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Demant Gamified Fundraising Process - awwstn
https://medium.com/@demant/demant-gamified-fundraising-process-60ff9b19fc6a
======
aspec00
Every founder should follow this advice if you want to improve your chances at
a successful raise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebAssembly Interface Types: Interoperate with All the Things - skellertor
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/08/webassembly-interface-types/
======
the_duke
I'm very happy to see the WebIDL proposal replaced with something generalized.
The article brings up an interesting point:
Webassembly really could enable seamless cross-language integration in the
future.
Writing a project in Rust, but really want to use that popular face detector
written in Python?
And maybe the niche language tokenizer written in PHP?
And sprinkle ffmpeg on top, without the hassle of target-compatible
compilation and worrying about use after free vulnerabilities?
No problem use one of the many WASM runtimes popping up (like [1], [2]) and
combine all those libraries by using their pre-compiled WASM packages
distributed on a package repo like WAPM [2], with auto-generated bindings that
provide a decent API from your host language.
Sounds too good to be true? Probably, and there are plenty of issues to solve.
But it sounds like a future where we could prevent a lot of the re-writes and
duplication across the open source world by just tapping into the ecosystems
of other languages.
[1] [https://wapm.io/](https://wapm.io/) [2]
[https://github.com/CraneStation/wasmtime](https://github.com/CraneStation/wasmtime)
[2] [https://wapm.io/](https://wapm.io/)
~~~
wahern
JVM (Java), Parrot (Perl 6 VM) and CLR (C#) shipped easy, multi-language
environments over a decade ago. For some definitions of "easy" and "multi-
language".
Different programming languages exist for many reasons, only one of which is
syntax. Many of these reasons relate to data structures and runtime control
flow. WASM won't be able to "solve" these issue any better than the JVM,
Parrot, or CLR did. (Spoiler: they didn't, and WASM won't.) At best you'll get
a Rust'ish WASM, Python'ish WASM, PHP'ish WASM, etc. And all of those will
feel like a cousin to JavaScript, just as anything on the JVM feels similar to
Java, on Parrot feels similar to Perl 6, and on the CLR feels similar to C#.
WASM's choice of data structures, control flow, and data representations will
be strongly influenced by the requirements of the major JavaScript engines (in
Firefox, Chrome, and maybe WebKit). This is _already_ the case when it comes
to control flow semantics.
~~~
asdkhadsj
Ah, there it is, the JVM discussion in any WASM thread. I kid.
On topic though, I'll be curious to see how bad it really is. The demo video
showed code that ended up looking and behaving like normal Rust code. Maybe
you'll end up with some oddities like Rust enums not being supported, but w/e.
At the end of the day, I don't need to make weird and often gross C bindings
in my Rust or Go code. Is that not a huge win?
But you're right, maybe this will go the way of the JVM and no one will care.
Or maybe not. Does it matter?
_edit_ : And I should add, maybe I keep forgetting where my well supported
JVM Python <-> Rust or Go <-> Rust bridge is. Maybe someone can remind me,
because I've not seen it.
~~~
ori_b
> _At the end of the day, I don 't need to make weird and often gross C
> bindings in my Rust or Go code. Is that not a huge win?_
You just need to manually insert stack growth checks before all function calls
in anything that can be called from go to support goroutines, because those
can't live on a normal stack and still be sufficiently small to support
desired go semantics. Async has similar issues, where the semantics are
incompatible, which means that many things go horribly wrong in cross-language
calls
Or you use a lowest common denominator and essentially treat the thing like an
rpc, with a thick layer to paper over semantic mismatches.
And that's before we get to things like C++ or D templates, Rust or Lisp
macros, and similar. Those are lazy syntactic transformations on source code,
and are meaningless across languages. Not to mention that, if unused, they
produce no data to import. But, especially in modern C++, they're incredibly
important.
~~~
afiori
I think Rust macros and C++ templates are not lazy wrt execution.
~~~
ori_b
They are lazy wrt compilation. So, unless you use the specialization in C++ or
Rust, there's no code to call.
std::vector<Java.lang.Object>
Simply doesn't exist for interop code to call.
------
syrusakbary
Super happy to see WebAssembly Interface Types in development!
At Wasmer (disclaimer, I'm the founder!) we've been creating integrations with
a lot different languages (C, C++, Rust, Python, Ruby, PHP, C# and R) and we
agree that this is a pain point and an important problem to solve. We're
excited that Mozilla is also pushing this forward.
If you want to start using WebAssembly anywhere:
[https://wasmer.io/](https://wasmer.io/)
Keep up the good work! Let's bring WebAssembly everywhere!
~~~
jedisct1
Is this going to replace wasmer's WebAssembly interfaces?
As a library implementer, I'm a bit lost about how to expose functions from a
wasm module to the outside world.
wasmer's interfaces have the advantage of being very simple to write. But they
are not very expressive.
WebIDL is horrible, albeit more expressive.
At the same time, I feel like this is not enough.
My experience with libsodium.js, one of the first library exposing wasm (and
previously asm.js) to other environments, has been that IDLs simply exposing
function interfaces are not good enough.
For example, C functions returning 0 or -1 to indicate an error or not, would
not be idiomatic at all if exposed that way in Scala, Javascript or Python. We
want these to raise an exception instead.
Also, we need ways to preallocate buffers, check their size, etc. in order to
make things appear more idiomatic.
In libsodium.js, the description language for the WebAssembly <-> JS glue is
JSON-based. It describes the input and output types, but also their
constraints, and how to interpret the output. That was necessary, and if more
languages are targeted, this is even more necessary.
I feel like WebIDL is both complex, and insufficient.
Another thing that I don't necessarily get is why such a description language
was designed specifically for WebAssembly.
Instead, we could have (yet another) way to describe APIs and how to encode
that description. That description can then be included in ELF libraries, in
Java objects, in WebAssembly modules, whatever. You know, like, what debuggers
already use.
------
adev_
Side comment: a Thumbs-up for Lin Clark and her usual Mozilla blog posts
including this one.
It is easy to understand, very informative and the hand-drawn infographies
makes it pleasant to read.
~~~
CraftThatBlock
Would also like to add that the video in the article
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn_4F3foB3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn_4F3foB3Q))
is really well made and to the point
------
sunfish
Note that Wasmtime is the engine starring in the blog post and demos :-).
Of course, cross-language interfaces will always have tradeoffs. But we see
Interface Types extending the space where the tradeoffs are worthwhile,
especially in combination with wasm's sandboxing.
------
duxup
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and expose my n00bishness, and honestly a lot
of that article has my head spinning as I google a lot of terms ;)
I've only done web development for a year now and I've seen some cool
WebAssembly demos but mostly those are demos of various frameworks (or no
framework) reusing random WebAssembly components.
It's cool, but I'm missing from a large web application stance how WebAssembly
is supposed to work, specifically when it comes to stuff like you see in some
frameworks with state management across components and etc. Is there an
example of that?
~~~
vcarl
Web assembly is generally an optimization, not an app alternative. Think of it
the way you would the C bindings Node.js has. If you've got a compute-heavy
code path, writing it in C (or Rust etc) and shipping it as web assembly could
be a dramatic perf improvement, but there's not really a substantive benefit
to writing your entire app with it.
~~~
asdkhadsj
> but there's not really a substantive benefit to writing your entire app with
> it.
Amendment: Perhaps it's debatable what "substantive benefit" would be, but
writing the whole app in it is a huge benefit if you really want to do that.
That is to say, for years people wanted to write Web UI stuff in various
languages, this also allows for that.
So while the concrete performance boost may not be meaningful in writing an
entire web app in C, Rust, Go, Python or w/e - to the developer happiness the
boost may be huge for those devs that want it.
~~~
vcarl
Well, you still can't do that—WASM doesn't have DOM bindings, you'd still have
to ship out to JS. I believe that's a goal, so yes eventually that could be a
benefit, but not at the moment.
~~~
pjmlp
DOM bindings are kind of irrelevant when one has WebGL.
One example among many ramping up
[https://platform.uno/](https://platform.uno/)
~~~
mrec
For a smallish subset of use cases, maybe. But replacing the DOM with a
canvas-based UI for general use would be reinventing many of the problems of
Flash.
~~~
pjmlp
Many designers and game devs see it otherwise.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Gamedev is a separate topic. As for designers, they are on the opposite side
from users in the tug-of-war of control over content rendering. I don't
believe they should get 100% of their way.
~~~
mrec
Gamedev falls squarely into my "smallish subset of use cases". It does
legitimately need non-DOM UI, but it's not a huge part of the Web (yet).
As for designers, thank you for finding a much more diplomatic phrasing than
the one I was about to write.
------
mkl
> Document.createElement() takes a string. But when I call it, I’m going to
> pass you two integers. Use these to create a DOMString from data in my
> linear memory. Use the first integer as the starting address of the string
> and the second as the length.
This seems like its introducing buffer overflow vulnerabilities, if the code
can be tricked into using the wrong numbers. Sure, just into WebAssembly
memory, but if everything's implemented in WebAssembly, won't there often be
sensitive information in there?
Doing some more research, it seems like this may be a common problem:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41353389/how-can-i-
retur...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41353389/how-can-i-return-a-
javascript-string-from-a-webassembly-function)
~~~
CUViper
Doesn't each wasm module get its own isolated memory? If so, then you could
only shoot your own sensitive foot.
~~~
kevingadd
Yes, but a "module" can be an application and a full set of its dependencies.
It's unlikely that its dependencies would have isolated heaps, as there would
be no way for them to communicate (they can't touch each others' pointers,
etc) other than through intermediary JS.
So any vulnerability in any piece of wasm in your webpage effectively
compromises everything. One compromised module can also likely reach out into
the page and then use other modules' public interfaces to compromise them too.
There is not sandboxing in place to prevent this sort of attack, the sandbox
merely protects the browser from attack by content.
------
lachlan-sneff
So this is what they've been up to!
How well will this interact with the upcoming (hopefully before the heatdeath
of the universe) rich gc types extension?
~~~
sunfish
Interface types will make it easy for two modules to interface with each
other, regardless of whether both sides use GC, just one side does, or neither
side does. And even within GC types, different languages have different ways
of representing strings, and Interface Types can allow them to talk to each
other.
------
aloknnikhil
Good effort. But the bit about using Protobuf, Cap'nProto only in processes
that don't share memory is wrong. Sure, that may not be how they're
traditionally used. But that doesn't exclude me from defining opaque C FFIs
that pass/return opaque bytes that are serialized messages and have it be
deserialized on the other end.
------
hackcasual
Glad to see this being worked on. The difference between a heap vs. runtime
managed object is a huge perf gap for tightly interoperating JS and WASM. At
my company, we built a specific object representation that would allow zero
copy, through array buffer sharing, views of C++ data from Javascript. Sounds
very similar to this.
~~~
ptx
I got the impression from the article that it will always copy data (e.g.
strings) between wasm modules. Did I misread it?
------
hinkley
I hope someone with their hand in these specs experienced the dumpster fire
that was SOAP interoperability and is taking pains to be sure we don't have
the same class of problems in wasm.
------
gyre007
Oh, this is wonderful. Getting closer to that multilang WASM world.
------
skrowl
WOW that was too much to read. Can someone TLDR when we'll be able to get rid
of Electron using this for me?
~~~
sunfish
Much of what makes Electron Electron are the APIs it provides. The blog post
here is a way to describe and work with APIs, not actual new APIs.
We're working on APIs too, in WASI, but there's a lot of work to do to build
everything you'd need to build Electron-like apps.
------
baybal2
I'm a strong opponent of WASM because I think that WASM will break the
internet the very same way _and same reason_ ActiveX and Java applets broke it
over 20 years ago.
An untrusted executable code, no matter how much sandboxed, virtualised, and
isolated it is, would never be a good thing. It wasn't 20 years ago, and would
never be, invariably of what "tech sauce" it is served with.
I advocate for proactive removal of WASM lobbyists from standard setting
bodies, and countering their promotion of WASM.
~~~
omn1
ActiveX and Java applets were proprietary when they got introduced. WASM is an
open standard that it supported by all browser vendors and already integrated
without any third-party plugins. There is a spec for it that you can
contribute to.
~~~
baybal2
It doesn't change a thing. Both ax and java were quite well documented and
free for everybody to use, but they definitely _broke the Internet_ for
everybody without any exaggeration.
I'll explain you why in the most neutral tone I can.
Do you understand that biggest peddlers of inscrutinable executable format on
the web are people who are _not fine_ with the open nature of the Internet,
and who _can not_ make their business when all code available through the
browser is available to at least minimal form of inspection?
In other words, the people who are mad because they can't run business in the
web because their business model depends on their code being closed, they WANT
THIS big time. Their business thrives off non-interoperability and brokennes
of software at large. Their success comes at the detriment of the Internet
ecosystem at large. The more they brake the Internet for the rest of its
users, the more money they can make, and this is why there can not be
reconciliation with them and, us, the wider and more sane part of software
developer community.
And we, the engineering cadres, the most influential class of people in the
new tech driven world, have all the influence needed to deny WASM adoption.
~~~
AlexanderDhoore
Modern minified javascript is just as inscrutable as anything else.
For example, please try to read this code:
[https://apis.google.com/js/client.js](https://apis.google.com/js/client.js)
You would need a "decompiler" to make anything out of that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Programming a Problem-Oriented-Language - sea6ear
http://www.colorforth.com/POL.htm
======
dang
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Programming+a+Problem-
Oriented+Lan...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Programming+a+Problem-
Oriented+Language#!/story/forever/0/Programming%20a%20Problem-
Oriented%20Language)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where’s July’s “Who‘s Hiring” Post? - acdanger
======
detaro
Those are posted on the first _weekday_ of the month.
~~~
conanbatt
Dang, it should really be automated away.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
From Two Guys Building Their own Browser - dominik-space
https://medium.com/spacebrowser/from-two-guys-building-their-own-browser-3aa56787982f
======
gwbas1c
IMO: Get to the point early! establish what's different / special / unique
about your browser. All you need is 1-2 paragraphs early in your story.
I made it to "Rebranding and the early days of Space Browser" and stopped
reading. Why? The article is autobiographical without establishing enough
context to keep me interested in you. (In other cases, if you or your product
was well known, something autobiographical without establishing context is
okay.)
BTW: It's worth trying to disambiguate, early on, if you're building your own
HTML rendering engine, or just reusing something else.
------
ilaksh
It's just a little bit disingenuous to describe it as "building your own
browser".
Because a browser has so many features at this point that it basically
contains an operating system. So to duplicate that its just necessary to start
with some existing browser and tweak it.
Out of the thousands of features that enable me to browse across diverse
websites, what percentage of those features did you implement in your "new"
browser?
What does it actually do that is different from WebKit?
~~~
gen3
I don't see how it's disingenuous. They made a browser the same way google
chrome started (from WebKit), or WebKit started (khtml), or the way opera and
Vivaldi currently are (chrome).
------
GreaterFool
Had a quick look. None of this looks like features for power users. How are
"spaces" different than having multiple open windows?
~~~
dominik-space
They do not need the same amount of memory than different windows would need,
since we use an intelligente caching system.
~~~
gruez
Can you elaborate more on this? My understanding is that on modern browsers,
most of the memory usage comes from the tab's contents (pages), or extensions.
In both cases they don't scale up with the number of windows.
~~~
arghwhat
A lot of browser memory consumption comes with overheads from their multi-
process models.
However, that aside, it makes no difference whether you have a window, tab, or
"space".
~~~
dleslie
The multi process model was an improvement. In days past browsers were single
process, and suffered from:
\- JavaScript on one page dragging down all tabs
\- Memory leaks
\- JavaScript exploits that crossed tabs
And so on.
Multi process browsing is fantastic.
~~~
arghwhat
We still have all but the first issue, and that one has nothing to do with
multi- _process_ browsing, just multi-threaded processing.
So all we really won was performance regressions (the IPC is expensive) and
significantly increased resource consumption.
------
clouddrover
> _Usually the tabs just lay there and cost you a lot of memory. And forget to
> find this one tab you were looking for. It’s impossible. The time has come
> for a change._
I use bookmarks.
------
PabloOnTech
I understand why you’re going for mobile, but I think the market would be way
bigger if you would go for desktop. Nice concept though.
~~~
CodeWriter23
I’m thinking along the same lines, because I would never attempt to navigate
the Tab Sea of Doom on a tablet, with a standard browser like Safari or
Chrome.
I’m going to give this a try anyway. Maybe the utility of having reference
materials on a third screen, that I can glance at without obfuscating my
editor behind a browser window will net some productivity gain. When I need
copy/paste and codepen-type solutions, I’ll fire the link over to my MBP.
~~~
dominik-space
Sounds good. Let me know how we are doing!
------
monkin
I can't test it, but maybe it's already there... :)
But if I need to add websites to spaces by hand it's not for me as a power
user. Make something that will know what websites I often visit and place them
automatically in certain spaces. You don't need to stop here! You can go
further with this, so if I open 30 tabs of PornHub it will create Adult space
for me so I don't need to worry. ;)
------
jchook
> Will our project ever reach a critical number of people?
To me UI improvements are quite low on the totem pole of “things I wish my
browser did/didn’t do”
For one, we still don’t have sufficient privacy on any major browser. Even
Chromium, FireFox, and Brave don’t cut it.
> Power Users
Second, scriptability, headless, and Unix-like pipeline integrations without
having to use headless chrome and puppeteer. With Phantom gone, it seems we
have no choice.
iOS-only WebKit with a neat tab interface doesn’t strike me as a “power user”
browser.
~~~
gwbas1c
> iOS-only WebKit with a neat tab interface doesn’t strike me as a “power
> user” browser.
But it's a great way to experiment with different UIs.
------
LeonardoRusta
Great blog post! Like it! When is your browser launching?
~~~
dominik-space
We are live on Product Hunt today! Check it out here:
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/space-
browser](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/space-browser).
------
mosdl
Remember Flock? These never work out - its hard to make any money and people
will often revert to the defaults.
~~~
AmVess
The list of discontinued and abandoned browsers is longer than the list of
active browsers...I'm not sure why someone would want to develop a new one in
this day and age when the market for them as settled.
~~~
abeisgreat
The list of discontinued and abandoned businesses is longer than the list of
active businesses...I'm not sure why someone would want to develop a new one
in this day and age when the market for them as settled.
------
uk31
Was expecting them to actually be writing a web browser engine though with the
current web standards you would need huge team of seasoned devs a several
years if not decades of work to do this, missleading title. Basically they are
wrapping webkit in a new UI. Boring...
~~~
budu3
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood - Theodore Roosevelt
------
devnonymous
Looks spiffy ! Too bad I can't try it out, what with being a linux user and
all. I like the time traveling aspect and the visualization of it all. Kudos
on the launch. Wish you guys the best.
------
ilaksh
Is this an indication that mobile browsers need support for extensions?
Maybe if companies won't add that then it's a symptom that we need to combat
their browser monopolies somehow.
~~~
dec0dedab0de
Maybe by using Firefox for Android?
------
jscholes
> we unsuccessfully tried to approach bars with a Netflix like subscription
> for drinks.
... wow. Glad you dodged a MoviePass-style bullet on this one.
------
saeedjabbar
@dominik-space just reached out to you on twitter.
~~~
dominik-space
Thanks! Saw it :)
------
mister_hn
if you don't use Chromium, what's the back engine then? Gecko? WebKit?
~~~
gen3
Since it is an ios app, it has to use safari (webkit).
~~~
dominik-space
Exactly, we build on top of WKWebview.
------
Pirolita
Why is their age something to mention?
~~~
gargarplex
Asymmetric advantage in their favor
If it sucks “they’re just 20” If it’s interesting, they’re precocious
imho if you’re using age as downside protection you’ve already lost
~~~
merlinsbrain
Seems like a bold move to me regardless if the engineers are 20 or 50 or 90.
~~~
gargarplex
Being really young is a good story – except that by 20, it invites comparisons
to Stripe's 19-year-old founder.
Being really old is a good story – everyone likes to see someone 60+ still
fighting[developing], especially because there is a pervasive fear of age
discrimination here.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
EDIT: I 100% guarantee that even if this project is not successful, if these
fellows continue plugging away in the industry, they are going to ship
something really awesome.
------
sixbrx
Any plans for an Android version?
------
CodeWriter23
@dominik-space there’s a typo in the link to spacebroswser.io at the end of
your article. A trailing . is in the href attribute and it doesn’t open on my
iPad unless I edit the link.
~~~
dominik-space
Oh, thanks for reaching out! Just fixed it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: what happened to LastPass? - yuvadam
http://lastpass.com yields:<p><pre><code> An error occurred during a connection to lastpass.com.
Peer's Certificate has been revoked.
(Error code: sec_error_revoked_certificate)</code></pre>
======
mike-cardwell
Their certificate has been revoked. Will be interesting to find out why.
EDIT: They have a new cert online now. One which hasn't been revoked. The
issuer is the same. The new cert was generated two days ago.
EDIT2: Their old cert. The one which was revoked wasn't due to expire for
another 323 days. I wonder if this is a precaution in case they actually were
hacked and their private ssl key was compromised. Hopefully they'll explain
what happened.
EDIT3: Here's a screen grab of the information Certificate Patrol gave me
about their old and new certificates side by side:
<https://grepular.com/lastpass.png>
EDIT4: On twitter they are stating: "As a security precaution we acquired a
new security certificate, they revoked our old one a bit too soon. Fixed" -
<https://twitter.com/lastpass>
EDIT5: Their latest tweet: "Our new SSL cert is active, this was a planned
security upgrade : In the words of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, DON'T
PANIC."
Checking out their latest blog post from 4 days ago:
[http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpass-security-
notificat...](http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpass-security-
notification.html) it says:
"Multiple security experts and firms were brought in to help us, we've engaged
one firm to do a further source code based review."
I'm guessing one or more of these security experts advised that they should
get their certificate revoked and replaced purely as a precaution. The new
cert has the same expiry date as the old one.
~~~
pwman
Your speculation is correct -- we re-keyed the certificate just as a
precaution. Rolling a new cert is tough as thousands of people's clocks are
wrong, so we thought we'd give it a full day so those people wouldn't receive
errors -- we didn't realize the old one would be revoked so quickly (it was
automatic with the rekey).
~~~
rdl
Best practice in this case would be to get your new cert from a new CA, then
revoke the old one with the original CA once you've got the new cert in place.
Plus, of course, announcing everything in advance. (I'd wait a month or so
unless you had specific fear of the old one having been compromised).
~~~
sixcorners
Just wondering.. Why use a new CA?
~~~
rdl
The new CA won't invalidate your old CA's cert. You want to preserve
availability of the old CA's cert until the new one is deployed across all
your servers.
In practice, SSL (with CA certified keys issued by lame public CAs) is only
really protection from passive eavesdropping anyway; there are enough bad or
lax CAs out there that you have to assume an attacker can get a key for an
arbitrary site, or can steal a site (not protected in an HSM) from almost any
site.
There's nothing really wrong with the X509 PKI in the abstract, but it doesn't
really work well for real identity on the Internet. Protection from passive
attacks is worthwhile, but it's not worth the disruption to your users to push
beyond that to try to keep only one key at a time out there.
------
caseyboardman
Seems to be back now...
------
ra
it works fine for me. I see they've updated their website design.
------
dotpot
works for me...
| {
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Burn Rate vs Runway: StartupCFO : Mark MacLeod - buckpost
http://www.startupcfo.ca/2012/02/burn-rate-vs-runway/
======
casca
Summary: Should you spend more and have a shorter runway to potentially get to
market quicker?
Answer: "it depends"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Weekly group calls to discuss business ideas - joalavedra
I am thinking of creating weekly calls with whoever would be interested in discussing business ideas or side-projects. The call will only happen once per week and anyone can hop on. Interested?
======
joalavedra
Have some ideas on communities and communication tech
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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IT and security professionals think normal people are just the worst - howard941
https://www.zdnet.com/article/it-professionals-think-normal-people-are-stupid/
======
hexadec
Considering nearly a third of incidents [0] were from insiders, this seems
about right regarding internal threats. They also include security folks in
internal threats, it is users doing their job and trying to get things done
that can inadvertently comprising security.
Not sure what the point of this rambling, barely coherent rant was though. Is
he saying that internal people should not be protected? Security is useless? I
seriously cannot parse his logic and argument.
[0]- [https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-
pro...](https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-
protection/look-2018-verizon-dbir-key-takeaways-industry-highlights/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What is the difference between Cloud Computing and Clown Computing? - franze
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Cloud-Computing-and-Clown-Computing
======
tudorizer
_Giggling_ You forgot to mention anything about scalability.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face - mlmartin
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7036141/Police-fine-pedestrian-90-facial-recognition-camera-row.html
======
StavrosK
> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned
> will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”.
That's why it's called "erosion of rights" and not "outright nullification of
rights". Unfortunately, it works, and it's entirely unsurprising that face
surveillance will become normalized.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
There's a reason they're doing it in London first. In a wealthy city like
London you can get away with going full "law and order" because the ratio of
rich to poor is better (i.e more rich people) and the rich generally view this
as no threat to them. Then once it's normalized they roll it out to Liverpool,
Belfast and everywhere else that the poors are less under the thumb of the
government.
You see this in the US. Boston, DC, New York, etc are littered with
surveillance cameras and ALPRs. Once it's normalized they'll roll it out to
places like New Bedford, Norlfolk and Buffalo and all the other places where
the government (as an organization, not as individuals) feels its respected
less.
~~~
arethuza
If there is one place where the authorities might take a bit of care around
implementing new surveillance technologies you would hope it would be Belfast.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
That's basically what I was thinking. I figure as soon as the system is
sufficiently "mature" they'll use it there.
I hope they totally screw it up and touch off the kind of "civil unrest" that
you need in order to remind the government that people have rights.
------
bArray
This makes me very sad for many reasons:
* People are losing their freedom of privacy in the name of safety and most accept it. Many are likely unaware at this stage of the trade-off.
* One activist was in presence by happen chance, otherwise this likely would have gone unreported.
* The database _currently_ only keeps peoples data for 30 days. When the UK leaves the EU, this will likely be extended. China has already experienced multiple data breaches.
* It's unclear what data is kept and deleted, I suspect that metadata may be retained indefinitely.
* The money being spent on these systems could be spent getting more officers on the ground. I have no doubt they are sinking millions of pounds into this project.
* The police initially started testing this system illegally, there were no repercussions.
* The majority of people being arrested as a result of this technology are probably not the worst people in society. I believe this will be used to disproportionately target poorer people and petty crimes.
* Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in" in fear of a public servant.
~~~
timthorn
> Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an
> offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in"
> in fear of a public servant.
Yes it is: From the Public Order Act 1986
([http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64))
A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment,
alarm or distress, he—
(a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly
behaviour, or
(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is
threatening, abusive or insulting,
thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
~~~
wlkr
There are exceptions for police officers though, who are expected to tolerate
some swearing. Relevant cases are listed on Wikipedia.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_198...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_1986#Police_officers)
~~~
geodel
Well it is just like I learn for driving test that one should remain calm if
other driver jumps red light, cut him off or honks unnecessarily. It does not
mean aggressor is right, just that one should try de-escalate the situation.
------
Angostura
From the Independent coverage:
> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned
> will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said
> several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.
> “The guy told them to p __* off and then they gave him the £90 public order
> fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.”
I live close to Romford, and I'm quite tempted to wander past with my face
obscured and then politely decline if asked to be photographed.
Of course, I'm white, middle class and middle aged, so I probably wont be
stopped.
~~~
petercooper
_“The guy told them to p_ off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine
for swearing,”*
This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on
the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own,
but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this.
The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone
arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.
~~~
kevin_b_er
This is called selective enforcement and is part of the erosion of the rule of
law in the UK. When you have mountains of laws such that most people are
always violating them, you can target anyone you don't like. This leads to
abuse of power and is formative in the transformation of police from those
that uphold the law to thugs. The thugs decide when to punish on whim.
------
upofadown
We haven't really even come to terms with the false positive rate associated
with just looking at people. When law enforcement wants to check ID all they
have to do is say they thought you looked like someone. The high rate of false
positives is a feature not a bug. You could set up an empty box with a lens
drawn on it with a motion detector aimed to go off 4% of the time and the
result would be almost as useful to law enforcement as a facial detection
system that actual did something. The facial detection just increases the
efficiency of the "papers please" checkpoint.
------
shawabawa3
Slight correction: It seems he wasn't exactly fined for hiding his face.
Police asked him to uncover his face and he told them to "piss off", for which
he was fined.
~~~
bArray
You'll find in the UK that it's quite common practice to use the vagueness in
the law to pin a different charge on somebody. Being rude to a police officer
isn't a chargeable offense, yet it'll be treated as such. The police have no
requirement or training available to actually understand the nuances of the
law, nor are they updated when the law changes. The British police is mostly
under-trained and under-funded, especially as you break out of the London
bubble.
One of the major issues with UK law is it's vagueness and openness to
interpretation, which is all of course by design. You don't tend to notice
erosion until the ground beneath you collapses.
~~~
marme
In the US you would just get charged with resisting arrest. This is what
happens when they ask for your ID and you refuse to give it to them. You wont
be convicted but the fact that you can be arrested for resisting arrest
without committing any crime is a problem
------
telesilla
In a science fiction world, those of us who cared about privacy would start
wearing make-up (until it was banned):
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeu...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeup/374929/)
We don't do this en masse now because "The very thing that makes you invisible
to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans"
~~~
wnkrshm
I wonder, what about methods that do not obstruct human vision but do obstruct
the camera? Like a faceshield, transparent mask or bag that you can wear (like
a transparent raincoat hood) but one that has scattering features for near IR
light that will hide your face to cameras.
Or laser dazzlers that look for lenses. Both will probably be quickly banned
as criminal tools (like 'hacking tools' are in some nations).
You could also project time-dependent illumination patterns on your own face,
throwing off algorithms.
~~~
telesilla
I think we need temporary tattoos: they should dissolve over a few days, so
you can new ones and avoid re-detection, but not be able to be "taken off" by
police wishing to scan you. Something that is worn would be considered as
disobedience, like the shirt the man in the article pulled over this face.
We just need one of the Kardashians to make it fashionable and then it's all
over for face detection.
------
ChuckNorris89
How do they enforce this on people wearing hijabs or other religios clothing
that covers the face?
~~~
Mediterraneo10
Hijabs do not cover the face. A niqab or burqa would, but the former are very
rare in the West, and the latter virtually nonexist.
~~~
781
Maybe in the countryside. Go to any West EU capital and you'll see planty of
niqabs and burqas.
~~~
Mediterraneo10
> you'll see plenty of ... burqas
No, you won’t. The burqa is extremely rare in Western Europe. This is pointed
out whenever political parties propose a burqa ban: a country would be banning
something that isn’t even a significant thing there. IIRC, the total number of
burqa wearers in all of France, for example, does not exceed 300.
As for niqabs, you do see one from time to time, but they certainly aren’t
common against the total Muslim population, and when you do, it may be that
the wearers are visitors from e.g. the Gulf states and not locals.
~~~
781
I see a burqa weekly and 10+ niqabs every day, and the area that I live is not
what you would call a "muslim zone". It's certainly not a tourist zone, so
unlikely to be non-locals.
~~~
Mediterraneo10
At this point I can only assume that you are not operating with any standard
scholarly definition of the word "burqa". There are different terms for the
various modesty garments from the Muslim world for a reason.
~~~
whenchamenia
He just used the terms correctly. Is your response to losing an argument to
gaslight their vocabulary? That is not very sporting, even for hn.
~~~
Mediterraneo10
How do you know he is using the term correctly? Seeing burqas regularly in
Western Europe would be so extraordinary a thing, that assuming that he is
using the term incorrectly is kinder than the other conclusion that could be
drawn about his claim. From the downvoting of his posts, others too notice
something is off.
~~~
781
I know very well what a burqa is. It's a weekly sight. I wouldn't call that
extraordinary. I see it way more often than a kippah
[https://www.novinite.com/media/inpictures/201003/photo_veryb...](https://www.novinite.com/media/inpictures/201003/photo_verybig_2908.jpg)
------
cbovis
Very interested to understand what sort of metadata is being stored from these
cameras. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the cameras are being
used to build a database of individual’s movements, whether deliberate or as a
side effect of logging.
Any more information on this from a better source than the DM?
~~~
cbovis
Did a little more digging around this and discovered
[https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-
trial/](https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/) through
Reddit.
“Live Facial Recognition uses NEC’s NeoFace technology to analyse images of
the faces of people on the watch list. It measures the structure of each face,
including distance between eyes, nose, mouth and jaw to create facial data.
The system detects a face, creates a digital version of it and searches it
against the watch list; where it makes a match it sends an alert to an officer
on the scene.
The officer compares the camera image and the watch list image and decides
whether to stop and speak to the person. We always explain why we’ve stopped
someone; we also give them a leaflet that explains how they can contact us to
ask any questions afterwards.
The system will only keep faces matching the watch list, these are kept for 30
days, all others are deleted immediately. We delete all other data on the
watch list and the footage we record.”
------
pbhjpbhj
This was on BBC Click, which is on YouTube (for me, I'm in UK though). A good
programme overall.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A)
They give stats and details.
It may not be the same incident as the OP, but it sounds broadly similar and
the programme fleshes out the general situation well.
Edit: Actually it is the same guy. The issue and provision of the fine, etc.,
it's on the show.
------
YeGoblynQueenne
Is there another source for this? I don't even want to visit the Mail's
website, let alone read whatever misrepresentation of what actually transpired
that they have put down in their article.
~~~
richrichardsson
As someone also not interested in giving the Daily Fail/Heil any traffic what-
so-ever, I found this : [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-
recogniti...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-
cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html)
~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Cheers.
------
moron4hire
>> After being pulled aside, the man told police: 'If I want to cover me face,
I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street.'
Jesus, it's a good thing cops in London don't have guns. Can't imagine how
this would have ended in one of the whitebread suburbs here in the US with our
'roided-out school-yard-bullies-turned-pro.
------
stunt
Well said that we are the last free generation.
It so weird how much of our freedom and privacy we are giving away. People
used to fight for these stuff.
And then you would think how far this can go in near future if this is just
the beginning.
After all, all these fear and mixed feelings about security and conflicts are
caused by a long chain of reactions and consequences of bad decisions
governments are making themselves around the world. And it is sad that normal
people end up losing their privacy more than responsible ones do.
It requires a fundamental strategy change that is not going to happen in
reality. I wonder what kind of destructive side effects it will have for the
future generations specially to the culture.
------
vixen99
For those who prefer not to go to the Daily Mail directly:
"Camera cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against wanted database.
One man covered face before officers stopped him and took his picture anyway.
He was fined £90 at scene in Romford by police who arrested three other people
Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer"
~~~
willyt
Technically he was fined for swearing at the police, not for covering his
face. If he had said nothing he would not have been fined but might have been
searched as the police have the power to stop and search anyone who they have
reasonable cause to suspect is acting suspiciously.
~~~
kwhitefoot
But they didn't have reasonable cause.
~~~
sleepychu
Actually in England they don't need reasonable grounds.
[https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-
rig...](https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights)
> You can only be stopped and searched without reasonable grounds if it has
> been approved by a senior police officer.
This can happen if it is suspected that:
serious violence could take place
you’re carrying a weapon or have used one
you’re in a specific location or area
~~~
Zak
> _you’re in a specific location or area_
Are the specific locations this applies to defined in law, or can a senior
police officer just say "this neighborhood has a lot of criminals; search
everyone"?
~~~
sleepychu
Bit of a mix, seems possible to make justification for an entire city. [1]
[1] -
[https://twitter.com/brumpolice/status/1100765101156634624](https://twitter.com/brumpolice/status/1100765101156634624)
~~~
Zak
That's... even worse than I feared, and most of the responses to the tweet are
supportive.
------
marcod
Another report [https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-
fa...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-face-police-
facial-recognition-cameras-9571463/) It's a little bit like saying "If she
doesn't want to be tossed into the water she must be a witch!"
------
bredren
I regularly see people going around with their faces covered in Portland. For
example, guy in dark clothes on a bmx bike riding down east bank esplanade.
I assume that these folks have warrants. But I am not aware of any deployed
facial recognition in Portland.
~~~
tasty_freeze
If they are doing it for that reason, that seems like a bad choice. That would
stand out even more obviously than had they worn a T-shirt that said "The
police are looking for me".
~~~
bredren
I thought the same but you still see it all the time.
------
coldcode
1984 was not intended to be a how-to manual.
------
Zenst
I wonder if you could copyright your face and then use the law against the
law. DMCA takedowns etc etc.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's not an artistic work, and there are broad rights to images in public that
preclude you from making a work on your face to prevent imaging of it.
It's a nice idea but it would allow lots of law breaking of things worked that
way. Eg paint something on your car, now police can't capture you on speed
camera!!11one.
~~~
Zenst
Yes sadly that is the crux. Whilst the people do have concerns, those concerns
are shared for nefarious reasons by your criminally inclined.
Way things are going, how long until we have camera technology as CCTV that is
comparable to Holywood camera's - certainly the standard today is up there
with 80's offering.
Might even come a time when you can do a film in places like London without
needing any cameras as you can just ab-use the data protection act to get
copies of any footage your in and get all the camera angles and video you need
to edit into a film. Kinda doable now, though not all cameras are 4k and well
light area's. But certainly doable.
One interesting legal aspect about CCTV in the UK - the only camera's that are
allowed to record audio are the ones located outside police stations. Which is
reassuring as with mic-arrays - intrusion into privacy and indeed voice
recognition would be far greater than any CCTV/facial recognition. But that is
one to watch and keep an eye upon as I'm sure that will change/erode over
time.
------
TomK32
How good is this software if you just close one eye and make a grimace while
walking by?
------
teekert
Show your face, slave!
------
neiman
... and now his face is all over hackernews. Great.
------
sudoaza
Police state intensifies
------
pif
I personally don't see any issue with this.
If you want absolute privacy, than stay at home.
If you want absolute freedom, than go live somewhere where nobody else lives.
Society runs on compromises: your freedon to swing your fist ends where my
nose begins (and viceversa); your privacy ends where my safety is concerned
(and viceversa).
~~~
seieste
What’s your full name, phone number, and street address?
If you want privacy, then don’t post online.
~~~
wallace_f
He doesn't even have an Online Commenting License. A hefty fine under the
Against Hate Speech Act of 2022.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The right way to start a company - bootload
https://medium.com/@gerstenzang/the-right-way-to-start-a-company-8fe4932b59d0#.1gogp5oyi
======
brianstorms
Hmm. My takeaway from this article is that the author simply doesn't have a
burning passion to change something in the world or build something that
should be in the world, and so a startup has not come to mind. Which is the
right course of action: do nothing. Just starting a startup for startup's sake
is the worst possible reason. And sometimes the startups that are started are
flukes, even obnoxious flukes like Harvard's TheFacebook, and the true
business emerges because the founder(s) were smart enough to quickly figure
out what was going (and catching) on, how the market was reacting, and they
pursued that vigorously and executed brilliantly. I consider all the big
widely covered stories, WhatsApp, Facebook, Airbnb, etc., random flukes that
executed well with grit and a determination not to give up. But I don't find
them very inspiring.
All the startups I founded or co-founded (none located in Silicon Valley) were
based on a burning desire to build something that wasn't available to the
public but SHOULD be, and I was determined to make it available. Once I
decided to go forward, nothing could stop me. Made a thousand mistakes, some
in the end costing the respective company. But figuring out what to do as a
startup was not typically the hard part. Not having enough good people or
funding was. I hope to do another startup but right now I don't have any
burning passion to build something that's not yet in the world except for
stuff related to improving the way the voting public is informed by media (aka
stopping how the public is misinformed by media), sustainable energy,
improving health, and making people happier. We'll see if something emerges.
~~~
samg
author here– agree with many of your points, except two: 1) I think great
ideas are surprisingly rare, and are very difficult to recognize. It's
especially hard because of how important execution is for 'uncovering' a great
idea. Great idea, badly executed = looks like a bad idea
2) I think "burning passion" oversimplifies things. Many great businesses are
built without 'passion' for the solution...just a passion for some part of the
business...and sometimes that's just recognition of a great financial
opportunity.
~~~
jacquesm
> I think great ideas are surprisingly rare, and are very difficult to
> recognize.
Great ideas are super common. What is exceptional is great execution of those
ideas. For every 'great idea' that you see around you go back to the root.
Then you'll find many still born or eventually dead companies around that
exact same 'great idea' but executed in a half-hearted or wrong way.
~~~
vinceguidry
> Great ideas are super common. What is exceptional is great execution of
> those ideas.
I'd like to see this unpacked. What is it about an idea that makes it great?
What's the difference between those and the bad ideas? How do you figure out
whether your idea is great or whether it sucks?
Is it really that the idea just doesn't matter? That's where I'm leaning. The
idea itself as something that's iterated on until you get to some intermediate
state between problem-solution fit and finding traction.
~~~
jacquesm
Let's just take a few examples:
AltaVista -> Google
Idea: search engine. Execution: AltaVista soso, Google: excellent
Geocities -> MySpace -> FaceBook
Idea: A place where people anchor themselves on the web
Execution: geocities: hobbled by the tech available at that point in time,
MySpace: a bit better but still missed the boat, FaceBook: excellent
execution, _more_ limited in presentation than the previous two and that
became their strength.
And so on. For every one of these the names I've listed there were already
relatively successful companies validating the idea. But then a party came
along that was excellent in their execution of the idea and they wiped the
established competition off the map.
If you go back further you'll find that the search engine was already a
concept pioneered by many other companies, ditto the 'social network' or
'personal homepage'.
An example from the physical world:
Car companies, when the car was invented there were 100's of car companies all
trying their hardest to get a share of the cake. But the majority of them
absolutely sucked at execution. Take the UK brands, super nice to look at,
occasionally brilliant ideas but absolutely horrible in quality _in spite_ of
having a head start post WW II they still had to have a bunch of guys with
hammers at the end the production line to make the doors fit the chassis. In
the end they simply could not compete. All the exact same idea: personal
transportation.
That's what competition is all about, excellence in execution, if you mess
that one up in the long run you will not survive. This is one of the reasons
why in spite of the network effects I see Ebay and LinkedIn eventually being
replaced.
~~~
vinceguidry
OK, that doesn't answer my question. You're taking different executions of the
same idea. Obviously anybody that's been paying attention during the last
twenty years or so knows that execution is more important.
But how do you vet the idea itself _against other ideas_? How do you know
whether spending your time reinventing search is going to be better than
building a new productivity app?
You're going to execute the best you can, assuming, again, that you're aware
that execution is the biggest factor. How much, if any, effort and validation
should go into choosing your idea?
~~~
jacquesm
> But how do you vet the idea itself against other ideas?
Apologies for missing the essence of your question (4 am here...)
I don't have a foolproof algorithm for evaluating single ideas but when I look
at a number of ideas side-by-side I go through a number of exercises to figure
out which one I'll devote my time to. Some of these are formalized, SWOT
analysis for instance:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis)
which can be useful if not taken religiously, trying to sell others on the
idea, simply trying the idea in a limited setting to see if it gains momentum
or if I have to push it forward all the time. The better ones tend to stand
out.
A _really_ good idea tends to have the 'I can't believe this doesn't exist
yet' feel to it, coupled with a word-of-mouth element once it does get
implemented, even in the most basic version.
~~~
96701
Just in case you haven't seen this show yet:
(1/2)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfB0g_JDIds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfB0g_JDIds)
(2/2)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXA4sab1eKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXA4sab1eKE)
------
rmason
I've kept a list of company ideas for close to probably twenty years. What
works best is to not think of it as a startup but a project. Doing a project
is less stressful, easier to commit and easier to quit than a startup.
Projects have a way of becoming startups pretty quickly when you get customer
demand.
------
blizkreeg
IMHO, and I'm just about starting on this journey myself, there is one way to
test the importance or 'bigness' of the idea and whether you should commit to
spending time working on it - does the problem affect a large swath of people
(at least a 1M+ people?) and are the incumbent players missing out on an
angle/aspect of it that you think you can do (significantly) better? The rest
is your execution.
~~~
kdevrou
I agree that an idea needs to be big enough to be viable but 1M+ is arbitrary.
If overall margins are very thin it may take a huge customer base to support a
business.
It also depends on the amount of operating income required. One guy in his
basement should be trying to solve a simpler problem than a well funded, VC
backed startup.
------
rdlecler1
Being unemployable also helps. When your back is against the wall there is no
turning back.
------
untilHellbanned
The namedropping at the beginning of the article is annoying. What's it about?
"Hey look, I'm awesome and even I am confused!" ???
~~~
samg
hey, author here! certainly didn't mean it that way at all– was telling a
personal story and used specific examples from my experience to illustrate
------
seethamy
This medium post is great! It touches on a lot of points and thoughts that I
feel all founders go through at various stages in startup life.
------
alaskamiller
Not quite feeling it, eh?
Stanford's abundance and enabling of ambitions and optimism not enough?
Watching from inside a sand hill money machine didn't work out?
Does it sometimes feel like it has to be Steve Jobs or nothing? And anything
less just doesn't stir that inner light and soul?
Just meh?
Yeah, I feel you. I used to get that often.
Maybe this will help, once I asked Steve Jobs how do I earn my own Apple.
He looked at me, sized me up, then said: "either you do or you don't."
I didn't know what to do with that, just took it and mangled it about in my
head the past eight years, flipping it every which way to find meaning in
every nook and cranny.
Oh, wait, one more thing.
He caveated his statement by finishing with: "the trick is to accept, accept,
accept."
Maybe that'll be helpful.
I spent the last sixteen years in the backwaters of Cupertino wanting,
dreaming, yearning to start my own company.
I have no money, we ate from the bagged groceries the church handed out on
Sundays growing up, my mom doesn't speak english and only three years ago I
was able to teach her to drive herself to Marina, I didn't go to college,
couldn't afford it, had problem reading books sometimes too.
Worst sin of all, here in silicon valley, I'm pretty dumb.
Give me a calculus problem and I wouldn't know how to solve it. Don't know how
to pump out regressions on a spreadsheet. Still don't know how term sheets
work. I'm pretty sure every room I have ever been in I was the dumbest one
there. Most days I can't even grammar. Or even muster up courage to talk to
someone without my right foot involuntarily stomps.
Don't tell me about my limits, I know my limits and replay failures better
than anyone else. I've had a whole life time of people telling me about my
limits but all I know is this: I want a better life. I want to give better
things to those near me. I want to help those around me. I want better, better
things, better ways, better options, better choices, better solutions. I want
it so bad I'm willing to kill myself to try.
I want to earn my own apple, I want to be a founder, a CEO, and lead so I went
everywhere I could, that would have me, and soaked up everything.
Rejected five times from YC, oh well, keep going. Don't know anyone in the
valley, be a tech writer, still failed to make any lasting connections, oh
well, keep going. Don't know marketing or sales so work for tech startup in SF
to learn and try my best, get fired, they then go and get acquired the day
after I get asked to sign away my options, oh well, keep going. Taught myself
hiding in conference rooms at nights and weekends after work in Mountain View,
still get fired, oh well, keep going. Grinded out in Berkeley sixteen hour
days, six days weeks, fifteen months in, gave it my absolute all to build,
launch, promote, sell, support, maintain a creation and still watched it burn
and fail. Oh well, keep going.
One step at a time, right foot, left foot, one at a time.
The tao isn't about being focused on the far distant peaks so much it hurts,
nor is it to sit, ponder too long and waste. It's merely just walk the path.
Yesterday you said tomorrow. Tomorrow may never come. Someday is better than
one day but any day isn't any better than today.
Either you do make it or you don't.
Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't.
No one can promise you everything will be okay. My friends have long gone, in
the dark of night I'm the only reassuring myself.
After sixteen years things fades away. The stories, the names, the after
actions, everything fades away. I learned now it's not that knowing everything
will be okay if you have all the cards lined up, advantages stacked in your
favor, or have a killer idea, you just have to be okay with whatever happen.
Don't stop helping others. Others will help you.
Build a home for the misfits and the misfits will find ways to fix the
fittings.
Don't give up, give in, give out. Then very last thing you see before dying is
success.
~~~
meesterdude
Thanks for sharing this
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do you think browsers should show data downloaded per tab? - hoodoof
I read an article saying that some websites download vast amounts of data.<p>I wonder if this information could be surfaced to the user level in a way that makes sense and is not pointlessly "techy".
======
draw_down
They do.
~~~
hoodoof
Where?
I'd love to see total data downloaded by a table - without opening the
developer console.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are You Ever Too Young To Start A Business? - haidut
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/risky-business/2008/12/11/are-you-ever-too-young-to-start-a-business.html
======
jmonegro
That's good news for me :) I'd also add that bootstrapping is easier because
of the lower cost of living for the younger generations, as required
necessities are very basic. Microwave dinners, running water, and electricity
is more than enough (at least for me). For example, I have no problem sleeping
in the floor for a few months as long as I have a comfortable pillow and a
blanket.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What’s Attacking the Web? A Security Camera in a Colorado Laundromat - gist
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-attacking-the-web-a-security-camera-in-a-colorado-laundromat-1490002202
======
gist
I had a system installed at the office a few years ago. After I saw how the
installer (aka 'the guy who really knows and does the tech stuff for us') had
no clue about how to secure it I simply disconnected it from the internet.
Ditto for the internet accessible alarm system (that I paid extra for just for
that purpose). I haven't had a chance to dig in and secure either product so
they sit unused and only on a separate network to this day.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ycombinator application questions - ccurtis
I notice that the ycombinator application has changed a bit since the first one. Even some of the questions used in the yc "how to apply" guidelines section are no longer on the current application. Can anyone comment on this or are there some articles already written on this topic?
======
ccurtis
anyone?
~~~
ktahir
Sorry, I noticed exactly the same thing, but there does not seem to be much
public comment on its implications.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Urbanisation in Minecraft - rcfox
http://crafthub.net/2011/07/22/urbanisation-in-minecraft/
======
larrik
All I could think of while reading was the old "limited life experience +
over-generalization = advice" even though there's no actual advice here.
But I mean, "The more intelligent of you reading this article have also
probably noticed something similar to my various observations." WTF?
I don't see what this has to do with real-life urbanization, either. The
architect built a city no one wanted, so they made suburbs. So what?
~~~
lotharbot
> I don't see what this has to do with real-life urbanization, either.
The problem on the server in this article isn't "urbanization", it's a failure
to create appropriate infrastructure for the task at hand.
The repeated question and answer pair of "where are the trees?" "Try the edge
of town" suggest limited Minecraft-life experience, and probably limited life
experience in general. Had they simply set up a policy of "every time you
harvest a tree, replant two saplings" there soon would have been a large
enough tree farm to satisfy all 50 players, as trees in Minecraft grow quite
fast. Had players built deep mining tunnels and used any of the common mining
techniques [0], they'd have had all the cobblestone (and various other ores)
they wanted, without stepping on each others' toes. Instead, they were so
short on resources that they felt it necessary, when fleeing their initial
city, to salvage _torches_ \-- which are quite easy to create in bulk.
For comparison, my mostly adult gaming clan runs an invite-only Minecraft
server. We've built up a ton of infrastructure -- a five-acre ranch [1], a
greenhouse, mushroom farms, tree farms, strip mines, and monster farms, so we
have easy access to virtually every type of resource. Everything is
interconnected via rail lines or portals, so material transport is not an
issue. If someone decides they'll need a lot of a particular type of material,
we set up a system to allow us to harvest that material in large quantities.
This allows us to build ambitious projects fairly quickly. This is typical of
well-run Minecraft servers.
[0]
[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Mining_Technique...](http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Mining_Techniques#Methods_2)
[1] <http://ripminecraft.blogspot.com/2011/04/tomcat-ranch.html>
~~~
palish
Why is it fun at that point?
(Honest question. Please don't take it any other way.)
~~~
lotharbot
I think of Minecraft (SMP) as having three distinct aspects (or phases):
1) Surviving the zombie hordes long enough to set up an initial base of
operations
2) Beginning to explore and build out infrastructure
3) Building cool, large-scale stuff
I personally find all three of these aspects of the game fun. Even after
you've gotten to phase 3, you can still go back and do the same things you did
earlier; exploring caves or the nether is still dangerous even after you're
fully equipped, and you can always explore farther away and build new
infrastructure. So even if you're not particularly interested in large-scale
construction projects, you can still have fun exploring or going off on your
own and fighting zombies.
------
codingthebeach
Nice tale of emergent behaviors in Minecraft. Still, I couldn't read this part
without wincing:
"The more intelligent of you reading this article have also probably noticed
something similar to my various observations."
Say "more observant", say "the astute reader will have probably noticed", or
better yet say "more Minecraft-obsessed" but never say "more intelligent". If
as a writer you're going to assume stupidity or laziness, you MUST assume it
for yourself only. And adding the word "various" in that spot just makes it
worse. Strunk and White to the rescue...
~~~
ramchip
The author is in high school. That may explain a certain immaturity in the
writing and reasoning here.
------
simonsarris
I enjoyed the article, but I don't think this person's experience is
necessarily representative of all servers, or even most. I've seen plenty of
servers where flora abounds.
In my server on the last world almost everyone kept anywhere from a few trees
to a massive garden (of trees) next to their house, if only for harvesting.
In my current server where we are building a hagia sophia -esque structure,
the outside is being made into an abundant garden of every type of plant.
In every iteration of the world on my server people have been crazy about
nature, going so far as to take all of the plants into the nether to create
"life" there.
Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if minecraft servers differ much
between those played solely by people who live in large cities vs those who
live in less populated areas. Most of the people on my server are from New
Hampshire, and I wonder if it would look different from a server where most of
the people are from (say) Boston. Comparing such servers would be a pretty
interesting study I think.
~~~
kd0amg
_I don't think this person's experience is necessarily representative of all
servers, or even most. I've seen plenty of servers where flora abounds._
Yeah, I was just amused at his description of the initial city, since it
accurately describes a few spawn-zone cities I've seen.
I kind of suspect it's just a result of high population. Or maybe there's just
a type of SMP player who gravitates towards city-oriented servers. Either way,
on the private servers where I've played, people do tend to scatter over a
pretty wide range (rarely less than a couple hundred meters between two
people's dwellings), and most of the land remains unaltered.
------
zipdog
Having been reading on early civilization settlements, I feel an interesting
parallel to how deforestation caused some of their collapses. A core that
overfeeds on resources while overgrowing onto them will generally collapse
into its periphery. If Minecraft had a rain system, the rapid loss of woodland
would not only cause ppl to move to be closer to the wood resource, but
because the bare soil would cause flooding and topsoil loss (leading to lower
agriculture yield).
And if Minecraft had a collapse for mining under things, it might be like
industrial England when salt and coal mining altered the geology enough to
sink towns (even when the mines weren't immediately under them).
Just some associations to more complex societal and resource systems that
sprung to mind.
~~~
rcfox
Minecraft recently added rain, but I think it's mostly aesthetic at the
moment. Your thoughts on flooding and erosion might make for an interesting
mod.
Also, some things do collapse when you might under them. Namely, sand and
gravel. It might be interesting to play with making other types of terrain
collapse if there's enough weight and not enough support around. I have no
idea how difficult that would be though since I've never looked very far into
modding Minecraft.
~~~
MostAwesomeDude
There has been talk of making Bravo's rain wash away anything left exposed,
and eroding grass and stone. No code's been written, but it's an interesting
idea.
------
VladRussian
"However, most importantly, it is that people are an unstoppable force. "
well, there are several proven ways to stop the enthusiastic outpouring of
people's creativity. For example city council, zoning and ordinances.
Introduce such stuff into the game, with building permit needing 6 months to
clear the design review stage only and you'll see how "unstoppable" the force
is :)
------
zeteo
The article touches a bit on the depletion of finite resources, in a context
with very artificial mechanics (e.g., the administrator decides to spawn
monsters among player-built structures). "Urbanization" is a misnomer here.
First, all phenomena described involved at most a few dozen people, a group
size that can only evidence interactions in a small village community and not
in a real urban setting. Second, urbanization is a pretty specific term that
refers to people leaving the countryside to move to the cities.
~~~
slmbrhrt
But cobblestone, wood, and even charcoal and water are infinite resources in
the game. The problem isn't the supply of resources, it's the short-
sightedness of the players in the game that figure it's easier for them to
mine cobblestone from beneath or clear-cut a natural forest in the game with
no intention of replenishing the supplies because they don't imagine they'll
be playing long enough for it to matter.
~~~
zeteo
If they're infinite, the article doesn't do a very good job of even making
this basic point. In any case, this bears little relation to what is
ordinarily meant by urbanization.
~~~
rcfox
They're infinite in the sense that more will always exist, but you'll have to
keep walking further and further to get at them.
~~~
lotharbot
Actually, in Minecraft, you don't need to walk farther to get those particular
resources. Wood, charcoal, water, and cobblestone are all infinitely
_renewable_ resources.
Wood and charcoal are straightforward -- harvesting a tree gives you wood and
saplings, saplings grow into trees, and wood can be cooked in a furnace to
make charcoal (you can even use saplings, more wood, or more charcoal as
fuel.)
If you make a 2x2 depression in the ground and put water in opposite corners,
the remaining corners will immediately fill. You can then pull water out of
any corner, and it will immediately refill.
Cobblestone can be generated by making water and lava flows touch.
~~~
rcfox
> Cobblestone can be generated by making water and lava flows touch.
In real life, we can always make more iron (or insert other resource we might
be lacking) by smooshing smaller atoms together. That doesn't mean it's viable
source for any scale of use.
~~~
bdonlan
The process can be automated using pistons and a redstone repeater, as shown
here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wLuEO6xOM4&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wLuEO6xOM4&feature=player_detailpage#t=736s)
This can produce cobblestone as fast as you can mine it, at a cost of three
lava, three iron (for pistons), and a bit of redstone dust (plus items derived
from wood, water, and cobblestone, which are all renewable resources)
There are other designs which use even less non-renewable resources as well.
~~~
rcfox
Ah, I haven't had a chance to play with pistons yet. I guess my knowledge is a
bit out of date.
------
reustle
What is this restricted access junk?
~~~
jplewicke
It seems to be based off an anti-spam heuristic run by Cloudflare:
<https://www.cloudflare.com/> . The most insulting part of it is that they
offer to link to evidence of what your IP address has supposedly done, but
don't actually provide any concrete details(e.g. links to the alleged spam).
If anyone from Cloudflare is listening, your CAPTCHA submission is broken in
IE7.
~~~
cdata
I am an engineer at CloudFlare. I've got the page in question open in front of
me in IE7, but I'm not having any issues with the CAPTCHA submission. Can you
provide any additional details about the problem you're experiencing?
------
prawn
I recently flew Emirates from Europe back to Australia and read an article in
their in-flight magazine about the failure of Brasilia. This story broadly
reminded me of that article. Can't find an exact copy online, but this pieces
makes a few of the same points as the in-flight story:
[http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog61/jmoersch/reality.ht...](http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog61/jmoersch/reality.html)
------
sigil
I wonder, are there economists out there setting up and studying game worlds?
Seems like a great way to run your simulation, and avoid the costs of phone
surveys / data collection.
~~~
ejames
It tends to work the other way around - a game world is set up, then
economists study it. It's difficult to set up a world just for study, because
people will not actually join and play unless it's an enjoyable game, and at
that point you're a game developer rather than an economist.
The most interesting economic work I know is for Eve Online. The company that
operates Eve has hired an in-house economist to study the game's economy and
publish periodic reports, which are available online - a quick search will
turn them up. The reports generally focus on the economic effects of adding
new content to the game - "here's how players reacted to the last patch."
~~~
sigil
> It's difficult to set up a world just for study, because people will not
> actually join and play unless it's an enjoyable game, and at that point
> you're a game developer rather than an economist.
It would be cool to see the two team up! Depending on the experiment, maybe
you'd only need level designs. I assume this has only gotten easier with
things like Minecraft.
------
Raphael
Plan better.
------
godseyeview
how do u find servers in minecraft? it just asks me for an ip
~~~
citricsquid
<http://mcserverlist.net> is the most popular site for listing
~~~
lotharbot
There are also several sections of the official Minecraft forums dedicated to
finding or hosting servers.
[http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum/49-starting-up-
looking-f...](http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum/49-starting-up-looking-for-
server/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are there any RSS readers like HN or Reddit but for own feeds? - PixZxZxA
I am looking for an RSS reader that I can use for feeds I subscribe to, but that only show me the links, and take me to the website instead of some in-line article view (basically like Hacker News or Reddit).
======
detaro
I don't know any readymade example, but this sounds like something that'd be
reasonably easy to hack, maybe with a browser plugin/user script for an
existing service, or as a slight modification of a self-hosted open source
one?
EDIT: just checked it out using dev tools, seems like in inoreader a
userscript only would have to remove some onclick handlers to get links
instead of previews.
~~~
PixZxZxA
I would like to be able to view it on my iPhone too..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CarWoo (YC S09): Dispelling 3 myths about Y Combinator - tommy_mcclung
http://carwoo.com/blog/dispelling-3-myths-about-y-combinator/
======
seldo
The irony of a 32-year-old considering himself "old" and claiming that
therefore ageism doesn't exist at YC is great. I'm not saying YC is at all
ageist, but the fact that at 32 he believes it would already apply to him
speaks volumes about how endemic ageism is in tech.
~~~
pg
I wouldn't read too much into it. I think he simply meant he's old in the
sense of not a college kid-- that he has a wife and kids etc. You probably
know better if you are an HN user, but a lot of people still think that YC
only funds 22 year olds.
~~~
kellyreid
as a 26 year old single man, I must say it takes a lot of stress away when I
don't have to explain it to my SO, my son/daughter, etc. I also don't have to
worry if someone else will starve (I can handle myself, of course).
That said, for those entrepreneurial types, age is rarely a factor outside of
family concerns. I"m just glad i have the opportunity to try this before I get
married and settle down.
~~~
BerislavLopac
Why would you marry at all? As you point out yourself, before you succeed it
carries a lot of ballast, and increases the risk; and once you're successful,
why would one want to tie himself (or herself, for that matter) down?
~~~
btilly
Ah, youth.
When you fall in love, you fall in love. Spending time on the relationship at
that point is highly worthwhile. And kids are their own reward. Seriously,
most of us come hard wired to want kids, and a large portion never realize
that until you have your own.
But if you're not ready, then by all means don't get married. But be aware
that you're missing out.
~~~
BerislavLopac
The only thing you're missing is a lot of misunderstandings, unreasonable
demands and endless fights. Who would want that?
~~~
projectileboy
I've been _very_ happily married for 10 years, so I wouldn't so readily
dismiss it, but if it seems constricting to you, then that's cool - don't do
it.
Not directed at you, but at the overall thread: honestly, I don't completely
get why folks get so revved about others' decisions to get/not get married and
have/not have kids. How are your lifestyle choices threatening to my lifestyle
choices?
~~~
prawn
People feel threatened? Grass is always greener, etc. Each path has its pros
and cons. People would prefer to feel more comfortable in their choice. That's
why they do, not why they should though.
------
ora600
I'm currently searching for a new car, so I thought I'll check out CarWoo.
Here are some issues I ran into:
1\. Can we have photos of the different models next to the drop down list? and
maybe a short summary of the differences? I know I want a MINI, but I didn't
even know there are three different kinds, so obviously I don't know which one
I want.
2\. Same for trims. At least a link to the manufacturer site to help me figure
this out.
3\. Mention payments only after I entered all my details? This seems unfair!
4\. I feel incredibly uncomfortable to pay for the privilege of you giving my
details to dealers. Shouldn't they be paying you because you are sending them
buyers?
5\. Also, why should I pay upfront? What if I don't get a good deal out of
this?
6\. I tried to ask all this at the nice chat, but after typing my question and
clicking "submit" my text just disappeared and I never got a reply. I'm using
Chrome, btw.
7\. So no, I'm not convinced, and I see no reason to spend time watching
videos of happy customers. I'm not into testimonials anyway. How about some
statistics? What's the expected dollar value of savings for the model I'm
trying to buy?
I hope my comments are at least somewhat useful, and my apologies if the tone
is snarky - I got upset at the non-working chat.
~~~
myoung8
Sorry about that! Let me address your questions one-by-one:
1\. We'll consider this. However, the vast majority of our users already know
what model they want (i.e. they've done their research before using CarWoo!)
2\. Same.
3\. Split tests don't lie.
4\. Actually, you're paying for the privilege of us keeping your information
anonymous from 10 dealers and only giving it to the one dealer you want to
work with after you've vetted them all through our app (i.e. we save you from
spam), among many other benefits we provide, such as better prices from
competition.
5\. We have a 100% Happiness Guarantee and we're not afraid to use it.
6\. Sorry about that, we use a 3rd-party service called SnapEngage, I'll have
to look into this.
7\. Some statistics for the analytically-inclined:
\- CarWoo! buyers save an average of over $3000 off MSRP (but this is
meaningless without context) \- CarWoo! buyers save an average of $450 more
than any other car-buying service (Costco, AAA, USAA) \- For Minis, CarWoo!
buyers save an average of about $500 off MSRP (relatively low, but Mini
dealers generally aren't that willing to negotiate on price)
Thank you for your comments. Please let me know if you have any other
questions or if you'd like a coupon to use CarWoo!
~~~
tocomment
I question that was bothering me: where does the test drive fit into your
model? Are you supposed to go to dealers beforehand to do that?
~~~
tommy_mcclung
Right now most people take the test drive prior to using our service. We know
it opens the door for dealers to do what they do, but our target customers
tend to avoid the games dealers play anyway so it's sort of a self selection
process that works... for now. :)
------
kaiserama
Thanks for sharing.
On a completely side note I noticed that Brendan Schaub had a CarWoo logo on
his shorts at UFC121, so someone at CarWoo must like MMA. Anyway, I've always
been curious about how much those fighters charge to have advertisers on their
shorts...would you mind sharing how much it cost you? :)
Apologies to the moderator gods for the random and off topic question.
------
random42
_We have raised over $6M and while YC helped us and we are extremely
appreciative, the hard work we put into CarWoo! and our determination to build
a huge company was the key to our success._
raising venture capital != success. Not for a scalable, repeatable _business_
anyways.
~~~
tommy_mcclung
I meant our success in getting to the funding milestone. We are very well
aware that we are at the beginning, not the end.
~~~
random42
Good to know that you are not counting your chickens before they are hatched.
Best of luck! :)
------
btucker
I'd love to hear more about how they lined up their dealer network.
~~~
tommy_mcclung
Through a ton of phone calls :). We followed our buyers and built some
scheduling software to help us prioritize notifying existing dealers and
contacting new ones to satisfy the buyers. Another great topic for another
blog post. Stay tuned.
~~~
btucker
Very interesting. Looking forward to the post!
------
colinsidoti
I was biting my fingernails as I read your first paragraph...well played sir.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Goldman Vs. Apple: Who Generates the Highest Economic Return? - tortilla
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/01/goldman-apple-economic-return.html
======
neworbit
Article seems to complain that Apple pays its employees less but makes more
profit. I'm just baffled. Yes, they make more profit BECAUSE they pay their
employees less than Goldman, and because their gross income is higher than
Goldman's as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement - shaufler
http://haufler.org/2014/01/19/i-hope-i-dont-get-kicked-out-of-yale-for-this/
======
lionhearted
When I first left America, I disliked and felt disillusioned with the country.
I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and
I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places
in the world.
Sometimes it's hard to point to exactly why America is so amazing. And the
answer, maybe, is on display here.
An undergraduate student at an elite university just innovatively, publicly,
aggressively pushed back against the Dean.
He cited his values and reasoning for doing so. He took care to make sure his
work wouldn't damage their physical resources or break the letter of the law.
And then he openly acknowledges they could punish him, and welcomes the
attempt.
And it's not really even a big deal. It's just standard being-an-American
stuff.
All kinds of bad things in the States. And sometimes the spirit of defiance
can get tired or come across overbearing. But it's really cool that it's a
regular, run of the mill occurrence for people to push back against norms and
restrictions in American society without any fear of long-term repercussions.
It's also really, really, really weird. Seriously, stop and reflect on this
for a moment. I spend a lot of time in Asia, and doing this in just about any
Asian country would ruin a lot of your life prospects.
And for us, it's just a matter of course. How strange. And wonderful.
~~~
cliveowen
You could read it that way, or you could say that this miniscule altercation
between a student and the dean of an Ivy League university, both part of an
elite group that knows little about the real struggles the rest of the world
faces on a daily basis, has been elevated to something important while its not
and it's been given way too much attention than it deserves. How many college
campuses and universities in the world struggle with real problems with real
consequences to society like female students getting raped in dark alleys and
fraud/bribery/plagiarism and never get the attention they deserve?
The fact that this inconsequential squabble gets discussed so much and gets
portrayed as the fight between David and "Goliath The Man", instead of being
seen as a public tantrum being thrown by a spoiled kid living a cushioned life
inside a cocoon made out of hopes and dreams, makes me sick to my stomach.
~~~
dasil003
Taking that line of reasoning to its conclusion, there can only be one _worst_
thing that happened to someone in the history of the world, and every other
person's problems pale in comparison and are therefore inconsequential and
should be brushed off as first-world problems.
~~~
cliveowen
Sure, taking things to the extremes has been proved to be the best way to
start a discussion and the only sure way to show an unbiased view of the facts
at hand.
I'm impressed by your incredible level-headedness, sir.
~~~
superpatosainz
Sir, if I preoperly recall, that's exactly how you discard premises. Taking a
premise and applying it to a more extreme situation just battletests it. It's
done in justice and law courses, etc.
"If the common good justifies killing X agent, then it must be ok for a doctor
to kill a patient in their sleep, take his organs and save three people with
his two kidneys and heart."
Also, what Yale did wasn't right, and the students just defend themselves...
If, for example, you were robbed wouldn't you care? "Oh but there are
thousands more people poorer than me, I shouldn't bother".
~~~
iamdave
_" If the common good justifies killing X agent, then it must be ok for a
doctor to kill a patient in their sleep, take his organs and save three people
with his two kidneys and heart."_
Isn't that a variation of a semantic shift fallacy? [1]
\--- [1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change)
~~~
vanattab
I just read the link and I am not following your reasoning. Please explain.
------
babs474
Very cool, I love this approach as it is very similar to how my (now defunct)
unedditreddit app worked and how a clever app called socialfixer for facebook
works. Two thoughts.
1\. You are not unblockable. My app was removed from the chrome app store
after reddit complained, no review process, no appeals, good luck even
communicating with google. Installing an app not from the appstore is almost
impossible for a non-savvy user. I suggest looking at a firefox app, their app
story is much more democratic.
2\. I think this fight is important because a lot of companies/organizations
seem to be trying to establish the precedent that they own their website
experience end to end, from database to the pixels on your screen. That idea
taken to the extreme will lead to computers become opaque devices ala a TV,
rather than the hackable playground they are now.
[http://socialfixer.com/blog/2013/10/05/facebook-requires-
soc...](http://socialfixer.com/blog/2013/10/05/facebook-requires-social-fixer-
browser-extension-to-remove-key-features/?r)
~~~
cynwoody
> _Installing an app not from the appstore is almost impossible for a non-
> savvy user._
I would post a video demonstrating step-by-step how to install non-approved
apps in Chrome. Download the app. Open chrome://extensions. Tick Developer
mode. Drag the app from your Download folder to the extensions page. Enjoy
those nicely summarized ratings!
Actually, here are two existing videos on the subject:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf9mthhfzpY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf9mthhfzpY)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVj_FJwI2Rw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVj_FJwI2Rw)
Hopefully, if a user is savvy enough to get into Yale, those instructions
would suffice.
~~~
erichurkman
Just be aware that your instructions may have to change soon; Google is slated
to start blocking all local extensions unless users install the Dev or Canary
channel builds on Windows [1].
[1] [http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/11/07/google-block-
local-c...](http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/11/07/google-block-local-chrome-
extensions-windows-starting-january-limit-installs-chrome-web-store/)
~~~
cynwoody
Sounds like a matter† for the MSFT legal department. I'm rarely in MSFT's
corner, but this would an exception.
†[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act)
~~~
pgeorgi
Only to be told that they have to open up their Windows 8 Store App
installation model as well? I don't think so.
The no-freedom-to-install-whatever-you-want movement is deeply entrenched in
the IT behemoths.
------
ggchappell
An interesting and apparently well executed effort. But, to be honest, your
arguments reek of ignorance.
> This is an unfortunate outcome, since Yale’s copyright assertion muddles the
> argument that Yale’s actions violate Peter and Harry’s freedom of speech.
No it doesn't. Whatever Yale's responsibilities in the freedom-of-speech realm
may be, they are entirely ethical in nature, as _freedom of speech_ in the
legal sense refers only to what _governments_ may not suppress. Holding the
copyright to something does not in any way affect ones responsibility to
behave ethically.
> If Yale grants students access to data, the university does not have the
> right to specify exactly how students must view the data.
Under U.S. law they may very well have the right; I wouldn't know. What you
may have demonstrated is that they do not have the _ability_.
May I suggest that you do not couch your arguments in terms of fallacious
claims about freedom of speech. Rather, talk about _academic freedom_ , a
principle -- though not a legal one -- that Yale ostensibly seeks to uphold.
~~~
ganeumann
Freedom of Speech is not a legal right, it is an ethical right. It predates
its US First Amendment codification by several hundred years and is also
legally expressed in many other countries. To use your words, may I suggest
you do not couch your arguments in terms of fallacious claims about freedom of
speech?
I don't think commentators who decried Yale's hypocrisy were claiming that
Yale violated the first amendment rights of the students. They were saying
that the same people who fought vociferously for scores of years to secure
their freedom of expression were quite quick to trample it when exercised by
non-PhDs. I think this is a valid criticism.
~~~
tomp
> legally expressed in many other countries
citation?
I'm only asking because that's not the case in most of Europe.
~~~
ganeumann
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country)
Re: Europe: the European Convention on Human Rights says, in Article 10:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include
freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas
without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This
article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting,
television or cinema enterprises."
All of the members of the European Union are signatories to the ECHR.
Also, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union says, in Article
11:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
I'm not European, so my opinion on how closely governments stick to these laws
doesn't really apply. I'm just pointing out the laws.
~~~
tomp
Holocaust denial is illegal in many EU countries, and swastika/Nazi flags are
illegal in a few as well. So, obviously, freedom of speech isn't the highest
priority.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it." (attributed to Aristotle)
~~~
hugoroy
Defamation is illegal, so obviously freedom of speech isn't the highest
priority in the US.
(I'm just trying to show you that there are limits on what you can say without
legal trouble and what you cannot say without legal trouble: it all depends on
where you put the cursor and how the limits are enforced. But to point out the
existence of limits in order to demonstrate the absence of something is
flawed.)
BTW, one comment: Holocaust denial is illegal in France. But to be clear,
holocaust denial means refuting the facts established by the international
Nuremberg tribunal. So it's not like a completely open category. Now, whether
it's efficient is another matter…
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to
avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
speech, not enforced silence."
\-- US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
------
johnohara
Recent discussions seem to indicate that 14-21 y/o are reducing their
participation in social media, becoming more discerning over how they use
brain bandwidth, and generally simplifying their lives overall.
I know this is a bit OT, and I apologize, but his website (and others from his
age group) reflects this thinking. Straight, simple, and to the point. On to
the next thing.
It rejects a great many things about how we experience the web today and seems
to confirm a trend that his group wants clutter-free access to correct
information using tools and technology they are familiar with.
They don't want to be told by Yale that this is how "your" course catalog
works, or by WP that this is how "your" blog works, or by FB that this is how
"your" profile works, etc.
They are saying, "we'll show you how we want it to work."
You'd think the administration at Yale would recognize a "sit-in" when they
saw one.
------
ToastyMallows
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. The extension:
> (3) not scraping or collecting Yale’s data
Yet in the code[0], there's a function called getRatingsForCourse() that makes
an ajax call to url:
"[https://ybb.yale.edu/courses/"](https://ybb.yale.edu/courses/") \+ id. How
is this not scraping? Am I missing something here?
[0]: [https://github.com/seanhaufler/banned-
bluebook/blob/master/e...](https://github.com/seanhaufler/banned-
bluebook/blob/master/extension/inject.js)
~~~
EGreg
Scraping involves storing somethjng on a server. I am not sure a user agent
can be cited for copyright infringement. Perhaps caching in violation of a
server's policy can be considered that, I am not sure. Is there any precdent
for caching to be considered scraping and storing by the developer of the
client software?
If not, I have an interesting idea for an offline travel app :)
~~~
huhtenberg
> _Scraping involves storing somethjng on a server._
Duh, of course it doesn't. Scraping is taking data in one format from there
and presenting it in a different format here.
~~~
moocowduckquack
That seems wide. I thought it was human readable to machine indexable, not
human readable to human readable.
------
w1ntermute
Pretty smart move on this guy's part, as it's a win-win situation for him. If
they kick him out, the positive attention he gets for fighting the man will
just enable him to start working 4 or 5 months early.
~~~
scep12
He seems smart enough to get a good job regardless. The small win of publicity
probably isn't worth the loss of a diploma, especially for a senior with
(presumably) only one semester left. Given the time and money he's invested in
his degree, I'm not sure he'd agree that it's a "win-win."
~~~
ritchiea
What is the meaningful difference between a Yale degree and 7 semesters of a
Yale education? If your answer is "some employers wouldn't consider you as an
applicant without the proper degree" do you want to work for that sort of
employer?
~~~
cpwright
The meaningful difference is that you have 7 semesters of sunk cost, and can't
write that you graduated on your resume. In other words, you are a drop-out. A
BS is a filter that you'll find for lots of jobs (or graduate school); and
although there are places that will hire you, it makes things harder than they
would have been otherwise.
If you want to get a bachelors degree from another school (1) it is likely to
be somewhat harder to get into another school if you've been expelled from
another, (2) other schools will have a residency requirement such that you'll
need a couple of years to complete a degree even though you were only months
away at the original institution.
~~~
aianus
Sunk costs are sunk. Unless the marginal utility of that piece of paper is
worth compromising your ideals and dropping another $20k in tuition, the
sensible thing to do would be to drop out.
Given that he's already got the brand, the majority of the education, and the
network of going to Yale, I'm not sure it is.
~~~
cpwright
If you don't graduate you don't have the brand. He might be able to establish
an independent brand with his plugin, but that is certainly more risky.
I generally don't think the Ivy league tuition compared to the differential of
quality state schools is worth it when you are starting out, but in this
particular instance the differential between a Yale degree and any other
degree would probably be less than having to go elsewhere and end up
equivalently as a sophomore/junior.
~~~
nmodu
>"If you don't graduate you don't have the brand. He might be able to
establish an independent brand with his plugin, but that is certainly more
risky."
>"A BS is a filter that you'll find for lots of jobs (or graduate school); and
although there are places that will hire you, it makes things harder than they
would have been otherwise."
I would disagree with both statements.
Part of the value (really, most of the value) of attending these schools is
the network that you build while there. And yes, he can always write on his
resume that he attended Yale from "Sept 2009-January 2013" (if he were to drop
out). I attended a top university and dropped out my last semester to pursue
tech related endeavors. I have reaped enormous benefits from this decision.
Once you are accepted to a top university, 90% of the "brand"-ing is complete.
If you are resourceful (as this young man clearly is), the rest will take care
of itself.
With regards to your second comment, the idea of a "BS as a filter" is losing
credibility at an exponential rate. It might seem counter intuitive, but a top
tech employer would take a second look at a Yale dropout who wrote a popular
plug-in. A majority of applicants at these firms already come from the best
schools in the country. On it's own, even an ivy-league degree isn't as great
of a filter as you might think. (Note: This applies to jobs with the highest
concentration of ivy-league applicants)
------
ilaksh
Make it a userscript instead of a Chrome extension and then Google can't block
it from their store because it will be distributed openly.
[http://http://userscripts.org/](http://http://userscripts.org/)
[http://userscripts.org/about/installing](http://userscripts.org/about/installing)
~~~
frevd
Make it a Javascript (just put into Favorites an icon that links to
javascript:(function(){...})() which creates and inserts a script block into
the currently open site (Yale site in this case) which loads the big .js from
a server. Users browse the regular Yale page, click on their icon in the
Favorites bar and the page extends so it can look and perform however you want
it to look and perform - unblockable!
------
gklitt
Really clever response to clearly decouple the copyright issue from the
freedom of speech issue. I'm curious to see how the university will react to
this.
~~~
smtddr
The data will stop being presented in a form that's easily parsed. Instead,
it'll be in PDFs rather than within text+HTML that this guy's extension can
move around.
(And the counter to this is a server somewhere that the extension can send the
PDF to, that runs pdftotext on linux... so he should prepare for that ...or
just prepare to be expelled).
~~~
pmorici
With the rise of javascript in the browser to a first world programming
language it's hard to imagine anything they could do that would put the
information out of reach.
~~~
csense
There's an early xkcd with an answer for that:
[http://xkcd.com/129/](http://xkcd.com/129/)
------
blablabla123
Evaluations hurt the professors' feelings and pride, so they are not
published. Politics is probably the only area in which evaluations (a.k.a.
votes, surveys, news articles/comments) are published.
~~~
ps4fanboy
I am sure students feelings are hurt when they pay tuition for a really poorly
run/designed subject.
------
mhb
_Yale’s copyright assertion muddles the argument that Yale’s actions violate
Peter and Harry’s freedom of speech_
This misguided appeal to freedom of speech does not strengthen his argument.
~~~
ps4fanboy
Why do you think its misguided?
~~~
mhb
Because freedom of speech concerns the relationship of the government and its
citizens. In this situation, more appropriate terminology could be _academic
freedom_ or _censorship_.
------
gregwtmtno
It would be great if they added the price of course material in there. Maybe
with real time pricing from Amazon or something like that.
------
ufmace
"If Yale censors this piece of software or punishes the software developer, it
would clearly characterize Yale as an institution where having authority over
students trumps freedom of speech."
I'm inclined to say that events in the last decade or so have made it more
clear that pretty much all educational institutions everywhere have always
been about making sure their authority over students trumps freedom of speech.
Or rather, freedom of speech is only allowed on things that the administration
approves of.
------
ricardobeat
I partially agree with the university's reasoning on this; displaying course
ratings like it's a food menu is disencouraging thought, not something you
expect from an academic environment, and it can't have a good outcome
regarding course selection. They just should have found a better way to combat
that instead of brute force.
~~~
trop
This is key to say: this is more than a freedom of speech (or freedom of
entrepreneurship) issue. It's a question of whether college classes should
become commodities distinguished only by convenience of access (e.g.
scheduling) and a rating from prior consumers of the class/professor. It
probably doesn't help that the period during which students check out classes
is called "shopping"...
There's something deeply conservative (in a grumpy old-school sense of the
word) about trying to preserve a non-metrics based view of an education...
Facebook's early days is, of course, also a subtext to this. FB was, of
course, built by a comp-sci undergrad at an elite college who became
fabulously wealthy by hacking friendships into data structures. Are we rooting
for similar hacks going straight into the pedagogy?
------
adharmad
I wonder whether organizations today are really so dumb that they need some
education before making public knee-jerk reactions. Regardless of the rights
or wrongs of the case, (and most of the readers don't understand or care) Yale
would avoided all the bad publicity if they had just let the whole thing
slide.
------
atmosx
I admire the courage and stance of Sean Haufler on this.
But out of curiosity, looking at his profile, why would someone who had an
internship at Google and worked at FourSquare would need a CS(!!) and
Economics(???) degree from Yale?
I might understand the _Economics_ part, what about the _CS_ part???
~~~
Morgawr
Maybe because he likes academia and values knowledge?
I don't know, personally I could go out there and get a job if I really really
wanted to, but at the same time I love research and love studying challenging
stuff. Some people go to University by choice, not because they _have to_
obtain a piece of paper.
------
at-fates-hands
I was most surprised by the professor who defended the school's ban on the new
website. I always pegged Yale as a pretty Liberal college, so I was surprised
at the professor's decision to support the school.
------
jgoodwin
I would play up the extension as an accessibility enhancement, and cite the
ADA and accessibility guidelines. This makes the point about the users' 'right
to transform data' more clearly -- access and transformation is about
usability, and usability is a legal right.
The administration will greatly fear an ADA action, or arguments that come
even close to them, while drawing parallels. Students crying 'Freedom!' is old
hat, and will get a less effective response.
------
etanazir
If you matriculate 1 semester at Harvard/Yale whatever - you've got the
trademark - so why keep paying to waste your time?
------
room271
How did this make it onto Hacker News? Squabbles like this happen at every
university (or at least the ones I have been to). Universities are often quite
conservative places with a tendency to restrict student activity beyond what
is sensible and students often fight back.
This is a run of the mill occurrence.
~~~
cynwoody
I can think of at least two reasons for it to be on HN:
(1) Replicating as a browser extension the functionality to which Yale objects
qualifies as a damn good hack.
(2) The original issue is about internet freedom, a matter of concern to the
HN community.
------
jahewson
> Yale also told Harry and Peter that the CourseTable website infringed upon
> the school’s copyrighted course data. It appears to be true; CourseTable
> hosted Yale’s course descriptions and student evaluations, or, if not the
> exact evaluations, they at least hosted derivations of them.
It doesn't appear to be true at all! I'd argue very strongly that these are
not creative works, and have zero commercial value, I don't believe they are
eligale for copyright protection in the first place. This kind of muddled
thinking that anything anyone writes down is magically covered by copyright
needs to be resisted.
~~~
Bahamut
Zero commercial value is a highly dubious claim. If the website happened to be
refined to be so popular that students wouldn't want to go without it and they
would be able to charge for the service, then commercial value would naturally
be present.
~~~
jahewson
By zero commercial value I mean that the current market price for this
information is $0 because it is being given away for free. So it meets one of
the key criteria of fair use.
However, I probably shouldn't mention fair use at all, because I don't believe
that these course descriptions are eligible for copyright protection,
therefore any reuse does not need to be justified as fair use.
------
jdnier
Yale acknowledges you're effort: "Just this weekend, we learned of a tool that
replicates YBB+'s efforts without violating Yale’s appropriate use policy, and
that leapfrogs over the hardest questions before us. What we now see is that
we need to review our policies and practices." \--Dean Mary Miller's response
(Jan. 20) [http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/open-letter-yale-
communi...](http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/open-letter-yale-community-
dean-mary-miller)?
------
higherpurpose
As long as Google doesn't ban the extension from the Chrome Store and doesn't
completely block installing 3rd party extensions to Chrome in schools or
something.
I actually don't find that unlikely these days. They've already started to
make it hard to install it from other sources. I could see them "sweetening
the deal" for ChromeOS/Chrome in schools to not be able to install external
extensions at all.
~~~
slig
> They've already started to make it hard to install it from other sources.
They _had_ to because idiots were installing malware left and right by
clicking and installing random malware extensions without realizing what
they're doing.
------
the_french
This is really awesome, we've been building similar solutions to our course
websites at McGill. However, the administration does not seem to care yet
(that might be due to the low adoption) about the different unofficial APIs
and sites. The idea of adding course ratings / workload descriptions is really
good we might have to implement a similar system on our end.
------
mhp
"If Yale grants students access to data, the university does not have the
right to specify exactly how students must view the data."
I disagree strongly with this statement. If the data is owned by Yale, they do
in fact have the right to specify exactly how students must view the data.
Although it's frustrating to see copyright holders doing illogical or
inefficient things with their copyrighted data, it is their right to determine
the method and mechanism by which their data is consumed. Just because it is
_possible_ to transform their data into a mashup, doesn't mean it's legal,
ethical, or permissible. It doesn't matter if this transformation happens
entirely within a viewer's computer, or if it happens on another server - if
the copyright holder doesn't want their data to be transformed that way, it is
their right.
~~~
ars
No it isn't. There is no such right.
Copyright holders _want_ such a right, but they don't have it.
The entire concept of copyright in the first place is artificial - there is no
moral copyright. So the only rights you have are the ones copyright gives you,
and no more.
Not to mention there is no database right in the US, so they don't even have a
copyright on the course database in the first place! (They do on the
description of the courses, but not on the list of them.)
~~~
dahart
Actually, separate moral rights on copyrighted works do exist.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)
They likely do not apply to a University's course catalog and, but FYI moral
rights are real.
Also, under US copyright law, all 'works' & 'creations' are automatically
protected, and the creator owns the copyright. This very likely can and does
apply to databases the same way it applies to art or music. It would be a
_really_ bad idea to assume you have the right to copy someone's database just
because copyright law doesn't mention databases specifically! ;)
~~~
ars
Those moral rights are the opposite of what I mean. They are restrictions on
the copyright owner. The moral rights I meant are if copyright exists from a
moral point of view rater than a legal one - and it doesn't.
> It would be a really bad idea to assume you have the right to copy someone's
> database just because copyright law doesn't mention databases specifically!
> ;)
It does mention it specifically. It specifically mentions that it doesn't
exist. There is no database copyright in the US. (There is in other
countries.)
See:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_copyright](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_copyright)
~~~
dahart
> They are restrictions on the copyright owner.
What do you mean? Moral rights do not restrict the Moral Rights holder in any
way, and they do restrict the ways that _any_ other person is allowed to
present, re-present, or modify the work.
Moral rights can only restrict copyright holders when the copyrights have been
transferred from the creator of the work to another party, and in that case,
Moral Rights restrict all people who didn't author/create the work equally, it
has nothing to do with who holds the copyrights.
> It [US copyright law] specifically mentions that it [database copyrights]
> doesn't exist.
You have a good point! I was at least partially, if not completely incorrect.
:)
But, it would still be a bad idea to assume you have the right to copy
someone's database. It might not be a violation of copyright law, but there's
a good chance it is a violation of some law. The sui generis database rights
link happens to give a separate reason for why it would be a bad idea to copy
someone's database. :)
I also just had to check... ;) The text of US copyright law does mention
databases twice.
[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf](http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf)
It specifically mentions, in definitions, that databases are not works of
visual art, and that databases are not considered a "digital audio recording
medium". It does not seem to specifically exclude databases categorically, but
considering the language in the 'sui generis' article you linked, "Uncreative
collections of facts are outside of Congressional authority". The keyword is
'creative', and if a database were shown to be the primary form of a
"creative" work, copyright law may apply.
------
ericcumbee
>The story does not end here, however, since there’s a way to distinguish the
freedom of speech issue from the copyright claims.
Except Yale is a private school. The 1st amendment only protects people's
speech from government sanction.
~~~
fleitz
He's addressing the copyright issue, the problem is with out the copyright
issue Yale has to make a claim based on censoring speech.
Once Yale starts censoring speech you gain friends with tenure and/or alumni.
He isn't trying this in the court of law, but the court of public opinion.
------
kriro
Copyright on course description. Nice, that's nice. How do supposedly smart
people not get the very simple idea that open is good in academics (and in
general but let's not get carried away).
------
annasaru
School owns the data. But students are the data consumers, and hence have a
right to control how it's presented and consumed. And students are also
customers. What is the school afraid of.
------
mixmastamyk
He should have had his pal over at Harvard upload it. Why give the
administration power over you? Relying on the goodness of executives is big
gamble, imho.
------
waylandsmithers
Well done. A brilliant and ballsy display of civil disobedience. Godspeed.
------
naaaaak
The Dean’s response is such a typical academia response. It showcases the
hypocrisy of these institutions and the fiefdom of a bureaucrat.
Too many academic institutions claim they are all about learning and growing
and leadership, until you do something they disapprove of in the slightest
way, usually because it rocks their boat in the slightest way. We’ve seen how
Stalin-esque they act when they don’t get their way, time and time again with
varying degrees of force. From the UC Davis pepper spray incident to the MIT
Aaron Swartz incident. This might not be on the same level (yet), but it’s the
principle. A series of reasonable actions being met with disproportionate
bullshit responses.
Teach them a lesson about learning, growing, and leadership. Don’t surrender
and don’t give in. Do absolutely everything within the bounds of the law to
fuck up their desired outcome on the principle of their actions. That’s what
they are trying to do to you and the YBB+ devs. So take away all of their
power and continue. Circumvent all of their censorship. You or some
scholarship are paying far too much to this institution to have it behave like
this.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised someone at Yale noticed and decided to make this
an incident. Most universities are usually too distracted by the
disproportionate effort they invest in their football or basketball teams over
academic programs, or are too busy ensuring book publisher monopolies and
price gouging, but those are problems for another day.
~~~
mhandley
If I understood the Dean's position correctly, it was that they didn't want
students making course choices based on a single one-dimensional metric, but
would rather the students saw the bigger picture before deciding. I can
understand this viewpoint; some very good courses have a bi-modal distribution
of ratings - students either love or hate them. The trick is to figure out
which you'll likely be. You can't see this from the mean.
Where I teach (not at Yale), we've been having difficulty getting the
administration to publish teaching metrics at all. This sort of public
argument doesn't help matters. I wouldn't be surprised if Yale simply stops
publishing the metrics at all if they perceive they're being widely abused.
~~~
aragot
Students ought to grow wary of unwise comments and ratings they find on the
"People's Web". Good students will go to the right classes independently of
the few bad comments. In fact, they probably make the difference much better
than their dean, because they're used to consumer forums.
Rather than cutting the source, if the Dean doesn't trust student's maturity,
the Dean should educate them about how to read several sources of information
coming from the Internet.
------
nctalaviya
Nice one shaufler... Good job
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FreeNAS Corral is being relegated to “technology preview” status - tachion
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/important-announcement-regarding-freenas-corral.53502/
======
myrandomcomment
So I have a FreeNAS mini. I upgraded and it did not go well. I was worked with
someone from iXsystems to get things working again (they are a great company
to work with). Everything was fine until the box just rebooted the other day.
It came back up fine but I had enough and reverted to 9.10. The funny part was
I had ask my contract should I upgrade to the 10.04 release the day before.
The answer was strange, "no, I can tell you more tomorrow." Now I know why.
It is brave of a company to just kill something like this and say we got it
wrong. Good for them. Thankfully the way FreeNAS works it was simple enough to
revert.
------
awinder
Just in case FreeNAS people are lurking around here, all the talk about jails
support does not speak to me in the slightest. Utilizing jails has been one of
my #1 pain points with FreeNAS. The quality of user-supplied jails was so poor
in my experience, I got out of the practice of using pre-build jails and just
had to start wiring up my own.
The docker switcharoo in Corral had me excited and I was able to spin up my
existing FreeNAS 9.x workflows very easily, but if you're going back to jails
thinking that it'll solve problems, let me be at least 1 person to say -- the
jails infrastructure has been abysmal for my experience, and I give a hearty
thumbs-down to doubling-down on it.
~~~
quasse
I was really looking forward to having Docker available. I run 5 or 6 jails at
home and they have been the absolute biggest pain point for me. At some point,
the jail booter image was shipped with a broken version of pkg that didn't
start misbehaving until later, and I haven't found any solution but to
manually recreate each of my jails.
Docker would be such a breath of fresh air at this point.
~~~
rsync
"I was really looking forward to having Docker available. I run 5 or 6 jails
at home and they have been the absolute biggest pain point for me."
Can you elaborate a bit ?
I have done a bit of work with FreeBSD jails and have some sense of their pros
and cons ... were you using pre-built jail userlands that you got from some
third party (ie., you did not build or replicate yourself) ?
Genuinely curious ...
------
plasticbuddha
On the one hand, I have to give credit to IX for realizing they made a
mistake, admitting it openly, and changing course. On the other, as someone
who very painfully upgraded their home/lab devices to Corral, the idea of
rolling it back is a miserable experience. Also, the idea of moving forward
with it was impossible considering the crippling performance issues I
experienced with it.
I was hoping this latest release could be used as a reliable backup target in
my enterprise, but now I will use this as an opportunity to look at every
other possible alternative. At this point I don't trust that Freenas or IX
will be here for the long haul. So, what alternatives are the rest of you
considering?
------
johnbrodie
I _just_ built a FreeNAS box, and was relying on Corral to let me do
virtualization. The box is overbuilt for home NAS use, and the plan was to use
Corral to spin up docker and/or Debian VMs to give me a more familiar base in
which to spin up other useful services.
Now that Corral isn't happening, would it be better to just virtualize the
system and then have Debian VMs as needed? I wonder if I can migrate to a
virtualized system without losing the data already in the ZFS pool :/
~~~
bbatha
`zfs export` is your friend. Its very easy to move a zpool to another machine
so long as it has zfs support and you haven't enabled any incompatible feature
flags. I recently moved my zpool from FreeBSD 11 to ubuntu 16.04. It was as
simple as:
sudo zfs export pool
sudo shutdown # RIP freebsd machine
# install ubuntu...
sudo zfs import pool
~~~
jlgaddis
That is:
s/zfs/zpool/g
(I do it all the time, too.)
------
_Codemonkeyism
I run several FreeNAS installations on HP MicroServers.
What I want is not some fancy UI but help with running FreeNAS with Apple
clients. Which is currently hard to do (this is partly due to FreeNAS and
partly due to Apple).
If it's not possible, say so. If it is possible, add a switch for Apple
clients and export volumes the best way possible (also with MS Office hacks) -
without the need to hack and tinker for a long time.
~~~
myrandomcomment
Why? I run a FreeNAS mini at home with all Apple serving NFS to them. I have a
single AFP share for Time Machine backups. At work we have a TrueNAS and 50+
MacBook Pros with a Time Machine share and NFS shares for anything else.
~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Mostly left over temporary files and directories MS Office uses to lock
things, or during saving, or Apple uses to safely delete files. Some
applications like Affinity can't often save to network shares from FreeNAS.
Users then save to Desktop and afterwards to the network shares. Also lots of
permission problems, especially in mixed Apple/Windows setups. Only good thing
are ZFS snapshots b/c users often delete files they didn't want to delete in
the first place.
~~~
snuxoll
> Also lots of permission problems, especially in mixed Apple/Windows setups.
If you just stick with SMB this shouldn't be an issue. The unfortunate reality
is the permission model different file sharing protocols use is different,
which is why FreeNAS asks you upfront which permission model you want to use
when you create a ZFS dataset.
If you're running a mixed environment and Windows is _anywhere_ in that mix,
just use SMB and save yourself the headache.
------
deagle50
I ran FreeNAS for a long time and finally gave up on it and ZFS for media
storage and apps. After a brief stint with OMV/snapraid/mergerfs I bought
unRAID and I've been very happy. The Docker integration is second to none for
a home media server.
------
Chaebixi
> we decided to undergo a thorough engineering review of the product and
> started to look deeper into the Plan 9 filesystem code, which allows VMs to
> access the host’s filesystem.
That's interesting. Was it actually based on Plan 9?
~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
They are talking about Plan 9's network file system protocol. I'm not sure
what they were using it for. I've seen it used as the easiest way to share a
host file system with a Qemu/KVM guest OS.
------
PuffinBlue
I'm curious - has anyone here faced trouble with Corral? Did you revert? What
were your experiences?
~~~
leonroy
Works fine, but little bugs and regressions like lack of form entry validation
on some config fields for instance mean you could create a completely invalid
config. I didn't try and find out what happened with an invalid config but did
report the bug.
Another big issue was that Chrome was the only supported browser which is
something you expect from a beta.
On top of that all the excellent docs from 9.10 were not updated for Corral so
literally all Corral had were a few Wiki pages on a new site with a request
for contributors to help fill in the blank pages. Very odd behaviour for a
release but clear why now.
It's a real shame, I upgraded my backup (personal) NAS which will have to be
manually downgraded once iX release a FreeBSD 11 backed version of FreeNAS.
------
JosephLark
This is a superlatively bad title editorialization.
How do you get "FreeNAS Corral is dead" from the original title "Important
announcement regarding FreeNAS Corral" which is about moving FreeNAS Corral
back into a technology preview (alpha? beta?) instead of full release. This
doesn't mean it is "dead".
~~~
galacticpony
If you read the article, you'll see that what Corral is right now (i.e. the
supposed "next generation") is in fact being abandoned. It's a dead-end, at
the very least.
------
fusiongyro
Good on them. It sounds to me like they hired a cowboy who did 90% of the work
and then left for a shinier new project. It's hard to admit a mistake like
this, I hope others follow their example. And don't trust the cowboy!
~~~
awinder
Read alternatively, it came off extremely amateurish to straight up admit (or
blame, depending on reading) that they're making a wholesale switch off a
product line that was in development for a wild, and after public release.
There's dozens of things that went wrong to get them to this point, 1 dev
leaving shouldn't have even risen to the point of being mentionable.
I don't even host mission-critical data on my freenas instance, it's mostly a
first-line backup for me + internal apps I run for the house, and I'm hesitant
to go forward with them following this.
~~~
myrandomcomment
Hey, they made a mistake and then owned up to it. It is a great reason to go
forward with them. Most companies never are this honest.
I run FreeNAS at home and have a rack of iXsystem servers and a TrueNAS at
work. We are buying more. Great team, great support.
~~~
awinder
If Apple released 10.13, waited 2-3 weeks, and then explained that one of
their big devs left the company so ~ shrug ~ everyone just downgrade, we're
gonna re-do it again but throw everything away, and oh yeah, here's a THIRD
beta UI we've got in development because apparently we've learned 0 lessons,
people would absolutely claim amateur hour. And they'd be right.
I haven't even gotten to why they went from a new React UI to an angular 2
based UI, which, I just can't even on that one yet.
~~~
myrandomcomment
They are not Apple. They are a smallish company in Silicon Valley that sold
servers and built a business around being an alternative to NetAPP / EMC on
the storage side. Mistakes where made. It is growing pains. If that does not
work for you then please go buy from EMC / Dell.
Also IIRC Apple pulled an iOS release or 2 in the last few years for major
issues.
I have worked at a few startups that have sold for a few $100M or gone public
for a few billion. Stuff happens. It is how you handle it. They owned up to it
fully and have a path forward. That is much better then most.
~~~
snuxoll
One should also note as far as their enterprise product, TrueNAS, is
concerned, there was never an upgrade to "Corral" pushed in the first place
since it lags behind FreeNAS releases to ensure everything works correctly and
any gotchas have been ironed out.
I understand ixSystems also sells the FreeNAS Mini, which is target at home
users and small business - but anyone who uses any network storage product for
production or mission critical use should be wary of any upgrades coming from
the software vendor without thorough testing. I stayed far away from Corrall
on my FreeNAS server at home explicitly _because_ so much of the UI and
underlying infrastructure was changed, didn't seem reasonable to upgrade
without letting people braver than I am test (plus, I rely on iSCSI support
for my VM's - that was missing).
~~~
myrandomcomment
Correct. Our work systems are on TrueNAS and left alone. I upgraded my FreeNAS
because it was my home system and I wanted to see how things looked as a
preview for when they pushed things into TrueNAS. It was broken so I reverted.
The best part is it was so simple just to go back and it all worked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Clever Cloud PaaS new pricings : cheaper and more finesse in your app config. - regisfoucault
http://www.clever-cloud.com/en/pricing.html
======
regisfoucault
More information on this news here : [http://us1.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=0928a3dc4855008ad5808ca4...](http://us1.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=0928a3dc4855008ad5808ca4e&id=87d35a7c7d)
------
altharaz
Sounds like the new Heroku: easier, cheaper, more efficient.
~~~
arjunbajaj
Heroku is easy to use, but it's definitely not cheap compared to other PaaS
out there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NIST Demonstrates Sustained Quantum Processing in Quantum Computers - ca98am79
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/ion_trap_computers080609.html
======
sh1mmer
Can someone who knows more about this stuff than me summarise?
~~~
pjonesdotca
One clue is here:
"Previously, scientists at NIST and elsewhere have been unable to coax any
qubit technology into performing a complete set of quantum logic operations
while transporting information without disturbances degrading the later
processes."
Definition of a qubit: "A quantum bit or qubit (pronounced /ˈkjuːbɪt/) is a
unit of quantum information." (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit>)
It seems that the problem was getting the initialised qubits to do anything at
all.
However, it seems that they now have a process to create a barebones
processing unit and stack (if I understand the following correctly)
"As a result, the NIST researchers have now demonstrated on a small scale all
the generally recognized requirements for a large-scale ion-based quantum
processor. Previously they could perform all of the following processes a few
at a time, but now they can perform all of them together and repeatedly: (1)
“initialize” qubits to the desired starting state (0 or 1), (2) store qubit
data in ions, (3) perform logic operations on one or two qubits, (4) transfer
information between different locations in the processor, and (5) read out
qubit results individually (0 or 1)."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
John Gruber: Apple will announce its ‘wrist wearable thing’ next month - abdophoto
http://thetechblock.com/apple-may-announce-wrist-wearable-thing-next-month/
======
DerekL
Gruber's obviously kidding about Apple's wearable device. He doesn't know if
that's true or false, but his jibe against the Moto 360 sounds better if he
talks about Apple's announcement as a fact instead of a hypothetical.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Big Android Makers Will Now Push Monthly Security Updates - nsgi
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/google-samsung-lg-roll-regular-android-security-updates/
======
hew
Monthly. My, how nimble! Maybe one day they can aspire to Patch Tuesday
heights.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vetting a startup (or two): The systematic birth of WPEngine - revorad
http://blog.asmartbear.com/vetting-startup-ideas.html
======
patio11
I feel you on that story about pricing analytics. People ask me why I don't
productize A/Bingo and pitch it to my blog readers. This is a big reason why:
"A/B testing made you thousands last year? Wow, great, I'll pay $9 a month for
that. $19?!?!? Stop breaking my balls, man!" (I give similar advice to
startups asking about marketing analytics software: startups make poor
customers, figure out a way to help the VP of Marketing somewhere and they're
immune to price.)
------
damoncali
This is why I cringe every time I hear someone say "Ideas are worthless - it's
all about execution."
Coming up with a worthwhile idea is hard work, and that work has value. As
someone who has executed a bad idea to death, I've come to appreciate how much
you have to get right _before you start_ in order to be successful.
~~~
krschultz
I'd argue that this story supports the "idea is worthless" hypothesis.
Your idea is the initial problem you want to solve or new feature you came up
with you'd love to make a product around.
The business model is built upon that initial idea, but it is part of the
execution. The idea itself is worthless, the business model built on the idea
(or lack of one) is valuable.
That might seem like splitting hairs, but I gaurentee most ideas don't
translate directly to a business model without a whole lot of work. And that
work is part of the execution. If you don't do that work (and get stuck
building on a bad business model), you still have an idea, you just didn't do
the proper execution.
~~~
damoncali
I was defining "idea" as "what you have before you start coding".
I don't think we disagree.
~~~
swombat
If you have a defined, detailed, iterated, field-tested business model before
you start coding, then you have more than just an idea, by definition.
------
iworkforthem
Like the post said it, the key lies in having a killer feature that users are
willingly to pay for, then yes it could be right time to start the biz. At the
same time, users requirements/expectations evolute with time, last year killer
feature might not be this year's.
I think the ability to communicate with users to understand what they want and
how & why your biz is relevant to them is critical.
------
doorty
Great point in this article. I've ran into this a couple times with startups,
where the idea solves a problem and would help clients financially, yet it
just doesn't work out. You really do have to pry into those potential
customers to get them to put their money where their mouth is and if they
don't happily do so then you're wasting your time. Made a note of this on my
blog: <http://doorty.com/vetting-a-startup>
------
notahacker
Did you try turning the value proposition of the marketing tool on its head by
pitching it to print publishers desperate to offer evidence of the
effectiveness of print advertising to their advertisers (as the advertisers
shift their ad spend towards analytics-supported online services)?
------
revorad
I bet he could sell analytics as a premium add-on to customers of WPEngine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OnePlus 3 vs. iPhone 6S customer reviews - adibalcan
https://feedcheck.co/blog/oneplus-3-vs-iphone-6s-customer-reviews/
======
adibalcan
If you have another product battle suggestion please tell us
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: LeadsDaily – Handpicked project leads, delivered to your inbox daily - campingalert
https://www.leads-daily.com
======
jo_choih
Heya campingalert,
I went here: [https://www.leads-daily.com/about](https://www.leads-
daily.com/about) \-- to find more information. I got a 404. Womp womp.
I'd definitely like to know more about what you're doing and if it'd be
helpful to me.
Happy Friday.
~~~
campingalert
Hey!
Thank you for the response. I updated it :)
------
appleton34
why so expensive?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
8tracks blocks non US/Canada based users - dbrgn
http://blog.8tracks.com/2016/02/12/a-change-in-our-international-streaming/
======
dbrgn
On a related note, if you live in the US or in Canada and would like to
continue the development of a command line based client for 8tracks:
[https://github.com/dbrgn/orochi/issues/73](https://github.com/dbrgn/orochi/issues/73)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2015) - dustinmoris
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15
======
notacoward
Since this is Hacker News, I'll point out a way that this applies to
programming: code standards and reviews. Time after time throughout my career,
I've seen the most picky, idiosyncratic programmers impose their will on the
rest of the project by their simple willingness to block commits until their
whims are satisfied. Since review etiquette usually precludes a third person
overriding another's pending objections to approve, the impasse is usually
resolved by acceding to the bikeshedder's preference in the name of progress.
Sometimes this enforcement of the most restrictive standard is a good thing,
forcing people to write code that's safer, more testable, more portable, etc.
More often IMX, it's just enforcing arbitrary choices and rewarding poor
collaborative behavior in the process.
------
makomk
2 years ago, 214 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16454645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16454645)
3 years ago, 55 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12285545](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12285545)
4 years ago, 53 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10567630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10567630)
4 years ago, 20 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10687471](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10687471)
If I remember rightly, there was some interesting discussion of how accurate
the claims made here were when it previously appeared on HN.
~~~
pharke
Maybe we should put some of these perennial favourites on a schedule, we could
use spaced repetition so they come up for discussion just when we need them.
~~~
flixic
Seems like an incredibly efficient way to farm karma. Identity posts in this
category (3+ posts, each a year apart and gaining 50+ upvotes) and post them
once the time is right (including the right time of the day — I remember
seeing some analysis on this, and my own analytics show that SF/SV is a very
large portion of HN traffic)
------
cousin_it
I had a low opinion of Taleb before, but this essay is actually pretty good.
Edit: but it's not new. The idea that concentrated interests > diffuse
interests was formulated by Olson in 1965, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action)
~~~
specialist
Its game theoretic framing of group decision making is seminal.
I've participated in a handful of standards committee type orgs. I so wish I
had read Logic of Collection Action earlier. It might have saved me a great
deal of heart ache.
------
dustinmoris
The title might suggest a poorly ranty written essay, but I was actually
positively surprised and thought it was a very interesting read.
I didn't know the author before, but looked him up and he seems to be a well
known author of some very influential literature:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb)
Hope that motivates hackers here to give this blog post a read.
~~~
lqet
I am surprised you have never heard of Taleb before. He is quite
controversial, but often deeply original and almost never boring. You should
read "Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder" which imho is his best
book. "Black Swan" is more well-known, but I was a slightly disappointed by
it.
~~~
dustinmoris
> I am surprised you have never heard of Taleb before. He is quite
> controversial, but often deeply original and almost never boring.
Yeah, probably fault due to my own ignorance/bubble in which I live. But I
like reading controversial but cleverly put together essays. I like it when
someone challenges my own views with a well thought through argument, because
that is the best way to either learn something new, or at least learn to
understand other people better. So either way I feel like I always walk away
as a winner whether I agree or disagree in the end. Thanks for the
recommendation!
~~~
coldtea
> _But I like reading controversial but cleverly put together essays. I like
> it when someone challenges my own views with a well thought through
> argument,_
Try Chesterton then. A little old but still relevant. E.g. could try Heretics.
~~~
kthejoker2
Or Unpopular Essays by Bertrand Russell.
Or almost anything by Orwell; his crankiness knows no limits.
------
drtillberg
The minority tyranny described in the article reminds me of the hidden power
of the owner of any system. For example, a large technology company may own
and operate a repository benevolently and graciously, but it always retains
the power to make exceptions. So there may be an ecosystem of smaller
businesses that grow up on that platform but if any of them interfere with the
broader interests of the platform owner, the rules may change (subtly or not),
in a unique action to save the owner's interest. This is an attribute of most
platforms tools, currencies and systems, and I think is an important if
unexamined feature of them.
------
cJ0th
After just reading the linked articles / chapter I was thinking: This is an
interesting approach to look at the situation. After reading a couple of posts
on this blog I can't shake off the feeling that the objective of his writing
is being divisive to sell content.
While his models provide an interesting lens they are applied selectively.
Instead of looking at the picture holistically by examining if the mechanism
he describes can be found everywhere (e.g. on both sides - and I believe it
can), there is one side that has feature x and the other that hasn't.
If you look at the Brexit article in the same blog, he is eager to point out
the mistakes of the intellectuals who are against Brexit. But he looses no
word about the fallacies that made people actually vote for Brexit.
------
amelius
Linux users are a minority, still we don't have a practically usable Linux on
mobile phones.
~~~
drieddust
Are they intolerant as well? Just being minority doesn't cut it.
~~~
TeMPOraL
It's actually the reverse that happened. Windows was the "intolerant" option
by the virtue of games almost universally being Windows-only. Only recently,
as an increasing number of games is being released cross-platform, there's an
uptick in Linux use on personal desktops/laptops.
In the phenomenon described by the article, "minority" is the part that piques
interest, but it's the "intolerant" aspect that's doing the real work.
------
glastra
I would have expected this to be proof-read, as it is a direct excerpt taken
from a book, but it is filled with mistakes. Spelling, grammar, word order...
Maybe it is an excerpt of the first manuscript of the book.
Other than that, I find the concept very interesting, but quite intuitive too.
~~~
eythian
Thought the same. It needs a good editor to take things out, his thoughts on
lemonade aren't really necessary.
------
wsxcde
If this were true, then India would be a fully vegetarian country. Except it
is not, and it is quite routine to find meat and fish served at public events
here.
(FYI, the actual stats are that only 30% of Indians are vegetarian, although
the proportion varies quite a bit from state to state. Some states in the
north are about 70% vegetarian and other states in the east are nearly 100%
non-vegetarian. Your anecdata about how you couldn't find meat at a particular
event should weighted appropriately based on these stats.)
~~~
pharke
That doesn't seem to be a pure invalidation. Food that is not vegetarian is
not the only food served to non-vegetarians since most people prefer a variety
of meat and non-meat options when dining. Add to that the way food is prepared
and served as separate dishes and that most vegetarians don't have a hard rule
about not eating food that was near meat or slightly in contact with meat.
It's easy enough to provide options for everyone when serving dinner or
stocking a store so it is not necessary to make special affordances for
vegetarians.
~~~
wsxcde
His argument is not that minorities are also provided options suitable to them
when it is economical to do so. He makes a much stronger claim -- that
minority preferences will "win".
He supports this by using the anecdotes about how airlines don't serve peanuts
and how he had a social encounter where only kosher food was served. And from
these two incidents, he jumps to the claim that "Europe will eat halal."
Notice he doesn't make the claim that Europe will increasingly offer halal
food as an option. That would be a plausible result of having more Muslims in
Europe and would in fact be equivalent to the Indian scenario where people are
given a choice of vegetarian as well as meat options. But he says Europe will
eat halal! If that were true, we should've seen India eat only vegetarian food
given we have way more vegetarians than Europe has Muslims and yet that has
not happened. Is this because Indian vegetarians -- of which I am one -- are
uniquely tolerant, or is it because he is absurdly overstating his case? I
think it's the latter.
~~~
nwatson
Neither halal-approved meat nor kosher-approved lemonade fundamentally change
the taste and appearance the consumed product. The only costs to providing
those options are an extra non-governmental "tax" in how the food is
processed, regulated, and approved, and that cost is much less than the cost
of not selling to those will only consume kosher/halal, or providing a second
set of approved options to them.
There's no such thing as kosher/halal pork, and no such thing as vegetarian-
approved filet mignon steak. People who can will still eat their pork and
beef, rather than succumbing to the no-pork, no-meat practices of the
minorities.
~~~
wsxcde
I think we're both saying the same things.
I said in my response to abiro that "easily accommodated minority preferences
are often accommodated". Which is obviously true.
But that is a very inane and obvious claim, and not at all what NNT is saying.
He claims the minority will "win" and that is not a claim he's able to support
in any meaningful way. Unless we're redefining the the word "win" to mean
something totally new and different, I think he's overstating his case.
------
hos234
Someone needs to tell Taleb there is a field called Social Psychology where
everything he is raving about is formally studied under the heading of
Conformism or Group Dynamics.
For those actually interested in this stuff, beyond Taleb's stand-up routines,
look up the work of Kurt Lewin, Stanley Milgram, Solomon Asch, Phil Zambrado
or Mel Slater. It's much more thought provoking.
These are very interesting times, because we finally have tons of data on how
groups form, grow, break, merge etc And the ongoing merger of social
psychology, political science, network theory as seen in the emergence of
computational social science depts, doesn't just tell us how things work, but
how to change and regulate the behavior and actions of groups. Early days but
full of promise.
~~~
dagw
_Someone needs to tell Taleb there is a field called Social Psychology where
everything he is raving about is formally studied_
He's a smart guy, so he's no doubt fully aware of all the people you mention.
He's also equally aware that he sells more books than all those people
combined by probably a couple of order of magnitude.
~~~
chiefalchemist
Aware? Sure. But I think the comment is directed at a lack of understanding.
That is:
Understanding > Knowledge
Taleb hammer is economists. All his nails are defined by that hammer. Yes,
it's one way of trying to manage thoughts about the __complex__ world around
us. But it's not complete. It doesn't always work. That hammer has blindspots.
You'd think Taleb would know this as well. But his hammer doesn't change. The
least he can do, as every good argument should, is to mention the blindspots
and how others might have insights. He leaves that out of the picture.
Given Taleb's theory...ironic, huh?
~~~
dagw
There are two "Nassim Taleb's" out in the world. Taleb the academic and Taleb
the pop-culture author and their writing styles are completely different. The
former actually tries to make a coherent argument while the latter is
basically competing with Gladwell to sell as many books as possible and gives
zero fucks that not all his arguments stand up to scrutiny. Perhaps that is
Taleb's attempt at being Antifragile.
~~~
chiefalchemist
> " gives zero fucks that not all his arguments stand up to scrutiny."
Gives zero fucks his arguments are not arguments at all. What a shame.
Yeah Gladwell. Comes up with a theory, then cherry-picks for studies that
support it, but never mentions anything that doesn't.
~~~
andreilys
Seems like a pretty wide sweeping generalization to say his arguments are not
arguments at all.
What is your specific bone to pick with Taleb?
~~~
chiefalchemist
I was commenting on the comment, and rephrasing a bit for accuracy. That is,
if you're being selective about the facts you present and you're not concerned
about how solid your position is as a result, then you're not making an
argument. Your intellectual laziness should not be rewarded.
Ultimately, you're just spewing bullshit, and in many cases just trying to use
to reputation as a (cheap) substitute for truth and fact. Again, such
intellectual laziness should not be rewarded.
I'm not sure why we're grown so tolerant and accepting of what so often
amounts to raw bullshit.
------
robteix
It seems to me that the minority can dictate things that are inconsequential
to the majority.
Take the halal example: as the author says, the kosher eater won't eat non-
halal food, but non-kosher eaters don't mind eating halal. If it wasn't so, I
don't think a Kosher minority would be able to impose anything.
Seems like the author is picking and choosing examples.
------
abiro
I wrote a post few month ago on how the minority rule could be leveraged to
bring privacy to personal payment apps: [https://agost.blog/2019/06/mapping-
crypto-minority-rule/](https://agost.blog/2019/06/mapping-crypto-minority-
rule/)
------
nwatson
>> (even airplanes had, absurdly, a smoking section)
Even more absurd, when growing up in Brazil, the smoking section on the
airline VASP (Viação Aérea São Paulo S/A) was the entire left side of the
plane, i.e., to the left of the central aisle ... just an entertaining aside.
------
odiroot
> Which explains why it is so hard to find peanuts on airplanes
Malaysia Airlines happily gives out small pouches of salted peanuts to every
passenger.
~~~
dannyr
He's probably speaking mostly of European airlines.
I flew from London to Florence last year. A passenger had peanut allergies.
The flight did not serve any food at all because they can't guarantee any of
their food doesn't contain peanuts. Peanut particles easily spread inside
airplanes because air is recycled.
~~~
NikolaeVarius
Particles don't spread easily, the air is filtered aggressively.
------
Dowwie
@dang article is from 2016
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How You Can Help Save Upcoming.org, Posterous, and More - neilk
http://waxy.org/2013/04/how_you_can_save_upcoming/
======
evanmoran
"While companies like Yahoo work to destroy as much human history as possible,
Archive Team is the only group actively trying to save it."
What kind of article is this? It is cool they are trying to save some of our
virtual history, but these kind of statements aren't helpful. Clearly Yahoo's
main intension isn't destruction.
~~~
lubujackson
Destruction is exactly what "sunsetting" is all about. Or to be more accurate,
its like saying you're going to stop watering your fern. No, you're not
destroying the fern you're just... not keeping it alive anymore.
The problem with people using online services is that their data is stored
there and can't be recovered ever again. You can say the data is pointless
crud or everyone should know better, but I don't see how you can argue that
the data isn't being lost against some people's wishes.
------
brk
I had never heard of Upcoming.org until a day ago. I had heard of Posterous,
but never really used it.
Why do these sites need to be saved? It appears that they have been shutdown
due to lack of widespread traction or apparent value.
Sure, they are someone's "baby", and it's natural for some people to take this
personal. But is there really truly anything of value in saving these sites?
------
gcr
I don't understand. If this virtual machine:
\- Downloads dying web pages, and
\- Uploads them to the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive,
That means I'm not saving the Internet Archive _any bandwidth at all,_ and
this is no more efficient than them just downloading the site themselves.
The virtual machine itself is 174MB. This times however many volunteers means
distributing the virtual machine is probably more stressful than the actual
archiving operation.
~~~
lhl
As mentioned, the issue is getting around YDOD throttling (and that the
shutdown is happening in 10 days).
If you have proper boxen, you don't need the VM. Here's how to get it up and
running on a clean Ubuntu setup for example:
sudo apt-get install build-essential -y
sudo apt-get install git -y
sudo apt-get install libgnutls-dev -y
sudo apt-get install liblua5.1-dev -y
sudo apt-get install python-distribute -y
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install seesaw
git clone https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/yahoo-upcoming-grab.git
cd yahoo-upcoming-grab
./get-wget-lua.sh
run-pipeline pipeline.py [YOURNAMEHERE]
~~~
bdonlan
Does that download posterous as well, or only upcoming?
~~~
lhl
For Posterous you'd need to check out
<https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/posterous-grab> and run that particular script
I believe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Grow Trees by Flying an Airplane - dvejvan
Hello, I would like to introduce our travel project. We are a group of friends who are building up a very complex traveler’s porta.It is the first flight search engine where you plant a tree by buying tickets. For each ticket, you can see the number of trees you plant. We cooperate with international organizations where we transmit money transparently.
We would like to ask you what you think about our project .. http://www.flybarbara.com
======
dvejvan
[http://www.flybarbara.com](http://www.flybarbara.com) Please take a look at
our project and let us know how you like the idea to infoplease take a look at
our project and let us know how you like the idea to [email protected]
Thanks David
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Final Removal of Trust in WoSign and StartCom Certificates - selectnull
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/net-dev/FKXe-76GO8Y
======
jbergstroem
Speaking of removing trust bits; the ever-delayed Symantec saga continues with
no clear decision.
What concerns me is:
\- the lack of public communication, as shown here (tl;dr: private meetings):
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.security.policy/k3PaF0UoE0I)
\- the contrast between symantec and the mozilla security groups path forward
[as well as how its communicated]
([https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/C45hQChFLyc/4HyG0iaMBAAJ),
[https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/symantec-s-
response-g...](https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/symantec-s-response-
google-s-subca-proposal))
~~~
ivanr
I don't think you're being fair toward Mozilla. They had a meeting with
Symantec and reported on it; there were no details because Symantec is going
to soon publish everything. They probably had the meeting only because Gerv
was in the area. Mozilla have been transparent the whole time.
Google's approach is clearly different to that of Mozilla, but IIRC they have
never pledged transparency. They're a commercial entity and they're doing what
they think is right and/or is in their interests.
~~~
jbergstroem
I can understand how my comment might have come off as somewhat judgmental (to
either side) but that was not my intention. The idea was to [without derailing
the thread too much] give people interested in certificate issues a relatively
quick summary on what has happened and my concern about it.
------
JoshTriplett
And meanwhile, Let's Encrypt is on track to offer wildcards at the start of
next year ([https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-
com...](https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-coming-
jan-2018.html)), so one of the last reasons to need a non-LE cert is going
away.
I used StartCom for years, but LE made it completely obsolete for me. And
StartCom seems to have been willing to throw it all away with the WoSign
acquisition.
~~~
justinclift
Lets Encrypt seems like a good solution for the https cert side of things.
Wish there was an equivalent thing for signing executables. eg for the
binaries of our software releases.
We'd been using StartCom signing certs (for Win binaries) up until this
clusterf __k. ;)
~~~
ktta
There's always GPG signing.
~~~
khedoros1
Does that provide the same integration into Windows that Authenticode does?
Plus timestamp, dualsign, and cross-sign?
~~~
ktta
>Does that provide the same integration into Windows that Authenticode does?
Nope
------
xoa
I'm still really bummed about StartCom's suicide/implosion. They had by far
the most sane and reasonable pricing model I've ever seen, and one I really
wish someone else would do. They basically only charged for non-automatic
authentication, not for what you _did_ with that authentication, and then let
each level of authentication feed into higher levels. So Level 1 machine auth
(similar in spirit to LE) was entirely free, you could verify an email,
domain, or whatever and then produce certs for that. If you wished you could
pay money (~$60 for 2 years IIRC) to have an actual human look at your
documentation and give you a call, then give you a Level 2 with your legal
name. You could then use that for an unlimited number of S/MIME certs for
email accounts, domains, software signing and so forth. Having gotten personal
verification to level 2, you could then pay to have an organization certified.
Etc.
Their UI wasn't the best, but it was functional and the overall system made a
lot of sense. They didn't put an artificial price on some bits with a marginal
cost of nada. It's a real shame all that got flushed, because that model of
business filled a hole that has no general world solution right now (in
principle authentication of their citizens should be a core role and offering
of modern government, but I'm not holding my breath there).
~~~
ivanr
You're forgetting that they had a charge for revocation, which was also
automated. Even after Heartbleed, they refused to revoke the potentially
compromised certificates without being paid. They also advertised their
certificates as 100% free, even though they clearly weren't (because of the
revocation charges). The certificates were not free for commercial purposes
either.
IMO, just like one of those schemes where you don't pay to get in, but you
have to pay to get out.
It's a shame, because they could have achieved a market share similar to Let's
Encrypt, if only they had played their cards slightly differently.
~~~
xoa
> _You 're forgetting that they had a charge for revocation, which was also
> automated._
I did not forget that, I was just talking about the authentication and
certificate issuance side. But though it didn't fall under the umbrella of
authentication it is something that actually cost real money at that point.
You misunderstood the situation and how revocation functioned in a way that's
extremely important (since it's finally getting fixed but the improvements
could use more widespread deployment). The original certificate revocation
mechanisms, CRL and OCSP, are and always have been completely broken in terms
of fundamental scaling and failure modes. Scott Helme just did an excellent
summary on the situation and upcoming developments [1] which I strongly
encourage you to read, but in essence due to the way they work _seriously_
offering CRL/OCSP (as in, in a way that won't instantly die when someone
breaths on it hard) services and adding certs to them requires significant
distributed infrastructure, which has not always been cheap. They were bad
approaches even with that though due to other practical failure modes that
were beyond a CA's control anyway. Both stink to the point that many (most?
all?) operating systems/applications/browsers just soft fail by default or
even ignore them entirely. "Revocation" for the wider web has largely been a
mirage.
StartCom did in fact have an explainer about this at one point, and their
position was reasonable. Other CAs hid the cost in large part by charging a
ridiculous amount for every cert issuance, despite many people never actually
needing revocation services. StartCom let you have as many certs as you wanted
after authentication for free, but if you lost one in such a way that you
needed to make use of CRL/OCSP then you were charged. Users could pay that
price, or alternatively invest in other ways to mitigate at their discretion
rather then just getting charged no matter what.
If StartCom had survived until now, or if someone else adopted their model,
then I'd expect at this point they'd make use of modern techniques like OCSP
Must-Staple/Expect-Staple, CAA, CT, etc. by default, and in turn that problem
would be solved at no cost.
> _IMO, just like one of those schemes where you don 't pay to get in, but you
> have to pay to get out._
This is completely ridiculous. Nothing inherently made anyone lose private
keys. Even Heartbleed didn't defeat someone using an HSM for example. Nor
would everyone who lost a private key need try to publicly revoke (to the
extent that would even work). Given the cost tradeoffs this was one particular
standards design failure that has been and remains wrong to make into some
general insurance vs letting individuals have the freedom to deal with it as
needed and/or having the standard itself fixed.
\----
1: [https://scotthelme.co.uk/revocation-is-
broken/](https://scotthelme.co.uk/revocation-is-broken/)
~~~
ivanr
Whether revocation works has nothing to with my point about StartCom, which is
that they weren't honest about what was free and what wasn't. I know this
because I was annoyed with it at the time and actively looked at how they
presented themselves.
On the topic of revocation, you're missing a couple of aspects:
\- First, both end users and CAs are required to revoke certificates that are
compromised; it's not an option. It's a fundamental part of a CA's operation.
\- Second, CAs provide revocation services like OCSP for revoked and non-
revoked certificates alike. So, certainly the costs for running OCSP are
comparable in both cases. You could argue that CRLs cost a bit more, but
largely only because of the bandwidth cost (as CRL is just a file).
~~~
xoa
> _which is that they weren 't honest about what was free and what wasn't._
You have repeatedly stated this, and it is objectively false. The StartSSL
site did not forbid archiving, and thus is available [1] going back to 2004 on
the Wayback Machine. This includes both the HTML FAQ page and the policy PDFs
of the time. This isn't some EULA boilerplate, actual clear policies and
procedures for a CA you're interested in using for your infrastructure is
something that is absolutely your responsibility to read.
When discussing Revocation (clearly titled) in the FAQ and Policy & Practice
statements, even very old versions stated that a fee could be charged, and
that revocation was considered a separate issue for free usage due to growth
of the CRL. Later (since at least mid-2010, which is 2 years before Heartbleed
was even introduced and 4 years before public disclosure) made this even more
explicit, put it right in the FAQ, and put a clear price on it. From the FAQ,
2010 [2], _the first sentence_ :
>>" _72) Revocations carry a handling fee of currently US$ 24.90. [...]
Extended Validation certificates are exempt from the revocation handling fee._
"
Please explain how they "weren't honest about what was free and what wasn't."
Did you "actively look at how they presented themselves" but fail to so much
as glance at the FAQ or Policies documents in doing so? None of this was
remotely hidden, it was literally listed twice on the front page, both in the
major navigation on the top and as one of just 10 sidebar items.
> _First, both end users and CAs are required to revoke certificates that are
> compromised_
Please back up your arguments on this. WRT to end users, under what authority
at all are they "required" to do jack shit? Failing to do so in SOME
industries and jurisdictions MIGHT involve negligence, but even that would
depend on what other measures are taken. Please link any specific legislative
or regulatory authority requirements to the contrary.
As far as CAs themselves, the authority would be the CA/B (enforced by virtue
of browser/OS inclusion requirements, so the real ultimate "authority" there
would be Apple/Google/Microsoft/Mozilla/OSS major distros & projects). At the
time when StartCom established its initial policy, v1 of the CA/B baseline
requirements [3] had not even been adopted yet (BR v1 adoption was Nov 2011,
effective date was July 2012). Even then, 13.1.1 merely stated that:
>> _" 13.1.1 REVOCATION REQUEST: The CA SHALL provide a process for
Subscribers to request revocation of their own Certificates. The process MUST
be described in the CA’s Certificate Policy or Certification Practice
Statement. The CA SHALL maintain a continuous 24x7 ability to accept and
respond to revocation requests and related inquiries."_
There were reporting requirements, and a 13.1.5 covers circumstances under
which a CA must revoke within 24 hours. The most recent version, BR 1.4.5
(1.4.6 & 1.4.7 are in review), moves revocation to section 4.9 and includes
additional details and sections (including, note, that there is no maximum
latency on CRLs stipulated so a dishonest CA could make them "free" but run it
off a toaster that takes 20 minutes per request).
However in none of this is it required that the CA make the process available
for arbitrary usage at no cost. If a subscriber refuses to pay and the CA
discovers a cert falls under one or more SHALL REVOKE parts of "Reasons for
Revoking a Subscriber Certificate", then they have to revoke anyway and the
cost may be unrecoverable, but they are free to treat it as a debt and go
after the purchaser on their own for that money (or ban them from further use
of their services). StartCom had a written laid out policy and procedure, and
it was available continuously on their site. What requirement did they fail
at?
> _Second, CAs provide revocation services like OCSP for revoked and non-
> revoked certificates alike. So, certainly the costs for running OCSP are
> comparable in both cases. You could argue that CRLs cost a bit more, but
> largely only because of the bandwidth cost (as CRL is just a file)._
Note again (and I pointed at this in my original reply): even now, BR contains
no requirements on specific availability or latency beyond the original
requirement (13.2.3 v1.0, 4.10.2 v1.4.5) that:
>>" _The CA SHALL operate and maintain its CRL and OCSP capability with
resources sufficient to provide a response time of ten seconds or less under
normal operating conditions._ "
Ten seconds! Under _normal operating conditions_ (DDOS survivability, ha!).
Meeting requirements on the cheap is not the same as doing it right (to the
extent that's even possible). And you are far to blasé about the growth of CRL
in a situation where an unlimited number of 1 or 2 year length certs can be
issued free of charge. One of the most principle rules of service scaling is
that if you make something available that has a minor cost available at no
cost, there is always a risk that users will fully take advantage of that.
One of the best parts about the new BRs is that they've started the process of
allowing CAs to replace base OCSP requirements with use of Stapling (although
oddly only for "high traffic" sites, whatever that means). That should be
generalized/accelerated and both CRLs and base OCSP done away with entirely
ASAP. But even given previous and existing rules I find your assertions that
StartCom was dishonest or failed to meet requirements unconvincing right now.
\----
1:
[http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.startssl.com](http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.startssl.com)
2:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20100704102024/http://www.startss...](http://web.archive.org/web/20100704102024/http://www.startssl.com:80/?app=25#72)
3: [https://cabforum.org/baseline-requirements-
documents/](https://cabforum.org/baseline-requirements-documents/)
~~~
ivanr
I've already explained in one of my earlier posts in this very thread: In my
opinion, it was dishonest to advertise certificates as "100% free" when they
charged for revocation.
Just because the revocation charges were documented somewhere on the web site
doesn't make it right. A large percentage of certificates is revoked.
Revocation is a normal and expected part of certificate lifecycle. Thus they
should have been crystal clear upfront saying "we charge for revocation" in
the same sentence where they said "we don't charge for issuance". They could
have mentioned it on the same page, but they didn't do that either (I just
checked their "free" certificate page from a random point in time.) So ask
yourself why they didn't put such an important fact where most people would
see it.
------
fenwick67
They are trying to crawl back:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1311824](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1311824)
------
brian_herman
Is there a tool that we can use to tell if we have these certs?
~~~
dom0
echo | openssl s_client -connect somewhere.net:443 -servername somewhere.net | grep -qE "(WoSign)|(StartCom)"
~~~
ivanr
That's a bit simplistic. For example, you at the very least want to have a
"-servername" there to account for SNI-only hosts. You'll then need to worry
about prefixed and non-prefixed hosts (e.g., www.example.com and example.com).
Then, what do you do if your web site relies on a third-party sites that uses
WoSign? Yes, now you have to parse the HTML response, extract all links, and
check those too.
Then there's also a question of servers other than HTTP, so you need to throw
in a port scanner in there. And a tool to actively follow protocols, to
discover MX hosts, maybe even look at SRV records, and so on.
------
microcolonel
I fully encourage you folks to prune your trusted CAs. I personally whitelist
only some CAs. I keep a separate root for visiting Chinese websites like Baidu
Wenku.
~~~
walrus01
it is frankly astonishing how many browsers/OS platforms ship by default
trusting all of the major mainland chinese root CAs.
~~~
Tinyyy
It’s astonishing because somehow the Chinese deserve to be treated differently
from everyone else?
~~~
walrus01
Because the Chinese government has a well documented track record of
attempting to MITM SSL, and if your system trust the root CA... game over.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=china+ssl+mitm&ie=utf-8&oe=u...](https://www.google.com/search?q=china+ssl+mitm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
------
walrus01
Should have happened eight months ago. I can understand the careful and
deliberative process behind the "CA death penalty" from a major browser, but
this was such an egregious case that I think faster action was warranted.
------
danjoc
And yet, on my brand new Android Nougat phone, I have these StartCom and
WoSign CAs. I just disabled them, but I doubt many users will.
~~~
ElijahLynn
Thanks, just did this on my Pixel.
------
snakeanus
I had hopped that they would do that much earlier. WoSign and StartCom acting
in a shady way has been known for quite a long time.
~~~
michaelt
Where can one learn what CAs are acting in a shady way? Are there other CAs on
a similar course?
~~~
snakeanus
I would say that Comodo is quite shady, sadly it seems that cloudflare sites
use it so getting rid of it would be quite difficult.
They make multiple low quality and mostly useless applications - one could
even call them scamware:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#Consumer_Security...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#Consumer_Security_Products).
They also forked Chromium and Firefox and made their own rebranded browsers
which offer nothing of value.
They have multiple clearly fake comments on their certificate pages:
[https://ssl.comodo.com/comodo-ssl-
certificate.php](https://ssl.comodo.com/comodo-ssl-certificate.php) and
[https://ssl.comodo.com/wildcard-ssl-
certificates.php](https://ssl.comodo.com/wildcard-ssl-certificates.php)
And finally they tried to trademark the name of LE:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#Let.27s_Encrypt_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#Let.27s_Encrypt_trademark_registration_application)
------
bsou
question for the knowledgeable: I've used AWS's ACM for my certs so far, are
there any big reasons why I should be using LE instead?
~~~
ivanr
No. Quite the opposite, AWS automates certificate issuance for you. You'd have
to automate the process yourself if you switched to LE.
Of course, AWS only issues certificates when you're using their stuff. For
everything else, use LE :)
~~~
toomuchtodo
Nitpick: You can only use ACM with ELBs/ALBs/Cloudfront Distributions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Latitude comes to the iTunes Store - dholowiski
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/13/google-latitude-comes-to-the-app-store/
======
DupDetector
Previous submissions, same story, different source:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000127> \- apple.com
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000320> \- engadget.com
No comments (yet)
------
travisp
I'm sure we'll know soon enough, but I wonder how much this affects battery
life. When apps like TomTom GPS go into the background and keep using location
services, my entire battery can be used in just an hour or less it seems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What's the future of Push Notifications SaaS like https://pushassist.com - HN_PRO
Frankly speaking, i am interested in Push Notification space, just wondering what's the real future of Push Notification SaaS vendors.<p>Anyone can share an insight on this business?
======
HN_PRO
Am i pursuing the right product?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why we need to spy on the Germans - rrggrr
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/09/why-we-need-to-spy-on-the-germans.html
======
Tomte
This article is an incredible string of bullshit.
While there are aspects that are interesting and would have deserved some
deeper treatment than just a throwaway sentence or two, most of the
"arguments" are not even tenuous, but very transparent distractions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
City Birds Are Smarter Than Rural Birds - unitedacademics
http://www.united-academics.org/earth-environment/city-birds-are-smarter-than-rural-birds/
======
andrewclunn
Before somebody starts trying to smugly draw some parallel with urban and
rural humans, the finches have natural selection weeding out the weak (or in
this case less intelligent). This isn't happening with people.
~~~
unitedacademics
Sure. Even though humans are still shaped by natural selection, we now have to
consider that we are evolving in a balance between culture and biology.
[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/04/natural-selection-
sti...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/04/natural-selection-still-us)
(This article has some interesting (and controversial) remarks on the role of
natural selection in humans).
------
pigpaws
"One such test involved setting a dish of food and timing how long it took the
finch to eat it;"
How is this a test of "intelligence"? Biology, metabolism and food drive
maybe, but "intelligence"?
~~~
unitedacademics
The researchers wanted to test whether city birds had 'higher boldness,
reduced neophobia, and enhanced problem-solving and learning skills'. These
specific test was done to see whether they could guarantee reproducibility of
the results. Something like a control
~~~
pigpaws
that still makes no sense as far as 'intelligence' goes. First off, rural and
urban birds have different overall diets. if you stick a french fry in front
of a rural bird, it might not know its supposed to be 'food'. Same can be said
with water-bugs and urban birds. there are too many factors to consider -
though they could have and just not reported the specific metrics.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Art of conducting, or how to create a great software - kodisha
https://bajcic.com/blog/102/art-of-conducting-or-how-to-create-great-software
======
noemit
I hate blog post titles in this format.
~~~
kodisha
In hindsight, I could have invested more time and figure out better one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Silicon Valley Elite Need A Culture Of Duty - jobowoo
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/20/the-silicon-valley-elite-need-a-culture-of-duty/
======
jivatmanx
People are aware of what Palantir does, right? And what we found out about
them from their involvement with HBgary Federal, correct?
I'm not sure everyone has the same sense of "Duty"...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Python Package Command Line Scripts - jmilloy
http://python-packaging.readthedocs.io/en/latest/command-line-scripts.html
======
gjvc
I put together [https://github.com/gjvc/PY-
TEMPLATE](https://github.com/gjvc/PY-TEMPLATE) which is similar in purpose.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacker News BigQuery Dataset - svdr
https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/y-combinator/hacker-news
======
fhoffa
Hi, Felipe Hoffa at Google here.
We're aware the dataset hasn't been updated since a month ago, and we are
working to fix it. You can track the issue here:
\-
[https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/127132286](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/127132286)
In the meantime you can still play with the dataset, and dig into the full
history of Hacker News - less this last month. I left some interesting queries
to get you started here:
\- [https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-
with-d...](https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-daily-
updates-so-what-are-the-top-domains-963d3c68b2e2)
~~~
wodenokoto
How do you run the import? Love to read more about how you consume the data
~~~
physcab
I would also like to know where the data comes from!
------
danielecook
I've been using the HN API to maintain a bigquery table of all posts,
comments, and URLs on HN and putting it on BigQuery for a while now. I use it
to put this site together: [https://hntrending.com/](https://hntrending.com/).
BQ is awesome.
It's a side project so may have some issues!
------
minimaxir
Looks like it stopped updating as of February 2nd, but otherwise it's pretty
reliable, and as noted in the description, it's free. (you probably won't hit
the 1TB limit working with this dataset). Here's a few queries I've done
recently to answer ad-hoc questions to get an exact answer:
Top posts about bootstrapping
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19258249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19258249)):
#standardSQL
SELECT *
FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.full`
WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(title, '[Bb]ootstrap')
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 100
Count of YC startup posts over time by month
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19185946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19185946)):
#standardSQL
SELECT TIMESTAMP_TRUNC(timestamp, MONTH) as month_posted,
COUNT(*) as num_posts_gte_5
FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.full`
WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(title, 'YC [S|W][0-9]{2}')
AND score >= 5
AND timestamp >= '2015-01-01'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1
~~~
shanecglass
Hey all,
I manage the BigQuery Public Datasets Program here at Google. You're right,
the dataset last updated February 2nd, but we intend to continuing updating
it. We had an issue on our end that disrupted our update feed, but we're
working to repair it now and get the latest data uploaded to BigQuery.
~~~
minimaxir
Great to hear! :)
------
cobookman
Top Commentors of all time. tptacek is at 1st place with 33839 comments.
Hacker news is 12 years old. That's an average of 7 comments per day since
inception. Wow
#standardSQL
SELECT
author,
count(DISTINCT id) as `num_comments`
FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.comments`
WHERE id IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY author
ORDER BY num_comments DESC
LIMIT 100;
~~~
minimaxir
Don't use the `comments` table: it was last updated December 2017.
On the full table:
#standardSQL
SELECT
`by`,
COUNT(DISTINCT id) as `num_comments`
FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.full`
WHERE id IS NOT NULL AND `by` != ''
AND type='comment'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY num_comments DESC
LIMIT 100
tptacek is in first place with 47283 comments.
------
sbr464
I added a simple api endpoint to access favorites on HN, since they weren’t
available on the normal api.
[https://github.com/reactual/hacker-news-favorites-
api](https://github.com/reactual/hacker-news-favorites-api)
------
vinnyglennon
[https://hnify.com/leaderboard.html](https://hnify.com/leaderboard.html) using
the dataset tool too, amazing to have so much data freely available to play
with.
------
refrigerator
Last year I built a domain leaderboard based on this dataset:
[https://hnleaderboard.com](https://hnleaderboard.com) — planning to update
for 2019 soon!
------
lettergram
I’m actually fairly excited to learn about this. I painstakingly scrapped HN
to build:
[https://hnprofile.com/](https://hnprofile.com/)
I’m excited about this alternative
------
fsiefken
is there a way to download the dataset and query it locally from for example
postgresql or sqlite? How big is the database, 4G compressed?
------
tobr
A dataset like this is going to have a bunch of personal information in it.
When it’s distributed like this, how does that jive with regulations like
GDPR? If a HN user would like to delete all their comments, how would that
request be forwarded to every user of this dataset?
~~~
petercooper
If people are sharing their _own_ PII in HN comments, they agreed to HN's T&Cs
when signing up. Such T&Cs state (heavily trimmed for length):
_By uploading any User Content you hereby grant [..] a nonexclusive,
worldwide [..] irrevocable license to [..] distribute [..] your User Content
for any Y Combinator-related purpose in any form [..]_
Agreeing to the T&Cs and deliberately sharing information publicly covers the
GDPR's "consent" lawful base.
Even under GDPR this is not a situation where someone signed up for something
_else_ and then happen to have their personal data shared as a byproduct. They
signed up to a site, agreed to T&Cs, and then explicitly and deliberately
shared their personal data.
~~~
CobrastanJorji
The GDPR's super complicated, but I'm pretty sure its Right of Erasure, and
specifically Article 7(3), which gives data subjects the right to withdraw
consent at any time and the clause “it shall be as easy to withdraw consent as
to give it" trumps any ridiculous "irrevocable" license to distribute your
content in any form forever.
Also importantly, the GDPR requires that a controller not make a service
conditional upon consent. Hacker News is likely not in compliance unless they
make such data processing optional and require anyone interested to explicitly
opt in.
But, then again, I'm not a lawyer, and even if I were, actual lawyers don't
seen to know what the hell the GDPR actually requires either.
~~~
dasil003
IAANAL, and I don't mean to single you out here, but this seemingly rational
argument strikes me as subtle FUD. It's the type of argument that someone with
a vested interest in collecting user data for profit might put forth in the
hopes of polarizing the tech community and painting GDPR as out of touch with
technical common sense.
Again, I'm not accusing you of anything here, I'm just pointing out who
benefits from framing the conversation this way. So far there is a lot of
precedent for small operators shutting down their sites out of _fear_ of GDPR,
but there is actually no precedent for regulators having actually gone after
small operators for anything resembling reasonable practices. The day may come
where EU regulators try to crack down on forums for who are unwilling or
unable to redact users messages post-facto, but we're nowhere close to that
today and I don't see strong reason to believe that's where we're headed
either.
~~~
tobr
What about this is out of touch with technical common sense? If you export all
your user data and syndicate it, why would it be so unreasonable to have a
system in place to be able to syndicate requests to delete data as well?
All of us here are users of this forum, so this concerns the legal rights to
our personal information. It’s not FUD for us to discuss how those rights are
affected by things like this.
~~~
dasil003
Let's leave syndication aside for a moment; I don't think it's unreasonable
for a forum to have terms of use that you are participating in a public forum
that needs to maintain integrity. If people just go deleting their posts then
it screws up the public discourse. I've actually had the experience of
building and running a forum that allowed deleting your content in this way,
and we had to remove the capability as trolls used it in a specifically
destructive capacity.
Now this position is certainly debatable, but I think it's at least a
reasonable argument that you could take to regulators. Contrast that with the
bullshit that Facebook, Google and a zillion ad-tech companies are doing with
our data every day. You're free to object to the syndication of HN data, but
personally I feel that is a distraction from the issues GDPR is meant to
address, and I am hoping regulators feel the same way.
------
cannabisfarmer
BigQuery keeps adding useless data.
What we truly need is common crawl data then we can check specific site on our
own.
Or wait, BigQuery simply can't handle common crawl size dataset in their
public service!
Otherwise there is no reason to not add it, maybe it puts their search
engine/ad business in geoparady.
Is there any other Google public dataset BigQuery like platform? Where their
direct search engine/ad platform interests don't get in way of Common Crawl
like data searching/indexing?
~~~
mayank
> Or wait, BigQuery simply can't handle common crawl size dataset in their
> public service!
This is not true. Source: ex-googler.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what? - DarrenMills
Nearly a year of daily hn visits (spent reading the stories I understood) I've come to a realization: Knowing a programming language seriously reduces the barriers to entry for a tech startup.<p>So the big Q: Where do I start? Do you have any resources to break down my options (Languages for Dummies?) and help me decide what, and how, I'll go about this.<p>Background info: I've programmed in C, C++, and VB, but nothing more than what an entry level course would teach. I'm rather adept in CSS, but that doesn't really count.
======
d0m
Seriously, it doesn't really matter where you start. I don't want to be
pessimist, but you've got so many things to learn that the important here is
not where you start but the determination that you will put in to continue
working days after days.
That said, I suggest you start with something fun because it will motivate
you. Example of that might be a simple dynamic website (using php, python,
ruby, or whatever else you might like).. Also fun is creating a small game
(Using some excellent libraries for beginners).
You told us what you knew about programming, but you didn't tell what was your
strength in other fields in life. Again, I suggest you start coding something
related to other fields you're pretty good.
To give you a personal example, I first built a website about dragon ball
because that's what I liked when I was younger ;-) Also, I made some chat
robots because I pretty much liked IRC. That was my really first projects.
(Done with pure html and mIRCscripts! The real important thing is to start
somewhere.. once you create something, it motivates you to learn more and
more. For instance, I switched from mircscripts to C++, then learn a dozen of
languages for fun and now, I live from that :) However, it might never have
happened if it wasn't about those dragon ball web pages that I had so much fun
building.
~~~
wdewind
Ha! I started out building dragon ball websites too. geocities FTW
------
metamemetics
Python. Do not do the official guide. Do not read the documentation. Do
something that forces you to program examples of increasing difficulty.
In short, do this course:
[http://cs.northwestern.edu/~akuzma/classes/EECS110-s10/index...](http://cs.northwestern.edu/~akuzma/classes/EECS110-s10/index.htm)
All the labs and assignments are online. You get to make maze solvers,
generate fractals, implement Conway's Game of Life, lots of genuinely fun
stuff. Just work through it and tell yourself you are doing it for fun not for
work. You'll be done before you know it. Good luck!
~~~
augustflanagan
If you do start with Python I found Zed Shaw's Learn Python The Hard Way to be
incredibly helpful when I first started learning to code some months ago.
<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/>
~~~
metamemetics
I like the link I posted because it's an intro to Computer Science in addition
to Python. So in addition to introducing more and more complex Python, the
problems you have to solve are meant to symbolize actual areas of CS research
instead of text-based adventure game development.
And your code often gets to control graphical libraries to spice things up.
------
dpcan
Pick a project first, something that you would love to FINISH. Then research
the best language to use to reach that goal.
That being said, when I started, I made due with what I had. QBasic. Then a
borland C compiler. Then Java. And then I just started experimenting.
It didn't matter to me, I just loved to create things.
Bottom line... you have to love building a complicated puzzle and you have to
be able to drive yourself to finish a project.
This "okay okay" business basically says to me.... you're in trouble already.
~~~
danilocampos
Yes, yes, yes! This is exactly it. Reading through programming books and
tutorials gets really dull. You need a reason, a cause, a mission. Come up
with a project that excites you and learn around that. This makes the tough
slog worth it and drives you toward interesting challenges you might not
otherwise pick up.
------
mechanical_fish
You need to decide what you want to build, or at least what you want to build
first.
From CSS, an obvious way to go is Javascript or PHP, or better yet both.
If you think that you don't want to build a specific thing, but instead want a
birds-eye armchair view of the essence of what programming is about, don't
waste time; try SICP:
[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-
sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-
lectures/)
But odds are that you'll quickly find that you don't actually want to be a
computer scientist. ;) You want to build something. So find an example of the
thing you want to build, learn what it was built with, then learn to program
that.
Bonus advice: Whenever you don't know what else to do, learn about Unix, find
a new feature of your text editor or version control system, or study regular
expressions.
~~~
jacoblyles
Someone told me to try SICP when I was first trying to learn how to program
and it was an incredibly frustrating and deflating experience.
The process goes something like this: Okay, SICP sounds good. They're using
LISP. How do I make a LISP program? The internet says SLIME is THE way to go
and I'd be an idiot to try any other development environment. Ok, I guess I'll
just install that... (3 weeks later)... okay that didn't work. Screw this, I'm
learning PHP.
~~~
aaronbrethorst
Dr. Scheme might have made things easier. Especially because SICP uses Scheme
and not Lisp.
That said, the first term of my freshman year of college used SICP as the
textbook. I banged my head against a wall for the first six weeks and had an
epiphany in week 7. It's the best feeling in the world when functional
programming finally makes sense.
~~~
jacoblyles
Everything is hard in Scheme/LISP world. As a first programming project for an
isolated person without collaborators or teachers, SICP is death. It will be
months before the autodidact can accomplish something that he can feel proud
of. Nothing will kill interest faster than beating your head against the wall
in isolation for months in your spare time without any tangible progress.
I believe people that say it's awesome and I look forward to tackling it
someday. But it is not a good way for a person to dip his first toe into
programming.
~~~
hga
I think it's worth trying for a couple of weeks. If it doesn't start to click,
then come back after a few years of imperative programming, at which time it
won't be as easy as you'd expect (or so it is reported) since you have to
learn the very different functional paradigm, but you'll appreciate it all the
more having accumulated plenty of scars from side effect caused bugs.
That said, if you have something you want to build starting with a project and
an appropriate language and ecosystem (including instructional material) is
very good. I myself started out in a high school punched card IBN 1130 FORTRAN
"IV" course, but soon started a project that really got me going.
I didn't try SICP until half a decade later; by then I was an experienced
imperative language programmer (mostly C by that point) and fairly experienced
in Maclisp and Lisp Machine Lisp. At which point it really made sense, both in
terms of being able to understand the material and why it was really
important.
------
timf
Pick one language to begin with and spend as much time possible trying out
beginner material, building small things of your own (no one has to use them),
and learning how to find information for yourself online.
I suggest Python, check out these resources:
<http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers>
------
dstein
I'll be "that guy" and say start with JavaScript/HTML5 plus a NoSQL database
system like CouchDB.
The reason is, this combination (like it or not) has a very good chance of
completely taking over a wide spectrum of applications within a couple years
(web, mobile, tablet, server, and desktop). Java and especially Ruby might be
trendy now, but I am starting to believe the days of mega-sized application
layers are numbered. JavaScript + HTML5 + touchscreen stuff on the iPad is
already hot, and not to mention really fun to play with and learn.
------
boyter
Python. Its easy to learn, powerful, mature, has lots of people willing to
help you and has bindings to almost anything you can think of.
------
user24
Lots of great advice here. It's refreshing to see that, largely, people aren't
just pushing their own language of choice, but are saying (quite rightly) that
it doesn't matter. Like dpcan, I started on basic, then qbasic and moved up
from there.
You asked about breaking down the options. Something which I've only fairly
recently realised, is that languages differ in more ways than just syntax and
built-in modules.
As I see it, the three main 'types' of language are:
Object Oriented ("OO"/"OOP")
Functional
Procedural
OO languages are usually built on top of procedural, and procedural languages
are by far the most widespread.
Functional languages are based on a more mathematical model, and if you've
studied maths they'll probably make a lot of sense to you. They're still seen
as largely academic languages, but they are used in some real-world scenarios,
and they have devout followers. It's a powerful paradigm.
Object-Oriented purports to allow you to model the real world more closely,
but the degree of success is debatable. Personally it's my favoured approach;
to me you can lay out your model really simply with an OO approach, which in
turn lends itself well to separation of concerns, reusability and
modularisation (i.e. you don't want to build your login system and have that
also handle thumbnail uploads, they're different concerns, they should be
handled in different parts of your code)
Procedural, to me, is really a necessary evil en route to OO.
So, yeah, I thought a broader view of language types might help, rather than a
specific view of particular languages.
~~~
msg
I think of those as more like programming styles. You can program C in a
functional style (although the language is not your friend). You can write
FORTRAN in any language.
I found personally that event-driven programming (signals, triggers,
listeners) is different enough to be considered another style.
Synchronization, causal sequences of events, and a clock, used for GUIs or
workflows, requires a different sort of thinking than functional, procedural,
or OO.
~~~
user24
I knew I'd miss one ;)
------
photon_off
The amazing and terrible thing about programming is that you can learn enough
about it without physical contact with another human being. I suspect that
content about programming on the web shows a huge bias towards being
technology based -- if you considered all the possible topics and ideas in the
world and their popularity, the ratio of popularity-on-the-internet to
popularity-IRL is probably highest with technology and programming. Well,
you'd have to exclude porn and other taboo topics for which the anonymity
aspect of the internet, rather than information sharing aspect, causes their
ratio to explode.
That was a bit of a tangent. My original thought was that there are several
thousand lifetimes worth of programming knowledge online, and it's getting
more and more organized by the minute. Google and StackOverflow will be your
best friends. It may take you some time to learn how to ask the question, but
beyond that you should be able to find solutions to any problem that you run
up against.
With this in mind, it's important that you actively apply that knowledge.
Learning is one thing, doing is quite another. I've often times postulated to
myself that there's probably some optimal ratio of studying vs. doing, in all
things. Then, I realize there's more to it than that -- there's the context
switching. If you spend 5 years learning, then 5 years doing, you'll never
learn as much as if you spend 1 day learning and 1 day doing for 10 years
straight. Learning and doing feed off of each other.
So, learn and do. Find something you really want to work on, and try to build
it. When you run up against a wall, which you most definitely will, it's time
to learn. Once you're ready to give it a shot, do it. When things start
getting too complicated, you're probably doing it wrong. Start over, make
things "cleaner" (this becomes a 6th sense after awhile), and you'll find
yourself naturally creating patterns that you become comfortable with. Like
any other skill, it's really a pleasure to see your abilities progress.
Have fun.
------
kunley
The best you can do is to Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years..
<http://norvig.com/21-days.html>
PS. I'm not sarcastic. Actually, the article contains the best advices for a
programmer I ever read. Maybe you just don't have to rush things..
------
lwhalen
www.tryruby.org
Also, google "Learning Python the Hard Way" for an equally-excellent Python intro.
------
saundby
Each language tends to have particular problems it's most used to solve. They
may not even be what the language is most suited for. Figure out what sort of
programs you want to write, then search on that to see what others use.
There'll be overlap, so look at the resources, figure out which seem to make
the most sense to you, then pick the language that matches.
At first, your choice of language isn't all that critical so long as you start
out with some resources you've turned up that'll let you get some of those
first projects completed. Then you'll be good enough at formulating ideas then
implementing them to make a more informed choice. Either you'll be comfortable
enough with your chosen language's idiom to solve problems even if they don't
necessarily align with the language's strengths, or you'll have a better basis
to pick a new language that addresses your problems with the first language.
After some initial discomfort, if you've picked well the new language will
start to feel handy and expressive in a short while.
Any of the major languages can be taken on by the new programmer, I usually
recommend one of Ruby, Python, JavaScript, Java, or Groovy. The resources for
beginners are good, the user communities are supportive, and they're all
expressive enough to create powerful programs.
There are lots of other good languages--no knocks on them--these are just my
favorites presently. I teach programming to non-programmers, BTW.
Once you pick a language, come back and ask for resources for that language.
;)
------
iterationx
You want to do the minimum work to accomplish your goal (life is short), not
learn a programming language for pedantic purposes. I'm using OfBiz, a Java
web framework, right now, and its suitable for my purposes, but I don't know
what your objectives are. You may be interested in Ruby, Django, Tapestry or
ASP.
------
DarrenMills
Thanks for so many replies! I'm going to spend the next few hours dissecting
all of this information and then dive into research.
The take away message I got from seemingly everyone was to first decide WHAT I
want to build, then find the best language. Teach myself using fun,
interesting examples, and keep plugging away no matter the difficulty. Also, I
should take full advantage of the wealth of information that can be found
online. Lastly, since I'm already in the web-design field (for the one person
that asked I own my own small web/graphic design firm), I might wanna stick
with PHP or Java (or Python / Ruby).
Again, thank you.
~~~
msg
If you're used to web stuff, you can go pretty far by really learning
HTML/CSS/Javascript in a deep way, then adding in an extension library like
jQuery.
You can program cool, fun programs in the browser with Processing.js, a
simple, cool graphics drawing language. Check out the exhibitions and learning
stuff.
<http://processingjs.org/>
------
dillydally
If you're doing web work you need to do two things:
1\. Buy a Linux or Mac computer, because all the standard parts work quickly
and simply on those platforms and are difficult to run on Windows. That, or
have a remote computer where you do your dev work.
2\. Learn Ruby or Python. It doesn't matter which. People on HN seem to love
Python, but there's no substantial difference if you're using them to build
web applications.
~~~
dingle_thunk
Why buy a new machine? <http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/>
<http://virtualbox.org>
------
EliRivers
I can't help but think that if you don't know where to start (different from
having too many places to start), you don't need to. If you need it, there
should be something obvious - some programme that really needs to be written,
and simply must run on such-and-such a system, and that will inform you on
what to learn.
------
techiferous
If you're looking to do a web startup, ditch your Windows computer. Get a Mac
or a Linux machine.
~~~
metamemetics
You should give him reasons why.
Personally I find Win7 has a far superior interface to OSX and out-of-box
linux distros if you like using your keyboard and a minimal\no-shortcut
desktop. The taskbar looks great left-aligned which, ideal for widescreen
monitors. To open any program all you have to do is press the Windows key on
your keyboard and type 2 or 3 letters for an autocomplete to find it, then
press enter. No menus or shortcuts necessary. The only downside is installing
CygWin for BASH, but I'd rather do that than install WINE for Adobe.
~~~
kranner
OS X has the Spotlight which people use in the same way: one hot-key, two
letters to find your app by name, and enter.
------
samratjp
Google's python class actually would be right for you. You can go as slow or
as fast you'd like. <http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-
class/>
------
gord
You know CSS, so it seems logical to learn Javascript.
That opens up both server and front end web programming [jQuery/DOM and
Node.js on the backend]
For books, try Crockfords 'Javascript the Good Parts' and mimic some of the
nicer idioms as you see more jQuery code.
~~~
jessor
I found "JQuery For Absolute Beginners" to be quite helpful for getting
familiar with JQuery: [http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/jquery-
for-abs...](http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/jquery-for-absolute-
beginners-video-series/)
~~~
desigooner
I'll second that. NetTuts has a nice video series on jQuery that is pretty
lucid to understand.
------
fdschoeneman
www.railstutorial.org
------
noverloop
I'd advise java as a first language, this language really forces you to grasp
the concept of object-oriented programming. python and ruby make it to easy to
ignore objects, while objects are a concept that once grasped is going to make
programming in any language a lot easier.
The thing about programming is that it's a creative process where you apply
ideas in order to create a solution, the more clearly you understand these
ideas the better you will be at programming(which is just writing down a
solution so that a compiler can understand it).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Racing at 127mph under a tunnel in LA [video] - awiesenhofer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMedyfcpvQ
======
ryandvm
I do think these high-capacity, self-driving-only tunnels are a great idea in
dense areas, but the tunnels and the self-driving bits are the easy part.
The hard part is going to be the "vehicular multiplexing" that will be
required on both ends to take a dozen or so lanes of traffic and squeeze them
down into a single, compact, non-stop stream of vehicles through the tunnel.
Otherwise, if you can't get ultra-high utilization out of these tunnels than
they're really nothing more than a subterranean version of taking your
personal helicopter to work.
------
humantiy
When you're the only one in line for the tube of course its fast. What happens
when there is a line of cars also wanting to use it? Still cool to see.
------
b_tterc_p
When I first heard about the boring company I understood that they were
planning to make electric sleds sort of like a car wash so you don’t have to
steer and didn’t propel entirely from your own engine. Later reports made me
think this wasn’t the case.
This video makes me think my earlier understanding was correct. It doesn’t
look like the person is steering (and it would be quite dangerous to require
them to). So how does this work?
~~~
seszett
It's a Tesla, so I imagine they are steering it using the autopilot system.
------
pxtail
I'm always perceiving this tunnels initiative as a testing ground for tech
which could be potentially used on Mars mission. Let's be real, for commuting
purposes in big cities it will be terribly inefficient and it makes almost no
sense at all.
------
tomericco
If the first traffic light was green, the difference is actually insignificant
:/
~~~
sshb
3mins difference is already not significant :)
------
JoeAltmaier
Terrifying single-lane tunnel. A moment of inattention and instant fireball.
Outside a video game, is anybody going to do better than 40mph in a tunnel?
~~~
michaelt
Given that Musk has both Tesla Autopilot and Hyperloop, I don't think people
manually driving in the tunnels is his endgame.
~~~
ryandvm
Man, I hope the endgame isn't "Apple-style" highway infrastructure that
require you to have a Tesla to use the Tesla-Ready® roads/tunnels...
------
kwhitefoot
Lighten up people, it's just a bit of fun!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Categorical Manifesto (1991) [pdf] - pmoriarty
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.13.362&rep=rep1&type=pdf
======
cousin_it
The paper argues that category theory is useful for computer science. Okay,
which areas of computer science? I've studied quite a lot of algorithms,
computational complexity, cryptography, computer graphics, machine learning -
none of it seems to get any sizeable benefit from category theory.
Most CS folks who like category theory seem to be on the functional
programming side of the fence, and use it to basically shovel code around,
making things parameterize and plug together in just the right ways. Which is
fine, but a far cry from all of CS!
~~~
jonsterling
Category theory is a useful tool for understanding the syntax and semantics of
programming languages, and not just functional ones. The common practice of
using category theory to provide abstraction within functional languages is
interesting, but not _that_ interesting; unfortunately, it is what most people
bring up, since it is so played-up by the Haskell community.
I would say the heart of computer science lies in type theory, computability,
semantics, logic, etc., and category theory is evidently useful there. (I'm
not talking about these things as limited to so-called "functional" languages,
but rather in their capacity as forming a complete, coherent and unified
theory for computation, functional or not.)
Certain other subfields of CS (the focuses of the so-called "American"
combinatorial school, for instance) seem to get less use out of CT, I'll
grant.
~~~
cousin_it
Does category theory lead to any interesting results in computability?
~~~
jonsterling
I am not aware that it does on its own, but I am not an expert in category
theory, so I might be wrong.
Many (most?) applications of category theory are just that—they tend to
elegantly marshall disparate theories into a more general framework.
For a very round-about answer, however—since Brouwer, we have understood that
a computable function corresponds to a continuous function; continuity has a
nice characterization in category theory in terms of sheaves; therefore
category theory provides a basis for understanding computability. Or: the
syntax of (some, but not all) computable functions is the internal language of
an elementary topos. I could go on and on...
The pattern here is that we could have done all this without category theory
(and in fact we did!): but it provides a unifying and enriching perspective as
one of the three cornerstones of computer science: logic, type theory and
category theory. (See Bob Harper's amusing post on the topic for more:
[http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/the-holy-
tri...](http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/the-holy-trinity/))
~~~
cousin_it
OK, I see. I'm a bit skeptical of anything that claims to be an enriching
perspective but doesn't yield interesting results. This is similar to
functional programming, which also feels beautiful and enriching to those who
study it, but hard to show that it's superior in any measurable way.
I mean, I like Curry-Howard-Lambek as much as the next guy, but typed
computation is mostly about constraining computation to make some things
impossible, and I'd like the unifying perspective to be more about making new
things possible. Somehow, the type stuff just feels boring and lifeless to me,
in a way that e.g. algorithm design doesn't.
~~~
jonsterling
There are two lenses through which you can looked at typed computation,
intrinsic and extrinsic. From the extrinsic perspective (which I actually
prefer for semantical reasons), you are classifying the terms of a computation
system which are already endowed with an operational semantics; in this sense,
you are constraining computation. But I prefer to use the term "classify"
rather than "constrain"; in systems built on this kind of theory, like Nuprl,
for instance, you can give a type to any kind of computation you want, even
the kinds that are typically ruled out in type theory (such as partiality).
The intrinsic perspective is where the computations and the types are
inextricably linked. This is the proof-theoretic, gentzen-style way to look at
it. In this case, it is harder to say that you are constraining computation;
and in many systems in the intrinsic typing tradition, it is a lot more about
inferring computation than constraining it.
However, do not go and think that the extrinsic perspective is "lifeless". I
would say that it is the opposite, since this is the result of taking
seriously the realizability-style semantics which underly the entire
intuitionistic notion of Truth as understood by Brouwer and others. I consider
the Curry-Howard Correspondence (the identification of program with proof) to
be lifeless, in the sense that nothing is really happening there, since the
programs are literally proofs of judgement in a formal system; but the
Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov correspondence, which is similar, is much more
interesting--this is the classification of computations as _witnesses
/realizers_ for propositions.
Intensional type theory is a theory of formal proof, where the terms are
literally proofs of judgement: it's pretty dead in there. Type theory based on
realizability, though, is more interesting, since the computations exist on
their own and we categorize them as the essential computational content of
propositions.
Once you go down the rabbit hole, what seems lifeless now may not then. Though
based on what you have said about algorithm design, it is entirely possible
that we simply have very different aesthetics for theories.
If you are interested in reading further, I wrote something here:
[http://www.jonmsterling.com/posts/2014-10-29-proof-term-
assi...](http://www.jonmsterling.com/posts/2014-10-29-proof-term-assignments-
and-intuitionistic-truth.html). And follow the links which I give, since those
are better than what I wrote!
~~~
cousin_it
Many thanks for writing that out! I can't parse most of it yet, but it looks
like I have some nice pointers for further study :-)
~~~
jonsterling
Sure, no problem. Feel free to email me (jon at jonmsterling dot com) if you
have any questions.
------
tel
I'm surprised and excited to see this here. Goguen's work on category theory
in program design is very insightful and he generally is willing to speak at
large terms as to "why CT is valueable" avoiding too much technicality when
useful to do so.
------
user2994cb
"Tossing Algebraic Flowers down the Great Divide":
[http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~goguen/pps/tcs97.pdf](http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~goguen/pps/tcs97.pdf)
------
tux1968
I know this is a real tangent from the content of this paper, but why is it
that every academic PDF renders in such poor quality fonts[1]? My guess is it
was done in Latex which seems to always produce results of this nature. It's
really confusing why this quality keeps being quietly accepted by everyone.
[1]
[http://picpaste.com/pics/c5f9cc612f213523876362234155499e.14...](http://picpaste.com/pics/c5f9cc612f213523876362234155499e.1415215368.png)
~~~
talideon
My guess is that it was turned into a PDF directly from a TeX DVI file with
bitmap fonts rather than compiled directly into a PDF using outline fonts with
pdflatex.
Some people are just used to using their existing document processing
pipelines rather than using more modern tools like pdflatex, I guess.
Edit: the file predates pdftex. Back then, the file would've just been sent to
a printer rather than rendered on screen for anything other than a preview,
and it looks fine when rendered. If it was passed through pdflatex these days,
it'd look much better.
------
jgrahamc
Goguen was meant to be one of the two examiners for my doctorate (along with
an external examiner from some spooky place) and was replaced late in the
process by someone else.
Reading this reminds me of how cool category theory is, how I didn't use any
in my thesis, and how I dodged a bullet :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Chrome to stop back-button hijacking - huntermeyer
https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1344199
======
jlebar
I implemented the history.pushState API in Firefox many moons ago. Dunno why I
didn't add this protection then, other than, it was a simpler time. It was
around then that we added the API for vibrating a phone and we all sort of
said "eh, someone _could_ abuse this, but why would they?" (In my defense on
that one I was on the side arguing that they would do it specifically for ads
and we needed to lock it down.)
Anyway, I approve of this change.
~~~
aerovistae
Can you explain how this change stops abusers while still allowing front-end
routing? I’m a bit confused because they seem mutually exclusive to me, or
should I say they come together or not at all.
~~~
dfabulich
The commit comment explains, "Entries that are added to the back/forward list
without the user's intention are marked to be skipped on subsequent back
button invocations."
The commit doesn't include a mechanism for marking the
should_skip_on_back_forward_ui flag, but the normal way Chrome verifies
"user's intention" is waiting for a gesture/click in the page.
So if you're doing front-end routing in response to a user clicking on a link
or button in your UI, or swiping the page or what have you, that will allow
you to pushState and then intercept the back button, as you can today.
But if you attempt to pushState on load, that's not enough to establish
intention; the back button will then skip your pushed states and leave the
page.
~~~
nikanj
A lot of seedier sites already abuse these mechanisms, by doing nasty things
when you click to close a GDPR notification, focus a search box, or similar
intention.
Browsers will probably never be clever enough to tell which clicks had "the
right kind" of intention. The arms race continues!
~~~
ht85
Yeah but in that case the malicious website should only be allowed to push a
single frame, allowing you to escape by going back twice.
This is much better then the current solution where you have to long-clicking
the back button and manually pick a safe entry.
------
feross
One by one, the Chrome engineers continue to chip away at the techniques in
The Annoying Site [https://theannoyingsite.com](https://theannoyingsite.com)
(warning: open in a secondary browser).
Talk video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFZ-
pwErSl4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFZ-pwErSl4) Source code here:
[https://theannoyingsite.com/index.js](https://theannoyingsite.com/index.js)
Well done.
~~~
Spivak
What is allowing site JS to physically move the browser window on my screen
and how do I burn this feature with fire?
~~~
quietbritishjim
This only works in popup windows. According to the guy who made this website
[1] this is to stop cross-origin communication, which is quite interesting.
But it also has the effect that if you force popup windows to appear in tabs
rather than windows then you do indeed burn the feature with fire. And IMO
it's worth doing anyway, because no one has the right to open a browser window
on my computer except me. It's possible in FireFox by changing
browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction to 0 in about:config [2].
[1] [https://youtu.be/QFZ-pwErSl4?t=558](https://youtu.be/QFZ-pwErSl4?t=558)
[2] [https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/questions/1066799](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1066799)
~~~
giancarlostoro
FireFox used to have an option to disallow pop ups to move themselves... I
can't find that setting anymore, and I think Chrome used to as well, it still
might. It's one of the first things I disable on my browsers due to some prank
sites using this tactic for maximum trolling.
~~~
badestrand
I wonder what could possibly be a use case why they would allow it and even
built an API/interface for that.
------
justkez
I've recently noticed Chrome (71) on Mac is now hijacking the `Command + Q`
shortcut and asking if I really want to quit. I appreciate people will
occasionally shut down a Chrome session by mistake, but it seems a little
ironic that they're clamping down on behaviour hijacking in one space whilst
implementing it in another.
(Caveat: I'm not sure if this change is being committed by a Google Chrome dev
or non-Google Chromium dev)
~~~
slig
When using Command + W to close a tab, it's only a fat finger away to close
the entire browser. Years ago that happened and it was a huge hassle since it
wasn't easy to reopen all the tabs you had.
~~~
woodrowbarlow
wasn't "reopen recent tabs" a launch-day feature for chrome?
~~~
slig
I'm not sure. I remember hitting Command+Q a few times by mistake and losing
whatever tabs I had open. Maybe I didn't know about that feature at that time.
------
SECProto
Funny, one of the things that convinced me to switch away from chrome (back to
Firefox) was when chrome got rid of the backspace-key-navigates-back. Sure, I
could use an addon to restore the feature but .... why should I live with a
browser that subverts decades of standard keyboard shortcuts?
~~~
SquareWheel
It was a horrible keyboard shortcut that caused countless lost form entries.
Just because something is standard doesn't mean it is good.
~~~
SECProto
Google had several possible solutions:
\- warn before navigating
\- give options for the keyboard shortcut
\- change shortcut unilaterally
They chose the third, which some (likely the overwhelming majority) preferred.
I didn't, so I switched to Firefox. We're both happy this way I guess.
~~~
SquareWheel
>warn before navigating
This requires too much page context. A search field being partially filled is
very different than a long registration form being worked on.
>give options for the keyboard shortcut
You said yourself, they released an extension for this.
~~~
SECProto
> You said yourself, they released an extension for this.
Oh was there an official one? At the time, the only extension I could find was
some slightly-sketchy third party one that allowed you to set hot keys for
many things.
> This requires too much page context. A search field being partially filled
> is very different than a long registration form being worked on.
Fair enough.
~~~
SquareWheel
>Oh was there an official one?
Yes, Google released an official extension to coincide with the update that
removed the hotkey.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-back-with-
backs...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-back-with-
backspace/eekailopagacbcdloonjhbiecobagjci?hl=en)
------
sliken
Only the most anti-social sites break the back button, I kill the tab of any
site that does.
What I hate and is much more common is the "do you want notifications". I'd
love a "never ask about notifications again" option.
~~~
Klathmon
That's an option right in the settings. Along with all other permission
requests.
Just set it to "never ask" or something similar and it will auto-deny all
notification permission requests.
You can also enable it for specific sites if you want.
~~~
paulie_a
There is a bit of hubris when it comes to websites even asking to allow
notifications. No site is that important. why would I ever want to enable
notifications under any circumstance ever. I generally get badgered about it
by a site I'll probably only visit once.
~~~
hakfoo
It makes sense for web applications that are real applications. The CI suite
my company uses sends notifications for a passed/broken build, which is a
reasonable use. Mail sites can send new messages.
The problem is that there's lots of content the publisher thinks is
notification worthy, but not the user. No, I don't need a notification every
time you post to RandomNewsSite.com.
~~~
JohnFen
"The CI suite my company uses sends notifications for a passed/broken build,
which is a reasonable use. Mail sites can send new messages."
That would still annoy the hell out of me.
~~~
paulie_a
This is basically why I don't read work email. If it's important, someone will
come over to my desk asking if I got the email within 30 seconds. Hell I
stopped listening to voicemail from a previous boss and just deleted it, For
three years or so and it never caused a problem.
My default is now "select all, delete"
~~~
JohnFen
I just leave my email client and systems report open all the time. That way I
can easily glance over and check if something needs my attention when I have
some attention to spare, rather than be distracted by a notification appearing
randomly over my work.
------
lichenwarp
The full page email popups/page dimming are the worst, I hate that it has
caught on so much.
~~~
kurtisc
At least they have a nice big div to hit with your element blocker.
------
baybal2
I know why Google has reacted now, I noticed few month ago that "clickfarm"
websites began visually spoofing popular websites.
You accidentally click "clickfarm.com" from, say, google.com; then you press
back button, it seems that you are "back," by the moment you click on another
link, you realise that google.com page was fake, and is stuffed with invisible
ads.
~~~
fooker
What purpose does invisible ads serve?
~~~
happppy
I think opacity set to 0, you didn't knew but you saw the ad and this will
count as view?
~~~
baybal2
Google looks for obscured ads, but there are new ways of tricking both the bot
and the ads code coming out almost monthly.
What they look above all else are the organic clicks from clear IP ranges.
------
denormalfloat
Please also fix the back button on the PDF reader built into Chrome; pressing
the back button on my mouse seems to go nowhere.
------
cronix
I quit using chrome, but it would be nice if they alerted you to the fact that
the site is hijacking the button. Personally, when sites do that, I
immediately add them to a block list because they are shit and I don't want to
visit them ever again. Now you'll never know.
~~~
tylerhou
How do you define "hijacking the button?" There are many valid uses of pushing
state to history, and it's very difficult to distinguish a malicious use from
a non-malicious use in the general case.
------
xg15
More in-depth discussion about the rationale and design process behind the
intervention:
[https://github.com/WICG/interventions/issues/21](https://github.com/WICG/interventions/issues/21)
------
seanwilson
How does this work with single page apps where it's not uncommon to modify the
history?
~~~
sincerely
I mean, aren't SPAs kind of a hijacking of how browsers are intended to be
used?
~~~
evrydayhustling
I get what you're saying, but browsers haven't been stateless url-loaders
since the late 90s. JavaScript in general, cookies, local storage, and plug-
ins are all compromises with "pure" http navigation that (a) can be abused but
(b) offer some much needed client-side cooperation in maintaining continuity
and reducing repetitive traffic with the server.
~~~
kurtisc
There are ways of doing SPAs without polluting the history. In fact, I find
them less frustrating to use. If your design relies on cues taken from malware
pages, that's on you.
~~~
evrydayhustling
This is a frankly ignorant statement about SPA design. Pushing history on
major navigation events has nothing to do with malware patterns. It is way of
making SPAs compatible with user expectations and protocol investments based
on the non-SPA web. It allows them to use their own tools for bookmarking,
link sharing, and history management rather than forcing a from-scratch
experience when they come to the sites.
Accessible navigation patterns are a key part of making the web accesible to
decentralized improvement. If every SPA was a black box with its own
navigation regime, the web would regress to walled garden apps that
characterize 90s desktop and early iOS ecosystems.
~~~
kurtisc
I fail to see how I can be ignorant of what I find less frustrating and more
compatible with my user expectations.
>It allows them to use their own tools for bookmarking, link sharing, and
history management rather than forcing a from-scratch experience when they
come to the sites.
Such as the behaviour of buttons outside the sandbox the browser provides? To
quote you:
>browsers haven't been stateless url-loaders since the late 90s
Why break the expectations of the back button to hack the other tools to work
how you'd expect when, really, all of the features you're describing worked
perfectly fine before SPAs. The very reason pages like this frustrate me are
because they don't work with the history management I expect.
~~~
evrydayhustling
The ignorant part was accusing SPA authors of copying malware patterns.
Regarding your opinion, I'm still not sure what you are comparing /
suggesting.
Are you saying that late 90s reactivity on the web was good enough? I think
you are very much in the minority on that one.
Are you saying SPA authors shouldn't expose URLs for different navigation
paths to the browser? I think you would be surprised at all the places your
browser experience breaks, like not being able to restore tabs, or copy links
to interesting news stories.
The _right_ way to do SPA is to design nav actions that feel like links, and
only update the history in those. A user not watching carefully for page
refreshes or net traffic shouldn't be able to tell the difference - and
perhaps there are times this is happening on your browser that you aren't
aware of because it _can_ be done smoothly.
~~~
kurtisc
Hijacking history is a pattern used by malware and trying to stop it has
broken some honest websites. This happened with Flash, with Java applets, with
popups. It shouldn't be a surprise. As I see it, you're considering the
malware an acceptable sacrifice for having SPAs work slightly better (for what
you value as better and I don't).
Websites as apps will continue to work, they'll either lose this functionality
or use normal links - the kind that are good enough for Facebook et al. Or for
Hacker News.
>Are you saying SPA authors shouldn't expose URLs for different navigation
paths to the browser? I think you would be surprised at all the places your
browser experience breaks, like not being able to restore tabs, or copy links
to interesting news stories.
No. All of these work with links. Aren't you trying to fit a SPA shaped piece
in a website shaped hole?
~~~
evrydayhustling
Links force a reload of additional assets, break ongoing socket connections,
and at minimum requires a re-rendering of the entire DOM, which is a waste for
many navigation actions that still deserve their own URL. In particular, the
many tcp handshakes necessary for a total page refreshes are expensive on
mobile.
As a concrete exampke, rich news experiences that let you scroll through
preloaded stories benefit a lot from not needing to re-render all of the
surrounding layout when the content changes, and from assigning a different
url to each story.
Btw, I never said this was worth the current trade-off with malicious sites,
just that the history features were originally inspired and still used by
honest sites. Fortunately we have better options than all or nothing; sounds
like Chrome is implementing a heuristic that makes sure url history can only
be updated in some proportion to human actions. Another option might be a
whitelist check like "<site> would like to update your history".
------
jwilk
This works with JS disabled:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=907167](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=907167)
~~~
acdha
Thanks - the mountain of JS on the other page failed on iOS
------
yalogin
This is very much needed. Every site I visit through google news hijacks the
back button. They only show their news letter signup page for the most part
but still very annoying.
------
nbevans
How about stopping right-click hijacking and smooth-scroll hijacking too?
~~~
skohan
Right-click is very useful in some cases. I have some productivity apps I have
built for myself using web technologies, and it's extremely useful to be able
to have custom context menus. Since web applications are doing more of the
work that native apps used to, I'm ok with some level of annexation of the
browser's UX territory when a site can really justify it.
That said, I would be in favor of an option to disable it globally, or for
certain domains.
------
TACIXAT
Right now you can't close a tab with ctrl+w if the "Would you like to see
desktop notifications?" dialog is up. For a second I thought this was a fix
for that.
------
catmanjan
Does this mean they no longer support history.pushState?
------
ivanhoe
Will this affect SPA routers? How is "without the user's intention" defined,
does it mean programmatically added items or something else?
~~~
shortercode
If the current event loop task ( you may need to read up on the JS event loop
) was spawned by something like a click event then it is marked as a "user
interaction". These tasks can do things like opening a popup window, start
audio playback etc. whereas normal tasks are normally blocked from doing this.
It's a clever mechanism but malicious sites tend to just attach a click
listener to the page and trigger everything when the user clicks for the first
time.
On the other hand it can also be a pain to program around this if you need it.
Say you have a webapp that allowed you render an image then display it in a
popup. But the rendering is time consuming, so you do asynchronously in the
background. The user clicks the button and you start the render. When the
render is complete you try and open the popup, but your now in a different
task where the popup is blocked. The best way to work around this is to
display a modal dialog, saying that the render is complete. Then when the user
hits "ok" you can use the task that the event created to display the popup.
But it might confuse the user why they need to confirm the render is complete.
~~~
mikewhy
Couldn't you open the popup immediately while keeping a reference, do the
proceeding, then just manipulate the reference to the window you just opened?
------
thefounder
This is bad for my Electron app. I wish there would be a flag to disable all
the web "security"(i.e isTrusted field requirements).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mercurial over Git - jchonphoenix
http://jonchu.posterous.com/16445171
======
icefox
"Need to make a new branch? Try git branch--er... I mean 4 seemingly random
Git commands that don't include the word branch. "
'git branch <branchname> [start-point]' creates a new branch....
Maybe he is referring to the fact that git branch wont change change branches?
You have to use git checkout to actually switch branches.
"Not only is documentation for some important features sparse, the
documentation that does exist is rarely ever of the best quality."
I am curious what specifically he was referring to. The docs on git-scm are
pretty extensive. Between the docs, books, cheatsheets, videos there is a ton
out there. Even the man pages include example usage where many man pages for
command line tools do not.
Something I can't help but ponder is that in switching to the second system
they already had a grasp of some dvc concepts making it easier and if trying
git second would have been easier.
~~~
viraptor
I think he meant `git checkout -b ...` since that's what people want to do
most of the time. What's the use case for creating a branch if you're not
going to use it straight away? (and no 'branch' in the command really)
~~~
jshen
does he really have a problem remembering 'git checkout -b ...'? Seems like a
non issue to me.
~~~
viraptor
It's not an issue, but it can be an annoyance. Put many of them together and
you've got a reason why projects like Ubuntu's 100 papercuts exist. If you
have to work with something that just isn't quite right even if it works in
the end, it can affect your work.
------
drewcrawford
To a lot of the people who prefer Hg to Git, I ask this question: What's the
proper way to do a feature branch in Hg? (serious question) The three answers
I've heard are:
* Use hg branch <branchname> like git. The problem is this always requires me to do a push -f, which doesn't feel right...
* Use clone. Really? For a feature branch?
* Use the LocalBranches extension. Really, feature branches (the #1 productivity gain since switching to DVCS) isn't in the core code?
I have yet to find an equivalent to what I consider a core git workflow.
~~~
reiddraper
push -f is what I use, "force" makes it sound more sinister than it is.
~~~
samps
push -f is the thing. Requiring -f just makes you think twice before
accidentally exposing the rest of the world to your changes without merging
them.
------
lincolnq
Your use of the words "intuitive" and "revert" in this context betray that
your models are driven by how you expect centralized version control to work.
While Git and Mercurial are nearly isomorphic in implementation, their UIs
differ significantly because they're written with different models of DVCS in
mind.
Basically, I would argue you haven't fully grokked Git. To the extent that I
have understood Git's model, I have found it extremely insightful; if you want
this insight, you should spend a little more time trying to understand it
before giving up on it.
~~~
alexgartrell
As a long-time TA for the class leading up to 15-410 (almost as long as he's
been a student at CMU) I can firmly attest to the fact that we have done
absolutely nothing to make him aware of centralized version control (or
distributed version control...) :)
So basically, he's got the freshest possible eyes to make this judgement, and
if your counterclaim is that he hasn't truly grokked it yet, then that
suggests that it may be counterintuitive.
Additional fairness: the project in question is a 6-week round-the-clock code
fest. Writing a kernel from scratch takes forever. (Is this project just a
waste of time? Having moved on to poking at the Linux kernel and stuff, I'd
say almost certainly, but that's a topic for another conversation.)
Most Sincerely, Alex "Found out the hard way that reset != revert" Gartrell
~~~
theli0nheart
> if your counterclaim is that he hasn't truly grokked it yet, then that
> suggests that it may be counterintuitive.
Or proper usage wasn't explained to him correctly.
~~~
wmcc
Since we learn from the online docs, doesn't your statement imply that Gits
online documentation isn't very good?
~~~
pyre
> _Since we learn from the online docs_
That's an assumption.
~~~
mcn
wmcc stated he was in the same OS class as the blog poster.
------
jmtulloss
It will be interesting to hear what he thinks of Mercurial after running into
some of its warts.
I think it's valuable to read the opinions of people who are just getting into
this game. Those of us with lots of experience with the everyday tools of the
trade might not see a lot of substance to this critique, but it's important
when designing any product to make sure it's approachable for novices. There's
often a tradeoff there for power or flexibility, which git has been unwilling
to make (probably rightfully so), but it does seem that things could be done
to make the tool easier to get into, without necessarily compromising its
power.
~~~
tghw
It's not a trade-off of power or flexibility as much as it is a difference in
priorities. Git puts all of the powerful -- and potentially dangerous -- tools
front and center (history editing, to name a big one), whereas Mercurial
supports all of the same functionality, but hides away some of the more
dangerous tools until you're ready to enable them.
------
MrMatt
This seems to be less about Mercurial vs Git, and more Jon Chu vs Git.
Although I haven't used Mercurial, all of the issues he brings up I found
really easy to solve when I started using Git (~2 years ago). The number and
quality of online resources has only improved since then.
------
OSTwister
If I understand git right, it's designed to allow different front ends - the
"porcelain." I wonder if an alternative "porcelain" could be made which would
be more intuitive to some?
~~~
lincolnq
It was made several years ago, near the birth of Git, called cogito.
<http://git.or.cz/cogito/> . It's currently deprecated.
It was how I learned Git actually; it made the UI very similar to mercurial's
UI. It was actually a surprisingly good learning curve, because it allowed me
to experiment with git commands side-by-side with cg commands on the same
repo, and I slowly transitioned out of cg into full-fledged git, almost
without noticing. I'm a little sad it's not maintained.
~~~
OSTwister
Very like Mercurial eh? I wonder if it'd be worth someone's while to pick it
up & maintain it.
------
jchonphoenix
I believe the preference of one system over the other is based mostly on how
they feel to the user.
Git is like a swiss army knife. git checkout can do just about everything and
anything. Mercurial seems to be more split. hg update and hg revert do
separate things.
Again a lot of preference comes down to personal feel. I prefer modularity.
Others may prefer one tool solving it all.
~~~
tghw
Apropos of your comment (and possibly the source):
[http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/01/the-real-difference-
betwee...](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2010/01/the-real-difference-between-
mercurial-and-git/)
------
awt
Grb gives you wings:
<http://grb.rubyforge.org/>
~~~
jkmcf
grb will help you create and manage remote branches. Why something like this
isn't baked into git, I don't know. I'm just happy grb exists!
git_remote_branch version 0.3.0
Usage:
grb create branch_name [origin_server]
grb publish branch_name [origin_server]
grb rename branch_name [origin_server]
grb delete branch_name [origin_server]
grb track branch_name [origin_server]
There are also plenty of aliases for the various actions.
create: create, new
delete: delete, destroy, kill, remove, rm
publish: publish, remotize, share
rename: rename, rn, mv, move
track: track, follow, grab, fetch
------
pkulak
You don't have a personal preference, you're just ignorant.
Okay, now no one has to comment anymore; I've taken care of all of it.
~~~
wmcc
Troll
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: “Why shouldn't I hire you?” - micah_chatt
The CEO at my company asks this question in every interview he is in on. What is your best answer to this question?
======
foobar000001
"Because my salary requirements just went up fivefold. I call it the jackass
fee"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Life is wasting my time - daemonl
http://blog.daemonl.com/2013/03/life-is-wasting-my-time.html
======
alexhaefner
Maybe I misunderstood this because of what books I have been reading lately,
but I really enjoyed reading this piece as a piece of irony. Apparently the
word irony, pre-14th century had more to do with an author writing an opinion
he or she did not hold, as if he or she did hold it.
When I read this as if the author doesn't believe that life is wasting his
time, but is being ironic, because the inherent flaw resides within himself,
and not within life, then I find the piece to be a really, really interesting
and an exposing and humble read.
~~~
daemonl
You totally got it. Apparently not many others did, my bad. Thanks for your
comment.
~~~
alexhaefner
Thanks again for writing this. You're writing about a feeling that I've
experienced and can relate to, and I thought the piece was excellent. Great
job.
------
bryanjclark
"There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself - not
just sometimes, but always.
"When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to
be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought
about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got
there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him - least of
all the things that really should have."
~~~
notimetorelax
Sounds interesting, for those who don't know its from "The Phantom Tollbooth"
book:
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4684236>
------
kayoone
Great piece, I am sure many people on HN can relate to this. Its especially
true in this community where you are constantly reminded that other people
"like you" build these amazing things. The project that millions use, the open
source software that is a godsend to developers, the game that is getting rave
reviews, the prototype that is so amazing in a technical sense.
Add to that the interaction with super smart people that talk alot about
programming best practices, new technologies, the future of computing, maths,
literature.
I think as a person inside of this world, its really hard to not get sucked
into the mindsight of:
* i need to get more work done
* i need to start this amazing project
* i need to learn more
* i need to grow
* i need to make more money faster
All this is well and good, but for me it often results in being impatient when
doing things "normal people do". I have this constant feel of "i should be
doing something more useful" no matter what i do. This is were it gets
dangerous and i think in the long run it will lead to alot of unhappiness.
Atleast that i am aware of it and try to reflect on it, is the first step to
more happiness, or so i hope.
~~~
h2s
What if being aware of this mindset problem and yearning to be more content
and calm is just another iteration of the exact same generalised problem of
being overly mindful of the imperfections in one's life?
~~~
jdotjdot
I think at that point you begin meditating, where the point is to have no mind
at all.
------
copperx
I felt like my life was being described by the author. However, I don't feel
like that anymore. My life changed when I got to be responsible for a kid.
There's nothing I rather be doing instead of being with my child; there's no
nagging in the back of my mind anymore telling me to go read some more, to
come up with the next big thing, to hack something out, to work out math
problems.
I still enjoy doing constructive activities, but it's no longer my life's
purpose. For me, it's like seeing the 'big picture' of life. I remember, like
the author, being extremely impatient with family life and social activities
because I would rather be spending time building something, learning something
new. Normal human activities seemed boring and purposeless. I made a promise
to myself that I would never have a family for the fear of being too draining
and becoming frustrated for not having enough time for my projects. All of
that vanished in a couple of weeks after meeting my now wife's kid.
The kid I'm responsible for is not my biological child, so it's not just the
instinct of caring for my own child that's at play here.
Perhaps that's why the most important scientific discoveries come before
scientists have kids; it's not the responsibility and the time suck that
impede growth, it's an overwhelming feeling of happiness and indescribable
feeling of "doing the right thing" that rearing a child brings.
I honestly thought that child rearing distracted and frustrated parents
because they HAD to become selfless. It doesn't feel that way at all. Self-
growth seems superficial and meaningless now in the grand scheme of things,
and I am a pretty ambitious and obsessed person.
~~~
Uncompetative
Please. Unless you have adopted a goat, don't call it a kid.
I hate the terms 'kid' and 'kids'.
What is wrong with 'child' and 'children'?
~~~
copperx
I'm sorry, English is my second language. Could you explain the difference?
~~~
nollidge
There isn't one. "Kid" can mean the young of either humans or goats. "Child"
is a bit more formal, but that's about it.
------
ivanbernat
I hope the author is reading this thread.
What struck me was this line: "Family time bores me because I could otherwise
be doing amazing things".
I felt like this for a long time. I was in a long-term relationship with an
amazing woman, yet I spent my free time working or thinking about all the
"amazing" things I could have been working on. Up to the point where she left
me.
Family time is the one thing you should never consider a bore or a chore.
~~~
hobbes
Thankfully, the last sentence of the article states: "Then I'm going to the
beach with my partner to 'do nothing' for an evening."
Just to add, it's not mererly a lack of "doing" something, but valuing the
"being" part of ourselves: Father, husband, partner, friend, etc - out of
which the "doing" bit naturally flows. Due to my personality flaws, I too
often "do nothing" when in presence of my wife, which can be just as
destructive for the relationship as wishing I was doing something somewhere
else.
------
unimpressive
I don't get the nasty comments on his blog, it's clearly a self aware piece
poking fun at it's own sense of superiority. If he really had things the way
he wanted them, he wouldn't need to be there in the first place.
And on top of that, it's brilliantly poetic.
~~~
yen223
Read the entire blog before commenting? What a waste of time! Better comment
first. ;)
------
scotty79
I felt the same way. But I gave up struggling and accepted that my destiny is
to lead sucky life, waste my time here on earth with mortals and mediocre jobs
and most likely never accomplish anything non-average.
~~~
Nursie
What's a sucky life?
Writing code for other people, even on sucky projects, pays for an awesome
life for me :)
------
ejsl
Sounds like depression.
~~~
RyanZAG
It's actually the very opposite of depression. Depression is generally a lack
of hope for the future. This would be a case of so much hope for the future
and himself that he is unable to live in the present, as what he is currently
doing simply cannot live up to his hopes.
It's interesting how similar to depression the effects would be.
~~~
codeboost
Depression is a long period of negative thought patterns. The person is locked
in a loop of insatisfaction, disappointment, health concerns, feelings of
wasting life (guilt), followed by feelings of worthlessness. It is a terrible
place to be. And unfortunately a lot of smart people fall into this mental
trap. I am emerging from such an episode myself and I can relate perfectly to
the article. I was helped by the book "Feeling good: The New mood therapy" and
I highly recommend it to anyone who seeks help.
------
mr_penguin
Journey, not the destination.
------
snuze
This bring to mind the Kevin Spacey monologue in Casino Jack:
_Cause in reality, mediocrity is where most people live. Mediocrity is the
elephant in the room. It's ubiquitous. Mediocrity in your schools. It's in
your dreams. It's in your family. And those of us who know this - those of us
who understand the disease of the dull - we do something about it. We do more
because we have to._
Read more at: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194417/quotes?qt=qt1477054>
------
ritchiea
I struggle with this myself. But sometimes the problem is actually the thing
you're pursuing. What if the thing you're second guessing is a zombie startup?
Or really any pursuit that isn't measuring up to reasonable standards set for
it.
Setting lofty goals often involves taking on projects and employment
opportunities before they are mature ventures. And you end up asking the
question "am I being unreasonable and impatient or is this project doomed?"
It's not an easy question to answer.
------
basicallydan
Mate, I can also relate to this. It's tough. I know the problem is myself but
I don't know how to solve it. Although, I _do_ know how to solve it, yet
somehow I don't. Sure, it might be a "humblebrag" but it's a god damned
frustrating one. I Think a lot of people, especially people on HN, feel this
way.
------
Kluny
Not sure I agree with you, but I really enjoy your particular version of
English-as-a-second-language.
------
Uncompetative
You have a partner and access to a beach. I have neither and haven't had a job
since 1988. Yet the only thing I have found boring about my life of late has
been reading this. I am not going to tell you to stop bleating, to accept the
uneliminatable imperfections inherent in life so you can better focus on
reducing the recurring overall inefficiencies because I feel it would fall on
deaf ears. You can't be helped. You can only help yourself out of this mental
rut and change your subjective perspective towards your circumstances by
developing not a positive mental attitude but a pragmatic one. I can't reach
into your cerebellum and rewire it. You can. It will take about six months -
assuming you don't kill yourself in the meantime.
------
k_infinite
My whole life is consumed by this feeling.
I feel like I should already have achieved something great, yet I don't
explicitly think I'm special, although feeling like this and letting other
people know about this constant irking feeling might understandably lead them
to think that I think of myself as someone special or superior to them,
especially when talking to people who haven't experienced this kind of push
and don't have these kinds of aspirations. I think that in my case there's a
healthy part to it and there's an obsessive, blown-out-of-proportions part to
it, based on the healthy part. And it's not easy to tell, where one ends and
where the other starts.
The most dreaded thought to me is the thought of mediocrity, me being just
another working bee as someone put it in the comments, with no power, ability,
skills, and certainly no destiny to build or do something great. What
"something great" is, I didn't really outline it yet. Maybe this should be the
first step towards actually starting a project that matters. I cannot relax. I
cannot let go. In my life it is rare, when I can just kick back and relax and
enjoy doing something that is not the next step towards something big.
Whenever I'm left alone with nothing to do, the feeling of guilt sooner of
later overwhelms me, I cannot have a breakfast without my thoughts rushing. I
just keep thinking about what I had done wrong or why I haven't achieved
anything of significance in my life. For one part, there is this feeling that
I already should have achieved great things and this feeling implies that I
should actually be able to achieve great things, and therefore that somehow I
am destined to achieve great things. Then rationally I know that I am not
special at all, but I can be. I know that things that I consider great can be
achieved by just people like me, because I know people who have achieved great
things. And that there's no destiny involved, just hard work and a lot of
skills which can be learned. The thing that is special about these people is
their attitude. The only times I came close to feeling relaxed and being able
to kick back and relax, were times when I've felt that I actually had
something great going on in my life, something that I've felt could go
somewhere, something with potential.
I consider the notion of potential one of the greatest things in life. I would
even go as far as to say that I value potential more than I value actual
results, more than I value potential realized. Potential is the start of
everything, potential contains everything in it, nothing is determined yet,
nothing is sure, but everything is possible.
And I think I'm afraid of stepping out of my zone of potential into the real
world, because out of the infinite possibilities, I have to choose one, I have
to choose a direction, _one_ direction and go there, knowing I will probably
never be able to go back. And take directions after directions, and from the
abstract notion of being everything at once, out of all the possibilities, I
have become only one path, one string of life, that either becomes successful
or withers and dies.
From the place where there is no meaning to failure or to success, to
certainty or to uncertainty, to decision, because everything is in there all
at once, and there is only excitement and anticipation, to the place, where I
might fail like many people have failed before.
For now I try to focus on doing things I really like, things that deeply
excite and interest me, things that matter to me, and I try to put the maximum
amount of effort into doing those things, and now I just have faith that out
of these things a project will emerge. And that as long as I can find things
that excite me, there will always be a project in there somewhere that's worth
doing.
~~~
Uncompetative
It is only healthy to value potential more than actual results if you agree
with the Chinese proverb...
'The journey is the reward'
I agree with the sentiment expressed by this and feel that it is silly to
defer gratification to the completion of a goal, whether that reward be pride
in your accomplishments, money, or fame. Especially as many long term projects
may never be completed as your personal circumstances change to prevent it
from being realized, or the endeavour taking so long that it is rendered
irrelevant by someone else finishing a similar work before you so that the
potential audience you were after has been entirely satisfied by their
solution.
If you would still work on whatever you do without payment and you are not
obsessing daily about fame and riches coming your way through doing it then
you are well adjusted. Obviously, a source of income has to be found for your
survival and shelter yet a lot of people work in moderately well paid full
time jobs in order to fund lifestyles that compensate them for the time that
they have sacrificed or their lack of self-worth.
1\. Uncontroversially, nice cars, houses and foreign holidays are paid for
largely by not just being part time with maybe some rewarding side-project or
voluntary work making them feel that they haven't entirely wasted their week.
2\. Controversially, having children is very expensive and time consuming and
bad for the planet as the ecological impact from not having a child is the
countless generations that will not exist, consuming and polluting, for
centuries to come. It may be a matter of being forced to choose between your
brainchild and the fruits of an intimate relationship. Luckily, there are
signs that educated women are less interested in having babies so men
shouldn't resent heterosexual partners that are smarter than them as it may be
to their advantage to have them be the one with the powerful career whilst
they run the household and code from home.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IAmA venture capitalist.AMA - muriithi
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/e99b0/iama_venture_capitalist_ive_had_4_companies_file/
======
wvl
I am highly skeptical that this is a legit posting. Of course, the poster has
not answered much of anything anyway, so it doesn't matter too much anyway.
~~~
ig1
Agreed, I doubt there's a VC partner anywhere in the world who's had 7
companies IPOing in a year.
~~~
rmah
Approximately 100 companies have gone IPO this year in the US. And almost 400
in China. Don't know about the rest of the world.
Reference: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/business/18place.html>
------
gte910h
I am flagging because I hate AMA, if I wanted reddit, I'd read reddit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using virtual reality to desensitize troops - CharlieHall
http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/17/6994793/using-virtual-reality-to-desensitize-troops
======
srean
At a certain level things like these ask the question what it is to be human,
and should we tamper with it because it is perceived as an impediment to our
political goals. Perhaps, one shouldnt be getting into these unnecessary wars
in the first place !
A telling anecdote might be the following: before mass extermination had been
perfected, a method that used to be followed by the WWII Germans was to
machine gun the victims packed in a pit. There have been several letters found
to have gone back and forth among the higher ups concerned with the emotional
reaction of the underlings doing the actual machine gunning. They considered
their emotional reaction to be the principal problem and sought out
alternatives, not that the concept of mass extermination itself was the one
that was questionable, quite preposterous !
Lest anyone jumps at it, I am by no means making a claim for moral equivalence
here.
@PavlovsCat Wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. Strange as it may
sound coming from someone who harbours anti-war sentiments, I for one support
mandatory military service for the reasons you mention. Without it, it is
easier for one set of people to encourage war with little risk or cost to
them. Or even better, those who are in favor of, or vote for war should be
required to take up proportionate risk. But exactly as you said, thing are not
simple, there is a thin line between what I proposed just now and war
profiteering at a national scale.
~~~
emotionalcode
It begins with assumptions that pretend to take the whole view into context,
but do not, as you suggest with the WWII comparison. The side effects are
pernicious and systemic.
I think the important thing to remember about PTSD and other mental illness -
numbing and desensitization are not the same as healing. Whether these things
occur as preparation or as treatment; I am not so certain this matters as
much. The events still occur. The thoughts and memories still exist.
Just because a person can not visibly show an emotional reaction or feel one,
does not mean the emotion has vanished, been extinguished, or that the person
has somehow been protected. The idea that this is effective preparation can
lead to further confusion, both for the individual affected and those
observing.
I agree with learning a certain kind of preparation up to a degree. I believe
doctors need a certain amount of preparation and experience in order to act
during crisis. I wish people would put more effort towards creating peace,
rather than assuming that war and violence are permanent conditions of the
social psyche.
------
fapjacks
Disclaimer: I've been in some pretty intense situations in my life.
At some point, no amount of VR can get past "this is not real". I suspect you
would need something that supercedes the psychological barriers in place which
keep telling a person "this is not real". For example, MDMA-assisted VR
therapy. Additionally, this seems just another form of what's called
"prolonged exposure therapy", which is why they state "That’s part of why VR
therapy doesn’t work for everyone". At the risk of downvotes, I think the real
silver bullet here would be to create and enforce stronger barriers to going
to war in the first place.
------
Sebpereira
I remember MGS 2 brought up this possibility, when they compared Raiden's VR
training with normal live exercises. And how even in real drills there is a
chance of someone dying, while VR training makes you think war is a game.
------
thisjepisje
Next up: virtual reality as a tool for information extraction.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What college rankings really tell us - boh
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
======
Alex3917
What this article doesn't mention is how much effort the colleges at the top
put into gaming the rankings. For example, Harvard spends millions of dollars
every year sending direct mail to graduating seniors who they know have no
chance of getting in, encouraging them to apply. Why? To increase their
rejection rate.
Similarly, Stanford was considered a relatively mediocre school until one year
when they rejected every single valedictorian across the country as a
marketing stunt, and suddenly jumped in the rankings after guidance counselors
started encouraging the kids with the highest grades to apply there.
Similarly, the admissions departments get an update twice a day telling them
their projected US News rank based on the grades and SAT scores of the kids
who they are admitting. Thus your chances of getting in can vary wildly based
on whether your application is read in the morning or afternoon. If the
projected rank drops too low then they stop even reading the essays and just
admit solely based on grades and SATs until the rankings are back up.
~~~
austenallred
Exactly. Brigham Young University (my university) is an absolute slave to the
rankings. They intentionally limit the acceptance rates into certain programs
even when there's open space for numbers' sake. If these rankings disappeared
and universities operated only for the sake of its students, I think the
overall quality of education would actually improve.
~~~
gliese1337
That just further enforces the point that you can't decide on what the best
college for you would be by looking at any kind of ranking for the university
as a whole. Different colleges and different departments within the university
can be run so radically differently that it hardly matters that they're
officially part of the same institution.
------
kenjackson
The USNWR rankings are especially insidious because they're also not
objective.
I wish I could find the citation for this, but I recall reading about how when
it first started the person who created the ranking formula showed USNWR the
list of top 10 schools and the Ivy League schools didn't do as well as
expected. If HYP weren't at the top there was a flaw with the methodology, so
they had to go back and get a new methodology that would conform with
conventional wisdom.
Also back in '99 Caltech took the top spot. Again this was viewed with some
disdain from the East Coast elite. They changed their methodology and
added/emphasized a metric they call "value add", which is the difference
between actual and expected graduation rates. Because CalTech is difficult to
graduate from, they were seriously penalized.
IOW, rankings are often simply a way to perpetuate the status quo, but make it
look objective.
~~~
ajross
I think your broad point about "elite" schools being a matter of reputation
rather than objective measurement is basically right. But some of your
analysis seems weird.
On the graduation rate: why _shouldn't_ a school be penalized for a low
graduation rate? The point of those rankings (beyond selling magazines, of
course) is to give prospective students an idea of how each school will help
them in life. If I have a choice of going to school A from which I'm 90%
likely to graduate and an otherwise equally ranked school B which is 50%
likely to kick me out without a diploma, which am I going to choose?
And the bit about CalTech seems a little like sour grapes. I was at one of
those "East Coast elite" schools in the 90's and don't remember anyone
thinking anything but good things about CalTech (Pasadena, on the other
hand...). Basically within its fairly narrow realm of focus CT is absolutely
one of the "elite" schools everyone looks to.
~~~
gms7777
> On the graduation rate: why shouldn't a school be penalized for a low
> graduation rate? The point of those rankings (beyond selling magazines, of
> course) is to give prospective students an idea of how each school will help
> them in life.
Its easy to look at this from the other side though.
I think a lot of people look at these rankings as the value of a degree earned
from that institution. That is, they are looking at it from the side of the
alums as opposed to the prospects. Suppose two schools have the same
admissions criteria and everything else, but the graduation rate of one is
much higher. I would think the school with the lower graduation rate would be
viewed as more rigorous and therefore "better".
~~~
mchusma
Even in high school, I never thought differently. >10 years later this is the
first time I ever even thought that someone would consider the probability of
their graduating (totally within their control). It was always 100% which
would be the best school to be from...or which one would be the most fun.
Graduation rate has nothing to do with either.
------
prezjordan
I attend a small tech school outside of NYC, and it's not terribly well-known,
and not terribly well-ranked. I was a good student in high school, and got
into schools ranked much higher than the one I attend now. Why? I love the
location here, and I love the "personal" factor that comes with a small
school. I've met lots of interesting people, I live in a beautiful town with
beautiful views, and I really enjoy what I'm learning. It just "felt right"
and it still does today.
Some days I get a little upset that I don't attend a prestigious university,
and I'm not really sure why. There's always grad school, though. Anyway, just
a personal experience.
~~~
kevhsu
RPI? RIT? Those are my guesses...
~~~
prezjordan
Those were the schools I got into that are ranked higher than where I go now
(Stevens Institute - Hoboken). More people know them by name, but even beyond
that lies CMU (I was waitlisted, and I'm hoping to maybe pursue a masters
there).
~~~
larrys
Did financial considerations come into play in your decision to choose Stevens
vs. the other schools?
------
justaddwater57
Interesting that Tulane is called out here as an example:
"One common statistic used to evaluate colleges, for example, is called
“graduation rate performance,” which compares a school’s actual graduation
rate with its predicted graduation rate given the socioeconomic status and the
test scores of its incoming freshman class.... Tulane, given the
qualifications of the students that it admits, ought to have a graduation rate
of eighty-seven per cent; its actual 2009 graduation rate was seventy-three
per cent. That shortfall suggests that something is amiss at Tulane."
Anyone else think that those numbers for the 2009 graduating class has
anything to do with the fact that Hurricane Katrina hit during the first few
weeks of '09's freshman year, forcing students at Tulane (which is located in
New Orleans) to take leaves of absences or transfers?
Just goes to show, in addition to inherent biases, rankings also don't capture
extenuating circumstances that can have drastic short term effects that go
unnoticed.
~~~
sfny
Have you read Gladwell's book "Outliers"? Basically deals with the situational
factors that create outliers like Bill Gates. Circumstances have incredible
life-determining effect that go totally unnoticed too.
------
bane
I worked for a great guy who also happened to be on the board of a reasonably
well respected tech university in the South Western U.S. Every year they have
a meeting about doing the kinds of things that boost their rankings in US News
and every year they've decided to _not_ do those things because of how it
would hurt what they feel to be their academic mission - educating students.
He said that almost everything that you can do to boost your ratings are
gimmick events like rejecting more applicants, or increasing spending on
getting applicants.
One particularly greusome idea was to hire national survey companies to hang
outside of popular teen events and get students to fill out a preliminary
application that they would then reject to get boost their rejection percent
and appear more "competitive".
They keep rejecting these kinds of meaningless shows of status.
But the lure of prestige keeps this meeting on the agenda anyways.
------
appleflaxen
I liked malcolm gladwell a lot more before I found out he is a big tobacco
shill.
[http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-
sh...](http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-tobacco-industry-shill/)
------
mnemonicsloth
(sort-by
(fn [u]
(* (:age u)
(:tuition u)
(if (rhymes-with (:name u) 'Warvard)
1
(+ 0.9 (rand 0.1))))
univs)
------
rickdale
This article brings up some really good points. Ultimately schools are
obsessed with rankings because alum and prospective students are also obsessed
with rankings. The rankings do a really good job of enthralling the consumer
and making it competitive to get into college.
I graduated in 2009. In that same year we got a new president. He pledged to
move the school up in the rankings from 22 in a welcome speech. The crowd gave
a standing ovation.
------
enraged_camel
I graduated from University of Washington, a school that ranks 41st on that
list. My roommate in my freshman year of college was Chinese. His dad, a
college professor in Hong Kong, always gave him shit for not attending a
university that placed higher in the rankings. This is despite the fact that
my roommate was a computer science major, and UW has one of the best Comp-Sci
programs in the nation. It always seemed to me that his dad cared more about
the prestige factor than the actual quality of education his son received. It
wouldn't surprise me to find out he has dreams about bragging to his friends
that his son went to Harvard or Princeton.
What a shame.
~~~
CountHackulus
Speaking specifically of computer science programs, in eastern Canada (mostly
Quebec and Ontario), there's a computer science contest called the CS Games.
It's mostly just for fun and networking, but it's interesting to see where
different universities ranked in different events. Relatively unknown
universities like Carleton (my alma mater) placed excellently in extreme
programming and algorithms, but not so well in debugging and shell scripting.
But to draw a parallel to your comment, both Sherbrooke and Harvard attended.
Sherbrooke being relatively unknown outside of computer science circles. Well
that year, Sherbrooke absolutely dominated every competition placing 4th or
better in every event, and 1st overall. Harvard however placed last nearly
every event (except AI where they were in the middle of the pack).
Looking at the overall reputations of both of these universities, Harvard is
by far the more well known and respected. Just like the article was saying,
overall rankings aren't very useful, and that if you're serious about getting
a good education, you'll have to dig deeper.
~~~
kevhsu
Well to be fair Harvard isn't ranked that highly for CS, and this single data
point doesn't say a whole lot about it either. You'll find CS undergrads that
are willing to enter, but would place last in this competition at MIT,
Stanford, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon.... every school.
Just playing devil's advocate here. Rankings are a crapshoot, and I don't love
the Ivies at all.
------
sigil
Watch for recommender systems to disrupt and replace many of these rating
systems.
As Gladwell pointed out in the Car & Driver example, the "scores" assigned in
these rating systems are arbitrary linear combinations of factors chosen by
"experts." You the car buyer will personally care more or less about certain
factors than they do, but they've already chosen the coefficients for you, so
too bad. Same for the college ratings assigned by the USNWR.
I think we're asking the wrong questions with college rankings. Prospective
students should be asking, what education will maximize the expected value to
_me personally_ in the future? It's not a heterogenous and inexplicable
"score" they're looking for, it's the probability that the match between
student and college will be a productive one. Given data about individual
students, colleges, and historical outcomes, surely a better predictive model
is possible.
------
bentlegen
On the subjectiveness of reputation:
I once met a recruiter for the University of Toronto (Canada) who focuses
exclusively on visiting US high schools. She told me how U of T was behind
other "top" Canadian schools in advertising to potential students in the US.
She mentioned how McGill University (in Montreal) started going after US
students aggressively beginning in the 70s, and as a result, has a far better
reputation there today. Even The Simpsons once joked that McGill is "the
harvard of Canada", even though most Canadians would probably say otherwise.
Clip: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc5vN2XReWs>
~~~
tikhonj
I suspect that getting US students is important because they pay significantly
more than students from Canada itself. I'm not sure exactly how it works in
Canada, but at least at my US public university out-of-state and international
students pay far more than instate students which certainly doesn't hurt the
budget. Since the US is really close, has expensive education domestically and
has a large population, it's probably relatively easy to convince high-paying
US students to come to universities in Canada.
------
geebee
The Washington Monthly had an interesting angle on college rankings, and how
different their results are from US News:
[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/introduction_a_different_kind031630.php)
------
jmduke
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universiti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment)
Sort by total endowment per student. Cross-reference this list with the USNWR
rankings. The overlaps are striking.
------
RedwoodCity
Thank You to who ever posted this article. It points out how stupid
college/car/etc... rankings are. I think people have a natural tendency to
want to rank things, in the end it just makes us unhappy.
------
api
I love how everyone responsible for ranking colleges lives along the North-
Eastern seaboard. That area is such a bubble of regional self-importance.
~~~
jmduke
True, but yesterday a post titled 'How Coffee Meetings Power Silicon Valley'
hit the front page.
Every region has people who are self-important and people who are not.
------
mullr
I wonder where the data for these rankings comes from. Is it publicly
available? It would be nice to have a dynamic ranker which prioritizes the
things you care about.
------
crusso
If you're a slave to the school rankings in choosing a school, you get what
you deserve.
------
tkahn6
I predict the obsession with college and therefore collegiate rankings will
dissipate in the next 50 years, maybe even by the close of this decade.
Consider what a college experience offers more readily over what you can
accomplish with a high-speed internet connection.
\- a community of people around the same age with no liabilities or
responsibilities
\- guaranteed access to an expert on the subject who can answer direct
questions
\- verification of knowledge
Anything else?
Why do we need thousands of college professors giving lectures on linear
algebra each semester? We have the bandwidth to distribute a complete video
lecture series from MIT to all college-going people in the US.
The collegiate model is predicated on the inaccessibility and uneven
distribution of information. That's why the top colleges have the biggest
libraries. That's how information was primarily stored and accessed and
catalogued.
The developed world is a completely different place now.
~~~
Locke1689
The importance of college won't change until hiring practices do. Most
employers don't actually test most of their candidates on their skills. Until
they do they need a way to distinguish their candidates. Hiring from Harvard
is a good way to do it since you can outsource your requirements to the
Harvard acceptance department.
~~~
aswanson
CS and engineering jobs must exist in a different universe than the rest of
the working world. I have yet to go through an interview process that did not
require a verbal/written series of technical questions being answered.
~~~
xanados
It is not much of an exaggeration to say that they do. In many (most?) other
professional fields decisions are made based solely on interviews, including
finance, accounting, sales, middle management, etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Appreciating Mathematical Structure for All (2009) [pdf] - poindontcare
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ883866.pdf
======
marktangotango
I typically read math or computer science papers, so reading a paper like this
is very odd. The paper is about mathematics education and the authors talk
about the importance of encouraging 'structural thinking' in students. It's
all very hand wavy, there is no introductory section outlining what the paper
is about, no definitions, and no summary. There is a conclusion which is just
as hand wavy as the rest.
Very odd to get a glimpse into other fields this way.
~~~
gohrt
> no definitions,
"We take mathematical structure to mean the identification of general
properties which are instantiated in particular situations as relationships
between elements or subsets of elements of a set."
In case you missed it (it's the first sentence of the abstract), it's also
repeated as the first sentence of the paper.
Compare to, say, a paper published by a well-respected famous mathematician:
[https://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1989-39.pdf](https://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1989-39.pdf)
~~~
marktangotango
I qualify that as 'hand wavy' because none of properties, instantions, or
situations are defined, and/or are not well known mathematical concepts as
elements and sets are.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hiring using stereotypes considered harmful - yuhong
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-manager/dont-stereotype-when-it-comes-to-hiring/230
======
yuhong
Not new, but the Facebook hiring problems inspired me to submit this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Bash on my new webapp? - dholowiski
http://onepix.me<p>I just reached what I like to think is MVP last night and I'd really appreciate it if you'd bash on my app for a bit and give me your feedback.<p>I'm looking specifically for a few things. First - can you figure out what it does? This has been my biggest problem so far as most people can't figure out what it does. Second, would you use, and pay for it?<p>Right now there is no way to pay for the service, but it would be great if you'd sign up for a trial account and let me know how the process works. I'd like to hear about any usability issues as well, or outright errors. I have tons of extra features planned, but I'm bootstrapping so I'd really like to know if you think this is viable project. Thanks for your help!
======
OpenAlgorithm
Personally I would really focus the ability to know when your email has been
read, there are many analytics software providers that give you far more
detailed statistics than your package will.
While I know there are email trackers and from a commercial point of view you
would be using an email marketing provider.
But from a consumer's point of view tracking when a really important email has
been sent could be a great idea. I would use it if I was sending an email to
someone I hadn't contacted before but respected a lot and placed a high value
on being in contact with them.
As a result if I was running the site, I would focus the branding and
marketing on the consumer level, simple to use email tracking versus
commercially focussed stuff.
__Also tip: maybe don't use so much tech mumble on the homepage, tell the
user about the results of your technology on the homepage and the details of
the technology on a sub-page, otherwise you are just confused if you are
coming from a search engine or social media site.
So something like: "copy and paste this one line into your emails and know
whether the recipient has read your message".
Looks like a cool idea so keep going.
------
bwillard
Just signed up, couple thoughts:
\- I think it is pretty clear what you do, so that is good
\- The left right buttons on the homepage weren't working for me
\- after signing up its weird to see some red text "You're 33% of the way
there...", it makes me think something went wrong.
\- its also a little weird that I have to add my e-mail address again to
create my first notification, maybe that should be pre-populated with the
address I signed up with to save a step when signing up.
\- I got 2 e-mails every time (signup, e-mail verification, notification)
But it looks cool, I will give it a try on some of our pages, nice work.
~~~
dholowiski
Thanks! I'll check in to the duplicate message thing. I'm glad that it was
pretty clear what it does. The red text was to guide you through the process
of setting up your first notification but obviously it needs some work. The
reason it asked for your email address a second time was that you can receive
notifications on other email addresses, not just the one you sign up with -
but now that you point it out it does seem dumb that you have to add it a
second time and makes more sense for me to automatically add your primary
address.
------
iSloth
"Put the Image in an HTML email and know exactly when the Email is opened."
Do most eMail clients not block images because of this client tracking, gMail
and Outlook spring to mind.
------
cschmitt
I think it is a good idea for non developers, but as a developer I would know
how to implement this feature without needing your service. So I would be a
little worried about your target audience and really making your webpage speak
to those people.
Here's my 2 cents on some things I saw: \- Plans and pricing has some css
issues \- Signup page has three sign up callouts. Maybe put some benefits on
that page and remove the duplicate call outs.
------
dirkdeman
Just signed up too, and I agree that it looks very good! I'll test drive it
for a couple of days to see how it works. I can imagine it's very cool to get
notified whenever a new user signs up, but once you get to the point where you
have 1000s users every day it could get annoying... I'm not at that point
though so I want to know!
~~~
dholowiski
Yup, you've got it exactly. You probably wouldn't want to put it on a page
that got 1000's of visits a day. Thanks.
------
dholowiski
Clickable: <http://onepix.me>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk (1738) [pdf] - stopachka
https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ipollak/ece302/FALL09/notes/Bernoulli_1738.pdf
======
Nydhal
Must Read:
Peters, O. (2019). The ergodicity problem in economics. Nature Physics,
15(12), 1216-1221.
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=16380731883124301...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=16380731883124301371)
------
juskrey
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion)
~~~
beefman
See also:
Peters and Gell-Mann (2015)
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0585](https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.0585)
Adamou et al (2019)
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.02137](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.02137)
~~~
unbalancedparen
We have done some simulations and explorations on Peters and Adamou's work:
\-
[https://lambdaclass.com/finance_playground/ergodicity/ergodi...](https://lambdaclass.com/finance_playground/ergodicity/ergodicity-
explorations.html)
\-
[https://lambdaclass.com/RGBM_animations/](https://lambdaclass.com/RGBM_animations/)
~~~
trishankkarthik
Hihi, me too:
[https://github.com/trishankkarthik/notebooks/blob/master/Eva...](https://github.com/trishankkarthik/notebooks/blob/master/Evaluating%20Gambles%20using%20Dynamics.ipynb)
~~~
juskrey
Hi Trish!
~~~
trishankkarthik
Hi Stan!
------
1wd
The original Latin text (1738)
[https://archive.org/details/SpecimenTheoriaeNovaeDeMensuraSo...](https://archive.org/details/SpecimenTheoriaeNovaeDeMensuraSortis)
------
tunesmith
If expected utility is actually logarithmic, then that would an imply that a
flat tax is actually fair. But a real flat tax, not the kind some Republicans
have advanced in the past. It would appeal to worked/earned income and capital
income.
I wonder what kind of findings there are indicating that progressive is
actually more fair than flat? Perhaps most of the pro-progressive argument is
just to counteract other regressive elements.
~~~
ssivark
You’re arguing as if the goal of taxes is to “punish” people and therefore
taxing everyone the same fraction results in the same did-utility. Needless to
say, there are ostensibly many other reasons/justifications for taxes.
~~~
ravar
There are arguably two competing directives, one is too get the most revenue
per disutility generated, in which case the flat tax is definitely not
desirable. But another is fairness, it seems unfair to only make certain
people suffer disutility, this logic is commonly accepted when discussing
minority rights. So maybe the flat tax is minority rights for the rich? And
what societies try to find a middle ground between the two goals?
~~~
ssivark
Arguably far more concrete notions of utility (such as benefits obtained, or
resources consumed, and development of human potential) are preferable for
basing policy decisions on, rather than such abstract notions as logarithmic
utility of made-up concepts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook Messenger Launches a Desktop App on Mac and Windows - vthallam
https://messengernews.fb.com/2020/04/02/messenger-comes-to-the-big-screen-new-desktop-app-for-group-video-calls-and-chats-to-help-people-stay-better-connected/
======
ChrisArchitect
why are we installing facebook apps on the desktop now? What is the need for
this other than maybe something about bigger 'full screen'.....the rest is
exact same experience as the website (messenger.com) ......
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Who else is hacking a project instead of watching the Super Bowl? - bdclimber14
I'm curious to poll the HN community to see who is working instead of watching the Super Bowl?
======
jedberg
Can't I do both? :) I'm on my laptop hacking while sitting in front of the TV.
Also I'm watching my website traffic do this:
<http://www.reddit.com/tb/fgjid>
~~~
yakto
Yup, doing both here, too. Was hoping for another halftime wardrobe
malfunction, and getting close to having invite codes ready: <http://yak.to>
~~~
jedberg
I just looked at your site, but I have no idea if I want an invite code. :)
Perhaps you could put at least some sort of teaser on the homepage as to what
problem you might be solving or at least some clue as to the problem space.
~~~
yakto
Thanks for the feedback. Still trying to figure out the one-liner. The current
meta description tag has the latest tagline: Overshare Anything.
I've been inspired most by Reddit (thanks again jedberg), but Yak is more
playful, flirty, and local.
------
sudonim
What's a superbowl? Im at the office building a desk for a new dev starting
tomorrow, doing some wireframes, and then working on my side project.
~~~
bdclimber14
Rock on, seriously, rock on!
------
NZ_Matt
Oh America are playing their version of rugby today? I did wonder why my
twitter timeline suddenly filled up with tweets about commercials :P
~~~
paylesworth
Yes, sadly our version of "rugby" features lots of standing around, pads, and
helmet-induced concussions. Are you gearing up for the Rugby World cup in your
backyard this year?
~~~
barrydahlberg
It is actually having quite an impact in Auckland. I don't care too much for
the rugby, but I welcome any improvements to our transport system etc.
<http://www.auckland2011.com/Getting-Auckland-ready.aspx>
------
sabj
If by hacking project, you mean, "writing my senior thesis," then yes!
And if by "writing my senior thesis," you mean, going onto HN instead, then
double-yes!
~~~
RK
Not watching the super bowl to write python for my PhD project, but instead
checking HN.
------
jrockway
I didn't even know it was today until all these Super Bowl articles started
showing up.
I was happy that the Bears lost a few weeks ago because it means I have
another year to be able to walk around in my neighborhood without being hit by
drunk drivers. (I live right by soldier field, and it seems they don't let you
drive away from it unless you are utterly tanked. Someone ran a red light and
was inches away from hitting a baby in a stroller. What the fuck.)
~~~
cbo
Sometimes it's hard to cheer for sports teams when you see the havoc their
fans wreak. I used to think Chicago had it bad, but I have since learned that
we're actually pretty tame when it comes to sports riots (at least until the
Cubs finally win).
Reference: Montreal.
------
mindcrime
Count me in; I'm lying in bed with my laptop, hacking (and checking HN every
now and then) right now. ATM, I'm trying to remake myself into a UI person
(well, at least a half-assed UI person) and trying to clean-up the user-
profile form for Quoddy[1]. To hell with football, the Dolphins aren't in the
SB, and there's code to be written...
[1]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy>
~~~
bdclimber14
"there's code to be written..."
So true.
~~~
mindcrime
I should have gone for a way to work in a reference to this quote:
_There are worlds out there where the skies are burning, where the seas
asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song.
Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice...and somewhere else the
tea is getting cold. Come on Ace...we've got work to do!_
Oh well, maybe next time...
------
rudle
Doing both is certainly not difficult, football games feature a _lot_ of
downtime.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870428120457500...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html)
------
xenophanes
I had no idea the super bowl was on today. Or this month...
------
raganwald
Got dynamic class loading working for my Faux framework yesterday. I guess I
really ought to write a blog post about it tonight, but for now this sketchy
overview will have to do:
[https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2011/02/...](https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2011/02/misadventure_part_iv.md#readme)
------
jarin
I'm doing both, since neither team is my team I'm only half paying attention
to it.
I also think it's hilarious how so many techies love to brag about not caring
about football. I'd have thought that hackers would enjoy the complexity of
the game (most of the programmers I know love football, and meeting up for
beers on football Sundays is a ritual for us).
~~~
jedberg
People think that sports and programming are mutually exclusive for some
reason. As if you can't be a good programmer unless you hate sports.
Personally, I like to hack and I hold football season tickets.
~~~
tejaswiy
My attention span is way too low for something like Football. I love soccer
because most of the time, people are actually playing instead of standing
around.
~~~
jff
I find that in soccer they're usually rolling around on the ground peeking out
from behind their hands.
Also, maybe if anybody ever scored in soccer it would be a little more
interesting. At least hockey has better fights and the players don't fall down
so much.
------
danenania
The only competition going on that I'm aware of is a three-way match-up
between python, javascript, and my brain.
------
consultutah
That's what I'm talking about. I'm sure that the super bowl is awesome, but
now that I have my weekend project (<http://goo.gl/JdBqR>) out of the way, I
am working on the backend.
------
vito
I'm putting together the release notes for the most substantial update for any
project I've ever done. Probably shouldn't release yet if everyone's watching
the Superbowl. Tomorrow it is?
<http://atomo-lang.org/notes/0.4>
------
shaunxcode
I've been working on finally beating zelda 2 on virtual console, catching up
on client work and thinking about my next move with the TryAPL
(<https://github.com/shaunxcode/TryAPL>) project I've been hacking on.
------
gsivil
Count me in! I am in a bookstore checking HN and putting together some physics
related data in Lisp (if this can be considered hacking of course).
------
developingJim
Just got done with a 2-3 week binge of programming, taking time to regroup and
refocus.
Just got done reorganizing all of my research in one note, loaded up on
skydrive (impressive how far live has come since I last looked).
Ran across this device which I must own:
[http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/2011/02/04/noteslate-
the-100...](http://www.wirelessgoodness.com/2011/02/04/noteslate-
the-100-single-color-tablet-that-will-replace-your-legal-pad-forever/)
Toying with the idea of dumping all of my research out of one note and into
the interwebs, raw. Haven't decided one way or another yet.
------
pdenya
...is that today?
I've been busy hacking for weeks, didn't even notice.
------
coderdude
I'm working on my startup. I figured if I can be watching the game I can be
working just as well. Work won. :)
------
bluecobalt
Working on my startup, getting ready to launch this month, although I think
its wonderful that the rest of my nation is really into a Superb Owl.
------
PureSin
Multi-tasking! Programming isnt really something you can multi task, but I'm
only watching forthe commercials and half time show.
------
DarrenLehane
There are two types of people:
Those who watch the Super Bowl, and those who run ads during the Super Bowl.
------
cgranade
I am. Playing around with Google App Engine and Honeycomb at the same time,
making some tools for tabletop gaming. Just uploaded first revision ( _very_
feature incomplete) at <https://github.com/cgranade/ProjectUmbra/>.
------
cperciva
I was playing music from Borodin's Prince Igor at an orchestra concert this
afternoon; does that count?
(We had a good audience, too -- I have a feeling that the set of people who
attend classical music concerts doesn't overlap very much with the set of
people who watch football.)
------
michaels0620
Why choose? :)
I am watching the game (Packers just scored) while working on a hobby game
project.
------
37prime
Define "hacking" and "project" please. Well, I'm doing something with PHP and
CSS. Does it count?
------
pbreynolds
I'm in the home office with a hot cup of Casi Cielo working in the bowels of
CoreText and Quartz for a huge feature update to my iPhone/iPad app. When I
need an eyeball break, I walk into the living room to see if I can catch a
cool commercial)
------
zinssmeister
Totally! Hacking away since 24h on my project:
<http://www.virtualrockstars.com>
My wife across the room is also hacking on something for SXSWi. Love being
married to another coder!
~~~
mbm
That's _awesome._
------
peregrine
In Wisconsin it is sacrilegious to not watch a Packer game; that said I am
still on HN.
------
snguyen
I'm tutoring a compsci student. Does that count?
------
mcantelon
Yup... added support for ignore files to my CLI util (written in node.js) for
managing dotfiles using git: <https://github.com/mcantelon/node-deja>
------
paylesworth
I'm hacking my pantry. Right now, making chicken stock by using leftover
carcasses from whole chickens that I cut-up myself in the last few months.
Will freeze the stock to keep it up to 3 - 4 months and during that time can
cut-up some more chickens to use in the next cycle. The stock is very simple
to make and involves mostly inactive cook time (3-4 hrs simmering) and it
teaches you to work with whole chicken rather than cut-up parts, making it
more economical. And, it makes your house smell wonderfully delicious :)
~~~
sgallant
Hah, I'm doing the same thing. But I'm using my stock for fresh chicken soup.
It's a good break from hacking.
Super bowl (of soup).
------
andywood
Sort of. I'm finally getting around to making a bandcamp page for my
unreleased music:
<http://cubit.bandcamp.com/>
This is a direct reaction to seeing this excellent chart from the "Knack for
Getting Money" thread, and wanting to move as much finished work as I can from
the middle category to the right-hand category:
<http://joeyroth.com/charlatan-martyr-hustler/>
------
reneherse
Working on my site so i can launch my freelance web design & UX business!
Time to get back to wrestling with the CSS, which isn't always easy for us
right-brained types :)
------
pjscott
I noticed that there seems to be no easy way for Haskell programmers to use
bcrypt, so I made something similar, with the goal of making good security
trivial. It's just a slick API around PBKDF1, with painless support for
increasing the number of iterations:
<http://hackage.haskell.org/package/pwstore-fast>
Now I've just got to persuade a few people to switch away from insecure
methods.
------
joe6pack
I'm not naturally a sports fan, but I always find it good for social purposes
to stay at least marginally aware of them (at least the major events). So,
hacking in front of the TV for a change.
That said, football brings to mind a great PG quote: "Kids are sent off to
spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of
giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural
thing in the world."
------
blhack
I'm working on setting a new layout for thingist (the current one
[<http://thingist.com>] looks _terrible_ ).
The new layout is here: <http://dev.thingist.com/index.html> nothing here will
work properly, though, and it will probably blip in and out of actually
working (it's a staging server [well, a virtual one]).
~~~
sfphotoarts
agreed on the current, and the new one seems broken.
~~~
blhack
Yeah, I'm still working on getting the new one into the code.
Unfortunately, it's more than just a simple css file rewrite.
edit: new layout is pretty much applied (to the staging [virtual] server).
------
jff
Oh that superbowl thing? Yeah I just found out they played one last February,
I guess that's cool, does it happen every year? I wouldn't know, I'm not one
of those proletariat mouth-breathing football fans, it's not even real
football anyway. Instead I've been hacking a RESTful Ruby on Rails application
that combines social media, blogging, and Markov chaining, all in 200 lines.
------
jc123
Watched a little and spent time debugging why Facebook invites with fb:multi-
friend-selector were not working (serverfbml leading to 404). I solved it and
Facebook's new https feature, if enabled by the user, is the cause :( Filed
bug: <http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=15066>
------
RiderOfGiraffes
There's a poll: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2186782>
~~~
bdclimber14
Do you know how much Karma you need to create a poll? I don't believe I have
enough, or don't know how to.
~~~
tgriesser
I think it's pretty low... <http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll>
~~~
dreur
20 - At least that what it says when not logged in.
------
jenn
I've been taking a break from working on <http://101in365.com> to watch the
commercials sometimes, but yeah... hacking on a project is way more fun!
Managed to get a lot done today too! Good that my friends have all be pre-
occupied by the game so I can concentrate!
------
gourneau
I was able to get shoehorn jquery-facebook-multi-friend-selector
([https://github.com/mbrevoort/jquery-facebook-multi-friend-
se...](https://github.com/mbrevoort/jquery-facebook-multi-friend-selector)) To
work for a beautiful mobile app I am working on, that I hope to show off soon.
------
GiraffeNecktie
Some of us just weren't born with the sports-watching gene. You'd have to pay
me, and pay me well, to watch the SuperBowl or any other TV sports (they're
all equally tedious, in my eyes). And, in answer to your probable question, no
I'm not female or gay.
------
bdclimber14
My bowl game happens to be between Postgre and MySQL. My development
environment MySQL instance and Heroku's Postgre are very different with
aggregate functions.
i.e. How can I possibly select parent rows where ALL children match a certain
criteria.
------
Breefield
I'm working on an AM/PM taskmanager circle-clock.
<http://breefield.com/lab/days/> Japanese characters are via Google translate,
probably horribly wrong, but mostly for aesthetic.
------
atgm
I am. I come up with a dumb little site idea and decided to implement it using
PHP and the 960.gs system, both things I want more practice with. Also tried
out some new (to me) Photoshop techniques to try to modernize my design style.
------
lewq
Building a query cache for the distributed proxying layer in
<http://www.hybrid-sites.com/tech/> \- much better than this "football" of
which you speak ;-)
------
oxtopus
I plotted the week's hourly average Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) as
reported by ERCOT, looking into the "rolling blackouts" in Texas.
<http://bit.ly/f1lXqk>
------
Pyrodogg
Working on personal projects tonight. Nothing that'll make me money directly
but it's enhancing my skill set.
Don't have the game on in the background even, no tv reception. It simplifies
life quite a bit.
------
girlvinyl
I've been working on my project non-stop this weekend and yesterday was my
birthday. Took a dinner and cake break and got back to it. When you're really
into something, it's all you can think about!
------
tony_landis
SuperBowl?
<http://github.com/tony-landis/PonyExpress>
It needs a few more hours of for docs and testing before it is ready.
------
emartin24
I'm doing a bit of both ;) Hacking a WordPress theme for
<http://beyondthefocus.com> while watching bits of the game & commercials.
------
eswat
Ever since I left my old job (heavy football culture) I haven’t really gave a
damn for handegg. Working on my local city bus webapp instead.
The new FUEL PHP framework is great, BTW.
------
brennannovak
Yup! Hacking happily away on <http://social-igniter.com> couldn't care less
about the Super Bowl- I don't even know who's playing.
------
LeachyPeachy
I am working. I am the CTO for Alliance Acquisitions (<http://www.alliance-
acquisitions.com>) Much left to get done.
------
pinchyfingers
Visiting my girlfriend's dad at the cancer center. He is a lifelong Steelers
fan. I am a lifelong coder. The game is on, but I am sitting here working on a
Django app.
------
FirstHopSystems
The super bowl isn't going to code my start-up project for me!
------
peter_l_downs
I am! I've been fixing up my side project, www.bookshrink.com, which I
recently submitted here and got a bunch of feedback on. What project are _you_
working on?
------
burgerbrain
Does brewing beer count? -dashes off as his wort boils over-
------
covati
For sure, I'm hacking away on some utilities ArgyleSocial.com, while the wife
watches a Masterpiece Theatre movie.
The Super...what is on tonight? :)
------
espeed
Yeah, just started it two days ago --
<http://developers.propagandaproject.org>
------
mgkimsal
Doing project work (not my own though) but definitely not watching the super
bowl. Had a nice dinner with my wife, now back to hacking.
------
efnx
I am! I'm working on a modular synthesizer. But I've taken a couple breaks to
get food and catch up with friends partying downstairs...
------
johnnyjung
Starting a project for my cs class...due tomorrow.
------
kgutteridge
Well actually just given up as its late UK time, always get a lot done in the
quiet time on Sunday evenings when no one else is about!
------
bdclimber14
Just for the record, I am multi-tasking as well.
------
jdp23
me -- social hacking rather than code, but still ...
<http://bit.ly/no2hr514>
------
ericmsimons
Watch a few dozen guys play with balls for a few hours or work on an
unbelievably cool project...I'll stick with the latter :)
------
AdamTReineke
I'm watching Murder! by Hitchcock as homework for my film studies class. First
time in years that I haven't watched the game.
------
Vivtek
Super What now?
Oh, you mean that new-commercial showcase everybody talks about? Most of them
were on YouTube yesterday.
------
Mmccue
I'm drawing sketches for next ver of Flipboard while watching superbowl on
twitter on flight to SFO. Does that count?
------
adnam
I'm watching my first ever super bowl, and I'm full of chilli dogs. It's 2.30
am and I'm at work in 5 hours :-/
------
zmitri
Wow, I didn't even think of it, but yes, I am hacking on a new rails project
instead of watching the superbowl.
------
ronaktal
I've been working on Datkey.com for a white and it's way more fun than
superbowl...that's just me though
------
h3xdump
Oh. Wait, the Superbowl was this weekend? Oops. All I knew was that Pittsburgh
was playing Green Bay.
------
ajray
Doing circuit board layout and ordering samples online for my next embedded
electronics project.
------
Mmccue
I'm drawing sketches for new version of Flipboard while watching game via
twitter (on flt).
------
ylem
Does running an experiment count?
------
thascales
I'm chipping away at rewriting my uni's timetabling system. I am very full of
caffeine.
------
keithba
Too true - I've been leanring Ruby on Rails 3 + Koala + omniauth today. Lots
of fun...
------
arjn
I have zero interest in football (and its not really football anyways ;)
~~~
mediaslave
I call it American Tackleball...
------
manus
My bowl is business casual, wearing glasses, raised in Kansas.
------
irae
Not realy hacking, bug I'm bugfixing as webOS app =)
------
sim0n
Yep! Working on my startup: www.interstateapp.com :)
------
sigzero
I am in a Python class getting to take a quiz.
------
cmeiklejohn
Definitely. Startup work in full effect.
------
jasongullickson
Working on my new smartphone project.
------
olalonde
Mostly watching the commercials...
------
jamesmiller5
Definitely working on my blog.
------
hydrazine
Pacman AI > Superbowl!
------
derrida
What is the "Super Bowl"?
------
keithburgun
Oh crap, was that today?
------
daspecster
...Are you stalking me?
------
apperoid
What is Super Bowl?
------
anigbrowl
I'm doing both...
------
Skywing
if i'm doing both, does that count?
~~~
tbeseda
That's how I'm rolling... <http://cl.ly/4RRV>
------
ajaimk
Amen to that
------
digiru
The super bowl is today? I'm hacking Spork!
------
flipdeadshot
Did anyone else have the misfortune of seeing the halftime show? The biggest
stage in the world, and they get the black eyed peas to perform?
------
d3fun
there are bugs to fix..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mark Pincus Loses $4 Million a Day for 7 Months - codegeek
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49303924
======
Codhisattva
What bunk. Stock wealth isn't real wealth in any sense of the word. It's a
potential but is rarely realizable at the spot price.
Articles like this do nothing but propagate a myth about the stock market.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is China Using Drones with Flamethrowers to Clean Power Lines? - Osiris30
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/17/14652556/drone-fire-garbage-powerline-china
======
sevensor
This made my morning. I mean, sure, Skynet, but drones with flamethrowers! The
13-year-old kid in me rejoices.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Wayland Means for Developers - CrankyBear
http://blog.smartbear.com/software-quality/bid/241134/What-Wayland-Means-for-Developers
======
sciurus
Just a few paragraphs in, and I've stopped reading. This article is terrible.
The author seems to neither understand who's driving the Wayland project nor
the technical details of it. Case in point-
"Let’s start by considering what an end user will see. In casual language,
future releases of Ubuntu will base their graphics on Wayland rather than X.
Since Wayland is designed for 3D displays, the Linux applications of the
future will look three-dimensional!"
------
Nursie
Is it wrong to say 'hopefully nothing much' ?
I mean, unless you're a windowing toolkit dev, in which case it probably means
a lot of work.
And I know his is almost as much of a cliche as Gnome 3 bashing, but have
there been any developments (other than a one-off POC) where remoting is
concerned? I've been using that a lot this week.
~~~
anonymous
Hopefully all this work will only translate to changing the API used by Qt and
GTK to draw on screen and not a complete overhaul of X11. They'll take my wm
from my cold dead hands.
~~~
aidenn0
Did you read the article? All WMs will need to be rewritten, and must do
compositing.
------
cs702
TL;DR: Developers of graphical user environments like Ubuntu Unity will gain
the ability to deliver smooth, fluid experiences via the 3D compositor;
application developers will gain the freedom to do whatever they want with
their applications' graphics buffers, because the compositor will be
seamlessly combining all buffers on screen.
------
slacka
Yet another fluff article about Wayland. It's too bad. I'd love to see some
analysis of its potential and a comparison with OS X Quartz and Windows
aero/WDM. How does the performance compare to X? What GPU features does
Wayland expose that X doesn't?
------
ErikAugust
Wayland and Weston. A MetroWest Boston thing?
~~~
kibwen
_"The name "Wayland" comes from the town of Wayland, Massachusetts. Høgsberg
was driving through that town when the concepts behind Wayland
"crystallized"._ "
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_%28display_server_proto...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_%28display_server_protocol%29)
~~~
ErikAugust
Ha, I figured. Thanks for the reference.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coding Horror: Does More Than One Monitor Improve Productivity? - e1ven
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001076.html
======
abstractbill
_Instead of incessantly dragging, sizing, minimizing and maximizing windows,
you can do actual productive work._
I have no idea what he's talking about here. My work day starts with me
opening one firefox window (full-screen), and one emacs window (also full-
screen). That's pretty much all I look at for 12 hours every day. Dragging?
Resizing? Not so much. Being productive? Yes.
~~~
sanj
I've worked that way as well, but lately I've found that I'm typing C-x b RET
a whole lot to find my way to the buffer I want to view or edit.
So I've ended up with multiple terminal windows:
\- emacs
\- mysql
\- console output
\- extra shell to fiddle in
I'm well aware that could all be in one big emacs window, but not having to
switch buffers is a worthwhile tradeoff.
------
brentr
I think the answer depends on what one is actually working on.
When I worked as an equity trader, having multiple monitors was a godsend; it
eliminated the need to flip through at least five different systems all on the
same monitor.
At home, I have a Windows laptop and Mac desktop that I will often switch
between while programming, and I don't feel that using both of them at the
same time makes me anymore productive. If I am programming in C++, I will be
using Visual Studio on the laptop, and if I am programming anything else, I
will be on the Mac in vim. I would only stop to look up something on the
other, but usually if I stop to look something up it is because I am
frustrated with some problem, and at that point I usually take a break from
code just to clear my mind.
------
jcl
Previous discussion of the Utah study:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134318>
------
adduc
I use a laptop and desktop next to each other when I'm at home, and I like to
think I'm more productive than I'd be with just one monitor. If I'm compiling
or converting or doing something processor intensive on one computer, it's
easy to keep an api reference up on another screen for easy looking up of
functions, or any other web related issues.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
C2 wiki - getdavidhiggins
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki
======
greenyoda
This was the original wiki created by Ward Cunningham.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show Hn: Daily List of Deleted Domains Newsletter. - iworkforthem
I just launched my second site: NameEgo.com ( http://nameego.com/ ), a daily email newsletter for webmasters looking for deleted domains. I filter the list of deleted domains to 3, 4 , 5, 6 char lists.<p>Hopefully I can get some feedback, etc.
======
brk
$14/month?
Price seems high to me, not sure how you arrived at that amount. It seems like
hard-core domainers already have access to data like this through accounts
they'd have with other registrars, and casual domainers probably know enough
to know that the majority of recently deleted domains tend to suck anyway.
I'm hesitant to give you $14 even one time for a single months subscription to
something that is very unlikely (based on my past experience) to have any
domains worth grabbing, and I'll have to filter through thousands of deleted
domains to MAYBE find one worth grabbing.
I like the idea of what you're doing. I think the real-value add might come
from doing some intelligent sort of the deleted domains. Things like domains
that have a "pronounceable" spelling, etc.
~~~
iworkforthem
I price it at $14/mth, cause a domain without discount can cost anything like
$12-$15 each. So $14 seems appropriate. And when I divide it across 20
weekdays that's around $0.7 per day only. I guess I will look at the pricing
once again.
In the coming weeks, I hope to push out more variation sort of the deleted
domains.
\- pronounceable list.
\- spelling list.
\- words only list.
\- one number only list.
\- one dash only list.
Any more that will be useful?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Catullus 16 - erwan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16
======
timb07
I studied Latin in school, and we studied Catullus 85 and 5 (which is
mentioned in 16).
We discovered there was a book of English translations of Catullus in the
library, which we used to "help" with our homework. I'm pretty sure it didn't
contain 16, because we would definitely have noticed. :p
------
hprotagonist
I have always loved that the man who wrote the absolutely shattering elegy
that gave us the phrase "hail brother and farewell" (Catullus 101) also gave
us this.
It's good for poets to have breadth of expression.
~~~
timb07
And just to prove I did study Latin, I actually remember the end of that poem:
"atque in perpetuam, frater, ave atque vale"
------
dzdt
This deserves some warning: the intense explicit language is pretty shocking
even if it is 2000+ years old from a famous classical poet.
~~~
erwan
True. I do find artistic obscenities fascinating, in particular when they look
anachronistic. It's impressive than such an old artwork has survived time long
enough despite featuring such sulfurous content.
And speaking for myself, it's not that I did not think of them as incapable of
moral wrong doings - Antiquity was clearly a brutal period - or producing
provocative work. But, I would have expected them to be more prude and limited
in their ability to deliver artistic "shock value".
Well, I was wrong! They were very well capable of crude depiction and
unsettling vulgarity - even for our contemporary standards!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google+ on HackerNews - ColinWright
I'm wondering how many items will be submitted about Google+ here on HN. There will be dozens of articles written about it, and many, perhaps most, will be submitted here.<p>As an experiment, would people find it useful to collect the links and discussions in a single place?<p>How about here?<p>(Added in edit: my suspicion is that this will get very few up votes and will therefore pretty much slide straight off the "newest" page. We'll see.)
======
JoachimSchipper
To me, the value of merging stories would be in uncluttering the front page
and keeping the comments together; an "ask" post does neither.
That said, merging stories in the above way would be tremendously useful. Then
again, more people only upvoting one "canonical" story would also help - after
all, yet another article isn't terribly valuable.
------
ColinWright
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706206> (nytimes.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706214> (mashable.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706219> (techcrunch.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706229> (gigaom.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706308> (wired.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706369> (demo: google.com)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706405> (google.com)
~~~
davorak
I think the support pages are the best place to get info and I did not see it
posted yet so:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706918>
------
ColinWright
Another:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2707016> (techcrunch.com)
------
benwerd
fwiw, my take on it: [http://benwerd.com/2011/06/double-plus-google-finally-a-
mass...](http://benwerd.com/2011/06/double-plus-google-finally-a-mass-market-
enterprise-social-network/)
Google Takeout is a late addition to the mix, but it makes it that little bit
more awesome.
~~~
benwerd
... And then I tried Takeout. Exporting my Buzz account as a giant series of
tiny HTML files? Really?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
America's Healthy Infatuation With Entrepreneurs - edw519
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/americas-healthy-infatuation-with-entrepreneurs/247153/#.TqGm_DT18w4.twitter
======
jjmaxwell4
I think the tech/startup industry has a large affect on a lot of people's
thinking, especially at a young (high-schoolish) age. The startup ideas pushed
by pg, and the success that people like Zuckerburg and Jobs have had, have
shown that success doesn't have to mean wearing suit. This influence will grow
as technology grows deeper ingrained in our lives.
Take myself. I went to an elite (Canadian) boarding school, where the idea of
success was largely seen to be Wall Street/Business/Politics.
About 60-80& of my grad class went to get their Commerce/Business undergrads.
I easily could have too.
I was not a nerd, more of an all-rounder. I was captain of my hockey, soccer
and rugby teams. I acted in plays, went to debate competitions, took the
hardest math/sciences courses I could. Kids like me, especially kids like me
from my school, usually went to a prestigious university and eventually ended
up in managements/business/politics.
I chose what is probably the nerdiest/least prestigious university in Canada.
Why? Paul Graham, and cause they have the best engineering program in the
country. Seriously. I know that sounds like some corny hero worship shit, but
his essays almost single-handedly convinced me that I needed to "Stay Upwind",
get a technical degree, and start my own company.
The infatuation with entrepreneurs inspires like the Apolo program probably
did 50 years ago. It's good for the community.
~~~
gyardley
I can see UW (I'm assuming) being the nerdiest, but the least prestigious
university in Canada? It was well-thought of when I started there in the
mid-90s.
I would've picked Laurentian or Nippissing or some other Northern Ontario
school for 'least prestigious'.
~~~
jjmaxwell4
Your right, its not the least prestigious, but its nowhere near most other
large universities in terms of clout (except within CS/the tech scene).
~~~
jarek
Must not mock "elite boarding school" and "your" and "its"...
------
amandalim89
I took ETL last semester and loved it! My favorite speaker was Aaron Levie. He
was the prototype of the typical silicon valley startup story. built/launched
his product from his dorm room in 2005. dropped out of school. created a
company worth millions of dollars... etc. I think the reason my peers and I
look up to entrepreneurs is because they are (as the article says) "living
examples of the exceptional untapped potential within each of us". Success
stories like Aaron's makes us believe that we can change the world. Sadly, for
every successful entrepreneur that gets invited to speak at Stanford there are
a thousand others who have failed. If it were up to me I think we should have
another seminar to counter balance ETL, an antithesis of ETL, where unknown
entrepreneurs can come to speak about their failures. so that students can see
the other less glamorous side of entrepreneurship. In fact, David Friedberg,
who spoke at ETL a few weeks back and his advice was why you should not do a
startup. There's an article, from an ETL student's perspective on David's
speech here - [http://rainmakerslive.com/startup-thoughts/why-you-
shouldnt-...](http://rainmakerslive.com/startup-thoughts/why-you-shouldnt-go-
for-a-startup-company/#more-427).
~~~
polymatter
in fact, learning from the failures of others is probably more useful than
learning from the successes.
~~~
amandalim89
Very true but I think perhaps people are conditioned to think that they can
replicate the success if they learn from successful people first hand. But I
think people who have failed have a lot to teach us as well. As Edison once
said,"I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways
to NOT make a light bulb." :)
------
larrys
"And perhaps this is why we look so wistfully at entrepreneurs. They seem to
exude the raw passion that experience has taught us to modulate, the vivid
emotion that we've learned to suppress, the intense energy that we learn must
be channeled, the unreasonable audacity that has been replaced by sensible
objectives. We cheer for them because they represent our youthful hopes, our
idealism, our ambitions and our dreams. And when these entrepreneurs defy the
extraordinary odds, and succeed, we rejoice, for at the moment we can sense,
if only fleetingly, the exceptional untapped potential within each of us. We
rejoice, and wonder: what if?"
So essentially what the writer is saying (in this paragraph) is that people
like entrepreneurs for the same reason monster and invader movies were big at
various times (50's because of the soviet threat as only one example) or with
any movie genre or Tv. Say, Kung Fu because we all would like to just chop
down the bully.
But how healthy is it for those who are influenced by the infatuation?
Sure it's great for people in the peanut gallery to read about entrepreneurs,
and those who make money from the entire ecosystem. But is it realistic for
young people who chase a dream thinking they will be the next big thing and
then pass up a more secure opportunity? (Maybe the job market is bad today but
it might not be 2 years from now.)
I spent years taking karate lessons. One day I broke my hand in a sparring
match and dropped out. Having more time to study, my grades improved. The
grade increase allowed me to get into an Ivy League college.
~~~
sthatipamala
Today's famous entrepreneurs have a powerful platform. I've heard countless
tales of people going into science after being inspired by the astronauts on
their moonwalks. Not everyone is going to become a Zuckerberg, just like
almost no one becomes an astronaut.
But these entrepreneurial idols highlight that it is possible to be successful
by creating value through innovation. We need more people to go into
engineering and product design. Americans need it in order to stay relevant as
an economy, just as the US needed scientists during the Space Race.
Zuckerberg and Jobs have glamorized the concept of "geek". Maybe this glamor
will attract power-seeking people who want to be a rich CEO. But more likely,
it will attract a wide variety of people (maybe even minorities and women)
into careers that create value for our economy.
~~~
larrys
"I've heard countless tales of people going into science after being inspired
by the astronauts on their moonwalks"
Similar, I remember reading somewhere (no reference on this though) that many
went into the law after watching "LA Law" in the 80's.
"it will attract a wide variety of people (maybe even minorities and women)
into careers that create value for our economy"
On a societal level that is fine. But on an individual level maybe not as
much. Any person evaluating risk has to focus on the down side not just the
upside of whatever decision they make. If they are making the decision for the
wrong reason that could be a problem for them. Where the "wrong reason" is
thinking it is a way to get rich or extending college dorm life.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The UC Berkeley Big Data AMP Camp, August 29-30 - andyk
http://ampcamp.berkeley.edu/big-data-bootcamp
======
necubi
Any other HN people going? There's a lot of really cool stuff in the AMP
stack. I've trialed Spark a bit, and its promise of unifying batch and
streaming computations under the same code base is very powerful. I'm also
pretty excited about Mesos, especially as wider adoption smooths out the
operational difficulties. And then there's the really far-out stuff like
BlinkDB [0].
AMPlab's close interaction with industry seems like a rare model for a truly
impactful research lab. It's become host to many of the most exciting
developments in large scale computing in the past few years.
[0] [http://blinkdb.org/](http://blinkdb.org/)
~~~
pkill17
"Going" in the sense that I'll be walking by I-House on my route to classes
those two days :P
------
jack-r-abbit
Anyone going to this should take note: The Bay Bridge (between Oakland and SF)
will be closed starting Wed night at 8pm and will remain closed the entire
long weekend. This is mentioned in the linked post.
Ordinarily, the trip over the bay from Berkeley to SF is not that big of a
deal. But with that bridge closed, any plans to just "pop on over to The City"
would not be advised.
~~~
jacobwcarlson
BART will be running. In fact I'd recommend BART over driving even if the Bay
Bridge wasn't going to be closed.
~~~
jack-r-abbit
Yes. BART is always an option. But depending on where you wanted to go and
what you wanted to do... BART is not conveniently located to everything.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA’s $349M monument to its drift - wallflower
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/12/15/nasas-349-million-monument-to-its-drift/
======
brudgers
$349 million is a lot of money, if it is yours. For a public works project,
it's construction of three medium size US high schools when the land has been
donated.
In terms of NASA's budget [never mind the US Federal budget] the _Washington
Post_ is ranting about rounding error only because the project is in a state
for which their audience has little sympathy. Producing four fewer F35's would
save more money, just on initial cost...never mind that the costs of operating
just one well exceed $700k a year.
For anyone with a passing interest in the integrity of journalism, the J-2x
rocket engine for which the A-3 Test Stand was built to test was let on a $1.2
billion dollar contract to Pratt & Whittney RocketDyne. The program was only
killed this year [1]...and a new $2.8 billion dollar contract to develop the
alternative was let just this July to Boeing. Purportedly this contract was a
continuation of an undefined contract with Boeing let back in 2007 -- the same
year as the A-3 Test Platform broke ground.[2]
What NASA got for the money is an additional capability that is reasonably
likely to be useful over the next several decades so long as manned missions
beyond LEO remain within the agency's potential mandate. Given the speed with
which the hot air of politicians changes directions, moving forward on
infrastructure makes sense.
[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-2X](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-2X)
[2] [http://spacenews.com/41139nasa-boeing-finalize-28b-sls-
core-...](http://spacenews.com/41139nasa-boeing-finalize-28b-sls-core-stage-
contract/)
~~~
rst
Nasa's annual budget is around $17 billion, so $349 million is about 2 percent
of it. A better comparison might be to the cost of significant individual
programs: commercial crew has a current annual budget of $696 million, down
from an administration request of over $800 million. That's not an _entirely_
fair comparison because the expenditure was spread out over several years, but
it's still past what I'd consider rounding error.
~~~
brudgers
Ground breaking was in 2007. Design preceded it. That means less than $50
million a year -- tenths of a percent of their budget on the project.
Throw in the "shovel ready project" aspect and there was no political will to
halt the project from the Executive or Legislative branches of the Federal
Government.
------
techdragon
Hooray, I finally have a new best example of congress interference in NASA's
budget and planning. And it's simple enough for anyone to understand.
A TLDR for the entire thing, "Local congressman urges congress to force NASA's
to spend four years building something in his state for a rocket scrapped four
years ago, demanding the agency waste taxpayer money."
~~~
lettergram
Well it's federal taxes, the local congressman brought jobs, and tax revenue
to his state (rough guess would put the state tax revenue probably close to
$10 million in taxes).
Purely disgusting.
~~~
kiba
The local congressman is doing something for his voters. It's his job.
It's also why Americans think dimly of congress as a whole.
~~~
mcv
Is his job as a federal congressman to only think of his own state at a cost
to the rest of the country?
If that's the case, then maybe it's time that the US got a national parliament
(with proportional representation) unencumbered by the district system.
~~~
raldi
Unfortunately, this is literally the one thing that even a constitutional
amendment can't do. The part of the US constitution that describes the process
of amending specifically forbids any amendment from depriving any state of its
equal senate representation.
~~~
mcv
Just the Senate? I'd gladly accept just proportional representation in the
House, as long as the Senate is restricted from meddling in party politics,
and just oversees the division of power between the federal level and the
states, and the constitutionality of laws.
~~~
seanflyon
I don't think "restricted from meddling in party politics" means anything
unless you want to establish another political body with the power to overrule
the Senate if they think they are "meddling".
Also, it is the Supreme Court that has the job of determining the
constitutionality of laws.
------
Leon
How is this NASA's failing? A congressional mandate to fund and build this
regardless of the agencies needs is the failure. There's no need to display
the agency in a bad light, especially if you have the information about what
happened and show it was caused by other government involvement.
~~~
peeters
Who says it was their failing? Drift just means being pushed from one's
target. It is acceptable (and usual) for drift to be caused by external
forces.
~~~
SoftwareMaven
I think drift in this case has a connotation of being aimless and
directionless (eg being adrift). However, I don't think the article is blaming
NASA. Any organization would be adrift after having the kind of success NASA
did, then getting presidential grandstanding followed by congressional
micromanagement for decades.
The real villains in this story are Congress and the President.
------
Fede_V
Unfortunately, this is a huge failing of large federally funded projects.
Contractors (and federal agencies too, to a large extent) have long since
learned that the best way to get a big contract from the US government is to
spread yourself out as much as you can, over as many districts as possible, in
order to maximize your political pull.
Look at the supply chains of companies like Boeing, or defense contractors,
and you'll see they have this down to an art.
This then leads to more and more entrenchment - there's less funding for truly
innovative research because so much gets locked into those awful projects that
are sacred cows and absolutely impossible to touch.
I don't really have a good solution. I strongly believe in federally funded
research. Maybe something like the base closing commission should oversee all
federal contracts?
~~~
kosmic_k
I'm not sure if its fair to blame contractors completely in this case. The
government, their customer, defined requirements for a project. Halfway
through the project with ~80% of funds committed they decided that they don't
need it anymore.
The US does this all the time.
For example, the Navy LCS program called for a fast ship that could patrol the
coastline while traveling as quickly as a speed boat. Lockheed Martin designed
the Freedom Class. They made a 378ft, 3,000 ton boat that can travel at speeds
of 47 knots, or about 54 MPH. However the Navy was not very happy because they
concluded that it wasn't survivable enough and that its armament was lacking.
These are all things that should have been well defined at the start of the
project. Especially considering that the speed requirement practically begged
designers to make certain compromises in order to limit weight.
~~~
Fede_V
Not completely in this case.
But, take Lockheed, for instance. They are notorious for running supply chains
that stretch across as many states/districts as possible so that whenever
there are any possible budget cuts, their lobbyists call up several
congressmen and talk about how many jobs in their district will be lost if a
particular program gets cut.
There are no evil people in this system. Lockheed is doing everything it can
to insure that it gets the maximum possible amount of federal funding. Each
congressman is doing whatever they can to keep well paying jobs in their
district. People vote for congressmen who can bring high status projects into
their district.
The problem is that the interplay between the narrow interests of each
individual player results in a system that's constantly stuck in shitty local
minima.
~~~
TomGullen
> There are no evil people in this system.
Plenty of corruption though, I'd count corruption as an evil.
~~~
Fede_V
Oh, absolutely. I'm just saying, even if everyone was doing everything within
the law, you'd still get suboptimal outcomes because of how the incentives
line up for all the players involved.
------
rdtsc
I see a lot of defense of NASA here and rightly so it is a "hacker news" forum
after all, what person here hasn't dream of being an astronaut at some point.
And then the article does say they were forced to build it against their
wishes...
But, NASA is guilty too. They increased estimated costs from $160M to $350.
And took 3 years too long. Said nothing when they were forced to finish this
project.
When the law that said "NASA shall complete A-3 project blah blah" passed this
article should have been written. NASA should have raised a stink and so on. I
don't remember ever hearing about it. Obama signed it. Nobody oposed. Work
continued. NASA as an agency is not innocent here vs mean ol beuarocracy from
Congress.
Think about it, if NASA wants people's support for space exploration, not
saying anything publically and continuing to follow ridiculous demands from
Congressmen, they are not helping their case. By association they are seen as
accomplices in the "waste of taxpayers' money"
~~~
brohoolio
Are you going to raise a stink about the people who are funding you?
A previous poster pointed out the N Dakota oil boom likely raised wages and
steel costs.
------
protomyth
"Jacobs Engineering Group, blamed changes in the design, plus unforeseen
increases in the cost of labor and steel."
I believe that. Given the project was supposed to be done in 2010 and all
those people who are good at this type of labor can earn some serious money in
the oil fields springing up in North Dakota and Texas, I can see some serious
increases in labor cost. We really need to start thinking about infrastructure
talents in this country.
~~~
patio11
Phrased another way: Congress elected to raise the costs on all Americans who
drive cars or use electricity in favor of reallocating industrial inputs
required to satisfy their desires to a project which doesn't support a space
exploration program we don't have.
I lose geek cred every time I say it, but NASA is not a science agency which
occasionally funnels objectionably high amounts of money to politically
favored firms. NASA is a funding mechanism for politically favored firms which
occasionally produces industrial biproducts which bear some loose relation to
research. If space exploration wasn't an applause light among geeks because of
science fiction, we'd have a strong consensus to defund the entire agency.
~~~
mcguire
Hey, it also serves to employ aerospace engineers! Keeping them off the
streets and out of trouble is worth a bit.
------
alexirobbins
This is just generally what happens when the government funds long term
science experiments. My favorite example is the $1 Billion (inflation
adjusted) MFTF-B fusion experiment at LLNL, which was completed the same day
the gov't canceled the project: 2/21/1986\. It was never turned on.
~~~
josephcooney
Any good counter-examples of private enterprise funding long term science
experiments?
~~~
alexirobbins
I do not mean to imply that pure capitalism is more efficient for scientific
progress, just that massive waste is common when the government funds
programs, and too often heart-wrenchingly so. Hopefully we can decrease it
with better policy processes for medium to long term investments, and a more
science literate population. In the meantime, there's a lot to learn from.
------
salem
I think it's pretty unfair to say that this facility does not fit within NASAs
new side-job of assisting commercial enterprise with vehicle development.
I'm sure that this facility would be useful to lease to aerospace companies
such as SpaceX and Armadillo that will want to QA and optimize their
second/third stage engines.
This facility could be a pretty huge competitive advantage to US space
industry.
~~~
kosmic_k
By the time that original program that justified the need of the facility was
canceled NASA had already made a substantial investment of time and money
building it. Only time can tell if this facility will help with future engine
development or not.
I don't have any expertise in Space & Aeronautics, but I'd love to hear from
anyone in the industry what they think about the completion of this facility.
------
cma
It seems more like a monument of a raised finger, the Congressional middle
finger to NASA monument.
------
markbnj
I'm not sure why something congress forced them to do is an example of NASA's
problems.
~~~
seanflyon
Anything that prevents NASA from putting its budget to good use is NASA's
problem.
------
VLM
In a numbers focused article, this line kinda creeped me out.
"It had to swing open to let the rocket engine in, then swing shut and hold up
under 40 pounds per square inch of pressure from the atmosphere outside."
~~~
jzwinck
In English it is all too easy to mishear "14" as "40". Given how much of the
article seemed to come from verbal sources, I imagine this is why that
happened. Still, careless.
------
ssully
I thought NASA has been on a decent rise as of late? Maybe I am biased given
my love for their success with curiosity, but I feel like I have heard more
good then bad out of NASA during the last few years.
~~~
Bluestrike2
A lot of the good stuff (Curiosity, etc.) gets a ton of PR, but that doesn't
mean there aren't day-to-day problems that are massive impediments for NASA.
The mere fact that successive administrations get to come along and yank on
NASA's long-term planning like a dog on a choke chain is really damaging to
NASA's ability to actually break beyond LEO.
Until someone is able to marshal enough political power to force a change to
this constant interference (and protect them long enough to accomplish their
mission), NASA is going to continue to have trouble. Great engineers can still
do incredible things even with bureaucratic and political interference, it's
just so much more difficult than it needs to be.
------
avz
There are two perspectives when looking at any job: project objectives and
social utility.
The first sees a job as an effort focused on some project goals, e.g.
designing a car, building a house, curing a disease, finding Higgs, running a
restaurant, landing on Mars. The second sees a job as something simply done
for money: those who do it need the proceeds.
Politicians have a tendency to put the social utility above project
objectives. This explains situations where some jobs are equivalent to digging
a whole in the ground only to bury it back again.
It's sad to see NASA come to this, too.
~~~
crististm
There is no social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. Targeting social
utility would mean to run a business at break-even or even at a loss to
provide value as a side-effect to the community.
The cost of restarting tower building from a hibernate state would be
enormous. I think they did the right thing in continuing building even if the
immediate utility was lost. It's not like they will never need such a tower.
They can't use it _now_ and that's a different thing.
In perspective, the $300M do not compare to the $8B mentioned in the article.
Hey, they don't compare even to the budget of a box-office Hollywood movie
today. That should mean something.
~~~
avz
There is social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. The utility lies in
providing value as a side-effect to the community. The value is provided by
strengthening earnings of the diggers and reducing the unemployment in the
community.
What's missing is the project utility: nobody else needs the product.
It's a fair point that the test stand may be needed in future.
~~~
crististm
I've learnt a new word yesterday: sophism.
You can argue as well that breaking windows employs the glass makers and
destroying cars employs the car makers. Yes, starting wars as well because it
employs everyone.
You forget that, as a whole, the community is left without a window and the
money to replace it could have been used for something else.
No, there is no utility in breaking windows and in digging holes just to bury
them back.
~~~
avz
Your examples include destruction of property which negates their social
benefits of improved earnings and reduced unemployment.
Digging a whole is a metaphor for unproductive, but also not destructive work
where the social benefits are not negated by other factors.
~~~
crististm
Imagine then the following (stretchy) scenario: an isolated village on an
island.
Now the villagers start digging the hole in the ground. Mind you, digging
holes is tough business: they have to eat and someone must pay for the food.
If all of them work on the hole, who makes the food? But they are smart and
the project manager arranges for some of them to cook the food while the rest
of the village digs.
After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled
back.
Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two weeks
those were: they were employed.
~~~
TheOtherHobbes
>After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled
back. >Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two
weeks those were: they were employed.
And how is this - or how is the original NASA makework - different to a
startup that burns through tens or hundreds of millions and then dies?
I suppose you could argue that the startup _might_ have succeeded, and at
least some people believed it would.
Some people believed the tower would be useful. Others knew it wouldn't be,
but still thought the cash infusion would be useful - either for them
personally, or for their community.
What _is_ the difference? Because if we're going to be asking questions about
the utility of makework and the social value of Keynesian welfare, we should
perhaps be asking about the actual social and economic utility of most start-
ups, and whether the fact that they're private sector boondoggles really does
make them any more economically efficient.
~~~
crististm
The difference is that the tower was built and it exists and can be used for
another project if not for the original one.
If you ignore corruption for a second (not that you should), the problem
remaining is the original project died without a replacement in the near term.
This looks surprisingly like a waste of money, since the tower has no
immediate utility. However, it has long term value and that is important.
Doing busywork would have amounted to building the tower and destroying it to
recoup the land value.
If corruption was involved, it should be investigated separately. But the
tower should not have been scrapped for this reason alone.
------
ianso
This is such a stupid framing to the article. The sixth paragraph states
clearly why it was built and it has nothing to do with NASA drifting - it was
being pulled:
"But, at first, cautious NASA bureaucrats didn’t want to stop the construction
on their own authority. And then Congress — at the urging of a senator from
Mississippi — swooped in and ordered the agency to finish the tower, no matter
what."
Why condemn NASA for cronyism and Congressional stupidity?
------
marknutter
I hate to say it, but this is why I don't see us going to Mars within our
lifetime. At least not through NASA.
~~~
brohoolio
If they could fund a Mars mission over a 15 stretch, we could do it. Funding
needs to match the goal and it has to be long term.
~~~
marknutter
If the linked article is any indication, funding needs to vastly outmatch the
goal.
------
p_eter_p
A persistent failing in the U.S. system is the ability of congress to
micromanage the minutiae of larger programs, all for pork barrel spending.
Things like the gasket problems on the Shuttle SRBs, and NASA in general being
spread all over the country are all related to every single Congressperson
trying to get a little something to take home. In a perfect world, they would
have to authorize money at an agency level and with no finer granularity. Of
course, if that were the case no money would ever be allocated at all...
~~~
SoftwareMaven
And this would be bad why? Snark aside, the federal government is out of
control with no accountability. I don't even know how they could be held
accountable.
~~~
p_eter_p
The short version is, I think one of the main things that separates, say, the
U.S. from the E.U. is the ability to shift vast quantities of money around the
country in the guise of federal programs. It's spectacularly inefficient, but
it also helps to set a floor on how bad any one area can get. If that's good
or bad largely depends on your personal politics.
------
danmaz74
"And then Congress — at the urging of a senator from Mississippi — swooped in
and ordered the agency to finish the tower, no matter what."
So it's not NASA's fault.
~~~
zack-bitcoin
NASA accepted government money. This is the consequence they have to deal
with. It is NASA's fault.
------
mrfusion
Why can't they use it to test other engines? Or rent it out to space-x?
------
byerley
Stop buying bullshit narratives against state funded science.
Rocket test stands are not limited to a single rocket model. The choice in
2010 was to spend $57m finishing a project that will undoubtedly see future
use, or to abandon a $292m investment with 0 return.
Look for SpaceX to jump on this opportunity since they already lease testing
facilities from Stennis.
~~~
greglindahl
SpaceX uses slight variants of their 1st stage rocket engines in vacuum, so
they don't really need this kind of testing. And this test rig is 10x larger
than SpaceX's current vacuum Merlin 1D needs.
~~~
maaku
This testing gets you valuable information about performance and stress
characteristics which can allow you to make improvements to the rocket, either
by changing its shape for better efficiency or by making it lighter where it
turns out to be over engineered. SpaceX hasn't been doing this testing yet
because it hasn't been necessary and building a test stand too expensive. Now
they could.
------
cowardlydragon
Where was it built?
Oh yes, the south. Bastion of bemoaning government size while masters of
government pork.
I'm just shocked it wasn't Texas.
------
whybroke
>"What the hell are they doing? I mean, that’s a lot of people’s hard-earned
money"
Yes that tower did indeed waste $1 of every US citizen.
As apposed to $3400 rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in a hundred year old
building which is spiffy because it's due to market forces.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Our Nuclear Weapons Can Be Hacked - robertwiblin
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/opinion/why-our-nuclear-weapons-can-be-hacked.html
======
imploder
One of these deficiencies involved the Minuteman silos,
whose internet connections could have allowed hackers to...
One of these deficiencies involved the Minuteman silos,
whose internet connections...
...Minuteman silos, whose internet connections...
We are _decades_ past the point where it made sense to have ICBM silos
connected to The Internet. The civilian internet is not the kind of thing that
should be capable of addressing an ICBM silo.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can you tell if these faces are real or GAN-generated? - aveni
http://nikola.mit.edu
======
aveni
Hi HN! We are a pair of students at MIT trying to measure how well humans can
differentiate between real and (current state-of-the-art) GAN-generated faces,
for a class project. We're concerned with GAN images' potential for fake news
/ ads, and we believe it would be good to know, empirically, how often people
get fooled under different image exposure times.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
[video] A Crash Course on the Go Programming Language - mssaxm
http://axialcorps.com/2013/11/12/go-lyceum-video/
======
ttunguz
What are the most famous web projects built in go today?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Elon Musk Stole My Car - louis-paul
https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/
======
6stringmerc
> _Tesla has a strange way of communicating with customers I think is best
> described as customer service vaporware. That is, they spend more time
> trying to create the illusion of customer service, rather than actually
> providing it. There is no mechanism for them to get feedback, as I tried to
> provide, so its difficult to see how they can improve if they don’t know
> where they are going wrong._
Now we find out the unexpected corporate benefit of not having showrooms or
physical locations by which to service clients - if they can't walk into your
place of business and make a scene, just consider them a happy customer!
> _In my experience, its a hobby masquerading as a company, and it can
> probably run as a hobbyist organization for some time._
This is the gut feeling I get with every over-the-top announcement by Tesla.
Frequently I get down-voted here for griping about the linguistic flourishes
in Tesla announcements, but I have my reasons. Sure, creating a neat
innovation or clever door opening apparatus is impressive and all, and great
for show, but the boring part of pulling it off reliably XX,XXX times is a
totally different animal.
Also, a corporation where everybody is too on eggshells to point out that the
boss lifted a customer's car and they're too scared to engage either the CEO
or the customer is, for lack of a better concept, high-school-level drama
lameness.
~~~
mikeash
They've built over 100,000 vehicles, built out a massive nationwide charging
network (plus a huge network in Europe and a decent-sized one in China),
produced the best highway auto-drive system available today, and currently
have the best selling car in their price segment in many areas.
Yes, clever doors and gimmicks like their new Summon feature aren't worth the
hype they put into them, but that's not the only thing they're doing.
That's not a hobby company by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, they have
problems. Specifically, communications during the delivery process has always
been troublesome for them, and there's no reason it should be. But that
doesn't make it a "hobbyist organization." That's just silly.
I mean, GM's failed processes meant that their products spontaneously shut off
and killed people, and they sat on their hands doing nothing while people were
still dying, but we don't call _that_ a "hobbyist organization...."
~~~
6stringmerc
Oh I know they sell a lot of cars, I've seen hundreds if not a thousand
locally since the debut.
> _That 's not a hobby company by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, they
> have problems. Specifically, communications during the delivery process has
> always been troublesome for them, and there's no reason it should be. But
> that doesn't make it a "hobbyist organization." That's just silly._
Based on the descriptions of the behavior of Tesla's internal customer
service, it actually sounds worse than a hobbyist organization. This is
personal perspective though, based on multiple professional and grunt-level
jobs over the years.
> _I mean, GM 's failed processes meant that their products spontaneously shut
> off and killed people, and they sat on their hands doing nothing while
> people were still dying, but we don't call that a "hobbyist
> organization...."_
GM is, if memory serves correctly, facing significant legal ramifications
(monetary) for their bad oversight and will, presumably, be held accountable
in court. Like Ford and Firestone. Or Takata. Pretty much every legacy auto
manufacturer started off as a 'hobbyist organization' and after enough success
and longevity, they grew into large enterprises that we know today. Can Tesla
weather a GM-ignition swtich type lawsuit? Maybe, time will tell.
~~~
mikeash
GM being held accountable is irrelevant here. My point is simply that large
organizations we'd never call "hobbyist" do vastly more stupid things than
what Tesla has done here.
I will note that Tesla _did_ just weather what could have been the equivalent
of the GM ignition switch problem. They discovered a problem with the front
seat belts which could have easily have been fatal in a crash. They pretty
much immediately recalled every single vehicle they had on the road to inspect
them. As far as I know the problem only ever existed in the one car where they
found it, but they immediately took charge of the problem instead of covering
their ears and trying to wish it away until they couldn't.
All kinds of companies are dysfunctional in all sorts of ways. That doesn't
make it right, but I don't see how the label "hobbyist" applies just because
of it.
~~~
6stringmerc
Honestly I think we're in a semantics loop of sorts. I view the Tesla auto
company through the same lens as Kanye West's shoe line with Adidas. Yes,
Kanye and Tesla sell as many units as they want. But, and this is a big but,
neither the automotive or shoe industry are the primary field of expertise for
the person at the top (Elon, Kanye) and thus can reasonably be viewed as an
outsized 'hobby' until they return to their core competency. Some hobbies can
be extremely profitable, no doubt.
~~~
mikeash
That would put SpaceX in the "hobby" group too, which I would find to be very
weird.
Heck, lots of pretty big, serious companies have CEOs whose expertise doesn't
line up well with the business. That's why you delegate.
It is just about how you define the word, though. It's obviously open to a lot
of interpretation, and if your interpretation is one way, I can hardly say
it's wrong, even if I might say it should be a different way.
~~~
6stringmerc
Well John Carmack spent 10 good years on Armadillo Aerospace and eventually
went back to his day job, so I'm still comfortable viewing certain enterprises
by people with means as being 'hobbies' as a general term, insofar as if they
wake up one morning and decide to do something else, they still have money, a
home, and other opportunities. The IRS has some pretty interesting
perspectives on 'hobbies' as well, as I've discovered over time.
~~~
mikeash
I'd have no problem calling Armadillo a hobby company, they never had any
paying customers (I think) and never produced anything of practical value. Not
that there's anything _wrong_ with that.
I'd personally say SpaceX fit that category through the Falcon 1 days, but
moved past it once they moved to the Falcon 9. YMMV.
------
sithadmin
>"[The Tesla Owner Advisor] called me to explain he had a call in with the
Office of the CEO at Tesla and was working with his team in Tesla to resolve a
problem that had come up — their CEO, Elon Musk, had taken my car and was
using it as his personal vehicle to test a new version of autopilot. Even
worse, he said he could see all the calls I had made into the Orlando delivery
center this past week, and no one was taking my calls because no one knew what
to do."
The fact that a customer-facing resource is airing information about internal
process screwups directly to a customer is indicative that something is very
wrong with service management at Tesla; this is a bush-league customer service
mistake. Not only is the customer being informed that there is a apparently a
massive issue with the pipeline for delivering product to customer, but
they're also indicating that there's clearly nobody enforcing ownership or
accountability for reported issues.
~~~
michaelt
The article I read said "(1) tesla fucked up a customer's order, then (2)
tesla fucked up fixing it ten times in a row at many different levels of the
organisation despite the fact a fix should have been easy, then (3) the
customer insisted on an explanation and someone at tesla was honest"
I'm confused as to why you think (3) is the problem here - it seems to me that
(1) and (2) are the root cause - (3) is just an embarrassing repercussion.
I mean, the customer knows there's nobody enforcing ownership or
accountability for reported issues when they contact ten different people and
can't get the problem resolved. It's not like inscrutable customer service
would have hidden the fact the car hadn't been provided.
~~~
ChrisArgyle
A support rep's main job is to put the customer at ease. The more details the
customer has to contend with the more stressed out they are.
The best action here would be explain that there was an internal process issue
at Tesla, apologize and then make an offer to reconcile the error.
edit: wording
~~~
michaelt
It only reduces the customer's stress to hear "don't worry about it sir, I'll
take care of it" if that statement is credible. If I'm being told that and I
know it's bullshit, my stress level is increased, not decreased.
Once the customer is on their third call to customer service, the credibility
is already lost. Unless the customer will have their car in a single digit
number of days, refusing to be honest with them isn't going to help.
~~~
oxguy3
Customer service's job is also to make the company not look bad. If you're
fully honest about something as ridiculous as the CEO not letting you have
your car, and then proceeding to not answer your calls because no one knew
what to do, that makes the company look terrible.
If you share that kind of knowledge, the customer might end up writing a blog
post showing how incompetent the company is, and that blog post might make
front page of Hacker News.
------
technofiend
Had this been "Elon took my car and told his company to give me a heavily
discounted one in exchange" then presumably this article would have been
filled with praise for their customer service. What a missed opportunity.
Instead of feeling like you are gambling on a potential upgrade my perception
is now I'd be gambling on a potential loss / failure-to-deliver if I bought a
used car from Tesla. It's only one datapoint, but it's the only data point I
have.
~~~
jjoe
_Had this been "Elon took my car and told his company to give me a heavily
discounted one in exchange" then presumably this article would have been
filled with praise for their customer service. What a missed opportunity._
Were it the case, we'd have never heard anything from this customer. Happy
customers rarely make the news.
~~~
spott
eh, REALLY HAPPY customers frequently make social media like reddit and here.
There are all sorts of stories of " _company I love_ screwed up and really
came through!" Hell, apple gets all sorts of these comments when they do some
out of apple care thing.
------
zachware
I once ordered 100 Model S's at one time (Google it) then later took delivery
of 12 Model S's at one time. Here's what I can tell you. Tesla's system for
selling one new car to one person at one time is very, very good.
Tesla's system for doing anything other than one car to one person at one time
is not good.
When we initially placed our 100 unit order we got 100 confirmation emails
timed suspiciously as though some poor person was entering the details one at
a time. Their owner's website couldn't handle 100 unique vehicles tied to one
user. When we took delivery we had to go through a bunch of human processes 12
unique times. The people seemed incapable of batching tasks like signing title
paperwork. We went through the routine for each car twelve times.
All of their systems are built to do one thing very well.
So this guy asked Tesla to do something it is not built to do and sell him a
loaner car. And the systems broke. All of them. In Tesla systems (operational
and technological) everything is built to do one thing.
Yes, it stinks that some people at Tesla acted dumbly in response to this. But
overall, don't forget. People are components of a system.
There are no programs in the Tesla system to handle any of the variables this
situation threw at it, starting with what the guy wanted Tesla to do.
When you deliberately ask a system to do something it isn't designed to do you
shouldn't be surprised when it breaks.
------
knowaveragejoe
> Tesla is pioneering two things at once, (a) a luxury full-EV segment for
> passenger vehicles, and (b) bypassing the traditional dealer network and
> selling directly to consumers. Since I never got my car, I can’t speak to
> (a). But, because (b) is so horribly broken, I don’t think (a) can succeed.
How on earth does this person's experience point to the non-dealership model
being broken? Has this person never dealt with a shitty dealership?
~~~
mikeash
Yeah, that's pretty weird. People experience this problem _all the time_ with
dealerships: you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you
get there and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold" but the dealer
is happy to sell you this other one instead, which by the way is several
thousand dollars more expensive.
At least with Tesla, you can be pretty sure that Elon Musk actually did take
this guy's car. The dealers will just lie to you; in the scenario above, they
typically never had the car in the first place.
I'm not defending what Tesla did here in any way, but this problem certainly
doesn't make a case for dealers.
~~~
manarth
> you call up and make a deal on a car, they "hold it" for you, you get there
> and it turns out the car you wanted "was just sold"
Although this generally doesn't happen after you stumped up thousands of
dollars as a deposit.
~~~
mikeash
Only because the opportunity presents itself early. I've seen plenty of
stories of people getting screwed like this after putting money down too.
------
thecosas
The best customer service 1) identifies and resolves the client's problem and
then 2) tries to identify what went wrong internally and escalate
appropriately.
Aligning yourself with the customer, then failing to provide a solution is a
rookie move.
None of us were on the line with this customer; it's very possible he was
prying for details and the CSR was trying to be accommodating with information
because they weren't empowered to deliver a good solution.
------
eridal
This needs to end with Elon Musk delivering by himself a brand-new top-model
car, with him saying: _" sorry I took your car, now you'll get mine"_
------
wiremine
My father-in-law works for a Tier 2 auto supplier that works primarily with
GM. Elements of this story sounded very similar to how GM operates: no
callbacks, lack of empathy, passing the buck, etc.
I wonder how deep the similarities go, or if this story is just a really odd
edge case.
~~~
Navarr
I imagine this is an odd-edge case being that it's not a typical purchase, but
a purchase of a showroom model.
~~~
wiremine
Yeah, I think that's true. But it still alludes to a broken corporate culture.
If nobody can call back because they can't take the bull by the horns, that
tells you something. (if it is indeed a true story).
------
et2o
Yikes. They should give him a better car at the agreed upon price.
~~~
noir_lord
If they have any customer service savvy they'll get ahead of this, public
statement apologising and a much better car at the original price.
It's easily fixed if they just get ahead of it and then figure out what the
hell went wrong and how to prevent it in future.
It's like that thing about Doctors getting sued less if they just apologise
for screwups, shit happens and most people are understanding if you are honest
about it - mealy mouthed platitudes from the "Big Book of Covering Screwups"
however annoy people.
~~~
mkaziz
My car insurance tells me to never apologize even if it is my fault because
that can be equated with admission of guilt. I imagine Doctors are told the
same in regard to malpractice suits.
~~~
mikeash
That's because you might _think_ you're at fault, but actually not be. Or you
might truly be at fault, but in a way that can't be proven. And there might be
a huge amount of money at stake, if someone is injured and requires extensive
medical treatment.
None of that applies here. Tesla is clearly at fault, actual damages are
basically zero (the guy got his money back, at least), and making it right
will be pretty cheap, if Tesla actually decides to do so.
~~~
mkaziz
I don't disagree with you; my response was to parent's comment about doctors
who apologize.
~~~
mikeash
I see, I didn't quite connect the dots there. Well, if anybody cares about why
I think insurance companies might say that, there it is....
------
zekevermillion
This is an interesting anecdote about an extremely unlikely scenario, and one
that hopefully you could laugh off if you're in a position to spend $100k on a
luxury car.
~~~
x1798DE
I think most people in a position to spend $100k on a luxury car would not
laugh off a breach of contract worth approximately $20k.
~~~
zekevermillion
I would rather be able to say "Elon Musk stole my Tesla" than "I paid $100k
for a luxury car". But then, I am not in a position to say either of those
things, so perhaps my perspective would change.
------
brandon272
Seems silly to chalk Tesla up to a "hobby masquerading as a company" based on
a single interaction buying (or trying to buy) a vehicle that is not even sold
as part of their typical sales and delivery channel. What would this person's
experience had been if they weren't seeking a special discount deal and just
ordered one normally?
The only concerning part in the article is the explanation by Kevin that the
reason he couldn't get through to anyone wasn't because no one was available,
but rather that they saw him calling and refused to answer because they didn't
want to deal with him.
------
peter303
You probably had case for a lawsuit, but not worth the effort. You story
probably lost more business for Telsa than they would have paid you damages.
(Maybe they'll sue you for libel)
~~~
vanattab
It likely that this article put whoever told him Elon was driving the car
around in some hot water. I would not want to be that guy when Elon reads the
headlines. I am not saying Elon is vindictive or anything just that it would
be a uncomfortable position to be in. It's likely he thought the buyer would
think it was neat that Elon was driving around in the same car he was going to
get... if so he was wrong.
~~~
fredophile
Why would he think it was neat that Elon had driven his car? If I was buying a
used car I'd be annoyed that someone else was adding extra mileage to the car
I'd purchased.
~~~
vanattab
I don't know. I would think it was kinda neat because I got alot of respect
for Elon but I would also kinda wonder about the extra mileage.
EDIT: Message to the down voters I am not saying its rational that I think it
would be kinda neat. I am just honest enough with myself to recognize that I
am not a purely logical beast.
------
Shivetya
While many bemoan the dealership models it is a dealership I once used to get
something done when all else seem to fail. There are far more good ones than
bad and big companies can effectively and afford to ignore a single consumer,
even a vocal one. So while there are some benefits of dealing directly with a
manufacturer it can also be insane at time how tone deaf they can be. Dealers
suffer this at times too but larger ones know the game and better yet know the
people to call. I had a North American rep calling me direct on my issue and
it was resolved.
Once Tesla ever moves into a large volume car I don't see how they will keep
up the image they portray. Its not that simple. Whats worse here is that they
have people who saw what was going on and it wasn't run up the flagpole fast
instead they tried to up sell the customer!!! Get real guys.
------
ck2
TIL even millionaires look for discounts on Teslas.
What Tesla did wasn't right but very hard to have a pity-party for Marty
Puranik.
~~~
dragontamer
> TIL even millionaires look for discounts on Teslas.
Read the "Millionaire next door". The vast majority of millionaires in the US
are just slightly above-average income folk who live below their income and
save appropriately.
If anything, the typical millionaire will look for discounts everywhere. On
the other hand, the "millionaire next door" doesn't buy Teslas, but instead
buys used cars.
~~~
ck2
Marty is not a "slightly above-average income folk".
Started and ran a large dial-up ISP in the 90s and adapted it into a full
blown hosting company when dial-up went away the next decade.
He's on a few "lists" of successful people and extremely well off which is why
it is strange to see someone like that shopping for what had to be only a
moderate discount on a used Tesla.
Again, none of this excuses what Tesla did, I just find his shopping habits to
be a little strange in his bracket.
The unlikely day I have that kind of money, the first thing I do is visit a
Tesla location and order a Model X
~~~
dragontamer
How do you think Marty got his business chops?
Successful business people are __always __working to get a discount, more
mileage for your money, etc. etc. Whether they are "working" or "leisure",
they invest, haggle, look for discounts, and everything.
Living successfully is partially a lifestyle choice. If you live it up and
party like you're a millionaire, you end up broke like the tons of Hollywood
celebrities or lottery winners who don't know how to manage cash. The vast
majority of millionaires are humble people who live below their means for
their whole life.
In part, because humble people who live below their means tend to be good
business owners. Having a solid grasp on the value of money is invaluable.
That part of his brain doesn't "turn off" because he's buying a car. If
anything, its working harder.
------
Arzh
That is a really weird experience. That being said one weird experience
doesn't mean a system is "horribly broken." You got into a weird hole, but how
many of these problems can really come up.
------
malchow
These problems suggest more to me about the immaturity of Tesla's Inventory
Car channel than about its customer support in general. There may be one
person spending 20% of his time on the loaner car sales channel at Tesla.
------
rdl
Pretty amazing how organizational incompetence took what could have been a
minor inconvenience or even a positive (your car gets driven by Elon for
50-100km is probably a plus, if it is already used) to a pissed off customer.
Otoh, I'd far prefer a company screw over a rich guy who is the very
definition of an equal party to contract/informed consumer. The "buy here pay
here" used car dealers catering to poor, relatively uninformed, and powerless
consumers do things far worse than this as routine business practice.
------
lectrick
You don't need the dual charger.
Source: Owner of a non-dual-charger who has literally never missed it. I
charge at 30mi/hr off a 220v dryer connection in my garage, what's not to
like?
------
agentgt
I wonder if Elon will respond with reasons given what happened to the New York
times guy: [https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-
drive](https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive)
Of course I have doubts the reporter was accurate but I do believe this guys
complaint sounds legit.
------
jdenning
I was thinking about buying a (edit: new) Tesla recently, and my main concern
was that one might have a difficult experience receiving the car after paying
a deposit well in advance.
Tesla - if you're reading this, this guy's experience has convinced me; I
won't be considering buying a Tesla again until you can buy one and drive off
with it that day.
~~~
giarc
>I won't be considering buying a Tesla again until you can buy one and drive
off with it that day.
Do you really want this? If this were true, you would be buying a car that x
number of people have test driven. It will come with 100+km on the odometer
already. If I'm spending $100k on a car, I'd rather a brand new vehicle that
was driven onto the truck, and off of the truck and by no one else.
~~~
Domenic_S
Why wouldn't they have a test-drive fleet (like they currently have) and keep
the plastic on the new cars?
~~~
giarc
Then they would have to keep stock at the 'dealerships'. They will soon have 3
models, with various configurations. Allowing enough selection for someone to
"drive off that day" with a car would require expansion of the dealerships.
------
tlow
I'm still waiting to hear if: 1\. This story is verified legitimate and then
if so 2\. Where's Tesla's response?
------
RankingMember
Reading this made it feel like everyone at Tesla is afraid of Elon Musk, which
hopefully is not the case. Not being able to talk honestly to a CEO (or
anyone) is how things fester.
~~~
dba7dba
Pretty sure most people at Tesla/SpaceX ARE afraid of Elon. Especially if you
have MBA :), which most senior people in a sales organization probably have.
------
devy
Has the OP tried to reach out to Tesla / Elon Musk on Twitter at all? I don't
know other channels, but Elon Mush is Twitter A LOT!
------
FussyZeus
This sounds like a completely innocent foulup (Musk taking the car, probably
without checking if it was sold) that was then handled in just the worst way
possible and snowballed into a ridiculous saga.
You cannot just NOT ANSWER a customer when you don't know what to do. You take
it to your superior, who takes it to theirs, who takes it to theirs. Simply
not answering the phone and hoping this guy would just be ok with losing 4
thousand dollars is certifiably insane, and whoever decided that should be the
course of action should be fired. That is NOT how you handle a customer.
At the very least he should've been offered either the car as is with a
discount, or a similar model for the same price. I'm sure he would've been
happy with either option, but the Tesla customer service staff utterly failed
him.
The existence of a sales channel is utterly irrelevant. He contracted with the
sales rep to buy THAT car at THAT price, that's what was agreed and Tesla did
not deliver. THEY need to make it work, not him.
------
jpeg_hero
Lol, guy angling for a free car.
Sorry your discount scheme didn't work out. Pay retail like the majority of
the retail public.
~~~
dkokelley
I'm sorry your comment is being buried, because I think you do bring up a good
point. This was not the usual Tesla process for purchases. The author wanted
an "inventory" car at a discount. Now because Tesla offers this option, they
are responsible for fulfilling the process, and the author's concerns do seem
valid. However, this is not the usual process for purchasing a Tesla, so it's
likely that this is not the usual experience for the "full retail" customers.
The CEO taking your car from the "inventory Tesla purchase program" is an edge
case of an edge case, so it makes sense that nobody knew what to do. The
process still needs to be fixed though.
~~~
dangrossman
This isn't a special process. "Buy New Today", "Buy Pre-Owned Today" (which is
where the showroom models are) and "Custom Order" are in the same top-level
menu on Tesla's website, which is where you buy their cars, whether you're at
home or in a showroom at their computer. Whichever you click, you choose a
car, make a deposit right there, and are given an order confirmation and an
account. It's the same process, and you have the same "full retail
experience", no matter which of the three pages you started your order at. He
even included screenshots of his account in the "My Tesla" portal, just like
any other customer that ordered a car from them.
~~~
dkokelley
While the "Buy Pre-Owned Today" option is given equal weight on the website, I
specifically am referring to what happens on the back end. When you buy new, a
new car is configured to your liking. I have to imagine Tesla's fulfillment
operations are arranged primarily around this case (take new "shell" car,
install customer-selected options, deliver to customer).
It's the same process only in what the customer sees. And I'll agree that the
customer should get a similar experience from a similar process. Tesla seems
to have failed in this case. However, it's clearly not the same process on
Tesla's end. Selling an inventory car is a subset of the pre-owned car sales
process, and selling a specific inventory car that was somehow (erroneously?)
available for R&D is a very specific case. Has the car been made road ready?
Have they removed any beta features that are not for the public?
This is a special process. However, since Tesla offers the option, it is their
responsibility to ensure they can deliver.
------
RubberShoes
#firstworldproblems
------
jacquesm
The only way that I can see this made right is that the guy gets a _free_
Tesla and lifetime-of-the-car free support and repairs on it. Inexcusable.
------
powera
This is _not_ the The Atlantic that you've heard of.
And i smell a rat. Has anyone else who has purchased a Tesla had even half as
many issues? I think this guy just worked things until he got some sales
schmuck to make him an offer too good to be true, and then it was. (Note the
several weeks to find a car. If Tesla sales are always months of back and
forth they have serious problems.)
~~~
Vik1ng
Has anyone else who has purchased a Tesla had even half as many issues?
Well, I would hope Elon doesn't use already sold cars as prototype test
vehicles on a weekly basis.
------
Retric
I read this as: "I tried to save money and it backfired."
They have actual sales channels with real support, by sidestepping that and
your stuck in weird internal processes.
IMO, paying full price and just buying fewer things massively simplifies most
processes.
PS: That's not to say Tesla did a good job. Just that edge cases are often
fragile and it's a good idea to weigh your time vs. the actual savings.
~~~
dangrossman
The showroom inventory is an actual sales channel. It's not some back channel
insider process.
It's behind the "Buy Pre-Owned Today" link on Tesla's public website.
[https://www.teslamotors.com/models/preowned](https://www.teslamotors.com/models/preowned)
The site has one top-level menu where you can choose new, pre-owned or custom
to start your order. Everyone's in the same system.
~~~
Retric
There is generally a big internal difference between cars that are used by a
customer and cars used by the company.
Dealerships often deal with this for their internal loaner cars used when
someone is getting repairs vs. there normal inventory. He was buying a car
that was likely at a transmission point where the company was still using it
but it had entered there sales channel early.
------
solaris_2
I can understand being frustrated about being given the run-around when you
have deposited $4k for a really expensive car but I think this guy(Marty) is
an asshole:
1\. He posted this on his company blog. Not a personal blog, not medium but on
a company blog. I think he's hoping to get some business from the exposure.
I'd be planning to leave a company quickly if my boss posts personal rants
that are not business related on the company blog.
2\. He outed the one rep that told him the truth. He gave the date and the
name of the rep that told him Elon was driving the car. Why would you do
that?? Perhaps the reason why the other reps kept mum was because they knew
Marty was a difficult customer.
3\. He goes on about having a new baby, about how his electrician was calling
to install some power-ups in his garage. These things are not relevant to the
story. Simply tell your electrician the car has not arrived yet.
He also mentions that "In 21 years as a founder/CEO of my own company, dealing
with Tesla has been the most bizarre and strange experience I’ve had
interacting with another organization"
That simply cannot be true.
Bottom line: Marty thinks the world revolves around him and is really upset
Elon doesn't care about him.
~~~
travisby
Power-ups in the garage... for charging his Tesla? Sounds relevant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Video Lesson is not a Weather Forecast - mathmode
https://medium.com/hack-education/4ccb1723bd6e
======
mathmode
Not even professors' selfies.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Hereditarian Hypothesis and Scientific Racism - viburnum
https://kevinabird.github.io/2019/12/18/The-Genetic-Hypothesis-and-Scientific-Racism.html
======
Bostonian
The author does not show why Jensen et al. were wrong but merely criticizes
their funding sources. Racial differences in academic achievement in the U.S.
have been intractable. No Child Left Behind, passed in 2002, heavily
incentivized school districts to close racial gaps. They could not. It is
reasonable to wonder why.
~~~
aiscapehumanity
Epigenetics is obviously much more likely than genetic.There are growing
indications on how environments socially and chemically(as lead levels in most
poorer areas for example) differ have effects on gene expression. These
changes while malllable are also inheritable. Also, no child left behind is a
joke policy especially when th edu system itself is lackluster.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the closest programming language from logic? - Ceezy
I'm looking for languages that have the most
common operations in math/logic from automata calculus to monad, homology...
======
setra
Wolfram's Mathematica / Alpha has an extremely wide range of operations at
your disposal.
[https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/](https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Git Immersion - tortilla
http://gitimmersion.com/
======
roel_v
I've tried several times over the past couple of months to read articles or
introductions to git. The one thing they seem to have in common is that it
looks like they're having a contest on who can come up with the most
outrageous ways of saying how bad other version control systems are. Anyway so
I read through this whole website, but again this one fails to say: what does
git do that others can't? Specifically, what is better about git than
Subversion? There's the 'distributed' aspect which in some specific scenarios
is nice. There seem to be some niceties like adding files to a commit one by
one and doing a 'final' commit only at the end; that's a pain to do with the
commandline subversion client (but it's really easy with Tortoisesvn).
So, is there a concise explanation somewhere of what makes git better than
subversion?
~~~
kgrin
Branching works. I know it works in theory in SVN, but in practice one often
runs into problems with any non-trivial branch. With git (or really DVCS),
branching typically Just Works.
~~~
roel_v
What are those problems? Why are they less with git? I often make branches
with subversion; what goes wrong is keeping track of what features/changesets
need to be merged across which branches, plus 'dependencies' of those
changesets (changes in previous commits to the branch that add e.g. a class
definition that the changesets depends on). Does git improve on that? How?
~~~
shadowmatter
What he really means is that branches are now a part of your daily workflow.
You can sync up to head (or wherever you pulled your working copy of the
repository from), create a branch, and start working on some feature on that
branch, mucking up a hundred files along the way. Now say some some urgent
issue comes up that you need to fix immediately -- you can easily go back to
the point before you branched, and create a new branch from there on which you
can fix the issue. Meanwhile, your previous branch still exists, so when the
urgent issue is fixed you can resume where you are working on. Another great
thing about branches is say you're working on some feature in a branch and you
come to a point where you can implement something multiple ways, but don't
know which one will turn out elegant. You can create a new branch from that
point in your current branch, and if it doesn't pan out, revert it to where
you were.
The kicker with Git is that all these branch operations take on the order of
milliseconds because Git stores the entire project history -- all past
revisions of files, etc -- locally. Sure, you pay in a bit of disk space, but
consequently almost all common operations can be done without hitting the
network and are crazy fast. Even when you execute a commit, you're not
committing to a server, but to your working copy of the repository. Later, you
can push your changes somewhere else and merge accordingly.
~~~
beagle3
Furthermore, git stores the entire project history locally and compressed in
such a way that a live git project (checkout+entire history) often takes LESS
space than an equivalent live subversion project (checkout * 2, which
subversion does for allowing you to diff without having to go to the server).
Obviously, if you add a 1GB random file then delete it, the git entire history
will have 1GB more data than an SVN checkout. but usually, it's smaller.
I've switched to using gitsvn exclusively for svn projects I'm involved with
since I noticed that -- I save space and have complete project history
locally. What more could you ask for?
(p.s: git svn is a better svn client than svn. really)
------
cpeterso
My favorite git introduction/reference is "Pro Git" by Scott Chacon. The book
is available in print and online: <http://progit.org/book/>
------
bradendouglass
A a well designed and simple GIT Tut this seems to be easy to run through. In
addition, the steps are broken down into micro chunks which are always easier
to people who have no clue. Wonderful and thank you.
------
Lennie
What are the downsides of git ?
So far I only heared that git does not handle large binary files well and
supposedly it is good to keep your large source tree (larger than the Linux-
kernel !?) into many smaller git-repositories.
And you have to learn something new and unlearn bad habbits.
The no-easy-GUI-problem has been solved, right ?
~~~
silentbicycle
It doesn't handle large binary files well, but would you track patches on them
anyway? It doesn't fit git's model. Git deals with the current working state
of the _whole repository_ , not individual files.
A major problem with git is that if you try to use it without realizing its
fundamental model is different, it will seem awkward and complicated. Don't
think about it as "like svn, but distributed"; start from zero.
~~~
Lennie
For some projects you also want to track versions of binary files because they
go together with the code. And I read it was a bad idea to use git for those
binary files, exactly because git was not designed for that.
------
alanh
Hmm, the chapter index uses the information (i) icon. Bizarre choice, but
useful menu.
------
weixiyen
All it has is a link to the download for git. Is this a placeholder for
something?
~~~
nonrecursive
Try the "start" arrow at the top
~~~
weixiyen
thanks
------
lzell
The ultimate log format (lab 10, item 4) is superb!
~~~
brunoqc
I agree but I wonder if it would be prettier with colors.
When I added this alias to my gitconfig I found an old alias I had for a
pretty log, you may like it. <http://www.jukie.net/bart/blog/pimping-out-git-
log>
------
ylem
I found this to be a rather good tutorial!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Judge Rules Against N.S.A. Bulk Collection of Phone Data - brnstz
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/us/politics/federal-judge-rules-against-nsa-phone-data-program.html
======
tokenadult
The main discussion appears to be under another thread reporting this story
from _The Guardian._ [1] For readers who like to read the full opinion, that
is available on the website of a legal blogger,[2] who obtained a copy of the
opinion before the district court website became overwhelmed with traffic.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917194)
[2] [http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/Klayma...](http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/Klayman.pdf)
------
nexttimer
It's really "funny" how all this is happening.
Approved by our "representatives" in DC.
Approved by us, the consumers (by our continued use of the concerned
technologies, products and services).
------
Aardwolf
Phona data? Who uses phone calls these days... :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BlinkOn3: State of Google Blink - cpeterso
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e6Aa9VRu26frCeetPerMTIeWB9ssNosFcQ4xNVLvfwg/edit#slide=id.g40fc1bcf6_00
======
xcyu
"Blink is the rendering engine used by Chromium."
[http://www.chromium.org/blink](http://www.chromium.org/blink)
------
serve_yay
:/
These slides aren't so useful without someone talking about what they mean.
~~~
progers7
The keynote was recorded and will be up at some point.
------
jonalmeida
Slide 20: Push notifications from HTML5. Is that what their saying? That would
be an interesting feat.
------
bsimpson
Anyone know what the Page Transition API is?
~~~
progers7
Here's the description from chromestatus:
[https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5169444246519808](https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5169444246519808)
~~~
bsimpson
Thanks. Surprisingly, I couldn't find any info about that with a Google
Search.
Here's the spec:
[https://docs.google.com/a/theillustratedlife.com/document/d/...](https://docs.google.com/a/theillustratedlife.com/document/d/17jg1RRL3RI969cLwbKBIcoGDsPwqaEdBxafGNYGwiY4/edit?pli=1)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Research into the reasons for procrastination and how to stop - DiabloD3
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/27/why-you-cant-help-read-this-article-about-procrastination-instead-of-doing-your-job/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
======
drb311
2 ways to deal with procrastination:
1\. Don't worry about it. We all procrastinate and most of the time it works
out OK. Our instincts know what they're doing.
2\. Break tough tasks down into very, very laughably small tasks. Don't even
worry about doing them. Once the first task in the list is small enough you'll
think "sod it" and do it right away.
If you try to improve your self control you will fail. Go with the grain --
either stop worrying, or find a chunk of the task so is tiny and easy that it
becomes instantly gratifying to do it.
~~~
domusliber
I didn't even click the article (the pain of reading it seemed too large) so I
came directly to the comments.
Awesome tips! "Our instincts know what they're doing" is very true. I tend to
procrastinate when two conditions are fulfilled 1) the task is boring/painful,
and 2) in the back of my mind, I've already calculated out the time and I can
afford to push it until later. Trying to force myself just increases my
expected pain of the task, so I should just go with it.
(And look, I'm procrastinating so much I made a HN account so I could comment
about procrastination!)
~~~
cylinder
Isn't procrastination a way of converting painfully boring tasks into fun
adrenaline rushes? It seems like a pretty good evolutionary adaption: I
perform better when all my senses are elevated, so why not?
Problem arises when you don't have a hard deadline (I.e., you are only
accountable to yourself).
~~~
tmrmn
>Isn't procrastination a way of converting painfully boring tasks into fun
adrenaline rushes?
must be one of my new favourite quotes. Thanks for this gem
------
abalone
That title sure promises a lot. I read all the way to the end and this is
their solution:
1\. Forgive yourself
2\. Ignore your feelings about whether you're in the mood to work on it
3\. Break it down into small steps
I would say #2 is easier said than done for an extreme procrastinator. But,
decent article. Sometimes it's good just to hear that change is possible.
I would add to it that once you adopt new patterns they can set in and make
productivity easier. It's sort of like drinking or other chronic problems..
It's rooted in your DNA and you do have to watch out for it creeping up on
you, but the more successful you are the easier it gets.
In my case, making really granular todo lists and then crossing things off
helped establish a rhythm. It showed me I could in fact accomplish a lot. It
does take time to make and prioritize the list, but good prioritization is
really important and totally worth it. Wunderlist helped a lot. Made it super
easy to add things, prioritize in free moments, and constantly check it and
"live by the list".
I would still let some high priority stuff live on top of the list for weeks
sometimes, but I could forgive myself for those lapses more readily because I
could see how overall better I was doing. And that vastly increased my chances
of eventually tackling those big scary tasks as opposed to spiraling into a
negative feedback loop.
As the article notes, it really is about emotional management. Todo lists
would be useless without structuring them in a way that lets you build up
emotional gratification and self confidence.
~~~
heimatau
I was thinking about this article and feel it 'clicked' for me. Especially
since HN had another article about procrastination recently [1]. I know
abalone is saying it's all about emotional management but...I feel the writer
of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't tell a depressed
person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they are encouraging
emotional management.
My big takeaway from this article and the last [1] is that two major ideas are
being seen in the research:
1\. Forgive yourself. 2\. Be kind to your future self.
#1 can be done with some mental tricks, if someone is having difficulty.
Namely, thinking about 'what if my friend did x [something i just did], what
would be my response to them'. This answer is generally positive and
procrastinators tend to be hard on themselves, so...looking at how we would
treat others would be a mental hack, for us to treat ourselves better.
#2 is where I feel something just 'clicked' for me just now. In some ways,
it's developing on the idea of 'a procrastinator would be nice to someone
else, so be nice to yourself'. Since this 'someone else' is your future you.
Self control, emotional regulation, yadda yadda. I think all of those can help
but don't help everyone. They didn't help me.
These two beliefs and mental hacks have given me insight to my behavior. I
hope the next time this issue comes up on HN, that we can have more research
into the procrastinator's disassociation between time and self. Because to me,
that's the problem, not self-control nor emotional regulation.
[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541675)
~~~
abalone
_> I feel the writer of the article was confused since they quote 'you don't
tell a depressed person to be less apathetic' yet the author seems like they
are encouraging emotional management_
Those are not in conflict. A clearer analogy would be, you don't tell an
alcoholic to just stop drinking. You focus on judgement-free emotional support
systems. You go to meetings, you get a chip for making it 24 hours sober, 1
month, etc.
I'm glad you didn't need something like that to overcoming procrastination.
But a lot of people don't need full-on Alcoholics Anonymous to get their
drinking in control either. Hardcore procrastinators probably need more.
~~~
heimatau
It again seems like you didn't read the article.
> [i]Tim Urban points out that the typical advice for procrastinators —
> essentially, to stop what they’re doing and get down to work, is ridiculous,
> because procrastination isn’t something that extreme procrastinators feel as
> though they can control.
> “While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed
> people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should
> avoid being out of the ocean,” Urban writes.[/i]
That's a direct quote from the article.
The research supports judgement-free internal thought life. Not support
systems. AA isn't a solid comparison but it's close. But apples to oranges
doesn't help when the problem is apples. Let's stay focused on what the
research says.
Also, I'd consider myself a hardcore procrastinator. My issue could be a
symptom of ADHD or something else but I fall in the 'hardcore' category. And
it's something that I still struggle with but 'sucking it up' or 'just stop
procrastinating with social support' won't change my situation, something
deeper needs to occur, which is why I mention the beliefs. Our beliefs affect
our behavior.
------
willcodeforfoo
Oh the irony. I came across this here, while procrastinating, and decided this
was too long so I sent it to Instapaper, where I will probably never read
it...
~~~
typicalbender
Somewhat off topic but I hadn't heard of Instapaper before, have you used
Pocket and if so what do you like better about Instapaper? Looks like they
have a speed reading and kindle sync option which is pretty cool.
~~~
lexhaynes
I use Instapaper. I haven't heard of Pocket. I like Instapaper's really
minimal design, their "Instapaper Text" extension, and the ability to save and
sort articles for later.
------
clentaminator
The real reason you procrastinate: You fundamentally don't want to be doing
whatever task it is that you're avoiding, and while it might be the logically
"correct" thing to do, that doesn't mean you want to do it. What we want and
what we are pushed into doing are not always aligned. News at ten.
~~~
justsaysmthng
I disagree. I often procrastinate on the things that I really really want to
do.
My explanation for that is not the fundamental lack of interest in the
project, but the hidden fear of failure that accompanies every project that I
work on.
I've worked on so many failed projects that I've kind of lost hope of actually
producing something that won't be forgotten immediately.
(Mind that this is not necessarily true - some of my work (as a
comedian/writer/actor) has been viewed millions of times, while some of the
code I've written is being executed by millions of machines every day, but I
still feel like I've failed at everything, because that was just "blind luck"
).
If all this effort results in disappointment and depression, why bother waste
energy on it now - this is the kind of hidden thought process that's going on
in my head and I guess in many other's people's heads too.
Paradoxically, this is the thought process that also disarms you a little bit
every day, until the task becomes painful and not worth pursuing and once
again you've failed to accomplished what you've set out to.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but also hard to break since it's not
happening on a "rational" level, but on a lower "fight or flight" subconscious
level, which is very hard to control.
~~~
zepto
Do you want to do then because they give you pleasure to do, or because you
desire the results?
------
kafkaesq
Without labeling it as a form of ADHD (or anything else), necessarily, but
simply recognizing that the impulse to procrastinate is probably tied to the
brain's short-term reward cycles (dopamine-based or otherwise) in some way or
another -- and hence, that it might legitimately be thought as a kind of
micro-addiction, like the tendency to grab for tasty foods or clever-sounding
news bites every 10 minutes -- was a big help to me in getting a handle on it.
And teaching me that, at least once in a while, I can, in fact, "just say no"
\-- and try to get things done for the sake of a much large, multi-faced, and
legitimately nourishing neurohormone
------
hanoz
This may may have been just the article I needed, but I will never know
because I realised it must be a good three or four months since I last
refreshed my memory about the events leading up to the Chernobyl disaster.
~~~
corysama
It's been mentioned elsewhere in the comments here, but this is directly
relevant to your comment.
[http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-
procrastin...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-
procrastinate.html)
------
ratsmack
I would have to say that my problem has more to do with too many easily
available distractions, instead of procrastination. I made a point that while
at work my browser was never used for anything except work and email was only
to be read and answered at specific points during the day, and sometimes only
at the end of the day. In addition, I discouraged anyone from sending me
personal email to my work address so any personal items were addressed when I
got home. All of this seemed to cure my "procrastination" problem.
------
gerbilly
I find I procrastinate to undertake hard or frustrating tasks because, and it
sounds lame to admit it, that I'm afraid of the negative emotions I will
experience if things go wrong.
------
kpmah
Something I've noticed with my own procrastination is that it often has a
strong emotional component. For example, I'll often procrastinate with
anything to do with taxes because, even though I know I HAVE to pay it on an
intellectual level, it's emotionally difficult for me to part with money.
Often when I've rationally examined the underlying anxiety it becomes much
easier to accomplish things.
------
patmcguire
The great benefit of procrastination is that it saves a lot of work. Future
you isn't going to have to do it in two months, because no one is going to
have to do it. Something will come along and tableflip everyone's plans and
then you'll have done the original thing and the new thing too.
------
emodendroket
[http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/](http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/)
------
heyogrady_
I'll read this later
~~~
overcast
Comment winner.
------
reirob
I like the procrastinator's matrix:
[https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-
apps/imrs.php?src=https://...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-
apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/04/Procrastinators-
Matrix1.png&w=1484)
Will print it and stick to my wall... Next time when I need to procrastinate.
------
simonebrunozzi
"The real, final, ultimate reason why you procrastinate, and how to stop":
[https://medium.com/simone-brunozzi/the-real-final-
ultimate-r...](https://medium.com/simone-brunozzi/the-real-final-ultimate-
reasons-why-you-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop-67cd2115dbe9#.s1glwit6k)
(note: I wrote it, and please take it with a grain of humor)
------
dhimes
I read this yesterday, and I didn't realize this before: Procrastination is an
_emotional_ issue. To control it you have to control your emotions. That
changed how I fundamentally look at the problem.
------
visarga
Some people call it procrastination, other people call it thinking. A little
bit of procrastination is correlated with increased creativity. When people
procrastinate too little or too much, they are less creative, but when they
procrastinate just enough to get away from the problem but not too far away,
then new perspectives pop up.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/why-i-
taugh...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/why-i-taught-
myself-to-procrastinate.html)
------
joshontheweb
How I get work done on my side project:
\- Make a trello list of tasks
\- Make sure I always do at least one task a day
The first task I do is usually very small but I find that I usually get on a
roll once I have entered 'the zone' and end up getting a lot done.
EDIT: Formatting
------
thieving_magpie
WaPo has sadly turned into click-baiters. I had to filter them out of my
google news.
It's interesting that this started around January, one month after the
headline "Bezos takes more hands on role at WaPo".
------
knivets
I think procrastination has to do with mental award system — we tend to choose
tasks which will bring the award as quickly as possible. But those tasks are
usually not very productive, while those that are productive require
significant time investments. Basically, it is about instant/delayed
gratification. So the answer, I think, is to pick jobs/tasks that are more
balanced (average time to achieve gratification, average productivity). I
think this is what "job you enjoy doing" should look like.
------
deepnet
My procrastination has a single task buffer. I find a worse task, put that at
the top of a list - then procrastinate this decoy task with the real to do
list.
------
firethief
I'd didn't know WaPo ran blogspam-style rehashes of other sites' content now.
The face study is very difficult to interpret in any interesting way - the
control group controlled for the VR setup instead of, say, a non-visual
approach to getting people thinking about the future. The only conclusion we
might draw is that when people have the future in mind the amount they say
they'd save is greater.
------
Eleopteryx
I feel like I can attribute my procrastination to a few things
1\. choice paralysis I'm fairly certain I have a cavity in one of my teeth, I
can basically see it when I look in the mirror, in addition to sensitivity to
temperature. So I need to find a dentist a) in my area b) that accepts my
insurance. There are multiple options. I want to know who the optimal dentist
is; I want the one who can pull off a painless root canal if need be, but I
definitely don't want the one who will cause agony or perform a procedure
incorrectly. I think, maybe I'll Google them and see if I can find any reviews
or other indications that one dentist is better than the next. Confronted by
20 options, I spend more time on the whole thing than I need to, optimizing
the odds that I get distracted along the way.
2\. various forms of anxiety, mostly social anxiety I really don't want to
call and talk to a stranger on the phone to schedule that appointment. I'm not
even that bad at talking to people, and yet it makes my heart race. I'm afraid
to drive to places that I've never been, to awkwardly enter an unfamiliar
building trying to figure out where to go. I'm afraid of not being able to
find a parking space. I'm afraid of a lot of stupid things that don't matter.
3\. extreme lethargy Is something I've been trying to overcome for literally
years. Inadequate nutrition is the main factor in this. I am mentally and
physically tired almost all of the time, to varying degrees, which slows me
down, and makes it harder to focus on something. I don't eat right, sometimes
eating but a single meal in a day. Sometimes I will eat nothing substantial
for an entire day. I recently tried "Mealsquares" (basically Soylent in solid
form) as means to ensure I get all the nutrients I need. I've yet to be able
to eat more than 2 in a day (usually just 1), which would equate to 400-800
calories at most. At 6' height, a target weight of a 170lbs requires me to
consume an excess of 2000 calories per day, so imagine getting 1/4-1/2 of that
on average per day. I don't even know how I get through the days as well as I
do, what is my body running on? I actually know how to prepare multiple meals,
I just don't. Instead of hunger making me voracious, it makes me feel lazy and
depressed. If hiring a full-time cook were affordable, I would do it.
At the end of the day, nothing is getting done if I simply don't have the fuel
to power my body to do it.
Procrastination feels like a pattern, a vicious cycle that feeds on itself, a
loop from which I'm trying to break free. I'm trying to reverse it and emerge
on top, and it sounds like something that can be turned around in a week, but
I feel like it's been an upward battle for most of my adulthood.
------
xufi
I always procrastinate when I want o learn something new. In this case.
relearning web technologies and whatnot. The best way I see is to force myself
to think up of something that I would find interesting to do.
This is a interesting read for sure
------
Nano2rad
Procrastination is a symptom cr character of ADHD I am pretty sure about that
because I heard from a specialist. If procrastination is part of mental
illness, recovery is only possible by treating the condition.
------
codezero
I try to say this whenever the subject comes up, procrastination is a form of
anxiety and is a real mental health issue. You should talk to a professional
about it if it's affecting your life.
~~~
dceddia
It comes and goes, for me. I notice I'm much more susceptible to falling into
a procrastination/unhappiness loop if I haven't done any exercise for a while.
Energy starts to wane, and if I trip into procrastination, it kind of builds
on itself and gets worse.
Procrastinate -> Feel Bad -> What's the point -> So far behind ->
Procrastinate...
------
felideon
I read the original Wait But Why essays a few months ago and it really helped.
Glad to see there is (not sure which came first) research that backs it up.
------
ddt_Osprey
The real reason I procrastinate is because I hate my life, and I'd be better
off dead.
~~~
swah
When I get close to that line of thinking, thoughts such as those
automagically revert it:
"If I'm going to die, I might as well finally help those old people at the
asylum and see how that feels"
"If I'm going to die, I might as well travel without money through Europe"
------
ondeodiff
I really wanted to read this but I'll probably wait till tomorrow
------
partycoder
The irony is that if you read this during work hours it becomes
procrastination.
------
dgreensp
I have to laugh whenever "hedonic pleasure" is brought into the discussion.
If avoiding your thesis by emptying the dishwasher is "giving into pleasure,"
why is there so little pleasure involved, and is it hedonism again when the
next day you feel inspired and give into the pleasure of writing your thesis?
At the same time, the very fact that your levels of motivation, courage, and
anxiety fluctuate all the time invalidates the advice, "You're never going to
feel like doing it (so just do it)." This is a form of motivational advice
where you take a truth and wrap it in a lie. Another example is, "Nobody
enjoys their job." Plenty of people enjoy their jobs, so what is really being
said? Basically that the current discomforts are to be expected and should not
cause distress. It's emotional invalidation in a digestible pill, though it
may trigger an adverse reaction.
We are emotional animals with many emotional needs and colorful emotional
states. We should learn to be aware of our own needs, and practice recognizing
and tolerating our emotional states. For example, acting with courage involves
being able to tolerate the fear state, which is a skill that takes practice.
With awareness of your emotions, you can absolutely increase happiness and
pleasure in your life, by doing activities you enjoy and hopefully going into
a line of work you take some pleasure in. Arrange your life to make your inner
animal happy. Acknowledge when your needs are not being met.
Whenever I see the term "hedonic pleasure" used, it is surrounded by a useless
caricature of the human emotional life. In this caricature, all positive
emotions are equivalent; all negative emotions are equivalent; and avoiding a
negative emotion is equivalent to seeking a positive emotion. Never mind
what's causing the emotions in the first place!
Hedonism is about the morality of sensual pleasure. Imagine you have enough
money in the bank that you never have to work again, and in fact you can live
a life of some luxury. What should you devote your life to now? Maximizing
your personal pleasure? Or should you invest in your personal relationships,
or try to make the world a better place? What's the most good or "moral" path?
Obviously, the society we live in frowns on the hedonistic choice. All of this
has nothing to do with procrastination, except by a very strained analogy. If
in procrastination, we feel that our "voice of reason" is being drowned out by
other voices representing baser drives, we can smear these other voices by
portraying them as mindless pleasure-seekers — supporters of the Pleasure
Party — and make our opposition to this party into a moral or philosophical
issue. Meanwhile, the truth could be that the "voice of reason" is an echo of
your parents insisting you need a PhD using tactics of shame and fear, while
among your "baser drives" is the desire to feel a sense of your own worth as a
person.
Humans don't "seek" emotions, anyway, we feel them. When you think about your
homework, that thought triggers an emotional cascade. The trick is altering
that emotional response over time. When you play a video game level, you
aren't "seeking" the hit of completing the level; you are actually feeling a
positive emotion throughout the whole level of being engaged with making
progress towards a goal. When you even think about going to play video games,
you get some of that feeling. This feeling is a hugely positive thing, but
like all emotions, you need to be on decent terms with it so you can reason
with it, so hear it out; feel it; and then recruit some other voices to the
conversation.
------
known
Interesting analysis.
------
Derbasti
This is more or less a copy of [http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-
matrix.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html). I
recommend reading that instead.
~~~
blackskad
He also did a funny TED talk on the topic. At just 14 minutes, it may be more
manageable than a lengthy article.
[http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/my-ted-
talk.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/my-ted-talk.html)
~~~
outworlder
Thanks for the link, I'll watch it later.
------
dang
We changed the dismayingly linkbaity article title to one that attempts to be
more accurate and neutral, in accordance with the HN guidelines. If anyone
suggests a better title, we can change it again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mindfuck WebGL Zorropark - tsenart
http://zorropark.com
======
cleverjake
I would like to thank whom ever wrote it for leaving he source unminified.
Though its easy to unminify code for most developers, it was a bit
overwhelming encountering it when I was new. Being able to study things like
this as easily as possible can really help the community.
Awesome job =]
------
jerrya
Can someone explain what I am seeing (or not seeing)?
It renders pyramids on Chrome, but just a black screen (with the words ZORRO
PARK) on Firefox 4, IE 9, Safari and Opera.
The wiki on WebGL suggests this should work on Firefox 4.
~~~
sibsibsib
I see pyramids with firefox 4. I'm not sure what the 'mindfuck' part is
though...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Journey took thatgamecompany into bankruptcy - chaostheory
http://www.destructoid.com/journey-took-thatgamecompany-into-bankruptcy-244311.phtml
======
bane
A beautiful game, a true work of art, even just to sit and watch. Here's a
full playthrough <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_KrjxD8djo>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Graphcool is now open-source as the Graphcool Framework - kylemathews
https://github.com/graphcool/framework
======
babakness
+1, this is wonderful. Game changer in many ways. Can't wait to use it on some
projects.
My feature request would be to integrate with PostgreSQL and the ability to
query database functions / store procedures and filter results (ie select
x,y,z from myfunction(parameter1,parameter2) ) for super fast processing of
data at the database level and to leverage database plugins through functions.
I believe that the store procedures are possible through the `resolver`
function feature; the only missing piece is probably PostgreSQL support.
------
devanb
I'm super excited to use this! It will make creating GraphQL micro-services a
breeze.
Congrats Graphcool!
------
petetnt
Kudos to Graphcool for open sourcing this! Can't wait to try it out in
production myself. The graph.cool FAAS is amazing by its own means, but having
the complete control over it (if needed) is beautiful!
------
ilmatic
+1 the lack of local development has been the only thing holding me back on
GC...this is exciting
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Phrack Magazine #69 (May 2016) - jor-el
http://www.phrack.org/issues/69/1.html
======
brudgers
Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11644340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11644340)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IT Operations has a Cultural Problem - gabrtv
http://blog.opdemand.com/
======
gergles
Let's see. Linkbait title, latest buzzword, consistent use of "bureaucracy" (I
do not think that word means what you think it means - you cannot wave a magic
DevOps wand and make bureaucracy go away) and insinuations that operations
departments are "outdated"... Yeah, seems like a worthwhile article with a
good point.
I sure want Joe Random Engineer committing code that goes live on our real,
grown-up site, where we make real money, and a failure leads to us losing real
money. Ops departments exist so that that can't happen. If that means you have
to wait a day before testing your latest code in production, I don't see this
as a bad thing.
The "cultural problem" is in people who think that operations departments
don't need to exist because "like, how hard is it to run servers? We'll just
put it 'on the cloud' and magically all of our security, reliability, and
availability problems will be solved"
The biggest piece of nonsense is this concept of a "private cloud". What the
fuck is a private cloud? Oh, you mean a remote datacenter, like we've had
since the 70s. OK.
------
gabrtv
Jamming ephemeral cloud infrastructure into an ITIL-style bureaucracy is like
jamming a square peg into a round hole. You can push as hard as you want -- it
ain't gonna fit.
------
jvehent
looks like somebody didn't like it when boss said "no, you can't put the new
accounting system on heroku"
------
ddw
A few of the responses here are snarky and understandably so considering the
author's reasons for this post, yet the problem remains. How does cloud
computing fall within the traditional IT ops model? Anecdotally I've worked
for a large city and they're still a little hesitant of cloud computing
because they see it as a threat to their employees. I'm not sure how it'll
shake out but they'll move towards cloud computing eventually and developers
instead of operations could/should manage it.
~~~
gabrtv
I would argue that that operations engineers need to become more like
developers, not that developers should be operating critical systems.
The cultural problem can also be framed as a transition from a server-centric
operations model to an application-centric one -- something James Urquart
wrote a great post about for GigaOM: [http://gigaom.com/cloud/what-cloud-
boils-down-to-for-the-ent...](http://gigaom.com/cloud/what-cloud-boils-down-
to-for-the-enterprise-2/)
------
ogghead
"agile management" is pretty much always going to mean "less management," so
it's understandable that management is kind of schizophrenic about the DevOps
movement
~~~
Schmidt
It's not about less management, it's about trusting your employees and their
judgement. Accepting that failures happen and learn from the mistakes.
------
KevinEldon
In my experience this is completely true of large organizations, "Most
operations departments are inflexible and inefficient because they rely on
specialized engineers glued together with manual processes and a large IT
bureaucracy – all fundamentally at odds with the fast-moving, application-
centric world of cloud computing."
This is a cycle. If the management of the Operations organization is measured
based on reducing downtime they control what they can, Release & Change
Management. This kills frequent small releases, so development teams have to
build big releases. If management in development organizations are measured
mostly by delivering on schedule they cut scope. You end up w/ development
organizations delivering the minimum to ensure they meet the project mostly
artificial timelines for huge releases. Suggesting small frequent releases
sounds good to development (assuming they can reduce the operational paperwork
associated w/ releasing), but jeopardizes Operation's control of stability so
Operation's resists it. Suggesting that more get delivered in each huge
release jeopardizes Development's ability to meet project deadlines because
there is so much unknown and the commitment is expected up front, a quarter or
more (I've seen 18 months) in advance.
There are reasons for all of this; it's not bad people, just a consequence of
large organizations. Reducing downtime reduces costs because you can cut
support staff. Delivering on time increases productivity because code that
isn't being used is useless code.
------
drivingmenuts
If my local server providing a vital service goes down, I catch hell. If my
cloud server providing a vital service goes down, I catch hell and can't do
anything about it except bitch at customer service who has their own set of
priorities and a TOS protecting them from any meaningful action on my part.
So, what's the right option there?
~~~
gabrtv
Clearly the right option depends on the specifics of the service and the team
managing it. However, unless you have a spare server sitting around, you're in
the same boat either way, right?
Outages at serious cloud providers like AWS are usually restricted to
availability zones, though there have been a few high profile exceptions where
entire regions were affected. In general though, with AWS you can redeploy
your server rapidly if you have your infrastructure blueprints kept as code,
and your data backed up to EBS snapshots or S3.
Just this week I had a high-traffic Wordpress blog shit the bed on EC2/RDS.
Using the tools we built at OpDemand, I was able to clone the platform and get
it back up and running in < 60 minutes without any HA. I think < 60 min
recovery time is probably a stretch for most on-premise environments..
------
zenpocalypse
troll much?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Uber’s New Strategy: Buy Unprofitable Companies Like Postmates, ???, Profit - elsewhen
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep4pwp/ubers-new-strategy-buy-unprofitable-postmates
======
WBWBWB1010
I'm in the trucking industry and it's common knowledge Uber freight is a man
behind the curtain scheme employing 1000s of people, what else is fake under
the hood? Their rev per employee/ automated freight per employee barley breaks
that of an incumbent.
What are the unit economics of each of these businesses or are they riding the
Narrative TK set for them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Competition - getp
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/competition.html
======
TrevorJ
He raises a good point. I think there is a lot of internal friction that keeps
bloggers form posting about competitors sometimes, but there really shouldn't
be any fear of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Behind the One-Way Mirror: A Dive into the Technology of Corporate Surveillance - matthberg
https://www.eff.org/wp/behind-the-one-way-mirror
======
hmhrex
I obviously haven't read through this whole thing yet, but I am very much
looking forward to it. Hopefully this will be a good reference point for when
people ask me for more information.
Me and a few other guys meet monthly to chat about ethical advertising, what
it looks like for our products, and giving each other ideas on how to succeed
at it. I feel that the subject of ethical advertising as an alternative to
Google Ads will greatly increase in 2020.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I have a running list of problems caused by advertising:
[http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-
cancer.html](http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html)
If you and the guys can find forms that sidestep most of those issues (without
causing even worse ones), I'm all ears.
~~~
skinkestek
That is seriously well-written. Personally I am (also?) in the camp where some
advertising ("to connect goods and services with people wanting to buy them")
is ok, and we both agreed that the current system is suboptimal bjt you have
managed to nudge me quite a bit towards your side.
Good work, that is why I read HN.
(And everyone should feel free to tell me why I've been fooled by this post as
well ;-)
------
3xblah
[https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:fv751yt5934/SHEG%20Ev...](https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:fv751yt5934/SHEG%20Evaluating%20Information%20Online.pdf)
Unfortunately, the following responses were not among those seen in the study:
"Because when I move the cursor/mouse over it, I can see it points to an ad
server."
"Because when I view the page source I can see it is filled with links to ad
servers."
~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, unfortunately, because that's one heuristic that never fails me: the
more ads there are on a page, the less trustworthy the source is.
------
awat
Excellent stuff, will happily continue to donate and would encourage others to
as well.
*Not associated just an admirer of the EFFs work
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I urge you to refund Arizona Sunshine - andybak
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/5h2kwx/i_urge_you_to_refund_arizona_sunshine/
======
andybak
The developer recanted swiftly:
[http://steamcommunity.com/games/342180/announcements/detail/...](http://steamcommunity.com/games/342180/announcements/detail/289751074098300224)
------
ulucs
Maybe a better title would be "Game Developers Lock Games Modes for Players
Not Using i7 Processors" or something in the same vein.
I went in expecting a rebuttal against anarcho-capitalism (pattern recognition
is weird)
~~~
andybak
Yes I agree but I've had posts modded back to the original titles several
times so I tend to err on sticking to that unless it's awful. I think this
piece will get picked up by the gaming press soon and someone can post a link
to a proper article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dropbox Pitch to Sequoia 2007 - websirnik
https://relayto.com/dropbox/rBWSeSFA/slides?hub=dropbox-investor-resources-5a93c45d19eb9
======
YL123
Deep OS integration, visual feedback, doesn't change the way you work. As true
then as it is now...
------
alexatrelayto
It's remarkable how similar the business is 10 years later
~~~
ipunchghosts
Agreed. I think its a testimony to how well they understood the market
potential.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cruel way to promote a product - kachnuv_ocasek
https://duck.co/topic/promoting-duckduckgo-with-htaccess
======
anonymoushn
This is pretty bad. Much of the time, your page (which the user clicked on in
Google, for instance) won't be near the top of DDG at all. You're essentially
saying "You don't want to go to my page, try one of these other pages
instead." It also takes an unreasonable amount of time for DDG to load
results, compared to whatever site the user was using.
~~~
sudont
I agree. Not to mention that a non-technical user would view this the same as
an ISP’s DNS redirect page, and think the site doesn’t exist.
------
dspillett
If I click on a link in Google's results and immediately get a search page, I
will assume that the entry in Google is a bogus one that a clever SEO
operative has convinced the algorithm into placing above actual relevant
content. I will hit the back button and tell Google to filter out results for
that site in future.
Feel free to do this if you are happy to keep people like me away from your
site.
------
epi0Bauqu
Please note that the poster is not associated with the company.
------
Udo
I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often in the world of SEO
spam. The obvious way to solve this is for the Google bot to give sites a
Google referrer string when it comes to index them. That way the bot would see
those sites just as a search user does. Of course that means in the long run,
Google bot would also have to pose with a fake USER_AGENT identifier to make
sure it actually gets the real content.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OpenGL Renderer Design - based2
https://nlguillemot.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/opengl-renderer-design/
======
based2
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5dvriw/opengl_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5dvriw/opengl_renderer_design_how_i_write_opengl_these/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
At Amazon, the Bathroom is an Extension of the Office (2015) - dgelks
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-employees-treat-the-bathroom-as-an-extension-of-the-office
======
Twirrim
For what it's worth, I was there for nearly 3 years (including when this
article was written) and never saw that kind of bathroom behaviour. People
seemed to follow the general unwritten rules. Conversations were rare, and
where they did happen, the usual idle chatter that happens anywhere, while at
the sink or waiting for a toilet to be available.
I _was_ there during one of the peaks in staff/toilet ratios. After getting
rid of all of the 2 - 3 person offices and replacing it all with open plan
office, and then packing us in even tighter (What they referred to as "high
density" seating arrangements), actually getting to use a toilet was an
extremely frustrating experience. With such a prominent gender bias, the male
bathroom was constantly occupied, and a now infamous "toilet ticket" was cut
([https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-employees-biggest-
compl...](https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-employees-biggest-complaint-
not-enough-mens-bathrooms-for-all-the-dudes/)).
Eventually they relented, and as new office floor space was opened up in new
buildings, they agreed to reduce staff density and set a more practical
staff:toilet ratio, along with adding in an additional toilet on every floor.
side note: What would have really helped was if staff weren't selfishly
spending 5-10 minutes sitting on the toilet browsing the internet or playing
games on their phones. It rarely takes that long to do the necessary.
~~~
kartan
> the male bathroom was constantly occupied
I'm always surprised by this. Why not have unisex bathrooms? In most
companies, I have worked the bathrooms are just one toilet and sink. That way
anyone can use it.
> What would have really helped was if staff weren't selfishly spending 5-10
> minutes sitting on the toilet browsing the internet or playing games on
> their phones.
I can't agree with that. Without actually knowing for sure (I will guess that
you weren't looking at other people while they poo), you are blaming employees
for the lack of toilets. But in the rest of your description, it looks like
it's clearly the company that failed to offer the most basic needs. Timing
your team workers bathroom times doesn't look like a good approach to solve
the problem.
~~~
brianwawok
> In most companies, I have worked the bathrooms are just one toilet and sink.
> That way anyone can use it.
it cost more this way?
All the companies I worked at in Chicago prime real state I can think of had
gendered bathrooms, at least monthly. Common setup was 2 stalls 2 urinals and
2 sinks for the men (and I assume either 3 or 4 stalls for the ladies,
depending on how tight they packed it).
My guess it would take the same space to make 2 single use bathrooms as a
single bathroom with 2 stalls / 2 urinals / 2 sinks. The throughput of a 2
stall / 2 urinal bathroom for men would be about triple the single bathroom
setup, depending on your exact pee to poop ratio.
And when you are counting dollars and cents, if a decision can save you from
having another 600 square feet of bathroom space (at say $300 a squarefoot a
year in lease), it can add up to some decent chunk of change (at perhaps the
cost of some sanity).
~~~
kasey_junk
By that rationale we should replace urinals with troughs & remove stall walls.
The model that makes the most sense to me is unisex small single rooms
surrounding a set of sinks that can be shared. As long as you have kick plates
on the doors you get similar size constraints, better privacy & queueing
theory kicks in.
------
inertial
Suddenly various AWS services start making sense,
\- EBS : Elastic Bathroom Stalls
\- ACL : Active Coding in Loo
\- API Gateway : Always Poop Interactively ...
\- IoT : Inconvenient Office Toilets
The article is full of instances like :
> The most horrifying moment of my employment at Amazon was the time I was
> using the toilet and a coworker began talking from the stall next to me. He
> asked me why I had not responded to his very pressing email [...] What email
> could be so important that it could not wait five minutes for me to use the
> bathroom?
> ... He began tapping on the wall between our stalls ...
> I regularly saw people bring their laptops into the bathroom, where they
> would sit on the toilet and write code
> I heard people take phone calls while mid-business
~~~
Tharkun
Why would anyone put up with that sort of madness? If my employer can't even
let me shit in peace, I don't want to work for them. It's not like programming
jobs are scarce...
~~~
brianwawok
Sounds like it was coworkers not the boss. And if you quit every job with an
awful coworker, I am not sure you would have many jobs left ;)
~~~
Tharkun
Bosses tend to create (or encourage) this kind of behaviour. This is either an
infrastructure or a management issue. If there aren't enough toilets, your
infra sucks. If you need to discuss work while taking a dump, management
sucks.
~~~
brianwawok
Sure, culture is part of this. But just an annoying guy talking to you in the
crapper? Maybe can't blame that one...
------
digitalzombie
My friends who works at Amazon a while back this is 2009 and between that and
now they've been saying don't work for Amazon. I kept in touch with the
freshmen and such since I was president of ACM.
It also affect my spending habit on Amazon too.
Jeff Bezos have been quoted Kindness is a choice but the things I've read
especially the warehouse condition is right. Kindness is a choice and it seems
like Amazon chose to not to be kind.
I'm glad they're trying to fix their culture but sheesh. The article mentioned
about competitiveness. He makes it out as if it is some cut throat thing. If I
have a family do I need more undue stress from competition while worry about
my kids and family needs? I mean do I need to suck up and watch my back from
co workers on top of everything? That's a terrible place to work for.
Even if it's not necessary so that I have cut throat coworkers, I still have
to compete against them while doing my job. That's insane. At least with
Government some branches such as FDA you get raises base on the papers you
publishes IIRC, you don't need to hurt people or compete against your peers.
------
zw123456
There was one company I worked at that, for whatever reason, people thought
that the bathroom was a good place to have a phone call. Simple fix; when
someone would start a phone call I would flush, and keep flushing every time
they talked to make sure the person on the other end could hear it. I usually
only took a few flushed for people to get the hint.
------
uji
After nytimes articles, Amazon seriously has started improving its culture.
Managers though still have same mindset of treating employees as replaceable
resources. This is one instance after the article came out. My pregnant friend
one day sent an email that she would be WFH as she isn't feeling well. Manager
replied back that this is not acceptable and you should give a week of notice
for your plans.
This might be okay in other fields, but in tech WFH is considered a perk and
companies don't care as long as you do your work.
~~~
madamelic
Minimum notices for WFH days baffles me.
I can understand making it a policy to limit WFH days to a very minimum, but
the idea of a notice period for WFH makes no sense to me.
It makes people more unproductive then they really have to be.
~~~
dawnerd
I've made the choice to never work for a company that doesn't let me work from
home whenever I want.
------
valar_m
I've been with Amazon for four years and have never once seen or heard of
someone taking their laptop to the bathroom. I have difficulty believing
that's true.
He's right about not enough bathrooms, though. It's _really_ fucking annoying.
~~~
pbourke
As a counterpoint, I worked there for 6 years until 2013, and I saw it happen
a few times at the SLU campus.
------
2OEH8eoCRo
Okay it's kind of silly to still conduct business in the restroom but why do
people freak out when someone speaks in the restroom? Like, relax. Take it
easy.
------
eyjafjallajokul
I'm curious to know what team/organization the OP was from. Because of how
massive Amazon is, every team interacts with each other differently. For
example, the org that houses Amazon Go is much more high stress, and I can
imagine this happening there v/s a team working on building internal systems.
I've been at Amazon for 5 years now, and have never experienced whatever the
post said. I have, however, been in the uncomfortable situation where a
colleague has tried to talk to me in the urinal about things outside of work.
Funny read though :)
------
callingspade
I work for AWS since 2014 and I am in a building that arguably has highest
density compared to other Amazon buildings. I have not seen a single instance
of what the author describes, on tens of floors except that during peak times
one may have to go to the next floor to find an empty stall. Specifically --
1\. I have not seen anyone take laptops to the stalls 2\. No conversations in
the bathroom, at most a Hi when washing your hands or a 'excuse me' at the
door. Definitely no cross-talk across stalls. 3\. No one is using bathrooms as
a meeting place or a place for long conversations.
Since last year, there are also unisex bathrooms on each floor. While I am
here, might as well dispel some other myths. Occasional WFH is the norm, not
an exception. I haven't seen people work long hours as a norm. Most people
come in between 9-10:30 and leave between 5-6:30pm. Some come in earlier and
some later. Almost everyone I know is driven by their own passion for their
work, customer obsession, immense learning opportunity, do things that have
never been done before, increasing stock value and increase in their own
market value, to name a few.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: SocialVault – Decentralized and encrypted storage for Facebook data - dbrereton
https://socialvault.io/
======
noxToken
What is the use case for this? If I download all of my data from Facebook, why
would I want to upload it to another product or service elsewhere?
If your killer feature is allowing me to browse my data with a user-friendly
interface (instead of a clob of data on local disk), I think you need a demo,
video, or even a .gif showcasing it. You have an image that hints at it, but
you never actually sell it. Someone who quickly scrolls down your main page
might miss the "browse" portion of your product in its entirety.
~~~
dbrereton
The use case is that if you're leaving Facebook, you can keep all your
data/memories. And you would upload it for the same reason that you upload
your photos to google photos, because it's a large amount of files to store
locally, and also harder to browse.
I think you're right, the landing page does not do a good job of explaining
that. Will work on improving it.
~~~
Canada
Unless there's a client I can run locally, it's not decentralized in any
meaningful way. Needs a link to the means I can sign up, login, and use this
without relying on your web server at all.
~~~
dbrereton
It is entirely decentralized using Blockstack, which you may read about here:
[https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html](https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html).
The only part that isn't decentralized is the front end which is hosted on
Netlify.
However, if you want to do everything without relying on me at all, you can
also clone the repo and run it locally and everything should work the same:
[https://github.com/dkb868/socialvault](https://github.com/dkb868/socialvault)
~~~
Canada
I'm aware of what blockstack is. I want to see decentralized apps succeed, but
asking anyone to entrust their sensitive social media data to some random
website is a stretch. However little the average person trusts Facebook, they
trust your site even less.
Nobody is going to clone the repo and run it locally. Anyone willing and able
to do that has no need for this tool. You've gotta pack this thing up and make
it like a regular application, or at least a browser plugin. No localhost web
servers or anything like that. It has to look like a trustworthy and
professional app like Slack, Dropbox, or Lastpass.
~~~
blechinger
For mass appeal? Sure. But you said "nobody" would clone the repo and host it
locally. I intend to!
I'm not sure mass appeal matters much here anyway. I could get behind the
"sell yourself better" comment but this is such a niche application I'm not
sure packaging it more neatly would net appreciably more users running it
locally.
------
rakoo
Perkeep ([https://perkeep.org/](https://perkeep.org/)) has a similar but
broader goal: store all the data you would typically store on social networks
or in a backup service and be able to access/search it from any browser:
tweets, Pinterest locations, photos, files, docs, whatever
------
magnamerc
Why use PoW in combination with PoB (proof of burn) instead of using a dBFT
style PoS like tendermint for the blockstack chain?
------
personjerry
Or I could just save my data to my computer?
~~~
dbrereton
Yes, but if you have a large amount of data then it may take up a good chunk
of your hard drive space. SocialVault allows you to store these files online,
and also provides a specialized file explorer for Facebook data.
~~~
JetSpiegel
So, you are competing with Google Drive?
Apparently not Nextcloud, since it doesn't seem you can self-host this.
~~~
dbrereton
Not really, Google Drive is centralized and google can always touch your data.
But more importantly, if you dump your JSON file on Google, it will just be a
JSON file. With SocialVault you can actually browse through the data in a
meaningful way.
------
fuckyougoogle
This website does not load on Firefox Android, just a blank white screen and a
chat box. Maybe not requiring me to use a Google product would be a good
start.
~~~
dang
Please don't use trollish usernames. That means trolling every thread the
account posts to.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PopSlate, an E ink case for your iPhone - jdoliner
http://www.popslate.com/
======
devnonymous
Interesting. Tho' since I already know about yotaphone [
[http://yotaphone.com/in-en/](http://yotaphone.com/in-en/) ] this seems like a
compromise. The 'second display' as a case does not seem to have the
interactivity that the built-in display of yotaphone has. Also, you'd have to
turn the bluetooth on to change display ...and yet another 'device' to charge,
so well not for me.
I am waiting for yotaphone2 to be released
------
romaniv
I want a proper E-Inc smartphone, damn it! With no OLED screen. The number of
times I used my cellphone to watch videos: 0, as far as I remember. Number of
times I wished my phone had longer battery life and didn't auto-dim after 30
seconds: well, every single time I use it for more than 30 seconds.
Yeah, yeah, I know that you need fast screen for shooting videos. Whatever. I
would settle for a phone with no camera and EInk screen without thinking
twice.
~~~
devnonymous
I know what you mean. I feel the same way about not just the display but about
phone having physical keys or qwerty keyboards ...I mean, the old casio and
palms had it right for useful phones to get shit done as the _primary_
function and taking funny cat pics/videos or playing games as secondary. Ah
well, I guess I am just old.
BTW, as far as E-ink displays are concerned, do you know about the yotaphone ?
[http://yotaphone.com/in-en/](http://yotaphone.com/in-en/) ? The yotaphone2 is
scheduled to be released sooish; I plan on getting one.
------
Tepix
Popslate is pretty cool, I saw it at MWC 2013 in February of 2013. I guess it
never took off because it was too expensive.
Guess what - it's gotten more expensive ($129 now).
Bummer.
~~~
pjc50
I came here to wonder about the price, and there's the answer. It's a pity
that eInk is a great technology that remains horribly expensive. Not sure why;
manufacturing yield? Rare inputs? Small volumes?
~~~
unwind
There's no proof that the product is at a particular price point just because
one of the needed components is expensive.
It might just be priced at what they perceive that the market is willing to
pay, this is kind of a luxury product with very little competition, after all.
~~~
olefoo
Also it could be that they are going for the profit maximising price curve.
$129 is worth it; if you would use the functionality a lot. And they must be
selling enough units at that price to make it worthwhile for them.
Without knowing their cost structure it's hard to say; if their production
capacity is limited there may be no way to make enough to meet demand at a
lower price.
The wiki page is interesting read
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_maximization)
------
nolk100
I used to wear a Pebble watch every day and found it useful but not overly so.
That needed charging every 5-7 days, and this claims to last a week on a
single charge. I don't wear the pebble watch any more because as lazy as it
sounds, I kept forgetting to charge it when it ran out of battery, and there
were days where I was walking around with a dead watch, which was at that
point essentially an expensive wristband.
With my phone, I know I need to charge it every day and it is a habit to plug
it in just before I go to sleep every day. With the pebble, and I think this
too, sometimes the battery would last 5 days, sometimes 8, and that irregular
charging cycles means it's hard to form habits around charging.
It became annoying to remember to charge the Pebble and take it off and put it
on again. The benefits from having it became less appealing. I fear the same
might happen with this if I were to own it, and it would become a bulky iPhone
case. At $129 it might be worth a punt but I'm skeptical.
~~~
JohnTHaller
This display is actually electronic paper, so the display doesn't use power
once it's set. Power is just used by the bluetooth and rest of the bits to
monitor for changes in the display. If they could let you switch it on only
when you want to change it, it could likely last a lot longer. The Pebble has
a fake "e-paper" screen that's actually not electronic paper, it's a black and
white LCD which constantly draws paper.
~~~
mcb3k
e-paper, or electronic paper, is a generic term for any kind of display that
doesn't work by emitting light, which the pebble, the popSLATE, and ereaders
like the nook or kindle do. What you are describing is e-Ink, which is a
specific implementation of a non-light-emitting screen generally used in
ereaders.
That being said, it does seem that popSLATE is using a screen like what is
used in an ereader, and not like what is used in the pebble.
~~~
JohnTHaller
The thing is, pre Pebble, everyone understood that both terms meant something
that didn't use power once an image was displayed. The Pebble is the first
product I was aware of that abused the term. Everyone I spoke to thought it
was the same clear display used in an ereader when it's actually just similar
tech to my retired Palm III.
~~~
mcb3k
I don't really think it abuses the term, since it doesn't require a backlight
to display things, it is technically correct to call it e-paper. I also
remember the people at Pebble discussing the differences between e-Ink and
e-paper when it first came out. It's not like they hid how the Pebble's
display worked.
Besides, an e-Ink screen would be a horrible experience given how the display
gets used in the Pebble watch.
~~~
JohnTHaller
It always seemed purposely misleading to me. Heck they don't even use the term
LCD in the technical specifications... which is odd because that's what it
actually is. And it did work as I had multiple friends, including several
technically minded ones, who were misled by Pebble's terminology and thought
it was an ereader-quality display.
------
arethuza
I was standing behind someone in a queue for boarding a flight whose phone
died from lack of charge as they were about to hand it over to be scanned - so
having your boarding pass on an e-ink display might actually be a pretty good
idea...
~~~
caractacus
Is it really worth $129 so that you don't have to print out a paper copy of
your boarding pass when your battery is low?
~~~
vertex-four
A lot of people no longer have printers, or at least working ones. They'd have
to find an Internet cafe and brave the risk of keyloggers, print things off at
work, or get a document printing company to do it.
~~~
uptown
Or print it at a kiosk upon check-in?
~~~
bhaak
I can check-in from my phone.
Edit: downvotes don't make that any less true. The situation the OP was
observing could very well have been that the person had checked-in via phone
and when boarding was starting, the phone's battery died.
~~~
arethuza
Yes, she had an airline app that allowed you to check in using your phone. Not
much use if your phone runs out of charge just when you are about to get it
scanned to board the flight!
~~~
bhaak
The question was why didn't she get the paper when she checked in to her
flight at the kiosk at the airport?
Because she doesn't necessarily was even near the airport when she checked in.
Nowadays you can check-in online or via your phone up to 24 hours before your
flight starts.
And you never see any paper. Yeah, that sucks when your phone runs out of
battery. In our trains, the conductor has now USB chargers in case such things
happen.
Technology fails, we fail. It happens. We manage to adapt.
------
covercash
A lot of people are commenting on the price but the thing that struck me was
the thickness. Based on the images it looks to at least double the thickness
of the phone!
------
listic
Like the InkCase, [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378232716/inkcase-
plus-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378232716/inkcase-plus-e-ink-
screen-for-android-phone) but for iPhone. Nice.
~~~
michaelmior
Thanks for sharing this! PopSlate looks cool but I was a little sad that this
would be difficult to pull off for Android due to fragmentation.
------
johnchristopher
>SAVE POWER
> Use the ultra low-power, ePaper screen to extend your battery life
That's one way to put it but:
s/extend/save
is more honest.
~~~
KnightHawk3
Minor nitpick, but shouldn't it be s/save/extend/
~~~
yiyus
no
------
harel
(silly) Price aside, why is it only for iPhones? Surely the bigger market is
Android devices... or both... I see a similar trend with docking
station/speakers. I've yet to find a model that has a dock for micro usb. All
of them are iPhone centric with an optional cable to the headphone jack of
other phones.
~~~
gambiting
Bigger market with Android devices? Very few Android phones will get even
close to what any of the iPhone models sold. And docks for iphones are a lot
more interesting, because there is an established standard for controlling iOS
devices externally, which works with music and many many iOS apps. Not to
mention, that for both 30-pin and Lightning connectors the device playing the
music is the iphone, not the dock. With Micro USB the only way to do anything
would be to access the filesystem and play all the music files found. But
that's incredibly difficult, because of different standards, root Android
directory being polluted with files for apps, and there is no way to control
apps on the phone. Android phones are horrible for standards - mine doesn't
even work with a regular remote(next/back + mic) on my headphones.
~~~
anonymfus
This is not true, most modern Android devices support USB audio class as "very
strictly recommended" in _Android Compatibility Definition Document_ and
everything supports USB HID devices. Just implement USB sound card and USB
keyboard to play music and control it.
~~~
gambiting
In that case - fair enough. But we are yet to see a single dock which would
support this.
------
jPaolantonio
Does anyone know if the screen is only configured via their app?
------
jbverschoor
Reason to buy for me: read an ebook in the sunlight.
~~~
aakilfernandes
If these perform well, it might be the perfect reason to move to a phablet
sized device. I don't really need the extra real estate for my phone, but I'd
need it for reading.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Founder Stories: Leah Culver of Breaker (YC W17) - craigcannon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-stories-leah-culver-of-breaker
======
rglover
Woah! Cool to see Leah Culver is still around building stuff. Remember her
from the Pownce days.
~~~
rubberbandage
A fellow Pownce user in the wild! Incredible to think that was 10 years ago. I
feel like that app was years ahead of its time — the casual immediacy of
Twitter without the character limits, the ease of sharing media like an
internet-wide HipChat or Slack, topics like Reddit. Selfishly, I always hoped
Leah would stop working at Dropbox and start another company :-)
~~~
granda
Pownce WAS ahead of its time. Revision3 built a solid product and I still
can't believe that was 10 years ago. God I miss TechTV.
------
jchiu1106
Cool. Remembered her from the oauth 1.0 days (She's the author of the oauth
python library IIRC)
~~~
nailer
Culver also wrote the oauth spec itself. Also oembed.
------
taylorwc
I've been using their beta app for the past week and love it. I have already
added several podcasts that hadn't previously been on my radar, via their
discovery tools. Cool to read the founder stories.
------
hangonhn
IIRC, she also wrote quite a bit on using Django. I learned quite a bit about
the ins-and-outs of Django because of her writings. Glad she has had a good
career.
------
tylermenezes
It's crazy how many things we use today were inspired by something Leah did.
She also seems like a pretty cool person from the stories I've heard. Hope
this becomes her first massive success.
------
boomzilla
how would `an iOS app for listening to podcasts focused on social discovery`
make money? I couldn't find that question in the interview.
~~~
ctvo
If only they told you their exact business model in every interview. Maybe
this will help though:
Our initial direction wasn’t the direction we ended up going in.
I was interested in building tools for podcasters. Then when
we started to talking to podcasters we realized that podcasters
just want listeners and data about those listeners. Just providing good tools
didn’t really solve that problem. So we shifted focus to work on
the user app first.
~~~
DenisM
Did you have to be snarky about it?
~~~
sebleon
Probably didn't have to, but chose to for any one of many reasons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity - allenleein
https://www.quantamagazine.org/troubled-times-for-alternatives-to-einsteins-theory-of-gravity-20180430/
======
daxfohl
I still think the answer will have to confront the problem of local realism.
It was the issue that drove Newton nuts (that gravitation was, in Einstein's
language "spooky action at a distance"), and Einstein resolved that through
Relativity, which redefined how we think about "distance". Now the lack of
local realism in QM is driving Einstein's ghost nuts. I think the resolution
of all this will _again_ redefine "distance" to take resolutions involving
quantum entanglement into account. Vaguely I picture some quantum relativity
theory where from the perspective of an entangled particle it's still d=0 from
its entangled partner and _everything else_ is splitting apart. So like
relativity, it's all about which perspective you take. Then perhaps with these
relative distances, and however the math falls out with some kind of quantum
Lorentz transforms _maybe_ we see that in galaxies with lots of entangled
particles this can slow down rotation.
That said, dark matter is entirely possible too. There's no particular reason
to think that all particles need to have an EM effect as well. In fact it's
somewhat crazy to think they _should_. Why _wouldn 't_ there be particles that
only show themselves gravitationally? Or through other perhaps insanely strong
forces that for whatever evolutionary reason Earth Life is just not evolved to
care about or see even indirectly.
_That_ said, I have no training in physics and this is entirely crackpot
concept. (Of
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/) I've only
read ~6.)
~~~
cobbzilla
Your idea reminds me of Wheeler's "single electron universe" [1]. I think
you're on to something but I also think the next big step will involve a
formal (re)definition of time as well as distance.
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
electron_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe)
~~~
dbasedweeb
When you think about particles as excitations of a field, the
indistinguishable nature of said particles stops being such a puzzle.
~~~
daxfohl
But the concept of a field itself was troubling to 18-19th century physicists.
"So you put this (mass/charge/entanglement/whatever) here and automagically
there's this whole force that extends across the universe in zero time? How?
Why?"
Philosophically I don't know if this question has ever been answered
satisfactorily. But over the last 100 years fields have become so
mathematically convenient that they're too hard _not_ to use.
~~~
dbasedweeb
Well those 18th-19th century anything didn’t have a concept of entanglement or
FTL, they were struggling with the notion that light, gravity, and other
forces could propagate without a medium. They saw that waves could be
transmitted through water, sound through air, and the idea that light or
gravity could be transmitted through vacuum was baffling. Their resolution to
the issue was to propose the existence of a substance which was invisible,
intangible, but which permeated everything: the luminiferous ether. Light, in
their understanding, wasn’t really moving through a vacuum, but this ever-
present “stuff” instead. That started to fall out of favor long after the 18th
century, and was finally conclusively shot down by Michelson and Morley with
their interferometry.
The problem Einstein and others grappled with was different, and concerned the
fact that according to relativity nothing should exceed c. Entangled particles
seemed to violate that principle, because the collapse to a given pair of
states was instantaneous. The modern resolution to that is more practical than
philosophical, and points out that _information_ isn’t transmitted faster than
light in entangled particles. Information propagates at or below c, even
though at some scale entangled particles are statistically correlated.
Relativity is only violated, and causality threatened if information is
transmitted FTL, but entanglement doesn’t allow for that. You need a classical
channel make entanglement work for communication, and that classical channel
is going to be no faster than light. Without a classical channel, entanglement
just gives you random noise.
~~~
goatlover
> Relativity is only violated, and causality threatened if information is
> transmitted FTL, but entanglement doesn’t allow for that. You need a
> classical channel make entanglement work for communication, and that
> classical channel is going to be no faster than light. Without a classical
> channel, entanglement just gives you random noise.
But none of that answers the 18th-19th century Physicists question about how
fields extend across the universe, or how light propagates in empty space.
What the hell is a field anyway?
Also, it doesn't explain how the expansion of space happens, what made
inflation happen, and what dark energy is.
~~~
dbasedweeb
A very smart guy named Alfred Korzybski said, “The map is not the territory.”
It’s important to not get too hung up on epistemological implications of our
models of reality, because they are just models. On a practical level a field
is something which has a value at every point, that value can be a scalar,
vector, or tensor depending on the nature of the field. For some good
discussion I think this could help:
[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13157/what-
is-a-...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13157/what-is-a-field-
really)
_Now, it is very easy to get hung up on this "Is it real or not" thing, and
most people do for at least a while, but please just put it aside. When you
peer really hard into the depth of the theory, it turns out that it is hard to
say for sure that stuff is "stuff". It is tempting to suggest that having a
non-zero value of mass defines "stuffness", but then how do you deal with the
photo-electric effect (which makes a pretty good argument that light comes in
packets that have enough "stuffness" to bounce electrons around)? All the
properties that you associate with stuff are actually explainable in terms of
electro-magnetic fields and mass (which in GR is described by a component of a
tensor field!). And round and round we go._
Light doesn’t propagate in empty space, because space isn’t empty, it’s
permeated with quantum fields in constant flux. What light doesn’t require is
a medium, and a field is not a medium. The problem here is that these theories
are really described in terms of a bunch of math, and when we use words to
describe those theories, something is lost in translation. There are no words
that fully capture what a field is in QFT, you must use math.
Once you adopt that perspective, inflation would just be the result of another
field with particular properties (esp. a given range of potential energy
curves). Of course, inflation is an untested theory, and there are competing
ones which try to explain the apparent homogeneity and isotropy of the
universe. Inflation is probably the most popular, but it doesn’t rest on the
kind of firm foundation that QED does.
------
Zamicol
My money is still on additions/modifications to relativity in the next 100
years. (Sorry for the sources, just using Google to pull up something.)
\- Hubble's constant has not been calculated, and when it is, there are
problems. [https://www.space.com/38496-hunt-for-hubble-constant-
standar...](https://www.space.com/38496-hunt-for-hubble-constant-standard-
model.html)
\- Like the fallacious search for Vulcan, there are modern problems with the
orbits of some of the outer planets.
[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-
planet-x/i...](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-planet-x/in-
depth/)
\- A galaxy with 99 percent dark matter and one almost without any.
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-victory-for-dark-matter-
in-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-victory-for-dark-matter-in-a-galaxy-
without-any-20180328/) [https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12647540/dragonfly-
galaxy...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12647540/dragonfly-galaxy-
discovered-99-9-percent-dark-matter-stars)
\- The bullet cluster, the speed of rotation in galactic arms, etc.
\- The apparent changing rate of expansion in the universe.
\- We have no idea of the physics behind red shift "caused by the metric
expansion of space".
\- We still don't know what gravity actually is.
The 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe was
beautifully simple and clean. It proved a huge swath of experts dead wrong.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Nobel_Prize_in_Physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Nobel_Prize_in_Physics)
Dark matter/energy could be apart of the mix, but in light of the problems I
would not bet it's the end of the story.
~~~
sxcurry
Your second point - I don't think the potential Planet Nine has anything to do
with "problem with the orbits of some of the outer planets". It has been
proposed as a solution to the orbits of some distant smaller Kuiper Belt
objects. This in return doesn't really have anything to do with relativity,
just basic orbital mechanics.
~~~
Zamicol
I could have sworn there were problems with Pluto's orbit where it was
faster/slower than it should have been, but it looks like I'm wrong.
>Specifically, this paper shows that, contrary to recent assertions in the
literature, the current ephemeris for Pluto does not preclude the existence of
the Pioneer effect. We show that the orbit of Pluto is currently not well
enough characterized to make such an assertion.
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0030.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0030.pdf)
~~~
bsder
The Pioneer Effect has been explained as "anisotropic radiation pressure
caused by the spacecraft's heat loss".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly)
~~~
nonbel
That's an interesting case because they "solved" the problem by basically
increasing the estimated uncertainty. See the dual sets of error bars in Fig
3: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2507](https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2507)
------
mirimir
> Theorists have dozens of alternative gravity theories that could potentially
> explain dark matter and dark energy, Freire said. Some of these theories
> can’t make testable predictions, Archibald said, and many “have a parameter,
> a ‘knob’ you can turn to make them pass any test you like,” she said. But at
> some point, said Nicolas Yunes, a physicist at Montana State University,
> “this gets silly and Occam’s razor wins.”
That's very kind. Some would say that theories that can't make testable
predictions, or are highly tunable, just aren't science.
~~~
cryptonector
Right now that includes Dark Matter...
~~~
mirimir
Well, it's always seemed _ad hoc_ to me.
But then, IANAP so hey.
------
Xeoncross
The article shows two demonstrations: 1) a spiral galaxy and 2) a triple
system (a neutron star and a white dwarf orbit each other, with another white
dwarf orbiting the pair at a distance).
I think the spiral galaxy is showing that the problem is that it still has the
arms attached. After this amount of time they should not be there so either
the amount of time assumed is wrong or something is modifying the speed (like
dark energy, modified Newtonian dynamics, etc).
However, I don't understand what the "fall" in the triple system is about.
What are they measuring that agrees with Newtonian Physics?
~~~
cryptonector
Are we reading the same FA? The one I read was about a neutron star
collision/merger, and a triple star system with a pulsar, and also a double-
pulsar system. The word 'spiral' does not appear.
------
aleksei
To anyone reading the comments, don't bother.
------
ksaxena
This article discusses LIGO's detection of gravitational waves as a problem
for alternate theories of gravity. But the claim of that discovery seems to
have been withdrawn by the LIGO team. Here:
[https://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery-
no...](https://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery-now-
officially-dead-1.16830)
I'm an amateur but something feels amiss to me here. Can anyone shed more
light on this contradiction?
~~~
civilitty
That article is about a redaction from the research team at BICEP2, a
telescope in the South Pole. It has nothing to do with the Super LIGO
detector, which has detected gravitational waves from black hole collisions
several times now.
~~~
pdkl95
LIGO's comments[1] about the 6 gravitational wave detections they are
currently confirming (and related publications):
[1] [https://www.ligo.org/detections.php](https://www.ligo.org/detections.php)
After following the major science experiments over the last ~15 years, I've
gotten the impression that the LIGO team is being _very_ careful to not
announce anything prematurely.
In an interview[2] with Prof. Rana Adhikari about the first detection, he
describes how incredibly lucky it was to detect a very strong wave in the
middle of the detector's sensitivity range, only _~30 minutes_ after each site
independently enabled data collection. That's the type of situation that
raises serious questions about the validity of the data and might even suggest
sabotage (someone could be faking data). Fortunately, it sounds like they were
careful to investigate the alternative explanations, including searching the
labs for anything that looked like a possible sabotage device. It's always
good to see scientists paying extra attention to rigor.
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMnGgn87dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMnGgn87dg)
~~~
nonbel
Wow, I just read about the latest gravitational wave and I see that _once
again_ they detected it by deviating from the procedure used to generate the
background model:
>"Although such times are in general not included in searches, it was
determined that LHO strain data were una ffected by the procedure at
frequencies above 30 Hz, and may thus be used to identify a GW source and
measure its properties."
[https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170608/paper/GW170608_subm...](https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170608/paper/GW170608_submitted.pdf)
I'm not saying they aren't seeing anything, but the false alarm rate
calculations are meaningless unless they process the data the exact same way
for background. They keep making these special exceptions every time.
EDIT:
Mostly just saving this for myself...
Here it is for the 5th detection:
>"Single-detector gravitational-wave triggers had never been disseminated
before in low latency. Given the temporal coincidence with the Fermi-GBM GRB,
however, a GCN Circular was issued at 13:21:42 UTC (LIGO Scientific
Collaboration & Virgo Collaboration et al. 2017a) reporting that a highly
significant candidate event consistent with a BNS coalescence was associated
with the time of the GRB."
[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa91c9](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa91c9)
4th detection:
This one looks clean (but for the 1st detection the questionable info was not
included in the main paper).
[https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170814/paper/GW170814-PRLp...](https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170814/paper/GW170814-PRLpublished.pdf)
2nd detection:
>"Since GW150914 had already been confirmed as a real gravitational-wave
signal [4], it was removed from the data when estimating the noise
background."
[http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103](http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103)
Earlier discussion about 1st and 3rd detections:
Its claimed "significance estimates come solely from the offline analysis",
which seemed to satisfy me at the time...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14462719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14462719)
------
d_burfoot
I've been thinking recently that physics should import an idea from software
engineering: the test harness. For physics, the test harness would include a
large database of X/Y pairs where X represents an experimental configuration
and Y represents the outcome.
Theories of physics would be instantiated as software libraries. The most
modern physics library would pass the vast majority of the tests, by correctly
predicting the outcome Y for every configuration X. But since physics is not
yet complete, there would presumably be some tests that the best current
theories cannot pass, or can only pass by jumping through some really ugly
hoops - such as postulating the existence of dark matter and energy.
To be taken seriously when proposing a new theory, a researcher must submit an
update to the current library, and show that the new theory passes all the
tests. The research can also identify new X/Y combinations, not covered in the
current test suite, where the new theory diverges from the old one.
Experimentalists could then decide the question by running the corresponding
experiments and adding the results to the main suite.
~~~
dbasedweeb
This is already essentially how it works. A new theory has to be complementary
to old ones. This is often said in terms of “matching the predictions of...”
another theory. There are more standards of course, but that’s the baseline. A
lot of pet theories people have for things like QM fall apart because they
don’t match the tested predictions of QM. For example, Special and General
Relativity make new and more accurate predictions which complement, but do not
contradict Newtonian theory.
An issue with a theory replacing QM for example, other than the high degree of
precision needed, is Bell’s Theorem, which tends to rule out LHV theories.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What kind of jobs do software engineers who earn $500k per year do? - ASquare
http://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-jobs-do-software-engineers-who-earn-500k-per-year-do
======
raynesandrew
Working on some complex algo trading software..perhaps :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to steal Ethers: scanning for vulnerable contracts - palkeo
https://www.palkeo.com/projets/ethereum/stealing_ether.html
======
jacques_chester
Here's my problem with smart contract maximalism.
Suppose my ether gets "stolen". For whatever reason I am able to turn to an
external legal framework -- police or a law suit.
Why wouldn't I just skip the middle bit and go straight to dumb contracts
executed by smart humans, rather than smart contracts executed by dumb
machines?
What exactly have I gained over the status quo if, at the end of the day, I
still rely on the enforcement mechanics of the status quo?
~~~
leppr
It doesn't take much imagination to come up with many settings where a
trusted, fair, omnipotent third-party arbitrator is absent.
Those unregulated environments are the trust settings where cryptocurrency
will shine, not the local, already regulated economies.
Applications like "real-estate on the blockchain", "event tickets on the
blockchain" are mostly just opportunistic buzzword riders. What cryptocurrency
best serves is international trade and black markets. All the places that
can't be regulated by traditional means, or that intentionally steer away from
regulators.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _What cryptocurrency best serves is international trade_
I fear the day we go to war because of some clerk's off-by-one error in a
"smart" contract.
Honestly though, I'd think programmers of all people would be first to realize
that using code to represent law affecting anything in the physical reality is
a dumb idea. Think of any time you had to write a program to conform to
customer's requirement document. Does anyone here had, even once, done that
without discovering holes, inconsistencies or unintended consequences in the
document? And this is essentially the same exercise as formulating a "smart
contract", except the code can now ruin someone's life.
(There's some middle ground to be had here, though. A way of optimizing the
"long tail" of legal problems, without trying to do the near-impossible thing
of codifying intent.)
~~~
leppr
You just have to remember that there are humans behind it all. Before a war
happens, we would agree to fork the chain, like most people did with
Ethereum's DAO hack [1].
There certainly could be many life changing bugs happening for smaller
entities. But that's not a cryptocurrency-specific point. Humans are more and
more willing to accept trusting technology with their lives (factory robots,
pacemakers, automated cars, risky snapchats).
The key for cryptocurrencies is to keep humans in the loop: keep it
incremental and require human confirmation for meaningful transactions.
Machine learning can be used to detect anomalies in busy transaction flows.
[1]: [https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/the-dao-the-
hack-...](https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/the-dao-the-hack-the-
soft-fork-and-the-hard-fork/)
------
kolinko
Oh nice, and I just published "Show HN" with my symbolic execution decompiler
- [http://www.eveem.org/](http://www.eveem.org/)
Seems like there will be a big trend with all kinds of symbolic execution
tools showing up in the upcoming year :)
~~~
palkeo
I link to eveem in my article. I used it quite a lot for my investigation :)
Thanks for your great tool!
~~~
wslh
By coincidence we just published an article [1] comparing automated tools to
human auditing in smart contracts. I am reviewing your article for expanding
ours. At ethdev[2] someone suggested to check the Slither[3] tool also.
[1] [https://blog.coinfabrik.com/smart-contract-auditing-human-
vs...](https://blog.coinfabrik.com/smart-contract-auditing-human-vs-machine/)
[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethdev/comments/a4492r/comment/ebbn...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethdev/comments/a4492r/comment/ebbnwt4)
[3]
[https://github.com/trailofbits/slither](https://github.com/trailofbits/slither)
------
bouncycastle
Be careful! There was once a guy who tried to hack an Ethereum smart contract,
but in the end the contract hacked him instead:
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/clever-ethereum-
honeypot-l...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/clever-ethereum-honeypot-
lets-coins-come-in-but-wont-let-them-back-out/)
~~~
jstanley
Non-GDPR-walled link:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20180301075711/https://techcrunch...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180301075711/https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/clever-
ethereum-honeypot-lets-coins-come-in-but-wont-let-them-back-out/)
~~~
bouncycastle
Excuse my ignorance, but was is a non-gdpr-walled link exactly?
------
rienbdj
have we finally found a way to monetize PL research?
------
tempodox
Isn't that potentially life-threatening because there's a good chance of
stealing from criminals?
~~~
Grangar
How would they go about figuring out who did it though? Can't really involve
law enforcement in that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It's All Been Done Before - ares2012
http://seanonstartups.co/2014/07/21/its-all-been-done-before/
======
freewareuser21
comercial break -- was: "it´s all been done before" not a songtitle, from the
Musicband 'Astromill' ? sry, too early in the morning ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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