Hacker News Reader

hoggleon Unexpected ways to wake up your brain

Interesting, I like to go swimming midday or evening and it helps me "reboot" as well. After about 30 minutes of medium to high intensity breaststroke I often feel better than when I got out of bed that morning.

hoggleon I Hope Twitter Goes Away

Twitter like Apple define themselves more by saying "No" then anything else and I love them for it.

hoggleon I Hope Twitter Goes Away

I guess it depends on which Twitter client one uses, I've never had a cut-off conversation with Echofon.

hoggleon The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s

Is it freedom when I can't make an informed decision on what to do with my life?

Is it freedom when I inherit the values of those who teach me, making them the foundation of my (sub-conscious) thinking?

hoggleon Hints for writing Unix tools

“One thing well” misses the point: it should be “One thing well AND COMPOSES WELL”

If the implementation isn't respecting The Rule of Composition it's actually not adhering to the Unix philosophy in the first place. The tweet is referring to one of Doug McIlroy's (one of the Unix founders, inventor of the Unix pipe) famous quotes:

"This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface."

Pure beauty, but it's almost too concise a definition if you haven't experienced the culture of Unix (many years of usage / reading code / writing code / communication with other followers). ESR's exhaustive list of Unix rules in plain English might be a better start for the uninitiated (among which one will find the aforementioned Rule of Composition).

For all those seeking enlightenment, go forth and read the The Art of Unix Programming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Unix_Programming

17 Unix Rules:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Eric_Raymond.E...

hoggleon A Watch Guy's Thoughts on the Apple Watch After Seeing It in the Metal

I don't know how accurate Apple's method for monitoring the heart rate is but it's definitely cool that I don't need to use a chest strap. That said knowing about my oxygen consumption and heart rate variability during swimming exercises is pretty amazing, I highly doubt the optical Apple sensor would work in that environment. So that Suunto Ambit2 looks neat indeed, thanks for sharing.

hoggleon A Watch Guy's Thoughts on the Apple Watch After Seeing It in the Metal

Voice feedback and a HUD are probably the safest solutions when driving, still I like the idea of not having to take my iPhone with me to track my regular running activities (I'm not sure if this is supported by Apple Watch though).

hoggleon Caml Trading – Experiences with OCaml on Wall Street [video]

Very interesting, in terms of pragmatism OCaml was the best choice for them at the time but now Minsky would also consider using Haskell or Scala. I guess Scala might arguably be the most pragmatic of the lot (access to tons of high-quality Java libraries, etc)?

hoggleon How the global banana industry is killing the world’s favorite fruit

"But the GMO lightning rod distracts from the larger cautionary tale: Our reliance on monoculture to feed surging global populations is catching up with us."

A lot of old true-to-seed breeds of plants with diverse sets of attributes (like e.g. being more resistant to certain environmental conditions) haven't been cultivated for economic reasons and consequently have become extinct by now.

There are some enthusiasts trying to preserve those old breeds by running seed-banks but they have a hard time to do so even here in Europe because of corporations like Monsanto and their heavy lobbying trying to outlaw this movement.

Arche Noah:

"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity worldwide."

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

Related - I was just posting on this topic on the Red Delicious thread which popped up on the HN frontpage:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8301185

Edit: I can't see why this gets downvoted, it is clearly on-topic and relevant.

hoggleon The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious

Vote with your wallet. Lots of variety has been lost forever because old breeds haven't been cultivated anymore.

There is an initiative here in Europe that tries to keep old true-to-seed breeds alive but they have to fight the brutal lobbying of Monsanto and the likes.

In the end it is our fault when we buy stuff for the wrong reasons (cheaper is better, looks, etc).

Arche Noah:

"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity worldwide."

"Beginning of the (20th) century there were 2,000 apple varieties, today you can find at the grocery store only max. 20 varieties."

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

Fun fact: these days Joe Cocker cultivates old tomato breeds on his farm in Colorado and gets some of his seeds from the Arche Noah network.

hoggleon CLion – Brand New IDE for C and C++ Developers

I'd been happily developing with VIM for more than five years but last year I tried RubyMine and once I let go of my perfectionistic/unixy point-of-view things got a lot easier tbh. If I were still doing systems programming I'd be very tempted to try this new IDE. Be warned though, the JetBrains products are usually not very pleasant to look at (alas there usually is support for themes).

hoggleon Methylphenidate Exposure Induces Dopamine Neuron Loss in Mice

For anybody returning to this thread, here are some other discussions around this study I found on the web (thank you duckduckgo :)

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/61161-methylphenidate-n...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/1yd5bf/methylphe...

http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=539...

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-long-term-effects-of-Adde...

---

And some studies suggesting other adverse neurodegenerative effects of MPH as well:

"Methylphenidate treatment induces oxidative stress in young rat brain"

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899306...

"Methylphenidate induces lipid and protein damage in prefrontal cortex, but not in cerebellum, striatum and hippocampus of juvenile rats."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22968482

hoggleon Methylphenidate Exposure Induces Dopamine Neuron Loss in Mice

I just wanted to thank you for still answering on this thread. Your sharing of your experiences is very much welcome, I've only been on Ritalin for over a month and already feel exactly as you describe it. Still, I'm asking myself if you couldn't also harm your wiring by having this on/off thing going on (I'm currently on 30mg Ritalin LA which presumably is a rather high dosage). I've always been more interested into computers so this brain thing is kind of new to me - a blacker kind of box than it already is so to say :)

hoggleon Evidence shows that about half of all clinical trials have never been published

Link to cited paper "Compliance with mandatory reporting of clinical trial results on ClinicalTrials.gov: cross sectional study"

"Conclusion: Most trials subject to mandatory reporting did not report results within a year of completion."

http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d737a3

hoggleon Methylphenidate Exposure Induces Dopamine Neuron Loss in Mice

Maybe I read the abstract differently or don't fully understand it but its conclusion doesn't seem to align with yours, right?

"Collectively, our results suggest that chronic MPH usage in mice at doses spanning the therapeutic range in humans, especially at prolonged higher doses, has long-term neurodegenerative consequences."

hoggleon Hyperlocal Mesh Networks

More internet connected local mesh networks like this please! We've got something similar here in Austria as well - http://www.funkfeuer.at has been growing constantly for more than 10 years.

Voice of America article: http://www.voanews.com/content/austria-programmers-build-fre...

"A group of computer programmers and hackers in Austria is creating a low-cost way of spreading Internet access across communities. FunkFeuer which means network fire in German, uses everyday technology to create a wireless network, called a mesh, that can transmit data from person to person, without involving companies or governments."

hoggleon Revenge of the Types

Oh my, thanks for the heads-up I guess it's too late to post on HN. Time to go to bed :)

hoggleon Revenge of the Types

I've got to confess that I love how the design of MS languages regularly exposes my ignorance towards them.

Edit: removed unrelated Wikipedia article (Unit Type)

hoggleon Strange Beings – Episode #1 with Keith Rabois

Just wanted to subscribe via iOS Podcasts app, didn't find it in the iTunes store. I fear that in this case it might as well not exist for a lot of people.

hoggleon Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior

People who don't want to get caught doing something change their communication behaviour all the time. If anybody is interested in that kind of stuff I'd recommend watching the surprisingly good TV show "The Wire".

Even if the press would loudly be agreeing over the "fact" that "SNOWDEN PUT US ALL IN DANGER" it would be an instructive lesson in terms of freedom having value by it having a price.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

-- Litany against fear by the Bene Gesserit (Frank Herbert's Dune)

hoggleon Calling All Hackers: Help Us Build an Open Wireless Router

Those are the kinds of initiatives that make me optimistic about the future <3

If you are interested in where the OpenWRT project currently stands (hint: they need web as well as systems programmers) you might enjoy watching this talk from 30c3 - OpenWRT and 10 Years of Fun with Embedded Devices:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7704216

hoggleon GPS and Relativity

Talk about deployment hell - puts things into perspective:

"to counteract the General Relativistic effect once on orbit, they slowed down the ticking frequency of the atomic clocks before they were launched"

The mind boggles.

It makes me uneasy that we only have this single system though (the effects of a GPS failure would be quite severe I guess). Do the people behind GPS collaborate with the Galileo folks?

Thanks a lot for the submit, now I need to find a good book on the history behind the GPS!

hoggleon Show HN: Pangoly – Build your shiny new PC

It seems as if the console makers have delivered developer friendly platforms this time but with that forgot to / decided not to pack in that extra punch they used to.

I'm talking about things like those sprite optimized graphics controllers when 2D still was king and the tightly integrated 3D chips later on (when consumer PCs were doing 3D exclusively with the CPU) - and let's not forget all those esoteric but very powerful CPU architectures (e.g. Cell processor).

hoggleon Introducing Raspberry Pi B+

I personally feel like this is the core "feature" of the raspberry pi - the fixed "constraints" of its specs.

Constraints are good.

Fortunately there are many inexpensive alternatives to the raspberry pi (probably thanks to it) if you really do need more CPU power.

hoggleon In ‘sexting’ case, police want to photograph teen in sexually explicit manner

These laws are insane and so are the executive authorities and their means of operation. What happened to common sense?

hoggleon Introducing Transport Layer Security in pure OCaml

Interesting, I didn't know that. I always wondered why (non "functional") Ada doesn't get mentioned more often in these kinds of discussions:

http://www.adaic.org/advantages/

http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-project-summary.html

hoggleon Introducing Transport Layer Security in pure OCaml

Are we finally approaching consensus in the field of systems programming that security is more important than performance (thanks to heartbleed)?

Or put differently: have we reached the point where computers are fast enough so that we can move on and sacrifice some of those abundant MIPS and extra RAM for much improved clarity in our critical infrastructure code?

OCaml could actually be a great choice for maintaining a solid TLS layer.

hoggleon Tor exit node operator prosecuted in Austria

The war is on, is staying on, indefinitely.

hoggleon Hardware for OpenWrt

OpenWRT has a pretty decent developer base and in general has always been very stable for me (I've been using many WRT54GLs and Foneras over the years). That said it seems off that they wouldn't have fixed heartbleed by now, it would be significant for the web administration interface - especially for people who make it accessible externally via the Internet.

If anybody wishes to contribute to OpenWRT, this talk from 30c3 should give you a good overview on the "current" state of the project (hint: apart from system programmers, web developers are also very much welcome/needed):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OlUxeS57E

hoggleon Best practices in modern web projects

We are a trusting team and don't do pull requests with our closed source repos either.

To avert chaos it's much better to have an orderly branching model in place e.g. feature branches! My fellow partners made us go all "git flow" last year and the result has been a really tidy and satisfying workflow:

http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/

Atlassian's SourceTree also helps us with maintaining "the flow":

http://www.sourcetreeapp.com

https://www.atlassian.com/git/workflows

Git extensions and screencast on how to setup on OSX:

https://github.com/nvie/gitflow

http://build-podcast.com/git-flow/