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show hn: nasdaq dubstep
| lots of fun.this really needs to be properly eq'd though. watch these tutorials, and you will be able to make the thing sound 10x better with ~30 minutes work. it doesn't matter that the tutorials are for guitar music and are using specific eq plugins, the advice is universal. once your spectrum is less saturated, you'll be able to dial back the limiting as well.<link> | i've done about 4 years of research on sonification, which is using non-speech audio to represent patterns in data (<link> for some specifics). this article is a subset of sonification in some ways, since we're representing some quantitative data using auditory parameters.there's an entire class of scenarios where conventional hcis can't represent data for analysis: where people have an occupied visual sense (doctors during surgery), where people are mobile, where people are overloaded by visual data (stock analysts), where the visual sense isn't suited for extracting data from noise (during the voyager 2 mission), etc. we tend to rely only on our visual sense for communicating data, and as we start using computers for data display in more places, we're reaching the limitations of conventional hci.my research was on proving the viability of sonification - looking at the accuracy of comprehension, the cognitive and physiological processes, demonstrating shared mental processes with visual graph comprehension, etc. it's still something i'd love to revisit and commercialize someday. |
show hn: nasdaq dubstep
| i've done about 4 years of research on sonification, which is using non-speech audio to represent patterns in data (<link> for some specifics). this article is a subset of sonification in some ways, since we're representing some quantitative data using auditory parameters.there's an entire class of scenarios where conventional hcis can't represent data for analysis: where people have an occupied visual sense (doctors during surgery), where people are mobile, where people are overloaded by visual data (stock analysts), where the visual sense isn't suited for extracting data from noise (during the voyager 2 mission), etc. we tend to rely only on our visual sense for communicating data, and as we start using computers for data display in more places, we're reaching the limitations of conventional hci.my research was on proving the viability of sonification - looking at the accuracy of comprehension, the cognitive and physiological processes, demonstrating shared mental processes with visual graph comprehension, etc. it's still something i'd love to revisit and commercialize someday. | there's a joke in there somewhere about shorting and waiting for the drop. |
show hn: nasdaq dubstep
| there's a joke in there somewhere about shorting and waiting for the drop. | funny, if you actually sampled an entire trading day, you would hear the "drop" around 2pm.there are some traders that use sound alerts when trading short term, either using alerts on the nyse tick, or aggregating when certain companies are being hit on the bid or ask. |
show hn: nasdaq dubstep
| funny, if you actually sampled an entire trading day, you would hear the "drop" around 2pm.there are some traders that use sound alerts when trading short term, either using alerts on the nyse tick, or aggregating when certain companies are being hit on the bid or ask. | making kids in clubs listen to the stock market might be the greatest troll of all time. |
ask hn: autoposting script?
so as some of you may have noticed, the last 5 or so xkcd's posted have been by me. i wrote up a little autoposting script at some ungodly hour and set it up in a cron to post new comics. i am not doing this for the karma, since anyone looking at my submission history (which i assume yc would do) would notice the source of whatever karma i get. i post because i figured someone would post the xkcd at some point anyway, and i may as well save people the time.<p>the issue is, i've seem enough negative reactions to warrant concern. while nothing is preventing me from posting the latest comic manually each day, and considering xkcd's low volume i feel it's not a problem, i have no desire to piss anyone off. i'm also curious about how the community feels about this practice. so tell me hn: is such a practice (in the volume of 3 submissions a week) offensive? if there are a significant number of upvotes on comments against me, i will stop this practice, but i feel that tasteful bots, when used in moderation, would make things easier and more efficient on hn, though i can definitely see a potential issue with it snowballing (i.e. posting every techcrunch entry as someone previously suggested).<p>also, how do people feel about the idea of having something like an xkcd bot account, that way no one in particular benefits from the karma gain? while i recognize that most of us have xkcd in our readers, there are some who only want to view the interesting ones, which is what upvoting is meant to do anyway.<p>if anyone has been bothered by my use of an autoposter i apologize, i never meant to offend :). | this is a terrible, horrible idea, and i think you should turn off your autosubmitting script.i think users should only submit things they personally think are awesome and would interest other people.autoposting scripts remove the human element of "sharing links" which is what this site was built on. | what's the point of copying every article of anything which has its own rss feed to news.yc?anyone who wants to see every xkcd will already have the rss feed in their reader. posting it here is just noise. |
ask hn: autoposting script?
so as some of you may have noticed, the last 5 or so xkcd's posted have been by me. i wrote up a little autoposting script at some ungodly hour and set it up in a cron to post new comics. i am not doing this for the karma, since anyone looking at my submission history (which i assume yc would do) would notice the source of whatever karma i get. i post because i figured someone would post the xkcd at some point anyway, and i may as well save people the time.<p>the issue is, i've seem enough negative reactions to warrant concern. while nothing is preventing me from posting the latest comic manually each day, and considering xkcd's low volume i feel it's not a problem, i have no desire to piss anyone off. i'm also curious about how the community feels about this practice. so tell me hn: is such a practice (in the volume of 3 submissions a week) offensive? if there are a significant number of upvotes on comments against me, i will stop this practice, but i feel that tasteful bots, when used in moderation, would make things easier and more efficient on hn, though i can definitely see a potential issue with it snowballing (i.e. posting every techcrunch entry as someone previously suggested).<p>also, how do people feel about the idea of having something like an xkcd bot account, that way no one in particular benefits from the karma gain? while i recognize that most of us have xkcd in our readers, there are some who only want to view the interesting ones, which is what upvoting is meant to do anyway.<p>if anyone has been bothered by my use of an autoposter i apologize, i never meant to offend :). | what's the point of copying every article of anything which has its own rss feed to news.yc?anyone who wants to see every xkcd will already have the rss feed in their reader. posting it here is just noise. | don't do that.if the community wants everything from a particular site submitted then let's ask pg to scrape their rss feed.i'm sometimes tempted to post everything from my blog, but i look at things and decide whether i think the community here will be interested: <link> |
ask hn: autoposting script?
so as some of you may have noticed, the last 5 or so xkcd's posted have been by me. i wrote up a little autoposting script at some ungodly hour and set it up in a cron to post new comics. i am not doing this for the karma, since anyone looking at my submission history (which i assume yc would do) would notice the source of whatever karma i get. i post because i figured someone would post the xkcd at some point anyway, and i may as well save people the time.<p>the issue is, i've seem enough negative reactions to warrant concern. while nothing is preventing me from posting the latest comic manually each day, and considering xkcd's low volume i feel it's not a problem, i have no desire to piss anyone off. i'm also curious about how the community feels about this practice. so tell me hn: is such a practice (in the volume of 3 submissions a week) offensive? if there are a significant number of upvotes on comments against me, i will stop this practice, but i feel that tasteful bots, when used in moderation, would make things easier and more efficient on hn, though i can definitely see a potential issue with it snowballing (i.e. posting every techcrunch entry as someone previously suggested).<p>also, how do people feel about the idea of having something like an xkcd bot account, that way no one in particular benefits from the karma gain? while i recognize that most of us have xkcd in our readers, there are some who only want to view the interesting ones, which is what upvoting is meant to do anyway.<p>if anyone has been bothered by my use of an autoposter i apologize, i never meant to offend :). | don't do that.if the community wants everything from a particular site submitted then let's ask pg to scrape their rss feed.i'm sometimes tempted to post everything from my blog, but i look at things and decide whether i think the community here will be interested: <link> | is really every xkcd cartoon appearing on hn? i don't subscribe to xkcd, and i was hoping only a few actually get posted here.the "problem" of bots and news sites is an interesting one, though. but why not experiment on reddit, rather than hn? |
ask hn: autoposting script?
so as some of you may have noticed, the last 5 or so xkcd's posted have been by me. i wrote up a little autoposting script at some ungodly hour and set it up in a cron to post new comics. i am not doing this for the karma, since anyone looking at my submission history (which i assume yc would do) would notice the source of whatever karma i get. i post because i figured someone would post the xkcd at some point anyway, and i may as well save people the time.<p>the issue is, i've seem enough negative reactions to warrant concern. while nothing is preventing me from posting the latest comic manually each day, and considering xkcd's low volume i feel it's not a problem, i have no desire to piss anyone off. i'm also curious about how the community feels about this practice. so tell me hn: is such a practice (in the volume of 3 submissions a week) offensive? if there are a significant number of upvotes on comments against me, i will stop this practice, but i feel that tasteful bots, when used in moderation, would make things easier and more efficient on hn, though i can definitely see a potential issue with it snowballing (i.e. posting every techcrunch entry as someone previously suggested).<p>also, how do people feel about the idea of having something like an xkcd bot account, that way no one in particular benefits from the karma gain? while i recognize that most of us have xkcd in our readers, there are some who only want to view the interesting ones, which is what upvoting is meant to do anyway.<p>if anyone has been bothered by my use of an autoposter i apologize, i never meant to offend :). | is really every xkcd cartoon appearing on hn? i don't subscribe to xkcd, and i was hoping only a few actually get posted here.the "problem" of bots and news sites is an interesting one, though. but why not experiment on reddit, rather than hn? | it's clear now that many people have thought of or implemented autosubmitter bots. this could get ugly.maybe there should be a news.yc spinoff exclusively devoted to karma-bot wars so that human users don't have to witness the carnage on the front page. |
how did academic publishers acquire these feudal powers?
| yes this is a problem. occasionally i have to to resort to emailing authors directly and asking for a copy of the paper - in most cases they have been obliging.as far as i am concerned publicly funded research papers should (must) be freely available. if the public are funding it then the public has a right to the fruits of this investment. and newspapers must be able to link to or reference a source when they quote or review academic literature (in fact i think it should be law that they have to).a very simple solution would be for authors or institutions to make copies freely available on their websites. i can only assume that they are not allowed to, due to copyright imposed by the journals.it's ironic that the invention of the www was driven by the need for an easy way to freely distribute and share academic literature.p.s. there's also a strong case for privately funded research to be made public too. companies who make product claims based on privately funded research for example absolutely must make this research ("research") available for the public to review. it is notoriously hard to get pharma firms to cough up the papers which support their claims for the latest wonder drug. | i heard an interesting argument from my advisor (a very famous mathematician). i strongly disagree with it, but it is the only argument i have heard for keeping this system in place.his argument was the following: in many fields such as laboratory science, research is expensive; one has to apply for grants and then spend the money, and these departments have large budgets, and this all looks good to deans. if a department is going through a lot of money, then it must be prestigious, important, and doing good work.i heard a joke once that mathematicians are the second-cheapest academics to hire because all we require is a pencil, paper, and a wastebasket. but, in fact, we require online access to all these journals, for which we have to spend a ton of money. spending all this money makes us look good to our deans, and lends prestige and the look of importance to our department, and allows us to compete with other departments for resources.i think it's a bunch of bs, frankly, but it's the one time i heard the existing system defended, so perhaps it's worth bringing up. |
how did academic publishers acquire these feudal powers?
| i heard an interesting argument from my advisor (a very famous mathematician). i strongly disagree with it, but it is the only argument i have heard for keeping this system in place.his argument was the following: in many fields such as laboratory science, research is expensive; one has to apply for grants and then spend the money, and these departments have large budgets, and this all looks good to deans. if a department is going through a lot of money, then it must be prestigious, important, and doing good work.i heard a joke once that mathematicians are the second-cheapest academics to hire because all we require is a pencil, paper, and a wastebasket. but, in fact, we require online access to all these journals, for which we have to spend a ton of money. spending all this money makes us look good to our deans, and lends prestige and the look of importance to our department, and allows us to compete with other departments for resources.i think it's a bunch of bs, frankly, but it's the one time i heard the existing system defended, so perhaps it's worth bringing up. | reminds me of the time i wanted to read chadwick's 1932 paper "possible existence of a neutron" in which he mentioned the discovery of the neutron.<link> |
how did academic publishers acquire these feudal powers?
| reminds me of the time i wanted to read chadwick's 1932 paper "possible existence of a neutron" in which he mentioned the discovery of the neutron.<link> | it doesn't have to be this way, and individual fields can break away (to a greater or lesser extent). for instance:in natural language processing / computational linguistics, the professional society (association for computational linguistics, acl) was its own publisher, with no profit motive, and so authors for its conferences and journal never signed over copyright (merely granted permission to acl to publish the work). for years, it was quite standard for nearly all of the authors to post ps or pdf versions of their papers on their own websites. then acl started accepting pdf instead of camera-ready, and just posted the pdfs themselves; and then they started scanning the back-catalogue.the result of this is that the vast majority of all nlp/cl papers ever written (excluding only those published elsewhere, e.g. in aaai, and a very few missing proceedings from fifty years ago) are available online, for free, in pdf, at <link> .this is how science should be. |
how did academic publishers acquire these feudal powers?
| it doesn't have to be this way, and individual fields can break away (to a greater or lesser extent). for instance:in natural language processing / computational linguistics, the professional society (association for computational linguistics, acl) was its own publisher, with no profit motive, and so authors for its conferences and journal never signed over copyright (merely granted permission to acl to publish the work). for years, it was quite standard for nearly all of the authors to post ps or pdf versions of their papers on their own websites. then acl started accepting pdf instead of camera-ready, and just posted the pdfs themselves; and then they started scanning the back-catalogue.the result of this is that the vast majority of all nlp/cl papers ever written (excluding only those published elsewhere, e.g. in aaai, and a very few missing proceedings from fifty years ago) are available online, for free, in pdf, at <link> .this is how science should be. | one possible disrupter is the open-access model used by the social science research network, <link>, which was founded in 1994 and seems to be extensively used in the legal academic community.ssrn makes posted pdfs available for free download. the wikipedia entry says that "in economics, and to some degree in law (especially in the field of law and economics), almost all papers are now first published as preprints on ssrn and/or on other paper distribution networks such as repec before being submitted to an academic journal."quality and prestige metrics: ssrn ranks posted papers by number of downloads, and it also compiles citation lists---if i successfully find paper x at ssrn, i can look up which other ssrn-available papers have cited paper x. (sounds like a job for google's pagerank algorithm, no?)according to ssrn's faq, it's produced by an independent privately held corporation. i assume that means they're a for-profit company. i don't know how they make their money, other than that they will sell you a printed hard copy of a paper, presumably print-on-demand. |
zed shaw - the acl is dead - cusec 2008
recorded almost a year ago (before the bank busts, and shortly after zed’s first famous rant), this presentation was given to about 400 canadian undergraduate software engineers and computer scientists. zed talks about management and his acl-killer at a bank job accompanied by factor-powered slideware. also: steaks, strippers, and statistics.<p>n.b. this video might damage your vision of zed swearing all the time and may make it seem like the last year of ranting was a terrible joke gone wrong. oops.<p>p.s. - check out this year’s lineup (ingalls, stallman, bryant, culver, hwang, and bowkett are just the keynotes). this is one of canada's best kept secrets, and tickets are super cheap. | notes from lunchtime viewing of first 40 min------------------------------------~9:29: "law is actually kind of a turing complete language"law is fuzzy; acls are fuzzy. acls can't handle real law because they're not turing complete.~11:20: had a business manager learn ruby, had him implement poorly specified/tough features --2 result: he modified/eliminated requirement~12:20: a bunch of if statements are easier 8 better than an acl~13:50: in one case, 1000 users and 1000 containers would have required 270,000 acl entries to implement one compliance rules; and 5 minute polling updates, because rule was time-based; --2 couldn't audit, handle real-time changes; would've required 12 beefy boxes to execute.14:40: instead, re-write all rules in 400 lines of ruby; analysts could read the code and say if implementation was right.15:45: so a language wins, right? no -- "this is where the suck begins" -- where management comes and crushes your soul. bad product was substrate for document management system.17:50: how do they sell this stuff? connections, subterfuge? no.... "steak and strippers, baby."19:00: "this is one reason i want women to be in charge."20:00: "what happens when they give you an mba is they give you a lobotomy... and you walk out going 'synergy! synergy! synergy!'"21:00: mbas are trained in manufacturing -- programming is not manufacturing -- you're going to work in an environment where they think you're worker bees on an assembly line.22:00: so what to do about it?1) managers see people sitting there, they think nothing is going on. if management says "i demand all of your creativity but trust none of your judgement," you have to gather evidence that makes you more credible. you have to be objective. try out whatever crappy technology that they're proposing.2) develop alternatives: if their crappy technology is good enough, stop; but if not, try out alternatives before suggesting.3) statistics; develop some pretty graphs. e.g., zed's team built a demo server, showing slow performance. without those, he would've had no evidence to contradict the sysadmin who was saying his tweaks had helped. be prepared for intensely technical arguments, too.4) admit technical deficiencies.~29:30: if none of this works, and they won't take it, build it anyway and then sell it to them or their competitors. the client can be your first customer. good way to start a company.~30:00: our doc management system is very simple, 4400 lines of ruby plus some samba modifications, and better than anything else out there.drools -- jboss rules engine -- "blows ass" -- just use ruby instead.~31:30: figure out roles first, with a role resolver -- draws on ldap etc. -- 30 lines of ruby -- now, ~200 lines of ruby, covers all bizarre corner cases, easy to add new rules, easy to fix existing rules.~33:30: and they still wanted the crappy older thing. at this point, it's all the social problem. what mattered was the old product had the same name. "document store 2000" vs. "document store new gen" -- completely different, but easier to get through manager's manager's procurement process -- "that's the stupidity you deal with in the real world".35:15: how do we win? we kept hammering. they sent out their best guy. i had him implement the toughest rule, the one requiring 200,000 acl entries. then had him explain to his managers why it wouldn't work. had nothing to do with tech.36:15: this stuff will kill you. how do you keep your soul through all of this? [poll audience for years of education] -- "it don't matter" -- you're a factory worker.37:30: "business leaders don't really like you, because they need you, and they don't understand anything you do. ... and the sales people know this; they know if they go to your boss, and give them steak and strippers...."~38:40: fight your hardest not to be a corporate coder: your life as a geek or a coder should be all about exploring some new domain that no one else gets -- you can only go to conferences and talk to other geeks about what you do. a corporate coder works only on the stuff he's supposed to on one language, and never touches code otherwise. you should go home and do something fun with technology.40:00: how to avoid not getting burnt out by day job? i.e., how to avoid losing your soul?[40:30 stopped watching, back to work.]------------------------------------ | wow, the guy doesn't have horns!he's actually really entertaining to listen to. i like his real-world examples of problems.steak will never be the same. |
zed shaw - the acl is dead - cusec 2008
recorded almost a year ago (before the bank busts, and shortly after zed’s first famous rant), this presentation was given to about 400 canadian undergraduate software engineers and computer scientists. zed talks about management and his acl-killer at a bank job accompanied by factor-powered slideware. also: steaks, strippers, and statistics.<p>n.b. this video might damage your vision of zed swearing all the time and may make it seem like the last year of ranting was a terrible joke gone wrong. oops.<p>p.s. - check out this year’s lineup (ingalls, stallman, bryant, culver, hwang, and bowkett are just the keynotes). this is one of canada's best kept secrets, and tickets are super cheap. | wow, the guy doesn't have horns!he's actually really entertaining to listen to. i like his real-world examples of problems.steak will never be the same. | zed is probably the only blog author i would really like to meet in real life. and this video seems pretty close to what i imagined he'd be like. |
zed shaw - the acl is dead - cusec 2008
recorded almost a year ago (before the bank busts, and shortly after zed’s first famous rant), this presentation was given to about 400 canadian undergraduate software engineers and computer scientists. zed talks about management and his acl-killer at a bank job accompanied by factor-powered slideware. also: steaks, strippers, and statistics.<p>n.b. this video might damage your vision of zed swearing all the time and may make it seem like the last year of ranting was a terrible joke gone wrong. oops.<p>p.s. - check out this year’s lineup (ingalls, stallman, bryant, culver, hwang, and bowkett are just the keynotes). this is one of canada's best kept secrets, and tickets are super cheap. | zed is probably the only blog author i would really like to meet in real life. and this video seems pretty close to what i imagined he'd be like. | zed is going to become important. it's easy to write, but it's not easy to look good on video, as well as have good video timing. he's not perfect, but he's good.if he sticks to his rant-personality, he will sooner or later become on of the stars of the internet. |
zed shaw - the acl is dead - cusec 2008
recorded almost a year ago (before the bank busts, and shortly after zed’s first famous rant), this presentation was given to about 400 canadian undergraduate software engineers and computer scientists. zed talks about management and his acl-killer at a bank job accompanied by factor-powered slideware. also: steaks, strippers, and statistics.<p>n.b. this video might damage your vision of zed swearing all the time and may make it seem like the last year of ranting was a terrible joke gone wrong. oops.<p>p.s. - check out this year’s lineup (ingalls, stallman, bryant, culver, hwang, and bowkett are just the keynotes). this is one of canada's best kept secrets, and tickets are super cheap. | zed is going to become important. it's easy to write, but it's not easy to look good on video, as well as have good video timing. he's not perfect, but he's good.if he sticks to his rant-personality, he will sooner or later become on of the stars of the internet. | i love that he's saying "the acl is dead." this should be said loudly and often. maybe it'll get through the heads of management out there. heck, it needs to get through the heads of a lot of programmers.modern security and access controls need functionality like capabilities. |
time to get past facebook and invent a new future
| this article is spot on in its thesis, though not always in its arguments.everyone is convinced -- because the people who work in marketing are happy because they can sell ads -- that social media is an important thing. it is not.social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. making these activities digital is not changing society or improving lives. it is the same society and the same lives, with more time spent on these activities. never has anyone gone to bed thinking "gosh, i wish i had spent more time looking at funny pictures of strangers today." people often go to bed regretting not doing what they could have done when instead they were on facebook and twitter and [insert the names of 90% of the startups you have heard of].every founder will go on and on about "changing the world" if you let him. this is as if changing the world were something worth doing for its own sake. if you see a problem that is worth fixing and you fix it, then the change effected is important and even virtuous. but the key is that problem must be worth solving. just because a petulant and spoiled american wants his iced mocha faster does not mean that speeding up sales of mocha is a worthy problem. can you make money doing it? probably.i went to school to become an engineer (i'm 24) because i thought that computers and the internet were going to make invention and innovation possible even for people who did not work for industrial laboratories. maybe the hugely reduced barriers to entry into the technology sector that resulted from cheap computers and good programming tools would lead young and eager people of brilliance to found ambitious companies to finally -- aren't we all sick of being exasperated by the mediocrity of culture and politics in the past 20 years? -- steer human life into better modes of existence and a new frontier of boldness. sure, the internet cannot do this all on its own, but is such a powerful and promising tool, that maybe it would start things.this has not happened. there are a few gems like spacex and willow garage that seek out challenge in this way, but they are doing it independent of the cheapness and openness that computers now allow. worse, many of the companies that have been founded are dedicated to aggressively ruining the internet by making it a place for sucking up private information, showing ads, and selling the same old useless junk.what it seems to me this article is about is that innovation in technology right now is about money, not about betterment. a billion dollars was just spent on instagram. to do what? if you are so in the bubble of the "startup world" that you do not see the self-evident absurdity of a situation in which that is a possible and reasonable event, you are become blinded.stop thinking like a marketer and think like an inventor with balls. stop trying to get rich unless you are getting rich by doing something that is worth doing.i write this as someone who honestly loves technology, hacking, the hacker ethic, and hn, but i walk around palo alto every day being slowly crushed by disappointment. the problem is not that the good hackers are being spread across too many companies, it is that too many companies are not doing things worthy of hackers. | its very difficult for me to ascertain if its just me or the following is a growing sentiment... i'm not wowed by hardly anything that comes out of consumer internet tech anymore.before anyone gets out a pitchfork i have actively contributed and worked on products in the past that are part of the behemoth of services/apps/sites etc that have become mundane to me so i deserve my own criticism as well.but the majority of launches especially for the past couple years in the media seems like the same deck chairs (mobile/social/photos/ads/etc) rearranged in a different order. overtime ive just lost interest in tech blogs in that i rarely see something that i'd consider genuinely interesting tech from a product or engineering or consumer perspective. maybe i'm just getting old?on the other hand if i'm not out of touch it seems like it could be a great time to step out of 'traditional' consumer tech and push on some of the 'new' things like 3d printing, robotics, computer vision, etc as well as seek out applications towards other industries (education, health, food, etc.) |
time to get past facebook and invent a new future
| its very difficult for me to ascertain if its just me or the following is a growing sentiment... i'm not wowed by hardly anything that comes out of consumer internet tech anymore.before anyone gets out a pitchfork i have actively contributed and worked on products in the past that are part of the behemoth of services/apps/sites etc that have become mundane to me so i deserve my own criticism as well.but the majority of launches especially for the past couple years in the media seems like the same deck chairs (mobile/social/photos/ads/etc) rearranged in a different order. overtime ive just lost interest in tech blogs in that i rarely see something that i'd consider genuinely interesting tech from a product or engineering or consumer perspective. maybe i'm just getting old?on the other hand if i'm not out of touch it seems like it could be a great time to step out of 'traditional' consumer tech and push on some of the 'new' things like 3d printing, robotics, computer vision, etc as well as seek out applications towards other industries (education, health, food, etc.) | i fail to understand this article because i think there are so many different topics the author touches on.. innovation. culture. tech business and startups..i think the author is conflating some of these concepts or just misunderstanding some. for instance, innovation. what does facebook have to do with innovation? i'm sure there are a few innovative things they have done, but in my view the outline for the broad concept of what their social service accomplishes had been drawn clearly before their rise to dominance. they just did it better than most, and reached a critical mass in terms of user base.if the author is simply bored of taking pictures on a phone and beaming them halfway around the world because it's now commonplace... i'm sorry, i don't know what to tell you. there will be another shiny new toy invented that will be another great extension or augmentation of the human experience for you to enjoy in a few years, doubtlessly. so cheer up.one thing i know is true: all of these things that are being built on the internet and the internet itself.. they are just different vehicles for human expression; they are all extensions of the human thought, the human environment; all facets of ourselves as a species.i think the author of this article flounders about in coming up with what is "next" because they don't really understand the reasons why the successful products appeared in the first place:nobody at facebook invented the idea that humans like to be in contact with each other.nobody at pinterest came up with the idea that humans collect things that they find interesting. humans have been doing that for as long as we've been around.nobody at instagram invented the idea that humans are creatures who crave artistic expression. when we didn't have canvas or quill or a camera, we painted on cave walls.all of these companies just fascilitated a need that was already there, whether people were concious of it or not. i would argue that these products were inevitable, it was just a matter of who would get there first.if you want to try to answer the obtuse question of "what is next", a question that comes from a confused origin.... you only have to study human nature. that would be my answer. if the author is soliciting advise about the next hot startup to invest in, that's a totally different ballgame. |
time to get past facebook and invent a new future
| i fail to understand this article because i think there are so many different topics the author touches on.. innovation. culture. tech business and startups..i think the author is conflating some of these concepts or just misunderstanding some. for instance, innovation. what does facebook have to do with innovation? i'm sure there are a few innovative things they have done, but in my view the outline for the broad concept of what their social service accomplishes had been drawn clearly before their rise to dominance. they just did it better than most, and reached a critical mass in terms of user base.if the author is simply bored of taking pictures on a phone and beaming them halfway around the world because it's now commonplace... i'm sorry, i don't know what to tell you. there will be another shiny new toy invented that will be another great extension or augmentation of the human experience for you to enjoy in a few years, doubtlessly. so cheer up.one thing i know is true: all of these things that are being built on the internet and the internet itself.. they are just different vehicles for human expression; they are all extensions of the human thought, the human environment; all facets of ourselves as a species.i think the author of this article flounders about in coming up with what is "next" because they don't really understand the reasons why the successful products appeared in the first place:nobody at facebook invented the idea that humans like to be in contact with each other.nobody at pinterest came up with the idea that humans collect things that they find interesting. humans have been doing that for as long as we've been around.nobody at instagram invented the idea that humans are creatures who crave artistic expression. when we didn't have canvas or quill or a camera, we painted on cave walls.all of these companies just fascilitated a need that was already there, whether people were concious of it or not. i would argue that these products were inevitable, it was just a matter of who would get there first.if you want to try to answer the obtuse question of "what is next", a question that comes from a confused origin.... you only have to study human nature. that would be my answer. if the author is soliciting advise about the next hot startup to invest in, that's a totally different ballgame. | why can't the next area of innovation be in education? i’m not talking solely about the transition from print to digital, but rather a complete reset on education with technology at its core rather than at the periphery? rethink the status quo, with no sacred cows (teachers, buses, grades, testing, - even classrooms all up for grabs).imagine tablet devices or similar technology that provide individualized, adaptive teaching programs that exhibit techniques that allowed students to progress each at their own pace, using highly innovative and entertaining forms of education.imagine all progress (and regress) made by the student as a form of continual testing and as gates to increasingly more complex subjects, with programs that adapt to a student’s areas of weakness (and strengths), hitting at core concepts from different angles and in ways that appeal to that individuals ideal method of learning, until that student was able to progress to the next concept, or skip and then revisit once a complementary concepts is are understood that would augment that student’s ability to master the concept they skipped earlier.imagine technological innovation that allowed us to take a less linear approach to certain subjects, which is the only method today given the constraints of 1:* teacher:students and the invisible “bar” which forces certain students to move at the lowest common denominator pace, while taxing other students to keep, such as those that have difficulty learning in the cookie cutter way.imagine applications that blend multiple subjects (math, science, history), presenting the material not using your standard “preach at you” teaching technique, but instead using role-based or video game style interactive learning that makes the kid want to study, gets excited about the subject.envision a system where the best teachers become the product managers that formulate the logic and program flow for those innovative applications, and your run-of-the-mill teacher becomes a custodian for keeping things under control while the students interact with their devices, and of course, with each other, as social interaction is essential for their well-being as well.sure there would be many hurdles, not the least of these being teachers unions and the hurdle of changing centuries of preconceived notions of how education should be accomplished, but hey, the author asked for what the next revolutionary idea could be, and a transformation in education with technology at its core has my vote. |
time to get past facebook and invent a new future
| why can't the next area of innovation be in education? i’m not talking solely about the transition from print to digital, but rather a complete reset on education with technology at its core rather than at the periphery? rethink the status quo, with no sacred cows (teachers, buses, grades, testing, - even classrooms all up for grabs).imagine tablet devices or similar technology that provide individualized, adaptive teaching programs that exhibit techniques that allowed students to progress each at their own pace, using highly innovative and entertaining forms of education.imagine all progress (and regress) made by the student as a form of continual testing and as gates to increasingly more complex subjects, with programs that adapt to a student’s areas of weakness (and strengths), hitting at core concepts from different angles and in ways that appeal to that individuals ideal method of learning, until that student was able to progress to the next concept, or skip and then revisit once a complementary concepts is are understood that would augment that student’s ability to master the concept they skipped earlier.imagine technological innovation that allowed us to take a less linear approach to certain subjects, which is the only method today given the constraints of 1:* teacher:students and the invisible “bar” which forces certain students to move at the lowest common denominator pace, while taxing other students to keep, such as those that have difficulty learning in the cookie cutter way.imagine applications that blend multiple subjects (math, science, history), presenting the material not using your standard “preach at you” teaching technique, but instead using role-based or video game style interactive learning that makes the kid want to study, gets excited about the subject.envision a system where the best teachers become the product managers that formulate the logic and program flow for those innovative applications, and your run-of-the-mill teacher becomes a custodian for keeping things under control while the students interact with their devices, and of course, with each other, as social interaction is essential for their well-being as well.sure there would be many hurdles, not the least of these being teachers unions and the hurdle of changing centuries of preconceived notions of how education should be accomplished, but hey, the author asked for what the next revolutionary idea could be, and a transformation in education with technology at its core has my vote. | maybe i'm missing the purpose of the article, but i am responding to how i interpreted it.what will our future be like if we all focus our lives around little boxes in our hands rather than the vast open spaces around us?perhaps we should invent a future where the technology are the tools we use to enhance our life, not control our life. in star trek, people weren't addicted to padds or spend every living moment in the holo deck. in fact the episodes where technology controlled people, we recognized the technology as evil.invent something to enhance our lives, not control them. |
court of human rights: convictions for file-sharing violate human rights
| why are falkvinge.net posts still upvoted here? this guy is a quack with no grasp of the law whatsoever.the linked analysis on the blog contains the real consequences of this ruling:- posting pictures online that one took himself of someone else's dresses can constitute copyright infringement (not so interesting, this has long been the case - but it's a point that often gets the i-hate-copyright quacks up in arms)- the distinction was made between 'for monetary benefit' or 'for the public good'. the 'public good' to be interpreted narrowly - saying 'i uploaded the new metallica album to the pirate bay is my way of sharing culture' is not 'for the public good' (this last point was not made explicitly in the ruling or the analysis but it's implicit from all the previous case law; it would be interesting to see a judgement otherwise, but to the best of my knowledge the ecthr has so far even refused to just hear cases based on this argument)- furthermore, to quote from the analysis : "speech, messages, pictures and content which are merely money driven do not enjoy the added value of the protection guaranteed by article 10 of the convention. in the court’s view, the margin of appreciation in such circumstances is a very wide one, even in a case where the interference by the authorities takes the form of a criminal conviction or a very high award of damages, both ‘sanctions’ with a risk of having a chilling effect." this is merely reinforcing existing rulings at various levels that got the general interwebs riled up - "it's inhuman to convict somebody to millions in damages to run the pirate bay!" sorry buddy, ecthr just said it isn't.- choice idiocy, typical falkvinge style:"when this court makes a decision, that decision gets constitutional status in all of europe (except for belarus, which is not a signatory)."oh please. ok, not everybody has to be a lawyer, but at least read <link> before making dramatic claims like this. also, using words like 'constitution' that have very different meanings between legal systems (hint: it usually functions very differently in civil law systems as it does in the us) usually only adds confusion; in this case, i'm not sure if it's deliberate or just because of general incompetence."a court that tries somebody for violating the copyright monopoly must now also show that a conviction is necessary to defend democracy itself in order to convict."what? what the court said was that the 3-step test established in many other aspects of ecthr rulings apply here as well; he even quoted it one paragraph above his claim: "exceptions can be made to human rights according to a well-defined three-step test: the verdict must be necessary in a democratic society, 0etc2"how he got from that to what he claims, i can only ascribe to acute illiteracy.please, sensible people on the internet: don't get your case law reporting / legal advice from falkvinge.net. if you think his reasoning will help you defend your case in court if you even end up there for copyright infringement, you'll be in for a very rude awakening. | there was a good explanation of what this actually means on reddit [1].[1] <link> |
court of human rights: convictions for file-sharing violate human rights
| there was a good explanation of what this actually means on reddit [1].[1] <link> | in addition to roel_v's very cogent dismantling of the article, i'd like to point out a separate issue: european copyright law is generally based on a different premise than american copyright law. european copyright law is generally based on the moral right of an author to control access to his original work. if you look at the history of copyright, the u.s. has in an number of cases expanded copyright domestically to match broader protections under international treaties reflecting european laws. |
court of human rights: convictions for file-sharing violate human rights
| in addition to roel_v's very cogent dismantling of the article, i'd like to point out a separate issue: european copyright law is generally based on a different premise than american copyright law. european copyright law is generally based on the moral right of an author to control access to his original work. if you look at the history of copyright, the u.s. has in an number of cases expanded copyright domestically to match broader protections under international treaties reflecting european laws. | interesting, very interesting, maybe we will be able to steer copyright back toward its original purpose ( block plagiarism )copyright purpose was not preventing people from getting your work for free, it was to prevent them to pay for your work to someone you did not authorized, like some crazy publishers of 16th century that would happily sell copies of books, even books not complete yet, without paying authors. |
court of human rights: convictions for file-sharing violate human rights
| interesting, very interesting, maybe we will be able to steer copyright back toward its original purpose ( block plagiarism )copyright purpose was not preventing people from getting your work for free, it was to prevent them to pay for your work to someone you did not authorized, like some crazy publishers of 16th century that would happily sell copies of books, even books not complete yet, without paying authors. | there's a long explanation of the ruling here:<link> |
the day my brain forgot where my back was
| taking a bigger picture:muscle atrophy is one of the biggest causes of reduced quality of life in the elderly (and also the not so elderly). women in particular are susceptible to this due to their smaller amount of muscle mass to begin with and the general cultural aversion to women undertaking resistance exercise. my own experience (as a man and admitted gym rat) is that resistance training sorts out my back problem (and generally improves my life in other ways).so, who's for deadlifts? :) | responding to csarva(<link> can't seem to reply to individual messages anymore):2[re-]building core strengththat's [re-]building strength in core muscles (the ones that hold your skeleton together)... as opposed to motor muscles(those who move your limbs)... that is the crux of the whole article, and i think it makes a lot of difference. the way you put it leads to think to core moral strength.edit: the excruciating pain is also not core to the article. in her case, damaged nerves lead to muscle fatigue being manifested in lack of power and quite pointedly lack of pain in certain circumstances when pain was to be expected (though she also describes experiencing said excruciating pain).edit2: actually, although the article is interspersed with passages of personal drama (it /is/ a blog post, on /her/ blog) it is also filled with too much information to be easily tl;dr'ed... also, the post itself is a postmortem style post in which what happened over a long period of time is condensed. further compression runs high risks of being lossy i think. |
the day my brain forgot where my back was
| responding to csarva(<link> can't seem to reply to individual messages anymore):2[re-]building core strengththat's [re-]building strength in core muscles (the ones that hold your skeleton together)... as opposed to motor muscles(those who move your limbs)... that is the crux of the whole article, and i think it makes a lot of difference. the way you put it leads to think to core moral strength.edit: the excruciating pain is also not core to the article. in her case, damaged nerves lead to muscle fatigue being manifested in lack of power and quite pointedly lack of pain in certain circumstances when pain was to be expected (though she also describes experiencing said excruciating pain).edit2: actually, although the article is interspersed with passages of personal drama (it /is/ a blog post, on /her/ blog) it is also filled with too much information to be easily tl;dr'ed... also, the post itself is a postmortem style post in which what happened over a long period of time is condensed. further compression runs high risks of being lossy i think. | does anyone have a link to further information on the muscle repair stuff she cited? the part about how after 25, your brain might just give muscles up for lost? |
the day my brain forgot where my back was
| does anyone have a link to further information on the muscle repair stuff she cited? the part about how after 25, your brain might just give muscles up for lost? | well i was going to make some comments on specific parts of this blog post but there is just too much crap. don't do anything the woman did in this article. not even what she settled for at the end. she kept looking to quacks for quick-fixes where she didn't have to do any work when in reality all she needed was some physical therapy (which is hard work and a longer process and actually fixes your dysfunction).if you don't want to get into this situation in the first place there are even preventative physical therapy programs like egoscue and specific types of yoga. avoid joint/bone "manipulators" and all that other new-age bs, though. |
the day my brain forgot where my back was
| well i was going to make some comments on specific parts of this blog post but there is just too much crap. don't do anything the woman did in this article. not even what she settled for at the end. she kept looking to quacks for quick-fixes where she didn't have to do any work when in reality all she needed was some physical therapy (which is hard work and a longer process and actually fixes your dysfunction).if you don't want to get into this situation in the first place there are even preventative physical therapy programs like egoscue and specific types of yoga. avoid joint/bone "manipulators" and all that other new-age bs, though. | when i was in high school, i had problems with my back and neck.we were referred to a doctor about this. he sized me up in 5 minutes. then he revealed to us his chiropractor nature and said he'd do his thing. i wasn't asked if that's what i want. it didn't occur to me either, because he's an authority figure, right? so he did his thing. and it got worse. my neck felt bent out of shape and weak.we had to see another doctor who prescribed muscle strength work. because that was the problem. fucked up muscles.why the heck do people still believe in chiropractors? they're all frauds, every single one of them. |
ask hn: what's the best webapp ui you've seen and what was used to make it?
whether it's flex, gwt, cappuccino, sproutcore, jquery or mootools, where have you seen extremely exceptional ui on highly sophisticated webapps? i'm talking about interactive, stateful webapps, not the standard list-of-things kind of webapps. | for some reason gmail came immediately to mind. i know it doesn't seem flashy or amazing these days, but i think it was the first one that really convinced me that web apps were here to stay. i have no idea what they used though, tons of javascript i assume. | <link> - cappucinonot sure i would necessarily use cappucino myself, but to me, it demonstrated that treating javascript+dom as a target for a higher level interface can work, and can work well.i guess outlook web access should get an honourable mention - i guess that was the first widely available app. that demonstrated that is was at least possible and was useful. |
ask hn: what's the best webapp ui you've seen and what was used to make it?
whether it's flex, gwt, cappuccino, sproutcore, jquery or mootools, where have you seen extremely exceptional ui on highly sophisticated webapps? i'm talking about interactive, stateful webapps, not the standard list-of-things kind of webapps. | <link> - cappucinonot sure i would necessarily use cappucino myself, but to me, it demonstrated that treating javascript+dom as a target for a higher level interface can work, and can work well.i guess outlook web access should get an honourable mention - i guess that was the first widely available app. that demonstrated that is was at least possible and was useful. | i'll stick my neck out and say facebook has an awesome ui. (no idea what was used to make it.) when i first joined facebook some weeks ago, i was floored by how many features there are and how every single one is usability-optimized for me the newcomer, catching my eye exactly when i need it. the attention to detail is amazing. sure, it's all just text, pics and videos, but... i'd been making online maps for years, have some fairly advanced stuff under my belt, and still felt like a newbie when i saw facebook. |
ask hn: what's the best webapp ui you've seen and what was used to make it?
whether it's flex, gwt, cappuccino, sproutcore, jquery or mootools, where have you seen extremely exceptional ui on highly sophisticated webapps? i'm talking about interactive, stateful webapps, not the standard list-of-things kind of webapps. | i'll stick my neck out and say facebook has an awesome ui. (no idea what was used to make it.) when i first joined facebook some weeks ago, i was floored by how many features there are and how every single one is usability-optimized for me the newcomer, catching my eye exactly when i need it. the attention to detail is amazing. sure, it's all just text, pics and videos, but... i'd been making online maps for years, have some fairly advanced stuff under my belt, and still felt like a newbie when i saw facebook. | i am surprised no one's mentioned <link> yet... |
ask hn: what's the best webapp ui you've seen and what was used to make it?
whether it's flex, gwt, cappuccino, sproutcore, jquery or mootools, where have you seen extremely exceptional ui on highly sophisticated webapps? i'm talking about interactive, stateful webapps, not the standard list-of-things kind of webapps. | i am surprised no one's mentioned <link> yet... | <link> wowed me when i first saw it (still does). it was developed using the seaside framework which has clean support for continuations. |
fiftythree
| good luck to them.in my view, paper is more of a toy than a useful tool but it's not all their fault. some will spin this more charitably with something along the lines of 'limitations foster creativity' or something like that.attempting to really use paper made me realize something that's been sort of but not really bothering me since the ipad was introduced, and that is i like the tools but the application as a whole sucks. it doesn't make sense to buy a some canvas or a drawing notebook at the art store but be limited to the tools that are bundled with it. that is crazy. not just crazy but it makes zero sense.i can make a picture on a real piece of paper with literally anything that makes a mark, from coffee to dirt, blood, fruit, chemicals, bricks, burnt sticks (if i want to be classic), water... not to mention folding and crumpling.the digital tablet equivalent to this will require two things.1. complete separation of the tools from the "paper". and i mean complete. byot. whatever that means.2. a connection between physical tools and software tools. i am totally fine with having five different physical objects to draw on my virtual tablet if it means not having to mess around with someone's idea of a genius menu and tool selection system. really. i would actually love this so much. look at a real artists studio: they often look like explosions happened. nobody thinks that fewer tools is better. i can find a physical tool without looking or thinking about it or messing up my train of thought. menus and gestures and commands and even alphabetization ffs, all that "left brain" stuff is a real drag.3. stretch objective, not really critical today but maybe 20 years from now, i'd like to have full, realistic multitouch. the day i can, for instance, make a handprint on my virtual tablet is the first day it's going to be able to reproduce detailed human expression. i might be off base on this particular one but i want it.yeah, yeah yeah limitations and all that. digital stuff is totally different. whatever. | title would probably be better if it were a bit more descriptive:"fiftythree, creators of paper app, raise $15m, plan mobile office suite" |
fiftythree
| title would probably be better if it were a bit more descriptive:"fiftythree, creators of paper app, raise $15m, plan mobile office suite" | " particularly relevant was a project they led at microsoft called courier that has been widely praised as a visionary take on tablet computing (unfortunately, courier was never brought to market)"i thought the courier was cool when it was presented, and still cool now. i would completely consider getting one if it were priced the same as one of the other tablets. |
fiftythree
| " particularly relevant was a project they led at microsoft called courier that has been widely praised as a visionary take on tablet computing (unfortunately, courier was never brought to market)"i thought the courier was cool when it was presented, and still cool now. i would completely consider getting one if it were priced the same as one of the other tablets. | > fiftythree didn’t need to raise moneypeople tend to believe actions more than words. |
fiftythree
| > fiftythree didn’t need to raise moneypeople tend to believe actions more than words. | note that the jobs quote is linked, the "skeptic" quote is not. once against steve jobs proves prescient compared to imaginary foes.a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard is what traditionally would be called a laptop, and thanks to several iterations of hardware and software, a modern tablet holds its own. is anyone seriously arguing that people dismissed the ideas of laptops being productive, or that they thought that the state of tablets wouldn't improve?tangentially, paper has got to be the most overhyped application in the history of applications. i mostly ignored it (after falling for the hype and grabbing it and all of the in-app purchases to actually have a marginally useful drawing program), but when they went on the road selling snake-oil about their trivial hsv "paint mixer" i really started to see the negativity in the hype. |
disney to acquire lucasfilm ltd.
| this means that disney now controls marvel, pixar, lucasarts, abc, espn, a+e, disney channel plus all their own original content and of course the parks and merchandising rights for everything stated above. those businesses most likely control the top 10 film franchises of the last few years. this is a pretty insane acquisition. | disney paid $4b for lucasfilm.six years ago, they paid $7b for pixar.[1]pixar used to be a subsidiary of lucasfilm.this means that john lasseter is now going to have control of all of the assets that allowed him to get into making movies in the first place.[1]<link> |
disney to acquire lucasfilm ltd.
| disney paid $4b for lucasfilm.six years ago, they paid $7b for pixar.[1]pixar used to be a subsidiary of lucasfilm.this means that john lasseter is now going to have control of all of the assets that allowed him to get into making movies in the first place.[1]<link> | 2 i’ve always believed that star wars could live beyond me, and i thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.this is effectively lucas' slow decent into retirement; he's not actively directing episode 7 but instead consulting. say what you want about the movies and franchises, ilm and skywalker sound are gold standards created by a tech visionary. |
disney to acquire lucasfilm ltd.
| 2 i’ve always believed that star wars could live beyond me, and i thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.this is effectively lucas' slow decent into retirement; he's not actively directing episode 7 but instead consulting. say what you want about the movies and franchises, ilm and skywalker sound are gold standards created by a tech visionary. | star wars episode 7 will come out in 2015. they also acquired all of the assets including indiana jones, star wars, ilm, lucasarts and skywalker sound |
disney to acquire lucasfilm ltd.
| star wars episode 7 will come out in 2015. they also acquired all of the assets including indiana jones, star wars, ilm, lucasarts and skywalker sound | for those fretting the future, it will be hard for disney to fuck up the franchise more than lucas did with the phantom menace.<link> |
ask hn: students unaware/apathetic about linux group at college; how do we grow?
i attend ut dallas, which isn't a major college by any means but it is one of the largest public colleges in the dfw metroplex which has a lot of tech talent around it and has potential for even more (both the college and area).<p>we have a linux user group (lug.utdallas.edu) and it is a struggle to get people involved. personally i can't imagine being involved in tech without being interested/involved in open source stuff; it is kind of the whole point to me. but that does not seem to be the case for a lot of the students who are there for the degree and to get out of there (which is fine and dandy on its own). in the last three months we have had a steam meeting, a cryptocurrency meeting, and amazon came and presented aws; each with varying degrees of success, but not overwhelmingly.<p>i envy colleges like mit or stanford that have a proud history of a tech/startup/open source culture on campus. is there something that our linux user group can do to foster something similar?<p>thanks. | marketing tip: "linux user group" sounds boring and excessively nerdy, the kind of thing you can imagine pocket-protector wearing dilbert engineers to attend. the mission statement is silly, linux is not something to be advocated, it's a tool for getting shit done. | one thing that could get your fellow students excited is to get fellow peers to show off small, fun projects they've done a la hack and tell (<link>
and when you're first starting it, you can also use it as a way to show off something cool you've found, like cowsayand definitely change the name. you seem to be aiming for a general tech club, not a linux club. linux is often a means to that end, but doesn't need to be the focus. |
ask hn: students unaware/apathetic about linux group at college; how do we grow?
i attend ut dallas, which isn't a major college by any means but it is one of the largest public colleges in the dfw metroplex which has a lot of tech talent around it and has potential for even more (both the college and area).<p>we have a linux user group (lug.utdallas.edu) and it is a struggle to get people involved. personally i can't imagine being involved in tech without being interested/involved in open source stuff; it is kind of the whole point to me. but that does not seem to be the case for a lot of the students who are there for the degree and to get out of there (which is fine and dandy on its own). in the last three months we have had a steam meeting, a cryptocurrency meeting, and amazon came and presented aws; each with varying degrees of success, but not overwhelmingly.<p>i envy colleges like mit or stanford that have a proud history of a tech/startup/open source culture on campus. is there something that our linux user group can do to foster something similar?<p>thanks. | one thing that could get your fellow students excited is to get fellow peers to show off small, fun projects they've done a la hack and tell (<link>
and when you're first starting it, you can also use it as a way to show off something cool you've found, like cowsayand definitely change the name. you seem to be aiming for a general tech club, not a linux club. linux is often a means to that end, but doesn't need to be the focus. | as a bit of background, i've been using linux since the mid 90's. i convinced my last employer to replace out proprietary tool chain with an open source one. i've converted three people to the emacs religion. i've spent the past thirteen years in college. i say all these things to make a simple point: i am pretty darned close to being your target audience.with that established, why should i attend your meetings? i'm about to switch universities again. i never attended a single lug meeting at my current one and i only attended two at my last one. i didn't see the point, but i'm probably missing something and am willing to be convinced to join the lug at my school. what are the benefits of being in your lug? |
ask hn: students unaware/apathetic about linux group at college; how do we grow?
i attend ut dallas, which isn't a major college by any means but it is one of the largest public colleges in the dfw metroplex which has a lot of tech talent around it and has potential for even more (both the college and area).<p>we have a linux user group (lug.utdallas.edu) and it is a struggle to get people involved. personally i can't imagine being involved in tech without being interested/involved in open source stuff; it is kind of the whole point to me. but that does not seem to be the case for a lot of the students who are there for the degree and to get out of there (which is fine and dandy on its own). in the last three months we have had a steam meeting, a cryptocurrency meeting, and amazon came and presented aws; each with varying degrees of success, but not overwhelmingly.<p>i envy colleges like mit or stanford that have a proud history of a tech/startup/open source culture on campus. is there something that our linux user group can do to foster something similar?<p>thanks. | as a bit of background, i've been using linux since the mid 90's. i convinced my last employer to replace out proprietary tool chain with an open source one. i've converted three people to the emacs religion. i've spent the past thirteen years in college. i say all these things to make a simple point: i am pretty darned close to being your target audience.with that established, why should i attend your meetings? i'm about to switch universities again. i never attended a single lug meeting at my current one and i only attended two at my last one. i didn't see the point, but i'm probably missing something and am willing to be convinced to join the lug at my school. what are the benefits of being in your lug? | forgive my tone, but don't give a shit if students aren't interested.i've found that a love for oss and linux is something that will attract hobbyists and tinkerers more than students.turn you lug into a dallas one, not a college one. i guarantee you'll get at least 1 guy over 60 years old, a ton of devs in the area, tinkerers/hobbyists and a lot more knowledge than a couple of 2nd year noobs trying to make their tarballs run and getting compile errors for cs assignments.try it and please do share your feedback. |
ask hn: students unaware/apathetic about linux group at college; how do we grow?
i attend ut dallas, which isn't a major college by any means but it is one of the largest public colleges in the dfw metroplex which has a lot of tech talent around it and has potential for even more (both the college and area).<p>we have a linux user group (lug.utdallas.edu) and it is a struggle to get people involved. personally i can't imagine being involved in tech without being interested/involved in open source stuff; it is kind of the whole point to me. but that does not seem to be the case for a lot of the students who are there for the degree and to get out of there (which is fine and dandy on its own). in the last three months we have had a steam meeting, a cryptocurrency meeting, and amazon came and presented aws; each with varying degrees of success, but not overwhelmingly.<p>i envy colleges like mit or stanford that have a proud history of a tech/startup/open source culture on campus. is there something that our linux user group can do to foster something similar?<p>thanks. | forgive my tone, but don't give a shit if students aren't interested.i've found that a love for oss and linux is something that will attract hobbyists and tinkerers more than students.turn you lug into a dallas one, not a college one. i guarantee you'll get at least 1 guy over 60 years old, a ton of devs in the area, tinkerers/hobbyists and a lot more knowledge than a couple of 2nd year noobs trying to make their tarballs run and getting compile errors for cs assignments.try it and please do share your feedback. | if your interest is open source generally, you may find a more open technology/programming meetup rather than something specifically aimed at linux might garner a better response. |
huge implications for internet startups in south africa
| it is interesting to see south africa's two biggest rent seeking industries (telecommunications and banking) covered in one post :-)things are changing, but there are issues that more undersea cables and a tiny opening in the banking system won't be able to fix.you still have to pay telkom for a voice land-line, and that adds to the cost. it can still take months to get a land-line, and waiting for an adsl connection is also a problem, so many people don't bother.telkom remains a de-facto monopoly for fixed lines (neotel's current offerings still seem to be wireless, and of variable quality), and the south african government needs to be even more aggressive imo in undoing the disaster of telkom's mid-90's state-granted monopoly, and it also needs to take a tougher regulatory line with mobile providers. i'll really start celebrating when cheap uncapped wireless/3g becomes available at reasonable rates.paypal is also a good start, but the terms and conditions are strict. you can't leave the money in your paypal/fnb account for longer than 30 days, and all transactions need to be reported to the reserve bank for exchange-control purposes through the fnb website. there is also a prohibition against "bulking", so i guess you may need to report and withdraw money for each transaction individually, meaning higher fees (see above point about rent seeking).on a related note, exhange controls are a relic of the past, and should have gone years ago. even though for the average person they are moot (the offshore allowances are now quite large) the amount of regulatory pain they put one through is deeply disruptive. i recall an former employer needing excon permission to purchase a developer suite from overseas - not the way to be part of the hi-tech global economy. | the price war that mweb started when they launched their uncapped adsl offering is indeed a huge deal at the moment.the fact is, sa has a huge population that's never been exposed to broadband internet since it's just been too expensive. if broadband suddenly gets affordable there is a chance of a tech mini-bubble emerging here a couple of years late.but will we see a xhosa social networking site soon? who knows. |
huge implications for internet startups in south africa
| the price war that mweb started when they launched their uncapped adsl offering is indeed a huge deal at the moment.the fact is, sa has a huge population that's never been exposed to broadband internet since it's just been too expensive. if broadband suddenly gets affordable there is a chance of a tech mini-bubble emerging here a couple of years late.but will we see a xhosa social networking site soon? who knows. | the talent and ingenuity of south african developers has been limited for years due to the 'tariffs' on international bandwidth. the removal of bandwidth caps is a step in the right direction.i agree, the last-mile has not been the biggest problem given that there are 6 mbit adsl lines available at rates on par with major us metro areas.i would love to see a large wimax/lte tower installed on top of sandton city (and throughout gauteng) to bring 20+ mbit wireless internet to the cbd.happy to see paypal entering the south african market even if sars wants to see all the transactions. |
huge implications for internet startups in south africa
| the talent and ingenuity of south african developers has been limited for years due to the 'tariffs' on international bandwidth. the removal of bandwidth caps is a step in the right direction.i agree, the last-mile has not been the biggest problem given that there are 6 mbit adsl lines available at rates on par with major us metro areas.i would love to see a large wimax/lte tower installed on top of sandton city (and throughout gauteng) to bring 20+ mbit wireless internet to the cbd.happy to see paypal entering the south african market even if sars wants to see all the transactions. | the hundreds of billions of dollars made when mobile phone networks started operating across most of africa could be repeated with internet services.however, it is my understanding that internet at the moment across most of africa is trending towards umts and another wireless technologies that leverage the existing towers built for mobile access.a single such tower covers a far wider area and is much cheaper to install and maintain than broadband cables. also, factoring in that africa is not very densely populated, i would think that wireless makes sense over wired. |
huge implications for internet startups in south africa
| the hundreds of billions of dollars made when mobile phone networks started operating across most of africa could be repeated with internet services.however, it is my understanding that internet at the moment across most of africa is trending towards umts and another wireless technologies that leverage the existing towers built for mobile access.a single such tower covers a far wider area and is much cheaper to install and maintain than broadband cables. also, factoring in that africa is not very densely populated, i would think that wireless makes sense over wired. | as a south africa developer, i can just express my excitement about all the things happening in sa atm. we will see allot of new and exiting start ups. it has now been made easier. so this is big fir us! happy |
is piketty all wrong?
| the nice thing about piketty is all his data is right out in the open, on the web, and not behind some kind of crazy academic journal paywall type of thing. you don't have to take him or his detractors at face value for anything. | piketty's response:
<link> that, as mentioned in the comments there, it's not clear whether ft gave piketty giles's specific points to respond to. the response was written before the column was published.previous discussion on hn: <link> |
is piketty all wrong?
| piketty's response:
<link> that, as mentioned in the comments there, it's not clear whether ft gave piketty giles's specific points to respond to. the response was written before the column was published.previous discussion on hn: <link> | tl;dr: ft used some gb data that even the original agency hmrc no longer used after methodology change.for the "wealth inequality in britain 1810-2010" data, ft 'argues that piketty’s graphs simply “do not match” his underlying data on the uk, and that official estimates show no significant increase in the country’s concentration of wealth since the 1970s.'(from: <link>'s giles then used the following data to rebuke piketty's "overestimation" of the top 1% & 10% wealth share, as noted in giles' excel sheet (not in the text):"data comes from inland revenue tables. they are accurately transcribed. <link>
<link> only problem i have is that the "13-5-table-2005.pdf" is a table before hmrc made major change to the methodology and its historical tables:<link> concluded with "... we would no longer be able to produce the marketable wealth series used in tables 13.3 and 13.4", which the table 13.5 relied on. and those historical tables (prior 2001) never exist again in the following years. by the way, hmrc personal wealth data only covers partial estates: "for 2001 to 2003 this covers 35% of estates and for 2005 to 2007, 34% and for 2008-10, 31%." |
is piketty all wrong?
| tl;dr: ft used some gb data that even the original agency hmrc no longer used after methodology change.for the "wealth inequality in britain 1810-2010" data, ft 'argues that piketty’s graphs simply “do not match” his underlying data on the uk, and that official estimates show no significant increase in the country’s concentration of wealth since the 1970s.'(from: <link>'s giles then used the following data to rebuke piketty's "overestimation" of the top 1% & 10% wealth share, as noted in giles' excel sheet (not in the text):"data comes from inland revenue tables. they are accurately transcribed. <link>
<link> only problem i have is that the "13-5-table-2005.pdf" is a table before hmrc made major change to the methodology and its historical tables:<link> concluded with "... we would no longer be able to produce the marketable wealth series used in tables 13.3 and 13.4", which the table 13.5 relied on. and those historical tables (prior 2001) never exist again in the following years. by the way, hmrc personal wealth data only covers partial estates: "for 2001 to 2003 this covers 35% of estates and for 2005 to 2007, 34% and for 2008-10, 31%." | krugman is all wrong:giles: unlike what prof. piketty claims – wealth concentration among the richest people has been pretty stable for 50 years in both europe and the us.krugman: take, for example, the landmark cbo study on the distribution of income;"krugman then shows some graphs about capital income (which is not the same thing as wealth) which don't clearly demonstrate any change among the richest people. this is fairly typical krugman, but i hope hn readers are smart enough not to be duped by this. |
is piketty all wrong?
| krugman is all wrong:giles: unlike what prof. piketty claims – wealth concentration among the richest people has been pretty stable for 50 years in both europe and the us.krugman: take, for example, the landmark cbo study on the distribution of income;"krugman then shows some graphs about capital income (which is not the same thing as wealth) which don't clearly demonstrate any change among the richest people. this is fairly typical krugman, but i hope hn readers are smart enough not to be duped by this. | the giles quote provided by krugman is illustrative of his agenda -- or his delusion:>>the exact level of european inequality in the last fifty years is impossible to determine, as it depends on the sources one uses. however, whichever level one picks, the lines in red in the graph show that – unlike what prof. piketty claims – wealth concentration among the richest people has been pretty stable for 50 years in both europe and the us.>>there is no obvious upward trend. the conclusions of capital in the 21st century do not appear to be backed by the book’s own sources.of course the upper class wants you to believe that wealth inequality has not been increasing. of course they want you to believe that things are fine and dandy. they want you to believe these things because they don't want their wealth taken away, either via taxes or via revolutions. and giles is simply their mouthpiece.like krugman, i'm looking forward to piketty's defense. but i doubt the errors are anywhere enough to overturn his conclusions. |
don't touch me, i'm british
| i flit between the uk and turkey, and the two are both somewhere close to opposite ends on the social scale.in the uk, you can walk into a pub and talk to people, providing you're not interrupting a discussion, or forcing yourself on the people in the group. it's easier if you're on your own or with one other person to join an existing group, or talk to an individual, but it's not common. you don't make eye contact on the tube in london, but you can talk to people in general outside of london, and especially up north people are more approachable. do not touch (beyond a handshake at most), unless you're very familiar and there's a high volume of foreigners in the group.in turkey (and these are observations as an englishman so i might be interpreting this wrong), people are extremely friendly and nosy by comparison. turks are incredibly physical in social groups and don't really have a concept of personal space. in istanbul women and men intermingle in some social classes and circumstances but not others. a kiss on each side of the cheek is expected when the opposite sex is involved provided you've met before. don't be surprised if women put their arms around you, tell them their cold and want you to hug them etc. if you're in a social secular group. in more religious or formal groups, things are more separate - men will still hug each other all the time and put arms round each other but women are never touched (unless they're related or married, and not generally in public). when you go out to the country it really varies from community to community and the local culture. the further east the less intermingling with the sexes, but guys are still generally friendly with each other.the biggest differences between the uk and turkey are in going out. turks... good god, istanbul turks... you go out around 8-10pm and don't come in till 5am. getting drunk is a bit socially inappropriate (in most groups) but the party goes on all night.in the uk, the party normally goes on till about midnight/2am outside, then occasionally continues back at someone's house, but will start between 5 and 8pm. in the uk, getting drunk is not only socially acceptable but expected. unsurprisingly as the drinking continues, social rules about touching start to unravel.tl:dr - it's bloody complicated in england, and changes from group to group in turkey. grrrrrrr!!!! | generalizations but reasonably accurate ones in my experience. i find it far easier to socialize and interact with strangers in the us than in the uk. there's a certain "shock" and disbelief that can appear in the eyes of a briton if you randomly talk to them in public. i can't blame them though, i act exactly the same way until i leave its borders! perhaps this is why so many brits travel and move overseas ;-)an ancillary point that i've noticed over the years is the relative unpopularity of open social/discussion sites in the uk compared to the us. the uk is facebook mad, of course, but doesn't really have a locally popular equivalent of reddit, hacker news, digg, metafilter, etc. i wonder if the reduced desire to converse with random people has an effect in this scope too. |
don't touch me, i'm british
| generalizations but reasonably accurate ones in my experience. i find it far easier to socialize and interact with strangers in the us than in the uk. there's a certain "shock" and disbelief that can appear in the eyes of a briton if you randomly talk to them in public. i can't blame them though, i act exactly the same way until i leave its borders! perhaps this is why so many brits travel and move overseas ;-)an ancillary point that i've noticed over the years is the relative unpopularity of open social/discussion sites in the uk compared to the us. the uk is facebook mad, of course, but doesn't really have a locally popular equivalent of reddit, hacker news, digg, metafilter, etc. i wonder if the reduced desire to converse with random people has an effect in this scope too. | true dat about german nudity. i lived in germany a few years and sang in a few choirs (one very good way to learn good pronunciation, actually) - after one concert, everybody backstage changed clothing. together. i was about 19 at the time, and i'm from indiana - it nearly killed me. |
don't touch me, i'm british
| true dat about german nudity. i lived in germany a few years and sang in a few choirs (one very good way to learn good pronunciation, actually) - after one concert, everybody backstage changed clothing. together. i was about 19 at the time, and i'm from indiana - it nearly killed me. | i've had to teach myself to touch everyone i meet (on the bottom of the elbow, or top of the shoulder), and start conversations with strangers in any situation. i've met a good number of friends this way, and if the touching is done properly and subtly enough, it can instantly create a warmth that is hard to achieve any other way. |
don't touch me, i'm british
| i've had to teach myself to touch everyone i meet (on the bottom of the elbow, or top of the shoulder), and start conversations with strangers in any situation. i've met a good number of friends this way, and if the touching is done properly and subtly enough, it can instantly create a warmth that is hard to achieve any other way. | another rather lazy article, playing on boring stereotypes, pedestrian anecdotes and uninteresting conclusions. we're all aware of national stereotypes, and we're used to seeing lame stand up comics riff on them, however it's unusual to see the ft stoop so low.if simon kuper (a brit, though one with a sheltered upbringing it seems) thinks brits are reserved and prudish, i suggest he visits glasgow, newcastle or indeed any city on a friday or saturday night. i dare say he might witness similar revelations if he were to explore other cultures further, rather than drawing on boring clichés. |
nuclear war survival skills (1987 edition)
| this book is filled with expedient nuclear war survival technology and techniques, developed at oak ridge and all tested for real (e.g. the instructions for shelters were handed to a semi-random family who'd then try to follow them, with the researchers video taping the whole thing, using this sort of process to iterate the instructions and designs). some of the stuff has been tested in simulated nuclear blasts, others in suitable radiation fields, and the shelters are simple x feet of dirt provides a y protection factor.these are expedient, for people who have ~ 24-48 hours of warning before the heavy fallout hits (although there are also blast shelter designs, but it's best to get far enough away that that's not likely an issue).there's also a lot of good advice that's useful for other types of emergencies, like where you might have to survive on mostly wheat for some period of time (how to prepare it, how to sprout it to get the vitamins you need, etc.) as bruce clayton said in his own survival book (which advised getting this one first), if you're prepared to survive a nuclear war you're pretty much prepared for any lessor threat.highly recommended. | might not be worth reading the whole thing, but the first couple of chapters are interesting enough.i've never been sure why so many people make fun of the old "duck and cover" campaign. sure, it won't help those within the immediate vicinity of the bomb much, but there's a certain donut-shaped area where you're a hell of a lot better off ducking and covering than not ducking and covering. |
nuclear war survival skills (1987 edition)
| might not be worth reading the whole thing, but the first couple of chapters are interesting enough.i've never been sure why so many people make fun of the old "duck and cover" campaign. sure, it won't help those within the immediate vicinity of the bomb much, but there's a certain donut-shaped area where you're a hell of a lot better off ducking and covering than not ducking and covering. | i want to give credit where credit is due; i found this manual because it was linked on michael anissimov's blog:<link> |
nuclear war survival skills (1987 edition)
| i want to give credit where credit is due; i found this manual because it was linked on michael anissimov's blog:<link> | here's a link to a pdf and another pdf guide from fema since you probably won't have reliable internet access in a nuclear attack.<link> |
nuclear war survival skills (1987 edition)
| here's a link to a pdf and another pdf guide from fema since you probably won't have reliable internet access in a nuclear attack.<link> | not exactly something i was expecting to find any humor in - but have a look at "night scene in a trench shelter without light." |
ask hn: consulting while bootstrapping?
my co-founder and i are a couple of ruby/java coders with a broad range of expertise. we need to pay the bills while getting our product off the ground, so we're looking at doing some contract work.<p>we're experienced in the it/coding realm but n00bs at the consulting thing, so here's some questions for people who have done this before:<p>1. what's the best way to start drumming up consulting gigs? craigslist? google ads? cold calling?<p>2. what kind of rates are reasonable for a strong 2-person coding team with enterprise experience?<p>3. are there any special pitfalls for bootstrappers that we should be aware of? we'll be trying to juggle product development with any other work that we do. any time management tips? legal things that we should watch out for?<p>i know we're not the only bootstrappers out there, so there's probably a lot of hners with the same questions. any advice that you give will be deeply appreciated.<p>and if anyone needs work done on java/ruby integration or full-text search, shoot me an email. :) | the biggest pitfall is that you will be successful as a consultant long before your startup will make any money and the temptation to drop the startup and concentrate on full-blown consultancy will be nearly impossible to resist.if you are going to do this be rigorous from day one and set aside a number of days per week when you do not allow yourself to work on your consultancy stuff at all.stay away from consultancy jobs that are even remotely related to the startup you're doing. | i think it's important to make a distinction between "doing consulting work" and "selling consulting work". i'm bootstrapping, and i'll do consulting work for clients i've worked with in the past, or with people who seek me out specifically.there's no doubt that doing consulting work takes time from my business. however, i think it's an hour-per-hour trade-off -- overall, i haven't found that consulting work decreases my motivation.on the other hand, selling consulting work can be stressful and exhausting; especially if you really need the money and you're not accustomed to selling. (and if you don't really need the money, then why do it at all?)some other thoughts:1. if you get bad vibes from a potential client, politely walk away.2. the more they pay you, the more they respect you.3. your client doesn't care about your startup, nor should they need to. |
ask hn: consulting while bootstrapping?
my co-founder and i are a couple of ruby/java coders with a broad range of expertise. we need to pay the bills while getting our product off the ground, so we're looking at doing some contract work.<p>we're experienced in the it/coding realm but n00bs at the consulting thing, so here's some questions for people who have done this before:<p>1. what's the best way to start drumming up consulting gigs? craigslist? google ads? cold calling?<p>2. what kind of rates are reasonable for a strong 2-person coding team with enterprise experience?<p>3. are there any special pitfalls for bootstrappers that we should be aware of? we'll be trying to juggle product development with any other work that we do. any time management tips? legal things that we should watch out for?<p>i know we're not the only bootstrappers out there, so there's probably a lot of hners with the same questions. any advice that you give will be deeply appreciated.<p>and if anyone needs work done on java/ruby integration or full-text search, shoot me an email. :) | i think it's important to make a distinction between "doing consulting work" and "selling consulting work". i'm bootstrapping, and i'll do consulting work for clients i've worked with in the past, or with people who seek me out specifically.there's no doubt that doing consulting work takes time from my business. however, i think it's an hour-per-hour trade-off -- overall, i haven't found that consulting work decreases my motivation.on the other hand, selling consulting work can be stressful and exhausting; especially if you really need the money and you're not accustomed to selling. (and if you don't really need the money, then why do it at all?)some other thoughts:1. if you get bad vibes from a potential client, politely walk away.2. the more they pay you, the more they respect you.3. your client doesn't care about your startup, nor should they need to. | both are hard.. and both are full time gigs. when you're not programming, you have to some how figure out how to find customers in consulting. then trying to program for your clients, and then programming a startup. almost impossible. |
ask hn: consulting while bootstrapping?
my co-founder and i are a couple of ruby/java coders with a broad range of expertise. we need to pay the bills while getting our product off the ground, so we're looking at doing some contract work.<p>we're experienced in the it/coding realm but n00bs at the consulting thing, so here's some questions for people who have done this before:<p>1. what's the best way to start drumming up consulting gigs? craigslist? google ads? cold calling?<p>2. what kind of rates are reasonable for a strong 2-person coding team with enterprise experience?<p>3. are there any special pitfalls for bootstrappers that we should be aware of? we'll be trying to juggle product development with any other work that we do. any time management tips? legal things that we should watch out for?<p>i know we're not the only bootstrappers out there, so there's probably a lot of hners with the same questions. any advice that you give will be deeply appreciated.<p>and if anyone needs work done on java/ruby integration or full-text search, shoot me an email. :) | both are hard.. and both are full time gigs. when you're not programming, you have to some how figure out how to find customers in consulting. then trying to program for your clients, and then programming a startup. almost impossible. | i think it's really hard to do this personally because you will have to hustle business as if you own a second business. if you can get a part time gig or a job somewhere making what you need to make. it'll be easier, trust me. |
ask hn: consulting while bootstrapping?
my co-founder and i are a couple of ruby/java coders with a broad range of expertise. we need to pay the bills while getting our product off the ground, so we're looking at doing some contract work.<p>we're experienced in the it/coding realm but n00bs at the consulting thing, so here's some questions for people who have done this before:<p>1. what's the best way to start drumming up consulting gigs? craigslist? google ads? cold calling?<p>2. what kind of rates are reasonable for a strong 2-person coding team with enterprise experience?<p>3. are there any special pitfalls for bootstrappers that we should be aware of? we'll be trying to juggle product development with any other work that we do. any time management tips? legal things that we should watch out for?<p>i know we're not the only bootstrappers out there, so there's probably a lot of hners with the same questions. any advice that you give will be deeply appreciated.<p>and if anyone needs work done on java/ruby integration or full-text search, shoot me an email. :) | i think it's really hard to do this personally because you will have to hustle business as if you own a second business. if you can get a part time gig or a job somewhere making what you need to make. it'll be easier, trust me. | consultant gigs aren't very fun, but they definitely can be a great way to pay the bills while you're planning for your next big thing.i've recently (in the last week) started offering some specific services on a few forums that i'm actively participating in, and have already pulled in a few thousand bucks. once i get the system down pat, i'll just crank out work, and eventually have my remaining debts paid off and be ready to do my startup i've been planning, with a few month's salary in the bank just in case.if you can offer a specific service as your consultant income rather than just "hire me for whatever you need" type stuff, you can greatly reduce the amount of effort you need to use to make the same amount of money. |
something crazy is happening at backify. watch out
last night i got a cancelation notification from backify for their free service and a few hours later this came to my email:
"dear 0my name2<p>we are writing to you regarding backify.com who you recently created an online backup account with.<p>backify.com was a reseller of livedrive (<link> livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to you by backify.com.<p>we are writing to inform you that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and the services that they purchased from our company on your behalf have been terminated. if you are using a service provided by backify.com and powered by livedrive then this service will now have stopped working.<p>we would also like to advise you that we have received a number of complaints about backify.com from their customers and from industry organizations. we would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to backify.com. if you have provided credit card information to backify.com then we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your card may be used fraudulently. if backify.com have charged your card for services not provided you should contact your card provider and ask them to initiate a chargeback procedure.<p>please note that this advisory is being sent to you in good faith because we feel you should be informed that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and of the complaints we have become aware of. no contract exists between yourself and livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute you may have with backify.com.<p>if you have installed the online backup software provided by backify.com we highly recommend you uninstall it from your computer by following the steps below:<p>on windows:
go to start 2 settings 2 control panel and select add/remove programs (or ‘programs and settings’), select livedrive and select uninstall.<p>on mac:
go to finder 2 applications and delete the livedrive application.<p>please note that any data you backed up using backify.com cannot be retrieved and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.<p>livedrive does provide a very similar online backup service to the one provided by backify.com and you can read more details and, if you wish, signup for a trial on our website at <link> please note however that we do not provide a free service as backify.com did.<p>other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:
carbonite.com
idrive.com
mozy.com<p>we are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.<p>kind regards<p>livedrive limited
" | there's a popup on backify.com now asserting some quite different details of this story. who's telling the truth... who knows."livedrive account closuresas all backify members know now, livedrive has closed all the accounts. we would like to clear the situation up with our customers.as many of you know, you were unable to change/reset your password for the last 10 days or so. this was due to an error in the livedrive api. we made multiple contacts with livedrive through email and phone to get this sorted out. their tech support kept us saying that their "dev team" is working on it. but the "dev team" could not sort out the issue in 10 days.apart from this, their payment system failed on november 8. what that means is, we could not create any more new accounts, because their payment system kept declining all of our credit cards. again, we contacted livedrive multiple times, but they could not sort out the issue in over 7 days.we contacted them again yesterday and protested with strong words about the delay in providing a solution to our problems. we asked them to either resolve the issues, or to close our account and refund us. they responded today by terminating our reseller account and all the accounts we have created.as for the email they sent to our customers, we assure you that you do not have to worry about your credit cards being used fraudulently. we did not store your credit card numbers in our system. and about the payments that you have already made, we will refund all of them over the next few business days. you do not need to file any disputes or chargebacks with paypal or your bank." | weirdly i went to <link> by accident and i got someone called conrad's livedrive page. |
something crazy is happening at backify. watch out
last night i got a cancelation notification from backify for their free service and a few hours later this came to my email:
"dear 0my name2<p>we are writing to you regarding backify.com who you recently created an online backup account with.<p>backify.com was a reseller of livedrive (<link> livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to you by backify.com.<p>we are writing to inform you that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and the services that they purchased from our company on your behalf have been terminated. if you are using a service provided by backify.com and powered by livedrive then this service will now have stopped working.<p>we would also like to advise you that we have received a number of complaints about backify.com from their customers and from industry organizations. we would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to backify.com. if you have provided credit card information to backify.com then we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your card may be used fraudulently. if backify.com have charged your card for services not provided you should contact your card provider and ask them to initiate a chargeback procedure.<p>please note that this advisory is being sent to you in good faith because we feel you should be informed that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and of the complaints we have become aware of. no contract exists between yourself and livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute you may have with backify.com.<p>if you have installed the online backup software provided by backify.com we highly recommend you uninstall it from your computer by following the steps below:<p>on windows:
go to start 2 settings 2 control panel and select add/remove programs (or ‘programs and settings’), select livedrive and select uninstall.<p>on mac:
go to finder 2 applications and delete the livedrive application.<p>please note that any data you backed up using backify.com cannot be retrieved and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.<p>livedrive does provide a very similar online backup service to the one provided by backify.com and you can read more details and, if you wish, signup for a trial on our website at <link> please note however that we do not provide a free service as backify.com did.<p>other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:
carbonite.com
idrive.com
mozy.com<p>we are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.<p>kind regards<p>livedrive limited
" | weirdly i went to <link> by accident and i got someone called conrad's livedrive page. | just got this now, i only registered to test it out (and used a random password since everyone was complaining about them storing passwords in plain text).interestingly the email sent to my from backify said the service will continue operating till nov 22nd.personally i use backblaze for my home stuff, and livedrive for my work stuff (more features like file version tracking and briefcase) |
something crazy is happening at backify. watch out
last night i got a cancelation notification from backify for their free service and a few hours later this came to my email:
"dear 0my name2<p>we are writing to you regarding backify.com who you recently created an online backup account with.<p>backify.com was a reseller of livedrive (<link> livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to you by backify.com.<p>we are writing to inform you that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and the services that they purchased from our company on your behalf have been terminated. if you are using a service provided by backify.com and powered by livedrive then this service will now have stopped working.<p>we would also like to advise you that we have received a number of complaints about backify.com from their customers and from industry organizations. we would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to backify.com. if you have provided credit card information to backify.com then we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your card may be used fraudulently. if backify.com have charged your card for services not provided you should contact your card provider and ask them to initiate a chargeback procedure.<p>please note that this advisory is being sent to you in good faith because we feel you should be informed that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and of the complaints we have become aware of. no contract exists between yourself and livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute you may have with backify.com.<p>if you have installed the online backup software provided by backify.com we highly recommend you uninstall it from your computer by following the steps below:<p>on windows:
go to start 2 settings 2 control panel and select add/remove programs (or ‘programs and settings’), select livedrive and select uninstall.<p>on mac:
go to finder 2 applications and delete the livedrive application.<p>please note that any data you backed up using backify.com cannot be retrieved and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.<p>livedrive does provide a very similar online backup service to the one provided by backify.com and you can read more details and, if you wish, signup for a trial on our website at <link> please note however that we do not provide a free service as backify.com did.<p>other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:
carbonite.com
idrive.com
mozy.com<p>we are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.<p>kind regards<p>livedrive limited
" | just got this now, i only registered to test it out (and used a random password since everyone was complaining about them storing passwords in plain text).interestingly the email sent to my from backify said the service will continue operating till nov 22nd.personally i use backblaze for my home stuff, and livedrive for my work stuff (more features like file version tracking and briefcase) | i'm not suprised.i wouldn't trust backify.com or livedrive.com for the reason that they sell "unlimited space" for a flat fee. there is no such thing as unlimited.the backify guy(s) obviously never heard of this and tried to offer a free service of 512 gb. after all, livedrive service was for "unlimited" space. what's a couple hundred gigabytes anyway? |
something crazy is happening at backify. watch out
last night i got a cancelation notification from backify for their free service and a few hours later this came to my email:
"dear 0my name2<p>we are writing to you regarding backify.com who you recently created an online backup account with.<p>backify.com was a reseller of livedrive (<link> livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to you by backify.com.<p>we are writing to inform you that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and the services that they purchased from our company on your behalf have been terminated. if you are using a service provided by backify.com and powered by livedrive then this service will now have stopped working.<p>we would also like to advise you that we have received a number of complaints about backify.com from their customers and from industry organizations. we would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to backify.com. if you have provided credit card information to backify.com then we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your card may be used fraudulently. if backify.com have charged your card for services not provided you should contact your card provider and ask them to initiate a chargeback procedure.<p>please note that this advisory is being sent to you in good faith because we feel you should be informed that backify.com is no longer a livedrive reseller and of the complaints we have become aware of. no contract exists between yourself and livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute you may have with backify.com.<p>if you have installed the online backup software provided by backify.com we highly recommend you uninstall it from your computer by following the steps below:<p>on windows:
go to start 2 settings 2 control panel and select add/remove programs (or ‘programs and settings’), select livedrive and select uninstall.<p>on mac:
go to finder 2 applications and delete the livedrive application.<p>please note that any data you backed up using backify.com cannot be retrieved and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.<p>livedrive does provide a very similar online backup service to the one provided by backify.com and you can read more details and, if you wish, signup for a trial on our website at <link> please note however that we do not provide a free service as backify.com did.<p>other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:
carbonite.com
idrive.com
mozy.com<p>we are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.<p>kind regards<p>livedrive limited
" | i'm not suprised.i wouldn't trust backify.com or livedrive.com for the reason that they sell "unlimited space" for a flat fee. there is no such thing as unlimited.the backify guy(s) obviously never heard of this and tried to offer a free service of 512 gb. after all, livedrive service was for "unlimited" space. what's a couple hundred gigabytes anyway? | i've found that crashplan is the best of online backup- i can backup attached external drives as well as my entire computer for a complete backup at a reasonable price. i'd suggest that people also wait a bit until black friday, where they sometimes discount their plans even further... |
joyent open sources smartos: zones, zfs, dtrace and kvm
| wow this is huge. having an os be able to run both zfs and kvm enables fantastic things. for example you can store each virtual machine disk template on a dedicated zfs filesystem, and use "zfs clone" to rapidly deploy vms (instead of using the kvm-level support for base disk images "qemu-img create -b ..."), as well as "zfs snapshot", "zfs revert", etc. the main advantage being that these clones and snapshots are possible while using the simple and fast "raw" kvm disk image format instead of the notoriously slower "qcow2" format that was, until today, the best format supporting base images and snapshots.i, for one, have been wanting to use zfs specifically like that for a while. this does not compare at all to running zfs on, say, an nfs server or iscsi san serving data to a server running kvm (zfs data integrity is only verified remotely on the storage server, it is slower, etc).who ported kvm to illumos? i know some old version of qemu was running on solaris at some point in the past, but i had no idea they had a full blown kvm port. | to clarify, joyent open sourced smartos. zones, zfs, dtrace, and kvm are maintained by other companies and have been open source for ages.edit: that's not to imply joyent is freeloading. there is another post on hn with an example of the awesome work they're doing: <link> |
joyent open sources smartos: zones, zfs, dtrace and kvm
| to clarify, joyent open sourced smartos. zones, zfs, dtrace, and kvm are maintained by other companies and have been open source for ages.edit: that's not to imply joyent is freeloading. there is another post on hn with an example of the awesome work they're doing: <link> | this is really great. joyent has been running this internally for years. the combination is just great: zfs, dtrace and kvm speak for themselves, but another great ingredient is their use of the netbsd userland (in place of legacy solaris one).linux is great, but a monoculture benefits no one. |
joyent open sources smartos: zones, zfs, dtrace and kvm
| this is really great. joyent has been running this internally for years. the combination is just great: zfs, dtrace and kvm speak for themselves, but another great ingredient is their use of the netbsd userland (in place of legacy solaris one).linux is great, but a monoculture benefits no one. | i'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around this. if joyent wanted to stick with a unix then why not freebsd and help implement kvm there? wasn't xen already available for dom0? i just don't see much mindshare in illumos/smartos for keeping up with current server hardware drivers. i really would have liked to see one of the existing bsds benefit from the time they've put into this project.obviously linux already has kvm, and there are new implmentations of dtrace and zfs. btrfs is not too many more kernel releases away from being considered stable(fsck being a glaring problem) and if you want container-based virtualization you've got lxc(some prefer openvz).with that said, who is their target audience? |
joyent open sources smartos: zones, zfs, dtrace and kvm
| i'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around this. if joyent wanted to stick with a unix then why not freebsd and help implement kvm there? wasn't xen already available for dom0? i just don't see much mindshare in illumos/smartos for keeping up with current server hardware drivers. i really would have liked to see one of the existing bsds benefit from the time they've put into this project.obviously linux already has kvm, and there are new implmentations of dtrace and zfs. btrfs is not too many more kernel releases away from being considered stable(fsck being a glaring problem) and if you want container-based virtualization you've got lxc(some prefer openvz).with that said, who is their target audience? | the biggest yay for me is in the fine print:"smartos is comprised of the illumos kernel (with zfs, dtrace, os-level virtualization and next-generation kvm) with __bsd package management and a gnu toolchain__."oh god, this makes me happy. i gave solaris a couple of tries, but i've never felt at home there. these two facts mean that i'll try again. |
a tiny library to send file descriptors across processes
| alternatively - int send_fd(int conn, int fd_to_send)
{
struct msghdr msg = { 0 };
struct cmsghdr * hdr;
char buf[cmsg_space(sizeof(int))];
msg.msg_control = buf;
msg.msg_controllen = sizeof(buf);
hdr = cmsg_firsthdr(&msg);
hdr->cmsg_len = cmsg_len(sizeof(int));
hdr->cmsg_level = sol_socket;
hdr->cmsg_type = scm_rights;
*(int*)cmsg_data(hdr) = fd_to_send;
return sendmsg(conn, &msg, 0);
}
to those wondering why and when this is needed - it is useful for cases when your primary process lacks rights required to open a file or a device (!). so another, privileged process does the open on its behalf and sends the resulting file descriptor to the primary process for processing. | let us journey back in time, to the year 1995. (technically 1.03 is from 1998, but i'm sure that functions for passing fd's appear in every version.)qmail-1.03:fd.h
fd_copy.c
fd_copy.3
fd_move.c
fd_move.3you could find similar functions in other programs by the same author, e.g., ucspi-tcp, daemontools, etc.i prefer time-tested, secure code from 1995 to the things you tend to find on github because this 1990's code is highly portable. it still compiles cleanly 18 years later and is not just tested on one or two systems, e.g., linux and osx.but i'm glad this made the front page. no web browser needed. no installed scripting languages necessary. a single .c file. if only there were more like this on github. |
a tiny library to send file descriptors across processes
| let us journey back in time, to the year 1995. (technically 1.03 is from 1998, but i'm sure that functions for passing fd's appear in every version.)qmail-1.03:fd.h
fd_copy.c
fd_copy.3
fd_move.c
fd_move.3you could find similar functions in other programs by the same author, e.g., ucspi-tcp, daemontools, etc.i prefer time-tested, secure code from 1995 to the things you tend to find on github because this 1990's code is highly portable. it still compiles cleanly 18 years later and is not just tested on one or two systems, e.g., linux and osx.but i'm glad this made the front page. no web browser needed. no installed scripting languages necessary. a single .c file. if only there were more like this on github. | a very minor gripe, but it seems weird to use the "bool success" return value convention for one function, but the "int return, negative on error" convention for the other.also there's a few places where errno is going to get clobbered, eg. by closing the socket before reporting the error back to the caller. a more careful implementation would save errno before calling close.otherwise though, good simple abstraction of a relatively obscure feature. |
a tiny library to send file descriptors across processes
| a very minor gripe, but it seems weird to use the "bool success" return value convention for one function, but the "int return, negative on error" convention for the other.also there's a few places where errno is going to get clobbered, eg. by closing the socket before reporting the error back to the caller. a more careful implementation would save errno before calling close.otherwise though, good simple abstraction of a relatively obscure feature. | i wrote something similar for sockets (<link> but it's linux only, since only linux supports passing the userid/groupid/pid of a process across unix domain sockets (and i use that for checking credentials). |
a tiny library to send file descriptors across processes
| i wrote something similar for sockets (<link> but it's linux only, since only linux supports passing the userid/groupid/pid of a process across unix domain sockets (and i use that for checking credentials). | this library makes the classic error, it returns the first file descriptor that is sent then finishes.you can then dos the process by sending it huge numbers of fds instead of just one, which it will omit to close, and thus run out of file descriptors. so to be safe you need to iterate over all the fds and close them. |
show hn: our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app
| hey hn! a while back, my co-founders and i were talking about how difficult it is for real beginners to get started making web applications. between setting up a development environment, learning how to program, configuring servers, etc., the entire idea can seem insurmountable to someone who's never done it before.we brainstormed for a while, decided we would do a video series, and then went straight to creating videos that would teach absolute beginners how to go from nothing to deploying a site on dotcloud. twifbook (our silly portmanteau) is the site that everyone who watches our series will launch (live) to their own domain name (we'll walk you through that as well).i want to give a huge shout-out to codeacademy for doing an incredible job getting the general entrepreneurial community jazzed about programming. our goal is to put a more practical spin on it--and get people using their programming knowledge to actually launch things.let us know what you think! | i signed up for two reasons:- i'm a seasoned php dev with an interest in python + django- i appreciate your interesting pricing scheme :)i'm also a pc user, so i hope when (if?) you release a windows installer you'll send out an email.one criticism - i think you should have a 'confirm password' field after signing up.good luck with this, i'm interested to see how it works out for you. |
show hn: our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app
| i signed up for two reasons:- i'm a seasoned php dev with an interest in python + django- i appreciate your interesting pricing scheme :)i'm also a pc user, so i hope when (if?) you release a windows installer you'll send out an email.one criticism - i think you should have a 'confirm password' field after signing up.good luck with this, i'm interested to see how it works out for you. | says that i need a mac to "use the how to program installer" (which i don't have), is that a big part of the deal? do i need a mac for anything else related to this 'course'? |
show hn: our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app
| says that i need a mac to "use the how to program installer" (which i don't have), is that a big part of the deal? do i need a mac for anything else related to this 'course'? | bought the series. the videos are buffering very slowly with many interruptions. my connection should be able to handle this though?<link> may be related to the mediaelement.js player. skipping and searching is not working either.look forward to you fixing this issue. |
show hn: our video series teaches anyone how to build & deploy a web app
| bought the series. the videos are buffering very slowly with many interruptions. my connection should be able to handle this though?<link> may be related to the mediaelement.js player. skipping and searching is not working either.look forward to you fixing this issue. | that's an interesting pricing method for the beta period. i'd love to read a post on how that went after the beta sign-up period ends. |
where do yc applicants host their projects?
hi everyone,<p>quick question: what do yc applicants prefer - dedicated servers, co-location, vps, regular hosting plans or somethings else? where are they being hosted at? are there any major hub of startup hosting?<p>thanks! | taking the list of yc-funded companies from wikipedia, excluding those marked as defunct or sold, resolving www.${domain} to an ip address, and then looking that up via whois, i see:amazon.com (presumably ec2?) -- 2layered technologies, inc. -- 2nozone, inc. -- 2rackspace.com, ltd. -- 2software technologies inc. -- 2bitpusher, llc -- 1carnegie mellon university -- 1columbus network access point, inc. -- 1global netoptex, inc -- 1theplanet.com internet services, inc. -- 1so it looks like yc-funded companies usually have dedicated servers, but there's no single place where they tend to congregate. | we've got two boxes at the planet, and we're planning a box at rackspace, and probably an accelerator from joyent. a lot of the guys i know from yc use the following hosts and said at least a few good things about them:joyent/textdriverails machineamazone ec2 (though i also hear a lot of reliability complaints)rimuslicethere is no major concensus on the best. i've been using the planet and rackspace, or the cheaper serverbeach offering from the rackspace folks, for many years and have never had any complaints. service is good and reliable, prices are fair (rackspace is a wee bit pricier, but they provide good service and reliability). |
where do yc applicants host their projects?
hi everyone,<p>quick question: what do yc applicants prefer - dedicated servers, co-location, vps, regular hosting plans or somethings else? where are they being hosted at? are there any major hub of startup hosting?<p>thanks! | we've got two boxes at the planet, and we're planning a box at rackspace, and probably an accelerator from joyent. a lot of the guys i know from yc use the following hosts and said at least a few good things about them:joyent/textdriverails machineamazone ec2 (though i also hear a lot of reliability complaints)rimuslicethere is no major concensus on the best. i've been using the planet and rackspace, or the cheaper serverbeach offering from the rackspace folks, for many years and have never had any complaints. service is good and reliable, prices are fair (rackspace is a wee bit pricier, but they provide good service and reliability). | i will answer the hosting part of your question.1. get a list of all yc companies
2. get the as (autonomous system) number plugin for firefox
3. visit these yc companies to figure out where they are hosted |
where do yc applicants host their projects?
hi everyone,<p>quick question: what do yc applicants prefer - dedicated servers, co-location, vps, regular hosting plans or somethings else? where are they being hosted at? are there any major hub of startup hosting?<p>thanks! | i will answer the hosting part of your question.1. get a list of all yc companies
2. get the as (autonomous system) number plugin for firefox
3. visit these yc companies to figure out where they are hosted | does anyone have any thoughts on serverbeach (<link> i've heard youtube started with them. |
where do yc applicants host their projects?
hi everyone,<p>quick question: what do yc applicants prefer - dedicated servers, co-location, vps, regular hosting plans or somethings else? where are they being hosted at? are there any major hub of startup hosting?<p>thanks! | does anyone have any thoughts on serverbeach (<link> i've heard youtube started with them. | a little-known, fantastic host is reflected networks (<link> i talked them down to an insanely cheap monthly rate for a dedicated server with 3mbps. it's so inexpensive that i'm worried mr. ceo will fire whomever did it.. :) the service there is fantastic: zero downtime, free support, and a quick setup. so you should shoot them an email to see what special rates you can get (much less than what they advertise on their site). |
ask sen. wyden to read your name during his protect ip filibuster
| unless something really exceptional takes place, it isn't necessary to literally hold the floor and read names (or anything else) in order to filibuster. there is effectively a gentleman's agreement that if there's the intent to filibuster, it's as good as doing the deed. | this is an honest question that i realize will seem very tin-foil hatty, but i can't seem to brush it off.does anyone ever worry that doing something like this (supplying your name, email, etc.) will come back to bite you later? say, in 15 years if the american government by some twist outlaws decent. does anyone worry that you might be persecuted? |
ask sen. wyden to read your name during his protect ip filibuster
| this is an honest question that i realize will seem very tin-foil hatty, but i can't seem to brush it off.does anyone ever worry that doing something like this (supplying your name, email, etc.) will come back to bite you later? say, in 15 years if the american government by some twist outlaws decent. does anyone worry that you might be persecuted? | this is very important and a great use of a filibuster. help senator wyden to stop this bill! |
ask sen. wyden to read your name during his protect ip filibuster
| this is very important and a great use of a filibuster. help senator wyden to stop this bill! | crowdbusting congress.i like it.edit: call it a wikifilibuster |
ask sen. wyden to read your name during his protect ip filibuster
| crowdbusting congress.i like it.edit: call it a wikifilibuster | how effective is this tactic?i don't know how i would feel if someone stand up to speak against some law i sympathize (eg reduction of political benefits) and waste days reading cookbooks just to fuck everything up. |
western union may offer digital currency services similar to bitcoin
| buying bitcoins is a convoluted process especially outside of usa.
western union certainly has infrastructure to speed-up this process for anyone who is willing to pay their outrageous fees. | it is unclear if this is an april's fools joke. it's not far-fetched enough to be funny. |
western union may offer digital currency services similar to bitcoin
| it is unclear if this is an april's fools joke. it's not far-fetched enough to be funny. | with the coverage the bitcoin exchange rate has been getting, this was just a matter of time. |
western union may offer digital currency services similar to bitcoin
| with the coverage the bitcoin exchange rate has been getting, this was just a matter of time. | as in, how can we respond to this competitive threat that undercuts our business model while still maintaining our current revenues? |
western union may offer digital currency services similar to bitcoin
| as in, how can we respond to this competitive threat that undercuts our business model while still maintaining our current revenues? | where is the appeal in a wu created digital currency?1. this will probably mean wu wants a cut of all transactions in any digital currency they create... for life.
2. no benefit over fiat currency?
3. not anonymous.
4. all the "coins" are controlled by wu. |
nobody's going to help you, and that's awesome
| if you can only stomach scientifically proven self-help advice, then you might like this:<link>, upvote me :) (reverse reverse psychology) | i used to read a lot of self-help but i don't anymore. it's not that many books don't provide good advice but that the advice is really just common sense. read a list of proverbs and you've basically got what most self-help books and blogs say covered.a few years ago i bought into a lot of the self-help stuff. i read many books, and by the time i realized i was pretty much reading the same thing over and over again, i stopped. there were of course some esoteric neuro-linguistic-programming techniques i could try, but to me that seemed a lot like being a "cargo-cult" (<link> programmer--introducing behavior patterns that are meant to be a stand alone module when you don't know how they might interact the code that is already there (i.e. your current behavioral conditioning).to me, i think that reading self-help can be a necessary and important stage in personal growth. necessary and important, but intermediate. the moment you graduate from self-help, is the moment you start creating your own path for growth that is meaningful for you. |
nobody's going to help you, and that's awesome
| i used to read a lot of self-help but i don't anymore. it's not that many books don't provide good advice but that the advice is really just common sense. read a list of proverbs and you've basically got what most self-help books and blogs say covered.a few years ago i bought into a lot of the self-help stuff. i read many books, and by the time i realized i was pretty much reading the same thing over and over again, i stopped. there were of course some esoteric neuro-linguistic-programming techniques i could try, but to me that seemed a lot like being a "cargo-cult" (<link> programmer--introducing behavior patterns that are meant to be a stand alone module when you don't know how they might interact the code that is already there (i.e. your current behavioral conditioning).to me, i think that reading self-help can be a necessary and important stage in personal growth. necessary and important, but intermediate. the moment you graduate from self-help, is the moment you start creating your own path for growth that is meaningful for you. | it seems to me that people that don't read self-help books lump a lot more books into the genre and that causes them to miss a number of books they should read.earlier this year i recommended bargaining for advantage to someone and they responded that they don't really read self-help books. there are a number of books like this that deal with particular topics inside of the broader self-help genre, many of them going to a much more useful level of depth.in bookstores i regularly find very good books on particular areas of business mixed in with self-help in the more populist style.reading a number of these expert titles is very valuable. from the popular group often only one book is enough to cover the common sense side of things, for instance i recommend that all my friends read "how to win friends and influence people". |
nobody's going to help you, and that's awesome
| it seems to me that people that don't read self-help books lump a lot more books into the genre and that causes them to miss a number of books they should read.earlier this year i recommended bargaining for advantage to someone and they responded that they don't really read self-help books. there are a number of books like this that deal with particular topics inside of the broader self-help genre, many of them going to a much more useful level of depth.in bookstores i regularly find very good books on particular areas of business mixed in with self-help in the more populist style.reading a number of these expert titles is very valuable. from the popular group often only one book is enough to cover the common sense side of things, for instance i recommend that all my friends read "how to win friends and influence people". | shameless plug: i wrote an essay called "tony robbins über alles: or why i'm such a gigantic self-help junkie".some of y'all might like it, some probably won't. take it for what it is: my somewhat sound defense of my overly costly self-help habit :)it's the first article in this pdf: <link> |
nobody's going to help you, and that's awesome
| shameless plug: i wrote an essay called "tony robbins über alles: or why i'm such a gigantic self-help junkie".some of y'all might like it, some probably won't. take it for what it is: my somewhat sound defense of my overly costly self-help habit :)it's the first article in this pdf: <link> | i think this is in part caused by the fact that we're really poor at remembering and learning anything without actually applying in practice first, analogously to how explaining a concept to someone actually helps you learn it considerably better.what this means is that self-help books are useful, but also that each hour of self-help learning must be followed by 10 hours (or whatever ratio works for you) of practicing and gaining experience. i think most people who are burned by self-help are simply not turning into action what they read about, and hence not deriving whatever important lessons or conclusions they could be making based on what's in those books.at the end of the day you don't have to agree with what any self-help text teaches you, but by trying it out in practice you'll at least figure out if it works for you or not. |
atlassian stored passwords in cleartext?
| the e-mail does mention that "this security issue only affects atlassian customers who created an atlassian account and purchased one of our products before june 2008. since then, we have been using a more secure user management system based on atlassian's crowd product". | if confirmed, this will cause major damage to the company's reputation. atlassian is supposed to "get it". apparently they don't. very disappointing. |
atlassian stored passwords in cleartext?
| if confirmed, this will cause major damage to the company's reputation. atlassian is supposed to "get it". apparently they don't. very disappointing. | there's absolutely nothing in this email saying they stored passwords in "clear text". they could have been stored hashed with an older algorithm. maybe not the best thing to do, but that's not the same as clear text. if someone obtained the hashed passwords, they might be able to crack them (salted or not).they are doing the responsible thing by informing their users. it's posts with titles like this that prevent more companies from disclosing security breaches. |
atlassian stored passwords in cleartext?
| there's absolutely nothing in this email saying they stored passwords in "clear text". they could have been stored hashed with an older algorithm. maybe not the best thing to do, but that's not the same as clear text. if someone obtained the hashed passwords, they might be able to crack them (salted or not).they are doing the responsible thing by informing their users. it's posts with titles like this that prevent more companies from disclosing security breaches. | well, they could also have been using unsalted hashes, and they're afraid someone might use a rainbow table to find out the original password. still bad, but not nearly as bad. |
atlassian stored passwords in cleartext?
| well, they could also have been using unsalted hashes, and they're afraid someone might use a rainbow table to find out the original password. still bad, but not nearly as bad. | too much conjecture, not enough fact. |
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