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The 6 Minute Pitch - spanishcurls http://blog.spanishcurls.com/the-5-to-6-minute-pitch ====== spanishcurls Really curious as if it's missing anything big.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Question Over the Reach of Europe’s ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ - dap http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/questions-for-europes-right-to-be-forgotten/ ====== aroberge I wonder what will be the reaction in the EU when Turkey will ask that all links to criticisms of their president be removed from Google's index world- wide, or that other countries outside the EU makes similar demands of Google for topic X...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Please critique my idea - CobraKai This idea is not commercial, but we need this information and I'd appreciate input from the HN'ers about how to make this better, areas where I'd have trouble, etc.<p>So I'd like to collect data on patient satisfaction after anesthesia for my group. Right now we have no idea how satisfied our patients are after they go home after a surgery. What I'd like to do is the following:<p>After surgery, a patient is given the URL to a website, where they will enter their unique ID that will reference the type of anesthesia they had, the surgery they had, their surgeon, and their anesthesiologist<p>The website will ask about: post-op pain scores, post-operative nausea/vomiting, overall satisfaction, areas of concern, incidence of sore throat and whether they're satisfied with regional anesthesia(if they got that)<p>My primary goal is to practice designing and deploying a relatively complex (complex to me!) web app. My secondary goal is that our group really should have this information available to us. I don't want to use a SurveyMonkey-type form because I want to link back to pertinent anesthesia information (without having the pt divulge their name). Plus it'll be a nice learning experience.<p>Of course, the problems with this will be self-selection of folks that choose not to fill it out, self-reporting of pain scores, etc, but it's good information for us to have and it's good practice for me!<p>So - I'd really appreciate your thoughts - Fire away! ====== tgrass My first thought is there is little incentive for the patient to log on long after surgery (an hour is long for this situation). Perhaps consider actively engaging the patient after surgery by requesting an email pre-surgery. This cuts down a lot of user friction. (I'm thinking now you may not be involved with the hospital. Find an online forum or manner to engage patient pre-surgery. It is much easier to identify them before when they are looking for help and info, than afterwards). After surgery you send the email with a link with a unique id. If you are working with the hospital, you can have the patient's data associated with the id, decreasing the info required for them to enter. Not sure from your post where you want input most. User experience? Web development? ------ latch I think it's a good idea, and I'm not even sure you'll have as much of a problem getting some feedback as others think. My only contribution is that I hope you are aware of all the privacy concerns with this. It certainly isn't a huge deal, but I figured I'd mention it in case you hadn't considered it at all. In the US, I believe it falls under HIPPA and the Protected Health Information (PHI). ------ gspyrou You could try using Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault in order to collect patient data. <http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/health/about/index.html> <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/healthvault> ------ geekytenny Seems it will be a good learning experience. If you are really using the required information for patients' benefit that is great and it shouldn't be a problem getting a high response rate. ~~~ rabidonrails Have you figured out how to convince patients that giving you the information is worth their time? Older patients won't/don't have the technical ability (however simple it may be) to fill out an online survey quickly and younger patients will want incentives for their time (and the info). I'd tell each patient that their doc needs to monitor them and that rather than constant appts they could fill out this survey every other day. That should convince people.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why I have migrated from Ruby on Rails to Seaside - duck http://www.codingforhire.com/2010/07/why-i-have-migrated-from-ruby-on-rails-to-seaside/ ====== DanielRibeiro One of the things that troubles me is that even Seaside's creator (Avi Bryant, who sold his company to twitter recently) mentioned how this way of doing web apps is old: [http://python.mirocommunity.org/video/1186/djangocon-2009-dj...](http://python.mirocommunity.org/video/1186/djangocon-2009-django- is-obsol) He went overboard and implemented smalltalk in javascript (named clamato): [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2116348/does-anybody- use-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2116348/does-anybody-use- clamato/3714081#3714081) ~~~ jcromartie That's a great talk, thanks for sharing. It seems like clean separation between a JavaScript client app and a server-side data/controller layer is the way forward. But I'll still content that web development as a whole is broken, because web dev is a teetering mile-high tower of abstractions and when something leaks, it tends to trickle all the way down and stink up the whole stack. ------ swannodette A great story about the kinds payoffs when you actually take the time to learn very unfamiliar tools. This drive to learn rich and deep and _unfamiliar_ systems is the source of any real counterforce to the pop culture CS that Alan Kay talks about. ------ jasonlotito A post later: Rails to Seaside – Some things I missed from Rails [http://www.codingforhire.com/2010/11/rails-to-seaside- some-t...](http://www.codingforhire.com/2010/11/rails-to-seaside-some-things- i-missed-from-rails/) ------ rbranson Quite interesting. It does seems most of the advantages of Seaside are from using the Smalltalk environment. One thing is definitely clear: Ruby needs much stronger debugging support. ~~~ barmstrong I use NetBeans to code Ruby and the debugging is great. You can set breakpoints, step through, set watch variables etc. I don't have a ton of experience debugging with other languages (prob Java is the only other one), but what is Ruby missing? ~~~ avibryant Here's the experience of debugging in Seaside: 1\. You reload a buggy app in the browser. 2\. Oh noes, you hit an error: the browser shows you the stack trace. 3\. At the top of the stack trace, there's a "debug" link: if you click that, the HTTP request causes your dev environment to pop up a debugger. No response comes back to the browser yet. 4\. In the debugger, it's as if you had a breakpoint right before the error occurred: you can walk back through the stack and inspect the state of each frame, etc. 5\. If you see the problem, you can edit the code - right in the debugger UI - and hit save. The stack will unwind to whatever frame you are editing the code in, and restart from the top of that method or block. 6\. As execution continues, the HTTP response finally goes out, and you see the (newly fixed) web page come into the browser. As someone noted in another comment: although I was the main developer and evangelist of Seaside for a while, I no longer use it or contribute to it (though many others have taken up the torch) but I can't tell you how much I miss this workflow. (Edited for formatting) ~~~ cpenner461 From a quick glance this sounds similar to the debugging provided by paste/pylons? I've only played briefly with pylons so I may be way off though... ------ mark_l_watson Although I use Lisp+Ruby+Java for just about everything I do, I do keep an eye on Squeak and Pharo (hoping for JIT performance someday getting fast like the commercial VisualWorks product). I periodically run through a Seaside tutorial - really neat stuff, and very easy to deploy on Linux servers (I blogged about how to do this several years ago). One thing that attracts me to Seaside is that (unfortunately) most of the web apps I write are low volume sites so I would not have to worry too much about scaling. I make this same argument for using Rails rather than Java. ~~~ aaronblohowiak "I make this same argument for using Rails rather than Java." -- JRuby is pretty cool, no need to choose! It isn't as fast as raw java, but you can easily swap out the hot paths with java to get additional performance. ~~~ stcredzero Or, you could pony up for VisualWorks server licences and get even better performance. (And swap out the hot paths with DLLs implemented in C.) ------ chc Conceptually, I like Seaside. But I simply can't get past the hideous abstraction-leaking URL scheme it insists on. They aren't resource locators; they're session IDs, with all the info stored in the session state. Users should be able to copy and paste URLs to things. They expect it, and that's not an unreasonable expectation. ~~~ avibryant Absolutely true for some apps (and for those apps, in Seaside as in any other framework you can do the extra work to get bookmarkable URLs). For other apps, it's nice not to have to worry about this. For example, when did you last email someone a URL from your Gmail session? ~~~ silentbicycle That's an excellent example. I've been a bit skeptical about continuation- based web services, but that makes a lot of sense. ------ nek4life Interesting but I was constantly distracted by the X bullet points next to the list items that you liked. Perhaps you could add a class to put checkmark icons instead when writing an article like this. ------ jcromartie I'm pitching Seaside as a contender for the platform to build a new app on tomorrow. I'm completely and utterly sold on it. The experience is really just unparalleled in the world of software and web development, and I think the Smalltalk tools it is built on is a huge part of that. ------ kuahyeow I'm intrigued by Monticello. Is that a source control tool ? Or is it far more than that. The author seems to alude to Monticello as part of the smalltalk package. ~~~ cwp Yes, it's a source control tool. Smalltalk doesn't store source code in text files, so you can't really use tools like git or svn to version Smalltalk. Monticello is a DVCS written specifically for versioning Smalltalk code. ------ stcredzero Is there a current hotbed of Squeak/Pharo/Seaside development? I'm wondering where I should move in the US? ~~~ mattrepl There's been an active Smalltalk community in Vancouver, BC. If you want to stay in the U.S., then Seattle or Portland may work. ------ ghotli Seaside seems interesting but how is the smalltalk library support? Does it have a robust way to call libraries in other languages? ~~~ jcromartie It has FFI, so you can call other libs as long as they are C-compatible.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
In China and India, men outnumber women. The consequences are far-reaching - deegles https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-men/ ====== karmakaze The article expresses the difference in numbers instead of percentages for sensationalism when the imbalance pressure is the ratios. We've had the reverse imbalance from wars etc and it would be good to compare and contrast rather than claim the sky is falling like never before.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon will lower Whole Foods prices right away - tosh https://www.recode.net/2017/8/24/16198716/amazon-whole-foods-lower-prices-prime-discounts-benefits ====== oblib Well... I went to a Whole Foods store in Destin, FL last week and was stunned at how much they're charging so I'm pretty sure they've got a lot of headroom to do this. What was truly laughable was what they charged for non-organic fresh fruits and veggies and the poor quality of those. Most of what they had was stuff other stores would have thrown out several days before they got to the point they had there. They were charging over $3.50 for an organic cucumber and around $30 a pound for T-Bone steaks. I guess I've been living in the Ozarks for too long because I had to laugh about that. ~~~ gumby > I...was stunned at how much they're charging so I'm pretty sure they've got > a lot of headroom to do this. The headline price doesn't actually tell you this. The fact that WF gets a 5% margin and Amazon gets 2% is what tells you there's a lot of room for price reduction. BTW this is a classic example of how an asset can be worth more to the buyer than the seller (i.e. how you can get a win-win transaction): Whole Food's market cap was based on those margins, which are significantly higher than its competition. It was hard for them to move (lower prices, expand etc) as it would challenge their true differentiator. While Amazon's investors are comfortable with lower margins, so Amazon has plenty of room in which to make experiments, move some of their supply chain expertise into the business, discover what parts of their existing model _don 't_ transfer etc. ------ mywittyname Whole Foods is wildly overpriced and their selection kind of sucks. Their store brands are good, but Kroger has made strides with their Private Label. They really don't have enough to justify the 20-30% increase in weekly grocery bills over shopping at Kroger. I go there for the seafood counter and that's about it. Amazon has a golden opportunity on their hands. I tend to rotate between grocery stores because not every place has what I want. If Amazon could make Whole Foods cheaper and widen the selection I could probably shop there exclusively (especially if there are prime perks). ~~~ epmaybe I just want an easy way to know where everything in the store is! I spend twice the amount of time I should just trying to find the items I need. ~~~ joezydeco You don't believe that's accidental, do you? =) ------ zakk So they will be selling at a loss to send competitors out of business? ~~~ Larrikin Will it be at loss? I normally avoid the place but it's close to where I live. I wanted to get some nicer mushrooms for a meal than what I'd normally get but they only had the same types as everyone else. Went to aldi that same day and saw the exact same brands and packaging but with a few more types. The button mushrooms at whole foods were six dollars. The exact same ones at aldi were under three. ------ angryasian Trader Joes has limited selection but good quality and good prices overall. I welcome the competition.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A New Tack to Stave Off Alzheimer's Years Before the First Symptom - mrestko https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/talking-back/a-new-tack-to-stave-off-alzheimer-s-years-before-the-first-symptom/ ====== helloworld _[W]e know there is little relationship between the amount of amyloid in one’s brain and your memory function. In fact, those “super-agers”—your 95-year-old great-great-aunt who finishes the crossword puzzle in 20 minutes, is president of the bridge club and has a better golf handicap than you—may have just as many amyloid plaques in her brain as AD patients._ Another AD researcher, Rudolph Tanzi, recently made the same point, suggesting that it's the inflammation caused by these plaques in some patients that leads to dementia: [http://www.aarp.org/health/brain- health/info-2016/alzheimers...](http://www.aarp.org/health/brain- health/info-2016/alzheimers-cure-research-drugs-hd.html) ------ stretchwithme The right diet can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 54%. [http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/features/mind-diet- alzheimer...](http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/features/mind-diet-alzheimers- disease) ~~~ pcunite You eat things from these 10 food groups: • Green leafy vegetables • Other vegetables • Nuts • Berries • Beans • Whole grains • Fish • Poultry • Olive oil You avoid: • Red meat • Butter and margarine • Cheese • Pastries and sweets • Fried or fast food ~~~ dcosson The study shows that this diet may be sufficient for a better outcome for altheimers, but I'm skeptical that this in its entirety is necessary. Research on metabolic diseases is more and more pointing towards fats not being much of a factor, and sugar and too many total calories (from any sources) being large factors. And ketogenic diets have shown some effect at fighting altheimers, other metabolic diseases, and even some cancers, which is why treating fat as the enemy doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. ------ reasonattlm This is sort of illustrative of a prevalent failure mode in high level R&D strategy in medicine. What they are doing is reasonable as an immediate extension of trying to map the disease process front to back, which is what pure research should be doing. The outcome of that, however, tends to be that people end up manipulating biochemistry to slow the disease process rather than fix it. You can get useful results out of this - see statins, for example. But you can't get cures. People who take statins will still end up in the same bad place in the end, just a little later. Also, it is very expensive to find safe new states for cellular operation that provide a decent benefit:harm ratio. One right thing to do in Alzheimer's is map the whole thing end to end, them make a decision on what to do. An enormous task that is basically the same thing as understanding the human brain end to end - which is a good thing in and of itself, and if Alzheimer's provokes that work (in the same way that AIDS provoked analogous major efforts to understand viral biochemistry) then good. But in the short term that doesn't produce useful therapies. The other right thing to do is to identify the fundamental differences between young, non-diseased tissue and aged, diseased tissue and work to revert them - even if you don't know how they are causing harm. Successful removal will tell you a great deal about the significance, and steer other research, and in the best case produce a useful therapy. Thus a focus on amyloid and tau, and immunotherapies to clear them, and dysfunctions in cerebrospinal fluid clearance mechanisms, with approaches ranging from simple mechanical adjustment of fluid drainage channels behind the nose to proposed stem cell therapies for the choroid plexus to addressing immunosenescence in the brain's immune system. However, Alzheimer's is such a multifaceted condition that researchers tend to focus on reverting one of these items, then don't produce wondrous benefits because the other mechanisms are still in play, and then the people who prefer to slow disease progression instead arrive to argue that this means they shouldn't look at this direct approach of reverting differences. To fix Alzheimer's will likely require clearance of both amyloid and tau, and even then it is likely that since 60% of sufferers also have vascular dementia, it will be challenging to produce good trial outcomes under the present regulatory system. If damage repair doesn't work, that means you're not repairing enough of the damage. ~~~ ktRolster _One right thing to do in Alzheimer 's is map the whole thing end to end, them make a decision on what to do._ I think you're underestimating the difficulty of that task. Not only is current technology inadequate for mapping the brain, even if we did draw the lines, we would still be far from understanding it. Even _C. Elegans_ took over a decade to map, and while it's true that our technology is better, it is still not up to the task of mapping the brain. If we waited until the brain were mapped to make any progress would mean delaying much progress. ~~~ reasonattlm That's kind of the point. That is exactly what's happening in the research community, plus the inefficiency of people stepping off the mapping process as soon as they find some mechanism that might slightly slow disease progression, and then focusing on that rather than something that might clean up the damage instead of slowing it down. Not enough of the research community is doing the other thing, the repair and reversion of differences between old and young tissues carried out in advance of full understanding, so as to aim at cures rather than delay. Alzheimer's, funnily, is in a much better position than most other age-related diseases because a large chunk of the mainstream of the research effort is actually directed towards a repair-of-the-differences approach - removal of amyloid via immunotherapy in this case. That choice of strategy isn't true for heart disease, diabetes, dementia, etc, etc. If we want to see cures for age- related disease, there must be a sweeping change in the research community's high level strategy, towards repair of fundamental damage that distinguishes old tissues from young tissues, and away from tinkering with the disease state to slow it down or to compensate for some of its effects. ------ untilHellbanned Ahh ye old biologist doing ye old refuctionist science. Good luck on ye old calcium drug preventing more Alzheimer's then it does causing ye old bad something else. I always find it interesting to figure out why work like this gets attention compared to the 87,000 other approaches for important disease X. This work seems particularly preliminary. Silly humans distracting each other. It's like we are the Washington Generals and Disease is the Harlem Globetrotters.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Worst practices in ad design on iOS - xonder http://www.pocketnext.com/stories/the-hard-sell/?utm_campaign=jason&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter ====== elicymet I agree with near everything in the article, but think even interstitial ads prove disruptive in a way that I can't get behind. I don't begrudge a game provider for the use of ads, but think that unobtrusive banner space to be the most acceptable. Oddly I feel like it goes a long way when ad providers use language like "thank our sponsors" and have some self-awareness; it's easy to tell when they've been suckered in by an ad provider to use all their most annoying API's. Integration of ads that reward you for either clicking or looking at them are also an interesting idea.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
OSARA: Open Source Accessibility for the REAPER Application - jarmitage https://github.com/nvaccess/osara/ ====== brudgers Link to the Reaper digital audio workstation: [http://www.reaper.fm/](http://www.reaper.fm/) ------ jarmitage Fund this! [https://www.gofundme.com/2nbes8s](https://www.gofundme.com/2nbes8s)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why does array[i++%n] += i+“ ” give different results in Java 8 and Java 10? - dpflan https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50683786/why-does-arrayin-i-give-different-results-in-java-8-and-java-10 ====== saurik (For anyone who is like "that looks inherently undefined due to using i++ and i in the same statement", that is likely not true of Java anyway--which loves to define stuff like that--but more importantly: this issue turned out to have nothing to do with that, and is much more general and arguably a dangerous bug in the compiler starting with Java 9 related to +=.) ~~~ skywhopper Yes this does look dangerous. Basically `strArray[keyLookup()] += “s”` evaluates `keyLookup()` or whatever is in the brackets twice. So if there’s a side effect to that function that’s going to behave badly. Limited to arrays of `String` apparently.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
360° Oculus rift music video: Steye and the Bizonkid – What do we care 4 - MeProtozoan http://www.surroundvideostream.com/api/2/staff/videos/986/preview ====== MeProtozoan Proof of concept made by a few friends of me. Install the Surround Video app ([https://appsto.re/nl/QdvDL.i](https://appsto.re/nl/QdvDL.i)) and use your iPhone/iPad as a Oculus rift alternative.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Next generation perovskite solar cells with new world-record performance - upen http://exactlyscience.com/archives/11845.html ====== DrScump Blogspam of [http://news.unist.ac.kr/next-generation-perovskite-solar- cel...](http://news.unist.ac.kr/next-generation-perovskite-solar-cells-with- new-world-record-performance/) with author credit (Joo Hyeon Heo) stripped out. Original has graphics also.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NEWS: Generate SSH Keys Even More Faster - pixelbuster https://github.com/Gururaj26/ssh-generator ====== dClauzel There you go: ssh-keygen -t ed25519	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Create a minimal Wiki in Python+Django in 15 minutes (screencast) - danielha http://www.silverstripesoftware.com/blog/archives/27 ====== danielha This supplements lucks' submission on creating a Wiki with Python+TurboGears (http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1981)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Quickly enable popups that support any HTML - madprops https://madprops.github.io/Msg/ ====== davchana Nice one. Starred :) Also opened two issues..	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
DadHacker » Blog Archive » Dead Newt - marcus http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1120 ====== plaes Ha.. another trick to try out...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously - elorant https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-starting-to-take-warp-drives-seriously-especially-this-one-concept ====== mellosouls _Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously_ No they aren't. This is just a fluff piece for a highly speculative but excitingly sci-fi sounding propulsion mechanism with not even the remotest prospect of practical implementation. See also EM Drive, etc. ~~~ hhas01 Never mind implementation; what about causality? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_$physics$) Anyone who wants to build a warp drive has to start by proving Einstein wrong. Anything else is a scam. ~~~ alfromspace How does FTL violate causality? I've tried reading on it before but didn't understand it with my casual understanding of physics. ~~~ shadowgovt This website explains it much better than I can, but the tl;dr explanation is there's no "privileged frame of reference" in relativity. Even if two frames of reference can be arranged to agree on a causal sequence involving FTL phenomena, a third observer can be constructed that perceives the sequence of events happening out of order; they get the light from effect before they get the light from cause. This creates nasty phenomena that we don't seem to observe in nature (i.e. if the third party observes effect before cause, they can interfere with cause. Everyone loves a good temporal paradox ;) ). [http://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies- ti...](http://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-time-travel) ~~~ alfromspace >What does the ship see? They see the phone call received on Proxima Centauri. Then they see the phone call placed from Earth. Effect precedes cause: causality is violated. In fact, if the ship had a FTL phone set up in the right way, they could call Earth before Earth placed the call. They could even tell Earth "hey, don't make that call to Proxima Centauri we just saw you make." Then what? I don't understand the problem here. The ship couldn't call Earth before Earth placed the call. It would see the call being received before Earth placing the call, but if it then called up Earth on their FTL phone and said "hey, don't make that call to Proxima Centauri we just saw you make," wouldn't Earth just reply "Uh, we already made the call, you seeing old light doesn't mean these events didn't already happen." Why does it matter what the third observer sees? Cause and effect aren't violated just because it can appear that way. ~~~ shadowgovt "just because it can appear that way" is all "cause and effect" are. The source doesn't do the math on the final step, but you can arrange the third observer so they emit light that reaches Earth before the phone call is sent (because we are assuming FTL tech). ~~~ alfromspace Then it doesn't violate any fundamental laws of existence, does it? We're just talking about receiving delayed images of events. The ship isn't engaging in backwards time travel by contacting Earth after seeing its call being received, because Earth knows it already placed the call. No information from the future is being conveyed to Earth, and the third party isn't actually able to affect the "cause" after seeing the "effect", because the cause is over and done with. ~~~ shadowgovt No, you misunderstand me. Earth hasn't placed the call yet; the ship can use FTL and its knowledge of the effect to send a message to Earth that Earth receives before it places the call. The scenario you're describing is described as such in the link above: """ Now, you might say "wait, light takes a finite amount of time to travel. You've just shown what times the spaceship will assign to various events, but they can't see it immediately. That'll save us!" Sadly no. Here's when the ship actually gets the light from the events. [complicated figure, but it shows there's enough time in the light-cone chart for the ship to receive the 'Proxima received the phone call' event and then travel to Earth slower than speed of light and tap Earth on the shoulder before the phone call was sent] As you can see, the light from the phone call reception arrives well before the light from the placing of the phone call. Again: causality is violated. """ In fact, that message can be "Place the call," which means the call is placed because Earth was told to by the third party because the third party knew the call had to be placed because they observed the effect because the call was placed... FTL allows for closed-causal loops. ~~~ alfromspace I'm still not getting it. What mechanism allows for knowledge of the effect before the cause objectively happens? For the third party to observe the effect, the cause had to have happened from Earth's perspective. The fact that the light hasn't reached the third party yet seems immaterial. I'm not trying to play gotcha, seriously don't get it. "As you can see, the light from the phone call reception arrives well before the light from the placing of the phone call. Again: causality is violated." It's still only speaking about the perspective of the ship, and it seeing effect before cause. ~~~ shadowgovt > What mechanism allows for knowledge of the effect before the cause > objectively happens? Yeah, it's tough. I don't think I can explain it without bootstrapping a college semester of relativistic physics, and I'm afraid I'm not that good. :( To start your search, "Objectively happens" is the intuition that doesn't hold water in relativity. There is no objective frame of reference (i.e. nothing in the universe is moving at 'speed zero', or more precisely, _everything_ moves at 'speed zero' relative to itself). So everything is relative; there's no place anyone can stand and observe things objectively. Relativity changes the rules upon which reality operates so they hinge, loosely, on two fundamentals: 1) The speed of light, in a vacuum, must be observed to be the same by all observers 2) Observers do not agree on the times that they measure for when events occurred (for example, the "moving train" thought experiment shows that simultaneity is violated by relativity), but they can agree that the events align to each other subject to the Lorentz transformation when relative velocities are accounted for. Under these rules, causality is maintained; I don't have the whole proof at my fingertips, but it can be shown that regardless of how you apply Lorentz transforms to sublight-velocity observers, they'll agree that events that caused one another have the same ordering (this is a subtlely different statement than "Two things happened at the same time," and it's partially a property of the events that are effects being within the 'light cones' of the effects that are causal). FTL travel allows one to exceed the "light-cone limit" and as a result, the causality constraint that 'effects are in the light cones of causes' is violated. The frame of reference where one event caused the other exists (i.e. there are velocities one could have where the light cones will line up that way), but there are also now velocities one can have where the light cones do not line up that way. It's only impossible for _any_ observer to see effects happen before their causes if nothing can exceed light-speed. For your specific question ("What mechanism allows for knowledge of the effect before the cause objectively happens?"), I think I can offer a short hypothetical thought experiment that might illuminate things. Imagine there were a door from Earth to Mars allowing instantaneous transit (so infinite velocity, in excess of speed of light). One day, the sun blinks out of existence. Earth will see this occur three light-minutes before Mars does. Someone steps through the door and yells "People of Mars! I come with a warning! In three minutes, the sun will go out! Evacuate now!" From the Martian point of view, that person is a time traveler from the future, and the intuition relativity brings to us is that the Martian point of view is as "objective" as any other point of view. This (Lorentz-transform- violating) visitor has knowledge of an event that will definitely occur in three minutes before the cause of that knowledge has occurred. ------ contravariant I think it's always been taken somewhat seriously from the start of general relativity (it didn't take long before the first formal description of a wormhole). The discovery of gravitational waves has again provided strong proof in favour of general relativity, but I don't think this is what is preventing people from seriously considering warp drives. Until a way is found to remove the need for exotic matter or to generate exotic matter it remains a purely theoretical exercise. ~~~ qubex The problem isn’t really the need for exotic matter in enormous quantities (apparently we have a negatively curved universe where dark energy serves exactly that purpose), but rather the aspect of causal disconnection: everything inside the bubble is disconnected from everything outside it, so it’s difficult to envision how the spacecraft inside could be generating, steering, or even shutting down the warp bubble outside itself. ------ unknownkadath I feel really bad for this undergrad; The student's advisor did not do him any favors by letting him go and give this talk to the IEEE. It is perfect material for clickbait farms and the wider krank-net. If you can access it, the doi link to the conference paper is: doi.org/10.2514/6.2019-4288 This is not a serious attempt, and in no way indicates that scientists are starting to "take warp drives seriously." It is pitching that same silly stuff White et al have been promising is "real close now" for around 15 years. I also cringed at the equations and figures that were obviously copy/pasted from White's PDFs to Word and back. Having this kind of kooky thing hanging from a baby undergraduate's name--a name that I'm not going to propagate on the web for his own good--is not going to help his future career, and everyone involved should feel bad for wasting his time. Sorry this is boiling my grits so badly, am I over reacting or is this awful? ------ honoredb Typo near the beginning, "press a petal," gave me a fascinating mental image for a second. I'm sure it'll be informative to learn exactly why every theoretical avenue for faster-than-light travel doesn't work, but I feel like we can infer from the size of the universe that these effects don't exist; if they did, they'd dominate our observations of the universe and we'd never have thought the speed of light was a fundamental limit in the first place. ~~~ nateferrero Flower petals would make an amazing tactile controller ------ tjchear I've heard often about how the energy estimate for warp drive has been revised down from the mass of the universe to that of Jupiter. Forgive my ignorance, but is this just a matter of refining the shape of the warp around a spaceship, or is it something else? What would it take to further drive down that theoretical energy requirement? Is there a trade-off being considered here? ~~~ qubex It is the result of refining the geometry of the warp bubble to be generated by two toroids rather than a single ring, inflating the interior compared to the external perception thereof (a la Tardis), and most critically, by oscillating the field. ------ diegoperini "Scientists" is not single community of converging opinions. "Scientists" do not even agree on how serious the climate change is. Prefixing these kind of titles with "Some" (as in "Some Scientists...") may seem redundant but it actually gives an entirely different message which I believe is almost always important to be explicit about. ------ reportgunner If you like the idea of Alcubierre Drive, give Elite: Dangerous a try - every ship (that is not a fighter) has an Alcubierre Drive installed and you use it extensively to get around "The bubble" (a sphere of inhabited space roughly 20 light years with Earth as its centre) and even beyond. I have no affiliation with Elite: Dangerous, that's just how I learned about Alcubierre Drive ------ 34679 >Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) Just a reminder. ------ mnky9800n sciencealert is starting to post non-clickbait articles. wait no they aren't. lol. ------ pingyong tldr: Nothing changed, we still don't know if negative energy is even something we can generate. ~~~ Pigo But they got it down to only needing the total negative energy requirement to be around the mass of Jupiter. So we're on our way? ~~~ jerf That's one way of looking at it. No sarcasm, I'm serious. But another valid way of looking at it is that scientists have moved it from "impossible", to "impossible", to "impossible", then, with some more work, upgraded it to "impossible". Or, in other words, no progress at all. The negative mass is still only one problem with the Alcubierre drive concept. Last I knew, it remains unclear how to enter and/or create a bubble without being totally destroyed, or exit and/or destroy a bubble without being totally destroyed. Reuse of any of the components is probably also a problem; in the Einstein equations, playing fancy games with spacetime tends to want to rather explosively go back to normal with the entire mass-energy of the distortions in question. It's also somewhat unclear what would happen to an Alcubierre warp drive in the real universe, where the space between stars is not a perfect vacuum. It's not a drive being taken "increasingly seriously", unless you mean it's gone from epsilon to twice epsilon. It's a particular solution of the Einstein equations that involves impossible quantities of things and a particularly complicated setup basically already existing. If we didn't have science fiction making FTL drives cognitively available to people's imaginations and perhaps even subconsiously bleeding over into people's impressions of what real is (i.e., the bizarre but clearly pervasive subconscious assumption that seeing something in a sci-fi show means the probability of that occuring in real life is higher), nobody would be taking this seriously right now. Between the actively impossible elements (sustained, enormous quantities of negative mass) and the things that may not be mathematically "impossible" but are probably engineering-impossible, this is just a thought experiment right now. Now, for all that, it's a worthy thought experiment. I am a firm believer in putting down a bit of money on the very long-shot payoff research. I'm not asking anyone to stop working on it. I'm just asking for realistic assessments of the current state of the art, which is that the probability that this drive will ever work is basically indistinguishable from zero at this point. ~~~ ColanR > But another valid way of looking at it is that scientists have moved it from > "impossible", to "impossible", to "impossible", then, with some more work, > upgraded it to "impossible". I think that description used to apply to a lot of technology, which then progressed to "almost impossible", "slightly less impossible", and finally to "built a prototype". From my laymans' perspective, it's the trajectory that matters more than the current state-of-the-art. ~~~ jerf Not the way I'm using the word. The drive is not currently merely like an airplane, where it is obviously possible to fly (at least as well as birds), we just didn't know how to bang the rocks together correctly to do it. The Alcubierre drives requires things that we have every reason to believe are _impossible_. In English the term "negative mass" may just seem like, oh, someday maybe we'll advance and have this; in math, it's even worse than you may think I'm going to say. It isn't that we don't know what "negative mass" is. It in fact already appears in some of our equations. The problem is that the product of negative mass times the amount of time it exists seems to be fairly sharply bounded at literally dozens of orders of magnitude too small to conceivably be of any use. We have every reason to believe that stable negative mass is impossible. Not just "we don't know how to do it yet", but _impossible_. Impossible is like "perfect"; technically, it doesn't admit of "degrees" of impossible. So moving from "impossible" to "impossible" is not progress. People like to cite a lot of cases of various supposed boundaries being broken over time as evidence that maybe this one will be broken too, but there's a qualitative difference between some "elderly distinguished scientist" opining something is impossible, and the mathematics of physics saying something is impossible. It is not a sophisticated, open-minded position about the technological possibilities of the future to say that someday, man will break the barriers of the laws of thermodynamics and someday produce the perpetual motion machine; it is ignorance and scientific illiteracy. FTL is not _quite_ that certain yet, but at the moment, the smart money is on it being the exact same sort of thing, not humanity someday overcoming it. At the moment I'd say that if you properly understand the science of the matter and just how thoroughly reality seems to stymie us in our every attempt to worm around the speed of light restriction, you are completely unjustified in giving even a .1% chance of FTL being possible, let alone that humanity will ever achieve it. It looks to be a lot closer to perpetual motion than breaking the sound "barrier", which barely even deserves the same English word as the speed of light barrier given their massive qualitative differences. Now, as I say, the long shots sometimes pay off, so I don't advocate that nobody thinks about this. Even the process of discovering why the <.1% is better thought of as a flat 0% can be valuable scientific progress, plus there is always the chance I'm wrong. However, at the moment, it looks like FTL is a problem that is far harder than just waving a couple of hoary old quotes about scientists at it is going to solve. You're not fighting "scientists", but the _math_. Personally, I tend to think Hawking probably got it right with his chronology protection conjecture, and that even if you do manage to build something that goes faster than light or travels back in time, the entire system will literally explode. FTL may not be just impossible because we don't know how to build it, but because it really is fundamentally impossible; spacetime will _literally_ explode in your face even if you do manage it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjectu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjecture) ~~~ ColanR > The drive is not currently merely like an airplane, where it is obviously > possible to fly (at least as well as birds), we just didn't know how to bang > the rocks together correctly to do it. > People like to cite a lot of cases of various supposed boundaries being > broken over time as evidence that maybe this one will be broken too, but > there's a qualitative difference between some "elderly distinguished > scientist" opining something is impossible, and the mathematics of physics > saying something is impossible. I appreciate your distinction in the use of the word 'impossible'. I didn't actually see what you meant by it before. From what I remember from learning about the development of airplanes, it was considered physically impossible until proven otherwise. It wasn't an elderly scientist saying planes can't fly, it was the best science of the day declaring that something heavier than air was meant to stay on the ground (IIRC). I'm simply skeptical of claims of impossibility, across the board. I do appreciate and understand the science of the reasoning behind the claim; but to a layman who knows a bit of the history of science, 21st century scientists declaring things scientifically impossible (because science has progressed so far since 100 years prior) sound eerily similiar to 19th and 18th century scientists saying the same thing, for the same reason. ~~~ antepodius I have a very hard time believing that, given birds existed. ------ ptah how is this different from aether [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories) ~~~ juped Using "aether" as a generalized snarl word is really irksome. None of us were alive for the debates in physics of a century ago. General relativity is an aether theory; i.e., it ascribes properties (the metric tensor) to empty space. Appeal to authority below since that's the level we're playing on when we misuse dated terminology like this. "We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense." \-- Albert Einstein ~~~ taylodl Don't confuse the model with reality. The interesting thing about GR and its stress-energy tensor is you _can 't distinguish_ the model from the reality. The model says space is curved and it's this curvature which we perceive as gravity. Does that mean space is actually curved? No. But we have no way to tell. It's a fascinating concept when you think about it. Quantum gravity may give us a way out but so far we've achieved little progress, mainly due to the very same stress-energy tensor being a different type than those found in other quantum fields. Viktor Roth provides a simple explanation of the problem: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/05/17/the- marriage-o...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/05/17/the-marriage-of- einsteins-theory-of-relativity-and-quantum-physics-depends-on-the-pull-of- gravity/#65399968e3a6). If you're into physics Viktor is a fun guy to follow on Quora. ------ Vysero Sounds to me like they are discussing tech that may exist 5 to 6 hundred years from now... not really worthy of their attention imo. ~~~ pluto9 For it to exist 500 years from now, someone will have to work on it for the next 500 years. ~~~ Vysero That's not true. What it would take is a massive advance in material science or what-have-you. Once that massive advance happens then it may or may not make this tech possible. However, that massive advance will most likely have nothing to do with working on this particular tech in the meantime.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
95% Dreamhost Hosting Discount: Last Day Today - timy2 http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2009/01/dreamhost-new-year-hosting-sale/ New Year hosting sale at Dreamhost offers $214.80 package for $10.74 only. ====== DanHulton Dreamhost is unprofessional, has more downtime than I've seen from other hosts, and has wildly oversold accounts. And I'd recommend them to ANYBODY. Allow me to explain: The very fact that they are unprofessional is probably the number one reason I like them. When they fuck up, they are right up front admitting it in plain english, detailing exactly what went wrong, whose fault it was, and what they're doing to fix it. I'd say that's exactly what OUGHT to be done, but in any "professional" company, there will be some smooth lie to cover up what happened, explain it as an "occasional service interruption" and move on. You'll never know why something happened, or what the chances are of it happening again. With Dreamhost, I'm always aware, and even if there are major weaknesses in their networks, at least I know what they are and what they're doing to fix it. (And who - by name - I can yell at for fucking it up.) They have more downtime than I've seen from other hosts, but I'm willing to chalk this up to "circumstances beyond their control". Why? Because when shit went south, they explained what it was. Their datacenter wasn't up-front with them about its capabilities, the building generators weren't terribly reliable, all kinds of things that were out of their control. Sure it sucked for any Dreamhost user during that time, but it could have happened to any host, and THIS one had the temerity to level with us and explain exactly what happened. And the oversold plans? Actually a feature. Honestly, I don't think I'd host an actual application on one of their $7/month plans, but that's because that's not what those are FOR. The cheapie plans are there for my personal website and my blog. They're there for someone who wants a site to sell handcrafted things. They're there for someone who wants cheap imagehosting for forum signatures, avatars, or funny pictures for friends. Dreamhost sold me exactly what I expected, and has taken the time to routinely update me on the issues affecting them. Now, if only Josh could get the newsletter out any faster than a month behind... (Hm, before that gets misinterpreted, that's a running joke at Dreamhost, that each newsletter is dated for the month previous. They do like poking fun at themselves, another plus as far as I'm concerned.) ------ timb I just signed up for this. Immediately the web server they gave me went down. Half an hour later, it is up again, but won't properly serve files: $ curl <http://danielerrey.com/lib.js> curl: (18) transfer closed with 19097 bytes remaining to read Sigh. ~~~ fdb Same problem here -- just signed up, and none of my media files (css/png/jpg/gif) get transferred. HTML works fine. I sent a support request, but this is not a very good first impression. ------ dangrover 95%. Which is also, incidentally, their uptime! :) Actually, I have them and I'm pretty happy. ~~~ wheels I've been using Dreamhost for about three years. I have monitoring running on my services. It's probably been down for a total of about 5 hours in that time. It's never taken them more than 2 hours to respond to a support request. On the whole, they've significantly exceeded my expectations for cheapo hosting. It's definitely not suited for heavy web apps (SugarCRM, notably, is painfully slow), but it does fine with things like Wordpress. ~~~ nuclear_eclipse As a counter note, I had been using them for about 16 months straight, ending about a year ago. During the time I was onboard, my monitoring services recorded about 30 different occasions when my server/cluster went offline, each for generally about 30-120 minutes at a time; there was one month that my cluster had seven or eight outages, one of which was for nearly a day. When users (like me) are relying on the server to host email accounts, mailing lists, and subversion repositories, downtimes like that are just absurd. Good thing though is that I absolutely love Slicehost, and for only a little bit more $/mo, I have a VPS solution that hasn't gone down even once since I signed up. The only downside is that setting up your own email server is a pain in the ass... :P ~~~ Zev FWIW, Dreamhost doesn't even recommend hosting email on their servers, even if they offer the ability to do so if the user wants. They're trying to migrate people off to Google's custom domain services. ------ andyking Are they any good though? I'm looking at hosting for a single Wordpress blog at present (well, actually, I signed up for a host a fortnight ago, they took my money and never got back to me, so I'm looking AGAIN). But claims like "Storage: UNLIMITED + 50GB!" put me off a little. Aside from it being a physical impossibility, I don't even need 1GB of storage. What's Dreamhost actually like? They seem to be trying to tempt people in with big numbers on the homepage, which is the sort of marketing used most often by ripoff merchants. ~~~ wesley <http://www.google.com/search?q=dreamhost+sucks> ~~~ DanHulton The number one article for that search "Why Dreamhost Sucks" has a whole bunch of referral ads for Dreamhost in it, making it ultimately not very credible. Just fair warning. ------ asnyder I use to have a dreamhost account, but then switched to bluehost (<http://www.bluehost.com>) based on the recommendation of a friend, and found them to be more reliable and supportive while keeping much of the dreamhost feel. A friend of mine blogs about his experience with the two here: <http://www.danshafer.com/onemind/node/807> ------ timothyandrew It says 'promo code not valid in your region' for me. I'm in India. ------ tlrobinson They hooked me a couple years ago with one of these deals. I now pay $10 / months but I haven't had any problems. And _thats_ how they can afford to give 95%. ------ m0nty Quite happy with that - thanks for the tip :) I need a website for my open source project, plus I want to test out a few domain/product ideas so that's ideal. ------ yogione Promo code 202 is up to $30 now. I got a free domain name registered also. Can't beat the price for hobby projects. ------ Tichy Any reasons not to buy? Not sure I understand the type of account, is it a virtual root server? ~~~ ovi256 No, seems to be shared hosting. VPS is +15$/month. ------ Herring Promo code 202 is up to $21.48 now. ~~~ snorkel $29.95 now. ~~~ NyxWulf I just did it and it was up to 41.95	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How the PlayStation-Powered New Horizons Probe Flew to Pluto - jrepin http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/technology/1403583/how-the-playstation-powered-new-horizons-probe-flew-to-pluto ====== zimpenfish Slightly disingenuous headline since it's not "PlayStation-Powered", it's "(rad-hardened version of the same CPU the PS1 used)-powered". ~~~ buserror Can't do proper clickbait with a title like this! ;-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Small business banking - omarish All- Who do you use for your small business banking purposes? Any recommendations/important features to watch out for? Thanks. ====== run4yourlives Credit Unions are pretty good if I were to give my opinion. Mine has pretty good deals like this: [https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/Business/Banking/Chequin...](https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/Business/Banking/Chequing_Accounts/One_Small_Fee_Business_Account/) I'm assuming most have similar services. (As an aside, you'll notice that website is pretty damn good too, for a bank.)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What is Spam? – Visualized \| Search Engine Journal - zoowar http://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-spam-visualized/25796/ ====== JamesDB So 35million emails led to 28 purchases. Got to wonder how much their overheads are, presuming sending those emails is minuscule.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Frogs Evolve Teeth - Again - iuguy http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2011/02/110209-frogs-teeth-evolution-science/ ====== iuguy I thought this was an interesting article to submit, as it seems that amphibians have changed many times over the years, evolving new features, having them disappear then re-evolving them as they adapt. What should humans evolve next? ------ 6uh6564yh54 Assume without explanation more?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Facebook is not equipped to stop the spread of authoritarianism - dhirajd https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/24/facebook-government-silence-dissent-authoritarianism/ ====== AlexandrB Nor should it be. The way discussions about Facebook policing content are framed rubs me the wrong way. Facebook _should not_ be put in a position where it's responsible for dealing with authoritarianism, extremism, and other societal ills. The only reason it _seems_ like it has to do this is that we've allowed Facebook to become a near-monopoly on a certain form of social networking. The solution is not trying to compel or convince Facebook to act as an arbiter of morality for the world; it is to _break Facebook up_ and restrict it's ability to monopolize the online space. Real competition in social networking would mean communities could form their own rules and norms around what's acceptable - like in the forum era - without relying on a central authority such as Facebook to do it for them. A decentralized protocol/system like Mastodon allows this kind of partitioning of the social space. Would this _stop_ authoritarianism? No. But it would turn censorship into a game of whack-a-mole, and limit the spread of authoritarian ideas to the social networks whose communities are already OK with that. ~~~ closeparen "Communities could form their own rules and norms around what's acceptable" is exactly the problem. The criticism against Facebook is that it failed to stop this, and communities emerged with norms too far away from mainstream. Facebook "didn't do enough" to enforce mainstream norms on all its dark corners. Facebook critics generally want _more_ centralization so that people are exposed to opposing viewpoints and a uniform sensibility on what is and isn't true. More decentralization is a recipe to spiral further and further into fragmented echo chambers with their own self-reinforcing ideologies and their own alternative facts. ~~~ ordu _> Facebook critics generally want more centralization so that people are exposed to opposing viewpoints and a uniform sensibility on what is and isn't true._ The sad part of it, to my mind, is those who critisize Facebook for this want to be exposed for opposing viewpoints to be able to fight opposing viewpoints. I do not want my viewpoints were exposed to those who oppose it. Opposition is too way ready to fight, I'm not. I'm happy to discuss them, but not to fight for them. Even your comment hints the same: you want exposure to make some viewpoints impossible, to fight them to death. These critics are declaring openness and freedom but they are authoritarian by their nature, they want to one (their) viewpoint to win all others. It is irremovable contradiction between declared goals and real ones that cannot be fixed by Facebook. The story from Bangladesh shows it in some sense. Authoritarian reign wants to be exposed to opposing views to fight them. Students do not want to be exposed to opposed views, they want to expose to their views only those who is ready to accept them. SJW want to be exposed to opposing views to be able to scream "fire him". They also want to expose others to their views to hurt them. Trolls of different colors and sizes want their shit to be exposed to a fan of public opinion and to make fun of hurting others. I do not want my views to be exposed for general public because the goals of that public are under doubt, they do not want to learn my viewpoint to shift their beliefs close to mine, they want to learn my viewpoint to fight my viewpoint. The trouble is not a degree of exposure, the trouble is people thinking that contradicting viewpoints should fight to death. And too many people looking not for viewpoints but for a fight of viewpoints. Of course it leads viewpoints to guard theirselves in a fragmented echo chambers, to self- reinforcing ideologies. ~~~ rhcom2 > I'm happy to discuss them, but not to fight for them. What is "fight for them"? You want to discuss your views but not be criticized for them? Are you surprised people fighting for social justice have a strong reaction against viewports they feel are attacking their very personhood? ~~~ AnthonyMouse > You want to discuss your views but not be criticized for them? Yes, that is how civilized discussion works. You criticize the idea, not the person who disagrees with you. Ad hominem attacks that escalate into trying to get people fired are not a debating tactic, they're an attack on the mechanism of open discussion itself. ~~~ rebuilder It seems hard to maintain civil political discourse in an environment where the discussion is public and participation is largely open to all. I think this is to some extent because when we think of discussion, we think of answering questions like "what should we do", but without privacy and barriers to entry, discussions enter the other realm of politics where the main question is "how do we get it done". The former requires openness to self- doubt, which in the latter context is harmful to achieving goals. ------ scarejunba All these comments make no sense. The state police and its agents forced people into logging in to their accounts and then tortured them for what they saw there. This is good old rubber hose attacks. Facebook isn't the bad guy here. They were the target because they provided the function of being a great place to share stuff. All this bullshit about Mastodon and whatnot isn't going to help anyone. I can just imagine the police. "Oh no, you are using a decentralized tool to describe the protests. I guess we can't torture you. After all each of the communities on this decentralized tool have their own independent rules and what you posted doesn't violate the rules of the community you posted it in. You're free to go." ~~~ bogomipz >"All these comments make no sense. The state police and its agents forced people into logging in to their accounts and then tortured them for what they saw there." If FB didn't enforce a "real name" policy then the police wouldn't have been able to identify and/or hold those people to account. The comments make good sense. ~~~ manfredo Facebook doesn't actually enforce the real name policy unless you are deliberately impersonating someone. I created something like 6 alt accounts, none of them were flagged. ~~~ bogomipz Yes they do enforce it. Just because you haven't been called to defend one of your fake accounts does not mean they don't enforce it. See: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/facebook- real-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/facebook-real-name- trans-drag-queen-dottie-lux) and [https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/15/facebook-makes-changes- to-...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/15/facebook-makes-changes-to-its-real- name-policy/) ~~~ manfredo These two examples seem to be relegated to very specific subpopulations, that are doing something that would easily attracy Facebook's attention - nameley identifying as the opposite gender they did previously. The overwhelming majority of people can probably make a profile with a false name and use Facebook without issue. Ultimately, though, people probably don't use fake names on Facebook because a large portion of the service's value is lost when trying to keep one's identity obfuscated. None of your friends, acquaintances, or co-workers will recognize the profile with the false name. Unless the profile picture is real, but that opens a vector for the government to find out in the real identity of the user too. ~~~ bogomipz Maybe read the entire context - the OP stated it is NOT enforced and it most certainly is enforced. It's not "relegated to very specific subpopulations" either. It's enforced whenever FB feels like enforcing it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real- name_policy_cont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real- name_policy_controversy) ------ jszymborski Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian elements. They're (arguably wittingly or unwittingly) a digital stasi; listening and collecting everyone's conversations, tracking and collecting social interactions and connections between groups of people, tracking and collecting people's online interests. They've created a tool where you can literally search entire countries for dissidents and demographics and political allegiances. They've given powers that only authoritarian gov'ts have had to upstart authoritarian elements that haven't power in the region they're trying to over-turn. I know this just sounds like sidewalk doomsayer stuff, but we're seeing these effects globally... this is no longer a "what-if" scenario. ~~~ cabalamat > Facebook can't stop the spread of authoritarianism, because it was designed > in such a way that it can't help but be the perfect tool for authoritarian > elements. Centralised networks are a perfect match for authoritarianism. > They're (arguably wittingly or unwittingly) a digital stasi; listening and > collecting everyone's conversations, tracking and collecting social > interactions and connections between groups of people, tracking and > collecting people's online interests. It's definitely wittingly: Facebook's entire business model is based on knowing as much as possible out of people in order to monetise that knowledge. ------ 40acres I actually think Facebook is very well equipped to combat disinformation campaigns on it's platform. At least more equipped than radio and TV. Due to the political environment of the present day I look at Facebook and other social media platforms as analgous to when radio became popular. Radio was definitely a great platform for propaganda among authoirtian states, but the nature of radio infrastructure lends itself to be controlled by the state so if the state is authoritarian then they will naturally turn the radio. Facebook is a platform that has no borders, and it is ubiquitous in a way that TV, radio, and even other parts of the internet are not. Add on the all seeing nature of AI and machine learning and I think over time Facebook could definitely prevent the spread of these ideas _on it 's platform_. The major point of contention for me is the question of if it's Facebook's rightful place to regulate political speech, Zuckerberg definitely seems adverse to putting his thumb on the scale but at this point I'd say that not weighing in is a form of weighing in. The bring up the often cited Voltare/Ben Parker quote: "with great power comes great responsibility", Facebook has reaped all the benefits of becoming the social infrastructure of the internet, at some point they have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to accepting that responsibility head on. ~~~ AlexandrB > I actually think Facebook is very well equipped to combat disinformation > campaigns on it's platform. At least more equipped than radio and TV. The fact that Facebook can even be compared to radio or TV speaks to the level of centralization the internet has experienced in the last decade. We've nearly come full circle - from restricted, centralized media like TV, to the wild west of the early internet, now back to re-centralization with a few huge companies which control access to a huge chunk of the internet audience. I think we need a new push for de-centralization. ~~~ lsd5you Agree with the sentiment, but was there ever a push for decentralisation? Seems to me that the original decentralisation of the internet was circumstantial. It was due to the technology of the time (limited resources + aarpanet nuclear strike resistant design) and where it was first established (universities - which lack a unifying hierarchy). ~~~ salawat Are you asking a rhetorical question? You sort of answered it yourself. And yes, there was always a push to decentralize. However, network effects lead to some nodes becoming more heavily connected than others until such time that the consolidation of resource in hypernodes starts to have unintended side effects that are deleterious to the system as a whole. That tends to intensify the push to decentralize, while damping pushes to centralize. Nature as acted out through man. ~~~ edmundsauto The issue I see with decentralization is that the practical surfaces (websites, devices, etc) are so difficult for the vast majority of the population to use. Simply the mental overhead of deciding whether to use Voat, reddit, Discord, or whatnot will stop a large number of people from ever participating online. Decentralization is great for those of us who don't have the cognitive overhead, but adds a lot of complexity that this tribe underestimates. My mom, for example, hasn't been able to understand the difference between a text message and an email, and she's been actively online for about 5 years now. To her, it's all a way to communicate, but when I try to explain that email has a subject line, and text messages don't.... it's beyond her grasp. Decentralizing will help with some of the issues that are currently front and center to technologists, but it will exclude a huge number of people. ~~~ 40acres I disagree, my earlier point illustrates this a bit more. I think early on the internet was so novel that only the experienced (programmers, academics, industry folks) could navigate it. Once the browser, Google, and smartphones arrived more and more people could access the internet, billions of people now know the rules of the road, although of course some are more expert than others. I think your mother is a bit of an outlier. My dad is over 70 but can navigate the basics of the internet: how to text, take a photo, stream content on Youtube, etc. I think now that this basic level of competency has been reached decentralization can occur. I think you're correct in terms of the friction, no one but nerds wants to go through the hassle of setting up their own private, decentralized network. We need systems that are as frictionless as going on Facebook or typing a query into Youtube, in my opinion this has been the main flaw of decentralized platforms. ~~~ edmundsauto The fact that your father is able to navigate complexity doesn't really disprove my point. Some percentage of people will be excluded / unable to participate if things are decentralized. Whether that segment is sufficiently large, or whether people care about them having access, is left to each person's opinion. Centralization has significant advantages. People love one location for what they need because it simplifies things. That enables more folks to participate due to lower friction. Whether the downsides outweigh the positives is left to the reader. My broader point is the centralized/de-centralized discussion should be framed in terms of tradeoffs. One is not necessarily superior to the other; it depends on how each person weights the relative benefits and downsides. It's important to acknowledge that the general internet public, so far, seems to prefer the advantages of centralization. That may be because the disadvantages are hidden, or it may be a legitimate preference. ------ porpoisely I can't get over the hypocrisy of our media. One day, the media is demanding facebook censor everything they don't like in an authoritarian manner. The next day, they want facebook to be a tool against authoritarianism. Which is it? Should facebook be a tool for or against authoritarianism? Or is authoritarian behavior good when it suits the media's agenda? Also, another social media story by techcrunch on the frontpage. They guys are really overdoing it with the facebook/social media spam. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751859) ~~~ TomMckenny The article criticizes the utility of Facebook for torturing and jailing people for their views. I'm not sure I see how Tech Crunch is being hypocritical here. And I'm surprised such an article is now partisan. I also don't understand how Tech Crunch, BBC, LA times, CBC, Miami Herald, CBS etc, etc, etc, could possibly be part of a coordinated anti-Republican "the media" conspiracy either. ~~~ porpoisely They are being hypocritical because they support censoring and even jailing people for speech on social media platforms. Also, why are you assuming partisanship or anti-republican anything. I'm not a republican. Never have been. Also, you forgot foxnews and wsj in your list of media entities involved in the "conspiracy". They have been attacking social media for much longer than any of the media companies you listed. Any particular reason why you are reading so much into my comment? I'm against all torturing and all jailing and all censorship. Whether it is of democrats, republicans, foreigners, etc. You? ------ hugh4life There is really a philosophical contradiction on many demands put on Facebook and the social media companies. There are many in western governments and media who want the social media companies to engage in "repressive tolerance" at home far beyond preventing physical violence while ensuring space for dissent in authoritarian nations. If western media and governments want social media companies to be more principled in dealing with more authoritarian governments then they themselves need to be more principled about speech in western societies. ------ ddingus Facebook can also spread anti-authoritarianism. There is a catch! Authoritarians are currently, and successfully, exploiting economic grievances. This is true in many neoliberal nations. Middle classes are shriking. Incomes relative to labor and cost of laborers (what they need to exist, show up for work, feed families) are increasingly inadequate. This makes people desperate. They do not want more of the same, and may turn to facists who make promises they do not intend to keep. Those of us who speak against authoritarians on a social basis are on the right side of history. The long arc of social progress favors anti- authroitarians. Our struggle today is more economic. While current neoliberal policy is rapidly improving poverty in some of the most needy regions, one cost is a lack of progress and some regression in more developed regions, the US, EU and friends being case in point. To clear majorities in these developed regions, they see a long arc of econoomic decline. That is challenging confidence, resulting in more volitile elections. An improved economic strategy is needed to bolster already solid social progress strategy. The lack of it puts social progress at ever increasing risk. ------ ummonk _> “Facebook’s real names policy doesn’t exactly protect anonymity, and has created issues for people in countries like Vietnam,” said Aggarwal. “If platforms provide leeway, or enough space for anonymous posting, and anonymous interactions, that is really helpful to people on the ground.”_ So Facebook should allow anonymous posting but it should also magically block fake bots and Russian troll accounts? ~~~ emerged There is endless mental thrashing on these topics precisely because there isn't a solution. Having a singular massively-connected social graph is more and more clearly not a sustainable environment for humans. ------ superkuh Asking Facebook to stop authoritarianism _is_ authoritarianism. It's incredible that such an absurd headline or concept isn't outright mocked. ~~~ krapp >Asking Facebook to stop authoritarianism is authoritarianism. No, _forcing_ Facebook to stop authoritarianism might be authoritarianism, but _asking_ Facebook to stop authoritarianism is simply an expression of a concern and a request for action. We really need to stop seeing every opinion with which we disagree as either fascism or folly, here. ~~~ superkuh You're right. That was flippant language. What I mean is involving, for example, the senate and the government use of force that's implicit in that. The asking hasn't really been asking. ------ xte Any widespread digital system based on "fueling fire" and +1 reward system help spread extremism of any kind simply because most active people, most voted people tend to be "extreme" by themselves. Try looking at YT channel subscriptions, try to see what happen with sport event comments and confront that with subscriptions/comments on tech/sci channels, medium-high level culture contents etc. As always people in large groups with good enough megaphone start to act as beast, small groups or other kind of interaction do the opposite. ------ tomohawk Facebook could take constructive steps like enabling duress passwords that would either wipe out the account or replace the content with some sort of alternate content. Continuing down the path of policing content is a no-win situation. ~~~ tzs In an authoritarian regime where individuals have very few rights, I don't think duress passwords would protect individuals, especially if they were widely used. Your interrogators would demand to see your real account. You'd give them the duress password and they'd get the wiped or sanitized account. Then they would ask you to logout and log back in this time insisting that you give them the duress password. If you can't do this, they will assume that you gave them the duress password the first time, consider that sufficient proof of guilt of whatever they suspected you of, and away you go to jail or worse. Of course you can insist that the one password you gave them was the real account and you never set up a duress password because you obey the law. That would work in a place with decent civil rights and due process requirements, but that's not the kind of place the article is discussing. These are places were you are guilty as soon as you are accused and it is up to you to prove to them you are innocent, and they consider throwing an innocent person in jail massively preferable to letting a guilty person off. ------ Waterluvian Maybe obvious to others but a central point I'm discovering is that corporations used to be relevant to a single region, maybe growing to be nation-wide. And if they were to go global, it would be one region at a time, tackling the unique issues of each region as they go. But with web-centric corporations, they flip a switch and bam, they're online _everywhere_. ------ jrs95 If you can't stop authoritarianism just because authoritarians have access to targeted advertising, then there's a bigger problem at hand than just Facebook or any particular ad platform. ------ Mtinie My takeaway focuses on Facebook and other “real name” social networks’ being the wrong platforms for posting dissenting opinions. If you want to post radical* content, any tool which makes it easy to connect said content back to your real identity should be a non-starter. On the flip-side, gaining enough of a following with throw-away, anonymized accounts is a challenge unto itself. I’m not sure what the answers are to help people understand the differences and offer alternatives. How many of the students described in the article who were beaten and imprisoned after posting “objectionable” content did so knowing they’d likely serve as martyrs for their causes? * in the eyes of the authorities you are disagreeing with ------ GreaterFool Nobody really is. However, a "democracy" where the intellectual/media/political elites decide what is good for the unwashed masses to hear or see yet they become corrupted by wrong ideology rubs me wrong way. Too many fools think themselves members of those elites. OTOH I do recognize that Facebook is a great tool to manipulate! I'm not blind. There _is_ a simple solution: either 1) get off Facebook, 2) stop posting things on Facebook. Facebook = phone book. I don't post or reply to posts. I add people I cross paths with and I chat with them on Messenger sometimes or if we chat more often WhatsApp or Telegram or something outside FB itself. ------ dhruvp I think the more interesting point here is how easily people are manipulated by coordinated marketing/information campaigns. And I think this may be not be a flaw of facebook but rather its ultimate business value. At the end of the day facebook is an advertising platform - isn't influencing people the ultimate goal of advertisement/marketing? At what point do we call marketing manipulative vs. effective? Obviously you shouldn't allow foreign countries to engage in these markets for elections but those same strategies can be carried out within a nation by competing forces and they come with similar consequences. I think this is a fundamental problem worth addressing because representative democracies rely on well-informed, independent electorates for good outcomes. Marketing on the other hand aims to influence individuals in a coordinated manner towards a given outcome. How do democracies ensure electorates continue to make independent decisions in a world where marketing and advertising tools are increasingly powerful? I think this is a bridge we have to cross - these tools to influence are here to stay and democracies and electorates will need to adapt accordingly in ways outside of just regulation. ------ m0zg Tough spot for Zuck: he can't really do anything about this. Governments can be very sensitive if someone undermines their control of "free press". Most people in the US don't understand this, but in much of the third world papers (not to mention TV) just print what the government wants them to print, or they find themselves under some kind of scrutiny (taxes, criminal, etc). If anything, even with censorship, in those countries FB would be a far less controllable medium, because it's harder to fuck up an international megacorp in the same fashion and not cause a massive blowback. But ultimately, FB has to comply with the local laws, which can be arbitrary. There's no way out of this simple fact. So whatever mechanism one uses to "stop the spread of authoritarianism" can't be provided by a corporation, and it has to be resilient, distributed, and by definition, illegal in those countries. And still FB can't touch this, because it'll then be responsible not only for breaking the laws in the countries where it operates, but also for the lives of activists, if something goes wrong. ------ BenoitEssiambre Authoritarianism thrives in divided societies. Make your algorithms downplay controversial stuff (which is often controversial because it uses dishonest language tailored to sow discord and minimize common ground interpretations). Make your algorithms promote level headed, honest, non-tribal language and verifiable truths so that areas of global consensus are elevated. Democracy will work again and we can get rid of the despots. ~~~ dragonwriter > Make your algorithms downplay controversial stuff (which is often > controversial because it uses dishonest language tailored to sow discord and > minimize common ground interpretations). Controversial stuff is often verifiable truth that is politically inconvenient for some interested party. > Make your algorithms promote level headed, honest, non-tribal language and > verifiable truths Algorithmically detecting content that is either “honest” or “verifiable truth” is a pair problems go beyond mere hard AI problems. ~~~ james_s_tayler Exactly. If you read the literature on dissent it's frightening. Even humans can't work out who is being honest and what the verifiable truth is. Read "In Defense of Troublemakers" for an overview of where research on dissent is at. It's pretty scary, because there just isn't anything you can do to turn the political machinery in everyone's heads off and it's default behavior is to shutdown opinions it doesn't agree with seeking consensus not truth. It's doubly scary if you read books on our cognitive shortcomings. We are not capable of computing the truth values of most truth claims. It's so expensive to know anything that most of our mental models are ultra-low resolution. We are a guess-and-check species who rationalize and politicize everything. To top it all off we barely ever think we are wrong. It's not a mystery why the world is so chaotic and crazy. It's not a mystery why authoritarianism has run rampant throughout history. I wish we were far more educated on the subject of how we get things, so terribly wrong. ~~~ beat I spent much of 2018 on a quest to try to set my internal sense of judgment and partisanship aside, and just focus on understanding _why_ people come to believes that appear to be completely irrational, and why otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people can be so at odds in their beliefs. I'm coming strongly to similar conclusions - people are poor thinkers and totally unaware of this fact. They're not self-critical, but they are very critical of anyone who disagrees with them. I summed it up in a quickie comment recently that has stuck with me. "Nobody thinks they're a racist. When they say racist things, they don't think they're being racist. They think they're being _reasonable_." ~~~ james_s_tayler Yup. The one thing I always try to keep in mind is that all the same observations apply to me too. ------ austincheney Authoritarianism is an extreme of centralization. Facebook is highly centralized. If Facebook were not centralized it would be immune from the authoritarianism, such that there was no web server and messages spread directly from user to trusted user. In that scenario Facebook would not have any user content and so there would be nothing for a central authority to influence. ------ macspoofing Another thing Facebook should have pushed back on is the idea that they should stand up to a coordinated and focused attack by major world powers (like Russia). Standing up for American businesses should be the purview of the State Department and the Executive Branch. ~~~ spunker540 Exactly— it is ridiculous to think that it’s Facebook’s fault that a world power like Russia is putting its resources behind fake identities and fake companies to abuse their platform. The US government should be the one to blame for allowing that to happen. It seems like Facebook is blamed for all of the worlds woes at this point, without any thought given to the fact that there have always been authoritarian governments and bad leaders, and just because in the internet age some of these bad things take place online doesn’t mean Facebook or the internet is causing them. If anything it just goes to show Facebook is not the ideal platform for political dissidents and protesters and maybe there is an opportunity to create something better for that use-case. The platform was designed for US college students to socialize and plan parties and post photos originally, not for people to combat authoritarian regimes. Those two use cases are drastically different. The fact that Facebook is not ideal for all use-cases shouldn’t surprise anyone. I agree they now have great opportunities to do a lot more than simply catering to safe and secure Americans, but they are still a young company with a lot to learn. ------ relaunched It seems like it's time to mandate interoperability. It's clear that this space has remained unregulated a little longer than it should and now that we know the consequences, government can step in and provide a set a guard rails. ~~~ robertAngst >authoritarian And you are asking the government to step in? I hope people can see the irony and risk in this. I would love to hear people debate this, to me, this sounds like one of the worst ideas. ~~~ beat I assume you're starting from the quasi-libertarian "all regulation is authoritarian in nature" position, which is a setup for "Authoritarianism is bad, regulation is authoritarian, therefore regulation is bad". There's a problem with this argument. Where it is is an exercise for the reader. ------ chiefalchemist Facebook can't do what history (and its participants to date) to date has not been able to do? While my love for FB is closer to an on-again off-again teen crush, I do not recall at any point FB promising to be the magic bullet that'll save the world from itself. That said, as we all know, the internet is a magnifier, and effects of a network (as opposed to unconnected node) even more so. Again, not FB's fault. But it does need to embrace it's place and potential in history's ecosystem. ------ gopher2 I like the article, in that they suggest some actual, direct actions Facebook could take. More-so, though, it sounds like the protesters and activists should use the right tool for the job and Facebook is not it. Or if they are going to use Facebook, they should try to be a bit more savvy about it given the bad, authoritarian state of the local government. ------ alan_wade Snapchat is not equipped to eliminate the world hunger. Pokemon Go is not going to stop racism. Breaking news! Apple Watch does NOT cure cancer! ------ Gokenstein Title is misleading: Article is about how Facebook facilitates authoritarian governments in silencing dissidents: even poor or ill equipped ones. The title leads you to believe Facebook has or had any interest what-so-ever in stopping the spread of their best customers... ------ blattimwind Facebook is well equipped to help the spread of authoritarianism, though. ~~~ mcphage Yeah, exactly. That seems to be missed in some of these discussions. Is it Facebook's responsibility to stop the spread of authoritarianism? No, of course not—but it sure shouldn't be _helping_ the spread of authoritarianism. And yet it is. ------ alan_wade Offtopic: it's really weird that it's the end of 2018 and a site called TechCrunch can't figure out how to make a mobile friendly website. Here's how it looks on my iPad Mini (not anything non-standard): [https://imgur.com/a/OQt1Lt9](https://imgur.com/a/OQt1Lt9) If you click on the weird X button at the top it says "An error has occured", and if you click back the error still remains. ------ klyrs In other news, water is not equipped to stop the spread of moisture. ------ qwerty456127 Any ideas on how to equip an alternative for this? As for me I can't imagine a reliable way to block spread of fake news and suggestive/hate rhetorics by design. ------ SquishyPanda23 Nor interested. Thiel is publicly opposed to democracy. ------ piracy1 good bit to ask tho. ------ rdiddly LOL - understatement of the year (and it's been a long year). You might as well say kangaroos are ill-equipped to stop the spread of marsupials. Awp, got a downvote from someone who doesn't believe Facebook is authoritarian. Its merely being a corporation places it among the most authoritarian social structures in history, hate to tell ya, but let's look at the characteristics of authoritarianism (paraphrased from britannica.com): 1) _Blind submission to authority is prized over individual freedom of thought and action._ The very first act demanded of you, upon first contact with Facebook, is to fill out a form and _submit_ (the word choice is coincidental, yet apt) your personal details/data. By clicking, you're declaring you trust their authoritah. If you refuse and go your own way, Facebook users whom you know will make no bones about their disapproval. Oh you won't go to any gulag or anything. I'm not saying it's a government. 2) _Power is concentrated in the hands of a leader_ (a.k.a. autocracy) _or small elite_ (a.k.a. oligarchy) _that isn 't responsible to the people._ This one is so obviously true of Facebook that I'm starting to feel foolish for starting this list. "In other news, the sky is blue." But I'll continue. For starters you can just ask yourself whether you were consulted about any of the endless string of privacy-policy changes. (Or where to hide and obfuscate all the opt-outs in the UI.) Or whether you approved any "sharings" of your data with some person or company about whom you had no idea. You didn't, because Facebook controls your data. And they control what you see. 3) _Power is exercised arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law._ [https://www.congress.gov/congressional- record/congressional-...](https://www.congress.gov/congressional- record/congressional-record-index/115th-congress/2nd-session/zuckerberg- mark/327461) 4) _Leaders cannot be replaced by citizens in fair elections._ If we take "citizens" to mean "users" or "customers" this is true. That's a characteristic of every corporation. If we take "citizens" to mean "shareholders," those people get a bit more democracy. Although at Facebook as I understand it, Mark Zuckerberg is the largest single shareholder, so I'm not sure how that all plays out, and am rapidly getting bored of this. Wish I knew more, or gave more of a shit, about Facebook... but I don't know what's inside a giant stinky turd either and I think I'm OK with that. Can anyone take over? I'm sorry this comment sucks. 5) _Opposition parties or groups are limited or nonexistent._ On this criterion, Facebook fails the "Is it authoritarian?" test. These groups are all over Facebook. (Generating data for Facebook and profits for Facebook.) ------ jokoon Today I wonder how feasible it would be to spread the fake news that Donald Trump was poisoned and assassinated by the CIA/democrats/Iran etc, just to cause panic across his electoral base. I'm sure there are enough people who would believe it, but I wonder how long it would take to be debunked. I don't really know why I thought about that, I just hope people would just believe it, but I'm curious how the world would react to it. ~~~ jokoon I meant "I just hope people would just NOT believe it" ------ slackfan Well no duh, Facebook itself is authoritarian. ------ simplecomplex Authoritarianism is forcing Facebook to silence speech Democrats don’t like. That’s authoritarian. Not people freely reading and writing. I fear my fellow Americans have completely lost the plot...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Windows’ “Active Hours” shows you’re not in control of your devices (2016) - throwaway888abc https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/windows-active-hours.html ====== mrjin It was simply arrogance and stupid: How would they know when the user is going to be inactive and the computer can be restarted? A couple of years ago, one of my colleague's computer was rebooted for updating in the middle of a important presentation to his boss and the time needed to complete was over two hours. Now they allow the user to specify an active windows which is a little bit less stupid but my question still stands. Even the user cannot tell exactly when she/he would not be using the computer but for sure M$ product managers decided that they KNOW. And the more funny thing is that the benefit they can get by doing that is very limited or even NIL as how could they ever know what the user would set that that window to and whether the user isn't going to shutdown/put it to sleep/hibernate before inactive windows and power it again later? ------ 00deadbeef Worse is that these forced updates sometimes break your Windows install. I use Windows exclusively for gaming. I have installed: Steam, Steam games, nvidia drivers, and Firefox. Hardly an unreasonable setup. Yet somehow, twice in two years, I’ve been forced to reinstall Windows because a forced update has blown it up and the built-in recovery tools couldn’t restore it. I use macOS for work. Apple doesn’t force updates to happen. Despite people’s perceptions of Apple being controlling within their walled garden, I actually feel in control of my Mac. I don’t feel in control of my custom-built PC. ~~~ ddek Agreed. It’s got to the point now where Windows is in a bubble - I have a 64 GB nvme that windows is installed on, and absolutely nothing else. The number of times I’ve had to reinstall Windows, it just makes sense to have it isolated so I don’t lose any data. Except, I inevitably do because Windows finds a way to have files saved and programs installed where I don’t want them. ~~~ ztjio Interestingly, as of the most recent edition of macOS, this is how macOS structures itself natively. It will install the OS itself in read only mode (and encrypted) onto a dedicated APFS Volume, with all the data on a separate APFS Volume, both sharing the same container representing the entire boot drive. As a user you will not notice at all unless you go looking. This is mainly for security reasons, as I understand it. But, surely this also makes an OS reinstall or recovery much simpler. I have not yet had the luck to need to do either since this installation model was adopted so I don't know what the impact (positive or negative) to the user is in such a scenario. Anyway, I find it amusing that such a model has only recently been adopted by a mainstream OS after so many decades of the concept being espoused as important in the general Unix-like world. I wonder if Microsoft will follow suit. ~~~ ornornor That’s also how BSD does it. It’s easier to reinstall the OS then. Not that you’d need to, BSD being as robust as it is. ------ dusted I'm only using my windows computer for playing games, so it's turned off most of the time, it's incredibly annoying to have to wait through updates.. I would just disconnect it entirely from the Internet, but then I can't log into the game-delivery-platforms nor play multiplayer. It's amazing, considering how much money is in the videogame industry, that we've not yet seen an OS developed specifically for playing games. It could even be shared between consoles and pcs, making it much easier for developers to release for all platforms. ~~~ blackbear_ Perhaps that was the vision of SteamOS [1] ? [1] [https://store.steampowered.com/steamos](https://store.steampowered.com/steamos) ~~~ 00deadbeef That’s more of an OS (Linux) adapted for playing games than an OS designed for playing games. ~~~ mulmen Linux is a kernel. SteamOS is an operating system. You could argue that SteamOS is a modified Ubuntu(?) and not a clean sheet gaming OS but I’m not sure that distinction really matters. SteamOS is a purpose built OS. ------ mcv I'm constantly surprised that updating a system is such a massive problem. It's great that updates can be easily applied through the internet these days, but it mostly seems to hurt the user experience, taking their system away from them, killing their work. Why can't updates be run in the background, ready to be applied when you want it to? Give me a notification that says: "Application X is ready to update to a new version. Your work will be saved and restored. The update will take approximately X minutes." With buttons "Update now", "Postpone until tomorrow", etc. And can we please update applications without requiring the entire system to reboot? Is it odd to think only kernel updates should require a reboot? In fact, this might be a great argument for a microkernel architecture; the less the kernel does, the less it needs to be rebooted. Make every other aspect of the OS individually updateable without a full reboot. That would be pretty awesome if it's possible. (Unfortunately I'm not enough of an OS guru to know if this can work.) ~~~ corty Linux distribution package managers work like this. Updates can run in the background, processes pick up new libraries whenever they are restarted, but updates can happen before that during normal operation mostly without any disturbance (there are some exceptions to this, e.g. Firefox behaves strangely if updated while running). Unix file systems generally allow overwriting files in use, processes that already had it open get the old version, new processes get the new file transparently. Only kernel updates really need a reboot, and the occasional related stuff like kernel modules (but even that is rare, you can e.g. update your Nvidia driver and only need to restart X11, not the kernel, however, it is easier to just reboot). There is e.g. checkrestart and similar tools that tell you which processes you might want to restart after a given update by checking library dependencies. There are occasional rare glitches this system wouldn't catch, like e.g. artwork being changed resulting in a mix of old and new icons, but that doesn't happen if you just stick to normal releases of stable distributions like Debian. I always pity my windows colleagues in the week after patch tuesday. Our Linux boxes are automatically updated 4 times a day, reboot is automated for login servers for when nobody is logged in (with some help of loadbalancing), other servers generate a mail and we reboot them when convenient. But reboots are rare. Automatic unattended updates breaking stuff is even more rare, I think two instances in 10 years. ------ kd5bjo An important corollary: if you turn off your computer when you’re not actively using it, you’re going to have a bad time. The updates that are supposed to happen in the background instead force you to wait while they run. So you have to save and shut down everything at the end of the day to not lose work, but also leave the computer eating electricity in case it wants to update. ~~~ rkachowski Not only that but if powered off, the windows machine will actively power itself on late in the night unless drastic measures are taken to disable this feature. The amount of times I have been spooked by ventilation noise + monitors turning on at 2am is far too much. ------ foxrob92 This is exactly why I changed all of my personal machines to Linux. Unfortunately I'm bound to Windows at work (work is a MS shop). ------ tdeck The real issue is that Windows updates themselves take way too long, and mostly seem to require a restart. Why is the former worse than before and the latter still so bad? ~~~ freeone3000 The removal of incremental patching means most major updates are now secretly a reinstall. This has increased system stability - now patched installs and fresh installs are the same. The rebooting even for minor updates is due to files not being able to be changed while they're open, so a change to, ex, gdi32.dll is going to prompt a restart, regardless of the size. ~~~ ztjio That doesn't really explain why an updated to, say, .NET forces a restart. Far too many updates force restarts when it seems they shouldn't require it. It's not just the main OS updates. ~~~ alkonaut I'm guessing applications will be running with the old libraries loaded and developers should be able to count on this one-version-only situation (e.g. ABI between processes). Forcing a restart is just the simple but crude way of ensuring that no applications are using any system files (.NET _is_ part of the OS, up until .NET Core). ------ mike503 I was annoyed that it doesn’t let you block out more than 18 hours in a 24 hour period. I legitimately do have 20ish hours of possible active hours. ------ llimos You can set active hours through PowerShell: Set-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings -Name ActiveHours[Start\|End] -Value xx So, while this is a really bad idea in practice, theoretically you could have a Scheduled Task that keeps changing your active hours in a rolling window so you never hit it. ~~~ freeone3000 After 14 days, updates will be applied regardless of active hours. ~~~ llimos I wasn't suggesting anyone actually _do_ this ------ blackbear_ I wonder if it is possible to prevent updates by blocking connections to MS's servers via firewall rules or DNS? ~~~ Xelbair the best way i found so far is to install ancient version of win10, prior to creator's update, block it in group policy, and set up a registry key that your lan connection is metered. Upside: you have full control over when your updates will be downloaded, and when they will be applied. Downside: you have to update manually. ------ grishka I'm a Mac user, so I'm used to the OS respecting me, but as I sometimes need to build and debug Windows stuff, I do have a VM with Windows 10. I use it maybe once a month, sometimes rarer. Every time I ran the VM, there inevitably were new updates. These forced updates pissed me off enough to figure out how to turn the update system off altogether. If anyone's interested, here's how it works. There are several services related to Windows Update. Some of them have their state controls in services.msc greyed out so you presumably can't stop them. But if you leave just one of them on, it'll reactivate the rest of them and guess what, you're getting annoyed again. So you have to look for all services that have the word "update" in their name or description, and set their state to "disabled" directly in the registry, then reboot. I did this more than a year ago, and haven't had a single update prompt ever since. You should probably also disable everything related to telemetry while you're at it. And uninstall the Windows Store, it's useless anyway. ~~~ pmontra Somebody downvoted parent without adding a comment. Is that information factually incorrect? ~~~ grishka There's this weird category of people who think that \- Updates are so important for security you have to install them the second they come out (some are, but most are not), don't you dare even THINK about using outdated/unsupported software that works just fine \- You have no right to mess with the software running on the hardware you own ------ TwoNineFive It's Not Your Computer. ------ Havoc >or learn more about this Linux alternative everyone is talking about … And then quickly abandon it when they try to get 4K netflix working on it ~~~ sneak 4K Netflix works great under Linux, provided you download it using Bittorrent instead of https. ~~~ Akronymus I honestly don't even feel the need to have netflix in the first place. Most shows are just kinda garbage. ------ tehabe I think the author really misunderstood the term "active hours" ------ malikNF If you are using windows without actively trying to switch everything to or some of your critical personal work to a different OS you are an idiot. Yes there are some software that might not work on linux, or the alternatives might not have a feature you got on windows but you if are willing to give up control of your own PC for some convenience you deserve to be treated like this by corporations.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Anybody willing to take on a quick study for the summer? - alwaysthenewguy Hey HN,<p>I decided to take up iOS development earlier this year and I'm at the point where I understand objective-C, object-oriented programming, and M-V-C. I read the Kochan books and Apple docs, so I understand properties, memory management, the Foundation Framework, and I can solve problems in objective-C. However, progressing to actually writing an iOS app has been daunting. I bought the BNR book and I tried the getting started guide on the Apple developer website, but I can't make the leap to producing anything beyond simple, linear apps like Timers.<p>I know that these are all very good resources, and to a large extent, I can comprehend what's going on. However, putting something of my own together has been tough. I can put together simple things using Nav controllers and TableView Controllers, but I'm having trouble progressing to anything more complex.<p>Having learned what I could learn by myself, I think I'm at the point where I need to be around people with experience and see how apps are actually made in real life. Unfortunately, iOS meet-ups aren't very frequent (which is very weird for NYC) and I don't really know anyone from whom I can learn, so I'm asking you HN; would it be possible to shadow an actual developer for any length of time this summer or meet up whenever you're free? It would be great to have someone who already knows what their doing to ask questions and get a feel for iOS development as it's done professionally. I don't want to reduce anyone's productivity and I would be as unobtrusive as possible but I'd be very grateful if anyone could spare the time. I'm very dedicated to becoming a good developer and I will bring that same dedication to learning and helping out as soon as I get the hang of everything. So please let me know if you'd be willing to; it would really help a lot! I'm in the NYC area, but we can also talk on Skype if you'd prefer<p>Thank you! ====== MichaelSelsky I'm glad that you are getting excited about iOS development. I've been developing part time while I go to school. I'll be starting my second internship in about a month so I can't really offer to let you shadow me, but I can give you some advice on where to find people that can help. I actually attend several iOS meetups in Manhattan every month. I think the best one for you to start really diving into iOS would be iOS Side Projects [1]. We meet about twice a month and have some really smart devs help out. We also have a slack chat that is full of people excited to help people out [2]. Additionally there's the New York iOS Developers meetup that happens monthly [3]. And then my personal favorite is iOSoho which is monthly and much more selective [4]. These two meetups are a lot more advance than side projects, often with talks about more technical and specific parts of the job. I've met a lot of really great people at these events and really encourage you to try and make it out to some of them. As I said earlier, I'm not in a position to let you shadow me, but if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter: @MichaelSelsky. Good luck in your endeavors. [1] [http://www.meetup.com/iOS-Side-Projects/](http://www.meetup.com/iOS-Side- Projects/) [2] [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16mTeoZmB_xAiRQ2banhgOZOepGN...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16mTeoZmB_xAiRQ2banhgOZOepGNA0jwhMWQ7AR7oRKg/viewform) [3] [http://www.meetup.com/new-york-ios-developer/](http://www.meetup.com/new- york-ios-developer/) [4] [http://www.meetup.com/iOSoho/](http://www.meetup.com/iOSoho/) ~~~ alwaysthenewguy Thanks! I'll definitely look into those. I've been to one of those already; looking forward to finding more ~~~ MichaelSelsky No problem. Feel free to find me at any of these or on that slack chat.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Building a visual language for the 99% - apz http://occupydesign.org/ ====== rick888 Otherwise known as propaganda.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Former Microsoft CEO Ballmer Does About-Face on Linux Technology - petethomas http://reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSKCN0WC2RA ====== alexkavon "Former Tech CEO Agrees That Company That Gave Him Everything Still Makes Right Decisions"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft Azure IoT Hub - dstaheli https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/iot-hub/ ====== nielsbot I totally read this as "Azure Hot Tub"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Taking PHP Seriously - throwaway-hn123 https://slack.engineering/taking-php-seriously-cf7a60065329#.28p8bbfkj ====== samuellb Duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702845)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Collection Pipeline - chillax http://martinfowler.com/articles/collection-pipeline/ ====== rikkus Half my code looks like this, these days: return products .Where(p => p.Type == ProductType.Bean) .OrderBy(p => p.Group) .ThenBy(p => p.Name) .Select(p => p.Name) ; Sometimes I'll write it like this: return from p in Products where p.ProductType == ProductType.Bean orderby ... etc. Everything's a query, or a sh pipeline, or... One of the nice things about this idiom is that it's supported all over the place, so you can write similar code in many different languages, for many different platforms. ~~~ balakk Here's where F# shines - you could write your query like: products \|> Seq.filter(fun a -> a.Type = ProductType.Bean) \|> Seq.sortBy(fun a -> a.Group, a.Name) \|> Seq.map(fun a -> a.Name) It doesn't save a lot of lines here, but the big difference is this: suddenly you aren't constrained by the syntax of the single Linq query. So you want an additional filter,join,merge happening in between? No problem! ~~~ virtualwhys Pretty noisy. Instead of: products \|> Seq.filter(fun a -> a.foo =...) In another language you can do: products.filter(_.foo =...) Those `\|> Seq...(fun a ->` all over the place look Java-ish ;-) ~~~ CmonDev They had to deal with the OCAML baggage instead of starting from scratch. ------ CoffeeDregs I've generally appreciated Fowler's work on cataloging software patterns (and based my MBA thesis on doing something similar for organizational design), but I find this post a bit puzzling. Having spent a bunch of time with Haskell 6-7 years ago, the treatment of functions such as these was much more rigorous and generalized (e.g. [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/The_Functor_class](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/The_Functor_class)). However the items this time are generic collection types themselves - where an OO collection pipeline would use objects, a functional language would use a hashmap. Again, I'm a bit confused (though I might have missed some context). Functional languages tend to be much more generic so that a "collection pipeline" or map can operate over a wide range of types. I'm reasonably certain that I'm missing some critical point, but I'm not sure about what? ~~~ sparkie > cataloging software patterns Otherwise known as inventing new terms for old concepts. Please stop doing this Mr Fowler! The programmer's glossary is already full of redundancy. Just stick to the language everyone else is using (ie, the language that was used by whoever wrote the original research papers in the given topics) ~~~ Dewie But, we need to rename things like Functor to Mappable and Monad to Bindable because everything has to be a vaguely relatable (even if possibly misleading) adjective, damnit. ------ jgrodziski I would have liked to have seen Martin Fowler mentioned the parallelism and state implication of the unix pipeline, somewhat limited (see [http://www.quora.com/Parallel-Computing/Do-pipelined-unix- co...](http://www.quora.com/Parallel-Computing/Do-pipelined-unix-commands-run- faster-on-multicore)) but this is for me a very profond way of looking at this kind of pattern: whether you finish completely your processing on the data structure or you emit the result downstream as soon as you have finished processing one element. Stream is for me the fundamental nature of the unix pipeline, and this is rarely met in programming language (channels to the rescue like in Clojure and Go). The Java Streams seems to work this way with the distinction between stateless and stateful processing element ([http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/stream/pa...](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/stream/package- summary.html)). ------ platz Not really a mention of whether these 'chained' methods should be returning a new collection, mutating an existing collection, or returning something completely different. Would expect to at least see some kind of discussion on this here - otherwise _every_ method call is a "pipeline" ~~~ munificent From the article: > ...returns a collection of only those articles for which the lambda resolves > as true. > Like select it returns a new collection so I can continue the pipeline... > ...return a collection of records. > Each operation takes a collection as an input and emits another collection > (expect the last operation, which may be a terminal that emits a single > value).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Ritza: quality articles for your company's technical blog or community - sixhobbits http://ritza.co ====== sixhobbits Hey HN! I'm Gareth. I've been writing technical tutorials for years and next month I am going to start focusing on it full time. My hope is that I can solve the "readers don't want to pay for content any more but content is expensive to produce" problem by getting companies to pay for it instead. Unbiased technical articles are hugely valuable to companies who are looking to attract technical people to their product. I have already taken on one client using this model and I am working with two others in slightly different ways but which still tie into this. I'd love any feedback on the concept. The website is deliberately super minimalist, and it will never evolve to look like a "standard"[0][1] startup website I also have ambitious goals for the company structure as I take on more writers. All Ritza employees will be treated as permanent "full time" employees, but will only be expected to work ca. 20h/week. More details coming soon. [0] [https://www.dagusa.com/](https://www.dagusa.com/) [1] [http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the- same/](http://www.novolume.co.uk/blog/all-websites-look-the-same/) ~~~ JoeAltmaier I endorse your effort! The trick in any new enterprise, is figuring out who has the money, and getting them to pay. Going to the company (with far deeper pockets than any individual reader) is a fair notion. ~~~ sixhobbits Thank you! Yes exactly, and so far the people with the deepest pockets are the marketing people who buy millions of dollars worth of targeted advertising. I hope that I can find several companies who would "experiment" by putting 1-3% of their adspend budget towards something that actually benefits the world.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
EC2 Neighbour Caught Stealing CPU - aritraghosh007 http://blog.sematext.com/2013/04/22/ec2-neighbour-caught-stealing-cpu/ ====== sehrope > What we see is that somebody, some other VM(s) sharing the same underlying > host, is stealing about 30% of the CPU that really belongs to us. That's not how it works. CPU steal time is when the hypervisor stalls your CPU because you're using _more_ than your allotted share. Depending on the hypervisor configuration it could happen either consistently (ex: AWS micro instance) or on demand (ex: whenever your neighbors are actually using their fair share). If your neighbors are not using 100% of their slice of the CPU then you can generally use it yourself[1] but if you can't they're not "stealing" from you. You're just not able to use their unused capacity[2]. [1]: For regular AWS instances, not for micro instances which stall almost immediately when using a lot of CPU. Try a non-trivial compile on a micro instance and see what happens. [2]: Alternatively, you can look at as they're preventing you from "stealing" from your neighbors when they're not using it. ~~~ lucaspiller Could it also be that the hypervisor is allocating more CPU to the other VM as he isn't using 100% of his allocated share (note that he said that the VM isn't very CPU intensive)? If his was using 100% of the allocated share then the other VM would be throttled back. ~~~ maffydub I believe that steal only records the percentage of time that your VM wanted to use the CPU but couldn't. If your VM doesn't want to use the CPU, the time is always recorded as idle, never steal. ------ kbar13 CPU steal is a stat that looks scary and is compounded by the number of sensationalist blog faux-tutorials about how cpu steal is the devil. [http://adrianotto.com/2010/02/time-stolen-from-a-virtual- mac...](http://adrianotto.com/2010/02/time-stolen-from-a-virtual-machine/) ^ read ------ maffydub We use EC2 a lot (on Project Clearwater - [http://www.projectclearwater.org/](http://www.projectclearwater.org/)), but I don't think we've ever seen significant levels of steal except on m1.small nodes. m1.small nodes expect up to 50% steal because you're explicitly only renting half the CPU. Check how /proc/cpuinfo compares with 1 ECU: [http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#What_is_an_EC2_Compute_Unit_...](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#What_is_an_EC2_Compute_Unit_and_why_did_you_introduce_it). In fact, you can even see over 50% steal because the hypervisor steals from you if you're doing network-intensive work such as accepting TCP connections at a high rate (hundreds of new connections per second). ------ chris_wot I thought steal time was the time that your local VM was trying to get access to CPU cycles over its allocated resource... Amazon AWS guys got straight to the point about it in the forums: _The steal time means you 're trying to go over your allocated resources. AWS doesn't give you a dedicated amount of resources, it gives you access to more, so that when the host machine isn't under heavy load you can use more resources, which would otherwise be wasted._ [1] 1\. [https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=79519#](https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=79519#) ------ okrasz This is not fully correct. It is correct that the CPU time has be been stolen, BUT nobody told that you will be the only one who will be getting a physical CPU. AWS gives you specific part of CPU and the one that is not committed to your server is seen as seal time. This is normal. Note that the seal time stays on virtually constant level. Even if your neighbor wasn't busy you would still not get additional CPU as AWS does not allow CPU bursting (using unused CPU) to other instance types than Micro, which I've read is actually running on second priority on otherwise unused CPU cycles. ------ jaryd Is there any actionable advice for those of us who are not your customer and without access to your monitoring panel? ~~~ maffydub My advice would be to understand what steal is, and what CPU usage your cloud provider is offering you. steal is time when your VM wants to run but the hypervisor doesn't let it because another VM is using it. It does not include time when your VM was idle and another VM was using the CPU. As a result, steal is often very low until your VM's CPU usage starts increasing. Then, steal increases rapidly. For example on EC2, 2 m1.small VMs normally share 1 CPU. You might benchmark your application and see it can handle 1000 transactions per second at 10% total CPU. You might then (possibly naively) assume that you can put ~10000 transactions per second through before you hit 100% CPU. In fact, as you went through 4000 transactions per second and towards 5000, your steal would rise rapidly and you'd max your CPU out.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
65 Accomplished Writers and Marketers Reveal Their Secrets to Productivity - stickhandle http://www.focusalot.com/blog/accomplished-writers/ ====== robertaoliu thanks for posting our article =D - rob from focusalot	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Does web language/framework affect acquisition chances? - hella Let's say I'm choosing between learning and coding a web app with RoR or Python/Django.<p>Does the choice affect acquisition chances? For instance, would google be more likely to acquire a Python/Django startup? ====== bigohms If your goal is to be acquired by Google, writing the app in Python won't hurt your chances as there is more resident knowledge of it (for front-end) than RoR in-house. This also has implications on the integration of the app with their product suite. On the flip side, depending on how complicated your app is, there is also a chance a Google engineer could reverse engineer and integrate it in their sleep (or 20% time) -- especially at the sensitive phase of growing the product. Perhaps some alternate questions: Which will get you to create your app as close to your initial version 0.1 in the least amount of time so you can test your assumptions about the market? Which community will you learn the most from and is the next logical step from where you are now as a developer? Which will reinforce core computing concepts with a decent framework to resist the temptation to give up out of sheer frustration? ------ staunch It probably can. I bet if you're using Python (well) the Google tech guy that reviews your tech and team is going to give a much more favorable review than if you were using PHP. So it probably can help a lot in talent acquisitions at least. If you're a really successful company and the acquirer _really_ wants to buy you it probably doesn't matter at all. I certainly wouldn't choose a language based on acquisition hopes myself. ------ benologist Use whichever you're most productive with. Worry about making a great product. ------ anamax > Does the choice affect acquisition chances? Yes, but not the way you think. If you don't ship something that gets users, you won't be acquired.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How we improved performance on Google Code - bootload http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-we-improved-performance-on-google.html ====== konsl These are some pretty basic improvements; this is a more complete list: <http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html> You can also use the YSlow plugin to rate your pages based on the 13 suggestions, etc	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: RegularText – Turn frequently used texts into web forms - jevin http://www.regulartext.com/ ====== fiatjaf This is nice, but kinda useless in its current form. Why would anyone want an API for rendering super basic templates? Every programming language already does this. Perhaps you should do something for the common people, not an API, but a way people would use it, with forms or something like that.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
China has tens of thousands specially trained spin doctors posting blog comments - vaksel http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7783640.stm ====== andreyf This not true! Everyone loves China anyway, and nothing bad ever happens here, so why would the government ever need to pay people to do this? Silly nonsense! ~~~ evilneanderthal Damn reactionaries can't hold the people back! ------ hollerith It looks like the People's Republic is moving to a more sophisticated model closer to the one used by "the U.S. Government" in which dissenting voices are not silenced with police force but rather must compete with and are spun by professional non-dissenting voices. For my comment to make sense, "the U.S. Government" has to be defined in a nonstandard way to include for example Time Magazine, the New York Times, Harvard University, the misleadingly-named "non-governmental organizations", and as of the last few years professional bloggers like the ones at Daily Kos -- but I advocate such a nonstandard definition. Added: thanks to _non_ -professional blogger Mencius Moldbug for teaching me the nonstandard definition. ~~~ pg There's already a name for the thing your nonstandard definition refers to: "The Establishment." Also the more informal "The Man." Both terms now seem somewhat laughable, for reasons they deserve. Mainly, I think, that the underlying thesis was false. ~~~ bokonist Consider these facts: \- the US has a government funded k-16 education system \- almost all political journalists rely on government press credentials to do their reporting \- most journalists rely on cultivating strong relationships with the permanent civil service in order to get the inside dirt on politicians. Now consider these three outrageous claims: \- the New Deal was among the worst things to happen to America in the last 100 years \- forcing universal suffrage democracy on Zimbabwe was a tragic mistake \- the American revolution was accompanied by an incredible amount of mob violence on innocent colonists. It would have been better for everyone if the instigators had been caught and hung. Instead, they won and set up our current government, so we remember them as heroes. No respectable person believes these last three claims. Indeed, the fact that I even posted such claims indicates that I may be a barbarian from Digg who somehow found his way onto Hacker News. There are two possible reasons why these claims seem so repellent: 1) these views really are crazy and wrong, or 2) believing these three things would undermine the legitimacy of our entire government, including its education system. Thus, via self-selection and overt-selection, no one in the education system or mainstream media defends these claims. We spend our entire life only hearing one side of the story. Americans views of FDR end up being as inaccurate as the Chinese view of Mao. If you are willing to entertain the idea that #2 may be a possibility, Sydney George Fisher is a fine place to start. Take a look at Chapter 8 of his history of the American Revolution: [http://books.google.com/books?id=YmFMcvSIwOEC&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=YmFMcvSIwOEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+true+history+of+the+american+revolution#PPA155,M1) ~~~ rms I'm happy to entertain outrageous claims, what about outrageous claims #1 and #3? ~~~ bokonist For the claim about Zimbabwe, see here: [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country-that-used-to-exist.html) I don't have a one stop source for the claims about FDR and the New Deal. But these three are a good start: John Flynn's _The Roosevelt Myth_ ( <http://mises.org/books/rooseveltmyth.pdf> ), this podcast on the New Deal ( [http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2008/Higgsgreatdepres...](http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2008/Higgsgreatdepression.mp3) ), and this book on the origins of World War II: ( <http://mises.org/books/perpetual.pdf> ). ------ tokenadult "Comments, rumours and opinions can be quickly spread between internet groups in a way that makes it hard for the government to censor. "So instead of just trying to prevent people from having their say, the government is also attempting to change they way they think. "To do this, they use specially trained - and ideologically sound - internet commentators. "They have been dubbed the "50-cent party" because of how much they are reputed to be paid for each positive posting (50 Chinese cents; $0.07; £0.05)." Even today that can be decent money in China. I think this phenomenon has been going on on Usenet since the 1990s. Certainly Usenet was a critical communication resource for students in North America in the China democracy movement that flowered in 1989. ~~~ est > "They have been dubbed the "50-cent party" because of how much they are > reputed to be paid for each positive posting (50 Chinese cents; $0.07; > £0.05)." This is not true. 50-cent party is a word from the times of Beiyang Army. in 1917 they argued whether China should participate the WWI, Duan Qi Rui hired a bunch of ppl to 'protest' in the parliament and urge China to declare ware against Germen. They pay each ppl 50 cents. It's historical. Now the word '50 cents' means goverment payed voiced. No matter how much they got payed. Sorry my English is bad but that's the true origin of '50 cents'. Now 'Internet Commenters' gain more than 50 cents, in universities, students participate this could get 200 Yuan a month, that's about $28 USD. ------ DenisM I stands to reason that in the information economy there will be its own commanding hights, and that different groups of people will strive for control. I would call this _opinion warfare_ and there is certanly a lot of combatants involved. Most of the combatants are governments but really everyone with a budget and a profit motive (monetary or otherwise) is participating. An interesting front is open right now between Russian government and its opponents. The coverage of Khodorkovski's fate was seriously slanted on both sides of the border. Well, unsurprisingly as a lot of money and power was at stake on both sides. Later the coverage of Russian-Georgian conflict suffered the same fate and just now there is a row over natural gas supplies to Europe which gets some odd coverage. The most interesting battles to watch are the ones where usually rational discourse turns into a foaming-at-the-mouth fight with a lot of stretches. There are plenty of nuts online, but I can't help but suspect that money is involved when a normally rational and thought-out source starts really reaching for conclusions. ------ gojomo I think they're also voting down my News.YC comments. ------ tlrobinson Ah yes, the "Ministry of Truth". ~~~ baddox Don't waste words and letters...it's called Minitrue ~~~ orib Minitrue? You mean Minimal Truth? ~~~ tlrobinson <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth> ~~~ orib Yes, I'm familiar. I was playing with double meanings ;-) ------ medearis I don't really see a huge problem with government hiring people to sell its side of a story in itself. For better or worse, there are highly-paid lobbyists on both sides of every policy issue these days. I think the issue is that the Chinese government does more than "spin." It is acceptable for one party to advocate for a policy by putting it in the best possible light. Its unacceptable to change facts, control information etc. Admittedly, this is a murky line in many cases... Perhaps what more scary is that most Chinese students I've met know that they don't get the "full truth" in China and don't really care. They seem to be more concerned with China becoming an economic superpower than whether China creates a "good" society. ------ lallysingh Every government has some form of a propaganda team behind it. Some directly in the government, many behind the parties/companies in power. Really anyone who benefits from the way the government operates has a reason to push propaganda at some level. However, suppressing the opposing view is the problem. If the viewpoints are both expressed, one can expect some level of truthiness(tm) to come out. And frankly, someone's got to defend what the government's doing, b/c sometimes their actions aren't completely corrupt or nefarious. As for the US, I'm hoping the Net will eventually dissolve the b.s. legitimacy of the old press core, who've got too much to lose to rock the boat very much. ------ jhancock "Extract from internal document produced by Nanning city authority, Guangxi province" This is one of the most common mistakes made by foreign press. The quote is possibly correct. The article extrapolates from this to assume that there is some great puppet-master in Beijing. China is run at the local level for most things. There may well be paid commenters but having them organized from the top-down is next to impossible. ------ known China has the unfair advantage of near-slave labor, Source: [http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1086571&cid=263...](http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1086571&cid=26387645) ------ justindz And to think that I do this for _free_ whenever any of my pet ideologies are attacked on the Internet. I'm getting ripped off. ------ theoneill "Spin nurses?"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A new model of school in Sweden - Misha_B http://www.economist.com/node/11535645 ====== gahahaha The experiences that were made from privatizing Swedish schools were: * generally worse results and increased inequality * 5 companies dominate the market, and makes huge profits * Sweden has fallen from 3rd to 19th on the PISA test in reading. * huge quality differences between schools * schools have become a "sorting machine" where motivated parents and pupils choose certain schools and avoid other schools. * The experience from Sweden, and research from OECD shows that more competition in school does not produce better results. ~~~ Egregore Can you provide any links? ~~~ yesbabyyes On PISA tests: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Stu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#Results) [http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/01/why-gove-no- lo...](http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/01/why-gove-no-longer-cites- sweden-as-a-model-for-education-reform/) Article from Swedish Radio: [http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=4891874) Report on OECD report: [http://www.antidotenews.org.uk/?p=628&dm_i=LEV,ACD6,33QO...](http://www.antidotenews.org.uk/?p=628&dm_i=LEV,ACD6,33QOY1,TOTD,1) Mostly it's in Swedish media, though. And what's been most criticized is the ability to extract profit from state funds, given that the biggest independent schools are owned by off-shore VC companies. The situation is similar with Swedish healthcare. ------ Misha_B Looks like it's from 2008. I'll be happy to hear from anyone who has a closer experience with the Kunskapsskolan. ~~~ dwerthen I actually went to Kunskapsskolan as the equivalent of a High School student. Graduated in 2005. It work out very well for me, the freedom to go about the curriculum at my own pace suited me perfectly. The experience of going there was very much like what you would find at a university. The school demanded a very high level of motivation and discipline. And this makes it problematic, since quite a lot of students at that age were ill prepared to face that. I might be hesitant to say that this reform has worked out well for Sweden as a whole, as I think for-profit entities in charge of public education is a step in the wrong direction. ~~~ ivarkotnik Definitely the wrong direction, because it can go wrong on so many ways. Myself I am a victim of for-profit education (well, my spouse is), effectively locked in by contract at a company for 10+ years more. It sounds so good in the beginning, but once you finish your studies and you stand in front of that loong walk... ~~~ bokonist How is your spouse locked by contract for 10 years due to for-profit education? ------ matbec It's interesting that no mention was made of the Sweden's extremely poor policies and record with respect to homeschooling. There has been a lot of press the past few years over the Johansson family (child seized for being homeschooled) to the Himmelstrand family (severe fines for homeschooling). Here is a link to an HSLDA collection of other links that specifically address homeschooling in Sweden (<http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Sweden/>). ------ Muzza The school system in Sweden is many things (despicable, horrendous, etc etc), but free market it is not. These private schools don't operate on a free market - the government supplies the "customers" (students) under penalty of prison* for the students' parents, for crying out loud. * Or possibly even worse: a student who doesn't go to school is liable to end up in the clutches of the meddling welfare board. ~~~ olifante I very much doubt that the Swedish school system can be seriously described as despicable or horrendous, even if it has fallen from its former glory. Would you care to elaborate? ~~~ Muzza All mandatory school systems are despicable and horrendous. The first major issue is the coercion involved: they control a child's life for 9 years (or even 12 years in some countries). It's absurd. This alone should be reason enough to dissolve the entire public school system (and possibly put various Ministers of Eduction to trial). The second major issue is that they are a tool the state uses to indoctrinate children (naive by nature) with whatever the correct values of the day are. Prussia (where public schooling originated) needed obedient soldiers, modern- day Sweden needs a large underclass of socialists willing to support various hare-brained political schemes. The schools reflect this. What happens, for instance, if you call homosexuality "not normal"[1] in a Swedish school? It gets you an F in biology and a label as a "homophobe" in the state-run media[2]. One wonders what happened to students who questioned communism in the Soviet Union. See "Deschooling society" by Ivan Illich, "Underground history of the American school system" by John Taylor Gatto. [1] Which is surely true, statistically speaking. [2] [http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/abc/homofobi-gav- underka...](http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/abc/homofobi-gav-underkant-i- biologi)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How can a robot express emotion without a face? - hhm http://www.robotworldnews.com/100390.php ====== naish R2-D2	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Horror of setting up a Google+ account for my mom - _ankit_ https://plus.google.com/114289448591067978562/posts/2QoEnp3LyEH ====== PaulHoule I've been a social media programmer since 2001 and personally I think Google+ needs a paper book to explain how to use it. I always have people trying to get me to join them in hangouts and sometimes it works, but often it takes me 10 or 15 minutes to get the invitation and actually get into the hangout. The funniest time was when it wanted me to update the software on my mac and it gave me step-by-step instructions to open a terminal window and use the command line to do the update. I give Google credit for developing a sharing model that's different from the Facebook and Twitter model, so that Google+ isn't just an imitation of it's competitors. On the other hand, I dont know if I like sender-controlled sharing... There are so many people that want to spam me with this or spam me with that, and I'm not just talking about Nigerian spammers, I'm talking about close friends, family members, C-level people at places I work with and so forth. I'd rather see an intelligent social media platform that helps me pick out what I want and what I need to know; Facebook comes closer to that. ~~~ lotharbot I'd love to see good, simple two-way sharing control. I should be able to decide who a post is visible to, and they should be able to decide what proportion/type of my posts they want to see. G+ is better at the former while FB is better at the latter; neither do the whole package very well. ------ jrockway This article is a random list of annoyances, not a horror story about setting up Google+. Ultimately, it sounds like the author's mom would prefer email to Google+. I think Google+ is a good tool for groups larger than families, like companies. You might want to share things with your coworkers, but email doesn't scale. So you can instead have a nice access-controlled internal sharing site, and people that are interested in pictures of your CNC mill or whatever can see them. ("Pages" are great for things like your cafeteria posting menus or pictures of food.) ~~~ Renaud The issue I have with G+ within companies is that it leaks to the public side. You can switch off some parts of it so the content is visible only internally, but your account picture, name, company you work for and the fact that you have an account are visible to anyone on G+. ------ notbitter Google has some inner conflict here. The marketing strategy is "more private than Facebook" but the obvious way to measure the success of Google+ is by how much oversharing people are doing. Optimize for that and you get pushy UX like the one described. Hopefully they can figure out a more nuanced metric. ~~~ read_wharf The network effect says that a person that's connected to five family members is not as (measurably) valuable as someone connected to fifty people. If you were Google, which would you rather sell to advertisers, correlations between groups of five people of fifty? ~~~ dirtyaura Hmm, is this backed by data? I mean that is it known that in current social networks a life-time value of a person that with 5 strong relationship ties is less valuable over time than a person who has 50 very very weak ties (like most of my Google+ followers, people who I don't know) ~~~ read_wharf My conjecture on top of the general value of a more connected network. What is Facebook's motivation for connecting people? Or Google's? Or LinkedIn's. A newspaper sold millions of individual pairs of eyeballs to advertisers. I would think the large numbers of correlations available in a largely connected network would be much more valuable than unconnectable individuals. ~~~ dirtyaura But stronger ties could be more "sticky", i.e. it's harder to leave Facebook than Twitter because people (in general) have stronger ties to people they are connected in Facebook than in Twitter. Thus, life-time value of a stronger tie for the service provider is larger. This seems common sense, but I'm interested in if there's any kind of data what the ratio is. Inside a single service, of course, as values are not directly comparable over the services due to different business models) ------ dewitt Hi _ankit_, sorry to read that you and your mom had troubles with her initial Google+ experience. A few things sound like possible issues, and the whole thing is valuable feedback, so I'll file a few bugs, and pass the post along to our team. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. ~~~ _ankit_ Thanks dewitt for the positive reply! It feels great to be heard. ------ ams6110 _she uses Google+ to stay in touch with other family members online ( < 10)_ What I don't understand is if you want to stay in touch with a small group of close acquaintances/family why not use email? It's vastly easier to use than any "social network" ~~~ _ankit_ A big part of staying in touch is _sharing photos_ , and _video calling_. Especially, if you live far away from your family. ~~~ phwd I once thought this but not again. Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology. You _think_ it's a big part but you are in fact making that personal connection weaker. At the very most in the world technology, email would suffice for your family. ~~~ bdunbar _Your family, at least the elders, would more appreciate that you pick up the phone or send postal mail than use technology._ Most of the elders in my family - talking people 65+ - have computers, use Facebook, to keep in touch. Most of my mother's _friends_ are on Facebook for that matter. They do appreciate a phone call, but for grand-baby pictures and video, that's where the action is. My mother is the exception. At the age of 70, she's never touched a computer. She likely never will. Anyway - my point is that my family is not exceptional, nor especially early- adopting. We're pretty typical Americans, I think. ------ js4all Those are valid points but Google has a different target. The pages are designed to get the user to spend more time on G+. ------ sparknlaunch12 Google started their life with a simple UI that anyone could use. You simply entered keywords into a textbox and hit the enter key. Suddenly all their new stuff is too complicated. Google+ and Google Listen are painful to use. ~~~ jrockway And that still exists. Now Google has other products too, which you can use if you want to, or not use if you don't want to. ~~~ sparknlaunch12 All true. However surely Google want to deliver an intuitive and easy to use social media tool to their end users. I thought G+ is for the mass market - maybe it isn't. Google+ is definitely not intuitive and during their recent upgrade have ripped off Facebook's profile and cover photo idea. ------ cfinke And you can't page down using the spacebar anymore. That seems like a fundamental feature of the modern Web browser that Google decided not to support, and for what reason? ~~~ magicofpi Wait, really? It seems to work for me (Safari 5.1.4 / Chrome 20.0.1096.1 on Lion). ~~~ cfinke Definitely broken for me in Firefox 11 and 12 on Lion. ------ bmelton Without getting into the specific point-by-point refutation of this because, some of it is valid, I must first wonder why it is that people assume that every product should fit every person. My first reaction is how horrible it would be to set up a Google+ account for my dog. I mean, my dog doesn't even have hands! Pulling that back a little bit though, it starts off with "my mom isn't big about the internet." More to the point, there isn't actually any 'horror' in 'setting up a Google+ account for his mom'. By all accounts, the lack of horror in the actual account setup tells me that it was probably a fairly trivial affair, or even, uneventful. I was expecting something about real name guideline violations or switching accounts being an issue, but that's not the case at all, it seems. Perhaps the most legitimate complaint (to my ears, your mileage will vary) is that there are non-circled posts added to your stream. The 'promoted' or 'hot' posts or whatever could certainly do with a toggle permission or something for the 'closed circle' types, and I actually thought that there was a way to keep people's stuff out of your stream. ~~~ _ankit_ I agree that you can't have every product fit every person, but isn't one of the primary selling points of Google+ that "you can have private conversations with small groups of family and friends". I would personally think the features and UX should be designed keeping that in mind. Even saying so, a lot of the points I say there are potential usability issues for everyone (at least for me they are). For example, the big banner ads for mobile apps and Hangouts. I agree, the title is a bit misleading. By "setup", I meant creating an account _and_ simplifying the user interface, and explaining to my mom how to start hangouts, share photos, etc. ~~~ bmelton Perhaps that's my point of contention. I think that, for sharing to small groups of individuals, G+ is the best platform around (though I haven't tried EveryMe as they aren't on Android). I type a message, I type a group or two, I hit enter. Done. Sharing is simple. Where it seems like your complaints lie are in getting too much information - above and beyond what has been shared. To me, I suppose that's small potatoes. I get the occasional distraction in my stream, but Google's usually smart enough to make it relevant, and about half the time I see something from outside of my circles, it ends up drawing me into a conversation. I am decidedly not your mom, and I don't mind it. Also, my stream is active enough that those 'outsiders' ever take up any significant percentage of it, so perhaps I'm unable to see it from her point of view, but I don't think that showing me things I like, that I might otherwise have missed, is a 'problem' that needs to be 'fixed'. Again, just my opinion. Can I ask what other social networks your mom has used, and how she found those, in comparison? ~~~ _ankit_ Yes, it does depend how one is using Google+. I primarily use it to interact with small groups of friends and family who are using Google+ (which is not a lot), which might be very different from how you use it. Also, these views are all mine, what triggered them was the annoyances I came across as I was trying to simplify the Google+ interface for my mom. I find Google+ great for sharing links, photos and doing hangouts and I definitely don't know of a better or simpler solution for private sharing among groups of people. Like you said, it is really simple to share. I do feel strongly about letting users easily opt out of getting too much information. If I want to see what's trending, I can visit the Explore tab. Like the left navigation, maybe it makes sense to let you hide stuff on the right sidebar as well. My main annoyance though is with the persistent adverts (the banners you see on Explore, Hangout and Photos pages). And the "in your face" banner that you cannot get rid of, if you have less than 10 people in Circles. The only way is to add strangers to your Circles to get rid of it. Would it be too bad to have a "X" icon on the top right to get rid of these?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why was "goto fail;" added without any other change to that part of the code? - 0x006A Looking at the diff between the two versions of sslKeyExchange.c released by Apple http://opensource.apple.com/source/Security/Security-55471/libsecurity_ssl/lib/sslKeyExchange.c and http://opensource.apple.com/source/Security/Security-55179.13/libsecurity_ssl/lib/sslKeyExchange.c I was trying to come up with a reasonable explanations of how this could have happened, but failed.<p>Here the relevant part of the diff:<p><pre><code> @@ -627,6 +628,7 @@ goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) goto fail; + goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0) goto fail; </code></pre> How could this ever happen? It does not look like a copy & paste error as suggested in other places, it does not look like refactoring. Was it added intentionally to test something and commited by accident? Is there any possible non malicious explanation someone could come up with? ====== matthewmacleod Stop this nonsense. There are plainly dozens of reasons that this could have happened accidentally. Literally every single developer has made similar stupid mistake, and literally every organisation has released stupidly broken code. Yes, there should have been code review, static analysis, and testing in place to prevent that. That'll probably start happening, and you can bet that there will be serious discussions internally about what happened. If this was the action of a malicious government agency, then it was horribly hamfisted execution. It might offer plausible deniability in some sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where such an action would be worthwhile, given the resources at the disposal of any such actor. ~~~ pessimizer >it's hard to imagine a situation where such an action would be worthwhile, given the resources at the disposal of any such actor. This needs more defense. I find it hard to imagine a situation where such a minimal and deniable action with such a massive effect _wouldn 't_ be worthwhile. ~~~ tptacek No, it doesn't need a defense. There is no evidence to back up the idea that the bug was malicious. People that have worked on large C codebases have seen crazier things than this. _Routinely_. I understand that Rails developers believe that all the TLS stacks must have dense rspec test coverage and zero-warnings static analysis passes in their builds, but that isn't the reality for any TLS stack. These aren't Rails apps (and, hate to break it to some of you, but your Rails test coverage isn't doing as much for your security as you'd like to think it is). This is a nutball conspiracy theory, another example of the tech "community" eating its own rather than focusing on anything that would help mitigate state-sponsored surveillance. And it's happening solely in the service of an "exciting" narrative. The people promoting this bullshit conspiracy theory are, by and large, doing it because they _want_ it to be true. ~~~ miopa 1\. It is certain that NSA has some very smart people playing with the sources of the Apple crypto-modules. 2\. If you're a NSA boss, and some of your experts told you that you can break SSL in Apple products with adding one line that could be almost certainly attributed to inconspicuous human error, would you try to make a deal with Apple? 3\. If you're an Apple boss, and NSA offers you cache (or other benefits, like competitor intelligence) for adding plausibly deniable bug in your code, would you turn it down? There is no direct evidence for this case, sure. There is however ample evidence in the Snowden docs that this scenario happens too often for this to be called bullshit conspiracy theory. ~~~ patio11 Remember how Diaspora was supposed to be the private peer-to-peer encrypted Facebook but peers private keys could be read or overwritten by anyone on the Internet? Doesn't your argument suggest "Well we can't rule out the NSA having a man on the inside trying to undermine their encryption"? Heck, why not go all the way: the NSA funded Diaspora to bring Facebook to the negotiating table? Down this path lies madness. Software has bugs. ~~~ miopa Yes, we can't rule that. But we could clearly see that the Diaspora codebase screamed incompetence. Apple, on the other hand, has some very high quality products and decades of experience. Yes, it is quite possible that this is a simple bug. The other option is also quite possible :) ~~~ tptacek It is equally possible that Apple is a giant conspiracy dedicated to concealing the grey aliens who actually control human civilization and are harvesting our brainwaves, which actually function as the raw compute for a giant intergalactic payments call center application, via Flappy Bird. Think about it. ~~~ luke-stanley That's not equally possible, due to Occam's razor: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) Plus, the security services have a proven ability and intent. Be serious now. ------ cjbprime It's not true that there was no other change in the code -- there was a change eight lines earlier. It could be a mismerge of the latest upstream code. There was refactoring nearby, and people can make stupid mistakes while refactoring. I disagree that there's no "reasonable explanation", and so do most other people who've looked at it. That doesn't mean it wasn't malicious, but it means that it has reasonably plausible deniability. (Of course, if you _were_ being malicious, plausible deniability might be important to you.) ~~~ lyngvi ++ on mismerge. The change likely won't impact the output binary - compiler should issue a warning, which devs might ignore; then the optimizer would remove it as unreachable. Perhaps the developer deliberately allowed that mismerge to give himself an aura of incompetence/sloppiness, enhancing his plausible deniability when it is discovered that one of his other changes led to an insidious vulnerability. But more likely it was just an accident - if he were malicious, the effect of bringing attention to his code would be highly undesirable. ~~~ shawabawa3 > The change likely won't impact the output binary - compiler should issue a > warning, which devs might ignore; then the optimizer would remove it as > unreachable. It's not unreachable - it always executes if the if condition is false. ~~~ lyngvi D'oh. That's what I get for not paying attention and looking at the indentation instead of for braces. Still, my bet's on mismerge first - though it'd be worth reviewing that committer's other changes. ------ gatehouse If you are wondering whether there is a massive conspiracy to make software weaker and to hijack the work of everyone writing networked software and construct a massive surveillance apparatus and use it against enemies of Freedom™ and randomly chosen accidental targets: the answer is _yes_. It has been demonstrated beyond doubt. If you're wondering whether this particular code is a consequence of all that: probably not, but if it were it would prove anything that isn't already known. ------ mistercow A lot of code editors (Xcode doesn't by default, but you can easily configure it to) have a keyboard shortcut for duplicating the current line. I have plenty of times accidentally made changes at the wrong place in a file because I was mistaken about where the cursor was. The lesson is to always make sure to look at your diffs before you commit your changes. ~~~ Cthulhu_ And to have someone else look at your diffs and sign off on them before it's merged into master. Google / Chrome does this, and so should everyone else, even more so if they're dealing with security. ~~~ mistercow That's a good measure too, although I think with a mistake like this, the person writing the code might be more likely to spot the mistake than someone else. It also makes me wonder if the diff display shouldn't have a specific notation for duplicated lines, since they are a special case that can easily be mistaken for a trivial _change_ to a line with the way diffs are typically shown. ------ axylone Looks like they also introduced a reference leak on allocation failure: @@ -198,10 +198,8 @@ sslDebugLog("SSLEncodeRSAKeyParams: modulus len=%ld, exponent len=%ld\n", modulusLength, exponentLength); OSStatus err; - if ((err = SSLAllocBuffer(keyParams, - modulusLength + exponentLength + 4)) != 0) { - CFReleaseSafe(exponent); - CFReleaseSafe(modulus); + if ((err = SSLAllocBuffer(keyParams, + modulusLength + exponentLength + 4, ctx)) != 0) { return err; } uint8_t *charPtr = keyParams->data; Note the removed CFReleaseSafe(exponent) and modulus. All other return paths in SSLEncodeRSAKeyParams() call CFRelease(exponent) and modulus. This is why you use goto fail and not early returns. ------ jfontan Maybe another check was done between those two goto fail but later was deleted because didn't make sense. The extra goto fail was left behind. ------ sslfailio Yes people make mistakes.... that is why code in a file called sslKeyExchange.c ffs can be expected to be reviewed by another person at apple BEFORE the commit enters a release candidate. A double goto fail; is something that sticks out to anyone looking at that commit line by line. Seems like apple handles application security like any 6 dude valley startup. My commit suggestion: \- goto fail; \+ fail; ------ homakov More importantly, why Apple doesn't run test suites, basic checks? Test driven development must be everywhere ~~~ laureny TDD might be useful for unit tests (even that I'm not convinced of) but not for integration tests. The bug happens very deep inside the handshake protocol and it's extremely hard to test it automatically. ~~~ dllthomas Right, this is a much stronger case for static analysis and warning-free builds. This change caused dead code. If that code was supposed to be dead, comment it out. ~~~ ryandrake If the code is supposed to be dead, DELETE it. Do not comment it out. If the code doesn't belong there, get rid of it. If, for whatever reason, you want to show the reader that code used to be there, delete it and leave an explanatory comment. If you're commenting it out because you're not confident in taking it out or you plan to re-enable it in the future, well, that's what you have source control for. ~~~ dllthomas I don't agree. Or I do to a point, but it's a relatively weak point. I agree code should be yanked if there's no reason to be keeping it around. I don't think there's never reason to be keeping it around. Sending people to figure out which version of the repository had the relevant piece of code (which is now correspondingly less likely to have been updated at all when surrounding code changed) doesn't make sense if you genuinely expect it will be relevant again soon. ------ sentenza Think of change, copy, paste, do something else that you suddenly thought of, forget because lunch, commit without looking. (TODO: Write unit test.) Or a conspiracy. At this poing, I just don't know any more. ------ DanHulton Braces, y'all! This is why you always, always, ALWAYS put braces around your if()s. (I'm not religious about what line the open brace goes on, but I will reject any code review that skips the braces entirely.) ~~~ wmgries Also, you almost never need to use goto. ~~~ chrismcb This isn't goto's fault. A return, or a "finished = true;" or a ton of other code could have had the same result. Using a goto means it is easier to find it than some other similar mistakes. ~~~ bakhy All three of those patterns are something which would lead me to consider is there a more functional-style option available to rewrite the method in question. I'll take a gigantic nested if over a split-end method (multiple exit points) any day of the week ;) But of course, such things cannot be avoided completely, nor will avoiding them magically eliminate all bugs in the universe.. ~~~ DanHulton Hm, and I'm of the opposite opinion. I like methods that fail early. Gigantic if-chains are hella-hard to parse. I should go consult Code Complete again, actually... ------ nitrogen This kind of mistake is why I always use curly braces with if() statements when I write C, and double-check the results through Vim's auto-indentation. ------ brudgers A few years ago, my son would watch "Finding Bigfoot.". Someone said they saw a bigfoot running off into the woods the narrator would say, "The bigfoot must have been frightened, so it's exactly what I would expect a bigfoot to do." Another person would say, they saw a little bigfoot standing on the river bank and the narrator would say, "That's exactly the sort of place we would expect to see a baby bigfoot." [1] If someone said they saw a bigfoot shopping in Walmart, we could expect to hear, "That's exactly the sort of a place a bigfoot would shop." The conspiracy theorists and the honest mistake theorists are both finding bigfoot. On the one hand, it's exactly the sort of exploit a state security organ would like to create and on the other its exactly the sort of error a programmer can make in C. And neither side believes in the other's Bigfoot. [1] We talked about the actual words that were used by bigfoot hunters to advance the story ------ donatj I had an accidental line duplication in git the otherday trying to do a by- line commit with a visual tool. ------ gcb0 I'm 100% convinced it's malicious... But otherwise, it could be explained by the coder adding another check If(err==my_dev_string) goto fail; Then before committing, sending the diff to a colleague who emails back "you forgot a debug there, besides that ship it" He removes only one line of two and ships. And of course i always try to attribute those things to incompetent other than malice, but since in this case there was probably money and bribes involved so i tend to the later. ~~~ wreegab > but since in this case there was probably money and bribes involved The cognitive process above is really sad: "I speculate this is what happened as a natural outcome of my other speculation" ~~~ gcb0 my two speculations are really opposite (and most believable one to defend the coders innocence, if that was the case). i presented both and pointed out the one i have a gut feeling towards. ------ cgore I appreciate the coding standard at a previous employer ([http://www.astronautics.com/](http://www.astronautics.com/)) a little bit more now, that INSISTED that braces always happen, even for one line conditionals like these. It was kind of irritating at the time though. ------ beachstartup i do this all the time in vim. all it takes is one extra keystroke 'p' to do this. if i were to take a guess, the programmer first typed out all the if conditional expressions, then went in and pasted 'goto fail' out of a buffer after each one, and accidentally did it twice there. ~~~ jeremyjh That didn't happen - look at the diff in the OP. ~~~ beachstartup that's bullshit. you don't know that it didn't happen - there's no telling what he did with the code in the time between commits. he could moved things around 20 times, finally ending up in the same place, with the exception of the accidentally pasted a line. plese use some imagination before jumping to conclusions. a diff tracks changes at points in time, not an editing session. ------ rdtsc Common just say, we all know you what you are thinking. Bruce Schneier said it. You should know that we know what you are thinking -- yes there is a very high chance it was put there deliberately. ------ jokoon that's like telling programmers that Apple doesn't use a repo system, so there could not be any trace of this. And why don't we hear anything the guy who might have done this mistake IF IT WAS AN ACTUAL MISTAKE ? I don't like conspiracy theories, but I'd be apple, I'd fire the guy for incompetence. I mean of all the code that has to be secure, you have to check this one. ------ jheriko this looks exactly like a copy paste error - there are also plenty of shortcut keys for duplicating lines or transposing them... ------ danielweber Sometimes people make mistakes. ~~~ chris_wot Don't know why you got voted down. You make a very decent point!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: book suggestions in non-tech fields (e.g. psychology, philosophy…) - Timothee I've realized that I'd like to read some good timeless wisdom about something other than the best JavaScript design patterns, the Go documentation, or the 10 best ways to engage with VCs. Subjects like psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.<p>What would you recommend?<p>I'm not looking for anything in particular, mostly something different but captivating. ====== gault8121 In regards to psychology, read Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahneman describes fast thinking as the instantaneous, subconscious judgements we make, while slow thinking is the conscious, articulated thoughts we have. Kahneman shows how there is a huge disconnect between these two systems, and how this influences our behavior. Another excellent book is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It looks at how people are convinced into doing things (e.g. the effectiveness of various methods of advertising), and how you can guard yourself against these psychological mechanisms. The title sounds cheesy, but it is an excellent book full of concrete, interesting examples. I'd highly recommend both books. While they may sound sort of salesy, both books deeply examine the process of making a decision. ------ mstockton I made a goal to read 100 books this year. I'm through 87 so far. Most of them have been non-fiction. Using this year to learn things outside of technology has been time very well spent for me. Here are some of my top books this year. \- Currency Wars, James Rickards \- The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein \- What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly \- The Art Of Happiness, Dalai Lama \- Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen \- The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz \- Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl \- Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky \- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander \- Good To Great, Jim Collins \- Abundance, Peter Diamandis \- The Mystery Of Capital, Hernando De Soto \- Pathologies Of Power, Paul Farmer \- Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff \- Seeing Like A State, James Scott \- Ishmael, Daniel Quinn \- Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman \- Beyond Fear, Bruce Schneier \- The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan \- The Birth Of Plenty, William Bernstein ~~~ atom-morgan This is a really good list you have here. Currency Wars and Lies My Teacher Told Me are definitely on my Amazon wishlist. Is reading Abundance worth it though if you've already seen his TED talk? I want a deep dive, not just a few more details here and there. ------ vijucat Just start reading from "Let us consider another demand : I should always be understanding, sympathetic, and helpful": [http://www.scribd.com/doc/34058295/Karen-Horney-Neurosis- and...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/34058295/Karen-Horney-Neurosis-and-Human- Growth#page=67) Karen Horney, "Neurosis and Human Growth : The Struggle Towards Self- Realization". If I was asked to recommend a single book to read, I would recommend this. My 2nd would probably be a Jiddu Krishnamurthi book. ------ freshhawk Daniel Dennetts "Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking". Certainly parts of it won't be timeless as they touch a rapidly changing field but many parts of it likely are. ------ cubecul Classical works could take you for a spin. Plato's The Republic is deceivingly easy to follow, its format hiding a wealth of philosophy and political theory. ------ davidsmith8900 \- Top Books In Philosophy ~> [https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+philosophy&oq=t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+philosophy&oq=top+books+in+philosophy&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.5790j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Top Books In Psychology ~> [https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+psychology&oq=t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+psychology&oq=top+books+in+psychology&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.3911j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Top Books In Sociology ~> [https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+sociology&oq=to...](https://www.google.com/search?q=top+books+in+sociology&oq=top+books+in+sociology&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.6206j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Become a Vim Master - plessthanpt05 http://www.howtogeek.com/115051/become-a-vi-master-by-learning-these-30-key-bindings/ ====== addisaden Thanks for sharing this great article. In my opinion, it would be nice to get more information of how to combine commands. There are a lot of ways to do that and i think when anybody (include myself) wants to get a Vim Master, you have to understand more of this. Hope i could help you. ~~~ johncoltrane Look around for "vim grammar". There were a couple of posts recently about this subject: basically you should consider Vim's commands/motions/text- objects/count as the lexical parts of a language that you combine to form phrases. This a simple example of combining commands in Vim, first in English, then in Vim-speak: I want to turn this line into a paragraph, make it UPPERCASE and duplicate it 10 times. yss<p>vitgU10p gU$yss<p>10p ... Like for everything in Vim, there are many ways to do that. The optimal order is not always the most natural but it's often close and it's almost always faster than in other editors. ~~~ addisaden While looking around i found a book from PragmaticProgrammers for the vim. Compact and save my time. Vim is more than just another editor and its fast. What the heck does ss on the beginning? The rest of this command is clear. ~~~ johncoltrane yss comes from Surround.vim. It's the command used to wrap the current line with "whatever" comes after: yss<p> yss" and so on… Surround is a killer plugin.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Android Spyware Can Record Almost Anything on Infected Devices - hackwarenews https://hackwarenews.com/powerful-android-spyware-can-record-almost-anything-on-infected-devices/ ====== dopamean The phones we carry around freak me out a lot when I think about what they can do. In many ways they really are a worst case scenario when it comes to privacy. I once heard someone use the term "Little Brother" to describe our smartphones and their respective corporate owners. So yeah, this malware can record almost anything. That's sort of a feature of these devices. They're built to record almost anything. edit: I fixed a typo ~~~ prolikewh0a Why is there no open source alternative to Android or iOS? ~~~ Grazester Android is open source?? You can compile it however you want and dont even have to use Google services. ~~~ Avamander By that logic so is ChromeOS. Point being, Android without _any_ closed- source/google components is rather useless. ~~~ Grazester Android is perfectly usable without the Google services. It may not be as polished and of course apps that depend on Google services may not play nice with the drop in replacement but its not like your smart phone suddenly becomes a dumb phone. ~~~ foepys While that's true, you are losing one of the most critical components of Android. Not the Play Store but Firebase Cloud Messaging. It's not part of AOSP and so deeply integrated into Android that removing it cripples a lot of apps. Replicating FCM's functionality inside apps leads to a _significant_ increase in battery drain. ~~~ amaccuish Take a look at microg. I use it, it supports FCM. Ok so I'm still using Google to some extent, but the amount of information they get out me is vastly reduced and similar to Apple. ------ srcmap On Windows, I can use ProcessExploror + TotalVirus to check every single running app's exe, dll Signatures against 60+ virus scanner's databases. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPtuTbqzd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnPtuTbqzd4) It is not perfect but give me a lot of comfort about all the running app, .dll files in my system. It helped me easily detect my kid's game machines of some internet drive by download issues before and work very well to remove those apps/files. I really wish Google can create something similar for Android. Love to see something similar for iOS, OSX also. ~~~ wpietri Is it odd to others that after decades of Windows security nightmares we seem to have basically replicated the issue on an entirely new platform? I get that it's a fundamentally hard problem. But I can't shake this feeling that we maybe missed an opportunity to do better with the fresh start that mobile OSes represent. ------ magnetic The scary thing about this is that, while you may have a good "security hygiene" around your devices, you have no control over others who you socialize with. It's a bit like ending on Facebook even though you have no account: someone posted a picture of you, you got tagged, and now you exist in FB. All it takes is one person with an infected phone to show up around a table of a private event/conversation and, through no fault of your own, you get recorded. The moral of the story (that I've been trying to follow for a few years now, quite unsuccessfully I must add), is that if you want a private conversation with someone (or a group of people), you need to keep all devices away. On the bright side, it has taught me to be very diplomatic in my discussions with others. My default behavior (when I don't slip) is to assume that whatever I say could become public somehow.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Newspaper thinktank predicted the iPad in 1994 - jamesjyu http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/28/futurist-predicted-the-ipad-in-1994-video/ ====== joezydeco Seven years earlier, a team from the University of Illinois won an Apple competition to "design the computer of the year 2000". Their design? A tablet. <http://cs.illinois.edu/news/2010/Jan26-1> Note Stephen Wolfram standing stage left. Oskee wow wow!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth - ammon https://triplebyte.com/blog/want-hire-best-programmers-offer-growth ====== chrissnell It's a little peculiar how this blog post really pushes the inclusiveness angle despite the numbers showing clearly that it is not a big priority for prospective employees. They even go as far as highlighting that the sampled women want inclusiveness 171% more than the sampled men, which sounds pretty strong, but hides the real story when you look at the _actual numbers_. Only 15% of women ranked inclusion as a top priority, which is telling. It seems pretty apparent to me that most employees (and that includes all genders, races, etc.) don't care nearly as much about inclusiveness as their leadership seems to. After reading this post, it seems to confirm what I've suspected all long: people mostly want money and the potential to make more money in the future. ~~~ xtracto It is because it is SEO spam. TripleByte regularly posts these here in HackerNews to promote their hiring platform. People seem to like it nonetheless ~~~ meowface It is SEO spam, and TripleByte does seem to use a lot of "growth hacks" or something, because I see their ads on pretty much any platform that I see ads for (like on mobile apps, where I don't have any easy-to-use ad blockers), and they're mentioned on HN at a surprisingly high rate. But (I think?) I've seen people here genuinely recommend them, and I also don't think YC would work with and promote a company they didn't like or trust. Companies' marketing and sales teams can sometimes have a very different vibe and sense of ethics compared to the rest of the company. ~~~ titanomachy They do advertise very aggressively, to the point where I think they risk damaging their reputation. But I guess they've done the analysis and decided it's worth it. I went through their process and got lots of practice interviewing. Even though I didn't take any of the offers I got through them I was able to use one to negotiate a much higher salary at the job I did take. Their recruiters and interviewers treated me respectfully and professionally. So I'd recommend it, especially if you're very good and/or smart but not an attractive candidate by conventional standards. If you have 5 years at Microsoft or something then you probably don't need them, since you can interview wherever you want at that point. ------ nscalf I'm a software engineer with ~3 years of experience. I also want professional growth. Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it. levels.fyi sort of convinced me that being a good engineer is a life changing event for more than 1 generation. I answer questions like these as growth primarily because I know growth is an investment for my life long earning potential, and I just so happen to have a passion for growth to begin with---it's a lucky combination to be drawn to. I'd love to see questions like this phrased to account for this: "Opportunity for professional growth, to grow my future earning potential." "Opportunity for professional growth, because I enjoy learning new things." "Opportunity for professional growth, to reach a role I cannot fill with my current skills." I know the article tried to address this with the responses, but that's sort of the default answer you give in this field. No one really says, or enjoys hearing, "I want to learn more so I can make more money". ~~~ chadash > _" Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, > partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part > of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium > for it."_ And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior equipment. Making $200K/year? I'll be you also have top of the line equipment, no one keeping close tabs on your hours, 4 weeks or more vacation, money to go to conferences, etc. A mentor of mine once told me that I should seek to make more money, even if that's not my motivation. He said that more money is always nice to have, but also that when someone pays you more, they respect you more, so you get all the benefits that come along with that. ~~~ logifail > when someone pays you more, they respect you more The counter-example to that could be that once you're senior enough, you are never 100% on vacation. If enough goes wrong, you _will_ get called back to work. ~~~ bcyn That has nothing to do with seniority, it's 100% about how you draw personal boundaries between work hours and personal hours. You can make it clear that you will be completely unplugged during vacation. ~~~ joshuamorton Once you are an executive, you often have contractual obligations. You are the key decision maker people escalate to. If time sensitive things that need a decision to be made the buck stops with you, no matter where you are. To give an extreme example, the President (of the US) is never truly unplugged. In the cases where the president is truly unplugged, SoP is for that person to temporarily stop being the President. ~~~ taurath Delegation of authority is key here. If not for the commander in chief role of the president it’s conceivable they could just delegate decision making to the cabinet. ------ elindbe2 I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance). ~~~ stakhanov That equation is a theoretical one. On the whole, jobs that offer high $/hr will mandate crazy hours. Jobs that will allow you to go 20 hr/wk, or 10 hr/wk will usually not pay you well on a per-hour basis either. -- I predict that in response to what I just wrote, there will be people showing off about how they managed to make a consulting lifestyle business like that actually work because of how awesome they are. -- But keep in mind they are the exception, not the rule. ~~~ Retric Taking time off between jobs is a real option for most programmers. Depending on how long you stay at each company it can even add up to a few years of time off without having obvious gaps on the resume. ~~~ stakhanov You have to have the stomach for that... Personally, I couldn't get any real enjoyment out of a time period where I didn't know when/where/whether I have another job lined up, and opportunities to get truly trustworthy commitments on start dates that are a significant period of time in the future are rare. ~~~ badpun I do that all the time - like literally my CV has probably 5 or 6 gaps of varying duration (between 3 months and two years). Often, during those gaps I spend some time working on something tech related, so I put that into the gap in the CV. Even with those gaps, I'm having zero problem finding well-paying jobs. I think it's because, despite those gaps, I represent good value to the employer - I know the latest tech, have done good work in the past, can present coherent and mature opinions during the interview etc. Also, I only do long- term contracts where they explicitly don't care that I'm a job-hopping mercenary that is not ever going to believe the "company mission", because the assumption is that the whole arrangement is temporary anyway. In practice, they always want to retain me and I end up quitting out of boredom after a year of two. To summarize, the gaps are probably important only when you're in close competition with lots of folks similar to you. But, if you're a bit of an expert in a specific niche (mine is Big Data - Hadoop and related crap, applied in enterprise IT context) and there aren't that many competent candidates around, the gaps suddenly don't matter. ~~~ rabidrat Are you over 40 yet? It changed for me this last job hunt. ~~~ badpun I'm 38. We'll see what happens in a couple of years. In any case, these enterprise companies usually have a position of architect on their teams, where grey hair are even an advantage. I don't like this job, as it's more headaches than coding in a lot of ways, but when if ages turns out to be a thing, then I guess I'll be architecting (I've done it several times already, so I have the CV for that). ------ antoinevg Fuck that, I've been doing this for 25 years and what I want in order of importance is: 1) Pay me 2) Autonomy ~~~ dillonmckay I am willing to forgo #2 if #1 is high enough. ~~~ meowface I'm the opposite. If my living and food expenses are covered, I'll prefer full autonomy over no or minimal autonomy. You can only spend so many years doing things you're asked to do which you don't really want to do before the value added by the extra money is outweighed by the value lost from life in general becoming more depressing and less inspiring. ~~~ thedufer You can turn extra money pretty directly into time with actual autonomy (i.e. not working) pretty easily, though. ~~~ meowface That's true, but it depends on the income rate, I guess. If I need to work a soul-sucking job for 15 years to be able to spend the rest of my life with mostly full autonomy, I think that trade-off isn't worth it. If it were working a soul-sucking job for 1 or 2 years to get enough to be autonomous for life, then it's probably worth it. ~~~ thedufer Yes, there is some preferred balance between the two for any one person. But for reference, 15 years to retirement means shaving 25 years of full-time work off the typical career. That seems...pretty appealing. ------ ticmasta So in a candidate response-based survey 54% picked the more palatable "Growth Opportunities" item but 42% also selected the far less attractive motivator of "More money". Accounting for the "perceived gallantry" of these motivators I'd call that a statistical wash, but the article title "Want to hire the best programmers? Pay them the highest salaries." doesn't support the "best engineers / best companies" narrative very well. ------ vinceguidry The vast majority of programming jobs, like the vast majority of ordinary jobs, are not going to be able to offer growth potential, at least, not growth potential that would actually look appealing to anyone posting here. If the only incentive on the company's part is increased retention, that's just not a good-enough reason to spend time on more than lip service. My company is a weirdly-effective consulting firm with a staff-augmentation business model. I chalk their success up to two factors. One, there's no middle management, only team leads reporting to a cadre of developer-owners. Second, they've been really good at landing the right kind of clients. It's rather funny watching them try to figure out how to engage their workforce, but with a staff-aug model, devs feel more like employees of the client rather than of the consultant. So everyone's just kind of meh. It feels a little The Office-ish. The other consequence is that there is practically zero real growth potential, and no incentive to do anything other than keep butts in chairs. Nobody's going to let me jump from the consultant to the client, the only path up is out. I hope this business model dies. It feels distinctly evil. ~~~ robohoe That sounds like something like Accenture, InfoSys, etc. I too hope this business model dies but I don't see it dying for a long time. As long as business school MBA types keep making decisions and hiring those companies, they will keep hiring butts in the chair. ------ RNeff Offer a quiet, private office. Two or more monitors. Free snacks and free lunches. Modern software stack (whatever that is). Or full-time remote. ~~~ aczerepinski I’m 80-90% remote, and it’s such a huge lifestyle perk that I’d need at least a 50% pay bump to even consider anything in the city. I hope this becomes more and more the norm for tech jobs because everyone deserves ample time with their family and friends. For me now the baseline is remote + good work life balance and vacation package. If we can throw exciting tech, more money, etc on top of that, great. ~~~ avgDev I can't imagine not having any remote days in the week. Unfortunately, many enterprise jobs in my area expect people in their seat 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm hoping to polish my skills and eventually find something 100% remote even if its less thank $100k. I want to buy a lake front house, and get on a jetski/boat during my lunch break. ~~~ Consultant32452 I'm 100% remote working full time for a household name financial company. I'm making $150k, plus 6 weeks vacation, 401k match, etc. I'm in process negotiating a consulting gig that will pay a little over $300k that is also 100% remote. That one is a corp to corp contract, not an employee position. Hang in there, you'll find your spot. My advice would be to make friends with a few recruiters for the big headhunting firms. With a little patience for terrible signal to noise ratio they should help you break the $100k mark for remote work. Sometimes you gotta shop around for the right recruiters. The first person you talk to is probably not the person with the right contacts. ------ cbanek > Second, women engineers prioritize growth to an even greater extent than > men, and they place particular secondary emphasis on inclusivity and comfort > with their work and environment. Woman in tech here. I agree completely, and I'd almost say that saying you want to grow your career in an inclusive environment is saying "I want to grow in a place that will actually value me and promote me." Been in so many places where talented women are just not promoted, and it can be so demoralizing. ~~~ frequentnapper true story: sister was hired at a big company as a tester with degrees in bio and comp sci. The manager had her doing manual testing for a year. She aspired to be a developer. Even offered to automate testing on her own time after work. The manager told her if she has extra time, she should do more manual testing instead. When a dev position opened up on the team, he just hired some coop guy instead for it without even considering her. She quit. ~~~ Benjammer Why did she take a job as a tester if she was a CS grad with developer aspirations? ~~~ fernandopj Why not? I do contract work for a big, public company, they have dozens of QA testers and every path is available for them (becoming a dev, analyst, manager, ... I've seen all). It's not even just an entry job for CS grads, many become senior testers as well and don't want to move to a dev position. ~~~ Benjammer Edit: this was dumb I'm sorry I shouldn't get mad on the internet I apologize ~~~ danharaj My guy you read way too much into a comment about a manager who was not trying to nurture the career path their subordinate was aspiring for. That's part of being a manager. A manager who doesn't go to bat for people like that is a shit manager. Your response is really bizarre, like you were personally attacked. ~~~ frequentnapper maybe he's one of those managers. she was clear when she was hired that she wanted to be a dev. like i said, this was a branch office of a big company in a small city. many people moved from testing to dev and vice versa. ------ trilila Don’t treat developers like bricklayers. Sack any product manager or manager that does it. This is the root of all evil, radical as it may sound. There needs to be a balance between engineering and product delivery, but too much emphasis on product delivery leads to tech debt, cutting too many corners and poor tech choices. Not to mention stress and little to no job satisfaction. Give devs some time to build something they are proud of. Good devs are in it because they love and once that love is gone the dev is gone. ~~~ dpeck in my experience many developers want to be bricklayers (not to discount bricklaying, there's an art to it, but they're focused on the individual bricks, not the other aspects of the building). They get annoyed when they're asked to think about the bigger picture and just want to focus on the code, the architecture, and whatever is new and shiny. It is largely due to these sorts of developers that we've developed all the ritual around sprints/product owners/etc to put blinders on them because they cannot deal with deadline and thinking in terms of business value creation. This sort of person is under-represented here on HN for obvious reasons but they represent the majority of people developing software. The opportunity to contribute more than just lines of code should be offered and encouraged, but don't be surprised at how few will be interested. ~~~ yezanotherone I am one of these happy bricklayers. It's the only way I can stay sane in a job. When I'm working on my own projects, I'm all in, and I love all aspects of the process. But in a job, on a project that 99% of the time is run badly, and my colleagues are writing terrible code, just give me the bricks and tell me what to build. If I try to care, I get frustrated and depressed. Plus, I'd be fooling myself if I were not like this. I've seen people put their passion into a job, argue their case, and then they get made redundant. Don't be fooled. P.s. I'm a very good, reliable bricklayer who makes very solid walls. ~~~ opportune Yeah I agree with this. If you are not in a high-up position you will just get too frustrated caring about the bigger picture because you have little power when it comes to actually making bigger-picture decisions. So all you can do is suggest things which 1) may not be well received, could be perceived as some low-level employee overstepping their bounds 2) probably won't be heeded since then the managers/pms/directors/etc. have to concede power ------ umvi Am I the only one here that likes growth because I like learning? I try and grow all the time in non-professional areas of my life even though there is no direct monetary compensation for doing so (such as learning new languages, instruments, etc.) ~~~ AznHisoka Outside of work, absolutely. At work though, I find my thirst for learning new technical things has disappeared as I've gone older. What has grown instead is the thirst for learning new things in or related to my industry (domain knowledge). Like the problems my customers are facing, or where the industry is headed, or why they have been doing things a certain way. ~~~ eropple This matches me pretty well, too. I was lucky in that I had the opportunity to get a broad base of knowledge very young and now don't _have_ to run to catch up so much; because of it most of what I have to learn now are variations on a theme. Which is good, 'cause like you I've got way too many things to learn about the company and the industry and how to best apply those skills therein. ------ noncoml Can we stop with this “we hire only the best programmers?” You are probably not the best company so stop trying to hire the best programmers. It’s like the fat, ugly, jobless guy that only dates accomplished super models. ~~~ opportune Why would a company ever insult their employees like that? ------ sombremesa Want to hire the best programmers? Good luck. Same as "want to pick the best stocks", "want to win the lottery", "want to marry the best person", "want to get the best price", ... ~~~ doh We rather look for nice, pleasant people. When I get excited to be around them, I do better job. I believe it works for others too. ------ jodrellblank _Engineers Want To Learn, Even If They’re Very Senior_ But /what/ do they want to learn? Something about this bit is rubbing me the wrong way: > " _In 2002, a very good COBOL or Fortran engineer was probably in a good > place as far as their job search was concerned, but today they 're unlikely > to get much attention from companies that have moved on to more modern > languages. Had that engineer focused on growth to keep up with changes in > the industry, they might have learned Python or JavaScript and been able to > keep up with the market._" Is .. reinventing the wheel, or learning the same thing in a new language, really the same as "growth"? Is it even "learning" in any way more than "memorization"? Since when is "keeping up with the Joneses" the same as "(personal) growth"? Had that engineer focused on growth and learning, perhaps they'd now be a High Performance Computing specialist in Fortran, or a business analyst with an MBA overseeing a COBOL team's migration, or a founder of a COBOL codebase analysis tool company, or a bi-lingual contractor traveling to help foreign companies move away from COBOL, or .. anything, growing and changing instead of writing a database report in COBOL then in Java then C# then in JavaScript. ------ git-pull Don't give coding quizzes if they can provide better evidence of their ability. It's unfair in the least, rude at the worst to pigeon-hole "senior" programmers into scenarios / pop quizzes. Let them show off recent personal projects. They'll probably have no problem spending a weekend hacking on something they're passionate about. Be a serious employer: Convince the best programmers (whatever that means) why they should reorganize their life around your business: \- Pension plans / job security are nice. It's a good motivator to know that there will be an annuity when they're 60 / 65 and would rather spend time with their family. \- Union contract (or something comparable) _or_ a labor system with robust employee rights and unemployment insurance. It's pretty unfair in the US with at-will employment. \- Have strong financials. Be a business that'll be around in 10 years. Can your business keep paying employees if it's in the red for a year? If you don't offer the above: Why feel deserving of the best? I'm being facetious on the above points: It's tech, it's a fast cycle and inherently unstable. But when orgs talk about hiring - it irks me to see the entitlement employers have when they have little investment in the welfare of employees as persons (and families) ~~~ davidw None of these things are perfect - I agree with you about quizzes and the like. > Let them show off recent personal projects. They'll probably have no problem > spending a weekend hacking on something they're passionate about. Nope. Not spending my weekend fooling around to impress some potential employer. I'm going to spend it with my kids, riding my bike, and enjoying life. ~~~ enraged_camel >> Nope. Not spending my weekend fooling around to impress some potential employer. I'm going to spend it with my kids, riding my bike, and enjoying life. Okay, it is time for some harsh love. You won't like it, and I'll get downvotes, but whatever. It needs to be said. My parents are both doctors, and they are in their 60s now. And you know what? They still work their asses off, on many evenings and weekends, trying to stay up-to-date with new developments in their respective fields. My dad just got back from an ophthalmology conference in Europe. My mom is a guest speaker at a pathology conference and she has been preparing furiously. And it has been like this _all my life_. So yeah, I detest this sense of entitlement that programmers have, where they want to a) get paid a lot and b) have lots of free time on the side. How about this instead: if you want to have a high salary, then it is reasonable for people to expect you to make certain sacrifices, such as work on your own projects on the side experimenting with new technologies and ideas. Don't like it? Well, it may be time to pick another profession... ~~~ themarkn I’m not sure that the lesson to be learned from the medical profession’s overburdening of its professionals is that other well paid industries should follow suit and overburden their own professionals. ~~~ shawnz Then salaries in our industry need to decrease if we don't want to be held to a standard of overburdening ourselves. The salaries in our industry have a precedent which was set by individuals that overburdened themselves. That might have been irrational, but if we want to change that, then we need to accept less pay. We can't have the same rewards as they did while doing less work, even if the amount of work they did was unreasonable. ~~~ themarkn We aren’t being rewarded for how hard we work, we’re being rewarding for having skills that are in high demand while supply has not caught up yet. Salaries may well go down in future when the need for developers is less or the pool of talent is bigger. We also aren’t trapped by the examples set by previous developers - our productivity varies depending on what we are doing, the tools we are using, what our team is like, etc - not just the raw number of hours we put in. ------ thow_leet I don’t think hiring managers really want to hire the best programmers. They want people they feel comfortable managing, someone who isn’t going to be challenging them. There is no risk in leaving roles open, in fact it contributes to their job security as long as there is VC money to burn. That is why the coding challenges are so popular, it communicates “here, do what I say.” ~~~ ritchiea I have been freelance for years, recently I did some interviews for full time positions and I can't agree with you more. Companies that need freelancers are primarily concerned with can you do the job, there's a deadline, there's a contract, there's some urgency. Most companies I have interviewed with for full time roles advertise that they are a hiring for several roles but often are just hoping that someone who speaks at a lot of conferences or is a ex-FANG higher up will apply (I've heard this from friends on the inside). I have been very open about what my experience is and what I'm looking for. Somehow every full time job interview feels like getting picked apart to pieces while most freelance interviews feel like someone genuinely trying to assess if you can be useful to them. ~~~ thow_leet You and me both. I just went through the Triplebyte process after my last contract wrapped up. Passed their exam and interview and went on-site at multiple companies. In the end it was a total waste of time and very stressful. I would go so far as to say that if you have been successful with startups and equity that it would be a net negative for you because the 5 peers you will be interviewing with will feel threatened as well. Rinky-dink organizations really don’t want very good people, they want people they feel comfortable with. Luckily I have a network which allows me to bypass all this. ------ ngngngng I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions. Sure I really want to grow as an engineer, BECAUSE I want to make more money. When I think of professional growth, I think of a company that will give me large pay bumps equal to what I could get if I left, because as time goes on I get more productive and more knowledgeable. ------ opportune I have seen employers grossly misunderstand "professional growth" to mean paying for tons of random seminars telling you the basics of being a professional like taking care of your appearance, carrying yourself, setting goals, etc. I don't think they understood that growth == promotions and income advancement. I would have much rather taken home an extra $5k, or get a promotion two months earlier, than waste time sitting through self help seminars ~~~ john_moscow Because the cost per employee of a useless self help seminar would be way below $5K and the HR might even get a kickback. ~~~ opportune I don’t think so because they also paid for hotels, airfare, food etc for multiple days. But yeah probably a kickback involved ------ notyourday I love these kind of surveys. They just demonstrate time and time again how gullible people are, especially those that hire companies like TB to help with hiring. Want to hire best programmers? Pay. Them. More. Money. "I want to grow" is a polite way of saying "I want my compensation to grow". P.S. Do you know why people bend over backwards at interviews for Google/Netflix/Facebook and do not for a Domino's? It is because if they do well on interview at FAANG they would be making mid to high six figures while they would be making sixties as managers at Domino ------ WomanCanCode There's no such thing as growth in the technology field. Most of the organizations just want a specific and narrow expertise in a particular technology. If you think your 7+ years of experience in certain technology is something then you are wrong. There'll be an 18 year old who has been programing in that technology since he was 12. You'll eventually get pushed over. Employers don't want a well-rounded person. They just want someone who know enough to do maintenance and their current products. ~~~ quickthrower2 Your downvoted but there is some truth in this. ~~~ WomanCanCode I've been in the technology field for 20 years. I'm also a female coder. I was a Java Expert. Then start again with entry level with other technology. Then start again with entry level web development in my third job. Whenever you start again with a different technology stacks you become an entry level. You cannot really climb higher or grow in this profession. And that's the inherent problem with information technology. It's changing to fast. ~~~ quickthrower2 I think you can climb higher and grow, but not necessarily in ways most technologists would enjoy. For me I see the growth opportunities as 1\. Become a team leader, then manager, CTO, .. etc. 2\. Become an "architect". I.e. move away from coding and design systems, choose technologies and suchlike. 3\. Very rare: Become a very senior individual contributer with lots of freedom. I can see why side hussles are popular as a way for developers to express creativity and try to make some money a completely different way. > Whenever you start again with a different technology stacks you become an > entry level. Totally. I can't (generally, there might be exceptions) get a full time non C# job without taking a paycut that would put me on the streets. Confounded with the fact that because of this people are going to lie about experience to change jobs to another tech stack, which I wont do, so I'm competing against those people too. I too am (almost) 20 years in. Male (but I think these problems apply to everyone). ------ ptero Growth is good, but it means different things to different people. Someone might want more money, another opportunities to attend and present at conferences, third a path to management, fourth a path to "technical expert at large", etc. etc. And mistakes can backfire: offer a management path to a person who wants more technology and he may think "ouch, bureaucracy and PowerPoint ahead". I think a general (and genuine) statement of support for technical leadership, management and whatever other paths a company offers would go further than a generic "support growth" mantra. My 2c. ~~~ wocram What does technical expert at large mean to you? I have some idea from my experience, but it seems like it's usually a nebulous role that nobody asked for. ~~~ ptero This, in my experience, often means advising on several ( >3 ) projects with no (or very minimal) explicit technical commitments. And "no explicit commitments" means you get more freedom to attend conferences, close the door for a generic "I am working, please do not disturb" stretches, take vacation when convenient to you and generally be a master of your time. Getting there may not be easy. IME the best path, especially in larger companies, is to: 1\. Be effective and gain wide domain knowledge, so your time is valued and multiple diverse projects want as much of your time as you can spare. This is (relatively) easy. 2\. As requests for your time rise, negotiate advisory instead of worker bee roles. Avoid writing code, even when you can do it quickly. Instead architect, mentor, advise, assess, etc. This is tricky. As you transition to advisory roles you need to stay valuable and not turn into one of the folks just hanging around with nothing meaningful to do -- those heads are first on the chopping block. If you stop getting invites to new projects, lean hard on #1 for a while. ------ bozoUser > “Opportunities for professional growth” is the clear winner, appearing 13 > percentage points above even “salary”. Ofcourse professional growth is the winner as more often than not is directly proportional to one`s salary. As a s/w engg. "professional growth" is a hybrid of bunch of things - learning new tech, Cloud knowledge(k8s, docker etc.), and well summarized in the lines below by the author: > In short, software engineers of all stripes want, more than anything else, > to develop their abilities as engineers. They want it more than pay, more > than work/life balance, and more than autonomy. ~~~ standardUser I strongly agree - to me the term "professional growth" is synonymous with higher income and greater future employment opportunities. Not with learning a new framework or language. ------ sheeshkebab When someone offers me “Growth” at work, it makes me cringe. We’re all grown ups here - offer me either mission/things I’m passionate about or money. Ideally both. Don’t offer me bull shit. ------ dobleo Is it just me, or did they twist the data in order to put "inclusive workplace" at the first place in the rating? Even the adjusted table shows that only 15% of women care enough about inclusivity at work, but the summary puts a lot of emphasis on how women prioritize it... ------ davesmith1983 TBH I would settle for working on a sane codebase. Almost every codebase I have worked on except for my own are a complete mess. Basic things aren't done right e.g. Reproducible builds, source control, code review etc. ~~~ motivated_gear It blows my mind that there are still projects managed without git. I've seen entire production projects in a shared network drive with appname_april_3_2014 appname_april_4_2014 appname_april_4_2014_new_order_schema ------ swalsh My wife is a traditional "professional". When she has a 1:1 with her boss, her boss gives her advice on how to move up. They talk about what she needs to do for a promotion etc. I've never personally experienced that. If I talk about growth, my bosses always think i'm talking about what new kinds of technologies I want to work with. I've been writing code professionally for nearly 14 years, it's still interesting, but I've increasingly become less interested in the technical aspects. I've worked with my current boss at 3 different companies. He's always took care of me, and he trusts me to write code, but the one time I talked about moving my career along to the next step to something beyond what I am today he was ready to let me go. His exact words were "I'd be happy to provide a reference for you". It became clear that he had no interest in helping me grow unless growth meant learning a new technology. I've just avoided the topic since then. ~~~ d0100 May because your boss sees you as an asset? As 'his' asset. And once you decide to grow out of that role, he'll slap you right back to 'where you belong'. I'm being a bit uncharitable with my perception of your story, but it shouldn't be a stretch to believe that given how tech workers are generally perceived by 'business type folks'. As I see it, his response shows his complete disregard and lack of respect for you as anything other than 'his IT guy'. I'm way too proud to continue working with someone that thinks of me that way. ------ john_moscow If you want growth as a programmer, you need to learn how to see the business model of the company you are applying to and how your work integrates into it. It wouldn't be very wise to expect growth if your job is to keep a legacy system running on the minimum possible budget. Or to maintain a "leave us your email" website where the business is all about sales talking to the prospects and all they need from the devs is to make certain a database entry gets created when a user clicks "submit". You could expect growth if your job is about finding efficient ways to solve a business pain. Or creating a model that makes it easier to understand and navigate domain-specific data. Or anything else where the decisions you make affect how much the paying customers will appreciate the product. Unfortunately, most developers don't want to go into that domain, and so most of the developer jobs focus on pretty much CRUD where "growth" could at best mean learning a new framework that will get obsoleted in a few years anyway. ------ georgeburdell In my opinion this line of thinking may be good for the employee but bad for the company and its users. I bet a large chunk of the “Google Graveyard” is comprised of projects designed to get a few people a promotion or keep them around. And we’re worse off for it. My takeaway is that companies need to start focusing on matching jobs to skill level instead of always competing for the best ~~~ opportune I have seen the opposite issue too, which is where if someone has sat in a chair in the company for X number of years and isn't terrible at their job, they are almost guaranteed advancement. And usually this is a bad recipe for stagnation and you end up with bad middle management (the Loser-Clueleess- Sociopath hierarchy comes to mind). Whereas if you force people to execute a project decently, at least you have the opportunity of those paying off even if most don't; for every 10 failures maybe you get a Google Maps or Google Docs. ------ yangez > We’re arbitrarily defining “great” candidates as those scoring between 95th > and 98th percentile on our technical interview, and “the best” candidates as > those scoring at 98th percentile or above. This is an important qualifier. I'd argue that the _most technical_ candidates are not necessarily the ones who offer the most value to companies. In fact, I would argue that "notably de-emphasizing ambition" will cancel out your technical superiority in the overwhelming majority of cases. Here's a choice for your company's next hire: 1\. A technically superior but comfortable candidate whose top priority is maintaining work-life balance and flexible work arrangements 2\. A technically adequate but hungry candidate whose top priority is moving fast and learning tons Who would you choose? ~~~ lugg 1., 2. Sounds like a pain in the arse to manage while I work at maintaining my work-life balance. You're presenting a false dichotomy. There is also 3\. Technically superior whose top priority of learning things got them where they are. Maintaining work life balance is just one of the many tools this person has learned over the years to be consistently effective over the long term instead of running into burnout. ------ joker3 "opportunity for growth" is ambiguous. TripleByte should really be asking about more specific things like "skill development" or "opportunities for promotion". I expect that you'd see some pretty different patterns with those. ------ julius_set This article defines great and the best engineers by: “For the purposes of this article, we’re arbitrarily defining “great” candidates as those scoring between 95th and 98th percentile on our technical interview, and “the best” candidates as those scoring at 98th percentile or above.” A test that they’ve come up with internally. What makes this company an authority on determining great and best engineers purely on data structures and algorithms style interview questions that most likely a recent grad will be efficient with (for software engineers anyways*). This article is standing on a house of cards. It’s first principles lack and the assumptions it makes on top of those first principle is highly questionable. J ------ l0b0 Is there a dark side to this? A lot of the "not invented here" and chasing the latest tech could be caused by workplaces not realizing that there are less breaking ways to learn new things. Agile is great at this, by encouraging self-review at all levels. Then there's getting from sufficient to masterful at all sorts of general skills such as testing, version control, refactoring, requirements gathering, presenting etc. But to advance _quickly_ in any of these you need mentors rather than self-study, because it's easier to learn directly from someone who has done it before and who can show you examples in the work context you already know. ------ bluedino Is Triplebyte paying for product placement here now? They've taken over Reddit. ~~~ dang Nobody pays for or gets product placement on HN. You have to make something readers find interesting. I assume that's the case with the current submission, since it hasn't been affected by moderators or by any of the below. We do sometimes place stories that we or a small number of story reviewers think the community might like. That program is described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380) and the links back from there. Such stories get lobbed by software randomly onto the bottom half of the front page, whence they fall off in a few minutes unless people upvote them. The purpose is to make HN more interesting (because [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment)). Many good submissions fall through the cracks and this is a way to give some a second crack. Anyone who knows of a story that deserves a second chance like this should email us at [email protected] and we'll consider throwing it in that pool. It's ok to ask this for one of your own stories, but it's better if you just ran across something and think it's cool. By the way, you can see a partial list of these at [https://news.ycombinator.com/invited](https://news.ycombinator.com/invited). Those are the ones that were too old to be lobbed directly when we saw them, so we emailed the submitter and invited them to repost it instead. It's on my list to publish a more comprehensive set of lobbed stories. There are two other types of placed submission that HN does as a way to give back to YC for funding this place: job ads ([https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs](https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs)) and Launch HN posts for startups ([https://news.ycombinator.com/launches](https://news.ycombinator.com/launches)). ~~~ dredmorbius This (or an abstract of it) might make a good FAQ addition: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) ~~~ dang Yes, it's probably time to add that. ------ jv22222 Again, with the demonizing PHP as a staid old language to stick with. So silly, and completely incorrect, as PHP frameworks and the language itself continue to innovate and keep Up and in some cases are cutting edge. ~~~ IggleSniggle Don’t worry. Give it a few years. The reason php has such a bad rap is that it was so important for low-skill web-devs, so there’s a lot of bad php out there. In 10 years, React will have the same reputation. Again, not because it’s bad, but because it’s usefulness is so high that all the worst devs will be using it. ------ hidden_arachnid Author of this article here. As long as this initial data-dive came out, there are still a bunch of things we’d like to look at. Does location (say, NYC vs Silicon Valley vs affect these preferences? Does which track (generalist, front-end, mobile) a candidate takes through our process? How does this link with how candidates actually behave when given an offer? Our data set has enough information that we can investigate these questions, but this was long enough as it is. ~~~ asdfman123 As a Houston developer, that chart of motivating factors describes exactly what I'm looking for. I won't work on an ancient Java codebase that has no tests or no deployment pipeline, because doing that is death. Gotta keep moving forward or find yourself sliding backwards. I would say your analysis is spot on and I could have written the same article myself. Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" and not entirely necessary, like moving to a newer tech stack, might be worth it as it will make it easier to attract new talent. And if they stay behind, they might encounter the famous "dead sea effect" and wonder why things break, and every new feature takes forever -- the best technically minded people have left for greener pastures. However, I'd say that considering people who are great at interviewing are great engineers is flawed. There's a correlation, but it's probably a weak one. To get great at interviews, you have to practice interviews a __lot __. It 's a separate skill orthogonal to software. Basically, you're selecting the most motivated to succeed -- but motivation to succeed doesn't necessarily translate into the best technical ability. It makes sense that they care most about salary, impressive surroundings and fast pace, as they're probably the most careerist SEs out there. > devoting (say) $1,000 or even $5,000 to classes or other forms of > professional growth is not particularly expensive, but it can have a > disproportionate effect on recruiting. I don't need classes. When I say I want professional growth, it means I want to play with new technologies and gain experience with them at work. So if you're willing to hire me to work on a new hot thing, I'll be more likely to take it. But please, please do away with the conceit that great interviewers are great employees unless you have data that suggests otherwise. Reading this, I'm under the impression you only look at candidates and don't have any metrics to understand their actual work performance. ~~~ maltalex > Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" and not entirely > necessary, like moving to a newer tech stack, might be worth it as it will > make it easier to attract new talent. Why are we as professionals (myself included, I'm not immune) so obsessed with shiny new things? Updating a product's tech stack just to attract new talent and not because the product needs it is objectively strange. Imagine if roads were torn down and rebuilt just because civil engineers wanted to try out some new road laying thingy. ~~~ triceratops Road-laying technology doesn't develop at the pace that computer technology does. We went from room-sized mainframes to powerful pocket computers in 40 years. Working on "new things" is objectively more interesting and pays better - modulo the COBOL devs making $500/hr now. ~~~ hollerith You are describing advances in semiconductor performance whereas the person you are responding to has in mind things like new programming languages, libraries and frameworks, many of which we cannot even confidently say are advances at all. ~~~ triceratops New programming languages, libraries, and frameworks often tend to go in lockstep with semi-conductor and hardware advances. ~~~ asdfman123 Advancements in semiconductor research have led to wonderfully inefficient front end frameworks. ~~~ triceratops That too :-) But front-end frameworks don't constitute the entirety of new language and framework developments. For instance, having cycles and memory to spare made using fun languages such as Python and Ruby practical. Advances in hardware let (and force) us (to) write applications of far greater complexity. Writing a mobile game is way more involved than a payroll application on big iron. ------ tonymet Not that I fully disagree, but with proper discipline growth can be found in maintenance work. no system is perfect and you can constantly improve, refactor, add coverage, add telemetry, reduce operations etc. It's not only Greenfield or "hip" projects that provide growth. like any endeavor it's up to the artisan to find meaning and challenge in any work ------ mytailorisrich At the risk of sounding cynical, this is really the standard drive in all jobs: money and opportunity for more money and higher status. ~~~ wsc981 Personally I couldn’t care less about status, but money is very important to me, because I want to “retire” (work on my own stuff and by my own schedule) by the time I’m 45. ------ radcon In my experience, most managers think _" If I can't objectively measure it, it doesn't exist."_ Therefore, since the benefits of fostering employee growth can't be easily quantified, most managers choose to believe they don't exist. Same goes for things like flexible work schedules, work-from-home days and generous vacation policies. ------ gringoDan As the article mentioned, the importance of growth's influence can be explained in large part by a broad interpretation of the question. This article defined "Professional Growth" by saying: > _" In short, software engineers of all stripes want, more than anything > else, to develop their abilities as engineers"_ This is true, but it's also the first-order answer. The follow-up question to ask is _why_ they want to develop their engineering ability. It may be to make a higher salary down the road (i.e. current salary is less important than future earning potential), to develop the skill set to found their own company, to gain prestige by moving up in an organization and managing other engineers. Overall, really interesting post - definitely worth diving into the data further. ------ itronitron The article title conflicts with the conclusion of their analysis. _The best engineers notably de-emphasize ambition._ is one of their conclusions based on their 'best' category indicating a higher priority on work/life balance than the 'great' and 'all' categories. They say their data shows that all engineers care about growth, so the title would be more accurate written as 'Want to hire programmers? Offer growth'. It would be nice if they included information on the source data, in order to go through their system it is my understanding that candidates need to be willing to work where they have clients, and that is going to bias their sample considerably. ------ pixelrevision Anecdotal but "opportunity for professional growth" seems like the best answer to a recruiter trying to sell you. Flexible work arrangements on a high quality code base is what everyone I know wants to do.... ------ pawelduda And here I am, 1 day after a presentation in front of the entire company, about pretty much the same topic. Had I known about this article earlier, the execution would have been so much different (the presentation was terribad but whatever, I had good intentions). And the response would have been much better too (it's still very good, but I don't know whether that's good enough to push other people forward). Regardless, thank you for posting this. The article and most of the comments in here echo my thoughts. ------ c-smile Management is an art of creating motivations to your subordinates. An art, sic! Each of us is different. Of course we can draw charts outlining average patients temperature in a hospital... with the same informational value. I wish all of us to experience joy from what we are doing. Let it be in the number of happy members of your team, beauty of your code, amount of salary you bring to your family … It can really be anything. Just keep your mind out of Procrustean bed of common stereotypes. ------ pyb My main motivator, "close collaboration within the team", didn't even make the list. Wonder what were the choices on offer in the survey ? ------ LordHumungous Very interesting that women consistently rate salary as a lower priority and w/l balance as a higher priority than men. ------ dymk Interesting that Salary is the second most important. I think there might be an explanation for this. I've always interpreted "Personal Growth" as basically meaning "I'll have a higher salary in the future". So perhaps "Salary" is still the main motivator. ------ mxd3 Off topic: this company’s advertising on Reddit is beyond annoying. Has anyone else experienced this? ------ _def Isn't this conclusion only natural? It baffles me that so many people responsible for companies don't understand basic human needs and instead blindly follow trends. I just don't get business stuff. ------ glutamate Apparently no one is motivated by social or environmental impact ~~~ noodle I think many people are, but it's not something that can be put first in your decision making process unless you are already successful. If you're financially unstable, paying down student debt, etc., it becomes much harder to justify picking a lower-paying job that is more personally motivating if you have other options on the table. ~~~ glutamate I agree with you, but that's ultimately what this survey is about - how you weigh salary against professional growth, autonomy etc. ------ typon Women value good code-bases more than men. Very interesting. ~~~ brabel Of course they do... whose house do you expect to be tidier, an average woman's or an average man's? ~~~ hippich I do not have anything to support it, but I think if you will be able to make such a study comparing women-into-programming vs men-into-programming there might be no difference in cleanness of one's house. ------ eddd Do they want to "grow" or just want to deploy shiny projects that showed on HN last week? ------ keithnz seems an odd title to the article given the analysis of "great" and "best" engineers where they highlight other factors as being more important? ------ miguelmota Growth = new skills New skills = more money More money = better life ------ yowlingcat I think this means we have to address some potentially specious statistical reasoning here. Assuming that a point cloud of pre transaction questions gives you the information to ascertain the career trajectory between great engineers and the "best" engineers is likely a fool's errand. What's the data source? Is it your technical screen? If there is any possibility that your technical screen doesn't track reality accurately, then your ranking metric is probabilistically very likely to be inaccurate. This is the risk of trying to quantify skill and potential levels before you try to qualify them properly. Most recruiting platforms work on a transaction processing fee on a per placement basis. Triplebyte is no different. The entire product is set up for a candidate to land a job. It is not set up for a candidate to structure and guide their entire career. The simple way to think of a transaction is as a point: point score on an assessment test, point score on a technical screen, point offer extended or not. You see these things being measured in this blog post, but that doesn't tell the full story to a hiring manager. If you're hiring an engineer that's actually growth oriented, you care about looking at the first and second order derivatives of all of these things, and you'll see them on a project to project basis, or on a person to person basis based on how they interact with their team and other teams. I want to repeat myself and restate that most recruiting platforms work on a transaction processing fee on a per placement basis. It's erroneous to try and draw the wrong kind of conclusions from data points gathered from enabling this transaction, especially when it's just 1. When a candidate receives multiple offers that they're interested in, it's very likely that they'll make a holistic judgment based on a combination of factors, and their gut. Is the company "good" or "sketchy?" Do they feel chemistry with the people they'll be working with? Are they stimulated by the work the team will be doing over the next year? The truth is, for most talented engineers at early stage companies, any company that makes a desirable product and has substantial growth left in building and scaling its product will allow for growth in literal terms. The limiting factors there will likely be the team, if anything. If there's juice left to be squeezed from building further product edge, and the team is good, the org is good, and the leadership is good, it's very likely that an engineer will receive more than one opportunity that is "good enough" \-- good enough for them to exercise the upper limits on how far they can grow. It's easy to pay lip service to offering growth, but it's hard to actually do. In many cases, companies shouldn't be trying to offer that with a straight face. In growth stage startups, growth as an engineer is bound to the combination of the growth of the company and the growth of the product. In most cases, if you want to hire any kinds of the best employees, you need to offer growth. But, your business model, company growth and stage of company and culture all have to offer that. That's the hard part. It's something that needs to come from the executive level as well as good timing and a ton of foundational work. If you can offer growth, that's great. It will make it easy to hire the best. But, most companies are not in the position, and the ones that are certainly don't need this advice. So, this isn't really useful. Offering growth is not something you can turn on and off. You need to build a great company and build a great product that people want and which a great business can or is built around. If you can do that, expanding the engineering team becomes a matter of logistics instead of intractables. I think TripleByte is a great idea, and it's at an interesting point right now. But to use your data to answer this question requires looking at things longitudinally, and that could be hard unless TripleByte becomes more of a career management platform as well as a two sided hiring marketplace. Having used Hired, Angellist and TripleByte before on both sides, I'm definitely really curious about seeing where things evolve. ------ ppcdeveloper nuff said ------ dventimi Hire database developers.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Chinese scientists admit to tweaking the genes of human embryos - jonbaer http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-scientists-genetic-modification-human-embryo-crispr-2015-4 ====== Errorcod3 I am totally for genetic modification of embryos! Only downside I can foresee is the possible unknown long-term side effects.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
JP Morgan May Take Over Bank Of America - chailatte http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jp-morgan-may-take-over-bank-of-america-2011-08-23 ====== jesseendahl This scares me, because if the U.S. ends up in a situation where the entire country is relying on even fewer financial institutions than it is now, then the government will definitely consider them "too big to fail." Not that the situation isn't bad already, but I can only see this making it worse. ~~~ mahyarm Do you think they'll try to do an AT&T and break them up into hundreds of little pieces? ~~~ blackguardx Probably not in the current political climate. ------ simon_ This will definitely not happen. There is no way it would win the support of BAC's shareholders and board. ------ adamjernst The deal must be off; BAC is up 11% today. ------ jpadkins Can someone explain why normal everyday chapter 11 bankruptcy is not applied to banks? Why can't they wipe out the shareholders, sell off the assets, and pay the creditors from that? ~~~ olefoo The facile answer is that it's simple corruption. The slightly longer and more nuanced answer is that allowing such a failure to happen would cause more chaos and disruption than is politically acceptable to our elite decisionmakers. ------ rationalbeaver One bank to rule them all? ~~~ chailatte JPMorgan Chase Bank of America Merrill Lynch will rule _us_ all	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is React Native worth learning? - bnchrch The recent thread on Xamarin (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12948611) gave some great insights into the pitfalls of that platform.<p>I was hoping to gather the same kind of insight on React Native from those currently using it. ====== skibz If you're wanting to build an app that has cryptographic capabilities, you might run into some trouble if you're expecting to be able to do it in JavaScript without touching any ObjC/Java (an expectation that I don't believe to be highly unreasonable) React Natives's JavaScript runtime doesn't support WebCrypto. People have resorted to browserifying Node's crypto module (and the rest of Node's built- in modules, as a result) which gives you everything besides a RNG (a RNG cannot be browserified for obvious reasons). I guess what I'm saying is: I sure hope you aren't trying to do anything too exotic with React Native without first getting ankle-deep in some native code.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
YouTube CEO on Facebook video ambitions: 'They should get back to baby pictures' - smacktoward https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/youtube-ceo-on-facebooks-video-they-should-get-back-to-baby-pictures.html ====== steve-benjamins YouTube has been an incredible place for building an audience for me. I started publishing videos in November of last year and growth has been dramatic (for me at least— my content is pretty niche, I review website builders): [http://s3.amazonaws.com/sitebuilderreport- assets/images/file...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/sitebuilderreport- assets/images/files/000/000/016/original/stats.png?1518544653) Facebook on the other hand turned my Facebook "page" into a payola scheme where I had to pay to access my audience. Lame. ~~~ Siecje Assuming no new growth, in 10 months you will be able to make money from YouTube. Do you think the 4000 watch hours in the past 12 months is too high or just right? ~~~ steve-benjamins I'm probably not a good person to ask. I make money through affiliate links in my video descriptions— so I have no plans to use Youtube's official monetization programs. ~~~ newbuser If your goal is affiliate clicks, why do views & mins of engagement matter? Seems like the measure would be which platform generated more clicks that convert. ------ ilamont She may be right. Facebook has a lot of problems on its plate right now, but one of the worst trends has been the poorly thought out march to video. It came from Zuckerberg (1 and 2) and was repeated by senior FB executives, and then became a mantra for publishers. Many made large investments in video programming for Facebook, only to find the money isn't there and Facebook later decided to demote publisher content (3 and 4). This is not just large media companies that got burned, I know some smaller producers who believed the "five years the feed will be all video" baloney and shifted their efforts accordingly. Some were doing really important work, too, around causes or local news. What a waste. Meanwhile, it seems that overall video consumption in Facebook is declining, and it's the one percent that get the most engagement, regardless of who the publisher is (5). I personally would not mind if Facebook turned back the clock 10 years, when most conversations seemed to be personal and text-based, and the truckloads of memes, ads, gaming achievements, real and fake news, and videos of cats playing the piano had yet to be shoved down Facebook's maw and into our feeds. Old-school text discussions seem to work for HN, why can't it work for Facebook? 1\. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mark-zuckerberg- faceb...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-facebook- news-feed-784376) 2\. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/facebook-shares-up- re...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/facebook-shares-up-revenue- growth-970957) 3\. [https://www.recode.net/2017/1/17/14269406/facebook-live- vide...](https://www.recode.net/2017/1/17/14269406/facebook-live-video-deals- paid) 4\. [https://digiday.com/media/digiday-research-publishers- making...](https://digiday.com/media/digiday-research-publishers-making-money- facebook-video/) 5\. [https://www.wochit.com/blog/social-video-performance- index-2...](https://www.wochit.com/blog/social-video-performance-index-2017/) ~~~ eropple _> Old-school text discussions seem to work for HN, why can't it work for Facebook?_ People don't really read in the same way as you might have previously expected. ("Reading a short blurb or a tweet" is not the same thing.) Can't or don't want to, I don't know, but they don't. You see the edges of it here, too --tl;drs on HN posts, sometimes, that are less than a screenful of text. And people think you're "spending a lot of effort" when you bang out a post about as long as yours is--and, sometimes, try to frame it as a bad thing. I tend to think Thomas Pettitt has a point[1]. [1] - [https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_future_is_medieval.ph...](https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_future_is_medieval.php) ------ minimaxir That particular comment has generated a lot of appropriate snark in light of YouTube's recent controversies involving disturbing children videos and Logan Paul: [https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/963268727646035968](https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/963268727646035968) ------ rrggrr Facebook isn't going away. However it seems to be coming apart because its hard to argue that FB improves, rather than burdens, people's lives. Its simply easier, less distracting and often happier connecting outside FB's walled garden. For example: Messenger --> rampant competition from about a dozen apps. Community --> reported audience declines. From participation fatigue, privacy concerns, and competing sites. Publishing --> push-back from content providers and publishers who don't wish to be assimilated into the 'borg'. Payments --> no real competitive offering. FederatedID/SSO --> rampant competition from Google, LinkedIN, Github, etc. I really believe Facebook is grossly overvalued as an internet property, much in the same way MySpace and AOL were in the 'old days'. I also suspect that Twitter remains undervalued in terms of influence and - importantly - 2nd/3rd order reach (eg. republishing). There's something to be said for building products that make people's lives easier and truly happier, and I'm not sure that FB does either anymore. ~~~ dfabulich > _I really believe Facebook is grossly overvalued as an internet property_ You could have made this exact argument in 2012 when FB was worth $20/share. Was this argument wrong in 2012 but correct in 2018? ~~~ rrggrr Yes. Look at FB earnings per share and tell me where that growth is going to come from. I note FB is down today. The market is slow to catch on in both directions, but when it does... ~~~ dfabulich Where did the growth come from in 2012? ------ Splines IMO Facebook video is a non-starter because of branding. Facebook is not a destination for video. Facebook is to video as youtube is to social networking. ~~~ stale2002 This is true. There was recently a huge controversy in the Dota 2 community, because a major tournament exclusively moved to Facebook livestreaming (away from twitch). One of the most common complaints was something like "I'd never use Facebook, because I hate the company!" Also, frankly, the tech product for livestreaming isn't anywhere near feature competitive. ------ mad44 Oh my God. She just gave Mark Zuckerberg a rallying chant; he will write this on all Facebook walls and rally developers to improve Facebook video. ~~~ jrs95 IMO that’s probably good for Google because it’s likely going to be a wasted effort. Even if they built great stuff, I can’t see this being more successful than something like Google+ or Facebook’s attempts at making an Android launcher. There’s just no motivation for users to get on board with this. In terms of video, I think they may be able to do something similar to what Snapchat has done, but that’s about it. ------ cflewis Disclaimer: Am Googler My 2c is that for mass consumption, streaming is where the puck is going, not short-form videos. Kids are watching Minecraft streaming, they're not watching punks like Logan Paul until they are in their teens, and my guess is as those younger kids get older, tastes will change and Paul et al will be done. And even when you think about teens, streamers like Dr Disrespect seem to capture far more zeitgeist than YouTubers. Is Casey Neistat really a thing anymore? IMHO Facebook really should be doubling-down on local sharing and improving that experience, Google Photos is far and away the best photo product for me. Replicating YouTube won't work, the quality of the platform and the network effects are too strong. Whether Facebook can do something disruptive like Twitch I don't know. Maybe IRL streaming of C-list celebrities like Snoop or Kylie Jenner? ~~~ MarkMc > IMHO Facebook really should be doubling-down on local sharing and improving > that experience, Google Photos is far and away the best photo product for > me. Do you mean that Google Photos is a better way for you to share your photos than Facebook? ~~~ cflewis It's better for my immediate family, worse for my social network as a whole. ------ hugh4life I actually think there is a huge opportunity for there to be competition with youtube... but not directly under the facebook brand. It'll have to be something like Instagram. ~~~ mslate Why? ~~~ ibdf Because a lot of people don't want all the other stuff that comes with having a facebook. ~~~ Splines Youtube gets this right and puts the content first, on all endpoints. I see a youtube video and click it, I get a video. If I see a facebook link, there are many problems: \- I don't know if it's a video \- I don't know if I'll see a login page or if I'll get to the content \- I don't know if the content is viewable by me because of privacy settings And then this works the other way - why should I share a video on facebook when I can't tell if my recipient will be able to see the video? I don't know if they'll get a login prompt. I don't know if they have the permissions to see the video. All this friction doesn't exist with youtube, or at least is extremely minimal. ~~~ racl101 Agreed. I'm always weary of clicking on a Facebook video because I don't want a history of that going on my wall or some other kind of trail. I don't want all the baggage that comes with Facebook. And a small 10s commercial on a YouTube video is a small price to put up with in comparison to the rest of the shit that comes with being in the Facebook ecosystem. Only reason I still have an account is to be in touch with some high school friends and that's something I barely do these days. ------ ggg9990 Interestingly, we don’t post any baby photos on Facebook because it’s too toxic of an environment. We use WhatsApp, which is still owned by Facebook but much harder for them to monetize. ------ mmackh Instagram is Facebook's attempt to dethrone YT as the dominant player in the video sector. Once they remove time limits and allow some form of basic player controls, we're probably going to see some sort of shift. Instagram's UX/UI is, in my opinion, smoother than that of the YT app. ~~~ jrs95 If the content and discoverabilty isn’t there, it’s not going to matter. No matter what Microsoft does with Bing, they’re not going to win for the same reason. ------ osrec There is certainly space to compete with YouTube. I think YouTube ads are getting a bit annoying, especially when you can't skip them. If a valid challenger were to arise, I feel monetisation strategy is where this battle will be lost or won. The least annoying/intrusive will win every time. ------ thrillgore Oh man, don't be this smug. You be this smug, you regret it later. ------ oh_sigh "I mean" said 7 times. Maybe that is the benefit of "umm" \- when you have that verbal tic, it usually isn't included in transcriptions. ------ solarkraft Facebook isn't a good contender, not on its main website, but YouTube is falling quickly and this talk just motivates competitors more. ------ cgarduno1 Youtube isn't perfect but the facebook video player is terrible. ------ dmitrygr Underestimating competition is never a good idea, especially publicly like this. Horse carriage drivers also laughed about automobiles... initially ~~~ IntronExon The early automobiles were a joke, so they called it like they saw it. You can hardly blame people for not seeing where it would lead, often beyond their professional lives. Take for contrast the reaction of French factory workers when automated textile production started to come online, or cabbies when automated fare metering hit. ------ jsnk I cannot believe I am saying this, but I am rooting for Facebook to build a competition against Youtube. ~~~ pythonaut_16 Youtube seems to be one of the more egregious parts of the Google ecosystem. Like sure Gmail has its problems, but ultimately it is an excellent web based email system that's hard to beat because it's a great product. Youtube's main strength seems to be primarily its first mover advantage, and the fact that building a video hosting site is a rather costly venture. Neither of those are a very defensive moat against competitors like Amazon and Facebook ~~~ holydude I do not think gmail is an excellent product. For me it's backed by a giant that guarantees its availability and functionality almost anywhere in the world (looking at you China). I would use something else in a blink of an eye.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Someone Created a Startup Just like Mine and Here Is Why That Is Awesome - jv22222 https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone-stole-my-startup-idea-and-why-it-doesnt-matter/ ====== cdiamand Hey Cory from Opps Daily here! Just want to preface this by saying Nugget.one is an incredible product that essentially inspired Opps Daily. I signed up for your product shortly before new years, trying to figure out what kind of venture I would launch in the New Year. I'm always struggling to find good software ideas, so your service seemed great. But it stopped after about a week and there was a hefty price tag to keep getting these ideas. I just wanted ideas, not the community, so I figured out how you were getting the ideas and started getting them for myself. A few days later it became clear that I should start Opps Daily because there is incredible potential to help solve problems. Anyways, just writing in to say I find your service pretty inspiring although I'm not trying to build a community to launch Saas products, but more of community where people learn about problems others are having and connect with those people. I've actually sent a few people your way when they mentioned my emails lacked the analysis they were looking for. Anyways, Im sorry if you feel like I stole something from you, I'm always singing your praises when someone mentions the similarity. I'd love for you to drop me a line if you ever want to compare notes! :) ~~~ jv22222 OP Here: For the record. Corey an myself have reached out to each other and are getting along great. We've setup a call that we're both looking forward to having. We already learned stuff from each other. Regarding privacy: I deeply screwed up on this. Somehow I just assumed because Corey was so radically transparent that it was ok. That was my error and I apologize. Also I guess since the only identifying data was the domain name, which is public, I also somehow thought that was ok. I was wrong. Regarding intent: It was not meant to come across as mean spirited. It really was just meant to be a good blog post. I missed the mark. Obviously my authorship screwed up on that point. ~~~ gshulegaard I am glad you are responding well here, but just an example of tone from your post: > I wish he wasn’t ripping off Nugget, but the fact that he is actually doing > something is a big deal. This would be a lot more impactful edited as such: > The fact that he is actually doing something is a big deal. The little (potentially read as snide ["ripping off"]) opening context for the sentiment actually detracts from its point and helps establish a negative author tone for potential readers. In general, placing any point behind a "but" detracts from impact and moves said impact to the opening context. Hey writing is hard and written tone is super difficult to manage! As an idea, you might consider having friends read posts and comment on the overall tone before publishing (if you don't already). Disclaimer: I am not a good writer so apply grains of salt liberally. ~~~ jv22222 I have made the change you suggested. I ran the post past my smartest friends who read HN, they all said it looked good. We just missed the privacy aspect and also in trying to be funny I went at it too hard. ------ cocktailpeanuts It may not matter what happened. But it does matter that you decided to publicly out him. This is very petty and as a user i would feel betrayed of my privacy. You could have actually taken advantage of this and wrote a completely different blog post and people would have appreciated it, but this feels too petty. Even when you say it doesn't matter and all the diplomatic cliche saying competition is good, it just doesn't feel right because I can sense the bitterness in every word. It's not like this guy was freelancing for you telling you he's going to build your idea and one day suddenly he launched it as his own. You already have a service out there. It's public domain. You can't "steal" an idea that's already out there. ~~~ hluska I came here to type out almost this exact thing. I'm not sure what the op hoped to gain from this, but frankly, he seems very petty. There is literally no way that I'd give him any personal information after reading this.... He may have gotten some pageviews out of this, but I think that it will take a very long time to repair his brand. ~~~ bfuller So you stole their idea ~~~ hluska Actually no, I didn't. Good ideas tend to occur to multiple people at the same time. ~~~ bfuller Obviously my sarcasm was not obvious ------ dd112 I get the whole "slack welcoming Microsoft"[0] vibe from this post. Welcoming the competition in a tongue in cheek kind of way can be a clever marketing ploy sometimes although it's very rarely executed successfully. I think whatever you were trying to achieve with this went out the window when you released user activity information. The post is sprinkled with resentment which I don't think reflects the best on your business. Competition, for the most part, is healthy. It validates that there is a market. Many successful businesses are created this way. The competition may/may not execute the idea better, but if they do then at least you know you have room for improvement. If they don't, well then that only strengthens your position as the front runner. If it's a complete carbon copy, then it's usually survival of the fittest with who can obtain the most exposure. Don't get me wrong, I understand why you would be frustrated - it's never easy when a direct competitor pops up that can threaten the success of your business just as you're getting established (especially when you're emotionally and financially invested in it), but I think you're going to look back at this and realise exposing the competition this way really wasn't beneficial for you. Regardless, keep your chin up. Don't let these types of things get you down - use it as a driving force to continue to improve and grow! [0] [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-slacks-full-page-ad- new-y...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-slacks-full-page-ad-new-york- times-epic-fail-justin-bariso) ------ louisswiss This is a great example of why you should give yourself some time to cool off before reacting to something that has upset you. I'm sure Justin is a perfectly nice guy, but by ignoring user privacy and (in my opinion) going a bit over the top with his rhetoric he has left me with a needlessly sour aftertaste which could have been avoided with a clear head. ~~~ aarondf Totally agreed. Also a good reason to let other people review your controversial posts before you publish them. I've always been kind of annoyed by pg's "Thanks to [these 8 influencers] for reviewing early versions of this article" footnotes, but I think it's valuable. (Annoyed because it feels like namedropping. That's my bias though, not his problem.) ~~~ refrigerator You've perfectly summed up my thoughts on pg's (and increasingly other people) "acknowledgements" in articles - thanks. ------ jshmrsn This appears to be a clear violation of your own privacy policy. [https://nugget.one/privacy](https://nugget.one/privacy) "Sharing Your Information Rest assured that we neither rent nor sell your personal information to anyone and that we will share your personal information only as described below. Nugget Personnel: Nugget personnel and authorized consultants and/or contractors may have access to user information if necessary in the normal course of Nugget business. Protection of Nugget and Others: We may release personal information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with a law; to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Nugget, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction." ------ dugmartin Justin, I think you should rename the post "Someone created a startup just like mine and here is why that is awesome". ~~~ jv22222 Ok, so how can I do that? I think it's going to change the actual link of the blog... and then this submission here will go dead? Any advice on how to technically change it but keep the HN submission live? ~~~ sah2ed You can always email the mods to help out: [email protected] ~~~ dang Yes, that's best. We can change the URL (and maybe the title) and post a comment explaining the change. ~~~ jv22222 As recommended I have changed the title of the post to: Someone Created a Startup Just like Mine and Here Is Why That Is Awesome And changed the link to: [https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone-created-a-startup- ju...](https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone-created-a-startup-just-like- mine-and-here-is-why-that-is-awesome/) ~~~ sctb Thanks. We've updated the link from [https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone- stole-my-startup-ide...](https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone-stole-my- startup-idea-and-why-it-doesnt-matter/) and the title from “Someone Stole My Startup Idea, and Why It Doesn't Matter”. ------ levthedev I'm pretty disappointed in this blog post. Besides the weird privacy violations that Justin committed in making this post, it also baffles me that he thinks someone 'stole' his startup idea. You can't steal something that no one owns - Nugget did not patent this idea, did not invent it, and is not even the first 'Startup Ideas' newsletter (I'm subscribed to 4). I was considering paying for Nugget, but now there's no chance. ------ thunderstrike The fact that you published his data from your service, mainly because of your unhappiness about him working on his own service, is unacceptable. ------ ikeboy 1\. Why would a business owner with money to spend be using Mturk to make pennies? 2\. The FBA problem has been solved by Inventory Lab. 3\. Regardless of the tone of OP, publishing any user data is bad. ------ unimpressive For another take on the whole 'violated his users privacy': When you control a service like this it's very easy to forget that while it's casual and normal for you to be able to see peoples information, to other people this is an awesome responsibility you've been entrusted with. Especially since it probably doesn't come up very often until it does, but by that point the cat is out of the bag. To help prevent a normalization of deviance, you should put in some kind of mechanism to remind yourself that customer data is private and handling it should be treated with extreme care. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance) ------ BatFastard The sound of inevitability. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbEj1CIpuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbEj1CIpuU) Every idea has multiple people who are considering it at around the same time. And rarely people act on it, because giving birth to new idea's can be like a 9 year gestation period. Not for the faint of heart. Personally I know when I see someone who is also executing on an idea that I have had, I subscribe to them, just to keep up. ~~~ jv22222 Please compare the ideas that are sent out. There is a quantifiable similarity that can only have resulted from him using the same hit process as mine. That level of similarity can't happen by serendipity. But, as I mentioned in the post, it doesn't matter. Competition is good. Mine: I work in the eCommerce/re-seller business. In particular I sell products on Amazon. Specifically Amazon FBA. As my business is scaling up it is becoming more difficult to keep track of what we scoured for product in the field and the costs associated with it. Tracking COGS and the sources to monitor and report would be great. The software would need to be something mobile so I can put in the costs, source of product and expected profits. It would also need to be linked to Amazon. Yes I would pay for this software. Theirs: I sell vinyl records on eBay, Amazon, Discogs, and Etsy. I find it time-consuming to list products on each of these different sites. Software that facilitated the listing and cross-listing of products would save me time and make me more money because I have far too much product on hand and not enough time to list it. Ideally the software could automatically pull info from one listing on one site and populate the other sites for me. I would pay a monthly service fee for this. ~~~ mod It sounds like every thread I've read here on HN about how to get ideas for a startup. It's textbook patio11 or similar. Since we don't know who you're talking to, they introduce their industry. They name their problem. They guess at what a solution might do. And "will you pay for this" is product validation 101. I could see having a longer template, but if you want the barebones edition, I don't see how you could come up with anything else. I don't think you've got something novel--I think you learned it through repetition, here on HN. ------ miguelrochefort This is ridiculous. When your target demographic is composed of people desperate for startup ideas, you should _expect_ this to happen. There is no shortage of ideas. Those who succeed at this game already have more ideas than they have ambition. Those who would use a service like yours are not likely to succeed. ------ joeax If someone "steals" your startup idea, it is probably a good idea to begin with. I'd be ecstatic that the idea has been validated. Over the years I've met developers and others who've talked about how they have a great idea, but then they Googled their idea and someone is already doing it. My response is always "so". Either analyze the deficiencies in their product and do it better, or find a new twist or angle to a concept that has never been tried. ------ AznHisoka Nobody stole anything. There is no secret sauce here. Just something that could easily be reproduced in a weekend. ------ jrs235 Cory will get to post "How a competitor blindly thinking I was evil and trying to smear me helped my startup take off!" Anyways, while the tone and content of this specific blog post is questionable and sub-par, I find many of Justin's other blog posts to be interesting. Don't worry Justin, you'll be able to write a post after Cory does titled: "How I mistakenly accused a competitor of being evil led to market validation that ended up helping us both!" ------ rudolf0 "Stole" seems like a big stretch. It seems just as likely he's had this idea for a while, and registered just to check out his soon-to-be competition. ~~~ jv22222 Don't you think it's a bit unlikely that the wording of the opportunity would be exactly the same unless he had used my mechanical turk hit process? Seems unlikely that could happen in the scenario you describe. ~~~ rudolf0 That's true, the MTurk questions he asked are very similar. It could maybe be coincidental, since that's basically the default things you'd ask someone when trying to understand pain points and product ideas, but I do see your point since it seems like it's the same 4 questions. ~~~ jv22222 For comparison: Mine: I work in the eCommerce/re-seller business. In particular I sell products on Amazon. Specifically Amazon FBA. As my business is scaling up it is becoming more difficult to keep track of what we scoured for product in the field and the costs associated with it. Tracking COGS and the sources to monitor and report would be great. The software would need to be something mobile so I can put in the costs, source of product and expected profits. It would also need to be linked to Amazon. Yes I would pay for this software. Theirs: I sell vinyl records on eBay, Amazon, Discogs, and Etsy. I find it time-consuming to list products on each of these different sites. Software that facilitated the listing and cross-listing of products would save me time and make me more money because I have far too much product on hand and not enough time to list it. Ideally the software could automatically pull info from one listing on one site and populate the other sites for me. I would pay a monthly service fee for this. ~~~ misterhtmlcss It's also possible he had the a related idea, saw yours, felt that it validated his thinking, then mostly stole your content and personalized it to himself.... however who knows what he'll do next. He could have done all those things just to get started because it was easier, now he could end up tweaking and refining it over the next month or so into something that may not even closely resemble your vision any more. I've literally ripped a the summary i found from someone else's LinkedIn summary, tweaked (personalized for moi) it, published it because it was way better than mine and then over the ensuing week tweaked it again and again to the point that it didn't even resemble the original in any way. It just provided the foundation for moving in my own direction. Essentially i used that person's inspiration and came up with my own totally unique interpretation. This guy could be doing that too. Good link bait though. Not classy, but good for sure. ------ ziikutv You basically violated his privacy, talking about when he signed up etc. I wonder if this was an attempt at virtue signaling (by making yourself seem untouched by him copying) or calling someone out; kind of pretentious. You even tries to have another jab by asking him about his email procedure; trying to make him look bad. Edit: I just wanted to point this out as an example of how much of CJ this community is. Everyone touts the same principles, but rarely follow them. Simply reading PG's essays is not enough. Regardless, thanks for the read. ------ flippyhead I've been in this situation myself and this as mature response. Still, it's hard to square using the word "stole" with the sentiments in the article. ------ the-dude Your idea was not stolen, you still have it. He might have copied it, but you can't be sure. ~~~ the-dude Oh, and publicising user-activity data about a specific user? No Nugget for me ever. ~~~ the-dude [https://nugget.one/privacy](https://nugget.one/privacy) Right. ~~~ haldean > We may release personal information when we believe in good faith that > release is necessary to comply with a law; to enforce or apply our Terms of > Use and other policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of > Nugget, our employees, our users, or others. @jv22222: in your opinion, does this blog post fall under any of these categories? And if not, why bother having a privacy policy at all? ~~~ poikniok Is it possible to take legal action against Nugget in this situation? ------ buildly IMO it's certainly a neat story; "I signed up looking for inspiration." Boom! Success; inspiration acquired! ------ tetek Is 4 questions really your business value? ------ uladzislau Now I'm expecting 5 more startups based on the same idea because it looks like a market with very low barrier to entry and based on OP reaction quite significant ROI. ------ asadkn The lesson here seems to not publicly share your trade secrets if the barrier to entry in the market are too low. Even if the idea is out there, holding off on behind-the-scenes execution details is a good idea. While most people have enough ego and morals to do their own thing, there are many out there looking for easy ideas and methods to imitate. They like to call it inspiration which is a self-serving label to an otherwise immoral action. ------ no1youknowz I haven't seen this answered, I genuinely want to know where the line is. Lets say there is competitor A, they have a SaaS application. Developer looks at that and says, "that can be done in a weekend". So he does it. Scenario 1. He uses the same HTML, CSS and jQuery to base his application on. His SaaS application behaves exactly as theirs. His backend code is unique to him. Scenario 2. He uses unique HTML, CSS and jQuery to base his application, but it looks the exact same. His SaaS application behaves exactly as theirs. His backend code is unique to him. Scenario 3. He uses unique HTML, CSS and jQuery to base his application, unique to him. His SaaS application behaves in a unique way but achieves the same result as theirs. His backend code is unique to him. Under which scenario will he get sued and which scenario is he untouchable? I was watching Dragons Den CA and Michelle Romanow said that "Copying was ok". Where is the line, which scenario can the Competitor claim copyright to their works? Has anyone faced this situation? Thanks ~~~ louisswiss In all three scenarios you can be sued. Whether it sticks or not is a different matter and depends on a lot of different things. ~~~ no1youknowz What type of things exactly? Edit. I find it interesting you say all 3 scenarios when the 3rd one is all unique code. For example. If we look at behavioral marketing. mouseflow hotjar navilytics fullstory crazyegg \+ im sure there is more. What you are saying, is that any of these guys could sue each other? For what, copying the same idea and executing it? ~~~ louisswiss IANAL but imo copying an idea isn't enough for anything to stick in court (as if it would get that far). ------ andy_ppp I've never had a problem coming up with interesting ideas! It's actually launching something that's the most difficult problem; a startup helping with that could work, anyone know of one? ~~~ RepressedEmu I'm working on a service called Protolaunch that does exactly that. You get help finding your ideal customers, a custom landing page optimized for conversions, and a digital marketing strategy to promote your brand and grow your email list of future customers. Getting market feedback and validation has always been the single best motivation to finish an MVP or business project for me personally and Protolaunch aims to make it a one step "pre- launch" process. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback! ~~~ fenwick67 Somebody needs to make an automated workflow that just takes ideas from Nugget, forwards them to Protolaunch to pick the best ideas. Then, it could just procedurally generate a company name and logo (lowercase white letter on a rounded rectangle), reserve the domain name, file the FTC paperwork, and send automated emails to venture capitalists. Then just watch the money roll in. ~~~ RepressedEmu Nugget > Protolaunch > LogoJoy > Namecheap API > Sendgrid powered with emails scraped from AngelList. Throw in a startup buzzword lorem ipsum generator and this sounds like a winner. Instead of domain squatting it will be like startup squatting. ------ ninjabeans He sources startup ideas from Mechanical Turk? ------ mathgenius I'm having a hard time understanding how a bunch of mechanical turkers could come up with SaaS ideas. "I am finance officer for a startup ..." How is a finance officer for a startup going to end up on mturk doing HITs? What am I missing... ------ andy_ppp Okay here is a startup idea; I'll do office hours with you (via Skype or in person if you are in London) once per week to keep you honest, in exchange I ask that you do the same. My email is in my profile, feel free to say Hi! ------ amelius In my ideal world, it wouldn't matter what ideas companies have. All that matters is the "needs" of customers, and they would publish them so companies can build products/services to satisfy them. ~~~ EveSmith \| _In my ideal world, it wouldn 't matter what ideas companies have. All that matters is the "needs" of customers_ your "ideal world" is actually (surprisingly) the world of _free market capitalism_. You see, most "free market" "private sector" types base their views on microeconomics, "let the market decide" what "the market clearing price" is, there will be no shortages, price gouging is a signal to competitors and new market entrants... But they forget that microeconomic theory is entirely based on some assumptions and axioms, one of which is "perfect (symmetric) information", buyers, sellers, competitors, and investors are assumed to all share the same information, no secrets, and without that openness, the market will never find the market clearing price. _creating wealth is not the raison d 'etre of free market capitalism; cheap and abundant goods and services for consumers is_ ~~~ amelius > your "ideal world" is actually (surprisingly) the world of free market > capitalism I don't think this is true. In this world, companies keep business ideas for themselves, so they can try to be first to market, which is more important than almost anything else (even to a large extent product quality). On the other hand, potential customers don't ever publish their needs, they just don't seem to know what they want until somebody tells it to them. ------ kamalkishor1991 Site is not working "Error establishing a database connection" ~~~ cube00 [http://web.archive.org/web/20170215162826/https://blog.nugge...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170215162826/https://blog.nugget.one/upstart/someone- stole-my-startup-idea-and-why-it-doesnt-matter/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Does Africa Need More Cheap Smartphones? - afrikantechie https://twitter.com/africanroundup/status/635708160360079360 ====== henrixd How else are they going to track everyone?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
God's Lonely Programmer (2014) - gbear605 https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wnj43x/gods-lonely-programmer ====== anonlastname It seems like he died recently... But it's hard to know for sure with Terry	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Quantum fluctuations can jiggle objects on the human scale - evo_9 http://news.mit.edu/2020/quantum-fluctuations-jiggle-objects-0701 ====== TranquilTurtle Link to the paper referred to in this article: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2420-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2420-8)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Cannabis listed 62 times as medicine in 1899 Merck Manual - mhkool http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/1899-merck-manual-shows-natural-medicines-cannabis-once-reigned-supreme ====== is_this_valid2 > _Cannabis listed 62 times as medicine in 1899 Merck Manual "_ Ask a physician today whether cannabis should be recommended for anything and the probably most likely answer is "we just don't have enough good studies to know yet". But in 1937 and 1970, they were really sure about it; _they_ claimed "cannabis is not medically useful for any person with any condition" and nobody successfully argued the medical utility or liberty arguments! They've held that position while curing people with prison: people who are exercising their liberty to risk self-harm in pursuit of happiness. So, now, people in States that haven't yet pursued legalization and automated expungement don't sue suppliers who have insufficient quality control due to prohibition (and tax- free margin inflation) instead of regulation in the interest of public health that upholds our highest values: Equality, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. How different might things have been had we required evidence-based justification for universal quantifications like "not medically useful for any person with any condition" to be kept on file with the Library of Congress for further review. An observation-based study that couldn't have been a Randomized Controlled Trial (the "gold standard" for clinical research): "Hypothesizing that marijuana smokers are at a significantly lower risk of carcinogenicity relative to tobacco-non-marijuana smokers: evidenced based on statistical reevaluation of current literature." (2008) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19004418/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19004418/) This meta-analysis considered 10,700 studies, threw most out for not meeting the inclusion criteria, and concluded that there is sufficient evidence to recommend cannabis for a number of conditions: “The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research” (McCormick et al. 2017) [http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2017/health- effects...](http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2017/health-effects-of- cannabis-and-cannabinoids.aspx) ------ lostmymind66 Cocaine was also 'medicine' and was regularly prescribed as such.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
10 Lessons from 10 Years of AWS (part 1) - yarapavan https://medium.com/@adhorn/10-lessons-from-10-years-of-aws-part-1-258b56703fcf ====== yarapavan Slides: [https://www.slideshare.net/hornsby/10-lessons- from-10-years-...](https://www.slideshare.net/hornsby/10-lessons- from-10-years-of-aws)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Is Techcrunch better post-Arrington? - cavalcade Is it me or Techcrunch became less tabloid-y lately and amped up the quality of writing since Arrington got pushed out? How do you find the blog's quality now? ====== al_james It seems to talk about watches more. ------ thigbee Seems the same to me.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Critique my resume. Looking for a career change - jtd00123 Hello guys, I'm looking for a more traditional developer role. I was hired on my latest job in February but am realizing that I am learning skills that aren't directly related to how I want to grow as a developer. I am being pruned into what is more like a controls engineer rather than a programmer, the latter of which is more related to what I went to school for. (Don't ask how I got my current job. All I'll say is that I got bait-and-switched)<p>After a rocky start, they now really like me and I like the people I'm working with, but I would really rather be doing a more traditional programming role. (i.e. working with mainstream programming languages, larger codebase than what you get with PLC coding) With my experience, can I pivot to a programming role? If yes, is this resume any good?<p>Please help and thanks in advance!<p>Here is the resume: https://raleigh.craigslist.org/res/6949503782.html<p>EDIT: I realize I have a couple of typos in my resume. It is also heavily redacted b/c you know, the internet. Will edit the typos later. Employers will get an unredacted version ====== Chyzwar Buy yourself professionally written CV. Get nice looking template and hire someone to check content and help with personal statement. Create linkedin profile and start building network. Do some actual training towards role you want: Udemy, Coursera, Linux Academy etc. This important as it would help to prove you have right skills and "passion". Instead focusing on your responsibility you should focus on business impact. I would avoid grading your skills. You do not have enough experience to objectively measure these skills. ~~~ jtd00123 Thank you for looking at my resume Chyzwar. I'll look into professional resume writer. I am told that I am one of the handful of people that actually "make money" for the company, whatever that means. With that said, my business impact is difficult to qualify and quantify since the company is so hush-hush about finances. ~~~ gt2 That's par for the course (hush hush part). Rather than finances you can quote other relevant numbers like user engagement, time to implement a system, number of bugs/code quality figures. ------ theworld572 Hey, your CV looks good, I wouldn't worry too much about the template, layout etc. at the end of the day employers decide to interview you based off of you experience and education - not because you picked a nice font for your CV. That said a couple things you could change are: 1\. Add a few sentences at the top, saying who you are and what kind of job or company you're looking for. i.e. "I am a systems engineer with experience coding in Python and am looking for software developer roles." 2\. Your work experience is far more important than your education, so move the education part down so in between "recent work experience" and "volunteer work". 3\. "Software Specialist"? Is that your official title? Can you just change the title to something else like "Software and Systems Engineer"? The difference is tiny but could make it a lot easier getting past recruiters and HR. 4\. Emphasise the programming part of your current role in both your CV and when you talk about it in interviews. Finally, pick what kind of a developer role you want - your CV says you know python, git, sql, linux - so maybe you want to be a backend python / django developer? If so start a github profile and contribute to open source python projects. Personally I have an "Open Source Contributions" section on my CV with links to each codebase I have contributed to and a short description of what I did. This kind of thing will be extremely helpful for you starting out. ~~~ hazz99 > employers decide to interview you based off of you experience and education > - not because you picked a nice font for your CV Anecdotally, I've got a lot more call-backs and interviews with a nicely presented, professional-looking resume. Same information, just organised differently and with nice colors and shapes. I find that design is extremely undervalued in a lot of technical circles - including employment. ~~~ theworld572 You could well be right about that. ------ sosilkj i think everything you do include on the resume is good (in broad terms), but the challenge you have is figuring out the most appealing way of ordering it and laying it out. \- you don't include a bachelor's and that could be a red flag for some recruiters, like it or not. if you actually do possess a bachelor's i'd suggest including it, regardless of the major. \- if you put a date on a degree, put the month, not 'winter'. you can also leave off the date altogether. ~~~ ps101 I'd like to reiterate the first point because it's important - in a thorough interview process you will be asked about your bachelor's degree anyway. You're much better off including it here and being prepared to address any questions and concerns about it rather than appearing to hide it. ~~~ laken I've never been asked about formal education in an interview beyond entry- level. Once you have a couple years of experience, formal education generally isn't as important in this field.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
2Q buffer cache algorithm - wkornewald http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/2Q-buffer-cache-algorithm ====== morgo FWIW, MySQL's InnoDB Storage Engine switched a few years ago from an LRU to something similar to what is described as the final solution here. The LRU is split to a hot (5/8ths) and cold (3/8ths) chain. Scans can only evict contents of the cold chain, and optionally you can specify a minimum amount of time (5.6 default: 1000ms) before a page can be promoted to the hot chain. More details: [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-performance- mi...](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-performance- midpoint_insertion.html) ------ squeed 2Q is clever, but certainly not the only improvement over LRU for page caching. Of interest, also, is LIRS, which uses the timing between the last two accesses to decide on a caching strategy. There is a good comparison of page caching algorithms here: [http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/sigmetrics05_kernelPrefe...](http://people.cs.vt.edu/~butta/docs/sigmetrics05_kernelPrefetch.pdf) . However, the conclusion seems to be that for non-synthetic loads, the difference is fairly minimal. ------ Sami_Lehtinen How does that compare against ARC, CAR, LIRS and CLOCK-Pro? [https://bitbucket.org/SamiLehtinen/pyclockpro](https://bitbucket.org/SamiLehtinen/pyclockpro) ~~~ dmit When Postgres switched from ARC to 2Q in 8.0.2 due to patent concerns testing showed that "there is little if any performance loss from doing this." [http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/96.php](http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/96.php) [https://github.com/postgres/postgres/commit/4e8af8d27315c4f3...](https://github.com/postgres/postgres/commit/4e8af8d27315c4f362f110c1a67e3251dd6b1872) Edit: this ARC paper has a performance comparison of various cache algorithms: [http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/ARC.pdf](http://dbs.uni- leipzig.de/file/ARC.pdf) ------ gioele Going from LRU to 2Q looks like going from Mark and sweep garbage collection to the JVM's eden, survivor, tenured, permanent spaces. ------ ihsanyounes90 Interesting, but what about priority algoritms? I think you have the same result of 2Q buffer.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Your auto-responder won't bind you to a contract - ChuckMcM http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/04/acknowledging_r.htm ====== ChuckMcM I'm always amazed at how people try to work the laws. This guy tried something I have always wondered about, he sends an email that says "if you respond to this you agree to be bound by the following contract..." Which he has actually litigated! Which is what makes it interesting from an HN perspective. Not to mention the clear way Eric explains what it takes to engage someone in a contract. ~~~ jacques_chester I predict that this will be an expanding area of law in future. To form a contract you need a number of elements, one of which is a signal of assent. Traditionally for written contracts you can use signatures and seals. For verbal it can be something like "OK", "done" or "agreed". The question is: can one party unilaterally impose the form of that signal? The answer here is apparently "no". And this is the sensible decision IMO because it would make it too easy to trap people into "giving" assent when they did not intend to. Assent should be in a form acceptable to both parties _or_ in a known form widely recognised (such as signatures). Of course, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Professional Software Engineer Exam coming in April 2013 - stephen http://ncees.org/About_NCEES/News/News_Pages/New_PE_Software_exam.php ====== spamizbad Looks like "How to do Waterfall" (62.5% of the test) with additional coverage of Security (15%), QA (7.5%), and Engineering process (7.5%), and Configuration Maintenance (7.5%). There are 80 multiple-choice questions spread across 2 sessions (4 hours each). Open book. An overview of the exam: [http://ncees.org/Documents/Public/Exam%20specifications/PE%2...](http://ncees.org/Documents/Public/Exam%20specifications/PE%20Software%20Apr%202013.pdf) Not something I'd feel inclined to get unless this somehow became an industry requirement- which is unlikely - Agile and progressive Software Dev shops are probably throwing up a little bit in their mouths at this thing. Replace Agile with "Extreme Programming" and you've got something that looks like it came straight out of the 90s. ~~~ ntkachov Really? Just because its structured like waterfall doesn't mean its "how to do waterfall". I read the req spec and there isn't a thing on here that isn't valuable information for every engineer no matter what process they use. Read what it actually covers and the topics they test and tell me there's something on there that is completely useless. ~~~ spamizbad Couldn't disagree more. If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck... I've worked in waterfall shops. Sections I through V are very similar to what we aspired to do. Look, it's not like this knowledge is worthless. It's just that what is outlined in these sections is a very thorough but expensive ($$$ and labor) and time-consuming process that that when put into practice often insulates itself from the business problem at hand. Just because it looks good _on paper_ does not mean it will look good when you start applying it to the real world with real people. I'll say this: If you want to participate in an organization that is culturally waterfall and practices waterfall this certification will prove quite valuable. Anywhere else though, and you might give the impression you're not a good "culture fit" for the organization. ~~~ demian But "activities" are not "phases". You are always trying to get the requirements right, the difference is that some people get them while coding, and others before even start designing. ------ rsl7 I hate it. The content of that exam is like a list of everything that's wrong with industry. Those are problems to be fixed, not things to set in concrete as the way it shall be henceforth. ~~~ AYBABTME Yes, like requirements, prototyping, user interfaces, minimizing complexity, profiling and performance, unit-to-usability testing, metrics, refactoring, performance monitoring... All that ugly stuff that's wrong with the industry. ~~~ rsl7 Those are problems in the sense that software is a young industry, unlike other engineering disciplines (or "actual" engineering). We're likely to abstract away today's issues, whereas matter and physics are more direct, immediate limitations in engineering disciplines. We don't have a "software physics". ------ eranation Yes, because we have too many engineers. It's so hard to choose a good developer from the hundreds of applicants for each job so we need a 10 year old obsolete test to filter the good ones out. Talk about waste of money, this is something I hope is not paid by tax dollars... ------ noarchy Developers are fortunate that our field has not been swamped by credential inflation. In other words, we don't even need a degree to do what we do. It is enough to have a portfolio of solid work and some good references, and high- paying work can come your way. The last thing I want to see is for some kind of guild to arise, which could ultimately lock down the industry (via government requiring licensing, for instance). ~~~ X-X While I agree, I think that a large portion of developers want some way to set themselves apart from the masses - to be recognized as Uber 10X code ninjas. Those people will never rest till they create their own credentials, whether it be number of contributions to opensource projects on Github or Coderwall achievements or a standardized test. ------ eranation Thinking that taking a multiple choice test will prevent you from causing a bug that will kill someone is as smart as learning to be a lifeguard from youtube tutorials. Organizations that create weapons, spaceships, medical equipment and anything that can and will kill you if it has any bugs, needs to enforce quality not by certifying the engineers, but by certifying the organization to follow very rigid quality criteria. Some companies just have it naturally (perhaps Apple is a nice example) some companies need a structure (see things like <http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/>) So if this is not for saving lives, then I don't see any purpose in taking or creating this test. if you can code, you'll get a job, if your code is bad and has a lot of bugs, our software cycle is so fast you'll be forced to either improve or switch a profession. or work on non critical software. ------ tdicola A software engineering certification exam with no coding seems a little odd. ~~~ demian That's because in "high brow software engineering", coding is for "workers" (as in "construction workers"). ~~~ barik Well, the exam for Electrical Engineers doesn't have them build a circuit either. I assume you're forgetting that you also have to apply to the State Board, documenting your entire Engineering career, which will be the most substantial part of the licensing process. I guarantee you that you'll have plenty of opportunity at this time to demonstrate your programming experiences. When individuals ask me for a PE recommendation, I am often reminded in particular of one of the questions from the PPI2PASS FAQ [1]: Q: I have been in supervision since graduation. I have never performed a single calculation. A: Oops. [1] [https://ppi2pass.com/faqs/qualifying-to-take-the- licensing-e...](https://ppi2pass.com/faqs/qualifying-to-take-the-licensing- exams) ------ mcgain despite my disdain for accreditations and certifications, I approve of the content of the exam. It looks like it covers a lot of ground, in a variety of subjects. ------ tomkinstinch What does this mean for people currently working as programmers? Will it be necessary to study up and get licensed to remain competitive? ~~~ GuiA It could be necessary to be licensed for government jobs or jobs in large companies building real time critical systems (ie power grid control software, avionics, etc). I doubt it'll ever catch on for programming jobs in mobile/web/etc ~~~ barik I think it will become necessary for the areas you outline, particularly in industrial control. Although best practices and standards have been established for electrical systems and mechanical systems, my observations in factory control show that the programming components continue to be the most fragile and buggy. And currently the legislation here lags as well since software systems are typically __not__ certified, except in certain military cases. This isn't something for Web 2.0 programmers, who can carry on as they have been doing. Instead, it's for folks like myself who have designed the clean- room door locking logic for the CDC when contamination is detected (see "Walking Dead" for a grossly exaggerated example of such a system). ~~~ tbranch227 You sound like someone I know. I agree with the above. This cert is definitely applicable for engineering tasks at my place of business and something I will probably pursue. It's very beneficial when proposing on harder tasks. Web dev, which I do as well, generally doesn't reach this level of rigor. ------ ilaksh I am guessing I could answer enough (how many is enough?) of these 80 multiple choice questions to pass the exam right now. But it would be nice to have an idea of what other people think is the most important information in each topic they mention in that PDF (as far as passing the exam). So maybe we should create a wiki where we enter in all of the information people should understand in order to pass the exam? I created one on Wikia in case anyone is interested. <http://softwarepe.wikia.com> Also, question, would this PE exam be the last step in obtaining a Software Engineering license, or would it be the only step. If its the last step, exactly what are the other steps? What group would provide a software engineering license? Would there be any point in me passing this exam, since I don't even have a college degree? ~~~ barik It is the last step. The other steps vary by state, but in general, it requires that you have at least four years of documented and progressive experience under the direction of another licensed Engineer. You also need to have taken the EIT, which is a general Engineering exam that covers all disciplines, not just computers (brush up on your thermodynamics and concrete mixing!). If you do not have an ABET degree, then it is still possible to obtain a PE, but the requirements generally go from four years to sixteen years of documented experience. I may be wrong, I don't think this will be a route for Computer Science. It is more for those individuals who have been programming under other Engineering hats ("controls", "electrical", "mechanical") but now have a way to take an exam that satisfies their actual Engineering work. For instance, I might have fit more under the hat of Software Engineer (since I did a lot of embedded programming), but had to take the Electrical Engineering exam instead due to lack of selection. ~~~ prodigal_erik Don't engineering licenses usually require a bunch of stuff like fluid mechanics and metal fatigue which are completely irrelevant for reliable software? I think we'd be better served with more statistics and denotational semantics.... ~~~ barik The EIT does, because the first portion is a general Engineering exam. It is generally at the sophomore level of a four-year University. The PE exam, however, is related to your discipline, though sometimes tangential questions may appear (some analog circuits on a digital exam). ------ jboggan Many years ago when I thought I was going to go into patent law (egads) I ended up taking the Fundamentals of Engineering exam and passing it as an Engineer-In-Training. Does this mean I can do four years of software engineering and then certify as a PE? ~~~ barik Generally, the PE exam itself is considered one of the least difficult portions of the process, though it's still stressful for certain disciplines. The PE exam topics are also generally known to lag reality, regardless of discipline, and often by a decade. It's also open book and some people bring entire carts of books, though I find that not to be very effective since you basically only have six minutes per question. The major part of the application process is that you will need to work under the direct supervision of a PE, and have increasing levels of documented responsibility, which is often harder to satisfy. Depending on the state, three of the five (minimum) of your recommendations must come from licensed PEs, who need to be able to certify more about you than simply your character. Usually when threads like this appear, too much emphasis is placed on the exam rather than the requirements that allow you to sit for the exam in the first place. The PE license process is not like a Microsoft or Cisco certification. It took me a good six months to get all the paperwork ready to apply for the exam. I minimally studied for the exam itself. Consequently, four years ends up being more like five or six, in my case, due to less than stellar record keeping. ------ brownBananas So this just makes it official, right? Or does this affect people currently employed as Software Engineers? ------ rprasad People on HN seem to be misunderstanding the purpose of this exam. This exam is not for web programmers, or game programmers, or any "startup"-type programmers. If what you do can be done iteratively without much problem, this exam is not for you. This exam is for people who work on very difficult, very error-sensitive, very high-end stuff that needs to work from the very start: jet planes, medical devices, spacevessel systems, etc. You don't get second chances with these types of systems, so this exam is focused on making sure passers know the gold standard for how coding is currently done in these areas. ~~~ LnxPrgr3 And for an (admittedly dated) example of what can go horribly, horribly wrong in some fields: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25> It's ok if your Web app occasionally spits a 500 error or your game crashes once in a while. It's not ok if your radiation therapy machine occasionally flips out and kills people with a massive overdose.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to create a natural baseline in CSS - joecritch http://joecritchley.svbtle.com/bring-back-the-baseline ====== dancecodes very cool, thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Elusive Universal Web Bytecode - joubert http://mozakai.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-elusive-universal-web-bytecode.html?m=1 ====== CyberDildonics I heard about a project called Oak that was supposed to do this, never heard what happened to it... ~~~ DonHopkins It got renamed, then somebody made a backroom deal to borrow the new name for another totally different language in order to trick people into confusing the two languages, then the other language became much more popular and widespread than the one that used to be called Oak, totally taking over the browser, and making good headway at taking over the server too. Incidentally, Arthur van Hoff just pointed out: >Time flies. This week it is 20 years since we announced Java... "Why Sun Thinks Hot Java Will Give You a Lift" \- March 23 1995 [http://web.archive.org/web/20060819094743/http://java.sun.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060819094743/http://java.sun.com/features/1998/05/images/merc_large.gif) ~~~ arethuza I blagged a copy of Java from Arthur a while before that when I found out he was working at Sun - I'd used HyperNeWS for quite a while and was in awe of his programming skills. Edit: Are you this DonHopkins? [http://art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/index.html](http://art.net/~hopkins/Don/hyperlook/index.html) ~~~ DonHopkins That's me. While I was working at Sun in '90-91 on NeWS, we tried very hard to convince management to hire him to work on HyperNeWS for TNT, but Sun wouldn't give us a requisition (because they intended to kill NeWS, not save it). So I quit Sun and moved out to Glasgow to work with him at the Turing Institute on HyperLook, and ported SimCity to HyperLook. HyperNeWS aka HyperLook was like HyperCard implemented with PostScript programming and graphics, plus networking. In that alternate universe, PostScript would have been the universal bytecode for the web. [https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192884/HyperLook-Product- Info](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77192884/HyperLook-Product-Info) [https://www.scribd.com/doc/77164708/HyperLook-SimCity- Manual](https://www.scribd.com/doc/77164708/HyperLook-SimCity-Manual) Arthur's programming and entrepreneurial skills are indeed awesome, and I'm glad I quit my day job at Sun and left the country for the opportunity to work with him! He's now an advisor to my current company: [http://pantomimecorp.com/the-team](http://pantomimecorp.com/the-team) ~~~ arethuza I actually presented a paper at the 2nd International Conference on the Web in Chicago in '94 about "Extending W3 Clients" which including a suggestion for adding a standard bytecode interpreter to web browsers. I stopped working on that when I found out about Oak/Java in early '95. ~~~ DonHopkins You might get a kick out of Sun's proposal for "NFS 3.0" aka "NeFS". The basic idea was to put a PostScript interpreter in the kernel for extensibly and efficiently executing distributed and even local file system operations. It not only cuts down on network transactions for the same reason NeWS and AJAX does, but even locally you can avoid billions of context switches by executing "find" and tasks like that in the kernel, for example. The Network Extensible File System Protocol Specification 2/12/90 [http://www.donhopkins.com/home/nfs3_0.pdf](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/nfs3_0.pdf) (pages in reverse order) Introduction The Network Extensible File System protocol (NeFS) provides transparent remote access to shared file systems over networks. The NeFS protocol is designed to be machine, operating system, network architecture, and transport protocol independent. This document is the draft specification for the protocol. It will remain in draft form during a period of public review. Italicized comments in the document are intended to present the rationale behind elements of the design and to raise questions where there are doubts. Comments and suggestions on this draft specification are most welcome. 1.1 The Network File System The Network File System (NFS™) has become a de facto standard distributed file system. Since it was first made generally available in 1985 it has been licensed by more than 120 companies. If the NFS protocol has been so successful why does there need to be NeFS ? Because the NFS protocol has deficiencies and limitations that become more apparent and troublesome as it grows older. 1\. Size limitations. The NFS version 2 protocol limits filehandles to 32 bytes, file sizes to the magnitude of a signed 32 bit integer, timestamp accuracy to 1 second. These and other limits need to be extended to cope with current and future demands. 2\. Non-idempotent procedures. A significant number of the NFS procedures are not idempotent. In certain circumstances these procedures can fail unexpectedly if retried by the client. It is not always clear how the client should recover from such a failure. 3\. Unix bias. The NFS protocol was designed and first implemented in a Unix environment. This bias is reflected in the protocol: there is no support for record-oriented files, file versions or non-Unix file attributes. This bias must be removed if NFS is to be truly machine and operating system independent. 4\. No access procedure. Numerous security problems and program anomalies are attributable to the fact that clients have no facility to ask a server whether they have permission to carry out certain operations. 5\. No facility to support atomic filesystem operations. For instance the POSIX O_EXCL flag makes a requirement for exclusive file creation. This cannot be guaranteed to work via the NFS protocol without the support of an auxiliary locking service. Similarly there is no way for a client to guarantee that data written to a file is appended to the current end of the file. 6\. Performance. The NFS version 2 protocol provides a fixed set of operations between client and server. While a degree of client caching can significantly reduce the amount of client-server interaction, a level of interaction is required just to maintain cache consistency and there yet remain many examples of high client-server interaction that cannot be reduced by caching. The problem becomes more acute when a client’s set of filesystem operations does not map cleanly into the set of NFS procedures. 1.2 The Network Extensible File System NeFS addresses the problems just described. Although a draft specification for a revised version of the NFS protocol has addressed many of the deficiencies of NFS version 2, it has not made non-Unix implementations easier, not does it provide opportunities for performance improvements. Indeed, the extra complexity introduced by modifications to the NFS protocol makes all implementations more difficult. A revised NFS protocol does not appear to be an attractive alternative to the existing protocol. Although it has features in common with NFS, NeFS is a radical departure from NFS. The NFS protocol is built according to a Remote Procedure Call model (RPC) where filesystem operations are mapped across the network as remote procedure calls. The NeFS protocol abandons this model in favor of an interpretive model in which the filesystem operations become operators in an interpreted language. Clients send their requests to the server as programs to be interpreted. Execution of the request by the server’s interpreter results in the filesystem operations being invoked and results returned to the client. Using the interpretive model, filesystem operations can be defined more simply. Clients can build arbitrarily complex requests from these simple operations. ~~~ arethuza That sounds interesting - I'll have a read. ------ falcolas > some people don't like some of those things What does that even mean? So why did the author throw out LLVM byte code again? It's BSD, it has bytecode compilers for most platforms browsers exist on (100% vs. 50% speed), and doesn't rely on a subset of another language. It also doesn't have the requirement to fall back to vanilla Javascript. As an added bonus, Javascript could easily compile down to LLVM bytecode. Seems like the author already preferred their answer and threw out some BS to "justify" their choice. JS probably will remain the "byte code of the web", but this article adds nothing to that trajectory. ~~~ mrec LLVM's IR makes no stability guarantees - it can change from one release to the next, with no backward compatibility. That's not ideal for something you're slinging out to the web. I believe this is the same reason Khronos defined their own IR (SPIR) instead of using LLVM's. Needs to be stable. ~~~ CyberDildonics That is one reason, the other is being easy and fast to process with tools. ------ Rusky The article makes the argument that existing systems are easier to improve incrementally, while designing new systems is more work and not guaranteed to succeed. The problem is JavaScript-as-bytecode is not especially easy to improve. Anything you want to add/change that would make it a better bytecode has to be balanced with the language's use by humans. The solution to one-VM-to-rule-them-all is not to cram everything into a higher-level system with lots of assumptions (JavaScript) or to ignore portability (NaCl, LLVM), but to use a bytecode that's low-level enough to implement the various assumptions needed by higher layers. That way both C++ and JavaScript can run at full speed as well as have their implementations changed (even across websites!) without pushing every change through the browsers- just like native apps, with the browser providing _only_ cross-platform and security, nothing more. ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel > The problem is JavaScript-as-bytecode is not especially easy to improve. > Anything you want to add/change that would make it a better bytecode has to > be balanced with the language's use by humans. There are very few cases where human use causes problems. goto is the only one I can think of. Yet we've gotten loads of great improvements in ES6 to make it a good compiler target, like float32 and better integer multiplication. ------ rikkus I've pondered this a couple of times. One Ask HN I posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6773980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6773980) A reply to a comment I made on another post says that the CLR and JVM suffer from GC pauses, which would not be acceptable for web apps. ~~~ fla GC pauses already occur in most JS engine. They are especially tolerable in a web app. ------ marcosdumay I'd settle for a bytecode that supported numbers (instead of only strings), blocking I/O (in addition to non-blocking), and easy integration with system (or, in this case browser) utilities. Javascript happens to have none. ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel Uh, JS has numbers, blocking IO, and easy integration. What are you on about? ~~~ marcosdumay JS implement numbers as strings (has bitten me once). Last time I looked at, there was no blocking IO at all (there is continuation, but it does not solve the problem because there isn't any locking mechanism - yep, I'd like atomic locking at my bytecode too). That's even the main "selling point" Node.js people throw around as if it was a good thing. By easy integration I mean the hability of using capabilities available at the system, but not exported into the language runtime. It can be solved by something that would let me query the sandbox enviroment for the existence of a "library" that exports foreign functions, and use it. Also, something that by the other side lets me write and distribute one such "library" so people can install them on their browsers let JS use its functionality. ~~~ jdmichal > JS implement numbers as strings (has bitten me once). What? JS implements all numbers as 64-bit floating point, which happens to be able to perfectly represent the 32-bit integer space. It can actually perfectly represent a 52-bit integer space. See Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER [0] for details. Now, JS _does_ allow for type coercion between values when using the `==` operator. Luckily, the `===` operator also exists which eliminates this effect. [0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Number/MAX_SAFE_INTEGER) > Last time I looked at, there was no blocking IO at all. What does blocking even mean in a single-threaded event-pump context? Does it mean other events can be processed while the IO executes? Because that's exactly what an asynchronous AJAX request does. Or does it mean it blocks the only thread available? Because that's what a synchronous AJAX call does. Now, if your argument is that JS doesn't have an async / await construct in order to make asynchronous AJAX look like synchronous AJAX in the code, then that's in ES7.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Morphology and kinematics in scaling hummingbird metabolic rate and efficiency - bookofjoe http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1873/20172011 ====== bookofjoe Video from same lab: [https://youtu.be/-2pfEbohsZM](https://youtu.be/-2pfEbohsZM)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Keep your customers informed and aware - missenlinx http://trakstat.us ====== halostatue Just tried signing up and I'm in a stuck position. • I generate very long passwords (50 characters by default) with 1Password. I usually include special characters—the one I used included ',{<' and the asterisk. • The signup field accepted my password—and the signup email _included the password I had provided_ in cleartext…at least it did up until the '<' (where there were probably another ~20 characters left). • Neither the password as I used it nor the truncated version that I was sent works to log me in. Implementing PBKDF2 isn't that hard, even in PHP ([http://mark- story.com/posts/view/using-bcrypt-for-passwords-...](http://mark- story.com/posts/view/using-bcrypt-for-passwords-in-cakephp\);) it took me two days to implement, test, and deploy a migration on Rails (and that's only because I'm a cautious SOB who doesn't want to make a mistake affecting customers and we had two tables to do it against with two different password types). If you're offering this to businesses, you should do everything you can to protect their data—even if you are in beta. POF can get away with storing plaintext passwords, or sending them to customers, but you shouldn't do that. ~~~ missenlinx Thanks halostatue, I got your support ticket and will respond promptly. Ash ------ martin-adams Looks interesting. You might want to focus on explaining who this is for and what problem it solves for them. For example: Retailer: "You'll be pleased to know your product has been dispatch and is on it's way for delivery tomorrow morning" Estate Agent: "We have a viewing book for your property at 11:30 on Friday" Digital Agency: "We have published wireframes of your project for you to review" ~~~ missenlinx Hey martin-adams, we are really targeting any sector which wants to communicate the current project status. I've taken in your advice though, as I could describe this better on the landing page. ------ noir_lord On your /steps page you have invalid markup. You are not closing the div (class .btn.btn-danger) so you have an open element when you try and close the list tags. I noticed it because I viewed the source (always interested to see what people are using to build front-end stuff). edited: for clarity. ~~~ missenlinx Thanks for the heads up! ------ csears Looks nice, but do you think there's a business model for something this simple/light? Unless you were dealing with a project that had dozens or hundreds of users/clients interested in tracking the status, it seems like sending an email would be a lot lower friction. ~~~ noir_lord I actually think there just might be. While it seems like sending an email might be lower friction I find in reality mails get lost, sent to the wrong people, they don't get checked etc. Having a simple way to keep everyone on the same page at a fixed location you can bookmark seems good to me. ~~~ missenlinx Thanks noir_lord, I couldn't of said it better myself. ------ missenlinx For an online demo without signing up head over to [http://app.trakstat.us/](http://app.trakstat.us/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Common charger for all mobile phones on the way in Europe - zapshu http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20131219IPR31414/html/Common-charger-for-all-mobile-phones-on-the-way ====== danbmil99 The question to ask is this: if this law were already in place, would Apple (or any manufacturer) ever innovate something like Lightning or the magnetic mac chargers, given that they then also have to support the common standard, putting them at a significant cost disadvantage? This kind of regulation, while arguably well-meaning, always seems to end up distorting market forces and discouraging innovation. ~~~ yaakov34 I tend to agree, given my small-l libertarian tendencies and my preference for letting people do whatever they want unless it hurts others. On the other hand, there are already scads of standards (including ones that essentially say you-must-do-it-exactly-like-this) for consumer products. And it's hard to see why it's a very big imposition to standardize the DC power supplies, if the AC power supplies are standardized. The EU has shown that they are not inflexible with these standards, as they let the micro-USB standard expire and let people comply by shipping adapters. The interoperability might be worth it; we don't miss having 10 AC outlet types in our house for different brands of appliances. ~~~ malandrew At the end of the day it's all about interfaces and we should, as much as possible, decouple the interfaces from the house and from the appliances. What I would love to see insofar as wall outlets is an adjustment of the current standard wall box and outlet+plate so that you could quickly replace the entire wall place in one go very quickly. With that innovation I would love to see the same on the appliance end where it is trivial to replace the entire code on an appliance. This already exists with IEC320, but if would be nice if everything used IEC320. Then every 5-10 years the industry innovates to dramatically improve one end and then 5-10 years later works to dramatically improve the other end. This would give a very reasonabe 10-20 years between completely replacing all the appliances (or using adapters or switching neither), and 10-20 years between replacing all the wall plates. You wouldn't even necessarily have to upgrade every 10-20. If an appliance is working fine on an old appliance to cord standard or a cord to wall standard, you can leave things alone. It was this interface approach that allowed Apple to have one dock connector for the longest time but many different shaped devices, since all that had to be done is replace the plastic dock insert [0]. This approach wouldn't work for cellphones and laptops, but should work swimmingly for 120v mains since space isn't at a premium except in the appliance. [0] [http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/...](http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT1380/HT1380_02 ---002-en.png) ------ bencoder I don't understand this. It's pretty much standardised on micro-usb anyway. Any enforcement of this is just going to be a pain as better technologies arise (USB type C). ~~~ nolok It is standardized because in 2009 the EU told them to either sign an agreement to do it, or have a law to force them [1] They signed, but most refused to extend beyond 2012 (partly because they saw apple not really playing game), so here come the law. As long as I can keep a single cable to charge everything, I'm happy. > The Common EPS Memorandum of Understanding expired at the end of 2012. The > European Commission reported that all of the MoU signatories, "have met > their obligations under the MoU," but that most of the signatories declined > an EC request to extend the MoU beyond 2012 [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_External_Power_Supply) ------ coob Ugh no thanks. Lightning is orders of magnitude superior to other current solutions (except cost). If it came to the point where this was actually enforced, I bet Apple would just pay the fines it receives and just continues to use Lightning. ~~~ SwellJoe USB 3.0 is not an order of magnitude inferior to Lightning. As I understand it, the primary reason Lightning was chosen over micro USB was simply that the iPad needs more power than micro USB is specified to provide. That kind of thing can be resolved in the two years we have before this has to go into effect. I'm _always_ on the side of standard connections. Which is one of several reasons I never choose Apple products. Having it imposed by law feels vaguely wrong, but Apple's behavior (on this front, and several others) _also_ feels vaguely wrong to me. ~~~ fleitz I'm usually for standards however in the case of apple, it's basically it's own standard and in the case of MagSafe far superior. ~~~ dingaling Magnetic power connectors are clever, but were standard on rice cookers for a couple of decades before Apple adopted them. Not really 'theirs'. ------ mcintyre1994 It's not exactly clear but I assume this means they'll have to provide some sort of converter to Micro USB or whatever? It's a great idea to have a common connector, but Apple aren't going to use the same as everyone else and everyone else seems to be compatible now anyway. It looks like the end result might just be iOS stuff costs a bit more and governments get some more tax money from a ridiculously marked up converter. ~~~ w0utert Maybe I'm the one who's missing something here, but why is everyone so obsessed with the Lightning connector Apple uses? As far as I understand it, the proposed legislation is about universal _chargers_ , not universal _cables_ , and isn't intended to promote interoperability between phones from different manufacturers, but to limit the environmental impact of replacing the charger every time you switch phones. Last time I checked you can plug the USB side of the Lightning connector to any USB charger and vice versa, I'm pretty sure you can use the Apple charger to charge anything that also charges from a USB port. Seems to me that Apple would already be in compliance... ~~~ simbolit sorry to disappoint you, but "charger" in this context means power supply PLUS cable. ~~~ w0utert That doesn't make sense, since it would mean manufacturers would not be able to provide any kind of connector on their devices that provides more than just USB and charging, which I cannot imagine to be true. If an adapter that goes from [whatever port is on the device] to micro-USB would be enough to be compliant with the proposed legislation, Apple is already in compliance, because not only do they sell such an adapter already, the charger end of their Lightning cable also has a standard USB connector (which means it effectively is a Lightning-to-USB adapter itself). I know the EU already talked about standard chargers for mobile phones even before the iPhone existed, because back then every phone used to have a non- standard charger plus attached, non-removable cable. The whole idea behind the legislation was that the charger got useless the moment you lost or replaced your phone, so lots of them ended up on landfills. Mandating a common charger would allow selling phones without a charger, and re-using old chargers with different phones. Unless you can quote the exact bits of the proposed rules that say 'any mobile device will have a micro-USB port' (or whatever port would be considered even more 'standard'), I'm going to assume everyone is just getting all worked up about nothing again, because "OMG iPhone does not have micro-USB, make them add it!". ------ Houshalter Standardization seems like a good idea but I'm not sure if I'm ok with the government forcing a single standard. Maybe another idea would be to tax non- compliant chargers, so they could still be legal, but have an incentive to comply to the standard. Or remove patents on chargers so there isn't any incentive to force consumers to buy your brand of charger, you might as well just comply with the standard. Or allow permits for non-compliant chargers if they can give a good justification for doing it. ~~~ przemelek Yeah, so maybe governments should stop setting rules about right- and left- hand traffic? Private sector will be so much better on establishing non government standards... For example Trucks (for British people Lorries) will user right-handed traffic rules, and normal cars will user left-hand traffic rules. Market will decide what is better.... As we can see market standard for charges was "every company has its own standards, and charge customers more", after UE and China decided ruled at created regulations for charges it was short time and every (except one) producers started to support microUSB/minuUSB as standard. Strange, don't you think? ;-) ~~~ Houshalter This is a ridiculous argument. Traffic rules can lead to death and it's literally not possible for there to be multiple standards. Having a different charger for your device is not dangerous nor impossible. Additionally, I said in my comment that maybe the government should regulate it, I just proposed alternatives that would allow for some reasonable exceptions. ------ deletes I have almost immediately remembered this: [http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/) ~~~ norswap If they are smart, they'll mandate micro-usb, which is the closest thing to a standard that we currently have. ~~~ elithrar Don't forget micro USB 3.0. ------ legierski I've been under the impression that this is already the reality (minus iPhones) ------ msvan I don't understand this. Are they going to force Apple to use the same charger as everyone else? Is that even possible? The article is unclear. ~~~ sjtgraham The USB type C connector is currently under development (slim form factor and reversible), Apple should just make the effort to ensure it's compatible with the Lightning connector, e.g. license the design. Problem solved. ------ cmelbye Maybe they'll force manufacturers to use that hideous new USB 3.0 Micro-B standard. Personally, I'd much rather use a great connector designed by someone at Apple (such as Lightning, MagSafe, etc.) than one chosen by a bureaucrat. ------ knodi Wow, I love it ------ stefan_kendall All of the usable phones already use lightning. I don't see the issue.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Understanding TPP, ACTA's nastier, more secret little brother - DiabloD3 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120402/09551618327/where-tpp-goes-beyond-acta-how-it-shows-us-future-ip-enforcement.shtml ====== srl TPP is the "Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership". It does a lot of stuff outside of IP law (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans- Pacific_Strategic_Econom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans- Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership)). Two things. First of all, TPP looks far scarier than every other law and agreement I've seen proposed so far. All previous attempts had at least been somewhat disguised as being limited - there was a clear effort to make the (dubious) claim that "they won't effect _you_ ". That seems to be gone now. I think the TC article does a pretty bad job of pointing out how strong TPP is, actually. Secondly, these nasty provisions popped up only in the US proposal (IIUC), and yet, many of them run contrary to established US case law, and would circumvent current reform efforts. This agreement has quite clearly become a forum for the MPAA/RIAA/MAFIA lobbyists who couldn't get their policies passed out in the open. It fairly reeks of underhandedness. ~~~ read_wharf Opinion, and somewhat OT: I think a lot of people who would/are naturally against these sorts of agreements and laws are also Obama supporters. The Obama administration doesn't just support these laws, it soaks in them. This is among the worst results of voting for one candidate because he's not the other candidate. We need to start voting our real interests, not our negative interests. ------ aerique It is pretty clear by now that the involved corporations and lobbyists will not stop until most of what they want has been implemented by law all over the world. What can be done on a more meta-level to stop them from even trying? So instead of opposing each and every *PA/TTP, what can be done to make it futile for them to try and get these implemented? (because sooner of later they will have the laws they want) ~~~ EvilTerran If we could somehow get laws on the books that forbade the worst bits of what big business are trying to ram through, perhaps. In the US, for instance, I guess this would be something like a constitutional amendment protecting internet traffic as free speech, or forbidding the government from enforcing copyright as a criminal offence (I'm not convinced it shouldn't be dealt with in the civil courts)... ... or maybe even just enforcing more openness in the procedures by which legislation is written, so it's far easier for the public/press to see "oh look, this proposal massively favours <supercorp>, who just happen to be throwing money at the primary sponsor WELL ISN'T THAT INTERESTING". Not that that sort of thing is ever gonna happen. There's no incentive for the legislators to do so, and plenty for them not to. ~~~ pwg >or forbidding the government from enforcing copyright as a criminal offense (I'm not convinced it shouldn't be dealt with in the civil courts)... This is a very good point. At the moment, because copyright is given criminal provisions, the big media companies get to have their investigation, their prosecution, and their punishment mostly all paid for by the taxpayers. Yet, in the other leg of "IP", that being patents, there is no criminal provision, and so the owner of a patent has to bear the full burden of paying for the investigation and paying for the prosecution of any infringement. So, if patents can work with only civil court procedure, where the attacker has to pay his/her full costs himself (1) why should copyright be "special" in providing for criminal prosecution? (1) I'm skipping over "loser pays" concepts, because even with "loser pays", the attacker still has to pay up until the point they finally win in court before they get any money back. They don't get free, government tax funded, assistance right from the start. ------ Joakal The article is a little out of date, interest groups were recently blocked from participating: [http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/04/05/tppa-negotiation- farce-...](http://pirateparty.org.au/2012/04/05/tppa-negotiation-farce-must- end-pirate-party/) I've written more about what to do (For Australians) in my side project: [https://pay.reddit.com/r/AUInternetAccess/comments/rtwm8/tak...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/AUInternetAccess/comments/rtwm8/taking_action_on_tpp_treaty_as_part_of_civic_duty/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Recruiting is Broken - Flopsy http://fetchrecruiting.com/2015/02/24/recruiting-is-broken/ ====== kilimchoi There are actually a lot of startups out there solving the problems that you mentioned. Try entelo or sourcing.io if you want to free yourself from retained search and search on your own. They've actually done a great job aggregating millions of developers based on their social profiles. If you want to hire someone based on their skills not credentials, hackerrank is definitely a way to go. But of course, they are not perfect either if you're looking for specific language skills. Hackerrank does a good job of picking out candidates who are strong at cs fundamentals in my opinion.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Who is looking for help on their FOSS project? (Nov 2018) - DyslexicAtheist I am wondering who is currently seeking help with their FOSS project. Please share your information if you are looking for help. I have some time to spare maybe there are other folk like me here lurking.<p>Please use this format:<p>- Description: - Technologies / Experience: - URL to repo: ====== argimenes Description: a web-based standoff property text editor for the digital humanities. Technology: JavaScript. Repo: [https://github.com/argimenes/standoff-properties- editor](https://github.com/argimenes/standoff-properties-editor)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
RssHub – A feed aggregator that can generate feeds from pretty much everything - tvvocold https://docs.rsshub.app/en/ ====== cyborgx7 How come noone has managed to crack the RSS rock yet? Everything has an RSS feed (though it's decreasing). Rss readers have more content than any social network. It seems like you should be able to build something with this that has broad adoption. There has to be something missing. My theory has been for a while that what is missing is publishing. People don't just want to consume, they also want to share what they find and like and what they made themselves. I even started working on a web-based rss- reader/(micro)blogging thing at one point. Maybe I should give that another crack. ~~~ vsund This is exactly what I don't understand about all the feed readers out there. It seems so obvious that the next step for feed readers would be social interactions like sharing, also it would be to easy to add I guess. Additionally the aspect of consuming YouTube via RSS feed. Feed readers could simply add small logic which transforms a given YouTube account into one of https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=<account_id> https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=<account_name> And so on for similar services. RSS has such great potential but somehow nobody uses all of it. Is there anything I miss? Why don't feed readers support external services (like the YouTube example from above)? Why don't feed readers add social features? ~~~ grumph You can add the RSS feed of a youtube channel with the Tiny Tiny RSS bookmarklet, it's working for most channels, but not all for a reason I don't understand yet. ~~~ jasonkostempski YouTube channel feeds, if they have one, are at: www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={channel_id} Some channels have a custom url and the id isn't obvious but it should be in the page source somewhere. For example, "It's Okay To Be Smart" is at "www.youtube.com/user/itsokaytobesmart". Right click, view page source, search for "/channel/". That finds "<link rel="canonical" href="[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH4BNI0-FOK2dMXoFtViWHw">"](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH4BNI0-FOK2dMXoFtViWHw">"). So the feed url is: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCH4BNI0-FOK2dMXoFtViWHw ~~~ bhrgunatha I'm not sure what the relationship between channels and users is. I think it's many-to-many and I'm aware of 3 feed types: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=<username> https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=<channel id> https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=<playlist id> Would love to hear if there are more. ~~~ jasonkostempski Woah, I spent more time than I care to admit trying to find some feeds. I thought I had the secret sauce all figured out :) [https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=itsokaytobesma...](https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=itsokaytobesmart) is much easier to use. I can think of a few channels where the play list thing will come in handy if it works. Gamers where I only want to see 1 out of 50 games they play and are who are orginized enough to keep seperate playlist is one example. You can't even do that with YouTubes own subscription method as far as I know. ------ captn3m0 I was so happy at seeing telegram, but it requires admin rights to the channel. There is so much content (a lot of it non-english) hidden away in telegram channels that I want to be part of the open web. If someone wants to take it up, it is definitely doable with a telegram user account, but the APIs are not readily usable: [https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas#telegram-to- rss](https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas#telegram-to-rss) Also, if someone is looking to follow lots of GitHub projects using their release feeds, I wrote a OPML generator that uses your Starred repos to generate a OPML file for you: [https://github.com/captn3m0/opml- gen](https://github.com/captn3m0/opml-gen) ~~~ disiplus telegram has this shitty feature where if anybody knows your public username they can add you to any group they want. this is the source of the shitty spam on telegram right now. i was active in the crypto space and my username leaked. im now added to ton of spam and pump groups daily and i cannot block it. also you dont need admin rights to the channel, but you have to work with [https://core.telegram.org/mtproto](https://core.telegram.org/mtproto) to scrape channels. i did some side project with this [https://github.com/zerobias/telegram- mtproto](https://github.com/zerobias/telegram-mtproto) ~~~ lozf In Telegram: "Settings, Security, Groups" has options to allow everyone or just your contacts to add you to groups. Contacts alone is usually adequate, but you can add exceptions. ~~~ disiplus thank you. why would "everyone" be the default setting, i cannot imagine. ~~~ davchana The reason might be to add & increase the number of users in any group. ------ aiNohY6g See also [https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/](https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/) ~~~ zaarn Interestingly, they have bridges for some websites that do have RSS feeds (Steam, Youtube and HN)... Maybe because the feeds are hard to find? ~~~ Aelius I use YouTube RSS and the most annoying thing is that it doesn't use the conventional date stamp, which is very annoying. That's a problem worth fixing. ~~~ zaarn Humm, I don't think I had this be a problem. Likely TTRSS ignores this issue and/or just parses the timestamp until numbers come out. ------ rhabarba See also [https://bitbucket.org/tux_/rssparser.lisp](https://bitbucket.org/tux_/rssparser.lisp) (disclosure: mine). ------ k1m I work on Feed Creator which might be interesting too: [http://createfeed.fivefilters.org](http://createfeed.fivefilters.org) ------ joaomsa Nice companion to: [http://fetchrss.com/](http://fetchrss.com/) ------ entropie I don't understand exactly what this software does. The demo link on the frontpage leads to a welcome page. The site is very uninformative but looks very bloated. ------ nreece This looks great! * _Shameless plug_ *: Our little startup, Feedity - [https://feedity.com](https://feedity.com), helps create custom RSS feeds for any webpage, even social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), via an online feed builder and REST API. ------ sonnhy Is there a RSS generator for Facebook pages as well? Will this support Facebook pages later on? ~~~ rodorgas Facebook used to have a RSS feed, but was shutdown: it's not interesting to Facebook that users spent less time on their plataform. AFAIK RSS feed are currently only supported by [https://fetchrss.com/](https://fetchrss.com/), but it's paid or ad-based. ------ h43z This python script [https://github.com/h43z/rssify](https://github.com/h43z/rssify) serves me well to get and RSS feed for websites that don't provide one. ~~~ rhabarba It has a lot of dependencies though. (You might also like mine which can be compiled into a portable binary with one extra line of code. ;-)) ------ superwayne Link to GitHub: [https://github.com/DIYgod/RSSHub](https://github.com/DIYgod/RSSHub) ------ jim-jim-jim This is much appreciated for twitter, which is astoundingly over-engineered for a site about little blurbs of text. ------ ccnafr Oh... another service similar to Page2RSS that will die in 6 months. Sign me right up :[ ~~~ WaltPurvis Looks to me like it's a service you can deploy on your own server. ------ staz My mind read that as RSS + SSH and started wondering what funny thing that could do... ------ smpetrey Neat! Now if it could only RSS-ify _literally anything_ this could be useful. ------ amelius Does it support Facebook group posts? ~~~ omerbensaadon I would like to know this as well! ------ ajaygeorge91 exactly what i was looking for	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
My First Facebook App - I Want One - djworth http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2389878632 This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon Wish List.<p>Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback.<p>Thanks! ====== djworth I entered the text below into the text field on the submission form but I guess that only works for posts where the link is blank. This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon Wish List. Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback. Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Programmer's Calculator - gregorymichael https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/1061.php ====== kazinator POSIX syntax, entered into BusyBox shell (not even Bash or anything), running __on__ an ARM embedded system: # echo $(( (0x0110 << 14) & 0xDEADBEEF )) 262144 # printf "%x\n" 262144 40000 Now let's make a calculator REPL out of these: # while read expression ; do eval "result=\$(( $expression ))"; printf "dec = %d, hex = %x\n" $result $result ; done 2 + 2 dec = 4, hex = 4 a=3 dec = 3, hex = 3 b=4 dec = 4, hex = 4 a + b dec = 7, hex = 7 (a + b) << 3 dec = 56, hex = 38 [Ctrl-D][Enter] #	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Python Application Dependency Management in 2018 - hprotagonist https://hynek.me/articles/python-app-deps-2018/ ====== neokya Excellent article. I think `poetry` is future as it seems to take fresh approach to Python packaging hell. However, I am currently still sticking to pipenv as it seems to be closer to pip/venv and lot easier to migrate to. I also found UX quite nice. However, I keep hitting into bugs from time to time.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Masscan: Scan the entire Internet in under 5 minutes - pmoriarty https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan ====== yzzxy There's a great talk from Defcon 22 on using Massscan for security research: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWexFaRylM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWexFaRylM) ------ ianremsen Note: your ISP and third-parties probably won't like this very much. ------ NelsonMinar This is a hell of a piece of engineering. Really fun to read the README, a custom TCP/IP stack is genius. ~~~ Zaheer Indeed. I was quite impressed by his solution for randomly iterating through the IP space. I've had use cases before for randomly iterating through a space while ensuring to hit every space and they've never been quite as efficient in space/time complexity as his. [[https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan#randomization](https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan#randomization)] ~~~ chii can you elaborate on what/how one would randomly iterate a space? i imagine it's like trying to draw a space filling curve on the place (for spaces with 2 components, such as a coordinate) ~~~ Zaheer My terminology was off, I more-so meant range rather than space. ------ sirwolfgang Title should be updated to include that this system scans only via IPv4. Doing such a thing with IPv6 would be a little more surprising. (7.9228163e+28 times more difficult) ~~~ dsl There is a false assumption that IPv6 will make mass scanning like this impossible. In reality you just need to be more clever about it. (Remember way back when people used "needle in a haystack" security for dial-up systems, because nobody would ever have the resources to call every phone number in an area code?) Link-local multicast (the replacement for ARP) allows tools like alive6 to very easily enumerate all live v6 addresses on a network. So once a spear phishing attack is sucessful, you can still scan the entire internal network. Google hacks like "site:ipv6.*" and passive DNS monitoring allow you to easily separate used vs allocated/announced subnets on remote networks. IPv6 breaks in strange ways when you firewall ICMPv6, so ping scanning a subnet has become much easier. There was also a great talk (i'll try to dig it up) that talked about predictable patterns in DHCPv6 implementations, so you can cut down v6 to a near v4 search space. The best part of all is that very few security products on the market really support IPv6 correctly, so I suspect we will see more advanced attacks being possible because of IPv6 in the coming years than things being stopped. ~~~ pixl97 >There is a false assumption that IPv6 will make mass scanning like this impossible. Well, this is an IPv4 brute force search, so technically a IPv6 brute force search is still impossible. You are correct though, no one is going scan something that is 99% empty by brute force. ------ twolfson "It's the program that scanned the Internet in less than twelve parsecs." ~~~ colinbartlett From the README: "Note that it'll only melt your own network. It randomizes the target IP addresses so that it shouldn't overwhelm any distant network." ------ jwcrux Here's [1] an example of using Masscan to scan the IPv4 space for shellshock. [1] [http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-shellshock-scan-of- in...](http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-shellshock-scan-of- internet.html) ------ gear54rus I might have missed it while reading the README, but can someone ELI5 why do we need to randomize our scans? Can't we just go scan one-after-another IP address? Is this because such scan can easily be detected by ISP? ~~~ anti-thought Think of the internet like a tree, where the root is you and all other IPs are the leaves at the end. IPs close together tend to share more path of the tree as you attempt to reach them from the root. If you are sending an overwhelming amount of packets in one direction for too long, you have a higher chance of harming nodes (i.e. routers) along that path. Randomizing your end goal on the tree, by definition, equally spreads the packet spray accross the tree. This is how they can claim: "... it'll only melt your own network. It randomizes the target IP addresses so that it shouldn't overwhelm any distant network." Note "shouldn't", this was probably added due, in part, through use-case. If I were not scanning the whole Internet, and instead just scan a small section. Masscan has less of a space to randomize through, which means the tree is smaller and the shared paths are more frequent. ------ pvnick How likely is this to be used for anti-piracy efforts? I don't hear much about en masse copyright enforcement these days, but it seems like the ability to quickly scan large IP ranges would allow one to periodically (every couple minutes or so) obtain a list of every single seeded file in the US, at least for the people not using a VPN. ~~~ Scaevolus That's not how torrents work. You can't connect to a port on a seeder and get a list of torrents it's seeding. Even for trackers, you have to request a specific URL to get a (partial) list of available seeders. ~~~ sanxiyn On the other hand, it is easy to crawl DHT. "Crawling BitTorrent DHTs for Fun and Profit" (2010) says "We find that we can establish a search engine with over one million torrents in under two hours using a single desktop PC". ------ pvaldes Sorry if I seem naive but, is this even legal? ... ~~~ gcommer I am not a lawyer, but as long as your local laws do not prohibit you from pinging a given IPv4 address, then I can't imagine any issues. Being technically legal doens't mean you won't step on some toes though. Everyone who runs full internet scans has reported getting lots of exclusion requests, (baseless) legal threats, and even retaliatory DDoS attacks coming back at their source IPs. Massscan ships with an exclude list which you would do well to utilize: [https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan/blob/master/dat...](https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan/blob/master/data/exclude.conf) If you try to run an internet wide massscan without this list, it will stop you and give you a warning about how to use the list. You then either manually override the warning, or use the list. ~~~ ahelwer Some interesting emails are transcribed in the comments of that exclusion list. I liked the one from General Dynamics. ------ curiously what are ip port scanners commonly used for? ------ sigmonsays great.. now everyone can easily find out if my ssh port is open... ~~~ hobs Everyone already does, and is trying to login right now. Check your logs. ------ cmdrfred Intresting...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Features Of SQL Server 2012 - KarenLopez http://mcpmag.com/articles/2012/03/14/top-12-features-of-sql-server-2012.aspx ====== stevear SQL Server has been one of my favorite software products of all time. As an admin it has been rock solid and not produced any headaches that weren't our own fault. With that said, to really get the most out of SQL Server (and most likely most other SQL implementations) you really have to do your homework and put in the time to go through the features. Perhaps more than anything this is why NoSQL has taken off-- it's very simple to get going. At user groups I hear a lot of people saying they selected MongoDB because "They had millions of rows and SQL just couldn't keep up" and to me it just sounded like no one in their organization had any solid SQL experience. It's too bad MS didn't build a 'SQL Admin' into their product that sent an email on occasion to say things like "You have a query that is called frequently and could be sped up if you simply included this column in this index. Here are some details!" ~~~ einhverfr _SQL Server has been one of my favorite software products of all time._ I feel the same way about PostgreSQL, along with the bit about learning all the features. I suspect that most decent RDBMS's are this way. _At user groups I hear a lot of people saying they selected MongoDB because "They had millions of rows and SQL just couldn't keep up" and to me it just sounded like no one in their organization had any solid SQL experience._ hahahaha. I have customers with db's with 10's of millions of rows (And I expect hundreds of millions or rows in the foreseeable future) and I can't imagine MongoDB keeping up in terms of reporting...... ------ nwatson Purported new feature: "Columnstore Indexes -- This a cool new feature that is completely unique to SQL Server. They are special type of read-only index designed to be use with Data Warehouse queries. Basically, data is grouped and stored in a flat, compressed column index, greatly reducing I/O and memory utilization on large queries." Many DB engines such as Vertica, SenSage, Sybase IQ, all use column-oriented storage. Perhaps the only novel-but-obvious thing here is that these "read- only" indexes are implied to live alongside the regular DB table data, though I'm not sure how these "read-only" indexes would mesh with the need to support deletion on regular tables. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_oriented_database> ~~~ mgkimsal Perhaps the engine will update the "read only indexes" when the corresponding data in regular tables are deleted, but not in realtime, but only on demand or on a predetermined schedule? ~~~ orcadk The columnstore indexes are purely read-only; they will not be updated without requiring a rebuild. However, you can create columnstore indexes on specific partitions, and thus, by partitioning your source data, you can continue to add new data in new partitions. As most DW/"big data" solutions use partitioning anyways, this is a usable solution, giving you the benefits of the readonly performance as well as the maintainability aspects, while still allowing you to feed in new data. Columnstore indexes are not meant for OLTP type solutions, so there's no need for realtime regular data deletion; it simply doesn't happen on this kind of historical data. You might switch out a partition of your data, or you might switch in a partition of new data, but you won't change the actual data itself. Comparing SQL Servers columnstore index implementation with other columnstore based databases doesn't make sense. I won't laud columnstore indexes as a revolutionary new feature, but the way it's implemented is new, AFAIK. Comparing it to "normal" columnstore based databases will make SQL Server look bad - but the thing is, it's not meant to compete with those. Use it where it makes sense. ------ gizzlon A little OT, but this was very surprising: _"MS is making a push back to the command line for server products). Core is the GUI-less version of Windows that uses DOS and PowerShell for user interaction. It has a much lower footprint (50% less memory and disk space utilization), requires fewer patches, and is more secure than the full install. Starting with SQL 2012, it is supported for SQL Server."_ ~~~ KarenLopez What is surprising about it? Server core is for specific situations. ------ NDizzle I'd be happy with simple syntax for things like OFFSET/LIMIT and GROUP_CONCAT at this point. ~~~ mgkimsal if they gave you that, it'd be too easy to port a lot of basic stuff away from sql server. I worked someplace that was primarily a SQL Server shop, although was still largely Java and some PHP at the time. I was tasked with building something to paginate through records. There were several hundred thousand to paginate through, and I had to resort to getting the DBA to build some weird sproc with cursors and junk in it. "I just need _some_ of the rows" "Why would you need that?" (honest to goodness question from the DBA) "Well, because I only need to show 30 items on the screen, not 400,000. Showing 400,000 might take a while." "Just use TOP. SQL Server lets you do SELECT TOP(30) already!" "Umm... but I might need to see the second 30, or the 99th 30." "Why? No one does that!" Insane. They experimented with some monstrosity of nested TOP() queries. They refused to allow MySQL to be used ("it's just a toy"), when it was perfectly capable for the requirement, and had developer-useful stuff like LIMIT in it. I got some overly engineered sproc that had to be updated whenever I needed a change, and I ended up leaving a few months later. Not specifically because of that, but that culture was one I couldn't fit in to. I've heard it's gotten better, but I don't really believe it's better so much as the people who've stayed there have adapted and worked around the cognitive dissonance it triggered. ~~~ saryant I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've implemented pagination in SQL Server and it wasn't as complicated as that. Maybe I produced the world's worst pagination technique but I don't think I ever resorted to TOP. The ROW_NUMBER() function takes care of this. ~~~ steverb Yes. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/548475/efficient-way- to-i...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/548475/efficient-way-to-implement- paging) ------ Smrchy Now if only MS would sit down and create a useable NodeJS client for MS-SQL. The lack of a good clients outside the Windows world is what makes me move away from this otherwise great product. ------ locusm There is some great features there but Reporting Services is a turd that should have been flushed, not polished. ~~~ reagan83 I disagree. Reporting Services in 2008 (especially with R2 and Report Builder 3.0) is great. It serves as a great alternative to Crystal and it comes included with the SQL Server license. IMHO SSRS in SQL Server 2012 has matured more than I expected and offers a lot of the same functionality that comes with others in the Enterprise Reporting space. It's worth giving it another shot. ------ cosha Microsoft is so last year	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
30 Years Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Babies of Human Contact - jgwil2 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/can-an-unloved-child-learn-to-love/612253/ ====== dankohn1 Available at [http://archive.vn/CMY0C](http://archive.vn/CMY0C) A compelling read, and a good excuse to go hug your kids.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The world split into 7 equal areas of population - sohkamyung https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/993772391200411648 ====== personlurking And the US split up in various ways of equal population: [https://i.imgur.com/jyHGZhl.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jyHGZhl.jpg) I forget where I originally saw this (perhaps Reddit). ~~~ dionidium On that topic, here's another one my buddy made of an area in the U.S. equal to the population of NYC: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/57xzkd/also_an_are...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/57xzkd/also_an_area_in_the_us_with_equivalent_population/) (This is a popular topic on /r/mapporn) ------ mherrmann I liked this one too: All land masses in our solar system on one map [https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/993770636441989120](https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/993770636441989120) ~~~ yazr So even if we colonize the Solar system at x10 (x100?) cost, we are getting x2 x3 resources. Sad! ~~~ perilunar No, because we don't colonise the solar system using the surfaces of planets and moons — we do it by mining asteroids and building giant rotating habitats. There is enough material in just the asteroids alone to build habitats with a land area of millions of times the earth. Look up the work of Gerard K. O'Neill or John S. Lewis for details. ~~~ fallingfrog Yes to this. Most of the spherical bodies in the solar system are so inhospitable that making a spinning cylinder full of air is actually much easier and more useful. ------ mrfusion I never understood why Russia’s coast land north of China isn’t more populated? The surrounding areas are so hugely populated and it’s a coast. ~~~ mrfusion Question for everyone saying it’s cold. It’s the same lattitude as northern Japan and Oregon or even New York City. Cities up to even Maine or north have warm water ports. At least by eying it. I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. ~~~ hguant The East Coast of the US has the advantage an oceanic current cycling warm water from the Caribbean north, which does a lot of mediate the temperature. The Russian coast has no such current (as far as I'm aware). ------ jwilk Direct link to the image: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcqVV4XWsAAPnGZ.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcqVV4XWsAAPnGZ.jpg) ------ masmullin Are Russia + South Pacific + Africa all lumped together, or is my colourblindness acting up on me again? ~~~ univerio Russia = purple SEA = teal Africa = blue ------ coin I love the first comment > Maybe use another map projection? ~~~ LeoPanthera I agree with him though. Not using an equal area projection when trying to compare areas is very misleading. ~~~ 5555624 Using another projection would confuse the issue for non-map nerds. While there are problems with the Mercator Projection, it is what most people are familiar with. For example, showing a projection with Africa sized correctly with the Americas would confuse a lot of people who would think the underlying map was wrong. ------ alphydan for us colourblinds, North America, South America, Australia and Greenland are one group. But I assume they are not. ~~~ grzm They are all the same color of green. ~~~ alphydan Thank you for the clarification. ------ JasonFruit I was amused that one of the first responses was to criticize the projection he chose. There's one in every crowd. ~~~ pg_bot Of course, the internet is fantastic for pedantic nitpicking. While we're on the subject of map projections, I would suggest taking a look at the Authagraph projection.[0] It preserves the size and shapes of all the continents while simultaneously giving the viewer vertigo. [0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authagraph_projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authagraph_projection) ~~~ cwmma Not shape, Brazil and Greenland are both distorted ~~~ freehunter Yeah that's pretty glaring. Even when the map is centered over Brazil, it's still super wide. Is Brazil really that wide, or is this just another super- imperfect projection that wildly distorts the real shape of land? ------ karmakaze Why is Australia grouped with the Americas and Greenland instead of in Australasia? ~~~ pc86 Because the whole point of the map is equal population? ~~~ bryanlarsen The population of Australia is just a rounding error on a map like this. The map's creator had quite a bit of freedom to put it wherever they wanted. The divisions on the map follow political and cultural boundaries, so putting Australia in the same group as Canada is defensible, if arguable. ------ alva Can't help but look at the density of regions like India and think it will brew trouble. I wonder what the correlation is between population density and violence, I imagine quite strong. ~~~ Hasknewbie There's no correlation: Singapore and HK have some of the highest population density in the world, and have a low crime rate. Checking the list of countries by density[1] and then by violent crimes[2] will confirm that. India is quite violent, but for different reasons. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) ~~~ bilbo0s In all fairness, back in the old days, you really had to watch your step in HK. It had more than its fair share of crime. Far more. But this was in the 80's and early 90's. They had an anti-crime and anti-corruption campaign, and of course there was the handover. So obviously crime dissipated as a result. But it was really bad in the old days. I don't really know much about Singapore. I've never been there. That said, if crime is low, I'd imagine there were, at least for a time, exceedingly strict punishments for lawbreakers given the population density. ~~~ Hasknewbie You are correct about HK (in fact I think the higher crime rate was much older that just the 80s and dated back to the 50s and mass emigration caused by the successive troubles in the mainland). I do think it's a great story, as it demonstrates an administration can completely turn around a police force from utter corrupt to highly professional in around a decade. In Western countries where the worldview is often 'static' it's also a good reminder that societies can change quickly. And yes in Singapore the laws (and their enforcement) are much more strict.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Facebook autobot going berserker - ZeroC00l http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?pid=355270 ====== eugenez Hey guys, I am a Facebook engineer working on this. We've been getting a lot of user feedback recently, spiking significantly over the past week, on the amount of application spam people are seeing in their feeds and on their walls. We turned on a new enforcement system yesterday that took user feedback much more heavily into account. This resulted in a number of applications with high negative user feedback being disabled or having certain features disabled. In particular, many applications were disabled which posted to the walls of other users and had very high mark-as-spam numbers. My apologies for the suddenness of the action. The numbers were high enough to cause a real loss of trust in applications, which can impact the entire platform. Where we have failed is not providing enough feedback about negative engagement metrics to developers before needing to take this action. This is something we are working hard to fix with the new Application Insights that will be launching over the next few weeks - you will have detailed information about both positive and negative engagement of the content your application generates. If you think you have been disabled in error, you should have received an email to your application's contact email address with a link to appeal. Just in case, the appeal link is [https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=dev_disa...](https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=dev_disable_appeal) . Note that no content is deleted when an application is disabled. If an application is re-enabled, all the content posted by the application will once again be visible. -Eugene ~~~ theli0nheart A couple things. 1\. I think I speak for everyone on HN when I say this is a really valuable communication to all of us who have worked with Facebook. 2\. When a user shares content through an application, you should not penalize the application itself when someone hides that content. I am almost positive this is a large reason why these bans are happening. It is a ridiculous measure of spamminess. 3\. You say you are trying to make the platform a better place for users by preventing spammy content from appearing in their feeds. This in itself is fine. But Facebook's actions are making feeds worse, not better. The actions of a few should not impact the experience of many. PS. Putting up the link to the appeals process is a really strange way to help anyone out. As far as I recall, when my app was banned a couple of months ago, that form wouldn't even work for me. In other words, just step up and give the affected devs your email address so that you can actually give them a real response. Putting their complaints / concern into what is potentially a block hole inbox isn't very calming. ~~~ starwed _When a user shares content through an application, you should not penalize the application itself when someone hides that content. I am almost positive this is a large reason why these bans are happening. It is a ridiculous measure of spamminess._ The problem, I imagine, is that many games provide incentives for posting stuff on other people's walls. That's clearly spam, but also technically initiated by the user. ~~~ ignifero Technically incentives are not allowed, but most apps resort to emotional tricks. Best applied psychology experiment ever. ~~~ watmough Wait until you deactivate your facebook account. Then you get some real guilting. Your friends will miss you. Why don't you send some messages now to let them know you're leaving. Awful. ------ catshirt " _Guys, the moderators are volunteers, and we have no power over any of Facebook's software (like the ban-bot) or their policies. We just delete spam on the forums, mostly. We do have a way of raising issues to the FB employees, and we have done so. Trouble is, they've been ignoring us (and everyone on the forums too) for weeks or months._ " wow, that's pretty sad. and i thought they were only ignoring _my_ problems. ~~~ tcolliers We've had similar problems. We have a variety of apps running stuff like posting scores to profiles. Recently we've had some apps disabled by what looks like automated bots. We asked for an explanation every time and only got a few vague template answers and a link to the policies. A colleague of mine got banned from the developer app. He can't create new apps anymore and can't reach a Facebook employee to correct it. Facebook loves being invisible. ~~~ wisty I do get annoyed at some of the span that hits my feed, but really, it's facebook. If apps don't post, why would you put them on facebook? It looks like facebook wants to get out of the whole platform game, and simple be an OpenID provider, message platform, and photo host. ------ anthony_franco Unfortunately, our application was also a victim of this widespread banning. We built up a user base of over 2 millions users. As of yesterday, they're all receiving a 404 error when attempting to visit our application. And we have no way of reaching them. Attempting to appeal to Facebook results in a generic email response instructing us to begin the application anew. Worst of all, deleting our application also deleted the photos our users took. We had a video chat application that allowed users to take pictures together with their friends. Over 1 million photo memories deleted by Facebook. It's just a sad situation overall. ~~~ ignifero It's their dreaded friday push which usually breaks things until monday. Dont expect reinstatement until then. ~~~ rcrowell Is this really something that happens regularly, to the point where you have a name for it? I've had several issues with the facebook platform in the past, but if breakage is really this common why aren't they doing anything about it? (And why not do code releases on Monday at the very least?) ~~~ ignifero It's not a specific day, it's all days, but most of the bugs i remember were not fixed on weekends. Here's a bug i was watching: <http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=16197> aka <http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=16191> This was a severe bug despite its misleading title, our users got only blank pages in IE and links did not work . It was pushed on a Thursday , then fixed some time by Monday, then next wednesday it was broken again, and a fix came a week later. [<http://www.facebook.com/eggbuddies/posts/10150171378998545>] Shit happens a lot more often than one would expect in facebook. For a better treatise, read this developer's lament: <http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=100175> P.s. I laughed hard when i saw this video: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2594083> ------ wwav10 We are from Playality, developer from Grand Poker. As many of you may know, our application was disabled this morning for no apparent reason given. The company spend huge amount of marketing dollars on adverts and product development . Furthermore, many of our paid customers demand for refunds or legal action. Grand Poker is our company main source of revenue, and it is also funding other projects on facebook. This incident pretty much killed off the company. Also, using user's feedback may not be an accurate measurement to the quality of the application. There are many methods or bot script that can simulate users to mass complain the application. This is a very common strategy uses by competitors. all in all, we are still relatively new to for facebook, It may be possible that we did somehow crossed the line in feeds or wallposting, but.is it worth killing off a small start-up because of this? ------ bermanoid I know there are plenty of Facebook people reading HN, so I can't help but wonder why complaints about FB are never addressed here when they come up, _especially_ when they're of this nature (this particular problem seems like a glitch in code, not something that would require a massive business effort to fix). The instant someone makes a complaint about some aspect of Google's search algorithm, Matt Cutts appears out of the wild and addresses the situation; I've seen many other Googlers comment on various issues, too, letting us know that they've escalated issues as appropriate, or even just that they're aware of problems but can't do anything about it. What's up with the silence from the FBers in the crowd? Not allowed to say anything? Don't know who to forward the issue to? Just don't care? ~~~ lbrandy How come no witches ever show up to our witchhunt? The vast majority of fb employees wouldn't know anything about this. They couldn't say anything except something w/o any knowledge and cause more problems. ~~~ bermanoid That's a very fair point - HN is vastly more hostile to Facebook than it is to Google, so it makes more sense that Googlers would pop in to calm things down. ~~~ thaumaturgy I'm sure the hostility has _nothing_ to do with the lack of response, the screw-ups, or the handling of the situation in general ... But, I probably shouldn't even be in this thread, because I think that building a huge user base that relies on someone else's closed & fickle platform is a hilarious thing to do. ~~~ beck5 I truly believe its down to a deep misstrust of facebook and Zuckerberg which started from day 0 of facebook. ------ ltamake Really starting to hate Facebook more than I already do. As someone below pointed out, their API is going to shit, and they're starting to become more strict with their TOS. I know 5 friends who have had their Facebook accounts forcibly closed or suspended, or put through this ridiculous "roadblock" system that requires them to pick out 10 pictures from their friends' albums. Regarding apps: someone notified me that their app had been suspended because of "negative reactions" by users; only 10 people used the app, and it got one one-star review. Lovely. I did like Facebook at one point: two or three years ago. Now it's just getting ridiculous. ~~~ Unseelie Oh my god, half of my pictures aren't me at all...they're all just photos of things I make.. ~~~ ltamake The roadblock system? Yeah, it's really flawed. I got roadblocked for logging on to my account from a Swedish IP (through a VPN; I live in the UK). It took me something like 10 tries to get through because I don't obsessively study my friends' photos like Facebook expects me to. ~~~ VMG to be fair they do this as a security measure, not to piss you off ~~~ ltamake I know, but it's rubbish and they __do __piss users off. It's like a bank obstructing the entrance until you give them the amount of 10 previous deposits in your account. There's got to be a better way. ~~~ protomyth Or the TSA's base argument for their actions. At some point the friction from this type of stuff leaves a oppurtunity for the next guy. ------ npollock Cue the conspiracy theorists, all the banned apps are photo related. <http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/facebook-secret-photos-app/> ~~~ ChuckMcM You are confusing the term 'conspiracy' with 'monetizing _our_ platform' :-) ------ steve114 I'm not a developer but I'm appalled at this. No human review of banned apps with millions of users. Moderators who volunteer to build the brand of FB are simply ignored. The problem is that even if your apps are reinstated, the damage may have already been done. Sorry guys... ------ vessenes This is all because of Google. No, really. Google decided they could scale better if they used computers to do customer service, or just didn't have customer service. In exchange, they didn't charge anything for a lot of their services and told people 'deal with it.' This worked well for Google! Facebook is staffed extremely lightly given their reach; stuff like this is just going to keep happening. I have no idea if the app developer deserved it, but these 'free to play' broad-reach companies CAN'T provide the service this app developer feels he/she needs, they wouldn't scale properly if they did. ~~~ bermanoid _these 'free to play' broad-reach companies CAN'T provide the service this app developer feels he/she needs, they wouldn't scale properly if they did._ Bollocks. I realize there's probably a lot of app spam, and of course you want to deal with a lot of that in an automated manner, but we're talking about apps that have built up millions of users here, it is in no way unreasonable to expect at least one lowly paid human to look into these cases before shutting them down. A single person could probably clear a hundred of these cases in a day, especially if the automated system gave them info on why it thinks the app should be banned - if it says there are too many negative reviews, that's real simple to check, if it catches a TOS violation, that's also real simple. Here, it looks a lot like someone (maybe accidentally?) turned the sensitivity threshold too high on the ban-bot and never bothered to check if it was working right because it's not public facing enough. As far as the Google comparison, to me that's rather unfair, because in the case of Google's app store, they _don't_ tend to go around auto-banning large numbers of popular applications. So whatever algorithms they're using are doing a pretty good job, as opposed to Facebook's, which are apparently flailing like crazy. ~~~ Joakal Facebook has a culture of introducing live testing according to some developer statements so it's slightly surprising that this happened. Google seems to test their systems well, except for UI changes though. ------ splitrocket Facebook's API has become increasingly unstable. They recently dropped millions of oauth tokens for no apparent reason. See here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2661850> ------ mpunaskar Thast why i would never rely on closed platform. I will never waste my resource in build apps that solely rely on closed commercial entities like facebook, apple. If they choose to ban/block/delete you then all of your hard-work is gone in a second and will leave your users unhappy. and this can happen to any of us ~~~ ryanisinallofus Is your site just future feature of Google? They provide us with 80% of our traffic and have launched features that directly compete with us. It doesn't only happen on "closed" platforms. ~~~ mpunaskar True, It can happen on any platform, but at least you will get time to improve your app + add new features + fight with biggies while they are trying to copy from you. On facebook and Apple they will just kill your app in a day. ~~~ ryanisinallofus Google could drop you from results, but yeah I get your point. ~~~ rick888 but you can still get people to your site through any means (not just Google). If you build a Facebook or Twitter app, and either of those companies compete with you, change their apis, ban you, your company is pretty much finished. This is why I don't waste any time writing those kind of apps. ------ Osiris This seems to me to be indicative of a problem with the Facebook apps platform. They are using significant resources to try to combat spam, but the spam is posted through the mechanisms provided by the platform. What I'm suggesting is that the Facebook apps platform is fundamentally making it _easy_ to post spam so they have to fight it afterward. Would a better approach be to shore up the platform so that apps are simply unable to generate spam? For example, currently a user can only Allow or Disallow an app. They cannot Allow or Disallow certain permissions. I should be able to use an app while denying it the possibility to post to my wall or my friends walls. It seems like it's the wrong approach to try to stop the spam by banning apps rather than fundamentally changing the way apps can access person sites and information and make generating spam incredibly difficult. ~~~ patja If they every put hard API limits on how apps can post they would be cutting Zynga off at the knees. On the day that happens I'll be at the snowball fight in Hades! ------ EGreg Always get your users' emails when they sign up. Facebook even has the email extended persmission to streamline it. That way you aren't 100% reliant on facebook to keep in touch with your users! You never know what they are gonna do. ------ powertower > Don´t know what to do. I am desperate. This app is my company´s single > product. The business impact is huge. No warnings. No specifics. (<http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=103384>) Now imagine Google dropping you from the index for whatever reason. How many of us here would be wiped out? A business that's dependant on a single channel or platform for more than 20% of its revenue/profit is not a real business as much as it is a sugardaddy's dependent? ~~~ rs40 Being your own bitch is better than someone else. ~~~ powertower Not really sure where you're going with that. A) Standard employee B) Self-employed but at complete mercy of a company (facebook) which does not know you even exist, who's everyday change of mood could wipe you out Does not really sound like much was gained going from A to B. With A you're simply lost (in life). With B you're blind. ~~~ rs40 Yes, both A and B is still consider as someone's else b*tch Ideally, the best option is to find your own niche without relying "too much" on other's platform. ------ andylei problem is that facebook doesn't really have too much of an incentive to care about these developers. they are not like apple, whose products include third party apps as part of the core value proposition. when steve jobs sells you an iphone, one big reason you buy it is because it has thousands of great apps. people don't sign up for facebook because of farmville, farmville uses facebook because people have already signed up for facebook. thus, when apple's developers get screwed and there's no app ecosystem, there is the potential for decreased sales. when facebook apps disappear, i doubt there are a lot of people leaving facebook. ~~~ ignifero They have an incentive: FB credits generates significant revenue to them already, plus games are a contributing factor to user retention. It may become more significant to user retention by filling the void now that social activity has peaked and everyone has caught up with their highschool friends. ~~~ noahth Don't forget ad revenue. Facebook developers spend enormous sums on Facebook ads. Probably bigger than Credits, at least until next month. ~~~ noahth oh and also - games/apps drive tons of pageviews for FB. ------ alanh “Operation Developer Love” is what Facebook calls their weekly report on the state of bugs in their developer/app platform. Looks like if there was really developer love, they wouldn’t need to market their love of developers. ------ atlas3651 Our primary app got shut down for "spamminess" on 6/20/11 (one week ago). We had 4M users. We've appealed. No response. A lot of users contact us plaintively hoping the app will come back. Sigh. Another small tech business will go kaput (ours) and half a million bucks will go down the tubes. This is obviously just another similar data point on this thread, but what I want to add is to the discussion is this idea: why not create an completely OSS facebook? If a bitcoin can exist (and hell, a Linux), why not a decentralized open-source facebook? The core functionality is not that complex, IMHO. Well, Linux is complex and it took decades to perfect... but the need for it was pretty clear and it's proved itself. But Facebook, OTOH, is not a complex operating system or even a super-complex search engine (ala Google). It's simply a network of interconnected user accounts with certain assets assigned to each account (history, preferences, content, etc), and info feeds (transient) delivered to those accounts via various formats. If such a project were OSS, people would design their own feed sorting algo's, their own notification systems, and most of all their own "spam" filtering systems, as plugins, all of which could mean nobody needs to "go dark" to satisfy the whims of one corporate entity. ~~~ atlas3651 Hmm, a simple google search found Project Diaspora <https://joindiaspora.com/> which aims to do what I just wrote. Wonder how close they really are... ------ pstack It's hard for me to have sympathy when people choose to develop for Facebook instead of for the Internet. When you are contributing to the problem, you have to accept a certain level of potential downside and lack of control. There's a massive internet out there. You know, everything that is not facebook.com and you can do pretty much everything on it, but without being subjected to the rules and whims of anyone else. ------ yaix Reminds me of Google Adwords and Adsense Bots banning random accounts. Better dont put all your eggs into one basket and dont develop for only one company you then will be dependent on. Especially if the company is as big as G or FB. They dont care loosing a few good publishers, but a publisher who has invested all his time or money will care. Hope FB will react better then G and reactivate their apps. ------ topherjaynes When Roger Ebert's page was banned on the 21st his complaint was reversed with in a few hours... <http://twitter.com/#!/ebertchicago/status/831526706464686> So it can be done, hopefully the attention in HN will help ~~~ puredemo Sure, if you are a celebrity. ------ evanw It looks like GoodReads was banned within the last 24 hours from Facebook as well: [http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/314867-goodreads-and- fac...](http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/314867-goodreads-and- facebook#comment_id_32448117) ------ lukejduncan I find it interesting that most of my non-technical friends actively dislike Facebook. Their growth comes from new markets while their existing user-base grows increasingly dissatisfied. ------ wccrawford Wow, you'd think banning would be important enough to pay someone minimum wage to sift through and find the ones that don't make sense. ~~~ Unseelie Would you trust someone at minimum wage to do it? At the same time, FB makes lots of money per capita. They could hire a few grunt banhammer moderators. ~~~ wccrawford Alright, maybe slightly more than minimum. But yes, I would. If their job was to sort through and find questionable bans, and they knew their job would be on the line if they missed too many, they'd do a decent job. Certainly better than is being done right now. After all, for the same wages, they could be flipping burgers instead. I know which I'd pick. The nice, cool office. ~~~ Unseelie I'll do it from home. Don't even have to provide an office! Course, what's it cost to buy someone in india an office and pay a wage? ------ zaidf I feel we need an independent org that does arbitration of API/platform- related cases. Have a complaint about Facebook's API? File it with the independent org and as a member of the org, Facebook will be forced to resolve it in a fair manner or take a reputation hit. The most extreme cases could be decided by a human arbitrator. ~~~ jleader But in this case, it sounds like FB is already taking a reputation hit (at least among the HN demographic), with no apparent effect. ~~~ zaidf True - but I think it'll be a little different if an official independent organization gives them a "Poor" rating for support or platform reliability. ~~~ code_duck Who's the audience that would be more influenced by a rating like that? ------ arihant I highly doubt that the 'conspiracy theories' popping up against the photo apps are correct. If they are, then facebook has bigger problems than lack of API stability. Good tech companies and engineers should be confident enough in their work. Try searching for 'search' on Google. ------ steve114 Looks like TechCrunch caught on to this thread, sorry if it was already posted by someone else. [http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/25/facebooks-ban-bot-leaves- so...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/25/facebooks-ban-bot-leaves-some- developers-baffled-and-angry/) ------ crazymik3 It's pretty interesting that most of the apps seem to be photo related, with lots of users. ------ patja Old news. Facebook told us in a developer blog entry months ago that the auto- ban bot looks at user feedback such as hides, comments, uninstalls, mark as spam, extended permissions prompt acceptance rates etc. And you as an app developer can actually see all of this data through the Insights feature of the developer app. Too many developers have their head in the sand and think just because they have 1 million users and a 4 star review rating that everything is peachy. The fact is there are a ton of crap apps that spew out BS. Maybe the user who installed the app thinks it is great to spam all of their friends' feeds, but when those friends hide the app's posts, mark it as spam, etc. then the app is going to risk auto-banning. I know folks on HN don't play Farmville or spend all day on these apps like fortune cookie, quiz of the day, etc., but bazillions of FB users have nothing but app-generated posts on their walls. ~~~ robryan Sure, if spammy apps were engaged by staff at Facebook, notified of specific issues and giving an amount of time to fix there wouldn't be an issue, instead things are getting auto deleted without even a look over by a person. ------ reustle Where is that quote about not depending on a platform that is out of your control? ------ antihero How can automatic banning/deletion of content ever be a good idea? ~~~ jleader Two words: spam filters. ------ dendory Step 1: Base your entire business model on the latest buzzing platform (Facebook) Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit!!! ... Step 4: Get banned, lose all your hard earned work. ------ veyron What was the fred wilson quote about not being _____'s bitch? ------ ignifero It baffles me why there are no large competing social gaming web platforms. Google, Zynga, EA (playfish) could easily start one. It's a guaranteed success: people love games to be social. Facebook developers are so disgruntled with the FB platform that they 'd flock in hordes to convert their games. On top of that, facebook enforces FB credits from July, and banned adsense advertising in apps. We are not going to pay 30% of our revenue to facebook for such a crappy platform. We moved our apps to an external website. ~~~ wccrawford I think it's because you need the rest of the platform to make it work. FB games took off by spamming your friends and getting them hooked, too. If the platform only has games, there's nothing really to spam... It's not like people are watching their wall for activity at that point. There ARE gaming networks out there, BTW. They just really haven't taken off. Search for 'social gaming site' to find some. ~~~ ltamake Steam could be considered a gaming network, I suppose. It has a pretty strong community behind it. ~~~ ignifero I think the parent is right that it has to be more social- than gaming- oriented ------ bcl Yay! Less apps for me to add to my block list. ~~~ pavel_lishin Cool, let's all cheer about the fact that a lot of developers just got screwed, and so did a lot of their users. ~~~ bcl Yep. Facebook would actually be tolerable if it weren't for all the stupid apps that keep popping up. I wouldn't be so annoyed if there was a global app shutoff switch. Then again if there was they'd probably switch it back on randomly just like they do with my other settings.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Does YC Have an Active Request for Startups (RFS) for W20 Applications? - ncizek Does YC have an active Request For Startups (RFS) for the Winter 2020 application process?<p>Is there a place in the Winter 2020 application to identify as a startup in one of these categories?<p>Or is this best accomplished in the Category drop down?<p>The most recent RFS I see is from March 2018 https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/<p>Also, I might have missed it, but I don't see a field in the current YC application to list a RFS category like last year.<p>Thanks! ====== gus_massa For an official reply, it's more reliable to write to [email protected] ~~~ ncizek Will do -- thank you!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Can we create a free platform for restaurants to do takeout? - palidanx With the restaurant industry suffering, is there any way of helping the industry by crating a free platform where people can order takeout online, but let restaurants keep 100% of the order (except for the credit card transactions of course) ====== throw03172019 I believe most of the companies are waiving fees for local restaurants (not chains).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Python Without GIL. The Gilectomy Branch of CPython - merqurio https://github.com/larryhastings/gilectomy ====== robotarchitect 17:05 -> Would someone please explain to me how is that not breaking C extensions? Isn't it possible to create a system that implies an "auto-lock arround c extensions" (29:53) on the current C extensions but would allow future non-GIL safe extensions to run freely?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Has anyone had a dispute resolved by Airbnb? - dazc I recently rented an apartment via Airbnb, the host was an agent - not the owner.<p>At the end of my stay we agreed an extension of a few weeks but outside of Airbnb.<p>There was, however, a dispute about the figure agreed which I refused to accept.<p>I offered to pay an extra day via Airbnb at the published rate with a view to leaving the next day. The agent said this wasn't possible and I either accept the deal or go now. It was 8.30 pm.<p>I left the property after the agent agreed the house was in order and there was nothing left to discuss.<p>After leaving the agent posted some offensive and questionable messages to me on whattsapp.<p>At the same time I received notification that he had just left a review.<p>My reputation on Airbnb is, thus far, very good and I don't want this damaged.<p>I have informed Airbnb about the incident and to know his review will be malicious. I have requested it should not be published.<p>They have told me to submit my own review. Both reviews will be in the public domain as soon as I do this. (They have confirmed this).<p>So my option now is to post a defensive review and hope for the best.<p>Has anyone experienced anything similar and what was the outcome? ====== Gustomaximus I had an experience where the host moved apartment on me to a downgraded one. Nothing significant but a bit smaller and lost the balcony/view. Also the apartment clearly hadn't been cleaned e.g. hair in the bed. It was the first time I'd had a negative experience on Airbnb. I contacted them and expected a strong response. Nope, crickets. I dont think they really care which is surprising for the modern service focused unicorn. Since then unless there is a significant price differential, I'm back to hotels. And they are one of 2 businesses I happily tell people to avoid. ~~~ gt2 Same, any issue I had resolved (several) with AirBNB was done by credit card dispute or directly with the host. If you tell the host the issue they will change the reservation and let you leave with a refund, or they will make a payment through Airbnb to you to compensate. Always go through the platform so things are recorded to avoid later dispute of agreements. ------ astrodev Airbnb doesn't really provide customer support in relation to off-site issues - even if as in my case it involves the host asking for extra payment in cash in direct violation of AirBNB's terms. When you pay hundreds of dollars in fees, you assume they would help, but they are nothing more than a classified site with a payment processing system built-in. It works well once you have adjusted your expectations. Unfortunately, for many of us, this happens through an incident like yours. ------ stephenr I tried to use AirBnB twice (for the same stay!) First one the host cancelled my confirmed booking a day before we arrived because they had some family emergency or something. Airbnb agreed that the host cancelled the booking and refunded the charge on my card. I found another place, they charged my card and _then_ said "oh please add your Facebook info so we can confirm your booking". I don't use Facebook. Their support suggested I could "just make a video explaining who you are and why you want this place " and upload it for the host to _consider_. Fuck you, fuck you very much. When I finally got ahold of a person on the phone (I had to call international to get them) they claimed they couldn't speed up my card charge cancelation "because the bank doesn't believe we want to refund your money". No - you're just a bunch of shits who won't accept that banks have specific practices to handle same-day credit card refunds - otherwise you wait for the charge hold to "time out" without being claimed. Never again. ------ theossuary I had a pretty terrible experience with AirBnB the last time I went to California. Place was nothing like the pictures, dirty, and I rented the entire apartment but was told that their roommate may stop by unexpectedly for his things. To top it all off I had to go lie to their housing office to get a key to the apartment and leave behind collateral. Thankfully AirBnB was able to refund me 100% and I went and found a hotel for the week. I guess it was easier for them because the renter in this case already agreed to refund me when I discussed it with them though. I can't imagine how hard it'd be for Airbnb to figure out who was right/wrong otherwise. ------ shakkhar > At the end of my stay we agreed an extension of a few weeks but outside of > Airbnb. You should not have done this. I know it is tempting because Airbnb fees are so high, but don't do it in the future. As for the question in your title - yes I did have dispute resolved by Airbnb. During my last UK trip there was a dispute with one of the hosts, so I had to leave early. The host refused to refund, but I called Airbnb and they promptly gave me a refund for the remaining days. No problem whatsoever. Give them a call, send them the "offensive and questionable" messages on Whatsapp and ask for the review to be removed. It might take a while to get hold of a real human on the other end, but once you do it should not be difficult if you have a case. ~~~ dazc I understand I should not have done this but my point was that the damaging review has nothing to do with my 10 day 'official stay'. The appt was available to rent locally via the same agent. From my point of view, I wasn't breaking any terms since my airbnb stay had ended. The malicious review is part of a story the agent is telling the owner so he doesn't look bad. The dispute arose from the money he was adding for himself - the owner likely knew nothing about this. I have asked airbnb not to publish the review, I haven't asked them to do anything else. ------ gt2 Used to be the case that if you didn’t leave a review then the other didn’t get posted to yours. In any case I recommend negotiating with the host to something agreeable to both. You can threaten a bad review or Airbnb complaint if they won’t listen to reason.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
US pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance - ser_ocelot http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CENSORING_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-12-14-47-09 ====== bediger4000 Does anybody else get the feeling that there's still quite a bit left of the warrantless, dragnet surveillance rabbit hole? I keep wondering when the next really big thing will drop - like evidence of industrial espionage by the NSA on behalf of some specific company, or a list of targeted organizations that includes things like the Red Cross, or IEEE.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Don't understand vesting/ownership offer, how do I make money off it? - giltleaf Brief: If I am offered vested ownership of a company, how do I eventually make money off of that?<p>I am being offered a job where I start out with .25% ownership to increase to 2% in 3 years. Salary will shoot up along with that and I'm confident I can get both of those things in writing.<p>My question is, when I'm at the point where I own 2%, how do I make money off of that? The company wants right of first refusal (which is a concept I understand), but what if nobody wants to buy the stock? I don't know that they will go public, so who do I even sell it to at that point? Does that make it essentially worthless?<p>Are there any good blogs or websites that can help me get a handle of these things better? ====== jacksondeane Long story short... you will likely need a liquidity event for your shares to be sold for cash. This could be though an acquisition, IPO, or the board deciding to let you sell your shares (usually back to the company via the right of first refusal). Your shares are sort of "worthless" until one of these events, that is the risk you take by allowing some of your compensation to be delivered in private stock. The good news is they are offering you a .25% vested stake and a shorter-than- normal vesting period of 3 years. Once those shares vest they are yours forever, or until you sell. If you decide to leave the company there is a chance they will offer to buy you out of your vested shares, that is where you can make some cash. ~~~ brianwawok Yup. So basically value your ownership as 0 to at most $10k. If the salary and job title make sense, do it. If the pay is 50% of market rate, don't do it. ------ jtfairbank jacksondeane has a great answer if you're at a traditional startup who's goal is acquisition or IPO. Not all small businesses are startups though. If you are working for a lifestyle business, or even a larger company that has relatively slow but steady growth, then the board may decide to issue dividends. It's important to remember: your equity is worthless, but so is everyone else's. If you trust the company leadership and they aren't just using this as a way to get cheap labor (i.e. they will pay dividends, buy back your stock later, get acquired, or IPO) then it could be a good deal. My recommendation: if the company isn't a traditional startup and offers fair pay (or will increase compensation down the road if they are early stage now), then add some terms that require the company to buy back your vested shares when you leave. You can set a predetermined price (like 2x the current value), or base it on milestones (time you spent there, revenue milestones, etc). Just make sure that you don't have to sell at that value if they are worth more- you can always hang on to them, negotiate a higher price with the company, or sell them to someone else. ~~~ giltleaf Thank you very much, that makes a lot of sense. It seems like I would want to angle for dividends or the terms that would require the company to buy back the vested shares. It sounds like that might be something I need a lawyer for, but just in case, do you think there are common terms or templates for that? I also really liked the framework of "your shares are worthless, but so is everyone else's." So aligning my interests with the founder seems like a good way to go. ~~~ jtfairbank Yup, always make sure the incentives are aligned. Unfortunately this is a pretty unique situation. For startups the usual is to angle for an IPO, or failing that go for an acquisition. This shared goal and payoff event naturally aligns the interests of employees and management. For your situation, you'd definitely need your own lawyer to review the documents. Perhaps you can get the company's lawyer to add those terms in though, to save some initial cash? I'd go for one of the following: * Required stock buyback when you leave at 2-4x the current value, or based on the last 409A valuation if that is higher. They should be doing that once a year for legal reasons, if they do any equity or stock option grants. * Minimum yearly dividend to be paid to all shareholders based on a % of revenue (not profit). This one is nice because it's egalitarian. Building it into revenue protects you, and they can just consider it a cost-of-doing-business overhead. * [in addition to the above] Have them come up with a set compensation plan that applies equally to everyone (including them) based on role, years with the company, and level of expertise (junior, normal, senior). This should be public internally, and there should be no bonuses or additional compensation beyond what it specifies. The plan can be re-evaluated wholistically based on runway left and revenue milestones, but it'd be good to note down what those milestones are ahead of time. Unfortunately you probably can't get that in a contract, but it'd show a lot of trust and goodwill on management's part if they implement it as part of company policy. Honestly this situation sounds a bit tricky if you don't have a strong history with these guys, or they don't have a track record of building a small business that pays dividends or otherwise compensates equity holding employees. A worse case for you is no liquidity event or dividends, but management pulls money out of the company for bonuses for themselves. That being said, this could be a great opportunity for you. Forget the SV big or bust mentality, there's a lot of pluses to working at a stable slower growing business. Less pressure, more flexibility with your time, a closer knit team that won't double every year or two. Best of luck mate! ------ loumf Ask the owners: "Can you tell me how I make money off this equity?" Possible answers (not exhaustive): 1\. We plan to exit 2\. We plan to pay dividends 3\. We plan to build and support a private market 4\. We plan to institute a buy-back program with the valuation based on some objective criteria (FMV / x revenue multiple / x profit multiple) In all cases, the thing you want is that the owners make money off of the stock in the same way you do and that they have the same class as you. ~~~ giltleaf I just wrote all of those down to ask when we get back to the table. Thank you very much - sometimes the forward question is the best question.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Using Chef to automate setting up a Rails Server (including sample code) - talkingquickly http://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/2013/09/using-chef-to-provision-a-rails-and-postgres-server/ ====== bradleyland This is a total side-topic question, but I've always been unsure about this usage of openssl to generate passwords: // generate this with: openssl passwd -1 "plaintextpassword" I'm assuming that there is an implicit presumption that the person executing this snippet will replace the string literal with their own plain text password, but I suspect a lot of new users will simply run that command. Because this is being used as a user password, which will then be hashed again by the OS, is there any security concern here? I'm just not knowledgable enough to know for sure, but it seems like the kind of thing that warrants questioning. I tend to use `openssl rand` to generate passwords so that I avoid having to create any input myself. openssl rand -base64 24 If I need some password length that results in '=' padding, I just use cut: openssl rand -base64 41 \| cut -c1-41 I've seen this suggested in a lot of places, but likewise, I lack the required knowledge to say if this is any better.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Should large networks/companies be democratic? - sharemywin As companies and/or networks become as large as countries should they allow users to vote? ====== cocktailpeanuts Interesting idea for non-profits, but for-profit companies work fundamentally different from nations so irrelevant in that case. "user" is a voluntary concept, unlike nationality. So if you don't like a company you simply stop using products from the company, that's how you "vote". ~~~ sharemywin Large infrastructure is usually hard to stop using though. Should I stop using eletricity? or cars? or facebook? I could live like a hermit but that's not exactly realistic. There's some talk of twitter becoming benefits corporation. Not sure that goes far enough, why not allow users to vote or decide delegates to vote. ~~~ sharemywin FYI, on a benefit corporation in case anyone hasn't heard of them. Save a google search. In the United States, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia that includes positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals. ------ sharemywin a lot of time companies use user surveys to guide what to do anyway.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why hasn't Google created their own IDE? - GoofyGewber Apple has their own for iOS Development. Why wouldn't Google want to create their own for Android development? ====== sprizzle I think Google prefers to support existing open source projects that are successful. Internally, a lot of Java engineers at Google use Eclipse, which is a great IDE for Java development. No need to re-invent the wheel, instead it makes more sense for them to contribute to the success of Eclipse. FYI, Google also just donated $20K to the Eclipse foundation: [http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/09/google- donates-20000-to-...](http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/09/google- donates-20000-to-eclipse-foundation/) ------ trollforce Because you can already develop Android apps quickly and efficiently with a number of already built and well supported IDEs? It makes no sense to spend money on something for a niche thing like Android development. Also <http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html> ------ brudgers Steve Yegge's _Grok_ project might become a potential candidate. ------ chubs Simple: Because googlers all hate IDE's and use vim. ------ lilc They do employ the author of Vim. ~~~ pestaa It was surprising news to me, but I doubt this alone is a good reason to ditch the idea of a customised IDE. For those who hasn't heard, this post is from Bram himself: [http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-in-labs-find- docs-...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-in-labs-find-docs-and- sites-quickly.html) He seems to work for Gmail.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sort order preserving serialization - wooola https://www.activesphere.com/blog/2018/08/17/order-preserving-serialization ====== dekhn Does anybody know if this has a common name, and is used commonly? I've used this technique frequently, it's quite useful, but wasn't sure if it was available outside the environment I work in. ~~~ wooola could you elaborate on your environment/usecase? I also tried to find some literature related to this, but no luck so far. Seems like I am not using the correct keywords. ~~~ dekhn I've heard it called "ordered code" and used it to, well, sort a bunch of data by a key which was an ordered code.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What are you biggest complaints with search on GitHub? - jglovier ====== simplehuman The code search is very poor. Case sensitivity, whole word, regexp search... ------ sprobertson Sometimes nobody has made what I'm looking for.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How's the page looking? - dhaivatpandya http://poincare.github.com/Hydroxide/ ====== dhaivatpandya I'm not a designer by a long shot, but, its an open source project, and I don't want it to look atrocious. Feedback would be awesome :) ------ ricardobeat very nice, but where's the demo? :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Meltdown patch reduces mkfile(8) throughput to less than 1/3 on OS X - mpweiher http://blog.metaobject.com/2018/01/meltdown-patch-reduces-mkfile8.html ====== ghostcluster I have a suspicion that APFS is partly to blame. When I saw benchmarks of APFS vs. HFS+ [0, 1], it appeared that Apple had managed to transition to a filesystem that is markedly slower at reads and writes than the 20 year old one it was replacing. [0] [https://malcont.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/07/apfs_hfsplus_...](https://malcont.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/07/apfs_hfsplus_speed_comparison_small4.png) [1] [https://malcont.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/07/apfs_hfsplus_...](https://malcont.net/wp- content/uploads/2017/07/apfs_hfsplus_latency_with_scale_from_zero-1.png) ~~~ mpweiher As I wrote in the article, I already accounted for this. The raw combined performance degradation was 4x. APFS itself seems to be around 20%. Now that is somewhat rough, as APFS degradation may itself by non-linear. However, others have measured the pure APFS costs and they seem to be roughly what I saw: [https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apfs-performance- lags-h...](https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apfs-performance-lags-hfs/) ~~~ tinus_hn Could you please disable that annoying behavior where scrolling slightly left or right swaps to a different article? It’s hard so imagine anyone actually uses that and it is extremely annoying. ~~~ FreeFull That's a problem with the Blogger platform, it might not be possible to disable that behaviour without switching to something else entirely. ~~~ vanderZwan Have you ever heard of the expression "How do you know someone disables javascript on the internet through an add-on? They'll tell you"? No? Well, anyway, one draconic way to fix this is installing something like uMatrix or NoScript. This particular website works fine without JS. ~~~ dawnerd Likewise you can just turn on reader mode or whatever the mobile browsers call it. Should pull just the text out. ~~~ vanderZwan I wonder if we couldn't just make an "open in reader mode" add-on ------ gok This is an utterly pathological test case. mkfile makes a lot of syscalls which do very little work. Heck you could have made the batch size 1 byte; that would really show a slowdown! ------ davej Can someone who is more familiar with Meltdown speculate on this? Is this a quick fix and is it likely to be optimised over time and become less slow? Or is this the raw trade-off and current hardware will always suffer slow-downs to this degree. Can an OS be rearchitected in ways that would mitigate the performance loss? ~~~ jsheard > Can an OS be rearchitected in ways that would mitigate the performance loss? The performance loss comes from extra overhead on syscalls, so it could be sidestepped by allowing programs to do more work per syscall. At its simplest that could mean adding more syscalls that perform the same operation over an arbitrarily long list of inputs (like linux's sendmmsg) but I would like to see kernels take inspiration from modern graphics APIs that allow arbitrarily long lists of _arbitrary operations_ to be batched and executed with a single syscall. GPUs had this stuff figured out years ago. ~~~ sanxiyn Note that Red Hat patented batching syscalls... [https://www.google.com/patents/US9038075](https://www.google.com/patents/US9038075) ~~~ bch 1) this is exciting, if not also brilliant 2) SQL transactions as prior art? If they’re successful w their patent, I sure hope there’s a way for BSDs to try it on. ~~~ pkaye RedHat has a patent promise that they will not enforce their patents against any free software that make use of their patents. [https://www.redhat.com/en/about/patent- promise](https://www.redhat.com/en/about/patent-promise) ------ Bitcoin_McPonzi Just as a reference point, I didn't see any measurable slowdown on mkfile (New-Item) throughput on Windows 10 after applying the patch. I suspect this may be more of a filesystem issue. I also tried this: $f = new-object System.IO.FileStream c:\temp\test.dat Create, ReadWrite $f.SetLength(8GB) $f.Close() with no speed difference on a patched and unpached system ~~~ luckydude So I'm not a Windows expert but I've done file system work. If windows is reasonably smart it will support files with unallocated blocks. Setting the length to 8GB is not the same as writing 8GB in any reasonable file system. I'd retry with a script that actually writes the data. ~~~ cmurf NTFS and APFS support sparse files, HFS+ does not. ------ raimue The headline is completely bogus. The author switched both the filesystem from HFS+ to APFS and the Meltdown patch was applied. This effect cannot be attributed to just one of them without further testing. ~~~ netgusto I applied the patched on both my systems (iMac 2013 core i7 on Sierra under HFS+ that was upgraded to High Sierra for the occasion, and a MacBookPro 2017 already on High Sierra under APFS), and I can confirm that _both_ my systems are seriously and objectively slowed down, 4 days after the patch now. From what I could observe, applications taking the most serious hit are electron based (like VSCode, that went from smooth as silk to mildly sluggish) and Safari. Docker on mac has also taken a hit, although I couldn't quantify it objectively. ~~~ jaaames Ok so I'm not completely insane, everything felt like molasses this week and that's why. ------ jondubois I wonder if the inefficiency of the meltdown patches will incentivize cloud providers to lower the price of large instances that have a high CPU core count (relative to small instances with low core count). At the moment, the price of instances goes up linearly relative to CPU core count - Maybe in part because the performance overhead of virtualizing a single 32-core machine into 16 2-core machines had been minimal. But now that the performance overhead of virtualisation is higher (due to isolating the CPU cores being more expensive), maybe it's more efficient to lease entire CPUs (with all of their cores) without the patch (and associated overheads). ~~~ tedunangst If performance is better, why would they charge less instead of more? Why apply the discount to the more desirable product? ~~~ bobwaycott My initial guess would be to align pricing with expected performance, which has now degraded, right? I don’t expect it to happen, but I can see customers like myself being unhappy with paying—just for example—for an 8-core VPS whose performance now matches what previously was 4-core performance. So, I don’t think anyone would expect them to charge less for a higher core count than lower core count, but adjusting prices downward to match performance wouldn’t be upsetting. ~~~ jondubois Yes exactly. To clarify my point; this vulnerability only affects you if you're sharing a physical machine/CPU with other users (isolated by a virtualization layer)... So if you choose not to share your physical machines/CPUs with other users then you are not exposed to that vulnerability and ideally you also shouldn't need to get these patches and their associated performance overheads. Virtualization already has some known minor performance overheads but now these patches will add even more overheads. Can cloud providers keep pretending that 4x 2-core virtual instances are as performant as a single physical 8-core instance? ------ ageofwant I find it really unhelpful that these 'threads' are being hyped with little reference to any sort of thread model, reasonable attack vector or probability. I do not want the kernel on my Arch laptop patched and slowed down to mitigate against issues that does not reasonably exist in the context of a laptop user. By all means patch my browser that runs random js. I'm not in the habit of downloading and running untrusted binaries - those that do have far greater problems than Meltdown or spectre already. Of course I want it patched on AWS, and my bank's backend machines, but you are now forcing me to continually pay, hour after hour, for insurance against a thread that I'm happy to not worry about. Do not steal my cycles to pay for 'security' I do not require. ~~~ megous Not sure why you're downvoted. It's a perfectly reasonable trade off. I'll be searching for ways to disable most of these mitigations too after the dust settles. I rarely run untrusted code, and for that I can probably find a way to run it securely depending on the perceived threat. A lot of what I do on my main computer is syscall heavy, and I don't like 25-50% performance hit. ~~~ tzs You could switch to TempleOS. :-) Meltdown is a much smaller (but not zero [1]) security risk on TempleOS than it is on Windows or Unix and Unix-like systems. [1] At first one might think there is no risk, because TempleOS runs everything at ring 0 in a single address space so anything that might be exposed via Meltdown is already wide open. That would be true in the case of running untrusted binaries. Where Meltdown would still affect TempleOS is in in the case of trusted binaries being exploited via techniques such as return oriented programming. Meltdown could make more "gadgets" available in the binary, increasing the chances that someone could make it read something it otherwise would not have read. ------ macrael Is this fix the KAISER fix that is mentioned in the Meltdown paper? That sounded like it removed the kernel from processes address space, where did it go? ------ nodesocket Such a blantely non-real world and sythetic benchmark. ------ saahtb One of the reasons Node developers hate Windows is because of how stupidly slow it is to open lots of files... This will teach them	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apply HN: Nuyolk – A smart curator and aggregator for digital retail - lovetteregner What we're building: We are building an aggregator for e-commerce products. We bring together millions of products from thousands of brands in one place. We then personalize the user’s feed and search results based on their profile and preferences. If the user decides to purchase the product, he/she is redirected to the merchant’s site. For every redirected purchase, we earn a 5-10% commission. Right now, we are adding merchants with existing affiliate programs and hand-picked independent labels. Eventually, we will make special accounts for the rest of the independent labels to index their products with us. The goal is to make it easier for users to find products with the best design, value and brand story that suit their individual taste.<p>Our Why: Inspired by local independent labels which are often more creative but are limited in distribution, we thought that there might be a better way of leveling the playing field so they can get the market share they deserve. A couple of years ago, we started an independent label crafted by traditional local artisans. We soon realized that having a good product was not enough because the per unit marketing spend was ridiculous and time consuming. We envision a world where designers and artisans can put their full focus on creating great products and where shoppers can always quickly find the best product out of the millions in the market. With digital retail for fashion and interiors alone poised to grow with a CAGR of more than 50% from 2016 to 2020, there is a huge opportunity to sort out the overwhelming mess for the shoppers.<p>Our progress: Right now, we've soft launched the search feature. In the next couple of weeks, we'll be slowly rolling out the personalization features. Check it out at http://nuyolk.com!<p>We'd love to hear some feedback too! What can we improve on? Is our site clear enough? What features would you use us? :) ====== morirb I would use your website but I'm missing a more precise search. Why not a tagging system? Would be nice to be able to look for a "black" "shirt" with "stripes". Do you guys want to only do this for fashion? This seems applicable to other industries, doesn't it? I'm doing something similar, see "Apply HN: Alternative to Advertisement" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441537)). I'm excited to see that other people seem to care about that as well. It would be so cool if things get popular based on their quality and design. ~~~ lovetteregner I agree with you on this one. We're currently standardizing the categories across merchants to be able to filter by category, and later by color. Yes, it does -- but we're starting with the more design-centric industries since they tend to be the ones with weird value/pricing parities. That's so exciting! Good luck with that. :) Thanks so much for the nice feedback! ~~~ morirb thanks:) "we're starting with the more design-centric industries since they tend to be the ones with weird value/pricing parities." -> do you mean that there are small merchants offering products that are both cheaper and higher quality than big well known merchants? And it therefore makes sense for Nuyolk to bring these better products to consumers? ~~~ lovetteregner Yes. There are quite a lot of independent labels -- especially as the current barriers to entry allow almost anyone with reasonable design skills to start one. Also, the design-to-delivery/store costs are way cheaper in emerging economies like the Philippines (where we're based), allowing local designers to produce quality at a minimum. There is also a growing trend towards proudly-locally-made (in the US) and socially/environmentally sustainable products. Those who chose to fulfill their own deliveries also have better contribution margins as they avoid a huge portion of the ~40% of sales that retailers charge. The major problem for these kinds of labels is distribution. It's tough to get the word out when you don't have the economies of scale -- hiring a content and marketing squad does not make sense early on. ------ ejanus This is great... I have something close to that in mind but yours is thorough and has the chance of succeeding. Your site takes pretty long time to return search. I wish you all the best. ~~~ morirb "I have something close to that in mind", what is that? ~~~ ejanus Building an e-commerce aggregator and price comparism platform for my country. If you are interested, please shoot me a mail.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ash HN: Mobile Mesh Networking Framework, what Would You Use It For? - CLei There's a new mobile framework coming in April (http://www.hypelabs.io), that allows any developer to build apps that can communicate even without internet. This is what the framework does:<p>* Automatically creates interoperable peer-to-peer mesh networks with nearby devices using any available transport channel (Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Classic, Wi-Fi Direct and Infrastructural wi-Fi) basing its decisions on real-time network metrics;<p>* Data multiplexing: intelligently fragments data into segments and sends them through different paths on the network and different transport channels, making connections faster, more secure and ensuring deliverability;<p>* Encrypts data and protects it against network attacks;<p>* Is power-sensitive, choosing transport channels that require less power whenever possible;<p>* Can have cloud integration, intelligently managing connections between local mesh networks and the internet (and can help offload local networks);<p>* Every different app is connected and helps building the same mesh network, but can't communicate with each other;<p>* Can be integrated into any existing app or project in a few minutes (and removed, in case you don't like it);<p>* It's free, but not open-source (at least right now).<p>* There's a iOS and Android version coming in the next weeks, and Windows 10 (mobile and desktop) coming in the future.<p>My question is, giving all these capabilities what use cases do you see for this type of technology? Right now there are apps testing the framework for messaging (the #1 use case that generally comes to everyone mind), real-time collaboration and file sharing, gaming, social networking, dating, and others using it to build mobile local networks.<p>What would <i></i>you<i></i> use it for? ====== herbst Dating and Dealing for music festivals. I think this could be the next big shit and i had that in mind for some time now. ------ RafaeliSuarez I'm thinking in file transfer apps between different platforms.. ------ fratelli Offloading seems interesting. I'm thinking this for crowded events	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: LonelyPage – One page is all you need - bigge http://www.lonelypage.io ====== peterpan31 I don't want this to be intended as harsh criticism of your idea, but let me share my experience with website builders: \- The market is extremely tough. Maybe you noticed how much advertisment squarespace and Wix do. The reason being that these pages typically have small businesses as customers. The issue with these type of businesses is that they go away quickly. Most don't survive 6 months. So you need new customers all the time to keep up with the high churn. \- You do not have price dominance. The price is very competitive and companies with huge backing (like Squarespace / Wix) will dominate you. \- The intended target audience is actually not that keen on doing everything themselves. They don't know about online marketing, SEO, or other "special skills". Actually, they just need someone they can call when they have an issue. \- Developers and agencies prefer open systems like Wordpress, Gatsby, or others. They also value a vivid ecosystem of plugins and themes. They typically don't commit to proprietary software, because you never know how long it will be around. In any case, I wish you the best of luck with the product. It looks nice! I hope you can use my experiences to advance your business. ~~~ afarrell > Maybe you noticed how much advertisment squarespace...do I would intuitively estimate that about 15% of educational youtube videos are sponsored by Squarespace. ~~~ samwillis I think google has just profiled you (and me, and everyone else on HN)... We go on web-dev related and business start up websites, and google is watching us. ~~~ afarrell Sadly no. The ads I get are largely for things I don't want. Occasionally they are good or interesting, but usually no. I wish more ad providers had a way to say "please show me more ads like this." Better yet, I wish there was one that had a box where I could just type random complaints about my life and over time it would show me ads for products that might be relevant. ~~~ derefr Google says they explicitly don’t use web-browsing data for ad targeting. They _don’t_ say that they don’t use web-browsing data to improve your experience with their various recommendation/prediction/autocomplete APIs. So there’s no guarantee that bad ad targeting implies YouTube doesn’t have a better profile on you. ~~~ polyomino I’m order to square these requirements, they would just have to use your browsing data to target you with the version of the instructional video which always plays relevant ads to you ~~~ derefr From what I understand (someone correct me if I'm wrong), the selection of ads that play on an individual YouTube video aren't actually affected at all by _which_ video you're watching—only YouTube's understanding of you built up over all the videos you've watched so far. ~~~ beojan The sponsorships are part of the video. They are targeted only by video. ------ awill I get that this is easy, but there are 2 main cons: 1\. It is $4 a month (that's a lot for a really a simple static page) 2\. Vendor lock-in. These sites come and go and might not be around in a couple of years. This is why I recommend Hugo hosted on netlify. Sure, it has a learning curve (but plenty of open source themes make it fairly easy). Hugo spits out plain HTML so there is no lock-in, and netlify hosts for free. If Netlify goes away, I can host somewhere else. ~~~ sandGorgon if the page builder is able to export to something like Gatsby or Hugo templates, then that eases the fear of lockin ~~~ Kpourdeilami Since it is just 1 page, I think you should be able to just save the source with all the dependencies and then host it somewhere else afterwards ~~~ ams6110 wget will do that for you nicely, also. I've used it to make static archives of fairly complex Drupal-based sites, so a one-pager should be a breeze. ------ callahad What browsers are you supporting and testing against, both for the editor and its output? For example, the text widget doesn't allow spaces to be typed on Firefox, which makes me wonder about the compatibility of the generated code. Edit: Also, kudos for having such easy, frictionless access to the demo. I also really like the structural parity between the desktop and mobile versions. Edit2: How are you picking which version (desktop/mobile) to show? Are you doing some kind of sniffing, rather than relying on media queries? I'm not getting the version I expect when I change the viewport's size in my DevTools: Chrome always gives me the mobile version in responsive mode, while Firefox always gives me the desktop layout unless I spoof a device's user agent string... ~~~ bigge Ouch, that's a nasty bug in firefox.. Will try to solve it asap. Right now I need to serve slightly different markup depending on mobile or desktop, so I can't rely solely on media queries. I will however try to move it that direction once I figured a few things out. Thanks for your feedback! ------ GFischer My mom has started several businesses (short attention span!) and so I've tried Unbounce, Squarespace, GoDaddy pages, various WordPress hosts (HostGator and BlueHost and others)... This one looks like it's going for the Squarespace/Wix market. I think what matters the most in that space is getting out of the box with a very nice looking template - Squarespace excels there! (heck, their current landing page says "Make it beautiful"). And they have a nice logo creator. This one doesn't seem to have that much design in it. On the plus side, it does say "No signup to try out" (that's a huge plus, hope spammers don't abuse it) and "simplest", which is what I expect your target audience to like. Edit: on the builder, I think you should emphasize starter templates more. ------ howitworks You should let the user go through the entire process of creating the page before you ask for money. Then they have the extra desire of wanting their finished thing. (I started building a site and put in a form, only to be told that was a paid thing. Closed the whole thing and immediately came to write this.) ~~~ icahnvalyou I would be so mad if I put in the effort to build everything only to be pay- walled at the end. Just, livid. ~~~ billmalarky I mean, you don't "spring it" on the user at the end. You say something like "try full features now for free! If you build something you like keep it for low low price of....." It's an effective way of removing friction. ------ diaz This is how the page looks on firefox on android [http://imgbox.com/i6mbiHi5](http://imgbox.com/i6mbiHi5) Doesn't seem expected. Android 8 + firefox 58.0. 2 + https everywhere & ublock origin extensions. ~~~ bigge Uh oh, thanks for reporting that. ------ joelrunyon I've found carrd.co to be a great version of this. Super-simple templates. I think they allow more than one page, but very clean layouts. ~~~ ohmichel Yeah, maybe $39 a year is pretty much if you compare it with carrd.co ------ Santosh83 The world is increasingly composed of computing devices that stay on 24 hours a day. Long gone are the days when only servers used to do this. Now most desktops have ~90% uptime while mobile devices are almost at 100%. Combine that with ever increasing, cheap bandwidth, I think the time is ripe more than ever for hosting your own simple, low traffic services including websites. The only obstacle here is that there still no simple setup wizard that can make them painless to host and take down, with a few clicks. A package that combines a simple, secured web server with a site builder. ~~~ yoshyosh Totally agree, have you heard of [http://ipfs.io](http://ipfs.io)? What you describe will be the new norm due to the advances blockchain is enabling for the distributed web ------ beders It's a good start. However, seemingly only tested on Chrome. After playing around with it for a few minutes, I found some issues: On Firefox, from a Clean State, add a Row, add Text, click H2, type some text, hit space, try to type more text: the space disappears On Chrome: I don't seem to have full control over text spans. While I can use b/I/U/S on the current text selection, I was unable to set any other style attributes just for the selected text (i.e. what should boil down to a span tag), i.e. I wanted different colors for parts of my text. Keep on hacking and I hope you'll have success! ------ elliotec This is the kind of thing I wish I thought of right when I saw it. These naysayers are silly. The amount of investment you put into it will undoubtedly be offset by the passive income you generate with it, not to mention the fun/learning you did while building it. ~~~ bigge Thanks a lot for your kind words! And you're right, it was a fun experience just to build it, if I can make some money from it - even better! ------ dom96 Does anything stop me from building my page, copying the HTML and hosting it myself? ~~~ thinkloop I can't think of any way that could be possible. In the end people who are comfortable enough to rip the source and setup/maintain hosting probably wouldn't need the service. ------ fibbery Found a typo / grammatical mistake: Icons is an essiental part of modern web design. -> "Icons are an essential..." ~~~ bigge Thanks ------ WillPostForFood Can’t watch the video on an iPhone, “The requested video is not allowed to be played in embedded players.” Also, going directly to lonelypage.io doesn’t work. ------ jgautsch Pretty nice. I'm still in the market for a good lander builder. initial feedback: \- I can't figure out how to change the image in a template, close to giving up \- more templates please \- and maybe more content in the templates (easier fill in or delete content than to figure out how to add new sections and content) \- I didn't read site that closely (who does), do I get the generated html etc? I'd like to host myself \- the "pick a palette" is great ~~~ bigge Hey, thanks for your feedback! \- Yes, changing an image defo needs be clearer. \- More templates are coming. \- Self-hosting is not an option for now, but I obviously need to state that out. However, I think people here on HN are more eager to host themselves. A "normal" user probably wants that taken care of. ~~~ thinkloop > A "normal" user probably wants that taken care of. For sure, no need to worry about that! ------ ohmichel Pretty sick! I'll be using a pro plan for a new project. BTW, gradients not working in mobile. ~~~ bigge Cool, feel free to get in touch if you need any help. What mobile OS is that? ------ russ_ross This is actually perfect. Needed a super quick landing page creator and you nailed it. If you're going to make changes then recommend you develop an API for page creation, perhaps a Zapier integration. Otherwise good on you! ~~~ bigge Thanks a lot, glad you like it! ------ superasn I can't load the website. All I see is this :/ [https://i.imgur.com/NONTuSs.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NONTuSs.jpg) ~~~ F_r_k Maybe activate js ? ~~~ superasn I haven't disabled JS neither do i have any extension besides uBlock origin that would change the DOM. Am I the only one having this problem? Because except this website I don't have trouble browsing any other. P.S: I'm using Chrome Version 64.0.3282.186 (Official Build) (64-bit) ~~~ qplex I also get a rather empty page on Firefox. Running uBlock Origin, but I've disabled JavaScript too. Reading this far to comments I've gathered it's some sort of landing page generator? I wish people would at least include a short description that one could read. Too many submission to HN just land you on an empty page if you don't feel like executing their JS. I wish they would just put an accurate description to the submission as well. I usually just skip and move on but I guess the address was enough to poke additional interest this time around. ------ kristerv Cool site. If it'll go down anything like my own you'll get 30'000 views and like 3 buys, but no recurring revenue. You may be interested to read my experience: [http://code.krister.ee/mybest-project-so-far-shutting-it- dow...](http://code.krister.ee/mybest-project-so-far-shutting-it-down/) Don't think twice about contacting me :) ~~~ bigge Interesting read, thanks for the link. ~~~ GFischer Absolutely agree with "STOP building things and START TALKING TO CUSTOMERS." ------ wojo1206 Cool editor, Undo/Redo is missing. I made similar SPA for other project and implement this feature in Redux pattern was a breeze ~~~ bigge Thanks! Undo/redo is available as soon as you sign up, but not in test mode. ------ guico Nice work! Some usability feedback: Adding a new element to the page (+) is the first action and it was hard for me to find it. It's likely also one of the most frequent functions you'll use, so I think this button should have way more relevance, at least on the same level as "Save". ~~~ bigge Great feedback, thanks a lot! ------ greggarious This doesn't seem to render well without enabling Javascript, which gets a failing grade in my book. ~~~ neiled I would suggest that, in 2018, you are in the minority. ------ lbj Reminds me a bit of SabreCMS, despite the options being much more limited. And Sabre allows a full export of your entire site/shop/landingpage in case you want to self host after building - And it works with all browsers which seems to be an issue here. But nicely done. ------ swlkr You could try to compete with this guy: [https://www.sitebuilderreport.com](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com) He realized the world didn't want another site builder, so he just reviews all of the existing site builders. Pretty genius. ------ r0fl Great job! Very intuitive design. Much better than the majority of services I have tried before for simple pages I've wanted to put out. Once a page is built and live, can the user then save the HTML and host it on their own server? (leaving the by: lonelypage logo at the bottom) ~~~ bigge Thank you, glad to hear that! There's no way to export or download the page right now. I didn't expect that to be a requested feature to be honest. Maybe in the future, we'll see. ------ explodingcamera It's really discouraging that not even your own started page doesn't support SSL... ~~~ TomK32 Recently move a bigger webapp to AWS elasticbeanstalk, I had to add a few lines to redirect from http to https. We still have a long way to go. In case of [https://lonelypage.io](https://lonelypage.io) the cert isn't for the correct domain.... ------ ThomPete Great start! Now if I were to give you one piece of advice I would say, find a niche or a couple of niche industries that have specific needs and sell to them. This can be anything from setting up an event and taking payment for it to creating a local sports group. ~~~ bigge Thanks, that's some good advice, I definitely believe in finding niche groups as well. Often, it's not the ones you think of initially. ------ cabalamat When I type in text, it doesn't remember spaces, for example: [http://spacesmissing.lonelypage.io/](http://spacesmissing.lonelypage.io/) ~~~ bigge Problem fixed, it was a strange CSS issue in firefox only. Thanks for reporting. ------ sajithdilshan Why not use github pages? ------ pkapur86 i came back to HN to thank you for putting this service. As a product manager often times i want to test ideas and i was able to put together something that looks nice using your product within an hour. I customized a template but the tools were pretty intuitive. It was so easy and pain-free that i immediately wanted to prototype another idea but seems i can only do one per account. Anyways, thanks and keep up the good work. ------ Teichopsia Looks good. Still haven't had my coffee so this is all you are getting. Sorry. The submit form zooms in on mobile (iOS). To avoid that the font size needs to be set at 16px. ------ kristofferc Small bug with the text field: [https://imgur.com/N7SVdMp](https://imgur.com/N7SVdMp) ~~~ bigge What browser is that? ~~~ kristofferc Chrome on macOS. Write something in text field and deselect it. ------ doubleocherry I've been looking at something like this to host a landing page for a book I wrote years ago. Great work, I'll give it a try. ~~~ bigge Cool! Feel free to get in touch if you need any help. ------ dylanpyle The page builder tool is seriously impressive. I love that you've even covered things like image filters (blur, contrast, etc) ~~~ bigge Thanks, I tried to focus on the small bits as well as the big ones. I hope it pays off. ------ blumomo Did you forget the most important on your page? Where's the button create my own page? How can I test your product? Is your product scam? ~~~ bigge Maybe click the big button that says "Try LonelyPage now!" ? Otherwise I'm afraid it's scam, you got me. ------ paulcnichols Couldn’t figure out how to sign up ~~~ bigge There's a button in the upper right corner that says "Save page". Click it, and you will sign up and save your page at the same time. ------ TomK32 Do a ICO or blockchain page generator for April 1st. I'm sure people will love it :) ------ djstein for all the posts on firefox bugs, on firefox 61 everything seems to be functioning properly btw ------ monk_e_boy How long will they be around? I'm kinda sick of putting up a page about some random thing then a couple of years later its gone. ~~~ mcjiggerlog I'm really looking forward to this kind of problem being solved by ipfs/dat ~~~ thinkingkong How would it solve the problem? ~~~ aout Well, since it's distributed / decentralized you wouldn't depend on a particular company (or service). This way you wouldn't need to worry about it being shut down. ~~~ magnetic You would still depend on the constant availability of an origin for your data. IPFS is not magic in that regard: if whoever is your origin disappears, then your data is likely to disappear at some point, especially if it's not super popular. There is no free lunch: you either become your origin yourself, or you pay someone else to be. ~~~ aout Though : would that lunch be as expensive as $10 per month or would it be almost free like $0.1 per year ? I consider that to be pretty much free :) ~~~ magnetic Here's a pricing example: [https://www.keycdn.com/pricing](https://www.keycdn.com/pricing)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Outgrow.Me is Where Kickstarter Projects Go When You Can Actually Buy Them - ivanbrezakbrkan http://www.domain.me/blog/outgrow-me-kickstarter-indiegog-5098 ====== shloimtothee Great article. Thanks for the coverage :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How we break things at Twitter: failure testing - r4um https://blog.twitter.com/2015/how-we-break-things-at-twitter-failure-testing ====== donkeyd Seems a lot like the Chaos Money at Netflix. It's a way of testing I always like to share with colleagues, because it's pretty awesome.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Pioneer spacecrafts' anomalous acceleration solved - cpeterso http://www.planetary.org/blogs/bruce-betts/3459.html ====== ColinWright Submitted a few days ago with a small amount of discussion and context: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3865881> The story has been discussed many times: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apio...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apioneer+anomaly&sortby=create_ts+desc&start=0)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How Ansible Took Down Our Servers - heartsucker https://www.heartsucker.com/blog/how-ansible-took-down-our-servers ====== nasalgoat In the olden days, before AWS, you'd just log into your console as root and fix it. Now there's no console. ------ flippyfloppy I love a good ansible horror story. That said, why you delete the directory recursively? Why not just push the intended state and be done with it. This could happen with any configuration tool if you do a recursive delete. If you have some files you don't want just have a task that says you don't want the file to be there. Full disclosure I love ansible and use it all the time ~~~ heartsucker In a previous version of ansible, the user module would error out if it couldn't delete the home directory, so this was added as pre-remove-user step to prevent errors. In theory we could have pushed an empty authorized_keys, but it's so simple (if not erroneous) to say "If the user is gone, remove their home." ------ devn0ll I'm thinking this would have solved it: path: "/home/{{ item\|default('doesnotexist/') }}" But yeah, one would do that on test machines first, say: Vagrant on your local machine at least. It may also make sense to create a user with it's home in a different place, for "just in case" purposes. Or even just use something like freeipa for all accounts. ~~~ heartsucker That would have solved it. For me the problem was that somehow Ansible took an non-existent value, looped over that, and then applied that value as the variable inside the loop. ------ joobus Why didn't he test his script on a dev server before blasting every server in production?! ~~~ heartsucker #moveFastAndBreakThings ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
James Cameron: BP Oil Spill Is Just Like 'Avatar' - rblion http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/26/james-cameron-bp-oil-spil_n_695556.html ====== aaronbrethorst Incredibly expensive, something everyone talks about, obnoxious, and it just won't go away? Oh, wait no. Apparently BP, Halliburton, et al. are just like the US Military harvesting Unobtanium. OK, got it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sunset District house receives 18 offers, goes for half-million over asking - kyleblarson http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/S-F-real-estate-over-bidding-Outer-Sunset-25th-Av-11102327.php ====== ajoy Even more insane : [http://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15439048/silicon-valley- teard...](http://sf.curbed.com/2017/4/26/15439048/silicon-valley-teardown- sold-home-house)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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