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Ask HN: Why don't you plant a Giant Sequoia today? - lowdose
One giant sequoia can store a lifetime of carbon emissions. For $7 at amazon you can order a live tree seedling and plant it today.<p>The General Sherman removed 1438.892 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air. Divided by the American yearly CO2 footprint of 16.6 metric tons ,we get 86.7 years of CO2 sequestered in a single tree!<p>The giant sequoia grows 4 feet (1.2 m) in height or more per year Given excellent conditions the growth rings could approach 2 inch (5.1 cm) doubling the 100-year total to 34 feet (10m) in trunk diameter.<p>This is an idea to seed a new forest full of giants up to a length 275 feet (86 m) high. A forest that grows across the world and is going to live there for thousands of years. Who wouldn't want to grow up near a forest like the Sequoia National Park in America?<p>https://dewharvest.com/carbon-dioxide-stored-by-general-sherman-giant-sequoia.html<p>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteumI
======
sethammons
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20594207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20594207)
A previous discussion on the empress tree. More climate options for growing.
The top comment on the thread:
> So basically each american would have to cultivate about 0.196 acre of
> empress trees (792 sq meters, or 8522 sq foot) to become carbon neutral.
For me, I'm looking into where I could put some.
~~~
legym
I'm very torn with this. Empress trees are invasive.
------
schoen
> The General Sherman removed 1438.892 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the
> air. Divided by the American yearly CO2 footprint of 16.6 metric tons ,we
> get 86.7 years of CO2 sequestered in a single tree!
Although it took around 2500 years to do so. If your calculations are right,
the American should presumably plant 30 of these trees rather than one in
order to have a more real-time impact. This is also assuming that each tree
planted will follow something like the growth trajectory of the largest tree
in the world.
I'm also not sure that this calculation is right, for example because using
the approximate mass of the tree as the amount of CO₂ fixed by the tree
neglects the contribution of the H₂O that was also an ingredient for the
tree's cellulose content.
(I fully support people planting sequoia trees, though!)
------
ReD_CoDE
Hope these two articles help with:
[https://www.airqualitynews.com/2018/07/30/plants-and-
trees-n...](https://www.airqualitynews.com/2018/07/30/plants-and-trees-not-
the-solution-to-air-pollution-in-cities/)
[https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-many-trees-to-plant-
to-s...](https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-many-trees-to-plant-to-stop-
climate-crisis/#.XStF79lYYa0.linkedin)
Indeed the tree and where we plant them is important
And today when some countries like Switzerland have carbon capture
technologies why more trees which needs more watter?
------
matt_the_bass
For the host of reasons listed in other comments (and others too), it will
never pass that everyone plants a giant sequoia. This means the “ideal”
proposed solution is not possible.
Therefore, why not aim for a more realistic goal: 1\. plant trees in vacant
spaces (such as highway medians), any kind of tree 2\. Plant 1 extra tree
instead of more lawn in your yard.
I’d guess these goals are more attainable and though would not offer a full
solution, would be better than no option.
------
sloaken
I love trees, well most trees, not a fan of pine trees, as they seem to plant
those everywhere ....
So after the tree grows, and captures the carbon, then what? Do you let it
die, rot and release its carbon?
If carbon is the problem, because the earths total carbon is pretty much
constant, then is not the problem how to get rid of carbon, or at least keep
it in a captive state?
All the carbon, was captured in the ground as oil. Why not put carbon back in
the empty oil wells? As in yard waste?
------
kbutler
I'd love a sequoia forest, but:
Not suitable for my climate.
Planting trees isn't the problem - the challenge is having them live to
maturity.
Bigger trees store more carbon more rapidly, as they perform more
photosynthesis
([https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181187))
so work to preserve existing big trees.
------
caymanjim
Where are you going to plant these millions of trees? What existing land
suitable for sequoia growth is not currently full of sequoias? If that land is
suitable, but not forested, why? If it's being used for something else, what
are you going to displace?
Like many feel-good solutions to major issues, there are a host of reasons why
they're not already happening or why they wouldn't actually solve the problem.
------
eaenki
Can you link the amazon listing?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Wololo Unity Builds for Windows, iOS, Android and macOS with 1 Click - jjdelannoy
https://www.wololoci.com
======
jjdelannoy
Hello HN we like to share the new milestone of our product, right now you can
connect your Unity project select target platforms ( Windows, Android, iOS,
macOS, WebGL, and Linux) and start building as you do in your PC or your Hacky
CI Tool, you can check out us at
[https://www.wololoci.com](https://www.wololoci.com) and here is the video of
our platform working:
[https://youtu.be/kQz7n34dSxw](https://youtu.be/kQz7n34dSxw) if you wanna have
early access just ping me at [email protected]
Cheers, Jean.
| {
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Why Arabs Lose Wars (1999) - severine
https://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars
======
pasabagi
A very interesting essay - but it works better if you substitute 'arabic
nations' with 'dictatorships'. Most of what he's talking about has far more to
do with the mechanics of maintaining a dictatorship than arabic culture.
He probably missed this because he's both unwilling to acknowledge that he's
been training the troops of dictatorships for his adult career, but also, that
the US is generally involved in the propping-up of such dictatorships.
US forces tend to spend a lot of time training extremely demoralized and
unenthusiastic conscripts, surrounded by officers who see their own soldiers
as the enemy, and don't trust eachother - and that's exactly what you expect
of the army of a unpopular dictatorship, and it's exactly what such armies
have looked like throughout most of history. The problems that mysteriously
vanish when he talks about the 'elite units' are vanishing because the elites
actually like the regimes they're in.
They also seem to vanish when they worked with the Kurds, for instance.
~~~
woodandsteel
>it works better if you substitute 'arabic nations' with 'dictatorships'.
You are correct this applies to dictatorships in general, and in fact the
article mentions the similarities to the Soviet military.
But then you have to ask why the Arab nations are almost all dictatorships,
and that brings you back to culture, at least considerably.
~~~
pasabagi
Well, most countries are not particularly democratic, but countries with
lucrative primary industries, especially strategically important ones, are
often dictatorships. Which makes sense, because if you're a big nation, and
you want to make sure your access to strategically vital resources is safe,
you want to have a friendly government in charge - and a client dictatorship
is dependably friendly, since they need you for the weapons they need to stay
in power.
I'd say there's also the compounding influence of the colonial legacy. A
colony usually has no culture of the 'citizen', since the people of the colony
are basically a resource exploited by the colonist. Without a deep culture of
citizenship, it's kinda hard to get a robust democracy going.
~~~
woodandsteel
>Well, most countries are not particularly democratic
And that is due to a great extent to culture, which is what the article is
about
> A colony usually has no culture of the 'citizen', since the people of the
> colony are basically a resource exploited by the colonist.
But Arab culture prior to the relatively brief period of Western colonization
also did not have a concept of citizen, at least not in the democratic sense.
~~~
pasabagi
>But Arab culture prior to the relatively brief period of Western colonization
also did not have a concept of citizen, at least not in the democratic sense.
This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole, and I found:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottomanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottomanism),
which is kinda interesting. I'm thinking the Ottoman thinking is probably the
most relevant, since most of the middle east was part of the Ottoman empire.
------
stcredzero
_In every society information is a means of making a living or wielding power,
but Arabs husband information and hold it especially tightly. U.S. trainers
have often been surprised over the years by the fact that information provided
to key personnel does not get much further than them. Having learned to
perform some complicated procedure, an Arab technician knows that he is
invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to have that knowledge;
once he dispenses it to others he no longer is the only font of knowledge and
his power dissipates._
This information hoarding behavior also occurs in large enterprises. I know
one programmer who got to sit in a cafe reading a book, because she was the
only one who understood how a particular subsystem worked. (She had written it
in a particularly diabolical way, and only she understood the underlying
system of objects only existed as adjacent entries in long arrays, which then
underwent merge sort-like "merge" operations involving 4 array indexes, of
which there were dozens of variations which called each other recursively. The
company that had produced the system was defunct, and no manuals for the
format could be found.)
One way to counteract this, is to require all groups within the company to
provide a standardized API for accessing their systems, and to evaluate each
group by how useful it is to the rest of the company.
~~~
baud147258
Another variation of this behavior is information-based management, where
business information is given (or not) to the various team members, usually
because of internal politics/power struggles. (at least it's how my boss in my
second internship explained it to me, I never directly witnessed it)
------
jacobwilliamroy
random thought: maybe if enough wars are lost, they'll stop practicing war and
try to get their needs met by other means.</randomthought>
I think Norvell B. De Atkine might have missed out on some key details due to
his status as an outsider. Especially if every Arab with whom he interacted
truly suspected he was a zionist spy. It's difficult to overcome that kind of
paranoia and the skills for doing so are not taught in the U.S. military.
Also, it sounds like a lot of these people are being forced to participate in
the wars, and that's just a recipe for failure. Guns are scary it takes a lot
more than a draft to convince someone to stick around for that shit.
Another thing to consider is that the rituals used to build loyalty in the
U.S. military are kind of a secret. Generally, only the ones participating in
the rituals get to know what they are. The content is not entirely intuitive
either: imagine being told to sleep in a 1-meter wooden cube in the woods;
ants crawl into the cube and bite you; at bedtime, human chanting is played
from speakers inside your cube, alternating between quiet and deafening over
five minute intervals until the sun comes up. This is meant to build unit
cohesion. It's weirdo shit devised by psychos to break human minds.
Also, the article is called "Why Arabs Lose Wars" but half of the examples he
initially cites are wars in which both sides were arab: Egypt v Yemen, Syria v
Lebanon, Iraq v Kuwait. Arabs won those wars... but I guess that wasn't worth
noting because the losing side was arab?
Those were just some details which stuck out to me while I was reading the
article. I acknowledge that about half of this article is objective, fact-
based observation and those observations were genuinely interesting. I think
that his evidence is inconclusive simply because of the context in which his
observations were gathered.
~~~
jki275
That's not really how the US military works.
You're attempting to describe a training event that has nothing to do with a
"loyalty ritual", it's not a good description and has nothing to do with unit
cohesion, loyalty, or breaking anyone's mind.
------
EliRivers
An excellent and very readable book on this in the modern era is "Arabs at
War" by Kenneth M. Pollack
He examines a number of recent wars in the area of interest and discusses some
of the common findings he makes. He also finds a number of situations in which
armies in the region are effective; it's not just a hit piece.
------
ghbakir
I was expecting a dull write-up but this essay is extremely insight full and
deep.
The problems and issues are probably not restricted to the military apparatus.
Many organizational inefficiencies in e.g. Turkish political/private
organizations are due same reasons.
------
forkLding
TLDR: Arab armies are ineffective because of the all the internal, external
and ethnic politics which hinders all kinds of cooperation and unity at the
battalion-level, otherwise on the unit and soldier-level they are comparable
to Israeli units.
~~~
jdm2212
The article is pretty clear that on the small unit and soldier level the Arab
forces are less effective, too. Specialists horde information, soldiers don't
train for multiple roles, junior officers mistreat their soldiers, no one
shows initiative, etc. There are good reasons for all of this -- it's not an
Arab character defect, but a rational response to soldiers' circumstances --
but the author states quite explicitly that an Israeli tank crew can better
absorb casualties than an Arab tank crew can because the Israelis are
encouraged to share information and train for multiple tasks.
------
severine
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10830172)
Jan 3, 2016 | 41 comments
------
aogaili
I think the author is describing a symptoms of an ill organization structure
rather than the root causes. The reason why there is no trust, sharing of
information and centralized authority in modern Arab state armies because Arab
societies never really transitioned successfully into a functional
nationalistic countries. Arabs never really believed in nation state and in
the absence of strong bonding narrative, there is no common ground for the
group to collaborate and fight thus you end up with individuals seeking their
self interest and subsequently the symptoms which the author observed.
Modern nation state concepts were forced into a region that is predominantly
tribal and religious in culture therefore the resulted states, governments,
armies and other national institutions are merely a superficial layer on top
of a largely religious, ethinic and tribal societies. The west had a long and
painful (400 years plus and two major wars) transition from societies
dominated by religion to a national secular societies and eventually a
capitalistic global societies. That transition never really took place in the
Arab region, instead what happened is that western society tried to force
national borders and proxy presidents after the world wars on societies that
didn’t have the cultural foundation for it and the region has not really
managed to reconcile, unify and agree on it’s identity ever since.
So why do arabs lose war? Because really there is no state or reason to fight
for it. This was very clear in Iraq when fighting ISIS, the men of the country
only mobilized after a religious greenlight from a senior clerk despite the
fact that ISIS were at the border of the country's capital.
~~~
baud147258
> 400 years plus and two major wars
More like a dozen of major war.
But what you are describing is close to the idea of nation-state, which has
been blamed as the cause of the war of the XXth century.
~~~
aogaili
Yeah indeed it cauased a new set of global conflicts, but it also allowed
western societies to raise above the tribal, relgious and ethinic devisions
(for better or worst) something I'd argue no Arab nation managed to do so
successfully.
In fact it seems that western societies are currently undergrowing new
trasnision beyond the nation and local bordres, which could be why they're
having new make x great again movements and raise of local populist.
------
devoply
Mostly because there is no Arab or Muslim empire left after Europeans killed
off the Ottoman empire and it's easy to beat down tyrants with few allies.
What's the reasons for these tyrants, dictators, and terrorists. Insecurity.
What's the reason for insecurity? Lack of empire... so you always end up
becoming someone's bitch... which leads to feelings of insecurity and
inferiority.
The only way to deal with this is to become a vassal of an existing empire and
good examples of this are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc.
~~~
markbnj
> Mostly because there is no Arab or Muslim empire left after Europeans killed
> off the Ottoman empire
Can you describe the Ottoman's as Arabs? Without resorting to sources I seem
to recall their origins were in Scythia. In any case, I do think there is some
value in looking back at the history, even though it is pretty orthogonal to
the analysis in the post (there may be some cultural touch points). Also,
isn't it more accurate to say that the Ottomans chose the wrong (German) side
in a war, and that this is the cause of their final dissolution?
~~~
omer_balyali
Ottomans were not Arab by any-means. Ottoman State is founded by Osman Bey,
leader of the Kayi Tribe which is a sub-tribe of Oghuz Turks, who migrated
from Khorasan. The official language in Ottoman empire was Ottoman Turkish,
which is basically Turkish with many many Persian and Arabic words, while the
structure and grammer was Turkish. Ottoman Turkish mainly used in Istanbul by
a limited-number of people who are closed to state affairs or some educated
people like poets or government officials in the federal states. Common people
was speaking plan Turkish, which don't have much Persian and Arabic influence,
and this language was the language of the Ottoman Army. Ottoman state and army
culture, discipline and structure was a classical Turkish state structure, of
course with differences from previous Turkish states.
The problem Arabs faced after dissolution of Ottoman Empire is similar in a
sense to Turkish people faced, in regards to the national awareness.
Ottoman Empire didn't dissolved because they chose the wrong side, instead it
was huge empire consisting of many nation and spans over an enourmous area
(East Europe, Anatolia, Syria-Iraq, Egypt, Arabia, North Africa), while the
army and many government offices couldn't keep up with the developments of the
time. Basically, Ottoman Empire dissolved because of the wrong politics and
failure to renew itself. After the French Revolution, nationalism started to
spread over whole Europe and this affected the Ottoman Empire most, not only
consisting of different nations, but also different religions. Being a
religious state (Islamic), main subjects were Muslims and non-Muslims,
separated by Millet system according to religious affiliation. Government
officials were either Turkish or Devshirmes (Christian boys converted to Islam
and trained to be gov. officials), being Muslim even wasn't a qualification to
be an official.
When nationalism sweeps Europe, Christian Balkan nations like Greeks,
Serbians, Bulgars etc. started to rebel against the empire to found their own
independent nation states, feeling comfortable as the empire was loosing power
every day. In that situation, Ottoman government was trying to cope with "the
problem" by supporting the empire-identity of Ottomanism, and only small
number of educated people were following the idea of Turkish nationalism and
to create a Turkish nation-state. This was all happening at the last decades
of 1800s, and Ottomans lost Balkan region, latery Ottomans also lost Middle
East, Egypt, Iraq, Arabia, North Africa. British Empire also supported Arab
nations to rebel against Ottoman Empire, promising their own land (British
Mandates).
Empire was already dissolved when most of the nations declared their
independence. WW1 was just nail in the coffin, that officially surrendered
Ottoman Empire and Istanbul to British Empire. After the end of WW2, Allied
forces (British, Greek, French, Italian, Armenian) shared the remnants of the
empire with Treaty of Sevres, but Ottoman Army generals and irregular Turkish
armed forces rebelled against the invading forces and this resulted in the
victory for the Turkish side in the War of Independence, and ultimately
resulted in the foundation of the Turkish national state.
TL;DR: Empire didn't dissolved because of choosing the German side. And also
Arab nations didn't share "ottoman" ideals as Turkish and even many non-Muslim
millet did and finally rebelled against Ottomans with the British support.
Saying Ottoman Empire was an Arab Empire is simply ignoring the historical
facts. This is not so different than saying all the Christian nations in
Europe are descending of the Jews because Jesus was one. Having words from a
language and having the same religious affiliation doesn't make two different
states, nations or cultures one.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_and_modernization_of_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_and_modernization_of_the_Ottoman_Empire)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_nationalism_in_the_Ott...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_nationalism_in_the_Ottoman_Empire)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence)
~~~
markbnj
Thanks so much for the insights.
> Ottoman Empire didn't dissolved because they chose the wrong side, instead
> it was huge empire consisting of many nation and spans over an enourmous
> area (East Europe, Anatolia, Syria-Iraq, Egypt, Arabia, North Africa), while
> the army and many government offices couldn't keep up with the developments
> of the time.
Not an uncommon pattern.
~~~
jcranmer
Multicultural empires couldn't survive the onslaught of nationalism that came
in the 19th century. The modernization attempts of the Ottoman Empire (unlike
Austria-Hungary or Russia, the other two major multicultural empires of
Europe) rested very heavily on a very narrow Turkish nationalism movement that
alienated the Armenian, Arab, and Balkan peoples in the country. But Austria-
Hungary, which was somewhat successfully trying to force an inclusive,
multicultural modernization process still imploded, as did Russia, which was
somewhat in the middle between Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans.
Even the multicultural aspects of the British Empire would come flying apart
in the 20th century--Irish nationalism was successful in splitting from
Britain in the inter-war period, and Indian nationalism would end the British
Raj shortly after WW2. And Britain was consistently the most modern, liberal,
and inclusive country in this period. The only countries that could
successfully survive multiculturally were those that received multiple
countries from the sheer immigration of the period and channeled them into a
melting pot of immigrant cultures (most notably the US, but many of the large
American countries went through similar experiences).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PageRank for shipping - prakash
http://www.tompinckney.com/2010/02/pagerank-for-shipping.html
======
Anon84
Instead of looking at a supplier to decide how they
should rank, Panjiva looks at the people buying from
those suppliers. The network amongst suppliers and
buyers gives a much more truthful representation of what
a supplier is really good at building than purely
analyzing the suppliers themselves.
Data is better than Marketing-speak.
~~~
tom_pinckney
The idea is that you'd probably trust the guy who actually sold 1,000 dresses
to Macys more than the guy who just says they're a great dress manufacturer.
------
hop
Brilliant idea, but how are they going to harvest the shipping data - I don't
believe b2b trading is publicly available.
Like Apple for instance, I'm sure they have NDA's for all their suppliers.
Companies probably treat this as trade secrets so competitors can't source
from the same factory they are buying from.
~~~
atarashi
It looks like they're using the following data sources:
U.S. Customs Import Data
Hong Kong Trade Development Council Data
DP Information Group Reports
EDDI Red Flag Database
China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (SINOSURE) Reports
Social Accountability International Compliance Data
TriVista Sourcing Data
Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) Compliance Data
CUSTOMS Info Reports
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How We Solved the Worst Minigame in Zelda's History [video] - sabas123
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hs451PfFzQ
======
abetusk
This was surprisingly awesome.
There's a "battleship" like game in Zelda that is "required" (I guess) to be
won three times in quick succession for a complete speedrun. Trying to get
three wins in a row is too slow, so they developed a method that uses
knowledge of the random number generator to find the answers.
The method is, as I understand it:
* The seed for the RNG is fixed (RNG is Whichmann-Hill with a seed of 100,100,100, apparently)
* The RNG is used throughout the game and is called upwards of 5.5M times before they get to the "battleship" challenge, so there's a bell curve distribution on what state the RNG is in by the time the player arrives at the challenge
* The bell curve is too wide to effectively be used to narrow the search down initially, so a few "battleship" games are played (and lost) to guess the state of the RNG
* From the last step, this narrows the search down to a few "key states" of the RNG, each with their own bell curve distribution of what state the RNG is when next used to create the random mini-game
* A new distribution 'heat map' of possible ship positions is generated so players can have an increased probability of solving the puzzle
* Each subsequent guess and/or win give more information about the RNG state to effectively narrow down the search
The key point here is that the RNG is used throughout the game, with an
unknown number of calls in between when it's being called for the Zelda mini-
game they're trying to win.
Since the method is out of game (as in, not reading memory from the game,
using only input from the player out-of-game), it's allowed in speed-runs,
much like consulting a web-site with a tech-map or other quick calculations to
help the player in game.
I'm no expert but this sounds almost verbatim what cryptoanalysts do to break
some encryption protocols with known seed states or other 'side band'
information.
~~~
dane-pgp
The video is definitely worth watching, but that's an excellent summary, thank
you.
It seemed to me that there might be a trade-off (when selecting a square in
the game) between squares that have a high probability of containing a
ship/squid and squares that are a good choice for carrying out a binary search
of the remaining possible board states.
Presumably, though, the remaining board states are sufficiently random that no
square is significantly better than any other in terms of the binary search.
~~~
nullc
I implemented a solver for the computer hacking minigame in fallout 3 (?
whatever one is the oldest with the hacking minigame)-- it was sort of a
'mastermind' but with words.
My solver eventually always won, without anything as fancy as reverse
engineering the game. But to get there I had to both choose the option that
maximized the information gain and look ahead many moves to make that
estimation accurate-- the choices were non-independent so a simple entropy
estimate (e.g. picking the choice closest to 50% on their heatmap) won't
necessarily give the best play.
Sometimes the move that distinguished the answer list the best was was not the
first move in the _pair_ (or n-tuple) of moves that best distinguished the
list.
By lookahead I mean for each ultimate answer, play out the game many moves
taking all (or a pruned set of choices) and measure how much narrowing you get
after several moves conditional on the first move.
IIRC without the lookahead the entropy based play was worse than playing the
most likely choice, and with just the most likely choice my solver wasn't good
enough to always win without retrying, so I had an incentive to overcome the
local minima of using just the most likely.
Something similar might apply to this, as the geometry of the targets makes
the choices non-independent.
But it sounds like taking the most likely choice is good enough in this game
so perhaps they stopped their development there.
------
rsoto
This is what I love about speedruns: it's basically the core of the hacker
mindset—solving problems through creativity, often to a insane degree.
If you don't feel like watching a 24-minute video, please do yourself a favor
and resist that urge. It really pays off.
And if you enjoy it, take a look at these channels:
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtUbO6rBht0daVIOGML3c8w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtUbO6rBht0daVIOGML3c8w)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/user/BismuthWasTaken](https://www.youtube.com/user/BismuthWasTaken)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/user/karljobst](https://www.youtube.com/user/karljobst)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIyZiiHXIH7KkqfaDvBmG-Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIyZiiHXIH7KkqfaDvBmG-Q)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/user/RWhiteGoose](https://www.youtube.com/user/RWhiteGoose)
~~~
keenmaster
The proper way to watch a speed run video is with a speed run. Watch at 2x
speed or more for < 12-minute completion time with a possible _gain_ in
comprehension.
~~~
saagarjha
Actually, it turns out that you can save a couple hundred frames at the
beginning if you enter the video holding down A.
~~~
keenmaster
What does that do from a technical standpoint?
~~~
saagarjha
Nothing, it's a reference to the "Watch for Rolling Rocks 0.5x A Presses"
video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A)
~~~
s1artibartfast
amazing
------
wrnr
There is this mini game in Ocarina of Time where you enter a room with two
locked exits and a chest containing either a key or some consolation price.
Every exit leads to a new room with a chest. You win the game by picking the
room with a key N times but price in the next room is always random. At some
point I got stuck and the best thing I could think of was to open random
doors. A hole day I picked the wrong door and at the end only got a quarter
extra health for my effort and was still stuck at the game. Had to find this
enter-hook think hidden in some old grace.
~~~
raldi
You can use the Lens of Truth to cheat and see the contents of the chests
before opening them.
------
boringg
Why did I just watch this? Fascinating but I don't even know what a speed run
is. In terms of the statistics, heat map and mini game breakdown - pretty
slick. I just don't understand why so much effort was put into unpacking this
game within a game :)
~~~
jsnell
A speed run is an attempt to finish a game faster than anyone else. (Within
some set of constraints; e.g. it might mean seeing the credits, it might mean
explicitly winning every stage or ever boss in the game, etc).
The issue with this minigame was apparently that players would need to waste a
basically random amount of time on the minigame, it was necessary to win the
minigame to finish the game (in a way that meet these particular speedrun
constraints).
If the game takes two hours to finish and the minigame can take 1 minute or 5
minutes of it, an attempt where it takes 5 minutes is probably never going to
beat the record. You might as well scrap it. And in this case you would not
know until half an hour into the game whether this attempt you'd get lucky, or
if it was a total waste of time. So this group wanted to find a way to
mitigate the randomness, such that the viability of an attempt was determined
by player skill rather than luck in a bullshit minigame.
~~~
boringg
Got it - I didn't realize speedruns we're so popular for this game and that
this minigame was the crux of the speed run problem. Impressive dedication to
such a minute problem.
~~~
shaftway
There are different categories for speedruns within a game. The most popular
is for completion, then for 100% completion. Sometimes other restrictions too.
Like Super Mario Brothers has ones for winning with and without warp pipes.
The fastest Super Mario Brothers speedrun is under 5 minutes:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gum4GI2Jr0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gum4GI2Jr0s)
------
thatswrong0
The speedrun community is wonderful for this sort of thing. And tbh it’s
therapeutic to have on in the background as I’ve been WFH since COVID started.
Sort of related, it’s awesome to see that they’re still finding massive bugs
in these old games (such as Ocarina if Time, which only recently have a proper
ACE exploit found) 20+ years later and figuring out _why_ these bugs happen so
they can figure out easier ways to make it happen so they can actually use
them in runs. It’s fascinating to watch the progression of these exploits
~~~
Agent766
Check out the history of Wind Waker's barrier skip as well. I believe it saves
30 minutes of a 3.5 hour run. It's always been known that finding a way to
skip Wind Waker's barrier would be massive, but it resisted any attempts to
bypass it until a year ago. The barrier blocks off the final dungeon of the
game.
------
pmezard
> Thanks the NSA for the beautiful piece of software called Ghidra
(had to look it up: [https://ghidra-sre.org/](https://ghidra-sre.org/) ).
~~~
saagarjha
I’m very happy to see that Ghidra is commodifying reverse engineering tools
and making them available to efforts like these.
------
Scuds
Linkus7 at Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 exploiting memory leaks so that the
Gamecube can't malloc RAM for a barrier wall thus skipping over a large amount
of the game
[https://youtu.be/7XBPrFYN1MU?t=3106](https://youtu.be/7XBPrFYN1MU?t=3106)
------
fingerlocks
This video left me with a lot of unanswered questions, probably because I know
nothing about reverse engineering console games.
How did they figure out the RNG method, and the initial seed values? And how
were they able to count the number of RNG invocations while the game was
running? This information was crucial for the rest of the setup, but not at
all obvious how it was acquired.
~~~
Jasper_
Nintendo left symbol maps for the game on the disk, so they likely found the
random number generator function within that, which is named cM_rndF. To count
invocations, you could patch the game to increment a counter on every RNG
call, and try an example speedrun. Or you could do a brute force to find the
rough invocation count from the internal state.
------
milesvp
I clicked on the link wondering if it was the battleship minigame. I hated
this minigame so much, I too ended up writing code to help me figure out
optimal moves just get past the dumb thing, and I wasn’t even trying to speed
run the damn thing.
------
remram
I can tell that so much effort went into this video, with so much explanations
and those impressive animations, but then the sound was set to -18dB on
export, making it barely audible. Oops!
------
yomly
As an aside, Wind Waker is so beautiful. I remember at the time merely
thinking "this is an opinionated visual style" but man did it fracture gamers
at the time.
But now it feels pretty timeless...
~~~
CarVac
The version shown is the Wii U version which has some updated graphical
effects.
I'm playing through the original right now and while it's quite decent-
looking, it's not as polished as the update.
~~~
yomly
Good catch - I had a feeling it might be.
Still, WW always amazed me for a GC/PS2 era game.
------
testplzignore
One of my great achievements in life is getting a score of 10 in this game.
Perhaps someday I'll get a perfect 9.
------
s_Hogg
This is great. Bayes' theorem is such a simple principle, which is precisely
why it's so powerful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mass email hoax causes closures across the US and Canada - vezycash
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/12/a-tsunami-of-emailed-bomb-hoaxes-prompts-evacuations-across-the-us-and-canada/
======
vezycash
Summary: Emails threaten explosions unless people pay $20,000 in Bitcoin.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How I saved over $4000 on software? - nreece
http://www.nilkanth.com/archives/2006/10/24/how-i-saved-over-4000-on-software/
======
Goladus
What he has listed SQL Server aren't equivalent products, and I'm pretty sure
not open source, much less the "free as in freedom" standard of GNU software.
VMware server is free as in cost.
Here's what I'm looking for in free software:
Versions of ProTools, GigaStudio, and Finale.
Video editing software
~~~
noel2
What?!?! Ok, take that gum out of ya mouth before you talk.
~~~
Goladus
The article isn't really good enough to be worth a formal reply. I was just
brainstorming related ideas.
~~~
nreece
Open Source Alternatives: <http://www.osalt.com/> for more gum :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The iTunes Expanding Album Effect in HTML/CSS/JS - thomaspark
http://thomaspark.me/project/expandingalbums/
======
thomaspark
The text and background colors are generated from the album artwork (like in
yesterday's Panic post) using a modified version of the Color Thief library.
More info about the demo here: [http://thomaspark.me/2012/12/the-itunes-
expanding-album-effe...](http://thomaspark.me/2012/12/the-itunes-expanding-
album-effect-in-css-js/)
------
quasimo
I shared it here: <http://dot-
js.com/posts/ed7625ba-1349-4330-8edf-4e888b25fff0>
------
benaiah
Really cool animation. It seems like this could be done in pure HTML/CSS if
you used the checkbox (radio button would probably work better) or (possibly)
focus hacks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Analyzing the Patterns of Numbers in 10M Passwords (2015) - BeautifulData
http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/password-numbers/
======
minimaxir
Huh. Of all my old blog posts, this is the last one I expected to randomly
resurface at the top of Hacker News.
There were a lot of other articles made using this 10M Password dataset at the
time it was originally released, which the dataset author aggregated into a
subreddit
([https://www.reddit.com/r/10millionpasswords/](https://www.reddit.com/r/10millionpasswords/)).
WPEngine, for example, has a much more comprehensive writeup with ad-hoc looks
at specific passwords
([http://wpengine.com/unmasked/](http://wpengine.com/unmasked/)).
~~~
anondon
Off topic, but where do you host your website and what is your tech stack?
Would it be possible to do a blog post about traffic patterns from HN? Eg-
Hits vs time since post, hits vs day of post.
~~~
minimaxir
The site is static, hosted on GitHub Pages and generated via Jekyll, backed by
Cloudflare for extra HN-proofing.
As of this comment, there are 150-170 concurrent users on the site, with about
120 of them (~80%) from HN. Although I do have the data, I am hesitant to do a
write up since I would need to correlate traffic to the rank of a submission
on HN, which I do not have in retrospect. (For example, a post at #1 can get
300 concurrent users while this post at #3 only 150. Posts in #20-30 are lucky
to get 50 concurrents. For further reference, note that Reddit posts which hit
the front page of a default like /r/dataisbeautiful can get 1,000
concurrents.)
EDIT: When this post dropped to #4, traffic immediately dropped to 100-110
concurrents.
~~~
anondon
Man, you have to do a post about traffic patterns to your website with
whatever data you have, it's way too interesting. Leave out the rank
correlation part, and share whatever data you have available. Please!
------
JoeAltmaier
The distribution of 1-digit numbers is simple: when sites require a digit,
everybody appends '1' to their usual password. The exponential declining
frequency of subsequent digits is because when passwords 'expire' folks just
add 1. The short lifetime of site usage results in that decline. Just thinking
out loud.
------
markild
Looks like a few of the patterns in his analysis has a tendency towards
Benford's Law[1]
[1]:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law)
~~~
nateberkopec
Technically it describes none of these. Benford's Law only describes
collections of leading digits. The charts in the article are just exponential
distributions.
~~~
markild
Yeah. Reading a bit more into it, I think you're right.
------
dfc
The problem with this type of analysis is that it treats the 10million
passwords as if they are representative of all passwords. A more descriptive
title would be:
"Analyzing the Patterns of Numbers in 10 Million passwords that were not
randomly selected from an unknown number of accounts"
One of the first cracking rules in john is append a "1" to dictionary word.
"123" is one of the few multidigit strings that john appends in the default
ruleset. Furthermore the first 5 million passwords were used to generate a
character frequency database for cracking the second 5 million.
~~~
minimaxir
The 10M dump was collected from a wide variety of sources to avoid sampling
bias.
~~~
dfc
How did you "avoid" sample bias? How many of the passwords come from databases
that were dumped in cleartext or cracked with 100% success? Meaning every
account on that system was included in cleartext or 100% of the passwords from
a dump were cracked.
The reason I ask is that the dataset you analyzed does not make this claim:
"Now not all of these passwords are plaintext. Many dumps include passwords in
a hashed format that requires you to crack them yourself."
[https://xato.net/a-glimpse-into-the-world-of-internet-
passwo...](https://xato.net/a-glimpse-into-the-world-of-internet-password-
dumps-5ee4609da237)
------
kijin
DataGenetics did a similar analysis with four-digit numbers in leaked
passwords and PINs. The article contains lots of cool visualizations.
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/)
~~~
maxerickson
I'm always struck by the uncredited similarities of stuff there to other
sources, like the pin grid, found in this paper published earlier in 2012 than
the blag there:
[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/BPA12-FC-
banking_pin_...](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/BPA12-FC-
banking_pin_security.pdf)
------
d--b
Notable fact: '69' makes it as '3rd most used combination of 2 numbers in
passwords'.
~~~
AznHisoka
I assume because most users were born in 1969?
~~~
wccrawford
I'm not sure if this comment is deeply sarcastic and insightful on a number of
topics, or just hopelessly naive. I'm learning towards sarcastic and
insightful, and it's impressive.
------
TorKlingberg
I think brute force password crackers could be made much more efficient by
using machine learning or manually written rules to exploit how people choose
passwords.
Even if you force users to pick a password of at least 8 characters with upper
and lower case letter, numbers and special characters, I suspect the real
entropy is much lower than the theoretical.
~~~
e12e
There were a couple of talks about this at password^12:
Like:
[http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/Kirsi_Helkala/](http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/Kirsi_Helkala/)
[http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/Markus_Duermuth_Password_Se...](http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/Markus_Duermuth_Password_Security_and_Markov_Models/)
But it's a whole conference about passwords... so not sure if I found the
presentation I had in mind...:
[http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/](http://passwords12.at.ifi.uio.no/)
And btw, registration is now open for password^16 in Germany in December:
[https://passwordscon.org/](https://passwordscon.org/)
------
myfonj
When it comes to visualisation of numbers distribution, every time I recall
the Secret Live of Numbers [0] applet by Golan Levin from 2002. Haven't seen
anything comparable ever since. So pleasant to browse through the data I'm
tempted to try to make the java applet runtime working again now. (At least we
can enjoy some screenshots [1])
[0] [http://www.flong.com/projects/slon/](http://www.flong.com/projects/slon/)
[1]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/golanlevin/sets/72157594388612...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/golanlevin/sets/72157594388612317/)
------
Coincoin
I'm surprised 69 is third instead of first. I'm even more surprised the author
is surprised it's in the tops.
When I first looked at a password database I actually laughed out loud at how
many 69 there were. I don't know, there is something funny about 'Yaris69' or
'Puppy69', although it's probably used ironically these days.
------
lwander
The fact that there are peaks at 6 and 8 digits per password is probably due
the fact that dates can be represented as DDMMYY and DDMMYYYY respectively,
rather than imply that humans are better at remembering an even number of
digits.
------
grkvlt
An interesting peak in the '7XX' subset is '768' which is an important number
for muslims. [1] I also noticed mild peaks at '258' and '852' which are
vertical sequences on a numeric keypad - in the 4-digit PIN dataset there was
a distinct peak at '2580' as well - as well as another at '951' for the
diagonal sequence.
[1] [http://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/799/what-
does-786-m...](http://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/799/what-
does-786-mean)
------
OJFord
There's a comment there [0] asking for more graphs including the distribution
for password managers that randomly generate passwords... erm...
[0]: [http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/password-
numbers/#comment-18765...](http://minimaxir.com/2015/02/password-
numbers/#comment-1876534596)
~~~
blakep
Looks like this guy is doing some serious campaigning for his password
manager, take a look at his previous comments:
[https://disqus.com/by/disqus_OIqfE7dCZb/](https://disqus.com/by/disqus_OIqfE7dCZb/)
------
e12e
Reminds me about the tidbit about "strong password" rules, like one each of
small letter, capital letter, digit or symbol. Like: "Password2016". Really
strong. It's even longer than 8 letters.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
"E12e likes 2016" is probably even stronger and easier to remember
~~~
e12e
The point is that "Password2016" will often score as "strong" (enough) while
it really isn't.
------
social_quotient
slightly off topic, what tool/lib did you use to make the charts?"
~~~
minimaxir
All charts in this post were made using R/ggplot2. (The code was not open
sourced in this case because the code for this post is a mess. I have revised
my process since)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cisco Systems to lay off about 14,000 employees: report - doener
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/cisco-systems-to-lay-off-about-14000-employees-report/article31440950/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe
======
sctb
Recent discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12302216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12302216)
------
mark_element
They are also giving away free coffee at the CalTrain station in SF today to
try and gain mindshare for recruiting new employees for Meraki at least.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
(Response to 'YC is a Cult') A Note on Cults & Productivity - demandred
http://www.socialbias.com/a-note-on-cults-productivity/
======
abiek
During your startup lifestyle, how many hours of productive work do you get
accomplished per day?
~~~
parker
I'd guess around 12-14 hours of actual thinking and working time. At a normal
startup as an employee, I'm guessing you'd average around 10 hours, but more
around crunch time
~~~
cschneid
And then I assume another 2-3 hours of "dicking around" with RSS or other non-
valuable computer activities?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How To Hire An Intern - travisro
http://travisrobertson.com/human-resources/how-to-hire-an-intern/
======
_pi
It still disgusts me how people think it's perfectly okay to flaunt labor laws
with internships. This attitude of it being "free labor" is absolutely absurd.
Do your other entry level positions that may need some training also not get
paid? Just because the person doesn't have the degree or doesn't qualify for
the job otherwise doesn't mean he should do it for free if you train him to do
it. I mean really lets be clear here, there is no job that an intern can hold
for which you would spend more money than they would earn at that job in
training them.
~~~
travisro
While I appreciate your thoughts, this seems like a pretty narrow perspective
on the arrangement. You assume there is no benefit to intern and that it's
"flaunting labor laws."
It's a legitimate exchange of services for something of perceived value to the
intern. They perceive the value they are getting from the internship program
as well worth the time and labor they are providing to the company. Nobody is
forced into "free labor." It's purely voluntary.
Many colleges offer course credit for internships (this has monetary value to
the student). Many companies offer incentives such as permanent employment for
stellar interns. Regardless, those who show up and do great work are usually
rewarded with a network of contacts, personal referrals, industry experience
and other things that can help move them to the top of the job pile when they
graduate and actually go out looking for full-time employment.
All other things being equal, as an employer, I'll hire the candidate who has
the experience over the one who doesn't. I'll hire the candidate who's desire
to work in this field is so great, they'd gladly give up a summer to work for
a company without pay because the VALUE of that experience is greater to them
than any minimum wage job they could get paid for. If they are excited about
working in the industry without pay, think of how much more likely they are to
value the opportunity when they get a paycheck.
~~~
_pi
Labor laws in the US clearly state that if the person is working unpaid the
company cannot receive any immediate benefits for his or her position. This
means that you can't have the person "hands on learning" while working on your
product or working at a client site. That is purely illegal unless they're
doing it for course credit. Again if you take on a college student but they
cannot get course credit, however even if their university offers it and you
derive immediate benefit from their employment it's illegal.
I understand if someone cold cases you for an internship and you cannot pay
them but they want to learn and have some position in your company it's a bit
more acceptable. But essentially if you send out job postings for interns you
support a systematic evil in the job market of the US. These people have no
choice but to work for you if they want to work in their field, and obviously
no choice but to do so for free. You essentially try to write it off by saying
it gives them value or experience but you as an employer are more interested
in the free labor rather than what they derive out of it. There is no way
around that. You aren't hiring them for their sake, you're hiring them because
you get free labor that they are excited to do, and that's the best deal for
you because you get the profit from it.
This hurts what people value their career at a critical juncture when they
enter the job market. They see that everyone has to take unpaid internships
meaning that companies aren't willing to value their work, this gets them
thinking that their work is valueless. Which in turn is worse for any employer
because the performance of the employee would suffer because of this diffusion
of responsibility.
In short posted unpaid internships hurt the job market, hurt companies and
most importantly hurt workers in their most critical time. Not only that but
you seem to relish the opportunity of a person who is super excited to work on
something for you for free, which is disrespectful of anyone you hire. I'm not
against all unpaid internships, but most people see it as free labor, not
altruistically training new employees for the job market. Even this article is
prefaced with "Yay free labor in the summer!" which is what triggered my
response, specifically this line: "I’m talking about internships - free, grunt
work labor in the hopes of making connections and gaining a little bit of
experience along the way."
~~~
travisro
"I understand if someone cold cases you for an internship and you cannot pay
them but they want to learn and have some position in your company it's a bit
more acceptable. But essentially if you send out job postings for interns you
support a systematic evil in the job market of the US. These people have no
choice but to work for you if they want to work in their field, and obviously
no choice but to do so for free."
Wow! You're telling me that if I send out a job posting for interns, not only
am I supporting a "systematic evil in the job market" but they have "no
choice"? Really? First, what systematic evil are you referring to? Second,
nobody is holding a gun to their heads. They have a choice. Do you want to
give up some of your time for a chance to learn something? Yes or no. There's
no duping involved. It's laid out. Also, at the end of the post, I clearly
state that anybody offering an internship program SHOULD offer some sort of
fiscal or other reward if the intern performs well.
As for the line you quote: in context, it's written from the perspective of
the intern - not the employer. I'll concede that it wasn't entirely obvious,
though. :)
~~~
_pi
"Wow! You're telling me that if I send out a job posting for interns, not only
am I supporting a "systematic evil in the job market" but they have "no
choice"? Really? First, what systematic evil are you referring to? Second,
nobody is holding a gun to their heads. They have a choice. Do you want to
give up some of your time for a chance to learn something? Yes or no. There's
no duping involved. It's laid out. Also, at the end of the post, I clearly
state that anybody offering an internship program SHOULD offer some sort of
fiscal or other reward if the intern performs well."
Actually because of the economic situation in the United States people who
don't have senior level experience in the job market take unpaid internships
at companies because they think that they would be better selected for a
position in that company.These people have to eat somehow. It's not morally
right to send out internships and get these kinds of people, and then hire
them. Or try to create a job market such as that while maximizing your own
profits off of these people. It's almost equivocal to outsourcing, only
outsourcing. I'm sure you haven't had these kinds of people ask you for a job,
but keep in mind that does happen. Not only that but many internships even
GSoC are an outright insult for free labor.
For instance the projects for Facebook in GSoC this year were ridiculous, they
wanted college kids to build entire SMTP servers for their platforms, or drop
in a replacement for libcurl, or at least code one, in one summer. Honestly if
you ask me those tasks seem way over the level of students because they are
broad projects requiring a team of developers to test for rigor in the system.
They aren't the only company who pulls stunts like this, there are worse
companies who want this done for free.
"As for the line you quote: in context, it's written from the perspective of
the intern - not the employer. I'll concede that it wasn't entirely obvious,
though. :)"
This also emphasizes my point about the person's view of themselves. No on
wants to be a slave, doing "grunt work", just for a glittering hint of
networking.
~~~
travisro
Do you have any sort of data to back up the claim that people are taking
internships and going hungry because they don't have senior-level experience?
I would think that it being a "systemic evil" would certainly warrant at least
a few newsworthy articles or stories. Besides, nobody is arguing that
something like that would be a morally acceptable situation or that people
engage in that type of activity.
As for GSoC, again...voluntary. The kids have fun and they earn monetary
rewards for their work.
~~~
_pi
Here you go [1].
It doesn't matter if the work is voluntary, I voluntarily buy a product but if
the company knows it's faulty and sells it to me anyway that's wrong. If the
company knows that the job is unfair, and is using it as free labor that is
wrong.
The point is what's morally wrong and in some cases... illegal to the point
the feds have to get involved [2].
[1]
[http://wbztv.com/local/Adult.internship.experience.2.1763471...](http://wbztv.com/local/Adult.internship.experience.2.1763471.html)
[2] [http://www.cartoonbrew.com/student/most-unpaid-
internships-a...](http://www.cartoonbrew.com/student/most-unpaid-internships-
are-illegal.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Taleb: The future will not be cool - mck-
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/01/nassim_nicholas_taleb_the_future_will_not_be_cool/
======
astine
I was going to say something to the effect of "Who is this guy and why do we
care what he thinks? He seems like an idiot." But it turns out that he's
actually a respected thinker and has published some respected books so maybe
I'm not allowed to say that.
However, I still think this particular essay is insulting drivel. Taleb uses a
lot of 10 dollar words to mast his 10 cent thoughts. He wears his vocabulary
and enculturation on his sleeve like a badge so that he can pour scorn on
_neophiles_ and other people he doesn't like. Now, this may merely be the
predjudice of an "autistic" technophile, but I prefer reasoned arguments to
intellectual muscle flexing.
He makes a few good points. As the old saying goes: "The more things change
the more they stay the same." Some things about society will possibly never
change. But his actual argument is so vapid: We still use glasses to hold
liquids that we intend to drink? Just like the Mesopotamians? No kidding. But
chances are that glass he was drinking out of was manufactured in China
hundreds of miles away with techniques wholly unavailable to Mesopotamia and
shipped across a distance, inconcievable to a Mesopotamian, and at a price,
proportionally less that the price of the rudimentary earthenware mug that a
Mesopotamian would use.
Taleb accuses technophiles of not studying history, but I _have_ studied
history, and the world _has_ changed, quite a bit.
~~~
notJim
You spend a lot of time insulting Taleb, and relatively little time actually
addressing the problems with his arguments.
~~~
akaru
It's a 50/50 split. In an article, 5/95 would suffice? Must a retort require
so much more?
------
ChuckMcM
I always find these sorts of essays curious, here is a guy who is eating lamb
and noting that the fork is an old invention. Except that the lamb he is
eating is probably from New Zealand, a country that is mesopotamian ancestors
couldn't even imagine existed, much less imagine trading with. He might as
well remark that his sperm is using the same sort of gamete structure that was
fashionable in the neolithic period. _That isn't the point._
The future is going to be new, and different, and it is hard to predict. Your
phone (for some definition of phone) can give you answer to nearly any fact
based question you can imagine. Right now, in under 500 mSec. The future
doesn't look different when its entered into gradually, it looks hugely
different when it is punctuated.
So if Taleb really wanted to 'check' on his futurist mantra, he should pick a
number, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years. And then 'spend a day' in that time by
removing everything in his possessions, environment, and activities that were
not created or possible at that previous time.
I would predict that its a matter of opinion as to whether the future is or is
not 'cool', most people would agree that the past _sucks_. :-)
~~~
notJim
I think you're missing the point, but also I admit I'm not entirely sure what
you're trying to say. So please forgive me if I get it wrong.
The point is not that the future will be like the past, or that things which
exist now simply should not. It's that in Taleb's future, technologists will
have recognized that technology should eliminate bullshit (think about the
toilet and sewers, some of the best technology that could ever exist!) and
make it easier to live a life full of the basic good parts of being human:
companionship/sex, food, discovery and knowledge. So the smartphone is not
incongruous with his vision of the future at all. It enables you to seek all
of those things, and adds relatively little in terms of shitty things (I mean,
you have to pay for it and keep it charged, but beyond that it doesn't add a
lot hardship.)
When he talks about the lack of literacy in technology circles, I believe he's
thinking of literature as a tool for looking at human motivations. So, his
theory is that if technologists were to read literature (or were of a mindset
to be already interested in literature), they would recognize these
motivations, and it would provide a path for changing their focus from stupid
social widgets to something that will actually create the future.
~~~
bloaf
But his claim, as stated by his title, was that the "The future will not be
cool." If the author is allowed to reach this conclusion by saying "all
present and future gadgets are just boring solutions to ancient problems" then
his claim is true but basically tautological.
------
russell
Taleb of Black Swans fame says that predictions of future technology dont pan
out, flying cars for example. He says that the predictable new technology is a
replacement of older less capable or less adapted technology. I suppose your
could have predicted cell phones, having see analog wireless phones.
What he doesnt say in this book excerpt is that truly disruptive technology is
usually around in the labs or experimental form 15 or so years before its
disruptive phase. Could you have predicted today's internet from the early
ARPANET? I was there and I didnt. Or the iPad from the integrated circuit?
Good grief, Ted Nelson demoed Xanadu of a group of us in the 1980's and I
didnt see the social implications of the Web.
~~~
don_draper
Has technology really made your life significantly better?
How many of us still get in cars and commute to work, sit in an office, as we
are monitored by our boss, drive home through some awful commute. Then eat
some processed food because we didn't have time to go to the grocery store and
get some fresh food. I'm sure there are plenty on this site who telecommute
and bike, but that's not the norm.
A lot of what is If talked about on this site is really not a big deal: some
new library to make some flashy display; or some new iphone/app thingy; or
some new way to get eyeballs to look at a web page.
~~~
dmpk2k
I'd say vaccines and antibiotics have made my life vastly better.
Let's compare: WW2 was the worst war we've ever had; it killed about 60
million people, or about 2% of the world population.
The Spanish Flu in 1918 killed 3%. Smallpox killed 3-500 million people in the
20th century, or about 5-8x as many as WW2.
Or how about the Black Death a few centuries before? _Half_ the European
population gone. It wiped out entire Asian cities too.
Vaccines and antibiotics are miracles we take for granted; our ancestors would
think us mad.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> Vaccines and antibiotics are miracles we take for granted; our ancestors
> would think us mad.
And we _damn need to_ speed up the development, as antibiotics are starting to
fail due to their overuse. We take the life without major pandemics for
granted, but we will get a cold wake-up soon if we don't fight to maintain
this.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Wait; have you been reading the news? Several epidemics have swept the globe
in recent years already. Did somebody wake up, and I missed it?
~~~
TeMPOraL
I meant serious pandemics like the ones dmpk2k mentioned. Most of the first
worlders didn't fear any serious contagion for decades.
------
lolcraft
This is, surprisingly, a warning for entrepreneurs worldwide. You should read
it.
"After I left finance, I started attending some of the fashionable conferences
attended by he new class of technology intellectuals. I was initially
exhilarated to see them wearing no ties, as I used to live among tie-wearing
abhorred bankers."
"But these conferences felt depressing. It took a while for me to realize the
reason: a profound lack of elegance."
Take its message as a humbling lesson: "Technology is at its best when it is
invisible."
~~~
michaelochurch
I moved back into a conservative industry and have started wearing a jacket
and tie. Honestly, I quite like it. It's a couple hundred bucks worth of
clothing to have the image of being "serious" about my job, and to get the
benefit of the doubt in all sorts of social interactions. With the rewards
considered, it's extremely cheap.
I don't know that I'll continue to wear a tie for the rest of my life, and I
certainly won't expect other people to do so when I become a "higher-up", but
I'm not going to dress like a college student for work anymore, no matter what
I do. When you go to work the unfortunate reality is that you need to subtly
tell other people what they think of you, and dressing well is one of the most
time- and energy-efficient ways to do it.
~~~
lolcraft
I guess we, in our youthful arrogance, dismiss our seniors as enterprise
relics of a lost age, without considering what led them to that place before.
Things don't seem to change that much, after all. Sadly. Which is
coincidentally the theme of this article.
~~~
zerostar07
What's sad is the conformist turn this thread has taken. What happened to the
rebelious spirit of the internet generation? People shouldn't make judgments
based on somebody's clothing. We are supposed to be beyond the point where one
needs to be "pleasurable to everyone" in order to be respected. Also, if
anything, shirt-and-tie clothing is quite impractical, how about putting some
brains to work to come up with self-cleaning/self-healing clothes?
Another thing: by creating a strong impression of seriousness, jacket-and-tie
creates a false , narcissistic sense of self-worth that can limit the true
drive to succeed and that's a sad, sad thing when it happens. It's just an
appearance after all.
Taleb may have been referring to certain "conference-whores" [1] who dress up
like geeks to fit into the crowd. Hopefully, in science and technology,
actions matter more than words and dress up, and that's one of the reasons we
like it.
[1][http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/13/be-careful-
not...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/13/be-careful-not-to-
become-a-conference-ho/)
~~~
michaelochurch
So, I like wearing the suit and tie and you probably think I'm "conformist". I
also tend not to judge people based on how they dress or look. I make active
efforts to be as non-biased by peoples' physical appearances as possible. Yet
I know (from experience) that it's an unreasonable expectation of other people
to hold them to this same status and that, in the real world, appearance
matters.
What I've learned, the hard way, is that you have to spend a considerable
amount of your work time deciding for other people how they perceive you, and
this is a subtle art. If you don't manage your image actively, others will
manage it for you. This is as true, if not moreso, in a startup than in a big
company. At least the social status rules of large companies (as broken and
antiquated as they may be) are _documented_. In a startup, you often have
situations where there are 20 employees who all think they're the alpha dog.
Wearing a suit and tie is a very cheap, efficient way to manage other peoples'
impressions of you. Sure, it's silly, but the reward-to-cost ratio is very
high. It's a lot cheaper and better than, say, sticking around the office till
9:30 when you finished productive work 5 hours ago.
~~~
zerostar07
I didn't make a personal remark, but yes, what you describe perpetuates a
certain conformity.
------
tubelite
Taleb is a Soup Nazi. He (volubly) suffers for his soup. He treats customers
with disdain. And yet people line up for the soup, because it's pretty good,
actually.
I find Taleb's opinionated eccentricity very useful, especially when it
consists of a mixture of ideas, some of which you totally agree with and some
which you totally disagree. Keeps you alert and thinking, instead of blindly
swallowing or blindly rejecting everything depending on religious preferences
(e.g. iOS vs Android)
Antifragility is perhaps the most important perception-refactoring concept
since the selfish gene, and the book deserves to be read purely for that
reason.
The book is pretty laudatory of engineers and the tinkering mentality,
crediting them for most of the inventions of the past age, rather than top-
down science.
Erudition is great. But it is far easier for the engineer to become erudite
than for a liberal arts major to become an engineer.
Where Taleb is wrong is that (good) science fiction is not about predicting
the future. It is really speculative economics fiction - how would a mix of
this kind of intelligent agents and this kind of resource environment work
out? The science, futurism and the aliens are merely literary tools to help
you get out of a human/today-centric point of view. They are thought
experiments which can be sold to the public (at least, the engineering
public).
And God, I hate longhand as the primary mode of input. Connecting the iPad to
ancient tablets is the kind of wankery one gets from the erudite, I guess :)
(I'm picking very small nits here; "Antifragile" is overall very thought
provoking. Highly recommended.)
------
lmg643
I used to be impressed by Taleb (when I was younger and more clueless) but
having read two of his books and many articles I find the negativity tiresome
and petulant, and his finance theories questionable.
Eric Falkenstein:
"Another key to understanding Taleb is that he has a French post-modern
tendency to write to impress rather than explain. He provides hundreds of
loosely related anecdotes, reminding me of the Talmud quote that 'when a
debater’s point is not impressive, he brings forth many arguments.' I actually
agree with a lot of Taleb, such as the intractability of risk because it is
endogenous, and I think he's vaguely libertarian, but he says so many
inconsistent things that doesn't mean much (when he's right it's probably a
good example of the Gettier problem)."
Gettier problem = whether being right by accident still counts as being right.
[http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-
frag...](http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-
fragility.html)
~~~
fusiongyro
I continue to be impressed by Taleb, but I will read the linked blog article.
I don't read him for the financial advice per se so much as for enjoyably-
written reminders to avoid the fundamental attribution error and pay attention
to the expected value as well as the extremes when weighing probabilistic
outcomes. I wouldn't characterize him as negative—he strikes me as about as
positive as you can get with an acute awareness of human ignorance as an
incurable situation that leads to a great deal of needless suffering. A lot of
the anti-Taleb angst seems to derive from him not delivering facts in a
sufficiently rigorous and drab manner, but I don't think there's anything
wrong with entertaining non-fiction.
------
rizzom5000
I enjoyed this excerpt, but I was surprised that he used Orwell as one of his
examples of someone whose imagination failed to predict the future.
As much as Taleb swoons over literary culture in this excerpt, and as much of
cultural force as Orwell was as a writer; I'm surprised that that Taleb
doesn't view Orwell's imagination as a remarkably accurate, in a literary, if
not literal, sense, prognosticator.
After all, Orwell's imagination predicted the surveillance society, death of
individual privacy, the use of propaganda for social engineering among other
things. I may be misinterpreting Taleb's words, "The problem is that almost
everything that was imagined never took place, except for a few over-exploited
anecdotes...", because it strikes me that he would miss the obvious current
reality of Orwell's 'literary predictions' which mostly are very much based on
technological achievements such as ubiquitous networks, cheap cameras, cheap
and ubiquitous data storage, and so on.
------
JVIDEL
I would like to point out that the Space Age futurism the author rants so much
about wasn't made by the, and I quote, "techno-autistic" guys.
Most of the futuristic crap from 50 and 60 years ago was the product of some
uninformed scifi authors who mixed fantasy with technology, marketers creating
products of the future to create more brand-awareness (with the ironic
consequence that some of those companies disappeared decades ago) and many
charlatans who simply had no idea what they were talking about.
For example, food pills wasn't about a rosy cool future, the whole idea
started as a theoretical last-ditch effort to curve a future global famine of
catastrophic proportions caused by the at the time unprecedented increase in
population. Fortunately other "techno-autistics" were able to find a way to
increase crop yields (Green Revolution) which is why we still have real food
instead of something closer to dry dogfood pellets.
------
georgeorwell
I'd like to see a news aggregator where all of the submissions were as well-
written and thoughtful as this one. It doesn't matter whether his perspective
is wrong or right, the fact is that the writing here simply makes reading it a
pleasure. I'd say that 1% or less of articles have this quality.
~~~
rizzom5000
This was actually little more than an advertisement for his book. I agree it
is well written, which is not entirely surprising as the author has been on
the NYT best selling list before. With that being said, the NYT might be the
aggregator you're looking for - that is, if you're looking for high quality
literature.
------
smalter
Venkat Rao at Ribbon Farm has a great post on this topic: "Welcome to the
Future Nauseous" ([http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welcome-to-the-
future-n...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welcome-to-the-future-
nauseous/)).
~~~
zem
now that was an excellent article. thanks for the pointer.
------
sabj
A fun article whose real value will likely be missed by many here who will be
rushing, misguided, to defend their ideas of 'technology' or 'progress' from
attack.
The points that Taleb is making here are best discussed, not by considering
technology as artifact alone, but technology for what it really is - a set of
artifacts, systems, processes, and artifices that take place in a social
milieu and as a two-way relationship with society and civilization. To think
otherwise is naive folly, from my perspective. (Please see:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technolo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction_of_technology)
for a primer on this, it's fun reading if you're unfamiliar).
Technophiles (myself included!) will often project things out because they
fail to understand that technology does NOT just show up and leave an imprint
on the world, deus ex machina style. Instead the world shapes technology back.
You can see this for any kind of technology, from the bicycle (Bijker's famous
example, shown in the wikipedia article) to the Internet, which has its
present design because of the real fears / threats / motivations that abounded
during its establishment.
It's the (mostly) impossible nature of this dis-entanglement that throws
people off track. In some world of scientist-kings of technocratic technophile
dictatorships, yes, we'd have moon bases by now. But that's not how it works,
and as a result people - messy, annoying humanity - get in the way. For better
or, for often, worse.
The future WILL be cool - I'm still an optimist. But it will be cool in
different ways, and maybe for different reasons, than many here on HN might
imagine.
Since this thread is already a bit long let me instead just close with a great
quote that I reference often. Relevant here.
_The plain message physical science has for the world at large is this, that
were our political and social and moral devices only as well contrived to
their ends as a linotype machine, an antiseptic operating plant, or an
electric tram-car, there need now at the present moment be no appreciate toil
in the world, and only the smallest fraction of the pain, the fear, and the
anxiety that now makes human life so doubtful in its value. There is more than
enough for everyone alive. Science stands, a too competent servant, behind her
wrangling underbred masters, holding out resources, devices, and remedies they
are too stupid to use._ – H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1904)
~~~
TeMPOraL
To quote from the Wikipedia article:
"Advocates of SCOT—that is, social constructivists -- argue that technology
does not determine human action, but that rather, human action shapes
technology."
Sounds like another case of people not understanding feedback loops - that A
can both determine, and be determined by B.
~~~
sabj
Obviously you're going to see a gradient, but I don't think most would contend
human action isn't shaped at all by technologies in ways that are often
unexpected. Plus, you get a sort of chicken-and-egg problem at some levels...
But people very, very commonly fail to see the embedded social factors in
technologies, and are very quick to ascribe autonomy to technology, which is
in my mind fallacious. You see this when the news has stories like,
"Technology just keeps advancing. How will it change our lives next?" instead
of understanding it as part of a relationship between people, their
environment, and their artifacts, technology gets put on some magical self-
propelling trajectory that just isn't true. Yes, Moore's Law is great - but
it's a social/human driver, as is Intel's Tick-Tock, not something innate in
technology!
------
kenjackson
Taleb is wrong. There's a much better analysis on why futurists predict the
future wrong by an author who I forget. This authors central thesis is that
technology moves in spurts along any given dimension. For example building
were getting taller and taller. Every year a new "talltest building" was
built. People began imagining buildings to the moon or at least out of the
atmosphere. This eventually stopped. Similarly, planes got faster and faster.
In the midst of the increase in plane speeds not many would have thought that
we'd have the amount of commercial flights at the current "slow" speeds we
have.
But people tend to miss a lot of other things. Most futurists wouldn't have
predicted that computers 1000x more powerful than ENIAC would fit in our
pocket. I recall one prediction about a computer the size of ENIAC might fit
in a small room. Notice the low resolution displays in most old sci-fi movies.
Or how ubiquitous wireless communication would be. Many sci-fi movies with
tethered phones, or data transfer with USB-key like gadgets.
It's not that things are subtractive (that's just wishful luddite-like
thinking). It's just that things aren't necessarily additive where we think
they may be. It may be that in 50 years the web is a lot like how it is today,
but nutrition technology has drastically changed so that nutrituous food is
tasty and cheap. Or we discover technology to communicate with animals much
more effectively.
Technology keeps moving forward. And I think his comment about literary
culture reveals his bias.
------
breckinloggins
I believe that the future will look more like the past. One thing I'm almost
certain we'll see less and less of is _gadgets_. Smartphones, computers,
things like that will all go inside your head (if you're willing, and most
everyone will be). Soon we will become tired of living in houses with blank
walls upon which are projected whatever we want and, because we can do so,
will revert back to more ancient styles of architecture and furnishings (with
a couple of blank walls or two).
Your stove may look like a wood burning stove, and your fridge may look like a
50's model. Why? Because when almost EVERYTHING is 3D printed to your
specifications, people are free to make things that function in a modern way
but look like what _they_ want them to look, rather than how the
manufacturer's marketing department deems they should look.
I think transport will be dominated by self-driving vehicles, but again: think
of individual styles. I predict quite a few autonomous "horseless coaches"
driving around our cities.
Speaking of cities...
My hope is that high speed network access will be everywhere, and population
densities will equalize as more and more people prefer to live a rural life
even while they do cutting edge professional or academic work. There will
still be slums and there will still be poor people, but I think that the
majority of people who live in cities will do so because they really _want_
to.
Further out, I can see even things like traditional healthcare completely
disappear. Sure, we may always have emergency trauma centers and doctors, but
it's not to hard to fathom a time where a colony of self-replicating bio-
robots and ongoing genetic engineering work 24 hours a day inside your body to
keep it healthy and let you know of any real trouble before it becomes
serious.
This is not to say that all these predictions will come true, only that the
disappearance of electronic gadgets into the mind and into fabrics, paint, and
the air seems inevitable, as does the radical differentiation of physical
_things_ like furniture, houses, and vehicles that will certainly come from
the 3D printing/replication revolution (if that occurs).
------
venus
I want to be contrarian here and say I actually liked this article, whose main
thrust I might summarise thusly:
_The future will not be as cool as technologists imagine because in the
contest of being what it could be, and being what its current inhabits want it
to be (especially those in power), the latter wins_
It's nothing profound, but it's worth hearing again, and the arguments here
underline that. Technology exists to serve humans, and humans haven't changed
for a very long time, for better or worse. Any prediction that fails to take
this into account will fail. It's an old lesson, but it seems we need to hear
these old lessons again, and again, and again.
------
marquis
"It is remarkable that the tools that seem to currently dominate the world,
such as the Internet, or more mundane matters such as the wheel on the
suitcase of Book IV, were completely missing from these forecasts."
This is completely wrong. I can think of at least 2 victorian examples
imagining the internet: 1, a series of drawings where video telecommunications
is imagined, and the other a story I cannot find, written over 100 years ago I
believe, about a son and mother communicating from their pods where all the
worlds knowledge is accessible, and the son chooses to go "offline".
~~~
gnosis
The story is called _"The Machine Stops"_ by E. M. Forster.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops>
~~~
marquis
Thanks! It's also far out of copyright, here's the story itself.
<http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html>
------
josephlord
He doesn't mention the smartphone, a pocket computer connected to the Internet
that may settle an argument at his dinner without recourse to the library the
next day. It may also enable finding out where the friends who are running
late are and guide him to the address if it isn't familiar.
The smartphone was probably predictable from the early 2000's at the very
least.
Having said that I'm not that I currently see any similar major leaps coming
in the next decade. More accurate and indoor location data could bring useful
(and in some ways almost invisible) functionality to the smartphone.
~~~
dkarl
_The smartphone was probably predictable from the early 2000's at the very
least._
Thinking about smartphone predictability reveals a pattern that might apply to
other technologies: an actual _dip_ in predictability caused by technological
progress. If you leave out the always-internet-connected aspects of the
smartphone, you still have a very small and portable device with books,
amusements, up-to-date reference materials such as maps and encyclopedias,
current periodicals, and real time voice and video communication. If the
Internet did not exist, the iPhone would still have been a breakthrough
product. A web-ignorant but otherwise capable iPhone was theoretically
predictable half a century ago, but the technological reality of the
intervening decades (ugly low-res screens, huge devices with pathetic
capabilities, painfully clumsy input methods) depressed our expectations to
the point that when it finally happened, it was something of a surprise.
AI may be another area where decades of technological disappointment have
narrowed our expectations and reduced our ability to imagine what the future
will bring. Someone transported from the 1960s might be better at predicting
the future of AI than anyone who lived through the intervening decades.
~~~
Someone
_"A web-ignorant but otherwise capable iPhone was theoretically predictable
half a century ago […] when it finally happened, it was something of a
surprise."_
That made me think of Bruce Tognazzini (TOG) in "TOG on Interface"
([http://www.amazon.com/Tog-Interface-Bruce-
Tognazzini/dp/0201...](http://www.amazon.com/Tog-Interface-Bruce-
Tognazzini/dp/0201608421). From 1991, but seems unaware of the existence of
the world-wide web):
_"I want the United States Library of Congress on my desktop. I want the
collections of every major museum in the world available to project against my
wall. I want every issue of every newspaper published in the English-speaking
world sitting in my laptop.
Is this really too much to ask?"_
I remembered that first paragraph as ending in "in my pocket", but, apart from
minor technical details (for example, wireless communication allows us to
shrink the device even further then laptop size, and he isn't asking for all
of Hollywood or even for all radio recordings ever made) I think that is a
decent prediction of where we are heading.
------
msrpotus
Interesting but very over the top. An iPad might be called a tablet but it's
very different than what Babylonians used (except in shape and sometimes
purpose), contrary to Taleb's assertion.
------
jval
I can agree with a lot of the criticisms in these comments, because the future
will definitely be cool, and Taleb has selectively forgotten about a lot of
the great technological advancements and focussed on things that haven't
advanced.
That said, Taleb makes a good point when he is talking about the tendency for
'futurists' to get it all wrong. He is touching on one of the major problems
of design which is that bad design is always additive, and constantly bolts on
extra useless features in order to strive for something 'newer', whereas good
design demands subtraction.
The iPhone was released in an era where most nerds still got excited about
what Intel was planning to release next year, and yet the most influential
computer of the decade didn't even have an Intel processor. By subtracting
away the unnecessary, Jobs delivered something that was far greater than the
sum of its parts. Most notably, the iOS touch interface was a huge innovation
from a human-computer interaction perspective, yet viewed from another
perspective all it did was bring us back to an interface that had been used
for centuries (I think Taleb can realise the difference between a Phoenician
tablet and an iPad, he is referring to the interface).
I think ultimately Taleb is touching on something that Steve Jobs would often
repeat, which is that the best objects exist at an intersection of the arts
and the sciences. Human nature does not fundamentally change as the years
pass, and this is ultimately the limiting factor on successful technologies,
and the driving force behind the process of disruptive innovation which
continues to favour the less technologically advanced yet more customer-
centric (or human-centric) technologies. This is something that is often
forgotten in the technology world where it took a completely non-technical
liberal arts drop-out in the form of Jobs to help technologists realise that
computers ultimately have to be made for real people.
That said, Taleb is writing outside his domain and therefore this piece could
have been much better written.
------
allenwlee
I'd really like to know if people on HN "share an absence of literary culture"
as Taleb suggests. Can you please respond if you read literature other than
science fiction?
~~~
jhales
I'm rather 'well read.' I don't say this boastfully as I feel a lot of it was
a waste of time (although I also found a lot of philosphy/literature etc. very
insightful).
~~~
mindcrime
_I don't say this boastfully as I feel a lot of it was a waste of time_
I try to read a few "classics" now and then, and I definitely read more than
just sci-fi. I like history, philosophy, biographies, etc., as well. But you
touch on something we all have to struggle with: Time. There are only so many
hours in the day to read, and every time I sit down to read, I have to make a
decision on whether or not what I'm thinking about reading is a good use of my
time.
So... I'm going to get a certain amount of raw "escapism", pop-fiction stuff,
that I need just to stay sane. That's a given. Now, how much time do I have
left to read Homer, or obscure French and Russian "literature"? And to what
end? Just to impress hipster douche-bags and self-appointed "intellectuals"?
Or because reading that stuff is actually going to add value to my life? Is
reading _Madame Bovary_ or _Anna Karenina_ going to do more for me than
reading _Teach Yourself Haskell in 21 Days_ or Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy"
books, or whatever?
The last few books I've read (other than technical books) include _Run_ by
Dean Karnazes, _Born to Run_ by McDougal, _The Belgian Hammer_ by Lee, _Eat &
Run_ by Scott Jurek, _Racing Through the Dark_ by David Millar, _Slaying the
Badger_ by Moore, _Running on Empty_ by Marshall Ulrich and _The Secret Race_
by Tyler Hamilton. Would I be better off if I'd spent that time reading
"literature" instead? I don't know, but I'm sceptical.
OTOH, I have a whole pile of stuff lying here by Nietzsche, Kieerkegard, Hume,
Foucalt, etc., that I'm planning to work through. But I'm reading it just
because I find it interesting, not because I see it as having any more
inherent value than "low brow" literature.
~~~
corporalagumbo
Anna Karenina is a really beautiful story. I read it a long time ago and it
is, at the very least, a great achievement, so sweeping, so intricately
detailed, so many rich characters, so much insight into human hopes and
struggles. I don't know much about its context but I imagine if you read up on
Tolstoy's life and Russian social conditions at the time it would make reading
the book enormously stimulating - a panoramic story covering the intersection
of a flowering cosmopolitan aristocratic society and a more ancient world of
feudal landlords, at a turning point in history shortly before that world
vanished forever.
Mostly I would read Tolstoy for the same reason I would read Nietzsche - to
break through our regrettable tendency to take the past and its people for
granted. It's one thing to read about the ideas Nietzsche developed on a
Wikipedia article, it's wholly another to read him in his own words and
suddenly find yourself thrust into contact with a whole mind, a living,
breathing bundle of thoughts and anxieties and dream, a human being palpably
aching to find meaning, caught in the middle of one of the greatest social
upheavals of human history. To get a sense, just for a moment, of the sheer
enormity of the fact that whole generations of people lived and died without
knowing anything of the world we lived in.
19th century literature is special. There is so much heat, passion, confusion,
pain and soul-searching in it - it feels so close, yet so far, from the world
we live in. For me at least it is humbling and amazing that people like
Tolstoy laboured on and left behind such vivid traces of their souls for us to
discover and enrich ourselves with.
Edit: I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that the value of
literature is that it helps you develop reverence and respect for the enormous
reality and weight of history. Arrogance and shocking stupidity are the
natural consequences of not realising your tiny place in history. The best
literature breeds deep humility.
~~~
mindcrime
Sure, I don't dispute any of that. And, in fact, I mentioned _Anna Karenina_
partly because I bought a copy a few months ago because it _is_ on my list of
books to read. But I do question whether or not it has any _particular_ value
which exceeds any of the innumerable other works I could read with that time
instead.
Of course that might lead you ask "then why are you planning to read it"? To
which I can only say "because it sounds interesting and exactly because I
haven't read much Russian literature and I want to broaden my horizons a bit".
But I'm not reading it because I want to be able to impress some hipster
pseudo-intellectuals, or because it's something you're "supposed" to read. I
just want to see what it's all about. Same with _Crime and Punishment_ , which
I started recently (but got distracted from and set aside temporarily).
_Mostly I would read Tolstoy for the same reason I would read Nietzsche - to
break through our regrettable tendency to take the past and its people for
granted._
I agree with that, but I find that fiction from (and set in) Victorian era
England has been my primary outlet for thinking about and appreciating the
past in that regard. That's certainly not to discredit the Russian stuff you
speak of, just saying that reading Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or whatever, isn't
the only way to tap into that historical perspective.
_It's one thing to read about the ideas Nietzsche developed on a Wikipedia
article, it's wholly another to read him in his own words and suddenly find
yourself thrust into contact with a whole mind, a living, breathing bundle of
thoughts and anxieties and dream, a human being palpably aching to find
meaning, caught in the middle of one of the greatest social upheavals of human
history._
Indeed. I greatly enjoyed reading Nietzsche's _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ and
have quite a few of his other works on my list.
~~~
corporalagumbo
I think we're pretty much on the same page here. There is an ocean of great
stuff to explore, and 19th century Russia is just one lovely part of that
ocean. For example I haven't read Dickens or Eliot - I still consider myself
pretty well-read, but there's always more out there. And of course with
foreign-language writers there's always the additional dream of learning the
language and reading in the original. One reason to hope for radically-
extended lifespans eh?
I wasn't trying to claim that Tolstoy et al are better and more important than
anyone else, just trying to counter the suggestion that the only reason to
read them is to try and impress people. Faux-reading to try and cultivate a
sophisticated appearance is, I think we can agree, just stupid.
Personally if I had a choice between Tolstoy and Saramago or Le Guin, I think
I would pick one of the latter. And yes, Nietzsche is the 19th century
bomb.com
NB: I read a lot of non-fiction too. An educated person has to have his or her
fingers in a lot of intellectual pies I think.
~~~
mindcrime
_And of course with foreign-language writers there's always the additional
dream of learning the language and reading in the original. One reason to hope
for radically-extended lifespans eh?_
Indeed. I have this dream of learning Latin and most of the associated Romance
languages one day, but I haven't gotten very far yet. I was making some
headway with Spanish, and then my one Spanish speaking friend kinda
disappeared due to marriage, so I haven't been as motivated without anyone to
practice with.
And my Portugese speaking friend got deported back to Brazil. :-(
Still, one day...
~~~
corporalagumbo
<http://www.language-exchanges.org/>
Might be helpful?
------
egypturnash
I think he's missing an important thing about SF and futurism. The point of
them is not to predict. The point is to say "What if...?" and proceed from
there.
Every now and then someone nails something. And every now and then someone
building a device is inspired by something they read or saw; the form of the
once-ubiquitous flip cellphone came from Star Trek's tricorders.
Taleb's theoretical dinner might be woven through with the Internet: did he
and his friends decide to have this dinner by making appointments on the
phone? Or did they use email? Or Facebook, or even just kinda hooked up via
Twitter when one of them tweeted "hey who wants to go to The Grinning Wok with
me tonight #omnomnomsogood".
And maybe that choice of restaurant came in part from reviews online? The
Internet is no longer cool, this is true. This is because we're used to it.
Hell, the tablet I'm typing this on was cool for like a month after I got it;
now it's normal. Maybe a little annoying because the onscreen keyboard sucks
and the autocorrect is aggressive and occasionally wrong.
The real parts of the future go from "cool" to "normal" very quickly.
Impractical stuff stays "cool" in imagination forever.
------
zerostar07
It's true that our basic needs haven't changed much. We 've become a little
more brainy but our basic needs are served by relatively little technology.
That's because humans haven't evolved visibly since ancient times. Our way of
life will truly change once we start altering ourselves in substantial ways.
The future will be very cool in a world where people can grow wings at will.
~~~
jamesjporter
Unfortunately, this future is still very, very far away. We're not even close
to understanding how a single eukaryotic cell works, much less an entire
organism as complex as a human being or a bird.
~~~
zerostar07
We don't necessarily need to know all the inner workings, just the important
things to do our job. Cavemen didn't know about torques, loads and angular
velocities when they invented the wheel. Thus i am hopeful that i will live to
see the major breakthroughs in genetics and neuroscience.
~~~
jamesjporter
I suppose that's true; its also a good summary of how molecular biology has
been done thus far and we've managed to learn quite a bit. Translating it into
practical applications has been more of a challenge. I'm skeptical that we'll
see any breakthroughs in transhumanism in our lifetime, although naysayers are
always being proven wrong— I sure hope I am as well.
------
zb
I have long thought that the highest purpose of engineering is to reduce
entropy. Although he doesn't express it in those terms, I think Taleb is
advocating something similar here. It's not anti-technology in the way that a
lot of comments here seem to be interpreting it, but it probably is
incompatible with the sort of techno-utopianism that is in vogue at the
moment.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Paradoxically, Engineering practice is almost entirely entropy-positive.
Turning electricity into heat and light (and minute electro-magnetic patterns,
but that's insignificant).
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Everything is entropy-positive. Some things, though, are less entropy-positive
than others.
------
001sky
_Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder [Hardcover] Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(Author)_
\-- You Save: $13.01 (43%)
I thought the Amazon-affiliate link was a bit Ironic.
~~~
notJim
Why is it ironic?
~~~
001sky
_Taleb: The future will not be cool_
\-- but it will be 43% off ! [1]
_________
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony#Situational_irony>
~~~
notJim
Uh... did you read the article?
~~~
001sky
edit: footnoted for future reference.
~~~
notJim
If I understood it in this circumstance, I wouldn't have asked you to explain
it.
\--
Edit: link added for future reference: <http://xkcd.com/1053/>
~~~
001sky
You seem to be reading condescension into where it is/was non-existent or
trying to throw it around where it is not warranted.
------
JulianMorrison
A simple way to predict the future is to step back into the past. 5 years ago?
Aside from the whole tablet/smartphone revolution, not much. 10 years? Much
faster computers, web 2.0, Facebook, Gmail, the whole social media thing. 20
years? The entirety of the modern web. MMO games. Global warming. Cloning.
Cell phones.
Basically technical progress moves quite fast in the medium term but slower
than you'd expect in the short term, except with surprises. (Nobody saw
tablets coming. A move _away_ from the web, to native apps? In this day and
age?)
------
bozho
Arthur Clarke is one of the futurists that has imagined things right:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYgdX2PxyQ>
~~~
NoPiece
I think he's also a good example of what Taleb is pointing out - the problems
with taking a snapshot of the present and projecting. 2001 was published in
1968, with a moon landing imminent. Projecting ahead, it seemed reasonable
that by 2001 we would have had moon bases, commercial flights to large space
stations, and ships ready to explore Jupiter and Saturn. I wish he had been
right!
------
Vivtek
Y'know, this is a cute article, but as facilely as he refuses to accept that
the present is not as weird as people thought - I'm wearing a flannel button-
down right now as I type this in 2012 - the fact remains that I had a nice
face-to-face chat with my dad yesterday, even though he's still on the farm in
Indiana and I live in Budapest this year.
------
akaru
'I will be using silverware, a Mesopotamian technology, which qualifies as a
“killer application” given what it allows me to do to the leg of lamb, such as
tear it apart while sparing my fingers from burns.'
Lost me there. Doesn't even make sense. At a time when people were still
hungrily eating meat fresh from the coals, silverware was the least of their
worries.
------
xiaoma
Sadly, Taleb failed to address the predictions of one of the biggest
"neophiles" of them all-- Kurzweil
[http://www.techi.com/2011/01/ray-kurzweils-tech-
predictions-...](http://www.techi.com/2011/01/ray-kurzweils-tech-predictions-
have-been-eerily-accurate/)
~~~
wladimir
Luckily we have Mr Carrico to address those (warning: he is very rude)
[http://amormundi.blogspot.nl/2009/01/condensed-critique-
of-t...](http://amormundi.blogspot.nl/2009/01/condensed-critique-of-
transhumanism.html) Techno-utopianism and futurism does have quite a few
critics.
Anyway, I've read two of Taleb's books (Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan).
Taleb seems to be filled with nostalgia at times. He dreams of a simple, slow
life. He regards the news and up-to-dateness of modern mediums mostly as
'noise', and even takes a stab at people that read the newspaper in transit
every day.
What is also interesting is that he rails against people that try to predict
the future because of black swans, the unknown unknowns. Still, this is the
second article by him about the future that I read. And it's just as boring as
the last one.
Technophiles have the tendency to exaggerate what change the future will
bring, but conservatives like him fill the predictions with good-old-
timesness. It's wishful thinking just as much.
~~~
xiaoma
Be that as it may, Kurzweil has a decades long history of making predictions,
often considered absolutely nuts by the press and in some very high profile
cases, technology even beat his predictions. I don't think there's anyone else
with as good of a track record when it comes to predicting far off technical
advances.
(e.g. saying in the 80s that a chess AI beating the top ranked human by 1998
or that the human genome would be sequenced by the year 2000).
------
Millennium
The future will be plenty cool. What it won't be is what the cool people (or,
indeed, anyone at all) thinks it will be. It will be, as it has always been,
the cool future that nobody thought of.
------
JDSD
I can't believe I just read that entire thing... I feel as though the
trajectory of technological advancement and "Taleb's" personal vision of the
future are two seperate things and he is unable to acknowledge that fact. He
is let down because reality isn't living up to his idea of what he thinks
reality should be... There are far too many points to refute..
Shoes look no different than they did 3500 years ago because they serve a
purpose.
Once a technology serves a purpose, there is no need to improve that purpose,
unless said technology is to be used in another setting which requires change
or improvement... Hence sandals, flip-flops, sneakers, skateboarding shoes,
high heels, rollerblades, iceskates, snowshoes. I think author touched on
this, kind of... You get my point...
Chairs are the same as they were because panda's aren't sitting in chairs.
People are sitting in chairs, and people haven't physically changed since the
inception of chairs. So a device that humans use for sitting is not likely to
change... But wait, what about lounging chairs, or baby chairs, or high
chairs, or stools? I'm sure if a fish needed a chair, it would look like a
bed...
Technology is the instantiation of idea's into physicality. This is done for
any number of reasons, most of which to solve some type of rudimentary
problem. Some become extrusions of ourselves. Human beings are limited in MANY
ways, but we are able to identify the limitations and problem solve through
technological means.
For example, an iPhone is an extreme technological extrusion, not just a
device. Think about a text message. Bear with me here...
A thought you have makes it's way from being a mere THOUGHT, to then being
processed by LANGUAGE, which is processed to WRITTEN LANGUAGE, which is
expressed through typing on a KEYBOARD, on a TOUCH SCREEN DISPLAY, on a
WIRELESS MOBILE DEVICE, and then SENT THROUGH THE AIR to someone else's
WIRELESS MOBILE DEVICE, to be READ, PROCESSED, and your thought implanted in
that persons mind.
No words were used here. Just transference of thoughts through technological
means.
Look at a car... Metal exoskeleton with wheels that can change it's rate of
speed at will. Another technological extrusion of yourself. Without you
driving, the car doesn't do shit.
Try explaining that to the shoe person 3500 years ago, or your fork friend, or
someone even a mere 150 years ago... "Yeah man, instead of walking in 3500
years you'll get into a 2500lb metal box with rubber wrapped wheels filled
with air that burns a a flammable liquid in another metal box of moving parts
and listens to commands your right foot gives it!"
The internet has allowed people to have access to a network of information no
other period in known history has ever had. The library of Alexandria MAY have
contained similar amounts of knowledge, but it was in a centralized location
that required your physical presence. The internet itself isn't changing the
technological landscape, but the access to information the internet provides
is. The rate at which thoughts/ideas are physically instantiated is increasing
rapidly, as more tools are created by more people having more access to other
tools, etc...
In short, what I gathered from this piece is that people should give up
looking forward, and be happy right where they are, because our prediction
skills suck and change is scary and doesn't always have the best outcome...
I'm sure glad pre-bigbang conditions didn't feel the same way. Or the
primordial soup. Or Einstein. Or Edwin Hubble. Or Carl Sagan. Or Nikola Tesla.
Or anyone who's ever had an idea and executed it for that matter.
===============================
TL;DR Technologies are idea's that solve problems. The future is
unpredictable. Problems of an unpredictable future are also unpredictable.
Hence, why people are shit predictors of the future technological climate.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
------
marze
Reminds me a lot of a 120 year ago prediction that all the good stuff had been
invented/discovered. So wrong...
------
TeMPOraL
Obligatory xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/728/>
------
corporalagumbo
This post is so poorly argued and sloppy it is unbelievable. Intellectual
trash.
------
ddw
He picked the perfect example of his point.
------
michaelochurch
First of all, I disagree. The future _will_ be cool, at least in the long
term. What it won't be is _weird_ , in the sense of people wearing spacesuits
in their living rooms. The bizarre visions people have traditionally had of
the future (and which, demonstrably, haven't come true) seemed to focus
largely on superficial stuff (clothing fashions, which are highly
unpredictable but have a long-term mean-reversion) and to exaggerate. That
doesn't mean that the world hasn't changed, and won't change, in profound
ways.
Yes, the pleasures of life (wine, music, books, sex, spiritual experience)
don't change all that much and therefore we use a lot of old technologies in
daily life, so it can appear like there's nothing new... but there will be
more people able to afford them, and they will be much less impeded by the
stupid shit that clogged up peoples' lives in pre-technological times. Just to
continue Taleb's example: in the 21st century, a lot of people get to drink
wine of (by historical standards) exceedingly high quality. Three millennia
ago, wine existed but the vast majority of people never got to drink any.
_Many of the modern applications that have managed to survive today came to
disrupt the deleterious effect of the philistinism of modernity, particularly
the 20th century: the large multinational bureaucratic corporation with “empty
suits” at the top; the isolated family (nuclear) in a one-way relationship
with the television set, even more isolated thanks to car-designed suburban
society [...]_
I'm going to stop there with the quote. His point is valid, but I think
there's something missed when people rip on suburbia. Yes, it's outmoded and
wasteful and somewhat ugly, but the Levittowns were a lot better than the
"company towns" of early-industrial hell, and those were a lot better than
being a serf on a medieval enclosure, in a time when it wasn't uncommon for a
peasant to have his head cut off by a knight (knights were more like warlords
than the noble paladins of romance). People tend to compare the experiences of
average people now against those of an elite in the past and conclude that
things were better, but that's not fair. The 1800-era analogue of a bored
suburbanite of 50th-percentile social status (only one car!) was not an
English baron, but someone who started work at seven in the coal mines.
People rip on suburbia now because it's outmoded, but it wasn't always this
way. Urban freeways are called "parkways" because the vision of Robert Moses
(in hindsight we say, "That fucker!", but he was very respected in his time)
was for them to be park-like roads for an automotive elite. In the 1920s,
suburbia was very much _in_. The suburban lifestyle, with lots of driving, was
designed for the rich and handed down, over a couple of decades, to the
working classes in a watered-down form. The result now, almost a century
later, is that "suburbia" is no longer cool because the low-quality suburbs of
the poor have killed the image of the concept.
Oddly enough, has anyone ever noticed how rich people suburbs aren't called
that? The Hamptons isn't "suburbia". The Woodbury towns out there are
"charming little towns" rather than suburbs, because the rich people who live
there have enough time to make zoning rules that keep a quaint little street
or two alive. These people aren't morally superior for having houses in high-
price towns that still have walkable main streets as opposed to "suburbs".
They're just richer.
One thing I find interesting is that Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) wrote an essay
about technology and alienation, while most of his complaints were of the
industrial-era society, not the _technological_ society we evolved into. He
was miserable because, in spite of his extreme intelligence and adept writing,
he had no real influence in a world run by corrupt corporate institutions. So
he went out and killed people in order to effectively force the New York Times
to publish his rant. If he had waited 15 years and not killed people, he would
have had the public access and attention he craved. He might have trolled a
bit, but no one would have died. Technology was just about to solve many of
the problems that had him so upset-- that he blamed on industrial society.
My view of technology and progress is that it's nearly monotonic in
"goodness", but that the old humanity we're now trying to distance ourselves
from is quite tenacious and willing to use technology toward pre-technological
purposes, and so the long-term convergence toward democracy that we'd like to
see doesn't come nearly as fast as we'd like. For example, one might like to
believe that, in an electronic world, old-style industrial pressures like
taking orders from managers, showing up in an uninspiring white-box office
during certain hours, and writing TPS reports would vanish... but human nature
is a certain way and power likes to maintain position, so the transition is
actually taking decades rather than the hours that it "should". The result of
this is that the technological push toward a better world appears to collapse
into an unsatisfying half measure and people end up having to use technology
in uninspiring ways (e.g. getting to write code, but still having to take
orders from non-technical executives or "product managers"). That's not
technology's fault. That's an artifact of humans being slow to improve
themselves.
~~~
petercooper
_Yes, the pleasures of life (wine, music, books, sex, spiritual experience)
don't change all that much_
I'm not so sure. Those pleasures all continue to _exist_ but except for wine,
the way we enjoy or practice most of these would be alien to people of 100
years ago. It's not the concepts that change but their expression.
Throw two 20-somethings from 1912 into a common modern scenario of doing shots
before you go out, hitting a nightclub full of techno music, laser lights and
people 'grinding', then coming home and indulging in some pre-maritial anal
sex (just to be safe) and you might as well have thrown them on a different
planet.
Life in 100 years will seem similarly bizarre and intense to us now. I think
the author of the article has a certain notion of what 'cool' is but I think
radical changes in expression and society are also 'cool' - they're just not
jetpacks or spacesuits.
~~~
notJim
And yet, starting just 8 years later: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapper>
I think it's easy to overestimate the difference between people in the past
and ourselves. The lack of shame with which people pursue their pleasures now
may be different, but it's silly to think people 100 years ago didn't enjoy
getting smashed and having sex.
~~~
Surio
After the double take/uneasy giggle at the choice of word to describe women
(in the 1920s), I looked at the article.
One main difference that stands out for me is that the type of behaviour
patterns described by the OP above (booze, grind, etc.) would be classed as
"typical" from today's point of view, the "flapper" behaviour pattern above
wouldn't have been "typical" in that usual sense of the word in those times
(would it probably be tame from today's stand point?). Anecdotally, it would
have been, at best fringe, and dare I say, restricted to (perhaps) the
wealthy.
Someone also mentioned roman orgies. That would have been restricted to the
wealthy, upper class too and would not have been classed as "typical"?
Therefore, the OP's point, namely, " the way we enjoy or practice most of
these would be alien to people of 100 years ago. It's not the concepts that
change but their expression." is relevant IMO.
And usually that is where clash of the generations originate from?
~~~
corporalagumbo
Roman orgies is a bullshit myth. Christian smear propaganda to discredit Roman
culture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Statistician Reviews “The Book of Why” by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie - joe_the_user
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/01/08/book-pearl-mackenzie/#comment-947061
======
joe_the_user
My cruder understanding of how the question of how casualty relates to
probability:
In a simple, deterministic world, chains of cause can seem clear. If we know X
will definitely happen if and only if Y and Z happen, we can call Y & Z
immediate causes and build chains of cause if Y & Z have similar immediate
cause. Though even here there can arguments - suppose Y & Z are "just markers"
etc - the thing is how to build your chain of causation is relatively.
But X occurs with a complex probability function, Y & Z make X more likely but
lots of other things might do so also. Now how should we do the chain?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Reading list of popular Hacker News users - QueensGambit
https://www.collectoral.com/group/hacker-news
======
jasode
A friendy FYI that you want to review _section 5 of the Amazon Associates
Agreement_ [0] and put a disclosure somewhere on your website.
[0] [https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreemen...](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreement)
[1] previous comment about same topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19295594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19295594)
~~~
QueensGambit
Didn't know that. Thanks for pointing it out! Fixed it!
------
durzagott
If I'm honest, I prefer the crowd-sourced wisdom of everyone on HN [1], rather
than a few individual's preferences. I do like the way you've put each
person's list into topics though.
A few suggestions and questions:
\- as the list grows, will there be some way to categorise and discover the
lists? (tags, topics, etc)
\- is the numbered list their recommendation in order? Or is it just a list
that happens to have numbers?
\- I would like a link to the source for each recommendation (twitter post or
HN comment).
Congrats on putting this together though. I hope you receive lots of interest
and appreciation!
[1] [https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker-
news](https://hackernewsbooks.com/top-books-on-hacker-news)
~~~
QueensGambit
Hacker News Books looks great and crowd-sourced wisdom is very useful! But,
sometimes I find such aggregated data to be a popularity contest. It becomes
the default recommendation I see everywhere - from Amazon to Google trends.
So, I wanted to see individual's reading list and decide for myself. That's
why I built this.
> as the list grows, will there be some way to categorise and discover the
> lists? (tags, topics, etc)
Yes. I hope to categorize by communities such as Hacker News, Vernacular Books
etc. My next list is "Reading with Your Child" :)
> is the numbered list their recommendation in order? Or is it just a list
> that happens to have numbers?
It is not in any specific order, since it is compiled from different sources.
Hopefully, I will get to interview them to ask for their preference? ;)
> I would like a link to the source for each recommendation (twitter post or
> HN comment).
Sure! That's my next task. Thanks for all the suggestions!
------
jasaloo
shout out to the guy who put down two Chomsky books.
Manufacturing Consent is one of the most important works of the 20th century.
You'll never read the news the same way again.
~~~
elhudy
At risk of sounding pretentious, is Manufacturing Consent really all that
important?
It seems that most people who care already understand the high-level
principals of US media propaganda manufacturing, and those who don't care
wouldn't read the book.
For the record, I haven't read the book.
~~~
jasaloo
"It seems that most people who care already understand the high-level
principals of US media propaganda manufacturing..."
Well, how do principals emerge in the first place? Often by intense research,
data gathering, and sound argumentation.
I can't think of another work out there that lays this foundation like MC. If
you do read it (or watch the documentary which I've heard is pretty good), you
might be surprised at some of the filters that exist in the modern propaganda
model. I sure was.
Anecdotally, I have plenty of well-educated friends who "care" and also
consider themselves very media-literate. A lot of them also readily parrot
talking points from the NY Times.
Having this body of work (which is an academic goliath, even by Chomsky and
Herman's standards) is essential to critical media studies.
------
vharuck
At first glance of this post's title, I thought it was a list of _unpopular_
users' reading. Which would be more interesting, even if the books themselves
weren't.
~~~
QueensGambit
Just curious! Why would that be more interesting to you? To get contrarian
thoughts?
------
carapace
I thought it was going to be a collection of their _posts_ on HN. This is also
good.
Cosmetic feedback: Too much whitespace.
~~~
QueensGambit
Actually, I do have the links to the HN and twitter posts. But, wanted to
launch this first and see if it interests others. Will add them soon.
Thanks for the feedback!
~~~
carapace
I meant that I thought it would be posts to read, not posts about what to
read. In other words, I thought it was the users' posts themselves that was
the content you're collecting/curating.
Cheers!
------
visio_nerdy
"Cook French cuisine like a Master chef"! - Good list by Michael Seibel :)
------
tptacek
Don't buy the Gang of Four book.
~~~
kasey_junk
I disagree. It’s a foundational piece of software engineering literature, even
if it is mostly misapplied. If nothing else, it is important to understand the
vocabulary presented in GoF.
Don’t buy it if you think its going to teach you how to write software better.
Do buy it if you might ever get dropped in a OO software base written in the
last ~20 years. Because understanding the context of the names is important.
~~~
tptacek
I think you can get the vocabulary from online sources now (Norvig's talk
alone is a pretty good starting point). I agree about its cultural importance,
but if you wrote GoF'y code in 2019, in any language, people would look at you
AbstractFactoryFunny.
~~~
kasey_junk
The Java community made it pretty easy to punch down to them with the over use
of the vocabulary. But its still valuable when I tell another developer
"that's using a flyweight" for them to not look at me blankly.
And for what its worth I've used GoF patterns in golang in the last 6 months.
No one looked at me funny (to my face at least).
------
vlab_mech
Awesome! Always looked for this list.
------
rboobesh
How did you build the list?
~~~
QueensGambit
We compiled it from their twitter feed and HN threads.
~~~
komali2
Manually? Interesting. Out of curiosity, why not just make it a static, no-js
webpage then?
~~~
QueensGambit
It is a semi-manual process with a chrome plugin. So, I found it easier to
render the scrapped data with Firebase & NodeJS.
------
Nicksil
Does this website hijack scrolling? It really feels like it does. If it does,
please reconsider; this shouldn't still be happening in web development.
~~~
QueensGambit
I bought a theme and used it for this site. The javascript in the theme might
hijack scrolling. I will check and fix it. Thanks for letting me know!
Update: Fixed it! There was smoothscroll.js (v1.3.8) in the theme that was
causing it. Note to Self: Don't blindly include all theme files :)
~~~
user00012-ab
I gave up on the site as soon as the scrolling stopped working correctly.
why would you you design a site that breaks simple scrolling?
~~~
dajohnson89
He acknowledged the problem and said he will address it. Don't be an asshole.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The DAO Hub is now live - jhildings
https://daohub.org/
======
th0br0
So many buzzwords. What is a DAO?
~~~
extra88
Eventually I found on the page "decentralized autonomous organization."
Cryptocurrency seems important somehow ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
~~~
cjbprime
A business whose by-laws are encoded in an algorithm that runs autonomously,
and is published. I think the algorithm says that people can submit proposals
(i.e. "send X money to Y") and they'll be voted on by all members, and if the
vote passes then the algorithm itself performs the action. There's no-one in
charge outside of the emergent behavior of the member votes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did We Overvalue Music? - michaelperalta
http://www.varely.com/posts/59
======
engtech
two paragraphs followed by a "sign up to read more".
Content in that format is not going to do well on any social media site.
Even with a Vanilla Ice picture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2 Mount Everest climbers die of altitude sickness, 2 others missing - SCAQTony
http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2016/05/mount_everest_deaths_missing_t.html
======
PeterisP
This is a somewhat ironical tragedy - the two dead climbers went on to Everest
because, quoting them, "she and her husband wanted to dispel the belief that
vegans were 'weak' or 'malnourished' by taking on the climb." and then
proceeded to die out of exhaustion on their way down.
~~~
danielvf
I had to verify that this was true. It is true.
Here's an article from before the climb. [http://business.monash.edu/news-and-
events/news/lecturer-fac...](http://business.monash.edu/news-and-
events/news/lecturer-faces-new-heights)
"Dr Strydom and her husband are not only experienced climbers, they are also
both vegan. She said they were inspired to climb the seven summits after
receiving numerous questions about their iron and protein deficiencies."
"It seems that people have this warped idea of vegans being malnourished and
weak," Dr Strydom said. "By climbing the seven summits we want to prove that
vegans can do anything and more."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket Launch Today - carlosgg
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/science/falcon-heavy-spacex-launch.html
======
Klathmon
I can't put into words how excited I am for this launch today.
I remember back in 2012 where spacex was still a laughingstock. The idea of
landing a rocket from a private company was a joke.
But SpaceX always did one thing right, they made many care about space again.
They broadcast their launches, made a bit of a show of it, and they weren't
ashamed of their failures.
Then they started breaking milestones. They increased their launch cadence in
what felt like overnight. They were actually trying (and failing) to land
rockets, but they were still broadcasting them! Then they landed the first one
on land, then the first one on a barge, then they re-launched rockets (and re-
landed them!). Now it's weird when a rocket is launched in "expendable mode"!
I wanted to start this comment saying this is the most excited I've been of
any launch in a long time, but when I really thought about it, it's not. There
have been half a dozen launches in the past few years from SpaceX that were
just as exciting, and that's amazing.
I hope today's launch goes well, and I hope this is the start of the "new
normal"!
~~~
verytrivial
I remember clearly thinking the whole idea of landing the booster as being
_completely_ unrealistic, verging on not possible. I'm really pleased to have
been utterly wrong. And 2/3rds of the boosters in today's test have already
been into space. Mind blowing. Congratulations to all the hard working
engineers at SpaceX!
~~~
pensivemood
>I remember clearly thinking the whole idea of landing the booster as being
completely unrealistic, verging on not possible
Please share why you thought it was not possible. Just curious.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Not parent, but I was surprised when I first heard of it. I thought it must be
infeasible - in retrospect, for no reason other than vertical-standing rockets
are associated with kitschy cover arts of old sci-fi stories. It didn't fit
the more modern sci-fi aesthetics I grew in.
Since realizing that I became more wary of unconscious biases picked up from
environment, and how they affect what I think is technologically possible.
~~~
michrassena
Perhaps I grew up in a different era, but it's precisely that same aesthetic
which makes me see these landings as futuristic because they align so well
with those images.
The ascent into space looks like a massive show of raw power, and in contrast
these vertical landings look so graceful and controlled.
~~~
cr0sh
> The ascent into space looks like a massive show of raw power, and in
> contrast these vertical landings look so graceful and controlled.
Personally, I think both are a "massive show of raw power" \- both literally
and figuratively.
Literally goes without explanation. But what I mean of the word "figuratively"
is that it shows our capability as a species to fully harness our intellect,
knowledge, and emotions to do this kind of engineering, despite knowing it can
all go horribly wrong (especially in the case of manned space flight).
Certainly there are many other drivers to why we do this (profit in the case
of SpaceX certainly is a great one), but part of it is also to show ourselves
we can push beyond what seemed or seems impossible at times, and make it
routine, and eventually both practical and relatively "safe" (always knowing
it might never be perfect).
------
Robotbeat
Falcon Heavy is just a toe in the door of super heavy launch. BFR will have 31
engines at liftoff compared to Falcon Heavy's 27. BFR will be about twice the
thrust of Falcon Heavy, and most importantly BFR is not just a launch vehicle
(which gives SpaceX a big edge in deploying megaconstellations of low-latency
internet satellites), but the upper stage part will be a spacecraft capable of
reentering the Earth's atmosphere with a payload and crew like Shuttle but
also capable of being refueled and landing on (and taking off from) distant
worlds. Falcon Heavy really helps provide this necessary interim step, and
will help build a manifest of large payloads that BFR will be able to take
over.
SpaceX is increasingly serious about BFR, their next-gen rocket which is like
an enormous, fully reusable hybrid of Shuttle and Falcon 9 using soot-free and
higher performing methane (which can also be made on Mars in a fairly
straightforward process) instead of kerosene.
Musk mentioned BFR multiple times in the pre-launch press conference
yesterday: [https://soundcloud.com/geekwire/elon-musk-discusses-the-
laun...](https://soundcloud.com/geekwire/elon-musk-discusses-the-launch-and-
flight-of-the-falcon-heavy-rocket)
They're cancelling lunar Dragon+FH to focus on BFR which is making more
progress than they expected. They plan to start flight testing the upper
stage/spaceship portion of it by next year according to Elon in the prelaunch
press conference.
Falcon Heavy was originally supposed to fly about as often as Falcon 9, but
they upgraded Falcon 9 so much that now they barely need Falcon Heavy, as
amazing as Falcon Heavy is.
Super excited about all this.
~~~
chasd00
yeah i think BFR and the upgraded Falcon 9 pretty much obsoletes Falcon Heavy
almost immediately. The Heavy just took so long to put together, it was
suppose to fly 4 or 5 years ago right? I've heard it reported that the Falcon
Heavy engineering was much harder than anticipated. Does anyone know what some
of the major obstacles were? The concept seems straightforward but where did
they start getting into trouble?
~~~
emilecantin
I remember reading a quote from Elon where he says that at some point, they
realised it's less "strapping three cores together" than "flying three cores
in very close formation"
The stresses involved are truly enormous, and the whole thing must be very
well balanced to avoid putting even more stresses on the frame.
Something as stupid as fueling the rocket needs to be done with care, as
they're dealing with super-chilled liquid oxygen: The cold temperatures make
the rocket contract a little bit, you have to make sure all three boosters
contract exactly the same otherwise you can break the attachment points.
~~~
golergka
After countless hours of experimenting with additional struts in KSP to keep
my rockets from going through RUD I have a weird feeling as if I understand
this on some level. Rationally, I don't think that I have any real
understanding of rocket science from KSP - but that weird feeling just won't
go away.
------
aerodog
Try
[http://www.spacex.com/webcast](http://www.spacex.com/webcast)
Or
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c)
------
SteveGregory
Here's a to-scale graph of the launch:
[https://imgur.com/a/XvPXG](https://imgur.com/a/XvPXG)
~~~
IshKebab
Ah amazing! I've been vaguely looking for exactly this since they started
landing boosters and this is the first accurate one I've seen.
------
Ftuuky
I'm not american or connected in any form or shape to the aerospace industry
and yet I feel so excited for watching this. It has been absolutely mind-
blowing watching all those rockets landing perfectly.
~~~
mwambua
Same here. I'm not American, or working in the Aerospace industry... but
watching Musk has had a spurring effect for me. He's a constant reminder that
the impossible is possible and that you should keep trying even if it turns
out it's impossible.
I'm stressed out because I need to get my thesis done soon, but he's worried
because he needs to perfectly launch a Tesla Roadster into Solar orbit, and
vertically land three first-stages so he can do it again.
------
chasd00
was planning on buying tickets but they sold out before I could get
arrangements made with work and family. I grew up in Port Orange FL and could
see the shuttle launch from New Smyrna Beach, there's nothing like seeing a
launch in person. My colleagues are a little annoyed how excited I am but I
can't help it hah.
Weather looks good so here's hoping for no delays!
~~~
dogma1138
You can watch the launch without buying tickets to KSC there are plenty of
spots hobbiest go to watch them without tickets.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Sitting on the bleachers just inside Canaveral AFB watching now, no tickets
required!
------
Symmetry
Remember that Elon is saying there's even odds the rocket explodes. 2 failures
in the first 10 launches is par for the course for new rockets. You can do
better by being paranoid like ULA but that slows down innovation which is not
the tradeoff SpaceX is going to take.
------
JBiserkov
The linked chart is also very informative:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/science/spacex-
falc...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/science/spacex-falcon-
launch.html)
I only wished it showed successful landings as well.
------
dantheman
I can't wait -- this is one of the most exciting and inspirational events of
the year.
Best of luck to the spacex team -- we'll be watching!
------
pavel_lishin
Oh man, I didn't realize this was going to go into a solar orbit! I thought it
was just going to stay in LEO and then eventually burn up on re-entry.
~~~
TeMPOraL
If you missed that, then wait until you learn what's the test payload...
~~~
imron
For the curious, it's Musk's midnight-cherry red Tesla roadster, with a dummy
in a spacesuit in the drivers seat, David Bowie playing on the stereo, and a
towel in the glove box along with a copy of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
and a sign that says Don't Panic.
~~~
digdugdirk
That's great. Where did you find this info on the payload?
~~~
imron
Initially from Musk's Twitter feed, but there's now also a Wikipedia entry
about the car:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster)
There's also an artists rendition of the launch and payload on spacex's
YouTube channel (titled: Falcon Heavy Animation)
------
jacquesm
Hah, They Did It :) That makes me so happy. What an incredible space ballet.
------
janlaureys
There was a media event yesterday at the launch site. Look how tiny those
people are in this picture:
[https://i.redd.it/pq77omcrwge01.jpg](https://i.redd.it/pq77omcrwge01.jpg)
~~~
icc97
About the height of the letters on the side of the rocket coincidentally
enough.
------
jacquesm
4 hours to go... I'm on the wrong continent :( I would have definitely gone
there to view the launch, it's a real milestone and I so hope that it will
work.
~~~
alex_duf
I think the day we send people to Mars, never mind the fact I'm living in
Europe, I'll take a holiday and flight to see that rocket take off...
I already missed the Saturn V going to the moon (wasn't born), there aren't
that many positive, predictable historical moments like that in a life time
~~~
jacquesm
> I already missed the Saturn V going to the moon (wasn't born), there aren't
> that many positive, predictable historical moments like that in a life time
I was 4 years old when that happened and it is as far as I can tell my
earliest memory. We had this incredibly small black-and-white TV and watching
that really impressed me, the moon never looked the same afterwards.
Incidentally, that live broadcast was quite a thing to pull off:
[https://www.popsci.com/how-nasa-broadcast-neil-armstrong-
liv...](https://www.popsci.com/how-nasa-broadcast-neil-armstrong-live-from-
moon)
~~~
icc97
My daughter is 5yo for this launch, here's hoping this can have a similar
impact.
~~~
jacquesm
Did she like it?
~~~
icc97
She was more interested in the animation than the launch. Overall a bit
underwhelmed, slightly intruiged by the launch but not much more. She's not
quite sure why daddy is so excited that there's a car floating around in
space. I clearly need to work on her inner space geek.
------
VikingCoder
A thought I've had about SpaceX, Crazy Horse Memorial, and 9/11...
They were all once the kind of things that only nation-states could
accomplish... Putting up massive payloads into space, building huge monuments,
and killing thousands of people.
We've made all kinds of things easier to do - some good, some bad.
I hope we continue to grow into our capabilities a bit more smoothly than we
seem to be, right now...
~~~
Faaak
I think there's a little difference between thousands of engineers building a
rocket and 4 idiots crashing a plane down…
~~~
ryanwaggoner
As horrific as 9/11 was, it’s not fair to characterize it as 4 idiots bringing
down a plane.
It was 19 people who led a coordinated attack that took hundreds of people,
millions of dollars, and years to plan and execute. In the process, they
brought down 4 airplanes, damaged the pentagon, and toppled TWO skyscrapers,
killing thousands of people in the process.
Looking back at the 17 years since, they indirectly started multiple wars,
toppled governments, inspired a generation of terrorists, and changed the
geopolitical situation in the Middle East for decades, at least.
Again, it was horrible and we should condemn it, but it was also a lot more
strategically impressive and impactful than you’re making it out to be.
~~~
jacquesm
Their biggest success was to enlist their foes in achieving their goals.
That's the part I will never understand.
------
Shelnutt2
The webcast now says it is going live at "February 6, 14:50 EST". Any official
word on a delay? I know the window was from 13:30 EST to I believe 16:00 EST.
Edit: Looks like delayed due to upper level winds.
[https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/960920426485399552](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/960920426485399552)
------
speg
Anyone know where to watch that isn't Youtube? Blocked at work :(
~~~
swarnie_
[http://www.spacex.com/webcast](http://www.spacex.com/webcast)
~~~
speg
That's just a Youtube embed.
------
robinp
Elon leaving... Stock markets crash...
~~~
MichaelMoser123
i was just thinking if a possible downturn would have any effects on his plans
of settling the solar system. (for me as a lowly grunt a downturn always means
switching to work with a different industry, but who cares except for me.)
If this launch of Falcon Heavy becomes its last one then it would be so
similar to the Buran shuttle.
~~~
Robotbeat
This is more like a Proton launch. Proton and R7/Soyuz survived the fall of
the Soviet Union because they were cheap.
BFR might be more like Buran/Energia.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Uber: London drivers must use hybrid or fully electric cars from 2020 - sua_3000
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/08/uber-london-hybrid-fully-electric-cars-2020-vehicles
======
sua_3000
Good to see Uber executing on its vision and getting some positive publicity
along the way
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Successful marketing channels/forms for your startup/side project? - ericthegoodking
For those who have successful startups what has been the most effective form of marketing?
======
JacobAldridge
If you haven't already, I can recommend reading the book Traction -
[http://tractionbook.com](http://tractionbook.com)
Gabriel and Justin have done a good job of not just identifying marketing
channels loaded with successful case studies, but providing the business
framework for testing them on an ongoing basis to keep "moving the needle".
~~~
ericthegoodking
thanks, i will check out the book
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Play cut payments to developers in Argentina - pmtarantino
http://www.celularis.com/google/pagos-de-google-play-en-argentina/
======
fmariluis
"Currently, developers in the below countries may register as Google Checkout
merchants and sell paid applications. We're working hard to add more
countries, but we're unable to provide any guidance on timelines.
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Singapore
Spain
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States"
Source: [https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
developer/answ...](https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
developer/answer/150324?hl=en)
That leaves out Chile and Uruguay as well, so this change appears to be
unrelated to the current situation in Argentina.
~~~
molmalo
Exactly, they left those countries out too. We'll have to wait until Google
tells us why, if they ever do it.
~~~
spikels
You will wait in vain. Google has no incentive to explain. It would only
damage any chance of other and/or future business in Argentina.
But not every company is so timid. Brazil's Vale recently pulled out if a
giant potash project and according to Reuters: Vale said the inflation and
exchange rate could make the project unviable.[1]
[1][http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-vale-
riocolorad...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-vale-riocolorado-
idUSBRE93P1BL20130427)
------
seppo0010
Also covered in theverge [http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/24/4363960/google-no-
longer-a...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/24/4363960/google-no-longer-able-
to-pay-developers-in-argentina-for-apps-pulling)
~~~
Groxx
> _The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the
> Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges, which The
> Telegraph[1] detailed this past September._
Note that [1] is titled "Damming dollar flood comes at a huge cost to
Argentine economy". Seems like it's a reasonable possibility, though I can't
say I understand Argentine economics.
[1]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9565126/Damming-d...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/9565126/Damming-
dollar-flood-comes-at-a-huge-cost-to-Argentine-economy.html)
------
braco_alva
This is really bad news for latin american developers, as far as I know,
Argentina was one of the few latin american countries that were able to sell
in the Play Store and now it's gone. It kind of kills my hope that they may
eventually give support to my country.
I know I can establish an LLC in US to fix this, but it is something that we
would rather not to do. It is kind of a bummer that Google makes it so
difficult to do business in certain countries.
------
jstalin
The Kirchners continue to work wonders for the Argentine economy.
~~~
rpgmaker
It has nothing to do with them. Read the article and try again.
~~~
jstalin
Of course it has everything to do with them. The current administration
consists of former Marxist guerrillas who openly state that they don't believe
in the quantity theory of money, that, in fact, it's the stores that are
causing inflation. They clamped down hard on dollar exchanges in 2011 and now
there is a black market dollar rate (vs the "official" rate).
Certainly, if you're happy with the situation and you're an Argentine, by all
means, continue to support Kirchnerismo.
------
rorra
Its not a big issue since we (Argentines) can open a company in Uruguay which
is pretty close, or even a LLC online (U$S 250 per year). And probably most
people doesn't know, but then we can get U$S in a bank account in Uruguay, and
instead of change them for Argentine pesos in the Argentine banks (AR$ 5 = U$S
1), we can sell it on the street (AR$ 9 = U$S 1), and earn a 80% revenue
because of stupid laws, crazy, right?
The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money on
social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs, obama
care?), and they steal too much money as well (google for "Lázaro Báez", "Raúl
Copetti", "Rudy Olloa" among others) that they ended with an artificial
inflation of 25% every year. So people started to buy U$S and other currencies
to be able to save their money, and the government cut this right from the
people (so they make you by law, to save your money in AR$, and your money
will be devaluated 25% every year, you can invest if you have enough money, if
you do well, the government takes 50% on your earnings, if you do bad, the
government doesn't give you the 50% of the looses, and good luck having enough
revenue from your investments in order to avoid loosing the annual 25% :P).
I also have to mention that even when we are in a capitalist economy, the
politicians in Argentine says all the time that we have a big economic problem
because of evil business people, who run the business and increase the prices
and make all this inflation problem, so while most of the countries in Latin
America got thousands of millions of dollars in investments (and like Uruguay,
they are starting to create laws to avoid so much money getting into the
country so quickly), we don't know what to do or how to get foreign
investments into the country. Why would you invest in Argentine if they are
going to tell you that the inflation is your fault, that you are evil and most
important, they won't let you to get your revenue to other country if you want
to? So they had a brilliant idea on the last week, they are creating a law
where everyone can get U$S to Argentine, they are going to give you a "bond"
in exchange, and if the money came from drug deals, terrorism or whatever, it
doesn't mind, the government is going to do the laundry service that the mafia
usually do, for free!!!
Anyway, Argentine is getting aligned to countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela,
and its following their politics, nothing good can came from that, but what
can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street and kill
innocent civilians? I would never ever understand how these people got into
the government, or how these people ended giving "Ethic" classes in public
universities, real story. Our last defense minister was an active member of
"Montoneros", a terrorist organization in Argentine, they killed members of
the military, they put bombs on the street where they killed civilians,
tortured military members (google for "coronel Larrabure") and she ended being
the defense minister? Can you imagine Al Qaeda member managing the USA Army?
Our president, who talks all the time about the last military government and
human rights, made a lot of money with that government by using the "Martinez
de Hoz" law, so she worked for the banks, she put pressure to the poor people
that couldn't pay his house loans, and told them "You are going to loose your
house, and you won't get any money, or you can sell me the money for pennies,
and I'll take care of the debt", and then went to talk with his clients (the
banks) and get a better deal for the current house loan, that's the way she
got rich, after stealing money from the poors, she and her husband got into
politics, being a governor of a State (Province, Santa Cruz) they sold by law
a company that is call YPF to private holders, and took all the money under
their name out of the country in U$S (and now she said that U$S is an evil
currency), we never saw that money again, she got elected president, and now
she said that Menem government was worng (another dumb ass who gave all the
government companies away and did a lot of corruption things), and bough YPF
back for a lot of money. Now the company is filled with a lot of persons that
just support her government, they steal a lot of money and we import most of
the petroleum we consume (being a petroleum producer, we have to import
petroleum).
And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people
here loves Obama, so start paying a lot of attention to what's going on in
Argentine, because you have the same kind of "Populist Government" that we had
on many countries in Latin America for over the last years. I also forgot to
talk about security, it doesn't exist, a uncle of my girlfriend (crazy uncle)
made her wife to starve to death, he tied her to bed and waited until she
died. He got 14 years on jail, then he went out and formed a new family.
People who does violent robberies or whatever, they got into the police
station and get released to the next day, last day, one person went with a gun
into a federal court, the police got him, and he spent on the police station a
couple of hours, threating all the people saying that we belonged to "La
Campora", an organization that supports Cristina Kincher and was founded by
his son. If you get robbed in Argentine, you usually say "Thank you" to the
robbers because they didn't take your life, and they do it a lot, all the
time, common business in Argentine. At this point, we would love to have a
"Second Amendment", the right to have a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad
we never had it. You have this right and you are going to give it away, smart
move.
And by the way, if you start seeing a lot of smart Argentine developers in
USA, don't get surprised, we are trying to get away from the country while we
still have the right to do it (if we leave the country, then we loose all our
money, no way to buy foreign currency even if you decide to leave the
country).
~~~
fmariluis
> The main problem we have now, is that the government spends a lot of money
> on social plans to get people to vote them (instead of creating real jobs,
> obama care?)
So, even when it's not clear what caused this change in Google Play, you're
blaming the government.
> what can you expect from a government that used to put bombs on the street
> and kill innocent civilians?
What?
> And most people in Argentine loves Kichner (54%) in the same way most people
> here loves Obama
It's called democracy. It works pretty well in most countries.
> At this point, we would love to have a "Second Amendment", the right to have
> a gun and defend ourselves, pretty bad we never had it
You can legally own a gun in Argentina.
Please, try to improve the quality of the information you bring here, so we
can have a rational discussion about this news, which in essence is a change
in Google Play that affects developers in Argentina. At this point, everything
else is speculation.
~~~
spikels
1) The reason Play can't operate in Argentina is because of government imposed
currency controls have made cross border payments very difficult (reread 1st &
2nd paragraphs).
2) Learn about the Montoneros and it's members participation in the Kirchener
governments (see paragraph 4).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montoneros>
3) Democracy may be the least worst form of government but Kirchener's
populist policies are slowly destroying what should be a great country. This
is a weakness of Democracy - the government can buy votes at the expense of
future growth.
4) Gun laws are quite strict in Argentina and have become much stricter under
the Kichener government. There is no right to own a gun in Argentina.
You lecture the poster about the "quality of their information" and not being
"rational" but almost everything you say is wrong. Not cool.
------
seppo0010
Note that the article is in Spanish, but the full letter sent to the
developers in English is included.
~~~
demian
Nothing new.
"Educated" latin americans are expected to be able to, at least, read english.
More so in tech fields.
~~~
seppo0010
I know, I was saying that for English speakers that open the link and find an
article totally in Spanish, that there is something for them to read.
~~~
faboo
Google Translate actually doesn't do a terrible job on the article text (it's
not perfect, but it's understandable). It does kind of mess-up the English in
the email though.
------
jarjoura
Does anyone have any information to what actually changed in Argentina that
caused this?
------
marcosdumay
I'm sad for our neighbours... At the same time, I really hope we manage to not
do the same mistakes here at Brazil.
------
wslh
They can solve this opening a company abroad. It is cheap to establish an LLC
in US.
~~~
markdown
Citation needed.
You need a US bank account, social security number, a permanent address, etc.
I'd be pleasantly surprised if you could do it without spending at least 10k.
~~~
wslh
No citation is needed.
1\. Open an LLC: cheap.
2\. Open a Bank Account: travel to US and they will open one with the LLC
without a social security number.
3\. Transfer funds to the LLC.
You can do it for less than USD 2000.
~~~
tellarin
But USD 2k is a whole lot of money for people in some of the countries where
they'd need to resort to this to put something on the Google store. Not
something you'd easily have access to.
And there are also the issues in sending that money abroad. It's not so easy
in many of those countries too.
~~~
wslh
The USD 2k includes a travel so you can enjoy it. You need to do the bank
paperwork on situ.
And USD 2k is not a lot of money for an independent developer in Argentina.
~~~
alcuadrado
For a company or established independent developer it's not a big deal. But
for many people it is a lot of money, it's currently ~8 minimum wages at black
market dollar-peso price (which is the only one available for someone in that
situation).
~~~
wslh
Someone working as a semi sr. developer is earning $ 1K so in two months you
can afford it. And this is a long term investment.
In the worst case many people can join together to share the same company.
~~~
alcuadrado
$1k at the official dollar (non black market) value probably, which is not
available. That price is 50% of the black market's one, so it'd be $500.
I don't mean that this money will prevent anyone from getting their apps paid,
but it'd really discourage indie developers to start new apps, as it's now
more expensive and complicated.
~~~
wslh
They can use that account for receiving money for other jobs. I don't think
they make money at all in Google Play.
------
coopdam
There are still some options. Check this site: <http://www.coopdam.org/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Phil Schiller Is A Man On A Mission: To Save The App Store - peter123
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/15/phil-schiller-is-a-man-on-a-mission-to-save-the-app-store/
======
TomOfTTB
Let me say up front that none of this is a criticism of Phil Schiller. Just
the opposite in fact.
But the bottom line is Mr. Schiller is a downright brilliant marketer (he’s
Apple’s highest ranking Marketing executive for God’s sakes) and marketing is
all about getting people to think what you want them to think. More
importantly Marketing is not about setting corporate policy (though I’m sure
Mr. Schiller has the ear of Steve Jobs in a way that very few others do).
I guess what I’m saying is when you’re thinking exactly what someone as good
as Mr. Schiller wants you to think you have to ask yourself whether it’s their
marketing skills leading you there or whether something is actually happening.
What I see right now is a few well placed communications but no real change in
Apple’s overall policies.
------
absconditus
Does the App Store really need saving? I still have yet to hear any complaints
from anyone other than a handful of geeks.
Before anyone throws a fit, yes, there may be some issues which need to be
resolved, but I think the headline for this article is a bit ridiculous.
------
dejb
The only way to save the App store is to kill it's monopoly.
------
ErrantX
This is a great thing for Apple if he's really planning to get stuck in and
fix it. He is the guy who saved several of Apple's products and created some
of the viral/classic brands.
I've always thought Schiller is as, if not more of, an important part of
Apple's success as Jobs.
~~~
ajg1977
which products did he save and what viral brands did he create?
~~~
ErrantX
iMac, Powerbook etc.
------
mhb
Schiller. Marketing. Funny.
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shill>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Read color hex codes - cpeterso
https://www.dotconferences.com/2018/11/david-desandro-read-color-hex-codes
======
neatcoder
I can read color hex codes just fine. In fact, while writing my CSS, I often
have a shade of color in mine and I just go ahead and type out its hex code by
guesswork and then fine tune it by changing the R, G, and B values. I am not
colorblind. I never thought this is a special skill! It's just basic
understanding of hexadecimal, the RGB color model, and additive color mixing.
The nice thing this video helps me with is to give a name to every RGB color
code. This is something I had always found difficult even though I knew what
each RGB color code would look like. Giving a name to every RGB code makes it
easy to communicate colors to others.
~~~
g105b
Me too. I thought all web developers did this?
~~~
indalo
No, hex color mixing theory doesn't sound like a sound UI development pattern.
~~~
castis
What? If you're a web developer and don't know how to use them, then you're
not a very good one.
~~~
antonkm
That is harsh and somewhat elitist. I'm guessing people could probably say
pretty much anything to sound skilled by replacing X here: "What? If you're a
web developer and don't know how to use X, then you're not a very good one."
I understand RGB, base-16 and HSL yet this isn't instinctive for me. I might
be a below average dev (although my clients and colleagues seem to think
otherwise), but I'd prefer a color picker any day before thinking about
translation of color codes.
~~~
castis
The value that pops out of the color picker shouldn't be a mystery to you.
~~~
antonkm
Ah, agreed. But your comment didn't actually say that - you took something
kinda small and leveraged it too far as it would define the web dev skills.
~~~
castis
I'm well aware of what I said, thanks.
------
jagthebeetle
Not to trivialize the article's ruminations above and beyond the simple
mechanical understanding of hex codes – but once you have the basics of hex
and color mixtures, a fun practical way to practice them is with one of
various "guess the color for a hex code" games; e.g.,
[http://yizzle.com/whatthehex/](http://yizzle.com/whatthehex/)
------
jacobolus
Learning to interpret base 16 numbers is easy. But the problem is that RGB
values are only indirectly related to the perceptual attributes of a color.
(Which is why knowing the HSL or HSV coordinates is also not very
informative.)
Much easier and more useful (for a human reader) would be to first convert to
Munsell coordinates, or even CIELAB LCh.
~~~
svachalek
True, it’s hard to visualize a color in much detail without going to another
model, but for a rough guesstimate this does fine and despite the long
explanation it’s pretty easy to do in your head almost instantly.
Due to childhood hours spent programming the TI-99/4A I can look at hex
numbers and see bitmaps which is also not a particularly useful skill but
trivial with a little practice. (unlike what they said in the Matrix, I doubt
anyone would ever prefer it that way though)
~~~
jacobolus
It’s not so much that it’s “hard to visualize” the colors. The problem is that
comparing the results numerically is grossly misleading, because RGB are not
perceptually relevant color dimensions.
For example, this article says _“D is the highest value, 2 is the lowest. D is
high. 2 is low. That 's a wide range, but not completely wide. So our color
has moderate saturation, thus making it a washed color.”_
But you can make a wide variety of colors where 34/255 is the lowest sRGB
coordinate and 221/255 is the highest sRGB coordinate, including some which
are extremely intense (e.g. #d2d) and others which are more moderate (e.g.
#da2).
The article says, _“the values are both high and low, so it has middle
lightness,”_ again based on the example #d92. But try comparing the lightness
of #92d and #9d2. While HSL or HSV “L” or “V” will be the same between the
two, one is a light yellowish green color, the other is dark purple.
These heuristics are grossly misleading and should not be relied on.
------
burlesona
The first few paragraphs just explain what the hex codes mean literally, but
the article gets a lot more interesting after that. As another poster
mentioned, his heuristics aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty handy. I’ve
memorized a bunch of hex codes and the general “shape” of colors over the
years, but this more disciplined approach is really interesting!
------
saagarjha
> You're likely already familiar and have seen #FFF for white and #000 for
> black. The actual value of a shorthand code is made by duplicating the digit
> for each channel. So #D92 is technically #DD9922.
Huh, I had always thought that they added a zero, so #D92 would become
#D09020. TIL.
~~~
baddox
I think I always knew that it doubled the values, but I only recently realized
that #888 isn’t 50%, which would be #808080 (rounded).
~~~
EvilTerran
Conversely, the shorthand scale _does_ divide into perfect thirds (#555, #AAA)
or fifths (#333, #666, #999, #CCC).
------
chrisbrandow
That was really helpful with regards to understanding how to get saturation
and brightness from hex. I hadn’t seen that explained before.
------
fenwick67
Wow, I would have never guessed David was colorblind. In fact his websites and
logo designs make remarkable use of color.
------
miqkt
The explanations breaking down the constituents of hex codes reminded me of
CSS colour module level 4 and how 4 (#rgba) and 8 (#rrggbbaa) digit codes
might see support.
I wonder if there's still intuition for visualising colours when involving
opacity in the mix.
------
thunderbong
This is really amazing!
I wonder how many other things in our world are there right in front of our
eyes but we can't see them because of our mental blocks.
------
aasasd
Vastly better than the “Make some colors by shuffling the hex numbers around”
from yesterday.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stanford and ESA host competition for AI algorithms for space-debris cleanup - sumantsharma
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/AI_challenged_to_pinpoint_state_of_drifting_satellites
======
sumantsharma
Link to the dataset and exact challenge here:
[https://kelvins.esa.int/satellite-pose-estimation-
challenge/...](https://kelvins.esa.int/satellite-pose-estimation-
challenge/home/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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CA Labor Commission Has Just Killed Uber - acheron
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/06/ca-labor-commission-has-just-killed-uber-though-it-may-take-years-to-bleed-out.html
======
stephengillie
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9731963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9731963)
~~~
blisterpeanuts
Yes, thank you, I knew there had to be more than 3 comments on this topic :)
------
ChuckMcM
Note this is a different article than the TechCrunch one, this goes into the
impact to Uber if they classify drivers as employees and you can see that it
doesn't look good for Uber.
I wonder what the appeal process is here. I guess one of the good things about
the current 'all money is private' investment strategy is that there isn't
some hedgefund dumping millions of shares of Uber stock in uncovered short
sales.
~~~
x5n1
Couldn't have happened to nicer people. They will likely now double down on
automated vehicles. Which I think are the future and I hope someone else
succeeds in that as well.
------
lsiebert
"This would obviously make Uber drivers subject to minimum wage. How does one
even figure that out? Now that there are local minimum wages (e.g. LA soon to
be $15 an hour) how do you compute minimum wage for a trip that begins outside
of LA but ends inside the city? Or vice versa?"
Probably you count time in LA at the LA rate, and when they leave the LA area
by crossing the city limit, you calculate that accordingly.
A lot of these seem like non issues.
Like the time waiting to pick up a driver isn't the responsibility of the
company anymore then your time checking a website to see if you got hours that
week is the company's responsibility.
The California Supreme Court, in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court,
found that you don't have to force meal breaks, simply provide them, and my
understanding is that that only applies if they work more then five hours, and
if a work period is no more then 6 hours, meals can be waived by mutual
consent.
Easy enough to do through the app.
The employees will just be part time employees working a variable shift. That
solves like half of these "issues".
This didn't kill Uber. It still has economies of scale that put it ahead of
normal taxi services, and the ability to intelligently adjust pricing.
~~~
sharemywin
usually you would have to pay people from the first stop of the day to the
last stop.
------
warmfuzzykitten
Seems more like a lot of whining about how hard it is these days for a small
business to hire really low-paid, uninsured workers than anything to do with
Uber. I'm inclined to think Uber won't go out of business if it is treated
just like taxicab companies. After all, the selling point of Uber isn't low
cost - if you can find a taxi it will usually be cheaper - it's superior
service.
Also, see the comment by Morgan D. Frank below the article.
------
msabalau
CA <> the addressable market in the world.
------
sudioStudio64
I know that this site is going to be overwhelmingly pro-uber, but this guy is
also a climate denier?
~~~
blisterpeanuts
No, he's a climate skeptic, according to his website. I browsed that tab which
has some extensive analysis.
~~~
homulilly
"climate skeptic" is to "climate change denier" as "intelligent design" is to
young earth creationism. It's the same position dressed up with language to
seem less extremist.
~~~
sudioStudio64
As "Amen" is to "Hell Yeah". Well done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Could BitTorrent create the first popular distributed social network? - jarin
http://blog.martinemde.com/2011/05/bittorrent-distributed-social-network.html
======
DennisP
broken link...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitpay.me Launches - sanjayparekh
http://twitpay.me
======
tsally
Sorry if I am off base on this one, but not being able to cash out via PayPal
would make me just want to use TipJoy instead. Even if I do ultimately donate
my money to charity, I'd still like to have the option. The FAQ indicates that
you can put money in via PayPal, but it appears the only cash out option is an
Amazon Gift Card?
Still, good work on coming up with some sort of money maker for Twitter. They
can't seem to do it :-).
~~~
ivey
We're in the same boat Tipjoy was when they started: there's a ton of legal
stuff that goes with cashing out, and we've only been around a few weeks. It
is absolutely on our list of priorities.
~~~
tsally
Awesome! Good to hear :-). I figured it was probably on the TODO list; adding
a "PayPal coming soon!" to the FAQ might make people happy.
------
sanjayparekh
Twitpay.me was built at Atlanta Startup Weekend 2 just 1.5 weeks ago and
launched officially today. Pay others via Twitter and fund those payments via
PayPal. Pretty cool and very well designed (I'm biased - I helped in forming
the idea but didn't work on the project).
------
axod
Relying on the uptime of twitter, to get paid, seems a bit of a mistake.
~~~
josefresco
Heyo! Will you be here all week?
------
smahend
Interesting possibilities for certain vertical markets. Makes microdonations
to charities on a whim very easy.
~~~
jraines
Not sure why you got downvoted for that. It's true -- and we've already been
approached by a charity about that possibility (that's separate from the
option to donate upon cashout).
We're excited about this use case -- though like some others it's going to
probably be more relevant once you can cash out with actual cash.
------
blang
I like the Superman 3 reference. Office Space would have also been acceptable.
~~~
nadim
From the FAQ: "What’s your business model?
Superman 3 I never saw that movie.
Twitpay charges a nickel everytime you make a Twitpay over $.99."
------
calambrac
You depend on Twitter:
1\. Staying up.
2\. Not doing this themselves and leveraging their advantage of being able to
take payments private (like direct messages). What's the play if they do that,
sue for abuse of monopoly?
Also, twitter has zero security. Just one quick scenario: Set up a search for
twitpay, bag a list of usernames, start bruteforcing passwords, dump to an
account, and cash out...
~~~
dbrown26
Twitpay is focusing on micropayments in order to alleviate some of the risk in
using a medium like Twitter. A user can only put or take a maximum of $50 in
or out of the system on one given day. So while that attack is theoretically
possible, it would not be very lucrative. You would also have to ensure that
the accounts that you have brute forced are funded.
~~~
calambrac
All the payments show up in the public twitter stream, so you know how much
people theoretically have at any given time. The daily max is circumvented
with sockpuppets.
It doesn't have to be lucrative for someone to try it, or for it to ruin the
whole idea.
Other ways to ruin things: having trouble understanding the credit crisis?
Create your own with twitpay. Just start twitpaying your friends and
sockpuppet accounts in crazy, interlocking ways, but way underfund your
accounts, then have everyone start making claims. Who gets paid!? I don't
know! It's twitterific!
------
lpgauth
Worst name ever...
Twitt: A person who is obnoxious, a jerk and is selfcentered; doesn't care
about anyone but themself.
jerk pay me!
~~~
markpercival
It actually makes sense to me.
I use it to pay my friends, most of whom are twits.
~~~
marcus
Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are...
------
reedjo
Sounds like a great way to pay for gambling debts without having to adhere to
PayPal's morality rules.
------
huhtenberg
What's up with using text background highlights for adding an emphasis ?
Someone needs to ease off on NLP. This is really annoying and most importantly
it doesn't look good. Vary the text color if you are so inclined to tap the
subconsciousness.
------
vaksel
I think this is the first legit website I've seen, thats using a .me domain
------
ronsemail
Great idea, can't wait to get my first payment.
------
boorad
that's hawt. I see this as a great way to settle spontaneous bets w/ friends.
Dude, $50 the Smails kid picks his nose.
~~~
jcromartie
Microbets?
------
unohoo
Awesome !! Destined for success.
------
rokhayakebe
This was inevitable. Great idea.
| {
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Snowden, Chomsky, and Greenwald: A Conversation on Privacy, Tonight 8 PM EST - cryoshon
https://theintercept.com/a-conversation-about-privacy/
======
rumcajz
That's going to be interesting. Chomsky doesn't seem to be extra concerned
about the Internet. His position, AFAIU, is that all the current problems are
just a new reincarnation that have been with us for a long time. I guess
Snowden's and Greenwald's position is somewhat different.
| {
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“Security problems are primarily just bugs” - peterhunt
http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/11/why-linus-is-right-as-usual.html#.WhKEqnXytCU
======
pjmlp
> Also, since most security people aren't developers, they are also a bit
> clueless how things actually work. Bounds-checking, which they define as
> purely a security feature to stop buffer-overflows is actually
> overwhelmingly a debugging feature. Developers know this, security "experts"
> tend not to. These kernel changes were made by security people who failed to
> understand this, who failed to realize that their changes would uncover lots
> of bugs in existing code, and that killing buggy code was hugely
> inappropriate.
Sorry, but I completely disagree here. Many of us that care about security are
developers that have to clean up the mess of such ideas.
And to once more paraphrase Hoare's Turing award speech.
"Many years later we asked our customers whether they wished us to provide an
option to switch off these checks in the interests of efficiency on production
runs. Unanimously, they urged us not to--they already knew how frequently
subscript errors occur on production runs where failure to detect them could
be disastrous. I note with fear and horror that even in 1980, language
designers and users have not learned this lesson. In any respectable branch of
engineering, failure to observe such elementary precautions would have long
been against the law."
~~~
geofft
Yeah, I am extremely confused at this, too. I am a developer by profession who
happens to care about security because I care about delivering a good product.
I'm not a "security person." Bounds-checking is a way for me to deliver a good
product, and killing buggy code is sort of my _job_. Bounds-checking should be
enabled in production.
~~~
ryandrake
One size does not fit all. Any debugging safety net will have a cost in terms
of performance, and you usually have to pay that cost regardless of whether
your code has bugs. It's why we don't release debug builds to customers or use
them in production.
If it is vital to your application to detect a certain kind of bug in
production, then turn the checking on in production and pay the cost. Maybe it
is not vital to my application or my application does not have these bugs. In
my case it would be needless to pay the cost.
To me, essential to delivering a good product is detecting and killing
defective code before delivery. I recognize however, that this attitude is
becoming more and more old fashioned.
~~~
Aaargh20318
> To me, essential to delivering a good product is detecting and killing
> defective code before delivery.
The problem is that you cannot prove the non-existence of bugs, even if you
formally verify all your code, you've only proven that it conforms to spec,
not that the spec is flawless.
This is why you should always code defensively. Assume all code is buggy and
take steps to deal with that. Code is written by humans, and humans make
mistakes.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to deliver a flawless product, only
that you should acknowledge the fact that you're going to fail.
~~~
eru
Your argument would be in favour of a defensive spec, not in favour of a
defensive implementation.
To explain: your spec will have a few hygiene clauses like 'no stack overflow'
or 'no crashes' and some things about what useful things the program should
actually do.
The latter is hard to formalise and deserve defense in depth. Lots of the
former are easy to formalise and you can rely on the compiler to get it right.
And that's what we are doing already anyway: even in C we just trust that a
loop will compile to the appropriate conditional jumps and don't add defensive
measures to check that.
~~~
Aaargh20318
The point is that you're not going to do formal verification of your software.
There is actually very little formally verified software out there, and the
verified code that does exist is relatively small.
And no, you can't rely on the compiler to get it right. Maybe if you only
write Haskell you can get there 99% but there will always be human errors in
code that the compiler can't find.
~~~
eru
We rely on computers to get parts of our spec right all the time. Yes, a
higher level language lets you offload more to the computer (like Haskell),
but even in C we are doing some off that.
Yes, in practice you seldom have much of a formal spec, agreed.
------
jph
Linus advocates: 1) first do no harm to the kernel. 2) better to phase in
warnings and fixes, rather than enforce a panic. 3) there's sufficient track
record of security in practice.
This sounds fully reasonable to me. If you're an OS builder and prefer an
immediate-panic hardened system, then catch the warnings.
Linux kernel post:
[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01701.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01701.html)
------
vog
This strongly reminds me of the famous paper by Daniel J. Bernstein:
"Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0"
[https://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf](https://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf)
~~~
oftenwrong
I found a txt version of this:
[http://ondoc.logand.com/d/721/txt](http://ondoc.logand.com/d/721/txt)
It's a bit easier for me to read without a fixed page layout.
------
ryangittins
I am also in whole-hearted agreement with Linus, here. In fact, I ran into
this just recently. I discovered one of our systems at work actually stored
_encrypted_ passwords rather than just hashed ones, and _decrypted_ it for
validation. Yuck!
Of course, I put a fix and a database migration in place as soon as I could
and all is well now, but this worries me. It worries me because it must have
been done out of ignorance (bad) or intentionally (worse) and billed as a
feature or something. Neither of these things are mere bugs. This gaping flaw
wasn't introduced by accident.
~~~
thisisit
Or maybe incomplete understanding of the system. I had lobby for a year to get
even a simple encrypted passwords. "Why do we need encrypted passwords behind
a corporate firewall?" they asked. That sucked all the energy out of me.
So when they wrote a script to run a db extract, get all company salary data
in csv and share it with literally 50+ people I gave up. Getting them to even
encrypt data seemed impossible.
~~~
ryangittins
Oh geez, that's nuts. That's like asking, "Why do I need to put my valuables
in a safe if I have a lock on my front door?"
~~~
scruple
> That's like asking, "Why do I need to put my valuables in a safe if I have a
> lock on my front door?"
Not the GP, but I've experienced similar things during my career, and these
sorts of analogies tend to work really well when explaining technical points
to non-technical (and, sadly, even "technical") people.
------
partycoder
Security problems are bugs, sure. But a different kind. Security is a non-
functional requirement.
In an analogy with construction, each room is a functional requirement, and
non-functional requirements are the materials you used to build, which can be
considered some sort of quality attribute.
And just like in construction, if after building a house you are given more
strict seismic requirements, fire prevention, etc... you might need to rebuild
the entire house.
~~~
pessimizer
Is a room any more a functional requirement than security? A roof keeps the
rain off, walls keep the wind out and keep things private, but rooms are more
containers than requirements. And if closing a door at the right angle causes
the roof to fall in, that's a failure of function.
~~~
qznc
My understanding of _functional_ requirement is that it is binary. Function is
either there or not. A non-functional requirement can sometimes be measured,
but not in a yes or no fashion. For example, frames per second is non-
functional. Things are no secure or insecure in general, thus non-functional.
You can turn non-functional into function requirement if you specify a
boundary. For example, a 60 frames per second requirement is functional. For
security, you can require "secure under certain attacker models" to make it
functional.
Example: Is Signal communication secure, if you assume the attacker can only
read data on the server? There is an answer and it is probably "no". That does
not mean, Signal is secure in general. An attacker which can access your phone
breaks the security.
(It is also not really binary, because someone might find a hole somewhere in
the future, but for practical purposes, we can assume the crypto holds)
~~~
provost
> Things are no secure or insecure in general, thus non-functional.
I would disagree with this assertion. A really common phrase in the infosec
community is that "Security is not binary"
~~~
fusiongyro
Are you literate? Go back and reread the first sentence of the comment you are
replying to.
------
alanfranzoni
Another, similar, take, from ALE2014:
[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rXyl_YF-0lg3W8yY9mSo...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rXyl_YF-0lg3W8yY9mSo4UaoUrEWo8hKAng-
GsF9XeI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000#slide=id.g376b8bd03_011)
Security problems are, first and foremost, about CORRECTNESS. If you find an
issue, most probably something has been done in an incorrect way by somebody
who didn't really understand something. It's much harder to find out some
security bug which is not a functional bug (for some part of the domain, not
just the sweet spot).
Of course that doesn't really apply to C or C++, where it's easy to do dumb
mistakes by chance.
------
qaq
Considering that large number of breaches are through social engineering that
statement is largely off.
------
jstewartmobile
DJB's approach to the problem:
" _Nowadays I am much more insistent on programming language support for
smaller-scale partitioning, sane bounds checking, automatic updates of
“summary” variables (e.g., “the number of nonzero elements of this array”),
etc. By “sane bounds checking” I don’t mean what people normally mean by
“bounds checking,” namely raising an exception if an index is out of range;
what I mean is automatic array extension on writes, and automatic zero-fill on
reads. (Out of memory? See Section 4.2.) Doing the same work by hand is silly_
"[0]
[0]
[https://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf](https://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf)
------
mtgx
I guess this is why Google is doing the right thing by working on its own
microkernel. Similarly for Grsec guys, who forked Linux.
Fundamental difference of opinions like these is why forks should happen in
the open source world. I would like to see someone do a "LibreSSL" version of
the Linux kernel, by cleaning it up of all the unneeded legacy cruft,
modernizing its architecture, and making it more secure.
I imagine only someone like Google (for servers, Chrome OS, and Android) or
Microsoft (cloud services) could take on such a project, but of course they
could only _lead_ such a project. They would also need an _alliance_ of
partners to support the project.
However, if they are committed to it and serious about making it way better
from a security point of view, I could see many companies jumping ship from
Linux Classic, especially in the automotive and IoT worlds, also also from web
hosting world, and so on.
Alternatively, perhaps the large companies could start supporting Rust
OS/kernels such as Redox.
------
hguhghuff
Well yes in hindsight of course.
------
scandox
> Despite his unreasonable tone, Linus is a hugely reasonable person.
Is this a legitimate leadership technique? I mean I presume the intention is
to have a kind of megaphone which will get the attention of a widely
dispersed, highly independent group of people. The ultimate cat herding
weapon. On the other hand I find it really unpleasant and feel like there must
be better ways.
~~~
gaius
Linus is extremely lucky to have found his niche, as he is otherwise
unemployable. One of his sweary rants at a cow-orker in any normal company
would see him fired for gross misconduct and probably a restraining order
taken out. Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back
to Linus "getting away with it".
~~~
user5994461
It's the "designated asshole" archetype, the role can have a purpose in large
companies in some rare circumstances.
~~~
gaius
_the "designated asshole" archetype_
A previous employer had someone in that "role", I don't think he will ever be
able to work at any company that employs a former cow-orker of his. It may be
fun for a short while for a certain kind of person, but it's career suicide.
~~~
user5994461
I don't think it's fun actually. It's just the job.
There are some roles, like the one Linux has, where a critical aspect of the
work is to tell NO to people and reject most of their requests.
~~~
gaius
It's perfectly possible to say "no" without being obnoxious. But some people
revel in it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is your qualitative perception of hashtags? - roryreiff
======
27182818284
They've evolved into a better way of expressing certain emotions and such.
For example I've seen things like "I'm sorry you're leaving! #dumb" which
helps convey that the person is laughingly sad that the other coworker is
leaving.
Stuff like that.
~~~
roryreiff
I think this is the way that most people come across their usage and start
using them themselves. It's almost a "under the breath" type of comment. As in
"Eating dinner #ImFat" or "About to watch Halloween movies #soScared"
------
GuiA
We use them appended to our error logs to be able to filter out logs by
sections of the code; for example #userSignupFlow #asyncTask, etc.
I also use hashtags on Twitter to find things happening at an event where I am
(conference, talk, etc.), and post pictures that I take etc/quotes from the
speakers, etc.
On Instagram, I use hashtags in my searches to find pictures of cities where I
have lived/visited that I miss; my girlfriend is an artist, and does public
art, and uses them in a similar way to find people posting pictures of her
works.
------
lmm
My strictly personal view is that they make you sound like an idiot, or a
professional marketer.
~~~
xauronx
They should never be used verbally, I think most people can agree on that.
However, I don't think using them online makes you sound like an idiot. Adding
tags/categories/characteristics to your data can only be advantageous online.
------
dgtized
I like to think of them like telegrams #stop They seem somewhat anachronistic
#stop
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Circuit Breaker Design Pattern - kushti
http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/snapshot/common/circuitbreaker.html
======
jdmichal
While it matches that of a physical circuit breaker, I think the choice of
naming is a bit unfortunate. Closed means the operation is open to new
requests, while open means the operation is closed to new requests. This is
confusing when compared the normal Java semantics of opened and closed. I
think this is an instance where the skeuomorphism (of sorts) was taken a
little too far.
------
breckinloggins
Interesting.
For event signup, preorder, and ticket purchasing sites (which tend to
experience little or no load most of the time and an insane amount of load
right before some important deadline or right after an announcement), I wonder
if this could be used to redirect the user to a page that either says "take a
number and we'll call you back" or a page that says "we're experiencing high
traffic, you can send an email at _this link_ and we'll get back to you as
soon as we can."
The email link thing might work, but the "take a number" system would probably
be under the same traffic constraints that caused the intended transaction to
fail. Maybe not, though. Maybe that could work on a cheaper, more scalable
mechanism.
~~~
dragonwriter
Rather than providing information to the user by which they can access an
alternate, asynchronous request/response flow, why not separate the server
from the web-ui from the server for the backend processing system, and when
there is too much load on the backend system to effectively do synchronous
request/response, failover to an asynchronous workflow?
~~~
breckinloggins
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that techniques like this only move
the back-pressure to other parts of the system rather than solve the problem.
There's a load point beyond which you have almost no choice but to throw
requests away.
It was something like [1] but I don't think that was the exact article I read.
[1] [http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/2012/05/apply-
back-p...](http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/2012/05/apply-back-
pressure-when-overloaded.html)
~~~
bkirwi
Probably this one?
[http://ferd.ca/queues-don-t-fix-overload.html](http://ferd.ca/queues-don-t-
fix-overload.html)
Queues and similar things help flatten out the spikes, but they don't add
capacity. Like many of these tools, use with discretion.
~~~
breckinloggins
Yes, that one. Thank you.
------
angersock
I first read about this in the excellent book _Release it!_
[http://www.amazon.com/Release-Production-Ready-Software-
Prag...](http://www.amazon.com/Release-Production-Ready-Software-Pragmatic-
Programmers/dp/0978739213/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423875882&sr=8-1&keywords=release+it)
.
It's an really interesting read, and kind of a proto-devops book.
------
illicium
Emulating Erlang supervisors in Java? :)
~~~
kungfooguru
Na, there are multiple implementations of this in Erlang, it isn't
supervision,
[https://github.com/klarna/circuit_breaker](https://github.com/klarna/circuit_breaker)
and [https://github.com/jlouis/fuse](https://github.com/jlouis/fuse)
------
ghuntley
.NET/C# implementation as a portable class library for server side and client
(xamarin/windows phone) @ [https://github.com/michael-
wolfenden/Polly](https://github.com/michael-wolfenden/Polly)
------
dminor
Netflix's Hystrix is another implementation of this pattern.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What setup do you use to get stuff done? - nextos
What software and hardware setup do you use to get stuff done?
======
mindcrime
Nothing fancy... Fedora 16 (yeah, yeah, I know... I've been too busy to update
lately) on a relatively low-end Toshiba Satellite laptop. KDE for desktop
environment, with lots of Konsole sessions open. Firefox and/or Chromium for
browsing, Eclipse and/or Emacs for editing code, LibreOffice for spreadsheets,
presentations, etc. On that one, though, I do plan to switch to Apache
OpenOffice sometime soon.
Beyond that, well... We use a Mediawiki instance for sharing information,
SugarCRM for customer management, Jenkins for CI, and Bugzilla for issue
tracking. We also use Google Drive and/or Dropbox for swapping big files,
Github for source control, and have a few VPSs at Rackspace (to host the
company website, Bugzilla server, Jenkins server, Mediawiki, etc.)
For short-lived test/dev servers, we use AWS / EC2.
Programming language wise, most of our products are developed in Groovy and/or
a combination of Groovy and Java. If I need to knock out a quick script to do
something, Groovy is my go-to language if I don't feel like doing it in bash.
One big thing I want to do, is ramp up my knowledge of sed, awk, bash, etc.
I'm far from a shell scripting guru and I'd like to "level up" on that a bit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blockshell – A minimal blockchain learning CLI - daxeelsoni
https://github.com/daxeel/blockshell
======
akerro
If you want to learn how to build blockchain in Go, this set of posts explains
it really well [https://jeiwan.cc/posts/building-blockchain-in-go-
part-1/](https://jeiwan.cc/posts/building-blockchain-in-go-part-1/)
------
mxstbr
Are there any JavaScript blockchain implementations?
This might sound like a super stupid question but it's the only language I
know my way around very well and I'd love to figure out how they work in
practice.
~~~
cjbenedikt
Solidity, the etherum language is based on JavaScript
~~~
0xJRS
Isn't only the syntax of Solidity based on JS, not the implementation?
------
onyb
Even though this is a toy blockchain, it is essential to provide a
Blockchain.verify() method to check the integrity of the blocks.
------
geraldbauer
Great learning tool. For getting started with blockchains I collect starter
scripts in JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc over at the Awesome Blockchain page
[1]. Happy blockchaining! [1] [https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-
blockchains](https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-blockchains)
~~~
kruhft
Common Lisp:
[https://gist.github.com/BusFactor1Inc/761b1be031a6e998476dc3...](https://gist.github.com/BusFactor1Inc/761b1be031a6e998476dc321ca2bb214)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
To Hold Women Back, Keep Treating Them Like Men - riqbal
https://hbr.org/2015/07/to-hold-women-back-keep-treating-them-like-men
======
dudul
Probably the most sensible article about sex (and not gender) differences that
I have read in a long time.
The way school treats little boys is especially frightening to me as an
immigrant living in the US (by that I mean that I was used to a very different
system as a kid/teenager). Instead of recognizing that boys and girls _do_
behave differently and have different needs we force feed a unique
system/method down everyone's throat, and it happens that this system is built
around little girls (I never thought that the strong majority of female
teachers may be the reason, very good point made in the article). Boys who
can't adapt are just diagnosed - so that the parents don't feel like they
screwed up something - and drugged.
This is really sad. I'll be downvoted by feminists, but I'm more chocked by
the way we ruin generations of little boys than by the way women are treated
some workplaces.
~~~
keithflower
Your comments about ADHD are completely wrong, as any parent of a child (male
or female) with a bonafide diagnosis of the disorder (or adult with the
disorder) can tell you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gobenchdb: Tracking Go Benchmark Data - emcox
http://blog.yhathq.com/posts/introducing-gobenchdb.html
======
emcox
We needed a way to organize the data generated by go test -bench and write it
to a database to track system performance over time. For this reason, we
created the command line tool, gobenchdb.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Taskmod – To-Do List Management Tool For Windows - Hasaranga
http://www.taskmod.com
======
dailen
That's a hefty price tag for such a simple application
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rob Pike: Dennis Ritchie has died - fogus
https://plus.google.com/u/2/101960720994009339267/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP?hl=en
======
steveb
There are several billion people using many billions of devices every day.
From the code in your microwave to massive computing clusters, virtually all
of our software can trace its ancestry back to this man's intellectual output.
I'm eternally grateful for his life and contributions to humanity.
~~~
suivix
My question is if he didn't create a language like C, would someone else have?
Was it such a leap from existing languages?
~~~
bgurupra
The same thing can be said for pretty much every invention/innovation ever
made even if it was a huge leap from the prior art - but then he was the one
who did it and I guess that is what matters at the end
------
5hoom
This is really sad. Dennis Ritchie has made an incalculably huge contribution
to the tech world.
I know most here would be aware, but he is a father of both Unix and the C
language, technologies which are the basis for nearly everything we as
developers do. He helped write K&R, which many regard as _the_ book for C
programming.
This is the passing of a legend. Sincerest condolences to his family and
friends.
~~~
bch
Not only is K&R _the_ book for C, it's an example for engaging, lucid, just-
right technical writing that any technical manual should strive for.
~~~
kalid
That book is a reminder of a time when Wrox & friends weren't trying to crank
out 5 lb tomes on .NET SOAP Interoperability. So many modern books read like a
student trying to pad out a page count for a professor.
~~~
davidw
I wonder what will happen to books like this, as these guys pass away. For
instance, I don't see updated versions of Stevens' books, which are classics
in their own right with regards to network and systems programming on Unix. I
learned a ton of things from those, and wow, they're sure beautiful books.
~~~
bch
Hey @davidw.
We can hope that they might receive similar treatment as John Ousterhout's
"Tcl and the Tk Toolkit" did. JOs work (including TatTT) is often held up as
excellent writing as well. The second ed. of that book was updated by a group
of experts w/ JOs blessing, but w/o his participation if I understand
correctly. Indeed @davidw was a contributor to that project ;) (thx. david.)
------
InclinedPlane
If you have used technology of any sort over the last few decades there's a
pretty decent chance that you've used technology that Steve Jobs had a
significant impact on.
But the chances are 100.00% that you've used technology Dennis Ritchie has had
a deeply profound impact on.
~~~
xxpor
Including all of the tech that Steve Jobs had a significant impact on.
~~~
keidian
Exactly. When I first found out about dmr, I really really hoped the stories
will flood in here after the massive Steve Jobs amount. Not to take anything
away from Steve, but dmr is far more important in my opinion, and I'm sure
many other geeks would agree. I'm glad he isn't just quietly being forgotten
like I feared he would.
~~~
chugger
DMR created. SJ inspired.
let's not compare both.
~~~
sid0
_let's not compare both._
Ah yes, the cognitive dissonance of an Apple fanboy developer who knows that C
is far more important than anything SJ ever did yet can't reconcile that with
their belief that SJ was god.
Shame on Hacker News's audience that the front page isn't filled up with
Dennis stories right now.
~~~
biot
> C is far more important than anything SJ ever did
That's like saying the paintbrush is far more important than the paintings of
Michelangelo or da Vinci.
~~~
skeptical
A paintbrush is indeed far more important than the painting of Michel Angelo
or da Vinci from an historical point of view.
On top of that, there are thousands of programming language today, many
relying deeply on concepts and paradigms that are much younger than C itself,
but C remains one of the most used languages. Not only C is very much used,
it's still the only option in many cases and it is by far, the language that
is most used to implement other languages, or at least to bootstrap them.
Considering the age of the paintbrush comparing to, say, spray ink, your
analogy is in fact, not only valid, but a very good one.
------
rkalla
I wonder how many people here got to know Ritchie through "The C Programming
Language", I am sure half of us have it on our shelves.
It is amazing how many lives a single person can touch directly and
indirectly.
I hope Ritchie passed away knowing the unforgettable contribution he made to
the world as we all move forward on a platform he set down for us more than 30
years ago.
What an awesome legacy to leave behind. Thank you Dennis.
~~~
smoyer
I'm old enough that K&R was the bible when I started with Borland's Turbo C
1.0. Another sad day for computer science.
~~~
barrkel
alnayyir, you've been hellbanned. In case you didn't know.
~~~
nitrogen
That must've been one seriously downvoted comment to get someone with over
2000 karma to a -2 average.
~~~
burgerbrain
It was a series of comments I believe, in which he began taunting the people
downvoting him to downvote him more.
------
bootload
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
printf("goodbye, world\n");
}
~~~
pjscott
Considering the tragic nature of the situation, the exit status should be
nonzero.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
printf("goodbye, world\n");
return 1;
}
~~~
phillco
What if he died peacefully?
return 0;
~~~
pjscott
Dying peacefully is still dying.
return 1;
~~~
gamache
All things die, and I consider him successful.
return 0;
------
luckydude
Any chance we could get the guy who did the Steve Jobs Apple logo to take a
wack at doing one for Dennis?
I've never met Dennis but I've talked to him on the phone a bit, and exchanged
a pile of email over the years, all about various Unix topics. Though I was
nobody, he was always polite, always patient, always willing to pass on
knowledge. I'm quite grateful to him for taking the time to exchange ideas and
polish them.
bwk is the same way. We were working on extending awk to be, well, different
(we made awk scripts be part of awk, so any statement could be a script and it
could pipe to another script). I talked bwk about the idea and asked if I
could do on top of his awk and the next day a tarball showed up of ~bwk/awk,
had the source, all the regressions, the source the awk book, everything.
I love these guys, they did a lot of things I admire.
~~~
shazow
I didn't have anything to do with any of the Steve Jobs Apple logo tributes,
but here's my take on a Dennis one:
[https://plus.google.com/109834643338395014064/posts/CWHKvH7d...](https://plus.google.com/109834643338395014064/posts/CWHKvH7dawg)
------
DanielRibeiro
To remember[1]:
_Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie was an American computer scientist notable for
developing C and for having influence on other programming languages, as well
as operating systems such as Multics and Unix._
_He received the Turing Award in 1983 and the National Medal of Technology
1998 on April 21, 1999. Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System
Software Research Department when he retired in 2007._
_"C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success."_
_\- Dennis Ritchie, on The Development of the C Language[2]_
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie>
[2] <http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html>
------
Shenglong
Black bar, definitely deserved. Thanks pg.
------
jburwell
Two visi0naries lost in one week. Unfortunately, Dennis Ritchie's passing will
not get the level of coverage of Steve Jobs, but he deserves it. Without his
critical contributions, the UNIX core of Steve Jobs' great products could not
exist ...
------
fjarlq
:( Thank you, Dennis.
dmr posted to Usenet quite often over the years:
<http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?user=research!dmr>
[http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected]...](http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected])
<http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected]>
[http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected]...](http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected])
[http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?user=dmr@bell-
labs.c...](http://groups.google.com/groups/[email protected])
~~~
joeyh
"Sorry, we could not find any information on research!dmr." -- google
Well then, here are some of his first usenet posts:
<http://olduse.net/blog/Dennis_Ritchie/>
The one on dsw is especially good.
SYNOPSIS
(put number in console switches)
dsw
core
~~~
fjarlq
Hit reload a few times and it'll come up. Google Groups has been flaky for a
while now.
------
drallison
Dennis was a friend. It is very sad to learn of his passing. We are all
indebted to him for his many contributions to the field.
------
kiba
70 years. That's a long time to be alive! He was born in the middle of WW2,
lived through the cold war, seen the collapse of the soviet union, etc.
Me? I was born around the time the Linux OS hatched and the internet is
starting to open up.
~~~
melling
70 years isn't long at all. 100 is the new old:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centenarian>
With a bit more research, many people could live to be 90-100.
~~~
strait
Alan Turing would be 99 if he were alive today.
~~~
tomjen3
And he would have been if social conservatives hadn't destroyed him.
god damn I fucking hate them.
~~~
dmm
Turing's destruction is more complicated than just prosecution by
conservatives. He had access to extremely secure information over a period of
years, this is what drew attention to his homosexuality.
When someone gets a security clearance, what do you think is looked for? Not
many spies or people who eventually divulge information to an enemy country
have explicit ties, eg. they aren't a member of a communist party. What is
investigated are characteristics that would make a person likely to be
influenced: debts, addictions, gambling problems or, as in Turing's case, some
sort of socially unaccepted lifestyle.
Around the time of Turing's conviction, several other homosexuals had been
convinced by the soviets to become double agents, eg. Anthony Blunt and Guy
Burgess. Turing also made regular trips to the continent to pursue sexual
relationships. This is what inspired the indecency charges. That's my
understanding at least.
Please understand, what happened to Turing was terrible. No one deserves that
fate. I really do wish he could have escaped somehow. That said I don't think
the situation was as simple as social conservatives destroying people.
~~~
tomjen3
The reason they could blackmail those people was that those in charge had made
homosexuality illegal. None these defections had to happen and nobody seems to
think Turing was embaressed about his homosexuality, so if it is not illegal
what would there be to blackmail him about?
And what happened wasn't terrible. Losing your best friend to cancer is
terrible. Accidents are terrible. This was entirely done by monsters (they may
be of the species homo sapiens but they aren't human) and it was a monstrous
crime.
Edit: _sorry, that is the last time I will write hn comments from my phone_
~~~
dmm
> done by monsters
If you believe that every despicable act in that past was done by monsters
then you will waste your time looking for monsters. Instead you should be
looking for human beings, who always have justifications, they are the ones
who will be doing the despicable acts of the future.
You absolute ignorance of the events you are ranting about does everyone a
disservice.
------
dgallagher
His brother was superintendent while I was in high school. We asked him to
invite dmr to come in and give a speech once, but understandingly dmr was too
busy and had to decline. If dmr was anything like his brother, he was a great
person and will be missed greatly. RIP, you changed the world for the better.
------
protomyth
I learned BASIC and 6502 assembly in high school then went to college where
the main language was Modula-2 on an IBM 370. I hated Modula-2 and wondered
how people actually wrote those cool programs on PCs. It just seems like all
the possibilities of assembly really weren't there. It just seemed wrong.
Took an optional language class in C which used the K&R C book (draft ANSI C
edition) taught on the VAX and was finally able to say "Oh, I get it now".
Bought Turbo C 2.0 and had a blast.
This is just a truly sucky month.
------
navs
I'll have to admit, I didn't know who Dennis Ritchie was. I remember seeing
his name on the Unix Haters Handbook but that was it. Noticing the black bar,
I googled and now, I'm enlightened. It's a pity many will never know his name
or his contributions but if it means anything, this here Computer Science
student would like to say Thank You Mr. Ritchie for all you've done.
------
jbondeson
It almost seems impossible to imagine men like Ritchie leaving us. His efforts
helped usher in the modern computing age.
While he is no longer with us in person, may his legacy never be forgotten by
those of use who have had the honor to stand on his titanic shoulders.
Truly he will be missed.
------
moeffju
Just looking at the stuff on my desk, the only things Dennis Ritchie has not
directly or indirectly contributed to are two photos, a pair of scissors, a
screwdriver and a salami.
Cellphone? Check. Harddisks? Screens? USB devices? TAN generator? Wacom
tablet? Applet remote? Mac mini? MacBook Pro? Camera? Check, check, check.
Thanks, Dennis Ritchie, for helping to create the foundations of computing as
we know it.
~~~
revorad
Those photos, scissors, screwdriver and _even the salami_ probably involved
using a computer at some stage. So he did contribute indirectly.
------
latch
I used to read The C Programming Language every year. As a amateur tech-
writer, it has influenced me greatly (that and _why's work).
------
maayank
While I dabbled with the language before, The C Programming Language book was
a true eye opener for me. Grokking it truly paved the way for my programming
career.
RIP Dennis Ritchie.
------
iradik
<http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/ken-and-den.jpg>
<http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html>
<http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/hist.html>
------
Hitchhiker
#include <stdio.h>
main() { printf("Thank you for creating me\n"); printf("RIP,Mr.Ritchie\n"); }
------
packetslave
Didn't know him personally, but his work has been an inspiration to me for
nearly 20 years. RIP.
------
peteri
I read K&R at university in 1986 and found it to be a model of clarity, spent
a year supporting Turbo C for Borland when it was first released (that
improved my language knowledge no end)
Biggest problem was the first Turbo C compiler folded floating point constant
division back to front which makes one of the early programs in K&R
(Centigrade to Farenheit conversion) fail. That got fixed fairly quickly.
He leaves behind a truly amazing legacy of C, *nix and the K&R book.
------
Sindisil
Damn.
That hit me harder than I would have thought possible.
The family of man is poorer for his passing, regardless of how few may know
why.
Wow. I don't know if I'm at a loss for words, or have too much to say, but I'm
really having a hard time putting my thoughts into a brief post.
Rest in peace, dmr.
------
irrumator
One of the most influential people in the world whose contributions were
immense. He will be sorely missed.
------
johnohara
For some odd reason I pulled my 1978 version of The C Programming Language off
the shelf and it's been on my desk for the past few weeks.
Beneath the copyright notice it reads:
"This book was set in Times Roman and Courier 12 by the authors, using a
Graphic Systems phototypesetter driven by a PDP-11/70 running under the UNIX
operating system."
Probably on a VT100 with drafts printed on a DECWriter.
Quiet. Brilliant. Deliberate. Influential. Modest.
May you rest in peace.
------
spodek
His great works had such amazing style -- simple, elegant, meaningful,
effective. I think this sentence, which he not only co-authored but also
executed on, summarizes it in plain English, all the more so when you read it
from the small book in your hands.
"C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book."
These words have guided my writing as much as anything in Elements of Style.
------
djmdjm
It's a testament to the quality and reach of his vision that these words are
coming to you via systems that recognisably Unix and written in C _40 years_
after Ritchie (and colleagues) created their progenitors. His work has
literally defined generations of operating systems and languages and seems
likely to continue to do so for some time. What a great...
------
jmags
While this is very sad, I think he would have wanted us to remember that
working in a field so young that you have occasion to mourn people who built
its foundations is inherently exciting.
------
desireco42
black stripe on top of hacker news is really nice touch out of respect
------
ltamake
Very sad. His contributions to the world were huge. RIP.
~~~
bch
They were huge, and still are. 40 years on, his work is the basis for a lot of
what's interesting in tech right now.
------
rbanffy
I noticed every computer around me, be it a laptop, a phone, a TV or a router,
runs some kind of Unix.
~~~
mahmud
Live free or die!
Dennis lives somewhere in time.
------
ctdonath
free(DennisRitchie);
~~~
doyoulikeworms
DennisRitchie = NULL;
------
simon
DMR was one of my heroes. Rest In Peace Sir.
I learned C from the first edition of K&R back in 1989 (iirc) on an Atari ST
using the Sozobon C compiler. Happy memories (except for learning to combine
pointers and loops and null terminated strings correctly! :-)
------
DodgyEggplant
RIP. It seems they are into a big project up there.
------
scrrr
When I was a student a professor joked that computer science wasn't really a
science because all its founders were still alive. Well, now it certainly must
be one.
~~~
burgerbrain
Either you're quite old or your professor forgot about Alan Turing. :/
------
zizee
I'm didn't know the man but it's always sad to see one of the greats fall.
I seem to have mislaid my copy of the 'The C Programming Language', which is a
shame as it is one of the few of the many programming books I have purchased
over the years that continues to be relevant in this fast changing (and
exiting) field.
RIP dmr, my condolences to your family and friends. You will be missed and
your contributions appreciated by hackers the world over.
------
sharmajai
C, like thousands of other computer science students, was the first language I
learnt.
I have always felt that a language is only as popular as the niche it serves.
For C that niche started out as OS implementation and expanded into driver
programming, UI programming, embedded systems programming, graphics
programming, and many many more disciplines.
There was Fortran and PL/1 before C, what made C so popular? I will let dmr's
friend Brian Kernighan answer it:
_C is perhaps the best balance of expressiveness and efficiency that has ever
been seen in programming languages. At the time it was developed, efficiency
mattered a great deal: machines were slow and had small memories, so one had
to get close to the efficiency of assembler. C did this for system programming
tasks--writing compilers, operating systems and tools. It was so close to the
machine that you could see what the code would be (and it wasn't hard to write
a good compiler), but it still was safely above the instruction level and a
good enough match to all machines that one didn't think about specific tricks
for specific machines. Once C came along, there no longer was any reason for
any normal programmer to use assembly language. It's still my favorite
language; if I were marooned on a desert island with only one compiler, it
would have to be for C._ [1]
If I have to pick one reason for C's popularity, it would be pointers (both
function and data) alongwith type casting. IMHO this was the combination that
not only gave you full control of the underlying hardware (other languages had
done that too) but most importantly it enabled other programming paradigms,
(functional, object oriented etc.), while doing that.
Thanks for introducing us to the wonderful world of computer programming. RIP
DMR.
1\. <http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7035>
------
OctaneOps
RIP. His life exemplifies:
“Sharing knowledge is not about giving people something, or getting something
from them. That is only valid for information sharing. Sharing Knowledge
occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new
capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes.”- Peter Senge
------
glhaynes
An exemplar of elegance and clear thought. RIP and thank you.
------
jasiek
I remember attending one of his lectures on Plan 9 back in 1996 at Bell Labs.
It's a shame he's gone now.
------
grosales
I still remember the first time I picked up K&R. I tried my best to devour it.
The technical prose makes the book a tour de force. Every time I write a new
"hello world" program from now on, I will add a "Thanks dmr" at the end. May
you rest in peace dmr.
------
greenyoda
Goodbye, Dennis. It's been just over 30 years since I picked up K&R and
started programming in C and using 7th Edition Unix on a PDP-11/45. And C is
still among the languages I program in today. You'll be missed.
------
baabuu
RIP Dennis.
I was an uninterested Computer science student bored with writing stupid BASIC
programs. Then I got introduced to C which made me realize what studying
computers is all about. Then I got to know Unix and Linux. I still remember
the day I got my Unix login. I was the first student to get one! My college
projects (Linux clusters, routers), my geek friends, my first job and my
professional life - all got started by learning C & Unix in a remote
university lab thousands of miles away. I'm sure this is a story shared by
millions. Thanks dmr! You are a legend!
------
Mithrandir
I wish I could say I met the man, but it doesn't really matter to me because
in a way I've got to kinda know him indirectly through his work; through UNIX-
likes and what little I know of C.
So RIP, you crazy tinkerer.
------
srl
c--; /* to echo a sentiment expressed on g+ */
------
sajid
This has been a sad week.
Whenever I'm learning a new language, I always look for but fail to find a
book with the clarity, conciseness and completeness of K&R.
~~~
Swannie
Ditto.
------
breadbox
Very sad. RIP, dmr.
------
kachnuv_ocasek
I'm far more struck by this than Steve Jobs' death.
------
gsivil
K&R is the only book that I have currently three copies. Two editions in
English and one in Greek. RIP DR
------
just4DMR
Rest in Peace, Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie. True Hacker Knight, Shinning Armor.
This is just for you. You will be missed.
------
revorad
Condolences to family and friends. C was my first programming language. Owe a
lot to this man.
What a sad week.
------
rooshdi
"I'm not a person who particularly had heros when growing up."
Thank you for being one of ours, RIP Dennis
------
flipper
To paraphrase the epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren - if you seek his monument,
log in.
------
_THE_PLAGUE
The K&R textbook is still my programming "bible". I don't use C on a regular
basis, or at least as not as much as I'd like to, but still refer to it, even
so. IMO, people should learn C first - teaches the right principles.
------
robert_nsu
RIP Dennis Ritchie. I can't honestly say that I've spent an entire day at work
over the last five years without looking at something that was either created
by him or inspired from his work.
------
josephcooney
very sad. I love the writing style of 'The C Programming Language'
------
amanicdroid
Because of Dennis Ritchie I can type these words and others can read them.
;_;
------
raymondh
Goodbye Dennis. You were a giant. You'll be missed.
------
codehalo
Dennis Ritchie. Hello World. May he rest in peace.
------
icehawk
How sad. RIP, dmr.
------
teja1990
I you have ever used a computer or any programming language , it means that
you used some thing that has Dennis Ritchie's impact.
------
sixtofour
I still have K&R on my shelf.
Thank you, DMR.
------
stellzzz
Мир праху твоему, пусть земля будет пухом. /* Рус. _/ Rest In Peace /_ Eng. */
------
0x12
It's a sad month.
------
velagale
RIP Mr.Ritchie !
------
jianxioy
Rest in peace.
------
giis
thanks Ritchie,for your great contribution, Without you ,I'm sure,we won't be
what we are now. RIP.
------
petegrif
This is an unusually good piece.
------
1337p337
The |s, the |s are calling.
------
unfletch
.
------
kang
Father of modern software
------
deepinit_a
We owe You Dennis...
------
cyber_lis
I'm really sad...
------
nikhizzle
int main(int argc, char _argv[]) { struct passwd_ pw = getpwnam('dmr');
restInPeace(pw->pw_uid); exit(0); }
------
7h
i'm from russia and very bad know english...
RIP
------
berserkpi
RIP master.
------
resnamen
free(dmr);
------
mkramlich
two weeks in a row...
------
chugger
Oh god. Another legend I truly admire. :(
------
goodnight
RIP Dennis. Now that's a guy worth mourning about.
I'll check CNN and the BBC to see their special reports, surely if they had
them when some marketing CEO kicked the bucket they'll give at least ten times
the amount of coverage to a man who was 100 times his better!
~~~
m0nastic
In the realm of news, almost no one knows who Dennis Ritchie was. You can
lament that fact (obviously, to anyone even remotely related to computing he
was a figure of paramount importance), but it's ridiculous to expect the
mainstream press to understand that importance.
Analogies are tenuous, but when Michael Jackson died, it was obviously big
news. It was all over television. Nobody reported when Ross Snyder‡ died, even
though his influence was of great importance. That's the way these things
work.
‡If anyone didn't know, Ross invented the multitrack recorder, one of the most
transformative tools in music production.
~~~
Swannie
Regard Ross Snyder, I distinctly recall a televised report about it on BBC
News.
~~~
m0nastic
Yay, that helps reinforce my misguided American belief that the BBC is still a
quality news organization!
------
jerrysievert
C
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Billionaire Bunkers: Inside the World's Largest Planned Doomsday Escape - eplanit
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/06/12/billionaire-bunkers-exclusive-look-inside-the-worlds-largest-planned-doomsday-escape/
======
unclebucknasty
> _has planned doomsday retreats in the past including private bunkers for
> residences, but it is only now that this new location has come to fruition
> offering up a unique potential for those who truly want the ultimate in
> personal safety for their families._
In other words, advertising. But seems like it would be kept fairly tight-
lipped and spread quietly among those who can afford such a luxury.
In any case, I always wonder about the logistics of something like this. How
do you know you'd have time to reach the bunker or that your pilot would be
available (or wouldn't simply refuse to spend his/her time shuttling you
around in the midst of some dire threat)?
Also, who enforces your safety en route, your right to enter safely, etc.?
Seems that the mechanics depend on some of the very structure that would
likely be unavailable in a true doomsday scenario.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why aren't more books written like this? - char_pointer
http://www.onderstekop.nl/articles/120/
======
silentbicycle
L: Why aren't more books written like this?
R: Because the style can be _really annoying_.
L: Congratulations. Now go make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!
[
]
This space reserved for JELLY STAINS!
...
I found the Little Schemer and especially the Little MLer to be helpful for
learning their respective modes of thought, but once I finished them, they
were _gone_.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
All your favorite brands, from BSTOEM to ZGGCD - got-any-grapes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-copyright.html
======
nneonneo
Back in the 90s, it was common to see t-shirts and other apparel festooned
with nonsensical strings of English letters in China, an attempt to be “cool”
by appropriating the design of lettered Western clothing without any of the
content.
Humorously enough, this has now come full circle, with Americans donning items
carrying nonsensical brand names and made in China.
It was interesting to me that these brands are actually registered trademarks;
I always assumed they were just invented by Amazon sellers on the fly.
------
mkj
I guess they serve the same purpose as a vcs commit ID - something to paste
into a search engine to buy more of the same. Getting back to the true purpose
of brands, not a marketing thing!
------
tenebrisalietum
Brands are useless for purposes other than marketing if the company behind
them isn't the same for long periods of time.
I don't think this applies to many brands anymore, and this trend was probably
gaining traction well before Amazon came into the limelight.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Initial findings of artificial impact on asteroid Ryugu - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-artificial-impact-asteroid-ryugu.html
======
unwind
How did the probe accelerate that 2-kg lump of copper to 7,200 km/h (2 km/s)?
Just asking if someone happens to know, didn't see it mentioned.
~~~
Sharlin
The impactor device was very similar to a HEAT warhead; a high explosive
shaped charge lined with copper. Detonation of the shaped charge turns the
copper lining into what's called an explosively-formed penetrator of EFP [1].
Note that the device was separated from the main probe before use and the
probe itself was below the horizon when the impactor was fired in order to
avoid damage from debris.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator)
------
narag
9 million years ago is an intriguing dating for it. What would it be its
origin? I guess a collision between two other asteroids. I wonder if it's
possible to trace it back.
------
ornornor
Maybe it’s just me but the title confused me... I thought they found
artificial impacts on Ryugu, impacts that were artificial but not man made.
Spoiler alert: the impact is man made and the article is about analyzing this
impact.
~~~
dang
I would say artificial implies man-made unless they buried the mother of all
ledes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We build DROPBOX for business cards. We have some questions. Could you help us? - mrholek
http://nessfile.com/feedback
======
bconway
Best of luck, it's an uphill battle:
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/hashable-the-app-that-
aimed...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/hashable-the-app-that-aimed-to-
replace-business-cards-to-shut-down-on-july-25/)
~~~
mrholek
Thanks, we have something that will surprise all of our competitors :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
California’s ‘Fair Pay’ Act Harms Women, Men, and Businesses (but Not Lawyers) - Bostonian
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425260/california-fair-pay-act
======
hwstar
I have to disagree.
While we are at it, let's hope that Governor Brown also signs AB 1017
preventing employers from asking for salary history, and AB 465 preventing
employers from requiring employees enter into binding arbitration.
Employers have too much power in the US, and the playing field needs to be
leveled.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
With Donald Trump’s surprising victory, Silicon Valley is having a meltdown - daegloe
http://www.recode.net/2016/11/9/13574396/donald-trump-victory-silicon-valley-meltdown
======
MrZongle2
_" On the conference’s main stage, 500 Startups founder Dave McClure went
berserk over the results with an expletive-laden rant about Trump. “If you’re
not fucking pissed right now, what is wrong with you?” he screamed at the
audience. “I’m pissed off, I’m sad, I’m ashamed, I’m angry.”"_
You _should_ be ashamed: a grown-up man doesn't have a public temper-tantrum
over the result of an election.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There’s still time to stop the TPP - walterbell
https://blog.creativecommons.org/2016/02/12/theres-still-time-to-stop-the-tpp/
======
tim333
But it there much hope of doing so?
See this graph from "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest
Groups, and Average Citizens" (via GMOs letter)
[http://imgur.com/Js79SMf](http://imgur.com/Js79SMf)
------
vajrapani666
Apathy and inaction is the easiest thing, as it always has been. Those in
power know this, and depend on it to perpetuate doing things the way they
always have been. The distinction between who is in power and who is not has
always been in the beholder. It's so little to ask, that those involved in
"making a difference" and creating solutions in technology that "make the
world a better place", take it upon themselves to do just that, and do all we
can do to ensure that innovation and expression remain free and unencumbered
by the momentum of the old guard. Instead of coming up with the next Airbnb,
or the next über, what if we directed all our thought, concern and effort into
collective advancement of our deeply held beliefs and visions for an open
future.
I don't want to be a clickavist. I don't have the answers, but I hope we all
take seriously, asking ourselves, what can we do?
------
dh997
Speaking of CC, Larry Lessig for SCOTUS is a genius idea from TYT:
[https://youtu.be/Kd8c6y9Cd4Q](https://youtu.be/Kd8c6y9Cd4Q)
------
siscia
The TTP comes to the news always as bad and evil, but there is nothing in
there actually good for the common citizen?
~~~
webmaven
Sure. Overall, lowered tariffs are a good idea (although individual industries
may find a more level playing field uncomfortable), IF companies can't just
'export' their toxic waste and terrible working conditions by exploiting lack
of labor and environmental regulation or enforcement.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Most Americans are gender fundamentalists - mcbeast
https://qz.com/1148554/most-americans-are-gender-fundamentalists/
======
sharemywin
they forgot the one that pisses my wife off the most calorie burning.
hehehe...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: ROI of Online Data Science Certificate vs. In Person - jklein11
Hi HN!<p>I entered the workforce about a year ago and am considering some options for getting additional education. I am considering a certificate in Data Science/ Business Analytics but I'm not sure about their value. I am considering options from US Business programs both in person and online. Does anyone have any experience with certificate programs and their value? Are they any more valuable then a MOOC equivalent?
======
mathgeek
Do you already have a degree in a related field? If so, just get a certificate
online, and perhaps even consider going for the free versions over the
certified ones.
So long as you can prove your skills and have the related degree already
established, there's really little reason to spend money on a certificate.
~~~
jklein11
Thanks for the reply! I do not have a degree in a related field. Would the
certificate compensate for that?
~~~
mathgeek
Assuming that you have some sort of B.A. or B.Sc., then it likely wouldn't be
a terrible idea to get something that's specific to Data Science.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One man, 145 degrees. Necessary? - chirau
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/09/06/this-chennai-professor-has-over-145-educational-degrees/
======
babygoat
That's way too hot.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Homeland Security Department Budget - powertower
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41982.pdf
======
djKianoosh
Probably better described as appropriations by the federal government for
'homeland security', which is mostly DHS, but also several other Departments
and agencies.
------
come2gether
its alot
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
China wants an orderly exit from Bitcoin mining - svenfaw
https://qz.com/1174091/china-wants-an-orderly-exit-from-bitcoin-mining/
======
joe_the_user
_As to mining farms owned by smaller players, especially those in the
mountainous areas of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, simply locating the miners
is a near impossible task. A growing number of private owners of hydropower
plants in the two regions have begun to operate mining machines themselves as
the price of bitcoin has surged, Du Jun, founder of Node Capital, a Beijing-
based venture-capital firm focusing on the blockchain industry, told Quartz
prior to news of the latest crackdown. “How can you find them?” he asks._
Couldn't they be found by looking at their IP address?
The Chinese state has tremendous resources. It seems like if tell people to
stop mining bitcoins, the vast majority would do so and any minority which
didn't would be very vulnerable.
Also, it seems like China could stop bitcoin mining by blocking the protocol
using the Great Firewall or otherwise filtering bitcoin out.
~~~
SolarNet
That's a naive view of networking. The physical location of an IP address can
be very difficult to track down (and of course IP addresses aren't part of the
bitcoin protocol).
Bitcoin is also super low bandwidth, and it would be very easy to build a
custom proxy to circumvent the firewall. We are effectively talking about 3
megabytes (or even less) every 10 minutes (5 kBps). It could also be
obfuscated with stengraphy rather than encryption (e.g. a valid webpage, where
the spacing, or css properties are the (also encrypted) bitcoin blocks).
~~~
littlestymaar
> That's a naive view of networking. The physical location of an IP address
> can be very difficult to track down
Unless you are the Internet provider … And I do believe that Internet
providers in China would answer to Chinese government requests without
troubles (I doubt they would sue the government like they would in the US).
------
TazeTSchnitzel
I am personally of the opinion that China swiftly killing off its
cryptocurrency mining industry overnight would be to the great benefit of
humanity. The sheer amount of electricity it wastes is an environmental
disaster.
~~~
tbabb
Agreed. Shutting down participation in the planet's largest pyramid scheme
doesn't have a lot of downside.
~~~
olalonde
Here is what a pyramid scheme is:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme)
Bitcoin is a distributed database that solves the "Two Generals Problem".
Please don't spread misinformation on things you do not understand.
~~~
bandrami
Sigh. The only sense in which it "solves" the Two Generals Problem is the
sense in which it will, over the course of decades, create a rainbow table for
it. None of the work being done is in any way socially useful (a crypto coin
based on, say, folding proteins actually produces a social good and so could
be equity based).
Decentralized proof of a transaction having occurred is in principle valuable,
but the token itself is not the store of value. The reason it is accurately
described as a pyramid scheme is because holding bitcoin for the purpose of
reselling it is exactly like holding a baseball card, or a share in Bernie
Madoff's hedge fund: it is based on the premise that someone will come along
and pay you more for it than you paid, despite no actual appreciation in any
fundamental value.
~~~
makomk
Do you have any idea how rainbow tables actually work and what it would take
to "create" one for the SHA-256 hash used by Bitcoin mining? In order to
create such a rainbow table, you would have to do about 2^256 SHA-256
computations. All of the Bitcoin mining ever done so far has carried out
somewhere in the order of 2^87.
To put this in perspective, the most power-efficient miners available right
now require 0.1 J/GH of energy. There are roughly 10^24 stars in the visible
universe putting out about 10^27 watts each. If you could use the entire
energy output of all those stars to mine Bitcoins with the most efficient
mining hardware currently available for the entire lifespan of the universe to
the present day, you'd still get less than 2^210 hashes, about 1/10^74th of
what you'd need to create a rainbow table for SHA-256. I'm pretty sure that
even upgrading this hypothetical universe-wide computational machinery to
hypothetical mining hardware that's as efficient as the laws of thermodynamics
allow wouldn't get you close.
~~~
FabHK
Isn't 2^210/2^256 = 1/2^46 ~= 1/10^14 or so? (1/10^74 is approx 1/2^245)
------
abrkn
This is a good time to invest in electricity and facilities in Mongolia
> Mongolia hosts 10% of the world's known coal reserves at an estimated 162
> billion tonnes in 2011 with 17 operating coal mines
~~~
tanilama
Fun fact: Mongolia buys electricity from China
~~~
jrsks
Mongolia is also investing in renewable energy. For example the solar park in
Darkhan and the Salkhit wind farm, but of course these are not closely enough
to cover Mongolia's need yet. In the meanwhile the population of Ulaanbaatar
has to breathe some of the most toxic air in the world.
However, Mongolia seems to be one of the few countries, where Bitcoin mining
seems to make sense, because of cheap energy and it's complicated economic
situation that makes producing and exporting goods very hard. With Bitcoin
they don't have to ask China or Russia for permission to cross the borders.
------
coinGuyBri
Not gonna happen, they just wanted to stop it and get a piece of the pie.
Mining will resume in China
~~~
tanilama
Chinese government hates everything it can't control, especially related to
money. That is just a fact.
------
amorphid
Can they track mining operations down by looking for abnormally high power
consumption?
------
squaredpants
Maybe these operations will incorporate solar + battery storage into their
systems if they want to stay alive... Be less efficient and less productive,
but be legal, environmentally and socially responsible (sucking this much
power from the public system is not responsible), and still profit.
------
dcow
It's things like this that really make the west seem backwards. Did you know
the average Chinese citizen has more representation in their government than
the average US citizen cf. [https://aeon.co/ideas/one-way-the-us-and-the-eu-
are-less-dem...](https://aeon.co/ideas/one-way-the-us-and-the-eu-are-less-
democratic-than-china)?
~~~
eddieplan9
Comparing China's National People's Congress to the US Congress is ludicrous.
The NPC holds one annual session lasting less than 2 weeks, and passes
legislations often with 99% Yeas. Every Chinese knows that the NPC is largely
a show and holds no real power despite what the constitution says. Wikipedia
summarizes it pretty well [1]:
> In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of state power in China, and all
> four PRC constitutions have vested it with great lawmaking powers. However,
> in practice it usually acts as a rubber stamp for decisions already made by
> the state's executive organs and the Communist Party of China.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People's_Congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_People's_Congress)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: The experts told us soft-launch == app death. Does it? - urb
We have worked long and hard developing our mobile app. We think that it's great and has true value for users. We had planned to soft-launch and make it better as we learn from users. But every single app expert we had talked to has told us our success will be as good as the amount of noise we make when we launch. Death, they say, is a place in the long tail of the app store. What say you?
======
gyardley
You can find plenty of exceptions, but what the 'app experts' are telling you
is generally correct, at least about the Apple ecosystem. Bunching up a lot of
downloads into a small time period right after launch maximizes your chance of
showing up anywhere users might actually browse to and discover
serendipitously.
The Android marketplaces are a bit better for iterative learning. Although iOS
then Android is the dominant pattern, you wouldn't be the first company to
launch quietly on Android, iterate, and then come to iOS with a product
informed by what they've learned from their Android launch.
------
FroshKiller
I'm not a mobile developer, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but as a
user, I don't care about an app's age or whether it had a soft launch. Most
apps are little more than opportunities to provide a bad user experience to an
impressive Web-based service. As long as your service is on point and your app
on my device is better than just using your mobile website, do whatever.
~~~
urb
So, would you be as interested in an app even if it didn't have a lot of media
references to show (articles in newspapers, tech site mentions and so on)?
~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Consumer, yeah. B2B, not so much. The soft launch stuff is irrelevant (sounds
made-up too). Marketing is an ongoing process. Those dudes need be thinking of
a second campaign, instead of giving up once they see the churn after the
hype.
~~~
alphagenerator
Your reply makes sense.
I just wanted to add that I think I see what the OP meant by "soft launch." I
think the OP asked a good question, because most startup business guides say
launch something minimal and iterate. Whereas, app-store gurus seem to place a
heavy emphasis on the initial bump. (That is, they hint that you either
succeed on the initial push or die.)
OP: Thanks for asking the question.
~~~
ulisesrmzroche
I see what you mean now. Odd that they think that way though. Sure, there's
more clutter, and if your app contributes to that, I suppose the 1st bump is
all you get, but if you have a quality product, the sales process is the same
as in any other channel.
------
Mankhool
I've had no hype, probably because I'm boostrapped, but I'm in this for the
long haul. What would be the point of giving up six weeks in because I only
have X users and the experts say I should have 1000X? The experts are not
financing me. If they were, then I could afford to create hype.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coursera Operations Project - An Introduction to Operations Management returns - anoncow
https://www.coursera.org/course/operations
======
anoncow
I took the course last year and liked it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How does Starbucks knows how to grab my MAC Address? - larrywallace
To all hacker out there, how in the world can a website grab your mac address from the browser http://oi61.tinypic.com/s263ib.jpg. I've heard responses from "it is not possible" to "they use flash". But this happens every time I go to Starbucks and I am pretty sure Flash is not used.<p>I'm posting on HN to get the low down if anyone who has ACTUALLY first hand know how on how this is accomplished.
======
dalke
That web site for me says "Looks like you might be outside a Starbucks store /
Our local store web site is only available when you’re connected to Wi-Fi at
most U.S. Starbucks stores."
If you are on their network then they can see your MAC address. That's how
Ethernet works.
See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address#Spying](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address#Spying)
for an example of how Apple has changed iOS so it uses a random MAC address.
See also
[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6868/randomizing...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6868/randomizing-
mac-addresses-on-bootup) .
~~~
larrywallace
Yes, I am connected to the store's wifi. Once I am on their network, how do
they actually grab it? What headers names do they inspect for, etc. I'd like
to actually know the implementation details and code sample. I looked
everywhere on Stackeroverflow and can't find anyone who has done this.
~~~
Rondom
Since you are connected to their network they know your MAC.
What they will likely do is take your IP and look to which MAC their DHCP-
Server has assigned that IP to. There are other possibilities though, but they
are more complicated (using ARP-cache or requests, doing a raw packet dump at
the webserver).
If you want learn more, I think you could read a bit about the different
layers first, and then read about how ethernet, IP/ARP and DHCP work. There
are likely no "headers" (I assume you mean HTTP-headers) they inspect.
------
greenyoda
How do you know they're getting it from your browser? They could have just
stored your MAC address somewhere when you connected to their wireless router.
For example, they might have a custom DHCP server that stores your MAC address
along with the IP address it assigns to you in some database that's accessible
to the web server. The web server can then look up your IP address in the
database and obtain your MAC address.
------
0x0
The wifi router knows your mac and probably intercepts a HTTP request (like a
"captive portal"), which probably redirects you to that URL while including
the MAC address
~~~
larrywallace
Yes, I am connected to the store's wifi. Can you point me to some code that
actually can grab the mac address? As the title suggests -- I want to know how
they do it.
~~~
dalke
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_portal)
lists three ways to achieve it. The details will depend on how Starbucks
decided to do it.
What you're asking is, in essence, "how does ethernet work?" That cannot be
explained in a few paragraphs. You can start with Richard Stevens' "TCP/IP
Illustrated, Vol. 1", as one of many available descriptions. You can use
Wireshark to track all of the details.
At this point you should stop asking questions here. There's likely no simple
answer, and this is a great chance to experiment and figure it out for
yourself.
(Even if someone knows the exact details of how Starbucks does it, you are
unlikely to understand the explanation without understanding some of the
fundamentals.)
~~~
larrywallace
ok, I think I got it. Fundamentals I know enough to be dangerous, thanks for
the pointers to captive portal. I'll be able to run with this now... I upvoted
you and 0x0
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A deep dive into Linux namespaces, part 2 - iffyio
http://ifeanyi.co/posts/linux-namespaces-part-2/
======
rkv
Enjoyed the user namespace section. Looking forward to the `mount` and `net`
namespace sections and how they are used in docker.
------
panpanna
I feel a lot of namespace stuff make sense only if you simultaneously also
look at cgroups.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CloudFlare is still doing IPv6 automatically - hepha1979
https://blog.cloudflare.com/four-years-later-and-cloudflare-is-still-doing-ipv6-automatically/
======
eknkc
I lost my hope on ipv6, don't think it will ever catch on. We might end up
with something else but not ipv6. Anyone else feels the same about it?
~~~
stephengillie
Working for someone who wants IPv6 disabled in every server and system, across
the board, I'm beginning to feel the same way.
~~~
hobarrera
I'm immensely curious, why would somebody want IPv6 to disappear?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: When multiple users share username, can it be a good UX design? - kilemensi
I'm in a middle of designing an application to be used by two parties in such a way the involvement of the second party is more of a guide to the first party e.g. children & the parents, addicts & their sponsors, etc. It is entirely possible for one second party to be a 'guide' to more than on first party.<p>My question is on the whole username/password pair design. The status-quo is each having own username/password pair and the second party once logged in, gets a list of first parties he/she is a 'guide' to, etc. While this works, I believe sharing a username (obviously keeping passwords separately), could improve the UX of the app:
i) In real life, this is how we share bonds: Family (Shared last name, different first names), Sports teams (One team name, each team member usually gets a nick name), etc. So you could think of the shared username as family/team name and the password as first name/nickname.
ii) By sharing username, the second party only has to login using the username he/she is sharing with the first party and does not have to go through the process of first login him/herself and then selecting the first party.<p>Anyways, is this a good UX design or I've just had too much coffee?
======
antidoh
You don't change individuals' identity. Instead you add individuals to groups.
~~~
kilemensi
I know that's how it's done now but it feels like it's a unnecessary extra
step, especially if the "group" has no function of it's own.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cuban Embassy Attacks and the Microwave Auditory Effect - smokielad
https://hackaday.com/2017/09/25/cuban-embassy-attacks-and-the-microwave-auditory-effect/
======
patcheudor
Part of me is now wondering if this was even nefarious as I'm picturing over
zealous Cuban pest control specialists, without strong regulation or laws,
simply using termite microwaves with people around.
[http://pests.guru/termites/control/treatment/methods/microwa...](http://pests.guru/termites/control/treatment/methods/microwave.html)
~~~
xkcd-sucks
Wow! Today I learned something truly fun and interesting.
What countries is this popular in?
~~~
patcheudor
I think they've mostly been developed and sold in the US but given the
creativity of the Cuban people when it comes to reuse, it's not hard to
imagine a few have converted old microwaves. It's also not hard to imagine
that higher-end accommodations, in order to control termites with the least
amount of 'impact' to customers in terms of smell or possibly even as a result
of lack of access to pesticides are using exterminators who use termite
microwaves.
------
Alex3917
The health effects described are also similar to what you can get with a
severe black mold infestation. Although if they've already taken apart the
walls looking for electronic devices then presumably they would have noticed
that.
(Specifically I'm taking about things like immediate and unexplained brain
damage, bleeding, hearing and vision loss, confusion, pain, lethargy, etc.)
~~~
mbrumlow
You would be surprised how the obvious can be overlooked if you have a
conspiracy theory to prove.
~~~
ballenf
But the attackers could have _planted the mold as a diversion_.
------
Animats
One would assume by now that the State Department's protection people have
already taken measurements of both ultrasonics and RF. It can't be hard to
detect. Why so much speculation after a month?
~~~
gozur88
It may not be happening any more.
~~~
empath75
I’m fairly sure that whatever they did was an accidental side effect of the
surveillance they were doing and they stopped when they realized they were
hurting people.
~~~
loceng
Even if that is true the media will want to demonize them to rile people up,
and then politicians can further use Cuba as debate point for distraction for
more serious issues going on domestically.
~~~
loceng
I suppose I needed to say "some media" will demonize them to avoid the
downvotes.
------
cr0sh
If you want to delve further into the "conspiracy" side of this, google "voice
to skull" \- there's some interesting stuff out there...
~~~
b6
I think it's good if people read about the supposed "voice to skull"
phenomenon. But in my experience, someone who says they are experiencing voice
to skull (a.k.a. "V2K") are actually experiencing schizophrenia, the disease
that convinces the patient that they don't have it.
------
myrandomcomment
My personal belief on this is that there is no upside for the Cubans to be
involved in this. I believe there was something but I would look at the
Russians or the North Koreans for this. They benefit from allowing the Trump
administration to have an outlet for theirs need to dismantle our Cuban
engagement.
You want democracy in Cuba, given them Starbucks and Amazon. Our policy has
been a complete failure.
------
bhouston
I agree that it sounds like Microwaves from the brief descriptions I hear. I
mentioned that two week ago on this forum:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256524)
~~~
cliffdover
Interesting. If you don't mind a conspiracy subreddit there was a post about
it:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6y2417/directed...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6y2417/directed_energy_weapons_reminder_they_still_dont/)
~~~
dredmorbius
In a universe of unreliable subreddits, that's a strong leader.
I'd look elsewhere.
~~~
cliffdover
I checked the reliable links, not every "conspiracy".
------
aaron695
> Even Julian Assange has weighed in, stating “The diversity of symptoms
> suggests that this is a pathogen combined with paranoia in an isolated
> diplomatic corps.”
No, it's just plain and simple paranoia.
A common disease they all caught is a bit convoluted, perhaps if it was cold
season I might believe a few general illness might have amplified the
paranoia.
~~~
feborges
Never take Julian serious. They are not even a wiki.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
State of the NYDFS BitLicense: An Update - ntomaino
https://blog.coinbase.com/2015/05/01/state-of-the-nydfs-bitlicense-an-update/
======
ntomaino
The NYDFS could be pretty stifling to financial services innovation in the
state of New York.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TrueCrypt issues - phct
after i update TrueCrypt 7.1a to 7.2 the encrypted partition/volume after mount it became impossible to browse it because partition/volume became RAW and windows explorer does not read RAM partitions,ive tried to use other tools such as VeraCrypt to try to mount with no success,then i try to find problem using testdisk and by what it seems i have Boot Sector and MFT damaged,ive tried to repair Boot Sector/MFT with testdisk but does not work,using winhex and open RAW drive i get this error:<p><pre><code> Warning: Unsupported FILE record size! Cannot read from Drive O:. Sector 613.475.145.525.758 does not exist. Messages of this kind will not be displayed here again for the remainder of this session. Drive O: Cannot open "$MFT". Unexpected data at offset 45BE7A04153FC00 and offset 52B3AE542400, Res=1, Res2=1
</code></pre>
my question is, how can i recover the encrypted data? ive tried to use recovery tools like Recuva for eg. but they do not work,Recuva complains "unable to read Boot Sector"..
how do i fix Boot Sector and MFT(assuming this is the problem)?
note:this is not system disk encryption..<p>thx in advance.
======
JakDrako
Have you tried removing 7.2 and reinstalling 7.1a? 7.2 should not be used, it
is a crippled, read-only version. 7.1a is the last "real" version of
TrueCrypt.
If the encrypted volume was damaged and you don't have backups, you might be
out of luck.
~~~
phct
hey, yeap i did reinstall 7.1a but the problem persisted,i had a cable
disconnected also and i decide to connect it,im dont understand much about
hware but this cable connected or disconnected seems "optional" as the disk is
detected and seems to work,this is a SATA disk btw,on cryptography mailing-
list a guy replied:
>Yes, the NTFS MFT is corrupted; your tools are telling you that much. The
TrueCrypt container may very well be corrupted beyond the header that you
restored. To what extent either is corrupted is impossible to tell based on
the information you have provided, but the sector number and the MFT offset
indicated would imply a storage device of at least 3*10^17 bytes (about
314,000 TB), which is clearly implausible. I don't think you need a
cryptography expert; rather, you need a data recovery specialist, or possibly
someone who knows the ins and outs of TrueCrypt as a product and its on-disk
format. Or, if that is out of your budget, at least data recovery software.
Now that you are able to open the TrueCrypt container, the fact that the data
is encrypted on-disk should have limited bearing on any further problems, _if_
(which is a very big if) there is no further data corruption.
i've tried to ask other places like
[http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/truecrypt-
problem.380...](http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/truecrypt-
problem.380995/) [https://forum.truecrypt.ch/t/truecrypt-working-but-drive-
is-...](https://forum.truecrypt.ch/t/truecrypt-working-but-drive-is-detected-
as-raw/816/5) and
[https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/3wscf3/truecrypt_is...](https://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/3wscf3/truecrypt_issues/)
but i did not get many help? how do i repair a TC volume/partition
corrupted/damaged?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you personally measure your financial growth? - shostack
I keep track of my monthly budgets, cashflow and net worth in Mint. I use my individual investment sites (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.) for investment performance reporting because Mint has some weird glitch with my data.<p>For an annual "year in review" type report for my finances, I'm just starting to get a couple years worth of data in one easy place. What should I really be focused on for that though? I've looked at avg. cash flow, net worth growth rate and absolute YoY growth, investment performance, spending, etc. But I'm not sure what else I should be looking at that I might be missing. Are things like "net worth growth per dollar earned in income"<p>Curious for what everyone else does when assessing their personal finances and any handy tools you use to make the process easier.
======
gvajravelu
I use Mint too. I don't worry about it too much as long as my net worth goes
up, my salary goes up, I investment 10%, and I save another 10%.
As my financial situation got more complicated with more expenses and larger
income, I also update a ledger of my expenses and income once a month. That
helps me track my savings and investment rates better.
It's generally better to focus on the longer term investing than it is to
track your specific return at any moment in time.
------
olegkikin
Cryptocurrencies and ICOs.
Research first. Pick the ones you think are actually useful.
It will likely be the fastest growing market in the next decade.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Intellectual Conformity Is Adaptive - 100011
https://fakenous.net/?p=574
======
100011
"Let’s keep up the inaccessible, jargony works that no one reads. Higher
education is not teaching much to students or anyone else. But at least it
keeps intellectuals off the streets."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Complete and Most Excellent MicroManual for Hosting Static Sites on AWS - tobyhede
http://micromanuals.xyz/static-sites.html
======
milkywayz
It's very simple to move html/css/js files over to S3, and make them public.
Set up cname record in Route 53 to your bucket.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Freenet Project's Statement on the recent Freedom Hosting bust - Sami_Lehtinen
https://freenetproject.org/news.html#2013-tor-bust
======
bcoates
I'm a fan of Freenet, but it has some core (and extremely longstanding!)
usability issues that Tor has proven are unforced errors.
The restrictions on JavaScript is the biggest one. The complete inability to
run server-side code in a trusted context makes JS _more_ necessary on Freenet
than the HTTP web; it's absense makes developing a useful Freenet site
extremely difficult. It causes interesting Freenet projects to be deployed as
local applications (which necessitates auto-update to be practical). This
represents an absolute trust of unknown service providers and is vastly worse
than running untrusted JavaScript. It also makes maintaining parallel Freenet
and HTTP sites impractical in practice (when only reader-side anonymity is
needed), something Tor got right the first time.
Secondly, Freenet's JavaScript exclusion relies entirely on filtering code
that's specific to Freenet and thus not anywhere near as battle-hardened as
browser JS engines. You don't need a Chrome zero-day to circumvent Freenet's
reader anonymity, you just need to find an edge case in its filtering code
against the moving target of a self-updating browser.
Freenet's core feature of anonymous distributed hosting (as opposed to just
Tor's distributed proxying and Bittorrent's bandwidth sharing) is still a
relevant technological frontier that's long overdue to see the light of day,
but that's not going to happen until it stops tilting at windmills on some of
the crazier technical decisions.
Edit: While I'm complaining, I'm unclear on the real-world threat model that
the friend-to-friend Darknet is supposed to protect against. Proving out that
globally routable friend networks a la "The Crying of Lot 49" actually
function is neat scientific accomplishment but it does nothing but help the
Global Passive Attacker and probably makes things easier for more mundane
threats too.
------
unknownian
Too bad it's written in Java.
~~~
zxcdw
Agreed. Not the language itself, but the way the runtime operates. One simply
does not build reliable and fundamental abstractions over non-optimal enough
abstractions and expect things to work long-term.
~~~
tomjen3
All the abstractions you build will eventually go over x86 bytecode
instructions. And those aren't pretty, let me tell you.
The truth is that there is nothing important wrong with Java, and everything
important wrong with Java programmers, which casues people like you to say
things like that.
~~~
eatmyshorts
I guess you aren't aware of the dozens of 0-day exploits to the JVM that were
released last year? Since Oracle took over, Java's security model is looking
like Swiss cheese, Oracle's responsiveness to security flaws has been slow,
and the fixes have introduced even more security flaws.
See here ( [http://java-0day.com/](http://java-0day.com/) ) for some examples.
~~~
tomjen3
I am away against attacks _against the java applet executor, not against Java
itself_.
~~~
eatmyshorts
The problems weren't with the Java Applet executor. They were with the JVM.
Java WebStart and the JVM security model are the two places where most of the
0-day exploits came. Neither of these have anything to do with applets.
------
northwest
> Freenet is a distributed data storage network designed to prevent
> censorship, provide anonymity and be hard to block.
A very similar solution offering this is
[http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/](http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/)
You get decentralized/p2p encrypted VOIP/chat/messaging/file sharing (written
in C++).
General intro for "darknet" solutions:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_%28file_sharing%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_%28file_sharing%29)
~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
RetroShare isn't similar to Freenet at all. Please read design & white papers
completely for both projects. What I really like about Freenet & GNUnet is the
build in distributed efficient caching of data. So even small sites won't go
down when there's a global rush.
------
stefantalpalaru
They are comparing static sites on Freenet with dynamic hidden services on
Tor. Sure, hosting many hidden services with the same provider was dumb, but
we're talking apples and oranges here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Foodzie Raises $1 Million For Its Specialty Food Marketplace - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/16/foodzie-raises-1-million-for-its-specialty-food-marketplace/
======
pwim
12 Chocolate Chip Cookie for $18.95. I'm amazed people would pay so much. I
wonder how many sales she gets.
~~~
mwerty
Clearly you've never been to whole foods.
------
callmeed
I'm glad they finally launched. Site looks good.
I have a similar startup in the works.
~~~
roblafave
Thanks for the kind words about the site. We're excited about the convergence
of food and technology, and would love to connect if it makes sense.
------
wastedbrains
I ordered the chocolates awhile ago for my girlfriend... It was delicious.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Changing Your LinkedIn Password Still May Not Have Kept Your Account Safe - superjk
http://www.mobileideafactory.com/2012/06/13/why-changing-your-linkedin-password-still-may-not-have-kept-your-linkedin-account-safe-from-hackers/
======
zaroth
If the requirement is "access tokens become invalid when the password is
changed," then you should simply delete (or mark as deleted) the affected
access tokens from the server-side database inside the ChangePassword()
function.
Session ids are often just ephemeral access tokens, and any other sessions for
the same user should also be deleted from the server's session store when the
password is changed. I would keep just the one session that actually issued
the change password request, as I hate it when sites log me off when I change
my password, forcing me to enter the new password a 3rd time.
Since an access token trumps the password, perhaps it should be equally hard
to derive an access token given the database dump as it is to derive a
password. In this case, you would want to use bcrypt for hashing the access
token, the same way you use bcrypt for hashing the password itself.
Alternatively, make sure the keyspace for your access tokens is 'very large'.
But if hackers have read access to your database, perhaps brute forcing access
tokens is the least of your concerns.
~~~
LammyL
Hashing the access token with bcrypt isn't really a good idea. Bcrypt is
designed to be slow, and hashing the submitted token on EVERY request would
really affect performance. Bcrypt is great for password hashing which only
happens once per session. You are probably better off securing access tokens
using a fast hash (sha) and compensating for security with a long and random
access token.
~~~
tedunangst
Yes, sha2 is more than sufficient for protecting auth tokens. If it's not, the
problem is your auth tokens are too simple.
------
elangoc
I'm fairly certain that LinkedIn has little or no regard for user privacy and
security. Why do I say this? Even as early as 2007, I noticed that LinkedIn
displayed 3 rotating links to people I might be 'interested' in connecting
with. And among names of people I knew well, one or two names repeatedly
popped up that were vaguely familiar, but they were neither friends nor
friends of friends (as far as I knew). Then it dawned on me -- one of those
vaguely familiar names is a person living halfway around the world whom I've
never met except for the email inquiry he made to a mailing list and his
followup to my response. The only way LinkedIn (or any real person) could
think that we had any sort of affinity is if they read that singular email
thread in my email. Yes, my email+password combo for LinkedIn was my
email+password combo for my email.
So LinkedIn was snooping in my email, for which they would needed to have
saved my password in plaintext (or equivalent) somewhere.
If I needed further proof, after my changing my email addr that I used to
login to LinkedIn, I stopped getting those invasive people suggestions. I then
googled (again, back in 2007) about LinkedIn and snooping in people's email
accounts, and an interview with the CEO had a brief mention of it, where the
CEO flatly denied any sort of privacy breach.
I think we need to supersede the commentary of LinkedIn's incompetent handling
of security and privacy (which they spectacularly proved already) with the
idea that not only do they not give a flip, but they want to keep it that way
for their own maximum benefit.
~~~
hackinthebochs
It seems more likely that the person on the other end of the conversation
simply did the "import gmail contacts" option, and during this process they
noticed the correspondence between you and him. Then when you changed your
email for linkedin that connection was broken.
~~~
tedunangst
Exactly. All of these "there's no way anyone could have known that" stories
ignore the fact that there is another person who could have known and provided
that info.
~~~
elangoc
That's a good point. I'll keep that in mind.
I'm still hesitant to feel like it explains everything -- in 2007, LinkedIn
still didn't seem that ubiquitous (after all, FB was then just opening itself
up to non-college students, and LinkedIn's target demog. was still the pre-
internet generation). So there weren't a whole lot of people I knew on the
site to begin with, and there wasn't anybody I knew in common on LinkedIn
connecting me to at least 2 of the vaguely familiar people I knew. And those 2
people started getting suggested to me by the site at the same time -- it
seems too coincidental that these people (and others) provided their email
contacts to LinkedIn at exactly the same time.
One good takeaway is, despite it taking me 5 more years to learn my lesson,
and the really hard way :-(, I'm now using KeePass and creating difficult,
unique passwords for each site, and using git to sync across computers. That
helps.
------
robertduncan
The proposed scheme seems overly complex and I don't immediately see any
advantage over explicitly invalidating all issued (randomly generated) tokens
after the password has been reset.
~~~
LammyL
The idea of hashing the server side token is still a good idea, just incase
the db of valid tokens is ever stolen, they would be useless. But I don't
really see the need of hashing the server side token+the encrypted password,
since, as you said, just invalidate all tokens on password reset.
------
btilly
I suspect that it is much worse than that.
The fact that the mobile app can still access LinkedIn means that there is an
authentication back door that it uses. What does that back door look like?
Clearly it does not care about your password.
If someone studies the mobile app and figures out how it does this
authentication trick, then we'll know the damage. Is there a universal
authentication where you just need to know the person's name to connect? Is
there a table inside of LinkedIn that can simply grant access? (If the
blackhats can get a dump of the user table, they probably can manage to insert
things into other tables.) Whatever the mechanism turns out to be, it provides
a way for the blackhats to bypass security and access your stuff even if they
do not know your password. And the odds are depressingly high that they'll be
able to do it even if they _never_ knew your password.
~~~
tedunangst
I suspect that back door is a browser cookie. Tons of sites don't deauth old
cookies on password change. Hacker News being one of them. Why doesn't anybody
freak out over the HN backdoor?
~~~
btilly
Then capture that cookie over the wire, and voila you are in.
------
th
As mentioned in other comments in this thread, LinkedIn's tech team frequently
disregards security standards.
I found a CSRF attack on LinkedIn by accident when searching in Duck Duck Go
some months back. I clicked a link in my search results and was presented with
a page thanking me for signing up for some LinkedIn group. I then received an
email thanking me for joining the group as well.
LinkedIn was joining a group whenever an authenticated user performed a GET
request to a particular URL in their browser. I followed this up by searching
Google for other URLs that suffered from the same problem and found many. I
wrote an exploit (very easy for that issue) and contacted LinkedIn. They have
fixed the issue by now but it took more than 6 months.
------
graiz
It's likely that the site uses oAuth. Your login on a mobile device grants you
a token that you can use to access the site. Changing your password may not
revoke the token (it could).
If you logout from your mobile device and log back in it should require your
new password.
------
GoodIntentions
This seems like security/session management 101
I kinda hope/expect any password change will invalidate all client side tokens
when I am using an app web based or otherwise. At the least, invalidate it
when I do something that requires a rights check. ( IE adding
[email protected] as the recovery email or w/e ).
------
biot
FYI, the Facebook app does this as well. I changed my Facebook password and
the app still worked fine on my iPad.
------
endemic
I kept my account safe by deleting it. Zzzing!
------
Estragon
Easy solution. I simply deleted my LinkedIn account. :-)
Not sure how that would have affected existing sessions.
------
tftmon
when i changed password in google account -- all sessions, tokens and other
must be reauthorized. i think this is a good practice.
------
drivebyacct2
Does they use oAuth/xAuth for the mobile client possibly? Seems like you could
go in and deauth the mobile client, no?
------
unreal37
Yes, I'm sure the hackers downloaded the iPad app and logged in to your
account before you changed your password (as opposed to the 6 million other
peoples passwords). Paranoid much?
~~~
andrewcooke
it's reasonable to assume that, if you steal a pile of passwords and then
release them to the web for cracking, people will change their passwords.
given that, it's not too crazy to write some kind of script that gets (and
renews, as required) a valid session key for each password you crack - it's a
simple, smart way of keeping access to the system even after the expected
change in password.
sarcastic comments don't make things any better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Monster Russian off-roaders set off on epic 10,000km Arctic expedition - a-smith
https://www.rt.com/viral/384832-russian-off-road-arctic-expedition/
======
Boothroid
These machines are phenomenal.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Build a Christmas List with Martini - babawere
http://blog.gopheracademy.com/day-11-martini
======
cvburgess
Does anyone have any comparisons of Martini and Flask/Bottle or Sinatra? It
would be interesting to compare performance, library support, and syntax of
these (seemingly similar) micro-frameworks.
~~~
neya
From what I've seen, Go lang when used with a Framework, returns somewhat
comparable performance to Node.js
This should give you a rough idea: (Revel is a Go based framework here)
[http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5&hw=i7...](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5&hw=i7&test=db&l=o00&f=21t94-8vn08x-0)
~~~
cgarvis
I think it's only fair to compare Go with a framework with Node.js with a
framework. At that comparison, Revel is a little more than twice as fast as
Express
~~~
cvburgess
Thanks for the Revel/Express comparison, do you have any links to support that
claim?
------
codegangsta
Author here. One question I often get about Martini is how to hook it up to a
database. I hope this post helps explain the Martini workflow a bit more!
~~~
toni
In the event you feel like answering, most martini examples I have seen
instruct us to execute `go run main.go`. Is that the "right" way to run
martini? Shouldn't I compile my martini app first?
~~~
BarkMore
This is not the recommended way to run Go applications, including those using
Martini. Use "go build" or "go install" to build a binary and then execute the
binary.
------
fleitz
Christmas lists should be written using PenAndPaper.
You can create a wishlist in about a minute using absolutely zero lines of
code.
Here's a great tutorial on how you can get started with PenAndPaper.
[http://studenthacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/thesis-
pa...](http://studenthacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/thesis-paper.jpg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to build $100m SaaS business - maruthisandeep
To build a $100m SaaS business go to market strategy is the key. Back in 2014 when we started, we never knew that there is a framework to look at Go-to-Market (GTM) strategically considering different factors like marketing, sales, product virality, etc.<p>Read the full post here - https://sesamint.substack.com/p/5-ways-to-build-100m-saas-business<p>All SaaS founders, VCs, and the community let’s change the dialogue. Let’s start chasing scooters, bikes, cars, campers, and buses. If possible let’s chase the rockets too!
======
mtmail
> Read the full post here
Please submit the URL and title on
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submit](https://news.ycombinator.com/submit)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nvidia suggests retailers put gamers over crypto miners in graphics card craze - adrian_mrd
https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/23/16921356/nvidia-graphics-cards-sold-out-cryptocurrency-miners
======
webmaven
Besides gamers, there is also an impact on those building ML/DL rigs, right?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16197520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16197520)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why software engineers get distracted at work? - azzen
======
thedevindevops
All modern software engineers have a crucial affliction in this regard -
they're only human.
------
probinso
Because for some reason we are required to use computers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VMG – Vuex module generator - abdullahmara
https://github.com/abdullah/vuex-module-generator
======
supermdguy
I've been working on something similar that we've been using internally. It
supports delayed spinners and running multiple requests concurrently, with
separate state.
It's not fully documented, but you can view the code here:
[https://gist.github.com/superMDguy/46e28c7c238b35416322ae268...](https://gist.github.com/superMDguy/46e28c7c238b35416322ae2688aa2fad)
~~~
abdullahmara
It is cool. I have seen similar things. The API calls should be separated from
the module generator, vuex-module-generator focuses on reducing code line size
and mutation. You can check this [https://github.com/abdullah/vuex-module-
generator/blob/maste...](https://github.com/abdullah/vuex-module-
generator/blob/master/src/state/crud.js#L39) to understand how we have
implemented additional mutations and states. In my opinion, a module must
handle just its job. Other jobs like API calls, checking local storage etc.
should be separated. Thanks for your reply :)
------
esaym
I use vuex but trying hard to figure out what this is...
~~~
abdullahmara
Hello! You can check integration examples [https://github.com/abdullah/vuex-
module-generator/tree/maste...](https://github.com/abdullah/vuex-module-
generator/tree/master/examples) I hope you will find your answers. You can
open an issue :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) - gullyfur
https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/containers-zones-jails-vms/
======
outworlder
> A “container” is just a term people use to describe a combination of Linux
> namespaces and cgroups. Linux namespaces and cgroups ARE first class
> objects. NOT containers.
Amen.
Somewhat tangential note: most developers I have met do not understand what a
'container' is. There's an aura of magic and mystique around them. And a heavy
emphasis on Docker.
A sizable fraction will be concerned about 'container overhead' (and
"scalability issues") when asked to move workloads to containers. They are
usually not able to explain what the overhead would be, and what could
potentially be causing it. No mention to storage, or how networking would be
impacted, just CPU. That's usually said without measuring the actual
performance first.
When I press further, what I most commonly get is the sense that they believe
that containers are "like VMs, but lighter"(also, I've been told that,
literally, a few times, specially when interviewing candidates). To this day,
I've heard CGroups being mentioned only once.
I wonder if I'm stuck in the wrong bubble, or if this is widespread.
~~~
CBLT
> To this day, I've heard CGroups being mentioned only once.
See
[https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v2.txt)
> "cgroup" stands for "control group" and is never capitalized. The singular
> form is used to designate the whole feature and also as a qualifier as in
> "cgroup controllers". When explicitly referring to multiple individual
> control groups, the plural form "cgroups" is used.
To this day, I've heard cgroup mentioned only once...
To put forth a more substantive argument, everybody has a layer of abstraction
they do not peek under. You interviewed people that didn't peek under
container. You went a layer deeper, but never peeked at the source tree to
learn what cgroup really is. Does it really feel that much better to be one
level above others?
~~~
xelxebar
> To put forth a more substantive argument, everybody has a layer of
> abstraction they do not peek under.
Sure. Though it's reasonable to want your level N developers to have some idea
of what goes on at levels N-1 and perhaps N-2, _cf._ Law of Leaky Abstractions
_etc._ It's similar to wanting your developers to be aware of their users'
needs, which are level N+1 concerns.
~~~
pmichaud
Yeah, I wonder if there's an "optimal target" for the number of layers up and
down you'd ideally be aware of. It has to be at least yours, and ones
immediately above and below, but I see innovation coming from people with
unusually keen insight into layers further away--eg. people making brilliant
architectural decisions because they really, really know what the consumers of
an api need and how those people think about the domain. Or vice versa,
someone making something radically better or faster in a web app because they
really get how the linux kernal is implemented.
It seems like cases where that deep knowledge is an advantage are rare but
also very high value. I wonder how the EV pans out, both for individuals and
orgs.
------
moonchild
I'm a bit disappointed it didn't go into detail into the way jails differ from
zones. VMs I understand, but it seemed like the main point of the post was to
distinguish containers from the other three.
~~~
nickik
All the detail you could possible want:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U)
------
mooreds
Note this is from 2017. Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13982620](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13982620)
~~~
dang
Year added. Thanks!
------
dirtydroog
For my workload I've struggled to see the advantage containers would give me.
Maybe someone here can convince me, rather than the current justification of
'docker all the things'.
We have servers, they handle a lot of traffic. It's the only thing running on
the machines and takes over all the resources of the machine. It will need all
the RAM, and all 16 vCPUs are at ~90%.
It's running on GCP. To rollout we have a jenkins job that builds a tag,
creates a package (dpkg) and builds an image. There's another jenkins job that
deploys the new image to all regions and starts the update process,
autoscaling and all that.
Can containers help me here?
~~~
pbecotte
If you already have all of that working, why would you change? Containers are
valuable for a couple things-
1\. Packaging and distribution- it's very easy to set up a known good
filesystem using docker images and reuse that. There are other solutions- dpkg
plus ansible would be an example.
2\. Standardized control- all apps using 'docker run' vs a mix of systemd and
shell scripts can simplify things.
3\. Let's you tie into higher level orchestration layers like k8s where you
can view your app instances as a single thing. There are other solutions here
as well.
4\. Can use the same image on dev machines as prod instead of needing two
parallel setup schemes.
If you already are happy with your infra, certainly don't change it. I think
once you know containers they are a convenient solution to those problems, but
if stuff is setup they already missed their shot.
------
nfoz
So.... are any or all of these what you would call a process "sandbox"? Do
operating systems make it easy to sandbox an application from causing harm to
the system? What more could be done to make that a natural, first-class
feature?
Like, let's say you found some binary and you don't know what it does, and
don't want it to mess anything up. Is there an easy way to run it securely?
Why not? And how about giving it specific, opt-in permissions, like limited
network or filesystem access.
------
codeape
I do not understand docker on windows.
If I understand correctly, when I run a docker image on Linux then the
dockerized processes's syscalls are all executed by the host kernel (since -
again if I understand correctly - the dockerized process executes more or less
like a normal process, just in isolated process and filesystem namespace).
Is this correct?
But how does docker on windows work?
~~~
codeape
Found this: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41550727/how-does-
docker...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41550727/how-does-docker-for-
windows-run-linux-containers)
And:
[https://dockercon.docker.com/watch/U7Bxp66uKmemZssjCTyXkm](https://dockercon.docker.com/watch/U7Bxp66uKmemZssjCTyXkm)
------
deg4uss3r
My only problem with this article is there is no such thing as "Legos". Jess
is brilliant and explains things super well here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HTPC – Intel Atom Media Center Inside a CD Player [DIY] - chanux
http://english.kalingasblog.com/2009/10/17/htpc-intel-atom-media-center-inside-a-cd-player/
======
pmorici
This really isn't _that_ interesting. It's a case mod using a large set top
style CD player as a case, who cares.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why has Google not integrated Timely into Android? - DiabloD3
Awhile back, this company called Bitspin wrote a very popular timer called Timely, which allowed synchronization of alarms across multiple Android devices (creation, deletion, start, stop), and is pretty much the most elegant alarm app I've ever seen.<p>However, due to changes in how Android works, and Android only blessing its own clock app to be able to properly wake sleeping phones, and notifications to appear on lock screens properly (as in, not having to unlock to view the notification contents or interact with the notification), this app quit being useful about two years ago.<p>Bitspin was bought by Google in 2013. No updates to fix Timely have happened (although a single release was pushed out post-Google).<p>However, given that Bitspin is now part of Google, a lot of people expected Timely's feature set to become part of Android, and that functionality to be rolled into the stock clock app.<p>This never happened, yet would make owning multiple Android devices that much more useful. Sadly, I found out about Timely after the app became useless.<p>So, is that integration ever going to happen, or is there a true successor to Timely out there?
======
sjs382
I'm a happy Timely user who just upgraded from a 4.4 phone to a 6.0 phone. The
"solve a puzzle to dismiss alarm" feature is a KILLER (maybe even life-
changing?) app for me.
With that said, I don't understand any of your concerns, either. Unless
neither of my phones never went to "sleep", I've never had a problem with
Timely not awaking a phone from sleep. And I've never had any problems with
lock screens.
Perhaps you're using an app, launcher, or non-ASOP ROM (either manufacturer-
provided or otherwise) that conflicts with Timely?
~~~
DiabloD3
I'm on a Nexus 5 using default launcher and lock screen.
------
anexprogrammer
I've also been a long time timely user. Mainly as it's got such nice visuals.
Not sure what an update could give me, it does everything I want, and it seems
finished.
Google buying them did seem odd, but that was more as I couldn't see what
they'd want with a simple timer/clock app.
------
distances
Declaring the app "useless" sounds a bit hyperbole to me. I've been happily
using Timely since its launch, and don't frankly understand your problems --
the app hasn't lost any features as far as I can see.
~~~
DiabloD3
I have to unlock my phone to stop an alarm, and I also have to unlock to be
able to read the notification. Also, an update seems to have limited Timely to
only one timer at a time.
None of these limitations are in the stock Clock app.
This issue seems to only affect Android 5 and 6 users, from what I can tell
from the reviews of the app.
~~~
distances
Can't comment on the notification issue as I don't use lock screen
notifications. As for the others, I'm on Android 5.1.1 and don't have any of
these problems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How many Wolfenstein 3D and Shakespeares can fit into Atom editor - hudo
http://thehumbleprogrammer.com/shakespeare-in-the-castle-wolfenstein/
======
butz
While using Electon to kickstart project might be a good idea, but it is
failing in the long run. There are so many issues, that could be avoided by
using some other technologies. Just look at Sublime Text 2 editor, even if
they are using Python, program size is relatively small and it performs much
better than Atom. Sadly, Sublime is not developed as actively as Atom.
------
sklogic
Hipster kids can't code (efficiently, or at all, depending on your
definition). In other news, Pope is catholic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: While developing, do you run all the dependent services on your machine? - akkishore
Development requires running many dependent services, like databases, caching servers, queues, other dependent (micro) services etc. Do you run them on your machine? Or you use other server infrastructure to run them while only running the specific service you are developing on your machine? How do you enforce consistent dev environment across your team mates?
======
shoo
Last job: small web app with app servers, queue, workers, database. Plausible
to run this all on one machine while hacking on one or more parts. After we
migrated to AWS we made it easy for devs to launch a new isolated copy of the
whole environment in EC2. Define cloud formation templates & scripts to boot
the whole stack. If you need a database in a well defined state, automate that
too (ideally build the schema and initial data from scratch using automated
process, failing that, start with a snapshot/backup then run schema migrations
on it)
Current job: there's about 10-20x as many integration points with downstream
services, many of them owned by other teams. No investment in making it
possible to spin up isolated service graph on a dev machine. Heavy use of
persistent shared testing environments in company data centre, these
environments usually in one or more state of brokenness. Some use of
mountebank to replace troublesome downstream services with stubs returning
canned data.
------
lkrubner
Yes, mostly I do. And I have not yet needed Docker to do this, though many
people have argued that this is what Docker is for. I tried to point out how
empty that argument was in "Docker is the dangerous gamble which we will
regret":
[http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/docker-is-a-
dangerous...](http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/docker-is-a-dangerous-
gamble-which-we-will-regret)
When I need to run multiple database, or want a database with a copy of
production data, then sometimes we run that remotely. Running a few servers
that all developers can use seemed to be standard practice 10 years ago, but
the practice seems to be in retreat, replaced by the notion of "Use Docker to
run every service on your own machine." But I have not seen that Docker
actually makes that easy to do, and if your team has a full-time devops person
who can spin up some extra machines, then usually it saves the whole team a
lot of time to simply rely on a few central servers that the devops person has
set up for development.
~~~
steve_taylor
> I have not seen that Docker actually makes that easy to do
docker-compose up -d
What’s not easy about that?
~~~
richardknop
It's slow feedback loop when developing / testing / debugging. This of course
depends on your tech stack, with dynamic language such as NodeJS it is
actually quite good as you can just mount your code base to the container and
when you edit files they are reloaded automatically.
However if your application docker container requires compilation and you need
to restart docker compose once you make changes to the codebase (and/or want
to run integration tests), the whole docker compose flow might add an extra
minute or two to your feedback loop and slow down development.
In those cases I'd rather run everything locally (still would include docker-
compose.yaml file for developers who prefer that and are not comfortable
running all required services locally).
Developing Go applications I have found my development flow much more agile
without docker, docker was decreasing my productivity a bit so I stopped using
it.
Our current integration test suite runs entirely through docker compose flow
normally (in the CI or locally) but launching the integration test suite
outside of docker, if you have all dependencies running locally, is quite
faster and saves a lot of time, thus increasing my productivity.
~~~
steve_taylor
I was referring to dependencies that you don’t work on yourself. For example,
if you’re a front-end dev and there’s a bunch of microservices you want to
have running, you can start them all in one command and get on with your job.
No need to wait for anyone to spin up environments, refresh databases, etc.
------
true_religion
On my personal machine? No, but for work we just pre-install all the software
needed to run the project before a new hire gets their machine.
For the people who prefer to use personal computers, there's a variety of
options:
1\. Virtualization. Previously we used VMWare or VirtualBox, but now offer
Docker installs that replicate what CI runs.
2\. Following the installation documents. Our stack is complicated, but
doesn't change very much so one can run a script to install everything on a
standard _nix that we support, or edit it to support their preferred
configuration. People who have nonstandard_ nix boxes tend to know what
they're doing when it comes to compiling from source.
3\. Use the dev machine you're given as a server, and work on your personal
remotely.
All have their pros and cons, but it seems to work out.
------
iraldir
If those services are made by me or my team, I would usually run them on my
machine. However, if they are made by a different team, I usually create a
mock server of sorts to be able to run it locally with no dependencies for
most of the dev. This allows my team to not be dependant on other teams. My
flow is usually to work on this mocked server while I develop a feature, and
then before making a pull request testing on the real thing. I found a good
70% of the dev work I do can be done in those conditions. Of course, that's
something you'll be able to pull on a greenfield project, not on an existing
giant codebase with billions of API.
------
tmm84
I have always had to run all the infrastructure when working for clients. I
have used mostly VMs for the last two years but before that it was always a
real bare metal box in the office for work.
------
yellow_lead
At a previous company, we had a project so large that you could only run
portions of it locally. For everything else, we had ansible scripts to create
and deploy to an AWS instance. Then, you could use SSH port forwarding to have
those pieces available to your machine, as well as JMX ports for debugging
those other parts, if need be.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mask vs. Respirator: N95, FFP2, FFP3: What’s the Difference? - bookofjoe
https://fastlifehacks.com/n95-vs-ffp/
======
labawi
A good informative article, though take it with a grain of salt. It often
weighs specifications and official recommendations over common sense or even
evidence.
The article accepts the conjecture that mask 300nm (0.3µm) particle filtering
is a minimum with smaller particle filtering being better (that's how
standards were formed), while providing evidence that 50-90nm is fair, but
notably lower[1].
It largely dismisses self-protection of surgical masks, saying they "may
provide more than zero protection", while providing evidence they should be
notably better than no protection. Just keep in mind they are likely only a
marginal help.
It doesn't seem apparent from the text - the linked aerosol study takes
measures to keep the virus aerosolized so it only tests degradation in air.
Thus the graphs exclude settling and adhering to surfaces, photo-degradation
and other likely faster agents.
[1] [https://fastlifehacks.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/n95-par...](https://fastlifehacks.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/n95-particle-penetration.jpg)
------
moonbooth
I highly recommend folks check this out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Checkout my latest dotfiles for web development for OS X machine - gokulkrishh09
https://github.com/gokulkrishh/dotfiles
======
brudgers
This would make a good Show HN post.
Rules:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let's Be Serious: Online Display Ads Will Fall Sharply In 2009 - nickb
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/let-s-be-serious-online-display-ads-will-fall-sharply-in-2009
======
axod
Ridiculous. First the article says how startups depending on ad revenue will
all fail and go out of business, then it says it predicts ad revenue will fall
10%.
Even if ad revenue falls 10% there is a _ton_ of money out there.
10% != "sharply"
~~~
abstractbill
I talked to a guy recently who had a plausible-sounding theory that ad spend
won't drop hugely, but it will be spent in fewer places - the bigger, "safer"
sites.
~~~
tom_rath
The "bigger, safer" sites do not include Google's Content Network.
Our ad spending is going to remain about the same, but it's going to be
targeted much more narrowly.
------
adilsaleem
_Quarterly Revenue Growth Comparisons (2000-YTD)_
revenues dropped in Q3 2004...
but rather than _falling sharply_...went upwards...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What if I don't have an idea? - bretthoerner
Ask HN: What if I don't have an idea?<p>I have,<p><pre><code> Time: I recently left my job. (in this economy?! yup)
Skill: I'm proficient in Django, system administration, a bit of scaling, but not so much front-end / design.
Money: I'm not talking retirement fund here, but my expenses are "tiny" and savings (for my age) are "high".
</code></pre>
(I really don't want to imply I have a _lot_ of the above. I don't think I'm a "Rockstar" [I hate that as much as you do]. I'm not trying to say I have all the time and cash in the world. I just want to explain my situation.)<p>I don't have,<p><pre><code> An idea I'm passionate about
Someone else to work with
A better physical location (I'm in Dallas right now, but that also helps the money part above)
</code></pre>
I've been out of school and doing Django development for ~3 years, the development was fun but the app/idea itself was never my passion (I was just an employee, by the way). My plan when I left my job ~3 weeks ago was to do self-study and decide what I wanted to do (by which I probably mean: who I wanted to work for). I've given myself until March, where I figured I could find some leads at PyCon. I've been catching up on books, blogs, projects I wanted to look into - but I haven't found anything to work on that really takes my time. Nothing that keeps me up at night.<p>I can certainly fill my time until March just doing the self-study thing with no specific goal in mind, but I feel like I'm missing an opportunity. Especially reading about the other guys here who saved to a specific goal so they could quit and do their thing. I'm there already, and time is ticking down.<p>I guess one easy-mode answer is: "Find another startup you could be passionate about". I agree, I'm in a perfect situation to take a dive with other people, except for my location. Anything is possible, I guess, but lets just say that I'd like to stay in Dallas for the next few months. How are my options affected in that case?<p>Is this too vague? Whiney? Should I be sad/ashamed that I don't have a list of ideas I want to work on?<p>I'm just sort of confused, and seeking your advice.
======
shimon
I've been in a pretty similar situation recently. I quit my day job in May,
wanting to pursue my own projects. For two months, I worked on my own
projects, releasing something new every week or two.
That was fun and I learned a bunch of new things, but in retrospect it wasn't
the best way to spend those two months. I had planned to start looking for
consulting work in month three, so I started emailing and calling people,
arranging meetings, and putting the word out at geek gatherings.
A funny thing happened. I started hearing a lot of great project ideas, some
of which were potentially paid jobs and others which were just cool hacks or
proto-startups. And these came not just as spark of inspiration but with a
person, or sometimes a small company, that actually cared about getting it
built. It took longer than I expected to actually get paid -- almost a month;
it turns out consulting contracts aren't that dramatically easier to sell and
execute than getting hired to a regular job, so plan on lots of slow
interpersonal cycles -- but in the meantime I was amply supplied with great
projects and some good partnerships. Many of these are on my back burner now,
behind the work that pays well but dominates, and I mean DOMINATES, my
schedule. On the bright side, timing my every minute has dramatically
increased my stamina -- I can do a lot more work in a day than I ever have
before. This will come in handy with whatever I do.
Anyway, here's my advice: start looking for consulting work immediately, and
try to get quickly to a point where you can pay your living expenses on 15
billable hours a week. By the way, you might think this is "not even two full
time work days", but let me assure you that when you can't count lunch,
news.yc, stupefying meetings, etc. against the clock, this will feel like a
huge work load. Do not promise anyone 20 or more hours a week until you have
tested your capacity; there's a lot you can optimize, and you will.
The regular consulting work will help you develop discipline, improve your
stamina, and keep you in touch with people. In your spare time, which again
you should try to preserve, do whatever projects draw your fancy. Get in the
habit of soliciting ideas at parties, from family friends, etc. and see where
you can take them in your spare time. Then when you find one that works for
you, and some people who might make good partners, deploy the rest of your
cushion (the one you didn't spend because you were paying your living expenses
off of consulting) and take the plunge.
Good luck!
------
ashishk
Sounds like a great position to be in. Seriously though, I think you have the
right idea of taking time off to LEARN. It is so critical.
To echo some of the other commenters, I would recommend two things.
1\. Learn what you're passionate about. What kind of applications do you want
to build? In what capacity do you want to be involved in your next company
(employee, CTO, CEO, etc.)?
2\. Learn from smart people. Email 20 people you look up to. Ask to have a 20
min conversation over the phone. Be bold! You might be surprised how helpful
people are.
Best of luck!
------
ojbyrne
In my opinion, one good business strategy is "fast follow."
* Find a business that's getting good traction.
* Copy it mercilessly.
* Think of how you would improve it and implement the improvements.
* Profit!
Even if the final step might not be a monetary profit, you've accomplished
something, and learned from the experience.
~~~
paraschopra
Can you give an example of a business that is presently getting good traction?
I somehow find it hard to recognize trends. I guess I am a hard core skeptical
when it comes to noise v/s signal.
~~~
eru
Not presently, but a good example: Facebook was copied by the German Studivz
quite succesful some time ago.
Setting up a Mechanical Turk for non-US markets might work. (As of today you
can work on mturk as a foreigner, but you can not commision tasks.)
~~~
streety
I hadn't realised that mturk requests could only be made in the US. I was
planning on using it to save myself a little time in a side project I'm
working on. A quick google search turns up ways around this though.
<http://www.hit-builder.com/> offers a way around this problem for a $25 setup
fee and 5% of use. I'm not familiar with mturk or this service but I suspect
operating costs aren't that high. A barebones / follow on competitor could be
a nice side project if you aren't concerned about amazon destroying your
business model at some point in the future.
~~~
eru
I was in the same position as you: I wanted to try mturk myself. That way I
noticed that you have to be in the US. I did not investigate the matter
further. Thanks for finding hit-builder!
------
unalone
While you're waiting for inspiration:
* Find somebody to work with. Do freelancing. See what makes freelancing difficult for you or your clients. Figure out a way to do it better.
* If freelancing is a no-go, use web sites. This is what I did when I first wanted to launch a site. Visit every one you can. Sign up for all of them. Make notes of what works well, what really doesn't work at all. When you find a particular TYPE of web site that doesn't have any good models going for it, make your own alternative.
That kind of idea is no alternative to having a Great Big Plan, but it lets
you mess with things, stay active, and it means when you DO have your Big Idea
you have both a little more expertise for launching and you have users who
might be willing to spread the word.
~~~
daveambrose
On that note, try to find locals who are interested in code/technology. See
what interests them and see how it may relate to what can interest you. Share
ideas and see where they go!
------
pxlpshr
One of the best things you can do is get connected and get involved. Check out
<http://www.texasstartupblog.com>, it's ran by Alex Muse and he's in Dallas...
they're doing their own mobile startup: <http://www.biggu.com>. Reach out to
him and see how you can get involved, and monitor the blog...
In Austin, checkout StartupDistrict.com, AustinStartup.com, Austin Tech Happy
Hour, Conjunctured(.com) Co-working, and a lot more.
~~~
jlees
Totally second this. Find your local hubs for entrepreneurs, tech people,
inquiring minds etc, and get involved. You don't need to be hung up on the
concept of having your own Big Idea, and it's great that you aren't. There are
plenty of startups out there who would welcome someone like you - I know I
would, if I was in the right country. Not sure of the situation in Dallas but
here in the UK hanging around universities is a good way to meet people with
ideas but little practical experience.
Learning is great too. As others have said, if you find an itch to scratch,
you might end up working on an idea without even realising you've had one.
~~~
tsuraan
At the risk of sounding totally clueless, how do you find local hubs like
that? I live in the twin cities in MN, and all that I know of is the ruby.mn
ruby group, which is pretty talkative on the ruby list. Is there some online
startup community that's arranged by region, or do you just have to know the
right people?
~~~
qwph
<http://meetup.com> ?
------
danielhodgins
I understand where you are coming from, and I would like to share what worked
for me. I just finished university, and have been in 3 startup situations so
far, none of which have gone anywhere. That's not to say I didn't learn some
very valuable lessons. In fact, I learned things in these failed startups that
I might not have learned any other way. In addition, I am still alive, and
stronger for having walked through the fire a few times.
I think the most important thing for someone like you is to start generating
momentum. Let me explain how you might go about this.
1\. There is no mistake, only make.
Build stuff. Fail. Just make sure you fail quickly and cheaply. If you
actually bring an idea to life you have succeeded no matter what happens. You
will have seperated yourself from everyone else who has ideas but never acts.
Ideas are just ideas if no one does the tough, painful work required to
actually execute them. Like a young piano prodigy the more you can practice
actually building stuff the better you will get.
2\. Go to events.
Talk to other entrepreneurs/programmers/designers about what they are doing.
Ask lots of questions and learn. It's tough to learn anything if you never
keep your mouth shut.
3\. Learn about business.
I realize some people on this site are code-centric, but in reality it's only
one piece of the pie. You will be better off if you read and understand what
makes good businesses tick. Everything from branding, copy, and positioning to
pricing, business models, and marketing. It helps to learn all of it. I would
be happy to recommend some great books if you contact me.
4\. Start learning about what people want.
Try and understand what makes people use particular web sites. Is it speed?
ease of use? unique design? Copywriting? Branding? Or did the site take an old
idea and put a unique spin on it? Perhaps you can take elements of certain
ideas and combine, bundle, or package them in new ways.
This is getting way too long, but I hope anyone who reads this gets some value
from this post. Feel free to contact me anytime. I would be glad to share any
of the information or resources I have gained from years spent learning from
advisors, mentors, books, blogs, and anyone at anytime.
Best wishes.
Dan H.
------
aneesh
No one is born with brilliant ideas. A professor of mine once said, "If you
don't think you have any good ideas, lower your threshold for what you
consider good."
Take any idea (even a bad one), and plan out how you'd implement it. Rinse and
repeat over time. Eventually you'll start getting better ideas, and seeing
opportunities where you see problems.
~~~
jdunck
Seconded. Obviously you don't want to work on crap, but keep in mind that
Google was supposed by many to fail based on the existing maturity of the
search market: <http://www.bvp.com/Portfolio/AntiPortfolio.aspx>
Some of the ideas you've tossed aside were wins.
For that matter, just start writing down every idea you have, whether you
think it's good or not. Keep track of your batting average. Keep track of the
kinds of things you were right on. Obviously a long-term trending thing, but
probably useful at some point in your future.
~~~
gommm
From my experience writing every single new ideas down really helped have more
ideas and better ones too... I feel that just the act of writing them down
forces you to think more about finding great ideas...
------
brm
What are you interested in? When you're doing the things you love to do, what
parts of them are the least fun/biggest pain in the butt? what do you wish you
could do?
Answer any one of those questions with technology and you have the start of an
idea and I bet you'll be surprised where it branches from there.
------
sireat
As it has been said elsewhere, you'll know when you have the right idea (it
will start burning inside you).
However, there is absolutely no guarantee that you'll find the idea in the
next 6 months.
If you don't want to start working again for somone, my advice would be to go
on a trip, preferably abroad.
~~~
bretthoerner
I don't mind working for someone, I just don't want to go work for X-Large-
Corp, which is most of what Dallas has to offer. Hence the self-study and
bettering myself so I can apply somewhere more interesting AND/OR do my own
thing.
"go on a trip, preferably abroad"
Yeah, I really need to do this.
~~~
timr
Do it now! You're young, you're flush with cash, and you have no
responsibilities. This is the _perfect_ time to travel. If you don't go now,
you will _never_ go.
Ignore all other advice in this thread. Technology is boring. You probably
aren't going to want to tell your grandchildren about the web2.0 sheep-thrower
that you built when you were 25, but you'll _definitely_ want to tell them
about the time that you hiked through the Andes, rode a camel in India, and
slept with a beautiful girl in Greece.
Travel! Travel now!! Go go go go go!
------
sfphotoarts
Put down the Django manual and go read Finnegans Wake....
~~~
tricky
I agree with the parent. It sounds to me like you might be in a rut. Check out
Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels Since 1923 and borrow a few from your local
library. Giving your brain a break from tech grind might help you see things
from new perspectives and give your neurons room to fire up some interesting
ideas.
~~~
__FILE__
And take those books with you on a journey
~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Absolutely! Take a week or two to drive someplace you've never been, alone.
The time spent staring at scenery with your hands on a steering wheel may stir
up some creative juices.
~~~
portfolioexec
Yeah, sit and watch the world go by. Let something - anything - spark an
interest and just follow the vibe. You'll soon discover something you hadn't
known before and find yourself in a preferred position to that in which you
are now.
------
aditya
Start a side project -- just get it out the door, projects have a way of
morphing into glorious things that become what you want them to be and provide
happiness. :)
Read this for more inspiration: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282158>
~~~
mh77
+1 for this. Just start building something. It could be a forum, a blogging
application or a project management tool. Just start to build it and the idea
will come to you. In the meantime you will improve your Django skills even
more.
~~~
krschultz
Speaking of ideas, am I the only one that thinks phpBB sucks? And it powers so
many of the forums out there.
~~~
cabalamat
_am I the only one that thinks phpBB sucks?_
No, you're not! That can be his idea: build a better BB
~~~
nostrademons
phpBB sucks because it's free. There's much better forum software out there:
most sites that don't want to be sucky use something like vBulletin, and they
do a pretty good business off it.
If you're getting into the forum business, you shouldn't compare yourself to
free software like Phorum or phpBB, because they don't make any money.
Instead, compare yourself to for-profit forums like vBulletin, Invision Power
Board, or UBB. That space is pretty crowded, and the bar is pretty high.
~~~
cabalamat
_phpBB sucks because it's free_
There's plenty of free software that doesn't suck, e.g. Linux, Apache,
Wordpress, etc. Therefore freeness doesn't cause suckiness.
------
sfamiliar
walk through your next week and carry a notebook, making a note of all the
things you think of that you wish existed, but don't. when i do this, it's
generally through little irritations, conveniences that save me 3-4 minutes,
realizations about people's work process -- that kind of thing. go fishing in
the real world. do this until an idea for a product hits you. it will, and
likely soon: something you want or need that no one provides.
in the meantime, get into a startup, on an equity basis. look for contribution
to the work, not a paycheck. learn the atmosphere, see what works and what
doesn't. get involved with your local user groups and search for a partner,
someone like-minded.
put down the tech for a bit and read. spin down the head for a bit. my best
ideas happen when i'm not thinking about them.
it's really a question of the want-to. if you have that, you'll be okay.
~~~
johns
I really like the first part of this. Don't look for ideas, look for problems
that need to be solved.
------
bretthoerner
I imagine this will be lost in the fray, but thanks everyone for the great
replies.
More ideas about how to uh, have ideas than I had ever imagined. Thanks a lot,
seriously.
------
jfornear
Hey, I'm in Dallas... currently a senior at SMU. Dallas has plenty of
resources depending on what you want to do. Of course it's nothing compared to
the valley, but just off the top of my head, <http://viewzi.com>,
<http://www.texasstartupblog.com/>, <http://www.biggu.com/>,
<http://woot.com>, <http://match.com>, <http://theplanet.com>,
<http://Godtube.com>, and other randoms are all based here. I would argue that
there are definitely worse places to be.
I'm pretty good at front-end design with CSS, XHTML, JavaScript
(mootools/jQuery). Our skills might compliment each other?
I'd be down to grab a beer with you sometime to plot the dethroning of Google
for YC summer '09 or something. jfornear[at]smu[dot]edu or
jessefornear[at]gmail[dot]com
------
nostrademons
I'm in the same position (good skills, adequate cash, no job - but no idea or
cofounder) and am thinking of resolving it by either:
1.) Getting a job at a big Silicon Valley tech company or
2.) Getting a job at a YCombinator startup.
One thing I learned from my past failed startup is that ideas come from
interacting with the world around you, they don't spring fully formed from
your head. Either one of the above options puts me in contact with more
potential ideas - I'd meet more people at a big tech company, but I'd do more
things at the YC startup. They'd also get me out of the house and into an
environment with lots of people interested in startups.
I've also found that it's really hard to build a network or feel out a
cofounder once you already have an idea that you're passionate about. That
relationship has to be forged under a low-stress situation, and _then_ you
jump into the fire with them. ;-) So now may be a good time to work on that,
if the environment allows (I've heard it's a really terrible place to start a
tech company).
------
petercooper
Work on building up your personal brand equity. In less buzzwordy terms, build
up your social network, become known for your opinions, and develop an
audience of some sort. Gary Vaynerchuk's videos are worth watching on this
topic - <http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/>
I follow a lot of people on Twitter who aren't working on a specific idea
right now, but when they do, you can bet I'll be checking it out and
cheerleading for them! The same applies for those following me. Become known,
get us to follow you and enjoy what you have to say, and then when you DO get
"that big idea" you'll actually have some users and publicity out of the gate
:)
With that said, if you /do/ have a Twitter account or whatever, link us up!
But your blog only seems to have one post..
~~~
bretthoerner
Yeah, this is something I'm working on. You've reminded me to fix my blog
index - I meant to hint at previous posts without just doing a huge dump of
entries.
That said, I just set it up after I left my job, and I haven't really started.
I just have three mostly pointless posts (mostly for myself) to get the ball
rolling. I'm definitely more tech side than entrepreneur (so far?).
<http://friendfeed.com/bretthoerner>
------
mde
Another good idea resource from PG: <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>
That serves as a helpful litmus test. Not falling somewhere onto that map
doesn't invalidate your idea, but the 30 items cover a lot of ground.
------
mde
Enjoy this phase! Idea generation can be a lot of fun. Get some books to
stimulate. I've gotten a lot of mileage from "A Whack On The Side Of The Head"
and "Creativity" (Csikszentmihalyi). Watch some TED talks. Go to your local
unconferences and meet people and see what they're working on. Team up on
those connections.
Share your ideas as they come. Record everything that comes to mind. Get
feedback. Iterate.
Meanwhile, you can be educating yourself on the business side of things:
starting a business, people/listening skills, presenting, marketing, etc.
You're already here; that's a pretty good start. But books like "The Art Of
The Start", "Founders At Work", and the Seth Godin variety are worth their
weight in gold.
------
tocomment
Or make games. The world always needs more games.
------
Brennan
As I look at trying to start something myself, it's not the lack of "good"
ideas that ever worries me (although if you tell someone you're interested in
starting a company the first question they always ask is "what's your idea?"),
it's finding the right partner or "someone else to work with" that seems to be
the biggest obstacle. I'd rather have no ideas and a determined partner to
work with, than 100 greate ideas and no way to execute.
To that point, I have one burning idea right now but have not landed on the
right partner. Any interest in talking about it?
------
dineshshah
Lots of good comments suggesting you focus on what you love and are passionate
about.
But also ask what you hate; what makes you mad? It could be a little thing
(e.g. why can't I browse the library of the DVD rental places in my
neighborhood?) Is there a computing solution to that maddening thing?
------
mrtron
a) Go work for another startup with a great team.
b) Do some contracting. This will help you meet people and get your first
taste of the business world. Learn to sell yourself, it should be much easier
than selling any product. You also learn how to manage expectations, people
and products.
c) Start making products. They don't have to be big, be groundbreaking, but
start making things and learn to make things well. Probably the first few
things you will make won't turn out how you would like and you will learn some
valuable lessons.
d) Hopefully along the way, meet some other people who you can talk to and
possibly work with. Sometimes you get lucky here, but you have to get that
ball rolling.
e) Along the way you will find something you are passionate about building.
Build it.
------
alex_c
Don't fret about finding The Big Idea (or even not having a List of Possible
Big Ideas to choose from).
I'm sure you get small ideas now and then. When you do, don't think about them
too much, just jump on them, especially if they're small enough to finish in a
couple of days. Something Bigger might grow out of one of them. If not, hey,
it still beats spending that time watching TV or reading Reddit.
You must have at least one friend who thinks sort of the same way you do.
Bounce silly ideas off them. Create a mindset - for both yourself and for them
- where you look at everyday activities and events through the perspective of
"what can I do with this?", and chat with them about ideas regularly.
------
asdflkj
The way to have ideas is to understand the field really well. That sounds kind
of banal, but I haven't seen anyone approach startups this way explicitly.
So, I would study history of technology and of money, and especially recent
history of computing and the Internet. Then I'd try to simulate it all in my
mind, and try to see patterns. and think of all the alternative ways in which
it might have happened. What were the good ideas of any given time? Which of
them were inevitable? Which of them relied on timing? By what chain of
reasoning could they have been foreseen?
I don't really know if this would help. It's a big undertaking, and I have
other stuff to do now, so I haven't tried it.
------
KLAW
If you have downtime then use it to learn new, practical skills. And where
better to start than in goldrushland:
<http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/overview.html>
------
radu_floricica
Ok, a strange ideea: if you want to do a startup but don't have an ideea you
like, you can try something ourside IT. I did it for about a year (a local
courier company). It failed, of course, but I learned _a lot_, about startups,
about people, some about myself. And more importantly, one year later I have
my passion about programming back. Important stuff: don't sink too much money
into it, and try to use it to make connections, not brake them.
------
markessien
How about doing something pointless but interesting. For example, a self aware
web app.
Anyways, I have a list of about 100 ideas, so here are two:
* A generic API to access bank data from banks all over the world * A site where one can list all the people that one hates, and what one will do to them when one finally gets rich enough/powerful enough etc.
Just make something silly and small.
------
auston
Maybe trying working in a field that uses computers but doesnt program them?
Sales person? Manager?
I would try to put myself in other peoples shoes and find the pain they have.
That's how I come up with most of my ideas, think about what I'd like to be
able to do, but cannot, due to technological constraints.
------
steveplace
Wrote a post about this a month back:
[http://www.graduatedtaste.com/2008/09/12/lists-of-
successful...](http://www.graduatedtaste.com/2008/09/12/lists-of-successful-
companies-to-get-your-startup-juices-flowing/)
------
YuriNiyazov
I am in a surprisingly similar situation, except I, in addition, have the
experience of a failed startup (was working on a friend's idea, not mine). I
have a contract job that's ending in December, and then...
------
jdavid
ok, step one skip the great idea thing. the reality is that the internet is a
large enough for competitors in any market.
step 2 is build something you know well, it will make it easier to copy and
you might find a few things to innovate on later. i have tried the big bold
approach and i end up having to scale back my plans, its so depressing.
Looking back i would rather be dealing with problems as i grow.
step 3 repeat
eventually you will find a team of people that are doing things that are
interesting.
step 4 end loop, profit, retire
------
jenhsun
You don't have idea cause you already burn out of your passion, I guess. If I
were you, I won't stay in one location and think my next step. I might tend to
join some conferences and traveling.
------
siong1987
At least, you know that you are passionate about Django. So, try to do
something with Django. Whatever web application that is based on Django. Or,
you can try to contribute to Django.
------
akkartik
[http://scrapbook.akkartik.name/post/2353544/all-you-see-
is-t...](http://scrapbook.akkartik.name/post/2353544/all-you-see-is-the-
choice-between-working-hard)
------
hendler
There are many many great people in industries/services that just haven't led
them to be technologists. They might have everything you don't - which is key
to building a great team.
------
jsmcgd
Make tech friends. There's bound to a bunch of people in Dallas that would
like to team up with you. Go find them. They'll give you the ideas you need.
------
louisadekoya
Check out <http://www.ideatagging.com> and see if one of the ideas there grabs
you.
------
tocomment
Do consulting, and you'll probably come across a lot of client problems that
are amenable to general solutions.
------
symptic
Move to Austin.
------
portfolioexec
all of my ideas have been bourne out of experience. is there an industry that
you like outside of web? my passion has been in real estate and it's led me to
create a web app for real estate investors that solves many of their needs.
------
markm
If you want to talk about some ideas just send over an e-mail and we can
discuss.
------
edw519
Find a customer.
The current changes in economic conditions may swing the pendulum back in
favor of a subscription (vs. advertising) model for web apps.
There are 7 million small businesses in the United States. Every one of them
needs _something_. They are _everywhere_.
Start networking. Let everyone know what you do. Before you know it, they'll
be coming out of the woodwork saying things like, "We sure could use <xyz>. Do
you know of any way we could get it?"
If you can't find a promising idea and a way to get started on it in 30 days,
then maybe you shouldn't be an entrepreneur.
Good luck.
~~~
Zak
I think this is the right general idea, but asking customers what product they
want is not usually the best way to get product ideas. Customers often don't
know what is possible; it's better to find out what is difficult for them and
design a solution yourself. I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to customers,
but don't rely on them to tell you what to build.
------
vaksel
wait till you get one
~~~
bretthoerner
That's one way to do it. The only thing to keep in mind is that the trigger
has already been pulled. Money (and thus time) have been decreasing every day
starting 3 weeks ago.
I'm not implying you're saying this, but I hope I can nip the whole "you're an
idiot for quitting without an idea" in the bud. I'm alright with just doing
self-study and going to work in a "normal" place come next Spring, I just
wonder if I could make even better use of this time.
~~~
vaksel
I'm mainly saying don't rush into it. This is something you MUST be passionate
about. Things WILL get tough. You WILL think about quitting no matter what you
do. You NEED to have the passion for your product to want to do it through
thick and thin.
As far as ideas to get passionate about, look into your hobbies and see if you
can come up with something you'll enjoy. Or do you have ANY frustrations when
using another site online? Do you have any features you want from other sites?
Just remember...it doesn't need to be rocket science.
------
danw
Get a job
------
TweedHeads
Develop for the iPhone, you'll make some money for sure while you learn some
interesting technology.
You'll never regret it, if Japan and Korea are indicators of mobile
consumption.
The future is mobile!
------
ram1024
Off the top of my head, you could make a nationwide collaborative blog for
teachers/professors to voice their opinions and/or publish short educational
pages. get some sponsors for it and funnel the money back into some kinda
foundation/fund for the education community.
like a techcrunch for teachers, TeachCrunch? O_o
------
qqq
Good ideas aren't worth anything, remember? Just buy one on the cheap.
------
LPTS
Ask Psychedelic Mushrooms for an idea.
------
mstefff
idealess = the worst
~~~
mstefff
why'd i get negated for that..being out of ideas sucks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Haskell: (Slow but certain) Advancing insight - smu
http://stmu.co/programming/haskell/2013/10/29/advancing-insight.html
======
michn
good introduction to haskell. Might be interesting to use this as an
alternative to lex
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Organic Marketing using Videos - hartator
http://luminate.io/
======
hartator
We are hungry for feedbacks and opinions! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pixar's Library - DanielRibeiro
http://graphics.pixar.com/library/
======
dpcan
Hair rendering always blew my mind. I remember seeing Monster's Inc in the
theater, and the first shot of Sully was when he was asleep in his bed
breathing heavily, and you could see the individual strands of hair on his arm
flowing back and forth. I felt the world of animation change right at that
moment for me, and now I wait with great anticipation for every new Pixar film
that comes out. For me, "Up" was the only real let-down.
~~~
rhizome
I've noticed a kind of arms-race in most of the Pixar/Dreamworks movies I've
seen (not nearly all), where in the first 5 or 10 minutes there will always be
some new technique being foregrounded. Sully's hair is a great example, they
lay the new tech out right away both as a "we're cool" (in a positive sense!)
signal to other animators and as a far point of expectations for the animation
to the rubes like me. "If this goes over, everything else falls into place."
I'm a little sad to see you neg "Up," though, because I thought the technical
gambit there was much more sophisticated: conveying emotion convincingly from
what is basically a cartoon. I think they succeeded in spades on that one.
~~~
asolove
Early animated movies mostly did well, and resonated with people, because of
excellent voice acting from recognizable actors. (Think Toy Story.) Up's
gambit is to show that well-orchestrated music and animation can surpass that.
It isn't technically superior, but it is far more important.
~~~
rhizome
I think what "Up" succeeded was even more significant than that: they took
animation into the affective territory of live-action movies. Frankly, I don't
even really remember the voices.
Making cartoons (which I sincerely believe 3D has been) has been one-upmanship
of technology that pretty much builds its own history in lockstep, but to
combine that with writing and the animation choices for something that can
bring a tear to the eye of an adult is truly great work. The first act of "Up"
really is a landmark to me.
~~~
DrStalker
Up also made excellent use of 3D to add to the emotional feeling; the way they
handled "depth" in the sad introduction was different to the way they did it
in the fun scenese or action scenes.
It was subtle, but it was there.
------
riprock
this reminded me of pixar's "university" that teaches technical skills for all
their employees (particularly see page 2):
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/business/yourmoney/29pixar...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/business/yourmoney/29pixar.html?_r=2)
"Pixar University is at the center of Mr. Nelson's agenda. The operation has
more than 110 courses: a complete filmmaking curriculum, classes on painting,
drawing, sculpting and creative writing. "We offer the equivalent of an
undergraduate education in fine arts and the art of filmmaking," he said.
Every employee — whether an animator, technician, production assistant,
accountant, marketer or security guard — is encouraged to devote up to four
hours a week, every week, to his or her education."
sounds like an exciting place to work and grow
~~~
saturdayplace
Back when I wanted to be an animator, I bookmarked that article for this
quote:
>The skills we develop [at Pixar U] are skills we need everywhere in the
organization,” Mr. Nelson said. “Why teach drawing to accountants? Because
drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more
observant. There’s no company on earth that wouldn’t benefit from having
people become more observant.
That show how much they've got this "being an employer" thing down. Can you
quantify "people becoming more observant"? Probably not, but they reap
enormous benefits out of doing things that other companies wouldn't justify
because of the costs. Seriously, at what other company can you essentially
attend an undergraduate degree's worth of instruction _related to that
company's industry?_ Seems like a no-brainer once you think about it.
------
SandB0x
If you like this you should check out Ron Fedkiw's research at Stanford and
with ILM: <http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fedkiw>
The images on his page link to videos, publications list is about 3/4 of the
way down.
~~~
JabavuAdams
Tried to code up one of the hair papers. Realized I need to math up.
~~~
apl
Never been great at keeping correlation and causation separate, but maybe you
should _muscle_ up instead?
[http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/photos/bodybuilding_arms...](http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/photos/bodybuilding_arms_small.jpg)
------
aschwo
Disney Animation also posts its papers online:
<http://www.disneyanimation.com/library/list.html>
I can't find similar pages for PDI/Dreamworks or Blue Sky.
If this stuff interests you, check out the SIGGRAPH 2011 papers:
<http://kesen.realtimerendering.com/sig2011.html>
~~~
davvid
We've also been putting stuff up on github:
<https://github.com/wdas>
<http://ptex.us/>
~~~
aschwo
Ptex is awesome! Any chance Disney's hair tools will get open sourced?
------
kleiba
Ohh.... it's a library as in "read", not as in "include".
------
Traz0r
The Pixar office tour is one of my all time favorites -
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/veerles-
blog/461586084/in/photo...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/veerles-
blog/461586084/in/photostream/)
------
StavrosK
> <bound method Paper.GetName of <paper.Paper instance at 0x2aaaab9f12d8>>
Sounds like someone forgot their parentheses.
------
karolisd
Do they have a library for storytelling, characters, and creative writing?
------
jorkos
\- visiting pixar with my roommate who worked there at the time was a great
experience; the environment they've created for their team is the best i've
seen anywhere
------
guscost
Awesome!
------
williamdix
I think Ratatouille may in fact be the most productive academic endeavor in 10
years. 7 papers from that film! Did Ratatouille produce more papers than the
LHC? I hope so.
------
Ruudjah
Please use [PDF] when linking to paper oriented documents, so we can skip
those links, tnx.
~~~
Tiomaidh
I'd always thought [PDF] was a warning about a direct link to a PDF--some
people don't like having PDFs download or open without warning.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I give you permission to no longer ask for permission to code - joshuakemp1
http://joshuakemp.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-give-you-permission-to-no-longer-ask.html?m=1
I give you permission to no longer ask for permission to learn to code
======
calcsam
As a fellow programmer who just learned to code, I also find the lack of
feeling "I-know-how-to-do-this" disconcerting. But turning around when one
isn't finding progress is also how you avoid getting stuck in cul-de-sacs.
Keep it up!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Almost Dropped Out Of School - seangransee
http://blog.seangransee.com/post/57089507068/i-almost-dropped-out-of-school
======
akulbe
Let me speak to you as someone with some hindsight on this issue. I'm going to
be 40 in November. I am in my final weeks of my final class of a Business
Management track. On August 19th I will finish school. I started college in
1992. And it has been on-again off-again... for many years. Absolutely no
regrets about not going straight through.
My only regret is the major I picked. If I had it to do all over again, I
would have done Computer Science, and learned how to program.
Along the way, I had many opportunities like the one you're being presented
with, to work in SF for that company. I took them. It has led to a successful
career. I'm currently in Europe for my employer... third such trip.
Personally, I think you are making a __HUGE __mistake in not taking the offer
from the company. MASSIVE.
A quote attributed to Mark Twain... "Don't let schooling interfere with your
education." and I think he was SPOT ON.
Your greatest education isn't going to come from the halls of a
school/university. It will come from getting your hands dirty (so to speak) in
your vocation.
And with the right experience, which I'm guessing you'd get at this firm... a
degree matters even less and less.
I think you should reconsider. Seriously.
In any case, it's your decision, and I wish you well. If you have any
questions, and want to talk more... feel free to drop me a line. My user at G
mail.
------
etler
Either other schools have terrible CS programs, or I'm in the minority of
people who really enjoyed all my CS classes. I thought learning the ins and
outs of how a computer worked was a big thrill. I always wanted to know how a
bunch of transistors could turn into a complex processor. How networking
worked. Most of my classes are still relevant to me today. Being able to
understand data structure. The laws behind optimizing branching logic.
Everything I took was either very helpful in becoming a well balanced
programmer, or was so interesting that I didn't care if it was relevant or
not. It worries me that there's a trend of people just wanting to know the
basics of what they need to know to build apps, and not the fundamentals of
computing.
------
afleegman
You should have dropped out.
~~~
ibudiallo
That is debatable. And it think being able to see a project through the end is
much more important
~~~
afleegman
When the goal of that project is to get a great job, it doesn't make sense to
turn your back on a great job to go back and finish your project and then go
out again and try to get another great job. He always could have returned and
finished out his last year if needed holding his head high knowing he took his
shot at something awesome.
Anyone can apply and go to college, not everyone given a real opportunity to
shine.
~~~
dwn
Not anyone can go to college and experience a college life -- generally people
returning after years do not.
If someone has true ability/talent such that they're given an opportunity to
shine, they'll be given opportunities to shine again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mastercard to Join Ethereum Enterprise Alliance - computerwizard
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AgY1hZBqltmcJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fentethalliance.org%2Fmember%2Fpeter-kopp-mastercard%2F%20&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
======
moh_maya
Mastercard has expressed interest. They haven't joined yet. From the link:
"Mastercard is developing capabilities in blockchain specifically in clearing
and settling and _has a strong interest_ in joining the Enterprise Ethereum
Alliance to be able to partner with other companies using Ethereum to address
a wide range of complex business issues."
[Emphasis added by me]
------
devhead
will mastercard support anon cards with multiple accounts? if not, kick rocks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Driving BB-8 with Brainwaves - Dim25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f8hCrl9VYI
======
Dim25
Tried today, this device works great with pain, audio and taste stimulus.
Paper behind this:
[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-40548-3_3...](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-40548-3_34)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ARM Releases Machine Readable Architecture Specification - matt_d
https://alastairreid.github.io/alastairreid.github.io/ARM-v8a-xml-release/
======
belovedeagle
Yes, yes, but have they finally given a _human_ -understandable definition for
BFM and related instructions? Because there's a really straightforward one
possible but all of the current instructions are so misleadingly described
that I _think_ they might be incorrectly described, but I can't tell.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Open Letter to Clojure - tosh
https://outline.com/9Btvud
======
elamje
I have to agree that Clojure is enlightening:-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
APLcart – Find Your Way in APL - lelf
https://aplcart.info/
======
imglorp
APL aside, I really like this general presentation and ux of a cheat sheet.
Dump out a table of a few thousand items, at most, and then narrow to relevant
as the search box is filled. This would also work for APIs and CLI options,
for example.
I just wish the rows had some clickable elements leading to examples or maybe
a live try it box in the case of an interpreted language.
~~~
abrudz
Both links to documentation and examples are on my to-do list
([https://github.com/abrudz/aplcart/issues](https://github.com/abrudz/aplcart/issues)).
------
jodrellblank
Incidentally, in the last month or two, Dyalog have made their APL interpreter
available for non-commercial use with no signup and no regular nagware popups
when using it, and no disabled features, it’s a simple download of the current
version just reminds you that it’s unlicensed when launched:
[https://www.dyalog.com/](https://www.dyalog.com/)
(It used to be something you could ask for and exchange personal details for,
if they agreed)
------
xvilka
I suggested[1] for someone well-versed in APL to add it on the Learn X in Y
minutes site to attract more beginners, allowing the quicker dive. So if
someone wants to do that - feel free ;)
[1] [https://github.com/adambard/learnxinyminutes-
docs/issues/358...](https://github.com/adambard/learnxinyminutes-
docs/issues/3580)
~~~
abrudz
There's this ([https://github.com/nooodl/learnxinyminutes-
docs/blob/master/...](https://github.com/nooodl/learnxinyminutes-
docs/blob/master/apl.apl)) fork.
------
geogra4
I played around a bit with J as a language and found it really lovely but
unfortunately not really applicable to my problem domain (CRUD Enterprise
Apps)
I guess maybe some people are really in love with the symbolic notation of APL
(vs J) but I would think it would be terribly limiting.
~~~
yiyus
Personally, I wish the APL ideas had been taken more seriously, not only as a
programming language, but specially as an algebraic notation.
I would like to be able to open any text editor and write formulas, and it is
not a minor thing to be able to directly use those formulas to solve the
problem in the computer. I can do that with J or K, but it does not feel
natural at all when using paper or the blackboard, for example. On the other
hand, I indeed love the APL symbols (you get used to them much faster than it
may look) but, even although they are part of unicode, it is still much less
convenient to use than ASCII.
~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Would a special keyboard help that much?
~~~
boomlinde
A special keyboard at least puts you in a situation where you can fall back on
hunting and pecking until you get used to where they are at your own pace. An
IDE could help imprinting what the symbols actually mean.
~~~
abrudz
There are tricks to remember the locations
([https://i.imgur.com/57wRuUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/57wRuUS.png))
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A new, more user-friendly language for programming supercomputers - kick
https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/new-more-user-friendly-language-programming-supercomputers
======
Bostonian
'“We wanted to create a programming environment that doesn’t require every
researcher to be a computer scientist,”'
For the more than 60 years it has existed, most Fortran programmers have not
been computer scientists. I wish the article had explained why the designers
of the language are starting from scratch rather than building on Fortran, in
particular Fortran 2008+, which introduced coarrays for parallel programming.
------
pasttense01
If anyone is interested in these (Regent and Legion) check out:
[https://legion.stanford.edu/](https://legion.stanford.edu/)
Overview is at:
[https://legion.stanford.edu/overview/](https://legion.stanford.edu/overview/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Things you can’t do in Rust: destructure function arguments in declaration - andrew-lucker
https://medium.com/@andrew_subarctic/things-you-cant-do-in-rust-destructure-function-arguments-in-declaration-51f631aa3f3e
======
arh68
> shorthand for a function with only a pattern as its body.
Only an _expression_ as its body seems more like it.
Just to be clear, would you require the last function clause to be a catch-
all/wildcard pattern? Or could you just define a function on 0 & 1? Separate
question: would you want to be able to add a new clause for your function f
_below_ main? It's okay to want either outcome, I'm just curious. Third
question: would you want/accept a delimiter between a function's clauses like
; or | ?
I like the idea. Especially if you can still refer to pattern-matched
parameters by name, too.
~~~
andrew-lucker
Not married to the syntax, just wanted to highlight the absence of this syntax
form. The syntax used was mainly meant to mirror the existing Rust pattern
syntax.
As for partial matching, other languages give warnings or errors if a pattern
doesn't cover all cases.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spotify to Introduce Free Mobile Music Service - rkudeshi
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304096104579240432005003354-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwNTEwNDUyWj
======
lbearl
Its good Spotify is finally going to get to do this (to bad licensing
negotiations took an entire year to iron out though). I'll be looking forward
to hearing exactly how similar this is to the service Pandora already offers
(although I doubt it will sway me back away from Google Music).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why do ppl surround words with underscores? - alistproducer2
I've tried Googling but I haven't been able to figure it out. I've seen it used exclusively by hacker-types and have always wondered what it was about.
======
corysama
I'm typing words in a comment. I want to underline one of them, but HN doesn't
support that. So, I surround the word with _underscores_ and hope that you
understand what I meant. Same for /slashes/ to indicate an italicized word.
------
viraptor
It's just used to emphasise a word. Asterisks, _underscores_, /slashes/,
-hyphens-: they all work for that.
It just lately got more standardised with the markup languages that they
actually correspond to bold, underscore, italic, etc.
------
frostmatthew
In some implementations of markdown underscores italicize the word(s) they
surround. On HN this is achieved with _asterisks_.
~~~
dikaiosune
I could have sworn I saw it used in email in like 1997 to indicate underscores
in plaintext.
~~~
Piskvorrr
Yup. Markdown is directly inspired by this _𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱_ convention ;)
------
sjs382
It's shorthand for text foratting when you only have ascii characters to dela
with.
*Bold*, _underline_, /italics/, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gitblit - open-source stack for managing, viewing, and serving Git repos - Dekku
http://www.gitblit.com/
======
steveb
I've been using gitblit for a few months, and have been very pleased with how
easy it is to set up and manage. It's great to set up http sharing of git
repositories inside an organization.
It has nice features like ACL's and federation for backup.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Go is Not Python - blacksmythe
http://www.seanhelvey.com/go-is-not-python
======
optimusclimb
I'm not sure what the title has to do with the article at all. It's just
pointing out a language gotcha/subtlety. The title might as well have been "Go
is Not Javascript", "Go is not QBasic", etc.
~~~
andrewstuart2
This is the kind of "gotcha" that you learn pretty quickly when working with
go. The problem is that Go has created a new variable called "student" that is
assigned as its value each item in students as it ranges through. Go is not
going to allocate a brand new "student" variable for each iteration of the
loop. That would be a waste of time and memory both during the loop, and later
during GC. So your "fredPtr" given this syntax, would be more accurately named
"studentPtr."
Go won't hold your hands because it's more efficient if you are explicit. If
you want a "reference" to the real original, your array needs to be an array
of pointers.
It's pretty simple to understand when you have worked with pointers before and
understand how the memory is allocated and eventually collected (and why you
don't want to reallocate every loop iteration).
Finally, nil is the default value of anything with type (star)Student, and
almost nobody uses arrays in Go ([2]Student is an array, []Student is a much-
more-useful slice). In general, I don't think this author has written much Go
code. It's probably a good idea to get a little more experience with whatever
you're complaining about before writing a blog post about it, and likely
misinforming your readers.
It's pretty straightforward code when you write what you explicitly want:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Student struct {
name string
}
func main() {
students := []*Student{{"fred"}, {"karen"}}
var fredPtr *Student
for _, student := range students {
if student.name == "fred" {
fredPtr = student
}
}
fmt.Println(fredPtr.name)
}
~~~
hasbroslasher
Ironically, your code looks much more like Python than the author's. "Simple
is better than complex" at play, I suppose. If I were to sit down and start
writing Go, the idea to use equality would come long before I bothered with
pointer notation, especially for such a simple task.
------
betterwaytodoit
Here's a more idiomatic translation of the Python code to Go, and there's no
surprise to how the code behaves:
[https://play.golang.org/p/rpqvVDR9v8](https://play.golang.org/p/rpqvVDR9v8)
~~~
sfilargi
Nope, that's not what the OP is trying to do.
eg:
[https://play.golang.org/p/kFjXSlf5fw](https://play.golang.org/p/kFjXSlf5fw)
------
jimsmart
fredPtr = nil // This line is superfluous.
In Go, declarations always initialise variables to their zero value, which for
all pointers is nil.
(Perhaps worthy of a follow up article: "Go is Not C/C++"? ;)
------
majewsky
Alternative options of solving this issue include `break`ing when the right
option is found (so the loop variable doesn't get overwritten again) or moving
everything into a function:
func findByName(students []*Student, name string) *Student {
for _, s := range students {
if s.name == name {
return s
}
}
return nil
}
Both options have the added advantage of stopping iteration as soon as the
result is found.
------
grasleya
I think you can put this more generally as "syntax is not semantics." Go takes
some syntactic cues from python (but who doesn't these days?) but its
semantics can be pretty different. I think it's pretty common for new
programmers especially to get caught up in the syntax of languages without
giving enough attention to their semantics, which causes the sort of problems
the author highlights here.
~~~
dragonwriter
> I think you can put this more generally as "syntax is not semantics." Go
> takes some syntactic cues from python (but who doesn't these days?) but its
> semantics can be pretty different.
Except the difference is not in similar syntax with different semantics; since
it's the application of the & operator, which has no close parallel in Python,
that is the source of the surprise.
------
abhinai
I love Python. But honestly speaking, the point raised in this article is
fairly trivial. I would not, not learn Go just because there are small
differences in the way reference / pointers work. I do not see this as an
inherent shortcoming of Go.
Both languages have their strengths. When you pick a language for an
application, it is your responsibility to use it properly. Otherwise you will
make mistakes and it won't be the fault of the language.
~~~
dragonwriter
> But honestly speaking, the point raised in this article is fairly trivial. I
> would not, not learn Go just because there are small differences in the way
> reference / pointers work.
Nothing in the article suggests not learning Go because of this behavior; the
article is warning about a behavior developers coming to Go from Python are,
in the author's experience, often bitten by, so that other people taking the
same path can avoid making the same mistake.
> When you pick a language for an application, it is your responsibility to
> use it properly.
Yes, and this article aims to help people coming to Go from Python to do that
by pointing out a common pitfall.
------
questhrowaway
I don't know Python or Go, but both examples seem _wrong_.
Python: How is `Fred` available to be printed in the Python example, is not it
out of scope?
Go: Why use `var fredPtr *Student`? What's the point? Can not use `var fredPtr
Student` and the set `fredPtr = student` in the loop?
------
sabujp
been a while since i've done pointer stuff, isn't that how it works in c? go
seems de-evolved to me.
~~~
0xffff2
C has no concept of the kind of for loop used in the article, so there is no
"how it works" in C.
~~~
dragonwriter
While C has no for-in loop, the natural translation of that to a C style for
loop and the C address-of operator would work the same way; the key thing is
that student is a variable defined outside the loop whose value is modified
each iteration, not a fresh variable allocated with each loop iteration.
------
urda
This has nothing to do with Python. It's just a "gotcha" of Go.
~~~
deepsun
I believe he's talking about what he should teach to students, and his point
is that Python is more intuitive than Go for newcomers.
I personally don't really care how easy it is to write a "hello world" in Go,
nor Python. My day job involves big projects, so I'm pretty fine with "hello
world" taking 10k lines as long as it will scale slower with complexity than
other language. The same argument about learning curve -- I would be happy
with a language that requires couple of years of learning to even start, as
long as it takes less time in the following 20 years I'm going to be using it.
~~~
pvg
_I believe he 's talking about what he should teach to students_
What gives you that impression?
~~~
deepsun
Huh, I was reading it fast, and didn't realize that word "students" in the
text meant a variable name, not his students. My bad :)
~~~
pvg
Heh yeah and I ended up re-reading it looking for some indication the writer
was an instructor that I'd missed and didn't notice 'students' at all.
------
singularity2001
for a no-goer: will this copy by value? ``` var fred Student for _, student :=
range students { if student.name == "fred" { fred = student } } ```
~~~
majewsky
Yes. A copy into type `Student` will copy each field, whereas `*Student` only
takes the address. (Which would not be a problem if the loop didn't reuse the
memory slot for the loop variable.)
Also, indent with two spaces to get code formatting. HN formatting is (sadly)
not Markdown.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pathfinding for Tower Defense - signa11
http://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/tower-defense/
======
munificent
> It’s a relatively simple algorithm, and useful for all
> sorts of things, including AI. There are three main ways I use it:
>
> * Mark all reachable nodes. This is useful if your map isn’t
> completely connected, and you want to know what’s reachable.
> That’s what we did above, with the visited field.
Throughout my career, my main two interests in software have been games and
programming languages. Lately, I've been delighted how much overlap I see
between them. Here, breadth-first search is both a bread-and-butter algorithm
for pathfinding in games. It's also the exact same process you use in a mark-
sweep garbage collector.
I used to not be that interested in many of the algorithms you learn in
school. I thought they were a lot of CS navel gazing and rarely useful outside
of publishing papers. I was more into software architecture at a high level
and concrete APIs and algorithms that actually put interesting stuff on
screen.
But, at least when it comes to graphs, over the past several years, I've been
truly astonished at how many real-world programs I've had to write that have a
core component that is best expressed as a graph and then solved using one of
the well-known graph traversal algorithms.
I've done a version resolver for a package manager, a data processing
pipeline, a roguelike, a couple of garbage collectors, and other stuff I'm
forgetting, and they all use graphs. DFS, BFS, topological sorting, and
transitive closures are my trusty secret weapons.
------
Max_Mustermann
I remember Amit's blog from my Realm of the Mad God days. Glad to see him on
HN. He has a very interesting series about procedural map generation:
[http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/...](http://www-
cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/)
------
diziet
If you are interested in pathfinding and these kind of problems, I suggest to
check out [http://www.pathery.com/](http://www.pathery.com/) \- NP complete
K-Most-Vital-Node problem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo shuts down six products - shill
http://ycorpblog.com/2013/04/19/355356/
======
soupboy
What I find even more interesting that these shutdowns is that an entry from
the Yahoo corp blog has made it to the front page of Hacker News. This may be
a sign that people are starting to find Yahoo related news interesting again.
~~~
tekacs
I probably titled it poorly, but my earlier post[1] about Yahoo's new mobile
weather app (Yahoo doing _mobile_ right?!?) didn't get past a single point. :P
[1]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5577427>
~~~
webwanderings
Have you checked forecast.io? It is even more interesting because it is a
website which looks like a mobile app. Besides, the weather data it provides
is awesomely simple.
~~~
tekacs
Thanks for pointing that out!
Like the sibling commenter here, I find that I almost exclusively check the
weather on my phone, but I'll keep this at the back of my mind for more
thought-out planning. :)
------
revelation
Error 999 Copyright © 2006 Yahoo!
\---
Ironically, that's exactly how I think of Yahoo: stuck in 2006 and "are they
dead yet?"
~~~
justinwr
People used Yahoo in 2006?
~~~
jlgaddis
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but a decade or so ago, before
Google arrived on the scene, Yahoo! was actually very popular.
~~~
dbecker
Google was on the scene well before 2006. I think that comment was meant to be
interpreted as
"people still used Yahoo! as late as 2006?"
------
smackfu
Verge article, since it seems dead:
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/19/4243852/yahoo-shuts-
down-d...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/19/4243852/yahoo-shuts-down-deals-
kids-upcoming-and-more-in-attempt-to-focus)
Here's the list:
>Deals, Yahoo Upcoming (and its API), Yahoo Kids, Yahoo SMS Alerts, and the
J2ME feature phone versions of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger, all on April
30th.
------
eblume
Yahooligans was my introduction to the web. I'm sad to see it go. I hope it
remains well-archived.
~~~
dave5104
Yahooligans was my elementary school computer classes! :(
------
booruguru
I don't understand why Yahoo! never properly promoted Upcoming.org. In fact, I
don't understand why companies like Yahoo! go out of their way to acquire nice
things only to abandon them when the next new, shiny thing comes along.
~~~
jmathai
It's part of the dysfunction.
------
drewmclellan
It's probably a good call to shut down these services. Yahoo has to change to
survive.
What's not good is the amount of notice. 3 months should be the absolute
minimum notice for shutting down a service. Otherwise you lose users' trust
and that closes doors on future opportunities.
------
ajitk
Not pertinent to the discussion, but why does some of the links use
<http://google.com/url?q=> prefix for redirecting URLs? Any advantage of doing
so instead of directly linking to the posts?
~~~
timdorr
Because whomever wrote this article was Googling the results (yes, the irony
is palpable) and simply copied the URL, which is prefixed in Google's SERP.
------
onemorepassword
Whatever happened to Upcoming as a concept? It took quite a while for Lanyrd
to fill the gap for tech conference goers, but that's basically just "us".
I just wonder why this turned out not to be a viable service. I would think
there would have been a market for a global event calendar, and Upcoming at
one time seemed well on it's way to being that until it got "Flickr-ed" by
Yahoo.
~~~
spullara
I wish it had gotten Flickr-ed. Flickr grew 2-3 orders of magnitude under
Yahoo and is still the dominant site for photos you might want to look at
again.
------
andrewljohnson
If Mayer's playbook is to make Yahoo like Google, and to do what Page does
from quarter-to-quarter, I don't think that's a bad plan actually.
Yahoo exists strictly on momentum at this point, so it's not a matter of re-
org to fix - it's a matter or org. Might as well clone Google for the seed and
go from there.
~~~
babuskov
Agreed. For one, it seems that Yahoo mail app on my Android syncs and works
much faster than GMail. Maybe GMail has nailed the top spot for webmail, but
it looks like Yahoo is ahead on Android. Don't know about iOS apps though,
anyone?
------
parfe
Thankfully I don't use these products so the shutdown doesn't personally
affect me. The only issue that jumps out is the post went up 4/19 Friday
afternoon and the shutdown date is 4/30, including the API. Anyone relying on
these services has 7 business days to respond.
~~~
zalew
"Like we announced last month" (link to post from 01.03)
~~~
parfe
If you click through, that post announces a different set of services which
have now been shut down. "Last Month" was avatars, Yahoo on Blackberry, Clues,
App Search, Sports IQ, boards, and Updates API.
That blog post was March 1st and the services shutdown April 1st with the
Updates API shutting down April 16th.
~~~
zalew
oh, right, sorry.
well, pretty irresponsible then. you come back from a short vacation and your
data is gone.
~~~
aray
This is an important point. Not only should your online services have an easy
way for you to get data out of them, but you probably should have a reasonably
sane backup schedule, just like you would for hard drives/physical media/etc.
That being said this is a very short amount of time, and hopefully future
shutdowns like this at yahoo and other places give more of a warning.
------
dave5104
Did anyone notice that a number of the links in the blog post are being routed
through Google? (via google.com/url?q=theurl) What's up with that?
~~~
PavlovsCat
Maybe copy & paste of those links from a search results page, without paying
attention to what URL actually gets pasted?
------
joshguthrie
Brace yourselves for some posts in the next days...
* "How I've been living with my mail server at home for six months"
* "Yahoo pushed for the use of technology INSERT_TECHNOLOGY_NAME and now they're trying to kill it by closing INSERT_SERVICE_NAME!"
* "Yahoo INSERT_SERVICE_NAME is closing, use INSERT_APP_NAME-ly to replace it (and import your current configuration)."
* "Show HN: This weekend I built an app to replace INSERT_SERVICE_NAME. It will never close, I promise."
------
brianbreslin
I always imagined yahoo kids was profitable for them. maybe disney/angry-
birds/whomever are just too dominant?
------
cpeterso
Upcoming and Yahoo Deals seem like good product ideas for improving
personalization for users' local news. Does Yahoo have replacements for these
services?
------
didip
I'm surprised that Yahoo! directory (<http://dir.yahoo.com>) is not in the
gang of six.
------
ivix
Wow, did not realise that a) Yahoo kids existed and b) it was so
embarrassingly terrible.
------
dustyreagan
Hmm, think it might be time to get around to backing up my Flickr photos.
------
lquist
Might one say that they are putting more wood behind fewer arrows?
------
fatjokes
Probably a good call. I had never heard of any of those six.
~~~
_pius
Upcoming.org was a big deal once upon a time.
------
mmuro
Hey Google, this is what it really means to focus.
~~~
psbp
Yahoo could commit genocide and you idiots would compare it favorably to
closing Google reader.
~~~
guyzero
I regret that I have but one up-arrow to click on for this comment.
Google does this annually and they get criticized for it every time. Yahoo
does it at the behest of their new ex-Googler CEO and now it's a great idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AmigaOS 3.1.4 - cedel2k1
http://hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php/where-to-buy/direct-downloads/188-amigaos-314
======
aaronharder
Previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109930)
~~~
sctb
Thanks!
------
ekianjo
Great to see updates! I wonder how Hyperion stays afloat financially though?
~~~
Apocryphon
AmigaOS vs. ArcaOS: battle of the legacy projects of classic closed-source
OS's propped up by lingering companies
------
analognoise
How are these people still in business? I mean how can this make enough money
to stay afloat?
~~~
Fjolsvith
The code base for the OS is tiny, compared to OS's nowadays. How much time do
they have to invest to make improvements?
~~~
ekianjo
Even if this is true, the amount of features they added in this update must
have taken a while to implement and test. The question on how they get enough
funding is still valid.
------
ot8
I always wonder "why?". Like Haiku and other old tech projects I just can't
see the sense of spending time and effort on dead tech.
Also, wow that is intensely ugly (but maybe that's just me).
~~~
Apocryphon
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing)
Why do auto enthusiasts work on classic cars?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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