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why users dumped your open source app for proprietary software
| i'll talk about the setup and configuration part. i mean this has been talked about to death but people still don't get it. and lately i'm starting to fear that maybe some people like it.this is especially visible when trying out various new programming languages. i have written exactly one .net application in my life and i absolutely loved it that i could just downl... i mean buy the visual studio, install it and start coding, debugging and deploying the application. the same story with delphi.a very different story is about python, haskell and all things java related. you need to download compilator, then you need to find and download ide separately, then you need to figure out how to make it work with the debugger, if you're lucky enough to get it working at all. it takes time and effort that doesn't benefit me. it's all reading instructions, changing paths in configuration files and setting environment variables.and the reason why this is done so is because as i mentioned some people absolutely love the idea that they can use any tools in any configuration that somehow after some effort work together. and people who like to tinker are the people who write open source. so there.also making good product = fun, making good setup = boring. | i think this makes some good points about how projects have trouble reaching users. the fact that people try a program 4 years ago and don't check back since, is particularly true.but i'd add one other big problem for open source: "anti-marketing", in the form of aggregating trolls.i don't have to google far to find sites that apparently just crawl sourceforge and dig up whatever crap they can automatically generate ad-ridden pages for. a lot of direct harm to projects comes from trolls:- they don't properly credit, and certainly don't link to, the page that they crawled (e.g. sourceforge). so users have no way of knowing that a more complete and authoritative source exists.- they often don't "re-crawl", so within a matter of months they're advertising something extremely old.- they usually don't have all the details quite right. so their pages seem "authentic", yet are wrong in critical places (such as, system requirements; i've seen things as stupid as non-windows programs that "require windows xp").- their robots are sloppy. for instance, i've seen them create a "what's new" page that completely misinterprets the original source release notes, resulting in a couple of nonsensical bullet points. this makes it seem like the software maintainer is retarded.- they give no direct control to project owners. not only is there no way to update a page, but even if there were, the site has no way of knowing that the person contacting them is the true maintainer of the software.whichever one of these trolls becomes king of google will do the most damage. |
why users dumped your open source app for proprietary software
| i think this makes some good points about how projects have trouble reaching users. the fact that people try a program 4 years ago and don't check back since, is particularly true.but i'd add one other big problem for open source: "anti-marketing", in the form of aggregating trolls.i don't have to google far to find sites that apparently just crawl sourceforge and dig up whatever crap they can automatically generate ad-ridden pages for. a lot of direct harm to projects comes from trolls:- they don't properly credit, and certainly don't link to, the page that they crawled (e.g. sourceforge). so users have no way of knowing that a more complete and authoritative source exists.- they often don't "re-crawl", so within a matter of months they're advertising something extremely old.- they usually don't have all the details quite right. so their pages seem "authentic", yet are wrong in critical places (such as, system requirements; i've seen things as stupid as non-windows programs that "require windows xp").- their robots are sloppy. for instance, i've seen them create a "what's new" page that completely misinterprets the original source release notes, resulting in a couple of nonsensical bullet points. this makes it seem like the software maintainer is retarded.- they give no direct control to project owners. not only is there no way to update a page, but even if there were, the site has no way of knowing that the person contacting them is the true maintainer of the software.whichever one of these trolls becomes king of google will do the most damage. | you're talking about the average user?it's simple: because they can pirate proprietary software and they always perceive something which has a price tag as more valuable than something which is offered for free. something which has more (perceived) value but which you can obtain for free will always win against something which is offered for free (and thus is perceived as probably worthless).sad but true.there are some exceptions, though. a lot of people use vlc, for instance, because it can play every single (probably pirated) video you'll throw at it. and there isn't a market for commercial video players. something like firefox wouldn't have reached such penetration without a lot of marketing (most people doesn't even know what a browser is, go figure).i'm constantly baffled by the number of articles about these subjects coming out every day from authors who don't understand (or completely ignore) basic human psychology. |
why users dumped your open source app for proprietary software
| you're talking about the average user?it's simple: because they can pirate proprietary software and they always perceive something which has a price tag as more valuable than something which is offered for free. something which has more (perceived) value but which you can obtain for free will always win against something which is offered for free (and thus is perceived as probably worthless).sad but true.there are some exceptions, though. a lot of people use vlc, for instance, because it can play every single (probably pirated) video you'll throw at it. and there isn't a market for commercial video players. something like firefox wouldn't have reached such penetration without a lot of marketing (most people doesn't even know what a browser is, go figure).i'm constantly baffled by the number of articles about these subjects coming out every day from authors who don't understand (or completely ignore) basic human psychology. | i think this misses the mark, at least in the enterprise world. what the commercial companies have is huge sales teams- sales personnel that know how to convince people to by their product. |
why users dumped your open source app for proprietary software
| i think this misses the mark, at least in the enterprise world. what the commercial companies have is huge sales teams- sales personnel that know how to convince people to by their product. | i dumped linux, although i still use it in the cloud. and rather than saying "dumped" it would be more accurate to say i decided to not use a pc laptop with linux, instead getting a mac.why? not for any of the reasons mentioned. one of the big things that convinced me was a little thing, the magsafe connector. i've seen laptops slammed down on the floor, and it's not pretty. endless driver issues were another reason, but the magsafe was the clincher. that alone is worth the price difference.so sometimes the reasons are not related to software. the larger context matters, including little things in that larger context. |
a redditor explains how to make readline and bash more user friendly
| do we need to mention that it's a redditor? this is a useful resource, so it should be submitted to hn, but the title needs editing. | those are great, here are a couple more i find very useful: # search for partial matches in bash history
# so $ 0c-p2 goes to the previous command but
# $ s0c-p2 searches through history entries that start with s
"\c-p":history-search-backward
"\c-n":history-search-forward
# add a trailing '/' when tab completing a symlink
set mark-symlinked-directories on |
a redditor explains how to make readline and bash more user friendly
| those are great, here are a couple more i find very useful: # search for partial matches in bash history
# so $ 0c-p2 goes to the previous command but
# $ s0c-p2 searches through history entries that start with s
"\c-p":history-search-backward
"\c-n":history-search-forward
# add a trailing '/' when tab completing a symlink
set mark-symlinked-directories on | a lot of cross-posts from reddit lately. could this mean reddit is improving? |
a redditor explains how to make readline and bash more user friendly
| a lot of cross-posts from reddit lately. could this mean reddit is improving? | or just use oh-my-zsh with the fish theme and get all of this (and more) straight away. |
a redditor explains how to make readline and bash more user friendly
| or just use oh-my-zsh with the fish theme and get all of this (and more) straight away. | wow, i was going to ask for a link to the reddit article before realizing that the subreddit was simply heavily themed. i had no idea these settings were flexible and i'm very thankful. thanks for the cross post and for introducing me to another nice subreddit. |
wtfjs?
| nan === nan being false is extremely handy. if you are trying to track down a rogue nan in some code, equating a variable against itself finds it immediately. this is also the same in most other languages (i use it all the time in c++). | nan === nan is guaranteed to be false by ieee 754. hardly a wtf.actually most of these posts seem to be the author misunderstanding floating point numbers. perhaps he should learn what he's doing before he blames the language. |
wtfjs?
| nan === nan is guaranteed to be false by ieee 754. hardly a wtf.actually most of these posts seem to be the author misunderstanding floating point numbers. perhaps he should learn what he's doing before he blames the language. | a reasonable number of these "wtf"s are just more examples of people failing to understand floating point. sigh |
wtfjs?
| a reasonable number of these "wtf"s are just more examples of people failing to understand floating point. sigh | psht, floating point wtf's are for noobs. == is where the money is at. straight from my v8 console: 222 x = new boolean;
false
222 b = (x || !x);
false
222 boolean(b == false) 88 boolean(x == false) 88 boolean(b) 88 boolean(x)
true |
wtfjs?
| psht, floating point wtf's are for noobs. == is where the money is at. straight from my v8 console: 222 x = new boolean;
false
222 b = (x || !x);
false
222 boolean(b == false) 88 boolean(x == false) 88 boolean(b) 88 boolean(x)
true | eh, msg me on twitter (same username) if you have better wtfs or want to contribute. the idea isn't to prove how awesome knowledgeable you are but rather to have a good laugh and maybe point out some of the less intuitive aspects of the language we all love to hate on. |
three reasons why the ipad won’t kill amazon’s kindle
| if amazon does two things, a) drops price and b) continues to rapidly improve their product i think the kindle could continue to have a very comfortable niche and could in the end either split the book market with apple or control most of it.nintendo's massively underpowered gameboy famously defeated waves upon waves of highly advanced competitors by understanding what the market really wanted (great games and great battery life) and doing that better than the competition. it's much, much too early to say how the battle between the kindle and the ipad for the book market will play out, but i think if there is indeed a clear differentiator in quality between the kindle and ipad screen, and the kindle is truly better for reading, then there might be an opportunity for amazon to put their foot in the door and show that they have the better product. for folks who are interested in an ebook reader but already have an iphone and a macbook a cheaper kindle could be the better option than the ipad.at this point i do feel that amazon may need to get some retail partners and to set up kindle kiosks in electronics and drug stores across the world. it doesn't matter if your screen is better if no one can see it first hand, and they're dazzled by the ipad they see in their local apple store.the other issue that amazon faces is while they may be able to lower their price and keep a nice spacing between them and the ipad, eventually the price of the ipad will come down and the kindle will less attractive. amazon will need to continue to innovate on their technology and seek out relationships to build content that apple won't be able to get. the announcement of the kindle sdk is a good first start. | if i were writing this article, it would have read: "1: e-ink. 2: e-ink. 3: e. ink."seriously though, you can't compare a device with two weeks of battery life and an e-ink screen with a large ipod. they are completely different devices for completely different purposes.sure, you can read books on your ipad... but i doubt that is why people will be buying them. |
three reasons why the ipad won’t kill amazon’s kindle
| if i were writing this article, it would have read: "1: e-ink. 2: e-ink. 3: e. ink."seriously though, you can't compare a device with two weeks of battery life and an e-ink screen with a large ipod. they are completely different devices for completely different purposes.sure, you can read books on your ipad... but i doubt that is why people will be buying them. | editors to staff: ipad is hot, write something the kindle is for book lovers, and the ipad is not.
- book lovers love books and the ipad lets them buy books... and if i am going to blow several hundred bucks buying one that looks nicer and also does lots of other stuff. amazon will continue to improve on the kindle.
- so will apple... the kindle store will continue to thrive.
- this has nothing to do with how well the kindle will do. ipad also wont kill amazon.com while we are at it. |
three reasons why the ipad won’t kill amazon’s kindle
| editors to staff: ipad is hot, write something the kindle is for book lovers, and the ipad is not.
- book lovers love books and the ipad lets them buy books... and if i am going to blow several hundred bucks buying one that looks nicer and also does lots of other stuff. amazon will continue to improve on the kindle.
- so will apple... the kindle store will continue to thrive.
- this has nothing to do with how well the kindle will do. ipad also wont kill amazon.com while we are at it. | the kindle takes the book/publishment you want to read and lets you focus entirely on that. no flashy page curls, no notifications, hell not even a clock to see what time it is. it's wonderful in that sense. the e-ink is also a nice benefit, my eyes _never_ hurt from reading on my kindle.i think the ipad has a good idea going with ibooks and i hope they eventually do magazines as magazines are very media-heavy but i don't see it taking over the kindles growing book environment. |
three reasons why the ipad won’t kill amazon’s kindle
| the kindle takes the book/publishment you want to read and lets you focus entirely on that. no flashy page curls, no notifications, hell not even a clock to see what time it is. it's wonderful in that sense. the e-ink is also a nice benefit, my eyes _never_ hurt from reading on my kindle.i think the ipad has a good idea going with ibooks and i hope they eventually do magazines as magazines are very media-heavy but i don't see it taking over the kindles growing book environment. | kindle will get the head (heavy readers), ipad will get the long tail (casual readers). there's room for both. |
show hn: fork recipes on the "github for food"
| for the hacker in us, we’ve built a short-hand notation for writing recipes<link> always wanted this as a cook 8 hacker. not spend too much time writing a recipe from scratch. more importantly dry. | for those of you that are confused as i was, they are referring to the site as the "github for food", and are not managing their content using github as i wrongly inferred from the title.edit: title was changed to make this clear. |
show hn: fork recipes on the "github for food"
| for those of you that are confused as i was, they are referring to the site as the "github for food", and are not managing their content using github as i wrongly inferred from the title.edit: title was changed to make this clear. | i don't normally use recipe sites because they are so obnoxious. my team and i tried cucumbertown based on the github comparison and it was worked well. check out the chicken and mushroom gratin we made here: <link> |
show hn: fork recipes on the "github for food"
| i don't normally use recipe sites because they are so obnoxious. my team and i tried cucumbertown based on the github comparison and it was worked well. check out the chicken and mushroom gratin we made here: <link> | definitely make the write a variation more prominent. also, on the main page you don't even mention that as a feature. to me, there's lots of recipe sites, and having the variation aspect is your differentiator, so shout it out! i'd encourage you to just rip off the github fork ribbon, because after all, it is proven to work.i assume you are working on design? design will be really important. having fun factor in the design combined with the social aspect of forking recipes could really do well, but you gots some work to do! |
show hn: fork recipes on the "github for food"
| definitely make the write a variation more prominent. also, on the main page you don't even mention that as a feature. to me, there's lots of recipe sites, and having the variation aspect is your differentiator, so shout it out! i'd encourage you to just rip off the github fork ribbon, because after all, it is proven to work.i assume you are working on design? design will be really important. having fun factor in the design combined with the social aspect of forking recipes could really do well, but you gots some work to do! | it also appears that this site supports the hrecipe microformat:<link>'s pretty slick. |
is this a good way to run a software company? [13 min vid]
| ha, i think this is great. people actually being expected to produce instead of just warming the chair from 9-5. i find the part of this video amusing where they are talking about how they encourage everyone to use a different desk everyday so that managers have a hard time monitoring them. i suspect this makes the manager focus on the important thing. that being the quality of the employee's actual work. unfortunately so often people default to using a persons work schedule to determine performance because it is easier to look up from your game of solitaire every morning at 9 and check a desk than it is to actually understand what each individual does and it's value (or lack there of) to the organization. | i think it must get harder to run a company that way when you get a lot more employees. once you become just another face in the crowd, there's not as much social pressure on you. the system might break down there.i mean, i'd love to work in a place like that. and i'm sure lots of others would. after all, many of us are altruistic and hard-working people, which would work great in a culture like that. |
is this a good way to run a software company? [13 min vid]
| i think it must get harder to run a company that way when you get a lot more employees. once you become just another face in the crowd, there's not as much social pressure on you. the system might break down there.i mean, i'd love to work in a place like that. and i'm sure lots of others would. after all, many of us are altruistic and hard-working people, which would work great in a culture like that. | it seems to me that if a company which manufactures a "solid product" can be run that way it must be possible to run a software company this way.an interview with semler:
<link> |
is this a good way to run a software company? [13 min vid]
| it seems to me that if a company which manufactures a "solid product" can be run that way it must be possible to run a software company this way.an interview with semler:
<link> | it really depends on the quality of people you have. this is a really nice way to run a company. but for it to work, you need to get employees that care and are willing to do their fair share for the company. |
is this a good way to run a software company? [13 min vid]
| it really depends on the quality of people you have. this is a really nice way to run a company. but for it to work, you need to get employees that care and are willing to do their fair share for the company. | i highly recommend his book maverick. |
the age of the essay
| regarding the combover:and, of course, at what angle does the combover look best?straight on, no wind, good overhead lighting... you know, the bathroom mirror. | i have a friend who is very afraid of flying, so this sentence intrigued me: "i was afraid of flying for a long time and could only travel vicariously."i'd love to see a pg essay on a) why he was afraid of flying b) how he overcame the fear |
the age of the essay
| i have a friend who is very afraid of flying, so this sentence intrigued me: "i was afraid of flying for a long time and could only travel vicariously."i'd love to see a pg essay on a) why he was afraid of flying b) how he overcame the fear | since 2004:
"at the very least i must have explained something badly. in that case, in the course of the conversation i'll be forced to come up a with a clearer explanation, which i can just incorporate in the essay." surprised. |
the age of the essay
| since 2004:
"at the very least i must have explained something badly. in that case, in the course of the conversation i'll be forced to come up a with a clearer explanation, which i can just incorporate in the essay." surprised. | interesting that he mentions the period where the short story reigned before tv broke through. seems very similar to the internet, where video has again broken through. |
the age of the essay
| interesting that he mentions the period where the short story reigned before tv broke through. seems very similar to the internet, where video has again broken through. | thanks for posting this. it was a pleasure to read it again. |
no more callbacks: 10,000 actors, 10,000 threads, 10,000 spaceships
| nice exemplar. back when java was being created, james gosling was pretty insistent that concurrency be lightweight and scalable. when i ported it from sunos 4 so solaris 2.0 i had to move from the really light weight setjump()/longjmp() threads that he had implemented, into the thread system that solaris had defined. there was a huge negative impact on performance (as i recall about 15x slower). that sucked because one of the coolest demos at the time had a little world in it where 'fang' (the java mascot) lived and a bunch of things in that world were all animated with threads. looking at the 'fiber' model for threads i think they are much closer to what we should have done in the first place.the thought was to have a billion threads on a sparcstation 10 (that is like an old pentium machine now). we never got close but it was a great goal. definitely going to have to go back and revisit this topic now. thanks for the excellent demo to play with! | well written, good description and nice demo.would love to see more on how this is different to (or better than) akka.
the programming model is actually close to akka (with actor systems, supervision, receive method, message passing, etc).the article states that akka has no true lightweight threads. the guys behind akka have put it running with 50m messages/second[1] and perfomance vs erlang seems to be good as well [2][3].perhaps a benchmark would be great.thanks for sharing.[1] <link>[2] <link>[3] <link> (discussing millions of messages is a good signal imho). |
no more callbacks: 10,000 actors, 10,000 threads, 10,000 spaceships
| well written, good description and nice demo.would love to see more on how this is different to (or better than) akka.
the programming model is actually close to akka (with actor systems, supervision, receive method, message passing, etc).the article states that akka has no true lightweight threads. the guys behind akka have put it running with 50m messages/second[1] and perfomance vs erlang seems to be good as well [2][3].perhaps a benchmark would be great.thanks for sharing.[1] <link>[2] <link>[3] <link> (discussing millions of messages is a good signal imho). | my first thought was "why don't they use akka"?> akka has no true lightweight threads (the actors are actually callbacks)would you care to elaborate? i'm not too familiar with the internals of akka, but they definitely don't use "heavyweight" threads (which i assume are threads that are 1:1 mapped to os threads).also, i didn't get "the actors are actually callbacks". yes, there may be callbacks involved internally (why not?), but there is a big difference whether i am sending a message to an actor (which may be processed at any time) vs. calling a callback (which is immediately executed on the very same thread that i'm running on).sorry if this sounds dismissive, but i'd really like to learn why you choose to implement your own solution, because you've obviously put some time into evaluating what is out there. |
no more callbacks: 10,000 actors, 10,000 threads, 10,000 spaceships
| my first thought was "why don't they use akka"?> akka has no true lightweight threads (the actors are actually callbacks)would you care to elaborate? i'm not too familiar with the internals of akka, but they definitely don't use "heavyweight" threads (which i assume are threads that are 1:1 mapped to os threads).also, i didn't get "the actors are actually callbacks". yes, there may be callbacks involved internally (why not?), but there is a big difference whether i am sending a message to an actor (which may be processed at any time) vs. calling a callback (which is immediately executed on the very same thread that i'm running on).sorry if this sounds dismissive, but i'd really like to learn why you choose to implement your own solution, because you've obviously put some time into evaluating what is out there. | i'm going to be "that" guy and ask... why actors? why not agents?the concept of agents (as defined by rich hickey in a lot of his clojure talks) is all about a globally shared, immutable and persistent state on which you can act upon.with actors you still need to have the actor handle its own mailbox of requests and then handle them, the actor has to define its behavior.with agents you don't have to ask for the world to stop to communicate, you can read the current snapshot of the world (aka no request to view the state, no database queries) and send transformation functions on the data of that specific agent, which will be then processed by the agent's thread in an ordered way.i'd love to see more insight on the choice for this, it's interesting as i am currently working on a similar project. |
no more callbacks: 10,000 actors, 10,000 threads, 10,000 spaceships
| i'm going to be "that" guy and ask... why actors? why not agents?the concept of agents (as defined by rich hickey in a lot of his clojure talks) is all about a globally shared, immutable and persistent state on which you can act upon.with actors you still need to have the actor handle its own mailbox of requests and then handle them, the actor has to define its behavior.with agents you don't have to ask for the world to stop to communicate, you can read the current snapshot of the world (aka no request to view the state, no database queries) and send transformation functions on the data of that specific agent, which will be then processed by the agent's thread in an ordered way.i'd love to see more insight on the choice for this, it's interesting as i am currently working on a similar project. | > writing correct and efficient multi-threaded code is at once necessary and extremely difficult.i do not agree with this. the original statement he is quoting says "can be very challenging". yes, if you are designing something very state heavy and your design is somehow flawed or too complex then you can run into issues. however, in most cases threads are no more complex than callbacks, actors, etc. in fact, from what i've seen, concurrent code eventually all converges to some semblance of the actor model anyways.where the actors/green threads/etc. really shine is having huge numbers of them. os threads still have very large overhead compared to lighter weight green threads, so you can spin up many magnitudes more of them than you have cpu cores.also, in lots of languages multi-core != concurrent. you can have 10,000 actors using a single core. in fact writing a scheduler that can efficiently distribute actors between different cores is probably where the complexity doron rajwan refers to lies. |
mac gaming renaissance coming in 2011, powered by steam
| i posted this to hn forever ago, it's a list of games coming to mac os x in 2010 and 2011: <link> games scheduled for simultaneous release on both windows and mac or mac-only releases are included in that list. games that are being ported to mac after being available on windows or gaming consoles previously are not included. starcraft ii is the first of the bunch, and there are a _lot_ more exciting games to look forward to. i think the days of os x gaming are finally upon us. | it seems that mac games do not have the same performance as pc games, even on the same hardware. maybe not surprising with valve, who is new to the mac platform, but it is surprising with blizzard who's been mac from way back. i can only assume that it's either an osx issue or bad drivers.either way, hopefully this is the start of a virtuous circle where more games = better drivers = more gamers = more games. |
mac gaming renaissance coming in 2011, powered by steam
| it seems that mac games do not have the same performance as pc games, even on the same hardware. maybe not surprising with valve, who is new to the mac platform, but it is surprising with blizzard who's been mac from way back. i can only assume that it's either an osx issue or bad drivers.either way, hopefully this is the start of a virtuous circle where more games = better drivers = more gamers = more games. | i was hacking around in jme (a game engine for java) today, and i am pretty amazed by how much work goes into such software. this is to all appearances and amateur production which has still received an incredible amount of work. comparing what it took to get a bit of code running in that versus j3d made me realize that a good, cross-platform engine for developing games could be a serious economic advantage for a developer. and it appears that that is what valve is doing here. very impressive. |
mac gaming renaissance coming in 2011, powered by steam
| i was hacking around in jme (a game engine for java) today, and i am pretty amazed by how much work goes into such software. this is to all appearances and amateur production which has still received an incredible amount of work. comparing what it took to get a bit of code running in that versus j3d made me realize that a good, cross-platform engine for developing games could be a serious economic advantage for a developer. and it appears that that is what valve is doing here. very impressive. | the mac gaming renaissance has been announced every other year for the last 15 years... macs are at an all time high in the households, that's a huge plus. but with shitty drivers, and most games written for directx, i don't know how it will turn out.we will see, but i have low expectations. |
mac gaming renaissance coming in 2011, powered by steam
| the mac gaming renaissance has been announced every other year for the last 15 years... macs are at an all time high in the households, that's a huge plus. but with shitty drivers, and most games written for directx, i don't know how it will turn out.we will see, but i have low expectations. | yeaaah... i've got a 2010 mbp 13' and steam there sucks. everything is slow and takes ages to load, i had to install windows.edit: also not just graphics, for example europa universalis iii, it took a couple of minutes to *loadé on my 2004 windows xp pc. now on this mbp with osx it takes like 10 minutes. |
judea pearl, big brain behind ai, wins turing award (nobel prize in computing)
| pearl won the turing award for his work applying bayesian analysis to machine learning, among other accomplishments.for hners just out of college, it's important to note that bayesian analysis has not always been as popular as it is now. in fact, even as recently as the 1990s, it was regarded with suspicion by many statisticians, who strongly disliked the idea that prior and posterior distributions are meant to represent subjective states of belief. i was fortunate enough to have a very progressive statistics professor in undergrad in the 1990s, who was interested in bayesian analysis. it's my understanding that most upper-level statistics and probability coursework avoided doing much bayesian analysis until around the turn of the millennium. (if you went to university in the 1990s or earlier, was this your experience?).for those interested in learning more about this topic, an excellent book on the history of the bayes theorem controversies was recently published by yale unviersity press: _the theory that would not die_ by sharon bertsch mcgrayneto be fair to judea pearl, i do see that he wrote an essay entitled, "bayesianism and causality, or, why i am only half-bayesian". nonetheless, much of his work appears to involve what we now know as bayesian analysis. so like many (all?) scientists who make major breakthroughs, judea pearl was going against the accepted understanding of probability by pushing bayesian analysis in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. it's good to see his daring rewarded. | it saddens me a little to see the " (nobel price in computing) " in the headline.this is hackernews! people here are expected to know what the turing award is; if they don't, they can find out for themselves. |
judea pearl, big brain behind ai, wins turing award (nobel prize in computing)
| it saddens me a little to see the " (nobel price in computing) " in the headline.this is hackernews! people here are expected to know what the turing award is; if they don't, they can find out for themselves. | his work on causal inference was featured recently on michael nielsen's blog: <link>
<link> |
judea pearl, big brain behind ai, wins turing award (nobel prize in computing)
| his work on causal inference was featured recently on michael nielsen's blog: <link>
<link> | i'd like to see some comments on his contributions to ai. wikipedia says his work is applicable to cognitive modelling. anyone want to comment? |
judea pearl, big brain behind ai, wins turing award (nobel prize in computing)
| i'd like to see some comments on his contributions to ai. wikipedia says his work is applicable to cognitive modelling. anyone want to comment? | congrats to professor judea pearl! though i did not take any of his classes when i was at ucla, in chance encounters he gave me a very good impression - nice, intelligent, and unassuming. i ended up using a lot of his materials (bayesian analysis) after college in my projects... here's a tagxedo i made of today's announcement in the shape of ucla's logo: <link> |
snowden disclosures finally hit 12 on a scale of 1 to 10
| "for what it's worth, this is about the point where i get
off the snowden train. it's true that some of these
disclosures are of clear public interest. in particular,
i'm thinking about the details of nsa efforts to
infiltrate and corrupt the standards setting groups that
produce commercial crypto schemes."
if anything this new information should put more people on the snowden train. in the 90s, legislation was proposed which would have put backdoors everywhere via the clipper chip. back then, we voted against that bill and all was good. this new information is shocking because we've already told the government that backdooring things was unacceptable behavior, yet they've done so anyways. we should all be outraged by this because it clearly doesn't represent the interest of the people. | per the article the gains that were made in breaking existing systems have been made public, so all of that effort goes for naught as people move on to new systems (which requires all new efforts). basically if you want to consider the "cost" (as in $$) of snowden's leaks, this shows a bunch of budget $$s that were spent on the assumption that these broken systems would remain in use for a period of time. since that assumption is removed, the $$s spent on breaking those systems won't be as useful as forecast, hence the cost estimate.that said, at the big crypt-a-geddon moment, when leon panetta said [1] "it does not mean that the department of defense will monitor citizens’ personal computers. we're not interested in personal communication or in e-mails or in providing the day to day security of private and commercial networks. that is not our goal. that is not our job. that is not our mission." he was lying. both by omission and by commission.and perhaps the most painful aspect of snowden's act is that by exposing this failure of integrity in the nsa, they will never again be able to take the "high road" of we need this to defend the nation.[1] <link> |
snowden disclosures finally hit 12 on a scale of 1 to 10
| per the article the gains that were made in breaking existing systems have been made public, so all of that effort goes for naught as people move on to new systems (which requires all new efforts). basically if you want to consider the "cost" (as in $$) of snowden's leaks, this shows a bunch of budget $$s that were spent on the assumption that these broken systems would remain in use for a period of time. since that assumption is removed, the $$s spent on breaking those systems won't be as useful as forecast, hence the cost estimate.that said, at the big crypt-a-geddon moment, when leon panetta said [1] "it does not mean that the department of defense will monitor citizens’ personal computers. we're not interested in personal communication or in e-mails or in providing the day to day security of private and commercial networks. that is not our goal. that is not our job. that is not our mission." he was lying. both by omission and by commission.and perhaps the most painful aspect of snowden's act is that by exposing this failure of integrity in the nsa, they will never again be able to take the "high road" of we need this to defend the nation.[1] <link> | we need to stop posting these non-technical ravings of people who haven't a clue. kevin drum can certainly have an opinion about the nsa (and he's mostly wrong, i think), but his musings about what the nsa can do is clearly uninformed.he seems to believe that all commercial crypto is suspect; and there exists some other nebulous category called "strong crypto." d'oh! if only we had all been so smart enough to use this obviously better "strong crypto" instead of "commercial." it's meaningless. the nsa has it's hands in all the crypto cookie jars.the ny times slides:<link> us some new details that have some usable specifics that can be gleaned. |
snowden disclosures finally hit 12 on a scale of 1 to 10
| we need to stop posting these non-technical ravings of people who haven't a clue. kevin drum can certainly have an opinion about the nsa (and he's mostly wrong, i think), but his musings about what the nsa can do is clearly uninformed.he seems to believe that all commercial crypto is suspect; and there exists some other nebulous category called "strong crypto." d'oh! if only we had all been so smart enough to use this obviously better "strong crypto" instead of "commercial." it's meaningless. the nsa has it's hands in all the crypto cookie jars.the ny times slides:<link> us some new details that have some usable specifics that can be gleaned. | he seems to be saying that it would be better (for the us) if the nsa continued to secretly spy on all the world's communications networks.that's certainly one point of view, but it's not one i expected to see in mother jones, or on hn. isn't the whole point of this uproar that we do not trust these unelected (by the us, never mind the global population) spooks with unfettered access to all communications? |
snowden disclosures finally hit 12 on a scale of 1 to 10
| he seems to be saying that it would be better (for the us) if the nsa continued to secretly spy on all the world's communications networks.that's certainly one point of view, but it's not one i expected to see in mother jones, or on hn. isn't the whole point of this uproar that we do not trust these unelected (by the us, never mind the global population) spooks with unfettered access to all communications? | it's very valuable to see this reaction to the latest snowden disclosures: i expect it will be common, and the tech community needs to be prepared to make it clear why this really does reflect another betrayal of trust.personally, i can't blame the nsa for trying to intercept and read lots of "suspicious" internet traffic: that's their job. governments do this, and whether it's good or bad, it's expected. (i'm not happy about the degree to which the nsa seems to be stretching the rules against them acting domestically, nor am i happy about massive all-encompassing interceptions rather than targeted ones, but those are separate issues.)so there really is a legitimate argument that these latest snowden disclosures damage national security. the thing is, they also indicate that the nsa has been doing its expected work by actively weakening the protections that we (and large parts of the global economy) depend on. their actions and strategies have also undermined global confidence in american technology companies. and those are factors that i think the average watcher (like the author of this article) may not recognize unless folks like us point it out. |
moot: full house
| i saw this and said "why the fuck is this on hacker news?" out loud. | the ban list (<link> is hilarious.a highlight (besides all the "ponies outside of /mlp/" ones):"i cant get banned, im 17 and my birthday is tomorrow. suck it m00t." -- ban, 90 days, "underage user" |
moot: full house
| the ban list (<link> is hilarious.a highlight (besides all the "ponies outside of /mlp/" ones):"i cant get banned, im 17 and my birthday is tomorrow. suck it m00t." -- ban, 90 days, "underage user" | interesting 4chan and hacker news are going different ways. they decided to make bans more transparent. hacker news recently made it impossible to reply to dead posts, so you can't even tell dead users they are dead any more. |
moot: full house
| interesting 4chan and hacker news are going different ways. they decided to make bans more transparent. hacker news recently made it impossible to reply to dead posts, so you can't even tell dead users they are dead any more. | >the public ban log displays a sample of recent bans, which we hope will give users insight into what content is being removed, and why.this might be interesting. |
moot: full house
| >the public ban log displays a sample of recent bans, which we hope will give users insight into what content is being removed, and why.this might be interesting. | 10 years, god damn. i'm always impressed that 4chan has remained essentially the same for so many years and has been able to have a huge following the whole time. i don't think any other website has ever had so much sustained success. |
show hn: uxarchive - how the best iphone apps handle userflows
| i have built this site with my friend nathan. i am a designer myself and wanted to build something to help people build better iphone apps! would love your ideas on other awesome user flows i could add to the site!
do you know any great onboard, explore, search flows? | i think this app is excellent, both in its idea, its (brief) presentation and what it promises to become, but the execution could use some work for now...random concerns that i have, assuming you want this to grow into a big, comprehensive ux flow database:- there shouldn't be a search if i can only select from existing content and can't actually search, a dropdown would do fine for now.- if you're to keep the search bar, at least add a friendly fail message when i search for something that isn't listed, like "no results, but take a look at what we have here instead!"- how do you plan to scale? user submitted screenshots? scraping the app store and providing a means for users to tag flows themselves? ideally this needs a clever system that scales independently of the work you put into maintaining it...- speaking of tags, you should add a tagging system for each flow anyways since there's a variety of names people will use to refer to those things, and this would help with the search a lot.anyways, don't get me wrong, i like the idea and i want to see it grow beyond just a demo into something really useful. i merely think that, as a ux person, this has room for improvement, so keep up the good work and keep on iterating! |
show hn: uxarchive - how the best iphone apps handle userflows
| i think this app is excellent, both in its idea, its (brief) presentation and what it promises to become, but the execution could use some work for now...random concerns that i have, assuming you want this to grow into a big, comprehensive ux flow database:- there shouldn't be a search if i can only select from existing content and can't actually search, a dropdown would do fine for now.- if you're to keep the search bar, at least add a friendly fail message when i search for something that isn't listed, like "no results, but take a look at what we have here instead!"- how do you plan to scale? user submitted screenshots? scraping the app store and providing a means for users to tag flows themselves? ideally this needs a clever system that scales independently of the work you put into maintaining it...- speaking of tags, you should add a tagging system for each flow anyways since there's a variety of names people will use to refer to those things, and this would help with the search a lot.anyways, don't get me wrong, i like the idea and i want to see it grow beyond just a demo into something really useful. i merely think that, as a ux person, this has room for improvement, so keep up the good work and keep on iterating! | you know what? i am a ios developer and i can tell you that no matter how good your application is, without advertising, you will get nothing.
there are many great applications in app store, however, no one cares. the new search function of ios app store, and the new top charts, apple only wants customer to get application from there, because those applications are great, and your new application to them, is just another number.
so what i say? forget about this content, find someone who can post the review of your application to some famous website such as hn, engadget, cult of mac...
if your application is not too bad, you will always get the thing you want.
maybe, find some companies that could help your application go into the top 10 is the best way. |
show hn: uxarchive - how the best iphone apps handle userflows
| you know what? i am a ios developer and i can tell you that no matter how good your application is, without advertising, you will get nothing.
there are many great applications in app store, however, no one cares. the new search function of ios app store, and the new top charts, apple only wants customer to get application from there, because those applications are great, and your new application to them, is just another number.
so what i say? forget about this content, find someone who can post the review of your application to some famous website such as hn, engadget, cult of mac...
if your application is not too bad, you will always get the thing you want.
maybe, find some companies that could help your application go into the top 10 is the best way. | my buddy that makes one of these apps wanted to email you something, but got this when emailing [email protected] :delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: [email protected] details of permanent failure:
google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. we recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. the error that the other server returned was: 554 554 5.7.1 [email protected]: relay access denied (state 13). |
show hn: uxarchive - how the best iphone apps handle userflows
| my buddy that makes one of these apps wanted to email you something, but got this when emailing [email protected] :delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: [email protected] details of permanent failure:
google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. we recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. the error that the other server returned was: 554 554 5.7.1 [email protected]: relay access denied (state 13). | a lot of pretty userflows. excellently detailed, really.but haven't you already failed to a large degree if you have to explain how the system works? |
one year of tracking mouse movement and clicks
| too bad the mouse was recorded when not moving, worse still it left big black circles where useful data might be. bad decision since you get nothing from the circle, apart from "user is not using the computer" which is useless.other data looks pretty random apart from the main blob which is positioned slightly off the center to the left and up.cool idea bad execution. | am i the only one interpreting this as more of an art piece than, i dunno, something that should be put in d3 with a shiny explorer interface so you can find out how many times they drew a smiley face at 3am? sheesh.neat imagery, and it makes me wonder what mine would look like :) i suspect you could make out where my ide/browser tabs usually reside. |
one year of tracking mouse movement and clicks
| am i the only one interpreting this as more of an art piece than, i dunno, something that should be put in d3 with a shiny explorer interface so you can find out how many times they drew a smiley face at 3am? sheesh.neat imagery, and it makes me wonder what mine would look like :) i suspect you could make out where my ide/browser tabs usually reside. | i have been doing something somehow similar for the past ~6 months by tracking (per minute) the number of keystrokes, distance travelled by my mouse cursor, number of clicks, active app, active wifi network and free disk space. i can't wait to start visualizing these over time. |
one year of tracking mouse movement and clicks
| i have been doing something somehow similar for the past ~6 months by tracking (per minute) the number of keystrokes, distance travelled by my mouse cursor, number of clicks, active app, active wifi network and free disk space. i can't wait to start visualizing these over time. | it is interesting, although i am unsure of the value of this information.something i have started to do is to look at the finger prints on people's touch devices. my wife's has an interesting pattern and it reflects her obsession with candy crush. |
one year of tracking mouse movement and clicks
| it is interesting, although i am unsure of the value of this information.something i have started to do is to look at the finger prints on people's touch devices. my wife's has an interesting pattern and it reflects her obsession with candy crush. | looks very cool but it's hard to give any meaning to the data |
nodule: a node.js pub-sub key-value store in 185 lines
| just for kicks, here's what the straight port of nodule.js looks like in coffeescript.<link> little clearer, about 25% shorter, pretty fun. | nice, good to see more people coming to node.js. these things are like the modern "hello, world!".here's one i hacked up in 10 minutes. it's 40 loc.
<link> big problem with this is that it's just one server. i'm working on something called "nodered" (har har) that lets one scale out the frontend using redis for communication. it's generic enough to do pubsub, chat, games, etc.here's an overview.
<link> developed the/a node.js client for redis if you care to dive into this stuff:
<link> |
nodule: a node.js pub-sub key-value store in 185 lines
| nice, good to see more people coming to node.js. these things are like the modern "hello, world!".here's one i hacked up in 10 minutes. it's 40 loc.
<link> big problem with this is that it's just one server. i'm working on something called "nodered" (har har) that lets one scale out the frontend using redis for communication. it's generic enough to do pubsub, chat, games, etc.here's an overview.
<link> developed the/a node.js client for redis if you care to dive into this stuff:
<link> | redis has pub/sub support as well:
<link> i think their apis (limited to pub/sub) are very alike, kinda cool! |
nodule: a node.js pub-sub key-value store in 185 lines
| redis has pub/sub support as well:
<link> i think their apis (limited to pub/sub) are very alike, kinda cool! | i'm working to accomplish something similar with redis's pub/sub and rosepad socket.io for handling persisting the client connection. if anyone has ideas questions or suggestions related to this strategy or these technologies i'd love to talk, email is in my profile. |
nodule: a node.js pub-sub key-value store in 185 lines
| i'm working to accomplish something similar with redis's pub/sub and rosepad socket.io for handling persisting the client connection. if anyone has ideas questions or suggestions related to this strategy or these technologies i'd love to talk, email is in my profile. | i'm pretty clueless - what are some examples this could be deployed for? |
white house refuses to comment on petition to investigate chris dodd
| it seems like this whole hubub is about someone stating openly what's a well known open secret in us politics: he who pays the piper calls the tune. i mean, really, everyone knows this. "why did my industry's trade association spend 1.8 million dollars on various candidates who may be voting on legislation that makes or costs us 10 times that much? oh, no reason... we just think they are very nice ladies and gentlemen and we love to be helpful. :)"chris dodd just stated more plainly what is 115% clear to all the recipients of this cash: "we are paying you to make specific legislative decisions in our favor. stop doing that job and we stop paying." i.e. quid pro quo i.e. bribery. i'd really like to hear ideas of how we can stop this racket; i'm afraid asking barack goldman sachs obama to "look into it" isn't going to work (tho i did sign the petition). | the reaction to this frustrates me immensely, because obama is doing the right thing.the obama white house is attempting to regrow the wall between political and constituent concerns and law enforcement concerns.the department of justice should operate with the most minimal of political interferences (since i don't think it's possible to avoid them all together) with the goal of maintaining its independence.that said, i absolutely do think that what chris dodd has been doing is not above board. i don't know who has jurisdiction or who to inquire with further, but the white house isn't the right place. i'd be interested if someone knows who in the doj would be the appropriate folks to contact. |
white house refuses to comment on petition to investigate chris dodd
| the reaction to this frustrates me immensely, because obama is doing the right thing.the obama white house is attempting to regrow the wall between political and constituent concerns and law enforcement concerns.the department of justice should operate with the most minimal of political interferences (since i don't think it's possible to avoid them all together) with the goal of maintaining its independence.that said, i absolutely do think that what chris dodd has been doing is not above board. i don't know who has jurisdiction or who to inquire with further, but the white house isn't the right place. i'd be interested if someone knows who in the doj would be the appropriate folks to contact. | and people wonder why i'm cynical about politics. if dodd was investigated for this it would lead to an investigation of 99% of elected representatives--including, presumably, the ones doing the investigating (i assume a congressional investigation would be required). this is the way politics works in our country, we just like to pretend it has more integrity.this might happen if we ever get campaign finance reform and term limits, right after hell freezes over. |
white house refuses to comment on petition to investigate chris dodd
| and people wonder why i'm cynical about politics. if dodd was investigated for this it would lead to an investigation of 99% of elected representatives--including, presumably, the ones doing the investigating (i assume a congressional investigation would be required). this is the way politics works in our country, we just like to pretend it has more integrity.this might happen if we ever get campaign finance reform and term limits, right after hell freezes over. | while i don't much like chris dodd, what, exactly has he done wrong?yes, he's said that mpaa members are going to be less likely to make campaign contributions to folks who don't vote the way the mpaa . so what?do any of you contribute to candidates who do things that you don't like? or, do you contribute only to those who do things that you do like?why should mpaa members be any different?i note that candidates make promises like "if elected, i'll work to repeal dadt" and organizations do fundraisers for candidates based on said promises.how is this any different? |
white house refuses to comment on petition to investigate chris dodd
| while i don't much like chris dodd, what, exactly has he done wrong?yes, he's said that mpaa members are going to be less likely to make campaign contributions to folks who don't vote the way the mpaa . so what?do any of you contribute to candidates who do things that you don't like? or, do you contribute only to those who do things that you do like?why should mpaa members be any different?i note that candidates make promises like "if elected, i'll work to repeal dadt" and organizations do fundraisers for candidates based on said promises.how is this any different? | i'm genuinely conflicted about the dodd controversy. like so many other people, i was quick to condemn him for his statement/threat.however, it was comments here on hn that made me question just how different it is from, say, me deciding not to contribute to a politician's campaign because i don't like what he has supported. my final feelings are that there's a sliver of difference because (a) i believe that my actions are for the greater good rather than my own self interest, and (b) i'm looking at a larger picture than lobbying over a single issue. but in the end, i've not been able to prove to myself that those differences are sufficiently objective and measurable to be able to sustain the complaint against dodd. |
evil, or why douglas crockford is harmful to free software
| here is the quote the post refers to from "the json saga":when i put the reference implementation onto the website, i needed to put a software license on it. i looked up all the licenses that are available, and there were a lot of them. i decided the one i liked the best was the mit license, which was a notice that you would put on your source, and it would say: "you're allowed to use this for any purpose you want, just leave the notice in the source, and don't sue me." i love that license, it's really good.but this was late in 2002, we'd just started the war on terror, and we were going after the evil-doers with the president, and the vice-president, and i felt like i need to do my part.[laughter]so i added one more line to my license, which was: "the software shall be used for good, not evil." i thought i'd done my job. about once a year i'll get a letter from a crank who says: "i should have a right to use it for evil!"[laughter]"i'm not going to use it until you change your license!" or they'll write to me and say: "how do i know if it's evil or not? i don't think it's evil, but someone else might think it's evil, so i'm not going to use it." great, it's working. my license works, i'm stopping the evil doers!audience member: if you ask for a separate license, can you use it for evil?douglas: that's an interesting point. also about once a year, i get a letter from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company--i don't want to embarrass the company by saying their name, so i'll just say their initials--ibm...[laughter]...saying that they want to use something i wrote. because i put this on everything i write, now. they want to use something that i wrote in something that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. so could i give them a special license for that?of course. so i wrote back--this happened literally two weeks ago--"i give permission for ibm, its customers, partners, and minions, to use jslint for evil."[laughter and applause]and the attorney wrote back and said: "thanks very much, douglas!"good talk, worth a watch: <link> | the article is in bad taste. the title even more.if you don't like crockford's license you are at liberty to write that code yourself. please don't call people who contribute a great deal to advancing computing (free software or not) names like 'harmful to free software'.even if there is genuine concern in the license and its usage in free software, it should be raised by pointing to the code and the license, not by making a personal attack.articles like this are harmful to free software because it discourages people from contributing. not douglas crockford's license written in good humour and with nice intentions. |
evil, or why douglas crockford is harmful to free software
| the article is in bad taste. the title even more.if you don't like crockford's license you are at liberty to write that code yourself. please don't call people who contribute a great deal to advancing computing (free software or not) names like 'harmful to free software'.even if there is genuine concern in the license and its usage in free software, it should be raised by pointing to the code and the license, not by making a personal attack.articles like this are harmful to free software because it discourages people from contributing. not douglas crockford's license written in good humour and with nice intentions. | sometimes i find the cognitive dissonance in the software community to be as entertaining to watch as that in various religious sects...software types are famously inclined toward libertarian views. an oft repeated mantra on hn is "let the market decide". yet, here we have myriad complaints about a decision the market has made.what i particularly love about the open source/free software world is that it is a market in the truest sense. barriers to entry are extremely low and, while there aren't necessarily dollars to throw around, consumers vote with their time and attention, both quantities arguably more valuable than currency. it is interesting to watch this market choose benevolent dictatorship models of governance over more democratic rule. it is intriguing to see reinvented wheels succeed for seemingly inconsequential reasons.and, in this case, it is rather informative to observe how expediency wins out, even to the potential detriment of the very consumers who have made this choice. reimplementing the code in question would require work. clarifying or requesting a change of licensing terms would require work. instead, the "market" (many, many oss projects in this case) has chosen the preexisting solution that contains a potential time bomb.if i didn't know any better, i'd almost say that this article is a veiled call for regulation. it's almost as if the market, left to its own devices, doesn't always make the best long-term decisions when short-term benefit weighs in opposition.the world of open source/free software really is fascinating to watch... |
evil, or why douglas crockford is harmful to free software
| sometimes i find the cognitive dissonance in the software community to be as entertaining to watch as that in various religious sects...software types are famously inclined toward libertarian views. an oft repeated mantra on hn is "let the market decide". yet, here we have myriad complaints about a decision the market has made.what i particularly love about the open source/free software world is that it is a market in the truest sense. barriers to entry are extremely low and, while there aren't necessarily dollars to throw around, consumers vote with their time and attention, both quantities arguably more valuable than currency. it is interesting to watch this market choose benevolent dictatorship models of governance over more democratic rule. it is intriguing to see reinvented wheels succeed for seemingly inconsequential reasons.and, in this case, it is rather informative to observe how expediency wins out, even to the potential detriment of the very consumers who have made this choice. reimplementing the code in question would require work. clarifying or requesting a change of licensing terms would require work. instead, the "market" (many, many oss projects in this case) has chosen the preexisting solution that contains a potential time bomb.if i didn't know any better, i'd almost say that this article is a veiled call for regulation. it's almost as if the market, left to its own devices, doesn't always make the best long-term decisions when short-term benefit weighs in opposition.the world of open source/free software really is fascinating to watch... | a license like this has two red flags. i previously worked in a programme providing corporate governance of open source. it's a fairly big industry with companies like black duck helping companies manage their legal risks, and licenses like this aren't popular.firstly, it's non-standard. as others have said, it's the author's right to make it non-standard, but i don't recommend people try that unless there's a really good reason to do so. if it's non-standard, a lot of companies simply won't use it. there's no box to check, so you can't have it. good tracking software will of course allow for exceptions and deltas to the standard contracts, but it still creates delays and management overheads as if it's allowed at all, it will require someone's manual sign-off.this gets worse when you consider the whole chain of software use. one library inside another library that's used by a subcontractor who added it to a build script that's used by the main contractor to distribute to developers. the whole thing needs to be linked through, which is hard enough with standard licenses.now startups don't need to worry about sign-off from some department, but they still need to stop and inspect the nature of the licenses they're using, and a non-standard license causes extra time and energy lost.the second problem is ambiguity. a non-standard contract can still be precisely written, so developers know what they're getting into. in this case, though, it's not. it hinges around the definition of "evil", which is naturally ambiguous.comedy goes a long way, but is not always appropriate. this is a good article on the subject: <link>
"it may be less amusing to the programmer writing the code but, more importantly, it is less infuriating for the programmer maintaining the code." think the same applies to licenses. |
evil, or why douglas crockford is harmful to free software
| a license like this has two red flags. i previously worked in a programme providing corporate governance of open source. it's a fairly big industry with companies like black duck helping companies manage their legal risks, and licenses like this aren't popular.firstly, it's non-standard. as others have said, it's the author's right to make it non-standard, but i don't recommend people try that unless there's a really good reason to do so. if it's non-standard, a lot of companies simply won't use it. there's no box to check, so you can't have it. good tracking software will of course allow for exceptions and deltas to the standard contracts, but it still creates delays and management overheads as if it's allowed at all, it will require someone's manual sign-off.this gets worse when you consider the whole chain of software use. one library inside another library that's used by a subcontractor who added it to a build script that's used by the main contractor to distribute to developers. the whole thing needs to be linked through, which is hard enough with standard licenses.now startups don't need to worry about sign-off from some department, but they still need to stop and inspect the nature of the licenses they're using, and a non-standard license causes extra time and energy lost.the second problem is ambiguity. a non-standard contract can still be precisely written, so developers know what they're getting into. in this case, though, it's not. it hinges around the definition of "evil", which is naturally ambiguous.comedy goes a long way, but is not always appropriate. this is a good article on the subject: <link>
"it may be less amusing to the programmer writing the code but, more importantly, it is less infuriating for the programmer maintaining the code." think the same applies to licenses. | there is no place for humor or overly subjective terms like "evil" in a software license or other legal document, and the problem with douglas crockford's license is that he fails to understand that.that is, unless his intent is to keep every entity with sane lawyers from using his software. i don't think that's his intent. he said he wants to keep people without a sense of humor from using his software, but sane lawyers with a good sense of humor will object to the license just as strongly as sane lawyers with no sense of humor.venue matters. a lawsuit based on the evil clause of the license, in san francisco or los angeles, would probably go nowhere. however, consider a jury in birmingham, al, and whether they would find that using some of crockford's software in an abortion clinic was a violation of the license. |
is this official google merchandise site?
where to buy original google merchandise online? | as ther5e is confusion here yes it is an official google store.googlestore.com is google's official us store where they sell merchandise. i am 99% sure (having read it on google in the past) merchandise mania ltd have the worldwide resale rights on merchandise (hence googlestore.com linking to google-store.com for map locales outside the us)edit: dolt i was almost right. a bit of poking around and it looks like merchandise mania are like the cafepress of the corporate world. so they provide the infrastructure, printing and shipping and google just sets up the merchandise they want to sell :) makes sense i guess.edit2: <link> is linked from the merchandise mania offical site (as a blog) and in the about section says: merchandise mania - an award winning promotional merchandise supplier based in borehamwood in hertfordshire. their international client base includes google, bosch, mcdonalds restaurants and many many more.:) | the googlestore.com links to google-store.com if we click anywhere on the map except the north american continent. so is the hyphenated site kind of official? |
is this official google merchandise site?
where to buy original google merchandise online? | the googlestore.com links to google-store.com if we click anywhere on the map except the north american continent. so is the hyphenated site kind of official? | the google about page (<link> links to googlestore.com, without the hyphen. the site is similar in appearance, but not the same; i would assume that the linked site is a fake. |
is this official google merchandise site?
where to buy original google merchandise online? | the google about page (<link> links to googlestore.com, without the hyphen. the site is similar in appearance, but not the same; i would assume that the linked site is a fake. | <link> is the usa+canada official google store. probably it runs an older shopping cart script written in ms asp.<link> is the official google store for the rest of the world . it uses oscommerce! |
is this official google merchandise site?
where to buy original google merchandise online? | <link> is the usa+canada official google store. probably it runs an older shopping cart script written in ms asp.<link> is the official google store for the rest of the world . it uses oscommerce! | i wanted to buy official google merchandise (especially the rubik's cube and a few wearables). the only site which pops up in google search is the link above. but i am skeptical. is the google store official site by google? doesnt look like that. also where can i buy official google merchandise, online? |
ask hn: should i stay or should i go?
i've been the sole developer with a startup for about 2 months now. i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful (right now all the money is coming from one of the co-founder's pockets).<p>no one else on the team seems to know what they are doing. i should have realized this earlier, but initially i gave them the benefit of the doubt.<p>the two co-founders constantly bicker and fight (over little things, like where a document is in google drive) and seem to be always trying to score points against one another. i mediate to move discussions forward, and i feel like the only adult in the room.<p>one co-founder is always interrupting to talk about random news articles or something they saw on tv that is tangentially related to the product. they'll schedule conference calls with the whole team for cold sales calls. other times, they will bring friends over to the office to show them that they are doing a startup.<p>the other co-founder is ok, but seems to lack a vision for the product.<p>if i were running things, there wouldn't even be a developer at this point. it would be much smarter for them to focus on developing their audience (since the site is going to need millions of users to turn a profit), than hiring a developer for a website that doesn't have a design (or sitemap, for that matter).<p>i can't see anyone investing in us. i would point out our slow audience growth numbers, but we aren't even keeping track of that.<p>i know if i leave them, i will feel bad. i don't think it will hurt the company too much, since no real development as been done and all my work is documented. also i have an equity stake in the company, and i'm not sure if that complicates things or not.<p>should i go because i feel this startup is a waste of my time? or should i stay in the hopes that they'll be able to get their shit together? it's already been two months and any progress we've made has been hard-fought by me. | it seems exceedingly obvious to me that you should leave. which makes me wonder in the first place why you are even being hesitant about this decision.1. you should not feel bad about anything. they could fire you at any time (assuming control is split equally among the three of you). you do not owe them anything. as long as you're respectful in telling them you're leaving, there is nothing wrong with quitting.2. that being said, i also believe that you're a bit misguided about the best direction for a startup at this stage. i disagree that it is smarter to focus on developing an audience instead of building the product. in order to build an audience you at least need an mvp to show to potential customers/users. your slow audience growth numbers are easily explained by the lack of a minimally fleshed-out product. you are not going to see huge numbers for a landing page. and many products require some sort of education / early adoption before they get mass traction. speaking for myself, if i see a landing page i'm not going to even bother putting in my email on the invite list. i'd like to see a demo at the very least. the fact that you guys don't have an mvp after two months is a bit of a concern for me. i'm not sure how much responsibility you bear for that. this point is irrelevant as to your decision on whether you should leave, but it's something for you to reflect on if you ever want to start another company (by yourself, with others, etc.). | " i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful "that's a sign to go. if you don't believe in the team and the product, then why are you spending time on the startup? |
ask hn: should i stay or should i go?
i've been the sole developer with a startup for about 2 months now. i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful (right now all the money is coming from one of the co-founder's pockets).<p>no one else on the team seems to know what they are doing. i should have realized this earlier, but initially i gave them the benefit of the doubt.<p>the two co-founders constantly bicker and fight (over little things, like where a document is in google drive) and seem to be always trying to score points against one another. i mediate to move discussions forward, and i feel like the only adult in the room.<p>one co-founder is always interrupting to talk about random news articles or something they saw on tv that is tangentially related to the product. they'll schedule conference calls with the whole team for cold sales calls. other times, they will bring friends over to the office to show them that they are doing a startup.<p>the other co-founder is ok, but seems to lack a vision for the product.<p>if i were running things, there wouldn't even be a developer at this point. it would be much smarter for them to focus on developing their audience (since the site is going to need millions of users to turn a profit), than hiring a developer for a website that doesn't have a design (or sitemap, for that matter).<p>i can't see anyone investing in us. i would point out our slow audience growth numbers, but we aren't even keeping track of that.<p>i know if i leave them, i will feel bad. i don't think it will hurt the company too much, since no real development as been done and all my work is documented. also i have an equity stake in the company, and i'm not sure if that complicates things or not.<p>should i go because i feel this startup is a waste of my time? or should i stay in the hopes that they'll be able to get their shit together? it's already been two months and any progress we've made has been hard-fought by me. | " i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful "that's a sign to go. if you don't believe in the team and the product, then why are you spending time on the startup? | you should leave. but give them time to find a replacement or mend their ways. moreover you would not want to put the entire blame of a failed(lets hope not) product on you. also leave only if that is the last resort. working in startups is a great leaning experience, especially for developers. you being the some developer must be taking care of everything from ideation to execution and deployment. very few people get to do that. but if you are unhappy with the work, the people are not nice and the product is dodgy its better to call it quits. its not cowardice, its practical. this is not adding any value to you or them |
ask hn: should i stay or should i go?
i've been the sole developer with a startup for about 2 months now. i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful (right now all the money is coming from one of the co-founder's pockets).<p>no one else on the team seems to know what they are doing. i should have realized this earlier, but initially i gave them the benefit of the doubt.<p>the two co-founders constantly bicker and fight (over little things, like where a document is in google drive) and seem to be always trying to score points against one another. i mediate to move discussions forward, and i feel like the only adult in the room.<p>one co-founder is always interrupting to talk about random news articles or something they saw on tv that is tangentially related to the product. they'll schedule conference calls with the whole team for cold sales calls. other times, they will bring friends over to the office to show them that they are doing a startup.<p>the other co-founder is ok, but seems to lack a vision for the product.<p>if i were running things, there wouldn't even be a developer at this point. it would be much smarter for them to focus on developing their audience (since the site is going to need millions of users to turn a profit), than hiring a developer for a website that doesn't have a design (or sitemap, for that matter).<p>i can't see anyone investing in us. i would point out our slow audience growth numbers, but we aren't even keeping track of that.<p>i know if i leave them, i will feel bad. i don't think it will hurt the company too much, since no real development as been done and all my work is documented. also i have an equity stake in the company, and i'm not sure if that complicates things or not.<p>should i go because i feel this startup is a waste of my time? or should i stay in the hopes that they'll be able to get their shit together? it's already been two months and any progress we've made has been hard-fought by me. | you should leave. but give them time to find a replacement or mend their ways. moreover you would not want to put the entire blame of a failed(lets hope not) product on you. also leave only if that is the last resort. working in startups is a great leaning experience, especially for developers. you being the some developer must be taking care of everything from ideation to execution and deployment. very few people get to do that. but if you are unhappy with the work, the people are not nice and the product is dodgy its better to call it quits. its not cowardice, its practical. this is not adding any value to you or them | it doesn't sound like anyone is really 'hungry' for success at this company. is the source of funding from this co-founder not limited in any way? are you being paid?sometimes the best thing to do before just walking away is to set some goals with very clear expectation and consequences. one of those consequences can be that you will leave. this way, if you are interested in saving your relationship with these guys you can avoid dropping it on them out of nowhere. who knows, maybe they'll turn around. but i can feel your frustrations. it's no fun babysitting co-workers. |
ask hn: should i stay or should i go?
i've been the sole developer with a startup for about 2 months now. i have serious doubts about the team and am doubtful that the product will be successful (right now all the money is coming from one of the co-founder's pockets).<p>no one else on the team seems to know what they are doing. i should have realized this earlier, but initially i gave them the benefit of the doubt.<p>the two co-founders constantly bicker and fight (over little things, like where a document is in google drive) and seem to be always trying to score points against one another. i mediate to move discussions forward, and i feel like the only adult in the room.<p>one co-founder is always interrupting to talk about random news articles or something they saw on tv that is tangentially related to the product. they'll schedule conference calls with the whole team for cold sales calls. other times, they will bring friends over to the office to show them that they are doing a startup.<p>the other co-founder is ok, but seems to lack a vision for the product.<p>if i were running things, there wouldn't even be a developer at this point. it would be much smarter for them to focus on developing their audience (since the site is going to need millions of users to turn a profit), than hiring a developer for a website that doesn't have a design (or sitemap, for that matter).<p>i can't see anyone investing in us. i would point out our slow audience growth numbers, but we aren't even keeping track of that.<p>i know if i leave them, i will feel bad. i don't think it will hurt the company too much, since no real development as been done and all my work is documented. also i have an equity stake in the company, and i'm not sure if that complicates things or not.<p>should i go because i feel this startup is a waste of my time? or should i stay in the hopes that they'll be able to get their shit together? it's already been two months and any progress we've made has been hard-fought by me. | it doesn't sound like anyone is really 'hungry' for success at this company. is the source of funding from this co-founder not limited in any way? are you being paid?sometimes the best thing to do before just walking away is to set some goals with very clear expectation and consequences. one of those consequences can be that you will leave. this way, if you are interested in saving your relationship with these guys you can avoid dropping it on them out of nowhere. who knows, maybe they'll turn around. but i can feel your frustrations. it's no fun babysitting co-workers. | i would take this post and email it to them. what's the worst that could happen? if you're debating leaving anyhow, you might want to give them a dose of truth and let them have the opportunity to see the error in their ways. or they could always fire you. in which case you accomplish the same ends, without the guilt. in that case they would be the ones doing something "wrong". two months of work at a startup isn't really valuable experience on a resume anyhow, so you wouldn't be losing anything. |
how i built a $600/mo product in one day
| i'm intrigued that you have that many buyers on wpplugins.com. are people signing up for your support contract, or is that really 40 purchases in the first month? do you expect this volume to continue, rise, or trail off?in any case, i had a reasonably successful plugin a while ago that i still get occasionally pestered to update... i'd be a lot more motivated to do so if i thought i could release it to a marketplace and net a few hundred a month. | you took us from concept to implementation to actual usage. along the way you included just the right amount of implementation info (your use of google alerts) and pointed out why you made some choices (wpplugins vs. other). well written.i shall second jun8 - need more articles like this. |
how i built a $600/mo product in one day
| you took us from concept to implementation to actual usage. along the way you included just the right amount of implementation info (your use of google alerts) and pointed out why you made some choices (wpplugins vs. other). well written.i shall second jun8 - need more articles like this. | i'm mostly curious what the revenue curve is on this project - was the majority of the earnings within the first week? how do sales dwindle when using this route?either way - great job and very informative. |
how i built a $600/mo product in one day
| i'm mostly curious what the revenue curve is on this project - was the majority of the earnings within the first week? how do sales dwindle when using this route?either way - great job and very informative. | very nice step by step instructions from zero to product. we need more of these. |
how i built a $600/mo product in one day
| very nice step by step instructions from zero to product. we need more of these. | hasn't contnent avalanche been out for years? www.contentavalanche.org has a 2007 copyright and i know i've read about it on some "guru" sites. |
is it time to up the statistical standard for scientific results?
| > these are the sorts of nuts-and-bolts reproducibility issues that drive researchers crazy, because they can be affected by things like the specific strain of mice you use, where you buy your chemicals, and even the ph of your lab's water supply. no amount of statistical thinking is going to change any of that.this screams systematic error and error propagation to me. it's possible that we don't need to up the p-value, we just need to make sure researchers aren't stupid and can properly account for all sources of errors. the problem is that's often an acquired skill over time, not something younger researchers typically think about, especially those who aren't multidisciplinary. | the real problem is that effect size is rarely discussed. p-values only relate to variability, sometimes high variability is acceptable, sometimes it's not. taken by itself, a p-value is worthless, no matter how small it is. for example, suppose you develop a fertilizer that you're 99.99999% certain will produce one additional ear of corn in 10,000 bushels. who cares!? you see a lot of that in published papers. a lot of researchers stop once they get a p-value below 0.05 and neglecting effect size is the norm. |
is it time to up the statistical standard for scientific results?
| the real problem is that effect size is rarely discussed. p-values only relate to variability, sometimes high variability is acceptable, sometimes it's not. taken by itself, a p-value is worthless, no matter how small it is. for example, suppose you develop a fertilizer that you're 99.99999% certain will produce one additional ear of corn in 10,000 bushels. who cares!? you see a lot of that in published papers. a lot of researchers stop once they get a p-value below 0.05 and neglecting effect size is the norm. | in physics, we use 2-sigma (95%) limits all the time. 5-sigma (99.9999%) is generally required only for a claim of detection.if you're just feeling your way around in the dark, 2-sigma is a useful way to work, so we use that to guide exploration.why 2-sigma? well, it's twice as big as 1-sigma.experiment didn't go well, but you need a more-impressive result? use a 90% confidence interval instead of 95%. |
is it time to up the statistical standard for scientific results?
| in physics, we use 2-sigma (95%) limits all the time. 5-sigma (99.9999%) is generally required only for a claim of detection.if you're just feeling your way around in the dark, 2-sigma is a useful way to work, so we use that to guide exploration.why 2-sigma? well, it's twice as big as 1-sigma.experiment didn't go well, but you need a more-impressive result? use a 90% confidence interval instead of 95%. | the problem with upping the standard is, as the pnas article acknowledges, that you need a larger sample size to produce any given result.unfortunately, many studies -- particularly those in medicine -- are already conducted with samples that are too small to detect any effect you'd reasonably expect to see, because many researchers do not calculate in advance what sample size would be required. this has interesting paradoxical effects: the only published studies are those that overestimate the size of the true effect.<link>
<link> there's a tradeoff. do you want to eliminate false positives at the cost of more false negatives? it's a difficult balance. i suspect there are many areas where poor statistical practice can be remedied to produce better results without greater expense. |
is it time to up the statistical standard for scientific results?
| the problem with upping the standard is, as the pnas article acknowledges, that you need a larger sample size to produce any given result.unfortunately, many studies -- particularly those in medicine -- are already conducted with samples that are too small to detect any effect you'd reasonably expect to see, because many researchers do not calculate in advance what sample size would be required. this has interesting paradoxical effects: the only published studies are those that overestimate the size of the true effect.<link>
<link> there's a tradeoff. do you want to eliminate false positives at the cost of more false negatives? it's a difficult balance. i suspect there are many areas where poor statistical practice can be remedied to produce better results without greater expense. | >in most fields, if there's less than a five percent chance that you'd get the two numbers by random chance, then you can reject chance—the results are considered significant. in statistical terms, this is called having a p value of less than 0.05.no it isn't [1].[1]: <link> |
the world's most influential languages
| these ranking ignore the fact spanish and portuguese are much closer to each other than any other two languages in this top ten listing.although spanish and portuguese are now two separate unintelligible languages, they were virtually the same 800 years ago. someone literate in one can easily learn the other; it's probably the same with fluency. machine translation between them is probably very accurate because of their relative closeness and the huge volume of sample data for both languages. also... because of geopolitics, brazil and the rest of latin america can easily negotiate compromise agreements where they say "put the administrative center for this in brazil and make spanish the official language for it".so perhaps there's more of a case to consider spanish and portuguese to be one language for these rankings, than there is to lump all the unintelligible arabic dialects (morrocan, egyptian, levantine, iraqi, and gulf) into one language, or the unintelligible chinese dialects (mandarin, cantonese, wu, minbei, minnan, xiang, gan) into one language. | what? the usa doesn't have an official language (like in one recognized by government)?that's news for me, and it's interesting to think on the implications. i'll point that next time an american complains to me on the web to "speak english". |
the world's most influential languages
| what? the usa doesn't have an official language (like in one recognized by government)?that's news for me, and it's interesting to think on the implications. i'll point that next time an american complains to me on the web to "speak english". | is this a winner-takes-all, network effects situation? are we going to see the entire world speaking english as at least a second language in the next 50-100 years? |
the world's most influential languages
| is this a winner-takes-all, network effects situation? are we going to see the entire world speaking english as at least a second language in the next 50-100 years? | "it should be a sobering thought, however, to any triumphalist impulse that in 100 ad latin looked set to dominate its slice of the world forever."the winner of the "top language of 100 ad" should go to chinese circa 100 a.d.<link> following languages are heavily influenced by written chinese:korean <link> <link> <link> well as a variety of other languages (though the regions where they are from are now considered part of china):<link> influenced:mongolian <link> <link> is a picture of han china and roman empire circa 100 a.d.<link> chinese still dominate its slice of the world.while not all chinese are conversant with standard mandarin, (i am not), almost all of them can read and write chinese. |
the world's most influential languages
| "it should be a sobering thought, however, to any triumphalist impulse that in 100 ad latin looked set to dominate its slice of the world forever."the winner of the "top language of 100 ad" should go to chinese circa 100 a.d.<link> following languages are heavily influenced by written chinese:korean <link> <link> <link> well as a variety of other languages (though the regions where they are from are now considered part of china):<link> influenced:mongolian <link> <link> is a picture of han china and roman empire circa 100 a.d.<link> chinese still dominate its slice of the world.while not all chinese are conversant with standard mandarin, (i am not), almost all of them can read and write chinese. | indonesian/malay is spoken by around 268 million people. it is sometimes rated as the sixth most widely spoken language in the world, yet george weber barely mentions it.indonesia itself has 237 million people, of which almost 100% speak indonesian/malay.the indonesian/malay language is a huge gaping hole in george weber's research.<link> |
why the flow of innovation has reversed
| the vector of innovation has changed. it used to be that innovation started with nasa, flowed to the military, then to the enterprise, and finally to the consumer. today, it is the reverse. all of the most interesting stuff is being built first for consumers and is tricking back to the enterprise.the basic premise of the article is wrong. nasa specifically, may not play as large a role as it once did, but (most) innovation is still very much a top-down process. even twitter (which i've seen hailed as innovative again and again) is just a hack on sms, which of course was not developed by consumers.he also seems to be implying that web 2ish "social engineering" has outpaced electrical engineering as a means of innovation, which is at best a confusion between the application layer and underlying technology stack. | computers simply got cheaper. you don't have to be nasa or general dynamics to afford them. |
why the flow of innovation has reversed
| computers simply got cheaper. you don't have to be nasa or general dynamics to afford them. | i think the author may be equivocating on innovation. anyone would have to agree that the kinds of innovations that nasa was/is responsible for (whether directly or through funding subcontractors) were of a fundamentally different kind and scale than current .com/web 2.0 innovations. twitter isn't an x-15; google is great, but it's no moon landing.the kinds of innovations we seem to think we are seeing today are clever tricks compared to the kind of r8d that went into nasa's frankly glorious history of innovation. the resources and incredible intellectual capital that had to be (and still has to be) invested in a new launch vehicle, satellite, or manned craft is just orders of magnitude higher than what is required for innovation of the internet-startup kind.none of this should be seen to denigrate the innovations that are minting millionaires and billionaires today. indeed, the truly wondrous thing is that a mere clever trick can make you for life. unless i'm missing something (and i'm not, at least here), this is the very reason that ycombinator and hacker news exist at all; you can fund significant innovation that may earn $10^6-$10^9 for $10^4.for a contemporary example of the difference between these two kinds of innovation, just look at spacex. elon musk made his money the clever trick way (low initial capital + clever trick + hard work + wonder of the internet) and is now engaged in the "old school" way of making money with innovation (high capital + lots of ph.ds + hard work of 100s to 1000s of people + rigorous design, construction, and testing). |
why the flow of innovation has reversed
| i think the author may be equivocating on innovation. anyone would have to agree that the kinds of innovations that nasa was/is responsible for (whether directly or through funding subcontractors) were of a fundamentally different kind and scale than current .com/web 2.0 innovations. twitter isn't an x-15; google is great, but it's no moon landing.the kinds of innovations we seem to think we are seeing today are clever tricks compared to the kind of r8d that went into nasa's frankly glorious history of innovation. the resources and incredible intellectual capital that had to be (and still has to be) invested in a new launch vehicle, satellite, or manned craft is just orders of magnitude higher than what is required for innovation of the internet-startup kind.none of this should be seen to denigrate the innovations that are minting millionaires and billionaires today. indeed, the truly wondrous thing is that a mere clever trick can make you for life. unless i'm missing something (and i'm not, at least here), this is the very reason that ycombinator and hacker news exist at all; you can fund significant innovation that may earn $10^6-$10^9 for $10^4.for a contemporary example of the difference between these two kinds of innovation, just look at spacex. elon musk made his money the clever trick way (low initial capital + clever trick + hard work + wonder of the internet) and is now engaged in the "old school" way of making money with innovation (high capital + lots of ph.ds + hard work of 100s to 1000s of people + rigorous design, construction, and testing). | 2 the vector of innovation has changed. it used to be that innovation started with nasa, flowed to the military, then to the enterprise, and finally to the consumer.huh? nasa didn't produce much innovation. bell labs did. edison did. ge did. heck, even gm and ford had their day. nasa - not so much.even if we restrict ourselves to innovation by govt organizations, nasa is behind at least two of the national labs. |
why the flow of innovation has reversed
| 2 the vector of innovation has changed. it used to be that innovation started with nasa, flowed to the military, then to the enterprise, and finally to the consumer.huh? nasa didn't produce much innovation. bell labs did. edison did. ge did. heck, even gm and ford had their day. nasa - not so much.even if we restrict ourselves to innovation by govt organizations, nasa is behind at least two of the national labs. | for the consumer adopting a new technology is an individual decision which is increasingly becoming monetarily inexpensive requiring mostly a time investment. for the enterprise a change in technology is an organization decision that will impact internal processes that could cause changes to the way hundreds or thousands work leading to a large expense. because of this cost difference the consumer will be more likely to experiment with new technologies than the enterprise, also, since changes in consumer technology is driven by many individual decisions not a organization decision the changes will occur faster. currently, this change in the flow of innovation is focused on information technologies. over time as the cost of other technologies (biotech, custom manufacturing, ...) fall i would expect to see a similar result. |
for tech start-ups, new york has increasing allure
| this quickly fell off the top of the list at hn, and rightfully so.
there haven't been many recent super-exits out of nyc. the only one that comes to mind is quidsi, which was acquired by amazon, but they weren't even actually in the city, they were in jersey city.
this is the nytimes doing it's job of tooting the city's horn by citing a couple of examples (i give them credit for leaving foursquare out this time), and a "recent report from the center for an urban future, a new york-based public policy organization" (ok, if the name of this institution itself doesn't suggest an incredible amount of bias i don't know what would). the mayor has fallen in line as well, so his legacy will not be a collapsed financial services industry(not his fault) but instead, he hopes, a tech startup paradise. and still not quite sure what the point of this tech school on roosevelt island is. stanford isn't a tech school, it just has a solid tech offering.
mit is a tech school yet boston has failed to become a tech mecca on the same scale as the valley.what matters it the culture of a city or environment. nyc's culture is not tech startup, it's finance and media. it's foreign investors buying large buildings and apartments to park their black money. it's gritty and boisterous, which can be fun, but it's not nurturing.sure there will be a few hits, but there will be a few hits from many cities around the country. that doesn't mean they are going to become the next tech mecca and take down the valley. | worth noting, the pwc / national venture capital association money-tree report shows total deal size and activity on a per-region basis. silicon valley gets 5.5x more capital and almost 3x the deal flow of ny metro area. [1]i think of any ecosystem as having energy. more things happen when molecules bounce around and interact. that energy is capital.i think it's great that ny has 'allure', but the distribution of capital amongst the various regions follows a really clear, winner-take-all power law. sv is king and will remain so for the foreseeable future.[1] <link> |
for tech start-ups, new york has increasing allure
| worth noting, the pwc / national venture capital association money-tree report shows total deal size and activity on a per-region basis. silicon valley gets 5.5x more capital and almost 3x the deal flow of ny metro area. [1]i think of any ecosystem as having energy. more things happen when molecules bounce around and interact. that energy is capital.i think it's great that ny has 'allure', but the distribution of capital amongst the various regions follows a really clear, winner-take-all power law. sv is king and will remain so for the foreseeable future.[1] <link> | new yorkers who play any serious role in the tech startup scene - whether it be as company, investor or advisor - know what quora is. please don't let this shallow piece of reporting steer you into believing otherwise. |
for tech start-ups, new york has increasing allure
| new yorkers who play any serious role in the tech startup scene - whether it be as company, investor or advisor - know what quora is. please don't let this shallow piece of reporting steer you into believing otherwise. | i'm biased as i'm a writer covering boston, but it's worth noting that new york's rise is tilted in the direction of a specific area: internet/mobile startups. but if you look at other innovation sectors like healthcare, energy, robotics, etc. new york is still extremely nascent. |
for tech start-ups, new york has increasing allure
| i'm biased as i'm a writer covering boston, but it's worth noting that new york's rise is tilted in the direction of a specific area: internet/mobile startups. but if you look at other innovation sectors like healthcare, energy, robotics, etc. new york is still extremely nascent. | this article was clearly written by someone with very little understanding nyc's tech scene. while i would agree that there is a social/mobile bubble here, many impressible businesses serving other sectors are being started by incredibly bright entrepreneurs. each of whom know what quora is.in terms of finding top talent, as long as a company is building products with tangible value and the ceo can outline the immediate roi for customers, those that flock to wall street are there to be had. the east coast also has our own top universities, the originals - harvard, mit, cornell, princeton, yale, penn, carnegie mellon - who are each producing phenomenal mathematics and cs professionals with east coast ties. the ability to staff talent is directly correlated to the quality of the company's product and founders. |
3-sweep: extracting editable objects from a single photo [video]
| the key here is really complementary use of ‘what humans are good at’ and ‘what machines are good at’.in this case, it’s fair to say the machine, by analyzing pixels, can’t figure out perspective very well. the human can do that just fine, given an interface mechanism.the machine is good at detecting edges and seeing similarity between pixels. given hints from the human that ‘this point is within an object’ and here is the perspective, the machine can infer the limits of the object based on edges/colors and project it into 3 dimensions. amazing. | what i was thinking all along: "oh come on! it can't be this perfect, show me where it fails."
and they did!this is indeed magic. i'm so happy to live in this age, and be part of the "sorcerers' guild". |
3-sweep: extracting editable objects from a single photo [video]
| what i was thinking all along: "oh come on! it can't be this perfect, show me where it fails."
and they did!this is indeed magic. i'm so happy to live in this age, and be part of the "sorcerers' guild". | the paper is not out yet, but you can read the abstract here:<link> |
3-sweep: extracting editable objects from a single photo [video]
| the paper is not out yet, but you can read the abstract here:<link> | if you marked shadows and associated them with their source, could you then recover the light source(s) and be able to remove the baked shadows and recast them in real time?also, with the shiny objects, could you specify the material properties and have it "back out" the reflection such that the reflection was recomputed as you moved the shape around? |
3-sweep: extracting editable objects from a single photo [video]
| if you marked shadows and associated them with their source, could you then recover the light source(s) and be able to remove the baked shadows and recast them in real time?also, with the shiny objects, could you specify the material properties and have it "back out" the reflection such that the reflection was recomputed as you moved the shape around? | wow.forget the photoshop stuff, this needs to be integrated with 3d printing immediately.spit out a design file into tinkercad[1] for some minor adjustments and bam, you've made a printable 3d model.[1] <link> |
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