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Terminal tools that make my life easier - spudlyo https://jonathanh.co.uk/blog/tools-that-make-my-life-easier.html ====== dontdieych Upvote for fzf, ripgrep, fd, bat. \- shell history search with fzf(ctrl + r) is most productive use case in addition to shell auto suggestion(fish shell). ------ bengale Bat sounds handy. I’ll have to give that a go tomorrow.

All Activities Monitored - dangerman https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/all-activities-monitored ====== ohazi So this surveillance technology started in the military to track insurgents, expanded to law enforcement and government to track suspects and the general public, and is now expanding to corporations to monitor customers. This pattern makes it seem like the cat is out of the bag, and that pervasive expansion and abuse of this technology is all but inevitable. Let's extrapolate a bit and start thinking about what society will look like when this sort of surveillance is made available to the general public. Imagine a free, Google-Maps-like application that allows you to see individual people and rewind with half second resolution. This would be such a massive wrench thrown into the gears of society that I'm having trouble coming up with anything coherent. ~~~ dawg- You just described Life360, which is running on my phone right now. Also, corporations monitoring customers is not as scary as you make it out to be with your connection to the military. Yes it sucks. But you can choose which company to be a customer of. With the rise of corporate surveillance, the choices we all make about consumption just got another layer of importance. ~~~ smolder With the rise of pervasive surveillance, I think the choices we all make are going to cease to be important. We can be micromanaged into making the "right" ones. We truly become cogs in an uncaring, world destroying machine, with no more agency than rats in lab experiments. For people with a strong conformity streak, this may sound fine. If you don't like being told what to do, and don't like the direction of society in general, it's pretty dismal. ~~~ smolder In retrospect this comment is hyper cynical even for me, and doesn't make a lot of sense that our choices wouldn't matter. I just can't get past the idea that my whole online life is there for someone with sufficient privilege to dig through. I feel so violated by the betrayal of mass surveillance because I invested most of my life into the internet thinking it was actually intended to be safe and egalitarian, not a spy machine and a tool for social control. ------ gumby For some perspective on this level of surveillance (and what it's like when the technology extends to the consumer level) check out this 21 year old book by David Brin, "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom". (Preferably get it from your local library, if you still have one, or a small independent bookseller.) ~~~ JohnFen I have a very hard time picturing how someone could have freedom without privacy. ~~~ smolder I agree, and it's specifically because everything is hierarchical. If you have more power you are free to be more private than everyone else, and know more about everyone else than they know about you. The ideal transparent society can't exist without a level playing field, so it's not going to happen. ------ Animats "It's 10 PM. Do you know where your Congressman is?" ~~~ Buttons840 Heh. If we can't stop it we can at least exploit it, right? All this surveillance and transparency might actually make things better _iff_ we can force the government to be more transparent than the people. Imagine a government that is so well surveilled by the people that the people could trust it to surveil them in return. That doesn't seem to be where things are heading though. ------ mlb_hn Seems parts are a bit misleading and exaggerating capabilities. E.g. >> Images from the cameras are in turn fed to computer programs that allow analysts to track suspects, and even to rewind to look back over their paths, like watching TiVo. I'm pretty sure that really just means that they digitized footage and the analysts did the actual tracking manually but it reads as having good image recognition back in 2006. ~~~ sedachv > I'm pretty sure that really just means that they digitized footage and the > analysts did the actual tracking manually but it reads as having good image > recognition back in 2006. I do not know the specifics of the software used in the Gorgon Stare program, but SRI started work on automated image surveillance under DARPA contract in 1982 with ImagCalc. The system was later expanded to video and continued development until two years ago: [http://www.ai.sri.com/software/freedius](http://www.ai.sri.com/software/freedius) I am not sure what year they added automated video tracking. At the 2007 International Lisp Conference Christopher Connolly and/or Lynn Quam (can't remember) showed a demo of FREEDIUS that, among other things, had automated track analysis on aerial and CCTV surveillance footage; by that time the problem was long solved, and they were working on automated event detection. Same year (2007) the same SRI group also published this paper, "Recovering Social Networks From Massive Track Datasets": [http://www.ai.sri.com/pubs/files/1552.pdf](http://www.ai.sri.com/pubs/files/1552.pdf) The "massive track datasets" were automatically derived from surveillance motion sensors, of course. Automated surveillance capabilities were very far along by 2006. The really interesting thing is that FREEDIUS is publicly available under the Mozilla Public License: [https://github.com/SRI-CSL/f3d](https://github.com/SRI-CSL/f3d) Drone away! ------ seph-reed > "Eyes in the Sky tells the story of a top-secret surveillance system that > helped turn the tide in Iraq." Everyone loves a good under-dog story! ------ JohnFen This is utterly terrifying. What can we ordinary people do to protect ourselves from this stuff? ~~~ kylek This wiki says they use smartphone cameras [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare#Phase_two](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare#Phase_two) Anyone want to build a drone-seeking high-powered-laser-pointer turret to dazzle them? ~~~ JohnFen I don't really think this would count as a solution, but it is an interesting technical challenge. I own a bunch of small, very powerful lasers (intended for engraving) that would have a high chance of not just dazzling a camera, but permanently damaging it. I wonder how feasible it would be to build a system that can physically locate a moving drone with enough accuracy. Maybe by tracking its RF signals? Hmm, this might be a fun project, purely for intellectual purposes. I also own a bunch of RC aircraft that I could use as targets... ------ whatshisface > _The advent of this technology, combined with artificial intelligence and > vast data banks, makes almost nonsensical the ideas of privacy and probable > cause of an earlier age._ That's like saying that the invention of atomic weapons made almost nonsensical the idea of not being vaporized. The fact that I _could_ be vaporized more easily now that at any time in history has nothing to do with my hardline anti-vaporization position, except possibly that it steels it. ~~~ X6S1x6Okd1st The reason why we haven't seen use of atomic weapons is that it's clear that use of atomic weapons will be met with more atomic weapons. It's not clear that the state is worried about retaliation against wide area surveillance. ~~~ whatshisface I don't think it was ever clear that atomic weapons wouldn't be used, especially not near the time of their invention. Remember the Cold War? ~~~ jdbernard He didn't say they wouldn't be used, quite the opposite. He said there was certainty that if they were used, your opponent would respond with more of the same. This led to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction from the Cold War. Stated another way: if we use them we know they will be used on us, so we'd better not use them. OP's point was the there is no similar guaranteed retaliation that might motivate restraint in the use of surveillance.

HN Replies – Get notified of replies to your comments - sandebert http://hnreplies.com ====== sandebert I know this has been posted six months ago, but it's so great that I thought it deserved more exposure. Seriously, until HN has something like this built in, dang & co should consider putting a link to it in the footer. Enter your username and email to get up and running, that's it. (No password.) Built by dangrossman. ------ amenghra This should really be a default feature.

Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but... - syrusakbary https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 ====== mikek At a certain point, your resume should speak for itself. The fact that experienced engineers with impressive resumes are put through these types of interviews is insulting and frustrating to the interviewees. Succeeding at these whiteboard questions requires weeks of preparation. You need to practice, practice, practice. After enough practice, you are pretty likely to pass. So ultimately, it is more of a test of "how much do you want to work here." If you care enough, you can pass. That said, these types of interviews do favor fresh grads over experienced programmers (you have algorithms and data structures fresh in your mind), which means that they are flawed in IMHO. ~~~ kenrikm These types of interviews work really well for the "I got 1600 on my SATs and went to {insert high profile school here} crowd" There are books out there just to prep you for Google interviews I see these as very similar to SAT test prep books. I'm not so sure Google is really interested in hiring the best engineers but rather a specific type of engineer. ~~~ thethimble Think of the problem from Google's perspective though. At some point, you have tens of thousands of candidates and you need a system to quantify how good they are. Further, it's reasonable to have false negatives (people you don't hire that should have been hired) but really bad to have false positives (people that you hire that you should not have). Together, these boil down into the de facto whiteboarding interview process. ~~~ fsk This has got to be the biggest hiring fallacy I've ever heard. "It's better to reject a good candidate than hire a bad candidate." That's completely false, and anyone who says that is completely ignorant of Bayesian logic. Here are some simple numbers. Suppose that a "good" candidate is a 1-in-100 find. Suppose that a "bad" candidate has a 1% chance of tricking you into hiring them anyway. Every time you pass on a "good" candidate, that is greater opportunity for a "bad" candidate to trick you into hiring them! Counterintuitively, if you pass on too many of the "good" candidates, in your overzealousness to reject bad candidates, you're actually INCREASING THE ODDS OF A BAD HIRE. This is management porn. "It's better to reject a good candidate than hire a bad candidate." It makes the manager feel good. "Wow! That candidate seemed smart, but I rejected him anyway! I'm such a great leader! I make the tough decisions!" tl;dr summary Because "good" candidates are rare, every time you pass on a good candidate that increases your odds of making a bad hire! This is simple Bayesian reasoning! ~~~ bskinny129 Those are simple numbers, but they don't get at the real issue. People say that because 1 bad hire can have negative effects on the whole team, causing others to get less done and leave. Missing a good hire doesn't poison your team. ~~~ krschultz But 1 bad hire is easily correctable - you fire the person. You won't know that you missed on the good hires. I personally have worked with several awesome people that have interviewed with Google, and none of them got hired. They all said the interview process was flat out insulting. Interestingly enough, most of them ended up at Facebook. ~~~ enraged_camel >>But 1 bad hire is easily correctable - you fire the person. Not sure if you have ever been a manager, because firing someone is NEVER easy. It hurts everyone emotionally. The person getting fired feels awful. The person doing the firing feels awful (unless they are a real sociopath). And team morale tends to take a big hit. Here is my stance: if you hire someone who isn't a good fit, unless they actively deceived you, it is your god damn job to find a way to make it work. As a principle you should treat people with respect and dignity, and not as easily disposable and replaceable cogs. ~~~ kogepathic > it is your god damn job to find a way to make it work. No, it isn't. This is why probation periods exist. If you hired someone and they aren't working out, then at the end of the probation period you don't keep them on. Trying to force someone who doesn't fit the team dynamic to stay is going to hurt your org. It doesn't make you a "good" manager to say to everyone "I know this sucks but deal with it because letting them go would mean I was wrong." > As a principle you should treat people with respect and dignity, and not as > easily disposable and replaceable cogs. Which is ironic because so many job descriptions I see today are basically written as "we want to hire someone with exactly these skills, who requires zero training, and can become an expert in our systems in their first week." No one is that way, unless your system consists of pressing one button all day, but then the job description would probably require that the person have intricate knowledge of the button and is friends with the engineer who designed it so they know what to do if the button suddenly stops working. If companies actually treated people with respect and dignity, I'd get the training I need to become a better employee, instead of going to management and begging them for any training every 6 months like the industry is now. /rant ~~~ tommorris > Trying to force someone who doesn't fit the team dynamic to stay is going to > hurt your org. Doesn't this rather presume that your "team dynamic" is actually good to start with? Let's say you had a team of not very good engineers. Then you hired quite a good engineer who looked at all the terrible practices (e.g. no version control, shitty or nonexistent testing, poor build processes) and said to themselves "look, I need to fix this shit or I'm leaving, and I've got ten better offers in my inbox". They might not be a very good team fit, but that's because the team is filled with idiots who haven't figured out how to use version control or whatever. So, you know, the best thing to do is to get rid of them for not being a culture fit or for not being good for the team dynamic...? ~~~ kogepathic > They might not be a very good team fit, but that's because the team is > filled with idiots who haven't figured out how to use version control or > whatever. Yes, if you have a team like this and you hire someone who has a higher standard, there is going to be some friction between them and the existing team members. Letting that person go isn't your concern, because as you said yourself: > and said to themselves "look, I need to fix this shit or I'm leaving, and > I've got ten better offers in my inbox". I've been in that situation before. I was hired to a company and when I got there I found out that every single day they were fighting fires because of stupid decisions management made with little foresight into how it would affect the team. Funny enough none of this was mentioned during the interview, although it was a definite red flag that they had high churn for this particular position. I stayed there for my probation period trying to fix things so the team would fire fight every day and change management's mentality, but it wasn't happening, so I gave notice and went somewhere better. > So, you know, the best thing to do is to get rid of them for not being a > culture fit or for not being good for the team dynamic...? No, you took me too literally. Obviously if you've got someone who has friction with the team, but they're a hard working individual who is trying to make your team better and more efficient, you should try to work through those stressful periods because in the long run it will be better for your team's health and the company's health. If some of your low performers leave during this period, that's okay, they were only going to hurt you in the long run. That being said, don't burn bridges with your existing employees. Try to find a happy middle ground that results in a better work environment for everyone. ------ joshstrange To all of those saying ranting on twitter is the wrong move I couldn't disagree more. Twitter is often the ONLY tool that the average person can use to communicate and/or call out large companies on their actions. This is BS and should be made known. Homebrew is an amazing tool and I'd be falling over myself getting the offer papers in this guy's hands if he came to me looking for a job. The fact that google turned him away only further cements my opinion that google would be a terrible place to work. ~~~ philipwalton My main complaint with the tweet is that it's almost certainly speculation. 1) Most companies (for legal reasons) don't tell candidates why they weren't offered a job. Maybe it was because of the binary tree question, but maybe it was for some other reason. 2) Homebrew is a Mac-only product, so the likelihood that 90% of Googlers use homebrew is very low. Moreover, Google does not track the software its employees download onto their laptops, so there's no way they would even know the percentage. ~~~ austinjp Really? In the UK companies are legally obliged to reveal why a candidate did not get a job, if asked... in my understanding. ~~~ mdpopescu Huh? I've been rejected by an UK company with just "you're obviously a very experienced programmer, but "we are not able to take your application any further at this time". I did get a code review out of it though, and it did point out a few real issues, so I'm ok with it. ~~~ austinjp Maybe I don't understand the legals fully. My experience comes from being on the hiring side. Our HR department were very keen that we kept detailed notes so that the decision not to hire could be justified in the case of a tribunal or suing situation. For what it's worth, it did make me question my motives and felt that it ensured I gave every candidate a fair shot. ------ Alupis Has no one stopped to question what Google may have been looking for in a candidate? The OP has written some great apps, sure, but there is a huge difference between writing a package manager for Mac (among other Mac/iOS apps and utilities) and writing incredibly complex, highly performant algorithms for say search indexing, machine learning, ai, etc... In that context, knowing CompSci basics like Binary Trees (usually taught to pre-major CompSci students) has a lot of relevance. It's clear Google was looking for a Computer Scientist here, not just another developer. I am also put off by the extreme display of non-professionalism here. It's like the OP took this personally as an insult. "I've written popular things, how dare you not hire me if I want to work for you!". That's not a professional I'd like to work on a team with. Rather, that's a throw-back to the "Rockstar" programmer that nobody wants to work with. This boils down to a person who was personally offended a company did not hire them at a drop of a hat, as-if he was "blessing" Google with his presence. I'd say, Google (and other companies) are better off without this type of ego. They made the proper choice to weed this individual out. ~~~ emsy If you follow the twitter discussion, it says he applied for iOS tools. I don't know what tools they write but I'd be surprised if someone who manages to write a (pretty good, actually) package manager can't solve the problems in this position. ~~~ Alupis > If you follow the twitter discussion, it says he applied for iOS tools We cannot just assume that since he applied for iOS something at Google that he's the best fit and what they were looking for. Maybe the tools Google needs built are very CS heavy (hence the "Build us a Binary Tree" question)? Maybe during the interview his arrogant attitude was on full display? Maybe the interview team dug up past episodes of explosive arrogance like this very one we're discussing right now? Even if they were looking for someone that matched his profile exactly, his post-interview display of non-professionalism is sure to hurt his chances of a re-interview anytime in the future (and quite possibly at many more companies than just Google). He conveyed several things with this display, none good; * he's incapable of handling rejection * he feels entitled * he feels he's better than everyone else * he's unwilling to admit his own shortcomings None of these are good qualities. ~~~ omegote He actually didn't apply, it was Google who contacted him in the first place. ~~~ pound Google contacts plenty of people. Reaching out to yet another engineer (not even talking about this particular case) doesn't mean they really want someone particular. They just going through the pool of potential matches. Person who initiated contact may not even know what exactly Homebrew is. ------ fishnchips [Ex-Googler here] Truth be told this is a trivial question to be asked during an algo interview and as an interviewer I'd consider this a warm-up. Otherwise it's a rather poor question since either you know how to do it (ie, you have an idea about recursion) or you don't - there aren't too many shades of grey or possible follow-up questions that I can ask to probe the depth of your knowledge. That being said if I asked this as a warm-up and we'd spend the whole interview trying to get that done then of course my verdict would be No Hire. As an interviewer it is not my job to look at your GitHub profile - instead I am assigned an area to check and I try to come up with the best understanding of the candidate _in that area_. While failing to reverse a binary tree is a total failure in algo/ds you can still be hired since there are several interviewers (if you make it to onsites, that is), each probing a different area. My biggest problem with Google style interview process is that it's easily passed by folks who already passed it in a different company. After having interviewed hundreds of Google's candidates I moved to another big company with the same interview type and the experience was really surreal. On my algo/ds interview I got asked slight variations of the same questions I was asking myself - and over time I've seen some totally brilliant, unexpected solutions. Must have been a strange experience for the interviewer who got his questions each answered in 3 minutes tops. I also made it a sport to solve each one in a different language because why not. Not sure though about validity of the signal the company got from this interview. ~~~ Aloisius _> [Ex-Googler here] Truth be told this is a trivial question to be asked during an algo interview and as an interviewer I'd consider this a warm-up. Otherwise it's a rather poor question since either you know how to do it (ie, you have an idea about recursion) or you don't - there aren't too many shades of grey or possible follow-up questions that I can ask to probe the depth of your knowledge._ It is a terrible question. First, you can't invert a binary tree (as in flip upside down). If you did, you'd end up with multiple roots and since all binary trees are rooted, you'd no longer have a binary tree. It'd be a tree, just not a binary tree. If the questioner meant mirror a binary tree (swap left & right at each node), then it is a no-op. You do not need to modify memory to do it. Left & right are just labels for two pointers. You can just swap the order your variables in whatever struct defines your node and cast it against your existing memory (or change what your accessors return in a derived class or create a reverse iterator or however you want to implement it) and there you go, a "reversed" tree with zero overhead. Either way, it is a terrible question unless you wanted to see if someone understood the difference between how a data structure is drawn on a whiteboard for humans vs. how it actually works. Maybe they were actually asking that question, but that seems highly unlikely. And if they actually meant for you to recurse down and swap left and right on everything, it would dramatically lower my opinion of them because it would make me wonder if _they_ knew the difference between how a binary tree is drawn on a whiteboard vs. how it is laid out in memory. ~~~ gaustin Would a multiply-rooted tree still be a tree? I thought a single root was part of the definition of a tree. Would it instead be a graph? Sorry for the elementary questions. I'm bad at algorithms and just trying to get a grasp here. ~~~ kele At my university it's common to call acyclic, connected graph a tree. We distinguish between rooted and unrooted trees. For example, minimal spanning tree doesn't really have to be rooted, it just has no cycles. ~~~ haversoe > acyclic, connected graph a tree This is the graph theoretic definition of a tree. ------ kazinator WTF is "inverting a binary tree?". The smattering of search engine results points to some seemingly operation that basically generates garbage by destructively manipulating the tree into a DAG in which the leaves of the original tree are roots, which point downward the parents. The original root node is returned, and still points to its children. Unless you return some aggregate (e.g. list) of all the roots which are not direct children of the original root, or it is understood that something elsewhere holds reference to them, they are leaked. Be that as it may, _if the interviewers hand you a reasonably detailed specification of what "invert a binary tree" means_ and you can't whiteboard it, I don't see how you can expect the job. If you're expected to know what it means, and get no hint, then that is just stupid. "Whiteboard up an implementation for something we refuse to specify, beyond citing its name." ~~~ tzs My guess is that the potential leaking of some nodes is one of the points of the question. A lot of people would not notice it. Note that in the original tree each node needs storage for two pointers. After inversion only one is needed. You can use that now unused storage to link together the multiple roots to solve the leak problem. But note that only consumes the second pointer storage in the roots. Interior nodes end up with some free storage after inversion. Since inversion is reversible, the binary tree and its inverse contain the same information. Does this mean we should only need one pointer's worth of storage in the binary tree nodes? Is there something for binary trees similar to Knuth's xor trick for doubly linked lists? ~~~ kazinator If you invert the tree such that each node points to its parent, and there are no child pointers, you lose information. Namely, the order among children is lost. A given interior node still has two children as before, but it is not known which is the left child and which is the right child; there is just a set of up to two nodes which point to the same parent. The binary tree inverse specifications/implementations I have looked at preserve the information by selectively using the left or right links. For instance, given: P / \ L R The inverse would be: L R \ / P Both children point to the parent. But the left child uses its right pointer, and the right child uses the left pointer. That's what preserves the information about which child is which. ------ nostrademons Sorta ironic, but remember that the point of an interview is to determine how well you'd do _in the environment that 's hiring you_, not _how good a developer you are_. Because Google tends to reinvent the wheel for basically everything, algorithmic knowledge really does matter. Package management only matters within a few very specific subteams. If you're interviewing for a general SWE position, you could be Mark Zuckerburg and still not qualify for it. FWIW, I find Facebook turning down Jan Koum in 2009 and then spending $19B to acquire his company even more ironic. ~~~ apendleton That may well be, but if you're considering hiring a guy who's an expert at writing package management tools, don't you put him on one of the specific subteams that needs that skillset? Surely it's something Google deals with? ~~~ nostrademons The problem is that Homebrew is very different from the sort of package management tasks that Google deals with. The design goals for Homebrew include: make it easy for users, make it not require root, make it work on Macs, handle dependencies robustly. If he were at Google it would be Linux- only, he'd be using Linux containerization extensively, he'd be deploying packages to thousands of machines instead of one, it'd be a virtual guarantee that some of the machines would fail during the installation process, there would be little or no user intervention and if there was a user it'd be a trained SRE, and the installation procedure would probably need to be an order of magnitude more efficient than Homebrew is. I don't want to take away from his accomplishments as a programmer - I use Homebrew too. But my point is that it's very easy to see "Good programmer, of course he should get hired" from the outside, while the reality is that it may not be all that similar to the tasks he'd be doing. ~~~ smackfu If you are hiring the Homebrew dev, and your devs currently use Homebrew, why wouldn't you hire him to work on Homebrew for you? ~~~ Alupis > If you are hiring the Homebrew dev, and your devs currently use Homebrew, > why wouldn't you hire him to work on Homebrew for you? Macs account for something like 8% of the total marketplace of all PC's. For developers, they account for something like 20%... another 20% on Linux, and remainder on Windows or other. So even if somehow having a paid Google employee work on Homebrew seemed advantageous, it would only benefit 20% of Google's staff, and 0% of the company itself (all Google servers are Linux). ~~~ loopbit Except that google 'banned' the use of windows internally a few years ago unless you had a really, really good reason for it. Not sure what's the status of that ban (nor I care), but will skew the numbers enough to invalidate your point. ~~~ Alupis > enough to invalidate your point. It might except ex-googlers in this thread of stated Google "banned" use of Homebrew internally. So the net benefit to the company and/or employees remains small to zero. This is off topic though, since he was not being interviewed for homebrew development. ------ robbrit I'd like to present HN with a challenge. Come up with an interview process that matches _all_ of these requirements: Objective - the process avoids human bias (this guy was in my frat, therefore is awesome). Inclusive - someone doesn't need extensive past knowledge in a particular area of coding to do well in the interview. Risk Averse - Avoids false positives. Relevant - it properly tests the abilities needed for a coding job, and not irrelevant ones (like the ability to write an impressive resume). Scales - this will be used for tens of thousands of interviews. Easy-to-do - this will need to be done by hundreds/thousands of engineers, who would probably rather be coding. It's easy to poke fun at what is perceived to be a flawed process. It's much harder to propose a solution that satisfies the above requirements. Google has done extensive research on this topic and has done remarkably well with it compared to other companies of similar size. ~~~ ridiculous_fish Xoogler here. I can't meet your challenge. IMO the very premise of a company- wide unified interview process for all software engineers is wrongheaded. How can you make the interview relevant without knowing what the position is? I was asked the typical CS-type questions in my interview, but the team I ended up on required no theory. How do you define false positives before you know what the candidate will work on? A superstar in one team will be a dud in others. And let me add another bullet point to your process wish-list: gives the candidate a sense of whether they want the job. This is impossible when the interviewer is a random engineer from an unrelated team, unable to speak to what the candidate's work life will be like. A Google style process gives candidate very little information. I would instead propose something very old-fashioned: teams hire for themselves. The usual reply is that this results in an "inconsistent hiring bar", but so what? Teams have different requirements and need engineers with different skills, so why shouldn't the hiring process reflect that? We are not fungible engineering units. ------ carc To be fair, inverting a binary tree is a pretty easy question. Google also tells you BEFORE you start the interview process that it'll be very data structure/algorithm oriented and asks that you please prepare (and take as much time as you want doing so). They even say that they want you to prepare because they know a bad candidate that prepares can look better than a good candidate that doesn't prepare - then want all candidates on a level playing field so they can make accurate judgements. All that being said, I still think that there is lots of room for improvement in the process. edit: really good english skills ~~~ jblow I am dismayed by the way all the reactions on Twitter are piling on with outrage and/or relating similar experiences. Inverting a binary tree is pretty easy. It is not quite as trivial as FizzBuzz, but it is something any programmer should be able to do. If you can't do it, you probably don't understand recursion, which is a _very basic_ programming concept. This isn't one of those much-maligned trick interview questions. This is exactly the kind of problem one may have to solve when writing real software, and though you may never have to do this specific thing, it is very related to a lot of other things you might do. I run a small software company and I very likely would not hire a programmer who was not able to step through this problem and express a pseudocode solution on a whiteboard. ~~~ callum85 > If you can't do it, you probably don't understand recursion No, I can't do it (don't even understand the question) but I certainly understand what recursion is, and can solve problems and make things work far more reliably than many of the more academic programmers I have worked with. ~~~ SamReidHughes I believe "invert" here means to flip the left-right direction. A better word for it would be "mirror." ------ seccess What does it mean to invert a binary tree? I'm not familiar with this operation on binary trees. Does it mean to swap parents with child nodes? Or to swap siblings? ~~~ x3n0ph3n3 In this case, it means to reverse the binary tree, so that you get the largest item by iterating down the left branch to the bottom of the tree. You would do this by breadth-first scanning the tree, swapping the left and right pointers as you go. ~~~ attilaolah Oddly enough, Google shows me interview questions where "inverting a binary tree" means something quite different — for example, flipping it upside down, and making the left leaf the root, the right leaf the left leaf and the root the right leaf. If this was really about "reversing" the tree, as you mention, the question seems more likely to address how the candidate approaches the situation. Like, he should start by making sure they both agree on what the question actually means. Once that's out of the way, it seems relatively easy to come up with a naive solution, without having memorised any algorithms. It seems more like a case of brainfreeze to me, which can be sort-of fixed with practice (which in turn many candidates refuse to do: the dreaded "If I have to cram for the interview, I don't want the job" statement.) So maybe he really wasn't a good fit for Google, despite apparently being a rockstar developer. Hey, startups need rockstar devs too. ~~~ DannoHung I was gonna say, who calls reversing a tree's ordering inverting? > Oddly enough, Google shows me interview questions where "inverting a binary > tree" means something quite different — for example, flipping it upside > down, and making the left leaf the root, the right leaf the left leaf and > the root the right leaf. Whaaaaa? I can't find this, but it seems like such a weird operation. Got a link? ~~~ morpher >I was gonna say, who calls reversing a tree's ordering inverting? The guy writing the tweet (not necessarily the interviewer). ------ squiguy7 Interviewing seems broken to me too. I have spent the last few months trying to get a job out of college and everyone seems to be interested in how well you can regurgitate CS fundamentals. They are seemingly less interested in seeing how you solve problems and work through the process of software. I would be more than happy to see this process change, I am just not sure what it entails. ~~~ bstamour Devil's avocado: if they're truly CS fundamentals, then they should be baked into you good and deep during the course of your college education. It shouldn't be painful at all. ~~~ gkoberger I took CS 101 classes almost a decade ago, and since then, I have never once needed to write a binary search tree outside of an interview. I think "CS Fundamentals" are really just "abstract concepts used to teach programming", and calling them fundamentals is disingenuous. ~~~ jblow Maybe you're just not doing serious programming. Most people I know implement data structure searches quite often. If you're writing scripts, or JS code for web pages or something like that, then maybe you don't use CS stuff, but ... are you able to write a web browser if you had to? Are you able to write an operating system or navigational software for a spacecraft? If not, then maybe just see this as revealing sectors of your skill set that could be beefed up, rather than presuming that none of that stuff is important. ~~~ Aloisius > _Maybe you 're just not doing serious programming. Most people I know > implement data structure searches quite often._ Wow. Really? Most serious people I know use other people's implementations that have already been highly optimized and well tested because they have better shit to do than reinvent the wheel. I suppose if you want to write your own red-black tree from scratch, that's your prerogative. The last time I did was 20 years ago and not only will I never do that again, I will laugh at anyone who does it without a damn good reason. ~~~ MaulingMonkey > Wow. Really? Most serious people I know use other people's implementations > that have already been highly optimized and well tested because they have > better shit to do than reinvent the wheel. Ditto. Those who decided to reinvent even basic data structure stuff left me a huge string of bugs to fix, which I eventually got so fed up with, that I started replacing their code wholesale with off the shelf solutions to stem the flow at my last job. Aside from fixing an untold number of implementation bugs, the replacement caught several _usage_ bugs as well, due to actually having some error checking built in. We had just plain broken hashtables, "lock free queues" that didn't use memory barriers... or interlocked intrinsics... or even volatile, if my memory is correct - and not a debug visualizer to be seen before I got my hands on them, of course. > I suppose if you want to write your own red-black tree from scratch, that's > your prerogative. The last time I did was 20 years ago and not only will I > never do that again, I will laugh at anyone who does it without a damn good > reason. Besides laughing, I'll tend to -1 the code review as well. ------ bane I've phone interviewed with Google a couple times. I wasn't really interested in working there, but wanted to see what it was like. Both times, the people who interviewed me were decent, friendly folks and we had a good chat. They then dug into algorithm questions on topics I hadn't seen since my undergrad (I'm about 20 years into my career) and haven't touched since then -- though I've done a bit of algorithm work outside of that they weren't particularly interested in that. I reached into my way-back machine and tried to derive some approaches where I simply didn't remember the answer (and I was very open about it). I made it to call backs both times, but they declined to move forward, probably because they wanted a younger person who remembered their big-Os off the top of their head, but I was okay with it. I told all the interviewers I had fun and I did. Even if I had made it in, I'm not sure I would have taken the job at those times. So my lack of motivation ended up turning what could have been stressful into a fun look at their hiring practices. However, I can see for people who are really dead set on working there, it can be a harrowing experience. ------ notacoward Humorous answer: Maybe I can't invert a tree, but watch me flip this table. Serious answer: Companies that pull this crap deserve to starve and die. ~~~ westernmostcoy What specifically are you objecting to? That specific question? Writing code on a whiteboard? How would you interview software engineering candidates? ~~~ gt565k I think the best way is to give them access to a code base, give them 48 hours and have them submit a pull request for a feature. That way you can see that they can learn the codebase and implement the feature in their own time. During the interview, you can discuss their code and the reasoning behind the implementation details. ~~~ snom337 Which is fine and dandy until you get that one person that cheats by getting help from someone else. ~~~ ruswick As if people who interview for Google don't just look up the most common interview questions and memorize answers before the interview... ~~~ snom337 Still I think that would become obvious pretty quickly. I've actually had people start writing out a textbook algorithm that just solved the wrong problem. And then completely stumbled when trying to explain how the program would arrive at the intended result. I usually ask questions until the person is out of his comfort zone, and if he is completely clueless on how to proceed at that point it's a red flag. ------ markbnj Number of times I have had to invert a binary tree in my 25+ year career: 0. Number of times I have been asked to invert a binary tree in an interview: 0. What I would do if I had to invert a binary tree: look it up. ~~~ ksk >Number of times I have had to invert a binary tree in my 25+ year career: 0. Number of times I have been asked to invert a binary tree in an interview: 0 Well, if you wanted to pull that card, it would have been nice to mention the sorts of problems you've worked on in those 25 years. >What I would do if I had to invert a binary tree: look it up. Unless you're already good at algorithms, it would net you a mediocre solution. For e.g. You would only know that there are multiple ways to implement an algorithm when you've actually done the work dozens of times and noticed that some implementations won't be appropriate for you needs. Like with many things, its about having experience, knowing whats a good fit, and knowing why something similar isn't a good fit. Certainly - every single time you choose an algorithm, and then decide on a particular way to implement it - you could in theory, implement each algorithm in 10 different ways and then choose the best one after benchmarking. But that would be a huge drag on productivity. And if you had to choose 5 algorithms for 5 different tasks then it quickly becomes a quadratic complexity time sink. It would be far better to just know via experience. Its kind of like in chess - the better players just KNOW that certain paths lead to less favourable winning odds. Well, novices do take those paths and eventually find out the hard way ! ~~~ markbnj >> Well, if you wanted to pull that card, it would have been nice to mention the sorts of problems you've worked on in those 25 years. Quite a range of stuff, unsurprisingly. I started on an HP3000 mainframe in 1976, if you want to go back to the very beginning, writing BASIC programs on a teletype or one of the two early CRTs, and storing my programs on paper tape. Since then I've worked in DOS, 16-bit Windows, 32-bit Windows, 64-bit Windows, Ubuntu, iOS, and Android, using Pascal, 8086 assembler, C, C++, C#, javascript, Python, and Java. I've worked on applications in multimedia, telephony, banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, health care, and I'm sure a few other things I've forgotten. All of which will mean jack squat if, tomorrow morning, the most important thing I have to do is invert a binary tree. But I'm fairly certain I would be able to figure out what I needed to do, and I am fairly certain I could manage to implement it well. It's what we're supposed to be able to do, and if you think that having studied up on it so that you could pass a Google interview means that, a few years down the road when you actually need it you'll just whip it off the top of your head, then I think life may hold some surprises for you. ~~~ ksk Thanks for replying. I simply wanted to know what kinds of problems you worked on. A binary tree can be inverted presumably on any OS and using most languages. If you're going to claim that a basic binary tree operation has not be necessary for you in your 25+ year career, you should have mentioned your problem (!industry) domains. It was nothing personal. >and if you think that having studied up on it so that you could pass a Google interview means that, a few years down the road when you actually need it you'll just whip it off the top of your head, then I think life may hold some surprises for you. That is a misrepresentation of what I said. I said that _RETAINING_ basic and higher order CS fundamental knowledge is much more useful, in a way that simply looking up an algorithm on wikipedia would not be. ~~~ markbnj >> That is a misrepresentation of what I said. I said that _RETAINING_ basic and higher order CS fundamental knowledge is much more useful, in a way that simply looking up an algorithm on wikipedia would not be. Sorry it was not my intention to misrepresent you. I was assuming that we all agree that simply looking something up without having any fundamental basis for understanding would not be of much use, and that we further assume the person doing the searching is in need of a refresh, and not basic education in the craft. In that context it is the idea that you might be called on to go up to a whiteboard and trot out something you haven't done in three years, and then be judged competent or not based on how successful the trotting is, that gets people worked up. ------ el_fuser Another instance where silicon valley favors the young... he probably would've nailed this question if he'd been only a couple of years removed from school. He also would've nailed it had he been given 10 minutes to do some research to refresh. Silicon valley (and the numerous companies that mock the interview style) are testing for the wrong thing when they hire, then complaining about not being able to find good engineers. ~~~ CydeWeys You're given weeks to refresh your knowledge ahead of a Google interview. They tell you the basic CS fundamentals that are going to be covered. Binary trees are MOST ASSUREDLY on that list. They just don't have time during 45 minute interviews to let the candidate go on the Internet to look things up they should already have come prepared for. Anecdotally, at a previous company, we tried an "open book" (i.e. you can use the web) interview policy for a few interviews. It was a train wreck. ~~~ bitkrieg Out of curiosity, can you elaborate why the open book interview policy failed? ~~~ eropple At prior employers we've had very good luck with open-Google interview policies. I mean, we'd watch what you're Googling, and if you're copy-and- pasting we're going to drill you to make sure you actually _understand_ it, but I expect to have a search engine when programming and I think you should too. I prefer not to ask code questions at all, though. ------ spiritplumber A project manager at Google was upset that my 'bot literally ran circles around theirs (it was 2010, Android based robots were just starting) and told me that I was just a hobbyist and my project did not exist. So I gave him one of the spare logic boards (open design anyway). And wrapped my hand around his. And squeezed. And asked him, if it doesn't exist, why is it making you bleed? He watched impotently as the people who had been invited for the presentation played with my robots and ignored his as two of his guys tried to get it to work. I finished the two projects I was doing with Google and did not call them again. (Before you downvote: Yes, there is some video, and I consider the small amount of pain I inflicted that day a kindness compared to the much greater amount of pain that an engineer is in danger of enduring if he says things like "This thing that is in front of me, it does not exist", especially if he works with big machines). ~~~ to3m I think you need to work on your people skills. ~~~ eonw or the other guy could work on his ego skills? ~~~ to3m That can be dealt with when they post their side of the story. ~~~ eonw agreed, i would love to hear both sides of this one. ------ bla2 Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call. ~~~ vezzy-fnord I also somewhat laughed at the poster who stated "Apparently my GitHub wasn't enough." ~~~ r0naa Well, he is the author of numerous widely used open source projects. It is a bit redundant (and useless) to give him a "homework assignment when he has such an impressive portfolio that speaks for itself and of which you can assess the quality. ------ topher6345 In my office, opinions are 50/50 on this. Interview with Lazlo Bock on Google's hiring practices: [http://youarenotsosmart.com/2015/06/08/yanss-051-how- google-...](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2015/06/08/yanss-051-how-google-uses- behavioral-science-to-make-work-suck-less/) Some of the claims Lazlo makes: As large organizations grow, their workforce trends towards mediocrity. Google * takes special care to counter-act this effect. * researches their hiring/interviewing practices just as much as their machine learning. * publishes their methodologies: [https://www.workrules.net/](https://www.workrules.net/) The algorithm in question is discussed in Coding Interviews by Harry He. [http://www.apress.com/9781430247616](http://www.apress.com/9781430247616) I feel the original tweet conveyed a bad attitude, was emotional, reactionary, and ultimately a bad career move on the part of OP. In my younger days I suspect I would have done something similar. I'd like to think I would see the experience as a learning opportunity and be able to react with humility and maturity, but who knows? Hopefully I can think of OP and not tap the tweet button. ~~~ mildbow Wow. Really? Pretty much everyone recognizes that google style interviews weed out perfectly good people. What Max went through is just an example of one such obvious case. It's very much a case of the google hiring algo failing. Lot's of people would have no doubt that Max can cut it when it comes to iOS dev. That's all it is. Now, if you are going to read "tweet conveyed a bad attitude, was emotional, reactionary," into a perfectly human tweet, holy crap you are judgmental. >> ultimately a bad career move on the part of OP. Not at all. I've done a _lot_ of interviews and basically _none_ of them required us trawling twitter. I think it would have to be something pretty heinous for me to _not_ hire someone based on their social media crap. Definitely not something as mundane as this. This sort of hilarious cowardice about expressing feelings just makes me angry. At what point do we stop acting like these trivial, humanizing glimpses into a person are somethign that is a bad career move? ------ shanemhansen I had a big comment here, but I erased it. I think one story proves my point. When talking to google engineers one thing I noticed was that they considered youtube to basically be a joke. The reason why is that youtube has a messy python codebase. I asked them what they worked on while they were at google. They had rewritten an internal web portal for a support tool. From everything I can tell it was literally a mysql crud app. If this is how success and failure are determined at google, it's no surprise how many of their products that people actually use come from acquisitions. ------ harel I don't know if I would rant on Twitter, but I would be as frustrated as well. Those 'tests' are very academic and I am not an academic person. I've not even officially finished high school. This test will not properly judge how well I can code or design software. I've been doing just that for 20 years now, and launched a few start ups, but I would fail that interview at the door. I interviewed once for Google (at their request) and failed. For some reason they interviewed me for a networking position instead of a code one, so questions about TCP internals were not really my forte. I was just launching my second start up at the time and would have declined the job had I gotten it. I admit it does sting a bit to be declined - not just for Google, but for any position - even those you would decline yourself. ------ yongjik As others said, much more than 10% of Google's engineers don't even own an Apple machine. So, even if Google's Mac management team somehow uses Homebrew to manage the employees' machines (which may or may not be true: I have no idea, even though I used a Macbook in Google until recently for years), the percentage of Google engineers using that software is nowhere near 90%. The percentage of Google engineers _knowingly_ using that software is certainly closer to 10% than 90%. ------ chubot I think there is some validity to the general point, but I'm not commenting on that. Just quibbling: I don't think anywhere near 90% of engineers use homebrew? Google development is done on Linux, and Homebrew is a Mac thing AFAIK. I have never used Homebrew. Android development can be done on Macs but I doubt they use Homebrew. Certainly not for anything important. ~~~ devy Re: "and Homebrew is a Mac thing AFAIK." -> FYI There is a fork of Homebrew called Linuxbrew now. [http://brew.sh/linuxbrew/](http://brew.sh/linuxbrew/) FYI. ------ pearjuice It's funny because the guy actually thinks having built something popular equals being a good software engineer. Wordpress, PHPMyAdmin and so forth are all really popular but the code is shit and though it's used by millions of people, a _real_ software engineer will shudder looking at its source code. Now, I have no idea what the code quality of Homebrew is, but just because he built something popular doesn't mean he should get a green light in every company. If Google is looking specifically for top-notch software engineers, they are probably filtering them very well with their practices. Maybe they are only good on paper at that moment and don't have something like "Homebrew" on their Github, their knowledge is sufficient to perform work at Google. So why pick someone who has fame to his name, probably wants to get paid accordingly and thinks he is a hotshot because of his Twitter and Github follower count over someone who proved himself in an interview? The first is not necessarily better than the latter. ------ malkia And then you could've been just cool all about it: [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp- co...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp-co-founder- brian-acton-for-a-job-back-in-2009-2014-2) ~~~ matheweis This. @brianacton's response was super classy. ------ lukaslalinsky I strongly believe that the best kind of technical interview is to talk with the person about things they have done in the past, go into details and see if they are telling you bullshit. If the things are interesting, at least somehow relevant to what the company is doing and the person knows what they are talking about, it's a good hire. One problem is that only experienced developers can do these kind of interviews, because you need wide experience, be able to talk about various technical topics and tell whether the other person is telling you stories from their own experience or some quickly learned facts. It's funny, but the best experience I had interviewing at Google and Amazon was talking with the managers. ------ JamesBarney This is especially ironic given how much Google has complained they need more H1-B's because they can't find enough good devs. ------ sp332 Was it really because he couldn't do the problem, or was it that he didn't handle himself well in the interview? At two different interviews I was given logic puzzles just so they could watch how I went about trying to solve them. ~~~ sown > At two different interviews I was given logic puzzles just so they could > watch how I went about trying to solve them. That's usually what they say, but I've found that if you don't solve the puzzles, you don't get hired ever. ~~~ mrobins That experience doesn't mean that's just what they're saying. It could mean in those cases the person a) didn't solve them problem, and b) didn't demonstrate an approach to solving they problem they were looking for. ~~~ esturk OR c) didn't solve the problem fast enough ------ pan69 Personally I don't really care about Google's hiring process. It's unlikely I'd ever want to work there anyway. What does bother me is that other companies, who are not even in the same league as Google, start to copy their hiring process. I remember interviewing with a digital ad agency a few years back and I swear, these guys thought they were Google. The number of academic trivia questions that came up, it was ridiculous. In a way, I think Google has done a lot of harm to the industry in general by making others believe that everyone should have a hiring process like Google's. ~~~ hiou I've been there as well. I interviewed at a design agency a while back. I nailed all of their puzzles pretty easily only to get there and realize I was going to be doing Wordpress hacking and other CMS work from 2010. I left after a few months because of how trivial I realized the work would be in the long term. On the exit meeting it was relayed to me that they were having trouble finding people because no one could pass their tests and I was beside myself because I couldn't understand how they would expect someone with that technical ability to want to bang out Wordpress sites all day while there are 100s of people who would love to do that job and be very successful without ever even knowing what basic recursion let along the stuff they had in their test. Bizarre. ~~~ lucidguppy2000 Also - a big motivation for work is learning. Didn't someone say "never apply for a position your qualified for"? ~~~ stuxnet79 I don't know who said that, and while I strongly agree with it in principle ... in practice it just tends to not work out like that. Employers want a cog in a machine. They don't want you to 'stretch, grow or learn' on their dime - no employer is willing to take that risk. Further, career progression in the tech industry is commensurate with the degree to which you've been pigeonholed in a particular skill or task. So a high salary is usually indicative, not of the diversity of your skillset but how well you perform within certain narrow parameters. ------ nqzero i had a similar experience with ita software, later acquired by google. i'd submitted a solution to one of their puzzles (which was actually very close to their business) which exploited a symmetry in the data and my solution produced results significantly better than anything else that they'd seen (per the engineer that managed that puzzle) interview was brutal - lots of whiteboarding very artificial problems totally unrelated to the business and i just couldn't get excited about it and didn't end up getting an offer hiring is tough, these things happen ------ sjg007 You just have to know the basic data structures and some algorithms for them. Liked list, binary tree, Hash map etc... In the worst case, set up the data structure, then derive the algorithm. Do this in Java FWIW and make your life easy. This is like knowing math and/or stats and applying it to a word problem. ------ SubuSS Actually my pet theory is this: Interviews for experienced folks are more meant to keep them in their current companies rather than to filter the incoming new ones. This acts as a gentleman's agreement between the giant companies to keep their own talent pool semi-intact :) /s. I mean imagine the amount of extra work someone has to put in to start interviewing. Take a break from your current work, Prepare your CS basics again, Prepare from interview question dumps online, read up / analyze everything the new company is doing and form reasonable opinions, practice white board coding / coding without an IDE, allocate time for any homework projects given, Psych yourself up if you are introverted etc. The alternative is just to stay in the current role and hope stuff gets better. 90% of the folks I know choose the alternative over the dehumanizing process of interviews. So many folks I know are good engineers get chewed up in interviews (both in my current company and elsewhere) because the process is pretty cooked. We are trying to see how this can be improved, but yeah - I just keep going back to my pet theory :) I do agree with one of the commenters here though: At one point your resume should speak for itself. These are the kind of problems I would like LinkedIn to be solving instead of finding ways to spam me with recruiter deluge. ------ mentat It's interesting the amount of hate and either rumors of bad experience or bad experiences directly. I interviewed for an SRE position last September and they were clearly trying very hard to make it a good experience no matter the outcome. I flubbed a couple of questions and they didn't make an offer, but the impression that they cared about my experience as an interviewee lasted. I wonder why my experience was so dramatically different from many here. ------ TheMagicHorsey I've been invited to interview at Google three times. And they've declined to hire me three times. The last time I interviewed there the quality of the people that interviewed me was much lower than the earlier two times. I was still rejected, but I felt much better about working somewhere else. I'm sure Google is still a great place to work, but its reminding me more and more of 1999 Microsoft. In fact the similarity is spooky. ------ exacube Firstly, you're not entitled to any job you want just because you wrote Homebrew. If you accepted an interview with Google, then you accepted the fact that Google will judge you based on your problem solving skills, just like every other person was asked. Secondly, I don't think this is a hard interview question; it's certainly fair. Did you expect to be asked knowledge-based questions that Google knows you're already good at? Questions specifically geared towards you? Or questions where Google can watch you solve a problem and be comfortable with the fact that you are able to solve coding problems? Did you think Google would hire you to write Homebrew? Or solve problems on teams Google has? I think this person is just being unreasonable. ~~~ ciupicri If 90% of Google's engineers use his software, it's reasonable to expect to be hired for continuing to work on that software. ~~~ exacube That may be somewhat true, depending on how crucial and dependent Google is on Homebrew. But 90% of Googlers don't rely on Brew for work. It is just a figure he made up to make a point about how popular his software is. Using his software outside the context of our jobs is no means to justify a hire. He should go through the same interview process as 90% (much higher than that actually) of Googlers. ~~~ ciupicri My impression was that he was talking about usage for business, not personal purposes. As for the popularity, even if the 90% figure is made up, I was only trying to explain/justify his point of view. ------ plg just playing devil's advocate, but how do we know the reason for the no-hire was the reason the OP thinks it was? ~~~ hebdo It seems that almost everyone here knows better than Google how to hire employees for Google. Given that you can see why it is trivial to see through hours-long hiring committee decisions in just two seconds. Edit: as pointed out by others, the hiring decision probably does not take a few hours, but under an hour. Still, the point is valid. ~~~ nilkn I'm pretty sure the hiring committees do not actually deliberate for hours on one candidate. Maybe in very rare cases. ~~~ DannyBee The most i've deliberated was 45-50 minutes on a single candidate in HC itself. (often hours are spent reading packets and preparing notes before HC) It's not because candidates aren't worth it, it's that if you can't come to consensus in that time period, you are unlikely to be able to :) ------ myth_buster Well, this thread escalated quickly! Am I wrong in my understanding that when a company rejects they don't specify why and hence "rejected due to failure to invert binary tree" may be a guess here? ------ adsr "I never commit to memory anything that can easily be looked up in a book." Albert Einstein It seems like this tests a) how much you want to work at Google and b) how good you are at memorize things. ------ zyxley A pair of good articles on just this kind of thing: [http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2011/12/can-you-solve- this-p...](http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2011/12/can-you-solve-this-problem- for-me-on.html) [http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring- post/](http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/) ------ happinessis Nowhere near 90% of Google engineers even use Apple, let alone use this person's software for it. ~~~ grahamar As Google bragged in 2013 that it managed a Mac fleet of over 40k and with a workforce of 55,419 in Q1 2015 (not just engineers, 2013 numbers were about 10k engineers), that's 72%+ of Google's workforce using Macs. Homebrew is at least one of the best package managers for Mac. I would be very surprised if it was not at least near the 90% mark... ------ cheradenine01 Don't we have Universities for this? I mean - what's the point of spending 3-4 years in an Academic environment that proceeds to then test and grade students on exactly how good they are, at the time - then only to perform the whole process over again some number of years down the road, with fuzzier results? Seems dumb to me. I've worked with people who could likely do very well on algorithmic tasks - (of which most software projects require precisely zero) - but actually _deliver_ something of use... not so much. ------ overgard When I used to interview people (I wasn't a manager, but I was senior enough to be entrusted to the role), I'd just ask about projects they had placed on their resume (to get a feel for their contributions) and then the rest of the interview would be focused on what the job was and how that matched with their career goals, why they thought they'd want the job, that sort of thing. The latter part was a bit harder because people are naturally defensive during an interview, so they can't be like "well I want an entry level web developer job so I can parlay this into something better in two years" (which is, IMO, totally an acceptable answer), but you can generally politely get the idea. Maybe I'm weird, but I just sort of think interviews should be more about determining fit than giving someone a lie detector test. I get the puzzlers or whatever for a phone screens (quickly weed out people that are obviously unqualified), or if you're hiring someone junior who doesn't have work experience, but if you're at the point where you're bringing someone in you probably think they're minimally qualified, so it should really be about determining if goals are aligned IMO. ------ mattbillenstein I like the spirit of this, but he may well have not been hired for a variety of other reasons besides this -- including how he attempted to solve the problem or how he handled not being able to solve it on a whiteboard in an interview. I hate whiteboard programming questions and I don't give them when I interview someone - I give them a laptop with 10 different languages on it, and some data to munge -- I think it's a pretty decent thing for both parties. ------ russtrotter Is it possible that technical impression was not the sole reason somebody isn't hired? ------ benol I, for one, agree with this kind of hiring process. From my own experience - people that do well in such interviews are good generalists. On their own they will start discussing performance improvements and ways to parallelize the solution, it's a pleasure to have such an interview. It's about enjoying problem solving and willing to keep your brain fit. It has nothing to do with memorizing solutions to some existing set of problems. ------ coldcode I've always wondered if during an interview with Google you answered a question with "I'd Google it" what the reaction would be. ~~~ CydeWeys The response would be "I want you to come up with the answer yourself." ------ bkessler100 These interviews are biased towards new grads ... GEORGE: You know what I do at the Yankees, when one of these old guys is breathing down my neck? ELAINE: What? GEORGE: You schedule a late meeting. ------ mildbow This thread is weird. The people vilifying Max or saying "duh you didn't get hired, Google requires awesome people" seem to have a totally warped sense of exactly what Google engineers do day to day. Blows my mind that there are so many people defending this (well-known and pretty much taken as a trade-off) lapse in the Google hiring algo and instead making it seem like Max's fault. ------ fallat Google really does only hire individuals who are strong in theory. Maybe we are jealous. We wish we had the brains of the people getting into Google. I can say personally that I envy these people. The fact that they don't mind being treated as numbers maybe says something about these people too. They are cold. Their ego must be pretty big too if they make it into Google. Someone should do a study...hehe. ------ rbanffy I don't think loudly (and impolitely) complaining about being rejected at a job application can, ever, be the smart thing to do. ~~~ stuxnet79 It is not. IMO it's a pretty ballsy and idiotic thing to do. That's partly why I am not too active on Twitter. I have a lot of controversial, unpopular opinions that I wouldn't want a potential employer to get a whiff of. ------ greendesk I remember a story from college graduation. A friend contacted an alumni from the university. The alumni worked in the semiconductor business. One of the questions he asked the alumni was: "How does he select a great employee?" Alumni's response that it is exceptionally tough. He shared an anecdote about one of his best hires. The alumni wanted to test the interviewee's knowledge in different areas. He asked a question on diodes - it might not have been diodes, but for the sake of the story let's stick to diodes. The interviewee replied: "Hold on, I am not one to know about it." I have not worked at Google and I do not think I'd pass its interview process. It is unlikely that I be diligent enough to make Homebrew. Nevertheless, I am inclined to the idea, that being knowledgeable in all tested areas would not reveal the personal fit necessary to make a great team. ------ doczoidberg It seems that google wants to have code monkeys instead of creative software engineers. This is a common problem of big companies. IMO it is one of the reasons they get stuck with innovations. Of course also the interviewers don't want to hire people which are smarter than they are because of their own career. ------ grahamar As someone who struggles to learn by rote as opposed to learning by practical means and has been both hired and declined by the Google recruitment process. I can't help but agree with his sentiment. The recruitment process (at least for experienced engineers) should be little more then "can I work with this person". The 6 month probationary period that follows the hiring process should be used for "can this person do the job well". But that's just my experience, and it seems to have worked well. Regarding the same academic questions everybody gets asked in every development interview, I feel Einstein said it best with "[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think." ------ tlogan Google is about monoculture (certain type personality) - and from their business perspective it seems that approach works. Why to change it? If they try to invent something new or in different market they might need different type of people but as of now ads business is cash cow and they would be crazy to try change it. ------ dionidium Without commenting on whether this is a good interviewing strategy, surely the point is to sacrifice some potential good hires in favor of definite good hires. In other words, you might be able to write pretty good code even if you _can 't_ solve problems on a whiteboard, but, given a choice, why wouldn't we just choose the people who can do that, _too_? I think the _stated_ philosophy of interviews like this one is that a false positive is worse than a false negative. Every single one of the responses to that tweet either misses that point or sounds like little more than defensiveness in the wake of a bruised ego. You might _disagree_ with that interviewing strategy, but you're not addressing it directly. ~~~ stuxnet79 More or less agree with this. I'm also a Google reject (didn't make it past the phone interview). I didn't take the rejection personally. I don't see how the interview process could be drastically improved. They get a lot of applications and they need some way to filter - there is a standard and it has to be met. With the sheer amount of applications that Google gets it's a virtual guarantee that there will be a subset of people taking the piss regardless of what the interview process is like. I don't doubt that the engineers who manage to jump through all those hoops are sensational. Personally in the end it just dawned on me that I didn't want to work at Google that badly. The whole Twitter exchange is a pitiful sour grapes circle jerk, and I'm surprised that it's provoked such a massive response. ------ ajhc112 This guy sounds like a tool. Sure, he's accomplished, but his website and linkedin are dripping with self aggrandization. "Splendid Chap" \-- cringe. My hunch is that they didn't hire him because he didn't seem like a cultural fit. ------ timtas How can we see if this technique works? There are two methods try to know something: deduction and induction. First a little deduction. Let's try to be explicit about the theory behind this technique. It's safe to assume that the job will NOT consist mainly of cranking out binary tree inversions on whiteboards while being watched over. So obviously we're hoping to make a correlation with something else. Assuming the candidate was not tipped off and learned this particular puzzle, perhaps we are correlating to an ability to rapidly create novel solutions of long-solved algorithms without reference tools. But is that what the new hire will be doing? Probably not. We could continue down this path, identifying ever more removed correlations until we get to something that the job actually demands. This probably involves solving hard problems like naming things. [1] But by now our theory stands on pretty thin ice indeed. In any case, all of this deduction is theory making. It's not knowledge until we attempt to falsify [2] it via induction. The human mind constantly induces hoping to verify our deductions. We reason, observe, conclude and repeat. We're good enough at it to survive, but that's about it. Lucky for us, science came along. Today's technical hiring is at best alchemy. A interesting company called TripleByte [3] is trying to apply induction (first for YC companies). They specially shun on white board coding and puzzle solving tests in general. I will be interested to see how they fare and whether their learnings are adopted more broadly. [1] [http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html](http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsification) [3] [http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/07/triplebyte/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/07/triplebyte/) ------ skizm It is pretty well known there are a lot of false negatives in the hiring process since it is so much worse to make a bad hire than it is to not make a good hire. Sounds bad and it is, but no one has a better solution than try again in a year. ------ icando9 IMHO, I don't think it requires any practice to be able to invert the binary tree. It is so trivial that it only requires a very basic level of programming skills. I agree whiteboard is generally broken, but for this particular case, I don't think Google is doing wrong. We can think another way, if some company hires people based on his reputation instead of the ability of doing actual work, I don't think it will survive. In this particular case, you just didn't show your ability of doing actual work, that's it. I am glad to see that Google prefers ability of doing actual work to reputation. ------ philip1209 What's the due diligence like on the hiring side during an acquihire by Google? ~~~ dguaraglia In my very limited experience? None. They just trust the company they acquired to have filtered you properly. They do ask for references (like academic records and so on) but that was about it. Without discussing too many details, I believe the issue with Google's recruiting process is it was designed when the company was smaller and it follows the philosophy that anyone that goes through the hiring process should be ready to be thrown into any of the many Google projects and be able to function immediately. That's not strictly true anymore. You have some divisions that are extremely hardcore or require very good knowledge of a particular field (think Google Cloud Platform vs. Android Kernel vs. Chrome vs. Search, all completely disparate projects), but there's also work for people that don't need to hold a PhD from MIT (think front-end development.) ~~~ npkarnik Hmm, it depends a lot on the size/type of company and reason for acquisition. If it's closer to a acqui-hire where the employees of the "acquired" company cease development on whatever they were doing and eventually just get staffed on a Google project, then they will MOST LIKELY do technical due diligence on each team member. It's common for only part of the team to get an offer to join. ------ lmilcin Good engineer you didn't hire is not much of a cost to the company (other than resources wasted on hiring process and perhaps some bad publicity). On the other hand bad engineer will stay at the company, lower standards, damage morale and set bad precedent to other engineers. Being engineer myself, I feel much more motivated working in an environment where you can just assume, even before meeting, that the other person is intelligent and motivated. You trust hiring process to filter everybody else so you don't have to subconsciously distrust every person you meet. This comes at the cost of situations like that. ------ Frenchiie I dont want to be an ass but how do you not know how to invert a tree? Anyone who knows how to write a tree and traverse it should be able to do this. If you ran out of time coding it then that's different. ~~~ jbrukh Not even. If you know what a tree is, and you've written a couple of recursive problems on trees in your life, then you know most of them are approximately 5-6 lines of code. If you're spending 45 minutes writing 5 lines of code, it is not definitive, but certainly a red flag. ~~~ gaustin Nobody in this thread has even been able to define what inverting a tree means. (Reversing or mirroring? Sure.) My search for how to invert a tree led to a bunch of fairly hairy academic papers. If you have a definition, please elucidate. ------ randomsoul An Indian eCommerce company wanted to test my mathematics while interviewing me for a VP of Marketing role. I had to tell them I won't fit into their company culture, let's not waste time further. ------ dj_doh My 2cents here - I respectfully declined to answer any JavaScript/CSS questions prompted by a recruiter. Being a front-end guy, I proactively request for hiring manager or a senior front-end engineer from the team. ------ philippnagel What's the practical point of performing such an operation? ~~~ x3n0ph3n3 It's similar to reversing a sorted array, though I can't think of a reason I'd ever do it. ------ beliu We're trying a different approach at Sourcegraph. In addition to looking at a candidate's prior work in open source if available, we ask them to complete tasks that approximate the job as closely as possible (i.e., coding on a computer): [https://sourcegraph.com/blog/programming- interview](https://sourcegraph.com/blog/programming-interview) Would love to hear people's thoughts and feedback! ~~~ oxryly1 Yours sounds like an approach that measures how well someone codes in a vacuum, instead of how they operate on a team. It very much skews the results... Not to mention for a qualified professional candidate, it feels an awful lot like you're asking them to work for free. ~~~ beliu In addition to asking them to write some code, we also have each member of the team interview them onsite to get a sense of how they'd interact as a member of the team. The challenge does take a few hours, which is longer than a typical phone screen or single onsite interview, but because it lets us focus on getting to know the person onsite rather than go through a gauntlet of whiteboarding interviews, we think it actually saves time for everyone and is a win-win. Obviously, every candidate is different; we think of this not as a rigid template, but a better default option than whiteboard interviews. Thanks for your thoughts! ------ oh_sigh The problem with google interviews and tech interviews in general is that it is almost impossible to capture what makes a successful candidate in a couple of mini interviews. They don't even pretend that what you do in the interview is what you will be doing in an actual job there. Most of a developers time is spent in meetings, understanding their problem domain, writing documents, or reviewing other developers documents. ------ utuxia I don't even bother responding to any of the Big 4 when the reach out every few weeks. They all ask these ridiculous questions. ------ mparramon Wrote a blog post about exactly this problem: optimizing interviews for fancy algorithm solving, when the position's daily work is nothing like that: [http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/05/why-i-dont-do- codi...](http://www.developingandstuff.com/2015/05/why-i-dont-do-coding- tests.html) ------ gjc Can someone please help solve the problem? I have created a bounty: [https://www.bountysource.com/issues/21606252-please-solve- bi...](https://www.bountysource.com/issues/21606252-please-solve-binary-tree- inversion-problem) ------ k4rtik Anybody noticed ‏an istx25 stalking each tweet-job suggestion and ultimately getting busted[1]? :D [1]: [https://twitter.com/markmcerqueira/status/608914346706657280](https://twitter.com/markmcerqueira/status/608914346706657280) ------ treffer Doesn't this contradict an interview with Senior Vice President of People Operations [http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like- google/](http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/) ------ lnkmails This was years ago but a google interviewer asked me a make a complete copy of a directed graph (i have to do cycle detection). I was given 45 mins total and I failed. I cursed myself for not being good enough. I haven't forgotten it yet. ------ zippy786 Google, if you have really smart people working for you then make a new problem solving question for each person you interview! The current interview standards highly promotes memorizing stuff which is pathetic. ------ atmosx I wonder what an interview process at Google with Linus Torvalds or Theo de Raadt would be. I take for granted that the interviewer would not had a clue about their accomplishments. Would they manage to pass the process? ------ ised Personally, I'd prefer to work at a company where 90% used pkgsrc. ------ z3t4 At least he didn't get put off because his CV had the wrong font. It was actually a technical question. They probably have binary trees that needs to be reversed everywhere in Google :P ------ billconan the tech interviews are so broken. who does dynamic programming on a white board during a work day? it's like you are recruiting an army, but testing people's gymnastic skills. they should test street fight skills. ------ novaleaf I don't know, inverting a binary tree seems like a pretty easy task. If I were hiring a senior developer (to code as a primary task) I think it's a reasonable fizzbuz. ------ aayala Hiring/Interview process is broken and not only in Google ------ junkilo Was hoping to gain some insight to improve interview cycles here but instead just have agita. Jobs come and go, great work is always great work, but friends are what I remember most. ------ SQL2219 yep, hiring is broken. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9689232) ------ eyeareque Let's hope he makes a product that google wants at some point and then pays him millions (or more) for it. (like whatsapp and facebook). ------ rconti He sure has an awful lot of his self-worth wrapped up in whether he gets a job offer from one specific company. It reminds me of being interested in a particular girl in high school. At a certain point, you learn that there are other jobs out there, and maybe the one with the biggest name isn't the best one. I certainly wouldn't be the least bit offended. Not when the market is flush with high-paying-jobs-a- plenty, particularly for someone with his background. ------ skorecky Probably could have just Googled the answer. ------ elif I took my google interview as a gift from them to me. It showed me that I was mistakenly interviewing to become a cog in a terry gilliam-esque corporate machine, and that made me think hard about my path in life, and what i really wanted out of a career. ------ pducks32 The best part is that someone important at Google say this and no matter how they respond it's just funny. ------ hectorxp change the license, add a clause saying google can't use it, and sue them tomorrow ~~~ tbg I know this was supposed to be a joke, but he can't retroactively change the license for the current released version. Any license changes will only apply to future releases. ------ sciencesama i didnt understand can some one explain TLDR ? ~~~ ljk guy made Homebrew, an OS X app, interviewed at Google; guy was rejected; guy rant on twitter ------ jowiar Last week I walked away from a Google offer that included a 70% raise. A large portion of this was a rather dehumanizing interview process, along with the realization that the process doesn't select for people I want to work with, and weeds out most people who I do. I managed to do just enough in my interviews to squeak through, but in doing so realized that it wasn't for me. Walking through the cafeteria made me feel like I was back in CMU CS again, in a bad way. ~~~ sshumaker I think you may have left with the wrong impression. If you ask Googlers or Xooglers alike, most agree that the people here are actually the best thing about Google. Like anywhere else, there are some bad apples, but compared to most other places the people here are on average more talented, nicer human beings and more helpful. Certainly compared to your typical startup or other BigCo. In my nearly 3 years here, that is my experience as well. I've also spoken to many engineers who have left who lamented the quality of their fellow engineering talent at their supposedly 'hot' startup, compared to their former team at Google. Or having to deal with way more unprofessional (or crazy) management, prima-donna teammates, etc. ~~~ jowiar As far as my specific interviewers are concerned, I liked 7 of the 8 as individuals, which is great. What I didn't like was the company felt like a monoculture. Same schools, same majors, same pre-education background. Everybody looks the same, dresses the same, etc. The process, on the other hand. Ugh. I have zero respect for Google as a company after that. It starts with the standard phone screen/day-long onsite/hazing ritual. Then come phone calls with teams, and teams saying "yeah, we want you", and me saying "sure, sounds good". The recruiter basically said "time for the higher- ups to rubber stamp this, and here's the $$ to expect". Someone up the chain said "well, we're not so sure, let's haul him back here for another round of onsite interviews". Which I did, it went through the same process, and the response was "well, maybe not you for this role, but lets set you up with more teams". All of this finally goes through, and I get an offer. Then there's a negotiation that goes something like: Me: I'd like 4 weeks to think about it while a couple of other applications come back (keeping in mind they've dragged this on about 2 months longer than it needed to be). Google: You get 2. Me: I'm at a conference week #2, but I'll do what i can to get a decision to you Friday. <Fast forward to monday of week #2> Google: Have you made up your mind yet? Me: I'd like to look at my options, and I'll get back to you COB Friday Google: It's really important that we hear beginning of day Friday <Fast forward to wednesday> Google: Have you made up your mind yet? Me: No. One of the options I was looking at is now off the table. Google: So WTF are you waiting for. Me: The other options <Fast forward to Thursday> <Phone rings while I'm at the conference> Me: You can't pay me enough to deal with this. Maybe no individual involved is a prima-donna, but the ego showed by the company as a whole through the recruitment process is stunning. It felt like I was dealing with the star quarterback who never considered that when they asked someone on a date, they might get turned down. ~~~ hartator What was their wording for "WTF are you waiting for"? This story felt like abuse. ~~~ jowiar The exact exchange: Google: "Just checking in to see if you have an update for me? Can we set a time to speak on Friday?" Me: "I decided to pass on [OTHER OPPORTUNITY]. I let my manager know about the offer last Thursday. I am out at a conference this week, and we're going to discuss options on Friday. Does end-of-the-day Friday work for you? 5? 6?" Google: "I need to speak to you in the morning on Friday. if you are passing up [OTHER OPPORTUNITY, misspelled] why are we waiting till Friday. Can we talk now?" ------ michaelvkpdx As goes the recruitment, so goes the employment. If you wanted to work for an organization where everyone likes to show off their skills to one another in the interviews, you'd have gotten the job, and you'd be one of them. The best interviews I find are like a first day of work (but unpaid). Your experience and skills are established by resume and portfolio. The interview shows whether you can work with the team and wrap your head around the org's problems. If you're having to show off- well, that's how your work will be, too. Google's interviews convinced me, years ago, that there's no way I'd ever want to work there. And that feeling hasn't changed one bit. Much like FB, it's an org whose coding needs are really pretty trivial and the real work was done and finished a long time ago (but there's plenty of need for debugging, egos especially). If you want to work there and surf the gravy train, cool for you. ~~~ trustfundbaby > Much like FB, it's an org whose coding needs are really pretty trivial I was with you till riiiiiight there. Google isn't just a search company anymore they're working on lots of very interesting _non-trivial_ things all around the company. ~~~ discardorama > Google isn't just a search company anymore they're working on lots of very > interesting non-trivial things all around the company. Right. And I really doubt that people like Andrew Ng or Geoff Hinton or Sebastian Thrun were asked to invert binary trees.... ------ comrade1 And Google engineers aren't the shit either. Their Java libraries are large and unwieldy. They would learn something by taking an example from the apache libraries - clean and straightforward, focused and small. I hate working with Google code. ------ sagivo I had very similar experience. This was one of the main reasons i decided to create this: [https://github.com/sagivo/algorithms](https://github.com/sagivo/algorithms) ------ Dewie3 Why is his profile picture the _attractions_ road sign as seen in Scandinavia? :-) ~~~ jd3 Perhaps he's a fan of Susan Kare :-) ~~~ mymacbook I don't get the message you're trying to send by this reply... and yes I know who Susan Kare is. ~~~ jd3 Susan Kare designed the icon on Apple's command key. [0] [0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key#Origin_of_the_symbo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key#Origin_of_the_symbol) ------ supergirl big ego, looks like they made the right choice then ------ kzhahou Max should add code in Homebrew to check if hostname contains "corp.google.com", and exit with a message that Homebrew can't run inside Google. Petty, but fuck em. They don't want him, they shouldn't get the fruit of his work. ------ smtddr Disclaimer: GoogleFanBoy here, feel free to ignore or downvote. So, I've interviewed with Google twice. Once was 3 years ago, the other was like 2 weeks ago. They contacted me. The way I see Google's interviews is like referee in Football _(soccer or "Futbol")_. Sure, you need a certain amount of skill to play in the World Cup but you winning or losing can, and often enough does, come down to a controversial referee call. You end up losing out to a team that did a handball - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccNkksrfls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccNkksrfls) , but that's just how it is. What makes me like watching soccer so much is the same thing that excites me about Google's interview process. Yes, there is heartbreak and anger. Just like World cup fans get angry when their team loses because they were denied a point for an off-sides call even when the player was nowhere near off-sides. \--- Is Google's interview process fair? Nope. \--- Would I subject myself to their futbol-referee style of judging candidates again? You bet. \--- Do I think they should make their process more fair? Nope, let the drama and __justified__ rant posts continue. Just like I want the unfairness in futbol to stay as is. I was one of the people against putting the microchip inside the ball to know for sure if it crosses the goal line. I want the drama of a ref having to call it and sometimes getting it wrong. I know people, especially on HN, love reliable & repeatable. I do too, except when it comes to dealing with humans. ------ aaron695 Great, another self entitled engineer who thinks Google owes them a job because they are sooooo good (Which, maybe they are good at some things) But how about Google didn't give them a job because this is how they handle failure, embarrass an entire company on Twitter to punish them.

Mock your HTTP responses to test your REST API - yotsumi http://www.mocky.io ====== kanzure Also, python people might be interested in <https://github.com/gabrielfalcao/HTTPretty> or (bias disclaimer) my serializer on top of requests+httpretty <https://github.com/kanzure/python- requestions> for the httpetrified decorator. It loads and mocks an expected response from a json file in your tests/. There was a service called requests.in or something that acted like httpbin, except it gave you a unique url to query against to view multiple requests over a session. Does anyone know where that went? ~~~ johns requestb.in ------ untog It's a nice idea, but relying on a remote service for testing makes me worry. I tend to mock HTTP responses locally, so that the tests can run when there isn't even an internet connection available. ~~~ johns What do you use for your local testing? ~~~ fein Telnet when I'm lazy or its quick, curl when I actually want to write a full harness. ------ simons There's a post here: [http://artemave.github.io/2012/05/27/stub-like-a- surgeon-spy...](http://artemave.github.io/2012/05/27/stub-like-a-surgeon-spy- like-james-bond-with-rest-assured/) that talks about using a similar service (the BBC's REST-assured <https://github.com/BBC/REST-assured>) to aid in BDD using cucumber. ------ rschmitty Why not use SinonJS? <http://sinonjs.org/> Same ability to mock responses and errors, but everything is local. Check your responses into git and every developer is testing the same stuff, no reliance on a 3rd party Makes for lightning fast automatic background testing. ------ memoryfault Would someone provide an example on how this tool could be used to test a REST API? I think I'm missing something here. I'm not seeing how a fake response endpoint lets me test my REST API (shouldn't my test code invoke the API and validate that the real response was correct?) ~~~ sanderjd It seems to me that it isn't for testing a REST API but rather for testing something that _depends_ on one without having to deal with real integration issues. ~~~ yotsumi Yes, you explain better than me ;) ------ rco8786 Been working on something similar for local use by running nodejs to both server static files and mock API responses. <https://github.com/rco8786/apimok> ------ wilig For those looking for a local alternative have a look at <http://wilig.github.io/mockity/> Full disclosure: I'm the author. ------ donatj I use <http://frisbyjs.com/> FrisbyJS for most of my front end API testing needs. ------ gulbrandr <http://www.hurl.it/> I recommend this service for this kind of testing. ~~~ quarterto Hurl is requests. Mocky is responses. ~~~ quarterto In fact, here is Mocky serving a response to Hurl: [http://www.hurl.it/hurls/18e4da3bfc0c2159abd1c8e769915c360a8...](http://www.hurl.it/hurls/18e4da3bfc0c2159abd1c8e769915c360a8de8ce/6dc5f86a8ac115dc0870e88cf260d5b7dcb49c15) ~~~ farmdawgnation If a hurl falls in a forest, and only a mocky is around to hear it, did it happen? ------ bruth Nice idea. Are these stored as gists under my account? Can I choose to modify an existing response so it's versioned? ------ ericmoritz this isn't any better than using a live server for testing. Build a good client library for your applications to use, mock the client library and don't worry about tests failing because of availability problems. ~~~ johns If the live server has side effects when making the call (send an email, charge a card, etc) and you just want to test against the response headers/body, it can be very useful. A local mocking library is also good for that, but for quicker tests this is nice. ------ rajanikanthr I use mocking framework(Moq for .NET) to mock my service response and various xml responses i will save in test xml files.. Anyways, I will try to use it to test over network rather local mocking ------ gstroup I prefer to run my own local test server to return mock responses. I built this little project, that you can install using NPM: <https://npmjs.org/package/apimocker> It's intended for sandbox development as well as automated tests. There's no UI, but you can return whatever data you want. The features are pretty basic right now, but it works well for most tests, and it's easily configured on the fly. ------ city41 It's a neat idea but I can't imagine I'd ever actually use this for real testing. Relying on a third party server for your tests can be a problem. We also have thousands of tests that rely on mocked REST responses, setting them up with Mocky would be a ton of work. If Mocky could be ran onsite and had a nice API for easily generating mock responses, then I think it would be more useful. ~~~ yotsumi It's an open source project, created 2 days ago. All is possible, this website is just a proof of concept. And you can fork the project to run it locally. ~~~ city41 Yeah I realize that. I hope I didn't come across too harsh. It is a good idea, and I'd like to see it grow some more. ------ sinkingfish I just launched something almost exactly the same a fortnight ago - e.ndpoint.com - POST/PUT/DELETE support coming soon. ~~~ johns The URL scheme you're using makes it really easy to view everyone else's mocks. ~~~ sinkingfish Yea i'm not looking to obfuscate, I'm planning on introducing user accounts whereby people by create, save, edit, and alias their mocks. Bypassing that issue. Anonymous mocks will simply be sequential base62. ------ tjpd I've heard good things about <http://apiary.io> on this front as well... ~~~ nyam i'm using it on first project and it's very nice. they let you export your complete api definition to apiary.apib file which can be parsed with their github.com/apiaryio/blueprint-parser into json and used with your custom server localy. it's also nice for synchronizing between devs, when added to vcs ... ------ aespinoza This is very cool. It is kind of a fiddler on the web. It is interesting that I saw something similar but with fiddler in the morning: [http://www.devcurry.com/2013/05/testing-crud-operations- in-a...](http://www.devcurry.com/2013/05/testing-crud-operations-in-aspnet- web_3.html) ------ jnettome I've sent a pull request to add portuguese brazilian translation. I hope it helps! Scala is really cool :) ------ alpb Nice project! My suggestion would be adding JSON editor or JSON syntax validator for JSON responses saved. ~~~ yotsumi You already have a light Json editor. The Syntax validation is a very good idea, thanks! ------ austengary In case anyone was wondering about licensing: "[1]DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, December 2004 Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar [email protected]" [1] <https://github.com/studiodev/Mocky> ------ nym You can't mock HTTP responses, the responses mock you. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/girliemac/6508102407/in/set-721...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/girliemac/6508102407/in/set-72157628409467125/) ------ yotsumi @misframer The app is updated in real time. So it can be some sporadic errors ~~~ quarterto Welcome to Hacker News. We don't have @replies here. We do, however, have nice friendly reply buttons. Great app, by the way! ------ antonpug How exactly does this work? A short little tutorial would help ^.^ ------ meryn Wouldn't it be better if it would just say "mock your HTTP responses to test your HTTP client", or "to test your HTTP client code"? The service makes a lot of sense otherwise. ------ thekingshorses This failed :( <div>what</div><div>Not</div>this<ul id="list" data-list="f"><li class="first">one</li></ul> ------ PuercoPop Nice, Emacs have a mode for doing the same too: <https://github.com/pashky/restclient.el> ~~~ yotsumi Emacs have a REST Client, but this app is like a REST Server: Mocky serve an HTTP response, whereas RestClient send an HTTP resquest. ------ guyht I have wanted a service like this forever! Thank you. ------ misframer I'm occasionally getting hit with "HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error" when that's not what I want. ------ rcoh Ironically, I'm seeing 500s. Great for testing my reliability in the face of errors! ~~~ yotsumi Yes sorry for that, I didn't expect a such traffic from HN. Things will be stable in a few hours :) ------ rross E.endpoint.com A very similar offering released a week ago on github. ------ jstoja That's cool !

Senate hearing on Bitcoin [video] - sinak http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/beyond-silk-road-potential-risks-threats-and-promises-of-virtual-currencies ====== eof I've been watching since about 20 minutes in; it is overwhelmingly positive. There seem to be 2 'groups' of testimonies, the first coming from law enforcement and government bodies; the overwhelming consensus was that existing laws are satisfactory to prosecute bad actors using bitcoin. The second group is still talking; again extremely positive.. analogies to bitcoin being similar to the internet in the mid nineties; its scary but overall good. The lawyer from the bitcoin foundation is really driving home the idea that the main problem right now is that bankers are too scared to give bitcoin business bank accounts. I see overall nothing negative; and the chairman seems extremely reasonable and open to the notion of bitcoin and brought up the bitcoin-now <-> internet- in-the-nineties analogy himself. No one is asking for stricter laws, everyone is asking for clarity. Much, much more positive than I expected; only the secret service guy seemed to be very cautious; he never said the word bitcoin and mostly spent his time saying the secret service was awesome. ~~~ Varcht I think a possible reason they're overwhelmingly positive is because the FBI has a pretty good cache of bc. ~~~ maxerickson They wouldn't care if those coins were worth $5 billion. The federal budget is silly compared to a few hundred thousand bitcoins. Or maybe that's the other way around. ~~~ jarin The FBI and CIA can use Bitcoin to anonymously pay off foreign informants though ~~~ TomGullen We'd see them spend it and ask what they've spent it on. ~~~ saraid216 I'd expect the CIA to know how to launder money competently. It seems like a ridiculously obvious thing for them to learn how to do. ------ jdreaver The chairman asked the panel about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the creator or creators of Bitcoin. When one of the panelists was going to respond, the chair cut him off and said "you don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" The panelist said "well, he hasn't denied it!" I've never seen decent humor in a Senate hearing haha ~~~ sliverstorm The anonymity of Satoshi definitely gives the origins of BTC some mythos. I can picture historical fiction a hundred years from now speculating (assuming BTC takes over) ~~~ jlgreco I suspect that historians, given free access to a very very wide range of writings (and of course all the works attributed to Satoshi) and whatever the modern analysis techniques will be will make quick work of figuring out who Satoshi was. Few writings remain truly anonymous if the author also wrote significant amounts non-anonymously (and these days, who doesn't?). For his sake, I hope he isn't uncovered during his lifetime, but assuming bitcoin remains relevant I greatly suspect that history books will eventually have his name. ------ nostromo It's interesting to watch Jeremy Allaire repeatedly say that only well-funded companies should be trusted to hold consumers' bitcoins. Companies like, well, his. ~~~ sliverstorm It's nothing new. You _want_ banks to have considerable reserve capital, and if you are a company whose function is to "hold BTC" you are a bank. ~~~ julespitt The definition of bank is not an entity that holds currency, otherwise any company or you or I are a bank. To keep it simple, Banks hold reserves because they lend. Paypal, for instance, is not a bank. If your tiny Bitcoin startup holds $1000 in bitcoin, and your obligations are $1000, I don't see the problem. ~~~ camus2 > Paypal, for instance, is not a bank. Paypal is a bank in Europe. A paypal account is legally a bank account here. ------ sehugg WSJ: _Despite interest in bitcoin, Monday 's hearing was attended by only one member of the Senate panel, Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), who chairs the committee. Other senators were still en route to Washington after spending the weekend in their home states._ Marketwatch: _More than one hour into the hearing, and Sen. Carper is the sole lawmaker to ask questions. It appears no others are there._ Embarassing. ------ mindslight Alright, the market has remained irrational longer than I've remained solvent in resolve. So I'll admit it: This would have been a nice bandwagon to have jumped on. But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking tragedies. ~~~ chm > "But hollow disruption porn and worse-is-better are still fucking > tragedies." What do you mean? ------ presidentender Positive attitudes regarding Bitcoin by the powers that be give me pause. Why would law enforcement be eager to support a technology which, on the face of it, seems to reduce the power of law enforcement? ~~~ crygin I'm unclear on why everyone seems to think that Bitcoin reduces governmental power. It makes all transactions public -- no more cash deals, hard-to- subpoena international wire transfers, etc. It makes the job of law enforcement much easier. ~~~ avar It doesn't reduce police powers, but in the long term if it pans out it'll reduce the power of fiat currency. That's what people talk about when they say it reduces the power of the government. ~~~ PeterisP Can't NSA datacenters with specialized crypto chips simply get 51% of bitcoin mining power for some time, if they want? Now _that_ would be 'fiat currency'. ~~~ tlrobinson 51% attacks don't allow you to mine arbitrary amounts of Bitcoin. At worst they could DoS the Bitcoin network and double-spend their funds, but the recipients (their own citizens? other governments?) would find out and be _pissed_. ~~~ moron4hire The citizenry is _already_ pissed and it means nothing. They do what they want. ------ sjcsjc "You don't think it was Al Gore, do you?" \- quip from the senator running the hearings on the subject of Satoshi's real identity. ------ pilom I'm reminded of a course I took which was co-taught by the CTO at the Department of Homeland Security. He once said that "The criminals will always be better at using cryptography than the people who use them in positive ways." ~~~ rhizome Except that the NSA and FBI have been defining crypto as suspicious activity, so kind of a double-bind there. ~~~ maxk42 Well it's no wonder: they only use it for suspicious activities. ------ EricDeb The FBI and government have considerable bitcoin holdings, assuming they acquired the silk road wealth + what they already have their total BTC is at least 524,000. src: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321265.0) ~~~ igravious Is this the same entity that has ~ $16,000,000,000,000 external debt? source: a part of the government [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html) ------ ademarre It's refreshing that the overall tone of the hearing is not one of 'we don't understand this cryptocurrency thing, we need to shut it down', but rather, 'this thing is happening, we have some concerns, but we need to adapt so we aren't left behind'. ------ namuol Kicking myself for all eternity... EDIT: Or not... [1] [1]: [http://imgur.com/cp01D2m](http://imgur.com/cp01D2m) ~~~ nisa You are not alone. ------ nilkn Slightly off-topic, but I don't understand how a deflationary currency could be practical. Why would you ever spend it, except begrudgingly, if whatever you buy will be worth less tomorrow (thinking exclusively "in bitcoin," without regard to other currencies)? This is a question, not a criticism. ~~~ eurleif Why would you spend your USD if you can convert it to BTC instead and it will be worth more tomorrow? ------ vijayboyapati This sounds very encouraging to me. A number of panelists have talked about how banks aren't allowing btc businesses to setup up basic checking accounts and how this needs to be fixed if the US isn't going to be left behind. ------ andy_ppp Once goods and services are available ubiquitously to buy in bitcoin fiat money will become worthless. This isn't a bubble IMO, it's just that USD won't hold it's value compared to available currency that has at least has _some_ value. :-D ------ Ellipsis753 Just sold off my bitcoin at $700. Who knows where the price will go next. Hope I won't regret this too much... :) ~~~ asciimo Congratulations on your massive profit, and thank you for stimulating the Bitcoin economy! However, I think that you will eventually regret this decision. ~~~ Ellipsis753 Hehe. How do you know I made a massive profit. I could have bought it just hours ago. ;) You're correct though, I got mine for $100 dollars a little while back. I may regret it but $700 is not to be sniffed at. I feel that although it may go up massively it could of course go down too. The economy is just too unstable for me at the moment. ------ thinkcomp My comments: [http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatemen...](http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20131118.hsgacstatement.pdf) Jerry Brito's testimony was quite good. ------ vinchuco This is great for those that invested just before the hearings. All the attention given to it will get more people in the US involved. I wonder how much longer can this growth last. ~~~ oxalo I think that depends on to what extent Bitcoin will replace the current money system. [1] looks into the price of Bitcoin if it becomes as widespread as Bitcoin or PayPal. [1] [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or- val...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/11/17/bitcoin-bubble-or-value/) ------ hgsigala As a staffer who works down the hall from this hearing, I am glad to see all the anti-Congress sentiment usually expressed on HN digressed for true discussion of subject matter. ------ presty related: [http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on- bitcoin-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-on- bitcoin-2013-11) BERNANKE: Bitcoin 'May Hold Long-Term Promise' ------ shmerl This looks very positive indeed. ------ Zoomla I heard PATRIOT Act.... ~~~ dangrossman Considering the PATRIOT Act is what established the "know your customer" due- diligence rules for financial institutions (i.e. why your bank wants to see ID when you open an account), there's nothing ominous about the name of that bill coming up. ------ sneak Can't view without Flash, I won't install Flash, therefore I can't view. ~~~ saraid216 Do the Hacker News thing and spin up a VM with Flash on it, watch, and then delete the VM afterwards. ~~~ idupree That works for technical reasons but not legal reasons. You can't "virtually" agree to the terms&conditions and then delete your agree-ment along with the VM. (Unless the terms or the law let you do so. Sometimes they do.) ~~~ gknoy What are the terms of the Flash EULA that you might violate while spinning up a VM to read something? You're not planning to copy it, publish it, etc, and since you're destroying the VM later you don't care about stability/etc -- outside of the reading event, you are not doing any actions with the product. I'm genuinely curious. I can understand an argument from principle like RMS might use, but I am unsure what the difference is between agreeing on a VM and agreeing not-on-a-VM. I'm really trying to see an edge case where doing it on a VM that you destroy later is in any way worse (or even different) than doing it on a laptop that you buy, use, and then later incinerate. ~~~ idupree My point applies in the same way to a laptop you buy, use, then incinerate. Even after you incinerate it, you are still bound by the terms you agreed to (to the debatable extent to which [1] is enforcable at all, anyway). [1] The download page states "By clicking the "Download now" button, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the Adobe Software Licensing Agreement.". That statement is hundreds of pixels away from the actual download button.

The Trip Treatment - juanplusjuan http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment ====== bdm It's brilliant. I wonder why people have a knee-jerk reaction to drugs as being "bad". Research and writing like this are quite promising. > Only 10 percent of drug users have a problem with their substance. Some 90 > percent of people who use a drug—the overwhelming majority—are not harmed by > it. This figure comes not from a pro-legalization group, but from the United > Nations Office on Drug Control, the global coordinator of the drug war. Even > William Bennett, the most aggressive drug czar in U.S. history, admits: > “Non-addicted users still comprise the vast bulk of our drug-involved > population.” - Why Animals Eat Psychoactive Drugs > [[http://goo.gl/7vB8Eu](http://goo.gl/7vB8Eu)] Drugs not only can be used responsibly, but they should be. We are needlessly Luddite about this type of stuff. I think within the next decade we'll see a paradigm shift towards a much wider societal acceptance of "brain drugs."

Yes, websites are starting to look more similar - afrcnc https://theconversation.com/yes-websites-really-are-starting-to-look-more-similar-136484 ====== KKPMW Not only the websites, but art within them as well is starting to become more and more similar. In particular I have the style with disfigured colorful human figures displayed in various weird poses. I am not sure what is the name of this drawing style and how it got popular, for some reason it repulses me, but here is one example I remember: [https://todoist.com/](https://todoist.com/) ~~~ sidpatil > am not sure what is the name of this drawing style Corporate Memphis. [https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate- memphis](https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis) ~~~ itcrowd Also @humansofflat on twitter. Although the tweets are now protected, so I don't know what the current status of the account is. ------ themodelplumber I like seeing articles like this. I would just point out what I think is a not-so-discussed aspect: The transition from layout-consideration to mobile- consideration, a real issue that was capable of turning every project into a mess of puzzling layout questions from the start. This has been and remains a huge energy-level blow to a design effort, if you are a layout-design-first thinker, or just feel like approaching a given project in that way. The article seems to be rooted in this kind of design-first preference, and I don't see that as a huge problem, but it needs to be pointed out because a lot of us here on HN can swing both ways, so to speak--cover your economically- necessary base and go with the flow (see frameworks, below), or focus on beautiful creative design. While this shift to accommodation of mobile device was troubling from a workload perspective early on, it soon became clear that if many / most of your audience were going to consume your content on a mobile, then there was a huge energy-expenditure incentive to focus on layouts that stack up, component-by-component. This became a strong hidden incentive for web designers to say, "I see your fancy designs but things like this need to be mobile-friendly or even mobile-first these days. Also, simplicity is going to be huge for a lot of different reasons." A big reason: If you color outside of the lines, you now have a huge number of ways and places in which you need to test and troubleshoot your layout. So the economics of site design quickly shifted: Get a vertically-stacked, mobile-friendly site with a relatively boring layout and save money, OR go all sorts of creative with the layout and pay more by creating more of a fractal of work for yourself. Maybe you'd pay just a little more, but still: More-- maybe more time, or more money, or both. Eventually as this pattern locked into place, the broader "website creation economy" rediscovered a certain level of energy efficiency as frameworks and libraries were developed around the mobile-consideration standard. And as it turns out, these frameworks and libraries now underwrite a specific, stacking-friendly, tech-first approach to design. If you don't want to work that way, you need to go looking in the manual or cross your fingers and spend some time with Google. Or you have to hire someone who does. Or you have to look at DIY platforms with other trade-offs, like fragile designs that stack up a huge load of technical debt over time, gradually introduce subtle design bugs, and then go unsupported. IMO these various effects are a big contributor to what the authors discuss.

CMC Cartonwrap box packing machine [video] - vinnyglennon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rP1wjEsbak ====== jcrites This appears not to be a machine made by Amazon, but rather a commercially available machine called CartonWrap 1000 made by an Italian firm named CMC Srl. According to news reports I found online, Amazon is piloting the machines in its warehouses, however. (Edit: I wrote this in reply to the original article title which described the machine as Amazon's.) News report: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-automation- exc...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-automation- exclusive/exclusive-amazon-rolls-out-machines-that-pack-orders-and-replace- jobs-idUSKCN1SJ0X1) Product website: [https://www.cmcmachinery.com/portfolio- item/ecommerce1-cmc-c...](https://www.cmcmachinery.com/portfolio- item/ecommerce1-cmc-cartonwrap/) The effect on waste should be interesting. I assume that everyone who has ordered a product online has had the experience of receiving that product in a box that was quite a bit larger; that happens because standard shipping processes use a limited and pre-determined set of cardboard box sizes. If you look on the box somewhere, you should see a label like "1A5" which is the box size. With past technology, you had to round up to the next largest box that fits the product, which sometimes leaves quite a bit of waste, both in cardboard and the packing material (plastic pillows) used to fill up large voids in the box. It looks like this machine can cut boxes exactly to the product dimensions, which will presumably save both on box and filler material to lower costs, and generate less waste. ~~~ dzhiurgis I once received 5 toothbrush heads from Amazon, package size where ~4 MBP's would fit (~2" by 15"). The problem was huge underlying package. ~~~ aequitas But they can never beat HP, which will send you a single ps2 mouse strapped to a pallet or a stack of software licence documents, each of which individually packed in a box. [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/) ------ Spivak So to the manufacturing engineers around here, is this actually impressive? Because it's definitely impressive on the "this is a really cool machine" level but I was left with a nagging feeling that it wouldn't actually be all that useful. The input seems to be single items that are regtangular-ish within a certain size and don't need any wrapping, padding, or air bags. This probably describes a lot of Amazon's products but for this use-case wouldn't a machine that wraps the item between two sheets of plastic on rolls be easier/cheaper? Is this a stepping stone to the machine that can handle multiple/delicate/irregular items? ~~~ simongr3dal I would assume that air-bags and other padding isn't needed when the box fits this well on the products. I'm not a manufacturing engineer, but I have watched a lot of How It's Made, the machine doesn't seem more impressive than any of the other plethora of automated manufacturing machines that were available then. That's not to say it isn't a handy thing to have running, it looks like a crew of 4-6 persons with the right setup for folding and packing boxes could probably keep up with the machine as it is running in the video, so as all things in business it's gonna be a cost-benefit calculation that makes the decision. ------ hhjjkkll How do us meatbags compete with this? ~~~ throwaway180118 There's always going to be a human component to logistics. I wouldn't worry

Father built a machine to transport his kids' teeth straight to the tooth fairy - Brajeshwar http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/09/13/this-guy-built-a-machine-to-transport-his-kids-teeth-straight-to-the-tooth-fairy/ ====== doug1001 i know a guy who did the same thing a few years ago but when the tooth reached the tooth fairy (no such thing really, it's more like a consortium of fairies), he was told that he still had to wait in the queue because priority is based on exact date-time at which the loss of tooth occurred--so you can't really expedite reimbursement by jumping the queue. nice try though ------ vezzy-fnord Quite entertaining, indeed. Good on the father. On the other hand, if he can do this, I wonder why he's encouraging these age- old childhood myths. I personally grew up with the knowledge that they weren't real from the beginning, and can't say I missed some sort of enchantment or anything. It speeds up your rational thinking. Still, pretty cool idea.

Why Refback Still Matters - kiyanwang https://gkbrk.com/2016/08/why-refback-still-matters/ ====== floatboth Webmention implementations usually automatically check that there's an actual link. You can go even further and require not just a link, but a proper microformats2 reply/like/repost. ~~~ onli > Webmention implementations usually automatically check that there's an > actual link. So do trackback and pingback implementations of every major blogging software ------ abstractbeliefs The corner popup is super annoying here - not because it popped up at all, but because it stole KB focus and my down arrow key stopped working to cycle through my available email autofill options. :( ~~~ gkbrk Sadly, I can reproduce this. I will look into this issue and disable the scroll box for now. ------ davidzimmerman Sounds great. How do we implement this? ~~~ abstractbeliefs I'm going to be a bit obtuse and say "start with IndieWeb". The author talks about webmentions being super interesting, but low penetration. Best thing to do is start with yourself, and indieweb solves a bunch of related problems at the same time. [http://indieweb.org/](http://indieweb.org/)

Show HN: Tiger Boss - I Kick Your Ass & Make You Achieve Your Goals Faster - themost123 https://tigerboss.co/ ====== gus_massa If there is no free tier to try, I think it is not a good example of a ShowNH, because we can't try it and give feedback. Also, all-caps in the title will get this flagged. (Even if only a part is in all-caps.) ~~~ themost123 Thank you very much for your suggestion! A free tier is just added! ~~~ mooreds I signed up for the free trial and just got a popup saying "We'll be in touch soon". Here are the Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) ~~~ themost123 I emailed you but it failed to deliver. Did you enter the correct email address? ~~~ mooreds Ah, it should have got to me, but I'll try another one.

Share Your Thoughts - theopencode http://theopencode.org ====== billyrobinson1 Great website! I think this is a very good initiative, and I can't wait to see what you do. One suggestion, though; maybe you could get on social media? It may help you out. ~~~ theopencode Thanks @billyrobinson1 for the kind words. We actually do have a Twitter account, and we're working towards using it to help our mission. Check it out here: [https://twitter.com/theOpenCode](https://twitter.com/theOpenCode).

PC-XT Emulator on a ESP8266 (2018) - DanBC https://mcuhacker.wordpress.com/2018/02/22/forsta-blogginlagget/ ====== elliottkember I'm always fascinated to see these projects on ESP8266. The board is great, but the ESP32 is a lot better - bluetooth LE, WiFi and dual-core at 240mhz, vs the WiFi and 80mhz available on the 8266. The firmware wasn't as robust until recently, but these days I use it constantly for little projects. ~~~ sjwright The ESP32 is a lot better in many ways, but it suffers a bit from version 2 syndrome. The decision to go dual-core in particular. Personally I'm looking forward to the ESP32-S2 coming in quantity. ~~~ leggomylibro The S2 lacks Bluetooth though, doesn't it? The second core is meant to handle the network stack, leaving the first core to focus on program logic. With ESP8266s, it can be hard to write complex applications while keeping heavy WiFi usage stable. Although, I'll bet the 8266 firmwares and libraries have improved a lot since I was using them. ~~~ sjwright The ESP32-S2 is best thought of as a spiritual successor to the ESP8266. If you need Bluetooth, I’m pretty sure the ESP32 is still being produced. ------ qwerty456127 What I (and, probably, a lot of people) would actually like to have is a 486 emulator (with at least 8 MB RAM) with a working ISA bus I could connect old extension cards to. That would be a way more practical (in fact insanely cool) although a ghost of a genuine antique like 640K XT still surely is a fun thing to touch. That could even have commercial applications - I believe there are many 486/ISA-based solutions still running in production in the wild. ~~~ kristopolous There's ISA to USB devices for under $40 so you can hook the hardware up to a modern machine Then I'm sure you can use one of the many emulator solutions on the market to bridge the rest and if none are suitable it can't be that hard, the data is making it to the machine... I'll happily make it happen if you need to hack something like qemu, sounds like fun. ~~~ userbinator I think a lot of these ISA cards are for industrial control in realtime systems, so the added latency of USB is not going to work. ~~~ kristopolous Are you sure? We aren't in the world of USB 1.1 latency any more. Things have improved vastly since then. ~~~ userbinator I found two people who measured latencies, one a PCIe parallel port and the other USB 3.0: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41987430/what-is-the- low...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41987430/what-is-the-lowest- latency-communication-method-between-a-computer-and-a-microco) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13831008/what-is-the- min...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13831008/what-is-the-minimum- latency-of-usb-3-0) PCIe parallel port: 4-8us USB 3.0: 30us I believe a regular PCI or even ISA parallel port can be below 1us. Those are "real" buses, unlike USB and PCIe which are more similar to packet-switched networks. ~~~ FPGAhacker I don’t know about ISA, but pci (not e) can easily be under 1us. It would be an odd design to have even that much latency. As measured on the bus. ------ basementcat The same person also has a C-64 emulator working on the same board. [https://mcuhacker.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/running- the-c64-o...](https://mcuhacker.wordpress.com/2018/03/03/running-the-c64-on- the-esp8266/) ------ userbinator _1MB of the flash is used as a swapfile and creates virtual RAM space to the emulation through a MMU caching system_ That sounds like it would wear out the flash very quickly, especially given that the embedded flash on MCUs like these are not really designed for much in the way of write cycles (the usual case being firmware updates and configuration changes, both not high-frequency operations.) Interesting hack nonetheless, it reminds me of this: [https://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bi...](https://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit) ~~~ eschaton Yeah, it’d almost be better to use SD for virtual memory to at least put the flash wear on something consumable. ~~~ lann > something consumable ESP8266s can be had for ~$1... ------ GekkePrutser Ok that is impressive... Very well done. And then to imagine I paid thousands for one back in the day (though my dad's work "PC at home" project). I could have just waited 35 years and spent 1 buck for the ESP8266 :) ~~~ Koshkin Yet, “you get what you pay for” is still true... ------ DeathArrow Can it run Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem? ~~~ DanBC He has another post where he runs a super low Res Wolfenstein on an ESP8266. [https://mcuhacker.wordpress.com/2018/03/06/esp8266-tvout- lib...](https://mcuhacker.wordpress.com/2018/03/06/esp8266-tvout-library/)

How misaligning data can increase performance 12x by reducing cache misses - luu http://danluu.com/3c-conflict/ ====== cowsandmilk I see many comments here acting like this means not aligning on word boundaries (e.g. using packed pragma, sandy bridge have unaligned access, etc.). This has nothing to do with word alignment. As the article states at the beginning, this is about aligning to page boundaries, which is on a very different level than word boundaries or structure packing. Let's not get these confused. ------ barrkel It's important to at least know about the n in n-way set associative cache (i.e. that it exists) and this article is a good reminder. Next time you see data accesses that ought to be fast (ought to be hot in cache) but seem not to be, this is another thing you can look for. It's easy, from a software engineer perspective, to know that your CPU has cache, and just think it's like any other cache you might implement in software. But the implementation details - the hashing by masking the address, and only having a few slots available for things that hash to the same bucket - are actually important, as shown here. ------ mtanski One of the things to keep in mind here is that this trick won't work or work as well for every architecture or every processor family in that architecture. Some architectures do not support unaligned memory access and will raise an exception. If you're using things like packed attribute with your structs your compiler will generate the correct code but that code will be slower. In almost all cases it will generate many more instructions and because of that your cache will be less effective (due to larger code size) your decoder cache will be less effective, etc... The author has a more modern Intel processor. The x86 family always supported unaligned access, albeit it was always slower in terms of cycles. More recent Intel processor have made this penalty much shorter. I believe this was driven network applications many of which focus on efficiency of packing as many bytes down the channel and less on the alignment requirements. [http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=142&v=t](http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=142&v=t) ~~~ cube13 You're talking about word aligned boundries, which is absolutely an issue with certain architectures(I remember dealing with the issue with older SPARC processors). The article is talking about L2 and L3 processor cache hash collisions, which can result in lost performance as the cache's are overwritten. This optimization doesn't preclude those architectures necessarily, it's saying that instead of allocating at address 512, 1024, etc., there might be a boost from allocating at off-page addresses. ~~~ mtanski You are correct. ------ ori_b The usual term for this is "cache line colouring", and many allocators do this for you. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_coloring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_coloring) ------ joe_the_user I understand this only enough to understand that it may or may not be a surprising and paradoxical result. As a not-systems c++ programmer, it seems to reinforce the usual lesson: don't optimize your structures initially for anything but readability, once you have your system running and can pinpoint the bottlenecks, then try things like aligning structures to various things. But naturally always have a real-world- like test-suite to verify you are improving things. Sorry if this is boring. ------ mikerg87 Interesting. One question. How would I take advantage of this ? Are there special flags for the compiler or special memory allocator that I would need ? Do libraries like BLAS already account for this ? ~~~ acqq I'm not aware of any flags of C compilers that would "fix potential cache- slot-collisions" for you automatically, neither of any allocators. Intel processors have some profiling registers that can point you to this kind of problems, but typically you first have to know what you want to profile. Compilers are actually built to align the structures you write as there are a lot of processors which have significantly slower access to the misaligned values. Allocators also have to return you aligned addresses for each "malloc." The newest Intel iX processors are actually an exception in being able to amortize misaligned accesses. I've actually used hand-made unaligned "string" stores. As soon as you allocate some bigger memory block and store the character sequences of the variable size one after another, their starts won't be aligned unless you want that. For doubles and other fixed-size values it's still better to keep them aligned. Moreover I wasn't able to extract some value out of the article. Something constructed can be constructed to be slow or fast, fine. But I don't see anything that would inspire me to improve my real code. Maybe somebody who reads the article manages to produce such examples? ~~~ alexkus You can always write your own incremental allocator to provide word aligned (or whatever alignment) blocks of memory (from a large block of memory you obtain via a usual malloc() call) for the individual structures such that their page offsets are spread evenly (and avoid other problems such as spanning pages). [EDIT] although it is tricky to do optimally given that different processors will have different cache set characteristics (as the article shows). ~~~ acqq "Spreading" which will produce optimal cache use is something that depends on dynamic and not static properties of the program, so you'd have to "spread" differently depending on the use patterns. I can't imagine any universal solution. And most of the programmers make much bigger omissions than those mentioned in this topic. Like using wrong algorithms, wrong libraries, doing too many allocations, having bad structures of the data... So this topic effects are invisible unless you already fixed other issues. ~~~ alexkus True, but having every structure aligned to exactly the same offset into each page is extremely unlikely. Given a page size of 4KB then a whole bunch of 32 byte structures aligned in such a way would represent a huge waste of memory. No sane allocator will allocate things like this. If your structures happen to be very close to the system's page size it could easily happen, then you'd need to avoid this yourself with your own incremental allocator (or other tricks). Definitely agree with your last point, I've seen lots of code (in commercial applications) where people are optimising completely the wrong thing. ------ nkurz Hi Dan -- Great example. I looked briefly at the source, and wasn't sure whether "pointer_chase" was on or off in your graphs. Or maybe it didn't make a difference? _Page-aligned accesses like these also make compulsory misses worse, because prefetchers won’t prefetch beyond a page boundary. But if you have enough data that you’re aligning things to page boundaries, you probably can’t do much about that anyway._ To the contrary, I think this is one of the relatively rare cases that explicit prefetching can help you. But maybe this helps only once your sets are too large for L3? I wrote a little a few months ago on my attempts to speed up a Stream benchmark for Sandy Bridge that might have some overlap with your post: [http://software.intel.com/en- us/forums/topic/480004#comment-...](http://software.intel.com/en- us/forums/topic/480004#comment-1763753) ------ danso > _Well, I’ve now managed to blog about three of the areas where I have the > biggest comparative advantage. Three or four more blog posts and I’ll be > able to write myself straight out of my job. I must be moving up in the > world, because I was able to automate myself out of my first job with a > couple shell scripts and a bit of Ruby. At least this requires some human > intervention._ This was a great explanation of caching architecture, but I really want to hear the story of how the OP automated himself out of his first job with some shells scripts and Ruby. ------ dded Many modern processors hash some of the address bits before using them as a cache index to avoid these problems. To avoid them in code, it's often sufficient to round to convenient decimal numbers when allocating arrays, instead of powers-of-2. That is, allocate an array of 1000, instead of an array of 1024. ------ scott_s The linked usenet discussion is worth reading, partially because a student asks for help on their homework, and it eventually pulls in Linus Torvalds: [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.arch/_uecSnSEQc4/jkdcQc...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.arch/_uecSnSEQc4/jkdcQcRatXoJ) The actual discussion is good, too. ------ colanderman Why don't caches store data based on a linear hash of the address, rather than simply the low-order bits? This would retain the property that an aligned block of data can be stored without collision, and would extend this benefit to page-strided data. Even a "hash" as simple as (low order bits) XOR (middle bits) would provide this benefit. ------ bwzhou Why would you want to make an in-memory data structure page-aligned instead of cache-line-aligned? ~~~ rossjudson It's not that you would want to. It's that certain data structures (particularly in kernel land) naturally form around powers-of-2 sizing. Since the hashing in an n-way associative cache is done by masking away bits, you can get into this nasty situation where multiple elements of your data structure end up hashing to the same location set (the N in an N-way associative cache). You don't want that if you are going to walk the elements in your structure. Either avoid walking the elements, or do whatever it takes to ensure that you don't end up getting stuck behind the N. Hardware is inescapable. It's also worth noting that you can use this to your advantage, ensuring that accesses to certain elements does _not_ push much else out of the associative cache. ------ brokenparser Can someone explain those charts? ~~~ jbl The OP is plotting the _ratio_ of page-aligned vs. unaligned access time against problem size. So, on the y-axis, a value of 2 means the page-aligned access took twice as long as the unaligned access. Took me a few moments to grok the charts too, since I haven't had my coffee yet. ~~~ jere Ah good explanation. The use of "vs" in a graph title makes me assume it's describing X vs Y, which is confusing. It also helped when I realized the graph starts at 1 for working set size of 8 and the author corresponding says: >Except for very small working sets (1-8), the unaligned version is noticeably faster ------ ww520 Darn, really unexpected. Learn something new everyday. Page-aligned access is common because I/O is usually aligned on page. Now CPU intense cases are different because of cache line usage.

The transgender populist fighting fascists with face glitter - kantord https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/12/21/the-transgender-populist-fighting-fascists-with-face-glitter ====== IronWolve Interesting YouTube philosopher-pundit Natalie Wynn thinks everyone not left are nazi's wanting to wipe out LGBT. That the right is accepting of everyone, so they are winning people to their sides, thus they can't be allowed to speak on campus. And also politically this is a problem due to the lack of anti- capitalism and anti-nationalism pushed in mainstream politics. I disagree. We are in an information golden age where minorities and different groups of people can publish their issues. We have made great strides in LGBT rights due to the Internet and Media. I just can't fathom "wipe out" as a majority view in the West.

Ask HN: Do you blog using wordpress? - sharmi My personal site is not much active but when I have something interesting I tend to post.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.minvolai.com&#x2F;blog I used to blog using wordpress in 2007. Then I migrated to static generator mynt and have been on this from atleast 5 years. Mynt is not so well maintained now and I plan to move to nikola, another static blog generator (written in python).<p>On the other hand, most of the web uses wordpress. So if I move back to wordpress, I believe I will have a better understanding of other people&#x27;s workflows and issues. I do not mind keeping the installation up-to-date etc.<p>One thing that used to bug me when I was using wordpress, was embedding code snippets as a part of blog content. Wordpress would often replace embedded code symbols with html encodings , like &quot;&gt;&quot; by &quot;&amp;gt;&quot;. It got really annoying to open every post where it happens and set it right manually.<p>So my questions are:<p>* Has anyone moved a programming blog from static blog generator to wordpress? How is the experience?<p>* Has anyone faced the code replacement situation recently and if so, how do you handle it? ====== kernelcurry 1\. Wordpress has come light years in the past 2-3 years and allows for auto updating now 2\. I moved my site [https://kernelcurry.com](https://kernelcurry.com) from WordPress to a statistics site generator a few years ago and I LOVE IT! If you are looking to have GitHub host and deal with scaling (for free) I say go for it! Jekyll, Hugo, etc... There are a thousand of them. If you just want to write posts and have people view them... Maybe even use a comment service (some of those are also free) then make the move... But be warned it did take a few days me banging my head against a wall to understand all the nitty gritty BS that comes with these statistics Site Generators. -shrug- isn't that how it always goes?...

The Burden: Fossil Fuel, the Military and National Security - westurner http://www.theburdenfilm.com/watch_the_film ====== westurner Here's a link to the video: [https://vimeo.com/194560636](https://vimeo.com/194560636)

Ask HN: Are you going to participate in this years Google Code Jam? - holdenk Are you planning on participating in this years Google Code Jam? It starts on Friday.&#60;p&#62;I'm curious, what language,libraries or tools are you planning on using?&#60;p&#62;Do you have any pre-written contest code that you find useful? ====== _genova pertamax

It’s Time to Get over That Stored Procedure Aversion You Have - fastbmk_com https://rob.conery.io/2015/02/20/its-time-to-get-over-that-stored-procedure-aversion-you-have/ ====== alunchbox Erm. No. There's plenty of reasons why "rock star developers" and plenty of blogs discuss this. ORM usage is only as good as the stored procedures that are written. If devs don't understand an ORM they're bound it abuse it, because it's easy to do so. My biggest issue with stored procedures is change management. I've seen plenty of crazy custom tools that try to use Git, SVN, and just file system copies of Stores procedures. All of em have been 'lovely' to work with to say the least. Having your core business logic on the server is amazing due to version control. If it's performance that's a bottle neck I would say 95% (my POV) it's a developer that doesn't understand what the ORM is doing. The beauty of using EF or another micro ORM (dapper) is that SQL performance is optimized from caching the SQL hash. And the option is still there to execute a stored procedure. Theres absolutely times for using stored procedures, but I'd sacrifice a little bit of performance for maintainability. ~~~ fastbmk_com What's the problem with maintainability of stored procedures? For example, one can keep them in 'stored-procedures.sql' under Git version control and deploy them via one command, like `psql ...`. Won't it work that way? ~~~ alunchbox Maintainability is more then just version control. It's about being able to discover complex business logic, refactoring, and finding patterns to reduce code use. There's only one useful tool I found to quickly manage thousands of stored procedures and it was datagrip unfortunately the company I was working at would not allow devs to use anything but SSMS. Have you tried filtering thousands of stored procedures that don't follow naming convention and are riddled with bugs?! (Even with datagrip it still bad, not horrible but still bad) Tooling is a devs best friend. Using an IDE or vim/emacs with the correct extensions allows developers to easily see where a class is being used, allowing quick inspection. I do believe stored procedures have a place but they've been abused too much. ~~~ fastbmk_com > Have you tried filtering thousands of stored procedures that don't follow > naming convention and are riddled with bugs?! No. I was thinking about something like a greenfield project, small or medium size. Where about 100 stored procedures are all named nicely and 2-3 developers working on the project fully understand what they are doing with them :) ------ purple_ducks 2015... ~~~ fastbmk_com Yeah, so? Things have significantly changed since then? ~~~ grzm It's common on HN to include the year in the submission title if it's over a year old. As only the submitter or a mod can edit the title, commenters often prompt an edit as your parent did. It's not a comment on the worthiness of the submission: it's an aid to the readers. ~~~ fastbmk_com Looks like the 'edit' link has disappeared for an unknown reason. ~~~ monkeydreams It disappears very quickly after you post. You only have a short time (minutes?) before your post belongs to the ages. ~~~ fastbmk_com What a cruel world!

Intel Proposes to Use USB Type-C Digital Audio Technology - njaremko http://www.anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use-usb-typec-cables-to-connect-headsets-to-mobile-devices ====== moskie It's recently occurred to me that the prolificness of the 3.5mm audio connector is something to revere. Wikipedia tells that it's been around since _1964_ , with its fame really coming with the Walkman in 1979. So, a connector introduced _over fifty years ago_ is still in wide use today. How is that even possible? RJ11 phone jacks I think were introduced around the same time, but they seem archaic and old-fashioned in a way the 3.5mm audio jack doesn't. It just astonishes me that the audio connector has been a solved problem for this long, and with all the other advances in tech we've seen.... audio connectors didn't need any improvements. It makes me very skeptical of any replacements. If a fifty year old connector has been essentially flawless all this time, it's gonna be a tough sell to convince me that something else is really needed now. ~~~ rpgmaker I think it needs to die and be replaced by a _standard_ wireless audio technology of some sort, more efficient than bluetooth. I honestly don't know how people can go about their daily commutes with cables dangling from their ears. To me, that is very uncomfortable. Bluetooth has served me well over the years but I think we need something better and way more _energy_ efficient. ~~~ hamburglar And I honestly can't figure out how people can tolerate connection flakiness, quality issues, and battery drain for a set of headphones. I have tried many BT audio solutions and this is not wanna-be-audiophile pickiness, but the experience is universally substandard as far as I can tell. ~~~ nisse72 Watching a video on my mac, and listening over bluetooth, the audio lags the video by at least 0.5 second, it's unwatchable if there's any sort of dialogue. ------ tristor From everyone who has invested heavily in high-quality audio equipment over the years and understands the dangerous path to DRMed digital, I say "Fuck you Intel!". We don't want your USB-C. We'll happily stick to 3.5mm stereo analog outputs. ~~~ bryanlarsen The proposal includes stereo analog output. ~~~ rbanffy For now. Think DVI-A. ~~~ bryanlarsen Great example. VGA and DVI-I are still supported by lots of new video cards and laptops even though analog video has been dead for quite a long time. ~~~ pdkl95 Yes, it's a great example, because VGA _is_ broken by the newer standards because of HDCP. As others in this thread have mentioned, HDCP is included in this new USB spec. There has been a lot of effort over the years to close the so-called "analog hole" at the end of the DRM chain of trust. The stereo output exists only to distract people during the transition period. The analog out hardware may exist in the future, but the _software_ will refuse to send it any data. This is not theoretical; we already see this with Blu-ray software, where you get an error message if you use a VGA monitor without HDCP. Bonus: with Win 10 forcing updates, once the hardware is common, you won';t get a choice about the update that disables the "analog hole". ------ fpgaminer As others have pointed out, this may be a means to foist DRM on the audio output of phones, tablets, and possibly desktops/laptops. But the assumption following that is that DRM is being implemented in an attempt to prevent piracy. That is, in my opinion, not the case. DRM's primary purpose with respect to the video/audio industry is market control. Let's start at the top of the market, the content producers (Warner, Fox, etc). They make a movie/TV show/etc, and publish it to disc. But that disc has encryption on it. So a company like Sony wants to make a device that plays the disc. To do so legally they have to sign a bunch of agreements with the owners of the encryption license. Part of those agreements requires the use of HDCP. Okay, so now the disc is playing, and outputting an encrypted video signal. So a company like LG makes a TV, but the video signal is encrypted. So, they have to sign an agreement with the holders of the HDCP license. But the holders of that license, and the license of disc encryption, are all held, ultimately, by the same media industry oligarchy that holds the rights to the content that started this chain of DRM in the first place. The end result is that the content owners get to use DRM as a means to force all the companies along the food chain to sign agreements with them, and thus they can exercise power over the entire market. Not a single legit Blu-ray player gets manufactured without signing agreements with these companies. Not a single TV, cable box, repeater, receiver, projector, etc. DRM is not a padlock, it's a parasite. The icing on the cake is that it also nets them a tidy profit. HDCP requires both a yearly licensing fee, and a per-device royalty. It ain't cheap. And there are more aggressive requirements if you plan to implement HDCP yourself, rather than using a pre-made device. So you can either use a pre-made device, which is conveniently manufactured by the same oligarchy and is rather pricey, or make your own and suffer further agreements and expenses. Intel is the guy that the media industry hired to create HDCP, and who currently manages it. It wasn't long ago that Intel was gung-ho about pushing video DRM on PC's along with Microsoft. Luckily that mostly died, but here we are again, same story, different day. ~~~ signal57 Wouldn't it still be possible to record the non-DRM analog signal with a USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter? The change would put the amp and DAC inside the headphones. Take it apart and connect directly to the "last leg" going to the analog speakers. If anything, it should be a better quality signal because of the shorter analog transmission distance. ~~~ pdkl95 An adapter like that will have the exact same problems as DVI->VGA adapters: HDCP. The software will refuse to send the data to the port without an HDCP negotiation. And just like the VGA adapters, I'm sure it will be possible to make a "striper" that fakes the HDCP handshake, with all the associated legal problems. ------ ramses0 Is USB-C basically the trojan horse for DRM audio? Likely yes, right? HDCP on HDMI out, equivalent on USB-C out? ~~~ JonnieCache _" Usage of digital audio means that headsets should gain their own amplifiers, DACs and various other logic, which is currently located inside smartphones. Intel proposes to install special multi-function processing units (MPUs) ... The MPUs will also support HDCP technology, hence, it will not be possible to make digital copies of records using USB-C digital headset outputs."_ ~~~ nalllar Yet another form of irritating DRM which won't actually prevent piracy. Take apart any device which supports the copy protection, connect to output of DAC, bypassed. /facepalm ~~~ MichaelGG And just like Apple TV[1], enjoy getting HDCP errors requiring restarting playback several times. 1: Might have been the Toshiba screen it was connected to. ~~~ duaneb Dunno why you're being downvoted, that's exactly the type of frustrating experience that exemplifies HDCP. ------ Sephr Judging by all of the comments complaining about DRM and having to buy new audio equipment, it seems like few people are actually reading the whole article. USB-C can support analog audio output via audio adapter accessory mode[1]. In the near future you'll be able to buy passive USB-C→3.5mm cables for cheaper than normal USB-C→USB-C cables. You will be able to use them like any other aux cable. Personally, I still prefer the 3.5mm jack so that I don't need a passive adapter for using my earbuds. Requiring a passive adapter that gives you a perpendicular 3.5mm jack, no matter how small, would be ugly and obtrusive. Fortunately, at least for over-the-ear headphones with a 3.5mm jack, this will at least be much less of a hassle. Passive USB-C→3.5mm cables can just be your new aux cable. [1] [https://i.imgur.com/y6xCS9u.png](https://i.imgur.com/y6xCS9u.png) ~~~ dingo_bat IMO the 3.5 mm jack is better because it can rotate 360 degrees. The USB connector is rigidly fixed, which puts stresses on the cord and connector. I've rarely seen a 3.5 mm fail to make proper connections or wear out the port with use, whereas both are really common with USB. ~~~ NegativeLatency Generally I agree with you, but my macbook's headphone connector won't hold the cable in anymore. ------ cm3 They cannot be serious. Replacing what works great with all kinds of cheap or expensive and easy to repair equipment with what? Another device on the Universal Serial Bus. I see the point of attaching storage devices, sound cards and anything else that is not simple and needs a controller and logic to USB, but audio output? I do sometimes use a USB headset because it has its own soundcard built-in, but I actually prefer a simple headset with a 3.5mm mic- in/head-out connection. Why? Well, it works always, it doesn't load another driver, and it doesn't rely on the USB bus. USB is nice but occasionally hiccups and resets itself, which is not something you'll see happen with your mic and headphones because they are not overcomplicated. To be totally honest, I'm also one of those who prefers keyboards attached via PS/2 because I've had USB keyboards reset when I attached another USB device to the shared bus. That PS/2 has real interrupts is an added bonus for something as crucial as keyboard input. With all that being said, as long as this happens in the phone and tablet space, I guess I can live with it, but having to carry around an adapter from USB to 3.5mm audio will be a PITA. This is just another, let's change it to make money with adapters and sell new implementations due to bugs in the old controllers and drivers, scheme. Next year, USB power cords, and you'll have to rewire your house. ~~~ dpark > _but I actually prefer a simple headset with a 3.5mm mic-in /head-out > connection. Why? Well, it works always_ I can say with certainty that it does not always work. If I plug a pair of Apple earbuds into my Android device, the audio up/down do not work. This functionality isn't consistent even within the Android device world. Having a consistent headphone jack that provides consistency here would be a pretty big win. (Even bigger if Apple gets on board, which it won't.) > _I guess I can live with it, but having to carry around an adapter from USB > to 3.5mm audio will be a PITA_ Pretty sure the endgame here is that your headphones have a USB C connection on them instead of a 3.5mm audio jack. > _Next year, USB power cords, and you 'll have to rewire your house._ You can already buy outlets with USB ports. They're increasingly common, but thankfully the transformer is in the outlet so you're not running low-voltage wire all over. ~~~ teamfrizz I think this is a false comparison for two reasons 1) adding the microphone and volume function to the headjack is a different cable than a normal TRS 3.5mm aux cable, which is the cable we all love. I would rather get rid of the 4 wired microphone enabled 3.5mm than lose the 3.52mm altogether. 2) all of the problems you mentioned that revolve around software - Apple cables not working on android, etc - are only going to get word by introducing USB into this. The idea is to remove proprietary things from analog audio, that's the whole reason the standard survived. It also goes without saying that there is an inherit loss of utility caused by this switch, since so many of the products I already own use 3.5mm. ~~~ dpark I'm not attached sentimentally to any cables. I'd love for audio, volume, skip, and microphone functionality to work with all my devices and all my headphones. Would it be annoying to lose compatibility (or require a converter) for all my existing speakers and headphones? Of course. I'd still take that penalty if it meant the overall experience was better and eventually more consistent. Frankly I'm not sure 3.5mm is going to survive in the mainstream anyway. Bluetooth might eventually replace it for mainstream use cases. ~~~ click170 >Bluetooth might eventually replace it for mainstream use cases. As somewho who uses Bluetooth audio I strongly disagree. I think Bluetooth audio is going to remain niche until batteries get better. Who wants to have to charge their headphones or Bluetooth (often battery powered) speakers every few days? ~~~ cm3 I may be spoiled but whether I use bluetooth or old-school RF headsets, it's always less reliable and lower quality than wired. ------ tremon _Industry signaling a strong desire to move from analog to digital_ Which industry would that be, I wonder? The audio hardware industry, or the content creation industry? ~~~ cstavish This is ironic. It used to be the analog medium that had a sort natural copy protection built in. ------ leaveyou >Industry signaling a strong desire.. Is this the same industry that gave us the HDMI "blessing" ? "The headphones, audio cables and the jack adapters are too cheap.. We can solve that !" ~~~ sliverstorm HDMI does have nice features, like ARC and CEC. (I'd rather use DisplayPort though) ~~~ pritambaral Neither of which require DRM, I'm sure. HDMI causes a lot of problems (and price increases) because of HDCP. ~~~ stordoff > HDMI causes a lot of problems (and price increases) because of HDCP. And the way around it (in the specific case of HDCP) is often to buy cheap, probably non-standards compliant equipment, which isn't a good situation for anyone. I recall reading that the VitaTV had HDCP, yet I hadn't encountered that issue. Turns out the HDMI switcher I was using (the cheapest one I could find on Amazon with two outputs) was just stripping it off. ~~~ pritambaral Then you got lucky. If that practice was pervasive, 1) honest people wouldn't face as many issues with HDMI; and 2) the Hollywood DRM-lobby would go crazy on manufacturers ------ strgrd I imagine as a mobile device manufacturer you would be pretty excited to get to cut the total number of ports on your device in half _and_ sell high margin cables/adapters/hubs as accessories. Let the dongle wars begin... ------ sp332 So now instead of buying a single DAC in my phone, I have to buy a DAC for every set of speakers and headphones I ever want to plug in to it? ~~~ derefr Coming from the reverse perspective: now my expensive wireless bluetooth headphones will make use of their own good DAC all the time, instead of relying on my phone's crappy DAC whenever I plug them in directly. ~~~ plaguuuuuu You can already use your own DAC with smartphones. ~~~ sp332 How does that work? ~~~ makomk On Android phones that support USB-OTG (most of the better/more modern ones) you can literally just plug a standard USB DAC into the onboard USB port. Honestly, it shouldn't be that hard to just include a decent onboard DAC and headphone amp these days though - Sandisk's MP3 players and Allwinner's range of ARM SoCs have even managed to integrate both on the same die as the main CPU no problem. ~~~ throwanem Apple devices have generally excellent DACs as well - to the point where it's basically a waste of money to buy an external DAC. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are Android devices with good onboard DACs, but I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that such devices are at the high end of their manufacturers' ranges and come at a premium price. ------ gdamjan1 > A good thing about USB Type-C headsets with MPUs is that they are going to > be software upgradeable and could gain functionality over their lifespan. yeah, unless it never happens, like it typically doesn't :( ~~~ pdkl95 > > software upgradeable and could gain functionality over their lifespan. That usually means "now we get to ship it broken". ~~~ plaguuuuuu I just can't wait to have bugs in my HEADPHONES of all things. Or for them to be connected to the IoT. ------ zanny Why the hell does a digital serial bus interface have an analog audio "mode"? I mean, USB-C is already supposed to do daisy chaining, some 100w power bidirectional power transfer, and support video channels over it according to displayport spec. Oh, and its also thunderbolt. Seriously, is this port supposed to cost more than its weight in gold to manufacture, and be such an extreme nightmare to program for we should expect exploits every other Tuesday? I am totally on board with a high bandwidth even parallel standard port for digital data exchange with good power delivery metrics, but all this specificity over how it performs with what data while supporting analog modes is... feature creep, by definition, in my book. ~~~ Sephr You just hook up your existing DAC to the USB-C port instead of a 3.5mm jack, and the rest is just software. It's not like they need to use special circuitry that isn't already in your phone. All phones in existence already have a DAC (or you couldn't make phone calls using the built-in speaker). ------ stegosaurus This reminds me of the Game Boy Advance SP and how it removed the 3.5mm jack for seemingly no reason other than to have me buy an adapter. I won't buy a phone without a 3.5mm jack. It just works. I don't need digital audio. My (medium-price-range) headphones sound utterly glorious, there is no utility here. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I'll ever upgrade my 2013 Moto G. It'll probably break eventually. When did I become a luddite? It's like, at some point, things stopped getting substantially better, and just became sidegrades with annoying tweaks for the sake of it. I want my toaster to take... bread. Not tomatoes. Bread is what I eat for breakfast, not toasted tomatoes. :P ------ _wmd Initial steps toward DRM on the audio path? ~~~ danarmak From the article: > The MPUs will also support HDCP technology, hence, it will not be possible > to make digital copies of records using USB-C digital headset outputs. ------ revelation It's bizarre. Why would we push the <5mm^2 that an audio amplifier requires in a smartphone into the headphones, where it then inevitably requires local decoupling, a circuit board, power management, something to decode the USB (or can USB-C do analog?) and all the other hassle? Makes absolutely zero sense. ~~~ jws The amplifier in the headphones can be designed specifically for those headphones. It may well be that a transducer with a bizarre frequency response and an amp/EQ that compensates is a better solution in the end. Where we are now, headphones need to have reasonably flat response (or be called Beats :-) in order to be acceptable. Or perhaps a wildly different impedance makes a better cost performance argument, can't go there now, but with active headphones you can. It may be a bit like the powered speaker market for PA gear. You can get light weight powered speakers for not a lot of money that perform quite well. The amplifiers do exactly what they need to for the exact speaker, they don't have to be able to handle whatever mystery load you plug into them. They can build in the crossovers and EQ compensation when the signal is small rather than in the speaker cabinets. Also, noise canceling ear buds become possible when you have power coming to them. Of course, the heap of Apple Earbuds I have whose clickers no longer work doesn't really inspire me about my new active headphone future. ------ Eric_WVGG I’m betting on next year’s Retina Macbook to nix the audio jack for a second USB-C. Likely held off because they don’t want to detract from a big wireless earbud launch with the iPhone 7 this fall… ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel Maybe 2016 will be Apple's year of USB-C. A single USB-C on the iPhone 7, two on the MacBook, and USB-C earphones? It could happen. ~~~ akhilcacharya They just released the refreshed MacBook, they'll probably wait for 2017 OR they'll do that on the new Pros that will be announced at WWDC. ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel Oh yeah, I know about the 2016 MacBook, but I'm guessing they could lay the groundwork for the 2017 MacBook with their other products this year. ------ cornchips "Industry Signaling a strong desire to move from analog to digital"... which "industry"? "New digital audio needs to offer significant value at higher end" ... Intel market segmentation at its finest. Long rein analog. Looks like they missed a few groups in the job cuts. ~~~ Zekio Apparently Apple and a Chinese company is the whole industry. ------ c0nfused Welp. Here is to hoping for AMD's zen. USB audio is nice but it's also nice to not have to buy a new headset or new DAC for my new box. Edit: spec says analog audio over usb so, there's that. ~~~ Sephr USB-C has an analog audio output mode (audio adapter accessory mode which uses the device's internal DAC), so you won't have to do that. There will eventually be passive USB-C→3.5mm cables for use with analog-only headphones. ~~~ sp332 Do you have a link for this? I've never heard of it but it sounds cool. ~~~ Sephr Here's a screenshot of part of the relevant section from the USB-C spec: [https://i.imgur.com/y6xCS9u.png](https://i.imgur.com/y6xCS9u.png) ~~~ cnvogel > The headset shall not use a USB Type-C plug to replace the 3,5mm plug. So, the only sane way to connect an analog headset to a mobile phone is forbidden by the spec... Assuming I _had_ a phone with a Analog-Audio-USB- Type-C capable, I'd like to have a headset that directly plugs in, and for which I don't have to purchase, carry, and loose a separate adapter. ~~~ Dylan16807 So attach the adapter and then pretend it's part of the wire for the lifetime of the device. ------ anexprogrammer "Industry signalling a strong desire to move from analogue to digital" Industry can sod off. This is about DRM not any consumer benefit. The decent quality is all in the hifi market that's quite happy with jack plugs. ------ thescriptkiddie Why would I want a digital headphone jack? Headphones are analog devices, so you're just going to have to cram a DAC into the headphones anyway, making them heavier, more expensive, and DRM-encumbered. ------ narrator I think this is a sign that technology is stalling. They are grasping at straws trying to get us excited about technology that adds little value for the consumer but drives another upgrade cycle and even removes features that they can sell back to us. First we get the locked down no dd-wrt routers and now this. ------ KamiCrit Seeing how gaming keyboards and mice have gone these days. I wonder if we'll need manufacturer specific software and an account and to access our future audio settings and features. ------ okasaki USB seems a lot more flimsy than 3.5mm. ~~~ PhasmaFelis IIRC, USB-C is supposed to be the most resilient USB to date (in terms of average plug/unplug cycles before failure). Too early to say if that's actually true, or how that compares to 3.5mm in any case, but it's not impossible that it's comparable--especially since USB-C finally eliminates the "try to jam it in the wrong way 'round" problem. ~~~ pritambaral > the most resilient USB At the cost of the devices it's supposed to connect together[0]. When you have to think about having to add cryptographic signatures and verification to cables[1], I cannot see the connectivity standard you built as safe. 0: [https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_p...](https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm) 1: [http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2016/04/13/usb- type-c-...](http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2016/04/13/usb-type-c- auth/1) ------ israrkhan yet another form of DRM, for which consumers will pay and corporate will make money, and yet it fails to solve the piracy problem. high fidelity analogue Audio recorders are easily available. ------ astannard It's a shame that apple to be going with a similar but incompatible strategy: [http://www.cultofmac.com/401014/apple-now-sells-lightning- he...](http://www.cultofmac.com/401014/apple-now-sells-lightning-headphones- that-are-super-expensive/) ------ batbomb Remember when 2.5mm was a thing for phones that could play MP3s? That sucked. ~~~ cm3 I never knew what that port was for, thanks for clarifying, really, I'm not kidding. ~~~ batbomb Some were just for one earphone (mono) and a mic. Some were effectively the same as the iPhone (stereo+mic). Some had weird adapters for other ports if they just had the earphone+mic version. I think I had one of each at different times, all pre-2007. ------ rasz_pl We already have strong and widely adopted digital audio standard, its called I2S. HDMI audio is four I2S channels in parallel. Provision pins for raw I2S, or simple usb endpoint decoding into four I2S, but not another effing DRM shit. ------ jhallenworld I thought Bluetooth was supposed to eliminate the need for the 3.5mm jack... ------ Zekio if phones don't get two type-C connectors there is no point to this.. ~~~ bsharitt The future will be one port on everything breakout dongles everywhere. ~~~ Zekio Well it is gonna suck not being able to charge your phone while listening to music ~~~ wmf Instead of metal weights[1], headphones will contain batteries so first you'll charge your headphones and then your phone will charge off the headphones. [1] [https://blog.bolt.io/how-it-s-made-series-beats-by- dre-154aa...](https://blog.bolt.io/how-it-s-made-series-beats-by- dre-154aae384b36) ~~~ pritambaral /s ? ~~~ wmf Personally I think this is a terrible idea (I already have too many things that need charging and charging a battery from another battery is inefficient) but I predict that it will happen. (BTW, does anyone know what happens when you plug two battery-powered USB-PD devices together? How do they decide which direction power should flow?) ------ visarga What is the purpose of making the audio cables digital? We don't need more audio resolution, we are already beyond the limits of human hearing. It's like making phones with 2000 ppi resolution for no practical benefit other than bragging rights. It'd rather prefer we had better wireless audio. Bluetooth is too weak for streaming around the house and has slow connection time, is unstable and generally discourages wireless audio. ------ SwellJoe I'm torn on this one. I know it's a move to push DRM further out the stack, and that annoys. But, I also want higher quality recording and playback from my small devices. The audio circuitry of one of my tablets and my phone is abysmal; my Nexus 7 (second generation) is nice but I don't have a good recording option. Presumably this audio will be two ways, so if I want to stick an ADC in that port I'll be able to record at very high quality, and if I want to stick a DAC in that port, I'll be able to play back at very high quality. DRM is stupid, of course, and it's just pushing the copying out one more step in the chain (they can't stop you from converting it to analog at _some point_ , because it's gotta be analog to get into your ear holes). And, of course, DRM is made to be broken. Anyway, the 3.5mm jacks on my devices are about 50/50 unusably bad (either they aren't grounded/filtered properly and end up with a variety of noise, or they aren't loud enough, or they distort at modest volume, etc.), so on the whole, I won't mourn the passing of the 3.5mm jack. ~~~ TD-Linux You can already do digital audio on Android, either over OTG USB and normal USB Audio, or via the Android Accessory protocol. Presumably this would work just as well over a USB C connector. Adding DRM is a pure downgrade from this. ------ headgasket I posted this on a thread about this that should be linked somehow: A true advance, a Jobs and Ives worthy advance, would be to superseed it. Use the 3 prongs of a jack with mic for ground tx,rx,and keep it backward compatible with analog only devices. reply ------ justaaron not a shred of reality displayed here. the analog audio jack they seek to replace is the final analog output of a digital to analog converter or DAC. one cannot speak of a digital speaker, and a digital amplifier does not usually refer to using the loading of the speaker driver to smooth-out the pulse-chain like some motors on a PWM line... not in any high fidelity audio anyway... where is the DAC or audio codec to be located? are we not just pushing it out to the device and pretending it went away? why the assumption for headphones or consumer audio? what about USBs derived clock and jitter? why on ------ cm2187 What do they mean by going "digital"? At the end the signal that reaches the speaker driver will have to be analog. What are they suggesting to happen instead? ------ rbanffy How about the mechanical loads headphone plugs are subjected while the phone is in a pocket and we are walking? I am very sure a USB-C is nowhere near as robust as a mini P2. ------ ohazi No. ------ linux_girl You can put _analog_ audio over USB-C, too. From the article: > In fact, USB-C can be used to transfer analog audio in accordance with the > specification of the connector. It all comes down as to how that audio is > transmitted. ------ mlvljr Somehow, I prefer "plain" USB for headsets: it's one connector instead of two, and feels (looks) more modern (plus, requires less force to (un)plug). No sympathy for clunky DRM-"enhanced" hw, of course :)

Students advised to falsely claim to be racial minorities for college admissions - Hydraulix989 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/students-were-advised-to-falsely-claim-to-be-racial-minorities-in-college-admissions-scandal-2019-05-18 ====== danielscrubs Should be noted that calling yourself asian is also disadvantageous so it’s not all minorities. ~~~ dclusin For those unaware, a group of Asian Americans is suing Harvard[1] for discriminative admission practices. Similar allegations have been made against UC Berkley and other UC's as well. 1 - [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/harvard- announces...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/harvard-announces- high-admittance-asian-americans-judge-weighs-affirmative-action-n990051) ------ Viliam1234 If it worked for Rachel Dolezal, it would be unfair to deny the same strategy to students. ~~~ YUMad And for Elizabeth Warren. ------ Fjolsvith Why not have a DNA test to determine ethnicity for college admissions? ~~~ Hydraulix989 What if I don't feel comfortable sharing my DNA? ~~~ Fjolsvith I'm sure there are plenty of educational opportunities outside the USA. ~~~ Hydraulix989 I am a USA taxpayer and registered voter. ------ turtlecloud With this open secret, most know the reality when walking around Harvard and Ivy League. If current trends continue based on self reported race in college admissions... In the future most “white” people in Ivy League will be the following: mixed race (mainly half or 3/4 asian), middle eastern (arab/israeli/Iranian), or light skinned Indians. The rest are legacy WASPs. Most Hispanic people will be white people with a Hispanic name like Beto o’rourke. Most blacks will be from the Caribbean/African princes/non Slave descended blacks like Obama/Kamala Harris. The asian quota will be reserved for rich Chinese intl students. Native Americans will be Elizabeth warrens. So really most Americans get shafted here by affirmative action. Protestant whites, slave descended blacks, asian Americans, non white hispanics and actual native Americans. To protest this, whenever I am asked for any race I always randomly put down a different race even if my last name obviously shows what race I am. ~~~ cafard Beto O'Rourke? The Ancient Order of Hibernians would like a word with you. ~~~ turtlecloud That’s the point lol. His first name is Robert but he goes by Beto to appear Hispanic to appeal to Latino voters in Texas.

Herpes simplex virus is present in at least four out of five people - pmoriarty https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/j5q3gy/herpes-welcome-to-the-disease-you-probably-have ====== eganist Missing from this: all the research that points to a substantial link between the virus (HSV1 specifically) and Alzheimer's in some subgroups (notably the ApoE 4 group). Selected opinions and studies from the most basic of google scholar searches: [https://www.j-alz.com/editors-blog/posts/case-viral-role- alz...](https://www.j-alz.com/editors-blog/posts/case-viral-role-alzheimers- disease) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019841/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019841/) [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2014.0020...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00202/full) But HSV1 is also the most commonly transmitted form, so... shrug. Unless there's a viable cure for it, nothing any of us can do. ------ craftyguy That, and HPV.

When Google talks about "do no evil", who do you think they were talking about? - johns http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/05/why-cant-micros.html ====== pg It's pretty impressive of Fred to talk openly about Microsoft being evil. Very few VCs would do that, because they wouldn't want to alienate such a powerful partner and/or potential acquirer for the startups they fund. Founders: this is the kind of VC you want on your side. ------ Herring "Microsoft messed with the technology industry for a decade..." He's talking like it's past tense. OOXML was just a few weeks ago. They worked hard for that bad reputation. And honestly given the billions they've made, I'm not sure I'd choose different. ------ okeumeni I want to reiterate my advice to Xobni, Sell and run! These guys are beasts they will make a copy of Xobni and make you history, remember Netscape. ~~~ paul It's funny to see people making this argument. When was the last time that MS released anything truly new or made any "competitor" history? Netscape was a long time ago. ~~~ okeumeni It’s easy to say that when never played on MSFT turf; asked anyone of those companies building plug-ins or Add-ins for their platform. Ask your self why the Europeans are so hard on MSFT these days >1 billion in fines. ------ sabat Of course, it was "don't be evil", but that's just semantics. Mr. Buchheit (sp?) came up with that famous motto. He meant it literally, from what he says: don't be like the other guys. Don't be evil. I don't think that's the same as "be perfect", but at least try to have pretty good intentions -- that's far and away better than most big companies.

A Peek Inside the Niantic Real World AR Platform - srameshc https://nianticlabs.com/blog/nianticrealworldplatform/ ====== ruytlm As one of those who got stuck into Ingress in its early days, I'm always happy to see Niantic pushing forward. The only issue is they always seem to be a step ahead of themselves, in terms of their ideas being just a little too far ahead of the technology. It will be interesting to see how truly real-world AR shapes the world when it becomes widespread. I'm sure that some day anthropologists will look back on this era with fascination, at how both society and individual human development/behaviour were shaped by technology, in terms of things like the way that access to information and exposure to 'realities' not restricted to the real laws of physics shape development. ~~~ digi_owl Speaking of the laws of physics, i suspect the primary limitation for this will be the power supply. I seem to recall that there are ongoing jokes regarding existing AR games that one basically have to bring a generator (aka car) to keep up with the battery drain of the game. ~~~ erikpukinskis I would expect the rendering efficiency to get better fast. The amount of power spent on graphics relative to the actual amount of new information being generated is absurdly high. We should start seeing more experiences designed specifically for low power renderability soon. ~~~ opencl Why do you expect it get better at a significantly higher rate than it has been over the past several decades of computer graphics? Is there some major up-and-coming research on the topic? ~~~ erikpukinskis No, just a kind of Hegelian turn. Computer graphics have been oriented towards emulating photography for many years. That project is nearing its end and still realism is lacking. As people start to realize there is more to seeing than just photography, we will enter an era of discovering more sparing uses of computation. Look to painting for a possible progression. Realism/classicism was just an early maximum. Impressionism followed. And then many other movements. Contemporary painters can do much more with much less. ------ BLKNSLVR The "Neon" demo displayed the horribly limiting nature of the device. The AR aspect is great, but to have to see it through the lens of the device and to have to occupy both hands to interact whilst full-bodily moving around the space makes it seem quite "cacky" (I can't explain what I mean by cacky, but it sounds like what I mean). It's like playing a shooter game in the real world, but having to have the device pointing in the right direction in order to see what's actually there. Like using a torch in pitch blackness (Doom 3). This is where a Google Glass / VR-style headgear kind of interface would be perfect. But since this is all just in "tech demo" stage, I'm probably being too critical. It is "cool". Tertiary worry: AR advertising. ~~~ AndrewKemendo It's building the communications infrastructure you need for glasses to "just work." You can't just come out with glasses because there is too much you don't know about how multi-user and persistent content AR interface and communications work from a standing start. ~~~ BLKNSLVR My comment was based on my reaction to how unexpectedly badly the handling of the device fitted into the activity, and how obvious it was that a different interaction device was necessary. And yes, I think Niantic are more of a technology / platform company than they are a game developer, and I think that's the level of their involvement in the Wizards Unite game. Google "just came out with glasses", but that didn't go very well, probably for the reasons you gave. Google Glass time may be upon us again soon, however, given these tech demos. ~~~ AndrewKemendo Yes, I'm agreeing with you and explaining why the big companies are making such huge investments in this when the form factor and use case is still not refined. ------ the-pigeon Interesting. Niantic has done a really poor job managing Pokemon Go and Ingress though. Hopefully they've hired better management with boatloads of cash they've made with Pokemon Go. ~~~ hrktb Users have been frustrated and very vocal on the social media, there are clear areas where Niantic is pointed pitch forks at. Yet I am not sure I would call that bad management, in that they kept the game running, core players are still there in decent numbers while casual players seem to be coming back in waves. They can surely do better and the game is riddled with bugs, but no one is operating at that scale without significant issues, and they managed to not ruin the game while making impacting changes to the whole system for two years now. I have my frustration with the games, but I genuinely think they made a very decent job. ~~~ pedroaraujo As an early player of Pokémon Go since the release day, I can say that the whole game was poorly managed (and still is). Even after the initial spike of users, they can't do a major event without messing it up: \- [https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16019404/pokemon-go- fest-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16019404/pokemon-go-fest-refunds- disaster-review) \- [https://www.destructoid.com/niantic-is-handling-pokemon- go-p...](https://www.destructoid.com/niantic-is-handling-pokemon-go-poorly-in- spite-of-its-success-376241.phtml) The people who play Pokémon Go nowadays, they do it for the novelty of being Pokémon, not because it is a good game. Also, Pokémon Go is popular the same way Flappy Bird was popular: it's an effortless game to handle and it's very convenient to play when you already spend a lot of time on the phone. Niantic managed to turn a multi-billion dollar game into a multi-million dollar one. ~~~ Wofiel And yet, according to some sources, as of May had the most players they've had since launch. [0] Whatever beef you might have Niantic or the players of Pokemon Go, the numbers suggest that the game still has some stick, beyond novelty. [0] [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pokemon-go- pla...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pokemon-go-player-count- at-highest-since-2016-summer-launch) ~~~ dwild That HAS to be from others countries then. Where I lived, in Montreal, there was HUGE AMOUNT of peoples playing that game all around. I remember there is a tiny park close by my work, it's cute, almost always empty but there is 3 Pokestop there. During the first few months, there was literally 30-40 peoples there constantly. It was always funny to see them all flee somewhere else when there was no longer the "boost" on theses Pokestop. That wasn't including the people I was constantly seeing walking around playing. I now rarely see people even play that game. It still happens but it pretty far from the first few months where it was everywhere. ~~~ hrktb There is a clear shift on who plays the game the most and how they play. The first 3~4 months I remember seeing a lot of youngish and very active people, the heavy players being those travelling all day around the city to complete their dex. Now I end up a lot more with elder people who manage to play during their jobs, do a lot less “grinding” but do it more efficiently and can pop real money here and there when it matters. I am not surprise by the number of players rising again while there is no huge 30~40 people croud rushing everywhere: we don’t need to rush anymore, and the main events can easily be planned 30~15 min in advance. If you are interested in huge crowds, public parks during community days might be the remaining attraction. ------ pbw Pokemon Go's AR was a joke, but the promise of AR was very real and compelling to people, so they were wildly successful and now have the resources to actually try and solve the technical problems for real. A lot of startups work this way. They have an ambition to do something but really no chance of doing it. But if they can attract enough attention and raise enough money they might actually be able to attempt it for real. Crowd funding overtly works like this, but it's really common in regular companies as well. If you can show there's a chance, maybe you can raise enough money to actually do it. ~~~ CharlesW > _Pokemon Go 's AR was a joke…_ If you think of AR as video overlays on reality, for sure. If you think beyond video, Pokémon's AR was a home run. My kids know where Pokémon are most likely to live. They know where the gyms are. Their reality has _definitely_ been augmented. ~~~ proto-n Yeah that's what many people confuse. In pokemon go, AR, meaning 3d stuff rendered over the camera input, is not really essential to the game, and most people never even use it, as it drains the battery too much. On the other hand AR, as in augmented world map, is the core of the game and is brilliant. ~~~ birdman3131 Has nothing to do with battery drain and everything to do with the fact it is significantly easier to hit the harder throws that give you a higher chance of catching the pokemon. ------ MaxLeiter Niantic is currently developing a Harry Potter AR game. I wouldn’t be surprised if they allow you to cast spells at other players during duels and what-not, as one of the demos shows ~~~ jerrysievert as both someone who's been in the mobile location industry (having headed an R&D center specifically focused on real-time location for mobile devices), and is an avid pokemon go player (and thus Niantic customer), I don't expect them to have anything close to their demos until a year after launch, and even then in extreme beta. that said, it's almost time for me to do another 1km walk to try to eek out 400m of "egg distance" in pokemon go. ------ madrox Well done. The occlusion is far better than I would've ever thought possible with a single camera on current mobile hardware. Whenever they get the form factor right for AR, I think we'll get to see some really interesting apps ------ wpietri One of the big questions I have about AR is the extent to which it's a novelty versus something that delivers lasting value. As an example, 3D movies and especially 3D TVs were an impressive technical accomplishment that basically nobody cared about. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. ------ taneq Good to see them working on real AR instead of "render an geolocated object with the camera feed in the background" (original Pokemon Go). At least the new ARKit version attempts to track the feed a bit. ------ kriro I'm curious when Blizzard will enter the mobile AR/geo-game market. Walking around questing in groups with dungeon spawns etc. using the WoW-IP would be interesting as would hack and slashing around Diablo-style. Plenty of skinner- box random loot material to keep people playing as well. The battle systems of MMORPGs or Diablo should map nicely onto AR-games. I suppose actually using distance could get tricky as people would try risky things to get battle advantages so just spawn and fight round based is probably the way to go. I thought Pokemon Go got dull rather quickly (played upto level 35, I liked Ingress a lot more) and I still can't understand why they didn't opt for round based battles. I've recently been playing Jurassic World Alive very casually and like the overall design more. Each "catch" is sort of meaningfull and the DNA-extraction sequence is more fun than catching a pokemon. On top of that the battle system is cooler and rewards good play to a certain degree. Before playing Pokemon Go I thought of AR in terms of overlaying 3D models over a camera feed (which is the feature I turned off in Pokemon Go). It certainly gave me a different perspective as I thought of some other use cases for geo-location overlay. ------ kauloswag I wonder when the first AR adblocker will become available. ------ Animats Not too bad. They definitely have Pokemon Go, the Next Generation. How good is the phone location system? Staying locked to the real world is essential for AR. [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM) ------ Applethief This is awesome! I'm loving the advancements in AR.

Responsive Design Won’t Fix Your Content Problem - Ashuu http://alistapart.com/column/responsive-design-wont-fix-your-content-problem ====== danso It's astonishing how much "responsive design" gets thrown around as a buzzword...however, unlike a lot of buzzwords, "responsive design" actually means something and implementing it has implications systemwide...Across legacy sites, I've almost never seen it implemented in a way that didn't hide critical information, often because the designers and the people in charge of the legacy CMS probably don't coordinate enough. Things like, "Make everything that isn't in a p or image tag go to the bottom of the page" can hugely affect the context of certain elements. For example, I worked on a site that hand hand-coded captions for photos and so those captions ended up having tags that were displayed:none when the device had a low-enough width. That's not great for photos that require the context of the captions. ~~~ kamjam Indeed. The thing that annoys me about responsive design is when I browse on my phone and can't find what I'm looking for so I "Request Desktop Site" and it's the same! Grrr. Even worse when they STILL serve me all those images, but they are just hidden, eating up my limited bandwidth. Double Grrrr. ~~~ Pxtl Usually "Request desktop site" means booting you back to the homepage of the desktop site. ~~~ kamjam No, that's not correct, at least in my experience. "Request desktop site" usually means "reload the same page, but send a User Agent string so the server thinks I'm calling from a full desktop browser". This works for websites where the server does some UA string sniffing and sends different html+assets for different types of devices. The same works in reverse. In Chrome Dev Tools I can set the UA to iPhone/iPad/Android ([http://imgur.com/mJY6lP6](http://imgur.com/mJY6lP6)) and I _should_ expect to see a mobile version of the site. Of course, with Responsive this does not work since responsive looks at screen size, not UA string. For example, try changing your UA string in Chrome to iOS 6 and visit [http://www.bbc.co.uk/](http://www.bbc.co.uk/) ~~~ Pxtl I mean literally if there's a button on the page that says "I want to see the desktop site". Those inevitably stink. ------ ColinWright Lessons I've learned the hard way that appear late in the article: * Design your editorial workflow first * You won’t have time to edit everything * Plan for long-term governance ~~~ j_s Both the OP and your reply emphasize the _what /why_... are there any resources available explaining _how_? If not, it sounds like this is a great opportunity for some blog posts! ------ beaker52 Content shouldn't just be defecated into pretty grids, with a responsive label slapped on it and boardroom demo. ~~~ beat Depends. If you want to get a budget and work to do in a big corporation, that's _exactly_ how you should do it. You simply need to drop your petty concerns about the quality of your work at start looking at building your own personal fiefdom within the empire. Learn the critical formula, _success = ass_kissing + buzzword_compliance_ , and you're off on your magical race to the middle! Within 20 years, you'll be staring at the layoff pink slip in your hand, looking back on a life of mediocrity and forward to being unhireable anywhere else, wondering what went wrong. ~~~ timje1 Woah, I bet you're great fun at parties. ~~~ coldtea I bet this tired cliche of a phrase doesn't make you very popular at parties either. Couldn't you stick to replying to what he said?

Font Awesome 4.1.0 Released – 71 New Icons - fortawesome http://fontawesome.io/whats-new/?r=hn&v=4.1.0 ====== hiharryhere Thanks for the hard work. It's a great contribution to the community. One thing, could be my eyes, but is the box on the top of the cab a little off centre? Am I going mad? [http://fontawesome.io/icon/taxi/](http://fontawesome.io/icon/taxi/) ~~~ fortawesome Excellent catch! Want to open an issue? ------ kipple Still no infinity symbol? Much sadness :'( [https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font- Awesome/issues/1647](https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/1647) ------ saltado There's 3 Pied Piper icons to chose from! ~~~ fortawesome Well, really just 2. One's an alias. ~~~ saltado ah yeah, the (alias) appears on the next line on Chrome. Great work on the new release! ~~~ fortawesome On it. ------ pzaich Stanford tree! ------ mkempe bouy -> buoy ~~~ fortawesome Nice catch. Fixing.

How to sell your company to Microsoft - kitsguy http://www.techvibes.com/blog/jon-gelsey-director-of-acquisitions-and-investments-at-microsoft-talks-tactical-at-banff-venture-forum ====== helveticaman This appears to be the guy that makes acq decisitons, or works for the acq department. I know I read this intently. ------ Flemlord > have your investors deck be 100% complete, be prepared and be quick Anybody know what this means? ~~~ brown He refers to the Powerpoint presentation that you would show to VC's or other potential investors. It includes the high level objectives of your company, why you're different, market size, plans, etc. Refer to Guy Kawasaki's famous blog post on the 10/20/30 rule for a good intro: [http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axz...](http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz0SqMyZEG9) I also prefer to have about 20 backup slides at the end that address most common questions. Usually these will be deeper drill downs into market sizing, competitors, financials, short/medium/long term plans. The successful entrepreneurs who I've worked with are almost fanatical about the investor deck. They obsess over every word on every slide. It's both incredibly inspiring and utterly painful.

Decades after Chernobyl disaster, engineers slide high-tech shelter over reactor - d_e_solomon http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/decades-after-chernobyl-disaster-engineers-slide-high-tech-shelter-over-reactor/ ====== Tempest1981 30 years later, what a project: "More than 40 governments have contributed to funding its construction (€1.5 billion), which involved 10,000 workers." ------ d_e_solomon I was really impressed that it was slid on rails into place instead of being assembled in place in sections.

23andme replies to the GAO: GAO Studies Science Non-Scientifically - jamesbritt http://spittoon.23andme.com/2010/07/23/gao-studies-science-non-scientifically/ ====== jballanc First, let me say that I'm very much in favor of the direction that 23andMe is headed. Personalized genetic medicine _is_ the future. Generic small molecule treatments (and by generic, I mean that they're given to patients based on the disease and not based on the patient+disease profile) have pretty much hit their limit of efficacy and biologics are a lot like supersonic airliners: they'd be great in theory if there weren't so many problems with them in practice. I also sympathise with the way that the GAO, the FDA, and a number of other groups that have been weighing in on this issue have been lumping together 23andMe with some of the less reputable players in this burgeoning industry. That said, I still don't agree with what 23andMe is doing. I've nearly completed a Ph.D. in computational biochemistry and have been helping my wife with her thesis in cell signaling, and the only thing I can tell you about the information contained in a genetic profile that 23andMe provides you is that you can't really tell much, if anything, from the profile that 23andMe provides you. Even supposedly straight-forward genetics like the presumably Mendelian pattern of inheritance in CFTR SNPs can get complicated fast. For example: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14966131> Of course, the real problem with 23andMe isn't with 23andMe but with the FDA. The FDA's job, first and foremost, is to keep people safe. _IT IS NOT THE FDA's CONCERN TO SEE NEW TREATMENTS DEVELOPED!_ The result of this is that the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry are caught in a bit of a catch-22. Everyone that I've spoken too (including past CSO's of large-name pharmaceutical companies) recognizes that including genetic profiling of patients in drug trials might reveal that different people benefit from some drugs more than others, and that this is linked to genetics. In fact, you can probably recognize this yourself: When you get a headache, what do you reach for? For me, Ibuprofen does the trick, but Acetaminophen (Paracetemol) does nothing. For my wife, it's the reverse. This is almost definitely linked to genetics. The problem is that genetic profiling for drug trials is expensive and, get this, as of yet unproven to make a difference! Therefore, even if a pharmaceutical company went to the expense of including genetic profiling in their drug trial, the FDA would reject the results based on the fact that genetic profiling is unproven. So, nobody does genetic profiling. So you can't prove the usefulness of genetic profiling. etc. Now, you might think that 23andMe has a chance of solving this issue, by allowing people to take control of their own genetic profiling, but I think they're actually doing more harm than good. Unless you are highly trained in genetics and keep up with recent literature, you're not going to know what to do with that profile. If you bring that profile to a doctor, they will pretty much have to disregard it without a second thought (see FDA argument above). Honestly, with the current state of medical research and pharmaceutical regulation, a 23andMe profile is worth the paper you printed it on. What's worse, the more doctors get pestered with people bringing in their own profiles, the less likely they are to pay heed to any of it, and the distraction that this causes the FDA, worrying about whether they should regulate 23andMe or not, prevents the root issue from being addressed. I liken 23andMe to Quest Diagnostics. If you've visited a doctor recently, you're probably familiar with Quest. But when was the last time you went to Quest asking for a blood test without being prompted to do so by a physician? Honestly, you'd probably learn more on your own looking at the results of a cholesterol test or CBC than by perusing your own genetic profile. Until the U.S. (or, more likely these days, the E.U.) makes a major push for research into personalized genetic medicine, 23andMe will be little more than a novelty. ~~~ moultano >Now, you might think that 23andMe has a chance of solving this issue, by allowing people to take control of their own genetic profiling, but I think they're actually doing more harm than good. 23andMe told me that I'm a carrier for phenylketonuria. That's useful information to me, and strictly factual. The other slight-increased-risk-of- this slight-increased-risk-of-that isn't all that useful, but who cares? They give you the odds. I can't imagine what more you'd expect from them than to present current research conclusions as unbiasedly as they can. I think you have a mistaken impression about what their product does. ~~~ jballanc > 23andMe told me that I'm a carrier for phenylketonuria. That's useful > information to me, and strictly factual. Quick! What's your chance of passing this on to your child? If you said that it depends on the genotype of your spouse, you win! If your spouse doesn't have phenylketonuria, what's the probability? If you said 1/4, your right! Now, let's say you've met someone and convince them to get a genetic test, and they turn out to also be a carrier, what do you do? Do you risk the 1/4 chance? One of the really interesting things about the human genome project was that the scientists involved knew that these sorts of hard questions would come up, so they really emphasized the human and counseling aspect of the research, in addition to the hard science. These are the types of people who are upset that 23andMe has mostly undone what they were attempting to do by emphasizing a holistic approach to people understanding their own genetics. Also, I just have to point out how ironic your example is. In fact, this information is rather useless. Phenylketonuria is a relatively easily managed disease, and all children born in the U.S. (and many other countries) are already tested at birth, paid for by the government who did the studies and decided this was a good test to do. You actually didn't learn anything you wouldn't have potentially found out anyway (and at no cost to you). ~~~ moultano >One of the really interesting things about the human genome project was that the scientists involved knew that these sorts of hard questions would come up, so they really emphasized the human and counseling aspect of the research, in addition to the hard science. How paternalistic of them. These questions are hard because they are personal, and not the sort of thing that should be regulated. >Now, let's say you've met someone and convince them to get a genetic test, and they turn out to also be a carrier, what do you do? Do you risk the 1/4 chance? That's my choice. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been. Though it isn't that important for phenylketonuria, it might have been a deal-breaker if I were a carrier of sickle-cell. You're dancing around my point here. Some of the information they provide is iron-clad binary, and can be very useful. Most people may not get more out of it than slight increases or decreases in their relative risk, but some will find out things that are life-changing. The last time 23andMe came up, one HN commentator said that he found out that he was likely to be lactose-intolerant from it, so he changed his diet and it changed his life. He had lived with the symptoms for so long that he just assumed that was how life was supposed to be. Here's what Sergei Brin got out of it: <http://too.blogspot.com/2008/09/lrrk2.html> I don't understand your motivation for wanting to forcibly withhold this information from people. ------ roder I'm a 23andme customer (post-DNA day) and after seeing the DNA mixup[1] and watching the youtube video released by the subcommittee on hearings and oversite[2], I am becoming increasingly weary of consumer genetic testing. I am glad to read that 23andme support regulation, because ultimately that is what should be required. Much like the regulation that HIPAA provides, DNA information should be federally protected and regulated. [1] [http://www.switched.com/2010/06/08/23andmes-dna-mixup- leaves...](http://www.switched.com/2010/06/08/23andmes-dna-mixup- leaves-96-customers-with-wrong-test-results/) [2] <http://bit.ly/9MrBpe> ~~~ jamesbritt I'd prefer to see Consumer Reports handle this instead of anything like the FDA. I'm an adult; I can decide for myself what to make of the information I obtain. ~~~ timr _"I'd prefer to see Consumer Reports handle this instead of anything like the FDA. I'm an adult; I can decide for myself what to make of the information I obtain."_ I realize that this isn't going to be a popular opinion around these parts, but no, you can't. Smart as you may be, you're utterly ignorant when it comes to this stuff, and you haven't got a chance of beginning to understand the intricacies that go into interpreting the data that these companies are giving you. More importantly, you don't have _time_ to understand. I have a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, and for the most part, I couldn't tell you whether the data in a 23andMe report is meaningful or utter garbage. I perhaps have enough knowledge to go out and _find_ the necessary papers, read and interpret them in light of the literature on genomic analysis, and evaluate risks...but I wouldn't begin to have the time to do it properly for all of the data in a given report. No offense, but you haven't got a prayer. These companies could be fabricating results whole-cloth, and you'd have no way of knowing it. Most importantly, because there's no regulation of the methods used by these companies, neither you nor I have any way of knowing what methods they're using, whether the techniques are precise or accurate, or even if the labwork is done by skilled technicians in a sterile environment. Without these assurances, even if you _could_ understand the data, you would have no guarantee that the data was even gathered correctly. There are some domains where expertise matters more than anything else, and no amount of brainpower makes up for the instincts provided by years of training and experience. This is one such area. ~~~ moultano And for some reason you think this is different from any other field? I don't have a prayer when I walk into a car dealership of figuring out whether a car I'm thinking of buying will function properly. There are too many parts for me to conceivably understand. It's very complicated. Thankfully, there are many experts and expert organizations that I trust to make this determination for me. I defer to their authority. How is this any different? The market seems to handle this just fine. ~~~ jballanc > And for some reason you think this is different from any other field? Yes, actually. If we must really flog a tortured analogy: This is not like going to your local mechanic friend and asking for car buying advice. It's more like this guy named Karl Benz comes and tells you he's got a great new invention called the internal combustion engine and you should definitely buy it. So you go to your friend the steam engine mechanic and ask him for advice. Sure, he understands the principles, maybe, but this is something completely new! If you must appeal to authority, consider you have two experts in this thread telling you that even they think the topic is too complex to draw useful conclusions. If you don't trust random people on the internet (not that I blame you), then go to the source. From the article: _There are valid scientific reasons for different estimates from different companies, such as: companies employ slightly different statistical models for making risk estimates; companies establish different criteria for the inclusion of associations in their reports; new associations are being discovered at a faster rate than companies’ development cycles; companies may test for an imperfectly overlapping set of genetic variants for reasons including the ability of different genotyping technologies to assay certain variants._ To be clear, this is not a case of Car and Driver favoring German engineering but JD Powers always skewing towards American manufacturers (completely contrived example, BTW). In this case the statistical models _are_ the science, not just some interpretation of the science. This field is young. Too young. This money and effort would be better spent on basic research. > The market seems to handle this just fine. No, the _market_ gives us homeopathy and snake-oil salesmen. Humans, especially when confronted with areas in which they are not knowledgeable, can be surprisingly irrational! ~~~ moultano >To be clear, this is not a case of Car and Driver favoring German engineering but JD Powers always skewing towards American manufacturers (completely contrived example, BTW). In this case the statistical models are the science, not just some interpretation of the science. Statistical models that are _far far_ more suspect drive decisions in areas of all our lives that have far more material effect than this. >This field is young. Too young. This money and effort would be better spent on basic research. Whose money? Mine? They aren't a non-profit. >Humans, especially when confronted with areas in which they are not knowledgeable, can be surprisingly irrational! Isn't that their right? ------ bkrausz I definitely treated my 23andme profile as a piece of entertainment, and don't think people should take it too seriously. I found someone who may be a distant cousin, and a few interesting traits, so I'd consider it a slightly more informed (and similarly priced) palm reading. I'm really glad I approached it like that, because I was one of the people who were in the DNA mixup. They told me I was a Tay-Sachs[1] carrier, which has a potentially vital impact on my relationship decisions (and was also a bit concerning given that neither of my parents are carriers). I'm really glad they caught and fixed it, and that I didn't take it seriously enough to lose sleep over the results. [1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease> ------ carbocation 23andme uses GWAS SNPs, about 1 million of them. You have a 3 billion base pair haploid genotype, so they sample ~1/3000 base pairs. What does this mean? First, most of the SNPs are noncoding, found not in exons but in introns and intergenic space. Still, you can't dismiss these; some are causal for major gene expression changes (my lab has articles set to be published next week on this topic; more details then). Second, the fact that you're only covering 1/3000 nucleotides tells you that there's no way you can fully specify someone's genetic risk with this data, ever. There is a debate in the community right now about whether common variants (which are on 23andme type chips) or rare variants contribute most of the genetic variability. I think it's clear that common variants are winning this game — but this is on a population level! On an individual level, I don't think I'd ever be comfortable telling someone their risk of X with just GWAS data. For the population, their rare/private mutation in Gene Y has little impact, perhaps, but for try telling that to the 5 people with the Gene Y mutation who will die by age 20. (Extreme hypothetical to try to drive home the broader point.) Let's also not forget that phenotype is a computed expression of genotype+environment. If your genetic risk score from 23andme says you are at high risk of heart disease, yet your grandparents on both sides are 100 and healthy and your LDL-C is 60, should you really be concerned? ~~~ khafra If you know somebody's medical history and 23andMe results, can you say more things about them at any given level of confidence than you could with just zis medical history? ~~~ carbocation Not really, at least not for cholesterol; not right now. [1] Hopefully in the next few years, yes. But genetic data, since our knowledge is limited, does not increase risk discrimination beyond family history. It does, modestly, increase risk classification. _Edit_ \- Link didn't work initially. I was not trying to just snarkily link to pubmed - I had a specific paper in mind. Sorry! [1] <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18354102> ------ jacquesm 23andme engage in infotainment with an additional helping of candidates disease thrown in for each and every one of their customers. GPs are already amongst the most overworked people on the planet, the last thing they need is a herd of people with waving print-outs they (the people) don't understand in support of yet another round of imaginary diseases. It's the perfect product for the hypochondriac.

Lossless compression of English messages using GPT-2 - kleiba http://textsynth.org/sms.html ====== cs702 ...by the one and only Fabrice Bellard: "gpt2tc is a small program using the GPT-2 language model to complete and compress (English) texts. It has no external dependency, requires no GPU and is quite fast...The compression ratios are much higher than conventional compressors at the expense of speed and of a much larger decompressor. See the documentation to get results on text files from well known compression data sets." A natural question I've pondered from time to time is whether Fabrice is really a time traveler from a more advanced civilization in the future, sent back in time to show us, mere mortals, what humankind will be capable of in the future. If this sounds far-fetched, consider that he has created FFMPEG, QEMU, LibBF, SoftFP, BPG, TinyEMU, a software implementation of 4G/LTE, a PC emulator in Javascript, the TCC compiler, TinyGL, LZEXE, and a tiny program for computing the biggest known prime number. And that's just a partial list of his successful projects, which now of course also include software for lossless compression with Transformer neural networks. Any of these projects, on its own, would be considered a notable achievement for an ordinary human being. Source: [https://bellard.org](https://bellard.org) \-- Copied and edited some text from my post a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19591308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19591308) \-- I never cease to be amazed by the guy. ~~~ londons_explore This particular project is noteworthy mostly for its completeness and 'it just works' functionality. Tens of researchers before him have used arithmetic coding on the outputs of various neural network models to do lossless compression of text or images. Bellards contributions are a packaged tool (as opposed to PoC code) and demo webpage, and the idea of using CJK characters rather than outputting binary data (in todays world of JSON, binary data has fallen out of fashion). ------ goodside Not to diminish what a cool idea this is, but isn’t it cheating to not count the size of the GPT2 parameters as part of the final compression ratio? Assuming the decompressor already has GPT2 weights is analogous to assuming it has a massive fixed dictionary of English words and phrases and doing code substitution — it’s likely the pragmatic answer in some scenario, but it’s not a fair basis for comparison. Real-world compressors use dictionary coders, but they build the dictionary specifically for the data when it’s compressed and then count that dictionary in the compressed size. For competitions like the Hutter Compression Prize (1GB of English Wikipedia) the reported size includes the complete binary of the decompressor program too. GPT2 model weights require over 5GB of storage, so you’d need a corpus orders of magnitude larger for it to be even close to competitive by that standard. And it appears it would lose anyway — the OP claims ~15% ratio even with “cheating”, and the current Hutter Prize winner for 1GB of enwiki is ~11% without “cheating”. ~~~ Jaxkr Static dictionaries or models in compression algorithms are not “cheating”. Brotli, for example, achieves amazing results with its [static dictionary]([https://gist.github.com/klauspost/2900d5ba6f9b65d69c8e](https://gist.github.com/klauspost/2900d5ba6f9b65d69c8e)). However, I agree with you on the real-world uselessness of a GPT-based compression algorithm. ~~~ goodside That’s why I put “cheating” in quotes — it’s pragmatic, but it complicates the comparison into something that can’t be measured in a single number. I grant you that typical bechmarks ignore the static dictionary in comparing Brotli to other compressors, but they also ignore the size of the binary itself. This is because both are assumed to be small and highly general, and GPT2 violates both assumptions. Brotli’s dictionary is 122 KB and covers many natural and programming languages, whereas GPT2 weights are 5 GB and only cover English. No real-world static dictionary is even a thousandth of that size. Large static dictionaries exploit a loophole that would make comparisons meaningless if carried to the extreme — you could trivially include the entire benchmark corpus in the decompressor itself and claim your compressed file size is 0 bytes. That’s why the Hutter Prize rules are what they are. ------ matthewfcarlson Just for kicks and giggles, I threw in some rather obscure words to see what would happen. It's been compressing for a few minutes and showing no sign of progress. Cool project! ~~~ jkhdigital For anyone who doesn't get why this would happen: GPT-2 basically outputs a probability distribution for its guess of the next word, and then the encoder uses these distributions to perform arithmetic coding adaptively. If the next word in the source text is not actually present anywhere in the output distribution, it cannot encode it. ~~~ londons_explore I may be wrong, but I thought GPT2 could also output partial words/syllables (for unknown words), or individual letters if they don't make a syllable. The simple way to achieve that is to have an encoding dictionary of words, but then add to the end of the dictionary "sh", etc., and then add to the end of that "a", "b", "c", etc. When tokenizing words, prefer to use a whole word, but if you can't do that, split to syllables, and failing that, individual letters. That has the benefit that any ascii string can go through the system. ~~~ jkhdigital Yes, this is why I said "basically". The fact that GPT-2 tokens are not necessarily prefix-free can be a problem for arithmetic coding, but I've found that "greedy" parsing almost never fails in practice. So yes, there are ways to work around this but it seems like the simplest explanation for why unusual words break the encoder. ------ speedgoose I don't understand why it shows Chinese characters. Assuming utf-8, English characters are a lot more compact than Chinese characters. So we can't really compare. Otherwise it's a good idea and it works, but it's super slow, only working for English text, and the system requirements are huge. I like it. ~~~ sp332 It's counting characters, so it is comparable. This is useful for applications that limit the number of characters, e.g. Twitter. ~~~ m4rtink Yep, as far as I can tell, you can cram about twice as much information to the same number of Japanese as you would cram into Latin characters. I wonder if Chinese is even more info dense, as it does not have the syllabic hiragana/katakana characters ? ~~~ dheera Modern Chinese is typically more dense than modern Japanese (which is partially phoenetic), and ancient formal Chinese is even more compact than modern Chinese. However it's worth noting that Chinese characters are analogous to entire words in English, and are composed of components much like English characters are composed of letters. For example "thanks" is spelled "t h a n k s" "謝" is made up of "言 身 寸" (Of course, the components in Chinese have less correlation to their pronunciation, but the main point I'm making here is that there is a LOT of overlap in the common components used to assemble the entire Chinese lexicon.) It is really not a fair comparison to compare languages in terms of their number of characters needed to represent something. Better measures would be the fastest time (in seconds) needed to use speech to convey a concept intelligibly to an average native speaker, or the square centimeters of paper needed to convey an idea given the same level of eyesight. ~~~ m4rtink Indeed, what I meant was basically how much information you could cram into a message in digital medium that is character limited, but not really limited in what characters you can use in it. Like SMS messages or Twitter messages when still limited to 140 characters. ------ minimaxir A neat trick I found while working with GPT-2 is that byte-pair encoding is, in itself a compression method. With Huggingface Transformers, encoding/decoding this way is very fast. I've implemented this approach in my aitextgen package ([https://github.com/minimaxir/aitextgen/blob/master/aitextgen...](https://github.com/minimaxir/aitextgen/blob/master/aitextgen/TokenDataset.py#L238)) to encode massive input datasets as a uint16 Numpy array; when gzipped on disk, it's about 1/10th of the original data set size. However, the technique in this submission gets about compression to 1/10 w/o the gzipping. Hmm. ~~~ jkhdigital This is really just a way to show how good GPT-2 is at predicting text. If you know anything about information theory, you'll know that the entropy of the information source places a hard limit on how much it can be compressed. If GPT-2 is really good at predicting English text, then the entropy of its output should be very very close to the entropy of natural English text. Thus, using GPT-2 predictions as an adaptive source encoder will achieve compression ratios that approach the information content (entropy) of English text. ------ starpilot I compressed "I am going to work outside today," then put the compressed output in Google Translate. Google translated the Chinese characters back to English as "raccoon." ~~~ dhosek I think the Chinese text that comes out confuses Google translate. I took the whole first sentence of Hamlet's soliloquy which compressed to 䮛趁䌆뺜㞵蹧泔됛姞音逎贊 and plugged that into Google Translate. It came back with "Commendation." The reverse translation is 表彰 ~~~ james412 It's not Chinese text, it's an arithmetic-coded stream of bits mapped so the bits fall within the range of some codepoints. It's basically a variant of base64 except for Unicode. (Side note: aren't these codepoints very expensive to encode in UTF-8? It seems there must be a lower-valued range more suited to it) ~~~ toast0 The page for base32768 has some efficiency charts for different binary to text encodings on top of different UTF encodings, as well as how many bytes you can use them to stuff in a tweet. Depends on where you're going to house the data, I guess. [https://github.com/qntm/base32768](https://github.com/qntm/base32768) ~~~ infogulch In addition to being 94% efficient in UTF-16 (!), this reveals some additional reasons why one might want to optimize for number of characters: fitting as many bytes as possible into a _tweet_ which is bounded in the number of characters not bytes. ------ fla Try swapping a few characters in the compressed string before decompressing and get a totally unrelated, but somewhat plausible, sentence. ~~~ VMG Try swapping a few characters in the compressed string before decompressing and get a totally unrelated, but somewhat plausible, sentence. --> 䔹䧹焫놉勏㦿顱㦽膑裚躈葊 Swapping last two: 䔹䧹焫놉勏㦿顱㦽膑裚葊躈 --> Try swapping a few characters in the compressed string before decompressing and get a totally unrelated, but somewhat applied tlh Swapping first two: 䧹䔹焫놉勏㦿顱㦽膑裚躈葊 --> Sexy Shania Twain acting as a sprite for sexy Hogan's Alley demo dude my site my favorite animal's name is camelid 2 my favorite artist is david maile my favorite movie's are Pretty wild! ~~~ jkhdigital It's just adaptive arithmetic coding, with the distribution provided by GPT-2 instead of some other statistical analysis of the source. He uses CJK simply to make the output printable, but it's really just random bits. I mean, it's a neat idea, but certainly not novel. ------ dmarchand90 I'm really impressed that this seems largely written by scratch in c. "This demo has no external dependency." ------ vessenes I am guessing that Fabrice is planning on some sort of commercialization here; this is a re-issue of something originally on his website. A fun game to play is to see how many characters a name takes: it’s an indication of your importance to the Internet. In answer to the why Chinese, it seems to me to be easier to read and more compact to display than hexlified bytes. ~~~ dhosek My last name compressed to 3 characters. I tried my wife's last name and it was 3 characters, then I decided to add the accent to it that normally gets dropped in an English-language context and it compressed to 2. Adding first names, I was 4 characters and she was 5 with and without the accent. William Shatner went to 6 characters. Barack Obama went to 2. William Shakespeare also to 2. ~~~ vessenes Right, I guess your last name is the importance of all Hoseks worldwide, albeit vis-a-vis some chunking of the word, so it has to compete with the importance of other Hos es like hospitals and so on. ------ hint23 FYI, the corresponding standalone Linux command line version is available at [https://bellard.org/nncp/gpt2tc.html](https://bellard.org/nncp/gpt2tc.html) . It also does text completion and file compression. ------ lxe > using the probability of the next word computed by the GPT-2 language model Can the same effect be achieved by looking at actual probability of the next word from a large corpus of existing text (a-la markov chains)? ~~~ duskwuff Less effectively. GPT-2 and a Markov chain are both predictive models; GPT-2 just happens to be a much more complex (and, in most cases, more accurate) model for English text, so fewer bits are required on average to encode the delta between its predictions and the actual text. ------ jkhdigital Paste encrypted bits (mapped to the CJK range he uses) in the "decompress" box and you've got format-transforming encryption. ------ maest I'm not at all familiar with arithmetic encoding (or adaptive version tehreof), but, after reading some guides, it seems to me that the novel thing here is using GPT2 to somehow generate a character probability distribution? The theory being that GPT2 should have a distribution closely matching "reality" and thus minimizing the output size? ------ aapeli So if you end up being famous and talked about a lot on Wikipedia, your name will compress better? The impact of bias in training data is interesting in general here. What's the impact on Wikipedia's article biases? That's probably one of the main corpuses used. ------ nmca This guy should enter the Hutter Prize - [http://prize.hutter1.net/](http://prize.hutter1.net/) This won't win, but it seems he cares and has some talent :) ------ d_burfoot A fun game is to compress some text, then look up some random Chinese words, cut-and-paste them into the compressed output, and then decompress again. ~~~ nmstoker Yes or even just swap the compressed character order and it still results in interesting somewhat similar texts. ------ aquajet Title should be renamed to "Language Models are Lossless Compressors" ~~~ jkhdigital Exactly, along with a link to some basic information theory Wikipedia articles. ------ Vvector Looks like the work is done server-side. And we've hit a bottleneck ------ knolax You boomers need to know that 먓띑뒢끟 are precomposed hangul characters. It's not hard to just say CJK.

Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking - eibrahim http://haacked.com/archive/2012/11/27/condorcet-paradox.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+haacked+%28you%27ve+been+HAACKED%29 ====== maratd This is off. Voting is not a system for selecting the best candidate. Voting, in whatever forms it exists, is a system to avoid violence and conflict. Each side feels it had a fair shot, regardless of outcome. The purpose of voting is to leave you with that feeling, to avoid unpleasant behavior from the losing party. The best person for the job almost never gets it. That's why we don't vote people in when hiring somebody at a company. ~~~ diego Yes, and in addition it's also a system to ensure that elected officials and their parties have accountability. If you win an election and then "betray" your voters, you won't be reelected. If you can't be reelected, you could damage the chances of your party. In essence, democracy in its current form is not so much about choosing the right/best candidate. It's more about making sure the winner cannot become a despot. ~~~ ontheotherhand _"If you win an election and then "betray" your voters, you won't be reelected."_ That ain't accountability, that's a joke. If you pay me 5000$ to do a job, and I don't lift a finger, and your "punishment" is that we won't do that a second time, then I have free money and you're a fool. It doesn't hurt the party one bit either; that's the whole point of corporatism, you can swap out individuals while the "brand" rolls on, saying "whoops, bad apple" every 5 seconds, with people forgetting after 2. _"It's more about making sure the winner cannot become a despot."_ Correction: it replaces a single despotic individual with a tag team of people who basically can do whatever they want - within boundaries, sure, they at least have to be somewhat slick about it, and know how to make a puppy face, too; but certainly not within boundaries defined by the actual will of the people who handed their power as souvereigns over to their representatives. Having despotic entities control you is not one iota better than despotic humans, not in the long run. Despotism is marked by the control going only down, accountability going only up -- period. Not by angry men on podiums necessarily, and not by bloodshed. (Not that there isn't plenty bloodshed, but that's besides the point) If you seriously see a huge difference or improvement there, you've fallen for it I'm afraid. ~~~ maratd You know, it's pretty easy to poke holes in something. It's another thing entirely to come up with something better. There hasn't been a single political system that hasn't been corrupted. ~~~ ontheotherhand _"You know, it's pretty easy to poke holes in something. It's another thing entirely to come up with something better."_ I have no problems with coming up with something better. More like 3 a day before breakfast; I'd just have problems making people actually go along with whatever I would come up with. But you know what? If people are so fucked that even I can't magically solve it, that doesn't mean I can't say they're fucked. It just means they're gonna pout and roll their eyes, none of which is news or unexpected. _"There hasn't been a single political system that hasn't been corrupted."_ What's your point? That therefore criticism isn't allowed? That naive believe in cynical manipulation is not an issue? Also, was I talking about a "system"? No, I was talking about specific circumstances, an actual situation, and individuals and their responsibilitie. But of course, it's easier to just throw some mud into a completely different direction, not hitting anything, and then deluding oneself into having dealt with the issue just nicely, than to actually address any of it. ~~~ maratd > I have no problems with coming up with something better. More like 3 a day > before breakfast; I'd just have problems making people actually go along > with whatever I would come up with. Perhaps because you don't actually share your "something better"? Two posts in, lots of words, still no alternatives. ------ mtgx Approval Voting mostly solves the "strategic voting" part that almost forces you to choose the "most likely to win" candidate, or if you hate that one, the one closest to him, while eliminating the spoiler effect, and giving 3rd party candidates a much higher chance of winning than with current traditional voting systems. <http://www.electology.org/approval-voting> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting> ~~~ DennisP Plus it doesn't run into trouble with Arrow's theorem, since it's not a "rank- order voting system," unlike plurality, instant runoff, and various others. Range voting has the same advantage. In computer simulations measuring how well the election result matches voter preferences, either range or approval is as much an improvement over plurality as plurality is over picking someone at random (or, if you like, monarchy). <http://rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig.html> ~~~ gus_massa I'm not sure about the definitions, but if the Arrow theorem doesn't apply to the Approval Voting sistem them I think that it must not be applicable to the "majority rules" criterion. In this two system the idea is that you get very little information from the voters (best candidate / a set of candidates) and don't know all the information about the order of preference and the relative strength. So I don't understand why having less information is better (theoreticaly). ~~~ Empact > I don't understand why having less information is better (theoreticaly). A ranked-choice ballot only encodes the orders the candidates against one another, whereas approval and score votes also encode the candidates' positions within the voter's range of subjective preferences. That is, if we have 3 candidates (A, B, C) and a few voters which each voters has a range from love to hate for each candidate, like so: Love Hate |-A--B-------------------C-| |-A-------------B-----C----| |-------------------A-B-C--| |-A-B---C------------------| Under ranked choice voting, every one of these voters' ballots would look the same: 1)A, 2)B, 3)C Ranked choice voting encodes the ordering of the preferences, but the intensity of those preferences is lost when the ballot is cast. Whereas under approval and score voting, every one of these voters represents their preferences differently, because they're reflecting their personal response to each candidate: Approval | Disapproval |-A--B-----|-------------C-| |-A--------|----B-----C----| |----------|--------A-B-C--| |-A-B---C--|---------------| Of course, some information is lost in the fact that we only have 2 values approval/disapproval to encode positional preferences. But I would argue this information is already more meaningful than a fully-expressed ranked ballot. And if necessary, score voting can capture more of that information by offering > 2 levels to divide the candidates into. ~~~ gus_massa OK, this method recollect some information that the ranked choice voting ignores. But I still don't understand why the Arrow's theorem doesn't apply. If in a hypothetic population everyone loves/hates each candidate equally spaced, then in that population it is possible to apply the Arrow's theorem and prove that for that population this method doesn't work. But the method should be useful for every population, even the pathological ones. ------ gabemart I found this article quite frustrating. >Condorcet formalized the idea that group preferences are also non-transitive. If people prefer Hanselman to me. And they prefer me to Guthrie. It does not necessarily mean they will prefer Hanselman to Guthrie. It could be that Guthrie would pull a surprise upset when faced head to head with Hanselman. I found this by far the most interesting assertion, but the examples under "Historical Examples" don't demonstrate this phenomenon at all. For instance, the author asserts that the Nader spoiler effect demonstrates nontransitive preference relationships. But from my reading, it wasn't the case that that group as a whole preferred (Gore over Nader) and (Nader over Bush) but (Bush over Gore). It was simply that due to the structure of the election, they happened to elect Bush. While this ties into the author's point about the "unfairness" of elections, it doesn't demonstrate nontransitive relationships in group preferences. Could someone post an example of a group preference configuration in which the group prefers (A over B) and (B over C) but (C over A)? I understand the concept of nontransitive relationships in general, but in the specific domain of fitness for office, I can't work out how this would come to be. ~~~ Dove _Could someone post an example of a group preference configuration in which the group prefers (A over B) and (B over C) but (C over A)?_ Sure, that's easy to construct. Peter's preferences: A, B, C Paul's: B, C, A Mary's: C, A, B The group prefers A over B, by a 2-1 vote. Likewise B over C, and C over A. ------ saraid216 > Voting is a method that a group of people use to pick the “best choice” out > of a set of candidates. It’s pretty obvious, right? And like many other pieces of "common sense", this isn't correct. Wikipedia says, "Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting." This is _very_ different from "picking the best choice". I realize that the American public has been indoctrinated for the past few decades that voting is the only way you make yourself heard, but this isn't true and never has been. I recently learned about Wellstone Action ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellstone_Action> ); I encourage everyone to look into enrolling. (I haven't done so myself yet. I probably will at some point, though.) > On one hand, this seems to be an endorsement of the two-party political > system we have in the United States. Actually, what it's an endorsement of is all of our other voting systems where the choice is between APPROVE and REJECT. You have to endorse the existence of political parties in the first place before you can endorse a two-party system, and Arrow's theorem goes nowhere near that. ~~~ bo1024 > _Wikipedia says, "Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an > electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following > discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of > high office by voting." This is very different from "picking the best > choice"._ I don't see how they are different. The author never said that candidates have to be people. Substitute the word "alternatives" if you prefer. ~~~ saraid216 > I don't see how they are different. "I think this is the way we should proceed" is qualitatively different from "I think this is the best choice". > The author never said that candidates have to be people. Substitute the word > "alternatives" if you prefer. Substitute it in place of what? Where did I require that the candidates must be people? ------ wam Learning about Arrow's theorem definitely changed the way I think about elections in the US. It also changed the way I think about election news coverage. I used to be an ardent "horse race news" hater. I still am, in terms of how utterly it dominates election news, but now I see some utility in it as well. Arrow and these others have focused how I look at the game-theoretic underpinnings of elections and the importance of being up to speed on exactly how candidates and interested parties are crafting strategies around the complexities built into the game. When people conflate the "message" of the candidate with the strategy (which is always) I still get irritated. I have a tendency toward partisanship and that kind of thing clouds my judgment. But the day-in day-out workings of the campaigns and PACs are more interesting to me now, because they shed light on what's fundamentally "broken" (from my point of view) in the underlying system, as opposed to what I simply find distasteful or disappointing. Math! ~~~ saraid216 Social choice theory is One Of Those Things which everyone (myself included) needs to spend more time learning about. ------ basseq > A voting system can only, at times, choose the most preferred of the options > given. But it doesn't necessarily present us with the best candidates to > choose from in the first place. Reminds me of HHGTTG: "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." ------ Tloewald The article confuses two issues, one illustrated by Arrow's Theorem which is more relevant to parliamentary procedures (where any set of more than two choices has to be resolved as a series of binary choices, and the voting population is small and its preferences well understood) and first past the post electoral systems which are completely hopeless, especially when tiered, as in the US. Most of the article is essentially discussing an example of Arrow's Theorem where if you know people's preferences and can present them with binary options in an order of your choosing you can obtain any outcome except the least popular option. This is very artificial and not a real flaw of preferential and proportional electoral systems where (a) individual preferences are not known and (b) the entire vote is done in one step, not in a carefully chosen series of binary options. Great for gaming a committee, lousy for elections. As others have observed, the chief purpose of voting is allowing government transitions without violence and with the appearance of procedural fairness, but the fact remains voting works just fine when the population has a clear cut preference ("throw the bastards out"). Well, modulo corrupt redistricting. Americans who want to talk about voting really need to understand that there are other voting systems than the horse and buggy system used in the US and UK. ------ aprescott _In this case, Hanselman is the clear winner with three votes, whereas the other two candidates each have two votes. This is how our elections are held today._ This is dependent on the exact election taking place. With the US presidential elections, my understanding is that a plurality of electoral college votes is not enough to win, you need an actual majority. In the event of a simple plurality win with no majority, the result is decided by the House of Representatives (which may itself be tied). ~~~ rjzzleep is it? the actual candidates already get preselected. even if youre right, which is likely, it doesn't matter, because any majority was previously generated by pluarility. ------ mmphosis Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) Representation solves some of the problems. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&feature=relmf...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&feature=relmfu) The problem with MMP is when the parties choose the ranking of their list of representatives. I think it would be even better if rather than use a party generated list, instead the representatives are determined by people's votes. ------ streptomycin Also, there's this: <http://papers.nber.org/papers/w15220> ------ Noughmad I find it interesting that in all those discussions about voting systems, which are mostly focused on USA president elections, nobody mentions two-round voting, also known as run-off voting. This is what we have in Slovenia for electing our president. In the first round, there are many candidates, and each voter can vote for one. If any candidate gets at least 50% of votes, he automatically wins. If, on the other hand, there is no majority winner, the two best candidates compete head-to-head in the second round. Such a system allows you to always vote for your favourite candidate in the first round, and if your candidate doesn't make it into the second round, you can vote for the fallback one. Details: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system> ~~~ kscaldef I don't believe this satisfies the Condercet criterion either. Consider these rankings of preferences: 20% A ... 20% B ... 15% C ... 15% D C ... 15% E C ... 15% F C ... In a two-round run-off, one of A or B will be elected, despite the fact that 60% of voters prefer C over either A or B. ~~~ im3w1l And in the real world, people would second guess this, and enough people would tactic vote for C that it would't be a problem. "But then they can't vote for their prefered candidate which was the whole point" Well, _some_ people can. D, E, F could still get a few percentage points. More importantly, I don't think we would see convergence to a 2-party system. Unless I am missing something, it looks like at least 3 parties could be sustained. ------ gradstudent Preferential voting solves all these problems. You vote by ranking the candidates on order of preference. If your top candidate does not win the vote goes to next guy down the line until eventually it ends up for one of two candidates. ~~~ Pinckney Preferential voting does not satisfy the Condorcet criterion. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant- runoff_voting#Voting_sy...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant- runoff_voting#Voting_system_criteria) ~~~ bradbeattie To demonstrate this, consider the following. 80 people: A, C, B 50 people: B, C, A 35 people: C, B, A IRV eliminates C (as it has the fewest first-place votes) and elects B. But voters on the whole prefer C over B (115 to 50). This is the failure that Pinckney refers to. ------ hcarvalhoalves If you look at Brazil, which has multiple parties and plurality voting, the problems are pretty clear. In this year's elections, the candidate with 28% of the votes was elected mayor in my city. ------ nikatwork I've always thought New Zealand's mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system [1] is the least bad solution currently in use. I'm not from NZ so I'd be interested to hear what the locals think. [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_voting_system_refer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_voting_system_referendum,_2011) ~~~ lmkg Not a local, but... Proportional voting systems suffer from the problem that voting "power" is not proportional to representation. Consider a parliament with 100 members and 3 parties. Suppose the breakdown is: A has 49 members, B has 48 members, and C has 3 members. Guess what... A, B, and C all have equal voting power! Any two parties are enough to reach a majority of 51 votes, and any one party is not. Despite A having, in theory, over 16 times the representation of C, it does not have any voting advantage. Keep in mind that any voting system based on parties will tend to have very partisan voting blocs. Representatives in the US are more independent and likely to break with the party because they are elected in geographically isolated elections. Representatives elected directly by a party generally have about as much independence as the Electors in the Electoral College. ~~~ NickNameNick I'm from NZ... To form a government, the party with the most votes, or a coalition of parties which collectively holds a majority petition the governor general. For a single party this is quite straightforward. To form a coalition the member parties agree on a 'Confidence and supply agreement" This is basically a statement that in the event of a vote of no- confidence, all of the coalitions members will support the coalition, and also a broad agreement on the budget. Getting an agreement on confidence usually involves a certain amount of horse trading about ministerial and vice ministerial positions. Likewise, the agreement on supply will probably involve some intense budget and joint-policy negotiations. If you had a parliament of 101 seats, split into an opposition of 50 seats, and a government of 51, itself made up of a large party (48 seats) and a small party (3 seats) what you will probably see is the small party only has the tiniest influence on the coalition agreement. They probably traded everything else to get their senior member a ministerial position. ------ fluxon Wasn't this issue addressed rather well in a recent hackernews-linked item which mathematically showed both that voting is not a sham, but that the Electoral College system is more fair than it has been represented? (sorry can't find the link!) ------ stretchwithme Winner-take-all elections, no matter how they operate, leave many people without the representation they prefer. Proportional representation is much less likely to do this. Proportional representation can used in the executive branch too. Switzerland does it. ------ bo1024 This is a very nice summary of/intro to the classic/standard mathematical approach to voting and Arrow's Theorem. ------ frozenport This is why we have a 2 party system :-) ------ jQueryIsAwesome Some of you are forgetting something; that even if you had some form of "stadistical fairness" (whatever that may be); you still have the biggest problem of most democracies: Uneducated people; people who think an atheist shouldn't be president, people who like to reinforce their biases more than they like to have deep discussions about the nation's issues, people who were never taught to do critical thinking... and without doing exceptions for their government, their parents, their religion and the law. ~~~ bluedanieru That's not really in scope for choosing a voting system that best represents the people. But yes, point taken.

Ask HN: Mongodb vs Redis for Django? - fjabre Hi,<p>We're slowly realizing that the benefits of using a non-relational db for our upcoming web app are too big to ignore in terms of scalability. We're running a typical Django/Postgres setup but are looking at alternatives. We're discovering that Postgres is becoming quite the bottleneck in terms of users/server that we can handle.<p>My question is this: Are there any particular nosql solutions recommended for a Django app like Mongo or Redis? Also, are there any good cloud based services that are setup to do just this other than Amazon's Simple DB?<p>Thanks ====== knuckle_cake While I don't have enough Django experience to give suggestions on that front, you can use BigTable if you want to move to Google App Engine, though the drawbacks may outweigh the benefits when dealing with an established app. That said, I did recently make this choice for a Ruby/Sinatra app I'm working on, and ended up going with MongoDB due to conveniences like MongoMapper more than anything else (I wanted to enforce a partial schema without having to resort to silliness like customField1, customField2, etc.) I'm pleased with this choice so far, though plan to look at Redis again in the future when I need something lighter in weight for storage. ------ hcm I'd say it really depends on what you're storing and how you're using it. Redis is great for situations where you need a very large volume of reads and writes, and have a fairly simple data model. See <http://simonwillison.net/static/2010/redis-tutorial/> for more information and some use cases. MongoDB allows for data to be structured and queried in more complex ways, and touts itself as more of an alternative to an RDBMS than Redis does. If you're looking to use it with Django, check out MongoEngine at <http://github.com/hmarr/mongoengine> ------ mark_l_watson From a Ruby perspective, but this may still be useful: Redis is very nice for data that fits in memory (disk persistence is for recovery, not for realtime access) and support for counters, sets, etc. is cool. That said, I really like MongoDB for many reasons: interactive shell, great Ruby support (and Scala and Clojure, etc.), very easy to set up and use, and some replication support (not as good as Cassandra, but I will never need that kind of scalability). I think that the Python support for MongoDB is very good.

Faceted Search (2009) [pdf] - pmoriarty http://disi.unitn.it/~bernardi/Courses/DL/faceted_search.pdf ====== pmoriarty Can anyone recommend any open-source faceted search tools? Bonus for: - being: - easy to install (via yum, apt-get, brew, etc) - accessible from the command line / shell - accessible as a library - actively developed - not requiring (though allowing) an external database - allowing search through regular expressions - emacs integration ~~~ jonstewart Both ElasticSearch and Solr are services, and both are built from Apache Lucene, a set of Java libraries providing indexed search, with facets and many other features. Xapian is a C++ library with similar functionality, although it doesn't seem to have the same level of popularity as Lucene. ------ graycat Right, as can see by page 9 of the book, traditional library cataloging techniques, e.g., the Dewey Decimal System, has a tough time knowing just where to catalog a book, say, _History of Nineteenth Century European Military Technology_ , that is, in history, Europe, European history, military history, history of technology, military technology, European technology, etc.? So, _facets_ are a generalization of the Dewey system that is supposed to provide better options for such cataloging challenges. Okay. In a sense Google's YouTube has a similar problem: Often, maybe usually, at the end of playing a video clip, there is a display of related video clips. So, if play a video of Heifetz playing the Beethoven violin concerto with von Karajan (assuming there is such), then what to recommend next, anything by Heifetz, Beethoven, violin, von Karajan, or any concerto, any violin concerto, any violin music, or just something related _artistically_ , determined however, any music from near year 1800, etc.? Right, there needs to be a better way. Okay, been working on that. Got some ideas and the code written. Loading some initial data now, and intend to go live ASAP. ------ irickt A current example of faceted search: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8834611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8834611) ------ gedrap I was disappointed by the content... Most of it is somewhat obvious and something I just skipped. I expected to find something valuable at least at the end, some insights for example in the front end concerns section (e.g. ideas for dynamic ranking, something I am currently working on). But again, nothing really valuable. So to put it briefly, Faceted Search for Dummies in 100 pages (which probably could be halved without losing anything). ------ tbarbugli I found it a bit weird that the "What Are Facets?" section does not actually give a formal definition of what a facet is. ~~~ tbarbugli but thanks for sharing :) ------ PaulHoule This is good stuff -- the author was in charge of faceted search at LinkedIn. ~~~ hnriot That's not where he learned about faceted search, but rather Endeca where he was a developer.

Man Billed $1,200 for Reading Email on a Plane - carlchenet http://www.businessinsider.com/1200-for-reading-email-on-a-plane-2014-11 ====== steego This isn't greed. It's incompetence. It sounds like they they've outfitted their planes with high-end internet connections that are typically reserved for private jets. Don't misunderstand me, this is different from the system you use on domestic flights that use ground base stations. Singapore airlines fly everywhere and that sort of ground base station system would never work for them, so getting a connection over international waters isn't cheap. This is like offering business class passengers a 1960 Petrus as the house red wine.

Winning A/B results were not translating into improved user acquisition - pretzel http://blog.sumall.com/journal/optimizely-got-me-fired.html ====== pmiller2 The red flag here for me was that Optimizely encourages you to stop the test as soon as it "reaches significance." You shouldn't do that. What you should do is precalculate a sample size based on the statistical power you need, which involves determining your tolerance for the probability of making an error and on the minimum effect size you need to detect. Then, you run the test to completion and crunch the numbers afterward. This helps prevent the scenario where your page tests 18% better than itself by minimizing probability that your "results" are just a consequence of a streak of positive results in one branch of the test. I was also disturbed that the effect size was taken into account in the sample size selection. You need to know this before you do any type of statistical test. Otherwise, you are likely to get "positive" results that just don't mean anything. OTOH, I wasn't too concerned that the test was a one-tailed test. Honestly, in a website A/B test, all I really am concerned about is whether my new page is better than the old page. A one-tailed test tells you that. It might be interesting to run two-tailed tests just so you can get an idea what not to do, but for this use I think a one-tailed test is fine. It's not like you're testing drugs, where finding any effect, either positive or negative, can be valuable. I should also note that I only really know enough about statistics to not shoot myself in the foot in a big, obvious way. You should get a real stats person to work on this stuff if your livelihood depends on it. ~~~ dsiroker Hi pmiller, Dan from Optimizely here. Thanks for your thoughtful response. This is a really important issue for us, so I wanted to set the record straight on a couple of points: #1 - “Optimizely encourages you to stop the test as soon as it reaches ‘statistical significance.’” - This actually isn’t true. We recommend you calculate your sample size before you start your test using a statistical significance calculator and waiting until you reach that sample size before stopping your test. We wrote a detailed article about how long to run a test, here: [https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en- us/articles/200133789-How-...](https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en- us/articles/200133789-How-long-to-run-a-test) We also have a sample size calculator you can use, here: [https://www.optimizely.com/resources/sample-size- calculator](https://www.optimizely.com/resources/sample-size-calculator) #2 - Optimizely uses a one-tailed test, rather than a 2-tailed test. - This is a point the article makes and it came up in our customer community a few weeks ago. One of our statisticians wrote a detailed reply, and here’s the TL;DR: \- Optimizely actually uses two 1-tailed tests, not one. \- There is no mathematical difference between a 2-tailed test at 95% confidence and two 1-tailed tests at 97.5% confidence. \- There is a difference in the way you describe error, and we believe we define error in a way that is most natural within the context of A/B testing. \- You can achieve the same result as a 2-tailed test at 95% confidence in Optimizely by requiring the Chance to Beat Baseline to exceed 97.5%. \- We’re working on some exciting enhancements to our methodologies to make results even easier to interpret and more meaningfully actionable for those with no formal Statistics background. Stay tuned! Here’s the full response if you’re interested in reading more: [http://community.optimizely.com/t5/Strategy-Culture/Let-s- ta...](http://community.optimizely.com/t5/Strategy-Culture/Let-s-talk-about- Single-Tailed-vs-Double-Tailed/m-p/4278#M114) Overall I think it’s great that we’re having this conversation in a public forum because it draws attention to the fact that statistics matter in interpreting test results accurately. All too often, I see people running A/B tests without thinking about how to ensure their results are statistically valid. Dan ~~~ pmiller2 Thanks for replying. I agree with all the points you mention your statistician covered, but you should make sure your users know what kind of test you're using. The only reason I say this is because this article gives me the impression that you were using a single one-tailed test (which, as I said in my post, is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in the context of web site A/B testing). But, as far as "Optimezely encourages you to stop the test as soon as it reaches 'statistical significance,'" I'm not saying your user documentation or anything encourages people to stop tests early. I'm saying (and this is based only on the article as I've never used Optimizely) that your platform is psychologically encouraging users to stop tests early. E.g. from the article: Most A/B testing tools recommend terminating tests as soon as they show significance, even though that significance may very well be due to short-term bias. A little green indicator will pop up, as it does in Optimizely, and the marketer will turn the test off. <image with a green check mark saying "Variation 1 is beating Variation 2 by 18.1%"> But most tests should run longer and in many cases it’s likely that the results would be less impressive if they did. Again, this is a great example of the default settings in these platforms being used to increase excitement and keep the users coming back for more. I am aware of literature in experimental design that talks about criteria for stopping an experiment before its designed conclusion. Such things are useful in, say, medical research, where if you see a very strong positive or negative result early on, you want to have that safety valve to either get the drug/treatment to market more quickly or to avoid hurting people unnecessarily. Unless you've built that analysis into when you display your "success message" that "Variation 1 is beating Variation 2 by 18.1%," I'd argue that you're doing users a disservice. When I see that message, I want to celebrate, declare victory, and stop the test; and that's not what you should encourage people to do unless it's statistically sound to do so. The other thing in the article that lead me to this position is that you display "conversion rate over time" as a time series graph. Again, if I see that and I notice one variation is outperforming the other, what I want to do is declare victory and stop the test. That might not be mathematically/statistically warranted. IMO, as a provider of statistical software, I think you'd do your users a service to not display anything about a running experiment by default until it's either finished or you can mathematically say it's safe to stop the trial. Some people will want their pretty graphs and such, so give them a way to see them, but make them expend some effort to do so. Same thing with prematurely ended experiments; don't provide any conclusions based on an incomplete trial. Give users the ability to download the raw data from a prematurely ended experiment, but don't make it easy or the default. ------ antr Note on SumAll All users who use SumAll should be wary of their service. We tried them out and we then found out that they used our social media accounts to spam our followers and users with their advertising. We contacted them asking for answers and we never heard from them. Our suggestion: Avoid SumAll. ~~~ JacobSumAll Hey Antr, Jacob from SumAll here. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with us. The tweets you're talking about that "spam" your accounts were most likely the performance tweets that you are free to toggle on and off. Here's how you can do that: [https://support.sumall.com/customer/portal/articles/1378662-...](https://support.sumall.com/customer/portal/articles/1378662-disable- performance-or-thank-you-tweet) Best, Jacob ~~~ pluma As the tweets contain both SumAll-related hash tags and Links to SumAll, this is definitely marketing that should be opt-in, not opt-out. Unless the user of your service is explicitly made aware of these automated tweets in clear terms when they sign up, this is a bit shady and dishonest to say the least. ~~~ spacefight Even if it's in the terms - do it opt-in. ------ josefresco This article comes off as a bit boastful and somewhat of an advertisement for the company... "What threw a wrench into the works was that SumAll isn’t your typical company. We’re a group of incredibly technical people, with many data analysts and statisticians on staff. We have to be, as our company specializes in aggregating and analyzing business data. Flashy, impressive numbers aren’t enough to convince us that the lifts we were seeing were real unless we examined them under the cold, hard light of our key business metrics." I was expecting some admission of how their business is actually different/unusual, not just "incredibly technical". Secondly, I was expecting to hear that these "technical" people monkeyed with the A/B testing (or simply over-thought it) which got them in to trouble .. but no, just a statement about how "flashy" numbers don't appeal to them. I think the article would be much better without some of that background. ~~~ falsestprophet They are incredible as in literally not credible. ------ jere >We decided to test two identical versions of our homepage against each other... we saw that the new variation, which was identical to the first, saw an 18.1% improvement. Even more troubling was that there was a “100%” probability of this result being accurate. Wow. Cool explanation of one-tailed, two tailed tests. Somehow I have never run across that. Here's a link with more detail (I think it's the one intended in the article, but a different one was used): [http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/mult_pkg/faq/general/tail_tests...](http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/mult_pkg/faq/general/tail_tests.htm) ------ raverbashing Oh great, another misuse of A/B testing Here's the thing, stop A/Bing every little thing (and/or "just because") and you'll get more significant results. Do you think the true success of something is due to A/B testing? A/B testing is optimizing, not archtecting. ~~~ seanflyon Indeed. A/B testing will get you stuck on local optimums. ------ ssharp It seems like I see these articles pop up on a regular basis over at Inbound or GrowthHackers. I think the problem is two-sided: one on the part of the tester and one on the part of the tools. The tools "statistically significant" winners MUST be taken with a grain of salt. On the user side, you simply cannot trust the tools. To avoid these pitfalls, I'd recommend a few key things. One, know your conversion rates. If you're new to a site and don't know patterns, run A/A tests, run small A/B tests, dig into your analytics. Before you run a serious A/B test, you'd better know historical conversion rates and recent conversion rates. If you know your variances, it's even better, but you could probably heuristically understand your rate fluctuations just by looking at analytics and doing A/A test. Two, run your tests for long after you get a "winning" result. Three, have the traffic. If you don't have enough traffic, your ability to run A/B tests is greatly reduced and you become more prone to making mistakes because you're probably an ambitious person and want to keep making improvements! The nice thing here is that if you don't have enough traffic to run tests, you're probably better off doing other stuff anyway. On the tools side (and I speak from using VWO, not Optimizely, so things could be different), but VWO tags are on all my pages. VWO knows what my goals are. Even if I'm not running active tests on pages, why can't they collect data anyway and get a better idea of what my typical conversion rates are? That way, that data can be included and considered before they tell me I have a "winner". Maybe this is nitpicky, but I keep seeing people who are actively involved in A/B testing write articles like this, and I have to think the tools could do a better job in not steering intermediate-level users down the wrong path, let alone novice users. ------ pocp2 What he did in that article is more commonly known as an "A/A test" Optimizely actually has a decent article on it: [https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en- us/articles/200040355-Run-...](https://help.optimizely.com/hc/en- us/articles/200040355-Run-and-interpret-an-A-A-test) ------ jmount I just checked in one possible R calculation of two-sided significance under a binomial model under the simple null hypothesis A and B have the same common rate (and that that rate is exactly what was observed, a simplifying assumption) here [http://winvector.github.io/rateTest/rateTestExample.html](http://winvector.github.io/rateTest/rateTestExample.html) . The long and short is you get slightly different significances under what model you assume, but in all cases you should consider it easy to calculate an exact significance subject to your assumptions. In this case it says differences this large would only be seen in about 1.8% to 2% of the time (a two-sided test). So the result isn't that likely under the null-hypothesis (and then you make a leap of faith that maybe the rates are different). I've written a lot of these topics at the Win-Vector blog [http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2014/05/a-clear-picture-of-po...](http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2014/05/a-clear-picture-of-power-and-significance-in-ab- tests/) . They said they ran an A/A test (a very good idea), but the numbers seem slightly implausible under the two tests are identical assumption (which again, doesn't immediately imply the two tests are in fact different). The important thing to remember is your exact significances/probabilities are a function of the unknown true rates, your data, and your modeling assumptions. The usual advice is to control the undesirable dependence on modeling assumptions by using only "brand name tests." I actually prefer using ad-hoc tests, but discussion what is assumed in them (one-sided/two-sided, pooled data for null, and so on). You definitely can't assume away a thumb on the scale. Also this calculation is not compensating for any multiple trial or early stopping effect. It (rightly or wrongly) assumes this is the only experiment run and it was stopped without looking at the rates. This may look like a lot of code, but the code doesn't change over different data. ~~~ davnola What do you mean by "brand name tests"? ------ thoughtpalette I was looking for a much more personal article from the headline. ------ hvass I would be curious to know what percentage of teams with statisticians / data people actually use tools like Optimizely? A lot of people seem to be building their own frameworks that use a lot of different algorithms (two-armed bandits, etc.). From my understanding, Optimizely is really aimed at marketers without much statistical knowledge. Of course, if you're a startup, building an A/B testing tool is your last priority, so you would use an existing solution. Are there much more advanced 'out-of-the-box' tools for testing out there besides the usual suspects, i.e. Optimizely, Monetate, VWO, etc.? ------ kareemm This title used to read "How Optimizely (Almost) Got Me Fired", which is the actual title of the article. It seems a mod (?) changed it to "Winning A/B results were not translating into improved user acquisition". I've seen a descriptive title left by the submitter change back to the less descriptive original by a mod. But I'm curious why a mod would editorialize certain titles and change them away from their original, but undo the editorializing of others and change them to the less descriptive originals. ~~~ dshacker I feel that the second title is better, as it talks about the kind of testing they are using, instead of being a click bait of "HOW DID IT GET YOU FIRED?". ~~~ kareemm My question is why mods change some headlines away from the originals to be more descriptive (good) and why they change back to the originals even though they are less descriptive (bad). FWIW the change to this headline seems like the right decision to me. ~~~ dang The guideline is to use the original title _unless it is misleading or linkbait_ [1]. It's astonishing how often that qualifier gets dropped from these discussions. It's pretty critical, and makes the reason for most title changes pretty obvious. 1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) ~~~ kareemm Thanks for the response. I'd humbly submit that there are occasions where the guidelines should be ignored in service of a more descriptive (non-linkbaity) title. I can't find the submission but one recent example that comes to mind is a presentation on radar detectors that was fascinating. I clicked because the submitter described the article; the original title was (IIRC) the model number of the radar gun. Later a mod changed the HN post back to the model number, which had zero relevance to anybody not in the radar gun industry. ------ tieTYT > The kicker with one-tailed tests is that they only measure ­– to continue > with the example above – whether the new drug is better than the old one. > They don’t measure whether the new drug is the same as the old drug, or if > the old drug is actually better than the new one. _They only look for > indications that the new drug is better..._ I don't understand this paragraph. They only look for indications that the drug is better... than what? ------ dk8996 Do any of these tools show you a distribution of variable your trying to optimize? I am just thinking that some product features might be polarizing but if you measure, the mean it might give you different results than expected. I am thinking that's where the two-tailed comes in. ------ hawkice Perhaps the most troubling element is that optimizely seems comfortable claiming 100% certainty in anything. That requires (in Bayesian terminology) infinite evidence, or equivalently (in frequentist terminology) if they have finite data, an infinite gap between mean performances. ------ dmourati Peculiar use of the word bug in this context: "They make it easy to catch the A/B testing bug..." ~~~ rrrx3 meaning "fever" \- generally cured by more cowbell, but in this case only "curable" by more A/B testing ------ dsugarman this is all fine and good, but if you're goal is to see what works best between X new versions of a page and you are rigorous in creating variants, Optimizely is a great tool for figuring out the best converting variant. ~~~ pdpi Except, apparently, they aren't actually that good at _that_. If an A/A test to not yield 100% chance of 18% uplift, what gives you any degree of certainty that other tests won't have equally skewed results? ~~~ vitamen Run an A/A/B (or A/A/B/B) test, decide on traffic levels before you start the test, and let it run until you reach those levels before you peek. ------ fvdessen In my experience Optimizely does everything they can to mislead their users into overestimating their gains. Optimizely is best suited at creating exciting graphs and numbers that will impress the management, which I guess is a more lucrative business than providing real insight. ------ claar The headline isn't really what this article is about, particularly the disparaging of Optimizely. Might I suggest "The dangers of naive A/B testing" or "Buyer beware -- A/B methodologies dissected" or "Don't Blindly Trust A/B Test Results". ------ michaelhoffman Where's the part where he "(almost)" got fired? ~~~ markolschesky Maybe that's the headline that did best in an A/B test.

Ask HN: What native features would you like to see in a browser - ThomPete Hi all,<p>Leaving the HTML&#x2F;CSS rendering alone for a while, if you could decide, what native features would you like to see in your browser that isn&#x27;t already there? ====== networked — Trails! They are a branching history feature implemented in the TrailBlazer browser [1] and later in the Trailblazer add-on for Chrome [2]. A recent article from Mozilla [3] describes the concept well enough. (Mozilla is experimenting with trails in their Servo-based browser research project.) — Attaching persistent notes to parts of the page. — Bookmarks that let you add a comment. [1] [https://www-s.acm.illinois.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailbla...](https://www-s.acm.illinois.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailblazer/) [2] [http://www.trailblazer.io/](http://www.trailblazer.io/) [3] [https://medium.freecodecamp.org/lossless-web-navigation- with...](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/lossless-web-navigation-with- trails-9cd48c0abb56) ~~~ severine Thanks a lot for the trails links. I've come to desire that all desktop apps had a dedicated persistent scratchpad attached, it feels great to see your ideas and links, go you! and trails! ------ 27182818284 * Native ad blocking and script blocking (I think Brave is doing a good job at this right now with their UI/UX where you can raise and lower shields) * Better reading modes * Better selection modes. There have been a lot of tools/extensions made over the years to help you do things like extract every image on the page or copy out a single column of values from a table and it might be time to think of making some of these native features. * Great screenshot ability: Firefox has this worked out pretty well now enabling you take the picture of the entire page natively rather than having to install a 3rd party extension ------ cphoover I would like a unified standard for defining voice interfaces. A unified standard across the web would allow for easily transferring from one voice interface to another seamlessly. It could also allow devices like Alexa, and Google home to do more than just search the web to answer your question. ------ tropo I want resource usage confirmation. Limit each site to a megabyte. If it wants more, it can wait until I approve a doubling. Each doubling needs my approval. For example, upon hitting 128 MiB, the site should freeze up until I give the OK for going up to 256 MiB. Limit each site to a single thread. Let me approve more or just force the site to live within a limit. Limit each site to running in the foreground. (only the visible tab of the currently focused window runs) If I really want something to run in the background, let me indicate that with a right-click menu on the tab. ------ leejoramo Better long term caching long term shared resources such as jQuery and web fonts. I use Decentraleyes for this in Firefox, but I would love to see this built in to the browser. [https://decentraleyes.org](https://decentraleyes.org) Many of these could even be pre-bundled with the browser. ------ kitsunesoba Built in per-site custom stylesheets, much like Stylish (sans spyware). The only browser I’ve seen that does this is the now barely maintained OmniWeb, which is a shame. It’s such a basic feature that one shouldn’t need an add on for it. ------ LUmBULtERA In addition to what others have said, I'd love it if a dark-mode type feature was included natively. Not just dark theme, but something that can darken websites like the Dark Reader extension for Chrome and Firefox. ------ mabynogy A lightweight browser doing only a reader mode or a design like Wikipedia. A such browser wouldn't use any existing engine. ------ sethammons better history. I want full content search of things I've looked at, including images. "Google" for my personal history. ------ Rjevski Built-in ad/cancer blocking. ------ billconan access to low level gpu apis, vulkan and cuda for example.

Woman Drank Herself to Death with Coca-Cola - mikecane http://news.discovery.com/human/health/deadly-coca-cola-habit-130212.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1 ====== kellishaver > Crerar said the family had not considered her Coke habit dangerous because > the drink did not carry any health warnings. What!? Are people really that dense? 2.2 gallons a day is, for the average person, a ridiculous amount of any beverage, even water. Assuming it's not diet Coke (which has its own set of problems) that's 1760kcal/day, 475g/day of sugar, on top of the 400mg/day of caffeine. It seems like a no-brainer that this would slowly kill you. It would just be a question of what got you first - the caffeine or the type II diabetes. ------ mikecane I know this sounds like an item more suited to Reddit, but given the Mountain Dew and Red Bull diets of some, this might be relevant.

Fog Creek's Intern Hiring Process - dodger http://behindthescenesrecruiter.com/post/82005145232/the-single-most-sure-fire-hiring-decision-you-will-ever ====== crazypyro As someone who just went through the internship process with a few different companies, I find this fascinating. This is pretty much what I expected going into the experience (multiple interviews, at least 1-2 coding questions/examples to do, a test maybe). Out of the few companies I interviewed from, I had nothing as intense as this. The majority of them didn't even test coding/theory knowledge at all. They were just simple interviews that lasted 2-5 hours. The hardest part of any interview was a freaking mental acuity standardized test I took at the company who I'll be working for that wasn't hard, so take the term "hardest" lightly. Good news is I accepted an offer at that smaller engineering company! A good portion of my interviews were for engineering companies because of the employers my university attracts, so that could also have affected the technical parts of the interview. I'm not sure how I feel about how many interviews and how long this process is. I know some of my fellow students would be completely blindsided by such a long process unless it was clearly laid out. The compensation seems nice from the companies that hire around here (I go to a predominately STEM university in the Mid-West and all the companies I interviewed with came to our career fair in February, which is pretty late in the process). I'll make just over half that much monthly, but it'll be June-December and in STL. The highest I've heard from my classmates is 7k/month, but that was from Exxon Mobile and there was very little technical parts of the interview. He did have to take a hair test for drugs though. Ideally, I believe most of the larger corporations, like Boeing, Monsanto, etc, (like the article said) start interviews after the fall career fair. Another side note about compensation: Seems to be pretty wide spread between 13-30/hr (without adding in housing) at companies around the Midwest. I don't exactly have the greatest academic credentials though (3.0 gpa), so some of the more selective companies may pay more, especially for graduating seniors. Exxon-Mobile being the highest, Boeing right in the middle of that range, and a local ISP looking for a non-coding cs major on the low end for the curious. edit: Just adding in details as I get time. FORGOT THE MOST ANNOYING THING I was given the offer on Friday and he needed an answer on Monday, else he was going to extend the offer to other candidates. This was pretty obnoxious to me, but I ended up taking the offer because I was interested in it more than my other potential offers, but seriously, recruiters, a weekend is not enough time to get back to you with an offer, especially when other companies are asking you to keep them notified with enough time that they can either speed things up or not waste time on a candidate. ~~~ scrumper > MOST ANNOYING THING A weekend is _plenty_. You're an intern: there are many, many more of you to choose from. As you pointed out, nobody wants to waste time. The person that offered you the placement wants someone who wants to be there, not someone looking for an backup offer. ~~~ asafira I am going to respectfully disagree. Just because the company can do it doesn't mean a weekend is _plenty_. You are given a weekend to decide where you might spend months of your life, potentially in a place you've never been. On top of that, who knows if that weekend was going to be extremely busy for you? Just because you take one week to decide on an offer doesn't mean you don't want to be there. It's also not at all an industry standard to give such a short timespan for the decision; if anything, it's a reflection of how little the company will care about the intern when he/she is there. All in all, a weekend is certainly not "plenty". I sympathize with crazypyro. ~~~ scrumper Thank you for the respectful disagreement (vs. 'smug'.) You make good points and I have some sympathy too - I understand that it's not easy being forced to make a quick and major decision. That being said, you don't always get to set the pace, and being confident in making decisions on the basis of imperfect or incomplete information is a valuable life skill. I can think of no better time to make a low-risk, snap decision about where to spend a few months than in the middle of college. With regards to the decision around where you might spend months of your life, it's not like the location of the internship was a secret before crazypyro interviewed. The question about whether the company will treat the intern well is more nuanced, and you'd have to go with your gut. Given the competitive nature of the market for CS interns and the quick decisions needed, the Secretary Problem might offer a good solution for crazypyro and others in that situation. ------ dominotw Can't they atleast hire one person that didn't luck out by being born in a rich/middle class american family to go to ivy league universities. What is such complicated product that Fog Creek makes that it needs graduates from top 10 universities? Serious question. ~~~ HerokuMan Jews that went to Ivy League schools tend to hire other jews that go to Ivy League schools ~~~ ProAm Oh go be a racist-troll somewhere else. ------ ultimoo As someone who did a summer internship last year at an amazing SF company, the pay-scale at fogcreek sounds pretty competitive (read amazing). $6,000 a month comes to a shade less than $40/hour. Bear in mind that most full time students work only in summers so although considerable federal tax is deducted from this amount, the intern is likely to receive most of it back when filing taxes next year. Also, catered lunches plus an apartment in NYC plus two amazing events in twice a week (which likely include dinner) means that the only money that needs to be spent is a handful of weekday dinners plus weekend fun, and I haven't even gotten to the thousand dollar signing bonus yet! Being in college, I knew about 10-12 others who interned last summer in the Bay Area. With most companies in the SF Bay Area you're looking at about $27 to $34 at most large companies in the south bay and $35 to $40 in SF. Plus an hourly pay scale means that interns don't get paid on holidays like 4th of July, Labor Day, or when they get sick (didn't know anyone who got paid monthly instead of hourly in the Bay Area). I haven't heard of housing benefits in the south bay much and heard of only one company in SF that threw in free housing. (Sorry about a long comment focusing only on the financial aspects of an internship program but it is an important factor that debt-ridden students take into account). ~~~ yen223 $6000 a month is more than what most senior software engineers earn here, _before_ considering currency conversions. You guys are lucky man. ------ sbuccini On behalf of a student who just finished up the internship search: Companies/recruiters, please note the advice put forth here. A couple of points I'd like to touch on: * Be sure to provide your interns with a ton of guidance, and promote this in during your recruitment process. Many of my fellow students are turned off by the bigger companies since they feel like they won't be able to make an impact. As a smaller company, this is your ace in the hole. Use it to your advantage. * Personally, exploding offers leave a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone knows how long the recruitment process takes, and you should give the intern the common courtesy to make an informed decision. The last thing you want is a disgruntled intern on your payroll for a few months. * You should consider internships as an investment. Build a relationship with your intern, and it will pay numerous dividends in the long run. They might return for a full-time position or they may refer a friend that they respect. A good way to support your intern during the school year is to sponsor a hackathon or an interview workshop at their school. This gets you face-to-face with some of the most motivated hackers at any school, where you can begin the courting process. Just some quick thoughts from the student's side of the table. ------ LukeWalsh > If you don’t know where to begin here’s a good rule: only target colleges > that admit less than 30% of applicants. That will give you a head start on > being selective, especially if you have limited spots available in your > program. I personally think this is silly. If you want to be selective just focus on applicants who actually build things. If you look at collegiate hackathons at places like university of michigan, UIUC, or Purdue it's clear that there is a lot of talent in the midwest. Just because someone wasn't born on a coast or with a connection to an ivy league school doesn't mean they don't make a cut for selectiveness. ~~~ sadfnjksdf I never thought of Fog Creek that way before. In fact, I've always gotten the impression they were down-to-earth. But, that one shot of a spreadsheet in this post listing Brown, Rutgers, Princeton, Yale, etc. changed my mind. The other turnoff in this was the weeding out of candidates based on resumes. We hired an excellent employee out of a batch of horrid resumes- what a great hire, though. ~~~ dlp211 I'm glad that you put Rutgers with the likes of Princeton et al, but it is the state university of NJ. So not everyone came from a prestigious school. ~~~ barry-cotter Rutgers is one of the seven members of the ivy league. I'm guessing it's pretty selective. If it's not at least eliteish like UC Berkeley or U Michigan something went badly wrong. ~~~ dlp211 I hate to burst you bubble, and I am glad that you believe that Rutgers is a part of the Ivy League[1], but I assure you it isn't. Rutgers admits nearly 61% of applicants in, and based on a cursory google search, UMich accepts about 37% and UC Berkeley accepts 18%. Rutgers is The State University of NJ[2]. It is a very old institution (8th oldest), and that may be where the confusion comes from, since all the other Ivy's came from that time period. [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Members](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Members) [2] [http://www.rutgers.edu/](http://www.rutgers.edu/) ~~~ barry-cotter I sit corrected. ------ inconshreveable As a former Fog Creek intern (2010), I can tell you that Fog Creek's internship program is one of the best built out programs I've seen in the industry. It rivals and exceeds those of software firms with 10-100x resources. The talent they attract is top-notch too. ------ covi I have to say the pay is by no way "spoiling". It is no where near the top tier pay (for interns) seen in the industry. ~~~ 1a2a3a4a It's not that far off the top tier pay for tech companies. Glassdoor compiled their list for 2014, and it's not too inaccurate [1]. Speaking from personal experience, the numbers for SWE undergrads for some of the companies on the list this year: Palantir - 7,500 - 1,200 for housing if you choose Facebook - 6,200 + free housing Salesforce - Varies per year, 34.50/hr for rising junior, housing. Cisco - 22/hr Quora and Dropbox are both missing from this list but they both have higher salaries than Palantir, but not by too much. [1] [http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/25-highest-paying-companies- in...](http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/25-highest-paying-companies- interns-2014-interns-earn-7000-month/) ~~~ shubb Wow... this sounds kind of irrational. I mean, these are close to senior salaries annualized - Sales force is around 70K, while a senior gets about 100K across most of the US. Are 4 interns really more useful than 3 seniors? Really? ~~~ nickbarnwell "Get 'em while they're young" is as valid for recruiting as it is brand preferences ;) Those interns will turn into salaried FTEs whose first three year's annual compensation – amortised signing bonus, stock grants, and performance bonus included – will be ~150k. Compared to new graduate FTEs, interns are positively cheap! The ~6.5k, housing inclusive, perks out the wazoo also all come from highly profitable, competitive companies falling over each other to recruit from a highly constrained pool. There are only so many Stanford, MIT, and CMU graduates a year, and an even smaller number of hackathon winners, open source contributors, inveterate interns, etc. For many, this is the last time they'll ever openly be on the job market. ------ jonheller There was a whole movie about interns at Fog Creek. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NRL7YsXjSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NRL7YsXjSg) I admit it could have been edited a bit better (read: more interesting), but it was still fun to get a bit more of an inside view of a process like this. ------ bcaine This sounds like a great program, I just wish it was offered year-round. Even though I think Northeastern University and Waterloo are the only schools with a completely integrated, well defined Co-op program, it seems like its a growing trend. I'd assume having year round interns and a continuous recruitment process would be less disruptive to the team's work velocity and give you a bit bigger reach for students too. Plus, I'm a bit jealous of some of the summer-only internships at a lot of interesting companies. Can't complain about graduating with 18+ months of interesting work experience pretty much guaranteed though. ~~~ CocaKoala I didn't attend the Rochester Institute of Technology, but friends of mine who go there tell me that co-ops are a mandatory part of the CS program there. ~~~ acchow Waterloo's "co-op" system is quite different. The whole undergraduate co-op program lasts about 5 years, and you alternate between 4 months in school and 4 months working throughout (i.e., you don't get summers "off"). This allows the students to try many different companies of varying size and culture. ------ sergiotapia All of this sounds extremely exhausting for a simple internship. About 30 times more effort than I've ever had to put to land a job as a freelancer. I'll take my standard $50/hour rate and avoid these rat-races. 400 applicants and only 8 hires!? YIKES. Are these fellas going to the moon? ------ mathattack Remember that this is New York City. $6000 is great money to begin with. Add $2000/month minimum for rent. (And imagine digging up a security deposit too...) This is investment banking money for a software firm with a much more respectable work-life balance. (I have no connection to the firm, though I have read pretty much everything that Joel has written) ------ sscalia Am I the only one flabbergasted by the comp #'s thrown around in the article and in these threads? ------ asselinpaul Does anyone know how much one would make in a Finance Internship at a hedge- fund, prop firm and investment bank? ~~~ S4M I think an internship in a top tier bank in London pays about 3000 pounds/month for a summer analyst and 5000 pounds/month. My data are outdated though, maybe the salaries have gone down after the crisis, but I doubt it and would rather think they decreased the number of interns. ~~~ robotcookies I've heard the hours are much longer though for that field. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Isn't it Byronic? Don Juan at 200 - gruseom https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/isnt-it-byronic-don-juan/ ====== gruseom Here’s one passage I remember after many years: Byron explaining how convenient it was for schoolboys that the editors of the classics had thoughtfully collected all the obscene bits in one place. They were too prudish to leave them in the text, but too scholarly to delete them altogether. Juan was taught from out the best edition, Expurgated by learnéd men, who place Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's vision, The grosser parts; but, fearful to deface Too much their modest bard by this omission, And pitying sore his mutilated case, They only add them all in an appendix, Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an index; For there we have them all "at one fell swoop," Instead of being scatter'd through the Pages; They stand forth marshall'd in a handsome troop, To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages, Till some less rigid editor shall stoop To call them back into their separate cages, Instead of standing staring all together, Like garden gods—and not so decent either. ~~~ billman This makes me now want to read the book, after sitting on my shelf for the better part of 15 years. Thanks! ------ throwaway3627 Only Cantos I and II were available in 1819. XVI and unfinished XVII were available in 1823 and 1824 respectively.

My fully optimized life allows me ample time to optimize yours - geoah https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/my-fully-optimized-life-allows-me-ample-time-to-optimize-yours ====== cgrusden I like to see how other people try to "optimize" their lives. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet, but definitely some takeaways from this lifestyle I like: * Multiple blender pitchers (to not have to keep rewashing one) * The multi-photo frame on the desk (I would probably put cars/places to travel or that I have already traveled) * Dedicated 3pm time to exercise Most of the actual activities of this "fully optimized life" are completely subjective. This optimized life description is really just a routine and sticking to it. If everyone actually stuck to a routine, they would also have ample time, but most everyone allows distractions to de-rail them.

Ask HN: How did the Erlang articles disappear on HN yesterday? - socratees Were we censored or did we flag the articles by ourselves, or did the admin remove all the Erlang entries from appearing on the front page? How did we get rid of the Erlang articles? I'm just curious about it. ====== jacquesm I guess enough people flagged it to take it away. There is a lower limit where stuff will get auto killed if enough people flagged it. What bothers me most about these silly flooding tactics is that you've potentially burned a lot of good content about Erlang from ever appearing on HN. Erlang is a neat concept, and I think that those that flooded the 'new' page with Erlang stuff have done more damage than good. What you could have simply done is to flag the articles you thought had no place on HN instead of trying to monopolize the discussion by flooding. ~~~ daleharvey I think its pretty certain the articles were manually removed, they all went at the same time along with every new submission almost immediately. I dont disagree with having them deaded though, although my site was one of the ones that someone submitted, and I actually think it was submitted because it was useful. ~~~ jacquesm Imagine a series of counters as attributes to the articles submitted. If enough people decide 'enough Erlang, let's flag that stuff down' then you can imagine a flurry of activity by a limited number of users (say 10 or 15 or so) that would remove all the articles within a minute or so, which is when the _last_ person to be able to do so clicks 'flag' for the relevant articles. Don't attribute to 'divine' intervention what you could easily achieve with the tools at hand. ~~~ mbrubeck <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=686303> _pg: "If a story has enough flags, that alone will kill it, without moderator intervention. I just added a point threshold to prevent this happening to stories that have received a significant number of votes."_ On the other hand this change doesn't seem to be in the latest news.arc from arc3.tar, whether it was removed, not included in that distribution yet, or I'm just looking in the wrong place. ~~~ jacquesm What's distributed is not necessarily what is running on the site. I think there may be some secret sauce, if only to make it a bit harder to game the system.

Techniques for Distributed TensorFlow - jamesblonde https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/distributed-tensorflow ====== hopsworks Disclaimer: developer of Hops. This blog basically argues that systems like Horovod (Ring AllReduce) are architecturally superior to Parameter Server models (like TensorFlowOnSpark).

Travel Writer Booted Off United Flight for Taking Picture of His Seat - rosser http://upgrd.com/matthew/thrown-off-a-united-airlines-flight-for-taking-pictures.html ====== randomdrake >"I want you to understand why I was taking pictures. _I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist._ Here is my business card [offering her one]. I write about United Airlines on an almost-daily basis and the folks at United in Chicago are even aware of my blog." (emphasis added) Reacting to a command given by a flight attendant with anything along the lines of "Whoa, sorry. I hope you don't think I'm a terrorist," is a terrible decision. Even if you're not, saying it will immediately make them wonder if you are. Don't think of a pink elephant. How's that mental image of a pink elephant looking? Terrorist. Bomb. Threat. 9/11. These are things you don't go saying on airplanes, these days, unless you're expecting some sort of discomfort from anyone within earshot. This is especially true for someone in charge of ensuring the safety of people aboard the flight. I don't think the traveler would have been removed from the plane if they would have just complied and not mentioned such a charged word. ~~~ ryguytilidie I mean, this is the problem right here. You're claiming that because a plane ran into a building 12 years ago, it actually makes sense for an American citizen to kick another American citizen off a plane while lying about it. How about we get back to being rational sensible human beings who understand context and can have a thought process beyond "If I hear the word terrorist, that person is a terrorist and I need to call homeland security" /roboticthinking I get that it is a bad idea to say terrorist on a plane, but if after 12 years, we still are unable to understand context here, people should be getting fired, especially if they need to lie to justify their bizarre, made up fears. ~~~ randomdrake >You're claiming that because a plane ran into a building 12 years ago, it actually makes sense for an American citizen to kick another American citizen off a plane while lying about it. No, I'm not. I'm claiming that there are words that shouldn't be said on a plane anymore. A building exploding didn't do that. Decisions from organizations and individuals created the catalyst for that change. But, that's a completely different discussion. It's common knowledge whether it's okay or not. I agree: we as a society, should strive to be more open and accepting about using words. But, unfortunately, we're not all there yet. The title is sensationalist and misleading. The photo taking clearly wasn't the problem because the author wasn't removed from the plane after taking the photo, they were removed after they said something they shouldn't have. "Travel Author Irritated After Being Kicked Off a Plane for Claiming 'Not a Terrorist'" is hardly a story, is it? ~~~ Amadou Except that, according to the author, he was accused of refusing to stop taking pictures. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, it seems reasonable for him to critise the airline based on their words, even if he suspects their words are not truthful. ~~~ ryguytilidie Not even just according to the author. According to the official reason the airline gave him. I can certainly understand why one might suspect this isn't the real reason, but calling the guy sensationalist for repeating EXACTLY what he was told is pretty insane imo. ------ ryguytilidie The fact that we got attacked by a few Saudi nationals 12 years ago makes one American lie to another American because shes scared an American passenger on their plane is a terrorist because he said the word terrorist. Is it really debatable whether we did exactly what the terrorists hoped we would do at this point? I don't want to say they won, because its not a game and no one wins, but they certainly accomplished some objectives here if this is the way people are allowed to act. ~~~ rdtsc Or in this case apparently it turns flying attendants into power tripping liars. ------ codenerdz Same article 16 hours and 200+ comments ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5256051> ------ plaguuuuuu I give this blog post Autism/10 Flight attendant's perspective was that she is routinely telling passengers to quit with the happy snaps, as required by company policy. Flight attendant is tired and very busy with getting the plane together for takeoff. The photo guy from before is suddenly angrily motioning her over and saying a bunch of crazy shit about not being a terrorist, and trying to make her take/keep his business card. flight attendant freaks out and runs to her boss. Crew boss sees really freaked out flight attendant and assumes the passenger needs to go. Once that decision is made, crazy travel guy probably doesn't have any hope of reversing it. The real issue is that the guy grossly messed up his interaction with the flight attendant and paid the price for it. If you misbehave on a flight you're gonna get kicked off - yes, airlines have a duty to have fair rules for customers to follow. But passengers have a duty to act relatively normally in their standard human interactions with staff. Trying to air one's grievances with an airline's cabin policies with a flight attendant is ridiculous anyway, hence my rating out of 10. ------ JulianWasTaken This sounds dubious. It's obviously one sided which is OK, but what exactly is the motivation of a flight attendant to flat out lie about continuing to take pictures. And why wait to do it while continuing to service other passengers. ------ chrisbennet Even if the travel writer had done something horrible this is going to give United a big black mark. I guess he'll record his future interactions with cabin steward/stewardess'. ~~~ nthj I'm just curious who already had a good feeling about United. I mean, I fly Delta/United/America when I have to, but I've been pretty annoyed by all 3 for years. I don't really see anything changing from this article. ~~~ acheron I'm reasonably happy with United out of the big airlines. They almost always have seats with extra leg room, and they have a hub at the airport that's 10 minutes from my house. I mean, they're still an airline, and I've had problems, but overall they haven't been bad to me. ------ JulianMorrison You poked the bear and, because you're white and rich, you got growled at instead of bitten. Pardon me if I do not feel sympathy for this "elite status" privileged whine. ~~~ Amadou Social change (without revolution) doesn't come until enough of the already empowered embrace it. So it may seem trivial to those of us that have seen far worse, but the alternative is for the white and rich to never hear about the problems that have affected one of their own. Since most people only recognize a problem when they are personally at risk, this sort of "whine" is a necessary part of the process. ------ cup Without any information from the airline hostess, captain or company this paints a very one sided and incomplete picture. The authors account might be accurate however I'm inclined to think that it may have more to do with the fact that he uttered the word 'terrorist' rather than any of his other actions. I mean most seasoned travellers, let alone someone in the industry, should know by now that when you're in an airport you jump through all the hoops regardless of how stupid they may appear simply because airports and airlines hold power over you. For better or worse free speech does not exist in this environment and I wonder whether the author should have just apoligised and swallowed his pride rather than try to make a point or even apologise. Some times you just need to bite your tongue. Edit: I'm curious about why people disagree with me.

Hey everyone, do you have some spare time to do my survey? - hkuhl https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/D5QLLXP ====== hkuhl I hope it's okay to post this here, but I'm running a Developer Happiness Survey at the moment and will publish the results in an index. If you have a few minutes spare, it would be so helpful to have your input! Thanks heaps, and let me know if this shouldn't be here.

AI-generated fake content could unleash a virtual arms race - kristintynski https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/11/ai-generated-fake-content-could-unleash-a-virtual-arms-race/ ====== echelon These deep fake articles are becoming a meme. They mostly seem alarmist, and yet they're not authored by people actually in the industry. Deep fakes automate what deep pockets and state actors could already do with Photoshop and other professional tools. The world isn't going to become a scary place because the barrier to entry got lower and the technology has been democratized. People are smart. Fakes will be detectable through entropy measures, corroboration, common sense, etc. FWIW, I've been working on real time voice to voice style transfer. [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zRvJEGJjTpKvvzel-J0agh3fKB...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zRvJEGJjTpKvvzel-J0agh3fKBn9aqGy) There are already a few other (non-real time) players in this field. I'm hoping to spin this up as a small social app or filter and sell it so I can fund my capital-intensive film making startup. I think this tech _should_ be widely available. Not only will it make people think and question more, but it'll be fun too. It's also amusing (and terrifying) to see all the anti-1st Amendment legislation aimed at combating deep fakes. The truth is that there is nothing to fear except our freedoms being taken away. ~~~ ipython I don’t think you should dismiss these concerns so quickly. It sounds like you have experience in this field. Perhaps that would make it easier for you to spot potential fakes? What about your grandma? How would she fare? And besides, the end game isn’t to fool everyone into believing a fake. No, the more insidious goal is to flood the zone with enough dis- and misinformation to overload our ability to filter it. It’s like gaslighting at scale- at some point you just stop being able to process information because it’s so voluminous and of dubious quality that you stop believing any of it. ~~~ bransonf > What about your grandma? How would she fare? Grandma’s still falling for the phone and mail scams. No amount of legislation is going to fix the reality of technological illiteracy among the oldest adults. Deepfakes might fool some of today’s adults who don’t quite understand, but we are raising a generation that has turned into a meme: “Everything you read on the internet is true” -Abraham Lincoln I think the real silver lining here is that the internet is an alternate reality. Many of us refuse to believe that, but social media has created manufactured people. The only solution is to bring people back to the real world. The people are real here. Their opinion, no matter how controversial, comes from a real mouth, and the face you see is the one they were born with. If anyone forms their worldview based entirely on things they read on the internet, they probably would be just as susceptible to our real world forms of propaganda/gaslighting/ whatever you want to call it. ~~~ skybrian This essentially means the web is too difficult for some users and they need something else, like maybe an app store. Maybe some company will win big by providing a safer (or apparently safer) alternative? Previous examples: Gmail had a better spam filter. Apple and Google did a better (though not perfect) job of protecting users from arbitrary code execution, as did the web itself, way back when. This doesn't happen all that often, but if it succeeds, power users will scoff at how nerfed the new thing is. I'm reminded of an old story [1] about an early game for children: > I found myself unable to reconcile the idea of a virtual world, where kids > would run around, play with objects, and chat with each other without > someone saying or doing something that might upset another. Even in 1996, we > knew that text-filters are no good at solving this kind of problem, so I > asked for a clarification: "I’m confused. What standard should we use to > decide if a message would be a problem for Disney?" > The response was one I will never forget: "Disney’s standard is quite clear: > No kid will be harassed, even if they don’t know they are being harassed." But maybe text filters will be better if you throw enough machine learning at the problem? [1] [http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history- of-t...](http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-toontowns- speedchat-or-blockchattm-from-disney-finally-arrives/) ~~~ bostik > _This essentially means the web is too difficult for some users and they > need something else_ I think you are on the right track, but not going all the way. The bigger issue here is that media literacy is _incredibly_ hard. You need a wide body of knowledge, essentially an educated[ß] mind, and an almost unhealthy skepticism against absolutely everything you read, see or hear. As a short cut, a good first approximation is to be a cynic. Assume everyone is pushing their own agenda, and that even at best you can only see half of it. (If you are asking yourself what agenda _I_ am pushing with this post, well done. You're off to a good start.) ß: The ability to question information, conduct research, cross-check the results of research, and have the mental agility to identify your own biases - these are not natural tendencies, but learned traits. We can lump them all under the "educated" label, even if that's not the optimal term. ~~~ skybrian Yes, it is hard. But I think it's not just education, but epistemic humility. We have no direct knowledge of what's going on in other parts of the world. The past is often not recorded accurately, the future often unpredictable. So our default assumption should often be that we don't know what's going on. Highly educated people in the grip of an ideology can dream up conclusions far beyond the limited and unreliable evidence we get from media consumption. They are often rewarded for this. And one of these ideologies is the myth of rugged individualism (or competent adulthood), the idea that each person can and should figure out what's going on by themselves. It's obviously not true of children and the elderly, but most of us outsource a lot of our thinking. Living in modern civilization inherently means having a lot of trust and dependency on others. The ideals of media literacy are simply unrealistic for most people. It's not clear what the alternative is, though. ------ blunte This pretty much describes the end of the internet as we know it. Even before AI generated "content", the internet has become lower signal-to-noise as time has moved forward. It is already the case that for many everyday searches I do, I am forced to be very creative in my search phrase in hopes of filtering out the garbage sites that manage to dominate the first results page. Watching less tech-saavy people use computers (such as elder family) is enlightening and frightening. They either cannot tell real content from fake content, or worse they are satisfied with what they get from obviously suspicious sites. Maybe my concerns of polluted websites are less relevant considering the general population is getting more of their "information" from within Facebook rather than even going to search engines (of which they use the default for their browser!). ~~~ seibelj New companies and technologies will be invented to solve this problem. Every problem has a solution. You are falling into the same trap that has caught humans since the dawn of man. The printing press, the car, the internet, and now “deep fakes” will cause hand wringing but will not destroy us. Just give it time. ~~~ glenstein >The printing press, the car, the internet These all came with real tradeoffs and we've just accepted them. The printing press and the internet, in their own ways, sped up the world and shortened attention spans. Cars changed cities. The benefits have been there, but we've engaged with or ignored the harms posed by changes in different ways, and the same unconscious trade is going to happen again. ------ Abishek_Muthian Considering video, audio are accepted as evidence in most courts without any independent verification; I'm seriously worried about the implications of deep fake on justice. There is an urgent need gap[1] on detection of deep fakes. [1]:[https://needgap.com/problems/21-deep-fake-video-detection- fa...](https://needgap.com/problems/21-deep-fake-video-detection-fakenews- machinelearning) ~~~ bostik Risky Business did a really good interview on the subject early last year[0]. Law profession is already aware of the potential problems. Me? I welcome the future where audio and video evidence are just another piece of evidence. 0: [https://risky.biz/RB489/](https://risky.biz/RB489/) ------ lordgrenville We've had fake photographs for decades and it hasn't seemed to make a big difference in politics. But I think that's because in the past you had gatekeepers, like the editors and factcheckers of "respectable" publications, who would ascertain the legitimacy of a picture before using it. They'd make mistakes sometimes, but got it right 99% of the time. Now news spreads horizontally through social media and group chats. It's common to see, say, a clip purportedly of police brutality right now in country X, which is actually 7 years old and from country Y. Someone will correct it, someone will dispute the correction, whatever - the damage is done. So I don't think deepfakes will move the needle much. The real damage is the end of gatekeeping, and that's already happened. ~~~ QuantumGood We haven't had high-velocity media for decades, and information is easier to make extremely false and get believers than photographs. You can't create a complete narrative through photos alone. You need associated information. ------ YarickR2 Well, this probably means end of unsigned content ; every line of text, every article, etc should be / will be signed by living person's key, or it will be heavily penalized in search engine output; governments will run keystores with citizens' keys, and content signatures will be checked against such keystores to ensure content authenticity (or lack thereof) . Time to reopen GPG , I guess. ------ joe_the_user I was experimenting with this stuff and you can too here [1]. It's kind of impressive but not convincing. The main impression it gives is it doesn't know what subjects affect which objects, what one kind of relation implies about another relation and so-forth. Still, it gives a sequence of words with a consistent "feel" which is impressive. However, I would still only find it's text convincing for producing ... a marketing blog since such things just seem like a contentless stream of buzzwords to begin with. If anything, it gives a certain idea of how marketing speech require something, a stream of words with certain feeling, but not real logic. [1] [https://talktotransformer.com/](https://talktotransformer.com/) ~~~ jeffshek I built [https://writeup.ai](https://writeup.ai) to help with that, but while it helps, it still feels like it's missing "something" at times. ~~~ joe_the_user The thing is that I think language over a longer term is about actually communicating a structure to world - in a way that requires knowledge of the world. It is just that over a shorter period, a good portion of language isn't about this communication but about just certain coloring of communication. Which is to say that I think this lacks more than it seems at first blush. ------ achow OTOH: I'm pretty excited that these technologies are maturing so that they can be harnessed for empowering common people, or workers in enterprises to make their content beautiful, simple & into effective stories. One example: Pentagon's slide decks. [https://archive.org/details/MilitaryIndustrialPowerpointComp...](https://archive.org/details/MilitaryIndustrialPowerpointComplex) ------ QuantumGood The effects of an ever-higher velocity of fake news isn't clear, but there is no "solution". Real news not believed, fake news believed has been an unsolved problem for a long time. For example, the history of medical advances show doctors not believing exceptionally solid science in many cases. There are a number of quotes about progress along the lines of "First they say it's impossible, they they fight it, then they say they believed it all along". This is a people problem and a media velocity problem going back to the famous quote "A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes." You can't stop people from believing a lie after it has been released. Removing the lie doesn't help. "Reputable" sources not repeating the lie doesn't help. ------ this_was_posted We shouldn't talk too much about our skepticism on this becoming problematic. Otherwise believable skeptic text can be generated by malicious actors through AI once it does become problematic so that they can drown out real concerns with virtual trolls. ------ shams93 This has been true long before ai. Writing and journalism have always been weaponized. The opposite could be true in that it's easier to recognize automated fake news than well crafted hand done human deception. ------ jon_akimbo People very concerned about this should spend some time reading ${opposing political group} social media. As you'll discover, people will believe what suits them. Veracity is of remarkably little interest to a remarkably high percentage of the population. Most people, and this is not an exaggeration, would sooner kill/die than change their mind. And if that's true, then consider the mental acrobatics individuals are willing to go through before they even reach that point. ------ zahrc I have personally yet to be convinced of AI generated media content (read articles, videos, photos) maybe the bias that I know that they are AI- generated, but to me it’s equivalent buying a cheap knockoff iPhone from China: it’ll work if you don’t really think about it, or do not know the difference. We have to top-up education and teach media-awareness in school, while giving badly researched and generally toxic content the cold shoulder. ------ hertzdog I try to take a different direction. Let's suppose some ai generated content is better than human created content (IMHO we are quite there). Let's go further: maybe in the future we will trust again only some "trusted sources" (newspapers? HN?) while everything else will be not taken into account because the quality will be low (like some comments saying the source is not in the industry...). ~~~ account73466 >> maybe in the future we will trust again only some "trusted sources" (newspapers? HN?) while everything else will be not taken into account because the quality will be low (like some comments saying the source is not in the industry...) Do you realize that current conversational NNs are better at making comments than you? ~~~ hertzdog Yes. That’s the point :) ------ greggman2 I often wonder if Ranker, Thrillist, Collider, Vulture are all AI based. The seem to show up in every search ------ nightnight All tech demos without strong use cases yet. Machine-generated content, spinning content, etc. are black hat tactics employed for decades in order to game Google. Works (just look at what crap ranks high) but the foundation for new huge industries? No. ------ 100011 I am going to take the contrary opinion here. AI-generated fake content will inflate away the informational value transmitted by whatever it is trying to fake. It's like 'deep fakes', they'll just destroy trust to video. ------ seddin I might be wrong, but on some social networks as Reddit, many comments or shared links seem too weird, like if they were not real, and some posts that get resposted always end up with the same comments or similar words. ------ r0h1t4sh Looks like this would be the new form of spam we will have to fight. ------ daxfohl How do we know this article was not generated by a bot? ------ unityByFreedom Doubtful. It's easier to photoshop fake content and we haven't seen that get out of control. ------ EGreg Wow that AI-generated blog text actually made sense! The best I have ever seen. How did they do it? ------ HocusLocus muching virtual popcorn

A data visualization curriculum using Vega-Lite and Altair - Anon84 https://github.com/uwdata/visualization-curriculum ====== randyzwitch This is a really comprehensive tutorial, one of better uses of Jupyter Notebooks

Show HN: Pass a URL, get summarized content - meeper16 http://54.86.121.4/recommend/getSummary.html ====== peter_l_downs Not summary, just sentence ranking and extraction. Still cool but not anything new. Sweet side project though! For anyone wondering how this was done, I have a similar project up at [http://bookshrink.com](http://bookshrink.com) (source code at [https://github.com/peterldowns/bookshrink](https://github.com/peterldowns/bookshrink)), although I don't fetch article text. ~~~ mck- I did a similar hack a while back, which summarizes a piece of text in a single sentence. I'm that lazy. [https://github.com/mck-/oneliner](https://github.com/mck-/oneliner) ~~~ gravypod I'm writing a book right now. Would you mind if I used your program to make the title and the chapter titles? ------ despinozist You should render the output as actual JSONAPI ([http://jsonapi.org](http://jsonapi.org)): { "links": { "self": "...", "prev": "...", "next": "..." }, "data": [], "included": [] } So that we can discover the API beyond the form. Use [http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/link- relation...](http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/link- relations.xhtml) as the starting point for link relations ideas. ~~~ wyldfire I was pretty quick to knee jerk ask myself "Why is this any better than any other schema?" (I was not convinced that "API discovery" was, by itself, a good enough case). Then I read the very practical first sentence of the jsonapi page: "If you've ever argued with your team about the way your JSON responses should be formatted, JSON API can be your anti-bikeshedding tool." That alone is probably huge. May not mean much for individual projects, but it's good enough for me to bookmark for the future. ~~~ fishnchips Can't help but think of [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/) ;) Not sure if standards like this can prevent bikeshedding. You can always bikeshed about the need to stick to any particular standard. One counterexample to what I'm saying may be one standard Go language formatting with gofmt but that was introduced very early on and became a part of the culture. Too late for that with JSON APIs. ------ ComputerGuru I'm not sure I am seeking the same wow-factor results from the service that everyone else is raving about. I submitted this link [0] which was on the HN homepage a couple of days ago and the results that I got back were more either the least important bits or in some ways implying the _opposite_ of the article, so either the writing was really bad or the algorithm needs some work. Submitting a "simpler" less-ranty article [1] was even less successful, leading to paraphrases of less-important sentences as the results. Then I submitted the BBC article from this morning about Philae [3] and received much, much better results. I think it works best on articles that have single sentences that clearly sum up the gist of the post as a single, hard fact and doesn't work with anything that works towards logical conclusions or tries to build an argument. Which makes sense, because this isn't an AI and can't actually deduce anything. 0: [https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/on-the-growing-intentional- us...](https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/on-the-growing-intentional-uselessness- of-google-search-results/) 1: [https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/when-is-the-2016-retina- macbo...](https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/when-is-the-2016-retina-macbook-pro- coming-out/) 3: [http://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-35559503](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35559503) ~~~ detaro > _I 'm not sure I am seeking the same wow-factor results from the service > that everyone else is raving about._ Um... where is someone raving about the result? Most of the comments seem neutral to negative to me? ~~~ lpage > _Most of the comments seem neutral to negative to me?_ Shameless plug, thanks to HackerMoods [1] I can quantify that statement: 0.85 neutral, 0.08 positive, 0.07 negative. The average Show HN is 0.17 positive and 0.04 negative, so your assessment is in line with the numbers. [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188633) ~~~ Shamiq I'm color blind, and the charts you use are unintelligible to me. ~~~ lpage Sorry about that. Design isn't my wheelhouse but I updated it to what google tells me is a colorblind friendly palette. I would definitely appreciate it if you could take a look and let me know how it is. ------ xlayn I would risk to say it works based on assigning information weight to words, number of non repeating and the way they are related and then filter top down. I did try it with a link I particularly like [http://multivax.com/last_question.html](http://multivax.com/last_question.html) with the following response. {"1":"nor could anyone for the day had long since passed zee prime knew when any man had any part of the making of a universal ac","2":"zee prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars","3":"he gave no further thought to dee sub wun whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away or on the star next to zee prime's own","4":"the universal ac said man's original star has gone nova","5":"the universal ac interrupted zee prime's wandering thoughts not with words but with guidance"}} ------ ShinyCyril Hmm didn't have much luck with: [https://mikeanthonywild.com/stopping- blocking-threads-in-pyt...](https://mikeanthonywild.com/stopping-blocking- threads-in-python-using-gevent-sort-of.html) { "1":"betterthreads provides an enhanced replacement for the an enhanced replacement for the python this isn't actually a true thread instead it uses gevent to", "2":"the widely-accepted solution is to set a timeout on our blocking functions so we can periodically check a which we set from the main thread to indicate we want the child thread to stop", "3":"if the thread is still alive the when the *timeout* argument is not present or ``none`` the operation will block until the thread terminates", "4":"`runtimeerror` if an attempt is made to join the current thread as that would cause a deadlock", "5":"`join` a thread before it has been started and attempts to do so raises the same exception" } That said, I think to summarise that particular would require a certain level of domain expertise, something which a general bot couldn't provide. ------ phdsummary The summary of that guy's Phd summary [http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2016/02/my- phd-abridged.html](http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-phd-abridged.html) {"1":"for various reasons i also spend a lot of weekends in new york and make more friends with people working on data and journalism","2":"my friend jean- baptiste who reads it asks why my blog is so good but my paper drafts are so bad","3":"at the beginning of this year i start telling people that i wish i had more female friends since i realize that there are many fewer women around me than before","4":"to keep myself from thinking about my uncertain future all the time i start a cybersecurity accelerator cybersecurity factory with my friend frank wang with the goal of helping research-minded people start companies","5":"i am too lazy to make many friends so i spend my free time reading cooking doing yoga and running"} ------ Animats Summarization used to be a feature in Microsoft Word through Word 2007, and it did a decent job. That feature was taken out in Word 2010.[1] [1] [https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Automatically- summa...](https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Automatically-summarize-a- document-B43F20AE-EC4B-41CC-B40A-753EED6D7424) ~~~ skewart I didn't know that. Any idea why it was taken out? ~~~ lallysingh I suspect that office has to garbage collect features once in a while. Otherwise the maintenance cost would be (more?)horrible. ------ fiatjaf [http://52.90.112.133/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%...](http://52.90.112.133/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%2F%2Ftomwoods.com%2Fpodcast%2Fep-597-can- the-private-sector-protect-against-crime-this-case-study-will-blow-your- mind%2F&getSummary=getSummary) ------ _RPM An array would be a better choice of structure for the sentences instead of hard coding the indexes.."1"... ~~~ brudgers I see your point and don't disagree. Thinking about why someone might mike the choice to use text, text is more in keeping with *nix philosophy. Not that I'm saying it's better, but grep is pretty light weight and a lot of people use the command line and/or languages other than Javascript. YMMV. ~~~ _RPM I'm not sure I understand. JSON is text. JSON provides an array as part of the grammar. ------ microcolonel Good quality summaries, but it seems it caches pages based on their base URL, and throws away the query parameters. Some blogs use query parameters to distinguish between articles, so it makes it kinda useless if you want to do more than one article. ------ andreygrehov This is an off-topic, but I'd like to mention it. I absolutely love the fact that the OP did not get a domain name for this demo. This is an interesting "technique" I haven't seen for quite a while. People tend to own and re-new tenths of domain names, which are just sitting there for an "just in case" moment. This is a great example of how things can really be simplified - spin up an instance, make a demo, shut the instance down. ~~~ developer2 Good luck with the link still being usable in a month or a year. There's a reason we use domain names for sharing. Not only because they are friendly to read and remember, but also because IPs are typically far more transient than domain names. The IPs behind my projects have changed dozens of times over the years (new server, changing hosting provider, adding a load balancer, etc.). A simple DNS change allows the same domain name to follow the project. I'm actually surprised HN permits links to IP addresses. While links posted here are not guaranteed to point to the same content in the future anyway, it is more likely that an IP address will change before the project is taken down entirely. Search engine posterity and all. ------ shloub « URL's must start with "[http://"](http://") » « [https://medium.com/@darrenrovell/all-journalists-need-to- be-...](https://medium.com/@darrenrovell/all-journalists-need-to-be-data- driven-6dfc73e420d5#.mz8vd1myq) » ------ hluska This is an exact duplicate (even posted by the same person) of a link submitted 11 hours ago. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11190008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11190008) Edit - it doesn't work for me either, or maybe it is just very slow? ~~~ meeper16 Yes, it is. I sent it out too late last night and thought more people might want to see this in the morning. ~~~ gus_massa I think this it's ok here. From the FAQ: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) > _Are reposts ok?_ > _If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill > reposts as duplicates. If not, a_ small _number of reposts is ok._ > _Please don 't delete and repost the same story, though. Accounts that do > that eventually lose submission privileges._ ------ mohaps Any details about the backend/implementation? shameless plugs for two similar projects(open sourced both) I did a while back 1) Algorithmic Summarizer: [https://github.com/mohaps/tldrzr](https://github.com/mohaps/tldrzr) 2) Readability Clone / Article Body Extractor with summary, significant image and text : [https://github.com/mohaps/xtractor](https://github.com/mohaps/xtractor) Both are deployed on heroku and the urls are in the github readme files. ------ h1fra Huum, not quiet sure what is was expecting, but the results were not great :( But I could see the use of this kind of service. Also does not work with accentuated char. ------ an_ko I'd like more details. How does it work? ------ LinkPlug What is it built with? (Stack, Foss etc) ------ Mark_B Fun with Lorem Ipsum: [http://52.90.112.133/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%...](http://52.90.112.133/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lipsum.com%2Ffeed%2Fhtml&getSummary=getSummary) ~~~ meeper16 It seems to be multi-lingual ------ jack9 [http://www.slashdot.org](http://www.slashdot.org) and [https://news.ycombinator.com](https://news.ycombinator.com) {"summarized_text": {}} ------ franze if you submit [http://54.86.121.4/recommend/getSummary.html](http://54.86.121.4/recommend/getSummary.html) to [http://54.86.121.4/recommend/getSummary.html](http://54.86.121.4/recommend/getSummary.html) you get {"summarized_text": {"1":"insert any block of text or single url url's must start with [email protected]"}} which is of course completely wrong ------ tuananh urgh: empty [http://54.86.121.4/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%2F...](http://54.86.121.4/recommend/app/getSummary?query=http%3A%2F%2Fbongdaso.com%2FThua- Man- City%252c-Klopp-v%25C4%2583ng-t%25E1%25BB%25A5c-lo%25E1%25BA%25A1n-x%25E1%25BA%25A1-_Art_160672.aspx&getSummary=getSummary) ------ LinkPlug What are some alternatives to this? ~~~ jbeda Check out [https://algorithmia.com/](https://algorithmia.com/). Stuff like this plus a bunch more. Real business model so you can have more confidence in it. ------ gkumartvm Wordpress sites urls are not working !! ------ orliesaurus Not really working as expected :( ------ dang Url changed from [http://52.90.112.133/recommend/getSummary.html](http://52.90.112.133/recommend/getSummary.html) by submitter's request.

The puzzle that started complexity theory. - gnosis http://cs.nyu.edu/shasha/outofmind/mccarthypuzzle.html ====== diiq I guess I would have failed to create complexity theory with my solution --- but everyone involved would have understood it, no long calculations required: give the guard a lock and the spy a key. It's still a sort of one-way function (easier to make a lock from a key then a key for a lock), but it doesn't require squaring 100 digit numbers in the dead of night before deciding whether to shoot a man. ~~~ Gupie For what its worth, my solution was to give the guard a set of sealed envelopes. Each envelope having a password written on the outside and a password written on a piece of paper inside. The spy would give the guard the word that is written on one of the envelopes, the guard would then open the envelope and ask the spy for the password contained inside. ~~~ motxilo How do I know that you, the creator of the password pairs, are not an enemy's spy? ~~~ Gupie How do I know that you, the selector of the 100 digit number, are not an enemy spy? ~~~ motxilo Every "good" spy chooses his X, and sends the corresponding Y to the guards. No need to involve a 3rd person in between like in your solution. ------ Fargren The "hint" is the solution. That would be annoying for someone who hadn't figured it out. ~~~ redwood Doesn't anyone else find the solution a bit problematic: sure great concept but unless the guards have a black box tool which is secured and can churn out Y from X, they will have to know the function to prove that Y was congruent with an X...and if they know the function, so too would the enemy. On the other hand if they have a secure tool that does this fine, but this seems to simplify the problem considerably b/c the key is that the guard doesn't need to know anything at all: the tool does all the work. ~~~ shub Let f(x) = y. The guards have f and y. A spy gives a guard an x, and the guard computes f(x) and checks it against his list of ys. If it's on the list, the spy can pass. The enemy has f and y too, but it doesn't help them! f(x) is trivial to compute but the inverse is hard, so the enemy knows exactly the answer they want the guard to get and no idea how to make him get it! One-way functions are very cool and form the basis of public-key cryptography, although it's quite a bit more complicated than this example. ~~~ colanderman What I don't get is: if the guards aren't to be trusted, how can the spies safely tell them x? I suppose this is why public-key cryptography was invented ;) ~~~ nandemo They can throw _x_ away after using it. Alternatively, they can cross the _y_ off their list after matching it (making it a one-time password). The idea is that the guards aren't malicious, just stupid. ------ anonymoushn The solution doesn't seem to work on its face. If the spy simply gives the guard Y, the scheme is the same as having a bunch of fixed passwords. If the spy gives the guard X, X becomes public to the enemy. Some machine that lets the spy input X (with the input hidden to the guard) and displays Y to the guard would work, assuming the guard doesn't snoop around to discover X. ~~~ blahedo Well, in this formulation, they're one-time passwords; but once the spy is back in the country they could get a fresh one. Of course the more complete solution would be public-key encryption, but they didn't know that yet in 1958 ---this idea of a one-way function is basically a precursor to that. ~~~ eru And nowadays we would probably use the discrete logarithm problem or factoring integers as the one-way functions of choice. ~~~ cdavidcash The suggested solution (modular squaring) already reduces to factoring. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- way_function#Modular_squari...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- way_function#Modular_squaring_and_square_roots) (And we'd use a cryptographic hash function anyway.) ~~~ eru Thanks! ------ thret In real life, similar problems were solved with a shibboleth. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth> Americans used 'lollapalooza' in WW2. ------ kanak Somewhat related, here's the letter that Kurt Godel wrote to John von Neumann where he describes a problem very similar to the P vs NP problem: [http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2006/04/kurt- gdel-19...](http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2006/04/kurt- gdel-1906-1978.html) ------ mcknz original text: _Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists_ [http://books.google.com/books?id=-0tDZX3z-8UC&lpg=PA79&#...</a>

Ask HN: What are your general thoughts on ActionScript? - lakeeffect Overall : What do you know or think of ActionScript? ====== taitems Making the transition from JavaScript to Actionscript 2.0, an vice versa, is incredibly easy. Once you have your head wrapped around any form of ECMAScript, it's really not too difficult at all. The help files have provided more assistance than Kirupa or FlashDen or any of those sites ever have. AS3.0? That's another kettle of fish entirely. ------ lakeeffect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript> ~~~ lakeeffect Does anyone know of a site or application that provides wikipeidia stlye data written in ActionScript?

Pinspire.com - daveambrose http://www.pinspire.com/hot ====== brandoncordell I know imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery™ but this is ridiculous. This is just a direct copy of Pinterest. I really hope this is a joke or someone's development practice. ------ robwgibbons I'm not one to rain on anyone's parade, and great artists steal, etc etc, but isn't this a complete ripoff of Pinterest? ~~~ grizzlylazer Yea I have to second you on that as I was completely fooled for a second...how is this different from Pinterest? ~~~ dlf It's European ;-) But no. As far as I can tell it's Pinterest. Maybe they're hoping to get acquired? ~~~ brandoncordell acquired... or sued? ------ gf3 That's nuts, I can't believe they even copied the name.

DriveAssist - The Software that may safe your life while your driving - fungnyitfen http://yaplc.blogspot.com/2008/10/driveassist-software-that-may-safe-your.html ====== bdfh42 My phone comes with an "off" button - you just have to press that before periods of time when you don't need any interruptions - works in and out of the car - and no idiot at the office can decide that their call is an "emergency" and thus bypass the process. Seriously - when does this "nanny" idiocy stop?

PrettyPing - colinprince http://denilson.sa.nom.br/prettyping/ ====== mrmondo Note that the link to curl on the website is incorrect, you need to curl the raw file to avoid downloading the 302 redirection message: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/mast...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/master/prettyping) PR submitted [https://github.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/pull/3](https://github.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/pull/3) ~~~ ShaneOG Alternatively just add -L to curl's command line options. ------ AlexeyMK OS X users, looks like it's on homebrew: [http://brewformulas.org/Prettyping](http://brewformulas.org/Prettyping). Just tried it, worked for me. brew install prettyping ------ leni536 Smart use of unicode block elements (2581-2588 if I'm not mistaken), nice trick with the background for that double graph. Edit: Is there a "block-width" space in unicode? Like it's nice if one can assume a monospace font, but it would be nice to draw unicode-art using these characters and a space with the same width: Edit2: Hey, HN deleted my characters, I meant 2591-2593 (25%, 50%, 75% shading) and 2588(full block). What is missing is the 0%. ~~~ anon4 Look at U+2000-2008: M M -- en quad M M -- em quad M M -- en space M M -- em space M M -- three-per-em space M M -- four-per-em space M M -- six-per-em space M M -- figure space M M -- punctuation space I think you want either 2001 - em quad or 2007 - figure space ~~~ leni536 I tried out them, they don't seem to work with the fonts I tried. I skimmed the unicode standard for "block characters" and I didn't read any constrain for the block characters on width. ------ vog This project looks great, but I find the comparison point "How easy to install?" to be very misleading. It says that prettyping is easier to install than the alternatives, but all mentioned alternatives are all readily available as packages for your distro. Also, I prefer installing via the package manager because of the integrity check. To do the same with the "curl" approach, I have to donwload the code, import the developer's GPG key, download the signature and run GPG ... Oh wait, there is no signature file for Prettyping. Not even the Git tag "v1.0.0" is signed. So I have to download from multiple sources, or email the author and ask for the expected hash value. This process is much easier if prettyping was included in the distros. So the other tools are actually better off with regard to "How easy to install?" I wish the project site would be more honest in that regard, or at least add another comparison point "How easy to install _safely_?" ~~~ denilsonsa I'm the author. Sorry about the lack of signature, I'm not well versed in GPG. Also, I suppose the man-in-the-middle issue is mitigated by downloading directly from GitHub over https. Unless there is something else I'm missing (very likely, feel free to enlighten me). Sure, I'd love to have it packaged on several distributions (I know Arch Linux already has it; and also brew on Mac OS X), but I can't do it myself. I hope users from other distros find it useful and contribute packages to their distros. Still, I wrote that comparison with good faith and based on my own experience. For instance, I once wanted to run it on a university computer that only gave me normal user access. I couldn't install anything outside my home directory, and I couldn't rely on package management. "How easy to install?" could be renamed to "How easy to install from scratch?", because everything is essentially trivial to install using a package manager. ~~~ vog _> Also, I suppose the man-in-the-middle issue is mitigated by downloading directly from GitHub over https. Unless there is something else I'm missing (very likely, feel free to enlighten me)._ There is no substitute for end-to-end encryption, from you, the author, to me, the user. The only generally accepted relaxation is end-to-encryption from the maintainer (e.g. Debian maintainer) to the user - which is what you have in the distros. Compared to those best practices, the "HTTPS from GitHub" has the following flaws: 1) You have to trust GitHub. If GitHub is hacked, or starts to behave like SourceForge, you are doomed and nobody will notice. 2) Unless all of your users do certificate-pinning, a compromised CA (or a malicious CA) may be used to issue an alternative SSL certificate for GitHub, which is then used to deliver malware. It may seem implausible that anyone would go that long way to attack your prettyping project directly. However, it is very attractive to attack GitHub as a whole and to manipulate all hosted programs systematically. _> Sure, I'd love to have it packaged on several distributions (...), but I can't do it myself. I hope users from other distros find it useful and contribute packages to their distros._ Maybe it helps to ask them. I know that Debian has a mailing list for that. Sure, you still need to find volunteers if you can't do the packaging on your own. But maybe there are people willing to do that, who just need a little more motivation. _> "How easy to install from scratch?"_ Agreed, that would be a much better wording. ------ atmosx There's a redirect and 'curl' complaints about it. To allow redirects: curl -L -O [https://github.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/raw/master/prettypi...](https://github.com/denilsonsa/prettyping/raw/master/prettyping) ------ raimue As listed in the comparison, a similar tool would be noping, which is packaged in many distributions already (Debian/Ubuntu: oping, ArchLinux/MacPorts/Homebrew: liboping). [http://noping.cc/](http://noping.cc/) ------ denilsonsa Hey, I'm the author of prettyping here! I'm a bit busy these days, but I'll take a look at the comments here and the pull requests at GitHub. In fact, prefer using pull requests and issues in GitHub. ------ owenversteeg Hm, looks really cool, but I'm running into issues with it and cw (color wrapper - [http://cwrapper.sourceforge.net](http://cwrapper.sourceforge.net)) [edit] Fixed - to fix yours edit /usr/local/lib/cw/ping and comment everything but these lines: #!/usr/local/bin/cw path /bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:<env> usepty ------ oakwhiz Pretty cool - it reminds me of the Cisco IOS ping command. ------ gcb0 the irony that just because the original was boring stream of text allows everyone to create spify, non extensible, versions. ------ runholm I am colorblind. ~~~ zeeZ I am nearsighted. The subject here is prettyping and not us, though. Try: "prettyping's color scheme is not compatible with my specific type of color blindness and I would like to suggest the author add additional color options". Sounds less egocentric IMO. ~~~ denilsonsa Indeed, feel free to suggest alternative color schemes. Also, prettyping already has a --nocolor option. EDIT: On a second thought, prettyping uses the standard 16 terminal colors, so any user can customize the color scheme in the terminal itself. ------ ademarre It took me a moment to realize the name derivation was pretty + ping. My eyes first grabbed onto "typing", then "pretty", and for an instant considered if it might be a portmanteau of those. I didn't catch on until actually reading the first sentence on the page. ~~~ david-given _Pretty Ping_ is the name of a minor character from Barry Hughart's utterly excellent book _Bridge of Birds_. [https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/958087-bridge-of- birds...](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/958087-bridge-of-birds-a- novel-of-an-ancient-china-that-never-was) ------ seletskiy Beautiful colored unicode output. But why on the Earth it's implemented in bash/awk? It's completely unmaintanable and unfrendly for contributors. Just look, how GitHub syntax colouring gives up on 46 line of prettyping script. I mean, that it doesn't sound like a right tool for the job, and argumentation, that it can be just curl'ed and executed doesn't sound like a good one. curl'ing binaries is not the way systems should be configured, while packages is. And if software is packaged, then it doesn't actually matter (from installation usability standpoint) will it use bash/awk or more convinient language for implementation (python, golang, whatever). But it will make huge difference for maintaining and further development of software.

Maza – Like Pi-hole but local and using your operating system - tanrax https://github.com/tanrax/maza-ad-blocking ====== hnarn I've been using [https://nextdns.io/](https://nextdns.io/) for a while and I really like it. You can do DNS over HTTPS through Firefox (sadly not on an OS level in Windows for example, but that's fine -- I'm sure OS level support works better on Linux), and it supports a lot of user-level customization. You can add and remove entire blocklists, you can black/white-list specific domains, see logs of your blocks, some analytics, create your own redirects etc. and it doesn't cost you a thing. The main website does a pretty good job of explaining the selling points. You can use it as-is but if you want user-specific configuration you'll get a custom URL that looks something like "[https://dns.nextdns.io/c8g88a"](https://dns.nextdns.io/c8g88a"), and whatever comes in that way will use your settings and will be logged as per your configuration (of course, you can disable logging). ~~~ darkteflon I’ve just looked into this - it looks excellent. Can I ask: is this an all- round superior solution to running your own pi-hole? I set up dual redundant pi-holes on raspberry pi 4s on my home network but switching all devices to NextDNS would give me access to filtered DNS even when away from home, plus save me the trouble of running two raspis (including two Ubuntu instances) just for that purpose. Could anyone knowledgeable in such things suggest any downsides to a wholesale switch? ~~~ jlkuester7 I recently spent a bunch of time comparing NextDNS vs PiHole. The reality is their features-sets are pretty close, but I eventually settled on NextDNS and here were some of my takeaways: NextDNS Pros: * Can use NextDNS on any network (thanks to their apps or just regular DNS-over-HTTP/TLS). * (Could get similar functionality on PiHole with a remote hosted PiHole + VPN, but much more complex to setup) * NextDNS allows for multiple different configuration setups per account (so you can fine-tune your blocking/filtering differently for different devices). * (PiHole AFIK only supports a single configuration) * NextDNS IMHO had the superior UI. With more powerful config options. * In reality with some extra manual config/coding you could probably get PiHole to do most of what is in the config for NextDNS, but it would take some work. PiHole Pros: * PiHole is open source. * The NextDNS server code is closed-source, but they do have an open-source CLI client. * PiHole is self-hosted (much better from a privacy perspective). * But you do get all the downsides of being responsible for hosting something as central as a DNS server yourself... ~~~ donclark Another PiHole pro is that it can work for every device in your house (if you set it up that way). ~~~ woadwarrior01 You could also setup PiVPN[1] on the same Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole with Wireguard and setup all your mobile devices to automatically connect back home when they're off the home wifi.I've had this setup running for a couple of months now and couldn't be happier with it. [1]: [https://github.com/pivpn/pivpn](https://github.com/pivpn/pivpn) ~~~ doctoboggan I am using pihole and WireGuard. How did you set it up so that you automatically connect back home when you are off your home network? ~~~ woadwarrior01 The WireGuard apps for iOS and OSX have a configuration section titled “On- demand activation” that lets you do this. On the iOS app, I have it set to activate on cellular connection and WiFi connections to routers if the SSID != my home router’s SSID. Likewise on OSX, except for the cellular option. ~~~ doctoboggan Awesome, thank you. I am not sure how I missed that previously. ------ swinglock Who is this for, what's the point? If you're using a computer on which installing this software is an alternative, you can install a web browser with an ad blocker, which performs much better than DNS based filters. If you're not using such a computer, Pi-Hole proves DNS filtering and this software doesn't. What's the use-case between these two that isn't already covered? ~~~ huhtenberg Just for the sake of argument - to block trackers that are built into other software, eg. chat clients and some such. ~~~ lonelappde Pi-hole already does that. You can run pi-hole on your local OS with Docker. It's 5 minutes to install. ~~~ brigandish Aside from competition being a good thing, Docker itself introduces attack vectors. ~~~ swinglock Surely not more so than curling scripts from the web and executing them as root, which is the exact install procedure described for this program. ~~~ mega_tux IMHO, it's way easier to check the script content before sudoing and validate its security than validate the Docker ecosystem. ------ bestouff Or if you already run dsnmasq you can: \- uncomment this in your dnsmasq.conf: addn-hosts=/etc/banner_add_hosts \- put this in a file in /etc/cron.daily: wget -O /etc/banner_add_hosts 'https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?showintro=0&mimetype=plaintext' ~~~ leeoniya yep, i do this on my edge OPNSense appliance, except with [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) ------ lonelappde Oh, this is a wrapper for running dnsmasq. It's lighter weight than pihole but less user firendly. Not sure why the readme tries to obscure that. [https://github.com/tanrax/maza-ad- blocking/blob/master/maza](https://github.com/tanrax/maza-ad- blocking/blob/master/maza) ~~~ XelNika > Not sure why the readme tries to obscure that. I don't think it does, dnsmasq is optional. It does configure dnsmasq regardless, but that configuration only applies if you install and enable dnsmasq. As far as I can see, the script does none of that nor does it change /etc/resolv.conf. The readme is very clear about needing dnsmasq for wildcard blocking. The script also modifies the host file which will apply regardless. ------ 4nof I found there is a docker container of pihole which means it can run on anything including Windows! I tried it and it works in a docker container on windows just fine! pihole docker steps: (prereq: install docker [https://www.docker.com/products/docker- desktop](https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop)) 1.setup your docker-compose.yml file with the one listed on pihole page [https://hub.docker.com/r/pihole/pihole/](https://hub.docker.com/r/pihole/pihole/) (starts with version: '3'). 2\. save and do "docker-compose up -d" 3\. do "docker ps" and ensure your pihole is running. 4\. Go to network settings and set your DNS to 127.0.0.1 and ::1 like this: [https://mayakron.altervista.org/wikibase/show.php?id=Acrylic...](https://mayakron.altervista.org/wikibase/show.php?id=AcrylicWindows10Configuration) 5\. if the docker container is ever stopped, you will need to reverse the setup step 4 to get back internet. Hope that helps all you windows users who want a DNS blocker pihole on your machines! ~~~ jdc0589 I've been doing this for the past year or so. couldn't run pihole network wide because too many shady "deal /discount" sites my girlfriend uses kept breaking, so this was my alternative. ------ vezycash I've been using adguard's dns to block ads on my phone* because pi-hole isn't an option for me at the moment. Also set it on a colleague's phone and he's thanked me severally for it. * (dns.adguard.com private DNS in network settings on android pie) ~~~ politelemon Similar to that I've been using NextDNS - in addition to the adblock you also get custom whitelist/blacklist, analytics... and also supports DNS-over-TLS (works well with Android's Private DNS feature) and DNS-over-Https See: [https://nextdns.io/](https://nextdns.io/) ~~~ k__ What can the analytics tell me? ~~~ hnarn I've been using nextdns and I like it: for one thing, it can tell you the amount of blocked DNS queries, but it's also very helpful for troubleshooting since you can see the log of what was blocked, when, and why (which blocklist). You can then completely disable the blocklist, or whitelist specific entries if you prefer. It's a level of customization that I don't believe other DNS adblockers provide since many of them are designed to "just work". ------ stfwn Fwiw, you can run Pi-hole locally just fine. But using the hosts file like Maza does may be a little bit faster than running a DNS-server. ------ tuananh the one reason i use pihole is to block ads network-wide. this kinda defeats that purpose. ~~~ nxpnsv yes, but you have pihole for that... this is if you don't need or want to issue a network wide block ~~~ tuananh i couldn't think of an use case for this? can you explain what would you use this for? if you already have pihole? ~~~ Normal_gaussian For use on a laptop that you take into other networks (coffee shops, friends houses, work / client businesses). For use on a desktop in a network you do not control (e.g. many devs have complete local control over their own machine) ~~~ XelNika > For use on a laptop that you take into other networks I VPN to my home (and by extension my Pi-hole server) when on that kind of network. A local ad-blocker doesn't prevent MITM or malicious DNS servers. Maza won't help if DHCP is handing out the IP for a server that claims google.com is a CNAME to hereisyourvirus.xyz or if the router is transparently redirecting DNS traffic so you don't even know what DNS server you are hitting. Which means you have to use DoH or DoT as well. ------ xtf Network Wide > Pi-hole Browser > Ublock Local System > hosts-file Android (root) > Adaway (does hosts-file) ~~~ antman Android non root > Intra looks like vpn but its a DNS use with NextDNS ------ fuzzy2 On Windows, a large hosts file may lead to noticeably slower name resolution performance. Maybe it's less of a problem on Linux/macOS...? ~~~ jeroenhd I learned this the hard a few years back. The lookup performance was good enough, but every time I woke the computer up from sleep or rebooted it, it would spend ten minutes maxing out one or two cores trying to process a hosts file blocking all known malware/spyware/adware domains. This took me ages to find the cause of, I had to use a lot of highly-escalated debuggers and such to figure out what the "system" process was trying to do that was costing so much time. Once I cleared out the hosts file, the problem was resolved. ------ achairapart I'm looking for a simple tool to setup and switch to DNS over HTTPS at the OS level (MacOS, in this case), with no success. With it, I would simply switch to one of the many pi-holed/filtered DOH services[0] out there, or even roll my own on a cheap VPS. On iOS there is DNSCloak which is excellent, Android 9+ has built-in support (Private DNS). [0]: like pi-dns.com or blahdns.com ~~~ ddrt Out of ignorance, how does DNS Cloak differ/compare to NextDNS? ~~~ achairapart NextDNS is a commercial solution, there will be more limits to the free plan when it will be out of beta. DNSCloak is just a tool that let you choose different DNS resolvers, even your very own. ------ mcovey For anyone running OpenWRT, you can install the adblock package to accomplish roughly the same thing as Pi-hole does. I don't believe it supports some advanced features like DoH/DoT or DNS resolution (e.g. a1b2c3.example.com -> ad-server-that-should-be-blocked.com), but it does the basics - custom host file sources, additional blacklist rules, whitelisting, and quick enable/disable for troubleshooting. It also has an option to force all DNS traffic (port 53, so again it won't catch DoH/DoT) to go through the router. Occasionally I forget I've done this and tried `dig foo.bar @1.1.1.1` and gotten confused until I remember that my router is forcing that DNS lookup to go through it first, and then through the router's configured DNS resolver. ~~~ touristtam You can use dnsmasq on OpenWRT and other packages that void the need for an additional pi-hole. ------ petre I'm using this whenever I have a working server lying around. Unbound works great. [https://github.com/gbxyz/unbound-block- hosts](https://github.com/gbxyz/unbound-block-hosts) ------ dmclamb I use pihole for my entire home network as primary DNS and opendns for secondary (long time user of opendns, since before Cisco bought it). I also have VPN setup for remote access (esp. for mobile). I use ublock origin at the browser level. These are layers of protection from undesired content (ads, malware, porn, etc.). If one fails, hopefully the next layer will provide desired protection. I have kids approaching teen years. There is no magic bullet, and we still monitor and limit their screen time. How would you improve this setup? Just curious. ~~~ justanotherhn Are you trying to shield your teenage kids from seeing porn by accident or actively seeking it out? If it's the later you've already lost - presumably they have 4G. ~~~ Tempest1981 Or at least one friend whose parents aren't tech savvy, and aren't home. ------ p2t2p I'm using simple [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts). Puts everything into hosts file. ------ steveharman I wonder why the pi-hole tram doesn't also offer a paid tier (that they host), to help those who can't or don't want to roll their own? It could help fund future development and maintrnance costs. ~~~ lonelappde Maybe they already have a full-time job? Anyway, it's free software. Anyone in the world can do that if they want. You can do that. Also, it's poorly scoped. Pihole is just an app. Any ownclowd provider can more efficiently host it along with a bundle of every other app people want to "own" but not run locally. ~~~ GordonS While this is true, I'd put much more trust in the PiHole team than I would some random corp - by the very nature of what they've built, and how they licensed it, I'd expect them to be privacy centric. By paying for such a service, I'd also feel like I was contributing to the ongoing maintenance of PiHole by the core team. I think the GP's suggestion is a fantastic one! ------ StreamBright I just started to write this in Rust a few months back. Thanks for this project it is fixing most of my problems with Pi-hole. ------ throwaway4787 Can someone explain how the use case differs from simply using a well-curated hosts file? (like Steven Black's) ~~~ rovr138 There’s some issues with them being too big and using a lot of resources. You can even find comments about it on this thread ------ 1_player Great work! One suggestion: please make blocklists configurable. ~~~ tanrax It is not difficult, I take note to implement it. ~~~ IngvarLynn That was my thought exactly when I decided to upgrade the very much analogous script [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notracking/hosts- blocklist...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notracking/hosts-blocklists- scripts/master/notracking_update) . The end result sort of works, but I deeply regret not using sane language for the task. Result: [https://gist.github.com/ingvar- lynn/f0b84d5f750bd2e555d3f1de...](https://gist.github.com/ingvar- lynn/f0b84d5f750bd2e555d3f1ded6ef159e) ------ wp381640 I have a docker-compose.yml locally with: dnsmasq -> pihole -> stubby The first dnsmasq is for local .test domains for dev. Works well for when i'm not on one of my networks. ~~~ XelNika Why not configure your local .test domains in your Pi-hole? That's also dnsmasq, you can use the same configuration options. ~~~ rovr138 > Works well for when i'm not on one of my networks. On the go is the key here. ~~~ XelNika What do you mean? There's nothing preventing him from running Pi-hole and stubby locally in Docker. That was how I interpreted his comment. ------ amelius The point of Pi-Hole is that you can't hack it that easily compared to software installed on your local computer. ~~~ alpaca128 How is it supposed to be harder to hack? I thought the main point is to have the blocking enabled in the whole network, including devices like smartphones. ~~~ amelius Because the Pi-Hole doesn't run untrusted code, like a personal computer does (e.g. Javascript, installed applications, etc.). Same holds for smartphones. ~~~ jlgaddis I'd consider the web-based administration interface to be "untrusted code" \-- and there just a remote code execution vulnerability (due to _very_ insufficient input validation of MAC addresses) discussed here yesterday [0] . [0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22714661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22714661)

I've been tracking everything about myself - ericnakagawa http://aprilzero.com/# ====== PStamatiou Anand is my roommate. He's been doing this non-stop for the last 2-3 months (but thinking about it for the last 9), including while traveling internationally for the first month after he quit his job. The last month has been nightly design critiques after I got home from work :D ~~~ kevinoconnor7 His handle sounds familiar. Did he used to run a design company called Dragon --or something along those lines? If so I've been impressed by his design work for a long time. Really interesting to see how his work has evolved. ~~~ markgarity Dragon Interactive - yep. ------ chdir Slightly off topic, your site design is awesome. Would you share what libraries/frameworks/skills/time-resources are needed for something like this. Just curious. For me, the graphics & layout are far more interesting. ~~~ aprilzero I'm working on a detailed blog post about that. Some highlights: • Running Django on Heroku • Coffeescript, jQuery • SASS • A lot of webkit transitions & some animations • A souped up version of pjax for loading pages • Getting the data from APIs from Moves, Runkeeper, Withings, Foursquare, Github, Instagram, etc. • The run maps are a set of coordinates passed to Mapbox to make the map tiles & Leaflet for creating the SVG line. • D3 has really nice geo stuff, I use their mercator projection to convert lat/longs to points on the map of the world ~~~ thoughtpalette Love the spinning animations! Reminds me of the "tech" look and feel from early 2000's. Think Winamp skins. ------ fasteo I miss some important stats: \- Your height. To calculate your BMI and contrast it with your Body Fat %. To be a runner, your BF% is high, but I cannot see whether it is because lack of muscle ("skinny fat") or excess of body fat. As you are not logging any weight training session, my guess is the former, but I am sure you are not logging all these data to end up guessing :) \- Triglycerides: I find this much more important than LDL/HDL. It as a proxy for excess carb (either you are eating too many of them, or you are exercising too little). Remember, triglycerides are produced in the liver from any excess carbohydrates that have not been used for energy. They have nothing to do with dietary fats. \- Total cholesterol. To be able to calculate the TC to HDL ratio. \- LDL/HDL ratio. With you current stats it is at 1,5 (average risk), but it should be handy to see it in the dashboard. My suggestions: \- Do some weight training. If you goal is to be healthy, this is key. A couple of 30 mins heavy sessions per week will do it. No need to become a gym rat. \- Eat better. \- I see that you are running outdoors, but your D3 levels are mid-low. I guess you are running either too early in the morning or too late in the evening. Try to get some running with the sun right above your head (just bring more water with you) Congrats for this herculean effort. ~~~ karlb _> Do some weight training. If you goal is to be healthy, this is key._ Ignorant and sincere question: Why? ~~~ fasteo Muscle mass is a metabolic master regulator: \- It allows fast glucose clearance from blood via both insulin and non- insulin glucose transport. \- It drives bone density by pure mechanical tension. More muscle = stronger bones/tendons to support them. The usual hip fracture/high mortality we see in elderly people follows the loss of muscle mass->loss of bone strength->bone breaks->fall pathway, not the more intuitive fall->bone break. \- It serves as "organ reserve". In case of injury or disease, your muscle mass will literally keep you alive. There are some interesting studies about muscle mass on admission to the ICU and mortality/morbidity. This is the extreme case, but you get the picture. \- Not per-se, but the neurological effort you put in your weight training sessions drive the secretion of Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF improves existing neurons signaling and promotes the creation of new ones. As a side note, I have seen a _huge_ improvement in my - properly diagnosed - ADHD child after putting him in a functional "lift heavy shit" exercise program. ~~~ xiaoma Hmm. I don't find this terribly convincing. Running is well documented in its role in improving bone density: [http://healthfully.org/highinterestmedical/id33.html](http://healthfully.org/highinterestmedical/id33.html) Unlike weight-lifting there are actual studies showing running promoting neurogenesis (the increase of brain cells) and improving performance: [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=running%20neurogenesis) Finally, muscle mass is far from enough to be an effective metabolic regulator. While I have yet to meet anyone who runs 100 miles a week and is overweight, it's not uncommon to find that someone who benches 500lbs still carries a gut. I myself have gained a great deal of both fat and muscle since my school years when I was a runner. I think weight-lifting does some great things depending on one's aesthetic goals, and it's probably the most time efficient way to increase bone density. It's hardly the optimal exercise for general health, though. There are many aspects of health, ranging from neurogenesis to heart health to immune system function to maintaining telomere length that cardio most helps. ~~~ fasteo You are implying something that I didn´t mean. This is not about weight lifting vs running. Anand is already running and I suggested him to add some weight training to gain some lean mass, as his BF level (19%) is a little high, possibly due to the lack of muscle mass. For the record, I run - or bike - at least twice per week. ~~~ xiaoma That doesn't make much sense. As a competitive runner in school, I was under a 5% body fat percentage without really lifting. Now I do lift and I'm at about a 23% body fat percentage (and nearly 3x the arm strength I once had). Runners tend to have a significant lower body fat percentage than lifters, even at a professional level. More likely is that the OP just isn't doing enough. Running 25 miles a week is enough to bring about significant benefits in health and fitness along with moderate weight control benefits. 25 miles a _month_ is just a waste. Going up from 1-2x per week to 3-4x makes a huge difference. Most likely is that it's a dietary issue. While living in Asia, I knew many, many non-exercising people at healthy weight levels just because they didn't overeat like Americans tend to. The OP probably doesn't eat like them. ~~~ fasteo Uhmm, looking at all the comments to my initial comment, I think this has gone offtrack: \- I am not against running, but I consider weight lifting a necessary addition to it. \- I am not talking about lowering body fat or aesthetics. I am talking about health. A lower body fat is healthier up to a point. Single digit body fat level is just an unhealthy as a 30% body fat level. \- In the same sense, this is not about how much calories muscles burn as this is irrelevant to health. My point is about the role muscle has in maintaining homeostasis in our metabolism. \- My point is/was to help Anand: My sweet spot for body fat level is 13-14%. This is where I feel and perform the best. Anand is at 19% and I believe it is because lack of lean mass; that´s why I recommended him some weight lifting. ~~~ xiaoma > _A lower body fat is healthier up to a point. Single digit body fat level is > just an unhealthy as a 30% body fat level._ [citation needed] > _Anand is at 19% and I believe it is because lack of lean mass; that´s why I > recommended him some weight lifting._ My point was that this belief doesn't make sense. Some people who lift and have a lot of muscle mass are lean, but many others aren't. A billion people who don't body-build are leaner than the OP. An objective observation of people (or even countries of people) who are or aren't fat doesn't generate very convincing evidence for the theory that people are fat "because of a lack of lean mass". It's because of their diets. On the contrary it tends to be exactly those groups most interested in weight training who are the fattest— e.g. Americans and, to a lesser extent, Anglophones in general. [http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Health/Obesit...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Health/Obesity) ------ hunvreus Beautiful website indeed; there are a lot of carefully crafted details, especially for navigation. I genuinely wonder though what to do of it. I can't seem to see what people do with all this data; what does one get from knowing how many steps, run, calories, subway stops and hours of sleep were accounted for in a day, every day. I can see how one could be rigorous enough with his training to see value in some of it, similarly I would see myself trying to improve my sleep patterns. But really, so far, people I've met use this as yet another distraction. I have yet to meet anybody who has been leveraging the data they collect; most (all?) people I know eat healthy, exercise and sleep well do so without relying on devices. Now, once we're able to track real health related data continuously, we may be able to detect illness or problems as soon as they arise and effectively create a feedback lookp. But from where I stand, as of today, these things are just gimmicks. ~~~ hluska I have enjoyed lifting weights for years, but in October 2013, I took the plunge, bought a bench, some bars and some plates, and started seriously lifting. When I started seriously lifting, I collected some bench marks. I collected my one rep max, six rep max and ten rep max in four different exercises. Then, I collected data on my pulse rate after doing a ten rep set in various exercises. When I work out, I collect what exercises I performed, how many sets/reps, and what kinds of weight I lifted. And, I intended to check my benchmarks once a month, but in practice it has worked out to be closer to every six weeks. Roughly nine months later and collecting that data has proven very beneficial. For example, with strength training it is too easy to get into a routine and then keep banging out that same routine every day. I always know what I did the last time I worked a muscle group, so I feel intense pressure from myself to either move a few more pounds, bang out another set, or add a few more reps to a set. And, I get to track how various lifestyle changes interact with strengh training. For example, in December, I broke my right thumb cross country skiing and had to take some time off lifting. Weirdly, the time off actually increased my bench and shoulder presses because I was using my left (non-dominant) side significantly more often. Balancing my right and left sides made me significantly stronger. Or, in May, the snow was gone so I started jogging again. Jogging improved some aspects of my lifting - for example, my heart rate after a set has dropped since I added in jogging. But, it has also hurt other aspects - for example, my gains in strength are actually slowing. Incidentally, monitoring my jogging showed me that my tendency to settle into a routine carries across into other forms of exercise. I realized that I was running the same route every single time in roughly the exact same amount of time. My body got used to a level of effort and then stopped getting better. Just because the 'people you have met' use this as a distraction does not mean that everyone will. And, just because all the people you know eat well and exercise regularly, it doesn't mean that everyone does. Some people find that the simple act of tracking their performance keeps them motivated to continuously improve. Others have goals beyond 'be healthy' and need to monitor their progress if they have any hope of reaching their goals. ~~~ xiaoma >"Incidentally, monitoring my jogging showed me that my tendency to settle into a routine carries across into other forms of exercise. I realized that I was running the same route every single time in roughly the exact same amount of time. My body got used to a level of effort and then stopped getting better." This is the _trifecta of slow_ —consistently low mileage, no hills and running at the same speed every workout. ------ Jemaclus I like it. My big beef with it so far is that it looks like most of this stuff is input manually by Anand. (The 1200+ commits suggests that it's manual and not automatic.) I'm not anal enough to spend that kinda time tracking things. I have a Fitbit, a scale that i step on every day, Strava to track my runs, etc, but those are all things you just put on (or push a button) and forget about. Things like climbing (which I also do) don't have automatic trackers, and tracking food intake is just too cumbersome these days for me to even try and keep up with that. If there were better ways to automate these things and better APIs available to pull these things in automatically, I'd totally build something like this. I just don't have the time, inclination, or the energy to manually add the climbs, the calories, every food item, and myriad other things into the system. So I'll say this: it's beautiful and full of very, very cool info. I just wouldn't do it myself unless I could generate all of that data. A handful of commits to build the site, and then let it update itself automatically via APIs. Granted, this means my site would be a bit less interesting, since the most interesting things on here are things you can't automatically track... but I'm working on plenty of other interesting things, and this just doesn't rate high enough on my list to do. I'm jealous, though. Very well done. ~~~ mirashii For what it's worth, having worked with Anand, I don't think 1200+ commits suggests it's input manually (you can see on the about page a list of some of the APIs it's pulling data from), I think it more suggests that Anand likes to commit a lot when he's building something. And for good reason, it's been really cool to check out historical revisions and see how a design changed at every step. ------ ChuckMcM If the cops ever ask you "Where were you last week on Tuesday at 8AM?" you'll have a solid answer for them :-). My question is 104 days and no journal entries? Is the author reflecting on this information or just logging it? I ask because I have a lot of unformed questions and thoughts about what is known as the 'quantified self' movement. Given the technological memory of all these things, what insights or changes do you draw/make? ~~~ PStamatiou Yeah he's (my roommate) been working on building the site and hasn't gotten around to any journal entries yet. He just launched this yesterday. I've been egging him on to put more time into the blog component though, so expect some posts about how he built it and why he wants to log everything.. ------ arondeparon I think the site is absolutely beautiful. What I am wondering, though is: how are the vitamin/mineral stats on [http://aprilzero.com/sport/](http://aprilzero.com/sport/) generated? Is there a way to self-measure these stats without blood tests? ~~~ aprilzero There's no way that I know of besides blood tests. It's a bit painful but not too expensive and in my opinion well worth it. The blood levels are coming from a standard blood test, available at any doctor's office. I've been getting them about once a month. You need to fast for at least 8 hours prior to get accurate results, and it takes about 2 vials of blood. I'm waiting for some sort of device to give you realtime values with just a prick of blood or constant monitoring. ------ cmdrfred Wow. This site discourages me, as I feel that I may never make something so pretty. ~~~ philfreo Don't let it... Anand is a rare breed :) ------ gress This is an astonishingly beautiful website, and clearly shows the technical and design skill of Anand. However, I'm genuinely not sure what the purpose of this dashboard is other than as a résumé piece. What questions does it answer? How is it better than doing specific investigations using R? ~~~ gress Seriously, how is this downvoted? It's a sincere question. I enjoyed looking at the site, and I loved the interface, but I didn't get any insight into the data. Can someone enlighten me? ------ ArikBe Nicholas Felton has been doing something similar for a couple of years, but he creates a printed journal: [http://feltron.com/ar12_02.html](http://feltron.com/ar12_02.html) I would be interested in a turnkey solution with modular components that would allow people to quickly "snap" together a site like this. ~~~ djtriptych Check out Felton's other site - daytum.com. It's an app and website that helps people get started, though the fancy visualizations aren't modularized just yet. ~~~ hboon And [http://www.reporter-app.com](http://www.reporter-app.com), an iOS app, also by Felton. BTW, anyone knows why it is Nicholas Felton and feltron.com? (with and without "r")? ~~~ rismay His friends gave him the nickname "Feltron" ------ nathan_f77 The design is absolutely incredible. I started using TicTrac [1] a little while ago, but it's not great. I hate that I have to set up and arrange everything myself. I really want to just wire up my accounts, and let a professional designer show me the information in a beautiful way. Other dashboards like Geckoboard [2] and TicTrac only let you dump a bunch of boxes on a page. The sports page on AprilZero is an amazing example of a cohesive design, where everything is laid out in a far more useful way. For the last month, I've been tracking what I eat with MyFitnessPal, and have been tracking my weight every morning with a Withings wifi scale. It's extremely powerful when the data is collected effortlessly, and for the first time in my life, I'm on track to really change some unhealthy habits. Entering food in MFP is still a PITA, but I've managed to keep it up so far. It's been one of my dream projects to design a personal dashboard like this, especially in the style of the Iron Man movies. This website has exceeded everything I imagined. I hope it becomes open source one day, and that I can contribute a ton of new integrations and sections. Or if not, please let me pay to use this service! [1]: [https://tictrac.com](https://tictrac.com) [2]: [https://www.geckoboard.com](https://www.geckoboard.com) ~~~ ezl seconded. Anand, I would pay for this as a service. Please let me. ------ ipince Kind of random, but why is there so much time (entire days) spent in hotels when traveling? Is that due to Foursquare (or whatever) not allowing you to check-in to other places or did you really stay in the hotel the entire time? If so, doing what? It's a genuine question--I basically NEVER stay in hotels beyond the required sleep time, so I'm curious as to how other people do things. ~~~ aprilzero The data is accurate. Probably mostly sleeping, working or eating. There is a bit of a bias towards those being the most noticeable places since you spend a lot of time there, while other stuff you do may only be for 10-15 minutes and relatively is very little. You may be surprised by how much actual time you spend at home or a hotel even though it feels like you've gone out and done a lot of stuff during the day — by percentage of total time in a day it may not be that much. Also many places have a lot of nice facilities that might still count as being at the location like restaurants, bars, rooftops, pools, beaches, gym, etc. ~~~ aprilzero Just looked through it again and I think the lack of time difference is causing what you're talking about. All of this stuff is fixed on pacific time, even when halfway across the world. So in Asia, the middle of the day will show boring sleep at the hotel, and the actual activity gets split up at the beginning and ends of the timeline. Not ideal but I haven't figured out a good solution for that yet. ------ tlrobinson Honestly, the only reason I use Foursquare and various other personal tracking things is I hope someday to be able to export the data into a nice visualization like this. ~~~ LunaSea But in the meantime you give up any sense of privacy. ~~~ tlrobinson Meh, at least I know exactly what I'm sharing, versus most people who have no idea a variety of corporations and three-letter agencies could get basically the same information from their cell phone, toll road transponders, license plate readers, credit card transactions, etc, etc, etc. ~~~ dhruvasagar just so you know, all the information that's stolen from people without their knowledge, also happens to you, so the sense of knowing exactly what you share is honestly just an illusion. ~~~ tlrobinson I'm under no illusion. Just saying sharing on Foursquare doesn't make much difference. ------ hawkharris Personal health recording systems like this one are most useful for reporting symptoms to health care providers. In the event of a flu or a running injury, I like being able to tell my doctor exactly when, where and how the problem started. It's also smart to record the data yourself instead of sharing it with a health tracking app. With due respect to those projects, I draw a line at sharing specific and private health information. I've arrived at this personal stance after weighing the benefits of information sharing against the risks of my data being leaked, mishandled or mined. ~~~ k-mcgrady >> "Personal health recording systems like this one are most useful for reporting symptoms to health care providers. In the event of a flu or a running injury, I like being able to tell my doctor exactly when, where and how the problem started." I agree but recently I read that doctors tend to completely discount this type of data provided by a patient as they can't verify it's accuracy (did the patient collect the data correctly) and it would be risky to base their diagnosis on it. Even if that is the case I think it can be very useful for people with chronic conditions. They can find out ways to minimise their pain through this kind of tracking/trial and error which a doctor would never have the time to do. ------ rkayg This site is gorgeous. There is so much attention to detail. I don't quite understand the barely visible half curves right above the transport row for a particular explorer day. ~~~ Evan-Purkhiser I think the half curves just represent some form of travel. If you look at March 29th [1] there's a large curve for his 8 hour flight, and some small gray ones for walking to his gate [1] [http://aprilzero.com/explorer/march-2014/29/](http://aprilzero.com/explorer/march-2014/29/) ------ danoprey Looks like HN took it down. Will have to come back later as the screenshot looked awesome. ------ thallukrish If Anand had not done this whole thing artistically, there is no way it would have elicited interest. What if every one on the planet did this?. Then this whole thing becomes terribly boring and meaningless no matter how it looks. I am pretty sure many got attracted by the design rather than the content itself! ------ fuzzythinker Very beautiful animations and visualizations. What tools did you use to build them? ~~~ Nemcue There is an "about this site" link at the bottom, where he lists some of the third party services used. In general he has a few global objects which seem to contain everything for each section; ajax requests, animations (which are webkit only as far as I can tell) etc. Most of it is done via jQuery. ~~~ Excavator > animations (which are webkit only as far as I can tell) So that's why people were calling it pretty. It does actually look good with all that prefix nonsense fixed. Seems odd to use prefixes for things that were unprefixed 2years ago in Firefox. [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/aurora-16-is- out/](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/aurora-16-is-out/) ~~~ LocalPCGuy One of my pet peeves is when people are so "in" the webkit world they don't bother to even list the unprefixed version. I too looked at it in Firefox, and things actually look a bit broken. My guess is adding the unprefixed version would probably fix the majority of the errors I see. I won't go so far as to say stop using prefixes, but ALWAYS include the unprefixed version last in the CSS stack. It's so easy with Sass also. ~~~ Excavator Insofar as I could tell, doing a simple s/-webkit-//g got things working, except for the gradients due to them still being in the old format. ------ dominotw Can someone tell me what is the point of this self obsession with tracking? Why do I care to document where I went or which rock I climbed. Has narcissism finally become socially acceptable? ~~~ criswell I think it's nice to look back at. I don't think it's too much different from looking back at a photo album. ~~~ sejeneoske It's nice to have metrics to measure your progress with an exercise routine (walking, running, strength training), weight loss effort (lbs lost, fat %), etc. Although there are always narcissists, I think many people just like quantifying their progress. Just like receiving grades to measure your understanding when you were in school, these metrics allow you to assess whether you are moving in the right direction, and if so, to feel a sense of accomplishment. Wanting to be fit and healthy does not equal narcissism. ------ josyulakrishna This has to be the most beautiful website i've seen. ~~~ jackweirdy Agreed; such a satisfying font and colour scheme. Really well done. ------ sgarbi I'm on a tablet now, what libraries is he using? ~~~ tangue Jquery + d3. Surprisingly it works quite well on my old Ipad 1 (graceful degradation for the animations). Javascript heavy websites usually crash safari ------ XorNot So a criticism of the stats: the health page bars for electrolyte levels are poorly conceived - they give the impression that "higher is better" (there's no numbers on them) - not whether or not the value is within the relevant "normal" range (which itself, should be adjusted for age/demographics as well). ------ ejain There are several existing services that aggregate and visualize fitness and health data, for people who are too lazy to build their own site :-) I'll plug mine here: [https://zenobase.com/](https://zenobase.com/) ~~~ johnpc What other aggregators are out there? No offense but I'm struggling to figure out how to import my fitbit and moves app to zenobase. ~~~ ejain See [https://zenobase.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/360890...](https://zenobase.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/360890-how- does-zenobase-compare-to-other-services) for a list of services that aggregate health and fitness data. The screencasts at [https://www.youtube.com/user/zenobase](https://www.youtube.com/user/zenobase) should give you an idea of what you can do with Zenobase; if all you need is a nice dashboard showing recent data, there are simpler solutions like TicTrac. ------ afaqurk Anand, you beautiful, brilliant bastard. That site looks awesome beyond compare. Awesome job. ------ tabrischen I love the design and feel of the site. What would you say are the most important insights from tracking your activities that lead to any significant changes in your lifestyle? ------ brenfrow I would be really interested to see your stats change by being effected by different diets. I'm interested in something like Paleo vs Veganism. ------ platz I love the site and design. Maybe displaying some values at nine decimals out is perhaps a bit more for eye candy than for information. ------ sgy Quantified-self raises huge privacy concerns, and will make it easier to "rule the world". ------ johnpc What tech are you using to track all this? A fitbit? What apps/wearables are you using? ------ vova_feldman This is insane! Amazing work dude. Btw. love the UI/UX. ------ ing33k for some reason this page reminds me of dcurtis's home page some time ago. ------ kevinwang This is beautiful. ------ kayoone its beautiful, however even the rather static looking "sports" page produces some decent CPU load and makes the fans in my rMBP spin up. Maybe that could be optimized :) ------ liotier "Everything" ? Unless you publish a daily graph of your sperm count, it is not 'everything' ! ------ jowag So much personal details but no mention of the age? Grand example of SF's ageism. ~~~ abritishguy It says he is 24. ~~~ bennettfeely Actually, it says he is 24.2827266, in counting ~~~ dpweb Amazing site, I think I like the age counter most of all! ------ pdknsk Reminds me of a guy who was on Bloomberg West last year. He does it to become more productive, and find out what makes him less. [http://www.bloomberg.com/video/using-sensors-to-track- your-e...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/using-sensors-to-track-your-entire- life-67q3ZGiERROz9vnEjniD_A.html) PS. The website is well done, but in all fairness, similar websites were made in Flash more than 10 years ago. ------ tarere " great website" "fantastic" "fabulous"... ??!!! So nobody feel that tracking everything you do every second and log it in real time and forever on a server is terribly frightening ?!!!! In 2005 i predicted every one who ever logged on facebook would regret it one day and pay a huge price for it. This is more than real now. Still you don't stop, and now you're sending to "them" in realtime your heartbeats, your weight, what you yeat, etc. Did you just forgot about LIFE ? Is this the next American Way of life ? So yout think totalitarism is Iran or Syria ? Pouarrrk !!! You guys are totally out of your minds. Seriously. ~~~ afro88 It's only frightening if it's not deliberate / you don't know it's happening. This is beautiful, voluntary and insightful. ~~~ tarere "It's only frightening if it's not deliberate / you don't know it's happening." Oh my god, how old are you all ? Are you the next generation of this world ? Don't you just understand you behave like products and not human !? This is possibly the end of the world. ~~~ afro88 Pretty sure your comment was tongue in cheek, but as a parallel to the older generations and this guy - consider that an autobiography is the author voluntarily revealing details about their life to a potentially massive audience. This is the same sort of thing, but without the narrative. It's also a work of art. ------ taway98765 Nice PR campaign to prepare the floor for a new generation of wearables / tracking & monitoring devices .. don't get me wrong, I like(LOVE) the technology, I just don't like the idea of becoming a self-sponsored spy pawn on me and everyone around .. focus on privacy, local/self hosted services first, hardened leak-free hw, cloud data encryption(with keys not leaving your devices) by default + 1000 of other privacy-related challenges that are being largely ignored .. and since this is not in the fin. interest of hw manuf./main sw houses .. the world is becoming a modern, more efficient, better organised version of orwel's 1984 and it looks like regardless of the amount of information confirming this disturbing development, people naively trade 15min of fame for privacy again and again(and it - will - turn against you even if you are protesting in front of the "right" embassy - well, activism of any kind is considered a threat these days so better stick to those kitty pictures and comments about the newest season of <insert your favorite tv-series> ) ~~~ jackweirdy Paragraphs!

Ask HN: How do you come up with a price for an API? - chirau ====== elorant 1\. Check your competition, or anything remotely similar. 2\. Ask potential clients for various prices to see which one sounds more affordable. 3\. If both 1&2 fail you'll have to improvise. Assume the worst case scenario for adoption (aka less than 1% from intended clientele), and the minimum amount of money you need to be barely viable, and then you come up with a number. Be as pessimistic as your comfort zone allows you.

(A Few) Ops Lessons We All Learn the Hard Way - ryukafalz https://www.netmeister.org/blog/ops-lessons.html ====== rhabarba > Serverless isn't. This!

Ask HN: How does Google Voice search get input w/o flash? - tibbon In Google search now you can use your audio input to search. My question is how are they technically doing that in HTML/Javascript?<p>I've been told that HTML5 doesn't have an audio input object, but that's what it seems they are doing here. Any tips of how I'd implement similar? ====== Khao They have this feature implemented inside of Google Chrome (or maybe it is Webkit, I am unsure) and I take it that you're using Chrome to test this feature. As far as I know, it's an experimental API that they have added to the HTML5 specs. In the video in that blog post they say that you need to have the latest version of Chrome to use it : [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/knocking-down- barrier...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/knocking-down-barriers-to- knowledge.html) ------ dstein Yeah this is a Google Chrome specific feature. Chrome records your voice, uploads an mp3 to a Google server and returns the text. It is about the least efficient way to accomplish the task. Ridiculous really. Our operating systems (even Windows95) have had speech features forever, but it's implemented in a very clunky way. Instead there should be a standardized speech-to-text input, or JavaScript API where I can use my operating system's built-in speech features. ~~~ wmf The built-in speech recognition in your OS isn't as good as Google's (and it may not even be there — think Linux or Chrome OS). ~~~ dstein My quick experiments with the Chrome speech input says otherwise. It is both less accurate, and less useful than the built-in speech-to-text in MacOS. There exists speech systems for Windows and open source ones for Linux that are "good enough". The point isn't really about accuracy, it's about usability. The way this is implemented in Chrome does not make it possible to use voice commands to do operations in a web browser. That's what we need. We don't just need a voice input for Google search.

Application Idea - Local History - rodh257 http://cejest.com/2011/12/10/application-idea-local-history/ ====== teyc I believe there is one start up who is doing this.

What the new video compression strategy from Netflix means for Apple and Amazon - ca98am79 https://donmelton.com/2015/12/21/what-the-new-video-compression-strategy-from-netflix-means-for-apple-and-amazon/ ====== SwellJoe I wonder at his premise that consumers are choosing things based on wanting larger file sizes and higher bit rates. Most of my friends literally could not tell you anything about their mp3 or movie collection in terms of bit rate. Half of them you'd need to explain what "bit rate" means, before even asking the question. I only think about it for my DJ music collection (and VBR is fine in that context, I'm just ruling out CBR stuff below ~192kpbs, because sometimes it sounds a little harsh on the high end over the big speakers); never worry about it for video or music streaming. If it's HD and looks/sounds OK, I don't think about it at all. Netflix and Amazon both have acceptable quality, so I don't think about it, I just consume it. I think the success of Spotify and Pandora and Rhapsody are proof that consumers don't care about quality. I don't know exactly what bit rate they're streaming at, but, it sounds pretty bad on mobile, so I assume it's something quite low. But, even though I recognize the crappiness of it, sometimes I listen to them in the car (my truck has a crap stereo, anyway, so no big deal there). In short: Cool article, but the suggestion that consumers will stop it because they want bigger files seems weird. ~~~ swang I think you're missing the point. Consumers don't care, until some listicle website or advertising firm points out that Amazon/Apple short you on your mp3s by not even offering 128kbps all the way through. Or imagine Amazon goes with pure VBR, then Apple makes an ad claiming their sound quality is "better" because their bitrate never dips below 128kbps. It's bullshit, but how is an average consumer suppose to figure this out? They'll probably err on the side of caution and buy the CBR version since, "it can't be any worse than the VBR one, but I don't lose bits and it's the same price!" The whole article was talking about streaming vs. downloading. Streaming is _fine_ and Netflix will probably get away with their compression, but will Amazon/Apple be able to do that with downloads? He doesn't think so. People are fine with Spotify/Pandora because there is no perceived ownership of the songs they're streaming. People who actually buy and download audio or video, they have money in the game so they want "the best" and any loss of that is viewed as Amazon/Apple screwing them over. ~~~ SwellJoe Has that ever happened? I mean, have there been consumer revolts over bit rate that have cost Apple or Amazon customers? Pono and Tidal don't seem to be killing the existing players, but perhaps I'm just not up to speed on the state of the industry. ~~~ swang There is no actual "revolt" because both Apple and Amazon make sure it doesn't happen by using CBR. You're right in that consumers don't care about it all that much. But let's say Amazon decides to go with VBR to save space and download speed, now there's an easy way for Apple to attack Amazon. "We never dip below a certain quality. Amazon does. We care. Amazon doesn't" Maybe that ad/slogan works, or maybe it doesn't. But if you're Amazon would you be willing to risk some weird consumer backlash over it? And if you're Apple it is an easy point to attack, and if it doesn't work, no harm no foul (and then secretly also switch to VBR and announce it at the next Apple conference!) ~~~ SwellJoe So...um...Apple and Amazon have been shipping VBR files for _years_. ~~~ swang I am not sure if there's confusion or what but this is literally discussed in the article. So I am not sure what you're arguing exactly. The article discusses how the VBR files have been encoded with minimum bitrate constraints in the fear that someone will make a big deal out of it if it dips "too low" ~~~ SwellJoe VBR with a mininum bit rate != CBR. And, to be clear, the article is making a guess that Amazon or Apple are imposing a minimum bit rate to insure some lower bound on file size. I don't think there is really any solid evidence that Amazon or Apple are making decisions based on trying to make file sizes bigger to convince consumers they're getting "more value". I took exception to the premise, which is why I commented above. I don't believe Apple and Amazon are making decisions based on trying to increase file sizes, and I find it weird that the article suggest they are. I believe they are trying to maximize audio quality at smaller file sizes. Evidence seems to indicate that is what is happening. And, we've come full circle to the point of my initial comment. I don't think the argument he's making about maintaining large file sizes is backed by evidence or a particularly good understanding of consumer behavior/preference. I do think his guesses about the Netflix algorithm are interesting, but his digression into consumer behavior is less so, IMHO. ------ shmerl I'm waiting for something like Daala + Opus starting being used by huge services like Netflix. Youtube already uses Opus. Apple? It will take them another 50 years to start using free codecs. UPDATE: A post on IETF blog about standardized free video codec effort: [https://www.ietf.org/blog/2015/09/aiming-for-a- standardized-...](https://www.ietf.org/blog/2015/09/aiming-for-a-standardized- high-quality-royalty-free-video-codec-to-remove-friction-for-video-over-the- internet/) ~~~ gillianseed I'm somewhat confused, is this a different effort than the royalty free codec which is being developed by Google, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Mozilla, Cisco, Intel under the name 'Alliance for Open Media' ? ~~~ shmerl Regarding the video codec, it's the same thing, except one in IETF is the actual engineering group, and that AOM is more of an administrative one that synchronizes all the bureaucratic stuff probably (legal as well I guess). UPDATE: See here: [http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html](http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/67752.html) ~~~ gillianseed Ah, thanks, makes sense. ------ hanklazard "But I suspect that was a problem. You see, it would probably be difficult to sell those VBR files — some of which were quite a bit lower than 256 Kbps and a few even lower than 128 Kbps — because customers might perceive a loss of value." The vast majority of customers do not care about the actual Kbps, as long as the sound quality remains above certain standards. Just market the different quality levels at different prices and most people would never think twice about it (and most would choose the cheapest version). ~~~ ohitsdom If enough "audiophiles" repeat the claim that Apple or Amazon has worse audio quality, it could seriously hurt their brand's reputation. ~~~ dexterdog Isn't Apple + Beats enough to convince people that Apple is not about audio quality? ~~~ eli Isn't the popularity of Beats (not to mention default iPhone headphones) proof that Good Enough is fine for most people ------ mrdrozdov Major question about this comment. > They all have the same server farms. Owned by Amazon, no doubt. And there > aren’t any technical hurdles. It’s just more computation. Does Apple use Amazon's servers? I thought Apple ran its own hardware/data centers. I've definitely heard war stories of Apple towing trucks full of racks into the desert so they could bump their capacity for cheap. ~~~ olau Apple's contemplating building a server farm not terribly far from where I live, so no, I don't think they're using Amazon. I think that comment is supposed to mean that they all have access to big clusters, not that it's the same clusters. ~~~ JustSomeNobody All they need is a half dozen powermac supercomputers. But seriously, could they not be using Amazon until they finish building out their own farm? ------ ksec There used to be a group of people who cared about bitrate. They wanted 64kbps Audio that sounded better then MP3 128Kbps, which till today still isn't possible. Be it AAC, HE-AAC, Vobris, or the new Opus. Despite the hype every time a new codec arrived. There used to be a group of people who wanted codec that is the same quality as Lossless at 256Kbps to 320Kbps. Personally I think MPC ( Musepack ) accomplished it. And it is patentless as well since it is based on MP2. But the codec never caught on in Hardware world. Meanwhile AAC does about just as well @256kbps despite being more complex. That was in the Naspter -> iTunes download era, Then time flies, both group of people lost interest. Mainly for the same reason. Both group wanted to store as many music downloads as possible. 1st group dont mind a little quality loss, 2nd group wanted near perfect quality @256Kbps, however HDD prices dropped to a point where 1st group dont mind storing them in ~256kbps and 2nd group will simply store them as lossless FLAC. Then we come to the age of Streaming, that doesn't necessarily means only Apple Music or Spotify and the like, the largest music streaming is properly Youtube. People dont download anymore, They just click and play on Youtube. It tuns out, I think we have reached the stage of "good enough". Whether it is audio, or video. With Video, we can get huge improvement if we smooth out the noise / grain details. Our broadband speeds continues to improve, we will have G.Fast & VDSL2, the next generation of DSL broadband tech. Most kids or youngster of this generation dont care about Audio / Video quality as much, they would rather want instant and ease of access. ------ azinman2 Ok everyone is stuck on the bitrate argument and consumer choice. However I'm more focused on if this plan is even possible. Could Netflix really want to throw so much money at transcoding so many ways? Are there various tricks to do this at a reasonable cost? Like grab random 10 seconds across 15 points in a movie and try just that? Work with top n most popular first? Sort by existing biggest movies? ~~~ lnanek2 Doing the transcodes is pretty much a drop in the bucket for NetFlix. Even transcoding the same movie 1000x at full length is pretty meaningless to them since it is a fixed cost against their library size. What they really care about is things that are multiplied by the number of users they have. Saving 5% of bandwidth on 100k users is very meaningful to them. So doing extra transcodes to figure out what to send is very valuable. They've come and given talks at Cloud dev meetups and just an unexpected bump in bandwidth or delay in server response time causing traffic to back up is enough to knock over their servers and they do things no one else would even think of, like having their clients upload code to their servers to batch requests together in the optimal format for the clients, just to reduce bandwidth and load on their network. ------ kevin_thibedeau I would bet money that Amazon ran into this same conundrum with the unconstrained VBR mode of the LAME MP3 encoder which they use. Lame has always had a way to set minimum and maximum bounds on the VBR bit rates. I would bet that Amazon has at least one employee who knows this. I used to use this a lot with a hardware player that couldn't handle VBR above 224 kbps. ------ KaiserPro Why would apple et al follow? Unless there is any noticeable affect on quality/streaming ease then consumers won't care. You have to remember that most people can't/won't tell the difference between blueray and DVD, let alone bitrate change. More importantly they have lots of silly TV effects that actively fuck with the picture (Sharpening, Aspect ratio stretching, over saturation, active motion, and other horrid "enhancements") The only reason netflix et al is a thing is because of the content, not the platform. (just look at how shit iTunes is to use) You can make the most wonderful interface in the world, but if there is no content, there is no point. Streaming does cost money, but that's not the main cost of business. Most cost comes from licensing the content in the first place. (Then paying all your staff to do fancy things) Seriously bandwidth is pretty cheap, compared the the cost of buy the license to broadcast a top rated movie. (a high ranking movie is easily a few $million. custom TV series is anywhere between 1 and 30+ million for a season.) ~~~ johngunderman The article seems to focus too much on the consumer side of the bandwidth equation. I think the real win for Netflix is the aggregate egress bandwidth savings from their DCs. If Netflix can halve their bandwidth (as the article seems to claim) without any appreciable loss in quality, they've just saved substantially in the infrastructure and peering contracts needed to deliver their content. I have no idea how much money Netflix currently spends on bandwidth/CDN, but I'd guess it's certainly in the 100s of millions. I can imagine that Amazon and Apple would be very interested in emulating those savings. ------ sbouafif It's completely normal for Netflix to work on that and end-consumers wont see a difference. That's exactly what's been done by illegal release groups (pirated content) which are very picky when it comes to time to release (encoding/sharing) and do their best to encode fast enough while having a good viewable quality. When it comes to encoding, even for a large library like Netflix's, time to encode is always lesser than time/bandwith saved while sharing/streaming. As of now, Netflix 1080p raw content (not transcoded) is delivered at a bitrate of 5200kbps/5900kbps with no differences between the content (animated or live action - here I compared BoJack Horseman to The Ridiculous 6). While many (or even all) high quality release groups encode animated bluray at around 3000Kbps (1080p) (around 5500kbps for very high quality) while live action is encoded at around 11.0Mbps. The same difference is applied when the content is capped from TV and then encoded. ~~~ paulmd This also varies by the target audience. Stuff that is released via publically-tracked torrent (i.e. for mass-market audiences) often targets around 1.5-2 GB for a feature-length movie in 1080p. In contrast, releases aimed at Usenet (the technical crowd) are often 6-7 GB and sometimes as large as 11-13 GB for the same movie. On the other hand the situation is much more equitable for audio. Lossless audio torrents are pretty common even in the torrent world, and due to the typically greater number of torrents available the overall selection of lossless files is probably at least as large as on Usenet. I would assume that private trackers tend towards higher-quality releases. ------ grandalf As more video moves to higher resolutions (such as 4K) the amount of bandwidth wasted by inefficient encoding increases exponentially. While consumers only care if the quality is "acceptable", it's pretty easy to tell the difference between a crisp 4K picture and a 1080p picture, and also easier to see encoding or bitrate artifacts. So I think this is probably an attempt to improve the margins a bit on content delivery costs without sacrificing quality. Netflix has also embraced 4K content with its original series, so it is in a unique position to leverage the shift to higher resolution content for maximum profitability. ~~~ lern_too_spel I see it more as an attempt to offer better quality to people with crappy ISPs as they expand to more countries. Previously, they would have seen a low-res Bojack, but now that Netflix can decide that a full HD encode of Bojack can fit in a smaller bitrate, those people will see a high-res Bojack. It might even be related to the T-Mobile announcement that allows people to watch Netflix without eating into their data caps as long as the bitrate is capped. ------ discreditable People get really excited about this revolutionary "quality based" encoding and to me it just sounds like -crf in x264. For trying to hit a constant bitrate, I've heard of people performing a -crf pass, then taking the average bitrate of the result and using that for a constant quality encode. With this method, you let the encoder figure out the bitrate for the quality target you want to hit, then you can use that bitrate in a constant quality encode if you like. ------ jordache author's point is weak. users of netflix is not concerned with knowing what bitrate the video is. It just needs to have an acceptable quality. ~~~ sangnoir > users of netflix is not concerned with knowing what bitrate the video is That's part of the author's point: if netflix can halve their bandwidth without users noticing, they will earn massive savings. Apple & Amazon will also want in on the savings (being competitors and all) ~~~ jordache that must have been a nuanced point. He had much more emphasize on the strategy of differentiation via bitrate. ------ JustSomeNobody Consumers don't understand bitrate for videos. They only care if they can watch 1080p on their 1080p TV. It doesn't occur to them that resolution is only a minor player in digital quality. ------ HappyTypist Let's assume that consumers even know about or care about bit rate. Apple and Amazon could offer two downloads, VBR and CBR. ------ nickpsecurity Really neat stuff. Can't wait to see it in FOSS software so we can save some space in our video collections. :) ~~~ brigade OSS encoders (x264, Theora, VP9, Daala, Vorbis) already tend to have a constant quality rate control mode that they'd very much prefer you use unless you have an actual reason to need a specific bitrate. I'm always surprised at how many people try to reinvent it via abr... Netflix (and streaming services in general) on the other hand needs known bitrates with known constraints so their bandwidth estimation can work correctly without hiccups. Your personal video collection does not. ~~~ nickpsecurity So, it only affects bandwidth and not storage space? ~~~ brigade No - the point is that true constant quality has (almost) no constraints on local bitrate, so one section of a movie might be twenty times the bitrate of another section. Online streaming services continually estimate the current available bandwidth, then choose from a selection of pre-encoded streams to download. For this to work well, the selection must know the maximum local bitrate of each stream to match the estimation. If this local maximum isn't known or constrained, you get buffering because you're attempting to download a stream that's actually currently twenty times more than the available bandwidth. Whereas your personal video collection probably isn't being streamed over any link slower than several hundred MBit/s, which is more than enough for anything short of intermediate codec bitrates, plus significant buffering doesn't count against any data caps. ~~~ nickpsecurity Makes sense. Thanks for the detailed explanation. ------ thecosas Love the closing sentence from this article: _I don’t know. It’s hard to predict because consumers… well… we’re fucking stupid._ ------ reiichiroh Are they just using H265 HEVC?

Announcing the C++ FAQ - fafner http://isocpp.org/blog/2014/03/faq ====== xjh [http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/](http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/) ~~~ fafner The FQA is silly and out of date.

Office UI Fabric - BobNisco https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI-Fabric ====== mbesto > Does not support IE8. [0] Thank you MS, this is well-needed ammo. [0] [https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/gh...](https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/ghdocs/GETTINGSTARTED.md#supported-browsers) ~~~ gtk40 But supports old Safari on Windows and no Firefox on Android? ~~~ acdha Safari on Windows isn't terribly surprising since it's probably based on a set of core features they need and there's a long list of things which are in old Safari but not IE8: [http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+8,safari+5.1](http://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+8,safari+5.1) Firefox on Android seems like it might just be something which they don't see enough demand for to make it an officially supported browser. It'd be interesting to see whether it actually works on office365.com. ------ jbrantly For those looking for examples of what it looks like: [https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/gh...](https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/ghdocs/FEATURES.md) [https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office- UI-Fabric/blob/master/gh...](https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/ghdocs/COMPONENTS.md) ~~~ jasonkester Hmm... Not quite the example I was hoping for. There are some cool looking components in there, so naturally I wanted to dig in to the source and see how complex the markup needs to be to pull that off. Turns out it's actually pretty simple. Just include this IMG tag: [https://camo.githubusercontent.com/6f327f2c8f7c225358d52bec9...](https://camo.githubusercontent.com/6f327f2c8f7c225358d52bec9155dd5d50cfaa08/687474703a2f2f6f6475782e617a75726577656273697465732e6e65742f6769746875622f696d672f506572736f6e61436172642e706e67) ------ untog The key part: _Fabric solves many of the same problems that other front-end frameworks do, in a way that is specific to Microsoft. We have our own design language and interaction patterns that all Microsoft apps share._ This is specifically designed for people to make add-ons to Office 365 that look like they belong as part of the software. While I don't doubt you could use it standalone, I don't see MS advocating that you do. ~~~ jbigelow76 I don't agree, it seems to be a subtle attempt to spread the Office brand by means of trying to make it's styling more prevalent. The first line of the release seems to point at using the UI outside of Office as well as with add ons: _Office UI Fabric is a responsive, mobile-first, front-end framework for developers, designed to make it simple to quickly create web experiences using the Office Design Language._ ~~~ oblio Well, this is the best kind of promotion: we get quality stuff for free, they get free exposure and also seem hip, unlike Microsoft circa 2010. ~~~ jbigelow76 Yeah I didn't mean it as a dig when I mentioned the spreading of the Office brand. I will finally be able to build an app that doesn't linger in default Bootstrap styling forever :) ------ tajen How legal is it? Ok it's MIT license, but if I use a UI design, do I infringe on Microsoft's imtellectual property? Is UI design copyrightable? I have the same question for another UI framework, which by default comes with the creator's design guidelines: Is it enough to change the color of the header to avoid brand confusion and be safe from infringement? From what I can gather, UI design patents actually exist. However Apple won against Samsung but lost a case against Microsoft, which demonstrates that it's still important to patent UI functionnality (such as the bounced scroll) in addition to the graphical elements. [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/4020/protecting-a...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/4020/protecting- a-user-interface-design-patent-and-or-copyright) Any further answer is welcome. ~~~ icebraining IANAL, but in some jurisdictions, there's something called promissory estoppel - essentially, if you promise something that is expect to lead people to act in a certain way, you can't then sue them later for doing so. Microsoft themselves have successfully used that defense against Motorola Mobility (though that case was relative to the price of the licenses, not whether they could use it at all). ------ paulojreis Looks good and seems well built. However - like Bootstrap - it has this kind of mark-up that I'm starting to strongly dislike: <div class="ms-Grid-col ms-u-sm6 ms-u-md8 ms-u-lg10">Second</div> I get that this - like Bootstrap - is nice to get a quick start and start deploying but, as thing grows, it gets harder and harder to maintain. I'm not all for a semantics panacea but this is hard to read and, I imagine, harder for the browser to parse. Nowadays, I'd rather be very dumb with CSS (just one class) and let SASS handle the complexity. In this case, I'd create a class with an adequate and meaningful name and, in SASS, do the composition they're doing in the class attribute - @extend the needed column definitions per media-query. I like the idea of having the class/style composition duty done at SASS compile time and not by the browser at runtime. ~~~ zodiakzz Erm, you are simply misinformed. I use Bootstrap and I never use any presentational classes, these are just provided for convenience (although a huge amount of people abuse them). Bootstrap provides LESS mixins like .make-row(), .make-*column() etc. to keep your CSS semantic. ~~~ paulojreis I am not misinformed regarding Bootstrap; unfortunately I have extensive experience with it. :) Anyway, I should have remarked the fact that mixins do exist and semantic class names are totally possible with Bootstrap. I was just pointing out the kind of mark-up which appears in the example I quoted and, typically, in Bootstrap-powered stuff. It's not a problem with the framework, of course, but - as you said - people abuse the pre-made classes. Regarding Bootstrap in particular, I think most people just import the compiled stylesheet (so, no mixins & other assorted goodies). ------ ckluis This looks like it could benefit from a parent site explaining/showcasing all the features. What I could see so far looks like a big step up for many LOB applications. ~~~ jbigelow76 Agreed. At first I thought it was some kind of UI/scripting add-on for Office extensions, it took a re-read to realize it was more akin to Bootstrap and Foundation. ------ gapchuboy Naming hell again by Microsoft. Why fabric? Windows Server AppFabric [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/Ff384253(v=Azure.10...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/Ff384253\(v=Azure.10\).aspx) Azure has App fabric and fabric controller. ~~~ SmellyGeekBoy Maybe a play on Google's "Material Design" ? ------ donutdan4114 Built with LESS... What's the current state of SASS vs. LESS? It seems like a lot more CSS frameworks are using SASS and it has more plugins, tools, mixins, etc. But I haven't kept tabs on it in a while. ~~~ joshuacc For a long time, Bootstrap was the flagship Less project, but they've recently switched to Sass. Some of the increasing momentum in Sass is probably due to libsass, a C-based Sass compiler that can be used without depending on Ruby. (And is also _much_ faster.) Just FYI: Neither Sass nor Less should be written in all-caps. See the respective websites. ~~~ bennylope libsass is - understandably - a few versions behind the Ruby implementation. Most of the project teams I've been on working with Sass have opted for the Ruby implementation as a consequence. ~~~ Flenser The ruby version is on feature freeze until libsass catches up. ~~~ Flenser citation now I'm on desktop: > In fact, Ruby Sass will not release any new features until LibSass catches > up. Once it does, there will be feature parity between the two moving > forward. Soon, we’ll have the blazing speed of LibSass with all the features > of Ruby Sass! [http://sassbreak.com/ruby-sass-libsass- differences/](http://sassbreak.com/ruby-sass-libsass-differences/) ------ nailer I posted earlier in this thread that this looks like the first time you can use Segoe UI legally in a web app: that's wrong. Fabric CSS doesn't actually include the webfonts. [https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/gh...](https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/ghdocs/FEATURES.md#typography) ~~~ gordjw Seems to be licensed on a "per core" basis from Monotype. Perhaps I'm missing something, but that makes no practical sense to me. Typography.com's model of per site licensing is much more understandable. ------ rw2 Why is there no demo website? No front-end framework should be without a component (listing each component) and a demo section. This is shoddily done compared to Google's material lite. ------ aaronbrethorst The fourth and fifth results on Google for "fabric" are: Fabric - Twitter's Mobile Development Platform https://get.fabric.io/ With Fabric, you'll never have to worry about tedious configurations or juggling different accounts. We let you get right into coding and building the next big app. Welcome to Fabric! — Fabric documentation www.fabfile.org/ Fabric is a Python (2.5-2.7) library and command-line tool for streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems administration tasks. It provides ... ~~~ dragonwriter > The fourth and fifth SERPs on Google for "fabric" are A nitpick, perhaps, but SERP is "search engine results page" [0] -- a page of results from a search engine. Those are the fourth and fifth results -- all on the first SERP -- not the fourth and fifth SERP. [0] see, e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_results_page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_results_page) ~~~ aaronbrethorst doh, thanks for the correction! ------ urs2102 This would definitely benefit from having a link to a demo or at least to a webpage implementing the compontents rather than asking users to download and then go through a process to try out samples to view them. On the positive side, it's good to see no support for IE8. ~~~ nightski If you go to the "Features" link there is a screenshot of every component. ------ metaphorical Any demo link? ~~~ nailer [https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/gh...](https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-UI- Fabric/blob/master/ghdocs/FEATURES.md) ------ toolz I don't do much front-end work, so maybe I'm just missing something, but are all of these frameworks really that much different? If this just for people who haven't learned one of the other frameworks or is there a compelling reason to switch? ~~~ vukers I think all the front-end frameworks are pretty similar, but if you are building Office add-ins, or some other application that lives in that ecosystem, then there is value in adhering to consistent UI elements. I think there may be additional insights on their announcement post: [https://blogs.office.com/2015/08/31/introducing-office-ui- fa...](https://blogs.office.com/2015/08/31/introducing-office-ui-fabric-your- key-to-designing-add-ins-for-office/) ------ CephalopodMD So this is M$'s response to Bootstrap which implements M$'s response to Material Design? Not bad! also RTL font support is nice. ~~~ daok Do you really need to use the dollar sign? That looks so childish. ~~~ jbigelow76 Without the dollar sign the potential for error is obviously far greater, for instance somebody might have thought he was referring to Martin Scorsese. ~~~ jevgeni Or Multiple Sclerosis. ------ brokentone I'm having a little trouble figuring out exactly what this does, but while I do... I'm recalling the wonderful history Microsoft has with web dev -- Frontpage, IE 5.5, IE 6... ~~~ vonkow Don't talk smack about IE 5.5, unless you think AJAX was a bad idea.

The void of undefined in JavaScript - Nassfyr http://shapeshed.com/the-void-of-undefined-in-javascript/ ====== ars The correct solution for this problem of undefined is to do nothing! If someone redefined undefined and it causes a problem - too bad! Some problems are just too stupid to worry about. ~~~ CodeCube indeed ... I'm surprised no one has mentioned "wat" yet :P [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat) ~~~ tripzilch Absolutely brilliant/hilarious video. ------ drostie > _Let 's say someone is using your library within that function and you > reference undefined. You get the string "oops". Oops indeed._ That is incorrect. It might be correct if the word 'library' was replaced by 'code snippet' to indicate a copy-and-paste-of-your-code issue. But if you've created a _library_ then your functions are over in some other file, where `typeof undefined === "undefined"`. The proper attitude here is the same as the Python attitude towards not having `private` attributes: "If some other programmers want to do something crazy with my code, that's their prerogative. If it blows up in their faces, that's their problem." ~~~ kaoD Even if it was in the same file, as long as it's in a different function it'll work. If `undefined` is an argument name, it's only bound inside that function and nowhere else. ------ marijn I find the cult of ' _oh my god you can redefine_ _undefined_ _'_ hilarious. Yes, you can. You can also redefine __Array __, __Object __, and so on. If you 're writing a script to intentionally disrupt a system, __for(;;); __will also do. This doesn 't happen in sane environments, so it really isn't a problem. The Crockford quote (characteristically dogmatic, to the effect of ' _void means something different in JS than in Java, so AVOID VOID!_ ') is also a kicker. ------ lubomir > […] if you throw your scripts out there on the web you've got to expect that > somewhere, at some time someone is going to do it […] And then it will be that persons' problem. Their code would be wrong, not mine. By not making sure my code works when undefined is broken, I would be helping them to realize they have a possible bug in their codebase and that they need to fix it. ~~~ PommeDeTerre This is one among many serious, and unjustifiable, flaws with JavaScript. It's the kind of issue that should never even arise with anyone's code in the first place, regardless of who wrote the code, because the language and its implementations should not allow it to happen. And, yes, we know that other languages have flaws, too. But aside from perhaps PHP, the flaws in other languages are almost never as outright stupid as they are with JavaScript. ~~~ coldtea > _And, yes, we know that other languages have flaws, too. But aside from > perhaps PHP, the flaws in other languages are almost never as outright > stupid as they are with JavaScript._ Citation needed. There are tons of languages with huge fucking flaws to blow your code and kick your dog. PHP and Javascript are relatively harmless (if a little brain damaged). At least you don't get buffer overflows using them. You think C++ has a better design, for example? People forgot how bad Python used to be, pre 2.4? ~~~ pgcsmd No, the OP was correct - other languages have flaws but nowhere near the level of Javascript. You pick on C++ which is a design by committee monstrosity but it is nowhere near as braindead as Javascript. I mean, C++ allows you to include other code! C++ doesn't allow you to redefine the constants of the language. Actually, C++ _has_ constants! Nope, as much as I like to rail against the sins of C++, it is a paragon of design virtue next to JS. I've been programming for three decades now and JS is the worst language I have ever seen. I use JS a lot in my day job and it has parts I really like (object constants, for example) but really, as a piece of language design it is really the pits. ~~~ aboodman #define ? ~~~ PommeDeTerre That's not really a C++ construct, as much as it is a hold-over from C, kept around to retain compatibility with existing code. If you're writing new C++ code, you're in no way forced to use it. You can use constants or inline functions to achieve the same result in almost all cases. ------ benaiah Isn't this whole issue just a minor version of the problem Ruby has with monkeypatching? The fact that a Ruby guy can define `method_missing` to allow for bare strings shows how Ruby is cool (though you should never do that), but the fact that you can redefine `undefined` in JS shows how JS is stupid (despite the fact that you should never do that). I don't understand the dichotomy. ~~~ chrisrhoden People don't typically inject frequently changing, unvetted advertising code into their ruby runtimes. Generally, the most frequently that the ruby code in your runtime changes is each deploy. ~~~ benaiah Granted, but that's an incidental problem, not one arising from JS being a bad language. Also, I highly doubt there is much advertising code that changes the value of "undefined" \- certainly not any I've encountered. This really boils down to "my code won't act the same way if I give unfettered access to my environment to unvetted code" which is true in almost any situation. If you're having problems because "undefined" is being redefined, you have bigger and more fundamental problems. There are a lot of bad things about JS, but this is not one of them - its overly nitpicky and completely unfair. This same capability (of being able to redefine almost anything) is lauded as part of Ruby, but when it could theoretically cause any easy-to- avoid problem in JS, it's just more proof that JS is a shitty language. Sorry if I'm coming across as combative - I don't mean to. I just think this whole snide criticism of JS for every little thing is silly and unhelpful, and has more to do with a superiority complex than actual technical issues. ~~~ gwright In general you are correct, redefinition in Ruby can be abused, but it isn't so easy to abuse 'nil' in Ruby as it is to abuse 'undefined' in Javascript. In Ruby, nil, is a keyword so you can't assign to it nor can you use it as a method parameter. ------ mkohlmyr I tend to read these sorts of articles as "don't do stupid things". Who in their right mind would name an argument undefined? (or use a library by someone who would do so) The operative sentence in the article to me is "can be avoid if you understand how it works". On an unrelated note I'm not sure if that's a typo or a pun. ------ ChrisAntaki Has anyone ever seen "undefined" be redefined, on one of their professional projects? ~~~ arethuza A quick search of github gave this line: var undefined= undefined; Which has a comment explaining that it is an optimisation based on the idea that "defined variables are faster than not-defined ones" \- I have no idea if that is true or not. [https://github.com/Searle/mothello/blob/c31fc57bedd666e9da34...](https://github.com/Searle/mothello/blob/c31fc57bedd666e9da34c12d2f5068af80964899/v2/core.js) I wonder if this counts as redefining undefined though! The comment also suggests that jQuery does this, which seems to be true as explained in this link: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7141106/undefined- variabl...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7141106/undefined-variable-in- jquery-code) "undefined in the jQuery code is actually an undefined parameter of a function wrapping the whole code" Presumably if you have your own local undefined that is guaranteed to be undefined then you are safe from someone else setting it to be something silly. Edit: The jQuery sources are all wrapped in: (function( window, undefined ) { ... })(window); ~~~ moron4hire If you have to guard against someone doing something silly, then you are never safe. The problem is not the language at that point, it's the environment. ~~~ MaulingMonkey To err is human -- you're never safe. Even if we say people are the root of the problem, fixing their fundamentally imperfect nature is currently beyond the capabilities of science, whereas doing something like enforcing constants at a language level is not. Education will reduce, but not eliminate, the chance of making such a mistake. ------ wldlyinaccurate jQuery does it right: (function( window, undefined ) { // ... })( window ); ------ scrabble There are a lot of potential pitfalls in coding JavaScript. Redefining undefined is only one of many. One of the nice things about JavaScript is that it gives you the ability to accomplish things many different ways, but if someone uses that to shoot themselves in the foot then that is something they need to correct. ------ lelf > _If you have done more than one day 's programming in any language you will > realise that this is an important building block for programmers._ I guess my _any_ languages are different. Never realized it's importain in haskell (except it is ⊥). ~~~ thesz Exactly. There is no void in hardware, for example. Also, there's no bottom either. ------ aphelion The worst thing about undefined is not its mutability but that it exists in the first place. Trying to retrieve a non-existent attribute should throw an error by default, not fail silently.

Ask HN: Language/framework recommendation for a once-upon-a-time coder - customer Dear HN:<p>I used to code a few years ago (Bachelor's in CS) and then moved to Technology Management. I want to come back to my roots again and "develop some web apps" (just downloaded Aptana) - I know it sounds silly.. What's the most clean, easiest to learn language/framework should I start with? TIA. ====== Scott_MacGregor PHP/Zend Framework is not the easiest but you might want to consider it. Depending on what your planning it is scalable. I understand Ruby has some scalability issues for large enterprise-class applications unless you are willing to throw a ton of computer hardware at it.

LA to use Open Source for transportation management - arnieswap https://www.tfir.io/2019/08/29/city-led-open-mobility-foundation-uses-open-source-to-manage-transportation/ ====== oehtXRwMkIs Good to hear, though I wish any sort of public money required public code nationwide.

Ask HN: Why Can't I Downvote Submissions? - jerhewet I&#x27;ve been a registered user since 2010, but I haven&#x27;t been active for the past six years (give or take).<p>I&#x27;ve recently had copious amounts of free time to catch up on everything, and when I logged back into HN I discovered my priviledges on the site had been rather severly curtailed.<p>My best guess is I&#x27;ve been pigeon-holed as a &quot;troll&quot; because some of my comments diverge from the hive-mind that used to -- and possibly still does -- make up the majority of the contributors to HN.<p>Just because I don&#x27;t buy into the HN group-think doesn&#x27;t mean I&#x27;m a troll, or that my opinion (read as: downvote) has no merit.<p>I haven&#x27;t really wanted to downvote anything I&#x27;ve seen in the past nine months, but I feel a recent posting merits my downvote... but that&#x27;s apparently not an option that&#x27;s available to me.<p>Dunno. Maybe things have changed around here. But if I&#x27;m a long-time verified user of this site I would hope that my opinion -- even if it&#x27;s a negative one -- would carry <i>some</i> kind of weight. ====== breakerbox I think you need 500 karma or so. ~~~ jerhewet Ah. I'm sitting at 297 right now, so that does make sense... and thanks for clearing that up for me! ~~~ Minenash As a relatively new person, I didn't even know anyone could downvote ~~~ eindiran Users with >500 karma can downvote comments, not stories. No one can downvote stories. ------ kstenerud You can't downvote submissions; only comments.

Secrets of the Little Blue Box: The Best Account of Telephone Hackers (1971) - linhir http://www.lospadres.info/thorg/lbb.html ====== Osiris Wow, that was nostalgic. I remember when I was a kid reading about the blue boxes. I was fascinated, but by that time the computer age had started and I spent my time on Commodores and early IBM PCs. It all reminds me on how much time people spend today working on jailbreaking, rooting, and otherwise hacking their phones, consoles, and computers.

Don't Drown in Documentation - rbanffy https://dev.to/grappleshark/enough-with-documentation ====== daly Funniest bit of satirical writing I've seen in years.

When GitHub kills Open Source - rsaarelm http://t-machine.org/index.php/2012/01/13/2012-the-year-of-uncollaborative-development-or-when-github-kills-open-source/ ====== pilif For every contributor to an open source project in the old days, there might be fifty failed forks on github, sure. But for every five failed forks, there will be one that thrives and which commits get accepted back. What you are seeing is both an explosion in contributions and a permanent log of every failed contribution ever. This greatly affects your perception. Back in the old days it was infinitely harder to provide and apply a useful patch, so it wasn't done in nearly the same frequency. Contributions were limited to a small circle of people motivated and skilled enough to climb the huge hurdle. Nowadays, creating and submitting a patch is trivial, so the hurdle is much smaller. Hence you will get many, many more people to try and contribute, which, because of how github works is also visible to the public for all eternity. At least in my case, none of my patches I sent in in the old days and which were not accepted are visible anywhere. Heck, most of the time you'd have a really hard time at even finding the patches that were accepted. Github is far from killing open source. Quite to the contrary. But as visibility increases and hurdles get torn down, you might have to adjust your perception of reality. ~~~ turbulence I think you have to read the article again, because you are talking about something quite different. ~~~ pilif Not necessarily. If a project doesn't merge a proposed patch, the patch could simply be deemed inappropriate for the projects chosen direction. So if a fork doesn't get merged upstream, I see this as a failed fork. If a upstream stops working on their project and stops accepting patches, the outlined problems can happen, but just look at any random sourceforge project not updated since 2006. In the old days, there was practically no way for other contributors to get back on track, but it wasn't logged for eternity either - the project just died. Today, Github at least provides a chance to get back on track, but, again, your perception might be altered by the fact that on Github you don't just see the successful reboots, but also all the failed ones? ------ jaggederest As someone who has dealt with this, it's not as big a deal as you might think. Most future forks are based on older forks, so all the person at the end of the line has to do is fast forward onto the end of the branch. One FF merge, push, end of story. When you have bifurcations, you can do an octopus merge - git is _really_ good at resolving these things. Very little human effort is needed except where multiple revisions change the exact same line in different ways. In addition to this, most patches that people submit are quite small. Even if you have 200 people submitting patches, the odds are that most of them fall into two categories: people fixing the same bug, and people working on completely different sections of code. Neither is a substantial problem to merge. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I had to do any nontrivial merge work on patches from contributors... And you're pretty delighted to do it - it means they fixed something that _really_ matters. ~~~ adamrg (as the author of the original post) In theory, yes. And I never used to worry about this. But over time, in practice, it's been a bigger problem than I think you're giving credit to. e.g. ... "Even if you have 200 people submitting patches, the odds are that most of them fall into two categories: people fixing the same bug, and people working on completely different sections of code. Neither is a substantial problem to merge." IME ... in practice, this is a HUGE problem. Because every one of those developers fixes the bug in a slightly different way. The longer time goes on without the original Author fixing it, the worse it gets. And the cost to them - or anyone! - of sifting through the "100 variations on bug fix #123" becomes greater and greater. Usually, you want to cherrypick individual lines and characters from 5-10 of the best "solutions" to the bug. If you'd avoided the "100 alternative fixes", then those "improved" solutions would have been built on the "basic" solutions - and merging would be easy. But because you've got to this massively-forked scenario, all of the patches have been written independently and incompatibly. ~~~ moe _But because you've got to this massively-forked scenario_ That may be true for the 0,0001% of projects that have so many contributors that they need dedicated release managers and such anyway. The remaining 99,9999% projects are just grateful for github making contribution so easy that they're now receiving patches at all. ------ pixelcort It's not that hard to do this: git remote add other_user_who_forked git://github.com/other_user_who_forked/project_name.git from within your checkout of your fork. In one of the projects on GitHub that I've forked, we are merging between each other without the original project owner even being involved. ~~~ ge0rg And this does not even need GitHub support. I'm using remote repositories to maintain projects with >10 contributors without much effort. ------ yummyfajitas I don't get it. _If A disappears with merges pending … then B/C/D find they have 3 distinct codebases, and no way within GitHub to do a simple cross-merge. Now, the situation is not lost – if B, C, and D get in contact (somehow) and negotiate which one of them is going to become “the primary SubAuthor” (somehow), and they issue manual patches to each other’s code (surprisingly tricky to do on GitHub)..._ If B, C and D get in contact via, I dunno, github messages, and pick a primary subauthor, it's very easy to issue manual patches. If I'm B: git remote add C ... git remote add D ... git pull C master git push github master I agree github might not have a button for this, but I'm pretty sure most github users are comfortable with the git command line. ------ xdissent I really did feel the same way as the author for a long time, but I haven't yet seen any of my fears manifest in practice. The vast majority of forks die without fanfare after serving some singular purpose. People who want to contribute code do so more easily than ever. People who fight over ownership of open source projects are just jerks like they've always been. There may be more of them, or more of them are more visible now that we all use Github, but I consider this a trivial downside of an otherwise remarkable ecosystem. ~~~ jaggederest I've seen smooth transitions between _de facto_ ownership of projects a ton, but never a bitter divide where both ends are actively maintained. One pathological example is delayed_job, which has changed 'leadership' a few times over the years. It's still pretty easy to look at the 'network' graph and choose the endpoint you want... or just use the published gem. ~~~ xdissent I've been the leader of a project I assumed from another guy that he assumed from yet another guy and then the original guy even assumed leadership back after a while. No one missed a beat. If you're involved in this community, you are most likely capable of tracking down the "correct" fork. Unfortunately, the "published gem" part is the one that has given me the most trouble historically. But now that pretty much everyone uses bundler for gems this should be a nonissue - you can even specify a branch of a fork that you'd like to build. ------ acdha The author has this completely backward: this is fundamentally a social problem - the difference is that with GitHub it's actually visible. Anyone old enough to remember the pre-DVCS era should remember chasing down patches in bug trackers, blog posts, etc. and maintaining local forks — with the requisite terror-inducing periodic gigantic merges. Now we've lost all of the manual labor in that process and made it easy for anyone who wants to do things the right way to do so – it's still possible to waste your collaborators' time if you really want to but before it was almost a requirement of the process. As a minor point of craft, this also illustrates an area where more training is needed: the problems described are most common when someone makes a fork and keeps every single commit in a single branch. Using feature branches – and it'd be awesome if Github started encouraging that with the fork & edit model – makes most of the listed problems far more manageable. ------ babarock When you hear Linus speak about his workflow when working on the kernel, he always mentions his "Web of Trust" concept. I think the problem is not inherent to github, but rather to the idea we have when we foolishly think of the possibilities combining git and a social network. The truth is, programming is still very much about people, and you need to trust the people in order to pull their code. Trusting the people goes beyond trusting the code. If you give me great code, then disappear or decide to make an unmergeable fork, it will harm my project as described in the article. On the other hand, if I get to know the people behind the pull requests, learn to talk to them and get them to be more involved in the project, then the risks exposed can be easily circumvented. ------ iamwil Actually, if you fork from the main branch, you can still pull commits from other collaborators--though I don't know if you can send pull requests to other people, haven't tried. But it is doable. There is nothing to stop you from making another remote branch that tracks another person's repo and share code that way. ------ alexchamberlain I don't agree that GitHub is killing open source. However, the author has a point. It is hard(er) to merge into other forks, which is a shame since git is so good at this. I'm not critising GitHub, their software is great, but in the next iteration, they should consider addressing this. ------ DasIch Most Open Source projects die. That's why CPAN, PyPi etc. are able to have such a huge number of packages, a significant part, if not most, has no documentation, tests, support or is dead all of which in practice is more or less the same. "In the old days" you didn't notice it as much because those projects just disappeared but with Github they don't, in fact they're all over the place. I'm not sure if this is a problem or one big enough worth caring about but in any case Github isn't the problem. It would be nice if authors could "archive" or "abandon" repositories which could be filtered out on searches by default and be displayed less dominantly on profiles. ------ 6ren To be fair, the usual consequence for a project that loses its Author is to die. It seems that github could facilitate the migration of an "ownerless" project to a designated fork - including facilitating the selection of who has the designated fork. Just support for the informal process outlined in the submission. It's interesting that linus deliberately avoided having a "designated fork" in git, but instead made them all equal, and you just pull from who you trust. Of course, in his case. _his_ fork was the socially designated one, so this was not a problem he experienced or had to solve. ------ obtu The commit graph (gitk --all if you are using plain decentralised git, GiHub's network graph for the convenient everyone-github-knows online version) makes it quite obvious which author is good at reviewing and integrating patches. With a little bit of side-channel communication, a deficient maintainer is easy to replace. Also, someone who is late at merging patches won't have a lot of difficulty catching up. If they did no divergent work at all, it's just a matter of picking the best integrator and fast-forwarding. ------ AdrianRossouw I don't think projects faltering out due to the bus factor [1] not being taken into account is github's fault. set up a team repository and give multiple people commit access? Team/project accounts should probably be more of a standard feature of open source projects on github, once things get beyond a certain point. [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor> ------ riosatiy Wow, no offense dude but this was a really crappy post. This problem have existed for all eternity, just as other people are stating: There are a lot more projects, people who contribute and transparency of those than before. And choosing that title. It just seems you are writing one of those. "Look at me! I am writing something controversial"-articles ~~~ chimeracoder Welcome to HackerNews! Since you're a new user (green name), a friendly explanation of why you seem to be getting downvoted: At HN, we try and encourage respectful discourse, even when we dislike or disagree with what is being said. If you'll look at the other articles, other people seem to agree with you that the article is poorly written and that the title is sensational, but they aren't being downvoted because the way they phrase those complaints comes across as less insulting or _ad hominem_. ~~~ riosatiy Excuse me, I will use better phrasing next time. Thank you for the friendly explanation. ------ potomak It's a little bit extreme but I understand your point of view. Anyway I think GitHub helps open source more than how it kills it. ------ aliguori I think the author is missing something that makes Open Source work that few people appreciate. It's a fundamentally lossy development model. A certain number of patches/features end up in /dev/null for any Open Source project. You can think of each "fork" as a new start-up trying out a new idea. But instead of reinventing the entire world, they get to start with a functioning product. The vast majority of these start-ups will fail but the ability to experiment (and fail) with forking is fundamentally what makes Open Source development better (at least IMHO) than proprietary development. A lot of people look toward Open Source development thinking that there's a lot of wasted development and that that's a problem worth solving, but that's like the government trying to make 100% of businesses successful. ------ robot This has nothing to do with github. Github is what it is as the name suggests, it's a convenient hosting platform for git projects. The fix/merge issues are between developers and has been around since open source first started. It's people issues, not github. ------ powertower Here is a question: How do you handle merging someone else patch into your dual-licensed project? The GitHub hosted code is GPL, but your other code license is for commercial projects (you charge a fee for the NON-GPL license). Obviously, the patch is based on the GPL project, but you don't have copyright on that patch (to be able to merge it into the non-GPL codebase). Do you ask the contributer to give you the copyright? What if it's a simple bug fix that's only a few characters? What if the contributer says no? Is there a way to make this happen smoothly? ~~~ desas 1\. Yes 2\. See [http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality- re...](http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality- requirements.html) 3\. If it can only be written one way then it's not copyrightable ianal. 4\. Canonical and others require that you fax/email a signed document to them e.g. <http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/oca-486395.html> ------ cykod This reminds me of the famous Churchill quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Most of the article is true, but GitHub is also leagues above anything else out there, and certainly leagues above the mailing list with hand-crafted patches by de-demonizing forks and turning projects more into a meritocracy. There is certainly room for improvement, but I think it's a step in the right direction. ------ wavetossed The very fact that both forks are available on github means that you can check out both forks, then merge changes locally. After that, you can use the merged code to create a new github project that is not a github fork of the original ones. If you really have a tangled web of failed forks, this is the way to fix it by starting afresh with a merger of the best forks. ~~~ turbulence From your comment I see you have not gone through the "fun" of merging 3+ projects with varying degree of changes. ------ astrodust What would go a long way towards fixing this is having an organization plan that's free, but only allows public repositories. That way the code could be entrusted to more than a single individual as it is now. Commit rights are one thing, but having ultimate control over the repository is usually limited to one person. ------ timkeller Ha! If anything GitHub is doing more to keep Open Source development alive and healthy than any other company. ------ omarqureshi I fail to see a better alternative unfortunately. The only way that you can stop this is by having multiple maintainers for a project so that projects don't just die if the main maintainer is hit by a bus. And yes, this crappy, albeit well known situation is not just specific to Github. ------ keeran Was this written (conceived) before the new pull requests mech & UI was introduced? How can the dead end of an ignored patch submission be better than what we have now? ------ av500 reading that makes me wonder how open source projects existed at all _before_ GitHub... GitHub exposes the once private forks that people had lying around on their HDDs, so I count that as a plus. As for developing open source in a collaborative way, that goes much further than just a git infrastructure, there's mailing lists, patch reviews, roadmap discussion etc... exactly like in ye olde days ~~~ adamrg (as author of original post) Agreed. But GitHub did a lot more than just that - across the board it removed the barriers to collaboration (I used to run a few projects on SourceForge, and contribute to others; the ease of GitHub was like a breath of fresh air). It got people excited and feeling free and able to collaborate. ...and so (I suspect) we're today _less tolerant_ of unexpected barriers to collaboration. GitHub gets you hooked, then makes it extremely difficult to manage the "handover" part of a project (something that SF - for all its failings - handled pretty well). The projects that die this way may well never have existed without GitHub in the first place - but that's not an excuse to just kill them off under a burden of maintenance crud. ~~~ hunvreus I think your post fail to recognize a few things. I am not going to point out the various other argument, however I think you'd need to acknowledge the fact that first, there are much more people contributing to OSS nowadays than during the "SF's days". Moreover, with the acceleration of online collaboration in all its forms, we are overwhelmed with new trends that are sometimes hard to interpret. I genuinely believe that these trends tend to self-regulate themselves over time and that users, in the end, learn to better leverage the tools they are introduced to. ------ 6ren google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://t-machine.org/index.php/2012/01/13/2012-the- year-of-uncollaborative-development-or-when-github-kills-open-source/&strip=1) ------ biafra What does this have to do with git_hub_? Isn't this a "problem" with git? I don't think it is a problem at all because without git (or hg, bazaar etc.) or github we wouldn't even have such a thriving open source and open development community. Collaboration didn't get harder with DVCS it got easier. ~~~ darb His issues sound more like issues with open source project governance. Github has just made it easier to contribute, and thus it is becoming clear that good open source projects have good governance. The owner of a project on github is not the only one who can merge pull requests, they can add multiple collaborators on a project... If anything it does highlight the need for more people to form collectives around projects and use the organisation tools to own the projects... ------ ighost I'm tired of this alarmist tone.

Emulation of Unix V6 on a PDP-11 with an emulated teletype - beefhash https://pavel-krivanek.github.io/pdp11/ ====== kps NICE DEMONSTRATION OF WHY KEN DIDN'T SPELL CREAT() WITH AN 'E'. ~~~ ajross Yeah, though this feels artificially slow to me. Even the earliest Teletype machines could manage 10+ cps, and by the mid-70's time frame (v6 was released in 1975) much faster devices were available (and of course video terminals were starting to arrive too). I'm sure someone used a PDP-11 with a terminal this slow, but it's unlikely to have been the typical developer experience. ~~~ davidgould I used a PDP-11/70 with ASR-33 TTYs as late as 1978. They were still common because while slow and noisy they were much cheaper than the DECwriter, and could also read and punch paper tape. Since mass storage was very expensive (10MB for $20,000) and since floppies were not yet common, paper tape was the USB stick of the time. ------ tyingq The pidp-11 project is also cool. A miniature and functional PDP-11 replica. [https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11](https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11) ------ scroot Ok but let's be honest: Unix is at it's core still a teletype emulator no matter where you use it. It's the central metaphor for the system. ~~~ Koshkin Well, UNIX "at it's core" is the kernel; what you are talking about is what is known as 'shell.' ~~~ johnlorentzson UNIX and everything surrounding it is built around the shell though. ------ fortran77 This is very nice. Brought back old memories of my first programming Fortran and BASIC+ on RSTS/E on a PDP-11 ~~~ flyinghamster You, too? My high school had an 11/34 back in the day, with a couple VT100s, several Visual 200 terminals (cheap junk), one DECwriter II for the console, and another one plus a DECwriter III in the lab. It also ran RSTS/E, and in the summer after my sophomore year they offered a short introductory course. I was hooked. We didn't have any Fortran courses, though, just BASIC+ and COBOL. I'd take even a DECwriter II over a Teletype, but the III made the II look downright slow, with a 4x faster printhead, the ability to seek quickly, and the ability to print in both directions to avoid wasted motion. ------ phoe-krk The point where I burst into giggles was when I realized that scrolling the page while output was still going (e.g. from ls /bin) overwrote previous lines with new letters. That's some dedication to accuracy that's found there. ------ davidgould Don't try to use ^S and ^Q for flow control, it doesn't work and the ^Q will quit Firefox. As a tab horder, I hate quitting the browser. ------ Koshkin Just remember to type CHDIR instead of CD. ------ saagarjha Did teletypes not have rollover? The most annoying part of this was waiting half a second after each keypress… ~~~ DonHopkins Teletypes have metal rods and springs instead of rollover! I love how the mouse wheel (back in reality) scrolls the paper up and down and it overprints. ~~~ saagarjha But typewriters (at least the one I have tried–I think it was a Selectric?) have the same thing and can support rollover… ~~~ kps The Selectric didn't really do rollover, but it had a mechanism that felt like it. Each key lever had a small tab that entered a trough of ball bearings that had just enough slack for one tab. If you pressed a second key, it would displace the balls and descend when the previous key withdrew. ------ pfdietz If it doesn't smell like a teletype it isn't a true emulation. ------ twknotes backspace not invented yet? How can you write a program with this thing! ~~~ kps Backspace _had_ been invented; the problem is that on a printing terminal you end up with an illegible mess. So early Unix defaulted to erase '#' kill '@'. You can still see artifacts of that choice — ‘#’ being popular for things that start a line, like comments and C preprocessor commands, and ‘@’ being the only ASCII punctuation with no function in any common Unix tool.

Email Blacklist Check - kevwedotse https://kevwe.se/blackcheck/ ====== kevwedotse Blackcheck (BETA) helps Mailserver Admins to avoid being blacklisted.

Ask HN: Foursquare somehow surpasses Loopt - tempatempatempa I have researching various mistakes and such that startups make, and in particular I have been looking at location-aware startups. I was recently looking at google trends for foursquare and loopt and noticed this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=foursquare+,+loopt&#38;ctab=0&#38;geo=all&#38;date=all&#38;sort=1 which implies that sometime around the beginning of this year foursquare must have made some sort of significant change, but I don't have a clue as to what. Do any of you guys know what I might be missing in understanding this? Thank you! ====== sabj I think that you have to remember also that Foursquare, in 2004 on that graph, is not about Foursquare... it's about foursquare, I suppose, you know - the game you play with chalk and a playground ball. So I think that that trends graph is a little bit noisy. To me, it's a question of 4sq taking off and Loopt failing to do so, more than foursquare surpassing them when it was a clear neck-and-neck competition. If we're looking at trends as a buzz-o-meter, it's the kind of situation where Loopt is not able to leverage its initial boom of interest to transcend its beginnings. The seemingly 'obvious' answer is to ascribe the disparity to circumstances beyond the startups themselves -- 2009/10 sees a significantly greater penetration of location enabled phones, the effect of Facebook destroying our notions of privacy has sunk in more (joking on that one), etc. I don't know if that's the whole deal, but I think there have to be some macro effects involved beyond just, well, people really like gaming elements and Crowley is the one and only king of location. Quick .02 : ) I think Foursquare has done a good job, but haven't followed Loopt very well to know where they may have stumbled (or merely been unlucky). ~~~ cicloid Loopt was a service too US centric. At least in Mexico, the current trendy option is Foursquare. As for Gowalla (My favorite one), didnt do so well in the beginning. Maybe, what the trend is showing is more adoption from outside the US.

Ask HN: Should we be concerned about benzene exposure from the BP Oil Spill? - notcrazyyet I recently met someone claiming to have expertise in Organic Chemistry and Meteorology tell me that benzene levels in the region surrounding the BP oil spill are astoundingly high and will cause life threatening illnesses in the coming months ahead. In particular, if a hurricane were to disperse the toxic gases arising from the oil spill to more remote regions, we would see unprecedented exposure-related deaths. I immediately dismissed him when he started ranting about FEMA prison camps, methane deposit "c4", Haliburton, NWO, and other crackpot theories, but the basics of what he said makes sense to me.<p>Although I run the risk of contaminating the content here, I respect the HN community for its critical thinking skills and general depth of knowledge in the sciences. I also believe this topic is important enough to warrant a discussion.<p>Are benzene levels as dangerous as this guy says it is both right now and in the event of a hurricane ("kill millions" so to speak)? What about dangers related to methane, which is combustible and also a very potent greenhouse gas? ====== cperciva My understanding (as a chemist's son, but not a chemist) is that yes, there is benzene being released; and yes, in the _immediate_ area above the spill, there might be high enough concentrations to cause toxicity... but that a hurricane spreading the gas over millions of cubic miles of atmosphere would dilute it to harmless levels. ------ Clepensky New Scientist had an article on this. They seemed to think the release of the oil at the depth it is at would make the concern over chemical like benzene a non issue.

The Future of Developing Firefox Add-Ons - bobajeff https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing-firefox-add-ons/ ====== sonnyp [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10097630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10097630)

Now, 'standing room' on airlines - newacc http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/jul/16/slide-show-1-airline-plans-standing-room-for-more-passengers.htm ====== jonursenbach Logically speaking, I don't understand how this would work. You're sitting on a stool when the plane takes off, you're going to call backwards and onto the floor of the plane. You can't expect someone to hold onto a bar during something like that, like you can with trains or buses. And don't even think about holding onto that during any sort of plane turbulence. You're all going to fall into each other. ~~~ kiddo What if there was a thin wall that you leaned against during takeoff, with a half seat attached to it? Then on landings you turned and faced the back of the plane and leaned on the half-seat facing the back of the plane? ------ icey Man, rediff.com is an irritating site.

Neanderthal 'artwork' found in Gibraltar cave - Turukawa http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28967746 ====== NatTurner Some researchers said "the artifacts may not have been made by Neanderthals but by modern humans." Until the truth of that be known, it is too soon to re write human history, However 2001 in South Africa, at a site called Blombos Cave, is found 70,000 year old writing and art on "two pieces of ochre rock decorated with geometric patterns." The patterns could in no way be considered to be accidental or anything other than deliberate. Maybe the re write should have already began. [http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1270/3256/o...](http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1270/3256/original.jpg) Full article [http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/caveart.php](http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/caveart.php)

Git Town – A high-level command line interface for Git - tnorthcutt http://www.git-town.com/ ====== git-pull Those who think a wrapper is going to help their development is in for something when things break and they don't know how to operate things the way they're meant to. git is an especially poor choice for wrappers. You're hiding the concepts of staged and unstaged information, branches, tags, remotes, submodules. Regardless of VCS, you're setting yourself up for failure when you buy into a third-party tool's workflow rather than knowing what the hell you're doing. Pick up git as you go along. Rather than a tool doing who knows what behind the scene. If you really goof things when you're starting, don't be afraid to git reset --hard <ref> / git commit --amend + force push, as long as you know where you're at in history. ~~~ kevingoslar Git Town doesn't replace Git, nor does it try to shield you from learning how Git works. It shows the Git commands it runs for you, as well as their output. When using it, one should make sure to understand what it is doing. The thing is, Git is awesome, but intentionally designed as a low-level and generic tool. Using it correctly for particular workflows (like Git Flow or Github Flow) requires running many Git commands for each operation, and is highly repetitive. Good developers engineer repetition away. Great developers share what they build. Hence Git Town. ~~~ git-pull > Good developers engineer repetition away. Great developers share what they > build. Hence Git Town. As someone who has engineered repetition away and shares what he builds, I agree, and admire your gumption. > intentionally designed as a low-level and generic tool. git is high level. and opinionated. It has branches and tags baked right in. Compare to SVN or CVS where the support is second class. > requires running many Git commands for each operation, and is highly > repetitive. I run lots of git commands by hand, and can be pretty verbose in commit messages. I (sort of) try to follow this: [https://chris.beams.io/posts/git- commit/](https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/) However, to speed things up, I will sometimes at shell prompt use `ctrl-r` and search history a bit, then `ctrl-e` to start scrolling in a line brought back up if I want to both 1. see what I committed last, and 2. get a head start on writing the commit message. I also find the staging workflow git has (another thing I personally consider high-level, purposeful, opinionated to git, and use regularly) to be very convenient. I can type `git status`, `git diff`, `git diff --cached` to see what's staged and unstaged. I can use `git reset` to unstage a file. Overall, I get more granularity on which files I want to add to that commit. This comes in really handing when reverting, merging and rebasing. So in my workflow, I don't want to give up control of these things. Apparently, while I don't use these features, `git bisect` and `git blame` also benefit from being thoughtful with commits. > It shows the Git commands it runs for you, as well as their output. I am glad to hear that. > nor does it try to shield you from learning how Git works This is what irks me. I view git as high level and opinionated already, and have no way of knowing how it would effect someone learning git. I developed my own habits w/ VCS a long time ago. That said, leave it up to the people who want to try your project. (I followed you and starred your repository.) ~~~ crdoconnor >This is what irks me. I view git as high level and opinionated already However high level you think it is, it has no opinion on workflows and there's a need for a tool that will automate and enforce git workflows. I'm not sure if this tool the answer, but there is a need for some sort of tool like this. I wrote a hacky 'git sync' script at an old company and it achieved what sending a bunch of developers on a course about git did not (it sped up the workflow and cut down on git errors). ~~~ git-pull > it has no opinion on workflows Oh really? Staged/Unstaged + Commit + Push to remote+branch. Branches (I suppose you could chuck everything in master), and opt-in or out of tagging. Maybe users will keep their own remote repositories ("forks")? Even then, it's still pulling in code with the same history that's going to get reconciled via a merge or rebase. Whether it's "forked" to their own repo or in a branch of the "main" repo, it's all the same in the end. > there's a need for a tool that will automate and enforce git workflows There's easy, light-weight branching baked right into git. They scale locally, remotely, and also work with different user's remotes. You can also merge branches into branches. You can pull --rebase them as well. > there's a need for a tool that will automate and enforce git workflows. _Beyond_ branches and remotes? > I wrote a hacky 'git sync' script at an old company and it achieved what > sending a bunch of developers on a course about git did not (it sped up the > workflow and cut down on git errors). Checking out branches and git add/status/diff/commit/push is that time consuming not only would you need to create a shortcut, other devs would opt- in to it? I use shortcuts for various things in my shell. I have a .gitconfig in my dot- config files ([https://github.com/tony/.dot- config](https://github.com/tony/.dot-config)). Personal tweaks for coloring and editor settings, a global gitignore. I'm the kind of a guy who picks up shell plugins for fun to try them, but I know that pushing a tool on top of a VCS on colleagues won't go over well. What did `git sync` do? ~~~ crdoconnor >there's a need for a tool that will automate and enforce git workflows. Beyond branches and remotes? Yeah, because most branching and merging in a team setting follows a policy. That branch/merge strategy (and naming) is based upon a whole host of things including testing strategies, release schedules, issue tracker used, code review policies, how much you need bisect, etc. Git is entirely indifferent to those workflows and is as happy to let you follow it as it is to let you commit and push directly to the master branch with a commit message of "fixed shit". >Checking out branches and git add/status/diff/commit/push is that time consuming not only would you need to create a shortcut, other devs would opt- in to it? Yeah, when you add stashing, changing to the correct branches, rebasing and pushing, changing back and unstashing it actually does get tedious, especially since I needed to run it about 20 times a day. I actually didn't even create the script for them originally, I created it for me and they just started using it. ------ jph Git Town looks thorough to me. It includes well-written source code in Go, plenty of edge-case error checking, good messages, and excellent feature tests. Kudos! If you're interested in branch aliases, here are some that may be helpful that I use at GitAlias.com. topic-start = "!f(){ branch=$1; git checkout master; git fetch; git rebase; git checkout -b "$branch" master; };f" topic-pull = "!f(){ branch=$(git branch-name); git checkout master; git pull; git checkout "$branch"; git rebase master; };f" topic-push = "!f(){ branch=$(git branch-name); git push --set-upstream origin "$branch"; };f" topic-finish = "!f(){ branch=$(git branch-name); git checkout master; git branch --delete "$branch"; git push origin ":$branch"; };f" branch-name = rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD ~~~ jwilk You should backslash-escape your inner double-quotes. ~~~ jph Thanks for the advice! Done. ------ dahart > squash-merge the password-reset branch into the master branch (this makes it > look like a single, clean commit, without the convoluted merge history and > the many intermediate commits on your branch) Is this what most people do? And is this something you can turn off with Git Town? I don't like to to squash-merge, I spend time making sure my commits are as much logical and self-contained units as they can be in my branches, and I want to preserve the ability to revert and/or bisect them later. ~~~ MBlume It's a trade-off. Many devs don't know how to do that, don't care to do that, will never learn to do that, and for them squash merge is a good option. ~~~ dahart For sure. I'm not suggesting anyone else shouldn't; on the contrary just asking if Git Town goes both ways, and whether squash merge is more common in practice? I would have assumed that a regular (not squashed) merge is more common, and easier to do, because it's the default behavior of "git merge". It takes extra git commands and/or extra non-default arguments to git merge to get a squash merge. My GitHub also doesn't default to squash merge, IIRC... Don't you have to choose squash merge or be told to use it, if you don't otherwise know or care? ------ rojoca [https://github.com/Originate/git- town/blob/master/documentat...](https://github.com/Originate/git- town/blob/master/documentation/commands/sync.md) I think it would be good if the docs had the git commands that are run for a git-town command. ~~~ kevingoslar Good suggestion, will add them! Git Town uses Cucumber as living documentation: [https://github.com/Originate/git- town/blob/master/features/g...](https://github.com/Originate/git- town/blob/master/features/git-town- sync/current_branch/feature_branch/no_conflict/with_tracking_branch.feature) ------ sigi45 Hell of work around a few git commands. Screencast, website, promo. I prefer aliases i configure myself to understand them, most of my colleges don't even bother with that detail of git commands at all and use an ui. ~~~ superlopuh I think that's sort of the point, instead of having aliases, this is a low- effort way to have even people who prefer to use GUI clients (like me) to have an easy-to-use/install unified command line workflow. I'm very tempted. ------ gt_ I am new to programming (less than 1 year) and the insignificance of this project is obvious to me. This looks very well done, but my understanding is that a user friendly wrapper for such a ubiquitous programming tech with already widespread GUIs and pluins is comparable to reinventing a wheel. It's a little frustrating how many projects like this appear to get so much attention and end up on HN, because it makes for a disorienting maze of distractions for newer programmers. I love all the productivity, excitement, possibility but it's still peculiar and debatably problematic. My best guess is this was a personal project that solved some person(s) problems, and for some reason related to networking or self-promotion, it got the decoration of a full release treatment. What else could cause this? I know there are zillions of these every day but this seems like one we all can see through. Can anyone share some insight here? Should I be contributing to the heap of projects like these to further my own career? ~~~ Normal_gaussian > the insignificance of this project is obvious to me > comparable to reinventing a wheel > many projects like this appear to get so much attention and end up on HN > Can anyone share some insight here? First the HN audience, its core is hackers and startups. These people have certain problems in common, and they are always on the lookout for ways to eliminate them. The hackers build things and the startup people do a lot of management and they are often one and the same. Secondly good version control is hard to use across a project without swamping new arrivals or accidentally breaking something. Git isn't good enough, but it is what we have. So like good hackers we take the first, see the second and try and produce something better. This is how we end up with lots of similar looking projects. Because they are solving real problems being faced by HN users they get upvoted until the comments discover some fatal flaw (leaky? prevents key conflict resolution?). This author reckons hes solved it, so he gives it the full treatment because _it is worth a lot to have_ __actually__ _solved it_. If I could resolve git woes by handing a newbie a ten minute video I would be ecstatic. Remember, it is important to reinvent the wheel [1] though don't waste time on these projects unless you can see a way through. [1] [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMyiLuKUwAA6l-V.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMyiLuKUwAA6l-V.jpg) ~~~ jstimpfle Can't resist: [https://www.math.uh.edu/~jmorgan/trinity_talk/square_wheel.h...](https://www.math.uh.edu/~jmorgan/trinity_talk/square_wheel.htm) ------ btym _For example, correctly merging a finished feature branch requires up to 15 individual Git commands!_ Am I missing something? Does `git merge` imply fourteen other commands? ~~~ stinos Maybe they include things like stashing/popping current uncomitted changes, switching to target branch, pulling source and target branches first, rebasing feature branch onto latest target branch, resolving conflicts, ... ? All of these are things I has to do at one point or another to 'just' merge some feature branch from somebody else into master while I was working on another branch myself. So if they combine all of that in one command including taking care of everything which can go wrong I can imagine getting 15 commands. ~~~ falcolas > So if they combine all of that in one command including taking care of > everything which can go wrong I can imagine getting 15 commands. My concern would be: what happens when the automation encounters and edge case; what kind of unholy mess would you end up with? And to be fair, with GitHub and GitLab, doing local feature branch merges has become a very rare event for me in the last 5 years. ~~~ kevingoslar Git Town covers a ton of edge cases. Just look at their "features" folder. If something goes wrong, Git Town allows to cleanly abort and undo what it did so far and go back to where it started. That's a lot safer than the unholy mess that ensues when most people try to run "git reset --hard" or "git push --force" manually. ~~~ Jare Edge cases handled properly may be the killer feature of this project, at least for me. With git, as long as I'm in familiar territory it's fine, but when somethings goes off rails my head's working set explodes with options. ------ rwieruch I like to keep Git puristic. I have only a few aliases, because I want to operate on every machine the same way. Git can be intimidating for newcomers. In the last two years, I noticed the pattern that I only use a few essential Git commands in order to resolve a handful of scenarios. I have written them up: [https://www.robinwieruch.de/git-essential- commands/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/git-essential-commands/) Maybe it helps some people to get started. ~~~ charlierudolph I believe knowing the low level commands is very important. I don't think anyone should use Git Town without learning everything covered in your article. Git Town prints every* Git command it runs and what branch it is run on. That was my first contribution to the project as I wanted to know exactly what the tool was doing. * Git Town runs other git commands to inspect the state of things (for example: what is the current branch, are there any uncommitted changes). These are not printed but each one that changes the state (for example: checking out another branch, fetching updates, merging branches) are printed ~~~ rwieruch I will give it a shot! Thanks for the clarifications :) ------ throwme_1980 Don't bother, learning GIT is a transferable skill, this will be thrown out as soon as you join a proper development team . Gimmicky at best ~~~ SmellyGeekBoy I don't see much utility in this but I certainly don't restrict the toolset my developers use and would be perfectly fine with them using this on any of our machines, especially if it made their lives easier. ------ georgecalm Another great alternative that I use every day is [https://hub.github.com](https://hub.github.com), especially if you work with GitHub. ~~~ kevingoslar Hub is awesome, and orthogonal to what Git Town does. You can use both together, though. ------ 746F7475 So this is for people who don't know how to use aliases (bash or git)? ~~~ kevingoslar Git Town started out as Git aliases written in Bash. Version 3 was many hundred lines of Bash, pushing it beyond what Bash was designed for. At some point it got ridiculous, and we got requests for Windows support, as well as better integration with the Github API. Hence the rewrite in Go. ~~~ 746F7475 I still don't see the killer feature here. It just throws around ton of commands, most of which are completely unnecessary. ------ partycoder Over the years, there have been many "friendly interfaces to git", in both UI or command line form. They all suffer from the same issue: in the face of conflicts they just failsafe to good old git. I think these tools are good if you want to do something more productively but in the end you will still need to know about git. ~~~ qguv I'm not sure this is trying to prevent anyone from needing to learn the actual git commands. (Note that the abstraction intentionally leaks by showing the commands that are run.) It appears to be more of a tool for experienced users on centralized teams to save some time typing. ------ paulddraper Slick stuff. But can you use this in practice and not know what git is doing? Aka is this really not a leaky abstraction? I ask sincerely; having known git for years I can't objectively answer this. ~~~ qguv As an experienced git user, I'd use this on projects with a central repo, if only because it saves some typing. ------ afshinmeh Seems interesting but I don't personally like using these kind of projects. Having a wrapper around another technology or tools to make things easier to use, encapsulates many more important concepts that you have to know as a good developer. I don't think giant tech companies use these kind of tools as well. ~~~ oblio Giant tech companies basically use their own version control systems. Facebook uses something forked from Mercurial, I think, Google has a Perforce derived one, etc. They basically take the approach presented here to 11. ------ franzwong When I saw the name, I thought it was a simcity game with git :P ------ mempko The command-line interface is what I loved about darcs. Too bad it never got the mind share because of early performance problems. ------ jsiepkes Seems like a more lightweight version of the 'arc' cli tool of Phabricator (which I really like BTW)? ------ jaimex2 Shouldn't this whole thing just be a pull request into git itself? ~~~ roblabla No. Git tries to be agnostic to your workflow. Also, some of the commands are tailored for github, which is not the only git host. See gitlab, gogs, gerrit, etc... ------ romanr Looks very similar to Git Flow ------ mdekkers _Git is a great foundation for source code management._ No. Fucking marketing doublespeak. Git is great for source-code management. Don't start your pitch by trying to redefine and reposition Git. You lost me right there.

Larry said to Gaga, ‘Do you ever a/b test your music?’ - youssefsarhan http://blog.sefsar.com/post/35569040840/we-were-in-a-meeting-with-google-with-gaga-and ====== kadjar Lady Gaga's entire career has been an A/B test. She started out as a singer and songwriter who actually poured some meaning into her music, and had no success. Then she seized the common pop chords, added a heavy back beat, stripped her songs of any meaning, and started wearing meat dresses. I'd say that B worked for her. ~~~ mdc In addition, she's part of a larger A/B test being run by the industry. Music producers have a nearly unlimited supply of cookie-cutter musicians who they can produce in different ways to see what works. They're expendable, so when they fail the producers can move on and the musicians can go back to playing local clubs or whatever they did to get the producers' attention in the first place. I've known several musicians who got popular in a local scene, got a "big break" and released one heavily-produced album that sounded nothing like their previous work, and then faded back into obscurity. Every now and then one of them breaks big and the producers can cash in for a few albums. ------ KaoruAoiShiho Media companies do a/b their products, they have test audiences, focus groups, and such. By the time you get to that scale you think like a business, not like an artist. ------ retrogradeorbit It seems Gaga herself doesn't even know how the main stream music industry operates now. The record labels certainly a/b test the mixes on test audiences and choose the mix that rates better. That's why a lot of main stream pop (one example I know of for sure is Katy Perry) has a different mix engineer on almost every song. They actually farm the mixes off to independent mixers who do the work. Then test the results. If your mixes rate well, you move up the labels artist hierarchy and will be offered more prominent artists to mix in future. So it is kind of a natural selection of mixing. Some artist management by labels involves this at more than just the mixing stage. Song writing is also in many cases done like this. If you have the skills of Linda Perry, you'll bubble your way to the top. I'm not sure that Gaga does this process with song writing (does she write her own material?), but I'm willing to bet the label certainly does it with mixing. It's quickly becoming the norm in the industry. Maybe Gaga knows this and that is why she dodged the topic by answering a question with a question. ------ camus >"This is precisely the problem with Google. Soulless." A service like google doesnt need a "soul" , it needs strong products, great user support and fast servers. And dont worry about A/B testing music, producers knows what works and not , and are using the same gimmicks over and over again , and a lot of marketing techniques ( including A/B tested marketing ). Is there something fresh and new in Gaga's music ? no , it feels over produced and over marketed , i dont think Gaga's music has soul , it is like mc donalds , pre-pooped food. It has no soul. ~~~ lukev While I'm not a Gaga fan by any means, I do have to say that her music is a notch above typical canned pop. Sure, it borrows heavily from pop idioms, but it's got an edge to it that seems unique to her, and the lyrics address themes a tad more deep than most pop music does. Even that's subjective, of course, but at least she writes and arranges all her own music which isn't typical of factory-produced pop stars. ~~~ retrogradeorbit > notch above typical canned pop Sure. And there are at least 1000 notches above that.

Can Zapping Your Brain Make You Smarter? - RickJWagner https://daily.jstor.org/can-zapping-your-brain-really-make-you-smarter/ ====== earthboundkid [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

Introduction to the Samsung Qmage Codec and Remote Attack Surface - janvdberg https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2020/07/mms-exploit-part-1-introduction-to-qmage.html ====== jdsnape This is excellent- I’m impressed with the attention to detail and perseverance. I would have given up well before getting that amount of info together

Open Source Search with Lucene & Solr - igrigorik http://www.igvita.com/2010/10/22/open-source-search-with-lucene-solr/ ====== fizx For anyone who would like to take Solr for a spin, I invite you to check out nzadrozny's and my startup: <http://websolr.com/> We are a bootstrapped startup providing managed Solr hosting in the cloud (currently EC2). We're all about making the operational side of high performance Solr hosting as one-click easy as possible, so developers can focus their time on doing cool stuff with it. We love HN and are frequent commenters/lurkers around here, so we made a "HN10" coupon which you can use on signup to get a month of our Silver plan for free. ~~~ thorax I really like the idea of this service. The difficulty is, I'm not seeing any "Getting Started with Websolr" guide to understand how difficult it is to get working with you. Where would that be? In my ideal world you would have a demo instance or two where we could connect/query arbitrary test data to understand performance/behavior/etc before we signed-up to host real data there. ~~~ nzadrozny Yeah, great points. Thanks for your feedback! Better general documentation is pretty high on our list right now. To answer your immediate question: we started as a Heroku add-on, so you might take a glance at our documentation there (<http://docs.heroku.com/websolr>). It's targeted at Rails applications using Sunspot, so ymmv. We're working on creating and compiling similar guides for other platforms as well. Seems like it's high time for us to do a "review my startup" post… ;) ------ evilhackerdude Riak Search has been released recently. It’s got Lucene and part of the Solr HTTP API built-in. Basically you push json/xml/whatever documents into buckets. The docs will be indexed, i.e., by field names (json & xml) or simply fulltext. It is pretty cool because it’s based on Riak Core and thus has the same benefits as Riak K/V. Lucene runs transparently in the background - afaik you never even have to touch it. Read more in their wiki: <https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Search> Especially: [https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Search+-+Indexing+a...](https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Search+-+Indexing+and+Querying+Riak+KV+Data) ------ ankimal We use an Enterprise Search Platform (our biggest software acquisition) minus the support (another dumb idea). The entire thing is like a Black Box. It takes days to figure out what "Error: FS error" actually means. For a new project, we used Solr to maintain a smaller index and have never looked back since. Anybody about to start building a search index, Lucene/Solr is the way to go. ~~~ storm I've been using Solr for some pretty heavy lifting, and it's incredibly impressive. Rock solid, extremely advanced analysis and search capabilities, and the performance is amazing if it's on suitable gear. Time invested in learning it pays off big. I'm familiar with the enterprise black boxes you're talking about - I probably know the specific one you're tormented by. I've seen the licensing fees alone lead large companies to drop rows from their front-end stores to avoid going into a new pricing tier (takes balls of steel to charge by the record, I must say), and I've seen competitors fold at least in part due to the expense of paying for the thing. A lot of startup folks getting excited about NoSQL seem to have passed over Lucene/Solr completely, and I think it's worthy of much more consideration than it gets. It's mature, it's _fast_ , and the people working on it live and breathe the problem space. There are undoubtedly devs out there badly needing powerful analysis and search to execute on their vision, but who will end up suffering with half- baked solutions for lack of even _hearing_ about Solr, much less giving it a try. ~~~ ankimal I feel another issue is that management sometimes feels that paying big bucks means your rear end is covered. It takes a lot to convince them that this is free and works great at the same time. Whats more, the community is great! ------ dangrover Haystack for Django is a really nice way to integrate with these systems. You can use lucene, solr, or whoosh as backends for your search. ~~~ nzadrozny Sunspot for Ruby is another good Solr client that's popular with Rails applications. <http://github.com/outoftime/sunspot/> While Solr's API is pretty easy to work with directly, there's definitely something to be said for using a quality client for your platform. ------ akozak At Creative Commons we use Lucene/Nutch for our educational search prototype DiscoverEd: <http://wiki.creativecommons.org/DiscoverEd> It was easy enough to add in our special sauce like a triple-store for consuming and displaying semantic data (I guess I can say easy since I didn't do it myself). ~~~ sdesol I would say it's pretty easy if you are technically inclined. When I implemented the first iteration of my text search engine using Lucene, I didn't even know Java but I was able to write my own custom tokenizer and get it to index and retrieve results from the index in about 6 hours. I highly recommend you get the book "Lucene in action" as it gives solid examples that you can build upon. ------ nkurz I'm a fan and contributor to Lucy, which is mentioned briefly in the header: <http://incubator.apache.org/lucy/> While Lucy did start out as a C port of Lucene (hence the name), it's since broken any attempts at Lucene compatibility. Instead, it's aiming to be a fast and flexible standalone C core with bindings to higher level languages. Since it's growing out of Kinosearch, it's best developed bindings are in Perl, but support for all the usual suspects (Python, Ruby, etc.) is planned. Technically, the main difference from Lucene is that it gets cozier with the machine: the OS is our VM. It's mostly mmap() IO, and we're very conscious of paging and cache issues. While we're trying to maintain 32-bit back compatibility, we take full advantage of 64-bit solutions when they offer themselves. The scripted bindings are also very cool --- you can do things like make callbacks to scoring methods in your script language to truly customize your results. If for some reason you're not finding what you need in Lucene and Solr, check it out. We just became a full Apache incubator project, and are eager to get more developers involved. You'll find clean C code, decent documentation, and a low traffic but very responsive list. If you're using Perl, C or C++, you'll get a great product from the start. If you're using anything else, you'll have to help a lot on the bindings, but I think you'll be quite pleased with the end result. ------ spoondan Lucene is great but I wish schemas were an optional part of Solr. They add complexity and take away flexibility. If you have a photo database where you want searchable metadata describing the subject of the photographs, you can do this easily and naturally in Lucene. But Solr requires you either (1) prefigure available metadata or (2) expose field typing details to your users (so a field for birthday is actually "birthday_d", with the "_d" indicating it's a date). Both of these are very unattractive to me. The worst part is that I have no idea what benefits schemas are supposed to bring me. The documentation vaguely promises that schemas "can drive more intelligent processing", but I have a feeling I could get that more easily without schemas. It also tells me that "explicit types eliminate the need for guessing of types," but only, apparently, by requiring users to _understand and remember_ them. ~~~ storm Schemas are an optional part of Solr. Pretty sure that the default schema.xml has an example of a catch-all field definition, if you use that it will automatically deal with any key you want to throw at it. Of course you need to specify one field type (analysis stack) to apply to all, but I don't know how you expect to avoid that - gonna have to express that metadata _somewhere_ if you need more complex behavior. Personally I think the _d, _i approach is ok, suffixes aside - complex field analysis options w/o a schema. ------ cowmixtoo So has anyone used this combination for realtime and historical log searching (like what Splunk offers)? ~~~ igrigorik Yep, take a look at loggly.com - AFAIK, a bunch of ex-Splunk guys. They're building their system on EC2 + SolrCloud. ~~~ bobf +1 for loggly -- check out logstash <http://code.google.com/p/logstash/> ~~~ kordless Be sure to check out Jordan Sissel's Grok as well: <http://code.google.com/p/semicomplete/wiki/Grok>. It's a field extractor. ~~~ bobf Definitely. Just about anything Jordan makes is probably worth checking out, actually. ------ reinhardt Any experience on how Lucene/Solr stacks up against other search tools such as Sphinx or Xapian ? ~~~ gtani Not sure if you're asking about indexing speed/size, precision/recall and the 2 or 3 dozen config options (separator/tokenizers/analyzers, stopword, index to ASCII or Latin-1, AND/OR search terms), etc. What I recommend for precision/recall /config options is that your platform (rails, django, java, PHP) probably has plugin for SOLR and sphinx. Set up 2-4 indexes using the config options that matter most to you (for me they're AND- OR of search terms, and stopwords, which i use in lists of 0, 50, 100, 150). Then do a (sort of) A-B test where you see which records one index picks up that the other misses. (Most people recommend not using any stopwords if you're only using one index, but i never got decent results using only one index) P.S. Solr is the 800-pound gorilla, has the terrific Manning book, zillions of docs, etc. Sphinx probably covers most people's needs config-option wise(at least for European languages) lightning fast to index, and runs in 256M VPS, no tomcat/jetty. ------ known I prefer <http://aspseek.org>

Six Flags on the Moon: What Is Their Current Condition? - shawndumas http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html ====== DanBC Is it possible to simulate conditions on Earth with similar flags to see how long they last? ------ karmakaze Great juxtaposition with the 'Roller Coaster' post.

Game Theory and the Startup Valuation Game - siegel http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/200/Lessons-from-MIT-Game-Theory-and-The-Startup-Valuation-Game.aspx ====== siegel Answer can be found at this URL: [http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/198/Game-Theory-and- Sof...](http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/198/Game-Theory-and-Software- Startups-Part-II.aspx) While I'm not sure that I buy the author's advice, I have been thinking about ways in which founders can think outside the box in attracting funding and signaling as part of negotiating a funding round - if they want to go the VC route. Obviously a huge part of getting the highest valuation and the best terms out of a VC round rest on how the founders can directly sell investors on the prospects for their business by talking about the technology, market, financials/projections, etc... But negotiating a funding round is still just that - a negotiation. Professional investors are well-aware of this and are strategic negotiators. From the founder side, I see much less of the type of strategic negotiation thinking than I do on the investor side. Curious if other agree or disagree.

Show HN: eBay rounding error results in incorrect credits - bdclimber14 About a month ago, I tried to sell a few items on eBay including a Nexus One phone. 2 items were left unpaid since the buyer's tried to scam me (fake PayPal payment emails, cancelled PayPal eChecks).<p>Once an item sells, eBay charges a Final Value Fee (FVF) that is a percentage of the total proceeds. However, if the item is never paid for, you can request eBay to credit you the FVF.<p>Yesterday I called eBay to get my credits, which they gave promptly. However, I noticed that the credited amount was off by one cent. I explained to the representative on the phone that I was able to see the credit, but was curious as to why it was $.01 less than the FVF. I asked if they kept a penny, assuming they did, but she assured me that the full amount was refunded in both cases. Again, out of curiosity I pushed the issue and she insisted that the full amounts were credited ($13.48 and $14.55) even though I explained that what I saw on my eBay account was different.<p>I was being incredibly polite and merely inquisitive (it's 2 cents for god's sake) but she rudely stated "I can't help you anymore, if you have more questions, then you need to use the eBay help menu online" and hung up on me.<p>Ouch.<p>$13.48 charged, I was refunded 13.47. $14.55 charged, I was refunded 14.54.<p>Since we're literally talking pennies here, I don't care enough to call eBay back, but I'm curios as to what caused this.<p>I assume this is a rounding error from taking a percentage of the amount (possibly a floor function being used for credits). This all reminds me of Office Space, and made me wonder how much money eBay makes off of these penny differences, if this indeed happens all the time.<p>Has anyone ever come across this before, or am I an anomaly? ====== staunch You should ask them if they have a programmer named Michael Bolton. ------ octal I've never seen this. I wish there was an easy way to recreate this, without almost getting scammed or abusing the Ebay system. You could be on to something though. How many people have been wronged?! ~~~ bdclimber14 You're right, it's tough to recreate. I thought about filing a bug report with eBay. Steps to reproduce: \- List a high-dollar item like a computer with an artificially high buy it now price. \- Allow any type of buyer. \- Wait until it's bought and you get the first scam correspondence. \- File a non-paying buyer report. \- Wait 2 months. \- Call eBay to request a credit.

Interview with Doug Crockford, creator of JSON - alavrik http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/doug-crockford-geek-of-the-week/ ====== docgnome He also wrote what is, imho, one of the best programming language books, JavaScript: The Good Parts. (<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748>) I found it super handy mostly because he made no claims that JS is the best thing ever. A lot of it sucks and he admits that. Which I found super refreshing from the standard "ZOMG X IS TEH BEST EVAR! USE X AND GOLD COINS WILL FALL FROM THE SKY!" of most programming language books. ------ andreyf I wonder if he minds being called the "creator of JSON"? Yes, he created the standard, but I imagine the notation was really decided by Brendan Eich (author of original JS implementation). ~~~ fierarul Yeah, I've also wondered about that. Plus that I see JSON as a minor format, it's not like someone didn't think before: "let's just wire some lisp over a socket and eval it on the other side". The same about the guy that invented Markdown, another minor microformat that somehow is seen as a great accomplishment in some circles (mostly Reddit). ~~~ jerf JSON is a carefully-chosen subset of what "eval" will actually include, the three major differences being that it specifies the delimiters rigidly (JSON that uses apostrophe-delimited strings is not JSON), it rigidly specifies Unicode (defaulting to UTF-8), and it doesn't permit anything that looks like Javascript code. So, comparing it to "wiring over some Lisp and evaling" it is not accurate, JSON was created for the explicit purpose of _not_ doing that. Previous approaches typically did. ~~~ eru Wiring some S-Expressions and parsing them, would be more apt than the eval comparsion. ~~~ rdtsc That's what I do. I persist python objects into s-expressions using a c-extension module then parse and un-persist data back to python on the other side. Everyone asks me why I don't just switch to JSON. Well I might one day, I just like S-expression for now and the parser is very small, fast and was easy to implement. I even have references (like Yaml) to persist arbitrary object graphs. ~~~ eru Interesting. If you are working with Python-only, why have you decided against Python pickling? ~~~ rdtsc One reason is debuggability. Being able to see exactly what is persisted and what goes over the wire. Pickles can drag in arbitrarily large object graphs if you are not careful and they are not completely safe from the security point of view. However, the other reason (the original reason peraps) is that we have some C processes that listen and interpret s-expressions. There were there before Python, so we already had an s-expression library for them. Then our Python processes had to talk to the C so I implemented Python object persistence on top of the existing s-expressions. Now we use it even between Python processes. Well perhaps one day we'll just switch to json, yaml or protobufs. But we haven't decided which one yet. I do find it interesting that nobody even mentions s-expression these day when there compare various persistence mechanism. I guess lisp and parantheses have stopped being cool? ~~~ eru When the only thing you have is XML, then S-Expressions are an enlightenment. JSON isn't nearly as moronic, so there's less pain to make you reach for S-Expressions. I guess JSON is good enough. We use S-Expressions for logging in XenServer.

GoPro Evolution: From 35mm Film To America's Fastest-Growing Camera Company - thealexknapp http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/03/04/gopro-evolution-from-35mm-film-to-americas-fastest-growing-camera-company/ ====== 3327 The key to GoPro is content. As the saying goes, "Content is King". Camera Phones just do not create contact, "on Par" with a goPro generally speaking. Think of your average Camera Phone user, and average Gopro user... The average content generated from the goPro, although - probably not impressive like the footage you see in the adverts, is still going to be superior to average content from a phone camera. Naturally the goPro user has acquired the camera because his average state when using the camera is "something Exciting", and, the average state of the average phone camera user (when grabbing footage) is perhaps "I will share this with my friends" or "this looks cool" (whatever you want to label it). ~~~ alexcroox Absolutely, I built a passion project a couple of years ago because I found so many amazing videos I wanted to share. They just all happened to be GoPro ones! [http://goproheroes.com/gopro-hero3-black-edition-smaller- lig...](http://goproheroes.com/gopro-hero3-black-edition-smaller-lighter- and-2x-more-powerful) It's also worth mentioning they are the only company I know that gives away everything they sell to one lucky winner every single day! ------ subsystem Meh, consumer news. As far as I know the GoPro is based on Ambarella’s platforms. Here are some specifications, a teardown and a look at their newest platform: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1nsYd3lG60> [http://www.ambarella.com/products/consumer-hybrid- cameras.ht...](http://www.ambarella.com/products/consumer-hybrid-cameras.html) [http://www.anandtech.com/show/6652/ambarella- announces-a9-ca...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6652/ambarella- announces-a9-camera-soc-successor-to-the-a7-in-gopro-hero-3-black) ------ faramarz Not to down play the immense success, but having a prominent Silicon Valley VC father and a 100k initial investment on his part must have been crucial in getting the injection mouldings done and ready for volume production. That was pre-kickstarter days. Kickstarter has levelled the playing ground for other hardware entrepreneurs in getting early support to pay for the tooling and moulding process. ------ mikek The competition for the GoPro isn't cellphones. It's Google Glass. ~~~ rplnt It's neither probably. Their competition is other "action" cameras within more convenient packages. Luckily for GoPro they still excel in video quality (in their category). ~~~ SideburnsOfDoom Yes. I was thinking particularly of the #2 action camera vendor, Contour ( <http://contour.com/> ) as the GoPro's main competition right now. Though Google glass and whoever competes with it will get there too, eventually. ------ nawitus It'll be interesting to see if they can compete with cameraphones. GoPro does have a few differentation strategies. First is that they'll offer higher quality video than phones. However, the video quality on phones will get better all the time, and the difference in quality will become smaller every year. Another strategy is that they can compete with price. Consumers can always buy a case and a strap to house their smartphone in, but if you're filming sports there's a quite high risk to destroy the phone. The price of GoPro-style video cameras will go down over time (if they won't constantly add new features in), but the cost of phones will probably stay high in the future. Consumers will likely choose the $79 camera instead of risking their $500 phone to film sports. ~~~ Retric There is always going to be a significant low light advantage to having a larger lense and sensor. Add a mourning bracket / wrist strap, improved noise reduction and there is only so close a camera phone can get. ~~~ nawitus Yes, that's true, but when camera phones will be as good as e.g. Canon 5D Mark iii (and they will, relatively soon even) then that quality will be good enough for practically everyone. At that point only professionals need better quality. ~~~ sparky How does this prediction jibe with the statement that a larger sensor will always be beneficial, especially in low light? Will smartphones be able to include much larger sensors in the future? Is there some new physics that obviates the need for a large sensor? The 5D Mark III has > 24x the sensor area of an iPhone 5, and most smartphones are even worse off [0] [1] [0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_sensor_interchang...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_sensor_interchangeable- lens_video_cameras) [1] [http://www.chipworks.com/blog/recentteardowns/2012/09/21/app...](http://www.chipworks.com/blog/recentteardowns/2012/09/21/apple- iphone-5-image-sensors-and-battery/) ~~~ nawitus >How does this prediction jibe with the statement that a larger sensor will always be beneficial, especially in low light? Even though larger sensors will be beneficial, at some point the small sensor will be good enoug for 99% of consumers, though professionals will still prefer the larger sensor. >Will smartphones be able to include much larger sensors in the future? Perhaps, like Nokia pureview did - however that phone is slightly larger than the average smartphone. >Is there some new physics that obviates the need for a large sensor? No, but technology will advance so that small sensors will be sufficiently good to 99% of consumers. There's progress in sensor technology ever year. There's also progress on the processor side, which has been/is apparently a bottleneck, as new processors in DSLR cameras enable better image quality (take for example DIGIC processors). ------ pkteison I'm really impressed by the timeline on the article. Appears to be implemented with <https://github.com/athletics/infostory> ; anybody know if this was this custom made just for Forbes, or even just for this article? Seems like a ton of effort for a small detail, but it really enhanced the article for me. Edit: Better googling yields this article which talks a little bit about the timeline, so definitely not just for the article: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/09/13/inside-f...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/09/13/inside- forbes-our-journey-from-website-to-platform-a-2-year-interactive-timeline/) ~~~ jellisnyc Hi, I'm one of the partners at Athletics. We originally developed the timeline custom for Forbes and have wanted to push this a bit further at some point, hence the repo. Really glad you liked it. Where credit's due: The Forbes team developed the GoPro feature using our toolkit as a starting point. (We did the timeline in Lewis D'Vorkin's post that you referenced.) ------ morefranco Awesome post - really interesting to see the evolution and how it was all started without the help of sites like Kickstarter (seems like that's where they would have started if the GoPro was about to come out today). ------ farabove GoPro's success is based on one thing, It does it's job very well.

Google joins .NET Foundation as Samsung brings .NET support to Tizen - ickler8 https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/16/google-signs-on-to-the-net-foundation-and-samsung-brings-net-support-to-tizen/ ====== mentat2737 Nice. Now please make C# a first-class citizen in Android and start to migrate from Java to C#. ~~~ geodel Google have not made their own languages Dart/Go official to Android. Why would they make languages other than Java a priority now? ~~~ patates Dart doesn't have the adoption yet and has a different plan when it comes to mobile ( [https://github.com/flutter/flutter](https://github.com/flutter/flutter) ). I love Go, but it's not really a suitable language to do UI, or anything that deals with data models. C#, however, is a perfect replacement for Java, most of the times. I would say "it's simply superior in every imaginable metric other than cross-platform implementations of the compiler/VM" but that's just my opinion. ~~~ dom96 Why do you consider Go unsuitable for UI development? ~~~ patates You can't have generic functions that can wrap data so you end up passing concrete models or interfaces to views - no generic view-models for you. The inflexibility of the type system isn't a big deal when you are working on network applications or tools, but causes serious duplication when you do anything that passes around concepts internally. ~~~ bsaul i don't think generic is relevant to GUI. objective c didn't have generics, and i don't think it mattered in any way when they built cocoa. now generics is a problem of its own when working with data and algorithms, but they managed to get along with it in the backend so far, so... ~~~ dagi3d obviously it is doable, but that does not mean there aren't better solutions today. ------ oblio Now we're cooking. The technical steering groups is currently formed out of: Microsoft, Red Hat (so input from the main Linux distro), JetBrains (input from the makers of great tools for developers), Unity (one of the leading game engine makers), Samsung (one of the leading mobile device makers) and now Google. .NET should have a bright future. And hopefully this should push a few buttons over at Oracle HQ so that Java catches up faster to C#. ~~~ skizm Is Java currently behind C# in any capacity? Not that a shot in the arm wouldn't be good for Oracle, but Java definitely still reigns supreme at the moment, despite Oracle's involvement. [http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/](http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/) ~~~ oblio Java the language versus C# the language. ~~~ skizm Same question. What advantages does C# the language have vs Java the language? Do people perceive Java as playing "catch up" with other languages? e: I only ask because I've always heard the opposite. ~~~ on_and_off Pretty much everything that is in kotlin should have been in java for a while IMO and some of these features are in C# ~~~ rubber_duck Kotlin fixes some of Java issues but it still can't fix JVM design decisions such as lack of value types (coming to JVM in what 5 years from now ?) and messy native interop. Java has some really fancy JIT compilers designed for servers but .NET is much more AoT/native interop friendly with value types and reified generics, you can get a lot closer to C++ like code with C# than with Java (avoiding GC with structs, controlling memory layouts in collections, etc.) ------ veeragoni Microsoft joins Linux Foundation and Google joins .NET foundation. what a day :) ~~~ badloginagain The thing I find really interesting here is that Microsoft is pulling down the walls to it's garden and building bridges instead. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out, because this is a tectonic shift in the development landscape. Props to Satya Nadella for having the gumption to lean into this strategy. I was expecting a few token open-sourcish libraries as a giant marketing campaign, but it looks like they're really committed to the idea. ------ brilliantcode What an amazing year for Microsoft. It's nothing like Microsoft from 2006 or 1996. Build 2016 is probably THE defining moment for developers that have previously shied away due to their inherent closed, proprietary nature. At least for me anyways, AWS seriously needs a killer IDE like Visual Studio's tight integration with Azure. ------ JBReefer I like the laptop with a bunch of lovely Microsoft technologies, and then WiX. Please, please die WiX. Imperative XML + non-deterministic execution order + the worst error messages of the entire stack. I love C# and the CLR, but damn WiX sucks. ~~~ chamakits I haven't done a lot of 'Windows exclusive' development for a while, but something like 6-8 years ago, I was making an installer for a small company that up to that moment, they had to send someone over to spend a whole day installing the software on client's machines. I was strongly suggested to use WiX. I spent 2 months trying to get something to work, but I wasn't able to get nothing truly useful to run. I remember explicitly that something as simple as writing to the registry was proving problematic. To make it worse, documentation was poor, and there wasn't much of a community around it cause it was brand spanking new. Two months in, without telling anyone, I decided to ditch it and use NSIS. That day I had something that actually worked! Within 2 weeks I had something that was running end to end, installing the software on the machine. The next month was polishing, and testing/fixing for different versions of Windows. I have no idea how things may have changed now, but if I tasked with making a Windows installer today, I wouldn't even think twice about using anything other than NSIS. ~~~ ygra Can NSIS by now roll-back partially failed installations? That's to me the biggest gripe I have as a user of such installers – whenever something weird goes wrong you end up with a half-installed application of which you don't know how to get rid of the pieces. ~~~ flukus You delete the directory to get rid of the pieces. ~~~ ygra Assuming it hasn't done a bunch of other stuff yet. While Microsoft recommends that the install directory is the application bundle and programs should confine themselves to it, that's hardly what many applications are doing. ------ echelon As a Java developer using Linux and Mac, I couldn't be happier. I would love to see C# and .NET on Android. I'd be equally thrilled to use Microsoft tools (so long as they're on Unix) to develop for it too. ------ shaydoc .NET is great... C# is a fantastic language. Apple, make it a first class citizen for iOS also ;) ~~~ adamnemecek What are some things that C# has over swift ~~~ mvitorino LINQ and ability to interact with any IL compiled language (F#, VB). Also async. ~~~ eggy I prefer F# over C#, and I think it is a better competitor to Swift or Java or Kotlin. ~~~ xorxornop The important thing is CLR support. Everything else is just semantics. (literally) ~~~ mvitorino Semantics improves expressiveness which provides conciseness, which leads to less code. Less code is generally less bugs (sure...arguable). But definitely expressiveness is also often correlated to programmer happiness, which is important in itself. ------ ocdtrekkie Tizen supporting .NET is the interesting thing in this article to me. If Microsoft got so far as getting UWP apps running on Tizen, Microsoft and Samsung could potentially offer a pretty compelling offering against Android. ~~~ Grazester Windows Phone had UWP no? Where developers were concerned it didn't offer them anything compelling enough for that platform it seems. I think it would be even less so on Tizen even. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Tizen has other traits that might be more appealing, like the fact that it's open source. (And arguably, more open source than Android by far.) And if Samsung chose to start pushing Tizen phones over Android phones... bear in mind, Samsung is pretty much THE Android manufacturer, everyone else rides their coattails. Samsung is maybe the only company that can upset the apple cart as far as Google's concerned. ~~~ Grazester Without the Google Play Store Samsung's phones without Android are not going to sell. ~~~ dogma1138 In the west maybe not tho the Samsung store has tons of stuff. FYI many if not most android phones are sold without the google store today in emerging markets if you buy a <50$ in Africa you are not getting Google's App Store. ~~~ GFischer To be honest, everyone sideloads the Play Store anyways. Heck, they sell it pre-sideloaded here in South America (and with pirated apps if you want them). ------ mr_overalls What would be required to bring the CLR up to the JVM's legendary level of engineering? ~~~ KirinDave It's already there? The CLR is a well maintained and engineered system. Why do you believe otherwise? ~~~ mr_overalls At one time, the JVM had superior configurability - many more runtime options for aggressive garbage collection, profiling, optimization, and debugging. But maybe you're right - it's been a few years since I made a looked at the comparison. ~~~ KirinDave > At one time, the JVM had superior configurability - many more runtime > options for aggressive garbage collection, profiling, optimization, and > debugging. I'm not sure that this actually implies it was a more robust and production ready system. The JVM seems to be on a similar path of reducing somewhat how much tuning is expected of operators. Certainly we do less of it now on Java 8 (although some of the defaults it sets are truly boneheaded). ------ flinty So if you were to build a time machine and go back to 2004 and told some one the following, which do you think they will believe: Microsoft joins Linux foundation and has a seat on the board Google joins .NET foundation Trump is president of the United States ------ bborud I've used Java since it was first launched and I've used it as a primary language since 2003 (it took a while before it was usable for the stuff I was doing). Although I like Java, I don't trust Oracle. They are not a well- behaved citizen of the software world. So for the last few years I've been eager to migrate away from Java. I really hope Microsoft understand that if we made the move to C# they have a brilliant opportunity to set the standard for how to behave. (Meanwhile, I'm in the process of using Go for projects) ------ m3rc Does this spell Google moving away just a little bit from Java in the future? ~~~ markdoubleyou Jon Skeet (C# guru who works at Google, for those unfamiliar with C# rock stars) was interviewed on Software Engineering Daily, and his response to this question was basically, "uh, no." Google isn't shifting their focus away from Java/C++ any time in the foreseeable future. (You might see improved support for .NET Core in Google Compute Engine, though.) [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/09/20/cloud- client...](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/09/20/cloud-clients-with- jon-skeet/) ~~~ m3rc That's an interesting interview, thanks. ------ Zigurd IF Microsoft makes another run at phones, the should use Tizen with .NET. That would be very much in the spirit of Android. Every Android OEM/ODM would know how to port it, so it might pull along some 3rd party hardware makers. Most importantly it would lose all the complexity of being Windows Everywhere while still running key MS apps. ------ alkonaut They say Tizen TVs with .NET support will come in 2017. Does that mean older devices will never support .NET? I couldn't find any information about that. ------ phyushin Tizen would be OK if you didn't have to use eclipse ~~~ Kipters Well, now you can use Visual Studio ------ johnnydoe9 I barely understand all this but I'm excited!

Scheme Project that People will Find Use For? - sicpguy I'm currently going through SICP (in chapter 4 now) and I'd like to start a 3-4 month project but I'm not sure what project to start building.<p>I know the answer is "scratch your itch" but I find that I don't usually have any itches. Usually, my main motivator is people using the project (ie. my main motivator is customers). I don't have a lot of experience in the LISP world so I'm wondering what project would be useful for the community right now. I'm using Racket btw.<p>Thanks for all the suggestions. ====== lfborjas Something like wsgi/rack/ring would be cool (actually, ring could be your inspiration: <https://github.com/mmcgrana/ring> )

Monte carlo methods vs Markov chains - mathola16 http://blog.wolfram.com/2011/06/08/what-shall-we-do-with-the-drunken-sailor-make-him-walk-the-plank/ ====== dodo53 Or presumably you could go one further and solve for the fundamental matrix which gives total probabilities (given unlimited steps) of ending at either end of the plank ('absorbing' states which you don't come back from). see: [http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/archive/m20x06/public_html/Lec...](http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/archive/m20x06/public_html/Lecture14.pdf) ------ scythe You could also solve it analytically by diagonalizing and setting all of the eigenvalues less than the maximum eigenvalue to zero. ~~~ a1k0n You could also solve it analytically with dynamic programming, computing the probability of falling for each spot on the plank. ~~~ scythe Well, since you can walk back and forth across rows, you'll have to compute all of the probabilities for a given row at once by solving the resulting system of equations. This is generally quite simple. For example, take a four-column, one-row version, with probability-of-falling like so: * 0 0 0 0 * 1 x y y x 1 We have: x = 0 / 4 + 1 / 4 + y / 4 + x / 4 y = 0 / 4 + x / 4 + y / 4 + y / 4 giving the solutions x = 2/5 and y = 1/5. It is easier, of course, if you exploit the symmetry of the situation, as here (by writing x y y x instead of x y z w). ------ achompas How random is RandomChoice[]? For everyday applications I figure it wouldn't matter, but when taking ~160,000 steps (as with MC methods) we could possibly observe a non-uniform pdf for the sailor's steps. ~~~ wisty If it's something like the Mersenne Twister (in Python) then very very random. The period is something like 2^19937-1, and it passes a lot of tests to see whether or not it looks random. Of course, in a big random system there are some states that simply won't be reached by any random number generator with a finite period. Once you start looking at combinations and permutations, you can a get staggeringly large number of states. But in practice, this shouldn't matter for any problem where Monte Carlo methods make sense - if your answer is very sensitive to whether or not you have sampled a state that only crops up one in a squillion times, you shouldn't use Monte Carlo. ~~~ achompas Thanks for the answer! ------ dvse With a fair bit of hand waving it's also possible to present the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem in the same way. Can also look at Metropolis-Hastings as modifying a suitable random walk to get the steady state that we want. ------ PaulHoule here's a nicer 2d drunkard's walk simulation that i put together in scratch in a few minutes... <http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/electric_mouse/1002199> ------ guan Markov chain Monte Carlo! ------ mrvc Having worked with them for a few years now, can I just say I hate the term Monte Carlo Method. Although I can understand that calling them "random number simulations" is not nearly as cool. ~~~ wisty In Australia, Monte Carlo is a kind of biscuit. If you tell most people you do Monte Carlo simulations, they will think you design biscuits. Which actually sounds cooler than "insurance", "safety systems", or "math". ~~~ evgen In the US a biscuit is a "cookie" and if you tell people that you do Monte Carlo simulations but not the kind related to biscuits they will smile politely and slowly back away from you...

Call for support for Lisp in WebAssembly development - patrickmay http://article.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.steel-bank.devel/19495 ====== klodolph From digging, it looks like the issue here (or one of the issues) is that the Web Assembly encoding for some Lisp uses cases (multiple value return) is not very compact. Making the proposed change would presumably reduce the size of Lisp code once compiled to Web Assembly, it would not really affect the behavior of the program once compiled to native code. I can relate to the Web Assembly team's reluctance to add features which are only really wanted by a small subset of users, especially when they only affect the binary size. These features, if implemented, may suffer from poor test coverage. My own preference is that compact binaries are nice but if you're going to use a high-level language, an increase in binary size is just expected (say, an order of magnitude) unless the encoding/VM and language were designed in concert (Java + JVM, or C# + CIL are two examples). Heck, C++ binaries can be enormous. Then again, I didn't dig deep enough to really understand the nuances of the argument. Perhaps someone could elaborate. ~~~ kuschku Then again, if the WebAssembly team makes that argument, we might as well just use JavaScript + ASM.js ~~~ dietrichepp ASM.js builds can be quite large, even 10s of MB is not uncommon. Reducing the binary size isn't just "nice to have", it changes the viability of the platform. ~~~ kuschku But wasn’t the argument of the wasm team against the LISP features that binary size isn’t relevant and just a "nice to have" feature? ~~~ dietrichepp I don't think anyone is arguing that binary size isn't relevant. It just has to be weighed against the other parameters we want to optimize, like implementation complexity. ------ lisper > some support from other people in the lisp community seems necessary. A clearer call to action would be helpful here. What exactly should members of the Lisp community who care about this do? ~~~ pjlegato Agree. I support having Lisp support in WebAssembly! Now what? ~~~ vmorgulis My knowledge of LLVM an SBCL is limited but I know a bit emscripten and how it works. I will look around "multivalues" and "power of two memory access" in LLVM. ------ vmorgulis The misunderstandings are related to the use of the word "AST". wasm looks like an AST but in fact it's a bytecode with stackframes. ------ Sanddancer The memory allocation feature feels more like it would be part of whatever memory allocation library is used than something that should be baked into the language. For example, jemalloc allows for the kind of alignment that is discussed here and is done at runtime, and doesn't require specific behavior from the lower levels. Any language is going to need a runtime because you can't put in every feature that every user will need, and a malloc doesn't seem like a huge issue, especially with one already written that an implementation can crib from. ~~~ nabla9 Memory allocation feature asked is not a language feature. It has to be baked into web assembly if you want to use portable byte masking with pointers. It's very low level implementation level detail that enables fast execution of dynamically typed languages. Boxing has high cost and it consumes memory. Type tags embedded in pointers can be very fast. For that to work, you need objects that are aligned with power-of-two byte boundaries. Adding this feature enables efficient execution strategy for scripting and dynamic languages. ~~~ Sanddancer The primary target of WebAssembly is strongly-typed pre-compiled languages, where the kinds of features you want would just lead to slowdowns and excessive memory consumption. There is no hardware currently out there that is a tagged architecture, so expecting them to bend backwards is not a realistic option. ~~~ nabla9 You don't need tagged architecture if you allocate memory by power-of-two regions. ------ pmarreck I support having the Erlang BEAM in WebAssembly! Any takers? ------ zaro "This masking strategy would in turn require a power-of-two related memory size, and there has been a lot of resistance to this too." A more appropriate title will be "WebAssembly team doesn't want to listen my ideas on how WebAssembly should work". ~~~ junke From [https://www.w3.org/community/webassembly](https://www.w3.org/community/webassembly) : > The mission of this group is to promote early-stage cross-browser > collaboration on a new, portable, size- and load-time-efficient format > suitable for compilation to the web. See also [https://www.w3.org/community/council/wiki/Templates/CG_Chart...](https://www.w3.org/community/council/wiki/Templates/CG_Charter#Decision_Process). This is a collaborative work where people can make suggestions (I cannot judge if the proposal was fairly evaluated or not). > WebAssembly team doesn't want to listen my ideas on how WebAssembly should > work. Your title implies that the WebAssembly team has the best knowledge and/or expertise to develop WebAssembly. They are probably expert in their own domain but are willing to take advice from other contributors. ~~~ zaro Please read this quote again: "This masking strategy would in turn require a power-of-two related memory size, and there has been a lot of resistance to this too." And try to think about the implications it has on the memory model of the VM that is going to execute/JIT Webassemly. A power of two memory model, isn't really viable at this level I think. And you don't need to think a lot about it, to figure out that jumping to 256MB memory, just because your app/page needs 130MB is a bit of counter-optimization :) The resistance is the sensible thing to do in this case :) ------ finchisko So what is this webassembly about? Allowing programming for web in any language (java, c, lisp) and compile to webasm, as some kind of runtime env? ~~~ qwertyuiop924 Basically. At least, that's the theory. ------ sandra_saltlake I don't expect it to use the hardware in a sensible manner. ------ dschiptsov BTW, language implementations which rely on LLVM for code generation would get it for free. Well, for much less pain. BTW2, time to appreciate how LLVM's approach is superior to JVM madness/religion (and how Golang's is even more clever - do less by doing it right - essentiaistic/minimalistic ascetism) ~~~ dgellow Could you elaborate on you BTW2? ~~~ dschiptsov Modern CPU+OS is a good-enough hardware VM and a target platform. Process isolation under an OS is a right level of abstraction. A VM as user-level OS process which tries to do an OS job and reimplement everything inside a VM is simply ridiculous. Javascript follows the same madeness. Multi-threading for imperative code is a big mistake, which breaks isolation and results in lock-hell, context-switching nightmare and layers of unnecessary complexity which is impossible to reason about. Golang and Swift guys got it. ~~~ xaduha How would you explain that? [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r11&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r11&hw=peak&test=json) Swift is nowhere to be seen and Go is nowhere near the top. Once it gets going JVM is a beast. ~~~ dschiptsov At cost of wasting of almost as much resources that it serves. Top is about popularity, not quality. Junk-food is also popular. My analysis was about the first principles, not abstract ones, but grounded in reality. Those who got the principles right wins in the long run. Erlang (where VM is _not_ a byte-code interpreter), Golang, Haskell (except when monads are abused by idiots), etc are designs based on the right principles. Java was a primitive religion based on superstitions (the fear of pointers) from the start. ~~~ xaduha > Top is about popularity, not quality. Junk-food is also popular. What are you even talking about? This is a performance benchmark. > Java was a primitive religion based on superstitions (the fear of pointers) > from the start. ... ~~~ dschiptsov Performance on a simplified task is the least important metric. BTW, it will be wonderful to see next to these charts "memory used" and "lines of code used, including all dependencies" columns. And "length of stack trace in kilobytes" of course. Sorry, I didn't read this particular link. I have seen too many of them before. Principles are above particularities.) Edit: an illustration - closer to real world example chart from the same site: [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r12&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r12&hw=peak&test=update) ~~~ xaduha Whatever you say, chief. ~~~ dschiptsov Thank you! Let me illustrate the thesis about necessity of proper abstractions and principles grounded in reality in another way. There are way too many cases of a meaningless bloatware in human history, including writings produced by Hegel, Marx and Engels. There are millions of people suffered because these graphomans have produced 4000+ pages of so- called [political] philosophy, full of pure abstractions, abstract concepts and meta-phisical design patterns. The shit doesn't fly, except for confusing minds of bunch of lesser idiots, which ruined whole nations afterwards. On the other hands, there are writings after "down to earth" guys, such as Buddha or Christ, or to lesser extent, the guys who wrote Upanishads (which uses rather poetical language) which literally saved, or at least improved, billions of lives. In the realm of philosophy, guys like Tomas Hobbes and Adam Smith wrote much less pages and described some aspects of reality way better. Piling up layers upon layers of disconnected from reality crap of wrong abstractions and dubious abstract principles, praised by brainwashed followers, especially because they are too bogus and too abstract, is a way to ruin. I think it is not too hard to notice rather striking similarities.) ------ dschiptsov Code generating backend for SBCL, like one in LLVM? ------ CyberDildonics webasm is a strongly typed AST with manual memory management, it is not meant to be a direct analog to lisp or a lisp interpreter.

Racing at 127mph in a Tunnel Under LA - awiesenhofer https://twitter.com/boringcompany/status/1131809805876654080 ====== ryzvonusef [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMedyfcpvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMedyfcpvQ) Youtube video, better quality ------ ryzvonusef Route: [https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/633116268#map=18/33.92300/...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/633116268#map=18/33.92300/-118.34300)

An Unschooling Manifesto - dangoldin http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2009/04/25.html ====== tokenadult Previously submitted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580209> I see what URL difference kept the HN duplicate detector from noticing this duplicate.

Artificial Data Gravity - alexwilliams http://blog.mccrory.me/2012/02/20/artificial-data-gravity/ ====== njyx This makes total sense for the data storage providers, but it's also clearly not an equilibrium in the long run since it'll be economical for all of the data to replicate to multiple locations (where each group of users has privileged data access rates).

Ask HN: F*ck HostGator. Can anyone suggest a better managed VPS alternative? - vicken I&#x27;m sick of HostGator&#x27;s constant outages, including today&#x27;s. Can anyone recommend a solid managed VPS service not related to BlueHost&#x2F;HostGator?<p>I&#x27;m currently paying $51.95&#x2F;mo for the following and would like to stay in the same price range for similar specs:<p>2.3Ghz (1 core) 1024MB RAM 60GB Disk Space 1000 GB Bandwidth<p>I&#x27;d gratefully appreciate any input. ====== michaelchum DigitalOcean!!! You can't get a better VPS for their price. Super fast SSD (you feel the difference), almost no outages, extremely easy to setup and you build the stack you want. Stellar customer service. [https://www.digitalocean.com/](https://www.digitalocean.com/) ~~~ nitely DO is unmanaged though. ------ stevejalim I've had good experiences with Webfaction - they've been quick to respond to tickets and communicate issues/outages well. Roughly looking, your setup would be about $20/mth with them, I think. Direct link: [https://www.webfaction.com/features](https://www.webfaction.com/features) Shameless affiliate link, even though I'd recommend them anyway: [https://www.webfaction.com/features?affiliate=stevejalim](https://www.webfaction.com/features?affiliate=stevejalim) ------ thenomad I've heard decent things about WiredTree for managed servers. Decent, not awesome. Bytemark are awesome, and do offer managed servers, but I don't know how much they charge for them. ~~~ stevekemp Bytemark start from £85 for an hour a month of hands-on work, along with the automation, monitoring & etc: [http://www.bytemark.co.uk/managed_hosting/transparent_pricin...](http://www.bytemark.co.uk/managed_hosting/transparent_pricing/) ------ gesman Go for dedicated server for the same price: [http://c.gg/ovh](http://c.gg/ovh) That's what I use after I ran away from crappying hostgator. ------ jboss4 You should definitely check out WiredTree or Future Hosting. They are both fantastic for managed VPS. [http://www.futurehosting.com](http://www.futurehosting.com) [http://www.wiredtree.com](http://www.wiredtree.com) ------ Steveism I think LiquidWeb is certainly worth considering for a managed VPS in this price range: [http://www.liquidweb.com/StormServers/vps.html](http://www.liquidweb.com/StormServers/vps.html) ~~~ vicken LiquidWeb looks very promising and fits right in my price range. Great find. LW is the top contender so far. Great suggestions guys, keep em coming! ------ pskittle [https://www.strikingly.com/s/pricing](https://www.strikingly.com/s/pricing) ------ hardwaresofton How strongly do you feel about it being managed? What are you hosting? ~~~ vicken I strongly prefer it being managed so I don't really have to worry about server maintenance and such. I don't host anything too crazy. I'm a web designer and currently have about 15 sites I'm hosting for clients, with a handful of them being WordPress sites, and the rest, simple HTML informational sites. ~~~ stevekemp Generally "managed" means you share the login details to your host with somebody, they apply updates, they help work with you to tune your server, and they let you know of upcoming problems. Although there are providers who both offer hosts and offer the management you might find a decent compromise is to pay for them separately. I remotely manage a lot of servers (40-80) in exchange for an ongoing minimal fee, and I'm not alone in that I expect. ------ pixeloution maybe these guys? [http://www.unixy.net/vps- hosting/](http://www.unixy.net/vps-hosting/) ~~~ cordite A team I worked with totally ditched these guys due to their managed services quality ------ godzillabrennus I use dotblock.com and they rock.

Growing a UX tool - juliushuijnk https://medium.com/proof-of-concept/growing-free-ux-design-tool-prototype-with-ui-wireframing-and-user-scenarios-f2b0015516ef ====== daleco When my Symbols are done in sketch, I can build a mockup very quickly. Have you considered building a plugin for Sketch? I meet with the InVisionApp sales team few months ago. Their phylosophie is to work and augment the current tools (Sketch 3...) instead of replacing them. I thought that it was a good approach. I'd be worried that the designers will be scared by a command line based tool. This will be hard to convince people to move away from Sketch 3. Thanks for trying to improve the designer tools, it's much needed. ------ didgeoridoo This is so desperately needed it isn't even funny. Is there somewhere I can sign up for updates on your progress, try out alpha builds, etc? ~~~ choxi What does everyone currently use for wireframing? I find it easiest to just draw it out with a pen and paper. ~~~ didgeoridoo My current process is: 1) Initial sketches in pen & paper. 2) Move into Sketch.app for refinement. 3) Move into Invision for clickthrough interactivity. 4) Move into Principle for animations & transitions. 5) Throughout, use Craft.io to keep track of personas, user stories, etc. 6) Realize that, despite my best efforts, documentation is scattered everywhere. Things are out of sync. UI is in eighteen different states of visual done-ness, and nobody knows who made what decision when. 7) Drink heavily. My ideal workflow is: 1) Pen + paper or whiteboard for rapid ideation and exploration 2) Something exactly like this "True UX" tool for rapidly stringing together layouts and flows in a testable, iterative, documentable way. 3) Drink heavily. Wait. Maybe this is a personal problem. ~~~ sogen I use the same process but start with 7) Have you used craft sync? There’s another tool to sync but forgot the name. ------ aldanor Looks pretty cool. One thing though... Windows?.. ~~~ juliushuijnk It's a prototype I'm making in Python. You can run it on a Mac. For a web-app prototype I can re-use much of the code. First I want to gather feedback and get a feel for the potential. If there is enough potential, I'd like to get one or more developers involved so we can build a robust product for the platforms (desktop, mobile, web) that make sense for the product.

Pledge support to Wikipedia if they do a SOPA blackout - yanowitz http://www.wikipediablackout.com/ ====== kevinalexbrown I support an HN blackout, a Reddit blackout, and I would even be happy, if somewhat hesitant, about a Wikipedia blackout. But I absolutely do not support the conditional donation (excuse me, payment) to Wikipedia to get it to take a particular political stance, even if that stance concerns its long term survival. This is worse than "donate to a politician, hope they vote your way" -- this is "pay Wikipedia money if and only if it performs a specific action on a specific date and time." That goes so far against why I love Wikipedia, and why it performs such a unique service. Small, tight teams, no strings attached donations, unfettered public input. Those are things worth preserving and fighting for, but not at the cost of those things themselves. I would hope Wikipedia returns the money or donates it to some other worthy cause in the event of a blackout. Culture of an institution is a delicate thing, and where and, perhaps more importantly, _why_ you get your money can dramatically shift that culture one way or another. Wikipedia has a great culture. Is that really worth risking? ~~~ redthrowaway Agreed. I made my donation to the WMF during their last fundraising round, and I'm participating in the discussions about a blackout. That's the extent of the influence I feel comfortable attempting to exert. The proposal comes from the right place, but it goes against everything Wikipedia stands for. ------ lell I pledged. In fact I'll donate $100 if they blackout. Those who oppose blackouts claim that sites like wikipedia google might lose money, or that they are essential services like utilities. I'm not sure if the essential service analogy is valid, but it doesn't matter: correct me if I'm wrong but the letter of the law of SOPA says that wikipedia.org can be wiped off the internet as soon as it passes without ANY due process, just because some people have uploaded images they don't own copyright for. Of course, apologists will note that shutting wikipedia down won't happen, because the bill is aimed at stuff like counterfeiters and torrents. To this I can only say it won't be the first thing that happens. What it does is that it gives the US government a guillotine around wikipedia's neck that they could pull at any moment: the legal power and infrastructure for shutting it down. This is a total affront to the independence of wikipedia as a non-profit organisation (and to google & facebook as corporations). By pledging we can reduce the cost of a blackout, make it more economically viable for them, so they do it and show the world that if wikipedia(google, facebook) really are essential, then their independence should be protected from the growing nationalistic forces of the US government. ~~~ studentrob This has probably been beaten to death but I wouldn't support a Google or Wikipedia blackout. What if someone were bitten by a snake, snapped a photo of the snake, and needed to look up the type of snake in order to administer the right anti-venom? I bet you anything doctors these days are using the web to do quick checks just as the rest of us do in our day jobs. On the other hand, homepage placement for Google or something on every page of Wikipedia for a day would be nice. FB is non-critical but I wouldn't expect them to go for it. They are off on their own island of hubris and not about to cooperate with any other organization, much less with Google who is encroaching on their social territory. If twitter did it the entertainment industry + followers would be running around with their heads cut off ~~~ jarin What will happen if these sites are taken down permanently and someone needs to look up the type of snake? ~~~ rcavezza There is a 0% chance SOPA will lead to Wikipedia or Google being taken down permanently. ~~~ redthrowaway No, but it may well lead to increased legal costs for Wikipedia, as well as forcing them to hire people to ensure no copyrighted material is posted (a daunting task on a site that size). Those increased costs could seriously affect their ability to continue to finance themselves through donations. ------ eekfuh How do I know if I donate through this site that Wikipedia will actually get the money. Also the domain registration is private and through GoDaddy too. (less credibility to me) (I'd gladly donate to wikipedia, but not through this site) EDIT: I thought they were taking the donations, my bad. It's a demand progress site. Odd that they'd still use GoDaddy (even if GoDaddy eventually denounced SOPA). ~~~ rhizome GoDaddy has not denounced PIPA, and at any rate the BSA is still on the ball as well. GoDaddy is playing both sides of the game. ------ Permit If Wikipedia follows through, I definitely intend to donate more than one dollar. I hope this can get some traction, as it would really help the fight against SOPA if they participated. ------ neilk I don't know if anyone cares, but Wikipedians have been discussing a SOPA action for some months now. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative> The Wikimedia Foundation will support whatever the community decides. And the community is not waiting for a "money bomb" or whatever. So I don't think donations are going to matter in the slightest. Activists' support for a boycott may influence it a little bit, but it's really going to be a matter of consensus, and then someone in the community stepping up to the plate to implement something. The proposals have "triggers" attached, like, "if SOPA is going to a floor vote, trigger blackout 48 hours beforehand" (that's just an example). Nobody has yet talked about a trigger in sympathy with a site like Reddit. In my opinion, while it might make sense for Reddit to go dark when kn0thing is testifying before a committee, I think there is some risk of weighing in too early. You can't do this sort of thing twice. ------ acangiano There is an error around "I'm not in the US". I had to manually run javascript:go_foreign(). ~~~ lell I had this error too. To "manually run" the javascript, replace the URL in the URL bar by "javascript:go_foreign()" w/o the quotes and press enter. ~~~ dserodio This doesn't work for me, "Uncaught ReferenceError: go_foreign is not defined" ~~~ JamesBlair And there are no contact details, so we can't even tell them that their page is broken. edit: Taking a gamble on emailing the registrant. ------ ultrasaurus I support the blackout, and the company I work at is trying to figure out how to support it (we aren't consumer facing), but isn't influencing the site through money the kind of thing Wikipedia wanted to avoid by not allowing advertisements? ------ brunoqc The "(I'm not in the US)" link is broken. It's : "<http://act.demandprogress.orgjavascript:go_foreign()> Should be : "javascript:go_foreign()" ------ rhizome How about we pledge $1 for every day, starting now, that they blackout until both PIPA and SOPA are killed unceremoniously? Why wait, just do it now. ~~~ jarin As a frequent Wikipedia reader, I support the minimum blackout period necessary to generate mainstream media coverage and no more. ~~~ rhizome Don't worry, I'm sure there are enough people like you where it wouldn't take very long. Leahy's staffers, for instance.

Trump's immigration crackdown could sink US home prices - schintan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-22/why-trump-s-immigration-crackdown-could-sink-u-s-home-prices ====== woliveirajr Perhaps it won't get near the last mortage bubble, but it would have some interesting consequences on the economy...

Ask HN: what are the best looking web application user interfaces? - hoodoof What are sexiest, most stylish AND functional web application user interfaces you know? I'm NOT talking here about garden variety websites. Talking about web applications that are functional, that require significant user interaction. ====== kellros I would never attribute 'sexy' to a website. Stylish and functional, I'd suggest you take a look at lifehacker.com . Functionality wise, it depends on what's appropiate for the type of website. There's a reason why portal websites are rarely being used (except on say, company intranets). Stylish I would attribute to a lot of things including layout, conciseness, typography, certain interactivity, considerate and a few others including things like support for graceful degradation where appropiate. A website in my eyes is something someone visits with predetermined intentions looking to satisfy themselves within a specific niche. This described behavior doesn't differ from real world examples such as when you go to a supermarket to buy food. ------ abozi Here's a question on Quora, which I found very helpful and it keeps on getting updated. [http://www.quora.com/What-startup-homepages-are-most- simple-...](http://www.quora.com/What-startup-homepages-are-most-simple-clear- and-effective-and-what-makes-them-so?__snids__=45425424) ------ benologist Stripe's dashboard is pretty but you've set a pretty hazy bar on what qualifies.

Don't Ban “Bossy” - atomical http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/03/dont-ban-bossy.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true ====== growupkids That's funny, I actually heard the word used when I was a military cadet in high school. It was used to teach the difference between being a a leader, or just, well bossy. Don't be a boss, don't act bossy, and so on. Bossy people, we were taught, boss people around by using their rank. No one wants to follow them, they just have to. That's the worst kind of leader, we were taught. don't be bossy was good feedback. A good leader inspires, sets the example, is firm but fair, and through their behavior and actions people will want to follow them. Not sure what all this implied sexism stuff is, I only heard it used around men, and it was and still is a damn fine term for the bad ones. What term would they prefer be used for someone that's acting bossy? ~~~ calibraxis In Sandberg-style liberal feminism (which preserves inequality except for the more well-off white women and therefore doesn't help all women), I can imagine they want to improve subordination to female bosses. So you should be ready to follow her imperatives like you would Zuckerberg's. In corporations, boss subordination is so complete that "bossy" only applies to someone who isn't actually literally a boss. So I can imagine "bossy" is used to question the legitimacy of female bosses. However, more serious kinds of feminism directly attack the existence of bosses, since many more women are at the bottom of hierarchies than the top. ~~~ hga In alignment with your observation, this campaign is thought by some to be battlespace preparation for Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign. ~~~ judk Oh my. That is brilliant submarine marketing. ~~~ hga I prefer "cover influence operation". ------ skore (I didn't even know the "Ban Bossy" campaign existed, so I guess my comment is more about that and goes along with what the article is saying.) Looking at the videos - to an outsider like myself, they look massively ridiculous. So there is a societal problem where girls are either not empowered to lead or are discouraged from leading by others. To stop that practice, we will get rid of calling them a specific word. Words only have the meaning that we put into them. "Bossy" can be applied correctly or incorrectly. How is the word at fault? I think "only in America" applies here. Instead of understanding that this is a complex, complicated issue in society, let's find a catchy campaign title and rail against intangible things. Oh aren't we all happy we have dealt with the problem in a format that we can easily post to our facebook wall instead of, you know, doing the hard work of actually figuring out and dealing with people on a deeper, personal level. And yes, I get it, the campaign uses a reductive catchphrase to get a foot in the door and then deliver a more nuanced message. But I think a campaign set on a weird, possibly destructive premise may do more harm than good. It may lead people to think they're doing something when they're actually doing nothing apart from perpetuating a meme. How about we all just stop and check ourselves before reducing others to adjectives in general? Grown-ups and children, women and men alike? Maybe this tendency to grasp for the simple answer, the quick phrase at all times is the root of the problem and should thus not be utilized as a solution. ------ orky56 It's funny but "bully" is more associated with males and "bossy" with females. Both have negative connotations of forcing someone to do something against their own will. It seems that the reason behind not banning "bossy" is that females require this opportunity for leadership development. It seems sexist that females should be allowed to impose their will on others but males shouldn't in similar situations. I would argue that females already have a leg up on their male counterparts with the fact that they mature earlier during adolescence and perhaps use this to their advantage. As the article mentions, other ways exist to exhibit leadership. Being bossy though is the worst alignment of incentives: power & peer acceptance thru fear vs respect. ~~~ loomio Oh yes, this must be why leadership positions in business, government, and all areas of life are dominated by women. Oh wait... ------ uptown "Ban Bossy" Spokesperson: Beyoncé Beyoncé Lyrics: Bow down bitches, bow bow down bitches Bow down bitches, bow bow down bitches H-town vicious, h-h-town vicious I’m so crown, bow bow down bitches Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z Lyrics Excerpt: My nigga, please - you ain't signing no checks like these My nigga, please - you pushing no wheels like these My nigga, please - you ain't holding no tecks like these My nigga, please - you don't pop in vest like these ~~~ someguyonhn Firstly, I fail to see how the lyrics from a Jay-Z song from 2002 are anything other than completely irrelevant to the Ban Bossy campaign. But if you're going to bring it up, we might as well do it right. 1) Pharrell says those lines not Jay-Z. This is the same person who wrote/sings/produced the Academy-Award nominated "Happy" song from Despicable Me. 2) The context of lyrics within a song, the intended meaning of the song itself, and intended audience of a song should obviously be taken into consideration. On a site like HN, that so often seems to point out the ridiculous nature of arguments against video games causing violence, citing lyrics of someone's husband as somehow a statement about.... well I have to be honest, I can't follow the logic of the point you're trying to make... is disappointing. And finally 3) Here are some lyrics from Jay-Z that seem pretty relevant to your comment: "...Rap critics that say he's Money, Cash, Hoes I'm from the hood stupid, what type of facts are those If you grew up with holes in your zapatos You'd celebrate the minute you was having dough I'm like f-ck critics, you can kiss my whole a--hole If you don't like my lyrics, you can press fast forward... ...I don't know what you take me as Or understand the intelligence that Jay-Z has I'm from rags to riches, ni--as I ain't dumb I got 99 problems, but a b-tch ain't one, hit me" ~~~ uptown Why'd you censor the lyrics? "I fail to see how the lyrics from a Jay-Z song from 2002 are anything other than completely irrelevant to the Ban Bossy campaign." We're talking about banning words. If I had to guess, I'd bet more people would support banning "nigga" than they would "bossy". Personally, I don't think any words should be "banned" because it's simply not possible. Society may evolve to not use a word, or shun those that do use a word - but a campaign to "ban" a word does an injustice to the literal meaning of the word "ban" because it's just not realistic, or possible. ~~~ someguyonhn To your question: I censor myself on HN because I don't believe Hacker News, which is often used by children and is a place that seems to wish to be more welcoming to women and racial minorities, is the right place to have an environment where swearing or using racially inflammatory language is okay. Especially when readers don't know my relationship to the subject matter, or my relationship to the individual I'm addressing. To your point about relevance, I'm going to point out to you that zero people are actually advocating banning a word. They're saying "hey let's stop calling girls who express leadership skills "bossy" because that has negative consequences". To which I think the average person would probably be open to. They are advocating not using a word in the wrong context. Call kids bossy when they're being brats, sure, but when someone, particularly girls are being leaders and doing the same things that boys are complimented for, don't call them bossy. #WhenSomeonesBeingALeaderDontCallThemBossy is a pretty long hashtag and a terrible way to quickly market your campaign. #banbossy is memorable, gets to the point, and can encourage a conversation. ------ jedmeyers I understand that this is a touchy subject, especially on HN, but come on: "Avoid editing what you want to say in your head, and try not to worry about being wrong." This is straight from their Leadership Tips for Girls pdf. They are encouraging girls to just say whatever comes to mind. What's next - calling everyone who disagrees "sexist"? ~~~ Tohhou >What's next - calling everyone who disagrees "sexist"? If you disagree then you are automatically labeled as one of the obvious sexist rapist rape apologist pedophile neckbeard supremacist spermjacked nerd sperglord virgin libertarian losers. They can't possibly be wrong, so if you disagree you must be one of the hell bound sinners of the most dire nightmare. >"Avoid editing what you want to say in your head, and try not to worry about being wrong." This is very sexist of them. Their implication is that males are stupid and don't ever censor themselves when they work to be good leaders - that they are only gain leader status because they say every dumb idea they have, and that saying stupid things shouldn't have any consequences. ~~~ pigDisgusting You forgot "creepy stalker", you closed-minded male chauvinist ape. ~~~ Tohhou That's female chauvinist ape, shitlord! ~~~ pigDisgusting Well played, Tohhou, well played. Now if you'll please excuse me, I've just stepped in some of my own doggy doo, and I need scrape off my shoe. ------ gaius I love the delicious lack of self-awareness with which these things are delivered. Like people who pay $50,000/year for college to study a subject of no practical use telling me to "check your privilege". ~~~ someguyonhn This is a kind of long response. But I hope maybe you'll read through it. Just saying "check your privilege" is probably not the best starting point for the conversation, so I'll try to do a better job of explaining. I don't know if you are misunderstanding what is meant by "privilege" or not, but the privilege being talked about when someone says "check your privilege" in my experience are the privileges that come from being part of the, for lack of a better term, more socially accepted or socially powerful group. Things like white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, you get the idea. So regardless of your level of income or education, you can be, and probably are, still privileged in the way society sees and treats you. For example, as a man, I pretty much never have to worry about being told I got a promotion because I was having sex with the boss, or that I'm only being angry or "emotional" about something because it's my "time of the month". Things that women have to deal with all the time. Another example would be that I'm never worried wanting to have children is going to be seen as bad for business, and result in me being denied promotions or other advancement because of it.(Not to mention I'm statistically going to be getting paid more than women for doing equal work.) Hopefully you can see how these are the type of privileges men, or another group of people in a similar situation, may never notice unless it is pointed out to them. Or they "check their privilege". In relation to Ban Bossy, an important example seems to be that I've been conditioned my entire life to aspire to be a leader: team captain, salesman of the year, best on the basketball court, you get the idea. And not once was I ever, or will I ever, be discouraged from asserting my leadership skills as essentially "not knowing my place" because I'm a man, which can be the outcome when we tell girls and young women to not be bossy or other similar things. Maybe a good exercise for you, and for all of us, is to listen to what people are saying when they describe the privileges we have, or to ask them to explain better because we would like to understand. Depending on our situation, maybe we'll gain a better understanding of our heterosexual privilege and being able to love who we want without having to worry that their gender will result in violence against us or them. Or maybe we'll learn about our religious privilege, and that we are able to practice a religion without inciting fear, being called names, profiled, assaulted, or killed because of the head covering we wear or for being "different". ~~~ gaius _Things like white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, you get the idea._ What you are talking about, if it even exists, is a _rounding error_ compared to the massive good fortune relative to the entire rest of the human race that has ever lived, of being born in the West in the late 20th/21st century. Perhaps _you_ can see that dropping a few hundred grand on a _hobby_ makes the speaker incredibly more privileged even within this already privileged group, and gender is absolutely nothing to do with (as the majority of homeless, etc, happen to be men, where's the white male heterosexual privilege there? Oops your whole model of the world just imploded, sorry 'bout that). ~~~ someguyonhn I can't tell if you're trolling or not. I tried to respond to you in what I believe was a mature and respectful way. You've responded with a breathtaking amount of immaturity. And completely ignored any of the points I made. Perhaps one day you'll be more open to hearing and responding to what I wrote to you. Maybe that day won't come. Either way I wish you well. ~~~ gaius _You 've responded with a breathtaking amount of immaturity_ To a post displaying a breathtaking amount of naivety. I didn't ignore your points, they are, paraphrasing Feynmann, "not even wrong". And I am not sure what "troll" even means these days, it seems to be a catch-all term for "someone on the Internet who isn't a part of my echo chamber". Likewise, I wish you well, and I hope that one day _you_ will come around to what I wrote. ------ wyager I'm immediately extraordinarily skeptical about anything that suggests solving a cultural problem by changing language. That's like trying to solve a math problem by changing the value of pi. ~~~ corin_ There is at least a theoretical logic to banning words like this: if being called bossy is causing girls to lose leadership skills then maybe stopping this artificially (even if people still think it without saying it) could lead to less girls being affected, and therefore in the next generation the stigma has disappeared. Obviously it's not that simple, and I have no idea to what extent, if any, this actually works, other than in theory. ~~~ Crito > _" if being called bossy is causing girls to lose leadership skills..."_ I don't think that this particular word is the root cause. More important is the reason why people are using it. If you ban that particular word without addressing why people are using it, then those people will adopt a new word to mean the exact same thing. Creating euphemism treadmills doesn't fix anything. ~~~ jkestner Yep. Some people are taking this too literally. (Nerds parsing? No!) The heightened awareness of how word choice subtly undermines behavior we presumably want to encourage, is the point. This article suggests that instead of banning, women embrace the word as a badge they're doing something right (a la 'nerd'), and undermining the undermining would work too. ------ mildtrepidation From BanBossy.org: _When a little boy asserts himself, he 's called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don't raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead._ So yes, as others have said here, the goal is not necessarily (or only) to get rid of the usage of the word. But as is very evident from other responses, that is not immediately obvious to everyone, in no small part because of the arguably poor catch phrase being used. I'm also not thrilled with some of the 'motivational' phrases being thrown around. "I'm not bossy; I'm _the boss_ " (Beyonce) is not constructive. It's puerile and is more likely to encourage actual bossy behavior (the negative kind, as defined well elsewhere in this thread) than to help introduce equality in the way we encourage leadership attributes in all children. Not, of course, that equality seems to be emphasized here. Which is a typical problem and one that's unlikely to help this campaign make a real difference, as it's immediately exclusive to some degree rather than encouraging _everyone_ to be confident. ------ iterationx While feminists were busy telling the world about the dire need to ban the word “bossy,” the Iraqi parliament was considering the implementation of a new law that would legalize rape, prohibit women leaving home without the permission of their husband, and legalize marriage for 9-year-olds. “If passed, the law will apply to Iraq’s Shia Muslims, the majority of the population. Provisions include prohibiting Muslim men from marrying non-Muslim women, legalising rape inside marriage by declaring that a husband has a right to sex regardless of consent, and prohibiting women from leaving the house without their husband’s permission,” reports Breitbart.com. The law, which has been denounced by Human Rights Watch as a violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), would also lower the age of marriage to nine years old for girls and 15 for boys. Despite the fact that the law represents an egregious assault on women’s rights and wouldn’t look out of place in the stone age, you probably didn’t hear about it because self-proclaimed feminists were too busy concentrating on more pressing atrocities being inflicted upon women – such as people using the word “bossy”. [http://www.infowars.com/new-iraqi-law-legalizes-rape- feminis...](http://www.infowars.com/new-iraqi-law-legalizes-rape-feminists- too-busy-banning-words-to-care/) ~~~ chilldream I agree with the article, but "There are Starving Kids in Africa" is a stock bad argument ~~~ chongli Yep, it's a fallacy too: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_relative_privation) ------ adamnemecek I saw the video a couple of days ago and it was flabbergasting that someone thought that this whole thing is going to achieve anything. ~~~ mschuster91 It's just feminists. Western version of the Taliban, if you ask me. ~~~ Ambrosia yes obviously feminists were the real ones behind 9/11 ------ logicallee Bossy is extremely specific and a terrible style of leadership. I've known bossy women as well as women who were great leaders. The overlap has between the two is the empty set. How about you teach real leadership skills to girls who like to lead? Such as understanding, empathy, reward, etc. Of course the same goes for men, and bossy men are just as big a problem. ------ cushychicken You can see how this campaign of proclaiming "bossy" to no longer be gender neutral has caused me (a heterosexual white male) some serious gender identity issues, as I was frequently called "bossy" as a child. Does this mean I'm actually a woman? ------ droopybuns "The number one reason that why girls are not turning into leaders is because they are occupied with posting selfies on your fucking Facebook, Sandberg!" -Adam Curry ------ theorique "Bossy" doesn't refer to a person (male or female) who embodies _good_ qualities of leadership. Instead, it is used to describe someone who takes charge in a rude and disrespectful way. Examples include: giving others orders, shouting, emotional manipulation, tantrums, and so forth. Anybody who behaves this way may be "leading", in some sense, but they are not being a very good leader. Conversely, a girl who leads her friends and peers in a kind and empowering way is _not_ being bossy. It would make just as much sense have a campaign to "ban douchebag" or "ban asshole", as these terms are disproportionately applied to men. And those terms don't apply to _being a leader_ , they apply to _being a rude, disrespectful leader_. ------ jamesaguilar My brothers used it on me all the time, but that might not be the typical experience. ------ SnydenBitchy Wow, the “discussion” here validates every negative stereotype about the tech community, you troglodytes who I’m embarrassed to call my peers. I wonder if it’s it too late, at 31, for me to change careers? ~~~ masterleep Are there no online communities that you can't complain about? ------ wcummings I'm impressed by how much people are missing the point. It's just about raising awareness of how young girls are treated, no one is actually banning any words. ~~~ dkrich Then maybe they shouldn't have led with the name "Ban Bossy?" If you create a marketing campaign and it is misinterpreted by what is presumably largely your target group (men who don't realize their words are apparently harming girls during their formative years) the fault is yours, not your audience. ------ nsxwolf Is there any empirical evidence this word harms girls? ~~~ sp332 It's not about the word "bossy". "Ban Bossy" is just the name of the campaign. ------ stefantalpalaru I bellyfeel banning words is doubleplusgood. ------ tobehonest I would rather "slut" gone, than bossy.

AmigaDOS Command Reference - doener http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Manual:_AmigaDOS_Command_Reference ====== anexprogrammer Apart from wondering where this sprang from, if anyone wonders why AmigaDOS was such an ugly fit with the rest of exec and written in BCPL not C: They'd contracted a SV company to produce CAOS, to a spec of Carl Sassenrath - the creator of exec (OO multi-tasking kernel). As deadline got closer and closer it was clear it wasn't happening, or even close. It was meant to get resource tracking and some other features to integrate with exec. Edit: Found the spec and story of CAOS: [http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html](http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html) It got AmigaDOS - a port of Tripos from UK company Metacomco. It got that because no one else they asked believed they could deliver anything in the remaining time. That's why there was all the BCPL weirdness with DOS. ~~~ a_thro_away Thanks for that; that was so difficult for then young, untrained me to get my head around, as well as reading the Amiga Reference Manuals - it was all so foreign. ~~~ anexprogrammer Tripos started on PDP11, but had already been ported to 68k - just needed the exec glue code. Don't think the story ever properly came out but you get the impression it was the week or weekend before. :) The weird data thing was because of BCPL language - it only understood words, not bytes. ------ magoon I hadn't realized how ahead of its time the Amiga was for a personal computer: TCP/IP, MIDI, SCSI, REXX, (screamtracker) MODs. ~~~ jandrese I suspect this is a reference for a much later version of the OS. You probably wouldn't see all of these commands on a machine from the Amiga's heyday. ~~~ a_thro_away The A2000 was in it's heyday, I think; you would see most of those commands (or their equiv) with an Amiga A2000 with the Amiga LANCE ethernet board A2065 and AS225 TCP/IP option, or maybe even the Amiga UNIX; there was even a DECNet stack which worked quite well... AREXX was always there, right? There were many SCSI commands as well to support the A2000 Zorro SCSI board. "bigroadshow"? it was apparently part of the TCP/IP stack. I guess it just depended on which system, boards, and options you bought at the time. ~~~ icedchai ARexx wasn't included with the OS until 2.0. You could buy it as a third-party add on for 1.3 and earlier. ~~~ ekianjo 2.0 was already in the amiga 500 plus and that was still very early in the life of the Amiga. ------ cha-cho It's been quite a while (the ole 2500 is in storage) but it seems like a person could change directories without the "CD" command. Just type the path in the CLI, hit return, and you moved to that directory. edit: Likely thinking of the "implied CD" mentioned in the link. ~~~ bwldrbst That's true (I've actually got an amiga shell window open in an emulator on another workspace right now...) - the CD command is only needed in cases of ambiguity. I hope you removed the clock battery from your A2500 before storing it. By now it would have started leaking corrosive gunk, a very common cause of death for these old machines. ~~~ cha-cho Nuts. I don't think I removed the battery and it's been in storage for almost ten years. Then again if it can survive me naively washing the motherboard with a garden house and letting it dry in the sun, I think the Amiga gods will keep the battery intact for me. I hope so anyway. ~~~ bwldrbst If you have the opportunity, it's worth checking it and cleaning it up. I didn't know about this problem at the end of the 90s when I stopped using my A4000 and the battery destroyed the motherboard. ------ csixty4 I'm not sure why this is on the front page of HN. But I'm starting to mess around with Aros so this might come in handy I guess. Thanks! ~~~ wprapido many of us HNers were / are amigans. some still owe them or at least use an amiga emulator. the amiga community is still alive and kicking. don't mind the impact amiga had on computing ~~~ jupiter2 As a non-amigan but a huge fan of alternate OSes, I am constantly impressed by the enthusiasm and energy you guys still have for this system. It's contagious in a non-annoying way. I upvote interesting Amigan stuff whenever I come across it. As an old-school DOS user, AmigaDOS, which I wasn't familiar with, looks fascinating. I'll have to see if it's available next time I boot _Icaros Desktop_. ~~~ wprapido welcome to the club! AROS does have a decent amigaDOS support ------ Jaruzel I've been hosting a similar site for years now, but in a more Amiga-Friendly browser format (basic HTML): [http://www.jaruzel.com/projects/AmigaDOS-Guide- Help/index.ht...](http://www.jaruzel.com/projects/AmigaDOS-Guide- Help/index.html) There's also a zipfile for download. ------ mortenlarsen Someting is messed up on that page: COUNTLINES Binds device drivers to hardware. CPU Counts how many lines a file is made of. ------ snvzz Used to be a nice documentation site, until they decided to cover AmigaOS4, ditching 3. ------ watmough I still have a couple boxes of Amiga floppies. Including the source to NewTek DigiView capture software in 68000 assembler hilariously enough. Anyone know if there's a way to read them? ~~~ textfiles Here and ready to help. [email protected] ~~~ watmough I'll dig 'em and out and see what I have.