text
stringlengths 77
442k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
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 ..
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
ZURB Tavern - jacobwg
http://zurb.com/tavern
======
pepsi
By the name, I thought that this was going to be a MUD.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Atomic Scala - blearyeyed
http://www.atomicscala.com/book
======
thebluesky
Glad to see Bruce Eckel involved. It's interesting to see just how many Scala
books have been cranked out in the last 6-12 months or are currently in
progress.
------
Toshio
<p>You can download the first 25% of the book <strong>here</strong>.</p>
Ummm ... where?
~~~
thebluesky
Seems he forgot the link. Another excellent book for learning Scala is Scala
for the Impatient. The first 9 chapters are free:
<http://horstmann.com/scala/>
~~~
michaels0620
The link is now working.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Pornhub handing out free premium subscriptions to help Italy fight coronavirus - ignaloidas
https://thenextweb.com/shareables/2020/03/12/pornhub-free-italy-coronavirus/
======
paul_milovanov
Who said the civic spirit is dead? Thank you MindGeek for your service!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Low-overhead rendering with Vulkan on Android - sam42
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/08/low-overhead-rendering-with-vulkan.html
======
gulpahum
It's great that Google Android will support Vulkan. Now, the support list
seems to be: Android, Windows, SteamOS, Tizen, and many Linux distributions
including Ubuntu and Red Hat. [1]
It's sad that it doesn't include Apple, most likely because they have now
their Metal API.
[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/10/khronos-wins-support-
from-...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/10/khronos-wins-support-from-google-
android-for-its-vulkan-graphics-api/)
EDIT: here's another list of hardware vendors: AMD, ARM, Intel, Imagination,
NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung.
[https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-expands-scope-
of-...](https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-expands-scope-of-3d-open-
standard-ecosystem)
------
sgrove
I'd love to see a WebVulkan [0], as wrestling with WebGL's setup is really a
slog to get it to work predictably in the way you want.
WebGL is making progress via extensions with Uniform Buffers, instanced
geometry, etc., but as most people end up using e.g. Three.js, it seems like
exposing a sane, more fine-grained API would help everyone.
[0] Knowing full-well that WebVulkan naturally won't magically solve any
performance issues, and seems to be a very different beast
[https://twitter.com/Tojiro/status/628660898756825089](https://twitter.com/Tojiro/status/628660898756825089)
~~~
gulpahum
I think WebVulkan would be great with WebAssembly! The nice thing about those
technologies is that they are low-level APIs, which means less rooms for bugs.
WebGL, HTML, DOM, and most other web technologies suffer from not being
consistent and they are full of bugs. How many graphics cards have been
blacklisted from WebGL because the drivers don't have the required features or
have too many bugs? [1][2]
[1]
[https://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists](https://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists)
[2]
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drive...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drivers)
------
StavrosK
Can someone knowledgeable tell me if Vulkan is a good API? I've heard that
OpenGL is a bit of a mess (maybe DirectX is too?), did they get it right this
time?
~~~
flippinburgers
Vulkan is still in development. I don't believe anything about the api is
published yet.
~~~
caligastia
But you can check out the SPIR-V IR spec which is almost finished:
[https://www.khronos.org/registry/spir-v/](https://www.khronos.org/registry/spir-v/)
Not only the Vulkan API but new programming languages will target this IR, so
far it appears to be an innovative architecture for concurrent software, that
integrates graphics and compute, not a bolt-on like OpenCL.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Interrobang, Symbol of WTF Culture - JamesLowell
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/07/the-interrobang-symbol-of-wtf-culture/60546/
======
wglb
Most judiciously used in discussing <http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/what-is-
cuil-theory>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
PostgreSQL Monitoring Cheatsheet - websec
http://russ.garrett.co.uk/2015/10/02/postgres-monitoring-cheatsheet/
======
dijit
Reddit discussion;
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PostgreSQL/comments/3nhcnh/postgres...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PostgreSQL/comments/3nhcnh/postgresql_monitoring_cheatsheet/)
I actually met the author before, he's a nice guy and a good sysadmin- I'm
glad he incorporated feedback from reddit (even if he was downvoted).
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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"
}
|
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"
}
|
WeWork, the company that simulates startup life, is worth more than $20 bn - urahara
http://www.businessinsider.com/wework-tops-20-billion-valuation-2017-7
======
UXCODE
I am looking forward to the event in Tokyo
([https://hellotokyo.splashthat.com/](https://hellotokyo.splashthat.com/))
related to this news. Rumor is that there may be a story saying it will open
in Japan.
Sometimes I use this working space for events to be done at the company, but I
am bothered by choosing the venue.
Criteria for selecting a venue Capacity: Approx 100 people Venue: where you
can work in an atmosphere different from the office and where engineer events
(presentation, code battle, etc ..) are possible
Since the atmosphere and condition of the venue of WEWORK is very interesting,
does anyone who used WEWORK experience the above conditions?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Sustainable Feedback - sklivvz1971
https://sklivvz.com/posts/sustainable-feedback
======
lrkwz
Non vedo l'ora di leggere la prossima puntata :-)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
CSS Tools – Mega Collection - ayushunibrain
https://github.com/abhiprojectz/CSS-Generator
======
ayushunibrain
Css generator is a mega collection of awesome css tools!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How a Quantum Satellite Network Could Produce a Secure Internet - nextstep
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/quantum-satellites
======
mtgx
Except they would be even more vulnerable to government's monitoring the
conversations, since they'd own those satellites. Unless we can envision a
future where even a small business could have such a satellite.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
BNFC: language-agnostic parser generator generator - gnosis
http://blog.davber.com/2006/07/06/bnfc-smart-parsing-for-dummies/
======
gnosis
BNFC project page:
[http://www.cse.chalmers.se/research/group/Language-
technolog...](http://www.cse.chalmers.se/research/group/Language-
technology/BNFC/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Democracy books disappear from Hong Kong libraries - throwaway1997
https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/04/democracy-books-disappear-from-hong-kong-libraries-including-title-by-activist-joshua-wong/
======
baylearn
You created the throwaway account > 1 year ago.
Must have seen everything coming.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
MicroServices as a service - mohameddev
http://stackhut.com/
======
mohameddev
Looks promising to have the ability to access your code as an API, I cannot
wait to test it. Check it up
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
An extremely high-altitude plume seen at Mars’ morning terminator - user_235711
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14162.html
======
bsurmanski
unfortunately the actual article is paywalled.
In the abstract they say there are 2 theories of the plume's source:
1) CO2 or H2O ice particulate reflecting solar radiation. They don't state
where the particulate is coming from, but they claim the plume is likely
cyclic in nature.
2) strong auroral emissions 1000x the brightness of earth's aurora. Caused by
a strong magnetic anomaly.
~~~
svachalek
The BBC has a story on it, it doesn't add much to this but there are some
pictures:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-31491805](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31491805)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Review of e-Conomic a popular Accounting App for Small Businesses - ManuJ
http://www.getapp.com/blog/e-conomic-review/
======
iambot
the reviewer obviosuly doesnt know the market then as i would say not only is
FreeAgent a competitor, but it wins hands down:
<http://www.freeagentcentral.com/>
~~~
blazzar
And no mention of Xero or LessAccounting. I suspect this may be a paid review.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times (2014) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-circled-the-earth-four-times
======
bitcurious
The explosion of Krakatoa is believed by some scholars to be the inspiration
for Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream."
[https://www.skyandtelescope.com/press-
releases/astronomical-...](https://www.skyandtelescope.com/press-
releases/astronomical-sleuths-link-krakatoa-to-edvard-munchs-painting-the-
scream/)
~~~
Insanity
That was interesting to read as well :) Might deserve it's own post on HN imo!
------
rexarex
This event led to the discovery of ‘infrasound’ or very low frequency sound
that travels very long distances.
It’s currently still used to detect (above ground) nuclear explosions as part
of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
There is a site in the ‘Windless Blight’ in Antarctica near McMurdo Station
that a couple of techs go dig out and maintain every year. I believe there are
about 30 around the world.
[https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/monitoring-
technol...](https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/monitoring-technologies-
how-they-work/infrasound-monitoring/)
------
red_admiral
I've read in other sources that the force of the main eruption in 1883 was
equivalent to around 100 megatons of TNT. The dust that it ejected into the
atmosphere was not only the cause of the bright sunsets that inspired artists
in Europe over the next few years, but also caused a global cooling by
something like 1 degree (Celsius) for the next two years.
~~~
techsin101
So we can solve global warming?
~~~
smitty1110
It was a temporary measure, and the only volcano I know that would
significantly move the needle is Yellowstone. And I really, really don’t want
that to go off while I’m still alive, I like North America when it’s not
covered in ash.
------
vxNsr
This is just insane!! that video where the sound takes 13 seconds to reach the
camera really helps cement the point of the article.
~~~
andyidsinga
I think I watched that video 15 times ... at 4.4km / 2.7miles away those must
be larger-than-house sized chunks of rock falling ! (clearly visible to the
left of the explosion).
------
moioci
Just to put a plug in for Simon Winchester's book, Krakatoa: the Day the World
Exploded. If anyone wants to dive deeper in this topic.
------
se7entime
"ACTNews, PANDEGLANG – Tsunami hit coastal areas around Sunda Strait in
Pandeglang, Serang, and South Lampung Regencies. The disaster happened on
Saturday (12/22) at 9:27 p.m., Indonesian Bureau of Meteorology Climatology
and Geophysics (BMKG) predicted that the massive wave was caused by underwater
flank collapse after the eruption of Anak Krakatau Mountain as well as the
tidal force caused by the full moon." \-
[https://act.id/en/news/detail/tsunami-hit-pandeglang-
serang-...](https://act.id/en/news/detail/tsunami-hit-pandeglang-serang-and-
south-lampung)
"Anak" = Children/Child of
The Death Toll has reached 373 people, 1.459 wounded and 128 still missing
[https://www.bnpb.go.id/en/tim-sar-gabungan-terus-
menemukan-k...](https://www.bnpb.go.id/en/tim-sar-gabungan-terus-menemukan-
korban-tsunami-selat-sunda-373-meninggal-dunia-1459-luka-luka-dan-128-hilang)
~~~
NegativeLatency
> the tidal force caused by the full moon.
Is that real? Doesn’t seem like it would matter enough. Especially when there
was an eruption, why even mention it.
~~~
goodcanadian
Yes, it's real. Tides are higher around the full moon due to the earth, sun,
and moon being (roughly) aligned. If it was already high tide, adding a
tsunami on top of it is going to be more impactful than at low tide.
------
edge17
Regarding magnitude of these types of events, NOAA does amazing work
collecting data on tsunami events with impressive energy simulations. As some
point I had seen several videos from the Chile event in 2010 that showed the
shockwaves traveling around the earth multiple times, but I can't seem to find
those videos now.
Here's a link to one of the videos with an energy plot from the Chile event -
[https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/chile20100227/20100227Chile.mov](https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/chile20100227/20100227Chile.mov)
And the specific Chile event page -
[https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/chile20100227/weblink.html](https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/chile20100227/weblink.html)
If you browse around the site, there is a lot of information for many of the
largest earthquake/tsunami events in recent times.
~~~
edge17
And a youtube link to some more forecast models from the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center's youtube channel
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd18vQxXt2zNmVDB2NQxV...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd18vQxXt2zNmVDB2NQxV-
lnkL2bZtlLQ)
------
TekMol
Does a sound ever stop?
~~~
prmph
Is information ever lost? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know.
Once the vibration due to a sound become smaller than a certain level, do
quantum effects make it disappear entirely
~~~
TekMol
I find that hard to imagine.
Let's take the information 'The universe exists'. How can that information get
lost? Wouldn't the universe have to disappear for that to happen? I have never
heard about a model of reality where that is a possibility.
~~~
gbear605
I think by information they mean more concrete things. For instance, imagine a
bird landing on a branch. If someone is around to see it, they know that if
happened. If no one is around though, once the bird flies away and the branch
stops shaking, the information that a bird had landed on the branch is gone.
------
rcthompson
I wonder whether the sound wave got stronger again as it reached the opposite
side of the globe from the source. Would it have made it back into the audible
range? Maybe not, since I imagine that intervening mountains and such would
disrupt or change the speed of the waves.
------
andyidsinga
my ears almost hurt reading this:
> The British ship Norham Castle was 40 miles from Krakatoa at the time of the
> explosion. The ship’s captain wrote in his log, “So violent are the
> explosions that the ear-drums of over half my crew have been shattered. My
> last thoughts are with my dear wife. I am convinced that the Day of
> Judgement has come.”
------
brian-armstrong
This must be the article so interesting it landed on HN Front Page Four Times
:)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Wssdl – WireShark-Specific Dissector Language - Snaipe
https://github.com/diacritic/wssdl
======
rwmj
Interesting, but surprising they didn't look at how Erlang bit syntax works.
[http://erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html](http://erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html)
It's considerably more flexible, much more elegant, and (in Erlang) battle-
tested.
I wrote an Erlang-inspired version of bitstrings for OCaml:
[https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/bitstring/html/Bitstring.h...](https://people.redhat.com/~rjones/bitstring/html/Bitstring.html)
~~~
Snaipe
This is because wssdl is still within the boundaries of the lua grammar: the
file you provide is still lua, so you have to abide by its rule.
I experimented with a key/value approach on the syntax itself (something like
`{ src_port = u16 }` or `{ src_port = 16 }`), which was nicer, but the problem
was that, in lua, table literals are unordered. The current approach uses the
method syntax (`a:b()`) as a nice workaround, but this mandates the use of
parenthesis after the type and other specifiers. This is fine though since a
lot of the provided types are parameterized (e.g. `bytes(n)` which takes a
number of octets)
------
sigill
Great idea! I have always felt that the Wireshark Lua bindings are not ready-
to-use enough. They feel like the ugly stepchild of Wireshark.
In the last dissector I wrote, which was about 1000 lines of Lua, I built a
very limited structure definition parser, not completely unlike wssdl. I did
it to cut down on the repetitive code needed parse the structures: Typically I
parse every field twice: Once to add it to the dissection tree and once to get
its value as a Lua-held variable.
I'll definitely be using wssdl in my next dissector!
------
dexwiz
Naming consideration, WSDL is already a very common name for XML API
description files.
------
problems
Interesting alternative if you're looking for something for your own tools:
[http://kaitai.io/](http://kaitai.io/)
------
ris
Hooray does this mean the end of embarrassing Wireshark vulnerabilities?
------
ythl
What does GPL3 license mean in the context of Wssdl? That if I write a
dissector with it then it has to be open sourced?
~~~
Snaipe
This means that if you distribute your dissector, you have to make your
sources available.
This is nothing new though: all wireshark plugins must be GPL, since the API
itself they rely on is GPL.
~~~
bch
_v3_ means that if it's used (even over a network) by somebody, they can
request the code, versus GPLv2 (Wireshark license), which says if you
distribute binaries of Wireshark or software based on it, you must provide the
source. The difference is that you could theoretically provide a web interface
to a GPLv2 project and not need to supply the source, but if you provide such
an interface to GPLv3 software, you could receive a request for the code.
EDIT: _I 'm not entirely correct_ There are _provisions_ for the network
situation ("ASP (application service provider) loophole") I described, but I
looks like it's not necessarily the default mode. See [0][1].
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License)
~~~
Manozco
Nop The 'over the network' stuff is AGPL
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Reputation: kind of a big deal - holman
http://zachholman.com/2010/12/reputation/
======
thesz
>If you take an action — write a blog post, publish a photo, launch a website
— you want your action to spread to as many people as possible.
Overgeneralization, is what I see there.
Actually, "avoiding success at all costs" motto is great.
I think that quote from Adam Chlipala (author or Ur and Ur/Web) is quite
appropriate:
"I also want to emphasize that I'm not trying to maximize adoption of Ur/Web.
Rather, I'm trying to maximize the effectiveness of people who do choose to
use it. This means that I'm completely happy if basic features of Ur/Web mean
that 90% of programmers will never be able to use it."
[http://www.impredicative.com/pipermail/ur/2010-December/0003...](http://www.impredicative.com/pipermail/ur/2010-December/000329.html)
I think that author is wrong.
You don't have to have superfans.
~~~
holman
I'm not saying you _have_ to have superfans; you're welcome to do whatever
you'd like (and there are plenty of paths to success!) I just think there's so
many examples of a small, passionate userbase forming the bedrock of success.
Why not try to foster that?
------
evanhanson
A wise man once said "Don't try to be a great man; just be a man, and let
history make its own judgments."
The reason _why (used as an example in the article) has the cult-like
following he does is that he made fun, interesting things, not because he
marketed himself or gamed the social system around him. Sure, a bit of self-
promotion is often a good thing, but if you're expending lots of energy on
making yourself into an icon, you've got less use actually earning such a
status.
------
dzuc
Related: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie>
------
mashmac2
See also: Seth Godin on Tribes
([http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_w...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html)).
~~~
nhangen
While I love Seth's thoughts on tribes, the downside of the success of that
book is that now there's so much talk about "my tribe" or "our tribe" that
people fail to realize that none of us really have a tribe, per se. We have
fans that happen to like us at the time. That's always subject to change.
------
kathybootsri
This sounds like it would be an additional chapter on Rework titled "Don't Be
Big On Numbers Through Social Media," well thought-out.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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".
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
If I'd Known What We Were Starting - relyio
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/id-known-what-we-were-starting-ray-dillinger
======
relyio
Mirror: [https://pastebin.com/Wk61SMir](https://pastebin.com/Wk61SMir)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Manchineel or little apple of death - pvaldes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchineel
======
pvaldes
A proof that mother nature hates us:
[https://naturespoisons.com/2014/05/27/the-manchineel-tree-
pr...](https://naturespoisons.com/2014/05/27/the-manchineel-tree-proof-that-
mother-nature-hates-us/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: RikClicker - colinramsay
http://www.rikclicker.com/
======
colinramsay
This was a spoof of the original CowClicker [1] used to promote a Radio 4 play
called "The Last Hurrah" starring the last British comedy legend Rik Mayall.
It is a fork of my original highlandcowclicker [2]. Tech is basic:
\- Github pages \- jQuery \- SoundManager2 \- A sprinkle of responsiveness
Despite spending most of my time nuts-deep in SPAs and the like, this was
something I did quickly and found it to be loads of fun. It's completely
pointless, very rude, and certainly not perfect. I hope someone likes it.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker)
[2]
[http://www.heresyerfuckingcowclicker.com](http://www.heresyerfuckingcowclicker.com)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Edsger W. Dijkstra’s list of advice - arikr
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1055A.html
======
arikr
via
[https://www.twitter.com/nolimits/status/1039326326493073408](https://www.twitter.com/nolimits/status/1039326326493073408)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Tesla Is Facing a Crucible - allenleein
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-16/tesla-is-facing-a-crucible
======
neonate
Here's this article in a format that makes no noise:
[http://archive.is/wCQls](http://archive.is/wCQls)
The WSJ article it refers to is called "Tesla’s Make-Or-Break Moment Is Fast
Approaching":
[http://archive.is/ucf9q](http://archive.is/ucf9q)
The CNBC article it refers to is called "Tesla employees say automaker is
churning out a high volume of flawed parts requiring costly rework":
[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/14/tesla-manufacturing-high-
vol...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/14/tesla-manufacturing-high-volume-of-
flawed-parts-employees.html)
~~~
dang
Since the CNBC article is by far the most factual, and doesn't seem to have
been discussed yet on HN, I'm going to try burying this submission and rolling
back the clock on the first post of that one:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16587249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16587249).
The Bloomberg article isn't bad, but it's so generic that the discussion is
generic as well (Tesla in general, short selling in general). That's the main
trouble with articles that don't contain enough factual fiber.
------
TaylorAlexander
My bullish position on Tesla goes like this:
They had the same production problems on the roadster, the Model S, and the
Model X. Each time, the new vehicle was a “make or break” for the company.
Each time, there were reports of how these production problems would sink the
company. The company never sank. Tesla is now apparently “good” at making the
Model S and Model X. I always assumed they would have similar nightmarish
production problems with the Model 3, so all of these reports are sort of
expected for me. But I also know that Teslas are extremely popular in Silicon
Valley, where I live. That to me indicates that those with the means really
like the cars. So it stands to reason that once they are good at making an
affordable car, they’ll sell like hot cakes.
Musk mentioned recently that two things really stress him out: Artifical
Intelligence and what to do about the risks is poses for humanity, and the
Model 3 launch. I still have a lot of faith that Elon can make it happen.
And personally I really want Tesla to succeed. I think a lot of other people
do too.
~~~
slg
I do wonder if Tesla's biggest problem around the Model 3 launch was starting
by establishing very aggressive production targets. According to Bloomberg's
Model 3 Tracker linked in that article, the Model 3 already is the top selling
electric car in the country. It outsold the Chevy Bolt by over 2x in January
and February. That should be a huge accomplishment, but it is viewed as a
failure because it is a small fraction of what Tesla initially predicted.
~~~
nopriorarrests
Those production targets were established for a reason. Tesla is burning
unbelievable amounts of cash [0], and they need to convince investors and bond
holders that they will break this trend soon. Showing very agressive
production targets for M3 is the only way to do it.
[0] [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/02/tesla-loses-
another-675...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/02/tesla-loses-
another-675-million-in-q4-its-biggest-quarterly-loss-yet/) "Tesla loses
another $675 million in Q4, its biggest quarterly loss yet"
~~~
slg
Tesla's bond offerings are routinely oversubscribed. The market is clearly
willing to continue to give them more and more money. I therefore find the
idea dubious that Tesla needed to be super aggressive with their production
targets or else they would run out of cash.
~~~
nopriorarrests
If I recall correctly, their last offering was more or less positioned like
"according to our production estimates, this is, probably, last time we ask
capital markets for cash infusion", and it was at the height of excitement
about the Model 3.
As of now, however, these bonds (1.8bln, issued last August) are trading
underwater [0]. They will probably tap the market once again this year, and we
will see what happen.
[0] [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teslas-junk-bonds-are-
trad...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teslas-junk-bonds-are-trading-
under-water-and-it-could-spell-trouble-for-elon-musk-2017-11-10)
~~~
slg
Those were junk bonds in August. Tesla is still having success with other
types of bonds. Here is a more recent offering from January with lease backed
bonds [1]. Tesla sold $546m worth but had orders for roughly $7b.
[1] - [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-31/when-
it-c...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-31/when-it-comes-to-
tesla-car-bonds-buyers-simply-can-t-get-enough)
~~~
Nokinside
Lease backed bonds don't scale. He can't tap to lease again and again.
Tesla is burning $4.2 billion per year now.
~~~
nopriorarrests
>Tesla is burning $4.2 billion per year now.
Where is this number is coming from? Their 2017 loss was around 2 billions,
half of what you say.
~~~
Nokinside
It comes from Barclay's analysis (they are very bearish).
Model 3 is not small volume luxury car as previous models. They are investing
wast sums for large scale production. Burning trough vast amounts of cash is
OK only as long as the production volume ramp up really happens in limited
time frame and quality and recall numbers are similar to Audi 4A.
Tesla must ramp up the production volume within a year or Tesla is financially
in the ropes.
If Tesla pays back debt $1000 for every car it sells. It must sell 4 million
cars to pay this year's projected cash burn. Tesla made a bet that it can
become large car manufacturer with Model 3, there will be no second changes.
------
gfodor
I have a model 3 and it basically feels like the iPhone of cars. Financial
issues could take them down, but you'd have to be a fool to bet against them.
Comparing the model 3 to other electric vehicles reminds me of when people
were comparing the iPod to other MP3 players based upon tech specs. At this
stage, the electric nature of the car just bolsters the design and UX of it.
Comparing it to other EVs because they happen to share the same type of motors
is stupid. They should be comparing the Model 3 to high end luxury combustion
vehicles because from my vantage point you're getting that kind of driving
experience, better even, for half the price. The only place where the electric
nature of the car creeps into your life in a negative way is when you consider
long trips. And even then, the impact is minimal because of the supercharger
network. (You are going to stop regularly on long trips for breaks anyhow, so
just charge the car.)
Beyond that, the only way the electric nature of the car impacts your life is
beneficial -- no more trips to gas stations and less cost of ownership. At
some point you stop even making the comparison because it's just a plain
better ownership experience so you don't think about it anymore.
~~~
BoorishBears
Out of curiosity, what’s a car you had before the Model 3 that you’d compare
as the “MP3 player”, and is it a recent car?
I ask because the Model S can’t compare with the S Class or 7 series on
comfort and luxury, yet you’re saying the model 3 should be compared
~~~
gfodor
I've never owned but have been in a relatively recent S class. It's personal
but the 3 is basically a pretty pure distilled car. If you hate buttons and
like symmetry and simplicity they basically took the car to what feels like
the logical extreme. Reminiscent of Apple it's a design that shows they
agonized over every button and additional degree of freedom for the user.
There is no dashboard, no key, the whole car is controlled through the center
console. The only buttons are entirely flush with the surfaces they are on.
They don't even have door release handles on the inside the door pops open
when you grab and depress the button flush on the handlebar to exit. Rip the
steering wheel out and there is no longer a clear driver's seat just two
symmetric front passengers. I find the design refreshing enough and the torque
of the engine responsive enough (with no transmission pullback) to say it
outweighs other potential creature comforts on a feature level. My last car
was a BRZ and I don't miss it too much :)
~~~
BoorishBears
... going from a BRZ to a Model 3 would give someone a little bit of bias.
All the things you described are very subjective. It's not "pure" it's
barebones. It's not "distilled" it's optimized for cost savings in a way that
would insult the average luxury car driver.
A mid-range luxury car these days often comes with a DCT or a very advanced
non-DCT transmission that's capable of mind blowingly quick shifts and creamy
smooth power delivery.
This is all coming from a guy who had a first month reservation for a Model 3
and went for a Volt instead after some hard thinking and a few... Tesla
antics... I disagreed with, so it's not like I'm one of the people who thinks
EVs "can't be enthusiast cars" like some people.
I feel like people are overstating what a change in drivetrains will do to car
manufacturers. It's true this drivetrain adds requirements for space for
batteries and infrastructure for charging, but car making will still be car
making (ironically, as Tesla has shown with it's production issues).
My money is on Tesla becoming the next Porsche as far as volume and market.
That's not a bad place to be, but it's not where the market has priced them
at.
~~~
gfodor
Yeah that's why I said it's personal. I feel the design of the car is
extremely forward looking and was primarily driven by good taste not cost
constraints. I hate to keep making the comparisons but it reminds me of Apple
ripping out all but essential components -- easy to see through the lens of
costs in the short term but in the long term provides freedom to take the
design further in the next iteration. The 3 represents a foundational design
that transitions elegantly to autonomous control (imho) and will provide the
vantage point Tesla needs to design their first from-the-ground up autocar.
~~~
BoorishBears
The problem for me is it feels like the market (and Tesla to an extent) has
jumped the gun.
Tesla hasn't demonstrated enough self-driving progress (and imo, no one has
yet) to justify the car's design to me, nor being a company with a 54 billion
dollar market cap.
It's one thing if FSD was just on the horizon, but there are an incredible
number of very hard problems to solve before we get there. Yet Tesla is
designing a car that requires FSD for justification of it's interior and
charging for FSD as a feature.
------
sunstone
In the run up to model 3 production Musk mentioned that "the production line
is the product" because it was needed to be highly automated to make a great
car at a low price.
Clearly getting the production line wrinkles ironed out has been a much bigger
challenge than Musk expected but that is typical of almost every thing that
Musk as done: Envision a way to make things an order of magnitude better. Work
like a bugger (while blowing through a dozen deadlines) to make that happen.
Eventually, come out the other side smelling like a genius -- because the
original vision had merit and was not just a pipe dream. The model 3 fits this
mold.
In terms of finance and cash flow, unlike previous near death experiences with
Tesla and SpaceX, now Musk could quite easily sell of a chunk of equity in
SpaceX to finance what's yet to be done in debugging the production line if
the markets won't oblige. But likely the bigger problem right now is time
rather than money before things come right. Most of the upfront production
line expenses will have already been spent, now it's a learning curve to make
it tick along as expected.
------
crowbahr
And how many times has this happened before?
Musk plays the edge of these things. If it wasn't way too ambitious it doesn't
seem like he'd do it.
------
Zigurd
Tesla is facing a test. There are some bad signs that point to deferring
profitability longer than expected, such as high defect and rework rates.
On the one hand, despite the challenges, Tesla has built more Series 3s than
Chevrolet has built Bolts. On the other hand that's about 15% as many per week
as Tesla thought they could do. The reason this isn't a fatal disaster is that
nobody else is yet willing to try to beat that. There is no real replacement
for a Model 3 available.
Building hundreds of thousands of cars per year is not something that industry
newcomers have managed to do for a very long time, nevermind electric aluminum
cars. This is a different challenge than competing against high-end BMWs and
Mercedes that also have relatively small production runs.
The advantage Tesla has is that they started the learning process early. The
competition is still a couple years from profitably selling a direct
alternative. But every month Tesla is late is a month of sales runway and
revenue gone.
------
xattt
Worse comes to worst, Tesla is bought out by whatever car company that has the
biggest gap in autonomous and electric tech.
~~~
resource0x
At what price? According to google, market cap of Ford: 44.30B, GM: 53.14B,
Tesla: 54.28B.
~~~
goshx
The "worst comes to worst" scenario will not likely be priced at 54.28B
------
brian-armstrong
Let's say Tesla does go bankrupt. What would happen next? Would GM acquire it?
Could they fix the production issues?
Also, would that endanger Musk's other projects? I seem to remember he's
pretty leveraged in Tesla, but I assume financially each company is separate?
------
vondur
I’m guessing if it came down to it, Tesla would be sold of for their battery
tech and battery manufacturing capabilities.
------
mcbits
Warning: This page will automatically blast audio without asking, potentially
ruining whatever you were recording, damaging your ears, waking the baby,
annoying the boss, etc.
~~~
tom_mellior
I'm with you on this, autoplay is evil. But I'm curious about the "ruining
whatever you were recording" part. Why are you clicking random Internet links
if you're in the middle of "recording" something (presumably, audio or video)?
~~~
Groxx
Looking up stuff as needed is relatively common for the more free-form
podcasts I've listened to in the past. There are also quite a few vlogs out
there, a Tesla segment showing site content wouldn't be too surprising.
I assume there are other formats where this comes up too. Podcast-like stuff
seems pretty natural tho.
------
antonkm
I find the concept of short selling a bit confusing, even though I've Googled.
Can someone explain this in an easy to understand way?
~~~
ams6110
I understand short selling, but the guy in this story says he's been shorting
Tesla for years. In that time, the stock as done nothing but go up, AFAIK. How
can he afford to still be shorting? As I understand it, a short position is
not something you can hold indefinitely... there's a point in time where you
need to provide the shares.
~~~
philipwhiuk
You just buy a new short position. Also you can have a short position lasting
a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month.
~~~
philipwhiuk
(typically a broker will insist you have sufficient collateral period to
indicate you can fulfil the short position).
------
userbinator
I read the entire article and didn't see anything about crucibles.
~~~
traek
crucible
noun cru·ci·ble \ ˈkrü-sə-bəl \
2: A severe test
------
Someone1234
That's a pretty terrible article title, the mods should consider changing it
from "Tesla Is Facing a Crucible" to e.g. “Tesla’s Make-Or-Break Moment.”
which was the much better title of the article this article is based around.
I cannot tell if it was titled this to add an air of mystery or trying to be
too clever for its own good, but it is pretty shoddy either way.
~~~
freehunter
Crucible isn't a super common word, but it's not a super uncommon word either.
It means "a severe test where many things combine to influence the end
result". It is an entirely correct word to choose for this situation.
------
username223
The Model 3 seems like it was premature. It gets mediocre reviews (
[https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-3](https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-3)
), they have 180,000 orders, and they're fulfilling them at about 3200 a
month, i.e. 4.6 years to satisfy the current backlog. For scale, Toyota sold
about 32,000 Camrys a month last year just in the US. Heck, BMW sold about
34,000 3-series a month.
Tesla should have stuck to high-end markets. It looks like their foray into
mass production will end badly.
~~~
ams6110
And that's where some people were predicting Tesla would stumble. There are
dozens of boutique high-end car manufacturers. Ferrari, etc. Price is not
really too important for buyers of those cars -- in fact it can be part of the
attraction (a Veblen good).
Making "mainstream" cars targeted at middle-class buyers is an _entirely_
different thing. Sales price is a huge factor, and at that volume saving a
dollar or two on any given component is something you spend time trying to do.
Optimizing the manufacturing process is also critical. Chevy and Ford and
Toyota know how to do all that. Tesla doesn't, yet.
------
fictionfuture
Tesla is another "solution looking for a problem" type of company. They make
nice cars but the electric engine concept has yet to provide a real benefit
over combustion. (They say less solution but that's not really true is it?)
Another concept looking for a problem is crypto; as the only problems crypto
really solves are the ones faced when doing illegal transactions or hiding
money.
~~~
matthewmacleod
_They make nice cars but the electric engine concept has yet to provide a real
benefit over combustion._
That comment has absolutely no merit whatsoever.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Bulletproof validation for Sass functions and mixins - Skoks
http://sassmeister.com/gist/cad7bc024664d2e4e15d
======
Skoks
Download - [https://github.com/SassySuit/sassy-
validation](https://github.com/SassySuit/sassy-validation)
Documentation - [http://sassysuit.github.io/sassy-
validation](http://sassysuit.github.io/sassy-validation)
#Sass #SCSS #CSS #Helpers #Utilities
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
1Password and the Case of the XARA Bandit - mnem
https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/10/15/1password-and-the-case-of-the-xara-bandit/
======
manicdee
Link is broken for me. Two seemingly related blog entries from Agile Bits:
Discussion of the vulnerability —
[https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/06/17/1password-inter-
proces...](https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/06/17/1password-inter-process-
communication-discussion/)
Version of 1Password with increased security:
[https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/10/15/1password-5-4-for-
mac-...](https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/10/15/1password-5-4-for-mac-the-
convenience-edition/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How to Design and Persist Aggregates – Domain-Driven Design with TypeScript - stemmlerjs
https://khalilstemmler.com/articles/typescript-domain-driven-design/aggregate-design-persistence/
======
bellsandwhis
Not related to the article (which is great), but I love the site design. OP
should look into making this a Gatsby Theme.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Have an idea for an IPhone Game, Looking for other developers - dottertrotter
If anyone has some experience in IPhone development and has some spare time, I have an idea for a game that takes advantage of the IPhone's unique user controls and should be fairly simple to build.<p>I am a developer, but have no experience in the apple world so I am looking to work to with someone on my first app.<p>For the game I can provide the idea, the art, and programming.<p>If you are interested, my email address is bradleyt.marsh at gmail.<p>I will of course provide a much more complete outline of the game to those that are interested.
======
bozone888
Well we do have engineering resources on iphone, and have been doing iphone
app dev for quite some time. Here's what we've done and issues we're having:
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=466840>).
Check out our site for more info: www.BokanTech.com/iphone/
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
From Zero to React - lajr
https://www.liamross.me/from-zero-to-react/
======
darkruby501
Thanks, this was helpful!
------
metoprolol
Does anyone have any good intro posts to redux? Something like the above
parent that’s easy to read trough casually for an engineer who won’t be using
redux in the workplace
~~~
acemarke
Hi, I'm a Redux maintainer. Please see my suggested resources for learning
Redux:
[https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/12/blogged-answers-
le...](https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/12/blogged-answers-learn-redux/)
[https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-
links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links)
Also, FYI, we do also have plans to heavily revamp our docs in the near future
as well.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Killing Off American Cows to Keep Milk Prices High - walterbell
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/cow-killing-and-price-fixing-in-your-supermarket-dairy-aisle
======
PavlovsCat
Ah, the the alienated joys of capitalism.. and the bloody stumps we call hands
and minds.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Are you misusing Alexa numbers? (Probably) - andrew_null
http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2006/11/are_you_misusin.html
======
Tichy
I thought the advertising companies would just track how many ads are being
downloaded from their servers? Also I don't understand how the comScore
approach is better than Alexa? Both seem to be applications that run on
unwitting user's desktops and monitor their behaviour.
Lastly, why are VCas looking at Alexa numbers if they could simply look at the
server logs instead?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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"
}
|
API to Generate fictitious customer names, addresses, birthdates, etc. - SQL2219
https://anonymize.strd.co
======
nwrk
For selfhosted folks there is great faker library.
[https://github.com/marak/Faker.js/](https://github.com/marak/Faker.js/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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"
}
|
Reiser Prosecution Jolt: Victim's Ex-Lover Confesses to Eight Killings - brk
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/reiser
======
davidw
Dude, that article is nearly a year old...
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Papers and Algorithms in LLVM's Source Code - chubot
https://github.com/oilshell/blog-code/blob/master/grep-for-papers/llvm.txt
======
chubot
context and summary:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/b22tw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/b22tw6/papers_and_algorithms_in_llvms_source_code/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Search by Image, Recursively, Transparent PNG [video] - ccvannorman
https://vimeo.com/34949864
======
dang
Url changed from [http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/this-is-
what-h...](http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/this-is-what-happens-
when-you-do-a-blank-google-image-search), which points to this.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Startup that planned to deliver babies in space [is] suspending operations - exolymph
https://www.businessinsider.com/space-life-origin-suspending-operations-babies-in-space-2019-7
======
exolymph
Had to trim down the BI title quite a bit.
I am, frankly, gobsmacked by the existence of this startup.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How to Find a Co-Founder Success Story: LegCyte - dglidden
http://www.cofounderslab.com/find-a-co-founder/success-story-spotlight-legcyte/
======
skaviani
I was just with LegCyte, today - love seeing tech startups in DC tapping into
local problems like legislative efficiency.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: ShouldYouBlank – Turn your followers into customers with a quiz - cmacole
http://shouldyoublank.com
======
jiten_bansal
Subscribed for early access. Submit your startup to
[http://betapage.co](http://betapage.co)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ethical OS and Silicon Valley’s Guilty Conscience - craftsman
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/striving-to-minimize-technical-and-reputational-risks-ethical-os-and-silicon-valleys-guilty-conscience/
======
shawn
This is an excellent time to ask for a counterargument to CGP Grey's stance
that immortality should be invented:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY)
Suppose there were a technology X which was going to be invented eventually.
Suppose also that it's a highly unethical technology, for some definition of
unethical.
Is it therefore unethical to create X?
Note: The constraint is that X _is inevitable_. The only question is who
creates it first. And in that context, isn't it at least possible to argue
from multiple axes that you should help to create it? The limit case of this
argument would be "It's your duty to the society you live in to ensure it has
the competitive advantage, not some other society."
A less-hostile way to phrase that would be "The first company to invent a
technology can then try to _enforce ethics_ onto that technology."
That is, if you invent something, it's easier to dictate how it's used than if
you didn't.
Hence, paradoxically as it may seem, the logical conclusion would _seem_ to be
that you should work as hard as you can to invent whatever unethical
technology you're worried about -- in the hopes that you can minimize the
damage later.
If it seems like a technology can't really be controlled (e.g. nuclear
weapons), I counter with this: Bitcoin was the implementation of a set of
ideas. The exact implementation could have been very different. It could have
been inflationary rather than deflationary, for example. The precise choices
were very important, because Bitcoin has huge first-mover advantages. And that
is often true of the first X to be invented.
So, what's the answer? Do we work as hard as we can to invent unethical
technologies in order to mitigate their effects, or do we try to suppress or
discourage the invention of new technology knowing that some less-"ethical"
society will get there first?
Or is that a false dichotomy? I'm fascinated by the possible answers.
~~~
jonathanstrange
Whoever invents it is responsible for it. You could argue that extremely
deadly nerve gas would have been invented _inevitably_ , for instance, but it
is still unethical for you to help in its development. Claiming that "someone
else would have invented it anyway" is the oldest excuse in the book.
_Do we work as hard as we can to invent unethical technologies in order to
mitigate their effects, or do we try to suppress or discourage the invention
of new technology knowing that some less- "ethical" society will get there
first?
Or is that a false dichotomy?_
This looks like a false dichotomy to me. If your argument was sound, then e.g.
attempting to limit nuclear proliferation would be pointless, since every
nation on earth would eventually develop nuclear weapons anyway. I don't think
that's true, though, national and international laws with suitable enforcement
can prevent unethical technologies.
~~~
shawn
Think of a war that shaped the world, and whose outcome is generally agreed to
be a positive one: "Good guys vs bad guys, and the good guys won."
Suppose nerve gas had been the only way for the "good guys" to win that war.
(This isn't a realistic assumption; the point is to examine ethics.)
Is it more ethical to employ the nerve gas, or to lose the war? Those being
the only two outcomes.
~~~
JohnStrangeII
Same guy as before but from different account. Disclaimer: I am an ethicist,
although my original AoS was philosophy of language.
First of all, there is a whole bunch of contemporary ethicists who would deny
that unrealistic scenarios can give us any ethical insight, but let's not
enter this debate.
There are good and convincing arguments against this view, but let's assume
for the sake of the argument that using the nerve gas in your scenario would
be the right thing to do. That means that you have shown that there is one
hypothetical scenario in which the use of that technology could be considered
better than not using it, although its use would still be very bad and
horrific.
That's not enough to show that the technology is ethical or that its
development should be encouraged. I'd argue for the opposite. Your scenario
also does not provide any argument against my claim that the person who
develops the technology is at least indirectly responsible for its later use.
Some technologies should and maybe even need to be suppressed world-wide.
This is an important topic if you take into account the pace of technological
development. It's entirely thinkable that in the near future - let's say, in a
100 years or so - just about anyone could in theory genetically modify
bacteria and viruses to his likings in a basement and for example develop an
extremely powerful biological weapon capable of wiping out 90% of mankind. It
is obvious that such a technology has to be suppressed and should probably not
be developed in this easy-to-use form.
I believe what you really want to say is that nation states should develop all
those nefarious technologies in order to control their spreading, because
someone ("the opponent") will invent and spread them anyway. That's indeed the
traditional rationale for MAD and the development of nerve gas, biological
weapons, and hydrogen bombs. The problem with this argument is that anybody
can use it, the argument appears just as sound to North Korea than to the US,
and is leading to a world-wide stockpiling of dangerous technologies. So there
must be something wrong with that argument, don't you think so?
~~~
eiieirurjdndjd
> That's indeed the traditional rationale for MAD and the development of nerve
> gas, biological weapons, and hydrogen bombs. The problem with this argument
> is that anybody can use it, the argument appears just as sound to North
> Korea than to the US, and is leading to a world-wide stockpiling of
> dangerous technologies.
But that’s not what happened, right? I mean, it is if you stop reading history
just before the first non-proliferation treaties began being implemented. This
was almost half a century ago, though, so IMO it doesn’t make sense to stop
reading at that point.
~~~
JohnStrangeII
I agree. The solution to massive technological threats is mutual entanglement
by treaties and international laws that limit or prohibit the development of
dangerous technologies. That's my point.
------
lifeisstillgood
Many (many) years ago, I was leading business planning for Demon / Thus and as
part of our template introduced "Conscience Breakers" \- a section (much like
the health and safety planning for school trips i guess) that asked what could
go wrong with our products we were about to launch. It seemed a good idea then
and still does.
it got dropped pretty quick by the higher ups
------
dmead
This is great, but can this really be followed by companies that have
shareholders and investors?
~~~
forapurpose
Could you go into some detail on why it couldn't be followed by them? I know
of some different arguments about why it could or couldn't, but I don't know
what you are referring to.
~~~
Nasrudith
The answer is that publically traded companies face heavy pressure to keep
sustained quarterly growth indefinitely and various "activist" investors will
insist upon ousting any who stand in the way even if it is better for longterm
health not to say lay off experienced engineering staff in a stable industry
to inflate quarterly profits (Boeing) when it comes to bite them with
electrical fires in their next big plane.
------
jl2718
Most change is bad. Some change is necessary.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Toptal’s Selection of Top Developer Blogs - dselmanovic
http://www.toptal.com/it/toptal-s-selection-of-top-developer-blogs
======
dror_liebenthal
Great article! Extremely thorough discussion of 20+ established blogs.
Interested to see what opinions will come up in the comments section.
------
silicon_ooze
Nice selection
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How to set up a Raspberry Pi Web Server - JeremyMorgan
http://www.jeremymorgan.com/tutorials/raspberry-pi/how-to-raspberry-pi-web-server/
======
jgrahamc
I have a Raspberry Pi attached to my home network with one of these tiny WiFi
adapters ([http://www.expansys.com/edimax-wi-fi-150mbps-mini-
usb-202741...](http://www.expansys.com/edimax-wi-fi-150mbps-mini-
usb-202741/)). It's in a small white box ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raspberry-
Pi-case-professional-injec...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raspberry-Pi-case-
professional-injection/dp/B0097NPQ8W/)) and attached to the wall. It's
completely unobtrusive, looks like it might be something to do with the
phones.
~~~
joezydeco
The USB/Wifi dongle is interesting. I don't know much about this flavor of
adapter, were the drivers already in the kernel? Any problems getting it
running?
~~~
voltagex_
From memory these sticks are either a Ralink or Realtek chipset and are
supported by all recent kernels.
------
shy_coder
Something like nginx, monkey or pancake would be a much better option for a
webserver/pi.
<http://nginx.org/> <http://monkey-project.com/> <http://pancakehttp.net/>
------
thenomad
Neat!
I'm very interested to see some benchmarks for this. Given Nginx is pretty
minimal in its system load (I think) might it actually be possible to run a
reasonable-sized website off one of these servers?
~~~
agumonkey
All network interfaces go through the usb stack, a few monthes ago there were
issues with usb polling (usb driver being in the closed-source firmware iirc)
eating cpu cycles. I don't know if it's been solved since.
~~~
grannyg00se
Seems like moving to USB 3.0 would be a huge overall gain to the system. Is
there some other component that would prevent full USB 3.0 speed?
~~~
agumonkey
I'm not knowledgeable but I can only recall one SoC providing usb3.0, mind you
those things are for embedded/phone devices, thus usb3 looks like a costly
overkill. I'm all for it but that's hardly a motivation for them.
usb2 would be fine if it was a sane implementation but AFAIK the rpi SoC was
made for ~video-only appliances where there's close to no IO or cpu processing
and thus the usb stack firmware code do some bold decisions that induce a nice
penalty on usb/cpu.
It's possible that they released a new version since (my data dates from a few
monthes ago) or that someone published a binary patch to improve the
situation.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The 2020s will be known as the Remote Work decade - shizcakes
https://twitter.com/chris_herd/status/1212412869251350529
======
teddyuk
Hope so
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
StackOverflow bans one of its top contributors over frivolous matter - Envec83
https://plus.google.com/+BaukeScholtz/posts/GRjfSAXYw9t
======
fsk
I contributed to StackOverflow a little when it first got started, got
frustrated by the heavy-handed censorship (too aggressive about closing
question), and then gave up and left.
It seems any moderation-based community eventually has that flaw. If you
deviate from whatever the majority believes, you will get disgusted and leave,
and eventually you're left with a core that all act the same.
I'll read Stackoverflow sometimes, but I'm never again contributing.
Stackoverflow sucks!
[http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2009/02/stackoverflow-
su...](http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2009/02/stackoverflow-sucks.html)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Where best to sell an established website? - dawson
Does anyone have advice/recommendation for where best to sell an established website?<p>The site was once mentioned/interviewed on The BBC, CNN, CNET, TheRegister, Forbes, Silicon etc and was receiving large numbers of unique visitors, now not so much though still steady. I have written an ad but am stuck on where best to promote it. Thanks
======
davidw
I'm testing out an auction on Flippa.com:
[http://flippa.com/auctions/83341/Innsbruck-Austria-rental-
li...](http://flippa.com/auctions/83341/Innsbruck-Austria-rental-listing-site
---Ski-Season)
So far so good. It was a pretty smooth process, and even though it's a niche
site, I've gotten a few bids. I'm hoping the price goes up a bit, but I just
want to unload it at this point, so from that point of view it looks like I'll
succeed.
~~~
bgraves
Can you give a few more details on the site itself? I'm fascinated by the idea
of "flipping" websites, and wondering what your experience has been. Even
though you may not have started out with the intention of selling it to the
highest bidder, it sounds like that's your best bet at this point.
-How many hours did you put into it?
-Have you tried any other business models (advertising, subscription, ad words, etc.)?
~~~
davidw
I put enough time into it that I don't think I'll get my money back, but I
wanted to at least give it a try, and see how Flippa worked out, and I do want
to get rid of it, because I don't live in Innsbruck anymore, and don't speak
German well enough to really get the most out of it, and not having it will
mean one less thing to worry about maintaining (although it doesn't require
much time at this point, it's one less thing on my server).
I put some adsense on the site, and it made a bit of money, but not that much.
Subscriptions might work out, but I think you'd have to invest more time in
promoting them and the site, which brings you back to doing stuff in German...
~~~
bgraves
Thanks for the reply. I completely understand about having "one less thing to
worry about" and it sounds like selling to the highest bidder is your best bet
at this point.
------
bgraves
This thread is extremely relevant to my interests.
I've thought about this for a long time and I'm completely shocked when I see
dog-allergies.com (which has only been online for 5 months) selling for $600!
I know SOME of this is modern day snake oil salesmen, just working the system
to eek out some small profits, but people are obviously making some money at
this, right?
------
medianama
Why don't you post it here. I am sure lot of HNers would be interested
~~~
dawson
I have put the website[1] up on Flippa along with a domain name[2].
I'm unsure if I should put a low starting price and expected reserve, or
expected start price and no/low reserve. Thoughts?
[1] [http://flippa.com/auctions/85671/Planet-Tolkien-com-as-
seen-...](http://flippa.com/auctions/85671/Planet-Tolkien-com-as-seen-on-CNN-
Forbes-BBC-TheRegister-Silicon)
[2] <http://flippa.com/auctions/85677/alert-ly>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
SourceWeb: A C/C++ source code indexer and navigator - vmorgulis
http://rprichard.github.io/sourceweb/
======
guruz
There's a similar tool here which is running inside the web browser:
[http://code.woboq.org/llvm/clang/include/clang/AST/ASTContex...](http://code.woboq.org/llvm/clang/include/clang/AST/ASTContext.h.html#_ZNK5clang10ASTContext15getTypeDeclTypeEPKNS_8TypeDeclES3_)
[https://code.woboq.org/](https://code.woboq.org/)
[https://woboq.com/codebrowser.html](https://woboq.com/codebrowser.html)
~~~
nephyrin
Mozilla's DXR deserves a look as well
[https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-
central/source/](https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/)
[https://github.com/mozilla/dxr](https://github.com/mozilla/dxr)
~~~
TACIXAT
Source Navigator is a non-web source code viewer.
[http://sourcenav.sourceforge.net/](http://sourcenav.sourceforge.net/)
------
pedram_hadjian
I have been looking for good code navigation in vim and find it weird, that
ctags and scope is oftentimes advertised, as it only does index symbol names.
If two different c++ classes use the same identifier for a member and you even
fully qualify it in a .cpp definition (e.g. A::Temp and B::Temp), ctags/cscope
still just picks the earliest occurrence of Temp.
Using the clang parser is the obvious thing to do (Qt Creator now has a plugin
like this). The real downside to the linux command line tools I found (clic,
rtags) is, that you need to provide compiler invokations for all .cpp files to
the tools. With cmake, this is easy (call it with
-DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON), but with plain make files, this is pain
(specially, if you don't want to setup the whole dependencies): if it doesn't
compile, you can't parse.
I would love to see a "parse what is possible", because I'd like to learn from
source by running "apt-get source ..." and navigating through parts, that I am
interested in without trying to compile everything. Best example for source, I
don't want to compile is the Android source code (AOSP). Am I missing
something?
~~~
ryanprichard
SourceWeb needs a list of C++ invocations (compile_commands.json), but it
ignores compiler errors, so I'm not sure how precise the invocations need to
be. If all the C++ source files in a directory were naively listed, the index
might still be useful. I've never actually done that, though -- I normally use
the sw-btrace tool to build the JSON file.
The indexer comes up with a globally-unique name for each "symbol" it indexes.
This turned out to be a hard problem for things like templates and macros. The
indexer names static functions by prepending a filename, e.g.
"bio_ssl.c/ssl_write". For local variables, it also appends a file offset.
With templates/macros, it can determine that a single identifier corresponds
to arbitrarily many different symbols, and when you right-click that
identifier in the GUI, it attempts to show them all in a popup menu, which
fills the entire screen.
------
i336_
IMO, this is less interesting than the tiny little homemade screencast app
powering the part at the top of the page.
Its FPS is so fast I knew there was some magic going on behind the scenes, so
I poked it.
Turns out there are a bunch of JSON arrays that cross-references x,y
coordinates with PNG files, and a tiny player to "render" these in realtime.
The tidbits are right there in the element inspector.
~~~
vmorgulis
Good point!
The screencasting tool from the same author:
[https://github.com/rprichard/x11-canvas-
screencast](https://github.com/rprichard/x11-canvas-screencast)
------
ausjke
This looks really interesting, source-navigator has not been actively
developed for years, source-insighter is windows-only, eclipse etc is just too
heavy for code navigator.
however the 0.1 release is done on 2013.5.6 and that is it, not much
development was done since then. Also the 'apt-get' list for compiling simply
failed (could not find those packages) on debian 8.
while I really like a light-weight source code navigator,this one needs lots
of work it seems.
~~~
aethertap
The master branch worked without issue for me on ubuntu 15.04 and 15.10. I had
to install clang-3.6 and libclang3.6-dev, if that helps.
~~~
ryanprichard
Someone just sent a patch this morning upgrading it to Clang 3.7, which is
available in the Ubuntu 15.10 repository, but not earlier. There are also
official x64 llvm.org binaries for 14.04 that work.
I don't actually use the program on a daily basis, but I do pull it out on
special occasions. Most recently I used it while tracking down
[https://github.com/atom/electron/issues/3380](https://github.com/atom/electron/issues/3380).
It's helpful because Electron/Chromium is big and I'm unfamiliar with the
code.
~~~
ausjke
Just built it on 15.10 and it will segfault when I do "sourceweb index" but
will run fine "sourceweb ./index", seems like a path is mandatory.
All in all this is not as feature complete as source navigator, which is old
but works for me better still.
------
KayEss
Nice. I've been wanting something like this. I can imagine using this as a
starting point to hack something up with as it appears to have examples for
all of the bits I was thinking was going to be hardest :)
Hopefully it'll mean I can forget about doxygen.
------
jhasse
Awesome! Would be cool if this could be integrated into Atom.
------
castratikron
Might be cool. I'd like to see how it compares with cscope.
------
mellery451
looks interesting, but I'd rather have a tool that exposes a data API so that
it can be plugged into vim/emacs
~~~
Arkanosis
I think you're looking for rtags:
[https://github.com/Andersbakken/rtags](https://github.com/Andersbakken/rtags)
~~~
martincmartin
+1 for RTags. I recently got it working, and have been enjoying actually
navigating through C++ code. Plus, it can do things like show you preprocessor
output, show all places where a function is called, show all implementations
of a virtual function, complete symbols, show byte offsets of fields, etc.
~~~
jhdevos
Any idea what the best vim plugin for rtags is? I see there are several...
~~~
jguegant
YCM is good for vim too:
[https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe](https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe)
It uses Clang for C/C++/Objective-C/Objective-C++ and exposes itself as a
server usable from vim, emacs, sublime ...
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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. :)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Connect Watch: first AsteroidsOS powered smartwatch - PascalW
http://connect-watch.com/en/
======
PascalW
Very excited to see AsteroidsOS getting it's first hardware product. Hopefully
this will stir AsteroidsOS adoption in general.
I like having an open source, free smartwatch OS as alternative to Wear.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Your Startup’s First Hire: Leading and Learning at the Same Time - ttunguz
http://tomtunguz.com/management-and-teaching
======
applecore
_Anna Karenina_ is a novel by Tolstoy, not Dostoevsky :)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Cumulus: A free, open-source replacement for CloudApp that uses your own S3 - nrj
https://github.com/nrj/Cumulus
======
mykel242
Sweet!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Booking system for makeup artists and hair stylists - xxxxtj
https://www.appearancer.com/start
======
xxxxtj
Welcome!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Accident That Changed My Priorities: One Entrepreneurs Story - johnjlocke
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229735
======
jacalata
Didn't read, too many popovers.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Google Goggles released for iPhone - wiks
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/10/05/google-goggles-for-iphone/
======
wiks
Here is the direct link for it. goo.gl/aLzQ
|
{
"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"
}
|
Exceptional: Exception-Handling in C99 Using (Black?) Preprocessor Magic - qqwy
https://github.com/Qqwy/c_exceptional
======
hasahmed
Black magic to indeed
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
TSV Utilities: Command line tools for large, tabular data files - bryanrasmussen
https://github.com/eBay/tsv-utils
======
JimmyRuska
I've been noticing more swiss army-knife-like cli tools in the last few years.
It would be cool if there were some that could support avro/parquet/orc
formats. This one is notable because it's written in D lang by a mega corp.
Some useful cli data wrangling tools --
[https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv](https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv)
[https://github.com/dinedal/textql](https://github.com/dinedal/textql)
[https://github.com/n3mo/data-science](https://github.com/n3mo/data-science)
[https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)
[https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/parallel](https://gitlab.redox-
os.org/redox-os/parallel)
[https://github.com/willghatch/racket-
rash](https://github.com/willghatch/racket-rash)
Would you have any others you recommend?
~~~
sstephenson
jwalk parses JSON into a stream of TSV records:
[https://github.com/shellbound/jwalk/](https://github.com/shellbound/jwalk/)
~~~
DonHopkins
>parses large documents slowly, but steadily, in memory space proportional to
the key depth of the document
If parsing JSON with shell scripts and awk is your idea of the most ideal way
to "slowly, but steadily" get the job done.
[https://github.com/shellbound/jwalk/blob/master/lib/jwalk/co...](https://github.com/shellbound/jwalk/blob/master/lib/jwalk/commands/parse.awk#L137)
I know that everything looks like a nail if your only tool is a hammer, and
it's fun to nail together square wheels out of plywood, but there are actually
other tools out there with built-in, compiled, optimized, documented, tested,
well maintained, fully compliant JSON parsers.
------
gibba999
Seems like a waste to do CSV->TSV without going all the way:
[http://www.tsvx.org/](http://www.tsvx.org/)
The problem with TSVs and CSVs is that you might get an odd datatype 1TB into
a file. For example, what you expect to be an integer value is somehow a
string.
TSVx extends TSV to add standard formats for things like headers which allows
for strict typing. You can do things like export a database table and import
losslessly. You can even export from MySQL and import into PostgreSQL most of
the times without pain.
The strict typing also avoids a lot of potential security issues. And in an
environment where you control both ends (so you don't need to worry about
security of where the file came from), it leads to much nicer APIs: you can
refer to things by names rather than column numbers. It's more readable, and
if the order or number of columns changes, nothing breaks.
~~~
enriquto
It wouldn't seem that tsvx is "going all the way", it's a completely different
thing that dirties your numbers with silly metadata.
~~~
woofie11
TSVs aren't just numbers. A TSV might be numbers for the first terabyte, and
then include a string, just for the heck of it.
I'd call that "dirtying numbers," rather than an removable header which allows
you to programmatically validate that your numbers have not, in fact, been
dirtied.
------
jondegenhardt
Hi all, Primary tsv-utils author here. Thanks for checking out the tools! I
hope some of you find them beneficial.
~~~
Tharkun
Thanks for these. I've rolled my own implementation of many of these over the
last 20 odd year, most of them living in ugly shell scripts embedded as
aliases in my env. This will make my life easier!
------
cbsmith
It makes me cry how much time has been invested in formats like CSV's, TSV's,
etc. ASCII (and UTF-8) has characters reserved for column, row, and even group
separation. Just use them and save a lot of pain.
~~~
dev_dull
We’ve discussed this at length and I’m squarely in the DO NOT camp. The
drawbacks of using non-readable meta characters exceeds the benefits:
1\. TSV can be read and imported by almost everything.
2\. People can add and adjust TSV files from any editor.
3\. What’s the way to insert meta characters again In VIM? And now nano? Argh
I’ll just try and copy and paste it. Ugh that doesn’t work.
Just use CSV/TSV folks. Anything more complicated and reach for a better
serialization format (json, yaml) and _not_ a better delimiter.
~~~
Annatar
Both JSON and YAML are very difficult to construct parsers for.
To make matters worse, both formats are full of pitfalls:
[http://seriot.ch/parsing_json.php](http://seriot.ch/parsing_json.php)
[https://arp242.net/yaml-config.html](https://arp242.net/yaml-config.html)
using either of these, in my opinion, is extremely misguided.
~~~
dev_dull
The flip side to that is that json and yaml parsers exist in every language,
and would be more than capable of replacing any logic you’d find in a CSV.
~~~
Annatar
CSV's are a data structure. They do not contain any logic.
------
dima55
There're lots of tools in this space that are similar in a very general way,
but have widely different design choices. My tookit is
[https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog](https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog)
It's tsv-utils-like, but is strictly a wrapper around existing tools. So
filtering and transformations are interpreted literally as awk (or perl)
expressions. And the various cmdline options match the standard tool options
because they ARE the standard tools. So you get a very friendly learning
curve, but something like tsv-utils is probably faster and probably more
powerful. And it looks like tsv-utils references fields by number instead of
by name. Many of the others (mine included) use the field names, which makes a
MAJOR usability improvement.
Other tools in no particular order:
[https://csvkit.readthedocs.io/](https://csvkit.readthedocs.io/)
[https://github.com/johnkerl/miller](https://github.com/johnkerl/miller)
[https://github.com/eBay/tsv-utils-dlang](https://github.com/eBay/tsv-utils-
dlang)
[http://harelba.github.io/q/](http://harelba.github.io/q/)
[https://github.com/BatchLabs/charlatan](https://github.com/BatchLabs/charlatan)
[https://github.com/dinedal/textql](https://github.com/dinedal/textql)
[https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv](https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv)
[https://github.com/dbohdan/sqawk](https://github.com/dbohdan/sqawk)
[https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)
[https://github.com/benbernard/RecordStream](https://github.com/benbernard/RecordStream)
~~~
cube2222
Adding another one which I'm one of the authors of:
[https://github.com/cube2222/octosql/](https://github.com/cube2222/octosql/)
It tries to provide ergonomic data munching of various formats, but using a
sql interface, which most will probably feel immediately at home with.
~~~
bradknowles
With respect, who actually feels at home with SQL?
It's about the most alien and obtuse language I've ever had the misfortune of
encountering, and in that category I rate it worse than COBOL, FORTRAN,
Assembly, C, Prolog, Sendmail re-write rules, BASH, and every other language
I've ever encountered and had to use, but which I cannot recall at the moment.
~~~
he_the_great
SQL gets rather mistifying when you move towards some complex joins and data
mapping. PSQL can also feel Sadly out of place.
But their is real nice clarit in what you want at its foundation.
------
yfiapo
Cool that there are some specialty tools in this space and will use if I hit
that performance challenge.
Minor nit, I found the performance table ([https://github.com/eBay/tsv-
utils/blob/master/docs/Performan...](https://github.com/eBay/tsv-
utils/blob/master/docs/Performance.md)) confusing at first and second glance.
Alternating colors indicate.. different OSes? That doesn't seem to be the
important message to convey as you are trying to show the speed of your tool
and not the OS. Recommend to use the coloration to provide differentiation
between tools instead of OS.
~~~
jondegenhardt
Thanks for the feedback. I agree, the performance table would benefit from
better formatting.
------
zX41ZdbW
Worth to note clickhouse-local: full featured ClickHouse SQL engine for files
in CSV/TSV/JSONLines, whatever...
[https://www.altinity.com/blog/2019/6/11/clickhouse-local-
the...](https://www.altinity.com/blog/2019/6/11/clickhouse-local-the-power-of-
clickhouse-sql-in-a-single-command)
~~~
paulryanrogers
Nice! Or even just Sqlite
------
Annatar
With AWKA, in my tests I was able to get an instant 100% speed boost without
modifying any of my AWK code. So using AWKA would likely beat the tools
presented here, without needing to invest the time to learn a new tool, which
for me at least is of paramount importance.
[https://github.com/noyesno/awka](https://github.com/noyesno/awka)
------
oehtXRwMkIs
I remember there was a TUI app that could handle CSV, HDF, etc. I can't find
if for the life of me though. I remember the author even made their own TUI
library for it. I've been looking for it for a while now, if anyone knows
please let me know.
~~~
flas9sd
must be visidata
~~~
oehtXRwMkIs
I think that's the one, thanks so much.
------
visarga
I've had something like this for 10 years, self made. I use cut, grep, sort,
uniq from the system, but added a tool to compute counts per field, do value
processing like awk (using a one line Perl script because I didn't want to
learn awk), randomise order, split files by percentage, join multiple files by
column and pretty format the data.
Sometimes I make a chain of them 3-4 lines long, at which point I switch to a
script.
------
zmmmmm
I always get excited by these types of tools and then end up going back to
awk. How do you beat something that's already pre-installed on every Unix
system for the last 40 years?
Having said that ... these do look like they have some useful extras, in
particular, around the annoying part of retaining / manipulating header rows
...
~~~
thewhitetulip
I totally agree. awk, sed, grep are amazing and it astonishes me how many
people aren't fluently able to write scripts in it. I used to be in that camp
few months earlier and I used to write everything in Python, but one day, I
determined to learn shell scripting and I loved it.
awk::Python what Java::Python. What we can do in 10 lines of Python can be
done in one line of awk and it doesn't have to be unreadable!
Main pain in the neck is finding a good tutorial. As usual, I started
documenting what I learnt in an end to end guide here,
[https://github.com/thewhitetulip/awk-anti-
textbook](https://github.com/thewhitetulip/awk-anti-textbook)
~~~
cf
The original awk book from the creators is in my opinion really good.
[https://archive.org/download/pdfy-
MgN0H1joIoDVoIC7/The_AWK_P...](https://archive.org/download/pdfy-
MgN0H1joIoDVoIC7/The_AWK_Programming_Language.pdf)
~~~
thewhitetulip
I found it to be a good introduction, but the issue is, it does not go in dept
and teach by example.
------
Mauricio_
Dear author: thank you for making multiple small programs instead of a single
command with 400 flags.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed!
My pet peeve: open source packages that have no separation of the actual IP
from the embodiment in an app or environment. Is it so hard to create a
library? And put the real feature in there, instead of wrapped up in some run-
on main module?
Kudos to this writer for doing it well.
~~~
jondegenhardt
Thank you both! I too like the Unix philosophy of small tools that do a
specific job. In a package like this, people may find they only care about one
or two tools. They can ignore the rest and mix and match with other tools as
they see fit.
------
londons_explore
I feel like this might explain atrocious unicode handling and special
character escaping in most eBay properties... Looking at you gumtree!
------
maxekman
Check out Nushell if you missed it a few days ago on HN:
[https://github.com/nushell/nushell](https://github.com/nushell/nushell)
Related HN thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783006)
------
jmsmistral
Looks cool! The presentation of the benchmark data could be improved by
charting the values, however.
------
j88439h84
Mario is a tool for manipulating data in your shell with Python functions. It
supports csv, json, toml, yaml, xml.
[https://github.com/python-mario/mario](https://github.com/python-mario/mario)
------
mlueft
[http://www.lueftenegger.at/produkte/csvsplitter-gratis-
progr...](http://www.lueftenegger.at/produkte/csvsplitter-gratis-programm-zum-
splitten-von-csv-dateien/)
------
cben
`keep-header` is a superb gem of do-one-thing composability.
------
QuadrupleA
Wouldn't a relational database be better and faster-querying and more space
efficient in most cases, e.g. sqlite? Wonder what use cases would favor large
collections of text / TSV files?
~~~
pletnes
If you’re getting TSV files from an external source and are interested in just
some aggregate results, you’ll get better performance by computing the smaller
results and storing these than if you first import, then process, then delete
the data in a SQL db. Also you don’t have to store the data twice.
------
ragerino
You might want to check out Apache Drill. It allows you to access structured
files as database tables through JDBC/ODBC.
~~~
riboflavin
Dremio replaces Drill for a lot of that too, some of the original team has
worked on it. Here's a tutorial from some folks who have used it:
[http://www.helicalinsight.com/technical-guide/connecting-
csv...](http://www.helicalinsight.com/technical-guide/connecting-csvexcel-via-
dremio/)
------
pfarnsworth
eBay has an api project that appears to have been half-completed and then
abandoned. Trying to understand exactly how to use their APIs is extremely
confusing because they don't have anything definitive and basically a
frankenstein-like API so I've given up. I frankly wouldn't trust anything
coming from eBay at this point, they appear to have extremely poor developer
support and no investment in making their APIs better to use.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Mysterious Go Master Blitzes Competition (Master said he's AlphaGo's Aja Huang) - jrwan
http://www.sixthtone.com/news/mysterious-go-master-blitzes-competition-rattles-game-community
======
jrwan
The identity of Master could be Aja Huang of AlphaGo.
[https://twitter.com/oth_mirai05/status/816641830234112000](https://twitter.com/oth_mirai05/status/816641830234112000)
[Translation: (Master [9D]: I'm Dr. Huang of AlphaGo)]
------
dekhn
Looks like it's AlphaGo:
[https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/816660463282954240](https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/816660463282954240)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Dropbox Can Now Automatically Sync Your Android Photos - newman314
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/23/dropbox-introduces-automatic-image-upload-on-android-and-it-has-more-up-its-sleeve/
======
tdtran
Sync is a misleading term here. What the new Android Dropbox app added is an
Automatic photo/video uploader, to a pre-defined folder on the server side.
One way.
If you want true two-way sync for Android, try Dropsync
(<https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync>). Another app
called FolderSync also seems quite good.
Full disclosure: I am the author of Dropsync
~~~
tdtran
I should add that Dropsync is also capable of Instant uploading, and not only
photos/videos. Any new/modified files in your designated local folders in your
phone/tablet.
------
ddw
It's funny because Ubuntu One was doing this already. For 5GB free. Works w/
Windows and Android/iOS too.
~~~
joelhaasnoot
Dropbox really had to play catchup on this one: lots of competitors offered
this (Sugarsync, Box, etc), and lots of addon tools for Android were popping
up with this functionality.
~~~
Florin_Andrei
It's just one of those ideas that make total sense.
------
Ygor
Are there any good and relevant articles on dropbox architecture or
implementation? Are they open about it, or is it more or less a secret?
~~~
andyjohnson0
[http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/3/14/6-lessons-from-
dro...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2011/3/14/6-lessons-from-dropbox-one-
million-files-saved-every-15-minu.html)
Kind of short on architectural detail. Links to a presentation video that I
didn't watch but which might have more detail.
------
vibragiel
Dropbox is also boosting the free space with each photo or video upload, up to
a maximum of +5GB, which is very nice. I already got them.
------
newman314
I wonder how Dropbox is going to handle the tradeoff of syncing lots of data
(to/from a space limited device) and cellular data limits. I sure hope there
is an option to only transfer over Wifi.
In testing DropBox's new client out:
1) There is no way to start the import wizard via menu dropdown.
2) There is no way to specify an alternate folder(s).
~~~
martythemaniak
There should definitely be a an option "Sync Photos over Wifi Only" and it
should probably be the default.
Google+ let's you choose, so I love snapping shots and then having them show
up there whenever I get home. Even with my unlimited data, I'd still prefer
wifi.
~~~
jpulgarin
The "Wifi Only" option exists.
------
jonasvp
Whoops, bad news for Syncly (<http://www.syncly.de/>) - does exactly that.
~~~
jahtari
It's nice to have a choice. Syncly is also useful for Strato Hidrive users as
it is now possible to use it as a storage backend.
------
nuttendorfer
I'd prefer it if they created a WP7 app.
------
rkwz
Skydrive does this natively in WP7.
~~~
zacharycohn
And WP7 isn't available on Android or iPhone.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Monodraw – Powerful ASCII art editor designed for the Mac - robin_reala
https://monodraw.helftone.com/
======
tedmiston
The support for ER diagrams etc looks pretty cool.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Cartoon Intro to Redux - elithrar
https://code-cartoons.com/a-cartoon-intro-to-redux-3afb775501a6
======
sotojuan
Very nice! Redux is really great and simple but visual aids like these can
help understand the data flow to someone not used to it the idea.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
The Quest for the Perfect Dark Mode (Gatsby/React) - joshwcomeau
https://joshwcomeau.com/gatsby/dark-mode/
======
joshwcomeau
Hey thread, author here.
I don't have the energy to debunk some of these replies, but let me quickly
say:
1\. The reason that this is a hard problem has nothing to do with React, or
Gatsby. It has to do with the strategy of precompiling HTML and not having a
runtime server, an approach with many many benefits (described here:
[https://joshwcomeau.com/gatsby/a-static-
future/](https://joshwcomeau.com/gatsby/a-static-future/)). If you're
wondering why anyone would put up with all this tomfoolery for a dark mode,
please read that so you can understand the benefits to this approach.
2\. "React is overkill for static sites" is a debate I am not trying to have,
but I can say that for my blog (the site that this post is about), React has
allowed me to do lots of cool things that would have been much harder
otherwise. And using Gatsby means that I have first-meaningful-paint
performance that beats a PHP template with no JS, since my site doesn't have
to do any database lookups or real-time HTML generation. I am not saying that
this is the right approach for every website, but it was 100% the right choice
for this one.
4\. Many of these replies are making suggestions that are discussed in the
article itself. CSS variables are not an alternative to this solution, they
_are_ the solution (my solution wouldn't work without them!). Please read the
post before forming an opinion about it.
I hope that helps clarify some things! Hope you're all doing alright and
staying home.
~~~
edhelas
> When you run gatsby build (or whatever your command is to build your site
> for production), the build system will make all the API calls needed to
> fetch the data necessary to generate every possible HTML page. It'll use
> React server-rendering APIs to turn a tree of React components into a big
> HTML document.
That's what we're calling "cache" in good ol' backend-code applications. It's
used for at least 15 years in e-commerce, blogs and many other "outdated
because now we have react-angular-vue.npm.io" CMS.
With "cache" you can store precompiled HTML pages server side, even only parts
of it (if you have 50.000 articles like you're explaining in your article).
You can even do that in front of your PHP/Ruby/Python app using HTTP caching
proxies such as Squid. Here it's even beyond "blistering fast", it's "ultra
blistering fast".
Do a static website, add a little bit of vanilla JS, want to refresh parts of
the pages ? It's called Ajax.
The moment I saw ReactJS redering moving server side to "pre-render" stuff I
saw that we we just looping again and again.
And again once your HTML is delivered, no one is stopping you to do a few line
of JS to add a simple class on top of your page to toggle the Night Mode. Want
to do it before the JS is executed (and don't have this ugly delay) ? Use a
cookie and set it on render time. If the user is forbidding cookies, well then
it's because he don't want to be tracked and don't want all those fancy
features. You can fallback to prefers-color-scheme.
Things were done simple, no need to reinvent everything each time :)
~~~
pcr910303
> Do a static website, add a little bit of vanilla JS, want to refresh parts
> of the pages ? It's called Ajax.
Before you become sarcastic, try to check out what Gatsby is. Gatsby _is_ a
static website generator that makes bunch of static HTML leaves a bit of
vanilla JS, and progressively enhances the site.
> Things were done simple, no need to reinvent everything each time :)
Things are there for a reason, why not just go to the 70s/80s where there was
no networking, servers, or bloated JS?
~~~
edhelas
> Gatsby is a static website generator that makes bunch of static HTML leaves
> a bit of vanilla JS, and progressively enhances the site.
That was exactly my point. We are currently seeing the whole thing looping :)
> Things are there for a reason, why not just go to the 70s/80s where there
> was no networking, servers, or bloated JS?
React/Angular/Vue can be used for very specific use cases indeed and can be
really powerful tools. But lets face it, for most of the websites, you don't
need those tools. It's even worst most of the time regarding browser
performances, accessibility , SEO, navigation.
Developers are always looking for shinning things. And in the end you end up
with really complex architecture.
I'm just saying that in 95% of the cases. You don't need those tools. But only
simple "old techs" that are battle tested and works flawlessly.
~~~
pcr910303
> That was exactly my point. We are currently seeing the whole thing looping.
If Gatsby is exactly the format you like, what's the problem? The fact that it
uses React as a dependency? Because... it uses 'npm', the worst package
manager of all history?
> But let's face it, for most of the websites, you don't need those tools.
I'm pretty sure asking this is against the guidelines, but I just can't resist
- have you ever worked with jQuery/vanilla JS and React?
If you ever, ever worked with them, one can easily see that the component
model React provides gives a great productivity boost.
For example, consider this[0] code from the old version of this blog: it
defines a 'Code' component that allows live previews of JS code. It would be
super tedious to do that every time you embed a JS example in your post.
> It's even worst most of the time regarding browser performances,
> accessibility , SEO, navigation.
No, it isn't. Gatsby is a 'static site generator', with most of the advantages
and disadvantages that they provide. Navigation is faster, not slower if
you've turned on JS (due to progressive enhancement) and accessibility has
nothing to do with React - it's the matter of proper markup (which React can
do pretty well).
[0]
[https://github.com/joshwcomeau/blog/blob/master/src/componen...](https://github.com/joshwcomeau/blog/blob/master/src/components/Code/Code.js#L29)
------
sneak
Reading this site reminded me of this:
[https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)
It's also worth mentioning that TFA's webpage _is broken_.
Despite all his dozens of lines of javascript for his "dark background"
feature, it _totally fails to render_ (resulting in a blindingly white blank
page, ha!) if you have cookies off (it's a static Gatsby site, which does not
need and cannot use cookies).
For all his hard work, his site is a blank page.
(Here's why, if you care: [https://sneak.berlin/20200211/your-
website/](https://sneak.berlin/20200211/your-website/))
------
edhelas
Damn React is complicated. I added Dark mode in my app in a few lines of CSS
([https://github.com/movim/movim/blob/master/public/theme/css/...](https://github.com/movim/movim/blob/master/public/theme/css/color.css#L13))
and used the variables across the whole code. I just have to toggle a class on
the body and boom, it works.
Guys, you don't need all that JS, seriously. It's slow, it's useless most of
the time. And in the end you have to spend hours for something so simple.
Theming the colors of your website is the role of one tech: CSS. That's it,
you don't needs layers and layers of Javascript to change that.
Let's go back to server side rendering, a bit of HTML + CSS and JS and we're
done.
~~~
saagarjha
The author had a specific desire for a toggle on a static site, which requires
a bit of persistent state that CSS can't really capture. (FWIW, I don't care
for a toggle and match the system theme on my website as well. But dismissing
the author's work with your "few lines of CSS" fails to account for the fact
that this dark mode does something different than yours.)
~~~
memco
This doesn't capture all the state correctly even. When you first load the
page, if it is dark mode the XKCD loads a black on white (aka light) image. If
you toggle to light mode and back to dark the XKCD comic becomes a black on
white image. The state of image filters isn't consistent in the current
implementation.
~~~
saagarjha
Oh, I'm not claiming it does it correctly. (In fact, I have another comment
that points out another issue:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22924571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22924571)).
But the claim that I was responding to made incorrect assumptions, and the
bugs in the implementation don't change that.
------
pcr910303
Seriously! Should every Gatsby blog post on HN have this useless 'React is
overkill for static sites' talk?
__ __ _Gatsby is a static site generator!_ __ __
Running Gatsby does NOT make the whole website run on React. It makes a bunch
of HTML pages that are statically served - and some JS progressively enhances
it.
The complexity in this blog post has nothing to do with React, it's due to the
author's complex requirements that are very beneficial to the user.
Yes, the web is full of bloated pages. No, that's not the topic here. It's so
frustrating for people to complain about React on this great post - comment
about the post, people!
------
WiseWeasel
Perfect dark mode doesn’t have a toggle; it uses the prefers-color-scheme CSS
media query to key off your OS theme preference. At that point, there's no
problem with Gatsby or Next.
~~~
barrowclift
Not necessarily true, I'd argue the "perfect" dark mode uses the system's
theme by default like you said, but still allows visitors to manually set
light or dark should they wish to view the site a particular way (perhaps they
prefer the light mode, etc.)
~~~
asiachick
Agreed. S.O. recently added dark mode and for some reason my eyes couldn't
focus on it. No idea why. I run my editors and my terminal in dark themes.
Maybe they didn't have enough contrast. Maybe the fonts are too small or too
thin. I have my browser set to "prefer dark mode" but I'm really happy S.O.
let me opt out.
------
welcometomiami
Did anyone else happen to read this and think of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark)?
~~~
sneilan1
Yes, I played that game thoroughly and I could not separate the project from
the game.
------
memco
The theme toggle button plays a sound when you click it. So not only does this
require state for the theme, but also the sound. Also curious is that clicking
the button to mute sound plays a sound.
I believe every OS defaults to silent actions for every button. Games, on the
other hand, often have sounds for hover/focus and click. I'm not sure what's
the better option, but if we're going to default to the OS for theme choice
shouldn't we also default to the OS for UI sound choice? I don't know if
there's any way to check that via CSS or JS. But I hope that if sites are
going to start implementing this more often that browsers at least expose an
API with a user preference if not the OS.
~~~
danappelxx
see: [https://www.joshwcomeau.com/react/announcing-use-sound-
react...](https://www.joshwcomeau.com/react/announcing-use-sound-react-hook/)
~~~
memco
Thanks! I did see this before. Didn't realize it was the same dev. They don't
address that Desktop OSes don't do sound for most things and also, I'm not
really sure I see sound used a lot in mobile apps, but maybe that's just the
apps I use? I think I would personally want more research and discussion on
this before I ventured down this path, but it is an interesting idea.
------
chrismorgan
I like my dark theme implementation which supports the same operations, but a
tad lighter, more flexible and not-Reacty: a toggle, falling back to the
prefers-color-scheme value if it hasn’t been toggled _or if JavaScript is
disabled_ (and I don’t think Josh’s does that), and avoiding a flash of
unstyled content. I wrote about it at [https://chrismorgan.info/blog/dark-
theme-implementation/](https://chrismorgan.info/blog/dark-theme-
implementation/).
The problem as a whole is definitely a tad fiddly, but I still think that
trying to do things in React is a substantial part of what’s making it
complicated here. I instead used regular stylesheets and the media attribute
to control the toggling, and I think that’s the best solution, because it’s
what makes it work perfectly with and without JavaScript. (I used external
stylesheets, but you could inline them if you wanted; the media attribute
works on <style> as well as <link>.)
Josh, I’d be interested in your opinion on it. It took me several iterations
to end up where I did (definitely didn’t occur to me to alter the media
attribute at first!), and I think it’d apply cleanly to such sites as yours,
and be better for the toggling.
------
darepublic
Dark mode shouldn't be harder with SSR apps, you would just send back the dark
mode CSS in the initial GET response. Complexity around this might be related
to trying to work with out of the box framework settings, but comparing this
problem to some advanced image recognition, while admittedly a joke.. is just
over-representing the problem imo. I'm sorry gatsby didn't give you an easy
way to do this, but if you understand the principles of web applications this
should not be an epic quest.
~~~
saagarjha
The problem is that the question of whether dark mode CSS should be applied is
only known once JavaScript can be executed on the page.
~~~
darepublic
That's the thing with SSR... (i.e. with Next) or with pre-rendering apps
before hand. In the initial GET request to the page, you also send a cookie
with user preference. Depending on their dark mode preference you can style
the page to be in dark mode as part of the server or pre-rendered markup -- no
JS required :o. Now.. how difficult that is to do with Gatsby I don't know.
But the fact that someone shot themselves in the foot with Gatsby, then
learned to hobble along on one foot isn't a cause for celebration imo.
~~~
saagarjha
I don't see how you could do that with a static site.
------
swlkr
Wow this website is really creative.
Not sure about the dark mode implementation, since it rendered a white screen
for me with no content on iOS, but on desktop it worked.
Also the general feel of the website is really nice, a lot of nice little
touches from the sounds to the "nonstop confetti party" when you sign up for
the newsletter.
~~~
noisem4ker
I'd rather stick with static web pages, thanks.
------
artursapek
We have had color schemes on Cryptowatch
([https://cryptowat.ch](https://cryptowat.ch)) for years, and since a year ago
we even let users create custom color schemes within the web app [1]
We use CSS variables for this. The stylesheet doesn't have any hard-coded
colors, it only references a set of several variables and many blends of these
variables. This way, you can let a user adjust a variable using a color picker
and the entire website adjusts dynamically as they do it. It also lets you
render any color scheme properly in your SSR (unlike the approach in this
article).
[1] [https://guides.cryptowat.ch/real-time-charting-
interface/cus...](https://guides.cryptowat.ch/real-time-charting-
interface/custom-theming)
~~~
bobbydreamer
Nice design
------
dgellow
How does the “shining stars effect” for the sentence “the perfect dark mode”
works? That’s really neat.
(I’m on mobile so cannot reverse)
~~~
mirthflat83
Looks like the author is generating span elements with random absolute
positioning
~~~
dgellow
Thanks!
------
mirthflat83
Wow. What a beautiful website!
------
animalgonzales
this is way too complicated and convoluted. just use global css selectors.
~~~
saagarjha
CSS selectors don't actually solve the problem the author had.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
3D visualization of binary data - playeren
https://codisec.com/veles/
======
playeren
Some sample views:
[https://twitter.com/doegox/status/811934445330714624](https://twitter.com/doegox/status/811934445330714624)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
D.C. Court: Accessing Public Information Is Not a Computer Crime - sohkamyung
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/dc-court-accessing-public-information-not-computer-crime
======
m-watson
It is nice to see this ruling, it makes scrapings legitimacy more concrete.
There was the court's rejection back in 2017 for LinkedIn's case[1] that made
an implicit statement but an actual ruling is helpful.
[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/court-rejects-
li...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/court-rejects-linkedin-
claim-that-unauthorized-scraping-is-hacking/)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Stereotype Is Killing Entrepreneurship - tryary
http://www.tryary.com/news/1236/how-the-silicon-valley-entrepren
======
mfishbein
Blocked by signup form
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
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"]
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.