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Wouldn't a structure this large be inevitably hit by debris, whether from our own junk or stuff from elsewhere in space?

They'd need a gundam squadron to protect it too.


Most of the debris is in low orbits. So no direct problem. But if you build it in low earth orbit and fly it out on its own power in a slow spiral, then it's going to be a big problem. Flying with chemical rockets only up to LEO and electric propulsion from there on saves mass hugely. Best to assemble moderate pieces and fly them higher after completion.


I was also wondering about the shadow it would cast...


It wouldn't cast an umbral shadow at all. It would cast a incredibly faint penumbral shadow.

Look at it this way, at the sizes that are commonly talked about for these, at the orbital heights being talked about, the occlusion of the sun would be on the order of a very minor sun spot, and only for very brief periods of time.


I'm sure someone here will do the math, but short answer is that it wouldn't produce a noticeable shadow. Too small, too high.


The apparent size of the structure in the sky, is on the order of three magnitudes smaller compared to the size of the moon.


Has the popularity of Go died off recently?

This is the first Go article I've seen on the front page in a while...


No, it's alive and well, especially with the first-ever Gophercon in two weeks. Go 1.3 will be released this spring/summer.


The current cohort of languages-of-the-moment is being cannibalized by the node.js silver bullet it seems.


When a programming language doesn't solve mass/common problems, its popularity will definitely decrease after initial peak.

Rails solve common problems for the most popular platform: web.

Go is created to replace C, a system programming language which could be considered as a niche. You see popular Go projects specifically addressing system level stuff (infrastructure: packer.io, docker, etc).


> Go is created to replace C, a system programming language which could be considered as a niche. You see popular Go projects specifically addressing system level stuff (infrastructure: packer.io, docker, etc).

I'd go a bit further. Go was written to replace C++ when used for servers at google and it excels in that spot. It is not meant to replace C for kernels.


" ...C, a system programming language which could be considered as a niche"

wow

C is now a niche language?

http://langpop.com

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

etc


Not sure why C is on top of the list but having said that, I see more Rails/Java/C#/Python/PHP (or in general, web-app dev) jobs out there than a Linux kernel hackers :).


Go was created to do the systems programming tasks people used C++ for. But what has resulted is that very few C++ users have switched to Go. It's mostly been Ruby/Python programmers and they are using Go for network programming, not systems programming. It's just another bit of proof that language designers, no matter how brilliant they are, such as Ken Thompson and Rob Pike, almost never know who is going to adopt their language and what it will be used for.


You can use C on microcontrollers though, and go is not a good replacement there.


Surely systems programming is more popular than web? As you need a system to access the web, but not every system accesses the web...?

What can I do in Rails that I can't do in PHP?


> Surely systems programming is more popular than web? As you need a system to access the web, but not every system accesses the web...?

"Systems programming" != "Systems software".

Systems software is more widely used, but written by fewer people.


Systems programming is further down the layers of abstraction than Web Development is. As you go deeper and deeper down these layers there are fewer and fewer people solving the problems that the layers above depend on.


There are more web developers on this site than systems developers. What can you do in PHP that you can't do in C, or assembly, or binary...


Looks very promising, I'll give it a try!


What weight did you start at?

200 to 150 would be much more impressive than 300 to 250.


235


This is incredibly cool!

Did you create the chart yourself or is it built on top of some kind of js library?


No library, just some hours of hacking away in plain javascript.


That's awesome, the result looks great :)


I strongly doubt it's either. Both are close allies with China. Chinese passengers made up the majority of that flight.

Is whatever this flight was carrying worth risking fraying their alliances? Highly improbable.


Thank you! By far one of the most helpful posts I've seen on HN :)


While it's good to be enthusiastic it's pretty important to note that for the majority of startups these sites are a dangerous distraction that shouldn't be optimized for or influence your company / marketing / growth / sales funnel / etc.


"based on thousands of data points we've collected by processing over 100,000+ coding tests and challenges by over 2,000+ employers"

Some context in the title would have been really helpful...


Yes, you can get an idea which languages are used most at interviews, but perhaps it isn't good for that either


So this is the same as logging in and taking screenshots of the top 10 posts on a public Facebook page?


This is really cool! I'll try it out.

Thanks for sharing :)


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