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Facebook has hired the Patriot Act's co-author as a general counsel - Jerry2
https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/mass-surveillance-r-us.html
======
javagram
“Jennifer Newstead helped craft the Patriot Act, a cowardly work of treasonous
legislation foisted on the American people in the wake of the 9/11 attacks;”
Source seems a little biased. Treasonous? That’s gotta require a lot of
cortortion around the definition of treason.
Patriot Act provisions have been repeatedly reauthorized by the democratically
elected legislature since it was originally passed. This isn’t a case of
foisting anything upon the people, the people are perfectly happy to vote in
supporters of the Patriot Act.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Reauthorizations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Reauthorizations)
~~~
thundergolfer
It's well known that many members of congress passed through the act _without
having read it_. Given the enormity of the act's effects on the country, this
is quite a problematic thing.
I don't it was democracy that saw that bill through. It was crisis politics.
Democracy requires a well-informed public, and capable representatives. With
the USA PATRIOT act there was neither.
~~~
foxyv
With the current state of campaign finance, congress is essentially two
corporations with congressmen/women as employees. If you don't vote the party
line or you don't secure funding for the party you get defunded on your next
election. Surprising they don't bother to read the bills they are told to
pass.
------
canada_dry
A perfect fit really.
This guy figures it's ok to allow personal records like telephone, e-mail,
financial, and business records to be surreptitiously captured without full
due process/transparency.
Facebook would love to push the (no-)privacy envelope much further: a complete
data free-for-all for their commercial gain.
------
Jerry2
It's unfortunate that mods decided sink this story. Any explanation as to why?
------
tuxxy
What exactly... do they think is going to happen when news outlets hear this?
~~~
joshmn
The 30 minute news cycle we've had for the last 3 years of course.
~~~
isoskeles
Yeah unlike when the Patriot Act passed, and the news media spoke truth to
power or whatever, and saved us all from that treasonous law.
Apologies for the snark but it’s been like this for more than 20 years.
~~~
thundergolfer
To add to your comment. _Manufacturing Consent_ came out in 1988, 31 years
ago. That book manfully built the case that this stuff has been going on for
well over a century, but that it really kicked up in the post WW2 era with the
erosion of labour-class news media.
Today 6 US media companies control 90% of US media, and any hope one has of
the internet disarming them dims more than a little at the sight of a
P.A.T.R.I.O.T act author crossing over into the arms of a tech giant.
|
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CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on clients and countries - edu
https://www.businessinsider.com/cia-secretly-bought-encryption-company-crypto-ag-spy-countries-report-2020-2
======
ekimekim
Original Washington Post article discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22297963)
------
cryptos
The same could happen with Threema. As much as I like and want to trust
Threema, but the story could be repeated, even if I think, that it is not used
by governments or military large-scale.
Essentially every closed source crypto application isn't trustworthy. Same is
true for operating systems.
~~~
bangboombang
Exactly my first thought. I like Threema and one of the reasons I was an early
adopter is that the founder worked on m0n0wall before, an OSS firewall that I
used for a long time, in contrast to it being just some guy I never heard of.
It made me accept the closed source nature. Another big factor was that I
indeed consider Switzerland to be a more trustworthy/neutral party in general
when it comes to global politics, but this obviously doesn't have to apply to
every single individual in that country.
~~~
_-___________-_
Why use Threema when there are alternatives that are not closed-source? You
had to begin to use Threema, which presumably carries the same difficulty as
beginning to use something which isn't as questionable.
~~~
mmPzf
A big plus for me was the option of using it without mapping the user account
to a phone number, something that e.g. Signal doesn't allow.
------
fit2rule
The free world needs to realise that no matter what systems of enormous value
to the world we build, others will attempt to usurp that power for their own
needs.
It happens with all technology. The reason is, all technology can be
weaponised.
Some simple facts .. The institutions covered by Crypto AG's technology
products, were attempting to maintain their own secrecy. They were, thus,
usurped by their own technology - and the CIA merely exploited this fact.
This case with the CIA directly addresses the lynchpin in the military-
industrial-surveillance states' armour - the ability to keep secrets.
From a certain perspective, one might say that .. the Vaticans .. inability to
keep secrets is a blessing and a curse. This is also true of many of the other
clients. Would that we had access to all the things the CIA knows, as a world
people, mmm..
These groups weaponised their own technology, against themselves, by using it
to keep secrets. It also happens to be the spooks' biggest weakness too: the
light of truth melts any and all justification for these peoples existence,
and it whither them.
Let us try a thought experiment: If the Vatican applied its vast resources to
providing a "Peoples Internet" a la Starlink, instead of using its billions to
hide heinous secrets, would the technology of communication have been so
easily weaponised?
All secrets are weapons, because you cannot have a secret without technology -
and all technology can be weaponised.
So this is a foot-bullet on the part of Crypto AG, the Vatican et al., and a
big win for the CIA - because it means these institutions will now be making
_more_ commitment, alas not less - to the keeping of secrets.
------
jo-m
A lot of this has been known for 25 years:
[https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html](https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9088423.html)
------
lallysingh
Is this why US export encryption had to be 40 bits? To push countries to a
vendor that was compromised?
------
jokoon
Is the leak coming from wikileaks? I've heard Assange will soon go to trial. I
was still wondering about that "dead's man switch", although I'm not sure it
will activate if he get convicted.
~~~
_-___________-_
I read about this quite a while ago, and while it's a revelation, it doesn't
seem big enough to be Assange's dead man's switch. Most people are just going
to shrug at this.
~~~
fit2rule
I have heard it from the crypto cognoscenti circles I know, that this is the
calm before the storm and that there will be many, many more leaks to come
during the actual trial period.
The idea is to point out to the world that Julian isn't the only leaker.
This terrifies the spook establishment, and they are therefore preparing for
their own campaign of controlled releases, designed to dull the general
publics' appetite for the subject.
I mean, this is all conjecture and hearsay, but it sure is an interesting time
to be watching the show. I do believe we are seeing a cyberwar, like
legitimately, underneath all the battle reports ..
|
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|
Passive solar glass home: watching the sun move - kirstendirksen
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/passive-solar-glass-home-watching-sun-move/
======
jbrun
If you are keen on this, see Amory Lovins talk on buildings: Short version:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmHJNeif24> Long Version:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5txQlEI7bc&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5txQlEI7bc&feature=channel)
------
electromagnetic
Rather impressive, but genuinely simple. He maximized sunlight in the winter
while minimising it in the summer and increased the buildings connection to
the earth below frost level where the ground stays a constant 14C/57F year
round.
------
timmaah
My dad built the house I grew up in like this in the mid 70's. Big south
facing windows with large overhang. Brick wall sucks up the heat for the
night. Our greenhouse had huge 20ft high cylinders filled with dyed black
water. Worked great.
What happened in the 80s and 90s to make this not as popular?
~~~
kirstendirksen
Passive solar used to be the way everyone built... at least before way back
with the Ancient Greeks and Chinese. But when we stopped relying on sun for
energy, most of us stopped building this way.
I would guess passive solar gained popularity in the seventies due to more
attention to energy conservation (oil crisis and all) and then when oil got
cheap again, it wasn't so trendy. Hope that's not that case now.
Though cheap oil and global warming aside, I'd still prefer to live in a home
heated by the sun and cooled by the earth. AC gives me a headache and I much
prefer the feel of sun through a window than the blast of central heating.
------
kjell
Earthships are worth a look for anyone who wonders why the average modern
house is so wasteful.
|
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|
Google SSL Search - jamesbkel
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=173733&hl=en
======
wladimir
This was available for quite a while already, though in beta/labs. I'm not
sure what is new.
~~~
JonnieCache
Yeah, it doesn't seem any different to how its been in the past year. The
_beta_ sigil is still under the logo.
I wish theyd put the links to maps and images back in, maybe with some visual
warning that theyre not encrypted. I have SSL search as the default search in
chrome, and I hate having to manually jump back to normal google to do image
searches.
While we're here, don't forget SSL wikipedia!
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page>
~~~
mike-cardwell
If you're using the HTTPS-Everywhere Firefox addon (1), or the HTTPS-
Everywhere Squid redirector (2), you don't need to know/remember about the SSL
versions of Wikipedia or Google. You're just sent there by default.
1.) <https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere>
2.) <https://github.com/mikecardwell/perl-HTTPSEverywhere>
------
mahrain
Been using this for a year now, there's also a hack to use it in the Chrome
bar by entering a custom search engine. Very handy and works nice.
Only miss is that I can't immediately click through to image searches, they're
only available over unsecured HTTP.
~~~
lobster_johnson
Unfortunately, you lose autocompletion (other than history autocompletion)
when you use something other than the built-in Google search.
------
nodata
Good, but to make this truly useful we need a really simple way to specify
which country-specific google search engine we would like results from.
------
jamaicahest
DuckDuckGo has been using this for many months, when you use the !g bang
~~~
rlpb
Really? It doesn't seem to do it for me. Do you have some setting set
somewhere?
------
lini
Anyone that has the HTTPS everywhere extension (Firefox) is already using the
SSL search in Google. As others noted it has been in beta for quite a long
time and is missing some features like the image search or the doodles on the
homepage.
------
buster
Also, if you want to browse on SSL whereever possible:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegek...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegekianiofphddckof)
Love this Extension!
------
RyanKearney
The only thing I dislike about this is it hides the refer, screwing up my
analytics. I'd have to completely convert all of my sites to HTTPS only to be
able to make use of the additional headers for analytical purposes. Not really
a big deal I guess, but kind of unnecessary to have to purchase wildcard certs
if you have many sub domains.
~~~
dspillett
The free certs from <http://www.startssl.com/> are apparently accepted by most
browsers these days (the exception being IE6/7 users on XP who have not
downloaded the optional CA cert updates):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startssl#StartSSL>
I've not used their cert for anything yet (I plan to test them on some
personal sites when I get chance, before using them elsewhere), and wildcard
certs are not free (but they do seem relatively cheap), but it might be worth
looking into for someone in your position.
~~~
thepsi
I've used them for a few personal sites and projects with no complaints.
The fee for wildcard certs (~60USD) is a one-off to verify your identity -
usually via a quick phone call to confirm details from your official
documents.
Once that's complete, you can generate as many certs as you need (incl.
wildcards and Subject Alternative Name) from their control panel, subject to
jumping through the usual hoops to prove that you have control of each domain.
~~~
RyanKearney
I do use StartSSL but the problem just comes from having multiple sub domains.
I get IPv4 addresses for $0.50/mo/each but I'd rather not setup each subdomain
on its own dedicated IP for the sakes of using free SSL certs.
~~~
dspillett
You don't need multiple IPv4 addresses to make use of a wild-card (or other
multi-name) certificate. A wildcard certificate will verify any matching
domain so you could have many sub-domains of the same domain (using a single
certificate for *.domain.tld) on one address and browsers would not complain.
Also you could run the distinct (sub)domains on different ports on the same
address, though this is perhaps less useful.
Also, with SNI you can use many single-name certificates on one address (and
all on the same port) using SNI. Unfortunately there are a number of
significant client combinations that won't play nice with this (most notably,
if you can't guess, IE on Windows XP):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Support>
~~~
RyanKearney
I know that. I'm saying I don't want to have to pay for a wildcard certificate
since you can get free certs for individual domains. The alternative for me
purchasing a wildcard domain would be to get many different single domain
certs for free and assign each one to a different IP address.
|
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Copper - Data analysis toolkit for python - dfrodriguez143
http://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=display&name=copper&version=0.0.2
======
johncoogan
Looks awesome, always love seeing my favorite tools wrapped up in new ways.
Thanks a lot for posting.
Quick note, since PyPi doesn't seem to parse markdown, the more information
link to GitHub is malformed. I believe the plain link will hyperlink
automatically. (See <http://scrible.com/s/2acQ2> for details).
Thanks again for the package.
|
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|
Zebrello only delivers news which is tailored to your personal interests - zebrello
http://www.zebrello.com
======
qsymmachus
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble)
|
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We are starting WebKit modularization - robin_reala
http://markmail.org/thread/fkiibwrwv3xporxx
======
dhx
_> We hope this will make it much easier to develop vendor-specific features._
DRM[1]? Flash/"ActiveX 2012"[2]?
We've seen a great deal of recent discussion about the harm vendor-specific
CSS properties[3] and X- prefixed application protocol header fields[4] are
causing. No two parties can agree on proposals for the HTML specification.
Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla all tend to disagree and we're stuck with
vendor-specific browser features.
These are not good signs for the health of the Web.
[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620432>
[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620537>
[3] [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
style/2012Feb/0998.h...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
style/2012Feb/0998.html)
[4] <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-appsawg-xdash-03>
|
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|
Doom on GLium, in Rust - hansjorg
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1TjWba0CR9RHFm47rvW1nFUlmouaR55Xt235aHyLPf9U/edit#slide=id.p
======
outworlder
Are my perceptions clouded from being inside the Hacker News echo chamber, or
is Rust really picking up steam really fast?
It seems to have more libraries and the ones it has are more advanced than
what would be expected from a language this young.
~~~
swah
[http://arewewebyet.com/](http://arewewebyet.com/)
I always look for a SQL driver, and _then_ if it has connection pool support.
If a language passes this second test, the language is ready ;)
~~~
killercup
So, rust is ready? There are multiple database drivers and there is at least
one crate for connection pools (r2d2) that also works with diesel (query
builder).
------
xvilka
Same user (tomaka) also wrote Rust bindings for Vulcan API - vulcano[1], which
obviously can be used for creating modern games.
[1] [https://github.com/tomaka/vulkano](https://github.com/tomaka/vulkano)
------
devishard
God, Google Docs is really horrible for non-documents. They literally just
scroll me way too fast through content when I try to go to the next slide, and
worse, they hack my back button so that each slide is a new page, meaning I
basically have to open a new tab.
It's also bad for images; for some reason they thought the scroll wheel should
zoom in and out instead of scroll, and the only way to scroll is to click and
drag. It's like their UI devs are on crack.
~~~
bitmapbrother
I don't have this issue in Chrome, but you can always use the arrow keys if
your mouse is having issues. As for the back button - works fine for me and
takes me to the previous slide. You can even download it as a PDF or
Powerpoint if you like.
~~~
debaserab2
Ugh, the last thing I want is for my browser back button to be hijacked by a
slideshow presentation. Help, I'm stuck in a powerpoint.
~~~
tracker1
If you think of each slide as a separate page, as some do, it makes sense.
~~~
debaserab2
I just wish there was a way to opt-in to it first.
My instinct when I hit the site was to use my mousewheel to scroll down,
because I didn't immediately realize it was a slide deck. So my mousewheel
advanced the deck about a dozen slides and wrecked my back button.
------
vvanders
+1 on glium as I've previously mentioned here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11620852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11620852)
As someone who spends a lot of time in OpenGL it's a really solid, rusty API
that's quite a joy to work with.
------
Keyframe
It says "Glium: Multi-threading... Send + Sync + Context Management (means it
can be done)".
Can someone explain a bit about this? I'm not familiar with Rust, but with C
you have to run GL calls from one and the same thread or you're gonna have a
bad day.
Bonus question: Anyone that was/is C programmer (not C++) with opinions on
Rust?
~~~
vvanders
There's more details in the presenter notes:
>I won’t get into much detail about threading, but imagine how the OpenGL
skynet-state-machine interacts with multiple threads. GLium ensures only a
thread-specific OpenGL context is used on any particular thread.
>By making everything neither Send nor Sync, it prevents you from using
resources created by one thread in another, enforcing OpenGL semantics at
compile-time.
Basically any type without Send+Sync traits will not work with existing
threading APIs(since they require combinations of Send+Sync based on threading
semantics) forcing API calls to be done on the right thread.
~~~
Keyframe
Thanks! I was in presentation mode, for some reason, and didn't see the notes.
------
hansjorg
There's more info and links in the speaker notes (on the options menu).
------
alex_duf
I don't get why slides are popular. We're missing 50% of the actual content of
the talk here.
~~~
lockyc
I agree, but this one has the speaker notes
------
cm3
Right after slide 1 appearing, this redirects to
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050)
for me in Firefox.
~~~
Sarkie
Fine for me?
~~~
cm3
It works in an unrestricted Chrome instance. I wonder if there's a Google docs
downloader script that directly gives me the PDF without dealing with the
wonky website.
~~~
qwertyuiop924
<rant> Google, take your browser team of the loony pills for FIVE SECONDS!
Chrome isn't the only browser in the world. Having your website crash and burn
one one of the most popular browsers out there that isn't yours is beyond
unacceptable. Especially if you push web standards and make recommendations to
other developers and sites to make their sites support all browsers. </rant>
|
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Communication blackout is forcing young entrepreneurs out of Kashmir - amrrs
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-a-land-without-internet-how-the-communication-blackout-is-forcing-young-entrepreneurs-out-of-kashmir-valley/article30219792.ece
======
amrrs
For some context on Internet Shutdown:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204)
|
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Namecoin - rfreytag
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin
======
JacobAldridge
At the risk of hijacking yet another cryptocurrency thread, this is an
opportunity to note how valuable I believe HN to be when it highlights primary
sources.
Secondary sources - whether it's lazy journalism, blog-jacking, or Wikipedia,
engages us here in a discussion already framed through another person's or
group of people's editorial eyes. Is there no better overview of Namecoin than
its Wikipedia page?
~~~
bachback
[http://namecoin.info](http://namecoin.info)
This is where it started:
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0)
satoshi's comment on the matter, posted 4 days before he left the forum.
"I think it would be possible for BitDNS to be a completely separate network
and separate block chain, yet share CPU power with Bitcoin. The only overlap
is to make it so miners can search for proof-of-work for both networks
simultaneously.
The networks wouldn't need any coordination. Miners would subscribe to both
networks in parallel. They would scan SHA such that if they get a hit, they
potentially solve both at once. A solution may be for just one of the networks
if one network has a lower difficulty.
I think an external miner could call getwork on both programs and combine the
work. Maybe call Bitcoin, get work from it, hand it to BitDNS getwork to
combine into a combined work.
Instead of fragmentation, networks share and augment each other's total CPU
power. This would solve the problem that if there are multiple networks, they
are a danger to each other if the available CPU power gangs up on one.
Instead, all networks in the world would share combined CPU power, increasing
the total strength. It would make it easier for small networks to get started
by tapping into a ready base of miners."
"@dtvan: all 3 excellent points. 1) IP records don't need to be in the chain,
just do registrar function not DNS. And CA problem solved, neat. 2) Pick one
TLD, .web +1. 3) Expiration and significant renewal costs, very important."
~~~
baddox
JacobAldridge asked whether there is a better overview of Namecoin than it's
Wikipedia page. Having read the Wikipedia page and the Namecoin homepage you
linked, I can confidently say that the former is a much more detailed and
informative overview.
~~~
bachback
strangely enough there are a million people who know about this project and
1-2 actually participate. it's a wiki and opensource project, so everyone in
the world is free to contribute. same with bitcoin. roughly 5 active
developers at the moment, working mostly in their spare time.
~~~
wcoenen
Look at the list of contributors at the end of the release notes of the
upcoming 0.9.0 release of the bitcoin reference client[1]. Or look at the
activity of other projects, e.g. the bitcoinj google group[2]. There's a lot
more than 5 people working on bitcoin.
[1]
[https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/test/README.txt](https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/test/README.txt)
[2]
[https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/bitcoinj](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/bitcoinj)
~~~
bachback
the number of people contributing is extremely small compared to the people
who know about it/make money of it/are enthusiastic about it/could contribute.
There is not a deep bench of developers. Many open issues which don't get
solved because the 3-4 main devs (laanjw, sipa, gavin) are to busy. look at
coinbase: they get rich of it, take 1% fees and add nothing back whatsoever.
------
Sanddancer
I like the idea of namecoin -- uncensorability is pretty cool from a
technological standpoint -- however the other flaws of bitcoin make me wary of
basing any sort of serious DNS replacement on it. Given that there's no plans
to increase the number of namecoins in circulation, and that creating a domain
by its very definition destroys namecoins, that 50nmc cost to buy a domain
becomes increasingly expensive over time as people buy namecoins, peoples'
wallets get lost, fraud occurs, etc. I'd be more interested if they did
something like dogecoin and reated some sort of inflationary method to
counteract this, so that we don't end up with the same mess DNS is in, only
with slightly different bad actors.
~~~
walden42
Namecoin is not controlled by anyone in particular. If it grows in demand and
people want the inflationary feature (or anything else), it will be
implemented by the network.
~~~
bachback
no, money supply is fixed. changing money supply like doge did is possible,
but risks destroying the network.
~~~
kushti
Money supply is fixed but prices for database record insertion/update could be
changed painlessly.
~~~
sillysaurus3
If the money supply is fixed, then people will have a harder time acquiring
namecoin after all the namecoin is generated. People will have to buy it, and
since it's a scarce resource, it may become extremely expensive. Especially if
namecoin exploded in popularity.
I suppose if it becomes expensive then the namecoin admins could lower the
cost of database inserts/updates. But it seems like that would prompt the
price per namecoin to rise accordingly, because the value of namecoin is a
single database insert or update.
------
thefreeman
I'm confused as to why this is suddenly at the top of HN? Were people not
aware of one of the original "alt" cryptocurrencies?
~~~
bachback
silicon valley found out about it. several tweets of major figures last week.
~~~
based2
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7401999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7401999)
------
al2o3cr
"On October 15, 2013, a major flaw in the namecoin protocol was revealed by
the Kraken exchange COO, Michael Grønager. The exploit allowed any user to
freely steal any domain from any other user.[34] A temporary fix was deployed
which prevents fraudulent name transactions from affecting the name database
without requiring miner intervention, and a long-term fix which rejects blocks
containing such transactions is scheduled for block 150,000 if a majority of
miners upgrade.[35]"
Well, I'm sure stoked that we're building the future infrastructure of the Net
on something that we're pretty sure doesn't have a ginormous security hole
_anymore_...
------
FredericJ
If you don't know about Namecoin here are too additional ressources you might
want to check out: "OkTurtles + DNSChain" (working Namecoin + DNS
implementation): [http://okturtles.com/](http://okturtles.com/) and "Providing
better confidentiality and authentication on the Internet using Namecoin and
MinimaLT" :
[https://github.com/FredericJacobs/safeweb/blob/master/paper....](https://github.com/FredericJacobs/safeweb/blob/master/paper.pdf?raw=true)
------
bachback
There are currently 1-2 developers working on Namecoin (mostly Khan, another
core developer died recently). Namecoin itself has quite a few issues. The
design is only the beginning.
~~~
appleflaxen
Can you elaborate on the issues you allude to? The "criticism" section on
wikipedia is pretty thin.
~~~
bachback
well, at the moment there is not much reason to use the system. if you
register a ".bit" then you have to get your users to install complicated
software and in the end what you are getting is very similar to ".com". There
are major benefits, which are not explored yet. rolling out a world wide
nameservice is not trivial. at the moment it's not even used by the
underground. onename.io is the first application I have seen.
------
teach
This article has more citations per sentence than anything I have ever seen on
Wikipedia.
~~~
jebus989
Citation spam is usually an attempt to prevent article deletion, especially
pertinent as it's been deleted [0] and merged into bitcoin [1] in the past.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Namecoin)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Namecoin_\(2nd_nomination\))
------
jabgrabdthrow
I'm working on an alternative to namecoin with the following features:
* Profitable (what? profitable cryptocurrency? what?) * Powerful disincentives for squatting * Lots of funding for the project, which means we can actually push towards critical-mass adoption
More will be available at domains.bitshares.org within ~2 weeks.
~~~
rictic
Count me as interested. I've been trying to think of a distributed solution to
squatting and fraud but I've had very little luck coming up with anything
workable.
------
rumcajz
I don't get why it doesn't use bitcoin's block chain. That would give it a
strong existing infrastructure of users, miners etc. This way it is on its
own.
~~~
aaron-lebo
The Bitcoin devs don't really want the blockchain used for non-financial
transactions.
If makes sense if you think about it. The current BTC blockchain is gigabytes
of data. Add text information to every transaction and you are adding even
more bloat.
~~~
baddox
Do you have a source for that claim? The official Bitcoin wiki certainly talks
about non-financial uses of Bitcoin, and Script obviously makes such uses
possible.
~~~
aaron-lebo
Well, I remember reading something like that once, so it must be true. ;)
In all seriousness, I did some Googling and the closest I can find is this:
"One final reason is that Satoshi was opposed to putting non-Bitcoin related
data into the main chain. As creator of the system, his opinion should carry a
lot of weight with anyone serious about extending it."
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain)
I realize that is close to being useless, but I can't find the direct post in
question by Satoshi that it is referencing. I seem to recall it not being
Satoshi, however, but one of the current devs that I read a similar sentiment
from.
But again, I don't have any direct links. I apologize.
------
kushti
I'm interesting in developing services on top of Namecoin / other p2p more-
than-currencies (MasterCoin/Ethereum?). Please mail me (kushtech [at] yahoo
(dot) com) if you want to discuss related things or join me. I'm
Scala/Java/etc developer myself / entrepreneur also in past and future.
~~~
iterationx
You might be interested in learning about Twister, decentralized microblogging
(twitter) [http://twister.net.co/](http://twister.net.co/)
~~~
thisiswrong
I can't believe how potentially disruptive Twister is! Haha and I love its
system of mining for promoted tweets.
As I have always said, bitcoin (the invention) means the end of FB, Twitter,
and all similar centralized corporate entities.
------
mm0
keep pumping it op
------
RexRollman
"Namecoin is a cryptocurrency which also acts as an alternative, decentralized
DNS"
So, finally, a cryptocurrency which serves a purpose aside from filling up
HN's article listing. Cool.
~~~
atmosx
The bitcoin protocol is an extremely important advancement as it solved the
double spending[1] problem and can be used for all sorts of interesting
community and business applications. Especially for systems used by
organizations (e.g. DNS) that need to be public, uncensored and accessible
from everyone (institutions, countries and individuals).
Here are just a few ideas:
[http://www.convalesco.org/#31](http://www.convalesco.org/#31)
[1] [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-
spending](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Tag Clouds For Every App Store Category - dbachelder
http://bustedloop.com/blog/2009/7/2/iphone-app-tag-clouds.html
======
andrewljohnson
This is kind of fun to look at, but I wish tag clouds would die the innocuous
death they deserve. They are basically a useless, and worse a distracting, UI
element. If you have a tag cloud on your blog, you're not doing yourself any
favors.
~~~
joshu
I blame flickr.
------
jfno67
What would be nice now is a tag cloud of all the search the app store is
getting...
------
pclark
they missed the news category..
~~~
dbachelder
Nice catch. It's up there now. Thanks!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Last of the Neanderthals - robg
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/10/neanderthals/hall-text
======
biohacker42
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=306927>
~~~
robg
Cool man, thanks. Usually I'd delete the dupe, but in this case I'd rather
have the unpaginated version in my personal archive.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Four Reasons Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums - SQL2219
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-07-16/four-reasons-taxpayers-should-never-subsidize-stadiums
======
masonic
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18832975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18832975)
600+ points
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Contents of the Voyager Golden Record - tosh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record
======
tosh
The content is quite fascinating. Unfortunately the information in the article
is quite sparse. Shouldn't all the content be available in the public domain?
|
{
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}
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A $277 million navigational error - uvdiv
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/world/asia/us-navy-to-scrap-vessel-stuck-on-philippine-reef.html
======
uvdiv
_[US Navy Rear Adm. Jonathan] White's message states, "initial review of
navigation data indicates an error in the location of Tubbataha Reef" on the
digital map._
<http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=71553>
|
{
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Wikipedia - Thank You for stopping SOPA - justhw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup?new=yes
======
carlsednaoui
Yesterday's blackout was simply incredible. When I woke up and saw all of the
sites that were protesting I got chills down my spine.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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SpaceX Launch: Starlink 12 [video] - cjnicholls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4xR7LMCGY
======
codeulike
Everyone is commenting saying how mundane it has become to see the landings.
Hence you might enjoy this official SpaceX Blooper reel from 2017 that shows
the numerous spectacular failures that they worked through.
Innovation is a type of gamble. People forget that.
"SpaceX: How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ)
(and regular reminder that these things are 12-storey high explosive tubes)
~~~
skvark
If the Falcon 9 landings feel mundane, I would recommend to follow Starship
development. Starship SN6 might do a 150 meter hop later today:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky5l9ZxsG9M)
------
mabbo
The true beauty of SpaceX is that they've made landing their boosters boring
(almost). This makes their competitors throwing them away seem stupid.
It also shows how clever it was to livestream so much of what they do. So many
people have seen a rocket booster land. Children today will hear that ULA
doesn't land their boosters and ask "why not?".
~~~
imglorp
Let's talk about the "why not" for a second.
The incumbents have 200 years of collective head start over SpaceX, which
started from scratch in 2002. They had 18 years to use that advantage to beat
everyone else to reusable space access while remaining in the cherry
procurement positions. Instead, they mismanaged, wrecked their quality
culture, and lobbied for more handouts.
Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying
another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the China
card.
[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-
national-s...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-
security/elon-musks-spacex-nasa-contracts-threatened-over-tesla-china-ties)
~~~
tenpies
> Unable to compete on merit, schedule,or price, ULA is reduced to buying
> another congressman, who's implying SpaceX is a security threat via the
> China card.
That's quite the leap, although I can see your logic.
Ultimately Musk should have seen this coming because it's obvious. He's tied a
huge amount of his net worth to the favour of the CCP and involved himself
with a program of national importance to a country that is at odds with the
CCP.
What's worst, Musk has zero respect for any sort of arms length separation
between his companies, so it's almost guaranteed that the CCP has some level
of access to SpaceX IP as they expand their grasp on Tesla through Shanghai.
This was all easily avoidable if Musk didn't insist on thinking that if he
didn't personally come up with the idea, the idea must be idiotic.
~~~
asfasfasf12
So if I fall your logic correctly then Boeing, which is part of ULA, is also
in CCP's pockets. They produce planes there, a lot. Just one example.
~~~
nickik
This. Embracing level of argument. Lets ignore the fact also that the US had a
50+ year standing relationship with China and it encouraged its companies to
work there, including China in the WTO and so on.
------
bronco21016
It really is quite incredible how _boring_ this has become. I was chatting
with a friend who used to follow all of this stuff closely with me at the
beginning of the landing attempts. He wasn’t tuning in this morning (US east
coast) because he didn’t find it exciting without the almost 50/50 chance the
Stage 1 booster would RUD on landing.
Starhopper 150M hop window opened today. Hoping to see some action there as
that seems to be the new hotbed of SpaceX excitement. Not that I wish for a
RUD but it’s far more likely to see something crazy on these early experiments
making it more fun to watch.
~~~
waynenilsen
Last hop there was no RUD but the raptor did quite a job to the launch mount
it was definitely entertaining if not unexpected.
~~~
danw1979
The “small fire” around the raptor engine pipework also added to the tension,
even though we knew it was a success by the time we had that footage.
It definitely had that prototype feel to it.
------
shantara
An interesting detail mentioned during the webcast was that SpaceX have
already performed initial testing of inter-satellite links on a pair of
Starlink satellites.
~~~
dzhiurgis
Was that laser or radio links?
~~~
shantara
The commentator called them "space lasers" on stream
------
ttul
I love that the presenter is a female engineer. How inspiring this must be for
millions of girls around the world. Hopefully it encourages more girls to take
on engineering to help provide a better balance of gender in the field.
~~~
vardump
So is SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell.
You might be interested in her TEDx talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQPNDNulVc)
------
erwinh
Thats becoming one massive constellation [https://space-
search.io/?search=starlink](https://space-search.io/?search=starlink)
~~~
krick
Is it even possible to take them down without scattering debris all over the
orbit later on?
Also, is orbit considered to be a free real estate? Does the first one to call
dibs just take it or what? It's sure slowly getting a bit crowded over there.
~~~
jccooper
They already deorbit Starlink sats regularly. The "prototype" birds from the
first launch are being decommissioned. SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a
script, probably) and Starlink would disappear within 2-4 weeks.
Earth orbit is kinda first-come, first-served, though there is some
coordination for GEO and large constellations via FCC and the ITU. It's really
not particularly crowded. Starlink in particular basically occupies only one
orbital shell at the moment, and not a particularly popular one, though it'll
eventually have three or so.
~~~
moralestapia
>SpaceX could hit a button (well, run a script, probably) and Starlink would
disappear within 2-4 weeks.
Make me wonder what kind of security is in place to prevent a bad actor from
doing that.
Is there some 'field' of CS that deals with this? I would love to read about
it.
------
stemc43
I've had so many outages this month with Cox. Can't wait for this project to
start rolling out to consumers.
~~~
chasd00
my wife and i are looking at property in the mountains of SE Oklahoma. I'm
hoping starlink comes online in the next 2-3 years.
------
cowmix
They nailed the landing of the booster and I yawned.
Amazing.
------
ape4
At 9:33 she says "100 Megabytes/second". Probably megabits/second. Still cool.
~~~
bryanlarsen
Eric Berger confirmed with SpaceX that it is 100 megabits.
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex-
launches-12th...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/spacex-
launches-12th-starlink-mission-says-users-getting-100-mbps-downloads)
------
jguimont
What will be the speed of the internet down and up link when fully
operational? The video said 100Mbps at low latency. Do they expect more
afterward?
------
perilunar
The satellite deployment seemed a bit wonky at the end of the video. Like they
were tangled. Hope it went ok.
~~~
_Microft
SpaceX hosts said during earlier launches that these satellites are built to
be able to bump into each other after payload separation. SpaceX chose to
stack the satellites on top of each other to save mass and volume that a
larger payload adapter would have required. The stacked satellites are held
together by 'tension rods' which are released to let them separate. In today's
launch, you can actually see a rod being released [0]. Normally they lose the
video feed around that time. They separate relatively easily because the
second stage spins up to 'throw' them out. It didn't look worse than during
other launches.
[https://www.starlink.com/](https://www.starlink.com/) has an image carousel
with renders of the satellites and the stack if someone wants to have a closer
look.
[0] [https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780](https://youtu.be/_j4xR7LMCGY?t=1780)
------
manuelabeledo
So, what about upload speeds?
|
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|
Found trapped in a diamond: a type of ice not known on Earth - pulisse
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-water-in-diamonds-20180308-story.html
======
lamename
This is fascinating. I had no idea ice could take on so many crystalline forms
depending on the variety of conditions. Apparently there are other shapes even
beyond those mentioned in the article:
[http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ice_phases.html](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ice_phases.html)
~~~
fastball
If you find this interesting, you might enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle",
which is based around a highly dangerous (and imaginary) form of ice, ice-
nine.
And even if you aren't super excited about ice-nine, it's still a highly
enjoyable read.
~~~
anamexis
There was also a real-life scare in the 70s around "polywater" [1][2] that
some people worried could "infect" other water.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater)
[2] [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-
soviet-s...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-
scientific-secret-that-made-the-world-gulp)
~~~
scruple
That Wikipedia article is great. I love the introduction paragraph.
> By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater
> gap" in the USA.
I find it illuminating to understand that "journalists," or the "popular
press," were ratcheting up the "fear sells" / fake news bullshit at least as
far back as 1969 (and I'm sure it goes back much further). If you were
ignorant, and I certainly am, you would think that this is a wholly new
phenomenon. I mean, that is what the same "popular press" is telling us today,
right?
~~~
njarboe
There was even a phrase coined in the 1890's for such journalism; "Yellow
Journalism[1]"
From the wikipedia article. Frank Luther Mott (of the same era) on the five
main characteristics of yellow journalism:
1\. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2\. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3\. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade
of false learning from so-called experts
4\. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
5\. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.
------
kaycebasques
The bit about compressibility tickles my mind. Really cool that some compounds
maintain their structure while collapsing the space between, while others
change their structure entirely when subjected to pressure. Would make for a
cool visualization.
Are there theories about what structure ice-VIII, ice-IX, etc. would take?
~~~
ghaff
Ice has at least 16 different phases:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice)
Ice XVII has been predicted: [http://www.sci-
news.com/othersciences/chemistry/ice-xvii-che...](http://www.sci-
news.com/othersciences/chemistry/ice-xvii-chemists-predict-existence-new-form-
ice-03633.html)
------
asafira
Hey everyone --- I work with defects in diamond for my PhD! While they are
completely different from the chunks of ice described here, let me know if
there is something I can help with.
------
ghaff
Ice is really a fascinating material generally, even just “normal” ice. My
thesis advisor has pretty much made a career out of studying it. I didn’t do
my material science work on ice personally though; he also studied high
temperature super alloys earlier in his career.
------
bananatron
What a trip that in the future the most coveted jewelry will probably be from
materials found on other planets (assuming we haven't gotten over this jewelry
thing).
~~~
joering2
Mandatory in case someone wonders about OP last part:
[https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-
bulls...](https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit)
~~~
jey
Diamonds are bullshit, but body adornment is a human universal that exists in
all cultures. So the diamond bullshit is hijacking something very real and
human.
~~~
bananatron
You're totally right, but there are also a lot of 'real' and 'human/animal'
traditions that we've collectively decided aren't worth continuing. I'd argue
this should be one of them, but I'm not bullish on my preference vs. diamond
advertising budget and a culture of perpetual consumerism.
------
userbinator
Given how much pressure it's under, I wonder if it might cause the diamond to
explode if subjected to additional stress.
------
chaoticmass
So is it still 'frozen' (it is ice afterall) even above 0c?
~~~
komali2
Yes, it is!
Water has a pretty interesting relationship with pressure (interesting to
nerds like me anyway) :
[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-p...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-
point-of-water-with-respect-to-pressure)
~~~
joering2
+1 I read an interesting article a while ago that i cannot find anymore, it
was about dooms day from science point of view.
The bottom line is in case of metheor falling down it is not the impact or
cloud of dust up killing you, but simple change of pressure that will not only
boil all oceans but also will boil blood and water in your body. As pressure
goes down so falls the boiling point of liquid.
Edit: typos
------
peter303
Some outer solar system moons are mostly water ice. Theircores could be this
phase of ice.
------
oldmancoyote
This conflicts with what I think I know about the occurrence of diamonds. For
the most part diamonds are formed just below the surface in melts rich in
dissolved carbon dioxide. These materials rise through the crust through very
narrow pipes and explode when the carbon dioxide comes out of solution at the
surface.
These explosions form the bell shaped bodies that are mined for diamonds.
Because of the phase behavior of carbon dioxide rich melts, and because the
diamond grade just below the bell is very low, diamonds seem to be formed in
the high pressure streams of carbon dioxide released when the temperature
declines and the confining pressure is released at the surface.
Perhaps there are "seed" crystals formed much deeper and such a crystal formed
the nucleus for this diamond. From this popular article it is not possible to
determine at what depth the water crystal formed. Conceivably it could have
formed in the stream of carbon dioxide at the surface.
------
andmarios
I don't know what they do on their website but it is as heavy as they can
come. Scrolling the article in Chrome, causes music (play music, playing in
another tab) to skip!
------
aaraun
But it was “known on Earth”, and had been observed in the lab - it just hadn’t
yet been observed in nature. A bit of a sensational title.
------
eganist
Seeing "atoms" used _in reference to water molecules_ has me feeling a
particular way. Am I nitpicking too hard?
\--
edit: moccachino makes a good point below that I missed on my first two passes
-- it's referring to the actual positioning of the atoms within water
molecules, which makes sense now that I'm giving it another pass. This is
evident in referring in one part to "oxygen atoms" specifically.
~~~
moccachino
It seems to me the usage is correct, they are referencing the atoms that make
up the water molecules.
~~~
eganist
It took me your comment to realize it. Thanks for pointing it out: the point
that wasn't effectively conveyed to me was that the actual relative
positioning of oxygen atoms relative to each other seems to be shifting under
pressure.
This speaks well to DrNuke's point as well.
------
drumttocs8
Thank god it isn't ice-nine!
------
DoreenMichele
And people keep acting like there's nothing left to really discover on earth.
------
maliker
Dang, got here too late to make the Vonnegut joke.
But still in time to share a link about strange forms of non-ice H2O:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater)
------
pichaipedro
tl;dr: "Diamonds can trap small bubbles of extremely dense pressurized water
when they form. Then, as the diamond moves up through the mantle, the water
inclusion is subjected to cooler temperatures while remaining under the same
pressurized conditions. In that very specific case, ice-VII can occur."
------
Sonnol53
How much is it worth?
~~~
samstave
Show me your BTC wallet
------
mjcohen
Obviously ice 9.
------
stupidcar
Let's just be grateful it wasn't ice-IX they found.
~~~
mcherm
Sounds like they haven't actually broken open the diamond, so can we really be
sure?
~~~
kurthr
They don't mention it in the article, but it's likely to be IR spectroscopy,
since that can measure resonance of H2O molecular bonds, which would be
specific to symmetries/energies in Ice-7 and very different from the known
spectrum of diamond.
edit to add:
[http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html](http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html)
However, I suppose it could also be X-ray crystallography, which would measure
the actual crystal structure. Probably other methods as well...
~~~
creep
They do mention it in the article
>But while they were scanning the diamonds with high intensity X-rays, they
saw something else: The first conclusive evidence of ice-VII on the planet.
But probably they used other methods to confirm.
------
nfarrell
Ice Nine???
~~~
samstave
Tyrell Corp security are here to have a word....
|
{
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|
Show HN: IMDB for YouTubers - smhtyazdi
http://www.rshiv.org/
======
anigbrowl
This is a badly needed thing but there is no way I am signing up when you
don't even have a screenshot. Put something together first.
~~~
smhtyazdi
Thanks, for your comment. I started to add some titles. Here you can find a
simple one.
[http://www.rshiv.org/profile.php?u=vitalyzdtv](http://www.rshiv.org/profile.php?u=vitalyzdtv)
~~~
anigbrowl
That's good. I really think you need to build it up a bit before launching,
though. As someone who works in media, nobody likes the job of entering all
the credits into IMDB, but someone has to do it because it's a good marketing
tool. Right now this looks like an idea more than a product, but there is
definitely a need.
------
padho
I like the idea but you have to work on your site and put content on it
~~~
smhtyazdi
Thanks for your comment. This not like IMDB where everything has to be
reviewed first. Here, Video owner (channel owner) is responsible for giving
credit to other youtubers for his/her video. Here is a sample:
[http://www.rshiv.org/title.php?v=oFMsqrG9RWg](http://www.rshiv.org/title.php?v=oFMsqrG9RWg)
|
{
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Microsoft's little-screen, big-screen interactive future - clbrook
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57572163-75/microsofts-little-screen-big-screen-interactive-future/
======
clbrook
Reminds me of Corning's day of glass videos:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38>
|
{
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The YOLOv3 Object Detection Network Is Fast - Qworg
https://medium.com/@Synced/the-yolov3-object-detection-network-is-fast-fcceae0ab650
======
Qworg
Paper:
[https://pjreddie.com/media/files/papers/YOLOv3.pdf](https://pjreddie.com/media/files/papers/YOLOv3.pdf)
GitHub:
[https://github.com/pjreddie/darknet](https://github.com/pjreddie/darknet)
Joseph Redmon and Ali Farhadi are funny and informative as always.
Disclosure: I work for Vulcan Inc. and collaborate with AI2 regularly.
|
{
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}
|
The Evolution of Trust - abhi3
http://ncase.me/trust/?
======
shock
Nick Case has other awsome stuff you can play with. I quite enjoyed
[http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/).
|
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Facebook Code - GutenYe
https://code.facebook.com/
======
GutenYe
Facebook Open Source 2016 year in review:
[https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/t39.2365-6/15945710_1292506674...](https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/t39.2365-6/15945710_1292506674139589_2204580213088583680_n.png)
|
{
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Why is Apple only buying startups from Israel? - ForFreedom
Are there no startups in the US/EU/UK?
======
jaachan
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple)
says they've only bought two Israeli companies so far.
|
{
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How script kiddies turns Linux box into a Zombie - True Story - Andrew-Dufresne
http://blog.larsstrand.org//article.php?story=HollidayCracking
======
DCoder
_"Let's execute command 382 to see what it does."_
Oy. Not the best idea, generally speaking.
Edit: I used to read the localized paper version of <http://xakep.ru/> several
years ago, and practically every hacking story/tool roundup they had mentioned
the annoying problem with ls --color, it was apparently present in almost
every public rootkit at the time. It's kinda interesting to see that idiots
still use outdated tools years later.
------
dstorrs
Great story. As a developer-but-not-sysadmin, it's interesting to read how
someone more knowledgeable does this sort of analysis and remediation.
|
{
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The Coders Programming Themselves Out of a Job - xcubic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/agents-of-automation/568795?single_page=true
======
eindiran
Duplicate of:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120322)
------
IronWolve
Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script
|
{
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Secrets of BackType's (YC S08) Data Engineers - omakase
http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/01/secrets-of-backtypes-data-engineers.php
======
blantonl
This illustrates that a staff of _three_ highly skilled innovative engineers
can bring to market an innovative solution.
Jeeze, these guys developed their own _database_ and _language_ to accomplish
their objectives. Others might take 10 million in funding, already be focused
on the 2nd round, all the while not focused on delivering first.
You have to get there, before you can get there.
Congrats to the BackType team.
------
fookyong
I would be more interested in hearing the results/reasoning of their recent
introduction of a paywall.
Seems the business model pivoted slightly.
e.g. [http://backtweets.com/search?q=yongfook.com%2Fall-about-
litt...](http://backtweets.com/search?q=yongfook.com%2Fall-about-
littlecosm&ref=p1)
anything beyond the last few weeks, you need to pay $100/month.
~~~
konsl
The results in BackTweets haven't actually changed, we're just showing an
upgrade button above them. What was free continues to be free.
------
mrchess
I'm surprised they are still 3 engineers. They have been posting jobs for
almost a year now and still haven't hired anyone, yet they keep saying in
blogs and the job section they want to hire. I understanding waiting for the
"best" yet at the same time you're growing a custom stack that requires
specific skill sets and I imagine as time goes on it only gets harder. I mean,
slow hiring is good too but at some point you need to give in and grow so that
your employees can join in on your projects and grow with the company!
~~~
nathanmarz
We've recently added two very talented interns to our team:
<http://tech.backtype.com/welcome-jason-christopher>
~~~
chanri
Are you looking for full-time engineers?
~~~
nathanmarz
Yes, we are.
<http://www.backtype.com/jobs>
------
ehsanul
This reminds me of that post by the ex-Facebook manager, who said that tools
are top priority. This article really brings it home for me.
However, despite their purported effectiveness as engineers, I'm not sure what
Backtype is really doing. I generally see them just below an article, in place
of comments, with a long list of useless tweets referring to the article
(usually of the form "article title - bit.ly/shortened". That's probably not
doing them too much good for marketing, unless you think any publicity is good
publicity.
~~~
konsl
What you're seeing is Disqus' Reactions feature, which we help power. Part of
our business is data services, which companies like Disqus, Bitly, The New
York Times, SlideShare, etc use.
Our own product is a marketing intelligence platform; essentially, it provides
analytics for social media marketing programs so brands understand what's
working, what isn't and how to improve.
|
{
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Ask HN: Learning Ruby + MooTools - sscheper
Compared to most people here, I'm a n00b when it comes to programming. I've had a computer since I was five, but I never really got into computing languages until this past year (I'm 23 now---yes, pretty old).<p>Without ever taking one class in computer science, I managed to create about 8 websites (built off of wordpress): http://venturedig.com/?page_id=335<p>I know html, css, php. But that's pretty much it.<p>My Goal: My new goal is to increase progress and create a light-weight 37 signals-like app, using my new macbook.<p>I could be wrong, but I imagine that in order to accomplish this goal, I'll need to use Ruby on Rails and MooTools. Do you think a beginner can grasp it? And, what do you think the learning curve will be?<p>Thanks!
======
teej
I was in your position 4 years ago. I had spent some time learning HTML/CSS +
PHP and had thrown up a few websites here and there. I wanted to get into real
web dev, and I decided Rails would pave that road.
I'm not one for books, but Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
(<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101329/>) was an incredible resource for
new devs. I have since introduced two other people to Rails though that book
and they loved it. One issue: it's old. If they haven't updated it for Rails
2+, don't go near it. You might want to try the Rails Guide instead
(<http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html>)
From there, I picked up Ruby for Rails (<http://www.manning.com/black/>). I
read about 20% of this book. It was critical for me understanding the "magic"
behind Rails and the weird syntax behind Ruby. I came from a somewhat CS
background, so YMMV.
After that, I left the books behind. I just found problems and tried solving
them with Ruby & Ruby on Rails. I did a few crappy webapps, some of the
Facebook engineering puzzles, some of the Project Euler questions.
\----- One word: PRACTICE. -----
At first, stay away from doing it perfect, just get something working and
iterate. You don't need a full suite of tests, scale to 1M users, and super-
clever meta-code (you dont need this ever). Every project you do you'll get
better.
And when you get stuck, know where to go for help. The people who hang out in
#ruby & #rubyonrails on freenode can be really helpful. To get the most out of
this help, enter the room, state that you're new to Ruby/Rails, explicitly
state your end goal (I want to see a list of customers on the screen), and
include all your relevant code in a pastie. You may have to be patient, but
the people there are super smart and super helpful.
\---------------------------
Through a combination of self taught Ruby on Rails programming and putting
myself in professional situations with room for programming growth, I have
been incredibly successful. I'm positive you can too. Pracitce lots, always be
learning, don't be afraid to ask for help. Best of luck.
------
jlees
Yes, of course you can grasp it! The tutorial stuff on Rails is really easy to
follow - it's a complex process, but it's not intimidating if you get a good
book. Out of everything in the space at the moment Ruby and Rails are probably
your best bet, if you want to build a lean mean fighting app machine,
especially if 37signals is your inspiration, as that's their platform. (They
even wrote the book on it: <https://gettingreal.37signals.com/>)
Of course, others will rabidly disagree. Do a bit of homework, flick through
some books in a shop and see if you can follow along. Maybe others will
recommend good web based tutorials but I always prefer paper.
MooTools.. another buzzword.. don't get hung up on using that over the
alternatives like prototype and script.aculo.us, but again, it's fairly easy
to use (I haven't looked at the for-newbies tutorials though). I'd focus on
the stuff under the hood first and worry about learning MooTools later.
The learning curve won't be easy for a complete novice, but it will be
masterable. Good luck!
------
sharkbrainguy
I could be wrong, but I imagine that in order to accomplish this goal,
I'll need to use Ruby on Rails and MooTools.
You are wrong, in that your goal doesn't imply those requirements. RoR is one
tool among hundreds that you could use to write a webapp. The same is true of
MooTools.
I'm not saying that they're not good options or even that they're not the
_best_ choices (maybe they are), but it doesn't follow from "I want to write a
web-app on my mac" that "I need to learn RoR and MooTools".
That being said.
Yes, I think that an intelligent 23yo who knows php can probably learn Ruby (+
rails) and JS (+ MooTools).
I'm not sure how useful an answer you can get here though. If people say yes,
you're going to go and do it. If people say no, you're going to think to
yourself "F--k that" and do it anyway (or at least you should).
------
sscheper
Thanks for the help everyone -- I'll be using the local Barnes and noble to
browse through your recommended books :)
|
{
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ASCII art animations in the URL bar - qbonnard
http://glench.com/hash
======
gus_massa
Really interesting but I hope this doesn't become popular and appear in every
site. A few comments:
* Wave2 is broken in Chrome (in Windows)
* The title should change, it's always "I'm sorry".
* I'd prefer that this doesn't destroy the history / back button.
* Add a stop button / link.
* I like the diy. Can I send one to my friends?
------
psychobabble
bar har har! Serious LOLs were had after playing around here using Google
Chrome then viewing history later to find something else.. 10 pages of Chrome
History telling me 'I'm Sorry' because Chrome Records Every URL Change To
History!
Well played with project... and the I'm sorry page title.
------
Yadi
THIS!...It's so cool, wait how is this done?
------
GroSacASacs
very impressive, but it feeds history so much, and breaks back forwards
buttons
~~~
billconan
exactly! for this reason, this can't be used for production.
|
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Amazon Should Acquire Netflix - Here's Why - dell9000
http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2009/01/02/why-amazon-should-acquire-netflix/
======
catone
The argument I've always heard against Amazon acquiring Netflix is that
Netflix has distribution centers in something like 45 states, whereas Amazon
only has them in a handful. So that'd be 45 states in which Amazon would then
have to charge sales tax.
If Netflix were a solely streaming operation, it'd make sense for Amazon, or
if tax on ecommerce was already charged in most states regardless of physical
presence it would make sense. Not sure it does otherwise, though.
~~~
antiismist
Amazon seems to charge sales tax based on where the goods are shipped to, not
where they are shipped from:
"Items sold by Amazon.com LLC, or its subsidiaries, and shipped to
destinations in the states of Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or
Washington are subject to tax."
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=4...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512)
~~~
catone
I think those are the states in which they have a physical presence. I know
their headquarters are in Washington, for example, and that they have a big
distribution center in Kentucky. New York, though, may just have laws taxing
ecommerce (I'm not certain).
~~~
antiismist
Nope, Amazon has distribution centers in 8 states, but they don't all get
sales taxed:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#Fulfillment_and_ware...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#Fulfillment_and_warehousing)
~~~
catone
I guess it would depend on the sales tax laws in each state.
Some states require sales tax on ecommerce if there is a physical presence,
some do not. Some require tax regardless.
The argument I have always heard in relation to Netflix is that if Amazon were
to acquire Netflix it would mean charging sale tax to a much greater number of
customers.
Netflix has many more established physical presences across the US:
[http://www.listology.com/netflix_tracker_reports.cfm?report=...](http://www.listology.com/netflix_tracker_reports.cfm?report=centers)
------
jonknee
Netflix and Amazon know the days of physical discs are numbered. I don't think
Amazon needs to acquire a business to dominate a dying vertical. They already
have digital distribution and a huge brand, just bank on that.
~~~
inklesspen
The days of physical discs will last for quite a while. First Amazon would
have to provide a TV-centric solution that matches Bluray's power, and then
they will have to provide a drm-free solution so buyers aren't tied to Windows
Media.
~~~
jonknee
Why would it have to be DRM free? DVD and Blu-Ray are riddled with DRM and
they are still popular. This is to do "rental", not purchasing. Only makes
sense to have some DRM on there or else the purchase business will end.
~~~
inklesspen
Depends on the form of DRM, really. DVD's DRM doesn't bother most people,
because it doesn't really pose an obstacle to what they want to do with it.
But Windows Media DRM won't work nicely with set-top boxes, with Macs, perhaps
even with Microsoft's own products (remember Zune not working with
PlaysForSure?). And there have been well-known cases of Windows Media DRM
servers going dark. The DRM the movie cartels insist on for digital downloads
is just too intrusive.
~~~
jonknee
Amazon does video on demand to Macs, PCs, XBOX, Tivo, etc. Who cares if DRM
servers go dark, this is a streaming service. You watch it and then Microsoft
could be fire bombed and it doesn't affect you.
I agree DRM is shitty for purchased movies, but this is basically a pay-per-
view service. For most movies that's all people want. Why wait for the mail
man or go to a store/kiosk when you can watch instantly from your couch?
------
hs
i guess the reason amazon doesn't have many distribution centers is because
they are expensive
she outsourced the problem by having amazon marketplace
now every kindle is distribution center (cheap)
looking at this trend, she might be better off creating a kindle for movies
her strength is not in rental (why safari bookshelf is unchallenged ?)
if she _really_ want to be in movie rental, maybe safari dvd-rack model
(download high-res per dvd chapter or streaming lower res for full, 3
titles/rack/mo) is a long shot
the success of youtube indicates that not everyone cares about dvd-quality
clips, they simply want to watch it now
~~~
asnyder
Could it be that the larger iPod Touch will be the new kindle for movies? If
and when our bandwidth catches up to our foreign counterparts, renting movies
via the embedded iTunes app will seem natural enough.
However, unlike books, movies are best experienced in an environment dedicated
to it. So even if the iPod Touch is the next kindle for movies, something like
Apple TV, or the numerous netflix set top boxes will most likely be the next
step in movie rentals and purchasing.
|
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OpenSSH and the dangers of unused code - corbet
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/672465/4c0bced62cb3e625/
======
Kristine1975
Use memset_s, people. The compiler isn't allowed to remove calls to it:
[http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1381.pdf](http://www.open-
std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1381.pdf)
|
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These genetically modified cyborg dragonflies could perform ‘guided pollination’ - preetish
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/25/these-genetically-modified-cyborg-dragonflies-could-perform-guided-pollination/
======
LordWinstanley
>>we can make enough of them fast enough to counter the disappearance of
honeybees
Black Mirror Series 03 "Hated in the Nation"
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/?ref_=ttep_ep6](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/?ref_=ttep_ep6)
------
whatnotests
This is amazing, even if it's a bit far-off.
My question is whether this can be streamlined and the little bots can be re-
used enough to cover their expense, and we can make enough of them fast enough
to counter the disappearance of honeybees.
|
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Uber Picks Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as New CEO - nbmh
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/technology/dara-khosrowshahi-uber-ceo.html?mcubz=0
======
mwnivek
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113613)
|
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|
Toki Pona - ColinWright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona
======
anonymfus
Conlang Critic is a fan of this language:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn6LC1RpAo)
I highly recommend watching all episodes of their show if you like an idea of
short text based video essays about constructed languages:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITm...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuYLhuXt4HrQqnfSceITmv6T_drx1hN84)
~~~
lifthrasiir
I second this. If you are new to the series, the recent Lingwa de Planeta
episode [1] contains a good introduction to conlangs and especially
international auxiliary languages in general.
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi1-ZWiqjD8)
------
schoen
Maybe dang or some other public-spirited person could find some of the earlier
toki pona threads from HN so people could see some of the earlier discussions?
I know I've participated in quite a few of them because I know toki pona well
and had various random things to comment on each time it was brought up here.
:-)
Edit: I guess the majority of these threads can be found with
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toki+pona)
(including the recent one on a custom homemade computer with a native toki
pona input and display, a project which was then described by its inventor
exclusively in toki pona).
~~~
6510
thanks
------
bovermyer
The really interesting thing about Toki Pona is that it's meant to force you
to think about the meaning of your words in a positive light.
~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Claiming that language limits what you can imagine is the strong version of
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity)
~~~
quotemstr
Not everyone agrees that it's been "debunked". There's a lot of motivated
reasoning in linguistics.
~~~
canjobear
You can read about the experiments yourself. Strong Sapir-Whorf (the idea that
language determines thought) is DOA. Weak Sapir-Whorf (language has some
influence on thought) has ok evidence.
------
stanislavb
An idea: If one learns to express himself in Toki Pona, would it be possible
to communicate "freely" with natives by simply learning the equivalent
vocabulary (120 words) of any other language?
------
codezero
Learning the vocabulary is easy, but because the vocabulary is so small, it
does become quite difficult to construct meaningful sentences following rules
that are very local to a few words, which ultimately spans many words. Most
often, it seems, like any language, a ton of the context becomes implied, so
it’s super tricky.
It’s still a fun weekend or multi weekend exercise in exploring languages
though.
------
senorsmile
A couple of years ago Memrise had a 48 hour challenge to learn it with a bunch
of other people, and to try to speak at the end. I did quite terribly (as
usual). Nevertheless, it was a fun challenge.
------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22689959)
See also
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Toki%20Pona%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story)
------
strogonoff
Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English,
Spanish and other Western languages.
What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written system
that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you pronounce”) _and_
synthetic to boot?
Make it use vocal cords differently.
Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set of
unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top of
that (borrowing for meanings outside of that set).
This could be so much more fun!
~~~
justinpombrio
> Invented languages are overwhelmingly boring in their likeness to English,
> Spanish and other Western languages.
Toki Pona is not like English, Spanish, or other Western languages.
It has no singular/plural distinction. It has no past/present/future tense.
Its pronouns have no gender. All of its phonemes are present in almost all
languages (this is on purpose). The way it forms questions is not like Enlgish
(I don't know of any language that it's similar to). Its word order is
subject-verb-object, like most languages. [EDIT: not most, only 42%]
The only thing its taken from English, as far as I've seen, is a bunch of
vocabulary. Though honestly its sounds are so limited that sometimes you can't
recognize which English word a Toki Pona word came from.
> What if we tried to create, say, a language with a logographic written
> system that is pure WYSIWYM (as opposed to “what you see is how you
> pronounce”) and synthetic to boot?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll just leave this link here...
[https://omniglot.com/conscripts/conlangs.htm](https://omniglot.com/conscripts/conlangs.htm)
> Instead of borrowing around, use a random seed in generating a minimum set
> of unique basic “native” words according to language rules and build on top
> of that
Lojban does this.
~~~
schoen
> The way it forms questions is not like Enlgish (I don't know of any language
> that it's similar to).
The "x ala x" pattern is directly modeled on the Chinese "x不x" (and "有没有")
pattern, including the answer ("x" / "x ala" in toki pona, "x" / "不x" in
Chinese). I think Sonja has mentioned this explicitly somewhere.
For example, in Chinese I think you can ask "你可不可" 'you can not can?' with the
possible answers "可" 'can' and "不可" 'cannot'. This corresponds directly to
toki pona's "sina ken ala ken?" 'you can not can?' with the answers "ken"
'can' and "ken ala" 'cannot'.
There's also the "anu seme?" pattern which is similar to the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question)
phenomenon in a number of languages; the one that I find it most similar to is
German, with the "oder?" tags.
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oder#Particle](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oder#Particle)
I understand the "oder?" to have a connotation of 'or _what_?' (like "are you
coming or what?"), in which case "kommst du, oder?" should correspond
literally to toki pona's "sina kama anu seme?" 'you come or what?'.
------
stewbrew
Does the title comply with HN rules?
BTW to use an artificial language to understand real life is like asking a
Catholic priest for marriage advice.
~~~
ColinWright
The original title was carefully chosen, extracted from the pages themselves,
to ensure that HN readers would have an idea of what it was supposed to be
about, and not just a pair of random words. As such, I thought it did comply,
and was helpful.
Clearly the mods disagreed.
------
HeavenBanned
I really love how body parts are consolidated so smartly. "noka" meaning
thigh, shin and foot is just brilliant.
~~~
gliese1337
You might like Russian, then.
~~~
therein
Care to elaborate? Genuinely curious.
~~~
gliese1337
Russian also has a single word for the entire lower limb, leg and foot
included: "noga". Also a single word for the combined arm and hand: "ruka".
|
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Node WebKit - gits1225
https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit?
======
SixSigma
I don't quite understand what this is. Is it a Web browser that runs Npm?
Is it a server side html renderer?
~~~
general_failure
Desktop software using HTML and node.
~~~
SixSigma
I still don't quite understand.
How is it different from a web browser ?
~~~
hnbro
i suppose one difference would be that browsers don't have a web server
process built-in (or most don't)
|
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DNC warns 2020 campaigns not to use FaceApp 'developed by Russians' - smacktoward
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/dnc-warning-faceapp/
======
bifrost
I was discussing this (faceapp) earlier today, and I really don't feel like
its a big deal aside from the russaphobia it drums up. We shouldn't condemn
all of the post-soviet countries because of some percieved boogeyman.
I'm not a hugely public person but I've certainly been on a lot of websites
([http://web.archive.org/web/20181001112852/http://www.ycombin...](http://web.archive.org/web/20181001112852/http://www.ycombinator.com/people/))
and I've been on TV and vlogs as well. If they're looking for facial data,
they'll get it from that.
The TOS for the app is about the same as an Social Media site as well so
unless you're going to become a neoluddite you probably shouldn't care.
|
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|
HumanPredictions – Bootstrapping a SaaS app to $18k/mo in under a year - csallen
https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/humanpredictions?utm_source=hacker-news&utm_campaign=interview-promotion&utm_medium=social
======
hiou
He basically gets a spot in the family business which he uses as a launchpad
to creating a SaaS product. Come on, this title is so far off from reality. No
problem with what he did and it sounds like he does a great job, but let's at
least keep the titles from indiehackers somewhat accurate. It gives a lot of
people thinking about starting their own company really unrealistic
expectations.
~~~
gregorymichael
As someone who has known Elliot from the Chicago scene for the last ~10 years,
I have to push back on this.
Elliot hustled his ass off doing his own thing, working recruiting for
Groupon, working as one of the founding employees of DevBootcamp Chicago to
get graduates gigs (and doing so with great success), and then back to his own
recruiting before launching Human Predictions based on feedback from his
clients and experiences.
He became, at least in my circles, the most trusted recruiter amongst
developers. Many thought of him as more of an "agent" than a recruiter.
Someone you could grab coffee with every six months who'd keep you in mind if
the perfect gig came up. I referred friends to him all the time without
concern that he'd spam them, hard-sell them, put them in whatever spot that
was open just to reap the commission. He's always had the developer's interest
in mind first and foremost.
I understand the sentiment that these stories can sometimes over-simplify the
journey. Yes, he had the privilege of learning the family business at a young
age. But it's not as if "having a dad that does X" makes it a trivial effort
to launch a SaaS that does X. In Elliot's case, there was at least ten years
of self-motivated hustle in-between.
~~~
hiou
Absolutely agree with you and my apologies if my comment made it out to sound
like I felt like he did not work for what he has accomplished.
_> No problem with what he did and it sounds like he does a great job_
My comment was about the indiehackers title and link. It seems to be a pretty
common occurrence for that site to greatly exaggerate the 0 to $X and this
article is unfortunately no exception. Much respect to Elliot for all he has
accomplished.
~~~
csallen
IH founder here. Why do you think the title is exaggerated? He did start his
business less than one year ago.
Of course, any business depends on the skillset and knowledge that its
founders started to build previous to its founding, but how do you put a start
date on that? To build a company, you need business skills, a network, money,
programming knowledge... for that you probably need professional experience...
for that you need the ability to read and write... etc. Where do you draw the
line? Everything always depends on what came before it. People get this. They
aren't naive enough to believe that founders are born on day 1 of their
companies with no previous life experience or knowledge of the world.
I agree it's dishonest to refer to a 5-year-old business as "an overnight
success" as often happens, but how exactly is it misleading to call a 1-year
old-business a 1-year-old business?
------
kpwagner
Wow! Maybe just me, hearing about a company bootstrapping to success instead
of raising large rounds of financing is all the more inspiring.
~~~
dave_sullivan
80% of the inc 500, the fastest growing private companies, haven't raised
outside capital.
~~~
thenaturalist
Do you have a source for that?
~~~
dave_sullivan
Some inc article I saw on HN with Sam Altman talking about how important
startups are to the economy, couldn't find exact one.
~~~
gexla
Here is a link to the HN discussion to the article I assume you are thinking
about. The wording was a bit different, which may have been why you didn't
find it.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625642)
~~~
dave_sullivan
That's the one. The exact quote:
> Only twenty per cent of the Inc. 500, the five hundred fastest-growing
> private companies, raised outside funding.
------
0xmohit
The underlying assumption seems to be that everyone uses
LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter. While it would be largely true, not _everyone_ uses
those. What would your tool say about them?
~~~
dpick
Unfortunately because we are just looking at public data online (including
Github, StackOverflow, and Meetup) if people don't use those services (or
contribute to open source) we won't discover them or be able to a make a
prediction about their likeliness to leave.
~~~
0xmohit
Maybe you should start looking at Keybase [0] too. It might help you link
personal websites, github, twitter, ...
[0] [https://keybase.io/](https://keybase.io/)
~~~
dpick
Thanks! We do actually use Keybase for discovering social accounts as well.
------
shostack
I noticed the UTM tags you had on this link.
How is Hacker News performing as part of your interview promotion?
~~~
csallen
Just started using UTM query params a few days ago, so I'll have more data
when I write my monthly review for November! But in October, direct links from
HN accounted for around half of my total traffic. More details here:
[https://goo.gl/FMxdpc](https://goo.gl/FMxdpc).
------
dpick
Hey everyone, I'm the CTO and Co-Founder of HumanPredictions happy to answer
any questions anyone has about the article or the company in general!
~~~
garysieling
I'm curious if you've received feedback from software developers on what the
experience is like being recruiting with your tool.
The agency spam approach you mention is irritating, but I would imagine that
if you're correctly predicting when someone is looking to jump that would be
less of a problem.
~~~
dpick
We actually do have a significantly better response from developers both
because they're being reached out to at the right time, but also because a lot
of our users are CTO's and Engineering managers who by the fact that they are
technical can have a much better conversation with prospects.
~~~
garysieling
Cool, that makes sense. I think a big part of the spam problem is mass
template emails, so if your customers are emailing people directly it would be
much better.
~~~
dpick
Completely agree, one of our core goals from the beginning of HumanPredictions
has been to kill mass template emails.
------
hueving
Would it be possible for a dev to see their own prediction (to prove ownership
maybe leverage oauth of one of the sites: github, linkedin, etc)?
~~~
dpick
We don't currently support that through the application, but it is on our
roadmap and something we very much want to build.
For now though if you reach out to me at [email protected] I'd be
happy to let you know what our current prediction for you is.
------
vsloo
Great story and many great lessons. Being "intentional about the people you
work with" is a great piece of advice and one that we usually like to stress
too when talking to aspiring entrepreneurs. We wrote about some of this too in
a previous HN thread [https://betterthansure.com/answer-hn-growing-a-side-
project-...](https://betterthansure.com/answer-hn-growing-a-side-
project-30f17f6a10da#.ntvqg0q7z).
------
desireco42
This is really cool idea, I like how it uses data to predict behavior.
I have few recruiters that always hit me around the time when I get a little
more free. They don't have this tool, just their spidey sense, but I bet they
would like something like this.
~~~
0xmohit
I heard of such tools a couple of years back. So I'm sure those exist.
How well do those work if an entirely different issue.
~~~
desireco42
Well, if people use twitter, github etc, they will be findable and their trace
can be used to predict if they are 'jumping ship'. It is common to start
blogging around the time you are looking to change work for example.
------
soheil
Sounds like very similar to my start up NetIn[1] We also look at public
profile updates and other signals to tell if a candidate is on the move. We
also got to HN frontpage last night for our candidate job portal[2]. If there
are people who would like to talk about what we've accomplished so far feel
free to reach me at [email protected]
[1] [https://netin.co](https://netin.co) [2]
[https://netin.co/candidates](https://netin.co/candidates)
------
philip1209
It's great to hear about your success!
For discussion's purposes, it's worth pointing out that there is a venture-
funded company that is doing the same thing (but with a big data science
team):
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/entelo](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/entelo)
------
iamleppert
Now just let me come up with a product I can sell to developers that
camouflages them to this product by simulating activity on these sites...
I wonder what their next line of business is at this company...selling this
data to current employers to see when their employee is about to jump ship?
------
gizmo
This type of data mining of personal information feels kind of icky to me.
------
k2xl
I wrote a similar tool for recruiters (only analyzes LinkedIn profiles that
you are viewing). Mine is significantly cheaper at $9 per month:
[https://recap.work](https://recap.work)
~~~
0xmohit
Your site redirects (301) from HTTPS to HTTP!
|
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Famed mathematician claims proof of 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis - thomasahle
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180406
======
ColinWright
There is significant scepticism[0][1] surrounding this, and many, many
submissions:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044050)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042687)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042513)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18042116)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18041616)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18038790)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036367)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18032207)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029551)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18029459)
=============================================
[0]
[https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_at...](https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9hl35w/sir_michael_atiyah_announced_a_proof_of_the/e6cxbin/)
[1] [https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael-
atiyah...](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/311062/sir-michael-atiyahs-
conference-on-the-riemann-hypothesis)
|
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Linear Algebra and Applications: An Inquiry-Based Approach - henning
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=books
======
jcranmer
Pedagogically, the challenge to teaching linear algebra is that you start with
"here's systems of linear equations, we can put them into matrices and now
here's row operations to solve them," and you end up with "now matrices are
actually representations of linear operators on vector spaces, let's analyze
the properties of this specific operator." Usually, this is also coupled with
a reluctance to actually discuss vector spaces, since the meat of it involves
abstract algebra, which usually comes after linear algebra.
Failing to tackle this challenge appropriately can leave students confused
about properties that seem apparently random (trace and determinant are big
offenders here), or textbooks bringing something up only to never mention it
again (null space is often an example here). On top of this, there is also the
multiple notation problem (admittedly, not as bad as calculus, where there are
too many notations for derivative) and the minor issue that many of the
algorithms taught in the book aren't used in practice because of numerical
stability issues.
It has been so long since I've taken linear algebra, and I've taken abstract
algebra courses since then, that I can't really compare this book to the
approach that I learned. Skimming the book, the thing that jumps out the most
to me is that LU factorization and determinants are shoved surprisingly late
in the book [1], and eigenvalues are "previewed" quite early. I'm not sure
that's a good approach: LU factorization is important because backsolving the
L and U matrices is more numerically stable (and sparser, when you're dealing
with sparse matrices) than the inverse matrix, and it works even if your
matrix isn't square. Furthermore, determinants tie in better to row
operations, and their weird application with Cramer's rule is another way to
solve a set of linear equations: you don't want to introduce Cramer's rule
months after you finished treating matrices as stepping stones to solving
linear equations.
The book does cover vector spaces, although in a bit of a dance around not
covering abstract algebra. I'm not sure it's an effective introduction of
vector spaces, although it could well suffice to ease the pedagogical trap
mentioned earlier. On the other hand, if it's going to dive that far into
vector spaces, it would probably be helpful to have some more sections on
matrices over fields that aren't real numbers (i.e., complex numbers (make
sure to mention conjugate transpose and Hermitian matrices!), rational
numbers, and finite fields).
[1] Strassen's algorithm for matrix multiplication is described before LU
factorization, to give you an idea of how weird the ordering ends up being.
~~~
tonyarkles
I went through EE and CS. EE we started using matrices exactly how you
describe it: here’s a system of linear equations, here’s how you write them in
matrix form, here’s how you invert them to solve the original system. Turn the
crank, answer pops out. I had my trusty HP49G, and I could solve linear
systems all day.
Then in CS I took a computer graphics course and it was rotation and
translation matrices all day every day.
Then there was a digital communications course where we touched on orthogonal
basis functions, and some matrix voodoo related to that and how to get
orthogonal vectors out of the mess.
And then finally I took the required CS linear algebra course offered by the
math department, where we started from scratch. Here’s a vector (psh, I know
vectors!), here’s a vector space (hmmm this is new), and building the rest of
it up from there. I _really_ wish that had come earlier on, but I was very
very happy to finally have a bit of a theoretical understanding of how these
tools I’d been using actually worked.
~~~
jammygit
I feel like my university only taught calculation, not theory, when it came to
linear algebra. It’s like the equivalent of a “12 hacks to rotate a matrix”
article. The theoretical books I find however give no explanation for the
definitions etc, ie, WHY are the dot/cross products defined the way they are.
It’s as though they feel matrixes are natural phenomenon that you should just
memorize the properties of, which is also nonsense.
The entire field is defined by such terrible books. I’d love to be wrong
though if somebody has a recommendation
------
faizshah
Along these lines, my stats professor recommended a really nice book that
offers a case studies based approach for grad level stats:
[http://www.statisticalsleuth.com/](http://www.statisticalsleuth.com/)
I've been going through it by implementing the solutions in jupyter notebooks.
They have the datasets and code in R so it's easy to work with and work out
the solutions.
~~~
dmitryminkovsky
Thank you for the recommendation.
------
Vaslo
The fact that it doesn’t start with some unreadable mathematical notation that
is just the author trying to show how smart they are give me hope.
Looks like a really good introductory source just skimming the first few
chapters.
------
anjc
I haven't gone through this yet but I really like the idea of each new concept
being described in the context of a useful application. Thanks OP
------
ch
Cool. I want to try and work through this text, just to assess how useful it
is.
The approach is an interesting one.
Looks like this will have to become a weekly goal. Maybe one chapter a week?
Seems possible.
------
zhamisen
Hopefully this topology book will be in the same style:
[https://bookstore.ams.org/text-58](https://bookstore.ams.org/text-58)
------
melvinroest
I have no clue how this is having 52 votes and no comments on it. How am I
supposed to know this is a good book? I'll highlight the goals of this book as
it explains more about the title.
> We place an emphasis on active learning and on developing students’
> intuition through their investigation of examples. For us, active learning
> involves students – they are DOING something instead of being passive
> learners.
I found this goal the most interesting.
> To help students understand that mathematics is not done as it is often
> presented. We expect students to experiment through examples, make
> conjectures, and then refine their conjectures. We believe it is important
> for students to learn that definitions and theorems don’t pop up completely
> formed in the minds of most mathematicians, but are the result of much
> thought and work
~~~
marktangotango
The reason I upvoted was with intent to review later. I personally found that
after two semesters of linear and a BS Mathematics I didn’t know jack about
linear algebra. I came to the conclusion that I should’ve studied physics or
engineering if I’d wanted to actually learn how to use it!
~~~
josinalvo
for this use case, I use favorite rather than the upvote
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Blockupload.io: Upload Files to Bitcoin Cash Blockchain(LZMA and OCB3-ChaCha20 - MCCCS
Hello HN community,<p>I'd like to present you my tool (https://blockupload.io) that allows embedding files up to 1 MB in Bitcoin Cash transactions. The tool uses WebAssembly to compress files using LZMA, and optionally encrypts files using a combination of OCB3 and ChaCha20. If you wonder how it does this, it's by not including a checksum in the ChaCha20 layer, which shouldn't be a problem since it's intended for chosen-ciphertext invulnerable, un-side-channeled personal computers. Anyway, you can see how it encrypts here: https://github.com/DesWurstes/BlockUpload/blob/7d0e247b7f5e01d1d84932a780156a590ec7f844/exports.c#L67<p>(This tool is intended for legal use only)<p>I'd like to hear your comments on this, HN community. You can also look at r/btc's reaction here: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/bah8zw/store_files_up_to_1_mb_in_bch_blockchain_onchain/<p>This tool is useful for:
- Static CDN
- Personal immutable file storage
======
yyyyip
cool project, expected response from BCH crew. permissionless is
permissionless. they need to suck it up.
------
ddtaylor
Neat idea. Keep working on it.
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Barclays Center freight elevators: each can carry a loaded semitruck (2015) [pdf] - owenversteeg
http://www.meielevatorsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BARCLAYS-CENTER.pdf
======
couchand
Very interesting read.
I was confused about the specific location the document desribes. "They enable
semi-truck or bus drivers to drive straight into either elevator from the
intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues on the southeast side of the
arena."
At the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush is a large pedestrian plaza and
the main entrance to the building, they would have a hard time driving a truck
through there. The actual entrance is on Dean Street (and indeed at the
southeast corner of the arena):
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6816292,-73.9748135,3a,75y,6...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6816292,-73.9748135,3a,75y,6.88h,82.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXQCxa91lYzKNOFTVKsqRww!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
------
owenversteeg
Video of them in action, including the 100,000lb turntable here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm19yMKVqOs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm19yMKVqOs)
|
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Worse Than China? U.S. Government Wants To Censor Search Engines And Browsers - sdizdar
http://act.demandprogress.org/act/protectip_docs/?source=fb
======
jgershen
This article, like the headline, is light on facts and high on sensationalism.
However, the bill (full text available at [1]) does look pretty ugly.
[1] [http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-
PROTECTIPAct....](http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-
PROTECTIPAct.pdf)
------
bluedanieru
We need a new constitution.
~~~
HedgeMage
The Constitution is fine; the government's habit of ignoring it is the
problem.
EDIT: The Constitution is fine; our habit of letting the government ignore it
is the problem.
|
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Ask HN: Can you posit some examples of civil discourse? - ahdroit
I understand this is not a political forum and am not looking for your political opinion rather examples of effective communication.<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvmLMUfGss
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Vietnam and the Intellectuals<p>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_discourse<p>I am aware that:
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or political battle or talking points."
and also:
"We ban accounts that use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle, regardless of which politics they favor. "<p>But would be interested in what makes effective dialog in your opinion.<p>other discussions (Buckley):
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=William%20F.%20Buckley&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story<p>(Chomsky)
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Chomsky&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story<p>I am not interested in your opinions on the specific speakers or their point of view. Rather examples where each speaker is able to communicate their point of view to the best of their ability within a context that allowed for a dialog.
======
wu-ikkyu
There are various intellectuals who have recorded debates and lectures on
youtube. It just depends on who you're interested in. If you look up any of
these names on youtube or elsewhere you'll find some interesting and eloquent
discourse (at least it is to me) with considerable political implications:
-Marshall McLuhan (media and communications theory)
[https://youtu.be/ImaH51F4HBw](https://youtu.be/ImaH51F4HBw)
-Buckminster Fuller (futurism and socioeconomics)
[https://youtu.be/elVGz_VR3eU](https://youtu.be/elVGz_VR3eU)
-Alan Watts (psychology and religion)
[https://youtu.be/eV7FLlRmuf0](https://youtu.be/eV7FLlRmuf0)
-Joseph Campbell (mythology and culture)
[https://youtu.be/aGx4IlppSgU](https://youtu.be/aGx4IlppSgU)
-MLK (sociology and human rights)
[https://youtu.be/9SfH2uMayks](https://youtu.be/9SfH2uMayks)
~~~
ahdroit
just wanted to say before this gets lost... all heroes, had not seen all of
these, i think i am also interested in implicit animosity but at the same time
coherent dialog¿? that said whom ever you are i lov u. in the truest sense of
the world.
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HN Being Fair - unimpressive
https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22to+be+fair%22
======
niggler
To be fair, "to be fair" is a common phrase that many of us use in face-to-
face conversation
~~~
unimpressive
It is, I just find these little quirks in language fascinating.
|
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Google Zeitgeist 2012 - sethbannon
http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world
======
chrisacky
Op op op op oppan. So, I was browsing through the source of the Zeitgeist
pages (as you do), and I saw some pretty cool stuff.
I started off by just wanting to know how the explore map was done [1]
But then I saw #easter-egg in the source, and also easter-egg.css file being
included.
If you look at the very very bottom of the page on the right, you will see the
Google colors. Hover over that for a Gangnam dancing character[2].
[1] : http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#explore
[2] : http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#maia-signature (Easter Egg Here)
I just made a JS Fiddle and posted a new submission on HN.
<http://jsfiddle.net/Layke/7hjTC/show/> <\--- View the Easter Egg
~~~
Surio
[Moved comment to other thread...]
------
_sentient
That video was beautiful. It's easy to develop a narrow focus on your
immediate surroundings. Sometimes it helps to take a step back and get a
broader perspective of this wild, diverse and beautiful planet we're fortunate
enough to live on.
~~~
aidos
Definitely puts things in perspective. With that thought, I'm going to stop
work for the day and go and pick up my daughter.
~~~
thesis
I had never seen the video of the soldier and his son. After a quick search I
found it. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPlBy2-abA>
The whole Google video is great. But this clip / video really got to me. Very
touching.
~~~
kristofferR
The story about the little girl briefly shown in 2:26 is also incredibly
touching. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoZ2BgPVtA0>
------
rwos
Is this censored? There's nothing related to copyright infringement or porn in
there. Also, the categories and trending/most-searched selection seems
arbitrary. Every country has a different set of data.
~~~
josefresco
Where's DDG with an unfiltered Zeitgeist for 2012?
~~~
Surio
That was supposed to be my line too.
Seconded ;-)
P.S: I am actually semi-serious in a way. I have actually witnessed the search
bubble on colleagues' PC vs. mine so, I'm all for it.
------
barredo
There is no way "iPhone" or "iPhone 5 is not on that list.
<http://cl.ly/image/0u0R2r12402a>
([http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%2C%20iphone5%2...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%2C%20iphone5%2C%20ipad%2C%20ipad%20mini%2C%20samsung%20galaxy%20s3&cmpt=q))
<http://cl.ly/image/2l2I1b3G4328>
([http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%205%2C%20Galax...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%205%2C%20Galaxy%20Note%202%2C%20Microsoft%20Surface%2C%20Nokia%20Lumia%20920&cmpt=q))
It's not even close. Note 2, Surface, Lumia 920, iPad 4 and iPad mini are 2
month old on the market.
iPhone 5 it's been rumored and re-rumored for months before releasing it, then
with all the problems attached to the iPhone 5 release, Apple Maps, record
sales, or whatever... people must have searched for it quite a lot (as Google
Trends data suggest)
ps. Also, "Lana del Ray" ('Rey' is the correct) (sic, performing artists)?
These lists doesn't seem quite right.
~~~
andrewcooke
she has released an album under both names - lana del ray was self-titled;
born to die was lana del rey. and she's one of only 3 names i recognise from
that list.
but i agree that the lists appear to have "complex" selection criteria.
~~~
barredo
Thanks for the correction
------
patrickaljord
[http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world/consumer-
ele...](http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world/consumer-electronics)
iPhone is not in the top 10, it was #2 last year. iPad is #1 though.
[http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en/top-
lists/global/fastest-r...](http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en/top-
lists/global/fastest-rising-consumer-electronics)
~~~
trendnet
This year iPhone is trending on Twitter
(<http://2012.twitter.com/en/trends.html>) and Facebook
([http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/12/3758102/facebook-
stories-...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/12/3758102/facebook-
stories-2012-pictures#3904655)) but not on Google. Something is not right.
[http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%205,%20samsung...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=iphone%205,%20samsung%20galaxy%20s3)
~~~
nrp
Trending reflects the difference between the results for 2011 and 2012. Recall
that until the iPhone 4S was announced, the assumption was that it would be
called the iPhone 5, and was searched for by that term.
------
cfontes
My country sometimes embarrasses me.
Brazil is having the biggest trials against corrupt politicians in our history
lasting almost 6 months now with several big figures being arrested and
condemnt, and this is not even in the TOP 10, and the nº1 is Facebook followed
by BBB12.
~~~
Surio
>> and this is not even in the TOP 10, and the nº1 is Facebook followed by
BBB12.
You will have to wait for the competition to make _that video_. It will be
aptly titled "search bubbles zeitgeist" 2012 ;-) (semi joking, ... I have
witnessed the "search bubble" and I love the fact that there are companies
like DDG, Lycos and Blekko providing search and curated results! Wish them all
well)
I know what you mean though. It is definitely a sign of our times. Huxley won
and Orwell lost the crystal ball gazing contest. 1984 is gone (well, not
entirely IMO) and we are all living in the Brave new world now. ;-P
------
yarapavan
Full List (PDF):
[http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//zeitgeist/2012/download/google-
zeitgeist-2012-en.pdf)
~~~
killahpriest
Ironically, I cant seem to be able to use `cmd + f` on that PDF.
~~~
smackfu
Yeah, very odd. It seems like the characters in the search index are offset
from the real characters. d=a, e=b, etc. At least in Chrome's PDF viewer.
------
benburleson
Why do I get Error 503?
~~~
speedyrev
So am I.
------
corporalagumbo
My main thought watching the video: "Holt shit that is some good advertising."
A slickly-produced, epic, emotional and humble tribute to the richness and
absurdity of human life - all inconspicuously presented through a panorama of
Google's entire product portfolio - tying the sweeping feelings stirred in you
either consciously or subconsciously to everything Google...
------
scotty79
Fails on iPad with 404 after watching the movie and clicking the "Begin
journey" button. It tries to redirect to
<http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/explore-tablet.html> that seems to not
exist.
------
majani
One of the top searches in my country, Kenya, is 'how to abort.'
What an eye-opener for a reportedly Christian country where abortion is
illegal.
<http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#kenya>
------
shortlived
Russian HN'ers,
I realize this is not the Yandex zeit but this entry puzzles me:
что такое холокост
The question: is this a meme? or why the sudden interest now? There were a
bunch of videos associated with that query, none of which I could understand
very well. Are they people just giving stupid answers?
The other results paint an interesting picture of ru-net:
Russians want to know meaning of "bro" and "mainstream", want to draw roses
and are very interested in hacking email aka soap (soap is мыло, which sounds
a bit like mail).
------
friendly_chap
I am quite surprised nobody searches for porn on the internetz.
~~~
teach
Oh, I'm sure they still do. But it's not "trending". That is, searches haven't
noticeably increased / changed from previous years.
------
zavulon
<http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world/tv-shows>
This is really sad.
~~~
smackfu
I'm actually very surprised Homeland made it to that list. I thought it was
critically acclaimed but not that popular.
------
mlapida
Does anyone find it completely insane that the iPhone (4/4S/5) doesn't show up
in the top 10 for Consumer Electronics? A little bit of massaging going on
there?
------
magikbum
I like how they are co-opting the idea of "hashtags" as being a Google +
thing. With their this year in "Google+ Hashtags" is that even a thing?
------
kinofcain
It's amazing but not all that surprising how geeky the google plus hashtags
are. I wonder if we'll see social networks splinter into cliques.
------
didsomeonesay
Zeitgeist 2012 -> Germany -> Trending Car Brands
1\. Opel 2\. BMW 3\. Audi 4\. VM 5\. Mercedes
...
4\. VM ?? O_o
~~~
JBiserkov
I'm guessing VM is a common typo for VW made by Dvorak users.
~~~
jonknee
I'm guessing there are no way near enough Dvorak users to have any typos show
up on the zeitgeist.
------
eze
When I lived in the US I was puzzled to find, say, May magazine issues
available in newsstands as early as mid April. Similarly, it seems not only
acceptable, but indeed expected, for major companies to review the year before
it's over.
Can Americans (or else) shed some light on this phenomenon?
~~~
yan
Marking a magazine with a date in the future simply increases its shelf life.
As for the year-end reviews, I assume people like to look back at a year
toward the end and set goals for the new year at the start. Jan 2013, people
don't care much for 2012 anymore.
------
vitorarins
Watching that, I couldn't stop thinking.. "Google is ruling the world..Google
is ruling the world.."
------
rubergly
"Play Station"?
I assume they're aggregating similar terms, so is this just a case of choosing
the wrong aggregate name? Google Trends reports "playstation" is MUCH more
common than "play station" (looks like at least 10:1).
------
krharper
So sad to see the triviality that constitute the majority of our searches.
------
pdeuchler
So essentially we are obsessed with triviality, materialism and celebrity.
~~~
hnriot
and this surprises you? you forgot porn
------
denzil_correa
503. That’s an error.
The service you requested is not available at this time.
Service error -27. That’s all we know.
I receive a 503 error on the page.
------
frankydp
Was surprised by this one
8\. Donate to NASA
------
Aardwolf
Why is the #1 query never something I ever type?
~~~
polyfractal
Because you are not the majority?
------
Centigonal
Trending airlines? O_o
------
jezclaremurugan
and India's no. 1 search for people is Sunny Leone...
------
cookiecaper
Am I the only one who can't see any video? Only sound plays in both Firefox
and Chromium.
|
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|
Do you remember TJ Holowaychuk? - volument
TJ (https://github.com/tj) used to be a significant JavaScript contributor and could easily be labeled as the "rockstar" of the time. In 2014 he switched from Node to Go (https://medium.com/@tjholowaychuk/farewell-node-js-4ba9e7f3e52b) and I haven't heard of him ever since. Is it just me, or is there a correlation?
======
hazza1
[https://www.quora.com/Has-TJ-Holowaychuk-been-as-prolific-
in...](https://www.quora.com/Has-TJ-Holowaychuk-been-as-prolific-in-the-
Golang-community-as-he-was-in-the-Node-js-community)
"my new goal is to live a better life. In the end open-source doesn’t pay the
bills so it’s best to focus on other things if you can, or if you just enjoy
the project then that’s cool."
~~~
malthejorgensen
This.
IMO he's still a "rockstar". It's just the Node and JS community that hypes
everything disproportionally (they used to at least). The fact that he single-
handedly built Apex
([https://github.com/apex/apex](https://github.com/apex/apex)) show that he's
still prolific, and a programmer of note.
There's a similar story for Sindre Sorhus, who moved on from the JS community
to Swift.
------
recurser
I’m a customer of his uptime service
([https://apex.sh/ping/](https://apex.sh/ping/)), and following up framework
([https://up.docs.apex.sh/](https://up.docs.apex.sh/)) with interest, but
haven’t used it yet. Perhaps he is more focused on career and family, and less
on open source? If so, good for him.
------
samblr
Honestly, I would pay to see video-screen-share of how guys like TJ code.
------
martimatix
Isn't he working on apex up?
[https://github.com/apex/up](https://github.com/apex/up)
------
zimpenfish
He's been posted to HN a bunch of times since 2015-01-01.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=holowaychuk&sort=byDate&prefix...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=holowaychuk&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=custom&type=story&dateStart=1420070400&dateEnd=1548979200)
Seems to be working on a startup which might explain the lack of noise.
------
zoba
There was a whole conspiracy theory that he was a collective rather than an
individual.
[https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-TJ-Holowaychuk-is-
real-I-...](https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-TJ-Holowaychuk-is-real-I-dont-
think-someone-can-be-as-productive-as-he-is?ch=10&share=73bce5cf&srid=hIhw)
------
sdwisely
I remember him from the Ruby community before that. Is there a correlation?
probably not.
Life happens.
------
fpaboim
Apex up is nice, cool to know he's behind apex.
------
eulalila
Genuinely inspirational that, looks like he’s now living in London with a hot
Russian girlfriend working with sane, stable tools on small, developer focused
products, _and_ his homepage is still photography vs a bunch of shite little
blog posts.
Difference between living to code and coding to live kids, take note.
|
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|
Why I'm Learning Node - b14ck
http://rdegges.com/why-im-learning-node
======
wickedchicken
Not many people know this, but Javascript: The Good Parts is available online
as a PDF, for free! [http://www.rose-
hulman.edu/Users/faculty/rickert/OldFiles/Cl...](http://www.rose-
hulman.edu/Users/faculty/rickert/OldFiles/Class/csse/csse403/201010/Papers/UngarSmith87.pdf)
~~~
andrewflnr
I think you have the wrong link there. It goes to a paper about Self.
~~~
noelwelsh
It's a joke, except it points to the wrong link. It should be have been to
<http://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r4rs_toc.html>
------
hasenj
The problem with node is it decreases your productivity tremendously.
The most important thing about the choice of programming tools is
productivity. Node.JS does _not_ promise you any productivity gains. Node
sells itself as a solution to "slowness" caused by "blocking IO". What's the
solution? All I/O is evented! This means you have to write everything with
callbacks.
You may see some very nice libraries/tools coming out around node.js, like
jade, coffeescript, and stylus. These are all nice and good, and they _do_
increase your productivity, but, _only on the client side_.
If you're looking for performance and non-blocking IO, use Go, it's much
better at that.
~~~
karterk
_You may see some very nice libraries/tools coming out around node.js, like
jade, coffeescript, and stylus. These are all nice and good, and they do
increase your productivity, but, only on the client side._
I disagree. Firstly, CoffeScript is not confined to the client-side. Besides,
there are some modules like socket.io for which you will hardly find any
substitues in other eco-systems.
You're also discounting the effects of context shifts between two separate
languages - one on the client side, and the other on the server side.
Lastly, I would like to know what you find productive about Go, that's not the
case with either CS/JS on Node.
~~~
hasenj
The decrease in productivity with node comes from having to write everything
with callbacks. Programming asynchronously is crazy, it makes very simple
algorithms very annoying to write.
I'd say it's almost like writing in assembly. You have to write your code in
some pseudo code first, synchronously, then translate that into the
asynchronous callback spaghetti than node requires.
> Lastly, I would like to know what you find productive about Go, that's not
> the case with either CS/JS on Node.
Not having to write everything asynchronously?
I haven't actually used go, but the way goroutines communicate (and
synchronize) with channels suggests to me (from what I've read/seen) that this
callback spaghetti problem is non-existent in Go.
~~~
guelo
It cracks me up that you haven't tried Go but you're still recommending it, is
there a web framework?
Edit: Found web.go. Screw it it's a long weekend, I'll give learning Go a go.
~~~
chrisbroadfoot
You don't really need a web framework with go. net/http is just fine for most
use cases.
------
karterk
_After reading so many negative things about nodejs, I'm completely surprised
to report that it is actually pretty damn cool._
Most of these negative things were (are being?) written by people who target
Node's shortcomings without giving due concern to the areas it shines in.
Good Parts is definitely a good read. If anyone is looking for more reading
materials on JavaScript, I had written a post about it recently:
[http://kishorelive.com/2012/02/23/my-javascript-reading-
list...](http://kishorelive.com/2012/02/23/my-javascript-reading-list/)
~~~
b14ck
Thanks, this looks like a really great list. I'm adding these to my reading
queue :)
~~~
zecho
You should add Eloquent Javascript to the list really good JS books, if you
haven't already read it: <http://eloquentjavascript.net/>
------
nnythm
If the point is to learn front-end development, it seems like you're still
sticking to your strengths instead of challenging yourself and delving into
actual front-end DOM manipulation stuff.
~~~
lunaru
Agree. It seems the OP is just moving from one language to another rather than
from one domain (back-end) to another (front-end).
If you're learning JavaScript to get familiar with front-end and UI, Node.js
is just a distraction. Instead, my advice is to learn raw HTML/CSS/JS without
frameworks.
You know those cheesy web-based "OSes"/Desktops that no one really uses?
Building one is actually quite helpful to developing JavaScript skills. Try
building a Window manager in HTML/CSS/JS. You'll go through the entire
gauntlet of what JavaScript has to offer (e.g. closures, prototypes) while
dealing with a practical front-end problem (DOM manipulation, CSS styling)
while learning a lot about why the modern js frameworks are so useful (e.g.
jQuery for DOM, backbone.js for MVC). You'll also start getting exposure to
some basic decisions that make up the foundations of a good UI sense. I
consider this sort of exercise much more appropriate for polishing front-end
skills.
Other possible exercises include re-implementing common jQuery UI components -
drop-down menus, trees, tabs, etc. But do them without jQuery. It might sound
like reinventing the wheel, but learning fundamentals sometimes requires
retreading worn out paths.
~~~
4as198sGxV
Sure. Then he will want to kill himself when trying to use of all those
inferior and mismatched technologies for any kind of complex application
(achieving crossbrowser support will ensure many nights of fun!). He will then
go back to coding server-side where at least you can use sane language and
tools so you can be as productive as possible. However, he will be thinking
about this glimpse of hell for the rest of his career.
------
doc4t
_If you're an experienced programmer looking to learn Javascript, you probably
can't do any better than reading Javascript: The Good Parts. It's extremely
short, concise, and enjoyable to read. Highly recommended._
Any experienced programmer should definitely start elsewhere so he can make up
his own mind about Crockfords ideas about how programming should be. While the
book is ok-ish almost half of the material is about Crockfords personal
preferences for coding style and can be applied to any language.
JavaScript - The Definite Guide by David Flanagan is in my opinion the best
book on the subject. No other JS book comes even close in clarity and
thoroughness.
[http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-
Activate-G...](http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate-
Guides/dp/0596805527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333877087&sr=8-1)
~~~
maga
Agree. Moreover, the Good Parts is a bit dated since it's written in 2008 and
things had changed noticeable with ECMAScript 5 in 2009. The last 6th edition
of The Definitive Guide covers ES5 and has a chapter explaining Crockford's
ideas.
------
gabordemooij
Javascript can be quite daunting. I have seen many disasters with Javascript
applications. This is why I now teach Javascript differently, I have written
down a minimalist JS approach. This way of writing Javascript allows you to
implement almost any OOP design yet it only uses 10% of the Javascript
language thus shortening the learning curve. I wrote this initially for co-
workers but because it's such a success I've decided to put it online.
<http://www.gabordemooij.com/articles/jsoop.html>
This approach also makes it possible to treat JS more like a traditional OOP
language and it does not require external libraries, sugar code or new browser
technology. It works in the most ancient browsers.
------
Aaronontheweb
The author echoes many of the same reasons I really dived into Node - I'm a
strong C# back-end developer but really hadn't had much experience designing
web UI (HTML5/CSS/JS.)
I can say without a doubt that my experience with Node has translated to some
upside in terms of my front-end JavaScript abilities - being able to really
master the ins and outs of JavaScript language itself has made it much easier
for me to work with even some pretty nasty front-end bits.
In addition, you pick up a lot of tools in Node that are translatable to
client-side JS development. Many of the unit testing frameworks work just as
well at testing client-side code as they do server-side.
------
Alexandervn
Starting with Node is a very poor choice if you want to learn front-end. But
you can't go wrong with The Good Parts and you at least now know what's all
the fuss about Node. But now let's really start learning front-end.
Begin with semantic HTML. It's really the basis. The best front-enders I know
first write all the HTML for a project, and only _then_ start adding CSS and
JS. Learn why <b> is wrong and <strong> isn't. Make sure you're HTML
validates.
Now go to CSS. It's really easy to add some colours or fonts. You learn CSS as
you go. But there is one hurdle here: the box model. Learn about float:left,
position:absolute, display:block and how they entangle.
This will be harder than you think. You will need to learn some tools to debug
this. Install Firebug and the Webdevelopers Toolbar in Firefox and see how you
can fix your layout. Browsers aren't that scary.
We're only learning here, so skip IE for now. That one is actually kinda
scary. Though if you really want to learn front-end, it's all about browser
differences.
And then Javascript. Now it will be easy. Stick with jQuery and connect with
your Node instance with socket.io. Learn Backbone if you want to make snappy
web apps. There's a lot to learn in this 'grey field' between back-end and
front-end. But at least you now know front-end.
~~~
iso8859-1
Might as well make sure you're grammar validates too.
Anyway, I don't understand why the front-end is relevant at all. It's not the
same problem, and the fact that most people do both doesn't mean that learning
to do a good front-end will teach you to do a good back-end.
------
danbmil99
As a longtime Python guy, mostly back-end (but I knew JS pretty well) -- I did
a quick demo site recently in node, and was surprised by how it felt. There
was much less context-switching as I went back and forth between the client
and server. That sounds obvious but it was kind of a shock.
I always wanted Python on the client (here's looking at you, Jython!) -- js on
the server may be the closest thing I'm going to get.
~~~
jdc
Have you tried Pyjamas?
------
gbog
As noted somewhere else learning node is not learning front-end. Something
that bothered me recently is that on the back-end we are used to big oop
frameworks when in fact the stateless nature of http do not match oop so well.
On the front end however we have a gui so oop is a good paradigm.
~~~
cwp
Huh? What does the statelessness of HTTP have to do with OOP, particularly on
the server, but not the client?
~~~
HeyImAlex
Because most server side languages take a "throw away the world" approach to
web programming; none of your objects persist in memory through requests,
which means every time a request comes in you have to reload a part of the
user's world from the db, service the request, and then destroy the world
you've just created. For structural things like MVC, objects are great, but
you really don't see much of the "object as vehicle for data encapsulation"
that's drilled into every new programmer when they're first taught OOP.
The client, on the other hand, _can_ persist data and objects through
requests, and the only time it needs to be fully refreshed is on a full
reload.
~~~
cwp
Ah. But that isn't an issue of language or object-orientation. There are
server-side frameworks that _don't_ throw away the world, and client-side
frameworks that do. (Notice how your javascript state is thrown away everytime
you load a new page in the browser). That's a design decision that's made
possible by the statelessness of HTTP, but not required by it.
~~~
gbog
Certainly, but throwing away the world is natural on server side code and it
means that your carefully crafted object don't live long and many of them
don't need too be objects, they are micro namespaces for a set of methods. I
never tried node.js for real but one good side off it could be that you are
not pushed towards objects like you are with Python, Ruby, Java, etc.
------
leephillips
The author refers to this seething criticism of node
(<http://teddziuba.com/2011/10/node-js-is-cancer>. html), that I've seen
before, and then just soldiers on without addressing it. I'm not well versed
enough to know whether Dziuba's analysis is not the mark or not. What do the
javascript/node experts here have to say about it? The criticism, after all,
would seem to be so damning that it either needs to be refuted or to stand as
a definitive reason to never seriously consider using node in a real project.
------
octotoad
Just read around two thirds of 'The Node Beginner Book'. I've only briefly
played with node.js before now and I still don't really have an immediate use
for it personally. I could see myself using it to whip up rough scaffolding to
support prototypes of personal projects written in other languages.
I did learn something from its event-driven callback system though. Made me
realize I was approaching things the wrong way in a libevent-based daemon I'm
developing in C.
------
munyukim
Congrats,it really sucks having to rely on other people to complete your
project.Also you might want to learn Coffeescript and jQuery.
------
devin
No justification required for learning another language. I sometimes wonder
how often the ends justify the means.
------
smallegan
I like the though process but I think where you may fall short is the UI
Design aspect. HTML/CSS/Javascript isn't all that hard, it is creating a good
looking and highly usable user interface that is challenging. Good luck!
------
stcredzero
Formatting on this site is terrible for iPhone reading. It prevents zooming,
thus forcing a very small font on the reader.
------
pyrotechnick
browserify (<https://github.com/substack/node-browserify>) is great for
providing require() and bundling necessary dependencies for the browser.
~~~
Aaronontheweb
Thank god for this - I've been doing a lot of work with some NPM packages that
I want to use on the client but for the life of me couldn't figure out how to
do it. This looks like it'll do just the trick. Thanks!
|
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|
Ask HN: Whats your favorite YouTube tech channels but not famous? - giis
Recently came across this relatively little known channel[1]. Though it has only 6 videos and <50k users, its good. Do you know such channels?<p>[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/PieterExplainsTech/feed
======
rafzzz
Jesse Warden was really helpful for me when I was starting out programming. He
has a great series called 'Beginners Guide to Software Development' which got
me started and he's especially helpful with JavaScript testing and tooling
[https://m.youtube.com/user/jesterxl](https://m.youtube.com/user/jesterxl)
|
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|
8 Steps Two CS majors Took to Becoming Powerful Speakers - ciscoriordan
http://bases.stanford.edu/2010/04/07/8-steps-two-cs-majors-took-to-becoming-powerful-speakers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+stanfordbases+%28StanfordBASES%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
ciscoriordan
Copy and paste job since it's down:
from Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) by
wesleyleung
As two guys who love to code, we have noticed a not-too-exciting stereotype
floating around our fields of study: CS majors are poor speakers who have
traded their interpersonal relationship and communication skills for technical
expertise. This label is unfortunate because on the whole, CS majors truly do
indeed publicly speak worse than those in other fuzzier fields. To break out
of this stereotype and reach our full potentials, we decided yesterday to
participate in some Speaker Training 101 to improve our public speaking
skills, because, to be blunt, CS Majors who speak well do better than CS
majors who don’t speak well.
Here are some useful tips we took away from the training:
1\. Silence is powerful.
It might sound ironic, but the most powerful speakers are those who can employ
pauses in their words. During short bouts of mental hiccups, everyone will
want to fill gaps in their speech with the two most spoken words in the
English language. Yeah, that’s right: “Umm…” or “err…” Avoid these. Be
conscious of your umms and errs. See if you can catch yourself in the act and
replace them with some thoughtful, contemplative silence. You’ll be surprised.
2\. Use your hands.
Using your hands to emphasize key points or to articulate what you need to say
is extremely effective. Don’t let them hang limp at your sides, hiding
uselessly in your pockets, or tucked away behind the podium. You have them for
a reason. Be lively and energetic!
3\. Don’t touch the podium!
People may not think about this at all, but their natural instinct is to grab
whatever is in front of them while they are speaking. On-stage, people will
psychologically want to seek some sort of security. Remember that stand-up
comedian who kept fiddling with his microphone? Or maybe that nervous speaker
who appeared to be humping the podium. Neither took tip #3 into account. Be
confident, poised, and keep your hands off the podium!
4\. Listen to your introducer.
As the main event, everyone will naturally have their attention on you. Show
some courtesy and give your introducer your undivided attention. The audience
will naturally follow you. When the introducer gives you the stage, don’t just
start speaking and talk over him. Ease your way into your speech and set the
pace for your audience. It can be as simple as “Thank you [name] for
introducing me tonight…”
5\. Interact with the audience.
Reality check: who are you speaking to? Your audience. They are here to learn
from you, so it’s best to know your audience and involve them in your speech.
For example, this can be accomplished by doing simple tasks such as asking
questions — “raise your hand if…” Follow tip #5, and you’ll keep the audience
refreshed and engaged.
6\. Pull yourself out of a tailspin.
During the speaker training, I choked up during my improv and forgot the name
of an organization I was supposed to describe. After five seconds of misery,
the name came back to me and I made my recovery by graciously and humorously
accepting the fact I made my mistake. Surprisingly, the audience felt that
this contributed to the power of the speech. Apparently some speakers even
plan out things to fail during their speech so they could similarly pull
themselves out of a tailspin. This tactic is supposed to connect the audience
to the speaker and create this bond because the speaker becomes more human,
down-to-earth, and on the same plane as the audience.
7\. Don’t hold back your energy.
For unknown reasons, many equate speaking with less energy to increased
technical expertise. That actually doesn’t make you look more sophisticated,
that just makes you look like a poor speaker. Release that energy and don’t
hold back! Capture your audience’s attention with all the power you have to
make your speech more effective.
8\. Critique yourself and have others critique you.
This may seem self-explanatory, but when you are practicing your speech, take
turns with others to point out positives and negatives in your speech. When
addressing your own negatives, see if your audience agrees with you.
Surprisingly, audiences may not notice a lot of your mistakes. What feels like
hours of mess-ups on your part are actually unnoticeable seconds for your
audience. Keep running drills immediately afterward to incorporate the
constructive criticism.
Our public speaking is nowhere near perfect, but we recognize it as a valuable
skill to have and hope to improve in it quickly. Try out these small tips, and
you’ll be surprised at the difference it’ll make. Most of the world fears
public speaking more than death. Master these tips and you will absolutely
amaze. It’s the first step to being able to throw an event that will make a
2nd year Stanford GSB student jealous. Ambitious? No problem.
~~~
sjf
That's all good advice, but I don't think it gets to the heart of most
speakers' problem, which is simply fear. Clutching the podium, speaking too
quickly, blanking - these are all side effects of nervousness. I don't think
the solution is as simple as 'stop doing that', controlling unconscious
behaviour under pressure is difficult.
Unfortunately I don't know the secret to great public speaking, but I suspect
no. 8, practice and critique, should actually be top of the list. It is the
only thing I've found which helps.
------
mmorris
If you're interested in becoming a better speaker you should check out a local
chapter of Toast Masters. Despite the name, it's more about speeches than
about toasts.
<http://www.toastmasters.org/>
~~~
dpritchett
I just joined the local chapter at my office in hopes of hedging my technical
skills with a better set of social / presentation skills.
The cost to join was about $60 up front and another $30-40 for each six months
thereafter.
I have enjoyed all three meetings I've attended thus far. Speaking makes me
nervous, so I figure working through it will be good for me.
------
cpg
HN'd?
"Error establishing a database connection"
How do you say slashdotted for HN? :)
~~~
strooltz
yeah - it's down for me as well. anyone have a mirror??
------
swombat
Powerful speakers? Like, 200W each?
Recognised speakers, perhaps? Famous? Effective? I know it's just a quibble,
but it really seems to me that "Powerful" is not the adjective you want here.
That said, I can't read the article, since the site is down, so who knows,
maybe Powerful is a really clever pun that I'm not getting.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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90% of software developers work outside Silicon Valley - douche
http://qz.com/729293/90-of-software-developers-work-outside-silicon-valley/?imm_mid=0e5d09&cmp=em-prog-na-na-newsltr_20160716
======
ratfacemcgee
>90% of the world lives outside the United States
~~~
brudgers
I agree the submission could use a title change.
------
sunstone
Gotta be true. I imagine quite a few of them work in China, not to mention
India.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Pikini just launched – App to find your friends' bikini pictures automatically - mosselman
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pikinis/id715969584?utm_source=Launch+%28wave+13%29&utm_campaign=b3a794a37b-Launch+email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_aa9fcb934b-b3a794a37b-79962533
======
jaegerpicker
Jesus, and people in this industry STILL fight the idea that it's an
incredibly gross and sexist environment. This is what we can achieve with some
of the greatest technologies that humanity has created, really!?
~~~
mosselman
As it says on the app page "Pikinis is for everyone – men or women, straight,
gay, or bi-sexual, human or vampire!". You are making it about sexism; surely
shows in what types of categories you think about people.
Also, phones are not the greatest technology. Medicine is the greatest and
even that is debatable. All other technology is just aimed at killing each
other and shallow fun.
~~~
jaegerpicker
Right, that's why all of the pictures as of women in the Apple store, it's
sold as a bikini search app (which is very much mostly a women's swimsuit),
and there is no overbearing culture of sexism in tech? None of those things
matter, is that really what you are trying to say?
And yes internet equipped devices and the sum total of most human knowledge at
your finger tips is CLEARLY one of the greatest if not the greatest
advancement(s) for human kind. It enhances and makes possible nearly every
other branch of human discovery possible. Because you are shallow in your use
of it does not mean the tech is aimed at shallow fun.
------
FroshKiller
I like how the link you submitted appears to have come from a "please please
please let me know when this app launches" mailing list. That's not a good
look.
~~~
mosselman
I see. Posting it here to begin with was a classy move, but using the link is
what makes it a bad look?
~~~
FroshKiller
Well, understand that the context matters. It's definitely something worth
discussing! But whether it's a good look or a bad look depends on the
discovery. If you'd found it from, say, Jezebel's critical preview versus a
heck-yeah-sign-me-up announcement list, your audience could take it
differently. :)
------
geophile
The TV series Silicon Valley has proven eerily prescient. First Weissman
scores turn out to be real, and now Nip Alert comes to life.
~~~
jaegerpicker
I know it's one of the things that makes that show pretty awesome, and makes
me pretty sure that it can be a long running show. A SHIT-TON of spoof worthy
material.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Show HN: Page of HN links - kgermino
http://hnlists.pen.io/
======
kgermino
I wrote this up after the earlier discussion at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2496527> It's nothing fancy, but I figure
it might be a nice reference.
Let me know if there is any pages/links you want added.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Breakdown of Selected Government Surveillance Programs (2013) [pdf] - cmurf
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/Government%20Surveillance%20Factsheet.pdf
======
cmurf
Decent three page summary from Brennan Center for Justice at New York
University School of Law.
Are They Allowed to Do That? A Breakdown of Selected Government Surveillance
Programs (2013)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Ask HN: Science for the very young? - timwiseman
My son is just about to turn 5 and I am looking for "science experiments" or projects we can do together to help get him interested (and give me an excuse to do some of them).<p>Any suggestions, especially on a budget?
======
zoba
I think anything that "looks cool" will be good for getting a kid interested
in science. Once you've got him/her hooked, then you can start on the actual
scientific method. To that end, science things that look cool:
Cymatics: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXY2BE1S8Q>
Ferrofluid: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpBxCnHU8Ao>
<http://www.gaussboys.com/ndfeb-magnets/FerroFluid25>
Non Newtonian Liquids: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5SGiwS5L6I>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw>
Microcontrollers:
[http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=211799...](http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2117994)
(maybe not the best for a 5 year old, but in a couple years)
Make a Speaker for cheap (haven't done this one myself):
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fbnShPcw>
Electromagnets: <http://education.jlab.org/qa/electromagnet.html>
Finally, one project I did with my little brother that I thought was cool. I
got a frequency analyzer for my computer (
<http://www.relisoft.com/Freeware/freq.html>) and then filled glass cups with
varying amounts of liquid. Then we ran our fingers around the lip of the glass
to get it to "sing" and measured the frequency. We were able to come up with a
function for X amount of liquid gives you X frequency. I thought this was
great because: it was really appealing to my brother (he was 10 or so at the
time) because all kids like making cups make noise, we got to do scientific
method (hypothesis being more water in the glass) will make a lower frequency,
I got to teach him about graphing, how to get a forumla for a line on a graph,
and finally we could use that line to predict things to see if we were right.
------
sga
You could have a lot of fun with an inexpensive microscope (look at a number
of different materials, bugs, etc..) or even a set of magnifying glasses. Get
your hands on some polarizers, play with the affect of one and your ability to
look into bodies of water (pool, lake, etc) show him that if you cross the
polarizers you can't see through. Couple the polarizers to the microscope and
do some polarization microscopy. You could also play with prisms and look at
the dispersion of light. Lots of good optics stuff out there. I would highly
recommend staying away from lasers until he's older.
You might also consider doing some crystallization experiments (google
"crystal projects for kids").
------
Aron
Throw some pepper on a bowl of water, and touch it with a soaped finger.
------
blender
Also Baking Soda + Vinegar, add some red food coloring for lava effect
~~~
timwiseman
Great suggestion. First one we did. He loves it. If you add a drop of dish
soap it gets more bubbly and looks more like lava.
------
zck
Show him videos on youtube of various science experiments or lectures. When he
seems interested in an idea, work with him to create an experiment, find the
items, and perform it.
------
aheilbut
That photosensitive paper that lets you make 'photographs' of objects (like
leaves and rocks) was pretty fun.
------
aheilbut
Get him one of those one-volume kids' science encyclopedias to carry around.
------
aheilbut
You'd have to build it, but how about model rockets?
------
blender
Diet Coke + Mentos
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Show HN: Mobile consumable HackerNews cards - prats226
http://web.cubeit.io/web/index.html?id=7ee8b2b5-4aa9-49db-b054-b8cd1a9c28780
======
brudgers
Related: [http://cubeit.io/blog/2016/03/29/understanding-why-people-
sh...](http://cubeit.io/blog/2016/03/29/understanding-why-people-share-
screenshots-how-that-led-to-our-big-idea/)
~~~
prats226
Yeah one of our team members published that blog
------
prats226
Hey guys, I am working on a product that makes different links consumable on
mobile. Because hackernews is such a rich source of information, I am looking
at making a hackernews link consumable on mobile. My biggest issue is the
same, lot of information. Our current information on hackernews card shows
minimal information about hackernews link. Mainly title, number of upvotes,
number of comments and if its an article, then we fetch that article too. Its
not a hackernews mobile client but we are doing it for multiple sources like
producthunt, imgur etc so you can simple serach everything from this app and
share a consumable card. But it is becoming very challanging to do the same
for hackernews. I need honest feedback about if it is possible to do it for
hackernews at all and if yes, what can I change? I know its a UX problem but I
think would be better solved by users who regularly use hackernews
We got hunted on producthunt also so will get some feedback there too
~~~
pbroarsdheant1
how do product hunt cards look like. do u prefetch images and videos?
~~~
prats226
Taking into account low real estate on mobile device, we do try to make card
as consumable as possible. We do show videos and images from producthunt along
with card. Try adding links form different sources and you can checkout how
they look and post feedback here
------
pbroarsdheant1
really great consumable cards
~~~
prats226
Well hackernews card still lacks much information but looking for feedback on
how to make it better. There are other sources as well like producthunt,
imgur, vine, twitter
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The FTC's PrivacyCon Is *Today* in DC (free to Public and Webcasted) - Dowwie
".. to discuss the latest research and trends related to consumer privacy and data security"<p>event url:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/2016/01/privacycon<p>research submissions for the conference:
https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments/initiative-623<p>Curated list of research submissions (noteworthy):<p>Chamber of Commerce Foundation: https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments/2015/10/09/comment-00051<p>"The Web Never Forgets: Persistent Tracking Mechanisms in the Wild" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00064-98109.pdf<p>"Big Data and The Phantom Public: Lippmann and the fallacy of data privacy self-management" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00076-98127.pdf<p>The Information Accountability Foundation (submission regarding ethics in big data analysis)
https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments/2015/10/09/comment-00049<p>"Towards Usable Privacy Policies: Semi-automatically Extracting Data Practices From Websites’ Privacy Policies" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00074-98122.pdf<p>"Model Inversion Attacks that Exploit Confidence Information and Basic Countermeasures" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00030-97821.pdf<p>"Web Privacy Consensus 3.0 findings" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00025-97669.pdf<p>"Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00023-97629.pdf<p>"HTTP header enrichment " https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00015-97597.pdf<p>"THE TRADEOFF FALLACY: How Marketers Are Misrepresenting American
Consumers And Opening Them Up to Exploitation"
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00012-97594.pdf<p>"Android Permissions Remystified: A Field Study on Contextual Integrity" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00013-97595.pdf<p>"Peeking Beneath the Hood of Uber" https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments/2015/09/26/comment-00011<p>"The Rise of Mobile Tracking Headers: How Telcos Around the World Are Threatening Your Privacy" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00008-97486.pdf<p>"The Hidden Cost of Accommodating Crowdfunder Privacy Preferences: a randomized field experiment" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00009-97487.pdf<p>"Playing the Legal Card: Using Ideation Cards to Raise Data Protection Issues within the Design Process" https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00004-97144.pdf
======
brudgers
_The video you are trying to watch is using the HTTP Live Streaming protocol
which is only supported in iOS devices._
------
brudgers
Clickable:
event url: [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-
calendar/2016/01/priv...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-
calendar/2016/01/privacycon)
research submissions for the conference: [https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/initiative-623](https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/initiative-623)
Curated list of research submissions (noteworthy):
Chamber of Commerce Foundation: [https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/10/09/commen...](https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/10/09/comment-00051)
"The Web Never Forgets: Persistent Tracking Mechanisms in the Wild"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00064-98109.pdf)
"Big Data and The Phantom Public: Lippmann and the fallacy of data privacy
self-management"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00076-98127.pdf)
The Information Accountability Foundation (submission regarding ethics in big
data analysis) [https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/10/09/commen...](https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/10/09/comment-00049)
"Towards Usable Privacy Policies: Semi-automatically Extracting Data Practices
From Websites’ Privacy Policies"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00074-98122.pdf)
"Model Inversion Attacks that Exploit Confidence Information and Basic
Countermeasures"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00030-97821.pdf)
"Web Privacy Consensus 3.0 findings"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00025-97669.pdf)
"Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/10/00023-97629.pdf)
"HTTP header enrichment "
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00015-97597.pdf)
"THE TRADEOFF FALLACY: How Marketers Are Misrepresenting American Consumers
And Opening Them Up to Exploitation"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00012-97594.pdf)
"Android Permissions Remystified: A Field Study on Contextual Integrity"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00013-97595.pdf)
"Peeking Beneath the Hood of Uber" [https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/09/26/commen...](https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-
comments/2015/09/26/comment-00011)
"The Rise of Mobile Tracking Headers: How Telcos Around the World Are
Threatening Your Privacy"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00008-97486.pdf)
"The Hidden Cost of Accommodating Crowdfunder Privacy Preferences: a
randomized field experiment"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00009-97487.pdf)
"Playing the Legal Card: Using Ideation Cards to Raise Data Protection Issues
within the Design Process"
[https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2015/09/00004-97144.pdf)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Why do Google ads point to adware? - jakepoz
http://jakepoz.com/why_do_google_ads_point_to_adware.html
======
djnliung
Google is a web company, why would Google invest significant money and
engineering effort into filtering out things that only harm competing
platforms? Google's own platforms (Chrome + the web and Android) are immune to
this adware. It would be financially irresponsible for them to waste money
helping a competitor.
>If Google wants to help make the web a better place...
I imagine Google thinks it is making the web a better place by investing in
the web, not fighting loosing battles trying to fix old and broken platforms.
~~~
prodigal_erik
If users decide that it's not safe to click on ads, and start blocking or
looking out for them _en masse_ , Google has a problem.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Evercookie used by NSA to track TOR users across browsers - grhmc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercookie
======
sp332
That edit was made a year ago. It's not news.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evercookie&diff=5...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evercookie&diff=577190307&oldid=568209885)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Since 2016, Half of All Coral in the Great Barrier Reef Has Died - esalazar
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/since-2016-half-the-coral-in-the-great-barrier-reef-has-perished/558302/?single_page=true
======
Qworg
Corals are fascinating creatures and incredible symbiots. Vulcan (where I
work) has been contributing to the advancement of science to save reefs. We've
funded Ruth Gates and Madeleine VanOppen's work in human-assisted evolution of
corals, among other projects.
I recommend everyone watch "Chasing Corals" on Netflix if they want a more
detailed explanation of problems and potential solutions. Trailer:
[https://youtu.be/Mmqqi_DnPEE](https://youtu.be/Mmqqi_DnPEE)
~~~
kraftman
Any suggestions for the best place to donate to have the most impact?
~~~
selectodude
I mean, the coral are dying because the ocean temperature has gotten too high.
Donate to yourself and stop using fossil fuels, that’s the only way out at
this point.
~~~
kraftman
First of all, it's clearly not the only way out, because the comment I replied
to shows at least another way worth exploring.
Second of all, me reducing my fossil fuel usage to 0 wouldn't magically drop
industrial fossil fuel usage to 0, so that's not even a solution to the
problem.
A new technology or enforced policy would have a much greater effect.
~~~
exergy
> A new technology
This attitude in the general public is our death knell. The only, and I do
mean ONLY, solution to not fucking up the environment beyond repair is the
concept of less.
Less SUVs, less air travel, less fast fashion, less computer monitors, less
phones replaced less quickly, less heating and cooling of our homes and more
getting acclimated to the climate, less fucking juiceros and interent
connected butt-plugs, less non-seasonal vegetables and meat, less eating of
beef and pork and chicken and more plants. Reduce.
I love to quote idlewords on this all the time, but we as a species can't even
handle male pattern baldness. To somehow expect that we can engineer our way
out of the complexities of nature with time to spare and without any impacts
on how we live life in the wes is a completely misguided belief. The
technological breakthrough that will be our saviour is not just around the
corner. Musk and Tesla aren't our saviours. 'Less' is.
~~~
belorn
According to a meta study on personal greenhouse impact the biggest "less"
thing a person can do is to not have too many children. To their data a single
child represent yearly the cost in CO2e as is saved by 20 people not driving,
40 less air trips, or about 100 people eating a purely vegetarian diet for the
same time period.
([http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541))
If we want less we need to understand the order of magnitude that the
different forms of less have.
~~~
exergy
Thanks for those numbers. I'm a card-carrying /r/childfree member.
------
aplummer
Ive been to Airlie / port Douglas every couple years for a decade, it’s
unbelievable how incredible the place was and how it just isn’t now.
First couple times was exactly like Finding Nemo, now it’s a barren wasteland
(and this is going to spots that are supposed to be better). Beaches in QLD
still best in the world if you’re visiting, give the diving a pass or manage
expectations unless you’re quite south
~~~
somishere
Barren wasteland is a bit far fetched, not sure which sites you are visiting
off Port/Airlie but most of the tourist operator sites are still in fairly
good shape, except maybe low Isles i.e. not pristine but they remain some of
the best in the world and worth a visit. Lots of endemic species/corals etc.
Which isn't to say there isn't a problem, the reports are correct, the signs
are there, and repeats of the bleaching events of the past few years will
definitely lead to the wasteland you describe (as seen in areas of the gbr and
many of the other Pacific and american reefs). The original numbers were 90%
of the reef had died, what this actually meant was that of all the sites
surveyed 90% showed some sign of bleaching - which basically means stress due
to heat exposure. The death bit comes later when the coral doesn't have time
to rejuvinate.
~~~
aplummer
And that’s the thing maybe it’s great comparative to the rest of the world,
but not itself. Was with tour operators in 2015 so youd think it was the good
spots, going again in a month so hopefully looking ok.
------
matte_black
I always wanted to see this Great Barrier Reef since I was a small child, now
it looks like there might not be any of it left by the time I get there. Is it
even worth it at this point, or should I just look at pictures and imagine
what once was?
~~~
matuszeg
you should go. It's not all gone yet.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yes, fly there, pump more CO2 into the air thereby increasing ocean
acidification to escalate coral bleaching.
~~~
belorn
I don't know. If there is no money that get infused into the local environment
around the corals then less people will work to fix it. It is also rather well
established that conservation must focus on awareness or things don't usually
improve by them self. Comparing the drawback to the benefits of tourism, I
suspect the benefits win.
~~~
vaughanb
>If there is no money that get infused into the local environment around the
corals then less people will work to fix it.
The ocean has warmed to the point where to coral cannot survive. The reef is
H-U-G-E (1,400 miles long according to the article). If there was a technology
capable of reducing the ocean temperature around the reef, the waste heat the
technology would create would cause more problems elsewhere.
The reef is an indication that the global warming problem has become to big
for human technology to fix.
------
peterbraden
Is there any way to farm coral in more temperate waters? Reef fish are very
valuable so it could even be commercially viable.
~~~
pvaldes
Is a extremely complex ecosystem. Yes, you can grow coral in captivity. Some
species are much more difficult to keep alive than other, but can be done. Is
done since years in aquariums. The problem is that this not the same as
cloning a entire ecosystem with a net of 10.000 species living together.
You can't do it in the sea otherwise, because there is not a lot of accurate
and still free areas. Coral needs a lot of light. Must be shallow. Pirate and
lawful fishing, commercial sea routes, tourism (coral reef attracts big
predators like sharks), and a net of vested interests will block it.
And you'll need to wait 3000 years to have a coral reef at '3000 years level',
of course. Corals are terribly slow and fight with their neighbors all the
time. Such project would be extremely expensive.
~~~
somishere
There's already projects doing this. Both on the GBR and in places like
Florida in the USA. The coral being grown is mainly staghorn due to its rapid
growth cycles with the idea that it can help replenish high value sites only,
i.e. not the whole reef. These kind of measures are seen as being part of a
spectrum of solutions. Check out the Reef Restoration Project:
[https://citizensgbr.org/c/coral-nurseries](https://citizensgbr.org/c/coral-
nurseries)
~~~
pvaldes
A staghorn-only reef is "equivalent" to a monoculture forest. Staghorn is the
"Eucalyptus" of corals. Much faster than most species. Will overgrowth and
overshadow more delicate species that rely in potent poisons and good niches
to survive and grow much slower.
Staghorn could make a good skeleton of a reef in, dunno, maybe 50 or 100 years
and would attract a wonderful biodiversity if left alone; but is not enough in
reef terms. we are talking of the cream of the cream. One of the finest works
of this planet. The staghorn ecosystem is just a baby and a lot of species
would be sorely missing.
------
somishere
People interested in joining a movement that engages with climate change and
the future of the reef (through circular economy principles) should check out
Citizens: [https://citizensgbr.org/s/39cB](https://citizensgbr.org/s/39cB)
------
lama_me
what have we done to this world :(
~~~
taberiand
We've collectively chosen short term excess over long term sustainability.
I used to have hope; now it seems past the point of no return. I figure we
should just try to enjoy it all while we still can, like everybody else.
~~~
dmichulke
> We've collectively chosen short term excess over long term sustainability
No. Damage to the environment is done because it's cheap. And why is it cheap?
Because the owner of the thing (the state, the town, the "community") doesn't
care. Now if there were a real market driven cost (throwing away a plastic bag
or a TV would actually cost something), you would reconsider.
Next in line is consumption: How about the houses built everywhere on the
planet with low interest rates that will never be inhabited because there are
not enough people nearby to inhabit it.
Next is (as an example) military production in the US (>= 10x the military
budget of Germany or Russia), using up money to destroy even more things of
value.
There are a million reasons and most of them lead down to
\- low interest rates (incentivizing producers to produce things people
wouldn't want, disincentivizing consumers to save)
\- a lack of democracy and/or accountability of the people in charge (those
wars weren't exactly a consequence of people protesting on the streets)
\- "public ownership" which basically translates to "no one gives a f __*
because it 's not theirs'" \- see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)
I suppose the last point is probably the least orthodox, so here are two
sources that discuss the issue:
Audio:
[https://mises.org/ko/library/5-environmentalism](https://mises.org/ko/library/5-environmentalism)
PDF: [https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/Environmentalism%20and%...](https://mises-
media.s3.amazonaws.com/Environmentalism%20and%20Economic%20Freedom%20The%20Case%20for%20Private%20Property%20Rights_2.pdf?file=1&type=document)
------
ollybee
I reccomend this BBC radio program for an up to date discussion on the state
of the Great Barrier Reef
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09snj90](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09snj90)
------
throwaway84742
Australia says it’s not dying tho, and “is healthy”:
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2016-12-great-
bar...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2016-12-great-barrier-reef-
dying-australia.amp)
~~~
akvadrako
Hey, an AMP link in the wild.
~~~
throwaway84742
I’m a simple man: google gives me links, I copy them over.
------
hoodoof
x
~~~
cup-of-tea
It turns out cutting is one of the hardest things for people to do. Just look
at how many obese people there are who cannot reduce their intake despite the
immediate inconvenience and discomfort of being fat, not to mention the risk
to their health. If so many can't even do it for themselves or their children,
there's not much hope of them doing it for others.
It also leaves me utterly convinced that nobody really believes in god or an
afterlife. People constantly demonstrate that the only thing that matters to
them is that today is at least as convenient as yesterday.
No change will ever happen from the bottom up. And while our "leaders"
continue to be people with already massively inflated lifestyles, nothing will
happen from the top down either.
~~~
gepi79
IMO main the problems are poverty and old traditions (e.g. animal products)
and general confusion of priorities.
The bad media sells the latest news or problem as the most important news or
problem.
People elect or at least accept the politicians. People pay for or at least
accept the bad greedy business practices of small and big companies in the
name of holy competition and individual struggle for life.
Too many people have faith that god (notably in the USA) and the traditional
conservative political parties do what should be done.
There is a lack of motivation and desire for life changing real science and
technology as national priority to end poverty, to bring wealth to all, to
prolong life (anti-aging) and to protect nature including coral reefs. Science
and technology would allow people to eat all they want and do no sports and
still look like models and be perfectly healthy.
Cutting and austerity is not a strategy and not a replacement of urgent
progress of science and technology.
Cutting and austerity is an unfortunate tactic because of lack of science and
technology.
~~~
cup-of-tea
But you're dreaming of technology that may never happen. There is no way at
the moment that we can sustain our current lifestyles without fossil fuels. In
addition, if we remain unsustainable then we'll just grow to fill the next
level unsustainability if a new technology did come along.
~~~
gepi79
> But you're dreaming of technology that may never happen.
IMO automation, genetic engineering, implants and replacement of natural body
parts by artificial body parts will start social, economic and medical
revolutions within the next decade.
One of the worst misbeliefs is that the end of poverty (at least world hunger)
and the end of large-scale wars (e.g. Middle East) is just futurist idiocy
while it is actually achievable within a year with existing technology. But
political priorities prevent it.
Anyway, my point is that effort is required to advance science and technology.
To call it a dream and to do nothing to realize it is the wrong way. It only
wastes time because the efforts and investments must be made anyway (by future
generations).
> There is no way at the moment that we can sustain our current lifestyles
> without fossil fuels.
True. But again: There was and is not enough effort to create the
technological alternatives. Besides, a lot of energy (and burned forests)
could be saved by simply not eating animal products any more.
> In addition, if we remain unsustainable then we'll just grow to fill the
> next level unsustainability if a new technology did come along.
Humanity is always at the frontier of sustainability or possibilities for one
reason or another. Science and technology lead to creation of resources (e.g.
use of steel, use of fossil fuel, use of Uranium, use of solar power) and more
efficient use of resources like e.g. man power (e.g. by better program
languages, better programs, better computers, better cars, better houses) and
less religious societies and less wars and lower birth rates.
~~~
ripsawridge
"Science and technology lead to creation of resources..."
No, they lead to finding and digging up of resources.
"and more efficient use of resources"
Efficiency doesn't make anything better, it just increases the amount of the
resources that we create--oops---use.
"and less religious societies and less wars"
Okay, it's clear you have a story in your mind that ultimately leads to
jetpacks among the stars.
"and lower birth rates." This doesn't mean much. We went from 3.5 to 7.5
billion in 45 years. We had plenty of science and technology during that time,
all doing their thing with the uranium and the fossil fuel and the steel.
------
OzClimate
This is sad news.
Will this encourage Australians to contribute their fair share in the fight
against climate change?
CO2 emissions (tons) per capita in 2016
Canada: 18.62 Australia: 17.22 USA: 15.56 Japan: 9.68 Netherlands: 9.61
Germany: 9.47 New Zealand: 7.14 UK: 5.59 Sweden: 4.54
[http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2andGHG1970-2...](http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2andGHG1970-2016&dst=CO2pc&sort=des9)
------
akvadrako
This article is strikes a rather alarmist tone which isn't warranted. This
reef has been around in some form for 2M years and has experienced average
global temperatures about 10 degrees colder and warmer. Reefs in the
Arabian/Persian Gulf survive seawater temperatures about 8 degrees warmer than
this one.
If the heat is killing them, they just need time to adapt.
_" I think we are now getting to this idea that actually, in some cases,
these mechanism can arise very quickly, within a few years."_
([https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hot-water-
corals-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hot-water-corals-in-
the-persian-gulf-could-help-save-the-world-s-reefs/))
|
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Ski Resorts Exaggeration of Snowfall Reduced Sharply Because of iPhone App - dean
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122084539&ps=cprs
======
s3graham
My Dad used to work for IDRC (www.idrc.ca) and he told me a story about one of
his earliest (and happiest) development projects. It's very simple: broadcast
actual market price information over radio to farmers in remote rural African
areas. In this way, the farmers had enough information to tell the middle man
to stuff it when they were offered extremely low (< 1%) of market value for
their food. Their wages increased ~10x over the next season.
tl;dr: information symmetry is good for the end of the chains (initial
producers, end consumers)
~~~
cwan
That's a pretty cool program that's evolved with other NGO's using SMS
messages to cell phones. The proliferation of mobiles and utility of cheap
cell phones has been a massive boost to productivity in rural areas. One of
the key market barriers continues to be consistent logistics given the shelf
life of agricultural products which means some of these middlemen still have a
significant upper hand.
------
anotherpaulg
Gentlemen,
Let me introduce you to the power of online snowfall telemetry stations. They
usually report air temperature, wind speed & direction, precipitation, snow
depth and water content in real time on an hour-by-hour basis. Find one or two
nearby your local ski hill and study them for a season, comparing them to your
in-the-field perceptions of ski conditions.
You'll soon be telling your friends about the "8 inches of cold dry powder
that's just fallen on soft layer that was laid down last week" and
distinguishing that from the "8 inches of heavy wet snow that just fell and
then refroze onto the ice layer from last week".
For bonus points, take an avalanche safety course in your area. They will
introduce you to a wealth of unbiased data sources. Mountain guides use these
sources to maintain a deep understanding of the snow pack as it evolves
throughout the winter season.
In the Seattle area, see <http://www.nwac.us/weatherdata/map/>
In the Bay Area, see:
[http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/California/california.ht...](http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/California/california.html)
------
jpwagner
while the measurement may read "inches" it's actually on an arbitrary scale.
in other words, to a skier, "14 inches" means _compare-the-conditions-to-the-
last-time-you-went-and-we-said-14-inches_.
not to mention the obvious fact that measurements done in different places
with different methods will differ.
------
fohlin
I can't decide if I like it or not, but one commenter really takes the
opportunity to promote his website:
> I believe "crowdsourcing" is the future of how we'll tap into and retrieve
> much of the information we desire, in real-time. We designed our entire web
> site/application (liveskiconditions.com) around the fact that people want to
> know the current snow conditions [...].
Spam or not?
~~~
hallmark
Not spam.
His comment and website appear very relevant to the radio program, which talks
about real-time information from iPhone users suppressing the ski resorts'
false reports (say that five times fast).
I would consider it spam if he copied his comment text and pasted it in every
NPR summary page that mentioned skiing or snowboarding.
------
elbac
What do people consider a fair ski conditions report site?
~~~
blhack
twitter seems like it could be useful for this:
"At purgatory, snow is AWESOME!"
"park city snow is SHIT today!"
"ahhh #snowbowl, when are you going to get freaking snow machines already!"
etc. etc.
|
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The $1bn hostage deal that enraged Qatar’s Gulf rivals - forkLding
https://www.ft.com/content/dd033082-49e9-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43
======
kristianp
Archive version: [http://archive.is/LqMos](http://archive.is/LqMos)
------
bradknowles
Paywalled.
|
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Cicada 3301 challenge: partial solutions [video] - vinchuco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svJF_FoSI9o&t=25s
======
vinchuco
Extensive previous discussion
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cicada%203301&sort=byPopularit...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cicada%203301&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)
and wiki page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301)
|
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Optimizing Dynamically-Typed Object-Oriented Languages With Polymorphic Inline Caches - qwph
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.36.6379&rep=rep1&type=pdf
======
Hexstream
This provides good insight into some of the techniques used to make
intuitively slow dynamic operations very fast in practice!
------
markplusplus
Good paper, but I wonder how relevant these optimizations are now that modern
processors include indirect branch predictors.
------
fuzzy-waffle
Sounds similar to <http://psyco.sourceforge.net/>
------
hugh
It'd be nice to have a [pdf] warning in the title of this one.
~~~
qwph
I don't think I can edit it now. I'd guess it's because it's not a direct
link, so it bypassed the pdf logic. Apologies.
~~~
Hexstream
Perhaps the submission page could have a PDF checkbox with the default state
taken from the PDF autodetection function? This way we could correct the
autodetection when it fails. Also it would ensure a uniform title "tagging"
style.
Now that I think about it we could have radio buttons: Regular, PDF, Movie,
Picture.
|
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Show HN: A New Game I Built in Two Months - felipemora
Sorry for using a brand new account. I've lost access to my old account of several years.<p>This is a game that I spent the last two months working on: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noatechnologies.android.shooter<p>I built it completely from scratch.
That means that I built the graphical user interface engine, the collision engine, rendering engine, and physics engine starting from zero. I release it to the Play Store a couple of days ago but so far I haven't gotten a single download.<p>I'm starving for some feedback. I think it is a decent game for spending the time away in the bus, subway, or the doctor's office but maybe that is just me. I need honest feedback. I want to know if it is total crap or whether I'm in the right direction. Please help me.<p>A bit about me. I'm located in the northeast, Connecticut and sometimes NYC. I've been trying
to teach myself everything about games since 2010. Mainly I've been trying to work
on this game:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noatechnologies.android.flyingfighterbeta<p>But it feels like the Never Ending Story. I'm taking an indefinite break from that and working on creating the smallest games that I can possibly make. Like the game I just released.<p>I also worked on this game a couple of years ago with no success if anyone is curious:<p>https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noatechnologies.android.machinabuilderlite
======
aliirz
What framework did you use to build it?
~~~
felipemora
I didn't use an existing framework, other than OpenGL. The game engine that
I'm using is my own and is something that I've been working on since 2010.
I think I was not very clear but the collision engine, rendering engine,
physics engine, and graphical user interface engine have already been built
and all of them make up my game engine.
What I actually built in two months includes the game design, game mechanics,
the specific user interface for this game, and the graphics.
|
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Evaluating potential co-founders? Try going camping. - jesselamb
http://notmylawyer.com/post/745869535/evaluating-potential-co-founders-try-going-camping
======
hnote
Vladimir Vysotsky, Song about a friend
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN0YzyUEhbo>
Original version, without subtitles
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2xO_FWR1z8>
Lyrics at <http://bit.ly/cxpOJd>
~~~
jesselamb
Oh wow, I'd never seen that before. I thought about hiking too but I've never
been so I don't know what it's like.
I also thought about suggesting sailing for a couple weeks, but I was worried
about what liability there'd be if some startup team got lost at sea. :)
------
tzs
Make sure _all_ the co-founders are on the trip. Anyone remember a Unix
workstation company from the early '80s named Callan Data Systems? David
Callan was one of three equal founders, so one might wonder how it came the
bear just his name.
The three founders were all ready to incorporate. All that was holding them up
was the name for the company. They were just unable to come to a consensus.
After much discussion with no progress, two of the founders went away for a
weekend hunting trip. David did not go with them.
When they got back, he told them he'd went ahead and filed the papers, and the
company was named Callan Data Systems. I believe he told them this was just
meant to be temporary so they could move ahead, and it could be changed later
once they agreed on the "real" name--but of course they were never able to
agree on a "real" name, so it stayed "Callan Data Systems".
~~~
jesselamb
Haha. Great point.
------
aarghh
I met my wife while on camping trip to the Himalayas. Of the 4 women in the
group, 3 married people they met for the first time on that trip. Anecdote,
rather than hard data, of course. You could always claim that high-altitude
made my wife's decision making suspect - hence she's saddled with me.
~~~
jesselamb
Haha. You may have uncovered a whole new industry: extreme dating.
------
smokey_the_bear
I've found this also works well for evaluating boyfriends
~~~
jesselamb
I bet. I'm glad my wife didn't test me on my camping abilities. She'd probably
have left me in the woods.
~~~
pjscott
I think the point is more to test your ability to deal with having sucky
camping abilities, without turning unpleasant under stress.
~~~
jesselamb
Exactly. :)
|
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EU dropped plans for safer pesticides because of TTIP and pressure from US - de_Selby
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/eu-dropped-plans-for-safer-pesticides-because-of-ttip-and-pressure-from-us/
======
tzs
See also extensive discussion from 2 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9587772)
That was a submission from a different publication, though.
~~~
de_Selby
Apologies, I completely missed that discussion.
~~~
po
No need to apologize, frankly this needs a lot more discussion than it's
probably going to get.
------
Maarten88
To me this whole TTIP feels like the US trying to bundle and export their most
profitable corporate lobbying results through the corrupt and payed-for US
politicians to the EU. Secret negotiations, state-investor dispute, all of
this seems organized to help big corporations screw consumers further.
I simply hope the whole thing fails, I really don't see the benefit to me.
~~~
mercurial
I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree
that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the
expense of consumers.
~~~
Brakenshire
Yes, there's no need to make the US the bad guy.
The key point is the way in which a treaty like this puts a whole class of
what would once have been domestic legislation beyond the reach of democratic
decision-making. Both in the treaties themselves, and their transnational
private courts.
~~~
_yosefk
Can't a democratic decision be made to get out of the treaty? Also -
international obligations in general, by their nature, restrict democratic or
any other kind of sovereign decision-making. Decisions such as waging war,
defaulting on debt, etc. which are often made by sovereigns illustrate that
restrictions on sovereigns aren't necessarily bad.
(Not saying that TTIP is a good thing, just that I'm a bit baffled by the
framing of the problems with it as a conflict between democracy and
corporations or such. I'm even more baffled by the framing of defaulting on
sovereign debt as a "democratic right" \- again, regardless of the fact that a
country's citizens might have gotten a raw deal because a corrupt government
issued debt it shouldn't have, say, because it was bribed and needed liquidity
to buy something useless/overpriced from whoever bribed it, etc.)
~~~
pjc50
The lack of a sensible bankruptcy procedure for countries is a serious
problem. Individuals can discharge debts in bankruptcy in order to get back on
their feet. Companies have at least two different kinds of bankruptcy
depending on whether they can be run as a going concern or not. But a FX-
denominated debt is potentially an anchor on your country forever. Look at the
Argentine "pari passu" fiasco for example.
Imposing an unpayable debt on a country that forces poverty on its citizens
has a real and serious cost in human life. Wars have been fought over this;
it's often argued that the reparations debt imposed on Germany after WW1 was a
contributing factor to WW2.
~~~
_yosefk
I'm not saying I know what to do about unpayable sovereign debt, just that
defaulting on such debt is not a sensible example of a democratic right. "We
had a referendum and decided that you can all wipe your asses with our bonds"
is probably not the "sensible bankruptcy procedure" that you mention. I did
not claim anything beyond that.
Why do I think my point was worth making? Because there's a huge amount of
issues boiling down to poor coordination between different states today, the
nature of today's economy ensures this will become increasingly common, and I
think it's worth pointing out that simply insisting on "democratic rights"
interpreted as "doing whatever the citizens want, the rest of the world be
damned" doesn't really cut it. And this "interference with democracy" theme is
really really common these days, I bump into this sort of phrasing every other
week.
------
motbob
The article uses numbers pretty dishonestly.
"[T]the health costs of EDCs to Europe are between £113 billion and £195
billion (between €160 and €277 billion) every year."
There is no mention that pesticides/herbicides are a very small percentage of
that number. It doesn't matter whether it's "still bad" that it's a small
percentage. Arstechnica willingly led me to believe that the impact of
pesticides/herbicides was in the hundreds of billions of Euros.
These numbers also, notably, came out long after the 2013 negotiations
mentioned. What was the scientific consensus on EDCs in 2013?
~~~
Tosh108
Further down the article there's an indirect reference:
“I would recommend that pregnant women and children eat organic fruits and
vegetables and avoid using plastic containers and canned food, especially in
the microwave, because containers are usually treated on the inside with
substances and compounds that can leak into the tomato soup and may act as
endocrine disruptors,” he said.
------
based2
Chemicals Legislation
[http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/ind...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/chemicals/legislation/index_en.htm)
[http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-
standards/...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/european-
standards/harmonised-standards/pesticide-application-equipment/index_en.htm)
Measuring REACH and CLP Enforcement - new study Published on: 19/05/2015, Last
update: 20/05/2015 [http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/newsroom/cf/itemd...](http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8280&lang=en&title=Measuring-
REACH-and-CLP-Enforcement---new-study)
src: [https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu-
monitoring/...](https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/eu-
monitoring/dg-environment-explains-delegated-acts-biocides)
[http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_1...](http://newsletter.echa.europa.eu/home/-/newsletter/entry/4_12-bjorn-
interview;jsessionid=FA3521FA977B29C9D750FBFC67D0605E.live2)
------
tim333
While I'm against the TTIP, the "the health costs of EDCs to Europe are
between £113 billion and £195 billion" mentioned in the Ars article seems to
be from the Guaridan article "(£113bn-£195bn)"
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-
co...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/06/health-costs-
hormone-disrupting-chemicals-150bn-a-year-europe-says-study)
that says "Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with the human
hormone system, and can be found in food containers, plastics, furniture,
toys, carpeting and cosmetics."
no mention of pesticides in their opening bit. I'm guessing the percentage
exposure coming from pesticides is very small so the financial figures in the
Ars article are misleading.
------
realusername
How can you seriously defend the EU to the average European when you see
things like this ? This kind of stories are not going to help to reduce the
current distrust of everything related to the European union. All this
corruption really does a disservice to the EU.
~~~
peteretep
Honestly? Because my first thought was "there's no way the EU signed off on
this". I challenge anyone to find a stauncher protector of consumer rights in
history than the EU...
~~~
andy_ppp
This is the strange thing about the EU, it is almost as barmy as the BBC but
like them somehow largely manages to do the right thing. It's amazing that
most of our politicians believe with a kind of religious faith that big
business and the free market is the solution when it seems fairly clear the
psychopathic behaviour and the free market has bankrupted government and
ruined the economy. Instead of saying let's put in further more stringent
regulations the neocons have got more of their policies through. I think this
is largely due to an obedient and corporate controlled media.
------
reimertz
Do people want TTIP? Nope.([http://goo.gl/FD145h](http://goo.gl/FD145h)) Do
people want pesticides? Nope. ([https://goo.gl/AQNdZv](https://goo.gl/AQNdZv))
So what is the problem?
~~~
danbruc
_Do people want TTIP? Nope._
That's (sadly) (possibly) not true. I thought it would be scandalous if
Europeans didn't want TTIP and they just ignored the people and continued
negotiating. But then I found this chart [1] and in almost every country the
majority is for a trade agreement. I don't know if the numbers are wrong, if
people are uninformed or if they just don't care, but if the numbers are
correct then it all is just democratic, the majority wins, whether I or you
like it or not.
[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe-
on...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/29/is-europe-on-board-for-
a-new-trade-deal-with-the-u-s/)
~~~
taejo
Those survey results show people who are "for a free trade and investment
agreement between the EU and the USA" \-- not those who are for _this_ trade
agreement; the objections to TTIP are arguably _not about the freedom of trade
and investment_.
~~~
minot
Exactly. How am I supposed to say whether I like it or not when I don't know
what "it" is? Lets leave surprises for company pot luck lunches.
Would any elected official dare ask the same about the legislative process?
Isn't a trade agreement that sets precedent as legislation the opposite of a
participatory democracy? It just makes no sense. How can they have things like
TPP and TTIP and still complain about the lack of involvement in politics by
ordinary folks?
------
benaston
Parliamentary democracies are often deeply flawed and in need of reform. That
much is obvious (in the UK at any rate).
The problem with the EU is that is is _even less_ democratic and hence less
accountable than the pre-existing system of national governments.
Furthermore, as this article shows, the EU makes it easier for large companies
and trading blocks to pull-off greater subversions and abuses of power via
lobbying and corruption, since power is concentrated in a much smaller number
of people.
The founders and implementors of the EU "project" used the term "ever tighter
integration" in their founding documents, where they laid out their vision for
a United States of Europe.
They even describe how they intended to implement this via a technique called
"gradualism". The idea being that big sweeping reforms would be rejected by
the individual polities, but that more gradual, subtle changes spread over
time could achieve the same effect without the same resitance. And we have
seen this in action over the past forty years.
A bit like the apochryphal boiling of a frog.
The problem is that this is in some sense subversive and in another,
presumptious that the EU project is desired and/or sensible. At some point the
frog metaphor breaks down and people begin to realize what is happening and
what has happened.
And in the UK at least, finally, we are beginning to see a debate being held
on the desirability of the EU being a _political_ union (rather than the more
prosaic free-trade area).
~~~
higherpurpose
All democratic republics are in dire need of an overhaul for the 21st century.
However, US and UK tend to be worse than many because of the first past the
post voting system.
~~~
minot
I feel bad for the voters in the UK. LD got trounced in this election but in
the previous two elections they had 22 and 23 percentage of votes.
In 2010, Conservatives had 47% of the seats with 36 percent of votes. Labor
had almost 40% with 29% of the votes. LD had 8% with 23% of votes. Even in
2015, they had 1.2% of seats with 7.9% of votes.
If you have almost a quarter of the population voting for you, you'd think you
can make things happen. What went wrong with the referendum? What could the
YES proponents have done differently? More importantly, has the damage been
done? How long do UK nationals have to be quiet about alternative voting now?
~~~
petercooper
We already had a referendum about it four years ago -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011)
\- and it was overwhelmingly in favour of the status quo.
~~~
minot
I am very convinced that a full proportional representation would be very much
better than the status quo. Can we have a referendum again? When would be an
optimal time?
------
matternew
``EU plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals found in pesticides have
been dropped because of threats from the US that this would adversely affect
negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)''
They shouldn't drop them, we should regulate freely and be removed from TTIP.
Being involved in TTIP isn't a privilege or in any way desirable, it's an
undemocratic exercise in futility. So, to me, being ejected is a win-win
scenario.
------
ck2
The do-nothing-congress better crash and burn that thing in the House.
It's going to be crazy if this is one of the few things they pass this year.
------
PythonicAlpha
The problem about "TTIP" and "free trade treaties" is, that they are
continuously used to support the interests of big corporations -- and thus,
lowering health, environmental and other standards is one of the big targets
of those treaties.
I lately saw a documentation about the trade treaty of the US with Mexico.
They said, that standards where lowered in both countries.
Take two or more countries and make today a "free trade treaty" between them,
you get the lowest common denominator, since the big corporations are at the
head of the table.
TTIP starts to reduce standards even _before_ it is signed.
------
cyphunk
Collectively the EU bloc represents the larges global economy (18tr GDP). It
should be the US forced to accept EU regulations to participate in the EU
economy, not the other way around.
~~~
adventured
The US economy is about $1.8 trillion larger than the EU economy presently.
The EU economy is roughly $15.7 trillion (€14.3 trillion), and hasn't grown in
seven years. During that time, the US retook the lead in size and added around
~$2.5 trillion to its GDP. The dollar run in the prior year has also lifted
the value of the US economy at the expense of the EU economy, by about ~13%.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union)
~~~
cyphunk
thanks for updating my outdated data :)
------
parennoob
> EU regulations would have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine
> disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that have been linked to testicular cancer and
> male infertility.
Obvious criticism of sweeping trade treaties aside, this is another blatant
case where the health and well-being of males takes a back seat to political
considerations.
I'll bet my bottom dollar that if these chemicals caused, say, ovarian cancer,
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic would be racing to ban them and get
political brownie points.
------
joering2
_Just after the official launch of the TTIP negotiations on 13 June 2013, a US
business delegation visited EU officials to demand that the proposed
regulations governing EDCs should be thrown out in favour of a further "impact
study."_
May I please know the names of those scumbags, or at least how can I find out?
I want to know more about those brainacs, perhaps place a few phonecalls,
express my disgust.
------
ddon
And what can be done now?
~~~
higherpurpose
Write to your MEPs.
[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html)
------
fleitz
Is the EC in charge of the EU? Couldn't they just say no?
~~~
SagelyGuru
and they are unelected
~~~
matt4077
Neither are Merkel, Cameron, Tsipras and probably about 50% of the heads of
government. I doubt there is a country where the Secretary of Defense is
elected.
There's nothing wrong with an elected parliament choosing the executive, and
the EU actually moved to a more direct election with the 'Spitzenkandidat'
system. People still didn't care to vote for the EU parliament.
~~~
benaston
Your comment re Merkel, Cameron et al is a strawman: just because the existing
system of parliamentary democracy is deeply flawed, it does not follow that
another even less democratic system is acceptable.
You point out that Cameron (for example) is not directly elected as PM. He
does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote. Unlike
the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate to
speak of and yet they hold immense power.
34% of those eligible voted in the UK European elections (i.e. for the
European Parliament). Your comment re people not caring is overly simplistic.
People will not vote for a wide variety of reasons. Only one of which is that
they "don't care".
Edit: please explain your downvote, so that I may improve my comment or
respond.
~~~
babatong
>He does however have to be elected to parliament via a democratic vote.
Unlike the European Commission, where commissioners have no democratic mandate
to speak of and yet they hold immense power.
You are incorrect. Since the Lisbon treaty at least, the commission is
proposed by the council and then has to be voted on by the parliament.
If anything that gives it even more democratic legitimacy than Cameron, as in
his case only he himself, not his cabinet is voted on by parliament.
You are of course within your right to criticize the parliamentary democratic
system within it self. However a claim that the processes by which the
commission is put in place are less democratic than the processes by which
Cameron or Merkel came to power are just outright false.
~~~
benaston
@germanier and @babatong No, you are both wrong.
The democratic mandate for EU commissioners is less strong than for directly
elected officials.
@matt4077 called out that even Cameron is not elected directly as PM, and that
is correct. The problems with the existing parliamentary democracy in the UK
are well understood.
So having a "somewhat undemocratically elected official" Cameron, nominate a
person for the commission who has not been directly elected _at all_ by the
populous, is less democratic because it is one step further removed from
direct election.
This is how we have all these "unknown faces" wielding immense power in
Brussels - like Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council.
The democratically elected European Parliament then vote for the nominees, but
at this point the nominees already have less mandate (for reasons given above)
than the members of national parliaments (and the EU parliament). And, I might
add, more power.
This is one of the main problems with the EU as a political union. It is a
move away from grass-roots democracy towards a centralized monolith that
disenfranchises millions and millions of people.
~~~
germanier
You seem to miss that the vote in parliament adds and doesn't remove mandate
from the candidates. The MEPs have a very strong opinion on who is a suitable
candidate and who isn't. They used their power to refuse candidates and demand
others in the past and will do so in the future.
By your standards the European Commission has a mandate that is at least as
strong as the one of any European country's government.
~~~
benaston
Not at all.
The question at hand is: do the EU commissioners have a stronger or weaker
democratic mandate than national MPs?
When considering this question, the vote in the EU parliament is neither here
nor there, because the person being voted for by them has not been directly
elected by a single member of the public, possibly ever.
If a person is directly elected by the people he represents, then he has a
stronger mandate than another who has not been directly elected. Mandate gets
weaker the farther you are from direct election by the people.
~~~
germanier
Comparing commissioners to national members of parliament isn't fair, they are
doing completely different jobs.
A member of the European parliament is one degree removed from public vote,
just as a member of a national parliament. A European commissioner is two
degree removed from the public, just like a European head of government. A
minister in most member states is three degrees removed.
If you don't consider the vote in the EP for commissioners as a real vote
because they can't pick their own candidate then it's three degrees removed as
the candidates are picked by the heads of governments.
In any case I can't see how it's less democratic than the election system of
any member state. The commissioners are as far away from the public vote as
almost any member of government in the member states.
~~~
benaston
Both national MPs and EU commissioners are public officials who form public
policy that affects citizens' lives. In that much they are comparable. Both
procedurally and in scope of effect there will be differences of course
(commissioners are much more powerful, and therfore should be held to a higher
level of scrutiny).
In any case, similarity of jobs is orthogonal to the narrow question - who has
the stronger mandate?
Take Person A who via an elected representative would like to effect
legislative change in their nation. Who has the stronger mandate to take
action?
In other words, which representative would be closer to the truth in saying
that "they were acting in Person A's name"?
1\. For the sake of argument, let's take the UK Prime Minister. He is voted
for by a party consisting of members of the public via an open process to
represent a specific platform; is elected directly by a constituency numbering
in the low tens of thousands of people who happen to live in a geographical
area of the nation under representation.
Furthermore, the representative is a widely known public figurehead with a
well-known platform meaning that although members of the public in other
constituencies cannot affect his election to parliament directly, they can
affect the amount of power he wields. The election covers 70 million people.
2\. For an EU Commissioner a shortlist of representatives are chosen _in
secret_ by a team of people, each of whom is a proxy, elected via a process
similar to (1). One of the shortlist is chosen by a vote from members of a
directly elected parliament. The election takes into consideration the views
of 3/4 billion people.
The EU commissioner shortlist process is secret (and thus open to nefarious
influence - go on: tell me this will not happen), the final vote is diluted by
the views of an order of magnitude more people, spread over a much greater
geographic area (meaning a much wider range of concerns need be taken into
consideration), and the commissioner need not have been elected directly by
anyone from the population he represents (other than via proxy).
Based on this, it is clear that the representative in scenario (1) has a
stronger claim to be said to be acting in the name of Person A than the person
elected via process (2).
The EU is hence less democratic than the institutions is is replacing, and is
in some sense democratically regressive.
(And this is before any discussion about the differences in the legislative
path between Westminster and the EU).
~~~
SagelyGuru
I agree. Thank you for the expanded explanation of the reasons behind my above
brief comment. I just note in passing with wry bemusement, that my comment
that sparked such illuminating discussion apparently deserves only 0 points.
------
sillygoose
You know, if EU countries were genuinely concerned about their beloved
citizens coming into contact with damaging chemicals, they could warn them on
the evening news or something.
Hey there Dear Citizens, these products have been found
to cause cancer. Please avoid using them, and tell your
friends to avoid them too!
Best Regards,
Your Benevolent, Caring Overlords
Do you think that just _might_ have an effect on the companies producing the
toxic crap they force on us?
"Those naughty companies haven't stopped putting cancer-causing
chemicals in their products. You should still boycott them."
If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they
were safe.
~~~
imron
Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening
news, and also have bigger marketing budgets than the companies producing such
chemicals.
Sure.
_If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until
they were safe._
No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of such
chemicals.
~~~
sillygoose
> _Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening
> news_
Well yeah, they largely do:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98)
But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a
noble cause, yes?
> _No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of
> such chemicals._
Sure, and if they _really cared_ , they could do that even despite the TTIP,
or they could reject or re-negotiate the TTIP. There's no way around that,
regardless of whether you trust that governments are operating with _our_ best
interests at heart.
~~~
imron
> But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a
> noble cause, yes?
As privately run corporations, news organizations go where the money is and I
trust them even less than I trust the government. The number of _ignoble_
causes they have cooperated on in the recent past leaves them with a very
large credibility gap in my mind.
And while the government is not perfect, at least I live in a country where
lobbying (aka bribery) is no where near as institutionalised and prevalent as
you see in the U.S.
So while my government might not always have _my_ best interests at heart,
they are definitely more concerned and more trustworthy than a news
organisation.
~~~
DanBC
Didn't the 911 conspiracy theory video link make you think that maybe it's not
worth speaking to silly goose?
~~~
imron
To be honest, I didn't even click through to the video.
Your point has been noted.
~~~
sillygoose
He didn't have a point. He just signaled that he can't think independently.
The video is a summary of _what we were told happened_ , through the
mainstream media. The story is _absurd_ , which means _it 's not actually
true_! That, in turn, means that there was, in fact, a conspiracy!
Here's a few videos of an invisible plane hitting a building, which then
collapses seemingly on its own:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg)
.. but it wasn't on its own, of course, because an invisible plane hit it!
Feel free to start thinking for yourself any time now.
------
jokoon
I hate to say this, and I don't think it's justified, but that's the kind of
stuff al-qaeda would fight against.
Someday having anti-american opinions might equate with being a terrorist.
~~~
andy_ppp
Someday! Funny that you should say this but David Cameron wants us to never be
left alone by the state and anti terror laws are regularly used against people
who are not terrorists. The police are being militarised and the human rights
act is being removed from law here in the UK. Someday looks like tomorrow to
me.
------
kokey
Opening up trade is bad by default... to those that benefit from the barriers
that are in place. I am always suspicious of a lot of emotive campaigning in
response to trade agreements that opens up trade.
~~~
msvalkon
Did you by chance read the article? This has little to do with opening up
trade and much to do with providing ridiculous amount of power to any major
corporation.
EDIT:
Suppose I'm a producer of bottled water from Germany. I bottle a lot of water
in California. The Californians vote to move to heavy water rationing and
regulation due to the threat of continuous draught. This hurts my business, so
should I be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California, have
any possible trials and hearings within a closed courtroom and possibly
overrule the vote?
~~~
RobertoG
Agree, the motivation of all this is, at least, worrisome.
You should be allowed, as a corporation, to sue the state of California... in
California. But this is not what we are talking about here.
We are talking about the creation of new special courtrooms above the laws of
California, staffed by people that worked for corporations and when they left
the job are going to work for corporations again.
If this is not worrisome, you tell me what it is.
|
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Funding Brooklyn Castle - maudlinmau5
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/06/funding-brooklyn-castle.html
======
Sealy
I admire the VC companies that pledge towards charitable causes. Its nice to
see one that actively works towards promoting these causes too.
|
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|
Show HN: ChessBoss – enhancing physical chessboards with computer vision - yeldarb
https://devpost.com/software/chess-boss
We built ChessBoss at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon this week. It didn’t make the top 10 but I thought Hacker News might think it’s pretty cool.<p>https://devpost.com/software/chess-boss<p>There are these really cool smart chessboards that can suggest moves and track your games... but they’re $400 and weigh 19 pounds. And of course there are apps that can analyze games but tracking and inputting games by hand is a huge pain. Or fully-digital chess apps... but board games are way more fun in real life!<p>We wondered: “why can’t you just do that in software and bring the best parts of chess apps into the real world?” So we did!<p>A camera passes a feed of the board through our machine learning model which interprets the state of the board and passes it off to Stockfish to display move suggestions in real time.<p>We didn’t quite get to recording the state over time in PGN but we hope to continue this project and add that soon!<p>Would love to know what you think. We’re working on enhancing other board games with computer vision as well; if you want to help us beta test sign up at https://boardboss.com
======
levischoen
Where’s the code?
~~~
mhuffman
> We plan to launch a Kickstarter to get funding so we can turn this into a
> real product to enhance Chess for people playing in the real world.
I expect it is not available!
------
yeldarb
We built ChessBoss at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon this week. It didn’t
make the top 10 but I thought Hacker News might think it’s pretty cool.
There are these really cool smart chessboards that can suggest moves and track
your games... but they’re $400 and weigh 19 pounds. And of course there are
apps that can analyze games but tracking and inputting games by hand is a huge
pain. Or fully-digital chess apps... but board games are way more fun in real
life!
We wondered: “why can’t you just do that in software and bring the best parts
of chess apps into the real world?” So we did!
A camera passes a feed of the board through our machine learning model which
interprets the state of the board and passes it off to Stockfish to display
move suggestions in real time.
We didn’t quite get to recording the state over time in PGN but we hope to
continue this project and add that soon!
Would love to know what you think. We’re working on enhancing other board
games with computer vision as well; if you want to help us beta test sign up
at [https://boardboss.com](https://boardboss.com)
Also I live tweeted about our progress during the hackathon so if you’re
interested in how the sausage is made you can check out the blow-by-blow here:
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1179424684502388736.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1179424684502388736.html)
~~~
psuter
Congrats! We tried something similar a few years ago (also at the TC Disrupt
Hackathon [1]), but had to take a lot of shortcuts to get to something
working. I'm impressed you had the time to train a proper model (we went with
old school CV hacks).
Looking forward to seeing what BoardBoss could become. These days I've been
wanting a CV app to track backgammon games. Those dice can be pretty tiny
though :)
[1]
[https://devpost.com/software/chesseye](https://devpost.com/software/chesseye)
~~~
rocauc
Great minds! Love that you deployed to a Pi – I’ve thought about the same to
complement or replace smartphones.
Can you shed some insight into your ML process? One thing we did to simplify
the vision problem is capture images from the same perspective (hence our
tripod). We labeled 2894 objects across 292 images. We had 12 objects to
detect: each piece for black and white. We struggled with occlusion,
especially if a pawn is behind a queen.
~~~
psuter
I described some of the process in a previous HN thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19567549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19567549)
There is also a presentation we had prepared for an informal talk:
[https://github.com/chesseye/chesseye/blob/master/presentatio...](https://github.com/chesseye/chesseye/blob/master/presentation/slides/slides.pdf)
Hope this helps! I always enjoy talking about these things, so feel free to
reach out if you want to discuss it more.
------
Aspos
Would suggest using two cameras for stereo photogrammetry. Using mini-
projector to highlight clues would also be cool.
I see a micro-projector with two cameras just 10 cm apart on a single tripod.
With stereo the tripod does not need to be that big for reliable detection.
~~~
yeldarb
Ooo cool idea!
Have you seen Tilt Five? It’s an AR headset that operates off a similar
concept. Instead of trying to figure out the passthrough optics they put
projectors in the glasses that reflect back at the viewer.
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-
ta...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-tabletop-
gaming)
~~~
Aspos
Having to wear bulky glasses would ruin boardgames for me. But I see your
point.
------
billforsternz
This is very cool. One very important application would be simply recording
competitive games. There are electronic boards that can do this, and they are
ubiquitous at top level events. But they are infeasibly expensive. At our
chess club one selfless and heroic volunteer inputs all the scoresheets into a
PGN every week (shameless plug: he uses my chess GUI, Tarrasch
[https://triplehappy.com](https://triplehappy.com)). But it takes something
like 5 minutes a game, and gets tedious after a while. I have thought about
trying to build a phone app to compete with the electronic boards, but who has
the time? You guys do!
~~~
yeldarb
Yes! Absolutely on our road map.
We were hoping to get this done at the hackathon actually but it turned out
our v1 model wasn’t stable enough to track the game state over time. Hopefully
v2 of the model will let us do this.
An added bonus over tracking it by hand is that a computer vision powered
version would be able to track the time taken for each move as well.
If we built this would your club be willing to help us beta test?
~~~
billforsternz
Yes!
~~~
yeldarb
Woot! Shoot me an email: brad at roboflow dot ai
------
lern_too_spel
Similar project from 2015. [https://medium.com/@daylenyang/building-chess-
id-99afa57326c...](https://medium.com/@daylenyang/building-chess-
id-99afa57326cd)
~~~
rocauc
Nice - I like how your project demonstrates a Bird’s Eye View angle works
well.
We’ll aim to support the view from a seated player on each side of the game.
------
ospohngellert
This would be an awesome tool for streaming :)
You should also consider posting this on the chess subreddit:
[http://reddit.com/r/chess](http://reddit.com/r/chess)
~~~
rocauc
We think streaming and creating game logs will be great features to add.
We’ll likely share to the 147k /r/chess when we have an app others can demo.
Good call.
------
malux85
Wow this is cool! Any plans to open source it? This is something I'd love to
hack on.
If not, anyone else wanna work on this together? email me (in my profile)
~~~
yeldarb
We’re thinking of doing a kickstarter to fund making it into an actual product
if there’s enough interest.
But I’d love to chat more about what you’d be interested in building! I’ll
follow up with you.
~~~
malux85
Reach out, I’m connected to funding. We may be able to help.
------
thom
Really glad to see a few projects like this recently. For teaching it's _so_
good to be able to quickly help kids analyze a position (even when you have no
real right to be teaching people chess) without blundering. I do think the
loop needs to be closed with better, more explainable chess engine analyses on
the other side though, but this is fantastic for a hackathon project!
~~~
rocauc
So, as we think about making this into a production app, a feature you’d
request is the ability for a user to add input as to why a given move is being
suggested?
At present, we’re simply outputting the recommended move from StockFish, which
also does give a “Why.” Perhaps letting users add that commentary in the app
sufficiently solves that need.
~~~
thom
Oh I'm not sure I'm making a practical suggestion here, I think it's a
tremendously hard problem to humanize engine outputs (quite often the answer
is just "because otherwise in five moves you lose your knight" etc). Some
people have attempted this:
[https://decodechess.com/](https://decodechess.com/)
------
_jayhack_
Very cool! I did something similar a school project a while back, shameless
promotion here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZOA1ew-
zYc&t=256s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZOA1ew-zYc&t=256s)
~~~
rocauc
Nice. We’ll dive into your repo, too.
How did you handle a queen occluding a smaller pawn behind it? Simply more
training data?
------
ngcc_hk
Sorry no mood but that seems to be a project I would like to do but for
WeiQi/Go ...
~~~
yeldarb
Nice! What software features would you like to see added to those games?
~~~
karmakaze
I also want a Go game recorder. No features just a game recording to have the
enjoyment of playing with a real board and still have the game file for later
review.
------
mustacheemperor
This inspires some nifty applications for headset/eyeglass AR. I second the
request for source code, it’d be great to play with this on something like the
vuzix or HoloLens.
------
dangero
Would love to see something like this done in augmented reality so you point
it at a chess board and it gives you info about the game in progress.
~~~
yeldarb
Check in later this week :)
(Not chess but I think we’re on the same page!)
------
tonyinthehouse
This could be very useful for building your own chess bot! I am definitely
going try this out when I have some free time.
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|
Alum Charged With Hacking Into Texas A&M - terpua
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-College-Hacking.html?ex=1346817600&en=2b7a3ceda0264fcf&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
======
jsjenkins168
I actually know a few people who go to A&M who discovered similar
vulnerabilities. A friend gained access to the Windows LAN Manager passwords
and cracked them, getting access to login and passwords of the entire freshman
Engineering class. On a separate occasion, he noticed a windows folder share
on a server which contained the logs for the Engineering departments student
portal. The logs contained every login attempt with the login and password
stored in plain text! Not kidding.
So he told the department system admins and they basically shrugged him off..
Maybe now they've learned their lesson?
|
{
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|
Is The Web Really Just Links Or Is It Evolving? - jpro
http://www.dzone.com/articles/web-really-just-links-or-it
======
dlsym
No - there are awful lot of dead links, too.
|
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|
Ask HN: How did you get over your fear of shipping? - fratlas
Currently building a web app and feature creep and an intense feeling that the product is worthless (I enjoy using it, but it's niche so hard to user-test) is a daily occurrence. is this normal?
======
rgbrgb
Here's an open secret that might make you feel more comfortable: you can
launch as many times as you want until people notice. Here's an awful public
launch:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13343276).
There's no signup, buttons seem not to work. Nobody's going to care/remember
if they try again when the app is more baked in a couple weeks.
If you're not sure if your thing is usable, find someone who you can watch use
it in person.
~~~
screensquid
> If you're not sure if your thing is usable, find someone who you can watch
> use it in person.
If you can't find someone to use it in person, you can get user experience
feedback with a session recording tool. I am the author of such software,
which you can find at [http://screensquid.com](http://screensquid.com).
------
CodeWriter23
This may or may not apply to you. Try it on and if it fits, then work to break
the chains of bondage. My experience with this syndrome is fueled by a
character flaw known as "perfectionism".
Being detail-oriented as most good software developers are, it is easy for me
to just keep adding more details to the list and crunch them. It's going to
make the product better, right?
WRONG! This is where I confront my issue. Perfectionism is merely a tool of
the ego, engaging various games of self-righteousness, to only one end: giving
me that charge that "I'm right".
But what works for me, though often right, isn't the point. It's what works
for the user. The user is who gives my work life. They use the bits to
accomplish tasks, rather than those bits sitting on a DVD on some shelf in my
office, dead.
So how do I serve my need to be right and have a product that is living and
breathing? Only one way. Get it into the hands of users. And be open to their
input of the what sucks and what they'd rather have. They don't get to dictate
the final form of the product, but they do inform my future decisions. See,
the key to being right is learning, and all I learn from the bits resting on
my shelf are lessons in organization and expense. To really learn, other
people have to be involved. And I need to be open to not just their input, but
to experiencing a range of uncomfortable feelings.
Let me apologize up front for this brutally honest comment. Since you have
problems finding users for your product, chances are it won't be a huge
success. Sorry for my brutality. Your project is still valuable. First, it has
some value to you, so finish it and use it. But don't be afraid of being wrong
in the process. Just tell that bitchy little part of your ego to shut the fuck
up, and get your code into the hands of others. As developers we are often way
too close to our work and benefit greatly from external feedback. Learning the
process will make you a better developer.
So like I said at the start, this is my experience. If it might work for you,
great. If not, scroll on by, there's a lot of other help here too. I admit
what I've said here might be worth less than a nickel.
------
sheraz
Include a public URL in your build process from day one.
I use dokku for this and simply git push dokku master right after I got push
origin master.
At any given time those who have the URL can see what I'm doing and ping back
with feedback.
That, and Show HN her is great. Reddit has /r/startups which I also think is
supportive and helpful.
~~~
augustflanagan
I completely agree with this. My co-founder had a post[0] on HN yesterday in
which he mentioned that our MVP made him cringe.
What he didn't mention is that that cringeworthy MVP was public for almost two
months before we started showing it to people. It was out there with broken
features, placeholder text, etc.
That made shippin easy. It was done on day 1 and then we were very motivated
to make it actually do something useful since it was already public.
[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347307)
------
soneca
Normal yes, not much beneficial. I dont have this problem at all (take a look
at my long list of Show HN of all kinds, including several very poor half-
baked things that I'm not that proud of), so I dont think I can give any
empathically useful advice. But I would love to know, what are you building?
(Who knows, maybe it does indeed requires a longer gestation period).
~~~
fratlas
ML-based social platform where the algorithms learn a user's tastes. Limited
to images, it's somewhere between Tumblr/VSCO/Pinterest/IG. It works for me,
and my girlfriend loves using it, but the problem is she always wants to
export her chosen images back to another platform for posting. I sense it will
be a chicken and the egg problem. Was mostly so I could learn how to handle
big data (~1B edges)
~~~
NumberCruncher
No product survives the first contact with the customer. This already happened
to you despite of having only one customer - your girlfriend.
If I were you I would be really happy about her wanting to post the chosen
images back to an other platform. This means your product would go viral on
its own without any help. Think of a fair annual price, triple it and go live.
There are many bored people out there with to much money in their pockets.
~~~
fratlas
I suppose you are right. At the very least it's an item for the resume.
------
aarondf
By shipping.
That's not sarcastic or dismissive, it's just the best way I've found to get
over the fear of shipping. By simply shipping it. The next time will be
easier. And the next, and... etc.
------
Mz
You need to find some way to connect with people and get feedback.
I wish I knew a better word than _feedback_ because I do not mean that people
are necessarily going to engage you in good conversation and say "X is good
and Y is bad." That almost never happens, and when it does, the feedback can
be terrible and counterproductive.
But you need to find some way to get it out there in the wild such that you
see how people respond and what they do with it, what gets used and what
doesn't. If it isn't resulting in a lynch mob reaction, you need to not view
the negative responses in a bad light. You want critique, and that means
hearing both what works and what doesn't. You do not want nothing but fan
boys, massaging your ego, saying nice things and not mentioning problems at
all.
So, I don't know what path will work for you in specific. But you need to get
some kind of engagement that puts useful information in your hands to inform
the development. How people get that varies. But your fear of shipping is
because it involves tossing it out there into a giant unknown void with zero
idea of how that will go. The antidote to that is getting some engagement so
you aren't just flying blind.
How people do that is very individual.
------
rsoto
That's me for the better part of 2015, having a product that gives me value,
that I use every day and yet no one was interested in it (also, it was
bleeding a couple hundred a month).
What I can tell you is that if your product is too innovative, you'll walk
into walls, and that's fine. Most of the people I spoke to didn't get the
service, and others seemed interested, but they were just polite. What you
have to do is to launch and get out your product to the world, and then find
the first customer, even if it's at 10% its price point—it will give you
confidence and will validate that your product is valuable.
As for the feature creep, I think it will happen always, as each customer has
its own view on your product, and since you're the one making it, they will
tell you things, some are good ideas, but most of them are not very good,
since most don't know what they want. You'll have to find balance.
The thing that helped me a lot is being in a big city. I'm from a way smaller
place and I've been building stuff for 15+ years, and the big city mindset is
way more open than the small city's, as they will use anything, but only once
it has been proved.
I hope those pieces of advice help you in your journey. If you want to talk a
little bit more, my email is in my bio.
------
genbit
If you now someone who can/want also use your product, ship early versions to
them. Even screenshots. If not, try to find these users, and ship to them :)
I think, early fear of shipping is a symptom of uncertainty "will someone need
this product?" You should try to find this someone as soon as possible, and
get feedback from them.
------
mcmatterson
I'm facing the same dilemma with a hardware project of mine ([http://tooner-
test.moshozen.com](http://tooner-test.moshozen.com)). In the past month alone,
I've been stuck on several things (public name, dealing with constant ID
creep, finding a mill that can resaw, among others). Though they're
contradictory, it seems that half of the roadblocks get solved through putting
them off (and usually thinking of a better solution, or a workaround), and
half get solved by #JFDI.
'Shipping' means something much different for hardware projects of course, but
nonetheless I think the advice to ship on day one is really foundational. I've
always been fond of the idea that 'if something hurts, you need to do it more
often'. Make the game about iterating and not shipping.
------
eecks
Agile sprints are a good way to get shipping done.
Make a backlog of tasks.
Set a time for your sprint (2 or 3 weeks).
Estimate how long you think the tasks in your backlog will take (don't focus
on being 100% correct in your estimates).
Include what you can given the sprint time and the estimates.
Release at the end of every sprint.
Rinse and repeat.
~~~
fratlas
That is a good idea. Forces you to really nail down tasks between you and your
goal.
------
Huhty
Keep getting constant feedback as you build. Understand that there will be a
lot of people that your product/service isn't for, which is just fine. Build
your audience (with a landing page) now, not after you ship.
------
sh87
This isn't fear of shipping, but fear of failure. Only way I know to overcome
this is
fail fast -> fail more -> learn -> fail less -> maybe succeed -> repeat.
Somehow, you need to get comfortable with not knowing how it will all work and
make sure you have given your best. Now best, would not mean the best product
but something with the best fit. So it's not a step by step process here. The
more and better you try, the more and better you understand the goal and how
you may get there.
Learn to be just ok with failing and have someone to get you back up on your
feet.
------
appleiigs
Ship alpha, beta versions. Even the general public knows what a beta version
is and know that it's a work in progress. Then add a roadmap where users can
see where it's going and look forward to it.
~~~
adventured
Interestingly, the beta label that was so common 10 or 12 years ago on new web
services, seems to have mostly disappeared. I very rarely see it any longer.
One of those cycles where it got very popular, then the backlash about putting
it on everything and a negative connotation develops, then people become
afraid to use it.
------
kayman
I haven't gotten over my fear of shipping. My first product I posted on
Hackernews, I got ripped to pieces. (password emailed to user in plain text,
no terms and conditions).
It was harsh. But it wasn't the end of the world. Manage your expectations.
See it as a process.
How do you create good stuff? By creating lots of stuff, enjoying the process
and some of it will turn out ok, some good, some bad. Like a musician. Just
focus on getting better. Your workflows for launching etc. See it as feedback
not a definition or critique of you.
------
tom5
I think it is more about paradox instead of fear.
a)you want to add enough features to attract/impress potential users. b)you
want to ship it, so you can get feedback asap.
a) and b) are pulling to opposite directions, hence the paradox. There is no
easy solution for this.
However, if you change the question to "what do I need to build to test my
assumptions (about the market and user)", the answer will be more obvious.
------
iisbum
Never really had a problem with shipping things, guess I'm pretty thick
skinned, but I try and remember that feedback, good or bad is better than
building in a vacuum.
------
bostand
By shipping.
The are tons of issues that show up only after you have shipped so striving
for perfection before shipping is pointless.
|
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|
The Limited Role of Utility Calculations in Moral Judgment - randomname2
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160084
======
throwaway3042
I'm kind of disapointed that this doesn't really reference existing
philisophical ideas about morals or ethics. A lot of what the article talks
about is well known in philosphy. Utilitarianism isn't very popular today as
it has a lot of flaws.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Criticisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Criticisms)
Here are some relevant keywords that I expected to see in the article, but
didn't find.
Ethical intuitionism
Deontological ethics
Virtue ethics
Consequentialism
~~~
twblalock
This is not an article about ethical philosophy per se. The article is
concerned with how people _actually_ think when they make moral judgments, not
how they _should_ think, or what their conclusions ought to be. In particular,
the article asserts that people don't think in utilitarian terms when they
make moral judgments.
Besides, it's not like every paper related to ethics should contain a summary
of every ethical framework you listed. It's a research paper, and its intended
audience knows those things already. It's not a syllabus for a sophomore
survey course on ethics.
------
adrianratnapala
Although this is yet another study about how human beings differ from some
"rational" ideal, it doesn't conclude that we are irrational. Rather it seems
to give us pause for thought about utilitarianism.
I think people are mostly right to have counter-utilitarian intuitions.
Utilitarinism automatically places the the reasoner in the position of an
omniscient fairy-empress how knows what is good for everyobody and can act on
it.
But nobody is really in that situation. We are interacting parts in a
enourmous system. We affect other people, and we adapt to the effects that
others have on us.
All this works better if we obey certain rough and ready rules of right and
wrong and respect each other rather vaguely defined rights. Evolution has
given us a moral sense that encourages just that. It isn't perfect, but it
works a lot better than pretending to be a fairy-empress.
------
alexvr
A class on moral philosophy screwed me up for a while early in college. All
the critical thinking and fancy vocabulary about the topic made me think
morality was in some way real - I was all concerned about violating "moral
laws." It's amazing how smart people can be so grossly deluded and incorrect
about things like this.
"Am I wasting my potential?! Is this action maximizing my contribution to
general welfare?! Is Famous Person better than me because he helped more
people?!" Totally neurotic.
This kicked off an era of serious philosophizing, and I began to see countless
contradictions and paradoxes with utilitarianism, etc.
For example, I started to see that the notion of "selfhood" was just a social
invention or cognitive construct, because I reasoned that we're just
perpetually changing aspects of nature, and our separateness is just opinion.
So then I wondered how the hell anyone could be deserving of blame or credit
if they don't actually exist, or if it was their "former self" who committed
the crime, etc.
It's kind of annoying but cute to see some popular "thinkers" and writers --
fancy-smarty-pants _neuroscientists_ and _atheists_, even -- who actually
think morality is real, as though there are actual objective problems out
there somewhere. As though you could actually do a "bad thing" or a "good
thing." That grinds my gears a little because it's very hypocritical: They'll
write an entire book disparaging religious people who believe things without
evidence, and they'll write another book on why, according to their
pseudoscientific-philosophical horse shit, morality can be "derived from
science" [vomit].
But it's easy for smart people to cling to morality as an existential anchor
point when they don't have religion to fall back on. It's hard to accept that
you're in free fall. But it's nice once you come around and accept reality for
what it is.
~~~
lbhnact
What words would you use to tell your friends and family about why someone
shouldn't stick a gun in your face and take anything they want?
And if the complicated and often contradictory paths through considerations of
ethics are 'annoying' to you, why? Are they 'wrong' on some moral plane that
'doesn't exist?'.
Ethics, life, and why we are all here is hard stuff. But if you think there's
no point, then please don't vote in the rest of our elections this fall!
~~~
alexvr
It's not wrong to stick a gun in someone's face. It's fine to pull the trigger
too, if you're not considering the laws our civilization invented. It's all
just opinion: You might not like being robbed, shot, or killed, but that's
your opinion; it's not "bad" in any real way whatsoever. I don't like pain or
the idea of dying before I'm ready either, but it's not an actual problem or
anything like that. Just preference. It would be quite remarkable to somehow
violate the way things are. Next time you see someone do something "wrong," or
"bad," or "unethical," please try to use your senses to observe the "bad" or
"problem" in the situation. Where is it? I'd love to see a picture of a real
violation of nature, a real problem.
To your second question, such things are annoying to me because it is my
nature to be annoyed by ignorance. Many humans are naturally compelled to seek
understanding. There is nothing wrong with ignorance; it's just my nature to
find it annoying.
Also, downvoting my comments doesn't make them incorrect.
------
michaelmrose
The trolley problem conflates too independent issues in a very artificial set
of circumstances.
Whether we are willing or required to make a utilitarian moral judgment and
whether we have the right to do so.
In a real life trolley problem on the battlefield or in the hospital the
commanding officer or doctor has been invested by society with his/her
position and is expected to do hypothetically the best thing for his
patients/soldiers. He has both the power and the right. I'm aware the military
situation is a LOT murkier but lets not over complicate.
It seems to me that many are conflicted over their right to take power over
other peoples lives and the expected benefit. Note how most feel that you are
required to switch the trolley when nobody would be harmed on the other track.
Most feel it unacceptable to take responsibility for choosing which party to
die in a one to one switch but find sacrificing one for 5 at least acceptable
as the benefit mounts it becomes harder to be squeamish about taking power
over others.
Maybe if they analyses more realistic scenarios it might be somewhat clearer.
|
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|
Manchin Demands Federal Regulators Ban Bitcoin - imd23
http://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=237cbd66-6a26-4870-9bcb-20177ae902b0
======
ColinWright
Extensive discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307299](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307299)
|
{
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|
12 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Building a Web App - luccastera
http://www.slideshare.net/carsonified/12-things-i-wish-id-known-before-building-a-web-app/
======
danw
This would be more useful with the audio from the talk:
<http://cdn2.libsyn.com/carsonsystems/Ryan_Carson.mp3>
|
{
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|
An Illusion with a Future [pdf] (2004) - dredmorbius
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027925?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
======
dredmorbius
SciHub or LibGen deliver, for those interested.
|
{
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}
|
URL query parameters and how laxness creates de facto requirements on the web - todsacerdoti
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/DeFactoQueryParameters
======
drewcsillag
Accepting random stuff like this is in the spirit of the protocols of the
internet.
Postel’s Law: > Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept
from others (often reworded as "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal
in what you accept").
Also known as the robustness principle
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle)
------
Tagbert
The article doesn’t seem to identify a problem caused by these unexpected
parameters. I would think any system that accepts input like this would need
to validate the input and reject or ignore invalid input. Where is the
problem?
I have been known to add a parameter like &x=1 to a page that fails to load
properly the first time. It can invalidate an incorrect cache and let the page
reload.
------
jbverschoor
It’s not laziness. It’s the stupid flexibility of certain protocols, APIs,
languages
Make things as strict as possible
|
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|
SEO for expiring pages - bee
Hello, I have a q regarding SEO<p>I have a free classifieds websites, with categories/ads.
Each ad is active for 30 days and then is marked as expired.
How should I handle this better from SEO point of view?<p>1. Display the ad and put a message that this ad is expired?
2. Make a 301 redirect to category the ad belongs to
3. Make a 301 redirect to index page?
4. Other ideas?
======
patio11
What volume of pages are we talking about?
At below-mass-scales, I would encourage you to keep the page content roughly
similar to what it is, mark expired pages as expired, and maybe put a modal
window with "This ad is expired. See related ads or post your own ad." or
something on top of the old content, with an option for people to close that
and see the archived content.
At mass scales (more than "thousands" of pages), I'd suggest either a) doing
the above but also no-indexing those pages or b) 301 them to the category
page. The rationale for this is that you don't want to get hit by Panda for
having lots and lots of not-so-much-value pages.
~~~
bee
Yeah I have thousands of pages. And I would want to remove them permanently as
I don't want to give users non-value pages.
------
bee
And any idea how to handle best duplicate content (since is a free classifieds
website, these ads are across all internet)?
|
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|
Ask HN: review my app idea: easily get comments on wires/designs - petervandijck
My idea is this: an app that lets you get comments on your documents (I'm thinking wireframes/designs). Works like this:<p>1. Email a PDF to us.<p>2. We email you back a url and a password.<p>3. Go to the url, enter password and your name (no signup). Then you get a page where you see all the pages in the pdf as large images (1 image per page), and you can leave comments on the images (ajaxy, like leaving notes on a Flickr image).<p>4. Email the url+password to your team, and get their comments too.<p>Thaz it. The purpose of this is to make it easier to get comments on a set of wireframes or designs. Right now, we tend to email the pdf to the team, then get emails back with comments. But there's no easy way to point to one piece of the image and say something about that (we fix that with the ajaxy commenting on the image). It's also hard to get all comments in one place, they tend to be dispersed in email threads (we fix that with having it online).<p>Thoughts? Should I build this? Would you use it? Is this minimum and viable enough, or should I add/remove stuff?
======
petervandijck
Basic version would be free, if people like it I could easily make a more
company-friendly version for pay, later.
|
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|
An Instagram star with 2M followers couldn't sell 36 T-shirts - paulpauper
https://www.businessinsider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-followers-cannot-sell-36-t-shirts-2019-5
======
emsy
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20063667)
------
derefr
Just because you have followers doesn't mean you have fans.
I follow people that post e.g. cat pictures, but I wouldn't buy their merch. I
don't even know who these people are, really; their posts are a commodity to
me. They're "oh, more cat pictures", not "a new post from [X]!" I found them
through the app's recommendations, hit follow, and then never looked into them
further. Why would I want to buy anything from them?
The edges connecting vertices on social networks have _weights_ , despite the
social networks themselves not modelling this. Some people, despite being very
"connected" in theory, have a very low aggregate weight of connection; all
their connections are barely there.
It's like having a million acquaintances and no friends.
(And, of course, some percentage of the vertices you're connected to might be
deactivated/purchased/bots/etc. But even when that's _not_ true, you still
won't make sales on your "personal brand" to mere acquaintances.)
~~~
askafriend
This is missing the point entirely.
The reason she couldn't sell T-Shirts is because she didn't build a real
audience around her. She likely used bots to boost her followers and raise the
status of her profile without actually building engagement.
People who have built real audiences around themselves using social media are
superstars. Casey Neistat and MKBHD can sell tens of thousands of T-Shirts if
they wanted to.
The only point this makes is that Social Media is a tool. It can be used well
or it can be used poorly.
~~~
derefr
I saw the point you made in your top-level sibling subthread and acknowledged
it in a parenthetical to my post. I was trying to talk about a different
situation, which doesn't necessarily apply _to this specific case_ , but
rather is interesting to consider _in general_ as a response to the question
"why couldn't someone with a million followers on Instagram monetize those
followers?"
Let me reiterate: there are people with a million social-media subscribers of
"real audience", who _still_ could not sell a single T-shirt.
[https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/](https://chubbycattumbling.tumblr.com/)
and whatever the equivalents of such blogs are on Instagram likely have a
million+ subscribers—real people—but also have built _no_ "personal brand",
and therefore would generate no interest in products marketed under said
personal brand.
Casey Neistat and MKBHD aren't superstars because they have millions of
followers. They're superstars because they've been marketing their personal
brands from the beginning, and so every (real) follower they've gained is
_also_ a fan. But this does not apply in every situation.
(It _especially_ doesn't apply to corporate social-media outreach, something
of interest to the HN crowd: just posting cool stuff your startup made might
attract a "real audience" of people who _want that stuff_... but unless you're
branding that stuff as _yours_ when you do that, you won't be able to later
convert that audience _at all_. That should be obvious to someone who's job is
"social-media brand manager"—but it's _not_ obvious to someone who wants to
get rich selling merch to Insta followers.)
~~~
askafriend
Ah, got it. I think we're actually on the same page then!
------
superasn
I think the problem with this is the same problem with email marketing. It
doesn't mean that marketing on Instagram doesn't work.
I know people who have thousands of subscribers and can't sell $1000 of stuff
and then there are people with 1000 subscribers that can sell $50k worth with
a single email.
It all comes down to the relationship with your list (I guess in this case
your followers). If your list trusts you and trust is easy to gain by giving a
lot of value + authority, they will buy from you. Think if your best friend
tell you to get "X" and he is an expert too then chances are you will try "X"
even if doesn't make sense at the moment. On the other hand if a random
stranger tells you to do it, you will need a lot of convincing and still
you'll be looking for ulterior motives before making that purchase.
~~~
giancarlostoro
This makes sense. Back in 2010 I had a strong following on Tumblr and I
realized years later I could have easily sold products and made decent cash so
many of my followers had a personal connection with me due to chatting on
different platforms and getting to know me. But I didnt want to "sell out" so
I never shoved ads on my blog or spammed products. That seems to be a thing I
see moreso on YouTube and IG anyway.
Sure some artists would advertise swag they were selling on Tumblr from time
to time but they make awesome art why shouldnt they be allowed to sell swag?
Artists got to eat too.
~~~
superasn
Yes also selling word has aquired a really bad connotation mainly because of
these influencers pushing unnecessary stuff on to their list.
But selling can also be giving your list what they signed up for at a price
that they will not get anywhere else. Which is also very important to keep
niches and not to try and sell dog training videos to a person who signed up
for piano lessons (yes poeple can do that)
------
bufferoverflow
Fake followers?
Looking at her account, I don't get why she'd have so many followers. She
isn't good looking, not interesting, her videography and photography is very
average.
~~~
wildrhythms
Or the audience is simply not invested.
Twitch streamers sell merch to a much smaller audience, and probably to the
same group of audience who is also subscribed at $5/month. The audience is
already invested and want to support the content; do Instagram followers feel
like they're supporting the content in the same way? Is a follower count even
a good metric to judge audience captivation?
Maybe this is a wake up call to marketing agencies that influencers aren't
nearly as captive as their follower count suggests.
~~~
orev
But that’s the concept of “influencers” — not to sell things directly, but to
influence an audience for when they actually do buy something. That is what
most advertising aims to do — not to make people get up and go buy the thing
immediately.
------
jpmattia
When everyone is an influencer, nobody is.
------
rdiddly
A lot of ink spilled over this. I expected schadenfreude but really this is
just a high schooler making her first tentative baby steps into selling stuff
and unsurprisingly failing. My story would've been the same back in the day. A
Telemarketing Powerhouse Who Called 2,000 Homes Couldn't Sell 4 Magazine
Subscriptions. Difference was, I just quietly went back to college, while she
has professional marketers analyzing her every move in Business Insider. I
think maybe fuck the internet? Just not for the same reason I thought.
------
cosmodisk
I looked at her account on Instagram.First of all I'm surprised she's got so
many followers,as there's nothing even remotely interesting in her posts.
There's no story I'd follow-in fact there's nothing at all. So no surprise
T-Shirt business was a flop.
------
arkitaip
Even at a terrible 0.01% conversion rate she would have sold 200 t-shirts.
0.0018% is a rounding error, the quantity you purchase for QA or for handing
out at a pr event. Small Twitch streamers with a tenth of her audience sell
more t-shirts.
~~~
Mirioron
I think it has to do with the fact that twitch streamers tend to be very
engaged with their fans. Especially small twitch streamers. They're kind of
like "rent-a-friend" except they live based on donations.
~~~
arkitaip
Very true. Twitch streamers have really discovered a profound truth about what
it means to be in entertainment.
------
floatingatoll
I’d love to see someone run a perfectly great influencer Instagram where if
you can’t verify a purchase within 28 days you are permanently banned from
following them.
Not because I think this is healthy, but because I think people will complain
loudly and campaign to have them boycotted for demanding proof of their
“influencer” status resulting in money spend.
I think such a thing would shred the influencer concept to bits, and so all
the other influencers would react out of fear for losing access to the
“exposure economy” they leveraged their status to create.
~~~
cududa
They already do this for access to a “private” account.
------
octosphere
Looks like the store is temporarily down:
[https://www.erashop.us/](https://www.erashop.us/)
My guess is that not enough build-up, or buzz was created, and the initial
attempt to sell was forced and random. It's an old tactic you see various
startups doing: creating a countdown landing page where the 'mystery' of the
product gets people talking.
------
alkibiades
this has been happening a long time in hip hop. there’s people with millions
of real followers on instagram because of their antics. but when their album
comes out they don’t even get 10k sales.
------
takanori
What do you think an acceptable conversion rate should be?
~~~
groestl
2000000 × 0.1 (post viewed) × 0.1 (post engaged) × 0.1 (clicked link to shop)
× 0.1 (put shirt in shopping cart) × 0.1 (finished payment process) = 20
shirts sold
math checks out
|
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|
An open source re-implementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 - j_s
https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2
======
bbx
For all RCT2 fans here: check out RCT Classic on iOS [1] and Android [2]. It's
_fantastic_.
I thought the size of the device would be an issue, but I've been playing on
an iPhone SE with surprisingly great ease! The tap zones are small but very
well defined, so you almost never mis-tap. And the game is I believe bug-free
because it has never crashed!
The only real tricky part is designing underground paths and building rides
with an excitement rating above 6.0! But that's always been tricky…
[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rollercoaster-tycoon-
classic...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rollercoaster-tycoon-
classic/id1113736426?mt=8)
[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobile.rctc&hl=en_GB)
~~~
beefsack
Whenever I see IAP on paid apps I'm almost instantly turned off.
Do you know what sort of nature they are? Is the game complete without them?
Do they nag about the IAP in game?
~~~
mikepurvis
Looks like expansion packs. From the Google Play page: "PLEASE NOTE:
Additional content for RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic is available via In-App
Purchase, specifically the three expansion packs: Wacky Worlds, Time Twister
and Toolkit. The expansion packs are the ONLY content that require an In-App
Purchase and In-App Purchases are not used anywhere else in the game."
~~~
jwdunne
Actually, the toolkit as an IAP really pissed me off. That's the best way to
design coasters.
------
swang
Haha. I like this bug fix fixing an issue with people always vomiting.
[https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/6434/files](https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/6434/files)
~~~
wontoncc
I have encountered this bug the other day. Literally unplayable but fun
watching the guests vomiting all over the park.
~~~
stefco_
This might be excessively prurient, but I would love to see some gameplay
video or screenshots of what an unplayably vomit-filled park looks like.
~~~
sleepychu
> This might be excessively prurient
Wait what? What do you want those screenshots for?![0]
[0] -
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=prurient&atb=v71-6__&ia=definition](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=prurient&atb=v71-6__&ia=definition)
~~~
stefco_
Ha! Conflated "prurient" with "vulgar", though I'm guessing that mistake was
(hopefully?) obvious from context.
Thanks for the correction, made me chuckle :)
------
mathnode
For more open source game engines or re-implimentations check out:
[http://osgameclones.com](http://osgameclones.com)
~~~
corobo
If you're just there to browse working games do a ctrl+f for
<space>Playable
<space>Playable<space>Active
if you're after active playable repos
~~~
tete
There is a filter at the top and you can click on the tag.
However it seems that the tags are not all there. For example Freeciv is in
there ant not tagged as playable. So don't rely on it.
~~~
corobo
Hah that's my bad, I didn't even look for a search/filter function once I
noticed everything was on one page
------
maddyboo
I'm always amazed when I'm reminded that RCT2 was originally written in
assembly.
How would that much assembly code be organized? I've never seen a large
assembly project, but I would imagine something as complex as RCT2 would
easily clock in over 100k lines of assembly. That just sounds light a
nightmare to me!
~~~
ameliaquining
How much of the game was actually in assembly? I always heard that it was
mostly stuff like the guest AI that was in assembly (which is why you could
have hundreds of them running at once), and the graphical stuff was in a
higher-level language.
~~~
TylerE
ALL of it. Even the DirectX stuff was hand-written assembly. It's the same
core engine going back to the Transport Tycoon days.
~~~
duncanspumpkin
There is actually no DirectX at all in RCT2 source code. The game has its own
software renderer that outputs direct to the screen buffer.
------
Animats
_OpenRCT2 requires original files of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 to play._
It's the engine without the assets. Kind of like Open Rails, which is an open
source engine for Microsoft Train Simulator content. That's been out for a
while, and now others are writing content for it.
~~~
KGIII
I believe there is a Doom variant with the same requirements. It requires the
image and sound files.
I am not a gamer so I can't opine on the quality.
~~~
claudiulodro
GZDoom! It's amazing. By far my favorite game. You just need the original Doom
.wad files.
[https://zdoom.org/downloads](https://zdoom.org/downloads)
------
jonbaer
0AD still remains one of the best open source games, Blender files and all ...
[https://play0ad.com](https://play0ad.com)
------
glorkk
I recently stumbled upon
[https://github.com/citybound/citybound](https://github.com/citybound/citybound)
which draws inspiration from SimCity and RTC among others. The project is
still in very early stages, but I thought it was very interesting.
~~~
ChickeNES
If only it wasn't under a restrictive license....
~~~
Liru
How is the AGPL restrictive in this case?
~~~
vortico
Seconded. I can't think of any practical reason AGPL would be more restrictive
than GPL to the player of a video games.
------
loufe
Man what a great project, I've been only lightly following it for the last
year or so, but it gets me excited. I think I could see myself choosing this
as a first open source project to commit to.
Thinking now, I would love to see Dolphin style progress reports every now and
then from the project. I'm sure they'd catch a lot of buzz.
~~~
WhitneyLand
what are Dolphin status reports, and what about them is effective?
~~~
j_s
You can verify for yourself if you have time; the reports themselves are an
excellent resource both for their content itself and as an example to learn
from:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dolphin-
emu%20comments>0&sort=...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dolphin-
emu%20comments>0&sort=byDate)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15381844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15381844)
>kanwisher: _Always interesting to read the release notes on this product.
They go into such technical detail, its a joy to read_
>overcast: _This comment is becoming the HN equivalent of "First!" on Dolphin
Progress Reports._
[https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2017/10/02/dolphin-progress-
rep...](https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2017/10/02/dolphin-progress-report-
september-2017/)
------
satuim
An amazing project, My only criticism is the scaling, playing in 1080p makes
the UI really small, it does have scaling in the options but 1.5 uses
antialiasing and kinda ruins the pixel graphics.
Otherwise the best way to play this. I'm pretty sure you can also import
certain elements from RCT1 if you have it.
------
Sintendo
I continue to wonder whether this can be legal at all. It's pretty clear
they've been looking at the disassembled code, so it's not clean-room reverse-
engineered.
------
cmpb
Anyone interested in this may also be interested to know that there is a
pretty thriving subreddit for RollerCoaster Tycoon:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/rct/](https://www.reddit.com/r/rct/)
------
PLenz
As a lover of the original I wish this project has the same success OpenTTD
has had.
------
squeaky-clean
I've never played this but have been aware of it for a while. Judging from the
Readme it sounds fairly complete? Like I could play out a full scenario in
this without missing features or crashing?
~~~
lucb1e
I also head of it for a while before I gave it a spin. I finally got around to
it about 6 months ago.
The game works really well. I don't remember noticing that anything was still
missing in singleplayer. Multiplayer... there was something, but I don't
remember what. Desyncs for sure, but I think those were always solveable by
just reconnecting. I'm not sure what, but there was a reason why my girlfriend
and I didn't play it. We played RCT2 a bunch, with one person watching and the
other playing, and OpenRCT2 with multiplayer seemed epic, but there was
something annoying in multiplayer, I just don't remember what.
By now, it might have improved again. I remember the development going really
fast before. And in singleplayer, I don't think there were any bugs that
prevented me from playing.
Give it a spin if you were (or still are) into the original Rollercoaster
Tycoon!
~~~
squeaky-clean
Thanks for the info, I definitely will. RCT and RCT2 are among my favorite
games ever made. I still load them up at least once every 6 months. Leafy Lake
/ Lucky Lake will always have a place in my heart.
~~~
lucb1e
That's one of my favorite levels too! Whenever I'm unsure which one to load
up, that's almost inevitably going to be it :)
------
antimatter
I wish someone did something similar for Populous: The Beginning.
------
hippich
I wonder if there is some universal way to increase DPI for SDL-based apps. I
am on linux and I can't read anything =(
~~~
sclangdon
SDL2 has SDL_WINDOW_ALLOW_HIGHDPI, which creates the window in high-DPI mode.
~~~
janisozaur
I have added poor man's scaling in
[https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/2280](https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/2280)
you can also look into the investigation lead in
[https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/2328](https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/pull/2328)
~~~
VMG
Isn't there a way to preprocess the sprites and create 2x and 4x scaled
versions?
~~~
janisozaur
No, not yet, because of the way data is stored. When we move on to our own
save format it will be possible, I'm sure.
------
LusoTycoon
there's also a pretty nice Knights and Merchants remake
[http://www.kamremake.com/](http://www.kamremake.com/)
[https://github.com/Kromster80/kam_remake](https://github.com/Kromster80/kam_remake)
~~~
toomanybeersies
I remember playing multiplayer KAM a few years back. I don't know how they
wrote the netcode, but the game ended up terribly out of sync pretty fast.
It's a shame the remake has decided to go 3d and lose the original art style.
The original really has timeless graphics.
------
kartD
Nice, does this get rid of the shitty AI for the janitor? I can't tell you how
annoying it is to watch them do everything except clean the damn puke and
trash of the path.
~~~
jandrese
You can turn off mowing the lawn which will keep them on barf duty unless you
have a giant flower garden in their work zone. It's pretty much necessary if
you have a coaster with a moderate or higher puke value in the park.
Also don't forget that you can put bathrooms near the exit of an upchuck
inducing ride to keep the paths a little cleaner.
------
sitepodmatt
chris sawyer a hero on carmack's level. (sawyer is behind transport tycoon and
rollercoaster tycoon)
------
cr0sh
What I'd like to see is an open-source version of Disney's Coaster
game/simulation.
Or for that matter, any kind of roller coaster simulator. There's an excellent
Windows roller coaster simulator out there ("No Limits"), but nothing like it
exists on other platforms.
------
Avshalom
Well time to go dig out my CD case.
~~~
tylerjd
If you can't find it or it is too scratched, they also sell the full edition
of RCT2 on GoG for cheap
[https://www.gog.com/game/rollercoaster_tycoon_2](https://www.gog.com/game/rollercoaster_tycoon_2)
------
rusbus
"RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 was originally written by Chris Sawyer in x86 assembly
and is the sequel to RollerCoaster Tycoon."
Back when things used to be more hardcore.
------
jtl999
/me wishes there was an equivalent open source project for Chris Sawyer's game
Locomotion.
Spent so many hours playing it when I was younger. RCT too :)
------
joering2
Anyone know what Chris Sawyer is up to these days?
~~~
jle17
He gave a pretty interesting interview early 2016, apparently he was focused
on the rerelease of RCT on mobile and enjoying life :
[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-03-a-big-
interview...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-03-a-big-interview-
with-chris-sawyer-the-creator-of-rollercoaster-tycoon).
Seems like a humble person with a good life ethos. I like his philosophy with
the RCT license of letting others have a go at it since he already made what
he wanted.
I wish he would come back to make another game. RCT is so consistently fun so
well put together it always impresses me so many years later. That guy is a
hero of game design.
------
nebabyte
Anyone know what engine civ 6 uses? guessing it's some in-house one but am
curious if it has an internal name or something.
------
j7ake
I only have OS X does this mean I can buy the rtc2 (which is windows ) and
still be able to play it on OS X?
~~~
satuim
If you buy it from GOG you should be able to get the Windows exe, you can then
try and install it with WINE. That should give you the game files to import
into OpenRCT2.
~~~
janisozaur
There's innoextract for gog executables
------
kevinburke
I gave a talk about this project recently:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUBYTcVjp7I
~~~
gnyman
Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed it. Especially the later parts. Looking at your
GH it looks like it lost some steam? Did you continue on it and if so did it
produce anything "surprising"? As in, this should not really be a good coaster
but it has great score :-)
------
milkers
Which part is open source if I still need to buy the original game first?
~~~
sclangdon
I haven't look at this game in particular, but usually you need to buy the
original game to get the assests (art, models, audio, etc).
Even official open-source releases like the Quake series still require you to
buy the original game in order to run them.
------
Jdam
Please add a donate button, I would so do it! Loved the original game.
------
unixhero
Ooooh that's such a fun game.
------
kyberias
C compiled with a C++ compiler.
~~~
janisozaur
Hi, OpenRCT2 dev here.
We're gradually moving towards C++, compiling our current C sources as C++ is
the first step. Quite surprisingly too, we discovered how shitty a C compiler
MSVC is, because just changing the C code of ride drawing to C++ made a huge
performance impact there.
Reportedly, GCC also benefited from the switch, but the effect was less
pronounced there.
|
{
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|
Practical quantum key distribution protocol - christianbryant
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7501/full/nature13303.html
======
christianbryant
I was very fascinated with this article and apologize that it isn't fully
readable by non-subscribers. I'm looking to see if there is another place the
authors have posted findings.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Posix Abstractions in Modern Operating Systems: Old, New, and Missing [pdf] - bshanks
https://roxanageambasu.github.io/publications/eurosys2016posix.pdf
======
bshanks
By way of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11791636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11791636)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Betaworks Launches iPhone App Promotion Ring - moses1400
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/02/betaworks-launches-iphone-app.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d65bcc54a243fb3%2C0
======
gyardley
This looks a bit like AdBrite's now-defunct Spottt, but brought to iPhone
applications.
I'm a little skeptical, because over the past couple of years tons of
advertising networks have tried to make in-app ads for other applications
work, and they've all failed. Conversion rates have always been abysmally
poor, to the point where it's not worth crapping up the user experience with
an advertising banner. There's been tons of blog posts on this from a variety
of sources.
Because conversion rates for most applications ads are so poor, companies like
Flurry and Tapjoy focus on incentivized installs, where the user gets a bit of
virtual currency in exchange for downloading the advertised app. (Disclaimer:
I own a chunk of Flurry.) Those actually work really well, but that's because
the user's been bribed.
Betaworks is full of sharp people, so I'm wondering what I'm missing - it's
not like them to release a product that flies in the face of a couple years of
market data.
Perhaps they'll move towards very small, hand-curated sets of thematically-
linked applications, and distinctive ad units that don't look like anything
else on the market - something like The Deck (<http://decknetwork.net/>).
That's the only online model I can currently think of that hasn't been tried
in the mobile app space.
|
{
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|
Amulet's New Type Checker - hydraz
https://hydraz.semi.works/posts/2018-02-18.html
======
skybrian
I wonder if this approach results in good error messages?
|
{
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|
Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture (2016) - DiabloD3
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance
======
manarth
Deja-vu.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303544)
~~~
manarth
And in 2015 (although that source article has since disappeared):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987816](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987816)
------
csomar
In my opinion this is missing an important thing: Does the Swiss model scale?
For example, the Singapore model can't scale. It's based on rich people and
corporations arbitraging the international fiscal system. You can't have
another Singapore without having another East Asia and West with it.
Swiss is definitively a privileged place that is benefiting from the overall
wealth of Europe and many other countries. We can't have the niceties they are
having unless we have huge leaps in overall productivity around the world.
Edit: To explain my point further. Let's say you have a Swiss watch factory
that is relaying on export for 90% of its production. With this money it can
afford hiring top researchers and paying very high wages even for low-skill
positions. This wouldn't be possible if there wasn't a huge market to product
this luxury good for (Europe, US and Asia).
~~~
sleavey
There's no reason why it can't scale, but one problem in implementing this
kind of system is convincing the population to accept higher taxes (and Swiss
taxes are, overall, still significantly higher than the US despite what the
article seems to make out). It is, ultimately a case of the government taking
more of your personal wealth to provide services to society as a whole, which
flies in stark contrast to the traditional US approach.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _There 's no reason why it can't scale_
I grew up in Switzerland. Nobody checked if we bought metro tickets. Everyone
bought them. The only people I remember being little shits about it were
tourists. Cultural norms do not informally enforce themselves at scale--you
need institutions, and those institutions cost money and freedom.
~~~
mkaziz
Disagree. As an immigrant to the US, I see many cultural norms that the US has
(at scale, despite heterogeneous population) that were bizarrely foreign to
me, but that I (and other immigrants like me) quickly picked up on and
developed.
Examples: (good) giving pedestrians right of way when driving, stopping at
stop signs, holding the door open for people (bad) empty small talk
conversations used to fill silences with casual acquaintances.
------
johanbrook
The U.S. is very behind many European countries in the work-life balance
department. It's kinda surprising that America – with its liberal policies for
private companies – is so backwards when it comes to caring about their
employees.
The points in the article could apply to policies/norms in Sweden as well.
Here, we get _at least_ 4 weeks of paid vacation per year, as well as some
insurances and a very generous parental leave (1 year for each parent).
~~~
robert_foss
> The points in the article could apply to policies/norms in Sweden as well.
> Here, we get at least 4 weeks of paid vacation per year
No, mandatory EU minimums enforce at least 5 weeks of vacation.
~~~
bosie
do you happen to know how 'vacation' is defined? would it include national
holidays?
~~~
hedwall
It does not.
~~~
bosie
Fair. Seems like it isn't 5 but 4 weeks that is mandatory in the EU.
~~~
robert_foss
It's 5 + national holidays.
~~~
bosie
I am not doubting you though when i tried to look it up I found the EU
requirement to be 20 days + national holidays (e.g. ireland, italy, Czech
Republic,...). How would this be allowed if the EU requires 25 days?
------
deedubaya
I used to work for the US HQ for a Swiss owned company. I worked in both
offices on occasion with close interaction with both Swiss and American
employees (I'm American).
This article is very spot on. What it doesn't mention much of, however, is the
difference in what happens during working time. In a typical US office
setting, water cooler talk, filing meaningless reports, etc is common. You'll
probably have a guy who you're not really sure what he does. You simply don't
see much of that in Swiss offices (at in my limited experiences, I'm sure
there are exceptions). When it was time to work it was time to Fucking Work.
If you're not adding value it is looked down upon. In the US, you kinda just
shrug and go back to filing your TPS report.
~~~
dennisnedry
This is true for large corporations, but smaller startups that is not the
case. Smaller companies have everybody wearing multiple hats. Nobody sits
around, and if they do, it's time to ask them to leave.
~~~
st3v3r
Not really. Startups can have people coasting along as well.
------
quotemstr
I don't want a work-life balance.
Sure, the Swiss model is very attractive for a person in a certain phase of
life with a certain attitude toward work --- one for whom work is something
_distinct_ from life.
Me? I want the freedom to pour myself into something I love. I'd rather spend
60 hours per week using all of my faculties to produce something worthwhile
than to spend 35 or 40 hours just trading my time for money, doing something I
have to force myself to do, even if I can go swim with the swans on my break.
I've seen people use the concept of "work-life balance" as an excuse to
propose caps on the impact a single developer can have. These people want to
live in a Harrison Bergeron world where _my_ work beyond 40 hours wouldn't
count so that _they_ don't feel pressed to work more than 40 hours a week. I
couldn't be more opposed.
When I'm doing something I love, I always think about ways I can do it better.
When I'm doing something I hate, no amount of work-life balance will
compensate.
~~~
_nalply
Nothing prevents you to pour yourself into something in Switzerland.
~~~
liveoneggs
I think having bones prevents this.
------
cven714
Slightly off topic, but the beauty of Switzerland was such a stark contrast to
where I grew up in New Jersey that it almost made me angry. All these people,
going about their daily lives in Switzerland seemingly oblivious to the fairy-
tale landscape around them!
~~~
chrisper
Remember that people get used to the environment. People who live in the Bay
Area don't care about the Golden Gate Bridge for example.
~~~
throwaway91111
For someone out of the area, what's the big deal? I much prefer the mackinac
bridge for the sights AND the bridge itself.
------
petercooper
_But in Switzerland, my husband 's company gave employees six weeks of
vacation a year._
And yet, I find people get used to it and consider it normal rather than a
great thing. I give my employees 36 days of paid vacation per year (7.2 weeks)
and, yep, got complaints the other day when I suggested making December 22nd a
mandatory holiday day(!) :-)
~~~
nwomack
I think the complaint here (if I understand you correctly) is that you are
giving a vacation day and then making a certain day mandatory to use it. This
practice is common among companies and extremely infuriating and in my opinion
should be illegal. Better to have 35 days paid and make december 22nd a
company holiday.
~~~
mrweasel
It's not that uncommon to include "company holidays" in "paid days off".
Denmark has that as well, I get 5 weeks of vacation, and 5 days of
vacation/days-off. My employer is free to "spend" the 5 days for me.
~~~
myhrvold
Seems like in this case, how the company originally presents what you're
getting matters. So, as you point out here, qualifying the # of days off w/
days that are set [that count as part of that allotment] would set
expectations accordingly. Otherwise, still a good deal, but employees would
feel misled if they want to use it other parts of the year.
------
germinalphrase
While this sounds lovely, can anyone with experience speak to the difficulty
of finding sponsored work in Switzerland?
For instance, my wife is a social worker in the U.S. and speaks conversational
German - but this is not likely to be considered a "high need" type of job for
which a company would hire a foreign worker.
~~~
louisswiss
As a non-EU/Swiss citizen you can only be employed in Switzerland if the
company can demonstrate that no suitable EU/Swiss candidates could be found
for the job role.
Exactly how this works I am not too sure, but anecdotally it is very difficult
unless you are in top-management or a highly specialised field.
~~~
marktucker
That's just to get the work visa. If you are married to a Swiss, for example,
and get a visa via family reunion, companies can employ you without having to
make this argument.
------
hueving
"Being rich ruined me for being poor and its lousy perks."
~~~
st3v3r
You say that as if the US is a poor country. It's not. There's no reason
whatsoever that we couldn't have what Switzerland has, other than some
assholes at the top see it as an impediment to their having all of the money.
~~~
hueving
>There's no reason whatsoever that we couldn't have what Switzerland has,
other than some assholes at the top see it as an impediment to their having
all of the money.
There are lots of reasons the countries are nothing alike.
For one, Swiss immigration is very picky so they just choose highly skilled
immigrants to avoid having to deal with unskilled poor people.
Second, the population density is about 5 times that of the US so it's very
easy to focus on public transportation because so many more people get value
out of each dollar spent.
Third, Switzerland gets the benefit of paying very little for the military by
taking a very nationalistic stance and avoiding involvement in conflicts
regardless of the atrocities . Criticizing the US for its imperialism is
definitely fair game, but you can't pretend it doesn't cost money when it
comes time to compare what a country can offer its citizens.
------
jeffdavis
Comparisons between the US and European countries are often useless. Either
they pick a rich European country that has restricted immigration for a long
time, or they say "Western Europe" while ignoring many of the countries in
Western Europe that have some real challenges (like unemployment).
Germany or the UK might be reasonable comparison points. Not perfect, of
course (still huge differences), but it's much more likely that there is a
real lesson somewhere.
~~~
hedwall
Swedens is quite similar and has (until recently) had a very liberal
immigraiton policy.
~~~
jeffdavis
Sweden population 9.5M, less than 3% the size of US polulation.
I'm glad they are so happy with their country, but not sure if it scales 30X.
And regardless of policy, I suspect the actual immigration numbers (and
affluence of immigrants) is much different than the US.
------
bsn54
Very nice article.I wish every country followed the swiss way of work life
balance!
~~~
geodel
I would especially exhort India and Bangladesh to work on this with highest
priority.
------
musha68k
Somewhat expected in the more conservative midwest (the author is comparing
her Zürich experience with living in Chicago) but apparently "unlimited
vacation" seems to become increasingly common in the Bay Area at least.
~~~
PaulRobinson
I have a former colleague that on looking for a new role was offered
"unlimited vacation".
He asked what the limit was. "Unlimited", they replied. "Honestly?", he
ventured. "Yes, unlimited".
"OK, then", he said, "I'd like to book the entire year off".
"Oh no, you can't do that!", they replied.
"I thought so. So what's the limit?", he asked again. "There is no limit",
they replied. "But you just said I couldn't have a year off", he pointed out.
"It has to be reasonable", they said.
This went back and forth. In the end "unlimited holiday" in the UK for this
firm was 28 days. That is the statutory legal minimum in the UK. If he went
over this, it would likely be accepted at the time, but "noticed" in
performance/salary reviews, etc.
So, in short, unlimited vacation is a con, and you should try the above
yourself. It'll lead to an interesting conversation, although it may harm your
chances of getting an offer if you time it wrong.
~~~
geodel
I agree. I think of it more of flexible working arrangement. I work for 60-80
hrs/week for urgent releases and then disappeared for a month, maybe repeat
this multiple time in an year. In traditional company it would be 40 hr / week
and no month long vacations. In worse companies 60 hr/ week still no month
long vacations.
------
camperman
There's another factor here that hasn't been mentioned: Switzerland is only a
couple of hundred kilometres across. That makes a difference when it comes to
public transport and other infrastructure like broadband. I laugh when I see
case studies about high-speed broadband in Europe. Europe is small. If you put
my country on top of Europe, the south-westernmost city would be in Portugal
and the northernmost in Estonia. And the US is even bigger.
------
Arizhel
Any time I meet or hear about someone like this, who comes back to the US
after living in western Europe, I really have to wonder about them. Especially
this one: she's just complaining a lot about life in America not being as
great as in Switzerland. Well, that's no surprise. What did she expect? Even
worse, she's just in time for Trumpism. She couldn't have picked a worse time
to come back.
~~~
Symbiote
When she wrote the article, presumably some time before 1 February when it was
published, Trump seemed a lot less likely.
~~~
manarth
The article's date says 1 February 2016, but the slug is even earlier, dated
July 2015.
It popped up on HN back then, too.
|
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The Five Biggest Threats To Human Existence - ghosh
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/five-biggest-threats-human-existence?src=SOC&dom=tw
======
lutusp
Let me guess -- they'll list five issues, each to a greater or lesser degree
derived from the world overpopulation problem, but won't mention
overpopulation as a problem in and of itself.
(pause to read the article) ....
Yep. As expected. "We have met the enemy and he is us." \-- Pogo.
~~~
ionised
I didn't draw that conclusion from the article.
~~~
lutusp
You mean, that population is the real problem? I didn't either, which is why I
mentioned it. There's a tendency to treat the population problem as an
elephant in a room that no one can see, on the ground that it makes so many
people uncomfortable.
|
{
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Show HN: GitHub Inbox, a Chrome extension that shows your unread GitHub messages - pedromenezes
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lliahakgdhnopceclokooacmcgimcdoo
======
Pewpewarrows
I'd enjoy this much more if it also integrated GitHub Notifications, not just
private messages, or at least had an option to do either/both.
Otherwise, this is quite handy.
~~~
pedromenezes
Now it looks notifications too. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
|
{
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Anyone got YC invite for summer batch,2017? - jayanthsugavasi
======
GlennJoe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=krishnanvs](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=krishnanvs)
got an invitation
------
GlennJoe
it is now 4:48 am 18 April in Silicon Valley
------
acurti
Not yet
------
ys1715
Not yet
------
bummed
Not yet
------
thepraveen0207
No
~~~
thepraveen0207
Yes
------
alqhtani001
not yet :/
------
dddobney
nope
|
{
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Pugmarks: A Smart Browser for Android - bharath_mohan
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.pugmarks
======
bharath_mohan
Browsing on a mobile or tablet can be painful. Its hard to type, and simple
things like copy-paste are hard. On the other hand, mobiles - with their touch
interfaces are extremely amenable to discovery and exploration.
Pugmarks aims to solve exactly this - reduce the pain of searching inside a
browser, by anticipating information needs - and bring them to them, all in
real time, inside of the comfort of the browser.
Pugmarks is like having Google Now inside the browser.
|
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Space giants join forces to battle SpaceX: This is how cheap space travel begins - cryptoz
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184434-space-giants-join-forces-to-battle-spacex-this-is-how-cheap-space-travel-begins
======
Gravityloss
There's no link to the original release, that's not very good journalism.
[http://www.safran-group.com/site-safran-en/press-
media/press...](http://www.safran-group.com/site-safran-en/press-media/press-
releases/2014/article/airbus-group-and-safran-to-join)
Arianespace has it in french only. European companies and organizations have
always sucked in public relations.
[http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-
release/2014/6-16-2014...](http://www.arianespace.com/news-press-
release/2014/6-16-2014-Rapprochement-Airbus-Safran.asp)
I can't find where the rocket engine mentioned in the article is from. Ariane
6 will go to just more solids. In my opinion it is a massive step backwards,
as solids need massive infrastructure because they are moved around fully
fueled, they have low performance, they can not be throttled or shut down,
they shake a lot. So you can't land with one, and you can't just refuel and go
either.
|
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IBM builds 15nm model of Matterhorn - dreemteem
http://news.techworld.com/sme/3221422/ibm-builds-15nm-model-of-matterhorn/?cmpid=TD1N3&no1x1
======
AdrianMiller
If anyone's interested in more information on the science behind this story,
we've set one of the original research articles that it's based on free to
access for the next few weeks; you can find it here:
[http://www.materialsviews.com/details/news/687441/Nanocartog...](http://www.materialsviews.com/details/news/687441/Nanocartography__in_3D.html)
Adrian Miller Advanced Materials
|
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|
Balanced: A Third-Generation Payments Provider - jordanmessina
http://whit537.org/2013/04/balanced-third-generation-payments.html
======
BitcoinStore
Dismissed Bitcoin far too quickly.
|
{
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|
Khan Academy Computer Science - wave
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=36E7A2B75028A3D6
======
jgrahamc
I've really enjoyed watching the MIT 6.00 course (Introduction to Computer
Science and Programming):
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6U-i4gXkLM&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6U-i4gXkLM&feature=related)
The Khan videos seem to be about programming instead of computer science.
~~~
spicyj
I'm pretty sure that Khan will add some pure comp-sci videos later; there's no
problem starting with plain programming and describing how programs run, is
there?
Edit: Already (on his second day of making videos) he is starting to branch
into algorithms: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCzQvQr8Utw>
------
Brewer
I'm glad Khan finally got around to adding some CS videos! I knew that Khan
was a programmer himself, so the lack of videos on the subject always escaped
me.
------
pjscott
CS was probably the first field where anybody with an internet connection and
a lot of time could get an education on par with a decent college degree. I
did exactly that around 2001-2005, thanks to high school being boring, and the
resources available now make the internet of that time look horribly
impoverished by comparison.
Someone who wants to learn CS can find no shortage of introductory material on
programming (along with communities of people to do it with), stuff on
algorithms and data structures and the relevant math, more advanced topics --
it's like being offered a free education at a really good college, for people
who are willing to do the work.
I would really like for other subjects to become similarly open to interested
people over the internet. CS has definitely been leading the way here.
Wouldn't it be amazing if people in (say) archaeology, or botany, had a
fraction of the free resources and helpful communities that hackers have had
online for years?
~~~
sayemm
Adding to that is MIT's OCW (<http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm>), an amazing step
in the right direction for learning.
|
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Drones Used to Find Toy-Like “Butterfly” Land Mines - prostoalex
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drones-used-to-find-toy-like-butterfly-land-mines/
======
darkpuma
> _" More than a million Russian-made PFM-1 land mines—the most common
> butterfly type, possibly inspired by similar U.S. weapons deployed during
> the Vietnam War"_
Possibly? Why is this article softballing? The Russian version of the mine is
a DIRECT ripoff of the American version. They look EXACTLY the same.
Here is a BLU-43, the American version: [http://www.big-
ordnance.com/subs/BLU43OD.jpg](http://www.big-ordnance.com/subs/BLU43OD.jpg)
Here is a PFM-1, the Russian version:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1#/media/File:Russische_Sc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1#/media/File:Russische_Schmetterlingsmine_PFM-1.jpg)
It's the same damn mine! There is no "possibly" about this. The author didn't
lie but he's damn sure being dishonest. The article never even mentions the
BLU-43 by name, which would allow more readers to look it up and decide for
themselves.
~~~
woodruffw
Lazy research, not dishonesty, is the far more likely explanation here. From
Wikipedia[1]:
> a land mine of Soviet production, very similar to the BLU-43 US Army
> landmine. Both devices are very similar in shape and principles, although
> they use different explosives.
The author probably reworded the above.
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1)
~~~
beatgammit
Hanlon's Razor:
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Though I'd use ignorance here instead of stupidity.
------
Waterluvian
What is the design process like for landmines? Do they consider if they look
like toys? Do they put duds in a toy chest and see what a sample of children
will pick out?
This whole concept really upsets me to think about.
~~~
andrewflnr
My guess is that the question never comes up. If you're an adult thinking in
terms of an abstract blueprint of a weapon, the thought of a child stumbling
on the dirt-strewn concrete implementation of your device is very far from
your mind, almost impossible to think of. The only way you would think of it
is if someone pulls the possibility off a checklist built from cases like
this. Be honest: if you saw the picture in the article _without_ the
surrounding context to make you think about toys, how likely would you have
been to think of them that way? To think that someone else would think of them
as toys? I'm guessing it's low. My first visual impression was of dead bugs or
cigars wrapped in leaves (which I'll grant might be just as tempting to a
child).
Not that any of that makes it ok. I'm more convinced than ever that failure of
imagination is a form of morally judgable (what's the right word here?)
negligence. But it would have been hard to see that far into the future in
this case.
~~~
cam_l
>If you're an adult thinking in terms of an abstract blueprint of a weapon..
You are probably not making mines. I don't know. It makes perfect sense to me
the kind of mass murdering sociopath capable of working on such a device would
find it perfectly ok to target children.
Only one physicist quit the Manhattan project iirc. Maybe the indiscriminate
nature of mass murder is not such an irksome burden for a weapons designer or
distributor. Maybe the people that find themselves in that line of work fully
understand the risks but just don't care.
~~~
toufiqbarhamov
I wouldn’t design weapons for the US government today, but if we were facing
another Hitler and another WWII-era Germany, along with Japan? Remember that
we wouldn’t have the benefit of hindsight and know that Hitler would shoot
himself in the foot with the Russian front and wasting resources on his insane
genocide. The Manhattan project might be one of the most prominent exceptions
to the sweeping generalization you’re making. It’s also unhelpful and unwise
to frame people you don’t like or understand as sociopaths, or crazy.
~~~
cf498
Since the Hitler period came up, there are great parallels to the topic of
land mines for that time period. During Harris bombardment of the civilian
population they did not just use regular and incendiary bombs, but also delay-
action bombs which exploded hours or days after the impact with the goal to
hit rescue workers who dug out the dead or wounded.
Like with most aerial bombs at the time, there where quite a few who didnt
detonate. Its one thing to dispose of a regular bomb, but the time delayed
ones are mostly just stuck. They detonated since then once some unlucky bloke
moved or just touched them. Just in 2012 for example such a bomb killed 3 bomb
disposal experts.
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1283273/WW2-bomb-
ki...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1283273/WW2-bomb-kills-G-
ttingen-experts-attempt-defuse-it.html)
With them getting older and older, they get more likely to detonate without
even any interaction as the trigger guard rots through.
The situation of some south eastern Asian countries with unexploded ordnance
and actual land mines is a better example though. Using a weapon like this
will continue to indiscriminately kill people for well over a century.
edit:
To be a bit more positive, there is also people doing the opposite, like Aki
Ra.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Ra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Ra)
~~~
toufiqbarhamov
Yes, land mines are horrible, the incalculable environmental damage and
subsequent human (and other) suffering of any war can’t be overstated. War
however, at least wars of the “necessary” type are the kind of the thing that
don’t allow for those considerations. It is a _very_ strong argument, not for
trying to change how war is fought (minimally effective), but to accept that
war is truly an atrocity to be avoided at nearly all costs. Instead we spent
the years after WWII trying to make war on anything vaguely “red” and after
Vietnam, just sought to make a constant stream of wars and armed conflicts
more palatable to the public.
The problem is the sheer amount of war, constant war, completely unjustified
war. Vietnam is a great example (credit to darkpuma for knowing their stuff)
of just such a waste, which makes the lengthy fallout all the more
unforgivable. WWII by contrast, a subject I didn’t raise incidentally and so
had no Godwin moment (I responded to a post explicitly mentioning the
Manhattan project), was nothing chosen by anyone other than the Axis.
Developing and deploying nuclear weapons existed in the context of a fight for
survival, against powers that systematically murdered millions of non-
combatants. Japan, putting aside Pearl Harbor, was monstrous in China, Korea,
and the Philippines. They dropped plague fleas on Manchuria, slaughtered a
small tortured prisoners, and Germany... well, we all know about that.
There was no reason to believe that victory over them was certain, or even
likely until the war had rages for years. There was every reason to believe
that life under the Nazis would be hell, and fatal for swathes of humanity.
The Japanese were not particular better, and China and Korea still bear the
scars.
All of which is to say, I objected to mixing up people who designed mines for
Vietnam, with people fighting WWII on the front, or in the lab.
~~~
cf498
>a subject I didn’t raise incidentally and so had no Godwin moment (I
responded to a post explicitly mentioning the Manhattan project)
Overworked the the comment it was a bit off.
~~~
toufiqbarhamov
No harm, no foul.
------
d357r0y3r
I understand there are many tech workers that flatly refuse to work on drone
technology, especially if it may have military applications.
Is there any affordance given for the possibility that some of this military
technology will actually be used for good?
~~~
gmueckl
Military technology is a wide and pretty vague term. A lot of technology is
implicitly dual use. A nice example of an unexpected military use case for a
completely innocent looking technology was a work that explored potential weak
spots in a proposed tank design by using real time 3d graphics and order
independent transparency in particular to estimate armor strength against
attacks from different directions. Originally, OIT was developed for games and
3d data visualizations.
I think that technology that can be used to protect people, especially
civilians, should be developed. I know that I personally draw the line at
weapoms platforms and weapon systems. You may develop and build them with the
best intentions in mind ("we're at peace and this system is only a necessary
deterrent"), but recent history tells me that once these systems are built and
sold, they will be used by someone, somewhere to shoot at other people. Even
the oh so pacifist Germany sells a lot of weapons and I think every type of
weapon system sold to another country by Germany since the second world war
has seen some action.
~~~
NotAnEconomist
I think you've killed less people working on literal sniper rifles for the
military than working on the addictive feed dynamics of Facebook, given the
Rohingya massacre and other social ills they've supported.
I think a lot of people in tech work on really questionable projects that
create huge social ills, then talk about "Well, at least we don't build
weapons!" \-- ignoring that when measuring human suffering, their unrestrained
manipulation and exploitation causes much more than weapons of war do, in
practice.
So when unqualified, I tend to hear your argument as simply trying to hide the
messiness of what you do, rather than than it's inherently more ethical than
building weapons would be.
tl;dr: I don't believe the military is less ethical, I think they're just more
honest about what they do.
~~~
gmueckl
I never worked on social media; this does not interest me. I will agree that
it has caused a lot of change and may have contributed to outbreaks of
violence in the recent past. I could compare these conflicts to others in the
past that were massively more devastating, but I wom't.
I am not sure of this discussion of social media is framed correctly. At its
core, all this social tech tries to satisfy the very basic human need for
communication in novel ways. There is nothing bad about trying to achieve
that. But somewhere along the way something unintended and bad happened. We
need to find out what it is and how to fix it as a society. The underlying
tech and concepts will never go away again. It can be used for good. We
realized too late that we failed to use it properly.
~~~
NotAnEconomist
My point is the double-standard in the tech community making that argument on
behalf of one kind of technology, while ignoring that weapons extend from the
very basic human need for security and agency.
It's a standard human fallacy, which I've made numerous times: we look at the
intentions of ourselves (the tech community) while looking at the results of
others (eg, the military). But the question we really need to be asking is if
our impact on the world leads to better outcomes than theirs, regardless of
what either group intended -- and I'm not sure it's so clear cut, once you
account for second order effects of social media.
And it's certainly not as simple a moral calculus as "Well, they work on
weapons so they're worse people than me!"
------
basicplus2
Seems odd to me to waste so much time and money and risk to lives when one can
simply drive a mine flail through any given area to clear it of mines.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail)
~~~
InclinedPlane
How expensive do you think it is to operate a mine flail? Especially factoring
in transport to remote areas?
~~~
basicplus2
what price do you put on a life?
~~~
InclinedPlane
How much money are _you_ spending on mine clearance globally?
Because not everyone who is affected by mines has infinite money available.
|
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Can a New Website End Tech Meetup Sexism in DC? - chippy
http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2016/11/09/can-a-new-website-end-tech-meetup-sexism-in-dc/
======
chippy
The moratorium on political submissions on HN has been lifted. see:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251)
So please don't flag this based on that reason.
|
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Cambridge Analytica scrambles to halt Channel 4 exposé - foxh0und
https://www.ft.com/content/7ed1572c-2aa4-11e8-a34a-7e7563b0b0f4
======
neonate
[http://archive.is/VfEuT](http://archive.is/VfEuT)
[https://outline.com/gdN45D](https://outline.com/gdN45D)
~~~
chillidoor
Thank you for this.
------
sabertoothed
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M)
["Christopher Wylie, who worked for data firm Cambridge Analytica, reveals how
personal information was taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a
system that could profile individual US voters in order to target them with
personalised political advertisements. At the time the company was owned by
the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Donald
Trump’s key adviser, Steve Bannon. Its CEO is Alexander Nix"]
|
{
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Information age tarot deck - blackobelisk
http://nettarot.net
======
lelandbatey
Gotta say, the dorito taco is awesome:
[http://i.imgur.com/gzSyXlT.png](http://i.imgur.com/gzSyXlT.png)
|
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}
|
Pop-up Fabrication of the Harvard Monolithic Bee - nealabq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxSs1kGZQqc
======
nealabq
Related links:
<https://micro.seas.harvard.edu/media.html>
[http://trvideo.technologyreview.com/services/player/bcpid263...](http://trvideo.technologyreview.com/services/player/bcpid263777539?bctid=1118118784)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Microsoft shipped Python code in 1996 - znpy
http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/microsoft-ships-python-code-in-1996.html
======
teh_klev
Repost here with discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141311)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: ShelfLife, a social commerce platform for collectors - nickh
http://www.shelflife.net/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=showcase_shelflife
======
eterm
"Blocked, category games"
I think perhaps it's matching on *lflife and making some assumptions?
~~~
nickh
What's blocking you? A corporate firewall?
------
nickh
ShelfLife co-founder here. We're aiming to document to every collectible ever
made, and provide collectors with the best tools for buying, selling, and
tracking their collections.
~~~
ToastyMallows
Awesome site, I've had this idea many times I hope it takes off.
Question: How general will catalogs be? I collect keychains, will something
this general be supported?
~~~
nickh
Thanks! Nearly anything can be catalogued, provided there's information
available for it (E.g. manufacturer, release date, etc), and it's not
something like the sweater that your grandmother knitted you.
~~~
ToastyMallows
Ehh that might be hard for keychains. Thanks for the info!
------
hoopism
Have to check out the Canadian version of DD. Site looks promising but lacked
the few things I am interested in. Hope it takes off and I encounter it again.
~~~
nickh
What do you collect that isn't on ShelfLife yet? There might be a curator
working on it right now.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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