text
stringlengths 44
442k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
Microsoft says Russia-linked hackers exploiting Windows flaw - r721
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-cyber-russia-idUSKBN12W4ZK
======
r721
Microsoft MMPC's blog post:
[https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2016/11/01/our-
comm...](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mmpc/2016/11/01/our-commitment-
to-our-customers-security/?platform=hootsuite)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Waymo 360° Experience: A Fully Self-Driving Journey - KKKKkkkk1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8R148hFxPw
======
Piskvorrr
"Sees everything, has experience" \- except the scooter coming out of the
right-hand parking lot at 1:48 (at "...learning from every single mile it
drives"). SMIDSY, oh well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Julian Assange Press Conference on CIA Vault - ctack
https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv
======
dang
Url changed from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY),
which points to this.
Edit: I assume people flagged this because the live stream is over and it's
not clear where any actual content is.
~~~
mintplant
Apparently replay has been disabled for this stream on Periscope. The
recording has been uploaded here on their official channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6XWhKOE2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6XWhKOE2Q)
------
Rumudiez
Does anybody know about the channel which hosted the stream? "Golden State
Times" doesn't have a legitimate website (the .com has an invalid SSL
certificate; didn't even proceed) and some of their other videos appear more
than a little biased: see their video named "VAULT 7: Obama's CIA Posed as
Russian Hackers!!!"
~~~
jewbacca
OP's link is a presumably unaffiliated account, rebroadcasting a stream from
the official Wikileaks Periscope account:
[https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv](https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1ZkKzEqeDMZxv)
~~~
dang
Ok, we changed to that from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJdU_ahXeY).
Thanks!
------
pjc50
I wonder if this has anything to do with the Farage visit
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/marieleconte/wait-
what?utm_term=.ri...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/marieleconte/wait-
what?utm_term=.riWxL3NVK#.asv5L0k1A)
------
Kroniker
Was it really him? I can't wait to see photoshop analysis to see if it was
CGI'd.
~~~
bobwaycott
Why would it be CGI?
~~~
geofft
There's a conspiracy theory going around that he was killed by The Man, who is
resorting to tricks like CGI to pretend he's still alive.
I'm not sure what the motivation for killing him _and continuing to pretend
that he 's alive_ would be, but then again, I don't understand most conspiracy
theories.
~~~
mi100hael
Really? You can't imagine _any_ reason someone might want to manipulate
Wikileaks and its audience?
~~~
geofft
Oh, but there are easier ways to do that. Offer to let him avoid being
extradited to Sweden in exchange for not reporting on certain things, for
instance.
Do you really think the Ecuadorean embassy, which had to install a shower so
they could house him, is able to resist political pressure from basically all
of NATO? Snowden had to flee to Russia, not even a Russian embassy, and he's
not even leaking anything new. (I'm not necessarily claiming that anyone is
actively manipulating WikiLeaks, just that there are a million easier ways to
do it than secretly killing him and making a CGI double - and secretly killing
him would require Ecuador's cooperation, anyway.)
------
ctack
Just ended.
~~~
eriknstr
Actually ended now. Recording will be uploaded to their channel later they
said.
~~~
Ajedi32
YouTube livestreams automatically become videos after the stream ends. So no
need for a separate upload...
~~~
discreditable
Sometimes I record at higher quality than what I stream. When the stream ends
I upload the high quality version.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WireGuard – fast, modern, secure VPN tunnel - dedalus
https://www.wireguard.com/
======
bestnoizth
Thank
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The New iPad mini - Photo gallery in the Dock+ - dwurtz
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.494043917295457.100711884.485785358121313&type=1&l=deef9fdf5c
======
dwurtz
What do you guys think?
~~~
rdl
I absolutely want one or two. Pretty expensive, though. (just pledged)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Nonprofit Model is Broken - thesyndicate
http://bhargreaves.com/2010/12/nonprofit-model-broken/
======
razor_goto
It's down.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Modernish: a shell moderniser library - sundarurfriend
https://github.com/modernish/modernish#modernish-a-shell-moderniser-library
======
oweiler
While I applaud the effort and extensive documentation I'd never use something
like this in production.
For example have a look at the definition of `sfor`
sfor 'i=1' '[ "$i" -le 10 ]' 'i=$((i+1))'; do
print "$i"
done
Doesn't look too bad at first, until you realize `sfor` is an alias which is
defined as
alias sfor='_Msh_sfor_init=y && while _Msh_doSfor'
So it's an alias which expands to two commands.
No have a look at the definition of `_Msh_doSfor`
_Msh_doSfor() {
case ${#},${_Msh_sfor_init+y} in
( 3, ) eval " $3" || die 'sfor: loop command failed' || return ;;
( 3,y ) eval " $1" || die 'sfor: init command failed' || return
unset -v _Msh_sfor_init ;;
( * ) die "sfor: 3 arguments expected, got $#" || return ;;
esac
eval " $2" || case $? in
( 1 ) return 1 ;;
( * ) die "sfor: test command failed" ;;
esac
}
No thanks, I'd rather use Python.
~~~
yorwba
I think the point of this library is that all those gory details necessary for
sane error handling are encapsulated, so you can build on that work if you
absolutely need to write shell scripts. Otherwise, yeah, I hope that Oil will
be the promised better shell and make bash & co. obsolete.
------
jph
This is _amazing_ for shells. Thank you for writing it.
Your reasoning and explanations are first rate, and the documentation is
superb.
Your emphasis on POSIX is a great approach for working on a very wide variety
of shells, including older ones and regulated ones. I deal with these
regularly at enterprise clients, and I'm excited to try Modernish with these.
Kudos!
~~~
sundarurfriend
Hey, it's good to know you found it so useful. Just to be clear though, I just
found and posted this here; Martijn Dekker [1] seems to be the main
contributor and presumably the creator of the library.
His email ID, according to a personal web page of his [2], is martijn
at_the_rate_of inlv dot demon dot nl , in case you wish to send the kudos
along his way.
[1] [https://github.com/McDutchie](https://github.com/McDutchie)
[2] [http://www.inlv.demon.nl/martijn/index-
old.html](http://www.inlv.demon.nl/martijn/index-old.html)
------
tibbetts
Isn’t this going to make shell scripts that were already fragile on anything
but bash not only fragile but also harder to debug? Combining the engineering
ideas of JavaScript and autoconf with the checkered history of shell scripts
seems like a case of -1 + -1 = -5.
~~~
xiaq
It is more like polyfills that serve to defragment different shells and
provide more modern constructs.
------
chatmasta
This looks really, really good. I’ve been looking for something like this for
a while, even considered building it myself.
Javascript and Shell programs are actually pretty similar IMO. Both are
loosely functional languages that can run in many different environments, with
different feature sets in each. Both run from a single entry point. A lot of
JS tooling could be applied to Shell scripting.
This library takes the right approach, by augmenting existing functionality
with syntactical sugar for safer programming. The wrong approach is the many
libraries attempting to make a “new” shell language, or a “superset” of shell.
The beauty of shell programming is its portability, but that’s lost once you
have even a single feature relying on non-POSIX functionality.
I like the Modernish approach because it’s _just a library_ , but writing it
can feel like writing a cleaner version of shell. The docs say Modernish was
inspired by jquery, but I would argue it’s more akin to underscore or lodash
in this sense.
Following the trend of shell/JS similarities, what I would like to see is a
compiler and packaging system similar to webpack and npm. I’m not talking
about a package manager that downloads libraries and binaries into some
directory in $PATH, but rather a bundler that compiles all libraries imported
from an entrypoint into a single executable shell script.
~~~
oweiler
Shell is so much not functional. Most shells don't even have proper functions.
And while pipes resemble function composition to some extent, you have side-
effects and mutations everywhere.
~~~
chubot
If you think of stdin and stdout as your function inputs and outputs, then
shell becomes very functional:
_Pipelines Support Vectorized, Point-Free, and Imperative Style_
[http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2017/01/15.html](http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2017/01/15.html)
In a sense, a shell can only return an exit code. But it's better to think of
that as an error handling mechanism rather than the return value, much like in
C. In C, it's idiomatic for functions to return values with "out params" (i.e.
a dynamically allocated a string).
Just like you can write C code that composes, you can also write shell code
that composes. And in many ways it composes _better_ than code in other
languages.
------
chrisweekly
Looks amazing.
Note "use safe" in the README is missing some words:
> "Does IFS=''; set -f -u -C, that is: field splitting and globbing are
> disabled, variables must be defined before use, and"
~~~
McDutchie
Thanks for the report. Fixed.
------
ape4
If some modernish functions become popular they might be adopted by bash. So
it can be like a testing ground.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Tech Beach – Revamp your app design in 31 days - polimorfico
http://www.thetechbeach.com
======
stefek99
For the record - another _hacker_ venue at Canary Islands -
[http://ch.totalism.org](http://ch.totalism.org)
#coliving #coworking but at a much better rate. I would say it's very 'back to
the roots' and all the expenses ever incurred (2.5+ years now) are in the
spreadsheet and the daily rate is the reflection of the actual cost.
You can read on their wiki: "Non-for-profit, open budget = 100€ a week
contribution."
(and that 100€ - 135$ - includes food and stay)
Been there November 2013, highly recommended. Wish I was able (timewise,
employmentwise, familywise) to visit / reside there more often.
~~~
danohuiginn
That is the most excellent thing I have seen in weeks.
------
mrlase
You need some sort of indicator to keep scrolling down. I only saw your team
the first time I clicked on it. I was surprised when I went back a second time
that there was more content below that.
I'm not a huge fan of the order that you display your content in either. I
think you should get to the message quicker than scrolling. The "Refresh your
app design in 31 days" bit is better for a headline, not the first thing that
your user sees. Chances are they already saw that bit when they clicked on
your site. Show them immediately what you do and why they should choose you.
Just my $0.02
~~~
polimorfico
Thanks for your comments. You're right. There are some issues we must fix to
improve the UX.
~~~
mrlase
No problem :) Also, are there any links to your teams portfolio of work or
anything? Can't seem to find any.
~~~
polimorfico
Sure! Some samples: \-
[https://dribbble.com/Dusko](https://dribbble.com/Dusko) \-
[https://dribbble.com/Stefooo](https://dribbble.com/Stefooo) \-
[https://www.postheads.com](https://www.postheads.com) \-
[http://getquaderno.com](http://getquaderno.com) \- [https://medium.com/ux-ui-
readings/washing-machine-for-men-b6...](https://medium.com/ux-ui-
readings/washing-machine-for-men-b6f927bbb538)
------
6cxs2hd6
Warning: If you spend any time looking at the The Surf Office site[^1], you're
likely to be ruined for normal coworking spaces. The quality of life and
affordability... wow.
[^1]: [http://www.thesurfoffice.com/](http://www.thesurfoffice.com/)
~~~
infinitone
I can't imagine the productivity levels would be as high as a normal
workspace. Seems like there are a tad too many things that will break your
focus- which is what you need most when building a startup.
~~~
jrvarela56
Ironically, I have found a similar experience to be the exact opposite.
Every few months my team rents a beach house to spend 2-3 days working
offsite. We end up exhausted: you are so relaxed its easy to put in more
(productive) hours. 30-45min daily 'beach break' (its a beach front property),
taking turns to cook simple meals, nightly fireside vision/brainstorming
chats.
Been thinking of setting up something like the coworking mentioned in the
article in Panama (5hr flight from NYC). Anyone interested?
------
melling
This sounds great and extremely fun. Unfortunately that amount of time isn't
going to work for many people. Do people have other recommendations for app
redesigns? Any "night school" versions of this in Brooklyn? Maybe it's just
best to find a great designer? I probably can't learn enough to compete with
even a good designer.
~~~
monkey_slap
Agreed. I'd be really happy to see more of these sort of workshops pop up.
------
xerophtye
Ironically for me the site has some design bugs on FF 29.0.1
The "meet the team" page seems like a constant bg and all the other pages
kinda slide over it with some transparency. so there are times when both of
them are visible and overlap.
[http://imgur.com/NVCDTFN](http://imgur.com/NVCDTFN)
~~~
polimorfico
Thanks for reporting! We're going to look for a fix asap.
------
ingend88
Are there any night school versions of this in bay area where someone without
a design background can pick up design skills ?
------
joshmlewis
The site is unique but I find it ironic everyone is complaining about the UX
when they are advertising a big UX and design package.
For real feedback, what in terms of work does this get me? Does it get me well
thought out wireframes, PSDs, or fully implemented solution? I feel like the
latter is half the battle itself.
~~~
polimorfico
We've had some problems with the HTML+CSS in some browsers. We're already
working on it.
The idea is taking a current project you're working on and help you with its
redesign. You'll get wirefames, PSDs, and we'll help you with implementation.
Please apply if you're interested and we'll give you more information.
------
startupfounder
I am looking at this in the larger context of starting a startup.
SurfOffice to me is an indicator that sometimes the most productive thing to
do is to get away and focus on your startup. You don't have to be in SF or
NYC.
FiberHouse - Feld's KC Fiber House and Homes for Hackers are other examples of
this and there are many more.
One big aspect of starting a startup is runway and with the prices of rent in
SF and NYC through the roof getting away to a place that is relatively
inexpensive, where other people are also working on projects is a great way to
focus and extend runway.
I believe it's important to have that out of the office time, to get your
subconscious problem solving with a hike, surf, bike and sunshine. This is a
step in the right direction when it comes to the startup lifestyle.
------
shekhar101
Awesome! Love such ideas. There is one internship here in Goa, India(a well
known beach town) where a tech startup(forgot the name) teaches you everything
from fornt end design to back end and if you're lucky, you land a job there as
well.
~~~
polimorfico
Sounds cool! Nowadays you just need a laptop and an Internet connection to
work on your project. And the world is so big and amazing...
------
philippotto
Nice site! Just two notes:
\- The third FAQ should probably read: "So _I’ve_ signed up… what’s next?"
since all the other questions are formulated from the visitor's POV.
\- When scrolling to the very bottom, there is a yellow 1-px-line between the
FAQ and "Stay in touch" (FF 29.0.1, Win8)
------
noname123
Pretty cool opportunity and effective advertising too. Went thetechbeach.com
and then went to Facebook and saw thesurfoffice.com as a sponsored ad. Wonder
how big an ad budget you have to have to have targeted advertising like that.
------
ulisesrmzroche
Remember that video has a lot of contrast and that's why your home page is so
busy and the headline is getting lost. Nothing worse than a headless ad.
------
niico
As a designer, sounds not only like a great deal to me but a hell of a fun
month. (Im not related to the company)
------
Rulero
This is amazing, I was brought up in Las Palmas!
~~~
polimorfico
So you know how incredible the city is in October :) 23º C. and a lot of sun!!
~~~
Rulero
It's always incredible :)
------
lewro
Great idea!
~~~
polimorfico
Thank you, Roman! Glad you like it :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any good books on the history of the internet? - dom2
Looking for some books about the creation and the history of the internet. Ideally not purely technical, with a focus on how society impacted the internet's development and vice versa.
======
mulholio
Some of my favourite internet-specific books:
\- The Dream Machine. Fantastic tech history coverage with a particular focus
on the lead up to the internet [https://press.stripe.com/#the-dream-
machine](https://press.stripe.com/#the-dream-machine).
\- Tools for Thought - Lots of similar ground to the Dream Machine but with a
less internet-centric focus. Still great though -
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tools-Thought-History-Mind-
Expandin...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tools-Thought-History-Mind-Expanding-
Technology/dp/0262681153/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=tools+for+thought&qid=1594581458&sr=8-1)
Perhaps not internet focused, but tangential/technology:
\- The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
\- One Giant Leap (Apollo Missions. Decent amount of computing foucs)
\- Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
\- Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Lots of
interesting snippets of tech and non-tech history
------
HenryR
Where Wizards Stay Up Late ([https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/0684832...](https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/0684832674))
------
mnunez
A book that I loved since the first time I picked it from a library shelf back
in 1998 or so, "Computer - A history of the information machine", lists the
following book as additional resource about the history of the Internet:
Abbate, Janet (2000). _Inventing the Internet[1]._
"Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the
Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural
factors that influenced the Internet's design and use."
[1]
[https://archive.org/details/inventinginterne00abba](https://archive.org/details/inventinginterne00abba)
------
leejoramo
The Cuckoo's Egg tells the story of the early internet, breaking into Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory’s net by Cold War spiss. Well Written by Clifford
Stoll the net admin/astronomer at the center of the story. Plenty of the tech
and culture of the internet young internet.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg)
------
a3n
This Wikipedia article has pointers and references in so many directions,
you're bound to find something about what you're looking for, or that points
to something else that you're looking for. The article itself is a good start.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet)
------
japhyr
This isn't entirely specific to the internet, but rather the development of
UNIX. Brian Kernighan's _UNIX: A History and a Memoir_ [0] is great. It covers
a bit of the technical underpinnings of UNIX, but also covers the people and
personalities behind its development. It helped me better understand many of
the tools we still use today.
[https://www.amazon.com/Brian-W-
Kernighan/dp/1695978552/ref=s...](https://www.amazon.com/Brian-W-
Kernighan/dp/1695978552/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=unix+history+kernhigan&qid=1594513676&s=books&sr=1-1-spell)
------
DataDaoDe
I just finished reading "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage and would
highly recommend it. The book is an informative and enjoyable read about the
rise and fall of the telegraph in the 19th century. The development of the
telegraph has a lot of parallels to the modern internet that are worth
contemplating and this book provides a point worth noting - the modern
internet was not the first means of rapid exchange of information through
networks spanning the entire planet.
------
gabrielsroka
Not a book, but a video from one of the creators, Vint Cerf:
[https://youtu.be/Hf0rjtnwC9A](https://youtu.be/Hf0rjtnwC9A)
------
jcontini
The latter chapters of "The Innovators" by Walter Isaacson did this well I
thought. Just finished it and highly recommend.
------
sgillen
Not a book, but I’ve been really liking this blog post.
[https://technicshistory.com/the-backbone/](https://technicshistory.com/the-
backbone/)
------
giantg2
Not explicitly internet or complete history, but The Best of 2600 is a good
historical tech book.
------
redis_mlc
You can see one or two of the original Internet routers at the Computer
History Museum in Palo Alto.
------
vithlani
Mother Earth Mother Board -- a superb essay by Neal Steaphenson on internet
cables.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter is now worth almost as much as Yahoo - stevenj
http://qz.com/161691/twitter-is-now-worth-almost-as-much-as-yahoo/
======
bdcravens
Article is from 12/26\. On 12/27 TWTR lost 13%.
[http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TWTR](http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TWTR)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Extracting Structured Data from Recipes Using Conditional Random Fields - aaronbrethorst
http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/extracting-structured-data-from-recipes-using-conditional-random-fields/
======
jawns
"But there is an ever-increasing appetite from developers and designers for
finely structured data to power our digital products and at some point, we
will need to develop algorithmic solutions to help with these tasks."
One really cool area in which this sort of algorithm could be applied is
identifying location data.
Imagine an algorithm that could scan through a Times story like this one ...
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902EFDE1230F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902EFDE1230F933A05752C0A9679D8B63)
... and extract from the text all location identifiers, then geocode them:
"Seventh Avenue and 36th Street" \--> 40.7522877,-73.9897059
"Bleecker Street between Sullivan and Thompson" \--> 40.728887,-73.999566
"Chrystie and Rivington" \--> "40.7212581,-73.99224"
I used to work for a metro daily, and I developed a script that allowed us to
geocode an address by highlighting it in our CMS and clicking a button, but
that still required an editor to highlight the correct portion of the text.
Using an algorithm to perform the task instead of an editor would open up some
incredible possibilities.
For instance, imagine a local news alerts service in which you could enter
your location and a radius, and receive alerts whenever a news item mentioned
a location within that radius. (I once developed a prototype of such a
service, but the lack of a fully automated process for identifying locations
led me to shelve it.)
~~~
discardorama
> One really cool area in which this sort of algorithm could be applied is
> identifying location data.
You may want to try "PlaceSpotter" from Yahoo:
[https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/](https://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/)
I haven't tried it myself, but did look at it for a similar idea a while back.
------
denimboy
Weird since I just read this yesterday about the LA times doing the same
thing:
[http://datadesk.latimes.com/posts/2013/12/natural-
language-p...](http://datadesk.latimes.com/posts/2013/12/natural-language-
processing-in-the-kitchen/)
The LA Times article has some generic python NLTK code. They used a MaxEnt
classifier instead of CRF.
------
jsankey
This is really interesting to me as I've just been solving the same ingredient
parsing problem in my iOS app (Zest Recipe Manager) to implement smart
shopping lists. Although I was tempted to use a statistical approach I opted
to start with a more direct heuristic approach to see how far I could get (and
to make sure I really understood the issues before trying a more generic
solution).
The heuristic approach actually works pretty well, though with a significant
amount of effort! A lot of ambiguities can be resolved with a custom algorithm
of this kind. For shopping list support (where really the common cases matter
most) the results are excellent. But there are ambiguities I have had to hack
solutions to that would probably be better resolved via a probabilistic
method. And there are cases where some actual NLP is required to properly
detect extraneous descriptive phrases etc. I'm considering adding a
statistical helper to my custom parser to take it to the next level.
------
sheraz
Funny enough, I'm also working in this space at the moment.
Right now we are training models to identify cuisines and diets in multiple
languages.
Also, anyone interested in this space might also check out Yummly
(www.yummly.com).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Psychology of Envy and Social Justice - peter_d_sherman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcviUfFTQXk
======
peter_d_sherman
Disclaimer: I'm not saying that I think the video referenced is right or wrong
in any way -- I merely find it _interesting_...
Thus, it is submitted for the HN community's approval...
...or disapproval -- as the case may be! <g>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: DevTalk - raj_khare
https://lit-dawn-62972.herokuapp.com/
======
isuke
Hi I could connect nobody :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A new Operating System - TheUnknown00
https://github.com/TusharPardhe/
======
achtung666
Yet another generic linux distro. Nothing interesting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing Moments: A Private Way to Share Photos with Friends - jonas21
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/introducing-moments/
======
pesnk
I liked it.
I was planning a product like these for a hackaton, mainly because I wanted to
have something alike. Glad someone already made it =D
------
squiddle
Who considers an upload to facebook and having face recognition algorithms
running and matching images against the whole userbase as being a private way
to share photos?
I really expected some bluetooth p2p technology involved to give (some
illusion about) location-enabled private photo sharing instead it is just a
centralized upload service.
------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9720783](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9720783)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Shameless self promotion - edwardbenson
Hey YC crowd,<p>I regularly troll YC news because I've got the entrepreneurial itch that so many share here. I've finally got something to stand up on a stump about, so I thought I'd write a post for once:<p>I just spent the past year working on a book called The Art of Rails [1] about web application design, coding style, and life cycle in Ruby on Rails. It is aimed for the intermediate Rails developer, but it is really useful for anyone interested in learning about modern thoughts in web application design and picking up a bit of Ruby along the way. The book really tries to appreciate the aesthetic of Ruby, Rails, and the development practices that have come to characterize modern web development.<p>That's all I have to say; I'll let the book say the rest!<p>[1] http://www.amazon.com/Art-Rails-Edward-Benson/dp/0470189487?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209652925&sr=8-1<p>(Edited to fix link)
======
ambition
I took a glance at the table of contents, but more efficient to ask you
directly: What does this book add or teach that isn't out there already?
I hope that doesn't come across as snarky, I don't mean it to be.
~~~
edwardbenson
@ambition - not a snarky question at all. The Rails book market is certainly
growing crowded, so I think it is a very valid question. I hope this isn't a
cheesy thing to say, but I really tried to make this the book I wish that I
had to guide me after I had been experimenting with Rails for a while.
This book is different for a few important reasons:
First off, it speaks to issues of design rather than issues of API. That has
important ramifications in the way the material is covered. Agile Web
Development with Rails (Pragmatic) and The Rails Way (Addison) are two
fantastic books, and both are on the shelf next to my desk right now, but they
both concentrate on exhaustive coverage of the Rails API. The Art of Rails is
meant to be the kind of book you buy after owning one of those. It takes
someone familiar with the /syntax/ of coding Rails and attempts to provide
guidance and insight into the /style/ and design patterns of architecting an
entire application with Rails.
Second, it devotes three whole chapters (8, 9, and 10) to developing with the
"Ruby style". So many web developers learn Ruby because of Rails that they
eventually get to a point in their Rails development skills where they stand
to really benefit by taking a few steps outside of Rails to learn how Ruby is
a fundamentally different language than {PHP, Java, other OO/Procedural
languages}. The Art of Rails really devotes a significant effort to talking
about the new and Ruby-centric design patterns that constructs like blocks,
Procs, method_missing, and instance_eval make possible, and then it provides
examples of how you can use these design patterns in your Rails applications.
Third, it backs up design patterns with useful, concise examples that you can
actually execute, but otherwise stays clear from drowning you with example
code that is better left to online format.
Finally, I wrote it to read cover-to-cover, or at least a chapter at a time,
whereas a lot of tech books these days are really centered around dictionary-
style reference lookup. This book should be fun to read, have you nodding your
head, and leave you with some useful abstractions, coding techniques, and new
tricks when you're done.
I'll stop here to prevent myself from leaving a run-on comment, but thanks for
pushing back for more justification of the book
~~~
abstractbill
"@edwardbenson"
Hope you don't think _this_ is too snarky, but there's really no need for the
at-signs on a site that has threaded comments ;-)
~~~
edwardbenson
what can I say -- old habits die hard :)
------
utnick
cool! congrats on the book
would you mind writing about how you came about getting a book deal?
were you active in the rails community? Did wrox approach you? did you write
the book then approach publishers? etc etc
congrats again
~~~
edwardbenson
@utnick -
Thanks! As to your questions: \- I've been a lurker in the Rails community
ever since it was first released. So no, not active. I guess in that sense I'm
doing things backwards. I hope to be active now that I'm not spending all my
free time writing and am polishing up an acts_as_rdf plugin for ActiveRecord
that I hope will help the semantic web-minded folks.
\- I had co-authored another book for Wrox before, so had been emailing back
and forth with them afterwards about how important Rails was. That email
thread turned into a book proposal.
I can only speak for my own book writing experience with Wiley/Wrox, but it is
likely similar across the tech industry. You don't have to write the book up
front or get an agent. Instead you submit a proposal to the publisher that is
essentially your pitch: it includes a potential table of contents, your own
market analysis, and why you think the book is a necessary addition to the
existing set of published knowledge.
If all goes well, the proposal turns into a contract, which is basically a 15
page way of saying that you split the copyright, get a royalty advance, and
get X% of sales, where X seems to be around 10% for the big publishers.
(Pragmatic gives 50%!!).
Then you start the writing process, which took about a year both times for me,
divided into ~8 months of writing, ~2 months of editing, and ~1.5 month of
last-minute bug fixing and waiting for the book to print.
All in all, it's been simultaneously the hardest and most rewarding thing I've
done in my (admittedly short) professional life. If you're interested in more
details about how to get your foot in the door, feel free to shoot me an email
(edward [dot] benson [at] gmail [dot] com).
------
petercooper
I know I'll probably be reviewing this book for Ruby Inside anyway, but.. tip
for the future: Use better headlines for posts on HN ;-)
------
redorb
I think 'shameless' would've included nothing about "promotion".. you have a
little shame (and thats a good thing)
------
allenbrunson
this might be a good post to ask my related question.
i'm teaching myself ruby on rails. i'm learning ruby by reimplementing some of
my c++ classes, and i'm learning rails by ... erm, haven't figured that one
out yet.
does anybody know of a project that i could apply myself to? i'm no good at
doing tutorials, they bore me to tears. i learn by having a goal to
accomplish. but i don't have any really strong ideas about sites i'd like to
implement. so i'm willing to work on somebody else's site, for free, just for
the experience. who knows what projects would have me?
i just quit my job, i have a lot of money saved up, and i am serious as a
heart attack about putting a lot of time and effort into this.
~~~
davidw
I have a couple of open source Rails projects:
<http://rubyforge.org/projects/dedawiki/>
<http://rubyforge.org/projects/stufftodo/>
Or if you want to work on pay sites, email me and we'll see what we can work
out.
~~~
allenbrunson
stufftodo looks interesting. i've got some personal stuff to attend to today,
i'll try to get into it tomorrow.
thanks for the links.
------
Anon84
So... Where's the pdf link?
~~~
edwardbenson
Heh - I wish. As far as I know, Wiley (the publisher) doesn't have any plans
to do an electronic version.
If it is e-books you're looking for, you should really check out Geoffrey
Grosenbach's Peep Code (peepcode.com). It has a collection of screen casts and
PDF books that are really great, and cost $9 bucks each, which is far worth
the information they contain.
------
simianstyle
you handsome ruby-hacking devil you
------
sabat
You should have added something about Rails to the subject line; would draw
more attention. Nothing wrong with promoting this, and as an intermediate
Rails programmer, this may be a book I can use. I'll take a look.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree - MrJagil
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/05/upshot/is-sushi-healthy-what-about-granola-where-americans-and-nutritionists-disagree.html?mabReward=A7&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article
======
sharemywin
I need to find these 1 in 10 nutritionists that say ice cream, bacon, french
fries and cookies are healthy.
~~~
maxerickson
I can imagine explanations. Like maybe they think how much matters a great
deal more than what.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mars – a tensor-based unified framework for large-scale data computation - jonbaer
https://docs.mars-project.io/en/latest/
======
silicaroach
Is this intended as a competitor to Dask?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Webcam + Favicon = Face-icon - paulkaplan
http://paulkaplan.me/Experiments/Favicon/favicon.html
======
steeve
Nice idea, but in Chrome when you activate WebRTC, the favicon will blink with
a "recording" icon, ruining the effect.
~~~
paulkaplan
I don't think so, it works fine for me.
~~~
cleverjake
Im seeing the same issue on 26.0.1410.3 Mac Chrome
~~~
paulkaplan
I'm on 24.0.1312.57 and it is working fine, but it says I'm up to date, is
that a dev build or something?
~~~
cleverjake
Im not at that computer now, but according to <http://omahaproxy.appspot.com/>
it is the OS X dev build.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Concurrent Wifi Users - jftuga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YnGlV0MnFg
======
jftuga
This shows wifi user locations throughout a day with each room having one AP.
Devices consists of laptops, tablets and phones using various 802.11 wireless
standards. Data was collected throughout the day from a pair of Cisco 2504
WLAN controllers.
The controllers were queried about once per minute and the usage was saved to
a CSV file. I then wrote an R script to transform each sample into it's own
PNG graph. I used ffmpeg to merge all of the PNG files into a 1080p MP4 video.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: Obscurity is a valid security layer in your defense strategy - DyslexicAtheist
======
ReptileMan
as long as you don't count on it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Philadelphia passes a law banning “cashless” retail stores - zymhan
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/sorry-amazon-philadelphia-bans-cashless-stores/
======
el_duderino
Yesterday's discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328547)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why the Motorola Android is a sure-fire hit - PatrickMorrell
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4335459.html?nav=RSS20&src=syn&dom=yah_buzz&mag=pop
======
haseman
No such thing as a sure-fire hit, especially in the mobile world. Verizon's
Droid looks like the best Android phone to date, but that won't make it a hit
in-and-of itself.
The Droid's best feature, over the iPhone, may end up being it's ability to
actually make and receive phone calls.
------
noelchurchill
Summary: The phone will be a hit because all the other phones on the Verizon
network suck, and because Verizon doesn't offer the iPhone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Luna visual programming language beta release - kryptiskt
http://www.luna-lang.org/#
======
cs702
Duplicate:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163769)
------
sytelus
I'm looking for visual language that does not require ability to read (except,
say, knowing numbers 1 to 10). Does anything like this exist? I looked at
Spark but that doesn't fall in to this category.
The idea is as follows: Devices like tablets and smartphones are naturally
usable by 4-year old with minimal and even no instructions even if they can't
read yet. Is there a visual programming language that can be implemented on
such devices that is usable by just 4 year old?
~~~
markwhiting
Scratch requires only a very basic understanding of terms, and has been widely
extended, as in translated to many languages and perhaps completely visual
versions have been made.
Here's a link to the base project →
[https://scratch.mit.edu](https://scratch.mit.edu)
------
TailorJones
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=luna&sort=byDate&prefix=false&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=luna&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Newspaper moves into coffee shop, invites citizens to contribute. - larrik
http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/12/02/news/doc4cf7892cbcf12181311203.txt?viewmode=fullstory
======
larrik
To summarize, they are moving to a new office that is a coffee shop (complete
with free wifi), library, and news room. People are invited to come in and
take part in the whole newspaper process.
This is also a newspaper that recognizes the web as being their more valuable
readership.
Seems like an interesting experiment to me, and I wonder how it will turn out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Game of War: Fire Age Translates Players’ Chat - solarmist
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/arts/video-games/game-of-war-fire-age-translates-players-chat.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
======
solarmist
This game is launching on the 24th.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Hard Truth About Socialism (Stefan Molyneux) - GyYZTfWBfQw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RNZ2LjpEl4
======
cphoover
Why is this on hacker news?
~~~
GyYZTfWBfQw
For the same reason any other submissions concerning political philosophy,
economics, etc. are.
Quite many of those "off-topic" submissions climbed up to the top; probably
because people here were interested enough in them. :)
If anyone is interested, and have any questions regarding the topic, feel free
to ask! I am sure many people would love to join and be of help as well.
~~~
dang
No, this is definitely off topic because it is ideological flamebait and that
leads to ideological flamewar, the last thing we want here.
Generic ideological tangents, and generic discussion generally, is off topic
on HN. Its signal/noise ratio is too low.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
[Update] Warn HN: How to accidentally, irreversibly nuke your Facebook account - jpadvo
Yesterday afternoon I posted about the disaster that happened to my Facebook account: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2256150<p>Someone at Facebook responded extremely quickly -- yesterday evening they updated documentation (a blog post) to prevent others from accidentally doing this, and when I woke up this morning my account was completely restored.<p>Thank you whoever at Facebook reads HN and fixed this for me. :)<p>However, other developers still have broken accounts because of this issue. I hope that it can be fixed for them, too.<p>http://www.skybondsor.com/blog/undo-test-account-on-facebook<p>http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=90196<p>http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=89194<p>http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=88696<p>http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=85580<p>http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=75057
======
santoshsah4
Hi i am facing the same problem.Now all i have is just profile image and
nothing more.I tried to leave the network but it shows you arenot connected to
any network.can some one help me? i m completely lost.....
------
tuneupsanjeev
When did that happen to you account? and how was ur account restored?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alexa Voice Service Integration for AWS IoT Core - nonbirithm
https://aws.amazon.com/jp/blogs/iot/introducing-alexa-voice-service-integration-for-aws-iot-core/
======
tlrobinson
Somewhat related project I came across recently, Almond "The Open, Privacy-
Preserving Virtual Assistant":
[https://almond.stanford.edu/](https://almond.stanford.edu/)
~~~
dang
Discussed once in 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17532003](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17532003).
But you should repost it!
------
danw1979
If this is targeted at low power microcontrollers, I don't understand how the
devices are supposed to recognise the attention word ("Alexa" by default in
Echo devices) and filter out unwanted chatter. Our maybe doing that filtering
is cheaper than I expect it to be ?
If Alexa ends up in many devices in the same room, which one am I addressing
when I use the attention word ? Are we going to have many different attention
words for different devices ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Google "hacker news", see one user's suggestion implemented. - SandB0x
http://imgur.com/nR60Y.png made me chuckle at least. Has it always been like this, or was it in response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492686 ?
======
devmonk
Avatars and dancing hamsters are in-progress, I assume.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
B&N prepping new tablet with 'revolutionary screen technology' - bane
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33198_7-57473877-286/b-n-prepping-new-tablet-with-revolutionary-screen-technology/?tag=postrtcol;FD.posts
======
Toshio
We certainly hope it will be powered by a Linux kernel.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Denmark 'happiest' country in the world - terpua
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/02/nations.happiness/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
======
jcl
I wish the scientists would make up their minds. I was all ready to move to
Iceland:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=193619>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Street Fighting Mathematics: The art of educated guessing - xtacy
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Street-Fighting_Mathematics.pdf
======
jimmyjim
Previous discussions:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1548013> (many comments)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1106846> (2 comments)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2873902> (no comments)
~~~
ColinWright
Erm, that last is this very item - so when you wrote that it had one comment,
and now has at least two.
~~~
personalcompute
He doesn't appear to be a bot either. Hey, someone _should_ make a bot that
indicates previous discussions on reposts.
~~~
epochwolf
It's been done: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2013666>
------
xyzzyz
I glanced through "easy cases", and the "guessing the solution" part looks
more like "we somehow magically know that the solution is among these 3 or 5
possibilities, now we eliminate obviously wrong answers and lo, we found a
solution".
Seriously, just look at the treatment of Gaussian integral. They wonder if the
solution is sqrt(pi alpha) or sqrt(pi/alpha). Then they rule out the first
possibility. Yeah, that's fine, but why sqrt and pi at all? Why not sin and e?
Or gamma function and ... oh well this actually is a gamma function, but
nevermind.
Guessing is easy, if you already know the solution.
------
wmat
For a duplicate post, it's sure been on the FrontPage for a long time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How can List be faster than native arrays? (2018) - lioeters
http://vindum.io/blog/how-can-list-be-faster-than-native-arrays/
======
Lerc
It seems notable that while map is mentioned there is no performance
measurement shown for map. To me The proof of the pudding would be in map
performance.
In my spare time I have been building various versions of the nbody benchmark
to try out different fundamental data methods, arrays, objects, immutable or
not etc. Every alternative version is, of course, slower than the original
mutating object version. In principle however, many forms should be
optimisable by a 'sufficiently smart JIT' to be at least as fast.
It would be nice at least for a JavaScript engine to be able to do in-place
maps on arrays defined from literals or single creation points like map/filter
etc. , and have only one copy.
For instance.
{
let x = [1,5,9];
let q = x.map(a=>a+1)
}
The JIT would have to determine that
. x held the only reference to the array.
. x.map is the last reference to x
. the array in x was not modified between creation and last reference.
. the used version of a=>a+1 returns the same type as it is passed
To place the result of the map into the same memory as the original array and
assign that to q.
Of course in this ultra simple example an optimizer could just figure out that
q is [2,6,10] and never used anyway so throw it away. but in real world code
you can frequently have arrays like this that are only ever used as a source
for a map, especially if you do
q.map(something).map(somethingelse).map(anotherthing).
~~~
lioeters
I found the benchmark mentioned in the article - here's the part comparing
map:
[https://funkia.github.io/list/benchmarks#map](https://funkia.github.io/list/benchmarks#map)
Apparently, List is ~3x faster than native array.map, with the difference
increasing with the number of elements.
I see that random access and iterator are two operations where native array is
fastest.
------
stabbles
"faster than native arrays" as in: native arrays crippled by the requirement
of immutability.
Appending to a "native array" is amortized constant time. Secondly almost all
operations on a "native array" will be faster because there is no overhead in
indexing, there is cache locality etc etc. Requiring immutability will almost
always reduce performance (yes, I'm aware there a couple operations like
concatenation that can potentially run in O(lg n) rather than O(n) when using
a tree representation for arrays).
~~~
microcolonel
It all comes down to how you're using them. Good tries can perform
dramatically better than std::vector-style vectors, given the same development
effort, on many kinds of system.
~~~
gjfytfh4256
That really strains credulity. What do you mean be dramatically better? Under
what read and write access pattern? Do you have specific examples where your
claim holds?
~~~
microcolonel
If your workload would normally involve regularly copying the vector, no
matter what, then it is an easy win. Other factors which can make it
worthwhile are access patterns where you have many similar or related vectors
which you access at random (especially if you can make some effort to
deduplicate those vectors).
------
Myrmornis
> There are a few operations where List is slower than native arrays. One of
> these is random accessing.
What about sequential access? Surely array gets a benefit from data locality,
where CPU caches pull in surrounding values automatically?
~~~
msclrhd
It will depend on the allocation method. For example, you could use a pooled
allocator that allocates a contiguous array of list items in a block, then use
those in order as required. That would help with cached locality. IIRC, the
Borland C++ STL implementation did something like this.
~~~
tfigment
The deque collection was this efficient. Allocated blocks based on pagesize
(4k). A truly beautiful data structure and one of the few good reasons to use
stl.
~~~
rwbt
Only the libc implementation of std::deque allocates 4KiB blocks and lives
upto it's performance and utility. The MSVC implementation is terrible (8
bytes) and even the GCC one isn't that efficient (512 bytes).
Even though boost has a customizable deque block size, it's performance is
still way behind Clang's libc.
~~~
Something1234
Wait why wouldn't std::deque allocate blocks as some multiple of the sizeof
the thing it holds?
~~~
tfigment
> Wait why wouldn't std::deque allocate blocks as some multiple of the sizeof
> the thing it holds?
It does in the semicontiguous 4k blocks. And at least one msvc was that smart
as i used it.
~~~
mycall
What is so magical about 4k?
------
AlexanderDhoore
As far as I know this is an RRB vector.
Here's the original paper:
[https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/213452/files/rrbvector.pd...](https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/213452/files/rrbvector.pdf)
A rust implementation:
[https://docs.rs/im/13.0.0/im/](https://docs.rs/im/13.0.0/im/)
C++ implementation:
[https://github.com/arximboldi/immer](https://github.com/arximboldi/immer)
The rust implemenation does a cool trick where the data is only copied when it
is shared. If you are the sole owner of the data structure it will simply
mutate it in place. So you don't lose any performance. But once you share it,
it becomes an immutable functional data structure. See
[https://docs.rs/im/13.0.0/im/#in-place-
mutation](https://docs.rs/im/13.0.0/im/#in-place-mutation)
------
unrealhoang
It can't. Try benchmark sequential access on array to see sub-nanosecond per
item. That's fast.
~~~
gjstein
From the article:
> Even though List is very fast across the board no data-structure can be the
> fastest at everything.
This feels like a case in which everything is sufficiently well-implemented
that the No Free Lunch Theorem [1] starts to play a role.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_free_lunch_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_free_lunch_theorem)
------
kccqzy
That's pretty disingenuous. The native arrays aren't designed for immutability
at all. Of course an immutable data structure would be faster than copying the
entire array every single operation.
------
keymone
Clickbait title. Fastest _doing what_?
~~~
ww520
Yeah. Array has well known poor performance on insertion. It's a strawman.
~~~
The_rationalist
Arrays are faster than linked list on insertions too, stop spreading erroneous
beliefs.
~~~
fgonzag
Why are you comparing the performance of a linked list instead of a relaxed
radix balanced tree as the article talks about?
------
danite
I'd recommend people read this discussion of linked list vs array performance:
[https://rust-unofficial.github.io/too-many-lists/#an-
obligat...](https://rust-unofficial.github.io/too-many-lists/#an-obligatory-
public-service-announcement)
TLDR; linked lists' theoretical performance advantages are often negated by
years of hardware optimization for dealing with arrays.
~~~
tomp
The original article is about lists implemented as tree-like data structures,
not linked lists (which are much slower for most operations).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This genius map explains how everything in physics is connected - CarolineW
http://www.sciencealert.com/this-genius-video-explains-everything-you-need-to-know-about-physics-in-8-minutes
======
espeed
Direct links to the video and hi-res image by Dominic Walliman:
Image:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/95869671@N08](https://www.flickr.com/photos/95869671@N08)
Video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZihywtixUYo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZihywtixUYo)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Loosely – Smart input masks for regexes - deckar01
======
ko3us
does this have a web link?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Admiral of the String Theory Wars: still thinks string theory is a gory mess - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-admiral-of-the-string-theory-wars
======
ifdefdebug
Read the "Admiral" himself commenting this article:
[http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7705](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7705)
------
slashnull
I was under the impression that GUTs were _always_ gory messes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
INTERCAL On Interstates - ioidev
http://www.intercaloninterstates.org/
======
smoyer
I wanted this to be real so bad!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VideoGamesPlus.ca hacked, 21,000 users' details stolen - 1880
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-01-18-videogamesplus-ca-hacked-21-000-users-details-stolen
======
1880
It looks like they were not hacked exactly. They just left some backups in the
open:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:videogamesplus.ca+inurl:...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:videogamesplus.ca+inurl:customers)
Edit: wow, it was not only the customer database. It was _everything_ :
<http://www.google.com/search?q=qbsm_export+filetype:sql>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scandalous weird old things about the C preprocessor (2015) - fanf2
https://blog.robertelder.org/7-weird-old-things-about-the-c-preprocessor/
======
cafard
Hmm. The _Intermediate Greek Lexicon_ gives the original meaning of
"skandalon" as "a trap or a snare laid for an enemy":
[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*s%3Aentry+group%3D9%3Aentry%3Dska%2Fndalon)
------
mehrdadn
One thing not mentioned here: it seems to me (though I'm not 100% sure) C++11
kind of wrecked macro preprocessing. Until it came along, I _think_ you could
ignore C++ tokens and just pay attention to the preprocessor directives when
figuring out e.g. what to #include, because strings couldn't span multiple
lines, so you could easily identify the directives with a # in the beginning
of the line. But C++11 introduced verbatim string literals, and it seems to me
now you have to actually tokenize C++ constructs just to figure out how to do
macro preprocessing. This means C++ preprocessing actually is a lexically
different language than C preprocessing, which is kind of bewildering to me
(notwithstanding more obvious differences like __cplusplus and such) and which
means you can no longer e.g. just process the #include's without regard to the
C++ tokens.
EDIT: Never mind, I'm wrong. Totally missed that line continuations can occur
in quotes :(
~~~
user982
_> I think you could ignore C++ tokens and just pay attention to the
preprocessor directives when figuring out e.g. what to #include, because
strings couldn't span multiple lines, so you could easily identify the
directives with a # in the beginning of the line._
char *cstr = "This \
#is a valid "
"C string";
If I understand you correctly, is this a counterexample?
~~~
mehrdadn
Aw shoot, yeah it is. :( Thanks!
------
ScottBurson
While I love to hate on the preprocessor -- and did so publicly once in _The
Unix Hater 's Handbook_ (p. 211) -- item 4 is silly. The _whole point_ of many
macros is to circumvent referential transparency! This is true even in a
language with real macros, like Lisp. ("Real macros" operate on a syntax tree
representation, not on character strings.)
------
Ididntdothis
All I can say is that I really miss the preprocessor. There are so many things
that could easily be done with the preprocessor but instead have to be done
with reflection or code generation in a more complex way.
Sure, it can be be abused/misused but I am not sure that's a good reason to
take it away completely like for example in C#.
~~~
ygra
C# has other mechanisms to achieve what macros are commonly used for, though.
In a bit, with Roslyn's source generators there will be an even better way for
some of them.
~~~
rwmj
One place where preprocessors shine is where the language itself has changed
in an incompatible way, where "language" can be interpreted broadly including
calls to external libraries. For example some function you need to call added
an extra parameter:
#if LIB_VERSION_GE_3
lib_f (1, NULL);
#else
lib_f (1);
#endif
It can be difficult to do this with other mechanisms where the compiler is
actually compiling and therefore type checking both branches.
OCaml is a pretty rich language with many features, but we fall back on
preprocessors like cppo (or even cpp) to deal with these kinds of cases.
~~~
pjmlp
You can do that with .NET conditional compilation, no need for the C style
macros.
~~~
rwmj
Assuming you mean this: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/dotnet/csharp/language-refe...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/preprocessor-directives/preprocessor-if)
it looks like a restricted form of the C preprocessor. (We may quibble about
whether it is separately "pre" processed or not, but even cpp doesn't run as a
separate stage in modern C compilers).
~~~
Ididntdothis
The C# preprocessor is unnecessarily restricted. It has a few features but it
feels very arbitrary what they include or exclude. I think they didn’t like
the idea but couldn’t avoid it totally so they did something half assed. I bet
a lot of frameworks that need reflection could be replaced with macros if the
preprocessor had a few more features.
~~~
pjmlp
It is not half assed, rather what has been proven since the 60's to work
properly in all languages that aren't C, nor copy-paste compatible with C.
Even C++ is reducing the need to keep using the pre-processor with each ISO
revision, in an ideal modern C++ world without C legacy baggage, the pre-
processor will be so half assed like in C#. C++20 is already almost there.
------
bla3
(2015)
------
coliveira
The author tries to compare the preprocessor with programming languages,
however he seems to forget that the processor is, above all, not a language!
There is no parse tree for a preprocessor, since it is just putting text
strings together, with little regard for the resulting syntax. That's why it
is stupid to try to use the Cpp as a programming language, it won't work.
Think of it as a text replacement engine, like an integrated sed, for example.
~~~
raverbashing
Ahem
[https://www.ioccc.org/years.html#2001_herrmann1](https://www.ioccc.org/years.html#2001_herrmann1)
------
WalterBright
He missed one important thing - the C preprocessor is completely unaware of C
types. Its expressions follow different rules.
A major goal of D was to make the language expressive enough to not leave room
for the preprocessor:
1\. modules
2\. manifest constants
3\. nested functions
4\. lambdas
5\. static if
6\. compile time function execution
7\. string mixins
~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
I don't think he did miss that, rather it simply wasn't on-topic for the
article he was writing. Anybody who has used the C preprocessor knows it works
at the level of text/tokens and no further. The fact that it knows nothing of
types would hardly be "scandalous"
But you can go ahead and use this thread to promote D anyways.
~~~
WalterBright
The #if does more than just text and tokens, it has an expression grammar
(constant-expression). It's implementation-defined whether the following two
produce the same value:
#if 'z' - 'a' == 25
if ('z' - 'a' == 25)
Another difference is all constants are typed as intmax_t and uintmax_t, not
the usual C types. Yes, it does have types.
This difference in behavior from C expressions is not necessary.
------
joosters
Which of these are scandalous, exactly?
If the OP is aggrieved by the operation of cpp, perhaps they could have
explained in each of their points what cpp is doing wrong, and how they would
improve the standard. Instead, they just list 'odd' behaviour, with no comment
about why it is wrong and how it could be better.
~~~
klyrs
This document immensely valuable in enumerating pitfalls in the spec and in
how the spec is interpreted by various implementations. I would wager that
most good-faith* C programmers are weary of overusing cpp, and use a limited
subset of its capabilities. This is a great resource to throw at a junior who
gets too excited about macros, for example.
* where I'm defining "bad-faith" C programmers as using it for sadistic purposes like IOCCC, golf, etc
> perhaps they could have explained in each of their points what cpp is doing
> wrong, and how they would improve the standard.
This is a fairly toxic attitude, and possibly the reason that your comment is
unpopular. A child can correctly observe that an emperor is not wearing
clothes, and bring that up without possessing the skill to make the emperor a
suitable outfit.
~~~
joosters
I just found the article odd; it starts off by declaring the behaviour of cpp
to be objectionable, but then it just lists different aspects of its actions.
At no point does the OP complain that cpp is doing the _wrong_ thing - indeed,
they point out in several places that it couldn't really be changed to do
anything else because either it would break existing code, or would be just as
odd if it behaved in another way. So I'm wondering just what it was they were
scandalized about? I'm not demanding that they fix cpp themselves!
At least the child told people that the emperor was wearing no clothes; a more
apt analogy with this article would be as if the child merely said "that's
scandalous!" without telling anyone about the missing clothes...
~~~
klyrs
> 1) No Comprehensive Standard
Here the "scandal" is that the "standard" is poorly specified, and therefore
isn't much of a standard. This seems to be the root of the scandal, and all
else appears to flow from here.
> 2) Context Free, Just Kidding!
Here the "scandal" is regarding to context sensitivity -- the author
vacillates about the status of the "scandal" but still, it seems clear that
they're identifying context-sensitivity as scandalous.
> 3) Whitespace Insensitive, Just Kidding!
Here the author considers irregularities in how "whitespace sensitive" cpp is
-- both in the "spec" and in implementations, with an example of non-
portability between gcc and clang.
et cetera
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon sellers can associate your personal info to bad reviews - jimmyrcom
http://www.amazon.com/review/R5FPKAO3QSMZZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
got a home phone call telling me seller didn't like the bad review of a bathroom scale, see vid review for audio
======
jimmyrcom
got a home phone call telling me seller didn't like the negative review i
gave. reviewed months after purchase
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bad SSL - jaytaylor
https://badssl.com
======
jaytaylor
Src code:
[https://github.com/lgarron/badssl.com](https://github.com/lgarron/badssl.com)
Credit to moviuro for sharing @
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10186516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10186516)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Create your own Trump animation - 100-xyz
https://toonclip.com/editor3?key1=5610c2d35a
======
100-xyz
Sorry the correct link is. Not sure how to change the submission now.
[https://toonclip.com/fork?key1=5610c2d35a](https://toonclip.com/fork?key1=5610c2d35a)
------
100-xyz
Not sure, if this is acceptable here. Mods if not, feel free to delete.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
From models of galaxies to atoms, simple AI shortcuts speed up simulations - DarkContinent
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/models-galaxies-atoms-simple-ai-shortcuts-speed-simulations-billions-times
======
dukoid
For some reason this reminds me of the famous xerox copier where the
compression algorithm would swap out digits:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6156238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6156238)
------
choeger
I doubt it.
Simulations based on PDEs, ODEs, or DAEs have a particular mathematical
foundation. Within the bounds of their solvers, they deliver precise results
and can actually _forecast_ physical behavior.
If such an "emulator" is much better in many cases but completely wrong in
just one, it is basically useless, as presumably the verification of a
solution takes as long as a classical simulation.
~~~
siver_john
The problem with that assumption is that while those solvers are based on a
mathematical foundation (though I'd argue that some NN based simulations are
too some papers out of Weinan E's lab at Princeton having some decent math to
an untrained eye), the parameters that are fed into those are often just fit
to some experimental data. And are often only verified in a heuristic manner.
So while a neural net based simulator may not be transferable in the same way
as a more general simulation engine (though depending on how you write them
even they generally have limits), it may be fine in a certain domain which you
can show by just checking how well it fits to certain experimental data you
already have in existence.
~~~
whatshisface
This creates a very serious issue for epistemic leakage. If the sim is
verified based on human eye heuristics, then it will be possible and very
tempting to accidentally make the neural net satisfy those heuristics
specifically. Then, scientists may use the heuristics to validate the results
of a neural net designed specifically to pass their eye test, thinking that
they are kicking the tires while in reality they are learning nothing.
~~~
siver_john
Disclaimer, I am more referencing classical molecular dynamics in the atomic
region. And what I am envisioning this type of thing for is not dependent on
the mathematical model per se. So specifically my point is towards say GROMACS
(or a similar MD simulation engine) where the force fields generally used for
that are parameterized for biological/organic systems. Let's say we train our
neural network on data fitting to lipids. So maybe a bunch of random data on
lipids like their melting temperature, surface temperature, etc. Then we run
the neural network simulator to model how these things form into larger
structures (something that is for the most part impossible with current all
atom approaches). And then we study that data to make an assessment on how
certain structures can form etc.
Now if you are aware of the field, what I just described was (ignoring I do
not remember the exact fitting data) the parameterization process of the
MARTINI force field which is sufficiently good at lipids, kind of okay at
proteins, and pretty bad at everything else. But within the bounds that you
know the weakness of the system you can still use it to figure out
experimental data. (Also as an aside MARTINI only got access to proteins and
other things later on, thankfully force fields improve over time.)
------
Fomite
Interestingly, my lab has been working in emulators for one of our simulation
models, and we're _really_ struggling to make meaningful improvements.
It's faster, but we're not there yet on accuracy.
------
fxtentacle
"When they were turbocharged with specialized graphical processing chips, they
were between about 100,000 and 2 billion times faster than their simulations."
Now the critical question is: How much faster is it without AI, just because
of the specialized dedicated processing chips?
Otherwise, they might be comparing a single virtualized CPU core against a
high-end GPU for things like matrix multiplication ... and then the result
that GPU > slow CPU isn't really that impressive.
~~~
allovernow
>Now the critical question is: How much faster is it without AI, just because
of the specialized dedicated processing chips?
Based on similar work we are doing at the startup I work for, this isn't just
GPU magic. ML is a heuristic alternative to simulations which already operate
on specialized GPUs and TPUs. This modeling acceleration is one of the many
ways in which ML is poised to change everything.
The same way that a human can, for instance, approximately draw iso-
temperature lines around a candle flame, without having to perform
simulations...except the neural net is some 99%+ as accurate and detailed as a
full simulation. That's exactly why neural nets excel - they learn complex
heuristics much like humans do, but with the added power of digitized
computation and memory.
~~~
tomp
Don't most really complex physical calculations / simulations (e.g. weather,
planetary movements etc.) involve chaotic interactions? So an NN being 99%
correct will still result in "catastrophic" differences down the line?
~~~
whatshisface
So will quantization error when you grid your conventional sim. If you can
make your cells and timesteps smaller with the NN than without, the loss in
accuracy in one place could be compensated by the gain elsewhere. The only
issue is, good luck with developing a formal theory of error propagation
through your trained network that is faster to compute than the conventional
sim itself. Sometimes you care about strict formal guarantees about sim error
and other times you don't.
------
willis936
I was at a talk last week where the speaker spent a little bit of time on
using machine learning on a regression matrix that is trained by the results
of a simulation. The simulation and variables in the regression matrix were
chosen such that the AI could recreate an approximation of a known physical
law. This is fairly exciting to me because if used to recreate a lot of laws
in this field, it could then be used on experimental data to untangle some of
the mess and identify the relationships for us. I could see this speeding
along development of science.
------
aimoderate
> It randomly inserts layers of computation between the networks’ input and
> output, and tests and trains the resulting wiring with the limited data. If
> an added layer enhances performance, it’s more likely to be included in
> future variations.
Sounds a lot like genetic algorithms but with neural networks. I suspect we'll
see more of this as people figure out how to run the search over neural
network architectures that fit their own domains. Convolutions and
transformers are great and all but we might as well let the computers do the
search and optimization as well instead of waiting on human insights for
stacking functions.
------
joe_the_user
The underlying paper was previously discussed on hn here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22132867)
Note: The published paper is titled "Up to 2B times acceleration of scientific
simulations with deep neural search", which can raise some hackles, including
mine. Doesn't _prove_ anything but still.
------
RoboTeddy
Here's a potential way to use adversarial techniques to generate training
examples that could improve the accuracy of this approach:
[https://twitter.com/RoboTeddy/status/1228828411050655744](https://twitter.com/RoboTeddy/status/1228828411050655744)
------
chewxy
Who'd think compression works so well?
(yes, neural networks are compression engines)
~~~
tanilama
Compression in your context is as meaningless as Generalization.
Yes, you can say generalization is compression.
~~~
fxtentacle
Except that "generalization" implies that it works for previously unseen
problems, which is usually not the case for AI.
Compression, on the other hand, nicely captures the "learn and reproduce"
approach that using AI entails.
~~~
tanilama
Unseen problems is a ill defined term. There is a distinction between in
domain and out of domain, both can be unseen by the model before.
Even human as agent requires training before being deployed to unseen
problems. Generalization is conditioned on experience, after all.
AI generalizes to unseen in domain data given a specific task. That is why it
is useful in the first place.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ipad based free-form shape detection - bosky101
http://www.avabodh.com/lekh
======
bosky101
Pretty impressive. interesting bits of the ipad app demo on youtube begin at
1m15secs
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvPLRRt79uo#t=1m15s>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can Humans Beat Google? New Search Engine Blekko Is a Great Concept, But ... - igravious
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/11/new-search-engine-blekko-is-a-great-concept-but/65517/
======
scrrr
The Google results for "vaccination" indeed are full of spam..
The idea is not bad. Google could add a "only trusted sites" sort of button
and filter results accordingly to achieve a similar effect. On the other hand
it should remain open for all sites by default. Even if it means spam in the
search results.
------
Mithrandir
<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=vaccination>
Couldn't see any spam until I got way down to the bottom.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This place is not a place of honor - carbocation
http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm
======
grzm
Previous discussion a year ago (280 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871)
Submitted a couple other times in the past as well, just not as much
discussion:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=This%20place%20is%20not%20a%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=This%20place%20is%20not%20a%20place%20of%20honor&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)
------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
This whole thing is an offshoot of antinuclear FUD. If civilization collapses
to the point where people no longer realize that radiation is dangerous, then
so many people have already died that a few more people dying early from
radiation is just background noise.
In addition, knowing human nature and our propensity for conspiracy theories,
there will be people in the future who think all those signs were put there to
dissuade people from finding a massive buried treasure. (After all, the
phrasing is pretty much what you would expect if someone had buried a treasure
and wanted to make scare people from digging for it.
~~~
ianai
They were tasked with making signs that would be deciferable for the entire
time the site was hot-something like 10000 then later 100000 years. Let's see
you do better.
~~~
slededit
I think his proposal was to do nothing, since if the signs were ever needed
we'd have bigger problems. Whether that's better is arguable.
~~~
ianai
One possible scenario where it's forgotten about does not mean there aren't
others. Maybe the files for the site die a beurocratic death and 9000 years
later there aren't any records available regarding the site.
Now, one possible alternative would be to incorporate some of the waste into a
monolith. People may not be able to decipher or heed warnings but they will
probably avoid the thing that kills them. (Probably wouldn't make it past the
ERB though)
~~~
slededit
I think the premise is that Geiger counters would be ubiquitous in pretty much
every scenario except the catastrophic destruction of civilization. Radiation
itself is its own warning sign if you are sufficiently advanced
technologically.
~~~
beojan
As far as I am aware, we don't routinely check archeological sites with a
Geiger counter before digging.
~~~
slededit
You would be surprised at how closely the US is monitored with radiation
detectors. There's been more than a few false alarms with pets undergoing
cancer treatment for example [1].
I wouldn't be surprised if nearly every square mile of the US was closely
monitored now, let alone in a thousand years.
> “Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour,” Giuliano told the crowd. “Agent is
> in the median, a good 80 feet away from the traffic. Signal went off and
> identified an isotope [in the passing car].”
> “Turned out to be a cat with cancer that had undergone a radiological
> treatment three days earlier,” Giuliano said.
[1] [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/watch-out-youre-
bei...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/watch-out-youre-being-
watched/)
~~~
ianai
I had no idea. I wonder if they've ever actually stopped a nuclear threat. On
the one hand, it's reassuring to know things are that closely monitored that
could kill millions. On the other, who knows what other forms of monitoring
are in-use.
------
umanwizard
I'm reminded of Japanese tsunami stones:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html)
They are markers hundreds of years old warning future villagers not to build
below certain points (high-water marks for past tsunamis). In some locations
they are still respected today.
------
Animats
Seen that piece before.
Here's the marker at the SL-1 reactor burial site.[1] This already looks
dated, and it's only a few decades old. (It's not from 1961; it's from a later
secondary cleanup.) The skull and crossbones is no longer used much for
hazardous materials, and might be misread as a warning of chemically toxic
waste. The road sign for "no pedestrians" is not really appropriate. The
abstract radiation trefoil is only meaningful if you know what it means.
[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/SL...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/SL-1Burial.jpg/1280px-
SL-1Burial.jpg)
------
sgt101
One thing that appears not to have been considered is allowing a small amount
of dangerous material to be uncovered in each major attempt to access the
site. This would be a brutal way to limit the damage from repeated treasure
hunts, but it would prevent someone from drilling into the whole cache and
killing vast numbers of innocents.
~~~
mjevans
Curse of the ancient tombs of X...
------
ameliaquining
The link title should have a [1992] annotation.
------
kbutler
Interesting how mobile-friendly sites from 25 years ago are.
~~~
SapphireSun
I think it's worth adding a max width, it makes the columns easier to read if
they're not too long. Other than that, it's pretty great.
------
TeMPOraL
I still think the best way is to dig deep and pad it densely with filler
material. The point is, for the future civilization to be able to reach the
material, it would need to develop to the level of middle-XX-century
technology, at which point they'd most likely be able to handle the waste.
------
robert_foss
This reminds me of the excellent Finnish documentary "Into Eternity" which
treads into the same territory and takes a few steps further.
How do you communicate with a civilization that has no ties with to the
current one?
------
dwaltrip
I feel it would be very worthwhile to add a second set of signs/materials that
assumes whomever is reading them has at least some level of scientific
proficiency.
~~~
LoSboccacc
Should have stages. First room myhical connotations. Second puctogram of
radiation. Third atomic elements drawn. Fourth a well preserved (albeit
powered off) geiger counter to reverse engineer, fifth the element stored in a
case with more warnings and a dot notation trying to relate the box content
with the actual stored quantity
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Potentially catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Willa nearing Mexico's coast - LinuxBender
https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_9f7af5bdc1443dbed0e336355e5816d2
======
jansan
Land mass to the south:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFM1X0o2pnc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFM1X0o2pnc)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Behind the Scenes at Facebook: Scaling Up FBChat Using Erlang - Anon84
http://education.sys-con.com/node/634250
======
jfarmer
FWIW, this is just a republication of a 3-month-old blog post:
[http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=14218138919&id=...](http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=14218138919&id=9445547199&index=2)
------
KirinDave
I'm surprised to hear that they're using the alt erlang-thrift binding in
production. In Powerset's application of it, it begins to rattle and break
down when you push it about 90r/s. I wonder if FBChat's per-connection load is
lower than that?
Thrift is a great idea and I've used it alot, but it's frustrating to see it
so tied to C++. The idea of code generation for your IDL interfaces is so last
decade. We've got experimental thrift bindings that treat the IDL as a
runtime-compiled source, so on the Ruby or Erlang side you can use their
dynamic strong typing to avoid the necessity of code generation that the C++
side suffers.
~~~
ComputerGuru
Current fbChat loads are really bad.
I believe there's some sort of prioritization going on - connecting from a
"3rd world" ISP to Facebook gives me some really bad lag and disconnects,
while going through a VPN (server in LA) provides much better response times.
If it were just this one ISP, I'd blame it on them; but in my months of using
fbChat, I've noticed some clear scaling problems for their "real-time" service
compared to the other, more static parts of their site.
Obviously this isn't a scientific study in any way, but fbChat has always been
a bad performer.
~~~
neilc
Does anyone actually _use_ Facebook chat? Leaving aside the details of the
implementation, chatting via the FB web interface seems terribly awkward. And
while _I_ can use XMPP, most of the people you'd be chatting with won't be.
------
stcredzero
Wow. Testing with a "Dark Launch." Basically, they used cycles from every user
machine with an open Facebook page to do their load testing by distributing a
version of their app with no UI and a test script. This is very powerful and
kind of scary.
~~~
arockwell
Google did something really similar with their gchat launch on Orkut. They
started out with just 1% of the userbase running it in the background and
scaled it up from there till they were confident that the implementation
details were mostly worked out. Its really a great idea for testing the
scalability of new features without completely breaking the production site.
------
axod
I wonder what their stats are like so far. Are people using it to chat?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Verizon Will Charge $2 To Pay Bill Online Or By Phone - 3lit3H4ck3r
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/29/144444008/verizon-will-charge-2-to-pay-bill-online-or-by-phone?ft=1&f=1001
======
pavel_lishin
I cannot imagine why a one-time credit card payment would be more costly than
processing a payment mailed in an envelope.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
String theorys second life - EastLondonCoder
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160915-string-theorys-strange-second-life/
======
M_Grey
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512954)
------
shepardrtc
Reposting this link that I found in the comments section from the previous
time this article was submitted:
[http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8778](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8778)
------
richmarr
> String theory has _so far_ failed to live up to its promise
(emphasis mine)
How long should we wait? There should be a Samuel Beckett adaptation...
Valdimir: "Should we start work on some other theories?"
Estragon: "Yes let's"
(They continue adding dimensions to make their predictionless theories
internally-consistent)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How German nuclear scientists reacted to the news of Hiroshima - bilifuduo
http://lukemuehlhauser.com/how-german-nuclear-scientists-reacted-to-the-news-of-hiroshima/
======
Jerry2
Dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11579299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11579299)
~~~
tristanj
I think you meant dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12568250)
~~~
codezero
It's completely ok to resubmit stories after some time has passed if it helps
them reach more people who may have missed the original submission. I don't
think this would be considered a dupe.
The only gripe I have is guidelines say to stick to original sources so I'd
rather see a repost that's closer to the source :)
~~~
tristanj
It's ok to resubmit stories after some time has passed, but this one was
submitted four weeks ago with significant discussion alongside it. I'm totally
ok with stories like this being resubmitted after 3-6 months, but one month is
too soon by my mark.
Resubmitting stories that don't get initial traction is fine, but this post
had a lot of traction when it was submitted last time so it doesn't fit in
that category.
> _I don 't think this would be considered a dupe._
Have a look here, dang clarifies what is a dupe in this post
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223645)
. It should clear up why mods marked this story about german nuclear
scientists as a dupe. Plus, the try submitting [http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-
dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf](http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-
dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf) and you'll see it gets caught by the dupe
detector.
Note that I didn't mark this post as a dupe, the site moderators did that.
~~~
codezero
We've seen successful re submissions within days. I'm not on board with
getting a pitchfork out after four weeks. I am probably biased because I
missed this the time it was posted four weeks ago. Let's agree it's relative.
Thanks for the clarifying links though. I'm not upset it was flagged as a
dupe. I'm all for HN moderation, just want to make it clear a lot of people
probably missed this. If that's ok and we bury this story I am ok with that.
Let's resubmit next year :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: GitHub Issues in the Menubar (OS X) - tomgenoni
https://github.com/tomgenoni/bitbar-ghissues
======
trepiedle
I'm definitely using this
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Injectopi – A set of tutorials about code injection for Windows - peperunas
https://github.com/peperunas/injectopi
======
peperunas
Hello guys! Let me know what do you think about these tutorials!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Price of Modern Life Is Depression and Loneliness? - Red_Tarsius
https://medium.com/festival-of-dangerous-ideas/the-price-of-modern-life-is-depression-and-loneliness-96a2367f3460
======
pinkyand
He quotes 2 scientific research papers as claiming ‘spending large amounts of
time online for social purposes may increase social distress and have negative
impact on self-esteem.’ or similar stuff.
But look at the details, the first article is about correlation, not
causation.
[http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/21685655](http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/21685655)
Stopped reading after that.
------
ducuboy
It's ridiculous how this statement gets so popular online.
This "Look Up" video has 46M views
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY).
Whatever post on this subject gets viral
[https://twitter.com/ducu/status/464018491738431488](https://twitter.com/ducu/status/464018491738431488)
"The modern technology (read 'facebook') keeps us from interacting face to
face, so it makes us lonely and depressed. It was so much better _back in my
day_ when we were playing ball, we were bumping into each other on the
streets, and we were definitely much happier." \- Such a load of crap.
These lonely people liking and sharing such nonsense are obviously online, and
they are probably keeping in touch only with their school mates, or work
colleagues at most. Imagine how lonely they must have felt if they could only
interact offline, with just a small fraction of their current facebook
friends, based solely on _geography_. Because that was the main criteria for
human connection before the internet.
When instead we should get in touch with the people sharing our interests,
regardless of where they are located on the map. That is one thing we can only
do online, and this kind of human connections would give a sense of meaning in
our lives.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An understated job advertisement - ChristianMarks
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/9887522?trk=job_nov&_mSplash=1
======
pallandt
Soo...lots of responsibilities and a warning to probably not expect an
adjusted salary to match them ('Annual Salary: Negotiable, but you should know
up front we’re not a terribly money-motivated group'), with these 2 as a
minimum:
\- A BA/BS or greater degree in Computer Science or a related field
\- A minimum of 3 years in development and project management, preferably in a
professional workplace
In Seattle no less, with the expectation that you'll be on call 24/7 should
they need you to fix something. I don't live in the U.S, but I have a hard
time seeing how a truly qualified professional with a minimum of 3 years of
experience in all the domains they mentioned would sign up for such a job if
they really cared about their career progression, even if it is for Penny
Arcade. This type of position sounds like it was almost intentionally designed
for a high turnover of employees.
~~~
mcguire
" _preferably in a professional workplace_ "
But see...
"\- You should have no problems working in a creative and potentially
offensive environment. _
------
asgard1024
This reminds me of:
Wanted--Acrobat capable of crossing a slack wire 200 feet above raging
furnace. Twice nightly, three times on Saturday. 53 Salary offered
&sterling;25 (or $70 U.S.) per week. No pension and no compensation in the
event of injury. Apply in person at Wildcat Circus between the hours of 9 A.M.
and 10 A.M.
See
[http://diki.heliohost.org/parkinsonselection.htm](http://diki.heliohost.org/parkinsonselection.htm)
~~~
scrumper
Thanks for sharing that, a fun read.
------
7Figures2Commas
> PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER AT @RKHOO FOR UPDATES IN CASE EMAIL GETS SENT TO
> SPAM FOLDERS, ETC. ____
If you do not have a Twitter, please note that you can tune in to KCTS 9
public television at 11:35 pm every evening through December 20 for broadcast
updates about the position.
------
gesman
>> Annual Salary: Negotiable, but you should know up front we’re not a
terribly money-motivated group. We’re more likely to spend less money on
salary and invest that on making your day-to-day life at work better.
So I go to the local food store and tell cashier and store manager that
instead of paying for their products with money, instead, "I could make their
life better!"
Will it work? If yes, then I'll apply.
~~~
Guvante
Salaries are always a range. If you are in the range and they provide good
benefits it can work out.
------
emillon
This was covered on PBD:
[http://programmersbeingdicks.tumblr.com/post/68153753288/pen...](http://programmersbeingdicks.tumblr.com/post/68153753288/penny-
arcade-yep-theyre-still-terrible)
------
sethish
I came to make a snarky comment about the job requiring you to be ok with
working with Mike Krahulik, who I consider despicable. But their job posting
does the job for me:
> We’re terrible at work-life balance. Although work is pretty much your life,
> we do our absolute best to make sure that work is as awesome as possible so
> you at least enjoy each and every day here.
*Edit: Originally reversed the author's pen names. Now using real name.
~~~
pgl
Why do you consider "Tycho" despicable?
~~~
sethish
Are you actually asking me why I consider Mike Krahulik despicable? If you are
not aware of the issues surrounding him, I am happy to link you to some of the
better articles.
If you are aware of the controversy and are baiting me, I am not interested.
~~~
derefr
_Jerry_ is "Tycho", the writer. _Mike_ (the one the issues surround) is
"Gabe", the artist.
------
coldcode
Rule #1, never work for a company with Penny in the name.
------
codeonfire
Is this a joke? Serious question. I was looking for the part where they go a
little too far and spoil the joke, but it never happened.
------
stygiansonic
They may not get a lot of applicants, but at least they are being honest with
the job description.
~~~
dccoolgai
It's Penny Arcade. Even with the stern warnings laced into the advert, they'll
get too many applications to sort through. They are the literal purveyors of
geek cred....this is the geek version of "Devil Wears Prada". If I lived in
Seattle, I might even think about applying.
~~~
stygiansonic
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I think the "geek cred" thing would
wear thin pretty fast after having no work-life balance and being paid below-
market for what your abilities are.
~~~
ath0
People are motivated by different things. "Below market" only matters if you
judge yourself by how much you're paid compared to your peers. "Having no
work-life balance" assumes that your "life" doesn't benefit from "work" in
ways other than the size of your paycheck.
If you already have a house/apartment you like and will still be able to
afford with this job, find the work you're doing interesting, have the
appreciation of your co-workers and the freedom to do your work the way you
want (because no one else who works there is an IT person); if you find
playing video games with colleagues a reasonable facsimile of "life"; if being
a visible member of a team that has a youtube channel with 10s of thousands of
subscribers who look up to them is more important than owning a bigger TV;
then this job may be worthwhile for you.
And why is it a problem that someone would rather have those things than a
salary at market rates, or an ability to go home at 5pm and spend time with
their family not thinking about work?
------
happywolf
That is a lot to ask for, and my first thought is: what happens to the company
if the person holding this position leaves?
Dividing this job into two positions will sound more reasonable.
~~~
philbarr
They're certainly setting themselves up for letting someone get their feet
under the table, have everything set up so that they're indispensable, and
then turning round and saying, "So, NOW let's talk about that salary."
Which is probably exactly what anyone with the kind of brains and experience
they're asking for is going to do.
------
EGreg
Translation: not enough money to hire four peopls.
------
leke
I would love have an example of how they use a chunk of your salary on making
your day-to-day life at work better...
> We’re more likely to spend less money on salary and invest that on making
> your day-to-day life at work better.
------
artumi-richard
It looks like they want someone clever, but they won't be getting clever
people with expectations like that. Unless desperate.
~~~
polymatter
or a liar
------
russfrank
This sounds awful.
~~~
Xdes
After I finished reading that the only thing I could think is the next guy is
gonna burn out fast.
------
deleted_account
This thread is full of 9-5 crybabies. I've interviewed at so many places where
all these requirements are implied, but never spelled out. At least PA isn't
coy about who they want to hire.
~~~
tptacek
I think I'm going to stick "9-5 Crybabies" in the "who we're looking for"
section of my next job ad. Thanks!
~~~
deleted_account
Be sure to add in "Bed-wetters need not apply" or else you'll be sifting
through a mountain of resumes.
~~~
deleted_account
HN has no sense of humor.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Know Your User Feedback Tools - matt_lo
https://getchipbot.com/blog/stop-guessing-know-your-user-feedback-tools-now
======
brutal-ux-me
This is the funniest post I’ve read all day, the way it sarcastically promotes
things that drive users nuts had me cracking up. Good one. The kicker was when
trying to read and a pop up jumped in asking me to sign up and then near the
end the final floating icons at the bottom, genius.
------
dylz
direct linking to `google.com/search?q=intercom+bad+experiences` is kind of
... very crude
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Bitcoin the Future of Money? - chrismealy
http://www.thenation.com/article/179620/bitcoin-future-money?page=full
======
rtb
Betteridge's law of headlines would seem to apply.
~~~
ericb
You should read my new article, "Is Betteridge's law true?"
------
jrockway
It's the current of having-your-money-stolen, so there's that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Plus hangout easter egg: moustache yourself - ianstormtaylor
http://plus.google.com/
======
ianstormtaylor
1\. Start a hangout 2\. Click "Moustache" 3\. Prank your friends
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Companies of the future: No CEO, no boss, managed by blockchain - ivorium
https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/23/companies-of-the-future-no-ceo-no-boss-managed-by-blockchain/?utm_content=bufferb6e1e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
======
infinii
The concept of a DAO is too simplistic when presented in all these examples.
An organization has multiple levels and on each level there are many decisions
being made constantly. Some escalate up, some don't. You cannot just expect
that each decision within an organization will be decided via a DAO's
shareholder voting mechanism because what will ultimately happen is, there are
so many actions to vote on, shareholders will ignore most. If there were 100
shareholders, 2 voted yes, 1 voted no and 97 didn't vote. Do you proceed? This
is why a board exists, to represent the interests of shareholders. How much
work do you think would get done if you needed to prioritize things with a
large body of shareholders on a regular basis?
~~~
hossbeast
What about a variant which employs representative democracy? Shareholders vote
for members to serve on a decision making board.
~~~
danmaz74
And then the board selects a CEO to run the day-to-day operations... and we're
back to the current system.
------
danmaz74
I don't see anything in this idea that can't be done without a blockchain. As
a matter of fact, organizations based on the same principles have existed for
(at least) a couple hundred years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative)
~~~
open_bear
Paraphrasing Sheldon fron "The Big Bang Theory": "Everything is better with
blockchain".
------
dammitcoetzee
Ya'll need to go outside.
------
6nf
They talk about members voting on external contractors. This is not really a
new concept and it's basically how governments work too. And we know stuff
like this is still susceptible to curruption and bribery. The difference is
that with a DAO there's nobody to take responsibility, so these problems will
be amplified. I don't really think it will work in general. There may be some
narrow, specific things that this will work for but it can't replace actual
corporations.
------
nosuchthing
This documentary "Machines of Loving Grace" immediately comes to mind;
[https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-
lov...](https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-
grace/)
Part one explores the myth that rose up in the 1990s that
computers could create a new kind of stable world: They
would bring about a new kind global capitalism purportedly
free of risk and failure, without the boom and bust of the
past, would abolish centralised political power, and
create a new kind of democracy mediated by technology and
the Internet, where millions of people would be connected
as nodes in cybernetic systems without hierarchy. This
film explores how this myth came to be by following two
groups that converged on the ideas. One is the small group
of disciples around the novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s who
saw themselves as a prototype for a future society where
everyone could follow their own selfish desires and that
would somehow create a stable and equitable society. The
other is the digital entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, many
of whom were also disciples of Ayn Rand, that espoused
grand visions of global utopia to be delivered by their
technology. They believed that new computer networks would
allow the creation of a society where everyone would also
follow their own self-interest but that would similarly
somehow miraculously bringing a stable and equitable
society too. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who had
also been a disciple of Ayn Rand, who became convinced
that the computers were creating a new kind of “stable
capitalism.”
~~~
provost
I haven't read the works of Ayn Rand, but this quote makes her sound like a
cult leader.
Does the author of this documentary have a bit of a disdain for her, or is he
merely saying that her readers/followers are misguided in some way?
~~~
spiralx
> I haven't read the works of Ayn Rand, but this quote makes her sound like a
> cult leader.
Ayn Rand was very much like a cult leader if you read all about her and her
followers, known as "The Collective".
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/09/possessed-3](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/11/09/possessed-3)
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085E7E3E](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0085E7E3E)
------
mrtschndr
Whether the technology can be molded in a way to address the need to make
hundreds of "votes" or decisions a day I think is inevitable and it will
happen.
I think what this author gets wrong is that a great boss is as _amazing_ as a
bad boss is shitty. People ultimately want to be led, they want to learn and
be inspired. I don't seen an etheruem smart contract inspiring humanity on its
own.
~~~
rsj_hn
As usual, this is a solution in search of a problem. It adds a lot of
complexity to re-implement solved problems in expensive ways, while not
addressing the very real unsolved problems of corporate governance, none of
which involve a lack of technology to record/tally votes.
Look at Enron, for example, setting up fake trading floors, or lying to
investors. What happens inside organizations is opaque. This is a fundamental
characteristic of public corporations because if shareholders got full
transparency, then a rival business could purchase 1 share of stock, or have
an agent purchase 1 share of stock, and then they would know everything
happening inside of their competitor. A vendor could purchase 1 share of
stock, and gain access to competitive pricing information, etc. So
corporations are necessarily secretive. They embargo information, and they
don't provide a lot of specifics. They give only roll up summaries to public
investors and don't release enough information for investors to verify that
the summaries are correct.
None of that will change at all with blockchain. This isn't a technological
problem, where we don't have a way of correctly tallying votes, or we lack
mechanisms of sharing information with investors, so thank God blockchain came
along so we'd know how to hold elections.
As long as anyone can dispose or acquire a share in the open market,
corporations are going to withhold most of the details from shareholders.
It doesn't matter what protocols the shareholders are going to use to reach
agreement or count votes. They will never have enough visibility into the
workings of the corporation in order to be able to enforce this type of
micromanagement.
Going back to actually addressing the problem -- the current state of the art
is to have third party auditor verify the roll up summary statements. This
auditor is necessarily bound to secrecy -- e.g. they cannot disclose to
shareholders the proprietary information that went into verifying the
summaries. The state of the art is to trust these auditors and to have
penalties for making misleading statements. However these audits are
necessarily a manual and expensive process, as they require judgement to
classify millions of transactions into known categories which then roll up to
income and balance sheet statements. How would blockchain help here? The
transaction is secret, and without the appropriate contextual information, we
don't know how to classify it. Is this working capital, should that be booked
as revenue for this quarter, should we do a Goodwill write off, etc? But if
shareholders can't be trusted with enough contextual information to adjudicate
even these types of classification problems, how are they going to adjudicate
the hundreds of thousands of smaller decisions that happen every day in a
firm? On the other hand, if we are relying on third party auditors, then what
do we need the blockchain for?
------
lifeisstillgood
I don't get the revolution to the n'th degree thing. Companies in the modern
world are ripe for really deep chnage (weird oasis of top down dictatorships
in a democratic society, centrally planned economies trying to espouse free
market thinking)
Ronald Coase' theory of the firm tells us as organising anything gets easier
firm sizes will shrink - and the Internet _should_ make organising anything
easier - the blockchain being a great low cost such technology.
But - why the total war approach. Why "no leader, no management, totally
decentralised". I think we shall see "Programmable companies" arise but this
extreme article just seems silly - we will get revolutionary improvements - be
happy and be prepared don't moan it's not enough.
~~~
mc32
It's an exercise in thought and hive management. Will it work? Who knows.
My concern is that while humans can be terrible managers, an automated system
that has no checks (depending on how it's set up) could end up being worse if
it does not take into account dealing with unforeseen challenges and
repercussions if it's dissociated from people.
~~~
NotUsingLinux
The point is I guess humans can only do so much, and the question now with a
DAO is: Can we create Code/Algorithm than can align more people, "better" than
a human manager could do?
Even if code only allows for "better" cooperation in some narrow dimensions,
if these are important to the participants, this system will win.
DAOs are about scaling human collaboration.
It's not completely AI, but a way to understand ourselves in great masses
better than we are able to to by ourselves.
Think about that.
------
kapauldo
The blockchain is the new vr. It's only good for a few things but now people
are dreaming up and investing in unrealistic uses for it.
~~~
libertine
What is going on?!
Why do they pick the bad examples to serve as the argument for what they are
trying to shove down our throats?
What about the Good Boss? The person you look up to, the holder of the company
vision, the one that motivates you - even without talking to you? Someone
who's there, simply put.
Are they so disconnected from reality that they forget we're talking about
people here? Do they think people would want to work for an organization
without a head, who's directives trickle down from a blockchain decision in a
memo on their email boxes?
There are plenty of examples where the board had no clue what they are talking
about, because there's only that much that can be carried on a report.
This is ridiculous.
------
Animats
This is like trying to run a business by having everything done on TaskRabbit
or Upwork.
------
eigenrick
I know the depiction of DAO in this article is rather simplistic, but, wow.
The main thing it says to me is that the contractor of the future has to be
adept at marketing and communicating to an audience of shareholders in the
company, as well as doing their job.
I would guess that most contractors wouldn't make the grade according to
investors. After a few rounds of abject failures, I would reckon that the
investors would come up with a scheme where they hire someone to intermediate
for them.. someone who could better speak the contractors' language in order
to deliver requirements. While they're at it, this person could also manage
the schedule. Such a scheme would make it so the technician would only have to
communicate to one person instead of a large group.
Eventually this intermediator would get so busy that they'd no longer have the
time or energy to communicate with this army of people, so they'd have to hire
someone else to do it for them...
------
itaris
Isn't this basically anarcho-syndicalism?
~~~
c0nducktr
But with a higher carbon footprint
------
achow
Another thing I'm having hard time visualizing is how would innovation work or
how to avoid 'design by committee', we have hard time as it is now to avoid
new thinking not getting side swiped by legacy thinking in an organization.
~~~
choxi
A good place to start would be understanding the holocracy model and why it
hasn't become more mainstream yet. Companies like Valve and Medium have
experimented with flat organizations to varying degrees of success (I believe
Medium ended their holacracy experiment in favor of a more traditional org
structure).
Personally, I believe decentralized organizations will look more like small
markets than companies. You could almost argue that a completely flat
organization _is_ a market. What's the difference between a completely
decentralized Uber and a "ridesharing market" of drivers and riders whose
logistics, contracts, and payments are handled by a blockchain instead of
people?
~~~
achow
Thanks for the pointer.
Good example for Holocracy would be Zappos. Interesting read on their
experience around it..
HOW A RADICAL SHIFT LEFT ZAPPOS REELING. [http://fortune.com/zappos-tony-
hsieh-holacracy/](http://fortune.com/zappos-tony-hsieh-holacracy/)
Excerpts:
Employees were shocked and frustrated by the numerous mandates, the endless
meetings, and the confusion about who did what.
Holacracy created new winners and losers—and it sparked fresh ideas. With
experience and expertise de-emphasized, less “typical” and more junior types
have been able to succeed. Introverts have benefited from the expectation that
everybody speak in meetings.
Holacracy also lacks some crucial elements, such as a compensation process.
The system doesn’t value seniority or the size of your budget. There are no
formal performance evaluations. How, then, do you calculate how much to a pay
a person, and for that matter, who makes the decision?
Holacracy’s value remains far from proven. Its creator, Robertson, says the
process takes five to 10 years to be fully integrated—an eon in business.
Some 300 companies use his system—Zappos is easily the largest—and there have
been failures. In early March, content site Medium announced it was abandoning
it. Bud Caddell, a consultant who has studied self-management systems, says
his former firm, Undercurrent, tried it without success. “I found it extremely
dogmatic and rigid and overly complex, and it took attention away from our
customers,” Caddell says.
------
tobbe2064
"Boss" a weird way to spell employment
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft working on porting Sysinternals to Linux - LinuxBender
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-working-on-porting-sysinternals-to-linux/
======
tellarin
Discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18378332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18378332)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BP Knew of Deepwater Horizon Problems 11 Months Ago - prosa
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30rig.html?pagewanted=all
======
seldo
This article was posted (and extensively discussed) yesterday in the comments
on the other Deepwater Horizon story:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1389647>
The WSJ also has a lot more detail on how the rig was being run prior to the
accident:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870402620457526...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html)
------
jared314
All of this is hindsight. Every piece of equipment has "problems". It is just
a matter of how many failures happen at once. A bit like airliners.
~~~
jameskilton
A valid point, but I would hesitate to agree with this until someone can put
together the numbers of how many rigs fall under this "it's a problem, but
it's not a risk so go ahead anyway"
In terms of the Horizon, the reports I'm hearing basically state that _every
single major safety device_ on the well fit this category.
~~~
ars
I have a few numbers. Almost 1 billion wells have been drilled, and about
100,000 offshore wells.
~~~
anigbrowl
I saw you mention this yesterday. Can you cite your source for this? I find it
a little hard to believe there is (or has been) one oil well drilled for every
~6 people on earth.
~~~
ars
Thank you for challenging me, because while in my head I thought "million", I
wrote down "billion", and I feel like an idiot for doing that.
~~~
anigbrowl
No problem :-)
------
ck2
Just wait until their deepwater Atlantis fails, it will make the Horizon
failure look like a puddle.
[http://www.propublica.org/article/whistleblower-sues-to-
stop...](http://www.propublica.org/article/whistleblower-sues-to-stop-
atlantis-bp-rig-from-operating)
Half of it's critical systems that were installed were not reviewed or tested.
------
retube
I posted this yesterday, but it didn't get picked up on. It appears that the
Niger Delta experience a Deepwater Horizon every single year....
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390246>
Direct link: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-
niger...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-
niger-delta-shell)
------
binspace
I just hope for all of our sakes that this is the final nail in the coffin of
industry self-regulation. It does not work when it is against your interests
to be safe; after all, we love to take risks.
I also hope that America begins to realize that large corporations rarely have
the interests of the population in mind. There needs to be checks and balances
here.
~~~
waterlesscloud
Excellent. So let's talk about regulating all these dot com companies...
~~~
silentOpen
Name a dot-com with $1bn+ in liability and we can talk about regulating it.
~~~
waterlesscloud
I see. It's all those _other_ people that need to be regulated. Got it.
~~~
Vivtek
This is a pretty straw-mannish argument. It's clear to me that if a company is
big enough that its irresponsible actions can cause this much harm, it should
be regulated. (I note you haven't actually named a dot-com with more than a
billion in liability.)
_Capitalism is not a suicide pact._
~~~
waterlesscloud
I see nothing here that explains why dot coms should not be regulated.
~~~
Vivtek
I see you've shifted your argument. What happened to "Right, just the _other_
guys should be regulated?"
I'm not sure what's not clear about the notion that large risk should be
regulated. If a company is capable, due to size or what have you, of harming a
large number of people due to malice or incompetence on the part of its
corporate governance, then sanity demands it should be regulated.
However, small companies should be regulated as little as possible. I mean,
assuming you want a working economy. I'm not sure you do - actually, I'm not
sure _what_ you want, but from the standpoint of pattern recognition of your
strawman attacks, I'd assume you want to regulate _all_ business as little as
possible.
Where I suspect we differ is the degree of "possible".
In my opinion, any business that can destroy hundreds of miles of coastline
for other people while still having a banner profit year? Yeah, that should
probably be regulated, since the Invisible Hand ain't gonna do it. Look up the
Tragedy of the Commons sometime; you might find it instructive. (Or perhaps
not. It's hard to tell how honestly you're approaching this.)
~~~
waterlesscloud
There's no shifting here. It's the same topic.
The original subject was that large corporations can't be trusted to regulate
themselves. But of course that's exactly what we're doing with the large dot
coms. They're minimally regulated, certainly in comparison with the oil
industry, which is in fact highly regulated.
Why do we trust large dot coms to regulate themselves? Because we think their
leadership is somehow more trustworthy? Are they just naturally better people?
On what basis do we make that judgement?
If Apple or Amazon or Facebook or Microsoft or Google had malicious, greedy,
or incompetent leadership do you not believe they could cause massive harm?
Sure, it wouldn't make ugly pictures on tv (or would it? I can imagine ways in
which it could), but that doesn't mean the potential damage is any less real.
Why do we trust them to regulate themselves?
If you trust present leadership, what about the next generation, those that
are just MBAs from the same schools that turned out the leadership of BP,
Shell, and Exxon?
So, again, why do we think they shouldn't be regulated?
~~~
Vivtek
Ah. "Large" dot-coms. Well, I think your intuition tells you that "large" dot-
coms are also capable of incurring public liability that is not held in check
by their nominal liability. I'd argue that it's improbable that Apple or
Google could do damage to the public on quite the scale that BP or Goldman-
Sachs or Enron managed, but you could well be right.
But I think you really need to think about regulating _risk_ , not classes of
company - except insofar as classes of companies are in fact associated with
certain categories of risk. Apple will not be causing a vast oil spill.
Microsoft - well, Microsoft _might_ be capable of destroying the global
financial markets, but probably not as directly as AIG.
I consider the category of "dot-com" to be entirely orthogonal to this
question. It's the risk, not the company. And moreover, it's instances where
the risk to the public is far larger than the risk (or cost) to the company in
the worst case. That's where regulation has to adjust the balance.
For instance, Google could accidentally deny email to about 176 million people
at once, and that could arguably cause some damage. They could choose to stop
offering free email with no notice. You could argue that this would cause them
enough ill will that they wouldn't do it - but that argument clearly doesn't
work for BP or the financial giants. So you might have an argument there.
~~~
waterlesscloud
It's almost in the definition of a dot-com, large and small, that the impact
of any particular action they take is greater than the cost of that action to
the company. That's why tech startups are so appealing.
But if you have such leveraged benefits, you also have such leveraged risk.
The same leverage that lets a small team create great value also puts them in
a position where they can cause great harm.
I used large dot coms because there was some insistence in the thread that
regulation was only worth talking about with large companies. A red herring,
of course, since the mom and pop corner dry cleaner is a regulated business,
and for the common good. Size isn't really an issue.
The difference is that it's almost a tautology that dot coms have influence,
good and bad, far out of proportion to their size...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scientists Send Text Message Using Vodka - dylandrop
http://www.voanews.com/content/scientists-send-text-message-using-vodka/1813783.html
======
pavel_lishin
A rather linkbaity headline; I send text messages using vodka pretty often,
and then I have to check to see what exactly I said in the morning.
Interesting, though. Seems like a series of breezes could seriously impact the
communication, though, making the whole robots-in-the-sewer system not work
quite so well.
~~~
stirno
MITM issues are far more uhh... interesting ... as well.
~~~
undoware
"Bob sends Alice his scent. Mallory intercepts the smell, pretending to be
Alice to Bob and Bob to Alice."
Ahem.
------
ColinWright
Other submissions of this story, although none have any discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6945800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6945800)
(theverge.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948140)
(extremetech.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6943036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6943036)
(laptopmag.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942179)
(sciencedaily.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939145)
(plosone.org)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939133)
(scienceagogo.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6935903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6935903)
(arstechnica.com)
~~~
archgoon
The actual study, which you have buried in that list of links, is actually
quite nice.
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0082935)
They achieved about .3 bits per second.
Components needed to replicate:
* DuroBlast Electronic Spray
* Arduino: [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11021](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11021)
Alcohol Sensors:
* MQ-303a : [http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/alcohol-sensor-mq303a-p-549...](http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/alcohol-sensor-mq303a-p-549.html)
* MQ-3 : [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8880](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8880)
* MR513 : [http://www.cooking-hacks.com/mr513-alcohol-high-accuracy](http://www.cooking-hacks.com/mr513-alcohol-high-accuracy)
So their setup is probably about $100
------
plg
I would be more interested if they sent vodka using text message
------
gmaslov
Text messages are only the relatively boring first step in this kind of
project. If these guys go on to implement IP/Vodka they can proudly follow in
the footsteps of such hacks as RFC 1149 :-) "The network smells a little slow
today"
------
shurcooL
Pretty neat that I know the people in this article personally.
------
downer87
So what's the baud rate?
I might guess something like one bit, every 10 seconds?
~~~
robotfelix
Given huge number of possible molecules and the relatively slow nature of
wafting them around the room, I suspect they plan to pack a lot more that 1
bit of information in each molecule!
------
devb
Sounds like they're shooting for an Ig Nobel prize.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners)
------
singular
I think it's worth exploring non-standard means of establishing networks no
matter how ostensibly silly as they can come in extremely useful when e.g.
governments try to restrict internet access in oppressive countries or natural
disasters occur, etc.
Though I'm not sure if this particular example is of much use ;-)
------
drakaal
I think the Native Americans did the same thing with smoke. "Smoke" for 1, "no
smoke" for zero. And they went way further than across the room.
~~~
Houshalter
Sort of, but they didn't smell the smoke signal, just look at it. It's cool
that we can automate it too.
~~~
drakaal
Point a camera at the place where the smoke pit would be. Poof! Automation.
As to smell, that was a stupid way to do it.
We can detect levels of lots of different things. Instead of 1 or 0 over time
it would have made a lot more sense to say Ok, I need to be able to encode 140
characters with 37 choices (alpha-numeric + Space).
There is a humidity sensor, a Carbon monoxide sensor, an oxygen sensor, and a
Carbon dioxide sensor. All are really cheap.
If you a tube and 37 levels that you release water, carbon monoxide, oxygen,
and carbon dioxide to. You now have the ability to send. 4 characters at a
time. Since alcohol sensors are cheap, we can use that for "parity" so we know
that the message was sent correctly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry - tinkerteller
https://twitter.com/morganknutson/status/1049523067506966529?s
======
DyslexicAtheist
dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217912)
which is dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212682)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Happy 25th Birthday ".COM" - kvs
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=132515
======
kvs
How old is your oldest (current) domain?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Window manager for multiple projects recommendations? - eorge_g
Is there a product that organizes terminal, browser, FTP client, finder, etc. sessions and organizes them by project? I'm a freelance dev who is working on a project 4 hours in the morning, then switch to something in the afternoon, only to have the re-initialize everything from the morning project to put out a fire.<p>Any existing tools or tips welcome!
======
grafelic
A tiling window manager like dwm, XMonad or i3 could be configured to do what
you want. For example in XMonad if you set the title of your terminal windows
to a project name you can sort the windows by project workspaces using
ManageHook.
myManageHook = composeAll [ className =? "URxvt" <&&> title =? "<project-
name>" \--> doShift "<project-workspace>" ...
[https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tip...](https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tips#ManageHook_examples)
[http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad/XMonad-
ManageHook.html](http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad/XMonad-ManageHook.html)
You can check windows with xprop, and filter by strings as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN:Best Thank You ECard for iPhone – Say Thank You with a Picture - alexgan
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thank-you-cards-maker-photo/id921205186?ls=1&mt=8
======
opless
Missing [Show HN:] prefix.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook passes Google sites in total user minutes - aspir
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129762892
======
beaumartinez
I'm not surprised; Google is an information intermediary (you go there to find
something else) whereas Facebook is information (you go there to find out
about your friends).
~~~
sullichin
Yeah - no real reason to be on Google for more than a few seconds at a time.
Plus, facebook encourages you to keep your browser window open (persistent
chat, live feed updates etc).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What do Stanford CS PhD students think of their PhD program? [pdf] - suuser
https://archive.org/download/phd_student_survey_summary_report_0a5c/phd_student_survey_summary_report_0a5c.pdf
======
wallflower
Philip Guo's "The Ph.D Grind: A Ph.D Student Memoir" is an amazingly well-
written and sage chronicle of getting a Ph.D at Stanford from 2006-2012.
[http://www.pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-
grind.pdf](http://www.pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir/pguo-PhD-grind.pdf)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179982](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179982)
~~~
pgbovine
thanks! AMA.
(no guarantees that i'll be able to answer via text, though; maybe i'll make a
video later. been trying to minimize my computering time off-hours due to
increasing wrist pains ... PSA: take care of your wrists, everyone!)
~~~
hackpert
Thanks so much for writing this memoir! It is absolutely brilliant.
Considering you had a somewhat unconventional PhD with your independent
projects, what was the main role of your advisor? How do you make the most of
such a situation to extract knowledge out of professors who may not have an
incentive to be directly involved in your project to the usual degree?
~~~
pgbovine
thanks! that's a hard problem! i frame it in terms of critical path:
[http://pgbovine.net/critical-path.htm](http://pgbovine.net/critical-path.htm)
if you can't get on someone's critical path, then you have to make it very
easy for them to help you with very little time commitment. e.g.,:
[http://pgbovine.net/how-to-ask-for-help.htm](http://pgbovine.net/how-to-ask-
for-help.htm)
~~~
hackpert
That makes a lot of sense, thanks!
------
asafira
I was grad council president at that Harvard physics department a couple of
years ago, and I helped organize a similar survey.
My first impression here is that things aren't too bad. Some people are
commenting, for example, about projectors not having enough cables ---
obviously a nuisance, but if those are the issues the department is having,
great. (Obvious, easy solution and a relatively small problem to begin with)
Second, I don't really think this is a particularly comprehensive survey. I'm
surprised there weren't more pointed questions about job intentions (academia
vs industry vs not sure), feeling respected by those around you, the
prevalence and (separately) severity of the racism, sexism, and general
harassment, etc. Not a single question about teaching, nor a question about
actions they'd like to see taken. Relatively few culture questions outside of
"do you feel like a community" (something like that).
At Harvard physics, there were more pressing concerns regarding sexism,
racism, the quality of the required courses, and professional development. The
department did reciprocate and make great changes to the required courses, but
deeper biases make the other categories much more difficult to tackle.
I have been helping a lot of students deal with considering industry, as in a
physics department it's looked down upon to just be considering industry, let
alone pursue it. Or, even if not explicitly looked down upon, it's definitely
the culture and general feel, and many students and postdocs prefer to discuss
it in private. (I did an internship at Waymo last summer, so people are
especially keen on asking me about transitioning to industry)
The survey results are unfortunately not public, so I can't share them. Kudos
to the group of students or administrators that put together this data! I'd
love to hear what they learned from it and changed as a result of it.
------
ordinaryperson
This doesn't answer the question I fundamentally want to know: do they think
it was worth it?
In my CS master's programs profs often warned against the PhD, said companies
wouldn't hire you, that they'd view you as "too smart" and potentially be
bored by everyday work.
Not true for certain disciplines (AI, e.g.) but I don't think every CS PhD is
walking out the door with 300K/year offers hitting them in the face.
~~~
throwaway080383
I don't think Google has ever turned away an applicant for being "too smart".
That being said, five years in a PhD is probably not as good for your career
as five years' experience at $BigNameTech. PhD is probably more fun, though.
~~~
tranchms
I have many friends in PhD programs, including CalTech, Stanford, and
Berkeley, pursuing CS, Genetics, Biomededical Engineering, and EE.
To characterize their program is “fun” is a gross mischaracterization, and
demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of the rigors involved in any
technical/science/engineering PhD pursuit.
PhD programs are hard. They’re often lonely. They’re frustrating. They’re
tedious. And there’s a tremendous amount of pressure. And it’s academia:
highly bureaucratic and political and often unfair.
Unless you possess a serious passion for the subject, you’re unlikely to
survive.
On the other hand, my friends getting the PhDs in subjects such as education
(Stanford) and conservation biology (Mississippi State) have described it as
the highlight of their life. After their first two years, they’re basically
getting paid to do whatever they want. They audit classes. Apply to grants.
Travel. And they write.
~~~
throwaway080383
The irony of this reply is that I did do a PhD, in pure math at a top 10
school, and while I might describe it as hard, lonely, frustrating, tedious,
and high pressure, I would also describe it as having been fun. Certainly more
fun than my current job at $BigNameTech.
Thanks for the lecture about my Serious Misunderstanding, though.
~~~
cglouch
Do you regret doing your PhD in math? Reason I ask is that I thought about
going to grad school for math but decided against it. It just seemed like it
would be postponing the inevitable of finding a job that had little to do with
my "passion". I definitely see the appeal of doing a PhD in a field with
better industry employment prospects (e.g. AI in CS if you're into that), but
less so for fields like pure math that aren't as employable outside of
academia. I'm curious if you felt the experience was worth it, though
~~~
tgb
I did a PhD in math and if I were to do things again, I'd do applied math
because I think I enjoy applied math at least as much as pure math (this is
_not_ true of everyone) while also having it have more obvious job prospects.
I did pure math in part because I was told it was easier to go pure->applied
than applied->pure. I still think that is true and was a not an unreasonable
way to choose what to study. I fundamentally had a very good time in my PhD (I
would absolutely describe it as fun, though that would only be part of the
picture) and learned a ton and now am transitioning to applied math in exactly
the manner that I had been told would be possible (though I feel like I did
this more by luck than by it being systematically possible).
------
henrik_w
I did a Master in CS, worked as a developer for 5 years, then went back to do
a Ph.D. I stayed with it for a year before deciding it was not for me, and
went back to SW development.
My key reasons for not continuing with the Ph.D.:
\- Many problems you study are chosen because you will be able to publish
something, not necessarily because they need to be studied.
\- You don’t need to be a (Ph.D.)student to learn - you can work and still
learn
\- A Ph.D. in itself doesn’t make you smart
\- Narrow problems vs broad problems - I prefer to work on something where all
parts need to be good enough, vs on finding the best possible solution to a
very narrow problem.
\- Having worked before starting the Ph.D., I could compare working in
industry vs studying for a Ph.D., and I realized it was very stimulating in
industry.
\- Much better pay for 5 years
I've written more on why here: [https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-
professional-prog...](https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-
programmer/)
~~~
ordinaryperson
This is exactly what I wanted to know, thanks.
As someone with a CS master's I almost wish there was an alternate PhD path
where you didn't have to do research, like a Masters++ program. There were
many classes I never got to take for my degree, like in category theory or AI
or distributed databases.
Some of the PhDs in this thread have said they tried $BigTechCo and found it
boring, but to me that just means you were working at the wrong company or on
the wrong project.
I feel like my master's equipped me to be able to read and study theoretical
computer science at a high level, that the PhD program would be a strain on me
and my family without much reward.
Although I do daydream about being independently wealthy and getting a
master's in mathematics just for fun
~~~
henrik_w
Thanks! I had (and have) the same feeling of missing some classes. That's why
I was very happy when MOOCs appeared a few years ago. I've taken several
courses there, for example on algorithms, databases and SW security. I've
reviewed the courses on my blog:
[https://henrikwarne.com/tag/coursera/](https://henrikwarne.com/tag/coursera/)
and [https://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-
databases...](https://henrikwarne.com/2011/12/18/introduction-to-databases-on-
line-learning-done-well/)
------
sjroot
I am still intrigued by the idea of a CS PHD but I stopped after my Master’s.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of finding an advisor you mesh well
with.
------
w8rbt
Hah, I actually used Klee doing a CS Masters at Georgia Tech. Small world.
[https://klee.github.io/publications/](https://klee.github.io/publications/)
Edit: And most of the bugs seem to be gone now ;)
~~~
sus_007
Is Klee something like LaTeX ? What is it actually ?
~~~
Cyph0n
No, it looks like a symbolic execution-based software testing framework. Here
is a link to the paper that started the project:
[http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-12-OSDI-
KLEE.html](http://llvm.org/pubs/2008-12-OSDI-KLEE.html).
------
hqian
Noticed the year 2015 has several unique distributions. Curious what the
insights are.
~~~
majos
CS PhD student (not at Stanford) here. Based on the survey timing, 2015
respondents were in their 3rd year when answering this survey. I have
personally heard and read that 3rd year is a hard year for many PhD students
(and the experiences of my peers and I largely bear this out), so the
dissatisfaction here tracks with that idea.
There are many possible explanations:
1\. Most people have their master's degree by third year. There's a sense of
"if you're going to drop out, now is the time to do it." If you're miserable
in your program but hate quitting stuff, third year might be the year that
finally breaks you.
2\. Coursework is largely over by 3rd year, and a student should be doing
research close to full time. This can be a hard transition. Granted, most
Stanford students probably have substantial research experience coming in, but
even that is not the same as doing (often very unstructured) research all day
every day.
3\. The "honeymoon" is over. You're no longer a young student, and pressure is
growing to publish, know your area, network, and so on. At the same time
you're still quite junior, so you know you're probably not very good at any of
these things yet. This can be a frustrating combination. Kind of like
adolescence. Also, if you've been unlucky with conference reviewing, you may
have a stack of 2-4 papers that have been rejected at least once or twice, and
you despair of ever doing anything externally recognized as useful. In the
other direction, some of your peers now have half a dozen accepted papers at
good conferences, and you feel inferior (never mind that these are small
sample sizes, and peer review is noisy).
So some self-selection occurs in the third year, and the group that sticks
around to year four is usually smaller and happier (and, of course, some
happier fourth years used to be miserable third years).
~~~
hqian
Thanks! This is definitely making sense to me. I'll bookmark this and hope
they do another survey next year (and share). Looking forward to the
comparison of year 2016 next year.
------
andrewl
I recently emailed somebody a few quotes from Freeman Dyson on the PhD system,
which I include below. I can track down the sources when I'm back in my
office, although anybody can find them easily enough. Dyson is not obscure.
“I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system is an
abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German professors in
the 19th century, and it works well under those conditions. It’s good for a
very small number of people who are going to spend their lives being
professors. But it has become now a kind of union card that you have to have
in order to have a job, whether it’s being a professor or other things, and
it’s quite inappropriate for that. It forces people to waste years and years
of their lives sort of pretending to do research for which they’re not at all
well-suited. In the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re
qualified, but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long
and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a great
tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success at all.”
From a different interview:
“Well, I think it actually is very destructive. I'm now retired, but when I
was a professor here [Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton], my real job
was to be a psychiatric nurse. There were all these young people who came to
the institute, and my job was to be there so they could cry on my shoulder and
tell me what a hard time they were having. And it was a very tough situation
for these young people. They come here. They have one or two years and they're
supposed to do something brilliant. They're under terrible pressure — not from
us, but from them.
So, actually, I've had three of them who I would say were just casualties who
I'm responsible for. One of them killed himself, and two of them ended up in
mental institutions. And I should've been able to take care of them, but I
didn't. I blame the Ph.D. system for these tragedies. And it really does
destroy people. If they weren't under that kind of pressure, they could all
have been happy people doing useful stuff. Anyhow, so that's my diatribe. But
I really have seen that happen.
And also, of course, it wastes a tremendous amount of time — especially for
women, it's particularly badly timed.
If they're doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or
finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time — between the ages of 25
to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives.
And I see the difference in the business world. My daughter happens to be a
businesswoman, so I meet a lot of her young friends.
The life there is so much easier for women. They start a company when they're
20; they go bust when they're 22. [Laughs] Meanwhile, they have a kid, and
nobody condemns them for going bust. If you're in the business world, that's
what's expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So
it's a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It's also competitive, but not in
such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more
destructive of young people.
[The Ph.D. system] was designed for a job in academics. And it works really
well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite
well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as
scholars, it's fine. But the trouble is that it's become a kind of a meal
ticket — you can't get a job if you don't have a Ph.D. So all sorts of people
go into it who are quite unsuited to it. [...]
Anyway, so, I'm happy that I've raised six kids, and not one of them is a
Ph.D.”
~~~
a-dub
CS and engineering PhDs seem to fall into a kinda weird category of
"industrial" PhDs where it seems more people go in from the get-go with no
interest in staying in academia. I think some CS/engr programs actually have
built-in expectations of doing internships with industry, which seems _really_
backwards to me.
~~~
chrisseaton
> I think some CS/engr programs actually have built-in expectations of doing
> internships with industry, which seems really backwards to me
Why do you think this is backwards? Industry often has more resources for
research than academia does, so doing an industrial internship is usually a
way to supercharge your research and get better data and try more things.
How is that backwards?
------
acbart
I much prefer divergent stacked bar charts for likert/1-5 ratings, rather than
these side-by-side bar charts. It's really hard to compare the distributions.
Even a box plot would be better, I think.
------
Sreyanth
On a different note, it would be interesting to know how many respondents
opted for the eGift card for completing the survey. And if the responses
deviated a lot when the data is pivoted with that variable.
------
debbiedowner
Looking at the qual exam charts, and then looking at the qual requirements for
stanford cs online, I just think: "some people have all the luck"
------
crb002
Curious. Stanford sounds like it needs to bring in adjunct ML faculty from
industry to serve as academic advisors. Also their weed out "breadth" classes
sound dumb, most would hate the program.
------
namelezz
No racial profile but there is a section about racism in the CS Department.
LOL
~~~
dang
"Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets
more divisive."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Interesting fact on the right-hand side - babuskov
https://www.google.com/search?q=chuck+norris
======
babuskov
What's even more interesting is that the "fact" changes each time you load the
page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Useful tools and resources for web developers - BlackGecko
http://webpickings.com/
======
st3f4no
Great growing collection
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PeerTransfer Attracts Financing From Spark Capital - motvbi
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/peertransfer-announces-first-round-of-funding/?ref=technology
======
motvbi
Link peertransfer.com. Sounds promising.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coding Interview Solutions Manual - cism
http://interviewsolutionsmanual.com/
======
greenyoda
This is just an ad for a $20 e-book, posted by someone who created their HN ID
solely for this purpose.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Spacecraft for All: The Journey of the ISEE-3 - mightybrenden
http://spacecraftforall.com/comet-chase
======
joegaudet
I'd love to see something like this for NASA missions, Cassini, New Horizons,
The Voyagers.
Really cool visualization of the missions.
~~~
jsiarto
Not exactly the same--but NASA has a pretty cool dashboard for the Deep Space
Network:
[http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html](http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html)
------
hardwaresofton
This is insanely cool. Always impressed to see what people are doing in the
browser nowadays, this presentation is immersive, without being overbearing,
and informative. Transitions are smooth and purposeful, great work
------
dang
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=spacecraft+for+all#!/story/forever...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=spacecraft+for+all#!/story/forever/0/spacecraft%20for%20all)
------
FireBeyond
“A Spacecraft for All: A Website for Chrome."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unix turns 40: The past, present and future of a revolutionary OS - samueladam
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Operating+Systems&articleId=9133570&taxonomyId=89
======
jganetsk
"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." -Rob Pike, circa
1991
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Was the Flash Crash Apple's Fault? - drawkbox
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/apple-microsoft-flash-crash-market-capitalization/6/7/2010/id/28621?page=full
======
wglb
No. Bad headline, article confuses correlation and causation, not thoughtful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Saudi Arabia Sentences Poet to Death for Atheism - snowy
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/20/saudi-court-sentences-poet-to-death-for-renouncing-islam?CMP=share_btn_tw&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=*Morning%20Brief
======
greenyoda
See also this related article:
Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It (nytimes.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10603360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10603360)
------
stuaxo
The future is unevenly distributed, some places are still in the 14th
centuary.
To not be facetious - progress does not go in any one direction and if we
believe in enlightenment values we need to keep making the arguments.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bank Theives Foiled by GPS-Spiked Cash - yan
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/gps-spiked-cash/
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Same story: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1037097>
No comments so far ...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Can I Be as Great as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson? - weeber
http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Steve-Jobs-Elon-Musk-Richard-Branson/answer/Justine-Musk?srid=iAix&share=1#
======
byoung2
Determination, calculated risk-taking, a lot of hard work, a relentless
pursuit of greatness, and luck. Read the bios of anyone on the Forbes
billionaire list, or any top athlete, etc, and you'll see the same traits. For
example, Michael Jordan didn't make the varsity basketball team, so he trained
vigorously and became the star of the JV team to prove himself. Many others
probably gave up. The Forbes list is full of stories of people working from
poverty to billionaire status, and even losing everything and becoming
billionaires again. It is the willingness to do whatever it takes to be the
best when others give up that makes you great. Plus luck.
------
cymetica
Early beginnings, taking risks with their reputation where others won't
combined with unconventional thinking also has something to do with it:
Paypal, Reddit and The Power Of Fakin’ It - [http://platformed.info/seeding-
youtube-megaupload-paypal-red...](http://platformed.info/seeding-youtube-
megaupload-paypal-reddit/)
------
ChikkaChiChi
At the risk of sounding overly trite: think different. But honestly even that
is not enough.
The four titans listed here do not have as many similarities as an association
might imply. However, they all do(did) share the ability to see the status quo
and deem that things could be done better.
There are also many other qualities which are almost to impossible to
quantify. If they were, there would be more names on this list given the
billions of lives that have come before, during, and after them.
Thinking different is not enough. You have to become a force of nature in a
situation where you can affect real change; and that isn't something that can
be coached on a website.
------
gct
That's Elon Musk's wife in case no one noticed:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Musk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Musk)
~~~
nakedrobot2
(ex-wife)
------
JoePantoliano
Get a publicist.
------
jayvanguard
Be lucky.
------
VOYD
succumb to the greed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Teach a Child to Argue - ed
http://inpraiseofargument.squarespace.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/
======
ColinWright
There was significant discussion when this was submitted four years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=632518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=632518)
It includes both unalloyed praise and contemptuous criticism - interesting to
see the subject debated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VW Presentation in 2006 Showed How to Foil Emissions Tests - abhi3
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/business/international/vw-presentation-in-06-showed-how-to-foil-emissions-tests.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
======
mjfern
Yes, the defeat device VW employed for emissions is an environmental tragedy,
but this is just a symptom of a much more central issue. That is, VW was
actively promoting technical and business leaders that lacked any sort of
moral compass. How can we have faith in global corporations and their (grossly
overpaid) leaders if these are the choices they're making and the examples
they're setting?
~~~
colechristensen
The 'trust but verify' model of your morality was broken. If you give the
opportunity to cheat, there will be cheaters. The emissions tests were bad and
made it easy to cheat.
Providing an environment which makes cheating easy and profitable is just as
morally corrupt as the cheating itself, and entirely more predictable and
preventable.
Solve solvable problems like bad testing and not unsolvable problems like
unscrupulous businessmen.
~~~
acranox
"Providing an environment which makes cheating easy and profitable is just as
morally corrupt as the cheating itself"
No, it isn't. This is called victim blaming. It is like saying not locking
your door is as morally corrupt as the thieves that walked into your unlocked
house.
We create standards for emissions. And companies should comply with the tests
even without the need for tests. We expect people should follow the laws, and
we should use the minimal amount of enforcement to get compliance. But it's
silly to blame the epa for poor tests. The vault is with VW for selling cars
that didn't comply with emissions standards.
~~~
darawk
The fault lies with _both_ of them. It is VW's responsibility to be moral and
comply with laws. It is the EPA's responsibility to catch those who attempt to
cheat. They both failed, in easily preventable ways. They are both at fault.
VW's management should be jailed, and the EPA should probably be reprimanded
or have someone fired for letting this go uncaught for so long.
~~~
tmptmp
Then we can as well say that the whole general public of USA has failed.
Because it is their responsibility (indirectly and ultimately) to see that the
legal and enforcement machinery works as expected. Let's see how do they (the
general public) behave now. Do they push heavily for severe punishment for
these criminals (both individual leaders and companies) or not?
Or do they keep mum even if the leaders (like the recently resigned VW ceo)
who not only got scot-free but also were rewarded millions if not billions of
dollars ultimately for such crimes by the company and its shareholders?
~~~
pessimizer
Or we might as well say all humanity has failed, or God has failed, if we're
going to ignore people's job descriptions, and their direct connection and
responsibility for the design of all systems involved.
~~~
tmptmp
I am not saying we should ignore people's job descriptions; in fact, I was
responding to one comment in the thread that was trying to put equal blame on
the EPA too.
But I want to bring out an important aspect here: if the USA (mainly its
people) fail to punish VW and its criminal leaders (along with the
shareholders who backed, rewarded those leaders) in an exemplary manner, then
some people will keep on blaming its capitalist economy based democracy for
being too soft on "big and rich" while punishing severely only "poor people"
even for smaller scale crimes.
The VW leaders should be put behind bars for something like 30 years and its
big shareholders (the ones holding more 0.1% of its total shares, say) be
punished monetarily by legally declaring their shares to be void. If US cannot
do this because Germany wouldn't allow it to do so, then USA should ban the VW
and all the companies associated with VW or its parent companies to do any
business in US.
What has currently happened with VW in the name of punishment is pure farce.
Its shares are still trading at non-zero positive value. And its leaders
enjoying multi-million dollars in rewards for the criminal behavior. The
justice has become farce in this case.
>>Or we might as well say all humanity has failed, or God has failed,
Yes, you can say so. But at least now we don't have a world-wide single state.
As a god or gods (whether he, she, it or they (multiple gods)) are concerned,
we don't know for sure whether the things called gods exist or not, so saying
god failed doesn't get us much far.
~~~
oarsinsync
There are those that are directly responsible (manufacturers, regulators), and
those that are indirectly responsible (the people in a state, shareholders in
a company, humanity, God, etc).
The people don't get to vote on specific issues, they get to vote on
representation. The people representing them are directly responsible. Hold
the people directly responsible to account, remove and replace if ineffective.
~~~
tmptmp
>>Hold the people directly responsible to account, remove and replace if
ineffective.
And who is going to do "that"? and what if those who are responsible to do
"that" don't do that? Then who is going to hold 'those' people who didn't do
anything to hold those people responsible for the VW? I mean somewhere down
the line, the general public must become active and show that it is not
sleeping altogether, if that doesn't happen, well, society as a whole has to
pay its price, and this price generally is very big, it can be so big that
society may be crushed under its weight.
My point is let's see how USA deals with this VW crime and the other important
criminal called Saudi Arabia for its role in 9/11\. The government and
enforcement agencies have already shown that they won't punish them much. So
it remains to see if the general public holds them accountable or not.
~~~
PhantomGremlin
_So it remains to see if the general public holds them accountable or not._
That's not likely to happen. The American public is generally quite apathetic.
For example, one of the current leading candidates to become the next
president of the USA had the following good fortune a while ago[1]:
\- did not have any previous experience trading commodities futures
\- deposited less than $1000 in cash into a futures trading account
\- Made hundreds of trades. Each futures trade incurs a significant bid/ask
spread, much greater than stock trades. And yet: _Two-thirds of her trades
showed a profit by the end of the day she made them and 80 percent were
ultimately profitable. Many of her trades took place at or near the best
prices of the day._
\- cashed out for $100,000 nine months later
To me, that $100,000 was nothing more and nothing less than a bribe. And,
although corruption is endemic in many parts of the world, one would hope that
in the USA such obvious grift would unequivocally disqualify someone for the
office of the President.
But if you took a poll, probably 99% of the electorate wouldn't even be aware
of this little incident. And the majority probably wouldn't care.
So don't look for "the general public" to hold anyone accountable about
anything. That's no longer how this country works. Not in 2016, anyway.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_cattle_futures_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_cattle_futures_controversy)
~~~
tmptmp
Good post indeed.
>>So don't look for "the general public" to hold anyone accountable about
anything. That's no longer how this country works. Not in 2016, anyway.
It's sad. With all the "information age tools" at hand, we see that people are
just choosing to remain ignorant. Reminds me Huxley's brave new world [1]
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World)
------
Aelinsaar
This level of criminality requires some kind of response, or really, lets just
drop the idea of crime as a concept and just monetize "justice". At least we
could dispense with some of the more galling hypocrisy, without changing how
the system works one iota.
~~~
thrownaway2424
Indeed, one wonders why the government (of the US or of Germany) continues to
tolerate the existence of this company at all. They've clearly conspired at
the executive level to mislead regulators. The corporation is a figment of the
government's imagination. It seems like the government should just stop
imagining it.
~~~
slededit
If the US were to push too hard they are at risk of souring relations with
Germany. For Germany the problem is damaging their own economy. In a democracy
a recession is an existential threat to the current government. That's much
scarier than a company flouting emissions standards.
~~~
tajen
It's not about shutting down VW, it's about jailing one person, the CEO. Or,
if he proves he wasn't aware or wasn't in control of his company, the lower
level of management, recursively. It will lightly hamper VW, but provide a
personal responsibility baseline for all management in car companies. It's
mass, oragnized crime we're talking about here.
~~~
_pmf_
> Or, if he proves he wasn't aware or wasn't in control of his company
That's not how the burden of proof works. That said, would this case actually
be prosecuted seriously, they would find information relating to how he was
informed.
------
tonylemesmer
Its common for competing companies to test each other's products as a
benchmark for their own. So all of these companies will have known that other
companies were doing the same and no-one said anything. That's thousands of
people.
------
ZoeZoeBee
Those Germans, always meticulous in their record keeping. It amazes me what
people will upload to a server and communicate through email. If whistle-
blowing hadn't been as under attack as it is I'm certain a lot of other
companies would be found to have been knowingly violating laws in order to
squeeze additional profit.
------
edejong
When a company willingly and knowingly foils rules put in place to increase
lifespan and reduce the death toll of cancer due to air pollution, shouldn't
these top-executives be charged with mass murder? Why can't we compare this
with a war crime? Millions of healthy life-span-years could have been lost due
to these acts.
~~~
pkulak
Because most people make decisions with a bit of perspective. Trucks (I'm not
talking semis, really anything over 6000 pounds, I think) are still allowed
far more emissions than any VW diesel car, and anything built before the new
law went into place is still on the road doing it's carcinogenic thing.
Any car company is in the business of polluting the hell out of the
environment (save Tesla, unless you watch a lot of Fox News). VW polluted a
little bit more than they were allowed to for a few years and the executives
are "mass murderers"? That's a hell of a president.
~~~
Zigurd
The excess deaths can be calculated. So can the ill gotten gains. Why
shouldn't the management be made accountable for both?
~~~
nickff
It is very uncommon for people to be held criminally responsible for so-called
'statistical murder', which is actually quite common. The case has been made
that airbags have killed more people than they have saved; should the people
who wrote the airbag laws and regulations be put to death?
~~~
usaphp
While I disagree with the original comment - your airbags analogy does not
work here, airbags were not created to work around a law, there is a law on
emissions and vw deliberately built a workaround to "comply" with a law on
tests, but they knew that outside the test facility their cars would violate
that law.
------
w_t_payne
I feel that this is only the first of a series of scandals in which
respectable companies and institutions will be found to have done nefarious
and harmful things: attempting to secrete their misdeeds in the seemingly
impenetrable and arcane minutiae of everyday software.
------
yeureka
I bought a new car in March and I really wanted to get a VW.
But the behaviour of VW's executives in this matter completely put me off the
brand.
I feel sorry for the factory workers and the people who have nothing to do
with this, but it will take a while until I will trust VW again.
------
abhi3
It increasingly seems that the cheating at Volkswagon was systematic and not
the fault of rouge engineers as they claim.
~~~
dang
Please don't rewrite titles when the original is neither misleading nor
linkbait. This is a rule here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
The submitted title was "Volkswagen seriously made a PowerPoint deck on how to
cheat emissions tests". That's _more_ linkbait, which is driving the wrong way
down a one-way street.
~~~
stevesearer
It might be a good idea to link to or explain submission title rules on the
submit page as most new submitters probably won't go looking for the
Guidelines page. Many new users could be coming from forums or sites where
editorializing headlines it the norm and/or expected.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Online Anonymity Box Puts You a Mile Away from Your IP Address - ca98am79
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/online-anonymity-box-puts-mile-away-ip-address/?mbid=nl_070115
======
noonespecial
I'm sure there's plenty of use cases for this... but I personally can't think
of anything I can do online that would make the authorities more dangerous to
me than dropping of an antenna laden, home-made looking spy-box at my local
coffee joint.
------
ikeboy
Posted recently
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9811218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9811218)
------
jrcii
I'm not sure how this works, because 900 MHz is a ham band, the FCC forbids
encrypted communication over this frequency
~~~
ars
It is, but 900MHz is also used as the cordless phone band, and those are often
encrypted.
------
thoman23
Now you just need those face-morphing pills that Tom Cruise takes in Minority
Report to avoid being caught on video tape sneaking around your local public
library with some sort of transmogrifier-looking device.
~~~
spdub
Not quite the face-morphing pills you're looking for, but something to the
same effect [http://cvdazzle.com/](http://cvdazzle.com/)
------
siliconc0w
I'll stick with my motion-detector triggered thermite laced bitcoin bought
servers thank you very much.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“Return of the Obra Dinn” Development Log - mercer
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0
======
sp332
I know it's in giant letters across the top, but because of "banner blindness"
I missed the link to the preview build:
[https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg123810...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1238101#msg1238101)
It's short but it gives you a good idea of the main mechanic and the
aesthetic. Check out the settings menu to switch between multiple ways of
rendering the 1-bit graphics.
~~~
keyle
It was interesting, I missed a few things but highly recommend it for the
experience.
------
deepnet
When a lurking mathematician, Brent Werness, invents a sweet new type of
detail preserving dithering for Obra Dinn as a devlog comment.
[https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg121280...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1212805#msg1212805)
~~~
tehrei
Another interesting way of dithering would be
[http://johanneskopf.de/publications/blue_noise/](http://johanneskopf.de/publications/blue_noise/)
but that might take away from the sought aesthetics.
~~~
deepnet
The game's author Lucas Pope compares the new dithering with blue noise here :
[https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg121719...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1217196#msg1217196)
Visually Werness algorithm is the best, and Pope concludes: "What Werness
built is a hybrid between noise thresholding and progressive error
diffusion... he's turned the algorithm inside out - instead of spreading one
pixel's error to its neighbors, each pixel sucks up the error of its
neighbors... this affects a diffusion of the errors. "
------
sunkencity
big fan. just love this style / mac user since 1986.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Time-lapse: Package shipped with a hidden camera - morphics
http://flowingdata.com/2013/04/18/time-lapse-package-shipped-with-a-hidden-camera/
======
ColinWright
The original post, containing more details and more commentary, and by the
person who actually did it, is here:
<http://www.rubenvandervleuten.com/AtoB.html>
It was posted to HN here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5501262>
The result was the sound of crickets, which I think is a little sad, because
it was a great little project that I found intriguing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CakePHP Website Returning HTTP Error 502 - jasondrowley
Is anyone else having problems accessing the site?
======
adamjleonard
Time to learn a new framework! Down for me also
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Remember the Million Dollar Homepage? Here's a 3D Successor, Redone in WebGL - jumprite
https://www.milliondollarmetropolis.com/#
======
masonic
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jumprite](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jumprite)
~~~
jumprite
You got me :(. It doesn’t seem to be catching on just yet here. Going to add
more features and then consider reposting after some time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Stealth Spy Drone Already Flying Over Area 51 - electic
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/12/new-stealth-drone/
======
WestCoastJustin
As a side note: Aviation Week is an incredible magazine. Next time you are at
the magazine rack, be sure to check it out. Our office has a subscription and
it just blows me away what is happening in the aviation sector. They cover
everything, from jets, military, spy technology, to satellites.
------
zyztem
Aveation Leaks article is much more informative:
[http://www.aviationweek.com/Article/PrintArticle.aspx?id=/ar...](http://www.aviationweek.com/Article/PrintArticle.aspx?id=/article-
xml/awx_12_06_2013_p0-643783.xml&p=1&printView=true)
~~~
shutupalready
Yes, it is more informative. Does Wired just steal the content by adding the
words, _" according to Aviation Week and Space Technology"_, to their own
article. Or do they pay a fee to Aviation Week to license the content? If it's
the latter, why don't they just reprint the original and better article? Can
anyone familiar with the magazine business explain this?
------
Theodores
Sounds to me like this is the UAV follow-up to the U2 programme rather than
the SR-71. It almost certainly flies s-l-o-w-l-y as per a B2 rather than at
SR-71 insane-mega-speed. It has 24 hours or so of loiter time with no in-
flight refuelling.
Good luck with that, flying over the Crimea, with Russian S-400 missiles just
a few kilometres away. Imagine the consequences, anything up to full-on war
just because they shot down one of our drones.
~~~
eliteraspberrie
That's my impression too. The most basic air force can defend against drones,
let alone Russia's. Even this supposedly stealth drone is very obvious, from
behind. Any IRST system would detect it immediately.
~~~
nether
IR attenuates rapidly in the atmosphere and is only useful for very short
range detection (short range missiles, TV remotes, "laser" tag guns). The
artist's concept seems to show the standard flat exhaust intakes (first
employed on the F-117) which increase efflux "surface area" (versus a circle)
to promote mixing with ambient air. There might be pre-exhaust mixing too.
~~~
greedo
IRST systems are actually quite long ranged for detection, it's identification
that is more problematic. F-14D IRST systems were quite good at long range
detection, and those were much older legacy systems with nothing like today's
technology.
~~~
nether
Yeah, but still very limited by aspect angle to engine exhaust. Detection is
ok, tracking is poor unless very close or with LoS to the tailpipes. Anything
ground-based will almost never be able to stare directly at the aft end of an
aircraft except during egress (i.e. after it's done its job). What I'm getting
at is there are huge limitations to passive tracking of IR emissions,
otherwise we'd be using it instead of (active) radar.
~~~
greedo
An aircraft moving at near Mach speeds has a significant amount of friction
caused by air. It's not necessary for an IR system to be able to see the
exhaust of an aircraft. In fact, all aspect IR missiles have been around since
at least the AIM9L which was used in the Falklands War in 1982.
------
lwhalen
What I'm curious about is, what sort of advanced technology are our rivals and
'allies' flying over us? Is our air/surveillance superiority absolute, or do
they spy on us like we spy on them?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Commercial Drone Rules to Limit Their Weight, Speed and Altitude - nkrumm
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/15/386464188/commercial-drone-rules-to-limit-their-speed-and-altitude?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews
======
transfire
"relatively benign"? These restrictions are terrible. Either the policy makers
are being purposefully malign, or they have zero understanding of the progress
currently taking place in automated transport.
------
thomasfl
Why not limit the use of drones with weapons all together?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Walmart data Leaked by 5CR1PT K1DD135 - GeekTech
http://geektech.in/archives/1763
======
cjzhang
_In the leak file u will fine_
Really?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don't Be An Ass About Airport Security - Trey-Jackson
http://www.slate.com/id/2276166
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Dup from days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1974192>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Milton Friedman's Free To Choose - pinchyfingers
http://www.freetochoose.tv/
======
hebejebelus
I hate sites that don't tell me what they are at first glance. I don't know
what this is and I'm not going to watch a video to find out. I am an average
user with a short attention span, and I'd give you advice on targeting people
like me, only I'm not sure what it is you do and whether average users are
your target audience.
Please. All it takes is a paragraph. Hell, you don't even have an "About"
page.
Edit: I'm sorry that this sounds unnecessarily harsh, but it bugs me to hell
that I have no idea about what I'm looking at. =]
~~~
pinchyfingers
Uh, I'd think it speaks for itself. Milton Friedman is pretty well known - he
was a leader of Chicago school economics. This is a TV series that he produced
that explains the mechanics of the free market.
What is it you want as way of explanation? I figured Hacker News is a place
where people might be interested in capitalism.
~~~
hebejebelus
That would have been enough. I neither own a TV nor live in the USA (where I
imagine he's more well-known?), and while I do spend the greater part of my
life on the internet, I had never come across his name before.
Thanks for clearing that up. =]
------
racecar789
I like how Friedman explains his logic in the first half of each video, then
in the second half, invites 5 people with opposite opinions to his own and
debates them. The older series is better.
This video (and also Commanding Heights shown on PBS) had a great impact on my
economic views.
Nothing causes more harm than good intentions.
------
mkramlich
i like the simple site layout. i wish more sites were like this. easier on my
eyes and brain and easier on my computer. one design suggestion I have is to
add some kind of About blurb or page.
------
kokoito
Awesome.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WireGuard Merged into OpenBSD - axiomdata316
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=159274150512676&w=2
======
zx2c4
WireGuard project announcement is here:
[https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2020-June/005588...](https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2020-June/005588.html)
~~~
riobard
What's the performance situation of the wg-go implementation now? I recalled
there's a utun device API limitation that each packet requires a syscall. Is
there any progress to avoid the overhead?
~~~
vertex-four
I imagine that io_uring or similar work could help here - provide the kernel
with a submission queue and a completion queue once, and just keep feeding it
buffers to fill without syscalls.
~~~
riobard
That's what I'd assume but I've never seen anyone doing that yet.
~~~
vertex-four
That would be because io_uring is incredibly new and I don't think the tuntap
driver supports it yet.
------
athoik
Just great!
Hope to release wireguard on FreeBSD soon as well.
In order pfSense to include it:
[https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/8786](https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/8786)
~~~
throw0101a
> _Hope to release wireguard on FreeBSD soon as well._
Available as a Port / package:
* [https://www.freshports.org/net/wireguard/](https://www.freshports.org/net/wireguard/)
* [https://www.freshports.org/net/wireguard-go/](https://www.freshports.org/net/wireguard-go/)
Running it in a jail for further compartmentalization:
* [https://genneko.github.io/playing-with-bsd/networking/freebs...](https://genneko.github.io/playing-with-bsd/networking/freebsd-wireguard-jail/)
* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23004061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23004061)
~~~
loeg
GP is referring to the kernel implementation that is a work-in-progress.
~~~
clort
A kernel implementation also in development on NetBSD:
[https://github.com/ozaki-r/netbsd-
src/tree/wireguard](https://github.com/ozaki-r/netbsd-src/tree/wireguard)
------
atonse
I’ve always wanted to run OpenBSD for our Wireguard bastion host (the one
machine that is “open”. Not sure it makes a difference over Linux but OpenBSD
has an even stronger security culture.
Was satisfied with the state of affairs before but genuinely excited about
this development.
~~~
tptacek
OpenBSD has a different security culture. "Stronger" hasn't been the right
word in over a decade.
~~~
jooize
What do you mean?
~~~
woodruffw
OpenBSD has historically been eager to add new security mitigations without
explaining their intended threat model.
Here's an excellent talk (in website form) on the subject:
[https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/](https://isopenbsdsecu.re/about/)
~~~
bawolff
I dont think that website is very compelling. It claims a bunch of things as
not good practise, and then asserts without evidence or example that openbsd
does them.
Quite frankly it reads like someone with an axe to grind against openbsd.
~~~
woodruffw
> I dont think that website is very compelling. It claims a bunch of things as
> not good practise, and then asserts without evidence or example that openbsd
> does them.
Here's a material example: OpenBSD has expended considerable effort into
removing ROP gadgets from their compilation products[1].
As the website documents[2], these efforts haven't made a single exploit
harder to write.
GCC even removed their (mostly equivalent) ROP mitigation approach,
documenting it as "fairly ineffective" and "lur[ing] developers to the land of
false security"[3].
(Another good example is PID randomization: OpenBSD added this over 20 years
ago as part of their "randomize anything that can be randomized" approach.
It's never had any real positive security impact, and has made _other_ PID-
based vulnerabilities more viable.)
[1]:
[https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf](https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2018-rop.pdf)
[2]:
[https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/rop_removal/](https://isopenbsdsecu.re/mitigations/rop_removal/)
[3]: [https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/gcc/patch/CAFULd4ZL-
wa3...](https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/gcc/patch/CAFULd4ZL-
[email protected]/)
~~~
sanxiyn
I agree some OpenBSD security mitigations are dubious, but if I am forced to
choose between Linux (too little) and OpenBSD (too much), it seems to me
OpenBSD is definitely preferrable. (Of course, the best is to implement only
effective ones.) Do you disagree?
~~~
woodruffw
I think that Linux is a security mess in its own ways.
That being said, I think Linux’s guts get _far_ more attention than OpenBSD’s
do, and that the (fewer) mitigations that Linux chooses to implement are much
better supported by both information on real-world attacks and by the
literature. Given that, I have a slight preference for Linux. But that
shouldn’t be taken as praise.
------
cpach
Very good call from the OpenBSD project to include this in their kernel.
------
bch
WireGuard:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WireGuard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WireGuard)
------
greatjack613
Incredible, so excited to see wireguard start making it into mainstream
distros.
Personally I see this as the most exciting thing to happen to linux in the
past 2 - 3 years.
~~~
asveikau
Enthusiasm noted, but OpenBSD is not Linux.
~~~
talideon
My guess is that GP is referring to WireGuard, not this specifically.
------
Tsiklon
Congratulations to the team on this successful integration into OpenBSD.
I'm really pleased to see ongoing Wireguard integration in all the big
platforms.
The setup is so simple, I route all my personal traffic through a simple cloud
based WG + Pihole setup.
------
jjice
Why does WireGuard need to be a part of the kernels for BSD, Linux, and I
assume other OSes? Is OpenVPN the same way? Why can't it be part of userspace?
~~~
detaro
It doesn't need to be, a userspace implementation is available.
------
schoolornot
Does the underlying crypto in WireGuard lend itself to hardware
acceleration/implementation in ASICs? If so, when do we expect to see such
devices available?
~~~
867-5309
I believe Wireguard is up to 4x faster than OpenVPN where OpenVPN uses AES-NI.
processors with this instruction set is possibly the closest thing to an ASIC
for VPN en/decryption, so I dare say Wireguard will neither need nor benefit
from a purpose-built instruction set
~~~
api
AES is as fast or faster than ChaCha if there is hardware acceleration.
OpenVPN is slow for other reasons, and honestly the crypto is usually not the
bottleneck in most cases unless you are really pushing multiple gigabits or
it's a very small CPU.
~~~
throwaway2048
This is definitely not true, chacha20 is frequently faster than AES even with
AES-NI in use, especially on earlier implementations of the instruction
extension.
~~~
api
I'd like to see some numbers on this. I'm sure there are some chips where it's
the case but are we talking small ARM cores or larger desktop and server
chips?
------
grogenaut
still waiting for wireguard to be TCP based so I can use it in large
corporations, many of who don't dig stateless udp in their firewalls.
~~~
bawolff
Wat?
If wireguard doesn't meet your requirements, don't use it, but its kind of
rediculous to complain it doesn't do X when doing X would defeat the point of
the software.
------
nindalf
I’m confused about their mention of Go. The Linux implementation of WireGuard
is written in C - [https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-
linux](https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-linux)
~~~
skrause
OpenBSD doesn't want any GPL code, so they couldn't just port the Linux kernel
module.
The OpenBSD kernel module is also written in C:
[http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/cvsweb/src/sys/net/if_wg.c...](http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-
bin/cvsweb/src/sys/net/if_wg.c?rev=1.3&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup)
But the code looks quite different from [https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-
linux/tree/drivers/net/wireg...](https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-
linux/tree/drivers/net/wireguard?h=stable)
~~~
zx2c4
This has nothing to do with licensing. OpenBSD is a different kernel, so
different code. Having written the Linux code, I relicensed any similarities
between the two to make it amenable to OpenBSD, and remove any doubt about
status.
~~~
aljarry
Is it possible to create kernel modules for both OpenBSD and Linux with common
code that's licensed appropriately? Something like a library with two kernel
API glue layers, one for Linux GPLed and one for OpenBSD.
~~~
aargh_aargh
My impression about the goal of Wireguard (mind you, I haven't looked at the
code) is that it's to be as simple as possible, reusing as much of the
primitives the OS offers without reinventing the wheel.
That goal may be antithetical to a single codebase supporting multiple
(possibly very dissimilar) operating systems.
It's interesting to compare this approach to the approach taken by OpenSSH
(and its openssh-portable variant). One has code specific to each OS, the
other one has one canonical codebase for one OS + patches addressing
compatibility with other OSes. IMHO mostly due to the difference in complexity
of each project.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. Border Agency Lets Other Units Use Its Drones - anaptdemise
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/business/us-border-agency-is-a-frequent-lender-of-its-drones.html?_r=0
======
anaptdemise
If they are so under utilized that they can be lent out, why even have them?
Just from in terms of budget, this disappoints me. It makes sense if it is
cheaper to fly them than a cessna, which is up for debate. It is all over when
they arm them in any way.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Real Reason the U.S. Has Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance - rafaelc
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html?mabReward=CTS2&recid=7a8dd53f-90e3-496a-53a6-1d1d718a777a&recp=2&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine
======
api_or_ipa
Explaining away US healthcare as an artifact of WWII by claiming European
countries turned to nation health schemes because of economic ruins ignores
one very important counterpoint: Canadian healthcare.
Canada had no wartime ruin, and indeed, excelled after the war by advances in
industrialization from the demands of WWII-- much like the US. Actually,
Canada got it's universal healthcare because of the efforts of Tommy Douglas
and the CCF in Saskatchewan and an entire history of social democracy in
Canada that's worth studying. Sufficient to say, I think the author needs to
look deeper into the social fabric of American life to see the barriers to
socialized healthcare.
~~~
mikestew
This article describes how employer-sponsored healthcare started, but it
avoids the reasons why it continued. And the reason Truman didn't get support
for his universal healthcare plan was the "S" word: "socialism".
From
[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/november-19-1945-harry-t...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/november-19-1945-harry-
truman-calls-national-health-insurance-program/) (first link I found, it's
documented numerous places): _" Almost as soon as the reinvigorated bill was
announced, the once-powerful American Medical Association (AMA) capitalized on
the nation’s paranoia over the threat of Communism and, despite Truman’s
assertions to the contrary, attacked the bill as “socialized medicine."_
Never mind that Mussolini's brand of socialism might be just a _tad_ different
than the kind that gives you socialized medicine, but one need merely utter
the word to get those knees a-jerkin'.
~~~
VeronicaJJ123
Socialism brings ruin to whatever it touches. Canadian healthcare is not an
exception but Venezuelan and Cuban healthcare are much better examples.
~~~
dang
You've posted quite a few generic-ideological-battle-style comments to HN.
Those are off-topic here. Would you please read the site rules and follow them
when commenting?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
------
k__
To me it sounds like slavery.
I mean, if you get old and/or sick you are stuck with your employer. How crazy
is this?
~~~
didgeoridoo
This is primarily a problem for people who are older but not yet eligible for
Medicare (government health care that becomes available at age 65). Basically,
don't lose your job between age 50 and 65, unless you have literally hundreds
of thousands of dollars saved just to pay for huge individual market insurance
premiums.
~~~
ergothus
It's far more than that. Because health care costs are artificially jacked up
(so that insurance can "negotiate" them down), anyone without health insurance
can be screwed, even if you aren't "poor". So - anyone that doesn't have
employer-provided health care and isn't eligible for Medicare/Medicaid.
Examples: I once tried to buy some nasonex (or equivalent) without my
insurance info. $180. When I didn't pay and returned with my insurance info,
it dropped to $5ish. My wife gets bi-weekly injections that stops her
psioratic arthritis (which she's had since her teens) from crippling her. With
insurance, $50/month. Without....we were quoted in the thousands, each month.
It is very, _very_ easy for me to see situations where you need health care to
be able to work, and you need work to afford health care.
And this does impact employer lock-in. Every time I switch jobs (and to a
lesser but still notable degree, when my company switches insurers), we have
to do a new dance of:
* getting registered for insurance. Most places backdate your insurance to date of hire, but if you want to actually get the benefits immediately, it usually takes weeks to get your info from your employer to the insurance company and then they "process" it. (I have been told by one company that it takes them 1 business day to know they GOT a fax from my company, and another 2 business days to "process" it.) From experience I can say that if you make yourself enough of a problem you can drop this down to 5-10 days, but it takes a lot of work and that's still a ridiculously long time.
* Did I mention that it's quite common to have a by-mail pharmacy? That's a separate company from your insurance, so step 1 has to repeat for the new company (that process is usually faster, but it's still easy to lose another day to it). Oh, is your drug expensive and/or restricted? That might be handled by a specialist pharmacy, which is a 3rd company. (that last is not a guarantee - I've seen it in about 50% of my insurance
* Once you have the insurance info, now you need to get the doctor to send in the prescription. For basic drugs that's simple and automated, but for expensive and/or restricted drugs, that's more hoop jumping. Have you tried to get a hold of the average american doctor's office? My experience is you call, get transferred to a nurse's voice mail. Leave a message, and in 8-24 hours they will call you back. Re-explain whatever you said in the voice mail, and they say that will need the doctor's okay. Enter a second 8-24 hour wait. Now the doctor's office will send the prescription to whatever pharmacy you need...who will reject the request because they need justification (Silly me, I thought the prescription WAS the justification). Now the doctor needs to call the insurance company directly. Which is, you might guess, usually harder that getting them to send in the prescription in the first place. (we've had wonderful doctors for this and terrible doctors for this...and in my opinion the terrible doctors are only terrible on a relative scale - I hate the hoop jumping and I'm not doing it for multiple patients)
And all of this presumes the drug ( or non-pharmaceutical care) is covered in
the first place. Every time I consider switching jobs, I have to find out if
they will cover my wife's treatments. (Figuring out if something specific is
covered is non-trivial and I have a degree of mistrust about the results).
I'm fortunate enough to have a good wage and many job prospects. I can easily
imagine someone in less beneficial circumstances getting locked into a job by
the above.
------
flukus
Has there ever been an effort to ban employer sponsored health care? I bet it
would be a much bigger issue for people if they were paying for it personally
rather than having their employer shell out.
~~~
paulddraper
For me, that was the most egregious part of Adorable Care Act: I have to tie
medical insurance to my employer.
And there was a failed effort to repeal the ACA.
It drives me crazy. I can choose auto insurance, life insurance, home
insurance, disability insurance all independently from other decisions, but
health is this special category that is legally linked to my employer.
~~~
maxerickson
Isn't it messier than that? I'm pretty sure you could decline your employer
provided coverage and buy a plan from an ACA marketplace.
It's just that it wouldn't make sense to do that at an additional cost of
thousands of dollars.
~~~
paulddraper
Correct.
You could decline the benefits if you really wanted (e.g. if you were
Christian Scientist), but you lose thousands of dollars of your compensation.
The ideal would be for your employer to deliver the same value in the form of
salary, and then you have the choice free and clear.
~~~
RightMillennial
TIL: "Christian Scientist" does not refer to someone who is both a Christian
and a scientist. It's some quacky, new religious movement, anti-science cult.
[Edit] Corrected "new age" to "new religious movement".
~~~
paulddraper
> new age
1870s
> anti-science
Though popular medicine was only a little sciency when they were founded.
> quacky
They use to have lots of celebrity adherents: Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney,
George Hamilton. Kind of like Scientology nowadays.
------
VeronicaJJ123
> and the wage freezes and tax policy that emerged because of it.
> Unfortunately, what made sense then may not make as much right now.
I wish NYT does a piece on origins of minimum wage. Minimum wage was brought
int to make sure black people dont find employment.
~~~
zaccus
No it wasn't. Please stop.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple already has several ARM powered laptops drifting around internally - sperglord
https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10191963&cid=53786433
======
kstrauser
Fascinating, but take it with a grain of salt. One anonymous poster didn't
just violate, but shredded and used as hamster mulch, their NDA to report
iPad-with-a-keyboard? It's plausible, but I think most of us here could have
written that comment as a speculative exercise.
~~~
Analemma_
That AC could be both right and wrong. He could be totally right about the
existence of those prototypes, and I bet it's true (it'd be more surprising if
Apple _didn 't_ have prototype ARM laptops floating around). But it doesn't
mean he knows anything about actual plans to get these out the door. There are
HUGE barriers to that happening at the moment, the cost/benefit ratio is
extremely high. It sounds to me like this AC is correctly reporting the facts
but incorrectly extrapolating his own story out of it.
~~~
ColanR
> From what I was told, there's a huge push to get this stuff out the door as
> soon as they think the market will accept it.
Looks like a) he's not extrapolating anything, and b) the AC knew those
huuuuge barriers existed when he wrote his post.
------
bsharitt
Makes sense. Allegedly they had pretty much every version OS X after Rhapsody
continuing to run on x86 in some capacity until the x86 version of OS X
finally came out. Keeping an ARM version around seems like a no brainer.
I suspect this isn't being held in case the Mac market falls apart, but in
case the iPad market starts losing to Surface and friends.
~~~
xoa
Exactly, in fact there's even more to it then that. Particularly at Apple's
scale, maintaining a codebase across multiple architectures internally, even
if there is absolutely zero foreseeable intention to use them, offers
significant value. Strategically of course it creates some hedge against over
dependence on any single supplier, it's not just "the Mac market falling
apart" so much as Intel/AMD dropping the ball or becoming unable to go in a
direction Apple wanted (as happened with PowerPC). By the same token it helps
maintain some level of economic negotiating position, even if Apple faces what
is effectively right now a single key supplier situation. The mere fact that
they _could_ switch if absolutely forced to is of use.
Non-strategic value though is probably just as important as any of this stuff:
as probably most of HN knows well, keeping a codebase portable can be quite
helpful in terms of plain and simple quality. Obscure bugs or bad patterns
that are hard to find on one architecture can be a lot easier to identify on
another. It can help promote discipline and good practices. Portability I
think is really a constant process rather then a goal or single thing, it's a
lot easier to have worked on it all along for years before you need it then
try to "port" something later because without the constant pressure of staying
portable it's all too easy to start falling into dependence on features (or
worse, quirks) of a single arch and build up more and more technical debt.
Then when the "bill" (not necessarily just in terms of money but sheer
developer hours) finally comes due it's effectively unpayable.
~~~
walterbell
Should this apply to cloud provider portability?
~~~
derefr
The problem with portability between "clouds" (IaaS/PaaS providers) is that
many of them have features (e.g. object storage; Dynamo-based distributed
tables; reliable message-queueing; health checks connected to load-balancing
and hypervisor lifecycle control),
• which are "obvious" and perhaps even _necessary_ for productive coding of
distributed systems software; and
• which have _huge_ economies of scale (one shared cluster for all customers
beats the pants off the performance+availability of your company's puny little
three-node private cluster), and yet...
• which other major clouds _don 't support at all_.
Effectively, all the "clouds" currently only offer between 30% and 90% of what
you'd _want_ in something that called itself "a cloud." Nobody has a "whole
cloud" (AWS is closest, but still not there.)
Designing for portability between these clouds would be like writing assembly
intended to be portable between processor architectures, when only one
architecture had an ALU, only one had registers, and only one could
conditionally branch. It would be madness.
\---
Personally, I feel like, to be able to sensibly design for portability between
cloud providers, they'd need a lot more features in common than they have now.
Maybe we could invent a minimum common standard to hold the cloud providers'
stacks to—maybe a small one at first, with a growing list of expectations over
time; or maybe a "core" spec, and then a number of "levels" of support atop
it. Then you could say you've targeted "IaaS Level 3", and clouds could claim
to support that, and cloud-abstraction libraries like Fog could actually do
something useful.
------
mcphage
They better have ARM laptops done or nearly so. If they didn't, I would
conclude that they have no idea what the fuck they're doing anymore.
Although if the software is through the Mac App Store only, then... well, it
won't be a very useful device. I hope that they're looking to replace the
Macbook with an ARM device, not create a new Chromebook.
------
breatheoften
I'm sure they will still have a compiler on the system -- it has to be
possible to compile code for this machine from source and run it ...
As I think about it -- wouldn't app store (if well run, then it provides the
best possible security for distribution of binaries without source code and
the most consumer friendly commercial licensing model) + open source eco-
system (self-compiled -- source only distribution) pretty much the best
possible world for users? There is (kind of) an open-source argument for
making binary distribution without source onerous or impossible...
Perhaps they'll bundle or distribute an official version of something like
homebrew to make installing open-source software as easy as possible and maybe
even provide a way for binaries generated from these packages to become signed
and distributed as binaries as an optimization?
I don't think I would mind app-store being the only way to get pre-compiled
binaries if augmented with a well-supported open-source ecosystem for
utilities that need to venture beyond the capabilities of the app-store
sandbox. There is a technical argument for making any software that needs to
operate beyond the sandbox subject to source code auditing simply because of
the potential attack surface ... I wouldn't necessarily mind if subscription
pricing was the only business model for such sandbox-spanning utilities --
continuance maintenance (and ongoing revenue) for software that works beyond
the sandbox is needed from a security perspective ...
------
0x0
If the future is supposedly going to be this locked down, I wonder what will
happen to the internet when there is no hardware left where you can develop
stuff like apache-httpd and php and mysqld.
~~~
api
Mac is dead for developers and pro users if this is the case. My current Mac
will be my last, and I'll be happy to give my money to Dell instead and anyone
else selling more open hardware.
One of our devs just got a new XPS 15. It's a gorgeous machine. Amazing. First
time I've envied a non-Apple machine since the early 2000s. I still marginally
prefer the Mac track pad but the rest is on par or better.
~~~
mi100hael
Can confirm. I sold my MBP and bought myself one of the new Dell 15" developer
editions. Trackpad is about on par with the prior physically-clicking mac
trackpads. I run Fedora and the only thing that doesn't work is hot-plugging
the Ethernet adapter. Otherwise all the usual Linux pitfalls like sleep/wake,
wifi, hidpi, touch screen, etc. work fine out of the box. No plans to switch
away.
~~~
sofaofthedamned
I did exactly the same with an xps 13. Gave my Macbook Retina to my
girlfriend, as the new models were not compelling at all. Fedora 25 is lovely
on it and I can run docker and KVM on it natively. I will buy another Mac if
they give me a proper value proposition.
------
esturk
You have to live in the future to invent for the future. These are probably
being used by product manager to see the deficiencies for the next feature
upgrades to make it perfect.
------
digikata
An interesting product line split might be putting the Macbook line onto ARM
for portability & battery life, and keeping the pro or air & pro line on
Intel.
------
TazeTSchnitzel
If we assume for a moment that this is true (which is a huge assumption), it
doesn't mean they'll necessarily release a product quite like it.
------
dplgk
I don't know how CPUs and instructions work but wouldn't this mean that every
app has to be recompiled for ARM or run in an emulator?
~~~
detaro
Yes, it would mean that.
~~~
ams6110
In the NeXT days, a program could be compiled as a "fat" binary that would run
on multiple supported CPU architectures.
It made things easier for developers because they only had to ship one set of
installation media regardless of the CPU the user had.
~~~
Turing_Machine
This capability still exists, and is in fact often used for libraries. The
lipo command-line tool lets you bundle code compiled for multiple
architectures into the same physical file (or extract the code for a specific
architecture, etc.).
------
mahyarm
If this is true, I sure hope to god developers will have some performant build
machine edition. It would make CI even more painful for iOS dev.
------
b1gtuna
I'd love to see a worthy competition to Intel.
~~~
allengeorge
The AC points out that the chips were made by Intel.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A 1950s egg farm that hatched a business incubator - rbanffy
https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-1950s-egg-farm-hatched-the-modern-startup-incubator/?mbid=social_tw_backchannel
======
Retric
Are there any real successes from the Incubator that includes office space
model vs just cash?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What would happen if you put your hand in the Large Hadron Collider - ecaron
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMqPT6oKJ8
======
ecaron
Short answer: They don't know.
Longer answer. It won't be good, but it might not kill you - probably won't
give you superpowers. But nobody's going to let you try anyway.
------
RiderOfGiraffes
Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1725592>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
That Old Phone Trump Uses for Twitter Could Be an Opening to Security Threats - poindontcare
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/technology/donald-trump-phone-social-media-security.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
======
icomefromreddit
From the article:
> _Could be_... _could be_... _but it’s unclear_... _could be_... _if_...
> _if_... _he could_ \--- _It is unclear_... _could be_... _could_...
So, we don't if Trump keep his old device, but we will pretend he keep his old
device.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google invests $1M in pedal-powered monorail pods - blparker
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/12/shweeb.urban.transport/index.html?hpt=C2
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Lots of comments from over a week ago:
\+ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1762998>
Earlier submission of exactly this item:
\+ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1788591>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TagTime: Stochastic Time Tracking for Space Cadets (2011) - Tomte
http://messymatters.com/tagtime/
======
themmes
This brought me to the article by Joel Spolsky (Evidence based scheduling) [1]
and then to the Reporter app created by Nick Feltron [2]. Apps following this
method all seem dated or not maintained anymore at all. Any good
recommendations?
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72952)
[2] [http://www.reporter-app.com](http://www.reporter-app.com)
------
rajacombinator
Great idea! I’ve witnessed firsthand what a negative impact traditional time
tracking can have on someone. Now I’m wondering if this idea can work for
calorie tracking...
------
jmiserez
This looks great, and is still actively maintained on Github. It keeps your
data locally, which is a hard requirement for any kind of company use.
Uploading work activity to some third party is an absolute no-go for most
companies.
The approach taken by many other tools is either a huge database of
applications/websites that someone maintains tags for or a custom set of rigid
rules. Neither approach works very well on my experience. The statistical
approach taken by TagTime sounds much less rigid and more flexible.
~~~
closeparen
Bullshit. ADP, Quickbooks, Kronos, etc. all have wildly popular hosted time
tracking software. Some kind of online time card is practically a requirement
to sell payroll and/or invoicing services these days.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits