as I can tell, it should (and without the performance hit of running VirtualBox inside VMware, at that). ~~~ billybob Yo dawg, I know you like to browse, so I put a browser in the browser in your browser, so you can browse while you browse while you browse. ~~~ paulo72 lmao ------ melito So uh, does this kill browser targeting? <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype> Or can you just do something like content="IE=8;chrome=1" ? ~~~ alabut Looks like you can target the user agent: _"Google Chrome Frame reports that it is available by extending the host's User-Agent header to add the string chromeframe. You can use server-side detection to look for this token and determine whether Google Chrome Frame can be used for a page. If Google Chrome Frame is present, you can insert the required meta tag; if not, you can redirect users to a page that explains how to install Google Chrome Frame."_ [http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/developers_guide.h...](http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/developers_guide.html) ~~~ irrelative Oh boy. Another browser to support. Thanks Google! ~~~ eterps Don't support browsers, support standards! ~~~ peoplerock Isn't a valid part of "supporting standards" _declining_ to support what ignores standards? ~~~ InclinedPlane Yes, but you have to pick your battles. Unless you run an already ginormously successful site which can afford a substantial loss of traffic, then being dogmatic about web standards will only hurt you and do nothing to drive people away from non-standards compliant browsers. ~~~ paulo72 ... not sure anything is likely to drive people away from standards compliant browsers, maybe just sites that won't render in less capable browsers. I reckon the user would blame a poorly rendered site on the author/owner rather than the browser. Standards are the goal, and it's never been closer. However, interoperability is more important. Writing markup, code and styles to the standards and provide at least an accessible level of operability to the less capable user agents. ------ Poiesis This sounds like something like we'd complain about if Microsoft did it. ~~~ zyb09 no no, if Microsoft had the browser, that passes Acid and Google had some broken mess you can't even render a diagonal line with, but somehow the vast majority of clueless users would use the Google Browser,.. then.. that would be a perfectly fine move of Microsoft. ------ icey So... does this mean IE finally has a chance of having a nice javascript engine? For those folks who have nightmares over JavaScript's DOM performance on IE, this may be a remedy if it includes V8. "Is our site running slow for you? Try this magic new plugin and the performance will improve!" ~~~ dflock It does indeed include V8 and a big shiny 'Speed Up' button might actually be one plausible way to get people to install the required plug-in. ------ oneplusone I like this. It will be much easier to convince people to install a small plugin than it would be to explain to them how to upgrade their browser. My app don't support IE6 for the back-end so no real way for us to loose by using this. ------ derefr So does this just modify IE, or does it also affect aps that render HTML using MSHTML? This would be twice as hilarious/awesome if it made Outlook suddenly render HTML-formatted e-mail to standards. ~~~ blasdel Outlook 2007 uses Word's HTML rendering (no meaningful CSS2 support!), not IE's Trident. ------ ShabbyDoo I presume Google's goal is to reduce the percentage of IE6 users down to levels where consumer-oriented sites don't think it's worth supporting anymore? Today, IE6 is propped up by personal use of corporate machines during the workday. I worked on a consumer site where the percentage of IE6 use was higher during the workday than on nights/weekends. Various negative inputs into the IE6 ecosystem feedback loop could cause a precipitous death spiral. ------ rufo I find this solution both hilarious and awesome. Assuming no major downsides, I'd opt-in. ------ ShabbyDoo Right now, I'm consulting for a large company that still provisions IE6 because it has a bunch of in-house web apps that don't work right on any other browsers. Since switching thousands of users over to another browser could not happen in a single day, these legacy apps would all have to be modified to work in both IE6 and a modern browser. This can be done, but it requires coordination and resources. Furthermore, the groups responsible for the apps and those responsible for the desktop standards probably meet on the org chart at the CIO level. Sadly, it would be really useful if Chrome (or Firefox or whatever) could accurately emulate IE6's behaviors for sites of an administrator/user's choosing. We could fairly easily make Apache insert a special "PleaseRenderLikeIE6" headers so those applications could continue to function as-is. Yes, this is painful to write about, but it's the reality of most large corporate IT shops. ~~~ tomafro And doesn't this plugin kind of achieve this? Rather than marking sites which should be rendered in IE6, you mark them to be rendered in Chrome. So all legacy sites work without modification (using the IE6 engine), whilst modern sites can add the chrome meta tag and get rendered by Chrome. ~~~ ShabbyDoo If we could tag certain sites as legacy, we could uninstall IE6 and default users to Chrome/Firefox/whatever. Or, we could even install IE8 and use the Chrome plug-in for true IE6 compatibility -- the opposite of what Google proposes. ~~~ wvenable You could simply use the IEView plugin in Firefox to achieve the effect you are looking for. I have a few IE-only sites and it seamlessly uses IE to render those sites while in Firefox. You configure which sites automatically use that rendering engine. ------ pkulak Seems like this is only for HTML5 sites. IE 8 actually renders very well. I've yet to have something render in FF/Safari differently than IE 8. It's IE 7 and 6 that are the bane of my existence, and it's probably easier to get those users to upgrade to 8 than install a plugin. ------ kentosi Reminds me of the "IE Tab" plugin for firefox, which allows you to render your current tab in ie-format. It's quite useful when you're designing websites, and also useful when your organisation has legacy apps that only display properly in ie6. ------ known <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunascape_(web_browser)> is unique in that it contains three rendering engines: Gecko (used in Mozilla Firefox), Webkit (used in Apple Safari and Google Chrome), and Trident (used in Microsoft Internet Explorer). The user can switch between layout engines seamlessly. ------ croby From reading the article and then the FAQ on the Google Chrome Frame site, I don't see how they'll get around users not having admin access to their machines. It seems to require a download/install which is the current issue preventing a large base of users from upgrading beyond IE6. ~~~ rufo If your application is designed properly, you don't need admin rights to install - proper Windows installers are supposed to support a "This User Only" install method which shouldn't require admin rights. ~~~ dflock True - and Chrome (the full install) already does this - it installs everything into your C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome folder. I think the main issue isn't this, it's that many of the corporate desktops that are still running older IE versions are no-installing-anything-at-all-locked-down. ~~~ rufo I'm wondering if there's a population of users that have computers that are not _that_ locked down, but don't have the savvy to install a browser. (My father's workplace gives him standard-User level access, but he's still been able to install Firefox.) Additionally, this is probably wishful thinking, but I wonder if there's any chance IT departments would actually be somewhat friendly to this. Theoretically it shouldn't add much (if any) support load, since websites have to opt-in to Google Chrome Frame. An IT department could install it, still have all their internal apps run fine on IE and their users can have a better experience on the web without having to know or care about it. (Of course, that assumes IT departments would actually want to give their users a better web experience to begin with...) ------ paul9290 For distribution will they sneak it into google toolbar or offer an option to install it when you install Google toolbar? Overall this sounds great, but there still is one huge problem; the average net user(majority) won't install this. They don't even know what a web browser is. ------ est OK, some what I can feel Google CF is extremely insecure. cf:<http://tinyurl.com/google-bart> won't display new 301/302 URL correctly on address bar and this is good for phising. not found where source code for npchrome_tab.dll is, but RegisterNPAPIPlugin(), and UnregisterNPAPIPlugin() looks vulnerable since mixing two plugin mechanism into one is catastrophic. Here's typelib for npchrome_tab.dll <http://initiative.yo2.cn/archives/642723#typelib> ------ GrandMasterBirt To be honest I think this is step 1, perhaps the best first step EVER MADE to move towards progress in HTML. With this plugin basically we can finally make messages on websites in the same way flash is installed to download google chrome and we have HTML5 compliance (once the spec is done and fully implemented). It will be great. Till now were stuck with HTML 4.1 until the entire world moves to IE8 AT LEAST. This is really a technological leap. ------ onreact-com I'd prefer a more matter of fact source like this one: "Google Chrome Injects Itself Into Internet Explorer With Chrome Frame" [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_launches_chrome_...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_launches_chrome_frame_internet_explorer_plugin.php) ------ onreact-com Microsoft will block this like Apple did with Google iPhone apps. ------ wglb How very cool. ------ tamersalama is it April 1 already? ------ idan Yo chromeframe, I'm happy for you and I'ma let you finish but Lynx was one of the best browsers of all time. ------ pluc You know it's TechCrunch when the only credible thing you can find in that article are external. Google Code link + YouTube video. Otherwise, I probably would've assumed some kind of gossip reporting as usual.

Dear Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Jews - ojbyrne http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/human_nature/2012/09/mohammed_movie_embassy_attacks_don_t_let_internet_videos_drive_you_to_violence_.html ====== Zenst Given religion has had a history of insulting non-religious people I can't help feel that some double-standards are in play. That said picking on anybody who has any form of mental handicap is just wrong and in that I can understand why they are upset and some are unable to rise above it. Idiots be they religious or non religious are still idiots and sadly that is nothing new and that is what we are seing, being upset is one thing, overreacting is something else and when you take away the religious aspects you are just left with a bunch of idiots making films to offend another bunch of idiots who overreact and justify violence. Religious people need to accept that not everybody reads from the same page as much as non-religious people have to respect that not everybody reads the same page, anything else is just wrong.

Card Shark - far33d http://www.foundread.com/view/card-shark ====== jamesbritt "My 27th birthday is right around the corner, so while I'm still young, that youthful feeling is fleeting." Only if you let it be that way. ------ aston Matt Maroon is a new entrant on my cool people list.

Show HN: Emoji Image URL Generator - miyuru https://tools.beeimg.com/emoji/ ====== brudgers Is there a story behind the project? ~~~ miyuru when I had the idea for this project, I searched and found most of the emoji libraries had hosted on github, with their file names in written codepoint. so I wanted to just put the emoji in url and get the image for the emoji. also I wanted to resize the emoji images on the fly, where the others had hard coded sizes like 32,64,128

HappyEdit: A Vim-inspired, modern, open source text editor - pkkm http://happyedit.se/ ====== jlgreco I am wondering in what way a "modern vim" isn't "vim". GVim exists, and plugin management is a problem frankly solved years ago. I also wonder how he is going to support modern features that Vim currently has with a web-based editor. Can I script this in my choice of modern languages? Python? Ruby? If I were going to change any single thing about Vim, it would be to make MzScheme scripting support a first class citizen, and slowly re-engineer the backend to be more Emacs styled. Core C (or whatever, but C out of momentum) functions with the rest of the system build up in Scheme. I think it would be foolish to call such an improvement "modernizing" though, since it is hardly a new idea. ;) ~~~ guns > _If I were going to change any single thing about Vim, it would be to make > MzScheme scripting support a first class citizen, and slowly re-engineer the > backend to be more Emacs styled. Core C (or whatever, but C out of momentum) > functions with the rest of the system build up in Scheme._ Thank god there are people who share this vision! I have solemnly promised to myself that I will write a new vim in exactly this fashion if no one has done so in the next 10 years. One thing that I don't understand about contemporary developers is the aversion to running their editors in a terminal. The benefits of doing this are significant (e.g. session management with tmux, remote pair programming via the same), but programmers leave them behind for what is ultimately just eye candy. The major reasons for this are the difficulty in binding complex key chords in a terminal, and the poor implementation of OS X's Terminal.app (both of which can be worked around today with a little work, and a proper X terminal). If this terminal-based workflow is going to thrive in the future, what will need to be modernized is the terminal.¹ So you heard it here first: if a new vim built atop a Lisp interpreter running on a new data-centric, mixed character-grid/HTML5-webview terminal emulator does not appear in the next 10 years, I'm on the job.² ¹ Some excellent musings on the subject: <http://lubutu.com/idea/ivo> ² This would all be easier if I could love to learn Emacs, but Vim modal editing is a pernicious addiction. ~~~ padraigm As tikhonj mentioned, Emacs evil-mode is very likely exactly what you're looking for. I had considered myself a hardcore vim user, but I felt the call of Slime and org-mode. When I finally took a serious look at Emacs, I became convinced that Emacs with evil-mode is the ultimate editor for vim lovers. ~~~ guns What concerns me about vim emulation modes is the uncanny valley mentioned by another poster. Working in a second-class interface doesn't sound that great. However, that's pretty strong praise, so I promise I'll give it a shot before trying to birth a new editor into the world. ~~~ aerique I've used Emacs for the last 10+ years first with my own custom keybindings and recently with keybindings with 'default' CUA bindings like you find them in almost any other modern application. Before I switched to Emacs I used vi/Vim for almost 10 years. Also, even when I had switched to Emacs I still used Vim on the commandline and on remote servers but not in any advanced way. I tried out evil-mode a couple of weeks ago just on a lark and I am staying with it. You really get the best of both world[1] this way. It might be a little strange at times but I wouldn't describe the usage as a second-class interface. Just different. I'd rather describe the default Emacs keybindings as a second-class interface :-) [1] this will not mean much if you've never used Emacs ------ ef4 I can almost guarantee that it would be easier to fix whatever it is you don't like about vim than to start from scratch. Too many developers have this conceit that it's easier to start from scratch. _Sometimes_ that's true, but usually not. Usually there's an exaggerated fear of extending other people's code. Of course the world is big enough for another project, and you _might_ make the next great editor. But be realistic about how much effort went into something like vim, and don't think you're going to single-handedly replace it in a month. ~~~ kkowalczyk You should have checked out the project before ranting. 1\. The major difficulty in writing an editor is in writing the editor core. He didn't write it from scratch but used existing ACE editor. 2\. VIM is a huge mass of C code. Working on a huge mass of C code is ridiculously slow. He's writing in JavaScript and using html for the UI - this is orders of magnitude faster. ~~~ smosher _He's writing in JavaScript and using html for the UI - this is orders of magnitude faster._ In what sense is that true? ~~~ dbattaglia Faster for them to code with compared to C I would imagine. ------ ecspike Using Chrome packaged apps makes compilation problematic if not impossible as well as running command-line functions. The file model for Chrome packaged apps is similar to the Mac App Store in that you can access files but you have to get explicit permission for each one you open. There's also an internal file system to the app that you can create. I write HTML5 apps but also do quite a bit of Java moving between different projects during the course of the day and running some command-line functions too. Happy Edit as it appears today wouldn't give me parity to how I use vim. If I were on a Chromebook, I would probably just use tmux/screen and a ssh session. ------ sudonim Looks great. Is it releasable at the moment? It looks like the indiegogo campaign may not succeed - sorry :(. <http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit> (3 days left, $805 / $10,000 raised). Have you considered alternate ways of funding your development? Like subscriptions? (it's a web app right?). Maybe figure out a price... let's say $10 a month or $100 a year and get people to pay for a yearly subscription up front. It may not allow you to focus on it full time at first, but could give you the incentive to continue improving the product and eventually work on it full time. ~~~ marekmroz I think that the author will get all the funds regardless of reaching the goal. It is the first time I see indiegogo and it would be quite different from kickstarter, but that's what their page seems to indicate: >Flexible Funding campaign >This campaign will receive all of the funds contributed by Wed Oct 31 at 11:59PM PT. ------ mercurial I must admit a marked lack of enthusiasm for projects like this. You already have a number of vim "clones" developed with various technologies (ysis in qt4 - dead, yi in haskell - though it has also an emacs mode, still actively developed, probably others I don't know about). They haven't managed to take off in a significant way, what is this one bringing to the table? The idea of taking on an editor with about 20 years of development behind it, even with the editor core already written, in a couple of months, is ludicrous. And to top it all, it doesn't even work in a terminal. ~~~ fafner The problem is attracting a large enough group of users and contributors. If you have only a handful people working on it then it will quickly fade away. I've seen this with several open source projects. One maintainer finishes college, the other changes jobs, the one guy who thought he could make a living out of it realises he's broke, the biggest contributor becomes father and all of the sudden there are too few people left. And although everybody loves the new ideas behind the project it quickly turns into an unmaintained mess and because there are so many alternatives available they'll eventually move on. Let's face it the editor market is really really crowded. And there are tons of great editors out there. You really have to be innovative to get a foothold there. And can HappyEdit really provide that by simply being a vim-like in- browser editor with some sublime features? It is incompatible to all the existing vim plugins and has to reimplement everything vim does. The majority of vim users are probably not interested in fancy guis or even leaving the terminal ("it's not the UNIX way"(tm)). And the $10,000 he asks for will only get him 1-2 month of development. Oh and the indiegogo campaign has less than 3days left and currently only a bit more than $1,000 of the $10,000 he asks for. So yeah I doubt that this will be a huge success. ~~~ mercurial Precisely. If you want to challenge a product with massive mindshare [1], then you need new, very compelling features, and preferably be compatible with the existing ecosystem. 1: Unless you can play "abusive monopolist". ------ barbs Awesome. I'm always on the lookout for a text editor with all the cool things from Vim, but without having to fiddle with the stupid plugin and config system. The closest thing I've found so far is Vico (<http://www.vicoapp.com/>) ~~~ buf Check out vundle <http://lepture.com/work/vundle-vs-pathogen/> <https://github.com/gmarik/vundle> ------ dantiberian It wasn't obvious on the linked page but this is available to try on Github here <https://github.com/pthulin/HappyEdit> ------ volaski I like the product but I really dislike the way he's trying to fund it. You know, once upon a time people would just build and launch shit, instead of begging people for money even before building it. I understand this type of Kickstarter-like campaign is really helpful for building hardware products which require upfront budget, since building hardware costs real money. But building a software? Please... If I was so motivated, I would just build it and release it. ~~~ jamesrcole I don't see why it's that bad. You describe it pejoratively as "begging for money", but it does take time to develop anything, and you need money to live. What's wrong with someone wanting to be able to work full-time developing it? And what's wrong if some people want to provide monetary support so the person can do that? ------ dysoco Looks really interesting, but you seriously need $10,000 ? Can I run this from a Terminal ? Without the UI but using some features from HappyEdit ? ~~~ sergiotapia The entire point of this project is to modernize it, and give it a user friendly UI. If you want Terminal usage, just use Vim. ~~~ duck Why does modernize mean not supporting a terminal interface? ~~~ dfbrown I would imagine because there are many UI features that cannot be easily reproduced in the terminal and maintaining two different interfaces with very different capabilities is more trouble than it's worth. ~~~ jlgreco Ideally any new system should be made UI agnostic, provided a simple default UI with few features readily accessible (perhaps accessible only though a command line of sorts), and allow users of your editor to craft their own frontends, be they TTY or web-based, or anything they may dream up in the future. Just building the web-based editor that you want this year may be fine for this year, but I am not convinced we should be putting much effort into designing systems that don't learn from their predecessors. The classic editors can feel rickety today because they were made with the TTY, and arguably only the TTY, in mind. A system designed today should keep that in mind, and I think make future-proofing it's first and for-most concern. I think it is also really hard to justify supporting _fewer_ features than classical editors do today. Removing the ability to implement technical features so that you can add support for UI features seems like a step backward to me. I don't think there is much (or anything) that you _couldn't_ add to Vim or Emacs, the question is just more along the lines of "can you make it _look_ how you want it too". An editor designed with UI agnosticy (is that a word?) as a first class feature should not have this problem. ~~~ johncoltrane I've already clicked the up arrow but I wanted to express my agreement more directly. I agree. That would be "Agnosticism", I think. ------ calinet6 The name is horrible. Change it and it might see success. ~~~ wyclif I came here to say just this. I'm a vim user, and I have my doubts about this project, but overall I encourage people to experiment and do new things in the editor space-- so I don't begrudge this. But the name is terrible. Don't project an emotion onto your users. ~~~ Evbn Are you jokimg? <http://m.dictionary.com/d/?q=vim> ~~~ wyclif I'm as serious as a heart attack. Actually, it's really not the same thing at all, and I'm an English major-- I know that "vim" is a noun. But "happy" is an adjective. That's part of the reason why it's a bad name. ------ Magenta No offence, but as far as I can see, this does nothing that can't be done in vim (or one of its forks) with pathogen/vundle and the extant plugin ecosystem. Also I doubt people will want to pay if there is no native editor/terminal support. ;( ------ zapt02 this doesn't look thought out. you need way more than "1-2 months" to develop a good IDE. there's no mention of supported languages and popular features like code indexing and live compilation will never happen on a web platform. ~~~ jcheng Our web based IDE does code indexing: <http://www.rstudio.com/ide/docs/using/navigation> Never say never... I agree though that 1-2 months would only be scratching the surface, surely. ------ BasDirks From <http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit> "What will you do with the money? The money buys time for me to work on this project. With the $10,000 that I am asking for, I expect to get 1-2 months of development. This should be enough time to finish what's on the roadmap." Why would he need an average yearly income to be coding ± 45 days? ~~~ danieldk Where in the Western world is $10,000 an average yearly income? ~~~ tsahyt In Portugal, the average wage is 777€/month, paid 14 times a year, resulting in about 10800€ a year. Not exactly 10000$, but close. ~~~ ibotty well. the euro is way more worthy than the us $. that seems a little off. (10000$/2month still seems like a good salary... for something resembling vaporware for now.) ------ fisadev How is this editor "vim-inspired"? Has a vim-like editing language? (not just shortcuts, but combinable verbs, objects and modifiers) Has different modes? (normal or command, editing, ...) Is very extensible? I don't see any of those in the video, and they are vim's most important features (especially the first one). ~~~ pkkm From its IndieGoGo page (<http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit>): "Already implemented: Vim like INSERT/COMMAND/NORMAL modes, keybindings and search." ------ gnuvince Why another web-based editor? What's wrong with a native editor? ------ venatiodecorus Sublime Text 2 has Vintage mode which supports Vim-like commands, is a native app, and is elegant. However, HappyEdit has one significant advantage over ST2, in that it is open source. While I love ST2, I feel like for it to really be embraced as a great editor, it needs to be open source. ~~~ djacobs I've tried using Sublime with Vintage mode, and about 30% of the time I'm editing, I try a Vim combo and nothing happens. This isn't just for advanced Vim features -- it's for basic things like g_. ~~~ lloeki There's a VintageEx bundle that extends Vintage mode with more vim-ness. It still lacks vim-surround which is a no-go for me, and there are a few differences in behavior (off-by-one mostly) that _constantly_ throw me off. ------ edanm I'd love for someone to remake vim, in a modern way. With a modern GUI. And with a lot of thought put into how to make vim easier to use for new users. And with a better solution for plugins and customization. I'd love for this project to succeed, and I was ready to pay for it, but frankly, I'm skeptical, after looking at the product page. He's asking for money equal to 2 months of development. This is nowhere near, not even remotely close, to how much time it will take to get even a semi-descent version of an editor. I'm sorry, but that's just unrealistic. Also, I'd love to see other projects he's worked on, to see he knows how to build things, before I back a project. ------ tsahyt I've been watching the video and it doesn't look bad but... how is VIMs plugin system a mess? It always worked like a charm for me. ------ jamesrcole Feedback for the author: The "Back This Project" button send this message: only click this button if you have already decided you want to pledge money. I think more people would click on it if it was named something like: "Find Out More" or "Visit Project Page". ------ songgao Looks interesting. Is it possible to support real-time collaboration? By real- time collaboration I mean multiple people working on the same file and being able to see other people changing the file in real time, like Google Wave or Google Docs. ~~~ klibertp Or maybe like Vim in tmux? ~~~ songgao But that's still only one person modifying the code and the other watching. There couldn't be two cursors/editing points at the same time. ~~~ klibertp My bad, you're right, it's not exactly the same. I just didn't think about two people working on one document in two different places at once. ------ hayksaakian This is a great example of what you can do with chrome packaged apps. Many of the APIs associated with packaged apps are not supported in the current official release of chrome, unfortunately. ------ kintamanimatt I didn't realize this until now, but I get a kind of satisfaction from using the old CLI Vim because it's harder and uglier than neccessary. I could be equally productive in gEdit. ------ andybak I'd like to know more but I'm in an environment where I can't watch a video. (plus I hate video...) Is it that hard to also write some old-fasioned text as well? ~~~ pkkm The author has described the editor here: <http://www.indiegogo.com/happyedit> . ~~~ andybak Weird. I didn't see that the first time I looked. Mumble. Going mad... Mumble... ------ navs If he's using HTML and JS to code this, can we expect it to run in a browser as well? I'd love that. ~~~ johncoltrane It runs in Chrome as an extension. ~~~ navs Thanks. I didn't really catch on to that until I looked at the github project.

MongoDB 3.2: Now powered by Postgres - buffyoda https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mongodb-32-now-powered-postgresql-john-de-goes ====== preinheimer tl;dr: There's a new "BI Connector" which will allow you to connect your business intelligence tools to MongoDB using the Postgres wire protocol (which many speak). This is somehow bad because Postgres is also popular, and maybe people will use Postgres now. Also: the author (who has a competing connector) knows the names of a lot of people at MongoDB. ~~~ mikey_p My reading of the article was not that it uses the protocol, but that it actually unpacks it into an actual Postgres database. This obviously looks bad for MongoDB if their analytics literally uses a competing database. [https://github.com/asya999/yam_fdw](https://github.com/asya999/yam_fdw) ~~~ buffyoda If you're interested in how much computation gets pushed down into the MongoDB database, versus how much gets pulled back into PostgreSQL, you can find some examples here: [http://slamdata.com/blog/2015/12/08/nosql-analytics-for- mong...](http://slamdata.com/blog/2015/12/08/nosql-analytics-for-mongodb.html) Warning: It's not pretty. ------ parenthephobia tl;dr 2.0: 1) MongoDB Inc have made a "foreign data wrapper" for PostgreSQL which enables MongoDB databases to be accessed from within PostgreSQL. 2) This makes data in MongoDB databases accessible to existing analytics software for SQL databases, which is often made by companies with lots of money. 3) The CTO of SlamData Inc, which makes analytics software for NoSQL databases, thinks that MongoDB Inc shouldn't have done that. tl;dr 3.0: A company faces increased competition; isn't happy about it. ~~~ makomk It enables MongoDB databases to be accessed from within PostgreSQL at a massive performance penalty compared to just storing your data in Postgres in the first place, because the particular kind of foreign data wrapper they're using has limited ability to make use of MongoDB's query functionality and has to literally load the entire contents of the database into Postgres for anything non-trivial. Which means you're better off just using Postgres. This is bad for MongoDB because their business model relies on people actually using MongoDB rather than the competition. ------ onetwotree Frankly, if I were tasked with integrating existing BI tools with MongoDB, I'd immediately start looking at ways to "escape" the anemic Mongo ecosystem to something a bit richer. A Postgres FDW seems like an excellent design. Of course, I'm a bit of a Postgres partisan, and a Mongo refugee, but it still seems like a solid engineering decision and most of this guys arguments seem to hinge on "BUT POSTGRES IS TEH ENEMY!". ~~~ buffyoda Well, you might start off down that path, but eventually you'd find that if you try to execute analytics via PostgreSQL via FDW via Multicorn via MongoDB, you're only able to push conjunctions of simple relational operators on original (non-derived) fields in the source collection. What that means is virtually any query will end up executing (via PostgreSQL via FDW via Multicorn via MongoDB) by first pulling out all (!) the data from all (!) source collections, relocating it to MongoDB, and then executing the query. Possibly, in fact, these full collection scans might be repeated multiple times, especially for nested data, crosses, and other types of operations. And then you'd decide that "solid engineering decision" wasn't so solid after all. Then hopefully you'd quit MongoDB and go work on PostgreSQL full time. ;-) ------ ahachete It's nothing new that PostgreSQL is a great tool for doing analytics, even coming from MongoDB. I'm very happy that MongoDB took this route, it speaks a lot about their capabilities in the non-OLTP world. Having said that, I very biasedly say that there's a much better solution to this connector, which doesn't flatten out the MongoDB data: it's called ToroDB ([https://github.com/torodb/torodb](https://github.com/torodb/torodb)). ToroDB, open source, speaks the MongoDB protocol, transforms documents to relational tables (without any kind of flattening, and without having to define any schema) and stores data in a RDBMS. More precisely, PostgreSQL. Current development version (repl branch) speaks the replication protocol, and hence can replicate live from a MongoDB into PostgreSQL. No connector needed, no flattening, no FDWs, nothing else. Just add a new "slave" (ToroDB) to your replica set and you're good to go. It goes even further: if you want pure data warehousing, ToroDB will soon support GreenPlum. Some initial benchmarks ([http://www.slideshare.net/8kdata/torodb-scaling- postgresql-l...](http://www.slideshare.net/8kdata/torodb-scaling-postgresql- like-mongodb), slide #42) show 25x-75x improvement between doing aggregate queries in MongoDB and their equivalent queries in GreenPlum's distributed SQL. Now that MongoDB 3.2 ships with PostgreSQL "included", feel free to try ToroDB. It's always better the original :) Note: I am a ToroDB developer. ~~~ buffyoda I think ToroDB is super cool, and I wish your project the best of luck! You can't go wrong building something on PostgreSQL. :) That said, PostgreSQL FDW is NOT a great option for MongoDB analytics. Not only is the data model so different that you lose the ability to answer many types of questions, but Multicorn supports only basic pushdown (conjunctions of simple relational operators on original columns). What this means is that analytics via PostgreSQL via FDW via Multicorn via MongoDB suffers from (a) very poor expressive power, and (b) ridiculously slow performance, since nearly any type of query will require at least one full table scan on all the source tables (in some cases, especially with arrays, many more full table scans may be required for a single query!). Better off just using ToroDB. Am I right? :) ~~~ ahachete Thank you, John De Goes. I definitely agree. While PostgreSQL FDWs are a great way of extending Postgres, I don't see they are a good fit for this use case. Not only there are a lot of pushdowns not supported (although that is in the process of being improved), but more importantly, as you mentioned, this connector is going to impose a lot of full table scans for even the simplest queries. I'm dying to benchmark this connector against ToroDB. But unfortunately, the MongoDB proprietary license agreement explicitly forbids any kind of benchmark. I guess they have reasons to do so ;))))))) I cannot be objective saying that you should better of using ToroDB, but I definitely think so. I also want to congratulate you. I think Quasar and SlamData have gone very far, and I'd encourage you to keep on pushing it. While this connector may or may not adversely affect SlamData, there's always room for differentiation and improvement. Good luck! ------ CurtMonash Classic marketing pitch from a little company that wants to claim it's much more significant than it is: 1\. Claim a must-have set of requirements that ... 2\. ... happen to match its product's feature set ... 3\. ... but not its competitors.' [http://slamdata.com/whitepapers/characteristics-of-nosql- ana...](http://slamdata.com/whitepapers/characteristics-of-nosql-analytics- systems/) is presumably the core of the argument. I tend not to pay attention to such claims until the company rephrases them more honestly. That said, a brief discussion of what is really happening is in [http://www.dbms2.com/2015/09/10/mongodb- update/](http://www.dbms2.com/2015/09/10/mongodb-update/) Would more be better? Sure. ------ bro-stick The author tries to paint Mongo as an embarrassingly short-sighted, pseudo- enterprise company that can't share its toys with others. Mongo could refuse this by demonstrating collaboration efforts and solutions with a solution marketplace similar Atlasssian and VMware. On the partner side, cross-selling, cross promotions and collaborative sales/product strategies can reduce conflict and wasted/duplicated/unaligned effort that can lead to sour partner experiences. ------ bricss Guru author should marry on Postgres) ------ anotherevan MongoDB: the snapchat of databases. ~~~ doug1001 brilliant. makes me wonder if snapchat uses mongo; i can't think of one more suited to snapchat's unique selling point. ------ click170 Is this posted anywhere besides LinkedIn? Would like to read but am not willing to give page views to LinkedIn. ~~~ aidos That's really silly. LinkedIn produce some really interesting engineering content. EDIT I'm not sure what Pulse is, but it looks like aggregated content. Anyways, here's an article from the LinkedIn engineering team that's well worth a read [https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log- wha...](https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every- software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying) ~~~ bro-stick Perhaps a "magazine" HR/engineering uses to promote inbound candidate flow and knowledge sharing. ------ alexkavon Looks like it's time to switch databases. BLOAT. RIP Mongo. ~~~ bro-stick Or Mongo may need to refine collaboration with partners to sell more deployed customer solutions... that's the only takeaway from this I see.

Largest quantum computer yet: 14 qubits - SoftwarePatent http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-quantum-bits-physicists-limits.html ====== michael_nielsen I once asked one of the leading quantum computing experimentalists how many qubits he could completely control in the lab. He immediately and emphatically replied "none". I always think of this when I see headlines touting achievements such as a 14-qubit quantum computer, or stories about controlled entanglement of 14 qubits. These make good narrative hooks for an article, but they can also hide a lot. EDIT: A free pdf of a draft of the paper is at: <http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1009/1009.6126v2.pdf>. A quick skim suggests that at 14 qubits the state they actually prepare in the lab is, indeed, not very similar to the state they intend to prepare, with a reported fidelity of about 50%. That's the same fidelity they'd get if they just prepared an all |0> state. While the paper reports terrifically interesting work, this and many other details in the paper suggest quite a subtle picture. ~~~ Locke1689 While 14 qubits is an impressive achievement, one of the biggest problems now seems to be maintaining coherence for more than a few nano or microseconds. ~~~ bhrgunatha Yes the post title is misleading. They haven't produced a 14 qubit quantum computer able to do any computation, but they have produced a single quantum register of 14 qubits with (according to the PDF linked by michael_nielsen) < 50% coherence - about 50% fidelity. Less impressive sounding but still pretty amazing. ------ SoftwarePatent You should care about quantum computers because they can factor numbers in polynomial time, which breaks RSA public-key encryption. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm> ~~~ younata Ok, forgive my ignorance, but why is it that quantum algorithms can ONLY run on quantum computers? Is it the fact that qubits can have three states? If that is the case (which it likely isn't), why is base 3 better for this work than base 2? ~~~ vmind Basically: Qubits (sort of) encode all possible states that a standard string of bits can take at the same time as a superposition, such that when you measure them, you have a possibility of observing each possible setting of the bits. You can manipulate the possibility of observing certain states by performing operations on the bits (which are effectively interference). So a quantum calculation is more a probabilistic restriction on which state you want, rather than a direct calculation. In order to be sure of a result, you need to repeat the calculation to get a desired confidence (or just check the answer directly if that would be faster). ~~~ dcosson > So a quantum calculation is more a probabilistic restriction on which state > you want, rather than a direct calculation. Not necessarily, some quantum algorithms give an answer with 100% probability (like the Deutch-Josza algorithm). You're right in that the two most interesting ones (Grover's and Shor's algorithms) are probabilistic, though.

Google Voice gaining users? First invites. - proexploit I've been using Google Voice for a long time and never had any invites to give to other users but as of today they've added a few to my page. I remember Gmail starting up this way. Is it just me or are more people experiencing this? ====== raimondious I have 3 but I'm not sure when they appeared since I mainly interact with GV through my phone and email. ------ jclemenson Anyone have a spare invite they'd like to share? Email is my hn username at gmail. Thanks! ------ drivebyacct Also, to people asking for invites, if you sign up on the list, you will generally receive one within a few days. Additionally, if you are a student you are guaranteed a free one: <https://www.google.com/voice/students> (though it took nearly 48 hours for mine to show up rather than the advertised 24 hours) ------ drivebyacct I got 3 invitations in the first week. I use Google Voice exclusively for all my calls and a decently high volume of my text messages. My invited users use the service heavily and I've been responsible for getting my brother and both my parents using Google Voice, yet I've never been given additional invites. :(

How the Apple Watch Ejects Water in Slow Mo - vladoh https://youtu.be/EIEwy8rPik4 ====== OtterGauze I have reservations about Apple, but ill never deny that their product engineering for both the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch continue to impress me. Now if only they could get engineering like this into the Macbook line, because that's easily the worst product they sell for engineering.

A Generational War Is Brewing over Coronavirus - bookofjoe https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-generational-war-is-brewing-over-coronavirus-11584437401 ====== bookofjoe [https://archive.is/oHewA](https://archive.is/oHewA)

Modeling wine preferences by data mining from physicochemical properties [pdf] - martian http://www3.dsi.uminho.pt/pcortez/winequality09.pdf ====== Alex3917 This would be a great startup. It would be amazing if I could walk into a restaurant with an app that told the somelier that I not only prefer my vinho verdes with an acidity comparable to Famega but a little more chalky, but actually listed the ideal mix of the specific chemicals involved. It'd be like having a painting created for you in real time to match your taste; sure it takes away from the art and the aestetic experience, but it'd be cool once in a while. ~~~ showerst I was just thinking the same thing! It's cool that they released their data set too (although with conditions), shame that they don't give the wine names so you could compare computed scores to wine spectator or the like.

Why fundraising is a terrible experience for founders: Lessons learned - jenthoven https://www.kapwing.com/blog/the-terrible-truths-of-fundraising/ ====== paulddraper > _Blatant unfairness:_ VCs rely on their network for meeting, evaluating, and > closing deals with entrepreneurs. Founders need “warm intros” to the > investors, which generally come from people they know because of luck, > circumstance, and social circles rather than merit or professional aptitude. > The result is that well-liked entrepreneurs with shitty business ideas get > funding immediately while shrewd founders outside of the Club can’t get a > foot in the door. It’s not fun to play a game that isn’t fair, even if you > win. As much as that sucks to be on the bad end of...this is really common and really understandable. Ask yourself: Suppose you needed to hire someone to fix your lawn sprinklers, or hire an emply to work at your start up, or invest in a business. What role would personal connections and the trusted endorsements play? "Professional aptitude" is extraordinarily difficult to judge by other professions, and even more difficult in a reasonably brief amount of time. And character is a still more difficult judgement. Therefore, we rely on our own prior working relationships and recommendations of others. You can argue this is "unfair" and that everyone be treated at anonymous and unknown for sprinkler repair, early employment, and investment, but what you would call a "fair" strategy (by that standard), I would call a decidedly sub- optimal strategy. ~~~ lkrubner " _Ask yourself: Suppose you needed to hire someone to fix your lawn sprinklers, or hire an emply to work at your start up, or invest in a business. What role would personal connections and the trusted endorsements play?_ " I've always been curious why people like you feel the need to write comments like this. What is the gender neutral phrase for mansplaining, or mansplaining done to a mostly male audience? Do you really think we don't understand all the various reasons why the system is unfair? We can all easily point out why the system is unfair, without having to remind ourselves of how the unfairness of the system perpetuates itself. The question we need to answer is, how to make this system more fair? Because we can all easily think of a few ways the system could be made more fair, if the will existed to make it more fair. ~~~ paulddraper Apologies for the potentially _patronizing explanation._ Contrary to your comment though, I've found lots of people who put "decisions businesses/rich people make" and "decisions I make" on different planes. Example: A business looking to save money on their workforce is inherently Bad. But me looking to save every dollar I can on consumer goods is inherently Good (and different). I've found lots of people think in this "separate universes" mentality. ~~~ sudosteph Hopefully I'm not being too pedantic, as I do agree that saving money is not inherently good or bad based on the entity doing so, but the general concept that those in power should have a higher ethical standard for their actions than those without, is not without precedence. And it's not exclusively the domain of some sort of "separate universes"/cognitive dissonance type of thinking either. I'm thinking here of Plato's "Philosopher King" ideal. It seems reasonable for an average person to think that those who wield greater power (in this case, via money) have a greater obligation to consider the potential negative externalities associated with using that power. Now, whether or not that average person truly has the information and wisdom to tell if the decision being made was indeed the most ethical one is it's own matter of discussion, but holding the powerful to higher standards doesn't seem to be all that unreasonable. ------ waytogo > we closed a $1.7M seed round led by Kleiner Perkins [...] in a little over 8 > weeks This is fast and it's hard to believe that it was a terrible experience. How would have been your post if you needed 8 months or didn't raise at all after one year? ~~~ EpicEng When you've been handed everything in life, eight weeks is an eternity to wait. ------ crsv I want to take the high road in reading this, but it's hard to not take this in as some new form of humble brag. Affluent duo with super privileged private school educational pedigree land top tier entry level jobs @ big tech co and bootstrap for an incredibly modest 6 months before raising a relatively fat seed round from big VC firms _IN 8 WEEKS_ and bemoan "how terrible the process was". Oh woe is fucking me. ~~~ CPLX I wonder if they're like vaguely aware that most people would need a year of relentless networking and work to even get 1/3 of the _meetings_ they seem to have gotten in a matter of days. I mean they raised an average of over $200k a _week_. Maybe they could have written something with a headline more like "Here's how to get yourself into this privileged class of people who VC's will meet with and fund". That's not snark, an article like that could lend some genuine insight to this topic. ~~~ trocadero >headline more like "Here's how to get yourself into this privileged class of people who VC's are eager to fund". Not to mention become paper millionaires because some VC think you have a 1% chance of being the next Instagram. I mean, that $1.7 million is more than I expect to bring home after tax for the next 10 years. And my income is probably top 95-99% for the area I live in so it's not like I have a hard life. I can't imagine what someone who is actually struggling thinks of their "terrible experience" ~~~ jiveturkey wrong comparison. that 1.7mm is also 10x what the founders individual net incomes can be expected to be. 1.7mm is not a lot of money to a SV startup. it’s seed money. they’ll have to offer embarrassingly small salaries to a desperately small (efficient) number of employees so as to spread it as far as possible. ------ Aqua I'm not an expert, but writing "My advice to founders: fake it." on a publicly accessible blog doesn't sound wise, it's like saying "I will almost certainly lie to my future investors during the interview". If I were the investor and came across this article when doing startup due diligence, that would have raised some serious concerns about the CEO and her company. ~~~ jenthoven My advice was not "lie to investors." My advice was to fake your confidence and certainty, even if you're not feeling confident or certain. Investors want to know that the CEO has courage and the ability to evangelize. ~~~ lstodd CEO is now "Courageous Evangelizing Officer"? My, my, what the world came to, etc, etc.. ~~~ mmt I don't see much, if any, novelty here, especially if one substitutes the synonym "Marketing" for "Evangelizing". I vaguely recall it being something of a trope in the software industry (perhaps not even limited to that) decades, if not longer, ago that CEOs were really CMOs. ------ kenneth I spent the bulk of this year fundraising, something which I was previously unfamiliar with (I've been in startups a few times, but there was always another "fundraising guy" who took that role. This time I rolled up my sleeve and helped with it.). We managed to get $12M+ and still going. The big surprise was that I loved it. Pretty much every bit of it. Everyone says it, but it'll never sink in until you experience it for yourself: fundraising is always an absurdly slow process where you get nowhere for months, until suddenly everything comes together last minute. For us, it took 4 months of mostly nos, until we got a big name to say yes and suddenly we went from 10% subscribed to 3x oversubscribed with investors calling us with a raging case of FOMO. This is always the process, in any deal I've ever been involved in, as investor or on the other side. ------ AndrewKemendo Having done the same rounds on Sand Hill plus many up and down the business district of NYC and in Tysons Corner in DC, I will say that was still a flowery writeup - with a happy ending of a sizeable seed. I've come to the conclusion that 99% of startups raise money way too early - hence why it's such a terrible experience for most. Companies that are doing great business, don't need to pitch, and don't "go fundraising." Those companies seem to be actively sought out by money, and refuse checks more than they take them. That's probably 1/100 companies and the ones that should actually raise money. It's all about leverage. ------ xseven I messaged the CEO on LinkedIn to indicate interest in funding them. No response :(. A "No, thank you. We have bigger fish raise from" would've been nice. ------ neom Having done this at various scales I can attest to the truth in this article. Fundraising is never fun, doesn't matter if it's $100k or 100MM. Fundraising is exhausting, it creates the deepest amount of imposter syndrome that builds with every meeting. The need to stay focus on what you're doing, how you got to where you are, and why you're doing it becomes a primary concern, having people around you who believe in you is key during this period, but even that often only treats the symptoms. This was an email I got from a VC a couple years back: [http://john.je/tA3S](http://john.je/tA3S) \- that wasn't a fun day. I think there is a lot of romance is building a scaled startup, but a lot of folks I know, even those who have had large exits say they'd preferred to have built a much smaller lifestyle business in a more organic manner. The real fact is, building and maintaining any business from zero is really difficult. Even though it can be incredibly rewarding, it's certainly very rarely much fun. ~~~ x0x0 The email is interesting but maybe consider removing fred from it? ~~~ wolco Are you Fred? ~~~ x0x0 No. Is it that hard to comprehend that it's rude to share private correspondence without permission? Particularly from a VC that went above and beyond and shared reasons instead of "not a fit" or "maybe". ~~~ xseven but then this just shows him in good light, no? ------ x0x0 We're in a similar place -- finished our first priced round. Comments: Blatant unfairness: yes, warm intros are required. Yes, this is unfair. However, the onus is on you to make this happen. If you want to found a startup, put your time in to building your network. If you're at a startup now, get intros to the VCs. Ask to go to VC meetings. When you're building the network of people you're going to ask for angel cash, do the same. Lots of them will be happy to give you those warm intros. So start now building a network of people you can ask for $10-$25k. This wasn't obvious to me, but an intro to a vc from an angel who has invested counts as a great intro. The same network will get you into one of the good lawyers (cooley, sonsini, gunderson) with a warm intro who will also do a deferred fee deal for $15-$25k. You want this. The other thing that is unfair is, at least in b2b, the more customers you have the easier a raise will be. How do you get those first customers when you have nothing except a site that breaks all the time and a tiny team? That's your problem; make it happen. Passionate origin story: we build a b2b tech. Most VCs seemed happy with 1 - we understood this problem from working on/near it 2 - we're building a solution Oh, and read the book _venture deals_ by brad feld and jason mendelson [1]. Seriously. It's extraordinarily valuable. Seriously consider doing the YC pre-YC program. It's all funnel for YC, but the info is good. Though it can be summed up (only somewhat facetiously) as, "Have you talked to customers yet? Maybe you should talk to customers. If you've talked to customers, talk to more! If you've talked to more customers, talk to even more! And after that... talk to some customers!" Understand that the seed and A all want 25%; plan accordingly. Within that range, they are less price sensitive. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them, but I'm busy (the startup experience is everyone in your life is grumpy at you for flaking on them) so no promises on response time. [1] [https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer- Capitali...](https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer- Capitalist/dp/1118443616) ~~~ siamakf How can I reach you for fundraising q's :) ~~~ x0x0 put an email in about and ill contact you. I try to say anon on this site. ~~~ azal Would like to get some fund raising advice as well. Email in about. thnx ------ ummonk Replace “investors” with “women” and “founders” with “men”, and you could accurately describe dating in the valley. Low hit rate, the need for warm intros, the need to fake it till you make it for confidence, ghosting, all part of the dating experience. Which makes me wonder - could male founders be more immunized to this experience due to practice from the dating arena? ------ brink > "Humility is the opposite of confidence." Humility is _not_ the opposite of confidence; uncertainty is. Humility is thoughtlessness of self. ------ nsmog767 I thought this post had more humility and self-awareness than it's getting credit for. "The result is that well-liked entrepreneurs with shitty business ideas get funding immediately while shrewd founders outside of the Club can’t get a foot in the door. It’s not fun to play a game that isn’t fair, even if you win." Coming from someone who was successful, this is a pretty unbiased observation! ------ CryoLogic Is there anyway you could have bootstrapped the company? My issue with VCs isn't anything you focused on but instead the unfavorable terms. Liquidation preference and such. ~~~ kenneth Liquidation preferences are not unfavorable terms. A 1x non-participating liquidation preference is standard and protects investors against cheap acquihires founders would otherwise be inclined to take. ~~~ paulddraper 1x non-participating liquidation is not unfavorable. There are unfavorable terms (and historically it has been more common)...but yeah, that's very reasonable. ------ koolhead17 This post is a fluf, more like marketing piece. If your pedigree is Google and you are able to raise in 8 weeks, feel blessed. It would be great to hear VC side of story as well like: * 4X return to LP's. * Show enough exits in 7-8 years fund cycle. * Always on the road for raising next fund. * Coordinating with portfolio founders or other bigger investors for follow on. * Managing on a limited management fees. * How every fund has it's own investment thesis and they keep getting emails from rookie founders. ------ graycat Best I've seen about what early stage information technology VCs want to see: (1) Product/service in and/or exploiting information technology with _traction_ significant and growing rapidly. _Traction_ can be number of paying customers, traffic to Web site (e.g., Comscore numbers) or, better, revenue, or best, earnings. (2) The market large enough to permit a company worth $1+ billion in five years, no longer than 10 years. (3) Something serious in a _Buffett moat_ , that is, a way to beat, i.e., block, competitors. E.g., network effects, high switching costs, cases of lock in, technological advantage, e.g., _secret sauce_ , a _platform_ company that has advantages because others build on, depend on, the work of the company, etc. (4) Team of at least two that does well covering both business and technology. (5) Nothing obviously wrong, e.g., not depending on only one or just a few customers, no on-going co-founder disputes, no signs of being sloppy, no signs of criminality, no signs of drug or alcohol problems, no big problems with communications, no bad prior investor situations, etc. My guess from reading VC Web sites was that they would make a "seed" investment, say, $150,000, with (A) a highly qualified team, (B) some excellent, powerful, valuable _secret sauce_ , work difficult to duplicate or equal, for (C) a service likely of interest to nearly everyone on the Internet, with (D) so far nothing comparable on the Internet, where (E) if successful, worth $0.5-1+ T. Nope. Instead, I conclude (A)-(E) flops and (1)-(5) is about it. Okay. Wish I'd known that. Indeed, in the last year or so there was a post by USV's Fred Wilson on his blog AVC.com of a company his firm had their eye on and off and on over some months pursued the company and finally talked them into taking the company's first equity investment. Lesson: If you really have what they want, then they will notice you and call you. Indeed, likely the best "warm introduction" is that the VCs have already discovered the product/service and really, in the word of Paul Graham, "love" it. A big surprise to me was the reaction of the information technology community to _secret sauce_ technology: In my career, I've been used to seeing new technology carefully evaluated. I saw this in the beginning of my career in applied math and computing for mostly US national security around DC. E.g., I worked in the group that did the navigation satellites for the US Navy (GPS by the USAF was the second version; the Navy did the first version) and heard the stories of how the work was approved from just the basic physics, essentially back of the envelope. A long list of projects for US national security was funded just from proposals on paper that were carefully reviewed, e.g., the SR-71. My Ph.D. dissertation was carefully reviewed. My published papers were carefully reviewed. For US information technology VCs, I had to conclude that under no circumstances would they take seriously anything technical about the technology or any technical reviews of the technology and, indeed, quite solidly would absolutely refuse any reviewing of the technology at all. Period. No exceptions. Feet locked 5' deep in reinforced concrete, they simply will not, Not, NOT, _NOT_ consider a technical review of technology. NSF, NIH, ONR, etc. will review technology, insist on it, but information technology VCs will, in a word, _NOT_. My understanding is that bio-medical VCs will review and take seriously reviews of the claimed new, powerful, valuable bio-medical technology. The information technology VCs commonly claim on their Web sites that they want leading edge technology; they neglect to say that they will never consider any such technology in funding decisions and, indeed, will _NEVER_ review it or consider any reviews of it. It was a surprise to me! Okay by me; I just wish I'd known. The VC information technology Web sites were highly misleading. Okay -- gotta beware of that in business!!!! Being a determined entrepreneur ready to keep going after a few dozen "No" responses, the misleading VC Web sites cost me a LOT of important time, money, and effort. I was ripped off. But, this is cast in concrete, wrapped in cast iron, and protected with a layer of uranium -- never but _NEVER_ will an information technology VC pay any attention at all to a theorem and proof in measure theory!!!! Not in this solar system!!! Sure, uh, the flip side of that situation is an opportunity!!!! Finally I reminded myself that in the US, coast to coast, from barns behind farm houses on 50 acres to cross road villages to ... the largest cities, entrepreneurs start and grow successful businesses without equity funding. How? Do well running 10 fast food restaurants -- pizza carryout, McDonald's, ... Chinese -- and can do well. Also, run a successful, local independent insurance agency that knows nearly everyone in town and, thus, has a fantastically good "loss ratio". Run the local, dominating electrical supply house, plumbing supply house, building materials house, or any of many cases of "big truck, little truck" businesses, that is, where buy with a big truck and sell with several little trucks. Commercial real estate. On and on. Can see a lot of examples on Main Street. I used to go to yacht clubs; saw some big boats and some well off people; never saw anyone who took equity funding. A guess: For nearly all the students at Ivy League colleges whose parents pay the tuition, the money was from running a successful family owned business without equity funding. For starting a business, information technology should be a big advantage: E.g., last I checked, the price, quantity one, retail, of the AMD FX-8350 processor, 64 bit addressing, 8 cores, 4.0 GHz standard clock speed, goes for less than $100 (commonly was $300+ -- the one I have looks terrific). For less than $2000, can put together a Web server that is, in the history of computing back 20 years, just astoundingly powerful. If can build a Web site that is popular enough to keep that server half busy 24 x 7 and run ads at the rates suggested in the Meeker KPCB reports, then should be able to get revenue $100,000+ a month. So, we're talking capex ballpark $2000. So, compare that with the capex for, say, just a grass mowing service -- riding mower, $10,000+, trailer for the mower, ~$5000, truck to pull the trailer, $30,000, etc. Or compare with the capex for a pizza carryout, an auto repair shop, and auto body shop. With revenue of $100,000 a month, why bother with a dinky seed round of $1.7 million with the term sheet, vesting schedule, loss of control, too many lawyers, BoD, C-corp, etc.? With revenue of $100,000 and the rest of (1)-(5), let the VCs call you while you have a dozen nice ways to tell them "No". Don't be cruel to them: They are only finance guys who likely have never written much code and got an MBA instead of a Master of Science! They are unable to review any very technical _secret sauce_. And likely what they can fund is highly constrained by agreements with their limited partners who supplied nearly all the money. ------ nanananananana We have been working in our startup full time for the last 18 months. We have a MVP. We have paying customers. We are working with cutting edge web development technologies. We failed to raise $100K. So I'm sorry, but this is not an advice for founders, this is just plain stupid humblebrag. You don't have to do this, seriously. ~~~ plantmanfive Why does the degree of success indicate how hard fundraising felt for the founders? ------ type0 tl;dr fake it till you make it ------ machinecontrol I know blockchain gets a lot of hate on HN, but democratizing fundraising via crypto tokens and taking some power away from Silicon Valley VCs is a massive shift. The merit of the projects themselves can be debated, but the fact that technology entrepreneurs all over the world have easier access to capital has got to be a net positive. ~~~ mandelbrotwurst It's a net positive for technology entrepeneurs, certainly. What's less obvious is whether it's a net positive for everyone, e.g. if that "access to capital" comes in the form of naive investors pouring money into projects that are likely to fail (i.e. have been arguably a poor use of capital / a net negative). ~~~ nine_k _Almost all_ projects are likely to fail. The key tenet of _venture_ investment is investing in 500 companies, and have 499 fail, while one would give a 1000x return. A "retail" investor is likely not able to follow this strategy, so people who would invest in a few apparently great projects via blockchain technologies may be in for disappointment. But I don't see why small-scale venture investment via an appropriate technology could not work. Invest $10 in 500 companies, get $10k back... eventually. ~~~ mandelbrotwurst Fair point. Where I said "likely to fail" what I meant was "so likely to fail that they represent a poor use of capital" (for even a large investor and also for society as a whole). As you've pointed out, there's a distinction between poor use of capital for the individual and a poor use of capital for society, and other groups in between. I'm not proposing that this is the case about any particular investment it just seemed worth pointing out that such a type of investment does exist. ------ arikr This is a great post. I think one way to look at it is that the process of fundraising kind of sucks, and that it could be more efficient. I agree with this. Another way to look at it is that fundraising is one of the easiest parts of building a multi-billion dollar company (and if you're aiming to raise from VCs like A16Z, Sequoia, Greylock, then you need to be building a multi-billion dollar company). The "100% responsibility" mindset for fundraising would involve "owning" all of this difficulty. E.g. getting a deep understanding of the business of fundraising by talking to other founders who have raised recently (much more accessible than VCs, in general), accepting that it's a sales process, accepting that it's hard and that it'll suck, but that there'll be many much harder things. I guess I just react with some concern that readers of this post will take the wrong things away from a post like this. So I wanted to emphasize this perspective: It is hard. Like you note, it _should_ be hard to convince strangers to give you a few million dollars. It would certainly be great if it was purely merit based. But for many (not all) companies, sales is a critical part of success of the business, and fundraising is another sales process - so it's a good approximation. And yes, that's not true of all businesses and it would be better if it was perfectly merit based. I think the most helpful takeaway for readers is that fundraising is hard, and that it should be approached with a mindset of "it's really hard so I'm going to figure out why people succeed and fail at fundraising so that I maximize my chances of success." If readers take away a victim mindset with respect to the difficulty, then they'll find it much harder to succeed in fundraising. I know this isn't really what people want to hear, but fundraising is hard, building a company is harder, you don't have to choose to start a startup.

Ask HN/YC: Please suggest me some good books I can gift a 8 year kid - known ====== tjr I was about 8 when I saw my mom's copy of this: [https://www.amazon.com/Prof-McSquareds-Calculus-Primer- Inter...](https://www.amazon.com/Prof-McSquareds-Calculus-Primer- Intergalactic-ebook/dp/B01AYWADB4/) It was years before I started to actually understand the math, but I could hardly wait to get to calculus in school because this book made it look like so much fun. ~~~ known Thank you ------ dragonbonheur These free scientific comic books, just scroll down a little for the English versions: [https://www.savoir-sans- frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/f...](https://www.savoir-sans- frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/free_downloads.htm) Does God Play Dice - The new mathematics of Chaos by Ian Stewart. Artificial Life - The Quest for a New creation by Steven Levy Screw it, Just do it by Richard Branson. Insanely Great: The Life and Times of the Macintosh - the computer that changed everything by Steven Levy Manual of the Warrior of Light by Paulo Coelho. Every book written by Jules Verne, especially 20000 leagues under the sea. The Swiss Family Robinson. ------ GFK_of_xmaspast Can't go wrong with d'Aulaire : [https://www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Greek-Myths- Ingri-dAulaire/...](https://www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Greek-Myths-Ingri- dAulaire/dp/0440406943) ~~~ known Thank you. I'll definitely buy this one; I haven't read it myself :) ------ known Teaching kids philosophy makes them smarter in math and English [http://qz.com/635002/teaching-kids-philosophy-makes-them- sma...](http://qz.com/635002/teaching-kids-philosophy-makes-them-smarter-in- math-and-english/) ------ teaman2000 My Weird School, any of the 60 volumes or so, all of which are silly. ~~~ known He may actually like them. He likes English rhymes.

WakeMate Warns Users Of Major Safety Issue - wensing http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/31/wakemate-usb-fire ====== invisible "...isn’t specific about what the exact problem is..." I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety issue." TechCrunch also labels it as "USB Charger" (which makes me think of just a regular USB cable) when in the email it says the "USB charger brick." What I REALLY hate is that TC never, ever goes back and fixes grammatical errors/typos/misleading statements when it screws up an article, it just adds an "update" at the bottom of the article. Have they not heard of TL;DR? At least the notice email was well written. ~~~ bmastenbrook ``I would presume it saying "the power brick is defective" is a really, really good specification about what the exact problem is with regard to a "safety issue."'' I'm suspicious of this explanation. The brick might be defective, but it's the responsibility of the charger to shut down the charge cycle if there's something wrong with the input. Most lithium-ion chargers include an on-die thermistor for this reason. I wonder if the WakeMate folks found one that didn't and also didn't populate an external thermistor to save space or cost. ~~~ shub Sounds like someone wasn't practicing defensive electrical engineering (is that a thing? I think it should be a thing). ------ coolswan original discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2054847> ~~~ cma _original_ discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2030226> =/ ------ MichaelApproved At what point does the wake mate management team get fired for all the screw ups they've caused? It's amazing how many customer issues they've had developing this product. Sure, the concept might be great but the team in charge just seem to be in over their heads. ------ jgalvez The first thing I thought when I read the headline: zombies.

A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute - lsr7 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?hpw ====== pessimist “The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.” In my experience this may be empirically false. My 4 year old could barely count, but after spending 2 months in the summer playing a couple of iPad games, he's adding 2 digit numbers and subtracting 1 digit numbers, and doing simple math puzzles. His elder brother couldnt do those till Kindergarten, and I dont think the difference was aptitude. ~~~ ericd Yeah, I learned my early math skills primarily by playing math games on a Mac 128k. That person doesn't know what they're talking about - interactive teaching systems can be engaging in a way that pen/paper has no hope of matching. ~~~ JEVLON Playing "Maths Circus" and Lemmings on beige macs were the most powerful educational tools for teachers to use as a reward for good work to get me to perform well. Sadly that stopped a grade or two later, and my interest dropped, and so did my performance. Hopefully soon our computational freedoms for big actual work won't be relegated to computer monitors. Laptops and tablets are great, but they make you focus/stare at one area for a long time. There is often a wall behind that monitor, we are basically staring at it, for many hours, most of my adult life is staring at a wall. <http://worrydream.com/KillMath/> There's a Microsoft Research concept video that showed people interacting with computational environments within their natural environment. Statistical information could be represented for any data needed, and people were not bound to their seats. Problem is, I don't see things being able to change much for people that work in the terminal. Basically, what I am trying to say with my thoughts is, the positives of both worlds will interwine and the negatives of both will mostly disappear. ------ nchuhoai I think their are just approaching the problem from the wron side. They are right in saying that the computer is being used wrong, but wrong in saying that not using the computer is the solution. I'm more in alignment with what Mr Wolfram from WolframAlpha is saying: Computers can helkp you with tasks that are repetitive and inhuman, you should learn what is needed to solve a problem efficiently. That is actually more in alignment with what the Waldorf system says: Creativity through hands-on. Denying kids access to technology is just stupid, because if you think about your own life: Doesn't technology make it easier and more efficient to get things done? ------ Aloisius Maybe they don't let students use computers because when you search for information about the Waldorf schools, you get all sorts of stuff about them being some kind of cult. In my admittedly limited research, I found information about astral bodies, Atlantis, soul nourishment, clairvoyance and and a dislike of the left handed. From the Skeptic's Dictionary: _Waldorf schools reflect Steiner's education theories, which hold that children advance through three stages....during the first stage, birth to age 7, the spirit inhabiting the body of the child is still adjusting to its surroundings, hence lower grades in Waldorf school offer minimal academic content. Reading is not introduced until second or third grade. During the second stage, ages seven to 14, children are said to be driven primarily by imagination and fantasy, so students are introduced to mythology. After age 14, the third stage, an astral body is believed to be drawn into the physical body, creating the onset of puberty._ ~~~ Cushman Waldorf schools are based on some crazy-nutty voodoo philosophy. They also, more or less coincidentally, work really, really well. ~~~ gruseom _more or less coincidentally_ That's too easy. How can we know that? On the contrary, it would be surprising if how well the schools work were unrelated to their philosophy. ------ gruseom My sister-in-law has taught at a Waldorf school for years. The school the article describes sounds typical. Waldorf is actually based on an extremely deviant philosophy. They get away with it because they deliver results. In particular, their kids routinely decimate all standardized tests. ~~~ nightski Hmmm. Kids from affluent families who likely have highly educated parents working at high tech companies do well on standardized tests created to cover the entire spectrum of children? nowai ~~~ gruseom Please don't interject that kind of rudeness here. The school my sister-in-law teaches at has little in common with your demographic description. It's bland middle class with mild (very mild) alternative tendencies. What it has in common with the school in the article is basic Waldorf principles: eschewing technology in the early grades, emphasis on imagination and handwork and so on. The Silicon Valley aspect of the article is a red herring, no doubt because it's attention-getting, but perhaps also because the author doesn't realize this is simply an instance of a type. ~~~ gruseom Edit: I was unfair to the author. The article clearly discusses Waldorf schools as a type. ------ wollw There seems to be a false dichotomy being made between hands on education and the use of technology in the classroom that bothers me a bit; why should they be separated? I see no reason why a collaborative, hands on approach to education is precluded by the use of technology. The developers of Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) have an after school program called Program by Design (<http://programbydesign.org/>) and one of the things they found was that some of the students started wanting to learn _more_ math because they needed to know how to add things to their programs! The extreme view presented in this article seems to be based more upon fear of technology than any kind of understanding of it. ------ dcrankshaw I went to this school for kindergarten through the first half of sixth grade. Being an elementary school student I was less familiar with their guiding philosophy than the actual execution. But I can say that they did some things really well for an elementary school child, one of which was not burdening their students with homework. This gave me free time to read everything I could get my hands on, which I think has been incredibly valuable to my development and later education. But I left when we were covering fractions for the 3rd year in a row (when I was in sixth grade), and I felt completely stifled and unchallenged. I have no regrets that my parents sent me there, but at least when I was there, the execution of the philosophy began to fall apart when I turned 10. For some context, I am now a CS and Physics major and don't feel that an unfamiliarity with computers when I was 8 hampered my math or computer skills at all. ------ paul We send our kids to Waldorf inspired schools. Most schools (especially public schools) give me a sense of dread, like a twelve year prison sentence would. The Waldorf schools have a warm, human feel that actually makes me a little jealous of my kids. I would rather my kids be raised as whole humans, not little test-taking machines. ~~~ tricolon Could the Waldorf schools be a reaction to the new concept of simply dumping one's child at a school to be raised? ~~~ gruseom The schools themselves have been going for about a hundred years, so they aren't a reaction to it. Perhaps some parents are. I hope so. Unfortunately, I think the social trend is the other way around. Where I live (Canada), debate tends to center around how wonderful it would be if children could be raised by day-care workers before being handed off to school workers, so the parents can go be workers someplace else. ------ pnathan Well, there's a limit to the practical use of gadgets in the classroom. Learning human interaction, motor skills, and other parts of being human are best done with other humans. It's also pretty clear to me that equating computing to the use of Word, Excel, and Google leads one to the conclusion that computing is easy and not a big deal to pick up. Naturally, as a software engineer, I disagree vehemently with that. I think that some level of _real_ (not turtle or other games) programming should be taught from middle school on to the point where a HS grad can successfully write a small program to deal with the small needs of life: things like accounting, sophisticated searching for files, etc. I believe - have faith - that a programming-enabled population can do some pretty amazing things when set free to do them. All it takes is the knowledge and the eyes to see what can be automated to do so. ~~~ stan_rogers Please don't diss the turtle. I was too old for the Logo scene (by quite a bit, actually) but I learned (and grokked) recursion reading an article about Logo and turtle graphics. I made _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ a much easier read in '80 than it would have been otherwise. ------ schlichtm I went to Waldorf for 10 years (preschool - 8th grade). Didn't get a computer until I was 12. Now > [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/10/19/how-two- te...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/10/19/how-two-teenagers- broke-in-to-silicon-valley-and-the-music-industry/) ------ Groxx _“The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.”_ Ugh. Also read as: "Something I haven't seen doing something I don't expect it to? Ridiculous!" The correlation between students at Waldorf schools and prestigious schools later is _extremely_ easily explained by a single character: $ That said, something different than our current, standard public-school fare probably stands a decent chance of doing better. Anything with more attention to the methodology stands such a chance. But I'd be willing to bet that many of the successes also simply reflect parents that are more aware of their children's education. ~~~ adam Your specific comment about "$" may be false. Waldorf schools in urban areas are indeed $15k+/year/kid, but there are Waldorf schools in rural areas that charge far less for tuition. Not having kids myself but knowing parents of kids who go to Waldorf schools, your second statement seems more accurate: from what they say the parents are very involved in the schooling - in fact the Waldorf methodology is insistent on it. ------ tikhonj I think that this approach is basically absurd. I easily learned more during my lunches in the computer lab, going through HTML, CSS and then JavaScript tutorials or writing batch files to do silly things than anywhere else during my time in middle school. Not only this, but (especially further on, in 7th and 8th grade), I learned other subjects more effectively thanks to computers. I still remember _The Crucible_ because I made a website (complete with red text in Chiller, uncontrollable music and animated drops of blood for the background) for it; I learned factoring by writing a simple JavaScript game for it. I think this easily beats spending weeks cutting up fruit and shunning technology. Had I not been playing around with computers and the internet since a young age, not only would I probably not have found my true calling-- CS--but I would also probably have had a worse education in all the other fields as well. ------ namank I agree with the philosophy. Foundations of learning should not be built on use of Google as a search engine. Foundations should he a mix of the things necessary for brain and personality development. Its synonymous to the debate about letting kids use calculators for simple (or not so simple ) math problems. ~~~ nightski Isn't it sad that the computing experience is now defined as using Google? What a waste. ------ joshu Curiously, it's in Los Altos. So are the first schools to adopt the Khan Academy platform. ~~~ gruseom Rich freethinkers. ~~~ joshu Is that good or bad? ~~~ gruseom Good on both points in my book. (Was going to say "rich hippies" but thought better of it. I mean freethinker in the original sense, someone who doesn't follow norms.) ------ ethank I went to a Waldorf type school (called a multi-year back when I was in elementary school). My classroom was 90 kids, grades K-3 in a room that was four classrooms with walls knocked down. No desks, self-directed curriculum, etc. I was in a 4-6 after this, which was more structured but still self directed. <http://fsd.k12.ca.us/rollinghills/multiage.html> This was my program. My sister and I went through it. To this day a lot of us still keep in touch with our teacher. It was not strict Waldorf, more inspired by it and still is to this day. ------ devs1010 wow these "tech" worker parents are seriously pretty messed up. I'm pretty sure my early computer use and curiosity led to my current career as a software developer, I can't imagine not knowing how to use a search engine until eighth grade, I was messing around looking at HTML code and stuff in like 5th or 6th grade ------ michaelochurch One thing that saddens me in education is the death of Long Division. I took a couple math-ed courses in college and I was shocked when I learned that most it's not being taught in most schools. It's "too hard" and it's "useless", some say, so it's being taken out of the curriculum. Bullshit it's useless. Multiplication tables are memorized lookup tables. That's "rote" but important, but it's not when math starts to become interesting. Long multiplication and division are the first time people have to use an algorithm for a problem too difficult to do in any other way. And yes, it needs to be done by hand and if it takes a few months for the average student to get it right, fine. It's important. Not the actual skill of dividing 83914 by 203, but the process of carrying out a mechanical algorithm by hand. Should computers be a part of education? Absolutely. Should programming be taught in school? Yes. Should we abandon the process of running algorithms by hand, as a mechanism for understanding rule-based computation at an early age? No. Interesting fact: early computers (in the 1940s) were not competitive with human "computers"-- savants whose jobs were to do arithmetical calculations. They were actually slower. What made mechanical computers such a win was that they could keep going and remain reliable, whereas human computers would start making mistakes after 8 hours. If you've gone through the humiliating process of trying to calculate a 6-by-6 determinant by hand and getting it wrong, you understand this, and you know _why_ the rigor offered by mechanical computation is so important. If you haven't, it probably doesn't make sense to you.

Twitter’s stock hits record low as takeover rumors heat up - nordic_nomad http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/03/twitters-stock-hits-record-low-as-takeover-rumors-heat-up/ ====== dimbirol >[...] Twitter is the acquisition target of two separate companies, possibly Google and Facebook. What's Google going to do with Twitter? If you want to comment on a youtube- video you'll then have to tweet? But with your real name and with some added characters at the end of your twitter-handle, because the algorithm says so. Facebook has Instagram, which is way way way more popular and relevant than twitter. I don't quite get how anybody still thinks that twitter can grow the same way as other social networks do? Twitter has found its niche users: somehow web developers, designers and indie game developers seem to love it. But if you have to explain to non tech-savy people more than 5 minutes why they should use it, then it's clear that it's not for everyone. Celebrities have moved to instagram and once you've lost a user it's very unlikely that they'll come back. ------ mtmail I'd say the rumors are made up. While in the headline there it's not mentioned in the article itself. Why would the stock go down if there were takeover rumors? ~~~ nordic_nomad This is a good observation. All I can think of is that generally the impact of unconfirmed take over offers that might not happen is significantly less than missing earnings projections. I imagine if anything ends up gaining steam you'll see people jump on board hoping for a premium on the stock purchase.

A Possible Signal from Dark Matter? - saticmotion http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/su201432 ====== saticmotion Research paper: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.2301](http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.2301)

Measuring UX with Google HEART Framework - tigranhakobian https://uxplanet.org/how-to-effectively-measure-ux-with-google-heart-framework-4a497631d224 ====== unabst There is this disturbing trend of mixing the service/product and the interface and calling it "the experience". This is good for marketing maybe (of UX designers probably), but when designing a product, you're actually making the problem incredibly difficult. You're merging different problems into one, then trying to find silver bullets. Hence, everyone reinvents the UI for a "unique" UX. But that's the exact thing users do not want, and that makes everything harder for everybody. The UI needs to disappear. No one should even "see" it. The perfect interface is still an invisible one. If you go with this principle, then once the UI task is done, we've eliminated UI from UX. Your first task is to eliminate UI from the UX problem. What is left is the product/service in it's finest, purest, most concise form. And now, as this is adjusted, the UI may need adjustment. But this is the proper order of business. Take the missing audio jack. Everybody notices it. Hence, this is an obvious UX failure. The designer's "opinion" or "gut" is not more accurate or more important than the user. UX is not about forcing experience. And the UI itself is about non-experience. Just follow this principle, and the best UX will follow. Of course, even the data driven UX designers won't put the audio jack back despite the "unhappiness". And that is what is most disturbing for me, at least. It seems these UX designers have no principles. I sense arrogance and apathy. But this makes sense if you consider a UI that wants to be noticed as being self important, and a UI that is data driven to lack any personal or emotional touch. No single user is a general statistic. Basing design on statistics is not design; it's giving up on designing; it's anti-design. Anyway, I know HN is hardly the place to push POVs but I will keep trying. ~~~ astral303 Hear hear on anti-design! It is avoidance of design. Designing well is hard. Easy escape route: metrics! By the time you ship a design with these metrics, much like usability testing, it is too late. You have just spent a bunch of time building and QAing something to a shippable state, only to find out some major usability issue. But the team thought they were almost done. No single user is another great point. Complex software has multiple personas (types of users) using it. They have different needs and sometimes they are not served well. This HEART score needs to be at least segmented by persona to start being useful. ------ victor106 This article explains “what” the HEART framework is not “how” to measure it as the title says ------ tekkk Google should use it for Google Analytics. That dashboard is terrible. A beautiful, polished turd is how I often describe it. Just as an example: try to add a new property to an analytics account. The whole ABCD naming of the menus also bugs me, like really? ~~~ arkitaip Why anyone would take UX advice from Google (or Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft) is beyond me. I have this rule that I don't take UX advice from companies that have shitty/dark/manipulative UX. ~~~ goldenkey Well..Facebook originally was utilitarian data dense UI..which didnt win in all categories but appealed to me as the prickles person I am. The rest of those names are terrible UI that say "Im unique and wizzy!!" far too unsubtley. ------ fnordsensei Where do qualitative methods come into the conversation? Data-driven UX is better than gut feeling alone, but it's certainly not a replacement for qualitative studies. They complement each other very well. In fact, when gut feeling is reinforced or produced by both qualitative and quantitative studies, you're in a good spot. If your (or better: the team's) intuition, deep interviews and data all point in one direction, then it's very likely to be the right one. By my experience, if you have support from two of the three sources (intuition—quantitative—qualitative), it's often good enough to pick a direction. However, picking a direction based on the _same two_ sources for every decision you make is not a good idea. The larger framework you employ should include all of them, even if smaller decisions are based on an "incomplete" perspective based on fewer information sources. Processes based solely on quantitative measures lean towards being reactive. You're viewing the future in the light of data from the past. Often, the past is a reliable predictor of the future. Sometimes, crucially, it's not. And sometimes, key behaviour is captured, but buried in the cheer volume of data. Qualitative studies add a predictive element since you are able to capture elements that you didn't think to measure for beforehand, or didn't think to look for in the data. Once captured, those elements can sometimes be measured quantitatively, possibly even retroactively. ------ Naushad I would love to apply this simple yet effective framework for a Non-Enterprise application. The EAR of this hEARt has no significance in this equation. Engagement for Enterprise Application is Forced, Enterprise execs Buy Products and make the people under them live with it. Adoption: on similar lines to Engagement. Retention: Enterprise, the retention is not to be questions, users are locked-in till the time the application is paid for. ~~~ goldenkey Well considering it spells out a pretty word, it was most likely contrived. Yeah... ------ ThomPete There is only one way to measure UX IMO and that is conversion. Everything else is just attempting at adding pseudo-certainty where none exist. ~~~ tobr I don't know, that's like saying that the one way to measure quality of journalism is by number of clicks. Good UX should help conversion rate, but so might dark patterns, obnoxious popups, lies, etc. ~~~ ThomPete You can't measure the quality of journalism in any quantifiable way if not to some quantifiable output. Otherwise, it just becomes an art discussion which can be amusing but hardly something you can build a business on. ~~~ tobr I don't think you're talking about measuring UX. You're talking about quantifying the business value of UX. ~~~ ThomPete No I am talking about not being able to measure UX unless you can quantify it. Otherwise it just becomes "what is art" discussion. ~~~ nailer Yes but conversion isn't the only metric. For a newspaper, you could also have whether users feel more informed, whether they are more informed, etc. ~~~ ThomPete Conversion is exactly the metric there and btw have little to do with UX in this specific situation and everything to do with the quality of the content. ~~~ nailer No it is not. You haven't provided supporting arguments, but I will anyway: you can sell newspapers with sensation and lies. Look at PCC vs Guardian on the Mark Duggan case.

Google Hangout Alternative that i built in last 30 days :) - rajanchandi http://telech.at ====== eslachance Some semi-constructive criticism: \- Try to get a video up, or at least a couple of actual screenshots (and not an obviously fake/photoshopped one), so we know a little more about how it looks and reacts. \- Give some more information on the product. An FAQ and small support page, more info about the company, etc. \- A privacy policy is also pretty critical (where does it say you don`t monitor or record conversations, for example?) \- From the screenshot it seems like you have the ability to reply to a certain person directly in the chat. I'm not convinced that can work in a quick chatroom like this, especially if you start nesting stuff. \- No download required? So you work from a browser and are either using a plugin or certain specific browser functionality. Without knowing what they are, how can I know this is going to work for me? \- What's your end game and business model? Whether or not the video streams go through your server, you still need to pay for your bandwidth, I don't see ads. Tell us how you are monetizing this, or will in the future. ------ rajanchandi would love your feedback :)

Ask HN: Business models for single dev OSS - chuhnk Hey HN,<p>I&#x27;ve been working on an OSS project called Micro (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;micro&#x2F;micro) for over a year now which has seen production use by a number of companies. I was fortunate enough to get an enterprise company to sponsor the OSS development of the project which allows me to work on it full time but I&#x27;m now starting to think about long term sustainability and next steps.<p>I&#x27;ve read about Mike Perham&#x27;s experiences with Sidekiq and am interested to hear more from the HN community about appropriate business models for OSS as a single developer. I imagine there are countless developers here who would also probably like to hear about ways to build a sustainable business around OSS.<p>I&#x27;m currently thinking about the dual-licensing model that aligns with what Cockroach Labs plan to do https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cockroachlabs.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;how-were-building-a-business-to-last&#x2F;<p>Please share your thoughts and experiences on the subject.<p>Cheers Asim ====== lukaseder Dual licensing is a great option. I.e. don't wait for someone to be "generous" and "pitiful". Demand money. Make it a business. Screw OSS, because after all, you're not doing it for the philosophy or Richard Stallman's beard, you're doing it to support your family. And you worked hard for it. The only reason why you should pick OSS is because it gets you more market traction more quickly (but also, you're commoditising your own product by making it free, so how to increase its value again?) We've been quite successful with it for jOOQ ([http://www.jooq.org](http://www.jooq.org)). Here's some reading on how we fared (and why we should've done it earlier): \- [https://opensource.com/business/14/1/how-to-transition- open-...](https://opensource.com/business/14/1/how-to-transition-open-source- to-revenue) \- [https://opensource.com/business/14/1/5-lessons-open- source-r...](https://opensource.com/business/14/1/5-lessons-open-source- revenue-based-model) ~~~ chuhnk Thanks for sharing your experience. Curious to know, how did you determine pricing for jOOQ? ~~~ lukaseder There are different things we did (emphasis on "we". YMMV): \- Check prices of other products in the same market (by market, I don't mean ORM in our case but all libraries, including UI libraries like Sencha's products, or ZK) \- Never compare with prices of products from other markets (e.g. tools in our case. The value proposition of a library cannot be compared to that of a tool like IntelliJ, or a database like Oracle). \- Ask existing users (that's gold!) \- A bit of this: [http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-10-20](http://dilbert.com/strip/2010-10-20) \- Testing different price plans (express, professional, enterprise) \- Testing different subscription terms (monthly, yearly, perpetual) \- Testing different discounts (hint: don't offer discounts in a B2B product) The biggest win (for us) was to introduce tiered pricing (check the bottom of [https://www.jooq.org/download/price- plans](https://www.jooq.org/download/price-plans)), as this got rid of discount discussions which are humiliating for both parties without adding real value, and helps high volume customers keep admin work low. They don't want to count the exact number of licenses needed. What we don't do: \- Offer special reseller discounts (I don't see why we should, resellers would work with us nonetheless - they can add their margins on top of our price) \- Have country-specific pricing (that's just too complicated to track and validate, at least for us) \- Raise prices for existing customers (not yet, and no plans yet), even when they purchase more licenses. \- Probably tons of other things we hadn't thought of (yet) ~~~ chuhnk Thanks thats some good insight. Will definitely take them into consideration as I move forward. ~~~ lukaseder Sure! Ping me if you have more questions. I'm curious to learn from your use- case. ------ jsegura I've been following your project since a year ago and I only have to congratulate you for moving forward. I think that Dual licensing is a good way to go but, just to know, have you ever thought in providing some components on a privative way? ~~~ lukaseder What's the difference between dual licensing and "providing some components in a private (= restriced licensed) way" ? ------ jetti I have no experience in this so take my opinion with a grain of salt but what about charging for support contracts? While the project is open source and anybody could make changes/fixes it isn't always an option for a company to have somebody jump in the code to try and get a handle of the codebase to make certain changes. If they had a contract with you, somebody who is intimately familiar with the codebase, then bugs and changes could be implemented faster and better. ~~~ tonyedgecombe Doesn't that just make you a technical support person? I don't know about the OP but selling support sounds like hell to me. ~~~ jetti It does. But a software company of 1 will always make you the technical support person, unless you just don't want to give support. ~~~ chuhnk Echoing tonyedgecombe, I'm not interested in the support model. I've spent a number of years as a sysadmin and developer on call, it's not the most enjoyable part of the job. Appreciate the comment though. ~~~ jsegura I know that pain very well, but for me it's difficult to think in a dual licensing model without providing support. How it will look like? ~~~ tonyedgecombe There is a difference between providing support for something you sell and making it the whole of your business. I've been running an isv for years and support rarely takes more than 30 minutes in a day. ------ mperham Kudos for even thinking about the long term and sustainability. So many people just create a project with nothing more than the first/next release in mind. Good luck, whatever you do. ~~~ chuhnk Thanks much appreciated. It was always a thought from day 1 knowing the way OSS goes. Hopefully dual licensing proves to be a good option.

Larry Wall on why he wrote Perl - Tsiolkovsky http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2070 ====== jilebedev Programming started for me as "hey, check out what I can do with BASIC" and turned into "now defend your algorithm using the O(n) notation." There was never any time to play with the things I had learned, to fall in love with them. It became a chore. Something to put up with for a while until you became ... a paid programmer, wherein what you did had enormous consequences, and there was even less time for play. Programming and its teaching has always felt like a culture of passionate people who refused students the passion of discovering and learning but rather decreed their own rules, learned from their own mistakes. It isn't a particular fault of programmers or educators - this is natural inclination of all of us to deny others the painful experience of learning from mistakes. But it's no fun. It's no fun, damnit, and I want nothing to do with things that are no fun. I would never have developed the mastery of vim that I have now had someone told me "hey, this is what you need to do. This is how you should do it. Here's a semester long course on how to effectively edit text." Everything I learned, I learned on my own, out of necessity. I now consider myself a proficient user of vim, but that would never have happened without the thousands of sequential _j_ s pressed before I discovered text objects out of a hunch that "dang it, this is slow and silly. there has to be a better way." I want to fall in love with something, and write the stupidest possible code, and then learn why it was stupid, and be embarrassed by its stupidity 6 months down the road. This is why Perl appealed to me. Because it allows for messy, playful, immediate gratification, tweaking _fun_. Perhaps I haven't the attention span to be a proper programmer. I'd be embarrassed to admit this to most of my friends. ~~~ joe_the_user I'm designing a mini-configuration-language as I go along while writing a large application. I am amazed how powerful and useful to my purpose I can make this language. Yet I would be the first to admit this the language has some fundamental flaws that would prevent it from becoming more general purpose. So I feel like I can appreciate from the outside the effectiveness of languages which are designed to incrementally scratch itches. You can come up with a program with a fiercely loyal user base because if you've managed to roll the proper set of things that "just work". I imagine that this is the secret of both Perl and Matlab. The only thing is I personally hate both these programs, somewhat irrationally I'll admit. But I think it show the weakness of "grow like a weed to touch the necessary bases" school of language design. It ultimately fails for those outside the immediate target audience because they have assimilate the entire accretion process to really get the language. For a lot of situations, that feels an impudent, almost obscene demand for someone who likely comes to the language wanting to do something simple. So I feel like that explains the rise and fall Perl. It rose with the Unix community and the web grew together and fell as more and more people felt need for a coherent general purpose language not tied to all things Unixy. ~~~ sjwright > I'm designing a mini-configuration-language as I go along while writing a > large application. Why not just use Lua or Javascript? ~~~ joe_the_user Essentially I want a system where the configuration files are generally transparently editable by non-programmers. Most of the information is simple configuration information. Lua, Javascript, VBA and other such languages might be called "configuration languages" but they're really object-automation languages. They allow a user to write standard-imperative-programming macros which address the underlying objects of a given system. They don't provide simple, clean facilities for just assigning default values to objects. And what I have my configuration doing aside from assign default value is more-or-less filtering into and put, specifying tree-transformation commands for various inputs and output using one big, recursive loop and a bit of if- else logic. Basically, I'm producing a system which can take multiple web API sources and have them look like a single source. I began using XSLT but when I started having to also transform json, having my own transform system looked just as easy as transforming json to XSLT and then further adapting XSLT for my purposes. I could use json or XML for my underlying data storage format but it is too verbose for easy human readability so instead I use simple ini format with just a bit of syntax added and it works quite well. ------ kator I remember unpacking PERL from usenet and compiling it on my Xenix box! Really back then it was amazing. At the time I was writing everything in C and having the flexibility without the pain of C that PERL provided was such a great gift. I wrote literally 100,000's of lines of PERL (one project alone was 25k LOC) and enjoyed it all the way up until maybe 1993! CPAN is hard to beat, having modules that work, etc. But I won't defend PERL because the reality is I almost never use it anymore. Not because there is something wrong with it, just because more often I run into problem sets that either require me to return to C (Think 45,000 QPS under 4 ms response time) and/or web stuff my dev team is more comfortable with on PhP. PERL transformed my life and my thinking. It taught me that "Just because you CAN do something a particular way doesn't mean that you SHOULD do it that way.".. I took this much further then PERL and learned to apply it to all my projects and started writing in the "right language for the problem set". Instead of trying to fit every problem to the handful of languages I could program at that time. Now I write in so many languages and utilize so many platforms and systems that the concept is just part of who I am when I am presented with a new problem to solve. For that I owe Larry a lifetime of beers whenever he wants one I'll be there to buy it for him! :-) ~~~ btilly The language is named Perl, not PERL. See [http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#Whats-the- difference-b...](http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#Whats-the-difference- between-%22perl%22-and-%22Perl%22%3f) for proof. ~~~ peterwwillis _Thank you._ I didn't want to be the person to say it. ~~~ astrodust PERL and MAC (vs. Mac) are equal parts annoying, but at least PERL doesn't mean something different. ~~~ kator Please don't start me on what it's named.. If I remember correctly when he posted it to usenet it was: P = Practical E = Extraction and R = Reporting L = Language Sorry if you object to the caps.. I was just being nostalgic.. From the Original comp.sources.unix SHAR file: X.TH PERL 1 LOCAL X.SH NAME Xperl - Practical Extraction and Report Language X.SH SYNOPSIS X.B perl [options] filename args [https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.unix/tree/brows...](https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sources.unix/tree/browse_frm/month/1988-02?_done=%2Fgroup%2Fcomp.sources.unix%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmonth%2F1988-02%3F&); ~~~ cygx $ perldoc perl | tail -n 14 Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, but don't tell anyone I said that. NOTES The Perl motto is "There's more than one way to do it." Divining how many more is left as an exercise to the reader. The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. See the Camel Book for why. perl v5.14.2 2012-07-12 PERL(1) ~~~ sigzero It's a backronym. In the beginning it didn't stand for anything. Backronyms were tacked on later. Perl for the language and perl for the interpreter. ~~~ btilly Not completely true! In conversation with Larry Wall I found out that the existence of two reasonable backronyms was part of why he chose to call it Perl. Therefore the backronyms were known before the name itself was finalized. ~~~ sigzero Really? I have never heard that before. I have heard that it was going to be "Pearl" but there was something else out there with that name and so it ended up "Perl". Interesting... ~~~ btilly My source is conversation with Larry Wall at lunch at OSCON in, I believe, 2006. And yes, I've heard the Pearl claim before. As well as the claim that the original acronym was going to be Practical Extraction And Reporting Language. All of the claims that I have heard fit together if you assume that the actual sequence of events was this. Larry wanted to name it pearl for whatever combination of reasons. Came up with a nice acronym for it. Decided not to name it pearl for whatever combinations of reasons. Was playing around and came up with the Perfectly Eclectic Rubbish Lister. Preferred that over pearl for various reasons (not in use, greppable, likes puns, etc). And therefore named the language perl. Therefore the language name is not an acronym, but both popular backronyms predate the actual language name. I was not present. But this is my best guess as to what did happen. ------ bitwize My left brain wants to call Larry Wall to task for using a simplistic pop- psych brain-lateralization analogy when the truth of the brain is vastly more complicated but my right brain is like "Eh, he's from the Pacific Northwest, up there they believe in whatever makes them happy." ~~~ aangjie +1. My first reaction was similar too _._ \-- I am non-american so the Pacific Northwest connotation is weaker.but got the drift. ------ Falling3 I stopped reading at the word "art". And then I started reading again. Larry took it in a different direction that I presumed and it's certainly an interesting claim to make. I'm just not really sure if I buy it... It sounds to me like dropping someone in a Home Depot surrounded by various tools and materials and saying "Go ahead build a dog house anyway you like." "Art!" I greatly enjoy the creativity involved in programming and I can appreciate the aspects that set Perl apart from other languages at its inception. But I get a lot more satisfaction out of simplicity and elegance in my language than the ability to put a condition on either side or whether scalars, arrays, and hashes have unique identifiers in the variable name. Maybe I got into it at the wrong time, but Perl has never felt like art to me... ~~~ ionforce Have you seen Perl poetry? ~~~ tete If not: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Perl> ------ kbd Again, when you post an old article, put the date in parens. In this case, (1997). ~~~ pauldelany Parens are optional ~~~ lanstein As always, TIMTOWTDI. ~~~ ThePherocity It's funny, because for me this is it's greatest weakness. I prefer not to wonder if I'm making the wrong decision every line. ~~~ jonathansizz On the other hand, Perl programmers don't have to lose sleep worrying about whether what they're doing is sufficiently 'Perlesque', in notable contrast to similar languages I could mention. ~~~ cgh It's doubtful anyone loses sleep over such things. ------ moe When they first built the University of California at Irvine they just put the buildings in. They did not put any sidewalks, they just planted grass. The next year, they came back and put the sidewalks where the trails were in the grass. Perl is just that kind of language. It is not designed from first principles. Perl is those sidewalks in the grass. -Larry Wall ~~~ ken I don't know if it's true in this case or not, but I'm pretty sure this same story about sidewalks has been told about every university in North America. At <[http://ask.metafilter.com/62599/Where-the-sidewalk- ends>](http://ask.metafilter.com/62599/Where-the-sidewalk-ends>); there are reports of it at Columbia (by Eisenhower), Tufts, Long Beach State, University of South Florida, Iowa State and/or Iowa, and CMU. I certainly heard it about my alma mater (none of the above). At <[http://books.google.com/books?id=C_FFMePR204C&lpg=PA184&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=C_FFMePR204C&lpg=PA184&ots=qfTwVQLL2V&dq=Disneyland%20walkways%20paved&pg=PA184#v=onepage&q=Disneyland%20walkways%20paved&f=false>); they claim this was done at Disneyland. ------ ninetax This is such a great piece of writing. Tongue in chic at every turn, but it really washes over me when he talks about the art. It makes me remember that computer science is less about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. ~~~ karamazov It's "tongue in cheek", by the way. ~~~ tjic Not if you're doing it the new cool way. ;-) ------ K2h Written in 1997 - interesting, but don't click this thinking you'll get a recent defense of PERL. ~~~ timClicks Perl 5 is still what a large portion on what the community uses, so it's not out of date. Then again, very little of the text refers to anything technical. It's a discussion of the cultural differences between Perl and other communities. ~~~ gizzlon " _Perl 5 is still what a large portion on what the community uses, so it's not out of date_ " Just FYI, Perl 5 have changed a lot the last 10 years.. ~~~ berntb ... but is still very, very backwards compatible. (Just to be complete.) ------ cjdrake Part of me wants to say something snarky about Perl to contradict or joke about things Larry said in this article, but Guido Van Rossum's keynote at PyCon 2012 really resonated with me. He basically said that Perl/Python/Ruby are all very similar and we should all just get along. ------ bane Fair warning for those interested in learning Perl...it will ruin you as a programmer. Before I learned Perl I was a pretty decent C++ guy, built most of the guts of an OS in Java as a fun project to learn the language, could hack out a little x86, MIPS, x68k and z80 and a couple specialty asms and knew a smattering of a half-dozen other serious languages. Perl absolutely ruined me. Right after learning Perl for some text processing I was doing, I also made a career change into a technology adviser and analyst for a large R&D firm. 6 months into that new job I happened to have a need to process some data. They had Java and Perl on the machine as a leftover from the previous owner of the box (C++ environments were still fairly expensive back then, security wouldn't let me install Linux or Cygwin, and anything else wouldn't pass muster). I didn't want to fool around with Java's file I/O mess, so I just picked Perl. I got shit done, a _lot_ of shit. I got 5 awards from the firm in 3 years and a nomination for a lifetime achievement award and all I was doing was hacking up some one-off Perl scripts to crunch some data! I was much more familiar with C++ and Java, and I simply hadn't thought about how much I was accomplishing and with such little effort. Over the next few years I quietly left behind all of the other languages and got into a serious Perl groove. Solving issues in a few days that were stumping teams of a dozen for months. I am not a particularly talented programmer. I built little web apps to scratch department itches that came up during meetings ("why isn't there an acronym database?", "I wish we had a meta-search engine that search Yahoo, Altavista and Lycos at the same time!", "I wish I could scan these documents quickly for all of the chemicals in our chemical warehouse", etc. etc.) Then I started solving harder problems. My Perl prototype code was often passed off to a team where it was rewritten in a "real" language, but since I was the one who solved the tricky problem, it was my solution that ended up being rewritten in C++ or Java. Then came a time I needed to write something in Java based on a deliverable requirement. You know what? I couldn't do it. I don't mean technically, I mean mentally. _everything_ seemed like a huge pain in the ass. The delta from thought to code seemed so drawn out that by the time I had put my thought down into code I had often forgotten what the hell I was coding in the first place. Simple exercises involving half a dozen lines of code and minimal thought turned into half hour long dives into the standard library docs...yes I said it, the Perl solution might be longer than the Java one, but the time to just code it out was an order of magnitude faster. I ended up in groove with Perl I simply couldn't achieve even after years of working in other languages. I finished the Java project and swore off "real" languages for good after that. I had simply been _broken_ by Perl and ruined for good. Perl just simply came together like how my brain worked. I could dump out ideas and it just _worked_...and I got shit done. With a little careful planning I could even tackle larger projects, a couple that approached a 100k lines of Perl (and had the annoying habit of running faster than the later Java rewrites, which eventually had to be rewritten in hand optimized multi- threaded C++ with in-line ASM to beat the original 5 year old Perl in performance) It was the difference between typing text with a keyboard and handwriting all caps, backwards in a mirror, while translating each word from English to Russian via a English-French dictionary then French-Russian dictionary in the dark by candlelight. All that being said the long Perl 5->6 winter had me reaching outside of Perl for a while into Python and it was "ok". I liked how my code was automatically readable and simple. The standard libraries are badass. But it just didn't have the _there_ there that Perl has. The automagic flow from synapse to working code. I'm happy to see the community starting to pick back up but sadly I'm hopelessly locked in 2001 Perl and many of the idioms from that time. It would simply take too much of a time investment to get entirely up- to-speed with where Perl is today. I'd probably be better spending the time on something more marketable with better and more modern library support. Here's the real kicker, I ended up using Perl to get really good at my non- programming (but still technical) job that it would probably take me years of dedicated effort to get back up to speed with where modern development is at all. I'm old enough now that I'd simply be much more comfortable managing modern developers than being one. So yeah, that's how Perl might ruin you. ~~~ pooriaazimi I've been wanting to learn Perl for the past 2 years. I still don't have time, but in 5-6 months I'll be able to finish what I'm doing and start Perl (as a hobby, not a full-time endeavor!). Some languages have a "magic" book or article, that you'll never learn anything deeply before reading it. For me and JavaScript, it was Douglas Crockford's "JavaScript: The Good Parts". It literally opened my mind when I read it last week and my Node.js code (which is in CoffeeScript BTW) would never be the same (hopefully it'll be an order of magnitude better). Is there a magic book on Perl? And is there any point starting with Perl 6 (considering I don't want to write mission critical programs with Perl just yet, and don't mind to be an early adopter at all _if_ the product will see the light of the day in the next 2-3 years)? Thanks a lot. ~~~ chromatic Crockford's book was a direct inspiration for my Modern Perl: <http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html> ~~~ pooriaazimi That sounds great. Thank you! And as you already have an ePub version, I would like to suggest selling it (or giving it away free, as you already do) in the iBookStore as well. iPad is an amazing device for reading technical books, and I spend few hours every day reading ePub books in iBooks.app (I read Crockford's book and 3 other O'Reilly books just in the past 2 months). Right now there are many Perl books in the iBookStore, but they're mostly cookbooks (step-by-step tutorial), not a no-bullshit introduction to the language as your book is! I'm sure many many more would discover or benefit from your book if it was available there as well :) ------ yesbabyyes On the topic of dimensions of programmers. _We can further subdivide the Artists into those who enjoy getting their revenge by being more than properly miserable, and those who prefer to get their revenge by being less than properly miserable. Artists of the first sort will prefer to work in a more formal medium, one that inflicts extra pain on the Artist, such as composing sonnets, dancing ballet, or programming C++. Artists of the second sort tend to be much more fun-loving, free-wheeling and undisciplined, whether the verb in question is composing, dancing, programming, or slinging. (Especially slinging. There's nobody quite so joyful as a B.S. artist. I should know...) There is, of course, a third category of Artist, the one who oscillates between the two extremes._ ------ peterwwillis To know Perl is to understand Larry Wall. If you don't get him, you won't get it. ~~~ flyinRyan Larry's writing always reminded me of the college guys I knew who smoked tremendous amounts of hash. ------ gbog Art being an activity of free will and constraints free is a common misconception I am surprised to see shared by Larry Wall. If you write music for piano or play piano you are moving in a highly constrained environment. The extreme example is Chinese calligraphy, probably the most constrained form of art, and at the same time the one where the artistic expression of the self is the most salient. So no, please don't oppose art and discipline, it's a mistake. ~~~ cdcarter Even further, John Cage and his ideology of chance. Non-determinism only worked under heavy constraint, and it worked amazingly. ------ mynameishere This guy's apparent jokey lunacy is what always kept me away from Perl. The camel book--my god, if I want a laugh I'll buy Al Franken's latest. ~~~ dkuder Like [http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/Senate/Minnesota/A...](http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/Senate/Minnesota/Al_Franken/Bills/112/) Lots of chuckles there. But you don't have to buy them, they are free. ------ mmphosis perl came out early enough before the flood it was pretty much the CGI language by default it would crop up in a project and glue everything together at that point in the project when nobody cares anyway it was on my iBook in 2001 when PHP and Python were not it flew out of my keyboard rewriting a lost dot-com era PHP game the $a and $b global variables are accumulators to paint with

GitLab Isn’t Really Open-Source - thefilmore https://akr.am/blog/posts/gitlab-isnt-really-open-source ====== amingilani There's honestly nothing new here. GitLab calls itself open core because only the Community Edition (CE) is open-source and the Enterprise Edition is source-available. Anyone, after five minutes of looking at GitLab.com, knows this. They aren't hiding it and it's already incredibly public. They've even publicly talk about their 100+ user-relevant rule for features that decides what CE doesn't get [1] I don't understand what compelled the author to write this but GitLab CE _really_ is open-source. Stop the FUD. [1]: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10923838 ~~~ ktpsns Furthermore, Gitlab has a brilliant documentation which makes very clear which features are available in which version of the program. This distinction goes even into the documentation of the (JSON) API. What is advertised as open source is really open source, you can browse it yourself. Find it at [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce) \-- btw, this is a ~3GB repository, afaik you won't be able to host such a large repository at github.com for free. With self-hosted gitlab, you can do this without any hazzle. ~~~ dalore Also the issues are all on public and anyone can comment and see what the devs are saying about it. ------ dpedu Even if every last byte of Gitlab and the bits behind it aren't OSS, it is lightyears ahead of GitHub in terms of source availability. And while I suspect the gap will only grow, I'd love for Microsoft to make me wrong. ~~~ draw_down Exactly, which is what makes the "Microsoft LOVES open source!!!!" angle of this acquisition so strange. If they love open-source so much why did they acquire the closed-source service? ~~~ bdcravens Because most of the open source world is more than happy to use that closed- source service. ~~~ TAForObvReasons Including Linux, which originally used the proprietary BitKeeper VCS system before Torvalds wrote git. ~~~ tazjin The Github repository for the kernel is a mirror of the actual kernel.org repository. The kernel does not use a Github-style workflow, either. ~~~ cma He's not talking about them using Github as his example, he's talking about them using Bitkeeper in the past. ------ benatkin Here's how you get the instructions to install the open source version of GitLab on Ubuntu: \- Google "install gitlab ubuntu" \- Click the first link \- Choose Ubuntu \- Notice that it says _ee_ in the command and think, oh, that's enterprise edition, I want the open source edition: sudo EXTERNAL_URL="[http://gitlab.example.com"](http://gitlab.example.com") apt-get install gitlab-ee \- Look around and finally find the link "CE or EE" \- Read "If you're interested in using GitLab, we recommend you download and install GitLab Enterprise Edition" and shake your head \- Scroll to the bottom \- Note that you fit into the category "If you only want to download open source software Community Edition is the best choice" and think, maybe I'm one of those "open source zealots" I've been hearing about \- Click "Install GitLab Community Edition" ~~~ Improvotter This is because the Enterprise Edition includes the Community Edition. If you don't have a license, it'll use the EE as the CE version. This only makes it easier for new people to get started. It also has the benefit that if you want to switch, you don't have to set the entire thing back up. Info: [https://about.gitlab.com/installation/ce-or- ee/?distro=ubunt...](https://about.gitlab.com/installation/ce-or- ee/?distro=ubuntu) ~~~ ljm Why call it Enterprise Edition or EE everywhere when you have to write documentation about the reason for that naming and the intricacies around the licensing? And then explain that the unlicensed EE is actually CE which is just the MIT licensed code and the other stuff is not under that license? No one's going to expect that, they're going to think they're on a trial. It sounds like a shady marketing ploy considering you could provide `sudo apt install gitlab-ce` in addition to `sudo apt install gitlab-ee` (or even just have `sudo apt install gitlab`). This isn't making it easier, it's just shifting the burden onto the user and hoping they'll pay up because they got a nerfed 'enterprise' install. ------ luka-birsa I've been a user of gitlab for 4yrs+. Its a great tool and a nice alternative to github for all us crazy "i want to have code on-prem" folks. That being said gitlab ce and its relationship to ee is more and more complicated. What started out at missing select features is now full out armaggedon of lacking features. See latest releases and youll see that all the cool stuff is comming out only to ee. Whats even worse, the pricing is insane - some nice features are in the extreme tier that costs insane ammounts od money. There was a time when we considered dropping all other tools and moving to gitlab. Now were actually migrating to jira for issue tracking. We're considering jenkins as alternative to gitlab ci. And if we see the rift growing too large, we'll move to phabricator (kindof sad we didnt go that direction 4yrs back). ~~~ brianwawok We went Gitlab to Bitbucket + Jira. Quite a bit more power, for less money (even after paying for cloud testers). ~~~ jbergstroem I think the Atlassian stack "wins" in the ~200-500 users range for enterprise companies but price doubles if you want the "cloud edition" (read: run on more than one vm). I asked for a few quotes of the gitlab EEU (ultimate) edition and found prices competitive. ~~~ marcinkuzminski You should check out RhodeCode as well. It integrates with Redmine/Jira/Jenkins/TeamCity etc quite well, and it's suited to work for teams of 100-1000+ with enterprise feature focus ------ ng12 > Both versions have their sources published on GitLab with the former having > an MIT license and the latter a proprietary one which requires a paid > subscription with GitLab. So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?" ~~~ zelphirkalt Please don't confuse Open Source and Free Software. Open Source' ideals are not "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?". That is something of Free Software. Open Source does not care about the Free Software ideals. Except for that one thing, that source code shall be available. ~~~ amyjess The Open Source Definition [0] cares about more than just "that source code shall be available". Among other things, it says "The license must allow modifications and derived works" and "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor". In fact, the OSD is nearly identical to the Debian Free Software Guidelines [1]. [0] [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd) [1] [https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines](https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines) ------ jordigh "Open core" is just plain ol' proprietary software. Mac OS X is "open core" in the very literal sense that kernel and core are synonyms. It's really no big innovation to be selling secret sauce on top of free software; Android is also "open core" as is Matlab. Nowadays literally almost all proprietary software has bits of weakly-licensed free software in it such as curl or React. I've never been very impressed by GitLab's claims of openness. The only difference seems to be that you can get most of the useful things of GitLab as free software whereas Darwin, Linux, or LAPACK+FFTW are not the most attractive parts of macOS, Android, or Matlab. Call me when you manage to make a business without forcing any kind of EULA whatsoever on your customers. That will be the real innovation. ~~~ pythonaut_16 I strongly disagree. GitLab is open core because I can run and use the software in a meaningful way under open source licenses. MacOs is substantially different because I cannot take their open source kernel and run a functioning version of MacOs ~~~ jordigh Well, you used to be able to do that with macOS, but I think they stopped that from happening in the last few years. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Open...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_\(operating_system\)#OpenDarwin) Gitlab may one day also decide that their core is too large and too useful to let everyone play with it too. Also, you're not strongly disagreeing with me. I said the same thing, the only difference is that you can get most (but not all) of the useful things from whatever GitLab currently considers its core to be. ~~~ innerspirit Google took the same approach with Android, releasing non-OSS versions of their OSS apps, and not updating the OSS ones anymore. ------ nightfly Projects that follow the "open core" model bother me when they gate useful features behind their paid version like Gitlab does. My organization would benefit from the "Rebase merge requests before merge" and "Use fast-forward merges when possible" features quite a bit, and we are an in educational environment with lots of volunteers so using the Enterprise edition isn't viable at all. These features aren't technically difficult to implement, but even if we wrote open source versions of them we'd have to carry our own internal fork of Gitlab since there is no chance upstream would accept them since they've already decided they don't /want/ those features in the "community" edition. ~~~ dpark > _Projects that follow the "open core" model bother me when they gate useful > features behind their paid version like Gitlab does._ I understand that criticism, but what else would you gate _except_ useful features? The entire point of this style of sales is to enable a "freemium" model with highly valuable features locked behind the pay-gate. ~~~ tonyarkles In the parent's defense, the two features listed aren't really what I think of when I think of "enterprise" features. I think more of things like SAML and Active Directory integration, auditing, etc. ~~~ dpark Sure, but that's essentially a branding criticism (labeling them "enterprise" features) rather than a criticism of the "open core" model. ~~~ dnomad This isn't really the "open core" model if the core is not actually open. GP would like to contribute these features themselves to the open core but GitLab likely would not allow it. ~~~ dpark I don't agree with this assessment. Open Source does not require that the maintainers will allow you to push changes upstream that they don't like. Is AOSP not open source? Chromium? Atom? Linux? Linus rejects a lot of stuff. Now, it may be poor stewardship if valuable changes are rejected, but Open Source is about your freedom with the code, not the willingness of the project maintainers to commit your pet features. ------ Kostic I cannot disagree more. The open source core is very featureful for its price, it's easy enough to host on premise and UX is very good. Granted, the paid version has some nice features and there were some problems in the past when people wanted to integrate features found in the paid version to the open core but that's the price of living in current times. Money is still needed to create and maintain something. Maybe one day when we start living in a Star Trek society. ~~~ sytse Thanks! The article asked "what chunk of GitLab will be considered “core” in the future?". We try to detail this on [https://about.gitlab.com/stewardship/#what-features-are- paid...](https://about.gitlab.com/stewardship/#what-features-are-paid-only) "All stages of the DevOps lifecycle is available in GitLab CE" ~~~ __manuels__ You are right, looks like the author did not even try to make any enquiries... ------ skywhopper I don't really agree with the premise here. Gitlab is getting lots of new users because of the Github/MS deal but if those users cared about how open- source their git host was, they would not have been using Github. And the value that Github and Gitlab.com provide have nothing to do with their source code availability. They both provide a relatively trustworthy community resource on which to share your code without having to run your own public server. Yes, Gitlab has generated goodwill by having an open-source version of their product, and lots of people have tried it out for self-hosted needs. And so they are the natural first place people will flock to. But the main reason people are moving to Gitlab.com is because it provides an easy and open place to host source code that remains (for now) independent from the tech oligopolists. ------ greenhatman Phabricator is 100% open source. [https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/](https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/) ------ cjoy In general I have sympathy for the free core + pay for enterprise features approach. Seems like a fair model. Where it starts to fall apart for me, is when basic quality of life features like a usable code review (do not trigger a notification for every line I comment) are tagged as “enterprise features”. ------ vignesh_m Whoa, those are some pretty big features I assumed were "core".Static pages, fast-forward merges, Git hooks - aren't these core reasons to use a git website instead of just git+remote ------ teraflop Flagged as clickbait. "Gitlab Has Both Open-source And Closed-source Versions" would be more accurate, but that's not as attention-grabbing a headline, is it? ------ shazow Like most things, "Open Source" is relative and spans a gradient. It can be open but undocumented, it can be open but with closed components, it can be open but broken, it can be open but closed to outside contributors, and so on. The most important question is whether it's forkable? If X decided to go against its community, how painful would it be to fork X and for the community to continue without the maintainer's support? Is GitLab more open source than GitHub? Absolutely. If I committed substantial resources integrating with "the GitLab way of doing things" and then GitLab pulled the rug on me, would I be able to retain my investment by forking off the product? For most things, yes. I'm all for GitLab becoming even more open source, but they deserve the accolades they've gotten so far. ------ rdtsc > GitLab has two version of its software - GitLab Community Edition, the open- > source version, and GitLab Enterprise Edition. I think the context is the comparison with Github. So where is the Github open source community edition with MIT licensing? > The question then is - what chunk of GitLab will be considered “core” in the > future? None of the additional enterprise features seem to be core features so it's just one core then? Maybe the author is not a native English speaker so it's not clear what a "core" is. ~~~ tomcatfish Believe the posters asking how we know that they won't shrink the feature set in the future in comparison to the existing codebase by introducing updates or quality-of-life improvements in the Enterprise version and not in the open version ------ colemickens It seems that most of the discussion has been around GitLab and then Gogs/Gitea. I hope folks also give attention to other, possibly less-discussed code collaboration platforms that have arguably more open development than GitLab here. For example, I believe Fedora is developed via Pagure, which also importantly supports "remote" pull requests. ([https://pagure.io/pagure](https://pagure.io/pagure)) (Fedora's instance: [https://src.fedoraproject.org/](https://src.fedoraproject.org/)) There's also Kallithea, but I haven't looked at it much. ([https://kallithea- scm.org/](https://kallithea-scm.org/)) ------ n4r9 I think I understand why this article was written, but earlier today I looked up GitLab on Wikipedia and feel like I came away with a more comprehensive understanding of GitLab's structure along with its history and motivations and with less reading time to boot. ------ rburhum GitLab open sources most of their core source. They never said they were 100% - and even this concept is crazy. At some point you have to realize that they need to have scalable business model, and this is what they have chosen to do. Good for them, it is working. ------ ramshorns It depends what you care about. Some would say it doesn't matter if the server software is free and open source, so long as you can use the service without running any proprietary software yourself. And GitLab is pretty good in that regard, with the website's JavaScript under a free license. [https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria- evaluation.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html) ------ neuromantik8086 This isn't really that surprising when you see it as part of a general trend of open source software being used to achieve vendor lock-in [1]. [1] [http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2014/09/how-to-achieve- ven...](http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2014/09/how-to-achieve-vendor-lock- in-with-a-legit-open-source-license-affero-gpl/) ------ watwut Maybe, when we want comfortable hosting with all cool features one would wish in one place for free, just maybe, it is impossible to have it forever. Because the company and investors will run out of money one day, because we are not paying enough to host our stuff. Maybe google re-opens google code, but that wont be free open source either. ------ dosshell > Rebase merge requests before merge > Approve Merge Requests What!? This is not true. You can both rebase and approve merge requests with with Gitlab ce. You can even force semi-linear history. The webpage must be outdated - or did i misunderstood something? Source: I do it every day. ------ duxup I look forward to the next panic that sends folks fleeing back to sourceforge. ------ naikrovek I've heard good things about this:[https://github.com/gogs/gogs](https://github.com/gogs/gogs) I heard those good things here, iirc. ------ zantana This rush to Gitlab reminds me of the forecasted mass reddit exodus to voat in during the AMA/Ellen Pao crisis. ------ jph GitLab LICENSE file: [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ee/blob/master/LICENSE](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ee/blob/master/LICENSE) The way I read it, GitLab is open source in three senses: 1) GitLab core is MIT 2) GitLab enterprise edition is all published code 3) The GitLab EE license specifically gives the user permission to modify code and publish patches within the broad EE license. ------ amyjess > Furthermore, the free version running on GitLab.com is the Enterprise > Edition. This means that if you wish to move from their hosted service to > your own one, you would be losing several features and would even have to > pay to import your projects based on the above list. Just because GitLab.com runs EE doesn't mean all EE features are made available to all users. Most if not all EE-only features are behind a paywall on GitLab.com; you still have to pay to use them even if you don't self-host. ------ ianamartin This kind of sort-of open source needs a word. Openium source or something. You get the basics under open source with all that implies. And if you want the premium features, that's also there in a sort-of open source way. ~~~ zokier Open core is pretty well-established phrase [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core) ------ akerro Author doesnt understand concepts of opensource, dual-licensing, copy-left and copy-right. Nothing to see here. ------ TylerJewell Disclaimer - I am CEO of WSO2, a pure open source company. We philosophically oppose open core business models. The author is speaking to the differences between the open core and open source business models. I've been writing increasingly about the differences between these models on my Medium blog about WSO2's growth story, our thoughts on the MULE acquisition by CRM (another open core vendor), and our open source business model. WSO2 is a pure open source business model and we believe that it's more honest, efficient, and scalable. Also, if executed in the right manner, there is no risk from IP exploitation. We have been able to demonstrate that as we are growing on an ARR basis faster than MULE with an equal customer net dollar retention with negative churn, while getting to cash flow positive operations. Our biggest rationale on why this is the case is that our internal teams do not compromise productivity by perpetually wrestling with where the “for free/for pay” line must be drawn. It is expensive for an enterprise vendor to determine the best model of where for-fee options reside. Not only does the vendor have to develop a strategy, but they must communicate this to all their employees and then justify it to the open market. This is evidenced in this thread and in the many HN threads for Gitlab - their management team has to invest time and energy into explaining the philosophy that was used to establish the line. It's rarely intuitive, so some non-zero effort goes into that education internally and externally. These costs are passed along to customers and require significantly higher forms of capital from investors. This line does not stay static, either. The nature of open source is that is erodes and impedes upon the areas where a vendor is selling their proprietary extensions. This means the “for free/for pay” line must be periodically rethought. This is a continual process, and this is time where inefficiencies are introduced. In the pure open source model, we just tell our developers to design and build. And we can focus on a single pricing solution of value in and around that overall platform. It saves us a lot of emotional capital, too, because people get very committed on where they think the free / for pay line must be drawn. Finally, it lets us be more up front with customers. They know that our sales reps have nothing to gain by suggesting one tech stack over another. Customers can use the entire stack before they talk to us and so if they are really engaged, then we are engaged for a value added subscription for all of the right reasons, and we don't have to lengthen the sales cycle while they try to decide which route they want to take - open source or proprietary. [1] [https://blog.usejournal.com/wso2s-growth-story-and-why- open-...](https://blog.usejournal.com/wso2s-growth-story-and-why-open-source- is-the-only-way-to-solve-your-integration-challenges-32a72b173e0a) [2] [https://blog.usejournal.com/salesforces-acquisition-of- mules...](https://blog.usejournal.com/salesforces-acquisition-of-mulesoft-is- a-triumph-for-investors-disaster-for-open-source-2e5252005860) [3] [https://blog.usejournal.com/wso2s-open-source-business- model...](https://blog.usejournal.com/wso2s-open-source-business- model-3ffea58feb8b) ------ mankash666 GitLab or ANY company has no obligation to give away it's work under liberal OSS terms. GitLab is NOT a charity, the hypocritical expectation of OSS while still expecting silicon-valley style exorbitant compensation for being an employee is clearly at odds, companies can only afford such salaries if they eke out handsome profits. Ergo, if you expect a good salary for your work, prepare to pay for good products. RedHat is the ONLY company managing a reasonable revenue stream while being fully open source. If you like/love GitLab/GitHub, you'll want them to thrive financially, and there's no clearer path to financial stability than charging for close source software, as proven by decades of enterprise and consumer facing companies. ~~~ ModernMech > RedHat is the ONLY company managing a reasonable revenue stream while being > fully open source For their size. There are other open source projects that are actually profitable. They're just not billion dollar companies. e.g. ghost.org ~~~ mankash666 Ghost is NOT a for-profit company, you can't compare them to companies whose mission is profit. Unless you're implying the pursuit of profit to be unacceptable, this is an apples to oranges comparison ~~~ ModernMech > you can't compare them to companies whose mission is profit. Why not? They're a non-profit, sure, but that doesn't make them a charity. Like Redhat, they also don't have an obligation to give anything away for free. They just have an obligation to make sure at the end of the day, there's no money left over in the form of profit. And yet, they manage to not only generate revenue on an open source project, they make enough to keep the company afloat. That's not to say their model would work for gitlab or github. Ghost works because they're small. But the point I'm trying to make is there is a model demonstrated by Ghost and others that allows for small fully open source project to support itself, while not relying on a closed core. ~~~ mankash666 I don't see the logic here. Ghost's mission is to stay independent and afloat, and GitHub/Gitlab's to make the most money they can. These are indeed different and oftentimes opposing mission statements. The fact they all make software is co-incidental. My thesis stands - as a for-profit entity intent on maximizing profits and net-worth, empirically open source hasn't provided a vehicle to achieve those goals. At best, it allows a company to stay afloat, but it doesn't in any way guarantee maximizing net worth and profit of a company. So, every-time you pith open-source as a viable alternative, you're confusing the mission statement. It isn't to stay afloat, it is to maximize wealth ~~~ ModernMech > My thesis stands - as a for-profit entity intent.. No, you've changed your original position, which was "RedHat is the ONLY company managing a reasonable revenue stream while being fully open source." You capitalized "ONLY" to emphasize it. I challenged that statement, and you've conceded with this carve out: "At best, it allows a company to stay afloat, but it doesn't in any way guarantee maximizing net worth and profit of a company." which is a statement I agree with. So while you say your original thesis stands, we've somehow arrived at a point where we both agree. Open source for a profit-seeking company _hasn 't_ delivered. But you can still make a company with open source -- it's just not going to be able to maximize revenue like a closed-source competitor could. But I think that goes to show people write code for more reasons than profit. ------ stealthmodeclan So it's not financially viable to run such companies without trick like these. If our financial system does not allow for companies like Github/Gitlab who provided positive value to society at large to sustain then perhaps the finanical system is to blame. About Github/Gitlab employees, I can provide them housing, food, and some soft benefits. Can they work for free so that Github/Gitlab become sustainable? Why government can't bless those companies to survive forever? The major problem in the world is that evil players like Microsoft have all money to do anything they want and positive contributor to society like Github can't earn money. ~~~ x0x0 The acquisition was the almost inevitable outcome of decisions that github alone made: \- comping employees with options and/or RSUs; \- taking $350m of VC money. ~~~ stealthmodeclan Had they not made those decisions, would they've managed to attract developers, pay bills and keep their lights on? Do the founders wanted billions or a big impact on the world? Today, they've sold their customers to an evil tech empire. ------ jacksmith21006 GitLab has been this fantastic secret and now with MS buying GitHub so many people are coming over worry it will mess it up. ------ iddan Stop the clickbait ------ syshum And how much of GitHub is Open??? ~~~ pythonaut_16 More than you'd expect, as they've open sourced and contributed to a number of open source projects based on their development of Github.com ~~~ syshum Github is a perfect match for MS, both of them are hostile to the idea of Free Software They open source tools for devs, things like Library's, Frameworks, IDE's etc. Never end products. They oppose the ethics of Free Software, Open source for them is a way to get free labor

John Perry Barlow has died - schoen https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet-pioneer-1947-2018 ====== viksit My JPB Story (from ~1998): I grew up in New Delhi in the late 90s on a steady diet of 2600, phrack, BBSes and the EFF/internet. Two of the people I'd read a lot about and was very inspired by were JPB and Mitch Kapor, as founders of the EFF - and I decided one day that I'd like to actually reach out and talk to Barlow (I didn't actually have a goal in mind, now that I think about it). Figuring that an email would never get a reply, I added him on AIM. To my utter surprise, he added me back - and after introducing myself as a high schooler who was a fan of the work he was doing, we communicated over the next year or so on a wide variety of topics that included open source, free software and the state of the internet in India at the time. For the next 10 years or so, when AIM was still active, he was one of the very few people still on my contacts list who would go "online" and "offline" with a regular cadence -- one of the only reasons I ever even logged into AIM was to (rarely) say hello :). Of course, I stopped using the service a long time ago, and lost touch with him - but his declaration of independence of cyberspace was something that I leaned on when researching about internet censorship and policies a few years ago. I never did reach back out to him, and there was no pressing need to either. On hearing the news, I'm reminded of how prescient and applicable his words have been to the issues and challenges that we see in the internet of today - but also how he personally upheld one beautifully phrased paragraph in particular, by virtue of his accepting a request from, and interacting with a random high schooler from half way across the world. Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our commu nications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. RIP. ~~~ Carioca Your story is such a great nugget of what he stood for, thank you for sharing it. ------ mattl JPB on meeting a partner on an evening when he was due to roast Steve Jobs at a NeXT Expo. [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/74/transcript#act3](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/74/transcript#act3) ~~~ Cogito Well, I wasn't prepared for that. Almost skipped over it, so anyone else trailing through who catches this, go and read it. ~~~ hoistbypetard Thanks for adding that. I was set to skip over that too. Holy crap, that was great. And it might be my new favorite piece of Ira Glass' work. ------ lbotos My JPB Story: I’d come to find myself in Portland. In the home of a stranger but there was no cause for alarm. This place felt like a home. It was real and a part of our collective universe. I never met my host, not once while I was there. She was a kindred spirit. Her home was warm and welcoming but I never knew her. On the last day of my trip, we managed to cross paths in the house, only in sound, never vision. She entered the shower, and I left to catch a plane to New York City. Like any other day. In New York City, I found myself thinking of my time in Portland, feeling drawn to this woman. She sent me a friend request on Facebook. I immediately started rifling through pictures to try and see her. To understand what this feeling was. This draw. This pull. There was a picture with her and her father. I recognized the name but I didn’t know why. I immediately copied the name into google and was floored. He was Cyberspace. A man who’s been with me my whole digital life. A dreamer. Someone who believes in more. Surreal clarity. A tangle of wires connecting this whole god damned universe caught us both and brought us together, for just that moment. I don’t know why the wires thought I was special, why I needed to know, but I’m happy they did. I reflected on this moment. This connection that was both possible and impossible without this man and his daughter. Here’s to you JPB and Anna for being the conduit for these crazy electrical signals that had something to say. It was but a moment in passing in our collective universes, but one that left a mark. ~~~ shams93 Yeah "he was cyberspace" is a really great description. ------ pixelmonkey Here's a link to his "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" from 1996, published 22 years ago tomorrow: [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace- independence) I always loved these bits: "Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications." And: "Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish." RIP. ~~~ daveheq This declaration sounds like an excuse to surf cp ~~~ dang Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot and we eventually ban accounts that do that. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) ------ Alex3917 I've posted this on HN before, but his introduction to Birth of a Psychedelic Culture is highly worth reading. Among other things he talks about how (after entirely too much acid) he was planning on becoming America's first suicide bomber, to protest the Vietnam war, but got caught by his friends at the last minute: [http://realitysandwich.com/34204/beginning_birth_psychedelic...](http://realitysandwich.com/34204/beginning_birth_psychedelic_culture/) Fortunately for the rest of us he ended up co-founding the EFF instead. ~~~ mturmon You are right. Just a beautiful piece. Full of insight and connections to the many other stories from that time. ------ alex_young Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [0] is one of the quintessential works that made the web the free place it is. What a great loss. As a teenager, Barlow's writings inspired me and many others to do things such as paint our websites black to protest the Communications Decency Act, and write lots of actual letters which, in aggregate, effected change legally and socially. In 2000 at Comdex, I remember Barlow saying that he had no love for the record companies - as a member of the Grateful Dead he had never received a royalty statement that didn't say he owed the company money. This was during the height of the war on MP3s when other artists were claiming they were being robbed at gunpoint or something. [0] [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace- independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence) ------ insaneirish The black-throated wind keeps on pouring in. And it speaks of a life that passes like dew. It's forced me to see that you've done better by me, Better by me than I've done by you. [http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/btwi.html](http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/btwi.html) ------ AustinG08 I am a huge Grateful Dead fan (I don't call myself a dead head because I was 9 when Jerry died, I never saw them play.) But I always loved John Perry Barlow's songs. My old band used to cover The Music Never Stopped and Cassidy, and my all time favorite dead song is Throwing Stones. I didn't even know he was a big influencer in tech until I saw him appear on the Colbert Report representing the EFF. My JPB story is short and relatively meaningless, but back when I first signed up for twitter I just followed a bunch of famous people and would every now and then attempt to engage them. The only one that ever replied back to me was John Perry Barlow, and it made my week. I had interfaced with true greatness. Rest in peace, John! ------ linkmotif > In 1996, Barlow was invited to speak about his work in cyberspace to a > middle school classroom at North Shore Country Day School, which was a > highly influential event in the early life of student Aaron Swartz, as > Swartz's father Robert recalls Aaron coming home that day as a changed > person.[23][24] — [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow) ------ jacquesm That sucks. Adult principles: [http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jan-21.html](http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Jan-21.html) Worth living by. ------ sankyo I didn't see a link to his lyrics for Grateful Dead songs yet. My favorite is Cassady. What an inspiration between EFF and the Dead. [https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/...](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/barlows_lyrics.html#cassidy) ~~~ mythrwy My favorite is Let It Grow (from weather report suite). It's such a beautiful piece of music. Really gets down deep into the nature of life. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6mjNMNytY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN6mjNMNytY) [https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tuuldprggcev2wah45v27l...](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tuuldprggcev2wah45v27lxob4y?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp- lyrics) I listened to this album for years and didn't understand that song until recently when I went back and listened again. I don't think the song is about an agricultural town and a women fetching water as it first appears. I think it's symbolic. The women is dipping into the river of life and carrying a little part away with her. She is brown like the earth because in this case she is symbolic of the earth, i.e. the substrate on which life appears or develops. The drops of water in the reeds are individual instances of life, eventually they lose their individuality and return to the ocean. The plowman is sowing the earth. Etc. Etc. ------ staunch His Principles for Adult Behavior is hard-earned wisdom: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kgmes/i_am_john_perr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kgmes/i_am_john_perry_barlow_cofounder_of_the/cborf31/) ~~~ nkurz Wow. And succinct enough that I’ll quote them in full: ADULT PRINCIPLES -John Perry Barlow 1 Be patient. No matter what. 2 Don't badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn't say to him. 3 Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you. 4 Expand your sense of the possible. 5 Don't trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change. 6 Don't ask more of others than you can deliver yourself. 7 Tolerate ambiguity. 8 Laugh at yourself frequently. 9 Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right. 10 Try not to forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong. 11 Give up blood sports. 12 Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don't risk it frivolously. 13 Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.) 14 Learn the needs of those around you and respect them. 15 Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that. 16 Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun. 17 Praise at least as often as you disparage. 18 Admit your errors freely and quickly. 19 Become less suspicious of joy. 20 Understand humility. 21 Remember that love forgives everything. 22 Foster dignity. 23 Live memorably. 24 Love yourself. 25 Endure. ~~~ jimjimjim people in power need to be rated against these principles. ~~~ olavk You need to rate yourself against these principles. This is the whole point. ~~~ jimjimjim i have rated myself. i think i'm about a c+, need to try harder. ~~~ olavk Don't ask more of others than you can deliver yourself. ------ paul7986 Never heard of the guy until 2005 where CNET interviewed him about his interest in skype. Thus me and my friend downloaded Skype and called him. We chatted for five or ten minutes and he remained on my friends Skype since. Later found out he was in the Grateful Dead in same shape or form. ~~~ schoen Barlow once recounted a time that a random person in Vietnam called him on Skype because she wanted to practice English and he was named "John": [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/technology/internet- calli...](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/26/technology/internet-calling-new- friends-old-problems.html) You can find the whole thing (which is kind of amazing) at [https://archive.li/jHN8B](https://archive.li/jHN8B) (search for "The Intimate Planet"). ~~~ jxramos Very pleasant read, something nostalgic about this old style blog. Made me think of the days I'd spend chatting and voice messaging folks from MSN and yahoo chatrooms and all the friends I've made there who I've lost touch with. ------ dmpayton I never got to meet JPB, but I was lucky enough to attend his keynote at PyCon 2014 in Montreal. It's a great talk, should you have a spare 45 minutes. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVzb5YXmeo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVzb5YXmeo) He is (indirectly) responsible for the existence of a hackerspace in Fresno, CA. Last year a few of us got together to talk about starting a chapter of the Electronic Frontier Alliance. That conversation morphed into, "fuck it, let's just start a hackerspace." So thanks JPB. Rest well. ~~~ jMyles That was a great little corner of the universe to occupy. That was the first talk at the first conference to which Chelsea and I traveled. And also where my friendship with you began in earnest. Incredible. ------ cromwellian Such a loss. Who is the thought leader today to push back on the huge curtailment of online freedoms happening around the world. Even in the HN crowd, you see people succumbing to nationalism and making arguments to support their government's right to impose their court decisions on foreign jurisdictions in cyberspace. The problem isn't just the Great Firewall, it's stuff like Turkey or Thailand getting YouTube to take down a video criticizing their leader outside their region. It's European courts ruling their restrictions have to apply globally. There's no leader really standing up and affirming the philosophical dream of the independence of cyberspace, as a place where people can gather freely to transact in virtual ways however they want. Rather, there's a huge backslide over the last 20 years. ~~~ ethagnawl > There's no leader really standing up and affirming the philosophical dream > of the independence of cyberspace, as a place where people can gather freely > to transact in virtual ways however they want. Among others, the 2600 crew are still carrying that torch. ~~~ ethagnawl To follow up on my last comment: this week's episode of Off The Hook (one of 2600's radio shows) had a nice segment on John Perry Barlow. ------ Ologn I used to call him from time to time when I was a teenager, back in the early 1990s. He was always very open and neighborly and curious. There are a number of sub-cultures that exist across the USA - redneck Wyoming ranchers, deadheads, San Francisco computer gearheads, civil libertarians - he seemed to belong to all of them. He was an easy person to say of that "he is one of the members of our community". I know that him and Sean Parker were friends going way back. Someone told me a story that on the day Parker met Mark Zuckerberg etc. at the 66 restaurant, as portrayed in the movie the "Social Network", that Parker was crashing on Barlow's couch. I don't know if that is true or just part of the legend... You would see him at various events around New York City when he was in the city. He often went to Florio's Pizzeria and Cigar Bar, holding court with people like Jaron Lanier and others. A friend of mine said "He lived a life many would envy". ------ dopamean It's weird reading this because I very recently found out that a girl I went to high school with was his daughter. I had no idea back then (14+ years ago). This is a sad loss for the community and I'm sure his family as well. ~~~ ad_hominem One thing that was clear from following him on Twitter was he had a big heart, and in particular was a doting father to his (I think three) daughters. They all seemed to be very free spirits. ------ wavefunction That's truly unfortunate. I've admired his work on behalf of electronic freedom since the start and have gotten to meet the gentleman once or twice, as we graduated from the same high-school separated by a few decades. My condolences to his family and friends, and thanks for sharing him with us. ------ chrisseldo _Nothing to tell now / let the words be yours / I am done with mine._ A champion of freedom. RIP. ------ tkamat29 Who else knew Barlow as a Grateful Dead lyrisict? ~~~ jacquesm Funny tidbit: for a short while I thought they were two distinct people, and I kept telling myself 'wow, what a coincidence that two people have such an unlikely name'. ------ placebo I admit my ignorance of not knowing about him previous to reading this. Also admit a sad feeling of retroactive loss now that I have learned a bit more about him. Hope he'll be a role model to others that follow. ------ philblanks What a profoundly interesting man. Here's a bit more for those interested in his work: Forbes: Why Spy? by John Perry Barlow, 10.07.02 [https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/042_print.html](https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/042_print.html) Grateful Dead Lyricist and Burning Man's Co-Founder Talk Tech [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jAyedG67_I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jAyedG67_I) ------ tahoemph999 My Barlow story starts with reading the first issue of the EFFector. Being a Deadhead I was also aware of John as Bob Weir's song writing partner. Reading a CACM column by Bob during a set break prompted an email exchange of no real note but fond memories. Rip a hole in the sky John. And may the rest of us learn just a little from your life. ------ patrickg_zill "We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity." It's why I spit (virtually) upon posters who defend Google's actions towards Damore, and Twitter and YouTube's actions to deplatform people. ------ DonHopkins John Perry Barlow with an OLPC XO-1 Children's Computer. [https://imgur.com/a/ogE9y](https://imgur.com/a/ogE9y) John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, EFF founders. [https://imgur.com/a/eqqlz](https://imgur.com/a/eqqlz) ------ indescions_2018 The end of an era. You will be missed, you wonderful old beatific cybernetic flower child ;) RIP _California, a prophet on the burning shore California, I 'll be knocking on the golden door Like an angel, standing in a shaft of light Rising up to paradise, I know I'm gonna shine_ ------ creeble First met JPB in '87. I'm realizing I'm too sad to share any of the many stories. But it also makes me realize how much of an Internet warrior we've all lost, and that we need to keep up the hope and the fight. Donate to EFF as memorial, please. ------ kiliantics > I see the fact that we have a large working anarchy in the internet. I think > that inspires people to try practical anarchy as a social form in the > physical world. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071009235727/http://www.india-...](https://web.archive.org/web/20071009235727/http://www.india- today.com/btoday/20001206/interview.html) ------ dcow JPB was at B-Sides SF a few years ago. He gave the keynote and I remember watching down over the railing of the DNA lounge 2nd floor balcony. It was surreal how focused and sincere the space was compared to the normal mode of operation for the venue. His Keynote was incredibly relevant. I highly recommend giving it a watch: [https://youtu.be/1mrmOrUsbGI](https://youtu.be/1mrmOrUsbGI) ------ balnaphone Favorite quote: "Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds." \--John Perry Barlow ------ drallison Barlow was always larger than life, always on, his mind never quiet. They don't seem to make them that way any more. He'll be missed. ------ dvirsky This is just so sad. I'm lucky to have met him briefly about a decade ago when he was consulting the company I worked for. He was just so awesome and smart, and naturally most meetings we had with him pretty quickly turned into storytelling time with John. Those were a few of days I'll never forget. RIP. ------ evanb This must be heaven -- Tonight I crossed the line. You must be the angel I thought I'd never find. Was it you I heard singin' While I was chasin' dreams? Driven by the wind, Like the dust that blows around And the rain fallin' down... ------ DonHopkins Crime and Pizzlement: Desperados of the DataSphere [https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/...](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/crime_and_puzzlement_1.html) ------ sinak There's a great collection of Barlow's writing here in EFF's archives: [https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/](https://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/) ------ melling Rolling Stone announcement... [https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/john-perry- barlow-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/john-perry-barlow- grateful-dead-lyricist-dead-at-70-w516487) ------ weisser Lots of thoughts here but I'm at a loss. He seemed in good spirits right until the end — we should all hope for that. JPB was a true artist and technologist. His art was inspired by the past and his policy by the future. ------ tankenmate A grave loss, the world needs more people like him, not less. ------ multi_tude JPB did a really great audio walking tour of SF's Knob Hill & Tenderloin. It's in the Detour iOS app. ------ noahm Man, this makes me sad beyond words. It's a great loss for all of us, even those who don't realize it. ------ 8bitsrule "We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts." Fair warning. ------ lukeh Amongst other things I remember his columns in NeXTworld (sp?) fondly. ~~~ patrickg_zill Yes, the magazine for NeXT machine users. NeXT capitalization I think was later changed to NEXTSTEP the operation system and OPENSTEP the cross-platform environment. ------ mathattack RIP - he was a great thinker perhaps 30 years ahead of his time. ------ artur_makly early thoughts: [http://memex.org/meme2-03.html](http://memex.org/meme2-03.html) ------ jimjimjim The world seems a little bit darker. ------ jackaroe78 The music never stopped ------ oska I don't know exactly what the criteria for putting a black banner line on HN is, but I was a bit surprised to not see one here today after hearing of this loss. ------ allworknoplay If Barlow doesn't deserve the HN black bar, I don't know who does. He fought for electronic freedoms tirelessly for decades, fending off companies who wanted to control the Internet or individuals' rights to hack technology they own. ~~~ acangiano Agreed. This is a huge loss. ~~~ adfm +1 ------ Dangeranger A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions. You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different. Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here. Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose. In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us. You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat. In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media. Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish. These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts. We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before. Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996 [0] [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace- independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence) ~~~ irrational Wow, that's one of the most idealistic statements I've ever read. Too bad we ended up with the WWW of today instead. ~~~ wavefunction It was a heady time back then. Lots of optimism and dreams. Technology has improved in sophistication and accessibility but I agree that bright spirit has been muted over the years.

Ask HN: How a C/C++ dev. can learn Javascript? - joseflavio I am a experience developer in C, C++, Java, etc. Does any one know a good book to learn Javascript? My concerns are not the language syntax or how to do OO, but more how to properly develop: How to pack your application and deliver, best approach to organize the source code, best editors and debuggers, how to properly create your shared libs (midleware), etc. ====== lonewolfgames "Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja" is the best book on javascript ive read, also look into require.js, and r.js for compiling, for server side node.js, the best editor for just about any language i could find that was free is komodo edit

Ask HN: Internship ended early, two more months until school. Work available? - FinishedIntern My summer internship in San Francisco ended early and I still have two more months until school starts (University of Washington). I plan on working on my own projects while I&#x27;m still here, but would rather meet some more companies and ideally even work for someone &#x2F; freelance a little.<p>I&#x27;m focusing on front end work currently (I was using Backbone at my internship) but also have a lot of experience with PHP &#x2F; MySQL.<p>I&#x27;ve worked at Google and Microsoft as well as a ton of my own projects over the years.<p>Contact me at sfintern02 at gmail for more information! ====== Jeremy1026 Might want to give us a way to contact you. ~~~ FinishedIntern Good call, added.

Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless for Pixel 4 facial recognition - SREinSF https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/2/20896181/google-contractor-reportedly-targeted-homeless-people-for-pixel-4-facial-recognition ====== Doxin Seems like google is trying to do a good thing in a bad way. They are trying to get their facial recognition working regardless of skin color, Which is a good thing _even if you 're against facial recognition in general_ since it reduces inequality. They are doing it by targeting homeless people, which would be fine if they went around it the right way, but instead they lie and deceive. I'm willing to bet there are _plenty_ of people willing to cooperate for $5 and no lies so I'm at a bit of a loss as to why they chose to go for the lying and deceiving route.

China's air pollution is causing at least 1 MILLION premature deaths a Year - gamechangr http://qz.com/69852/chinas-air-pollution-is-causing-premature-deaths-and-an-expat-exodus/ ====== anigbrowl Fix your headline. It's causing deaths, not killing them. ~~~ gamechangr Good catch! at first I thought I would go with "is killing 1 million people prematurely" , but then changed it back :)

VersaPay Development Flow - christianbryant http://www.versapay.com/developer-blog/versapay-development-flow/ ====== christianbryant I appreciated this article for, while simple, it helped me solidify my own project "development" flow. I had already decided on a CI application, and after a recent interview, found that Hudson was forked to Jenkins. Since I wanted to do Agile Scrum, I found Redmine. This article helped me put the pieces together, and I even cloned the code they wrote to make my activities easier.

Show HN: WP Pluginator – A WordPress Plugin Development tool - outsourceappz Hello All,<p>We&#x27;ve created a WordPress Plugin Development tool called as &#x27;WP Pluginator&#x27; which makes its super easy to create WordPress Plugins. It integrates quite a bit of functionality right off the bat. Here is the link - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.outsourceappz.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;wordpress-pluginator-orm-migrations<p>PHP has improved leaps and bounds over the last few years and so has PHP tooling, frameworks etc. As a result the learning curves and hence entry barriers are much lowered. WordPress plugin development process hasn&#x27;t changed much. This tool aims to fill that void.<p>We would really appreciate if you can critique your impressions. Any advice on how to market it would be appreciated as well.<p>Thank you! ====== aarondf Did you steal your doc design from [http://laravel.com/docs/5.1](http://laravel.com/docs/5.1)? [http://www.outsourceappz.com/docs/wordpress-plugin-orm- plus-...](http://www.outsourceappz.com/docs/wordpress-plugin-orm-plus- migrations/4.1/queries) Certainly looks like it... ~~~ mikeschinkel Steal? I thought the whole idea of open-source was to allow people to remix and reuse? Why is their use of Laravel's code not applauded instead of being derided? ~~~ outsourceappz Thanks Mike, Its MIT license [https://github.com/laravel/laravel.com/blob/master/composer....](https://github.com/laravel/laravel.com/blob/master/composer.json) . However I have had people point it out that designs aren't. Not sure if they are correct. Anyhow to keep focus on my product rather than this unwanted controversy I've changed it to plain bootstrap for now. Hopefully this should rest the case [http://www.outsourceappz.com](http://www.outsourceappz.com) p.s: My intention wasn't to rip it off as I believe I was permissible to do within the license. Regards ~~~ aarondf I actually believe that you got the licenses mixed up. Not totally unreasonable. The code is definitely open source, but the design of the website is not open source. ~~~ outsourceappz Thanks arrondf. I am glad you could see the other side of the coin. ------ jcr For feedback, you want "Show HN" rather than "Ask HN" so it will get listed under "show" in the HN top menu. The rules for doing a "Show HN" submission are here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) I don't use WordPress, so I won't be able to help much. One thing I did notice on your site was the use of the word "opinionated" to describe your plugin. (i.e. _" Pluginator is an opinionated scaffolding tool"_). I know what a scaffolding tool is, but I do not know what an "opinionated scaffolding tool" is. The term "opinionated" tends to have an aggressive and negative connotation/association that you might be better off avoiding. ~~~ chrisan > The term "opinionated" tends to have an aggressive and negative > connotation/association that you might be better off avoiding. Opinionated in software is not negative to me. You know going in the author designed the ___ to fit his preferred workflow/goal/stack. For example, opinionated might mean: Doctrime ORM, LESS, and Bootstrap. If he left out the opinionated part I would assume it works with many various things where I could pick Doctrine, Eloquent, Propel etc and choose between LESS or SASS and Foundation vs Bootstrap. This is much like yeoman: [http://yeoman.io/](http://yeoman.io/) > Through our official Generators, we promote the "Yeoman workflow". This > workflow is a robust and opinionated client-side stack, comprising tools and > frameworks that can help developers quickly build beautiful web > applications. We take care of providing everything needed to get started > without any of the normal headaches associated with a manual setup. ~~~ outsourceappz Thanks Chrisan ------ mgkimsal The video shows me nothing of value. There may be value there, but the fact that there's a video I sat through which shows me nothing useful is a potential strike against you. If you're going to have a video, show actual utility beyond "enter your plugin's name". Show structure, show management screens, show ORM code, show... something of actual usefulness. I'm browsing the docs and this looks like it might be useful, but anyone just watching the video definitely won't get that. ~~~ outsourceappz Very good point. I'll get it sorted. Thanks mgkimsal. ~~~ mgkimsal cool. good luck. ------ rememberlenny Are you just charging money for the existing free templates that other developers have made? \- [https://github.com/DevinVinson/WordPress-Plugin- Boilerplate](https://github.com/DevinVinson/WordPress-Plugin-Boilerplate) \- [https://github.com/hlashbrooke/WordPress-Plugin- Template](https://github.com/hlashbrooke/WordPress-Plugin-Template) ~~~ outsourceappz No. Its not just boilerplate. The links you showed above, just create the plugin structure. I've incorporated ORM, database manager, validation etc on top of boilerplate and planning to introduce more functionality on top to make lives easier for plugin developer. Appropriate credits are given [http://www.outsourceappz.com/docs/wordpress- plugin-orm-plus-...](http://www.outsourceappz.com/docs/wordpress-plugin-orm- plus-migrations/4.1/releases#credits) ------ scarecrowbob What does it do that this doesn't (other than add an ORM and migration tool?): [http://wppb.me/](http://wppb.me/) ~~~ outsourceappz I think you've said it. It add functionality on top of a plugin structure. The additional functionality like ORM, migrations, validation, etc etc. Makes life easier for plugin developers. We intend to address other areas where we think we can safe time for developers doing the daily mundane stuff. I've certainly had issues with doing repeat stuff so scratching my own itch. I am sorry, I couldn't convey the benefits much better. Any suggestions you would like to give? ------ punjabisingh It would better if this could integrate (and be listed inside) wp-cli, which is becoming the standard for interfacing with WordPress using cli. ~~~ outsourceappz great point punjabisingh. We will certain consider that option too. We are currently trying to gauge if what we've provided solves a problem for someone. If it becomes successful, we would be very willing to interface with wp-cli.

Bitcoin in America - _pius https://medium.com/@joyce/bitcoin-in-america-120ad2a2dd32 ====== 01Michael10 Here is my thoughts about this post while I patiently wait for my dogecoin from Joyce... It's understood a lot of poor people are not part of the banking financial system but I don't think it's just because they are poor. Most people I think opt out because of general ignorance or are hiding from something (involved in criminal activity, owe child care/alimony, etc). I enjoy a free checking account with no minimum balance and don't have ATM fees if use one of my bank's machines. Overdraft fees? Just don't spend more money then you have in your account. It's not that hard... On digital currency like Bitcoin, I am just not on board yet. It seems to just be a niche thing right now that most people seem into merely for speculation. It's not close to being like a real currency and doubt it will be anytime soon.

Holy Crap, Is This Mark Zuckerberg's Embarrassing Childhood Angelfire Website? - rkudeshi http://gizmodo.com/5993535 ====== fatjokes What's embarrassing about it? It's a 15-year-old's website and it looks cleaner than most of the web from that era. Plus, at least he didn't mention his Asian fetish on this one (unlike his old Synapse website: [0] Off topic, but isn't referring to someone who is presumably his girlfriend as "my Chinese girl" kind of offensive?) [0] <http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/31/zuckerberg-d-angelo/>

Goldman downgrades Microsoft, blames iPad - lotusleaf1987 http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/04/goldman-downgrades-microsoft-blames-ipad/ ====== Groxx 145 words[1] of blogspam. Article it links to: [http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/goldman_downgrades_...](http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/goldman_downgrades_microsoft_says_change_in_cource.html) [1]: from wc -w of copy/paste of the post. ------ jscore Do people trust Goldman? To me it's nothing more than a rigged casino. ------ m0nastic The thing I don't understand is...why change the recommendation now? I don't honestly believe that tablets (which is presently a euphemism for iPad) effect PC sales all that much. If every single person who buys an iPad was otherwise going to buy a Windows Laptop, it still represents a fraction of the number of people who are buying PC's. I don't doubt that PC sales might be flattening, but I think it's curious to blame that on the iPad. I don't think Goldman has the foresight to lower it's recommendation on Microsoft for the future potential of tablets (which could very well end up playing out with Microsoft finally adopting a winning strategy, or fizzle out entirely); so why else? Microsoft's mobile strategy? Which has been a punchline for several years, but is finally looking to at least have the potential for some light at the end of the tunnel. So why the sudden change of heart? ~~~ teyc Until now, it has been generally assumed that WinTel is insurmountable, because of Metcalfe's Law; established software base. Therefore, MS will always continue to reap from the general growth in computer use. The iPad showed that a new class of computers, framed as limited function devices can successfully establish a beachhead in the enterprise, challenging Microsoft's hegemony without having to run Microsoft software. Apple has also succeeded into cultivating a thriving ecosystem of Apple developers. At this stage, all bets are off, and Microsoft has never been so insecure or vulnerable since its early days. ------ code_duck Microsoft hasn't even caught up to the iPhone, much less the iPad. It seems like their cycle includes floundering for several years in between getting important products released. ------ jakarta The thing to keep in mind is that the recommendations by sell side analysts are often very focused on the short term. They are actually pretty bad at telling you where the stock price will actually go -- but the more senior analysts are wonderful as experts on industry-wide trends. ------ jcnnghm At first I didn't really think this was smart because they are very different markets and devices. But then I started thinking, and within 6 years I think I'll have an iPhone with 8 GB of memory, a 2ghz quad-core processor, and 256GB of flash storage. In that case, I don't see why I wouldn't dock that and use full-blown OS X on the desktop, as long as the dock has integrated graphics hardware. I doubt the analysts are thinking that far out, but I'd wager that's where things are going. ------ tzs The article that blog cites doesn't say anything about iPad. ~~~ brlewis "notebook cannibalization from tablets" ------ earl I don't know where I read this, but it does seem like MS got so obsessed with Google and the online advertising market that they sort of forgot about their core markets. Where I would call making good software that runs on devices a core market. Hence they utterly missed the iphone and ipad markets. Because really, those markets where theirs to lose. I wonder if this is just a symptom of a complete lack of imagination in the executive offices at MSFT? It does seem like going after online advertising was just flailing around looking for a market big enough to be relevant to their revenues.

Court limits liability for using tainted code (innocent customer absolved) - grellas http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202457477366&Intel_Off_Hook_for_Buying_Tainted_Software ====== JabavuAdams Judge: "Seldom have so many trees died for so little." ------ ableal I was going to ask for your (grellas) opinion on the case, but I guess it's in the title ... I remember a similar story with EDA software, back in 2000 or so, with Cadence's code in Avanti products. Silvaco is a smaller company. I suppose the point of the suits is that the first baker wanted the customers to buy his pies, or be paid for the pies they should have bought from him. The back story linked ( [http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?i...](http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202447616842) ) said that "Silvaco sued 12 semiconductor companies in 2003 and 2004 that bought CSI software" and seven settled. Don't know how harsh the terms asked were, but it might have gone the other way - apparently the big guys decided it was worth fighting. ~~~ grellas An odd footnote here: I incorporated Silvaco and represented them through about the mid-1990s, though I have not been connected with any of the lawsuit activity described in this article. The style of the company can accurately be described as "aggressive."

Show HN: Popular Web technologies tracked on Twitter in realtime - varunsaini http://popularwebtech.herokuapp.com/ ====== varunsaini I created this project to learn Javascript and Node.js. This is a very basic implementation and I am tracking hashcodes only in lowercase form (#javascript, #css etc). Also lot of people have their name as ruby so number of ruby language are inflated. The project is hosted on Heroku and I will be keep working on it to make it better looking. ------ varunsaini I added New Relic addon and now my app is crashed. new learning...

Sonos's “recycle mode” intentionally bricks devices so they can't be reused - gyger https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1210662988828442624 ====== reeddavid What a total waste. Apparel companies are starting to participate in the secondary market for their used gear, why can't Sonos do something similar? Examples: \- Patagonia Worn Wear ([https://wornwear.patagonia.com](https://wornwear.patagonia.com)) \- REI Used Gear ([https://www.rei.com/used/shop/gear](https://www.rei.com/used/shop/gear)) \- Arc'teryx Rock Solid ([https://rocksolid.arcteryx.com](https://rocksolid.arcteryx.com)) As it stands, Sonos is effectively buying their old speakers and then throwing them away. Could they not recoup their costs and avoid e-waste by simply selling the used Sonos devices into a market that can't afford the brand new ones? I thought this is how most phone trade-in programs worked, which seems like a mature process now. ~~~ wayoutthere Then they would have to continue supporting those devices, which isn’t part of the planned obsolescence business model. It would also dilute the luxury brand halo that Sonos has tried to cultivate. It’s more like Louis Vuitton getting into the secondhand market. They too would (and do) destroy merchandise rather than let it get sold at a discount and dilute the brand value. ~~~ cellularmitosis For a physical device (ie featured-locked upon shipping), “support” amounts to paying the server bill, which is likely negligible. ~~~ kodachi Would be great if you could use your own server, and that the server code was open. ~~~ jjav That's why I stick with the squeezebox ecosystem. Open source server which runs locally. The hardware is long since discontinued (but plentiful and easily available on craigslist etc) and it can never be obsoleted as everything runs locally. ~~~ greyhair Plus Squeeze Network (still free, still working) for Pandora, Spotify, or other network services. Have you tried squeezeplayer on a RPi with a DAC? It works great. I have one alongside my original Squuezebox. They sync perfectly for multiroom audio. With a DAC, it runs fine on a Zero. Cheap. ------ noodlesUK What’s intensely frustrating about this is that audio equipment is one of the few areas where old high end kit is still absolutely fantastic for current users. I have an NAD 3020 from the 1980s which works perfectly with the same pair of speakers that it was bought with. I can’t say the same about other tech, but audio just doesn’t age at the same speed. ~~~ userbinator _I can’t say the same about other tech, but audio just doesn’t age at the same speed._ People's ears have not changed, and the ability to reproduce sound has been nearly perfected. If you're not too picky/audiophillic, like most people, the requirements are even lower. ~~~ jellicle Literally the only "improvements" that are ever going to happen to audio in your lifetime will be a) internetifying it and b) adding more restrictions to how you use it. We've hit peak audio (best reproduction, no restrictions on usage) and it's only downhill from here. I look forward to my 2025 speakers that only work for an hour a day unless I pay for extra time credits. "Do you wish to play a) music b) music and local radio c) music, local radio and podcasts [BEST VALUE]?" ~~~ blackflame What about things like Dolby atmos that use 3D noise wave cancellation/amplification technology to effectively do to surround sound what 3D glasses did for the TV ~~~ atomicthumbs doesn't do a thing for music. ~~~ Dylan16807 It doesn't do anything for "music that happened to be mastered in 2-4 channels". It does plenty for music. ~~~ tripzilch _Produced_ , mixed _and_ mastered. So that's not really plenty of music. ------ crazygringo It seems like a lot of commenters here (as well as the tweets) are totally missing the purpose of the recycle mode. If you want to sell, give away, or otherwise let someone else reuse your Sonos, then _DON 'T PUT IT IN RECYCLE MODE_. Easy peasy. Recycle mode exists for when you _intentionally want to get a Sonos trade-in credit for recycling your speakers for materials_. But because you don't send the speakers directly to Sonos (instead to a local recycler), they have to trust you're actually recycling it instead of keeping it or selling it. So the recycle lock is a clever mechanism to ensure that. Otherwise you could "cheat" by getting the credit AND still using/selling your speakers. So if you want your speakers to be reused... _don 't take the credit!!_ Donate or sell them instead! It's _your choice_. It seems to me like overall it's a good set of incentives. The credit helps encourage people to recycle them at all instead of just throwing them in the trash, right? But doesn't prevent people from otherwise selling or donating them. Since it _gives the consumer all the choice_ , this seems like a win for all sides, no? ~~~ song People understand the purpose of it quite well. They just completely disagree with your analysis. First, the most environmental form of recycling is for an object to be reused as is. So, if any item is given to a recycling center, if the recycling center can just sell it directly to someone else, then it's much more environmentally friendly. Second, the credit doesn't encourage people to recycle them at all instead of throwing it in the trash, there's no verification that they've given it to a recycling center. The only thing is that after the recycling mode is enable, the device becomes a useless paperweight. So it's an extremely environmentally unfriendly policy from a company who pretends they care about the environment. ~~~ whoisjuan > So, if any item is given to a recycling center, if the recycling center can > just sell it directly to someone else, then it's much more environmentally > friendly. I think OP's analysis did cover that. You don't have to put it in the recycle mode. You can sell it yourself or choose not to get the credit so someone else can "Recycle" it by reusing it. I do agree with you that people could still put in the trash, but I also think that's where good recycling programs matter. It shouldn't be hard to recycle an electronic. It should be as simple as recycling paper or glass, especially in an age where almost everything is electronic. ~~~ nialv7 If they really want to encourage reuse of their devices, why would they incentivize the users to turn their devices into unusable trash by giving them credits for doing that? > but I also think that's where good recycling programs matter. However good your recycling program is, it is still going to be _strictly more_ wasteful than simply reusing the device. ~~~ hanniabu > If they really want to encourage reuse of their devices, why would they > incentivize the users to turn their devices into unusable trash by giving > them credits for doing that? It's another alternative. Some people just won't bother trying to resell it. ~~~ zeta0134 This is covered in the Twitter thread. Individual consumers might not go through the hassle, but a recycling center totally will: they tend to have market connections to refurbish used equipment, and prefer that option because they know it's more sustainable than scrapping perfectly good hardware for raw materials. If the device works, and someone else wants it, then it has been recycled very efficiently. Sonos policy here is _backwards._ ------ baybal2 Well, this is where the industry is going. The latest buzzword we hear in the industry is called "product as a service" — you buy a product, but still don't own it. You have to keep paying them for using your own property or else they remotely brick the device. First gen Ipods were a prime example, but now everybody seem to want to do the same. We recently had a prospective client who had an idea of very cheap internet connected Ipod clone, who of course had a "genius business model" of jacking the price n-fold after sale under a threat of remote bricking. I'm very glad we refused. ~~~ walrus01 > Well, this is where the industry is going. The latest buzzword we hear in > the industry is called "product as a service" — you buy a product, but still > don't own it, and have to keep your subscription going so the seller don't > remotely brick your device. This is exactly what Cisco has done in the small/medium sized business market with their acquisition of Meraki. Pay forever or your router and wifi stops working. It's abhorrent. ~~~ smacktoward It's also the direction Microsoft has been slowly moving Windows. You think it'd be bad if your router stopped working when you stopped paying, imagine the same scenario for your operating system. ~~~ hermitdev MS is very aggressive with this in their Windows 10 development VM images you can download. Theyre free, but they only last 3 months. There doesnt appear to be anyway to activate - even if you have a legit license key through my.visualstudio.com. The VM prebuilt with VStudio, Visual Studio Code, WSL w/ Ubuntu and other goodies in a prebuilt image is attractive and a time saver. But, it's immediately on a kill switch timer of about 3 months, if you download while new. Current image expires in Feb 2020. I was using this to connect to work in a VPN in an effort to keep work and personal separate, but I'll have to burn a Win10 license key from my subscription for a new VM. Caveat: the expiration doesnt render the image entirely worthless, but it will only stay up for around 90 mins before shutting down without warning. ~~~ ficklepickle I just take a snapshot then revert after 90 days. Seems to work. I vaguely remember MS docs suggesting this. You can also refresh them with a powershell command a limited number of times IIRC. ~~~ tech234a I think it was in the instructions for using the Internet Explorer/Edge VMs (see page 3): [https://az792536.vo.msecnd.net/vms/release_notes_license_ter...](https://az792536.vo.msecnd.net/vms/release_notes_license_terms_8_1_15.pdf) ------ echelon This could go very bad for Sonos. Imagine a virus that looks for Sonos devices on a network and bricks them all via "recycle mode"! The API probably isn't even locked down. I think it's unauthenticated SOAP/UPnP. An even dumber attack: guests with your wifi credentials can download the Sonos app and break your gear. It's entirely unauthenticated. ~~~ throwaway100773 Im in the market for sound equipment. I just crossed these guys off my list. ~~~ davidjhall I'm curious what you would recommend instead. Everyone is listing speakers they bought decades ago but what are the latest non-sonos speakers that people like? ~~~ Doji Don't buy smart speakers. Just buy regular speakers. Then you can plug them into whatever you like, run whatever software you like (e.g. pi musicbox) etc. So you actually own them, and they should serve you well for many years, for whatever you may need. Also don't buy soundbars. Speakers don't want to be long and skinny. You'll end up paying a lot more for a lot less sound. Also consumer grade speakers are often more expensive for crappier sound. Look into professional models, like studio monitors. For example, JBL 305PMKII. You may be able to find a local store where you can listen to studio monitors before purchasing. ~~~ mark-r I've found Guitar Center to be a good place to check out and buy monitor speakers and headphones. ~~~ Cougher I don't know if it still applies, but studio speakers used to be notorious for bad sound. I would also hope that you wouldn't be considering guitar amp-type speakers as well. ~~~ peapicker Depends on what you spend. Good studio monitors should have fairly flat response across the audio spectrum and most tend to be Near-field monitors which sound absolutely great when you are positioned in front of them as you would for mixing, but don’t sound quite as good when used as a general room speaker. Mind you they are often still better than many peoples setups just the same. The ones that are not Near field can work even better for a general audio situation but tend to cost even more. Some studio monitors like the popular KRK series are not flat response and are a bit bass heavy. ~~~ Cougher This is why I said that studio speakers *used to be notorious for . . .". Recording studios were notorious for having bad sounding speakers. ------ starsinspace So Sonos devices need "activation" via some server on the internet? Why? If I just want to stream audio within my own home, why is internet even necessary? And what happens when Sonos goes out of business and the servers are shut down? I just don't understand why people keep buying such things... ~~~ Al-Khwarizmi They seem to be one of the few brands that give good audio quality and modern convenience at the same time. For example, I was looking for a device that would (1) be placeable on my living room furniture[1], and let me use a couple of trusty Monitor Audio speakers both (2) for playing music (e.g. from my phone, computer or streaming sources like Spotify) and (3) for TV audio, as those speakers sound much better than a modern soundbar. And that (4) could be expandable to surround sound in the future. I painstakingly examined alternatives in the market. There were many devices that covered the three latter points but the overwhelming majority were AV receivers, which looked great from the audio and flexibility standpoint but were at least 30 cm deep. Not useful for me, as the furniture in my living room is 28 cm deep (wasn't the point of flat screen TVs to no longer need deep furniture taking lots of space in the living room?). I found like 5 or 6 devices that would physically fit. But most of them had no flexibility for surround expansion AND no WiFi, only Bluetooth playback. Finally, only two devices ticked my boxes and physically fit: HEOS AVR (around €1000, 27.4 cm deep) and Sonos Amp (around €600, 21.69 cm deep) which wasn't even out yet. Since 27.4 cm deep was still quite dubious for my 28-cm-deep furniture, I finally waited for the Sonos to come out and bought it. Sonos wasn't especially on my radar, as a relatively traditional audio amateur it's not a brand I trusted, but there they were, the only ones offering the product I wanted. And indeed, it works well, it powers my speakers nicely enough and it's very convenient. I'm watching the TV, want to stream something from Spotify: TV audio is automatically muted. I stop listening to Spotify: TV audio comes back. Why no one else has made a device that can provide good TV audio and good music playback in a shallow form factor still escapes me. I don't think my requirements were so weird, in freaking 2018. [1] Sorry, I'm missing the specific English word for the specific piece of furniture in the living room where one has a bunch of books, CDs, mixed souvenirs and the TV, so I'll just call it "the living room furniture". ~~~ WiseWeasel I feel like 30cm max depth is going to be a problem for most audio gear. So- called compact ones seem to optimize for height, with depth around 40cm [1], and the shallower ones [2, 3] seem to be around 31-33cm. Get a deeper console? [1] [https://www.crutchfield.com/S-JPQM9erNVfS/p_642NR1609/Marant...](https://www.crutchfield.com/S-JPQM9erNVfS/p_642NR1609/Marantz- NR1609.html) [2] [https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-7-2-ch-with-dolby- atmos-4k...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-7-2-ch-with-dolby- atmos-4k-ultra-hd-a-v-home-theater-receiver-black/6219445.p) [3] [https://www.crutchfield.com/S-5ZKPlNFrS4r/p_022RXV585/Yamaha...](https://www.crutchfield.com/S-5ZKPlNFrS4r/p_022RXV585/Yamaha- RX-V585.html) ~~~ Al-Khwarizmi So that's precisely my point: convenience. My option was: \- Bend over backwards to buy from other audio brands, by throwing away my perfectly functional and nice designer furniture and replacing it with something deeper, that would take more space, probably be (IMHO) uglier and fit the room worse, and annoy my partner who doesn't care for audio as much as I do. \- Buy the Sonos Amp because it does the job while being small and fitting my existing furniture without further ado. It was an easy choice... I understand and respect that in homes where audio is a really high priority, they will plan the room around it and have deep enough furniture. On the other extreme, people who don't care much about audio just are happy buying any of the multiple sound bars in the market that fit anywhere. But if you are in the middle ground, i.e. you want a compromise between good audio quality and convenience, it seems that Sonos is practically the only brand that cares. At least in the case of an amp/receiver, that's the case, as I explained. And I suppose this is an important component of Sonos's success (and what surprises me is that others don't do the same...). ------ tasty_freeze About 8(?) years ago my wife tasked me to get a whole-house audio system that was simple to use. After reading a lot, sonos was the clear choice, though pricey. We started with two play:3's, then added a play:5 and two more play:3's. And things were good. But for the past year the system has been a mess. Music stutters, some units can't be found, some units fail to upgrade through multiple retries/reboots. I've wasted so many hours relocating them and connecting the misbehaving units to an ethernet cable trying to get them to update. Eventually things get working again after hours of blind tinkering, but then a month or two later it happens again. My wife looks to me as the tech guy to solve it, but it is far more opaque to debug then when PCs misbehave. Yes, I know about the secret diag menus and login, but they don't really help me. The point is: my wife resents that the system doesn't work, and I resent that I've wasted so much time and my wife thinks I'm shirking because every time it comes up I groan and put off the pain of getting it working again. I won't brick these -- I'll find some use case where they do work, but I'll get some other system to make my wife happy, even if it means spending another $1200+. ~~~ haimez Honestly, sounds like you need a better wireless router or need to add a (few) repeater(s). ~~~ tasty_freeze Sonos speakers form an ad-hoc mesh network. Although I know that I get > 50 Mbps to every spot in my house where there is a speaker, it shouldn't matter. If the router to sonos #1 gets a signal, as long as sonos #2 is in range of sonos #1, sonos #2 should be served even if it can't see the router. ------ jakobegger I was going to buy a Sonos speaker, but this changed my mind. I'm not buying a device that was built to be bricked. I would have bought a Sonos instead of an Apple Homepod because I thought they were more "open". But if the manufacturer can just make my device useless, I'm not interested. Audio and Hifi gear is extremely versatile and virtually everything is compatible. High end devices easily last for decades. This feature makes it clear that Sonos has no intention of following that tradition. ~~~ kristianc > I would have bought a Sonos instead of an Apple Homepod because I thought > they were more "open". But if the manufacturer can just make my device > useless, I'm not interested. Nope, it’s just iOS updates that brick HomePods. ~~~ kirstenbirgit That was a bug, not a 'feature' like Recycle Mode. ~~~ kristianc Incidentally, iOS has a remote kill switch as a feature too. ------ BorisTheBrave So, Sonos optionally lets you brick your own device, as part of their Trade Up program that gives a discount on your next device. It's named Recycle mode as, presumably, all the bricked devices are good for is recycling. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping users from selling their speakers on - they just forgo the Trade Up discount. The poster's point that this cuts down on re-use of perfectly good products is true, but it doesn't seem that much different to other trade in programs, e.g. Apple's. The difference seems to be that Sonos leave the burden of actually recycling the product (or not) to the user, while Apple does it for you. ~~~ rkochman I assume Apple and other companies sell the used products to liquidators who refurbish and resell them. Is that not true? ~~~ londons_explore > I assume Apple and other companies sell the used products to liquidators who > refurbish and resell them. Is that not true? For high brand value goods, generally no. Goods are crushed to become unserviceable. It's important to do that to maintain brand image, otherwise floods of not-very-old iPhones end up on ebay for $10, and the image of an iPhone as something that lasts and has resale value is shattered. High end clothing manufacturers will even destroy brand new, never worn clothes to maintain brand image, because they don't want them sitting in the bargain bin looking 'cheap'. It isn't as bad for the environment as it sounds - the vast majority of the costs in a $1000 iPhone are engineering, IP, licensing, manufacturing, capital and marketing costs. The actual metal and plastic is worth hardly anything, so destroying it isn't a big loss. Even the manufacturing cost is near zero because after launch day of a specific model, the marginal cost to produce one more phone is pretty much zero because production lines are rarely still at capacity. ~~~ rarecoil > The actual metal and plastic is worth hardly anything, so destroying it > isn't a big loss. Even the manufacturing cost is near zero because after > launch day of a specific model, the marginal cost to produce one more phone > is pretty much zero because production lines are rarely still at capacity. A big loss economically, maybe, but in terms of energy/carbon losses, to say it's more efficient to just crush the thing and make a new one seems false. You've pushed from number 1 on the Reuse->Reduce->Recycle->Recover->Landfill to steps 3 and 4, and then created a new iPhone in its place. Throughout its life, a single iPhone 11 Pro Max is 86 kg CO2e [1]. The XS Max that existed and is crushed to "preserve brand value" is 77 kg CO2e [2] in footprint. Just in manufacturing costs alone, you are creating more CO2e creating the new one than the XS Max did, and taking the XS Max out-of-life early. We are not taking into account you now get to recycle the XS Max or just dump it in landfill. Destruction of an existing item for "brand value" is _not_ the correct environmental answer. [1] [https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone...](https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_11_Pro_Max_PER_sept2019.pdf) [2] [https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone...](https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_XS_Max_PER_sept2018.pdf) ~~~ ClumsyPilot I am with you on the ethics side, but he is correct, impact is immaterial, and your numbers confirm it the typical impact of a person, a year, is measured in tons of CO2, 90 kg amounts to like a few days of heating or a festive dinner, or filling up your car tank. However, if they are not recycled and the materials end up in plastic pollution, heavy metal poisoning, or other damage, that's a whole different story. ~~~ emayljames No, I'd say the real elephant in the room is that the vast majority of pollution is caused by industry. Example: the US military is the worlds largest polluter. ------ userbinator If there's a demand, someone industrious will likely figure out a hack --- I hope. Server-side _blacklisting_ (unlike whitelisting) doesn't stop someone from simply changing whatever unique ID they have to a different one. I can even see repair shops doing this service for those who accidentally bricked their devices. This reminds me of a related situation I've seen with electric toothbrushes --- they have instructions on how to remove the battery "for recycling", which is deliberately designed to make the unit self-destruct in the process (by e.g. making the plastic thin and fragile, and the wires brittle and easily broken), but others have figured out how to use those same instructions to open it up and replace the cells at a fraction of the cost of a new unit. The fact that nothing needs to be broken to replace them, and that it could be trivially designed to make that job much easier, clearly demonstrates planned obolescence. ~~~ Hackbraten I disagree. Electric toothbrushes need to be 100 % waterproof to be usable safely. If I were a toothbrush manufacturer, I’d at least look into making the brush self-destruct when opened, for safety reasons (and safety reasons alone). ~~~ jstanley What about an electric toothbrush is unsafe if it is not 100% waterproof? ~~~ jdnenej You might feel a minor tingle on your tongue if the battery connects to it somehow ------ jacquesm Sonos had a fair shot at having me as a customer. I was ready to put down money on an installation for a house and then I found out it needed 'activation over the internet'. That being _the_ sign of a company to avoid I walked out again, to the consternation of the sales person who had (his words, not mine): "Never had a customer decide against Sonos because of that". Looks like I made the right call. ~~~ foogazi What setup did you end up with? >"Never had a customer decide against Sonos because of that" as long as customers don’t care neither will Sonos ~~~ jacquesm Homebrew. ------ cissou Am I misunderstanding something? Once in recycle mode you're supposed to send them back so that Sonos can actually recycle (or even reuse, nothing stops them from refurbishing) the old device. Recycle mode seems to simply be a convenience so that people can get the 30% rebate immediately once they've shown they're serious about sending back the device. What sucks is that you have to trade up to recycle, if they offered some buy back program it'd be near perfect, right? ~~~ JonathonW Sonos doesn't take back the used devices: they expect users to give them to a local electronics recycler for recycling, where they essentially _have_ to be scrapped, because devices in "recycle mode" are blacklisted in Sonos's servers and can't be resold (even if they're in perfect working order). ------ alkonaut I wish someone would start making little add-on boards you could put into your Sonos products to bypass the onboard hardware and use your own. Just re-use the amp, speakers. I built my own spotify receiver using an rpi with a hifiberry add on which worked perfectly. If someone built even simpler custom made Sonos play:5 boards I’d be less reluctant to buy more of them as I fear they may be expensive bricks if Sonos fails. ------ baybal2 Apple pays Chinese "recyclers" for not to refurbishing their I-stuff, and sending it to a crusher. That's not a big secret in the industry. A lot of luxury goods brands destroy their unsold merchandise, and some even go Apple style after their second hand market too. ~~~ squarefoot "A lot of luxury goods brands destroy their unsold merchandise" This also happens since probably forever with fruit and vegetables if they're unsold or in overproduction. The reason is to keep prices fixed by artificially reducing the offer. ~~~ userbinator Fruit and vegetables and other perishable goods will effectively self-destruct if unsold anyway, so I don't see that as being quite as bad as deliberate destruction of product that would otherwise last indefinitely. ~~~ TeMPOraL If what I remember about the Great Depression from my history lessons is correct, the picture becomes quite different when you have farmers and vendors destroying food to keep the price up next to masses of people starving because they can't afford the food. ~~~ squarefoot That was my point. It still happens everywhere, which I find disgusting. ------ S_A_P Hey everyone. I get that Sonos does have some value add here allowing mesh networking and encrypted audio. Buuuuuuuuuut, there are tons of alternative options. I like building speakers and I have built my sound bar using components from parts express and some reclaimed hard woods. Parts express has tons of Bluetooth options and the quality is mostly pretty good. I am using morel and peerless drivers and the 2x50 watt Bluetooth amp. The sound is as good or better than any sound bar I’ve heard and I don’t have to update software or deal with obnoxious TOS agreements. My tv connects to it without issues and while it’s not as elegant as the Sonos experience but I will take that over planned obsolescence. ------ iforgotpassword Ok, this seems _really_ disgusting. The post was lacking some context at first but from how I understand this, you can render your sonos device unusable voluntarily and in turn get a new sonos device for a little cheaper. This happens by marking the serial number of your device on the sonos servers as "recycled" making reactivation impossible. And they're somehow marketing this "feature" as environmentally friendly because it somehow in some twisted sense means you recycle your old device for a new one. I'm speechless. ~~~ alasdair_ Seems ripe for a hacking attempt. Being able to kill hardware with software always seems dangerous. ~~~ katmannthree According to the twitter thread their ``recycle mode'' works by blacklisting the device's serial number in the mfg's database to prevent it from working, so depending on what you want to do with them they might be perfectly functional. ~~~ IanCal That sounds like Sonos can easily reactivate them, right? That's not a bricking, is it? ~~~ oh_sigh They've refused to remove people from the blacklist who have accidentally put the devices into recycle mode ~~~ xp84 That really says a lot. I've seen plenty of companies who would have to tell you tough luck, no exceptions if you have a device which is "accidentally" on like a stolen blacklist (take iCloud activation lock for example), since if they have the ability to ever bend the rules, it'll be exploited by thieves -- but the funny part here is that 100% of the devices in "recycled" status are just there because Sonos gave someone a coupon, so the only "reason" for a zero-tolerance policy against reactivation in any circumstances is revenue protection. Disgusting. ------ allthecybers This is shocking. Why do I need to have a recycle mode on a speaker? Oh because it’s a WiFi connected, smart speaker that collects and stores data on me. We recently read about Apple devices being bricked in the recycling process because of Find My, but that makes sense, because it’s a personal computer or phone where I intentionally store personal data. And I’d much rather err on the side of that data not getting out. But seriously Sonos, this is dumb. To intentionally brick devices that could be perfectly functional for someone else is honestly bad for the planet and business. Glad I’ve never bought a Sonos and now I never will. ------ noonespecial Sounds like an opportunity to score some decent physical hardware for a song. It could become a brand new hacker brand. "Noson". Fix the device via jag to talk to an open source server like an own cloud plugin. ------ dcow The dumbest thing is that if I can sell my old Sonos rather than trash them in recycle mode then I am _more_ likely to upgrade sooner since the sale of my used hardware can also help subsidize the upgrade regardless of whether Sonos offers me credit or not. And now Sonos has an additional user of their product (which in turn markets the product and is likely to build loyalty assuming the product isn’t shit) _and_ a new hardware sale. I am willing to bet Sonos needs both growth of their user base and needs to demonstrate that some core percentage of their customers regularly upgrade on a ~5yr purchase cycle. And it doesn’t actually cost Sonos anything (relative to the BOM for a device) to handle the compute for the extra user so it’s not like the person upgrading is making off with anything of additional value to Sonos. So take the environmental concerns out of the picture: this is just short sighted nooby business. This smells like some program cooked up by a hot shot MBA type that the executive team trusts to tweak the business because they don’t shut up about needing to focus on type of numbers investors care about. Never mind they don’t know the first thing about building a decent product. And to make it worse they’re probably actually convinced they’re helping the environment. ------ Trias11 Light bulb manufacturers goes to great extents to artifically shorten lifestyle of bulbs. I adjusted to that by keeping bulb receipts. Then buying new ones to replace failing ones. Then coming 3 weeks later to get refund or credit for failed ones. Putting pressure on retailers to stop carrying crappy products. I know it's not exactly audio stuff but manufacturers engaging in misleading to the point of fraudulent practices need to be dealt with. ------ dcow I wonder what’s going to happen after they get a bunch of, “my kid turned on recycle mode now I have a brick plz halp” support calls... ~~~ jbigelow76 Probably the same thing that happened, and mostly in the same frequency as happened, 6 months ago. This article highlights the shittiness of Sonos's "implementation" of a recycle program, not the customer's experience or results (discounted purchases of new products) of initiating the program. ------ maweki Why is that not incredibly illegal? ~~~ Eikon Because that's not going to be argued like that in court. It may not be _that_ hard to say that's its for: \- Preventing "counterfeiting" as in people salvaging their PCBs to put on "rogue" devices. \- Protecting their brand name as a "rogue" device may misrepresent what a proper sonos product actually is. \- Preventing misuse of the account that was registered on the device, hence protecting their customers personal data. \- Customers only use this mode when a product is not repairable. That's the power of having a strong legal departement, pretty much anything can be argued even when everyone knows the real intent. When such things are done properly, it's really hard to prove the intent hence, the risk is pretty low of being fined anything. ~~~ dogma1138 Customers can’t use this mode when the product is not repairable in most cases as the SOC which is the only irreparable component needs to be fully functional. If your device cannot boot you can’t put it into recycle mode. This mode is designed for one thing only and that is to disable perfectly working devices. IIRC the device also needs to be within its warranty period for you to use recycle mode. ------ fjni There was never any appeal to me in a speaker which is so tightly coupled with software. I don’t see those still working in 10+ years. Whereas there’s plenty of old hifi setups still being used. The fact that the software has an intentional bricking mechanism in it just makes this more apparent. ------ lvturner Not super familiar with Sonos, but why do they 'need' to connect to a server in order to work at all? Do they bundle in some kind of subscription streaming service or something? I always thought they were just wireless speakers that I used locally on my own network... ------ tripzilch I experienced a similar thing when I helped a friend install LineageOS on their bootlooped Android phone. Apparently, this process would have been 10x easier if they had switched on "OEM unlocking" in the Developer Options setting (which you can't do from the boot menu, recovery menu or via adb), which is off by default for a very stupid reason. We were successful in the end, but it was a LOT of hassle. So, when you switch on "OEM unlocking", you get a warning that it's "for protection against thieves". Like, a thief would steal your phone and it's encrypted and locked, but because "OEM unlocking" is off they can't simply wipe it and reinstall to re-sell, or something. So to them it's a brick and therefore they wouldn't have stolen your phone I guess. Except if they spend some effort they can totally cleanly reinstall the thing, it just takes more steps. Maybe I'm missing some part here about how this "OEM unlocking" option supposedly protects against theft, but for me it was a simple sum. Number of times my phone got stuck in a boot loop: 3, number of times my phone got stolen: 0. So I set that to unlocked, now I'll have an easier time if I ever mess up my phone again. The only real reason I can think of is that they WANT your phone to stay bricked/bootlooped when it's bricked, and be unable to fix and repair it. It has nothing to do with theft, it's just a way to make sure the device stays disabled when it's disabled, and to make you buy another new phone. Additionally, I got nothing but happy comments about LineageOS from my friend. You can really tell in the feel of the entire system the difference between what it means to be a user (normal software) or to be the product (like in Android or any of the Google/Facebook/Apple systems). Just by what options you're given and the fact that applications actually behave _at your service_ instead of nagging you while you're trying to accomplish a task. I'm not really happy about how Android 9 is running on my moto-g6, so I think I'm gonna make that switch soon as well. You don't even need to root the phone to do this, but it's a choice (I think I'm going to root it though). ~~~ jdnenej I got hit by this same issue. We had a few spare phones at work in a draw and I wanted to give them to friends in need of a phone. Had permission from the company but no one knew who owned them or what the password was. I did the manual factory reset from the recovery but was hit by this "security" feature. I eventually managed to track down the original owner and had them unlock the devices. If I hadn't, these phones would be ewaste. What bothers me is the solution is simple, when a manual factory reset is done, have the phone ping google and start a 1 week countdown. Google can then email the original owner and ask if they have had their phone stolen. If they reply yes then the phone is locked. If they reply no or have no response then the phone unlocks. ~~~ tripzilch Apparently you can still wipe and reset and reinstall the phones even with "OEM unlock" switched off. At least, we managed to pull it off. But it took about half a day of trying and retrying random things from threads on forum.xda-developers.com. Sorry I can't be more specific, it becomes a bit of a blur after the 5th time :-p ~~~ jdnenej If you do a reset from recovery and not the settings app it locks it down with android factory reset protection and the phone is bricked until the original owner enters their google password. ~~~ tripzilch Oh that might be it then, they still had their google account (or the TFA backup codes printed). Either way it seems sensible to do the OEM unlocking, just in case. Still stupid that it can brick the phone if you don't have that password. ------ wiggles_md IIRC Logitech used to do this with warranty replacements on Harmony remotes—don’t know if they still do. It made purchasing one used risky. ~~~ drewg123 They did this, but the blacklist only prevents the remote from getting updates from the cloud.. it does not brick the device, and it can continue to use its current config. Or at least that's how it used to be. I have a harmony that I bought in 2009-ish, and the provided "batteries included" exploded in the first few days of ownership and made a huge mess. I wrote them a complaint, and they sent me a new remote. When I activated the new one, the old one stopped taking updates. Amusingly, there is an open source tool that can pull a config from one harmony and flash it to another. The replacement was actually slightly inferior (mushy keys), and so I'd program the replacement, back up the config, and restore it to the original. ------ jessriedel If the devices become useless, how is this any different from Sonos just offering customers "trade-in" value for their old devices (like for used cars) and then throwing them out? Just that the device doesn't get physically mailed to Sonos? Like if you think it's just spiritually bad to throw working things out, fine. But how is Sonos doing wrong by the customer? ~~~ atomicthumbs Used cars don't get thrown out when they're traded in. And it's not "spiritually bad," it's actively destructive to the environment. Manufacturing things requires a great deal of energy. ~~~ userbinator Well, there was this, fortunately short-lived... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System) ------ bborud I have a sonos speaker at my cabin and while the audio isn’t bad the spotty wifi coverage and the choppy audio that keeps dropping out when I listen to Audible at 1.25 to 1.5 speed is annoying. It just isn’t a very good product in my eyes. I have cheap Bluetooth speakers that work much better. So I would be interested in “upcycling” the Sonos with new innards. Time to watch some teardown videos to see what can be done. ------ sizzle Is there no way to fake the Sonos server and reauthenticate the bricked device offline or tear it down and bypass any logic chips and get at the speaker hardware directly, create an analog 3.5mm jack input and play music from it manually? Would love to see the folks at hackaday or somewhere else exploit the recycle mode hardware. ------ sitkack Dear lazy web, is there something like the sonos that is open source that makes the same synchronized sound field (I dont own a sonos, I assume that is what they do)? I believe I could hack something up using an ESP32, a microphone and/or a GNSS receiver, but does this already exist? ~~~ SanchoPanda Logitech media server. Run LMS on one pi or a docker container, and then onother pi zeros run Squeezelite. The entirety of the installation on the receiving devices is ` sudo apt install squeezelite`. It has been game changing for me. ------ jimbob45 To piggyback off this week's hate of MBAs, it seems likely some idiot MBA determined that the company was losing exorbitant amounts of money from secondhand sales of their devices such that they had to implement this ridiculous initiative. ------ martin_bech Im just reminded that the fashion industry does somewhat the same.. they litterally set fire to unsold clothes, to protect the brand and margins. ------ layoutIfNeeded >From what our eBay guy can tell, the bricking isn't even in hardware; you can't recover it if you're good with JTAG, because it's blacklisted as "recycled" on their servers. Yet another reason to never own anything "smart". I wonder how difficult would it be to strip out the Sonos smart crap from these speakers and connect a Raspberry W to the preamp? ------ greyhair I wish they would sell them at a reduced price just as powered speakers, to people that would just like to use them as powered speakers. No support provided, just a website where you could click and order. There are a number of people that would be more than happy and able to repurpose an old Sonus speaker that no longer operated as a Sonus speaker. ------ throwaway887665 I found out about the perils of depending on specific apps, cloud or something like that when gave a toy to girlfriend and now we can't play anymore because the app wasn't updated to the latest Android. Literally we would tell the manufacturer to introduce it in specific places to tell us if it is usefull without remote control ------ Jemm Best reason not to buy a Sonos product. ~~~ mycall Or mod it ------ chaboud This seems like it's for a trade-up/upgrade program, which would traditionally be: 1) Customer boxes up device. 2) Customer mails device to manufacturer. 3) Manufacturer hits it with a hammer, ensuring that they don't have to compete with their own used device after the customer has been given a credit for it. So, instead, we have: A) Customer starts bricking process. B) Customer recycles device locally. C) Local electronics recycler hits device with a hammer because it has self bricked, ensuring that the manufacturer doesn't have to compete with their own used device after the customer has been given a credit for it. So we've removed disposable packaging and fuel for shipping. It seems like a net win for the environment. They're going to do their trade in program. They can either do it the traditional way or do it this way, having a slightly lower adverse environmental impact. Leaving the device functional is not on the menu, and acting like it is is intentionally obtuse. ------ tardo99 Yes it's a waste. I also find it genuinely funny. Not sure why. Just tickles me. ------ tempsy If there’s one company I’d bet on being acquired next year it’s probably Sonos. Even with a 30-50% premium it’s a small buy for any of the big cos who want to increase market share in home device market. ------ philpem What an absolute and utter waste. On the other hand: I'd rather like to get hold of a bricked Sonos. I'd stick a Raspberry Pi, DAC and speaker amp inside it. Be free of the shackles of the cloud, my child! ------ kevmo This is a common tactic in America's industrial products. ~~~ antoinevg Oh believe you me, after decades of this kind of crap us non-Americans have become quite cautious about buying American products! ------ ivanhoe I'm very much DIY guy and hate it when companies block users from doing whatever they want with their equipment, but this is a special case. User gets the discount from Sonos for recycling the old equipment, and thus user doesn't own it anymore. It belongs to Sonos now as they bought it back, and of course they don't want it resold half-price by 3rd party, it's a competition to their new products. To me it seems perfectly legit, as long as you get a discount for that. And the equipment can still be recycled and resold for parts, they don't block that. ~~~ Wowfunhappy It makes sense for Sonos. It’s also environmentally terrible. ------ mavhc Step 1: convince your customers to brick their own devices. Step 2: buy back now worthless, and thus cheap, devices. Step 3: unbrick, resell, profit ~~~ rabbidruster If they did step two it wouldn't be nearly as bad. ~~~ mavhc Well, you'd have to do it secretly, buy them back from the recyclers ------ zhrvoj Ooooo what a sustainable behaviour... Next step is to schedule Recycle mode. Then we will have to hack the gadget not to do that. My friend she is using Sony android phone from 2013, she disabled google apps long ago, I did some things, and for average user like she is, it is perfect, fast and responsive, Whapp, Viber, calls, camera...spending money on travelling, not on manufacturer's jerking-gadgets. I presume Sony and other manufacturers don't like us to much. Frankly, I don't give a damn... ------ kyberias Sonos speaker owner here. Has there been any efforts in reverse engineering how the devices work and having an open source firmware? ------ monocasa Oh man, I would absolutely take one of these off anyone's hands if they have one to hack on. Would pay for shipping. ------ vkaku I'll be happy to flash a build of Snapcast on my Sonos speakers and do away with their software for good. ------ floatingatoll Is this a violation of US resale rights? ~~~ gruez Why would it be? It was done in exchange for a 30% discount. Scummy or not, it has clear elements of a contract. ------ gok > Someone recycled five of these Sonos Play:5 speakers. They're worth $250 > each, used, and these are in good condition. They could easily be reused. Then the owner should have sold (given?) them as-is, rather than trying to double dip by telling Sonos they were going to recycle them for parts (for which they pay you $120) then not doing so. ~~~ bathtub365 The owner did try to recycle them for parts, by giving them to the recycling centre. ~~~ gok I now see what's going on...the OP claims to be running an e-recycling center but actually takes "donations" and sells them for a profit instead. ~~~ philcrump My understanding has always been that e-recycling centers have to pay to responsibly dispose of the junk they collect / are given, and they fund this by sorting through it for any equipment that can be refurbished or cannibalised and sold for re-use. There's nothing nefarious about this. ~~~ bathtub365 Me too. I’m dropping stuff off at a recycling centre because I have no use for it anymore. If they can find a use for it, that makes me happy. It’s the same reason I’d rather donate stuff to charity or drop it off at a thrift store for them to sell than throw it in the trash. ------ mrinfinite sonos is the worst. They sell speakers without an audio input (last time i checked)... and can only be controlled/used by sonos software... homey dont play that. but i am disillusioned with itunes as well... wah ------ sm4rk0 That's why I prefer buying hardware and service (if any) unbundled. ------ topmonk As a programmer, if someone asked me to do this, I would walk out. ------ neya I am an audio engineer and this is going to be a long thread. TLDR; I hate companies like Sonos. They add no value to people who know about audio. You see, everything about speakers is really simple. From the way they work to the way they're made. There's really just 4 pieces to make a speaker system. The speaker, power supply, amplifier and a pre-amplifier to modify the sound (eg. DSP, Equalizer, etc.) That's why if you search on the used market today, you'll still see equipment from companies like Aiwa/Sony from the 80s and 90s simply because these speakers can be re-used even now as you can connect anything to them before the pre-amplifier and they'll still reproduce your source (iPod/TV/Computer/whatever). I posses a 40 year old Aiwa system that still functions flawlessly today like brand new. This is also possible today because speakers themselves can last so much longer. More than 40 years as you can tell. All companies like Sonos do is add just another layer before the pre-amplifier stage - which is to make the speaker "smart". This is usually all those wifi chips and bluetooth and Google assistant and what not. This is the proprietary part of their system. Normally, you are able to throw away this proprietary part and still use the speaker system. But, in pursuit of more sales, to reduce the lifespan of a perfectly fine speaker system to simply increase revenues is the most hardcore, cruel thing one can do. Sonos' speakers are so bad that many models aren't even serviceable. Meaning, you can't open them like you could on those Aiwa's and Sony's and put them back together. Once taken apart, they're useless. They use tons of glue, proprietary shaped screws sometimes even wire the speakers in such a way that they'll damage the units if you try to take them off. They purposely do this so their speakers can't be used anymore without damaging the appearance. That's why I will any day buy a mediocre music system from Sony or LG than buy trash like Sonos. First of all, I know the quality of components they use is not that great. They use ordinary stamped steel, sometimes plastic baskets for their driver units as opposed to high quality aluminium construction. Paper diaphragms too. Their units don't even have proper crossover circuitry in some models. And besides, the drivers they use are actually based off rebranded generic Chinese, just tweaked a bit. They're very good at fooling people pretending to be an audiophile company. In reality, they're not even half as close to the stuff from the 80's and 90's. So, having ranted this, there's literally no reason to support such terrible ethics backed company simply for the sake of their profits. Fuck Sonos and get a Sony (or whatever else you like that doesn't do this). This is not just for the environment, but to set a full stop to such terrible practices. The audio land is already so full of snake oil already that the last thing we need is another snake oil sales man like Sonos. ------ iamaelephant If you buy a LAN or WAN connected speaker you're a dumb guy. No exceptions. ------ duelingjello Smdh. Consumerism at it's finest wastefulness. ------ HocusLocus Gone Missing: mindless rage, scandal, foreboding, nausea and disgust at what the future may bring if a trend is not stopped in its tracks. Emerging, Rising: apologist arguments that equate compromise and degeneration of tools made out of a sense of personal cleverness, finding that one-use case where the trend might 'save the planet' or at least present it as such, winning the debate among like minds. ~~~ HocusLocus It's getting to where if I fail to get downvoted here, I wonder if I've stated my point clearly.

How Python implements super long integers? – Python Internals - arpitbbhayani https://arpitbhayani.me/blogs/super-long-integers ====== unmdplyr The right way to make that comparison would be using libgmp or libmpfr to begin with. No? Not by using machine integers/floats. This blog just compared apples to oranges and concluded apples are tastier.

Ask HN: Better to use Javascript or CSS - dillon I have a lot of animations to fulfill on my website, right now I'm doing pure CSS for these animations. Is it better to use CSS or is it better to use Jquery? ====== karlclement Hello there, I would have to agree with symmet, you need both. This way if a user doesn't have a recent version of Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera you can have jQuery to fall back on. -You can use browser detection to conditionally enable jQuery scripts on page load. You can use Javascript/jQuery or a server-side script to detect exactly which browser is loading the page. -You can also check out <http://www.modernizr.com/>. It adds classes to the html element which allow you to target specific browser functionality in your stylesheet. Let me know if you need any help with that, Good luck! Karl ~~~ hypotenuse I agree. Here's a Javascript snippet I saw recently that is a useful start for doing this (read the comments for some ideas of what you may or may not need to modify): [http://www.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/2011/a-jquery- functi...](http://www.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/2011/a-jquery-function-to- animate-using-css3-transitions-if-possible-with-the-animate-fallback/) ------ symmet My approach is to do everything in CSS animations for browsers that support it, and then fall back to jQuery animations for those that don't. CSS animations can take advantage of hardware graphics acceleration and they render very nicely on mobile browsers. So, my answer is: both. ------ jet3june Both and several other javascript frameworks

Track Santa with Google Maps - flowerpot http://www.google.com/santatracker/#/tracker/dashboard ====== littlemerman This is pretty fun.

Threewords.me is up for private auction - mhunter http://sale.threewords.me/ ====== BrandonWatson If anyone ever questions the value of the idea versus the value of execution, use this as a cuationary tale. Here's my post outlining this very idea from 2 years ago: <http://www.manyniches.com/n00b-notes/my3words/> 2 years. I even registered the domain my3words.com. What did I do with it? Not much. I have no idea if Mark saw my post or not. I kind of hope he did, so that I can feel a little better about not executing. That maybe I inspired him. However, that doesn't change the bottom line. He executed. Worth-ful. I had the idea, but didn't execute. Worthless. Hats off to Mark. ~~~ pizzaman The whole "ideas are worth nothing" never made a lot of sense. ~~~ Charuru I never got the hacker obsession with idea vs execution. It seems fairly obvious to me that you need both to succeed? ~~~ Natsu Most of us have plenty of ideas and not enough time to execute most of them. So we're more impressed when someone shows us something cool that's actually usable rather than another article about how someone had a vague idea for a cool thing that's supposed to become practical in another 10 years, but which we doubt will ever actually get produced. In short, it's a lot easier to come up with an idea when you don't have to actually do the work to make it feasible. See also: "I have an idea, I just need a programmer or two." ------ melvinram Have you considered going to a larger company/brand like Dove and getting them to buy it? Your audience seems right in line with their audience and they probably already have a budget for "social media marketing". A good way to reach them might be a big-brand social media consultant like VaynerMedia.com. They could facilitate the sale and make a commission on the amount. I know someone who knows Gary over at Vayner so if you're interested, I could try to make the connection. Alternatively, I can connect you with an investment banker who specializes in selling internet based businesses, though I'm not sure if he'll be interested since he typically deals in the 7-figures range... but I could run it by him if you want. I just think having a simple private auction without attracting the right parties to the table might not get you the maximum the site could get. Just my thought. Anyway, congrats on the success so far and good luck with things. My email is in my profile. ~~~ markbao Hey Melvin — thanks for the suggestions! The only thing I'm not sure about is why a general brand would want a threewords.me-like property under them. What's a brand's motive for acquiring properties such as mine? Yeah, probably true that it's not the best exposure. TechCrunch just picked it up ([http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/17/weeks-after-going-viral- thr...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/17/weeks-after-going-viral-threewords- me-is-up-for-sale/)) but selling in a simple private auction is only one step up from Flippa. And maybe one sideways. Thanks for your help, man - will shoot you an email. ~~~ patio11 It proves to someone's bosses that they get this whole social media thing. ------ markbao Glad to see this already submitted :) Yeah, I'm working on way too much stuff, and threewords.me started up as a side project that I didn't have any interest in continuing it long-term (more interested in developing <http://supportbreeze.com> and others). The press curve has slowed, but a lot of users are still hitting the site (new and returning) — every new feature I get is hugely adopted within minutes. ~~~ malnourish Hey, one quick thing I noticed about supportbreeze. I noticed a lack of clear confirmation when hovering the button "Get started for free" I can tell a faint color change however there is no clear indication of my selection. Whereas hovering other links gives a visual mouse indication and a visual indication over the link. Is that by design? ~~~ eam It would be better to add _cursor:pointer;_ to _a#mk2_gs_ selector. ~~~ markbao Ah, great point. I'll have to do that. ------ marklittlewood How can you sell something with no terms and conditions mentioned that he is selling, "Sale includes data, domain, brand." And then continue to say, "We promise we won't spam" on the signup page? How does that work then? ~~~ theDoug Well, I take it that /he's/ promising not to spam. The same that I can promise that no crimes will happen in my home- it's only as good as long as it's _my_ home, not someone else's, and I can reasonably manage things. Even with a friendly-reading T&C he'd be free to break it any time, as would any future purchaser. I'm not a laywer but I'd believe T&Cs exist more to protect a site than its users, presenting the general terms and conditions the users can expect a site to be presented under, not a guarantee of of the same. ~~~ jarrett Pre-existing contracts may be binding on someone who purchases a business. So the buyer of a web site might be bound by the TOS. Thus, a promise to customers could survive the company changing hands. (I can't speak to the particulars of this case, though.) The flip side is that TOSs typically have some provision for amendment. Such provisions might be invoked by a company's new management. However, the management has to be careful even then, because of this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract> Again, I'm not suggesting that any of this would necessarily apply to threewords.me. This is just my understanding of how it works in general. BTW, I couldn't find a link to the TOS for threewords.me. ------ jacquesm Very smart move this, rather than to figure out how to monetize it monetize it by selling it while the growth curve is still exponential. Also, looking at alexa it seems as though the period of hyper fast growth is already a bit past: <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/threewords.me> Still, it should fetch a pretty penny and to the right party it might be worth quite a lot of money. ~~~ dolinsky I'm genuinely curious why you suggest the growth curve on this is exponential at this point? I saw this thread on HN when he originally posted it, and while it wasn't something I would personally be interested in I imagined it might fit a certain demographic. The question for me was always the staying power with a quick hit site like this. Now having seen a wider window of stats on the site from quantcast, all arrows are pointing down and to the right. I agree that he's smart to try to sell it, but only because the longer he holds onto it the less opportunity there will be to capitalize on the original spike. ~~~ jacquesm > I'm genuinely curious why you suggest the growth curve on this is > exponential at this point? I didn't suggest that. I did add this bit after writing that first sentence when I thought of checking to see if that was still the case, and it wasn't: > Also, looking at alexa it seems as though the period of hyper fast growth is > already a bit past: ------ callmeed If I was a digital agency/consultancy, I'd snap this up. I think it would be fairly easy to fork and customize for big brands that want to do Facebook promotions, reviews, focus groups, etc. "Tell us your 3 favorite items at Applebee's ..." "Thanks for trying the new filet mignon chalupa at Taco Bell. Describe it in 3 words ... " "What 3 things are most important when choosing your next car? ..." (I'm sure someone more creative could do better, but you get the idea) ~~~ markbao Good ideas. Some brands and celebrities have a threewords.me with cool results, like Smashing Magazine: <http://threewords.me/smashingmag> Also celebrities (thanks to @Mazy) like Young Money's Lil Twist - <http://threewords.me/liltwist> I also did a test for using sentiment analysis as a monetization point, using the Amazon Kindle (question was, "What do you think of the Amazon Kindle?") which was displayed on top of the dashboard for all users, and it got something like 7,000 responses. The responses weren't amazing, but it is possible to improve them. There was zero targeting on whether or not the "sponsored listing" was displayed, whereas Smashing Mag's results are clean since the only people submitting words are people that know what Smashing Magazine is. ~~~ duinote I only see spams from most of the msg. I think you are doing a right thing trying to capitalize while the hype is there. Based on alexa, it is dying out already. ------ paraschopra Did you get any bids yet? Not asking the offer price, just the number of bids (from HN). ~~~ markbao I've gotten three or four. ~~~ gobongo Lost count already? ~~~ ebaysucks I have a friend who once talking about how he had "one or two" one night stands in his life. ------ roschdal How much revenue is generated from Threewords.me? Is it even profitable? Also, I'm wondering how the process of transferring the actual website would go? Will the buyer usually take over the servers which the seller has setup? ~~~ citricsquid Haha, hey everyone this guy thinks profitability with this matters! Everyone point and laugh! I highly doubt even Mark thinks this product has legs with monetisation, it's a fad at best. He's clever for cashing in now, it'll be dead soon unless the new owner works out how to expand. ~~~ PostOnce Twitter is a pretty silly concept, and their valuation is non-comical. ~~~ citricsquid Twitter isn't a silly concept, it's a global SMS. ------ makeee Does anyone know how much the 253,000 email addresses (userbase of threewords) could be worth to a company that runs another social platform? I imagine that, regardless of whether threewords continues to grow, a related service (like formspring) could add threewords functionality to their own service, then email the threewords userbase letting them know what's up, and re-engaging them.. Is the response rate for those kind of emails pretty good, or would that not be a huge factor in the sale price? ------ sahillavingia Making the bids public would definitely be a good idea (one person bids x, person 2 bids x+500, etc). ~~~ jacquesm No, it would not be a good idea at all. Let's just for a second pretend that I'd be an interested party (I won't be bidding). I would assume that most of the people bidding are not 'players', I'd assume that they would just try to get it for a song and a bit, the equivalent of buying Manhattan from the Indians because they're not aware of what it's worth. Mark is a smart guy so he won't be going for that. The second group of potential buyers would be more savvy and would bid higher, they'd be outbidding each other bit by bit, probably in increments of 1,000 $US until they ran out of steam. With the last moment of the bidding already announced the real players would wait until the very last moment and would then bid based on what the highest of the second group has bid using that as a way to guide their decision, in the hope that nobody else would be bidding a similar amount. In a 'blind' bid like this, assuming a party _really_ wants to get their hands on it they will have to decide what it's worth to them to get it, rather than to let the market do their valuation work for them. This may very well lead to substantially higher bids. If I were Mark I'd add two things (if he decides to make the bidding public, which I would not advise him to do): \- Extend the bidding with 15 or 30 minutes after every new highest bid \- keep the identity of the bidders secret, just show the highest bid Since he's already under way and it is difficult to change the rules once the game has started I don't think that is a viable option any longer anyway. ~~~ healthyhippo Sure, he could just run it like Swoopo.com and charge people for each bid they make ------ coolswan OMG. Don't sell work it!! Work on it. You've gotten people to tag other people. Think of the possibilities. So much better than a support system (done and done) IMHO. Of course, if you have no interest in working with social space stuff, then okay, I can't argue with that. But the fact you launched this product means there's something there you want to do. ------ desigooner I'm not sure of how big the bids are so far but have you thought of open sourcing it?! The traffic is exhibiting decay as time goes by and only would be a while before it hits the graveyard. Might as well give others a chance to learn something from this project and tweak it to their ideas and relaunch it in some form. just my 0.02$ ------ socialmediaking I understand you have time constraints and other things on your plate, but it seems to me that you created an entirely new form of social interaction. I think your site is in the same league as <http://formspring.me> (which has $24m in funding). I would hate for you to sell for 5 figures only to see a much higher valuation in only a couple of years. Your concept is well executed and if you have traffic, you should be able to monetize without being too innovative. I like the idea of surveys or branded pages. Good luck though, with whatever you decide! ~~~ markbao Thanks for your thoughts! I can't really say I'm having second thoughts, but more like 1.5nd thoughts... I just don't know where to expand from here. The concept is great and the virality is really cool, but... something just isn't there. ~~~ socialmediaking Something just isn't there, but only because you haven't added it yet...Your idea works as a concept, it just needs to be tweaked. If you don't get a price you like, keep the site, add advertisements and collect data. As people's profiles fill up with qualities, you may be able to determine what kind of ads people are likely to click on. I also like the idea of selling companies a spot where people can comment on their brand or different ideas. The site could evolve into a kind of instant survey for concepts and ideas (from brands). I.E. They post an image of a new design and the users can describe in 3 words what they think. It would allow a company to get instant feedback and know if they have a homerun or not before something is produced or fully developed. ------ pclark I wish the publication logos lit up when you mouse over'd on them. Just me? ~~~ markbao Me too, but I only had 30 minutes to make that page. Ton of work today. ~~~ blhack Please don't take offense to this, Mark, but if you only have 30 minutes to work on this, then your priorities are _very much_ in the wrong place. You're talking about doing something that could make you real-world money that goes in the bank. Spend _all_ of your time selling threewords, then use the money from that to fund your other ideas. Being "too busy" means that you're doing something wrong. ------ jcfrei It's hard to estimate a reasonable price for this if you don't have any revenues. Whereas you could usually discount future cash flows, in this case you would need to estimate the goodwill - which probably means what you're willing to pay for maintaining this site as a hobby. BTW. does this page still get a lot of hits? I've seen on my past projects (albeit on a much smaller scale) that those services usually spike for a few days and then quickly die off - what are the current usage statistics? ------ aaronbrethorst Why not sell through Flippa? ~~~ neworbit He always has the option to go to Flippa later if he doesn't get the value he wants here. From my limited experience, Flippa is kind of a liquidation market more than a source for competitive bids. Your mileage may vary. ~~~ markbao This, exactly. ------ andrewcamel Knowing the rate of page views would be good as well; having total page views is a bit misleading. ------ js4all I think this is a great way to monetize your cool idea. Your site went viral in a few days and still has this potential. Please let us know how this went. We all have to think about monetizing our ideas this or other ways. ------ EGreg I am impressed by the amount of press coverage Mark got :) ~~~ shankx He deserved it because its difficult to generate that many page views in such a short span of time. Plus its a great app! ------ pghimire Any thoughts on possible monetization strategies/revenue model?

Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity - shawndumas http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/12/23/why-programmers-are-not-paid-in-proportion-to-their-productivity/# ====== edw519 The subject of this post may be the number one reason for a good programmer to stop being an employee and to start being an independent business person. 2 of my own examples (I have many more, as many of you do too): As a one man IT department, in 15 months I reduced my annual budget from $2.3 million to $600K, cleared up 500 old tickets, and implemented 4 mission critical applications. My reward? A 4% salary increase. (I gave my notice during that review.) As a contractor, I maintained all the software for a $100 million company that was shopping for an ERP package. They were stunned by the 6 & 7 figure price tags and 2 year project timelines. I proposed a project that would add everything they needed from these ERP packages to their current system in 90 days. I hit the target and got paid $225K. If you're a programmer who is 10x to 100x more productive than your peers, the last place you should be is as an employee without equity. Get out there and find someone who needs what you can do. You'll both be much happier. ~~~ dcposch "As a one man IT department, in 15 months I reduced my annual budget from $2.3 million to $600K, cleared up 500 old tickets, and implemented 4 mission critical applications. My reward? A 4% salary increase. (I gave my notice during that review.)" Wow, that's pretty horrifying. I certainly agree with your point. But... "As a contractor [...] I proposed a project that would add everything they needed from these ERP packages to their current system in 90 days. I hit the target and got paid $225K." The big ERP vendor may well be grotesquely inefficient, or their software may provide a lot more than your client needed, or both. Congrats for saving your client so much money. But complaining that you "only" made $225k for a 90-day project, working by yourself, seems a little hubristic. ~~~ rfrey I don't think he was complaining - I think he was favorably comparing his work as a contractor to his experience as a salaried employee. ------ Murkin The real reason programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity: They don't demand it. I had the privilege of working with some extremely talented and productive people. Sadly, many of them were making market salary (or less). Contrary to popular belief, many companies are quite capable of noticing and trying to keep productive people. But rarely by throwing money at them. Related anecdote: I have meet a few startups lately that started the conversation with: _"We are looking for extremely talented and productive people"._ And finished with: _"Compensation ? Well, we checked online, the average pay for your experience is.."_ ~~~ waterlesscloud It's amazing how common that is. "We want top people." "We want to pay average." ~~~ rch If they can't pay more, try asking for a 4 day work week. For smaller companies/startups I also prefer to receive fresh hardware (macbook,mini,etc.) at signing. ~~~ illumin8 Fresh hardware? Are you kidding? If you make a decent salary you can buy your own hardware whenever you feel like it. A $2K MacBook Pro is a drop in the bucket compared to paying a 6 digit salary. ~~~ orc If they pay you and let you buy the MacBook, it's after tax. ~~~ usaar333 $3k is still a drop in the bucket ~~~ rch Great! e-mail me for my address.. ------ raganwald I'll ask again: What is the objective and repeatable metric of programmer productivity? One of the reasons I avoid writing about productivity is that I have no idea how to quantify it. But if someone can show me how to measure it, I'm confident I can show him how to get paid by it. ~~~ palish The only objective and repeatable metric of programmer productivity is if a single programmer is assigned the task of delivering a tool or component, from scratch, by himself. His productivity is the inverse of the time to delivery. And that doesn't take into account maintenance. ~~~ raganwald _that doesn't take into account maintenance_ This excellent insight takes us to a place where productivity is even harder to measure: How does one measure the _value_ of a piece of software? Software that has subtle bugs flying under the rader of our test suite has some kind of negative value. Software that lowers the "productivity" (however we measure it) of future programmers who need to extend or change it has negative value associated with it. How do we measure that? Imagine the exact same formally specified requirements handed to four different programmers: The first programmer, "Ned," does the job in a straightforward fashion, and delivers working code passing all tests. "Fred" does the job using uncommon techniques (parser combinators, for example) in less time and produces less code. "Ed" proposes that if some of the requirements are relaxed, there is an open source solution that can do the job with trivial integration. The last programmer, "Jed," sees some commonality with some existing code and proposes that the scope be expanded to produce a new piece of infrastructure (message queues, web services, SOAP, &c) solving a more general problem. How do we judge Ned, Ed, Fred, and Jed? ~~~ palish By how fun they are. As people. I'm convinced the only real-world metric that matters is "how much other people want to work with you". Being an easygoing, fun person facilitates that dramatically. ~~~ danenania I think this is true up to a certain point, then stops mattering. Once someone is at the 'pleasant enough to be around' level, I'd much prefer he/she be more intelligent or skilled than more fun if we're working together. This is partly because lower key, quieter, more intelligent people can often turn out to be more interesting and fun in the long run than people who have great social skills and confidence but less depth in their thinking and personalities. ~~~ saturdayplace If we extend "fun to work with" to include "quieter, more intelligent" people, I think palish's definition may work rather well. That group definitely falls into "people I want to work with." ~~~ jimbokun Weirdly enough, I just finished reading about how NBA players overwhelmingly wanted to play with Bill Russell over Wilt Chamberlain, as part of an argument that Russell was the better player. ------ mikepk I understand this post is specifically about salary and money, but in my experience there is a kind of "gray" market of compensation that truly great hackers participate in. This usually (but not always) means that the person has a lot of latitude to work on what they want to, they can work with the technologies they want to work with, can work the hours they want to work, have the luxury to not always have to report on progress or have a lot of management oversight. The degree with which someone like this can participate in these "happiness perks" usually is commensurate with how good they are. There is a great TED talk on intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in terms of motivation. I think the market "works" in the sense that great hackers aren't actually as interested in making gobs of money (they don't want to get screwed either) but are usually more interested in these other more intangible kinds of incentives (like freedom, autonomy and mastery). The most talented engineer / programmer I've ever known was only paid at the top end of the "average" pay scale in the research lab I worked at. On the other hand, he was left pretty much alone to work on whatever he wanted to work on. He created amazing things and was genuinely happy, even though in pure monetary compensation, he was radically underpaid. ------ latch The 10x thing is an understatement..but say 10x is accurate. Take an average programmer, and try to convince him that he could be two times more productive..a junior programmer might buy it, but any average programmer with "experience" isn't going to believe it. Forget about telling him that he could be 4 times of 5 times more productive. Now move up to the manager and tell him that his team could be 2x more productive. No way will your average manager believe it if for no other reason than it makes them seem pretty incompetent. I've tried the experiment before. An example...A small team was complaining about their workload and kept saying they needed to double the team size. Management agreed and was trying to get budget. This dragged on for a while (along with the complaining). I asked why, instead of doubling the team size, they simply didn't double the productivity. The concept of even thinking about being more productive was completely foreign to them. They wouldn't talk about what might improve productivity - there was no point because clearly the hard working team couldn't work any harder...working smarter? Nonsense..they were experienced developers. The point? Everyone thinks they are better than average. Admitting that you could be 2x (forget about 5x) more productive is like admitting (in people's minds) that they are slacking off. This works at the individual, management and company level. More productive programmers aren't paid more because, while everyone knows some programmers are 10x more productive, every employee thinks he/she has little room to grow, and every manager believes his team is awesome. ~~~ alanfalcon Did you propose a 2x salary increase to accompany the 2x productivity increase? It could get the programmers, if not the managers, to decide your way was worth a try. ~~~ gnaritas Why should anyone require a salary increase for somehow to show them how to do their job in an easier way? Unproductive programmers are unproductive because they do too many things manually and don't automate repetitive parts of their jobs. I know programmers who still, after years and being told to use rsync and automate the pushing of their code to production, still manually open up an ftp client and one by one upload just the files they know they changed. Dudes could save probably a few hours a week easily _and_ do less work but the fear of... learning something prevents them from doing it. ~~~ rwmj They fact that the choice is 'rsync' _or_ 'ftp' scares the heck out of me. Doesn't everyone use a packaging system with reproducible builds, deploying these packages to staging first, testing it, then deploying the same _signed_ package live using real configuration management (eg. Puppet) ...? ~~~ count The _vast_ majority of companies don't do this. It's scary, but it's life. ~~~ gnaritas It's not scary at all, having that kind of process for a small shop would be absurd. When your developers are the only tech guys you have, and do all system administration, database administration, new programming, bug fixes, and deployment, you don't need or want red tape between yourself and yourself. That kind of process works for large teams where different people are doing those jobs and need to collaborate effectively without finger pointing; but it's not for a small cowboy team at all. You simply can't maintain that kind of formality and process when you're doing everything. ------ RyanMcGreal Poignant conclusion: > The romantic image of an über-programmer is someone who fires up Emacs, > types like a machine gun, and delivers a flawless final product from > scratch. A more accurate image would be someone who stares quietly into > space for a few minutes and then says "Hmm. I think I’ve seen something like > this before." ------ lyudmil It's important to note that no one is paid in proportion to their productivity. In a free market, you're paid in proportion to your bargaining power. This means both that for programmer compensation to be fair we need to get better at translating productivity into bargaining power, and that there are some limits even if we got the first part exactly right (regardless of productivity, programmers will not be paid as much as CEOs, unless they are a CEO). ------ swombat Actually, programmers can be paid proportionally to their productivity... they just need to run their own businesses (which has the downside of requiring the programmer to learn to be an entrepreneur... but it can be very financially rewarding). <http://swombat.com/2011/4/26/productive-programmers> ~~~ mikepk I find my skill as a programmer has substantially diminished the more I've had to spend energy and focus being an entrepreneur. I believe there's a myth that the hacker can do it all and do it all well. In reality I think you end up being stretched like... butter scraped over too much bread. :) It may be a cop-out but now I'm looking for "top people" to hire, but what I usually mean is someone who can have the programming focus I don't have anymore. I'm looking for "me 6 years ago" the hacker who loves products and wants to build a business who's at the beginning of the entrepreneur track. Damn damn hard to find. ~~~ Travis Second the idea that my programming output has declined in terms of quality as I focus more on business related aspects. It forces you to look at everything in context -- better code quality gets you more maintainability, but at what cost? Every decision I now make has a trade-off; as a programmer, I can afford to throw more time to elegantly solve a problem. As an entrepreneur, I just need it to work as well as I've defined, for a specific cost. Great Baggins reference as well. ------ michael_dorfman If programmers _were_ paid in proportion to their productivity, there are quite a few who would owe me money. Of course, if you turn back the clock far enough, there may be one or two folks out there who would say the same about me. ------ alecco Let's accept this and move on: programming is seen as a lowly profession by most business and hr people. And it isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. But you know what? They need us more than we need them, right now. PG, Spolsky, and many others agree it's preposterous to try to change society. The way out is either start your own business or join a small team with similarly talented people. Don't waste your life in a rat race. ------ sampsonjs Uh, because the '10 times more productive programmer' is folklore, at best? It may be true, but there's not much hard empiricism behind the claim. See [https://www.readability.com/articles/5egv0hme?legacy_bookmar...](https://www.readability.com/articles/5egv0hme?legacy_bookmarklet=1). Cook admits it's hard to tell who's more 'productive'. Well, if it's hard to tell, why take that claim for granted in the first place? I am sure Cook and everyone else likes to think they're the 10x programmer, however. ~~~ chalst Right. That link deserves to be more widely read. The 1968 Sackman, Erikson & Grant paper is available as a scanned PDF, btw: [http://www.dtic.mil/cgi- bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0645438&Locati...](http://www.dtic.mil/cgi- bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0645438&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf) ------ stcredzero There was once a famous Smalltalker, a renowned toolmaker who took a "for now" job at a telecom. He could do all of his week's assignments in a single day or two, where his coworkers would take the whole week to accomplish less. So what did his boss do? Basically, demand that he suffer as much as his coworkers. Result: The boss lost his most productive and talented worker. ~~~ rick888 That's why you get it done and don't tell anyone else about it until the due date. People that get things done quickly are usually rewarded with more work and responsibility at the same pay. ------ chrismealy This is not just in the programming business. Highly productive employees are generally underpaid relative to their peers. In his book, "Choosing the Right Pond", the economist Robert H. Frank attributes this to status-seeking. Short version: the highly paid employee could make more elsewhere, but then they wouldn't be the the big fish in the small pond anymore. On the flip side, the relatively low-productivity employee may be overpaid in compensation for the shame of being the worst programmer on the team. ------ mikepk For the people that are saying that the "10x more productive" programmer is a myth, I assure you these people exist, but you're likely not one of them (nor am I). The most impressive hacker I've ever known worked with me in the advanced research lab in a ginormous tech behemoth company. Let's call him "Bob". He was so good that people in the team would sometimes call him "Super Bob". There are lots of stories I could tell about him, but he (working alone) was often able to hack out stable, working code in months, solving problems that had proven too difficult for entire software engineering organizations and multi-year projects. This happened more than once. "Super Bob" got paid at the top end of the "average" pay scale, but was genuinely happy. He could work when he wanted, and on what he wanted, had his own lab, and no one messed with him. I tried to recruit him into my first startup when I left the company but I came to realize he wasn't interested in making tons of money, especially if it meant taking risk, sacrificing the access to huge resources (and toys), freedom and autonomy that he'd developed. ------ johnwatson11218 I just read "Linked" by Albert-Laszlo Barbasi and he talked about different kinds of networks. One example is the number of inbound/outbound links you find on a highway map versus a map showing links between airports. The highway map gives rise to a normal statistical distribution with only a few towns having so many or so few roads in/out that they fall far from the mean. The airport map is a different story. There are many airports with just a few connecting flights and there are just a few airports with a large number of connections. When you make a plot that shows number of connections on the x-axis and the number of airports having that many connections on the y-axis it shows a power law. The graph is very high near the y-axis and drops off as you move to the right. Finally you get to the large airports like LAX, Chicago, and New York. I bring this up here because I think the issue of programmer pay and productivity has similar properties. The salaries are distributed normally with a mean and the vast majority earning within 2 standard deviations. If you could measure productivity of each programmer and make a graph that showed the productivity level on the x-axis and the number of programmers working at that level on the y-axis then I don't think the graph would look like a normal distribution. Rather I think it would follow the power law just like the graph of airport hubs. I know this is somewhat speculative on my part but I think it could also be that the top programmers are so productive because they are highly connected in terms of programming concepts and techniques. The article mentions their ability to come up with alternative solutions. I think they get like that by working on different projects over time. This is also how the power law networks (also called 'scale free' networks) are thought to form in other areas according to the book. ~~~ jshen I'm pretty sure programmer productivity is a normal distribution ~~~ johnwatson11218 If that is true then I don't think you would expect to see people who are 10X more productive than the average. The tails of the normal distribution fall off very quickly. I think most people who have worked in the industry can think of at least one programmer that they have worked with who was 10X more productive than the average. ~~~ jshen The rightmost side of the normal distribution can be 10x the mean. ~~~ johnwatson11218 yes there are points under the curve out at 10X the mean but they are very, very rare. The normal distribution falls off a cliff. I don't have the reference in front of me but something like 99.6% of the population will fall within 2 standard deviations of the mean. This same issue comes up when people try and predict something like the daily fluctuation of the Dow Jones Industrial average using a normal curve. They think that there are random swings up and down but that large swings of 500 points are more are very unlikely. Then those large swings come along and show everybody that it isn't smart to use the normal distribution to try and model the absolute change in the closing price. The main point here is that programmers who are 10X more productive than the average coder seem to be not so rare. Many people have stories about having worked with guys like this. Therefore I don't think you should use the normal distribution to model the distribution of productivity in programmers. I think there are many guys at the low end of the scale and it drops off slowly as you move into the higher productivity. And NO you can't include the negative x-axis to get a symmetric, "normal-like" distribution. In this model the negative values on the x-axis don't mean anything. ~~~ rprospero I would have to disagree on two counts. The first point is pedantic, but, in the standard normal distribution, half the curve is over ten times greater than the mean. Of course, that's cheating, since the mean is zero, but it's not impossible for the relationship between the mean programmer productivity and the standard deviation to allow for large number of programmers with 10x the mean productivity. The catch is that any normal distribution which allows for large numbers of 10x programmers requires large numbers of programmers with negative productivity. However, I disagree that those values are meaningless. Rather, it simply indicates a programmer who makes code worse. I would readily argue that, for every 10x programmer, there's at least two who create more bugs than they solve. ------ ja27 I've been frustrated over the years to see programmers rewarded for putting in extraordinary amounts of effort - often due to crises of their own making. The guy that designs and builds a service that's delivered on-time and works without major issues gets ignored but we'll heap praise (and money) on the guy that has to work 80 hour weeks for 2 months after the due date or the guy that works all weekend to fix a bug that he caused in the first place. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Yes! I've seen the worst team in the company get praised, wined and dined because they pulled the customers bacon out of the fire - the fire they created by bad programming. ------ 6ren oblig. negative LoC story [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.txt) > I think the weakest way to solve a problem is just to solve it; that's what > they teach in elementary school. In some math and science courses they often > teach you it's better to change the problem. I think it's much better to > change the context in which the problem is being stated. > <http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/futures.htm> I've often changed a problem so the difficulty disappears; but it's usually after I've worked on the problem a bit. I must admit it is kinda disappointing when I have to sack all my clever and complicated ideas, that I've become attached to. ------ Stormbringer I think the brick-laying analogy is a lot more on target than John realises. A lot of the below average programmers go out and start slapping down bricks at a great rate of knots. Planning? "Ha! You ain't gonna need it" they say. Design? "Pffftt, is this the bad old days of the PDP-11?" they scoff. "I do automated unit testing, why would I fire up the site in an actual browser? That's so 90s!" The problem is that a lot of the time the bricks they are laying get torn down and rebuilt, and torn down and rebuilt, over and over and over. This gives the appearance of productivity, but gets you nowhere in the long run. Even if you could run at 50mph for hours on end you wouldn't win a marathon by running in the same small circle over and over again. Examples of ways the bricks can go wrong: Not building the right thing (they asked for a gazebo, you built a garage) Not accounting for edge cases (the walls should meet) Not doing proper testing, or leaving the testing until very late in the process Not making the design flexible enough to account for likely changes during the project (no real world equivalent springs to mind) Not building solidly enough (doesn't provide load bearing support in the right places) (closely related to the "catching exceptions is for wussies" school of thought) Leaving odd holes and gaps in the brick wall (security issues) etc. (Feel free to add your own, fun for the whole family! :D ) ------ saturdayplace > most productive programmers are orders of magnitude more productive than > average programmers. This seems to be so generally accepted that it's stated in the article as fact, without anything to back it up. As raganwald mentioned, we really have no metric for productivity. So, while your gut may tell you that you (or someone you know) is multiples more productive that you are, all you really have is your gut. ------ scotty79 Salary has nothing to do with work. Getting and keeping high salary is all about luck and cunning. Your work does not have to be extremely useful or valuable. I don't know where this idea that world is fair comes from. ------ cygwin98 Here are my random thoughts about the reasons (not in a specific order): 1\. they are not part of a software company, say, not generating revenue directly, so they are not high on the payroll list 2\. the pay is based on the overall performance of the whole development team, so the great programmers' productivity got mitigated by the worse ones' 3\. high productivity may mean technologically superior products, however, superior products don't necessarily lead to market success 4\. if there is a function: profit = f (productivity), it may be more likely a logarithmic one, rather than linear, e.g., there is a diminishing return on productivity 5\. even if it's linear, the owners won't pay accordingly, because of the law of supply and demand 5a. own yourself when you have a chance, if you think you're great hackers ------ gabeh Steve McConnell revisited this subject recently: [http://forums.construx.com/blogs/stevemcc/archive/2011/01/22...](http://forums.construx.com/blogs/stevemcc/archive/2011/01/22/10x-productivity- myths-where-s-the-10x-difference-in-compensation.aspx) I think about myth #1 when this subject comes up - "Part of the issue is that I’m underpaid a little; a bigger part of the issue is the other guy is overpaid a lot." Edit: Just saw there was a discussion on this article about 90 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131550> ------ martiell A lot of the discussion seems to assume that a given developer has a constant level of productivity and hence, can be salaried according to that level. I'd say a developer's productivity can vary according to motivation; who they're working with; how interesting the work is; whether they're well managed or not... So, while salary is a linear measure, it makes no sense to me to assume that productivity can be measured the same way. I'm fairly sure my own productivity can vary by as much as an order of magnitude according to circumstances. Wonder what I should be getting paid? :) ------ davisp I see quite a few comments addressing the fact that there's no way to directly measure 'productivity' of a programmer. And there's also the questioning of whether the 10x figure is made up or not (Its not. There's research that attempts to measure productivity, but its always by some proxy measure, usually time to complete a task. There was a post not too long ago that collected various articles on the origin on the 10x number). So far I haven't seen anyone point out that there are lots of abstract concepts that we measure and rank without having a specific measurable quantity. Art is the first thing that comes to mind. What makes someone a 'good' artist? Even in things people might normally consider numbers based like college football rankings aren't purely objective. The to deciding some ranking and relative comparisons is to ask people familiar with the subject to compare to instances of the set. In this particular case I could see having the team rank each other member or assign some numeric score representing their opinion. Giving this and some brief written reasoning for the scoring it seems like management would be able to get a clear picture of who the most 'productive' programmers are. There'd be obvious chances for pitfalls and politics in such a system, but if it were applied with some sanity it seems like it could work. ------ pge To complain that programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity is to imply that other professions _are_ paid in proportion to their productivity. That is very rarely the case. Sales, perhaps, is the only area where there is a clearly defined performance metric that drives compensation. In any other role, there are people making roughly the same salary with substantially different levels of performance. ~~~ j_baker Sales is hardly perfect in this respect. It's _harder_ to game sales stats, but I have yet to see a sales ranking/commission system that wasn't gameable somehow. ------ kamaal For the most part I think what the user edw519 tells is perfectly correct. If you sure of your competency and confident that you can actually be 10x or 100x more productive than other than you must work for somebody who pays you 'per unit of work done' rather than somebody who pays you lump sum. Unfortunately unless you make people pay for services they don't recognize your worth. Back here in India, like every where else good hackers don't get noticed until they make some noise. On the other hand even below average programmers who hop jobs often are paid real good packages. The way companies think of it is, that in any project if there say a x people. x-80% people work well, and are expected to compensated for the work of x-20% people. At the project level when the productivity data is measured, it turns out productive people have averaged out the unproductive data of the other crowd. So on a company wide policy basis a uniform hike applies, since data suggests productive was around industry average. The actual work of productive guys never gets displayed at all. This is just day light fraud, and a very scandalous way of rewarding people. ------ invalidOrTaken One option I haven't seen anyone mention is freelance development, especially at the higher end. This: \--isolates the effort/product of one person, allowing for easier measurement \--puts the burden of estimating productivity on the programmer, who, if he is as experienced as he says, is probably best equipped to judge his own productivity (as manifest by what he charges) ------ clueless123 It is a classic case of The Vulcan vs the Ferengi. Programmers are fact base thinkers,unfortunately this skill makes us poor negotiators. ------ markmypy I have worked with someone who was 10x more productive than the rest of the team. His contribution was acknowledged, he had a fancy job title and he was paid more. There were 2 issues with this guy: 1) Since he had privileged treatment his colleagues did not like him! 2) He did write code a lot faster than anyone else, but his code was not optimized. Since he was the 'head of development' (or something like that) pointing out that his code was not optimized did not have any effect (he was really stubborn). So we shipped the code fast, usually we would get a complaint by the customer, re-evaluated the code, optimized it and send it back. I would say that his code writing productivity did not seriously effect the overall development cycle of the project. As many of you said, there is no systematic way of measuring productivity! ------ mikepk This is the animated TED talk that I referenced before on motivations. I'm sure you've seen this before, but still interesting in this context: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc> ------ known Writing software != Selling software ------ cjbprime Huh. My first thought was "Maybe the reason we don't pay some programmers 10x what we pay others is that the ones who get paid less would quickly find out and then get resentful". I don't find the "paying proportionally doesn't happen because sometimes the best way to program is to not write much code" argument very convincing; what about the times when the best way to program _is_ to write a lot of new and correct code? ------ vipivip Should hr be blamed for hiring mediocre programmers? ~~~ elliottcarlson As 83457 put it - HR should never be tasked to hire a programmer. Same with recruiters. You can give them a set of criteria to weed out people by (they shouldn't be sending you .net resumes if you are a PHP shop) but the end task of choosing a developer should be vetted by someone who can determine if the candidate is good. Either a technical director (with actual knowledge) or by peer review from your current programmers. If you don't have any programmers and are making a first hire, ask for code samples and have someone you know that is a developer review them. If you don't have any programmer friends then you need to spend some more time on HN or at local meetups :) ------ wild_eep The problem with this entire article is the very first sentence. "The most productive programmers are orders of magnitude more productive than average programmers." Many of the comments here conclude that it's difficult, if not impossible, to quantify programmer productivity. So, if productivity is essentially unmeasurable, how can the initial sentence of the article be true? ------ luke_osu When you work for someone else you don't get to make the rules. The quicker people realize that, the better off they will be. ------ iamelgringo Your startup is your new resume. Extremely productive programmers are being paid $1M a head in a talent acquisition plus salary with a 4 year lock in. That means that highly productive programmers are work $350k a year. All you have to do is build your startup and get acquired to get that salary. :) ------ cwp Actually, I think programmers _do_ get paid in proportion to their productivity. Roughly, anyway. ------ jimwise Decades in, I don't think we have a meaningful (or at least measurable) definition of what productivity actually _means_ (the article touches on this). So it's hardly surprising that we don't pay in accordance with something we still don't know how to measure... ------ raghava Am I the only one to think that it's time some asked the question, 'why are mediocre/sub-standard (and even non-programming) developers still being paid a good programmer's salary?' Am I wrong in thinking this way? ------ petercooper I hope he's not paid in proportion to his font size. Ouch. 9pt or 10pt Times Roman isn't fun..

HashiConf EU Amsterdam Call for Speakers - HashiCorpEvents https://hashiconf.com/eu ====== HashiCorpEvents HashiCorp is looking for speakers for the upcoming HashiConf EU in Amsterdam, June 8-10, 2020. If you have a technical talk showcasing how you used a HashiCorp product to solve a problem, what challenges you faced, and the workarounds you found to solve them, we would love to hear from you. We value technical deep-dives, stories of how you use our technology, and retrospectives from your failures! Topics we’d love to hear about: Topics may range from the internals of our software to high-level use cases. Talks do not have to be exclusively about HashiCorp products, they can cover the broader industry and non-technical topics as well. Topics we love to hear more about include: _Scaling distributed and microservice environments, including service discovery, networking and container schedulers_ Solving security and secret bottlenecks _Managing infrastructure across hybrid and multi-cloud, as well as cloud migrations_ Introducing Infrastructure-as-Code to on-prem environments _Dynamic application configuration at runtime_ Emerging architectural patterns, like service mesh and serverless _Organizational impacts of DevOps and_ Infrastructure-as-Code Session formats: Talks will be 30 or 50 minutes. 30-minute talks are ideal for implementation and customer stories, while 50-minute talks are great for technical deep- dives. Please keep your session to-the-point, only including relevant context. More concise talks often bring more value to the audience. If you have any questions now covered in the CFP, you may reach us at [email protected]. Good luck!

MagicJack Home Cellular Service Could Spark Legal Battle - chaostheory http://www.pcworld.com/article/186732/ ====== anamax I'm curious. Suppose that you're AT&T and you see these packets crossing "your network" to provide cell coverage to folks who are not AT&T cell phone customers. Are you going to resist the temptation to add some jitter or packet loss that will degrade said cell service? Assume that you can do so without degrading their browsing, torrents, and so on. ~~~ wmf That's really no different than degrading VoIP. There's a risk that someone will notice and then the FCC will fine you.

Learning Elm has gotten me confused about static vs. dynamic typing - mrundberget http://rundis.github.io/blog/2016/type_confused.html ====== kazinator > _It’s hard to describe the experience of doing a major refactoring, having a > really helpful and friendly compiler guide you along step by step and when > finally everything compiles it just works._ A truly large refactoring is one that you want to try long before getting everything to compile. "Hmm, I have 75 operations involving data structure A. I want it to be B. Let's try it with five operations; I know that such and such features of the program only use those. Let's build the inconsistent program and try it out with with the B structure to the extent that it is possible." The dynamic world lets us have inconsistent code that partially works, rather than forcing us to follow up on all the places reached by the ripple effect of a change. Maybe the change turns out to be a bad idea in the end; then it was a waste of effort. Psychologically, having to deal with a big ripple effect is discouraging; it creates an "activation potential barrier" which opposes change. ~~~ tikhonj This is why Haskell recently got a flag to turn type errors into warnings: now you came make a change, get a bunch of type errors (as warnings!) and fix them one at a time, loading and testing each part as you change it. You don't have to update everything to play around with your module. This isn't dynamic typing though: if you tried to use an expression that did not typecheck, you will get a runtime value immediately. It's the moral equivalent of automatically replacing the broken expression with an `undefined` exception. ~~~ talles That's very, very nice. Is this exclusive to Haskell? ~~~ jerf Well, Haskell got it from Agda [1], but Agda is even farther in the direction of Haskell than Haskell relative to mainstream programming languages, and beyond the "currently practical" language horizon. [1]: [https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/Typed_holes](https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/Typed_holes) ~~~ dllthomas Typed holes are quite a different thing than deferred type errors. Does Agda actually have something like the latter? (Results seem negative from the tiny bit of searching I've just done, but that's awfully low confidence...) ~~~ jerf Whoops, you're right! I was too hasty. ------ gelisam > Does this mean I’m a static typing zealot now ? That part made me chuckle, because it made me realize that a typing zealot is exactly what I've become! I used to be a huge fan of Ruby and I was using it for everything, and now 10 years later I'm a huge fan of Haskell instead, I give talks about how JavaScript is horribly error-prone and how Elm is so much better because not only is it statically-typed, it's also purely-functional, and yadi-yadi-ya. The transition occurred so smoothly that I didn't notice it. Beware! You might not be a zealot now, but if you continue on this path, you might unintentionally become one too :) ~~~ cutler Whatever Scala devotees may believe, I think FP and OOP are irreconcilable opposites which means if you really get into FP you're going to hate doing what the industry demands of you in your day job, ie. OOP. Maybe FP will one day become the dominant paradigm but until then treat it like alcohol - too much and you cease to function in the "real" world. I exposed myself to Rich Hickey's Sermons From The Hammock a few years ago and Clojure just blew my mind. Since then I get a churning feeling in the stomach when I have to dealt with OOP, ie. Ruby, PHP, Python. The effects are irreversible so beware - immutable data mixed with pure functions is a potent drug. ~~~ acjohnson55 FP and OOP are totally not irreconcilable. Most modern languages offer both, including the most highly used dynamic languages. Javascript really cracked this nut with its function expressions. Scala's main contribution here is applying static typing to that mixture in a largely coherent way. ~~~ cutler As soon as you create a class you're binding data and methods inside a black box. It's the very antithesis of FP. Of course you can freeze and fiddle with your class to make it "more functional" but it doesn't wash because in FP functions are supposed to be "free", ie. unboxed. ~~~ knucklesandwich I wouldn't necessarily agree with this. Many functional programmers actually prefer some of the advantages of black boxes. Even methods as a calling interface vs functions are more a stylistic difference (when you aren't factoring in subtype polymorphism). OO languages tend to have the convention of not keeping effectful operations in methods referentially transparent (with effectful values), but there's nothing inherent to the idea of OO that says this must be the case. Scala could just as easily have something like haskell's IORefs instead of vars and make use of an IO monad to achieve a similar effect. I'd argue the bigger difference between the two styles is with methods of polymorphism, but even functional programmers in different camps probably don't agree on the reasons for why they prefer not to have subtype polymorphism. Your opinions about encapsulation probably have more to do with your preferences wrt typing discipline. Functional programmers who prefer static types often view black boxes as an asset. In fact black boxes form the basis of the free theorems, which can provide some nice assurances about the behavior of code that has few assumptions about the data it receives: [https://bartoszmilewski.com/2014/09/22/parametricity- money-f...](https://bartoszmilewski.com/2014/09/22/parametricity-money-for- nothing-and-theorems-for-free/) Similarly, data without exposed constructors can be used to enforce strong invariants about code using techniques like smart constructors: [https://wiki.haskell.org/Smart_constructors](https://wiki.haskell.org/Smart_constructors) Black boxed data also conveys advantages for library maintainers. It makes it much easier to change implementation details, because you're only required to preserve the semantics of functions operating over data rather than its exact innards. Not doing this for the String data type in haskell is arguably the largest reason why it won't be phased out to the superior Text type: [http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#string](http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#string) ------ Programmatic > It’s hard to describe the experience of doing a major refactoring, having a > really helpful and friendly compiler guide you along step by step and when > finally everything compiles it just works. This is my experience in a nutshell, my "home language" has been Python since high school after trying to learn C/C++ and persisted through learning Java in college. It was easy to use and get started with, and didn't require a ton of extraneous typing in Vim or looking up class types and returns every time you tried to use something. For simple projects as a beginner dynamic/implicit typing is wonderful because you need fewer references. Having gone the way of the IDE, however, having good autocomplete, safe refactoring, error flagging before compilation/runtime, and an easy reference for your libraries has made me incredibly efficient in explicitly typed languages. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be using Python as my home language... ~~~ mordocai To be fair, at least good autocomplete + easy reference is quite possible in an IDE with dynamic languages. I have it for Common Lisp in emacs for example(it requires running a live repl and having the editor connect to it). Pre compilation errors are harder, and I personally don't feel safe refactoring in any language unless there are good automated tests. Static typing makes it better, but nowhere near full proof. ~~~ Programmatic It is, but it has a lot harder time deciding what type of object I'm working with in a function vs. being able to specify the object's class in the function arguments. You can get that with docstrings but it's not as straightforward as just saying "def frobozinator(FooBar thing):" ~~~ pekk Either it's your code, in which case why don't you know what type of object you are passing, or it's a documented part of a framework or something. With polymorphism and inheritance in the mainstream languages, the method signature still doesn't exactly tell you what you are going to get, so you have all of the pain of micromanaging type annotations and you still don't really get an invariant. Also, Python has function annotations if your purpose is to document the signature without using docstrings. I'm unsure why you don't mention these because they are exactly analogous to what you say is straightforward. ~~~ jdmichal > With polymorphism and inheritance in the mainstream languages, the method > signature still doesn't exactly tell you what you are going to get, so you > have all of the pain of micromanaging type annotations and you still don't > really get an invariant. This is exactly what is addressed by the Liskov substitution principle [0] -- the "L" in SOLID [1]. If your subtype does not have the same semantics as the type it extends, then it fails this criteria. It is violating the (implicit) contract of the type it is extending. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_%28object- oriented_desig...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_%28object- oriented_design%29) ------ pron > I’m convinced that functional programming vs imperative programming is a > much more important concern... Except that you can be functional _and_ imperative, like Clojure, Erlang and even OCaml. Those are functional-imperative languages (you can even be _pure_ and imperative yet not functional, like Esterel and maybe Céu).

Dream to Reality: How I Quit My Day Job - terpua http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/dream-to-reality-how-i-quit-my-day-job/ ====== davidw Too much junk about 'pursuing your passion', and "Rich Dad" Robert K is always a warning sign, too. ~~~ mod_test "Rich Dad" is a good book and does illustrate why you should 'pursue your passion'. ~~~ davidw <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_dad#Criticism> It's an entertaining read, but nothing more. ~~~ gasull I haven't read it, but a friend said that it's an inspirational book. Some books give you motivation, some others give you the know-how. ~~~ davidw There are plenty of motivational books that will get you fired up to go charging off in the right direction, though. ------ greyman Having complete freedom to spend one's own time would be great, but I still felt somehow sad about the article. One has a normal job where one can contribute to something useful (like Amazon, they run an online shop, which is useful for society), and then one day the person trades it for "pursuing your passion", in other words she will now spend her day for wellness, blogging or other hobbies. But I don't want to say anything bad about her, but generally, what do you guys think about such an attitude? What's so honorable about that? ------ wallflower I do read this blog occasionally, and I sometimes find the candy-coated, primo positive tone of the blog offputting. I don't like this post. It's trying to give a step-by-step approach to something that is individually hard. But maybe this entrepreneur has found a niche - providing a 'inspiration of the day'-type post. The large number of comments that each blog post gets really emphasizes the fact that its found an audience that is looking for content of this sort ('10 ways to X', 'How to X'). I'm starting to see other blogs copy its format too - down to the pretty Flickr picture that leads every post. Inspiration is good but inspiration is external-based. Inspirational posts like this can fluff you up and then you go outside and get deflated. Irritation is sometimes a better motivator because its more immediate and personal. ------ thomasmallen Please don't turn HN into DLM... ~~~ gasull What is DLM? ~~~ thomasmallen Dumb Little Man (.com), a very popular self-improvement blog.

Motorists are using video cams to avoid disputed accident claims - svepuri http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21662646-dash-cams-small-video-cameras-film-road-ahead-are-being-used-motorists ====== erobbins I've been driving with a camera for over a year now. While I haven't needed it for evidence of any sort, I do enjoy being able to create movies of enjoyable drives and idiot drivers from time to time :) I worry less about people in front of me doing idiotic things now. I know that even if there's an accident, I'll have proof that I (hopefully) wasn't to blame. ~~~ mudil What camera do you use? Any recommendations? ~~~ bri3d I like the G1W-C models for cheap and works, and the BlackVue DR* (I have a DR650-GW) models for "really nice." The BlackVue models have GPS, which is nice because it provides a speed readout overlaid on the video. They also have WiFi (mostly useless IMO) and run Linux, which means there are a few interesting hacks for them. Two often-overlooked things to look for are: * A capacitor for power-off storage (this is what keeps the camera on while the video is finalized and buffers flushed) instead of a LiPo, which is ill-suited to use in a hot, sunny area like the windshield. * A discrete design without flashy chrome bits and blinky lights everywhere. The last think you want is someone breaking in and stealing your dashcam itself. ~~~ dsfyu404ed I'd avoid anything with a speed written on the screen. I can't see an insurance company passing up the opportunity to screw you for going 5-over ~~~ comrh I'm pretty sure new cars are storing this information anyway. ~~~ jessaustin If you have Progressive Snapshot or a similar device, that's storing driving data, but which cars do so by themselves? ~~~ bri3d Almost all modern cars have an Event Data Recorder as part of the SRS/Airbag system which records snapshot data in the event of a deployment. Here are some NHTSA standards for EDR storage: [http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/Rulemaking/Rules/Associated%2...](http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/Rulemaking/Rules/Associated%20Files/EDRFinalRule_Aug2006.pdf) Here's a list of vehicles supported by one consultant's forensics software: [http://www.rimkus.com/uploads/pdfs/Event_Data_Recorder.pdf](http://www.rimkus.com/uploads/pdfs/Event_Data_Recorder.pdf) ------ Cshelton I don't see it being very long until all vehicles will be required to have a 'black-box' like aircraft. Basically, in the event of an accident that is serious, both black boxes from each vehicle can be submitted to ...somebody, and the the account of what happened will be recorded in perfect detail. This would probably be able to settle fault in a high percentage of cases. Now for the case of people jumping out in front of vehicles like they do in Russia...many vehicles will have cameras and lasers on board which will be used both as safety features (automatic collision avoidance) and autonomous driving. Every bit of data from these will also be recorded. There will come a point in the future, (< 10 years), where most vehicles on the road will have all of these features and disputed accident claims, fraud, people suing the driver after they intentionally jump in front of a vehicle, will all be the past. Data storage is cheap. It will also change all statistics about insurance and driving. New models will come about, including the insurance per mile, etc. And How much of the time is spent under fully autonomous driving versus driving yourself. If you are fully autonomous on most streets all the time, I can imagine a very low insurance premium. ~~~ Someone1234 This isn't as far as away as one might think. 2016 vehicles are already shipping either as options or as standard in some trims, safety features which can detect obstructions and take automated action (collision avoidance systems). Some are aimed only at detecting other vehicles ahead, but some are specifically designed to detect and avoid pedestrians/cyclists. These systems utilise lasers and cameras. They aren't currently being used as a black box but it is practically turn-key, no additional hardware would be required except maybe an SD card and encoder to add a built in car-cam. I agree that it may take ten years for this stuff to become standard in all new cars, but in the next two or three years if someone wants this in their new car they may very well be able to buy it. Toyota are adding many of these features to their 2016 cars as a $500 option (lane departure, collision avoidance, etc) on all trims as far as I know. ------ cpr Wow, we're becoming Russia! Seriously, the Russians have been doing this for years, for more or less the same reasons. This all suggests that the rule of law is tenuous and getting more so in the west. ~~~ dalke An alternative possibility is that the prices are getting cheap enough to be cost effective for problems which have always existed; fraudulent claims, and ambiguity when settling insurance claims. ~~~ corysama Reportedly, fraudulent claims are so common in Russia that there are many video compilations of Russian pedestrians sprinting to ram themselves into slow-driving cars. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSYT6V825gE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSYT6V825gE) ~~~ dalke Or as this Economist article puts it, "Indeed, thousands of Russian videos of horrific crashes, remarkable near misses and blatant attempts at insurance fraud by drivers and pedestrians have become a staple on YouTube and other websites." ------ maresca If I had the spare cash for 2 cams, I'd set them up on my motorcycle for insurance purposes. I've heard too many stories about motorcyclists getting hit and being blamed for the accidents. Or even worse, hit and runs. In the age of cell phones, distracted driving is the norm. I almost get hit by someone almost weekly. I really need some cameras soon :( ~~~ 6stringmerc Depending how long you ride for and how frequently, and if it's just for backup purposes, you could potentially use the Spy Gear Panosphere with a large MicroSD card. [http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Gear-Panosphere-360-Degree- Cam/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Gear-Panosphere-360-Degree- Cam/dp/B00E4H1586) I have two of them and while the native recording is very fish-eye, the software that comes with the unit functions fine in focusing on a specific point. With a 32 GB card and full charge, I think I've gotten about 45 minutes of recording. Might not be good for daily use, but for recreational outings it might be usable with some customization (e.g. super glue a mount to it). I've got one mounted on a swivel clip from a clip-on guitar tuner that broke and it's been a neat tool. Edit: Example footage of using the camera: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBpEGw3tTZ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBpEGw3tTZ8) ~~~ maresca I'd imagine you'd want something good enough to be able to read license plates in case of a hit and run. ~~~ 6stringmerc You're correct that it's not a true HD unit. It doesn't do well in low light either. I think if mounted in the right place though, it could potentially get that info in one of the frames. ------ 6stringmerc Honest question: Has anybody used telemetry from a personal wearable device in the context of using it as proof of testimony, or something akin to that? ~~~ ptaipale I've seen a cyclist's helmet cam video that was used by someone to catch a careless car driver \- the car did not yield in a crossing though it had a "yield" triangle \- the cyclist had to break hard and went over the bar; the car drove away \- cyclist made a crime report at police and gave video as evidence \- car driver was fined for negligence ~~~ mentat negligence, wow, hit and run is a crime ~~~ mayoff "Went over the bar" doesn't mean a collision. It just means the cyclist went over his handlebar. ~~~ ptaipale Right. There was no collision, the cyclist fell because he had to break hard to avoid it, but the car driver did not even notice what happened. The license plate number was visible in the video. ------ sirtastic Question for those of you with dash cams: What do you use and why? Seems like a ton of options available. Some expensive and some not. Many features to consider like storage limits, power source, integrated rear-view cams, etc. ~~~ dsfyu404ed I've got a G1W. I use it because I don't want to get screwed over by an idiot in front of me. I also drive a POS in a nice place and get frequently bothered by law enforcement (stopped for under 5-over...or really?) and if you bring an umbrella it usually won't rain. The most common close call I have in my truck is slowing down to stop in a right or left turn lane and having someone cut me off to get in the lane while I'm stopping. I've only ever seen close calls but if more than one or two people do that when pulling up to one turn then it's gonna be hard for everyone to have enough space to come to a stop without rear ending someone. When driving my 90s compact (not my DD) in traffic I've had two very close calls where people blast through one lane of dense traffic in order to pull out onto the road and cut me off (I assume because they don't see me). Both times I went jumping over curbs to avoid T-boning or rear-ending them. ~~~ sirtastic How did you manage the wiring? ~~~ dsfyu404ed I took a 12v outlet from the junkyard, wired it in parallel with the stock one (hot in run) and located it under the dash. The camera is powered by a USB plug so I just used an adapter I had lying around. I drilled a hole through the trim for the cord and used a grommet to keep it clean looking and prevent the cord from wearing out. ------ teraflop See also: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Roadcam/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Roadcam/) ------ ConfuciusSay The Economist will be following up this exposé with another one next month showing how people use seat belts in cars so they avoid injuries.

Jade: A Desktop Environment Built with Webkit2, JavaScript and Python - djsumdog ====== pekim The link to the repo appears to be missing. I think that it is probably [https://github.com/codesardine/Jadesktop](https://github.com/codesardine/Jadesktop).

CodeMirror: In-browser code editing made bearable - oskarth http://codemirror.net/ ====== oskarth I was taking the go tour [0] and got curious about their clean code editing interface. Looking at the source code it seems that they use codemirror. 0: <http://tour.golang.org/> ~~~ marijn For some reason, they didn't write a language mode. Something that just recognizes comments, strings, and keywords would be extremely trivial to do (for example <http://codemirror.net/mode/vbscript/vbscript.js> )

There's nothing wrong with making a mistake (2002) - luu http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/10/ItsOKtobewrong.shtml ====== cableshaft But HN just told me yesterday that engineers should be held to a higher standard and should be executed, firing range style, when there are bugs: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10488991](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10488991). Now I don't know whether I should kill myself or pat myself on the head! ~~~ vezycash I think this Chinese quote can summarize the article: "He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." In terms of lean methodology, "Fail fast and fail often."

Ask HN: How do you take notes alongside code? - morbidhawk I&#x27;m reading code from one of the big open source framework and finding it hard to organize notes alongside the code. I haven&#x27;t found a good way to take notes alongside the code I&#x27;m reading so I can later come back and review it.<p>My preferred way of doing it in the past has been printing out the code and writing notes alongside it in the margins but I&#x27;ve stopped doing that as it keeps wasting a lot of printer paper and ink.<p>I&#x27;m curious if anybody else has taken notes alongside code and how they are doing it, because I feel like there isn&#x27;t a good way of doing it that I know of yet.<p>I&#x27;ve also tried using org-mode in Emacs and markdown but found that a lot of editors grey out the code making it harder to see, and the whole point is to see the code since I&#x27;m reading the code and it doesn&#x27;t seem worth the effort to copy the file over to Emacs if it looks hideous. Also, I tried downloading the repository (written in C#) and opening it in Visual Studio in hopes to take notes in the form of code comments and I realized that it requires a lot of work and installations to even get the repo to compile and since I&#x27;m only wanting to read the code and take notes I don&#x27;t want to go to that effort and without getting it to compile VS makes most of the code go red with bothersome error squiggles everywhere.<p>How do you take notes alongside code? Is there a good way out there that tailors to reading code and taking notes? ====== andreareina I use org mode. If you `(setq org-src-fontify-natively t)` in your org-mode hook it will render code blocks with that language's display settings, which helps a lot. For two side-by-side buffers, left for code right for notes: * left: `M-x clone-indirect-buffer` * either: `M-x scroll-all-mode` * right: `M-x fixme-mode`[1] The idea is that you abuse the highlighting of FIXME/TODO comments (in the right buffer only) and put your notes there. Scrolling is synced so both buffers are always looking at the same view. It's a bit of a kludge but has the advantage over org-mode that it's easier to add the notes. EDIT: If you cared enough about it you could write a simple major mode for the right pane that highlights all comments[2] so you don't need the FIXME prefix. As a bonus you could also grey out the actual code. [1] [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FixmeMode](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FixmeMode) [2] [http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/elisp_comment_coloring.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/elisp_comment_coloring.html) ~~~ morbidhawk This looks like a very feasible approach, I didn't realize you could lock scrolling for side-by-side buffers. That's really awesome. I'll have to give this a try

Burning Man Seeks to Change ‘Convenience Culture,’ Boots Camp for Wealthy (2019) - masonic https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/business/burning-man-tickets.html ====== masonic 2020 gathering cancelled: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22839503](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22839503)

Who Really Found the Higgs Boson - dnetesn http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/who-really-found-the-higgs-boson ====== adam_d I worked on the ATLAS experiment for 6 years. The article gives a reasonable description of the management structure and the unique upsides of that way of working. However it mostly skipped over the negative aspects. Possibly due to the described desire for consensus, I found the organisation to be incredibly bureaucratic with incredibly lengthy processes. Releasing a paper usually involved around a dozen rounds of review with various groups, often arguing for days about linguistic style more than Physics content. The lack of clear top-down control makes resource allocation very challenging. There were frequent complaints that Higgs analyses had too much manpower while less "sexy" tasks were chronically understaffed. The lack of clear assignment of responsibilities also leads to lots of nasty internal politics between institutes. Especially the Higgs analysis where people were eternally engaged in attempts to land grab so they could claim responsibility for bits of the eventual discovery. Overall, I enjoyed working there a lot. It is a unique structure and the sense of teamwork and lack of hierarchy is very nice. But this article is a bit of a whitewash. I don't think it should be lauded as some incredible model, it has at least as many problems as any other organisation of its size. ~~~ jessriedel I've only worked very briefly in the CMS collaboration, but I've spent a lot of time with people in particle physics collaborations and at medium/large companies. My impression has always been that particle physics collaborations are _very_ well managed for their size, among the best managed human organizations Earth, but that obviously there are friction in getting 3k extremely ambitious scientists to agree on this. For instance, the "frequent complaints that Higgs analyses had too much manpower" may be valid, but they're not really an example of organizational disfunction unless you had some objective reason to think they were making the wrong decision. Folks disagree about things whether they are inside organizations or not, and if those things are important the disagreement may be venomous. Likewise, the lengthy review process is painful and exhausting, but my impression from almost everyone is that it is _sound_ \-- comes to the right conclusions -- and that the conservatism is justified by the field's history of purported discoveries that were later retracted. This soundness is even more impressive when compared to the frequent complaints about the capricious nature of the refereeing process at regular journals, which involves just a handful of physicists. (This is to be compared to physics collaborations outside HEP, like Planck, which are often said to be more dysfunctional.) So I guess I'm wondering if you could say more comparing ATLAS to similar organizations? "The lack of clear assignment of responsibilities" could certainly be a good criticism, and one that I would actually prefer to apply to physics as a whole. The major rewards are fame and esteem, rather than money, so everyone chases the sexiest, most highly visible tasks. ------ sytelus Very intriguing but just like most other articles on alternative management structures, this leaves out all the critical information and focuses on praising system without actually understanding it. While I understand that at CERN most people are working for pure passion at modest salaries while being very highly qualified as opposed to someone in 20s with goal to cash out stock options and retire ASAP, I think it's important to figure out if this is the driving reason behind success of loose management structure with no chain of command. Any alternative management system proposal needs to answer questions like, 1\. How people gets hired? Who creates job posting, how interviews are conducted, who does negotiations, approvals and how talent gets attracted and retained? 2\. Is there differentiated performance reviews? If so who exactly conducts, signs off these? Is there curve? Is there expected distribution? Who approves promotions/pay raises? Who sets up these rules? 3\. If there minimum expectations for performance? Who determines firing and how? 4\. If there is no real manager and everything gets decided by commeeties, who sets up these commeeties? How work assignment is done? Who is accountable for tracking progress, success or failure? Who has final say in ties when conflicts occur? 5\. What options employees have when they want change? How transfer happen? Who approves these and what are the official rules? ~~~ Create This PR piece is utterly misleading. CERN copied and implemented matrix management, essentially what drove NASA JPL to the ground (ask Ron Garret, lisper). For a hint on NASA's future (not talking of the military) recall the name of the new space telescope. SLAC essentially closed down along with most other labs. Those who are at the receiving end of the job delegation process report to several managers, none of whom need to take responsibility. Therefore only the one who reports can take hits, as in hightail (see win-win analysis of The Office on ribbonfarm). Obviously success is management's success, not least of the DG. CERN management proper on the other hand is a tightly knit group (not talking about external contributors, “users” in CERN parlance) with the same level of transparency that need-to-know mechanisms allow for. There are even line- managers and the whole lot. Gianotti was earmarked for leadership position two or three decades ago and has been at CERN since her early twenties. Her external institute affiliation is just a mere formality in the sense that Italy has financially contributed to the CERN budget. Make no mistake: there is a chain of command, but one that is heavily concealed behind a thick layer of administration (see ribbonfarm) protecting management. There are whole departments and groups devoted to implement the five questions you are wondering about. ------ chrispeel I like the loose management style described. My question, can such management be used in a commercial endeavor?

Intel can’t supply 14nm Xeons, HPE recommends AMD Epyc - davidgerard https://www.semiaccurate.com/2018/09/07/intel-cant-supply-14nm-xeons-hpe-directly-recommends-amd-epyc/ ====== gumby I really think Intel lost its way back in the Barrett era and never managed to find it (and I think AMD is really significantly exceeding its historical trend line right now) but despite all that I am dubious about semiaccurate. Looking back at other submissions from that site ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=semiaccurate.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=semiaccurate.com) ) it appears many HN readers are too. Based (only) on the submissions, it looks a bit like an AMD fan site. ~~~ throwaway2048 Semi accurate most definitely has a big bias against Intel, but they are pretty open with it. They have a ton of insider information that nobody else does, there is a reason they have an insanely expensive paywall, and people gladly pay it. ~~~ C7H8N4O2 > They have a ton of insider information that nobody else does Are you willing and able to elaborate? ~~~ throwaway2048 They have a (slightly out of date) page on the very topic [https://www.semiaccurate.com/fullyaccurate/](https://www.semiaccurate.com/fullyaccurate/) Some things since then, they were the first media outlet to talk about how Intel's 10nm was a disaster, The first media outlet to talk about Zen chiplet technology and predict AMD had a homerun on their hands. ~~~ mtgx They also "predicted" Intel's delays and ultimate failure with Broadwell (basically a 6-month product), too. ------ zachruss92 Honestly, this seems like another instance of Intel dropping the ball, and AMD is more than happy to pick up the slack. AMD is already testing their 7nm Epyc chips with OEMs to be released Q1'19. My takeaway from this is that server manufacturers are starting to recommend Epyc is a solution which will increase AMD's market share. This will just create more competition between Red and Blue which will give consumers faster innovation and better prices. ------ DeepYogurt Can anyone explain the shortage of 14nm chips? This article simply mentions that most readers are aware of this fact and I am unable to find supporting articles. ~~~ tristanj [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/14nm-processor-intel- short...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/14nm-processor-intel- shortage-9000-series,37746.html) Because Intel's 10nm process is delayed, their 14nm fab is overbooked leading to a chip shortage. ~~~ dman But isnt the positive spin on that they are selling every chip they could make? ~~~ hajile No. Two fabs output more chips than one fab. Intel has deals with other companies for both 10nm and 14nm production and some of those deals are undoubtedly based on Intel moving their own chips to 10nm. At capacity and unable to increase as expected means customers move to other companies that make compatible, competitive products. Once those companies move, they may not come back. This is quite a bad position to be in. ~~~ dman Are there other companies that are using Intel fabs with real volume? ~~~ chx [https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17614930/apple- iphone-201...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17614930/apple- iphone-2018-intel-cellular-modems-qualcomm-legal-dispute) [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/14nm-processor-intel- short...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/14nm-processor-intel- shortage-9000-series,37746.html) > That ramp is occurring as Intel is also bringing production of its 14nm XMM > 7560 modems online for Apple during the second half of this year. The new > Apple contract, which consists of millions of modems for iPhones, will > certainly be a top priority at Intel's fabs. ~~~ chasil I had heard that Apple will be dumping Intel modems after that contract is complete, with Mediatek the likely new partner. This might have something to do with the Qualcomm lawsuit over Apple breaking NDAs by sharing sensitive information with Intel. Assuming this to be so, Apple may not be allocated the highest priority. ------ acd Arm chips will most likely replace Intel even for servers. I think we may se massive core count with lower clocked frequency chips as die shrink will be come too expensive. “Rock's law or Moore's second law, named for Arthur Rock or Gordon Moore, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years“ [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law) ~~~ vardump CPU side channel attacks, speculative execution leaks, throttling and cache effects, might eventually benefit the ARM server camp. Maybe instead of virtual machines we'll end up running (some) workloads on cheap, low power and isolated ARM CPUs, directly on bare metal without potentially leaky virtualization. Something like 4-16 GB of ECC RAM over 1-2 channels, quad core Cortex A73, A76 or similar. (Some ARMv8 designs are actually not that far behind of x86 chips in scalar performance anymore. SIMD (vector integer/floating point) is another matter, but I guess it's not impossible to slap a few 256 or 512 bits wide SIMD units in ARM designs.) ~~~ gfody I wonder if AMD has the fortitude to try again after the premature ejaculation that was [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaMicro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaMicro) ~~~ djrogers SeaMicro wasn’t ARM though- it was X86 (intel Atom to be specific). ------ martin1975 Feels a bit like Apple's resurrection from the dead when Jobs came back to take the helm after having been 'fired'... now AMD is eating Intel's pie left right and center. ~~~ xattt Are there specific people that are back at AMD that had not been there during the last decade? ~~~ martin1975 the new CEO, her name eludes me, a Chinese lady, she's very much responsible for AMD's recent success and capitalizing on Intel's mistakes ~~~ dragontamer Wikipedia says Lisa Su is Taiwanese-American. Rumor is that she's somehow related to NVidia's chief. Like 2nd cousins or 3rd niece / something-something removed or something of that nature. Just for some delicious irony. EDIT: Found it. Jen-Hsun Huang is apparently her Uncle. [https://babeltechreviews.com/nvidias-ceo-is-the-uncle-of- amd...](https://babeltechreviews.com/nvidias-ceo-is-the-uncle-of-amds-ceo/) > Technically, Lisa Su’s grandfather is Jen-Hsun Huang’s uncle. They are not > exactly niece and uncle, but close relatives. ~~~ ksec Jen is 表舅, So it should be Lisa Su's mum ( it has to be on her mum's side and not her dad ) 's Dad or Mother's ( Grand Pa / Grand Ma ) , and their brother or sisters's son. ------ ItsTotallyOn Intel used to keep less important products, like chipsets, on trailing nodes (right now, that's 22nm). Now the company is fabbing the chipsets on 14nm, too. That's mainly because of the late move to 10nm. Intel's processors SHOULD be on 10nm, but they aren't, so chipsets are eating into 14nm production capacity. Intel has to create one chipset for each processor produced (in most cases), so this adds up to a lot of chips. ------ LinuxBender How many server models have HP and Dell switched to using Epyc? ~~~ JohannFlobuster HPE Solution Architect here -- HPE has 4 lines, 3 public / 1 private. DL385 and DL325 are rack based servers aka traditional pizza box. DL385 is your workhorse platform. DL325 is a 1P design based for heavy PCIe connected (read: NVMe) devices. The CL3150 is a cloudline server and will likely be more consumed in the service provider space, in my opinion. The Apollo 35 is available to top 200 volume accounts (which has been annouced publicly, but is not available to your everyday customer.) This type [of information leak] is my worst nightmare as someone who works with resellers, letting these types of documents in the wrong hands or somehow access is breached like this. Edit 2: I am a server SA, MASE. I configure servers all the time. If customer demand shows the swap, you _could_ see the proc move over to other lines, such as blades and the HPC markets. ~~~ old-gregg Super-curious: have you seen much customer-driven demand for AMD EPYC, i.e. for reasons other than Xeon availability? AMD processors have been affected to a lesser degree to speculative execution exploits, they're cheaper and (if I'm not mistaken) offer more PCIe lanes, etc. Also, do you expect 7mm EPYC to do well in your space? Thanks! ~~~ JohannFlobuster Depends on market segement. I've seen alot of demand for Epyc in workloads that are sensitive to memory bandwidth. Just so much to offer when you max out 8 channels. They are cheaper due to fabrication process. The PCIe lane story is stuff of fanboys. It comes at a cost, power and heat. Secondly, anyone looking at an NVMe box should be looking at AMD in my opinion. The trick is if you are doing a VM farm, mixing Intel and AMD aint the best idea, as you all know. I see EPYC ticking up fast. In terms of exploits like Spectre/Meltdown, I'm pretty sure the exploits AMD claimed were not vulnerable, they ended up pushing out microcode for anyway. So its a moot point. I HAVE come across alot of customers who have DOUBLED their core count due to Spectre/Meltdown mitigations, and they are attracted to AMDs, high core, lower cost options. But remember, the power draw is different and always test/PoC! ~~~ mmt > The PCIe lane story is stuff of fanboys. It comes at a cost, power and heat. Could you unpack this a bit? Specifically, I'm curious if the cost is a premium per lane (e.g. W/lane greater on AMD than on Intel) [1]. Also, is that cost at all affected by the I/O volume or merely the CPU being power-hungry overall? [1] Of course, that assumes everything else being equal, which it can't be, as well as equal proprotion of PCIe utilization, which is unlikely. ~~~ JohannFlobuster Ive had a few customers test AMD and found a higher operating temp and determined it was due to higher power consumption. On paper, you get more lanes at a lower TDP w/ AMD. In practice, as always, your results may vary. Test! PCIe lanes and counting them is funny math. Do the homework on system boards, how they communicate, and the tax of moving information between processors. However, I would say their tests were short, and AMD processors have 3 power operating modes. There was also a neat blog posted somewhere (I think on here...) a little while back suggesting that the AMD proc did not need to run at advertised power on the customer procs. It was about compile times and how much power still resulted in good times. That was consumer-grade Ryzen chips tested though. ~~~ mmt Unfortunately, higher temperature says less about power and more about thermal design (often of the overall system and not just the chip). > On paper, you get more lanes at a lower TDP w/ AMD. I was hoping you (or anyone) had at least some real-world anecdata. However, the theoretical power cost being lower suggests it's unlikely that if there's a premium in practice, it's unlikely to be significant. > PCIe lanes and counting them is funny math. Do the homework on system boards It's not _that_ funny. Latency "taxes" are certainly a concern for some workloads, but, ultimately, if there's not enough bandwidth to get the data to the CPU, such that it might end up idle, that can trump any tax. The difference between 40 and 128 lanes of PCIe 3.0 in transferring 64MiB is on the order of 1ms. Finding a mobo that allows access to all the lanes might be more challenging when there are 128 than when there are 40-48, but I expect the popularity of NVMe to reduce that challenge somewhat. OTOH, it seems Epyc uses half those lanes for communication between CPUs, so the usable lanes doesn't go up for 2S vs 1S, so perhaps the comparison is really 128 lanes vs 96 lanes. ~~~ m_mueller yes, latency vs. throughput, the main idea also behind GPU computing. It worked there well, and CPUs are incredibly going to sacrifice latency for throughout as well. ------ tanilama What is wrong with Intel...Haven't seen this level of inaction from a major firm for a while. ~~~ beerlord Like what happens at any big monopoly... sales and marketing are prioritised over product development. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1rXqD6M614](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1rXqD6M614) ~~~ leadingthenet I knew what it was before I clicked, but I still watched it to the end. He was a really smart guy. ------ lolc This reads like a hit-piece. What are the relative volumes of Xeon versu Epyc? that would be kinda important to know. Maybe I just didn't see them mentioned in the article. ------ trhway back in 2002 it was a struggle for AMD to sign up any big one to offer servers with Opteron chips. This time it looks different. ~~~ micv Opteron servers were the absolute business for a few years in the mid/late 2000s. They were a preferred supplier for a few years while Intel wallowed. 2002 was before my time, but that was the era of SPARC in the business I work in. ------ chx The actual newsletter is on this page [https://h41360.www4.hpe.com/partner- news/cat-enterprise.php](https://h41360.www4.hpe.com/partner-news/cat- enterprise.php) ------ lmz Very nice of them not to blur out the email recipient's address at the bottom of the email :) ~~~ exikyut No, I can't imagine that not being a major goof. SA may have just lost a source, or at least some goodwill. It's entirely possible this was deliberate but I call it unlikely. ------ aidenn0 Is it me, or did SA leave Aaron Weston's e-mail address in the image? ------ craftyguy > The page is marked, “Confidential | HPE Internal & Authorized Partner Use > Only” but it is quite open and does not require a login. (Note: We are not > linking it because of all the sites that steal our stories, rip us off, and > don’t credit) Oh please. ~~~ TheForumTroll I don't think you are aware how much background other writers grab from them and no one credits them, ever. They have a reputation of knowing lots of insider stuff and there's a reason that they can survive with a paywall while hardly anyone else can (I can't think of a singe site writing about hardware that is subscription based?). ~~~ nottorp And what a paywall! I was reading semiaccurate for the entertainment factor when it was free, now you can't even think of subscribing unless their info actually means money to you. ------ faragon Intel previous technology to 14nm is 22nm (2011 [1]) [1] [https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/process](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/process)

A co-founder's guide to Biz Dev - robfitz http://soundboy.tumblr.com/post/35768510187/a-co-founders-guide-to-biz-dev ====== fab1an Very sound advice by someone who's accomplished A LOT in this field. #6 strikes me as particularly important: > 6\. Make sure you’re talking to the ultimate decision maker. > It’s often > not the person you’ll be directed to. It’s frequently the PM. I'd also add that 'it's not necessarily the person with the fancy title.' You'll lose a lot of time by focussing on the wrong person(s), even if their title suggest that they're very important. We lost a deal in which we spent several weeks conferencing flirtatiously with BD and Corp Dev (both EVPs) only to have the proposal rejected by a 'regular' PM, who ultimately owned the product and wasn't very pleased to be brought into the process at a later stage. Instead, we should have asked early on who is going to be involved in the decision process 'given we find a great strategic fit'. Getting a soft Yes, that'd be him/her/me on this also helps the general sales process. ~~~ ian I agree with that. I think from a titles point of view it's also worth noting that BD roles at start-ups is 99% about selling, whereas BD at big companies is often more about being a filter for things that a PM might want to 'buy', and shielding them from what they don't. That's part of the reason that the most badass start-up BD people don't come from big company biz dev teams. ------ josephlord Strongly agreed with lots of these. Getting to the right person is key. Also the "Bigger companies" comment applies whenever the company you want to partner with perceives themselves as big or important. The two I would add: 1) Listen. Obvious but critical to making the right arguments and providing the right information to help the project get sold internally within the partner. 2) You don't just have to fit in with the overall strategy but local departmental strategies and politics with the partner company. Convince the person deciding that you will help them achieve what matters to them (hit targets/get bonus/get noticed...). ------ yo-mf Most important point was actually before the points listed: do business development yourself and figure out the sales process/value proposition before hiring for sales/BD folks. You will never get a handle on what customers want, how they buy, and why they buy if you do not roll up your sleeves and sell your thing yourself. ~~~ ian Yeah, I totally agree with that. Just not for too long, otherwise you become too integral to the process. ------ ohheyworld Most important, from my experience doing biz dev at zillow a few years ago, is focus on the relationship (which is why BD is hard to scale - you can't just "hand" over a relationship to someone else) and figure out how to help the other party every step of the way. Promote the hell out of your closed deals. ------ barrynolan Great advice. Especially documentation: that is your marketing at scale.

First Release of the Ada++ Programming Language - 0xDEEPFAC http://www.adapplang.com/ ====== cable2600 As of this posting the Github is empty and I cannot download the Ada++ Compiler. I learned on Janus Ada for DOS in the late 1980s, it sure has changed since then. ~~~ kjs3 Janus was a good Ada-83 compiler. Late model Ada is a very updated beast. No idea what Ada++ is relative to modern Ada.

Does Functional Programming Replace GoF Design Patterns? - apgwoz http://stackoverflow.com/questions/327955/does-functional-programming-replace-gof-design-patterns ====== gruseom Looking back, I'm amazed at how long it took me to awaken from the dogmatic OO slumber. One of the things that snapped me out of it was realizing how mechanical and low-level the GoF patterns are. Combine that with the tight coupling you get in object models (a foo has a bar and a collection of bazzes, each of which has a bizzat, and they each tell two friends, and so on and so on) and you end up with very rigid code. That medium is concrete and concrete hardens awfully quickly. Nowadays, my programs are orthogonal sets of functions that I can combine any way I want to, with no object model to wrestle into submission, and my world is blissfully design-pattern-free. Freud said sometimes a cigar is only a cigar. I say sometimes a function is only a function. Edit: I exempt Smalltalk from this generalization about OO. I've met too many smart, well-informed people who prefer Smalltalk (at least half a dozen!) to believe that what Smalltalk programmers do is OO of the kind that I experienced. Alan Kay's writings on the subject confirm that. ~~~ silentbicycle If you're exempting Smalltalk from your generalizations about OO, then your observations probably aren't even about OO so much as the fallout from C++ and Java's attempted graft of it onto C. That's like exempting Haskell from generalizations about functional programming. OO systems can be simple and incredibly useful when solving some problems (without needing tremendous amounts of boilerplate code), but many things claiming to use OOP are doing so for buzzword-compliance. You _can_ , of course, write good OO code in C++ and Java (or even C), but many people working in them do not understand OO design very well (overusing inheritance is especially common), and you will have to write complex and verbose workarounds for fundamental differences in language semantics (e.g. the lack of Smalltalk-style blocks, C-style static typing's requirement for explicit casts). If you want to understand OO, look at Smalltalk (_Smalltalk-80_ is a good book). Post-Smalltalk prototype-oriented languages such as Io (<http://www.iolanguage.com/>) and Self (<http://research.sun.com/self/language.html>) also have numerous interesting ideas in them* , but writings about them generally assume familiarity with Smalltalk. Also, read Alan Kay. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, he writes lucidly about many language design issues. My favorite OO example from Smalltalk is that the language doesn't need a primitive for "if", you just pass an object that calls one of two blocks, depending on whether it receives true or false. A Smalltalk block, by the way, is an anonymous function which is not evaluated until its result is needed. Sound familiar? :) * Prototype-based programming is also easily done in Javascript and Lua, FWIW. Steve Yegge is big on the former ([http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/10/universal-design-pat...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/10/universal-design-pattern.html)), I prefer the latter. ~~~ gruseom Note: I mostly wrote the following before I had my coffee. Consider yourself warned :) _your observations probably aren't even about OO_ I programmed professionally in OO for years, have trained many people in OO design and domain modeling, and know what the fuck I am talking about. I know what Smalltalk blocks are, I know what Smalltalk "if" is, and I happen to have read Alan Kay, which you might have seen had you read my post properly instead of just dumping out a pile of predigested tutorial boilerplate. My critique of OO comes from struggling to build serious production systems with it, not from programming language parlor games. _exempting Smalltalk from your generalizations about OO ... [is] like exempting Haskell from generalizations about functional programming_ No, it's not. Kay coined the term OO, but it hasn't meant what he meant by it for a long time. I'm talking about OO in the sense that the overwhelming majority of people now understand it: roughly, the organization of programs into classes that bundle state and behavior in ways that attempt to model the problem domain. Whatever makes Smalltalk great, it isn't this, as the subsequent history of OO makes clear. People thought that this was the contribution of Smalltalk and they tried to abstract the paradigm out and improve on it - but what really happened is they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and now we have static bathwater. I have a hunch this is because they paid too much attention to the Simula strain in Smalltalk and not enough to the Lisp one (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=288786>). Had they listened to Alan Kay they wouldn't have made this mistake; there's no question which he emphasizes more. _OO systems can be simple and incredibly useful when solving some problems (without needing tremendous amounts of boilerplate code)_ Anything is simple and useful when you're working on a simple problem. What matters is how it works on complex problems. The claim made about OO for a generation now is that it helps to build complex systems, and this mantra has been repeated and taught so often that most people just believe it. It's not true. In my experience, you _do_ typically end up needing tremendous amounts of boilerplate code when working that way (whether or not you see it as such is a different matter). Worse, your system starts to fight itself because the way you need to organize it over here doesn't work over there, and so on; time to factor out the code you need into a static "utility" class - poof, there just went your OO paradigm. Ultimately, I'm exempting Smalltalk from my critique because of the respect I have for the Smalltalk programmers I know, who can't possibly only be doing OO in the majoritarian sense. I haven't used Smalltalk enough myself to have a clear idea of what they're really doing, and Bob Dylan said not to criticize what you don't understand. I'm not, however, exempting CLOS, which I have used enough to experience several of the limitations I'm talking about, enough so that I don't bother with it anymore. Perhaps that will persuade you that I'm talking about more than C++ and Java? ~~~ silentbicycle First, I saw that you said that you have read Alan Kay, but I'm speaking to the general discussion audience. And, ok, you know what you're talking about; I'm used to reading people who think that _all_ OO systems necessarily suffer from the same problems as e.g. C++'s, and, not knowing your programming history, had few impressions to the contrary based strictly on what you said. Nothing personal. Be civil, have your coffee. > What matters is how it works on complex problems. Agreed. I don't believe pure-OO (or pure-FP, pure-declarative, etc.) is an ideal approach for _anything_. OOP is a technique that works well for _some problems_ , and is best understood so you can use it when it is a good fit. I think that the best way to _learn_ OO is via studying Smalltalk. I think the best way to learn FP is via either Haskell or ML, etc. I do real work in OCaml, Lisp, and Python (though I am coming to prefer Lua over Python), but use a multi-paradigm approach based on what I've learned in other languages. ~~~ gruseom _Be civil, have your coffee._ That made me laugh! Actually the coffee kicked in as I was writing, which you can probably tell. I don't know why I didn't go back and edit the first part... I compulsively edit everything else. ------ daniel_yokomizo Most OO languages are based on no theory, while every FP language can trace its roots to the lambda calculus. Functions compose and abstract very well, leading to simpler and more expressive designs. In OOPLs the unit of abstraction is the class, usually these aren't even first class citizens, the syntax is usually too heavyweight for casual use (imagine a FPL where it takes as many lines of code to declare an anonymous function as it takes to declare an anonymous class in Java). Even Smalltalk and Self use blocks (i.e. closures or lambdas) instead of providing some lightweight class/object literal notation. GoF patterns were created to solve these problems of OOPLs. If you're trying to do FP in a language without higher order functions and algebraic data types you'll have to come up with dozens of design patterns to express simple things as folds or pattern-matching. OTOH a hypothetical OOPL with higher-order classes and a lightweight syntax for anonymous object/class literals would provide combinators for almost (if not all) GoF patterns and this wouldn't be an issue. It's not FP that replaces GoF patterns, good languages with a solid theoretical basis replace GoF patterns, independent of the paradigm. ~~~ silentbicycle > Most OO languages are based on no theory Smalltalk is based on the same computational theory as Lisp. See: The Early History of Smalltalk ([http://gagne.homedns.org/%7etgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.ht...](http://gagne.homedns.org/%7etgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html)), search for " _to really understand LISP_ ". (It's a scanned and OCR'd article, so there are strange typos.) Unfortunately, you're ultimately correct: "most [popularly used] OO languages" these days seem to be based on tearing off a handful of Smalltalk's object- based theory of computation, duct-taping it on C, and seeing what happens. You can have OO languages with very elegant theoretical foundations (Smalltalk, Io, Self), including systems handling Classes as first-class objects (sometimes called a "Meta-Object protocol"), but most people associate OO with C++ and Java. > Even Smalltalk and Self use blocks (i.e. closures or lambdas) instead of > providing some lightweight class/object literal notation. This really is key: the language doesn't require you to create a full anonymous class when sending a message/anonymous function would do. Also, blocks aren't evaluated unless their message is sent, which means you get a good syntax for lambdas and basic lazy evaluation for free. Those, along with dynamic typing, make most of C++ OO-style awkwardness vanish. ------ jherber Amusingly horrible question. Functional programming languages don't typically have class-based or prototype mechanisms, so why on earth would a named set of object interaction mechanisms be relevant - let alone displaceable? I also think it is funny the status quo in language design is to effectively combine objects and functions but programmers and writers are not acknowledging this fusion. Ocaml, Javascript, F#, Scala, Ruby, Nemerle ... with varying ease, these languages all let you create lambdas, compose functions, functions as values. Even mainstream languages like C# and Java are awkwardly moving in this direction. Scala does some crazy stuff to make "fusion" interesting. They allow objects in pattern matching by providing a specific mechanism for allowing an object to expose encapsulated behavior (extractors). Functions all belong to a parametric set of classes and have an "apply" method e.g. def add(x:Int,y:Int) = x+y is really Function2[Int,Int,Int]{ def apply(x:Int,y:Int):Int = x + y }. Likewise, any class or singleton object can invoked as a function by providing an "apply" method implementation. ~~~ dangrover I think it's because you can easily make your own object system in a functional language. Make yourself a function (representing an object) that takes in a parameter that it uses to dispatch a function contained in it. Return the function, and the user can then call that with their args. And you still maintain encapsulation, too, because the returned function may access stuff that was only available inside the containing closure (where it was dispatched). Put all of this together in a nice "class" macro, and bam, you've got objects. Though, yeah, I guess this would be really tedious if your functional language didn't have good macros. ~~~ omouse "And you still maintain encapsulation, too, because the returned function may access stuff that was only available inside the containing closure (where it was dispatched)." That only works if your functions can maintain state and if they can, well they're basically _objects_ aren't they... ~~~ dangrover That's my point. You don't need to have a separate special construct for objects, or any kind of support for them, when you have first-class functions. As for state information, you could just put a 'let' inside there with your variables, and call mutators on them from inside the "object"'s functions. Hmm, I think all these Scheme-centric classes I've taken have warped my mind. I should seek therapy. ~~~ apgwoz > when you have first-class functions. This isn't enough without the ability to close over the lexical environment. See Python pre 3.0, without the dictionary/list "hacks". ------ silentbicycle What is the difference between a design pattern and a language idiom? From common usage, a "design pattern" seems to be a way of organizing part of a program that cannot be directly expressed _once_ in the language and then pushed into a library, but instead needs to be mostly rewritten whenever used. (Polyglot programmers usually recognize this as a kind of language weakness. (See: [http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/01/finding-signal-to- noise-...](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/01/finding-signal-to-noise-ratio- in-never.html)) ) If one could just say, require "visitor.lib"; and move on, then would people make such a big deal about them? Along similar lines, FP has currying, pattern matching / destructuring-bind, higher-order functions, and monads, among other things. The only one of these I've heard referred to as a design pattern is the monad. Most FP languages just let you do all of the others, but monads require rewriting some (relatively small) infrastructure code. In Haskell, the compiler (via typeclasses) _recognizes_ that you are writing an instance of a _known general concept_ , though, so you don't need to duplicate most of the infrastructure. If this isn't the case, then why aren't general OO design concepts such as e.g. delegation or inheritance considered design patterns? ~~~ jd > What is the difference between a design pattern and a language idiom? A design pattern is simply a name given to the obvious solution given to a common problem. By giving it a name it becomes much easier to talk about / understand the code. Once you know that a class is a proxy class, you don't really care what the methods do anymore, you just dive in and see to which classes the real work is delegated. So one word "proxy" tells you exactly what 400 lines of boilerplate does. A language idiom is different. The purpose of language idioms is to clearly and succinctly express common concepts. The language designers think of a "best" solution, and give it a name. So, really, when you have a bunch of people writing the same code to solve the same class of problem, you give that code a name and call it a design pattern. Patterns emerge AFTER the language is used. Language idioms try to capture the essence of the problem, such that no patterns are necessary. At least, that's how I look at it. ------ newt0311 Its not functional programming per se but higher level languages in general. Most scheme and lisp environments already come with high-level abstractions which completely obviate the need for any obvious design pattern (like visitor, etc...) and lisp is by no means a functional language (though it does incorporate many aspects of functional languages).

Seemore: Physically Based Rendering in WebGL - wildpeaks http://blog.playcanvas.com/seemore-physically-based-rendering-in-webgl/ ====== nthState Awesome! Reminds me of Luigis Mansion/Resident Evil - oh, and the graphics engine is amazing! - You're going places. ------ wildpeaks It seems to be a good week for PBR in WebGL: first Sketchfab and now PlayCanvas as well :) ~~~ daredevildave Yep, this stuff looks great ------ MayorOfMonkeys WebGL doesn't get much sweeter than this. :o)

Google Researchers Introduce System to Rank Web Pages on Facts, Not Links - rejfyl http://searchengineland.com/google-researchers-introduce-system-rank-web-pages-facts-not-links-215835 ====== sparkzilla The increasing co-dependency between Google and Wikipedia, has basically has turned unwitting Wikipedia editors into Google's unpaid fact checkers. [http://newslines.org/blog/google-and-wikipedia-best- friends-...](http://newslines.org/blog/google-and-wikipedia-best-friends- forever/) ~~~ webnrrd2k Aren't they every ones unpaid fact checkers? Isn't that the point of Wikipedia? It would be nice if Google would donate some more money, though.

Ask HN: Why are forums not populair for company collaboration - klaaz0r I like slack for sure but I hate it for more in depth conversations and I can&#x27;t really backtrack any discussions being made at a certain point of time.<p>Some companies I worked had a forum and I loved it, why do forums get used less and are chat tools so popular? Does your company use a forum? ====== xfalcox Disclaimer: I work at Discourse, so I'm totally biased :p We use a Discourse for: \- Support, feature proposals/discussion, bug tracking at [https://meta.discourse.org/](https://meta.discourse.org/) \- Commit reviews [https://review.discourse.org/](https://review.discourse.org/) \- Shared inbox for email support \- Company planning at an internal instance And we see a growing need for better tools for company collaboration. It's even greater if you work on a distributed, remote team that spans dozens of timezones like us. Chat doesn't cut a discussion that can span months, years. Or when you want to actually put tough into an argument, bringing paragraphs, links, multimedia content, etc. We have a few blog posts about it: [https://blog.discourse.org/2018/03/how-does-team- discourse-u...](https://blog.discourse.org/2018/03/how-does-team-discourse- use-discourse/) [https://blog.discourse.org/2018/04/effectively-using- discour...](https://blog.discourse.org/2018/04/effectively-using-discourse- together-with-group-chat/) And a new one coming soon about teamwork.