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BlackBerry Priv review: Android fixes the OS, but the hardware can’t compete - bane http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/blackberry-priv-review-android-fixes-the-os-but-the-hardware-cant-compete/ ====== jimrandomh The main differentiating factor is that this phone has a slide-out keyboard in portrait orientation. That's not for everyone, but it is something I miss greatly and could see myself picking based on. The review points out that an on-screen keyboard is bigger, but that's not really the point - with an onscreen keyboard you can't learn to type by feel, you always have to look at it. (On the other hand, the sliding/Swype style for onscreen keyboards is pretty nice, and definitely narrows the gap between physical thumb keyboards and onscreen ones.) ------ on_and_off [http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2015/11/1-1-2-...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2015/11/1-1-2-980x653.jpg) Interesting. An physical keyboard does indeed look not that useful against a big phone. I would be curious to try it out, but I doubt that just tactile feedback is enough to offset the fact that these buttons are really tiny. Maybe that a physical keyboard would work better in landscape ? ------ walterbell Is RIM using different hardware suppliers for the Passport flagship vs. this Android device? If RIM could license their combination keyboard+trackpad technology, Logitech and other mobile keyboards would benefit. E.g. the iPad Pro keyboard needs touch navigation to reduce the traversal distance needed for common screen- button-presses. ------ kchoudhu Did anyone else see the phone and think "Dell Venue Pro"? ------ godzillabrennus This will be the last blackberry phone. They were crushed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best Lego Mindstorms alternative for fun programming projects? - crypto-jeronimo What are the best Best LEGO Mindstorms alternatives out there? No upper age limit. ====== MarcScott I wrote these resources you might like. [https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/?interests[]=ro...](https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/?interests\[\]=robotics) There's even an Ali Express shopping list for you. You can probably build a buggy for about _$20. Resources are also on GitHub and issues and pull requests are always appreciated. [https://github.com/raspberrypilearning/build-a- buggy](https://github.com/raspberrypilearning/build-a-buggy) Disclosure - I work for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. _(Edit - $20 not including the price of a Pi) ------ whiskers I'd recommend you look into the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or micro:bit - each offer a great introduction to physical computing with huge libraries of online content to dive into. [https://www.raspberrypi.org/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/) <\-- Basically a pocket sized computer which can run a full Linux stack and exposes a heap of useful IO options. [https://www.arduino.cc/](https://www.arduino.cc/) <\-- More akin to embedded systems - traditionally very low powered micro-controllers programmed in C. [https://microbit.org/](https://microbit.org/) <\-- Designed specifically for education and provides a number of high level abstractions for development including visual programming languages and MicroPython. As well as these there is a huge range of other options targeting different niches such as Javascript, Internet of Things, ultra low-power systems, etc. It really depends what you're interested in getting into. All of the platforms have starter kits, add-ons, and tutorials to get you going. Feel free to message me (e-mail in profile) if you want to discuss further! [https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry- pi](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi) [https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/arduino- microcontrolle...](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/arduino- microcontrollers) [https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/micro-bit- uk](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/micro-bit-uk) (Disclaimer - co-founder of Pimoroni) ~~~ mkesper Calliope mini plays also in this category: [https://calliope.cc/en](https://calliope.cc/en) ~~~ whiskers Yes! Calliope is a spin on the micro:bit that has been developed in Germany. They are a great team too! ------ TaylorAlexander Depending on the users experience, a 3D printer and Arduino or a Raspberry pi plus some servos, lights, and other motors may be all you need. I recommend a quality printer like the Prusa i3 MK3: [https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original- prusa-i...](https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original- prusa-i3-mk3-kit.html) You can build things like this with it: [https://youtu.be/f5JPLIyKOfE](https://youtu.be/f5JPLIyKOfE) ~~~ crypto-jeronimo Thanks for your response! This is absolutely wonderful! Could you provide some further links to example projects (eg, interesting open-source designs and/or source code)? ~~~ TaylorAlexander Hey thanks! I’ve been pushing hard on new developments and need to spend more time documenting my projects. But I have some info on another robot here: [https://hackaday.io/project/158458-rover-v2-four-wheel- drive...](https://hackaday.io/project/158458-rover-v2-four-wheel-drive- robot#menu-description) There’s lots of cool robots on hackaday: [https://hackaday.io/list/158174-thp-2018-semifinalists- open-...](https://hackaday.io/list/158174-thp-2018-semifinalists-open- hardware-design) I also recommend browsing [http://reddit.com/r/3dprinting](http://reddit.com/r/3dprinting) as there is a lot posted there. And check out [http://reddit.com/r/RobotBuilding](http://reddit.com/r/RobotBuilding) I also run a website to discuss projects that have a social impact. That’s at [http://reboot.love](http://reboot.love) There’s a lot of good stuff online! ~~~ crypto-jeronimo I have to admit I wasn't aware of any of these fascinating and useful resources. Thanks a million once again! ------ bunderbunder I'm a fan of the BBC micro:bit. The basic board is very inexpensive but comes with a lot of possibility already soldered in. You can choose among several well-supported programming languages, from Scratch on up to C++, so it can grow with you for quite a while. There's not really an official robotics kit that I know of, but there are several 3rd-party options on the market. ~~~ jaustin (full disclosure - I work for micro:bit) If you're looking _specifically_ at Lego, then the sbrick-plus [https://www.sbrick.com/](https://www.sbrick.com/) can talk directly to a BBC micro:bit [https://github.com/vengit/pxt- sbrick](https://github.com/vengit/pxt-sbrick) so you can use the micro:bit and Lego together. There are also a huge range of micro:bit accessories from third parties that do robotics, sensing, lights, etc. ------ sdenton4 How about... Mindstorms? What constraint makes you seek out an alternative? ~~~ kart23 It is obscenely overpriced. ~~~ patja I used to think so too, but you get a lot of value for the price, especially when you consider the variety of projects you can build, the relatively beginner-friendly programming toolset, and the number of videos, books, and other supporting resources available. ~~~ bunderbunder Overpriced is maybe a strong word (I get that Legos are expensive because they're a higher build quality than other interlocking blocks), but Mindstorms is a very expensive option, all the same. At that price point, even though I could afford a set, I don't really consider it an option for trying to get a kid interested in programming or robotics, because I'd feel pretty chapped about hundreds of dollars down the drain if they didn't end up taking to it. ~~~ SteveNuts FWIW, I had the first generation Mindstorms and I definitely consider it the most important factor in getting me interested in engineering and software. Resale on LEGO is good, so if it works out and gets the kids interested, it's a small price to pay to introduce them to logic and mechanical concepts (make sure you don't lose any pieces). If it doesn't work out, sell them and take a small hit - it's really a win-win in my book. ~~~ fenwick67 I had basically the same experience. It would be really hard to beat the LEGO Mindstorms experience for ease-of-use and learning through experimentation. ------ tostitos1979 I got a Cozmo ... has vision and a Python API, which seems like a good idea. Haven't had a chance to really use it. It was also a bit expensive. I have made my own robots in the past. Frankly, my flakey hw killed my sw enthusiasm. That's why, I am happy to pay a bit for functioning robot hw. Next, I want to get into robot arms. Something with the DoF of a kuka arm but doesn't need to perform as well and on a low budget. My current prospect is the Dobot Magician but I am still on the fence. ------ salgernon If hardware isn't a requirement, I'd point you at processing.org and the various related projects (openprocessing.org for a javascript front end.). It hits that logo sweet spot for me when introducing kids to actual programming. Then, add a pen plotter to the mix for that "look what I made" kick. ------ bernardv Surely [https://littlebits.com/](https://littlebits.com/) It's a fantastic educational tool ------ andyjohnson0 We got our eldest child a SparkFun Inventor's Kit last year. He seemed to find it fun to play around with. One of the projects is a robot. [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265) ------ blacksmith_tb I haven't picked one up (yet), but the Edison[1] looks like a pretty decent Lego-compatible platform. 1: [https://meetedison.com/](https://meetedison.com/) ------ gmiller123456 Depends on how many prebuild (proprietary and expensive) components you want. I think the absolute best platform for robotics is Arduino. Pretty much anything you can think of has been done, and there's likely a step by step tutorial out there somewhere with component lists. Arduino UNO clones can be had for as little as $3-$4. And the components like LEDs, motors, servos, etc can be had for a tiny fraction of what a lot of the proprietary systems cost. The downside comes when you want to do things like attach a motor to a lead screw, or attach something to a servo. You'll probably end up needing a drill press or an improvised lathe. But, I think compared to the cost of the proprietary systems, you can still come out ahead. And you don't have to worry about breaking something or dedicating a motor or controller to a project because they can be replaced cheaply. ------ jacquesm Plywood, jigsaw, pololu, some servos and your regular computer or laptop or a rasberry pi. Add sensors to taste, stir. ~~~ decafb And don't forget regular cardboard. One can do surprisingly much with that. ------ 52-6F-62 I’m not sure if this is very helpful, but I know here in Toronto you can use 3D printers and borrow Arduinos and other parts for free from certain locations of the Toronto Public Library (or virtually free? Haven’t done it yet). Maybe something like that exists where you are and you can create your own? There are a lot of projects online with schematics and even step by step instructions. Not an exact alternative or anything, but might fulfill similar requirements in learning. ~~~ hugs Arduino and 3D printers to make Lego Mindstorms/Technic-compatible parts is what I do. (I call my parts "Bitbeam".) I used to use Lego to prototype the robots and machines I make. Now I design my own "Lego" with OpenSCAD and program the bots with AVR microcontrollers. Have been doing this for 7-ish years. However, Lego Mindstorms is still a great (although expensive) system for learning. ~~~ dunham Can consumer 3D printers pull off decent lego compatible parts? I'm fascinated by the idea of 3D printers, but I don't really have a good use-case to justify getting one. (And I've been waiting for them to come down in price.) I ended up getting my five year old the Lego "Boost" set - I wanted some motors &c that were accessible to him. He's had fun putting together the projects, and playing with the scratch programming. It is tied to their app, but I see that someone has python libraries to talk to it, so I have options if the app goes away. ~~~ hugs Nothing can truly match Lego's perfectly tuned injection molding process, however 3D printing can be good enough for many things. ------ rb808 Not sure if its an alternative, but Lego Boost is awesome and not well known yet. [https://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Boost](https://shop.lego.com/en- US/LEGO-Boost). I'm not sure if its supposed to replace Mindstorms or is an alternative track for ipad driven robots. ------ clan I have found the Makeblock mBots both at a reasonable price and a lot of fun. Not quite as versatile as Lego but in the same ballpark. [https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot](https://www.makeblock.com/steam- kits/mbot) ~~~ ianbicking I've gotten (and extended) the ranger kit this summer: [https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot- ranger](https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot-ranger) I've been generally happy with the price and hardware, but I've grown to really hate Arduino. Makeblock publishes a bunch of code, but it's highly redundant and poorly organized, and I find myself constantly using the slightly wrong version of different pieces of code. But IF I ever figure this stuff out, I'm slightly hopeful about controlling the Makeblock hardware from RaspberryPi. The basic approach is to have the RPI connected to the Arduino board via a serial connection (this has also difficult to setup, but sometimes I can do serial over the USB), and then there's just a very simple protocol that runs. Once this is actually working properly, there's a fairly small Python library to do the talking, and you get the benefit of the RPI environment (logins, wifi, camera access, etc), but with the hardware of the Makeblock unit (on- board sensors, no direct GPIO handling or contention, and pluggable sensors and motors). But getting there... ugh, it's been really challenging and I only got hints of it really working so far. ------ ForHackernews [http://www.finchrobot.com/](http://www.finchrobot.com/) is a fun little programmable bot for kids. ------ raphman If you are happy with Arduino or MicroPython, the M5Stack [1] blocks and ecosystem are pretty nice (and Lego-compatible). It is basically an ESP32 microcontroller with a display, speaker, sensors, and connectors in a 5x5x2 cm case. Documentation and build quality are not yet perfect but good enough for most applications. [1] [http://www.m5stack.com/](http://www.m5stack.com/) ------ delineator We're playing with a Raspberry Pi 3 b+ together with the CamJam EduKit 3 – Robotics: [https://camjam.me/?page_id=1035](https://camjam.me/?page_id=1035) Bought a small bluetooth speaker so our robot can make some noise, possibly with Sonic Pi as the sound engine: [http://sonic-pi.net](http://sonic-pi.net) ------ glup 1) Buy a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino 2) Pick a project: telepresence robot, autonomous robot, sous vide machine, thermal camera trigger, etc. 3) Buy minimal pieces for that project: AdaFruit, SparkFun, or various OEM pieces from Amazon, Ali Express, etc. (higher cost = more documentation and fewer lemons) 4) Goto 2) ------ linkpuff A good alternative for FUN programming projects would be [http://www.meccano.com/meccanoid- programming](http://www.meccano.com/meccanoid-programming) It is drag and drop. It may be not as good as raspberry pi or arduino but it is at least easier ~~~ Secded In fact I worked with this before. Its simple but enough to learn alot. ------ beefman Jimu is very nicely done. Only product I know of in this segment that ships with servo motors [https://ubtrobot.com/collections/jimu- robots](https://ubtrobot.com/collections/jimu-robots) ------ DC-3 Potentially look into VEX? It's not cheap, but it's good fun. ~~~ baylessj VEX has announced a new micro and accompanying electronics - which should hopefully mean that their current Cortex system will become cheaper secondhand. Lots of benefits to the new micro but for hobby use their Cortex is sufficient. Also a lot of good programming options available with this system - the same ROBOTC for C-like programming/graphical as is used with LEGO Mindstorms, but also Python ([https://www.robotmesh.com/studio- editions](https://www.robotmesh.com/studio-editions)) and actual C ([https://pros.cs.purdue.edu/](https://pros.cs.purdue.edu/)) ~~~ tostitos1979 Last I looked at Vex, I seem to recall being surprised that the software was not free. Was a non-starter for me as a hobbyist. ~~~ baylessj The RobotMesh python software listed above is free for individual use, and the PROS C/C++ option is completely free and open-source. ------ bromagosa microblocks.fun is still in Alpha, but check it out nevertheless! It works on lots of 32 bit microcontrollers. It's been tested on the micro:bit, circuit playground express, calliope and several Arduinos. ------ emptysea If you are looking to explore programming, there is a great python library for interacting with the LEGO Mindstorm. Possibly a stepping stone into more programming intensive projects. ------ DonHopkins One of the coolest ways to learn programming I've ever seen is the Snap! visual programming language, which is written in JavaScript and runs in the browser. [https://snap.berkeley.edu](https://snap.berkeley.edu) It's the culmination of years of work by Brian Harvey and Jens Mönig and other Smalltalk and education experts. It benefits from their experience and expert understanding about constructionist education, Smalltalk, Scratch, E-Toys, Lisp, Logo, Star Logo, and many other excellent systems. Snap! takes the best ideas, then freshly and coherently synthesizes them into a visual programming language that kids can use, but is also satisfying to professional programmers, with all the power of Scheme (lexical closures, special forms, macros, continuations, user defined functions and control structures), but deeply integrating and leveraging the web browser and the internet (JavaScript primitives, everything is a first class object, dynamically loaded extensions, etc). Y Combinator demo: [https://i.imgur.com/cOq8tvR.png](https://i.imgur.com/cOq8tvR.png) [https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Usern...](https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Username=jens&ProjectName=y%20combinator) Here's an excellent mind-blowing example by Ken Kahn of what's possible: teaching kids AI programming by integrating Snap! with existing JavaScript libraries and cloud services like AI, machine learning, speech synthesis and recognition, Arduino programming, etc: AI extensions of Snap! for the eCraft2Learn project [https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/](https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/) >The eCraft2Learn project is developing a set of extensions to the Snap! programming language to enable children (and non-expert programmers) to build AI programs. You can use all the AI blocks after importing this file into Snap! or Snap4Arduino. Or you can see examples of using these blocks inside this Snap! project. [https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai](https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai) [http://lntrg.education.ox.ac.uk/presentation-of-ai-cloud- ser...](http://lntrg.education.ox.ac.uk/presentation-of-ai-cloud-services- integrated-with-snap-at-the-connective-ubiquitous-technology-for-embodiments- center-of-the-national-university-of-singapore-and-keio-university- on-16-march-2017-by-k/) Use devices with Snap!: Orbotix Sphero guide by Connor Hudson and Dan Garcia: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wR53OTnofRtTtxZCmxnCUjI...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wR53OTnofRtTtxZCmxnCUjIlFQjnGewM21A0vmjtFw/edit?usp=sharing) Lego NXT package by Connor Hudson: [https://github.com/technoboy10/snap-nxt](https://github.com/technoboy10/snap- nxt) Nintendo Wiimote package by Connor Hudson: [https://github.com/technoboy10/wiisnap](https://github.com/technoboy10/wiisnap) Finch and Hummingbird robots package by Tom Lauwers: [https://www.hummingbirdkit.com/learning/snap- programming/](https://www.hummingbirdkit.com/learning/snap-programming/) Parallax S2 robot package by Connor Hudson: [https://github.com/blockext/s2](https://github.com/blockext/s2) LEAP Motion by Connor Hudson: [https://github.com/technoboy10/snapmotion](https://github.com/technoboy10/snapmotion) Speech synthesis by Connor Hudson: [https://github.com/technoboy10/snap2speech](https://github.com/technoboy10/snap2speech) Arduino package by Alan Yorinks: [https://github.com/MrYsLab/s2a_fm](https://github.com/MrYsLab/s2a_fm) Arduino package by Bernat Romagosa/Citilab: [http://snap4arduino.rocks/](http://snap4arduino.rocks/) Fischertechnik ROBOTICS TXT Controller by Richard Kunze: [https://github.com/rkunze/ft-robo-snap](https://github.com/rkunze/ft-robo- snap) Snap! for Raspberry Pi by rasplay.org: [http://downloads.rasplay.org/pisnap/](http://downloads.rasplay.org/pisnap/) More Snap! extensions for CS education: snap-apps.org provides Edgy for graphs, Cellular for multi-agent simulation, and more. [http://snap-apps.org/](http://snap-apps.org/) [http://www.snap-apps.org/edgy.html](http://www.snap-apps.org/edgy.html) [http://www.flipt.org/#cellular](http://www.flipt.org/#cellular) Netsblox for multiplayer networking. [https://netsblox.org/](https://netsblox.org/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scientists: syntax highlighting doesn't support software developers enough - Jexia https://medium.com/jexia/requirements-mislead-and-undermine-good-design-e065ab5cae80 ====== CarolineW So I got this message: Medium follows DNT but we track to personalize your experience and send data to select third-parties to make our features work. That's a novel interpretation of DNT. Not sure I ever want to visit "medium" again. Actually, pretty sure I _don 't_ want to visit again.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ugly Software (like Blackboard) Gives Education a Bad Name - ashamedlion http://www.smartlyedu.com/blog/posts/19-ugly-software-gives-education-a-bad-name ====== netcan If something is repeatedly happening (restaurants have bad sites, enterprise software is crap, education software is ugly..), it might be worth digging a little deeper and understanding why. If something is perplexingly broken, there is slightly harder to find reason why. That's why it's perplexing. Very often people seem at grasp at a hand wavy, superficial explanation. For example, a few days ago there was a thread on restaurant sites. A lot of comenters seemed to conclude that this is because service providers to this market suck. While that's almost axiomatically true, it should just trigger another why. If you are off to fix the restaurant site problem, you need to answer the second why. Conclude that service providers suck stopping there will lead you try fix the problem be starting a web site design business for restaurants that doesn't suck. But restaurants didn't just magically all end up with bad service providers. Surely some good ones tried and either failed or started to suck. There was a reason. Same here. The "horrible mentality" of schools is s symptom, not a root cause. ~~~ cubicle67 From what I've seen, Blackboard (the company) spends a lot of effort suing competitors to kept them out of the market. They have a bucket load of patents they're quite happy to wield in order to protect their turf ~~~ mahmud More than patents, what keeps potential competition from attacking the problem is people telling them blackboard will sue them. This is a horrible meme. No other company that I know of has its potential competitors talked out of the business by this gossip of fear. Hint: not everyone is operating in the U.S. ~~~ DeusExMachina Can they still sue a company that is based outside of the USA? I always wondered this, but never found an answer. Europe, for example, does not have software patents, but I think that is more complicated than this. ~~~ mahmud Groupon, can't get groupon.com.au because an Australian guy registered the domain and trademark. Not only can you compete with Blackboard, but if you registered blackboard.com.foo and sold competing software, they would have no recourse in certain jurisdictions. ------ bhickey Sungard is another offender in this sphere. Huge company, crappy software (the Sony Root-kit) and incompetent, litigious management. When I was an undergrad I found a CSRF vulnerability in their product Banner. I tried contacting SungardHE on my own, but couldn't contact a human being, so I brought it to the attention of the IT dept at my university. They asked me to prepare a demo against their dev server. After seeing the demo, IT brought this to the attention of Sungard. A day or two later, someone at Sungard called the school's general counsel and demanded that they bring charges against me for some ambiguously defined computer crime. A professor I was working for went to bat for me and smoothed things over. We reached an agreement where I wouldn't disclose until they had distributed a patch and they would acknowledge me for the fix. They reneged on their end of the deal, so I released to Bugtraq. I'm all for someone eating their lunch. ------ cubicle67 Ugly[0] companies (like Blackboard) give software a bad name [0] I'm referring not just to the software they produce, but the arrogant mentality and litigious nature of the company as a whole ------ seabee Not sure how true that really is in Blackboard's market, given their use of software patents to attack competition. As far as getting good software into education, you're fighting both your competition and the establishment. Not an enviable position. Most of my experiences with how UK schools procure their IT equipment and software have reminded me of 'enterprisey' corporations and the disconnect between purchasers and buyers. (At least their excuse is they have neither enough time or money to do a good job.) ~~~ kolektiv I feel a similar way. My other half is a teacher, and every time I've looked at the software systems she uses (in the UK) I'm appalled. I've identified a few software tools which would make teachers lives much better and easier, based on problems she actually has. Are they hard to build? Not that hard. Could I get them in to schools? Not a chance. Approved bidders, closed lists, hugely expensive bidding processes, it's calculated to keep the market sewn up by the education IT vendors (usual suspects, Capita, Fujitsu, etc.) At a time when the UK is looking to save money, the state of school software provisioning is shameful on multiple levels. ~~~ chesspro Also we have to keep in mind sometimes incompetent IT people are in charge. We had a grad who came back and designed a software for the entire school (potentially district) to use. Although it's in place, it's been severely restricted due to irrational concerns over security and other illogical arguments. In order for the buying to even occur (keep in mind this was free for the school), there must be knowledgeable IT people in charge. This is a much smaller scale here since it was for a high school instead of a college, but you'd be surprised at how incompetent people can be. Right now in the IT people I work under at the university are smart, but lightyears behind when it comes to good user interfaces and the latest technologies. ~~~ sskates This seems to be why people don't go into educational software. Educational software doesn't win because it's the best, it wins because a bureaucrat mandates it for use. ~~~ bphogan I am in education during the day and we write software for our campus using cutting edge tools and technology, but only for "non administrative" things. It was decided well above my pay grade that grade checking, admissions, financial aid, registration, and online courses would use Oracle, PeopleSoft and Desire2Learn. Your assessment is 100% accurate. ------ patricklynch I recently graduated from undergrad. While I was there, my alma mater switched from Blackboard to Moodle. A few of the 'bleeding edge' professors started experimenting with Moodle's features, but most used it exactly the same as Blackboard (post the syllabus, post weekly assignments if they weren't already on the syllabus). Moodle was prettier. That's all most of the student's noticed. I'm reminded of the chapter in ReWork 'Tools Don't Matter'. With either system, the great teachers were still insightful, engaging, and likable. Two years of Moodle didn't change that. ------ jbellis There's a strong team behind a new competitor to Blackbord, <http://www.instructure.com/>. Decent article about them: <http://mfeldstein.com/instructure-canvas-a-new- lms-entrant/> ~~~ littleidea Like Jonathan said, Instructure is making a run at solving this. The CEO founded Mozy. Team is solid. Free for teachers. ------ protomyth Moodle seems to do the basic job if you don't want to deal with Blackboard. ~~~ veb Moodle is horrid! I can _never_ find _anything_ on it. Blackboard works at least! ------ ggordan There was a question recently posted (by me - hope it's not a problem I'm bringing it up again): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2011805> which gives a lot of insight into the issue. I'm currently a student and my university uses BlackBoard. The software is simply awful. Every professor chooses a different ugly template for their own course, so there is no consistency. In my university, the more able professors have started making their own websites to put up lecture notes, tutorials and grades. Even the new updates are just a skin of their poorly designed product. No new functionality is added(or even improved), but instead it's just a 'prettier version' of the older system. And the amounts they charge universities for such tools is crazy. But as someone already mentioned, they have a monopoly in the education sector, and they make it really difficult for universities to switch to an alternative tool [1]. [1] <http://www.dowling.edu/mydowling/tech/bbdocs/bb-exp.html> ------ thesethings An HNer, kylemathews, has a nice Drupal-based package, eduglu (<http://eduglu.com/>). It's both an opensource project and start-up. Having followed him on Twitter for a while now, I know his interest and passion for improving/hacking education long precedes his financial interest in it. Really rooting for his project and anything else that moves the edu situation forward. ------ wedesoft Universities should stop using Blackboard. They tried to use a software patent to prevent competitors from implementing "roles" (otherwise known as user groups). Eben Moglen even gave a keynote on this: [https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF06/Keynote+-...](https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF06/Keynote+--+Eben+Moglen) The keynote was followed by an open discussion with Blackboard's lawyer: [https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF06/Lunchtime...](https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF06/Lunchtime+Discussion+with+Eben+Moglen+and+Matthew+Small) As Eben Moglen put it: "Preventing people from learning how things work is the opposite of education." ------ forkrulassail Having only Blackboard as a delivery mechanism in South Africa (TUT) was really detrimental. Everything is a service call or a call out. I eventually (after 2 semesters) just used my own Moodle setups. ------ mbregman Most faculty just want a simple place to put course documents and announcements and Blackboard (and Moodle for that matter) are just overkill for most of them. The main reason it seems is that they're purchased by committees who make decisions by checking off boxes on a large feature list, where it doesn't seem to matter if anyone actually uses those features. You can tell how bad it's gotten since many faculty are already doing their own thing, i.e. using Google groups, pbwiki or making their own simple websites. Due to my frustration using WebCT for classes I TA'd as a graduate student, I recently partnered with another student to build a simple alternative in Django. Check it out at <http://thiscourse.com> It's designed to provide access to the crucial features as quickly as possible. We're always interested in getting feedback and have had a few classes use it successfully so far. ------ tzs I have just visited the Blackboard web site. After following many links and viewing about 20 pages there, I have no idea what it actually does, what is required to run it, and what it costs. I don't understand why companies make such useless web sites. ~~~ freiheit Because their products are in the dark ages. And semi-monopolistic. The requirements are incomprehensible, the pricing is highly variable. The combination of needless complexity and high cost means the easiest way to find this stuff out is having a team of sales reps fly out to confuse you further. One of the Bb products we use (transact/envision/cash registers), they basically ship you the server with the software, and updates are handled by their techs. We actually resorted to disk-to-disk type cloning of that server to give ourselves a backout plan for when their engineers break stuff. ------ stopbits The more cognitive energy students spend on figuring out how to use systems stops them from focusing the course content. The bigger barrier to participation the less participation there will be. Course management systems like blackboard, desire2learn, etc are rarely if evaluated on user-centered principals of design and usability. Decisions are made based on business factors like cost, licensing, etc. Features are only evaluated in an abstract sense. I guess it is this way with many large organizations. ------ mcarrano As a student still in college, I cannot stand blackboard. I cringe every time I need to use it because it is ugly, slow, confusing and often does not work correctly. Most professors prefer not to use it but are forced to by the College since they are paying for BB services. I personally feel the education sector is a wide open game, create something that will increase learning potential and bring more value to a students degree and you will have success. ------ choikwa Horrible software, us UofToronto students have to use this despite having had our own univ server CCNet in the past that worked flawlessly and blazingly fast. ~~~ omaranto I agree partially: Blackboard is much much worse than CCNet, but CCNet wasn't all that great either. ------ michaelty Anybody remember Peoplesoft? Ugh... ~~~ natep I thought I was done with Peoplesoft after I graduated (it was many times worse than the downloadable software that came before it, and that looked over a decade old), but now my work uses it for some things :( <blink>Processing...</blink> ~~~ meatmanek I'm pretty sure it's not <blink>, as Chrome doesn't respond to <blink> anymore. That means they _re-implemented it in Javascript_ ~~~ dzuc <http://plugins.jquery.com/project/blink> you know... just in case ;) ------ X-Istence My school used eCollege a Blackboard competitor. Let me tell you, it is just as bad. ------ Apocryphon Are we talking about Blackboard, the company founded by Cal students? ~~~ natep Don't think so. None of the founders of the two original companies that merged to form blackboard.com list Cal in their background. 2 from Cornell and 2 from American University Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc>. Founders: * Cornell 1. <http://www.linkedin.com/in/dcane> * Cornell 2: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Gilfus> * American 1: <http://www.linkedin.com/in/chasen> * American 2: [http://investor.blackboard.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=177018&dc...](http://investor.blackboard.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=177018&dc=177018&p=irol-govBio&ID=117636) ------ paxswill Blackboard (the webapp) itself isn't that bad, and the iPad app is really nice. It's just any site that tells you that you just failed a quiz is bad by association. ~~~ meatmanek _Blackboard (the webapp) itself isn't that bad_ I can name a few problems with Blackboard (the webapp). I've seen both sides of it; I've suffered through 7 semesters with BB as a student, and 2 as a teaching assistant. It uses frames. When you open a link in a new tab, you get the bare page without the top/left nav bars. Really? They couldn't even use a little 1998 Javascript to get the page to reload inside the frameset? Too many modules are enabled by default, which causes confusion when profs use things differently. Does the syllabus go in "Course Information" or "Course Documents"? Or, since it contains the prof's email, "Staff Information"? Do homework assignments go under "Assignments" or "Course Documents"? There are two ways to upload files. One is convenient for both students and teachers, one is not. Guess which one is more obvious? The nonintuitive one, Digital Dropbox, is buried two pages deep. It has two choices: "Add File" and "Send File". If you add a file, but don't send it, the teacher never sees it. From the teacher's end, Digital Dropbox renames files, for your convenience. Yes, BB, thanks so much for renaming my students' Java files so that I can't compile them. Also, for your convenience, any .html files that are uploaded get their extension changed to _.rtf_ , prompting more shell scripts just to de-BlackBoard your students' files. The better upload option is for teachers to allow submissions in the Assignments tab. This makes _way_ more sense, since you can view and complete the assignment all on one page. To enable this, the teacher has to select an assignment type of "Assignment", instead of the default "Content Unit". As a TA, I only knew this existed because one semester, one of my profs used this. (Once, out of all the classes I took that had digital submission.) The grading page is _horrible_. It has a table for the grades, like you would expect, with one column per assignment, and one row per student. If you have more than 5ish assignments or 15 students, it overflows the page. This would be fine, except the table doesn't respond to the scroll wheel. It has a scrollbar on the right, and a scrollbar on the bottom, and watches their position with Javascript. When you scroll one of these, the table contents are updated to reflect that position of the table. This makes scrolling awkward every time - the screen flashes a bit, and you have no idea how many columns Blackboard decided you wanted to scroll until you look at the header row. Oh, and every time you resize the page, the table is reset to the top-left. TL;DR These people need some serious UX help, fast. ~~~ kd0amg _The better upload option is for teachers to allow submissions in the Assignments tab._ Is there a way to quickly download all submissions for an assignment at once? So far, I've been stuck with going into each submission's sub-page and clicking the download link. _The grading page is horrible. …_ Also, columns you tell it not to use in grade calculation may simply not appear anywhere. ------ solipsist In my school district, we have been using Blackboard Learn for as long as I can remember. According to Wikpedia, it's the " _next generation learning management system_ ". In essence, it provides a way for teachers to interact with students, as well as for students to interact among themselves. Posting grades, class announcements, and homework assignments are only a few of the things teachers can do through the site. Students can view all of this information, as well as form groups, run blogs, use calendars, and create discussion boards. My point is that Blackboard is not a piece of ugly software. It is fully functional and has a nice and intuitive design to it. The article says that: Badly designed software with poor usability goes hand in hand with general appeal However, this software is not badly designed as it does what it is supposed to do (and more), and the usability is perfectly fine. Ironically, our district has switched to another piece of software to replace Blackboard's, but only because of the teacher's belief that it offered too many features. I think that the author of this post should rethink Blackboard. ~~~ RodgerTheGreat My experiences with Blackboard paint a far less flattering picture. An "intuitive" interface is entirely subjective, but I've hardly ever tried to do something new without wandering through confusing, cryptic and downright _hidden_ menus for half an hour. Computed columns in the gradebook are crippled for no reason (formulas cannot be nested) and use an obscene[1] "keyboardless" entry form with pointless user-side validation. If you ever want to give yourself a migraine, crack open the source to any nontrivial page and try to tease apart the miles of needlessly complicated and frequently broken Javascript. Granted, my university does not use the latest-and-greatest version (yet) of Blackboard Learn, but for someone with your history of using the application these should not be totally alien points. [1]<http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/9500/whygodwhyl.png>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Remote Year: Travel with interesting people while working remotely - pdappollonio http://www.remoteyear.com/ ====== WestCoastJustin Looks like the classic MVP page to _test_ if this is a good idea. Seems interesting, but can you imagine the headaches of looking after 100 people, in 18 locations across the globe, in one year?! Coordinating jobs, visas, accommodation, people leaving, getting fired, personal issues, flights, buses, etc. I have taken coordinated trips with 90+ people on the same plain to remote destinations, and it takes _months_ of planning for a single stop. You would need full time handlers. ps. don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but you are likely going to burn these people out with tons of logistic issues. ~~~ gdcaplan We are going to have 5 full time staff to handle all of those details. ~~~ bonestamp2 Very cool. How are you handling work Visas? For example, when I moved to the US I kept my job back home but I still need a work visa. ~~~ 31reasons You are a tourist working remotely for some company in other country, do you need work visa in that case ? ~~~ Swizec I am a tourist working remotely for my own company while in the US. _Technically_ you need a visa. _Practically_ as long as invoices are coming from your own country and the money is going to your own country, nobody will care (or even notice). Unless of course you make posts like this one in a public forum under a name everyone knows you under. But I am counting on inefficiencies and the good will of fellow hackernewsers. (you'd need to actively get reported for anything to happen) PS: having an actual tourist/business visitor's visa rather than just the visa waiver (esta) makes things easier and border crossings go much smoother ------ briggers Pretty interesting. This is what I've been doing for the last 12 months throughout Europe, but with a new location every 1-2 months. At first the organisational details were the frustrating part, but after almost 12 months and 8 cities the lack of longer term friendships is more of a problem. In regards to "the headaches of looking after 100 people", surely that's something that can be addressed by limiting the scope of services provided? I think handling 1) accommodation and 2) work would be more than sufficient for most responsible people. ~~~ detroitcoder What are your thoughts on this? \- Remote Working Groups (3 - 10 people) \- New city every month \- Rent entire home via AirBNB \- Keep per person avg monthly rent below 1000 USD ~~~ nchuhoai Please tell me you are planning something like this? ~~~ detroitcoder It sounds cool doesn't it? I haven't thought about it before this thread but it sounds pretty easy to put together. ~~~ nchuhoai Well if you end up doing it, please email me ------ chippy It sounds like a coworking (coworkation?) round the world holiday. Can participants work on other things or are they tied to those jobs that the organisers assign them, I wonder... ------ sushimako The wording on the page suggests that you get to live the nomad lifestyle while still maintaining your comfort-zone. I strongly believe that exactly the opposite makes this kind of lifestyle so interesting and worthwhile (i.e. being pushed out of your comfort zone on a regular basis). I understand that it may sound very compelling to many and I absolutely don't want to advocate against their "product"; just think about what you want. "traveling without any of the risks" also takes away _much_ of the fun, adventures and personal growth you'd experience on your individual, non risk- free journey. ------ nchuhoai I just started to work remotely and I agree that the solitude is easily the worst thing about it. You have to make an extra effort to go out and establish relationships, but even then, if you move around a lot, long-term it is going to be tough. I think having a group or network of similar minded people would greatly help. I have actually thought about this a lot, what if there is a network of airbnbs/hostels around the world which a group of remote workers agree upon to be more concentrated? I think co-working spaces do much of it right now, but it can always be improved upon. ~~~ detroitcoder I have started to experiment with this over the last month. Staying at room shares on airbnb, working in coffee shops/co-working spaces during the day and then meetups at night to network. Doing this with a group would lower costs and keep a sense of familiarity. Do you think a less formal concept of this would work? ~~~ nchuhoai I think something more focused would be better. The biggest problem for me is not to meet people, but to establish long-term relationships, and that is hard if you are not around them a) frequently and b) long-term. I do think that something like OP would be too formal, as it doesn't give you the flexibility to deviate, which is why I think a more liquid network of at the start just several locations would work. Btw, I liked your approach above very much, if you have a majority of the group do that (allowing individuals to divert), this could totally work ------ startupfounder Nice job! You got a nice simple idea, created a quick gmail account, built a quick SquareSpace landing page with collection form and now you are on the front page of Hacker News collecting some good data. This my friends is quick and dirty and it works, if you can hack this idea and get it onto the front page of NH in 30 minutes you will make this happen. ~~~ flysteps Yeah, they didn't even change some of the default squarespace photos. ------ tylermac1 Are the travel costs footed by the remote worker? I'm trying to understand how Remote Year would make money off of this. Kind of like a programmer/recruiter/travel agent all in one? ~~~ gdcaplan The remote workers all have their own jobs that Remote Year can help them find. They then pay a fixed amount per month to Remote Year, which includes housing, travel, activities, programming and some meals. ~~~ morganvachon Would you be willing to add this information to your site? You might find more people willing to sign up if they are better informed. See my above (wrong) conjecture as an example of how little can be extrapolated from what you have on display. ------ Aardwolf There is some missing information on the page I think, such as, what do you get paid, and who pays for accomodation, and, what are the 18 locations? ~~~ rco8786 They made it pretty clear that they aren't paying you for your work, but have some help available for securing remote jobs. So I imagine the pay has everything to do with you and your experience. Anyways, the page seems like a marketing test anyway, just to see if there is any interest. ------ scrollaway Ok, as a remote worker this sounds super cool and all but I am going to have a minor complaint which has nothing to do with the feature at hand. "[email protected]" Really? You have a domain name, couldn't set up "[email protected]"? Even though I'm sure nothing was meant by that, it makes the whole thing sound incredibly unprofessional and simply detracts from the offer. ~~~ morganvachon This could explain it, it looks like their choice for hosting doesn't provide email: [https://www.squarespace.com/pricing/](https://www.squarespace.com/pricing/) Still, they could opt for Google's business email so they could use Gmail's backend with @remoteyear.com addresses.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What does HN think of the show Shark Tank? - lennysan http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/ ====== BrandonWatson I like seeing what projects on which people are working, but the investors are ridiculous. There's no amount of diligence presented, they never justify the valuations they pull out of the air, they always seem to want to own 51%, and they act like they are the only way that one of the entrepreneurs is going to make it. It feels almost predatory on the poor entrepreneurs they bring in front of the panel. Of course, I have it on my DVR and can't not watch it. Someone said it was like a car wreck - more like a blimp accident. ------ jack7890 It's a ridiculous caricature of what investor-entrepreneur relations are like. I find the show vaguely nauseating. But even if you enjoy watching, realize that it's an entertainment gimmick, nothing more. I doubt many of the "deals" are ever transacted. ~~~ kyro Yeah, I get it's injected with lots of drama. It's a TV show, so that should be expected really. I doubt an hour of real-world entrepreneur/VC pitching/negotiations would appeal to the masses, other than us, of course. However, I really do like the show. I'm a fan of the British version - Dragon's Den. Yeah, the stacks of money on the tables are a bit much, but I actually find a lot of the ideas being pitched quite interesting, as well as the questions the VCs do ask. They seem to be pretty quick to shoot down stupid ideas, and do try to find flaws, so although it is a dramatization, I don't think it's a gross misrepresentation of how any VC would view a particular idea. ~~~ johns I agree. I'm glad they don't hesitate to let people know they're on the wrong track. On one episode, they mentioned that these people have probably never had anyone among their friends and family tell them its a bad idea. For a lot of these ideas, these people really needed a reality check. ------ delano Dragon's Den is a much better show. You can watch the Canadian version online (which also features Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec): <http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/> ~~~ fnid I'm glad to see others have seen Dragon's Den. There's also the BBC version. There are lots of clips and episodes on Google Video: [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=dragons+den+series+1&#...</a><p>Shark's Tank falls short because it doesn't have the same kind of dialog as either the BBC or CBC dragon's den. The depth of analysis the dragons go into is great and can really help entrepreneurs understand how to get into a good business.<p>There was a CBC episode or two where some software products were shown and one of the dragons had a background in software and he loved the idea just for being software. I don't remember anything special about the particular product, but 100% margins were the topic of conversation. ------ alex_c I think "Dragon's Den" is a better name. (the Canadian version) I think it can be a great deal because you get to broadcast your pitch on primetime TV for free - I probably wouldn't go on it for the money, though. ~~~ johns It's not free. ABC has an option to take 2% of your company, even if you don't strike an investment deal. ~~~ philwelch By pg's equity equation, airing your pitch on national television would have to increase your valuation by marginally over 2% (2.04% or so) to make that deal worth it. I'd take it. ------ p01nd3xt3r Its a good show. Its funny to see people with really odd ideas like the "Ionic Ear". It also made me realize how good a deal YC is. ------ hristov Well I guess abc does not care what I think because they have decided not to allow Linux users to download episodes. ~~~ amalcon It's also on Hulu. Linux flash support is pretty bad, but at least it's available. ------ markbao Complete and utter shit. Entertaining, but it smears both entrepreneurs and VCs/angels, with insulting offers and dramatized acting. Dragon's Den isn't much better, either. It just has worse startups. ------ tjr Based on the one-ish episode I've seen... there are some interesting bits, but also a lot of absurdity. Both the valuations proposed by the business owners and the ownership-percentages proposed by the "sharks" seem surprisingly high. I suspect a lot of these deals could go quite a bit better on an order of magnitude lower scale. ------ pmorici It's on Hulu, [http://www.hulu.com/watch/88498/shark-tank-series- premiere#s...](http://www.hulu.com/watch/88498/shark-tank-series- premiere#s-p1-so-i0) ------ joez I get a kick out of refreshing ideas but it feels like a horse kicked me when I see these people who have no idea of what their underlying expenses and scale are like. ------ pmorici Seems like all of the offers that are made are for greater than 50% of the business. Doesn't that mean they are basically buying controlling interests? ------ lennysan I'm completely sucked into this show, but I have an uneasy feeling about putting young entrepreneur in front of extremely experienced VC's.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An Exercise in Species Barcoding - rayvega http://norvig.com/ibol.html ====== ced _Aside: Dawkins's Information Challenge_ Yikes, I'm wary of contradicting Norvig, but using Lempel-Ziv (or any traditional compression algo) is a terrible idea. By that measure, a string of random bits would have much higher information content than a human genome of the same length (re: SINEs and LINEs) The "amount of information in the genome" is a fundamentally bad concept. There isn't any inherently useful information in there without the context of the genotype->phenotype conversion. Similar to programming, we could define a "size of the smallest possible DNA sequence that would result in the same animal". That would be interesting to measure. One day, maybe there will be DNA programmers just as there are C++ programmers now. ~~~ gjm11 That "fundamentally bad concept" is unfortunately a popular one with creationists: they claim that mutations always destroy "information" and never create it, or that there's a "law of conservation of information" that says information can't ever be created other than by intelligent agents -- and they are always curiously reluctant to say exactly what they mean by "information". Norvig's little experiment shows (crudely and unreliably, to be sure) that, _with the usual mathematical definition of "information"_ , mutations typically increase information. Of course this is old news, and won't be any use in dealing with creationists because they aren't using the usual mathematical definition of "information" in the first place. Or any particular definition, for that matter. With that definition, there's nothing at all wrong with the fact that a string of 2N random bits contains more "information" than the human genome with N base-pairs. There's redundancy and repetitive (so far as we can tell) junk in the human genome, and that reduces the amount of "information" it contains. A maximally concise version of any substantial body of text, or genome, or software, or whatever, "looks" random almost everywhere according to almost any simple test; because if it didn't, we could use the fact to compress it further. This being HN, I'll add that this is one reason why I am skeptical of Paul Graham's claim that "conciseness is power" in programming languages; a _really_ maximally concise language would also be maximally incomprehensible. ~~~ ced _Norvig's little experiment shows..._ Norvig's experiment doesn't show anything at all. Turning bits at random for _any string at all_ , be it DNA or Shakespeare, will increase the amount of "information" towards the maximum, that is, a completely random string. DNA is code. Imagine that I compressed mygame.cpp and mygame.lisp with LZW and claimed Ah-ha! The C++ version is more complex because it has more bytes! And then I'd change a random character in the code, and claim that the information content has increased. Nonsense! ~~~ gjm11 Not "any string at all". Do it to a maximal-entropy string (e.g., a genuinely random one) and you won't see an increase. You're using "information" in the colloquial sense, where random junk is not information. Norvig is using it in the information-theoretic sense, where random junk has more information than anything else of the same length. The information-theoretic sense is not "nonsense"; it's just not the same as the colloquial one. (Motivation for the terminology: the "information" in a string is the minimal number of bits -- i.e., the minimal amount of information -- it takes you to tell me what the string is.) ------ icey To be honest, I'm not really interested in the subject matter, but the article is worth it for the section "Note: On Java Verbosity" and below (including the comments (so far at least)). ~~~ jwilliams There are probably a dozen easier Java answers to that problem... e.g. Java has a String.split method.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
RFC865 (1983) - brudgers ====== wglb Self link? Did you mean [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc865](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc865)?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Darius Monsef – COLOURlovers – 1 of 2 - dariusmonsef http://www.founderly.com/2011/08/darius-monsef-colourlovers-1-of-2 ====== dariusmonsef Probably odd submission etiquette to submit my own interview... but I did the interview because I wanted to share some of my story with and help other founders... and well, there are a lot of you here. Would love to answer any other questions you might have about founding COLOURlovers, getting into YC, raising $, building a non-profit, etc. ------ tableslice COLOURloves is probably one of my favorite web apps. We used it to create the color palette for our startup. It comes in pretty handy for developers who lack an understanding of color and design, but want to find an easy tool for incorporating colors into their web service to improve the user experience. The other thing we love about COLOURlovers is that we think Darius is kinda crazy (in a very good way) because you have to be somewhat crazy to commit yourself to building a product and company around something as abstract as color. This type of behavior demonstrates both unrequited passion for the product and the ability to envision a world that is improved by enabling people to experience and discover color in a fun and easy way. This type of product development requires both artistic sensibilities and product/engineering sensibilities, which is a rare combination to find in most entrepreneurs. Thanks for sharing your story Bubs! And please keep the hits rolling with COLOURlovers : ) ~~~ dariusmonsef I'm probably a little crazy in a bad way too :) ------ ecaroth Here's a problem I have all the time as both a designer and a developer - When I am first building a project the dev is obviously important, fun to do, and essential to get right to use as the framework for the whole project. BUT the design is the outlet of all your vision, the face of your new baby, and something you think about in your sleep. How did you / do you stop obsessing about getting design perfect and tweaking every detail, and shift focus to development instead. I find myself pounding out dev code for a couple days till a piece is functional, then reworking the design of that feature for a week. How do you manage both, especially when you are working on an early stage and/or solo project? ~~~ alexkearns I am the exact opposite to you. I find the design much more fun and it is what I do first. I will usually pretty much have the design worked out before I start any dev work, which is perhaps a bit odd given that I am a much better coder than designer. ~~~ ecaroth My process usually goes like this: design main page with 20 iterations, code 20% of project, redesign main page, code another 20% of project, redesign main page again and make some additional pages, etc... It's a vicious cycle - though I don't think I am a bad designer by any means I think my designs just always grow stale in the couple days I take off from design to program. ~~~ alexkearns A tip. Don't think too much about the design or the coding. Instead, think about the product you're making. Make it the focus of your imagination and energy. Imagine it complete. Dwell on the people who will be using it. Dream of all the money that will be coming in. I find, at least, that when your focus is on the product and completing it, you get less distracted by redesignitus. You are more willing to put up with minor design issues or slightly imperfect code because your primary goal is not to create an amazing design or do beautiful coding (though both are good) but to release a product. I hope that makes sense! ------ alexkearns Interesting interview. Thanks. I am always interested in companies that make products that allow others to create products (meta products, if you like). My start-up/project - <http://www.tiki-toki.com> \- is in a similar space, allowing people to create timelines. Thus far, I have focused mainly on the actual product, rather than building up the community. But if colourlovers is anything to go by, I should probably start turning my attention to the community. Btw, we recommend to our users that they use colourlovers.com if they want to find a nice colour scheme for their timelines. ~~~ ecaroth Never seen/heard of your product before this thread but MAN is it cool. Just wanted to throw some kudos your way!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The garage rocket revolution - mkr-hn http://bitoflife.mkronline.com/2011/10/10/the-garage-rocket-revolution/ ====== bediger I'm almost with him on this: it looks like the amateur rocket folks are getting performance like von Braun and company were getting in 1939, but they have better electronics. My thought is that any better performance will cause them to start to run afoul of various 3-letter agencies. Any better guidance systems will cause the US government to suppress them fairly quickly, as they'll be intruding on (1) the defence contractor's monopoly on flying fast, and (2) the government monopoly on shooting down flying things. ~~~ mkr-hn A lot of these efforts are getting funding straight from the government or companies that get substantial government funding. I think private and public interests are on the same page for once. ------ smoyer The article is pretty light on details but I can see the analogy being drawn between home-built computers and home-built rockets. Doesn't all technology eventually become commonplace? We lament the state of education, but look at the expanded amount of information that must be learned. What an amazing machine. ~~~ mkr-hn The trajectory of education seems to be that hard subjects become basic as we get better at teaching them. Especially as applications in technology make them easier to understand. A lot of stuff we call basic math today used to be the pinnacle of mathematics. It's a running gag in the various Star Trek series that people learn how to build warp drives (and other very advanced things) in high school. Paraphrasing a time travel episode: "in my time [the future] there's a [technobabble] in every desk."	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Maps - Diffable: only download the deltas - Husafan http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/07/09/diffable-only-download-the-deltas/ ====== olegk Notice how that the chart scale doesn't start with zero. In reality they win maybe 10-15% in speed, but they have all the crap overhead to support and manage. ------ dennisgorelik I think in this case speed/size benefits would NOT worth additional level of complexity that Diffable would introduce. ~~~ dandelany In _which_ case? Google Maps? You're right that in most cases, it's major overkill, but I'd guess there are many applications where it makes a lot of sense. Big sites with many millions daily visitors could save a decent chunk of bandwidth. ~~~ philfreo In Google's case, speed/latency for their users is what they're really trying to optimize. ------ kvs Why not use HTTP Content-Range (along with javascript) to make the latest version cacheable (instead of getting a patch every time)? ~~~ dandelany Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you then have to make a separate HTTP request for each non-contiguous block of modified lines that you request? Also, wouldn't the client have to know in advance which lines were changed in the new version? Maybe I'm misinformed about how Content-Range works. Also, in regards to getting a patch every time, Josh Harrison (one of the creators) responds in a comment on the blog post: You are correct in noticing that the patched version is not cached. However, the v1->v2 patch itself IS cached, meaning that the next time the user visits, if there has not been a new release, then both v1 and the v1->v2 patch are retrieved from cache. Also, we are working on incorporating local storage, which would allow the updated version to be persisted each time it is patched. ------ Asa-Nisse Yeah... most peoples js code-base is more like 3kb. ~~~ dandelany This isn't made for "most peoples" web sites, it's designed specifically for web apps with large Javascript footprints. Of which there are _quite a few_ \- the site I work on has ~200kB-400kB of JS resources. ~~~ chime It is for sites with large JS code, very high volume, and frequent revisions. I wouldn't do this if my site only had 1k logged in users per day or if I changed the code once a month.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Zapd: ‘We built it, they came, but Facebook pulled up the drawbridge’ - vertr http://www.geekwire.com/2011/zapd-day-2-we-built-facebook-pulled-drawbridge ====== TheGreatBundini Kelly, Did you consider that the answer is slightly more nefarious than this, and that Facebook might view Zapd as competition for something it currently has in the works? ------ dendory Building a business on top of Facebook (or Twitter or any other company) brings a lot of benefits, shortcuts to success, but it also makes you 100% dependent on them. Your business isn't totally yours anymore, they have veto on anything you do and can shut down your access for any reason. Anyone who doesn't realize that needs to wake up honestly. If you aren't ready to be Facebook's b..ch then don't build your service on their system. ~~~ yannickmahe Isn't it the same thing for any platform? Once you use a platform, you're at risk from the owners of the platform. Apple's App Store is another example, it seems like your app can be blocked on a whim. ~~~ zaidf Yeah, but on many platforms, you have a negotiated contract that is not one- sided. With facebook, you basically have a generic agreement that hundreds of millions of people click YES to that says they can shut down your account for pretty much any reason. If your merchant account did that or the yellow pages removed your listing for a non-specific reason, you could take them to court. It isn't so much that you _would_ take them to court, but it is the fear that you could which keeps these companies from being more careful. Notice I say "careful"...I don't think facebook and all are necessarily intentionally trying to screw anyone. I doubt they have time or interest really to try and screw people. But that also means they may make business decisions that may have side effects that can impact a bunch of people without warning or notice. ------ gte910h Neat looking product: Basically: You make a quick little website about an ephemeral event from your iPhone or other device. ------ jasonmkey That's what happens when Facebook is the only way to login. Shame on you Zapd. Shame on you. ~~~ curiousoffice Jesus dude have you used the app? Facebook is one way to login. Not the only way. Kelly Smith Founder Zapd ~~~ gfodor Helpful tip: if you're just starting out it's probably not a great idea to post a rude comment on Hacker News in reply to someone who clearly cares enough to post a comment about your product. ~~~ jasonmkey Actually I disagree here. I'm grateful that the founder of all people actually took the time to respond. This show's that they care what their users think. ~~~ curiousoffice I care about people who use the app and then respond with feedback based on actual usage. People who just say "shame on you" without knowing what they are talking about aren't helpful. ~~~ gfodor One thing I've learned is often times when people post a snarky comment like the one you replied to, they think they are talking into the abyss. Replying with some maturity and respect can often unmask the non-snarky person they actually _are_ and make them feel bad when they realize what they said actually was towards a person who exists and is affected by their words. What you did instead was insult them back and now you can be sure they will not have anything nice to say about your company. To do it on a place like Hacker News is quite shortsighted since you never know who you're talking to or who is reading your posts. ~~~ wonderzombie "To do it on a place like Hacker News is quite shortsighted since you never know who you're talking to or who is reading your posts." Erm, shouldn't this go both ways? Like, isn't this equally applicable to posting snarky, uninformed comments in the first place? :) ~~~ khafra It does, but jasonmkey is a new account, presumably with no reputation to protect and no new startup to promote on a website dedicated to startups. Therefore, the most useful advice is that given to someone with something to lose. Whoever was "wrong first" is irrelevant to the outcome desired by curiousoffice.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Did anyone else get an invitation for a Chromebook? - mohsen Just received an email. Did anyone else get an invitation?<p>I didn't find it exciting to have applied for a chrome cr-48 and now just received an invitation to buy a chromebook.<p>What are your thoughts?<p>-m ====== brk I got an invite to purchase a Chromebook for $499 through gilt. Personally, I find the price a bit too high for an iPad-with-a-keyboard. Based on what I've read/seen online, the Chromebook isn't "there" enough yet to justify a $500 investment. Maybe soonish though. ~~~ mtogo It's not an iPad-with-a-keyboard. The iPad is much more powerful; it can actually run client-side apps so you can do things either offline, or without the slow, bloated feel you get from web apps. You can SSH from it with reasonable speed (unlike ajax terminals). You can take a picture and save it locally. The list goes on. It's a polished system that's been around for a while, and it's supported by a company with a history of actually supporting and caring about their products. The chromebook is more of a cut-down web browser with a keyboard that you can't use without having a google account and forfeiting your privacy. ------ joezydeco I'm a little confused (got one too). Did Google sell my contact info to Gilt? ~~~ mohsen you were contract by Google, not Gilt. they simply gave you the option to register with Gilt if you are interested in purchasing the chromebook. ~~~ joezydeco No, they simply gave Gilt a whitelist of email addresses of people wanting a Chromebook. The email I got says right there: _Remember, you must use this email (...) to access the sale_ ------ MatthewPhillips I have a CR-48, I did get the invite. I'm not getting it because they only have the white, I'd prefer the black. I'll wait and get it in Best Buy. ------ broknbottle I got an invite but $499 is a little steep :\ ------ jeffsaracco I did, but I also received a CR-48 ~~~ mohsen so as an owner of a CR-48 would you buy the Chromebook? If no, is it because you already have the CR-48 and therefore don't have the need, or because you didn't like the CR-48 and don't think the Chromebook would be useful? ~~~ megamark16 My wife's netbook is starting to get a bit flaky (power cord issues) and if we decide to retire it permanently to a desk for the kids to watch movies with and buy her a new one I would definitely consider a Chromebook, but only if they get the Netflix plugin I've been hearing about working. My wife does three things with her current Win7 netbook, she reads her email, browses the web, and watches Netflix. I received the invitations you speak of, and I was also one of the pilot CR-48 users. Pretty cool tech overall. ------ kasperset Yes, but still deciding. ------ 0ffw0rlder chromebook for $500 is crazy. you can get a decent used thinkpad off ebay for that much that can run a real os.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots - ertug http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots ====== marcus I'd rather have one of the printers listed as having yellow tracking dots and yank out the color cartridges. Its easier to disable a security measure you know than praying there isn't a security measure you don't know. There is still a chance of a redundancy but I believe it is somewhat lower - as normally companies would do the bare minimum to comply with a directive like this one. ~~~ Silhouette > I'd rather have one of the printers listed as having yellow tracking dots > and yank out the color cartridges. The trouble is that, for one dubious reason or another, a lot of modern laser printers will refuse to print without a complete set of cartridges that report that they contain sufficient toner. Whether the colour in question is actually required and whether enough toner is physically present do not seem to be relevant. ~~~ marcus That is easily solvable - clog/duct-tape the exit nozzle or tamper with the cartridge test (a lot of the substitute cartridges already disable this) ------ Lagged2Death I'd like to see a list of actual crimes solved or prevented through the use of these tracking dots. Because I'm guessing that would be a fast read. ~~~ hugh3 On the other hand, I'd like to see a list of actual privacy violations or other problems caused by these tracking dots. I'm guessing that would also be a fast read. ------ jrockway It's scary that companies feel the obligation to do the government favors without any actual legal mandate. (Because if they don't... who knows; their printer shipment could be delayed at customs, their accounting practices could receive extra scrutiny, there could be a witness that says the CEO was seen at the scene of that murder. Who says the US is not a police state?) Also, why not get one of these yellow-dot printers and just have your printer driver add additional yellow dots to it? Then when you counterfeit money, the Secret Service will go after someone else. BRILLANT. ------ boredguy8 Can someone clarify for me: 1) Why do manufacturers do this? Is it for their own internal warranty control / tracking, or is there a broader federal mandate motivating this? 2) The dots are only useful in after-the-fact analysis, correct? If I print something and then there's reason to suspect me they can print something, compare, and verify, but there's no mechanism to find the initial document and find the printer, correct? ~~~ d2viant It was intended as a tracking mechanism against counterfeit currency. ~~~ motters That's the explanation I've heard given in the past, although I don't know if it's the official one given. The East German Stasi also used to mark typewriters so that they could tell who wrote subversive articles. ------ jkent Does this apply to international printer models as well? I'm actually a bit spooked by this and it must be illegal somewhere. Well done EFF for publicising this. I won't be registering my laser printer any time soon. ------ nnutter Nitpick here, this is a list of color laser printers only. ~~~ seancron As I understand it, only color laser printers have the resolution to print these yellow dots at such a small size. ~~~ nnutter Ah, thank you for explaining that. I had thought I had heard about this in other printers as well. ------ mjcohen If we know where the yellow dots go, just print a yellow rectangle over them. ~~~ Devilboy What if I don't want a yellow rectangle there? ------ ck2 By providing this list, they are making it super easy for the secret service to give the "no dot" manufacturers a call/visit (which is who asked for the dots to be on there in the first place if I am not mistaken). They could always use the lego printer <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1397675> ~~~ gxti If the Secret Service is relying on the EFF to figure out which printers don't have tracking dots then they might as well just give up and go home.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Network visualization: mapping Shakespeare’s tragedies - hunglee2 http://www.martingrandjean.ch/network-visualization-shakespeare/ ====== danso Cool analysis...I think the works of Shakespeare are vastly underused for fun little tests of text mining and visualization, given how accessible (well, in the downloadable/publishing sense, if not the language :) ), ubiquitously taught, and relatively standardized they are, as far as works of literature go. But in terms of the article's visualizations, this seems to me a good example of how network visualizations (note that visualization is different from analysis, which are often conflated) are not especially effective, other than to make people want to think "Oooh that's complicated" whether they derived insight or not. In contrast, I find things like this matrix diagram of Les Miserables, as found in the D3 gallery [1], to be much more straightforward, even before you use the dropdown box to interact with it. It's not as attractive or high of "wow" factor, but its information clarity more than makes up for that IMO. OTOH, one thing that the spaghetti network maps _do_ show is that there's much room for more sophisticated analysis. The OP looks at whether characters appeared in a single scene together. I was about to criticize the uselessness of the Hamlet graph: [http://www.martingrandjean.ch/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/Sha...](http://www.martingrandjean.ch/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/Shakespeare-Network-Hamlet.png) But then I realized...that's what it _should_ look like if you are simply doing scene presence analysis. From my memory, Hamlet _interacts_ with a great many more characters than do Gertrude or Claudius, such as the Ghost and the gravediggers. However, technically, the Ghost and the gravediggers appear in all the same scenes that Gertrude and Claudius do. I think the network graph would look much different if it were based on adjacent dialogue (or some other way to distinguish between co-appearance and actual interaction). It's a little more parsing but it would be more accurate in quantifying the strength of the network ties. [1] [http://bost.ocks.org/mike/miserables/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/miserables/) ------ peter303 Someone should graph the Avengers which seems to ave an abundance of main characters. Shakespera results seem to show on or two protangonists and antagonists each works better.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
New Computer Architectures and their Relationship to Physics (1981) - TriinT http://stochastix.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/new-computer-architectures-and-their-relationship-to-physics-danny-hillis.pdf ====== jacquesm There's an idea for an FPGA project, building a CM or it's closest equivalent. Interesting observations about wires in there.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
4 12seconds.tv invites available - danw Post a comment with an email address if you would like one ====== menloparkbum [email protected] ~~~ danw sent ------ marketer [email protected] ~~~ danw sent	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Gource visualizations rendered without a GPU - jamesbrink https://github.com/jamesbrink/Envisaged ====== jamesbrink This is a project I have been working on after having multiple requests to create Gource videos for various projects. I got tired of murdering my laptop with gource/ffmpeg processes so I set out to get it done on an EC2 instance. There are a handful of Docker containers out there that do gource videos, but they all suffer from two major drawbacks. They are all headless, but all still require a GPU, and secondly they generally like to output raw video eating tons of disk space. My image has a handful of configurable options, if time permits I would love to add more. I do have my videos templated out a bit, I have a border separating the date and key from the actual video. This originates from another script I have which creates quad video output so you can compare 4 git repos at once in the same video. I used some sed hackery and named pipes to keep everything in sync. I hope to be adding this script to the container soon as well. Let me know what you think!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twitter buzzing seconds after earthquake in NYC - petervandijck http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/2011/08/23/4892/twitter-buzzing-about-earthquake-in-nyc ====== sirmxanot I was right near the center of it. Was pretty scary. The building I'm in was shaking. Definitely made my day a bit more interesting.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Version Control for Whiteboards - Minbot Triple Point Robotics specialises in the hardware and software design of robots and robotics technology. Their first product, Synchroboard, is a collaboration and version control solution for whiteboards.<p>See their pitch video at Hey ★ Startup.<p>www.heystartup.com ====== abozi clickable : <http://www.heystartup.com>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
'This has never happened before.' Powerball jackpot swells to $700M - hugenerd http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-powerball-jackpot-675-million-20160107-story.html ====== aliston If the odds are 1 in 292.2 million, doesn't this mean that the expected value is actually positive? If you had 292.2 million bucks, you could guarantee a win. ~~~ stray You could guarantee a win with 175 million or so. You couldn't however guarantee that you'd win more than you spent -- because others could win as well, diluting the pot.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Email Integration Done Right - SteliE http://blog.close.io/post/53528630349/email-integration-done-right ====== gnosis This is an advertisement. ~~~ anemitz This is a comment. Any company blog is boiled down to an advertisement at some level. If your interested in learning about how we _technically_ do a lot of these things scroll to the bottom of the article and checkout the technical companion post. This post is merely gives context of what/why. [http://hack.close.io/posts/building_better_email_integration...](http://hack.close.io/posts/building_better_email_integrations_pt_1) gives you the how. EDIT: I don't know where I got my internet license. Wrong link now fixed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Four tests for if you have a good startup idea - atularora http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2011/05/four-tests-for-if-you-have-a-good-startup-idea.html ====== ddodge This is basic stuff for anyone here. I'm sure you get asked for startup advice all the time. Here is something you can send to people who ask you for help. It will get them started thinking...and come back with more focused questions. ------ NY_USA_Hacker Mostly nonsense. Dodge is wallowing in waste, and from that 'context' what he is saying sounds okay. But the truth is different: First, the most important thing to have in business is good luck. Since we can do little or nothing to control that, let's set it aside in favor of things we can control. Second is the 'idea'. If lots of other people can have the idea and execute it, then the business promises to have too much competition. Indeed, there may be established competitors now difficult to start against. So, setting luck aside, the 'idea' has to be one very few people can understand and execute. So, entrepreneur Joe has such an idea. Then Joe is about one in one million. Now how will Joe do on Dodge's points? Will Joe be able to get others 'excited' about his idea that only Joe understands? If they are as well qualified as Joe in Joe's specialty, maybe, but we already know that Joe is one in a million. So, initially, likely Joe will have to proceed alone. Will Joe be able to get VCs excited about his idea? Not a chance! In information technology, one could count on one hand all the venture partners in the country able to evaluate an idea from a guy as rare as Joe. So, continuing with Dodge's points, suppose Joe gets users, customers, revenue, earnings, all growing rapidly, that is, gets 'traction'. Then what? Sure, then Joe will be able to attract 'co-founders' and 'investors'. But then the question will be, "Just why would Joe want to do that?". That is, with Dodge's criteria, for a good project like Joe's, by the time co- founders and investors are interested, Joe will no longer need them. This is an old story that goes back to the Mother Goose story 'The Little Red Hen': She found a seed. From others she got only laughs. She attracted no co- founders or investors. She plowed, planted, cultivated, harvested, threshed, and ground the seed to make flour. She built a bakery. She mixed the flour to make bread dough. She let the dough rise and baked it into fresh, fragrant loaves of bread. Now she had customers, revenue, and earnings. Also now, and ONLY now, did she have co-founders and investors but needed neither of them. But aren't co-founders and investors nearly always needed? Let's see: Let's start in the East in the US and take a survey of businesses, move to the west, and end up on the West Coast. Our survey will be in villages, towns, and cities. We will see some millions of businesses in auto repair, auto body repair, Web site design, grass mowing, roofing, kitchen remodeling, HVAC, dentistry, pizza carry-out, 'Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives', commercial and residential rental property, big truck-little truck businesses, etc. A huge fraction of these businesses are Sub-chapter S sole proprietorships and have no co-founders or investors. And at all the larger bodies of water, a huge fraction of the yachts are owned by such people. The advantage of Joe? With a one in a million good idea in information technology, with the advantages of Moore's law, the Internet, and infrastructure software and the ability to execute that idea successfully, Joe just has some advantages over the guy with pizza shops, etc. Heck, a good commercial lawn mower now costs much more than a good server computer. It costs much more to start a carry-out pizza shop than a Web site serving 100 ads a second. Joe is the guy to pay attention to. Dodge's advice is not for Joe and is for people not able to be Joe. To heck with Dodge.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple repairs ask for root password - pragone Had an interesting experience at the apple store the other day. Brought my 2009 MBP in because the screen was starting to have some issues. As part of the documentation, the rep asked me to input my username and password to their report form. Not thinking, I did so, assuming my password would be hidden. It was not - it was right there in plain text. Not to worry! It doesn't get printed out. It only gets stored in case the repair facility needs it to access my computer. It was at this point I woke up and had a WTF moment. Of course, I immediately changed my password, and thanked myself for not using that password for anything else. But still seems rather bizarre behavior. ====== xuki I remember the authorized Apple repair shop here asked for my password as well, I asked them if I could create another account with password, they said it's fine. Just make a throwaway account and delete it afterward, no big deal. ------ kuwerty Same experience here. I suppose it's less worrying than a backdoor in the OS :-) Even so, I don't understand why techs couldn't boot from a USB stick.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Fizz, the tool we built to help us work remotely - grayfox https://www.compose.io/articles/the-tool-we-built-to-help-us-work-remotely/ ====== jocatalin Nice concept. Indeed for remote working teams (read asynchronous working team) slack is not enough. We experiment now with basecamp+slack for the reasons you mentioned: measure work progress, milestones, announcements. ------ blakesterz Am I missing a link to the code or is this not available? ~~~ nikolay It's not [0] open-source, unfortunately! [0]: [https://github.com/compose](https://github.com/compose) ~~~ mrkurt It will be. It's just crufty and overly specific to us right now and needs some tidying up.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Running a South Pole data center - davidw http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/coolest-jobs-in-tech-literally-running-a-south-pole-data-center/ ====== pbh101 My grandfather visited Antarctica in '58-'59 as part of an initiative called something like "International Year of Science." After his second year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he traveled to Virginia and hopped on a ship. That ship eventually traversed the Panama Canal, crossed the equator, stopped over in New Zealand, then proceeded south to Antarctica. From there they then traveled north to Melbourne, then headed west. Apparently they had engine trouble and had to stop in Perth as well. From there the proceeded to stop in Durban and Montevideo before returning to Virginia. It was a long trip... The kicker is that he had the foresight to buy film cameras (one color, one BW) before this and filmed a bunch of stuff. A couple years ago, while preparing for a move, my grandmother found a box with reels and reels of footage, unlabeled and not in any particular order. She took it to a film processing shop, and together with people there, they pieced together a probable timeline and spliced together ~90 minutes of interesting footage out of heap and digitized it. So now I have a DVD with some pretty cool footage of that trip. Elephants, albatross, icebergs, heavy machinery down in Antarctica... that must have been an amazing trip for a guy who grew up in small-town Illinois. My family still has the coat and rucksack he was issued, with his name on it and a pretty cool seal/patch. After that, my grandfather went on to do a bunch of other kickass things, like found a couple engineering startups in Boston in the 60s, with varying success: flip a couple, get screwed by some shady folks... the works. Partly because of his story, I'm heading down to Antarctica early next year, though not on anything quite so cool: just taking a two-week cruise, but I'm excited to be retracing his steps in a way. ~~~ flanbiscuit I would love to see this video. Would you and your family be willing to put it up on Vimeo, Youtube, or some video hosting (self-hosting too) service. Maybe edit it down to the highlights or something. Or maybe since you're doing your own trip down there you can put together a video of your trip, spliced with your grandfather's trip. Just some thoughts I want to travel some more. ~~~ pbh101 I've been meaning to do that and of course never got around to it. I plan to review the video before I head out there, so I'll be in a good position to put it online. Contact me via email (in profile) and I can send you a ping when I do. ~~~ thret I have also emailed requesting a ping. I imagine many people here would be curious to see it! ------ cwal37 Opportunities like this provoke an incredibly intense response in me. I would drop almost everything to go work and live in Antarctica for 6-12 months, and searched fruitlessly for available jobs when I finished my undergraduate degree a few years ago. I'm not qualified for the position they talk about in this article, and I have a pretty good career path and professional responsibilities I can't just abandon now, but the pull remains strong. Something about unique circumstance and desolation in particular just hits me in a particular part of my brain. One of the most surreal and powerful moments in my life was pulling over in the middle of complete desolation in northwestern Namibia to wander the desert in the middle of the night. It was lit by a full moon, and the entire world was this shade of soft, ethereal purple I hadn't seen before and probably never will again. It was illuminating this tremendous expanse of landscape sparsely populated by utterly alien flora. In some ways it just felt right to be as utterly alone as I could be, in an alien situation I couldn't have imagined even 6 months prior. ~~~ 8_hours_ago A few years ago I saw this position opening and immediately applied for the same reason, it sounded like an incredible adventure. I was rejected as I should have been... unfortunately I'm a developer not an IT professional. Maybe someday they'll have an opening for an embedded developer and I'll get to spend a winter in Antarctica... Edit: I looked through my old emails and I applied for the UNIX Systems Administrator position on April 25, 2012. I must have done it after reading this exact article! Edit2: This is the original job description: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120609030319/http://icecube.wi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120609030319/http://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs/show/unix_sysadmin) ~~~ chrissnell $52K/yr. That's really crap pay, especially when you consider that it's a contractor job with a 12-month option-to-renew. ~~~ amckenna Last time I looked into it you don't pay for room, board, food, cold weather gear, or the flight down/back. So in reality your take home pay and savings are fairly high. ~~~ ddebernardy Not everyone is a single male with no wife or kids. :-) ------ pdoconnell I used to work at UW Space Science and Engineering Center, which did lots of remote support for the projects down on the ice. We would often be communicating with IceCube to plan shipments, or get machines that touched each other working. This was one of the most interesting systems support you can think of. The hardest part of the support was system updates. There wasn't even a local yum cache on the continent, and many of these machines had security standards they had to meet involving staying patched. Once I managed to start a batch- update job over SSH, and within 15 minutes I had the team lead run into my office to see if I was doing anything, because he received a call saying we were saturating the bandwidth to the continent. I never even considered applying for the jobs down on the ice, because I would never PQ. Even migraines can be too much, because if you're going down they need you ready to work EVERY day you're down there. Transient medical issues happen, but chronic without any control, or requiring medicine for survival, immediately disqualifies you. My friend who just hit McMurdo this week had to have dental work done to qualify. All that being said, Barnett and the rest of the Ice Cube team do some amazing work with extremely difficult technical problems to solve. It is the same level of difficulty as anything in space, and they have done remarkably. ~~~ themodelplumber Very interesting. What does PQ mean? Pass qualification? ~~~ pdoconnell Physically qualify I believe, but either really works. Everyone would just grumble about all the health visits they would have to do in September and October to be ready. ------ evanb I applied for this job. I have a PhD in physics and have some administrative experience, and I didn't (yet) have a postdoc position. The application process was very interesting---I had a phone conference-call interview with a few people in Wisconsin and New Zealand. I made what must have been a relatively short short list, because the interview was not cheap: they flew me to WIPAC, had me take a full physical (ultrasound, cardio study, chest x-rays, etc.) which is required for any winter-over position, set up a full day of interviews with science-side, tech-side, and administrative-side people, some of whom themselves had wintered over. The beer and cheese curds in Madison are great. Check out the Great Dane. A lot of the interview was to gauge personality, and there were a lot of questions along the lines of "If someone was acting in a dangerous & threatening way, and you were in a place more remote than the space station (in the sense that there is no escape capsule or any chance for rescue) what would you do?" The tech that keeps IceCube going is a bunch of custom-designed and manufactured blades which receive (IIRC) UDP from the sensors in the ice. A lot of processing happens at the pole, because the limited (and satellite- orbit-dependent) bandwidth would make transferring the whole dataset wildly impractical. So the "interesting" events are found on-site and sent over the satellite, while everything is also written to tape. Once the summer comes the tape is swapped out. Scientists can also query additional data to be sent via satellite if they need something specific. A few weeks later I was told that for the two IceCube winter-over tech positions, I was third choice, and that if one of the people offered the job sustains an injury, fails the psychological examination, or backs out, that I might be called on short notice. As I didn't have a job at that point, it was OK by me, but I was certainly disappointed. I'm happy in my postdoc position, but will certainly apply again when the time comes. Had I wintered over, it would have been the smallest of small-world phenomena, as someone I know from college was one of the chefs there this winter. Aside: I have heard that (if you get the job) they will sometimes preventatively remove your wisdom teeth / demand & provide other preventative treatments. ~~~ viewer5 That's some crazy stuff. I wish you all the best when you re-apply! ------ kqr2 For those interested in working at Antarctica, check out the Big Dead Place: [http://bigdeadplace.org/](http://bigdeadplace.org/) From the old Antarctica FAQ on working there and how it changes you: First time is for the adventure, Second time for the money, And third because you can't work anywhere else For those familiar with John Carpenter's _The Thing_ , this is also an interesting read: [http://bigdeadplace.org/antarctica-the-thing-and-the- station...](http://bigdeadplace.org/antarctica-the-thing-and-the- station/index.html) As a whole the subjects became less trusting and more suspicious of others immediately after their year in Antarctica.” –A.J.W. Taylor, Professor of Clinical Psychology, “The Selection of People for Work in Polar Regions” The essay ends: In the actual USAP, employees are forbidden flamethrowers. ------ SG- My dad did something like this up in northern Canada at the DEW Line ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line)) to monitor the Russians during the cold war. He was a radio tech and while he told me stories about how bad the weather was combined with the loneliness, he also told me it was one of the most unique and best experiences in his life. It focused him into going back to school and becoming an aerospace engineer. ------ chrissnell I went out for one of these roles back in the early 2000's. I even flew to Dallas on my own dime to attend a Raytheon career fair, in hopes of getting in the door at Raytheon Polar Services. The recruiters at the fair had little knowledge of these openings and I never got a call back. I had about 8 years *NIX system admin experience at the time. Raytheon's contract expired and now support personnel are found through a variety of contractors. It's incredibly tough to get in the door at these places. I never got a single call-back from any of them back in the day, even though I was very competitive for jobs at private sector tech companies. I suspect that you have to have an inside contact or luck out and meet them at a career fair if you want to get your foot in the door. ~~~ b_emery Here's a list: [http://ghgcorp.applicantpro.com/jobs/](http://ghgcorp.applicantpro.com/jobs/) You might also consider volunteering with a research group. Though they tend to select from pools of grad students, I would think that someone with technical skills (particularly hardware related) would be competitive. ~~~ pdoconnell Look at the job linked at the start of the article. There's always a few positions being floated either with IceCube, UW SSEC, or UW AOS that end up down there every year. That is also true of grad student positions, as you say. ------ dglo If you're really interested in a job with IceCube, you can watch [http://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs](http://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs) We'll be looking for a couple more winter-overs in mid-January. The newest winter-overs landed at the South Pole less than 24 hours ago! You can follow their exploits at [http://icecube.wisc.edu/news/current](http://icecube.wisc.edu/news/current) ~~~ jnardiello Would any applicant from Europe be considered? ~~~ pierre If you own an european passport I believe you could apply for a job at concordia, the most remote south pole station! It is 1100km inland in the coldest place on earth and 3233m above sea level! Job board : [http://www.institut- polaire.fr/ipev/l_institut/travailler_da...](http://www.institut- polaire.fr/ipev/l_institut/travailler_dans_les_regions_polaires) (job offers are pdfs) More info : [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Concordi...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Concordia) You may want to read about how to get there (if you know how to drive a truck you can apply to the heaby payload team that cross antartica once a year with haevy duty tractors, doing the travel from coast to concordia in 10 days) [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Concordi...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Concordia/Voyage_to_the_end_of_the_world) wikipedia : [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station) ------ hudibras Twenty years ago, I spent ten weeks in Antarctica and the experience changed my life. It's hard to describe (and I'm not the guy to do it) but the bleakness and immensity of the continent is overwhelming--but then you realize that, hey, here are some bipedal mammals that flew in giant metal machines down here to eat, sleep, learn, and run IT systems. No big whoop, humans can do anything. Every year, I still wistfully scan the Antarctica job listings... ------ hga I have a friend who did this sort of thing back in the '70s, maintaining a PDP-8 that ran a weather radar at the South Pole station during the long winter. Not much in the way of creature comforts back then, he said they got _very_ familiar with the few movies they had copies of, _What 's Up, Doc?_ was the only one he mentioned by name. ~~~ sampo _" An annual tradition is a back to back viewing of The Thing from Another World, The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011) after the last flight has left for the winter."_ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%E2%80%93Scott_South_Po...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%E2%80%93Scott_South_Pole_Station#Operation) ~~~ sigzero That's awesome. ------ dissarms working in the south pole: very cool. working for war profiteers: very uncool. among other crimes against humanity, raytheon produce those illegal cluster munitions that indiscriminately kill kids long after the battle moves on. It is estimated that over 800,000 Raytheon cluster bomblets have been dropped on the civilian population of Iraq. ckem. ~~~ jobposter1234 This is an interesting line of thought. I figure even a war profiteering corporation like Raytheon has some departments or projects that are a net positive for humanity. By refusing to work at Raytheon, even in a positive role, you doom the company to hire less ethical people. if that happens enough, where good people won't work in good departments, eventually Raytheon will stop doing the good things, and become more evil. ~~~ tbirdz Just as an Example, Raytheon invented the microwave oven. ~~~ PavlovsCat Something we could do without, and that doesn't make any murdered person alive again. I'll go even further and say someone who kills a person and then saves the lives of 10 is still a murderer. This stuff is not up for calculation, really. But even if it was: did they also invent microwaves, or do you think there is just a _tiny_ chance that the microwave oven would have been invented either way, at some point or another? ------ tristor I'm probably exactly the type of person they're looking for based on my background, and I've actually looked into going to Antarctica multiple times. I've always wanted to do at least a year long gig down there. The problem is that it's always contract-work, and I have never been at the right point in my life to give up a full-time job to drop everything and go. I'm hoping if everything works out in my present organization, once we exit I can maybe take the time off needed to pursue an opportunity in Antarctica. That region of the world holds a particular draw for me because it's one of the least touched by humanity and has an almost ethereal natural beauty. It needs to be researched but also preserved and being a part of that would be awesome. ------ BetaCygni > the GOES-3 Satellite —a weather satellite launched in 1978 that lost its > weather imaging capabilities and now provides 1-megabit per second data > transmission for eight hours a day Beautiful! From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES_3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES_3) > having spent over thirty one years in operation, it is one of the oldest > functioning satellites in orbit. ------ kimburgess I worked with a guy a few years back that's done a few seasons with the Australian Antarctic Division. From everything I've heard it's an incredible experience. For those who can work in Australia you can set up notifications for new positions (comms techs, electrical engineers etc) here: [http://www.antarctica.gov.au/jobs/jobs-in- antarctica](http://www.antarctica.gov.au/jobs/jobs-in-antarctica). ------ joelanders I just posted this Linux Journal article from 20 years ago, "Linux in Antarctica." We've come a long way. [0]: [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2843](http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2843) [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8571947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8571947) ------ thepacketrat They're hiring a webmaster. But I think it's in a different cold place: Madison, Wisconsin. [http://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs/show/webmaster](http://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs/show/webmaster) ------ darkhorn Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station Antarctica Tour: [http://youtu.be/P5lQ9DCXIbs](http://youtu.be/P5lQ9DCXIbs). You can see the data center here for few seconds. ------ seqizz Hmmh smells like global warming..	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Analyse a Reddit User - tepidandroid https://atomiks.github.io/reddit-user-analyser ====== rahuldottech I'm curious to try it out, but results don't load for me. ~~~ tepidandroid seems to be working fine for me -do you have JS disabled or anything? ~~~ rahuldottech Did some testing, appears to only work in Chrome, and not in Firefox, even with JS enabled.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Top diver’s death casts long shadow over deep beauty of the Blue Hole - ALee https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/26/blue-hole-red-sea-diver-death-stephen-keenan-dahab-egypt ====== Godel_unicode The article is about the blue hole in the Red Sea, not the one in Belize.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Snowman: native code to C/C++ decompiler - ingve https://derevenets.com/ ====== xvilka radare2 [1] project is also working on a decompiler, which uses ESIL [2] intermediate language as a source and lifts it to the RadecoIL, whish is then simplified and transformed to C. The missing parts now are mostly Memory SSA, C AST generation (partially done) and Type Inference. The decompiler itself written in Rust and uses the radare2 as a source of ESIL and other metainformation. Using the ESIL as a source will allow to implement the support for a different architectures, not only the common ones. Currently we're running RSoC - Radare Summer of Code [3], and hope that our 2 students will make the significant progress on both Rune (Symbolic Execution on top of ESIL) and Radeco projects. And we are always happy to welcome a new potential contributors to all underlying projects, including radare2 itself. If you want to help us - please join #radare IRC channel or #radare Telegram channel [4]. The sources of Radeco are located at [https://github.com/radare/radeco- lib](https://github.com/radare/radeco-lib) [1] [http://rada.re](http://rada.re) [2] [https://radare.gitbooks.io/radare2book/content/disassembling...](https://radare.gitbooks.io/radare2book/content/disassembling/esil.html) [3] [http://radare.today/posts/RSOC-2017/](http://radare.today/posts/RSOC-2017/) [4] [https://telegram.me/joinchat/ACR- FkEK2owJSzMUYjt_NQ](https://telegram.me/joinchat/ACR-FkEK2owJSzMUYjt_NQ) ~~~ ecma I'll preface this by saying that I love radare2. It's my goto tool when I don't need to share work with IDA/Binja users and don't need to decompile something. The radeco project is a train wreck. The current state of radeco-lib (unless it's been remediated in the last month) is disappointing and the only reason it compiles is because the last SoC student appears to have commented out the bindings that radeco is meant to use to get radeco-lib to do anything. I actually spent an evening attempting to undo that absurd series of commits but after getting a lot of the commented out back in place, not being a Rust programmer, hit roadblocks I did not understand regarding types and traits. Unsolicited advice incoming. Please keep a close eye on your RSoC students this year. Their goals to achieve anything which they can present do not necessarily grok with the ongoing health of your project. I'd also love it if you would drop Rust and work with a more accessible language, at least while you work toward an initial version which spits out something resembling C code. Ultimately it's your project so do whatever you want but IMHO making everyone understand an inherently complex project in a language which is not straightforward is not the best option. Or at least add some documentation and make your lib and program build together... ------ guest_may_2017 I'm glad to see a new decompiler, but it looks like it isn't an Optimizing decompiler like Hex Rays yet. I tested the IDA plugin and it happily gave me very long lines like this: esp74 = reinterpret_cast<void*>(reinterpret_cast<int32_t>(__zero_stack_offset()) - 0x104 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 - 4 + 4 - 4 - 4 + 4 + 20); Edit: Furthermore there seem to be some correctness issues, or at least misleading output. If a string is modified at runtime (for example for obfuscation purposes) then passed as an argument, Snowman will show the original string directly like foo("incorrect", 23), instead of just using an opaque variable like foo(some_var, 23) ~~~ moyix Looks like it needs a constant folding pass, yep. ------ moyix Another open source decompiler is fcd: [https://zneak.github.io/fcd/](https://zneak.github.io/fcd/) I quite like the authors' blog about the development of the decompiler, as it gives a lot of insight into how it works and what academic literature it draws on. You can also find a video of a talk the author (Felix Cloutier) gave at the Security Open Source workshop: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1NP- DV4GVQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1NP-DV4GVQ) ------ smartmic Sorry for the maybe silly question, but why does one need a decompiler? Isn't it easier to look an disassembly from tools like objdump? The example from the Hello World decompilation does not look significantly more readable to me than a disassembly (with some basic knowledge of assembler). ~~~ moyix A good decompiler can have a massive impact on the readability of the code. For example, here's a study where the authors found that their decompiler allowed students without reverse engineering expertise to approach the performance of RE experts on some tasks. [https://net.cs.uni- bonn.de/fileadmin/ag/martini/Staff/yakdan...](https://net.cs.uni- bonn.de/fileadmin/ag/martini/Staff/yakdan/dream_oakland2016.pdf) Sadly, DREAM++ has never been released open source :( ~~~ ant6n If there's a binary of it, you could use it to decompile itself. A kind of reverse bootstrapping. ~~~ moyix Sadly there is no binary, only papers. Now, if someone could come up with a technique for automatically creating source code from a PDF description... :D ------ baby Coincidentally a colleague of mine tried it yesterday and ended up with a better decompilation than hopper. Hopper wouldn't catch a loop and would display it weirdly while Snowman just worked. I've been wondering if binary ninja would have gotten good results, but there is no demo for 64-bit binaries. Unfortunately for me I'm stuck with Hopper as Snowman is windows only. ~~~ hellofunk What do you use a decompiler for? Just for fun, or is it part of your work? ~~~ baby For fun :) there is this challenge here that is ending today: [https://github.com/kudelskisecurity/cryptochallenge17/blob/m...](https://github.com/kudelskisecurity/cryptochallenge17/blob/master/README.md) ------ heeen Has anyone tried training a RNN on high level language <-> assembly? Would be cool if it could even guess variable names from patterns it has seen before, like x,y,z for vector structs. ~~~ devrandomguy I dunno... If you took a few random textbook physics problems, and replaced all of the nouns and units with arbitrary consistent strings, do you think that it would be possible to tell an electromagnetic problem apart from a plumbing problem? What if the subject is an electric pump? ------ userbinator IMHO the "holy grail" of decompilation is to decompile the compiler, compile the decompiled decompiler, and get back a functioning decompiler that can also decompile itself ad infinitum. After several iterations, it may reach a fixed- point... this is essentially the exact opposite of what's customarily done with compilers: compile the compiler with itself, and repeat with the self- compiled compiler until a fixed-point is reached. Thus, I naturally tried this one on itself, but that didn't work so well --- it spent several minutes analysing, then crashed. Then I picked something slightly easier, upon which it did manage to decompile successfully, but the output is... not exactly what I expected. Copious void pointers of various levels of indirection (plenty of "three-star-programmer" code...) and reinterpret_cast sprinkled everywhere --- I have the original code and it was written in C, so it amusingly enough decided to automatically convert it to C++, along with the inability to recognise accesses to local variables leading to long sequences of -4-4-4-4+4-4-4+..., mean that for me it's not really all that better than reading the Asm directly. The latter test was with a binary compiled with a very old compiler, so I suspect something with the newest optimising compilers will produce even more confounding output. That said, it's great to see plenty of decompilers being written and released publicly; I remember around 2 decades ago when any mention of decompilation would be met with disdain and chants of "that's impossible!" Hex-Rays and IDA may have spurred a lot of this development; but speaking from experience, cracking groups have always written their own private decompiler-ish tools, mainly featuring dataflow analysis. ------ rhabarba And it has been integrated into the awesome x64dbg for quite a while. :) ~~~ StavrosK Huh, that looks a lot like OllyDbg. Do you know how it compares to Olly/IDA/Binja? ~~~ rhabarba I guess it wouldn't even exist if OllyDbg x64 would be a (non-alpha) thing. x64dbg provides a number of plugins in order to fill missing features to IDA/Olly: [https://github.com/x64dbg/x64dbg/wiki/Plugins](https://github.com/x64dbg/x64dbg/wiki/Plugins) ~~~ e12e Looks like a very interesting project, but maybe there's some misunderstandings about the license; from the readme: > x64dbg is licensed under GPLv3, which means you can freely distribute and/or > modify the source of x64dbg, as long as you share your changes with us. Should probably read: "... as long as you make genuine offer of providing the source code and changes to those you distribute your version of x64dbg to." In practice it of course makes sense to upstream changes, but there's nothing in the gpl about that. ~~~ mrexodia This is in fact on purpose. Basically I stated my intent of using GPL. ~~~ e12e That's fine, and it is of course how many projects use the GPL in most cases in practice -- but as it reads in the readme, it sounds like the GPL doesn't [allow] someone to fork the project, port it to say, OS X, or arm - and sell the changed fork to a to a customer without giving the changes back upstream. The porter would have to offer sources to the customer, and the customer would be free to upstream the sources - but from the GPL, there's no legal compulsion to do so. Anyway, I guess I would have reworded it somewhat, to make it more obvious that the source is under GPL, but that the project welcomes and encourages upstreaming changes. This opposed to the code being under a _modified_ GPL. ------ haberman I would love to see support for this on gobolt.org. It would be really fun to see an optimizer's output expressed as C. For example, you could easily see the results of strength reduction operations, where something like "x / 2" is compiled into "x >> 1". ------ AdmiralAsshat [https://derevenets.com/examples.html](https://derevenets.com/examples.html) So, a decompiler is cool and all, but...a five-line "Hello World" program turned into a 144-line decompiled program. Is that an accomplishment? I'm pretty sure the "reconstructed" C from that is longer than the assembly. EDIT: Just to confirm, this is what I got when I put the Hello World code into "hello.c" and ran GCC against it: gcc -O2 -S -c hello.c hello.s: .file "hello.c" .section .rodata.str1.1,"aMS",@progbits,1 .LC0: .string "Hello, World!" .text .p2align 4,,15 .globl main .type main, @function main: .LFB11: .cfi_startproc subq $8, %rsp .cfi_def_cfa_offset 16 movl $.LC0, %edi call puts xorl %eax, %eax addq $8, %rsp .cfi_def_cfa_offset 8 ret .cfi_endproc .LFE11: .size main, .-main .ident "GCC: (GNU) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-18)" .section .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits ~~~ moyix You haven't linked the program in your assembly example. All the extra code you see there is a result of the libc startup code. Decompilers work starting from then entry point ( _not_ your program's main), which is why there's so much extra code. If you look at just the code starting from main, you get something much simpler: int64_t puts = 0x4003e6; void func_4003e0(int64_t rdi) { goto puts; } int64_t main() { func_4003e0("Hello, World!"); return 0; } ~~~ AdmiralAsshat Alright, that makes much more sense. Thanks! ------ AlexDenisov For those who curious and who is in Berlin: There is going to be an event on this Thursday (July 27, 2017) where the author of this tool will be talking about decompilation. [https://www.meetup.com/LLVM-Social- Berlin/events/241197713/](https://www.meetup.com/LLVM-Social- Berlin/events/241197713/) ~~~ moyix Do you know if this talk will be recorded? I would love to watch but it is a bit far from NYC :) ~~~ AlexDenisov Yes, we are going to record it. But the publishing is up to the speaker. I will post the link here if it happens. ------ 0xcde4c3db From the examples: int64_t puts = 0x4003e6; void func_4003e0(int64_t rdi) { goto puts; } What is this? Is there some compiler that will actually accept this use of goto? Is it just a convention meant for human consumption to translate jump instructions with no translated target? Is it a bug in the decompiler? ~~~ c_shu Strange. Could it be related to labels as values? [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as- Values.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Labels-as-Values.html) ------ api Could you compile a Go program and then decompile to C? I can see actual uses for that like porting to old OSes. ~~~ ZenoArrow I can see the benefits, but I doubt it would be that simple. The Go code you decompiled would depend on a Go runtime. That specific Go runtime would then have dependencies on OS libraries. So for example, when you open a file in Go, I'd imagine that this functionality is built on top of the file handling functionality of Windows/OSX/Linux. You could work around these dependencies, but it's probably less hassle to port the Go runtime to the new OS. ~~~ api Doesn't the Go runtime get linked in and would just get decompiled? It would generate a huge blob of C but the idea is just to port. ~~~ ZenoArrow Not everything that the program needs to run is included in the binary. Let's use a more concrete example. Let's say we write a Go program that copies a file. On Windows, this might use an API call like CopyFile: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/aa363851$v=vs.85$.aspx) If you decompile the compiled Go program into C, it'd still have the references to API calls like this. These APIs would have to be implemented on the new OS for the decompiled program to work without modification.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The DOM isn't slow - collypops http://blog.korynunn.com/javascript/the-dom-isnt-slow-you-are/ ====== dewitt The point the author is trying to make is perhaps a reasonable one, but what an inappropriate communication style. I don't know if the author realizes the tone is so off-putting, but I've found that supportive feedback and constructive criticism goes a lot further in professional environments than name calling and insults. Put another way, if someone on my team at work communicated like that I'd have a conversation with them about more effective approaches less likely to alienate or offend colleagues. There appears to be an uptick of hyper-agressive technical posts over the past several years. I'm not sure where it started, but I'm hoping it burns itself out soon. (If you're the author, I apologize for calling you out on this. Nothing personal at all, I just wanted to make the general point about tone.) ~~~ iamwil <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html> Look under DH2. I didn't find his tone offensive at all, esp as a piece of writing. It's likely that he hears "DOM is slow" all the time, and is venting. And he's a far cry from Zed Shaw's kind of writing. ~~~ dclowd9901 Look at DH4. He's saying it's more difficult to convince people of your point if you're being a dick about it. You aren't arguing the central point of his thesis, so I'm unsure what exactly your point is in regards to OP. As far as I know, PG's post doesn't apply to the original article, as the article _starts_ the discussion, rather than responds to one. ~~~ collypops This discussion has being going on for a very long time, even on HN. The article is very much a response to what has come before it. Sure it's a starting point for a thread of discussion we're having here, but it's by no means the _start_ of the debate. ------ bengillies It would be more accurate to say something along the lines of: "it's often possible to get the DOM to perform a lot faster than it currently is for you", or even: "speed probably isn't the biggest problem you'll face with the DOM; inconsistency and weird browser quirks are". That said, the following things irked me: > Abstraction is more likely to increase speed, because someone smarter than > you has written the bit that needs to be fast. That's a very sweeping statement that doesn't really describe the situation. It obviously depends on what you're doing, who wrote the abstraction and how much is being abstracted. > First: ignore pretty much anything Facebook has to say about DOM > performance. They really have no idea what they are talking about. Sencha > was able to make a version of the Facebook mobile app with their framework, > and it was FASTER than the official, native app, and Sencha isn’t even > particularly fast. If you create an app that has half the feature set of another app it will likely be easier to make it go fast. > Second: Stop using DOM libraries out of habit! If your target browser is IE8 > or above, jQuery hardly provides any features that aren’t shipped on the > host object anyway. document.querySelectorAll will pretty much do everything > you need. jQuery is a tool, not a framework. Use it as such. jQuery provides a clean sensible API. Something that is currently still lacking from the DOM (despite all the improvements). document.querySelectorAll will definitely not do "pretty much everything" you need out of the box. ~~~ hackinthebochs > Abstraction is more likely to increase speed, _because someone smarter than > you_ has written the bit that needs to be fast. Am I the only one that hates this meme? The idea that "someone smarter than me therefore blah blah" seems ultimately to be counter-productive. Placing arbitrary limits on yourself does nothing except prevents you from attempting certain types of "hard" problems because "someone smarter than me will/couldn't figure it out so I shouldn't bother". Perhaps its just hubris on my part but I am completely confident in my ability to fully comprehend any problem or solution that someone has come up with. There are certainly people much smarter than myself, but I will never let that limit me. Whether or not there is actually a limit to what I am capable of understanding is irrelevant, I will never assume before-hand that something is beyond my comprehension or capability. ~~~ ewolf "Someone smarter than you" perhaps is a bit too bold of a statement, but generally, it is true that using available code should usually be preferred over writing one's own code. It allows you to focus on your main task and spend less time implementing helper functions that someone with more time (I guess that's a better expression than "someone smarter") has already optimized. ~~~ hackinthebochs Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that using pre-existing code in most situations is far preferable than re-inventing things, especially when it comes to incredibly uninteresting "plumbing" code like DOM manipulation. But instead of referencing intelligence, the justification should be something like "someone already spent the time and effort optimizing something I have no interest in doing myself". Just like it has been shown that praising kids for their intelligence leads to worse outcomes, we should not be artificially limiting ourselves based on intelligence. ~~~ LukeShu I'd generally interpret "smarter than me" in this context as "has put more brain-cycles into this problem than I will", so with regards the that specific problem, they are "smarter". ------ skrebbel I stopped reading when he said that he thought 10000 divs in 200 milliseconds was impressive. That was impressive on a 486 SX. The things that make people go "woa!" in a browser are, barring WebGL demos entirely made in shaders, completely not- impressive when compared to doing the same outside a browser. This is fine. The browser is expected to handle so many wildly varying use cases at once, it can't be top speed at all of them. But don't go around telling us that something that Firefox does on a 2Ghz quad core PC is amazing when the same has been done on an Amiga 500. The DOM _is_ slow. It can be used to be _fast enough_ for most purposes. ~~~ NinjaWarrior Yes, from the viewpoint of a game developer, the DOM is extremely, painfully, awfully, ridiculously slow and completely useless other than static HUDs. With the DOM, we can move only hundreds of sprites at 60 fps (on the latest Core i7!). HTML5 Canvas can achieve thousands but it's also far from native (and the function of Canvas is very poor). WebGL can gain acceptable performance in many situations, but there is still much overhead. I suspect today's most web developers don't know the true performance of computers they are actually using. ------ ender7 I was a little surprised to hear "use document.createElement, it's faster than innerHTML" since the conventional wisdom was exactly the opposite a few years ago. Someone has already written a decent JSPerf to test this out: <http://jsperf.com/innerhtml-vs-createelement-test/16> (see also <http://jsperf.com/innerhtml-vs-createelement-test/4> for a slightly deeper dive) Based on the Browserscope results (and my own testing), it seems that document.createElement is faster in Webkit but slower in everything else (Gecko, Trident). So, a bit of a wash there unless you're targeting mobile. That said, in my experience HTML (template) parsing isn't the main bottleneck to getting an app to that smooth 60fps feeling. Usually the big targets you want to focus on there are avoiding cascading reflows/repaints, using smoother animation technologies such as requestAnimationFrame or CSS transitions/animations, understanding how to trigger hardware acceleration and what its limits are, and keeping careful control of your CSS special effects (border radius, box-shadow, gradients, etc). I recommend checking out <http://jankfree.com/> (especially the I/O talk) if you're interested. (edit: I don't really like the original article's vitriol, but he's right about a couple things. Manipulating your nodes outside of the DOM _is_ much faster, although you don't need to be inside a DocumentFragment to do this (don't get me wrong; DocFrags are pretty useful). Also, yes, please don't keep running those jQuery selectors over and over again. Store the jQ object that the selector returns to you and just reuse that) ------ mathias I call linkbait/trollbait. > People often throw around the statement “The DOM is slow”. This is a > completely false statement. Utterly stupid. Look: > <http://jsfiddle.net/YNxEK/>. Ten THOUSAND divs in about 200 milliseconds. How is that even an argument? Just because you can insert a fragment containing 10k <div>s in 200 milliseconds doesn’t mean that the DOM is not slow compared to other operations in JavaScript. DOM operations are still the slowest operations you can perform using JavaScript in a web browser. ~~~ niggler "DOM operations are still the slowest operations you can perform using JavaScript in a web browser." You aren't refuting the author's point. "The DOM is slow" is based on an absolute timing. No one is making a relative comparison. In general its possible to argue that operation X is fast, even if X is the slowest of a set of operations, if you take an absolute perspective. ~~~ mathias The reason people say “the DOM is slow” is because it’s slower than anything else in JavaScript, not because of an absolute measurement. If you’re calling JavaScript features slow or fast based on absolute measurements, you’re doing it wrong. Read up on JavaScript benchmarking. Create and run some jsPerf tests on various devices and browsers, and compare the results. You’ll quickly find that absolute numbers are meaningless in this case. ------ emehrkay I went to a meet up a few weeks ago on Sencha Touch and how they did the Fastbook ([http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-making-of-fastbook-an- html5-l...](http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-making-of-fastbook-an-html5-love- story/)) project to prove that HTML5 is, indeed, ready to provide host an application as complex as Facebook a few weeks ago and it opened my eyes in a few ways. This article is correct, and provides an example, in saying that the DOM can easily create thousands of elements in milliseconds. However, the problem is that events and interactions with it all happen on a single process. Things load and block the thread, an event happens and blocks the thread, etc. The Sencha guys did something really smart. They used an object pool with one object: requestAnimationFrame, as the core of their mobile platform and sent EVERYTHING to it. That way events, loading, or whatever, didn't block, but happened in a FIFO manor. They also kept the number of dom elements static and just reused them when needed, so an object pool of dom nodes -- no creating or destroying nodes. The things that make working with the dom slow isn't only creating nodes, but applying styles, listeners, and destroying them -- basically creating an application. I do agree with the overall premise that a lot of developers do not know the best methods/practices/patterns to utilize when creating complex applications. I learn new things daily and I hope that our community continues to teach itself and provide tools to make getting things done easier. ~~~ Xion Honestly, that doesn't sound like a best practice and more like a convoluted performance hack. It's one thing to use a pre-allocated memory pool for speeding up the creation of objects in native language like C++. Having to the equivalent while working several software layers above that is an example of extremely leaky abstraction. DOM and Javascript engines still need few more man-centuries of iteration to bring their performance closer to e.g. JVM which doesn't really require hacks like that anymore. ~~~ ZoFreX > e.g. JVM which doesn't really require hacks like that anymore. Is this the case? I used to be pretty in-touch with Java, but haven't been keeping up from the release of 7 onwards. I've picked it up again for game development, and 100% of the performance advice I've found is to use object pooling... but nearly all of that advice is years old, and I have no idea if it still holds true for JRE7 or even JRE6. It did strike me as something the JVM should be doing for me, so if that has been fixed, that news will be greatly welcomed by the Java game dev community. ~~~ pmahoney "Public service announcement: Object pooling is now a serious performance loss for all but the most heavyweight of objects, and even then it is tricky to get right without introducing concurrency bottlenecks." -- Brian Goetz in 2005 [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp09275/in...](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp09275/index.html) This article was also written when Java 6 was starting to get escape analysis, which can result in stack allocations in some cases. I recall taking a course in 2008 or so (Java 6). We were doing a genetic simulation of sorts, and the professor recommended using an object pool to speed things up. I implemented one and observed no measurable difference in my code's performance (these were very small objects used over and over again evolving new organisms). I hooked up a profiler and used that to guide me to some areas that _could_ be improved, and a valuable lesson was learned. ------ mistercow >If all you are doing is making HTML elements, DO NOT USE JQUERY. That's pure premature optimization. I don't understand how people can still be making blanket statements about performance costs like this. Using jQuery to create HTML elements is _fine_. It's convenient and succinct, and it keeps your code consistent. Otherwise, you'll have two ways of creating HTML elements: one for when you are just creating an element, and another for when you need to use jQuery on it afterward. But if you _do_ hit a point where creating HTML elements with jQuery is slow, you optimize that point and leave a comment explaining why you're doing it that way. People get these ideas in their heads that somehow they're going to be able to code everything super fast from the very start, and it's nonsense. All you're going to do is make it harder to maintain your project. ~~~ MatthewPhillips The types of optimizations you are suggesting are extremely hard to track down. If you have a laggy list you only know that you have a laggy list.. changing a single $('<div></div>') to document.createElement('div') probably isn't the thing that will speed up your application. It's probably not a single function or even a set of functions that is causing the problem. It's probably that in order to gain the 'sticky' affect you want that jquery plugin you're using is listening to a window.onscroll or something, and unless you want to dig into the code of every library you're using you probably won't know why. When you're working in the mobile web and performance is important you want to know what every line of code is doing. Your application is probably going to be a little laggy anyways, but at least you'll know why that is and know where to target to try and fix it. ~~~ mistercow >The types of optimizations you are suggesting are extremely hard to track down Except that it's not, because you can use profiling in modern browsers to figure out where the time is being spent. >It's probably that in order to gain the 'sticky' affect you want that jquery plugin you're using is listening to a window.onscroll or something, and unless you want to dig into the code of every library you're using you probably won't know why. But that's not what the author is arguing, and it has nothing to do with adding elements to the DOM via jQuery vs via lower level methods. ------ masklinn > Second: Stop using DOM libraries out of habit! If your target browser is IE8 > or above, jQuery hardly provides any features that aren’t shipped on the > host object anyway. Nope, sorry, 9 times out of 10 the provision is theoretical and the interface is garbage. querySelector is pretty much the only one which does not suck — hence it being used as an example every single time. * Querying or altering elements? Verbose shit. * Binding events? Verbose shit. * _Delegating_ events? You've got 2 different specs, the most recent one is unimplemented and the older one is prefix-implemented everywhere (and useless as far as I know). * Inserting elements in a DOM tree? Oh boy you're going to have a fun time manually traversing crap until you can reliably use insertBefore. * Creating a node with text in it? You're in for 3 different statements, and that's if you're not trying to add attributes as well * Manipulating classes? Hello broken regex search&replace. Oh you're targeting IE9 anyway? Well fuck you still, because Element#classList is IE10+. * Playing with data-* elements? I hope you like getAttribute, because Element#dataset is MIA in MSIE. * And bulk operations? What, you think querySelectorAll or getElementsByClass is going to return an array? Dream on, you _may_ get something array-like in DOM4 if you're lucky. That means IE15, _maybe_. Every single time I tried to get by with raw DOM, I fell back on zepto or jquery, life's too short for shit APIs and the DOM is exactly that. I don't code in raw DOM for the same reason I've stopped coding in assembly: I value my life more. Now there are issues with jQuery, but these issues are generally that jQuery makes it easy to do the wrong thing (it's important to note that it _also_ makes it easy to do the right thing, and improves that all the time, the "ease of doing the wrong thing" is just a side-effect of making things easier in general, the library does not specifically drive the user to the wrong thing) (except for animation maybe) e.g. keep doing noop work on empty selections, repeatedly select the same elements over and over again instead of caching the selection or not realizing you're doing a batch operation of adding a class or event on hundreds of DOM nodes in a single line. The DOM itself does not fix this, it just makes these things so incredibly and obviously painful you look for other ways to do it to try and slightly alleviate the pain. You get the same result out of _thinking_ , and not blindly using jQuery.each and the like. edits: formatting, classes manipulations, data-* attributes, matches/matchesSelector. ~~~ MatthewPhillips Maybe I'm neurotic but if I know I can speed up my application 100x by typing .addEventListener('click', fn) instead of .click(fn) I'm going to do that every time and not lose any sleep over it. ~~~ jimbokun Does that really speed up your application by 100x? ~~~ timruffles No way - even if it was the sole performance bottleneck in your application (which as I've commented above is absurd, and a sign you're doing it so very, very wrong). Even if your application was: var i = 100; while(i--) els[i].addEventListener("click",fn); it'd be untrue jQuery is nowhere _near_ 100x slower. Profiling this is totally ridiculous because there's no use case that requires adding event listeners at a scale that could _ever_ be a performance concern, but anyway - <http://jsperf.com/jquery-on-vs-native/3>. So just 10x slower on even this - completely not performance critical and therefore nobody would bother optimising it - method. ------ MatthewPhillips No, the DOM is slow. I've worked on mobile projects that didn't use a single 3rd party library, no jQuery no underscore, the most I've used is polyfills for stuff like Function.prototype.bind etc. It doesn't matter. When you have a non-trivial thing to render in a list, not just a div with text content, and you start to scroll the browser stutters. Even if the list isn't particularly long (< 50 items). CSS animations are also rather slow in mobile browsers although this is getting better with every release. I actually find it a little bothersome that so much browser development these days is focused on JavaScript performance and JavaScript alternatives whether it is Dart or asm.js or whatever... when the DOM is the primary reason lag exists. ~~~ dsego Yeah, the problem is if anything changes or even if you ask for the width of an element, it has to for some reason reflow everything or at least a big portion of it. So you have to keep interactions with element positions and dimensions to a minimum. ------ readme The reason native is better for mobile apps is not that the browser's rendering engine isn't fast. It's that the browser is yet another turtle on top of an already bloated stack. He argues that the developers working on these browsers are optimizing them, and that we are not intelligent enough to trump their obviously superior coding skills. Well, I'm going to disagree outright on that point. Many of us are very talented. Add Webkit on top of the Dalvik VM and android SDK, and fragmented device ecosystem, and we're talking _major_ disparities between the way your HTML5 app is going to run on different android devices. I have seen HTML5 apps that work great on phone a and b, but not on _c_ , because well, _c has a different webkit version_! It's bad enough to have to write code for different browsers. It's _really_ bad to have to write code for different browsers that will run on hundreds of different android devices. Back to the point you made about optimization: don't you think the developers of the native SDKs are making optimizations, too? And the lower level means we're way closer to the metal, lower on the stack, and ergo: less complex. I'd use HTML5 for a trivial app, like, a business's mobile website. But for anything serious, GO NATIVE! Note, my answer is for mobile browsers, specifically android. Even iOS should be marginally better on this, but really I've only seen HTML5 kicking ass on desktop browsers. I've yet to be impressed by it in mobile. ------ bejar37 What is a good resource for understanding the DOM/query selectors and their performance (JS and CSS selectors)? All that I know about it is just through word of mouth and it would be great to look at a resource that covers these things. Also, is document.createElement('div') really much faster than $("<div></div>")? Just checked and a lot of well-respected JS libs use (including Backbone) use the jQuery version. EDIT: typo ~~~ wmil I haven't seen any profiling of jQuery, but last I heard createElement('div') and appendChild was slower than innerHTML ="<div></div>". ~~~ dsego That's not true any more: <http://jsperf.com/fragment-vs-appendchild-vs- innerhtml/8> ------ creativename I find myself constantly trying to fight the urge to be lazy with JQuery, since I tend to forget the performance hit it entails. For some concrete numbers, I updated a JSPerf that I found to include a raw JS implemention. <http://jsperf.com/creating-dom-elements/8> I was caught off-guard by the results - it appears that (even after multiple runs) the raw JS implementation is ~100 times (times, not %) faster. Definitely surprised at the drastic difference, although someone please correct me if I missed something in these simple test cases. This was with Chrome on Windows, by the way. ~~~ krrrh Version 10 of your test is really surprising. The raw JS append function just came out 250 times faster than the jquery direct append example, and 750 times faster than jquery append variable. This is on chrome for iOS. ~~~ creativename Wow, yeah. Document fragments seem to be even faster than my original createElement. I'm really going to have to re-evaluate how I'm creating new DOM elements. ~~~ korynunn This is the kind of thing I was hoping to inspire. Sure, use jQuery, but use it wisely. That said, literally never make DOM in it, for so many reasons... ------ sergiotapia Meh. To be honest I'll take the 800ms jquery approach and get home quicker rather than using plain old javascript to shave of 600ms off a function. For 99% of the projects out there, jQuery is fast enough and it's productivity boosts outweigh any performance costs. ------ Kiro "Sencha was able to make a version of the Facebook mobile app with their framework, and it was FASTER than the official, native app, and Sencha isn’t even particularly fast." It was really laggy on Android, so no. ------ symmet There are some points that I'd agree with in this post, but the framing is all wrong. The author begins the article saying that abstractions are fast (the DOM) and ends the article saying that abstractions are slow (jQuery). The native vs web argument has been beaten to death. It comes down to this: there is no perfect solution and everything has trade-offs (speed, quality, and cost). Use your brain and pick the solution that works best for the problem you are trying to solve. As much as web apps have replaced many things that may have previously been implemented as native apps on the desktop, there is still native development being done. ------ Millennium I wouldn't go that far. The DOM really is slow, due to a number of tradeoffs made in the API design. But the DOM is meant for working with HTML (and XML) documents -displaying them, updating the display, and getting input from the user- and it's fast enough for that. If you're using the DOM for anything else, you're almost certainly doing something wrong. One of the first rules to being fast in a GUI of any sort, Web-based or otherwise, is simple: don't abuse the runtime. Objective-C's runtime isn't very pretty for performance either, which is why you use the provided APIs when you can. When you can't, you get the data out of the objects and into a more suitable format, work with them there, and put the result back into the objects for display. There were some truly egregious cases of runtime-abuse in the old days: the first OSX versions of OmniWeb come to mind. But the dev community eventually caught up. It's the same with the DOM. That's the thing about jQuery-abuse. jQuery is a very, very good hammer: an awesome tool for working with the DOM. The problem comes when people start to think that every problem looks like a nail: they start using the DOM for everything, including things that it's just plain not designed for. And it works, more or less; it just doesn't work well. That's not a problem with the framework. It's a problem with the user. ------ scragg I was curious about the speed of jQuery selector versus querySelectorAll so I made a jsperf test. I realized people have done it already when trying to select a slug. When looking at the results, I noticed opera having a massive edge over the rest so I assumed it was doing some caching. Therefore, I created a random DOM for each test using the setup/teardown. <http://jsperf.com/jquery-vs-queryselectorall-scragg> ~~~ jgalt212 your results confirmed what I suspected, that using jQuery selectors is both performant and readable code. Ergo, his second point is probably advice best ignored. His appoint about using document fragments, or some equivalent thereof that resides outside the main DOM, is a good practice to follow when there are a large number of serial changes to the DOM that in effect are only one change to the user. ------ george12 I have had similar experience. Skipping jquery and calling native DOM methods directly can be surprisingly fast. Still I am curious in what the benchmarks actually say. The native DOM methods appear to return _before_ rendering is done (at least in webkit). So when we get a 200ms benchmark for 10,000 divs I suspect there it is taking a longer than that to fully render. ~~~ jfim Yeah, they do return before rendering is done. For example, this fiddle[1] inserts 100k svg circles; it takes 1000 milliseconds on my machine, but scrolling around takes several seconds. [1] <http://jsfiddle.net/vHvZD/> ------ recuter Prediction: Since jQuery2 is dropping support for IE < 9, it will never be as popular as its predecessor. We all owe John Resig a debt of gratitude for getting querySelectorAll into modern browsers. The next missing piece is the ShadowDOM/Templates stuff coming down the pipeline, but sadly that will probably take just as long for mass adoption. ------ korynunn Hi there, I'm Kory. I'm not surprised to see a large amount of disagreement and anger, partly because it threw this post together pretty quickly and i probably didn't explain things as well as i could have, and partly because, well, a lot of people really just cant write fast web apps. In no particular order i would like to address a few things (most of which were addressed in the article if you read to the end..): 1\. I never said "don't use jQuery". What I was trying to convey was "don't use jQuery stupidly". 2\. I never said the DOM was the fastest part of the platform, obviously it isn't, in fact it is one of the slowest parts. But then, I wasn't comparing its speed to the rest of the platform, but rather to human perception. It doesn't matter if DOM manipulation is orders of magnitude slower than object manipulation, because it is easily fast enough to do pretty much anything, on pretty much any device, ___if you know what you are doing_ __. 3\. The fact that you read hacker news is a good sign that this post wasn't aimed at you. The post was a vent from the frustration of hearing 'The DOM is slow' as an excuse by people with no idea what they are talking about. It's a belief that is just accepted by many who have had difficulties with web development in the past, without any investigation as to what the actual issue is. One think I see people doing a LOT is DOM selection. I find the pattern poor generally. Think about the standard case for developing 'web apps'. 1\. Build objects in a server that describe the application. 2\. Build a massive string from said objects. 3\. Send it over the intertubes. 4\. Give it to a browser, which then parses said string, fixes any errors you almost certainly made, then creates DOM elements. 5\. Insert said DOM elements into the document. 6\. Wait untill all of this is done, then use a tree searching algorithm to find said objects using jQuery/querySelectorAll/whatever. 7\. Manipulate said object. WAT. This seems a pointlessly convoluted pattern. Alternative: 1\. Build some objects on the server that describe the application. 2\. Send it over the intertubes (Which will be faster, because a description of an app is going to be smaller than every little bit of it being sent) 3\. Let JavaScript create DOM directly. No parsing, just pure DOM API calls. >>>Keep a reference to important elements.<<< 4\. Insert DOM into document. 5\. Work directly with the DOM elements. No selecting, no string manipulation, just normal object manipulation. I look forward to the argument that ensues. ~~~ korynunn Also, for those commenting on my blog being down, yeah I would expect that to be the case, its hosted on our crappy media center, behind a home internet connection, on a PC that has about 5 IIS apps and 3 Node apps. I never really expected to have more than maybe 5 concurrent connections. ------ Kiro So what would be an appropriate response to "What are your thoughts on jQuery?"? ~~~ korynunn "Used in moderation, jQuery is an exceptionally useful tool for assisting in DOM manipulation and compatibility, and simplifying APIs such as for XHR requests" ------ asmosoinio Site seems to be down. Mirror from Coral cache: [http://blog.korynunn.com.nyud.net/javascript/the-dom-isnt- sl...](http://blog.korynunn.com.nyud.net/javascript/the-dom-isnt-slow-you- are/) ~~~ underwater Google text-only cache is working for me: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.ko...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.korynunn.com/javascript/the- dom-isnt-slow-you-are/&hl=en&strip=1) ------ dsego Maybe the DOM isn't, but browsers still are for more complex & animated UIs. And worse of all it rally depends on the browser. I was surprised that safari is still a lot better than chrome with smooth css animations, Chrome just chokes when there are larger images: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15323228/css- transition-i...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15323228/css-transition- in-chrome-stops-or-is-jerky-while-an-image-is-being-rendered) ------ iwillreply It's strange you blame jQuery outright for slowness of the DOM, and reference the jsFiddle as your reference point of speed. Writing this utilising jQuery for DOM manipulation ( <http://jsfiddle.net/YNxEK/7/> ) is getting me consistently faster results than the original fiddle ( <http://jsfiddle.net/YNxEK/> ) on Firefox and Chrome. ~~~ Guillaume86 You just use innerHTML with a big string, it's not the equivalent of the original fiddle and it's not a fair comparison. ~~~ latviancoder Here is a comparison, that looks more fair to me: <http://jsfiddle.net/d5geB/> ------ nawitus >Look: <http://jsfiddle.net/YNxEK/>. Ten THOUSAND divs in about 200 milliseconds. You call that impressive on 2013? My laptop can _sort_ a million numbers in the times you can create a mere 10k objects. >using JavaScript, render the whole thing in about 100 milliseconds. That's not fast enough. 100ms is perceptible. Websites should render instantly, and 100ms is on top of everything else. ------ tolmark12 A simple comparison of Dom selection vs Jquery selection[1] When selecting one DIV by id, I'm consistently getting: DOM - 0.08ish ms Jquery - 0.2ish ms I do have an app where every millisecond is critical. For this app I'm using raw dom selectors. However, most of the time, the convenience of jquery selectors outweigh these performance gains. [1] - <http://jsfiddle.net/tolmark12/9R39R/> (open console) ------ LukeShu Not to be a grammar Nazi, but here are some corrections: Paragraph 1, sentence 2: Capitalize "I" in "i would say" Paragraph 2, sentence 3: Capitalize "Chrome" Paragraph 2, sentence 4: Capitalize "Firefox" Paragraph 3, sentence 1: Should be "you're" in "your coding against the Dalvik" ------ bromagosa Your page IS slow: <http://i.imgur.com/Avqw4L5.png?1> ------ Mahn FYI, browser profilers can't evaluate the efficiency of your jQuery selectors, which can be a bottleneck aswell depending on what you do. I personally use this: <https://github.com/osteele/jquery-profile> ------ nsxwolf This rant is just the latest incarnation of "Real Programmers don't use Pascal". ------ _pmf_ "I have use cases different from yours. You must be wrong and/or stupid." ------ mrgreenfur I'm not sure what the guys attitude is, but I appreciate him pointing out those sweet JS functions that I'd been using jquery for! ------ jqueryin I'm personally not a fan of the author's writing style; it comes across a arrogant. For a junior to mid level developer, one should be a bit more mild mannered. I poked around the resume.js file and was also taken aback by the very last line: //Yes, this is fully valid JavaScript. Run it in the Chrome Web inspector, Firebug or similar. Those who care to know if JS is valid already know at a quick glance. The preferred method of validation is JSHint or JSLint. ~~~ korynunn Yeah that line doesn't make a lot of sense until you realise it was copied from here: <http://korynunn.com/resume.docx> ------ bconway _HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable._ Maybe not, but... ------ smallegan Let me guess. Your site isn't unavailable... I am? ------ scottcanoni The DOM isn't slow, your website is. Zing! ------ benhowdle89 Worst. Writing. Style. Ever. So condescending. ------ anonymous185671 the web isn't down you are	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is OpenID Too Confusing? - qhoxie http://lifehacker.com/5064261/is-openid-too-confusing ====== jmatt Yes, OpenID is too confusing. This was a huge complaint I had during the stackoverflow beta. Those that are believers in OpenID are zealots. They won't change their opinions no matter how much the general populace hates on it. They likely are public figures (with URL related to their personas - like a website or blog). In this case OpenIDs work beautifully. It's the rest of us that have trouble. I currently have 4+ OpenIDs and I can never remember URLs or usernames. It inevitably involves me going to my second gmail account and searching for OpenID. Then I choose randomly one of the OpenIDs that show up in the search and use it. That or I end up creating yet another OpenID. So now I spend my time managing OpenIDs instead of user accounts. To me an even bigger waste of time. Meta-account management. And god forbid you start forwarding or attaching one OpenID to another one... that'll REALLY hose things with whichever account you are logging in as. Sites rarely allow the user to tie all those IDs together to a single account - which would at least simplify things a bit. To me this is wayyyy too complicated for average end users. Maybe if it were designed into everyone's web-email accounts and things could be managed there. I've attempted using the Yahoo OpenID and always run into problems with that too. When I've asked my tech-savvy non-developer friends - none of them even know what it is. I've rarely heard positive feedback outside of people in the tech industry. But then again I haven't gone looking for it. The compromise between being decentralized and centralized in my opinion is what causes so many problems. There is no one place to go get an openid (try explaining that to the average user). There is no standardized way to get one (every third party site is a little different). And it adds an extra level of indirection - with no perceived benefits to the end user. There are a lot of benefits but none that the end user readily cares about. An interesting article on OpenID from Jeff Atwood: <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001121.html> I attempted to find the uservoice thread about OpenID in stackoverflow but it's been deleted: [http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.685860....](http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.685860.18) ~~~ Lagged2Death "I currently have 4+ OpenIDs..." I'm not surprised it isn't working so well for you, in that case. I think some of the centralization/privacy concerns related to OpenID sound like valid points to debate and discuss. But saying you have _too many_ OpenIDs and that managing them has become a pain is like complaining that you can't remember which of the four wallets you're carrying has your credit card in it, and concluding that wallets suck. ~~~ jmatt Ya I agree that is one of the problems. But since it's so decentralized and just finding your existing OpenID account can be difficult - it is still a problem. Part of the problem was having multiple emails and multiple types of OpenIDs (Work, Coding and Personal). Add to that - switching web email accounts midway through - and I ended up with multiple accounts. If I could cut back to just one or two accounts I would. But I've found the management tools lacking both on the client website and OpenID side of things. ------ axod It's not just confusing - which it is - it's not needed. It doesn't solve a problem for the average user. ------ fallentimes It's a classic case of sounds awesome & amazing to techies but utterly worthless to Johnny Q. Public. ------ lallysingh I guess I'm alone here. I'm pretty tired of 30+ login names and passwords. If I use the same one for all, then any single breach hits all 30+ sites. They should just give it a better name, like Internet-Wide Identity. OpenID is an implementation (centered) name, not a user (centered) name. ~~~ ricree I'm another huge fan of OpenID, but after being the only one arguing for it the last couple of times it came up, I've gotten sick of speaking up for it. Personally, I would love it if almost every site out there would let me log in with an openID. I'm apparently in the minority here, but I'm sick of having to make a new account every time I want to check out some site or forum that looks like it might be interesting. While there are issues in the implementation, I am very much unconvinced that there is anything particularly more difficult about the concept than that of current logins. When I ran non techie friends through it, the biggest complaint was usually that there were too many different screens they had to click through, and there was some confusion about where to go to get an openID, but as far as I can see these are all things that can be improved without sacrificing the core concept of OpenID. ------ t0pj The problem(s) with OpenID <http://idcorner.org/2007/08/22/the-problems-with-openid/> ~~~ wmf That's FUD to sell Credentica, and many of those problems cannot be fixed if you assume an unmodified Web browser. ~~~ ajross And yet they remain problems that are unsolved. The phishing one in particular (send the user to a fake login page that just facades the real one and steals the password) is a showstopper all by itself. So while it's true that (short of doing stuff like RSA & PKI in Javascript) you can't fix these problems with browsers as they exist today, that doesn't mean that a solution that _ignores_ the problems is a good idea. ~~~ sapphirecat > (short of doing stuff like RSA & PKI in Javascript) The only thing that I can see which would actually help, without breaking the "install nothing" goal of OpenID or making the existing usage path any more difficult, is to build some sort of OpenIDRequest object into browsers. And you'd want to design an unspoofable credential request window to go with it. ------ raghus When I join a Google Group, Google asks me "What nickname do you want people in this group to see?". I pick something and I'm in. End of story. Why can't I do this with every other site? I'd like to be able to go to foobar.com, click on Register and be taken to a Google page where Google says "What nickname do you want foobar.com to see?". The default is my gmail username but I can change it. I'm in. Foobar doesn't see my email address or a password or my address book contacts or anything else. Can people poke holes in this suggestion? I think Joe the Plumber would love such a scheme. ~~~ jfarmer When OpenID people say they're "solving a problem" what they really mean is "we're solving a problem inasmuch as it advances our agenda." Things like Google and Facebook are so ubiquitous as to be effectively universal, but OpenID people object to using them as an authentication mechanism on ideological grounds. They'd rather have a pure solution tomorrow than a good solution today. ------ maxklein Yes. ~~~ ig1 Yes again. OpenID still confuses the hell out of me. And I'm saying that as someone who was semi-active participant in the early design stages of OpenID. ~~~ kylec Seeing as you were a participant in the design of OpenID I must ask - what happened? Why is OpenID so awkward and confusing? Why URLs instead of email addresses or something else people already have? ~~~ maxklein Design by consensus. Most true breakthroughs have been created by a single person. ------ wmf "the users tried to log in using the site’s main login, rather than the OpenID login. Users don’t understand multiple ways to log in" There's the first problem. If your site only accepts OpenID you won't have that problem. Also, I don't know of a single site that is using an ID selector with history sniffing, which should be a much better UI. ------ pstinnett I think this is interesting and definitely something to discuss. The whole idea of having a username/password for a service that can be used across several services is kind of abstract. I could see this being confusing to the non-tech public, because at times it's confusing to me. ------ asjo I don't think it is - I implemented my own private OpenID-provider in a 130-line Mason component (using Net::OpenID::Server) in a couple of hours, and I like very much not having to create accounts everywhere, and only sending a login/password combination to my own server. Using and trusting some existing OpenID-provider would be a bigger leap for me - the fact that it is possible, and not terribly complicated, to create and run your own is a big plus in my book. ------ coffeeaddicted My problem is rather that I don't trust it enough. Maybe because I don't understand good enough how it works. But by keeping passwords to myself and using different passwords and usernames for different sites I don't have to trust anyone beside myself to keep that data safe. And also I have no trouble creating as much identities as I want to have. ------ qhoxie The concept is less confusing than multiple sign ons for a lot of people, but the execution of it is not always clear. Things like redirection for logins definitely throw users off track. ------ sh3l1 I used OpenID to sign up here. It was quick, painless and easy. I don't understand why anyone would have trouble with it. ------ jcapote Nope. Myopenid.com; I don't know what all the fuss is about...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Who is the best hacker of all time? - pooya13 Who do you consider the most talented and well rounded cyber hacker of all time? ====== justforfunhere I think Fabrice Bellard is one of the top computer programmers of our times. [https://bellard.org/](https://bellard.org/) ------ bjourne Linus Torvalds. He appears to be good at almost everything; C programming, project management, architecture, writing emails, etc. ~~~ kgraves how can you be good at "writing emails"? ~~~ Jugurtha Clear writing communicates complex ideas effectively and drives endeavors more than we give it credit for. Most emails I receive are longer than they ought to and makes N recipients spend T additional time to finally get the wrong idea and diverge in execution. More rambling emails are sent to align people. The sender can prevent this upstream by writing in a "clear, concise, complete, correct" way. This is valid for issues/bug reports/feature requests/user stories, etc. ------ yewenjie Richard Stallman, the last true MIT Hacker. ------ sethammons Assuming you mean breaking into systems, while I'm not immersed in that culture, I did enjoy Kevin Mitnik's Ghost in the Wires. It may be a bit dated, but some of the stories of early phone phreaking and social engineering was a fun ride -- and helps add a decent level of paranoia to answering phone calls today! Kevin Mitnik is a legend. He might not be the best of all time or today, but he is up there. ------ kratom_sandwich Are you aware that hacking is in most parts social engineering? Are you looking for the best hacker or social engineer? Are you aware of the differences between a hacker, a cracker and a script kiddie? What about participants in a hackathon - do you consider them hackers as well? I mean, the event has "hacking" in its name, right? ~~~ fabiomaia Very ambiguous question indeed for a community called "Hacker News" that targets a wide range of topics in technology and science, any of which can easily be considered "hacking". ------ giantg2 If you're using the media's definition of hacker to mean someone breaking/exploiting computer stuff, then I would say we can't answer that. The best people conceal their identity and don't get caught, so we wouldn't know them. ------ kleer001 My favorite is Jayson Street only because he does a great black hat with little to no programming. Which, of course, goes against the "well rounded" part of your question. ------ krapp The mysterious hacker called 4chan. ------ person_of_color Kevin Mitnick ------ lihaciudaniel Aaron Schwartz, the best freedom fighter ~~~ yesenadam Swartz [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw) [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Founder Visa - pg http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html ====== bokonist _How would the government decide who's a startup investor? The same way they decide what counts as a university for student visas. We'll establish our own accreditation procedure._ This part scares me. Accreditation boards are a bug, not a feature. Perhaps, like pg's idea, they started out as well intentioned. But today, their primary purpose is to erect arbitrary barriers of entries, thus propping of the salaries of professionals and the tuition of the schools. The tech industry is great because it is so isolated from politics and bureaucracy. I'd hate for that to change. ~~~ pg That is a worry. It would have to be super transparent. Originally I proposed a straightforward algorithm for deciding: to use Erdos numbers with Ron Conway as the seed. I took this out because I thought it was better not to go into this level of detail in the essay, but I'd advocate using something like this to decide who was a startup investor. ~~~ psranga You rank applicants to the visa program by Erdos numbers? Is this the same Erdos number as <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number>? Or do you rank investors? In either case, you're ranking people based on _WHO_ they know, not what they know. Worst kind of ranking possible (it keeps competent outsiders out). ~~~ pg It's the investors who'd be ranked by Ronco numbers, not the visa applicants. And even there it wouldn't be based on anyone knowing anyone. If you invest in a startup that Ron Conway later invests in, you have a Ronco number of 1, whether he likes it or not. ------ mohamedsa As a non-American who applied to YC twice the article was a pleasant surprise. However I'm not sure America is as attractive to non-American founders as some people think. I'll explain (my arguments are mostly personal perceptions...I have no practical evidence yet on any of this since my own startup is still at the "wrote some code" stage). Let's suppose there are 2 types of founders: people who have enough money & connections, and the young "live on Ramen noodles" type founders. For the "money & connections" type, a lot of foreign countries offer cheap but still qualified programmers and don't put too many obstacles on founding companies so if your country is like that it might make sense to stay. For the "Ramen" type, many of them may not afford America's often high living costs. As for the argument that the US provides a better/more free market... even this is changing: The internet probably allows relatively easy selling to worldwide customers from any country. All that said, the American dream probably still lives on and many people would likely provide counter-examples to my limited point of view. Of course pg didn't claim that coming to the US is a no-brainer for every single talented hacker. There are probably enough of those who are interested to satisfy the 10,000 founder/year goal. ~~~ jey " _For the "Ramen" type, many of them may not afford America's often high living costs._ " I think the algorithm PG proposes is something like this: 1\. Produce enough that you would be able to convince someone to fund you. Maybe this takes a prototype, a convincing sales pitch, ramen profitability, etc. 2\. Convince someone to [seed] fund you. 3\. Move to a place with an environment favorable to startups. 4\. Continue working on your product, now with access to investors, other founders, good employees, great weather, ... The idea is to get to step 4 as fast as possible. In most parts of the world you'd never be able to find good investors or a startup-supporting culture, and that counts for lot. As PG has pointed out, there's a huge variance in startup-friendliness even amongst the major cities in the US. ------ alain94040 Having been through the hoops, I'd generally support this, but it's a tough sell in today's economy. Because there are _emotions_ involved. There are already similar visas (EB-5 and E-1). Especially the E-1 category is very close and could easily be amended to fit Paul's ideas (I used the E-1 as co-founder of my previous startup, EVE). One issue that needs to be addressed: you are not likely to get funding until you move here. But if the visa gives you a grace period (say 6 months) to move first before you get funding, then it will be abused. ~~~ dfranke > you are not likely to get funding until you move here I think it's likely that if this visa existed, VCs would adapt to it by becoming more open to funding people who haven't immigrated yet. ~~~ trapper Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US? From what I have seen there is tons of money if your model is great. I think the counter is true: it's much easier to raise money for bleeding edge ideas in the US. But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make you wealthy (B2B). ~~~ pmjordan _Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US?_ How would you know? You only hear about the success stories and the spectacular failures, not the full spectrum in between. _But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make you wealthy (B2B)._ Just because you'd prefer to do a B2B startup you want to deny others from trying to go straight to the top? ~~~ trapper "How would you know? You only hear about the success stories and the spectacular failures, not the full spectrum in between." By truly great I was meaning something that was a spectacular success. Every company I have ever had the pleasure of knowing personally with a great model had plenty of capital, whatever location they were in. Others who thought there model was great, but clearly was too risky didn't. "Just because you'd prefer to do a B2B startup you want to deny others from trying to go straight to the top?" I am not denying anyone from starting anything, just pointing at the facts. It's much easier to get a B2B making money than a twitter widget that isn't charging. In my opinion, those types of businesses are never going to be the next youtube, so why bother. You either go for the home run or the easy money. But that's just my opinion. ------ gojomo _By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans_ "But, but, but: their companies will compete with and disrupt established American businesses, destroying American jobs! Why, a 4-foreigner web news or classified startup could put dozens of (unionized, citizen, voter) newspaper employees out of work!" Of course I don't believe this is true, nor would it even be a good reason to restrict entry if it were true. (Better to have the new disruptive companies here, than elsewhere.) But that's the sort of deranged logic used against broader immigration. The neat trick of limiting the visas to those starting companies will only help a little against anti-immigrant emotions. _They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close._ I suspect close-to-Google-scale successes come more like 1-in-100,000-tries than 1-in-2500. There's a tendency to see every startup as a potential little Google -- we could call this 'Google Goggles'. But Google is one-of-a-kind, and it shouldn't require even one success of that scale to make the case for broader immigration. For example, shouldn't these visas be available to immigrants whose 'startup' is a donut shop, nail salon, or bodega? (I also suspect such a program could be easily gamed... but as I'd like to see more immigration of anyone ambitious, I suppose that's a feature not a bug.) ------ tc This line made me smile: _I think this would have such a visible effect on the economy that it would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous._ It reminded me of "Law 13" of "The 48 Laws of Power": _uncover something in your request... that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion._ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555691> ~~~ tokenadult A risk might be that if even one Al Qaeda terrorist gets in under this program, then the whole program will be shut down, and the sponsoring member of Congress's name will be infamous forever after. ~~~ ajju Good VCs vet potential investees better than the FBI does. And that is true without the risk of being blamed for enabling a terrorist. Think about how well a VC would vet someone coming in from outside the country. (How well they _can_ vet such a person is a separate but important issue). And at least one of the 9/11 hijackers came in on a student visa. The student visa program has not been shut down (although checks for all visa programs have become more stringent). ------ jbenz Hear, hear. I couldn't agree more. I have a foreign-born friend who has inspired similar thoughts in me. I'm convinced this friend could found an incredible web startup here in the States if only the Federal Government wasn't making it so difficult for him. I wrote to my congressman expressing this sentiment. He replied saying in a nutshell: "Don't worry, I strongly support protecting American jobs from foreign encroachment." I wrote back to say that this was nearly the complete opposite of my concern, and I asked him to respond with an indication that my original email was not misunderstood. Of course I never heard back. ------ veteran Is it incidental that except for one or two guys in essay review are all people who are small investors who don't have ability to open investment shop in India/China?.. May be 20 yrs back this was relevant but today just because you offer does not mean quality people need it..so before proposing was there actually needs analysis..did somebody read the Chinese social networks are ahead in revenue numbers and there is huge investment in electric cars..same story with other emerging markets and don't think there are no investment funds there..obviously, people will say there is not enough support but in Silicon valley also beyond seed stage very few outsiders get the funding..checkout thefunded.com for more information..so if you are smart/hard working then stay where you are because you can create opportunities..also worthwhile to read mercury news story about dwindling public companies in silicon valley.. the other part of the story is not there but you can very well guess.. world is flat! Btw, I have 2 investments in Indian companies and I would not advise them coming to US unless they establish themselves well..simply because starting and growing a company is not easy if you do not have well established connections and good market read..hiring good people also needs good connections..most of the time your early employees are your friends or past coworkers.. This kind of arrangement will work only if the people are going to hand over reins to someone local ..this is exactly and only suitable for mass investors like Ron Conway/YCombinator..and I don't want to say anything on this forum but entrepreneurs while choosing the investor need to see lot more than initial recognition.. I know many people will oppose me here but just walk through a case scenario where this will work..also if you are going to throw in Google example then please do thorough analysis.. My advice to young entrepreneur is just go in the market where you understand things not that looks shiny.. there are no overnight successes..and don't quit something you have (can have) simply on the word of an investor..definitely not for the people who can not be with you till you get cash flow positive..(just to be clear I am not taking swipe at either Ron or YCombinator program..i am just talking in context of extending (and "assuming") its relevance to international teams without really understanding the other side) ~~~ pg I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that would-be founders should stay in their home countries and start their startups there? If so, then the answer is that it depends on the country and the nature of the startup. There are certainly some combinations of country/startup where the founders would be better off in Silicon Valley. It's up to the individual founders to decide if theirs is. ~~~ veteran uh..hard point to understand (or swallow?). I don't believe in this assumption -- "There are certainly some combination of country/startup where the founders would be better off in Silicon Valley - when we are talking about founders who need visas (they can't get EB5 green card which is given based on investment or business visas which are pretty much given to anyone who has valid established business or who are not already in US as a student/employee..in that case founders do get H1B easily transferred for their own company provided they can show company of substance..if they pursued advanced degree here then they don't get in H1B cap)..so limits to be the people without much of resources of their own - who don't understand market here (at least not on first hand basis) and don't have connections..how will they succeed.. why misguide some of them and also fool ourselves that such a thing is useful..especially, given there is much better chance if they stay where they are then they will be able to pull off something successful targeted at the market they already understand and that too putting up number of 2500 such startups every year ..good idea to write 2 examples to validate it first..tell me some story.. so my point..people should start company where they understand the market and if US wants to benefit from international resources then investors should go outside US because only that will work..because that is right for startups/founders/investors.. ~~~ ajju Actually there _is_ a cap on H1B visas for advanced degree holders (20000/year) and this year this cap was met before the cap for the general category. ~~~ veteran you are right Ajju..this 20,000 exemption number indeed was not enough this year ..I sponsored 2 H1Bs in 2006 and that year it was different..there is just strong appetite for those visas.. I am in full support of increasing that exemption limit because it seems it is pretty finite short fall and don't know why it is not given by priority in the general bucket.. if somebody is doing something on that then let me know how to support.. As far as Paul, you not being able to understand what I say..I don't expect you to understand much of it anyway..from your essay and comments, you come out as a typical guy who has a 100% workable solution (in his mind) but he does not understand the problem or market.. ------ car A visa type that is quite similar to what you propose does exist. It's the E-2 "entrepreneur" or "Treaty Investor" visa (<http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1273.html>). I've gone through the process, and despite it being a lot of paperwork and requiring the help of a lawyer, it was ultimately a good experience. In order to get such a visa, one has to submit a business plan, and show sufficient funds from abroad. Interestingly, the funds only have to be appropriate for the business to be started, there is no set minimum like a lot of people assume (e.g. 100k). An example my lawyer gave me was a woman that wanted to start a horse riding school, and who got her E-2 by proving an investment of ~30k into her company. I started an internet business, and my investment was in the same ballpark. Also, for founders already living in the US, it is ok to work on setting up the business, e.g. incorporating etc, while applying for the E-2, as long as no customers are being engaged and money is being earned. A downside is, that there is no straight path from the E-2 to a greencard; other then upping the investment (which has to come from abroad) to $10^6. Edit: There is another downside, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. One has to be from a 'treaty' nation. Disclaimer: I'd strongly advise you to consult an immigration lawyer if you want to do this. ------ Aegean I think the Founders Visa idea totally reflects the American freedom spirit and it must be definitely tried. I am currently holding a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa from the UK, and this was the only way I could start a startup there. After the visa was available, I quit my job and started my own business. I think with this visa, UK already went ahead of U.S. in this respect. I agree that in order to reduce competition with American citizens, the Founders Visa may be limited to working in your own company. Founders don't want to be employed (I strictly don't - even was gonna refuse Google if they made an offer) and new companies create job openings. A Visa of this kind would be totally adequate for someone like me. I didn't like the "Let investors choose" criteria. What if I am self-funded? If I bring my funds in, isn't that even better? Also it is highly subjective whether a founder is going to be successful or not. I think the election strategy should be based on founder's age, education, past earnings, work experience etc. just like in the UK scheme: <http://www.workpermit.com/uk/hsmp_calculator.htm> Yes this is not the best criteria to select successful founders, but at least it is a "secure" criteria, i.e. you choose people elite enough that they won't hurt U.S economy. You could start with a "science/business graduate founders" scheme, and extend it based on success. My last words go to Europe. Europe is living in the past. I wanted to attend FOSDEM in Belgium, was requested so many difficult documentation for Visa, that I decided not to go. I will probably never go to Belgium or similar countries, not because I hate them, but because its simply not worth the effort to visit those countries. ------ yan I'm thinking: how can this be exploited? Can someone just say they're building a new way to shorten urls and need two years in the country to build their business to fruition? And what defines success or progress? ~~~ tomsaffell If someone did apply under false pretenses, get here, and do nothing, then what would be the negative impact on the country? PG's suggestion was that they cannot work for other companies, so they are not depriving anyone of a job. They will have to live somehow (on whomever's money they have), and that will go into the local economy. If you add a clause to the visa that they cannot claim any type of social welfare, then I think the potential downside of 'gaming' nowhere near outweighs* all the potential upsides. * - opportunity cost of the 10,000 spots excepted, which is why you have the right folks picking the 10,000. ~~~ calambrac Maybe add a requirement to hold in escrow enough money to ship the person back, for the case where their startup fails? ------ jey That's a good idea. The visa system generally makes it hard for hard-working highly-motivated highly-educated foreigners to come to the US and create value. PG is right that we should be _attracting_ these people instead of throwing random obstacles in their way. \-- American-born son of an immigrant Indian scientist ------ nickpp A VISA?! Are you f..ing kidding me? Do you know what a fragile status one has while on a VISA? Any day you your visa can be revoked and you can be thrown out. Do you expect me to risk everything, to pour my life and blood into a business while under the stress that if anything goes wrong I am on a plane with a one- way ticket to a place where I have nothing anymore, together with my family and away for any of my friends? Do you want founders? Do you want INVESTORS? Anything less than a Green Card is a spit in the face. Take an example from Canada or UK who both offer directly residency under a set of qualification rules, not $1m. Stop treating us as we're nothing more than students happy to receive a couple dozen k as if that was an actual serious investment. Oh wait... ~~~ shiro I've worked on visa for several years, so I know it's like putting your life at the mercy of USCIS. I got enough stress until I got a GC. But there are already people who are willing to risk that, so it is one step forward for those people and for US economy. And it is where pg stands, so at least it's consistent; you shouldn't be surprised. Of course there are different views. For other countries who wants to compete Silicon Valley, it is bad. For those who concern rights of visa workers, more visas may only make problems worse. You can stands there and discuss those disadvantages logically, but you don't need to burst emotional responses---it won't help changing opinions of the other side. BTW, I think this visa plan is only an initial step and clear path to a Green Card should be shown as the next step. After September 2001, it seems that employment-based Green Card processing is taking longer and longer. Some of my friends are waiting 5-6 years already. There's not much point if those who has built successful business have to stay on non-immigrant visa status. ------ chops _The tricky part might seem to be how one defined a startup. But that could be solved quite easily: let the market decide._ As much as I support your position (I'm an open immigration advocate), the concept of "Let the market decide" isn't exactly a position I hear the government ever clamoring to support. The government wants control, and giving up control is it's antithesis. ------ arram Anyone who missed it should check out the etherpad link: <http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/slider/foundervisa> Very cool. ~~~ staunch The accreditation struggle was tough! Now I want a list of every investors Ronco number. ------ mhb This idea is a special case of Gary Becker's proposal to sell the right to immigrate ([http://www.becker-posner- blog.com/archives/2005/02/sell_the_...](http://www.becker-posner- blog.com/archives/2005/02/sell_the_right.html)). In this special case, the investors in the immigrant's business would pay the immigration fee. I don't see why the potential benefit to the US of immigrants with startup ideas is necessarily greater than immigrants of similar technical skills with no stated intention to start a company. But the immigration fee could help in sorting that out. ~~~ fauigerzigerk So the first thing all immigrants learn is that you're taxed for absolutely nothing in return. Paying a tax to be allowed to pay taxes. Thank you very much :) ------ sfg One danger is that the accreditation process for recognised investors could be hijacked and used to give special privileges to a small number of firms. ~~~ wheels That's simple. You just make the accredidation based on the number and size of US investments and you allow some small portion of those to be of this special class. ------ tokenadult After edit: On second reading of your article, this differs from the existing investor visa category [http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f...](http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4ff96138f898d010VgnVCM10000048f3d6a1RCRD) in asking the would-be immigrant to put up talent rather than money as the sign he will run a successful business. That's in line with your usual take on how easy it is to start up new businesses in today's economy. It's an intriguing idea to broaden the talent pool available for seed-stage investors to invest in. The political objections will revolve around a) What happens to the people who start up but flame out, failing in their businesses? It's expensive to deport people who have already arrived, and they sometimes disappear from the view of law enforcement. b) Why shouldn't the United States start-up investment market be preferentially granted to persons who have legal right to work in the United States? (My bias is toward free movement of people across borders, but the only reason immigration law exists at all is that not everyone shares my bias, not in any country.) P.S. I am a lawyer, and used to practice immigration law, although the bulk of the cases I worked on involved different visa categories. ------ gord A link to a PETITION where one can register support, might give this some political traction. I think pg+hn+/. etc could generate 50k signatures. ideas? ~~~ tom_rath An e-petition will do diddly. Write your senator, congressman and governor on _paper_ , sign the documents and mail them. Paper letters are the currency of elected representatives, and a stack of 10k letters descending on numerous offices would do infinitely more than a lonely web page with 50k e-mail addresses. ------ psranga Others have said it, but I'll say it again. Maybe in 1989, this would have made sense. But capitalism has had enough converts that most countries have pretty low barriers to high tech startups now. IMHO, people who are already entreprenurial in their home countries will be the last people who will want to immigrate to the US. Maybe pg looks at the number of companies founded by immigrants and thinks that he can increase that number by creating a new visa class for founders. Immigrants start businesses because American culture is much more stable, open to startups, tolerant of failure, and gives people second chances; so many immigrants let go of their previous cultural biases and _become_ founders. If you're already an entrepreneur in a poorer country like India and China, why would you immigrate from there to a country where _all_ expenses are _vastly_ higher. I mean, _American_ companies are setting up development centers in India and China. For richer countries like France and Germany, you give you any existing networks and go to a new place. Seems like a net loss to me. You have stay in a culture for a while before you recognize business opportunities there. I bet that most of the immigrants who start things do so after staying in the US for 3+ years. My claim is that a new immigrant will do _worse_ at business than average. You'll have to let in lots of smart people and hope that some start companies. Maybe you can set up the rules so that it's easier for the smart new arrivals to start a business as soon as they're ready. Currently, due to various rules, the most common route to permanent residency takes approx 6 years of _continuous_ employment with the _same_ employer for an immigrant to gain unrestricted rights to do business (this requires permanent residency). So for somebody who arrived for a Master's degree (being simplistic and using Master's as a proxy for smartness), it will be 8 years after arrival. This same person may have understood the culture well enough in 3 years and be ready to start a business. ------ DomesticMouse PG's post is interesting, as always. The bit that is worrying me is the linked Etherpad animation. Am I the only one that looks at the Etherpad DVCS using javascript functions as the delta data format, and think XSS sploit in waiting? ------ jules So if you don't need VC money you don't get in? ~~~ stuntprogrammer This is a serious hole in the proposal. If you have enough resources to not need to take investment for your startup (and want to minimize outside early stage money), but not enough for an EB-5 investor visa, then you're excluded. I know several people who fall into that gap; you'd think the US government would be happy to take immigrants with say at least 500k$ to support themselves but nope.. ------ hillel Neat idea except for the part about using investors to validate which startup counts. What about the plenty of viable and compelling startups that have decided to bootstrap? ------ gojomo Implementation questions: Do the investors have to be Americans, or is it enough that the investment is spent in the U.S.? When the money runs out or the startup fails, are the founders asked to leave? ------ siegler _I usually avoid politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one_ If your goal is to persuade as many people as possible, insulting the previous administration and by extension those that voted for Bush is a bad start. I was already opposed to your idea before the second sentence, despite the fact that I'm an advocate of increased legal immigration. ~~~ geebee I'm always curious when people say they advocate increasing immigration. Right now, the United States takes about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year. Does this seem too low a number to you? If so, do you see a practical need for some kind of limit, or are you in favor of limitless immigration? ~~~ TJensen The problem is that the majority of illegal immigrants are at the low end of the tax spectrum, often taking more out than the put in. The people who we'd ideally want in the country are at the other end, and they usually aren't here illegally. That is the group PG is trying to target here, and I'm ALL for making it easier for them to immigrate. ~~~ geebee I completely agree, our immigration system needs reform, badly. In fact, I see "low hanging fruit" that could really improve our economy and quality of life. That said, I didn't really get an answer... you say you're in favor of increasing legal immigration - are you in favor of changing the mix, of do you think that we need to go way above the current level of 1.2+ million a year? ------ BerislavLopac The main problem here is that there is no need for founders to move to the USA to get funded by the US investors. How would such a visa benefit foreign investors? If there is a shortage of good entrepreneurs in the States, wouldn't it be easier if the VC's start fishing around the world instead of waiting for all the fish to come to their own pond? Y Combinator should take a hint from their UK/European counterpart, Seedcamp. Starting in London two years ago with a similar model as YC has in the US, they have started organizing local mini-Seedcamps throughout Europe to make it easier for the startups to apply: the first mini-Seedcamp was last year in Kiev, Ukraine, while this year they have a tour of seven cities -- Tel Aviv, Paris, Warsaw, London, Helsingborg, Ljubljana and Berlin; check www.seedcamp.com -- where local startups may apply towards the main event in London later this year. ------ phugoid With all due respect, this seems pretty naive to me. I've met dozens of people trying to gain entry to Canada and the US, and it's common knowledge that you can game the system with money. This would just provide another entry point. You would have to define what is a successful startup, in simple legal terms, and people would find ways to satisfy the definition and stay in the country. I have experienced first-hand the difficulty of moving to a new country, adapting to a new system, trying to build a new social network. Any genuine startup founders would have to contend with all this, all the while knowing that if their business fails they're booted out of the country. Anyway, I believe the reason entrepreneurship works so well in the US is because we allow people to fail. ------ kalendae What about the opposite question. Do startups need to be in the US to be successful? And if so why? I'm sure there are non-US originated webapps that are popular in the US, but it seems the opposite tends to happen more often (Google, Facebook, etc etc...). Given that you can host your web app on EC2 from anywhere in the world with an internet connection as easily as from the US, what then are the barriers? My guess is that it is actually mostly cultural. If I write a webapp I am more comfortable knowing the target audience well. If it is a cultural barrier, then maybe the foreign founders don't really gain much from being in the US unless they are here to absorb the culture? ------ resdirector Currently, how difficult is it to get overseas founders into existing startup programs such as YC, TechStars etc? Is YC, for instance, turning down foreign applicants due to visa restrictions? If not, I don't see a problem. ------ jhancock Its a fine plan. If I were your congressman, I would support the bill ;). But if you think the U.S. is already tapped out of top entrepreneurs, your not looking hard enough. What would the costs be to enable those already in America? Things like school loan deferment and establishing incubation investment vehicles in at least 10 other cities could enable at least 10,000 Americans. Sure that costs something. But if you think it would be cheap to oversee a special program for 10,000 "entrepreneur visas" a year, then you haven't spent much time at immigration offices ;). ------ IndianJazz I agree - Infact this is THE biggest reason , stopping me to break free and launch my ideas. If "I" were to start a firm , all that matters is talent, I would cherish to work with fellow American workers. Remember in the modern age , the more varied my fellow workers are , the richer is my experience. Each one of us has an amazing story to tell, along with the rich experiences from our varied backgrounds. I do understand the worries about the American workers right. Its genuine, and I respect it. ------ colins_pride I'm just happy to see the karma going where it belongs. I "found" these essays three days before my first trip to Bombay, and read all of them on the 14 hour nonstop. I showed up only slightly tired from the travel, but extremely optimistic on the world, the future, and myself. And that made a difference in convincing my now in-laws that I was a worthy son-in-law, deserving of their daughter, the most wonderful woman I know. Thanks, Paul, for another excellent essay. ------ tomsaffell Nice idea. Feels like a version of the E-2, brought in line with the new realities of the cost of starting a web based business - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E2_visa> (government is always slow). Rather than requiring applicants to bring _monetary capital_ into the country, they'd be required to bring _start-up capital_ , as measured by those who will invest in it. ~~~ jerryji My E-2 interview (at the US embassy in Singapore) is scheduled at the end of this month. Cost me more than $6K (in attorney fee, etc) and countless number of hours to prepare all the documents without any guarantee that I'll get it. It _is_ more scary than applying to YC, now good luck to myself. ------ atobe I wonder, how could one turn this idea into a lobbying effort? Who else realises the benefit of it and would support it? Whom should be contacted and what representation should be made? I think it's a great idea, btw. Of all people BillG has actually been before congress and represented on this issue. He had said that Microsoft had often been naive with regard to the contact needed in Washington to get things changed. Modernising this idea, how about Eric Schmidt? ------ gruseom It seems like this might be more viable politically than most attempts at immigration reform in the US because it neutralizes (if not reverses) the "they're taking our jobs" objection. The objection could hardly become "they're starting our businesses". On the other hand, it's hard to underestimate the irrationality surrounding this issue. Edit: What meaningful changes could the Obama administration make without having to go through Congress? ------ rys I've not had a really detailed read of all the comments, so apologies if I missed it somewhere, but how do you justify it as "a policy that would cost nothing"? Or am I confusing monetary cost with something else? The rest of the idea seems sane, though, as long as the application for the visa made it clear what the intention was, on top of "I want to found a company or companies please". Non-US resident here, for what it's worth. ------ IndianJazz Here is how the US can go about it, 1\. All visa applications must have a "CERTIFIED" viable buisness plan. 2\. Sensible cash amounts should be with the applicant along with the good credit standings - Its foolish to ask for 100K if you are starting a Web2.0 business. 3\. Periodic progress reports to be submitted , certified by auditors. 4\. Initially for 2 yr , and then renewable depending on numerous factors like success etc ------ nandemo Not very likely to happen. To put things in perspective: most (non-European) foreign nationals are required to hold a transit visa just to make a connection via an US airport. To obtain that visa you need to go the local US consulate and schedule an interview. Not for study or tourism, mind you. Just to step off a plane and board another 2 hours later. ------ ozchrisb Just use an E-1 and educate US investors that if they invest in overseas company X then they can get E-1 status. ~~~ abii E-1 is restricted to nationals of a small set of countries. It needs to be more open. ~~~ IndianJazz Dude , some of those countries in the list is a joke ! ------ aita Why should people(bright) all around the world come and help america? Why are proposing an idea to lure these bright people? Has america lost its confidence? In this digital age, whole world is like home. Why again think of country ? why not "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam"? ~~~ plinkplonk " why not "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam"? " For those who don't know Sanskrit "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" == (roughly) "(Every one in) The world is my family" I wish people wouldn't drop into non english languages without providing a translation. If someone were to sprinkle his messages with Swahili (for example) I would be lost. ------ psranga A quick search shows no mention of Illusions of Entrepreurship. Excellent book, btw. That book claims that existing companies create more jobs than new companies. Starts at page 153: Here's the google books link: <http://bit.ly/m4vXV> ------ danbmil99 Is there really a lack of people in the USA today who want to start companies? It might be a zero-sum game -- X dollars available for startups; if you let in a bunch of people, the startup dollars will go there rather than to people already here. ~~~ TJensen But that is where the beauty of having the market decide comes in. If a person from India but founding a company in the US has a better idea, then the money SHOULD go to her. That is best for the investors, and it is best for America, because a better idea will build a better company that will create more jobs. ------ joeythibault It's called Eb5 [http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f...](http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=4ff96138f898d010VgnVCM10000048f3d6a1RCRD) ------ grinich I like how you used Etherpad. Watching the essay unfold gave me even more insight into your thoughts on the issue. ie: what topics took a while to iron- out and how you formulated your sentences. I'd like to see a few more of these in Etherpad. ------ rokhayakebe You Nailed It PG(an immigrant living in the US). Simple as that. Nailed it. ------ hs immigrants who make it big in internet seem to be from young kids who gain permanent residency later are there any greencard holders having thru h1b (6 years?) and then found startup and be as successful? ------ csomar agree I'm facing the same problem. I can't get VISA to USA or Europe and thus start a startup there. Many people are facing the same problem ------ ajju Thankyou pg for writing on this topic! ------ pclark I'm sure WebMynd would appreciate it ------ catz There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have a sponsoring company you must be out of the country in 60 days. The third reason is that it deters people from going to the USA. I really want to go to California next year – but with that Visa system it is not going to happen (probably going to London). Compare the US system and the UK's General Highly skilled Visas (e.g. [http://www.workpermit.com/uk/uk-immigration-tier- system/tier...](http://www.workpermit.com/uk/uk-immigration-tier- system/tier-1/general-highly-skilled-migrants.htm)) – it is really no fuss and valid for a time period. There are already more than 5 million Mexicans in the US. Would 1 million engineers and scientists really be a bad thing? ~~~ iamelgringo Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers and scientists be a bad thing?" And, 1 million engineers and scientists would depress salaries in the US. That's a plus for founders, but a minus for engineers and scientists trying to find work. I'm almost always on the side of greater immigration into this country, but I can see the downside of it as well. ~~~ catz > Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 > million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers > and scientists be a bad thing?" Saying there are over 5 million Mexicans in the USA is a completely factual statement. It is true that you have much higher immigration (both legal and illegal) from neighbouring countries than parts of the rest of the world. > And, 1 million engineers and scientists would depress salaries in the US. Maybe. But either companies move to where the engineers are (outsourcing, new companies) or the engineers move to where the companies are. In the latter case they still pay tax for the US. And American engineers will have a depressed salary in any case. ~~~ iamelgringo It's actually 13 million Mexicans: [http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/15/Study-13M-Mexican- nat...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/15/Study-13M-Mexican-nationals-in- US/UPI-60041239814839/) ------ erlanger Sorry, but I don't think that this makes much sense. INS already has their hands full, and it wouldn't be much fun for them to have to check up on thousands of startup founders to be sure that they're in fact running their business (1) viably, and (2) according to their agreed business plan. The system would be unbelievably easy to cheat. It also would be stupid easy to turn a "startup" into a money laundering scheme. Don't take this the wrong way: I really wish that there were an easy way to let legit founders into the US. But it just isn't practical. ~~~ andreyf Wow, who up-votes this junk? Let's see: _The INS has their hands full..._ PG said: 10,000 people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards For comparison, there were 591,050 student and exchange visas granted in 2007 [1]. If the INS can handle checking up on individual students following educations via Universities, they can do the same with 1/200th the number of startups via investment firms. _The system would be unbelievably easy to cheat_ Oh, how? And why is accreditation a viable solution for Universities, but not investors? _I really wish... but it just isn't practical_ Give one shred of evidence aside from senseless pontification and I might consider it. 1\. <http://www.studyusa.com/English/articles/visa2.asp> ~~~ erlanger _"PG said: 10,000 people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards"_ Yes, in terms of people. But you fail to understand that it's _an entire new process and system_ that would have to be invented and executed. You just don't think like a con-man. Universities have quite a bit on the line, such as accreditation. A private company has next to nothing on the line. Anyway, here's how I'd do it: 1\. First off, I'd need to know somebody in the US who has a viable business and would vouch for me. Because immigrant communities support business focused on their interests, this wouldn't be very difficult. Of course they'd agree, because of the benefits for the home country (sending money home, etc.). 2\. Have them offer fake investments to me and a pool of founders. Get approved by INS/State. 3\. Once in the US, work as I please. Funnel this money back into the "startup" as profits. Plenty of startups can't even turn a profit, so financials wouldn't have to be impressive. 4\. Rinse, repeat. The same business would only get approved so many times, but there are _tons_ of businesses here. Now, for the unscrupulous way (since there's nothing particularly immoral about the previous scenario). Note that I'm for the legalization of drugs, but that's not the point: The US gov't is sure as hell against that. 1\. Have associate(s) in the US prop up a shell of a business that appears to be legitimate. Have them offer a huge investment for what appears to be a startup's credible business plan. 2\. Move in under an alias with fake documents. 3\. Funnel drug money through the "startup," which would be an ideal money laundering node. Because the plan is intended to produce successful businesses, nobody would blink an eye at the eye-popping profits. Just bullshit as much as necessary...if YouTube cooked the books, they could convince people that they were turning $150M profit annually easily. Show your cards as you please, since you're holding the deck. 4\. If things get even remotely hot, leave the country. So much money's been successfully processed at this point that it's undoubtedly a net win. Hell, say you're flying to Lima to make a commencement speech on business. Nobody would stop you. The associates could claim ignorance obviously, as you were just some entrepreneur they put their hopes and dollars in. Even if the startup were irrevocably linked to money laundering, you're back home and extradition isn't happening, since you used a false identity. 5\. Rinse, repeat with other associates. _"Give one shred of evidence aside from senseless pontification and I might consider it."_ Evidence on a virgin immigration plan? I'm sure there's plenty out there! Let's flip this: Tell me how you prevent either of the two previous scenarious, short of having the gov't handle the entire recommendation/approval process, which would pretty much defeat the purpose. _Sigh_ ... people are so naive. ~~~ shiro I think pg's point of investors accreditation system is that it's not the government you have to cheat, but the group of pre-selected investors. (I'd imagine something similar to professional guilds... you have to be recognized by peers to be in part of the investor group of deciding who can get invested with this visa, for example). The obstacle I see is that the stake of having authority to say who can get visas for work is very high these days (not like student visas); lots of people are seeking ways to get working visas desperately. So there would be lots of political frictions to introduce investor's accreditation system. But yet, if politicians are convinced that this is crucial to revitalize the economy (which is probably one of the highest priority items), much of such muddling of power games may be avoided. ------ albertcardona What I find fascinating of the idea is the multiple win-win: 1) The USA benefits: more companies that pay taxes and pay for services, and create jobs for americans. 2) The founders benefit: they get a chance to bring their ideas to fruition, and get rich. 3) Paul Graham benefits: improved competition in the startup world would bring better founder teams to Y-Combinator. 4) The general public benefits: good ideas get implemented and are available as services that improve, in some way, your life.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Use a Wii Balance Board with Linux - kqr2 http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/linux-wii-balanceboard/ ====== icefox This would be a neat way to input a password	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy (2008) - razin http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html ====== awb For those new to a tough economy, here's my story from 2008: I was laid off from the digital agency I worked at. I had been trying to find a new job for a while but no one was hiring at the income I needed to pay the mortgage on the house I just bought. So, I started my own digital agency. I tried to think of ways to make their model better/faster/cheaper. Better: I would routinely measure the impact of my work. Faster: I would do it myself, no teams slowing things down. Cheaper: I'd charge half of what my old company was charging. The business grew considerably despite the economic tough times. Everyone was looking for great work at cheap rates and I was willing to work long hours (8am - 3am for a few months to get off the ground). As the economy improved I hired a team, raised my rates and worked reasonable hours again. After 5 years it was a successful enough venture that I was able to sell the business. It's possible to make a great living in a bad economy, but you need some luck, some skill and a lot of hard work in my experience. ~~~ hef19898 I would add a domain that is needed in bad economic times. Even better, one you can provide value other can't. then you are rather safe, I think. ------ brenden2 This is easy to say when you have capital or access to capital. Having lived most of my life quite poor, I find it somewhat frustrating to hear things like this. When you can't afford food, rent, health insurance, etc, the last thing you're thinking about is dumping your life savings into a new business that has a 90% chance of failure. ~~~ the_watcher The Airbnb founders both maxed out their credit cards, and famously kept the lights on by selling cereal at the 2008 Republican and Democratic conventions. I believe the actual idea for Airbnb spun out of them realizing it could help them pay their rent. ~~~ dntbnmpls > and famously kept the lights on by selling cereal at the 2008 Republican and > Democratic conventions. Sounds like a great exaggerated story. > I believe the actual idea for Airbnb spun out of them realizing it could > help them pay their rent. That may be, but the founders come from well to do families and I'm sure never worried about missing rent, getting evicted and being homeless. There might be rags to riches stories out there. AirBnB ain't it. It's a riches to extreme riches story. ------ stoicShell There is one word missing from this post that contains a whole lot of the argument on the environment side: _chaos_. Those who learn to thrive in chaos are most dangerous out there, for they have this contrarian impulse to rise when there's blood in the streets. If you recall a history lesson or two, that's how the most egregious powers are made —in wealth or might or legacy. Right now, some of us are down —the situation is draining, energy-wise— whereas others feel invigorated, a drive to take action, make a move. How we respond to chaos thus creates a big divide among us in times of major perturbation. There's this shift of potentials in the system, and kinetics go crazy, and some flee/freeze (seek security, refuge, maintaining the status quo, conservatively preserve what's left, etc) while others feel compelled to fight (to defend, protect, help; but also attack, kick in the disruptive nuts, solve problem, seek victory). For those, it could be the perfect storm to attempt a moonshot — I find there's a really unusual proportion of such stories among famous successful figures in virtually all fields, but I wonder if it's not survivorship bias + myth building + my own filters. ~~~ tryitnow When in doubt it's almost always cognitive biases at play. I think a more reasonable assessment would indicate that people who are well resourced (either through financial, social, or skill capital) are more likely to feel invigorated and therefore will build on the resources they already have by taking advantage of the chaos. ------ 5445455 If you want try start a startup in a bad economy come to my country, Argentina, and you will have de full package. Sometimes I read comments or blog post about the risks or the "bad economy situation" in first-world countries and a little smile on my face appears. If you really want to test yourself come here. ~~~ dzonga if you think that's bad. go to my home country, Zimbabwe. ~~~ kirubakaran If you think that's bad, go to Aleppo Syria [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch) ------ quaquaqua1 > _What if you quit your job to start a startup that fails, and you can 't > find another? That could be a problem if you work in sales or marketing. In > those fields it can take months to find a new job in a bad economy. But > hackers seem to be more liquid. Good hackers can always get some kind of > job. It might not be your dream job, but you're not going to starve._ Probably true but I think I would prefer the safe bet over the risky one. Why would I pass up on a 100% chance to make 100k when someone is offering a 0.01% chance to make a few million? If the job was remote, maybe my mind would change. But VCs are asking us to cram into cities with $4000 rent for reasons they can't explain. And most startup interviews these days are theater. ~~~ zachthewf "Why would I pass up on a 100% chance to make 100k when someone is offering a 0.01% chance to make a few million?" You don't _have_ to start a startup. And if this is your attitude towards risk, you probably shouldn't. ~~~ gbear605 I’d definitely take 100% * $100k = $100k over 0.01% * $10M = $1000, especially since money has diminishing returns to happiness. Now perhaps you think your odds are better than 1/10000 or that you’d make 10 billion instead of 10 million, but assuming the given odds and valuation, there’s no way I’m going with the risky offer. ~~~ SpicyLemonZest To first order, successful startup founders are the people who don't do these calculations. Any early stage software business has countless plausible reasons why it's likely to fail; if you're thinking about risk-benefit analysis beyond the basic sanity check of "will my life be ruined if this doesn't work", you're sapping energy you need to actually make it successful. (I'm not saying this to look down on you! I'm absolutely the kind of person who does these calculations, and thus shouldn't found a startup, even if it sometimes sounds cool to me.) ~~~ vikramkr I think founders do those same calculations, Since you can't be successful if you can't accurately judge risk, but I think the utility function is different in how founders value non-monetary rewards and the mission of the company etc, and I think founders might also see themselves as in positions to influence those payoff numbers to increase the probability of success or the venture or the payoff as t the end. ------ JohnFen I think how true this is depends on how you're starting your business (specifically, how you're funding the startup). I've personally had greater success with starting business when the economy is down than when it is up. As near as I can tell, it's because the field tends not to be as crowded. It's easier to get attention to your business when there are fewer startups competing for attention. Since I've always avoided using investment money or loans to fund ventures anyway, a down market doesn't impact me as much as it does with many other approaches. ------ rexreed Ok, no. This is a bad meme. Read the comments here and you can see why. You know what startups came out of the 2008/2009 recession? A car sharing company. A rooms-for-lease company. Many, many different delivery companies and a sh*t-ton of gig economy jobs. Do you know what they all have in common? Taking advantage of people's weak economic situation. That's the sort of company that comes out of bad economies. The ones that take advantage of people being in poor economic situations. But starting something that matters? You have to do it when customers can actually buy your products. And that takes a GOOD economy. I can't wait to see the slew of low-quality companies that come out of this next upcoming, inevitable recession ~~~ holler > Taking advantage of people's weak economic situation Wouldn't it just be simple supply/demand? What about all those jobs the gig workers have access to, which otherwise wouldn't exist? ~~~ rexreed There's a difference between a job and work. There's been many studies about chronic underemployment and lack of benefit by gig economy workers which are in effect working at rates drastically lower than what would be expected if it was actual full time employment as a job. ------ sebastianconcpt _Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible. For years I 've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. And fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup. A recession will if anything make it cheaper still. If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to be a cockroach even than to keep your job. Customers may drop off individually if they can no longer afford you, but you're not going to lose them all at once; markets don't "reduce headcount." What if you quit your job to start a startup that fails, and you can't find another? That could be a problem if you work in sales or marketing. In those fields it can take months to find a new job in a bad economy. But hackers seem to be more liquid. Good hackers can always get some kind of job. It might not be your dream job, but you're not going to starve. Another advantage of bad times is that there's less competition. Technology trains leave the station at regular intervals. If everyone else is cowering in a corner, you may have a whole car to yourself. You're an investor too. As a founder, you're buying stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that they were the first investors in Google. And like any investor you should buy when times are bad._ ~~~ hef19898 One of PGs most influential essays, at least for me. If anything, the emergence of cloud services made start-ups even cheaper since 2008. ------ inventtheday I get what he's saying, but the majority of the richest people in history were born ~20 years before the early American Industrial/Steel boom or ~20 years before the internet was popularized. Macro is important from a population level perspective. ------ wexxy Can I pay my rent in startup ideas? ~~~ cmauniada Ideas are worthless. ~~~ JohnFen Ideas are both a dime a dozen and invaluable. That is, ideas are easy to come up with by the bushel, but you can't have a business without one. Unimplemented ideas are worthless, though. ------ travisjungroth I’m working on ideas for a new startup and this is a very different economy than three weeks ago. The Dow is down 24% in that time. Overall, I think my chances are better. Raising that friends and family round might be tougher, since some people are feeling less rich than they did. Others will be looking for a hedge. I’m targeting B2B SaaS, and there’s certainly going to be some purse string tightening. But I imagine there will still be room for low-cost tools with a 10x ROÍ, which is the surest way to be successful, anyway. The biggest advantage I have going is flexibility. Right now I can turn on a dime, which a public company, or even a Series B, can’t really do. ------ greendave A timely reminder (was that really only 12 years ago?). But (maybe a big but), recessions are not all created equal. Seems the unknowns are a lot different this time around. ------ bernardlunn Brilliant post that inspired me to do this research when I was at ReadWrite: [https://readwrite.com/2009/04/30/what-do-vcs-say-and-do- in-e...](https://readwrite.com/2009/04/30/what-do-vcs-say-and-do-in-early- stage-today/) ------ catchmeifyoucan Exactly what I needed - thanks PG. Didn't really know what to make of the current situation. Another gem that always gets me going: [http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html) ------ simonswords82 Sweat equity increases in value as the amount of money being invested in startups diminishes ------ EGreg If you don’t want to start a startup, just invest in one. One that is derisked and not yet IPO. But usually only accredited investors can do that. Another way that the Federal government helps the rich get richer. PS: The JOBS act changed that with Rule 506b but you have to convince startups to use it ~~~ helen___keller > If you don’t want to start a startup, just invest in one. In a recession, there may be a lot of people with talent, a lot of time, but little to no money. Investment is a game for the rich in the first place, which is why most people don't care about rules involving accredited investors. ~~~ EGreg So invent your own currency (use Ethereum or intercoin.org) and pay w that. Slicing Pie is a good book for this But not everyone will agree to work for it, for others you will need cold hard cash. And stock investors are all around, I am talking to them, they want to take $ out of the stock market and put it in SOMETHING.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: SmartForms – Form back end as a service - GiancarlloRojas Hi guys, my name is Giancarllo and I'm launching a pretty simple service: form backend that notifies you on Email, Telegram or Slack.<p>http://smartforms.dev<p>It's not intended to make tons of money, I made it for my use and I've been using it on some clients websites. It has a pretty generous free-tier and the paid tiers have really fair pricing.<p>This is my first time launching a product, so any feedback is really appreciated! Thanks, guys. ====== d--b Hey, congrats on launch. What’s your differentiator here? Searching for “alternative to formspree”, I could find dozens of sites that do this. ~~~ GiancarlloRojas Hi, thanks! For now, the biggest differentiator is that we have Telegram and Slack integrations out of the box with our Bots, Customizable Responses and Push Notifications support. For the future, we're working on having Stripe integration for payments and an SDK that allows validation of the form on the client-side. Thanks for your comment and feedback. ------ federiconitidi I actually love it! It's a great idea, simple clean, useful. well done ~~~ GiancarlloRojas Really? Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it. I saw your Show HN post, but unfortunately, I don't know much about crypto to understand what it is. Thanks, friend!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wine 5.0 - ashitlerferad https://www.winehq.org/news/2020012101 ====== frereubu Previous discussion (with 110 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108890) ------ classified To the attention of Mac users: _Wine won 't work on macOS Catalina 10.15_ Apple is doing us no favors here, so be aware. ~~~ mrpippy This is not accurate. This version of Wine can’t run 32-bit Windows apps on 10.15, but 64-bit apps do run. Also, CodeWeavers CrossOver can run 32 and 64-bit apps on 10.15. ~~~ mschuster91 Most old games however are 32-bit. Don't have time at the moment to test but I bet I lost UT2004 when I upgraded my Mac to 10.15... ~~~ dkonofalski You definitely did. It's a 16-year old game so it definitely was 32-bit unless someone created a port or an updated .exe using a newer Unreal version. ------ ziotom78 Let's hope that «multi-monitor support» will help this bug [1] go away! I have found that most of the Windows apps I used to rely on have good counterparts working on Linux, but sadly nothing matches Powerpoint (no, LibreOffice does not count). [1] [https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7416](https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7416) ~~~ swiley What exactly makes PowerPoint so good? I’ve never really used either, I’ve mostly relied on pamdoc’s Beamer generator and google slides. ~~~ xioxox Libreoffice Present is pretty buggy. For example, sometimes clicks don't do the right thing. Also, I've had slide elements become uneditable. These bugs are really noticeable when making presentations with complex slides. Libreoffice also produced really poor kerning, poor antialising and figure quality after resizing (though perhaps this has improved since my last try). Beamer and google slides are fine when you want bullet points or a figure. My scientific work produces lots of pictures and graphs - figure placement and labelling is really important. Animations are also sometimes necessary. Beamer, google slides and libreoffice just don't work well there. ~~~ anticensor > Libreoffice Present It is called LibreOffice Impress. ------ Dayshine Does Wine still require the complicated, hard to manage, and poorly documented use of various combinations of WINEPREFIX, Winetricks and WINEARCH? It always seemed to me the easiest thing was to spin up a new VM for every application I wanted to run in Wine. I feel like that isn't the intention, but without any built-in profile management you're always one typo away from wrecking your entire Wine setup. ~~~ Yetanfou I surely hope so, given that these make it possible to do things with Wine which are difficult if not impossible with a real Windows installation without having to do silly things with VMs or containers. As an example I use Wine to run Sketchup (2016, off-line) on Linux. After 30 days the thing times out and wants me to buy a license which is no longer available given that Sketchup has gone with the times and now does cloudy things. Since I just want to run the thing off-line without any external interference I prefer the 2016 version over newer incarnations. On Windows I'd have to try to eradicate every last trace of Sketchup from the registry and any other location used to determine whether this is the first time the program has been installed. On Linux the solution is simple, just wipe $WINEPREFIX and re-install (an automated process) to the same location. A simple script does the job, _sketchup -r_ and I'm set. By the way, $WINEPREFIX can also be used to make sure you _don 't_ wreck your entire Wine setup with a single typo. Just make sure all your serious use of Wine is done with a specific, non-default prefix and you're set. ~~~ jeroenhd There's applications to do this on Windows too. Using Sandboxie you can create a sandbox on the file system to isolate files (for sketchup for example) in the same way you can use a Wine prefix to isolate a single application. Of course this doesn't cover all uses, but in my experience Windows tools exist to provide most features you can use Wine for. The difference is having to download 20 apps for 20 things and writing 20 scripts to automate everything versus downloading wine and just writing 20 scripts. ~~~ technofiend It bears mention that sandboxie is now free and transitioning to open source. So hopefully the original poster doesn't also have to uninstall and reinstall it due to cloudy things. ------ mister_hn Tested playing windows games on Linux, it works amazingly stable and we'll, even at high resolutions (4K) ------ KaoruAoiShiho How does Wine compare to Parallels in perf for mac? Parallels doesn't support DX11 which is really painful. ~~~ galad87 Parallels Desktop 15 support DX11 on macOS 10.14.4 and later.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
AT&T Seeks Supreme Court Review on Net Neutrality Rule - tareqak https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/broadband-providers-to-seek-high-court-review-on-net-neutrality ====== tareqak Techmeme summary: _AT &T, CenturyLink, industry associations ask US Supreme Court to overturn Obama-era net neutrality rules barring ISPs from slowing or blocking rivals' content_	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Driver was streaming the Voice when Uber self-driving car crashed, say police - YeGoblynQueenne https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/22/driver-was-streaming-the-voice-when-uber-self-driving-car-crashed-say-police ====== joshstrange A lot of people and news articles focus a lot on the fact that Uber disabled the built-in auto-braking features of the Volvo but don't seem to understand that 2 braking systems does not make a vehicle twice as safe in fact it can do just the opposite and can account for a lot of oddity in your self-driving code. Not to mention I don't expect Uber to use Volvo's with this exact auto- braking system (and version) for forever so it makes sense for them to disable it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Point and Spring Simulation - ichub http://www.ichub.io/p/physics ====== bemmu Calling requestAnimationFrame again after drawing the previous frame gives smoother results, no need for setInterval. You can know how much to update the physics by seeing how much Date.now() has changed since the previous frame. ~~~ ichub Thanks for the suggestion, I implemented it: [https://github.com/ichub/physics/commit/5b875ea2d5e3dfa3f5a0...](https://github.com/ichub/physics/commit/5b875ea2d5e3dfa3f5a0da5ba2e701c977de94cd)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Windows 8 on a laptop: first look - revorad http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/09/15/windows-8-on-a-laptop-first-look/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed ====== dustinupdyke First comment on this story is "'press the Windows key and start typing the name' Who on earth does that? I don’t want to TYPE anything. I want to point and click as much as possible! Even on a PC" Which I think precisely differentiates the user model here on HN and the general public. ~~~ Qz I remain a mouse user except where I absolutely have to type things. I do recognize that this differentiates me from many if not most HN users :P. ~~~ mattmanser I get the impression he's talking from a power user perspective. ------ Pewpewarrows Having used Windows 8 for the past day or so, I'm definitely warming up to the Start menu being replaced by the Start Metro screen. It feels very similar to Ubuntu's Unity launcher. That said, for the times that I know I'm only going to be quickly launching an app by typing the first few letters of its name, I wish they had an optional "mini" panel for it, possibly with its own keybind. Dock it onto the left side of the screen, or make it a front-and-center popup like Alfred/Gnome-Do/Quicksilver/Launchy. ~~~ sandGorgon can I add Synapse (for Ubuntu) to the list ? Written in Vala, faster than Gnome-do and primarily developed for the ElementaryOS project. ------ fuzzylizard If MS continues with their ideas for Windows 8, then Windows 7 will be the last OS I own from them. I really do not understand the rational for wanting to make desktop PCs look and act like tablets. I really don't want full screen apps on my 24" monitor. And that start screen looks like it was written for 5 year olds. ~~~ _debug_ > And that start screen looks like it was written for 5 year olds. That's how the average user IS. That's what Apple has shown us with the phenomenal success of their iPhone, iPad products. It's the "Don't make me think" philosophy taken to an extreme. I'm guessing that you are probably like me, a command line aficionado. They call it "simplification" of the user interface, but we feel that there's an element of idioticization there, too! :-) I mean, how do they get things done when there's no place to TYPE?! It's scary to have no place to type. :-) ------ JohnTHaller This first Windows 8 development release is really to get people working on Metro apps. It's tablet-centric and desktop and laptop use (without a touch screen) is a very clear afterthought. There will be major changes to the way this all works over the coming months. There have to be for Windows 8 to be a viable desktop OS. ------ steverb That review jives with my own experience. I sincerely hope that they make the metro "Start" optional before the final build. Also, you can move past the lock screen by hitting enter or by hitting control (in case you habitually use ctrl-alt-del). ~~~ fname Here's a Registry hack to get it back: [http://www.geek.com/articles/geek- pick/how-to-get-a-windows-...](http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/how-to- get-a-windows-7-start-menu-in-windows-8-20110914) ------ Ryan_IRL UI looks inconsistent, but I see a lot there to be excited about. If they are taking cues from the phone OS, then that's a very good thing IMO. I've always felt that was one of the nicer mobile UI's.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to Square a 2-digit number beginning with 5 in the blink of eyes - ssahnaz http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2011/12/squaring-2-digit-number-beginning-with.html ====== ssahnaz <http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/> ~~~ wr1472 if this only works with 2-digit numbers beginning with 5, and the first step is to always square the first digit (which will always be 5), then you can simplify this further by saying 1) 25 + second digit 2) square second digit 2) append answer 2 to answer 1. Am I missing something?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The simplest autocomplete function in JavaScript - scriptproof http://www.scriptol.com/javascript/autocomplete.php ====== tantalor Impossible to delete a character after matching (Chrome 34).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition Sucks - daigoba66 http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2013/07/sql-server-2014-standard-edition-sucks-and-its-all-your-fault ====== jaynate For years Microsoft-sponsored SQL Server consultancies have been telling us to use the database to its fullest extent. Use Stored Procs and non ANSI SQL features, they're fine! Logic in the database? We love that. That's what ISVs and Enterprises are being told to do and that's exactly what they've done, at least the ones who couldn't see Microsoft's business angle. Now many are left to choose to either accept Microsoft's ever-increasing licensing costs or a high cost to switch. I agree with @BrentOzar, time to find other options. ~~~ sehrope I see nothing wrong with using stored procs or non-ANSI features. You just need to know what you're getting into. The same goes for any database. Being database agnostic is great but so is actually finishing what you're working on and having it run efficiently. If DB specific features get you there and you're willing to accept the terms of being locked in then it's a sound decision. For our product we use Postgres as the app's database and happen to use some Postgres specific features like stored procs and hstore[1]. The latter in particular is not ANSI at all. There is no equivalent at all in other databases and migrating usage of it to another DB would be a real pain. I know we're tied to Postgres and we're ok with that as it's a joy to use and let's us spend our time elsewhere. You use database specific features because they're useful, not because you're forced to. Of course I'll concede the point that it's a bit apples and oranges to compare being "stuck" on Posgtres vs a commercial closed source stack. [1]: [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/hstore.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/hstore.html) ~~~ eksith "...so is actually finishing what you're working on and having it run efficiently." A "finished" product is usually a dead one and efficiency is relative. You've seen that incremental improvements to the entire stack can have far greater impact than fiddling with just the storage end alone after all. A product never actually stops evolving if it's going to stay competitive and make money. But I'd say staying with Postgres is one of the best decisions you've made. Besides being a joy, as you say, you can be fairly confident that it won't suddenly become broken, become proprietary and best of all, become an order of magnitude more expensive for the same capability. ~~~ sehrope To clarify by "finished" I meant shipping a working version of a product, not being finished with all work on the product. ------ MichaelGG The funny thing is how Microsoft used to make fun of Oracle for being restrictive on the CPU licensing types. How "hardware improvements are for our customers' benefit". Now? You pay differently depending on AMD/Intel and type of chip. Oh hey, just like Oracle. It's hypocritical, but I guess it's also just business. At any rate, like this post says, whatcha going to do? The ease of use of SQL Server is fantastic. As much as I would like to use Postgres (despite the HA story looking very confusing, and lack of basic things like materialized views), the tooling is lightyears behind Microsoft's. The fact that I'd truly need to become a DBA to properly use Postgres (oh great, an ini file with poorly documented settings!), whereas I can fumble my way through SQL Server... that's worth a lot. ~~~ xradionut You have to be a DBA to properly use SQL Server too. Yes you can stumble your way through wizards and SSMS, but you will get tripped up eventually if you don't spend some serious time hitting the books and blogs. (Recovery model, what's a recovery model? Why's my disk space gone?) ~~~ chris_wot (Tempdb, what's tempdb? Clustered index, what's that and why the hell do I need one? Escalated locks - what the hell? Isolation modes, why are they important?!?) ~~~ taspeotis I'd be happy if the outsourced developers I work with knew what an index was, let alone whether it's clustered or non-clustered. It would be refreshing to see seeks instead of scans in the execution plans... ------ forgotAgain I wonder if those working in corporate IT realize that they're competing with Microsoft for money. Most corporations see IT as an expense center. It's not a place where the business make money. It's simply a place where they spend it. You can argue the validity of that idea but whether it's right or wrong doesn't matter. It's the way most businesses think. Businesses, of course, try to limit expenses. They especially try to limit any increase in expenses. So basically there is a certain sized pile of money for IT to work with. If the costs of Microsoft infrastructure goes up, the difference is made up by cutting another part of the pile. The part of the pile that can be most easily managed is salaries. ~~~ incision _> "I wonder if those working in corporate IT realize that they're competing with Microsoft for money."_ Generally no, but I expect many are quickly realizing it. Microsoft in particular has been very open about trying to sell things like Office 365 and Azure to Enterprises. They aren't afraid to be blunt and say "Hey, you can get rid of your staff if you go with this". It's an odd relationship. In my experience, many in corporate IT are perfectly happy to be simple facilitators - shoppers basically. I believe the perception is "It won't be me", that being increasingly beholden to a vendor might prevent the creation of new positions or filling vacancies but will never eliminate their own positions. The entire industry of internal IT support has hard times ahead. Anecdotally, I see XaaS being adopted surprisingly quickly. A few big VARs I've talked to have noticed this and have been realigning themselves to sell managed services instead of stopping at planning and implementation as they have in the past. ~~~ corresation _they aren 't afraid to be blunt and say "Hey, you can get rid of your staff if you go with this"._ During the release of, I think, Windows 2008, Microsoft put out an ad campaign that showed the IT staff doing the congo and other non-work things. It was a fun, upbeat message about how it made things so much easier. Only the real, unavoidable message was to HR and the executive -- give us some cash and you can start sending out the layoff notices. I'm not judging Microsoft for that -- they've forever boasted that if you go with Microsoft stuff you can pay your employees less -- and efficiency is good for everyone. It was just such a bizarre ad, and seemed to be like one of those dark side Skittles ads, but minus the awareness of what it really was. ~~~ dacelo Yes, once you switch to ALL XaaS and ditch your IT staff, you are forever at the mercy of your existing XaaS vendor. You don't own the software, the vendor actually has your data somewhere in the cloud, and you have no one who can even make a credible recommendation on an alternative. They got you by the balls, and BTW, the XaaS pricing is tripling next month. Muahaha ! ~~~ incision This is all true of existing Enterprise software relationships. ------ vyrotek My company went through BizSpark 3 years ago. We're now running everything on Windows Azure. No complaints here. Sure, I'd like SQL Azure to have a few more features but there haven't been any deal breakers yet. C# is by far my most favorite programming language and is probably what keeps me coming back to .NET & Sql Server. I must admit though, I'm very intrigued by a lot of cool features found in PostgreSQL. Specifically HStore. ~~~ xradionut Chances are you are not dealing with banking, insurance or medical data while running on Azure. After the last several weeks, we had to assure clients, that none of the data is stored on Azure. Plus with the standard version of SQL Server or Azure you don't get full auditing or encryption. ~~~ vyrotek That's correct. I actually used to work for a company which built health information systems for hospitals so I'm aware of the hurdles there. They were .NET based too. Hospital network contracts pay very well but they are absolutely the worst customers. ------ cl8ton MS is not changing their tack because there is a vibrant big business community with budgets that depend on MS SQL and it fills the need. Which Open Source DB does everything that MS Enterprise SQL does and why aren’t you using that instead? ~~~ BrentOzar > Which Open Source DB does everything that MS Enterprise SQL does and why > aren’t you using that instead? I used to think the replacement wouldn't have to do everyone MSSQL does - after all, nobody uses all of the features. But getting a core subset often isn't enough either - for example, Windows Azure SQL Database supports a core subset of features and datatypes, but I still constantly hear people say it's not enough to migrate their apps. ~~~ xradionut We were skeptical of Azure before NSA revelations, but now; "Hell No!". Besides that, Microsoft has pretty well pissed off all but the most entrenched developers. ~~~ recursive It seems to me that the group of "most entrenched developers" is still pretty big. In real life, it's the most common kind I see. ------ CurtMonash 64 GB of RAM is 100,000 times more than what Microsoft used to think people needed. :D Seriously, Oracle's biggest point of losing customers is when it's time to upgrade from Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition ... or else pick an alternative. I imagine something similar is true for Microsoft SQL Server. ------ taude We figured out we weren't using most of SQL Server's features and didn't want the mental overhead of MSFT licensing. We switched to Postgresql and haven't looked back. ~~~ BrentOzar How big was the application (like how many developers were involved in the migration, data size, etc)? How long did the migration take? Was the business okay with a feature freeze during that time, or did you take advantage of the switch to rewrite it too? Did you have multiple connected systems, like ETL processes that also hit the database for other reporting systems? Always curious about these kinds of issues because they seem to be what's holding businesses back. ~~~ taude It was several smaller apps written with most logic in the app (Hibernate) and had very little T-SQL/stored procs. We also weren't using any of the add-ons like SQL reporting, etc. The big commercial DBs have the advantages when you start using their reporting services, BI/OLAP stuff...and likely when you have several different groups as stakeholders in the process... ------ teilo I just took my first plunge into the caustic waters of SQL Server, being forced there because my company is deploying a vendor-supplied shipping system that only runs on it. Since the data set would be growing beyond 5GB, SQL Server Express was not an option. Coming from a Postgres world, Linux, Java world, the whole subject makes me sick. I was disgusted to discover that my 200-strong Mac shop would have to spend $7,000 on SQL Server. I was even more disgusted when I discovered that Microsoft no longer lets me run it on the server I purchased, a dual 6-core machine, because now EVERY core is licensed individually, and you are FORCED to license every core in the machine. You can't just license some of them. That forced to run it in a VM, which is just asinine. And THAT means that I also had to purchase an additional Windows Server license to run a SEPARATE VM for IIS/ASP.NET. And THEN (and this is the part that offends me most of all), I have to purchase a CAL for _every damn machine_ that will be using the shipping system, because it's not a public website, but a private web app. ~~~ WayneDB SQL Server 2012 Express allows up to 10GB databases. Also, you should only need CALs if your private web app is using Windows Authentication to make each database request on a per-user basis. From [http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2942/understanding- the...](http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2942/understanding-the-sql- server-2012-licensing-model/) "you have two choices: purchase per core licenses at $1,793 or purchase a server license at $898 and client access licenses at $209 per client." So, if everyone is going through the web app and the web app is not using Windows Auth (you certainly don't sound like you need to use that) - You should be able to get SQL Server for ~ $1107. ~~~ teilo The minimum cores you can license on MSSQL, whether on bare metal, or a VM, is 4. Wherever you run it, you must license all cores available to the OS. Had I chosen to run on bare metal, I would be forced to license 12 cores (6-core Xeon CPU x 2). This app requires SQL Server 2008 R2, so the 4GB limit applies. But I can't buy 2008 R2 anymore directly. I have to license 2012, and use my downgrade rights. You are wrong on the Windows Authentication requirement. This has nothing to do with anything. For MSSQL, you _must_ license the database per core if you are using it in a public web application, because you have an arbitrary number of users. And you _must_ license all cores in the machine. The VM is the only way to license only _some_ cores, namely, as many cores as are in your VM. If you are using MSSQL in a private web application, you may choose CALs. However, if you do so, it doesn't matter how users authenticate. Each user or device needs a license. Microsoft is very clear about this. User count is just that: the number of users using the database, either directly, or through a web application which does everything through a single set of credentials. It's not system accounts. It's users or devices. The same applies for Windows Server licenses. It doesn't matter how the user authenticates. If they are using a web-app hosted on a Windows Server, and that web-app is not publicly accessible (a login page does not count), then you need a CAL for each user or device. ~~~ WayneDB You said "...because it's not a public website, but a private web app." So, you do not have to license it per core. You can buy the $898 standard version and a few CALs - one for your web app and the rest for db admins. Furthermore - even if there is some wording that says "if 100 people are hitting your private web app, you have to buy 100 CALS" \- just ignore it like everybody else does. ~~~ teilo So, your argument amounts to this: Ignore Microsoft's licensing requirements, be a pirate, and just lie through your teeth. No, this is not what "everybody else" does, especially those who must answer to shareholders, compliance personnel, and a management team that actually cares about staying within the bounds of the law, and not paying thousands of dollars in civil penalties should we be found in violation of a licensing agreement. This is why we develop everything we can on an open source application stack. But we can't write everything from scratch. We aren't going to spend $100K+ developing an entire enterprise shipping system from scratch. That means we must purchase proprietary solutions that will cost us much less and have a greater ROI. That also means licensing compliance. ~~~ WayneDB I only said one third of that. I also said that I don't think you're as restricted with intranet web apps as you are with public web apps, but I could be wrong... Anyway - you can lie if you want to and I certainly won't judge you - but I _didn 't say_ you should lie or be a pirate. I said ignore the license. Big difference. (From your original post, it sounded to me like you probably don't have shareholders. Do you?) Are you aware that vast numbers of small, medium and even larger size businesses are running SQL Server without the proper licenses? Are you also aware that Microsoft knowingly allows this to happen with a wink and a nod? Just like Windows and Office...until XP/2003 when they turned to activation. They didn't do that for SQL Server or many of their other products as far as I can remember. Could happen, but we'll see... So yeah, advising you to do what millions of other business do too - I have no problem with that. (I also have no problem bribing the locals if that's the normal course of business. Don't think of me as immoral - I'm a realist. Big businesses squeeze everybody in one way or another, so if you can get away with it - it's great advice. The risk goes up the larger your company gets, obviously...) Also, SQL Server 2012 is 100% backwards compatible with 2008 R2. So Express 2012 would definitely work (Microsoft is legendary for their backwards compatibility. Just sayin'.) What kind of business are you running 200 Macs for anyway? ~~~ teilo I'm aware people lie all the time. I'm aware that sometimes they get caught. I'm aware that when you owe millions of dollars to a bank, the auditors actually check this stuff. "I didn't say you should lie or be a pirate. I said ignore the license." And with that you lose the argument, and all credibility. ~~~ WayneDB Ummm, okay whatever you say... Enjoy the lame Mac-based "business" infrastructure that you built. Maybe if you'd gone with Windows to begin with, like every other business on the planet - you'd have saved enough money so you wouldn't be complaining about Microsoft's server licensing costs right now. ~~~ teilo I bow to your manifestly superior entrepreneurial prowess. Obviously, I am too stupid to know how lame Macs are. That explains why my company has maintained a paltry year-to-year growth rate of not less than 50% for the last 15 years. Oh, and for the record: "Am I bovvered? Look at my face. Am I bovvered though?" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7lcm7Vp_p0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7lcm7Vp_p0) ~~~ WayneDB Please, excuse me if I don't believe you in the slightest. I'm sure though, if you tried really hard, you could even attribute your imaginary profits to your use of Macs. I'd love to see some of your hipster logic in detail. Anyway so, say you're making good money and the only product that can apparently fill your needs properly requires SQL Server....and yet you're still complaining? With all that money you have? One would think you'd be happy to even have found a product that does exactly what your business needs. Did you wonder though why there are no products for you that run on OS X? (It's a real mind-boggler for you, I'm sure.) I'm still laughing at the fact that you've (allegedly) spent well over $100K on overpriced Apple hardware and yet you have the audacity to complain about spending a fraction of that on some software that you actually need. Really...thanks for the entertainment :) ~~~ teilo Your a funny guy. You ready to call me Hitler, yet? I never said our infrastructure was Mac-based. Our user machines are Macs. Our infrastructure is almost entirely Linux/Java/Postgres. We are in the printing and graphics arts business. Hey, imagine that, a Mac-dominated field - but Macs are so lame that no one could possibly have a good reason for using them, right? There's a reason we don't use Mac servers (aside from a file server). They suck. Apple has sucked at servers ever since they abandoned the enterprise when they cancelled XServe (which we never used), and re-focused their server product for small business and home use. We also run Windows terminal servers, press controllers and RIPs, legacy shipping systems, etc. Our CAD team uses Windows. I've been in this industry for 20 years, and have worked with pretty much everything out there in common use. As for attributing our quite real profits to the use of Macs - don't be a moron. Our profits are the result of a world-class management team with whom I am privileged to work. You are excellent at stereotyping, and obviously have a vendetta against Apple, and by extension, anyone using Apple products. I'm sorry for you. We are not mind-numbed robots. We have reasons for the business decisions that we make. And we, despite your consternation, have been just as successful as I have asserted. And hipster? Wow. You don't know me in the least. ~~~ WayneDB I certainly don't need to know you or even have a "vendetta" against Apple to have a good laugh at someone complaining about SQL Server pricing when they've happily paid Apple for the privilege of running OS X. I'm going to let you have just one more "last word" here though because that seems to be important to you. Good night, my fellow comedian :) ------ HalBerenson I'm pretty sure I wrote about the history of the Enterprise vs. Standard decision making on my blog ([http://hal2020.com](http://hal2020.com)) but I can't find the post right now. I'm one of the people responsible for the original philosophy, and I don't think it's changed much. I'll go back and look for it again. Basically you have three dynamics going on. The reality check of course is that the competition is Oracle and IBM DB2, and to a lesser extent open source databases, and various analytics products. Check out Oracle's price list and SQL Server Enterprise remains inexpensive. And Microsoft has introduced cheaper options to keep "free" open source options somewhat at bay, though the truth is that without multiplatform support there is nothing they can do to really capture that segment of the market. Standard Edition exists because I couldn't convince my then boss that we should bifurcate it into a couple of sensible products, one slightly lower in capability and one slightly higher. The slightly higher one would have been a "Small Business Enterprise" edition that included many of the features of Enterprise but somehow retained differentiation from full Enterprise and would have been dramatically less expensive. I had a differentiation, but I don't recall what it was. The reason the bifurcation was rejected was that Standard was the edition that matched earlier versions and we didn't want to piss off customers by forcing them into a more expensive or less functional edition. And we didn't want to complicate the world with yet another two editions. So the status quo was maintained. BTW, this is a late 90s discussion. The next dynamic is that there are a lot of features which cause a crapload to engineer but don't increase product volumes substantially. This is the primary driver of what becomes a candidate for Enterprise rather than Standard. When you are investing $10s of millions in a particular feature's engineering then you want some way to get a return on that investment. It really is that simple. Almost. There is (or was) a re-analysis each version of what goes into each edition. My philosophy was that you introduce new enterprise features in the Enterprise Edition, then examine moving them into Standard Edition in subsequent releases. So there is a constant stream of new high-end features flowing into Enterprise, then as they become part of the mainstream thinking you push them (or appropriate subsets) into Standard. But that philosophy was never adopted and so the effort seems far more haphazard than I'd wanted it to be. Customer and competitive pressure will result in capabilities being pushed into Standard, but it doesn't seem to happen in a rational way. Max memory size and high-availability features were the original differentiators when Enterprise Edition was introduced as a mid-life kicker for SQL Server 6.5. In the case of memory it was an actual technology differentiator back in the mid-90s on 32-bit machines. That it has survived through the 64-bit transition is shocking. But the reality check is likely that very few servers actually have more than 64GB,despite today's hardware prices, and thus Microsoft sees it as an acceptable differentiator. High Availability should remain a differentiator, though a simple subset does need to be in Standard. That the current subset is actually deprecated is, ummm, looney. Customer demand for capabilities in editions other than Enterprise, or competitor moves, will lead to Microsoft changing the balance between Standard and Enterprise. But it isn't a few sophisticated DBAs/developers/etc. calling for the change. Or a niche or flash-in-the-plan competitor. It is an actual shift in market dynamics. ------ akurilin Brent, to which db flavor do you recommend people migrate? Thoughts on Postgres? Btw, loved your vlog post on scaling SO's db layer. ~~~ BrentOzar > Brent, to which db flavor do you recommend people migrate? Thoughts on > Postgres? I'm not the right guy to ask on that one - I just don't have enough experience with alternative platforms. You're in the right forum though - as long as you follow the news on HN, you'll do a good job of choosing the right data storage platform for your needs. ~~~ statictype I wonder if that was sarcasm :) If you spend too much time on HN, you'll end porting your RDBMS to Mongo DB or Voldemort. ~~~ akurilin Hipster News. I joke I joke, right tool for the right job, right? ------ epochwolf This won't change because large companies don't like open source. ~~~ wmf At these prices it seems like you could take Postgres, wrap it in a support contract, and call it EnterpriSQL and still charge less than MS. ~~~ daigoba66 Someone beat you to it: [http://www.enterprisedb.com/](http://www.enterprisedb.com/) ~~~ MichaelGG Actually, most of their prices are "Call us!"[1] Looks to be at least $4000/socket/year. So, more money than SQL Server Standard, less than SQL Server Enterprise. 1: [http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services- training/subsc...](http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services- training/subscriptions) ~~~ piggity SQL Server Standard is $2K per core - with > 4 cores per socket, things flip around a bit. I'm not a SQL licensing guru; so perhaps I'm confused as well... ~~~ MichaelGG So let's say 4 cores @ $2L, $8K. Then you pay like 35% a year for software assurance; so you'd end up with $2800 a year. No one buys MS servers products at the flat retail price. They work out plenty of long-term strategies to help you pay. ------ programminggeek I'm sorry, but if you have to read a feature grid to figure out what a product does, you've already lost. Also, isn't this when you look at Postgres or MySQL and go... licensing cost, what licensing cost? ~~~ samgreene I don't think this is a useful mindset. Grids are very handy comparison tools. Also, licensing costs are only part of the overall cost of running a service. 'Serious businesses' will not run on a piece of software that is not supported by either a vendor or their own staff. Not everyone is comfortable fixing bugs in their DB platform, or relying on the community to do it. ------ yuhong I wonder which edition StackExchange use? ~~~ BrentOzar > I wonder which edition StackExchange use? Enterprise for the memory and the ability to do online reindexing. They were in the BizSpark program, so they basically got free licensing. ~~~ yuhong And they are on Software Assurance, right? ~~~ BrentOzar Yes, when you exit BizSpark, you can just start paying maintenance on the servers you were using during the program. ------ ivanbrussik saved this post for just another reason why open source is going to take over the world ------ dschiptsov 2014 Standard Edition only?)) ------ corresation I assume that the linked blog intended to link to [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc645993(v=sql.120)....](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc645993$v=sql.120$.aspx) SQL Server has been getting much more expensive because their current userbase is captive (meaning the cost, complexity and risk of migrating to another database system is enormous because of a heavy integration with SQL Server specific features). I don't imagine a large number of new systems are being built around SQL Server, apart from those at shops that are _already_ captive. It is an excellent database, but I do get a chuckle that by far the greatest benefit being pushed for SQL Server 2014 is in memory tables (which is something that SQL had -- at least for temporary tables -- back in the 6.5/7.0 era, but then had removed). While it is hardly identical, an approach we did on one team is to have SQL Server take 64GB (note that it is per instance, and most server deploys see many instances on a single server, so that isn't quite as prohibitive as it might sound) and then have an enormous RAMDISK on which tempdb would be created. Made use of the RAM, and saved enormous amounts of IO (tempdb is the weak link of almost all SQL Server platforms, as everything hits it, especially if you make use of snapshot isolation / row versioning). ~~~ adamconroy All tables in sqlserver will be memory resident if there is available ram. But it happens dynamically, or is non-deterministic if you like. I assume the in memory feature allows you to force a table into ram and force it to stay there. ~~~ BrentOzar > All tables in sqlserver will be memory resident if there is available ram. Right, but Hekaton introduces the option of never requiring your tables to hit the disk if you don't want them to. Think data warehouse staging tables, web session state, or data marts that are easily recreated from source data. ------ trackztar Didn't read. Used the word Seriously in the first paragraph. Grow up noobs. Holy fuck! ~~~ BrentOzar > Used the word Seriously in the first paragraph. Actually, that was the second paragraph. ~~~ chris_wot Don't feed the trolls.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Movie Parody Game. Fair-use or Violation? - paliopolis Hello,<p>I am thinking of developing a mobile app/game that is inspired from scenes from a couple of hit movies! e.g. a couple of hit scenes from Home Alone and maybe Baby's Day Out !<p>There will be no scenes from the actual movie but maybe the "thief" character be "inspired" by the thief from Home Alone ! (kind of like you have to stop the thieves from entering the house or a palace)<p>Will this be considered a parody and fair use or can be it a copyright violation? I will be consulting an attorney but wanted to see if anyone here has some knowledge or ideas? I tried searching but couldnd find anything !!<p>(Also if you know and can recommend an attorney in the Bay Area, i will appreciate it) ====== keenrodent Your attorney will need to know more about your specific plans, but in general as long as you don't use material from the movies (title, major plot elements, character names, images, sounds, etc) you can be inspired all you want. So "Tiny Thief Thwarter--The Game" is more likely to fly than "Home Alone--The Game", and if TTT weren't named Kevin and was defending a meth lab or a palace instead of a house in Evanston you'd give the Home Alone guys less and less to be quarrelsome about. Now, you specifically mention "parody" and "fair use," do you intend to quote parts of the movies, or actually parody part of it? Based on your short question I don't really get the sense that's your angle. I more get the sense that you're looking for a new scenario inspired by those movies, and I'd encourage you to use the inspiration to drive toward the new idea rather than attempt a parody of the old. And good on you for not having it be zombies! ~~~ paliopolis Thanks ! I am trying to find out a good attorney to discuss this. I was trying to figure out and was wondering why aren't there any games that are "inspired" from movies ! So was just looking around trying to find answers. I was searching for copyright and stuff and came across a whole bunch of posts/sites that talked about parody and fair-use, that's why I was wondering. I like the TTT - The Game concept, that's kind of what I was thinking and not actually using the material from the movies. My nephews and nieces are in the age group where all they talk about these days are these home alone, baby's day out kind of movies ! I know there's a whole bunch of games that are either from Disney or are Disney themed but I couldnt find anything from non-animated movies !! I think non-zombie would be preferred by my target audience ;-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Little-Known Firm Helping the FBI Crack iPhones - adventured http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/inside-the-little-known-japan-firm-helping-the-fbi-crack-iphones ====== jo909 Cellebrite is an Israeli company, not Japanese. They are owned by a Japanese parent company, but I'd argue that is not the same. Volkswagen owning 100% of Lamborghini does not make the latter a german car manufacturer. ~~~ madaxe_again Yeah, I'd say that this is actually a piece intended to try to prevent any political fallout with a close ally of the US (Israel) at the expense of the nuclear whipping boy (Japan). ~~~ jo909 I'd say this is mainly financial news, where the ownership and stock market representation is actually relevant. But it's a very weak piece to learn much about Cellebrite, and makes it sound like they build pinball machines and games before hacking iPhones. ~~~ vinalia It sounds like Cellebrite employees are largely ex unit 8200 members (Israel's SIGNIT program).[1] The article really doesn't seem to talk about Cellebrite's history much at all. [1][http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fbi-cracks-the-locked- iphone-...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fbi-cracks-the-locked-iphone-but- legal-questions-remain-unanswered/#transcript) (he says unit 822 :/, doh) ~~~ dkopi Any tech company in israel is largely ex unit 8200 members, along with other military tech units such as Mamram, Lotem, Matzov, Ofek and more. The Israeli military enlists every 18 year old in the country, and if you've studied computers in high-school or at home as a hobby, you're more than likely to spend 3-6 years in a technological unit. ~~~ ethanbond Is 8200 really considered to be just a "technological unit?" They're one of the most advanced military SIGINT organizations on earth, aren't they? ------ BuildTheRobots > "... built its business on pinball game machines and stumbled into the > mobile phone security business almost by accident." (first paragraph) Pinball? In Japan? this isn't going to be pinball. > "has been building pinball-like game machines found in Japan’s pachinko > parlors since the 1970s" (third paragraph). So it isn't pinball at all, it's pachinko. I know this is almost besides the point, but do Bloomberg really have such a low opinion of it's readers they think it's impossible to explain? To me at least it reads like: "Tiger Woods, who rose to fame playing a football-like game across golf courses in America..." ~~~ spaceisballer While pachinko is huge in Japan, pinball is also very popular. Source: My Uncle worked for Williams pinball, and Japan is where they made most of their money. ~~~ gr3yh47 Would love to see a non-anecdotal source on this, as my understanding is that pinball sales in the US absolutley dwarfs totals for the rest of the world. Not saying Williams didn't do lots of other sales in Japan, but pinball-as-in- two-ish-flippers pinball sales should be highest in the US. ~~~ gr3yh47 source to my point: >Yuske believes that Japan’s love of video games is part of the reason why pinball has had trouble taking hold—why the game is more of a foreign curiosity for most than a cultural mainstay. [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-silver-ball-planet- insi...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-silver-ball-planet-inside-a- japanese-pinball-arcade) ------ WorkingDead So basically the NSA/CIA develop the tech, license it to a contractor, who the FBI can then hire. Got it. I bet they know who to use it on before they even need to through Parallel Construction too. This is what the future looks like. ~~~ TorKlingberg That's just speculation. ------ S_A_P Thought exercise/serious question- could the DMCA be used to compel cellbrite to disclose the methodology to apple so that it can be patched? ------ smaili _It’s a fairly straightforward method for a researcher to identify what has been changed, and from that reverse-engineer what the flaw was and then build a tool to exploit that flaw_ I'd say this is a bit of an oversimplification. ------ coldcode Given Apple's almost unlimited cash they could always make companies like this an offer no intelligent person could turn down (especially if public) and have them explain what they do. ~~~ venomsnake When you mix with operative/intelligence crowd - the work is incredibly fun, the access you have to all kinds of info (and people and gear) is unprecedented and the generous compensation is a nice side effect. Apple can top the compensation, but not the first two parts. ~~~ Nrsolis Those who know don't say, those who say don't know. ------ free2rhyme214 Misleading title - it's a Japanese owned Israeli company. ------ jason46 I wonder if their approach only works on iphone5 and not the 6? I thought I read somewhere the 6 has more advanced security features? ~~~ spaceisballer We will really only know if they release what they did. My assumption is that it will not work with iPhone 5S and later. ------ shmatt 0-day exploits changing hands for cash is hardly new. Stuxnet alone had 4 according to Symantec. Israeli army units and companies founded by ex-army elite are highly involved in discovering/buying 0days, iOS or anywhere else	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Closure: How not to write JavaScript - rams http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2009/11/12/google-closure-how-not-to-write-javascript/ ====== gruseom The article says: Although it is necessary in Java, it is entirely pointless to specify the length of an array ahead of time in JavaScript. [...] Rather, you can just set up an empty array and allow it to grow as you fill it in. Not only is the code shorter, but it runs faster too. Faster? That ought to raise suspicion. JS's dynamic hash-arrays are neat, but now they're supposed to be immune from the laws that govern memory allocation in any other language? As it happens, I had occasion to test this a few months ago. function preallocate(len) { var arr = new Array(len); for (var n = 0; n < len; n += 1) { arr[n] = n; }; return arr; } function noPreallocate(len) { var arr = []; for (var n = 0; n < len; n += 1) { arr[n] = n; }; return arr; } On my machine, noPreallocate is 4% faster in FF, but it's 15% slower in IE8 and a whopping 70% slower in Chrome. ~~~ axod <http://axod.net/arraytest.html> After 20 iterations: Browser Pre-alloc No pre-alloc Firefox 3.6.13 OSX 824ms 829ms Safari 5.0.3 OSX 812ms 948ms Chrome 9.0.597.16 OSX 1317ms 992ms I'm pretty sure that in modern browsers new Array(length) doesn't allocate anything, it just sets the length property. The results I'm seeing would agree with Google really. Perhaps you were seeing GC events slowing down the test? The other thing about for(var i=0;i<arr.length;i++) is it can end up as an infinite loop if you're modifying the length inside the for loop: for (var i=0;i<arr.length;i++) { arr[10 + i*2] = "foo"; } // Infinite loop. ~~~ gruseom _Perhaps you were seeing GC events slowing down the test?_ Perhaps. Or perhaps it varies by array size? ------ jrockway My feeling is that even the compilers written in CS101 will optimize this. I'm guessing that Google tested their code with V8, performance was fine, and they thought nothing of it. I just did a benchmark with node.js. I made a 50000000 element array, and timed how long each way took. Trial one: for( var i = 0; i < array.length; i++ ) { array[i]++ } That took, on average, 0.93001866 seconds. Trial two: for( var i = 0; i < len; i++ ) { array[i]++ } That took, on average, 0.809920 seconds. A lot of stressing-out over what ends up being a rounding error. ~~~ kwamenum86 For js running in a browser this does not matter but on a server this will make a huge difference. ~~~ jrockway How many 50 million element arrays do you have? My guess is that this makes no difference in real life. Should you write clean code that performs well? Yes. But should you be fixated on a tiny bug in Google's library? Nope. Send patch, get .0000000001 seconds per element back, and move on. ~~~ kwamenum86 It's not about a single 50mil element array. It's about sub-optimal code running in a bunch of places and it adds up. But in any case this probably won't be the bottleneck. Still I am a fan of running the most optimal code possible on the server. Absolutely no reason not to. Client-side js is different. Often times algorithmic optimizations have no impact (unless we are talking about animation.) I would not trust people who do not respect optimizations like these to run code on my server. ------ aboodman Time in web applications is not used looking up array lengths - it's used in IO, layout, and DOM manipulation. If iterating through arrays was found to ever be a noticeable issue in practice, the Closure compiler could just be modified to emit more efficient code. That's one of the advantages of having the compiler - you don't have to make a convenience/readability trade. Closure was not thrown together by novices new to the language. It was started by Erik Arvidsson and Dan Pupius, two JS hackers that have been doing this kind of work longer than just about anyone else. Its differences from other libraries aren't the result of ignorance, they're mostly the result of conscious tradeoffs to make compilation more effective. _Edit:_ Oh, and the string thing... If you ever do new String("foo") in JavaScript, you're doing it wrong. ~~~ aboodman Here is an example of a real-world performance bottleneck that was discovered by the closure team: <http://pupius.co.uk/blog/2007/03/garbage-collection-in-ie6/> ------ axod > "...was that people would switch from truly excellent JavaScript libraries > like jQuery to Closure on the strength of the Google name." This is ridiculous. Does not the mere fact that jquery keep announcing 4000% speedups with every new release not tell you something about the efficiency of jquery? Unbelievably biased. If you looked at the jquery code you'd find the same sort of things, and some far worse. From jquery release notes: ... coming in almost 30x faster than our previous solution ... coming in about 49% faster than our previous engine ... much, much faster (about 6x faster overall) ... Seeing an almost 3x jump in performance ... improved the performance of jQuery about 2x compared to jQuery 1.4.1 and about 3x compared to jQuery 1.3.2 ... Event Handling is 103% Faster ... jQuery.map() method is now 866% faster ... .css() is 25% faster Maybe it's just me, but when someone says they've speeded up their code so it runs 30 times as fast, you have to really wonder just how badly it was written to start with, and how badly it's still written. ~~~ brunoc These improvements have occurred over time, as browsers gain new features and new techniques are discovered. They (the jQuery contributors) focus on the features and optimize what can be optimized when there is a need. The optimized solution is often much uglier than the simple but less efficient one. ------ ivank Previously <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937175> If you're building a large JavaScript application, Closure might be your best option given that Closure Compiler (in ADVANCED mode) produces small obfuscated output files that contain only the functions your program uses. ADVANCED mode restricts how you write your JavaScript (but not onerously), but that's where Closure Library comes in: a 1 million LOC "standard library" already annotated for Compiler. I've found working with Closure Library/Compiler enjoyable, typically more than Python, because the Compiler's type system finds plenty of bugs as I work. It has even caught bugs in my Python code (after I ported it to JavaScript, of course). There's also good book out there for Closure: <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1449381871/> ------ julius Closure is one of the most intuitive libraries I have used, ever. I use Closure for everything, which is too big for jQuery. Compared to its next best competitor YUI, it's a joy (eg. first really good cross-browser richtext editor). I have not found many features, not already included in the library. Code can be easily scaled, and is fast enough. Especially on the production system, where you, thanks to the Closure compiler, can have a compiled version (I also prefer the compiler over YUI's). Have I told you about the excellent testing framework... Have I told you about the excellent documentation... Have I told you about its very readable code... When it was released, and I had read some of its code, I knew I wanted to use this at my work as soon as possible. But exactly this Blogpost had a super high google rank for the query "Google Closure". If you, too, run into the problem of your co-workers reading that post, just link to the HN-Comments. Worked for me. Here is the older HN-Link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937175> ~~~ nswanberg At what point do you decide something is too big for jQuery? Lines of code? Number of developers? Certain features needed? Does it make sense to begin with jQuery and switch at a certain time? ~~~ RyanDScott Reasons you might consider using Closure instead of something like jQuery, plain-old-js: 1\. Your javascript file is getting huge and you want to break things out into manageable pieces. 2\. You find yourself needing namespaces that are easy to implement. 3\. You want to learn how to build structured javascript (Closure is great at encouraging well documented, "object-oriented" coding) 4\. You've got too many js files (2+) and you want to only have one in production for faster page loading (use closure compiler) 5\. You're building an application with a team of developers; closure helps create modular, well documented code 6\. You want to build a snappy, client-side heavy application Before I ever used Closure, I used javascript more like frosting on a cake. Javascript can be frosting, but it can also do some amazing things. My biggest complaint with javascript in the past has been it's unwieldy nature in medium to large projects. I stuck to using javascript/jQuery to decorate html pages and had the page generation, business logic, templating, etc., on the server side (Python). Then I wrote a medium sized application in closure, and it worked, and it's maintainable, and it didn't require a lot of server side code, and it was fast. I couldn't be happier. My only complaint is it seems Closure development doesn't have the velocity that other projects like GWT have. Google, it seems, is putting it's money more on GWT than something like closure; or so it seems based on the amount of announcements for GWT, the quality of the tools and libraries being produced, the number of updates to closure compared to GWT. While GWT is a powerful tool, it's more complex (thanks to Java), harder to setup, harder to get started. In some ways I wish they would take the tools and frameworks they have for GWT and build them for Closure. ------ jws Example 1: Slow Loop The author claims writing: for (var i = fromIndex; i < arr.length; i++) { …is slow and can be much faster as… for (var i = fromIndex, ii = arr.length; i < ii; i++) { Speed aside, this introduces a bug if the length of the array changes in the body of the loop, but ignoring this booby trap I ran benchmarks on the original clear version and the slightly more complicated fragile version. clear fragile empty loop body 5ms 1ms single number add 7ms 6ms single DOM lookup 82ms 81ms That is for an array of a _million_ elements on an iMac running Safari. (Apparently Safari is particularly good at doing _nothing_ , but otherwise this "optimization" is lost in the loop body's time.) Edit: I checked Chrome on Linux as well. It was also unimpressive. ------ kls You know while raw speed is an important piece of a library, it is not the only thing, there are other factors that carry just as much weight when it comes to importance. 3rd party library ecosystem, community support, integration with other technologies, ease of use and a host of other are all just as important factors when I evaluate a library. As well, IIRC Closure was an internal project that was built to build apps like Gmail, if that is the case then it, is reasonable to think that it has some cruft in their given that the state of the art in Javascript libraries came after Gmail, Oulook on the web, and other Browser based apps showed what was possible. It was programmer transitioning from other languages to JavaScript that built these first toolkits and they brought over a good deal of their language constructs that they where familiar with as time went on other programmer from other disciplines joined in and some of the frameworks started to morph. I remember when Dojo threw away their entire toolkit because of this and I commend them for doing so. They came to realize that their was a better way than just reimplementing Java or C# in the browser. Closure on the other hand remained an internal project outside those learning. That being said, I do think their are much better frameworks available than Closure, Dojo and jQuery being two prime examples, but I do cut them some slack based on the fact that they would possible qualify as one of the oldest frameworks and that they did not benefit from the learning the communities went through as the state of the art evolved. ~~~ pinchyfingers There is a TechTalk about Closure where the speaker makes a big deal out of the whole project being done by many different developers in their twenty percent time, so yeah, they might get cut some slack and hopefully they'll be good about accepting patches to get some of these things fixed. Gmail works pretty well, so the library can't be too horrible. I'm glad I read this, I was thinking of doing a project using the Closure library, but I guess I'll stick with jQuery. ~~~ nickik Can you post the link to that TechTalk? I cant find it. ~~~ amattie [http://closuretools.blogspot.com/2010/06/closure-library- tec...](http://closuretools.blogspot.com/2010/06/closure-library-tech-talk-at- google-io.html) ------ oomkiller Note, this was written over a year ago, so stuff may have changed since then. It would probably be worth taking a look to see how things have improved. ------ mfukar Why are we (and by we, I mean the article author) getting worked up about what should be a single, or maybe more, bug reports? It'd be a lot more interesting if you could use those conclusions to find out who wrote those parts of the code. ------ _ques This article is over a year old. ~~~ araneae True, but as someone who has a java background and is working on js, it's nice to know that switches suck in js :) ~~~ gruseom I would be very careful (i.e. run my own tests, in multiple browsers) before believing that. ~~~ rbanffy Or, like my college teachers told me, "measure, don't guess". I am a bit ashamed to confess I do a lot of guessing in my work... ------ abraham I wish the code snippets were linked to the loc. [http://code.google.com/p/closure- library/source/browse/trunk...](http://code.google.com/p/closure- library/source/browse/trunk/closure/goog/array/array.js?r=2#63) ------ kwamenum86 "I’m not sure what this pattern is called in Java, but in JavaScript it’s called a ‘memory leak’." The comment is in regards to goog.memoize but is terribly backwards. The complaint about goog.memoize is that it will grow uncontrollably because it does not cap the size of the caching object. A memory leak is the inability of a program to free memory it has allocated. Since js is garbage collected causing a memory leak involves creating a circular reference fooling the garbage collector into thinking that an object is still in use. ~~~ ivank > A memory leak is the inability of a program to free memory it has allocated. Unexpected memoization/caching also counts as a memory leak. There are (unfortunately) a few places in Closure Library where unexpected memoization might cause a memory leak. > Since js is garbage collected causing a memory leak involves creating a > circular reference fooling the garbage collector into thinking that an > object is still in use. Browser environments are expected to handle circular references. They don't fool garbage collectors, except in old versions of IE when a circular reference crosses the JScript/DOM boundary. ~~~ kwamenum86 Are you saying that the memory allocated by the memoizer is not recoverable e.g. won't be released until the browser is killed? If not then it is not a memory leak. ~~~ ivank It's potentially recoverable, but stuck in some "private" object your JavaScript application will never bother to look at. It's still a memory leak.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Cognitive Upside to an Extended Adolescence - ohaikbai https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/metaplasticity/506390/ ====== ideonexus Further reading, youthful mental characteristics appear to keep the brain plastic and adaptable to change. Remain childlike, with the accompanying sense of wonder and engagement in the world to retain your intellectual vigor: [https://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/ed- boygenius.html](https://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/ed-boygenius.html) From an evolutionary perspective, humans very much resemble juvenile chimpanzees physically. There is something about this neoteny that might give insights to our highly adaptable intelligence. ~~~ GarrisonPrime It's almost like the Taoist masters were on to something. ;) ------ forkandwait The article uses the 1950s a reference point for the age at which people leave the home and parents, but the 1950s are actually an anomaly, weirdly young for marriage and household formation, at least for Western Europe culture. ~~~ pjlegato Er. The usual marriage age for a girl in premodern and early modern western European culture (and many other cultures worldwide) was "the onset of menses," or about 12 to 14 years old. ("Romeo and Juliet" takes place just before Juliet's 14th birthday.) Even in the modern era, the typical marriage age for women was 16 or 17 well into the 20th century in most of the western world. The reference point of the 1950s to the present is an anomaly because it's weirdly _old_ in western culture, not weirdly young. ~~~ forkandwait (1) You are wrong, at since the middle ages in Europe. See child comment on Western pattern of marriage. I would be interested in your sources besides Romeo and Juliet, where if I remember correctly, they are told they are too young. (2) The referenced article isn't really about marriage, but about the transition from adolescence to adulthood. There is a difference between a person getting married/ starting to have children versus setting up a household in which a person has an "adult" role; in the recent, Euro-derived West they are one and the same, but not so universally. And in the West, late age for marriage, and lots of non-married is the norm, and that pattern is pretty unique in the world. If you do a graduate degree in demography, you learn all this. There isn't really any debate about it anymore, though it is very cool and interesting to discuss because it challenges our received knowledge about "normal". Don't get me started on fertility rates for women over 40 and their historical trends.... Among poor people in the US it is fairly common for a girl to have her first baby when she is 17 / 18/ 19 but still live at home; she has hardly left adolescence even if the boyfriend/ husband is also around... ~~~ softbuilder >Don't get me started on fertility rates for women over 40 and their historical trends.... Don't leave this hanging. At least point in the direction you're going. ------ fliploop I'm under 25, pay my own bills, own a house and company and remain childlike. It has nothing to do with unemployment. It's about how you use your time. ------ B1FF_PSUVM Is it just me, or are 40-year old "adolescents" kind of terrifying? ~~~ pmarreck 44 year old successful programmer into the latest tech (Elixir/Phoenix) and gamer into the latest games (Overwatch, Fallout, etc.) here. No kids (adds to my "immaturity," I guess), live with a girlfriend. A little offended/saddened at your comment, actually. Tech ageism at its finest, I guess. You'll eventually figure out that as you age, it's just your body aging mainly. You will continue to learn things and get "wiser," but your _personality_ is immutable data, basically. I first noticed this at my 20-year high school reunion... I grew up without Facebook so this was the first time I had seen many people in 20 years... and I didn't recognize many of them (usually the ones who gained a bunch of weight... note, I did not)... until I looked into their eyes, and/or until they cracked a joke or said something, and then suddenly it was like OMG THAT IS THE SAME EXACT FUNNY PERSON THEY WERE IN HIGH SCHOOL, clear as day. ~~~ emodendroket Generally tech ageism runs in the other direction. ~~~ pmarreck Tech ageism runs _against_ younger people? Since when is this? ~~~ emodendroket No? It runs against the outward signs of maturity, like looking older, not wanting to stay up all night writing code and playing ping-pong, having a family, and so on. ~~~ pmarreck That's what I was originally suggesting, since the original comment was about older "adolescents" being creepy	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hacker News: Day 2 - aditya http://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/ ====== davidw By day 2, it was already obvious that it was going downhill and was going to be just like reddit sooner or later. ~~~ asdlfj2sd33 You're... kidding, but I had to think about it. ------ rudd I like the story about premium Gmail coming soon: $25 for 6 gigabytes of storage. Instead, now I get 7+ gigabytes for free. I love living in the future. ------ dtap Wow, number 6 is ev saying that Twitter is taking up too much of his time and he is selling Odeo. ------ aditya Interestingly, somewhere between July 13th and August 30th, 2007 it got renamed to "Hacker News" (I can't remember that happening, or why). Also, I can't remember how I even signed up for HN in the first place, but it must've been mentioned by pg somewhere in the early days (I'm 939 days old on HN today, and the site was launched 940 days ago.) ~~~ abstractbill I think it was posted to reddit - that's how I remember hearing about it first. I hate being a grouch about it, but I preferred the focus of Startup News to be honest. ------ acangiano So, how did it go with Octopart, sam? ~~~ sam It's still going well! That was our first blog entry, you can catch up the rest of them here <http://octopart.com/blog> . Wow, we've come a long way from then. When that blog was posted, Octopart was running off a desktop computer that I bought for $50 at a yard sale. And I was sleeping on a couch in Andres room in his apartment in Berkeley. ~~~ gcheong Did you finally get health insurance? ~~~ sam Yup, we all did. ------ unalone Interesting to see which names were there from the beginning. A few unexpected ones I still see today. ------ abstractbill It's weird how many of these links I remember as if I just saw them yesterday. Generally I have a memory like a sieve, but something about this format makes things stick in my mind. ------ jack7890 Not much has changed. ------ ashishk Very cool! The usernames are interesting. Some are still around, and many of them are (now hard to get) first names like sam, matt, greg, justin. ~~~ SwellJoe Yes, my name is impossible to get in its base form, even when I'm around from the very beginning. ~~~ larrykubin Wow, looks like you signed up the very first day. My account is 938 days old. ~~~ SwellJoe pg made me do it. ------ jacquesm I really liked the 50 items per page format. Could be even more. I suspect there is a price to pay for that somewhere though. ------ coderdude "On Having Balls, Part II: Staying Hungry" ------ embeddedradical best part, this link: <http://design.caltech.edu/erik/Misc/design_quotes.html>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Are you tired of Google Reader? - drew_kutchar Currently Google Reader is the main app that most use to read RSS, but it doesn't really handle reading other sources such as articles that you come across online. For those, there's Instapaper and Read it Later to name a few.<p>I was wondering is there room for innovation in reading apps. I think it's safe to say that people read a lot more (specially online) these days than ever before. In addition, I don't think the amount of reading is going to decrease in coming years.<p>Do you think there's a market for a better reader app or Google has already won the war? In addition, will you pay for a better reader app? If so, how much and what features you would like to see?<p>Thanks! ====== mahmud Google's Google Groups is also the most popular interface to USENet, do people ever bother to install a superior reader? People still use Hotmail and Yahoo mail even though POP3 and IMAP interfaces are freely available, and desktop clients offer better interfaces. How many people are making a living from chat clients? Torrent clients? You will find that people hardly seek out superior ways to do the usual everyday things, unless prompted by a friend or mass public hysteria about a new possibility. News reading is not the sort of activity that encourages viral behavior; it's a solitary activity and the reading tool in-use can not compete with the ever changing content for attention (except in format and protocol changes, when the tool that supports the widest range of formats becomes popular.) Your best hope, if you build it, is to be ready to launch something "blackhat" and subversive, if and when a major online paper goes paywall. But once you do that, you're entering unmonetizable territory. ~~~ drew_kutchar Then how do you explain Evernote with this theory? They seem to be doing just fine. I am not talking about creating a desktop app or a new protocol. I'm suggesting a better reader web app with more functionality than just displaying RSS feeds. Something that makes keeping up with the information overload more manageable, be it RSS feeds, email, articles, etc. Thanks! ------ richardw I'd like to have more filtering in Reader. E.g. hide articles based on a regex. Have a collaborative filtering layer so once I've voted a few dozen articles from a feed it figures out what to hide.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Ultron – A browser light years ahead - dabber http://ultronbrowser.io/ ====== badrabbit This has to do with a series of 4chan posts under "anon works IT" [https://imgur.com/gallery/B9wqU](https://imgur.com/gallery/B9wqU) ------ thosakwe I can understand that this is a joke website, but I think I missed the point of the satire here. Can you explain? ~~~ dabber Not really, best I got is this[0] explanation. Apparently it started as a 4chan meme in 2014. I was talking about Mozilla's work on FF Quantum and someone brought this to my attention. It made me laugh so I thought I'd share it. [0] [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/google- ultron](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/google-ultron) ------ rurban Is it April already? Looking outside, it just started getting cold, not the other way round.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Scammers abused Facebook phone number search - evancaine http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43656746 ====== nathan_long TL;DR - scammers would search for every possible phone number, find out the owners' names & info, and make scam calls to them. FB tried to limit searches per IP, but scammers would switch IPs. Seems like a safer version of this would have been to make the searcher supply more info than the phone number - eg, at least N characters of the person's name. And to tie such searches to an account. And to verify that the found people knew the searcher before allowing them to do more searches.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Musk’s SpaceX Plans a Spinoff, IPO for Starlink Business - _Microft https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-06/spacex-likely-to-spin-off-starlink-business-and-pursue-an-ipo ====== Rebelgecko Can someone who knows more about the finance stuff explain why a company (especially one like SpaceX that prides itself on being super vertically integrated) would spin off a part of the business as a public company? Is it just to help employees whose equity is relatively illiquid? Is it to raise capital? Insulate the parent company from potential regulatory/legal issues? Sidenote: SpaceX actually is sorta-kinda publicly traded. Alphabet and Fidelity bought ~10% of SpaceX. Fidelity has a few mutual funds that are partially invested in SpaceX (like 0.5% of the fund is SpaceX). I'm kinda surprised someone hasn't made a FauxSpaceX ETF that buys the Fidelity SpaceX fund and does some shorts/options to try and cancel out the non-SpaceX parts of the fund. ~~~ jessriedel Speculation: SpaceX maintains control by selling less than 50% of Starlink. This is essentially just asking the public if they would like to invest in the Starlink business with no change to operations. ~~~ repsilat I think so. Starlink is capital-intensive and untested as a business proposition. This keeps the risk walled off from SpaceX and lets them raise without diluting ownership of SpaceX. (It also means guaranteed profit for SpaceX from the pockets of new investors.) Not sure why they'd go public instead of raising the capital privately, though. ~~~ martythemaniak Well, they need to raise around $10B to get it fully operational, so that might be hard to do privately. Also, perhaps Musk thinks that having public retail investors is worth it. After all, even though they contribute approximately 0% to Tesla's funding, retail investors and owners generate approximately 100% of the hype, online content and general proselytizing. That is, someone will have to defend Starlink from accusations that it has ruined the sky, and Musk alone can't do it. ~~~ swampthinker Retail investors contribute to Tesla's financing by offering interest free loans in the form of pre-order deposits. ~~~ the__prestige Those are customers, not retail investors. ------ dang An announcement of an announcement is not substantive enough to be on topic for HN: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&sort=byDate&type=comment) Actually, this is an announcement of a possible future announcement. Since they'll announce the announcement itself at some point, that makes this article an announcement of an announcement of an announcement. We can call that a third-order announcement. If anyone can find an example of a _fourth_ -order announcement, that would be interesting enough to be on-topic for HN again. ~~~ oska So does this mean the submission was administratively flagged? Not criticising, just asking for clarification on what being judged as 'not substantive enough to be on topic for HN' entails. ~~~ dang Yes, I moderatorly downweighted it. ------ ctdonath SpaceX & Starlink are symbiotic, but do look like distinctly separate businesses. Each wouldn't want to be subject to major problems of the other: if one suffers disasters, other isn't financially impacted. An "at cost" arrangement would greatly benefit both, former getting $ to cover launches (by which they can test & commoditize equipment/process), latter getting cheap transport. ------ jiofih [https://outline.com/7jtePr](https://outline.com/7jtePr) ~~~ _Microft Directly opening _about:reader?url= <...>_ in Firefox works as well by the way. ------ ogre_codes This makes a ton of sense for SpaceX. SpaceX is a high risk business with intermittent revenue and very long term goals. Avoiding the burdens of being public lets SpaceX do what they need to do without worrying about quarterly revenue targets and the scrutiny of Wall Street. Starlink is a relatively low-risk service company with a clear business model, easily predicted and consistent revenue. Exactly the sort of business which Wall Street loves. By going public with Starlink, SpaceX can raise a lot of money on the public markets and give it's investors and employees a way to cash in on their investments without actually making SpaceX public. They can also retain controlling interest in Starlink and benefit from the success of their child company. TLDR: It's a clever way for Musk and company to finance SpaceX and keep their investors happy while keeping SpaceX itself private. ------ smccully When Starlink has Class action lawsuits opened by Astronomers SpaceX doesn't want to be liable. _edited_ ~~~ smccully _Steps on Soapbox_ SpaceX and the ilk are openly planning to destroy the night sky. If allowed to continue it will literally be the greatest environmental disaster in generations. While the idea of Fast Internet access unilaterally across the globe would be a tremendous accomplishment I can not think it is the worth the cost. ~~~ manicdee If destroying terrestrial astronomy is what it takes to get astronomers to recognise indigenous rights, then I will be pouring my money into StarLink. ~~~ smccully uhm, what? ~~~ manicdee The biggest telescopes in the world are built on land that is special or sacred to various indigenous people, or where the land was “leased” with no intention of paying the rent.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Assistant Can Now Translate Languages on Your Phone - jonbaer https://www.wired.com/story/google-assistant-can-now-translate-on-your-phone/ ====== steelframe I recently vacationed in Japan, and I found that using Google Translate on the phone wasn't practical because the other person would have no clue what was going on or how they are supposed to work with the app. The language auto- detect was abysmal; half the time it thought Japanese was English. They would start responding to the translated statement before the app played the chime, and I'd have to rudely interrupt them and fumble with the app to get it to start listening again. They were never sure when it was "okay" to start talking again. In the end I tended to communicate everything I really needed by holding up the number of things I wanted on my fingers and pointing and smiling, caveman- style. They would usually know just enough English to say, "Two? Ok." Then the price of whatever I was buying would show up on the register surrounded by mystery Japanese characters, but the numbers were Western Arabic, so that was all I needed to know. One thing I learned is that you can get by with very little knowledge of the local language to successfully travel and eat. ~~~ missosoup I had the opposite experience. Everyone I tried to communicate with via google translate responded positively except one disgruntled train station attendant. I would say excuse me, I don't speak Japanese can you please help me. And then I'd show them my phone with the translated version of whatever my query is and then press the mic button and they'd get the point that they can speak now. Worked great. ~~~ ubercow13 You can also enable the appropriate keyboard on your phone before travelling. Most people can type in their native language on a smartphone. In my experience many people already have their own translation app on their phone which they are often happy to use to reply to you, too. ~~~ Thorrez Yeah, but most people are faster at talking than at typing on a smartphone. ~~~ ubercow13 In my experience the whole thing works better with people typing. Firstly voice recognition isn’t perfect. The person has to check what they say was transcribed correctly and can’t correct it with a keyboard if they see it’s wrong the first time, they have to just try again. Typing means people go a bit more slowly and think about what they are writing, sometimes reworking sentences to be clearer. Also if they are typing in front of your face, the translation constantly updates based on the partial sentence they’ve typed and this can be quite revealing, which is useful if the final translation isn’t crystal clear. ------ reaperducer This sort of thing is surprisingly useful. A couple of weeks ago I was going to Human Resources on the other side of campus and there was a Chinese family wandering around, obviously lost. The mother showed me her phone with some Chinese-language map app that I'd never seen before. It indicted that there was a shopping mall where we were standing. Obviously, her map app was wrong since the company has been at this location for 30 years. But I was able to say to my phone, "Hey, Siri. How to you say 'I'm sorry, there is no shopping center here.' In Chinese?" And then I held my phone for her to see while Siri both printed out the translation on the screen and spoke it to her. I said a few other hopefully helpful phrases to her, but she seemed happy with my guidance and did lots of smiling and nodding. (I assume the article is about the Google version of this. I wasn't able to read the article because Wired popped up so many ads and DIV modals on the screen that there wasn't any actual story text.) ~~~ stinos It's useful, but after so many years the state of machine translations and speech recognition in general is still not exactly reliable. It's like it doesn't have context or doesn't know how to apply it. I've heard success stories like this before, experienced them a few times as well, but most of the times the experience for me is subpar to the point it gets so annoying and needs so much manual intervention I gave up, thinking I'll just try again in 5 or 10 years and see if it's any beter. Maybe my accent or pronounciation sucks but I tried getting Siri to write down text messages about 10 times. Most of the times it was close, but none of the times the words were 100% correct and in more than 50% of cases that led to the produced sentences not conveying the original meaning. Same for navigation. Names of cities (in Europe) seem problematic, like confusing Miltenberg (DE) with Milton in Canada or so. Similar for Google Translate. Our Portugese taxi driver didn't speak English and was worried about getting us to the airport in time. His phone showed us he was worried about the weather. I get 'tempo' can mean both, but it's these subtle differences technology still is lacking. ~~~ trianglem Might be your accent. I use Siri to send text messages all the time while driving and anecdotally it works very well. ~~~ hansthehorse My wife's name is Nada. I pronounce it nA-da and siri says nah-da. If I don't use the siri pronunciation it won't find the contact. Took me a while to figure out that work around. ~~~ reaperducer I have a similar problem with my car's native voice recognition. But Siri gets both the recognition and pronunciation correct. I wish my car had CarPlay. ------ why-oh-why Isn’t the title wrong? The audio is sent to the server so it’s not “on my phone.” This type of translation was already available “on my phone” completely offline (written, with Google Translate) I use translation often and I was hoping to finally have an easy way to have a written conversation, but this still doesn’t show the right keyboard when picking the language in “Keyboard” mode. ~~~ elcomet Google assistant runs on the phone, even if the processing doesn't. ~~~ OrgNet but the processing is the important part ~~~ elcomet Not really for users. They care about doing the request and seeing the results on their phones. ~~~ OrgNet that will change when they figure out the privacy implications ~~~ diffserv Can you expand on the the privacy implications? How is this different than picking up the phone and having your convo go through ATT/Verizon networks? or using your ISP? Both parties can "legally" work with authorities to wiretap you? Are you worried that the (training) algorithms that run on your voice somehow end up leaking your identity? Or are you worried that someone at Google knows your voice? Also, not sure if Google has this fact in their ToS but if they do, what is the issue? ~~~ klyrs Phone networks are not primarily advertising agencies, and they're regulated as utilities, so the difference is nontrivial. And the personalized risk isn't from random strangers knowing your voice -- it's your stalker ex, or other bad actors, who might get way more insight into your life than you want ------ OldGuyInTheClub I saw this video before its public release circa 1993. Autotranslation, virtual agents, realtime video conferencing on handheld devices, virtual reality... all there. I was finishing my postdoc at Bell Labs where it was shown to us as a glimpse into the company's future plans. I didn't know where the bandwidth would come from and neither did the presenter when I asked except to say that "It will have to be built, won't it?." Needless to say I didn't have the foresight to invest in it, either [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFWCoeZjx8A&feature=emb_logo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFWCoeZjx8A&feature=emb_logo) "AT&T's vision of the future, circa 1993 - AT&T Archives" ~~~ rcpt 2min in and you can see they also predicted NIMBYs ~~~ OldGuyInTheClub Oh, we've been around a lot longer than that. ------ jph "However, there's always a chance Assistant could accidentally start recording snippets of conversations and therefore potentially sensitive and identifiable information. " \- This is why security people want a hardware microphone switch. ~~~ s3r3nity Funny enough, Facebook added one for both the camera and microphone on Portal. ~~~ ma2rten Alexa and Google Home have them too. ------ jzwinck The Google Translate app has had this feature for years. Near real time audio, and video translation too! It works very well for many languages but not especially well for Chinese (admittedly a harder problem than Spanish). ------ whiddershins When I was in Tokyo a bartender chatted with me for a while using a hand held stand-alone device that did voice (audio without relying on text) two way near-real-time translation. It worked really well and I was confused I have never seen one before. ------ kwhitefoot The HN title is misleading. The Wired title says "through" not "on". And the article makes it clear that an internet connection is required. Surely "on" would mean that no connection to the internet would be needed. ------ tsimionescu It's interesting that all the positive Google Translate experiences shared here have to do with Chinese and Japanese. In general, my experience with translations of European languages has been abysmal, for anything but the simplest expressions. The resulting expressions are often so ungrammatical that they were basically unintelligible. I remember a Greek taxi driver who picked me up for a long trip, and seeing the distance, initially assumed I was going to the airport - and asked about it, prompting a flurry of No no nos from me and pointing on a map. He later tried to use Google translate to explain why he had assumed this (Greek to English) , but what came out was so garbled I only understood that he was saying something about distance and airport, prompting another confused flurry of map pointing (he abandoned the hope of explaining the initial confusiom and resigned to just driving...) . It was only minutes later, trying to think about what had happened, that I finally puzzled out what that translation must have meant. ~~~ TazeTSchnitzel For translations where one side is not English, Google Translate does a horrible job, because it will incorrectly translate to English first, then incorrectly translate from English to the target language. This means you end up with translation errors only comprehensible to someone who speaks all three languages! But even without that, even for what should be simple translations from English to e.g. Swedish, it makes so many nonsensical errors. Not just misunderstanding context, but fabricating novel and absurd translations of common words. I think it's gotten worse since they switched to their whole-sentence neural net system. At least in the past, the individual words made some sense, and you could click on them individually to see other (sometimes more accurate) alternatives. ------ forgetfulusr Ah, from the title I thought they figured out how to do it locally on your phone, without being connected to Google. Knowing they are only into making Ad products aka tracking, it would be a shame to get used to such a nice free offering. Thanks but no thanks, I guess us suckers will have to take a few hrs to learn a few of the local language phrases. ------ asdff It would be great if OCR got to the point where you could just point the phone camera at a sign and have it output 1:1 what is in front of you with translated text, like a magic little window frame. Shit still struggles with parsing PDFs though so I'm not holding out too much hope, though. ~~~ dreamcompiler The Google Translate app does exactly that in its camera mode, and has been doing so for at least 3 years.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Want to kill health insurers? This start-up is teaching hospitals how. - sc68cal http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/05/want-to-kill-health-insurers-this-start-up-is-teaching-hospitals-how/ ====== joshuaellinger "We wanted a Steve Jobs feel so we decided not to bath for months." But more seriously -- I see two real weaknesses in this idea. First, hospitals typically don't have the doctors directly on staff so they have visibility but relatively little leverage. They provide an army of nurses but the doctors are independent contractors. Second, you need scale to make it work. It's not clear that a single hospital has the right scale to be an insurer. I think the right way to kill health insurers is just by fiat. Medicare for All. Health Insurance is not, and has never been, a real market with normal economic behavior. Imagine if car insurance that let you drive like an maniac but only based your premium of age of the car, then if you had an accident, it would spend unlimited amounts of money to fix your existing car. And after your car is ten years old, the government takes over. That's our health care system. A rational system would accept that everyone dies, share the risk of rare accidents across a large pool of people, and spend a lot of money earlier in peoples lives rather than waiting until they get to the emergency room. I'm a capitalist to the core but it just doesn't work with you don't have a free market with a normal price-elasticity curve. ~~~ ggchappell > I think the right way to kill health insurers is just by fiat. Medicare for > All. However desirable that may be, the reason it is unlikely to happen is that the incentives are aligned the wrong way for the relevant decision makers. Insurance companies are funding congressional campaigns; as long as this goes on, Congress is unlikely to try to put insurance companies out of business.[1] The approach discussed in the article, for all its weaknesses (which you have nailed, IMHO), at least has the incentives in the right direction. Congress may love insurance companies, but hospitals and doctors do not. [1] Indeed, one of the primary points of "Obamacare" is that Americans are now required by law to purchase insurance companies' offerings.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Who wants an itunes ftp gateway? - terpua ====== terpua The software would allow for continuous and automatic itunes backup to your ftp server. ~~~ inklesspen No need. Your music is stored on your hard drive. So all you need is a daemon that synchronizes your music directory with your remote server. Hmm, remote synchronization. Maybe we could call it rsync, for short. ~~~ terpua rsync won't allow for itunes metadata changes like play count, ratings, etc. Of course, target market is for people that don't want to bother with scripts. ~~~ inklesspen Sure it will. Those metadata changes are stored on your hard drive, just like the music. It's in the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files. And they needn't bother with scripts, either; there's already an OS X gui for rsync, and it wouldn't be too hard to build an app that automatically backs things up at a specified time. ~~~ terpua You can backup XML files but this wouldn't allow for easy individual track restores with metadata preservation. In addition, our solution allows for backup/restores from multiple Macs. Eg: You can restore a track from your work Mac to your home Mac with metadata preservation. We already have a similar solution but for S3. Perhaps I can convince you to try it out, newly launched. ~~~ inklesspen I already have a solution. It's called "I back up my hard drive." You have a product in search of a market. Good luck. ~~~ npk I completely disagree. They're targeting a specific market, though that market does not include you, there are a ton of people who want to have their music, and only their music, backed up. You're also not really thinking about the big picture. By focusing their product on iTunes, they can add crazy features, like library sync, or library "move." I've helped my mom move her library to a new computer, this product would have been perfect to help her. The good news is these guys already have a product, so they don't have to listen to bad negative feedback.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitcoin Cash Litigation “Response to Complaint” Countdown Timer - mbgaxyz https://www.bitcoincashlitigation.com/ ====== k-ian uh. what? what exactly is the crime here? from the presentation: "The lawsuit moves against multiple defendants: Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, Bitmain Inc. Bitmain Technologies LTD. Bitmain Technologies Holding Company, Jihan Wu, The Kraken LLC, Jesse Powell, Amaury Sechet, Shammah Chancelor and Jason Cox. This legal action will seek to prove that specific key actors, including some of the biggest US-based and international names and entities in the digital currency world, have been operating with the support of the Chinese government to centralize the Bitcoin cash network resulting in Chinese entities now having established dominance over this important segment of the cryptocurrency market with proprietary software checkpoints and instituting other means of control over the system." The lawsuit is almost equally vague, talking about "hijacking the Bitcoin Cash network, centralizing the market, and violating all accepted standards...". Later on the lawsuit document goes into the ABC/SV split and how this has led to a lower value for both chains. The plantiff is apparently some company behind "the development of a low cost, rapid deployment solution for operation of cryptocurrency mining – the BlockchainDome. The BlockchainDome is a passive “cooling ground-coupled heat- exchanger"..." basically sounds like they use excess energy from chimneys to mine bitcoin (and bitcoin cash) ------ mancerayder What's the summary, here? A civil lawsuit in and of itself means nothing to a spectator.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple Leak Accidentally Reveals Radical New iPhone - mises https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2019/01/13/apple-iphone-11-upgrade-update-release-date-price-cost-xr-xs-max/ ====== flukus Tripple camera system, new antenna and improved face id. Radical only on the 80's sense of the word. ------ wodenokoto For those who reads comments first, there is absolutely nothing radical in the changes. They are all just upgrades, some seemingly irrelevant to consumers. \- more cameras on the back of max model -more dots on the IR light for use in face ID \- new material in the antenna \- wifi 6 ------ JBReefer I’m still holding out for USB C - I desperately want to live in a single charger world ~~~ CamelCaseName I am living in a single charger world, and it is amazing. All my mobile devices (phone, laptop, and console) use USB-C. I carry everything these days in a single, very thin, laptop bag and feel like I can work and play from anywhere. ...plus, there's no worry if I ever lose a cord. Every device I buy comes with one. ~~~ julianlam Indeed! My work setup includes a monitor with a powered USB-C output. I plug all my peripherals into the back of the monitor once, and when I get in I plug the single USB-C wire into my laptop, it carries power, VGA, data, and ethernet. ------ tluyben2 How is this radical? ~~~ DATACOMMANDER My thought exactly. This is just another example of our shrinking vocabulary. Intensifiers in particular seem to have collapsed into an undifferentiated mass. For example, the words _awesome_ , _great_ , _outstanding_ , etc all have different connotations, but you wouldn’t know that based on how they’re used. ------ sremani A counter-narrative to the dwindling stock got accidentally leaked to a fan site and curated through investor information channels. If Tim Cook were a horse I bet he would win triple crown, accidentally of course. ------ shanghaiaway iPhone Xi, unapologetically designed in California for China ------ joshstrange This is FAR from radical and it's super disingenuous to show a concept photo of the new phone having no notch. ------ julianlam 3 cameras? I thought Apple was about innovation, didn't I see a Samsung with 7 cameras?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Metalsmith – A pluggable static site generator - ianstormtaylor http://www.metalsmith.io/ ====== sneak I like that static site generators are basically the Cups And Balls of our craft. It's so well understood and constrained of a problem domain that we can now ignore the practical considerations and go all-out with the art itself. I feel like this design and api is a great example of that, much like Penn and Teller's Cups and Balls with clear cups[1] - wonderfully creative innovation within a completely and totally solved problem domain. [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_n3Zb3bW3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_n3Zb3bW3g) ------ Touche One problem I see. On the one hand you say: > All of the logic in Metalsmith is handled by plugins. But on the other hand, you say this: > Each plugin is invoked with the contents of the source directory, with every > file parsed for optional YAML front-matter, like so… The YAML parsing should be a plugin as well, some of us have existing JSON front-matter files. ~~~ icebraining A JSON file is a YAML file, so what's the problem? ~~~ asb I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted (well, maybe the tone), it's true that YAML is a superset of JSON [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML#JSON](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML#JSON) ~~~ ianstormtaylor That's really cool actually. ------ 8ig8 Thanks. Looking forward to trying it out this weekend. My current generator, which I'm generally happy with, is DocPad. [http://docpad.org](http://docpad.org) ------ cristianpascu One thing I don't like about jekyll (unless I'm missing something), is that on site generation, the last modified time stamp of the files gets updated too even if the file content hasn't changed. This way a FTP program like Transmit will not be able to synchronize only the modified files. ~~~ sneak Just about everything that supports ftp supports ssh+rsync. I'm not apologizing for the bug, but rsync+ssh is a sane default for synchronizing everything everywhere these days and sidesteps the problem almost entirely. ------ xianshou If this really works, I would love to see it replace the hellish jumble of team-editable documentation. I've seen Confluence, PBWiki, Google Sites, and a smattering of others used to no good ends...can we please switch to this now? ~~~ ianstormtaylor I'm actually in the process of converting our Segment.io docs to use it right now :) makes it way nicer for everyone* folks to just be able to edit Markdown, but still have the power to do lots of custom things to make the experience better. * I was going to say for "less-technical" folks but then I realized that even technical people shouldn't have to be subjected to our current tangle of Jade files! ------ dangoor Could be compared to assemble.io and stylistically reminds me of Gulp. ~~~ justarandomanon Gulp was the first thing I though of when looking through the examples. Edit: In fact, could this whole thing just be a gulp plugin? ~~~ andyfleming I don't see why not. My thought was "why even have this when you could just build the plugins for gulp?". ~~~ ianstormtaylor The problem with Gulp is just that it just adds too much extra cruft into the mix that isn't really necessary, mostly around running tasks from the CLI. Our general thought for build tasks is that all of that should be in a Makefile which will nicely handle mtime checks and everything for you, and is available on pretty much every setup out there. The simplicity is nice because you can read through Metalsmith's source and really understand everything that it's doing very quickly: [https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith/blob/master/lib/inde...](https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith/blob/master/lib/index.js) ------ mercurial It appears to be indeed both extremely simple, and extremely composable. How well does it handle large collections of files? ~~~ ianstormtaylor I haven't tried it on _crazy_ amounts of files, but it's just using node's basic async I/O under the covers, and reading once. If you notice any sluggishness let me know! It's also greatly impacted by what plugins choose to do. I had an extra clone call (literally cloning the buffers for each file) in the templating plugin at one point that like 50x'd the build time :) Everything I've done so far though has sub-second build times—quick enough that I've been building on every request[1] in development which makes things super simple. [1]: [https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith.io/blob/master/serve...](https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith.io/blob/master/server.js#L15-L18) ------ shortformblog This is really intriguing. I also recommend HarpJS ([https://www.harp.io/](https://www.harp.io/)) as well, which has some impressive pre-compile features. ------ sgdesign This looks very cool. I like the focus on plugins, it would be pretty awesome to have a flexible static site generator with an active plugin ecosystem. ------ andrewflnr I like this design. It kind of goes in the same direction as my github.com/andrewf/filtdir while being significantly more refined. This seems to make the whole directory structure available to plugins, while my tool only works one file at a time. It might even convince me to switch. ------ jon49 A functional type approach. It will be interesting to look more into it. It would be nice to have a .map, .filter functions (if they don't already exist). So, if you don't want to rebuild everything you could do a .filter(htmlDate < mdDate) type workflow. ------ ricardobeat Not just a nice tool, but a great implementation. Simple, lean code, no promises or anything fancy. ~~~ tobobo The overall structure of the thing looks pretty promise-y to me. ------ Kiro How do I get this working on Windows? I've installed it with npm install metalsmith. Now what? ~~~ roryokane You’re right, the “Install It” section should make that clearer. Anyway, there is an explanation of basic usage if you follow the link to “CLI” ([https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith#cli](https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith#cli)) in that section. It says you can create a `metalsmith.json` file that lists source, destination, and plugins in the described format, and then run `metalsmith` from the command line to build your pages according to the configuration file. And I think you will probably also have to install any plugins you use beforehand. Plugin installation instructions are all in the plugin READMEs – they are basically all just `npm install <some-package- name>`. But it’s harder to figure out how to create my own local plugins and make sure Metalsmith is able to see them. And the documentation should make it clearer how to _use_ the JavaScript API, in the context of a static file generator, where most people are not thinking about writing a program. It took me a bit of thinking to realize that you would have to create a `whatever.js` file inside the directory containing JavaScript code with `Metalsmith(".")….build()`, and then just run it with `node whatever.js`. ~~~ ianstormtaylor Sorry about that! Just updated the Readme and website to hopefully make that clearer. And I've added Readme's to all of the examples[1] now too, some of which use the Javascript API and some the CLI. [1]: [https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith/tree/master/examples](https://github.com/segmentio/metalsmith/tree/master/examples) ------ esquivias Somewhat relevant plug: I have a similar weekend project that is aimed towards generating static markup. The syntax looks a bit like haml with simple to use mixins, includes, and variables. [http://rubygems.org/gems/aml](http://rubygems.org/gems/aml) ~~~ roryokane You should have linked to its home page [https://abstractmarkup.com/](https://abstractmarkup.com/). The RubyGems page does nothing to sell me on why I should bother installing your gem. ------ aram Did anyone else manage to install it? I'm getting a "shasum check failed" error. The project scaffold generator part sounds pretty interesting because I needed it pretty often and eventually had to build that for myself. ~~~ ianstormtaylor Just republished! Can you let me know if you still see it? Sorry about that :$ ~~~ BrandonSmith Got the checksum error, too. Successful after the republish. ------ rainburg Couldn't choose between Jekyll and Middleman, but now I think I'm going with Metalsmith. No ruby, understandable plugin structure… I'm sold! ------ rayshan With sooooo many static site generators (all very well done too), would be awesome to have a side-by-side by-feature comparison table. ~~~ rayshan Apparently there are many aggregation efforts, but no by-feature comparison. [https://github.com/jaspervdj/static-site-generator- compariso...](https://github.com/jaspervdj/static-site-generator- comparison/issues/13) ------ caiob I fail to see the big advantage of this over its competitors. ~~~ ianstormtaylor Yeah it depends on what your use case is to begin with. If it's just the simplest blog with a running series of Markdown files, then really any of the static site generators will do. But once you get into trying to implement some more advanced features then you run up against the limitations of most (if not all) of them because they assume way too much up front. A couple real-world examples from us at Segment.io are: Documentation - for our docs[1] we want to be able to use the same simple static site generator without having all of the blogging logic. Basically the nesting of the files should result in the nesting of the URLs. But we also want to be able to tie in metadata that we have in our database about all of our integrations. And we'd also like to be able to write custom handlebars helpers that turn a simple JSON object into a widget that renders API calls in any of our supported languages. Academy - for our academy[2] I really want to get to the point where we can generate PDFs for each of our articles and being to re-distribute them that was as eBooks (or potentially for a collection of articles) because that kind of thing appeals to enterprises who are looking for guidance. And we could even end up doing the same thing with our docs pages. And then we also want to have custom handlebars helpers for Blog - for our blog[3] we want just the most basic implementation, although maybe with some niceties about author metadata to load in avatars and such. Whenever you try and get into additional features that weren't considered by the original "static site" (or worse "static blog") generators, you usually end up building really cludgey code, if it's even possible. So with Metalsmith we avoid all of that, because the plugins can do whatever they want, and it's super trivial to add local plugins to the mix if you're cooking up something which you know is unique to just you. And the last thing was that we were sick of having a Ruby dependency (with all of the associated slowness) just to build our blog with Jekyll. Basically was increasing build times by an order of magnitude. [1]: [https://segment.io/docs](https://segment.io/docs) [2]: [https://segment.io/academy](https://segment.io/academy) [3]: [https://segment.io/blog](https://segment.io/blog) ------ Touche This is a nit, but non-constructors should be lowercase. ~~~ ianstormtaylor It actually is a constructor, just lets you omit the `new` keyword if you choose since I think it's nice not to have to do that sometimes. ------ sdegutis So simple, yet so powerful. ------ borplk Very nice. Well done. ------ fredsters_s Awesome.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
LinkedIn, Reddit, GoogleNews and others caught spying on iPhone clipboards - phront https://www.phonearena.com/news/more-iphone-clipboard-snoopers-surface_id125733 ====== rs23296008n1 I've removed them. Is there any justification why these apps shouldn't simply be listed with a spyware warning? I've tried to see the "innocent misunderstanding" angle but I just can't. Linkedin. Not sure why it needed to snoop the clipboard. Anyone care to explain why it needed that access? I can't see any reason why Reddit needed it either. Reddit broke their web experience as well. Can't these apps rely on paste? Or it is a tooling/sdk issue? I also found the app I use to top up phone credit was demanding camera access on android. Removed that as well. Spyware. ~~~ loljabab If this is spyware and the actual contents are being sent somewhere, you’ll hear about it. This seems pretty overblown. Here is a simple explanation: the apps exhibit different behavior when a relevant URL is on the clipboard. Reddit does this. That being said, I’m glad apple is giving the clipboard some privacy attention. Tons of people send their passwords thru the clipboard. ~~~ rs23296008n1 I don't think its overblown. Snooping the clipboard is usually either spyware activity or utility behavior. Its not as if its a password manager expiring a copied password. Its not even something grabbing text from the clipboard because I've set it up to do so in some text processing utility. Linkedin doesn't need this kind of functionality. They simply got caught. Plenty of other shenanigans going on. This is likely just one of many. ------ josephcsible This kind of thing is why I insist on using Reddit via mobile Web instead of their app, no matter how much they nag me to switch. Native apps allow lots of invasions of privacy like this. Web apps inherently don't, and they can still do everything that I'd want for sites like Reddit. ~~~ lopis There are multiple Reddit apps on F-Droid too. ~~~ Topgamer7 That way someone else can steal your data instead of the Reddit org, woo-hoo! ~~~ sudosysgen They're open source on F-Droid. You could literally just grep for the clipboard access method in 5 minutes. ~~~ josephcsible There's other ways an app could invade your privacy than just the clipboard. ~~~ sudosysgen sure, and for all of them you can find if they do or not by looking at the source code. ------ dang [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23725556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23725556) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716451) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23634138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23634138) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691190) ------ namanaggarwal Genuine Question: Can/Does apple allow some apps to not show this warning. I don't have an iphone but if safari has a feature like Chrome to show the copied url then this should pop up every time I open safari. Which is not good for apple and is a good enough feature I guess. ------ Jyaif Some of these apps offer suggestions based on the content of the clipboard. How else can they do that without looking at the clipboard? ~~~ p49k Should work like all other privacy settings. The first time the app tries to access the clipboard, the OS should prompt “Reddit is trying to access the clipboard [Allow / Deny]”. Then the preference is set and can be changed in settings. ~~~ Topgamer7 They have this for certain things. MyFitnessPal asks me incessantly to have access to my "step" permission. I vehemently agree we should have more access to fine-grain permissions. Although apps should be punished for nagging me to change my settings every time I open the app.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Employer OR Employee? - theearlybird I noticed there is a lot of issues about fresh grads being unable to find a job. As an employer, what are the best platform or method to find these fresh grads?<p>P.S : I am having some hard time trying to find fresh grads to hire. ====== Phithagoras If you're looking for fresh grads try posting on the university job boards or co-op listings. Each university typically has their own. A lot of grads (particularly engineers in Canada) are looking for work.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Write off the first hour of work - danw http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/archive/2008/write-off-that-first-hour/ ====== dawie I would rather just go to work and hour later...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bigger brains are not always better - mpweiher https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genius-of-pinheads-when-little-brains-rule/ ====== tacon Humans can also work fine with almost no brain tissue, as has been discovered throughout history. The canonical article is from 1980, "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?"[0] "There's a young student at this university," says Lorber, "who has an IQ of 126, has gained a first-class honors degree in mathematics, and is socially completely normal. And yet the boy has virtually no brain." The student's physician at the university noticed that the youth had a slightly larger than normal head, and so referred him to Lorber, simply out of interest. "When we did a brain scan on him," Lorber recalls, "we saw that instead of the normal 4.5-centimeter thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical surface, there was just a thin layer of mantle measuring a millimeter or so. His cranium is filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid." [0] [http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No- Brain.pdf](http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-Brain.pdf) ~~~ fjarlq In 2007, John Hawks criticized[1] Lorber's claim. [1]: [http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/development/ten_pe...](http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brain/development/ten_percent_brain_myth_2007.html) ~~~ tacon Thanks for that update. That article was in my weird stuff file, and I had no idea the evidence presented was controversial. ~~~ sandworm101 There is another layer, and it is very political. "Studies" that show people can be functional without brain matter are championed by certain pro-life groups who want to describe "brain dead" people as potentially functional. It came to a head during the Terri Schiavo fiasco. Her scans were horrific, showing very little brain after her accident. People pointed to these studies as evidence that such a scan did not preclude recovery to a normal life, that she should be kept alive at all costs in hope of recovery. That's how these things stay around. Someone finds them useful for completely non-scientific arguments. ------ somerandomness Sure absolute size doesn't matter. But what about number of neurons or neural connections? I'd be curious what the actual studies say. The article hinted at this: "African gray parrots, which can identify shapes and even count, as well as corvids, which have an equivalent number of neurons to some primates and, it is suggested, may even be self-aware." Comparing brain size vs intelligence across species seems weird since neuron size/density differs so much. ~~~ alextheparrot Shout-out to my account namesake's species. If anyone hasn't watched African grey parrots on YouTube, they are definitely in for a treat. ------ thelogos It is not about how big the brain is. It is about the number of neurons, latency, signal reliability and number of connections. Voltage-gated ion channels are non-deterministic. Meaning they don't always open (or not open) when they should. In order to stuff more neurons into the same volume of space, you have to shrink them. The problem is, those ion- channels become more and more unreliable as the size decreases. I would argue that they're already too unreliable in many humans. Second problem, as the size of the axon and myelin sheath decrease, signal reliability and latency will suffer. Yes, the current can die out part-way to its destination. As the brain is less globally connected due to the sheer lack of space, poor signal reliability and increased latency, it will begin to favor local connections over global ones. In other words, specialization and usage of signal superhighways to compensate, just like a crowded city. The problem with a crowded city is, even with great public transport, many people never leave their neighborhoods. So what to do about it? You can leave neurons the same size and make more room instead of trying to shrink them. First problem with this, difficulty of childbirth due to skull size. Second, increased development time, it's already too long as it is. Third, latency and signal reliability will still suffer due to increased distance. Fourth, increased use of resource. You also need to support those neurons and that support system will eat up more and more space. If you try to blow up the size of the axon and myelin sheath to fix the latency and reliability problems, it will eat up even more space. In other words, less room for neurons and you're back to square one. Another problem is, you need a bigger body to support that huge brain. More neurons will be dedicated to processing touch instead of higher-level abstract thoughts. One last thing you can try is, decrease body size, increase brain volume slightly. The lower level of violence, abundance of food, modern healthcare (c-section) and longer lifespan (more time to mature) in modern human societies allow us to do this already. Dedicate more resource to higher levels of the brain associated with abstract thoughts, planning, reasoning, etc. Over-myelinate those areas to increase signal speed and reliability. At the end of the day, there's not much more mother nature can do without deep structural and material change. Reengineer the myelin materials to increase their insulating property and decrease the size. Make the ion-channels more reliable so you can shrink neurons even more, although you still have to worry about quantum tunneling. Or better yet, do away with ions completely and switch to photonic computing. ~~~ nicholas73 I wonder if there will be a human-computer brain interface so that we can augment our cognitive powers. ~~~ scadge There's already one, actually just appeared :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink) ~~~ antisthenes He asked if there was an interface, not a startup that claims to be developing such an interface. ------ prestonpesek I'd like to suggest a theory here, that a brain's primary function is to study and occasionally override the information processing algorithms contained in the "unconscious" DNA of the organism. Once the brain has discovered the optimal solution through innovative overrides, the best behavioral solutions are recorded and automated in the DNA as hard code, and no longer requires either supervision or further revisions. At that point in the evolutionary history of the species, it no longer needs to invest so much energy in maintaining such a large a brain, now that what amounts to optimal "muscle memory" in the DNA has been established through successful survival and selection of repeating behavior patterns. So what may appear to us be highly intelligent behavior, these functions are coming not from the brain, but from what has been captured in the DNA. This is a theory from a novice, I am not a scientist of any kind, but an entrepreneur. I don't have time or resources to research the validity of this theory, but perhaps someone else does? Thank you. ------ whatshisface "Eberhard used these web-making mistakes as a proxy for cognitive capacity." That line seems kind of suspect from my armchair. Web-making isn't a general behavior, and could probably be assigned a certain optimal ammount of brain space as sight and other tasks were compromised to make room in smaller brains. How did the researchers deal with this? ~~~ cgriswald I agree. When I got to that part of the article, it just seemed to me he was expecting the same CPU to perform better at a specific, more-or-less optimized task just because it was larger, regardless of architecture or the amount of components within the CPU. ~~~ mcherm And yet we do that! How fast is that CPU? You'll hear people quoting clock speed. You'll hear people quoting FPOS (floating point operations per second -- at least we USED to quote that). Both of which are single tasks. It's not that we don't realize that the performance of a CPU varies depending on lots of things like instruction set design and (especially) memory pipelines and caching. It's just that there is not a general "does the stuff you want quickly" benchmark to measure (or rather, there ARE several such benchmarks, but each is skewed in its own way and not subtly, so that things like clock speed and FPOS are at least flawed in OBVIOUS ways). And there is some sort of very rough correlation: CPUs with greater clock speed do tend, as a general rule, to run most applications faster. I think rating the spider's intelligence by giving them a web-making challenge was a really BRILLIANT idea, and provided a better assessment of intelligence than any other test _I_ can imagine giving to a spider. Can you do better? ~~~ cgriswald I wasn't questioning the methodology. I think this was a good experiment and really interesting result. I was questioning the shocking surprise at the result as expressed by the article. A spider's brain is not a general purpose computing device. It has specific evolved functions. Performing that function well is necessary for the continuation of the species; both species have continued to survive, so both species probably perform the function well; no surprise. ------ et2o There is a great statistic called the encephalization quotient that is simply log brain mass divided by log body mass. There is a fairly strong correlation ([https://universe-review.ca/I10-83-brainmass.jpg](https://universe- review.ca/I10-83-brainmass.jpg)), but you find that species which deviate from the best fit line (biggest residuals) tend to be the species we associate as intelligent or not intelligent. Humans have the largest magnitude residual. ~~~ pennaMan What species is the point right next to humans? It's not a primate, interestingly. ~~~ LeifCarrotson It's probably a dolphin or porpoise. Not only do they have some of the highest EQ of non-primates, they're also the right weight range: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cetacean_species#Famil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cetacean_species#Family_Delphinidae:_oceanic_dolphins) You may think of bottlenose dolphins as representative of the whole family, but they actually are much larger than most of their brethren. ------ soniido Now that we have deep learning, we know that more layers don't always give better results. Perhaps intelligence and wit is obtained when associations allow our mind to develop neurons that are useful for modeling interesting features. For example, being good at math and having good reasoning skills are very useful features that can be acquired by education and practice. Also we now know that our brain in much more plastic that what was previously believed, for example taxi drivers brains have a bigger spatial area as a result of learning to around big cities. So the question to get better intelligence is how we make child brains develop neural systems related to useful features?, unfortunately teaching chess is not a solution, but perhaps is a step in the right direction, more research is needed. ------ SubiculumCode That complex behaviors can arise from simple processes is understood. Moreover in the species mentioned in the article, the problem spaces relevant to survival may have been relatively stable for untold amounts of time. The stable problem spaces increase the evolutionary fitness of efficient algorithms that solve that problem space with min energy expenditure. But such efficiency usually has a cost: reduced flexibility to changes in the problem space. I submit to you that behavioral flexibility in new environments may well correlate with brain size, even excluding humans from the analysis. ------ scandox I remember seeing a photograph of Quentin Tarantino shaking hands with his producer and thinking: the craniums on these guys are enormous. It was the first time I realized consciously that when I look at people with large craniums I do automatically assume they are smarter. Since I realized that, I reserve judgement until they start talking. ~~~ magic_beans To be honest he looks more like he has some sort of pituitary disorder... ------ jondubois I read an interesting article a while ago about a Russian scientist Dmitry Belyayev who did an experiment to try to domesticate wild foxes through selective breeding (by selecting the most docile specimens for reproduction) and the foxs' heads (and presumably brain) shrunk as their became more domesticated (source: [https://www.pelicanbooks.com/the-domesticated- brain/preface](https://www.pelicanbooks.com/the-domesticated-brain/preface)). I have a theory that it's the same with people - It would be interesting to do studies. It's well documented that Neanderthals had larger heads/brains than Cro-Magnons. ~~~ superioritycplx Testosterone makes everything bigger. ------ 6stringmerc When I learned that humans have genetic mutations resulting in an additional chromosome, my first reaction was to associate it with something like "X-Men" and a big time advantage, and then finding out that it's pretty much an undesirable development complication, I learned a lot about my assumptions + imagination versus finding out the real story. ------ scotty79 > The best chip out of Intel can’t fly, ... , can’t dogfight, It can [https://www.google.pl/amp/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot- beats-...](https://www.google.pl/amp/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot-beats-air- combat-expert-in-dogfight) ------ hectorperez Neanderthals had bigger brains than us ~~~ mej10 This is orthogonal to the claim. There are hypotheses that Neanderthals were actually smarter than our other ancestors, and that they were wiped out for various reasons unrelated to intelligence. They may have been less violent than homo sapiens or seriously weakened by pathogens that didn't affect homo sapiens. ~~~ Mikeb85 Or simply less numerous. We do know that many of us (Europeans and Asians) have some Neanderthal DNA, it's entirely possible they were just bred out of existence. ~~~ temp246810 According to 21andMe, I am a whopping 3% neanderthal. Don't know why I felt compelled to share this here, alas, there you go. ~~~ emmelaich That's 23andme. I also have a high Neanderthal percentage. Wikipedia says modern humans have somewhere between 1% and 4%. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Genome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Genome) ~~~ temp246810 Right on, something seemed off in the name but I just didn't look it up. Should have known too, 23x2=56. ------ akuma73 Whale brains are absolutely enormous but I don't see them doing quantum field theory. ~~~ sharkweek “For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.” - Douglas Adams ------ jlebrech for example women have smaller but denser brains with closer neurons. so no bigger isn't always better. ~~~ andrepd IIRC the difference in volume is small (<10%) and no link has been found between that and any measures of intelligence. ~~~ rlanday Are you arguing that no gender gaps have been found in any measures of intelligence, or only that none have been linked to brain volume? There's a fairly persistent gender gap in average math ability: [https://www.aei.org/publication/2016-sat-test-results- confir...](https://www.aei.org/publication/2016-sat-test-results-confirm- pattern-thats-persisted-for-45-years-high-school-boys-are-better-at-math-than- girls/) I don't know if this has anything to do with average brain volume or not though. ~~~ mikejmoffitt The amount of potentially different experiences male and female adolescents have had by the time they take the SAT make me believe SAT results are not good references for this subject. ~~~ rlanday How about kindergarten? [https://qz.com/826748/the-math-gender-gap-between-girls- and-...](https://qz.com/826748/the-math-gender-gap-between-girls-and-boys- starts-in-kindergarten-and-is-largely-driven-by-teachers-biases/) There are people who hear "gap X starts in kindergarten" and think "oh, well it must be because of unequal access to preschool, lack of nutrition, etc," basically trying to look earlier and earlier for where the problem starts until they end up trying to blame stuff like maternal nutrition during pregnancy. Well, there may be factors like that at play, but if you start with such a strong preconceived notion that everyone's brains are wired the same way, no amount of evidence is going to convince you of the contrary. ------ Arizhel We'd be better off with much smaller brains, so that we can have smaller heads optimized for an aquatic life. We're failing pretty miserably at this civilization stuff anyway. ------ known I read somewhere that ants design better algorithms than humans; ~~~ Verdex_2 I would be interested in some sort of elaboration or source citing here. For example what do you mean by "design". Ants aren't exactly encoding anything into silicon or filling books with mathematics. Can you qualify what you're trying to say? ~~~ sandworm101 Ants and bees are good at things like filling a space with a structured construction, or growing a structure while using the least amount of material. I wouldnt call it smarts, rather very-evolved patterns coded as instinct. The ant, as a group or species, can do a few things better than humans.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
2 years with Angular - robin_reala http://www.fse.guru/2-years-with-angular ====== jhpriestley I find the rise of Angular kind of baffling. Angular's scope system is exactly analogous to the scope system of a programming language. This is a solved problem! When you make a scope system, make it lexical, and require explicit declaration before use. If you're not making those choices, then at least acknowledge that these are the standard answers, with very clear advantages over other scoping systems, and explain why you are not using these answers. But with angular, we have a dynamic, implicit declaration scoping system. New scopes are introduced somewhat unpredictably, at the discretion of each directive. I thought that introducing dynamic, implicit-declaration, non-block-scoped variables in 2014 was like introducing a new car with a coal-burning engine, but no one even seems to remark on it. Then there's the dirty-checking loop. After every event there is a digest; every digest runs every watch. To me, just reading this description makes a voice speak up in my head: "Uh-oh! That sounds like O(n^2)!" Now that angular is being widely used, people are noticing that it's slow as shit. But why did the framework get to this level without anyone remarking, "this dirty-checking algorithm is fundamentally, irremediably not scalable"? Do people not have a sense even for the most coarse performance characteristics of algorithms like this? Or do people simply think that nowadays "performance does not matter"? Angular's "module" system is the strangest of all. It doesn't do namespacing or dependency tracking. What is even the point of it? What thought process led to this useless module system? It's just strange. Hundreds of years of people's work are spent on something, which the most cursory, CS 101 analysis shows to be seriously flawed. Is analysis simply a lost art in this industry? Oh well, people are finally realizing Angular has its faults, because they've seen them with their own eyes and now they believe them. It would be nice if we could learn from this, and maybe skip the next boondoggle (web components for instance), but I have no hope for it. ~~~ cportela I knew someone who consulted a large bank not to use Angular for financial apps. They were insistent to use Angular until he finally showed them a fairly typical requirement of an app like that in angular: 5 tables with 100 rows and columns. It literally crawled when running on a Dell Workstation laptop. It is kind of nuts that angular is big. ~~~ trose My team is using Angular for an app that contains large tabular data all over the place. We ended up having to rewrite the table generation in jQuery and now we've got a POC in development using React. Most other places we've had to use shims like angular-once to make menus performant. At this point we're building work-arounds for most of the things that makes Angular special. ~~~ zivc > has perf issues with angularjs > writes a solution using jQuery Angular tries to be clever and solve loads of problems, sure tables and table rendering sucks anyways, but a simple querySelector with jQuery is 98% slower than just using normal DOM methods. If you're gonna write your own bits of code to improve the caveats of any framework, especially in the financial industry, you go full hog and you write it properly. Fixing an angular problem with a jQuery solution will get you marginal gains. Fixing an angular problem with a DOM solution will get you the best results and it isn't even that hard. ~~~ untog _a simple querySelector with jQuery is 98% slower than just using normal DOM methods._ A simple querySelector with jQuery maps directly to a normal DOM method in browsers that support it. ~~~ deckiedan apart from the overhead of finding out if the normal DOM method will work - and the overhead of parsing the selector to make sure it's not using jQuery extensions. ------ swombat This seems to be the summary of every tech flame war ever, and applies rather well here: A: I've used tech X in a lot of Y contexts, and I find it's not great. I will generalise slightly imply that tech X is not the panacea that it has been presented as. B: Yeah? Well, I've used tech X in a lot of Z contexts, and I find it works fine! You're wrong! You're using it wrong! Maybe you're not wrong in context Y, but for most other contexts X is still the best tech! C: I haven't used tech X at all, but here's my opinion on it anyway. ~~~ c0brac0bra Amen. Look back 10 years ago and we were having the exact same discussions about mod_perl, php, and java servlets. Nothing has really changed except perhaps for an increase in the number of regurgitated comparisons. ~~~ nutate Except that php won. As weird as that seems. CGI.pm was removed from the core Perl distro this year. React learned a lot from php/xhp and is easier to use because of it. ------ wldlyinaccurate I've worked on Angular projects of varying sizes -some as large as 30KLOC (products where every page has enough interaction to justify an Angular controller)- and I can never find myself agreeing with these articles. Have I just drunk too much kool-aid? Or is it possible that with the right team, the right architecture, Angular can actually be a really great framework to use? The common theme for every large Angular project I've worked on is that the teams have leaned towards a more functional design where state is rarely used. This has always seemed to encourage smaller, decoupled modules which don't suffer from many of the problems that the author mentions. But hey, it's probably the kool-aid. ~~~ gadr90 YES! Thank you! I think I'll die if I have to read another developer arrogantly defining what should and should not be, and how he, in all his glory, hereafter defines this framework to "NOT BE WORTHY". I can't stand how some articles simply s&t on years of software architecture principles and the work of very talented engineers and simply dismisses them like it's nothing. If you disagree with a framework's perspective, AT LEAST be respectful. BTW, I also have used Angular for 2 years and, given the pros and cons and existing alternatives, I will choose it again for my next big project. The structure is simply too solid. This is invaluable when you have a large team that must work together. ~~~ jasim I am always conflicted about writing about Angular on a negative light because the team has put some great work into it while raising the bar in how rich apps could be built on the web. Being a back-end developer for a long time, it let me build some great interfaces on the front-end really quickly, and I'm very thankful for that. But we should also learn from where Angular succeeded and where it failed. Making XML declarative is fraught with difficulties. Things like ng-repeat are but a thin declarative veneer over the fundamentally imperative nature of constructing views. The biggest difference between most existing templating frameworks and React is in this world view: is the view constructed imperatively, or is it declared? The other question of contention is how much implicit magic should the framework supply vs how much explicitness the user should bring into the code. Angular's design decision is to make bindings work magically, while React identifies explicitness as a virtue. Having used both, I'm liking the imperative+explict camp. ~~~ gadr90 Finally, a respectful and well founded analysis. Thank you for improving the quality of the debate. My 2 cents: I actually prefer the declarative approach. My attempts at imperative view generation resulted in far more shooting-on-the-foot. Naturally, this is the very specific conclusions of me and my team, not the entire human race. I always think you should try both! Also, I'm a huge fan of Polymer, which is also very much declarative. Going to use Angular instead of Polymer simply because of better project structure and browser support. ------ pygy_ This post reminds me of these other two [0, 1] that ultimately lead Leo Horie to create Mithril [2], a tiny (5 KB down the line) but complete MVC framework that also eschews most of the criticism raised by the OP. The Mithril blog is also worth a look, it addresses a lot of concrete scenarios with recipies to solve common front end problems with the framework. For example, here's a post on asymetrical data binding [3]. ———— 0\. [http://lhorie.blogspot.fr/2013/09/things-that-suck-in- angula...](http://lhorie.blogspot.fr/2013/09/things-that-suck-in- angularjs.html) 1\. [http://lhorie.blogspot.fr/2013/10/things-that-suck-in- angula...](http://lhorie.blogspot.fr/2013/10/things-that-suck-in-angularjs- follow-up.html) 2\. [http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/) 3\. [http://lhorie.github.io/mithril-blog/asymmetrical-data- bindi...](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril-blog/asymmetrical-data- bindings.html) ~~~ kaonashi That framework has its own problems, like you have to wrap all your data structures into the mithril collections/models so that they can communicate with the views. ~~~ pygy_ _> you have to wrap all your data structures into the mithril collections/models so that they can communicate with the views._ Only when you need bidirectional bindings, and you're not forced to use the builtin `m.prop()` helpers, you can easily whip your own if they don't work for your use case. See my last link for an example. ~~~ kaonashi Isn't that the whole point though? I mean, discarding existing DOM with forms is a horrible experience. ------ Nitramp I work at Google, and have been using AngularJS in different projects for about three years. The OP raises a couple of good points (in particular his "The Bad Parts" are mostly valid), but I cannot understand some others, nor do I share his take away. AngularJS is not a silver bullet or panacea. It has bad parts such as the directives API (making it hard to create reusable components), the global namespacing in the injector, and indeed, the number of watch expressions is an issue. That being said, internally at Google: \- we do have well working, shared, reusable UI components based on directives. So it's quite possible to write usable AngularJS modules. \- There are multiple old (>3 years), large AngularJS apps that do not seem to have major maintenance issues. Maintenance of large code bases (>100k SLOC JS) is always an issue, but if you follow the style guide [0] at least it doesn't seem worse than with other JS frameworks \- Code is minified and compiled, using Closure Compiler's @ngInject and @export annotations as required. OP's comments mostly sound like they were burned by not following software development best practices (e.g. throw the prototype away, make sure to properly design your domain model, have a qualified tech lead, have qualified engineers). His "Lessons for framework (and metaframework) developers" seem generally useful, but unrelated to particular AngularJS shortcomings. [0] [http://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/angularjs-...](http://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/angularjs-google-style.html) ~~~ btbuildem This is in an established corp (best practices, standards, workflows etc) - you could build things out of mud and they would still hold. Doesn't say much for/against this particular framework.. ------ lingoberry I'm late to the party, but I want to share an insight I've had regarding game development and UI applications. It baffled me for a long time why building UIs were such a pain, and doubly so in a web app. Why could I, and others, create such seemingly advanced graphics and interactions in a video game, but try to make a UI and you're stuck with thousands of difficult to discover bugs. After I started using react, I realised games are "easy" for the same reason react is a huge productivity multiplier: you re-render the game every single frame. You have the data that represents your game state, there's a game loop, and you render every single little damn thing, every damn frame. It's a one-way flow of information from your explicit state to the presentation layer. React works the same way, only it re-renders only if the state changed. That's it. Super simple, but it's a mind shift. ~~~ CmonDev Also you can use a different exotic approach in every game - it's completely open! In the modern closed web you unfortunately have to deal with legacy tech like HTML, JS, CSS which will never ever go away "because compatibility". ------ oinksoft I've been using Angular on-and-off in professional settings since 2012. Angular is a framework obsessed with testability that treats usability as an afterthought. That said I've found Angular to be more than flexible enough to meet the needs of your typical CRUD apps, and generally enjoy working with it. One thing I agree with the author about is the importance of expertise for a successful Angular project. Some specialized knowledge is needed to get a decent fit and finish, and the results can be horrible without that. Strongly discouraging globals goes a long way towards improving code written by inexperienced engineers, but Angular's provider system is _still_ not clearly documented with practical examples, which makes those engineers more likely to shove everything into the unavoidable Angular constructs (controllers, directives, $scope). The middling quality and small availability of third-party Angular libraries is a problem. I believe that greater awareness/better tooling for ngDoc would be a tremendous help there. Best practices are not well-presented anywhere in the Angular world, particularly for designing reusable Angular libraries. The other big problem is the project source code which I find poorly organized and documented. If you want to get into the guts of Angular for debugging purposes, good luck! ~~~ jrochkind1 You say: > That said I've found Angular to be more than flexible enough to meet the > needs of your typical CRUD apps The OP says: > Are there any use cases where Angular shines? > Building form-based "CRUD apps". So I guess you and the OP pretty much agree. ~~~ oinksoft The author and I don't agree, except that Angular is not suitable for high- performance frontends (like games). The author suggests that Angular is only suitable for prototyping and that simply using the framework is technical debt. I particularly disagree with this statement: "Accept the fact that you will suffer in the future. The lowered expectations will help you stay happy sometimes." It seems like the author is simply unhappy to be working in a framework not of his own design: "Create a metaframework based on angular, tailored SPECIFICALLY for your project needs and your team experience!" That's the one thing you _shouldn 't_ do if you want to reuse code between projects. ~~~ aikah > The author and I don't agree, except that Angular is not suitable for high- > performance frontends (like games). Would you really use DOM/virtual DOM templates to make a game? it makes little sense. I dont believe any "MV*" framework is suitable for games,even if the game is DOM based. In a game,what you want is to make sure that at time T,the screen reflects the state of the game.Since you are manually pooling all states with a timer in order to render the game on screen,there is no need for databinding. ~~~ kuni-toko-tachi Actually that is the point :) The virtual DOM is equivalent to how you do write games. Declarative to imperative. React took its cues from how games are written. The renderer in react targets the DOM. React is a renderer. ------ aikah I'm a big angularjs fan butI agree with all the points made by the OP. I will however stick with angularjs because frankly there is no better alternative. the selling points for me are: \- Testing:Karma,Protractor,dependency injection are fundamental when working with a team.Everything is so easy to test,so easy to mock. \- Speed:Sorry but there is no other framework that makes front-end dev faster.I can come up with very complex apps within hours,fully tested. \- Resources:20+ books,hundreds of blogs,1000+ directives on the web. \- Easy to integrate with legacy jquery mess:since jQlite is compatible with jQuery,I can just drop a jQuery plugin in a directive observe something with no effort and have it rendered properly. The main drawbacks: \- Dont expect to understand angular without a serious understanding of javascript. \- Performances: yes there are performance issues,but when they show up,one needs to work on these issues. \- Probably too much hype. ~~~ ep103 I plan on looking into react and mithril in the coming months ------ hassanzaheer_ While most of the arguments presented in this article are somewhat valid but I hope with the release of Angular 2.0 majority of the issues will be addressed (though does it make sense to make such drastic changes in the upcoming is another debate and already taken care of at: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8507632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8507632)) I'm currently working on a comparatively large webapp built in Angular and it was after about 7 months into the project that we started realising it's pitfalls, and it was very difficult to abandon it then. So we worked it around by: 1) using one-way binding (or bindonce to be exact) to reduce watches 2) avoiding un-necessary $apply() and using $digest() carefully if required 3) using ng-boilerplate for scaffolding 4) defining our own style guides/coding conventions/design patterns to overcome Angular's bad parts 5) frequent code-reviews that made sure new team members are upto speed with the above techniques luckily we haven't ran into much issues after that :) ~~~ cmdkeen Angular 2.0 seems to be a long ways off - to the point where the presenters wouldn't show actual code examples in their demos of it at ng-europe. It rather makes me worry it is going to be the Python 3000 release all over again in terms of how much is changing. ~~~ Alex3917 > It rather makes me worry it is going to be the Python 3000 release all over > again in terms of how much is changing. The underlying technology is changing so fast (ES6, web components, mobile web, etc.) that it's going to make upgrading an obvious choice even if it involves relearning a lot of stuff. ~~~ hassanzaheer_ couldn't agree more on the Python example, I think one of the main agendas for the 2.0 release will be to make it more popular on mobile side of things ([https://www.airport-parking-shop.co.uk/blog/built- app-2-week...](https://www.airport-parking-shop.co.uk/blog/built-app-2-weeks- using-ionic-framework/) is one such example though not from the core AngularJS team) for which they may have compromised backward compatibility infavour of performance. and also do you think they'll continue with the 1.x releases? since so many developers have already invested time and effort on their webapps and shifting it to an entirely new framework (read release) is a major cost to pay.. ~~~ Alex3917 There is probably going to be at least a 1.4 release. The new 1.x dev team that Google just created talks about their plans for the future here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG9VkCDbte0&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG9VkCDbte0&feature=youtu.be) They say the exact plans for how long they are going to support 1.x won't be finalized until after 2.0 gets released, so that they have some idea of how difficult it's going to be to migrate. ------ lhorie _disclaimer: I 'm the author of Mithril.js_ I've also used Angular for around 2 years for a large application. This article resonates pretty accurately with the problems we were running into before I decided to write Mithril. It can certainly work well (heck, the mobile part of our app was doing just fine because it was specifically designed to be a trimmed down version of the much more powerful desktop app), but performance problems aren't necessarily because people don't know how to use Angular. In our case, performance problems usually became obvious when we had UIs for editing large volumes of information, and large volumes of information did appear on the page. Two of the examples that we were running into problems with were a work breakdown structure UI, and a scheduling UI, which are far from being things-you-should- not-be-doing. The team scalability issue is real, but I think it's not entirely Angular's fault per se. My general experience w/ co-workers dabbling w/ Angular was that they were accustomed to jQuery in terms of discoverability (i.e. if you don't know jQuery, you can fake it w/ Google-fu until make it). Getting into Angular is not like that at all. There are lots of places where you can shoot your foot if you don't do it the right way (tm), and deadlines _will_ trump doing it the right way if the right way is sufficiently non-intuitive. You can blame that on teams not having good processes or good developer or what have you, but hey, that's the real world for ya. My main problem with Angular is the error messages. Imagine writing this: $(".foo").each(function() { this.addClass("bar") }) But instead of throwing a familiar native js error on line 2, you get an asynchronous ReferenceUnboxingException on line 3475 of jquery.js and your code is nowhere in the stack trace. That's what a lot of Angular errors look like (when they do show up, because null refs from templates don't). ~~~ 1971genocide Big Mithril.js fan here ! Mithril.js seems like something I would study in my maths class (its a good thing). I have spent a good amount of my last year trying to get better at angular and wasting a large amount of my time. Angular.js has seriously colored my image about google's engineering poweress.Looking back I put my intuition and education at the back seat - due to my own insecurity of my intelligence - google must be better than me right ? ------ BinaryIdiot Maybe I'm old fashioned but Angular just does too much for me. In fact many frontend frameworks simply do too much for me. I like to structure my web applications in a very minimal way. I like having one layer that covers the UI display and UI events. This layer does nothing beyond styling, setting up the UI and using messages to pass back events in a generic way. My business logic handles generic events. So say I have a button for saving, in my UI layer it registers the click event but then sends a generic message with a payload that is simply "Save". The business logic then saves it. This let's me drastically change any of the UI with zero affect on my business logic. I wouldn't recommend it yet for production (very early) but I'm working on a small library that does much of this messaging and binding of messages directly to DOM objects. [https://github.com/KrisSiegel/msngr.js](https://github.com/KrisSiegel/msngr.js) ~~~ osconfused Question: I also like a minimally structured app. I've experimented with Backbone.js. Have you tried it? Did you decide to go with msngr.js after using Backbone? I feel like I spend a lot of time trying frameworks, only to find very little benefit. Happy to learn more, but would love to have some basis of comparison to some tech I've worked with to date. ~~~ BinaryIdiot Backbone looks interesting and I've worked on projects that used it but honestly I've never really taken a hard look at it nor had to make huge changes with it to really have a good opinion one way or another on it. I mostly started writing and using msngr.js because I love messaging and I didn't see anything that did exactly what I wanted to do (and even if I had found something I still may have written it anyway as I've learned quite a bit in doing so). ------ debacle Angular is a result of the over-engineering that is endemic to web development right now. Programmers are taking strategies designed by Google and Facebook and places that actually need the high level of conventions prescribed by software like Angular and applying it to their personal blog, their half-done only on github "startup," etc. JavaScript isn't really a good place to adopt convention - you're dealing in a mixed-code environment almost from the start, speed is constantly an issue if you're doing something complex, and there's no such thing as "one size fits all." I've looked at almost every JavaScript framework out there, and they really don't offer much more than what you would get out of a very lightweight jQuery (or your library of choice) abstraction. I want very much to find something that is as useful as the programming friction it introduces, but I haven't really found anything that meets that criteria yet. React seems to be very good at face value, but in general it isn't saving you nearly the amount of code that you might hope it does. Ember is probably the best at this, but it has its own tradeoffs (namely speed). ------ shubhamjain I can't speak of Angular since I haven't used it but one problem that is recurring with use frameworks, in general, is that thinking or getting used to "their" way takes a significant amount of time and seeing the continuous change of technology, I am not sure that time is justifiable in the longer run. Take example of rails. I was trying to learn it sometime ago and was really amazed how it has a process for nearly everything. Migrations, asset pipelines, generators, and very extensive command line. Sure it does make it seem like "Once I learn it, it will be so much easy to make the next app" but it is easy to realize after sometime that you have to cross usual hurdles of Googling everything, learning these processes, facing issues, digging out new ways of debugging to finally be good at it. My idea is that frameworks should be minimal which only ensure a basic working architecture and everything else should be extensible (via packages). ~~~ mattgreenrocks There's a term for minimal frameworks: libraries. Ultimately, you should control the architecture of your application. When this is the case, you can develop abstractions around libraries that shield the rest of your code from their bugs, 'conventions', and error handling strategies. ------ jasim I recently wrote about my experience with Angular in a different forum. Sharing it here: I worked on Angular last year building an app with a few complex views. The initial days were full of glory. Data-binding was new to me, which produced much goodwill towards the framework. Things started falling apart as I had to inevitably understand the framework in a little more depth. They practically wrote a programming language in the bid to create declarative templates which knows about the Javascript objects they bind to. There is a hand-rolled expression parser ([https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/v1.2.x/src/ng/par...](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/v1.2.x/src/ng/parse.js)), new scoping rules to learn, and words like transclusion and isolate scope, and stuff like $compile vs $link. There is a small cottage industry of blogs explaining how Angular directives work ([https://docs.angularjs.org/guide/directive](https://docs.angularjs.org/guide/directive)). The unfortunate thing is that all of Angular is built on directives (ng- repeat, ng-model etc.); so till one understands it in depth, we remain ignorant consumers of the API with only a fuzzy idea of the magic beneath, which there is a lot of. The worst however was when we started running into performance problems trying to render large tables. Angular runs a $digest cycle whenever anything interesting happens (mouse move, window scroll, ..). $digest runs a dirty check over all the data bound to $scope and updates views as necessary. Which means after about 8k-10k bindings, everything starts to crawl to a halt. There is a definite cap on the number of bindings that you can use with Angular. The ways around it are to do one-time binding (the data won't be updated if it changes after the initial render), infinite scrolling and simply not rendering too much data. The problem is compounded by the fact that bindings are everywhere - even string interpolation like `{{startDate}} - {{endDate}}` produce two bindings. Bindings are Angular's fundamental abstraction, and having to worry about its use due to performance issues seems quite limiting. Amidst all this, React feels like a breath of fresh air. I've written a post about what makes it attractive to me here: [http://www.jasimabasheer.com/posts/on- react.html](http://www.jasimabasheer.com/posts/on-react.html). Compared to Ember, neither Angular nor React dictate as rigorous an organization of files and namespaces (routes, controllers, views), and have little mandatory conventions to follow. But React is as much a framework as Angular is. The event loop is controlled by the framework in the case of both, and they dictate a certain way of writing templates and building view objects. They can however be constrained to parts of the app, and so can play well with both SPA and non-SPA apps. The data models are plain Javascript objects in both (it is not in Ember), which is really nice. Google recently released a new version of their developer console ([https://console.developers.google.com](https://console.developers.google.com)) which is built on Angular. So the company is definitely putting their weight behind the framework. However, Angular 2 is not at all backwards compatible. That was quite unexpected. If I had known this going in, I would have never used it for the project. But it felt like such a good idea at the time... ~~~ aikah > But React is as much a framework as Angular is. Sure,the difference is React doesnt tell you how to organize your application.AngularJS does,you have to use dependency injection.I like it,some people dont. AngularJS is in no way perfect.But compared to other frameworks,Ember,Backbone,... In my opinion it's better. I personally dont like React because of JSX,I dont want to have to learn a JS superset,and i'll probably wont like AngularJS 2.X because of atscript either,wether it's mandatory or not(understanding exemples on the web will make it mandatory). ~~~ jasim You can use React without JSX. It is especially easy if you are using CoffeeScript which makes the syntax quite terse. I personally like JSX. It is more of a variant of Javascript that lets us mix HTML into JS seamlessly. It was inspired from XHP ([https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a- ne...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-new-way-to- write-php/294003943919)), a PHP extension developed and used by Facebook that lets PHP understand XML. I think that the cross-pollination of this idea into React might be one of the best things to have happened to front-end development in the recent past. JSX is different from HTML in a few simple ways ([http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/jsx-in- depth.html](http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/jsx-in-depth.html)): \- All HTML attributes are written in lowerCamelCase, like so: contentEditable, maxLength etc. React has a wonderful "is this what you meant?"-style warning system for when we slip-up on these details. More on HTML attributes in JSX is here: [http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tags- and-attributes.htm...](http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tags-and- attributes.html) \- You can't use `class` to denote CSS class names. It is always `className`. You are going to forget this as you copy-paste a FontAwesome icon definition or Bootstrap snippet into the project and wonder what went wrong. But practice makes perfect. \- If you want to write inline styles, the style attribute should be written as a Javascript hash (it is actually a blessing in disguise). React documents it here: [http://facebook.github.io/react/tips/inline- styles.html](http://facebook.github.io/react/tips/inline-styles.html). I haven't found any other incidental quirks in JSX, and it integrates nicely with Javascript in practice. It is however different from the way things have always been done, which can be a good reason for resistance. ~~~ aikah Sure,but you need to learn JSX to read code exemples around the web.So you cant really use React without knowing JSX. That's a subtle thing but important enough when you're working on big projects. ~~~ dandelany Sure, but if you can read HTML and you've read the above list of caveats: congratulations, you can now read JSX. The attributes are simply passed to children as props. There's really not much to it. ------ tomelders I'm currently enjoying angular after having spent a year and a bit working with it exclusively. I am keen to try out Flux and Mithril, but I've not had the time nor the opportunity. But as it stands, we're deploying several large projects into very demanding organisations that are stable, performant and easy to manage. We as a team owe lot to Angular in terms of our productivity. We're also a great team and that counts for a lot too. The thing I would like to add to the debate is this: We've all learned that Angular is hard. It's a complex beast with it's own nuances and idiosyncrasies. It also offers plenty of ways to do things you probably shouldn't do (i'm looking at you expressions). But more than that, with Angular in the tool box, people push themselves to deliver products vastly more complex than would be feasible without it. And these two issues collide all the time. Learning a framework + the desire to deliver more; One should follow the other, but people tend to attempt both at the same time. I personally don't think there's anything "wrong" with Angular, but people have to acknowledge that despite the marketing hyperbole, learning Angular means setting out on a long and difficult journey that will require the developer to rethink a lot of what they know about building web stuff. But that's web development in a nutshell. It's a different gig every year, and within an alarmingly short amount of time, Angular will probably be replaced with something better suited to the tasks that try to accomplish the thing we want to accomplish with mere HTML, CSS and Javascript. There's also a lot to be said for how you organise your projects and what tools you use (eg Require or Browserify etc etc), but that's a very different kind of conversation. ------ city41 I'm really disappointed that not only is this article on Hacker News, but it's currently at #1. The article contains almost no substance at all. Angular's a controversial topic. So if you're going to write a long blog post picking a side, you really need to back it up with examples and offer alternatives. The six part "detail" posts aren't much better. ~~~ harel I was hoping to read some examples and alternatives as well.. Presenting a problem without examples to back it up or a solution is just ranting. That's fine, but its just less productive. ------ xpto123 I confess I am an Angular fan. But this article is not Angular specific at all, it stays on a very high- level. Replace the word Angular with any other web framework and the article would still make perfect sense. Not that the article does not have some value, just that it has very little to do with its title. ~~~ atmosx NOTE: Haven't used AngularJS and only scraped the article. But Rails for example, doesn't have a namespace problem, because ruby modules provide a namespace and prevent name clashes easily. That said, I'm not sure Rails and AngularJS are _direct competitors_ as many apps use a combination of both frameworks or more generally Rails + JS- framework. ~~~ pcthrowaway Rails and Angular are apples and oranges. Angular isn't a full-stack framework, it's a client-side framework that handles data source interfacing and view updating. ------ akamaka I totally disagree. I've spent the last year working on a complex and widely-used site that is built with Angular. It is maintainable, performant, has a smooth UX, and is mobile-friendly. I'm usually extremely cautious about relying on frameworks for long projects, because easy setup doesn't matter after you've been working on something for a year. In our case, using Angular was the best choice we could have made. I would absolutely not replace Angular with my own in-house MVC, even if you gave me a year to develop it. -The testing tools are some of the best I've used, and hugely contribute to making the app easier to maintain -It's not as much of a framework as a set of tools. Angular mostly stays out of the way and mostly allows us to structure code to match our needs -You _absolutely_ need to have top-notch developers, and ideally someone experienced enough to mentor people on the team who are new to Angular. There are a lot of JS developers who are former Flash designers who learned how to use a few jQuery plugins. If they don't know the fundamentals of programming really well, they will make a huge mess of the project. -We've definitely run into performance problems, but they're manageable. We've had to write code that bypasses Angular's digest cycle, but it feels similar to writing a bit of inline assembler in a C++ program. I wouldn't stop using C++ because of that. ------ maouida I've been using Angular for a SaaS for 7 months, the project is launching in about a month from now. It is not just a CRUD app. It has: ~170 views ~70 custom directive ~100 controllers Many directives can execute on the same page. A single page can have multiple tabs, forms, modals, charts. I hit some situations where performance dropped a lot but if you take the time to benchmark and test you can fix it. The key to keep it stable is to load the UI (directive) when you need it and destroy it when you are done. Personally, I've not found any serious issue so far. ------ esaym I've actually never used any javascript framework. It is stuff like this that drives me away. If you pick any one framework, you get half of a crowd telling you that it sucks, and then a year later your version is now deprecated/replaced and you get to re-do everything again. I've attempted to avoid the whole web-app scene, but with the current job market, looks like one has to know one of these frameworks... ~~~ woah Angular got a lot of its popularity, I think, from people with a similar mentality as you. Since it had the Google stamp of approval, it was seen as being more stable. Unfortunately, this was not actually the case. I say, be thankful for the flux currently underway, and realize that it will result in some really good tech when it's all sorted out. Until then, either get used to learning new things, or leave front end dev to the professionals. ~~~ esaym The irony is angular was going to be the framework I learned the next time I had free time. Now I am not so sure. ------ jMyles If Angular is not The Thing (a premise which I have no trouble believing), then what is a Good Thing to perform the task of, for example, consuming Django Rest Framework endpoints and making a frontend of them? ~~~ atirip IMHO Good Thing is to have set of libraries and not a framework at all. Start with handcrafting all HTML,CSS with interactions you need. You HTML skeleton will depend greatly on what you want to achieve - like when one page changes to other and theres a ajax call between - where you put the wait screen: as separate, on old page, then wait, transit to new at once, then wait and so on. If that is done you know broadly what you need. Example configuration may be React for rendering, cherry picked Model (or State) from Ampersand, Backbone Events Standalone for event bus. Something for History/routes too, can't recommend anything specific because my projects did not had one (yes, you can build web-app without back button support). This way if something better comes up, you can switch, if something is abandoned, gets your way, you can switch. Or you can rewrite it in-house fairly easily. I imagine that when you discover that React is too much, too heavy, too bloaty (for example, i'm not saying, that it is, we are happy React users now), then preserving all API calls and replacing it with few lines of Mustache templates is doable. Not trivial, but doable. ~~~ mattgreenrocks Meta: digging the downvotes in lieu of actual discussion here. Stay classy. ~~~ cloakandswagger The comment above yours is a giant, unbroken paragraph of dogma. I'd say it's worthy of downvotes. ------ hokkos I've got to build an SPA and I'm trying to choose between Angular and React, can you guide me a little, the app will : \- create a big form based on an XML schemas, the form will be used to generate valid XML with the schemas \- some schemas can be really big with more than 3000 elements, the whole thing won't be shown in full to the user directly but probably folded \- because it is based on XML Schema, it must have interactivity to make some elements repeatable, and groups of nested elements repeatable, some elements with bounds, some maybe draggable to reorder them, everything an XSD can do... \- it will also some kind of polymorphism where you can choose the children element type and have the corresponding schema showed \- it will also show a leaflet map, with some interaction between the form and the map \- there is also a rich text editor where you can arrange xml objects between formated text I fear that angular won't be fast enough for that, but his support for forms seems better, I've tested JsonSchema forms generator like [https://github.com/Textalk/angular-schema- form](https://github.com/Textalk/angular-schema-form) and [https://github.com/formly-js/angular-formly](https://github.com/formly- js/angular-formly) the first one is slow when editing 3000 items the second seems fast when editing, and slow when it generates the json. I've done some angular tutorials and their concepts don't stick in my head. I've tested React and their concept stick easily in my head but there is less native support for forms. I had just decided to go with angular partly because of all the hype around it, but I see the article and others as a bad omen and I want to go with react now. Any advise ? ~~~ jasim Angular will force you to convert all your rendering logic into its declarative API: ng-if, ng-repeat, ng-include etc. With React, you can simply write your program logic in Javascript and compose, reuse and pass around parameterized components with ease. Try building a simple nested tree in both Angular and React to see how both feels. Khan Academy has open-sourced their QA builder that supports creating questions and answers with graphs, radiobuttons, multi-selects, images etc. It is built in React. Take a look here: [https://github.com/Khan/perseus](https://github.com/Khan/perseus) ~~~ hokkos Thanks, the idea to use code instead of a limited set of declarations to create the view is convincing. ~~~ kid0m4n And now we go around in circles. ASP and classic PHP were the forerunners of using code to do the view! ~~~ ep103 That is very, very different, and you know that : p ------ dynjo We built a pretty complex app with Angular ([https://slimwiki.com](https://slimwiki.com)) and have had nothing but great experiences. The main issues are no guidelines about the right/wrong way to do things, it needs to be more opinionated. ~~~ robin_reala That’s been my biggest problem with Angular too; I’d love some more opinions. ------ lbacaj I think people are failing to see that not all apps are huge monolithic applications; for most of those apps Angular works just fine. In fact we should be striving to get away from all of those monolithic code bases as much as we can. In the cases where we can't get away from that then we should be going with tried and trusted methods of building those apps and probably relying on the server a hell of a lot more for those kinds of really large/enterprise/corporate apps. Most use cases for angular are to make a web app that pulls and pushes data from some Restful service. Angular lets us take that web app, through cordova/phonegap/etc, and wrap it into a mobile ready application that you can push to an app store. Whats wrong with that? ~~~ woah Cordova has nothing to do with angular. Why do you bring it up? In fact, angular is probably one of the worst possible frameworks to wrap into a mobile app, because of its abysmal performance.[1] [1] [http://matt-esch.github.io/mercury-perf/](http://matt- esch.github.io/mercury-perf/) ~~~ Bahamut That's an older version of Angular being compared against - lots of perf improvements have been made since. ------ lucisferre Sorry, did I miss the part where the author explained the "right (tm)" way to do things these days? Seriously though, I've used Angular just as long as the author and for the most part I wholeheartedly agree with the complaints (and I have complained myself for some time). However, what is the "better" way? People keep throwing out things like React, but React solves much less for app developers. Also, that answer doesn't help the countless people who began app development more than a year or so before React was released. The Javascript ecosystem is evolving constantly and yet in some ways not much at all. Throughout that time, I've found that just about everyone can find excellent reasons not to use the various frameworks and libraries but few offer concrete recommendations in exchange for these criticisms. It's disappointing. At this point in our own project, like many others I assume, we are reconsidering Angular. Not simple because we don't like it, but because clearly the Angular team doesn't either. Angular 2.0, like Sproutcore 2.0 before it, appears to be a complete rewrite. (Rightfully so.) As a result, we plan to examine our other options in detail while our work is still mostly in the prototype territory. Right now however, I don't think I've seen anything yet, that makes sense for most people who've started out with Angular to do that re-write. I'm hoping as I spend more time examining this I'll find I'm wrong. I've had many people ask me what framework they should use for new projects and every time I've said, it probably doesn't matter use right now, but be prepared to fully rewrite things in a year or so. The JS ecosystem is in so much flux right now that you can't count on any of these choices being the right one in couple of years. I've accepted that reality for now. People hate this answer. They tell me that no PM/Exec is going to want to hear that. Fine, don't tell them. The silver lining is that whatever does comes to save us will hopefully be so much more productive than what you were doing before you won't care about rewriting it, you'll do it because it actually makes sense. Let's all hope that's true. ~~~ woah Try vue.js. Same general idea as angular, way less bs. However, the author did just get hired by meteor, so that is something to consider. ------ prottmann The problem is not Angular specific, every Framework is designed to solve a certain problem in a certain way. But most developers think, that when they learn once a Framework, they can use it for any kind of project. When i read "xxx is really cool and fun" iam really careful. Most people create a "Hello World" and then THEIR favorite framework is the greatest thing in the universe and they communicate it to others. Take a framework, live with the mistakes, until the next "better" framework appear... and it will appear, and the next, and .... ;) ------ Bahamut I also have been using Angular for my entire professional developer career, which in a few days will hit 2 years. This article is pretty accurate for the most part, although some of the minor complaints are not quite so accurate. Performance is something to be careful about, but the Angular team has worked hard at improving it and it has improved immensely with 1.3 - optimizations such as bind once & $watchGroup and optimizations around the $digest cycle and $watch make it a huge improvement over 1.2. I want to say there is a chart floating around showing over 30% improvement. As far as frameworks go, I believe Angular is the best we have currently. It does a lot for you without getting too opinionated in general, and some of its tooling is just flat out better than much of what you can find in the wild. I have been experimenting with Polymer lately though with an eye towards web components - there is a lot of change coming in how we will have to structure our code. I suspect that those using React will also not be shielded from the pain of integration with ES6 and web components as well, and so I have been hesitant to recommend it in a core product. Ember claims they will make the breaking changes slower, but I also suspect that it will limit its growth as well. Frontend seems to be rolling on as fast as ever - I don't see much of a way around everyone having to scrap their code regardless of the major library chosen for their projects. I'm hoping the pain dies down once ES6 and web components becomes the norm though. ~~~ Cthulhu_ I wouldn't recommend either Polymer or the current development version of Angular 2.0 for a production application just yet; Polymer leans heavily on the unfinished web components standard and other experimental and unimplemented browser features, and Angular 2.0 is still under heavy development. I also gather they're either going to use ES6-but-with-extras- because-we-can, or with AtScript, ES6-with-types-because-why-not. I can't say I agree with those motivations (and I'm sure I've got it wrong), and I quite like the more vanilla JS feel of Angular 1.x. Anyway, my point is, both of those aren't production-ready. ~~~ Bahamut Oh, I agree about not moving to either for a major project currently, although I'm probably going to use Polymer for a small static site project I'll be starting in the next month or two - web components are supported in Chrome currently (shadow DOM and custom elements at least - not sure about the data binding part yet), and Polymer's platform.js makes it very easy to polyfill the missing functionality. I suspect Angular 2 will be the best we have once it comes out, but I also question some of the decisions made from certain perspectives. At least they're listening to the community, evaluating the feedback and suggestions, and incorporating it into their decision making though, such as the change with the HTML templates. ------ praetorian84 As someone who has thus far only used with Angular for smaller projects, seeing performance raised as a concern is a bit of a concern for ever using it in a serious project. Would still like to see some numbers to back up the anecdotal evidence. It's also hard to motivate starting a potentially large project in Angular right now, knowing that v2 is on the way that is basically a new framework. ~~~ woah [http://matt-esch.github.io/mercury-perf/](http://matt-esch.github.io/mercury- perf/) ------ datashovel The thing I really like about Angular is it makes composition of complex ideas relatively easy. The encapsulation and dependency injection is perfect way to allow you to be as structured or unstructured as you want / need to be. I can understand how someone coming from more traditional frameworks, and working in an environment where you are rarely or never required to think outside the box, will have difficulty making the transition. Where I personally think Angular could be better (yet was state-of-the-art when it originally came out) is with directives. Now, I'm not talking about run-of-the-mill directives that are easy, that implement relatively straightforward concepts. I'm talking about highly complex functionality that you want to encapsulate into a single "thing" in your code. I think Polymer is going to fill that gap. That being said, Angular team has already (if it hasn't changed) decided they're going to be moving forward with Polymer. Personally I think Angular + Polymer is going to be hard combination to beat. ------ gldalmaso "And whar are no-no factors for angular? Teams with varying experience. Projects, which are intended to grow. Lack of highly experienced frontend lead developer, who will look through the code all the time." I am greatly interested in learning what is the alternative that would be a 'yes-yes' in these bulletpoints. ~~~ sytelus This kind of distorts the issue here. The problem is not lack of highly skilled devs but rather the fact that you _need_ highly skills devs to digest and maintain the level of complexity that Angular produces. I'm big believer on light frameworks that does least amount of abstractions and can get out of way if you need. You definitely want to avoid frameworks that claims to abstract everything away and especially those that requires to learn entirely new way of doing pretty much everything and its own world of lingua franca. My preference therefore gravitates towards lighweight stuff like KnockoutJS and likes. Any average dev can understand KnockoutJS in just hour or two. More importantly, most devs can immediately have intuitive understanding of how things work under the hood and therefore can anticipate performance issues or easily extend it. ~~~ Cthulhu_ You don't need highly skilled devs, you need a disciplined team - which should review each other's members' code, stick to a style guide, research best practices, etc. Like with every software development, actually. ------ EugeneOZ "2 years" and "10 projects" \- 2 months for each project? And he talks about "big enterprise apps"? lol. Please links to examples of your code, author. I wonder how people can't understand all the power of the 'directives' approach it's the MOST powerful thing in web development now and only advice I can give to future inventors of new frameworks: implement 'directives' concept, and then do everything you want else. It's advice after my 3 years with Angular, and counting ;) Reusable code and TDD is the key for growing apps and directives - most successful following of this way. \---/ please news.ycombinator, treat new line symbols as new line symbols and use ANY modern framework to make this site less slow and more mobile friendly ------ jaunkst All of the frameworks suffer from performance issues. Performance will get better, but we will always have to profile our applications. A slow web component used in a ng-repeat scenario will always bring the application down to its knees. We can't just design a spaceship and expect an engineer to build a performant application. Designs need boundaries and guides as performance is one if not the most important factor of the UX. We also cannot reason with the jQuery spaghetti demon. Practice some Feng Shui, write better code. Understand whats going on in your framework. Work through the limitations with your designers. We are at the mercy of limited computation until our browsers give us more, and there is no magic bullet. ------ rpocklin It's fair to highlight the less-ideal parts of AngularJS, but IMO the ecosystem and testing integration is as important as the framework code itself. Most of the issues the author mentions can be mitigated (eg. use ui- router). The momentum behind AngularJS is huge, and with the 1.3 release I feel like 90% of webapps can be written well in Angular. Ionic is a great example of pushing AngularJS to the edge with mobile applications. It really is up to the team to enforce good practices, pair or review code and refactor and unit test components. There is no framework which can make this happen, you need to be disciplined and always look to leanr more and improve the code you have written. The author certainly does not recommend anything else, so where to now? ------ cbdileo I feel somewhat conflicted about this blog post. I can agree with what others are saying in the comments that all frameworks have there pitfalls. A lot of development is dealing with trade offs and your teams varying experience. On the other hand, I agree with the author that there is a tipping point where a framework/tool becomes too much of a burden. Sure, we can all do it the "right way" but teams don't always have people with the experience to even know what the right way is. We should think about the frameworks we use as tools. Make sure the tool is right for the problem and the team. Also, don't try to apply all your older experience to the new tool. Take time to learn about the thing you use. ------ aaronem You know, I'm just going to say it: Angular is the Rails of Javascript. That probably sounds like a derogation. But behold: I offer nuance! They're both big and powerful, and capable of rewarding dedicated study with enormous power. Thus they develop a devoted following whose members often do things lesser mortals find little short of wizardry. They're also both built to be friendly and welcoming to the newcomer, and offer a relatively short and comfortable path from zero to basic productivity. Thus they trigger the "I made a thing!" reward mechanism which excites newbies and leaves them thirsting for more. They also, in order to go from newbie to wizard, involve a learning curve like the north face of K2. In both cases, it's a necessary consequence of the design decisions on which the platform is based, and those decisions, by and large, have sensible reasons behind them -- not, I hasten to note, decisions with which everyone will (or should) agree, but decisions which can be reasonably defended. But that doesn't make it a good thing. When people start off with "I made a thing!" and then run smack into a sheer wall of ice and granite, initial excitement very often turns into frustration and even rage, as on display in some comments here in this very thread. (I hasten again to add that I'm not judging anyone for being frustrated and angry over hitting that wall -- indeed, to do so would make me a hypocrite, given my reaction to hitting that wall with Rails a year or so ago.) Further compounding the issue is that, often enough, wizards who've forgotten the travails of their ascent will condescend to say things like "Well, what's so hard? Just read {this book,that blog post,&c.} and it's all right there." Well, sure, for wizards, who are well accustomed to interpreting one another's cryptic _aides-memoire_. For those of us still toiling our way up the hill, not so much. I will note, though, that while I hit that wall (hard!) with Rails, and in the end couldn't make it up, I haven't had the same problem with Angular. The sole significant difference I can identify, between the two attempts, is this: When I took on Rails, there was no one else in the organization who knew (or should've known) the first thing about the platform. When I had a problem with Rails, I faced it all alone, with only my Google-fu, my source-diving skills, and my perseverance on which to rely. For a while I did well, but in the long run, for all but the most exceptional engineers, such expenditure of personal resource without resupply becomes unsustainable. When I take on Angular, I do so with the support of a large team, composed of the most brilliant and capable engineers among whom I have ever had the privilege of working. When I have a problem with Angular, I have a dozen people at my back, at least one of whom is all but guaranteed to have encountered the exact same situation previously -- or, if not this precise permutation, then something very like it, from which experience more often than not comes precisely the advice I need to hear, to guide me in the direction of a solution. Of course, whether this is really useful to anyone is an open question; I think it's a little facile, at least, to say "Oh, if you're having Angular problems, all you have to do is find a team of amazing people who mostly all have years of Angular experience, and work with them!" But, at the very least, if you're going to be fighting through the whole thing all by your onesome, maybe think about picking up a less comprehensive but more comprehensible framework, instead. ~~~ striking My opinion of Angular is now that it's basically the equivalent of PHP (if we're comparing it to other languages.) PHP is super easy to get started with and is magical and with enough forethought and planning, proves to be a serviceable language suitable for small projects. However, if you don't draw lines in the sand for yourself and watch performance very carefully as you scale, your app will suck. For reasons of maintenance or user experience, it will suck. It's awesome for tiny projects or things that won't need to be changed or internal use stuff. I personally am using it to build a prototype of a product. But I'm planning to convert this prototype very soon to React or Meteor. ~~~ aaronem Comparing Angular with PHP doesn't strike me as entirely fair; Angular, whatever else one might say about it, has a high degree of conceptual consistency in its internals, whereas PHP, for all that it's improved over the past few years, remains an utter farrago and likely always will. Comparing Angular with Laravel might be more reasonable, but my lack of knowledge of the latter framework forbids me from commenting further on the comparison. ------ FrankieTh I really think that the bigger the app gets the smaller the framework should be. If it lacks functionality, it should be possible to easily add it using the frameworks core functionality. IMHO in general the core functionality of a clientside framework is to provide a way of structuring the app and allow for communication between logical units that are nestable and modularized. If a basic framework does that, and only that, it should be bulletproof. I admit, it took me 10 years to rethink and recode this over and over - and there is no end in sight. I love this discussion, it reflects much of my thoughts about the issue. ------ sebastianconcpt I really resonate with: "Do not make things easy to use, make your components and abstractions simple to understand." And not only for AngularJS but as design principle. ------ cportela I am not a lover of angular, but the reason angular is so popular is because it gets the prototype out there. So many things and places are just doing things "lean" and "iterating" so angular makes that easy. I'm not sure anyone could tell me Angular isn't __very __productive and that it wouldn 't be tempting to use it so you can get some fairly magical experiences for users and in demos. ------ limaoscarjuliet So if not Angular then... what? If I wanted to do a single page app with REST backend (little to no db access), what would you recommend? ------ username__ I've been using Angular now for a year and half, and a year professionally. The only issues I've run into are pages with large data bindings. I would love if the Angular team could recommend a solution other than "don't do that." That answer is simply unacceptable in my opinion -- their silence on this topic has been very frustrating. ~~~ bahmutov Take a look at step by step example improving angular web app performance: [http://bahmutov.calepin.co/improving-angular-web-app- perform...](http://bahmutov.calepin.co/improving-angular-web-app-performance- example.html) I think any framework or library could suffer from these problems. ------ CmonDev "5 star performance requirements" \- Scala Play comes to mind rather than any JS MVC frankly speaking. ------ fndrplayer13 I don't mean to be a jerk, but this article is really poorly organized. ------ cturhan As author says in the comment, these are valid for Angular 1.x so I'm hoping that angular 2.x will be more carefully designed framework. ------ kuni-toko-tachi AngularJS owes it success to an easy onboard that allows a user to easily create a gimmicky two-way binding demo. And then the pain begins. It matters little whether some find it productive, what matters is that the engineering principles it is based upon are fundamentally unsound. Control and conditionals in attributes are absurd. Especially when they require learning an expression language unique to that framework. Especially when they create side effects. Why should something as simple as a loop or if create a new controller and scope? This is absurd. The expression language is not statically analyzable to boot. There is no reason for a framework to do anything beyond handling the last mile tranform between view model and DOM. Everything else can be done through JavaScript and modules. JavaScript is a wonderfully expressive language, reinventing that through some hacked up expression language makes no sense and buys no advantage. Bindings can be handled through a multitude of great npm modules. Watch the video of the Google Analytics team explaining the cortitions needed to make AngularJS performant. Watch the videos where the AngularJS 2 team discards nearly everything from 1.3 (and then adds their own comical nonsense). Declarative DOM manipulation through a virtual DOM is the future - every more than web components will be. Why? Because instead of being another "web framework", is it sound computer science. ~~~ Cthulhu_ > It matters little whether some find it productive, what matters is that the > engineering principles it is based upon are fundamentally unsound. I disagree. What matters is whether you can produce a working application - and iterate on that, but after actually releasing. Angular is modular enough to allow for gradual optimization (like integrating React et al), instead of doing premature optimization. Using vanilla JS like you recommend will lead to a lot of reinventing the wheel, and for new developers to have no clue what's going on (they have to learn the framework you thought up). At least you can make predictions about applications when it says 'AngularJS' on the job advert. ~~~ kuni-toko-tachi True, but Angular reinvents the wheel unnecessarily and at a cost of performance and being difficult to reason about. JavaScript code can be easily written for reuse and composition. When a framework attempts to co-opt that there should be a very good reason. For Angular no such reason exists. ------ lcfcjs Bizarrely enough, I've built about 4 web apps ( using Angular over the past 2 years also. However, I've found that scalability (mainly due to it's reusability) is one of the strongest points. I've worked with enormous applications built entirely with jQuery. I love angular, but perhaps thats because I'd only worked with jQuery before. ------ waps The real news should be : javascript framework is actually still considered useful for something after 2 years.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What are your must-have packages for vim? - gjvc ====== entelechy package manager: [https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim](https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim) surround: [https://github.com/tpope/vim- surround](https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround) repeat: [http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2136](http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2136) git: [https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive](https://github.com/tpope/vim- fugitive) (tim pope plugin) undo: [https://github.com/sjl/gundo.vim](https://github.com/sjl/gundo.vim) for repls: [https://github.com/jpalardy/vim- slime](https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime) for html: [http://emmet.io/](http://emmet.io/) ------ a3n I used to install vim packages years ago. Now I just get by on what comes with vim, including colorschemes (elflord). It looks like I have four packages installed, and I don't remember what they're for. EDIT: it looks like I use nerdtree at work. ------ galistoca Ctrl+P, NERDTree, ag.vim. Especially ag.vim. I don't know how I would have navigated around complex repositories without it. ------ mihaipocorschi NERDtree Ctrl+P vim-plug ------ drakmail vim-rails vim-rspec :-)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Self-Driving Cars Have a Problem: Safer Human-Driven Ones - Bostonian https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-driving-cars-have-a-problem-safer-human-driven-ones-11560571203?mod=rsswn ====== ChicagoBoy11 As a private pilot it astounds me how the self-driving car industry has seemingly taken every lesson we've learned from automation in aviation and chucked it out the window in these systems. There's a "trust but verify" element of airplane automation that is ingrained in you as a pilot. The ML aspect of self-driving cars generally make it a lot less easy to reason about and predict. That's problem 1. Problem 2 is then speed; Even in the airline world, there are published minimums at which pilots need to be absolute certain that the AP is doing the right thing before they commit to land, even in cases where the autopilot is responsible for the entire landing (Autoland is a capability that a lot of airliners have had for many decades). What we're talking about here is several seconds heads-up with visual AND instrument confirmation, that the computers are doing what they're supposed to before we allow the plane to land. Not only that, but we bend over backwards ensuring that there is all kinds of redundancy and procedures in place to ensure the accuracy of the system: Multiple instruments using different kinds of technologies confirming one another, greater separation between aircraft to guarantee ILS radio beacon accuracy, etc. Conversely, in the self-driving world, we're having these ML algorithms make split-second decisions with no real way of informing the driver what it is basing it on in an environment that is far less predictable and constantly-changing with someone who is not a professional behind the wheel. ~~~ JamesBarney Autonomous car's don't have to be nearly as safe as airplanes because existing cars are orders of magnitude less safe than airplanes. ~~~ jandrese Isn't that one of the problems autonomous cars are trying to solve? ~~~ kemitche The point is that cars don't need to make an immediate jump from "current levels of safety" to "plane levels of safety." Anything that moves the needle noticeably closer to "plane levels" is a solid improvement in terms of reducing unnecessary deaths. ~~~ perl4ever Why do you think that autonomous cars will start by replacing the worst drivers, rather than replacing professional drivers, who are much better than the average person? Isn't the biggest potential initial demand for autonomous cars people who don't own cars and currently must choose between bus and taxi? ------ IgorPartola Here is my proposal for self driving cars: forget trying to make them drive on local roads at first. Add transponders to all interstate tarmac that can be used to detect location and lane position. Then use a much cheaper LIDAR just to map where the other cars are. Boom: you have made long haul driving autonomous. You can then slowly expand this to smaller roads. But why try to recreate human drivers when machines can use much better sensors than us, but can process visual info much slower, and gather it with worse fidelity? ~~~ agildehaus Because yours is a ludicrous proposal. It'd be well more expensive to modify infrastructure than to build a computerized driver. Not only is the modification expensive, you have to convince the local authority to foot the bill, do it right, maintain it, etc. Never going to happen. Your proposal also lacks reliability. What if one of these "transponders" fails? We can build redundancy into a self-driving car quite easily (a second computer, never relying on just one sensor). Providing redundancy to road infrastructure planet-wide is ... a much larger problem. ~~~ briatx You could easily convert HOV lanes into Automated Driving lanes. And if we have the ability to fund HOV lanes, we could also fund Automated Driving lanes. Self driving cars are already dependent on standard infrastructure markings such as lane lines, and whenever those markings are confusing or faded it has lead to fatal crashes, such as the fatal Tesla crash on 401. I predict self driving will not fully succeed until we build infrastructure to support it into the roads. ~~~ agildehaus > Self driving cars are already dependent on standard infrastructure markings > such as lane lines, and whenever those markings are confusing or faded it > has lead to fatal crashes, such as the fatal Tesla crash on 401. A Tesla is not a self-driving car and they won't become one with that approach. Waymo vehicles have virtual maps that include the lines (along with a LOT of other data) so they are not affected by fading lines as they always know where the lines are supposed to be. Basically Waymo is building the infrastructure you all want, but in a virtual sense instead of the extremely expensive and impossible physical one. ~~~ briatx > Waymo vehicles have virtual maps ... You only need one reality <-> virtual desync to cause a crash. ~~~ agildehaus Well no, it's not like the map is the only thing used. ------ pjc50 A human paying attention assisted by a computer paying attention is always going to be safer than either separately. It's just that a _mostly_ self- driving system erodes human attentiveness. And we're not going to get to a system that's so much safer as to render human attention irrelevant without a much more solid and theoretically sound approach to safety engineering. ~~~ Recurecur "A human paying attention assisted by a computer paying attention is always going to be safer than either separately." No. Stating something as a fact without analyzing it in the slightest is bad. Example: (1) Only a computer is "paying attention" performing the "assisted emergency breaking" role. The computer has an effective reaction time of 1/100 of a second. Within 2/100 of a second of a qualifying event, the vehicle will be in full antilock brake mode. (2) A human and a computer are "paying attention" performing the "assisted emergency breaking" role (this is a little silly in that the human is already the primary brake operator...). The computer still has 1/100 s reaction time, but the human's reaction time is 25/100 s. What exactly is the human bringing to the table? It is true that the human may detect an actual threat the computer doesn't...however that slow reaction time means it likely won't make a difference in the outcome. On the other hand, the human may "detect" a false alarm, and emergency brake by mistake. That activity often leads to wrecks! I submit that the computer-only emergency brake assist is safer than the combination of human and computer. Further, all of these "human in the loop" systems suffer from a fatal flaw - the inability of people to pay attention unless it's absolutely crucial. The way people use Tesla Autopilot shows that full autonomy is necessary, and will in fact be safer than any "assisted" system. ~~~ radcon > I submit that the computer-only emergency brake assist is safer than the > combination of human and computer You're choosing to ignore the fact that computers still make mistakes. My friend's car (an Acura) recently slammed on the brakes @ 70mph because it mistakenly thought a car in an adjacent lane was in his lane. Had there been someone following close behind him, it probably would've caused an accident. This is not an uncommon occurrence, especially with Honda/Acura's system. You can find tons of complaints online about AEB systems reacting to false positives. ~~~ Recurecur "You're choosing to ignore the fact that computers still make mistakes." No, but I'll unequivocally assert that the human false alarm rate is much higher than that of computers. "My friend's car (an Acura) recently slammed on the brakes @ 70mph because it mistakenly thought a car in an adjacent lane was in his lane. Had there been someone following close behind him, it probably would've caused an accident." Does it have a readout indicating what it "thought"? It seems possible that the car in the other lane drifted, and the computer thought it was changing lanes into the Acura. Braking was appropriate in that circumstance. "This is not an uncommon occurrence, especially with Honda/Acura's system. You can find tons of complaints online about AEB systems reacting to false positives." That may be, and I suspect a fix will be forthcoming which will address every Honda/Acura on the road (or new models, worst case). Meanwhile, humans will continue to look down at a text, hamburger, or whatever, and then panic when a few seconds later they look up and think they're in trouble. Not to mention driving tired, drunk, high, angry, or stupid. ------ mcguire " _ultra-detailed, centimeter-accurate maps of much of the U.S. highway system_ " Is this a joke? _The roads_ aren't centimeter-accurate from day to day. ------ seibelj The industry’s PR team starting to place stories about why self driving cars will take longer than they promised their investors. Tens of billions of dollars invested and it’s still decades away. I guess we blame other drivers now(?) ~~~ Recurecur "Tens of billions of dollars invested and it’s still decades away." "Decades away"? LOL Fully autonomous vehicles are already on the road in large numbers. See Waymo in AZ and Voyage in Florida... The economic and safety incentives are huge. I predict by 2030 over half of new vehicles sold will have L5 autonomy. ~~~ glogla Also see Uber where they killed a woman, faked evidence (with purposefully making the video look darker) and got away with it. ~~~ mdorazio I must have missed the part of vehicular accident law where people hit while jaywalking at night aren't at fault for the accidents. By your logic, the 1000+ jaywalking fatalities every year must all result in human drivers "getting away with it". Uber messed up big time in multiple ways, but legally it's pretty clear that the pedestrian was at fault in this case, not Uber. ------ seqastian human vs human road interaction is mostly based on trust, and it usually works out because most humans are sane and healthy while driving. the same thing can not work with machines cause they are bad at detecting when humans are not all right and humans are bad at trusting machines. as soon as we just accept that the save way to operate in close proximity of others, is to do it at way slower speeds. we will have very save roads with humans and robots behind the wheel. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Speed is not the issue, difference in speed is the issue. Road safety actually improves when you raise the speed limit to the speed most drivers are actually driving. ~~~ AdamHede This is only true in a very theoretical sense. Going 180 km/h will 9/10 be more dangerous than going 120 km/h. Reaktion time, brake time, requirements to equipment, everything is tougher at higher speeds. ~~~ dsfyu404ed If by "theoretical sense" you mean "doesn't fit your personal world view" then sure. The safest speed limit being one that the overwhelming majority of people would naturally follow were it not posted is basically considered fact in the civil engineering world. There is study upon study backing it up. The desire to minimize the speed at which crashes happen literally costs lives when applied in the real world because reducing the frequency of crashes is the superior option. ~~~ SketchySeaBeast > The desire to minimize the speed at which crashes happen literally costs > lives when applied in the real world because reducing the frequency of > crashes is the superior option. While I understand that minimizing crashes is important, I'd rather be faced with scenarios where we crash in a manner where people survive more often - any accidents that do happen at the higher speed is going to skyrocket the chances of a fatality. ------ mannykannot This is an odd way of looking at it. Far from being a problem for self-driving cars, the development of ever-more capable assistance and warning technologies is the rational way to go about refining the technologies that will be needed for fully self-driving cars. This situation is only a problem for those manufacturers who want to pass off partial autonomy as the real thing. ~~~ adrianmonk I basically agree with you, but after some head scratching, I think I follow their argument, which seems to be this: 1\. Lack of higher reasoning is a disadvantage that self-driving cars won't escape any time soon. 2\. But SDCs can more than make up for that by making fewer dumb mistakes, giving them a better _overall_ safety. 3\. However, if you use machines to take away the dumb mistakes from humans, you change that equation, and the overall stats could go the other direction. In reality, I don't think it's that simple. When ABS was newer, they studied it ([https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182)) and found that ABS improved overall safety, but safety paradoxically got worse in slick conditions (rain, snow, ice). The effects of safety improvements aren't always what you'd expect, so theorizing doesn't tell you much. ------ YeGoblynQueenne >> Initially, all fully self-driving vehicles will be Level 4—that is, they have to be in geographically constrained areas, and will only operate in good weather, as does Waymo’s fleet of self-driving vans that it is testing in Phoenix. Truly autonomous, aka Level 5, cars are still science fiction. Nobody has actually created a level 4 system yet, not even a prototype, let alone one ready for production. So level 4, too, is still science fiction. The same goes for level 3, actually. It's science fiction. And so are claims like the following: >> Researchers at Cleveland State University estimate that only 10 to 30 percent of all vehicles will be fully self driving by 2030. 2030 is in ten years from now. In ten years from now, we'll reach "full self- driving"? Waymo was founded ten years ago and its cars are still in level 2 (allegedly, trying to "jump over" level 3 and go straight to level 4). How are we going to be suddendly, magickally transported from level 2 to level 5 in the next ten years, when we haven't budged from level 2 in the last ten? ------ vikramkr If fully self driving is ever going to be fully safer than humans, which I think is almost a given, then this is not a problem as much as it is a great new way to monetize that tech en route to full self driving cars. If it isnt going to be better than self driving tech + a human at the wheel, then oops. ~~~ simion314 The self driving tech would still be used for driver assist functions, if today would be possible to replace all the cars in the world with new models that include all the safety features and a system to detect a drunk or sleepy driver I think we would get better statistics then Tesla or Google AI(for the same driving conditions) ------ rexgallorum2 Just a few points: 1\. Addressing (and reducing) major causes of road accidents and fatalities such as impaired and/or distracted driving (alcohol, drugs, sleep deprivation, inattentiveness, fiddling with phones, radios, touch screens, etc.) would make a tremendous difference, and automated driving systems and sensors could potentially intervene in such situations without necessarily being online all the time. 2\. Inattentiveness and distraction caused by (over)dependence on automated systems (as in jets with autopilot) could become a major hazard. This is already a problem with road designs that minimise driver engagement by removing obstacles to traffic and designing roadways entirely for cars (compare European style traffic calming to US style widening of lanes and rounding of corners). 3\. As mentioned above, infrastructure and urban planning practices are major issues, both in terms of maintenance and design. Automating passenger cars may improve safety in some respects, but perpetuating the dominance of individual motor vehicles (and the vast infrastructure outlay they require) as the dominant mode of transport is probably the wrong approach. Gradually transforming urban planning and design to promote mass transit, reduce commuting, and accommodate bicycle and pedestrian traffic would generally reduce the need to use cars in the first place. One difference between traffic death statistics in countries like Germany and the US is that virtually everybody has to drive long distances on a daily basis in much of the US, with few if any alternatives, and urban sprawl encourages lengthy detours to travel trivial distances between fully separated residential/commercial/industrial zones, whereas e.g. in urban Germany, there are many alternatives, and driving is not a necessity (compare death rates per capita vs. per km driven). In Germany and much of Europe, driving is and has always been a privilege, and one that requires a degree of skill to earn, whereas in the US driving is viewed more or less as a right, something everyone does and has to do on a daily basis, i.e. it's easy to get a license and you only lose it for serious infractions, and even then penalties for driving without a license (as many people do!) are comparatively minor. What I am getting at is that the best way to tackle road safety and environmental problems is to gradually abandon the passenger car as the dominant mode of transportation. Hybrid automated/human-operated vehicles could be a great improvement in the short term, but using bikes would be better in the long term. Freight transport might be another matter though. ------ dejaime Automatic emergency breaking and other "safer human-driven" cars is not making the human-driven aspect any safer, but rather putting the working and stable parts of autonomous vehicles as a tool for unsafe human-driven vehicles. That said, it will obviously fare better than _fully_ autonomous vehicles, but it is still just a part of autonomous vehicles in general. In this sense, these cars are not "a problem self-driving cars have" as the title implies, they are actually a stepping stone for self-driving cars. ------ torpfactory I suggest everyone take a look at the most recent available NHTSA data to help create informed opinions on the topic of car safety with respect to fatal accident causes: [https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812580) My personal takeaways: 1) The sum of speeding + alcohol is 55% of the total number of fatalities. Self driving cars won't get drunk (we hope) and speeding is something which could certainly be limited in software. Lots of reasons to believe self driving will make a significant impact here, whenever it finally arrives. On the other hand, you don't really need self driving to prevent these. You could force all vehicles to have a breathalizer interlock before driving (assuming these devices could be made to be very accurate and not spoofable, I believe these are both technically feasible goals). Or just enforce the living daylights out of it - driving drunk, lose your license for the rest of your life. Not nice I suppose but neither are ten thousand deaths per year. Speeding is a similar story. Why not put a GPS device in every car (I think this may already be the case) and geo-fence speed limits? Technically very feasible. Some people will claim you need to speed sometimes but I believe these arguments to be total bullshit. Ambulances may need to speed sometimes. Or again just enforce the living daylights out of it. Speeding over 5MPH above the speed limit, license gone for the rest of your life. Not nice I suppose but neither are ten thousand deaths per year. We probably won't do any of the non-self driving things I mentioned above because they are politically untenable in America. Death on the roads is such a normalized facet of modern life that most people don't really consider the alternative: limited loss of freedom with many fewer deaths and injuries. 2) The wearing of seat-belts seems to still be a big problem for some people. 44% of motor vehicle occupants who died were not wearing one. No self driving needed here. In fact, this problem is somewhat orthogonal to self-driving. You would still want to be restrained in a self driving car. It would be easy enough to create an occupant sensor and seat belt interlock to operate the car. The car already beeps at you if you're not wearing it. Why not take the beeping a step further. 3) Running into cyclists (both motorized and human-powered) is also a reasonably large problem. Self driving will almost certainly help here (uber's incident not withstanding) but there are non technological solutions to consider. What about increasing the liability for drivers who injure or kill cyclists? What about steep criminal penalties for hitting a cyclist? 4) There isn't even a category for "mechanical failure". Cars don't really crash due to problems with the car per-se. Or at least not a rates that matter compared to the others. 5) Rural driving seems pretty dangerous - 50% of fatalities but only 19% of the population lives there. I don't think they dig into the details here but I'd be interested to see the cause breakdown for rural users. Growing up in Wisconsin, driving home drunk from rural bars was basically ubiquitous. I always advise to stay off the roads around bar time if possible. It is important to consider that our roads are unsafe mostly because of the system of policies we have set up governing them. We still aren't serious enough about drunk driving. The debate around safety and speeding is hardly even happening. Hitting and killing non-automobile road users is often just a traffic citation. The licensing system is a joke. In what other safety- critical certification system can you take one exam at age 16 and then renew your certification for the rest of your life without any kind of additional training or examination? There is a ton we _could_ be doing outside of self- driving technology to make the roads safer. Personal preferences on the above discussion: FOR self driving cars, even ones that are only marginally safer than humans. FOR geo-fenced speed limits. FOR breathlizers in all vehicles. FOR steep penalties for drunk driving, speeding, and killing non-automobile road users. FOR much more stringent licensing requirements. Death on the roads ought not be a feature of modern life. ~~~ rexgallorum2 A major problem with your idea about self-limiting vehicle speeds is that speed limits are usually safe driving speeds under ideal conditions only. Speed itself isn't really the problem, but rather poor judgement and unsafe driving habits (often including speeding). Speed is also an interesting topic in that speed limits are often kept artificially low in order to generate revenue. Any automated system to force cars to respect limits would likely meet resistance from municipalities that are dependent on traffic fines for revenue. High speeds are allowed on highways in Germany, but only in certain areas, and German drivers are extremely disciplined with regards to lane changing and the 'hierarchy' of the road. However, traffic deaths are lower than the US, even when adjusted to reflect deaths per km traveled. Driver discipline and skill undoubtedly play a role here, but infrastructure quality and maintenance (and urban planning!) is also a big issue. US roads are comparatively poorly designed and maintained, and outdated engineering and planning practices are still widespread (widening streets and removing barriers instead of using traffic calming--perhaps counter-intuitively, the former causes more serious accidents by encouraging speeding and disengaged driving). I tend to think that at least in urban areas of the US, ditching zoning and onerous anti-alcohol laws (i.e. putting pubs within easy walking distance of where people live) would drastically cut down on drunk driving. Rural areas are of course different. Just my two cents ------ happppy I DO NOT FEAR MACHINES!!!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Check if your LinkedIn password was hacked or not - snitzr http://billsnitzer.com/linkedin/ ====== facorreia This is misleading. Not being in the list posted in that forum does not mean your password wasn't hacked. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you actually make something? - HiroshiSan After being two-thirds through my Computer Engineering degree, I've yet to figure out how to make anything. Aside from school assignments I wouldn't know where to begin on a project I've set for myself.<p>So I ask you, how do you actually take an idea from your head and bring it to fruition? ====== mswen I have an overall vision for something that I want to make. A rough outline so to speak. I then start to chunk it up into mini-projects. And, sometimes chunk those down into even smaller collections of tasks. I pick one of those mini- projects and start building it. I often use paper notebooks and pencil to sketch screen shots, diagram logic flows, create data schemes and more. Then I make lists of things I need to build. As I get into the details of building the mini-project my thinking clarifies and that gets codified. I just keep trying to build the next mini-project and connect them together and after awhile the project is "done." ------ a3n I wish I had X. X looks a little like Y. To make Y, it looks like you need these many parts. That's a lot. I'll just use this small handful of essential parts (e.g. no GUI or Web or Mobile, just command line), and make W, an essential subset of X. I like W, I use it all the time. But most other people would think it's too hard/manual/limited to use. I'll use what I now know about W, and make X. Tautologically, the key to making things is to use your experience of making things. Get into the habit of making small useful things for yourself; start as small as you need. Don't do things manually, make tools to do things. Then make things. ~~~ HiroshiSan I really appreciate this answer, thank you. I can really see how something can be built up over time to be a substantial project. ------ jflatow 1\. Start 2\. Don't stop ~~~ HiroshiSan I feel like this and platitudes like it are only ones that can be understood as a "ah...it really is that simple" once the goal has been reached...which does not help my case.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
2018 European Software Conferences. Any Favorites? Why? - marklittlewood ====== marklittlewood Business of Software Europe - [http://businessofsoftware.eu/](http://businessofsoftware.eu/) Sister conference to Business of Software USA - [http://businessofsoftware.org](http://businessofsoftware.org) ~~~ troydavis It seems disingenuous, even sleazy, to submit this question and then answer it by plugging your own conferences ([http://thebln.com/team/](http://thebln.com/team/)). (Also, at least as of this writing, you didn’t even disclose the affiliation, though I don’t think disclosure would resolve the conflict of interest.) ~~~ marklittlewood Clumsy maybe. If I wanted to be sleazy, I would have used a false account for one or both comments. I have updated my profile though. Thanks. Apologies. Wasn't meant to be - I thought that was clear on my profile but I haven't updated it for a long while. I want to see if there was a single place for all of the key software events to be listed in a single place and I wouldn't want our events to be missed off as we think they stand up against others. [https://www.inc.com/heather-wilde/6-cant-miss-conferences- if...](https://www.inc.com/heather-wilde/6-cant-miss-conferences-if-you-want- to-grow-your-business.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Paul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades' - fahd777 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/22/collapse-civilisation-near-certain-decades-population-bomb-paul-ehrlich ====== lucozade Having just read the Population Bomb Revisited (linked in the article), I think I'm a bit shocked. The Population Bomb was a political call to arms that used science to give it credence. It turns out that much of the science was really, badly flawed. And not in subtle ways. Revisited, while acknowledging some of the egregious issues, tries to diminish them by saying other experts thought so too or something else went bad so the point is still valid. It then goes on to say that they were still kind of right and it'll all go pear shaped in the future (they're a bit more careful not to say when this time). But that's not science. Their conclusion was based on their predictions and their predictions were wrong. So their conclusions, even if accidentally correct (which they don't appear to be), are not justified by the evidence. I find this lack of respect for science, by a Professor of Biology, quite astonishing. ~~~ bazzlexposition Well he is so old he will die well before he can write Population Bomb Re- Revisited. He would have taught his grandchildren to carry the message on, but he already knows they are doomed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Osquery: Easily ask questions about your Linux, Windows and macOS infrastructure - BerislavLopac https://osquery.io/ ====== pixelmonkey Kinda shocked I have never heard of this before today. Seems very handy, especially for people deploying x-platform desktop apps or scripts. It is a SQL abstraction over OS information, kind of the SQL equivalent of the info you could glean by inspecting properties on the Python `os` module, and perhaps many OS/device details besides. ------ badrabbit A discussion about osquery is incomplete without mentioning Kolide fleet: [https://www.kolide.com/fleet/](https://www.kolide.com/fleet/) ------ kanobo I don't know about others, but I think this is kinda amazing? There's been so many times I've wanted to have this ability when setting up a lab. Thanks for sharing! ------ chmaynard > Windows, macOS, CentOS, FreeBSD, and almost every Linux OS released since > 2011 are supported with no dependencies. No dependencies? $ brew info osquery osquery: stable 3.3.2 (bottled) ... ==> Dependencies Build: bison , cmake , [email protected] Required: augeas , boost , gflags , glog , libarchive , libmagic , librdkafka , lldpd , [email protected] , rapidjson , rocksdb , sleuthkit , ssdeep , thrift , xz , yara , zstd ~~~ antoncohen That is a result of how Homebrew built and packaged it. There are downloads at [https://osquery.io/downloads](https://osquery.io/downloads), and for a Homebrew installation that page recommends installing the Cask. $ brew cask info osquery osquery: 4.4.0 https://osquery.io/ Not installed From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/HEAD/Casks/osquery.rb ==> Name osquery ==> Artifacts osquery-4.4.0.pkg (Pkg) ==> Analytics install: 120 (30 days), 198 (90 days), 206 (365 days) ~~~ chmaynard Thanks for the clarification. I notice that "brew cask install osquery" installs a package. It would be helpful to get some instructions on what to do next. ------ hrishios Love that this is no dependencies. It was starting to look like a lost battle that everything has 2000 circular dependencies. ------ jasoneckert This looks like a cross-platform tool similar to WMI Query Language (WQL). I prefer the ease of using WQL in PowerShell scripts, so I imagine it may become popular. ~~~ jmarcher Yes, we use it a fair bit in some internal dev scripts to make them platform agnostic. ------ rbolla Facebook uses this extensively on their systems.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: My weekend project, A domain name hack and semi-mass domain search - thedevelopment http://domainsuitor.com Hey HN, I was always sick of trying to find available domain names for other side projects, so I came up with this. It'll check availability of .com, .net and .org, as well as any domain name hacks available (gimpish -> gimpi.sh). It's Sinatra and EventMachine driven.<p>Enter a few words in the name field to try it out! e.g. apple, microsoft, reddit, purplemonkeydishwasher<p>Feedback muchly appreciated! ====== thedevelopment Hey HN, I was always sick of trying to find available domain names for other side projects, so I came up with this. It'll check availability of .com, .net and .org, as well as any domain name hacks available (gimpish -> gimpi.sh). It's Sinatra and EventMachine driven. Enter a few words in the name field to try it out! e.g. apple, microsoft, ycombinator, purplemonkeydishwasher Feedback muchly appreciated! ------ DevX101 It's giving me wrong information for .org domains On my first search, it shows chat.org and wizard.org as being available. Not so. ~~~ DevX101 Hmm..just tried it again and now it shows them correctly as being as unavailable. Not sure what happened first time around. ~~~ thedevelopment It's using Ruby Whois (<http://www.ruby-whois.org/>) to do the queries, and it looks like the .org implementation is a bit flakey. Thanks for the heads up and thanks for the feedback! I'll see if I can fix the issue. ------ westondeboer <http://domai.nr/> ~~~ thedevelopment That's pretty cool, but slightly different. It's certainly a much more polished product =) Where that's showing you a combination of words, my site instead looks up every word and checks it's availability. I created my site to help with the brainstorming of site names to see what's available, but I can see how domai.nr would be used in a very similar way. ------ dam5s That is just... super fast, impressive !	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple and Facebook - Amorymeltzer https://stratechery.com/2020/apple-and-facebook/ ====== Despegar >Apple was quite clever in their approach: instead of killing the IDFA, which could be construed as anti-competitive, particularly given Apple’s expanding app install ad business (which is expanding beyond App Store search ads), Apple is simply asking users if they would like to be tracked, and letting them render the IDFA useless. The unstated implication of this is that when required to receive consent from users, the entire ad-tech complex falls apart. I think Apple is actually smart to do it this way rather than just getting rid of the IDFA altogether, but only because of the political/regulatory environment right now. Any pro-privacy move will be spun as being anticompetitive by the affected parties, until Apple actually wins in court in their first antitrust case. After that the gloves can come off. ~~~ exhilaration I'm curious, though, will Apple's own ads require consent? When you open the App Store for the first time, will there be a popup asking for consent to track for ad purposes? ~~~ ThrustVectoring IMO you've given enough consent by using their app store. All they need is to store the device IDs to which they display ads and install apps so that they can attribute app installs to specific advertisements. You're logged into their app store, so you should expect Apple to already know the device ID when they display ads and install apps. ~~~ cromwellian But I pay for the App Store indirectly through high margin hardware, transaction fees, including the 30% tax, so shouldn’t i be able to turn off Apple’s ad network all together and not let them advertise to me in the App Store by using my purchase history? Funny how privacy invasions are bad and everything should be done on device until Apple starts selling ads and then it’s ok somehow for them to use your behavior/purchase profile. ~~~ BurritoAlPastor You can! [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT202074](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074) ~~~ cromwellian Cool, I didn't know, but doesn't that imply it's a dark pattern? How many users know about this setting? Wouldn't it be better as Opt-In, and let the App Store prompt you when you set up your iPhone "do you want to opt in to interest based advertisin/etc"? When other companies do opt-out, they're usually heavily criticized. ~~~ cromwellian Cool, I didn't know, but doesn't that imply it's a dark pattern? How many users know about this setting? Wouldn't it be better as Opt-In, and let the App Store prompt you when you set up your iPhone "do you want to opt in to interest based advertisin/etc"? When other companies do opt-out, they're usually heavily criticized. ------ numair Yikes, where to begin... Quoting Chamath on the rationale for the Facebook Platform is like quoting the current management of Boeing on how to build a plane. If you want the real story on the dynamics behind the Platform, and why it worked so incredibly well when it did, you’d have to talk to Dave Morin, but I’m not sure he’d like to revisit that period in his life. Dave’s open, humble approach (something I think he’d picked up at Apple) attracted the best and brightest companies and programmers to the platform, and gave them the confidence needed to invest in building a presence there. Eventually a bunch of people inside of Facebook got jealous of the attention he was getting and had him demoted. Chamath takeover and his self-dealing (investing in platform companies while overseeing it? really?) was a large part of the Platform’s failure, not its success. People lost confidence, and confidence is the one thing that every platform — whether it’s a piece of software, or a country’s economy — really runs on. If you want to talk about platforms, and what they are, and what they aren’t, that’s really all it is. People who bring up a million other things and a random Bill Gates quote don’t know what they’re talking about. Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment. Facebook is pretty much the exact opposite of this, in every aspect of their business. Whether you’re a newspaper or an Instagram model or a developer, you’re never quite sure where you stand. While things built on top of Facebook might have large-scale near-term value, nobody’s planning their next decade on there (even if suspicious can’t-let-China-win government meddling and the Silicon Valley oligarchy keep them on top for that long). ~~~ tossmeout This is one of those comments that seems interesting and believable because it's so confidently stated. But is any of this speculation actually accurate? I agree with the second half of the comment. Facebook has been capricious, and thus it's hard to trust building on top of them for the long term. But the first few paragraphs just seem like unsubstantiated gossip. ~~~ kinkrtyavimoodh TBH that's true for the original article too. I feel that most of these opinion pieces are 'just so' post-facto explanations. I'd rather have a prediction market where people put predictions and confidence values along with detailed explanations, and then we can see in a few years how things play along. It's very easy to make confident pronouncements when they are basically unfalsifiable. ------ TheArcane Apple's moat has increasingly become incentivised of late by being the privacy-conscious option to its competitors - thanks primarily to Google's infringement of the same ~~~ hn_throwaway_99 I think tech people fundamentally misunderstand how the privacy-conscious features of Apple resonate with the non-technical public. The _vast_ majority of the public do not care, at all, about the type of data tracking that gets HNers so up in arms. That may be a bit of hyperbole - they may care a teeny bit, but the second they have to do something that is even the slightest bit inconvenient in order to get more privacy ("Why do I have to log in here again?") they'll bail. What Apple has done, though, is frame privacy-consciousness in terms of _exclusivity_ and _luxury_. It's quite similar to how Tesla rebranded electric cars from dorky and stodgy to cool. Most people's experience with Apple's privacy-conscious features are Touch ID and Face ID. These felt really futuristic when they first came out. And the privacy messaging that Apple does is really great IMO: it's more along the lines of "With Google all your data is shared with crappy advertisers along with the rest of the unwashed masses. With Apple everything is safe and secure, and most importantly protected from their grubby little non-Jony Ive-approved hands." This has real benefits to consumers (because the privacy advancements with Apple are _not_ just marketing, they're real), but people should understand Apple is still based around exclusivity and luxury, and privacy is just a part of that. ~~~ snowwrestler This is not supported by polling data. See for example: [https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans- an...](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy- concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal- information/) "Some 81% of the public say that the potential risks they face because of data collection by companies outweigh the benefits, and 66% say the same about government data collection." ~~~ Icathian Asking people whether they care and making them prove it by subjecting themselves to the slightest inconvenience may result in different conclusions. ~~~ pier25 Exactly. I only know two persons in real life (other than me) that care about data privacy and act on that. Of course if you ask most people they will say that yeah they care about privacy, but their actions tell a different story. ~~~ kohtatsu Most people simply haven't learned the hygiene yet. It can be as simple as showing them to open incognito for specific searches or topics, or to install a trusted tracker blocking extension like ublock origin and set it up for them. Managing app location privileges is a big one too, iOS is really good about nagging for background location permissions and I appreciate that a lot, but a lot of people don't realize if you give Facebook or another app "while using", you can bet money it will use it whenever you open the app. [https://business.financialpost.com/technology/tim-hortons- ap...](https://business.financialpost.com/technology/tim-hortons-app-tracking- customers-intimate-data) The Tim Hortons app logged this guy's location 2,700 times in 5 months. He didn't find out until the iOS 13 background location warning. [https://cdn.iphoneincanada.ca/wp- content/uploads/2019/06/ios...](https://cdn.iphoneincanada.ca/wp- content/uploads/2019/06/ios-13-location-data-apps.jpeg) People care, most of them just aren't as literate as the typical HN user so they either don't have a clue what's really happening, or simply throw their hands up in the air. ~~~ jldugger > Most people simply haven't learned the hygiene yet. There's an entire class of problems you cannot solve through 'hygiene.' Equifax, for example, collected data on you without your consent, and got in trouble for unintentionally giving it away when they're supposed to be getting money in exchange. ------ DataSciGuy_401 This article misses a lot: 1) Facebook doesn't necessarily need the IDFA for optimizing advertising -- SKAdNetwork leaves the door open for ads optimization, just not at the user level. This article reveals how little the author understands about digital advertising. 2) I don't believe this move by Apple increases its "moat" in any meaningful way. Apple was almost certainly motivated to deprecate the IDFA to protect consumer privacy -- the only way this enforces Apple's moat is by substantively differentiating Apple's privacy positioning from other hardware vendors. 3) If anything, deprecating the IDFA harms Facebook moreso than it helps Apple to improve its ability to grow its ads business. Apple has increased the scope of its Apple Search Ads business but deprecating the IDFA doesn't help it there except to level the playing field. The author of this blog is at his best when he's going a mile wide and an inch deep on high-concept subjects like self driving cars and Amazon taking over retail. When he tries to go deep on specific topics, his lack of context often leads him to specious and, frankly, silly conclusions. ------ silentsea90 Am I the only one who finds stratechery abstruse and hard to follow? ~~~ extra__tofu He has a concept playbook [1]. His MO is to tie current events back into the concept playbook. If you haven't been following along for a period of years, it is easy to get lost. [1] [https://stratechery.com/concepts/](https://stratechery.com/concepts/) ~~~ silentsea90 Thanks for sharing. Will read this up. Hope that helps lose some of my disillusionment with Stratechery. ------ ec109685 The part about Facebook becoming WeChat at the end and thus bypassing the restrictions Apple puts in place doesn’t ring true unless Apple is prevented from restricting apps from building their own mini app stores for games: [https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/18/apple-refuses-facebooks- gamin...](https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/18/apple-refuses-facebooks-gaming- platform-on-the-ios-app-store/amp/) ------ jonny_eh It's so hard to read articles like this that are constantly quoting themselves from 5 years ago. ~~~ riverlong I don't see why -- he's pretty consistent, and it's interesting to see his framing/narrative evolve. ~~~ jonny_eh Consistent and evolving? Seems contradictory. ~~~ chillacy I think the mental model is consistent, but the explanations and examples evolve. Obviously like all models, these approximate reality. ------ catchmeifyoucan Is the biggest threat to Apple web? I would think so. Of course, it might not be as we know it. However, a world where content works across devices. APIs are standardized. Responsive to multiple sizes. Low barrier to entry and access. It seems to me that Web is the future. Note I say Web, and not browser. An integrated experience built on the web - like Firefox OS might be the open and free platform we need to build our own great experiences. Definitely something worth exploring. ~~~ jamil7 5 - 10 years ago I would have said the same and was sure the web would take over. I've done a lot of work on both web and native mobile platforms and these days I'm really less sure what the future looks like. If web apps do take over they won't be web apps like we know them. ~~~ spideymans If AR goes mainstream, I feel that way will be the nail in the coffin for any future where web-based apps rule the world. I just don’t see how the web could compete with native AR apps that operate “close to the metal”. The web still can’t even provide a user experience even comparable to that of a standard mobile app Edit: Keep in mind that I’m not saying web apps will disappear. Just that they might not have any more mainstream relevance than they have today ~~~ fossuser This is also my bet: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5J_6oMMG7Y) I have no idea how much of that video is real, but I think if the AR hardware is possible it's likely the next computing platform UI after mobile device displays. Apple has been laying the platform groundwork for this for a while. If anyone can pull it off, I suspect it would be them. I don't think the web will be able to compete with that. ------ ericmay Apple's strategy here with privacy is just so great. From a regulatory standpoint, the EU can't be against it, and the US likes "anti-competitive behavior" when it benefits customers. Facebook, Google, et al will have to basically just live with Apple's choices here while suffering losses to their businesses. ------ jmalicki "make lemons out of lemonade." \- presumably the author meant "make lemons into lemonade" \- I can't comment on the article to correct so am doing so here. ------ kentf Man, I would buy it but I need wheels on mine. ------ 12xo Apple is not in the user data business. ------ alexashka It's sad to see somewhat bright minds, spending their life analyzing what companies are doing to maximize profit. Why is that interesting and at what point do you notice that every move these companies make, is anti-human? Take Apple: their entire business model is reliant upon the government _never_ waking up to enforcing open standards and protocols to ensure consumers get hardware-agnostic, operating system-agnostic, service-provider agnostic, company-agnostic tools and services, which is what everyone would agree we want, except the sociopaths who value profit over humanity and run these corporations. That's what got everyone excited about Bitcoin for a hot second. That it finally escapes the walled gardens all technology is living under. Instead of fixing the walled gardens, these delusional fools think they can technology their way out of corporations owning all key infrastructure. Jesus Christ. Back to Apple. Apple's entire business strategy is creating a walled garden because it benefits _them_ , at the expense of everyone else. They give consumers crumbs and call it 'the biggest release ever'. Facebook's entire business strategy is being a surveillance network, which is again, entirely reliant upon the government _never_ waking up to how creepy, immoral and counter-productive it is on so many levels! There are enough sociopaths in government who think oh good, a surveillance tool, we can make use of it! Good luck having Facebook regulated when we live in a corporatocracy folks! Everything these big companies do is against the interests of human beings. People are just too dumb to see it because if you drip-feed them 'new emojis' and 'you can have a weather widget on your screen in 2020', they don't realize they are getting fucked! Sorry, carry on with your 'analysis' of what these sociopaths are up to and pretending you have valuable insight, when the only sane insight to be had is 'these fuckers are out of control'. ~~~ WoodenChair > Why is that interesting and at what point do you notice that every move > these companies make, is anti-human? Hyperbole if I've ever read it. "every move"? Is investing in clean energy to power all of their data centers anti-human as Apple has done? Is creating a $100,000,000 education fund for under-represented app developers anti-human? Is encrypting devices by default to protect privacy anti-human? Now, as you can see I'm a bit of an Apple apologist and of course all of these are good PR moves. But every corporation is by definition just a "group of humans working together for profit." They will do good things for profit and they will do bad things for profit. But a group of humans working together for profit does not make every move they do "anti-human." ~~~ bonestormii_ There are certainly shades of gray, but if I can speak on behalf of the post you are responding to, it seems their argument would be that it is a net negative, and that the "Good PR humanity" is relatively shallow in the end. Consider a $100,000,000 education fund _for app developers_. Certainly, app development can be a gateway for some people, but once they develop apps, where do they go if not a market place that Apple tightly controls? They are a machine funding the creation of new cogs in this scenario. If your overlords buy you an opulent dinner and provide you with a warm bed, it doesn't mean you are free. Freedom can be a vague and high-minded ideal that obviously needs to be balanced with communal concerns, but I agree with the parent poster's overall disgust. It feels that a company like Apple is so big that they are beyond any societal control or regulation, and that is unacceptable. To hear their minions rush to their defense as if their interests are somehow aligned (they're not) is too much to handle sometimes. It's tiring. ~~~ WoodenChair You are free from entities that don't have coercive control over you. If there were no alternatives to the Apple ecosystem to get your work/social life/business done, then you would be correct, we are not free. However, iOS has <20% global marketshare[0]. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the App Store needs reform. Perhaps there should be some regulation, that's above my pay grade. Your level of disgust also to me feels like hyperbole. 0: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/236031/market-share- of-i...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/236031/market-share-of-ios-in- global-smartphone-os-shipments/) ~~~ bonestormii_ Oh yes, the fabled <20% marketshare. So where should I go from Apple if not into the waiting arms of Google/Android? Is that better? This isn't actually a conversation specifically about Apple if you recall. It is a conversation about all such companies. And yes, your defense of Apple is a little cringe-y. Why do you need to defend such a behemoth in a conversation that is decidedly not dedicated to them? Per the parent comment--Why does HN obsess over the actions of these companies that are categorically not for anyone's benefit other than their own? That was the original question. I honestly am asking you to reflect on it. Why do you care? What's it to you? ~~~ WoodenChair > I honestly am asking you to reflect on it. Why do you care? What's it to > you? I care because I think there is a lot of misdirected energy and anger. In a world with racial injustice, starvation, poverty, etc. you choose this topic to be outraged about? Well you have a right to your outrage. It’s good some people are outraged because it keeps them on their toes. But at the same time I have a right to say I think your dialogue and vitriol is out-of-line with the reality of the situation, and hyperbolic at best. I am a counter-balance to your outrage and that’s why I care. ~~~ bonestormii_ That's a well-reasoned response which I can appreciate. But honestly, read my original post to which you replied. I said I shared the parent's disgust, but I don't think I'm really reveling in outrage or speaking in such extreme terms as you characterize. I'll quote it... > "There are certainly shades of gray, but if I can speak on behalf of the > post you are responding to, it seems their argument would be that it is a > net negative, and that the "Good PR humanity" is relatively shallow in the > end. Consider a $100,000,000 education fund for app developers. Certainly, > app development can be a gateway for some people, but once they develop > apps, where do they go if not a market place that Apple tightly controls? > They are a machine funding the creation of new cogs in this scenario.If your > overlords buy you an opulent dinner and provide you with a warm bed, it > doesn't mean you are free.Freedom can be a vague and high-minded ideal that > obviously needs to be balanced with communal concerns, but I agree with the > parent poster's overall disgust. It feels that a company like Apple is so > big that they are beyond any societal control or regulation, and that is > unacceptable. To hear their minions rush to their defense as if their > interests are somehow aligned (they're not) is too much to handle sometimes. > It's tiring." Honestly, I use so much language to balance and mitigate my argument that it's overly verbose. > "There are shades of gray", "relatively shallow", "Certainly, app > development can be a gateway for some people...", Freedom can be high-minded > and needs to be balanced,". Is it possible to make this point passively enough to satisfy your requirements? I'll also admit that the parent comment was a bit more extreme in it's tone. And I'll admit there are many injustices in the world that go beyond tech. But I think the underlying issue of acquiring and maintaining freedom of all kinds is valid. It's like saying, "With racial inequality being what it is, how can you spend your time belaboring a point about campaign finance reform?" The answer is simple: Because one form of freedom (in this case, governmental representation) facilitates those adjacent freedoms (racial equality). The importance of one doesn't invalidate the importance of the other. I'm like, not that outraged. But I am like, casually disgusted by people who seem to have allowed huge corporations to become so apart of themselves that they lose the ability to see some obvious flaws. I love my iPhone. Apple is far from the worst of it. But there are some very disturbing trends in tech and the world that warrant our skepticism and yes, our disgust. That it is treated as normal is part of the problem. ~~~ WoodenChair > Apple is far from the worst of it. But there are some very disturbing trends > in tech and the world that warrant our skepticism Well we can agree on that. I am basically speaking against the reductive argument “big corporation = bad.“ Apple does good things and Apple does bad things. On balance I think they do more good than bad. We can have a debate about that. But we can’t debate if the opposition just thinks big corporation = bad and no freedom. I chose Apple because that is the company that started this discussion. ~~~ alexashka > Take Apple: their entire business model is reliant upon the government never > waking up to enforcing open standards and protocols to ensure consumers get > hardware-agnostic, operating system-agnostic, service-provider agnostic, > company-agnostic tools and services, which is what everyone would agree we > want, except the sociopaths who value profit over humanity and run these > corporations. Did you read this and the only conclusion you came away with, is big corporation = bad? Feel free to address what's actually been said, rather presenting a straw man. \-- Let me clarify why big corporation = bad is a straw man because I suspect some uneducated people may take your position seriously. Big corporation = bad is in fact a truism, if the government that's supposed to regulate corporations, is not doing their job. This is political science 101. There are people far more educated and likely smarter than you and I who don't consider USA a functioning democracy. Noam Chomsky considers USA a plutocracy. Have you studied this matter and have rebuttals to numerous arguments that he has presented to support his case? ~~~ WoodenChair > Let me clarify why big corporation = bad is a straw man because I'm suspect > some uneducated people may take your position seriously. > There are people far more educated and likely smarter than you and I who > don't consider USA a functioning democracy. You may have some good points, but your level of vitriol and overall tone really detracts from them. From the beginning where I pointed out your hyperbole, to your most recent comment where you're effectively calling people dumb and uneducated. If I need political science 101, then you need debate 101.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Let them paste passwords (2017) - notRobot https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/let-them-paste-passwords ====== jiggawatts Making password entry difficult is like attempting weight loss by eating bland food. It's not the flavour that makes you fat. Nonetheless, there's this _perception_ that something delicious can't be good for a diet. People have this notion that to lose weight, there must be _penance_. An element of punishing oneself for past transgressions seems _essential_. Security people have the same mindset. Security must be a hassle. It must be in your face. It has to be _onerous_. A _challenge_. A hurdle to _get past_. I've tried, over and over, to explain to my customers that often the slickest, most hassle-free approach is the most secure. But this almost never sells. Meanwhile, I see vendor after vendor successfully selling products that exist only to irritate users. ~~~ tialaramex There was a recent discussion on HN that branches into this idea about the importance of UX. I agree with you, with a twist. What you want is that the happy path for security is zero hassle, but the unhappy paths should also drop dead with zero hassle. This is the UX I really like for WebAuthn / U2F. All the interactions on the happy path are very smooth. Need a second factor, tap, go. Almost frictionless. On my phone for example you tap the same fingerprint sensor that would ordinarily unlock the phone. Short of not having a second factor at all it couldn't be smoother. But if this is actually a phishing site or you're a crook who doesn't have the hardware token, it just doesn't work. Still low friction in a sense, but low friction failure. There is no way forward, no override, no "I'm sure", nothing - it just won't work. ~~~ nine_k Another unhappy path is very difficult. Your phone got stolen or smashed. Your 2FA is just not available. Welcome to the sea of hassle proving your identity. But a little bit of hassle beforehand, in the form of printing one-time codes and storing them even in your wallet would help dramatically. ~~~ davchana Keep the 2fa code sequences safe in a separate keepass or any password database; & you can move 2fa anytime. Even Google updated its Auth app to export all keys. ~~~ LadyCailin Wait, when? For iPhone? I just checked and don’t see it. ~~~ davchana Oh Sorry, I should had been clear; I use Android. ------ godot On this point: > write passwords down in places that are easy to find (like post-it notes > next to the screen) Writing passwords on post-it notes is often used as a ridicule of non-tech- savvy folks behavior. I'd like to pose this question: If you're doing this not at an office, but at home, is this really so bad? Say you run a web site on AWS and write your really long AWS password on a piece of paper at home. It would take a hacker finding out where you live and breaking into your house to find the piece of paper to access it. On the other hand, your ordinary neighborhood burglars typically care about cash and jewelry in your house, not post-it notes with passwords. It seems those two categories of intruders rarely overlap, unless you're a world famous target. ~~~ Gibbon1 One solution is to use an easy to remember prefix with your passwords and only write down the secure part. Password is mayfly-DyHpE82sd3r3rvr!2sDQ Part you write down is DyHpE82sd3r3rvr!2sDQ ~~~ namdnay I used to write down numerical passwords interspersed number by number with a friends telephone number. Not exactly military grade security but enough to make it non obvious to someone looking through ------ skrebbel I just wanna highlight how nice it is to see a government agency write such a clear, friendly, jargonless, blog-post-style piece of advisory. I hope this is a peek into the future of government communication everywhere. ~~~ lukeramsden For whatever weird reason, despite having completely incompetent governments since the appearance of the internet, our country has world-class digital services. The gov.uk design system[0] is a very good read, especially for people who aren't experienced in UX design. [0] [https://design-system.service.gov.uk/](https://design- system.service.gov.uk/) ~~~ tonyedgecombe A lot of the credit goes to Francis Maude[1], the only MP I've heard talk sensibly about software projects and development practices. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Maude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Maude) ------ canistel Being a Firefox user, I have set dom.event.contextmenu.enabled and dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled set to false, so that I can continue right- clicking and pasting. ~~~ CivBase Is there a way to quickly toggle those on and off? ~~~ gear54rus Why do you need to toggle them? Isn't pasting and right clicking useful everywhere? ~~~ function_seven Some SPAs and other sites have useful right click actions that I want to preserve. Does this setting disable those? (For the pasting, I agree with you. I can't think of a single reason I'd want a website to prevent me from pasting) ~~~ canistel You do not end up losing those. Both the popup menus - the site's as well as the browser's - are shown, the latter on top of the former. Press Esc to make your browser's vanish, and you still have the site's available. ~~~ function_seven Thanks. I just toggled both of those settings. ------ api So much of main line security practice is cargo cultism. There is so little use of actual research and data on how compromises actually happen. Somebody just gets the idea something is good for security and it sticks. No rationale needed. ~~~ dangus Related to this, every security team I’ve ever interacted with barely knows how to work a computer and mostly operates off of commercially purchased scanning tools and security agents. My theory is that security is the least desirable part of the entire software engineering stack - it’s boring, has a lot of blame and liability potential, and it’s a cost center. Heck at least infrastructure folks get to brag about things like cost optimizations. As a result it seems to me that security attracts the kind of people who view it as a way to wear a digital uniform and badge. ~~~ sl1ck731 I recently started a CISSP course and discovered this. I was so excited to finally be getting into security and the next thing I know I'm 3 hours into recordings about pointless jargon and control taxonomies. I know there is a place for the latter at least, but it isn't something I want to do everyday. ~~~ SCHiM Pivot to OSCP instead. CISSP will have you learn the required strength of a light bulb to light the alley behind the office. OSCP will introduce you to overflowing a buffer and pwning a remote service... I know which one I find preferable to learn :) ------ floatingsmoke Also let them fill their credentials in a single form. Two-step login makes password managers experience terrible. ~~~ jondwillis I have noticed many implementations appear to be able to capture the password and have it auto-filled, or maybe my password managers are somehow able to handle them. I’m not against it when it works like that, as there are sometimes valid reasons for the design. ------ philsnow Instead of resorting to a browser extension[0], consider solving this with something like autohotkey, alfred, hammerspoon, etc. This is my hammerspoon config that lets me do this, it's like 7 lines but could just as easily be 1 line: [https://gist.github.com/philsnow/48ae8a31f7e063b23d4013470f0...](https://gist.github.com/philsnow/48ae8a31f7e063b23d4013470f071783) Benefit: works across all browsers, even daffy embedded (electron) ones where it's inconvenient to install extensions. [0] every browser extension you install that has a broad permissions manifest is a liability; when they get popular, the authors start receiving offers of money from sketchy people in exchange for adding 'extra' bits of JS ------ dang Discussed quite a bit at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14366825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14366825) ------ mrtnmcc Seems a plausible concern that malware on the PC can access the clipboard, so they discourage copying their password into clipboard. But intercepting keystrokes to another program (at least in Windows) doesn't require any special permissions either. Would the concern more be background web tabs (cross-site) accessing the global clipboard? Vaguely recall that was possible a long time ago but likely locked down now. ~~~ geofft As the article points out, for malicious sites that was true on IE 6 but no longer, and for malicious local software you have bigger problems. ~~~ mrtnmcc Thanks, didn't notice the popouts in the page. That's right.. IE6 was the menace. ------ spicyramen One of the most useful changes to usability is displaying your password...when using mobile is a great advantage. Pasting can be useful in the mobile case as well. As sometimes typing in cellphones is not the easiest thing to do ------ tony-allan My simple response. Stop using websites and apps that prevent pasting because it implies that the website or app has no idea how to secure their website or app properly. ~~~ callalex The web is unfortunately too ubiquitous for this approach. If I get hired by someone, I have to use the website they chose for pay stubs, or health insurance descriptions, or direct deposit configuration, or stock option distribution, or many other life-essential services that an individual has absolutely no control of. Sure I can complain to HR, but it will fall on deaf ears that were sold by a shitty SaaS pitch that made some loser’s life mildly easier in return for a subscription payment. And that’s not even touching all of the government websites that behave in this way. ------ gorgoiler Ahhh, guess the age of the graffiti. Far more likely, these days: const q = document.querySelector; q(‘#password’).onpaste = e => e.preventDefault(); ------ wltprgm My piece of advie: Don't take your brain memory for granted In this era of information technology everyone is bombarded with tons of data that they don't know how to think and memorize Thinking and memorizing can strengthen your brain muscles but people hate exercising their bodies and their brains I do use keepass for managing different passwords, but I kind of memorize most of them, only open keepass for storing them in case I ever forget ~~~ iso1631 How on earth could I remember random complex passwords I use once a year? I can memorise af58f916cc0cb22193c18f02d3c1cc3e easily, but once you work out (perhaps a keylogger) why that's my paypal password, my google password of 68b31385067f73977c6007cefcddbe74 falls quickly ~~~ searchableguy I think that's a bit of a stretch. You can use rememberable long phrases. Back in 2012, my facebook password was _idontunderstandthepointofonlinefriends2011_. I don't think it's easy to forget something like that. ~~~ iso1631 The quoted passwords are md5 sums of _paypalformyusername_ and _googleformyusername_ Easy to remember, and you'd have to be very determined to get the link between them even if both were compromised, but if the plain text version was compromised then it would compromise the entire system That's the most secure system I can think of which doesn't involve remembering thousands of complex random passwords. Sure I can remember "correcthorsebatterystaple", but can I remember which 4 words for which specific site? ------ based2 [https://askubuntu.com/questions/287444/how-to-clean-the- clip...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/287444/how-to-clean-the-clipboard) [https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=286096](https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=286096) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60937438/how-to-clear- th...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60937438/how-to-clear-the- clipboard-in-debian-buster-via-terminal) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48490382/how-to-clear- bo...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48490382/how-to-clear-both- clipboards-securely-in-gnome-from-python) ------ ddevault If I had my way, we'd remove all event listeners from <input> and <textarea> and <select> entirely. ~~~ clarry If I had my way, there'd be no scripts on the web. ------ zamalek Some password manager browser extensions circumvent password paste prevention, so that's worth looking into. ~~~ jimmaswell I've resorted to autohotkey keyboard shortcuts to simulate typing in credentials at times. When I had to log into this one vpn for work I even used to have it open the 2fa app, click the button to copy the code, open the vpn app, enter all the fields, and log in all from one keyboard shortcut. ~~~ Gibbon1 I've long thought you should be able to use a hot key + insecure password to generate a strong time limited password. Insecure password could be just the website domain name for all it matters. You can have the keyboard handle everything ------ RyanShook What password manager do you use? Have been using Avast PW Manager but appears to no longer be maintained. ~~~ ChrisSD KeePassXC, LastPass, Bitwarden and 1Password are the major ones. ~~~ 6c696e7578 KeePassXC is my current favourite. Some of the keyboard shortcuts don't seem the same as KeePass though. Nice piece of software though. ------ gitgud Is that first image real? I don't think I've ever seen JavaScript graffiti before... ~~~ hanche Highly unlikely, I think. The letters are too crisp. And the way the text follows the corners, while cleverly done, don’t reflect the way real graffiti would be done. ------ mmcnl I've never encountered a website that prevented me from pasting a password. Is this truly a thing? ~~~ viraptor [https://www.ing.com.au/securebanking/](https://www.ing.com.au/securebanking/) for example. They even scramble the keypad and vary the last 2 bits of the colour, so you need to do an approximate match on the buttons. Still takes maybe 40 lines of python to automate the login.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Homes vs Stocks - jasonlbaptiste http://blogmaverick.com/2008/11/11/homes-vs-stocks/ ====== jleyank Based on my depressingly long experience, I would say that if you can easily switch jobs w/o moving, and you like the area, you should consider a house. Better customization options, the chance to create equity, better credit picture, etc. If, however, you CAN'T switch jobs w/o moving, you might be daft to purchase - the damn things are somewhat to rather illiquid (particularly right now) and there's all sorts of years maintenance you have to do as an owner. Like everything, it's a business/risk decision that you have to make based on your career and aspirations. Me, I overspecialized too much doing stuff I like to do. When the jobs are on the other side of the country, the choices aren't all that nice with a house... ------ joubert The author seems to think it is intrinsically _bad_ to be a renter for life. Why? ~~~ JeffL Owning a house is just so much more expensive than renting if the value isn't going up at insane rates. You have to pay for insurance, taxes, repairs, etc. It seems to me that the "extra" cost that people pay to own their own house is simply the premium created by nice aspects of owning your own house. Whether or not that premium is worth paying is a personal choice. ~~~ anamax If you're renting, who do you think is paying the insurance, taxes, repairs, etc? Yup - you, the renter. The only time that you're not is when the house is appreciating fast enough to cover those things and the rental market is for some reason depressed. However, if house prices are appreciating, lots of folks are being priced out of buying, which makes them renters, pushing up rental prices. Businesses that don't pay all of their expenses plus some profit don't stay around long. (If there's no profit, there's no point in spending the time or tying up the capital. T-bills are a safer and less expensive way to do nothing.) ~~~ JeffL Well, in the case of renting, I'm currently renting a house that was originally bought when the housing prices were less than half of what they are now, so I'm indirectly paying only half the property tax that I would be paying if I were to buy the same house. Also, I personally know several people who buy houses and rent them for less than the mortgage, let alone all the other costs because they are hoping to make their money back on real estate appreciation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Automatic bullet point notes in real time [video] - sudotong We did a livestream on Facebook where our model is running in real time on the interview.<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/udotong/videos/10214047632934326/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/udotong/videos/10214047632934326/</a><p>Thoughts on where this would be the most valuable? ====== lifeisstillgood Without a doubt focus on enterprise phone conferences - instant minutes for a meeting and action points to follow up. You could even have a "hey notetaker - paul to write the report". The privacy issue you need to work on but that's the area I would focus on. ~~~ sudotong Privacy is definitely one of our priorities. We aim to be super transparent, but in general we think that privacy might be less of an issue for outbound (sales, recruiting, interviews). Perhaps there's a niche segment within enterprise phone conferences where privacy is less important and the value is immense? ~~~ lifeisstillgood It's not privacy they care about - it's confidentiality. I mean they are using other teleco services anyway, they jut _trust_ those telcos. Find a way to build that trust. ------ melody2334 [https://keep.com/u/nba_live/](https://keep.com/u/nba_live/) ~~~ sudotong Hahah interesting!! We could run it on live events and show the tl;dr notes for those that want to catch up. It is always annoying to catch up on a live video while it's happening ~~~ sudotong Or I guess tl;dw ------ eightysixfour Cool tech and the demo was pretty impressive. My first thought is integrated into CRMs that have call functions - taking notes is an important part of the sales process that many people struggle with. ~~~ sudotong Thanks! We've been working hard on the core tech for almost a year now. We also found the sales use case to be really relevant ([https://fireflies.ai/sales-notes](https://fireflies.ai/sales-notes)). It'd be awesome to integrate directly into the call function! ------ josephmerz This is pretty damn cool. Slack integration and team member delegation would be good too. Makes you wonder about its lifespan though ~~~ sudotong What do you mean by lifespan? But yes I totally agree, Slack integration + assigning follow up items is on the road map. We previously built a PM AI for Slack: [https://fireflies.ai/project-management](https://fireflies.ai/project- management) ------ bradknowles Hmm. Got a non-FB link for that video? ~~~ sudotong Yeah! [https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0yDGhghdX8Mc1dVZUVUS0JwZGs...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0yDGhghdX8Mc1dVZUVUS0JwZGs/view)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
We built a new social media experience, but we need help testing it - jarredkenny Hello Hacker News,<p>We are a group of second year computer science students who have spent our summer developing a new and different social media experience.<p>We have just launched our beta phase and would appreciate any feedback you might have regarding design choices, functionality, user experience, or anything else you may notice.<p>You can find our site here: http://rankopolis.com/<p>Thanks! ====== byoung2 I get an exception when I try to view the page: ErrorException Trying to get property of non-object (View: /home/forge/rankopolis.com/app/views/pages/dashboard.blade.php) ~~~ jarredkenny Thank you, just caught some bugs in our preview feature and are fixing them now.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How we’re changing Colombia through open-source communities - robermiranda https://medium.com/colombia-dev/how-we-re-changing-colombia-through-open-source-communities-and-why-we-need-your-help-7825a9fd020e ====== sksksk I recently moved from London to Bogotá to work as a software engineer at a startup. I think it's a really great scene, while the tech community isn't as big as it is in London, there is definitely and air of optimism and growth here. ------ egusa everyone mentioned in the article is doing great work in Colombia. juan pablo, the author, has been really important to the developer movement (from another entrepreneur's perspective from medellin)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lisp Macros, Delayed Evaluation and the Evolution of Smalltalk - mpweiher https://blog.metaobject.com/2019/03/lisp-macros-delayed-evaluation-and.html ====== lispm That's a common misconception that Lisp macros are mostly used to 'delay' evaluation. What Smalltalk calls 'blocks' are just (anonymous) functions in Lisp. Books like SICP explain in detail how to use that for delayed evaluation in Lisp/Scheme: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/book/book-Z-H-24.html#%_sec_3.5) ~~~ reitzensteinm What are lisp macros for if not to delay evaluation? I assume you're making a distinction between purpose and mechanism here? I've always understood the semantics to be: fn: (a b c) => (call a (eval b) (eval c)) mac: (a b c) => (eval (call a b c)) ~~~ lispm That might be more like what was called an FEXPR mechanism in some early Lisps or some niche Lisps, or even in languages like R. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fexpr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fexpr) When an FEXPR is called, it gets unevaluated args and can then at runtime decide what to do. Macros OTOH are a different mechanism, where expressions get rewritten at macro expansion time, which can be for example at compile time. The macro then gets called with arbitrary expressions it encloses (those don't need to be valid code by themselves) and computes new source. Thus macros are code generators from expressions. In a compiled implementation, macro expansion is done with compilation interleaved: each form gets expanded, even repeatedly until it no longer expands into a macro, and then the resulting non-macro form gets compiled. Thus in a way a macro does not delay execution, it does the opposite: it actually shifts computation to compile time -> the computation of code from expressions and the computation of arbitrary side effects in the compile-time environment. In an interpreter version of Lisp, the macro gets also expanded at runtime - but in its own macroexpansion during evaluation. There eval will call the macroexpander repeatedly until it gets a non-macro form. Now, what can you do with arbitrary complex code generators at compile time? [https://stackoverflow.com/a/2563308/69545](https://stackoverflow.com/a/2563308/69545) Actually Paul Graham wrote a classical Lisp book explaining a bunch of things around macros. Available here for download: [http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html) The classic Lisp article which motivated the move from FEXPRs to macros: [https://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Special- Forms.html](https://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Special-Forms.html) ~~~ reitzensteinm I don't think what I wrote is a FEXPR, which doesn't evaluate the result of the function call. I'm having a hard time parsing what you wrote or any of the sources you linked in such a way that says the semantics of macros differs from what I wrote (certainly the implementation gets a lot more complex and there are subtleties). ~~~ lispm That's why I wrote 'more like'. Given that you haven't defined any semantics of your operators, it's more like a guess. Not sure if this helps you. But let's define a macro A: CL-USER 32 > (defmacro a (b c) (print (list :macro-expansion b c)) (list 'print (list 'quote (list :runtime :b b :c c)))) A This macro does two things: it prints something at macro expansion time and then generates some code it returns as a value. Now we can use this macro in some code: CL-USER 33 > (defun test () (a 21 42)) TEST If we now compile the function, the macro gets executed and prints something: CL-USER 34 > (compile 'test) (:MACRO-EXPANSION 21 42) TEST NIL NIL We can also call the macroexpander independent of the compiler. The we a) get the side effect of the print statement and we see the result: CL-USER 35 > (macroexpand '(a 20 30)) (:MACRO-EXPANSION 20 30) (PRINT (QUOTE (:RUNTIME :B 20 :C 30))) T At runtime we call the test function: CL-USER 36 > (test) (:RUNTIME :B 21 :C 42) ; <- the printed output (:RUNTIME :B 21 :C 42) ; print also returns its arg Thus all the macro expansions have been done at compile time and we have generated some code there. No macro expansion at runtime. Thus it has to do with code generation and code execution at macro expansion - nothing about 'delaying' something. The example isn't useful, but imagine a macro INFIX (infix a * b + c) which rewrites the expression to the Lisp expression: (+ (* a b) c) There is nothing about 'delaying' -> it's just rewriting the form. Ideally at compile time. There are many other examples which do something different. ~~~ hibbelig A normal function call evaluates the arguments and then calls the function. Because macro expansion does something before evaluating the arguments, you can say that evaluating the arguments has been delayed. I feel this is just looking at the same thing from two different directions. Of course, macro expansion does _more_ than just delaying the evaluation of the arguments, and if people say that macros delay evaluating the arguments, you might think that's all they do. ~~~ lispm > Because macro expansion does something before evaluating the arguments It does something independent of evaluation. When the code gets compiled, the macroexpander already has transformed the code. The code might never be evaluated in this Lisp. It might be written to disk and later be loaded into another Lisp. If something does not get evaluated, gets evaluated later, gets always evaluated or never -> that depends on the generated code. Thus 'delaying' something is the wrong idea and it limits the imagination of what macros are used for. Think of 'general code transformation', often independent of execution in a compilation phase. ------ j-pb Lambdas are about delayed evaluation. Macros are about disabling evaluation. Lisp code is just an abstract syntax tree notation format (s-exps) that comes with default evaluation semantics. Macros allow you to disable those evaluation semantics to reuse the AST for a different programming language. So for example to add pattern matching facilities to the language, you come up with a syntax and its representation in s-exp AST and then write a macro that describes the unification operation using the default semantics. Same for logic programming or any other paradigm not initially supportet. Languages like clojure also bootstrap quite a bit of the language from a simpler to implement dialect. (look at all the functions with a * in clj source they're the base language) ~~~ lispm lambdas are anonymous functions. Macros are code transformers. Lisp code is not an AST. ~~~ j-pb Different name for the same thing, whats your point? Lambdas/AF are used to delay evaluation but keep the default semantics. Macros are more than simple code transformers, that wording somehow implies that they somehow retain the semantics of the data passed to them, which mighy be the case but is not required at all. S-Expressions are just a serialisation format for the m-expression AST. ~~~ lispm Lambdas are just functions. Delaying functionality is just one use of functions. > that wording somehow implies that they somehow retain the semantics of the > data passed to them Since they can do arbitrary transformations, retaining semantics is not in focus. Since the input may not have any semantics defined, the semantics is actually provided via the macro implementation. > S-Expressions are just a serialisation format for the m-expression AST. S-expressions know nothing about 'syntax'. Thus they can't be an 'abstract syntax tree'. (3 4 +) is a valid s-expression, but carries no information about any syntax (what is the + ? in an s-expression it's just a symbol) and is also an invalid Lisp expression. An abstract syntax tree would be the result of parsing a program according to some grammar and it would represent the syntactic categories. The parsing stage would already eliminate invalid programs of that programming language. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Ab...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Abstract_syntax_tree_for_Euclidean_algorithm.svg/800px- Abstract_syntax_tree_for_Euclidean_algorithm.svg.png) In Lisp it is important that the s-expression is NOT a syntax tree. Otherwise it would be difficult to write macros which violate Lisp syntax. ~~~ agumonkey I know you're rigorous and mostly right, but you forget to admit that for most practical uses s-exps encode trees and are used as ad-hoc AST's. People just make implicit grammars based on spec like predicate patterns. ~~~ j-pb He's not even right. He's pseudo rigorous to support is CL zealot trolling. He made it far enough into the wikipedia article to find a graphic that pseudo supports his claim, but not far enough to actually read the definition of an Abstract Syntax Tree (the thing we talk about) vs Concrete Syntax Tree (the thing he talks about). > This distinguishes abstract syntax trees from concrete syntax trees, > traditionally designated parse trees, which are typically built by a parser > during the source code translation and compiling process. ~~~ lispm You might want to reread the Wikipedia article and tone down a bit: Check out the abstract syntax tree on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree It has a node which is a BRANCH and which has three relations CONDITION, IF- BODY, ELSE-BODY. In an s-expression this is just (if (> a b) (setq a (- a b)) (setq b (- b a)) Thus there is no representation that IF is a branching expression, there is no representation that A and B are variables. There is no representation that > is a compare op. And so on. The s-expressions are just nested lists of tokens without any idea what the tokens refers to or what language construct it stands for. All we know is what the tokens are and a hierarchy. A is a symbol, but what kind we don't know: it could be a data object, a variable name, a function name, a goto tag, a name of a class, a name of a type, ...). In the abstract syntax tree the > is identified as a compare op, IF is identified as a branch, A is identified as a variable identifier, ... The Lisp reader also does not create that information. It just creates a data structure, which could be anything, any kind of data. ------ User23 Algol 60 is wildly underappreciated, and pass by name[1] is a great example. [1] [http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~cameron/Teaching/383/PassByName.html](http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~cameron/Teaching/383/PassByName.html) Edit: An elementary error is to assume that call by name is equivalent to pass by reference. It's not. ~~~ mpweiher "Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors" \- Hoare [http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/algol60.htm](http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/algol60.htm) ------ supernintendo Macros work much better in homoiconic languages like Lisp than they do in other languages. Most of the code I write these days is in Elixir and I avoid macros unless absolutely necessary. The benefits generally don't outweigh the (long-term) costs. ~~~ lispm One of the differences between macros in Lisp and some other languages which provide macros is that the expressions themselves don't need to be valid code in some programming language -> they don't get parsed by a language parser upfront. Thus I can write a postfix macro and then write code like this: (postfix 2 3 + 3 ) even though Lisp requires code to be nested prefix expressions. Some other languages won't allow this, because the expression 2 3 + 3 is not legal in their language. Thus it only may allow macro transformations from legal expressions to other legal expressions... ~~~ mpweiher > don't need to be valid code Yes. One of the examples from the talk was a comment macro. Very cool (and the talk was about fun/cool stuff, not about practicalities). The question is whether you want that sort of power in day-to-day programming. My guess is no. That's also what the PARC/LRG folks found out with Smalltalk-72. It's also something I hear from some very seasoned LISP hackers. It's also the sense I am getting from these very powerful DSL/LOP workbenches. From TFA: _The reason the question is relevant is, of course, that although it is fun to play around with powerful mechanisms, we should always use the least powerful mechanism that will accomplish our goal, as it will be easier to program with, easier to understand, easier to analyse and build tools for, and easier to maintain._ It's also why I use the C pre-processor _very reluctantly_. Though I do use it. From time to time. And then try to get rid of that use if I can[1] And no need to explain how much better LISP macros are :-) In a sense, like Smalltalk, LISP may be just too powerful, in the words of Alan Kay "Lisps frequently 'eat their children'" so that there's always an answer (use a macro) that will cut off an interesting question. [1] [https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/11/refactoring-towards- lang...](https://blog.metaobject.com/2018/11/refactoring-towards- language.html) ~~~ m00natic "we should always use the least powerful mechanism that will accomplish our goal" I like this when implementing something for non proficient users. But when it comes to providing tools for (supposedly) advanced users, like programmers... There's late-"socialism" joke in Bulgaria: "thrift is mother of misery". A designer doesn't know ahead of time what problems "creative" users will face long term. Providing a set of simplest mechanisms for today's challenges would possibly constrain them in the future - combination of multiple mechanisms in ways not foreseen may add large incidental complexity (like OO design patterns). Which could be avoided if less by count but more powerful mechanisms were used in first place. Macros have main role in keeping Common Lisp relevant to the latest paradigm hypes despite the standard being set in stone. Opposite to this, for example, C++ must keep introducing piles of new least-powerful mechanisms to keep pace. ~~~ mpweiher >> ... _use_ the least powerful mechanism ... > ... _providing_ tools ... Use ≠ provide. :-) See: _The Rule of Least Power_ , Tim Berners-Lee [https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/leastPower.html](https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/leastPower.html) See also: _Rule of least expressiveness_ When programming a component, the right computation model for the component is the least expressive model that results in a natural program. From _Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming_ , Peter van Roy, [https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html](https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html) ~~~ m00natic I was more after > The question is whether you want that sort of power in day-to-day > programming It's good to use the least powerful mechanism, no doubt. But it seems you are trying to sneak the usual "macros are too powerful for everyday use" so better be left out of a language altogether? I think when the storm comes - you'd better be equipped. Having varied ways to tackle problems (and macros are sort of linguistic abstraction orthogonal to lambda calculus/Turing machine derived toolboxes) allows for less complex solutions. ~~~ mpweiher > sneak the usual "macros are too powerful for everyday use" Not trying to "sneak" anything, I openly say that language design, which is what macro usage is, is not something you should have to engage in everyday. In fact, I would turn it around: if you have to (repeatedly) resort to language design in your everyday programming, your programming language is (woefully) inadequate. Most are. Which is why the reasons for hitting that boundary interest me: where do I have to resort to metaprogramming, why, and what can I do about it? What non- metaprongramming facilities are missing here so that I don't have to resort to metaprogramming? And if I don't want to just add those facilities to the base, which I don't, what mechanisms can I add to the language so that users of the language can use plain, non-meta mechanisms to provide those facilities themselves? This is a bit tricky, but I am making good progress using a software architectural approach[1], with frequent surprises as to how much simpler things can be. > left out of a language altogether? Quite the contrary. I think "escape hatches" (metaprogramming) are fundamental and your everyday language(s) should be built 100% on top of those mechanisms. Heck, I named my company "metaobject"[2] 20 years ago, after _The Art of Metaobject Protocol_. [1] [http://objective.st/](http://objective.st/) [2] [http://www.metaobject.com/](http://www.metaobject.com/) ------ syastrov Scala has implemented support for async-await syntax using its experimental macros: [https://docs.scala-lang.org/sips/async.html](https://docs.scala- lang.org/sips/async.html) Just an example of how powerful macros can be. They also have an example in their docs about implementing printf using a macro so that formatting parameters are typechecked. ------ panzerklein There is whole set of "with-x" macros that aren't about delayed evaluation. ~~~ User23 What's the with-x macro that isn't providing dynamic extent, that is, delaying execution of some cleanup logic? ~~~ bluefox Consider for example CL:WITH-SLOTS, or CL-WHO:WITH-HTML-OUTPUT... such macros establish context, and are not really about delaying evaluation. On Lisp has a section about uses of macros, which is not exhaustive, but shows there's more to them than "delayed evaluation". ------ stevelosh Lisp user here. I'll chime in with another example of using macros for more than just delaying evaluation. I wrote a library called Chancery[1] for procedurally generating strings (and other data). It's inspired by Tracery[2] but takes advantage of macros to make it easier to read and feel more like part of the language. I use it to write stupid Twitter bots like [https://twitter.com/git_commands](https://twitter.com/git_commands) and [https://twitter.com/rpg_shopkeeper](https://twitter.com/rpg_shopkeeper) for fun. As an example let's say we want to generate a message about the loot we receive from a monster in a fantasy, D&D-style story. Maybe we'll start with some random weapons: (chancery:define-string weapon-type "sword" "spear" "lance" "flail" "mace") (weapon-type) ; => "mace" (weapon-type) ; => "sword" This expands like so: (macroexpand-1 '(chancery:define-string weapon-type "sword" "spear" "lance" "flail" "mace")) ; => (DEFUN WEAPON-TYPE () (CASE (CHANCERY::CHANCERY-RANDOM 5) (0 "sword") (1 "spear") (2 "lance") (3 "flail") (4 "mace"))) This simple case actually _could_ be done just by delaying evaluation, as long as we get every body clause as a separate thunk. Now let's define a rule for generating the material of a weapon: (chancery:define-string (weapon-material :distribution :weighted) (100 "iron") (40 "steel") (5 "silver") (4 "gold") (1 "adamantine")) This will generate the materials according to a weighted distribution, and macroexpands to: (DEFUN WEAPON-MATERIAL () (CASE (CHANCERY::WEIGHTLIST-RANDOM #<CHANCERY::WEIGHTLIST ((100 0) (40 1) ...)>) (0 "iron") (1 "steel") (2 "silver") (3 "gold") (4 "adamantine"))) This case needs more than just delayed evaluation. If you receive `(100 "iron")` as an opaque thunk, where all you can do is evaluate it, there's no way to pull out the weight and body components. If we add a few more rules, we can see more cases where we need to go beyond delayed evaluation: (defun currency-amount () (+ 10 (random 100))) (chancery:define-string (currency-type :distribution :zipf) "copper" "silver" "gold" "platinum") (chancery:define-string loot #((weapon-material weapon-type) chancery:a) (currency-amount currency-type "coins")) (chancery:define-string discovery ("You open the chest and find" loot :. ".") ("You find" loot "in the monster's hidden stash.") ("You find nothing but dust and cobwebs.")) (discovery) ; => "You find nothing but dust and cobwebs." (discovery) ; => "You find an iron sword in the monster's hidden stash." (discovery) ; => "You find 61 copper coins in the monster's hidden stash." (discovery) ; => "You open the chest and find a steel sword." Macroexpanding the last one: (DEFUN DISCOVERY () (CASE (CHANCERY::CHANCERY-RANDOM 3) (0 (CHANCERY::JOIN-STRING "You open the chest and find" (PRINC-TO-STRING #\ ) (LOOT) ".")) (1 (CHANCERY::JOIN-STRING "You find" (PRINC-TO-STRING #\ ) (LOOT) (PRINC-TO-STRING #\ ) "in the monster's hidden stash.")) (2 (CHANCERY::JOIN-STRING "You find nothing but dust and cobwebs.")))) Here we can see the macro walking the lists and doing different things to each element: strings are included raw, symbols are turned into function calls, and the special keyword :. suppresses the usual joining space character inserted between everything. There's also some special handling of vectors, in the LOOT example, which I won't go into. This is more than just delayed evaluation — we're inspecting the actual structure of the code received by the macro at macroexpansion time. If all we had were an opaque thunk that we could evaluate later, we couldn't do this. Delayed evaluation is enough for certain kinds of abstraction, like writing basic control structures, but isn't as powerful as full macros. Macros let you transform arbitrary code into other arbitrary code using the full power of the language. [1]: [https://sjl.bitbucket.io/chancery/](https://sjl.bitbucket.io/chancery/) [2]: [http://tracery.io/](http://tracery.io/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Share your code poetry - pedrogrande http://www.codetry.com ====== RYUUSEiiSTAR I think you meant <http://codetry.org/> some of them are pretty cute ------ andyajna That's right RYUUSEiiSTAR! its <http://codetry.org>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
My ImpromptuDo reddit ad by the numbers - djb_hackernews http://impromptudo.tumblr.com/post/3984362470/my-impromptudo-reddit-ad-by-the-numbers ====== crazydil add a list as well...not easy to see everything on the map...maybe like a list you can maximize on one side where you can see a short description of the event for you to see if it grabs your attention! -neel devunlimited.com ------ Smirnoff please change the name. ImpromptuDo is just hard to read or spell :( ~~~ djb_hackernews Really? The only feedback I've gotten on the name has been really positive. Hmm. Thanks for the feedback though, I'll keep it in mind. ~~~ Smirnoff Just like Jason Calacanis says: "If you have to spell your name over the phone several times, then you need to get rid of the name." But again, I am not American, so I might be missing something in the name.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How I Spent A Million Bucks And Ended Up With These Two Chairs. - merrick33 http://blog.mixergy.com/how-i-spent-a-million-bucks-and-ended-up-with-these-two-chairs/ ====== callmeed Keep your costs down, sure ... sort of a basic lesson Cal me crazy, but I'm really skeptical about this author in general ... why is it so hard to find info about his previous $30MM revenue business? What exactly did Bradford & Reed do–and how much was it acquired for? I see mentions of greeting cards and games ... but no mentions of any actual profit or acquisition details. I'm starting to feel like the startup world is becoming inundated with people who _just want to sell stuff to startup founders_ (be it books, info, their name or whatever). Frankly, its getting old. Yes, startup founders need solid advice and lessons from those who have done it before. But, for God's sake, use some discretion when it comes to the source of your advice. ~~~ menloparkbum _the startup world is becoming inundated with people who just want to sell stuff to startup founders_ He's part of the parallel universe in silicon valley (physically, and in spirit) of people who hold seminars, arrange mixers, make blogs, write twitter posts, and generally act as a big sideshow and social group for 2nd rate startups and their entourages. It's a surreal place filled with the same people at every event (and linked on every blog or re-tweeted on every tweet) who seem like they must be important, but aren't. Sometimes worlds collide and Tim Ferris does a talk at Google (or TED - WTF?) or Tara Hunt doles out free beer at a conference room at Yahoo!... In my experience unless your girlfriend is working for one of their boutique PR firms you can safely avoid everything about this world. ~~~ rjurney I'm coming to do a geek/startup tour of silicon valley... can you recommend any events/groups that don't suck? Because what you're describing sounds pretty similar to the worst of our local networking groups, and I get really irritated when I show up for one and its a bunch of guys trying to sell me management consulting and a 'startup' speaker that made millions selling used hardware. ~~~ menloparkbum It's hard for me to recommend anything, because I don't feel like I've gotten much out of the good events I've gone to. I'm not really an event guy. I'd probably be more useful in the negative for particular cases, like "that one sucks - definitely DON'T go to that one." Also - I haven't gone to any of these things for almost a year. That said, SuperHappyDevHouse is the only event that is genuinely hacker oriented. Some of the particular tech specific meetups I've been to have had good presentations. If you really want to network it's probably best to figure out where your favorite startups go out to drink beer on Fridays. If you're looking for hackerish, generally interesting things to do, events like Maker Faire are pretty good. ~~~ rjurney So you wouldn't recommend the entrepreneur educational events Stanford organizes? The tech stuff we have here, somewhat, although I'll be there for the Hadoop Summit. Was hoping to get a glimpse into people making all these connections that the valley is supposed to offer a startup. Gonna catch an open coffee, but still looking for things to do relating to startup/biz side of things. I'm not looking to network for anything in particular so much as get a good sense of the environment. ~~~ menloparkbum Oh, actually that kind of thing sounds cool. I just haven't been. Stanford is great and is worth going to an event there if you're in the area. ~~~ rjurney But you're saying that cocktail hour by Blanko.com would not be a great networking event as it would be characterized by wanton douschebaggery? I'm trying to catch some of those too, just to experience them. Sorry to pick your brain, but I'm 'exploring' valley/provincial market differences for fun. Which groups suck? :) ------ zandorg Jerry Yang slept under his desk, Amazon had door desks. I tried to emulate Yang by renting an office - I wanted to sleep nights in it. But I chickened out and continued to work from my bedroom (a UK equivalent of a USA garage). ~~~ zaidf I never understood how someone ACTUALLY sleeps "under" a desk:p My desks have too many power cords to make any kinda sleep possible. I went with this: <http://zaid.posterous.com/me-office-and-bed> ------ stuff4ben A great lesson we should all learn from. His mistake was in thinking that money could buy him prestige, power, and respect. It hardly ever works. ~~~ noodle i would agree with this statement if it said "money alone". money's a tool, and if you put it in the hands of someone who deserves prestige/power/respect, someone wise/thoughtful/intelligent, it could potentially speed along that process faster than it would happen without it (if used wisely). /$0.02 ~~~ numbchuckskills I would disagree. I would suggest that this dude is a tool, and that money is just fine. ------ omarchowdhury He doesn't even say what business this was for. And don't tell me it was for Bradford & Reed... why would they need to impress clients - why are clients even going to a Manhattan corporate office to buy greeting cards? ~~~ AndrewWarner Good question. Wish I asked that at the time. My clients were the sponsors who bought my ads. Like you said, they hardly ever came to NYC to meet. Pretty much all my business was done by phone or I flew to a clients' office. But when I had a dinky office in Queens, one of my clients came to see me. And I was embarrassed when he saw my office. And instead of being smart and dismissing it, I magnified the incident in my head. ------ antidaily If he sold the rest of the furniture he bought with the million, then presumably he has/had that money too. ~~~ Retric It was an ambiguous statement; the implication was the loss of value for that venture was a million, with the only benefit being 2 chairs. I don't think a floor in Manhattan + retail cost of furniture + a decorator is going to be cheap even if you sublet the space and sell the furniture. (Then again subletting might have been a net gain.) ------ prewett There's an observation in value investing that if a company buys a gorgeous new headquarters the stock is going to do poorly, presumably for similar reasons as this guy. I think it was Peter Lynch who commented on this. ------ vang3lis 404	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Want to Do Business in Silicon Valley? Better Act Nice - atlasunshrugged https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/style/oh-behave.html ====== purple_ducks I don't see the issue here. Would we be so hard on him if he was knowledgeable about blood testing and had tweeted about Theranos when they ultimately failed? The less silence is the norm, the better. We need people to publicly call out bullshit when they see it (at least he waited until they failed rather than when they were trying to succeed) Some people who thought they knew better than actual experts failed and took 174m of somebody else's money with them. It benefits certain angels & early stage VCs to have a culture of relentless optimism and fantasy in the face of reality, and to ensure silence is forced on everyone except those who succeed. ------ Bostonian I don't understand what Palmer did wrong. When a business fails, we should try to understand why, so that others don't throw away time and money making the same mistakes. ~~~ sharkmerry Perhaps just the smugness of the tweet and the fact that is just was patting himself on the back and reveling in the failure of others? And his argument, "disrupting school was a terrible strategy" but doesnt elaborate why.. [https://twitter.com/educationpalmer/status/11449091634594816...](https://twitter.com/educationpalmer/status/1144909163459481601) "$174M lessons here. We passed on @Altschool multiple times, mainly because disrupting school was a terrible strategy, but also b/c founders didn’t understand #edtech is all about partnering w/existing districts, schools and educators (not just “product”)" ~~~ blackflame7000 Yea if HN is any indicator, people do not like smugness. Just post something slightly condescending and watch it get downvoted to oblivion. ~~~ sharkmerry I dont notice the same thing but we could be looking at different articles/comments on here. anyways, i think the real issue here is just the emptiness of it. Anyone can brag they knew (or pretend they knew) that a business would fail after it already did. and hes not providing insight. Just, it was "Terrible" and they "did it wrong".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
License to not drive: Google’s autonomous car testing center - davidcgl https://medium.com/backchannel/license-to-not-drive-6dbea84b9c45#.os2lwoe8b ====== timothya > _For some time, Google has been convinced that the semiautonomous systems > that others champion (which include various features like collision > prevention, self-parking, and lane control on highways) are actually more > dangerous than the so-called Level Four degree of control, where the car > needs no human intervention. The company is convinced that with cars that > almost but don’t drive themselves, humans will be lulled into devoting > attention elsewhere and unable to take quick control in an emergency._ I think this is a really good perspective. Considering how often drivers are already doing things like using smartphones behind the wheel of non-self- driving cars, I think that sort of activity is only magnified by partial autonomy - which is very dangerous! Humans get distracted or bored easily, especially when completing routine tasks. I'm glad that Google is choosing to build a car that never needs human intervention rather than rushing to market with a partial solution. Here's a video where you can see what distracted teen drivers look like. Terrifying. [http://youtu.be/SDWmwxQ_NnY](http://youtu.be/SDWmwxQ_NnY) ~~~ oska I've seen discussion of this issue in the domain of pilots with commercial airlines. The suggestion was made that because so much of flying is now done by autopilot, pilots' ability to react quickly and appropriately in a real emergency when control is handed back to them has significantly declined. And that we may soon go to completely pilotless airliners which are taken over by ground control in case of emergency. (This would also have the side-benefit of significantly reducing the risk of hijacking). ~~~ cbhl How does this reduce the risk of hijacking? An attacker would just hijack ground control instead. ~~~ jessriedel Ground control is much easier to secure. Instead of having to find a needle (hijacker) in a haystack (the millions of random Americans flying each day) with a 90 second search, you can do proper background checks on the small number of people who are allowed to be there. ~~~ CM30 Until one of those people turns out to be malicious. There is no way to tell what anyone is thinking, or whether they've been spending their time outside of work being slowly corrupted by certain influences. ~~~ jessriedel And yet the rate of terrorist hijackings, although tremendously small, is much larger than the rate at which secret service agents betray the president. ------ ksenzee Google is betting on a system that depends really heavily on detailed mapping. I'd love to know their plan for determining when the map is out of date, because of road construction or whatever. That seems like the hardest part of the whole thing to maintain long-term. ~~~ ghaff AFAIK, pretty much everyone is. That's really been the big shift over the past few years that's allowed for fairly impressive autopilot levels without AIs having to "understand" and parse the world to nearly the degree people do. Presumably vehicles connected to the system will be able to contribute to updates but maintaining current, high resolution maps across a wide area will certainly be a challenge. It's not unreasonable to think that the government could play some role as well as it does for marine navigation. ------ imh In light of all the IoT bugs we've been hearing about, it's really nice to hear that they are being super cautious about development here. I hope they keep the same level of caution (or increase it) as they get close to market. My biggest worry here is that as the different car companies get close to market on SDCs, there will be more pressure on each to hurry. ~~~ thrownaway2424 My biggest worry is that Tesla's half-baked almost-self-driving-but-not-really will hurt someone and cause reactionary anti-self-driving-car laws. ~~~ Animats Tesla is worrisome, but they backed off some on the automation. Everybody else who has Tesla-level autodrive (NHTSB level 2, or lane keeping plus radar cruise control) has sensors to make sure the driver has hands on the wheel, or is at least in the seat and looking forward. Tesla didn't put that in. Hence those scary Youtube videos.[1] Cruise (YC 14) is just scary. They still have that advertising video online [2] that totally oversells what they can do. All they have is lane-keeping and smart cruise control, like the other entry level systems. It's automatic driving from the "move fast and break things" crowd; they're from web and app startups. Google is being cautious and testing heavily. But they're spending enough money to test fast, with many cars on the test track. That's the auto industry way of doing things. It takes money, but not decades, to get it right. The CEO of Volvo has the liability issue right - when in autodrive, the manufacturer is responsible. If you can't accept that, you shouldn't be doing this. [1] [http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-autopilot-fail- video...](http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-autopilot-fail-videos- nobody-likes-to-listen/) [2] [http://www.getcruise.com/](http://www.getcruise.com/) ~~~ ghaff It's hard to come up with examples of consumer tech/products where it's considered just part of the way things are to have an event resulting in serious injury or death even though a properly maintained product was used as directed and there wasn't a clear external factor (e.g. brakes don't work on ice). I suppose some failures due to age. Drug side effects to a degree (but see Vaccine compensation fund). However, in general, such things routinely result in lawsuits in any case. ------ samstave I asked this before: If they need to log many hours of driving and various conditions - why cant they hook the brain of the car up to playing videogames like GTAV and EU truck simulator etc... and have it play thousands and thousands of hours of the game without killing any pedestrians or getting any tickets ~~~ TulliusCicero Something tells me you didn't read the article: > At the end of the shift, the entire log is sent off to an independent triage > team, which runs simulations to see what would have happened had the car > continued autonomously. In fact, even though Google’s cars have autonomously > driven more than 1.3 million miles—routinely logging 10,000 to 15,000 more > every week — they have been tested many times more in software, where it’s > possible to model 3 million miles of driving in a single day. ~~~ samstave Thanks - I hadnt completely finished the article. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Plenary – A privacy focused RSS feed and offline reader app for Android - spians https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spians.plenary ====== spians Hey HN, We've created an RSS feed and offline reader app for android that doesn't show ads/track your activity. The app is a combination of a feature rich RSS reader and an offline article downloader (similar to read it later apps). The app has novel ways to add RSS feeds and has an offline first strategy. Enjoy the app and let us know if you have any questions or what you'd like to see in coming versions!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Meteor (YC S11) gets $9M in funding - dko http://gigaom.com/cloud/scoop-meteor-gets-9m-in-funding/ ====== lr Really awesome. What would be really cool to see is a demo and example code of an app that has authentication, and user-level permissions on the data. These "everyone in the world can update a global list" demos are getting pretty tiring. ------ tbergeron I can't believe this. Really. Meteor is a bunch of open source projects glued together with some of their own libraries. Their package system which is out of npm is completely arbitrary. Why not funding other good projects? There's plenty of better framework/libraries that are massively used by the community. I'm, myself, leading a little node.js framework open source project with similar concepts and I'd never accept to be funded. This isn't a project, there's no revenue opportunities there, it's a tool! Tools help to develop projects which then make a revenue... Some investors have very poor judgement. ~~~ west1737 I really don't understand the negativity. They have an awesome team that's built an awesome product. No, it's not finished (hence the money to hire more engineers) and yes, there are competitors (competition proves market need). I don't know much about how VCs structure their portfolios, but recognizing a need in the market and betting on a badass team seems like a pretty solid strategy to me. As for me, I'm happy for them. I hope they succeed. I hope them and their investors make a ton of money and it encourages other teams to build more awesome products. ------ dsrguru As brilliant a business model as Heroku has, trying to do the same with one specific and not-yet popular development language/library/framework seems really unlikely to work out in a way that will justify the 9 million investment. If VCs have this much capital to throw at projects like this, perhaps this is a sign that there would be a market for a startup that makes it easy for VCs to find startups with good potential and for startups to find funding more easily. Incubators are the only attempt I know of to solve this problem, but I'm sure there are larger scale solutions waiting to be thought of. ~~~ shykes I disagree with your comment in 3 ways: 1) Great developer tools are difficult to build and valuable. If they are popular enough and the business execution is good enough, they can give birth to successful and potentially large businesses. A few examples: Springsource, JBoss, MySQL, Wily, MongoDB, Atlassian, New Relic, Github. Note the diversity of business models, eras and hype factor. VCs know this and are making informed - if risky - bets. 2) I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that Heroku's business model is brilliant. To my knowledge they haven't published any revenue numbers, and they no longer operate as a standalone business. 3) Speaking from experience, I doubt they will end up making money by providing hosting. They are a developer tools company and if they are smart they will remain focused on the developer experience, and let partners worry about uptime, support, SLAs and other unsexy things like that. That doesn't make them any less interesting as a business. (disclaimer: I work at a platform-as-a-service company) ~~~ dsrguru 1) I don't disagree that funding the development of powerful open source tools can have a very positive effect on the success of future businesses, but how does the investor in this tool's startup profit from said businesses? I assume the main way they intend to make money is through enough people and businesses paying Meteor to host their site, and I can't imagine that will be as successful as a host that supports a range of popular languages/libraries/frameworks instead of one that may or may not attain popularity. 2) I don't know anything about Heroku's revenue numbers, but the idea of their business model is a brilliant idea. Offer web startups free hosting until they get traffic (i.e. until they can afford to pay you), and then sell them good enough performance for that amount of traffic. It's essentially a financial abstraction on top of Amazon. Almost any idea that involves giving someone a free service that allows that someone to make enough money to then pay you (when they couldn't have before) is probably a really good idea. ------ Timothee Was it ever "officially" announced that Meteor was part of YC? I've followed the original launch post but can't remember that mentioned. (I looked back and didn't find anything either) I find it interesting to see this project as well as Diaspora (S12) and LightTable (S12) be part of Y Combinator, since they're all companies built around open-source projects (IIRC). (with two of them who "started out" on Kickstarter) ------ netvarun I am pretty curious on how they are going to compete against other open source 'realtime web' solutions such as derby.js? Especially since derby.js is distributed with npm and can be used in conjunction with the thousands of existing node.js libraries. Any node developer can integrate derby.js into his existing web app with a little effort and make it 'realtime'. With meteor, not so easily. ~~~ qeorge Not everyone who can run a node.js server wants to ( _raises hand_ ). Think about Mailgun: obviously I'm capable of running a mail server and parsing incoming mail. But they can do it better, at a price that's cheaper than my time, and give me high availability without my paying a sysadmin. Its an easy sell. ~~~ pbreit I don't think that's a stellar analogy. Email is a very ancillary part of a web service's business while the data management, analytics, business logic, etc are the very core. ------ igorgue I've always been interested in building developer tools, I did it at the beginning of my career, 4 years ago, but I've always thought it was a "bad market", a "small one", "there's no money in it". I've been, secretly, working on a tool while working at a startup and bootstrapping my own startup (my hours are 8am to 4-5am), for the past couple of months, but it has always been kind of a disappointment when I try to think on how to create a business out of it. With these investments - Meteor, 10gen, and the Github rumor - I, definitely feel more encouraged :-) The plan is always bootstrap - of course - since I don't have a track record, I'm not a ex-facebook employee, nor went to a top CS school. Since, I'm not from the valley, or any tech hub by that chance, I haven't been able to understand the "industry". I think I get it now, it doesn't matter what you make (money) and the fools that ask "What's the monetization strategy?", you just need to create something very cool that you and other people find useful. I might be wrong but that's my observation. ~~~ dreamdu5t "you just need to create something very cool that you and other people find useful." No. You need to convince investors that whatever you have is "cool" and "useful", even if it burns money. Derby is cool. Express is cool. Knockout is cool. There are so many cool, free, open-source libraries. It has become crystal clear that getting investment is about being on the inside, having a hip website, and valley celebrities saying good things about you. ~~~ danneu Not to mention the allstars behind Meteor itself. <http://meteor.com/about/people> ------ talbina Parse, Meteor, and Firebase are all YC companies and all of them are working on this. ~~~ pbreit And <http://derbyjs.com/> ~~~ jaredsohn I realize that Derby also helps build real-time applications, but I haven't heard anything about Derby being in YC. Has there been a public announcement that they are? If we're just listing frameworks that help build real-time systems, Pusher would be another example. ~~~ pbreit My bad...missed that it was YC companies. ------ makmanalp Why do they need 9 million, really? That's about 10 programmers for 5 years, with a competitive salary and benefits, plus office costs. ~~~ prostoalex To employ 10 programmers for 5 years with a competitive salary and benefits in an office of some sort? ~~~ tbergeron Yes, to develop a tool which will get no revenue after? This is completely pointless. ~~~ robryan Red hat/ MySQL etc model I guess. ~~~ nl It's more likely to be the offer-hosted-version model rather than the Redhat/MySQL model. ------ spullara #1 issue is security #2 issue is this: [http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=...](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22Meteor+is+an+ultra- simple+environment+for+building+modern+websites%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) Doesn't have this page on it: <http://docs.meteor.com/> ------ fourstar Out of all these "real-time" JS frameworks, to me, Meteor seems the most promising. Looking forward to how it evolves. Congrats and good luck to the team. ------ soapdog Speaking about meteor, can someone tell me if there is any way to protect the database from the user fiddling with a javascript console? In all screencasts they show how powerful it is by changing the DB with some mongodb-like commands on Chrome Developer JS Console, well, I don't want my users doing that. Anyone knows better? ~~~ wamatt I asked the same question on #meteor. Apparently security is coming in the next 2 months. But currently... it's pretty insecure. ~~~ dagw Maybe I'm being overly pessemistic, but projects that don't start with security as one of their primary design goals tend to not have the best security track records. Security isn't really something you can trivially bolt on at a later date. ------ benatkin Between Meteor and 10gen (which makes MongoDB, which Meteor uses heavily), $50M was just invested. If both companies use their money wisely this could pack a powerful punch! ------ siavosh Didn't even know that Meteor was a YC company. Does anyone know what their original product was? ------ pkh80 Hmmm, security model is vaporware and VCs are deciding that we (developers) will really love this library before anyone is even using it. ------ nivertech I understand, that YC have no choice, but to invest in competing startups, simply because the large number of startups being accepted in Y-Combinator. They backing many Realtime Messaging companies, such as Firebase, Meteor, Flotype/Now.js, Simperium, Parse, etc. EDIT: apparently Flotype pivoted from Now.js to something very different from what Meteor and the rest of the gang do. ~~~ dshankar I work at Flotype, and I'd like to clarify that. Flotype and Meteor are completely different. We saw the need for something like Meteor two years ago and built NowJS, but we decided to move away from RPC over websockets (NowJS) last year and work on a new technology called Bridge. Data model syncing is done nicely in Meteor, but we decided to pursue a different problem with Bridge (more details in the coming months). While the vision behind NowJS and the current vision behind Meteor might share similarities, Flotype the company and Meteor the company are working on very separate things. ------ chrismcbride whats the monetization strategy? ~~~ ajross Clearly it starts by getting someone to write you a $9M check to develop your Javascript library (excuse me, "platform"). This gold rush is so depressingly familiar. But that's not to speak ill of Meteor-the-product, which looks pretty nifty (albeit not $9M of nifty). ~~~ dreamdu5t I hate to be so negative but I have to agree. I know many people (including myself) who've already written libraries similar to Meteor (derby comes to mind). This is ridiculous. Meteor hasn't even gotten any real adoption and it has _no_ business model. Why create a business when you can just get investment on promises alone? ------ eragnew Congrats Meteor. That's awesome! ------ tferris Nice, that pure tech ventures get high fundings of well known VCs but thinking a little bit more about Meteor I come to following conclusion: First, we do not really know the first payment/milestone, maybe it's just $1M. Meteor itself is an amazing technology, very well marketed by obviously smart guys—their Marketing pitch few weeks ago was just awesome and far beyond any other new JS framework. And I understand that Meteor gets very positive feedback here on HN due to their great communication skills and YC affiliation But it has severe drawbacks: => While employing Node as core they surprisingly ignore the well established npm package manager which is one of the best package managers around. This is bad and there's no excuse because it leads to fragmentation of the still young JS server-side landscape dominated by a lean and modular-driven Node which is just the smartest way to establish a real ecosystem—the one-size-fits-all approach is aged and that's Meteor. I assume they did their own package manager due to their upcoming business model (which will be introduced very far in the future if their ecosystem is once established), maybe they'll take license fees or demand support fees or whatever of everyone who wants to actively participate as contributor in the ecosystem. They couldn't do this with the npm. And by choosing this path the can lock out competing frameworks: if Meteor would just be a package in the npm ecosystem the opportunity costs of changing to other realtime frameworks in the npm world wouldn't be that high because changing the framework wouldn't mean changing the entire ecosystem. => As long client-side JS is delivered unprotected to the browser you will never have the one-code-base-or-name-space-covering-front-and-backend approach. This approach doesn't provide any security—client code could do any shit to the server side—and others who tried made great products too but couldn't get any traction (nowjs i.e.). You will need always to separate both. They promised to come up with solutions like authentification or signed data, but then we have again more communication overhead than we would have if just separated those layers. This drawback isn't as huge as the first one, it's a technical challenge and thus, I appreciate any efforts to solve this problem. Meteor was at the beginning a great tech demo, now they want to get serious and I doubt (and hope) that they won't succeed. Mentioned drawbacks are the main reasons I won't use, support and even advise against Meteor (as much as I like these guys and YC but sorry). They do not seem to contribute in any way to a great and existing ecosystem called Node but using it as their core to build a new competing one with monetization reasons in mind and a severely flawed architecture. Now, they obviously need and will use the money for PR and paying/incentivizing devs building the ecosystem and this competition between ecosystems (pure Node/npm vs Meteor) which is basically about winning the best devs will lead to further fragmentation and at the end no large ecosystem could be established and server-side JS failed. No, thanks. ------ tferris $9M, wow. Enough money to become the next Rails. ~~~ dmix Rails didnt have the pressure to be a $45 million dollar company (investors expect a 5x return don't they?). Although, thats what Google paid for Android. ~~~ smilliken $9M was the total raise, not the valuation. Presumably the exit would have to be much higher than $45M for a 5x multiple. ------ Estragon Congratulations, guys. ------ corkill Congrats! Meteor this is awesome, glad this will help them move along faster. Right alongside the mongo funding this week. ------ rdl Wow, pretty awesome that YC is getting great companies like this. ------ majke Congratulations indeed!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Supporting a volunteered software project post-delivery - KiwiCoder I'm thinking about the challenges of a programmer volunteering to help a charity.<p>One of the hard things is the question of support and maintenance after the volunteer delivers the project.<p>Volunteers aren't going to want to be tied to a project forever, though I expect many will be happy to give some support.<p>Charities on the other hand won't always have the resources to pay for third party support.<p>My question is, what are some potentially viable ways to either avoid this problem in the first place or to provide an adequate level of support once the volunteer moves on.<p>All I can think of is ...<p>1. Handover to an internal team, assuming one exists 2. Limited support post delivery, which cramps the project in the first place 3. Just accepting that support is expensive, which also cramps the project. 4. Hoping that other volunteers will step in as needed, which won't always work for some kinds of support like urgent bug fixes 5. An agreement that all deliverables must be open-sourced, thus increasing the number of people who could potentially help out in a pinch<p>What else? ====== marquis Make a really clear plan, show them how many hours it took to build it and explain what kind of support you could offer. If a web presence is important to them, the charity should be able to budget in support hours after delivery. I usually volunteer a fixed number of hours after delivery, limited to a period of time. It helps them understand what your time is worth and that communicating ahead of time is what solves all (most) issues. If you're not able to commit to support, use WordPress or another very common framework so someone else can pick it up and don't skimp on the comments/documentation. ------ KiwiCoder Ultimately I suspect the up-front cost of any non-trivial software project may be the tip of the iceberg. Yes, it's still a saving, but the risk (to the charity) is that they unwittingly take on a maintenance burden they would not have wanted with the benefit of hindsight. Sounds like the only viable answer is to have a grown-up conversation with the charity, just to make sure they go into this kind of arrangement with their eyes wide open. (Sorry, talking to myself, thinking out loud)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Free software advocate Richard Stallman spoke at Microsoft Research this week - tosh https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-software-advocate-richard-stallman-spoke-at-microsoft-research-this-week/ ====== rhabarba The picture alone is worth the click!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How I fixed Node.js - davidvgalbraith http://davidvgalbraith.com/how-i-fixed-node-js/ ====== lightlyused Nicely written.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Why Can’t PCs Work More Like iPhones? - jlhamilton http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/why-cant-pcs-work-more-like-iphones/ ====== megaduck This idea's going to get market-tested real soon now. There's a _lot_ of companies trying to replace the conventional desktop with something simpler. During 2010 alone we'll be seeing the release of: Apple's iPad, Google's ChromeOS devices, Intel/Nokia's MeeGo, Notion Ink's Adam, Jolicloud, the JooJoo, Microsoft's Courier (maybe), and countless others. There's also things that are already shipping, like Ubuntu's Netbook Remix and the Litl netbook. These products are all daggers aimed at killing traditional desktops in one way or another. They've got a good shot, too: I've been using UNR as my primary OS for over a year now, and it's met all my needs both as a user and as a developer. I still keep around a MacBook for photo work, but it's been almost entirely replaced by a netbook + phone. We'll see who the winners eventually are. However, it seems pretty obvious that Windows and OS X in their current form are doomed. ------ ax0n The iPhone's OS is feature-poor and anemic, hence the lack of controls. It has a very, very limited set of things that it needs to perform when you compare it to a real computer. "math is hard, let's go shopping!" ~~~ wmf This is true, but if most people don't use all the features of a real OS anyway then you're better off removing them in favor of a really good implementation of the few features people do use. And then you're right back to iPhone OS: it does little, but it does that really well. ~~~ ax0n I guess I don't see the point. Windows isn't hard to learn, neither is OS X. Heck, even Ubuntu isn't too bad, if you only want to do three things with any of them: mail, word processing, web surfing, for example. I've taught numerous seniors how to do these things on a computer. I don't get questions until they want to know how to do more with their computer than they already knew. Using the iPwn model, I'd have to say "you're shit out of luck, that's all this system can do." and I really don't see how that's good for anyone. ~~~ netcan I really think this kind of approach, 'I've shown them how to send an email and they can manage it,' is missing most of the point. They don't have a grasp of what they're doing. They know this. It intimidates them. They're afraid of breaking something and need to ask for help all the time. They _hate_ it. It's disempowering. These are not some small minority. These are a lot of people. An iphone can be picked up, used, and give a larger number of people a feeling that they can understand how it works. They are in control. They don't need any help. If they can keep that and replace more of the the desktop, they'll want it. ~~~ ugh Exactly. I see this all the time. This constant fear of breaking something, the lack of confidence. Good iPhone apps can feel as though you can understand them completely, even to non-technical users. (It’s not automatic, though. Everyone who has ever used Stanza knows that.) The Browser (especially ones like Chrome and Safari) is pretty much the only desktop app which can feel that way, too – at the moment. ~~~ Niten I have to wonder how much of this is due to the limited capabilities of the iPhone, and how much is just the psychology of "physically" interacting with your apps. ~~~ netcan I don't think it is primarily about the touch screen. It's probably a combination of things many of them related to limited capabilities. For example, the app store. Sure, they could allow some other channel for installing apps that isn't restricted. Some apps would be available only for this alternative channel because it's easier or freeier or better somehow. They give instructions on how to install it. It's complicated. A user might try to get something running on her iphone and fail. She might get her daughter to help. The app has some quirks (that's why it isn't allowed in the app store) When she uses someone else' iphone it's complicated and difficult because it belongs to a"power user". This adds up to the _feeling_ that the iphone is complicated and hard and breakable and you need to know what you're doing with it. It's naive to say "don't install unapproved apps" or stay in the non-power user world. If it exists, people will be exposed to it. Think of the early days of GUI. Lots of non computer people where shown how to do something until it stopped working for whatever reason. At that point they asked for help. The helper immediately opens up the command line and demonstrates how you really need to know a little bit about the command line to get some things done. ------ acid_bath What a surprise: A media outlet looking to stay afloat lauds the unreleased platform they hope to monetize. ~~~ jrockway The New York Times? (Maybe, just maybe... there's not a conspiracy here, and the author just happened to write about something he found interesting. Nah... that could never happen...) ~~~ acid_bath It's not a conspiracy if they're right in the open about it. They're praising a platform that does not exist yet, and what do you know, they have an app that will be available (for $$$) at launch. I don't mean to imply it some Big Evil Conspiracy. NYTimes is a business like any other and they need to make money. NYT has a vested interest in the iPad's success. ------ jasonlbaptiste the ubuntu netbook remix interface is absolutely simple and easy to use. i have it on my HTPC and it's best described as: "a big ass iPhone". My roommate who has NO computer knowledge (she doesnt even own a computer anymore) uses it with ease to browse the web, watch shows, use boxee, google earth, play music,etc. ~~~ J_McQuade I use it on my netbook, which goes more or less everywhere with me. It's not only far simpler for, say, my dad (who is still slightly unsure whether computers fall under the realm of science or witchcraft - both being bad), but it also makes things easier for me. You can read that as "one less click to get into emacs" if you want. But on a serious note, the actual interface of the OS seems to be far less important for tech-savvy people. I'm using Windows 7 right now, alt-tabbing between a web-browser and emacs (finally getting around to exploring Clojure, if you're interested), and would be doing exactly the same if I'd booted into Linux this evening instead. 'Computer people' know what they want to do on their machines and do it; and cross-platform is king for 'their sort of app', these days. My dad, on the other hand, thinks that computers are largely operated by shout-recognition. He'd love an iPad. He can point at the thing, it does the thing - he's not prepared to learn, to know or to think about it. That's the market Apple will be aiming for; people who view computers as being more like toasters than toolboxes - that thing they use to do that thing. And people love toasters. However, I genuinely believe that the likes of UNR offer a far better compromise over-all, because most people start out with flailing and shouting - it would be an awful shame to deny them the tools to move beyond that, should they be so inclined. ~~~ netcan When I first heard about it, Ihought it was a great idea. But where are all the preinstalled NBR sales? ------ FlorinAndrei Sure they can. But they're called iPads. ------ protomyth In a lot of ways this would work for a goodly chunk of people. I think if Apple did this, they should allow for alternate app stores and IT managed deploys on an App Store model (all organization computers hook to the local app store which hooks to various commercial app stores) ------ netcan It's actually surprising that more innovation hasn't happened already, considering how much of computing has moved into the browser. Get a browser going on a machine and you have already crossed that barrier new OS' once saw as the insurmountable. ------ andylei i think they're right. even though they're much less customizable, most people (read: people who don't read HN), prefer simple operating systems that abstract away as much as possible. ------ jrockway The Linux netbooks were/are very much like iPhones. There is a button you press to view the web. There is a button to press to play music. That's it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Formula for love: X^2+(y-sqrt(x^2))^2=1 - carusen http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2%2B%28y-sqrt%28x^2%29%29^2%3D1 ====== ck2 Since the human heart looks nothing like the "heart shape" we all know and use, I wonder where that originated... Dang, wikipedia knows it all: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_%28symbol%29> _The seed of the silphium plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, has been suggested as the source of the heart symbol._ Oh, also [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28x^2%2By^2-1%29^3-x^2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28x^2%2By^2-1%29^3-x^2y^3%3D0) ~~~ Jach I always liked the "Aphrodite's butt" interpretation; it makes me smile whenever I see heart-shaped boxes of brown chocolate. :) Also, here's mine: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281-%28\|x\|-1%29^2%29^0...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281-%28\|x\|-1%29^2%29^0.5%3D-3%281-%28\|x\|%2F2%29^0.5%29^0.5) ~~~ Retric Not bad. I like polar(x + sin(y) = 1) due to the simplicity, but polar(x = y) seems the most poetic (y from -1.5pi to 1.5pi) or (y from -1.5pi to 1.5pi). [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=polar%28x+%3D+%28y%29%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=polar%28x+%3D+%28y%29%29+%28y+from+-1.5pi+to+1.5pi%29) ------ iwwr Another formula for love: (NSFW) [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi%5Epi%2A%28exp%28-x%5...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi%5Epi%2A%28exp%28-x%5E100%29%2Acos%28x%29%2Babs%280.3%2Asin%28x%29%29%29+from+-3+to+3) ~~~ bajsejohannes A graph of a penis with 9 upvotes. I hope this isn't where HN is going. ~~~ catshirt what precisely differentiates this graph from the original post? i feel like they're equally [relevant/irrelevant]. ~~~ bajsejohannes The original is relevant because 1) it is valentine's day and 2) most people here appreciate a good math formula. On it's own the original post was perhaps not too original, but it spurred some interesting discussion, like where the heart shape originated. The penis graph on the other hand, only comes of as childish. Sure, it would have been really funny when I was 15. And to be sure, there are plenty of clever penis jokes out there ("The hammer is my penis" comes to mind), but this is not one of them. ~~~ sfphotoarts Well, I can't agree, I thought it was clever and witty and I'm hanging on to the 15 year old inside me that still thinks this is pretty funny. ------ philh 3d version: (x^2+(9/4)y^2+z^2-1)^3 - x^2 _z^3-(9/80)y^2_ z^3 = 0 [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ContourPlot3D[%28x^2%2B...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ContourPlot3D\[%28x^2%2B%289%2F4%29y^2%2Bz^2-1%29^3+-+x^2z^3-%289%2F80%29y^2z^3%3D%3D0%2C+{x%2C+-1.2%2C+1.2}%2C+{y%2C+-1.2%2C+1.2}%2C+{z%2C+-1.2%2C+1.3})] ~~~ ot It's Taubin's heart surface (<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeartSurface.html>) From <http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_02_11_02.html> : > The algorithms that Taubin developed worked well even in the vicinity of > cusps and other singularities. "I discovered the equation of the heart while > trying to construct surfaces with complex singularities," Taubin says. Isn't that romantic? ------ jacobolus Mathworld has some better ones: <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeartCurve.html> ~~~ scott_s But the URL gives away the punchline. ~~~ cristoperb The equation in the submitted link gave away the punchline too. ~~~ scott_s The text for the URL on HN gives it away, but the URL itself does not. Which is why I was able to pleasantly surprise a friend of mine with it. ------ ehsanul With bezier curves (it's prettier) in Canvas/Coffeescript (assuming an existing global canvas context 'ctx'): heart = (scale,x,y)-> ctx.beginPath() ctx.moveTo(x,y) p1 = [x-75scale,y+20scale] ctx.bezierCurveTo(x-20scale,y-55scale,p1[0]-50scale,p1[1]-55scale,p1...) p2 = [x,p1[1]+60scale] ctx.bezierCurveTo(p1[0]+25scale,p1[1]+22.5scale,p2[0]-35scale,p2[1]-40scale,p2...) ctx.moveTo(x,y) p1 = [x+75scale,y+20scale] ctx.bezierCurveTo(x+20scale,y-55scale,p1[0]+50scale,p1[1]-55scale,p1...) p2 = [x,p1[1]+60scale] ctx.bezierCurveTo(p1[0]-25scale,p1[1]+22.5scale,p2[0]+35scale,p2[1]-40scale,p2...) ctx.strokeStyle = 'rgba(255,40,20,0.7)' ctx.stroke() heart(1.0, 450, 250) ------ _corbett <http://individual.utoronto.ca/sck/vday.html> one of my favorites "Roses are red. Violets are approximately blue. A paracompact manifold with a Lorentzian metric, can be a spacetime, if it has dimension greater than or equal to two." ------ jawee This one was fun at school today: <http://i.imgur.com/7aofj.jpg> ------ nailer Isn't the square root of x squared just x? ~~~ judofyr Not for negative numbers. You could also just use the absolute value: <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2%2B(y-\|x\|)^2%3D1> EDIT: Woah. You got your answer at least. ~~~ pohl Exactly. It all comes down to abs. ------ zerd In my opinion, this one looks a bit better: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2%2B%28y-sqrt%28abs%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2%2B%28y-sqrt%28abs%28x%29%29%29^2%3D3) ------ porterhaney Circles rolling around circles <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cardioid.html> ~~~ rosstafarian kinky. ------ hoag This whole thread is way too cool, loved it! ------ scorpion032 Also possible in Polynomial function alone. [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(x2%2By2-1)^3+-x2y3+%3D...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=$x2%2By2-1$^3+-x2y3+%3D+0) ------ ashitvora One more [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(x^2+%2B+y^2+-+1)^3+-+x...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=$x^2+%2B+y^2+-+1$^3+-+x^2++y^3) ------ maddalab Who does sqrt(x^2) for abs(x) ? Speak about accidental complexity in love ------ GanjaHacker 1 (x^2+(y-sqrt(x^2))^2=1) would be a Bob Marley song. ------ zinssmeister so awesome. that's all. ~~~ websockr indeed it is ------ tintin And ofcourse: 1 + 1 = 1 ;)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Data-driven Scala Programming - francescogior https://blog.buildo.io/data-driven-scala-programming-e50f07c4db35 ====== rubenfiszel I don't mean to sound rough but do you really need to analyze compilation logs to arrive to the conclusion that you should use an IDE and that types are helpful ? There is also no real hint into why getting this error: "Too many arguments for method parameters" is inherently bad. I assume that it is not informative enough and that you'd prefer getting a type error instead ? In that case it is not the _quantity_ of error but the _quality_ of error that is an issue. ~~~ wonton2 I have always wondered why anyone would not use an IDE. I have tried to start using editors like vim and sublime. But I just think it makes me type endlessly and wait for compile to see my typos and so on, when in intellij or netbeans you type a few letters and get code completion and automatic imports. This blogpost, however, is the first concrete evidence that I havent really missed anything, and I should not spend a lot of time trying to free myself from the ide. ~~~ rubenfiszel There is some benefits to not have automatic imports is that it incentivize to keep everything tidy under package object such that you only need a few meaningful imports. It is easy to notice automatic import because the header is an import hell. But sublime, emacs and vim all support autocompletion (through ensime) so it is not really an advantage of intellij or netbeans. ~~~ gipp Those are only "benefits" if you don't have automatic imports, though. In an IDE the neatness of your imports is a non-factor in deciding package structure, and who cares about the size or structure of your import block? You never need to look at it and your IDE probably folds up that block anyway. I was a vim purist for a long time, but even in Python, where IDE functionality is much more limited, I can't honestly compare the two experiences and say I'm not much more productive in PyCharm w/vim plugin. I can't fathom how _anyone_ writes Java/Scala in plain vim, and Ensime is a cumbersome mess. ~~~ heavenlyblue Speaking re. python: IDEA also sorts imports alphabetically, separates system modules from non- system modules and removes the names that are no longer used if configured properly. How much time does someone spend doing this by hand (e.g. just simply reading through the list of them)? IDEA also allows to automatically make the code PIP8-ready by using Ctrl+Shift+L. I can refactor the name of the function with a basic shortcut, and I am 100% sure, even if it touches >5 projects at the same time - IDEA will replace them correctly. That could be done by a simple find-and-replace, but then I would need to keep my attention on whether that was a correct replacement. How many minutes a day do you spend trying to keep yourself aware of that? There are literally so many details in working with moderately-complex Python code (e.g. type hints or lack of them; function arguments; unresolved names) that IDEA basically equals to a constant number of hours I save every day. I am not going to argue - most of what I mention could be solved by automated cli-based tools; and that's exactly what IDEA does under the hood. By it keeps it all together in one place on my screen right now; here, rather than in a set of disjoint interfaces. I literally do not get why people still use vim/sublime/notepad++. That's like cooking with a blunt knife. You may and will cook as good. But is it not justifying your laziness to go out and buy a proper knife? ------ namuol > That makes sense even if you never experienced how horrible writing > JavaScript code is Please don't do this sort of thing; all it will do is cause people to dig their heels in and fuel the idea that FP is too "dogmatic" or such. I know you're joking, but I hear this refrain far too often while reading "persuasive" FP articles. This sort of jest just comes off as smug when it's not clear that you're "in the trenches" with JS (or other non-FP coders). ------ critium Im curious as to how he's using vim + ensime. I've been trying off and on for the last 2 years to figure out a good workflow using ensime but i typically end up just turning it off after a few days. EnType only works for me when its completely obvious. EnImport seems kind of useless. After these 2, i just give up, tbh. Still, I wont give up my text editor :) Any emacs folk like to comment on its usefulness? Its seems more fully implemented there. ~~~ tasuki I've been using vim + ensime for a while. \- EnType is slow and only works when obvious \- EnImport ... never worked for me, but I'd _love_ it! Perhaps there's something I'm missing. How do you add imports? \- The automatic typechecker sometimes works sometimes doesn't. Shows unused imports which is somewhat neat. However, ensime's killer feature for me is fully contextual completion with <C-x><C-o> \- works great and is supremely useful. ------ bobbyi_settv Seeing type errors logged is only "good" if they are catching actual bugs. A large amount of Scala type errors aren't bugs I would have had in Python; they're hoops I wouldn't have needed to jump through like worrying about whether a parameter should be a "Long" or an "Int". ~~~ harpocrates Actually, those are the type errors I _like_ having (and don't always have: Scala will implicitly convert `Int` to `Long`), although I concede this is a matter of opinion. However, I am definitely less impressed by the unhelpful type errors one gets when implicits somehow fail... ------ msangi This is a neat idea. I wonder if this can be extended to analyse unit test failures. I'd guess one can get some interesting information from what tests fail more often. I'm thinking of being able to spot bad tests because they're too brittle or spotting bad code because it's too fragile. ------ javabean22 Stopped reading right here: > The second error, “Type mismatch”, appeared 1771 times in the logs. That’s > good news. It means the type system is working well: it catches type errors > pretty often. Cool! I can finally honestly claim that I use Scala for a good > practical reason. That’s good news? Why? How? "Pretty often"? Comparing to what? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know. 1771. Ok then. ~~~ msangi Why not? I think it's fair to assume that programmers starts the compilation either when they believe their code is correct or when they do want to get an "hint" from the compiler. Either way, they get a valuable feedback from the compiler and that happens multiple times per day. ~~~ pkolaczk Static type systems sometimes refuse to compile otherwise valid code. Type error is compiler telling "I can't prove this code correct with regard to some class of problems I'm supposed to catch". It does not necessarily prove the code is incorrect and would fail at runtime. Therefore a high number of type errors may also mean the type system is very strict and getting in the way very often. BTW I prefer the type system to be a bit too strict rather than not catching obvious bugs and then having to struggle with a debugger.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Can Google app engine support big web apps like social websites? - kimmy13 ====== smadge The massive image sharing and social media network Snapchat uses Google App Engine.* * [https://www.theinformation.com/Why-Google-s-Cloud-Needs-Snap...](https://www.theinformation.com/Why-Google-s-Cloud-Needs-Snapchat) ------ nostrademons Like SnapChat? ------ iamtrying Google Cloud Platform - is amazing, almost better then Amazon. i bought some CentOS 7 instances and its working great. You can run tons of products and its challenging to take down Amazon.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
John Sculley Gives Detailed Account Of How Steve Jobs Got Fired From Apple - taylorbuley http://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2013/09/09/john-sculley-just-gave-his-most-detailed-account-ever-of-how-steve-jobs-got-fired-from-apple/?nowelcome=true ====== mathattack _The answer? “I really blame the board,” said Sculley, who was recruited from Pepsi in 1983 to bring order to Apple – and Jobs._ So much for the buck stopping at the CEO. At least he shows more humility in the end. _Sculley’s biggest regret? “I feel most badly, though, [because] after 10 years, I was at the company, I wanted to go back to New York where I was from. Why I didn’t go to Steve Jobs and say, ‘Steve, let’s figure out how you can come back and lead your company.’ I didn’t do that, it was a terrible mistake on my part. I can’t figure out why I didn’t have the wisdom to do that. But I didn’t. And as life has it, shortly after that, I was fired.”_ ------ fredsanford Funny how this didn't appear until Jobs wasn't around to defend himself. Selling computers != selling soda and junk food.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
10 Most Successful Web 2.0 Startups To Date - tim http://www.rev2.org/2007/04/14/10-most-successful-web-20-startups-to-date/ ====== fauigerzigerk In a way that list is depressing, or maybe it's just boring to a degree that is indistinguishable from depression. ------ danw No skype on that list? ~~~ timg Yes, skype seemed very big when I was in europe. Not so much here in the US, but still huge. Then again, it's not quite web2.0 ~~~ danw Not sure if they're strictly '2.0' but nobody can define that well anyway. They did get aquired for $2.5 billion upfront + $1.4 billion performance based. If that doesnt count as being in the top 10 most successful then I dont know what is! ~~~ sidyadav Hi there, This is Sid Yadav, the guy who made the list. I did consider Skype but ruled it out since it's more of an desktop app than a web app unlike the rest (doesn't have much of a web-based side to it). If I were to put Skype in there, then I guess I'd have to consider every single desktop app created since 2003! Thanks ~~~ danw Perfectly understandable reasoning, writing top n lists is always tricky thanks to borderline cases. No last.fm either? :p	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Thinking Scientifically to Get Rid of Acne: The SkinTheory Method - jealousgelatin https://blog.skintheory.app/skintheorys-birth/ ====== stupstups Yeah my struggle is hormonal acne but some products (e.g. niacinamide) will just cause normal acne then.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Dark Side of the Orgasmic Meditation Company - pmcpinto https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-18/the-dark-side-of-onetaste-the-orgasmic-meditation-company ====== throwawayqdhd > It’s best known for classes on “orgasmic meditation,” a trademarked > procedure that typically involves a man using a gloved, lubricated fingertip > to stroke a woman’s clitoris for 15 minutes Who would have thought that a company that offers this could have a dark side? ~~~ coldtea The company might have plenty dark sides, but what's described above is only "dark" in puritan sex-phobic cultures... ~~~ toasterlovin You may want to consider the idea that traditional, conservative attitudes toward sex exist in part specifically to prevent the kind of coercive bullshit that inevitable arises in "free love" environments. ~~~ coldtea Because "conservative attitudes toward sex" don't produce "coercive bullshit" (and foster all kinds of sex related obsessions and psychosis, including rape). ~~~ toasterlovin I was responding to somebody taking a dismissive view of conservative attitudes to sexuality by pointing out that there are probably some positives to those attitudes, including that they are pretty effective at preventing the kind of heinous stuff that happened at the cult in the article. That's it. I did not make a general statement about conservative attitudes toward sex and I actually agree that there are issues. ------ insickness A few years ago I went to a one-day seminar with OM. It irritated the hell out of me. 90% of it was them talking about how much the 'practice' changed their lives. Then they went around the room and asked each member to talk about how excited they were to start. If you didn't, they put you on the spot and embarrassed you. I left halfway through after demanding my money back. ~~~ pknopf Did they end up giving you your money back? ~~~ insickness They did. At first they said that it would be processed but I told them that's not good enough and made them process it right there. ------ 1024core As an SF native, and finding cults to be interesting, I dipped my toes in OM a couple of times. Nicole Daedone is the founder.. but follow the links to Viktor Baranco, if you want to know more. They used to run this "dorm" at 1080 Folsom in SF; but eventually got out of that business. I remember once I was at one of their presentations. At the end of the presentation, men and women were paired up for a round of stroking. Of course, men outnumbered the women. So one of the organizers called up the dorm at 1080 Folsom (which was right around the corner) and told them to "send more women". And soon, a bunch of women showed up, ready to be stroked... Once they had my number, they'd call me endlessly, selling some "retreat" or the other, for $$$. No thanks! I've lost touch with them over the last couple of years, but it's a sex- addiction cult, if I were to label it. ------ mmagin "At OneTaste events, attendees often played communication games prompting them to share vulnerable stories. Former staffers say they took notes that might help them sell later—maybe a student was recently divorced and lonely—and senior staff assigned subordinates to home in on wealthy students who seemed attracted to them or had experiences in common." Eww. ------ pjc50 Of course it's a disaster, it's a for-profit sex cult. It even tells you that in the name. ------ jxub > The company has hired executives and advisers who worked at CrossFit and the > juice maker Odwalla, and OM has won endorsements from Khloé Kardashian and > Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Body). I am freaking out that such a dangerous cult could be so promoted and entrenched in the "influencer culture". ~~~ erric Reading the article, it feels like OT pulled directly from the $cientology playbook. ------ moate I've got a friend who works for these guys. It's always felt a bit off in the way weird hippie sex communes always would. I'd never have guessed it was this culty. Wow ------ toasterlovin ProTip: Avoid any organization that promotes living arrangements other than monogamous pair bonds residing in their own homes. Source: extensive reading about cults. ~~~ rosser I suppose those monogamous pair-bonds should be heterosexual only, too? Please lay off with the attempt to normalize any but your preferred flavor as deviant and wrong. You don't get to decide what happens in _any bedroom but your own_. ~~~ toasterlovin You are arguing against stuff I didn't say. I would guess that monogamy works best for most of the people most of the time, but there's tremendous variation in temperament and personality in our species, so do what works for you! I was making an observation about _organizations_ that promote non-monogamy and communal living. They are almost invariably cults, regardless of how they present themselves to the outside world. ~~~ rosser Yeah: >> _The monogamous pair bonds _are_ the coercive bullshit._ > _It 's like Churchill said about democracy: It's the worst system, except > for all the others._ That's totally about coercive organizational dynamics, and not merely moralizing. ~~~ toasterlovin Again, I am making a statement about what I think is the overall best system (for most people, most of the time; and admitting that it is imperfect while I'm at it!). In no way have I advocated for forcing that system on people. ~~~ rosser You only get to decide what's the best system _for you_. But that's not even the point behind my criticizing your approach. People with non-mainstream lifestyles are already more often than not marginalized, sometimes _to death_. Please don't make that worse for them. You have _no idea_ how alienating it can be to have something as closely tied to one's identity as one's sexuality generally is hand-waved about by people whose words carry clear disapproval. If you did have an inkling of what that kind of Othering felt like, I don't think you'd talk that way so casually, or without qualification. ~~~ toasterlovin I'm bailing on this thread, but my accounting of what happened here is that you repeatedly mischaracterized my position (even accusing me of homophobia, which is incredibly insulting, btw), while I calmly re-iterated my position. Given that, I don't really see the need to change what I'm doing. ~~~ rosser I did not accuse you of homophobia, though that is a legitimate read of my comment, as phrased. I took your position of normalizing "traditional" human sexual dynamics and pointed out (in a manner admittedly somewhat motivated by, "Oh, god. Not this shit again...") the slippery slope you're treading. If you feel I mischaracterized your point, I apologize. It was not my intent. I just have entirely too many queer and non-mainstream friends whose lives have been terribly adversely affected by other people telling them the myriad ways they're wrong, not to be a little reactive to it. Your overall point isn't wrong. How you phrased it (and how I phrased my response) could have been done in a way that was more cognizant of how broad the brush you're swinging might seem to people getting splattered as you swing it. Is that an unreasonable ask? ------ stickfigure I'll bet the Landmark Forum folks are thinking: _Damn. I wish I 'd thought of that._ ------ dna_polymerase OT: I really expected Bloomberg to do better than NYT and others regarding their subscription service. How is it, that I would have to contact them to cancel my subscription? What is so hard about a simple cancel button. Also their pricing is way out of line. The introductory offer is $9.99 (which is just in the Netflix range and about right for a single service) but after 6 Months I'd have to pay $35? It needs more than one subscription to a news site to get a pluralistic world view and this high pricing works straight against that. ~~~ yono38 Try this: [https://outline.com/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/...](https://outline.com/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-18/the- dark-side-of-onetaste-the-orgasmic-meditation-company) ------ dwighttk Sounds like all dark side to me	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Tips to become a great programmer - chimmychonga Hello HN,<p>I'm coming up on my sophomore year in college as a cs major. I feel as though I understand a good bit more than majority of other people in my classes but I still feel as if I'm only an "okay" programmer. I understand it takes writing a lot of code to get better but other than that are there any tips you might be willing to share to help me on my journey to becoming a great developer? ====== Jemaclus I have three basic tips: 1) Find problems first, then solve them. It sounds obvious, but so many programmers find solutions and then go look for a problem. That's backwards. Problems, then solutions. 2) Test your solutions as much as you can. Does it actually solve the problem? Is it too slow? Is it confusing or cumbersome? Nine times out of ten, it's better to take an extra hour to test something than to rush it through. There are very, very, very few instances in which you legitimately do not have time to test. For all practical purposes, you ALWAYS have time -- you just aren't making it a priority if you don't test. Make it one. It's far more important to deliver solid code that works than it is to be the first one to submit your code. 3) Don't reinvent the wheel. Stand upon the shoulders of giants. Use what others have done and get ahead. There are two major exceptions to this tip, imo: 1) if you're reinventing it as a learning exercise, or b) you are absolutely, positively, 100% convinced you can bring something new to the table. Also, just for kicks: tabs, not spaces. _runs away_ ------ valarauca1 A few tips every developer should learn. 1) Solve the problem before you write the code. 2) Figure out what data structures to use and the code will follow. 3) Debugging is your fault, you screwed up. The language or the compiler didn't (true 99.999% of the time). 4) The difference between genius and insanity is if the algorithm runs faster. The biggest general tip is learn data structures. They are the fundamentals, you will always use them, get used to them. ~~~ greenyoda _" 1\. Solve the problem before you write the code."_ Sometimes the problem is difficult or huge (or both) and you don't know how to solve it. By starting to write some exploratory code, like a solution to a small part of the problem that you do understand, you can frequently get ideas about how to solve the bigger problem. Even if you end up ultimately throwing this code away, it could still be a useful learning experience and help you make progress toward understanding the real solution. ~~~ dllthomas "Write it; throw it away; rewrite it." Not always the best solution, but a good voice to have in the mix. ------ brudgers _Code Complete: A Practical Handbook for Software Construction_ is considered one of the language agnostic classics on computer programming. It focuses on higher level concepts as they relate to the process and sequence of writing code. It covers just enough architecture and design to provide context and allow one to think intelligently about it. [affiliate link] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735619670/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735619670/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0735619670&linkCode=as2&tag=kludgecodecom-20&linkId=UYVSHTCXUEVRWTOZ) [non-affiliate link] [http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook- Const...](http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook- Construction/dp/0735619670/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408544744&sr=8-1&keywords=code+complete) ~~~ abhinavgujjar I would highly recommend this as well. BUT - don't try to dive too much deeper into code patterns. The last decade has a massive spike in patterns and I can remember a lot of meetings wasted debating patterns. ------ walterbell There's an 80s book with fantastic interviews of programmers before they became business leaders, check out the reviews: [http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews- Computer-I...](http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Work-Interviews-Computer- Industry/dp/1556152116/) & [http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-at-Work-Susan- Lammers/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Programmers-at-Work-Susan- Lammers/dp/0914845713) Some (all?) interviews free here: [http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/](http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/) ~~~ greenyoda There's also a more recent book of interviews with well-known programmers called _Coders at Work_ : [http://codersatwork.com](http://codersatwork.com) ~~~ ahmadajmi +1 a very good book. ------ glenda Writing too much code can make you a worse programmer. The real way to get better is to pick an area of study and research the shit out of it, even non-technical aspects if applicable. Go back as far as you can and read every canonical book you can find on the subject. Even if it's outdated information, it will help you see how we arrived where we are now (as long as it's not a purely technical reference). Read those things until you feel some things click in your head. Then go back and try to write some code. This might be difficult to do while in school though. I'm sure you're doing a lot of reading already. ~~~ nostrademons I disagree with this. I read every software engineering book I could get my hands on when I was in school - GoF, Refactoring, SICP, Pragmatic Programmer, XP Explained, Implementation of Functional Programming Languages, TAPL, Basic Category Theory, On Lisp, Art of the Metaobject Protocol, numerous textbooks I wasn't assigned. As a result, my code ended up overcomplicated, with a bunch of cool algorithms, a lot of OO design, a nice smattering of patterns...but relatively few useful solutions for people. It was only when I was like "Alright, I've already read every book anyone I've met has ever mentioned...I need to push through and actually finish a project now" that my skills started shooting up. Write code first. Write code until your programs collapse under their own weight. _Then_ go out and read what the masters have written. You'll understand it much better when you have personally faced the problems that they were facing. ~~~ 1_player I was having a similar discussion with a friend of mine. When I was a teenager, I wrote small C projects, then I discovered the world of OS development and set myself to write a minimal operating system from scratch. It was an amazing experience, with a lot of head-scratching, hours spent debugging weird hardware issues, reading other people's code and just churning out badly engineered (but working) code. Now, 10 years after, after playing with Haskell, OCaml, Scheme, learning about best practices, variants, typeclasses, static vs dynamic typing and data structures, every time I set myself to write something more than 100 lines I just get stuck: which language is best for the job? How should I refactor this to be more clear and concise? My programming life definitely got worse (as a C/Python programmer) after I discovered variants and the Option/Either monads. As I said to him, ignorance is bliss. ~~~ nostrademons It does get better - write a lot of code with the new language features and you'll get a sense when they're not useful, or how you can apply them to more mundane languages. You can define a decorator in Python to do Maybe monads, for example: def maybe(decorated): def worker(args): if any(arg is None for arg in args): return None return decorated(args) # Standard decorator machinery return worker (This doesn't mean you _should_ ; this usage is pretty non-idiomatic and will do strange things in edge-cases. That's my point though...the only way to figure out when it's worth it is to try it out in a few situations and determine when it makes the code simpler.) ------ orionblastar Don't give up learning. Learn from your mistakes and failures. Don't be afraid to make a mistake or fail. Fixing your mistakes and failures is called debugging, learn how to debug. Communication is 80% of the job, develop your social and people skills to avoid acting like a jerk, treat others with empathy and compassion. Learn to work with others on a team, don't be a Lone Ranger, sometimes you get stuck and need another pair of eyes to look things over. Learn how to manage stress better so you can get a good night's sleep. If you cannot get 8 hours of sleep at night, consider seeking help for that. If your stress levels make it so you cannot even get sleep, something is wrong. ------ logn I would recommend writing apps as much as you can from "scratch" (do use standard libraries for your language, but shy away from big libraries or platforms that aren't a core part of the language). I think this helps ensure you're not just wiring things together but are truly creating something out of thin air and thinking algorithmically. That experience will serve you well when one day you're confident in piecing together ready-made libraries, platforms, and your own code to create your projects. ------ bobfirestone From my experience there are a few things that I try to keep in mind while working. 1) Keep your code as simple as possible. In the real world if you can call your code complex or clever it is probably bad. 2) When presented with a problem don't immediately reach for the keyboard. Take some time to make sure you understand the actual problem that you are solving. 3) Good enough and working beats perfect and not working. Perfectionists make horrible co-workers and usually end up with horrible code. ~~~ couchand _In the real world if you can call your code complex or clever it is probably bad._ This principle is often called "kill your darlings". [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?KillYourDarlings](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?KillYourDarlings) ------ julesaus There's a great presentation on the topic by Angelina Fabbro www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0TFmdO4ZP0 with matching slides [http://afabbro.github.io/jsconf2013](http://afabbro.github.io/jsconf2013) . The title says javascript, but it's really a platform agnostic guide that sketches out what mastery looks like and lays out actionable steps to get there. Seriously, listen to the talk and/or check out the slides. But 90% won't, so here's her actionable steps: 1. Ask why obsessively 2. Teach and/or speak at an event 3. Work through a suggested curriculum* 4. Experiment recklessly (the code doesn't care) 5. Have opinions 6. Seek mentorship 7. Program a lot 8. Stop fucking programming sometimes. 9. Write Javascript* a lot 10. Write in another language for a while 11. Think like a programmer when afk 12. Know what feedback is good feedback and reject everything else. 13. Break free of imposter syndrome * These are the two points you'll need to adapt to your choice of language ~~~ notduncansmith 13 is easier said than done. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalize, but it feels like if you don't have some level of impostor syndrome, it's almost hubris. ~~~ cgislason I think the trick is to shed your imposter syndrome, but remain humble. You can be confident and humble at the same time. It can come with accurate self- assesment. Keeping your weakness in mind helps a lot. ------ abhinavgujjar You've taken the most IMPORTANT step already - You care about programming. Keep this up. Join forums, read books on programming, follow programming blogs. Next, do not fixate on languages and frameworks. Aspire to make this irrelevant to you. Great developers often can work with multiple languages and frameworks. Be prepared and excited to learn every single day of your life as a programmer. The best programmers I know are always learning. This is an investment you will need to make regardless of work pressures and schedules. I've seen far too many developers have their skills atrophy because they've not invested in improving. Use the Rubber Duck debugging model - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging). One simple way to do this is that whenever you get stuck, go to stackoverflow and start explaining the problem. I have found my solution innumerable number of times by forcing myself to explain it to someone else with no context. It makes you confront your assumptions and understanding. ~~~ elyrly +1 Rubber Duck ------ AnimalMuppet You need someone more experienced than you who can read your code (and look at your architecture). They will say things you don't want to hear. Listen anyway, and try to pick up where they're coming from. Programming well requires judgment and taste. It takes years to develop these well (at least, it did for me), but it helps to have people who have more than you explain why they wouldn't have made the same choices you did. (Note well: Not everyone with more experience than you has better judgment. You need someone with good coding judgment, not just someone older.) ------ Nowaker The books that I think are must-read are "The Pragmatic Programmer" and "Apprenticeship Patterns". I learned a lot from them. I'm aware you expect some quick tips from HN though. Have a look at my old blog posts that summarize these books. While 3 years old and written in Polish, Google translated it very well. Direct links to the translations: [https://bit.ly/1oZiidn](https://bit.ly/1oZiidn) and [https://bit.ly/1w8ELhY](https://bit.ly/1w8ELhY). ------ josephschmoe Honestly, the best thing you can do is make friends with people who have already graduated college. Not even software engineers necessarily. And I don't mean acquaintances. I mean friends. They can give you real perspective - no piece of generic advice I can give you will come even close to the advice of someone who both knows you well and has been in your shoes. Having perspective is better than any specific programming skill you could ever learn. ------ teh_klev Don't obsess with premature optimisation. Get your code working then start profiling if you think it should run faster/use less memory when under load. ------ prostoalex “Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.” ― Steve Martin ------ ozuvedi 1\. It's ok to feel you're a bit more good that other people but never let yourself feel you know better than everyone. 2\. Respect your teammates and always be open to learn from them 3\. Programming is not typing or coding. It's about coming up with solutions. So, before you start typing code use your brain. 4\. Don't run after a hype. Think before you use any tool or technique. 5\. Enjoy !! ------ motyar Think about the problem and solution before you think about code. Don't just start writting code, Write the algos/steps, dataflow. ------ adultSwim Experience. A lot of being a good programmer doesn't have to do with technical skills. Take a compilers course. This was required at my school and I figured it would be boring (I mostly likely the theory classes). I was wrong! Writing a compiler really made me understand what they do. I had seen a lot of people who were trying to appease the compiler. Instead, the compiler is now my slave. ------ Spoom Go here: [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki) and read everything. ------ sgy \- always try to solve nasty problems (e.g. [https://www.hackerrank.com/](https://www.hackerrank.com/)) \- read this: [http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html) ------ proussea Good hints : [http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Contri...](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Contributions_Appearing_in_the_Book) ------ AngeloAnolin I would say purposeful learning. That is, exploring avenues of programming where you know your skills would be stretched, become better to the point that you are able to either: (a) produce and deliver something usable. or (b) make things better ------ kasey_junk Use source control. Even for 1 person throw away projects. ------ filmmo As much as we’ve emphasized that hours of practice are necessary for success, you need to have balance, meaning a life outside of the game. Many pro players started as teens, but now have grown up and have families of their own. Friendships and family are vastly important for your mental well-being, so don’t shut people out in favor of holing yourself up to play at all hours. ------ vishalzone2002 try [http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/pearls/](http://www.cs.bell- labs.com/cm/cs/pearls/) (Programming pearls) Also if you are into Java/C++, Effective Java/C++ are def worth reading.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
SSLH – Access https and ssh from the same port - wjh_ http://www.rutschle.net/tech/sslh.shtml ====== wjh_ I've found it to be very useful, my college firewall blocks pretty much all ports except 80 and 443. Using this I can both host websites over HTTPS, while being able to SSH into my server. ------ pmontra Useful when one is travelling and stops in places that insist blocking everything but port 80. Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Gcc compile error with 2GB of data - p4bl0 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6296837/gcc-compile-error-with-2gb-of-data ====== dexen tl;dr: the error is returned by the linker rather than compiler itself. It is not a bug, just size limitation of the default memory model. Linux x86_64 provides `large model' -- as pointed out by VJo, but it is not supported by GCC before 4.6, [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6296837/gcc-compile- error...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6296837/gcc-compile-error- with-2gb-of-data/6297704#6297704) ------ joeyh What a great technical problem, except for this bit: > Btw, I didn't try to hide behind "this is scientific computing -- no way to > optimize". It's just that the basis for this code is something that comes > out of a "black box" where I have no real access to Black box != science. ~~~ esrauch A research assistantship I held was based on classified data; all of the published work had to be approved by the DoD and the actual data we used wasn't allowed to be published which made our results entirely unreproducable. ------ __rkaup__ Is including all that data in the object code really necessary? ~~~ dekayed Generally not. My last project involved building a framework in which scientists could run calculations for certain types of risk. A prototype built by some of said scientists involved code like seen in the SO question. After looking at the types of calculations being done, we figured out that most of the equations that were used were similar and could be generalized. We also moved all the coefficients and parameters for all the equations into configuration files. I suspect that a thorough evaluation of this code would reveal something similar as in my case. ------ juiceandjuice Those expressions look a lot like an alternating series to me. You should be able to generate an expression to produce them fairly easily. ------ bsiemon This sorta reminds me of the silly things people do with JavaScript. ~~~ nddrylliog Such as... an MP3 decoder? <https://github.com/nddrylliog/jsmad> ------ malkia I suggested to try and use LuaJIT. It has very good double precision floating point, and it looks like SSE/SIMD were not used directly from the code. LuaJIT should garbage collect unused code, if not it always regenerates it. It should be able to compile and execute tons of code as he has (and it looks like all his stuff is generated, but for C++). ~~~ premchai21 Last I checked, the LuaJIT allocator on AMD64 platforms uses only a small part of the address space for the Lua heap, partly so that more efficient type- punned representations can be used internally. I don't remember what the limit is exactly, but it's only a few GB (and beyond that the GC starts having trouble anyway). I don't know whether this applies to the machine-code JIT output, or to external cdata arrays, but it's something to watch out for here.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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